The creature under the bench (again) (was: Of Sorting and Snape)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 175762

Alla wrote:
 
> > I just wanted to ask for some canon for this creature being part
of  Harry for sixteen years. I took it to be as what is to happen to
whatever part of Voldemort's soul is left in him and that is what
happened to him if he does not feel remorse.
> > 
> > That being part of Harry? 
 
lizzyben responded:
> 
> Well, it's all happening in Harry's head, right? DD confirms that.
And what else is in Harry's head? The horcrux. IMO, that figure
represented the horcrux that had been sharing Harry's head for the 
past 16 years. But I realize that opinions might vary on that. When 
Harry comes to, the horcrux has disappeared.
>
Carol:
Can I get you to take a closer look at my arguments that the creature
under the bench is Voldemort's mangled soul and *not* the destroyed
soul bit? I've argued it about four times, most recently in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/175573 
with links to the earlier posts. 

What I mean by looking at the canon is looking closely at what is said
*in DH itself* about souls, soul bits, and the creature under the
chair (not asides in interviews about Slytherin as the water House).
Textual analysis, in other words, instead of, say, a Jungian
interpretation (which might be more appropriate *after* we analyze
what the text actually says). Please take a look at my arguments and
the canon I've presented in those earlier posts. I'd like to see them
actually answered.

To reiterate briefly: I see no evidence that the thing under the chair
was ever a part of Harry. It appears to be Voldemort's own "flayed"
soul. Harry's compassion can't save it. Only Voldemort's own remorse
can. It is, therefore, pointless and perhaps worse than pointles to
try. (If it were a human child or any being capable of benefiting from
an act of mercy or compassion, DD would not dissuade Harry from
picking it up.) 

The fault, if any, with this scenario (aside from the confusion it
creates in many readers) is not Harry's or Dumbledore's but in JKR's
conception of a personal, self-created hell for the unredeemed and
unrepentant. which, it appears, is repellant to many readers. But,
surely, Voldie's crimes differ in scope and substance from everyone
else's in the books, even Bellatrix, sadistic as she is, not coming
even close. (Grindelwald is another matter, but he seems to have
repented before the end.) Should Voldie, for all his crimes, have been
redeemed, in your view? Why should Snape or any other character bother
to repent, then, if sins are so easily expiated or rather require no
expiation and the unrepentant have the same afterlife as the repentant
and there is no penalty for unnaturally dividing the soul from the
body through the murder of another to prevent your own death? I think
the difference between Voldemort's mangled soul and the soul of an
ordinary repentant sinner like Snape, who can receive redemption
through remorse and atonement if the flawed Dumbledore can, is crucial
to our understanding of this last book, and to think of the flayed
baby as the soul bit we *know* to have been destroyed and as part of
Harry is to completely miss the point of this symbolic rendering of
Voldie's remaining "main" soul.

That the King's Cross scene is happening in Harry's head only means,
IMO, that his now-healed mind/soul (DD tells Snape that with LV and
Harry, mind and soul can't be distinguished) is having an out-of-body,
near-death experience (which LV seems to be having, too, but learning
nothing from). See my earlier posts for more details on this aspect of
the argument.

Carol, hoping that you'll read and respond to my actual arguments and
to the canon support provided in the earlier posts, using canon from
DH itself (not noncanonical or semicanonical interviews) to support
your interpretation