Question about the prophecy and a thought about Ginny

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 171099

> Dana:
> DD is not a war leader, he is the leader of an underground fraction
> that works to *oppose* LV, not to eradicate him and his DEs.
>
> They work against LV so he can't reach his goals but that does not
> automatically mean that DD ever used deathly force in his fight
> against the Dark Lord. And canon actually proofs the contrary. We, in
> the battles between DEs and the Order members, never see the Order
> members use unforgivable curses like the AK to win the battle. LV in
> his fight against the Order seems to only ever have lost 3 DEs and he
> did not loose them to the Order but to aurors and one he killed or
> let him be killed himself. No where in canon can you find one person
> that was killed at the hand of a Order Member (working as an Order
> Member). That should be enough proof that DD did not believe in
> fighting fire with fire and sacrificing innocent lives would still
> fall in the category.

lizzyben:

I refer you to HBP, page 77:

Harry says: '"life's too short ... look at Madam Bones, look at
Emmeline Vance ... it could be me next, couldn't it? But if it is,' he
said fiercely, now looking straight into Dumbledore's blue eyes
gleaming in the wand-light, 'I'll make sure I take as many Death
Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it.'

"Spoken like your mother & father & Sirius' true godson!" said
Dumbledore, with an approving pat on Harry's back.'

Harry is talking about killing as many Death Eaters as he can, and DD
*approves*. Would he say this if he disapproved of killing DE in
battle? What's more, DD encourages Harry by saying that this is
what his dead parents & role model would *want*. More emotional
manipulation. DD never criticizes Harry for using an Unforgivable
Curse at the MOM. Harry is beginning to display a rather scary amount
of hatred & anger, but here DD actually *encourages* Harry to use
violence. And he invokes the memory of Harry's dead loved ones to do
so. I find this passage rather despicable.

DD does the same thing in the Horcrux chapter, near the end of the
novel. He makes Harry think about all the loved ones LV has killed, &
inflames Harry's feelings of hatred & revenge - in order to make Harry
*want* to kill LV. With love, of course. Uh-huh. Consistently, while
DD preaches a message of love, he is actually encouraging Harry to use
  violence. DD clearly believes that using deathly force against DE or
LV is acceptable - what's more, he encourages Harry to use violence
against them.
Horrible thing to do to a teenager; smart thing to do to a weapon.

Dana:
> Sirius in GoF in his remarks about Barty Sr. specifically indicates
> that Barty giving his aurors the authority to use unforgivables, in
> their fight against the DEs, was not the way the Order fought their
> battle against LV and that this decision made Barty as bad as the DEs
> themselves. That was not what the Order was/ is about.

lizzyben:

Crouch Sr. is a good parallel to DD. I think Barty Crouch Sr. is
another example of someone w/good intentions who begins to become what
he is fighting against. When Hermione organizes the DA, she begins to
use some of the same tactics as the DE. When DD tries to stop LV, he
becomes in some ways just as ruthless & heartless as the evil he is
fighting. It's
like that Nitcheze quote: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it
that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look
into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." DD has looked into the
abyss too long. He, like Crouch Sr., has begun to adopt immoral
tactics to accomplish his goals. He begins to believe that the ends
justify the means, that whatever decision he makes is automatically
"good", and that he has the right to sacrifice others for his cause.
In this, no matter how noble DD's goals are, IMO he is using evil
tactics to accomplish them.


> Dana:
> I disagree with you that DD made the decision to endanger 3 people to
> save the lives of thousands because with this you want to imply that
> DD was insincere about wanting to protect the Potters once he learned
> that LV was after them.

lizzyben:

No, that's not what I'm saying. DD heard the prophecy before he knew
who exactly it referred to. IMO, he leaked the prophecy knowing it
would endanger some "nameless, faceless" person, but also might ensure
LV's
defeat. He knew LV would be come obsessed w/the prophecy of his death,
and that this would give DD a weapon to

bait or distract LV. DD only learned actual identity of the family
later, when Snape reported how
LV had interpreted the prophecy. Then DD arranged the Fidelius charm,
etc. to protect the Potters. There's two possible interpretations of
DD's
actions - Puppetmaster Lite DD might have been horrified once he
learned the actual identity of the family, and sincerely done
everything he could to protect the Potters; while Puppetmaster Dark DD
might have also
intended to sacrifice the Potters to fulfill the prophecy. But DD
could have leaked the prophecy, and also been sincere in later trying
to protect the Potters - the two are not mutually exclusive.

Dana:
> If LV had given the assignment to one of his DEs to kill every boy
> that was born at the end of July instead of going after the boy
> himself, then the second part of the prophecy would not have been
> fulfilled in these attacks but baby boys would still have died as a
> result. DD knowing what LV was about does not mean that he could
> predict with absolute certainty how LV was going to act. And to me
> that would be an awful big gamble with human lives just on a mere
> expectation on what LV might be going to do next. You might really
> believe that JKR meant her epitome of goodness to be such a cold-
> hearted baby killer on the mere premises it might mean the end of an
> evil wizard's reign but I do not.

lizzyben:

But we already know that DD *did* let Snape go w/at least the first half
of the prophecy. Wasn't that an awfully big

gamble? Especially since you say that he couldn't predict LV's actions
if he found out, & that LV might assign a DE to

kill every baby born that month. DD could have prevented that risk, but
he did not. The only question is whether DD's

actions were deliberate or simply a reckless or naive mistake.

DD is very confident in his own intelligence & his knowledge of LV. He
says that it was "a stroke of good fortune" that

LV only heard the first half of the prophecy. Why would he say that,
when, as you say, that meant that LV would feel

like it was safe to attack any baby that might fit the prophecy? How
could that possibly be "good fortune"? If LV knew

the whole thing, he would have an incentive to wait & not risk acting.
Because he only knew half, he acted on the

prophecy, attacked Harry & marked him as "his equal." That's the good
fortune. DD is basically saying that the events of

Godric's Hollow were "fortunate" for his cause. To me, that strongly
suggests that he leaked the first half of the

prophecy in order to assure that LV would act upon it. And it's beyond
tactless that DD would say, in front of Harry,

that it was "fortunate" that LV heard the first half & was unaware of
the risk involved in killing the Potters. DD

constantly makes these kinds of slips. He often seems unaware of the way
his words might hurt others.

Dana:
> DD did not sacrifice Order members for the cause as the only one that
> did not know what LV was after in OotP was Harry. Arthur as Sirius
> tells his own sons made a choice to work for the Order and that they
> did not understand that some things are worth dying for. The
> sacrifices made are by the members own choices not DD's. DD did not
> withhold information on why they needed to guard the door to the DoM.
> DD does not hold Order members at gun point and state you do as I say
> or else die. Bode did not die because DD sacrificed his life but he
> was murdered because the DEs were afraid that he could implicate them
> in what happened at the DoM.
>
> Everyone working for the Order does so at great personal risk, it
> never was up to DD to sacrifice any of their lives and they could
> walk a way at any time they had chosen to do so.


lizzyben:

OOTP was the moment when I jumped onto the DD-is-evil train. While I
always mistrusted him, his actions in that novel showed a man who was
willing to risk his followers' lives for no good reason. All the Order
members, even Sirius, refer to the prophecy as a real "weapon," & risk
their lives to guard it. Only DD knows the real contents, and he knows
that the prophecy doesn't actually offer LV any method to defeat Harry.
He also has a perfect copy of the MOM
prophecy in his own office. But he doesn't tell the Order members that,
so they risk their lives guarding a prophecy that is actually quite
useless.

One member almost dies, one goes insane, one goes to Azkaban, one is
killed & for what? When Harry breaks the prophecy orb, DD waves it aside
as unimportant. The only value of the MOM prophecy was as bait for LV.
DD used LV's obsession w/learning the 2nd half of the prophecy in order
to lure him to the MOM. The  Order guards mostly served as decoys to
fool LV into thinking that the prophecy was a valuable "weapon", when it
was  not. But it doesn't sound like DD ever informed other Order members
of his actual plan. And the image of Arthur  Weasley risking his life to
guard a useless prophecy bothers me.

I believe that Order members do pledge their lives, and their deaths, to
the cause. It couldn't be any other way. They do work at great personal
risk, and must follow DD's orders w/o always knowing the reasons behind
them. They do so knowing that those orders might cause their death. As
Arthur says, there are some things worth dying for - this indicates that
Order members do join knowing that they may be asked to die for a larger
cause. By joining the Order, they are pledging to be willing to
sacrifice their lives. And sacrifice they do. In the first war, almost
all the Order members are either killed or drived insane. It does make
me wonder a little about DD's leadership tactics.

The way DD operates the Order is very similar to the way LV operates the
DE. Both leaders require absolute loyalty & obedience. Both recruit very
young members. Both are essentially cults of personality, in which
followers hold their leader in awe & reverance, & follow orders w/o
question. And IMO, both LV & DD often use & sacrifice their followers as
pawns in their game of Wizard's Chess. They are on opposing sides,
w/opposing goals (one good, one
evil), but their methods are actually quite similar.

Dana:
> To me there is a big difference and DD specifically states to Harry
> that Harry has to do nothing if he chooses to walk away but that LV
> will never let it rest until Harry is death. This doesn't mean that
> DD ever thought about sacrificing Harry but only that he had a plan
> to not get emotionally involved and just train the boy till he was
> ready to fulfill the prophecy. A prophecy LV chose to act on and in
> doing so made the prophecy a true one.

lizzyben:

DD is training a young boy to try to defeat a powerful, psychotic
wizard. Isn't that sacrificing Harry? If we believe DD, the prophecy
only has meaning because LV is trying to kill Harry because of it. So
why doesn't DD offer to hide Harry,  & conceal his identity, as he
offers Draco & Narcissa? Harry is just a kid - if LV is targeting him,
DD should be trying to protect Harry, not shoving him into the
confrontation. But DD doesn't ever offer to hide Harry. He's encouraging
Harry to kill LV, essentially risking Harry's life & safety, in order to
save the Wizarding World. It's not so different, really, from making a
decision to leak a prophecy that endangers one family's life & safety,
in order to defeat LV. That's why I see this decision as being perfectly
in character for DD.

> lizzyben:
> > Why not? Thank you for arguing this w/me, because I'm really, really
> > ready to be convinced. I also hope that DD wouldn't do something
> > like this - but I can't deny that the evidence points in one
> > direction.
> <snip>
>
> Dana:
> What evidence? That DD had a plan to train Harry until he was ready
> to face LV? Because that was DD's plan, never did canon ever indicate
> that DD let the prophecy leak so the Order or the WW would have a
> ready weapon to defeat the Dark Lord. That is just mere
> interpretation of canon by some readers that DD would be capable of
> doing so. But it would actually make the whole story about Peter's
> betrayal, LV's choice, Snape (to me still so-called) remorse, Lily's
> sacrifice and DD's own promise to never lie become mere story fillers
> because actually it had been planned from the beginning and DD lied
> through all 6 books until he saw green in the face.
>
> And the remarks DD makes about it being our choices that make us who
> we are, would just be an empty gimmick because essentially he took
> away the choices of everyone involved in the story.

lizzyben:

I was referring to evidence that DD didn't deliberately allow the
prophecy to be leaked. I was looking for evidence that proves that that
could not be the case - because right now it is a plausible
interpretation. But even if this theory is true, it doesn't remove the
individual choices of others - Peter still betrayed, Snape still felt
remorse over the bringing the prophecy, Lily still sacrificed her life,
etc.; it just means that DD was the catalyst for these events.

And IMO, there's already plenty of examples of DD taking away people's
choices. Did Sirius choose to be imprisoned in his house? Did Harry
choose to be raised in an abusive home? Did Marietta choose to be
obliterated? DD cavalierly makes choices *for* people, and this is
what really bothers me about him. Just as Sirius didn't always live up
to his quote about treating inferiors well, DD doesn't always allow
people to make independent choices.


Dana:
To think that JKR
> wrote her epitome of goodness to be a cold-hearted calculated
> controller that did not care how many innocent people died to reach
> his goal, is to me missing the essence of the story in the fight
> between good and evil. Because wouldn't DD's fight be exactly the
> same as that of LV's? Would it then  not only be all about power? Why
> did DD then not take the job as MoM? He could have all the power he
> ever wanted and even have more people at his disposal.

lizzyben:

I've never suggested that DD doesn't care how many innocent people
died. What I'm saying that DD may have leaked the prophecy in order to
*prevent* more deaths, by ensuring LV's defeat. He'd do this believing
that "the ends justify the means", and that saving thousands of innocent
people justified endangering one family. And that "epitome of goodness"
quote made my jaw drop. Because whether this theory is true or not, DD
has already made many decisions that I wouldn't expect an
"epitome of goodness" to make (imprisioning Sirius, abandoning Harry,
etc.) So that quote doesn't prove much about what DD would or would not
do.

And to me, the novels are not really about an epic fight between the
good guys & evil guys, anyway. That's a fantasy cliche, but it isn't
what happens in the HP novels. If it were, we should be seeing some
LOTR-style epic battles between the forces of good & evil. The novels
should widen in focus to many exterior battles, and loyalties should be
known by now. But, in the next to the last novel, the novel's focus
actually narrows to 4 characters - Harry, DD, Snape, & Draco.  It's
almost intimate, and the focus is not on the epic battles of good &
evil,  but the interior moral battle within these particular characters.

The HP novels are fundamentally mysteries, and so the ultimate question
is how "evil" or "good" an individual character is. Mystery-style, we
won't really know until the end.  Characters literally cross the line
between good & evil often (Fake Moody, Sirius, Peter, etc.), and I think
this is meant to symbolize the interior moral struggles within Harry &
co. Have they crossed the moral line as well, without even knowing it?
Did Dumbledore? It's about human nature, about how easy it is for people
to cross theline between good & evil - as Barty Crouch Sr. did, and
Snape did. In HP, morality is not really black & white, but an
ever-shifting, changing blend of grays. Harry has constantly had to
adjust to seeing "good" characters revealed to be evil & vice versa.
Black might be white, good might be evil, & it's up the the reader to
figure out the truth. Because just because a character seems to be on
the "good side" does not mean his actions are always good. So, yes, IMO
it would be totally within this theme if Harry learned that DD, the
"epitome of goodness" actually used evil & immoral means to accomplish
his goals.

And this running theme makes me worry about Harry - because however
devoted he is to the cause of good, he is swept up in the very emotions
that led Snape to choose evil at the same age. This isn't a coincidence.
JKR draws direct parallels between young Snape & young Harry - through
the Potions book, the hatred & desire for revenge, & the use of Dark
curses. I worry that Harry will cross the same line from good to evil
himself. And part of the reason I loathe DD is because I just don't see
him doing much to stop it. He almost seems to encourage it, because it
serves his own purposes.

Dana:
> Canon never states anywhere that DD approved of having people killed
> for the cause. .. I saw someone mention that DD
> accepted Moody's killings of people but Moody did not kill as an
> Order member but as an auror under MoM jurisdiction and always
> brought in DEs alive if he could help it.

lizzyben:
DD encourages Harry to kill LV and as many Death Eaters as he can.
That's canon.

Dana:
> What you are referring to with things not seeming to be as they seem
> at first glance does not mean that all the books in their entire will
> be turned upside down in DH and that DD will be the one that betrayed
> everyone in his evil plan to take out LV. If DD as a character can't
> be believed through out the entire books and not merely him making
> one crucial mistake in believing someone to be trustworthy while that
> person did not live up to that trust as canon stands now, then
> nothing you have red in the books can be taken as truth.

lizzyben:

On the contrary, I think JKR has intentionally set up moral ambiguity in
both Snape & DD's character from Book One. Snape is first presented as a
mean, nasty person who wants to kill Harry, then it's later revealed
that he tried to save Harry from danger. DD is presented as a kindly,
caring mentor, but later implies that he deliberately placed Harry & co.
in danger to "give him a chance" to fight LV. It's up to the reader to
resolve these contradictions, & choose which view of the characters they
prefer. JKR doesn't explain the ambiguity from the first novel, so up
till now, it's still possible to think that Snape is a villain who wants
to defeat Harry, & it's still possible to see DD as a calculating wizard
who deliberately throws innocent people into danger & harm for his own
ends. So, if that version of DD ends up
being correct, it's not a sudden surprise, but simply a resolution of
the ambiguity that DD has had from the first novel.

Dana:

> Peter is probably a spy for the Order too and he tricked Sirius in
giving him
> the SK job so he could on DD's orders betray the secret to LV. So
> James, Lily died not because some evil overlord killed them but it
> was all part of DD's plans to have them killed so LV would meet his
> match some day with their only son.
>
> Lily's sacrifice was not something that happened by chance but was a
> premeditated act and so was Peter's betrayal. James and Sirius lives
> were both ruined for the cause without them knowing they were going
> to be sacrificed. Makes Snape's actions in the shack and later in the
> hospital wing even more nauseating then it already was because
> everything was planned from the start and he brought the prophecy to
> LV on purpose to have LV hunt down a baby boy so that baby boy could
> one day defeat him and protecting the Potters had all been an act to
> make sure LV chose them. Peter's betrayal was not an act of evil to
> safe his own sorry ass but actually part of the plan to have LV mark
> the baby boy as his equal.
>

lizzyben:

Horror aside, you've presented a pretty coherent version of events.
This explanation flows well, and explains a number of different plot
holes. (Why didn't Lily apparate out? Why didn't DD save Sirius from
Azkaban? etc.) It also explains most of DD's seemingly blatant
mistakes, which are actually part of his sinister brilliant plan
(letting Snape go w/the prophecy, imprisoning Sirius, not finding out
Peter was the spy, letting "marked" Harry fight LV, etc.) Puppetmaster
DD might be evil, but at least he's competent! I'd finally buy DD's
reputation as a genius. So, IMO this is a possible interpretation. I
don't ascribe to DD controlling everything, but I do believe he has
controlled the leak of the prophecy, and used the prophecy to bait LV
thereafter.


Dana:
> Sorry but if this will be the resolution of the series then I for one
> will be very sorry to have financially supported a psychopathic
> author. Luckily I am very sure that this will never be. Harry will
> not learn that DD set it all up so he would be marked as LV's equal
> and end up as an orphan, who could have had a great godfather but
> sorry for him he needed to be taken care of as well or else he would
> have messed up the plan.

lizzyben:

Well, here's hoping. I don't necessarily believe that DD controlled all
these things, but IMO he did allow the prophecy loose, and engaged in
other tactics that might shock some readers. That's not necessarily a
bad thing. It's almost easy for Harry to believe that someone he hates
did bad things; it would be more difficult for him to believe that
someone he loves could do that. But IMO it would be a valuable lesson,
because it shows that the distinction between "good" & "evil" is not as
simple as Harry thinks right now. It would show that the distinction
between good & evil can't be made based simply on House, or looks, or
personal favoritism, or anything easy. It's based on the choices someone
has made, and good people can make evil choices, and vice versa.

> <snip>
>
> Dana:
> It is canon that DD states he would never lie to Harry and that
> should be enough evidence that DD did not tell a lie to Harry about
> Snape and what DD believed Snape heard. Also why would Snape only
> tell LV about the prophecy in part? Would that make Snape look
> better? I think not because then he kept LV from the part that would
> have prevented LV from waiting and learning more about why this boy
> would become the one who could defeat him. It might actually have
> prevented LV from ever acting on this prophecy because knowing it all
> would probably have caused LV never to act on it at all because not
> acting would have prevented this kid to be marked as his equal and
> thus the kid never becoming the one with the power to vanquish the
> Dark Lord.


lizzyben:

It is canon that DD *does* lie to protect his agents, so he could have
lied to Harry as well in order to protect Snape. I don't see why people
are so sure that DD would never lie to Harry, while admitting that he
has misled, misdirected & failed to inform Harry at times. To me, the
distinction is minimal. DD doesn't say in canon that he will never lie
to Harry - he says that he will not lie during his explanation at the
end of SS. And even in that book, Harry suspects that DD lied to him
about the mirror. "Good" characters lie often in HP, and JKR doesn't
always disapprove of that.

If he heard the whole thing, why would Snape only report the first half?
As you've stated, reporting only half of the prophecy kept LV from
knowing the danger of acting on the prophecy, and ultimately ensured his
defeat. A loyal DE would not do that. This is why, if Snape did hear the
whole thing, IMO he was acting on DD's orders or a memory modification
to only remember/report half of it. A better question, to me, is why DD
would allow Snape to leave w/half of the prophecy, knowing that if LV
learned this, he would probably try to attack the family. It makes sense
if DD did this in order to force LV to act upon the prophecy.

Dana:
> You cannot use innocent people's lives just so you yourself can sleep
> better at night. Who died and made you god to decide that their lives
> are meaningless in light of the bigger picture? You can only decide
> this about your own life if it is worth giving it up for the greater
> good but you can never ever make a decision for someone else to do
> so. In RL Presidents might make these decisions every day and not
> lose one night sleep over who dies and who lives but that does not
> make it okay. The people fighting for their cause are still human
> beings that have to live with themselves killing other human beings
> and most of them never recover from this. For some it is easier
> because their canon meat never came close enough to actually be
> recognized as human beings but this still does not make it okay.

lizzyben:

I totally agree. And this is why I can't stand DD, because IMO he does
just that. We have a perfect right to sacrifice ourselves for a cause,
but not to hurt or sacrifice others. And I see DD placing Harry, other
Order members, even Hogwarts students into danger to further his noble
cause. And I do not agree w/this, because he is in essence playing God
w/people's lives; treating them like pawns & puppets instead of human
beings. He maintains emotional distance from most people because that
does make it easier for him to use people (as he thinks he must). But
that all falls apart w/Harry. And good. DD loves him & is forced to
see Harry as a "human being". But he still makes decisions that put
Harry in danger. You might not like that, but that's part of DD's role
as he sees it. Just like a president, a general, or anyone who must risk
the lives of some in order to further a larger goal.

Dana:
> To me Snape's actions and his so-called remorse are therefore totally
> false because he himself could after 20 years still not let bygone be
> bygones because he was tricked in doing something that could have
> gotten him killed and yet he expects everyone to forgive him
> instantly because he got remorse about knowing the people LV was
> planning to kill and actually did kill and if he told only part of
> what he actually heard then he tricked LV in to doing something that
> could have gotten him killed at the coast of a young boy and his
> family and their friends.
>
> Don't do to others what you do not want other to do upon you.
>
> JMHO
>
> Dana

lizzyben:

And if DD leaked the prophecy, he is just as culpable as Snape, if not
more so. Both allowed LV to hear the prophecy when it was a "nameless"
person, but felt pain when it became a "real person" that they cared
about. And I do believe that Snape desperately tried to protect the
Potters once he realized who the targets were. In the same way, Harry
mostly lived w/the fact that Snape was a DE, until he learned that Snape
hurt his own parents. This doesn't mean Snape's remorse was fake, just
that he didn't realize the consequences of his actions until it hurt
someone he loved. Just as DD didn't realize the consequences of his
schemes until it hurt Harry. The Trio also haven't felt remorse for
their actions when it hurt a "nameless" person or an outsider, because
they don't see them as real people. If Harry can manage to care about
the consequences to all humanity, if he can learn that he does not have
a right to choose other people's fates, he'll have shown himself to be
more moral than either Snape or DD were.

lizzyben