CHAPDISC: DH35, KING'S CROSS

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 185126


> > 1.	How many nods to Greek philosophers you can find in this 
> > chapter?

> montavilla47:
> Couldn't tell you.  It's all Greek to me. :)

Zara:
LOL.

I could not find one either, perhaps owing to my relative lack of 
education in Ancient Greek philosophy. I found a reference to 
Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am" in Harry's thought in the 
early going that he can now consider that he exists as more than 
disembodied thought. 

I also found in Dumbledore's final statement a flavor of Kant's 
distinction between noumena and phenomena. Noumena being things known 
to the mind/imagination, rather than the senses, as opposed to 
phenomena, which are the things we perceive through our senses. These 
are Greek words, but if they were used in this sense in the Classical 
world, I am not familiar with the originator.

> > 6.	List discussed the injured baby under the table extensively 
> > in the past, but if you want to please discuss some more here.

> montavilla 47:
> Only to say that I found that part extremely distressing.  But I'm 
> finding out--slowly, it seems--that other people don't have my
> disbelief in eternal punishment.  (I *don't* believe that Sysiphus 
is
> still pushing that rock up the hill.)

Zara:
I did not take the meaning of the baby to be that there is 
necessarily eternal damnation or eternal punishment in the 
Potterverse. But rather, that others cannot influence the disposition 
of another's soul if that other refuses entirely to allow such 
influence. 

As Albus says to Harry in this chapter: "Do not pity the dead, Harry. 
Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."

The "above all", in my opinion, being a reference to Voldemort, the 
pitiful state of whose soul I believe the baby symbolizes.

Who knows? Maybe Voldemort will someday try something other than what 
he's tried for his entire life, and it will *work* for him. But until 
he does, yes, he'll be stuck and there is nothing that Harry, or 
Albus, or anyone can do for him.

> > 8.	"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end 
> > up with  the Elder Wand, didn't you?
> > "I admit that was my intention," said Dumbledore, "but it did not 
> > work as I    intended, did it?
> > "No," said Harry, That bit didn't work out"
> > 
> > What do you think Harry meant by his question? What do you think 
> > Albus' actual plan was?

> montavilla47:
> But, if we listen to Harry's words while battling Voldemort, then
> the plan was for the power of the Elder Wand to be ended because
> Snape wouldn't really have "defeated" Dumbledore.  In which case,
> Snape would be rewarded for his years of service with a dead stick.

Zara:
I wonder whether we are supposed to think this, or whether we are 
supposed to think this is a case of the pupil bettering the master. I 
presume Harry meant by his question the same thing he explained to 
Voldemort (and later Albus's portrait) in the following chapter, 
about ending the power of the wand. But it is possible that Albus, 
while alive, did not understand that this was a possible or likely 
outcome of his plan, and *he* answered Harry in the positive because 
he meant the plan you outlined and I snipped (Snape to be a worthy 
successor to Albus as a custodian/master of the wand who would not 
use it to kill, etc.)

At any rate, in the second event obviously the wand would not be 
intended as a reward to Snape for his services, LOL. It would simply 
be using Snape yet again (in this case seemingly without his 
knowledge) as Snape had agreed to allow himself to be used - to 
protect Harry. It seems undesirable to have Harry survive the de-
Horcruxing and then have to face a Voldemort armed with a fully 
responsive Elder Wand, I suppose.

> Pippin:
> I think that the plan was two-fold. If the Elder Wand was deprived
> of its power, it would be like the ruined diary -- no longer
> recognizable in any way as what it had been. It would appear to be 
> a wand that had worn out with age, like its former master, and no 
> one, even Ollivander, would think that it was the Elder Wand, whose
> power had passed through generations undiminished. Voldemort would 
> conclude that Gregorovitch and Grindelwald had been mistaken and he
> would continue his quest.

Zara.
I *like* this! A lot. It's probably the most sensible version of the 
plan I have come across. 

> Pippin:
> If, on the other hand, Dumbledore had miscalculated and the wand
> retained its power, he trusted Snape as its new guardian -- one who
> could be trusted not to use its powers, and who would have both the
> cunning and the skill at occlumency to conceal it from Voldemort. 

Zara:
When do you suppose Snape was supposed to learn of this? Snape would 
need to possess the wand in order to assess which of the two options 
had transpired, and in order to hide the wand in the event Case B 
transpired. As things actually happened, we cannot determine whether 
or not Snape knew to grab the wand, because the wand was not 
available for him to grab - Draco had sent it over the battlements.

It seems to me most logical that he ought to have known in advance, 
so he would know to retrieve it. But then why did he not, at some 
point in DH? I suppose, trying to reason it out here, that perhaps 
the damage to the tomb could not be hidden? Snape could not use the 
wand anyway under the circumstances which actually pertained, so Plan 
C became to leave it in place for Voldemort to find and hopefully 
believe was his by right of seizure, so that at least it would not 
serve him any better than his current wand.

Or Albus did not ever tell Snape...did he plan to explain this after 
his own death, for security reasons? And then never bothered because 
it did not occur to him that Plan C and the plan for Snape to tell 
Harry the soul-bit secret might intersect undesirably?

> Pippin:
> This is all a little clearer after reading ToBtB -- honestly, I
> think Rowling had most of this figured out, but didn't want it in 
> the books because she didn't think most readers would be such wand 
> geeks. 

Zara:
First, I would love your thoughts on how ToBtB influenced your 
reading of this bit of the story (though on a separately named 
thread, of course!).

I would also just like to add, that I could hardly care less how wand 
mechanics operate, whether it is consistent, etc., and this is not 
remotely my interest in the matter. What Dumbledore planned and why 
is important to me in deciding what I think of his character. And 
this Elder Wand/Snape killing him business is one I cannot make my 
mind up about.