Quidditch as a metaphor; (seeker; DD using Snape) [long]

[mz_annethrope]

No: HPFGUIDX 174796

> Carol responds:

<snip>

> 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. 

<big snip>

> 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. 
<snip>

mz_annethrope:

My household had also noticed that the seven Horcruxes were killed 
by seven people. (Forgive me if there's a thread about it. I've been 
out of town, away from the internet, and was late to read book 7, I 
haven't gotten through all the threads.) The analogy to team playing 
seems apt, especially since a Quidditch team has seven players. I 
noticed that the bad players, the ones who were not acting as a team 
(or who treated the Quest in an unworthy fashion) succeeded in the 
task, but harmed themselves in the process. Voldemort stupidly 
destroyed his own soul without first seeking the Truth about what he 
was destroying. Take that as a metaphor for the way he operates. 
Crabbe unwittingly destroyed the Horcrux and so destroyed himself. 
Not much of a beater, he. And Dumbledore gave into temptation and 
foolishly tried to use the ring for himself. He too reaped a nasty 
reward.

The Quest for Hallows is a fool's quest and not a team sport. The 
seeker Xenophilius has the worst of Ravenclaw faults: he acquires 
knowledge but lacks wisdom. Young Dumbledore fools himself when he 
thinks he can seek Hallows with Grindelwald, for only one person can 
possess the Hallows. (Reminds me of Gandalf telling Saruman that 
only one person can possess the ring.)This Quest provides the 
temptation for Harry, which he manages to overcome. I'll hazard a 
guess that in understanding Truth he also acquires Wisdom.

Carol:
> 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.)

mz_annethrope:
Dumbledore's using Snape has been bothering me. I didn't find his 
use of Harry nearly as disturbing, since it seemed to be the only 
way he could save the boy's life. But Snape gets to put his soul in 
danger for the sake of Dumbledore and this seems inexcusable.

So back to hazard for my response came while I was thinking about 
source for The Tale of the Three Brothers. I suspected that it was 
in the same genre as Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and later I saw that 
JKR attributed Chaucer as her probable source. Meaning, I suppose, 
that it wasn't conscious. So, for those of you who weren't English 
majors and the like, here's a brief summary:

Three young fools are spending all their time indulging in the worst 
of vices: drinking, gambling, whoring, eating to excess, profaning 
the sacraments. They see a funeral procession and ask who died. A 
boy tells them that Death slew one of their friends while he was 
drunk and that they'd better repent or they'd end up like him. The 
three fools laugh at the boy and decide to seek Death so as to slay 
him. They meet an old man on the road who tells them they can find 
Death under yonder tree. But under the tree they find eight bushels 
of gold coins. They rejoice at their find, then the youngest goes 
out to get them drink. On the way he covets the gold for himself, 
which allows Satan to take his soul. He buys poison, puts it in two 
bottles and brings them back to his companions. But his companions 
have decided to take the gold for themselves. They kill the 
youngest, drink from the bottles and die horrible deaths.

I think, but don't know for sure, that this story has antecedents in 
ancient Near Eastern stories about people trying to cheat death. 
(The best known in the West is Jesus' parable about the fool who 
reaps a bumper crop, decides to build up bigger barns so he can take 
it easy; then God tells the fool he will have his soul that night. 
Well, "fool" is a euphemism for what Jesus really said. In other 
stories a man flees from to city to city only to find Death waiting 
for him at the new destination.)

Chaucer's story is a brilliant reversal of the old tales (seek Death 
rather than flee him) and JKR's tale, I think is a brilliant 
adaptation to the Wizarding World. But my interest here is not in 
the Tale but in its teller. The Pardoner tells this tale to get 
people to repent, but he says about himself that his own sins are 
too great for him to be saved. He commits the one sin, which to the 
medieval mind is unforgivable: Despair.

And so we have Snape. After Lily's death he wallows in despair. He 
wants to die. And he seems to live a miserable, desparate life. But 
Dumbledore asks him what good his death will be to anyone. And then 
he sets him on a impossible task: protect Lily's son. I think 
Snape's story nicely dovetails with Harry's. Dumbledore tells Snape  
to kill him and let Harry know he must be killed. Both Snape and 
Harry could have said no. But Harry's life is saved and Snape at 
least has the chance to save his soul from despair.

I've strayed, but this got me on a roll.

mz_annethrope (playing hazard)