Prophecies and Purposes ( was: What *Do* You know? Dumblodore Context

[Talisman]

No: HPFGUIDX 171960

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Scarah <scarah at ...> wrote:
Re: [HPforGrownups] Re: What *Do* You know? 
>Talisman then:
>For instance, I am sure that DD is the author of the Prophecy, and
>that the dynamics in play, and the inevitability of the final show-
>down, are his very creations.

>Sarah:
>What do you suggest are the mechanics of the seemingly legitimate
>Pensieve recreation of Trelawney giving the prophecy
>snip<

The short answer is I think she was possessed--outright or some 
ventriloquistic variant yet to be named/revealed.

Since it has taken me so long to get back to you, let me give you the 
long answer, too. ; )

We know Trelawny has given two *real* prophecies.  Real in the sense 
that they come true, and that she delivers them with peculiar...shall 
we say, flare?

DD has played both sides of the game, sometimes granting Trelawney 
authenticity, but Rowling has said enough to tell us that Trelawney 
is not a *true seer,* i.e. an oracle channeling the numina.

JKR:  "...at one point there was a blind character who went by the 
name of Mopsus, and I will let you look him up because there is a 
mythological connection there, but he sort of -- that was a very 
early character and he had the power of second sight, in other words 
he was a bit like Professor Trelawney...the reason I cut him was he 
was too good. As the story evolved, if there was somebody who really 
could do divination at the time that Harry was alive, it greatly 
diminished the drama of the story because someone out there knew what 
was going to happen.
So that is why Mopsus went and I have never really replaced him
."

Edinburgh "cub reporter" press conference, ITV, 16 July 2005
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-edinburgh-
ITVcubreporters.htm

Rowling has insured that, during Harry's lifetime, no one will be 
able to do *true* divination. 

 Trelawney *is,* indeed, a totally bogus seer.

(Ironically, the future is spelled out in the teacup lesson in PoA, 
and in the cards she pulls in HBP--but Trelawney just can't get the 
message).

However, I'm sure the overwhelming number of readers will agree that 
she has *authentic* experiences of some nature when she delivers the 
prophecies.

The prophecies may be *fake,* but Trelawney is not the one faking.

The events come upon her unbidden; she doesn't perform them of her 
own volition, and she has no memory of them afterwards.

If she is not serving as the mouthpiece of the Divine, she is 
certainly an authentic *instrument* of powers, closer to home.

Necessarily, then, a magical person with some interest in planting 
these expectations.

Indeed, that old fibber DD, while deceiving Harry, is also having a 
little joke with himself.  For Trelawney's prophecies *are* true, 
that is to say they certainly predict the future.  DD, himself, makes 
sure of that.

As to the *possessory* mode of transference, notice how each event 
involves Trelawney feeling ill:

"
Professor Trelawney didn't seem to hear him.  Her eyes started to 
roll...she looked as though she was about to have some sort of 
seizure...(PoA 324).  For the second prophesy,  she blames this 
on "the heat of the day" (324).  Speaking of the first prophecy in 
HBP, she says "...I remember I was starting to feel a little odd, I 
had not eaten much that day..."(544).

Compare Trelawney's complaints to Harry's experience in the O.W.L. 
exams in OoP, from page 725 to the end of the chapter; he wasn't 
exactly feeling well, later, in the Atrium, either.

While Harry's connection, even during possession, is unique, 
especially in that he remembers everything, I think his experiences 
still offer clues transferable to Trelawney's case.

Trelawney loss of memory during the prophecies comports, instead, 
with Ginny's experience, as related in OoP.

As Ginny explains to Harry:
"Are there big blank periods where you don`t know what you`ve been up 
to?"
"...No..."
"Then [LV] hasn't ever possessed you...[w]hen he did it to me, I 
couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time"  (OoP 500).

In PoA, we see that Trelawney has no memory of delivering the second 
prophecy, and regarding the first prophecy, DD tells Harry: "She does 
not know--and I think it would be unwise to enlighten her--that she 
made the prophecy about you and Voldemort" (HBP 427).

Our bogus seer evinces the trance-like signs of someone who has lost 
the ability to control their own functions: "Professor Trelawney had 
gone rigid...her eyes were unfocused and her mouth sagging...[she] 
didn't seem to hear him
"(PoA 324).

Then she begins to broadcast what is clearly someone else's message, 
in a "harsh voice, quite unlike her own" (PoA 324).

Now, we haven't heard anyone else describe a voice emanating from a 
possessed person but, we've seen it:

"...when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his 
agony he felt his jaw move..." (OoP 816).

I feel fairly confident that Harry sounded *quite unlike himself,* at 
that moment, too.

And again, "He was feeling sick again, just as he had the night he 
had the vision of the snake...the words came, just as they had back 
in the Gryffindor changing room, as though a stranger was speaking 
them through Harry's mouth..." (OoP 541, 542).

So we've got:
1) magical (human) / non-numinal control
2) feeling ill
3) loss of bodily function/faculties
4) loss of memory 
5) speaking in a strange voice

Nothing fits these symptoms like possession.

Who could be behind this?

For evidence, let's just take a look at the prophecies, themselves.

As Harry did, let's start with Number Two.  

Again, it was an authentic event for Trelawney.  

Here, however, no handy BS about self-fulfillment attains (not that 
it really makes sense for Number One, either).

No one heard the second prophesy, except Harry.  He tried to tell 
Trelawney the gist of it, but she dismissed him as deluded.  She then 
had no additional involvement, whatsoever, in events as they unfolded.

Harry intended to tell Ron and Hermione, but, as soon as he found 
them, Hermione told him of Buckbeak's imminent demise, and Harry 
forgot *all* about the prophecy...he neither mentions it or even 
thinks of it again...until the following day, *after* everything 
fulfilling the utterance is completely over.

Harry could not anticipate how the prophecy would be accomplished, 
none of his actions were motivated or informed by it, indeed he 
didn't even recall it during the adventure that set it's fulfillment 
in action.

No self-fulfillment *at all.* And yet, Harry certainly watched it 
come true.

Readers who understand that Order operatives, Lupin and Snape, were 
indeed working in concert to effectuate DD's plan to send Wormtail 
back to fetch Vapormort, don't have to inquire further.

It's clearly DD's plan, and it's DD's prophecy.

(Readers who don't understand this, by now, require more remediation 
than will be provided in this post.)

Now, inasmuch as the second prophesy played absolutely no role in 
*effectuating* Wormtail's return to Voldemort, why would DD bother to 
put on the performance?

Purely for Harry's indoctrina
er
I mean information. Heh.  

And ours.

Just as Prophecy One was used to *inform,* and motivate, Lord 
Voldemort.

As for whether it's in DD's character, well, I've seen him do worse.  
But then, unlike some supposedly *rational* people, I don't force the 
evidence to conform to my preconceived notion of DD's character.   I 
just go where the evidence takes me.


>Talisman then:
>I'm not so sure DD's plan is all about bringing Voldemort down.

>There is too much evidence of DD facilitating Voldemort, in the first
>place, for me to say that.

>Scarah:
>I think there is evidence of facilitating Voldemort, but isn't the
>purpose of it to get Voldemort "right where we want him?" I'd like to
>hear more on this.

Talisman:
Well, everything DD does to everyone is meant to put them *right 
where he wants them.*  The question is does DD simply want to axe 
Lord Voldemort? I think he clearly could have done it before now, as 
I said in my old post: Going for the Vold:  
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/79769 , circa 
Sept. 2003.

>Scarah:
>If Dumbledore facilitated Pettigrew's escape, and the subsequent
>events at the graveyard, that has more obvious benefits toward the
>goal of bringing down Voldemort. It's hard to get an invisible target
>roaming the floor of the Albanian forest.

Talisman:
I think it is substantially easier to dispose of Hxes, without the 
Dark Lord and his re-empowered minions breathing down one's neck.  

And no, I don't think it would be difficult at all for DD to find the 
rat du jour in order to whack the final bit of evil soul tethered to 
this mortal plane.

He seems to have a pretty good method of monitoring LV's disembodied 
presence, as we've all seen in CoS (328). 

Moreover, I'm sure DD could whack every rat in Albania, in one toss, 
if it came to that.

I'd say DD could tell what LV was, way back at Mrs. Cole's orphanage--
before then even--as he arived there knowing what he wanted to say--
and show--Riddle.  I imagine it's why DD, himself, undertook the task 
of informing Riddle of his wizardhood.  And I'll bet anything that DD 
knew Riddle was Slytherin's only remaining heir.

He wasn't shopping for just any psychopath.

But, having found the one he wanted, he *has* been very carefully 
grooming him--since before LV made his first Hx.

Amid a growing body count.

DD certainly knew what Tom Riddle was up to the first time The 
Chamber was opened.  This is DD at nearly 100 years of age, shortly 
before his defeat of Grindewald.  Rowling, via Harry, clearly shows 
us that DD used Legilimency on adolescent Tommy.  

"`Well hurry off to bed,' said Dumbledore, *giving Riddle exactly the 
kind of penetrating stare Harry knew so well*" (CoS 245, my emphasis).

Now DD is an awesome Legilimens who can find memories folks don't 
even know they have (see e.g. Morfin and Winky).  And there is Tom 
Riddle, with his use of the Basilisk and the murder of Myrtle topmost 
on his mind...do you think DD doesn't know? Do you think he couldn't 
do something about it?

I've had someone try to deny that this is a significant scene--
because it's so *small.* All I can say is: "Buddy, you don't know how 
to read a mystery."

Cheers,

Talisman


PS
It all feed back in to the old split with Slytherin.  Having some 
venue--including Harry's soul--for accepting/reincorporating the 
Slytherin side is the point.

Rowling has compared the 4 Hogwarts Houses to the personal psyche.  
The Alchemy involved is heavily Jungian.  It involves acknowledging 
the Slytherin in yourself--not pretending that it's *over there* in 
those other *awful people.*

This is the purpose of Harry Hx, too.  

You can easily see how Harry projects his Shadow onto Snape--which is 
why he is going to have to 1) accept Snape; 2)own up to his own short 
comings, his own dark side.  

See Dark Mirror Part I: Hairy as Lupin: 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/163728 .