Quidditch as a metaphor for the series

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174736

va32h wrote:
>
> Inspired by Carol's suggestion of "really wanting to discuss the 
symbolism of Harry as 'Seeker'" 
> 
> Before DH came out, I had discussed with a few people the idea that
Quidditch was a metaphor for the series, and now that we have Deathly
Hallows to reference, I'm even more convinced. 
> 
> Harry and Voldemort are both captains and Seekers for their
respective teams. The Snitch can be a variety of things - victory,
Death, even the loyalties of Severus Snape (who is literally a Snitch). 

Carol responds:
Thnaks for taking up the challenge, and I hope that others will pitch
in. BTW, I used to think that Quidditch was a useless waste of page
space (and one of the great virtues of our much-maligned DH is that it
doesn't contain any Quidditch matches though it does contain Quidditch
references), but I agree that Quidditch, or at least the position of
Seeker, is metaphorically or symbolically significant.

Both Harry and Voldemort, I agree are Seekers, more specifically, on a
Quest. (Note that one of the fortunately rejected titles was "HP and
the Peverell Quest.") It seems to me that Voldemort's "Snitch" is
obvious; he's after the Elder Wand, which represents Power on both a
figurative and a literal level. But Voldemort has forgotten that
Quidditch is a team sport. He's left himself with only his Horcruxes,
six Keepers that are the guardians of his fractured soul, all bits of
himself, really, while the DEs are playing their own game of Magic Is
Might and Hunt the Muggleborns. I suppose that they're all Beaters,
but they're not helping him to accomplish his goal (or he theirs).
Snape, I suppose, is the Chaser, but he's secretly playing for the
other side. And Voldemort tortures and even kills members of his own
team. No wonder the Malfoys have rather lost their enthusiasm. How is
Lucius supposed to play without a wand? (I'm just playing with ideas
here, hoping to get new perspectives.)

Harry, in contrast, remains a team player, and for most of the game is
captain as well as Seeker. His team, especially Ron, becomes dejected
when he doesn't pull an Oliver Wood and show them a detailed game
plan. (Or maybe Dumbledore is the captain who left them without a
plan.) No one is playing Keeper, blocking Voldemort from his goal of
obtaining the Elder Wand. (Harry has chosen Horcruxes over Hallows.)
They take turns playing Beater, each destroying a Horcrux. (Neville
joins the team to destroy Nagini.) They are also all Chasers,
searching for and retrieving the Horcruxes as a team. But Harry alone
is the Seeker, the one who sits in the middle of the front row. (He
identifies briefly with Regulus as a fellow Seeker, whose Slytherin
teammates are not sneering at Harry but waving at him from the
photograph. It's a brief moment of identification not shared by
Hermione and Ron, but I think it's there for a reason, to help Harry
identify self-consciously with Regulus before he even knows the truth
about Regulus.)

And there it is. "The truth." Harry states repeatedly in DH that
that's what he's seeking. The truth about Regulus and about the white
doe Patronus. The answers to Dumbledore's riddles, especially the
Snitch, but more important, the truth about Dumbledore himself. Did he
really turn a blind eye to the virtual imprisonment of his Squib
sister (Rita Skeeter's version of events)? Did he really abandon his
early beliefs in the superiority of wizards over Muggleborns? Most
important, much the same question Snape seems to ask, "Am I just his
tool or did he care about me?" 

Harry's greatest, it seems to me, is when he goes to face Voldemort
believing that Dumbledore has betrayed him. Only after he has
willingly sacrificed himself, or tried to, can he enter "Kingls Cross"
and find what he's been seeking. (Of course, he's already found the
unsought truth about Severus Snape.)

va32h:
> I'm pretty sure that this isn't what Carol was talking about in
regards to Harry being a Seeker, but I happened to love reading about
the  various Quidditch games (one of the few, I know) so it was a fun
topic for me. 

Carol:
True. I had something rather different in mind, as you can tell, but I
appreciate your response, anyway, and hope others will go back
upthread to follow up on it. (We need a fun topic, and maybe a
different slant from mine, which I want to develop from the
perspective of JKR as a Christian writer but don't yet have quotes to
build on. I need to bookmark all the places where Harry says that he
wants "the truth" in the text. I know of at least two, along with
another where he thinks he has the truth ("At last the truth!") but
it's only the truth as Snape knows it and not what Dumbledore knows.)

We might look at the other Seekers, too--Krum, who shows up in a cameo
to link Grindelwald with Xenophilius Lovegood (Now there's a pair for
you. Would Grindelwald have worn omelet yellow to a wedding? ;-) ).
Does his earlier act of winning the game on his own terms foreshadow
Harry, or does it have more to do with Dumbledore? And why has JKR
taken the trouble to show us a photo of young Regulus, the Voldie fan
turned hero, as a Seeker?

Carol, seeking a meaningful discussion of the parts of the book we've
barely glanced at