The Deathly Hallows: Morality of Mythical Objects

[or.phan_ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 177449

A few notes here on various peoples' messages. 

va32h said in message 177399:
> You can act recklessly - as if you are above 
> death (the brother with the wand), or you can 
> wallow in mourning for someone who's already 
> gone (the brother with the stone)or you can 
> accept that Death will be out there somewhere,
> sometime and live your own life to the fullest,
> until you have to meet him.

Ann:
I think this is absolutely spot on. I don't think
the Cloak represents running from Death, as lots 
of listies seem to, so much as humility and wisdom:
not deliberately courting Death. It's possible to 
run a happy medium. Consider all the scrapes Harry
gets into by virtue of having the Cloak - he's
hardly hiding away, is he? 

va32h:
> all about DEATH, and DYING, and DEATH DEATH DEATH,
> were ALL going to DIE - which was JKR's apparent 
> obsession.

Ann:
I don't think this is an "obsession" of hers. It is
the foundation-stone of human existence, after all.
Or am I just morbid? 

Prep0strus in message 177404:
> There is no use for the second gift â€" it simply
> doesn’t work properly.

Ann:
The "Tale" says that "the second brother, who was an
arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate 
Death still further, and asked for the power to 
recall others from Death." So he was trying to get 
the better of Death just as the first was. The point 
is, IMHO, not that it doesn't work properly, but that 
it can't - that the brother got the nearest thing to 
what he wanted, and that wasn't nearly close enough.
"The Monkey's Paw", anyone? 

Alla in message 177413:
> I just do not see any analogies, any possible RL 
> analogy with human being deciding for himself how
> long he can live, if that makes sense.

Ann:
But this is wizarding culture, where this *is* 
possible. There's the Philosopher's Stone (whose
owners Nicolas and Perenelle eventually choose to
die to remove the necessity for the Stone), there's
Unicorn blood, and presumably Horcruxes lengthen the
lifespan, else Voldemort wouldn't have gone to such
lengths with his.

Bart Lidofsky wrote in 177430:
> I suspect the key is that the lesson is for the 
> Wizarding World, and NOT the Muggle World (or the 
> Real World). Because it's not about Death; it's 
> about Muggles... The Elder Wand symbolized taking 
> over... the stone was the second choice; as it 
> brought the dead to life, it represented the Wizards 
> joining the Muggles as neighbors rather than as 
> rulers...  the Wizards choose the route of being 
> hidden from the Muggles (the invisibility cloak). 

Ann:
I like this, but could you explain the equation of the
Stone with Muggle-wizard cooperation? I don't 
understand it at all. But if I tweak the idea slightly,
it makes much more sense to me: the Wand represents
bloodshed and warfare, something bad enough in any
community and especially bad in such a small one as the
Wizarding World; the Stone represents the importance
of acknowledging that the past is past; and the Cloak,
the need to lead a quiet, Muggle-free life. The 
problem with this interpretation is that in this case,
it's number two that's the ringer. The Wizarding World
is only too keen on sweeping dirty secrets under the
carpet: consider the number of Death Eaters who went
free, and the fact that there were known to be at 
least some at large. (The tip of an iceberg, that one.)

For myself, I think the story's relatively recent, and
likely a childrens' version of the true story of the
Peverells, after all three Hallows were lost to 
history and assumed to be myth. Not a genuine folk
story, but a bourgeois imitation. So Xenophilius is,
IMHO, reading more into the story than is actually 
there; but that's a given if the story's as young as I
assume. I guess I'm also saying that most of the people
in this thread are doing the same, so I hope nobody 
feels offended. And maybe JKR just isn't that good at 
imitating folk stories, and I'm barking up the wrong
tree altogether? 

Ann, who enjoyed the stopover at Lovegood Castle for its
own fairytale atmosphere, especially the repeated 
mentions of Luna fishing by the stream