From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 01:15:17 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:15:17 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181182 > Mike: > He > hangs with Slyths that use what Lily calls Dark Magic and I find it > hard to believe that Sev stands to the side and watches all the > action, not if he was the mosy accomplished first year at hexes. zgirnius: I am inclined to believe he does stand by as others use hexes, for the most part, in the first five years at school. Those hexes might be his, that I would consider reasonably likely both because he is known to have invented some in that time frame, and because it would form an alternative basis for Sirius's claims of his precocious Dark Arts knowledge. My reasoning is based on the conversation with Lily in "The Prince's Tale". When Snape brings up James' supposedly unsavory behavior, Lily counters with Mulciber's. I find this a very weak rejoinder, if we're speaking of someone else who (to paraphrase Lily on James) goes around hexing people in the halls just because he can. > Mike: > Some point to the detention file of Sirius and James as proof of > their bulllying. First, Harry gets plenty of detentions and none of > them were for bullying. zgirnius: That would be me, but I listed a specific detention, served by James and Sirius together for the same specific victim and offense. I will reiterate it. They used an illegal hex on another boy, who was not written up in the same detention. So that boy was not fighting, which makes what they did, bullying by my definition. Additional evidence for the proporsition that James, at least, randomly hexed people as an exercise of his power, is Lily's statement to him just before she leaves in the SWM scene (paraphrased above). > Mike: > Second, Snape picked the Sirius and James > files and we see none of the others from that era. Maybe there were > many more detention-worthy encounters in those years, we don't know. zgirnius: I don't see the relevance of this response. Whether Snape did things, or others did things, does not alter what was actually done, by James and Sirius together, to Bertram Aubrey. Unless you are proposing Snape forged the record to which I refer? > Mike: > But it seemed like the times fostered more open encounters by budding > DEs that would lead to escalating the number of detentions. zgirnius: Aubrey is not the surname of any Death Eater we have met. > Mike: > Lastly, > Sirius allowed as how Snape is a slippery character, smart enough to > keep himself off the radar (hell, even Bella says this). Again, not > something Sirius would make up, admitting Snape was smarter about > staying out of trouble. zgirnius: Again, I fail to see the relevance. If Snape hexed people too, it does not change what James and Sirius were, to him and to others. Or are you trying to simultaneously build a case against Snape? For the reasons I have explained above, I don't think he was active in the way the two Marauders were, except after his breakup with Lily. I don't doubt he had some sort of social involvement with unpleasant characters in Slytherin who did actively engage in bullying, and enabled this behavior by helping to improve their repertoire. > Mike: > As much as I like them, and as much as I admire their magical > abilities and propensity for mischief, I must admit that they > included some bullying in their repertoire. But like Snape's teaching > style in the WW seems perfectlyt acceptable, so do the type of pranks > the Marauders pull. They get detentions, not indictments. zgirnius: All I am arguing is that James and Sirius were schoolyard bullies, and Severus was one of their targets. Detentions and/or other school- centered disciplinary actions would be the expected response to this behavior; that does not mean it was considered acceptable. If it were acceptable, it would not have resulted in detentions. The Prank is one possible exception - however, resort to the Ministry (and the ensuing publicity) in this case would have ended Lupin's Hogwarts career, so I'd say how seriously that was viewed by the school authorities is hard for us to determine. Snape's teaching style has never resulted in so much as a reprimand, so far as we know. This would be the basis of an argument that it was perfectly acceptable in the WW, along with comparisons to other teachers whose teaching likewise seemed to raise no eyebrows. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 01:43:57 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:43:57 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181183 > CoS: > "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116 > > Alla: > > Not that I really wish to get into that famous introduction about > Mudbloods, etc, but did he not meant to say muggle- borns here? zgirnius: I believe he said what he meant. Muggleborns occur when two Muggles carrying genes for magic but not expressing them, genes they inherited from magical ancestors, pass those genes on to their kids in a way that causes them to be expressed. They would thus result from Muggle/wizard relationships, at some point in the past. (Or Squib/Muggle). Nor are Muggle/Wizard relationships THAT rare in canon: the Snapes, Finnegans, and Riddles were such married couples (and if we include website backstory, so was the relationship that produced Dean Thomas). > Alla: > Wait a second. It seems to me that Hagrid can keep secrets very well > when he chooses to here. Um, don't you think that his talkativeness > in PS/SS may have been deliberate then? zgirnius: I think it is a little easier to keep one's own secret. > CoS: > Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light > blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. > > Innocent till proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly" - p.144 > Alla: > No, really? And here I thought you already read that he is innocent > Albus. zgirnius: I think both Severus and Albus were picking up that Harry was not telling them the whole truth here. So I don't think Albus was reading 'innocence' any more than Severus was. (I see no indication Severus believed Harry had Petrified the cat and hung it up, I think he suspected Harry of other, unknown misdeeds he was hoping to get to the bottom of). At one point Albus asks Harry if there is anything he wants Harrry to tell him - which I think shows he is picking up the same vibe as Severus. > CoS: > "Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't > Miss Pennyfeather," snapped Professor Binns." I repeat, if the likes > of Dumbledore-" - p.152 > Alla: > Oh, and Miss Pennyfeather? Too funny that. zgirnius: What, you approve of teachers mocking their students in class?! ;) > Alla: > "But, Albus... surely... who?" > "The question is not who," said Dumbledore, his eyes on Collin. "The > question is, how..." - p.181 > > Alla: > This quote was underlined in my copy of CoS from past reading, that > means that I may have asked this question already, but I am still > unsure of answer. > > So Dumbledore KNEW who opened the chamber? Oy. zgirnius: Surely that was not very helpful knowledge? A wizard who exists only in the form of vapor/spirit/whatever you want to call it, and is believed to be hanging about Albania, is the culprit. Yes, that explains everything! From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 01:50:59 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:50:59 -0000 Subject: student!Snape keeping Lupin's secret (was Re: Sirius as a dog) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181184 > Magpie: > But we've got lots of references to the Marauders being friends and > targetting Snape--hell, I always thought that was the way it worked > starting in PoA when the MWPP gang up on Snape in map form. As you've > mentioned, the Marauders themselves talk about Sirius and James going > after Snape together, Lupin regrets not stopping the two of them. We > see it in SWM. Snape furiously refers to them going after him 4 on 1 > (it probably seemed that way to Snape even when Sirius and James were > the ones doing the hexing). He seems to have some true actual pain > about the unfairness of that part. The one time we see somebody on > Snape's side it's Lily. Montavilla47: You're reminding me of something I keep forgetting to mention. The tactical advantage that the Marauders had on Snape wasn't only that they outnumbered him (assuming that that didn't have his own gang hidden somewhere). They also had two other advantages. They had a magical map that showed the location of every person in Hogwarts, which means that they could track his movements and know exactly where he was at any time and whether or not he was alone. They has an invisibility cloak. I'm surprised Snape made through school at all. From witherwing at sbcglobal.net Fri Feb 1 02:33:11 2008 From: witherwing at sbcglobal.net (witherwings999) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:33:11 -0000 Subject: 'key' choice on which the books turn In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181185 "Carol" wrote: > > Ironically, Harry's attempt to "save" his godfather (who is > perfectly safe in 12 GP) leads to Black's death, but Harry doesn't kill him or > > even intend his death. (Neither, again ironically, does Voldemort or > > Kreacher--or even Bella, till he shows up where he's not supposed to > > be. And his innocent attempt to retrieve that photograph does lead > to the murder of Grindelwald (and move LV a step closer to resolving > the mystery of the Elder Wand), but that is in no way Harry's fault. > > > > Carol, afraid that her complicated reasoning process is less than > > clear but trying to distinguish between murder and unintended > > consequences of both random choices and well-laid plans that gang > aglay > > Allthecoolnamesgone: > I have pondered over who made and what was the 'key' choice on which > the whole Harry Potter books turned. It could be Snape's choice to > join the Death Eaters which then led to him telling V the Prophecy, > which led to the Potter's deaths, which led to Harry becoming the > Chosen one, which led to.... and so on. Or was it James's choice at > age 11 to insult Snape and befriend Sirius whicb led to them bullying > Snape who then joined the Death Eaters out of a need to belong.... > and so on. Witherwing: I want to play! The first one that comes to my mind is young Severus, coming out from behind the bushes to talk to Lily. Hmmm. What about three friends deciding to become Animagi to comfort a werewolf? A house elf betraying its family to warn Harry not to return to Hogwarts... There have got to be a hundred! Anyone else? From kaleeyj at gmail.com Fri Feb 1 03:43:25 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:43:25 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181186 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" wrote: > > > CoS: > > "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116 > > > zgirnius: > I believe he said what he meant. Muggleborns occur when two Muggles > carrying genes for magic but not expressing them, genes they > inherited from magical ancestors, pass those genes on to their kids > in a way that causes them to be expressed. They would thus result > from Muggle/wizard relationships, at some point in the past. (Or > Squib/Muggle). Nor are Muggle/Wizard relationships THAT rare in > canon: the Snapes, Finnegans, and Riddles were such married couples > (and if we include website backstory, so was the relationship that > produced Dean Thomas). Bex: Ron is referring to pure-blooded wizards (or wizards in general), and he is commenting on the notion of 'dirty blood.' So I think he means what he says here, too. > > Alla: > > Wait a second. It seems to me that Hagrid can keep secrets very > > well when he chooses to here. > zgirnius: > I think it is a little easier to keep one's own secret. > Bex: We see that a lot with Hagrid. He tends to guard his own secrets a bit more closely - whether or not the slips of the tongue in PS/SS were intentional, they weren't his secrets. And this isn't some top secret mission for DD either. In OotP, Hagrid is again on a top secret mission, and it takes only a little ego stroking to get him to spill everything. > > CoS: > > Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light > > blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. > > > > Innocent till proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly" - p.144 > > > Alla: > > No, really? And here I thought you already read that he is innocent > > Albus. > > zgirnius: > I think both Severus and Albus were picking up that Harry was not > telling them the whole truth here. So I don't think Albus was > reading 'innocence' any more than Severus was. (I see no indication > Severus believed Harry had Petrified the cat and hung it up, I think > he suspected Harry of other, unknown misdeeds he was hoping to get to > the bottom of). At one point Albus asks Harry if there is anything he > wants Harrry to tell him - which I think shows he is picking up the > same vibe as Severus. > > > > CoS: > > "Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't > > Miss Pennyfeather," snapped Professor Binns." I repeat, if the > likes > > of Dumbledore-" - p.152 > > > Alla: > > Oh, and Miss Pennyfeather? Too funny that. > > zgirnius: > What, you approve of teachers mocking their students in class?! ;) > > > Alla: > > "But, Albus... surely... who?" > > "The question is not who," said Dumbledore, his eyes on > Collin. "The > > question is, how..." - p.181 > > > > Alla: > > This quote was underlined in my copy of CoS from past reading, that > > means that I may have asked this question already, but I am still > > unsure of answer. > > > > So Dumbledore KNEW who opened the chamber? Oy. > > zgirnius: > Surely that was not very helpful knowledge? A wizard who exists only > in the form of vapor/spirit/whatever you want to call it, and is > believed to be hanging about Albania, is the culprit. Yes, that > explains everything! Bex: I think DD knew from the very beginning that Riddle opened the Chamber - he never could prove it of course. But the idea of encasing a piece of soul in a diary as a memory probably never crossed his mind. I noticed that all of the teachers (I think) did not appreciate Gilderoy's help - my guess is it took all of about 30 seconds or so before they decided he was bluffing at best. And I thought the KwikSpell course was wicked genius on Jo's part. Do you suppose Filch tried it? In chapter 10, we see just how blinded Hermione is by her crush on Gilderoy. She is willing to write off Gilderoy de-boning Harry's arm as a "mistake." Seems that if he wrote all of those books, and he obliviated all of those people, he might have picked up at least *one* basic splinting spell. Bex From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 04:12:23 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:12:23 -0000 Subject: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181187 > Carol responds: > My point, and I think I agree with Alla here, is that we shouldn't > look at Severus as a poor little helpless victim. They attacked him > two (or four) on one because if they attacked him individually and > openly, he'd have given them a run for their money, or perhaps beaten > them. zgirnius: My point is only, that I believe harassing him using the advantage of numbers is precisely what they did, and not just the one time in SWM. I'm having trouble understanding whether or not we agree on this point. Throughout your post, you choose, on a recurring basis, to preface the word 'victim' by words such as poor, weak, helpless, and innocent. Severus may have hexed people for fun on a regular basis, and gone around insulting Muggleborns with bloodist slurs. He may have been amazing with a wand. While he was doubtless poor he may not have been perceived as worthy of sympathy. But if it was a recurring event that he (as an individual) was attacked/harrassed by Marauders (plural, and as a unit) then he was a victim. The way I am using this word, corresponds to the definition I find in Merriam-Webster Online, namely, "one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent". The extent to which such an individual is weak, or helpless, or poor, or innocent, may determine how sympathetically, contemptuously, or gleefully others view him, but it does not change whether or not they were acted on and adversely affected by, agents. This is what I mean, when I say I believe Severus was a victim of the Marauders. Whether or not he liked the word, I think he realized he was acted on and adversely affected by those individuals. > Carol: > If they did make a habit of attacking him as a group, it could not > have been because he was the sort of weakling that bullies like to > pick on (cf. Mark Evans in OoP). zgirnius: Real-life bullies pick their victims for any number of reasons. The huge heavyweight boxer type beating some skinny kid younger than himself is certainly an instance, and probably the image that first pops into the average brain upon hearing the word `bully', but it is by no means the only situation. And I find that in HP, the issue is dealt with in many of its various forms. Hogwarts reminds me of my own school in one regard. At the schools I attended during my Hogwarts years, girls did not fight. Oh, there were rumors that a couple of the really tough girls who smoked illegal substances in the bathrooms got into fights after school, but it was very much the exception. The only fights I witnessed in school were between boys, and I was aware that the least popular boy in my middle school got roughed up on occasion. Girl bullying took the form of ostracism, nasty names and comments about of appearance and dress, and mean-spirited jokes. At Hogwarts, the girls are as magically powerful as the boys, but we don't see them hexing people in the hallways or drawing wands when they have disagreements either, Ginny being the lone exception who tends in my view to prove the rule I just stated. (She grew up surrounded by older boys ) But of course, Hogwarts has girl bullies and girl victims of bullying too. Luna is victimized by others in her House. Is this because she is weak, or because she is odd, and so no one sympathizes with her, and so no one stands up for her? I would say the latter. Hermione is victimized by Pansy and her little gang. Her vulnerability is that her close friends are boys, who just don't play those little games. When Pansy launches some witticism and her gal pals start to giggle, Hermione is not in a position to retaliate in kind. Is this because she is weak, or because she does not have her own group of giggling girls to back her up? I'd say the latter. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 04:31:12 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:31:12 -0000 Subject: PS/SS - chapters 2-5 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181188 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > It takes more than sweeping the floor and putting down sawdust > to make a room unrecognisable.... Oh, absolutely, no doubt about that :-)! I just don't see the point of changing the description of something in the book if it doesn't serve some purpose, that's all. Unless you forgot how you described it the first time, LOL! BTW, I don't think Aberforth swept the floor - he just put sawdust on top of all this ancient dirt ... :-). zanooda From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 06:57:11 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:57:11 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181189 > zgirnius: > I am inclined to believe he does stand by as others use hexes, for > the most part, in the first five years at school. Those hexes might > be his, that I would consider reasonably likely both because he is > known to have invented some in that time frame, and because it > would form an alternative basis for Sirius's claims of his > precocious Dark Arts knowledge. Mike: Wow, so Umbridge was right, theory was good enough, huh? Snape got good at hexes without even trying them out. In fact, he was so good, he could invent his own spells and pass them on to his buds ready for deployment without trying them out either. Or did you notice a practice range for new spells akin to a firing range in the RW? Besides, why stop after five years? Canon only tells us for sure that Snape cursed James in seventh year. If he managed to hold out for five years, why not hold out for six? Because of Lily? Like Lily would think less of Sev if her best friend fought back against that "toerag" Potter. I'm not seeing that. As for an alternative basis for his rep, what are you suggesting? That his Slyth pals hit somebody with one of his inventions and announced to the victim "Courtesy of Severus Snape, inventor"? Harry used the HBP spells and HBP potions improvements all year, did you notice if anyone besides Ron and Hermione knew who really invented them? Or do you think the rest of the school attributed them to Harry, the guy who cast them and used the potions hints? > > Mike: > > First, Harry gets plenty of detentions and none of > > them were for bullying. > > zgirnius: > but I listed a specific detention, served by James and > Sirius together for the same specific victim and offense. Mike: Right, that was one. Who knows how many more there were for bullying, and how many were for other transgressions - curfew, backtalking teachers, etc. Like I admitted twice in the post you're responding to, James and Sirius were bullies. > zgirnius: > I don't see the relevance of this response. Whether Snape did > things, or others did things, does not alter what was actually > done, by James and Sirius together, to Bertram Aubrey. Unless you > are proposing Snape forged the record to which I refer? Mike: It wasn't in response to you or anyone in particular. I also wasn't responding to one specific point. And as been pointed out by Montavilla and Carol, I was wrong about the detention boxes. > > Mike: > > But it seemed like the times fostered more open encounters > > by budding DEs that would lead to escalating the number of > > detentions. > > zgirnius: > Aubrey is not the surname of any Death Eater we have met. Mike: So that proves the times didn't foster more openess of battles between proto-DEs and Gryffs? Because in *one* case James and Sirius hexed a kid that didn't become a DE? > > Mike: > > Lastly, Sirius allowed as how Snape is a slippery character, > > smart enough to keep himself off the radar > zgirnius: > Again, I fail to see the relevance. If Snape hexed people too, it > does not change what James and Sirius were, to him and to others. Mike: Since I wasn't making a single-minded point, I think it was relevant to the overall dynamic between the boys. It ties in to the detention box. Though Harry may have read Snape's name, it didn't register in the way reading his father's and godfather's names did, therefore it wasn't mentioned by the creatrix. *IF* he read Snape's name. > Or are you trying to simultaneously build a case against Snape? Mike: You noticed! > zgirnius: > I don't think he was active in the way the two Marauders were, > except after his breakup with Lily. I don't doubt he had some > sort of social involvement with unpleasant characters in > Slytherin who did actively engage in bullying, and enabled this > behavior by helping to improve their repertoire. Mike: Since canon said that Avery and Mulciber were Sev's friends, since Lily points out the "evil" spells they attempted on Mary and Sev changed the topic to avoid rather than deny it, since Lily also called them and Sev future DEs and points out that Sev didn't even deny that, all occuring BEFORE the breakup, I find it hard to believe that Sev was clean in the battles between him and MWPP. Less of an atagonist than James and Sirius, sure, everyone was less than those two it seems. But I don't buy Sev standing on the sidelines. > zgirnius: > All I am arguing is that James and Sirius were schoolyard > bullies, and Severus was one of their targets. Mike: And all I'm arguing is that Sev should not be held harmless in this schoolyard contest of magic. It seems contradictory to claim Sev was this great DADA expert as a kid and later, while at the same time claiming he never or rarely took part in the kind of exchanges that would foment that reputation. Since when do school kids give credit to school grades for a rep like this? > zgirnius: > The Prank is one possible exception Mike: Not to me. I made my case in my previous post, I'm adding more below. > zgirnius: > Snape's teaching style has never resulted in so much as a > reprimand, so far as we know. This would be the basis of an > argument that it was perfectly acceptable in the WW, Mike: Yes, this was my point. What we may consider abominable in the RW does not register the same in the WW. Blowing up Aubrey's head sounds horrific, but it's *magic*, not RW. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181177 > Carol: > I agree with you that it's one teenage boy daring another to show > he's not afraid and tempting him with bait he can't refuse. But > *Sirius knows what's in there*--a fully grown werewolf who is not > restrained in any way--and *he knows how to encounter the werewolf > safely*, which Severus doesn't. Mike: My answer is still the same. Sev knows he, along with the rest of the school, is suppose to stay away from the Willow. He knows what the Marauders are doing is wrong, and him doing it doesn't make it right. He highly suspects that Lupin is a werewolf and knows that Lupin is being secreted at the end of that tunnel. That he doesn't know how the Marauders are getting away with it, surviving a werewolf encounter, makes it even more ridiculous that he would attempt it anyway. Sirius tells him how to get past the Willow and *probably* taunts him. So what? I'll give you my analogy. It's like one thief (Sirius) robbed a house and gave the house key he had to a second thief (Severus). The first thief knows the owner is in there with a shotgun. The second thief doesn't know that for sure, but suspects it. But the second thief figures if the first thief got away with it, he can too. The first thief failed to mention that he had previously ascertained that the owner was out of ammunition when he robbed the place. So, is it the first thief's fault if the second thief gets shot trying to rob the house? I doubt the authorities will look at it that way. "But Professor Dumbledore, Sirius Black told me how to get past the Willow." "Yes Severus, we've established that. Now how exactly did that force you to go down there?" Mike From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 07:26:43 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:26:43 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181190 > Mike: > I'll give you my analogy. It's like one thief (Sirius) robbed a house > and gave the house key he had to a second thief (Severus). The first > thief knows the owner is in there with a shotgun. The second thief > doesn't know that for sure, but suspects it. But the second thief > figures if the first thief got away with it, he can too. The first > thief failed to mention that he had previously ascertained that the > owner was out of ammunition when he robbed the place. So, is it the > first thief's fault if the second thief gets shot trying to rob the > house? I doubt the authorities will look at it that way. > > "But Professor Dumbledore, Sirius Black told me how to get past the > Willow." > "Yes Severus, we've established that. Now how exactly did that force > you to go down there?" Montavilla47: Cool analogy, Mike, but I think it's more like this. One thief (Sirius) robbed a house, and Severus is pretty sure that he did it. However, the really hot Police Detective (Lily) who is attracted to the thief's fellow thief (James) refuses to believe Severus because there's no evidence and Police Detectives (whether they are hot or not) *never* believe the guy with the right theory. So, the thief hands Severus a key, having ascertained that the owner has ammunition, which wasn't really a problem because the thief had a bullet-proof vest. So, Severus goes in there to find the evidence to convince the hot Police Detective, figuring that if the first thief could get and out without getting shot at, then it's probably not that dangerous. Which is not very smart, because any intelligent home owner would try to keep his home safe from a second break-in. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 07:47:36 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:47:36 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181191 > Mike: > So that proves the times didn't foster more openess of battles > between proto-DEs and Gryffs? Because in *one* case James and Sirius > hexed a kid that didn't become a DE? zgirnius: We know of two kids they hexed. One went on to be a DE, the other did not. Since this is not something I am considering in my professional capacity as a statistician (two instances prove nothing ), but rather are occurences in a work of literature meant to convey a story and introduce me to its characters, I attach significance to it. Namely, they went around hexing people because they could (as another character of the era in fact states), and WW politics had little to do with it. There is no evidence I see of Gryff/Slyth battles in the 'Marauder Era' in the books. In fact, there is not a single mention of any friend/fellow gang member of Snape ever hexing a Marauder at school. I therefore felt no need to disprove such a supposition, though I do consider it unlikely both based on what Lily says in SWM, and based on James and Sirius' performance in the *actual* war, as young adults. They seem rather lacking in caution and wariness, for supposed victims of older Slytherins and possible ambushes. It makes a lot more sense for me to imagine them acquiring a sense of invincibility from successes in school. My point with poor Bertram is that one can try to paint the Snape war as being all about politics, or self defense/retaliation, and basically a noble prequel to being Order members, or what not, but we're still left with Bertram. I find it simpler (as in, requiring fewer inventions) to conclude that Bertram and Snape were part of the same picture. > Mike: > I find it hard to believe > that Sev was clean in the battles between him and MWPP. Less of an > atagonist than James and Sirius, sure, everyone was less than those > two it seems. But I don't buy Sev standing on the sidelines. zgirnius: Yes, in the one instance we see, he definitely makes every effort to fight back. I was not proposing he took a Gandhi-esque approach to his problems with the Marauders. I was suggesting that unlike James in the time period in question, Severus, at least while he remained a friend of Lily's, did not go around hexing people in the hallways just because he could. (It seems also that James, before he became a boyfriend of Lily's, ceased this behavior - this would have been in sixth or seventh year, a time during which I think it quite possible Severus might have moved in the opposite direction, having no longer any countervailing influence to his Slytherin buddies in his life). What he may have done or tried to do to Sirius or James, is a totally different story, and I was not trying to address it. My own guess is he certainly tried things. And sometimes they probably worked quite nicely. From willsonkmom at msn.com Fri Feb 1 12:27:55 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:27:55 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius: ringleaders (was Re: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181192 > zgirnius: > Real-life bullies pick their victims for any number of reasons. The > huge heavyweight boxer type beating some skinny kid younger than > himself is certainly an instance, and probably the image that first > pops into the average brain upon hearing the word `bully', but it is > by no means the only situation. And I find that in HP, the issue is > dealt with in many of its various forms. Potioncat: All this discussion about James and Sirius made me think of another discussion. It takes place in the Three Broomsticks in PoA chp 10. I read it one way, back when PoA was the newest book, and a little differently now. (sorry, Alla, I jumped ahead) Fudge, McGonagall, Flitwich and Hagrid go into a bar...(sorry, couldn't resist) "Precisely," said Professor McGonagall. "Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course--exceptionally bright, in fact--but I don't think we've ever had such a pair of troublemakers--" I used to read that as a fond comment. Hagrid immediately tosses out Fred and George as comparable. Flitwick adds they were like brothers. But JKR doesn't describe McGonagall at all. We don't know that she meant it with a touch of humor, or as dead serious. So, what do we have? Very bright ringleaders of a gang, of the type never before seen at Hogwarts. A few more comments and Hagrid loses his temper over Black's betrayal of the Potters. There was enough bad background that it was creditable for Black to have become a DE. It's as if they're talking about two hoods---one who turned out good and one who didn't. Troublemakers doesn't mean jokesters, it means gangleaders. Add this to the "biggest bully on the playground" comment about Pettigrew's loyalty and we get a pretty nasty picture. Snape was a victim from time to time. But he wasn't the only victim. He was one of many. I get the feeling he was more of a challenge, but not one James or Sirius wanted to take on alone. What I don't understand is why JKR made her future heroes schoolyard bullies. And why she turns it all upside down by having Lily say that what they do is not as bad as what someone else is doing. I still think that if Severus had ended up in Gryffindor, James and Sirius would have been very happy to use his dark magic. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 13:23:29 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:23:29 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius: ringleaders (was Re: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181193 > Potioncat: > What I don't understand is why JKR made her future heroes schoolyard > bullies. And why she turns it all upside down by having Lily say that > what they do is not as bad as what someone else is doing. I still think > that if Severus had ended up in Gryffindor, James and Sirius would have > been very happy to use his dark magic. a_svirn: It's actually even stranger than that. After PoA we were left with the impression that there was something more to that prank than Lupin let on (well I was left with such an impression). Surely the good guy Sirius would not attempt to murder or at least seriously injure another student merely for the hell of it? Especially if it meant the betrayal of one of his own friends? Nothing of course could justify such an action, but some stronger motivation than one Lupin offered in PoA seemed probable. Also Lupin said that Sirius realised the enormity of what he had done, and it's after seeing his expression James (who had known nothing about the prank) put two and two together and rescued Snape. However, after DH this assurance doesn't hold water. Now we know that the Prank precedes the Worst Memory, and the Sirius of the WM does not present the appearance of someone who had the Road-to-Damascus sort of revelation. It is not enough for him that he almost has Snape killed some months (or weeks) previously. He feels neither guilt nor unease about it ? he's bored and wants more fun. James also does not look like someone who nobly put petty school grudges behind. Lupin who had just been betrayed by one at least of his precious friends bantered with them about werewolves as if nothing had happened. He had nearly become an unwitting murder tool, yet he didn't lift a single finger to save his would-be victim (one moreover who was compelled to keep his secret). It is obvious that the whole appalling episode was really nothing more than a prank for the marauders. A joke all the more funny that they had managed to get away with it and now could carry on with their bullying with impunity. It is perfectly understandable why Snape did not believe that James wasn't in on it. I don't believe it either. a_svirn. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 14:36:51 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:36:51 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181194 > zgirnius: > I am inclined to believe he does stand by as others use hexes, for > the most part, in the first five years at school. Those hexes might > be his, that I would consider reasonably likely both because he is > known to have invented some in that time frame, and because it would > form an alternative basis for Sirius's claims of his precocious Dark > Arts knowledge. Alla: So basically you are arguing that Severus invented hexes but did not use them for five years? How likely is that that for five years such inventive student will not be tempted to ever try them? Zgirnius: My reasoning is based on the conversation with Lily > in "The Prince's Tale". When Snape brings up James' supposedly > unsavory behavior, Lily counters with Mulciber's. I find this a very > weak rejoinder, if we're speaking of someone else who (to paraphrase > Lily on James) goes around hexing people in the halls just because he > can. Alla: Why? I found it perfectly reasonable answer. Severus is talking about her friends and she is responding with criticizing his friends. If Snape was criticizing Lily, I would hope that she would answer with criticizing Snape and then would find it bizarre if she would not do that. But they are talking about each other's friends NOT about themselves. > zgirnius: > I don't see the relevance of this response. Whether Snape did things, > or others did things, does not alter what was actually done, by James > and Sirius together, to Bertram Aubrey. Unless you are proposing > Snape forged the record to which I refer? Alla: How do we translate one hex into bullying ? Especially into bullying pattern? I mean if we consider what was happening between Marauders and Snape as special case of bullying or war and that people in Hogwarts hex each other on pretty routine basis. Do you think Twins bullied those whom they gave canary creams? I mean if for your bullying means hexing people with any hexes, then I will readily agree that half Hogwarts are bullies to each other, but I would think that something more serious under Hogwarts standard should happen to make a parallel with bullying? And yes, Pensieve scene counts IMO. > zgirnius: > Again, I fail to see the relevance. If Snape hexed people too, it > does not change what James and Sirius were, to him and to others. Or > are you trying to simultaneously build a case against Snape? Alla: Yes, that's my point. I see Snape who could dished it out to Marauders as much as he got. I just do not see how one can disregard his behavior when evaluating what they did to him. I mean one can; I am just saying that I cannot :) Zgirnius: For the > reasons I have explained above, I don't think he was active in the > way the two Marauders were, except after his breakup with Lily. Alla: To reiterate - your reasons for not thinking that he was active was that Lily criticized his friends instead of him in response to him criticizing her friends? How this is proves that he was not doing stuff? Zgirnius: I > don't doubt he had some sort of social involvement with unpleasant > characters in Slytherin who did actively engage in bullying, and > enabled this behavior by helping to improve their repertoire. Alla: >From the moment we see little Snape we see him DOING stuff. Like killing flies ( I mean I was not sure for the longest time that it was Snape myself, but there is no doubt now, right?), like moving that tree and suddenly for five years he is just giving curses to Slytherins and not using them? Sorry, I am not buying this picture at all. And again, this is all because Lily criticized his friends instead of him? > zgirnius: > All I am arguing is that James and Sirius were schoolyard bullies, > and Severus was one of their targets. Alla: And I am arguing that Severus was not always a target but worthy opponent for the most part or at least often enough. I just refuse to look at only what Marauders did, but again for sure in Pensieve scene they ARE bullies and maybe there were other accidents too, I just do not think that Snape was just a target. Montavilla47: I'm surprised Snape made through school at all. Alla: That sounds dramatic indeed. Snape may not have made it through school? From dunctonhams at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 09:17:50 2008 From: dunctonhams at yahoo.com (Andrew) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:17:50 -0000 Subject: 'key' choice on which the books turn In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181195 "witherwings999" There have got to be a hundred! Anyone else? Andrew: The Muggle couple, Mr & Mrs Evans allowing their younger daughter to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Lily Evans deciding to date James Potter? Voldemort's decision to go to Godric's Hollow at Hallowe'en in 1981 rather than the Longbottom's house, (thus choosing Harry over Neville)? Harry himself ponders this point - can't remember where though! Andrew From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Fri Feb 1 10:37:12 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:37:12 -0000 Subject: 'key' choice on which the books turn In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181196 > Witherwing says: > I want to play! The first one that comes to my mind is young > Severus, coming out from behind the bushes to talk to Lily. > > Hmmm. What about three friends deciding to become Animagi to > comfort a werewolf? > > A house elf betraying its family to warn Harry not to return to > Hogwarts... > > There have got to be a hundred! Anyone else? I have one too. What about Peter becoming Secret Keeper to James and Lily instead of Sirius as planned. This lead to the Potters death and Sirius stay in Azkaban Jayne From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 17:06:44 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:06:44 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181197 Bex: Ron is referring to pure-blooded wizards (or wizards in general), and he is commenting on the notion of 'dirty blood.' So I think he means what he says here, too. Alla: To clarify, when I said that Ron meant Muggleborns, I did not quite mean that he misspoke, more like that it did not made a lot of sense to me, LOL. It did not make a lot of sense precisely because I do not see a lot of Muggle/ Wizard marriages. Oy no not even quite that, as Zara said there are muggle/wizard marriages in canon of course. I am clearly having trouble expressing myself today. What I am trying to say is that I do not see in canon wizards seeking out muggles, you know? Like there is not a huge possibility for them to meet, even though it exists. While it is easy to meet muggleborn witch or wizard. Does that make more sense or not really? Alla: > Oh, and Miss Pennyfeather? Too funny that. zgirnius: What, you approve of teachers mocking their students in class?! ;) Alla: Sticks a tongue. Seriously though I did not even realize that he was mocking I thought the funny part was that he did not remember the name. But even if he was mocking, yeah, I will give him a pass for doing it one time. Alla, who again realized that she made an unwilling little canon mistake in her other post about Marauders, but is not wasting post to correct herself and waiting till somebody else does that ;) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 17:15:27 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:15:27 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181198 CoS: > > > "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116 > > > > > > zgirnius: > > I believe he said what he meant. Muggleborns occur when two Muggles carrying genes for magic but not expressing them, genes they inherited from magical ancestors, pass those genes on to their kids in a way that causes them to be expressed. They would thus result from Muggle/wizard relationships, at some point in the past. (Or Squib/Muggle). Nor are Muggle/Wizard relationships THAT rare in canon: the Snapes, Finnegans, and Riddles were such married couples (and if we include website backstory, so was the relationship that produced Dean Thomas). > > Bex: > Ron is referring to pure-blooded wizards (or wizards in general), and he is commenting on the notion of 'dirty blood.' So I think he means what he says here, too. Carol responds: The problem, I think, is determining whether "we" means "pure-blood wizards" ir "Wizards in general" (with "Wizards being a generic term including both Witches and Warlocks). I seriously doubt that Ron know anything about genetics. (JKR doesn't know a lot herself; Pure=Blood Wizards would know even less, if anything at all. I think that Slughorns' use of the term "genes" is a Flint.) Also, I would say that the number of Muggle/Wizard marriages that we see (one marriage through trickery in Voldemort's generation; one in Snape's generation (was it a love match between two unattractive, unpopular people or an act of desperation?); two in Harry's (the Finnigans, in which the husband didn't know that his wife was a Witch until after the marriage, and the Thomases, which exists only in JKR's notes and is only hinted at in the books, in which the wife never even knew that her husband was a Wizard and Dean is regarded as a Muggle-born because he can't prove Wizarding ancestry) is quite low. (My apologies for the complicated sentence structure; my point is that we see one canonical Muggle/Wizard marriage per generation plus one uncanonical marriage in Harry's. Out of the hundred or so named characters, that's not many. In contrast, we have the Potters (till James married Lily), the Blacks, the Weasleys, the Malfoys, the (childless) Lestranges, the Crouches, the Macmillans, the Notts, the Zabinis, probably the Smiths, and perhaps others that I can't recall as Pure-blood families, At a guess, the majority of the Slytherins and the Death Eaters are Pure-bloods (Selwyn is, or Umbridge wouldn't crave that locket). The rest of that House and the DEs (except probably Wormtail) are Half-bloods, a small minority, are Half-bloods. In fact, we know of only two Half-bloods in all of Slytherin history, both powerful, talented, and ambitious Wizards, Tom Riddle and Severus Snape. Most of the Half-Bloods (and we don't know who counts as a Half-Blood--maybe anyone with a single Muggle grandparent) are in other Houses. Harry and Dumbledore are both Half-Bloods, but their "Muggle" parent is a Muggle-born. Wizards look at "blood," not genes. How Pure-bloods like Draco Malfoy would even hear of genes, educated at home and then at Hogwarts, where such things aren't taught, and isolated in the Slytherin dormitory outside school hours, is hard to imagine. About a quarter of the kids at Hogwarts are Muggle-born, IIRC a JKR interview correctly. (I think she planned it out that way for Harry's year, at least.) Offhand, I can think of Hermione, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Penelope Clearwater, probably Lavender Brown, and, in an earlier generation, Wormtail. All of this is to say that I think Muggle-Wizard marriages are extremely rare, and Ron knows nothing of genetics, so it's hard to understand why he would think that marrying Muggles had kept Wizards from dying out. He does say, IIRC, that most Wizards are Half-Bloods, but Half-Bloods can result from Pure-Bloods or other Half-Bloods marrying Muggle-borns. A Half-Blood marrying a Half-Blood would produce Half-Blood children since the children would have two Muggle (or "Muggle") grandparents. So whatever Ron *meant,* and whatever JKR thought he meant (really, I wonder how her mind works sometimes), Wizards were IMO kept from dying out by the existence of Muggle-borns to boost the population. (Of course, it would help if the Pure-bloods other than the poor, demented Gaunts emulated the Weasleys and had a lot of children instead of limiting themselves to one or two.) Pure-Bloods and Half-Bloods marrying Muggle-borns would be sufficient to keep the Wizarding population alive and healthy. We can speculate that Muggle-borns exist because long ago, before the Statute of Secrecy, Wizards and Muggles intermarried (despite little things like Witch-burning and mutual fear and loathing as illustrated by Salazar Slytherin's paranoia), but in the last three centuries, I'd say that the number of Wizard/Muggle marriages has played a small part indeed in keeping the Wizarding population in existence. In two of the four documented or semi-documented cases, the offspring (Snape and LV) didn't produce any children themselves. All this to say that, whatever Ron meant, and the "we" is ambiguous to begin with, most of the Muggle/Wizarding marriages that sustained the population must have occurred in the distant past. Thanks to the Statute of Secrecy and the limited interactions between Muggles and Wizards, not to mention the inconveniences for the husband or wife forced to live in a world of which he is not a part, Muggle/Wizard marriages in the era of the books are extremely rare, and not, if the Snapes and Riddles are any indication, generally successful. Carol, who thinks that once again, JKR has not thought through the implications of a statement that she puts in a character's mouth, assuming that we're supposed to regard Ron as authoritative here From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 17:25:20 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:25:20 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181199 > > zgirnius: > > I don't see the relevance of this response. Whether Snape did > things, > > or others did things, does not alter what was actually done, by > James > > and Sirius together, to Bertram Aubrey. Unless you are proposing > > Snape forged the record to which I refer? > > Alla: > How do we translate one hex into bullying ? Especially into > bullying pattern? I mean if we consider what was happening between > Marauders and Snape as special case of bullying or war and that > people in Hogwarts hex each other on pretty routine basis. Montavilla47: Well, it's one more hex than we see Snape doing in any of the memories (unless you want to count the flies). Plus, we have Harry getting that "regular jolt" as he recognizes the names of his father and godfather while working on the detention cards. I translate "regular jolt" as that approximately every X number of cards (5? 10? 20? Take your pick), Harry finds one with a Marauder name on it. Or two names. Or four. Now, mind you, not all the detentions are probably for hexing students. Some of them might be for arranging the suits of armor into rude positions, or putting someone's books at the top of a parapet, or writing "Binns Sucks!" on the blackboard before class. But it's likely that many of the card were based on hexing others, given, as you say, the routine hexing that seems to go on at Hogwarts. Again, if we're going to be strict about what we see on the page about the Marauders and Snape, at this point we have: Detention cards that indicate hexing of other students: James and Sirius: 1. Snape: 0. Alla: > Do you think Twins bullied those whom they gave canary creams? I > mean if for your bullying means hexing people with any hexes, then I > will readily agree that half Hogwarts are bullies to each other, but > I would think that something more serious under Hogwarts standard > should happen to make a parallel with bullying? > > And yes, Pensieve scene counts IMO. Montavilla47: I suppose we really ought to a working definition of what constitutes bullying. I don't think it can be limited to hexing. So, in the interests of common ground, I'd like to throw out a few guidelines... Two-on-one hexing: e.g., James and Sirius on Bertram; James and Sirius on Snape; Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle on Harry (although no one was hexed in that incident). Hexing a younger student (younger meaning from an earlier year): No one that I recall. Ginny hexes people older than she is. Fred and George try out their candies on people younger, but I don't think that's hexing. Hexing with no immediate provocation: James and Sirius on Snape. Ginny with Zacharias (on the train). Pranking: Sirius with Snape and Lupin. Fred and George with Dudley. Draco stealing Neville's remembrall. Fred and George jumping out at Ginny to scare her. Fred and George transfiguring Percy's badge so that its says "Huge Bighead" instead of "Head Boy." Fred and George sending Percy dragon dung in the mail. Namecalling: "Weasley is our King." "Idiot boy." "Our new... celebrity." "Potty" "Potter stinks." "Weatherby." Identify theft: The trio with Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode (attemped). Poisoning: The trio with Crabbe and Goyle, Snape with Trevor. Fred and George with Neville and Dudley. Whoever bet McLaggen that he could eat a pound of a doxy eggs. Property Theft: The Trio with Snape's stores. Draco with Neville's remembrall. Draco, Crabbe and Goyle with Harry's pasties (attempted). Luna's housemates with her various things. Spying: Snape with the Marauders (especially Lupin). Harry with Draco in CoS, and in HBP. I'm sure that I'm missing stuff. Anyone else want to add something to the list? > > zgirnius: > Or > > are you trying to simultaneously build a case against Snape? > > Alla: > > Yes, that's my point. I see Snape who could dished it out to > Marauders as much as he got. I just do not see how one can disregard > his behavior when evaluating what they did to him. I mean one can; I > am just saying that I cannot :) Montavilla47: Can you give textev for this Snape who dished it out to the Marauders as much as he got. Because, while I can gladly embrace such an idea, I don't think we can get there by direct evidence. The only "behavior" of Snape's towards the Marauders that we know about is: 1. He was contemptuous about Gryffindor as a house one would want to attend. (Namecalling, if "brawny" is an insult.) 2. He tried to get them in trouble by investigating under the Willow. 3. He sometimes hexed James in seventh year. Ooops. Forgot one. 4. He existed. > Alla: > > From the moment we see little Snape we see him DOING stuff. Like > killing flies ( I mean I was not sure for the longest time that it > was Snape myself, but there is no doubt now, right?), like moving > that tree and suddenly for five years he is just giving curses to > Slytherins and not using them? Sorry, I am not buying this picture > at all. And again, this is all because Lily criticized his friends > instead of him? Montavilla47: What we see little Snape doing (in book order, rather than chronologically): 1. Crying in the corner. 2. Watching Lily perform magic and telling her that she's magical. 3. Telling Lily about magic, getting mad at Petunia, and (perhaps accidently) causing a tree branch to fall on her. 4. Waiting for the train. 5. Talking to Lily on the train and speaking contemptuously about her muggle sister. Responding to comments by James. Getting tripped and insulted. 6. Getting sorted into Slytherin. 7. Trying to ride a bucking broomstick while an unidentified girl laughs at him. 8. Trying to convince Lily that Lupin is a werewolf, not denying that his housemate tried to do something "evil" to Mary, trying to keep Lily from becoming friends with James, expressing relief when she calls James a "toerag." 9. Getting hexed two-on-one by James and Sirius, calling Lily a "mudblood." 10. Trying to apologize to Lily for insulting her and being rebuffed. 11. Zapping insects with some kind of a spell. Added to that, we know that some time after 7, Severus was inventing hexes and a dark curse, and that he made notes about making potions that improved upon the standard text. > Montavilla47: > > > I'm surprised Snape made through school at all. > > > Alla: > > That sounds dramatic indeed. Snape may not have made it through > school? Montavilla47: Given the level of animosity we see James and Sirius show *in public* towards Snape, and the tactical advantages they had--advantages that allowed them to target him any time he was alone (the map) with the element of surprise (the cloak), yes, I think it is remarkable that the two worst things they did to him was a public humilation (just before an important exam) and an attempted werewolf mauling. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 18:19:06 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:19:06 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181200 Montavilla47: Again, if we're going to be strict about what we see on the page about the Marauders and Snape, at this point we have: Detention cards that indicate hexing of other students: James and Sirius: 1. Snape: 0. Alla: Yep, that we do in the detention boxes picked by Snape. I read the explanation upthread that it still supposed to be objective, but I did not quite get the reasoning. > Montavilla47: > I suppose we really ought to a working definition of what constitutes > bullying. I don't think it can be limited to hexing. So, in the interests > of common ground, I'd like to throw out a few guidelines... Alla: I snipped the examples, but I have a question, do you consider all of them bullying or not bullying? > Montavilla47: > Can you give textev for this Snape who dished it out to the > Marauders as much as he got. Because, while I can gladly > embrace such an idea, I don't think we can get there by > direct evidence. > > The only "behavior" of Snape's towards the Marauders that > we know about is: > > 1. He was contemptuous about Gryffindor as a house one > would want to attend. (Namecalling, if "brawny" is an insult.) > > 2. He tried to get them in trouble by investigating under the > Willow. > > 3. He sometimes hexed James in seventh year. > > Ooops. Forgot one. > > 4. He existed. > Alla: Oh, of course we do not have anything as dramatic to show that Snape could dish it out back to Marauders as we have Pensieve scene. But for me the circumstantial evidence are enough to conclude that he indeed could. The biggest piece of circumstantial evidence to me was not even the Sectusemptra, to me the biggest piece was the fact that as it turns out Snape was hit with Levicorpus in Pensieve scene. The hex of his own invention was turned back at him. To me it implies that while he was a victim in that scene, he certainly could have been an agressor before. IMO of course. And frankly I am not surprised that we do not have anything as dramatic piece of dirt on Snape in his youth as we have on Marauders in their dealings with each other. I cannot quite explain why I feel this way, it has to do with character's ambiguousness. No, I do not think that Snape was unresolved at the end, of course he was. I promise I will come back to this part later when I am able to explain it more clearly. There is another piece of circumstantial evidence to me is that Snape was hanging out with people who all ended up being DE. So, yeah, I assume that he was doing bad stuff with them and to other people too. I mean, if he did not end up being DE, I probably would not add this one, but he was AND we still do not know when he was being recruited. Since it is possible that Draco got the mark while in school ( I know it is not given but surely we agree that this is a possibility), I would think it is possible that he got the mark while in school as well. There is another piece of circumstantial evidence to me and this is Snape's dealings with Neville. To me it shows a bully in all his glory. And again, I am not even touching his dealings with Harry, because even though I find them despicable, you could tell me, oh he just bullied the kid because his father bullied him all the time. Not that I buy it as justification, but at least I can see it as he is not a bully all the time. Since we did not find out anything personal in Snape's dealings with Neville ( that he wanted him to be strong as second child of the prophecy or something like this), I conclude that Snape always had in him to bully people and I see no reason to think that he was different in school. Again, of course all circumstantial inference and not nearly as dramatic as the piece of dirt that we got on Marauders, but more than enough for me. Montavilla47: Given the level of animosity we see James and Sirius show *in public* towards Snape, and the tactical advantages they had--advantages that allowed them to target him any time he was alone (the map) with the element of surprise (the cloak), yes, I think it is remarkable that the two worst things they did to him was a public humilation (just before an important exam) and an attempted werewolf mauling. Alla: Maybe that shows that no matter how high the level of animosity was between them, Snape was NOT their only reason for living and they were not obsessed with monitoring his every step? ( And I know you did not said that he was their only reason for living, but the argument that it is surprising how he made it through school to me implies it) JMO, Alla From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 18:26:36 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:26:36 -0000 Subject: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181201 Carol earlier: > > My point, and I think I agree with Alla here, is that we shouldn't look at Severus as a poor little helpless victim. They attacked him two (or four) on one because if they attacked him individually and openly, he'd have given them a run for their money, or perhaps beaten them. > zgirnius responded: > My point is only, that I believe harassing him using the advantage of numbers is precisely what they did, and not just the one time in SWM. I'm having trouble understanding whether or not we agree on this point. > > Throughout your post, you choose, on a recurring basis, to preface the word 'victim' by words such as poor, weak, helpless, and innocent. Severus may have hexed people for fun on a regular basis, and gone around insulting Muggleborns with bloodist slurs. He may have been amazing with a wand. While he was doubtless poor he may not have been perceived as worthy of sympathy. But if it was a recurring event that he (as an individual) was attacked/harrassed by Marauders (plural, and as a unit) then he was a victim. > > The way I am using this word, corresponds to the definition I find in Merriam-Webster Online, namely, "one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent". The extent to which such an individual is weak, or helpless, or poor, or innocent, may determine how sympathetically, contemptuously, or gleefully others view him, but it does not change whether or not they were acted on and adversely affected by, agents. This is what I mean, when I say I believe Severus was a victim of the Marauders. Whether or not he liked the word, I think he realized he was acted on and adversely affected by those individuals. Carol again: Certainly, in the SWM incident, Severus is the victim of an unprovoked attack. He also claims, perhaps exaggeratedly, that James only dared to fight him "four on one" (in his fury, he's conveniently forgetting those one-on-ones where he hexed James at every opportunity and gave as good as he got). And he's certainly the victim of Sirius's trick in the so-called Prank. How many other similar incidents there were we don't know. As for his hypothetical hexing of people for fun, where's the evidence of that? We see no detentions for him, in contrast to many for James and Sirius, and Lily accuses James of hexing people in the hallways but says nothing of Severus doing anything similar. And they say nothing about his "bloodist" views, either, or even his ostensible use of Dark magic. They're only attacking him in this instance ("Look who it is!") because he's alone, off-guard, and has recently tried to get them in trouble by finding out what's happening in the Shrieking Shack (at Sirius's instigation--he could not have done it had Sirius not shown him how to get in). James's excuse for the unprovoked attack and public humiliation is "because he exists." (The threatened pantsing is for calling Lily a "Mud-Blood," but that term was not a provocation for the unprovoked attack.) So, yes, in this instance and possibly others, Severus is the victim of the bullying Gryffindors in the sense that he's at a disadvantage, outnumbered and caught off-guard, with no chance of winning a fight that he didn't start. My concern, though, is with the connotations of "victim." I've seen posts that imply that poor, skinny, nerdy little Severus couldn't defend himself, so he was picked on by the magically superior James and Sirius. I just want to make it clear that, IMO, this view is a misconception. Sure, the Marauders looked down on him from day one, tripping him and calling him Snivellus because he wanted to be in Slytherin. Sure, they considered him a "greasy little oddball" (who evidently had some sort of mentor/pridigy relationship with the older Lucius Malfoy that they construed as his being Malfoy's "lap dog"). But we're talking about a kid who came to school knowing more hexes and jinxes than half the seventh years, who invented his own clever spells (at least one of which became a fad), who had demonstrably quick reflexes, and who had already mastered nonverbal spells before they were taught (if the DADA curriculum was the same then as in Harry's time). All I'm saying is that we should not perceive Severus as some weakling who could not hold his own against James or Sirius or anyone else in the school in a fair fight. And for someone like that to be publicly humiliated, attacked two-on-one off-guard in front of the entire fifth-year class (or most of them) was infuriating. (Having a girl trying to rescue him pushed him past the limits of reason and common sense.) I am not denying that Sirius and especially James were bullies. (Even Sirius confesses that they were "arrogant little berks," which is putting it mildly.) The Bertram Aubrey incident and Lily's remark about James hexing people who annoyed him in the hallways, along with all those detentions, their behavior in SWM, and Black's remark to Wormtail about seeking the protection of the biggest bully on the playground makes that conclusion indisputable. Nor do I doubt their animosity toward Severus (though its basis is pretty shaky). I think that, just like the animosity between Harry and the adult Snape, it began with mutual suspicion and dislike and escalated out of control, with Severus out to prove himself the equal of MWPP, especially James (which he was, IMO, in intelligence, talent, and courage) and James and Sirius justifying their animosity and persistent attempts to hex him on the fact that he exists. Until sixth or seventh year, after the so-called Prank, the SWM, and the break with Lily, Severus seems to have "hexed James" (and only James) "at every opportunity." Before that, the bullying Gryffindors were probably the instigators. But I don't think that the SWM was a typical incident, or people would not have been standing around to watch with apprehension or amusement (depending on their House and their own standards of behavior or their personal feelings toward Severus and the boys who perceived themselves as "the height of cool" when in fact they were just clever and arrogant, one handsome and the other an athlete. I think it was Snape's worst memory not only because of the consequences of his "Mud-Blood" remark but because he was publicly humiliated with his own spell used against him. And I'm pretty sure that Sectumsempra, labeled "for enemies," was invented after that attack and as a result of it. (As I've argued before, that little cutting hex couldn't possibly be Sectumsempra.) At any rate, I can't imagine Severus burying his nose in his exam if such off-guard attacks were a regular occurrence. He'd be sure to hang out with his fellow Slytherins (including Avery and Mulciber, if they were in his year) after the exam and wait to study his exam until he was safely in the Gryffindor common room. Carol earlier: > > If they did make a habit of attacking him as a group, it could not > > have been because he was the sort of weakling that bullies like to > > pick on (cf. Mark Evans in OoP). > > zgirnius: > Real-life bullies pick their victims for any number of reasons. The huge heavyweight boxer type beating some skinny kid younger than > himself is certainly an instance, and probably the image that first > pops into the average brain upon hearing the word `bully', but it is > by no means the only situation. And I find that in HP, the issue is > dealt with in many of its various forms. Carol: They disliked Severus from the outset because he wanted to be in Slytherin and thought that it was the House for "brains." And they also regarded him, at least after the fact, as a "greasy little oddball up to his eyes in the Dark Arts," the last charge being not necessarily true given that Sectumsempra is the only Dark spell in the HBP's notes, the others being school-boy hexes and a useful Charm. I'm just saying that, skinny or not, nerdy or not, Severus was no ninety-pound weakling when it came to using a wand. In a fair fight, he was more than a match for James. So, even though he was victimized in the sense of being ganged up on at least once and tricked into entering the Shrieking Shack (yes, he suspected that a werewolf was in there, but he thought that if WPP could face him unscathed, so could he), but that doesn't mean that he was their favorite victim or that they routinely ganged up on him, Snape's furious exaggeration to the contrary. It just means that when they attacked him, probably not publicly thanks to the Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's Map (thanks to Montavilla, IIRC, for pointing that out), it was two, three, or four on one--by no means a fair fight. I'm saying that, being bullies, they would not have fought him unless they had at least a two-person advantage. But the idea that he was routinely publicly humiliated is, I think, not justifiable in canon. I wonder, BTW, when he learned Occlumency and Legilimency and when he developed the upright posture, inscrutable expression, intimidating stares, and dramatic gestures such as sweeping out of a room. How much of that was a desire to project a powerful presence that would deter anyone from attacking him unprovoked or two on one? I think that. Like hexing James at every opportunity, that new image was a response to the SWM. Maybe he also thought that if he appeared more powerful and intimidating, Lily would be more attracted to him. (What he didn't do, of course, was lose his interest in books, as we see from "Spinner's End" and his memorization of the Hogwarts textbooks, including his own notations to the lost HBP Potions book.) Carol, who doubts that anyone besides James and Sirius went around harassing Severus Snape, especially if they'd seen what he could do with a wand, and that few of the encounters between Severus and MWPP were as public as SWM From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Fri Feb 1 18:32:03 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:32:03 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181202 > Montavilla47: > Hexing a younger student (younger meaning from an earlier year): No one > that I recall. Ginny hexes people older than she is. Fred and George > try out their candies on people younger, but I don't think that's hexing. Magpie: Just to throw out one correction here, since you have doing things to younger people as a category I would say going after somebody younger than they are is pretty common for the Twins, whatever they happen to be doing. I would consider turning Neville into a canary or giving Dudley the tongue the equivalent of hexing because the result is pretty much the same. They hex Draco, Crabbe and Goyle along with the Trio in GoF and both try to physically attack Draco in OotP (Fred and Harry do beat him up, but George is held back by someone else), which seems like it would be the same type thing. Also one of them hexes Zach from behind, iirc, in the DA. Actually, when I think of moments where the victim's age is a factor it's almost always with regards to the designated bully characters-- Harry brings up Dudley going after Mark Evans, Hermione notes the Slytherins pushing ickle firsties out of the way in OotP. But if someone's done something to deserve a hexing or a beating, age doesn't matter. -m (who wouldn't consider everything here bullying, since context is often important...though of course some bullies use the context to their own advantage in bullying with the "can't you take a joke?" approach) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 18:44:50 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:44:50 -0000 Subject: PS/SS - chapters 2-5 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181203 Geoff wrote: > > > It takes more than sweeping the floor and putting down sawdust to make a room unrecognisable.... > zanooda responded: > Oh, absolutely, no doubt about that :-)! I just don't see the point of changing the description of something in the book if it doesn't serve some purpose, that's all. Unless you forgot how you described it the first time, LOL! BTW, I don't think Aberforth swept the floor - he just put sawdust on top of all this ancient dirt ... :-). Carol responds: Maybe Aberforth's house-keeping reflects medieval traditions. (Admittedly, his mother was a Muggle-born and probably didn't sprinkle the floors with sawdust, but Aberforth is a strange bloke and more a part of the old-fashioned WW in his eccentric way than any Muggle-born could ever be. Just as most Witches and Wizards wear robes that resemble Muggle clothing of the twelfth or thirteenth century (women's pointed hats were from the fifteenth century, IIRC), it's possible that some Wizards (those without House-Elves or a penchant for cleanliness) retain ancient house-keeping customs. In medieval castles (and probably homes and pubs as well), the floors were strewn with rushes. Bones and other table scraps were thrown onto the rushes and sank to the bottom, along with dog droppings and other refuse. Occasionally, the smelly old rushes were swept away, but the remains of old meals and other dirt remained. Here's a quote from a website on medieval castles: "In a ground-floor hall the floor was beaten earth, stone or plaster; when the hall was elevated to the upper story the floor was nearly always timber, supported either by a row of wooden pillars in the basement below . Carpets, although used on walls, tables, and benches, were not used as floor coverings in Britain and northwest Europe until the 14th century. Floors were strewn with rushes and in the later Middle Ages sometimes with herbs. The rushes were replaced at intervals and the floor swept, but Erasmus [1466-1536], noting a condition that must have been true in earlier times, observed that often under them lay "an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, excrement of dogs and cats and everything that is nasty." http://www.castlewales.com/life.html Maybe Aberforth liked living the old-fahioned way. Or maybe, he just wanted conditions that his goats would appreciate. You'd think he'd use hay or rushes rather than sawdust, though. Maybe the sawdust served the same purpose as cat litter and absorbed the odor. I'm pretty sure that the smell of goat urine would drive away even the most devoted patron. Carol, who has tried to keep this post canonical despite the outside source From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 19:17:10 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:17:10 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181204 Carol earlier: > > I agree with you that it's one teenage boy daring another to show he's not afraid and tempting him with bait he can't refuse. But *Sirius knows what's in there*--a fully grown werewolf who is not restrained in any way--and *he knows how to encounter the werewolf safely*, which Severus doesn't. > > Mike: > My answer is still the same. Sev knows he, along with the rest of the school, is suppose to stay away from the Willow. He knows what the Marauders are doing is wrong, and him doing it doesn't make it right. He highly suspects that Lupin is a werewolf and knows that Lupin is being secreted at the end of that tunnel. That he doesn't know how the Marauders are getting away with it, surviving a werewolf encounter, makes it even more ridiculous that he would attempt it anyway. Sirius tells him how to get past the Willow and *probably* taunts him. So what? Carol responds: I'm not saying that Sirius forced Severus to go down there. I'm saying that he offered him the means of endangering himself, which he could not have done otherwise because he didn't know how to get in, knowing that he would take the bait. Moreover, he was withholding key information--he and his friends could face the werewolf without being injured because they were Animagi. Severus, as James realized, could not do so without being bitten. I'm not saying that Severus was innocent. Of course, he broke curfew, and of course proving his theory and perhaps wanting to get MWPP into trouble was insufficient reason for going in there. He suspected that he'd see a werewolf and come out unscathed, just as the Marauders did. He's curious, he wants to prove himself right, and he thinks he's protected against danger. Sirius is taking advantage of those desires and beliefs, tempting him with an offer he can't refuse and withholoding key information. Do you really think that if Severus had known that WPP were Animagi and in no danger from the werewolf that he would have gone down there, having no such protection himself? Mike: > I'll give you my analogy. It's like one thief (Sirius) robbed a house and gave the house key he had to a second thief (Severus). The first thief knows the owner is in there with a shotgun. The second thief doesn't know that for sure, but suspects it. But the second thief figures if the first thief got away with it, he can too. The first thief failed to mention that he had previously ascertained that the owner was out of ammunition when he robbed the place. So, is it the first thief's fault if the second thief gets shot trying to rob the house? I doubt the authorities will look at it that way. Carol responds: Your thief analogy fails to take into account that the first thief is safe from the shotgun (let's make it a pistol, which is more likely to be a deadly weapon) is wearing a bullet-proof vest, which he doesn't bother to tell the second thief about. He not only has an advantage that enables him to face danger with impunity, he doesn't bother to tell the second thief this crucial bit of information. He tricks the second thief into endangering his life through pretending that they're on equal terms. Yes, Severus was wrong and stupid to act on the information that Sirius provided. He should have realized that Sirius was withholding key information and that he wanted something more than to get Severus in trouble. (He wanted to terrigy him, at the very least.) James, to his credit, realized that Severus didn't have that information or that protection, and saved his life. (He also saved Remus from an action that would have had terrible consequences for *him*. Sirius never gave *him* a thought.) Of the two, the one who provided information that would tempt the other was more at fault, just as Mephistopheles, the tempter, is more at fault than Faust, who submits to the temptation. Faust would not have fallen, and Severus would not have entered the Shrieking Shack and been endangered, if their tempters had not known their weaknesses and made offers that they couldn't refuse. Who is more at fault, the kid who offers another kid an illegal drug, tempting him by saying that he'll love the high it give him, or the kid who stupidly accepts the offer? Had it not been for the first kid, he would not have been in danger of becoming a drug addict. In short, deliberately enticing another person into danger is a worse offense than foolishly accepting the offer. Severus could have been killed or turned into a werewolf; Sirius, had that happened, would have certainly been expelled and perhaps sent to Azkaban. Remus would have been imprisoned or put to death, perhaps soul-sucked. Just a harmless Prank, and it's all Severus's fault for falling for it. Sorry, Mike. I can't agree with you on this one. it was only harmless because James iintervened (or got cold feet, if Snape is right). Had he not done so, the consequences for Severus, Remus, and Sirius himself would have been serious indeed--far more serious than the consequences for breaking curfew, which MWPP do every full-moon lit night, again with potentially deady consequences. Carol, noting that reckless endangerment is a crime and the gullibility of the victim is no excuse From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 19:36:17 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:36:17 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181205 zgirnius wrote: > Yes, in the one instance we see, he [Severus] definitely makes every effort to fight back. I was not proposing he took a Gandhi-esque approach to his problems with the Marauders. I was suggesting that unlike James in the time period in question, Severus, at least while he remained a friend of Lily's, did not go around hexing people in the hallways just because he could. > What he may have done or tried to do to Sirius or James, is a totally different story, and I was not trying to address it. My own guess is he certainly tried things. And sometimes they probably worked quite nicely. Carol responds: I agree with you that it wasn't about politics, that Severus had no qualms about fighting back even when he was outnumbered, and that Severus probably didn't go around hexing people in the corridors or Lily would have mentioned it and Harry would have seen his name mentioned in those boxes of detention files. But I'd like to comment on your last point, which is that he probably hexed MWPP either when they attacked him (probably not publicly) or when he could do so undetected. (Unfortunately for him, he didn't have an Invisibility Cloak and they had the Marauder's Map, so they'd know when he was following them around. But, as Mike pointed out, there's no place to try out new spells to see if they work, and I doubt that his roommates would have appreciated it if he tried out Langlock, the toenail hex, and Levicorpus on them. (Or maybe he did, and that's why they didn't come to his rescue in SWM. ;-) ) OTOH, if he tried out his invented hexes on the Marauders, "because he exists" (because he's a pest who tests his spells on us as well as a busybody and a Slytherin who likes Lily?) might have more meaning. Carol, happy to be talking about Snape again and just tossing out this idea to see what others think From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 20:34:13 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:34:13 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181206 Carol: < HUGE SNIP> Who is more at fault, the kid who offers another kid an illegal drug, tempting him by saying that he'll love the high it give him, or the kid who stupidly accepts the offer? Had it not been for the first kid, he would not have been in danger of becoming a drug addict. Alla: Except IMO here this second kid was DYING to try that drug for a long time if we continue with this analogy by looking into it, observing, spying, whatever. So, no I disagree that he would not have been in danger, I think he really wanted it. Carol: In short, deliberately enticing another person into danger is a worse offense than foolishly accepting the offer. Alla: My opinion that Snape had nobody to blame but himself for going there. Sirius was stupid and wanted him to go, sure, but he had no way IMO of knowing that Snape would go. Carol: Severus could have been killed or turned into a werewolf; Sirius, had that happened, would have certainly been expelled and perhaps sent to Azkaban. Remus would have been imprisoned or put to death, perhaps soul-sucked. Alla: That's all true of course. Carol: Just a harmless Prank, and it's all Severus's fault for falling for it. Sorry, Mike. I can't agree with you on this one. Alla: Harmless? Of course not. But is it all Severus' fault for falling for it? Oh YES my opinion only that it is his fault and nobody else's. Which of course does not exclude Sirius' responsibility for whatever he intended to happen to him and for not thinking of what may happen to Remus, but IMO it IS Snape's fault for going there definitely. Alla From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 21:16:38 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:16:38 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181207 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > Montavilla47: > > Again, if we're going to be strict about what we see on the > page about the Marauders and Snape, at this point we have: > > Detention cards that indicate hexing of other students: > > James and Sirius: 1. > Snape: 0. > > Alla: > > Yep, that we do in the detention boxes picked by Snape. I read the > explanation upthread that it still supposed to be objective, but I > did not quite get the reasoning. Montavilla47: Let me try, then. What may be confusing is the absurd why that Hogwarts is storing these files. They are filed by *date*, that is, either in the order that the offenses were committed, or in the order that the detentions were assigned. This isn't a very useful way of storing detention slips. Ideally, you would want them filed by student (so that you could track their behavior or by type of offense (to help in assigning consistent punishments). But no. Wizards store things by *date.* So, the boxes Snape chooses cannot only contain detentions assigned to James and Sirius (and Lupin and Pettigrew), but contain *all* detentions assigned to any student in Hogwarts during the time period Snape has chosen. Now, Snape isn't being entirely objective. He's choosing a specific starting box, and a specific ending one. For all we know, Snape could have been hexing people right and left in his first three years at school, and in his seventh year, and he's only having Harry only look at the fourth, fifth, and sixth years. But that's only speculation. What isn't speculation is that Snape is making Harry look at all the detentions assigned in the school during a specific time period, and that Harry sees proof that his father misbehaved with "regular jolt." In this context, the most obvious connatation of "regular" is that he sees James's name every X number of cards. That X number is probably between 5 and 20 cards. But again, that's only a guess. If you want to put it at 50 or 100 cards,I wouldn't object. The main point is that it's more than *once.* > > Montavilla47: > > I suppose we really ought to a working definition of what > constitutes > > bullying. I don't think it can be limited to hexing. So, in the > interests > > of common ground, I'd like to throw out a few guidelines... > > > Alla: > > I snipped the examples, but I have a question, do you consider all > of them bullying or not bullying? Montavilla47: Not really. I consider all the categories valid. I wouldn't consider all of the examples given as bullying. But I think they could all be considered bullying. For example, I think giving Neville a canary cream or the first year students beta-pustilles is questionable as bullying. Also, is it bullying to spy on Draco if he doesn't know that you're doing it? Is it necessary to have the victim *know* that he's being harassed in order for it to qualify as bullying? > Alla: > > Oh, of course we do not have anything as dramatic to show that Snape > could dish it out back to Marauders as we have Pensieve scene. But > for me the circumstantial evidence are enough to conclude that he > indeed could. Montavilla47: I can definitely agree with you (and, in fact, I do). But what I don't really understand is why you're eager to go with "circumstantial evidence" when it comes to Snape misbehaving, but demand direct evidence in the case of James and/or Sirius? We have plenty of circumstantial evidence about James and Sirius bullying Snape and other students on occasions other than SWM and the Prank. Why deny that evidence? Alla: > The biggest piece of circumstantial evidence to me was not even the > Sectusemptra, to me the biggest piece was the fact that as it turns > out Snape was hit with Levicorpus in Pensieve scene. The hex of his > own invention was turned back at him. To me it implies that while he > was a victim in that scene, he certainly could have been an agressor > before. IMO of course. Montavilla47: He certainly could have. Or he might not have. But it's not any more implied than the "apprehensive" looks from the students being due to fear of becoming victims of James and Sirius if they stick up for Snape in SWM. Alla: > And frankly I am not surprised that we do not have anything as > dramatic piece of dirt on Snape in his youth as we have on Marauders > in their dealings with each other. I cannot quite explain why I feel > this way, it has to do with character's ambiguousness. No, I do not > think that Snape was unresolved at the end, of course he was. I > promise I will come back to this part later when I am able to > explain it more clearly. Montavilla47: Not to hand you weapons, but I think it could very well be that be because we're always looking at Snape's memories. JKR was very emphatic that Pensieve memories are always objective, but when you are choosing a memory, it means that you get to chose what's being seen. So, if Snape does have a memory of himself beating the pants off James, he's choosing not to show it anyone. However, what he *can't* do, according to all the rules we know about Pensieves, is create a memory or change SWM so that his gang doesn't show up to duke it out with the Marauders when they actually did. Alla: > There is another piece of circumstantial evidence to me is that > Snape was hanging out with people who all ended up being DE. So, > yeah, I assume that he was doing bad stuff with them and to other > people too. Montavilla47: By this logic, then Lupin was a bully, too. After all, he hung with bullies, right? Oh, and he eats people, too, since in HBP, he's hanging out with werewolves who do. I'm snipping the parts about his possibly being a DE in school and picking on Neville, because I agree with both your points here. I think it's possible that Snape was recruited in school, although I don't find it likely. Alla: > Since we did not find out anything personal in Snape's dealings with > Neville ( that he wanted him to be strong as second child of the > prophecy or something like this), I conclude that Snape always had > in him to bully people and I see no reason to think that he was > different in school. Montavilla47: I do. Just because someone has it in them to do something, doesn't mean that they do it. Everyone has a certain amount of self-control. > Montavilla47: > Given the level of animosity we see James and Sirius show *in public* > towards Snape, and the tactical advantages they had--advantages > that allowed them to target him any time he was alone (the map) with > the element of surprise (the cloak), yes, I think it is remarkable > that > the two worst things they did to him was a public humilation (just > before an important exam) and an attempted werewolf mauling. > > Alla: > Maybe that shows that no matter how high the level of animosity was > between them, Snape was NOT their only reason for living and they > were not obsessed with monitoring his every step? ( And I know you > did not said that he was their only reason for living, but the > argument that it is surprising how he made it through school to me > implies it) Montavilla47: Quite possible. They did have other things to do, after all. James had Quidditch and he was more likely to use that Map to look at Lily's dot than at Snape's. Sirius was busy despising his family, buying muggle girly mags, and fixing that magical motorcycle. I can't help thinking, though, that Snape was at a serious disadvantage in that whole "sneaking around after them," since they had only to look at their map to see his dot bobbing after them, darting behind statues, and so on.... > Montavilla47: > Hexing a younger student (younger meaning from an earlier year): No one > that I recall. Ginny hexes people older than she is. Fred and George > try out their candies on people younger, but I don't think that's hexing. >Magpie: >Just to throw out one correction here, since you have doing things >to younger people as a category I would say going after somebody >younger than they are is pretty common for the Twins, whatever they >happen to be doing. I would consider turning Neville into a canary >or giving Dudley the tongue the equivalent of hexing because the >result is pretty much the same. They hex Draco, Crabbe and Goyle >along with the Trio in GoF and both try to physically attack Draco >in OotP (Fred and Harry do beat him up, but George is held back by >someone else), which seems like it would be the same type thing. >Also one of them hexes Zach from behind, iirc, in the DA. Montavilla47: Thanks, Magpie. I had put that in because it's such a common school bully trope, but I blanked on the incidents you mentioned. I also blanked on Draco taunting Ginny in CoS, which seems like it ought be on the list somewhere. Perhaps "picking on younger kids" would be a better category than "hexing younger kids." > Magpie: >Actually, when I think of moments where the victim's age is a factor >it's almost always with regards to the designated bully characters-- >Harry brings up Dudley going after Mark Evans, Hermione notes the >Slytherins pushing ickle firsties out of the way in OotP. But if >someone's done something to deserve a hexing or a beating, age >doesn't matter. Montavilla47: Unless you count Ron stealing a fanged frisbee from a firstie or pushing one out of a chair. From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Fri Feb 1 19:00:46 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:00:46 -0000 Subject: Petunia's attitude Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181208 Do you think that part of Petunia's attitude to Harry was jealousy of her sister going to Hogwarts and then anything to do with Lily? She, as we learn in DH, wanted and tried to get in to Hogwarts. I also think she knows a lot more about Magic and Voldemort than what she lets on. Jayne From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 23:53:49 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:53:49 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181209 I must say I forgot how FUNNY this chapter is. "Ginny Weasley, who sat next to Colin Creevey in Charms, was distraught, but Harry felt that Fred and George were going the wrong way about cheering her up" - p.185 Alla: I cannot believe that I had any doubt about Harry and Ginny ending up together. Look, Harry already thinks he knows how to cheer her up the RIGHT way. Awwwwww. :) "Harry privately felt he'd rather face Slytherin's legendary monster than let Snape catch him robbing his office" - p.186 Alla: Wait a second again. Isn't it exactly what happened? I mean Snape may have gotten a glimpse of Harry through legilimency but he did not catch Harry and Harry did face a little snakey as we all know. Too funny - Harry as mini Trelawney. "Silence! SILENCE!" Snape roared. "Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draft - when I find out who did this---" - p.187 Alla: Hmmmmm, I guess Snape does give a d*mn sometimes about his students' physical injuries at least. Curious. ;) "Someone told me that Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was young - maybe it'll be him" - p.189 Alla: I do wonder if Fillius taught Snape some tricks of the trade - just enough for Snape to knock him out in HBP? :) "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin" - p.189. Alla: Uhu, tiny bit Gilderoy dear. "Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted of his feet; He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid it down to sprawl on the floor" - p.190 Alla: Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many significant situations as we know now. Scarlet light? Gryffindor color? "Harry wasn't sure what made him do it. He wasn't even aware of deciding to do it. All he knew was that his legs were carrying him forward as though he was on casters and he had shouted stupidly at the snake, "Leave him alone!" - p.194 Alla: Harry wasn't sure what made him do it? Was he briefly possessed by soul piece here them? Blinks. On the other hand, he is attempting to do a good deed here, would have Tommy wanted to? "Could he be a descendant of Salasar Slytherin? He didn't know anything about his father's family after all. The Dursleys had always forbidden questions about his wizarding relatives" - p.197 Alla: She does make sure to remind us how deeply Dursleys put in Harry's head - not to ask questions theme, doesn't she. Every time I get frustrated with Harry not to asking questions, I try to remember that :) Alla From angellima at xtra.co.nz Fri Feb 1 23:52:40 2008 From: angellima at xtra.co.nz (Angel Lima) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:52:40 +1300 Subject: Whom did Dumbledore torture and kill? Message-ID: <003201c8652d$87f5b660$a164a8c0@ezybuycar.local> No: HPFGUIDX 181210 Alla: Thanks. That's one broad definition of murder though in my opinion. I am pretty sure that if you ask Dumbledore himself he would agree that he is partially responsible for the deaths of people you mentioned. By the way, by this definition I take it you believe that Snape is also responsible for the deaths of Potters? Angel: Absolutely! I blame Snape for the death of the Potters as much as I laud him for "creating" Harry Potter, the boy who lived. Acceptance is part of healing, which I am sure is why Dumbledore admitted to his role in Sirius' death, hence no need for me to ask what I already know Alla: But I can only assign him some percentage of liability here and not very high. Angel: However little you perceive Snape's role in the death of the Potters, does not negate the fact, he gave Voldemort a reason to hunt them specifically, neither does Dumbledore's intentions negate his culpability in the deaths of the people I had named. Alla: I am especially wondering how you make Dumbledore responsible for the death of Grindelwald ( or is Gryndel somebody else I do not remember?) I am sorry, I am really not sure here. Angel: No Gryndel is Grindelward, it's just terribly hard for me to write these big names for characters that are clearly so comically dimwitted. And you are quite right again in the fact that Dumbledore did not hit Gryndel with an avada kedavra. I apportioned part of the blame for Gryndel's death on Dumbledore because Gryndel did not have the Eldar wand and according to Dumbledore - never did! Yet the images Harry and Voldemort saw had Gryndel stealing the Eldar wand, which undoubtedly led to Voldemort seeking Gryndel and metaphorically it was a photograph with Dumbledore that identified Gryndel, in the end. Alla: Moody and Sirius, sure, I would give Dumbledore some part of blame, but I still doubt that he wanted them to die. Angel: Perhaps you misunderstand me! Intentions had little to do with my original post, but the fact remains that Dumbledore's meddling, cold and risky calculations led to these people's deaths. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From angellima at xtra.co.nz Sat Feb 2 00:14:09 2008 From: angellima at xtra.co.nz (Angel Lima) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 13:14:09 +1300 Subject: Whom did Dumbledore torture and kill? Message-ID: <004f01c86530$88352900$a164a8c0@ezybuycar.local> No: HPFGUIDX 181211 Carol responds: Oh, those ambiguous pronouns. I have the same problem. And, BTW, I did think you meant Snape. However, I think we should assign Wormtail, who betrayed the Potters to their deaths, a share of the blame at least equal to Snape's, especially since Snape regretted revealing the Prophecy because it endangered Lily and went to Dumbledore for help, vowing to do "anything" to protect not only Lily but her hated husband and her child. So we have Voldemort as actual murderer, who surely should get at least 50 percent of the blame; Wormtail as betrayer, without whose revealing of the secret Voldemort could not have committed the murder getting maybe 25 percent; Snape, whose revelation of the Prophecy caused Voldemort to want to thwart it at maybe 20 percent; with Sirius's brilliant idea to switch Secret Keepers getting maybe 5 percent of the blame. True, he didn't intend any harm--quite the opposite--but Wormtail's betrayal could not have happened without the SK switch. Where DD fits into the picture, I'm not sure, unless it's borrowing and not returning the Invisibility Cloak. He did, after all, suggest the Fidelius Charm and offer himself as SK, and if the Potters had accepted his offer, Voldemort would have been thwarted. (And there would have been no Chosen One and no story, but that's beside the point). Carol, not expecting anyone to accept her percentages but thinking it's important to include Wormtail in the list of people to be blamed (and wondering why DD is being included in the list) Angel: Bwaaaaaaah! I am now confused myself Carol I don't think anyone said Dumbledore was responsible for the deaths of James and Lily Potter, at least I did not unless I stumbled on some English synonym for Lily and James previously unacknowledged on my part :D I do however see him responsible even if only at 5% by your reasoning, for the deaths of others :). Aside from that, your reasoning reads logically but I tend to think it more difficult than that. For example I would split Snape and Voldemort at 50% each. Reason: Voldemort did the actual killing and Snape provided him with a target. Snape PROVIDED Voldemort aka assasin with an END, a reason, an aim etc!!! Which counts for at least 50% in my book as intention is almost everything. Snape started the ball rolling whereas Voldemort was previously happy to kill almost at random Wormtail, however despicable, was only one of the means to the end that Snape provided and Voldemort accomplished er failed to accomplish. In other words Wormtail would never have proved the rat he was if Snape had not first set the trail of dominoes rolling, which to my utterly scrambled white matter, means Snape is still far more responsible for the deaths of the Potters (J&L) than spineless Wormtail. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 2 03:57:12 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:57:12 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181212 Alla quoted: Everything Harry had learned last year seemed > to have leaked out of his head during the summer. Potioncat: Oh, that reminds me of Snape leaking memories in DH. Alla quoting: > > "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116> >Alla: > Not that I really wish to get into that famous introduction about > Mudbloods, etc, but did he not meant to say muggle- borns here? Potioncat: But to Purebloods, Muggleborn is Muggle. This is the culture Ron lives in. His family may be bloodtraitors, but some of the same views may exist side by side with less purist ones. Besides, if a Pureblood marries a Muggle-born, he marries into a Muggle family. Ron's kids are (will be) half-bloods. > >Alla quoting: > "Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light > blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. > > Innocent till proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly" - p.144 > Potioncat: I think that Snape is learning Legilimency and this is a practical exercise. He and DD are both Legilimencing Harry's mind. Snape is reporting what he sees. Besides, part of the lesson is for Snape to remember the limits of what he can do with the information. > Alla quoting Binns: > "Just because a wizard doesn't use Dark Magic doesn't mean he can't > Miss Pennyfeather," snapped Professor Binns." I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore-" - p.152 > > > Alla: . Another hint > that DD may have used them in the past? Or maybe it refers not only > to Dumbledore? Oh, and Miss Pennyfeather? Too funny that. Potioncat: It goes along with Minerva's "you're too noble..." and again foreshadows Harry's need to choose later whether or not to use Dark Magic. Binns mis-names almost all his students. I've always thought he was calling them by earlier students who had similar names. I thought it would turn out to mean something, but it never did. I think he called Harry "Perkins". From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 2 04:15:08 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:15:08 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181213 > Alla: > > Wait a second again. Isn't it exactly what happened? I mean Snape > may have gotten a glimpse of Harry through legilimency but he did > not catch Harry and Harry did face a little snakey as we all know. > Too funny - Harry as mini Trelawney. Potioncat: In one of the books a line something like, "and Snape was as likely to adopt Harry as..." That line inspired thousands of fanfics! lol. > > Alla: > > Hmmmmm, I guess Snape does give a d*mn sometimes about his students' > physical injuries at least. Curious. ;) Potioncat: It's just what Carol and I are always saying. ;-) > > Alla: > > I do wonder if Fillius taught Snape some tricks of the trade - just > enough for Snape to knock him out in HBP? :) Potioncat: There's a theory that this is nothing but rumor, and Flitwick canoot duel. Sort of a protective lie. Snape and even McGonagall seem to be keeping him safe. I cannot remember what role Flitwick plays in DH, except to charm the castle itself. > > Alla: > > Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many > significant situations as we know now. Scarlet light? Gryffindor > color? Potioncat: Just what Carol and I have always said. From kaleeyj at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 04:19:43 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:19:43 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181214 Cos: > "Ginny Weasley, who sat next to Colin Creevey in Charms, was > distraught, but Harry felt that Fred and George were going the wrong > way about cheering her up" - p.185 > > Alla: > > I cannot believe that I had any doubt about Harry and Ginny ending > up together. Look, Harry already thinks he knows how to cheer her up > the RIGHT way. Awwwwww. :) Bex: I suppose the boys asked Ginny what was bothering her so much - I hope so, anyway. Percy gets a few moments in Books 2 & 3 especially that show his "older brother" side - the side that looks out for the youngest siblings. I like that. Granted, choking Pepper-Up potion down Ginny's throat (somewhere in this book) is not the solution, but he's trying. Cos: > "Harry privately felt he'd rather face Slytherin's legendary monster > than let Snape catch him robbing his office" - p.186 > > Alla: > > Wait a second again. Isn't it exactly what happened? I mean Snape > may have gotten a glimpse of Harry through legilimency but he did > not catch Harry and Harry did face a little snakey as we all know. > Too funny - Harry as mini Trelawney. Bex: He gets a few of those in the series - Ron gets a few too. They make a joke that turns out to be true, or similar. She likes to tease us. CoS: > "Silence! SILENCE!" Snape roared. "Anyone who has been splashed, > come here for a Deflating Draft - when I find out who did this---" > - p.187 > > Alla: > > Hmmmmm, I guess Snape does give a d*mn sometimes about his students' > physical injuries at least. Curious. ;) Bex: Possibly due to the fact that the injuries are spread over half the class - or possibly due to the fact that it's a potion, which he has the cure for. Even if he sent them to the Hospital wing, Poppy would probably have to send for him for the Deflating Draft - he could just be saving some time here - but yes, he is showing some kind of concern. Plus, the swelling continues the longer they wait - Malfoy's neck would have broken with the weight of his nose by them. ;) Cos: > "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and > has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before > we begin" - p.189. > > > Alla: > > Uhu, tiny bit Gilderoy dear. Bex: Sportingly agreed? Snape would rather be in Diagon Alley in Grandma Longbottom's Sunday dress clothes than be there. It's written all over his face. I was hoping Snape would have done a little more than *just* disarm Gilderoy - maybe as he was leaving, charm his gigantic head to be magnetically attracted to the walls. "Professor Lockhart, I'm sure that you can manage the counterspell to this little number, yes?" ZAP!!!!! I'm giggling like mad now. And "you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him"? I can hear the collective groan form 3/4 of the student body after that statement. :) Cos: > "Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them > at their opponent; Snape cried: "Expelliarmus!" There was a dazzling > flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted of his feet; He flew > backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid it down to > sprawl on the floor" - p.190 > > Alla: > > Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many > significant situations as we know now. Scarlet light? Gryffindor > color? Bex: Convenient that Harry forgets who first showed him that spell, yes? Cos: > "Harry wasn't sure what made him do it. He wasn't even aware of > deciding to do it. All he knew was that his legs were carrying him > forward as though he was on casters and he had shouted stupidly at > the snake, "Leave him alone!" - p.194 > > > Alla: > > Harry wasn't sure what made him do it? Was he briefly possessed by > soul piece here them? Blinks. On the other hand, he is attempting > to do a good deed here, would have Tommy wanted to? Bex: We see multiple examples in CoS where Harry just *knows* what to do - the Diary (later on) is another example. I think it's the soul piece (and the powers linked to it) acting in tandem with Harry's own magical ability, giving him a little more gut instinct than he'd normally have. Hard to say how that works, though. The soul bit says "hey, it's a snake, I wanna talk to him" at the same time that Harry tries to get the snake away from Justin, and the result is that Harry speaks to the snake, saying "Leave him alone!" That's the best way I can explain it. After DH, could Harry communicate with in Parseltongue still? I'd like to ask Jo. (And I'd like to have that power... never mind.) CoS: > "Could he be a descendant of Salasar Slytherin? He didn't know > anything about his father's family after all. The Dursleys had > always forbidden questions about his wizarding relatives" - p.197 > > > Alla: > > She does make sure to remind us how deeply Dursleys put in Harry's > head - not to ask questions theme, doesn't she. Every time I get > frustrated with Harry not to asking questions, I try to remember > that :) Bex: More of that adult mistrust going on. Clearly, that part of Harry's "saving people thing" was a part of him from the time he can remember. Question: would the Dursleys even know *anything* about the Potter clan? (Which is much smller than the group in the mirror in PS/SS, I believe.) Petunia might have met James' parents at one time or another, but James' parents were dead by the time they were married, and he didn't have any siblings. And odds are that after the first meeting or so, James wasn't anymore keen on discussing his family heritage than Petunia was keen on listening to it. Methinks this is a FLINT. Bex (who has spent the day battling Printers, computers, and servers, only to come home and wage war on a counter full of dirty dishes) From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 05:14:11 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:14:11 -0000 Subject: Whom did Dumbledore torture and kill? In-Reply-To: <003201c8652d$87f5b660$a164a8c0@ezybuycar.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181215 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Angel Lima" wrote: > I apportioned part of the blame for Gryndel's death on Dumbledore > because Gryndel did not have the Eldar wand and according to > Dumbledore - never did! OK, I didn't get this part :-). Why do you think Grindelwald never had the Elder wand? Or did you mean something else? GG had the wand from the moment he stole it from Gregorovitch and until Dumbledore took it from him after winning the duel, right? Grindelwald told LV that he never had it, but it was a lie, wasn't it? Sorry if I misunderstood you, but I agree with Alla - there is no way DD can be blamed for GG's death. zanooda, very puzzled ... From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 2 05:18:13 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:18:13 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies (WAS: student!Snape keeping Lupin's ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181216 > > Alla: >Alla: > From the moment we see little Snape we see him DOING stuff. Like > killing flies ( I mean I was not sure for the longest time that it > was Snape myself, but there is no doubt now, right?), like moving > that tree and suddenly for five years he is just giving curses to > Slytherins and not using them? Sorry, I am not buying this picture > at all. And again, this is all because Lily criticized his friends > instead of him? Potioncat: I think the tree limb was accidental magic. Sort of like some of the things that Harry did before he went to Hogwarts. It wasn't Little Snape killing flies, it was teen Snape. And to quote a line from "Toy Story" That ain't no happy kid." That always seemed such a sad image to me, and I think it's likely post-Lily-Snape, home for the summer, missing the friendship he had with her. JMHO > From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 05:24:52 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:24:52 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181217 > Alla quoted: > Everything Harry had learned last year seemed > to have leaked out of his head during the summer. > > Potioncat: > Oh, that reminds me of Snape leaking memories in DH. Mike: Funny, in that second scene I pictured Snape leaking from somewhere else the whole time he's responding to Voldemort with all his different "My Lord-s". Of course that Depends on your point of view. ;) > > Alla quoting: > > "If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" - p.116 > > > > Alla: > > Not that I really wish to get into that famous introduction about > > Mudbloods, etc, but did he not meant to say muggle- borns here? > > Potioncat: > But to Purebloods, Muggleborn is Muggle. This is the culture Ron > lives in. His family may be bloodtraitors, but some of the same > views may exist side by side with less purist ones. Mike: To a pure-blood*ist* Muggleborn is the same as Muggle. Ron's not a pure-blood elitist, so he does make the distinction. That said, in this context I don't think it matters. I think Ron's point is that the WW couldn't afford to shun either Muggles or Muggleborns and survive as a race. It points to both the dilution and the dispersion of the wizarding race and/or gene. > > Alla quoting: > > "Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling > > light blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. > > > > 'Innocent till proven guilty,' Severus, 'he said firmly'" -p.144 > > > Potioncat: > I think that Snape is learning Legilimency and this is a practical > exercise. He and DD are both Legilimencing Harry's mind. Snape is > reporting what he sees. Besides, part of the lesson is for Snape > to remember the limits of what he can do with the information. Mike: Oh, well spotted PC! I had never thought of that angle. Now that you've clued me in, I wonder if Dumbledore tries to break through Snape's Occlumency just prior to this, to see if Snape can keep his guard up while he's attempting to Legilimence Harry. > Potioncat: > It goes along with Minerva's "you're too noble..." and again > foreshadows Harry's need to choose later whether or not to use > Dark Magic. Mike: Yeah, I was the same. I immediately flashed to Minerva's comment after Binns said this. I kept waiting for Albus to use one of those not so noble spells, especially against Tom himself in the MoM. But if he ever did use them, it was far back in his past, I guess. > Potioncat: > Binns mis-names almost all his students. I've always thought he > was calling them by earlier students who had similar names. I > thought it would turn out to mean something, but it never did. > I think he called Harry "Perkins". Mike: Heh, so Binns mistakes Harry for Arthur's arthritic co-worker! -------- I think I found another FLINT, in Ch 10, that would be critical to the DH action. Harry's in the hospital after the de-boning. "Dobby must go!" breathed the elf, terrified. There was a loud crack, and Harry's fist was suddenly clenched on thin air." - p.179 Harry was holding onto Dobby's arm. So, why didn't Harry side-along apparate with Dobby? That's how Kreacher dragged Dung back. And that's how Dobby got all of them out of Malfoy Manor. Hmmm. Mike From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 05:52:52 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:52:52 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181218 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Bex" wrote: > > Alla: > > Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many > > significant situations as we know now. > Bex: > Convenient that Harry forgets who first showed him that spell, yes? zanooda: He didn't forget. When he disarms Lockhart later in the book, he says: "Shouldn't have let Professor Snape teach us that one". I always loved that Harry even calls Snape "professor" on this occasion :-). So he remembers, at least in CoS. > Bex: > After DH, could Harry communicate in Parseltongue still? I'd like > to ask Jo. zanooda: You know, there was a question about this on that Web chat last July. The question was: "Can harry speak parseltongue when he is no longer a horcrux?" She answered: "No, he loses the ability, and is very glad to do so". There is a transcript in Leaky archives, I would give you the link, but they don't work. From cassandra.wladyslava at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 05:59:39 2008 From: cassandra.wladyslava at gmail.com (Cassandra Wladyslava) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:59:39 -0500 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181219 Carol responds: The problem, I think, is determining whether "we" means "pure-blood wizards" ir "Wizards in general" (with "Wizards being a generic term including both Witches and Warlocks). Cassie: I've always took it to be "Wizards in general", but now don't know. Certainly he couldn't have meant "pure-bloods" because once a wizard/witch marries a muggle and they have children the line won't be pure anymore. But even if purebloods always married purebloods...there's still the muggles who have children with the "magic gene"...so I can't imagine "Wizards in general" dying out even if all the purebloods and halfbloods and even other muggleborn wizards all decided to be celibate for some reason. Eventually a muggle family would produce another witch/wizard. If magic is genetic...I couldn't see it being selected out. On the subject of blood discrimination...I've always thought it to be akin to white supremacy. You and your children are automatically "lesser beings" if you marry/have children with someone from a different race. And then there's also the correlation of muggles "stealing" magic to non-white races trying to "destroy" the white race...and the only solution being sterilization or execution. Just thinking outloud. I saw a show on the KKK and "Neo Nazis" and those kinds of groups and it made me think of it. I also seem to recall reading something about how royal families married within the family (cousins, at least) in order to keep the line "pure". Carol: I seriously doubt that Ron know anything about genetics. (JKR doesn't know a lot herself; Pure=Blood Wizards would know even less, if anything at all. I think that Slughorns' use of the term "genes" is a Flint.) Cassie: I don't think the term "genes" necessarily has a scientic denotation here. I think it's more about ansestry. Just a guess. Carol: Also, I would say that the number of Muggle/Wizard marriages that we see (one marriage through trickery in Voldemort's generation; one in Snape's generation (was it a love match between two unattractive, unpopular people or an act of desperation?); two in Harry's (the Finnigans, in which the husband didn't know that his wife was a Witch until after the marriage, and the Thomases, which exists only in JKR's notes and is only hinted at in the books, in which the wife never even knew that her husband was a Wizard and Dean is regarded as a Muggle-born because he can't prove Wizarding ancestry) is quite low. Cassie: You're forgetting about Andromeda and Ted Tonks ^^ Carol: and we don't know who counts as a Half-Blood--maybe anyone with a single Muggle grandparent Cassie: Just wanted to comment on this little bit here. I reminded of a quote by Marvolo Gaunt: "Generations of purebloods, wizards all -" (HBP pg. 208). I think, at least in the "pureblood supremesist's" mind, one bad apple spoils the bunch. That's why so many purebloods who marry non-purebloods are disowned/cut off from the line. The Black line is still considered pureblood even though some of the descendants (Andromeda again comes to mind) have married muggles. Even in the case of the Gaunts there may've been a marriage to a muggle that was seen as disgraceful or traitorous to the line and was erased from history. Perhaps Mrs. Slytherin had her own family tree with a few scroch marks that ended up being destroyed... ~Cassie~ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 2 08:36:10 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:36:10 -0000 Subject: Whom did Dumbledore torture and kill? In-Reply-To: <004f01c86530$88352900$a164a8c0@ezybuycar.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181220 > Carol, not expecting anyone to accept her percentages but > thinking it's important to include Wormtail in the list > of people to be blamed (and wondering why DD is being > included in the list) You can include DD in the list I think because he knew Snape had heard the prophesy and he (DD) did not stop him telling Voldemort therefore this led to James and Lily's death and the attempted murder of Harry Jayne From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 2 15:31:07 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:31:07 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181221 > > Mike: > Heh, so Binns mistakes Harry for Arthur's arthritic co-worker! Potioncat: I was so sure that the names he was using would turn up to be important, or that he had died because of something Riddle did. Nope. But here's a new revelation. After the all these years....the school has an old dead guy teaching the kids about dead guys of old. I got the "Binns/bins" once I was clued into bins for trash cans, but I never made the other connection. I don't think JKR cared much for history. >Mike: snip > > Harry was holding onto Dobby's arm. So, why didn't Harry side-along > apparate with Dobby? That's how Kreacher dragged Dung back. And > that's how Dobby got all of them out of Malfoy Manor. Hmmm. Potioncat: I'm not so sure it's a Flint. I think the plot hole fixer would work very well here. See, it's all about intention. Kreacher could bring an unwilling Dung, Dobby can leave Harry. Perhaps it's Elf magic; or perhaps a more experienced Hermione could have eluded WhatsHisName. Potioncat, who cannot remember the 3Ds of Apparation-----oh, there's another one! The 3Ds. (Never caught that before.) Destination, determination and...defibrilation? From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 16:26:27 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:26:27 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius: ringleaders (was Re: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181222 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > Potioncat: > > What I don't understand is why JKR made her future heroes > schoolyard > > bullies. And why she turns it all upside down by having Lily say > that > > what they do is not as bad as what someone else is doing. zgirnius: I did not find that what we saw of Lily made her opinion authoritative. That scene did not overturn anything for me. In fact, it was the next scene that convinced me Rowling did not intend to overturn anything, when I realized the prank preceded the worst memory. It's not that I think Lily is a poor judge of character, it is that she makes her judgment without, evidently, having much idea what James and his mates had been getting up to. So I'm left with, "Mulciber is evil" as a statement I do accept, but the implied comparison, I reject. I have my doubts that Mulciber got up to something that had a decent likelihood of resulting in Mary's death if it had succeeded. Whereas at least two characters assert that what Sirius, James's mate, had got up to and Snape complained of in that scene, could easily have resulted in Snape's death. > a_svirn: > Also Lupin said that Sirius realised the > enormity of what he had done, and it's after seeing his expression > James (who had known nothing about the prank) put two and two > together and rescued Snape. zgirnius: This is not how I remember the conversation. Where in the Shrieking Shack scenes is this bit explained? I had the impression we don't quite exactly know how James found out, and that Sirius never realized the enormity of his actions. (He does not seem to realize it still, in PoA). > a_svirn: > James also does not look like someone who nobly put petty school > grudges behind. zgirnius: Indeed not. This leaves us to imagine James 'growing out of it' at a later point the author does not show us, on the strength of his friends's testimony, if that works for us. (It does not, for me). Or it leaves us with James 'growing out of it' in the sense of leaving school behind and going on to bigger and better things as a member of the Order/father. I think the latter is her point. James at his worst is not an irredeemable murderer a la Voldemort, he is a school kid who is brave and loyal to his friends, cruel to his enemies, and picks on his 'inferiors' (any students who lack the popularity, magical power, or group of frieds to keep him off) for the sheer fun of it. Even if James would have left Snape to die, get bitten, or get mauled in a hypothetical situation in which none of his friends would have been harmed by this, his action in rescuing Snape (even for the purpose of saving Lupin and Sirius's bacon) was still brave and indicative of his loyalty to his friends. It's this side of him that his friends see and care about; it is this side of him that later makes him a 'hero' in the Order. I see a parallel between Draco and James. He shows this same better side when he tries to rescue Goyle in the RoR during DH. It's just a bigger surprise for us because we have not heard Pansy and Gregory telling us what a swell guy he really is for six books. And of course, if Draco had done any 'heroic' successful ventures for his side, we would consider him a villain, not a hero, owing to the entire context. James picked the right side. > a_svirn: > Lupin who had just been betrayed by one at least of > his precious friends bantered with them about werewolves as if > nothing had happened. zgirnius: Not quite as if nothing had happened. He did show some signs of nervousness. But if you mean that it seemed not to strain his relationship with Sirius in any way, I agree. Just another illustration of the lengths Lupin will go to to be liked. Post DH, I also wonder what was going on in Lupin's mind during the SWM. The furrowed brow, etc... I assumed, for sure, that he disapproved of his friends' actions and just lacked the backbone to tell them to leave off. But maybe he was also nervous, worried that Snape might be provoked into blurting out the truth about him? From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 18:05:42 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:05:42 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181223 > > Mike: > > Harry was holding onto Dobby's arm. So, why didn't Harry > > side-along apparate with Dobby? > > That's how Kreacher dragged Dung back. > > Potioncat: > I'm not so sure it's a Flint. I think the plot hole fixer would > work very well here. See, it's all about intention. Kreacher > could bring an unwilling Dung, Dobby can leave Harry. Mike: Well, my plot hole fixer can fix most anything, (except Lupin's transformation in PoA) but It's gotta be a real plot hole. So we need to apply my 3Cs - cogitate, conflagrate, and coagulate the bloody problem. At first I thought it was the wizards-can't-apparate-from-Hogwarts rule. But that doesn't work, because 12 GP has the same anti- apparition charm on it, and Dobby dragged Dung in. I thought about your intention thing, but what kind of intention does/can the side-along person add to the equation? If they don't know where the apparater is taking them, very little I would say. And Dung certainly didn't *want* to go with Kreacher, so how come his intention didn't count? As long as we're on it, how come Ron got splinched when Hermione side-alonged both boys to the World Cup woods? I thought ole Twycross 'splained that it was the *apparater's* lack of determination. If a side-along can splinch because they're not *determined* to go-along, Dung should've been a pile of body parts. Either that or it was something that neither Ron nor Harry should have affected one bit. And therefore it shouldn't have affected them. > Potioncat: > Perhaps it's Elf magic; or perhaps a more experienced > Hermione could have eluded WhatsHisName. Mike: Yeah, I'm thinking my plot hole filler is going to have to concentrate on this Elf magic fall-back position. I just hate relying on this catchall, doesn't make for a very strong patch. > Potioncat, who cannot remember the 3Ds of Apparation-----oh, > there's another one! The 3Ds. (Never caught that before.) > > Destination, determination and...defibrilation? Mike, glad to see PC took this apparation lesson to heart ;) From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 2 18:59:41 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:59:41 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181224 > Mike: > Well, my plot hole fixer can fix most anything, (except Lupin's > transformation in PoA) but It's gotta be a real plot hole. So we > need to apply my 3Cs - cogitate, conflagrate, and coagulate the > bloody problem. > > At first I thought it was the wizards-can't-apparate-from-Hogwarts > rule. But that doesn't work, because 12 GP has the same anti- > apparition charm on it, and Dobby dragged Dung in. Pippin: We don't know it's the same anti-apparation charm. In fact, we know it's different, because the Twins can apparate inside GP, but the charms on Hogwarts have to be altered for apparation classes. There's an easy solution to Lupin's transformation in PoA. The werewolf transformation can depend on the astronomical full moon, not on its visibility to the werewolf. The moon's appearance from behind the cloud would be mere coincidence -- in fact it had already been visible to TT! Harry and Hermione as they waited outside. Lupin should have realized his time was running short, but then he forgot his potion also. He can be very disorganized. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 19:13:06 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:13:06 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181225 "Fred and George, however, found all of it very funny. They went out of their way to march ahead of Harry down the corridors, shouting, "Make way for the Heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through..." - p.210 Alla: Funny yes. "Mr. Weasley was unavailable for comment, although his wife told reporters to clear off or she'd set the family ghoul on them" - p.222 Alla: Molly would do anything to protect her family, eh? "Harry and Ron looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back. "What?" said Harry. "Are you crazy?" said Ron. "It could be dangerous." "Dangerous?"said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?" "You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated Dad's told me - there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And -" "All right, I've got the point," said Harry." Alla: Heee, as Bex said Harry and Ron have correct predictions sometimes indeed. Here we go - Ron paying attention to his Dad's lessons :) "Harry couldn't explain, even to himself, why he didn't just throw Riddle's diary away. The fact was that even though he knew the diary was blank, he kept absentmindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to finish. And while Harry was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he'd had when he was very small, and had halfforgotten. But this was absurd. He'd never had friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that." - p.233 - p.234 Alla: Soul piece in action again? Pulling to another soul piece? "Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!" Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison." - p.236-237 Alla: LOLOLOLOL. So did Snape do love potions in his youth? "Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing valentine: His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, His hair is as dark as a blackboard. I wish he was mine, he's really divine, The hero who conquered the Dark Lord" - p.237 Alla: Heeeee, but I actually have a serious question about this lovely gift from poor Ginny ;) Somebody (I think Pippin but not sure) once brought this one up as proof of Ginny's magical skill. I am not sure I get it. I mean, Lockhart rounded up dwarfs and anybody could just tell them which song to sing and here you go. Am I missing something? Did Ginny have to do something to make dwarf sing or something? "Depends where you want to go, Harry," he said. "It's never too early to think about the future, so Id recommend Divination. People say Muggle Studies is a soft option, but I personally think wizards should have a thorough understanding of the non-magical community, particularly if they're thinking of working in close contact with them - look at my father, he has to deal with Muggle business all the time. My brother Charlie was always more of an outdoor type, so he went for Care of Magical Creatures. Play to your strengths, Harry." - p.252 Alla: It sounds as a nice advise, but for some reason I cannot forget that play to your strengths was the same thing as fake Moody told Harry, right? Or is it medium contamination in my brain? "What does she understand?" said Harry distractedly, still looking around, trying to tell where the voice had come from. "Loads more than I do," said Ron, shaking his head. "But why's she got to go to the library?" "Because that's what Hermione does," said Ron, shrugging. "When in doubt, go to the library." - p.255 Alla: See, see Ron knows that Hermione understand loads more than he does :) From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 2 19:34:27 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:34:27 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181226 >Alla, quoting from CoS. "...And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could > never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in > it, trying to do everything one-handed. And -" > Potioncat: That would be JKR herself, wouldn't it? Or was Jane Austen from Bath? > >"...turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to >finish. ... almost as though Riddle was a friend he'd > had when he was very small, and had > halfforgotten." Potioncat: JKR does have a way with words, doesn't she. He'll finish the story in the end. As for the half-forgotten friend, I wonder if on that fateful Halloween, little Harry got a burst of Riddle memories--- something like a Legilimency session. > > Alla: > > LOLOLOLOL. So did Snape do love potions in his youth? Potioncat: Although we do see what obessive love can do ---here it will turn a boy-gone-bad around---but if Severus had used a love potion, the series would be Harry Snape and the .... Oh dear, even I don't think that sounds good. > "Depends where you want to go, Harry," he said. "It's never too early > to think about the future, so Id recommend Divination. Potioncat: I love the Divination word plays. This was Percy, wasn't it? I remember actually doing a double take as I first read it. In one of the books DD says something about "never having taken Divination so not able to foresee how important it would be." > > "Because that's what Hermione does," said Ron, shrugging. "When in > doubt, go to the library." - p.255 Potioncat: That pretty much sums up my philosophy. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 20:13:15 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:13:15 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies/ some Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181227 Montavilla47: I can definitely agree with you (and, in fact, I do). But what I don't really understand is why you're eager to go with "circumstantial evidence" when it comes to Snape misbehaving, but demand direct evidence in the case of James and/or Sirius? We have plenty of circumstantial evidence about James and Sirius bullying Snape and other students on occasions other than SWM and the Prank. Why deny that evidence? Alla: Oh but I don't deny them. Meaning that I do not accept all of them as fact, but I totally see them as valid possibility, just as I would totally see you ( generic you) to not deny what I consider circumstantial evidence as valid possibility but not accept them as fact. Just as you say below for example that you think it is possible for Snape to be recruited in school but do not find it likely, I certainly think those circumstantial evidence against Marauders are POSSIBLE but not all of them likely. Alla earlier: > And frankly I am not surprised that we do not have anything as > dramatic piece of dirt on Snape in his youth as we have on Marauders > in their dealings with each other. I cannot quite explain why I feel > this way, it has to do with character's ambiguousness. No, I do not > think that Snape was unresolved at the end, of course he was. I > promise I will come back to this part later when I am able to > explain it more clearly. Alla: Right so I am coming back and trying to explain myself a bit. What I am explaining here is why I am not surprised that we have dirt on Marauders and do not have such a revealing piece of dirt on Snape's character IF such dirt existed of course. So I suppose this is my premise that it existed and I am not even arguing in this part, just explaining why I feel that we can deduce this from circumstantial evidence To me it has to do with the author's always making us to build up Snape's character in our imaginations so to speak, as no other character. Believe me, during the years I so thought that Snape is simpler than many argued and I still think that his main motivations as revealed are quite simple ? love for Lily, etc, but nevertheless I think the ambiguousness is still there and pretty much all the time too. Again, by this I do not mean that his character arc was unresolved, of course it was ? he was loyal to Dumbledore and loved Lily, BUT case in point ? did he hate Harry till the end or did he not? Do we know this part? I thought it was super clear, even if one does not read the interviews. I thought when Snape screams to Dumbledore " him?", that is a clear indication that Snape hates Harry and hated him till he died, but I am aware of the interpretation that Snape here evades the question and that shows that he does not hate Harry no more. Do I agree with this interpretation? Of course not but I certainly accept it as valid possibility. Do we know whether Snape participated in the DE atrocities? No, we do not. Again, I am sure that he did, but those who say he did not also have a valid interpretation. And canon is closed, and we still do not know it. Does it make sense to you? I feel like Snape is always in the shadows, always evasive, that it is always unclear what he did or he did not do and that this is true to a degree even when canon is closed, while with Marauders their hearts are on their sleeves ( and this can be said in good or bad way of course), we know whom they hated or whom they liked. By this I do not think that they are less complicated characters, I mean, I am very happy with what we got about Sirius' in OOP and its complexity, but once we got that plot reversal with them ( that they were bullies in Pensieve scene or more than in Pensieve scene), that was pretty much it. That is why if Snape was not always their target, but worthy opponent in the war, I am not surprised if we have to deduce it through circumstantial evidence. It is as if almost JKR deliberately left some uncertainty over smaller details of Snape's life, you know? For every one of us to answer those questions as we wish AND still feel that the answers have basis in canon even if they are deliberately opposed. Like I who dislike the character will in many instances answer differently than those who do, etc. I still do not feel like I am explaining myself well, but this is the best I can do at the moment. Alla From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 2 20:41:10 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:41:10 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181228 > > Alla: > > Heeeee, but I actually have a serious question about this lovely > gift from poor Ginny ;) > > Somebody (I think Pippin but not sure) once brought this one up as > proof of Ginny's magical skill. I am not sure I get it. I mean, > Lockhart rounded up dwarfs and anybody could just tell them which > song to sing and here you go. Am I missing something? Did Ginny have > to do something to make dwarf sing or something? Pippin: Unless I'm mistaken, I said the valentine was proof of her sense of humor. It's the get-well card in PoA which I sited as proof of Ginny's magical skill. No one can get it to shut up, IIRC, unless it's held shut by something on top of it. Not bad for a second year. Pippin From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 20:49:29 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:49:29 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181229 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, > His hair is as dark as a blackboard. > I wish he was mine, he's really divine, > The hero who conquered the Dark Lord" - p.237 > Alla: > Somebody (I think Pippin but not sure) once brought this one up as > proof of Ginny's magical skill. I am not sure I get it. zanooda: Maybe Pippin (or someone else :-)) meant another card that Ginny gave to Harry when he was in the hospital wing in PoA - that one was a singing get-well card, and she needed to do some magic to make it. As for Ginny's Valentine, it doesn't seem magical to me - it's just a poem, I think, but it's funny and I like it. I even translated it into Russian, because the official translation was too far from the original - the toad wasn't pickled there, LOL. It's interesting that, even if we were never told in the book that the Valentine was from Ginny, Malfoy guessed right away it was from her. Ginny's crush on Harry must have been very obvious, I suppose :-). From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 21:44:49 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:44:49 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181230 Alla: > > I do wonder if Fillius taught Snape some tricks of the trade - just > enough for Snape to knock him out in HBP? :) Potioncat: There's a theory that this is nothing but rumor, and Flitwick cannot duel. Sort of a protective lie. Snape and even McGonagall seem to be keeping him safe. I cannot remember what role Flitwick plays in DH, except to charm the castle itself. Alla: I think I remember the theory, but I do not remember any evidence in support of it, which does not mean it does not exist of course. You say Snape and Mcgonagall are keeping him safe? Could you point me to canon supporting it? I also do not remember his role in battle of Hoggwarts except muttering incantations of enormous complexity, but what I do remember is that he participated in it and survived the battle, yes? To me it seems to imply that he is a good duelist. Bex: Possibly due to the fact that the injuries are spread over half the class - or possibly due to the fact that it's a potion, which he has the cure for. Even if he sent them to the Hospital wing, Poppy would probably have to send for him for the Deflating Draft - he could just be saving some time here - but yes, he is showing some kind of concern. Plus, the swelling continues the longer they wait - Malfoy's neck would have broken with the weight of his nose by them. ;) Alla: Do not get me wrong, I am not the one to exaggerate Snape's concern LOL and when I was first rereading that piece, I thought he is only concerned about Malfoy and Co, but then I realized that it was indeed splashed over half a class, so maybe if it is that serious, he does not want non Slytherins at least end up badly injured after his class. Pippin: Unless I'm mistaken, I said the valentine was proof of her sense of humor. It's the get-well card in PoA which I sited as proof of Ginny's magical skill. No one can get it to shut up, IIRC, unless it's held shut by something on top of it. Not bad for a second year. Alla: OOOOO, thanks Pippin. Yes indeed I agree THAT card would be proof of her skills. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Feb 2 21:56:14 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:56:14 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181231 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: >Alla: > "Depends where you want to go, Harry," he said. "It's never too early > to think about the future, so Id recommend Divination. People say > Muggle Studies is a soft option, but I personally think wizards > should > have a thorough understanding of the non-magical community, > particularly if they're thinking of working in close contact with > them - > look at my father, he has to deal with Muggle business all the time. > My > brother Charlie was always more of an outdoor type, so he went for > Care of Magical Creatures. Play to your strengths, Harry." - p.252 > It sounds as a nice advise, but for some reason I cannot forget that > play to your strengths was the same thing as fake Moody told Harry, > right? > > Or is it medium contamination in my brain? Geoff: No. Alla, it's good, honest, original canon. '"So.... got any ideas how you're going to get past your dragon yet?" said Moody. "No," said Harry. "Well, I'm not going to tell you," said Moody gruffly. "I don't show favouritism, me. I'm just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is - play to your strengths."' (GOF "The First Task" p.301 UK edition) From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Feb 2 23:14:52 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:14:52 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look - Apparation, Intent, and Guile In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181232 --- "Mike" wrote: > > Mike: > ... > > -------- > I think I found another FLINT, in Ch 10, that would be > critical to the DH action. Harry's in the hospital after > the de-boning. > > "Dobby must go!" breathed the elf, terrified. There was a > loud crack, and Harry's fist was suddenly clenched on thin > air." - p.179 > > Harry was holding onto Dobby's arm. So, why didn't Harry > side-along apparate with Dobby? That's how Kreacher dragged > Dung back. And that's how Dobby got all of them out of Malfoy > Manor. Hmmm. > > Mike > bboyminn: Though you denied it, Intent does very much come into play, but only at the instant Apparation (or its equivalent) is initiated. When Dobby apparated, he intended to leave Harry behind. When Kreacher fetched Dung, he intended to bring Dung with, and more importantly, the apparation was initiated and executed before Dung has time to initiate intent of his own. It's sort of like firing a gun, once the trigger is pulled, you can't change you mind about where it is going or alter its destination nor can you unpull the trigger. For Dung to have circumvented his capture by Kreacher, he would have had to muster counter-intent at or just before the moment of initiation of the apparation event. In the case of Ron being partly splinched on his way to the World Cup grounds, it is possible that at the moment they arrived at the Black House, he was fixated on the Black House and getting in, and that represented an intent counter to Hermione's intent to take them elsewhere. Or, at the moment of arrival at the Black House, Ron may have sense the beginning of a new apparation event, and said 'No!'. He resisted the event, he fought the initiation of the event, and that cause him to be splinched. If you've got enough imagination and a dash of guile tempered with a drop of hyper-rationalization, you can come up with an answer for anything. Hey...I'm just saying... Steve/bboyminn From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 2 21:28:59 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:28:59 -0000 Subject: Reckless Godfather Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181233 DH Page418 As he followed Bill back to the others, a wry thought came to him, born of the wine he had just drunk. He seemed set on course to become just as reckless a godfather to Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been to him This made me smile. I don't think that would be true. Any comments from you wise people out there Jayne From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 2 21:34:07 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:34:07 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 6-10, post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181234 > Pippin:wrote > snip > Lupin should have realized his time was running short, but then > he forgot his potion also. He can be very disorganized. That is why i like him so much. He is human (Excuse the pun!! ). He makes mistakes.But he is loyal and a good friend to Harry Jayne From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 2 21:44:13 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:44:13 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies/ some Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181235 Alla wrote > > > Again, by this I do not mean that his character arc was unresolved, > of course it was ? he was loyal to Dumbledore and loved Lily, BUT > case in point ? did he hate Harry till the end or did he not? > > Do we know this part? I thought it was super clear, even if one does > not read the interviews. I thought when Snape screams to > Dumbledore " him?", that is a clear indication that Snape hates > Harry and hated him till he died, but I am aware of the > interpretation that Snape here evades the question and that shows > that he does not hate Harry no more. Do I agree with this > interpretation? Of course not but I certainly accept it as valid > possibility. I think that as he conjured up his patronus of his doe like Lily's at that time, it shows to me that he did not hate Harry. In fact i think he had grown to respect him ,maybe than like him ,although he would never admit it. Just my opinion which is often wrong Jayne From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 00:12:18 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:12:18 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181236 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > I also do not remember his role in battle of Hoggwarts except > muttering incantations of enormous complexity, but what I do > remember is that he participated in it and survived the battle, yes? zanooda: HRH saw Flitwick fighting Yaxley in the Entrance hall, when they were heading to the Shrieking Shack in "The Elder Wand" (p.645). He didn't kill him though, because Yaxley participated in the second part of the battle as well, and was finally taken down by George and Lee Jordan. Flitwick also defeated Dolohov in the second part of the battle (p.735). I don't know exactly how tall Yaxley and Dolohov were, but anyway, it must have looked kind of like Yoda fighting :-). From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 00:19:15 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:19:15 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181237 Alla wrote: > > I think I remember the theory, but I do not remember any evidence in > support of it, which does not mean it does not exist of course. You > say Snape and Mcgonagall are keeping him safe? Could you point me to > canon supporting it? > > I also do not remember his role in battle of Hoggwarts except > muttering incantations of enormous complexity, but what I do > remember is that he participated in it and survived the battle, yes? > To me it seems to imply that he is a good duelist. Carol responds: Flitwick is the Charms teacher and the spells he's muttering in the battle of Hogwarts are protective charms. As for whether someone who is sent zooming across a classroom when his students practice Banishing Charms could be a dueling champion, I'd say it's unlikely but we're never shown his dueling prowess except when he brings a suit of armor to life (which Snape sends hurtling back at him), so YMMV. Charms and DADA spells may overlap, but they're not the same. And if Flitwick had been a duelling champion in his use, you'd think that DD would hire him (for just a year, after which he could return to Charms) in preference to someone like Lockhart or, worse, Umbrage (who was foisted on him because he coldn't find anyone qualified, excepting Snape, whom he didn't want in the position at that time). Carol, noting that protective spells like those that Hermione used in DH wouldn't work in a duel From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 00:24:53 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:24:53 -0000 Subject: Flitwick duelling champion or not? WAS : Re: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181238 > Carol responds: > > Flitwick is the Charms teacher and the spells he's muttering in the > battle of Hogwarts are protective charms. Alla: Sure of course, that is why I said that I do not remember his role in the battle besides muttering those incantations. But thanks Zanooda for reminding me that he is shown duelling indeed and not badly either. Carol: >As for whether someone who > is sent zooming across a classroom when his students practice > Banishing Charms could be a dueling champion, I'd say it's unlikely > but we're never shown his dueling prowess except when he brings a suit > of armor to life (which Snape sends hurtling back at him), so YMMV. Alla: As Zanooda pointed out we are shown his duelling. As to him sent zooming across, I mean it can happen, no? Snape is also knocked out by trio and I do not think we could deny his duelling skills. I mean, not the same, but you get my analogy. Carol: > Charms and DADA spells may overlap, but they're not the same. And if > Flitwick had been a duelling champion in his use, you'd think that DD > would hire him (for just a year, after which he could return to > Charms) in preference to someone like Lockhart or, worse, Umbrage (who > was foisted on him because he coldn't find anyone qualified, excepting > Snape, whom he didn't want in the position at that time). Alla: Why? If Flitwick loves Charms and is competent and wants to teach them and has no desire to expose himself to the dangers of cursed job. If he does not want to, how could DD hire him? From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 00:57:49 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:57:49 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius as Bullies/ some Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181239 > Alla: > >I feel like Snape is always in the > shadows, always evasive, that it is always unclear what he did or he > did not do and that this is true to a degree even when canon is > closed, while with Marauders their hearts are on their sleeves ( and > this can be said in good or bad way of course), we know whom they > hated or whom they liked. > > By this I do not think that they are less complicated characters, I > mean, I am very happy with what we got about Sirius' in OOP and its > complexity, but once we got that plot reversal with them ( that they > were bullies in Pensieve scene or more than in Pensieve scene), that > was pretty much it. Montavilla47: That does make excellent sense, Alla. Up until DH, I would have agreed with you completely about that. I still agree mostly, I certainly agree that we know who the Marauders liked and who they didn't like. (We might disagree about how *much* Sirius liked Lupin and vice versa... with some saying they were pretty good friends and some saying they were lovers, but what the hey. That's just a matter of degree.) What threw me about James in DH was that I always supposed that the saving Snape was a big thing for him--that it was a positive step toward maturity. I never, ever imagined that the Prank came before SWM. Now I know that James didn't grow up because his friends nearly caused the death of a student, I'm flabbergasted. I feel like Harry, who felt like his beloved Prince had turned savage on him. Not that I was ever a big James fan, but I figured what people said about him was more or less correct. Now, I don't know. The plot points on James don't connect in the same they used to, and I have to use hints and circumstantial evidence to put him back together again. Montavilla47 From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 01:11:59 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:11:59 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181240 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > As for whether someone who is sent zooming across a > classroom when his students practice Banishing Charms > could be a dueling champion, I'd say it's unlikely Oh, you know, small size can actually be an advantage in battle (not that I'm an expert on fighting :-)) - you make a more difficult target, especially if you have quick reflexes. If it was a hand-to-hand fight, then it would be better to be large, of course, but when fighting from a distance ... . I'm not sure about Flitwick being a dueling champion myself, maybe it's just a rumor, but he seems quite adequate in battle. zanooda From kaleeyj at gmail.com Sun Feb 3 02:55:10 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:55:10 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 12 - 14 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181241 > >Alla, quoting from CoS. > "...And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could > > never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in > > it, trying to do everything one-handed. And -" > > > Potioncat: > That would be JKR herself, wouldn't it? Or was Jane Austen from Bath? Bex: Putting a bit of herself in the books, I see. I did enjoy the occasional bits in the series where common Muggle Phenomena (like losing your keys, or suddenly remembering something you needed to do when you got to certain location) were explained as wizard tricks or charms. Cos: > >"...turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to > >finish. ... almost as though Riddle was a friend he'd > > had when he was very small, and had > > half forgotten." > > Potioncat: > JKR does have a way with words, doesn't she. He'll finish the story > in the end. As for the half-forgotten friend, I wonder if on that > fateful Halloween, little Harry got a burst of Riddle memories--- > something like a Legilimency session. Bex: I reread that passage several times in my CoS reread last week. I always thought it was the soul bit kicking in a little - reacting to the name, or just being attracted to the diary. I've always wondered what the horcruxes would do if put together - I wonder if they would act like magnets, holding to each other. > > Alla: > > > > LOLOLOLOL. So did Snape do love potions in his youth? > > Potioncat: > Although we do see what obessive love can do ---here it will turn a > boy-gone-bad around---but if Severus had used a love potion, the > series would be Harry Snape and the .... > > Oh dear, even I don't think that sounds good. Bex: Me neither. Anyway, I expect Snape was the "go to" person for love potions in his later Hogwarts years - his friends looking for hangover rememdies, and the occasional contraception potion around the holiday ball festivities as well. He was probably kept in demand. Cos: > > "Depends where you want to go, Harry," he said. "It's never too > early > > to think about the future, so I'd recommend Divination. > > Potioncat: > I love the Divination word plays. This was Percy, wasn't it? I > remember actually doing a double take as I first read it. In one of > the books DD says something about "never having taken Divination so > not able to foresee how important it would be." > Bex: Yep, Percy all right. And we got a hint of what Hermione was up to in PoA here as well - she signed up for "everything." Woinder what electives Percy took - he supposedly got a barn full of owls just the summer before. Bex From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Feb 3 03:44:53 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 03:44:53 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181243 > zanooda: > > HRH saw Flitwick fighting Yaxley in the Entrance hall, when they were > heading to the Shrieking Shack in "The Elder Wand" (p.645). He didn't > kill him though, because Yaxley participated in the second part of the > battle as well, and was finally taken down by George and Lee Jordan. > Flitwick also defeated Dolohov in the second part of the battle > (p.735). I don't know exactly how tall Yaxley and Dolohov were, but > anyway, it must have looked kind of like Yoda fighting :-). Potioncat: I need to go back and re-read the ending of DH. I'm still on my very slow second read of the book. Yaxley is taller than Snape, who is shorter than Black. If I have it right, the idea of Flitwick not being the best fighter is from HBP. I don't know whose theory it is. The idea was that after the DEs entered Hogwarts, McGonagall sent Flitwick to get Snape. Some readers thought it was unusual that McGonagall would send a full wizard on an errand, instead of sending one of the students. Hermione and Luna saw Flitwick go into Snape's office, then heard a noise. When Snape came out of his office, he said Flitwick had fallen. Snape sent Hermione and Luna in to help Flitwick. Both sides of the Snape debate thought Snape had done something to Flitwick. But in any case, Snape kept Flitwick, Hermione and Luna out of the battle. From desiivy at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 04:13:21 2008 From: desiivy at yahoo.com (Ivy) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:13:21 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181244 I don't remember which book all I remember is that Harry, Ron and Hermione were looking at something and she got frustrated with them and asked them something like don't you guys ever read a book. I think Ron or Harry replied with something like that's why we got you. I would really appreciate any help. Thanks Ivy From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 05:27:55 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:27:55 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181245 > Carol responds: > I'm not saying that Sirius forced Severus to go down there. I'm > saying that he offered him the means of endangering himself, which > he could not have done otherwise because he didn't know how to get > in, knowing that he would take the bait. > > I'm not saying that Severus was innocent. Of course, he broke > curfew, and of course proving his theory and perhaps wanting to > get MWPP into trouble was insufficient reason for going in there. Mike: Carol, you assigned Snape approx. 20% responsibility for the Potters death, based on him bringing the prophesy to Voldemort. Snape did that knowingly, most likely suspecting his master would somehow act on it. How Voldemort would use it, Snape had no real way of knowing. But a logical man like Snape would think that Voldemort would most likely do *something* to eliminate the prophetic challenger, however likely that the prophesy was true. Else why did he bother to bring it to him? Sirius told Severus how to get past the Whomping Willow, to access the tunnel that would take him to werewolf!Lupin's location. Sirius had no real way of knowing how Severus would use that information, though he *probably* thought that Severus would use it in some way to try to get the Marauders in trouble. He *may* have taunted Severus, we don't know, that's pure speculation. So tell me, based one your assessment for the Snape-LV-prophesy guilt owning equation, why would Sirius be any more than 20% at fault for the Prank? Both of them gave information that lead to incidents, information without which the incidents wouldn't happen (allegedly in the case of Sirius' info). If anything, I would say giving information to a psychopathic killer about a potential rival is more damning than giving information on how to get past a mean tree to a schoolboy rival that wants to break the same rules that you are breaking. > Carol responds: > He suspected that he'd see a werewolf and come out unscathed, > just as the Marauders did. Mike: Why should he think that? And where is the canon that he did? It's speculation, yours and mine, but it shows a certain level of stupidity that you are not willing to asign to Severus on *any* other point of discussion. > Carol responds: > Do you really think that if Severus had known that WPP were > Animagi and in no danger from the werewolf that he would > have gone down there, having no such protection himself? Mike: I honestly have no idea what was in Severus' head to make him do this. What did he hope to accomplish? See a werewolf? So what, obviously the Hogwarts staff already knew what Remus was, Mdm. Pomfrey was escorting Remus to the damn tree, for crissakes. To satisfy his own curiousity? To catch WPP doing something illegal? If he saw them enter the Willow while Remus was down there, he already knew they were breaking the rules. The memories hint that he had already known this. Besides, if he was going to catch WPP, shouldn't he have waited for them to enter first? And what's his plan if he does catch them down there? Stun them all and run get the authorities to prove they were together (and, oh by the way, implicating himself as well)? I can keep going, but I think you get my point. That there was no point in Severus going down that tunnel for anything other than egocentric reasons. How is THAT Sirius' fault? >>> Mike: I'll give you my analogy. It's like one thief (Sirius) robbed a house and gave the house key he had to a second thief (Severus). The first thief knows the owner is in there with a shotgun. The second thief doesn't know that for sure, but suspects it. But the second thief figures if the first thief got away with it, he can too. The first thief failed to mention that he had previously ascertained that the owner was out of ammunition when he robbed the place. So, is it the first thief's fault if the second thief gets shot trying to rob the house? I doubt the authorities will look at it that way. <<< > Carol responds: > Your thief analogy fails to take into account that the first thief > is safe from the shotgun Mike: Read it again, it did. > Carol: > He tricks the second thief into endangering his life through > pretending that they're on equal terms. Mike: Nope, he gives the other thief only partial information. No honor among thieves or schoolboy rivals, it seems. He doesn't trick him in any way. The Willow opened exactly as Sirius said it would. The reason for my using thieves in the analogy was to point out that both of them were doing something illegal. The key ingredient you keep wanting to leave out is that Severus was just as wrong to go down there as WPP were. That Severus intended to break the rules to prove that the Marauders were breaking the rules (IF that's what his intentions were), means he has no legitimate grounds whatsoever for using the information. Period. Full stop. It's his fault, he has no valid reason for his rule breaking. Anything you say to justify his rule breaking is an excuse. Let me throw out a what if: What if Severus had hid out and watched how the other Marauders or Madam Pomfrey got past the Willow? Is there any reason to believe he would have used the same information in any other way than how he used it when he got it from Sirius? Then who would we blame for Severus going down there? > Carol: > Of the two, the one who provided information that would tempt the > other was more at fault, Mike: Then Snape is more at fault for the Potters death than Voldemort is. Fair is fair, Snape tempted LV with the prophesy information. > Carol: > just as Mephistopheles, the tempter, is more at fault than Faust, > who submits to the temptation. Faust would not have fallen, and > Severus would not have entered the Shrieking Shack and been > endangered, if their tempters had not known their weaknesses > and made offers that they couldn't refuse. Mike: Really, what did Sirius offer Severus that was on the scale of Mephistopheles' offer to Faust? And what did Snape offer to Sirius in return? This analogy holds no water, imo. > Carol: > Who is more at fault, the kid who offers another kid an illegal > drug, tempting him by saying that he'll love the high it gives > him, or the kid who stupidly accepts the offer? Mike: So Severus paid Sirius what for the high? Sirius little offer got Severus to become a regular customer of his, did it? > Carol: > Just a harmless Prank, and it's all Severus's fault for falling > for it. Sorry, Mike. I can't agree with you on this one. Mike: Well, I never said harmless. But yep, all Severus' fault. Before DH, I was sure there were some mitigating circumstances that would explain why Severus took the bait. Now I see there are none. > Carol, noting that reckless endangerment is a crime and the > gullibility of the victim is no excuse Mike, noting that you can't blame your crime on another person pulling the same criminal act and getting away with it PS - Point of Order to Montavilla: The Marauders only started their marauding in their fifth year. I don't think they had already made the Marauder's Map by then. I rather thought they wouldn't have made it until their seventh year. Both because they needed more time to gather the information and they would need more magical knowledge to make the map. When Lupin says "that's how we *came* to write the MM" , it sounds like that was after a good bit of exploring and that the idea to make it wasn't foremost in their minds. IMO, they "came" to make it later, after they had a lot of marauding under their belt. My point? I don't think it was as much of an advantage as you may think. I don't think they had it for that much of their school days, and I really do think they made it to pass on to the next generation. Besides, Filch confiscated somewhere in there, though he could have got it away from whomever the Marauders passed it on to. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sun Feb 3 07:38:47 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:38:47 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181246 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ivy" wrote: > > I don't remember which book all I remember is that Harry, Ron and > Hermione were looking at something and she got frustrated with them > and asked them something like don't you guys ever read a book. I > think Ron or Harry replied with something like that's why we got you. > > I would really appreciate any help. > > > Thanks Ivy Geoff: One occasion that comes to mind but doesn't quite fulfil all your criteria is: 'At last she found what she was looking for. "I knew it! I knew it!" "Are we allowed to speak yet?" said Ron grumpily. Hermione ignored him. "Nicholas Flamel," she whispered dramatically, "is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!" This didn't have quite the effect she'd exected. "The what?" said Harry and Ron. "Oh, honestly, don't you two read? Look - read that, there."' (PS "Nicholas Flamel" p.161 UK edition) Is that what you are seeking? From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 08:51:57 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:51:57 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181247 > Mike: > PS - Point of Order to Montavilla: The Marauders only started their > marauding in their fifth year. I don't think they had already made > the Marauder's Map by then. I rather thought they wouldn't have made > it until their seventh year. Both because they needed more time to > gather the information and they would need more magical knowledge to > make the map. > > When Lupin says "that's how we *came* to write the MM" , > it sounds like that was after a good bit of exploring and that the > idea to make it wasn't foremost in their minds. IMO, they "came" to > make it later, after they had a lot of marauding under their belt. > > My point? I don't think it was as much of an advantage as you may > think. I don't think they had it for that much of their school days, > and I really do think they made it to pass on to the next generation. > Besides, Filch confiscated somewhere in there, though he could have > got it away from whomever the Marauders passed it on to. Montavilla47: I agree that they probably didn't have that map until fifth year. I also suspect that the map was a work-in-progress, since it didn't have every area of Hogwarts on it, even when Harry received it (the room of requirement wasn't on it). As to how long it took to make the map, it's hard to say. If they restricted their nocturnal adventures to only those times that Lupin was transformed, they would only have about thirty opportunities to explore before they graduated, assuming they could transform into animals at the beginning of the fifth year. On the other hand, there was no reason they couldn't explore Hogwarts in human form on the other nights, since they had James's invisibility cloak. And, if they were exploring in human form (whether just James and Sirius or all four), they'd have a motivation to create the map to help avoid the teachers who patrolled the halls at night. I realize that's all speculation, but it seems more logical to me than that they got away with exploring the castle as a stag, a large dog, a rat, and a werewolf. Of those animals, only the rat would have been unnoticeable roaming the hallways and poking into the alcoves, looking for secret entrances. Of course, on the nights they accompanied the transformed Lupin, they would have concentrated their exploring on the Forbidden Forest and the streets of Hogsmeade. So, how shall we quantify the amount of time they had that map? Was it only a week or two before they graduated? Was is as long as two years? A year? Half a year? However long it was, it added to their tactical advantage. Montavilla47 From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 09:53:23 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 09:53:23 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181248 > Ivy wrote: > > I don't remember which book all I remember is that Harry, Ron and > Hermione were looking at something and she got frustrated with them > and asked them something like don't you guys ever read a book. I > think Ron or Harry replied with something like that's why we got > you. Mike: I can't remember where the quote is, my inclination is it's in OotP or HBP. It was regarding reading "Hogwarts: A History". Ron or Harry proposes something that can't be done in Hogwarts. Hermione says something like: "It's in Hogwarts: A History. Aren't you ever going to read it?" To which Ron replies something like: "Why should we? We can just ask you." Rereading this, I haven't been much help. I've looked for it, but I haven't found it yet. Sorry. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 16:08:29 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:08:29 -0000 Subject: CoS chapter 15-16 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181249 With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school. - p.265 Alla: So, if there is Dumbledore, there is no fear, there is no Dumbledore, there is fear? Sigh. I wish WW would not put so much hope in one person. "Snape swept past Harry, making no comment about Hermione's empty seat and cauldron. "Sir," said Malfoy loudly. "Sir, why don't you apply for the headmaster's job?" "Now, now, Malfoy," said Snape, though he couldn't suppress a thin- lipped smile. "Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he'll be back with us soon enough." "Yeah, right," said Malfoy, smirking. "I expect you'd have Father's vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job - I'll tell Father you're the best teacher here, sir" - p.267 Alla: Well, heee, this one is definitely in new light of the sorts for me. In my evil traitor Snape days I was wondering totally whether Snape was really desiring to be a Headmaster or not. And look, he did apply and got Dumbledore's job, thankfully only temporarily if you ask me. "Then Professor McGonagall arrived. "It has happened," she told the silent staff room. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself." Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?" "The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. `Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever. "' Professor Flitwick burst into tears. "Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?" "Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall. Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him. "We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said. . ." The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Harry was sure it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming. "So sorry - dozed off - what have I missed?" He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward. "Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last." Lockhart blanched. "That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?" "I - well, I -"sputtered Lockhart. "Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" piped up Professor Flitwick. "D-did I? I don't recall -" "I certainly remember you saying you were sorry you hadn't had a crack at the monster before Hagrid was arrested," said Snape. "Didn't you say that the whole affair had been bungled, and that you should have been given a free rein from the first?" Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues. "I - I really never - you may have misunderstood -" "We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by youself. A free rein at last." - p.293 -294 Alla: I just had to find this whole scene to bring it here. LOVE it. And I have to say that in my evil traitor Snape's days this behavior of Snape was the only one which I struggled to explain away as evil one. I mean not that it contradicted Snape being an evil traitor, but it contradicted Snape not having any concern for his non- Slytherin students. And another question. When Minerva says - this is the end of Hogwarts, Dumbledore always said. What exactly do you think Dumbledore always said? From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Feb 3 16:53:23 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:53:23 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181250 > > Mike: > > Sirius told Severus how to get past the Whomping Willow, to access > the tunnel that would take him to werewolf!Lupin's location. Sirius > had no real way of knowing how Severus would use that information, > though he *probably* thought that Severus would use it in some way > to try to get the Marauders in trouble. He *may* have taunted > Severus, we don't know, that's pure speculation. > Pippin: Alla gave the example of leaving your loaded gun on a table. Maybe things are different elsewhere, but in California, if a minor child (anyone under the age of eighteen) picks up that gun and death or injury results, you (the gun owner) committed a felony. It doesn't matter whether the child should have known better or whether you didn't mean for anything bad to happen. http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/tips.php#owners%20responsiblities > > Mike: > Why should he think that? And where is the canon that he did? It's > speculation, yours and mine, but it shows a certain level of > stupidity that you are not willing to asign to Severus on *any* > other point of discussion. > Pippin: Teenagers don't have the impulse control that adults have. It has nothing to do with how smart they are. I'm sure both Snape and Sirius could have told you what might happen to a lone wizard who encountered a werewolf. But that doesn't mean they would relate the information to what they were doing. I'm sure we can all think of damfool things we did as teenagers -- it isn't that we couldn't imagine the consequences, it's just that they were somehow off the radar. I'm sure Sirius wasn't thinking any further than the glorious moment when Snape would flee in terror, and Snape wasn't thinking any further than the glorious moment when he got proof for his theories. I think that must be what he wanted most. I don't think he thought he could *use* the information so much as he just wanted to know for sure that he was right. Not so different from us and our theories, is it? Of course the irony is that 'seeing is believing' only for the person who sees. As far as everyone else was concerned, he still didn't have any proof. All he'd get if he talked was an angry Dumbledore -- and even Voldemort feared that. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 17:10:29 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:10:29 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181251 > Pippin: > > Alla gave the example of leaving your loaded gun on a table. Maybe > things are different elsewhere, but in California, if a minor child > (anyone under the age of eighteen) picks up that gun and death or > injury results, you (the gun owner) committed a felony. It doesn't > matter whether the child should have known better or whether you > didn't mean for anything bad to happen. > > http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/tips.php#owners%20responsiblities Alla: Well, that's too bad if you ask my NOT legal opinion :), I wish the child would have been hold liable as well if he was old enough, at least 15 0r 16 , but in any event I like Mike's analogy so much better, heheh. After all what was revealed was indeed information and Sirius could not even know for sure what Snape would do. Although he probably suspected, I think. > Pippin: > Teenagers don't have the impulse control that adults have. It has nothing > to do with how smart they are. I'm sure both Snape and Sirius could have > told you what might happen to a lone wizard who encountered a > werewolf. But that doesn't mean they would relate the information to > what they were doing. Alla: And as I said before I do NOT think that going there was some sort of unusual thing for teenager to do, for teenager Snape I mean. I am saying that it is his fault only when it is somehow becomes all Sirius' fault. When Sirius somehow MADE him do it, you know? And that I see no proof in canon, I think the only one who MADE him do it was Snape. Boy was I expecting that at least some sort of bait will be shown in canon. I was thinking that he would tell Snape that Lily is in grave danger or something among other multiple scenarios. If something like that would have been revealed, oh yeah, I would not hold Snape accountable for much. He would be rushing to save his lady and Sirius would be supreme bastard, love him as I am. But nothing like that was revealed. Sirius told him how to go to, which in my book makes him supreme bastard towards Remus AND Snape knew or suspected ( depending on where you stand) that Remus is a werewolf and went anyways. I say, Snape has nobody to blame but himself, which of course still make Sirius' liable, but in my book NOT for MAKING him go there, but for playing fast and loose with friend's life or death secret and MAYBE tempting Snape. Maybe... I understand why poor Remus did not want to loose a friend and forgave Sirius, I do. But I do not know if I would have. And this is from someone who loves Sirius' character so much better, always did and this feeling only increased after book 7 and Remus got on my last nerve in book 7. This was a stupid thing to do on Sirius' behalf, for sure, stupid, reckless and dangerous, but NOBODY forced Snape to act upon this information. JMO, Alla From dongan51 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 16:36:38 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 08:36:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] CoS chapter 15-16 post DH look Message-ID: <669372.66979.qm@web63911.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181252 Alla: And another question. When Minerva says - this is the end of Hogwarts, Dumbledore always said. What exactly do you think Dumbledore always said? Liz: Hello, this is my very first post to the group. I believe that Dumbledore felt that if Voldermort was able to gain control of the school it would be the end of Hogwarts as we/they know it at that time. He probably knew enough about Voldermort to assume that he would take the school for his own. Which was proven in DH, of course that that is exactly what he did. Dumbledore knew that the children would never be safe there, forced into evil ways. From mercia at ireland.com Sun Feb 3 17:47:19 2008 From: mercia at ireland.com (meglet2) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:47:19 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181253 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ivy" wrote: > > I don't remember which book all I remember is that Harry, Ron and > Hermione were looking at something and she got frustrated with them > and asked them something like don't you guys ever read a book. I > think Ron or Harry replied with something like that's why we got you. > > I would really appreciate any help. > > > Thanks Ivy You might be conflating two quotes. In PS when they discover that Nicholas Flamel was the only known maker of a philospher's stone, Hermione goes 'Aha' so to speak and realises that is what Fluffy is guarding. Ron and Harry look completely blank and Hermione exclaims in exasperation, 'Don't you two ever read!' before explaining what a philospher's stone is. Sorry can't give the exact reference as I have lent out my first three books. The quote Mike was remembering was I think later in the series when Hermione does ask if H and R are ever going to read, 'Hogwart's; a History' and Ron replies to the effect that they don't need to since they have Hermione for that. But I'm not so sure about that one. There's also an occasion when Hermione asks is she is the only person who has ever read 'Hogwart's: a history' and Ron replies, 'Probably!' so that might be also confusing the issue. Mercia > From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Feb 3 17:57:45 2008 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 3 Feb 2008 17:57:45 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 2/3/2008, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1202061465.9.58451.m55@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181254 Reminder from: HPforGrownups Yahoo! Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday February 3, 2008 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Location: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Notes: Just a reminder, Sunday chat starts in about one hour. To get to the HPfGU room follow this link: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Create a user name for yourself, whatever you want to be called. Enter the password: hpfguchat Click "Join Chat" on the lower right. Chat start times: 11 am Pacific US 12 noon Mountain US 1 pm Central US 2 pm Eastern US 7 pm UK All Rights Reserved Copyright 2008 Yahoo! Inc. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 18:45:21 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:45:21 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181255 > Pippin: > > Alla gave the example of leaving your loaded gun on a table. Maybe > things are different elsewhere, but in California, if a minor child > (anyone under the age of eighteen) picks up that gun and death or > injury results, you (the gun owner) committed a felony. It doesn't > matter whether the child should have known better or whether you > didn't mean for anything bad to happen. Mike: I'm with Alla on this left coast law, I think it sucks. But this is not Sirius' gun, he doesn't own the keys to the Willow. And he's the same age as Severus, he's no more a responsible adult than Severus is. I'll repeat my previous question: if everything stayed the same, except Severus found out how to get past the Willow by watching Madam Pomfrey, who's at fault? And if Severus' action wouldn't have been different regardless of how he got the information, how is it the information providers fault for that action? > Pippin: > Teenagers don't have the impulse control that adults have. Mike: So Sirius falls under this same umbrella then, doesn't he? Can't blame him for impulsively telling Sev about the knot. > Pippin: > It has nothing to do with how smart they are. I'm sure both Snape > and Sirius could have told you what might happen to a lone wizard > who encountered a werewolf. But that doesn't mean they would > relate the information to what they were doing. Mike: OK, then Sirius is just as blameless for telling Sev about the Willow as Sev is for going after the werewolf. Actually, since nothing really happened, assigning blame is kind of a shadow game. Which is why it irks me to see people blame Sirius for the whole thing. If, instead, we're talking about exposing their characters, then sure, Sirius is reckless. But Severus is just as reckless or worse. My point about bringing up stupidity, is that for some reason Severus' actions in this case don't seem to count against his overall character. He's still the potions genius, the great duelist (btw, where in canon do we get the schoolboy Severus, duelist extrordinaire? We have one example in canon, and he get's his ass kicked), DADA expert, spell inventor. Somehow, Severus the budding DE, friends of other future DEs, inventor of a spell that he later labels as "Dark", gets shunted aside as if those things don't count towards his character. The Severus at the time of the Prank is a pretty nasty character, imo, so why should I give him the benefit of the doubt? IOW, why shouldn't I ascribe some nasty motivations to Severus' attempt to catch Remus at ... what, I don't know? > Pippin: > I'm sure we can all think of damfool things we did as > teenagers -- it isn't that we couldn't imagine the consequences, > it's just that they were somehow off the radar. Mike: I think I was just as smart as Severus was at that age (though I didn't invent any new spells ), and I did damfool things myself. But I was never disillusioned as to what might happen if things went wrong, or I got caught. Teenage immortality doesn't necessarily equal teenage ignorance. We may have thought we would never get caught, but we were under no disillusion as to what would happen if we were. We may have been sure we could pull off our death-defying stunts, but we sure knew we were defying death because that's where the thrill came from. If that's what you mean by being "off the radar", I partially agree. But the fact that we knew we were courting danger was part of the equation, supreme confidence is different than not knowing it's dangerous. > Pippin: > Of course the irony is that 'seeing is believing' only for the > person who sees. As far as everyone else was concerned, he still > didn't have any proof. All he'd get if he talked was an angry > Dumbledore -- and even Voldemort feared that. Mike: This reminds me of the irony of Severus inventing Langlock and Moody setting that tongue-curling curse on 12 GP against Snape's unwanted reappearance. From annette9616 at bellsouth.net Sun Feb 3 16:53:55 2008 From: annette9616 at bellsouth.net (Annette Rogers) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:53:55 -0500 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A5F1A3.4080507@bellsouth.net> No: HPFGUIDX 181256 > Ivy wrote: > > I don't remember which book all I remember is that Harry, Ron and > Hermione were looking at something and she got frustrated with them > and asked them something like don't you guys ever read a book. I > think Ron or Harry replied with something like that's why we got you. > > I would really appreciate any help. > > Thanks In SS p.219 - 220 re: Nicolas Flamel: "Nicolas Flamel," she whispered dramatically, "is the /only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone!"/ This didn't have quite the effect she'd expected, "The what?" said Harry and Ron, "Oh, /honestly,/ don't you two read?" / . . . Annette From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 19:18:24 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:18:24 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181257 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" wrote: > I can't remember where the quote is, my inclination is it's in OotP > or HBP. It was regarding reading "Hogwarts: A History". Ron or Harry > proposes something that can't be done in Hogwarts. Hermione says > something like: "It's in Hogwarts: A History. Aren't you ever going > to read it?" To which Ron replies something like: "Why should we? We > can just ask you." > Rereading this, I haven't been much help. I've looked for it, but I > haven't found it yet. Sorry. Mike, this conversation is in GoF, "The Madness of Mr.Crouch" chapter, p.548 Am.ed. It's when HRH discuss methods of bugging :-). Hermione says that electronic equipment doesn't work at Hogwarts, according to "Hogwarts: A History". I'm still not sure it's the quote we are supposed to be looking for, though ... zanooda From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 19:54:55 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:54:55 -0000 Subject: can someone please help me find this quote? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181258 > zanooda > > Mike, this conversation is in GoF, "The Madness of Mr.Crouch" > chapter, p.548 Am.ed. It's when HRH discuss methods of bugging :-). > Hermione says that electronic equipment doesn't work at Hogwarts, > according to "Hogwarts: A History". I'm still not sure it's the > quote we are supposed to be looking for, though ... Mike: Yeah Mila, that's the one I was thinking of! :) I was looking in the wrong books, but I came pretty close on the quote. ;) So, Ivy, are any of these quotes on this thread the one you were looking for? From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 20:54:16 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:54:16 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181259 > Mike: > OK, then Sirius is just as blameless for telling Sev about the > Willow as Sev is for going after the werewolf. Actually, since > nothing really happened, assigning blame is kind of a shadow game. > Which is why it irks me to see people blame Sirius for the whole > thing. > > If, instead, we're talking about exposing their characters, then > sure, Sirius is reckless. But Severus is just as reckless or worse. > My point about bringing up stupidity, is that for some reason > Severus' actions in this case don't seem to count against his overall > character. He's still the potions genius, the great duelist (btw, > where in canon do we get the schoolboy Severus, duelist > extrordinaire? We have one example in canon, and he get's his ass > kicked), DADA expert, spell inventor. Montavilla47: Who is assigning Sirius complete blame for the Prank? I, for one, agree with you that assigning blame is pretty silly. I think that if Sirius expressed regret for his mistake, then no one would be thinking too much about his action. After all, people make mistakes all the time. We accept that changing the secret- keeper was a mistake and no one has conspiracy theories about Sirius trying to kill James and Lily. But since Sirius is still growling (twenty years after the fact) that Snape "deserved" what he got, it shows an intention on Sirius's part to put Snape in danger. However, for the record, he didn't make Snape go into the tunnel, and Snape certainly bears the responsibility for his own stupidity--made more stupid since he suspected Lupin of being a werewolf already. The only person who comes out the incident looking halfway good is James, who did, by all accounts, risk his life to save Snape's. I mean, we haven't even talked about the total idiocy of admitting a student who changes into a savage monster once a month and setting up a whomping willow as the main safeguard! A willow, mind you, that took out a kid's eye! Incidently, I realized that this Prank had a lot in common with the Midnight duel. In the midnight duel, Draco dared Harry into a situation that would cause Harry harm. And Harry, knowing that he was breaking rules and with someone telling him that it was a set-up, went ahead and snuck out of the dorms anyway. He ended up facing a dangerous monster, as well, although that was *not* Draco's intention, and, had he not been lucky, could have been injured or killed. Now, is Draco entirely blameless for the danger Harry got into? Mike: > Somehow, Severus the budding DE, friends of other future DEs, > inventor of a spell that he later labels as "Dark", gets shunted > aside as if those things don't count towards his character. The > Severus at the time of the Prank is a pretty nasty character, imo, > so why should I give him the benefit of the doubt? IOW, why shouldn't > I ascribe some nasty motivations to Severus' attempt to catch Remus > at ... what, I don't know? Montavilla47: Umm. Because *no one* in the books ascribes to him a more nefarious motive than to get the Marauders in trouble? I don't mind you speculating about Snape's nasty motivations, but frankly, I think it's a silly exercise. I mean, I've already heard a few of those. One, I remember, was that Snape, having been recruited already by Voldemort, was sent down the tunnel in order to get bitten and thus cause a scandal which would reflect badly on Dumbledore. What I don't understand is why saying that Sirius was reckless and stupid, or that he hoped something bad would happen to Snape--which could be as small as Snape getting scared and looking like a wimp, is perceived as assigning Sirius the entire blame for the Prank, or letting Snape off the hook for his own part in it. I don't think that's what the majority of the posters think about the event, but we always seem to get pushed into that position. I also don't see why it matters how nasty Snape was a person. Unless he was an active danger to the school--in which case alerting the authorities would have been the proper course-- that doesn't make it right to expose him a werewolf. And it certainly doesn't make it right to expose the werewolf to him! From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 21:42:49 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:42:49 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181260 > Montavilla47: > > Who is assigning Sirius complete blame for the Prank? I, for one, > agree with you that assigning blame is pretty silly. Alla: Not you :-) I mean, this is the downside of debating a topic for years. One unwillingly replies to many arguments one have read over the years. So, to answer your question more broadly - MANY people did and as always links are provided upon request. Which is of course their right to argue this position and my right to strongly disagree with it. To make a long story short the position that I am making general remark against goes something like this: Sirius MADE Snape to go into the tunnel because he EITHER wanted to scare Snape badly OR wanted to kill him. You see, I have no problem with "Sirius wanting to scare Snape badly" (I do not know one way or another Sirius wanted, but it is sure possible), but to me the first part just does not fly in face of canon and the last one does not fly either. IMO of course. Montavilla47: > I think that if Sirius expressed regret for his mistake, then no one > would be thinking too much about his action. After all, people > make mistakes all the time. We accept that changing the secret- > keeper was a mistake and no one has conspiracy theories about > Sirius trying to kill James and Lily. But since Sirius is still > growling (twenty years after the fact) that Snape "deserved" what > he got, it shows an intention on Sirius's part to put Snape in > danger. Alla: Sure he does. But does it show an intention on Sirius' behalf to put Snape's in danger? I don't know. Maybe it does maybe it does not in my opinion. After all Sirius says that he deserved what he got, NOT that Sirius INTENDED to make him go and get what he got. He certainly does not sound sorry for Snape going, but did he intend for him to go, I have no idea from that remark. Montavilla47: > However, for the record, he didn't make Snape go into the > tunnel, and Snape certainly bears the responsibility for his > own stupidity--made more stupid since he suspected Lupin > of being a werewolf already. Alla: On that we agree indeed. > Montavilla47: > Umm. Because *no one* in the books ascribes to him a more > nefarious motive than to get the Marauders in trouble? I don't > mind you speculating about Snape's nasty motivations, but frankly, > I think it's a silly exercise. I mean, I've already heard a few of those. > One, I remember, was that Snape, having been recruited already by > Voldemort, was sent down the tunnel in order to get bitten and thus > cause a scandal which would reflect badly on Dumbledore. Alla: This particular one does sound silly to me, but the one of Snape wanting to kill Lupin to show off his skills in DA sounds less silly to me, but it is also just speculation, hehe. Montavilla47: > What I don't understand is why saying that Sirius was reckless > and stupid, or that he hoped something bad would happen to > Snape--which could be as small as Snape getting scared and > looking like a wimp, is perceived as assigning Sirius the > entire blame for the Prank, or letting Snape off the hook for his > own part in it. I don't think that's what the majority of the > posters think about the event, but we always seem to get > pushed into that position. Alla: Saying that Sirius was reckless and stupid or that he hoped something bad would happen to Snape is of course NOT assigning Sirius entire blame for the Prank and the position which I happily accept as one of the possibilities, although not necessarily as fact. Saying that Sirius MADE Snape do it, meaning that he made Snape go to the tunnel is IMO assigning Sirius entire blame for the Prank. And nobody is being pushed in that position, LOL, plenty of people are very happy to have that position. Which is again their right to have and my right to call unsupported by canon. Montavilla47: > I also don't see why it matters how nasty Snape was a person. > Unless he was an active danger to the school--in which case > alerting the authorities would have been the proper course-- > that doesn't make it right to expose him a werewolf. And it > certainly doesn't make it right to expose the werewolf to him! Alla: It does not matter how nasty Snape was as a person of course for the purposes of whether it was right to expose him to werewolf, which I do not think I necessarily agree with. I think he exposed himself to werewolf. But to me it matters a plenty how nasty Snape was as a person if we are trying to figure out why he went there. JMO, Alla From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sun Feb 3 21:41:34 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:41:34 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181261 I love the way that Harry stands up against Amycus in DH when he (Amycus )spits in McGonagall's face. Harry obviously felt very strongly about it as he blows his cover and uses a Crucio curse with a lot of meaning in it. Jayne From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Feb 3 22:16:03 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:16:03 -0000 Subject: James and Sirius: ringleaders (was Re: Student!Snape and bullying (WAS student! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181262 > zgirnius: > I did not find that what we saw of Lily made her opinion > authoritative. That scene did not overturn anything for me. In fact, > it was the next scene that convinced me Rowling did not intend to > overturn anything, when I realized the prank preceded the worst > memory. Potioncat: CRASH! The sound you just heard was Lily falling off her pedestal...and I didn't even know I had put her there. She seems the personification of autorial intent in this case. Merlin knows, I've ignored perceived authorial intent before. Here, snipping and merging bits of Zgirnius's post: So I'm left > with, "Mulciber is evil" as a statement I do accept, but the >implied comparison, I reject. Or > it leaves us with James 'growing out of it' in the sense of leaving > school behind and going on to bigger and better things as a member of > the Order/father. > ... he is a school kid who is brave > and loyal to his friends, cruel to his enemies, and picks on > his 'inferiors' (any students who lack the popularity, magical power, > or group of frieds to keep him off) for the sheer fun of it. Potioncat: Continuing with that idea, as bad as James was at Hogwarts (even leaving Snape out of it) he could have been that bad "for" the Order. And I love your wording, so I'll borrow it: brave, loyal to the Order, cruel to the DEs, picks on inferiors for the fun of it. (Wormtail, maybe Mundungus...) How did he ever become Head Boy? Rescuing Severus in 5th year wouldn't seem to be enough, given how little James chages at that point. Zgirnius > I see a parallel between Draco and James. He shows this same better > side when he tries to rescue Goyle in the RoR during DH. It's just a > bigger surprise for us because we have not heard Pansy and Gregory > telling us what a swell guy he really is for six books. And of > course, if Draco had done any 'heroic' successful ventures for his > side, we would consider him a villain, not a hero, owing to the > entire context. James picked the right side. Potioncat: That was the big surprise, wasn't it? DD had said that Draco and Harry reminded him of James and Severus, but Harry never expected to be Severus in that comparison. > Zgirnius: > Post DH, I also wonder what was going on in Lupin's mind during the > SWM. The furrowed brow, etc... I assumed, for sure, that he > disapproved of his friends' actions and just lacked the backbone to > tell them to leave off. But maybe he was also nervous, worried that > Snape might be provoked into blurting out the truth about him? Potioncat: Very good point. If Severus could have burst out with Filthy Mudblood at Lily---of all people---he certainly could have been provoked into Filthy Werewolf for Remus. I'm not sure if this idea changes how I feel about Lupin, although knowing it's after the Prank, I'm more disappointed in him than I had been in the past. We started off in the saga, thinking of James as a hero and Snape as a villian. Slowly that seems to reverse. James of course, is never to the point of being villian, and JKR stops short of calling Severus a hero. But I wish we'd seen something redeeming about James. The more I think of it, the more like Draco he becomes. From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sun Feb 3 22:48:17 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:48:17 -0000 Subject: Disapparating Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181263 I have a query from DH. When Harry , Hermione and Ron disapparated most of the time they all hung on to each other. This lead to Ron getting splinched badly which moved me quite a lot Wouldn't it have been easier to do it alone. Were Harry and Ron able to do it without Hermione's help? Jayne From dongan51 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 23:11:05 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 15:11:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Disapparating Message-ID: <45635.63422.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181264 Jayne: I have a query from DH. When Harry, Hermione and Ron disapparated most of the time they all hung on to each other. This lead to Ron getting splinched badly which moved me quite a lot. Wouldn't it have been easier to do it alone. Were Harry and Ron able to do it without Hermione's help? Liz: Hermione was the only one that passed the test, however, it was shown that the other two could apparate on their own. Harry did apparate Dumbledore back to Hogwarts in HBP, and Ron apparated on his own when he was trying to get back to Harry and Hermoine. I always felt that they apparated together to ensure they would always wind up exactly in the same spot, and to hide under the cloak. From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sun Feb 3 23:20:39 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:20:39 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Disapparating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CE05EB7AC@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181265 Jayne: I have a query from DH. When Harry , Hermione and Ron disapparated most of the time they all hung on to each other. This lead to Ron getting splinched badly which moved me quite a lot Wouldn't it have been easier to do it alone. Were Harry and Ron able to do it without Hermione's help? Sharon: They hung on to Hermione because it was she who chose where they would apparate to. Also Harry had only just turned seventeen and hadn't taken his apparition test yet. In fact, we don't really know if he can apparate, at least at the beginning of DH. We know he took some classes in apparition the previous year but I don't think there was any discussion of exactly how good he was at it. I am thinking, too, that there might have been some kind of revealing spell that alerts the MOM when someone apparates without a license. There was some discussion about Ron's splinching on the OTC list (I think it was that one) recently and someone suggested that he got splinched becuase he was expecting to stop at 12 Grimmauld, and apparating ahs something to do with intention. So he got confused and got splinched. OR, perhaps becuase Hermione apparated them so quickly and in some confusion from GP, and so she didn't do it with the right amount of determination/intention. Just some thought. Sharon, who wishes she could apparate because the traffic is so bad every morning and it's driving her nuts trying to get to work! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sun Feb 3 23:37:51 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:37:51 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Disapparating In-Reply-To: <45635.63422.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CE05EB7AF@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181266 Jayne: I have a query from DH. When Harry, Hermione and Ron disapparated most of the time they all hung on to each other. This lead to Ron getting splinched badly which moved me quite a lot. Wouldn't it have been easier to do it alone. Were Harry and Ron able to do it without Hermione's help? Liz: Hermione was the only one that passed the test, however, it was shown that the other two could apparate on their own. Harry did apparate Dumbledore back to Hogwarts in HBP, and Ron apparated on his own when he was trying to get back to Harry and Hermoine. I always felt that they apparated together to ensure they would always wind up exactly in the same spot, and to hide under the cloak. Sharon: Oh, I had forgotten about Harry apparating Dumbledore and Ron apparating back to them in DH! Thanks for the reminder. I really do need to go back and read the series yet again. I'm trying to keep up with the discussion started by Alla, but am not getting too far :-) Sharon, who now wishes she had lots of time to just lie around eating bonbons and reading HP. ________________________________ From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com [mailto:HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Liz P Sent: Monday, 4 February 2008 9:11 AM To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [HPforGrownups] Disapparating [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sun Feb 3 23:37:51 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:37:51 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Disapparating In-Reply-To: <45635.63422.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CE05EB7AD@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181267 My apologies to all for not removing the rubbish from my last email -- fingers got ahead of brain. Sorry :-) Sharon [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From catlady at wicca.net Sun Feb 3 23:38:09 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:38:09 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181268 a_svirn wrote in : << Yes I can. If I make the binding enchantment illegal, wizards will have to undo the bondage. (big snip) why should anyone bother to find and use the countercharm if things are perfectly legal and convenient (for wizards) as they are. >> I feel compelled to nitpick. Just because something is illegal doesn't stop all people from doing it. Mundungus Fletcher's thefts, Willie Widdershins's hexes on toilets, Mortlake's extremely odd ferrets, Death Eaters using Unforgiveable Curses, and the whole deal of Crouch Sr sneaking Crouch Jr out of Azkaban and keeping him hidden under Imperius and an Invisibility Cloak are examples. If the bondage enchantment on House Elves were made illegal, I don't suppose Crouch Sr would have obeyed that law either. You will have to provide law enforcement as well as passing the law. In my real reply, I'm not sure whether you and I mean the same thing by "find the countercharm". I believe that the countercharm is not known to wizards and therefore cannot be found by even the most extensive library research; it must be found by experimental research, like Muggles finding a new drug for bipolar disorder or something. If the bondage enchantment on House Elves was illegal while the countercharm was still unknown, then even the most law-biding wizard, eager to obey all laws, could not lift the enchantment by countercharm. His only option for obeying the law would be to give clothes to the Elf. I believe wizards should be researching to find the countercharm. Meanwhile, other wizards should be passing and enforcing laws against House Elf abuse. And I have a pet idea for a law to be passed and enforced and (the hardest part) explained to the House Elves, by which the masters must give clothes now that will be received when the Elf wants to receive them -- I think that's kind of like when Muggles put money 'in escrow', but the clothes would be put in a closet from which the Elf could take them if inherited by an unwanted master or whatever. (An amusingly paradoxical idea is that a wizard could order a House Elf to discover the countercharm, because House Elves can do amazing magical things if they're just obeying an order, such as Kreachy escaping the Inferii.) (When House Elves were released from the bondage enchantment, or even freed by clothes, they might lose the ability to do impossible magic when ordered, as they would no longer have to obey all orders even if impossible.) I don't know what would happen if the bondage enchantment were lifted from House Elves by countercharm. I keep thinking there was some group of magical beings or beasts on whom the bondage enchantment was placed, but maybe it's possible that the beings were created, bondage and all, by one enchantment, and they would kind of evaporate and cease to exist if the enchantment were lifted. Would that be genocide? If that were discovered, I think the research program should change to try to find a way to modify the original enchantment rather than end it. If they were pre-existing beings or beasts who were put under a bondage enchantment, then when they were released from the bondage enchantment, they might completely lose the desire to serve wizards and completely lose the desire to do housework, if those traits had been implanted in them by the bondage enchantment. If they were pre-existing beasts who were put under enchantment, then when the enchantment was removed, their intelligence might drop to the level of some animal and they might no longer have the ability to use language, if that were implanted in them by the bondage enchantment. If this were discovered, I think ethicists would argue about what to do about it. Some would be all for removing the enchantment and ending this human meddling with their true nature. Some would argue that turning beings into beasts is -- I don't know the words, except Yuck. I keep thinking 'kind of like murder' because it terminates a being... House Elves might be quite nasty beings once disenchanted. I have previously offered two wild speculations on that. One is that the ancestral House Elves were a group of goblins so violent and obnoxious that the other Goblins combined pest control with punishment by putting the enchantment on them and delivering them to wizards. The other wild speculation has nothing to do with Goblins, but holds that the ancestral Elves were so violent among themselves that after one battle, only two Elves in the world were left alive, a male from one side and a female from the other side. And they decided to make peace and get married and reproduce the species of Elves. But when their second one killed their first son in a temper tantrum, they put this bondage enchantment on all their descendants as a way to keep them from killing each other. From catlady at wicca.net Mon Feb 4 00:12:20 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:12:20 -0000 Subject: student!Snape keeping Lupin's secret (was Re: Sirius as a dog) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181269 Montavilla wrote in : << One: The files were not sort by perpetrator. They were sorted chronologically. (Why were they filed by date? Goodness knows, except that it seems to be the very least useful way of sorting detention files, which is in keeping with wizard logic.) >> I always thought they weren't literally 'files', that they were Filch's private collection. I thought Filch invented the whole idea of writing a detention slip and no other member of staff ever wanted to see or transcribe them, and then he put the new detention slip in a drawer with the others, with chronological order being a mere result of adding new slips always at the end. Their purpose may have turned out to be that Filch could nostalgically leaf through them to cherish feeling aggrieved by how rotten all students are. On another tentacle, when Harry is in Filch's office for the first time ever in CoS, the narration says: "Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, Harry could see that they contained details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. Fred and George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves." We can call this an internal contradiction, where Rowling writing OoP forgot what she had written in CoS, or we can make up explanations, such as that Filch changed his filing system to the one Montavilla suggested, that he changed it in the twins' first or second year because he got the idea from the twins having so many, many detention slips. Then we can conclude that Fred and George had a lot more detention slips than James and Sirius (because James and Sirius didn't get enough to inspire him to change his filing system). Montavilla wrote in : << Second: Harry see NO detention cards with Snape's name on them. It's not stated directly, but given the seething hatred Harry feels while he's doing this task, I can't imagine he wouldn't notice if he found a slip showing that Snape was up to something bad. So, either Snape went in before the detention and removed all the cards with his name on them, or he was wily enough to slither out of trouble every single time he did something wrong at Hogwarts, or, for the period of time that Harry goes over, he didn't do anything worthy of punishment. >> I agree that Harry would have noticed any detention cards for Snape, so there weren't any. I agree that it would be in character for Snape to have removed all his cards in advance. He may have been able to do it with one Summoning Charm, which would be a very small effort, so I can't really dwell on dear Severus of great abilities and great deeds (of spying) caring enough to spend much effort on something so petty, alas. I also agree that adult!Snape's ability to "live in disguise, deal in secrets and tell naught but lies" (the sphinx's riddle in the Third Task, with the verb tenses altered) suggest that student!Snape was "wily enough [and dishonest enough] to slither out of trouble every single time he did something wrong at Hogwarts". On the one tentacle, that would be something that would outrage Sirius and maybe James, adding to their dislike of Severus. On another tentacle, adult!Snape's ability to sweep into and out of rooms with his billowing cloak, to bend words to his will both for cutting sarcasm and for honeyed deceit (the latter to Cissy and Bella), to be a generally commanding presence, suggest that student!Snape wouldn't still be hunched over and scuttling like a spider by the end of fifth year, so maybe he hadn't learned wiliness yet either. I dunno. But I do feel absolutely certain that during "the period of time that Harry goes over", he DID SEVERAL things "worthy of punishment". Because he wasn't some suck-up to grown-ups Goody Two Shoes like it appears in DH that student!Albus was, remaining ignorant of Hogwarts hidden passages and the Room of Requirement. > First off, thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to read it. I read your fanfic too! I enjoyed it but I have my doubts about student!Snape feeling concern for student!Remus's fate. I've never seen any particular evidence that student!Snape ever felt compassion for anyone but himself, Lily, or at least a fellow Slytherin. The famous statement, 'In recent years, only those whom I could not save', suggests he first developed empathy (or a moral principle with the same result) 'in recent years', well after his student and even his Death Eater days. I wish I knew whether it was empathy, moral principle, both, or neither (i.e. just obeying DD). I think there's some contradiction between student!Snape believing that Remus hadn't known about the plan and adult!Snape believing that Remus had helped plan it. Altho' one could counter-argue that when Severus saw Remus immediately forgive Sirius and go on being friends with Sirius forever, when (by Severus's lights) Remus should have held a grudge against Sirius forever, that was what made Severus believe that Remus was in on the plan. If he had ever had the chance to Legilimens Remus (as in your story) and see complete ignorance, he could dismiss that as Occlumency once he learned {about) Occlumency. Or he could decide that Legilimency doesn't work on werewolves. > > Also, one of the things that I didn't expect, but ended up amusing > me was how stupid Severus really was. I had him planning it out > carefully to give himself plenty of time to explore what he thinks is > probably a cave under the tree, then getting all interested in the > house he finds and completely forgetting that there's a werewolf > on the way. Still cracks me up. This is a forbidden LOL reply. From catlady at wicca.net Mon Feb 4 00:32:09 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:32:09 -0000 Subject: Youth Potion/archway to Diagon Alley/Expelliarmus/Grindel Wand/Bins/Reckless Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181270 Mike Crudele wrote in : << If they really had a potion that reversed aging, wouldn't you think we'd have a bunch of buff 21-year-old-looking witches and wizards all over the WW? ;-) >> Not if it erased everything one had learned in the years that one reversed. Anyway, it's canon that they have Beautification Potions and very little sign of anyone using them except Malodora Grymm. Zanooda wrote in : << I noticed that the way to open the archway to Diagon Alley in Ch.5 is a little different from the way it is described in DH, when Bellatrix!Hermione opens it in "Gringotts" chapter. In PS/SS only one brick is mentioned, with a hole appearing in it, but in DH "the bricks began to whirl and spin: a hole appeared in the middle of them" etc. >> <> A TV interview gave words AND pictures for how Rowling herself imagined the archway to open in PS/SS: words from : << And I like this one -- I thought I'd lost this picture, actually, because I was gonna show it to Chris Columbus, and true to form I only found it when it was no use and they'd already they'd already filmed that bit anyway... This is how the entrance to Diagon Alley works in my imagination. So Chris is gonna murder me when he finds out I had it there all along, and he was asking me how it worked, but it was buried in a box. >> Picture from our very own Y!Groups photo section: I remember when I saw the PS/SS movie, I saw the bricks moving plus and minus in the thin dimension of the wall (it's so simple to see and so hard to say!) and was annoyed that what had been magic in the book had been turned into mechanics, maybe clockwork, in the movie. I remember when I saw that TV show picture, I thought 'Yes! That's what it looked like in the book!' I have to say what remember thinking then because now I'm so old and jaded that I don't have thoughts about it at all. Alla wrote in : << Snape introduces Expelliarmus, curse that Harry would use in many significant situations as we know now. Scarlet light? Gryffindor color? >> It seems that all the spells have signature colored light beams, which seem to have no connection to House colors, except that Rowling may have been careful to make Avada Kedavra green and Expelliarmus red so when they met in GoF graveyard scene, the result would be gold. This causes me to wonder if Harry's first test of his wand casting red and gold sparks had anything to do with school Houses except in the author's conscious or unconscious symbolism. Maybe Draco's wand cast red and gold sparks when it chose him and maybe Ron's new wand cast a big green and blue bubble when it chose him. Zanooda wrote in : << GG had the wand from the moment he stole it from Gregorovitch and until Dumbledore took it from him after winning the duel, right? >> When we first saw Gregorovitch's memory of 'the merry-faced thief' taking something and then waiting in the window until Gregorovitch got a good look at him and then Stunning Gregorovitch, I was quite agitated about why would a thief go out of his way to make sure there was a witness who could identify him? Was the thief someone else using Polyjuice? Later I understood that it had nothing to do with leaving a witness, but Grindelwald waited because he had to defeat Gregorovitch in order to make the Wand his own. In that case, it seems quite restrained that Grindelwald used Stupefy instead of Avada Kevadra. Why? Did he believe that the local wizarding police had an Avada Kevadra detector in the area? Did he plan that his new empire would need good wandmakers such as Gregorovitch? Was he merely reluctant to kill unless neccessary? Potioncat wrote in : << I got the "Binns/bins" once I was clued into bins for trash cans >> Once a British listies told us that 'bins' is also slang for very thick eyeglasses, from 'binoculars'. Jayne wrote in : << As he followed Bill back to the others, a wry thought came to him, born of the wine he had just drunk. He seemed set on course to become just as reckless a godfather to Teddy Lupin as Sirius Black had been to him This made me smile. I don't think that would be true. Any comments from you wise people out there >> Recently a listie was complaining how unfair that was of JKR to Sirius, to call him reckless without taking the circumstances into account. I think it's Harry's thought rather than JKR's thought, but I also think it is canon fact that Sirius was a reckless person. Harry is planning to steal (a Horcrux) from a Gringotts high security vault, after all he's been told about the numerous and powerful protections that Gringotts has. After he's been told that anyone who breaks into a Gringotts high security vault will remain there without food or water until the goblins clear hiser skeleton away. I suppose he hasn't believed that it is IMPOSSIBLE to break into Gringotts and get out alive since Quirrell did it, but it's pretty reckless to figure that three teen-age students can do something just because Voldemort was able to do it. Even tho' an insider, a former Gringotts goblin, will help him, he should have reflected that he was on track to be a MUCH MORE reckless godfather to Teddy than Sirius had been to him, because robbing Gringotts is more reckless than going to Platform 9 3/4 in dog disguise or trying to kill Pettigrew single-handed. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 00:48:08 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:48:08 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181271 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > Yaxley is taller than Snape, who is shorter than Black. zanooda: Yeah, I remember that Yaxley is taller from Ch.1, but it means nothing to me, because I have no idea how tall Snape is. In your sentence he is shorter than everybody :-). > potioncat: > The idea was that after the DEs entered Hogwarts, McGonagall > sent Flitwick to get Snape. Some readers thought it was unusual > that McGonagall would send a full wizard on an errand, instead > of sending one of the students. zanooda: Or she could have sent her Patronus to alert Snape, like she did in DH - she even managed to produce three :-)!. I actually can understand why she didn't want to send a student. I think that maybe she decided to send for Snape right after she found out from Ron, Ginny and Neville about the DE's being in the castle, not during the battle. At this point the teachers and the Order didn't find the DE's yet and didn't know where they were - they only found the DEs "minutes later" (p.618) - and then the battle began. So maybe McGonagall thought it was too dangerous to send a student alone on an errand, knowing that he/she can run into the DEs loose in the castle. Or maybe she was afraid that Snape won't take a student (and a Gryffindor at that :-)) seriously and say someting like "What is this rubbish?", LOL. It's more difficult to explain why she didn't use the Patronus. Maybe she was afraid that Snape was asleep and wanted to send a messenger who would be sure to wake him up. Or maybe Flitwick needed to do something downstairs anyway (like seal the entrance door, for example) and volonteered to alert Snape in the dungeons at the same time. These are all not very good explanations, but the point is, McGonagall sending Flitwick away *can* be explained - I've seen worse things explained here on this list :-). And even if McGonagall sent Flitwick away from the battle because she thought he was unable to defend himself, it doesn't mean she was right about him. If she thought he was a weakling (you know, so tiny, frail and squeaky :-)) she was mistaken, IMO. Maybe he is not a champion, but he doesn't seem worse than others at fighting. From liliput99ar at yahoo.com.ar Mon Feb 4 00:58:03 2008 From: liliput99ar at yahoo.com.ar (liliput99ar) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 00:58:03 -0000 Subject: Prank Generally (Was: Re: Snape's Culpability in the Prank ) (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181272 Nora: My view about the Prank. All canon from PoA, GB pocket edition Page 152: "Precisely, said Professor McGonagall. `Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course ? exceptionally bright, in fact ? but I don't think we've ever had such pair of troublemakers-` Page 260: Hermione: "That was still really dangerous! Running around in the dark with a werewolf! What if you'd given the others the slip, and bitten somebody?" " A thought that still haunts me', said Lupin heavily.' And there were near misses, many of them. We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless ? carried away with our own cleverness" Pag 261: Remus: "Sirius thought it would be- er -amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was to prod the knot on the tree- trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it". -end of canon- I think that Sirius did not think about dangerous consequences in telling Snape to go after Remus through the Womping Willow. He was a "troublemaker", reckless, arrogant, and rash. I don't think he was seaking harm for Snape. I am not saying that it was just an innocent joke. I am saying there have always been a lot of jokes, that without a minimal further thinking look very amusing, and that are in fact cruel and/or dangerous. Or that turn badly without purpose. Some canon examples are many of the Weasley twin's jokes, or Harry and Ron going to Hogwarts on flying car (not a joke but a stupid / thoughtless move), or Harry going to Hogsmeade without permission, and Ron supporting him, etc. Prank was an idiotic joke that could have turn very badly, and that finally turned badly because of the people involved. It contributed to the hatred and resentment of Snape, who did not even try to listen to the explanations of Sirius, Remus and trio about "the rat". Things could have been different with Snape's support, to get the conviction of Pettigrew for the murders of the Potters and the Muggles, to clear Sirius, and so on. And we would not had the story...hehe Just my thoughts. Nora From livednlondon at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 02:04:46 2008 From: livednlondon at yahoo.com (livednlondon) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:04:46 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181273 I think it is interesting that we have seen Harry use an unforgivable spell twice in the books. It goes against everything he believes in, but he always wants to protect those he cares for and has a quick temper. livednlondon From livednlondon at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 02:17:27 2008 From: livednlondon at yahoo.com (livednlondon) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:17:27 -0000 Subject: Disapparating In-Reply-To: <45635.63422.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181274 The reason that they all apparated together was because Hermione would pick a destination and Harry and Ron wouldn't be able to apparate to the exact spot without her help because she was the only one who knew where their destination was. livednlondon From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 03:16:19 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:16:19 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181275 Carol earlier: > > I'm not saying that Sirius forced Severus to go down there. I'm > > saying that he offered him the means of endangering himself, which > > he could not have done otherwise because he didn't know how to get > > in, knowing that he would take the bait. > > > > I'm not saying that Severus was innocent. Of course, he broke > > curfew, and of course proving his theory and perhaps wanting to > > get MWPP into trouble was insufficient reason for going in there. > > Mike: > Carol, you assigned Snape approx. 20% responsibility for the Potters > death, based on him bringing the prophesy to Voldemort. Snape did > that knowingly, most likely suspecting his master would somehow act > on it. How Voldemort would use it, Snape had no real way of knowing. > But a logical man like Snape would think that Voldemort would most > likely do *something* to eliminate the prophetic challenger, however > likely that the prophesy was true. Else why did he bother to bring > it to him? > > Sirius told Severus how to get past the Whomping Willow, to access > the tunnel that would take him to werewolf!Lupin's location. Sirius > had no real way of knowing how Severus would use that information, > though he *probably* thought that Severus would use it in some way > to try to get the Marauders in trouble. He *may* have taunted > Severus, we don't know, that's pure speculation. > > So tell me, based one your assessment for the Snape-LV-prophesy guilt owning equation, why would Sirius be any more than 20% at fault for the Prank? Both of them gave information that lead to incidents, > information without which the incidents wouldn't happen (allegedly > in the case of Sirius' info). If anything, I would say giving > information to a psychopathic killer about a potential rival is more > damning than giving information on how to get past a mean tree to a > schoolboy rival that wants to break the same rules that you are > breaking. > Carol responds: Simple. In Sirius's case, the information led directly to the near-fatal action, with nothing else involved--no preemptive measures or other complications. Sirius knew what was down there; knew that Severus had no means of defending himself from death or worse; witheld the key information about how he and his friends survived, in essence, lying by omission; and as good as knew that Severus would take the bait. The person who would have committed the actual murder, Remus Lupin, cannot be held responsible unless he was in on the Prank (and I'm pretty sure that he wasn't; I doubt that he'd be as unconcerned about the possible consequences as Sirius was). If James and Peter were in on the Prank, they should be assigned some share of the blame, but less than Sirius's share since he's the one who actually provided the information that would injure/tempt Severus *and* withheld the crucial information. Also, it appears to have been his brilliant idea. If they weren't in on it, he would have been solely responsible for initiating and carrying out the Prank (with Severus getting perhaps 15% of the blame for any injuries to himself being stupid enough to listen to an enemy). And Sirius not only makes no attempt to atone for his, shall we say, grievous error in judgment, but he doesn't even show remorse. In contrast, we have Snape providing the information to Voldemort, obviously not knowing that he was endangering the Potters at that time, and later trying to undo the damage by going first to LV and then to DD and promising to do "anything" to protect them. So, yes, he initiated the action, and, yes, he evidently cared about as much about the deaths of nameless, faceless persons as Dumbledore did, but once he learned that he had endangered someone he loved, he tried to undo the damage and spent the rest of his life trying to atone for it. And note, BTW, that Harry has no thought for the eavesdropper at all until he finds out that it was Snape, at which point he tries to shift all the blame for his parents' deaths onto him, just as he tried (with less cause) to blame him for Sirius Black's death. Next we have Wormtail. Had it not been for his betrayal, the Fidelius Charm (suggested by DD because Snape begged him to protect the Potters) would have worked. No Wormtail; no deaths. And, of course, there's Sirius's brilliant suggestion to switch SKs and the Potters' acceptance of it (and their rejection of DD in the first place), all of which falls under unintended consequences, but nevertheless, plays some part in their deaths, as, perhaps, does DD's borrowing the Invisibility Cloak and his not stopping Snape. (I'm not convinced that he knew Snape was a DE at that time. Nobody else seems to have known, certainly not Trelawney or Sirius Black.) And Voldemort actually killed the Potters (surely he gets at least half the "credit" here? So you have my percentages, which I already gave you, with the unrepentant Wormtail betraying his friends being more to blame than the repentant Snape, especially because he knew exactly what he was doing and whose deaths he would be causing. Note that when Harry thinks that Sirius is the traitor, he screams, "You killed my parents!" and Sirius actually accepts the blame ("I as good as killed them"). The Prophecy--the reason for killing them and trying to kill Harry--isn't even brought into the equation. All that matters is that, for whatever reason, Voldemort is trying to kill the Potters (as he or the DEs would have tried to do, anyway, seeing that the Order members were being picked off one by one), they were supposed to be protected by the Fidelius Charm, and the SK betrayed them. Again, only when Harry learns that Snape was the eavesdropper does he assign the eavesdropping any significance. He wrongly thinks (despite DD's having told him otherwise) that Snape knew that the Prophecy referred to the Potters and that he told LV about it because he hated James. Prophecy or no Prophecy, eavesdropping or no eavesdropping, the Potters would have been protected by the Fidelius Charm had their trusted friend Pettigrew not betrayed them. Pettigrew, more than Snape, made the murder of the Potters possible. Back to Sirius and the so-called Prank. I can't assign percentages there because we don't know to what extent James, Remus, and Peter were involved, but the lion's share goes to Sirius either way, IMO. It's not really comparable, however, because Snape was not tempting James Potter to do something deadly. He was providing a piece of information to Voldemort, having no idea to whom it referred or how LV would interpret it or when he would act on it, if at all. Possibly, Snape, being logical, assumed that Voldemort would wait until the "one with the power" revealed himself twenty years or so down the road. He could not possibly have known that LV would attempt a preemptive strike, and when he found out that LV intended to attack the Potters, he took preemptive measures of his own. (That they failed is Pettigrew's fault, not Snape's.) I doubt that, with all my words, I've made it clear, so I'll say that in the so-called Prank, the informer is the only culprit, or at least the primary culprit, because we can't blame the werewolf, and the intended victim, though partially responsible, was duped into believing that he could safely enter the tunnel. In the case of the eavesdropping, the informant is not the primary culprit; the murderer is. And the murderer's accomplice made the murder possible. Moreover, the informant showed remorse and attempted to prevent the murder. The other two, between them, made it possible and carried it out. > > > Carol responds: > > He suspected that he'd see a werewolf and come out unscathed, > > just as the Marauders did. > > Mike: > Why should he think that? And where is the canon that he did? It's > speculation, yours and mine, but it shows a certain level of > stupidity that you are not willing to asign to Severus on *any* > other point of discussion. Carol responds: We're talking about teenage boys here, not adults. Teenage boys, and I include MWPP along with Severus, think themselves invulnerable. And even the most intelligent boys are not always rational beings. It seems clear to me that Severus thought he would survive or he wouldn't have gone in. If the Marauders could do it, he could, right? (We *know* that he didn't know their secret, that they were Animagi, until PoA.) So if I'm assuming here, it's a pretty safe assumption. And there's a difference between stupidity and foolishness, just as there's a difference between their opposites, intelligence and wisdom. It's quite possible to be simultaneously intelligent and foolish, as DD was with Grindelwald--and Severus was with the so-called Prank. > > > Carol: > > Of the two, the one who provided information that would tempt the > > other was more at fault, > > Mike: > Then Snape is more at fault for the Potters death than Voldemort is. Fair is fair, Snape tempted LV with the prophesy information. > Carol: No, because Snape didn't offer Voldemort information to tempt him, nor was Voldemort (or anyone else) Snape's intended victim. He was merely a spy providing information to his employer, bearing some responsibility for what that employer did with that information but by no means the share that you're trying to give him by leaving the murderer and the traitor out of the equation. The situations are not comparable. Do you really think that Sirius would not have been expelled, at the very least, had his little plan succeeded? In the WW, which is not known for its fairness, I'm afraid that Remus would have been the one imprisoned or put to death, but it's just possible that Sirius would have been sent Azkaban at sixteen instead of twenty-two. And even if you let him off the hook completely with regard to Severus (which, IMO, is letting him get away with dangerous and irresponsible behavior), what about the potential consequences for his friend Remus? Shouldn't he have thought about that? But, no. I suppose that's no more important than the potential consequences of running around Hogsmeade on full-moon nights. All in good fun, right, and an act of kindness to poor Remus. > Mike: > Well, I never said harmless. Carol responds: Well, thank God for that. Mike: But yep, all Severus' fault. Carol responds: It can't be *all* Severus's fault that he took the bait because he didn't offer himself the bait, did he? He could not have endangered himself had Sirius not offered him the means to do so. Nor could he have known his full danger because Sirius withheld crucial information. Carol, who can possibly see splitting the blame 5/50 but "all Severus's fault" is simply incomprehensible to me From dongan51 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 02:35:16 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:35:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Disapparating Message-ID: <384055.33017.qm@web63911.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181276 livednlondon: The reason that they all apparated together was because Hermione would pick a destination and Harry and Ron wouldn't be able to apparate to the exact spot without her help because she was the only one who knew where their destination was. Liz: I have a question, did they use the Secret Keeper charm? I knew about Hermione choosing the spots, etc, but I was never sure if she was the secret keeper? Thank you.. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Mon Feb 4 04:00:10 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:00:10 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181277 > livednlondon wrote: > > I think it is interesting that we have seen Harry use an > unforgivable spell twice in the books. It goes against > everything he believes in, but he always wants to protect > those he cares for and has a quick temper. > Magpie: I think if it went against everything he believed in he'd give it a second thought beyond the sassy action hero one-liner about how you really do have to mean it. There's nothing in canon to really suggest Harry's against using Unforgivables against people; he's just against having them used against him or his loved ones. If he himself is moved to throw a torture spell it must be justified, presumably. -m From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 04:39:37 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 04:39:37 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle's inability to love Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181278 Hi, I'm glad I came across this site just by accident. I actually joined the HP FanFiction Forum because, well, I'm an HP fan, and I like to write. One of the topics in the forum was assistance needed for creating a short story on how Tom Riddle had the inability to love. I thought I'd lend my advice to the topic, but after submitting my ideas, I started to read some of the other responses. Needless to say, it was quite obvious that most subscribers to this site are in the young adult range. The author of the post, however, quite impressed me, and since I haven't seen this topic posted on HP4GUs, as far as I could tell, I wanted to do so. Forum Posting: "Albus Dumbledore said that Voldemort was unable to love, he didn't think Voldemort ever loved or even had the ability and that was why Harry could defeat him. Because he did not know love. What my theory is that maybe - any theory on Voldemort and love will be slightly AU so bear with me - he was unable to love because he despised love. Well, that point was obvious, but why he despised love is debatable " My response was: "Wow, the most popular human emotion to try to explain it's been a topic revisited and never fully understand by humans, so probably makes it number one. You seem to have been circling your own logic on this you've expressed several concerns that you won't be able to get your way out of it, so I am offering a fresh perspective. I say, let's step away from the details in the background of Tom first and define the topic. I have this passage on my fridge, so that I am reminded of it every now and then: TO BE LOVED, IS TO BE LOVE Love is Patient, Love is Kind. Love does Not Envy, Love does Not Boast, Love is Not Proud. Love is Not Rude, Love is Not Self-Seeking, Love is Not Easily Angered, Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs. Love does Not Delight in Evil, but Rejoices in the Truth. Love Always Protects, Always Trusts, Always Hopes, Always Perseveres. As you can see, the person who wants to be loved, must become love. A lot of risk to be taken, right? The words say that just by following this decree, you will find what you are searching for, but no one can achieve this at 100% efficiency, and the more failures along the path, only makes those odds worse. However the person who understands that all these aspects support each other when others may fail, will use that strength to continue the journey. Now back to the story, perhaps a reference to Tom actually wanting to rip his soul not only in half, but even into more unstable sub- parts could be reasoning on why he felt the need to ignore foundational elements in which he never considered to be of importance? I also like the idea of how the love potion used was never a basis for love and in contrast, Harry having the similar situation flung on him had the love of both the father and mother as his initial foundation for building his character. Anyway, you can continue to try to find reasons, causes, etc. Basically, it's the person's character that decides how strong they are in whatever obstacle they face. Harry sought the light: truth and that which was right, Tom sought power through the darkness." bdclark0423 From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 07:06:02 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:06:02 -0000 Subject: student!Snape keeping Lupin's secret (was Re: Sirius as a dog) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181279 Catlady: > I always thought they weren't literally 'files', that they were > Filch's private collection. I thought Filch invented the whole idea of > writing a detention slip and no other member of staff ever wanted to > see or transcribe them, and then he put the new detention slip in a > drawer with the others, with chronological order being a mere result > of adding new slips always at the end. > On another tentacle, when Harry is in Filch's office for the first > time ever in CoS, the narration says: "Wooden filing cabinets stood > around the walls; from their labels, Harry could see that they > contained details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. Fred and > George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves." > > We can call this an internal contradiction, where Rowling writing OoP > forgot what she had written in CoS, or we can make up explanations, > such as that Filch changed his filing system to the one Montavilla > suggested, that he changed it in the twins' first or second year > because he got the idea from the twins having so many, many detention > slips. Montavilla47: Or we could speculate that there was a central file set up in chronological order, and that Filch's private collection consisted of copies of the ones he submitted to that central file. In HBP, Snape starts with a box that number one-thousand-and- something. That argues for a very large number of detention slips, probably over 100,000. I thought that the number probably related to the number of years Hogwarts had been in existence. Catlady: > I read your fanfic too! I enjoyed it but I have my doubts about > student!Snape feeling concern for student!Remus's fate. I've never > seen any particular evidence that student!Snape ever felt compassion > for anyone but himself, Lily, or at least a fellow Slytherin. Montavilla47: Well, we don't actually see student!Snape show compassion for a fellow Slytherin, either. But, since we're not privy to student Snape in any situations where he'd be called upon to show compassion, I think it's as easy to speculate that he could. If student!Snape were entirely devoid of compassion, then he'd really be a monster on a par with Voldemort, don't you think? And he's not. Come to think of it, that scene where he's crying in the corner... is that fear? Or is it empathy for his mother? I suppose the scene where Severus emphatically doesn't show compassion is when Petunia get hits with the branch. But then, I doubt Harry would have shown compassion either, since he hates Petunia. And Harry is the epitome of love and compassion. I think you have a point about the contradiction between Severus believing that Lupin didn't know about the Prank and adult Snape thinking he did. But you've already come up with several good explanations yourself, so I won't add to that. And thank you for reading it! From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 07:51:51 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:51:51 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181280 > Montavilla47: > > Who is assigning Sirius complete blame for the Prank? I, for > one, agree with you that assigning blame is pretty silly. Mike: Some people have said simply that it was Sirius' fault. Those are the people I'm addressing, like Alla said. > Montavilla47: > > But since Sirius is still growling (twenty years after > the fact) that Snape "deserved" what he got, it shows > an intention on Sirius's part to put Snape in danger. Mike: Deserved what? Sirius was not speaking in hypotheticals here. So, what happened to Snape that he "deserved"? He got humiliated because he needed to be rescued by James. THAT'S what he deserved, getting humiliated because of his hubris in thinking he could just waltz into a werewolf lair. That is what actually happened, not what may have happened. Most of us don't think that Sirius was trying to get Snape killed or bitten (that's if he had *any* intentions in the matter). If he was intending to see Snape wet his pants and be humiliated, well, that's what happened and he was happy it happened. And his saying Severus deserved it does NOT mean any more than he deserved what ACTUALLY happened. > Montavilla47: > > Incidently, I realized that this Prank had a lot in common with > the Midnight duel. In the midnight duel, Draco dared Harry > into a situation that would cause Harry harm. And Harry, > knowing that he was breaking rules and with someone telling > him that it was a set-up, went ahead and snuck out of the > dorms anyway. He ended up facing a dangerous monster, > as well, although that was *not* Draco's intention, and, had > he not been lucky, could have been injured or killed. Now, is > Draco entirely blameless for the danger Harry got into? Mike: First, let me say I see a lot of parallels between the Sirius/James vs. Severus conflict and the Draco vs. Harry conflict. In that order too, just as you've pointed out. The main difference is that Harry doesn't get the short end of the stick, in the end, like Severus must have in more than one occasion. But otherwise, the character's character are strikingly close parallels. Now, as for Draco's culpability in the duel challenge, nope not Draco's fault on many levels. First, Ron points out they don't know near enough magic to have a magic duel. Second, being taunted or challenged is no excuse for heading out after curfew to have a fight. Lastly, as you already said, the encounter with Fluffy was entirely accidental and in no way should be traced back to Draco. But, even if Draco had challenged Harry to the duel in front of Fluffy's door, that still would have made it Harry's fault for being foolish enough to rise to the challenge and for being willing to break rules to participate. > Montavilla47: > Umm. Because *no one* in the books ascribes to him a more > nefarious motive than to get the Marauders in trouble? Mike: Right, that's one of the nasty motivations of which I was thinking. Severus is breaking the rules himself to ... what, prove that the Marauders are breaking the rules worse? This is one of the few times Severus parallels Draco. But Draco wasn't foolish enough to try to stun Harry and Hermione to take on the dragon himself. The problem with the Prank is I have no idea what Severus' motivation was because his actions defy interpretation. If his intent was to get the Marauders in trouble, why in the hell does he head off down the tunnel to meet the werewolf before the rest of the Marauders? How can that possibly be interpreted as an attempt to get the Marauders in trouble, they're not there to be gotten in trouble? I was thinking that maybe he thought they were already there, but that goes against canon wherein he tells Lily "What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?" That and his subsequent remarks indicate he knows about them sneaking off to the Willow because he's seen them do it. > Montavilla47: > What I don't understand is why saying that Sirius was reckless > and stupid, or that he hoped something bad would happen to > Snape--which could be as small as Snape getting scared and > looking like a wimp, is perceived as assigning Sirius the > entire blame for the Prank, or letting Snape off the hook for his > own part in it. I don't think that's what the majority of the > posters think about the event, but we always seem to get > pushed into that position. Mike: Sorry, I'm not trying to push anyone into a position that they don't already hold. I've read your posts Monty, and I don't think you have taken that position. And I agree with your summarization above for the most part. > Montavilla47: > I also don't see why it matters how nasty Snape was a person. > Unless he was an active danger to the school--in which case > alerting the authorities would have been the proper course-- > that doesn't make it right to expose him a werewolf. And it > certainly doesn't make it right to expose the werewolf to him! Mike: As to your last sentence, I agree, Mr. Snape would have been quite hard on Mr. Lupin's digestive tract. He would have had indigestion for months. But Siriusly folks, I agree with Alla on this point, nobody besides Severus exposed Severus to a werewolf. If someone can convice me that Severus would have done something different had he gained the Willow information via some other means, then I would entertain changing my harsh criticism and assignment of blame to Mr. Snape. Mike, wondering where a werewolf would dare to begin his dining adventure on a Sev au grease ;) From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 12:30:58 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:30:58 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181281 > a_svirn wrote in > : > > << Yes I can. If I make the binding enchantment illegal, wizards will > have to undo the bondage. (big snip) why should anyone bother to find > and use the countercharm if things are perfectly legal and convenient > (for wizards) as they are. >> > Catlady: > I feel compelled to nitpick. Just because something is illegal doesn't > stop all people from doing it. > > In my real reply, I'm not sure whether you and I mean the same thing > by "find the countercharm". I believe that the countercharm is not > known to wizards and therefore cannot be found by even the most > extensive library research; it must be found by experimental research, > like Muggles finding a new drug for bipolar disorder or something. a_svirn: We don't know that one way or another. I feel sure that just as every action has a reaction every charm has a countercharm, though. I also feel sure that if wizards had but *tried* to find the solution they would have found it. Apparently they don't try because they don't want to. > Catlady: > If the bondage enchantment on House Elves was illegal while the > countercharm was still unknown, then even the most law-biding wizard, > eager to obey all laws, could not lift the enchantment by > countercharm. His only option for obeying the law would be to give > clothes to the Elf. a_svirn: Yes, this is pretty obvious, isn't it? And just as obvious that there is more to legislation that "let's do this" and "let's stop doing that". There would have to be a good deal of research, white papers (or whatever they are called) before the Bill of House Elves' Liberation would be presented to the Wizengamot. I certainly did not expect to see anything like that happening in the books. The Trio had enough on their hands as it was. I did, however, expect to see them *thinking* about it. Asking questions similar to those we have been asking on this list. I expected Harry to feel acute discomfort at owning a slave. Or whatever euphemism we use instead. A bound servant. I did not expect him to complacently settle into being a slave-owner. Certainly it does not look like he is going to sponsor any research into countercharms. > Catlady: > If they were pre-existing beasts who were put under enchantment, then > when the enchantment was removed, their intelligence might drop to the > level of some animal and they might no longer have the ability to use > language, if that were implanted in them by the bondage enchantment. > If this were discovered, I think ethicists would argue about what to > do about it. a_svirn: I too feel compelled to nitpick. They are not at all beasts, they are magical creatures. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that their intelligence such as it is has anything to do with enchantments. There are quite a few sentient beings in the WW: goblins, centaurs, etc. The idea that a bond, however strong, can *implant intelligence* into a simple beast strains credulity to the breaking point, especially when you consider that wizards would have to be able to invent and perform this truly outstanding bit of magic some millennia ago. > Catlady: Some would be all for removing the enchantment and ending > this human meddling with their true nature. Some would argue that > turning beings into beasts is -- I don't know the words, except Yuck. > I keep thinking 'kind of like murder' because it terminates a being... a_svirn: I quite agree that pretty much any decision on the subject will be painful to some, and that it won't be a simple matter to settle. What galls me about the whole thing is not that it wasn't solved in the books. What galls me is that no one, except for one self-righteous and high-handed teenager felt that the status quo is unacceptable and something had to be done about it. And as Hermione matured she had accepted the established view on elves as well (except for the self- punishment which troubled her fine sensibilities). > Catlady > The other wild speculation has nothing to do with Goblins, but holds > that the ancestral Elves were so violent among themselves that after > one battle, only two Elves in the world were left alive, a male from > one side and a female from the other side. And they decided to make > peace and get married and reproduce the species of Elves. But when > their second one killed their first son in a temper tantrum, they put > this bondage enchantment on all their descendants as a way to keep > them from killing each other. a_svirn: I don't quite see why these elvish Adam and Eve had to bind their descendants to wizards. It's like binding Cain and his descendants to the Serpent. Voluntary. a_svirn From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 4 13:00:41 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:00:41 -0000 Subject: canon (was Re: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181282 > Mike: > Deserved what? Sirius was not speaking in hypotheticals here. So, > what happened to Snape that he "deserved"? Potioncat: Here's the canon, not exactly as I remember it, but as it's printed: Chapter 18, PoA: Remus is speaking, "He has been telling DD all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons...you see. Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involed me--" Black made a derisive noise. "It served him right," he sneered. Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to...hoping he could get us expelled...." ....(Remus again)"your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life...Snape glimpsed me though at the end of the tunnel. Now Chapter 21, in the hospital wing: Snape is speaking: "Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen," he breathed. "You haven't forgotten that, Heamdmaster? You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill *me*." "My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus, said DD quietly. ====================================================================== Lupin says the trick could have killed Snape and Black says "It served him right." That sounds to me that Black thinks the trick was justified. The actual consequences arent' mentioned. What is mentioned is that Snape could have been killed. It's said twice, because Lupin adds that James could have been killed too. So, now having had a number of years to look back, (and not all of them in Azkaban) Black feels Severus deserved to be nearly killed, and Black doesn't even show remorse that his friend's life was at risk at well. Now jump forward to DD and Snape. Either DD remembers that Sirius did not intend to kill Severus, or DD remembers that a young Severus was also capable of murder, but has been redeemed. I still think we had two teenaged boys who acted just like stupid, impulsive boys. Since no one was hurt, they deserved the same punishment. Neither were blameless. Had Severus or James been harmed, Sirius would have deserved severe punishment. (IMHO) When we get caught up in this argument, we all bring in our own guesses at how things transpired. We don't know a lot. We don't know what Severus thought was going on, or why he went in. We don't know how the conversation when on. We don't know what happened when the boys were caught, or how they were caught, or how Lily knew anything about it. We do know, years later, when Minerva thinks Harry tricked Draco into thinking there was a dragon in the castle, she punished all of them for being out, and Gryffindor worse for tricking Draco. From random832 at fastmail.us Mon Feb 4 13:19:32 2008 From: random832 at fastmail.us (Random832) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:19:32 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A710E4.4020301@fastmail.us> No: HPFGUIDX 181283 > a_svirn: > For instance, when Hermione kept Rita > Skeeter in a glass jar she was doing it magically and *il*legally. Now, do we actually know this? It could be that, legally, unregistered animagi are considered to forfeit most of their rights when not in human form. After all, Hermione was merely keeping an insect in a jar, not a person - how was she supposed to know it was actually a witch? (That's actually both one possible basis for why registration might be required and a possible way for the government to provide an incentive to do so) From k12listmomma at comcast.net Mon Feb 4 15:29:54 2008 From: k12listmomma at comcast.net (k12listmomma) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 08:29:54 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again References: Message-ID: <012901c86742$cc42ee20$6501a8c0@homemain> No: HPFGUIDX 181284 > a_svirn: > I expected Harry to feel acute discomfort at owning a slave. Or whatever > euphemism we use instead. A bound > servant. I did not expect him to complacently settle into being a > slave-owner. Shelley: I think those who are trying to equate House Elves with slavery as we know it are missing the mark, in that this is a Wizarding World, and the rules are so totally different from our reality. House Elves are not fellow humans (equals in body, thought and independence), that one can just equate it to human slavery, and secondly, we have it straight out of the mouths of the House Elves themselves that they are pleased to serve a master and that it causes them great discomfort not to have a house to serve. We see two types of magical creatures with brains- ones such as the Centaurs, who prefer that the Wizards leave them alone, respect them as equals and capable of making decisions for themselves (and therefore distain any regulation or rules being made about them), and ones such as House Elves, who despite all their magical abilities and powers to fight back, seem to CHOOSE the co-existence of being actively involved in the Wizard's lives (like the ghoul that lived in the Weasley attic), as if they consider it to be a mutual symbiotic relationship instead. It's certainly not one way, the way a real slavery would be- the House Elves see it as a honor to know all the family's dirty little secrets and are pleased to be trusted to keep such secrets. It kills Winky when she is forced to spill the beans on the Crouches- it's the height of dishonor to her, more than being "sacked", or given clothing. Thus, I see the House Elves getting something tangible and real from serving a house, so much so that they prefer it to not doing it. I think even if the foolish Wizards tried to pass legislation freeing all the elves, they would find the Elves thumbing their noses at the Wizards and continuing to serve the same Houses that they have served anyway, asserting that it is "their choice" to keep a House's secrets. Harry as a slave owner- at first he wasn't comfortable with it! No way! But then he and Kreacher came to an understanding, and once that understanding was established, Kreacher was all too happy to serve Harry as his new owner, and I think Harry was happier watching Kreacher transition into his new role rather than leave him as the demented thing who only had a portrait to talk to before Sirius returned. Kreacher himself was stuck in the past- all alone in a house with a dead master, and was unhappy that he had no one to serve once Sirius died. Kreacher was happy in his new role once he and Harry made peace (became friends?), and it's clear that Kreacher did have a say in what he was or would be to Harry- not as a slave, but in his attitude. Once the relationship between Harry and Kreacher was established, Harry could have attempted to free him, and again, I think the attitude would have been "no way, it's my honor to serve the house of Potter!" Thus, I don't see Harry as being a "slave owner" in any the same way of the Early American Colonists who bought slaves on a common human market, walking around them to inspect the bodies as if one was inspecting a cow or a horse to be bought. Certainly, I don't think Harry could have "sold" Kreacher if he wanted to, because the slavery is not of that nature. Any magical contract that governs the House Elf implies that if a master dies, the House Elf moves on to serve the next living relative, so that a House Elf was never intended to be alone and miserable, the way Kreacher was when there were no more Blacks to serve. Kreacher was tied to the House (Grimmald Place) or to the House (of Black), either way, he was bound to the next heir that would get any possessions. I don't know why the House Elves self-punish, but I do know that it's possible that is what the House Elves inflicted upon themselves as rules, much as it would horrify us to think they would choose to do to themselves. I am sure there are plenty who, in their way of thinking, must have an "evil (human) master" to point to as if to say this must be a person's fault that the Elves choose to self-punish. It's easier on our brains to think of slavery in the context of the Early African Americans, bound in chains, whipped, beaten and forced into everything against their will that to think that these creatures choose a symbiotic relationship with self-imposed rules, but I really think canon supports the latter rather than the former. Thus, I do not beat up Harry for being a slave owner, rather I was pleased to see him make friends with Kreacher so that Kreacher could live the rest of his days a happy House Elf, one with purpose and dignity. From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Mon Feb 4 15:58:31 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:58:31 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181285 > livednlondon: > > I think it is interesting that we have seen Harry use an unforgivable spell twice in the books. It goes against everything he believes in, but he always wants to protect those he cares for and has a quick temper. livednlondon Tiffany: It's also important to note that he used an Unforgivable spell during the Battle of Hogwarts whne his life was on the line. Harry does have a quick temper, but he cares a lot about his friends & will do anything to protect them no matter what. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 16:38:55 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:38:55 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181286 > Tiffany: > > It's also important to note that he used an Unforgivable spell during > the Battle of Hogwarts whne his life was on the line. Harry does have > a quick temper, but he cares a lot about his friends & will do anything > to protect them no matter what. zgirnius: Quote, please? The only Unforgivable I can remember him casting in the Battle of Hogwarts was a Crucio, in a situation where no one's life was on the line. Though Amycus did not know it, he was badly outgunned in that encounter. Harry acted, IMO, in a fit of anger, something I, anyway, can certainly relate to and understand, especially as that action was over and done with a moment later. When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus". From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Mon Feb 4 17:29:39 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:29:39 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: <012901c86742$cc42ee20$6501a8c0@homemain> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181287 > > a_svirn: > > I expected Harry to feel acute discomfort at owning a slave. Or whatever > > euphemism we use instead. A bound > > servant. I did not expect him to complacently settle into being a > > slave-owner. > > > Shelley: > I think those who are trying to equate House Elves with slavery as we know > it are missing the mark, in that this is a Wizarding World, and the rules > are so totally different from our reality. Magpie: The rules are very often the same as our reality, particularly when it comes to things like bigotry, friendship, how one treats others. Shelley: House Elves are not fellow humans > (equals in body, thought and independence), that one can just equate it to > human slavery, Magpie: I don't understand what this means. They're not human, but that doesn't mean they can't be equals in many ways--they are persons even if they aren't human persons, just like Goblins and Centaurs. So what does it mean they're not equals in body, thought and independence? They haven't different looking bodies than we do, but that doesn't make them lower than us. They are able to think on the human level. They're not independent equally, but that's the whole point--they're slaves. This could describe human slaves as well. Shelley: and secondly, we have it straight out of the mouths of the > House Elves themselves that they are pleased to serve a master and that it > causes them great discomfort not to have a house to serve. Magpie: This thread has gone into this idea in a very detailed way, so I don't see how you can just jump back to it like it's so simple. Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* They are pleased to serve people *they wish to serve*--they show plenty of discomfort when forced to serve masters they don't want to serve because they are owned. Shelley: > We see two types of magical creatures with brains- ones such as the > Centaurs, who prefer that the Wizards leave them alone, respect them as > equals and capable of making decisions for themselves (and therefore distain > any regulation or rules being made about them), and ones such as House > Elves, who despite all their magical abilities and powers to fight back, > seem to CHOOSE the co-existence of being actively involved in the Wizard's > lives (like the ghoul that lived in the Weasley attic), as if they consider > it to be a mutual symbiotic relationship instead. Magpie: And also giants, goblins, leprechauns, veelas and merpeople. But house elves choosing to co-exist and be actively involved with Wizards hardly means they must be owned as slaves. The relationship stops being mutual or symbiotic (it's not symbiotic to begin with, since the two groups aren't physically dependent on each other that I can see) when an elf is trapped into serving somebody he doesn't want to serve. Kreacher didn't choose to be owned by Harry despite having the power to fight back, he was forced to be owned by Harry because Sirius left him to Harry in his will. The only fighting back he could do was in a roundabout way that tried to work around his slavery--he couldn't just choose a master he prefered. Shelley: It's certainly not one > way, the way a real slavery would be- the House Elves see it as a honor to > know all the family's dirty little secrets and are pleased to be trusted to > keep such secrets. It kills Winky when she is forced to spill the beans on > the Crouches- it's the height of dishonor to her, more than being "sacked", > or given clothing. Magpie: That's not so unlike real slavery. Human slaves or servants can consider it an honor to know the family's secrets and be pleased to be trusted to keep them. Humans can be dishonored by spilling the beans on families they love and by being sacked. Shelley: Thus, I see the House Elves getting something tangible > and real from serving a house, so much so that they prefer it to not doing > it. Magpie: Serving in a house is not the same as being owned as a slave. They don't get much at all from that second part, and sometimes it brings them pain. Shelley: I think even if the foolish Wizards tried to pass legislation freeing > all the elves, they would find the Elves thumbing their noses at the Wizards > and continuing to serve the same Houses that they have served anyway, > asserting that it is "their choice" to keep a House's secrets. Magpie: And if that happened that would be foolish why, exactly? If they thumbed their noses at Wizards but continued to serve in the houses like they always did that would be great. They would no longer be slaves, but they could still serve the way they enjoy (serving who and when they wanted) and Wizards could still enjoy their service (without being slave masters). It would be ideal. Shelley: > Harry as a slave owner- at first he wasn't comfortable with it! No way! But > then he and Kreacher came to an understanding, and once that understanding > was established, Kreacher was all too happy to serve Harry as his new owner, > and I think Harry was happier watching Kreacher transition into his new role > rather than leave him as the demented thing who only had a portrait to talk > to before Sirius returned. Magpie: And that to me is pretty icky, to watch Harry become comfortable with being a slave owner. Harry's change of heart had nothing to do with Harry caring whether or not Kreacher had somebody to talk to besides a portrait. He's not making any sacrifices for Kreacher's sake in letting Kreacher serve him. He's benefitting from it-- obviously it's much nicer for Harry being waited on by somebody who's good at his job than a nasty elf who can't stand him and shows it. But Harry gave him orders and was his owner either way. Shelley: Kreacher himself was stuck in the past- all alone > in a house with a dead master, and was unhappy that he had no one to serve > once Sirius died. Kreacher was happy in his new role once he and Harry made > peace (became friends?), and it's clear that Kreacher did have a say in what > he was or would be to Harry- not as a slave, but in his attitude. Magpie: Kreacher *did not* have a say in his situation at all, only in his attitude towards it. That's what makes him a slave. It was lucky that Harry and Kreacher made peace (I wouldn't call a master and slave "friends") but if they never had Kreacher would still have been bound to obey Harry. Kreacher was not unhappy because he had "no one to serve," he was unhappy because he was forced to serve those he did not want to serve. If he could have served Bellatrix or Draco in OotP or HBP he would have been happy too--he couldn't do that because he was owned by Sirius and then Harry. House Elves don't seem to have much trouble looking for people to wait on with no recompense--Dobby's problem was that he wanted to be paid for it. Shelley: Once the > relationship between Harry and Kreacher was established, Harry could have > attempted to free him, and again, I think the attitude would have been "no > way, it's my honor to serve the house of Potter!" Magpie: And if he did that it would have been the ideal ending--why on earth would Harry not free him if that would have been his response? It would have been the right thing to do if the result of it would have just been Kreacher saying "Okay, but I'm going to serve you anyway as a free elf!" Shelley: Thus, I don't see Harry as > being a "slave owner" in any the same way of the Early American Colonists > who bought slaves on a common human market, walking around them to inspect > the bodies as if one was inspecting a cow or a horse to be bought. > Certainly, I don't think Harry could have "sold" Kreacher if he wanted to, > because the slavery is not of that nature. Any magical contract that governs > the House Elf implies that if a master dies, the House Elf moves on to serve > the next living relative, so that a House Elf was never intended to be alone > and miserable, the way Kreacher was when there were no more Blacks to serve. > Kreacher was tied to the House (Grimmald Place) or to the House (of Black), > either way, he was bound to the next heir that would get any possessions. Magpie: First, there *were* Blacks for Kreacher to serve. He wasn't left bereft because they died off, he passed into the hands of the Black he didn't want to serve, and then into Harry's hands. As for the rest I don't see how the specific quirks of WW slavery vs. US slavery change the fact that it's slavery. House Elves may or may not be sold, but they certainly do change hands at the whim of their masters in wills. (Kreacher did not go on to serve the next living relative, he went to Harry because Sirius willed him to him as property.) Kreacher is not bound to the House (he later lives at Hogwarts) or the House of Black, he's bound to the person who owns him. I don't see why it's so important that House Elves are not "inspected" like a sheep or a horse to be bought--we don't even know if they aren't ever inspected. The Blacks possibly beheaded theirs when they were considered physically unfit. But it still seems a bit odd to just refer to the particulars of US slavery as making it more like slavery--if I were a Wizard I might just make the opposite argument and say, "I don't see Early American Colonists being a "slave owner" in any the same way as Elf-owning Wizards who own creatures forced to abuse themselves if they even think badly of us and don't even have to provide them with food or shelter." American slaves might also suffer being kidnapped and imprisoned for a long sea voyage, and they might be raped by their owners--those are three more evils on top of the slavery, not things that are part of the definition of slavery. Shelley: It's easier on our brains to think of > slavery in the context of the Early African Americans, bound in chains, > whipped, beaten and forced into everything against their will that to think > that these creatures choose a symbiotic relationship with self- imposed > rules, but I really think canon supports the latter rather than the former. > Thus, I do not beat up Harry for being a slave owner, rather I was pleased > to see him make friends with Kreacher so that Kreacher could live the rest > of his days a happy House Elf, one with purpose and dignity. Magpie: I'm not confusing them with African American slaves, I'm judging them by exactly what's in the books and what is in the books is not a symbiotic relationship that's happy all around. The books do show elves bound against their will--Kreacher and Dobby at different times. Imo, it doesn't matter whether or not a house elf is happy, the point of slavery is that if he decides he isn't happy, he's stuck. Kreacher's being happy serving Harry for the rest of his life doesn't make him less of a slave or Harry less of a slave owner. Freedom only becomes necessary when you've got something you want or don't want to do that requires that freedom. Kreacher's already faced that, he's already suffered from his lack of freedom and nobody made it so he could do what he wanted then. The problem might have disappeared from Kreacher's mind when he became happy with Harry, but it didn't actually disappear. -m From cassandra.wladyslava at gmail.com Mon Feb 4 17:39:15 2008 From: cassandra.wladyslava at gmail.com (Cassandra Wladyslava) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 12:39:15 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181288 Carol: And if Flitwick had been a duelling champion in his use, you'd think that DD would hire him (for just a year, after which he could return to Charms) in preference to someone like Lockhart or, worse, Umbrage (who was foisted on him because he coldn't find anyone qualified, excepting Snape, whom he didn't want in the position at that time). Cassie: Just chiming in to point out - remember that the DADA position is cursed. We learned in HPB that after Voldemort didn't get the job nobody managed to last in the position for more than a year. (I don't have the book with me...I can find the quote later if anyone needs proof.) I imagine DD wouldn't want to risk losing Filius. Remember that not all of the teachers who taught DADA faired well in the end. There's no telling what would have happened. He could of ended up dead or insane or damaged in some other way. I'd also like to comment on 'Umbridge being foisted on him because he couldn't find anyone qualified.'. I don't think it was a matter of not being able to find anyone qualified. It was a matter of the 'this job is cursed' rumor -which turned out not to be a rumor. No one wanted the job. ~Cassie~ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 4 18:33:58 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:33:58 -0000 Subject: DADA (was Re: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181289 >Cassie: > I'd also like to comment on 'Umbridge being foisted on him because he > couldn't find anyone qualified.'. I don't think it was a matter of not being > able to find anyone qualified. It was a matter of the 'this job is cursed' > rumor -which turned out not to be a rumor. No one wanted the job. Potioncat: It could be that DD had completely run out of vict--erm--candidates for DADA. Could be that once the MoM threw down the guantlet, he decided to let their appointee have a go. He knew they wanted to get into Hogwarts, at least by letting their person in, he would be able to keep an eye on her. I'm almost sure that Snape really wanted the job and had no idea why he was refused time after time. Can't say if Lupin had any idea of what he was in for. One of DD's little sacrifices. Of course, we don't know the range of problems the DADA teachers had endured in the past. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 18:35:58 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:35:58 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181290 Alla wrote: > > And as I said before I do NOT think that going there was some sort of unusual thing for teenager to do, for teenager Snape I mean. > > I am saying that it is his fault only when it is somehow becomes all Sirius' fault. When Sirius somehow MADE him do it, you know? > > And that I see no proof in canon, I think the only one who MADE him do it was Snape. Carol responds: Granted, Sirius didn't make him do it, but he made it possible for him to do it. No matter how much Severus wanted to prove his werewolf theory (which is canon, BTW, and the only motive we have), he could not have entered the tunnel and endangered himself had Sirius not provided just enough information to enable him to get in there. It doesn't matter whether he knew that he would do it; he made it possible to do it and he was pretty sure that Severus would take the bait. And he suppressed key information regarding how he and his friends survived what would otherwise be a fatal encounter. The only comparable incident that I can think of is the Twins giving the Ton-Tongue Toffee to a helpless Muggle. It doesn't matter that they didn't like the victim (based on Harry's stories) or that the victim "deserved" it. What matters is that they knew he was a Muggle and therefore helpless against their magic; they knew his tongue would swell up like a python and choke him; they knew that he would suffer and be terrified; they knew that he was on a diet and was greedy and would almost certainly take the bait. They may not have realized that he could have died had it not been for their dad's interference, and they weren't trying to kill him. They thought that what they were doing was clever and funny, when in fact it was cruel (causing suffering) and irresponsible and dangerous. Similaryl, Sirius knew that Severus was not an Animagus and had no defense against the werewolf (information that he withheld--that, IMO, is his most grievous wrongdoing); he knew that Severus would be in grave danger, and in very likely event that he was bitten, he would either die or become a werewolf (and he would certainly be terrified, which was the whole point of tricking him); he knew that Severus was curious about their activities and would almost certainly take the bait. He also knew, but did not think about the consequences to the friend who would actually have bitten Severus--a worse matter than giving Dudley a piece of candy that could conceivably choke him to death because it would ruin two lives, not just one, whether Severus was killed or turned into a werewolf. And just like the Twins, he thought that he was being clever and that it would be very funny if he gave the boy he disliked a good scare. That the good scare could have killed him either didn't enter his mind, in which case, he was stupider than we generally give Sirius credit for being. And surely the whole point was that Severus *wasn't an Animagus like us "cool" guys, so I really don't see how he could have forgotten that little detail. At any rate, the joke was cruel, causing mental anguish (terror) and dangerous and extremely irresponsible, and had it succeeded, the consequences to everyone involved would have been severe. James, for all his faults, figured out that Severus was in terrible danger and got him out. If not for James, Severus would have died or become a werewolf. there is no if about it--he had no defense, and both DD and Snape stated that James saved Snape's life. *Surely*, Severus would not have gone into the tunnel if he expected such a consequence, any more than Dudley would have picked up the toffee if he knew that it would cause his tongue to turn into a giant sausage. (He certainly didn't expect to be saved by James, of all people. He can't have expected to need to be saved at all. He must have thought that the werewolf was contained or chained up. That's the only to view one safely if you're not an Animagus--and he didn't know that WPP were animagi.) Of course, Severus was in no danger if he didn't go into the tunnel. But Sirius had every expectation and every hope that he would do so, or he would not have told him how to get in. And, even more irresponsibly, he did not indicate the danger or explain how to avoid it. Imagine some Muggle boys who know how to get into a lion's or tiger's cage and also know how to get out. They show another boy how to get in without showing him how to get out as they did. Wouldn't they be responsible if the other boy were killed or injured? I say they would, regardless of the other boy's reasons for accepting their bait. Carol, wondering where all this blame the victim sentiment is coming from and hoping it's not just affection for Sirius Black or loathing for Snape From lizzyben04 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 19:09:26 2008 From: lizzyben04 at yahoo.com (lizzyben04) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:09:26 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181291 This message is a Special Notice for all members of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups In addition to being published onlist (available in webview), this post is also being delivered offlist (to email in-boxes) to those whose "Message Delivery" is set to "Special Notices." If this is problematic or if you have any questions, contact the List Elves at (minus that extra space) HPforGrownups-owner @yahoogroups.com NOTE: This ChapDisc is the work of Lizzyben. SSSusan only posted it for her. ----------------------------------------------------------- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows CHAPDISC: Chapter 13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission Harry, Hermione and Ron have infiltrated the Ministry, using Polyjuice Potion to impersonate Ministry wizards. Ron ("Mr. Catterpole") is called off the lift to fix Yaxley's office, which has been subject to a downpour of rain all day. Suddenly, Dolores Umbridge enters the lift, discussing her commission work. She orders Hermione ("Mafalda") to accompany her down to the courtroom to assist in the interrogations for that day. Harry gets off on the eighth floor, puts on the Invisibility Cloak, and begins to look for Umbridge's office. As he searches the long hallways, he comes across a wide area in which numerous witches and wizards are producing pamphlets. Harry glances at one pamphlet and reads the title: "Mudbloods and the Danger They Pose to a Peaceful Pureblood Society." As the wizards work, one witch casually wonders whether the "old hag" will be interrogating Muggle-borns all day. Harry follows her gaze, and sees that an eye had been set into the large front door of one office. Harry realizes that this is Mad-Eye Moody's eye, and he is overcome with anger. He strides toward the office door and reads the plaque proclaiming that the office is that of Dolores Umbridge, Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission. In order to enter the office, Harry creates a distraction by setting off a "Decoy Detonator" nearby. During the commotion, Harry slips into Umbridge's office. He notices that Moody's eye is connected to a telescope that enables Umbridge to spy on her workers, and he wrenches the telescope out of the door and pockets the eye. He begins to search the office for the locket, and comes across a surveillance folder on Arthur Weasley, and yet another copy of Rita Skeeter's smash biography of Albus Dumbledore. Harry picks up the book, and spots a picture inside of a laughing Dumbledore and Grindewald. As Harry is skimming the book, the door opens, and Pius Thicknesse enters the office. Harry quickly puts back on the Cloak and backs out of the office. Harry decides they have little chance of getting the locket now, since Umbridge apparently didn't hide the locket in her office, and wouldn't tell them where she did have it. Instead, he decides that he should focus on finding Hermione and Ron, and escaping the Ministry before they are all discovered. He gets back on the lift to retrieve Ron from the second floor. As soon as the lift stops at the second floor, Ron enters it. Before the two can properly communicate, Mr. Weasley also enters the lift at the next stop. Mr. Weasley doesn't recognize Harry or Ron, believing that Harry is Runcorn, and Ron is Mr. Catterpole. Mr. Weasley chats with Ron, and suggests spells that could stop the downpour in Yaxley's office. At the next stop, Ron follows another Ministry wizard to the raining office, and Percy Weasley gets on the lift. There is an awkward silence until Percy quickly leaves the lift at the next stop. When Mr. Weasley and Harry are alone, Mr. Weasley challenges Harry for giving information up on a Muggle-born wizard. Harry attempts to warn Mr. Weasley that he is also being tracked by the Commission. Harry decides to get Hermione from the courtroom first while Ron is occupied. Finally, Harry arrives at the dungeon level, where the Commission is holding its interrogations of Muggle-born wizards. As he approaches the courtrooms, he feels a sudden sense of despair and hopelessness, and realizes that Dementors are nearby. When he turns into the passage, he sees that the passage is full of Muggle-born wizards who have been brought in for interrogation, while Dementor guards patrol the hallways. The courtroom doors burst open, as a man inside screams that he is really a half-blood; to no avail, as Umbridge orders the Dementors to take him away. Umbridge next calls Mary Cattermole in for questioning, and as Mrs. Cattermole passes him, Harry is struck by the fear and revulsion on the woman's face. Instinctively, he follows her to the courtroom so that she would not have to walk into the interrogation alone. In the courtroom, he sees many more Dementors, and a platform on which the Commission members sit during the questioning. Hermione, Yaxley and Umbridge are seated there, as Umbridge's cat patronus strolls across the platform to protect the interrogators from the effects of the Dementors. Harry moves to the platform and quietly lets Hermione know that he is there. As Umbridge begins the questioning, Mrs. Cattermole begins to cry. Umbridge tells her that her wand has been seized, and demands to know which wizard she stole the wand from. Mrs. Cattermole responds that the wand was her own, which she had bought when she was eleven years old. As Umbridge leans forward, a locket around her neck swings out and dangles in the air. Harry spots the Slytherin locket that he has been searching for. Hermione spots it as well, and asks Umbridge about the locket. Umbridge claims that the locket was a Selwyn family heirloom, one of many pure-blood families that she is related to. This lie angers Harry so much that he raises his wand under the Invisibility Cloak, and stupefies Umbridge. Umbridge falls to the floor, and her patronus disappears. Before Yaxley can draw his own wand, Harry stupefies him as well. Now without restraint, a Dementor approaches Mrs. Cattermole and grabs her chin to administer a Dementor's Kiss. Harry shouts out the incantation to create his own stag patronus, and the stag leaps toward the Dementor, causing it to withdraw. Harry and Hermione release Mrs. Cattermole, and then Hermione creates a patronus of her own to accompany the stag patronus. Together, they leave the courtroom into the passageway. The patrolling Dementors all disappear, driven away by the patronuses. Harry tells the waiting Muggleborn wizards that they are all free to leave, and tells them that they should go into hiding with their families. He asks them to follow him towards the Atrium, where they can apparate out of the Ministry. As they all approach the lift, the lift doors open, and Ron walks out. He tells Harry that the Ministry was tipped off about intruders when they discovered the hole in Umbridge's office door. The group gets onto the lift, which takes them up into the Atrium. When they enter the Atrium, Harry sees that Ministry wizards have already begun sealing all the fireplace exits. He decides to try to use Rumpole's authority to order a wizard to allow the group of Muggle-borns to leave the Ministry. At first the balding wizard protests, but when Harry threatens to examine the wizard's family tree, he relents and allows the group of Muggle-borns to exit through the fireplaces. Suddenly the real Mr. Cattermole rushes up to Mrs. Cattermole, calling her name. She looks from him to Ron in confusion, as do the other wizards. Before anyone can figure out what is going on, Yaxley runs out of the lift, yelling at the wizards to seal the exits. The balding wizard lifts his wand, and Harry punches him and sends him flying into the air. Still impersonating Rumpole, he tells Yaxley that the balding wizard had been helping Muggle-borns to escape, and the wizards rise in an uproar. In the chaos, Ron grabs Mrs. Cattermole, and they disappear into a fireplace. Harry and Hermione also rush into a fireplace, narrowly avoiding a curse that Yaxley sends over their heads. They spin up the fireplace into the bathroom, closely followed by Yaxley. Harry grabs Ron and Hermione, and the three apparate out. They are engulfed in darkness, and Harry realizes that something has gone wrong with the apparition; he can't breathe, and he feels Hermione's hand slipping out of his grasp. For a moment, Harry glimpses the door of Grimmwauld Place, but then he hears a scream and sees a flash of purple light, and everything is dark again. Questions for discussion: 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the Ministry? Was it well-planned, or could they have approached things a different way? 2. Numerous characters mention that Yaxley's office has been jinxed to create a downpour. Could this be a sign of low-level sabotage against Death Eaters within the Ministry? 3. Harry impersonates Albert Runcorn, a character whom we never actually meet. Based on other character's reactions to him, what kind of person do you believe Runcorn is? Do you believe he is a Death Eater? 4. Ron impersonates a Ministry official with a Muggle-born wife, Hermione a woman who assists Umbridge in the interrogation of Muggle- borns, and Harry a high-ranking Ministry official. Is there any thematic or character significance to the identities that they take on? 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle- borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were rash, or were his actions justified? 7. The Ministry is producing propaganda pamphlets against Muggle- borns, registering all wizards with Muggle-born blood, interrogating Muggle-born wizards, and imprisoning Muggle-borns in Azkaban. Do you believe that this is meant to be an analogy to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany? Or is it a general analogy to bigotry and prejudice against minority groups? 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding world? How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? 9. In this chapter, the Ministry's "courtrooms" are used to terrorize and intimidate the powerless. What is the novel's view of the legal system? What does JKR seem to be saying about law versus instinct as a basis for morality? Lizzyben ------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: For more information on HPfGU's chapter discussions, please see "HPfGU DH Chapter Discussions" at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database Next chapdisc, Chapter 14, The Thief ? February 18, 2008 From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 19:35:34 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:35:34 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181292 a_svirn wrote in > : > > << Yes I can. If I make the binding enchantment illegal, wizards will have to undo the bondage. (big snip) why should anyone bother to find and use the countercharm if things are perfectly legal and convenient (for wizards) as they are. >> > Catlady: > I feel compelled to nitpick. Just because something is illegal doesn't stop all people from doing it. I'm not sure whether you and I mean the same thing by "find the countercharm". I believe that the countercharm is not known to wizards and therefore cannot be found by even the most extensive library research; it must be found by experimental research, like Muggles finding a new drug for bipolar disorder or something. > > If the bondage enchantment on House Elves was illegal while the countercharm was still unknown, then even the most law-biding wizard, eager to obey all laws, could not lift the enchantment by countercharm. His only option for obeying the law would be to give clothes to the Elf. Carol responds: What if the enchantment can't be made illegal because it's part of the nature of Elves? I think we already know the counterenchantment: giving an Elf clothes. And, of course, requiring all Elf owners to give their Elves would wreak havoc in the WW without some extraordinary preparations being made first. And suppose that the countercharm can be undone all over again if an Elf who has been given clothes agrees to bind himself to another Wizard, voluntarily trading his clothes for a nice, clean tea towel? All the legislation in the world can't undo magic. Carol, not sure why she's back on a thread she's really tired of From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 19:56:42 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:56:42 -0000 Subject: student!Snape keeping Lupin's secret (was Re: Sirius as a dog) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181293 Catlady wrote: The famous statement, 'In recent years, only those whom I could not save', suggests he first developed empathy (or a moral principle with the same result) 'in recent years', well after his student and even his Death Eater days. I wish I knew whether it was empathy, moral principle, both, or neither (i.e. just obeying DD). > Carol responds: I don't think it's simply obeying Dumbledore, since DD is the one who asks him "How many men and women have you watched die, Severus?" to which Snape replies, "Lately, only those whom I dould not save." The words occur after snape has trapped the ring curse in DD's hand, but before he saves Katie Bell or Draco. I think the decision to save people was Snape's own, just as his decision to risk his cover to save Lupin, against orders to "act [his] part convincingly" in the chase, is his own (DH Am. ed. 688). Which leaves us with moral principle or emapthy, take your choice. Snape speaks the words in the summer between HBP and OoP, so I'm guessing that "lately" means "since the Dark Lord returned" approximately a year before. Sending the Order to the MoM might stem from the same motive; even though he would not actually seen the kids die, he still wanted to save them all, not just Harry, whom he had promised DD to protect. Or it could go back even farther, to PoA when he conjures the stretchers or even SS/PS, when he saves Harry from Quirrell. Once he did that, he may have decided that he preferred saving people to watching them die, as would have happened if, like everyone else in the Quidditch stadium, he had not countered Quirrell's curse. Carol, seeing another common trait shared by Snape and Harry, a "saving people thing" From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 20:22:08 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:22:08 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181294 > Carol, wondering where all this blame the victim sentiment is coming > from and hoping it's not just affection for Sirius Black or loathing > for Snape Alla: Can we not assume motives, please? It is not like affection for Sirius Black and loathing for Severus Snape is my deeply hidden secret (show of hands who does not know it), which lies underneath my argument. Does it have anything to do with the good faith belief that I think Severus Snape and Severus Snape only is to blame for going to the tunnel? Um, nothing, zero, nada. Just as I believe that Sirius Black should have keep his mouth shut and if I were Remus Lupin, I would never want to be his friend ever again. I hate Kreacher with passion; I am still intelligent enough to see and agree that he was mistreated by Sirius, while continue to hate him of course. And if I in good faith believed that Sirius **made it possible for Snape to do it** I would have said so, while still loving Sirius' character and deeply loathing Snape's. Just as I believe that Sirius' behaved as bastard towards Remus' and as I said upthread I still adore Sirius and have very little affection left towards Remus after book 7. So to answer where all this blame the victim sentiment comes from ? that would be from the belief that "victim" was spying on what was happening in the Shack for the longest time, that "victim" pretty much KNEW what was in there ( my opinion of course), that "victim" went anyways of his own volition. That in my book makes Snape NOT a victim, but a very willing participant. Which again of course does not preclude Sirius' responsibility, which to me lies in telling a secret that he was not supposed to tell and maybe wanting to scare Snape IF Snape will go. Alla, who was loving this round of Prank discussion. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 20:23:46 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:23:46 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181295 "potioncat" wrote: > > > Yaxley is taller than Snape, who is shorter than Black. > > zanooda: > > Yeah, I remember that Yaxley is taller from Ch.1, but it means nothing to me, because I have no idea how tall Snape is. In your sentence he is shorter than everybody :-). Carol responds: However, Snape, unlike Wormtail (and Slughorn?), is never described as short, only thin, and IIRC, Black is described in PoA as being tall. That would make Snape most likely average height. Also, he's definitely taller than fifteen-year-old Harry or his sixteen-year-old self since the narrator mentions that Harry is facing a fully grown Snape in one of the Occlumency lessons in OoP. Evidently, he grew a bit and lost his bad posture (Hermione, too, is perceived as stoop-shouldered from hauling around so many books but seems capable of standing straight at the Yule Ball.) At any rate, height advantage or not, Yaxley is envious of Snape's position (literally, LV's right-hand man) in DH and obeys him in HBP when Snape orders the DEs off the tower (of course, Yaxley gets only as far as the doorway before Harry Petrifies him ). Snape may not be particularly tall, but he isn't short, and his commanding presence and intimidating stare (as an adult) apparently make up for any difference in height between him and Yaxley (or Sirius Black). They work pretty well on students, too, if their silence when he enters a room is any indication. IIRC, he's taller than Narcissa as well. On a sidenote, it's interesting that Lupin is twice described as "young' or "quite young," yet Snape, who's the same age, never is. Carol, not sure how helpful any of this is From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 20:51:41 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:51:41 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bullies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181296 Mike wrote: > > But Siriusly folks, I agree with Alla on this point, nobody besides > Severus exposed Severus to a werewolf. If someone can convice me that > Severus would have done something different had he gained the Willow > information via some other means, then I would entertain changing my > harsh criticism and assignment of blame to Mr. Snape. Carol responds: As you say, his motive could not have been to get them Marauders in trouble. It had to be to find out whether his theory was right. There can be no other motive that I can see. (Alla has suggested that he wanted to try out his DADA skills on the werewolf, but there's nothing about that in canon. The DADA skills in question involved *ientifying* a werewolf, which he had already done.) So, suppose that he followed Madam Pomfrey to the Willow and learned how to get in that way. In that case, he'd have only his own carelessness, overconfidence, and recklessness to blame. Curiosity would have killed Severus, and no one would be to blame but himself. However, in this case, another person is involved. That person did give him just enough information to enable him to get hurt (actually, killed or turned into a werewolf if if weren't for James). *And* that person withheld the crucial information that would have kept him from entering ("we're Animagi and you're not, so we can survive, but you're dead meat if you go in there"). With one person, the blame has to be 100 percent, since we could hardly blame Madam Pomfrey or Remus for what they didn't know that Severus saw. But with two people, especially with one tempting the other and providing just enough information to get him in but none to help him out, you have to distribute the blame. (I'm assuming for the purpose of this discussion that James and Peter weren't involved, but if they were, they'd share the blame, with James's share reduced by his action in saving Severus, subsequent conduct notwithstanding). Carol, hoping that Mike sees the difference between Severus's acting on his own initiative and acting on partial information, with the key point suppressed (too bad that Severus wasn't a Legilimens then!) From dongan51 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 17:02:46 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:02:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Blowing his cover Message-ID: <809606.73425.qm@web63913.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181297 > Tiffany: >(snip> was about Harry usuing Unforgivable's to protect his > friends. zgirnius: Quote, please? The only Unforgivable I can remember him casting in the Battle of Hogwarts was a Crucio, in a situation where no one's life was on the line. especially as that action was over and done with a moment later. When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus". Liz: I need to go fetch my books, but did Harry use an Unforgiveable in OOTP? What caused Bellatrix to tell him that he, "needed to mean it" when performing such a curse. I always felt a bit jipped by the ending of the book. I had to re-read it twice before I understood, what Harry knew, that he was the true master of the Elder Wand, and why in fact "Expelliarmus" was his best hope. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 22:40:50 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:40:50 -0000 Subject: CoS Chapter 11 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181298 --- "Cassandra Wladyslava" wrote: > > Carol: > > And if Flitwick had been a duelling champion in his use, > you'd think that DD would hire him ...(for the DADA position). > > Cassie: > > Just chiming in to point out - remember that the DADA position > is cursed. ... I imagine DD wouldn't want to risk losing > Filius. ... > > I'd also like to comment on 'Umbridge being foisted on him > because he couldn't find anyone qualified.'. I don't think > it was a matter of not being able to find anyone qualified. >It was a matter of the 'this job is cursed' rumor -which >turned out not to be a rumor. No one wanted the job. > > ~Cassie~ bboyminn: First you are assuming Flitwick wanted the job. Maybe he was perfectly happy teaching Charms, and had no interest in DADA. The fact that he may or may not have been a dueling champion is irrelevant. I suspect if he was a Dueling Champion, it was competitive dueling, not street fighting. In competitive dueling there are rules and safety limits to protect the contestants. That would be very different than 'street fighting' or actually having to defend yourself against the Dark Arts. Also, I imagine that Dumbledore could find many many many people who were qualified to teach DADA, unfortunately none of them wanted the job. It is not finding qualified people that is the tricky part, it is finding qualified people who are also willing to take a job that people generally consider cursed. That's doesn't represent much encouragement or incentive. Not sure what my point was, but there it is. Steve/bboyminn From random832 at fastmail.us Mon Feb 4 23:27:39 2008 From: random832 at fastmail.us (Random832) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:27:39 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A79F6B.2010905@fastmail.us> No: HPFGUIDX 181299 > Magpie: > This thread has gone into this idea in a very detailed way, so I > don't see how you can just jump back to it like it's so simple. > Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* They are > pleased to serve people *they wish to serve*--they show plenty of > discomfort when forced to serve masters they don't want to serve > because they are owned. Random832: Well... not really. What is the difference between serving, and being owned? Even if we accept that they are forced (by whatever* means) to serve, and cannot choose not to, there is one important difference: House elves cannot be bought and sold. When Ron laments his family's lack of an elf, he speaks not of their financial situation, but of the quality of their dwelling, and one is left with the impression that a house elf would not _deign_ to lower themselves to serve a family that lived in such a shack. *whether "whatever" is something that wizards have any responsibility for or power over is up for debate. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Mon Feb 4 23:58:54 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:58:54 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <809606.73425.qm@web63913.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181300 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Liz P wrote: > > > Tiffany: > >(snip> was about Harry usuing Unforgivable's to protect his > > friends. > > zgirnius: > Quote, please? The only Unforgivable I can remember him casting > in the Battle of Hogwarts was a Crucio, in a situation where no > one's life was on the line. especially as that action was > over and done with a moment later. > > When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus". > > Liz: > > I need to go fetch my books, but did Harry use an Unforgiveable > in OOTP? What caused Bellatrix to tell him that he, "needed to > mean it" when performing such a curse. I always felt a bit jipped > by the ending of the book. I had to re-read it twice before I > understood, what Harry knew, that he was the true master of the > Elder Wand, and why in fact "Expelliarmus" was his best hope. Geoff: Yes he did. 'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before; he f lung himself out from behind the fountain and bellowed "Crucio!" Bellatrix screamed: the spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had - she was already back on her feet, breathless, no longer laughing.... ..."Never used an Unforgiveable Curse before, have you, boy?" she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. "You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain - to enjoy it - righteous anger won't hurt me for long...."' (OOTP "The Only One He Ever Feared" p.715 UK edition) From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 00:39:54 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:39:54 -0000 Subject: Youth Potion/archway to Diagon Alley/Expelliarmus/Grindel Wand/Bins/Reckless In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181301 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" wrote: > Later I understood that it had nothing to do with leaving a witness, > but Grindelwald waited because he had to defeat Gregorovitch in > order to make the Wand his own. In that case, it seems quite > restrained that Grindelwald used Stupefy instead of Avada Kevadra. > Why? Did he believe that the local wizarding police had an Avada > Kevadra detector in the area? Did he plan that his new empire would > need good wandmakers such as Gregorovitch? Was he merely reluctant > to kill unless neccessary? zanooda: I think all three reasons that you gave are plausible. I also believe that maybe GG didn't mind to "leave a witness" - if people knew he possessed the unbeatable wand, they would fear him more. However, if he counted on Gregorovitch to spread the news, he was mistaken. It seems that Gregorovitch never even found out who the thief was (which is a little strange, IMO), otherwise he would have told LV. > Catlady: > it's pretty reckless to figure that three teen-age students can do > something just because Voldemort was able to do it. Even tho' an > insider, a former Gringotts goblin, will help him, he should have > reflected that he was on track to be a MUCH MORE reckless godfather > to Teddy than Sirius had been to him, because robbing Gringotts is > more reckless than going to Platform 9 3/4 in dog disguise or trying > to kill Pettigrew single-handed. zanooda: I think Harry just didn't have a choice but to do it. Doesn't the word "reckless" means someone who never takes into consideration the consequences? It's not someone who just do dangerous stuff, it's someone who likes to do it, even if there is a safer way. I'm just asking here, because I'm not an English speaker :-). What I mean to say is that Harry chose to rob Gringotts not because he didn't want to consider the consequences, but because he didn't see any other way. Sirius had a choice when he decided to go after PP himself (and I completely understand him from the emotional point of view, BTW), but Harry didn't, IMO. That's why I'm not sure we can call him reckless in this case. Unless I misunderstand the word "reckless", of course, which is quite possible :-). From bartl at sprynet.com Mon Feb 4 18:52:48 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:52:48 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A75F00.5020403@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181302 livednlondon wrote: > I think it is interesting that we have seen Harry use an > unforgivable spell twice in the books. It goes against > everything he believes in, but he always wants to protect > those he cares for and has a quick temper. First of all, it is not an unforgivable spell. It is an Unforgivable spell. Note the capital "U". It is an official designation, created by a Ministry that couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. There was, however, a danger in Unforgivables by implication, if not stated outright. It requires that the caster pulls out the worst of him or herself. It's almost as like (and may be literally) every time you cast an Unforgivable, you destroy a small piece of your soul. Let's hope that, when Harry cast them, it was the Mortysoul. Bart From bartl at sprynet.com Mon Feb 4 19:08:13 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:08:13 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Tom Riddle's inability to love In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A7629D.4080004@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181303 bdclark0423 wrote: > Anyway, you can continue to try to find reasons, causes, etc. > Basically, it's the person's character that decides how strong they > are in whatever obstacle they face. Harry sought the light: truth > and that which was right, Tom sought power through the darkness." Bart: My advice is to look up "psychopath". Wikipedia is a good starting point. Remember, you are looking up definitions for the masses, the kind that JKR probably had access to when she designed the character. With one notable exception, Morty VERY closely fits the definition (the major exception is his ability to stick with a project). Bart From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 02:09:26 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:09:26 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181304 > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181275 > > Mike: > > But yep, all Severus' fault. > Carol responds: > It can't be *all* Severus's fault that he took the bait because > he didn't offer himself the bait, did he? He could not have > endangered himself had Sirius not offered him the means to do so. Mike: But I don't care how Severus got the information. Besides, yes he could have endangered himself because he *could* have gotten the information by some other means, as you so eloquently agree below, and which was proven when Harry & Hermione find out and just might have been the case for how James & Sirius found out. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181296 > Carol responds: > > So, suppose that he followed Madam Pomfrey to the Willow and > learned how to get in that way. In that case, he'd have only his > own carelessness, overconfidence, and recklessness to blame. > Curiosity would have killed Severus, and no one would be to blame > but himself. Mike: Thank you for agreeing with my point. Severus trip down the tunnel was NOT because he was duped and would *probably* have happened anyway had he learned the information from a different source. And had he not gotten the information from Sirius, he still wouldn't have the critical information of the Marauders being Animagi, only then we couldn't blame Sirius for withholding it. So Sirius revealed the Willow's secret most likely with the fervent hope that Severus would use it. But the Willow's secret was the MEANS, not the MOTIVE, for Severus' trip to werewolf land. The motive was all Severus. > Carol > *And* that person withheld the crucial information that would > have kept him from entering ("we're Animagi and you're not, so > we can survive, but you're dead meat if you go in there"). Mike: And had Severus found out about the Willow's knot from Madam Pomfrey, he STILL woundn't have known about them being Animagi and STILL would most likely gone into the tunnel. This makes the Animagi information moot when discussing culpability. If Severus was caught robbing a bank, it wouldn't matter if Sirius gave him the vault combination or whether he found a piece of paper on the sidewalk with the combination written on it. The reason Severus robbed the bank was all his. Severus formed the intent to rob the bank, er, head down the tunnel irrespective of Sirius' intent or motivation for giving Severus the key to the Willow. ON A DIFFERENT POINT > Carol: > No, because Snape didn't offer Voldemort information to tempt him, > nor was Voldemort (or anyone else) Snape's intended victim. Mike: I don't get this. Snape brought critical information (Dumbledore called it information that "concerned his master most deeply" which must not have escaped Snape's notice), which Voldemort could NOT have gotten any other way. Unlike the Willow info which Severus *could* have gotten from a different means, though he didn't. That Snape didn't know who Voldemort would hunt down does not mitigate the criticality of the information. Snape certainly intended to give the information and should have had a reasonable expectation that his master would use it. Not knowing "which boy" Voldemort would hunt down is not the same as not knowing *that* Voldemort would hunt down some boy. The intercedence of the Fidelius and Wormtail as SK mirrors the intercedence of James on the Prank; both are a result of a second kind of information provided by the original information divulger to a third party. The difference being James prevented further damage, while Wormtail allowed the plan of action to proceed apace. Of course, James intercedence may have produced Sirius' intended results, if we believe he only wanted to scare the crap out of Sev. ------------------ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181282 > Potioncat: > > Lupin says the trick could have killed Snape and Black says > "It served him right." Mike: First off, mea culpa for not putting in a couple IMOs in my previous post, I definitely shoulda. Now this: What "served him right"? That Snape got the piss scared out of him because he ended up in mortal danger? Don't you think that was Sirius intent, or do you think he really intended to get Sev killed or werewolf-ified? I read it as if Sirius just wanted to scare the you-know-what out of Severus, and years later he's still glad that it worked. > Potioncat: > That sounds to me that Black thinks the trick was justified. The > actual consequences aren't mentioned. What is mentioned is that > Snape could have been killed. Mike: Well yeah, PC, Sirius loved it when a plan came together. ;) I suppose a proper reading of canon is that James wasn't in on Sirius' plan, but I still wonder. (More on James in a different post) That Snape "could have been killed" was paramount in the scare the crap outta him factor. But Sirius has long since known that Severus *didn't* die, which has to factor into the casualness with which he delivers the "served him right" line. > Carol, hoping that Mike sees the difference between Severus's > acting on his own initiative and acting on partial information, > with the key point suppressed Mike, hoping Carol sees the difference between means and motive, and that getting additional information may have changed Severus' actions but would not have changed his motivation for going into the tunnel in the first place. > Carol, wondering where all this blame the victim sentiment is > coming from and hoping it's not just affection for Sirius Black > or loathing for Snape Mike: Objective analysis, of course. :D From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 02:34:25 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:34:25 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181305 > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181239 > > Montavilla47: > > I feel like Harry, who felt like his beloved Prince had turned > savage on him. > Not that I was ever a big James fan, but I figured what people > said about him was more or less correct. Mike: James Rant - RAYOR I'm really quite cheesed at the way JKR portrayed James. Harry starts out thinking the world of his dad, because of various things he learns and mostly on Hagrid's complimentary words. (And we all know how "unbiased" Hagrid is). Yet, his *one* good act seems to be his saving Snape in the Prank, and even that is called into question by Snape as more of a saving-his-butt move than a purely altruistic act. Even Minerva McGonnagall weakly praises James intelligence and immediately tempers that praise by telling us what trouble-makers he and Sirius were. Only Rosemerta seems to give us an unbiased positive opinion on James, "[he] used to make me laugh". Gee, isn't that nice. But of course, Rosemerta's praise is also countered by Fudge telling us what an idiot James was in trusting Black and turning down Dumbledore's offer to be their SK (MM gaves us the last). But, bit by bit, JKR tears down Harry's image of his father. Harry gets to see him in action in SWM and is distraught. Sirius and Remus don't really offer any mitigating reason for James' actions, all he really gets is "your father was a good person", faint praise from his co-perpetrator in crime. Then Harry gets to read about a fileful of James' detentions. In DH, he again gets a dose of Git!James in Snape's Pensieve memories. The coup de gras is seeing how feeble of an attempt James actually made against Voldemort. OK, I can understand bringing James back down to earth for Harry. He's got to learn that his dad was only human. But JKR really buried James. We hardly learn of anything good the boy/man did, almost every backstory bit shows him in a bad light. If you take out Hagrids praise, you would be more likely to think the kid got expelled from Hogwarts than him becoming Head Boy. Dumbledore gave him that post, yet about the only thing I remember Dumbledore saying about James character was that he mostly used the invisibility cloak to sneak food from the kitchens. Criminy, why did he appoint him Head Boy, then? Of course the real killer was having to listen to Snape tear the man down for seven years with no real rebuttal from anyone. At first, we are invited to think like Harry; "He's just jealous." But as the recriminations keep piling up and no contrary evidence is presented, we, like Harry, are invited to form our doubts about James' character. If you were like me, kept waiting for JKR to *show* us "he was a good person", then you were just as disappointed as I was when DH added to the git side of the ledger. I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my favorite character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Mike From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 03:09:40 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:09:40 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181306 Thanks, lizzyben, for a nice summary and some really interesting questions! > lizzyben: > 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the Ministry? > Was it well-planned, or could they have approached things a different > way? zgirnius: I would say, overall, not that well planned. I felt the plan for getting in was quite good, but (as Harry himself admits) the plan for what to do once in was lacking. They did not consider how to find each other if separated, or the possibility Umbridge might have the locket on her person. > 2. Numerous characters mention that Yaxley's office has been jinxed > to create a downpour. Could this be a sign of low-level sabotage > against Death Eaters within the Ministry? zgirnius: That seems likely. We were at the Ministry once before, when Arthur took Harry for his hearing, and there did not seem to be such little problems at that time. > 3. Harry impersonates Albert Runcorn, a character whom we never > actually meet. Based on other character's reactions to him, what kind > of person do you believe Runcorn is? Do you believe he is a Death > Eater? zgirnius: We're told Runcorn is a big, strong man, and from people's reactions I got he impression he uses this to intimidate. He also seems to use threats against people or their families. (Arhtur Weasley's reaction to Harry's warning in particular suggested this). I did not think he was a Death Eater, but definitely someone who has taken advantage of the new regime to indulge his worse nature. > 4. Ron impersonates a Ministry official with a Muggle-born wife, > Hermione a woman who assists Umbridge in the interrogation of Muggle- > borns, and Harry a high-ranking Ministry official. Is there any > thematic or character significance to the identities that they take > on? zgirnius: I'm hoping to read what others come up with on this one. The only significance I could come up with was foreshadowing Rowling's own imagined futures for the Trio, as shown in the books or claimed by her in interviews. Ron marries Hermione, a Muggleborn, as we see in the Epilogue. Hermione, according to interviews, is imagined by Rowling as a Ministry employee. I thought this myself, and took her DH retort to Scrimgeour about wanting to do some good in the world to indicate it was, despite her denial, going to be a Magical Law department she would end up in. And Harry as head of the Auror Office (what Rowling imagines him as) would be a high ranking Ministry official. > 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? zgirnius: My guess was through her connection to Selwyn, a Death Eater I presumed was in the Seven Potters raid. > 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking > Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle- > borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences > (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing > the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were > rash, or were his actions justified? zgirnius: Stealing Moody's eye was rash, but emotionally satisfying. I'd definitely call that a bad idea. The later actions were not thought out, but I'm less sure I would criticize them, because Harry is not naturally a planner, but his instincts tend to be good. This is not why he acted but their impersonation of Ministry employees was bound to be discovered, which means they would not be able to come back another day. So in a sense, he did need to do something. And helping the Muggleborns to escape worked well to cover their escape, and also provide an explanation of sorts for what they were doing there. > 7. The Ministry is producing propaganda pamphlets against Muggle- > borns, registering all wizards with Muggle-born blood, interrogating > Muggle-born wizards, and imprisoning Muggle-borns in Azkaban. Do you > believe that this is meant to be an analogy to the treatment of Jews > in Nazi Germany? Or is it a general analogy to bigotry and prejudice > against minority groups? zgirnius: I believe it was meant to be a more general analogy. There are fundamental differences between Jews and Muggleborns that would prevent a perfect analogy-if Rowling were after one, she would have created a different minority. There are of course similarities, because Nazi Germany was an instance of a regime which instituted these types of actions against a minority. > 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, > and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic > from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry > believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that > Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding > world? How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen > Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you > believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or > are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? zgirnius: I am not inclined to believe that the Ministry believed wholesale that Muggleborns all stole their wands, because it seems likely some of them knew of instances of Muggleborn classmates getting theirs at Ollivander's in the usual way. But I think the explanation of stealing magic was one that could appeal to many wizards. I am reminded of what pre-Hogwarts Severus says to Lily in "The Prince's Tale", about how it does not matter that she is Muggleborn, and how *she* is so magical. This might echo a `folk' sort of belief about why Muggleborns are inferior that he heard somewhere, which the Ministry propaganda affirms. The thing is, all wizards eventually meet Muggleborns, but the later in life they meet them, the less ridiculous it is to suppose their magic is `stolen'. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 04:09:15 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:09:15 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181307 "If I say it myself Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed" - p.310 Alla: Fast forward to HBP, huh? Charming boy indeed :( "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first" - p.310 Alla: At first? "On the other hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect , model student... on the other hand, big blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls ... but I admit even I was surprised how well plan worked" - p.311-312 Alla: I think this is one of the scariest dear Tommy moments for me. The shameless manipulation of everything that may cause pity for him. Another thing - JKR told us in the interview that Tommy flat out lied here - no werewolf cubs for Hagrid, alas. Any possible instances of Lordy lying later in the books, besides whether Slytherins joined him or not? "I, keep the name of a foul common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch?" - p.314 Alla: Not to start another Tom Riddle and Merope argument, but there are not that many places in the books where I remember well my reaction after first read. I do remember this one. I certainly felt that his daddy contributed to poor Tommy growing up as he did. I mean, not that I felt sympathy for Tommy dearest, but felt that his dad was not an honorable man. Boy this is all changed so drastically for me came HBP. I am still struggling hard to find even a little compassion for Merope, I mean maybe I have a little bit, but certainly not much, but I feel so bad for poor man whom she tricked, raped and took away his hopes and desires for happy marriage. All my opinion obviously and my opinion only. "Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met" - p.316 Alla: I know I am missing something obvious, but how does he know about second time again? Do all soul pieces know what the other one had been doing? I mean he says Ginny told him all about Harry, but Ginny does not really know what happened in PS/SS, no? "What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently,"is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me that he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania" - p.328 Alla: So DD does not know about horcruxes yet after all or does he? See you in Prisoner of Azkaban guys :-) From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Tue Feb 5 05:03:21 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:03:21 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: <47A79F6B.2010905@fastmail.us> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181309 > > Magpie: > > This thread has gone into this idea in a very detailed way, so I > > don't see how you can just jump back to it like it's so simple. > > Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* They are > > pleased to serve people *they wish to serve*--they show plenty of > > discomfort when forced to serve masters they don't want to serve > > because they are owned. > > Random832: > Well... not really. What is the difference between serving, and being > owned? Magpie: The difference of Dobby, for instance. He continues to like to serve after he's free, but he's no longer owned. Random: Even if we accept that they are forced (by whatever* means) to > serve, and cannot choose not to, there is one important difference: > House elves cannot be bought and sold. When Ron laments his family's > lack of an elf, he speaks not of their financial situation, but of the > quality of their dwelling, and one is left with the impression that a > house elf would not _deign_ to lower themselves to serve a family that > lived in such a shack. > Magpie: We don't know whether house elves can be bought or sold. The only ones we ever meet are already owned. But you seem to be implying that if house elves don't deign to lower themselves to serve a family who live in a shack they're not really owned, as if they would refuse to serve a master if he didn't have a nice house. But we see that Kreacher has to serve Harry whether he deigns to or not. We don't see any house elves looking down their noses at houses. They talk more about their owners and get attached to them than the houses. -m From k12listmomma at comcast.net Tue Feb 5 05:22:31 2008 From: k12listmomma at comcast.net (k12listmomma) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:22:31 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again References: Message-ID: <004401c867b7$1c357280$6501a8c0@homemain> No: HPFGUIDX 181310 > Shelley: > House Elves are not fellow humans >> (equals in body, thought and independence), that one can just > equate it to >> human slavery, > > Magpie: > I don't understand what this means. They're not human, but that > doesn't mean they can't be equals in many ways--they are persons > even if they aren't human persons, just like Goblins and Centaurs. > So what does it mean they're not equals in body, thought and > independence? They haven't different looking bodies than we do, but > that doesn't make them lower than us. They are able to think on the > human level. They're not independent equally, but that's the whole > point--they're slaves. This could describe human slaves as well. Shelley: But you are still thinking of them in human terms- what would make a HUMAN happy, and can't comprehend that a magical creature with a different makeup would NOT think like us, appreciate the same things, have the same value system. We, as humans, have fiercely valued our independence. Those sentient creatures that don't value independence are not "lower" than us, they just share a different view on life. They make decisions based on different criteria. Those who are still arguing for "slavery" are trying to put a "human" in that same prediciment, and predict how "we" would feel, and that's the wrong approach, since we are not House Elves, and House Elves are not humans. Thus, we tend to ignore the comment given in canon "they LIKE their position" as somehow invalid, not really meaning what it says, because if we were a human in that postion, we wouldn't like it, so we can't really believe that it's true that a house elf likes it. We are substituting our values for the House Elves. If you take House Elf values, it's clear that they put themselves in a symbiotic relationship with Wizards. And I can't tell a House Elf that he or she shouldn't like that symbiotic relationship, just because if it were me in that position, I would call it slavery. > Shelley: > and secondly, we have it straight out of the mouths of the >> House Elves themselves that they are pleased to serve a master and > that it >> causes them great discomfort not to have a house to serve. > > Magpie: > This thread has gone into this idea in a very detailed way, so I > don't see how you can just jump back to it like it's so simple. Shelley: Because it is so simple, once you get past thinking like a fiercy independent human being who frankly hates to serve others, and desires to be served, to thinking like a House Elf that admits pleasure in having a House to serve. > Magpie: > Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* Shelley: But again, it is us humans who are making that artificial distinction. I do not see in canon where the House Elves themselves make that distinction. Kreacher's fight is that he was taken away from "serving" his mistress, the portrait, not necessarily that ownership was transferred to Harry. Once he respected Harry, then he was more than happy to "serve" Harry. I really think we are going to have to agree to disagree if you insist House Elves are slaves, and cannot see the possibility that it was the House Elves themselves who put themselves in the predicament they are in, rather than the mean old Wizards having forced them into it. Because the legislation that you would enact to "correct any wrongs" would be totally different if you had to respect the House Elf wishes to serve a master. That's exactly where I think Hermione gets it all wrong- she sees slavery from a human point of view, not from a House Elf point of view, and the idea that so FEW Wizards go along with her idea tells me that she is missing the mark as far as understanding of these creatures goes. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 05:32:12 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:32:12 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181311 > CoS: > "Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at first" - p.310 > > Alla: > > At first? zgirnius: She eventually suspected she was doing some of the things Tom made her do, like when she came to with blood and feathers all over her. I think this is what Tom means. And that it was the diary which made her do it, so she tossed it down the toilet. > CoS: > "On the other hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but > so brave, school prefect , model student... on the other hand, big > blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise > werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to > wrestle trolls ... but I admit even I was surprised how well plan > worked" - p.311-312 > Alla: > Another thing - JKR told us in the interview that Tommy flat out > lied here - no werewolf cubs for Hagrid, alas. zgirnius: I would not necessarily call this a lie, even if it is factually inaccurate. Did Hagrid wrestle trolls either, I wonder? Or are both fanciful, top of the head concoctions intended to mock the sorts of activities that did get Hagrid into trouble every other week, as Tom may neither have known nor cared what Hagrid was up to until he needed to get him to take the fall? > CoS: > "Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met" - p.316 > > Alla: > > I mean he says Ginny told him all about Harry, but Ginny > does not really know what happened in PS/SS, no? zgirnius: Ginny is Ron's little sister, and a friend of Hermione. I don't think a great deal of plot hole filler is needed to suggest Ginny DOES know. >CoS: > "What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently,"is how Lord > Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me that he > is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania" - p.328 > > Alla: > > So DD does not know about horcruxes yet after all or does he? zgirnius: He may have suspected, but did not know. He states in HBP, "Horcruxes", that he figured it out when Harry described the diary to him. He could only account for its ability to think and act independently by supposing the diary had been a Horcrux. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 05:34:56 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Kai Wen Lee) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 21:34:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover Message-ID: <719701.50200.qm@web33507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181312 livednlondon wrote: > First of all, it is not an unforgivable spell. It is an > Unforgivable spell. Note the capital "U". It is an > official designation, created by a Ministry that couldn't > pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were > written on the heel. Ah, deja vu all over again. Question One: Do we know that the label was invented by the Ministry? Question Two: If the MoM says it's dark at night, would you argue it's not? A proposition is not automatically false just because the MoM says it's true. And, aside from all these post hoc attempts to justify Our Hero's questionable moral choices, there's little to no indication in canon that the Unforgivables are anything but. But even if one wants to argue the Unforgivables aren't, their use is by all accounts a matter of grave import. Neither Harry's burst of anger in OotP, nor Amycus' spittle in DH come close to justifying a Cruciatus, particularly when they were obviously cast not out of necessity but from a desire for vengeance. CJ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 05:35:13 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:35:13 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181313 > Mike: > > James Rant - RAYOR > > I'm really quite cheesed at the way JKR portrayed James. > But, bit by bit, JKR tears down Harry's image of his father. Harry > gets to see him in action in SWM and is distraught. Sirius and Remus > don't really offer any mitigating reason for James' actions, all he > really gets is "your father was a good person", faint praise from his > co-perpetrator in crime. Then Harry gets to read about a fileful of > James' detentions. In DH, he again gets a dose of Git!James in > Snape's Pensieve memories. The coup de gras is seeing how feeble of > an attempt James actually made against Voldemort. Montavilla47: I hear you, not even being, as I said, a big James fan. But I didn't need him torn down. (Although, perhaps that's because I was already a Snape fan. All I really needed to know was that Snape was acting on Dumbledore's orders to think well of him.) It seems like the thing that bugs a lot of people is James not picking up his wand when Voldemort comes in. I don't find it that damning a thing, myself, but I find it interesting that it's so disappointing for people. I can't help but wonder why JKR did that? Was it to make James's death more poignant, like Cedric's? Does she think it's more virtuous or heartrenching for James to die helplessly than to take arms against an enemy he had been fighting for over a year? Was it to point out how devastating Peter's betrayal was because James didn't even think of defending himself? Did she think that we'd think less of James if Voldemort defeated him in a "fair" duel? It wouldn't have been that hard or illogical to have him pick up his wand, even if he was surprised. I guess, though, as I try to imagine that scenario, it would be more impressive had he been able to fend Voldemort off long enough to warn Lily. Which is the sequence most of us were probably imagining prior to DH. Mike: > OK, I can understand bringing James back down to earth for Harry. > He's got to learn that his dad was only human. But JKR really buried > James. We hardly learn of anything good the boy/man did, almost every > backstory bit shows him in a bad light. Montavilla47: Yes. He was torn down quite enough in OotP, as far as I was concerned. I liked that in HBP, we did get a small bit of positivity when Lupin talked about James calling his lycanthropy his "furry little problem." What put it over the top for me in DH was learning that the Prank took place before SWM. There's no way to connect the James that appears in SWM with the Head Boy he becomes, other than a wanton disregard for character by Dumbledore. Not that I think the honor should have gone to any of the other boys we see in that year. But still, there must have been some deserving Hufflepuff around.... Mike: > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my favorite > character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I > thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders > fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as > good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But > without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance > the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Montavilla47: I hear you, Mike. And I don't think it was necessary at all. I would have preferred leaving the books with fond thoughts toward the Marauders *and* their scrappy little opponent. From k12listmomma at comcast.net Tue Feb 5 05:42:08 2008 From: k12listmomma at comcast.net (k12listmomma) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:42:08 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again References: Message-ID: <005101c867b9$d979d4b0$6501a8c0@homemain> No: HPFGUIDX 181314 > Random: > Even if we accept that they are forced (by whatever* means) to >> serve, and cannot choose not to, there is one important difference: >> House elves cannot be bought and sold. When Ron laments his > family's >> lack of an elf, he speaks not of their financial situation, but of > the >> quality of their dwelling, and one is left with the impression that > a >> house elf would not _deign_ to lower themselves to serve a family > that >> lived in such a shack. >> > > Magpie: > We don't know whether house elves can be bought or sold. The only > ones we ever meet are already owned. But you seem to be implying that > if house elves don't deign to lower themselves to serve a family who > live in a shack they're not really owned, as if they would refuse to > serve a master if he didn't have a nice house. But we see that > Kreacher has to serve Harry whether he deigns to or not. We don't see > any house elves looking down their noses at houses. They talk more > about their owners and get attached to them than the houses. Shelley: I see this point as really important, because if you take the view that House Elves WANT to serve, then they consider it to be a higher honor to serve a large house, and not any honor at all to do small tasks tasks that the humans could do themselves. The larger the house, the more the prestigue for the House Elf. Thus, serving in a shack would give them no pleasure, for they really wouldn't be needed at all. From juli17 at aol.com Tue Feb 5 05:56:45 2008 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:56:45 EST Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius as Bull Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181315 > Carol responds: > It can't be *all* Severus's fault that he took the bait because > he didn't offer himself the bait, did he? He could not have > endangered himself had Sirius not offered him the means to do so. > Carol responds: > > So, suppose that he followed Madam Pomfrey to the Willow and > learned how to get in that way. In that case, he'd have only his > own carelessness, overconfidence, and recklessness to blame. > Curiosity would have killed Severus, and no one would be to blame > but himself. Mike: Thank you for agreeing with my point. Severus trip down the tunnel was NOT because he was duped and would *probably* have happened anyway had he learned the information from a different source. And had he not gotten the information from Sirius, he still wouldn't have the critical information of the Marauders being Animagi, only then we couldn't blame Sirius for withholding it. So Sirius revealed the Willow's secret most likely with the fervent hope that Severus would use it. But the Willow's secret was the MEANS, not the MOTIVE, for Severus' trip to werewolf land. The motive was all Severus. Julie: So Sirius had no motive? I very much disagree. SIrius had a definite motive, at the very least to scare the pants off Snape, at the most to get him hurt or killed. (Though I do suspect it was the lesser motive.) As for critical information, I think the more critical information Snape didn't have was that Lupin was UNCONFINED in the Shack. Certainly that ties into the Marauders being Animagi, thus able to be around an unconfined werewolf in their animagi forms. Snape has no reason to suspect the Marauders of being Animagi, and every reason to assume Lupin is somehow confined or rendered powerless if the Marauders can be in his presence during a full moon. That Sirius knew this and deliberately kept it from him is deliberately duping Snape, IMO. > Carol > *And* that person withheld the crucial information that would > have kept him from entering ("we're Animagi and you're not, so > we can survive, but you're dead meat if you go in there"). Mike: And had Severus found out about the Willow's knot from Madam Pomfrey, he STILL woundn't have known about them being Animagi and STILL would most likely gone into the tunnel. This makes the Animagi information moot when discussing culpability. If Severus was caught robbing a bank, it wouldn't matter if Sirius gave him the vault combination or whether he found a piece of paper on the sidewalk with the combination written on it. The reason Severus robbed the bank was all his. Severus formed the intent to rob the bank, er, head down the tunnel irrespective of Sirius' intent or motivation for giving Severus the key to the Willow. Julie: I don't really see the relevance of Snape's possible actions in a possible scenario. The real scenario is that Sirius gave him the information with the deliberate intent that Snape would use it and suffer for it. Was it stupid of Snape to use the information without considering the source? Certainly. Does that make Sirius's action less unworthy and wrong? Not in my opinion. ON A DIFFERENT POINT > Carol: > No, because Snape didn't offer Voldemort information to tempt him, > nor was Voldemort (or anyone else) Snape's intended victim. Mike: I don't get this. Snape brought critical information (Dumbledore called it information that "concerned his master most deeply" which must not have escaped Snape's notice), which Voldemort could NOT have gotten any other way. Unlike the Willow info which Severus *could* have gotten from a different means, though he didn't. That Snape didn't know who Voldemort would hunt down does not mitigate the criticality of the information. Snape certainly intended to give the information and should have had a reasonable expectation that his master would use it. Not knowing "which boy" Voldemort would hunt down is not the same as not knowing *that* Voldemort would hunt down some boy. Julie: Personally, I don't see how it matters if either Voldemort or Snape could have gotten their respective knowledge in a different way. It's about what actually happened in both cases. And I completely agree that Snape had a reasonable expectation that Voldemort would use the information to hurt others. Equally, I think Sirius also had a reasonable expectation that Snape would use that information to his own detriment, unwittingly (as I don't see any reason Snape would go into the Shrieking Shack expecting to meet an unconfined werewolf which he couldn't hope to subdue). Malicious intent is malicious intent, though obviously these were cases of two very different degrees of malice (assuming Sirius expected Snape to be scared for his life but not actually in danger of dying). Mike: The intercedence of the Fidelius and Wormtail as SK mirrors the intercedence of James on the Prank; both are a result of a second kind of information provided by the original information divulger to a third party. The difference being James prevented further damage, while Wormtail allowed the plan of action to proceed apace. Of course, James intercedence may have produced Sirius' intended results, if we believe he only wanted to scare the crap out of Sev. Julie: Hmm. James acted for good, and Wormtail acted for evil. Again it's a matter of intent, which to me is the most important consideration (and why I see Wormtail as more culpable in the deaths of the Potters than Snape, whose intent changed when he tried to undo his actions). AFAWK with the Prank, Sirius's intent was to see Snape scared out of his pants/robe (without any real evidence he expected Snape to be turned or even killed), while Snape's intent was to prove a theory that might get his enemies expelled (with no evidence from any quarter that he had any intent or expectation of confronting a werewolf, let alone taking it down with "Dark Arts" or anything else). That's how it stands for me, anyway. Julie, who sees Sirius as acting quite badly and Snape acting quite stupidly in this incident, both proving as someone mentioned earlier that teenage boys have very little impulse control ;-) **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 06:25:48 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:25:48 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's Lies and Deceptions (WAS Re: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181316 > Alla: > Any possible instances of Lordy lying later in the books, besides > whether Slytherins joined him or not? Zgirnius: Tom/Voldemort lies and deceives people all of the time, for a variety of reasons. To escape punishment, to get people to do what he wants, to further his aims, to hurt people. An attempt at a chronological listing follows. Tom already lied and deceived people as a young boy. Mrs. Cole cites two examples, and there were doubtless others. She, of course, does not know Tom lied to her, but we can be pretty sure he was behind Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop's trauma, and the rabbit hung on the rafters. In relation to the opening of the Chamber, he lied and engaged in deception. He claimed to Armando Dippet not to know anything about the events, for a specific example. He falsely accused Hagrid. And he fostered the (false) impression that he was concerned about these dreadful events. He lied to Horace Slughorn when he claimed not to fully understand Horcruxes, in particular, how to make them. His true goal appears to have been to get an evaluation of his new idea of six as the ideal number to have. He also claims the discussion was hypothetical, something else I do not believe. I would consider the false memories Riddle planted in the mind of his uncle Morfin, that he had murdered the Riddles, another lie. As is the memory he implanted in Hokey's mind, causing her to think she had accidentally poisoned her mistress. Since Dumbledore did not take Tom up on his offer and grant him the DADA teaching job, this is somewhat hypothetical, but when Tom said "I place myself and my talents at your disposal. I am yours to command," at his job interview, I somehow don't think he meant it. I also think Voldemort used deception as a tool in recruiting. This might not have involved telling specific lies (and whether or not it did, we do not have a canon scene of Voldemort recruiting a Death Eater). But someone like Regulus becoming a Death Eater and then being shocked by Voldemort's callousness, suggests deception occurred. In this same vein, there seems to be reason to believe some Death Eaters (Bella, e. g.) believed him to be Pureblood. Peter probably thought good things would happen for him if he stuck with Voldemort. Voldemort does talk about how he met and came to control Quirrell. He described him (in GoF, the graveyard scene) as young, foolish, and *gullible*. Presumably, to know Quirrell was gullible, Voldemort must have deceived him in some way. Voldemort lies to Harry in PS/SS: "you'll meet the same end as your parents.... They died begging me for mercy..." Lily arguably, for Harry's sake (though this is at least misleading, she was actually offering herself!), but certainly not James. Voldemort (as Diary!Tom) is also quite deceptive in CoS. A sample of his BS, addressed at Harry: > CoS: > "In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned." zgirnius: The flat-out lie, of course, was that the person who opened the Chamber was expelled, and Tom caught him. There's also the use of the word "truth" to describe a false story he was not allowed to tell, and the subtle implication that Tom was a boy who worried about these terrible things, and tried to prevent them. I also think it is likely that Tom lied to Ginny as the diary, though we have no acccount of their conversations. "I would never hurt you, Ginny..." e. g. He certainly deceived her into believing the boy in the diary was a friend, when he was anything but. In OotP, while it was not spoken, the vision Voldemort sent to Harry, of Sirius in the DoM, was a lie. Within it, he lies to Sirius: "Take it for me . . . lift it down, now . . . I cannot touch it . . . but you can . . ." In fact, it is Sirius who could not touch it and Voldemort who could (and Harry - as the subjects of the Prophecy). He also lies to the defenders of Hogwarts, after Harry's seeming death, when he says of Harry, "He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save himself-" From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 08:21:19 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:21:19 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181317 >>> Mike previously: > > Severus trip down the tunnel was NOT because he was duped and > would *probably* have happened anyway had he learned the > information from a different source. > > And had he not gotten the information from Sirius, he still > wouldn't have the critical information of the Marauders being > Animagi, only then we couldn't blame Sirius for withholding it. > > So Sirius revealed the Willow's secret most likely with the > fervent hope that Severus would use it. But the Willow's secret > was the MEANS, not the MOTIVE, for Severus' trip to werewolf land. > The motive was all Severus. <<< > Julie: > So Sirius had no motive? I very much disagree. Mike: If you reread my first sentence of my third paragraph above you will realize that I too disagree with your question. But in the part below, I contend that it was *Severus'* motivation that mattered here. It was Severus intent to go down the tunnel and he was NOT doing so because Sirius wanted him to. Which, to me, means he would have done so regardless of how or from whom he learned the secret of freezing the Willow. > Julie: > As for critical information, I think the more critical information > Snape didn't have was that Lupin was UNCONFINED in the Shack. Mike: This, of course, presupposes that he thought the werewolf *was* confined in the first place. How that can be interpreted from canon I'm unclear. > Julie: > Certainly that ties into the Marauders being Animagi, thus able > to be around an unconfined werewolf in their animagi forms. Mike: That's how the Marauders did it, so what? That Severus seemingly disregarded the danger of a werewolf encounter, out of hubris or whatever, renders the Marauders' Animagi abilities a moot point. There's nothing in canon to indicate that Severus prepared himself for such an encounter. Just as there's nothing in canon to indicate that Sirius intent *caused* Severus to go to meet a werewolf. > Julie: > Snape has no reason to suspect the Marauders of being Animagi, > and every reason to assume Lupin is somehow confined or rendered > powerless if the Marauders can be in his presence during a full > moon. That Sirius knew this and deliberately kept it from him is > deliberately duping Snape, IMO. Mike: So, Sirius knew two secrets and only told Severus one of them. Shocking isn't it? How could Severus possibly know that Sirius wouldn't tell him everything? They were such good mates, after all. Your argument implies that Sirius was duty-bound to tell Severus the rest of the Marauders were Animagi. Which is a most silly argument, made moreso by the relationship that existed between the two. > Julie: > > The real scenario is that Sirius gave him the information with > the deliberate intent that Snape would use it and suffer for it. Mike: Worked too, didn't it? > Julie: > > Does that make Sirius's action less unworthy and wrong? Not in my > opinion. Mike: And imo, Sirius' actions or intentions had no effect on the motivations and intent of one Severus Snape. Sirius' actions, no matter how unworthy or wrong, did not *cause* Severus to want to go down that tunnel, a rule breaking excursion every much as wrong as the Marauders rule breaking. > Julie: > > Equally, I think Sirius also had a reasonable expectation that > Snape would use that information to his own detriment, unwittingly > (as I don't see any reason Snape would go into the Shrieking > Shack expecting to meet an unconfined werewolf which he couldn't > hope to subdue). Mike: I'm in agreement right up to "unwittingly". I think Sirius would expect Severus to take anything he told him with a grain of salt. That Sirius hoped Severus would screw up is immutable. But, to whose detriment was Severus hoping to use the information, and is there any doubt that Sirius knew that score? I would also agree with your parenthetical statement if you placed a period after "Shack". > Julie: > Malicious intent is malicious intent, Mike: What kind of intent do you suppose Severus had in setting off down the tunnel? And why doesn't his intent matter? > Julie: > Hmm. James acted for good, and Wormtail acted for evil. Again > it's a matter of intent, which to me is the most important > consideration (and why I see Wormtail as more culpable in the > deaths of the Potters than Snape, whose intent changed when he > tried to undo his actions). Mike: Hmm. That's what I said regarding James' and Wormtail's intent. I guess the fact that the Potters wouldn't have needed a Secret Keeper if it weren't for Snape and his eavesdropping matters little in your book. And the fact that Snape cared little for the nameless, faceless people until the name became Lily, shows real character, does it? I don't buy this 'poor Severus', he couldn't get the toothpaste back into the tube argument. Harry had one thing right, it wasn't a mistake. An after the fact regrettable act maybe, but Snape *intended* to bring the prophesy to Voldemort, he was only sorry when he found out who the prophesy meant to Lord Thingy. > Julie: > AFAWK with the Prank, Sirius's intent was to see Snape scared out > of his pants/robe, while Snape's intent was to prove a theory that > might get his enemies expelled Mike: I think it turns the whole story inside out to say that Sirius had more culpability than Severus with regards to the Prank. > Julie, who sees Sirius as acting quite badly and Snape acting quite > stupidly in this incident, both proving as someone mentioned > earlier that teenage boys have very little impulse control ;-) Mike, who was a teenage boy and therefore thinks he might have a little more insight as to how much impulse control teenage boys have than the women he's debating this with ;) BTW, Pippin mentioned it, and though I don't deny impulse control is a problem for teenage boys, I still have a chromosomal advantage over her in the experience department. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 11:08:58 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:08:58 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: <47A710E4.4020301@fastmail.us> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181318 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Random832 wrote: > > > a_svirn: > > For instance, when Hermione kept Rita > > Skeeter in a glass jar she was doing it magically and *il*legally. > > Random: > Now, do we actually know this? It could be that, legally, unregistered > animagi are considered to forfeit most of their rights when not in human > form. a_svirn: It could be, but I'd say it is most unlikely. There are quite enough self-appointed vigilantes in the WW to encourage such activities legally as well. I think it is safe to assume that keeping fellow wizards captives is illegal. I mean we don't know whether it is illegal to kill aging headmasters but it would be the height of absurdity to suppose that it isn't. > Random: After all, Hermione was merely keeping an insect in a jar, not a > person - how was she supposed to know it was actually a witch? (That's > actually both one possible basis for why registration might be required > and a possible way for the government to provide an incentive to do so) > a_svirn: That's a very good possible line of defence, yes. But it does not change the fact that in principle kidnapping is illegal. Besides, there is a little matter of blackmail as well. Since Hermione forced Rita to renounce her job, and later on extorted certain favours in exchange for her (Hermione's) silence it wouldn't be too difficult to prove that she knew about Rita's being animaga alright. a_svirn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 11:21:32 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:21:32 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181319 > Carol responds: > > What if the enchantment can't be made illegal because it's part of the > nature of Elves? a_svirn: Enchantments cannot be a part of anyone's nature. Enchantment is an action of employing certain magic. And in order to enact a bonding enchantment two sides are needed, are they not? In this case wizards and elves. Wizards would have to want elves to be bound to them. Unless you think that elves tricked wizards into being their owners? a_svirn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 11:59:56 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:59:56 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181320 Thanks for the excellent questions, Lizzyben! > Questions for discussion: > > 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the Ministry? > Was it well-planned, or could they have approached things a different > way? a_svirn: They could have send Kreacher to kidnap Umbridge. > 2. Numerous characters mention that Yaxley's office has been jinxed > to create a downpour. Could this be a sign of low-level sabotage > against Death Eaters within the Ministry? a_svirn: I am pretty sure it is. > 3. Harry impersonates Albert Runcorn, a character whom we never > actually meet. Based on other character's reactions to him, what kind > of person do you believe Runcorn is? Do you believe he is a Death > Eater? a_svirn: I'd say he is an informer who lays information against muggle-borns in order to improve his own career chances. In other words, the worst sort of opportunist. I don't think he's a death eater, though. > 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking > Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle- > borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences > (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing > the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were > rash, or were his actions justified? a_svirn: I think they were both. What astounds me is that the good guys were more interested in the law-level sabotage than in helping the hapless muggle-borns. > > 7. The Ministry is producing propaganda pamphlets against Muggle- > borns, registering all wizards with Muggle-born blood, interrogating > Muggle-born wizards, and imprisoning Muggle-borns in Azkaban. Do you > believe that this is meant to be an analogy to the treatment of Jews > in Nazi Germany? Or is it a general analogy to bigotry and prejudice > against minority groups? a_svirn: It is pretty obvious that Rowling had Nazi Germany in mind when she wrote this chapter. Certainly, the whole thing is a bit more than mere bigotry. > 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, > and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic > from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry > believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that > Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding > world? How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen > Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you > believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or > are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? a_svirn: How could Nazi propaganda succeed? In part it was due intimidation for sure, but there was a good deal of general indifference (why should concern ourselves about *them*?) and opportunism as well: lots of ordinary folks profited from ethnic purges, after all. And they had such a good excuse. > 9. In this chapter, the Ministry's "courtrooms" are used to terrorize > and intimidate the powerless. What is the novel's view of the legal > system? What does JKR seem to be saying about law versus instinct as > a basis for morality? a_svirn: Well, the WW legal system sucks throughout all seven books. I am not sure whether it is supposed to be a commentary on the real world justice. Though it does seem that she does not care much about being impartial to all sides. a_svirn From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 16:30:07 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:30:07 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181321 Lizzyben: 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle- borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were rash, or were his actions justified? Alla: I would say both rush and justified. I mean maybe after the fact they could came up with something else entirely, but this is after the fact. But I guess that I should say that to me no matter how rash it was, it was definitely justified, tipping off the ministry or not, they saved people. Lizzyben: 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding world? How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? Alla: Actually I do not think Ministry ( or at least people in charge there) believes that muggleborns are stealing any magic in any way. I believe that people who came up with this propaganda (Voldemort and Co I mean) were just looking for any piece of idiocy to justify the mistreatment of muggleborns and voala, they did come up with this idiocy. Now, whether general population believes it, I truly have no idea. If we look at how Harry and Dumbledore were treated at the beginning of OOP, I will not be surprised if general population does believe it. Although how and why they would believe it, I have no clue whatsoever. I do want to believe that they are simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry, as it often happens in the dark times in RL, but I just do not know. JMO of course. Lizzyben: 9. In this chapter, the Ministry's "courtrooms" are used to terrorize and intimidate the powerless. What is the novel's view of the legal system? What does JKR seem to be saying about law versus instinct as a basis for morality? Alla: I would say that JKR does not care much about WW legal system. I would say that she has no problem with good people changing the WW legal system as needed. Thanks for the interesting questions. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Tue Feb 5 16:37:33 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:37:33 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: <004401c867b7$1c357280$6501a8c0@homemain> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181322 > > Magpie: > > I don't understand what this means. They're not human, but that > > doesn't mean they can't be equals in many ways--they are persons > > even if they aren't human persons, just like Goblins and Centaurs. > > So what does it mean they're not equals in body, thought and > > independence? They haven't different looking bodies than we do, but > > that doesn't make them lower than us. They are able to think on the > > human level. They're not independent equally, but that's the whole > > point--they're slaves. This could describe human slaves as well. > > > Shelley: > But you are still thinking of them in human terms- what would make a HUMAN > happy, and can't comprehend that a magical creature with a different makeup > would NOT think like us, appreciate the same things, have the same value > system. We, as humans, have fiercely valued our independence. Those sentient > creatures that don't value independence are not "lower" than us, they just > share a different view on life. They make decisions based on different > criteria. Those who are still arguing for "slavery" are trying to put a > "human" in that same prediciment, and predict how "we" would feel, and > that's the wrong approach, since we are not House Elves, and House Elves are > not humans. , we tend to ignore the comment given in canon "they LIKE > their position" as somehow invalid, not really meaning what it says, because > if we were a human in that postion, we wouldn't like it, so we can't really > believe that it's true that a house elf likes it. We are substituting our > values for the House Elves. Magpie: No, I'm not thinking of them as humans, I'm thinking of them as House Elves as they are in canon, and the House Elves themselves have not only been known to describe themselves as enslaved but suffer because of it. Dobby was *not* happy in his position working for Lucius. Kreacher was *not* happy in his position working for Sirius or for Harry at first. It's not just me saying that if I were in such and such position I wouldn't like it and therefore they must not like it, I have canon of two elves who show House Elves are perfectly capable of not liking their position. Kreacher and Dobby both were made miserable by their position as slaves. I am not ignoring the comment in canon that they like their position, I'm being clear about what position it is that they actually like. They enjoy serving people they want to serve and they enjoy doing housework and other odd jobs. They mistakenly understand "freedom" to mean being sacked for bad work. But when faced with the true nature of their slavery and the real meaning of freedom--when they are forced to serve and praise masters they don't want to serve or praise--they don't like it at all. They like their position when they like their position; when they don't like their position they're stuck. ShelleY; If you take House Elf values, it's clear that > they put themselves in a symbiotic relationship with Wizards. And I can't > tell a House Elf that he or she shouldn't like that symbiotic relationship, > just because if it were me in that position, I would call it slavery. Magpie: But I'm not telling them they shouldn't like whatever they like about Wizards. There is absolutely no canon that elves particularly like being forced to serve people they find repellent. On the contrary, we get the opposite, that they *don't* like doing that. They only like serving masters when they like that master. And also, from the other side, this isn't just about house elves. Wizards *are* humans and so are human slave owners. If one has an ethical problem with *owning* slaves (rather than being one), Wizards have that problem. Wizards do things for their own benefit. > > Shelley: > > and secondly, we have it straight out of the mouths of the > >> House Elves themselves that they are pleased to serve a master and > > that it > >> causes them great discomfort not to have a house to serve. > > > > Magpie: > > This thread has gone into this idea in a very detailed way, so I > > don't see how you can just jump back to it like it's so simple. > > Shelley: > Because it is so simple, once you get past thinking like a fiercy > independent human being who frankly hates to serve others, and desires to be > served, to thinking like a House Elf that admits pleasure in having a House > to serve. Magpie: It's simple imo because you're ignoring everything in canon that points out that it isn't. You seem happy to say, like Ron, that they're happy doing housework and therefore it's fine to enslave them even if that means an elf can be forced to work for people against his will. Iow, their feelings matter when they're happy with the situation to keep Wizards complacent, but when the House Elf is unhappy with the situation it doesn't count. But what makes them unhappy is the fact that they are slaves, which means by definition they don't have the same right to happiness as their owners do. Plenty of house elves actually are happy because they work for masters they like and so never come up against the bars of their cage, but the bars are still there. Liking to serve others is *not* the same thing as liking to be forced to serve others against your will whether you like it or not. Mother Theresa dedicated her life to serving others; she wasn't anybody's slave. To me if there's anything simple it's that the slavery part is wrong. If we've got a house elf who doesn't like his master your solution seems to be to wait until he has a master he likes or until he decides he likes the one he's got (even though this might never happen). To me the much simpler solution is: the house elf should be able to choose his own situation and get out of one that's unacceptable to him--iow, have more freedom. It's most important to protect those elves who do or might find themselves in a situation that makes them unhappy. I can't think of any reason a Wizard should have the right to own a house elf against the house elves' will. > > Magpie: > > Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* > > Shelley: > But again, it is us humans who are making that artificial distinction. I do > not see in canon where the House Elves themselves make that distinction. > Kreacher's fight is that he was taken away from "serving" his mistress, the > portrait, not necessarily that ownership was transferred to Harry. Once he > respected Harry, then he was more than happy to "serve" Harry. Magpie: You don't see in canon where house elves make that distinction? Dobby and Kreacher both make it very loudly--"I won't! I won't!" says Kreacher when the will is read. Of course Kreacher's fight is against the trasferring of his ownership to Harry! He doesn't want to serve Harry and he didn't want to serve Sirius, which is who he was serving before Harry--not his mistress' portrait. (And even if his problem was that he was taken away from serving the portrait he wanted to serve, that's still making the same distinction--Kreacher doesn't get to serve who *he* wants to serve.) Yeah, once he respected Harry he was happy to serve Harry--he's happy when he's serving somebody he respects. He was *not* happy serving Harry in HBP and he was *not* happy serving Sirius in OotP. That's most of his part in canon he suffers as an unwilling slave in service to masters he doesn't want that you're glossing over with "once he respected Harry..." The slavery was most obvious when he didn't respect Harry. His coming to respect him might give the illusion that it's not slavery, but the real test comes when Kreacher doesn't want to serve him, at which time he's forced to serve him because he's a slave. As long as they are slaves, House Elves' well-being rests on trusting the good will of their individual masters. I would say the same is true for the other elves. I think all the elves at Hogwarts, for instance, who probably make no distinction between serving and slavery now because they're happy, might find themselves as miserable as Kreacher if Voldemort took over and they now belonged to him and he ordered them to torture each other for his amusement. Shelley: > I really think we are going to have to agree to disagree if you insist House > Elves are slaves, and cannot see the possibility that it was the House Elves > themselves who put themselves in the predicament they are in, rather than > the mean old Wizards having forced them into it. Magpie: I didn't say anything about how this came about, "mean old wizards" or no. For all I know House Elves put the enchantment on themselves and the self-absorbed wizards are just enjoying the results and liking to be slave-owners. That doesn't change the fact that canon shows quite clearly that House Elves are capable of having desires that are at odds with their slavery, and when that happens it causes them pain. It's not the slavery that brings them pleasure, it's doing good work for people they want to please. Shelley: Because the legislation > that you would enact to "correct any wrongs" would be totally different if > you had to respect the House Elf wishes to serve a master. That's exactly > where I think Hermione gets it all wrong- she sees slavery from a human > point of view, not from a House Elf point of view, and the idea that so FEW > Wizards go along with her idea tells me that she is missing the mark as far > as understanding of these creatures goes. Magpie: Yes, Hermione gets it wrong because she doesn't see House Elves at all. But one can right the wrong of slavery while still respecting the wish of a House Elf to serve Wizards. I can understand things from a house elf's pov without pretending I don't see where they're misunderstanding things (as evidenced by canon). Of course Wizards don't go along with Hermione's idea--they're benefitting from House Elf slavery and most of them probably never even see a house elf, much less see one suffering or think about the ethics of slavery. And the House Elves don't because to them Hermione's not offering them anything, she's just encouraging them to disgrace themselves. She's not even speaking the same language using an abstract concept of "freedom." I'm not convinced there couldn't be better understanding with a little effort. > Magpie: > We don't know whether house elves can be bought or sold. The only > ones we ever meet are already owned. But you seem to be implying that > if house elves don't deign to lower themselves to serve a family who > live in a shack they're not really owned, as if they would refuse to > serve a master if he didn't have a nice house. But we see that > Kreacher has to serve Harry whether he deigns to or not. We don't see > any house elves looking down their noses at houses. They talk more > about their owners and get attached to them than the houses. Shelley: I see this point as really important, because if you take the view that House Elves WANT to serve, then they consider it to be a higher honor to serve a large house, and not any honor at all to do small tasks tasks that the humans could do themselves. The larger the house, the more the prestigue for the House Elf. Thus, serving in a shack would give them no pleasure, for they really wouldn't be needed at all. Magpie: That would still require the elves to have a choice of who or where they serve, which they don't have once they're enslaved. If the owner moves to a shack the elf serves in a shack. (Not that I agree with this necessarily--I think the House Elves we've seen who love their masters would happily serve them anywhere doing anything, and we've no canon for this idea to begin with.) Wizards really don't care what kind of house would give a house elf the most pleasure. -m From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 17:32:13 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:32:13 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181323 > > > Magpie: > > > Liking to *serve* is not the same as wanting to be *owned.* > > > > Shelley: > > But again, it is us humans who are making that artificial > distinction. I do > > not see in canon where the House Elves themselves make that > distinction. > > Kreacher's fight is that he was taken away from "serving" his > mistress, the > > portrait, not necessarily that ownership was transferred to Harry. > Once he > > respected Harry, then he was more than happy to "serve" Harry. > > Magpie: > You don't see in canon where house elves make that distinction? > Dobby and Kreacher both make it very loudly--"I won't! I won't!" > says Kreacher when the will is read. Of course Kreacher's fight is > against the trasferring of his ownership to Harry! He doesn't want > to serve Harry and he didn't want to serve Sirius, which is who he > was serving before Harry--not his mistress' portrait. (And even if > his problem was that he was taken away from serving the portrait he > wanted to serve, that's still making the same distinction--Kreacher > doesn't get to serve who *he* wants to serve.) a_svirn: And I'd very much like to know what is so artificial in this distinction. Do you (Shelley) think that a distinction between a waiter in a restaurant and a slave serving you a dinner is artificial? I'd say it is totally artificial (to say the least) to link these two very separate meanings in one semantic monster. I've yet to see any dictionary that would give "being owned" as a meaning for *serve*. > Magpie: > Yeah, once he respected Harry he was happy to serve Harry--he's > happy when he's serving somebody he respects. He was *not* happy > serving Harry in HBP and he was *not* happy serving Sirius in OotP. > That's most of his part in canon he suffers as an unwilling slave in > service to masters he doesn't want that you're glossing over > with "once he respected Harry..." The slavery was most obvious when > he didn't respect Harry. His coming to respect him might give the > illusion that it's not slavery, but the real test comes when > Kreacher doesn't want to serve him, at which time he's forced to > serve him because he's a slave. As long as they are slaves, House > Elves' well-being rests on trusting the good will of their > individual masters. > a_svirn: Exactly so. And unlike Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett who would "serve anyone and to anyone at all", elves are actually pretty discriminative. They would like to serve wizards of their own choosing and do not want to serve anyone they deem unworthy of their services. They are prevented from doing what they want, however, because they are property of wizards, e.g. slaves. There is ample evidence for that in canon. It is only through some *very* artificial and selective reading one can overlook the instances of elves making this distinction. a_svirn From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 17:35:37 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:35:37 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181324 Thanks Lizzyben for the summary and excellent questions. Questions for discussion: 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the Ministry? Was it well-planned, or could they have approached things a different way? DD: I think it was well planned, but I also wondered why they didn't utilize Kreacher to either 1. Kidnap D.Umberidge Dung style or 2. Discover where she lived so they could ambush her at her home.(I wonder how many cats she has?) 2. Numerous characters mention that Yaxley's office has been jinxed to create a downpour. Could this be a sign of low-level sabotage against Death Eaters within the Ministry? DD: I think it was a sign of low-level sabotage. I remember in OOP Arthur made a statement of when the folks who bewitched the magical windows threatened to strike and made cloudy/stormy days in all the windows. I also wonder if Cattermole had done this to prevent/delay Yaxley from being at his wife's hearing. 3. Harry impersonates Albert Runcorn, a character whom we never actually meet. Based on other character's reactions to him, what kind of person do you believe Runcorn is? Do you believe he is a Death Eater? DD: I don't believe he is a Death Eater, Harry makes no mention of a dark mark on his arm. I believe he's an opportunist and an intimidator and the current regime appeals to his darker nature. 4. Ron impersonates a Ministry official with a Muggle-born wife, Hermione a woman who assists Umbridge in the interrogation of Muggle- borns, and Harry a high-ranking Ministry official. Is there any thematic or character significance to the identities that they take on? I think there is some significance in that this experience probably had a profound effect on their career decisions. This experience also gave them (Ron and Hermione in particular) a clear view of how Voldemort's regime affected the WW at large in a deeply personal way. It was nice to see Hermione "hold it together" in an extremely stressful, unplanned situation; it was also nice to see Ron extremely worried and concerned about the life and loved ones of the employee he was impersonating.(Bless the twins for buying him that slef-help book and bless Ron for applying said lessons outside the realm of Hermione! LOL) 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? Probably from the Selwyn DE whom she claims to be a relation to. I didn't think D.Umbridge could sink any lower that she already had in OOP but she did--it disgusts me that she could put a part of a a dead person on her door. *retch* 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle- borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were rash, or were his actions justified? Harry's actions were utterly rash and completely justifiable. I think his actions made a massive impact on the wizarding community at large. We learn later in the book that muggle borns aren't coming to the MOM voluntarily anymore--hence the snatchers. It probably also influenced a great deal many DA members into action at Hogwarts to boot. If all had gone according to plan, they would have slipped in and out of the ministry quietly no one would have known what they would have done. I believed they saved more muggle-borns than those that happened to be at the Minstry that day. I also believe that both the MOM and the Gringotts missions had a profound impact upon who showed up at the final battle. I always wonder if Arthur ever caught on who was who in the elevator that day. 7. The Ministry is producing propaganda pamphlets against Muggle- borns, registering all wizards with Muggle-born blood, interrogating Muggle-born wizards, and imprisoning Muggle-borns in Azkaban. Do you believe that this is meant to be an analogy to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany? Or is it a general analogy to bigotry and prejudice against minority groups? I believe it is an Analogy to the Nazi treatment of Jews. The "stolen magic" is quite akin to some of the "stolen wealth" the Nazi's accused the Jews of doing. Also it is a general analogy how often in any country in the world do we hear, "All these imigrants are taking our jobs, stealing money from us, taking from us what is rightfully ours etc..." 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding world? How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? If you consider magic as a type of wealth...I suppose the Moldy- Voldy regieme is saying that if the muggle borns cannot and do not use magic then there would be more magic available for them--not to mention a store of wands. This would also tip the balance of power towards Voldemort, and removes wands from a great deal of those in opposition to Voldemort. Nazi's took/stole/requisitioned a great deal of wealth from the Jews in Nazi Germany it was one of the first things they did. Voldemort takes their wands..their magic under the proclamation that their magic isn't truly their own. Magic is something only those of pureblood can weild effectively. (Disgusting isn't it?) 9. In this chapter, the Ministry's "courtrooms" are used to terrorize and intimidate the powerless. What is the novel's view of the legal system? What does JKR seem to be saying about law versus instinct as a basis for morality? I always thought that JKR made it a point that the political powers that be utilize the legal system for their own means rather than to enforce the law and maintain order in society--laws can be changed to suit the political powers that be, and enforced only selectively. This is why politics never interested Voldemort beyond utilizing the legal sytem to make all his plans lawful. Thanks again Lizzy! From lfreeman at mbc.edu Tue Feb 5 19:04:05 2008 From: lfreeman at mbc.edu (lmf3b) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:04:05 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181325 > > 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? > I assumed the DE had taken Moody's body with the intention of making an Inferius of it. I was fully expecting a peg-legged Inferius to show up at some point in DH. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 5 23:30:17 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:30:17 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181326 Mike: The coup de gras is seeing how feeble of > an attempt James actually made against Voldemort. > > OK, I can understand bringing James back down to earth for Harry. > He's got to learn that his dad was only human. But JKR really buried > James. We hardly learn of anything good the boy/man did, almost every backstory bit shows him in a bad light. > > If you take out Hagrids praise, you would be more likely to think the kid got expelled from Hogwarts than him becoming Head Boy. Dumbledore gave him that post, yet about the only thing I remember Dumbledore saying about James character was that he mostly used the invisibility cloak to sneak food from the kitchens. Criminy, why did he appoint him Head Boy, then? Pippin:Sometimes giving a bully legitimate responsibilities has a positive effect. It seems to have done so in this case. The bullying stopped. And whatever else you could say about him, James wasn't tempted to join the student DE's, would have the courage to confront them if they tried anything, and was powerful enough to defend himself from dark magic. Dumbledore also says that James would have spared Pettigrew. He must have been a forgiving person. There's also his kindness to Lupin and Hagrid, and his love for Lily. He was able to overcome many of the prejudices of his class, though obviously not all of them. I think JKR wants us to view James's death in the light of Dumbledore's. Yes, he foolishly underestimated the danger, but when he realized that, James thought first of Lily and Harry's peril, not of his own. IMO, in JKR's scheme of things that's better evidence of James's worth than putting up a glorious fight. As Yoda put it, "Wars not make one great." Mike: I thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders > fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as > good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But > without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance > the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Pippin: It is the pattern of a child hero story that the absent father is eventually surpassed by the son. Arthur becomes a much greater king than Uther Pendragon. I think JKR followed this pattern because it shows that it isn't only demonizing people that robs them of their humanity. Putting them on a pedestal is just as bad. A person who is only supposed to make choices you admire is as much a slave to your needs as any house-elf. Pippin From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 00:37:32 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:37:32 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181327 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > Questions for discussion: > > 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the > > Ministry? Was it well-planned, or could they have approached > > things a different way? > a_svirn: > They could have send Kreacher to kidnap Umbridge. They should have tried to find out where Umbridge lives, before infiltrating the Ministry. It could have proved difficult, even impossible, but it would have been worth a try. I don't know how they could have done it - Arthur could be of help, but it was dangerous to contact him. Still, less dangerous than to go to the Ministry, IMO. I'm not sure they could use Kreacher, though. I have no idea how Kreacher found Mundungus, but it was easier for him then finding Umbridge would have been. He doesn't know her at all and he's never even seen her. I think JKR wanted the Trio to infiltrate the Ministry to show what was going on in there and what was happening to the Muggle-borns. I rather liked the Ministry chapters, BTW, it was interesting. What else? Oh, I never expected to meet Mafalda Hopkirk in person - she was always just a faceless name to me (and rather unpleasant at that :-)). It was so unexpected that she appeared like that all of a sudden. zanooda, once more not sure about her grammar (all this "would have been" stuff) ... From random832 at fastmail.us Wed Feb 6 00:46:01 2008 From: random832 at fastmail.us (Random832) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:46:01 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A90349.2050307@fastmail.us> No: HPFGUIDX 181328 > a_svirn: > Enchantments cannot be a part of anyone's nature. Enchantment is an > action of employing certain magic. And in order to enact a bonding > enchantment two sides are needed, are they not? In this case wizards > and elves. Wizards would have to want elves to be bound to them. Random832: Nice theory, but none of it is canon. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 00:50:08 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:50:08 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181329 > Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows > CHAPDISC: Chapter 13, The Muggle-born Registration > Commission > Carol: Thanks for a very thorough summary, lizzyben. You forgot one detail, though--Hermione's taking the locket Horcrux and making a fake on using a spell we haven't seen before, Geminio. > 1. What do you think of the Trio's plan to infiltrate the Ministry? Was it well-planned, or could they have approached things a different way? Carol: Evidently, the Puking Pastilles caused another problem besides the mess--the symptoms were cleared up by the St. Mungo's Healers and the real Reg Cattermole showed up. Good thing it wasn't the real Runcorn! That aside, they had no idea who the people they had Stunned and otherwise attacked were. (Harry should have remembered that Mafalda Hopkirk sent him his notice of expulsion in OoP and the warning about the Hover Charm in CoS, which would have given them some idea what her job was, especially after Hermione read on the card that she worked in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Also, they should have gone over the kinds of spells that a Magical Maintenance worker would be expected to know so that Ron could have been better prepared.) They should have had a specific third person in mind rather than picking the next person who Apparated in. They knew nothing about Runcorn, who, in any case, was too conspicuous to be a good choice. Also, obviously, a "bloke" from Magical Maintenance wouldn't be hanging around the MoM with people from other Departments. They concentrated on getting inside but had no idea what to do once they got there. > > 2. Numerous characters mention that Yaxley's office has been jinxed to create a downpour. Could this be a sign of low-level sabotage against Death Eaters within the Ministry? Carol: I don't think that a jinx is specifically noted, only that it's raining in Yaxley's office, unless you count the spell that Mr. Weasley gives "Reg," Meteolojinx Repelo. However, my impression is that someone is trying to undermine the DEs and their associates (not only Yaxley but " a lot of people," according to Mr. Weasley, including someone named Bletchley--wasn't there a Slytherin Quidditch player named Miles Bletchley in one of the earlier books?) by jinxing their offices. Maybe it's someone from the department mentioned by Mr. Weasley in OoP that decides what kind of weather will be viewed through the underground windows of the MoM. At any rate, I doubt that it's leaky pipes or some Muggle-style minor emergency. It looks like magical sabotage to me (like Lee Jordan sneaking Nifflers into Umbridge's office but more sophisticated). > > 3. Harry impersonates Albert Runcorn, a character whom we never actually meet. Based on other character's reactions to him, what kind of person do you believe Runcorn is? Do you believe he is a Death Eater? Carol: I think that if he were a Death Eater, we'd have heard of him. He'd be pretty conspicuous given his height even in DE robes (like Thorfinn Rowle, the huge, blond DE). However, he's obviously a bully who both informs on and threatens other people. If he's representative of a certain group or category or MoM employees, the DEs would have had a fairly easy job of taking over the MoM. Recruit people like him and Umbridge, give them scope for their bullying, so that they intimidate or drive out anyone who's unhappy with the new party line. Evidently, the DEs didn't need to Imperio him like they did Pius Thickness; just put him to use as is. (We also see a representative of another group, the little man who congratulates Runcorn on ratting out Dirk Cresswell, hoping that he'll be promoted to Cresswell's old job; he evidently buddies up to the bullies and takes advantage of their tactics rather than using them himself.) > > 4. Ron impersonates a Ministry official with a Muggle-born wife, Hermione a woman who assists Umbridge in the interrogation of Muggle-borns, and Harry a high-ranking Ministry official. Is there any thematic or character significance to the identities that they take on? Carol responds: I'm not sure that you've characterized Mafalda Hopkirk fairly. True, she sent Harry the warning and expulsion notice in previous books, but she's just doing her job, first under Fudge and now under Thicknesse (in theory). We have no idea whether she actually wanted to be at that hearing. Her job, as we see from Hermione, was to take notes. I think it's important that her Polyjuice Potion was "a pleasant Heliotrope color," suggesting that she's actually a nice person. (Reg Cattermole wishes her good morning and tries to confide his troubles to her, which he would hardly do to an Umbridge associate.) Nor do I think it's any reflection on Hermione; she's simply "that odd little witch" (IIRC) who shows up at the same time every morning. And since she belongs to the Improper Use of Magic Office, naturally, she'd be involved, willynilly, in the trials of Muggle-borns accused of stealing magic, just as she was involved in Harry's alleged violations of the Statute of Secrecy and the Underage Magic Statute. Ron's love for Muggle-born Hermione might make him feel more sympathy for Reg Cattermole's Muggle-born wife, but I don't see any other connection to Ron as a character, except for his comic bewilderment in being faced with a raining office (at least it would be comic in another context). And, of course, JKR has set it up so that he gets advice from his own father without the father knowing it, a nice bit of dramatic irony (the reader has information not available to a character). I'm not sure, either, that Runcorn is a high-ranking Ministry official. I thought that Runcorn was on something like Arthur Weasley's level, a mid-level Ministry employee willing to use unscrupulous means on his way up the ladder. Although posing as Runcorn enables Harry to get onto the floor where Umbridge's office is, that wasn't part of the plan; they don't know who Runcorn is. Nor do I think that Runcorn necessarily outranks Mafalda, though it's hard to say (Harry doesn't know how important Runcorn is, 256). Mafalda seems to be a kind of glorified secretary or junior assistant, with a position similar to Percy's but in a different department. Runcorn's duties and department are unspecified. What's important, IMO, is that he's a DE sympathizer, which puts Harry in an awkward position when he encounters Arthur Weasley, but also enables him to hear comments that would not have been made to Mr. Weasley (or to a maintenance worker like Reg Cattermole). > > 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? Carol: Ah. My very grim theory. I've stated it before, but I might as well do it again. Umbridge claims to be related to the pure-blood Selwyns. We also encounter a DE named Selwyn in the Seven Potters and Three Brothers chapters. It can't be coincidence; Umbridge must have requested the eye from her DE relative (cousin?) when she learned that Mad-Eye had been killed. Probably, he was happy to obtain it for her. If not, her important position would have convinced him. (Alternatively, she works with the likes of Yaxley and Travers, so she's not short on DE connections. Still, I like the Selwyn theory. Why name him twice, and why have her give the name Selwyn as opposed to some other family name starting with S, if he's not her source for the magical eyeball?) > > 6. Harry takes a number of impulsive actions in this chapter: taking Moody's eye, stupefying Umbridge, and helping the group of Muggle-borns to escape. These actions create both negative consequences (tipping off the Ministry), and also positive consequences (freeing the Muggle-born wizards). Do you believe that Harry's actions were rash, or were his actions justified? Carol: Taking the eyeball was rash (though I understand the feelings that prompted it). Stunning Umbridge and Yaxley was necessary, not only so that they could escape, but so that they could steal the Horcrux. And , rash or not, helping the Muggle-borns escape was the humane thing to do. It would have been wrong to leave them. ("How many people have you watched being sent to Azkaban for no crime, Harry?" "Lately, only those whom I could not save.") > > 7. The Ministry is producing propaganda pamphlets against Muggle-borns, registering all wizards with Muggle-born blood, interrogating Muggle-born wizards, and imprisoning Muggle-borns in Azkaban. Do you believe that this is meant to be an analogy to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany? Or is it a general analogy to bigotry and prejudice against minority groups? Carol responds: I'm no expert, so I won't answer in detail, but the pamphlet that the Ministry workers were assembling, with its trumped-up charges against Muggle-borns, made me think of similarly trumped-up charges against the Jews in Germany. And, of course, JKR has said that she was startled by the way that "Jewish blood" was determined in Nazi Germany, so she's certainly aware of the parallels. "Magic Is Might" may parallel certain Nazi slogans (the only one I know is "Arbeit Macht Frei," which isn't very close). Grindelwald's prison may be a more direct link to the Nazi prison camps than sending Muggle-borns to Azkaban, but I'll leave that discussion to others. > > 8. Umbridge accuses Mrs. Cattermole of taking another wizard's wand, and the Ministry propaganda accuses Muggle-borns of "stealing" magic from pure-blood wizards. What does this mean? Does the Ministry believe that Muggle-borns are literally stealing wands; or that Muggle-borns steal magic by their very existence in the wizarding world? Carol responds: It's nonsense, and everyone in the WW knows it. If Muggle-borns wern't magical to begin with, what would be the point of their stealing a wand they couldn't use? And if Ollivander's records haven't been destroyed, it would be fairly easy to check when and to whom each one was sold. (If they believed their own charges, all they'd need to do is to bring in Ollivander himself to testify, but, of course, he's being held prisoner for other reasons.) I don't know what you mean by the second question, but I do think that they regard Muggle-borns as interlopers who don't belong in the WW, magical or not. And I wouldn't be surprised if they're also circulating propaganda about the consequences of marrying "Muggles" (Muggle-borns) being a higher chance of Squib offspring because the Muggle-born's "blood" is not magical (even the narrator speaks of the Dursleys as not having a drop of magical blood in their veins). > How could this propaganda succeed when all wizards had seen Muggle-born wizards perform magic on their own at Hogwarts? Do you believe that the Ministry propaganda has convinced the wizards, or are they simply too intimidated to contradict the Ministry? Carol: I don't think anyone believes it, not even Umbridge herself. But people who want to succeed at the expense of the arrested Muggle-borns or be rewarded for informing on them will pretend to believe it, as do the DEs themselves, and no doubt other Ministry employees are afraid of having their own families investigatd or being sent to Azkabans as "blood traitors," and so they keep their mouths shut. (Reg Cattermole probably kept as quiet as possible before his wife was arrested for fear of calling attention to her.) At least some of the pure-bloods, mostly Slytherins, *do* see Muggle-borns as innately and culturally inferior (the name "Mud-Bloods" emphasizes that supposed inborn "filth," to use Mrs. Black's word). Pure-Bloods are "pure"; "Mud-Bloods" are scum. Just ask Draco in HBP or earlier. But the specific charge of "stealing" magic is just absurd, and they would have to be stupid or incredibly gullible to believe it. > > 9. In this chapter, the Ministry's "courtrooms" are used to terrorize and intimidate the powerless. What is the novel's view of the legal system? What does JKR seem to be saying about law versus instinct as a basis for morality? Carol responds: Well, we've seen the WW go from persecuting people supposedly associated with Dark Magic and sending them to prison without a trial (e.g., Sirius Black) to a more relaxed but still corrupt system, with cruel prison conditions, bribery, and an inept Minister for Magic, to a coup resulting in tyranny and the triumph of evil. How the WW relates to JKR's view of RL politics, I'm not prepared to say. She does seem to have a soft spot for rule-breaking (by Gryffindors), not always for good reason, she also seems to admire efficiency (teachers who know what they're doing), so I don't think she's an advocate of anarchy. Following your heart or instincts doesn't really substitute for clear thinking, either, as we see with Harry's ill-fated attempt to rescue his godfather. I'd like to believe that JKR is advocating moderation and common sense in government as in child-rearing (too lenient and you get a Dudley; too harsh, and you get a Severus). I honestly don't see a connection between her moral philosophy and whatever statement she's making about politics, but heaven help the government that acts on its instincts as Harry did in his ill-fated attempt to rescue Sirius Black. Carol, who fears that she's badly muddled that last question From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 01:22:51 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:22:51 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <719701.50200.qm@web33507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181330 Lee wrote: > And, aside from all these post hoc attempts to justify Our Hero's questionable moral choices, there's little to no indication in canon that the Unforgivables are anything but. > > But even if one wants to argue the Unforgivables aren't, their use is by all accounts a matter of grave import. Neither Harry's burst of anger in OotP, nor Amycus' spittle in DH come close to justifying a Cruciatus, particularly when they were obviously cast not out of necessity but from a desire for vengeance. Carol responds: I agree with you that both of Harry's AKs, the weak one against Bellatrix and the successful one against Amycus, were cast out of a desire for vengeance, not out of necessity. (Bellatrix may consider the first one "righteous anger" but I'm not sure that she's right. I certainly wouldn't say that of the second one; he admits that she was right: "You have to mean it." IOW, you have to want to hurt someone badly to cast a successful Crucio.) In neither case is Harry in a life-threatening situation. I would add the Crucio that he attempted to cast against Snape in HBP to the list. He's not trying to defend himself against Snape, who is effortlessly deflecting his curses. He's furious and he wants Snape to fight. Later, twice, he vows vengeance against Snape. I won't talk about who decleared the Unforgiveables Unforgiveable; all we know is that, supposedly, they earn the caster a life sentence in Azkaban (if they're completed). I suppose that the only reason Harry didn't earn one for the Crucio against Bellatrix is that the DEs were casting Unforgiveables all over the place, or had been moments before, and it was impossible for the MoM to know who cast it. (Either that, or it's a failed Crucio like the incomplete ones attempted by Harry and Draco in HBP, but I no longer think that.) The second Crucio is cast in a time of lawlessness when the MoM is no longer keeping track of such things. (Ditto for the Imperios against Travers and the Goblin in DH.) So, in essence, Harry got away with what should have been crimes, and would have been had he or anyone else committed them in a time of peace. At any rate, I want to point out that Harry seems to lose his desire for vengeance after his visit to Snape's memories in DH. (Harry doesn't think that Severus deserved the treatment he received in SWM, BTW; he's back to his original horror at the bullying. I wonder if that was one reason for his change of heart regarding vengeance, not just against Snape but in general, as we see from his willingness to sacrifice himself rather than attempting to kill LV.) Even before he loses the soul bit, his whole attitude changes as he prepares to enter the forest to be murdered (as he thinks). Also, aside from Snape's unavoidable AK (and Molly's, if she cast one), we don't see any other good guys casting Unforgiveables. I would like to think that Harry renounced them, along with a desire for vengeance, even before he lost the soul bit (which *may* have contributed to his hatred and anger in DH as it evidently did in OoP). I'm not excusing Harry's casting of the Crucios (I do think the circumstances partially justified the Imperios, assuming that a Confundus Charm would not have served the same purpose). I'm only hoping that, legal or illegal, Auror or no Auror, Post-soul bit!Harry no longer casts them for any reason. Carol, still appalled that McGonagall would consider a Crucio "gallant" From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 01:52:12 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:52:12 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181331 Mike wrote: > I contend that it was *Severus'* motivation that mattered > here. It was Severus intent to go down the tunnel and he was NOT > doing so because Sirius wanted him to. Which, to me, means he would > have done so regardless of how or from whom he learned the secret of > freezing the Willow. Carol responds: So you really think he'd have gone in there if he knew not only that his theory was correct but that the werewolf was unconfined and the only reason that MWPP could face him without being killed or bitten was that they were animagi? I completely disagree. He'd have had no reason to go in (he no longer needed to prove himself right) and every reason to stay out (good old Slytherin self-preservation). As for Sirius, responsible people do not offer other people information that will lead them into deadly peril. It *does* matter that Severus could have been killed or turned into a werewolf and didn't know it. And it does matter that Sirius's friend Remus would have been the killer (or the agent of transformation). Maybe you think that Severus deserved to be scared. I hope you don't think that he deserved to be killed or transformed. And, assuming that Remus wasn't in on the plan, he certainly didn't deserve whatever punishment would have awaited him for biting another student while he was in werewolf form. As for Sirius, he *would* (IMO) have deserved whatever punishment awaited him, if lifelong remorse over what he'd done to Remus were insufficient. Whether he would also have felt remorse for what he'd done to Severus, I don't know. I rather doubt it given his attitude in PoA. Carol, just responding one last time in case you're cherishing any hopes of having persuaded me ;-) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 02:12:28 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:12:28 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181332 Carol earlier: > > > > What if the enchantment can't be made illegal because it's part of the nature of Elves? > a_svirn responded: > Enchantments cannot be a part of anyone's nature. Enchantment is an action of employing certain magic. And in order to enact a bonding enchantment two sides are needed, are they not? In this case wizards and elves. Wizards would have to want elves to be bound to them. Unless you think that elves tricked wizards into being their owners? Carol responds: Of course, I don't think that House-Elves tricked Wizards into being their owners. What I think is that, in offering Wizards their services, the first House Elves bound themselves in a kind of binding magical contract (cf. the Goblet of Fire) which could only be broken by giving an individual Elf clothes. And since the Elves didn't *want* clothes, they became bound, over time, to particular families. I'm oversimplifying, but I do think that the enchantment (which term, BTW, seems to be used on this list without being part of canon) is part and parcel of their magical nature. Alternatively, clothes as a means of ending the bond to a particular family could have been part of the original magical contract, perhaps even a reward for faithful service, which over time took on the coloring of a punishment in the eyes of House-Elves. But that, to me, seems less likely than a natural, inborn enchantment (for lack of a better word) since it's unlikely that every House-Elf who presented himself to a Wizard when House-Elves first appeared would have signed or agreed to an identical contract. All I'm saying is that the magic that "frees" a House-Elf when he or she is given clothes seems to be part of the House-Elf's nature, just like the desire to serve. Whether it's inborn or the result of a binding magical contract that somehow involves all House-Elves (I don't think it's a spell that some Wizard put on the whole House-Elf population or that they put on themselves), it can't be undone through legislation. That's just like declaring Muggle-borns to be "thieves" of magic. Regardless of whether the Muggle-borns own their wands legally or illegally (or have their wands taken away), they're still magical, still Witches and Wizards. You can't legislate them into becoming Muggles. Nor can you legislate away whatever magic binds House-Elves to their human masters. The only way to break the bond *in canon* is to give them clothes. Carol, wondering when and why we first started to use the term "enchantment" for this magical bond and whether it's distorted our thinking on the topic From kaleeyj at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 03:23:36 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:23:36 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181333 > > CoS: > > "On the other hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but > > so brave, school prefect , model student... on the other hand, big > > blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise > > werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest > to > > wrestle trolls ... but I admit even I was surprised how well plan > > worked" - p.311-312 > > > Alla: > > Another thing - JKR told us in the interview that Tommy flat out > > lied here - no werewolf cubs for Hagrid, alas. > > zgirnius: > I would not necessarily call this a lie, even if it is factually > inaccurate. Did Hagrid wrestle trolls either, I wonder? Or are both > fanciful, top of the head concoctions intended to mock the sorts of > activities that did get Hagrid into trouble every other week, as Tom > may neither have known nor cared what Hagrid was up to until he > needed to get him to take the fall? > Bex: Werewolf cubs... Good thing that's a lie. I am pretty darn sure that werewolves have babies, not cubs. Our favorite one in particular had a baby (Teddy) bear. :) > >CoS: > > "What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently,"is how Lord > > Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me that he > > is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania" - p.328 > > > > Alla: > > > > So DD does not know about horcruxes yet after all or does he? > > zgirnius: > He may have suspected, but did not know. He states in > HBP, "Horcruxes", that he figured it out when Harry described the > diary to him. He could only account for its ability to think and act > independently by supposing the diary had been a Horcrux. > Bex: DD probably suspected that Tom may go that far for immortality. I think that the entire reason Slughorn modified that memory was because he mentioned to DD that model student Tom Riddle asked about them. When DD questioned Slughorn about it, he backtracked immediately, saying that he'd told off Riddle and sent him to bed (And then sometime later revised the memory accordingly). But DD doesn't even know about the diary, much less how it acted, until after he prompts Harry (above). This might also be a Legilimens!DD moment, too - Harry is wondering how to explain how Ginny was opening the Chamber under Diary!Tom's control without getting her into trouble. DD gives him this opening. Bex From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 03:56:32 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:56:32 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181334 > Pippin: >> I think JKR wants us to view James's death in the light of > Dumbledore's. Yes, he foolishly underestimated the danger, but when he > realized that, James thought first of Lily and Harry's peril, not of > his own. IMO, in JKR's scheme of things that's better evidence of > James's worth than putting up a glorious fight. As Yoda put it, "Wars > not make one great." Alla: I agree with a lot of what I snipped. I do not really want to get into James growing up after the Prank v James not growing up after the Prank, since I never thought James just HAD TO change his ways after the prank. But I do want to get into how James died. I would be totally with you Pippin. I found the manner of James' death as described in book 7 totally human and touching and tragic and wonderful, etc. I do not need him to do a duel with Voldemort to feel sad for young father who loved his wife and child and wanted to save them first and foremost. Except that's not what JKR said originally, didn't she? You know me - I rarely get on JKR's case about flints. I could care LESS about her maths, since her maths mistakes do not take away, well anything from my enjoyment of the story. This I think is very sloppy. This is one of the key scenes in the saga, isn't it? JKR said so, not me, right? She said that the books start with murder and it sets up the tone or something ( do not remember exact quote). So, what I am trying to say is PICK how James died and stick to it JKR in my opinion. If James put up courageous fight, that is not what happened in book 7. Could she not reread book 1 to stick to the continuity in the scene like that? As I said, I rarely critique her plotting because as I mentioned the mistakes do not take away from my enjoyment or I honestly do not consider them mistakes. This I do consider sloppy writing. By the way, before you ask me, yes it is possible that Voldemort lied about James putting up courageous fight. The only question is why would he lied? It is not like it is in his interests to praise James just because he feels like it IMO. Any other motivations? Oh and I also respect her right to rethink the manner of James' death by the way. I have NO PROBLEM with it. But I wish she would say that she would go to book 1 and edit it out at some point. Otherwise to me it is just too glaring of error. IMO of course. So, to make a long story short, I do not feel that James was torned down anymore than any other of Harry's father figure. I like him, I feel bad for him, but I wish she would stick to ONE description of his death, I really do. > Pippin: >> I think JKR followed this pattern because it shows that it isn't > only demonizing people that robs them of their humanity. Putting them > on a pedestal is just as bad. A person who is only supposed to make > choices you admire is as much a slave to your needs as any house- elf. Alla: Oh sure, but Lily still seems to me to be on the same pedestal as she always was. IMO of course, because I do not think she was shown to do anything wrong when she did not accept Snape's apology for example. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 04:00:36 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:00:36 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181335 > Bex; > But DD doesn't even know about the diary, much less how it acted, > until after he prompts Harry (above). This might also be a > Legilimens!DD moment, too - Harry is wondering how to explain how > Ginny was opening the Chamber under Diary!Tom's control without > getting her into trouble. DD gives him this opening. zgirnius: Not legilimency in this case, in my opinion. If you look at Alla's posts from the earlier chapters, she quotes Dumbledore as saying he knows who has opened the chamber, just not how. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181168 I always took that to mean he believed Voldemort was behind it. From moosiemlo at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 07:07:27 2008 From: moosiemlo at gmail.com (Lynda Cordova) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:07:27 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2795713f0802052307k3c3841e9t5e93234481c83ee2@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181336 Mike: > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my favorite > character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I > thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders > fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as > good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But > without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance > the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. Lynda: I tried to stay as unbiased as possible about James. We only ever see him through the minds of others in the story after all. His friends, his in-laws, his enemies, his teachers. All of which are in one way or another more than usually biased for or against someone. So in the end. through all of these various filters, I have no real concept of who James Potter was. His friends liked him, his wife loved him, he was something of a troublemaker at school, but seems to have pulled things together at a fairly young age. That's not really a lot to go on, when the character in question dies at the beginning of a seven book series and is only seen in retrospect. Lynda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 12:30:01 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:30:01 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181337 > Carol earlier: > > > > > > What if the enchantment can't be made illegal because it's part of > the nature of Elves? > > > a_svirn responded: > > Enchantments cannot be a part of anyone's nature. Enchantment is an > action of employing certain magic. And in order to enact a bonding > enchantment two sides are needed, are they not? In this case wizards > and elves. Wizards would have to want elves to be bound to them. > Unless you think that elves tricked wizards into being their owners? > > Carol responds: > Of course, I don't think that House-Elves tricked Wizards into being > their owners. What I think is that, in offering Wizards their > services, the first House Elves bound themselves in a kind of binding > magical contract (cf. the Goblet of Fire) which could only be broken > by giving an individual Elf clothes. a_svirn: Very likely. However, in that case the bonding enchantment is no more a part of elves' nature, than the magical contract was a part of Harry's nature in GoF. > Carol: And since the Elves didn't *want* > clothes, they became bound, over time, to particular families. I'm > oversimplifying, but I do think that the enchantment (which term, BTW, > seems to be used on this list without being part of canon) is part and > parcel of their magical nature. a_svirn: This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from elves' magic rather than wizarding magic. However, the word enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. One cannot be born with enchantments as part of one's make-up. Enchantments are supposed to be performed. They also supposed to be leaned in order to be performed. Human beings have natural aptitude for language, some of them are born with, say, musical talent, wizards are born with aptitude for magic. They are *not*, however, born with languages or with the Moon Sonata in their heads ? they *learn* these things. And wizards have to go to Hogwarts to learn magic: charms, jinxes, enchantments. I don't see why we have to assume that elves are born with enchantments anymore than that they can speak languages from the moment they are born. And everything that has to be learned belongs to culture, not nature. (And I don't even start on the enchantment's being built around cultural artefacts. ) Besides, this particular enchantment needs two parties, second of which belongs to the different species. If it is natural for elves to be owned, it must be natural for wizards to own elves. Which doesn't seem to be the case. a_svirn. From random832 at fastmail.us Wed Feb 6 13:43:34 2008 From: random832 at fastmail.us (Random832) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:43:34 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A9B986.8080204@fastmail.us> No: HPFGUIDX 181338 > a_svirn: > This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to > wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant > by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from > elves' magic rather than wizarding magic. However, the word > enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. Random832: Except for the fact that the definition you are applying is *not canon*, and I don't have any idea where you're getting it from. JKR does not draw any usable distinction between the various words for types of magic, the choice of "charm", "spell", "hex", etc, seeming at times to owe more to alliteration than any coherent set of definitions. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 15:11:10 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:11:10 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: <47A9B986.8080204@fastmail.us> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181339 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Random832 wrote: > > > a_svirn: > > This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to > > wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant > > by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from > > elves' magic rather than wizarding magic. However, the word > > enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. > > Random832: > Except for the fact that the definition you are applying is *not canon*, > and I don't have any idea where you're getting it from. JKR does not > draw any usable distinction between the various words for types of > magic, the choice of "charm", "spell", "hex", etc, seeming at times to > owe more to alliteration than any coherent set of definitions. a_svirn: I don't need canon to know what *enchantment* means. You seem to imply that Rowling uses words as empty signifiers to stuff them with any meaning she chooses. Fortunately, it is not the case. Whenever she invents new words or imbues certain words with slightly different meanings she takes care to explain it. For the rest her usage is perfectly conventional. Otherwise it would have been impossible to read her books, let along discuss them. As for the fact that there is no discernable distinction between "charm", "spell" or "hex", what on earth it has to do with the issue in point? a_svirn From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Wed Feb 6 17:42:49 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:42:49 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181340 > Mike: > > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my favorite character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Mike Tiffany: I liked him a lot, but he wasn't a favorite of mine, but I loved the Map & the Marauders storyline a lot. I think if James would've been a major player in the novels more often, instead of him being mainly observed via others in the novels he could've been more likeable. I didn't like that he wasn't featured as often he could've been in the novels because he seemed to be a really good character early on. I think that James himself was a good character, but he wasn't used effectively enough to be truly memorable or any really big star in the canon. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 18:45:35 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:45:35 -0000 Subject: CHAPDISC: DH13, The Muggle-born Registration Commission In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181341 "lmf3b" wrote: > > > > > 5. How in the world did Dolores Umbridge get Moody's eye? > I assumed the DE had taken Moody's body with the intention of making an Inferius of it. I was fully expecting a peg-legged Inferius to show up at some point in DH. Carol responds: Well, one thing is certain: either LV himself or the DEs took the body since the Order members didn't find it. However, since we didn't get a peg-legged Inferius, I suspect that Mad-Eye's body suffered the same fate as Charity Burbagge's (and, by inference, Frank Bryce's and Bertha Jorkins's, since they, too, were never found): LV fed them to Nagini to dispose of the evidence (and give his dear Nagini a treat). In GoF, he promises to feed Wormtail to Nagini and, when Wormtail is off the hook, consoles her with the promise (also unfulfilled) of Harry Potter. So I'd say it's a safe bet that she gets Mad-Eye as well as Charity in DH. As for how Umbridge got Mad-Eye's eye, I assume that it and the leg were undigestible and she spat them out, leaving the eye available for the taker. And when Umbridge found out that Mad-Eye was dead, she requested it from Selwyn, her DE connection. Carol, noting that Selwyn, unlike Lucius, seems to have gotten his wand back when LV was through with it From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 18:59:02 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:59:02 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181342 Bex wrote: > > But DD doesn't even know about the diary, much less how it acted, until after he prompts Harry (above). This might also be a Legilimens!DD moment, too - Harry is wondering how to explain how Ginny was opening the Chamber under Diary!Tom's control without getting her into trouble. DD gives him this opening. > zgirnius rsponded: > Not legilimency in this case, in my opinion. If you look at Alla's posts from the earlier chapters, she quotes Dumbledore as saying he knows who has opened the chamber, just not how. > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/181168 > > I always took that to mean he believed Voldemort was behind it. > Carol addds: Right. He knows that Tom Riddle opened the Chamber before and that he's the Heir of Slytherin and must therefore be behind these new attacks. But since Voldemort has been revaporized and is known to be in Albania, he doesn't know *how* he's opened the Chamber. Perhaps he suspects a Horcrux connection, and almost certainly he suspects that Ginny was involved in the attacks. But Dumbledore also sees Harry's hesitation and, Legilimency or not, provides the opportunity for him to speak about Ginny without getting her into trouble. He wants information, certainly, but in this instance, he also shows tact. I personally don't think he needed Legilimency here, merely psychological astuteness. Carol, who should probably recheck the scene but is trying to save that rare commodity, time From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 19:20:18 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:20:18 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: <2795713f0802052307k3c3841e9t5e93234481c83ee2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181343 Lynda: > > I tried to stay as unbiased as possible about James. We only ever see him > through the minds of others in the story after all. His friends, his > in-laws, his enemies, his teachers. All of which are in one way or another > more than usually biased for or against someone. So in the end. through all > of these various filters, I have no real concept of who James Potter was. > His friends liked him, his wife loved him, he was something of a > troublemaker at school, but seems to have pulled things together at a fairly > young age. That's not really a lot to go on, when the character in question > dies at the beginning of a seven book series and is only seen in retrospect. Carol responds: Yes and no. We do hear people speaking of him, and certainly, those people are biased either in his favor (Black and Lupin) or against him (Snape). Oddly, the person who most frequently praises James's courage is Voldemort, who says in GoF (and SS/PS?) that he died fighting bravely. However, we also have Pensieve memories of him in both OoP and DH, and the fact that they're Snape's memories makes no difference. A Pensieve memory is an objective record. We also see Voldemort's memory of James's death, which he clearly has not altered (it's a painful recollection) in DH. That it's filtered through Harry again makes no difference. So the memories that we encounter indirectly when characters speak of James are subjective, altered by time and preconceptions and feelings (affection or hatred), but the Pensieve memories and Voldemort's Godric's Hollow memory (which conflicts with his own statements to Harry) can be taken as objective recreations of the events. We can also take as true, I think, that he referred to Remus's condition as "your furry little problem" since Remus has no reason to lie. He recalls the words fondly, but I find them demeaning and insensitive. Lycanthropy as a "little" problem? It's like calling blindness "your little vision problem." It's along the same lines, IMO, as Sirius's "Wish it were full moon" and his silence in response to Remus's "I don't." I don't see much to like about James personally, but he was clever as well as arrogant and genuinely brave (saving Severus) as well as reckless (running with a werewolf on full-moon nights). I just wish that we saw more of adult James (brief though his life was) to wash away the bad taste left by the bully in SWM. And. like Alla, I wish that the depiction of his death in DH matched matched Voldemort's description of it. "He died fighting bravely" doesn't match the facts as presented in DH: he died wandless and unprepared. The only thing that matches earlier accounts (the Dementor-induced memories in PoA) is his last words to Lily. He did trust his friends with his life, but that turned out to be a failing rather than a virtue. (DD's trust in Snape and Harry's in Ron and Hermione turned out to be justified. I'm not sure what sort of conclusion to draw there.) Carol, quoting from memory to save time From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 19:33:31 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:33:31 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181344 Carol: We can also take as true, I think, that he referred to Remus's condition as "your furry little problem" since Remus has no reason to lie. He recalls the words fondly, but I find them demeaning and insensitive. Lycanthropy as a "little" problem? It's like calling blindness "your little vision problem." It's along the same lines, IMO, as Sirius's "Wish it were full moon" and his silence in response to Remus's "I don't." Alla: Personal interpretation v personal interpretation of course, but I love, love, love that James' moment. I LOVE that he is sort of downplays Remus' illness here IMO, it sounds to me as what one friend would say to show that is what his lycantropy to him - furry little problem, nothing else. That lycantropy does not define Remus' for him, that is what I got from that moment. Again totally IMO. Carol: And. like Alla, I wish that the depiction of his death in DH matched matched Voldemort's description of it. "He died fighting bravely" doesn't match the facts as presented in DH: he died wandless and unprepared. The only thing that matches earlier accounts (the Dementor-induced memories in PoA) is his last words to Lily. Alla: Right, me too. It was suggested to me offlist that when Voldemort tells Harry lies, he indeed lies twice in that scene ? first saying that his parents died begged for mercy and then when this lie does not work, he starts manipulating Harry's emotions in a different way ? that they died bravely fighting and you should live for them, etc. It makes sense to me that Voldemort would lie to get what he wants, that his lie has nothing to do with James, but everything with Harry and manipulating him in this instance. But there is something that still does not make sense to me. I am wondering what would be the thematic significance IF JKR did not just forget of showing that James died differently. If he died fighting, he died fighting, how is it worse looking from dying playing with his son and trying to save him and his wife even only by warning. JMO, Alla From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 20:17:27 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:17:27 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181345 Carol responds: > > Of course, I don't think that House-Elves tricked Wizards into being their owners. What I think is that, in offering Wizards their services, the first House Elves bound themselves in a kind of binding magical contract (cf. the Goblet of Fire) which could only be broken by giving an individual Elf clothes. > > a_svirn: > Very likely. Carol responds: Okay, good. Something we can agree on. But, of course, I'm only speculating. a_svirn: However, in that case the bonding enchantment is no more a part of elves' nature, than the magical contract was a part of Harry's nature in GoF. Carol: The thing is, it *has become* part of their nature. You give any Elf clothes and he's "free" whether he wants to be or not. (I wonder, BTW, if Dobby were to enter into a contract to serve another Wizard, say Harry, as his master instead of working for DD for, erm, slave wages, whether he would be bound all over again. Of course, his contract with DD specifies that he'll receive wages, which he uses to buy socks, so the enchantment doesn't kick in again. But if he were to trade in his clothes for a tea towel to serve Master Harry along with Kreacher, assuming that he survived DH and Harry allowed it, what would happen? Sidenote: The problem of Dobby's unhappiness is solved partly by his being given a sock, which frees him from the Malfoy's abuse, and partly by his being given a job by Dumbledore. But Dobby dies and there's no other "free Elf" in canon besides Winky. Kreacher's unhappiness is resolved by Harry's earning his respect. He can't be freed and doesn't want to be, but I doubt that he will have any offspring, so Harry's children are unlikely to face the obligations of House-Elf ownership (noblesse oblige). Winky's unhappiness may or may not have been resolved, but with her owners' death/Dementation (yeah, it's probably not a word), she can either accept her job as a Hogwarts House-Elf or drink herself to death with her unearned wages. I wonder, again, what would happen if she put on a tea towel and refused wages. Would she become a happy Hogwarts House-Elf, bound by the same enchantment as the others? At any rate, we seem to be left with House-Elves who have rebelled against the DEs and Voldemort, rejecting them as masters, and returning happily to their jobs, not caring that they're still owned by whoever is in charge of Hogwarts. And it seems that they've never rebelled against a headmaster (not Phineas Nigellus or Snape or even Umbridge). They don't really care who owns them as long as they're not abused. The prospect of being owned by DES, however, seems to scare them. Perhaps Kreacher, still bound to a master and loyal to him (though he loves Regulus more) persuaded them through recounting his experience with Voldemort in a way that the disgraced and eccentric "Free Elf" Dobby could never do. > Carol earlier: > And since the Elves didn't *want* clothes, they became bound, over time, to particular families. I'm oversimplifying, but I do think that the enchantment (which term, BTW, seems to be used on this list without being part of canon) is part and parcel of their magical nature. > > a_svirn: > This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant > by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from > elves' magic rather than wizarding magic. Carol: It would help if you supplied the exact quote for us to analyze. a_svirn: > However, the word enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. One cannot be born with enchantments as part of one's make-up. Enchantments are supposed to be performed. They also supposed to be leaned in order to be performed. Carol responds: Not necessarily. The accidental magic performed by Wizard children is an enchantment, is it not, even though no spell is performed? And House-Elves don't seem to use incantations; they just snap their fingers or whatever and the Hover Charm or whatever is performed. House-Elves don't go to school. They seem to perform their magic, including House-cleaning, naturally. They're born with it just as Wizards are, but unlike Wizards, they don't have to learn how to use it and control it, as far as we know. No schools, no wands, no spells to learn. They just do it. a_svirn: > I don't even start on the enchantment's being built around cultural > artefacts. ) Carol: Why not? House-Elves are attached to *houses* and the enchantment that "frees" them involves *clothes." Both clothing and houses are cultural artifacts. I don't see how *House-Elves* can exist without houses, and they can't be freed without clothes. The Elves in the tale of the shoemaker weren't really House-Elves yet. They were naked until they received the gift of clothes, at which point they no longer served the humans they had chosen to serve. But those humans weren't Wizards. Something happened to change the nature of House-Elves when they first began to serve Wizards. Who knows? Maybe all House-Elves are descended from one original pair, the Adam and Eve of House-Elves. That would explain how all House-Elves could be *born* bound by the same enchantment. Again, whatever "enchantment" means. I don't think it's a spell (incantation). And if there was a contract involved (Serve me well and I'll reward you with good working conditions; serve me ill and I'll give you clothes and send you away), the existence of the enchantment (clothes "free" the Elf from further obligation) must already have been known. At any rate, House-Elves can't predate houses. and clothing existed before houses. So both cultural artifacts were in existence at the time the first House-Elf became bound, probably through his own will, to serve a Wizard. Maybe they'd previously served Muggles? BTW, I looked up "enchantment," which gave me a cross-reference to "enchant," for which the chief definition is "to influence by or as if by charms and incantation." "By or as if by" allows the possibility that no spell (incantation) was performed. Again, I suggest the analogy of bowing (a human action) as part of the nature of Hippogriffs. Who *enchanted* them to behave this way? Probably no one. This humanlike action is part of their *nature*, an inborn trait of all Hippogriffs. a_svirn: > If it is natural for elves to be owned, it must be natural for wizards to own elves. Which doesn't seem to be the case. Carol: Not necessarily. Wizards clearly outnumber House-Elves since Hogwarts has fewer House-Elves than students and staff (even if we go with the 280 students figure) and most Wizarding families don't own House-Elves. What's natural is the desire of House-Elves to serve humans, and the humans they serve in canon are Wizards. That doesn't mean that all Wizards naturally need and want to be served by House-Elves or that they can't get by without them. At any rate, this "problem" of a population of unhappy, abused House-Elves "enslaved" to masters they don't want to serve appears to exist solely in the imagination of certain readers. Dobby's and Kreacher's problems were resolved; Winky's were *caused by* being "freed" and could only be resolved by returning to her old masters (impossible) or accepting a new one (whether or not she accepted pay). The Hogwarts House-Elves *did* choose their masters. They fought aginst the Death Eaters to preserve the staus quo. So where's the problem? they don't want to be free. They're happy as they are. They stepped in to make sure that they don't have to serve cruel masters. Why not let them be what they want to be? Carol, wondering whether old Kreacher is even still alive by the time Harry's children go to Hogwarts since if he's dead, the problem of Harry as "slave owner" is a moot point From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 20:59:36 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:59:36 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181346 Carol earlier: > > We can also take as true, I think, that he referred to Remus's condition as "your furry little problem" since Remus has no reason to lie. He recalls the words fondly, but I find them demeaning and insensitive. Lycanthropy as a "little" problem? It's like calling blindness "your little vision problem." It's along the same lines, IMO, as Sirius's "Wish it were full moon" and his silence in response to Remus's "I don't." > > > > Alla: > > Personal interpretation v personal interpretation of course, but I love, love, love that James' moment. I LOVE that he is sort of downplays Remus' illness here IMO, it sounds to me as what one friend would say to show that is what his lycantropy to him - furry little problem, nothing else. That lycantropy does not define Remus' for him, that is what I got from that moment. Again totally IMO. > Carol again: Right, it's personal interpretation, and I'm not trying to convince you to agree with me, only to explain why it bothers me. I think it's like downplaying Harry's scar, which more or less defines him, as "that little lightning scar of yours." That's a bad analogy, though, because the lycanthropy really is a handicap, so I'll stay with my blindness analogy. Or deafness ("Your little hearing problem") or being confined to a wheelchair (Your little foot problem). IOW, it treats a serious problem as if it were nothing. To James and Sirius, running around at the full moon is fun and exciting. To Remus, it's both a comfort to have friends with him and a risk that he willingly takes and yet is ashamed of. Every time he comes back safely, having not bitten any innocent victims, he counts his blessings. And every full moon, he does it again. (Ever so weak Lupin, whose friends don't seem to understand that they're putting *him* at risk, just as Sirius put *Remus* as well as Severus at risk in the so-called Prank.) IMO, Remus *is* defined by his condition, starting with his nickname, Moony, and his Boggart (the full moon). The first thing James asks when they get out of the DADA exam is how Moony liked the werewolf question. (Remus asks him to lower his voice because he doesn't want anyone to hear.) Handsome Sirius and athletic James perceive themselves as "the height of cool," but Remus is only "cool" by association and because he's a werewolf. They, unlike him, look forward to their adventures on full-moon nights. He's not even defined by his Prefect badge. He may ask them, on occasion, to lay off Severus, but the Prank and the SWM show just how well that worked. (Of course, he "gave as good as he got," which may have made some difference. It wasn't like hexing poor defenseless Bertram Aubrey.) At any rate, Sirius spurns Remus's suggestion that they study for their Transfiguration exam; he's an Animagus, so he doesn't need to study, and he's not even willing to quiz non-Animagus Remus to help him prepare. So, as far as I can see, while Sirius and James are best friends, Remus is only part of their little gang because he's a werewolf and Peter is only part because he's the fourth roommate and has attached himself as a groupie to "the biggest bully on the playground" (James). They must have made some contribution to the Marauder's Map or their names wouldn't be on it (I think that the order, of the names, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, has nothing to do with the significance of the individual contributions and everything to do with rhythm), but we never hear about that. Either Remus is acting/reacting as a werewolf or he's being an ineffectual Prefect, too weak to stop his friends from doing wrong for fear of losing their friendship. (I suspect, though I can't prove it, that Padfoot and Prongs thought that Moony was the traitor because he was a werewolf. What other reason would they have to suspect him?) I just realized (actually, I knew it already, of course, but the thought just popped into my mind): even his given name, Remus Lupin, defines him as a werewolf. And, of course, the DADA curse operated on him through his "furry [not so] little problem." So I'm afraid that I see nothing endearing in James's remark. It strikes me as supremely insensitive and demeaning. James, who had no real problems that we know of (he had rich, loving parents, good reflexes, cleverness, popularity based in part on his Quidditch prowess and in part, perhaps, on fear of annoying him, as we see from Remus) really could not relate to Remus's monthly agony or his fear of what would happen if he bit someone. Nor could arrogant, handsome Sirius (who did have a problem with a dysfunctional family whose values conflicted with his but nevertheless managed to let his own boredom take precedence over Remus's feelings--to say nothing of the consequences of that boredom for Severus Snape.) Alla: > > It was suggested to me offlist that when Voldemort > tells Harry lies, he indeed lies twice in that scene ? first saying > that his parents died begged for mercy and then when this lie does > not work, he starts manipulating Harry's emotions in a different way? that they died bravely fighting and you should live for them, etc. > > It makes sense to me that Voldemort would lie to get what he wants, > that his lie has nothing to do with James, but everything with Harry > and manipulating him in this instance. Carol: But it's not just that scene in SS/PS. Voldemort says it again in GoF, something along the lines of "your father died fighting bravely." he wants Harry to face him in a duel so that he can show the DEs that Harry is no threat by killing him in front of them, but he doesn't want to just murder him as he did Lily. So maybe he has a reason to lie about James: he wants Harry to face him like a brave man. Or maybe JKR just forget that she'd presented him, through Voldemort, as dying bravely, not once but twice. So for those of us who were looking for *something* to admire in James were disappointed. All I got (and I speak for no one but myself) was confirmation that Severus was right about him; he was an arrogant bully from his first appearance on the Hogwarts Express. Carol, who accidentally typed "myelf" for "myself" and attributes the typo to overexposure to a certain thread that must not be named From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 22:16:10 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:16:10 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181347 Carol: But it's not just that scene in SS/PS. Voldemort says it again in GoF, something along the lines of "your father died fighting bravely." he wants Harry to face him in a duel so that he can show the DEs that Harry is no threat by killing him in front of them, but he doesn't want to just murder him as he did Lily. So maybe he has a reason to lie about James: he wants Harry to face him like a brave man. Or maybe JKR just forget that she'd presented him, through Voldemort, as dying bravely, not once but twice. So for those of us who were looking for *something* to admire in James were disappointed. All I got (and I speak for no one but myself) was confirmation that Severus was right about him; he was an arrogant bully from his first appearance on the Hogwarts Express. Alla: Right, I do not see the connection between the matter of his death and increasing or decreasing liking of him, as I said I find the way he died in book 7 touching and brave and tragic, whether he had his wand in his hands or not, in his last moment he was not thinking about himself. I mean I guess I do see the connection if that was the only reason for you ( or anybody) to like something in James if he had wand in his hands, I just do not agree with it. Having said this, I do agree that especially in the second scene I see no reason for Voldemort to lie whatsoever. I mean, it is not like he needs anything from Harry here. Not to say that he cannot lie there, liar as he is, but I find it bizarre that he would lie again and the same thing as well. Nope, to me it sounds more like JKR emphacises the heroic fight James pulled and she does it it through Voldemort's eyes, because she cannot make Harry see it just yet (she does not want to show connection yet or whatever). So, I guess I am back to square one, I will be plenty happy with how James died in book 7 - not everybody indeed gets a glorious death in war, but I wish it would be the SAME death. OY. JMO, Alla From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Feb 6 22:36:14 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:36:14 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181348 > Alla: > If James put up courageous fight, that is not what happened in book > 7. Could she not reread book 1 to stick to the continuity in the > scene like that? > By the way, before you ask me, yes it is possible that Voldemort > lied about James putting up courageous fight. The only question is > why would he lied? It is not like it is in his interests to praise > James just because he feels like it IMO. Any other motivations? > Pippin: IMO, Voldemort lied here for the same reason he'll have to duel Harry in the graveyard, where he'll claim that James died "straight-backed and proud" -- not exactly a lie but hardly the whole truth. Killing an unarmed foe caught at unwares by treachery is not exactly a glorious feat for someone who wants to be known as "the greatest sorcerer in the world." The advance article about Rita Skeeter's Dumbledore book also introduces the idea of a great duel that never happened. > > Alla: > > Oh sure, but Lily still seems to me to be on the same pedestal as > she always was. IMO of course, because I do not think she was shown > to do anything wrong when she did not accept Snape's apology for > example. Pippin: Lily's pedestal is a little different because Harry never really puts her there. He accepts her as a protector but doesn't see her as a role model until almost the end. He's less critical of his protectors than his role models -- he doesn't get upset at Molly for being wrong about Hermione or tough on Sirius. Since he never idealizes her, there doesn't have to be a moment where he realizes he might have overdone it. The reader who thinks Lily was as pure as her name might reconsider though. When Harry does take her as a model, he doesn't follow her example, he betters it. But doesn't that mean Lily herself could have done more? I don't think Lily was wrong to refuse Snape's apology. But just as with her death to protect Harry, canon shows it might not be the most effective thing that could have been done. It's interesting that like the so-noble Sirius with his brother, Lily did nothing but turn her back, while the wayward Aberforth confronted Albus and brought him to his senses, albeit at a terrible cost. Suppose Lily had been willing to do what Aberforth did, and confront Snape and his "precious little Death Eater friends" directly? Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 22:47:09 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:47:09 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181349 > Pippin: > IMO, Voldemort lied here for the same reason he'll have to duel Harry > in the graveyard, where he'll claim that James died "straight- backed > and proud" -- not exactly a lie but hardly the whole truth. Killing > an unarmed foe caught at unwares by treachery is not exactly a > glorious feat for someone who wants to be known as "the greatest > sorcerer in the world." Alla: OOOOOO, OMG, this is brilliant Pippin. I am just making sure I understand correctly, basically you are suggesting that Voldemort lied in graveyard when he does not need anything from Harry to add the glory to himself? I have to say it does makes sense. > The advance article about Rita Skeeter's Dumbledore book also > introduces the idea of a great duel that never happened. Alla: You mean Albus and Gellert? Am I missing something? Do we know for sure that duel never happened or we are just guessing? Or do you mean different duel? Pippin: >> It's interesting that like the so-noble Sirius with his brother, Lily > did nothing but turn her back, while the wayward Aberforth > confronted Albus and brought him to his senses, albeit at a terrible > cost. Suppose Lily had been willing to do what Aberforth did, and > confront Snape and his "precious little Death Eater friends" > directly? Alla: Hmmm, very good point about Aberforth. I do like that he confronted Albus, but as you said it happened at the terrible cost. Are you sure that JKR thinks this type of confrontation where innocent dies is better than what Lily did? And actually what do you mean confront directly? Lily DID confront Snape directly, no? Or do you mean she had to duel with Mulciber and Co? Thanks. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 00:58:57 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:58:57 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181350 > Carol responds: > So you really think he'd have gone in there if he knew not only > that his theory was correct but that the werewolf was unconfined > and the only reason that MWPP could face him without being killed > or bitten was that they were Animagi? Mike: This does bring up an interesting question. Do you think Severus *only* wanted to confirm his Lupin!werewolf suspicions, or do you think there was more behind his tunnel excursion? I suspect, based on his "what ... Potter and his mates get up to" comment to Lily, that he had more in mind. What, it's hard to figure. Was he thinking he could lay in wait somewhere and catch them somehow? He doesn't know beforehand where the tunnel leads and/or what sort of cover might be available to him. Anyway, to answer your question, no I don't think given all the information you've described Sev would have bothered himself to make the trip. > Carol: > > As for Sirius, responsible people do not offer other people > information that will lead them into deadly peril. Mike: I see this whole Prank thing as having two parts, and I suspect you see it as one. Part One: Sirius was definitely being irresponsible and a p**ck. He gave Sev the Willow info fully expecting Sev to use it, imo. And he fervently hoped that Sev would come out of it with an additional color besides grey in his underpants, also imo. I think we both agree on this, including the p**ck part. Part Two (which we don't agree upon): Severus was not required, tricked, or duped into using the information. He went of his own free will. He didn't do it because Sirius wanted him to, he did it despite Sirius' wanting him to. He did it with the full knowledge, imo, that Sirius wouldn't have told him the secret out of friendship, and that therefore it would be foolish to not suspect something was fishy. And, yes, he would have done it had he gotten the information some other way, imo. So, Sirius was responsible for telling another student how to break a school rule. Just as he would be responsible for telling someone how to get into the kitchens, if that's against the rules. Severus was responsible for following through and breaking that rule. Nobody made him do it, he broke the rule of his own volition. If Sirius had told him how to get into the kitchens against the rules, Severus would be responsible if he used that information to get into the kitchens, and all the consequences come what may for breaking that rule. > Carol: > Maybe you think that Severus deserved to be scared. I hope you > don't think that he deserved to be killed or transformed. Mike: Do I get to pick what I wish had happened? I wish Severus would have DIED by werewolf and the rest of the Marauders had transfigured him into a bone and buried him in Hagrid's garden. See, he's a nasty character that is on his way to being a Death Eater, so I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to see happen to him. But, alas, we wouldn't have a story if that had happened. Deserved? What's deserved at that time, I suppose, is exactly what happened to him. I agree with Sirius, "served him right." Please note, not what MAY have happened to him any more than how Severus MAY have found out about the Willow by some other way, and have actually suffered the consequences of what instead MAY have happened. > Carol: > Whether he would also have felt remorse for what he'd done to > Severus, I don't know. I rather doubt it given his attitude > in PoA. Mike: See, this is the part I don't get. Noboby wants to entertain what MAY have happened if Severus had learned about the Willow from his spying on whomever. And it's not like he hasn't already been spying on the Marauders. Everyone instead focuses on what MAY have happened if James was not there. But James was there, and he went there on information from Sirius. I sense the real distaste here is that the Marauders were marauding about with a werewolf, putting other people in possible danger. That the Prank looks like an extension of that marauding somehow absolves Severus of his responsibility in the Prank. Well, I don't agree. I think they are separate issues and I think (but can't say definitively) that others have conflated the two. It's JMO, so please don't get mad if it's not yours (generic yours). > Carol, just responding one last time in case you're cherishing any > hopes of having persuaded me ;-) Mike, under no delusions that he would change Carol's mind, but cherishing Carol's response nonetheless. ;-) From bartl at sprynet.com Wed Feb 6 18:16:21 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:16:21 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A9F975.3010601@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181351 Carol wrote: > So you really think he'd have gone in there if he knew not only that > his theory was correct but that the werewolf was unconfined and the > only reason that MWPP could face him without being killed or bitten > was that they were animagi? > > I completely disagree. He'd have had no reason to go in (he no longer > needed to prove himself right) and every reason to stay out (good old > Slytherin self-preservation). There are a few wizards who clearly stand out with their abilities. Morty, DD, and Sevvy are certainly three of them. But Morty was a charming psychopath, DD was the all-WW boy, and Sevvy was an abused nerd. The result was that Sevvy was drawn in by people who wanted to use him. But he wanted to make a splash. My guess is that he thought that the werewolf would be more under control; he had no idea that Loopy was controlled by his friends, and did not use additional restraints (like the traditional chaining one's self to the wall during the transformation). With his abilities, he would have no problem protecting himself from a restrained werewolf. There is a story about a well-known religious teacher. He was staying at a hotel in a city where he was to give a lecture. He and a guest were looking outside the window, and, below, there was a gang of teenagers stripping a car. The teacher told the guest to look at the poetry and coordination of the teenagers at their task. At which point he realized something. "Hey, that's MY car they're stripping!" I suspect that Snape never connected the Death Eaters with the evil they did until the evil actually touched him. And even then, he did not immediately look past it, which was why DD uncharacteristically put him down. Bart From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Thu Feb 7 01:12:48 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:12:48 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181352 > Mike: > > Do I get to pick what I wish had happened? I wish Severus would have DIED by werewolf and the rest of the Marauders had transfigured him into a bone and buried him in Hagrid's garden. See, he's a nasty character that is on his way to being a Death Eater, so I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to see happen to him. But, alas, we wouldn't have a story if that had happened. Tiffany: I think a punishmenrt like being transformed & buried in Hagrid's yard would've been fitting, but the canon leaves a lot to be desired also. That's something I like, I don't like having everything answered because I've talked turkey about Severus's punishment with others & the answers vary greatly. Some feel the canonical outcome itself is good enough whereas some wish something more would've happened. > Mike: > > I sense the real distaste here is that the Marauders were marauding about with a werewolf, putting other people in possible danger. That the Prank looks like an extension of that marauding somehow absolves Severus of his responsibility in the Prank. Well, I don't agree. I think they are separate issues and I think (but can't say definitively) that others have conflated the two. It's JMO, so please don't get mad if it's not yours (generic yours). Tiffany: I'm with Mike here because the Prank itself was one issue that should've been handled separately of the punishment for those involved in it. I never really took a liking to the Mauraders in the same way that I did to LV or Snape, but that's just me. I've always had some respect for LV, even though it's diminshed with each book more, save his knowledge of the black magic & dark arts arena. That's something I'll always give LV his props & be in awe of what he's capable of doing. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 03:15:38 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:15:38 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181353 > > CoS: > > "Twice - in your past, in my future - we have met" - p.316 > > > > Alla: > > > > I mean he says Ginny told him all about Harry, but Ginny > > does not really know what happened in PS/SS, no? > > zgirnius: > Ginny is Ron's little sister, and a friend of Hermione. I don't > think a great deal of plot hole filler is needed to suggest Ginny > DOES know. Mike: Also remember at the end of PS/SS Dumbledore said, "What happened down in the dungeons ... is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows." Though Ginny wasn't in school, if Ron didn't tell her, and I'm sure he did, she could have learned it from lots of other people, at least people in the Gryffindor common room. I believe Ginny, already interested in Harry, would have asked an older student. > >CoS: > > "What interests me most," said Dumbledore gently,"is how Lord > > Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me that > > he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania" - p.328 > > > > Alla: > > > > So DD does not know about horcruxes yet after all or does he? > > zgirnius: > He may have suspected, but did not know. He states in HBP, > "Horcruxes", that he figured it out when Harry described the > diary to him. He could only account for its ability to think and > act independently by supposing the diary had been a Horcrux. Mike: When do you all think Dumbledore started collecting those memories of Voldemort that he showed Harry in HBP? I always thought DD started a good while ago. I'm thinking during Voldemort's first reign of terror. Though the oldest memory, Bob Ogden's, happened around 1925 and dear old Bob could have still been alive in 1992, after the Diary Horcrux. But I had the feeling that Bob, Hokey and Morfin had died long before 1992. If that's right, it means DD must have gotten lucky to collect the memories that told him what 3 of the Horcruxes were, since he collected them before he knew LV had Horcruxes, plural. Or, Dumbledore actually suspected multiple Hocruxes before the Diary. Mike From moosiemlo at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 03:25:10 2008 From: moosiemlo at gmail.com (Lynda Cordova) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 19:25:10 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2795713f0802061925t5dce603dweb546abf872b0fc9@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181354 Lynda: I don't think I was ever looking for something to admire in James Potter. In the end, he seems to have matured a bit and was settling into marriage and raising a kid, but he definately did have issues in his past that Harry inherited. I've never seen any reason to doubt either his friends sincerity or the possibility that Lord Thingy might have lied or stretched the truth more than a little bit in SS. And it gave readers an initial positive feeling about James Potter, whom Voldy said died fighting bravely. From the mouth of something evil a little deception is a possibility I think. So that James Potter grew up and took on some responsibilities is fine with me. Not saying that seeing James in a more positive light throughout the series would not have been appreciated, but that was apparently not what Rowling had in mind. Lynda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 04:16:40 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:16:40 -0000 Subject: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181355 > Mike: > I always thought DD started a good while ago. I'm thinking during > Voldemort's first reign of terror. Though the oldest memory, Bob > Ogden's, happened around 1925 and dear old Bob could have still > been alive in 1992, after the Diary Horcrux. zgirnius: I believe that he started right after CoS. Hokey is described by him as 'a very old House Elf', when Harry asks whose memory he is about to view. I took that to mean, that at the time Dumbledore got the memory, she was very old. Which, if she had been an adult in the late 1940's, would be quite right in 1992. Bob Ogden was a Ministry employee whose physical description does not suggest any particular age. He could easily be younger than Dumbledore (who was 44 in 1925). The most probematical one for my view is Morfin's. Tom was still in school when he killed Morfin for the ring, and Morfin was sentenced to Azkaban for the murder of the Riddles, which Tom committed the same night. While Morfin is quite a bit younger than Albus, he would have to have surviuved nearly 50 years in Azkaban. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 04:43:35 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:43:35 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181356 It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow. Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, "Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless discuss." The quill paused at the top of a likely-looking paragraph. Harry Pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read: Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty seven times in various disguises." - PoA, p.7, brit. ed, paperback Alla: So, did they or did they not enjoy being burned? I seem to remember vigorous debates in the past and some posters claiming that it is a lie, I mean lie in the text book and the witches were really burned, etc. I honestly do not remember anything in the later canon showing that it was a lie. Any help? Oh, and hi Batilda dear. " the public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hotline had been set up, and any sighting of Black should be reported immediately" ? p.18 Alla: Oy Lanval I hope you are reading this. Does not look to me that muggles were allowed or expected to kill Sirius on site, tee hee, only to report about him. "Hedwig," he said gloomily, "you're going to have to clear off for a week. Go with Errol, Ron'll look after you. I'll write him a note, explaining. And don't look at me like that" ? Hedwig's large amber eyes were reproachful, "it's not my fault. It's the only way I'll be allowed to visit Hogsmeade with Ron and Hermione" ? p.22 Alla: I had asked this before, I am sure, but just how smart owls in general and Hedwig in particularly are? He is not asking her to deliver any letters, no? I mean granted he is telling her to go some place anyways, but it seems like she totally picks on Harry's mood. Poor Hedwig. "But not Sirius Black. I `eard he thought `e'd be second in command once You know ?`Oo `ad taken over" ? p.34 Alla: I am just wondering about this part. I mean, I get it that what happened to Sirius was very well known. I mean, well known in the wrong way, since what was known as we all know was a lie, but I still wonder how did this particular rumor developed? Who would start spreading the rumors that Sirius wanted to be second in command? Pettigrew himself would spread the rumor? But he is not in particular position to do so, no? "Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper had spent two months there only last year. Harry wouldn't soon forget the look of terror on Hagrid's face when he had been told where he was going and Hagrid was one of the bravest people Harry knew" ? p.35 Alla: I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many nasty rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so horrible and has a look of pure terror on him, but how does he and everybody else knows that Azkaban is so horrible if nobody escaped from there before Sirius? Or did people escape from there? Or is it general mistrust of the dementors? "Hedwig! Harry gasped. The snowy owl clicked her beak and fluttered down on Harry's arm. "Very smart owl you've got there," chuckled Tom> "Arrived about five minutes after you did. If there's anything you need, Mr. Potter, don't hesitate to ask" ? p.40 Alla: Yeah Hedwig seems to be very smart. Do you think other owls are just as smart? From dongan51 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 05:29:24 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 21:29:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] PoA CH 1-3 post DH look Message-ID: <65454.45382.qm@web63909.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181357 "Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper had spent two months there only last year. Harry wouldn't soon forget the look of terror on Hagrid's face when he had been told where he was going and Hagrid was one of the bravest people Harry knew" ? p.35 Alla: I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many nasty rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so horrible and has a look of pure terror on him, but how does he and everybody else knows that Azkaban is so horrible if nobody escaped from there before Sirius? Or did people escape from there? Or is it general mistrust of the dementors? Liz: They might not have mentioned previous escapes, but people were probably released. Also, I always assumed that the Ministry personnel who had reason to visit Azkaban, not to mention the people visiting the prisoners, would speak of it. In the Princes Tale Chapter of DH a young Snape seemed to know the horrors of the place, he spoke of dementors with Lily didn't he? Perhaps it is like the way parents (and others) are, telling their children the horrors that lie await for them in prison should they go down a path of crime. "Hedwig! Harry gasped. The snowy owl clicked her beak and fluttered down on Harry's arm. "Very smart owl you've got there," chuckled Tom> "Arrived about five minutes after you did. If there's anything you need, Mr. Potter, don't hesitate to ask" ? p.40 Alla: Yeah Hedwig seems to be very smart. Do you think other owls are just as smart? Liz: I always thought that owls were magical in their own right. How did they know where everyone was? Case in point the delivery of the Prophet. No matter where the person was they always seemed to know to where to deliver it. An owl found Hagrid out on that great big rock when he first went to find Harry. From elanor.isolda at googlemail.com Thu Feb 7 14:41:02 2008 From: elanor.isolda at googlemail.com (Elanor Isolda) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 14:41:02 +0000 Subject: Sectus 2009 cancellation Message-ID: <6493bc80802070641m32316379w55b3d76b6674b0c@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181358 I regret to announce that, for personal reasons, I am unable to continue as Chair of Sectus 2009. I have tried very hard to find a way for the event to go ahead without me, but unfortunately this has not proved possible. We have therefore had to make the decision to cancel Sectus 2009. Anyone already registered for the conference will receive a full refund within the next few days. Sectus 2007 was an amazing event, and it was an honour and a pleasure to have the opportunity to organise it. I had high hopes for 2009, so this has been a difficult decision and I am deeply saddened by this outcome. Thank you for your past support, and I hope that you enjoy the numerous other conferences being organised. All the best, Elanor Isolda Chair, Sectus Ltd [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Thu Feb 7 16:13:33 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:13:33 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181359 > Mike: > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my favorite > character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and their Map. I > thought people were being fuddy-duddies for decrying the Marauders > fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. I thought that qualified as > good wizarding fun, teenage ingenuity in the hijinks department. But > without something decent on the other side of the ledger to balance > the less sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Magpie: Sometimes I wonder if James isn't a case of JKR assuming we'll feel things about James or get things about him without her having to explain it. For me, I actually started liking James in OotP because he was such an idiot in the Pensieve scene, but in a way that made me laugh. (I like Draco after all.) I'd already pictured the Marauders as a gang insulting Snape--I used to hate them for a lot a lot more before OotP where they proved themselves the bullies I imagined, but obviously idiot teenager bullies who were full of themselves and were headed for a fall because they were all kind of small people. But it's funny that ultimately JKR didn't seem to realize that we all thought there was an actual change in James after the Prank and that it was *important* to many of us. Frankly, it seems like James probably spent the rest of his life as the same bully, only "growing out of it" because he wasn't bored so had other ways to have fun rather than picking on nerds. The fact that James becomes Head Boy seems like it honestly should have been retconned, like it was something she threw in early on to show that James was a winner without thinking it through. I do agree with Pippin that sometimes giving somebody like James official power is supposed to help him--that's always been my interpretation of Draco being a Prefect and I don't have a problem with that. But I think that's very different than taking a kid who's physically tormented and bullied kids the way James did to Snape and rewarding him by making him Head Boy without even trying him out as Prefect to make sure he won't abuse his power. If I were Snape--or any student--that would read to me like flat-out favoritism, that James was popular because he was handsome and a Quidditch star and the staff approved of him picking on people like Snape. (::sigh:: Once again I mourn the Snape storyline I imagined pre- DH.) That's kind of a betrayal of the students imo to make that kid Head Boy, but I again I wonder if JKR didn't really see the kid she'd put on the page and assumed we all saw the good in him that she only implied. When she has him speak Draco's lines in DH, for instance, it falls completely flat to me, because the only impression I get from it is that it's fine to be a bully--as long as you're cool (and you can't be cool and like Voldemort). Like once again being on the right side is all that matters, and that's weird. I actually don't agree that we're supposed to see Draco and James as really the same. That's just too hard for me to believe, because I don't think JKR sees Draco as brave and being brave (and being on the anti-Voldemort side) seems to make all the difference. I don't read Draco trying to save Goyle as making a point about Draco's bravery but Harry's. If it were supposed to be I think she'd have highlighted Draco's actions and have Harry think about Draco saving somebody instead of making it seem like as usual Draco's saving grace isn't that he's *good* but just that he's not as bad as he could be. In fact she might as well have just gone for the parallel construction of having Ron be the one unconscious or something if she wanted to make that point rather than leaving Draco as an amoeba compared to Harry again. So basically I'm left with the idea that JKR is fond of James, but also assumes that James' good points are obvious in ways they aren't. He's supposed to be a fun guy who's brave and has impulses to stomp Death Eaters, and if the dark side of that is that he bullies some kids, that's just to be expected. Harry hexed people randomly in the halls in HBP, including a Squib, and JKR didn't seem to see that as a bad thing. I don't think she really minded Harry inheriting that quality of his father's since she was always assured he was a saint like his mother as well. Lily herself seemed to find the tormenting of Snape objectively funny in OotP, so I wouldn't assume the author really found him that bad. As for his final fight with Voldemort, it does seem like Voldemort basically just says about that night whatever he thinks Harry will like the most. In the end it seems like he never really thought about James at all. The guy would have fought him if he had his wand, but PoA is the book where we kind of learn James died with his pants down, isn't it? (There was a good paper about PoA as a Gothic novel, and one of the themes of the Gothic is the male line being inadequate.) -m From juli17 at aol.com Thu Feb 7 18:27:02 2008 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:27:02 -0500 Subject: James again In-Reply-To: <1202387027.3241.84062.m46@yahoogroups.com> References: <1202387027.3241.84062.m46@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <8CA37CE2AEBC7DE-F74-1969@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181360 Carol: So for those of us who were looking for *something* to admire in James were disappointed. All I got (and I speak for no one but myself) was confirmation that Severus was right about him; he was an arrogant bully from his first appearance on the Hogwarts Express. Alla: Right, I do not see the connection between the matter of his death and increasing or decreasing liking of him, as I said I find the way he died in book 7 touching and brave and tragic, whether he had his wand in his hands or not, in his last moment he was not thinking about himself. I mean I guess I do see the connection if that was the only reason for you ( or anybody) to like something in James if he had wand in his hands, I just do not agree with it. Julie: There's not a direct connection for me, but it was the one last opportunity for us to see James acting in a particularly positive way on its own merit. I'm disappointed that JKR didn't give us even one single moment of James in an unequivocal positive light as an adult. Yes, Lily married him, so he must have grown up. We know he saved Snape in the Prank incident, but with Snape's worst memory coming *after* the Prank, any concept of James suddenly seeing the light about his bullying behaviour at that point went out the window. And yes, he joined the Order, not the Death Eaters. Still.. How hard would it have been for JKR to give us one moment of James as an adult, protecting someone as an Order member, sharing affection with Harry and Lily, having a thoughtful adult conversation with someone, expressing his adult views or feelings--anything that would have given us an opportunity to know the real James, and to make a connection with him? It's unfortunate (IMO) that JKR neglected to do this, and we are left with trying to understand?James via nothing but his teenage actions and heresay. It leaves him pretty much a cipher, a cardboard cutout. Thus I can't say I dislke James, but I can't say I? like him either, since he remains a nonentity to me. Julie ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From juli17 at aol.com Thu Feb 7 18:47:35 2008 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:47:35 -0500 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: <1202387027.3241.84062.m46@yahoogroups.com> References: <1202387027.3241.84062.m46@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <8CA37D10A3A73B0-F74-1AF6@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181361 > Mike: > > Do I get to pick what I wish had happened? I wish Severus would have DIED by werewolf and the rest of the Marauders had transfigured him into a bone and buried him in Hagrid's garden. See, he's a nasty character that is on his way to being a Death Eater, so I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to see happen to him. But, alas, we wouldn't have a story if that had happened. .. Julie: I assume you are basing your judgment on what you know about Snape's future life and actions, since at the time of the Prank he was 15 years old and objectively no "nastier" than James and Sirius in action. Unless you think at that point Snape was unsalvageable (which I don't, given that he turned out to be salvageable as an adult Death Eater). Though based on future actions and character I wouldn't have minded if Lupin in werewolf form had momentarily forgotten the rat was offlimits and chomped Wormtail down as a quick snack ;-) Julie ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 18:48:51 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:48:51 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181362 -- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many nasty > rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so horrible and has > a look of pure terror on him, but how does he and everybody else > knows that Azkaban is so horrible if nobody escaped from there > before Sirius? Or did people escape from there? zanooda: Not all the prisoners in Azkaban have life sentences - it's only for murderers, I think. Morfin Gaunt spent 3 years there for hexing Riddle Sr. and attacking Ministry workers. He came back alive - it was only his second stay in Azkaban that killed him (that one was for life). Marvolo Gaunt was sentenced to 6 months, and so was Sturgis Podmore in OotP. People return from Azkaban - that's how everybody knows about its horrors. > Alla: > "It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the > blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one > hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda > Bagshot) propped open against the pillow". zanooda: Aha! Remember how in DH ("Godric's Hollow") Harry confesses to Hermione that he only looked through "A History of Magic" once, when he bought it ("just the once"). Lier, lier, pants on fire :-)! From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Thu Feb 7 17:26:25 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:26:25 -0000 Subject: Ron and Hermione Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181363 I love the way that Ron Hermione's relationship develops over the books. When we first come across the trio IMHO the signs show that Harry and Hermione will end up together and it is only in GOF onwards that I think those signs change . The getting together is fraught and often fractous but amusing I think. Jayne From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 19:07:32 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:07:32 -0000 Subject: James again In-Reply-To: <8CA37CE2AEBC7DE-F74-1969@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181364 > Julie: > How hard would it have been for JKR to give us one moment of James as an adult, protecting someone > as an Order member, sharing affection with Harry and Lily, having a thoughtful adult conversation with > someone, expressing his adult views or feelings--anything that would have given us an opportunity to > know the real James, and to make a connection with him? zgirnius: But she did. She gave us the moving photograph of little Harry on the broom being chased by James as Lily looked on fondly, together with Lily's letter describing such a scene. The moving photograph, at any rate, is an objective record, and the letter seems a fair description of what it shows. I'd say this is James "sharing affection with Harry and Lily". Why this should change anything is not clear to me. We already knew James could be affectionate towards people he likes, the SWM before James and Sirius decide on a spot of Snape-harassment already shows this. I never doubted he had been a fond father and loving husband. Then again, so in his way was Lucius Malfoy. I don't doubt he did protect people as an order member - while we are not shown the Prank, he was certainly protecting someone there - Snape, Lupin, and Sirius all. And I tend to think his adult views and feelings were much like those of his younger self. From dongan51 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 18:36:26 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 10:36:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] James again Message-ID: <447099.75893.qm@web63911.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181365 Julie: How hard would it have been for JKR to give us one moment of James as an adult, protecting someone as an Order member, sharing affection with Harry and Lily, having a thoughtful adult conversation withsomeone, expressing his adult views or feelings--anything that would have given us an opportunity to know the real James, and to make a connection with him? It's unfortunate (IMO) that JKR neglected to do this, and we are left with trying to understand? James vianothing but his teenage actions and heresay. It leaves him pretty much a cipher, a cardboard cutout.Thus I can't say I dislke James, but I can't say I? like him either, since he remains a nonentity to me. Liz: How hard is right. I have never liked James. I've tried. I've so tried. All the comments that Harry is so like his father, I've come to believe only in "trouble making" areas. His die hard loyalty to his friends, that type of thing. In my eyes, never has James been shown in a positive light. He's regaled by many, we're led to believe oh that James Potter! How great he was. Where? When? Sure his final sacrifice, he was part of the Order, but never are we shown, even hinted, that there is more to him. I don't know why Lily fell in love with him. Harry has a conversation with Sirius and Lupin in OOTP where he even asks. Their answers aren't that great. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 19:13:39 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:13:39 -0000 Subject: Ron and Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181366 Jayne: > I love the way that Ron Hermione's relationship develops over the > books. When we first come across the trio IMHO the signs show that Harry > and > Hermione will end up together and it is only in GOF onwards that I > think those signs change . The getting together is fraught and often > fractous but amusing I think. zgirnius: Personally, I thought Ron and Hermione were meant for one another when they met on the train in PS/SS. Her bossy know-it-allness bothered Ron far more than it did Harry, which to me was a sure sign. And then Hermione cried in a bathroom over an insensitive remark Ron had made about her. Ah, puppy love... though I could see how this was by no means definitive. But I really thought Ron leaping to her defense in CoS, when Draco called her a Mudblood, clinched the deal. From dongan51 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 19:08:05 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 11:08:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ron and Hermione SHIP Message-ID: <996332.74999.qm@web63912.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181367 Jayne: I love the way that Ron Hermione's relationship develops over the books. When we first come across the trio IMHO the signs show that Harry and Hermione will end up together and it is only in GOF onwards that I think those signs change . The getting together is fraught and often fractous but amusing I think. Liz: I never saw Harry and Hermione together. I would have been very upset if that is what had happened. The constant issues and frustrations between RW and HG were some of my favorite parts of the books. In DH when Ron is screaming for her when she is being tortured, it was one of those moments where your heart ached. at least mine did. From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 20:01:32 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:01:32 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181368 > Mike: > This does bring up an interesting question. Do you think Severus > *only* wanted to confirm his Lupin!werewolf suspicions, or do you > think there was more behind his tunnel excursion? I suspect, based on > his "what ... Potter and his mates get up to" comment to Lily, that > he had more in mind. What, it's hard to figure. Was he thinking he > could lay in wait somewhere and catch them somehow? He doesn't know > beforehand where the tunnel leads and/or what sort of cover might be > available to him. Montavilla47: I think that it was partly to confirm his suspicions about Lupin and partly to confirm his suspicions about the Marauders being somehow "up to something." Perhaps he thought that the Marauders were involved in Lupin's *being* a werewolf? That they had turned their friend into a werewolf for a lark and Imperio'ed Pomfrey into aiding their nefarious scheme? That's suitably silly, isn't it? > Mike: > I see this whole Prank thing as having two parts, and I suspect you > see it as one. Montavilla47: I agree with both parts, Mike. > > Carol: > > Whether he would also have felt remorse for what he'd done to > > Severus, I don't know. I rather doubt it given his attitude > > in PoA. > > Mike: > See, this is the part I don't get. Noboby wants to entertain what MAY > have happened if Severus had learned about the Willow from his spying > on whomever. And it's not like he hasn't already been spying on the > Marauders. Everyone instead focuses on what MAY have happened if > James was not there. But James was there, and he went there on > information from Sirius. Montvilla47: Speaking only for myself, I don't see much point in imagining what might have happened had Snape found out about the willow from someone else, because he didn't. It's hard enough to figure out why Sirius was so stupid as to tell their deadly enemy in the first place. And why Snape was silly enough to act on information from an enemy. A lot would matter on how Snape found out. If he hadn't learned the secret from Sirius, he might not have connected the Marauders to the willow at all, and might not have been so tempted to find out what they were up to. Consequently, he might never have gone down under the willow at all. Or, if his main interest was in proving the werewolf theory, he might have gone at a different time, since he wouldn't need to go at a specific time in order to catch the Marauders red- handed. Or, he might have gone at precisely the wrong time and without Sirius being forewarned about his appearance and consequently, he might have discovered that the Marauders were animagi--and they would all have been expelled for breaking the law. Or he might have met up with Lupin with no James around to save his behind and ended up dead or a werewolf. Which would be a fun Snape/Lupin slash fanfic, since they'd probably have to share the Shrieking Shack every full moon and end having hot Werewolf wrestling matches. Montavilla47 From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 20:33:16 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:33:16 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: <65454.45382.qm@web63909.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181369 Alla wrote: > Yeah Hedwig seems to be very smart. Do you think other owls are just as smart? > > Liz responded: > I always thought that owls were magical in their own right. How did they know where everyone was? Case in point the delivery of the Prophet. No matter where the person was they always seemed to know to where to deliver it. An owl found Hagrid out on that great big rock when he first went to find Harry. Carol notes: I think there are magical owls and ordinary owls, just as there are magical rats like the ones who skip rope with their tails and common garden rats of the type that live about three years (the kind that Scabbers seemed to be; Ron noted that he had never demonstrated any powers ). Magical owls can "read" a name and address on an envelope fastened to their leg (even if it's not shown to them) and find the person that the letter is addressed to without a mistake even if they've never seen the person before. The owls that deliver the hate mail to Hermione, for example, have no trouble finding her. They don't accidentally deliver the letters to Pansy Parkinson or Hannah Abbott. Hedwig seems to understand Harry when he speaks to her (much as Crookshanks, another magical animal, seems to understand human speech), and she doesn't need an address to find Sirius Black. Whether another owl could do that, I don't know. (I think they could, just as Kreacher can find Mundungus Fletcher when the Wizards can't, but I'm not sure. At any rate, Pigwidgeon finds Harry on the Hogwarts Express, and I doubt that Sirius's letter was addressed to him there.) On another note, I think that the letters to Harry in SS/PS magically addressed themselves. The address kept changing to thing like some seedy motel and the Hut on the Rock. I doubt that Hagrid addressed them; the letters are from McGonagall. Probably she didn't address them, either. or even write that many letters. She must have used some magical duplicating spell like the one used to copy the cups in the Gringotts vault. As for how the evelopes addressed themselves, I don't know, but I'm guessing that McGonagall kept Dumbledore informed of the changes in address, which is how he knew to send Hagrid to the Hut on the Rock. (Which hut on which rock might have been a bit of a challenge!) Carol, thinking that some details probably don't bear overly close examination (child readers are expected to think "It's magic!" and let it go at that) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 21:16:59 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:16:59 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: <8CA37D10A3A73B0-F74-1AF6@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181370 Mike wrote: > > > > Do I get to pick what I wish had happened? I wish Severus would have DIED by werewolf and the rest of the Marauders had transfigured him into a bone and buried him in Hagrid's garden. See, he's a nasty character that is on his way to being a Death Eater, so I can think of all sorts of things I'd like to see happen to him. But, alas, we wouldn't have a story if that had happened. Julie replied: > I assume you are basing your judgment on what you know about Snape's future life and actions, since at the time of the Prank he was 15 years old and objectively no "nastier" than James and Sirius in action. Unless you think at that point Snape was unsalvageable (which I don't, given that he turned out to be salvageable as an adult Death Eater). Though based on future actions and character I wouldn't have minded if Lupin in werewolf form had momentarily forgotten the rat was offlimits and chomped Wormtail down as a quick snack ;-) Carol responds: Actually, Severus was sixteen, as were James, Lily, Remus, and Sirius (Adult!Snape says that Sirius Black tried to kill him when Sirius was sixteen). We don't know Peter's age, but if he's not sixteen yet, he's only a few months from it (it's May, the end of fifth year). JKR has the characters refer to *James* as fifteen, but that's inconsistent with his March birthday as revealed in DH. Sorry; I know I'm nitpicking here, but I like to get the facts straight whenever possible. Otherwise, I agree with Julie. Nothing we see in SWM or "the Prince's Tale" makes me think that Severus, clever inventor of all those spells and potions improvements, was any nastier than James and Sirius, nor do we see any indication of his bullying or tricking anybody or hexing people in the hallways because they annoy him. Yes, he has friends who have made their intention of becoming Death Eaters known, but clearly Severus didn't make any such announcement or Sirius Black would have known in PoA and GoF that he had been a Death Eater. And, yes, he invented one Dark spell, Sectumsempra, but he can't have gone around using it or he'd have been expelled (as Harry nearly was). At any rate, my reading of "The Prince's Tale" is more sympathetic than Mike's--and Harry, too, ends up sympathetic or empathetic, forgiving the unfortunately dead Snape. His reaction to SWM is the same as it was in OoP; he can't bear to see his father bullying Severus Snape, attacking him off-guard two on one. At any rate, if MWPP had allowed Severus (who has not yet done anything worse than follow them around, hoping to find out what they're up to and, apparently, get Lily to see what toerags they are--and, of course, make friends with the wrong sort of boys) to be killed by a werewolf (on Sirius's instigation) and they had hidden the evidence of their culpability, they'd be hardly better than Barty Crouch Jr., well on the way to being as bad as Death Eaters. And, as Mike admits, there would have been no story: no eavesdropper, no request to spare Lily's life, no Fidelius Charm, no Secret Keeper switch, no self-sacrifice, no Chosen One, no vaporization of Voldemort, no eleven years of peace. (Note that I'm speaking here of *unintended consequences* of Snape's actions; I'm not crediting him with creating the Chosen One any more than I'm excusing him for his share in the deaths of the Potters--though I don't blame him for the actual murder that he tried to prevent or for Wormtail's betrayal, in which he had no part.) Harry, if he survived (an iffy prospect considering that the DEs outnumbered the Order members and were picking them off one at a time) would have been an ordinary Wizarding kid with no scar, no special powers, no connection to Voldemort, no special destiny. And while that sounds good, a happy life for Harry, who would not be targeted by Voldemort, and no lessons with Snape, we need to think about what the WW would be if Voldemort had stayed in power. He would have found a way to kill Dumbledore and taken over the WW and Hogwarts seventeen years earlier. Harry might not even have had a Hogwarts to go to, or it would have been all-Slytherin, as Voldemort attempted to make it in DH. I forgot to mention that I think that Wormtail would have turned spy for Voldemort in any case, ratting out members of the Order, and Sirius and Remus would still have suspected each other. None of that had anything to do with Snape. The only difference is that there would have been no Secret Keeper switch. He might still have betrayed the Potters to their deaths, but Sirius might not have gone after him and spent twelve years in Azkaban. At least *he* wouldn't have been suspected of betraying the Potters and Crouch might have listened to him. But no silver hand for Wormtail; that resulted from the resurrection of Voldemort, which wouldn't have happened if he'd never been vaporized trying to thwart the Prophecy. Yep. No story without Snape, even setting aside his role in the main text of the books and looking only at his early actions. Or at least, a very different story, with Harry's role greatly diminished and no (relatively) happy ending. Carol, again just looking at the unintended consequences of young Snape's actions and their impact on the story From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 21:32:54 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:32:54 -0000 Subject: Snape's Culpability in the Prank (WAS: James and Sirius) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181371 Carol: Harry, if he survived (an iffy prospect considering that the DEs outnumbered the Order members and were picking them off one at a time) would have been an ordinary Wizarding kid with no scar, no special powers, no connection to Voldemort, no special destiny. And while that sounds good, a happy life for Harry, who would not be targeted by Voldemort, and no lessons with Snape, we need to think about what the WW would be if Voldemort had stayed in power. He would have found a way to kill Dumbledore and taken over the WW and Hogwarts seventeen years earlier. Harry might not even have had a Hogwarts to go to, or it would have been all-Slytherin, as Voldemort attempted to make it in DH. Yep. No story without Snape, even setting aside his role in the main text of the books and looking only at his early actions. Or at least, a very different story, with Harry's role greatly diminished and no (relatively) happy ending. Carol, again just looking at the unintended consequences of young Snape's actions and their impact on the story Alla: Well, yes, who is questioning that there would be no story without Snape? I thought it was pretty clear ( to me anyways) that Mike was wishing for Snape being dead from within of the story so to speak. I would be delighted if I look at the events of Potterverse as if they were real that Snape would never entered Harry's life. Again, IF I look at the characters who do not know that they are in the book. I believe that he set up that all, I believe that he shaped Harry's life, helped rob him of his parents, accordingly contributed to the misery he had at Dursleys, although that is more removed of course, etc. I believe since we are looking at the fictional world, I have a luxury to not care about eleven years of piece for WW that were bought by the misery of one boy ( obviously fictional one as well). So, what I am trying to say? Oh, first that I pretty much agree with everything Mike said in his recent posts about Prank ( I especially thank you Mike for articulating what I wanted to say and could not figure out how about two parts of the Prank, and Sirius' actions not causing Snape's, etc), second that I also would not mind Snape being dead (YAY), but I do not want him being dead during the prank, I do not think Remus deserved such misery added to his general misery. Couldn't he be dead when he went to serve Voldy and right away? Then at least he would not have a chance to deliver prophecy. Oh well, at least JKR had a good sense to kill him off at the end if you ask me. But having said that I was always saying it and say it again ? as a character in the story he is definitely fascinating. Such strong feelings he inspires be it love or hate, heheh, always did. JMO, Alla From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Thu Feb 7 21:39:49 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:39:49 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: <65454.45382.qm@web63909.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181372 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Liz P wrote: Alla: > "Hedwig! Harry gasped. The snowy owl clicked her beak and fluttered > down on Harry's arm. > "Very smart owl you've got there," chuckled Tom> "Arrived about five > minutes after you did. If there's anything you need, Mr. Potter, > don't hesitate to ask" ? p.40 > > Alla: > Yeah Hedwig seems to be very smart. Do you think other owls are just > as smart? > > Liz: > I always thought that owls were magical in their own right. How did they know where everyone was? Case in point the delivery of the Prophet. No matter where the person was they always seemed to know to where to deliver it. An owl found Hagrid out on that great big rock when he first went to find Harry. Geoff: I think you are right about all owls being magical (or fitted with SatNav perhaps???). If the letters at Cokeworth were brought by owls, they certainly found Harry in three different locations at the beginning of PS , in addition to your quoted example of Hagrid. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Thu Feb 7 21:51:43 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:51:43 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181374 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: Alla: > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open > against the pillow. Geoff: Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing with you, your quote is wrong. It should be: It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open against the pillow. {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 21:57:51 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:57:51 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181375 > Geoff: > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing with > you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open > against the pillow. > {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) > Alla: I wholeheartedly permit you the privilege of disagreeing with another UK edition P.7 that I have LOL. I have no problem with me being wrong and I certainly was and will be more than once I am sure. But this time if anybody is wrong is whoever printed my book :-) Accidentally the page 1 of my amer. edition of PoA says the same thing. Or am I missing something and you are joking? :-) From kaleeyj at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 22:22:42 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:22:42 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181377 > > > Alla: > > > Yeah Hedwig seems to be very smart. Do you think other owls > > > are just as smart? > > > > Liz: > > I always thought that owls were magical in their own right. > > How did they know where everyone was? Case in point the > > delivery of the Prophet. No matter where the person was > > they always seemed to know to where to deliver it. An owl > > found Hagrid out on that great big rock when he first went > > to find Harry. > > Geoff: > I think you are right about all owls being magical (or fitted > with SatNav perhaps???). If the letters at Cokeworth were > brought by owls, they certainly found Harry in three different > locations at the beginning of PS , in addition to your quoted > example of Hagrid. > Bex: Not necessarily all owls, but all the mail owls are clearly magical. They have a higher understanding of human speech and feelings than nearly any other animal in the series (save Phoenixes), and they have the ability to locate a recipient in all but the direst of circumstances. I have always assumed that you *could* hide from owls, though - otherwise Voldemort would not have eluded capture for so long (along with Sirius while he was on the lam, and HRH in DH). They also have different eating habits than "normal" owls and obviously different sleep patterns. I have wondered if magical mail owls were originally bred from crossing owls with a magical bird. Phoenixes are the only ones who come to mind at the moment, but I don't have my copy of FB handy right now. Seems like it would be incredibly difficult magic to charm an owl down to its DNA, then have it pass the charm on to its offspring. Bex From a_svirn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 22:24:42 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:24:42 -0000 Subject: House-Elves yet again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181378 > a_svirn: > However, in that case the bonding enchantment is no more a part of > elves' nature, than the magical contract was a part of Harry's nature > in GoF. > > Carol: > The thing is, it *has become* part of their nature. You give any Elf > clothes and he's "free" whether he wants to be or not. a_svirn: Thing is, it cannot become anything of the sort. It could of course become their *second* nature, as the saying goes. In other words, their habit. In effect, you are saying that they have gotten used to being slaves. Well, so they have, poor things. > Carol: They don't really care who owns them as long as they're not > abused. a_svirn: Not true, is it? Harry did not abuse Kreacher in OotP and HBP, did he? > Carol: The prospect of being owned by DES, however, seems to scare > them. Perhaps Kreacher, still bound to a master and loyal to him > (though he loves Regulus more) persuaded them through recounting his > experience with Voldemort in a way that the disgraced and eccentric > "Free Elf" Dobby could never do. a_svirn: Kreacher's persuasion wouldn't be of any use for them as long as they are bound. > > > Carol earlier: > > And since the Elves didn't *want* clothes, they became bound, over > time, to particular families. I'm oversimplifying, but I do think that > the enchantment (which term, BTW, seems to be used on this list > without being part of canon) is part and parcel of their magical nature. > > > > a_svirn: > > This is the term used by Dumbledore. He said that elves are bound to > wizards by enchantments of their own kind. Merlin knows what he meant > > by "their own kind", perhaps that the enchantment originated from > > elves' magic rather than wizarding magic. > > Carol: > > It would help if you supplied the exact quote for us to analyze. a_svirn: "He was bound by the enchantments of his own kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, Sirius." OotP, p. 732 > > a_svirn: > > However, the word enchantment is not really all that ambiguous. One > cannot be born with enchantments as part of one's make-up. > Enchantments are supposed to be performed. They also supposed to be > leaned in order to be performed. > > Carol responds: > Not necessarily. The accidental magic performed by Wizard children is > an enchantment, is it not, even though no spell is performed? a_svirn: Accidental magic is accidental magic. It is *not* charms, enchantments, hexes, jinxes etc. ? all those things that have to be learned and performed intentionally. That's how the Ministry knew that the Hover Charm, for instance, wasn't accidental ? because it was a concrete charm. And it certainly defies belief that the bonding enchantment could be accidental. > Carol: And > House-Elves don't seem to use incantations; they just snap their > fingers or whatever and the Hover Charm or whatever is performed. > House-Elves don't go to school. They seem to perform their magic, > including House-cleaning, naturally. They're born with it just as > Wizards are, but unlike Wizards, they don't have to learn how to use > it and control it, as far as we know. No schools, no wands, no spells > to learn. They just do it. a_svirn: Well, Dumbledore also just waved his wand. And Snape made do without a wand at times. They had to learn their respective skills, however. Dobby certainly had to learn the Hover Charm, in order to perform it. If it was something instinctive the Ministry could not have detected it. And if they did, they would have thought it accidental. > Carol: > At any rate, House-Elves can't predate houses. and clothing existed > before houses. So both cultural artifacts were in existence at the > time the first House-Elf became bound, probably through his own will, > to serve a Wizard. a_svirn: That's actually by no means an axiom. Domestic pests, for instance, are called domestic because they like to live in human dwellings. That does not mean that human houses predate, say, cockroaches. Not that it matters ? either way houses are not part of cockroaches' or even human nature. Though I concede that living in them has become a second nature for both. Well, mostly. > Carol: > BTW, I looked up "enchantment," which gave me a cross-reference to > "enchant," for which the chief definition is "to influence by or as if > by charms and incantation." "By or as if by" allows the possibility > that no spell (incantation) was performed. a_svirn: It is not just *allow* this possibility. It actually signals figurative usage. Like in "All the men were enchanted by her." As if by charms, but in actuality by her divine beauty. > Carol: Again, I suggest the > analogy of bowing (a human action) as part of the nature of > Hippogriffs. Who *enchanted* them to behave this way? Probably no one. > This humanlike action is part of their *nature*, an inborn trait of > all Hippogriffs. a_svirn: We don't know it. We don't even know if hyppogriffs are wild beasts or not. Perhaps not ? after all they were kept in a sort of a paddock. It may be that they are *trained* to bow. Also even wild animals have certain rituals. > > Carol: > At any rate, this "problem" of a population of unhappy, abused > House-Elves "enslaved" to masters they don't want to serve appears to > exist solely in the imagination of certain readers. a_svirn: And certain other readers manage to ignore all the evidence to the contrary. Here is another quote for you: "`Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry', said Dumbledore. `Yes, he is to be pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend's Dobby's. He was forced to Sirius's bidding because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no loyalty for him." OotP pp. 733-34. As you see, the word *enslaved* is used and without even the inverted commas to signal the unusual usage. Dumbledore corroborates Dobby's statement. Oh, and of course Rowling herself says the same thing, but I know you won't allow this minor detail to influence your judgement. > Carol: > The Hogwarts House-Elves *did* choose their masters. a_svirn: So what? Do we know that Hogwarts elves are bound? If they are not, than there is nothing to argue about. a_svirn. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 22:25:47 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:25:47 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181379 --- "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > ... Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much > that she allowed herself to be caught no less than > forty seven times in various disguises." - PoA, p.7, brit. > ed, paperback > > Alla: > So, did they or did they not enjoy being burned? I seem to > remember vigorous debates in the past and some posters > claiming that it is a lie, I mean lie in the text book and > the witches were really burned, etc. I honestly do not > remember anything in the later canon showing that it was a > lie. Any help? Oh, and hi Batilda dear. > bboyminn: I think it very much depends on circumstances. If mob mentality rules and you are captured and taken directly to the Stake, then you have your wand, you can perform the proper spell to protect yourself, and when the flames get high enough, you can just apparate out of there. However, if the capture has a little more legal force behind it, and you are captured, imprisoned, tried, convicted, and sentenced, then you likely don't have your wand and you are toast. Keep in mind that there were certainly a lot of petty self-serving accusations going on. Get into an argument with some one, and it is a race to see which accuses the other of being magical first. Once the accusation is made, in most cases, the proof of innocent results in death just as the proof of guilt does. So, the answer is 'some'; some wizards enjoyed it, some wizards got away with it, and some didn't. But regardless, of what happened to actual wizards and witches, far more innocent people were tortured and killed. > ... > > "Hedwig," he said gloomily, "you're going to have to clear > off for a week. Go with Errol, Ron'll look after you. I'll > write him a note, explaining. And don't look at me like that" > ? Hedwig's large amber eyes were reproachful, "it's not my > fault. It's the only way I'll be allowed to visit Hogsmeade > with Ron and Hermione" ? p.22 > > Alla: > I had asked this before, I am sure, but just how smart owls > in general and Hedwig in particularly are? ... > bboyminn: Indeed I think Hedwig is an exceptionally smart owl, but I also believe that Post Owls are magical creatures with a magic all their own. While I can't prove it, I also suspect that Owls are capable of a limited degree of magical flight. That is, the actually ground cover in flight far exceed the perceived flight speed. To illustrate, I estimate perceived speed of a Portkey at about 30 to 40 mph, but the actually speed is about 400 miles in one minute, or 24,000 miles per hours. It's Magic! (That is a very conservative estimate.) There are limits to Portkey and other magical means of travel as stated by JKR, though she has yet to spell them out in detail. > ... > > "Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper had spent two months there > only last year. Harry wouldn't soon forget the look of terror > on Hagrid's face when he had been told where he was going > and Hagrid was one of the bravest people Harry knew" ? p.35 > > Alla: > I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many > nasty rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so > horrible and has a look of pure terror on him, but how does > he and everybody else knows that Azkaban is so horrible if > nobody escaped from there ... > bboyminn: True, no one may have escaped, but lots of people were let out. Do you really imagine that everyone who goes there has received a life sentence? Hagrid was only there a short while. The Order member who didn't return Moody's invisibility cloak, (was it Podmore?) only receive a 6 month sentence. And quite logically, the prison has levels of security. I believe Sirius even made reference to himself being in the high security area. So, how do people know, well people served their sentences and came back and told them. Plus, some people in general must know about the affects of the Dementors, and could easily for an idea of what Azkaban might be like. Steve/bboyminn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 22:27:45 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:27:45 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's memory collection (Was: CoS chapters 17-18 post DH look) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181380 Mike wrote: > When do you all think Dumbledore started collecting those memories of Voldemort that he showed Harry in HBP? > > I always thought DD started a good while ago. I'm thinking during Voldemort's first reign of terror. Though the oldest memory, Bob Ogden's, happened around 1925 and dear old Bob could have still been alive in 1992, after the Diary Horcrux. > > But I had the feeling that Bob, Hokey and Morfin had died long before 1992. If that's right, it means DD must have gotten lucky to collect the memories that told him what 3 of the Horcruxes were, since he collected them before he knew LV had Horcruxes, plural. Or, Dumbledore actually suspected multiple Hocruxes before the Diary. Carol responds: Let's think first about what Dumbledore knew about Tom Riddle that might lead him to think in terms of multiple Horcruxes (especially given his penchant for putting memories in the Pensieve to examine their connections, as he did in GoF). First, he knew that Tom, even as a child, collected trophies related to his crimes. He knew that Tom had opened the Chamber of Secrets and was responsible for Myrtle's death. He knew that Tom was descended from Salazar Slytherin. He knew that Tom considered Hogwarts his home. At some point, he learned that Tom had talked with Slughorn about Horcruxes (though, of course, he didn't have the complete memory). Dumbledore, unlike most Half-Blood or Pure-Blood Wizards, read the Muggle newspapers, so he knew that the Riddles, one of them, not coincidentally, named Tom had been murdered. He knew that Morfin Gaunt had been charged with the crime, but he suspected that the dark-haired teenage boy that the caretaker Frank Bryce claimed to have seen was Tom Riddle, who hated his Muggle heritage and had killed before, so he apparently went to investigate. This would have been, of course, before any Horcruxes had been created. Dumbledore would have acquired the memories from Bob Ogden and Morfin Gaunt at this time in an attempt to clear Morfin's name, but Morfin died before the evidence could be presented at a new trial. Tom returned to Hogwarts with no one but Dumbledore suspecting him of any crimes and then went to work at Borgin and Burkes. When Hepzibah Smith was murdered, Dumbledore again went to work collecting memories, this time in an attempt to get Hokey acquitted, but again, the victim that Tom had framed died before DDD could have the evidence reexamined. At this point, if not before, DD must have noticed a connection between the murders. While the Riddles had been killed for revenge, Tom had, magpielike, taken Morfin Gaunt's ring (proof of his Pure-Blood connection to the Peverells) as a trophy, just as he had taken the mouth organ and other items from his childhood victims. He had also expressed interest--make that greed--at Morfin's reference to Salazar Slytherin's locket, which Merope had "stolen." Lo and behold, that very locket was one of the items for which Hepzibah Smith had been murdered. At that point, DD would have gone to Borgin to get his memory of the young pregnant woman selling the locket for ten galleons. So DD, who had originally (according to my theory) begun obtaining memories to link Tom Riddle to two seemingly unconnected murders, sees him collecting valuable objects (which he wants badly enough to kill for, in the one case) related to Hogwarts and/or his own Pure-Blood heritage. The question is what Tom, who fled into parts unknown after killing Hepzibah, would have wanted with those objects. Something more than collecting them, perhaps? DD would also have seen the slight alteration in Tom's appearance in the Hepzibah memory, in particular, the red eyes gleaming with something worse than greed. And he would have noted the blurring of Tom's features when he next saw him, come ten years later, when he came to apply for the DADA position. Even before Voldemort returned a second time, even more changed (noseless and snakelike), DD might already have suspected that the changes in his appearance resulted from multiple Horcruxes, and he would already have known or suspected what three of those Horcruxes were: the ring, the locket, and the cup. He might at that time have obtained the altered memory from Slughorn, who was still teaching at Hogwarts. When Voldemort was vaporized at Godric's Hollow, DD must have known that he was right. He had to have created at least one Horcrux, and both the stolen objects and the drastic alterations in Voldemort's appearance indicated that he had made more than one. The diary in CoS, a previously unsuspected Voldemort artifact, confirmed DD's theory. Not only had he made a Horcrux, but he had to have made more than one. The question was, how many. Were there more than four? Had he obtained a Ravenclaw artifact to go with the Slytherin and Hufflepuff objects? That, I think, is why DD considered Slughorn's memory so important. He had already not only confirmed his theory but identified four of the objects, one of which Harry had destroyed. But he had to know how many more there were. And, meanwhile, he was searching out possible locations, including the Gaunt's house and the cave (with disastrous consequences for himself in both cases). It's not clear exactly when DD obtained the Hokey and Morfin memories, but I think it was shortly after the murders were committed and the victims were framed. DD would have considered time to be of the essence. But Hokey was very old and died shortly after he obtained the memory, and Morfin, who had already spent three years in Azkaban, was so upset by the theft of the ring that he was no doubt easy prey for the Dementors. he, too, seems to have lasted only a short time in prison. At any rate, DD visited him "in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past" HBP Am. ed. 368). He attempted to "secure Morfin's release from Azkaban," but too late. Morfin died before the Ministry could make up its collective mind. Hokey, too, was dying by the time DD traced her (which couldn't have taken much time). And since he already knew that Morfin's memory had been tampered with when he obtained Hokey's, suspecting the same tactic, I think that Morfin must have died before Hepzibah Smith, some time between Tom's seventeenth and twenty-second birthdays, roughly speaking, and Hokey very shortly after Hepzibah. So, IMO, all of the relevant memories, with the possible exception of Slughorn's altered one, were apparently obtained many years before CoS (including, of course, DD's own memories of conversations with Tom Riddle). Carol, wondering where DD went on his excursions away from Hogwarts in HBP, aside from his search for the cave, considering that the memories had all been obtained much earlier From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 7 22:29:36 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:29:36 -0000 Subject: James again In-Reply-To: <447099.75893.qm@web63911.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181381 > > Liz: > How hard is right. I have never liked James. I've tried. I've so tried. All the comments that Harry is so like his father, I've come to believe only in "trouble making" areas. His die hard loyalty to his friends, that type of thing. > > In my eyes, never has James been shown in a positive light. He's regaled by many, we're led to believe oh that James Potter! How great he was. Where? When? Sure his final sacrifice, he was part of the Order, but never are we shown, even hinted, that there is more to him. > > I don't know why Lily fell in love with him. Harry has a conversation with Sirius and Lupin in OOTP where he even asks. Their answers aren't that great. Pippin: And so we are exactly in Snape's position trying to understand what people see in Harry! "--mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule-breaker, delighted to find himself famous, attention-seeking and impertinent--" "You see what you expect to see, Severus." "Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child." (DH 33) Pippin From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 22:43:01 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:43:01 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181382 Geoff wrote: > > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing with you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > > > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, a large leather-bound book > > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open against the pillow. {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) > > > > Alla: > > But this time if anybody is wrong is whoever printed my book :-) > > Accidentally the page 1 of my amer. edition of PoA says the same > thing. > > Or am I missing something and you are joking? :-) > Carol responds: Woohoo! Score one point for the American consistency editor, who caught a Flint-in-the-making that the British editor missed. Compare the list of required books for new Hogwarts students in SS/PS: COURSE BOOKS All students should have a copy of each of the following: The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot Magical Theory by Adelbert Waffling. . . . (SS 66) So good old Bathilda *is* the author of "A History of Magic" (is that also mentioned in DH?) and Adelbert Waffling is, most appropriately, the author of a book on magical theory (which I take it the students are expected to use in researching essays for their various classes and in preparing for the theoretical portions of the OWLs and NEWTs since there's no specific course in Magical Theory. Carol, who likes JKR's odd sense of humor as reflected in the author's names, especially Arsenius Jigger and Adelbert Waffling From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 7 22:44:08 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:44:08 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181383 Pippin: > > The advance article about Rita Skeeter's Dumbledore book also > > introduces the idea of a great duel that never happened. > > Alla: > > You mean Albus and Gellert? Am I missing something? Do we know for > sure that duel never happened or we are just guessing? Or do you mean > different duel? > Pippin: It doesn't matter for my argument whether the duel happened or not. What matters is that Dumbledore is accused of doing what Voldemort actually did -- boost his reputation by inflating a lopsided contest won by dubious means into a spectacular battle against a powerful enemy. > Pippin: > > >> It's interesting that like the so-noble Sirius with his brother, Lily did nothing but turn her back, while the wayward Aberforth confronted Albus and brought him to his senses, albeit at a terrible cost. Suppose Lily had been willing to do what Aberforth did, and confront Snape and his "precious little Death Eater friends" directly? > > Alla: > > Hmmm, very good point about Aberforth. I do like that he confronted > Albus, but as you said it happened at the terrible cost. Are you sure > that JKR thinks this type of confrontation where innocent dies is > better than what Lily did? > > And actually what do you mean confront directly? Lily DID confront > Snape directly, no? Or do you mean she had to duel with Mulciber and > Co? Pippin: Aberforth confronted Gellert and Albus together, so Albus couldn't pretend to himself that Gellert would leave Aberforth alone. It is too bad that Aberforth didn't protect Ariana first, but I think he wasn't prepared for Gellert to attack anyone. Still, a lot of lives were saved because Albus came to his senses. Lily knew that Snape's DE friends were dangerous, so she might have been better prepared if she had gone that route. But I'm not talking about a duel, just Snape having an opportunity to realize that his friends weren't going to treat Lily differently just because he did. Pippin From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 22:58:54 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:58:54 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181384 --- "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > > Geoff: > > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing > > with you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > > > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open > > against the pillow. > > {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) > > > > Alla: > > I wholeheartedly permit you the privilege of disagreeing > with another UK edition P.7 that I have LOL. I have no > problem with me being wrong and I certainly was and will be > more than once I am sure. > > But this time if anybody is wrong is whoever printed my book > :-) > > Accidentally the page 1 of my Amer. edition of PoA says the > same thing. > > Or am I missing something and you are joking? :-) > bboyminn: Isn't it known in general that Bathilda Bagshot wrote 'A History of Magic'? I believe it is referenced several times. It seems odd given how important Bathilda is, that this error was made. Perhaps the publisher thought Bathilda had been referenced too many times and wanted to mix it up a bit. None the less both my American Hardcover and paperback says Bathilda Bagshot. A quick search of Google establishes that Adalbert Waffling is a character in the series, he is the author of 'Magical Theory'. Though I did find other references to his connection to 'A History of Magic', so I can't help but wonder if this was an editing error in some editions that was later corrected. Harry's original book list from PS/SS is as follows- "He will also need these books: 1. The Standard Book of Spells (grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk ***2. A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot ***3. Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling 4. A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch 5. One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore 6. Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger 7. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander 8. The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble" Likely Adalbert was based on a real person - "Adalbert (ca. 740 C.E.) A French pseudo-mystic of the eighth century. He boasted that an angel brought him relics of extraordinary sanctity from all parts of the earth Adalbert's so-called "miracles" gained him great popularity, and he gave away many cuttings of his nails and locks of his hair as powerful amulets..." For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 23:06:06 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:06:06 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181385 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" > wrote: > > Alla: > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > > (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open > > against the pillow. > > Geoff: > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing > with you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open > against the pillow. > {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) > bboyminn: Sorry for the one liner- Geoff, my advise, keep that edition of the book, it will probably be worth a small fortune one day. Steve/bboyminn From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 19:21:04 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:21:04 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle's inability to love In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181386 bdclark0423: um......yeah.....ok....? I usually do look at Wikipedia when researching something, but perhaps I need to look up 'confused' Whether it applies to either one of us, has yet to be determined. I took your advice and I have looked at wikipedia and it does not reference anywhere how inability to love is connected in any way to being a psychopath, so this does makes me even a little more confused by your response, perhaps you're saying this is what Tom Riddle is, but the original purpose of the discussion is not to describe current state of Tom Riddle, but try and explain what got him to that state. After all, we use stories to help us understand our own emotions, why we feel the way we do, what got us to feel these emotions, and how we plan to deal with them. I seriously doubt if JKR wrote 'Harry Potter and the Psychopath', should wouldn't have done very well.... bdclark0423 From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 7 23:48:22 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:48:22 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181387 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing with > you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open > against the pillow. > {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) zanooda: I have Bloomsbury edition of PoA (adult cover), and it says "Bathilda Bagshot". I remember Geoff mentioned that he had the delux edition or something like that. Is it possible that there are differences between editions? From whybnormal at wowway.com Thu Feb 7 20:58:56 2008 From: whybnormal at wowway.com (Tom Kish) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 15:58:56 -0500 Subject: James again In-Reply-To: <8CA37CE2AEBC7DE-F74-1969@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> References: <1202387027.3241.84062.m46@yahoogroups.com> <8CA37CE2AEBC7DE-F74-1969@webmail-dd09.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <051a01c869cc$40fb8750$6701a8c0@KICKASSSYSTEM> No: HPFGUIDX 181388 > Carol: > So for those of us who were looking for *something* to admire > in James were disappointed. All I got (and I speak for no one > but myself) was confirmation that Severus was right about him; > he was an arrogant bully from his first appearance on the > Hogwarts Express. Whybnormal: What everyone needs to remember is that every look that we get of the living James is through the eyes of Severus Snape. Of course things will be slanted to his point of view for one thing you never see anything that Snape may have done to provoke the dislike of James and the other Marauders. Now I'm not saying James was a saint but you have to remember there are always two sides to every story. What would happen if you were to look at Harry through Draco Malfoy's Eyes, especially before the fire at the end of DH? > Julie: > I'm disappointed that JKR didn't give us even one single > moment of James in an unequivocal positive light as an > adult. Yes, Lily married him, so he must have grown up. > How hard would it have been for JKR to give us one moment > of James as an adult, protecting someone as an Order member, > sharing affection with Harry and Lily, having a thoughtful > adult conversation with someone, expressing his adult views > or feelings--anything that would have given us an opportunity > to know the real James, and to make a connection with him? Whybnormal: Why should she? What James actually did and didn't do as an adult is irrelevant to the story. We know Harry looks like his father and is like his father. So if Harry turns out to be kind hearted and selfless, then don't you think that maybe James was too? Just because James got into to trouble doesn't mean that he couldn't have those good qualities also. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Feb 8 00:20:21 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:20:21 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181389 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" > wrote: > > > Alla, if you will permit me the privilege of disagreeing with > > you, your quote is wrong. It should be: > > > It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in > > bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a > > flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book > > (A History of Magic by Adalbert Waffling) propped open > > against the pillow. > > {POA "Owl Post" p.7 UK edition) > > > zanooda: > > I have Bloomsbury edition of PoA (adult cover), and it says "Bathilda > Bagshot". I remember Geoff mentioned that he had the delux edition or > something like that. Is it possible that there are differences between > editions? Geoff: Thus is rather interesting because I don't think this apparent difference has been commented on before. The three Bloomsbury editions - Children's, Adult's and De Luxe - normally employ the same text, right down to the pagination and page layout being identical and only differ in their covers (and cost!). By coincidence, my eldest son and his wife are coming down for two nights later today (Friday - this being written at an hour when all good little boys should be in bed). I gave my original paperback POA to Astrid and have asked her to bring it with her. I will keep you posted. From bartl at sprynet.com Thu Feb 7 20:10:50 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:10:50 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: <2795713f0802061925t5dce603dweb546abf872b0fc9@mail.gmail.com> References: <2795713f0802061925t5dce603dweb546abf872b0fc9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47AB65CA.1080504@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181390 Lynda Cordova wrote: > I don't think I was ever looking for something to admire in James Potter. > In the end, he seems to have matured a bit and was settling into marriage > and raising a kid, but he definately did have issues in his past that Harry > inherited. I've never seen any reason to doubt either his friends sincerity > or the possibility that Lord Thingy might have lied or stretched the truth > more than a little bit in SS. Bart: Well, let's see what we know that's positive about James: He was an athlete, to all accounts an excellent magician and student, coming from a wealthy family. Yet, he befriended a group that would otherwise have been outcasts (Sirius was a turncoat, Lupin was a werewolf, and Peter was a, well, we don't know how he started out, but we do know how Wormy ended up). If it weren't for his bigotry as a 10 year old, he might have even taken in Sevvy, which would have changed a LOT of things, and we probably wouldn't have a story. Although he became a bully in his mid-teens, he grew out of it (he may not have been aware as how bad he was; consider his acceptance of Peter as his Secret Keeper). And, although he could have easily remained neutral in the Mortywar I, he not only participated, but he and Lily won no less than three victories against Morty (and apparently no more), which puts them up there with the Longbottoms. It seems like his parents were good people (at least from Sirius' point of view), and he had a good upbringing. As near as I can tell, he was a good kid, got too full of himself in his teen years, grew out of it (or was maybe shocked out of it; I forget the timing of The Prank), and became an up and coming star in the WW until his life was unfortunately cut short. Bart From DaveH47 at mindspring.com Fri Feb 8 03:10:29 2008 From: DaveH47 at mindspring.com (Dave Hardenbrook) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 19:10:29 -0800 Subject: Surviving Azkaban (was: [HPforGrownups] PoA CH 1-3 post DH look) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1343224288.20080207191029@mindspring.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181391 Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 8:43:35 PM, dumbledore11214 wrote: Alla: d> I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many nasty d> rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so horrible and has d> a look of pure terror on him, but how does he and everybody else d> knows that Azkaban is so horrible if nobody escaped from there d> before Sirius? Or did people escape from there? Or is it general d> mistrust of the dementors? Dave: We know of at least one case of someone -- Morfin -- who was sentenced to Azkaban (for attacking Pop Riddle), but not for life. Anyone who was released after serving their term could have spoken at length on how Azkaban is clearly not an institution geared towards rehabilitation. Dave From moosiemlo at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 03:57:38 2008 From: moosiemlo at gmail.com (Lynda Cordova) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 19:57:38 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Ron and Hermione In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2795713f0802071957x14a0704bo227dba3e2d9ffe48@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181392 Yeah. I was pretty sure from the outset that Ron and Hermione would end up together. Lynda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From wrappedinharry at yahoo.com.au Fri Feb 8 05:37:11 2008 From: wrappedinharry at yahoo.com.au (Lesley McKenna) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 21:37:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Surviving Azkaban (was: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look) Message-ID: <917828.94026.qm@web59105.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181393 Alla: d> I have similar question, I guess. I am sure there are many d> nasty rumors about Azkaban, if Hagrid knows that it is so d> horrible and has a look of pure terror on him, but how does d> he and everybody else knows that Azkaban is so horrible if d> nobody escaped from there before Sirius? Or did people escape d> from there? Or is it general mistrust of the dementors? Dave: We know of at least one case of someone -- Morfin -- who was sentenced to Azkaban (for attacking Pop Riddle), but not for life. Anyone who was released after serving their term could have spoken at length on how Azkaban is clearly not an institution geared towards rehabilitation. Lesley: As well as the releasees (if there is such a word) there are also the visitors who go to Azkaban--namely ministry officials. We know the Minister (Fudge in this case) has visited and also Arthur Weasley has visited. The twins talk about their father's experience to Harry. They would have picked up on the terrible atmosphere there. Also, everyone knows about the Dementors and what happens to you if they are too near, so it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to realise exactly how inmates would fare with them around all the time. Lesley From colleen.nilson at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 06:40:42 2008 From: colleen.nilson at verizon.net (colleennilson) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:40:42 -0000 Subject: [SHIP] Re: Ron and Hermione In-Reply-To: <2795713f0802071957x14a0704bo227dba3e2d9ffe48@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181394 I agree that there were signs early on that there was some attraction at least between Ron and Hermione. Spending all afternoon in the bathroom crying because a boy made a callous remark seems to indicate that she cares about this boy's opinion of her in particular. I also think that Hermione's behavior toward Ron in the first book indicated that she liked him, but didn't really know what to do about it. I saw her frequent correction of him in the same light as the boy who pulls a girl's hair to show that he likes her. I think that they could have a very happy relationship in the long term, and that their growing up together largely contributes to the quality of their relationship. Ron seems to teach her how to take herself less seriously, and Hermione teaches him to be more responsible. colleen.nilson From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Fri Feb 8 16:27:22 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:27:22 -0000 Subject: Ron and Hermione In-Reply-To: <2795713f0802071957x14a0704bo227dba3e2d9ffe48@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181395 > Lynda: > > Yeah. I was pretty sure from the outset that Ron and Hermione would end up together. Lynda Tiffany: I needed a few books to tell how things would shake out in the SHIP deptarment. At the end of SS, I was sure Harry & Hermione would be an item, but after a few more books, I was convinced that Harry & Ginny would be together. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 8 19:04:41 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:04:41 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181396 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > Thus is rather interesting because I don't think this apparent > difference has been commented on before. > > The three Bloomsbury editions - Children's, Adult's and De > Luxe - normally employ the same text, right down to the > pagination and page layout being identical and only differ > in their covers (and cost!). Is it possible that earlier editions used to have this mistake, but it was corrected in later editions? My PoA book is not the first edition, maybe not even the second, it was published only in 2004. I suppose you bought yours much earlier :-). zanooda From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Feb 8 20:36:24 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:36:24 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181397 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" > wrote: > > > Thus is rather interesting because I don't think this apparent > > difference has been commented on before. > > > > The three Bloomsbury editions - Children's, Adult's and De > > Luxe - normally employ the same text, right down to the > > pagination and page layout being identical and only differ > > in their covers (and cost!). > > > Is it possible that earlier editions used to have this mistake, but it > was corrected in later editions? My PoA book is not the first edition, > maybe not even the second, it was published only in 2004. I suppose > you bought yours much earlier :-). > > > zanooda Geoff: I first took an interest in HP at the end of 2002 when I saw COS as a film and bought the then available four volumes in paperback - the so-called children's editions - early in 2003. The De Luxe editions were obtained perhaps a year or so afterwards. From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 8 11:24:18 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:24:18 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181398 Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale I'm very good and remembering details when I read, but for some reason I found that I had actually missed over quite a bit in Half-Blood Prince. It was during a casual conversation with a co-worker that made me realize this when discussing HP, and the 7th book was coming out soon and what it would be like. Order of the Pheonix had just come out on the big screen and it was getting reviews about how dark the plot has turned things like Harry Potter has lost it's Disney Magic. I just wanted to slap those people to the back of the queue for it's a small world after all ride. Harry is not Disney: it's a story of young adults coming of age, which means there is going to be obvious changes being made! Anyway, back to the topic my friend replied, yeah I can't believe DD died, and without even thinking I replied, `he did?' He then reminded me of how they went to the cave and got the locket Horcrux, then back to the tower where Snape killed him. And I don't know how or why I couldn't remember this. (I guess I subconsciously repressed all this because of the tragedy of it all.) So as I'm reading Deathly Hallows, I realized I must have not paid any attention during HBP (or was just way too stoned :-P ) because everything seemed disjointed, in fact, I would not have even been able to tell you who the HBP was .. So when Kreacher started to tell Harry about the locket and V's cave, JKR says Harry's mind goes back to the same scene and how there's the boat enchanted as to carry one wizard and one victim. I started to think back to HBP and don't ever remember a boat requiring a wizard and a victim. So, I went back to that chapter and re-read first just to make sure I hadn't missed something, but secondly to sort-of-relive it as Harry was doing during Kreachers rendition. But I think perhaps JKR is having Harry associate the test devised by V to get to the locket Horcrux: a wizard would need to sacrifice a victim. And this does not describe a boat enchanted as to carry one wizard and one victim. DD does say the boat was enchanted so that a powerful wizard could summon it from the Inferi yet with just enough magical support for one wizard to carry it to the island, yet there were two on the boat, Harry's powers not yet considered to be enough (which could be theoretically a truth since he's not yet 17). Yet looking at the rest of the passage, the poison must be completely drunk without any solution besides the water where the Inferi exist, and of course, using their water meant you were there's .unless you use fire, a suggestion DD makes to Harry before they even get to the island. So why wouldn't this have been factored in to DD's plan as he's thinking to solve the riddle of the basin? Anyway, with such a cheesy escape like simply casting a fire spell to confuse them and use the boat a second time to cross the lake, I don't feel the boat could be considered to be enchanted as such as she puts it. It was the basin with poison that requires a victim to reveal it's contents, in combination of water belonging to the Inferi, but never the boat. I see this just a small loophole in JKR's logic, but I can't believe that Harry would have considered this requirement for the boat. Now with Kreacher's tale and DD's escape, this would only reinforce that V's plan wasn't fool proof and I truly would that feel Harry would ever endorse it as valid. Another thing that really had me wondering, though is how does Harry know they're called Inferi? DD didn't even know what they were during the entire passage as the only name he uses as description is `creatures.' Then, of course, there isn't any mention of them by name by DD to HP up until he dies. I'm probably being way too analytical here, but I definitely see it as a mistake (very, very small one) if she's trying to circle in some of her plot lines yet doesn't make a complete closure. bdclark0423 From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 8 13:16:00 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:16:00 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181399 Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand: a wand that must always win duels for its owner. Dumbledore recounts to Harry the events with Grindelwald and this seems contradiction to what describes the Elder Wand: he knew that the two were evenly matched, with perhaps himself a shade more skillful. I won the duel. I won the wand. So if the Elder Wand must always win duels for its owner, how did Grindelwald lose the wand to DD? The only clear mention of a duel where elder wand is actually used is when V uses it against Harry, it's allegiance was to Harry, the wand backfired V's spell onto himself. So yes, elder wand must always win duels for its owner. But we see the owner can change without the elder wand being used in the actual duel. Elder wand changes allegiance to Harry when Malfoy's actual wand was 'won' when Harry duels him without the elder wand ever being in either one's possession... There's no details on how DD actually gains allegiance of elder wand other than DD defeated Grindelwald in a duel, it's quite possible same situation that takes place as HP and Malfoy, could have neither one been dueling with the elder wand. With DD and Grindelward's past history together in looking for the hallows/greater good, DD would be clever enough to find a way through their prior relationship to most likely catch him unawares, and dueling with Grindelwald not actually possessing the wand in his hand. After all, Olivander says DD knew he was the only one who could stop him. So if DD knew he couldn't beat the wand, would he just find a way take it from him? bdclark0423 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From whybnormal at wowway.com Sat Feb 9 02:58:28 2008 From: whybnormal at wowway.com (Tom Kish) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 21:58:28 -0500 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005d01c86ac7$a5cb2810$6701a8c0@KICKASSSYSTEM> No: HPFGUIDX 181400 >Mike > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my > favorite character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and > their Map. I thought people were being fuddy-duddies for > decrying the Marauders fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. > I thought that qualified as good wizarding fun, teenage > ingenuity in the hijinks department. But without something > decent on the other side of the ledger to balance the less > sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( Tom: The back story isn't there because JKR is writing everything first person, so you are seeing things only from each persons point of view. Since it was irrelevant to the story as a whole to see James from any other point of view other than Snapes, to show why he felt the way he did towards Harry. Even when Snape forced Harry to copy the detention cards in HBP you notice he had him start where he would see his father and Sirius's detentions. It would not only be pointless to introduce any extra back story about James but, the last few books were rather lengthy and doing so would be adding yet another chapter to those hefty tomes. Even if James was a bit of a hellion it's not to say that he didn't mature by the time he reached his sixth and seventh year. I highly doubt that Dumbledore would have named him head boy if he had not. Whybnormal From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 03:12:21 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:12:21 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181401 > bdclark0423: > So when Kreacher started to tell Harry about the locket and V's > cave, JKR says Harry's mind goes back to the same scene and how > there's the boat enchanted as to carry one wizard and one victim. I > started to think back to HBP and don't ever remember a boat > requiring a wizard and a victim. zgirnius: This is just a way to restate what Harry learned. Harry was not a victim in HBP, but Voldemort did not create the boat so that he and Dumbledore could use it. He created it so he could always bring someone else (a victim) with him to drink the potion, if he wanted to remove the Horcrux. Harry does not say the enchantment requires a vitcim. It patently does not - Voldemort is able to leave Kreacehr behind and still use the boat. The enchantment *permits* a victim to be brought along, is all. It would also *prevent* two adult wizards from using the boat. > bdclark0423: > Another thing that really had me wondering, though is how does Harry > know they're called Inferi? DD didn't even know what they were > during the entire passage as the only name he uses as description is > `creatures.' Then, of course, there isn't any mention of > them by name by DD to HP up until he dies. zgirnius: I see that you might get into trouble with Professor Snape for not paying attention in class. In one of the DADA classes in HBP, Harry learns that Inferi are the dead bodies of their victims, reanimated by a Dark Wizard. Once he figures out he is dealing with reanimated dead bodies, he knows what to call them. > bdclark0423: > So if the Elder Wand must always win duels for its owner, how did > Grindelwald lose the wand to DD? zgirnius: It is possible that the Elder Wand does not have to win duels for its owner. The wand in the story of the Three Brothers must - the actual historical artifact that inspired the story, may perhaps only be a wand of great power. > bdclark0423: > So if DD knew he couldn't beat the wand, would > he just find a way take it from him? zgirnius: This is my own preferred explanation. One way would be to do so literally - Albus is described in terms that lead me to suspect he is physically stronger than Gellert. From juli17 at aol.com Sat Feb 9 03:40:17 2008 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 22:40:17 EST Subject: James again Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181402 > Julie: > I'm disappointed that JKR didn't give us even one single > moment of James in an unequivocal positive light as an > adult. Yes, Lily married him, so he must have grown up. > How hard would it have been for JKR to give us one moment > of James as an adult, protecting someone as an Order member, > sharing affection with Harry and Lily, having a thoughtful > adult conversation with someone, expressing his adult views > or feelings--anything that would have given us an opportunity > to know the real James, and to make a connection with him? Whybnormal: Why should she? What James actually did and didn't do as an adult is irrelevant to the story. We know Harry looks like his father and is like his father. So if Harry turns out to be kind hearted and selfless, then don't you think that maybe James was too? Just because James got into to trouble doesn't mean that he couldn't have those good qualities also. Julie: I never said he couldn't have those good qualities. Canon in fact implies that he did. What I'm saying is that James remains a cypher to me. I have no sense of him as a character, or of his personality. He's a blank. Lily got fleshed out some in DH, and we saw several different sides of her and her relationships with others. I don't feel James ever did get fleshed out in the same way. I never expected James (or Lily) to become fully realized characters like Snape or Sirius, or Moody, or anyone else who remained alive. But I did hope for a bit more, especially for James, something to show his turnaround from teenage bully to good husband, father and man. We got told in so many words, but not shown, and action (showing) always speaks louder than words. IMO, Julie **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 03:45:47 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:45:47 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181403 She pointed at the brand-new silver badge on Percy's chest. "Second Head Boy in the family!" she said, swelling with pride. And last, Fred muttered under his breath. ? p.52 Alla: Consider me lazy ? who was it Charley or Bill? "Arthur, the truth would terrify him!" said Mrs. Weasley shrilly. "Do you really want to send Harry back to school with that hanging over him? For heaven's sake, he's happy not knowing!" "I don't want to make him miserable, I want to put him on his guard!" retorted Mr. Weasley. "You know what Harry and Ron are like, wandering off by themselves -- they've ended up in the Forbidden Forest twice! But Harry mustn't do that this year! When I think what could have happened to him that night he ran away from home! If the Knight Bus hadn't picked him up, I'm prepared to bet he would have been dead before the Ministry found him. ? p. 53 Alla: I am quoting only from this conversation between Arthur and Molly, since it is too large to quote in full. Oh boy, how much I love it, let me count the ways. I once did a post and used this conversation as support to argue than when Arthur feels that he needs to do what's right, he is not intimidated at all. I also think that Molly's objection here sums up Dumbledore's thoughts of Harry not knowing in OOP and what Arthur says undermines it soooo nicely. I do not want to make him miserable, I want to put him on guard. Oh dear, I so wish Dumbledore would found a way to do so in OOP. "I need to talk to you in private," Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione as the train picked up speed. "Go away, Ginny," said Ron "Oh, that's nice," said Ginny huffily, and she stalked off" ? p.59 Alla: I do not know guys, are you sure that Ron was so eager to share Harry's secrets with Ginny based on this quote? Seems like the opposite to me. I am not sure at all. "Forget it, Harry," said George bracingly. "Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place he'd ever been. He came back all weak and shaking They suck the happiness out of place, Dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in there" ? p.76 Alla: This quote I typed sort of in reply to responses to my previous post. I was asking how people would know how bad it is in Azkaban. I mean, yes, sure officials go there, that I can see in canon and totally agree. But it seems that even if not every prisoner gets life sentence, most of the prisoners go mad there. What I am trying to say is that I do not think I can buy that many people are released before they go mad. I mean, I can see how rumors about Azkaban appear, since some people go on the Ministry business and maybe, maybe some people are given very short imprisonment terms, but I am just not seeing that too many people are released. IMO anyways. "He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and wasn't even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes." ? p.83-84 Alla: But of course Harry would not be listening when she talks about Animagi, LOL. I mean, when something important is being told, he should NOT listen, heeee. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 9 03:53:06 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:53:06 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: <005d01c86ac7$a5cb2810$6701a8c0@KICKASSSYSTEM> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181404 > >Mike > > > I was a James fan because I was a Harry fan. James wasn't my > > favorite character, Sirius was, but I loved the Marauders and > > their Map. I thought people were being fuddy-duddies for > > decrying the Marauders fun with a werewolf nighttime prowling. > > I thought that qualified as good wizarding fun, teenage > > ingenuity in the hijinks department. But without something > > decent on the other side of the ledger to balance the less > > sensible side, JKR has ruined my enjoyment of the Marauders > > backstory. Something I didn't think possible. ;( > > > Tom: > > The back story isn't there because JKR is writing everything > first person, so you are seeing things only from each persons > point of view. Since it was irrelevant to the story as a whole > to see James from any other point of view other than Snapes, > to show why he felt the way he did towards Harry. Magpie: You mean third person, limited. We're not seeing anything from anyone's pov, we're seeing the story from the pov of the narrator who's telling us about what's happening through Harry except for a few chapters with a more objective narrator. Harry *does* see James in a couple of scenes, in the flashback in DH before James is killed, the shades of James in DH and GoF and the SWM Pensieve scene. We hear a lot about James filtered through different characters' words, wihch is even more removed because they're speaking in certain contexts to make a specific impression on Harry usually. You're perhaps right JKR just didn't see much reason to show tihngs that much counteracted Snape's view. I'm not bothered by it myself. But I think she might think James comes across a bit more positive than he does to some readers. Tom: Even if James was > a bit of a hellion it's not to say that he didn't mature by > the time he reached his sixth and seventh year. I highly doubt > that Dumbledore would have named him head boy if he had not. Magpie: Knowing Dumbledore, I wouldn't assume that. It seems like Dumbledore thought he was fine even while being a "hellion", and even if he'd somewhat changed (I think his friends say he only tormented Snape when Lily wasn't looking in that last year) personally I wouldn't consider that a good enough reason to make him Head Boy. I wouldn't think other students had any reason to trust him after the way he behaved as far as we know. I think that's why people find it so odd that DH seemed to take away the one thing we thought solved the problem--the Prank seemed like a believable change for James. It's imo a bad idea to show that even that couldn't change the guy, but then I'm supposed to assume he held out through the Prank but then randomly changed for no reason later on. Grew up, yeah, but that sounds like he just got bored with the hexing people because he could, not that he ever had any realization about his behavior and other people. (Which imo mirrors Harry's journey too.) -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 04:03:18 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 04:03:18 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181405 > Alla: > Consider me lazy ? who was it Charley or Bill? zgirnius: Bill. Charlie is the Quidditch star. > Alla: > I also think that Molly's objection here sums up Dumbledore's > thoughts of Harry not knowing in OOP and what Arthur says undermines > it soooo nicely. I do not want to make him miserable, I want to put > him on guard. zgirnius: For all the good it did. > Alla: > maybe some people are given very short imprisonment > terms, but I am just not seeing that too many people are released. > IMO anyways. zgirnius: We are told that a few months in Azkaban is the penalty for hexing Muggles and resisting arrest - this is the punishment the Gaunts receive for these crimes. Do you really believe this is a less common crime in the Potterverse than the use of Unforgivables and service to Dark Lords, the sorts of crimes for which we hear of life sentences being handed out? It is true that we meet more people who are, have been, or are believed to be, servants of a Dark Lord than people who commit lesser crimes against Muggles and Ministry officials. But I always assumed this was because we were reading the story of a prophecied hero who was destined to defeat a Dark Lord and therefore attracted an unusual subsample of his society's villains to him, not because all wizards are law abiding, except the totally murderous ones. From bartl at sprynet.com Fri Feb 8 20:34:19 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:34:19 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47ACBCCB.1060607@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181406 Steve wrote: > However, if the capture has a little more legal force behind > it, and you are captured, imprisoned, tried, convicted, and > sentenced, then you likely don't have your wand and you are > toast. > Bart: One of the signs of hasty writing in DH is forgetting about a very standard freedom fighter trick; attract and ambush. The "Voldemort" taboo worked in two ways. Certainly muggle-borns had access to bomb making supplies. Set a timer for about 1 minute, say "Voldemort" , get away, when the press gang teleports in, BOOM! No time for spells.... Bart From raven_rayan88 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 06:00:01 2008 From: raven_rayan88 at yahoo.com (raven_rayan88) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:00:01 -0000 Subject: Deathly Hallows Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181407 I am one of the crazy guys for HP. I read the 7 books, in the 7th one I was crazy for the Elder wand, Dumbledore's secrets, and crazy Rita Skeeter. I wanted to kill her when she stole Bagshot's memories. raven_rayan88 From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 9 09:10:49 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:10:49 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181408 > >SNIP. > > Alla: > > I also think that Molly's objection here sums up Dumbledore's > > thoughts of Harry not knowing in OOP and what Arthur says > > undermines it soooo nicely. I do not want to make him miserable, > > I want to put him on guard. > > zgirnius: > For all the good it did. But Molly just had Mother feelings. She always considered Harry as her son and she wanted to protect him like any other good mother would. IMHO we can't fault her for that. Jayne From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 9 13:34:15 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:34:15 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181409 > > "Forget it, Harry," said George bracingly. "Dad had to go out to > Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place > he'd ever been. He came back all weak and shaking They suck the > happiness out of place, Dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in > there" ? p.76 > > Alla: > > I mean, yes, sure officials go there, that I can see in canon and > totally agree. But it seems that even if not every prisoner gets > life sentence, most of the prisoners go mad there. > What I am trying to say is that I do not think I can buy that many > people are released before they go mad. Potioncat: Harry was more sensitive to Dementors than his classmates, could be Arthur is extra-sensitive too. It also seems that someone said there different degrees of security within Azkaban--which usually means different degrees of severity. We don't know which sections Arthur had to visit. Did any of the Order members who went in, ever come out that we saw later? Mundungus seemed OK, and Hagrid was all right. Harry notices that Hagrid has a certain look when Azkaban is mentioned, and he's very careful about rules afterwards---but he goes out for a drink with the very man who sent him there. So I do think Azkaban is horrible, but that people survive it and come out of it. > > "He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about > Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and > wasn't even watching when she transformed herself in front of their > eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes." ? > p.83-84 > Potioncat: One of the ways Harry is not like James. From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 9 12:13:10 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:13:10 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181410 > zgirnius: >snip >When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus". The only time I felt surprised that he used "Expelliarmus" Was when Harry and Voldemort were fighting at the end of the battle of Hogwarts. Harry needed to kill V ,so IMHO he could have justifiably used "Avada Kedavra" Jayne slightly puzzled From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 9 16:08:48 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:08:48 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181411 > Magpie: > > You're perhaps right JKR just didn't see much reason to show tihngs > that much counteracted Snape's view. I'm not bothered by it myself. > But I think she might think James comes across a bit more positive > than he does to some readers. > > Tom: > Even if James was > > a bit of a hellion it's not to say that he didn't mature by > > the time he reached his sixth and seventh year. I highly doubt > > that Dumbledore would have named him head boy if he had not. > > Magpie: > Knowing Dumbledore, I wouldn't assume that. It seems like Dumbledore > thought he was fine even while being a "hellion", and even if he'd > somewhat changed (I think his friends say he only tormented Snape > when Lily wasn't looking in that last year) personally I wouldn't > consider that a good enough reason to make him Head Boy. I wouldn't > think other students had any reason to trust him after the way he > behaved as far as we know. > > I think that's why people find it so odd that DH seemed to take away > the one thing we thought solved the problem--the Prank seemed like a > believable change for James. It's imo a bad idea to show that even > that couldn't change the guy, but then I'm supposed to assume he held > out through the Prank but then randomly changed for no reason later > on. Grew up, yeah, but that sounds like he just got bored with the > hexing people because he could, not that he ever had any realization > about his behavior and other people. (Which imo mirrors Harry's > journey too.) Pippin: The thing you're not taking into account is that the James who picked on people and the James that people trusted -- the one who, even Snape admits, saved Snape's life, who would have spared Pettigrew, rescued Sirius, refused to suspect a friend, who refused to see Lupin as a werewolf first and a person second -- existed simultaneously. James didn't have to stop being who he was, he just had to get more control of his aggressive impulses and find a more acceptable outlet for them. JKR doesn't have to show how James did that because she showed Harry doing it all through the last three books. JKR's target isn't individual morality -- Harry doesn't stop doing toenail hexes when he realizes that toenail hexes are wrong, he stops doing them when he's no longer in an environment where people think toenail hexes are cool. But Harry never did a toenail hex in front of Hermione, just like James stopped hexing people when Lily was around -- and I'm sure he never hexed people when Dumbledore was around either. It's the social responsibility for bullying that concerns JKR, IMO. The books seem to say that if we don't want kids to be bullies, we have first got to admit that "good" kids can be bullies, and then we have to find them a healthy outlet for their aggression. Sports doesn't work for everybody. Pippin From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 9 16:25:14 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:25:14 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181412 > Pippin: > The thing you're not taking into account is that the James who picked on > people and the James that people trusted -- the one who, even Snape > admits, saved Snape's life, who would have spared Pettigrew, rescued > Sirius, refused to suspect a friend, who refused to see Lupin as a werewolf > first and a person second -- existed simultaneously. > > James didn't have to stop being who he was, he just had to get more > control of his aggressive impulses and find a more acceptable outlet > for them. JKR doesn't have to show how James did that because she > showed Harry doing it all through the last three books. Magpie: I don't think I'm not taking into account--I have always considered that part of James' personality and thought his "bad side" was just the other side of his good side. But I can understand the view of people who ultimately had a problem with the character. (And I do think it was a bad idea to appoint him Head Boy without his even proving himself as Prefect--that seems like a flat-out example of giving the popular jock special treatment he really shouldn't get.) As for Harry, he never has to get control of much. His hexing people in the hallways (like James') was just fine as far as I can see. Boys will be boys. So what if he cast a torture spell? It was gallant and besides, he's never been a saint--he's cool! Pippin: > > JKR's target isn't individual morality -- Harry doesn't stop doing > toenail hexes when he realizes that toenail hexes are wrong, he > stops doing them when he's no longer in an environment where > people think toenail hexes are cool. But Harry never did a toenail > hex in front of Hermione, just like James stopped hexing people > when Lily was around -- and I'm sure he never hexed people when > Dumbledore was around either. > > It's the social responsibility for bullying that concerns JKR, IMO. > The books seem to say that if we don't want kids to be bullies, > we have first got to admit that "good" kids can be bullies, and > then we have to find them a healthy outlet for their aggression. > Sports doesn't work for everybody. Magpie: Oh, I'm not so sure at all she's telling me that even "good" kids can be bullies. I get exactly the opposite impression. Good kids can't be bullies. They're just protectors of others who sometimes let off a little steam. Harry doesn't need a healthy outlet for aggression, his aggression is the fault of those bullies that he beats down. Stuff like toenail hexing is just cool and funny. Harry and James might not have hexed people much in front of Lily, Hermione or Dumbledore, but all three of those people are clearly fine with that stuff in general. The one James/Lily scene we see is James bullying somebody and Lily having to fight to hide a smile. You don't fall in love with a bully if you truly hate what you consider his bullying. -m From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 9 16:28:50 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:28:50 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181413 > > "Forget it, Harry," said George bracingly. "Dad had to go out to > Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place > he'd ever been. He came back all weak and shaking They suck the > happiness out of place, Dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in > there" ? p.76 > > Alla: > > This quote I typed sort of in reply to responses to my previous > post. I was asking how people would know how bad it is in Azkaban. > > I mean, yes, sure officials go there, that I can see in canon and > totally agree. But it seems that even if not every prisoner gets > life sentence, most of the prisoners go mad there. > What I am trying to say is that I do not think I can buy that many > people are released before they go mad. I mean, I can see how rumors > about Azkaban appear, since some people go on the Ministry business > and maybe, maybe some people are given very short imprisonment > terms, but I am just not seeing that too many people are released. > IMO anyways. > Pippin: Not too many *sane* people are released, perhaps. But we never hear of people being kept in Azkaban *because* they've gone mad, do we? So the mad people are released, to be cared for at home or at St. Mungo's, and that explains the rumors. Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 9 18:08:53 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:08:53 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181414 > Magpie: > Oh, I'm not so sure at all she's telling me that even "good" kids can > be bullies. I get exactly the opposite impression. Good kids can't be > bullies. They're just protectors of others who sometimes let off a > little steam. Harry doesn't need a healthy outlet for aggression, his > aggression is the fault of those bullies that he beats down. Pippin: But Harry is sickened by James's bullying when he first sees it, and again in DH. How you can take that for JKR's approval is beyond me. Of course Harry still loves James. He loves Sirius even when he understands how Sirius mistreated Kreacher. And readers still love Snape despite their sympathy for Harry. I just don't see much support for the view that people don't fall in love with bullies if they really care about the victim, either in canon or real life. Harry doesn't in the end see either Snape or Kreacher as people who needed to be beaten down. That didn't mean he had to stop loving Sirius and James. He didn't make excuses for them, he just accepted that they weren't perfect. JKR asks us to accept that Harry isn't perfect either. Though he is horrified when anyone else does a cruciatus curse, he isn't horrified by his own. He can't see the beam in his own eye. What does that make him, except human? Who in canon ever says that James was a protector of others who was just letting off a little steam? It's Snape who says of Mulciber and Avery that it's just a bit of fun. The only explanation offered for James is that he was fifteen and didn't have anything better to do. When he got older and had more important things to do than bully, he stopped doing it. There is a difference in canon, IMO, between people who are bullying to get attention from others and people are who doing it in response to some other drive. For James it's all about the audience, for Voldemort, and maybe for Snape, the audience is incidental -- I can't see Voldemort asking, "Who wants to see me torture Potter?" It's still bullying. But one kind of bully is going to be a lot more responsive to social pressure than the other kind. Pippin From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 9 18:39:37 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:39:37 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181415 > > Magpie: > > Oh, I'm not so sure at all she's telling me that even "good" kids can > > be bullies. I get exactly the opposite impression. Good kids can't be > > bullies. They're just protectors of others who sometimes let off a > > little steam. Harry doesn't need a healthy outlet for aggression, his > > aggression is the fault of those bullies that he beats down. > > Pippin: > But Harry is sickened by James's bullying when he first sees it, and > again in DH. How you can take that for JKR's approval is beyond me. Magpie: Harry says after the scene, that he would be perfectly okay doing that to somebody who "deserved it" like Draco. He didn't have all the information about Snape. Obviously she's using that scene with James to say James isn't doing good here and Harry--awesome as he is--naturally knows it. But the never applies anything about that scene to himself so I don't see how it's making much of a point about that. I think as usual, JKR's just doing what she wants or needs from scene to scene without good guys having to conform to a strict code of behavior--that would make them "plaster saints." But he's not like a DE. Pippin: I just don't see > much support for the view that people don't fall in love with bullies > if they really care about the victim, either in canon or real life. Magpie: Lily is fighting to hide a smile at James' antics with Snape. She's not turned off by his cruelty. This type of cruelty, when turned against bad guys, is generally enjoyed by good guys in canon, or at least they're not all that bothered by it. The author has been known to smile about it in retrospect, and readers can enjoy it. Pippin: > Harry doesn't in the end see either Snape or Kreacher as people who > needed to be beaten down. That didn't mean he had to stop loving > Sirius and James. He didn't make excuses for them, he just accepted > that they weren't perfect. JKR asks us to accept that Harry isn't > perfect either. Though he is horrified when anyone else > does a cruciatus curse, he isn't horrified by his own. He > can't see the beam in his own eye. What does that make him, > except human? Magpie: Yes, I know. The constant refrain about how this makes them so wonderfully not perfect and human. It's not a flaw, it's a plus. Who wants them to be plaster saints? How brave of Rowling allowing not to force any self-reflection about this sort of stuff. I just don't think it's any deep message about anything. I think she does what she enjoys from one scene to another, and she's defensive of challenges to her characters behaving this way in interviews. I don't think there's any lesson to be learned from any of it. Of course I know Rowling would take a strong stand against bullying if asked. That doesn't mean, imo, that she thinks there's anything Harry's done that made him a bully, or that there was any need for James to have any sort of moment of self-reflection to change. Harry didn't have all the information in that scene after all. That scene didn't end Lily's relationship with James, she wasn't sickened by it, it ended her relationship with Snape because he called her a Mudblood. He was the guy who needed to change his behavior because he was on the wrong path. James, obviously, would just grow up and no longer be in an environment where this sort of thing was fun. Pippin: > Who in canon ever says that James was a protector of others who > was just letting off a little steam? It's Snape who says of Mulciber > and Avery that it's just a bit of fun. Magpie: James was a protector of others, he was in the Order and he really hated the Dark Arts and he died protecting his family. Yet he also sometimes just acted like an idiot. Pippin: > > The only explanation offered for James is that he was fifteen and > didn't have anything better to do. When he got older and had more > important things to do than bully, he stopped doing it. Magpie: Uh, yeah. He could just grow out of it so what's the problem? No need to think about what he's done or see anything bad in it. Bullying really wasn't a problem for him or for Harry. He could just be let alone and grow up like good people do. Pippin: > > There is a difference in canon, IMO, between people who are bullying to > get attention from others and people are who doing it in response to > some other drive. For James it's all about the audience, for Voldemort, > and maybe for Snape, the audience is incidental -- I can't see Voldemort > asking, "Who wants to see me torture Potter?" It's still bullying. But > one kind of bully is going to be a lot more responsive to social pressure > than the other kind. Magpie: James didn't get any pressure at all (he got rewarded with the power of being Head Boy), and I'm not even seeing this much thought going into "how to deal with bullies" in canon. I know there's a difference between James and somebody like Voldemort. I think the difference is the only thing that mattered. The version where James actually learns something from the Prank and changes speaks more to this kind of cruelty being a problem for everyone. But throughout the series she makes the distinction between good people being able to flirt with this stuff with little effect and bad people being all about. Perhaps I was wrong in phrasing it by saying she's not saying good kids can be bullies, because I assumed that "bully" would always be a bad thing. I'm willing to concede your right--she is saying good kids can be bullies. Bullying isn't the problem, it's being a bad person. There's no more self-reflection required in thinking about bullying than there is in thinking about racism. It's always forgivable if you're one of the good guys and not if you're one of the bad guys. Our pov character doesn't need to worry about it at all, because he's so good. So good that sometimes he's the one who'll do the forgiving of those on his side who weren't qiute as good, like James and Sirius. But I still don't come away with any real thoughtful point about the subject. "Good kids can bully" actually does, now I think about it, sound like the message, but that doesn't leave me feeling like the author's so sickened by the kind of thing. -m From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 18:49:13 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:49:13 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181416 --- "Jayne" wrote: > > > > zgirnius: > >snip > >When Harry's life really was on the line...he used > "Expelliarmus". > > > The only time I felt surprised that he used "Expelliarmus" > Was when Harry and Voldemort were fighting at the end of > the battle of Hogwarts. Harry needed to kill V ,so IMHO he > could have justifiably used "Avada Kedavra" > > Jayne slightly puzzled > bboyminn: I think there is something metaphorical, as well as literal, about the "Expelliarmus' charm. I think if Harry were to be as aggressive as Voldemort, if he were to literally want to kill Voldemort, it would diminish Harry's power. If he tried the AK, it means he wants the death of another. If he tries the Protego Shield Charm, it means he wants to save himself. But when he uses a Disarming Charm, it implies that he is more concerned about others. He is trying to disarm Voldemort to prevent him from hurting others. So, I think on one hand, it was the most powerful and successful defensive spell Harry knew, but on the other hand, it does carry a certain amount of symbolism with regards to Harry's selflessness. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 22:09:13 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:09:13 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181417 > zgirnius: > This is just a way to restate what Harry learned. Harry was not a > victim in HBP, but Voldemort did not create the boat so that he and > Dumbledore could use it. He created it so he could always bring > someone else (a victim) with him to drink the potion, if he wanted to > remove the Horcrux. > > Harry does not say the enchantment requires a vitcim. It patently > does not - Voldemort is able to leave Kreacehr behind and still use > the boat. The enchantment *permits* a victim to be brought along, is > all. It would also *prevent* two adult wizards from using the boat. > bdclark0423: Yes, I think that's what I'm saying is wrong with the logic. Also perhaps what I'm actually and truly saying is that JKR had her notes laid out and instead of taking the time to revisit her previous publishings, she went ahead and wrote this chapter (small, very small, almost miniscule details, but none-the-less a detail which caused me to stop reading the book and revist the previous one) > zgirnius: > I see that you might get into trouble with Professor Snape for not > paying attention in class. In one of the DADA classes in HBP, > Harry learns that Inferi are the dead bodies of their victims, > reanimated by a Dark Wizard. Once he figures out he is dealing with > reanimated dead bodies, he knows what to call them. bdclark0423 OK, I was seriously wondering about this. I've read enough fantasy novels to know this, but I never saw how Harry would. Now that you've provided a particular instance, I most likely just filed this as previously acclimated information, and I never made note of it. I think because you've been able to point out that JKR has done this, it shouldn't be considered a mistake. Thanks :) bdclark0423 From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 22:30:09 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:30:09 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181418 >zgirnius: >It is possible that the Elder Wand does not have to win duels for its >owner. The wand in the story of the Three Brothers must - the actual >historical artifact that inspired the story, may perhaps only be a >wand of great power. bdclark0423: After my post, I still had some doubts in my own mind. However though, before I even threw this topic out there, I made sure to define one of the original conditions of the Elder Wand: "So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand...that must always win duels for its owner: a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death!' So with that, all the other comments I've already included, plus those thoughts and ideas within DH, we are still given the impression that anyone with the wand cannot be beaten. Now, since I have researched this just a little bit further since my original post, there's actually some wiggle room, i.e. what if the one holding the one is not challenged by Death....? Anyway, I'm still curious to see other opinions. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 00:00:03 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:03 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181419 Tom wrote: > > > > The back story isn't there because JKR is writing everything first person, so you are seeing things only from each persons point of view. Since it was irrelevant to the story as a whole to see James from any other point of view other than Snapes, to show why he felt the way he did towards Harry. > > Magpie: > You mean third person, limited. We're not seeing anything from anyone's pov, we're seeing the story from the pov of the narrator who's telling us about what's happening through Harry except for a few chapters with a more objective narrator. Harry *does* see James in a couple of scenes, in the flashback in DH before James is killed, the shades of James in DH and GoF and the SWM Pensieve scene. We hear a lot about James filtered through different characters' words, wihch is even more removed because they're speaking in certain contexts to make a specific impression on Harry usually. > > You're perhaps right JKR just didn't see much reason to show tihngs that much counteracted Snape's view. I'm not bothered by it myself. But I think she might think James comes across a bit more positive than he does to some readers. Carol responds: You're right that it's third-person limited, but we still see the Pensieve memories from *Harry's* point of view, not Snape's. IOW, the Pensieve memory is an objective record of what happened, not Snape's subjective memory. through the Pensieve, Harry witnesses what really happened, but the depiction is filtered through his perceptions and emotions just as the events in which he participates are filtered through him. We get *his* emotional reactions, not Severus's, to the SWM, for example (twice, in fact). We do see James from a point of view other than Harry's in Voldemort's memory of Godric's Hollow, it's not much to go on. The words and actions, such as they are, in that scene, are pretty much all we get of the adult James. He's not presented in any of the few chapters that use objective narration (the scene with DD and McGonagall waiting for Hagrid in SS/PS, the first half of the first chapter of GoF (backstory on the Riddles), "Spinner's End," "The Dark Lord Ascending"). We don't, of course, get James's point of view, but we never get Snape's, either. What we do get is his expressed opinion of James, and the Pensieve memories pretty much confirm that. True, the dying snape selected the memories, but I doubt that he had any that would have shown James in a good light. we'd have needed Lily's memories for that, and all we get is a letter and a photograph. I do think that JKR is fond of James and thinks that he deserved to walk with Harry in "The Forest Again," but we pretty much have to take heroic Order member James on fiath because we never see him. I feel that JKR set us up, through Voldemort's remarks, for a brave and "straight-backed" James. Instead, we get him dying unprepared, with just time to call out to Lily to take Harry and run. Not heroic, not tragic in the sense of dying as the result of his own flaws, just a touch of pathos--he died because he trusted Wormtail. Carol, not as fond as JKR of school troublemakers, apparently From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 00:14:28 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:14:28 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181420 Carol: I do think that JKR is fond of James and thinks that he deserved to walk with Harry in "The Forest Again," but we pretty much have to take heroic Order member James on fiath because we never see him. Alla: I just want to reply to not even full point of this sentence, but half a point. I do not believe it matters whether JKR is fond of James for the purposes of deciding to make him walk with Harry in Forest again. I think people who were walking with Harry are those whom Harry is fond of. I mean, I would find it very bizarre if Harry did not call on his parents of all people to support him in such horrible time of his life. As to whether JKR is fond of him, I think she is, yes, just I think that even if she was not, she would still did the scene the same way. JMO, Alla From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 01:09:30 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:09:30 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 8-10 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181421 "Filch was the Hogwarts caretaker, a bad tempered, failed wizard who waged a constant war against the students and, indeed, Peeves" - p.99 Alla: Erm... is failed wizard now a synonym for Squib? "Yeah, loads," said Ron. He and Hermione had finally forgotten their squabble about Crooklshanks in the face of Harry's dissapointment" - p.114 Alla: I mentioned many times how much I adore how Trio's friendship is portrayed. But this quote to me just perfectly sums up so many things. Ron and Hermione always postpone everything else to support Harry, be it something as huge as fighting Voldy or just making feel better. LOVE. "He thought for a moment of telling Lupin about the dog he'd seen in Magnolia Crescent, but decided not to. He did not want Lupin to think he was a coward, especially since Lupin already seemed to think he couldn't cope with Bogart" - p.116 Alla: Hmmm, just another possibility to reflect how much easier the life would have been for some people in Potterverse, if they just told each other things. Well, at least here Harry gives some sort of justification LOL. "A shower of brilliantly coloured sweets fell into Harry's lap. It was dusk, and Ron and Hermione had just turned up in the common room, pink faced from the cold wind and looking as though they'd had time of their lives." - p.118 Alla: Bickering, shmikering. They had time of their lives :-) I love how JKR throws in staff like that. Of course they did, they were made for each other after all :-) "Because the castle's protected by more than walls, you know," said Hermione. "There are all sorts of enchantments on it, to stop people entering by stealth. You can't just apparate in there" - p.123 Alla: This is usually a quote to show that you cannot apparate in Hogwarts, yes? But does it? Hermione does not say that you can't apparate in there. She says you can't **just** apparate in there. So does it mean that you CAN apparate under certain conditions if you break the enchantments or something? "Oh yes," said Dumbledore coldly. "But I am afraid no Dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while I am Headmaster" - p.125 Alla: Does it mean that DD knows how to repel Dementors full proof? Or does it just mean that his Patronus is extremely strong? "Silence!" snarled Snape. "Well,well, well, I never thought I'd meet a third-year class who wouldn't even recognise werewolf when they saw one" - p.129 Alla: HAHAHAHAH. OMG the bastard is not just giving them that essay, he is flat out telling him that Remus is a werewolf, I never realised that in the past. Is he not? Did not recognise werewolf when they saw one. How much more suggestive can he be? From whealthinc at ozemail.com.au Sun Feb 10 01:12:26 2008 From: whealthinc at ozemail.com.au (Barry) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:12:26 -0000 Subject: Motorbike In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181422 In the chapter, The Seven Potters, it says: Hagrid kicked the motorbike into life: This, and other statements, indicate to me that the motorbike was starting like any motorbike does, i.e not with magic. Otherwise why kick start it? This, in turn, implies an electric circuit giving a spark to the combustion chamber. Yet electricity is not supposed to run in a magic environment. Elsewhere, Arthur Weasley is fascinated by Muggle artifacts. 10 years ago, they would all have been electric/electronic. How could he have toyed around with them without a battery or mains supply? The Ministry of Magic is entered through central London. What happens to the power there? These are minor quibbles. But I tend to think that JKR would have had a more accurate world and a richer one if she set HP in Dickens era. Barry From dongan51 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 9 15:53:12 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 07:53:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover Message-ID: <695821.3316.qm@web63903.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181423 > zgirnius: >snip >When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus" . Jayne: The only time I felt surprised that he used "Expelliarmus" Was when Harry and Voldemort were fighting at the end of the battle of Hogwarts. Harry needed to kill V ,so IMHO he could have justifiably used "Avada Kedavra" Liz: I might be wrong but I always felt that at this point, Harry, knowing that the Elder Wand was really his, knew that he couldn't use an Unforgivable, perhaps it just wasn't in him, but he knew from previous encounters with the wands, that if played out correctly, the Elder wand would not act against him, that he needed to take control of the elder wand. If the rebounding curse had not killed LV, Harry would still be in possession of the Elder Wand and have a better chance yet still, it being the Death Stick. I must admit though that I was terribly disappointed in the final confrontation. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 01:22:10 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:22:10 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AE51C2.1060906@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181424 Steve blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 02:49: > I think there is something metaphorical, as well as literal, > about the "Expelliarmus' charm. ... it does > carry a certain amount of symbolism with regards to Harry's > selflessness. > Just a thought. And a nice thought it is, too. However, I'm not sure it's consonant with Harry's past actions. He's got a track record with respect to all three of the UCs, having used successfully the Cruciatus and the Imperius and attempted the AK. Harry has demonstrated plenty of selfishness in the past at a time when Expelliarmus was already becoming his signature spell. One might, perhaps, argue that his death experience changed Harry, but we just don't see enough of Post-Death!Harry to make that more than a theoretical conjecture. So was Harry's use of Expelliarmus against LV evidence of New-and-Improved!Harry, or simply Same-Old!Harry falling back on habit? I tend to lean toward the latter. Carol blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 02:49: > I suppose that the only reason Harry didn't earn one for the Crucio > against Bellatrix is that the DEs were casting Unforgiveables all over > the place, or had been moments before, and it was impossible for the > MoM to know who cast it. True, the UCs were flying all around, however it is possible to replay (what's the name of the spell that does it?) a wand's previous spells, so a proper investigation should have discovered it easily. > So, in essence, Harry got away with what should have been crimes I agree, and I don't think "It's war" can justify what is otherwise unjustifiable, whatever one thinks of the MoM. > I would like to think that Harry renounced them, along with > a desire for vengeance, even before he lost the soul bit As I mentioned above, it's a nice thought, but we just don't see enough of Post-Death!Harry to know this for a fact, aside from his particular feelings about Snape. I hope it's true, but I'm not convinced. CJ From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 01:58:50 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:58:50 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AE51C2.1060906@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181425 > CJ: > However, I'm not sure it's consonant with Harry's past actions. He's got > a track record with respect to all three of the UCs, having used > successfully the Cruciatus and the Imperius and attempted the AK. zgirnius: Harry never attempted the AK. I don't think he ever would. He grabs for Crucio when he is furious (at Bella when she kills Sirius, at Snape when he kills Dumbledore, and at Amycus Carrow at Hogwarts, the first and only time he succeeds with that curse, which I really don't believe was just about spitting at Minerva - it was all the revelations: his torture of students, and his intention to sicc Voldemort on innicent students to cover up his own mistake). You may not like the 'war excuse', but it is certainly true that each time Harry does use the spell, he is experiencing circumstances which could only be present in a war-type situation. It is also pretty clear that from a legal standpoint, the Wizard culture makes this distinction too - why else would Aurors be permitted to use Unforgivables in the first war? I would not myself call this an excuse, as I do not believe it is supposed to excuse Harry's actions, which are on the wrong side of neutral. I do think it is supposed to *explain* them and make them understandable to readers. Each time Harry is tempted to use Crucio, he has just witnessed the aftermath of serious crimes against people he cares about, a state of mind in which I personally would *hope* people would still act according tpo their better natures, but one in which I can *understand* that they do not. Harry used the Imperius curse when his plans to steal Voldemort's Horcrux from Gringotts went wrong. I'm pretty sure that breaking into Gringotts and stealing a valuable artifact from one of its vaults is also illegal. This has never bothered me, and nor did the means Harry used to commit this 'crime'. > CJ: > One might, perhaps, argue that his death experience changed Harry, but > we just don't see enough of Post-Death!Harry to make that more than a > theoretical conjecture. zgirnius: I think seeing Snape's memories, the experience of walking to his death, talking to Dumbledore, and coming back were all the final bit of growing up for Harry, and this had something to do with it. I found Harry's patience, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself, and then his calm in the face of Voldemort in their final conversation, pretty convincing evidence of his new maturity. His choice of spell was just part of that. But even before this point, Harry has often chosen less rather than more harmful spells - hence Expelliarmus already being his signature spell. He has a temper, and when it gets the better of him, he makes bad choices, is what I walked away with from his use of Crucio. From iam.kemper at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 02:14:39 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:14:39 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AE51C2.1060906@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181426 > > Carol: > > So, in essence, Harry got away with what should have been crimes > CJ graced us with this agreement and addendum: > I agree, and I don't think "It's war" can justify what is otherwise > unjustifiable, whatever one thinks of the MoM. Kemper now: I, too, agree with you and Carol. However, "It's war" is an amoral and possibly immoral justification for using the Unforgivables. The MoM allowed it in the first war. "It's war" might not be a morally justifiable excuse to use the Unforgivables, but the excuse is justifiable otherwise. Kemper From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 02:25:47 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 02:25:47 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181427 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" wrote: > > > Alla: > > Consider me lazy ? who was it Charley or Bill? > > zgirnius: > Bill. Charlie is the Quidditch star. Alla: LOLOLOL. And I misspelled Charlie too :-) But I knew that he was a Quidditch star, hehe. For some reason I got it into my head that he was Head Boy and Quidditch star as well. > > Alla: > > I also think that Molly's objection here sums up Dumbledore's > > thoughts of Harry not knowing in OOP and what Arthur says > undermines > > it soooo nicely. I do not want to make him miserable, I want to put > > him on guard. > > zgirnius: > For all the good it did. Alla: Well yeah, I was thinking whose mindset in regard to Harry I prefer, not the end result :-) > > Alla: > > maybe some people are given very short imprisonment > > terms, but I am just not seeing that too many people are released. > > IMO anyways. > > zgirnius: > We are told that a few months in Azkaban is the penalty for hexing > Muggles and resisting arrest - this is the punishment the Gaunts > receive for these crimes. Do you really believe this is a less common > crime in the Potterverse than the use of Unforgivables and service to > Dark Lords, the sorts of crimes for which we hear of life sentences > being handed out? > Alla: Well, no, not really. I mean I agree with you that there are short term sentences for less serious crimes. I guess what I was thinking is that people go mad in Azkaban really FAST. I always thought that Sirius' hanging in for twelve years was something really unusual. I mean obviously Hagrid's sentence was not enough for him to go mad, but I am speculating that most people will be done after year or so and that brings us to Pippin's point. Pippin: Not too many *sane* people are released, perhaps. But we never hear of people being kept in Azkaban *because* they've gone mad, do we? So the mad people are released, to be cared for at home or at St. Mungo's, and that explains the rumors. Alla: This is the saddest explanation but unfortunately the one I can buy most easily for the widespread rumors. I can see SOME people being released while still sane, but not enough to justify widespread rumors. Your scenario I can see. > > "He hardly heard what Professor McGonagall was telling them about > Animagi (wizards who could transform at will into animals), and > wasn't even watching when she transformed herself in front of their > eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes." ? > p.83-84 > Potioncat: One of the ways Harry is not like James. Alla: Not sure I understand. In what way this is Harry not being like James? That James would listen and learned how to become Animagi or something else? From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 03:27:28 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:27:28 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181428 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bdclark0423" wrote: > > zgirnius: > > In one of the DADA classes in HBP, Harry learns that Inferi > > are the dead bodies of their victims, reanimated by a Dark > > Wizard. Once he figures out he is dealing with reanimated dead > > bodies, he knows what to call them. > bdclark0423 > I think because you've been able to point out that JKR has done > this, it shouldn't be considered a mistake. zanooda: In addition to Snape's class, there is also that conversation between Harry and DD in the very beginning of HBP ("Horace Slughorn" ch.) where Harry asks what Inferi are (because they were mentioned in the Ministry leaflets) and DD explains. So Harry knows about Inferi from the beginning of the book, as does everyone else, because of the Ministry warnings ("Will and Won't" ch.). LV used Inferi in the first war as well, and, if not for his Muggle background, Harry would have heard about them even before HBP, IMO. From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Feb 10 04:08:09 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:08:09 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181429 > Alla: > > LOLOLOL. And I misspelled Charlie too :-) But I knew that he was a > Quidditch star, hehe. For some reason I got it into my head that he > was Head Boy and Quidditch star as well. > Potioncat: I wonder why JKR didn't give him a wife? I'd think a witch from the McFusty clan would be a good match. > > Alla: > > This is the saddest explanation but unfortunately the one I can buy > most easily for the widespread rumors. I can see SOME people being > released while still sane, but not enough to justify widespread > rumors. Your scenario I can see. Potioncat: Again, we hear of 6 months. (At least, I think Podmore got 6 months. Of course, we never see him again...) but, Mundungus and Hagrid came out OK---or at least no worse than they went in. Now, I'm not so sure about Malfoy. How much of his change was due to his house guest and how much to being in prison? > > Alla: > > Not sure I understand. In what way this is Harry not being like > James? That James would listen and learned how to become Animagi or > something else? Potioncat: Well, James was interested enough to learn how to become an animagus, and Harry never gave it a thought. He wasn't even very interested in it. I mean---watching a woman turn into a cat? Who wouldn't be interested in that! > From moosiemlo at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 04:19:53 2008 From: moosiemlo at gmail.com (Lynda Cordova) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 20:19:53 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2795713f0802092019x15d2a600pe31316a692b73b15@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181430 zgirnius: It is possible that the Elder Wand does not have to win duels for its owner. The wand in the story of the Three Brothers must - the actual historical artifact that inspired the story, may perhaps only be a wand of great power. Lynda: I don't think the elder wand has to beat the other wand. It simply transfers its allegience to the magic user who wins the duel. Lynda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 04:20:37 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:20:37 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181431 > Potioncat: > Now, I'm not so sure > about Malfoy. How much of his change was due to his house guest and > how much to being in prison? zgirnius: Malfoy was in Azkaban at a time when the Dementors had come out openly in favor of Voldemort. They were no longer serving the Ministry as guards. It was all his houseguest. From BrwNeil at aol.com Sun Feb 10 04:21:31 2008 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (brwneil) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:21:31 -0000 Subject: Who Poisoned Dumbledore? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181432 RAB drank the poison and was dragged into the water. The elf but the fake locket into the basin. Who did it, and why was poison put back in the basin. Obviously it doesn't refill on its own because it was empty when Voldie checked it out after Dumbledore had drank it. I doubt Regulus was in any condition to mix a potion, that leaves Kreacher. Is a house elf able to brew a potion on an island in the middle of a lake and how did he get the exact potion that Voldemort originally made. The more importat question is why? Why put anything back in the basin, especially a poison? Voldiemort wasn't going to drink it. Neil From catlady at wicca.net Sun Feb 10 04:35:03 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:35:03 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle's inability to love In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181433 bdclark0423 wrote in : > > I took your advice and I have looked at wikipedia and it > does not reference anywhere how inability to love is connected > in any way to being a psychopath, The normal colloquial usage of the word 'psychopath' is a person who is unable to feel normal human emotions such as love, affection, empathy, responsibility, guilt. I didn't even have to scroll far down the Wikipedia article to find it citing someone called Cleckley who listed 16 characteristics of psychopaths including "Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love". Inability to love is connected in the most existential way with being a psychopath. > so this does makes me even a > little more confused by your response, perhaps you're saying this is > what Tom Riddle is, but the original purpose of the discussion is > not to describe current state of Tom Riddle, but try and explain > what got him to that state. Tom Riddle is a psychopath. I think a human might become a psychopath because of being badly abused in its first year of life, with some combination of head injuries and no cuddling, and in earlier volumes, hearing that Riddle was raised in an orphanage, I assumed it was a HORRIBLE orphanage which had abused him, thus causing his psychopathy. But when we actually saw the orphanage, it was not a HORRIBLE place at all. Not that it was heavenly, but the children had a few toys and even pets (the pet bunny who was murdered), and their annual outing was to some place that was supposed to be fun for them. So now I think Riddle was born a psychopath. I assume this was caused by some kind of tiny brain defect, as apparently happens in real life, and not caused by Tom having been conceived under the influence of Love Potion. In the past, some listies have suggested that Tom was born a psychopath because he was conceived by parents who didn't truly love each other. I reject that, because in real life many children were conceived by parents who didn't love each other, sometimes even by violent rape, and they usually don't turn out to be psychopaths. It struck me as worthy of notice that Rowling wrote a series in which the good guys go on and on about the importance of one's choices, while providing a villain who was unable to choose otherwise. In DH, Harry advises him to try for a little remorse, when remorse is what he is completely incapable of. There is some interview on the Web, except I can't find it now, in which the interviewer (IIRC Melissa from The Leaky Cauldron) questioned Her on that and She said that was true, but this series is a fantasy, so the bit of Potter's blood that was used in Voldemort's re-embodiment spell brought with it the ability to choose to feel remorse. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 04:36:29 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:36:29 -0000 Subject: PoA chapters 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181434 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > I guess what I was thinking is that people go mad in Azkaban > really FAST. I always thought that Sirius' hanging in for twelve > years was something really unusual. Maybe if it's not a life sentence and a prisoner is not in a high security cell, there are less Dementors guarding him, so he wouldn't go mad as fast as he could have done with more Dementors around. Besides, it may be easier to endure the Dementors when you know it's temporary and you'll be released in a few months. This thought can give strength, just like the thought of his innocence gave strength to Sirius. BTW, I didn't notice any of the escaped DEs being mad (except for Bella, but her madness is most likely from before Azkaban), and they spent many years there. Another character who served time in Azkaban is Morfin Gaunt (I mean here his first time - three years), but it's not very clear if he's gone mad or not. He doesn't seem any different after Azkaban, but, OTOH, he believed at the end that his father was still alive and would kill him for the loss of the ring - but this can be the result of LV implanting false memories. I wonder how Morfin got the ring - it was Marvolo who wore it before they both went to prison, and Marvolo was dead by the time Morfin returned from there. zanooda From MadameSSnape at aol.com Sun Feb 10 04:50:02 2008 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 23:50:02 EST Subject: [HPforGrownups] Who Poisoned Dumbledore? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181435 In a message dated 2/9/2008 11:21:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, BrwNeil at aol.com writes: RAB drank the poison and was dragged into the water. The elf but the fake locket into the basin. Who did it, and why was poison put back in the basin. Obviously it doesn't refill on its own because it was empty when Voldie checked it out after Dumbledore had drank it. Sherrie here: Perhaps it was charmed to refill on its own - as long as there was something left there for it to guard. When Regulus took the original locket, he replaced it with a fake - the basin, however, was not charmed to know the difference, and so refilled itself. When Harry later removed the fake locket, he didn't replace it with anything - therefore the basin, "sensing" that there was nothing there to guard, didn't refill. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :-) Sherrie **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 04:56:06 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:56:06 -0000 Subject: Who Poisoned Dumbledore? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181436 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "brwneil" wrote: > RAB drank the poison and was dragged into the water. The elf but > the fake locket into the basin. Who did it, and why was poison > put back in the basin. Obviously it doesn't refill on its own > because it was empty when Voldie checked it out after Dumbledore > had drank it. I'm convinced that the basin was self-refilling. It was not empty when LV came to check on it, it was filled with potion, LV just turned it from green to clear so that he could see through it. It is described like this: "... he looked down upon a basin whose potion had turned clear ..." ("The Sacking of Severus Snape". p.595 Am.ed.). I know that Kreacher said in "Kreacher's Tale" that LV filled the basin with more potion, but I think that the elf was not in the right condition to understand what was really happening, because he was in agony after drinking the potion. I believe his words are not to be trusted in this case, and the basin refilled itself. zanooda From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 05:05:18 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:05:18 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AE860E.4010006@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181437 Zara blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 09:58: CJ: > He's got a track record with respect to all three of the UCs zgirnius: > Harry never attempted the AK. I don't think he ever would. You're right; I stand corrected. I was misremembering the end of HBP where Harry was attempting the Cruciatus. > You may not like the 'war excuse', but it is certainly > true that each time Harry does use the spell, he is > experiencing circumstances which could only be present > in a war-type situation. I disagree. Amycus' spitting on McGonagall, while it did occur in a war, could as easily not have. And even in a war, I'm not convinced that expectorating is justification for torture, even when the target IS your favorite teacher. > It is also pretty clear that from a legal standpoint, the Wizard > culture makes this distinction too - why else would Aurors be > permitted to use Unforgivables in the first war? The MoM presumably had the authority to set aside the legal penalties for their use by authorized personnel, but Sirius' speech makes it clear the moral proscriptions were a different matter. > I do think it is supposed to *explain* them and make them > understandable to readers. Perhaps this was JKR's intent. If so, I think it doesn't work, and the timing is pretty poor, given the discussion that's been going on the past few years wrt justifications for torture. Particularly wrt Amycus, JKR could have built a much better case. If Amycus had been tossing an AK, rather than a mouthfull of saliva, at McGonagall, Harry's Crucio would have been much easier to justify AND to empathize with. > people would still act according tpo their better natures, but one in > which I can *understand* that they do not. Depends on what you mean by "understand". If you mean "empathize with", I agree. If you mean "forgive" or "tolerate" or "overlook", I think I'd beg to differ. > He has a temper, and when it gets the better of him, he makes > bad choices, is what I walked away with from his use of Crucio. Again, perhaps this was JKR's intent, but I think it went awry. Eating at McDonald's is a bad choice. Calling torture-for-spitting a "bad choice" is like calling Abu Ghraib a slight misjudgment. If JKR was just trying to show us Harry was human, I think her methodology opened a moral can of worms that derailed her argument. Kemper now: > However, "It's war" is an amoral and possibly immoral justification > for using the Unforgivables. The MoM allowed it in the first war. > "It's war" might not be a morally justifiable excuse to use the > Unforgivables, but the excuse is justifiable otherwise. Yes, certainly wartime can justify some acts that are normally proscribed. Of course the Geneva Conventions and war crimes trials make clear even war doesn't excuse us from all moral obligations. As I mentioned above, the MoM lifted the legal penalties for the UCs, but only for authorized personnel. And Sirius (whom I take as the authorial voice on this) indicates that the permitting of the UCs was one of the clearer indicators of the moral degradation of the MoM, its legal right to do so notwithstanding. I agree with you -- if that's what you're saying -- that what JKR appears to be trying to do is simply to show that Harry was not perfect. I just found the moral implications of the way she chose to do so disturbing. CJ From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 06:40:00 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:40:00 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AE860E.4010006@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181438 > CJ: > I disagree. Amycus' spitting on McGonagall, while it did occur in a war, > could as easily not have. And even in a war, I'm not convinced that > expectorating is justification for torture, even when the target IS your > favorite teacher. zgirnius: If I thought Harry Cruciated Amycus because of his discourtesy to a teacher, I might agree with you. Harry has just met (and seen!) Neville and the other DA members who are hiding out in the RoR, and has learned of the Carrows' excesses all year. Amycus's sister and partner in crime has just summoned Voldemort to Hogwarts, and Harry can feel that Voldemort will shortly be on his way. He hears Amycus threaten to torture the students of Ravenclaw House, make a plan to blame the summons of Voldemort on a pair of innocent students, and threaten to make Minerva go along with it. All of this together, in my opinion, is why he acts as he does. It is all absolutely not within the realm of normal, non-wartime experiences, and I do believe it makes Harry furious. Additional evidence of his emotional state, as I see it, is the way the spell works when he casts it. More normally, a victim of this curse falls screaming to the ground and continues to experience excruciating pain until the caster deliberately stops the curse by raising his wand. Harry's spell sends Amycus crashing into a wall, where he promptly loses consciousness. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sun Feb 10 09:32:19 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:32:19 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181440 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bdclark0423" wrote: > > >zgirnius: > >It is possible that the Elder Wand does not have to win duels for > its > >owner. The wand in the story of the Three Brothers must - the actual > >historical artifact that inspired the story, may perhaps only be a > >wand of great power. > > bdclark0423: > After my post, I still had some doubts in my own mind. However > though, before I even threw this topic out there, I made sure to > define one of the original conditions of the Elder Wand: > > "So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a > wand...that must always win duels for its owner: a wand worthy of a > wizard who had conquered Death!' > > So with that, all the other comments I've already included, plus > those thoughts and ideas within DH, we are still given the > impression that anyone with the wand cannot be beaten. Now, since I > have researched this just a little bit further since my original > post, there's actually some wiggle room, i.e. what if the one > holding the one is not challenged by Death....? > > Anyway, I'm still curious to see other opinions. Geoff: I agree with you that this hinges on what we mean by "had conquered Deatrh" and also the circumstances of the holder's death. If, for example, you consider the first brother, the wand passed on because he was killed, not in a duel, but by stealth. The Elder wand obviously does not consider the morals of the conqueror but only the fact that it has changed hands. Taking a more recent transfer of ownership, I feel that Draco was able to get the wand from Dumbledore because the latter had not conquered death but was actually close to succumbing to it. But, then again, can the holder be deprived of the wand by another wizard who is quicker on the draw? Even the cowboy with the most high-tec sixshooter can be outgunned by his opponent if the latter happens to be wearing a white hat. :-) From valerie at calithwain.com Sun Feb 10 06:39:23 2008 From: valerie at calithwain.com (Valerie Frankel) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 06:39:23 -0000 Subject: Who Poisoned Dumbledore? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181441 I believe the locket basin DOES refill on its own, though an alarm system would be more logical. When Voldemort arrives, he can see through the now clear liquid that there's no locket, suggesting the locket/Horcrux/evil soul's presence makes the liquid murky. That's my take. Valerie Frankel Author of Henry Potty and the Pet Rock: An Unauthorized Harry Potter Parody From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 14:56:21 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:56:21 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AF1095.70904@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181442 Zara blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 14:40: CJ: > I'm not convinced that expectorating is justification for torture zgirnius: > If I thought Harry Cruciated Amycus because of his discourtesy > to a teacher, I might agree with you. But Harry himself says so. Let's look at the passage. Chapter 30, "The Sacking of Severus Snape, opens with Alecto lying Stunned on the floor of the Ravenclaw common room, having just summoned LV. We read: DH> There was a rap on the common room door and every Ravenclaw DH> froze.... The Ravenclaws were whispering amongst themselves, DH> terrifed. Then, without warning, there came a series of loud bangs, DH> as though somebody was firing a gun into the door. ... The DH> Ravenclaws were all backing away, and some of the most frightened DH> began scampering back up the staircase to their beds. Harry, secure under his Cloak, sees the terror in the Ravenclaws' eyes, as they back away in horror. What does his concern for his fellow students prompt him to do? DH> Then, just as Harry was wondering whether he ought not to blast the DH> door open and Stun Amycus ... So, apparently, all of Harry's concern for the plight of the Hogwarts' students merits nothing more than a Stunning spell. But then McGonagall shows up and lets Amycus in. DH> The few Ravenclaws who had remained behind sprinted for the stairs DH> as Amycus burst over the threshhold, brandishing his wand. Hunched DH> like his sister, he had a pallid, doughy face and tiny eyes, which DH> fell at once on Alecto, sprawled motionless on the floor. He let out DH> a yell of fury and fear. Now here's the part you mention: DH> "What've they done, the little whelps?" he screamed. "I'll Cruciate DH> the lot of 'em till they tell me who did it -- Harry has just watched Amycus burst into the room, wand at the ready, breathing fire and threatening Crucios all 'round while the few remaining Ravenclaws go scampering off in terror. One might think this would be the perfect time for a Crucio from Harry, if concern for the Ravenclaws was his chief concern. But Harry stands safe under his Cloak and does nothing. DH> "We can push it off on the kids," said Amycus, his piglike face DH> suddenly crafty. "Yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll say Alecto was DH> ambushed by the kids, them kids up there" -- he looked up at the DH> starry ceiling toward the dormitories -- "and we'll say they forced DH> her to press the Mark, and that's why he got a false alarm.... He DH> can punish them. Couple of kids more or less, what's the DH> difference?" Amycus is plotting to blame the Ravenclaws. Now, Harry? Now? Crucio? Umm, Harry? Nope. Harry still doesn't make a move. Not until: DH> And he spat in her face. Ooh, now THAT did it! DH> Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, "You DH> shouldn't have done that." Done what? Crucio the students? Nope. Make them the fall guys for Alecto? Nope again. DH> As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, "Crucio!" It wasn't Amycus' threats against the students that provoked Harry Crucio (that only merited a Stun at best). It wasn't the terror in the Ravenclaws' eyes. It was the spittle running down McGonagall's nose. By Harry's own admission: DH> "Potter!" whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. DH> "Potter -- you're here! What--? How--?" She struggled to pull DH> herself together. "Potter, that was foolish!" DH> DH> "He spat at you," said Harry. > Additional evidence of his emotional state, as I see it, is the way > the spell works when he casts it. Even if Harry IS all wound up about his friends and fellow students (though, as we've seen, not more than a Stunning spell's worth), then it simply becomes a crime of passion. But a crime of passion is still a crime. Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at you!" The passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. CJ From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 15:15:14 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:15:14 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AF1095.70904@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181443 > CJ: > Even if Harry IS all wound up about his friends and fellow students > (though, as we've seen, not more than a Stunning spell's worth), then it > simply becomes a crime of passion. But a crime of passion is still a crime. zgirnius: Attacking Bella and Snape were also crimes of passion, were they not? I am arguing this Crucio was no different from the others (aside from the fact that it worked, and was not blocked by its target >CJ: > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at you!" The > passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. zgirnius: Obviously, I disagree. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 15:31:25 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:31:25 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AF18CD.6040703@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181444 Zara blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 23:15: CJ: > But a crime of passion is still a crime. zgirnius: > Attacking Bella and Snape were also crimes of passion, were they not? Bingo. > I am arguing this Crucio was no different from the others Me too :-) CJ: > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at you!" > The passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. zgirnius: > Obviously, I disagree. Obviously. :-) How, then, do you interpret Harry's words, if not as an explanation for his action? CJ From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 16:56:28 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:56:28 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AF18CD.6040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181445 > CJ: > > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at you!" > > The passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. > > zgirnius: > > Obviously, I disagree. CJ: > Obviously. :-) How, then, do you interpret Harry's words, if not as an > explanation for his action? > > Alla: Oh Harry and unforgivables again, something I sort of changed my mind about. I cannot speak for Zara, but if I were to interpret it now I could have interpreted it as the last drop, which made his fury impossible to suppress, but certainly not as complete explanation for his actions? I mean, I would find the following passage extremely strange to read if Harry went into long list of reasons why he cast Crucio, instead of just saying the last one. I do not need to read them all, I see Harry listening to all of them and I would think getting more and more upset and the last one, which by itself should have been the easiest to get over with, just did it for him? JMO, Alla From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Feb 10 17:57:38 2008 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 10 Feb 2008 17:57:38 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 2/10/2008, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1202666258.9.43928.m57@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181446 Reminder from: HPforGrownups Yahoo! Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday February 10, 2008 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Location: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Notes: Just a reminder, Sunday chat starts in about one hour. To get to the HPfGU room follow this link: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Create a user name for yourself, whatever you want to be called. Enter the password: hpfguchat Click "Join Chat" on the lower right. Chat start times: 11 am Pacific US 12 noon Mountain US 1 pm Central US 2 pm Eastern US 7 pm UK All Rights Reserved Copyright 2008 Yahoo! Inc. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From e2fanbev at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 18:22:37 2008 From: e2fanbev at yahoo.com (e2fanbev) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:22:37 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181447 > Alla: > > Oh Harry and unforgivables again, something I sort of changed my > mind about. I cannot speak for Zara, but if I were to interpret it > now I could have interpreted it as the last drop, which made his > fury impossible to suppress, but certainly not as complete > explanation for his actions? > > I mean, I would find the following passage extremely strange to > read if Harry went into long list of reasons why he cast Crucio, > instead of just saying the last one. > > I do not need to read them all, I see Harry listening to all of > them and I would think getting more and more upset Beverly: Yes, that was when he reached his breaking point. Most people can take a lot before they break and fly off the handle. Carrow is talking of torturing children one second and then doing something childish himself by spitting on McGonagall. I can see how that can be the final straw. I rememebr being bullied in a school hallway when I was 14 and taking a lot, but then losing my temper and knocking the idiot to the floor when it looked as if he was going to spit at me. THAT, I was not going to take. Spitting makes it all too personal. If you have never been spat at in your life and don't understand it, you're lucky. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 20:13:49 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:13:49 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181448 --- , "bdclark0423" wrote: > > Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? > > The Elder Wand: a wand that must always win duels for its > owner. > > Dumbledore recounts to Harry the events with Grindelwald and > this seems contradiction to what describes the Elder Wand: > ... I (Dumbledore) won the duel. I won the wand. > > So if the Elder Wand must always win duels for its owner, > how did Grindelwald lose the wand to DD? > > The only clear mention of a duel where elder wand is > actually used is when V uses it against Harry, ... > > So yes, elder wand must always win duels for its owner. But > we see the owner can change without the elder wand being used > in the actual duel. > > Elder wand changes allegiance to Harry when Malfoy's actual > wand was 'won' ... without the elder wand ever being in > either one's possession... > > There's no details on how DD actually gains allegiance of > elder wand other than DD defeated Grindelwald in a duel, ... > > bdclark0423 bboyminn: This whole wand thing is complicated by knowledge of the wand coming from many sources, some real, some not. There is the Wand of legend and myth, the Wand of rumorous speculation, and the Wand of history. The Legend of The Three Brothers is just that - legend and myth, a metaphor for the tale of the three real brothers and the lessons they learned. The legend says the holder of the wand can't be defeated, but we see from history that, directly or indirectly, every holder of the wand has been defeated and usually in a very short time. So, clearly the holder of the wand, whether true Master or not, CAN be defeated. Further in the legend, the 'wand' brother did not defeat Death, he only outwitted him in one isolated instance. Further note there is one additional instance of the Wand dueling another, when Dumbledore and Voldemort duel at the Ministry of Magic, presumably Dumbledore was using the Elder Wand. And, he was confident, and cast very powerful spell against an overwhelming foe. though, in that case, I would say, no clear winner. As far as the duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore in which Dumbledore won the wand. Again, it's not all about the Wand. The greatest most powerful wand in the world in the hands of an idiot is not going to be as powerful as a good wand in the hands of a brilliant wizard. It is possible that Dumbledore outsmarted Grindelwald rather than out dueled him. That is essentially what Harry did. Harry relied on knowledge that Voldemort didn't have or understand. Dumbledore may have had intimate knowledge of Grindelwald. He may have known his magical and psychological weaknesses and may have preyed on those, thereby causing Grindelwald to make a mistake that lead to his downfall. As to transfer of the Wand, that is equally tricky. You can transfer possession without tranferring ownership or allegiance. But consider this, many times in its history the Wand must have moved from the possession of one wizard to another, but not under the right circumstances. Yet, at some point the non-Master owner of the wand was defeated and the wand transfer it allegiance somehow to the new wizard. That complicates thing immensely in my mind. If you took the wand by stealth or trickery as Grindelwald did, can we assume the allegiance does not transfer to you? But then if you are defeated, does the allegiance remain with the original wizard, or is it transferred to the one who defeated you? If the Master/owner of the wand dies while not in possession of the wand, does that mean the allegiance is up for grabs, or does it as Dumbledore and Harry suspect, die with the Master/owner? I don't think so. In all it's history, the wand had to change hands by irregular means, means that did not also transfer Mastership. Yet, as some point some wizard was able to reassert Mastership over the wand. It must have continued to have been transferred by some means otherwise Dumbledore could not have ended up as its Master. That is assuming Dumbledore actually was its Master. Further, we and Harry are only speculating that Harry was the Master of the Wand. I'm mean the concept server its purpose, it psyched Voldemort out. But we only know that Harry believed himself the Master, we don't really know it was true. Though his ability to later use the Wand to heal his old Wand indicated that, Master or not, the Wand was willing to bow to and exert its power to Harry will. Keep in mind that any wizard can use The Wand, but like any wand, how well it works depends on the natural connection between user and wand. Nearly everyone has effectively used someone elses wand in the series without problem. Now the wands Harry and Hermione 'borrowed' in DH, were probably not compatible with them even under the best of circumstance. It is possible, that rather than being the Master of the Wand, Harry and the Wand just had a natural harmony. The whole process is exceptionally complex, and even Ollivander admits he doesn't full understand it. Keep in mind that Ollivander's family has been making wand since about 785BC. I think he might be considered an expert, yet he doesn't full grasp the transfer of allegiance of wands and all its secondary implications. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 20:16:14 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:16:14 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AF1095.70904@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181449 > > zgirnius: > > Additional evidence of his emotional state, as I see it, is the > > way the spell works when he casts it. More normally, a victim of > > this curse falls screaming to the ground and continues to > > experience excruciating pain until the caster deliberately stops > > the curse by raising his wand. Harry's spell sends Amycus > > crashing into a wall, where he promptly loses consciousness. Mike: I included zgirnius' entire paragraph just to say that I proposed this difference in the results of Harry's Crucio as compared to other's Crucios way back, and nobody bought it. Glad to see a fellow traveler, Zara. > Mr. Lee responded: > Even if Harry IS all wound up about his friends and fellow students > (though, as we've seen, not more than a Stunning spell's worth), Mike: Well, Harry's Crucio acted like a stunning spell. How do you know that's not what Harry was thinking about when he wonders if he should stun Carrow at this point? > Mr. Lee continued: > then it simply becomes a crime of passion. But a crime of passion > is still a crime. Mike: I thought we were discussing the moralistic importance, not criminal ramifications. Here, once again, I'd like to point out that using Sirius Black as your moral guide with regards to the MoM's actions is akin to asking O.J. what he thinks of the L.A.P.D. Black's opinion may be accurate, but how much of it was based on his own experience? Sirius is my favorite character in the series, but 12 years in Azkaban might have seriously affected his objectivity about the Ministry. Not that I have much regard for the MoM myself. But, I'm also sure that they labeled the Unforgivables as such. Which is why we got penalties for using a type of spell regardless of circumstances, instead of penalties for murder, torture, etc. According to wizarding law Harry deserves life in prison for using Crucio on Amycus, but whomever blasted the wall that killed Fred doesn't deserve to be "most heavily punished by wizarding law." How's that for moral ambiguity? > Mr. Lee concluded: > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at > you!" The passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. Mike: I'm not sure how well you are able to compartmentalize, but might I suggest that Harry isn't quite as good. He isn't able to see Neville, hear about the Carrow's brutality, listen to Amycus plan to torture the Ravenclaws and blame one or some of them, then finally watch him spit on Minerva, make an individual judgement on each piece of information and plan separate responses for each. That type of compartmentalizing is rare indeed. As Alla and Beverly have stated before me, Harry was not simply responding to the expectoration. Harry was responding to the cumulative effect of what he's seen happen to his school by a couple of low-life animals. The spit was the last straw, but by no means the only one. Mike, who's neither fussed by Harry's Crucio nor the Marauders' marauding. From bartl at sprynet.com Sun Feb 10 20:27:32 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:27:32 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AF5E34.9080004@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181450 bdclark0423 wrote: > "So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a > wand...that must always win duels for its owner: a wand worthy of a > wizard who had conquered Death!' Bart: Assuming: the Elder Wand always wins duels for it's owner. Question: How do you defeat the owner? Answer: You defeat the owner by not fighting a duel with him/her while he/she is using the wand. In other words, the battle must be a duel AND the owner must be using the wand in order for the owner to be guaranteed a win. That leaves a LOT of leeway. For example, an ambush by multiple wizards, attacking by surprise, convincing the holder to choose not to fight, etc. My GUESS about DD versus Waldo is that while Waldo prepared to be attacked by a spell, DD used strictly Muggle means, taking him completely by surprise. Bart From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 21:13:10 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:13:10 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: <47AF1095.70904@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181451 --- Lee Kaiwen wrote: > > Zara blessed us with this gem On 10/02/2008 14:40: > > > CJ: > > I'm not convinced that expectorating is justification for > > torture > > zgirnius: > > If I thought Harry Cruciated Amycus because of his > > discourtesy to a teacher, I might agree with you. > > ... > > ... > > Amycus is plotting to blame the Ravenclaws. Now, Harry? > Now? Crucio? Umm, Harry? > > Nope. Harry still doesn't make a move. > > Not until: > > DH> And he spat in her face. > > Ooh, now THAT did it! > > DH> Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and > said, "You DH> shouldn't have done that." > > Done what? Crucio the students? Nope. Make them the fall > guys for Alecto? Nope again. > > DH> As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, "Crucio!" > > It wasn't Amycus' threats against the students that provoked > Harry Crucio (that only merited a Stun at best). It wasn't > the terror in the Ravenclaws' eyes. It was the spittle > running down McGonagall's nose. By Harry's own admission: > > DH> "Potter!" whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her > heart. > DH> "Potter -- you're here! What--? How--?" She struggled to > pull > DH> herself together. "Potter, that was foolish!" > DH> > DH> "He spat at you," said Harry. > > > Additional evidence of his emotional state, as I see it, > > is the way the spell works when he casts it. > > Even if Harry IS all wound up about his friends and fellow > students (though, as we've seen, not more than a Stunning > spell's worth), then it simply becomes a crime of passion. > But a crime of passion is still a crime. > > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat > at you!" The passage just doesn't support any other > interpretation. > > CJ > bboyminn: Sorry, I'm just not buy this, not any part of it. Surely you have heard the expression 'the straw that broke the camel's back'. Harry is restraining himself, but even in that restraint, he knows he's going to have to fight Amycus at some point, it's just a question of when. Now Amycus can rant and rave all he wants too, but up until the 'Spit', Harry has some underlying assumption that McGonagall has some control over the situation. That she will, if necessary, defend the students when the time comes. But, once Amycus spits at McGonagall it become clear that McGonagall has lost all authority and respect at the school. She is going to be powerless to stop what Amycus is professing. And so, it has gone too far, the situation is about to get out of control, and likely McGonagall is in real danger. Also, I thoroughly object to the characterization that Harry 'tortured' Amycus. I mean can you really torture someone for ONE SECOND? Really? If that's true then I must be torturing myself on a daily basis, because hardly a day goes by when I don't cause myself one second's pain. And on some days, I certainly cause myself excruciating pain. Yet, that is not called 'torture', it is called life. Yes, Harry used the 'Pain' curse, and yes it did cause pain, but really, can we consider one or two seconds pain as torture by any reasonable standard? I really don't think so. My point is, and I have made it MANY times before, is that context matters. In the context of his actions, and in the context of the situation, I think even knowing full details, the school, the government, and the citizens of the wizard world are very much and very easily going to forgive Harry his actions. And this is very much a War Time situation. Amycus and Alecto as well as others have brutally abused staff and students, and that is only a taste of what is to come if they win. They have taken control of Hogwarts by means that would appear to be legal at the time, but means that are going to be considered wholly illegal and immoral after the fact. Not to mention VOLDEMORT IS ON HIS WAY! They are invading a stronghold of the enemy; once that is know, likely the Boss and a ton of re-enforcements are going to be on their way. If this wasn't a justifiable emergency situation, then no emergency has ever existed. Even if Harry was called before the court to answer for all his uses of 'Unforgivable Curses', I have no doubt that in very case, those curses would easily be forgiven, because in the context that they occurred and in the context that he applied them, I think they were, and the courts would find, them justifiable. We don't crucify our heroes, not in the face of victory. Or so says I. Steve/bboyminn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 21:36:53 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:36:53 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <47AF5E34.9080004@sprynet.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181452 > bdclark0423 wrote: > > "So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a > > wand...that must always win duels for its owner: a wand worthy of a > > wizard who had conquered Death!' > > Bart: > Assuming: the Elder Wand always wins duels for it's owner. Question: How > do you defeat the owner? > > Answer: You defeat the owner by not fighting a duel with him/her while > he/she is using the wand. In other words, the battle must be a duel AND > the owner must be using the wand in order for the owner to be guaranteed > a win. That leaves a LOT of leeway. For example, an ambush by multiple > wizards, attacking by surprise, convincing the holder to choose not to > fight, etc. > > My GUESS about DD versus Waldo is that while Waldo prepared to be > attacked by a spell, DD used strictly Muggle means, taking him > completely by surprise. a_svirn: Oh, I think the answer is simpler. The wands ? including the Elder one ? are notoriously fickle. And as soon as a wand changes its allegiance it changes its owner. In fact the very concept of wand ownership is somewhat contradictory. Since wands apparently have minds of their own you can only *own* them by constraining then to do your bidding. And yet neither wizards, nor Goblins have leaned how to bind magical objects. Which makes me wonder why wizards prefer to rely on wands rather than enhancing their wandless magic skills. a_svirn From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 21:53:23 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:53:23 -0000 Subject: The Hook that was PoA CH 1-4 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181453 I've added one more chapter. Although this isn't any retrospective looking from post-DH, these are the chapters that really hooked me on Harry Potter. When I say I like the way JKR transported me into her world, this is what comes to mind first. I just loved the scenery of the mind JKR set the table with in these chapters. The Knight Bus and getting to meet Stan and Ernie, two regular ole work-a-day wizards (I think Stan qualifies ). Running an unusual by Muggle standards, but mundane to them, transport vehicle. I loved the interaction, getting to see the way your average wizard thinks. Most of all, the visual of the violent purple, tripple decker, sleeper bus was a feast for the mind. And poor old Mrs. Marsh, just couldn't take Ernie's driving after a night out on the town. Then to the Leaky Cauldron. The coziness of the place seemed so inviting. Harry's room with the comfortable bed, oak furniture, fire in the fireplace, and talking mirror sounds so much like those country inns one might luck upon while on vacation. (Except for the mirror, of course ). I'm enjoying right along with Harry watching all the people while eating breakfast down in the pub proper. Another glimpse of the everyday goings on in the wizard world. Finally, Diagon Alley. All those marvelous shops with what I imagined was a colorful cobblestone walking street. I can't imagine a more enjoyable way to do homework than sitting at a cafe table under an umbrella, eating ice cream, and occasionally getting help from the kindly old proprietor. (One look back - I do wish Florean Fortescue would have returned sometime in DH). The panorama of life playing out on a quaint canvas with a 14th century flavor. I longed for this picturesque quaintness even more when we saw how bleak Diagon Alley had become in HBP and worse in DH. I know Harry started out on this little adventure scared for his future and got frightened by the Grim. But it was the glimpse of all these other wizarding places and things, not associated with the story-line and not of Ron and Hermione that I so enjoyed. It was backstory in the present, stopping to look at the scenery and smell the roses. I loved it. Mike From mercia at ireland.com Sun Feb 10 23:27:23 2008 From: mercia at ireland.com (meglet2) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:27:23 -0000 Subject: Some HBP questions Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181454 Hi. I'm not trying to jump ahead in the 'post DH' look at series. I know we've a way to go before HBP. But I've been rereading it at present rather slowly and have a few questions that are not really influenced by knowledge of DH. (Or maybe on second thoughts some are.) Anyway I'd be interested in any thoughts, though these questions may have been mentioned before. I'm only a few chapters in and this is what's occuring to me so far. I've wondered this before but how exactly did Tonks know where and how to pull that invisibility cloak off Harry? She says she was looking for him and noticed the blinds drawn in that compartment which roused her suspicions. She obviously knows he has an invisibility cloak (which is presumably common knownledge among the Order) but how did she know where Harry was in an apparently empty compartment. It doesn't mention anything about Tonks feeling around the seats, just that 'Wotcher Harry!' as she pulls the cloak off him. Is this another 'Hominem revelio' spell, said silently at that, that allows her to pinpoint his precise location? Snape's snide comment about Tonks' new patronus, that it 'looked weak' I previously took as a reference to her own currently weakned state. In other words her evident depression was making her weak and the patronus was a sign of it. Now (and yes I suppose post DH) I saw another level of possible meaning, ie that it was actually a character reading by Snape of Lupin. In other words, Tonks' wolf shaped patronus was indicating to Snape her love for Lupin and he was insulting Lupin to her by implying that Lupin was not worthy of her love because of his weakness of character. That would explain more fully Tonks' look of shock and anger that Harry observes without particularly wanting to understand it. It's just a thought, but it highlight's maybe Snape's skill at character reading, except in relation to his prejudice against Harry of course. Finally just a fleeting thought about Hermione's reaction to Slug's love potion. Harrry's still unconscious attraction to Ginny is revealed when he smells the 'flowery scent' that he associates with something in the Burrow, which of course is her perfume and identified as such when she next appears. Hermione in answering Slug identifies a few of the things that attract her but stops short of her final one and blushes. Anyone like to speculate on just which smell makes Hermione think of Ron? What would be 'essence of Ron'? Mercia. From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 23:32:20 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:32:20 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181455 > > CJ: > > > I'm not convinced that expectorating is justification for > > > torture > > > > zgirnius: > > > If I thought Harry Cruciated Amycus because of his > > > discourtesy to a teacher, I might agree with you. > Steve/bboyminn: > Even if Harry was called before the court to answer for all > his uses of 'Unforgivable Curses', I have no doubt that in > very case, those curses would easily be forgiven, because in > the context that they occurred and in the context that he > applied them, I think they were, and the courts would find, > them justifiable. We don't crucify our heroes, not in the > face of victory. Montavilla47 Just to weigh in with my tuppence worth, my objection to this use of the Cruciatus curse is based, not so much on character or an internal-based (i.e., in-character, wizardly) view of the matter, but on the plot and theme of the books. My interpretation of the moment is that it comes across like an action-hero moment, somewhat akin to the moment in the film version of OotP when Sirius pops up at the crucial moment in the MoM, punches Lucius Malfoy in the nose and quips "Get away from the my Godson!" I gather than I'm not alone in this interpretation. Well, fine and dandy if you're watching an action movie, but I almost always hate those moments in action movies, mainly because that's the moment when sort of moral code within the story is basically broken, giving the inevitable message that moral codes in general are only there in order to be jettisoned in favor of emotional outrage. Which is nonsense, because the only point of a moral code at all is to provide restraint in the face of emotional outrage. Throughout the books, there is this paradigm set up with the circular logic that bad guys are bad because they are attracted to Dark Magic and Dark Magic is bad because bad guys like it. Dark Magic itself is never really defined, *except* for the definition of the Unforgiveables. Up through HBP, I would estimate that ninety-percent of the readers accepted that the Unforgiveables--if nothing else-- were truly Dark Magic and that Harry's inability to cast them was a mark of his virtue. Any argument to that was most likely based on the hope that Snape's AK wasn't quite as bad as it looked. As it turns out, my hope was fulfilled in that Snape's use of the AK was justified to some degree. (No one seems to have the heart to continue that argument, and I can certainly accept that it was necessary to preserve Snape's cover and general bad-assery amongst the Death Eaters.) Moreover, we *know* that Snape didn't cast it lightly. He didn't make any cute quips afterwards, and he probably went to his death with his soul still somewhat tattered because of it. So, in his case, there were both good and bad consequences and it *meant something* dramatically. Harry's moment, on the other hand, was cheap, gratuitous, and only put in the story to make the audience feel good for the nano-second immediately following it. At the same time, it blasted the only one firm pillar of magical morality in the books to pieces. Unfortunately, that was load-bearing pillar and the hairline cracks that some, but certainly not most, readers that noticed, suddenly shifted into gaping holes. Without even the tiniest definition of Dark Magic, we have to examine every action of all the characters--previously "good" or "bad" anew without a firm *internal* moral compass. Once you do that, it's impossible not to notice how often the main characters act in brutal, vengeful ways that make them seem no better than the people identified as villains. So, yeah. That moment is the straw that breaks the camel's back. For Harry... and for the reader. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 23:51:40 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:51:40 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181456 CJ: > > Even if Harry IS all wound up about his friends and fellow students (though, as we've seen, not more than a Stunning spell's worth), then it simply becomes a crime of passion. But a crime of passion is still a crime. > > zgirnius: > Attacking Bella and Snape were also crimes of passion, were they not? I am arguing this Crucio was no different from the others (aside from the fact that it worked, and was not blocked by its target > > >CJ: > > Nevertheless, we still have Harry's own admission: "He spat at you!" The passage just doesn't support any other interpretation. > > zgirnius: > Obviously, I disagree. > Carol responds: but Bellatrix had just sent sirius through the Veil and snape had just "murdered" Dumbledore. In both cases, Harry is furious and seeking revenge against a person he hates (Snape even more than Bellatrix). But the Crucio against Bella only hurts her for a moment ("righteous anger won't hurt me for long. You hae to mean it"), and the one against Snape is deflected. Compared to the provocation in those othe cases and the rage he's feeling, what's the momentary anger against a man he doesn't even know, whose crimes (unless his presence on the tower when DD died counts as a crime) are either hearsay (admittedly from a reputable source) or as yet-uncommitted (threats). He hasn't killed a beloved teacher or mentor or godfather; he has merely spat on her. (Compare Karkaroff's spitting on Dumbledore, for which Hagrid pins him to a tree with his hand but Harry does precisely nothing). And yet Harry quotes bellatrix ("You have to mean them"). Not one of Harry's more shining moments. It's not even justifiable violence, IMO. A Snape-style Expelliarmus (I'm thinking of the one he used on Lockhart in CoS) would at least as effective, not to mention that Disarming a DE who was threatening harm to the students would have been both practical and justified. A Crucio was overkill--and it would have been a crime had the MoM not been in DE hands (as would his earlier Crucios if they had succeeded and/or been detected). Carol, who didn't need Harry casting a successful Crucio to believe that he was humanly flawed, thanks, anyway, JKR From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 01:10:47 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:10:47 -0000 Subject: The Hook that was PoA CH 1-4 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181457 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" wrote: The panorama of life playing out > on a quaint canvas with a 14th century flavor. I longed for this > picturesque quaintness even more when we saw how bleak Diagon Alley > had become in HBP and worse in DH. > Alla: Mike, I am sooo with you. I loved those chapters too. I just wanted to say that I totally get why in the last books she would not portray such a lovely, yummy picture any more. Harry supposedly learns how grim and bleak the world he escaped too is and that this world is not really an escape, but on the contrary in need of saving, etc. Oh, oh and I know you do not dig the interviews, so I am asking if you do want to know what fate awaited Fortesque in JKR's head at least? But yes, having said this, I wish we would see the glimpse of Potters eating ice cream in the epilogue or something like that. I LOVED it. From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Feb 11 01:29:49 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:29:49 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181458 > > Pippin: > > But Harry is sickened by James's bullying when he first sees it, and > > again in DH. How you can take that for JKR's approval is beyond me. > > Magpie: > Harry says after the scene, that he would be perfectly okay doing > that to somebody who "deserved it" like Draco. He didn't have all the > information about Snape. > > Obviously she's using that scene with James to say James isn't doing > good here and Harry--awesome as he is--naturally knows it. But the > never applies anything about that scene to himself so I don't see how > it's making much of a point about that. Pippin: First of all, I think the canon is a bit different than you remember: -- Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside down for the fun of it...not unless they really loathed them...Perhaps Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it... (OOP ch 29) -- "Except perhaps to Draco, or somebody who deserved it " implies that Draco deserving it is not a given, which hardly translates to perfectly okay. Secondly, he does apply it to himself. "For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride inside. And now...he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him." Harry found comfort and inspiration in the thought of his parents before he knew very much about them. In OOP he's unable to reconcile what he saw with the idealized versions his imagination presented to him in the Mirror of Erised and the collective memory of the WW, in which their martyrdom has overshadowed what they were like as people. Harry and his family *are* plaster saints, or perhaps marble ones, as far as the WW is concerned -- they have a statue in Godric's Hollow, after all. After speaking to Sirius and Lupin, Harry has to accept that the flawed representation of his father is the true one, just as he'll later have to accept the flawed Sirius and Dumbledore -- and the reader can choose to realize that Harry doesn't, even by the standards of his own world, always do the right thing, or even seem aware that he's done the wrong one. In DH, Harry learns that legends and reality have only a nodding acquaintance, and that he can draw inspiration and and comfort from people who aren't perfectly okay -- and a good thing too, IMO, since that's the only kind of people most of us will ever meet > > Magpie: > Lily is fighting to hide a smile at James' antics with Snape. She's > not turned off by his cruelty. This type of cruelty, when turned > against bad guys, is generally enjoyed by good guys in canon, or at > least they're not all that bothered by it. The author has been known > to smile about it in retrospect, and readers can enjoy it. Pippin: She has mixed feelings about his cruelty. "[T]he memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else. She had clearly loathed James" - OOP ch 29. Yeah, that smile slipped out, just like the unforgiveable word. But the difference is that Lily rejected the people who brought out her darker side, despite that they amused her. If only Snape and Lupin had been that strong. > > Magpie: > Yes, I know. The constant refrain about how this makes them so > wonderfully not perfect and human. It's not a flaw, it's a plus. Who > wants them to be plaster saints? How brave of Rowling allowing not to > force any self-reflection about this sort of stuff. > Pippin: Harry doesn't improve by self-reflection. He improves by screwing up. He responds to Sirius's death, and to Dumbledore's, by trying to cruciate the guilty party. He doesn't understand what Bella tries to tell him about the difference between righteous anger and sadism -- not until he successfully performs the curse. But after Fred's death, even though he's filled with the desire for "the satisfaction of revenge, he, too, wanted to fight, to punish them, the people who had killed Fred" -- he is able to channel his energy towards better ends: restraining Ron and finding Voldemort. Rowling shows -- not tells-- that Harry understands something he didn't understand before. Magpie: . That scene didn't end Lily's relationship with James, she wasn't sickened by it, > it ended her relationship with Snape because he called her a > Mudblood. He was the guy who needed to change his behavior because he > was on the wrong path. James, obviously, would just grow up and no > longer be in an environment where this sort of thing was fun. Pippin: It couldn't end her relationship with James because she didn't have one yet. And she didn't have one, according to canon, until James had stopped hexing people for the fun of it. Snape could have changed his behavior too, as he did later. > > Pippin: > > Who in canon ever says that James was a protector of others who > > was just letting off a little steam? It's Snape who says of Mulciber > > and Avery that it's just a bit of fun. > > > Magpie: > Uh, yeah. He could just grow out of it so what's the problem? No need > to think about what he's done or see anything bad in it. Bullying > really wasn't a problem for him or for Harry. He could just be let > alone and grow up like good people do. Pippin: But canon shows that it's not that simple. James didn't need any intervention to grow out of it, he never, as far as we know, thought of it as anything more than a bit of fun, but it still did permanent damage to Snape. Snape's efforts to end the bullying nearly cost him his own life and Lupin's future. Pettigrew's search for a bully to protect him led to mass murder. Sirius's bullying of Kreacher got him killed. Harry didn't do permanent damage to anyone only because of Snape's timely intervention. I think canon makes it clear that bullying is harmful in unpredictable ways and so, a bad thing, even when it doesn't feel wrong. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 01:42:01 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:42:01 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181459 Ummm, the previous part was actaully chapters 7-9, NOT 8-10, SORRY. "...and Ginny Weasley, blushing furiously, turned up with a "get well" card she had made herself, which sang shrilly unless Harry kept it shut under his bowl of fruit" - p.137 Alla: Wow, this card is cool indeed. Go Ginny :-) "Lupin made a sudden motion with his arm as though he had made to grip Harry's shoulder, but thought better of it" - p.140 Alla: Boy, do I love JKR's writing sometimes or what? This quote to me sums up one of the main reasons why I want to shake Remus so badly sometimes. It is clear to me that he does feel for Harry, yes? So why did he not write to him ONCE while the kid was little? I would not put it past Dumbledore to forbid visitors, but would even Dumbledore being able to forbid letters? May have made tons of difference for Harry to have a friend, even if pen pal friend if you ask me. But yeah, I know - no story. And here we have this quote - allow yourself to FEEL Remus, world is not going to bite you, sigh. "What else, m'dear, but Sirius Black? I daresay you heard what happened up at the school at Hallowee'en?" "I did hear a rumour," admitted Madam Rosmerta. "Did you tell the whole pub, Hagrid?" said Professor Mcgonagall exasperatedly" - p.151 Alla: Yeah, okay I guess Hagrid cannot keep a secret after all and everybody knows that :-) "They're in fury against Dumbledore - he won't let them inside the castle grounds" p.151 Alla: Still confused. How can he stop them and be absolutely sure that they will obey? Besides Patronus I mean. "James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was planning to go into hiding himself... and yet., Dumbledore remained worried. I remember him offering to be Potters' Secret Keeper instead" - p.153 Alla: Nothing especially new, just me getting angry at Dumbledore every time I read this quote. Yes, yes, I know Dumbledore thought Sirius betrayed them. Would be nice if he spared one extra thought to James' words and double checked if you ask me. "He did indeed. Black was tired of his double agent role, he was ready to declare his support openly for You-Know-Who, and he seems to have planned this for the moment of the Potters' death" - p.153 Alla: Here is what I do not get at all. Okay if Fudge talks about Sirius supposedly killing thirteen muggles, killing Peter, etc, I can understand that. After all this is what is supposedly happened per witnesses, those are facts at that point in time. How the heck does he know that Sirius was tired of his double agent role if Sirius gave no testimony whatsoever and the only resemblance of the hearing was Dumbledore testifying and giving "evidence" that Sirius was the secret keeper? Is Fudge just making things up on the spot? Another rumor out of nowhere? Please do not tell me that somebody indeed used legilimency on Sirius and told the falsehoods. "... and Pettigrew received the Order of Merlin, First Class, which I think was some comfort to his poor mother" - p.155 Alla: I wonder what happened to this poor woman indeed. "You know, most of the prisoners in there sit muttering to themselves in the dark, there's no sense in them... but I was shocked at how normal Black seemed" - p.155 Alla: Yeah, Azkaban is not good for most people indeed. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 00:36:55 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:36:55 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AF98A7.7010908@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181460 Steve blessed us with this gem On 11/02/2008 05:13: > Sorry, I'm just not buy this, not any part of it. Surely > you have heard the expression 'the straw that broke the > camel's back'.... > > ... up until the 'Spit', Harry has some underlying > assumption that McGonagall has some control over the situation. I, in turn, am not buying it. We have Harry's admission on the one hand. We have speculations about straws and camels on the other. The passage is clear that at the point of greatest danger to the students -- when Amycus comes bursting through the door breathing threats and fire, and the students are scattering in terror -- Harry does nothing. > That she will, if necessary, defend the students when the time > comes. The time both came and went. At the moment Harry Cruciates, there ARE no students in the room; thus, defense of students could not have been his motive. > But, once Amycus spits at McGonagall it become clear > that McGonagall has lost all authority and respect at the > school. She is going to be powerless to stop what Amycus > is professing. She hadn't lost her wand, had she? The immediate threat wasn't from what Amycus might do at some future date. It was in the present. Any response to that doesn't require authority, it requires a wand, as Harry demonstrated. > And so, it has gone too far, the situation is about to > get out of control, and likely McGonagall is in real > danger. From a mouthful of spit? There is absolutely no indication of any danger to McGonagall in the passage I read. The implication of your statement is that Harry is somehow in a better position to defend McGonagall than McGonagall herself, and I just don't see that in the passage anywhere. McGonagall has her wand and, as she demonstrates a short time later against Snape, is more than capable of using it. There WAS an immediate and present danger to the Ravenclaws as Amycus burst in, but as we've seen, Harry wasn't concerned enough to do anything about THAT. > Also, I thoroughly object to the characterization that Harry > 'tortured' Amycus. ... Yes, Harry used the 'Pain' curse... Look up the Latin. It's not the "pain" curse. Crucio -- "I torture". Latin has a perfectly good word for pain; "cruciatus" ain't it. If my characterization bothers you, you should take it up with JKR. > And this is very much a War Time situation. Amycus and Alecto > as well as others have brutally abused staff and students, > and that is only a taste of what is to come if they win. But now you're waffling between defense and vigilantism, if what you're suggesting is either that Harry was torturing Amycus for past or potential future actions, or because Amycus deserved it. > Not to mention VOLDEMORT IS ON HIS WAY! And how does Cruciating Amycus solve that? We have two possibilities. Either Harry is Cruciating Amycus to remove a clear and present danger, or he is Cruciating Amycus in response to past and/or potential future dangers (or, as you suggest, some amalgam of the two). Cruciating Amycus for past injustices is not defense, it's retribution. Nor is it any more effective than a half-dozen other spells Harry might have used (say a good Disarming/Binding combo) at dealing with any potential future threat. Even if I subscribe to your theory that Harry was responding to a clear and present danger to McGonagall, it still doesn't justify torture. If Harry were simply acting in defense there were any number of equally effective options open to him. More effective, in fact, since Harry was quite adept at Disarming, whereas his only previous attempts at Cruciating had been dismal failures. Why not simply Stun him, as Luna had just done with Alecto? > ... likely the Boss and a ton of re-enforcements are going to > be on their way. If this wasn't a justifiable emergency > situation, then no emergency has ever existed. At risk of repeating myself, the point of greatest danger was the moment Amycus burst through the common room door, NOT when he was clearing his mouth in Minerva's direction. In any case, none of what you mention justifies torture, nor does Cruciating Amycus change any of it. Even with Amycus lying crumpled on the floor both the Boss and his reinforcements are still on their way. > We don't crucify our heroes, not in the face of victory. (Interesting choice of words -- "crucify".) I'm trying to imagine this scenario. Having won WWII, Douglas MacArthur comes home to a tickertape parade down the streets of New York city. He's feted in Washington, celebrated around the nation and the world. And THEN it's discovered that he authorized -- perhaps even personally conducted -- torture against German POWs. Or we discover Winston Churchill authorized torture against Nazi spies -- waterboarding, racks, psychotropics, Ozzie Osborne, the whole nine yards. Are you really suggesting we would -- and should -- look the other way? Ignore war crimes simply because they were committed by people we otherwise like? And even if we do choose to do so, does that in any way change the nature of their actions? Yes, I agree it would be politically very difficult to prosecute Harry. I'm not interested in politics. Mike now: > Well, Harry's Crucio acted like a stunning spell. How do you > know that's not what Harry was thinking about when he wonders > if he should stun Carrow at this point? Because the text doesn't say "stun", it says "Stun" with a capital S: "Then, just as Harry was wondering whether he ought not to blast the door open and Stun Amycus..." Harry was specifically considering the Stunning Spell, which he had just seen Luna use effectively against Alecto. Why would Harry be casting (no pun intended :) ) around for an effective stunning spell when the WW already had an effective Stunning Spell? > Here, once again, I'd like to point out that using Sirius Black > as your moral guide with regards to the MoM's actions is > akin to asking O.J. what he thinks of the L.A.P.D. And who better to ask than someone with experience? But I take Sirius at this point as the authorial voice speaking through her character. If Sirius were simply speaking through and from his pain, I would have expected indicators of that in the passage, say bitterness in his voice, or anger in his eyes. What I see in the passage, however, is a calm, reasonable Sirius, not a bitter, spiteful one. YMMV, but I think any other reading is eisogeting. And now Carol: > A Crucio was overkill Worse -- it was foolish. Harry had never successfully Cruciated. He WAS quite adept at Disarming, however. So why, in this crisis moment -- if his only concern was removal of an immediate threat -- would Harry suddenly abandon his signature spell for a spell which, based on his track record, he couldn't even do? Particularly when, for the purpose at hand -- neutralizing Carrow -- the Cruciatus had no obvious advantage over either Expelliarmus or Stunning. CJ From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 02:43:27 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:43:27 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181461 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" wrote: > > > > zgirnius: > > > Additional evidence of his emotional state, as I see it, is the > > > way the spell works when he casts it. More normally, a victim of > > > this curse falls screaming to the ground and continues to > > > experience excruciating pain until the caster deliberately stops > > > the curse by raising his wand. Harry's spell sends Amycus > > > crashing into a wall, where he promptly loses consciousness. > > Mike: > I included zgirnius' entire paragraph just to say that I proposed > this difference in the results of Harry's Crucio as compared to > other's Crucios way back, and nobody bought it. Glad to see a fellow > traveler, Zara. zgirnius: Actually, Mike, I was not proposing that Harry's Crucios as a group are different from anyone else's. It is my opinion that spells cast in a state of great emotional excitement tend to have extra 'kick', for lack of a better word. Other possible examples would be the Expelliarmus by Snape that knocked Lockhart across the stage in CoS, and the AK by Snape that threw Albus over the ramparts of the Astronomy Tower in HBP. So all I was proposing is that Harry's Crucio of Amycus, likewise, was done while he was extremely upset. Other than the fact that it sends Amycus flying across the room, it appears in all other ways to have been a proper Crucio. (Unlike, say, his less sucessful attempt on Bella in OotP). Amycus gives every appearance of experiencing the typical excruciating pain this curse causes as he flies back against the wall. His subsequent loss of consciousness, I believe, was caused by the collision with the wall/and or other stuff that fell on him, not an idiosyncratic effect of Harry's spell. Though I think, if Harry had not knocked Amycus out, he would have stopped the curse quickly. But this is just a hypothetical based on my opinion of Harry's character. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Mon Feb 11 03:21:21 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:21:21 -0000 Subject: A James Rant - Who was This Guy? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181462 > Pippin: > First of all, I think the canon is a bit different than you remember: > -- > Harry could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside > down for the fun of it...not unless they really loathed them...Perhaps > Malfoy, or somebody who really deserved it... (OOP ch 29) > -- > "Except perhaps to Draco, or somebody who deserved it " implies that > Draco deserving it is not a given, which hardly translates to perfectly > okay. Magpie: I don't understand how I'm misremembering. He couldn't imagine the twins dangling somebody upside down for the fun of it, not unless they really loathed them or perhaps Malfoy or somebody else who really deserved it. Iow, Harry can imagine the twins doing this thing under certain circumstances. (Circumstances that I think as far as James is concerned he's also fulfilled, though Harry's not so sure.) I didn't mean to imply that Draco deserving it was not a given (of course it's a given--he's Draco). I was saying that Harry felt that this type of thing would be very different and understandable--and he could see the twins doing it--if the person "deserved it" or they really loathed him. I know there are times in canon where bullying as held up as a horrible thing--I just don't think it goes that deep. She makes racism a big bad too when the bad guys do it, but that doesn't mean the good guys ever consider their own actions or words as potentially being bigoted. Pippin:> > Secondly, he does apply it to himself. "For nearly five years the thought > of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever > someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride > inside. And now...he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him." Magpie: That's not what I meant he ought to apply to himself. I meant Harry thinking about his own behavior somewhere, not James'. A statement about accepting bullying as a flaw in someone you look up to is obviously a little different than a statement about just how bad bullying is, or showing a good kid realizing he's done it and truly regretting his actions. > Pippin: > Harry doesn't improve by self-reflection. He improves by screwing up. > > He responds to Sirius's death, and to Dumbledore's, by trying to cruciate > the guilty party. He doesn't understand what Bella tries to tell him about > the difference between righteous anger and sadism -- not until he > successfully performs the curse. > > But after Fred's death, even though he's filled with the desire for "the > satisfaction of revenge, he, too, wanted to fight, to punish them, the > people who had killed Fred" -- he is able to channel his energy towards > better ends: restraining Ron and finding Voldemort.> Rowling shows - - not tells-- that Harry understands something he didn't > understand before. Magpie: Harry doesn't improve, period. (And there seems little call for him to in canon, imo.) You can't improve without some self-reflection, imo, even if you don't formally think of it as such. Screwing up doesn't do anything if you don't think about and understand what you did wrong. I don't see any connection between Harry performing his Crucio and learning from it--his using it is fine. He doesn't regret it (and says so) or think about it twice. I don't have the canon in front of me but from what you're describing it doesn't sound like there's any connection to what you're talking about here. Why would restraining Ron show any growth on Harry's part? He would have done that anyway. Ron's vengeful impulses aren't his own. Doesn't Harry restrain somebody at one point before rushing into a fight himself? (I could be misremembering that.) > Pippin: > Harry didn't do permanent damage to anyone only because > of Snape's timely intervention. I think canon makes it clear that > bullying is harmful in unpredictable ways and so, a bad thing, even > when it doesn't feel wrong. Magpie: Lots of things in canon are harmful in unpredictable ways, but I don't think this sums up what's said about bullying. Bullying is often very much shown as a bad thing--the story starts with poor Harry being the victim of terrible bullies. The characters who are designated as official bullies are always shown as being in the wrong. But when it comes to those good kids being bullies I think the book gets a little mushier. And when it comes to Harry doing something that somebody might describe as bullying I think the author would be simply defensive. Lily wouldn't go out with James while he was being the bad kind of bully, but he didn't have to regret the past any more than Harry did imo--that's what people thought the Prank was dramatizing, but it wasn't. I doubt he thought much about Snape--I don't see anybody thinking of the Prank as something Snape was pushed into by James' bullying. He doesn't regret it, his friends don't much regret it and they all still think Snape's making too much of it. They were idiots at 15, that explains it. I think bullying is a common part of human behavior. Most people have probably done it at one time. It's especially common during adolescence. It's fine for Harry to learn to love his father as a guy who could be a jerk rather than as an idealized icon. But I don't think you can show somebody truly growing to understand bullying is wrong--or especially to show a character changing so we can learn from him/her--without the self-reflection you claim Harry doesn't learn from imo. "I was an idiot then" isn't realizing you were wrong, it's saying it's normal. Harry never has a moment of regret for hexing people like Filch in the halls or casting a Crucio, or really any of his behavior towards other people that I can call to mind. The two times he most seriously screws up still don't get him to the point of causing that kind of character development in that area. He seems pretty regret-free. As an aside, it seems to me that the one character in canon who could have gone through something like a serious self-reflection about bullying is Draco Malfoy, but that isn't canon, just speculation about the self-reflection he might have had that wasn't on the page. Harry's screw-ups are to my eyes mostly justified, easily forgiven (without his asking) and not needing to be dwelt on. James' bullying is something Harry should accept about him and forgive because he shouldn't expect him to be perfect. And that's fine and in keeping with things that Harry struggles with throughout the series, but not not saying much of note about bullying for our pov character. I don't think canon is always approving of bullying, no. Not at all. Sometimes the bully is the bad guy because he's the bully. But I don't think James created Snape through his bullying, and I think the Prank now more than ever is about Snape being jealous and hating James more than trying to stop James' bullying, judging by what we (and Lily the wonderful) see. If JKR hadn't had Peter hang around James for his bullying I think she'd have had him hang around him because he was popular and powerful. I'm still left with the impression that whatever statements JKR would make about bullying IRL, her hero's journey doesn't include him regretting any of his own worse moments--in fact, at times what she does instead is this clever thing where she has Harry be in danger of having to really regret one of his screw ups and then instead she has some other person start harassing him so that Harry becomes the victim. Far from showing Harry learning from his screw ups, she has somebody come in and turn it into a totally different situation where Harry's the victim. I can't help but have the impression of the books mostly justfying Harry throughout. I far more recognize the kind of growth that you described above, where Harry deals with other peoples' flaws. -m From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 03:42:29 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:42:29 -0000 Subject: The Hook that was PoA CH 1-4 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181463 > Alla: > > Mike, I am sooo with you. I loved those chapters too. I just > wanted to say that I totally get why in the last books she would > not portray such a lovely, yummy picture any more. Harry > supposedly learns how grim and bleak the world he escaped too is > and that this world is not really an escape, but on the contrary > in need of saving, etc. Mike: Oh yeah, I totally get why things had to change. I was just reminiscing about the lovely picture she painted in my mind. When I used to reread the books continuously, I always reread PoA an extra few times just to read the first few chapters and the last few chapters. I was so happy to see Harry get a couple of Dursley free weeks in his true world, with all the interesting people. Harry could be himself, listen and learn of what it would be like to be around other wizarding folk all the time. JKR didn't put much thought into the theory of magic. But when she gave us the wizards arguing over the latest article in Transfiguration Today, I had fun picturing two academic types bantering back and forth. "That doesn't work, Swapman. You have to concentrate on the size of the *wings* when you say 'Raptorus'. If you're thinking about the beak you can get anything from a Macaw to a Hippogriff." "Professor Tradingplace, if I think about the wings, I invariably get a standard bog chicken that won't fly. There must be something we're not considering." I read the last few chapters to get the Marauders' story and to reread Harry saying "Prongs". I also loved the letters Harry got from Sirius on the Hogwarts Express. > Alla: > > Oh, oh and I know you do not dig the interviews, so I am asking if > you do want to know what fate awaited Fortesque in JKR's head at > least? Mike: Nah. Someone else off-listed me with her thought that Florean was a casualty of war and I must say she's probably right, as much as I didn't want it to be so. I hope he had some kids that resurrected the ice cream business bigger and better than before. > Alla: > > But yes, having said this, I wish we would see the glimpse of > Potters eating ice cream in the epilogue or something like that. I > LOVED it. Mike: In most of the other books, the last chapters left me with a good feeling, things were sort of returning to normal only better, and usually Harry got a pleasant surprise. HBP, the halfway point to the conclusion by JKR's own definition, being the exception of course. I would have loved it if JKR had put one more chapter into DH before the Epilogue. Maybe a few months after the Battle of Hogwarts, to revisit some of the places that had returned to normal. I would have appreciated seeing Diagon Alley thriving again, the Leaky Cauldron full again, and I would have even liked to see Mrs. Marsh looking green again as she climbed down off of the Knight Bus, with Stan throwing her bag after her. Mike From moosiemlo at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 05:39:24 2008 From: moosiemlo at gmail.com (Lynda Cordova) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:39:24 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2795713f0802102139h591caab7te09dd6e4fa77a343@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181464 bdclark0423: "So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand...that must always win duels for its owner: a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death!' So with that, all the other comments I've already included, plus those thoughts and ideas within DH, we are still given the impression that anyone with the wand cannot be beaten. Lynda: That's from a wizarding fairy tale--a story told children to teach a lesson or a moral and to entertain, but fairy tales are just that--fictional stories. So, unless I'm also going to believe that the invisibility cloak really belonged to Death at one time and the Ressurection stone as well, why would I believe that the Elder Wand would always win a duel for its current owner rather than transfering its allegience when its owner was bested by another wizard? Lynda [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 05:14:09 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:14:09 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181465 >Bart >Answer: You defeat the owner by not fighting a duel with >him/her while he/she is using the wand. In other words, >the battle must be a duel AND the owner must be using the >wand in order for the owner to be guaranteed a win. bdclark0423: Yes, this was my original logic, but you'll see DD saying to Harry `I won the duel. I won the wand.' There's not much room to misinterpret what happened. Looking further into this, I noticed Some of the things DD says are: When he's talking about GG and their friendship in their youth and the death of AD, he admits `I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me, I delayed ' `I was fit only to possess the [wand] .and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.' So as we know it is the wand that chooses it's master, could have the wand chosen DD? (another possibility) and with the JKR making DD gay and the possible love affair with GG, this does invite opportunity for DD to be clever enough to not duel GG with the Elder Wand involved but to trick him by using previously built relationship.. >bboyminn: >Further, we and Harry are only speculating that Harry was >the Master of the Wand. I'm mean the concept server its >purpose, it psyched Voldemort out. But we only know that >Harry believed himself the Master, we don't really know >it was true. bdclark0423: Sorry, I have to disagree, sure We and Harry can speculate, but JKR is not speculating. Since she bases the entire final battle on this premise (Voldy's killing spell rebounding back on to him), and then Harry makes the statement based on DD's original plan, `if I die of natural causes then its power will be broken, ` I think since she is author we can make the assumption that Harry is owner of the Elder Wand. >bboyminn: >The wand in the story of the Three Brothers must - the actual >historical artifact that inspired the story, may perhaps only >be a wand of great power. Bdclark0423: Best logic yet, I think this would make the assumption on my topic that this mistake is defunct. It would be like saying after Merlin drove Excalibur into the rock and then later, this was pulled out by King Arthur, but the sword could have never been put onto the rock in the first place because of its chemical composition would never allow this to happen. Thanks! Bdclark0423 From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 05:27:35 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:27:35 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181466 > > > zgirnius: > > > In one of the DADA classes in HBP, Harry learns that > > > Inferi are the dead bodies of their victims, reanimated > > > by a Dark Wizard. > > > bdclark0423 > > I think because you've been able to point out that JKR has > > done this, it shouldn't be considered a mistake. > > zanooda: > In addition to Snape's class, there is also that conversation > between Harry and DD in the very beginning of HBP ("Horace > Slughorn" ch.) where Harry asks what Inferi are (because they > were mentioned in the Ministry leaflets) and DD explains. So > Harry knows about Inferi from the beginning of the book, as > does everyone else, because of the Ministry warnings ("Will > and Won't" ch.). bdclark0423: Ok, I'm going back to my original logic on this. Remember I went back to chapter when I was actually reading DH. In this scene, several times Harry asks DD, DD doesn't respond with a specific term, and basically everything leaves the reader to a scene of creatures with mysterious powers/intentions. If at the beginning of HBP, Inferi are explained to Harry, he would never have felt ignorant of what it was that was in the water, AND know how to combat them...perhaps he realizes after the fact.... From madammilliemarsh at yahoo.com.au Mon Feb 11 05:51:24 2008 From: madammilliemarsh at yahoo.com.au (Alison) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:51:24 -0000 Subject: PoA CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181467 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > "But not Sirius Black. I `eard he thought `e'd be second in command > once You know ?`Oo `ad taken over" ? p.34 > > Alla: > I am just wondering about this part. I mean, I get it that what > happened to Sirius was very well known. I mean, well known in the > wrong way, since what was known as we all know was a lie, but I > still wonder how did this particular rumor developed? Who would > start spreading the rumors that Sirius wanted to be second in > command? Pettigrew himself would spread the rumor? But he is not in > particular position to do so, no? > Alison : Well as usual I am way behind in the topic but thought I might as well chip in on this one since no one seems to have done so. How do any rumours start ? People start speculating, come up with their theories, tell someone else and it grows and soon becomes accepted 'fact'. However there's probably a much simpler two word answer in this case : Rita Skeeter. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 15:53:20 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:53:20 -0000 Subject: Some HBP questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181468 Mercia: Hi. I'm not trying to jump ahead in the 'post DH' look at series. I know we've a way to go before HBP. But I've been rereading it at present rather slowly and have a few questions that are not really influenced by knowledge of DH. (Or maybe on second thoughts some are.) Anyway I'd be interested in any thoughts, though these questions may have been mentioned before. I'm only a few chapters in and this is what's occurring to me so far. Alla: Oh, no, this is going to be very light canon reply, but I feel I have to reply. Please do not worry about jumping ahead or whatever. This reread is not even reread chapter discussion, it is my own thing, which I started because I felt like rereading the books and sharing with the list which parts of the previous books will jump at me in a new light. Please do not feel compelled to wait (you or anybody else) if you want to discuss something that jumped at you in a new light from OOP or HBP or any other book. I am going at the speed that is convenient for me, I NOTE things that jump at me and I can miss something that other people note, etc. I am going to continue this thing regardless of whether people will join or not, because it pleases me So, what I am trying to say ? please do not mind me, hehe. Mercia: Snape's snide comment about Tonks' new patronus, that it 'looked weak' I previously took as a reference to her own currently weakened state. In other words her evident depression was making her weak and the patronus was a sign of it. Now (and yes I suppose post DH) I saw another level of possible meaning, ie that it was actually a character reading by Snape of Lupin. Alla: Absolutely. I never took it as jab at Tonks if I remember correctly. I took it as crack at whoever was the reason that Tonks' patronus changed. I mean, I do not remember if it was my first reaction, but certainly it was such after HBP ended. Mercia: Anyone like to speculate on just which smell makes Hermione think of Ron? What would be 'essence of Ron'? Alla: Heeee, the smell of forest for some reason for me is the essence of Ron, more specifically the smell of New year tree. From bartl at sprynet.com Mon Feb 11 17:42:51 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:42:51 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B0891B.80106@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181469 bdclark0423 wrote: >> Bart >> Answer: You defeat the owner by not fighting a duel with >> him/her while he/she is using the wand. In other words, >> the battle must be a duel AND the owner must be using the >> wand in order for the owner to be guaranteed a win. >> > > bdclark0423: > Yes, this was my original logic, but you'll see DD saying > to Harry `I won the duel. I won the wand.' There's not much > room to misinterpret what happened. Bart: When I read that (in the book), I immediately recalled an old (comic book) LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES story. There was a villain who had the capability of countering any super-power. So Ultra-Boy (who has many super-powers, but can only use one at a time) goes up to her, and, instead of using one of his super-powers on her, just punches her in the jaw, knocking her out. That's pretty much what I envisioned. DD walking up to an overconfident Waldo, and punching him right in the jaw. Bart [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From mercia at ireland.com Mon Feb 11 18:04:52 2008 From: mercia at ireland.com (meglet2) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:04:52 -0000 Subject: Some HBP questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181470 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > Alla: >Please do not worry about jumping ahead or whatever. This > reread is not even reread chapter discussion, it is my own thing, > which I started because I felt like rereading the books and sharing > with the list which parts of the previous books will jump at me in a > new light. > > Please do not feel compelled to wait (you or anybody else) if you > want to discuss something that jumped at you in a new light from OOP > or HBP or any other book. That's OK, I understand that we don't really have to stick to sequence. I just wanted to indicate that I was enjoying the unfolding discussions but this was the book I happened to be on. Don't have acess to my copy of POA at present anyway as a friend has borrowed it and taken it with her on a (work) trip to Indonesia for in flight reading or times when she finds herself alone in a hotel room. > Mercia: Snape's snide comment about Tonks' new patronus, that it 'looked > weak' I previously took as a reference to her own currently weakened > state. In other words her evident depression was making her weak and > the patronus was a sign of it. Now (and yes I suppose post DH) I saw > another level of possible meaning, ie that it was actually a > character reading by Snape of Lupin. > > Alla: > > Absolutely. I never took it as jab at Tonks if I remember correctly. > I took it as crack at whoever was the reason that Tonks' patronus > changed. I mean, I do not remember if it was my first reaction, but > certainly it was such after HBP ended. I've also been relishing the nice complex ironies going on here as well which DH has shown up. Snape of course would know all about Patronuses (Patroni?) that change to reflect something about the person for whom the caster harbours an obsessive maybe even unrequited love. He would also know something of the effects of such love on the personality and actions of the person feeling it. Though his comment is absolutely in keeping with his cruel and vindictive streak maybe he also saw himself in some way as trying to warn Tonks not to get involved with 'the werewolf.' ('How do I know what way a werewolf's mind works.) Maybe in his own twisted way he was trying to be kind and protective of a young Order member. Or not. Kindness and protectiveness not exactly being his strong suits. Anyway I just loved the further complexities of Snape this tiny exchange illustrated with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. Thanks for the reply. Mercia > From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 20:07:56 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:07:56 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181471 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bdclark0423" wrote: > Ok, I'm going back to my original logic on this. In this > scene, several times Harry asks DD, DD doesn't respond with a > specific term, and basically everything leaves the reader to a > scene of creatures with mysterious powers/intentions. Maybe that's the point - mystery adds to suspense, doesn't it? Harry doesn't know at the beginning what the creatures in the lake are, he thinks "of water monsters, of giant serpents, of demons" etc. Maybe JKR doesn't want *us* to know either, that's why DD doesn't explain what the things in the water are. Harry finds out about the dead bodies only half-way through the lake, when he sees one under the surface, and he is terrified, even though they are passive at that point. Harry suspects what they really are, because he already saw one of them jump out of the water earlier. However, once more DD doesn't call the bodies their real name. The corpses are called "Inferi" (not by DD, by the author, but from Harry's POV) only after they come to life and attack Harry on the island - at this point he (and us) knows for sure what is the horror he is facing. So we have this increase of suspense and fear - from fear of unknown to the horrible suspicion and to the final terrifying realization. I don't know if the authorial intent is enough for you as an explanation :-), but I don't know what other reason can be for DD not to tell Harry from the very beginning what the creatures in the water were. Suspense, suspense, and more suspense :-)! Anyway, it's one of the possible explanations, IMO. As for Harry not using fire against the Inferi, it's easy to explain - he panicked, he said it himself. It is obvious that the boy is scared of zombies (understandably), so he just lost his head. Besides, I'm not even sure that he knows any fire spells :-). zanooda From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Mon Feb 11 20:13:37 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:13:37 -0000 Subject: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181472 > > zgirnius: > >snip > >When Harry's life really was on the line...he used "Expelliarmus". He used this when he was flying with Hagrid at the start of DH, when he saw Stan S. In this instance I agreed with Lupin that he was too nice and should have used an unforgivable curse as Stan could really have been a death eater and killed Harry. I still think he was right to use the curse he did against Amycus in DH, for many reasons. Jayne From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Mon Feb 11 17:30:39 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:30:39 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181473 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: >snip> > "Lupin made a sudden motion with his arm as though he had made > to grip Harry's shoulder, but thought better of it" - p.140 > Alla (snipped): > This quote to me sums up one of the main reasons why I want > to shake Remus so badly sometimes. It is clear to me that he > does feel for Harry, yes? So why did he not write to him ONCE > while the kid was little? > And here we have this quote - allow yourself to FEEL Remus, > world is not going to bite you, sigh. I feel that Remus was right not to contact Harry until they met at school. I have never wanted to shake Remus. He is my favourite character as he is loyal to Harry, kind, a clever wizard and I think really loves Harry Jayne Defending Remus from abuse!!!!! From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Mon Feb 11 20:05:57 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:05:57 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181474 > bboyminn: > As to transfer of the Wand, that is equally tricky. You can > transfer possession without tranferring ownership or > allegiance. But consider this, many times in its history > the Wand must have moved from the possession of one wizard > to another, but not under the right circumstances. Yet, at > some point the non-Master owner of the wand was defeated > and the wand transfer it allegiance somehow to the new > wizard. That complicates thing immensely in my mind. Going on the point made above, how did Draco become the master of the wand? When he was with DD on the roof prior to DD death in HBP, he didn't defeat DD. He used Expelliarmus as DD got to the roof and the wand fell down. No where in cannon dores it mention that Draco picked it up. Are we to presume this ? Hope someone can clear this up for me Thanks Jayne Slightly confused From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 21:18:05 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:18:05 -0000 Subject: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181475 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jayne" wrote: >> I feel that Remus was right not to contact Harry until they met > at school. > > I have never wanted to shake Remus. He is my favourite character > as he is loyal to Harry, kind, a clever wizard and I think really > loves Harry > > Jayne > Defending Remus from abuse!!!!! Alla: LOL Jayne I too love to defend my favorite characters, but trust me this is NOT character's abuse. Or at least I think so, hehe. Want to see what character's abuse is just search under Snape or Harry. You will see MUCH harsher critique from both sides to both characters. Not that I see anything wrong with harsh critique of the characters, because as we all know they are characters, but just saying. I actually used to really like Remus, not as much as I like Sirius, but still like him and especially them together :-) I still like him much better than Snape for example, but he did got on my nerves quite a lot especially in book 7. But in any event, obviously we cannot argue about how we perceive the characters, their actions though - different story. So, after my long winded beginning, I actually have a question. Could you elaborate why Remus was right not to contact Harry? Do you see any GOOD coming out of it? I mean, would it hurt Harry to have somebody friendly to talk to in his early childhood? I do not doubt that Remus loves Harry, I just do not see him doing anything for the son of his dead friends when he was little, anything at all. I see his unwillingness to interfere as very in character, but do not find it sympathetic, I am afraid. JMO, Alla From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 21:08:35 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:08:35 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <47B0891B.80106@sprynet.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181476 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky wrote: > That's pretty much what I envisioned. DD walking up to an > overconfident Waldo, and punching him right in the jaw. bdclark0423: Cute story of ultra-boy, and could be appropriate.....except A duel implies one wizard who makes a challenge to another, and I would hardly believe Dumbledore would dishonor what he considers a duel by going up to them and knocking them unconscious bdclark0423 From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 21:50:54 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:50:54 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181477 > Jayne: > Going on the point made above, how did Draco become the master > of the wand? When he was with DD on the roof prior to DD death > in HBP, he didn't defeat DD. He used Expelliarmus as DD got to > the roof and the wand fell down. No where in cannon dores it > mention that Draco picked it up. Are we to presume this ? zgirnius: It is my opinion that the very act of disarming a wizard is a defeat of that wizard. Draco did not need to pick up the wand to have already won its loyalty, he did when he removed it from Dumbledore's possession. Likewise Harry defeated Draco by disarming him (using brute physical force, but still, disarming him). He also did not take physical possession of the Elder Wand at the time, but it transferred its allegiance nonetheless becaue iot recoignized a defeat of its former master Draco, by Harry. Voldemort, on the other hand, took physical possession of the wand, but failed to win its allegiance. To do so, he would have needed to defeat its master (at the point Voldemort claimed the wand, that was already Harry). From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Mon Feb 11 22:54:42 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:54:42 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181478 > zanooda2: > > Maybe that's the point - mystery adds to suspense, doesn't it? Harry doesn't know at the beginning what the creatures in the lake are, he thinks "of water monsters, of giant serpents, of demons" etc. Maybe JKR doesn't want *us* to know either, that's why DD doesn't explain what the things in the water are. Tiffany: Mystery & suspense are practically like peanut butter & jelly in writing, esp. in fiction. The whole reason why the creatures in the lake scene in the book was so scary when I first read it is because we don't know what's in there, so we're forced to kind of speculate on what could really be in there. JKR could want us to speculate on what's really in the lake & what the creatures themselves truly are instead of knowing for sure. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Mon Feb 11 23:35:36 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:35:36 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181479 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" wrote: > > > Jayne: > > Going on the point made above, how did Draco become the master > > of the wand? When he was with DD on the roof prior to DD death > > in HBP, he didn't defeat DD. He used Expelliarmus as DD got to > > the roof and the wand fell down. No where in cannon dores it > > mention that Draco picked it up. Are we to presume this ? zgirnius: > It is my opinion that the very act of disarming a wizard is a defeat of > that wizard. Draco did not need to pick up the wand to have already won > its loyalty, he did when he removed it from Dumbledore's possession. Geoff: I couldn't agree more. The very fact that the wand had been removed forcibly from Dumbledore set that up. zgirnius: > Likewise Harry defeated Draco by disarming him (using brute physical > force, but still, disarming him). He also did not take physical > possession of the Elder Wand at the time, but it transferred its > allegiance nonetheless becaue iot recoignized a defeat of its former > master Draco, by Harry. Geoff: Obviously. smeody at some point n time, rescued the wand and placed it with Dumbledore's body, hence Harry could not take possession of it but, as you say, the wand recognised the transfer of authority from Draco to Harry. zgirnius: > Voldemort, on the other hand, took physical possession of the wand, but > failed to win its allegiance. To do so, he would have needed to defeat > its master (at the point Voldemort claimed the wand, that was already > Harry). Geoff: Again, agreed. there was no defeat involved in Voldemort desecrating the tomb to gain the wand. He had presumably assumed by this time that Snape had killed Dumbledore and was thus the master and the next item listed under "things to do" on Voldemort's agenda to be ticked off. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 21:52:08 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:52:08 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blowing his cover In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B0C388.2080203@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181480 Jayne blessed us with this gem On 12/02/2008 04:13: > In this instance I agreed with Lupin that he was too nice > and should have used an unforgivable curse as Stan could really have > been a death eater and killed Harry. Since wandless magic is almost unheard of in the WW, it follows that a wandless wizard is an impotent wizard. Assuming your objective is the removal of a threat -- say, the threat posed by Stan Shunpike -- then a UC is no more effective than a well-placed Expelliarmus. Less, in fact. Since there's no guarantee a Cruciated wizard will drop his wand, the Cruciatus would be effective only so long as it is held; once the Cruciating stops, the threat returns. Harry was on the run and had no time to hold Stan in a Cruciatus. Further, Harry had never successfully performed a UC. He was, conversely, quite adept at Disarming. It would be foolish for him in a crisis moment to abandon a spell he had used effectively on so many occasions for one which he had never successfully cast, particularly when there was no clear advantage for him to do so. Lupin's logic makes no sense. CJ From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 00:05:22 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:05:22 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B0E2C2.4040505@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181481 Jayne: > No where in cannon dores it mention that Draco picked it up. zgirnius: > It is my opinion that the very act of disarming a wizard is a > defeat of that wizard.... > Likewise Harry defeated Draco by disarming him It's hopeless. The logic of this whole sequence is irredeemably convoluted. A simple Disarming counts as a defeat. But how many times have we seen Disarmed wizards scrambling for the wands and rejoining the fray? Nearly every participant in the fight at Malfoy Mansion was Disarmed at least once; they all retrieved their wands. In fact, throughout the series we've witnessed dozens of Disarmings, with never a hint of a change in wand ownership. And then there's the whole Dueling Club problem, where Disarming apparently DOESN'T count as defeat. Why? And of course, there's the added complication that Harry "disarmed" Draco simply by grabbing wands out of Draco's hand. Apparently that DOES count. But let's see: Ron disarmed Wormtail by grabbing his wand but then was forced by Bellatrix to relinquish it (does THAT count, too? or does the wand need to be physically wrested away?). Then later Molly defeats Bellatrix. So is Molly now master of Wormtail's wand? The logic bears all the earmarks of something JKR ill-advisedly pulled out of her hat at the last minute to try to rescue a plot that had gone badly awry. It just can't be made sense of. CJ From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Tue Feb 12 02:16:45 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:16:45 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <47B0E2C2.4040505@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181482 Lee: > It's hopeless. The logic of this whole sequence is irredeemably > convoluted. A simple Disarming counts as a defeat. ... > The logic bears all the earmarks of something JKR ill-advisedly pulled > out of her hat at the last minute to try to rescue a plot that had gone > badly awry. It just can't be made sense of. Magpie: I like to think two weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts Ron grabbed Harry's wand to open a jar of mayonnaisse and become the Master of the Elder Wand, which he then used to try to take over the world (in between being an auror and running a joke shop). -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 02:53:17 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:53:17 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <47B0E2C2.4040505@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181483 > zgirnius: > > It is my opinion that the very act of disarming a wizard is a > > defeat of that wizard.... CJ: > > Likewise Harry defeated Draco by disarming him > > It's hopeless. The logic of this whole sequence is irredeemably > convoluted. A simple Disarming counts as a defeat. But how many times > have we seen Disarmed wizards scrambling for the wands and rejoining the > fray? Nearly every participant in the fight at Malfoy Mansion was > Disarmed at least once; they all retrieved their wands. In fact, > throughout the series we've witnessed dozens of Disarmings, with never a > hint of a change in wand ownership. zgirnius: In all the cases you cite, the previous owner of the wand retrieves it immediately thereafter. Possibly, this counts as winning the wands back, if you will. Or maybe a wand taken from its owner is in a state of flux, open to the winner, but still willing to go back to the owner it originally chose and/or has grown accustomed to, if opportunity allows. Of perhaps, the Elder Wand, being made to be a super-powerful wand, is more susceptible to displays of power and transfers allegiance to a victorious wizard more easily than most wands do. In all the other cases where a wand serves its new master well, it is seized *and kept* by the new master. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 03:06:43 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:06:43 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181484 > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/messages/181455 > Montavilla47: > Throughout the books, there is this paradigm set up with the > circular logic that bad guys are bad because they are attracted > to Dark Magic and Dark Magic is bad because bad guys like it. > Dark Magic itself is never really defined, *except* for the > definition of the Unforgiveables. > Up through HBP, I would estimate that ninety-percent of the > readers accepted that the Unforgiveables--if nothing else-- > were truly Dark Magic and that Harry's inability to cast them > was a mark of his virtue. > Harry's moment, on the other hand, was cheap, gratuitous, > and only put in the story to make the audience feel good > for the nano-second immediately following it. At the same > time, it blasted the only one firm pillar of magical > morality in the books to pieces. > Without even the tiniest definition of Dark Magic, we have to > examine every action of all the characters--previously "good" > or "bad" anew without a firm *internal* moral compass. Mike: Once in a while someone comes up with an exceptional piece of reasoning and phrases it in easily understood concepts, that make me go WOW! This was one of those. Montavilla, you did for me what many others couldn't, and I thank you for that. Now I understand why the Marauders fun seems less so, to me. I also understand what my anger that generated my James rant was based upon. JKR took away that too simplistic definition, and that forced me to reassess James actions throughout. Before, Sirius' words that "James hated the Dark Arts" was good enough to let me know this was a good guy. Now, what are Dark Arts, and how do we know the good guys aren't using them and just don't know it? Or do know it and don't care? About all I can hang my hat on is my belief that there are degrees, that things aren't black and white when discussing what is black or white. That's why I can accept Harry's Imperios in Gringotts as a dire necessity, a good guy put in a bad spot with no other options to prevent the failure of a vital mission of 'good'. Whereas, with whomever Imperio-ed Rosemerta to make her perform an evil task, that I have no problem decrying. > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/messages/181460 > CJ > The passage is clear that at the point of greatest danger to the > students -- when Amycus comes bursting through the door breathing > threats and fire, and the students are scattering in terror -- > Harry does nothing. Mike: A point of order here. Amycus bursts across the threshold and the remaining few Ravenclaws scamper up the stairs. Amycus only has eyes for his stunned sister. THEN, after all the students are gone upstairs, Amycus starts "breathing threats and fire." The students weren't being threatened by Amycus when they were present, except on the general principle that the Carrows are threats to civility wherever they are. > > bboyminn: > > Yes, Harry used the 'Pain' curse... > CJ > Look up the Latin. It's not the "pain" curse. Crucio -- > "I torture". > Latin has a perfectly good word for pain; "cruciatus" ain't it. Mike: Then we have a conundrum, since the "Cruciatus Curse" is cast by uttering the word "Crucio". So which is it, the pain curse or the torture curse? Crouch!Moody doesn't help us, he explained "Pain, ... to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse." We also have the problem that JKR admitted to using her own bastardization of Latin in creating her spell names. I'm sure she picked them to mean generally what the Latin means, yet Petrificus Totalus did not turn the victim entirely into stone, despite the spells Latin roots. Now, the part to which I know you'll disagree, but I'll posit anyway in my concurrence with Steve, is that there are degrees in magic, imo. Aguamenti can be used to fill a glass with water, or like a fire hose to put out Hagrid's Hut. Likewise, hitting someone in the face with the force from the tap or hitting someone with a fire hose will produce drastically different effects using the same spell. I've no doubt that Harry intended to cause Amycus a moment of intense pain with his Cruciatus Curse. I've also no doubt that he held it only long enough for Amycus to be blasted into the wall and get knocked unconscious. That, to me, does not constitute torture, any more than a well placed kick to the groin prior to delivering a knockout blow would be torture in a fight. > CJ > Cruciating Amycus for past injustices is not defense, it's > retribution. Mike: Regardless of the spell, fighting the known enemy is definitely not retribution, it's battle. Plus, past injustices are what makes them your enemy. Whether it's offensive or defensive is a moot point in war. Killing is killing whether it's done as part of an offensive or defensive maneuver. > CJ > If Harry were simply acting in defense there were any number of > equally effective options open to him. Mike: I get the protestations over the use of the spell, I don't get the questioning of effectiveness. Obviously Harry was effective. Aside: There must be some magical transformation that occurs upon a wizards 17th birthday. I can't see Dumbledore removing his Privet Drive protection based on some administrative stricture. I posit that wizards are aware of this, even if it wasn't explained to us. I further posit that Harry knew his first "of age" Crucio would be effective because of this awareness. Having to "mean it" can't be the only criteria for effectiveness, else Crouch!Moody couldn't have said what he did about any of the kids pointing their wands at him and trying to AK him. I'll bet Draco would have "meant it". > CJ > If Sirius were simply speaking through and from his pain, > I would have expected indicators of that in the passage, say > bitterness in his voice, or anger in his eyes. What I see in > the passage, however, is a calm, reasonable Sirius, not a bitter, > spiteful one. YMMV, but I think any other reading is eisogeting. Mike: In the paragraph where Sirius pontificates on the MoM and the UCs he is said to "smile grimly". On the previous page where he tells of being thrown into Azkaban without a trial, he says it "quietly". Which do you suppose sounds more bitter, and which do you think he is more bitter about? Not without justification, Sirius is decidedly biased and residually bitter when he speaks of MoM actions. That said, I have no problem with Sirius' opinion of the Unforgivables. However, taking the whole scene into account, I just think Sirius takes a harsher view of the MoM's authorization of the power to kill than he does of the use of the UCs. BTW, I tried to find "eisogeting". After a little finagling I figured you meant some form of eisegesis, also spelled exegesis - usually associated with Biblical analysis. Further, I assume you are ascribing to the subtext of the definition where one uses his/her own interpretation, not necessarily an accepted view. All that to discover that you'll allow my mileage to vary, but that also means you think I'm making it up. You could have just said it instead of making up your own word. ;) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/messages/181461 > zgirnius: > I was not proposing that Harry's Crucios as a group are different > from anyone else's. It is my opinion that spells cast in a state > of great emotional excitement tend to have extra 'kick', for lack > of a better word. Other possible examples > > So all I was proposing is that Harry's Crucio of Amycus, > likewise, was done while he was extremely upset. > > Other than the fact that it sends Amycus flying across the room, > it appears in all other ways to have been a proper Crucio. Mike: That is a very plausible theory, and really only slightly different than mine. I mainly proposed that Harry's Crucio was different, without a good explanation as to why. I thought it had to do with his mindset, which is what you've theorized. The only difference was I thought it was a conscious control, while you think it was caused by his emotional state and not a conscious decision. I don't suppose we'll ever know. As for your other examples, I didn't think Snape was in any special emotional state when he Expelliarmused Lockhart. Amused, maybe, but I doubt he cared a whit about the buffoon or what he had to say. > zgirnius: > Though I think, if Harry had not knocked Amycus out, he would > have stopped the curse quickly. But this is just a hypothetical > based on my opinion of Harry's character. Mike: I think Harry's ultimate intent was to knock out Amycus, and he therefore stopped the curse as intended. --------------- I understand the problem with Harry using the Cruciatus Curse and the collateral damage it causes as explained by Montavilla. It was a regrettable choice on Harry's/JKR's part if only for the confusion it caused to the younger readers like CJ's daughter. Conversely, I believe in degrees of force, shades of grey in discussing Dark vs Light, and the vagaries of intent having meaning. Therefore I cannot concur with calling Harry's Crucio "torture". A moment of pain does not translate into torture by any conventional definition of which I'm aware. Mike From susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 12 03:12:50 2008 From: susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net (cubfanbudwoman) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:12:50 -0000 Subject: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181485 Alla: > So, after my long winded beginning, I actually have a question. > Could you elaborate why Remus was right not to contact Harry? > > Do you see any GOOD coming out of it? I mean, would it hurt Harry > to have somebody friendly to talk to in his early childhood? > > I do not doubt that Remus loves Harry, I just do not see him doing > anything for the son of his dead friends when he was little, > anything at all. > > I see his unwillingness to interfere as very in character, but do not > find it sympathetic, I am afraid. SSSusan: Not Jayne here, but posting anyhow. :) Methinks, Alla, that you should simply have another reason to be annoyed with Albus Dumbledore here. Don't you imagine that DD *instructed* Order members/Potter family friends NOT to contact Harry? I thought the whole point of putting him in a Muggle home was to keep Harry from knowing about his wizarding heritage. Or are you saying that Remus could have simply begun corresponding, saying he knew Harry's parents, but saying nothing about the particulars of their friendship (wizardhood, Hogwarts, the nature of their deaths, etc.)? Either way, I have a feeling DD said "Don't!" once he'd placed Harry with the Dursleys. And Remus, as we all know, isn't exactly one to stand up and defy someone. Interesting to me is that you used the phrase "unwillingness to interfere." That intigues me. Do you think Remus would've seen contacting Harry as interference, as opposed to defiance? Or do you think DD issued no instructions to stay away from Harry? I was watching TMWSNBN (OotP) tonight and saw the point where movie! Harry is upset by the trouble he's gotten his friends into via creation of DD's Army. He says (paraphrasing), "I just wanted to help, but all I did was make things worse. I think it's time I go it alone." That scene struck me as Harry taking on sort of a defeatist attitude, and it sort of parallels how I imagine Remus back when Harry was a baby. That is, "defeatist" is an attitude I can readily see in canon!Remus. I think his natural quietness, his tendency to take a back seat, his tendency not to speak out -- all of that mixed with his "affliction" and the danger he knows he poses to others with it, made him susceptible to a defeatist attitude. IOW, once James & Lily were dead, Sirius thought to be a traitor & in Azkaban, Peter presumably dead, and DD having stowed Harry away with Muggles, I could see all of that adding up to a Remus feeling very defeated and "I give up'ish." Which doesn't mean you wouldn't still want to shake him, heh. But it might explain why he didn't feel any inclination to write to Harry or try to see him. Just a few rambling thoughts. Siriusly Snapey Susan From bartl at sprynet.com Tue Feb 12 03:17:39 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:17:39 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B10FD3.2060208@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181486 bdclark0423 wrote: > A duel implies one wizard who makes a challenge to another, and I > would hardly believe Dumbledore would dishonor what he considers > a duel by going up to them and knocking them unconscious. Bart: DD is Odysseus, NOT Achilles. Bart From kaleeyj at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 04:48:15 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:48:15 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181487 POA: > "They're in fury against Dumbledore - he won't let them inside the > castle grounds" p.151 > > Alla: > > Still confused. How can he stop them and be absolutely sure that > they will obey? Besides Patronus I mean. Bex: Agreed. I have wondered many things about Dementors in my reread of PoA recently. How do they talk? They "told" Fudge that Sirius had been talking in his sleep. How do they communicate? HOw on EARTH are these creatures controlled? And the biggest concern of all: How would they know if they had found Sirius Black, and not some other person? Clearly they don't attack the first creature they run into, but how were they "searching" the train? Did they have a "emotional footprint" they were looking for? It still astounds me that the ministry allies itself with them after PoA - as the scene of Harry at the lake shows, they can develop a mob mentality and obviously can't be effectively controlled without a Patronus charm. Fudge ADMITS that they tried to administer the kiss on an innocent boy (POA, US PB, p 421) - if I were him I would have been scared stiff to let those things near me after that. (And it sure says a lot about the WW that they let their prison be guarded by Dementors - what if one gets hungry while guarding someone who's locked up for a month for a minor charge of Muggle hexing?) Granted that's probably not the reason so many people fear Azkaban - but I'd be plenty nervous about going on a visit. ~Bex From falkeli at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 07:13:47 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:13:47 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181488 Bex: > And the biggest concern of all: How would they [the dementors] know if they had found Sirius Black, and not some other person? Did they have a "emotional footprint" they were looking for? HP fan 2008: It seems to me that the basic thought pattern is the key. Harry was focusing on Sirius's innocence when the dementor almost kissed him - exactly the thought that Sirius was focused on at Azkaban. In addition, when Umbridge sent the dementors to Harry in book 5, I believe that she wanted them to kiss Harry - but she was completely wrong about what Harry would be thinking of. Dudley's thought pattern was probably closer to what Umbridge told the dementors to look for. From falkeli at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 07:55:25 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:55:25 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181489 bdclark0423: > Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? > > The Elder Wand: a wand that must always win duels for its owner. > > Dumbledore recounts to Harry the events with Grindelwald and this seems contradiction to what describes the Elder Wand: he knew that the two were evenly matched, with perhaps himself a shade more skillful. I won the duel. I won the wand. > > So if the Elder Wand must always win duels for its owner, how did Grindelwald lose the wand to DD? HP Fan 2008: How about this: Grindelwald decides to torture Dumbledore, similar to the way Voldemort did to Harry in GoF. This gives Dumbledore time to be able to disarm Grindelwald, and win the wand from him. HP Fan 2008 From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 08:37:35 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:37:35 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B15ACF.6090101@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181490 CJ > when Amycus comes bursting through the door breathing > threats and fire, and the students are scattering in terror Mike: > A point of order here. Amycus bursts across the threshold and the > remaining few Ravenclaws scamper up the stairs. Amycus only has eyes > for his stunned sister. THEN, after all the students are gone > upstairs, Amycus starts "breathing threats and fire." The students > weren't being threatened by Amycus when they were present, except on > the general principle that the Carrows are threats to civility > wherever they are. Your point is taken on the chronology of events: Amycus didn't actually voice any threats ("I'll Cruciate the lot of 'em!") until the remaining few students had fled. OTOH, he was clearly already a threat: his presence, his belligerence, his attempts at blasting the door, had most of the students scattering in terror and Harry contemplating a Stunning spell even before the door actually opened. So, I will stand corrected on the chronology, but I think it's a relatively minor point. CJ > Look up the Latin. It's not the "pain" curse. Crucio -- "I torture". Mike: > Then we have a conundrum, since the "Cruciatus Curse" is cast by > uttering the word "Crucio". Sorry, Iim not following. "Cruciatus" means "torture". "Crucio" is the first person present tense active indicative meaning "I torture". Where's the conundrum? > So which is it, the pain curse or the torture curse? Since the name is Cruciatus Curse, and "cruciatus" means "torture", 'm not sure where the ambiguity lies here. The Latin for pain, BTW, is "dolor". But it's not called the Dolor Curse. > Crouch!Moody doesn't help us, he explained "Pain, > ... to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse." > On the contrary, I think he helps immensely. "To torture" ... "perform the Cruciatus". Seems straightforward. > We also have the problem that JKR admitted to using her own > bastardization of Latin in creating her spell names. While true in general, this is not true of cruciatus or crucio, both of which are straightforward Latin. > Now, the part to which I know you'll disagree, but I'll posit > anyway in my concurrence with Steve, is that there are degrees in > magic, imo. Not at all. I have no disagreement here. > he held it only long enough for Amycus to be blasted into the wall > and get knocked unconscious. That, to me, does not constitute > torture I understand your argument, but I'm unconvinced. Harry steps out from under his cloak, points his wand at Amycus, and declares "I torture!" ("Crucio!"), followed by "What do you know, you really do have to mean it!", obviously referencing Bellatrix's comment that you have to "mean it" for a UC to work. The gist of the passage, then, is that Harry announces his intent to torture, commits the torture, then declares that it worked. I think the duration of the spell is incidental. CJ > Cruciating Amycus for past injustices is not defense, > it's retribution. Mike: > Regardless of the spell, fighting the known enemy is > definitely not retribution, it's battle. Harry's only concern of the moment should be the removal of the threat posed by Amycus. If Harry is Cruciating Amycus for any action Amycus performed in the past -- particularly given that it's all hearsay -- then he has stepped beyond the role of soldier and elected himself judge, jury and executioner. That is not the proper role of any soldier. > Plus, past injustices are what makes them your enemy. Not at all. If we define enemies based on past injustices there would be little room for kissing and making up. Should the UK declare war on Germany because of Germany's past actions? Should Canada disavow its friendship with the US because the US invaded Montreal in 1812? Should Harry continue to hate Snape based on Snape's past treatment of him at Hogwart's? > Killing is killing whether it's done as part of an offensive or > defensive maneuver. Try telling that to Evan Vela, the U.S. soldier who was just convicted in Baghdad of murder. Not all actions are permissable even in war CJ > If Harry were simply acting in defense there were any number of > equally effective options open to him. Mike: > I don't get the questioning of effectiveness. Obviously Harry > was effective. I didn't say the Cruciatus wasn't effective. Heck, pistol-whipping a shoplifter will stop his crime just as effectively as calling the police. I said there were other options available that would have been *equally* effective at neutralizing Carrow without involving questionable moral choices. And, pragmatically, they would have been less risky as well. Harry was quite adept at Disarming, while he had never successfully cast a Cruciatus. If his goal were simply to neutralize Carrow, choosing a spell his past track record indicated he couldn't even perform successfully was a, shall we say, questionable decision (actually, "stupid thing to do" leaps to mind). Disarm him. Stun him. Confound him. Bind him. Even Imperius him (there, at least, was a UC Harry knew he could perform). When people around you are in danger, you reach for weapons that work, not weapons you've never successfully fired. It's also uncharacteristic of Harry. In nearly every crisis Harry has faced in the past, Expelliarmus has been his weapon of choice. He used it successfully against Voldemort (and would do so again shortly). Lupin chewed him out for using it (again successfully) against Stan Shunpike, when Harry replied he refused to blast people around just because they were in his way. So why was THIS particular moment of crisis different? Why did Harry suddenly depart from his modus operandum? Rambo!Harry tells us why: "What do you know? You DO have to mean it!" Mean what? "I torture!" This time Harry's intent was NOT (or at least, no solely) to neutralize a threat. His motivation was, at least to a large measure, the desire and intent to cause Carrow pain. That is retribution. > I further posit that Harry knew his first "of age" Crucio would be > effective because of this awareness. Having to "mean it" can't be > the only criteria for effectiveness Well setting aside the speculativeness of your theory, even if having to meant it isn't the sole criterion, it IS a criterion nonetheless. You must desire to inflict pain and torture on your victim in order to successfully Cruciate. A good soldier has to kill. A good soldier is trained to kill. But that doesn't mean a good soldier *desires* to kill. CJ > If Sirius were simply speaking through and from his pain, > I would have expected indicators Mike: > Sirius ... is said to "smile grimly" ... he says it "quietly". I don't mean by the above that he spoke emotionlessly. But no, neither smiling grimly nor speaking quietly sounds like bitterness to me. > BTW, I tried to find "eisogeting" . After a little finagling I > figured you meant some form of eisegesis, also spelled exegesis - > ... > You could have just said it instead of making up your own word. ;) Well, I didn't make it up, I just misspelled it :-). Yes, it is "eisegesis", though in fact it's the opposite of "exegesis". And it is used in many schools of textual analysis and interpretation, Biblical studies included. > It was a regrettable choice on Harry's/JKR' s part if only > for the confusion it caused to the younger readers like > CJ's daughter. I appreciate these remarks, Mike. In turn, I believe JKR's intent here was to show that Harry wasn't perfect, which I certainly don't object to. I wouldn't even have objected so strenuously to the Cruciatus if Harry had given some hint of recognition of moral difficulty with his action which, in turn, would have allowed me to say to my daughter -- hey, Harry made a mistake -- even good guys aren't perfect -- but he realizes what he did was wrong, and that's why he's still a good guy. Instead, we get Dirty!Harry blowing the smoke out of his gun barrel after blowing away a baddie. And to add insult to injury, McGonagall, that paragon of virtue, calls her student's use of a UC "gallant"! It's not just the use of the UC that bothers me; it's the casualness with which it was done. Montavilla was right -- this scene obliterates the internal moral compass of the series. That the good guys can perform the worst of the Dark Arts is bad enough. That they do so with no apparent moral compunction is nearly worse than the act itself. Again, I have no problem with good guys making bad moral choices. We all do that, and that IS a good lesson for children to learn. CJ From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 12:53:01 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:53:01 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181491 > > bboyminn: > > > Yes, Harry used the 'Pain' curse... > > > CJ > > Look up the Latin. It's not the "pain" curse. Crucio -- > > "I torture". > > Latin has a perfectly good word for pain; "cruciatus" ain't it. > > Mike: > Then we have a conundrum, since the "Cruciatus Curse" is cast by > uttering the word "Crucio". So which is it, the pain curse or the > torture curse? Crouch!Moody doesn't help us, he explained "Pain, > ... to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse." > > > I've no doubt that Harry intended to cause Amycus a moment of > intense pain with his Cruciatus Curse. I've also no doubt that > he held it only long enough for Amycus to be blasted into the wall > and get knocked unconscious. That, to me, does not constitute > torture, any more than a well placed kick to the groin prior to > delivering a knockout blow would be torture in a fight. a_svirn: And I've no doubt that Harry used the torture curse for its exact purpose ? torture. I don't understand where you see a conundrum, by the way: it means torture and is used for that purpose. Torture means inflicting of severe bodily pain as a means of persuasion or punishment. Harry used it for the latter. As for "only long enough", honestly, just imagine how intense the pain must be to get one knocked unconscious. Harry was tortured by Voldemort himself and *he* wasn't knocked unconscious. A muggle equivalent would be a few hours on the rack or something equally appalling. Obviously Harry "meant it" to be really intense to get such spectacular results in such a short time. Besides, the WW does not recognise any degrees for the Unforgivables. You use them on a human being you get lifetime sentence in Azkaban. Not that there is a question of Harry standing his trial for this transgression. The concept of the impartiality of the law seems to be completely alien to the WW. But that's not why I was slightly taken aback by this scene. What shocked me was the triviality of Harry's usage of Crucio. Until DH there had been quite a lot of discussing the Unforgivables on-list, and while lots of people found certain justifications for the use of the two of them, the Cruciatus was practically unanimously voted as the most unforgivable of the Unforgivables. And really, how can one justify torture? Yet here we see Harry torturing someone as a punishment, and for what crime? For a trivial insult. And his teacher is not only gratified, but actually calls it "gallant". I think it was Montavilla who said that sometimes "Huh?!" was the only response the characters' reactions could elicit. That was one of those moments for me. > > CJ > > Cruciating Amycus for past injustices is not defense, it's > > retribution. > > Mike: > Regardless of the spell, fighting the known enemy is definitely not > retribution, it's battle. Plus, past injustices are what makes them > your enemy. Whether it's offensive or defensive is a moot point in > war. Killing is killing whether it's done as part of an offensive or > defensive maneuver. > a_svirn: There are so many inaccuracies here. First and foremost, torturing someone as a punishment for an insult ? and that's what Harry was doing; he said as much himself ? is not the same thing as fighting an enemy. Far from it, in fact. Second, sneaking on you enemy from behind and knocking them unconscious is not the same thing as fighting a battle. Not that I have anything against it, mind. It's just not the same. Third, we are not discussing killing, are we? We are discussing torture. And torture cannot be construed as offensive or defensive manoeuvre, nor can it be justified by war. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 15:04:01 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:04:01 -0000 Subject: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181492 SSSusan: Not Jayne here, but posting anyhow. :) Alla: YAY. Every time you post I am just hoping you would post again SSSusan: Methinks, Alla, that you should simply have another reason to be annoyed with Albus Dumbledore here. Don't you imagine that DD *instructed* Order members/Potter family friends NOT to contact Harry? I thought the whole point of putting him in a Muggle home was to keep Harry from knowing about his wizarding heritage. Alla: LOL, of course it is very possible and plausible that DD instructed everybody not to contact Harry. In fact, I am very willing to believe it. As if I did not have enough reasons to be annoyed with Albus Dumbledore, sigh. But my thing is that number one Remus could have mentioned it somewhere in the books, at least in HBP or DH for me to get off his case, and he did not. So I am left with speculating that maybe it was true or maybe it was not. Number two is that even if Albus Dumbledore said so, I see no reason for Remus to follow that order. I mean, I know I know he never defied Albus Dumbledore before, but he had no problem lying to him to protect Sirius' secret ( not that I mind that much), so I see no reason for him to not keep quiet if he started corresponding with Harry. SSSusan: Or are you saying that Remus could have simply begun corresponding, saying he knew Harry's parents, but saying nothing about the particulars of their friendship (wizardhood, Hogwarts, the nature of their deaths, etc.)? Alla: Anything, really, this scenario I would totally love. Who says that Remus had to be Harry's guide in magical world indeed. Let him just be that friend from the muggle world, who can provide some solace from Dursleys, even if temporarily. SSSusan: Either way, I have a feeling DD said "Don't!" once he'd placed Harry with the Dursleys. And Remus, as we all know, isn't exactly one to stand up and defy someone. Alla: See above. I would find it totally in character for Dumbledore to say so and for Remus not to defy him, I just dislike it immensely. And here is another thing, that lovely conversation at the end of OOP between Order members and Dursleys, do you think took place with Dumbledore's consent or without it? Because while at some point I was going back and forth, now I am thinking it took place without Dumbledore's consent IMO since otherwise I see no reason for DD himself not to be there. If I am right, then we have precedent for order members defying Dumbledore where Harry is concerned. SSSusan: Interesting to me is that you used the phrase "unwillingness to interfere." That intrigues me. Do you think Remus would've seen contacting Harry as interference, as opposed to defiance? Or do you think DD issued no instructions to stay away from Harry? Alla: I have no clue if he did or did not issue such instructions. If there were instructions of course Remus would have viewed contacting Harry as defiance IMO. SSSusan: That is, "defeatist" is an attitude I can readily see in canon!Remus. I think his natural quietness, his tendency to take a back seat, his tendency not to speak out -- all of that mixed with his "affliction" and the danger he knows he poses to others with it, made him susceptible to a defeatist attitude. IOW, once James & Lily were dead, Sirius thought to be a traitor & in Azkaban, Peter presumably dead, and DD having stowed Harry away with Muggles, I could see all of that adding up to a Remus feeling very defeated and "I give up'ish." Alla: This is all very in character for Remus and I completely agree with you ? very plausible explanation. But again I just do not like it. I mean now when Evil Remus is dead, this quote that I provided earlier about him wanting to touch Harry and did not can mean only one thing, right? He wants to comfort Harry to show his support and stops himself. Why? I mean I know why, but it is just extremely terribly annoying if you ask me, heheh. SSSusan: Which doesn't mean you wouldn't still want to shake him, heh. But it might explain why he didn't feel any inclination to write to Harry or try to see him. Alla: Of course I have no problem with characterization here whatsoever. I think she wrote Remus very consistently. It is just the ""CHARACTER" problem I am seeing or the absence of such. In fact now I am thinking that maybe his desire to join in with Trio and leaving Tonks maybe also partially caused by guilt that he did not do enough for Harry when he was younger and now, let's forget about his family ( his issues notwithstanding) and just try to rectify it. JMO, Alla From random832 at fastmail.us Tue Feb 12 15:31:13 2008 From: random832 at fastmail.us (random832 at fastmail.us) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:31:13 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Motorbike In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1202830273.16906.1236446305@webmail.messagingengine.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181493 On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:12:26 -0000, "Barry" said: > In the chapter, The Seven Potters, it says: Hagrid kicked the > motorbike into life: > This, and other statements, indicate to me that the motorbike was > starting like any motorbike does, i.e not with magic. Otherwise why > kick start it? This, in turn, implies an electric circuit giving a > spark to the combustion chamber. Yet electricity is not supposed to > run in a magic environment. Random832: Electricity supposedly not working in a magic environment has never been anything more but a device the author uses to keep hogwarts "different" - i.e. to stop all the muggleborn students from bringing their portable televisions and playstations and everything. I remain convinced that there's nothing really to it - Hogwarts is simply isolated enough that there are (or were, at the time it was first attempted) no radio signals to receive, so the first time some muggleborn kid tried to bring his transistor radio back in the 1930s, it didn't work, and he told all his friends, and no-one's tried to knowingly bring anything electronic to Hogwarts since then. -- Random832 From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 17:15:19 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:15:19 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181494 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > As for "only long enough", honestly, just imagine how intense > the pain must be to get one knocked unconscious. Harry was > tortured by Voldemort himself and *he* wasn't knocked unconscious. zanooda: I always thought that Carrow passed out because he hit the wall, or the bookcase, or whatever it was, and not from the pain. He probably hit the bookcase (or whatever) with his head. I doubt that Harry's "crucio" is stronger than LV's or Bella's. From beatrice23 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 18:38:19 2008 From: beatrice23 at yahoo.com (Beatrice23) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:38:19 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181495 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hp_fan_2008" wrote: > > bdclark0423: > > Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? > > > > The Elder Wand: a wand that must always win duels for its owner. > > > > Dumbledore recounts to Harry the events with Grindelwald and this > seems contradiction to what describes the Elder Wand: he knew that the > two were evenly matched, with perhaps himself a shade more skillful. > I won the duel. I won the wand. > > > > So if the Elder Wand must always win duels for its owner, how did > Grindelwald lose the wand to DD? Beatrice23: Is it that the Elder Wand is truly unbeatable? Or is this part of the mythology/lore of the object itself? Certainly the wand is given the label of being "unbeatable." But is has passed from one owner to another for...well, centuries apparently. This means that no owner has died of natural causes, yet. So saying it is undefeatable is hyperbole or perhaps just a slight exaggeration. Perhaps it is better to say that the wand is undefeatable, not the master of the wand. Therefore the master of the wand can make a mistake. He could perhaps hesitate as Grinwauld might when faced with injuring his old friend. Or might be taken unaware as Dumbledore is at the top of the tower (although I guess we can say that Dumbledore chose to save Harry at the cost of his own life). What I am trying to say here is that the wizard can make a mistake, but if the wizard commands the wand correctly then he and the wand are unbeatable. I guess we should also think about the lore of the other objects, too. The ring is supposed to "bring back the dead." But DD tells us that no spell can bring back the dead. And in fact, while the ring can bring the bearer into contact with the dead, the dead will long to be, well, dead again. So are they really "brought back?" Or is it just that the bearer can try to hold on to them for his own selfish reason? They can't really live. They only exist with the bearer of the ring not independent from him/her. EG. as soon as Harry drops the ring his parents, et al begin to fade away. Also, Harry's cloak. Certainly, as Harry realizes, it is the best of the three objects, but it even has some vulnerability. The real Moody and the fake Moody can see through it with their magical eye. I don't think that JKR made a logical mistake here. Just that wand lore / wand ownership is incredibly complex. It isn't straight forward at all. Think about this for instance: If Draco had not disarmed DD, then Snape would have won the wand as DD intended. BUT, if this had happened then Voldemort would have won the wand when he killed Snape with Nagini, thus Harry could not have defeatedly LV, because LV didn't hesitate or use a spell that was less effective than Harry's spell. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 12 19:52:26 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:52:26 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: <47B15ACF.6090101@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181496 CJ: > I appreciate these remarks, Mike. In turn, I believe JKR's intent here > was to show that Harry wasn't perfect, which I certainly don't object > to. I wouldn't even have objected so strenuously to the Cruciatus if > Harry had given some hint of recognition of moral difficulty with his > action which, in turn, would have allowed me to say to my daughter -- > hey, Harry made a mistake -- even good guys aren't perfect -- but he > realizes what he did was wrong, and that's why he's still a good guy. > Instead, we get Dirty!Harry blowing the smoke out of his gun barrel > after blowing away a baddie. And to add insult to injury, McGonagall, > that paragon of virtue, calls her student's use of a UC "gallant"! Pippin: But that isn't the end of the story. Nor is it the beginning. Harry's confusion about vengeance and righteous anger goes back at least to PoA, where he wanted revenge on Sirius but couldn't bring bring himself to kill. The cruciatus curse seemed to be an answer: the next time he had someone to avenge, he tried to use it on Bella but he failed because "righteous anger won't hurt me for long." After Dumbledore died, he tried again but Snape blocked him. Snape claimed that Harry lacked the nerve or the ability to do the curse. But this wasn't true, as Dumbledore had already discerned: Harry had a powerful desire for revenge. He also wanted, of course, to make sure that his friends would be safe and that evildoers would regret what they had done. But he did not, could not, understand the distinction between these motives. It's not until Harry succeeds in using crucio that he gets it. Vengeance is about making the avenger feel good, and only this feeling will power the curse. Nobler motives, those based on concern for others, have no effect. The next time such rage and anger course through Harry, after the death of Fred, he realizes that he must make a choice: "But Harry knew how Ron felt: pursuing another Horcrux could not bring the satisfaction of revenge; he too wanted to fight, to punish them, the people who had killed Fred" --DH ch 32 What shows Harry's virtue , IMO, is that once he understands the distinction between vengeance and righteous anger, he chooses to act on the righteous feeling rather than the base one. Once he understands that the need for revenge is separate from the need to protect his friends or prevent more harm, he does not pursue it. While overall JKR makes it easy for the reader to see that by the end Harry has foregone revenge, she doesn't make him regret his past desire for it. That would be guilt, and IMO, JKR has little use for it. Lupin's guilty feelings make him feel bad, but aren't strong enough to make him change his ways. JKR seems to be saying that if his guilty feelings were strong enough to combat his temptation, he never would have succumbed in the first place, so what good were they? What is guilt, except taking revenge on yourself? Remorse is a different story -- but that's for realizing the damage you did to an innocent person. Harry does feel remorse on occasion, but not for Amycus, who was hardly innocent. Nor was there a more impartial or less vengeful person available to whom Harry could have left the matter. I think that is the point of having McGonagall approve. There is a point here about taking the law into your own hands. Even good guys cannot be impartial nor can they trust themselves to put vengeance completely aside. Only the absence or breakdown of civil authority can justify the risk. Harry doesn't reflect on all this, he just lives it. It's for the reader to reflect on what he does and why. JKR has no great love for self-reflection, as the Mirror of Erised shows. In her world, all self-reflection can tell Harry is what he wants. Whether that is good for him or bad, real or even possible, Harry can never learn by looking inward. Pippin From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Tue Feb 12 19:38:15 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:38:15 -0000 Subject: Neville and Luna Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181497 I love the way that Luna and Neville develop through the books. Neville starts off with low self esteem as a wizard and very clumsy, but gradually finds his feet and by the time DA is formed in OoP he is beginning to be more confident and of course by the time of DH he is a leader and and of course was always a loyal friend to Harry and Co Luna starts off as being perceived as loony and over the last three books, she also becomes more confident and gets more respect from others and also is a loyal friend to Harry and co. I would have loved a hint that they would get together eventually. We know of course that Neville becomes a Prof of Herbology, but nothing is mentioned about what happens to Luna. Jayne From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Tue Feb 12 20:15:59 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:15:59 -0000 Subject: Neville and Luna In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181498 > Jayne: > > I love the way that Luna and Neville develop through the books. Neville starts off with low self esteem as a wizard and very clumsy, but gradually finds his feet and by the time DA is formed in OoP he is beginning to be more confident and of course by the time of DH he is a leader and and of course was always a loyal friend to Harry and Co Luna starts off as being perceived as loony and over the last three books, she also becomes more confident and gets more respect from others and also is a loyal friend to Harry and co. Tiffany: I liked Neville & Luna a lot as well, esp. in the way they grew through the books. Neville wasn't a very impressive person when I first read him, but by OotP I had a more favorable impression of him. Luna was a person who I could get into better & develop a liking for as she's someone who I felt I could relate to. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 20:19:24 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:19:24 -0000 Subject: Motorbike In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181499 --- "Barry" wrote: > > In the chapter, The Seven Potters, it says: Hagrid kicked > the motorbike into life: > ... This, in turn, implies an electric circuit giving a > spark to the combustion chamber. Yet electricity is not > supposed to run in a magic environment. > > ... > > These are minor quibbles. But I tend to think that JKR would > have had a more accurate world and a richer one if she set HP > in Dickens era. > > Barry > bboyminn: The problem is,you have taken a 'specific' and made it a 'general'. Hogwarts, specifically, has a problem with electricity, because of the many protective enchantments, and the volatile hormonal overly-excitable magical students all being there. In high concentrations of magic, electricity and electronics are affected, but to varying degrees depending on the nature and intensity of the magic. I suspect a cell phone would function at it's basic level in Diagon Alley, but the reception would be the worst. At Hogwarts, that same cell phone wouldn't work at all. It is a matter of degrees. So, there is no evidence in any of the books or interviews that indicate any magic, no matter how small, will cancel all electricity and electronics in the area. Magic will interfere with electricity to some extent, but not always enough to cancel it out, unless the concentration is high enough. Steve/bboyminn From iam.kemper at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 20:20:46 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:20:46 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181500 > Beatrice23: Is it that the Elder Wand is truly unbeatable? Or is > this part of the mythology/lore of the object itself? ... > > Perhaps it is better to say that the wand is undefeatable, not the > master of the wand. Therefore the master of the wand can make a > mistake. Kemper now: I think you are right. To expand, if Dumbledore with his Olivander wand dueled against himself with the Elder wand, then Elder wand would win. Also, if DD used his Olivander wand to cast some spell and then used the Elder wand to cast the same spell, then the Elder wand would out perform (beat/defeat) the Olivander wand. The Elder wand repaired Harry's wand, when perhaps no wand in the world could do. It is unbeatable. Kemper, who has further thoughts on the subject but needs to get ready for work From lwalsh at acsalaska.net Tue Feb 12 20:26:58 2008 From: lwalsh at acsalaska.net (Laura Lynn Walsh) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:26:58 -0900 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Neville and Luna In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181501 On 2008, Feb 12, , at 11:15, Tiffany B. Clark wrote: >> Jayne: >> >> I love the way that Luna and Neville develop through the books. > Neville starts off with low self esteem as a wizard and very clumsy, > but gradually finds his feet and by the time DA is formed in OoP he is > beginning to be more confident and of course by the time of DH he is a > leader and and of course was always a loyal friend to Harry and Co > Luna starts off as being perceived as loony and over the last three > books, she also becomes more confident and gets more respect from > others and also is a loyal friend to Harry and co. > > Tiffany: > > I liked Neville & Luna a lot as well, esp. in the way they grew > through > the books. Neville wasn't a very impressive person when I first read > him, but by OotP I had a more favorable impression of him. Luna was a > person who I could get into better & develop a liking for as she's > someone who I felt I could relate to. I didn't see Luna as developing, rather, I saw the other children growing up so that they could understand and even value her. From the first, she seemed to be more self-aware than the other students. Her painfully accurate observations indicated that she was an astute observer. She seems the embodiment of the German word "altklug", which roughly means that she has understanding that usually comes with age, at a younger than normal age. Laura -- Laura Lynn Walsh lwalsh at acsalaska.net http://llwcontemplations.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From iam.kemper at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 20:27:01 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:27:01 -0000 Subject: Motorbike In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181502 > --- "Barry" wrote: > > > > In the chapter, The Seven Potters, it says: Hagrid kicked > > the motorbike into life: > > ... This, in turn, implies an electric circuit giving a > > spark to the combustion chamber. Yet electricity is not > > supposed to run in a magic environment. > bboyminn: > > The problem is,you have taken a 'specific' and made it a > 'general'. Hogwarts, specifically, has a problem with > electricity, ... Kemper now: To add to what Steve said, Harry is magic but the Dursleys still watch a ridiculous amount of tv. Kemper, who seriously needs to get off the list and who forgot to reply to Steve on OTC: 1: you're right and 2: I'm male From susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 12 20:32:25 2008 From: susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net (cubfanbudwoman) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:32:25 -0000 Subject: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181503 Alla: > But my thing is that number one Remus could have mentioned [DD > instructing everyone to stay away from Harry] somewhere in the > books, at least in HBP or DH for me to get off his case, and he did > not. So I am left with speculating that maybe it was true or maybe > it was not. Number two is that even if Albus Dumbledore said so, I > see no reason for Remus to follow that order. SSSusan: I guess, though, that this would presume Remus (or anyone else who might have been so instructed) DISAGREES with DD about the need to keep Harry isolated from the WW until he gets his Hogwarts letter. Imagining myself in the place of Potter family friends or Order members at the time, I could envision being convinced of the benefit of keeping Harry ignorant of the WW and of keeping him isolated from his unknown past, even. If DD and others truly believed that Voldy would come back or his followers might try to continue his work, they might believe that leaving Harry alone was the safest thing for him, that contacting him could actually lead Voldy/the DEs to him. > > SSSusan previously: > > ... I have a feeling DD said "Don't!" once he'd placed Harry > > with the Dursleys. And Remus, as we all know, isn't exactly one to > > stand up and defy someone. > Alla: > See above. I would find it totally in character for Dumbledore to > say so and for Remus not to defy him, I just dislike it immensely. > And here is another thing, that lovely conversation at the end of > OOP between Order members and Dursleys, do you think took place > with Dumbledore's consent or without it? Because while at some > point I was going back and forth, now I am thinking it took place > without Dumbledore's consent IMO since otherwise I see no reason > for DD himself not to be there. If I am right, then we have > precedent for order members defying Dumbledore where Harry is > concerned. SSSusan: Yes and no. By the point of this interaction, though, the issue is that Harry is now PART of the WW, right? He knows the full story now, he's aware of the attempt on his life & the murders of his parents, he knows he needs to be cautious. The point of no contact to age 11 may have had everything to do with wanting to keep Harry safe. And I could see others buying into that. > > Susan, earlier: > > Interesting to me is that you used the phrase "unwillingness to > > interfere." That intrigues me. Do you think Remus would've seen > > contacting Harry as interference, as opposed to defiance? Or do > > you think DD issued no instructions to stay away from Harry? > Alla: > I have no clue if he did or did not issue such instructions. If > there were instructions of course Remus would have viewed > contacting Harry as defiance IMO. Okay, for the sake of argument, let's proceed with this idea... > > SSusan, previously: > > Or are you saying that Remus could have simply begun > > corresponding, saying he knew Harry's parents, but saying nothing > > about the particulars of their friendship (wizardhood, Hogwarts, > > the nature of their deaths, etc.)? > Alla: > Anything, really, this scenario I would totally love. Who says that > Remus had to be Harry's guide in magical world indeed. Let him just > be that friend from the muggle world, who can provide some solace > from Dursleys, even if temporarily. SSSusan: So let's assume we're talking about just reaching out to the kid, not informing him about the WW or his parents' true pasts. Why DIDN'T Remus do that? Well, besides what I said, above, that he might believe it was the best way to keep Harry safe if there was no contact with those who knew the Potters, there's also the issue of what Remus would think he would have to OFFER Harry. Yesterday I said: > > is, "defeatist" is an attitude I can readily see in canon!Remus. I > > think his natural quietness, his tendency to take a back seat, his > > tendency not to speak out -- all of that mixed with > > his "affliction" and the danger he knows he poses to others with > > it, made him susceptible to a defeatist attitude. > > > > IOW, once James & Lily were dead, Sirius thought to be a traitor > > & in Azkaban, Peter presumably dead, and DD having stowed Harry > > away with Muggles, I could see all of that adding up to a Remus > > feeling very defeated and "I give up'ish." > Alla: > This is all very in character for Remus and I completely agree with > you ? very plausible explanation. But again I just do not like it. > I mean now when Evil Remus is dead, this quote that I provided > earlier about him wanting to touch Harry and did not can mean only > one thing, right? He wants to comfort Harry to show his support and > stops himself. Why? I mean I know why, but it is just extremely > terribly annoying if you ask me, heheh. SSSusan: And I found it annoying that he didn't send letters to Harry during the year after Sirius died. I know he gave the excuse/reason that he was working undercover amongst the werewolves -- and he was -- but I really, REALLY wanted him to come through for Harry. I wanted him to recognize Harry's need for a strong adult, a parental figure, someone who would support him and just show that he cared about him, someone who would understand what Sirius' death meant to him. I was upset that Remus didn't find a way sometimes, on the sly, to write quick notes to Harry throughout that year. I mean, he HAD to know how devastated Harry was, how alone he felt.... So here, I think, is the crux of it. Even though I was disappointed in Remus for that, just like you were for him NOT taking that one more step and *actually* reaching out to touch Harry when he clearly wanted to do so, I think JKR really, really did a good job in keeping Remus consistent. That is, I see Remus at his core as *insecure.* Insecure, not in the sense of some I know, who're constantly asking for confirmation of how they look, what people think of them, yadda yadda, but insecure in the sense of doubting whether people want to be around him, whether they want him in their lives. Some might call this weakness rather than insecurity. And perhaps it is. But I see it as just self-doubt, as a fear of bringing difficulty or even danger into others' lives. He's spent a lifetime of doubting whether he has anything much to offer besides risk and danger. And *that,* I think, is a major part of the reason Remus did not reach out to Harry at these various points. It's just not who he was. And, as annoying as he was re: Tonks in DH, that, too, was consistent with an insecure and self-doubting Remus. Rather than looking at her & listening to her as she said she wanted him in her life, all he could see was the negative, that "what ifs," his failings and those things he could never offer or provide. A lot of US want to smack him and say, "Oh, get over it, man!" but I think it was deeply ingrained in his personality after decades of rejection, exclusion, near-misses, pain and probably embarrassment. To me, both his behavior with Tonks -- his inability/unwillingness to "give in" to happiness -- and his hesitation to reach out to Harry at these various points when a lot of people would have, stem from that very firmly held sense of insecurity and self-doubt. Alla: > In fact now I am thinking that maybe his desire to join in with > Trio and leaving Tonks maybe also partially caused by guilt that he > did not do enough for Harry when he was younger and now, let's > forget about his family ( his issues notwithstanding) and just try > to rectify it. SSSusan: It's possible. But still I think it's also fairly readily explained by his belief that he's not worthy, that he'll only bring grief to those who care about him or are connected to him. But by DH, turning to the Trio probably caused less of a fear of that "what if" than did staying with Tonks and contemplating what he could do or cause that might hurt them. Siriusly Snapey Susan From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 21:06:13 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:06:13 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181504 > Beatrice23: > Think about this for instance: If Draco had not > disarmed DD, then Snape would have won the wand as DD intended. BUT, > if this had happened then Voldemort would have won the wand when he > killed Snape with Nagini, thus Harry could not have defeatedly LV, > because LV didn't hesitate or use a spell that was less effective > than Harry's spell. zgirnius: This is not what Harry claims, in "The Flaw in the Plan". Harry claims that because Snape was knowingly doing Dumbledore's will, because he and Dumbledore had made an agreement months before, Snape's killing would not constitute a defeat. Instead, what Harry claims would have happened, is that the wand's power would have died with Dumbledore, and no one could ever have been its master again. This is what Harry plans to do with the wand himself (not by having someone kill him when his end is near, but by the less dramatic method of dying a natural death without ever losing the Elder Wand to anyone). The way Dumbledore's plan was loused up was not that the wrong person ended up master (Draco instead of Snape), but that anyone at all did. It all worked out anyway because Harry happened to defeat the wizard who had defeated Dumbledore. To me, this makes more sense as the plan, anyway. Dumbledore in "The Prince's Tale" indicates on a couple of occasions that he is fully cognizant of the danger of Snape's position as a spy. Any plan that put the wand in Snape's control, had a decent chance of putting it in Voldemort's. From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Tue Feb 12 16:24:00 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:24:00 -0000 Subject: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181505 Alla wrote snip > So, after my long winded beginning, I actually have a question. Could you elaborate why Remus was right not to contact Harry? > Sorry about the delay in replying to your post Alla. Having read SSSusan's post about that question I have to agree with her and add that it probably would have confused Harry to have someone who was a wizard contact him prior to Hogwarts. Anyway the Dursleys would have stopped anyone who knew Harry's parents communicating with him. Also everything was so new to him at Hogwarts that I think he would have been to overwhelmed to have Lupin contact him before they actually met. Jayne Still defending Lupin From kaleeyj at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 23:17:35 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:17:35 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181506 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hp_fan_2008" wrote: > > Bex: > > And the biggest concern of all: How would they [the dementors] know > if they had found Sirius Black, and not some other person? Did > they have a "emotional footprint" they were looking for? > > HP fan 2008: > It seems to me that the basic thought pattern is the key. Harry was > focusing on Sirius's innocence when the dementor almost kissed him - > exactly the thought that Sirius was focused on at Azkaban. In > addition, when Umbridge sent the dementors to Harry in book 5, I > believe that she wanted them to kiss Harry - but she was completely > wrong about what Harry would be thinking of. Dudley's thought pattern > was probably closer to what Umbridge told the dementors to look for. > Bex again: But how would they know? How does Fudge (or an Azkaban supervisor or some such) "tell" the dementors, "Look for this person." Unless someone had performed legilimency on Sirius and /knew/ what he was thinking, there'd be no way to tell the dementors to look for a person who was focused on Sirius Black's innocence. Remember, no one knew Sirius was innocent, until all was revealed in the Shrieking shack. And no one in the Shack had the opportunity to alert the dementors to this new focus. Further on that line, what would they tell the dementors to seek out when instructing them to perform the Kiss on a specific person? Again, unless the victim was legilimensed, there'd be no way to tell them to perform the kiss on "that person", instead of say, a witness. And to counter your argument, what exactly would Umbridge have told the dementors to look for? Dudley was making fun of Harry over talking in his sleep: "Don't kill Cedric! Come and help me, Dad!": etc. And Harry was feeling a strong hatred for Dudley. How would Umbridge have known what to send the dementors after? And, above all, how do you communicate with the dementors? Granted, Lupin did speak to them once, on the train to Hogwarts in POA - but how would you be sure they understood? How would they talk back? (And remember, the dementor didn't move when Lupin spoke to it - he had to produce a wispy Patronus to make it leave.) I just don't like those creatures. Hats off to JKR for making a monster that chilling and frightening. ~Bex From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 00:59:16 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:59:16 +0800 Subject: Dual-core wands? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B240E4.6090302@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181507 As I was reviewing DH Chap. 23, "Malfoy Manor" recently this leapt out at me: "As Ron ran to pull Hermione out of the wreckage, Harry took the chance: He leapt over an armchair and wrested the three wands from Draco's grip, pointed all of them at Grayback, and yelled, "Stupefy!" The werewolf was lifted off his feet by the triple spell, flew up to the ceiling and then smashed to the ground." The implication of the passage is that casting a spell while holding three wands triples the spell's power. But then why isn't every wizard beating a path to Ollivander's to pick up a couple of extra wands and a tube of superglue? Or perhaps, since the power of a wand derives from its core, Ollivander should start making dual-core wands. Imagine (with apologies to Intel) the all-new Phoenix Core Duo - same slim design, double the casting power. CJ From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 22:50:25 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:50:25 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181508 > Lee: > > It's hopeless. The logic of this whole sequence is irredeemably > > convoluted. A simple Disarming counts as a defeat. ... > > > > > The logic bears all the earmarks of something JKR ill-advisedly > > pulled out of her hat at the last minute to try to rescue a > > plot that had gone badly awry. It just can't be made sense of. > > > Magpie: > I like to think two weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts Ron grabbed > Harry's wand to open a jar of mayonnaisse and become the Master of > the Elder Wand, which he then used to try to take over the world > (in between being an auror and running a joke shop). bdclark0423: Thanks Magpie, you've just named the next series "Ron Weasley: Ruthless Auror against Bad Jokes" And to you, Lee...you've completely deconstructed practically the entire logic in the plot leading up to Voldy's defeat. (but did you think about the children? what are they going to believe now?.... Harry Potter is now empty to them....) Anyway, I do think JKR did cover herself when Olivander, who is a top wand maker, admits he can't explain the nuances of wandlore. The wand chooses its master is pretty much clear, but complexities of this connection have never been understood. Harry also asks if a wand need be taken by force, or even murder. O doesn't say either way, nor does he even know what the Deathly Hallows are. This, to me, means the legend of the Three Brothers' wand is just that - legend. O also make another point, a wizard could use any instrument for channeling magic, it's just usually wands serve best. So, I think now that the Elder Wand being unbeatable should be considered total myth and in general it is not the wand that makes the wizard. bdclark0423 From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 23:11:31 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:11:31 -0000 Subject: Mistakes in Logic for Deathly Hallows: Kreacher's Tale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181509 > zanooda > > Maybe that's the point - mystery adds to suspense, doesn't it? > .... > > So we have this increase of suspense and fear - from fear of the > unknown to the horrible suspicion and to the final terrifying > realization. I don't know if the authorial intent is enough for > you as an explanation :-), but I don't know what other reason can > be for DD not to tell Harry from the very beginning what the > creatures in the water were. Suspense, suspense, and more suspense > :-)! Anyway, it's one of the possible explanations, IMO. bdclark0423: Yes, it's the best explanation and much more interesting than to have to read: "DD went to Voldy's cave, drank poison, kicked some Inferi ass, and all I got was this lousy Horcrux" bdclark0423 From d.lucas35 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 03:18:09 2008 From: d.lucas35 at yahoo.com (Darlene Lucas) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:18:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Harry's Isolation up to Hogwarts (Was: Re: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <154004.37196.qm@web45906.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181510 SSSusan (snipped): Don't you imagine that DD *instructed* Order members/Potter family friends NOT to contact Harry? Alla: LOL, of course it is very possible and plausible that DD instructed everybody not to contact Harry. d.lucas35: Hi, I'm new to the group but just thought I would jump in here and add a thought. I believe Harry's isolation was due to the fact he was in danger from the Death Eaters who would blame him for Voldemort's defeat? Dumbledore said as much to Minerva concerning his decision to leave him with Muggles. Seems they might follow the friends of the Potters to learn his location. From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 03:49:23 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:49:23 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle's inability to love In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181511 Catlady: It struck me as worthy of notice that Rowling wrote a series in which the good guys go on and on about the importance of one's choices, while providing a villain who was unable to choose otherwise. In DH, Harry advises him to try for a little remorse, when remorse is what he is completely incapable of. There is some interview on the Web, except I can't find it now, in which the interviewer (IIRC Melissa from The Leaky Cauldron) questioned Her on that and She said that was true, but this series is a fantasy, so the bit of Potter's blood that was used in Voldemort's re-embodiment spell brought with it the ability to choose to feel remorse. Bdclark0423: Once again, I fail to see why there needs to be the connection of labeling someone a psychopath and the inability to love, because it's not relevant to the message JKR is giving us. Ok, Volde is psycho, born that way or made that way, I'm not disputing it. However, that's not what gives us a reason to read the story. We've got the hero and the villian who come from the exact same background. Both are orphaned, both live in horrible conditions, and then they are given the chance to become better people when they're accepted to Hogwarts . We see so many times how Harry begins to doubt himself and why this is all happens. Does DD simple say because he's a psychopath? Too easy.... >From SS to the very end of DH, that is Harry's quest: to not to loose sight of the ability to love by looking at where Vold may have taken a misstep, apply what he has learned and then make the right choice. bdclark0423 From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 04:13:10 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:13:10 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181512 "You won't, will you, Harry?" said Hermione. "Because Black's not worth dying for," said Ron. - p.159 Alla: Apparently he is, sigh as Harry discovers in OOP as we know. "Won' make no diff'rence!" sobbed Hagrid. "Them Disposal devils, they're all in Lucius Malfoy's pocket! Scared o' him! An' if I lose the case, Buckbeak..." - p.162 Alla: Yeah, Lucius lost LOTS of power after CoS... NOT if you ask my opinion. And looking at this post DH I suddenly wondered if Malfoys will have any sort of power in post Voldemort world. Frankly, I would not put it past them. "Yeh've no idea," said Hagrid quetly. "Never bin anywhere like it. Thought I was goin' mad" - p.163 Alla: Hagrid was there for a very short period of time and he ALREADY thought he was going mad. I do wonder how much longer he would have lasted there. Professor Trelawney behaved almost normally untill the very end of Christmas dinner, two hours later. Full to bursting with Christmas dinner, and still wearing their cracker hats, Harry and Ron got up first from the table and she shrieked loudly. "My dears! Which of you left his seat first? Which/" Alla: Remember how we used to argue whether this one will be true prediction of dear Trelawney or another joke? Well, if we think that Harry left his table first, do you think in light of the ending it counts as true prediction? I mean of course if you are absolutely sure that Harry only had near death experience, it does not count, but I am more inclined to believe that he died and came back and I do not think that DD's words about in his head are phrased definitively. "Harry cast about for a happy memory. Certainly, nothing that had happened to him at the Dursleys was going to do." - p.176 Alla: Not one happy memory during eleven years and other summers, not ONE. I find it very sad "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--" - p.178 Alla: Hmmm, I am glad that James says same thing at least in DH. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 04:52:21 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:52:21 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181513 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bdclark0423" wrote: > O also make another point, a wizard could use any instrument for > channeling magic, it's just usually wands serve best. zanooda: Oh, I thought that by "any instrument" Ollivander meant "any wand". Kind of like "you can do magic with any wand, but if there is a certain affinity between the wand and the wizard, the results are better". I'm not a native speaker, so now you confused me a little. I never heard about anything else except wands being used to do magic in Potterverse :-). > bdclark wrote: > So, I think now that the Elder Wand being unbeatable should be > considered total myth and in general it is not the wand that makes > the wizard. zanooda: I agree with that, but still, the Elder wand seems to be more powerful than regular wands - it can do things they can't (to repair an unrepairable wand, for example). I wonder if the Elder wand's old age adds to its power. We usually see wands that only have one owner, two at most (Neville and his father, Ron and Charlie etc.) The Elder wand is ancient and it changed so many owners, some of them powerful wizards - it must have learned a thing or two from them :-). From iam.kemper at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 04:56:04 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:56:04 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle's inability to love In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181514 > Bdclark0423: > Once again, I fail to see why there needs to be the connection of > labeling someone a psychopath and the inability to love, because > it's not relevant to the message JKR is giving us. > > Ok, Volde is psycho, born that way or made that way, I'm not > disputing it. However, that's not what gives us a reason to read > the story. We've got the hero and the villian who come from the > exact same background. Both are orphaned, both live in horrible > conditions, and then they are given the chance to become better > people when they're accepted to Hogwarts . Kemper now: It seems that Tom Riddle was born bad. Prior to HBP, I thought that Tom was raised in horrible conditions at the orphanage. But when we see it through DD's memory, it does not appear to be that bad. The Matron, Mrs. Cole, seems concerned that Tom bullies the other kids and can't catch him. Though the orphanage has worn and mismatched furniture, it seems a clean and well lit place; not like the festering sty of abuse that I had imagined. Harry thinks the kids are well-cared for but that the orphanage would still be a grim place in which to grow up. These thoughts seem incongruous: if youth are well cared for, how is it grim... unless Harry means the overall reason for an orphanage (dead/fleeing parents, unwanted by others). The orphanage is not horrible conditions. Tom had a room, not a cupboard. Antisocial people (as opposed to asocial) are made by their environment. I don't think Tom was antisocial. But he may be psychopathic. He may as a psychopath feel love, I don't know, but it's apparent he doesn't know how to display love. Kemper From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 05:25:31 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:25:31 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <47B0E2C2.4040505@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181515 Lee wrote: > It's hopeless. The logic of this whole sequence is irredeemably convoluted. A simple Disarming counts as a defeat. But how many times have we seen Disarmed wizards scrambling for the wands and rejoining the fray? > And then there's the whole Dueling Club problem, where Disarming > apparently DOESN'T count as defeat. Why? > > And of course, there's the added complication that Harry "disarmed" Draco simply by grabbing wands out of Draco's hand. Apparently that DOES count. But let's see: Ron disarmed Wormtail by grabbing his wand but then was forced by Bellatrix to relinquish it (does THAT count, too? or does the wand need to be physically wrested away?). Then later Molly defeats Bellatrix. So is Molly now master of Wormtail's wand? > > The logic bears all the earmarks of something JKR ill-advisedly pulled out of her hat at the last minute to try to rescue a plot that had gone badly awry. It just can't be made sense of. Carol responds: First, Bellatrix doesn't succeed in getting Ron to relinquish his wand. she orders him to put it down and he does, but Bellatrix never takes possession. Draco picks them up, but he hasn't defeated Ron, so he's not the wand's master. Then Harry snatches the wands from Draco's grip, which makes him master of any wands that Draco was master of, that is, Draco's own wand and the Elder Wand (and, arguably, Bellatrix's wand), but since Draco wasn't the master of Wormtail's wand, his picking it up on Bellatrix's orders has no effect on its loyalties. So when Harry gives the wand back to Ron, he (Ron) is still its master. Bellatrix's wand is trickier. Harry did disarm her, but Draco picked it up to return it to his aunt. Harry never tries to use it; he gives it to Hermione, who has no sympathy with it or for it at all. My guess is that the wand was so much in sympathy with Bellatrix and had performed so many evil spells that it was not about to relinquish its loyalty over a simple Expelliarmus even after it had been snatched by the caster of the Expelliarmus from a boy who was not its master. Dumbledore, in contrast, was already dying, and Disarming by a boy who intended to kill him (or thought he did) was clearly a defeat, especially with Death Eaters on the way. Contrast the DA, in which the kids practice Expelliarmus on each other with no intention of keeping each other's wands. The act of picking up your own wand or being handed your wand by the person who Disarmed you apparently cancels any change in ownership, assuming that the wand has so easily changed its loyalties. (Wormtail's wand, BTW, was quite new and had probably not had time to form much of a bond with him; hence, the easy transfer of ownership to Ron.) Quite possibly, Lockhart's wand would have transferred its ownership to Snape in CoS given the powerful Expelliarmus that Snape used, but since he didn't take the wand away and claim it but allowed Lockhart to keep it (until Harry, copying Snape, used Expelliarmus on him), Lockhart remained master of his own wand, if not the master of the spells he attempted to perform with it. Quite likely, that wand did transfer its loyalty to Harry, but since he never picked it up and Lockhart was defeated by his own idiotic action (via *Ron's* wand), it doesn't really matter. I think that wands and wand ownership are rather complicated, and that wands, being powerful magical objects that can understand not only spells but intentions and can, evidently, understand conversation involving them (Harry's discussion of the mastery of the Elder Wand), I don't think they would lightly transfer ownership from the Witch or Wizard that they chose and with whom they have developed a relationship, in some cases, of many years or decades, to any person who casts an Expelliarmus. Draco's wand may, for all we know, have sensed that he was now the master of the Elder Wand and transferred ownership for that reason. Or it may have simply been more compatible with him than Bellatrix's would have been because of the similarity in age and the kinds of spells that Harry was likely to cast (similar to those it had cast for Draco), whereas Bellatrix's wand would have sensed him as an enemy, Expelliarmus or not. At any rate, Grindelwald was careful to *defeat* Gregorovitch, not by Disarming him but by Stunning him before he stole the Elder wand. I assume that Dumbledore somehow tricked his clever antagonist and former friend in some similar way despite the "unbeatable" Elder Wand. At any rate, I agree that JKR didn't fully think through the matter of wand ownership (or perhaps transfer of loyalty would be more accurate), but we do at least get some hints that another Wizard's wand won't work as well as one that has chosen that wizard. Ollivander says so himself, and we also see Neville having trouble using his insane father's wand. (Ron also has trouble with the wand he inherited from Charlie, but that's because it was first old and then broken. I don't think it was a matter of wand loyalty since Charlie probably willingly passed it on to his little brother and they were similar enough in personality and abilities that the wand would have no objections.) Okay, that's my attempt to explain why an ordinary Expelliarmus (or, for that matter, a duel in the corridors between reasonably well-matched schoolboys) would not result in a transfer of the wand's loyalty to another person. To reiterate, a wand that's well-suited to you and has developed a relationship with you, each learning from the other, as Ollivander says, will not lightly abandon you just because an opponent has Disarmed you. There has to be more to it, either possession of the wand after the Expelliarmus or an actual defeat of an enemy. Wormtail, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and even Draco were most assuredly defeated. The first two died, the third was imprisoned for life (how that happened, I can't guess), and the last was left wandless and helpless. How he escaped being murdered by Voldemort, I don't know. Carol, giving wands, which have "brains" of a sort, credit for a bit of common sense From iam.kemper at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 05:29:11 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:29:11 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181516 > zanooda: > > ...I wonder if the Elder wand's old age > adds to its power. We usually see wands that only have one owner, two > at most (Neville and his father, Ron and Charlie etc.) The Elder wand > is ancient and it changed so many owners, some of them powerful > wizards - it must have learned a thing or two from them :-). Kemper now: I imagine 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' played on a Stradivarius violin sounds a bit better than on a public school violin. But I bet the differences are much more conspicuous when both play Beethoven's 'Violin Concerto in D Major'. That said, the wand probably gained a resonance for certain powerful spells. Unfortunately, it's probably the AK that the Death Stick plays especially well. Kemper, not adding much From whealthinc at ozemail.com.au Wed Feb 13 06:26:10 2008 From: whealthinc at ozemail.com.au (Barry) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:26:10 -0000 Subject: Motorbike In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181517 -> --- "Barry" wrote: > > > > In the chapter, The Seven Potters, it says: Hagrid kicked > > the motorbike into life: > > ... This, in turn, implies an electric circuit giving a > > spark to the combustion chamber. Yet electricity is not > > supposed to run in a magic environment. > > bboyminn: > > > > So, there is no evidence in any of the books or interviews > that indicate any magic, no matter how small, will cancel > all electricity and electronics in the area. Magic will > interfere with electricity to some extent, but not always > enough to cancel it out, unless the concentration is high > enough. > > Steve/bboyminn Your reply counters another one. Earlier, I said that the flying dragon in DH would be detected by spy planes, satellites etc. Someone said no because the dragon was magic, it would be undetected. I've not read any interviews. It was stated on this site that magic counters electricity/electronics Barry From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 10:34:29 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:34:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe Message-ID: <215408.55428.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181518 Goddlefrood: I've been considering whether to rewrite and post the below effort for a while. I had my mind made up by something that arose during a discussion at hp_essays over at Livejournal. I apolgise to those who may have read it at LJ and its earlier, but distinct, incarnation here. Hopefully it's a little different from recent topics, if nothing else. It was also asked of me that I put it here (and you know who you are, Mike), make of it all what you will. I have added little or nothing based on book 7 to what appeared here around 10 months ago, what follows is more of an intellectual exercise rather than any attempt to show that the series is based on any alchemical system; that there are links to aspects of the alchemical system should be clear enough by the end. However, alchemy can by no means be said to be the way of explaining the series. The series did not reach the end of the alchemical cycle, particularly the more involved seven stage cycle. IOW, the series did not follow Harry far enough for the alchemical process to conclude. By my reckoning it reached around two thirds of the way into the three stage process and less than half way into the more involved seven stage process. I always thought there was very little in the alchemical based theories to predict death and I'll explain why in this essay. There are, for starters, a multitude of alchemical systems. Herein I limit myself to two relatively well-known examples. (i) The three stage system. Stage one - Nigredo - meaning blackening. This stage of the alchemical process refers primarily to what happens before there can be any progress towards the goal. All that has been formed is broken apart and becomes dark and dead. It would have been more appropriate to compare the basic stage system to Harry's reactions to death rather than to try to have made it into a pattern of how the deaths roster proceeded. Few, if any, alchemy essays and / or speculations seemed to consider this, excepting my own. Basically, Sirius's death leads to a shattering of all Harry's beliefs in the inherent underlying goodness in the wizarding world. Black's death marked the end of Harry's wonder of all things wizarding. From that point on he is focused to his task of tracking down and destroying Lord Voldemort and all his evil works. Stage two - Albedo - it refers to the whitening or enlightening of the process. Albus Dumbledore throughout HBP had been preparing Harry for what lay ahead. Harry is being taught and through that teaching he reached the point by the end of HBP that he was aware of what he must do to move forward in his quest. The wise old wizard must be got out of the way for the hero to proceed, this has been achieved and JKR has also referred to it as something that had to happen. The upshot is that Albus had to die, but not because his name meant white, as Albedo on a literal translation does not. Albedo in fact has its roots in washing or cleansing. Harry had gone through the process of cleansing himself to proceed by both coming to terms with the deaths of his mentors and by accepting what he must do. The final stage - Rubedo - has its roots in love, despite it often having been interpreted as the reddening phase for the alchemy based death prediction theories (leading to Hagrid's death - which, as we all know now happened). It was be through love that Harry conquered Lord Voldemort. There doesn't seem to be much real dispute about that and it had been a theme that had run throughout the series. Love being the power Voldemort knew not was his ultimate downfall. Oh, sorry, no it wasn't. Despite the build up and the many references to love, ultimately it wasn't love that led to Voldemort's demise. It was luck, which was foreshadowed a long time ago when Harry once said something along the line of: "I didn't know what I was doing, I got lucky." Rubeus Hagrid was fine. Fred Weasley's death lends no credibility to the Rubedo stage predicting the death of someone linked to red. That Fred had red hair was by the by. (ii) The seven stage system 1. Calcination 2. Dissolution 3. Separation 4. Conjunction 5. Fermentation 6. Distillation 7. Coagulation There are four, and possibly more, ways of interpreting the seven stages of the alchemical cycle as set out above. The four would be chemically, psychologically, physiologically and societal. It is the latter of these that is dealt with in what follows. It may enable you (generic) to fit Lord Voldemort's, and more importantly perhaps, Harry's journey into a scheme that tallies with the seven stage process as opposed to the three stage process that has been referred to earlier. As mentioned in section (i) an alternative way of construing the three stage process can lead to a conclusion that it is Harry's development through that that could have been a key to understanding how his journey towards his goal was to be achieved. Like I said though, it only works up to the second stage and the third stage rather puts the kibosh on alchemy as a way of explaining what was going on in the series as a whole. Taking the societal method for the seven stage process and transposing that onto the seven stages of Voldemort could lead us somewhere interesting. With no further ado here it is: 1. Calcination in societal interpretation is compared to heroes or revolutionaries who attempt to subvert the status quo. In terms of fitting that to PS/SS it does not really work. However, if we go back to the beginning of Lord Voldemort's first rise it may do so. His goal appears to have been to oust the existing regime and impose his own rule over the wizarding world. 2. Dissolution is the time of purging the Earth of all that is deficient and it seems to me that in his own mind Lord Voldemort wanted to do just that. This is quite easily divined from his spiel towards the end of CoS as well as GoF. His two lengthiest speeches in canon in fact. The first from his younger self and the latter from his contemporary self after he had regained a body. 3. Separation then equates to the formation of a new order. This appears to me to be a reasonable extrapolation of what Lord Voldemort wanted to do. It starts once the process of ridding the wizarding world of its chaff, as he saw it, had been achieved. The ground has been prepared in stage two for stage three to progress. 4. Conjunction is simply where the new society has been created and is moving along the road to its final form, as it kind of was post the Ministry's fall. 5. During the fermentation stage the new culture is developing its own ideology in terms of arts, sciences, magic development (as this is tied to the fictional world of Harry Potter). In the typical system espoused comparing the seven stages of societal development this is also the point at which religion becomes established in whatever form that might take. 6. It is at this point that it is no longer reasonable to compare the sixth stage of societal development (Distillation) to what Lord Voldemort had contemplated. This is because the sixth stage is where nirvana is reached through a process of society commingling into one and striving towards a common search for truth. Momentarily I will attempt for my next trick to fit Harry into the seven stage societal alchemy schemata. It fits Harry rather better than it fits Lord Voldemort, as I hope will become clear. It also somewhat complements part (i). The difference is that the reading of the societal version can be used to project what Harry has to do from the end of Deathly Hallows (excluding what I will loosely call the Epilogue). Thus distillation and the final stage of coagulation do not easily fit in with comparison to Lord Voldemort's story arc, IMO. Up to a point, therefore, it was possible to fit Lord Voldemort's story into the seven stage alchemical cycle, but it falls down after stage 5 as far as I'm concerned. It is my view that Lord Voldemort's chosen path the second time around was very similar to his previously chosen path. He repeated his errors and that ultimately led to his second and permanent downfall. Before going on to Harry there is, if interested, available a good outline of the seven stage alchemical process from four perspectives, being chemical, psychological, physiological and societal offered at this site: http://www.deeptrancenow.com/exc3_calcination.htm (Magpie, this one works :-)) Perhaps someone else might be interested in using that as a basis for a theory on how the process was at work in the series, if it was at all. Back though to Harry. Making some comparisons to the societal method led me to a similar, but distinct, conclusion. Using the same system outlined above, let's go back to stage one. This is, remember, based on the societal version of the seven stages of alchemy: (i) Calcination compares to heroes or revolutionaries who attempt to subvert the status quo. Harry set out his stall early in terms of not accepting help from the Ministry of Magic, for my purpose the established regime. He had his own plan, albeit one that relied a great deal on luck rather than good judgment. On that basis he subverted the method that had been used against Lord Voldemort during his first rise as much as Dumbledore had with the establishment of the Order of the Phoenix. (ii) Dissolution is the time of purging the Earth of all that is deficient. This goes hand in hand with Harry's primary goal in that to achieve that goal he must first overcome many obstacles, which included, but were not limited to, the destruction of the remaining Horcruxes and the resolution of various conflicts with others who barred his objective. These others were Lord Voldemort's massed forces of darkness consisting of the giants, the Dementors, the Inferi, the werewolves and the Death Eaters - not all of whom actually did take a part in Voldemort's offensive. (iii) Separation then equates to the formation of a new order. This stage goes mostly to what will need to be done once Harry succeeded in neutralising Lord Voldemort. There should be a process of cleaning up the wizarding world in general that may include a new Minister of Magic or even a new system of Government entirely within the wizarding world. It should also precipitate more equality for less favoured magical beings and improvement in relations between the magical world and the real world in terms of potential co-operation between them, but not in terms of realignment of the two. (iv) Conjunction is simply where the new society has been created and is moving along the road to its final form. This in and of itself is self-explanatory and needs little further expansion. (v) The fermentation stage of the new culture is when it develops its own ideology in terms of arts, sciences, magic development. This is also the point at which religion becomes established in whatever form that might take. That also seems clear enough. I had thought that JKR would give some expansion of how religion within the wizarding world worked, a forlorn hope as it turned out. (vi) Distillation. This sixth stage is the point at which the society progresses further and justice and truth have taken a firm grip so that the society can finally be realised in its final form in stage seven. (vii) Coagulation is the last stage at which point there is a return to a paradisaical state and that would have been a rather satisfying point to have reached by the end of the story. Post-DH it seems to me that in terms of Harry's story arc comparative to the seven stage societal based alchemical cycle the story only progressed as far as stage 3. Some vague hints were there that progress was being made towards a more enlightened and tolerant society. Those pointers were sometimes so vague as to be almost unnoticed, and in any event were of little or no consequence. What happened next is something that we are all left free to decide, always presuming that Ms. Rowling does not want us to take her post-DH statements seriously, as I do not. Goddlefrood in whose VHO alchemy does not assist too much in our understanding of the Harry Potter series as it stands, whichever way one slices it. Care to convince me otherwise? ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ From funkeginger at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 10:53:39 2008 From: funkeginger at yahoo.com (funkeginger) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:53:39 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181519 Funkeginger: I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to the series as a whole, but to think that the series might not speak out to the next genaration is rubbish. I think the series will go down in history as one of the best ever. * rememeber when Harry got on a broom the frist time to play Quidditch and how he won his frist game? I have to tell you I was with him the whole time * or when we first set our eyes on Hogwarts. I have to tell you I have been wishing Hogwarts is real ever since * or when Harry entered the Chamber of Secrets. I have to say when he was fighting that Basalisk, it took my breath away. * when they went back in to time to try and fix every thing, I have to say that was pretty cool * or when he went up against that dragon and LV, I have to say the only word for it was magical * or when they were in the ministry fighting, I have to say I cried when Sirius died * or when DD died, I have to say I thought he was one of the great Wizards that ever lived * now there was little to nothing good about the DH, but I think the next generation will still love the books like we first did Funkeginger From k12listmomma at comcast.net Wed Feb 13 13:35:56 2008 From: k12listmomma at comcast.net (k12listmomma) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:35:56 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Long live the Harry potter series References: Message-ID: <006801c86e45$5d437580$6501a8c0@homemain> No: HPFGUIDX 181520 > Funkeginger: > > I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to the > series as a whole, but to think that the series might not speak out > to the next genaration is rubbish. I think the series will go down in > history as one of the best ever. Shelley: I think it's a disservice to fans to say that "most people" dislike the series as a whole. The only "dislike" I've heard is limited only for the final book (and maybe Rowling's comments and revelations following), but certainly not the series as a whole. I know of no fan, who upon reading the final book, has suddenly turned their dislike and criticism of DH into a bash of the entire series. I think you are exaggerating the dislike for the ending, stretching into all that came before. I think future fans and readers will do as we've done- find books 1-6 a wonderful treat, and then find book 7 to be a bit of a let down, for the same reasons that we have expressed our disappointment in it. As a series, it's a good one, just with a weak final book. It would have been nice to say that it goes out with a famously bang, but sadly, I think it goes out with a wimper. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 14:44:53 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:44:53 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181521 > Funkeginger: > > I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to the > series as a whole, but to think that the series might not speak out > to the next generation is rubbish. I think the series will go down in > history as one of the best ever. Alla: LOL. Do you have statistics about most people? I can say with certainty that A LOT of people on this list and elsewhere in fandom (this list is the only place in fandom I post and visit often, but sometimes I go to other sites) expressed dislike of the book 7 AND series as whole, which is their right, but even on this list I, know quite a few people who loved book 7 and accordingly their love for the series did not diminish one bit. AND what I find the most interesting, although again those cannot be statistics since I do not know too many HP fans unrelated to this list in RL, NOBODY whom I know in RL disliked the last book either. They thought it was a great ending to the great series. So, yeah, I think the series will stand up test of time myself, just not sure about validity of evaluating "most people" POV. Funkeginger: * now there was little to nothing good about the DH, but I think the next generation will still love the books like we first did Alla: Yep, I loved all those great moments that you listed, but there was little to nothing good about DH? I loved the story of the teenager going to die to save his house elf. I loved seeing how accomplished Hogwarts teachers are in the magical arts. Minerva's triple patronuses were fascinating if you ask me and her battle with Snape as well. I absolutely LOVED seeing Lucius Malfoy and his son waiting for a sign from Narcissa how to behave with Voldemort. I cried when Dobby died and Harry was burying him, I thought it was very well written. I was holding my breath when Ron was trying to destroy the Horcrux and battled his demons. I thought Aberworth Dumbledore rocked as a character. OMG, I cried and cried when Harry was walking through the forest. And yes I was soooo happy to read that sacharine epilogue. I was always sure that Harry wanted family of his own and was so glad that he got it at the end. Those are just random moments I loved in the last book and I can name plenty more. But I do agree about next generation, hehe. JMO, Alla From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 17:20:25 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:20:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <328147.38151.qm@web56913.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181522 > Alla: > > Yep, I loved all those great moments that you > listed, but there was > little to nothing good about DH? I loved the HP series, but COS was my least favorite. 3, 4, 6 & 7 were great. The only people I know who dislike the series are people who have never read the books and are judging the movies. I enjoy watching the movies but they do confuse me on what really happened in the books so I read them again to refresh my memory. DH was what I expected it to be and more. I knew we were going to lose beloved characters in the big battle. I loved the story of the Peverell Bros. & the deathly hallows and that Harry is a descendent of the younger brother. That explains the invisibility cloak and the mountain of gold in his vault at Gringott's bank. Aberforth acted like a true sibling. He pointed out all the faults of his brother as most siblings do. I was a bit disappointed that the flying car didn't come out of the forest to join the fight. I loved that Molly Weasley killed Bellatrix, showing how fierce a mother's love can be. I loved how Hermione kept Harry and Ron alive all those months in hiding. They would surely have died if it wasn't for her preparedness and quick thinking. Snape? Let's just say that he's a complicated character. He had a fierce love for Lily, but he was very unforgiving and cruel. On the other hand, he was very loyal and brave too. One doesn't know wether to like or dislike him or what! I must say that I enjoyed Deathly Hallows very much. Edna Oregon From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 17:40:19 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:40:19 -0000 Subject: Mistakes made in Deathly Hallows? The Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181523 >zanooda: > >Oh, I thought that by "any instrument" Ollivander meant "any wand". >Kind of like "you can do magic with any wand, but if there is a >certain affinity between the wand and the wizard, the results are >better". I'm not a native speaker, so now you confused me a little. >I never heard about anything else except wands being used to do >magic in Potterverse :-). bdclark0423: As an avid reader of fantasy novels, I find it is universally understood that the wand serves as an extension of the human body. A wand could be considered just like your finger pointing as someone, but just extending and enhancing the force behind that power. Items other than a wand would be: staff, scepter, baton, talisman, rod, divining stick, etc. There are other mediums as well, and these ARE mentioned in the canon: broomstick, portkey, crystal ball, floo powder, hat, potions, stone, etc. And, also good point about repairing Harry's wand with the Elder Wand, I completely forgot about that bdclark0423 From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Wed Feb 13 18:00:35 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:00:35 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181524 > Funkeginger: > I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to the series as a whole, but to think that the series might not speak out to the next genaration is rubbish. I think the series will go down in history as one of the best ever. Tiffany: When SS came out here in Minneapolis, I was only 11 & the love for HP then was almost instant. I've never truly been an obsessive fan, but I've attended some conventions, bought Halloween costumes, & the like for HP. HP was also the first fantasy series I truly ever fell in love with because pre-SS, I only read one fantasy book, so HP will always be a favorite of mine. I was disappointed at first with the ending to DH, but once I got more familiar with the book, I thought it was a better way to end it than the typical "happily ever after" ending. I wasn't really too let down by DH as a whole, in fact, it's not even my least favorite of all, but I couldn't help but laugh at all of the errors I found there. From whiggrrl at erols.com Wed Feb 13 14:53:15 2008 From: whiggrrl at erols.com (FlaviaFlav) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:53:15 -0000 Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe In-Reply-To: <215408.55428.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181525 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Goddlefrood wrote: > The final stage - Rubedo - has its roots in love, > despite it often having been interpreted as the > reddening phase for the alchemy based death prediction > theories (leading to Hagrid's death - which, as we all > know now happened). > Rubeus Hagrid was fine. Fred Weasley's death lends no > credibility to the Rubedo stage predicting the death > of someone linked to red. That Fred had red hair was > by the by. Flaviaflav: In Deathly Hallows we also had the death of *Rufus* Scrimgeour. But there was no love lost between him and Harry. From giraffeland at hotmail.com Wed Feb 13 16:46:45 2008 From: giraffeland at hotmail.com (giraffeland) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:46:45 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: <006801c86e45$5d437580$6501a8c0@homemain> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181526 Shelley: > I think future fans and readers will do as we've done- find books 1-6 > a wonderful treat, and then find book 7 to be a bit of a let down, > for the same reasons that we have expressed our disappointment in it. > As a series, it's a good one, just with a weak final book. It would > have been nice to say that it goes out with a famously bang, but > sadly, I think it goes out with a wimper. I think that reading the seven books at one time will be a different experience for future generations. They will not have years to come up with theories to what is going to happen in the next book. giraffeland From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Wed Feb 13 18:42:20 2008 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:42:20 -0000 Subject: Neville and Luna In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181527 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > I didn't see Luna as developing, rather, I saw the other > children growing up so that they could understand and > even value her. From the first, she seemed to be more > self-aware than the other students. Her painfully accurate > observations indicated that she was an astute observer. > She seems the embodiment of the German word "altklug", > which roughly means that she has understanding that > usually comes with age, at a younger than normal age. > > Laura Hickengruendler: I agree with you, and I think the same is true about Neville as well. Not, that he is wise beyond his age, but that the storyline is less about his development, but more about learning his worth, which is a journey Harry, the readers and Neville himself made throughout the books, IMO. His greatest virtue always was his ability to keep on fighting and trying, even when the situation seems lost. From that point of view, he didn't develop all that much, except that he became somewhat more self-confident. But his basic storylines in PS, OotP and DH, the three books where he played his biggest parts, are IMO the same. It's about him succeeding against all odds, because he kept trying, which ultimately is the only reason, why he has the opoortunity to get close enough to Nagini. By the way, there is a slightly negative connection with the world "altklug" in German. It means, what you said it means, but I would never use it to describe someone like Luna. It's very hard to explain, but when I think of someone, who is "altklug", I also think of a pretty arrogant person, but maybe that's just me. Hickengruendler, who, to talk about another thread, likes Deathly Hallows very much and doesn't think, that the majority dislikes the book. Everyone I know in real life likes Deathly Hallows. :-) From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 19:48:08 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:48:08 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181528 > Funkeginger: > > I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to the > series as a whole, but to think that the series might not speak out > to the next genaration is rubbish. I think the series will go > down in history as one of the best ever. bdclark0423: Ok, Ok. I'm going to go into one of my big spiels here and so feel free to do a **big snip** here, since I'm most likely preaching to the choir. BUT in reference to what Edna (grednam2000) says, I do agree...too many people judge the series on what they can immediately see on the screen (as sad as that is), and after OOTP came out, the reviews were "eehhhh it was ah'right, but it [Harry Potter] definitely has lost its Disney Magic" Oooooh, I wanted to slap these people back to the end of the line on the `it's a small world after all' ride. It's not Disney: it's never been about some princess who finds her prince charming, blah blah blah **song here** blah blah ***song there*** blah blah blah ***figurine endorsement*** blah blah ..... It's about someone in their adolescence becoming a mature adult responsible for their own actions. I do admit myself, that the book reads a lot differently than the rest of hers, but not only are we seeing Harry, Hermione, and Ron develop, we see JKR do so as well. Alla has done great job of bulleting these: and most especially the Dobby burial scene. How powerful was that?!?!?! The rest of the plot only shows how Harry has developed into someone that attacks his goals strategically and most beneficially. He even strategizes with McGonagall on how to `hold the fort' so what needs to be done to the very end so that the whole thing will cause as little damage to others as possible. Then to play into Volde's demand of Harry's self-sacrifice, Harry does so only because he knows it is absolutely necessary to end the struggle. You don't see that happening in most of us today, nor most of the stories we know of...and if that's not what a Noble story is, then I have no idea what a noble story should be...Winner of American Idol?.....Housewives of OC?....Top Model??? My stance has always been, the Harry Potter series shows us that we cannot lose our ability to love, it's the theme from beginning to end. bdclark0423 From colleen.nilson at verizon.net Wed Feb 13 21:07:52 2008 From: colleen.nilson at verizon.net (colleennilson) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:07:52 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? In-Reply-To: <47B240E4.6090302@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181529 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen wrote: > > The implication of the passage is that casting a spell while holding > three wands triples the spell's power. But then why isn't every wizard > beating a path to Ollivander's to pick up a couple of extra wands and a > tube of superglue? I wonder whether it was the fact that Harry used three wands, or perhaps that one of those wands (we later learn) was the Elder Wand. Rowling has said that the wand chooses the wizard, and wands do seem to be more or less sentient, so perhaps each of the wands (and the Elder Wand in particular) recognized that Harry was a powerful wizard and therefore cast more powerful spells. I think that the relative strength and/or skill of the person using the wand has to come into play somehow. Was Dumbledore so powerful because he had the Elder Wand, or was it because the wand recognized his strength and therefore worked that much more efficiently? Since Squibs and Muggles can't use wands, I tend to think that there is some sort of synergy between the inherent strengths of a wizard or witch and his or her wand. ~ Colleen From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 21:24:13 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:24:13 -0000 Subject: Remus and Harry WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181530 SSSusan: I guess, though, that this would presume Remus (or anyone else who might have been so instructed) DISAGREES with DD about the need to keep Harry isolated from the WW until he gets his Hogwarts letter. Imagining myself in the place of Potter family friends or Order members at the time, I could envision being convinced of the benefit of keeping Harry ignorant of the WW and of keeping him isolated from his unknown past, even. If DD and others truly believed that Voldy would come back or his followers might try to continue his work, they might believe that leaving Harry alone was the safest thing for him, that contacting him could actually lead Voldy/the DEs to him. Alla: Forget about WW for a second, all right? I can see what you are saying here absolutely. And even though it would take a lot of convincing for me, I can see being convinced of **not informing Harry of WW** yes. But what harm can be in Remus doing what you mentioned upthread? Just contacting him as muggle friend who knew his parents? I am not sure I am seeing at all HOW any person who considers himself a friend of the child's dead parents can be convinced that it is for the good of the child to NOT have such a friend. In this paragraph I am not taking into consideration multiple issues that this person has, I am only talking about convincing him in good faith that this is for the good of the child. Not ONE happy memory for Harry during eleven years ( or 9.5 years?) with Dursleys, not ONE. DO you not think that letters from friend could go a long way to create such memories? If Remus can be convinced that this is all good for Harry, him staying away, I mean, I would think he is a bigger DOLT than I think now. JMO of course. SSSusan: Yes and no. By the point of this interaction, though, the issue is that Harry is now PART of the WW, right? He knows the full story now, he's aware of the attempt on his life & the murders of his parents, he knows he needs to be cautious. The point of no contact to age 11 may have had everything to do with wanting to keep Harry safe. And I could see others buying into that. Alla: But again, if I can see how the contact can be tied into the issue of Harry's safety, I can see that. But I just do not see it, if those will be letters from a friend mailed a muggle way. And remember those people approaching Harry in his early years, which Petunia tried to get him away from? No DE seemed to follow on their trail or something and I am NOT even talking about personal contact. I mean, there is nothing that can convince me that Albus Dumbledore would not able to check on Harry and that is one sin I will not ever be able to forgive his character, but whatever ? for others including Remus, let's assume that personal contact may have been dangerous for Harry, let's assume that even letters mailed the WW may have been dangerous, although those many owls with the letters from Hogwarts did not seem to bring any DE on their trail either, so I am not sure I am buying into their dangerousness. BUT how can letters mailed the muggle way be dangerous? SSSusan: So let's assume we're talking about just reaching out to the kid, not informing him about the WW or his parents' true pasts. Why DIDN'T Remus do that? Well, besides what I said, above, that he might believe it was the best way to keep Harry safe if there was no contact with those who knew the Potters, there's also the issue of what Remus would think he would have to OFFER Harry. So here, I think, is the crux of it. Even though I was disappointed in Remus for that, just like you were for him NOT taking that one more step and *actually* reaching out to touch Harry when he clearly wanted to do so, I think JKR really, really did a good job in keeping Remus consistent. That is, I see Remus at his core as *insecure.* Insecure, not in the sense of some I know, who're constantly asking for confirmation of how they look, what people think of them, yadda yadda, but insecure in the sense of doubting whether people want to be around him, whether they want him in their lives. Some might call this weakness rather than insecurity. And perhaps it is. But I see it as just self-doubt, as a fear of bringing difficulty or even danger into others' lives. He's spent a lifetime of doubting whether he has anything much to offer besides risk and danger. And *that,* I think, is a major part of the reason Remus did not reach out to Harry at these various points. It's just not who he was. Alla: Well, yeah as I said I do know about Remus' many insecurities, issues, and problems, whatever. I know and to the extent can even find identify with some of those insecurities myself. The thing is ? it still just does not do it for me. Does that make sense? Oh, oh let's take my favorite example, SNAPE. I am sure he had plenty of deep psychological reasons to hate Harry. I mean, for goodness sake kid looks as his dead rival who won the love of Lily and not only that, OMG kid has green eyes just as Lily did and OMG Lily is dead partially because of him. Yep, let's hate the kid because of that. Ok, dearest, you do know that my sarcasm is directed at Snape's character here and not at you, yes? Just wanted to be clear on that heheh. So, I mean, seriously speaking I do have a point to make her as it relates to Remus and Harry. Me being sarcastic notwithstanding, those are all reasons for Snape to hate Harry, right? It is just all those reasons for me do not stand the barest test of them being rational, you know? Get over it Snape, get freaking over it, or at least get over it enough for this not to be SHOWN to everybody including Harry. Nothing that happened in the past that includes you and Harry's parents is Harry's fault. And I can say the same thing to Remus pretty much. Get over it Remus, Harry is not the one who was hurting you and discriminating you as werewolf, etc. Yes, it is hard to reach out, knowing that you had been hurt and discriminated against so many times, yes you are insecure and not sure if people will accept you. But try to think rationally here for a second, Remus, try to think that the world may not revolve around your insecurities only and there is a boy who may need you with all your insecurities and fears, you know? I mean, of course there are fewer reasons for me to shake Remus since he clearly does not hate Harry, but I do believe that him standing away HURT Harry in a sense that sympathetic adult may have been there for him even if only in letters. Oh, and yes I was very disappointed that he did not write after Sirius' death myself and as I said yes I think JKR did a marvelous job with his character, it is just I want to shake him, I so do. Now if Remus did not have any feelings for Harry, would have been different story, but somehow him being friends with Lily and James, I strongly doubt it. Remember in PoA when Harry gets firebolt RON of all people thinks it is from Lupin and tells Harry that Lupin likes him? Sigh. JMO, Alla From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Wed Feb 13 21:26:36 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:26:36 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181531 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: Alla: > Yep, I loved all those great moments that you listed, but there was > little to nothing good about DH? > > I loved the story of the teenager going to die to save his house elf. > > I loved seeing how accomplished Hogwarts teachers are in the magical > arts. Minerva's triple patronuses were fascinating if you ask me and > her battle with Snape as well. > > I absolutely LOVED seeing Lucius Malfoy and his son waiting for a > sign from Narcissa how to behave with Voldemort. > > I cried when Dobby died and Harry was burying him, I thought it was > very well written. > > I was holding my breath when Ron was trying to destroy the Horcrux > and battled his demons. > > I thought Aberworth Dumbledore rocked as a character. > > OMG, I cried and cried when Harry was walking through the forest. > > And yes I was soooo happy to read that sacharine epilogue. I was > always sure that Harry wanted family of his own and was so glad that > he got it at the end. > > Those are just random moments I loved in the last book and I can name > plenty more. > > But I do agree about next generation, hehe. Geoff: I agree with almost all your list, Alla - except certainly the epilogue. My moment, which I have quoted before, is the point in the Great Hall when Harry and Voldemort reach the end of their stand-offand the rising sun comes over the window sill as the final spells are spoken. That was a moment of sheer ecstasy? ...beauty? ...drama? but it was a moment to savour. From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 22:32:44 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:32:44 -0000 Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181532 > Flaviaflav: > In Deathly Hallows we also had the death of *Rufus* Scrimgeour. > But there was no love lost between him and Harry. Goddlefrood: Referring to William II, no doubt. Rufus only means red-haired, thus, like the Weasleys or said Norman King. Besides, Scrimgeour was a relatively minor character first mentioned in OotP. The theories based on alchemy to predict death all (pre-DH) looked at major characters, of whom Scrimgeour was not one. So, may I ask your point? Goddlefrood, noting that the Hogwarts Professor is clutching at very thin straws. From bartl at sprynet.com Wed Feb 13 22:30:59 2008 From: bartl at sprynet.com (Bart Lidofsky) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:30:59 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: <006801c86e45$5d437580$6501a8c0@homemain> References: <006801c86e45$5d437580$6501a8c0@homemain> Message-ID: <47B36FA3.40100@sprynet.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181533 k12listmomma wrote: > I think future fans and readers will do as we've done- find books 1-6 a > wonderful treat, and then find book 7 to be a bit of a let down, for the > same reasons that we have expressed our disappointment in it. As a series, > it's a good one, just with a weak final book. It would have been nice to say > that it goes out with a famously bang, but sadly, I think it goes out with a > wimper. > Bart: My best guess is that JKR was in too much of a hurry to get Book 7 out. Regardless of how long she had it planned out, the Deathly Hallows APPEARED to have been shoehorned in. The horcruxes were all too easy to destroy, as well. I think had JKR given herself an extra 3 months or so, she would have paced the book much better, and made the endings far less confusing. A little less wilderness survival guide, perhaps an omniscient narrator look at Hogwarts in the middle of the book, with some foreshadowing of Snape's not being the bad guy (giving detention with Hagrid as punishment for rebels), and a better explanation of why Harry had to sacrifice himself in order to survive, and a clearer idea of the timeline would all have not been that difficult, and would have greatly improved the book. Bart From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 13 23:42:56 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:42:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: <47B36FA3.40100@sprynet.com> Message-ID: <946151.85995.qm@web56913.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181534 > k12listmomma wrote: > > I think future fans and readers will do as we've > > done- find books 1-6 a wonderful treat, and then > > find book 7 to be a bit of a let down, for the > > same reasons that we have expressed our disappointment > > in it. As a series, it's a good one, just with a weak > > final book. > Bart: > My best guess is that JKR was in too much of a hurry > to get Book 7 out. Regardless of how long she had it > planned out, the Deathly Hallows APPEARED to have been > shoehorned in. The horcruxes were all too easy to destroy, > as well. I think future HP readers will have a different experience when reading the books than we did because most of them will already know how it ends. They won't have the pleasure of coming up with theories as to what happens next, who ends up with who, etc. On the other hand, they won't have to wait years for the next book to be released, they can just read on through to the end. I think they will appreciate the cleverness in the writing of this massive story. It's not just about Harry, there are other characters they'll get to enjoy like Peeves and Winky just to name a few. There are so many scenes that were left out of the films. I think there will be readers who love the books, and readers who won't read them because they're intimidated by the size of the books. I think this series is an instant classic. As for book 7, I loved it but I think it should have been longer. There was way too much information jammed into this book that it made it confusing towards the end. I had to go back and research the Elder wand and the protection from Lily's sacrifice in order to understand how Harry survived the Avada Kedavra and the cruciatus curse. I'm glad Harry lived so that he could finally enjoy life. Edna From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 14 01:41:46 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:41:46 -0000 Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe In-Reply-To: <215408.55428.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181535 Goddlefrood: > Oh, sorry, no it wasn't. Despite the build up and the > many references to love, ultimately it wasn't love > that led to Voldemort's demise. It was luck, which was > foreshadowed a long time ago when Harry once said > something along the line of: "I didn't know what I was > doing, I got lucky." > Pippin: Although love did not lead to Lord Voldemort's demise, it did lead to Harry's survival and the survival of a great many other people. It was the residue of Lily's loving sacrifice which enabled Harry to survive Voldemort's AK a second time, and it was Harry's intended sacrifice that protected him and all his friends from Voldemort's powers. That time, he did know what he was doing. IMO, it would not be much of a message of love and forgiveness if love led to anyone's demise, even Voldemort's. What leads to Voldemort's demise and ultimate ruin is his rejection of love though Harry's blood gave him the option of accepting it. I wish JKR had made it a little clearer that Voldemort knew this, but we do have his realization that he is becoming sentimental in GoF. Ultimately, though, I don't think JKR uses alchemical symbolism in order to illustrate the processes of alchemy, but simply to give some structure and flavor to the workings of magic in her world. Pippin From kaleeyj at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 02:03:24 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:03:24 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181536 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > "You won't, will you, Harry?" said Hermione. > "Because Black's not worth dying for," said Ron. - p.159 > > > Alla: > > Apparently he is, sigh as Harry discovers in OOP as we know. > Bex: And, Sirius feels that Harry is worth dying for as well. > Alla: > > Yeah, Lucius lost LOTS of power after CoS... NOT if you ask my > opinion. And looking at this post DH I suddenly wondered if > Malfoys will have any sort of power in post Voldemort world. > Frankly, I would not put it past them. Bex: Apparently after he got sacked as school governor, he started throwing his weight around in the Ministry. I suppose that Draco would still have a good deal of swing post_DH, even with the stigma of his father staying in Azkaban. I mean, after all, money talks. PoA: > Professor Trelawney behaved almost normally untill the very end of > Christmas dinner, two hours later. Full to bursting with Christmas > dinner, and still wearing their cracker hats, Harry and Ron got up > first from the table and she shrieked loudly. > "My dears! Which of you left his seat first? Which/" > > > Alla: > Remember how we used to argue whether this one will be true > prediction of dear Trelawney or another joke? Well, if we think > that Harry left his table first, do you think in light of the > ending it counts as true prediction? > > I mean of course if you are absolutely sure that Harry only had > near death experience, it does not count, but I am more inclined > to believe that he died and came back and I do not think that > DD's words about in his head are phrased definitively. > Bex: Aaaah, yes. HArry Potter. Not only the only human ever to survive the Killing Curse, but also the only one to ever recover from it. ;) PoA: > "Harry cast about for a happy memory. Certainly, nothing that had > happened to him at the Dursleys was going to do." - p.176 > > Alla: > > Not one happy memory during eleven years and other summers, not ONE. > > I find it very sad Bex: I think we are seeing a bit of exaggeration here. Harry surely had happy memories from there - times when he'd make fun of Dudley and have a good laugh, and let's not forget the day at the Zoo. But they usually come in tandem with other, less happy memories (like Dudley punching him, or being locked in the cupboard). PoA: > "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off--" - > p.178 > > > Alla: > > Hmmm, I am glad that James says same thing at least in DH. > Bex: Yes. Continuity is a good thing. The thing that stood out to me in this section was Harry's dream right after the Quidditch match versus Ravenclaw. Seemed strangely reminiscent of a scene in DH. "[Harry] had a very strange dream. He was walking through a forest, his Firebolt over his shoulder, following something silvery-white. It was winding its way through the trees ahead, and he could only catch glimpses of it between the leaves. Anxious to catch up with it, he sped up, but as he moved faster, so did his quarry. Harry broke into a run, and ahead he heard hooves gathering speed. Now he was running flat out, and ahead he could hear galloping. The he turned a corner into a clearing and - " (PoA, US PB, pg 265). I wonder if Jo was thinking of this scene when she wrote the one in DH. Bex, who is really enjoying these discussions, especially on PoA, which is her favorite book in the series. From kaleeyj at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 02:19:00 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:19:00 -0000 Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181537 > Goddlefrood: > > > Oh, sorry, no it wasn't. Despite the build up and the > > many references to love, ultimately it wasn't love > > that led to Voldemort's demise. It was luck, which was > > foreshadowed a long time ago when Harry once said > > something along the line of: "I didn't know what I was > > doing, I got lucky." > > > > Pippin: > Although love did not lead to Lord Voldemort's demise, it > did lead to Harry's survival and the survival of a great many > other people. It was the residue of Lily's loving sacrifice which > enabled Harry to survive Voldemort's AK a second time, and it > was Harry's intended sacrifice that protected him and all > his friends from Voldemort's powers. That time, he did know > what he was doing. > > > IMO, it would not be much of a message of love and forgiveness > if love led to anyone's demise, even Voldemort's. Bex: Hear, hear - well said. Love didn't defeat LV - it saved Harry. Granted, luck played a pretty good role too. Without some good luck, Harry would have been toast years ago. Pippin: > Ultimately, though, I don't think JKR uses alchemical symbolism > in order to illustrate the processes of alchemy, but simply to give > some structure and flavor to the workings of magic in her world. Bex: Agreed. I think she may have borrowed some general imagery from the science of alchemy, but I don't think she was *trying* to imitate the three stages of alchemy. And I'm not compaining, either. I like Hagrid. ~Bex From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 03:07:32 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:07:32 -0000 Subject: Love Sacrifice / How Alchemy Didn't Work In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181538 > > Pippin: > > Although love did not lead to Lord Voldemort's demise, it > > did lead to Harry's survival and the survival of a great > > many other people. > > IMO, it would not be much of a message of love and forgiveness > > if love led to anyone's demise, even Voldemort's. > Goddlefrood: That's right, it wouldn't, hence alchemy doesn't work. Glad we agree there. I have a somewhat different view on Lily's sacrifice. Yes, she did sacrifice herself for Harry; however, without Snape's request to spare Lily's life that sacrifice would have been meaningless. The agreement LV gave to SS not to kill Lily came back to bite him, IOW. So, although perhaps nauseous, Snape's love saved Harry as much as did Lily's IMHO. > Bex: > Granted, luck played a pretty good role too. Without some good > luck, Harry would have been toast years ago. Goddlefrood: Dare I say, a large slice of it? > Bex: > I think she may have borrowed some general imagery from the > science of alchemy, but I don't think she was *trying* to > imitate the three stages of alchemy. Goddlefrood: Nor did I, which partially led to the original post. > Bex: > I like Hagrid. Goddlefrood: The real reason - I had to convince myself that Hagrid wouldn't die pre-DH, and it worked. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 04:12:19 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:12:19 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181539 Colleen wote: > I wonder whether it was the fact that Harry used three wands, or > perhaps that one of those wands (we later learn) was the Elder Wand. carol responds: Erm, no. the three wands were Wormtail's new one, Bellatrix's wand (which flet evil to Hermione, not surprisingly), and draco's hawthorn wand, of which Harry was now master because he took it from the defeated Draco. Harry also became the master or potential master of the Elder wand at that moment even though he had never seen it or touched it (LV had stolen it from DD's tomb). I personally think that the wand chose him over Draco, who had Disarmed DD and become its master (also without ever touching it) during the final confrontation with Voldemort, when he informed the wand that its master had been Disarmed. Wands appear to be sentient; it may also have known that the Wizard holding it was the deadly enemy of its former master, Dumbledore. It certainly knew that it had been used for a lot of AKs and a murder involving a snake. Maybe it realized that accepting Harry as its master was the way to defeat the Dark Wizard holding it. Or maybe it just knew that, of the possible masters available, Draco was not present and Harry was. LV was not a potential master since he hadn't Disarmed or defeated Dumbledore. He had, admittedly, "killed" Harry--with the Elder Wand--and come back from an AK. Good enough reason to choose him over Draco, I would think. Carol, who only meant to correct the point about the Elder Wand being one of the three but typed the thoughts that entered her mind when she touched the keys . . . . From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 08:24:13 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:24:13 -0000 Subject: How Alchemy Didn't Work, or The Heinrich Khunrath Wannabe In-Reply-To: <215408.55428.qm@web50804.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181540 > > Goddlefrood in whose VHO alchemy does not assist too > much in our understanding of the Harry Potter series > as it stands, whichever way one slices it. Care to > convince me otherwise? Montavilla47: Heh. Okay, I still think the seven stage *kinda* relate to Voldemort if you don't think of them too seriously. Or maybe if you approach it from a general, poetic perspective and from the experience of the reader towards Voldemort. Bear me out... > 1. Calcination At the end of PS/SS, our represention of Voldemort (the man on the back of Quirrel's head) is broken down and utterly destroyed. The man burns to death. (In the film, which was okayed by JKR, he turns to stone, then blows away into dust). It seems quite chemical, if magically so. > 2. Dissolution In CoS, the representation of Voldemort is Tom Riddle. At the end of the book, he literally dissolves into the waters of the Chamber. > 3. Separation I think I made a mistake before in thinking of Peter as our Voldemort represenative. There is *no* Voldie represenation in PoA. He has entirely separate from Harry and the story at this point. (Although we still see the consequences of his actions playing out). > 4. Conjunction In GoF, Voldemort comes back into being. He conjoins his soul with a body, and is on the way toward his goal in a personal, not societal way. > 5. Fermentation The way you describe fermentation, it sounds like there is organic growth going on (arts, culture, and so forth?) But I can't shake the image of Voldemort "fermenting" plans in OotP. Nothing is going on that people can see, but, like champagne in bottles, there is this general anticipation that something could explode at any moment. > 6. Distillation At this point, I think we need to remember the reader's (and Harry's) perspective of Voldemort. It is in HBP that Voldemort's character is rendered down to its essence. Wouldn't that be the point of the journey's into the sieve? The real Voldemort is not really a part of this book, it is his spirit, his quintessence, that Dumbledore is trying to teach Harry about. > 7. Coagulation Perhaps the title of the first chapter in DH ("The Dark Lord Ascending") implies that Voldemort is approaching the pinnacle of his power. As far as Voldemort is concerned, everything is going his way (geez, the Order doesn't even put up a sham opposition!) and he is in Nirvana. Of course... we all know that isn't how it ends. But right up to that point, Voldemort is winning all over the place, right? Anyway.... it's not scholarly, or even moderately researched, but I think it kinda-sorta-works. And maybe that's the only way it would work, like the kinda-sorta moral message we got.... (The above is more of a weak excuse than a criticism. I'm not trying to knock JKR here. Lord knows, I've it enough elsewhere.) Montavilla47 From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 08:54:57 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:54:57 -0000 Subject: Harry's Isolation up to Hogwarts (Was: Re: Remus WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look) In-Reply-To: <154004.37196.qm@web45906.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181541 > d.lucas35: > > Hi, I'm new to the group but just thought I would jump in here > and add a thought. > > I believe Harry's isolation was due to the fact he was in danger > from the Death Eaters who would blame him for Voldemort's defeat? > Dumbledore said as much to Minerva concerning his decision to > leave him with Muggles. Seems they might follow the friends of > the Potters to learn his location. > Doddie: I'm with you on this one...After what happened to the Longbottoms (which occurred after the Voldy's Godric's Hollow fiasco, was there any other choice?!? I think perhaps even Neville's Gran and perhaps DD himself may have arranged Neville's safety in that he'd be sorted into something other than Gryffindor...one to the detriment of making Neville non-magical(and being disappointed)....the other to the point of making suggestions to the sorting hat.. I would argue, in favor of DD's puppetmaster strings that it was not only for Harry's safety, but for the safety of other's as well.. Although I'm still confused about "Puppet-master DD"; as I do not think it was as simple as yanking chains and giving advice only to assert his own agenda... I went back and reread, and I get the feeling that DD has many agenda's on his book....Snape's, Neville's, Harry's, Trelawney's, Voldy's, Hermione's, Ron's, Hagrid's, Slughorn's and even the Malfoy's........let's not forget the Tri-Wiz tornament--puppetmaster with a limited number of strings I suppose......(his attempt to broaden Harry's view without invoving him became disastrous after the nightmare of Barty Croch Jr. via voldy shoving Harry into the torunament...and DD's gleam of triumph after the tounaments horrific end.)...Where we get yet, another glimpse of hands off DD...we shall never know how much of a sacrificial lamb DD made Harry in GOF...we certainly get a larger picture of DD and what he would do to obtain his motives in both DH and HBP.. Doddie, (who believes that DD may have not been so sure whether it should have been Harry or Neville...hence Neville's points after PS/SS...and Neville's subsequent off page conversation with the sorting hat...I get the feeling it could have been either one..but the matter of choice came into the picture.) I suppose if we have to discuss From falkeli at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 09:34:40 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:34:40 -0000 Subject: Elder Wand ownership (was: Dual-core wands?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181542 carol: > I personally think that the wand chose him over Draco, who had Disarmed DD and become its master (also without ever touching it) during the final confrontation with Voldemort, when he informed the wand that its master had been Disarmed. hp_fan_2008: My theory is that the wand recognized Hary as the owner of the wand which was used to disarm Dumbledore. It could have recognized the fact when Voldemort tried to murder Harry in the Forest. This would explain why the Cruciatus Curse didn't work on Harry. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 13:38:52 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:38:52 +0800 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B4446C.10707@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181543 carol: > I personally think that the wand chose him over Draco... hp_fan_2008: > My theory is that the wand recognized Hary as the owner... Me : But *I* want to talk about *my* point, which is that wand strength seems to be cumulative: the triple spell that hit Greyback appears to have been more powerful than Harry could have mustered with his own wand. If three of any old wand is more powerful than a wizard's own wand, then who cares if the wand chooses the wizard? Just grab any three wands and go. All Hagrid would need to do is wrap his meaty fist around a baker's dozen wands and he'd instantly be one of the most powerful wizards in the WW. I'd really fear for Dudley's backside then. CJ From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 15:53:48 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:53:48 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <47B4446C.10707@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181544 > CJ: > But *I* want to talk about *my* point, which is that wand strength seems > to be cumulative: the triple spell that hit Greyback appears to have > been more powerful than Harry could have mustered with his own wand. If > three of any old wand is more powerful than a wizard's own wand, then > who cares if the wand chooses the wizard? Just grab any three wands and go. zgirnius: This is not addressed within the books specifically. However, the common sense type answer that suggests itself to me is loss of control. More wands make a bigger bang, but less control of the sort of bang and location of the bang that results. For combat spells this might be an OK tradeoff (though not if a single, skilled wizard's Protego from his own wand can send all that right back at you!), but for most magic, perhaps this would make life more difficult. From colleen.nilson at verizon.net Thu Feb 14 15:26:23 2008 From: colleen.nilson at verizon.net (colleennilson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:26:23 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <47B4446C.10707@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181545 >> CJ: > But *I* want to talk about *my* point, which is that wand strength seems > to be cumulative: the triple spell that hit Greyback appears to have > been more powerful than Harry could have mustered with his own wand. If > three of any old wand is more powerful than a wizard's own wand, then > who cares if the wand chooses the wizard? Just grab any three wands and go. > Colleen again: I still think that somehow there is a relationship between the strength of the wizard and the strength of the wand. Otherwise, those that were the most wealthy could buy the most powerful wands, or as you mentioned, Hagrid could hold 20 wands and give LV a run for his money. Given that wands are sentient, I reiterate my earlier point that there seems to be some sort of synergy between the inherent strength of the wizard and the wand. I see it as the wand recognizing "hey, this person holding me knows their stuff, I'm going to work much more effectively for this person". So the magical power of the wizard is amplified by the wand, and three wands would provide more amplification. I think, too, that the wand choosing the wizard matters - the wand that Ron found and gave to Harry didn't work very well, but the wands he took by force worked much better. I think the wands he took by force recognized his power and perhaps even saw him as their new master, therefore they responded appropriately. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 18:05:25 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:05:25 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was: Elder Wand ownership ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181546 --- "Zara" wrote: > > > CJ: > > But *I* want to talk about *my* point, which is that wand > > strength seems to be cumulative: the triple spell that hit > > Greyback appears to have been more powerful than Harry > > could have mustered with his own wand. > > > > If three of any old wand is more powerful than a wizard's > > own wand, then who cares if the wand chooses the wizard? > > Just grab any three wands and go. > > zgirnius: > This is not addressed within the books specifically. However, > the common sense type answer that suggests itself to me is > loss of control. More wands make a bigger bang, but less > control of the sort of bang and location of the bang that > results. ... bboyminn: First let's note that one of the wands that Harry is using is Draco's wand which I suspect has a reasonable natural sympathy to Harry. This is, if Harry had simply borrowed the wand, it would have worked reasonably well for him. But now, Harry has captured the wand from Draco, and the wand is not only generally sympathetic to Harry, but now has an additional allegiance to him. So, this wand by itself would work just as good as Harry's own wand. So, we have a normal spell compounded by two other wands. One wand being Wormtail's, which might have had a slight sympathy for Harry, and Bella's wand which has no sympathy for anyone, yet would still work. So, we have Harry's normal full power spell cast by Draco's wand, combined with the medium spell from Peter's wand, combined with the weak spell from Bella's wand. Added together, they certainly add up to one powerful spell. But as Zgirnius points out, there is the added complexity of control. Can you hold three wands in such a way that you can full predict the direction that each individual spell will take? I suspect this would be more of a shotgun wand than a precision lazer-like wand. Even if you glued them together, you would have to glue them in perfect alignment to get a precision 'shot' off. Even then though, the 'beam' of the spell would be wider and more scattered than a single wand. That seems to leave the potential for collateral damage when in a close quarters fight. As well as the alignment problem, there is the additional bulk. I don't see three wands, even when precisely align and glued, as being a quick or as fluid as a single wand. I'm sure some wizards have tried it, and some have continued to use it, but after several of them had been defeated, it became apparent that skill, more than raw power, was the better weapon in a duel. NOTE: when I say 'sympathy' above I'm referring to the harmony, affinity, or compatibility between wand and wizard, and NOT sympathy in the 'Oh, poor baby' sense. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now pardon me while I engage in a bit of speculative fantasy. I'm working on a story in which, with Harry's help, Ollivander takes on two street kids, who have a natural affinity for wands, as apprentices. Being young and foolish, as we all once were, they aren't afraid to experiment. They try all kind of odd uncommon wands like taking a dragon bone, hollowing it out, and inserting a core of wood and standard magical wand core. So we have, for example, Dragon bone, oak, and unicorn hair. Not only does it work well but it looks cool. But it's a lot of extra work for not much gain. Eventually they try dual core wands, and like every other wand maker before them, they try to make the most powerful wand possible by combining Dragon Heart and Phoenix Feather. And as every wand maker before them has discovered, this creates a very volatile and unstable wand. Like all wand makers, who tried to make a /powerful/ wand, they abandon the attempt. But it leads them to make a new discovery. You can make a workable duel core wand, but only if one of the cores is always Unicorn Hair. Unicorn Hair acts as a moderating influence and bring what otherwise would have been a very unstable wand, under control. So, they set about making very carefully matched duel core Unicorn Hair/Phoenix Feater and Unicorn Hair/Dragon Heart wands. The End. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sorry. I hope that doesn't bring a Howler down on me from the list elves. But, it shows I have given some thought to Duel Core wands and why we don't see them. And, also that I have found a potential solution to the dangers of trying to create Duel Core wands. Because the cores and the wood have to be so closely and precisely matched, it takes a great deal of time to make them and they end up costing 3 or 4 times what a normal wand would. Consequently, even if you are able to do it, the available market is still limited. Hey...it was just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From dw998351 at mac.com Thu Feb 14 17:46:20 2008 From: dw998351 at mac.com (dw99835) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:46:20 -0000 Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181547 I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more about what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. I'm interested in Hermione, Ron and Harry, but also in some of the secondary characters. For example, Luna Lovegood is "different," but vulnerable. I don't want to see her hurt. Dick From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 19:52:21 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:52:21 -0000 Subject: Remus and Harry WAS Re: PoA Ch 10 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181548 Alla wrote: > Forget about WW for a second, all right? I can see what you are saying here absolutely. And even though it would take a lot of convincing for me, I can see being convinced of **not informing Harry of WW** yes. > > But what harm can be in Remus doing what you mentioned upthread? Just contacting him as muggle friend who knew his parents? > But again, if I can see how the contact can be tied into the issue of Harry's safety, I can see that. But I just do not see it, if those will be letters from a friend mailed a muggle way. > > And remember those people approaching Harry in his early years, which Petunia tried to get him away from? No DE seemed to follow on their trail or something and I am NOT even talking about personal contact. > > I mean, there is nothing that can convince me that Albus Dumbledore > would not able to check on Harry and that is one sin I will not ever > be able to forgive his character, but whatever ? for others including > Remus, let's assume that personal contact may have been dangerous for > Harry, let's assume that even letters mailed the WW may have been > dangerous, although those many owls with the letters from Hogwarts > did not seem to bring any DE on their trail either, so I am not sure I am buying into their dangerousness. > > BUT how can letters mailed the muggle way be dangerous? Carol responds: I think, first, that Dumbledore was keeping an eye on Harry, making sure that he was safe, if not through those silver instruments then certainly through Mrs. Figg, Dedalus diggle, and the other members of the Order that Harry encountered. So even though he knew that Harry wasn't particularly happy or well treated, he saw no reason to interfere or allow Order members, including Lupin, to interfere. He wanted Harry to have a Muggle upbringing, not knowing who he was until it was time to go to Hogwarts, and the best way to insure that was to forbid direct contact with Order members, including letters, in case something slipped. As for sending the letters by ordinary Muggle post, assuming that Remus knew how to do that, I'm quite sure that the Dursleys would have burned any letters to Harry, especially if they suspected a connection to the WW. Even if Child!Lily hadn't mentioned Remus Lupin, which seems unlikely considering that she'd known him since they were Sorted into Gryffindor and later, they were fellow Prefects, how many Muggles have names like Remus Lupin? It's possible, however unlikely, that Lupin did try to communicate with Harry, either by owl, which would be a dead giveaway, or by Muggle mail. Either way would, I think, have been futile even if Lupin dared to cross dumbledore by attempting it. On another level, we can blame JKR. she didn't want Harry to know about Lupin's close connection with his father until it was revealed in the Shrieking Shack scene. And Lupin himself is busy keeping the secret. He lets slip that he knew James and confesses that he knew Sirius, but doesn't indicate how close the friendship was because he's hiding his being a werewolf and the Mauauders being Animagi. When Snape confiscates the Marauder's Map and Lupin claims it ("I'll take this *back*, shall I?"), both of them make it look as if Lupin is claiming it as the DADAD teacher rather than as one of the makers of the map. And he claims to know the makers, not to *be* one. So both Lupin's secretiveness and JKR's plot needs factor in here. I can't see Lupin revealing himself as a friend of Harry's father prematurely for any reason. He didn't go to see Sirius in prison, either. Alla: > Well, yeah as I said I do know about Remus' many insecurities, issues, and problems, whatever. I know and to the extent can even find identify with some of those insecurities myself. The thing is ? it still just does not do it for me. Does that make sense? > Get over it Remus, Harry is not the one who was hurting you and discriminating you as werewolf, etc. Yes, it is hard to reach out, knowing that you had been hurt and discriminated against so many times, yes you are insecure and not sure if people will accept you. > > But try to think rationally here for a second, Remus, try to think that the world may not revolve around your insecurities only and there is a boy who may need you with all your insecurities and fears, you know? Carol: Maybe, and I'm just guessing here, Lupin resented James for thinking that he was the spy and for trusting Sirius over him--leading, he would have thought, to James's and Lily's deaths. At any rate, it's not in character for him to "get over it." His whole life, from his nickname to wandering the countryside in the company of three Animagi to being suspected as the spy to being chronically unemployed revolves around being a werewolf. It's also the reason, later in the series, why he depends on Snape to make the Wolfsbane Potion, loses the DADA position, hesitates to marry Tonks, and nearly runs away from her and their unborn baby. Remus Lupin *is* his "furry little problem," clear down to his name. And his condition determnes his personality--fear of dislike and disapproval, or, more specifically, fear of losing the friends who became Animagi for him (and so that they could have reckless midnight adventures with a werewolf!) by expressing disapproval of their behavior (so much for appointing him Prefect so that he would control his friends!) and fear of losing Dumbledore's approval by revealing that his friends were illegal Animagi. IOW, Lupin is a moral coward. He knows that he should reveal that Sirius Black is an Animagus. He surely knows, too, that he should turn in the Marauder's Map to Dumbledore. Instead, he continues to conceal that information even after Black has twice broken into the school, first slashing the Fat Lady's painting and then actually getting into Harry's room and slashing Ron's bedcurtains. He's willing to endanger the students, particularly the Gryffindor boys in Harry's year, rather than confess that he encouraged his friends to become illegal Animagi. (He thinks that black murdered twelve Muggles and Peter Pettigrew and that he's out to kill Harry, yet he doesn't provide the information that would enable Dumbledore to catch Black and make the presence of the Dementors unnecessary. We can blame JKR for creating a character who fits so neatly into the demands of her plot. Or we can blame ESW!Lupin for being spineless. I'm not sure which to blame with regard to Lupin's not writing to Harry before Harry entered Hogwarts. I think it's a combination of factors. Even if Lupin "got over it" and dared to defy Dumbledore's wishes by writing Harry, either by owl or by Muggle post, the Dursleys would have burned the letters. And regardless of whether DD or Lupin or the Dursleys is responsible for the absence of letters, Harry has no contact with the WW and no knowledge of his father's friends, which is exactly how JKR needs things to be for the plot of POA to work. Carol, not sure whether she's clarified matters or complicated them further From dongan51 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 19:24:02 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:24:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Book idea; Life After Hogwarts Message-ID: <84855.61570.qm@web63904.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181549 Dick : I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more about what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. I'm interested in Hermione, Ron and Harry, but also in some of the secondary characters. For example, Luna Lovegood is "different," but vulnerable. I don't want to see her hurt. Liz: I am hoping that when JKR gets around to writing the encyclopedia this will all be addressed. I, too, want to know all these things. Luna wound up being one of my favorite characters, a very wise soul. She was lesson in her own right. People who are considered "strange" are mainly over looked and written off. To me it was one of Ginny's few redeeming qualities that she befriended her. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 20:05:21 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:05:21 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181550 Geoff wrote: > I agree with almost all your list, Alla - except certainly the epilogue. My moment, which I have quoted before, is the point in the Great Hall when Harry and Voldemort reach the end of their stand-offand the rising sun comes over the window sill as the final spells are spoken. > > That was a moment of sheer ecstasy? ...beauty? ...drama? but it was a moment to savour. Carol responds: For all its faults, DH was a highly emotional book. It made me laugh, cry, punch my fist in triumph, and want to throw it across the room. There was also the sheer horror and physical revulsion of Bathilda!Nagini, which was risible but highly effective. Not many books provide such an emotional roller coaster ride. (Apologies for the cliche, but I really can't think of any other way to express it.) My moments to savor (aside from the vindication of Snape and his amazing last magical act, which were counterbalanced by his terrible death) were Ron's rescue of Harry ("Are--you-*-mental*?" followed by his highly symbolic destruction of the locket Horcrux and the Albus Severus scene in which Harry describes Snape as "probably the bravest man I ever knew." I didn't hate the Epilogue, BTW, but I did have to read it twice to figure out things like who Victoire was and why the chapter was included at all. (Unlike other readers, I like the open-endedness of the epilogue, which is rather spoiled when JKR supplies bits of information regarding the characters' futures. I prefer to think that Hagrid marries Madame Maxime after they both retire--and are too old to produce more half-giant children, one quarter of whom would have the genetic potential to be full giants, creating one monstrous delivery problem for Madame Maxime!) Carol, who also liked "King's Cross" because it enabled her to forgive Dumbledore From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 20:47:06 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:47:06 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181551 Colleen wrote: > > I still think that somehow there is a relationship between the strength of the wizard and the strength of the wand. Given that wands are sentient, I reiterate my earlier point that there seems to be some sort of synergy between the inherent strength of the wizard and the wand. I see it as the wand recognizing "hey, this person holding me knows their stuff, I'm going to work much more effectively for this person". So the magical power of the wizard is amplified by the wand, and three wands would provide more amplification. I think, too, that the wand choosing the wizard matters - the wand that Ron found and gave to Harry didn't work very well, but the wands he took by force worked much better. I think the wands he took by force recognized his power and perhaps even saw him as their new master, therefore they responded appropriately. Carol responds: Except that he only directly took one of those wands, Draco's, from its owner. Ron had already Disarmed and (effectively) defeated the now-dead wormtail, and that wand seems to have accepted him, not Rin, as its master. Bellatrix's wand, which I think was quite powerful (and evil, thanks to the symbiotic relationship it had developed with its owner) was probably in a state of flux. Harry had Disarmed Bellatrix, but the wand was rescued by Draco to be returned to her, and then Harry used it. I agree that wands are sentient, and it may have been trying him out as its master. (I think it would ultimately find him unsuitable.) In any case, he was using one wand of which he was the indisputable master (and which was reasonably compatible with him; he has no difficulty using it); one wand that may have been considering transferring its loyalty to him (but since it ultimately went to Hermione and she felt a distinct loathing for it, I think it remained loyal to Bellatrix); and one of which his friend Ron was the new master. So even if Bellatrix's and Wormtail's wands only performed about half as well as they would have for their true (or former) masters, they would still, in combination with the hawthorn wand that *did* recognize him as master, have at least the effect of a double spell. (I think we have one strong spell and two weakish ones.) Of course, Harry wasn't thinking about the wands not working for him as he did with the Snatcher's wand, which was neither compatible with him nor taken by force from its master, at least not by Harry. (I've forgotten the exact circumstances in which Ron obtained the wand and the wood it was made of, but neither is relevant here.) I wonder, though, if using Draco's wand made it easier for Harry to cast a pair of semi-effective Imperius Curses and an effective Crucio later in the book. Budding DE Draco seems to have Imperio'd Rosmerta, and he was forced to Crucio Ollivander, IIRC, so the wand would have had experience with both those curses. I also wonder whether Bellatrix's wand sensed Hermione's skill and even though it wasn't compatible for her personality-wise, it at least worked for her, far better than the Snatcher's wand worked for Harry. Similarly, the Elder Wand worked just fine for Voldemort, enabling him to kill a lot of people and conjure a bubble-cage for Nagini. Just why he thought it wasn't working to its potential is unclear. Certainly, after having been first Grindelwald's and then DD's, it would recognize him as another wizard of extraordinary strength and skill. I guess the plot required him to think that he had to kill Snape, but I don't see any indication, at least until, Harry brings up the history of the wand's ownership, for him to doubt its effectiveness. It only begins failing to perform for him after Harry's willing self-sacrifice (which I agree with Pippin counts as the role of Love if we're looking at three-stage alchemical symbolism, to refer for a moment to a different thread). Carol, working out explanations for herself rather than trying to persuade other posters From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 14 21:00:52 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:00:52 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <47B4446C.10707@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181552 CJ: > Me : > But *I* want to talk about *my* point, which is that wand strength seems > to be cumulative: the triple spell that hit Greyback appears to have > been more powerful than Harry could have mustered with his own wand. If > three of any old wand is more powerful than a wizard's own wand, then > who cares if the wand chooses the wizard? Just grab any three wands and go. > Pippin: Remember Harry's first visit to Ollivander's? People have to be measured carefully for their wands and previously unowned wands may not readily respond to a prospective owner. A wand taken in combat may be much more willing to adapt itself, either to working in tandem with other wands or to a new owner, than wands generally. Though there's no canon for it, I can see wands being competitive with each other and not wanting to work together, like the sentient chessmen. Wormtail used the wand he stole from the transformed Lupin but did not try to keep it. Perhaps he feared he did not truly have its loyalty, since its owner lost the wand to the werewolf transformation and not to Pettigrew himself. I had thought that Peter had intentionally spared Ron and Crookshanks but now I think it more likely the stolen wand simply didn't do as much damage as Peter intended. That would explain why he dropped it. Pippin From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Thu Feb 14 21:45:23 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:45:23 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181553 > Carol responds: I agree that wands are sentient, and it may have been > trying him out as its master. (I think it would ultimately find him > unsuitable.) > > In any case, he was using one wand of which he was the indisputable > master (and which was reasonably compatible with him; he has no > difficulty using it); one wand that may have been considering > transferring its loyalty to him (but since it ultimately went to > Hermione and she felt a distinct loathing for it, I think it remained > loyal to Bellatrix); and one of which his friend Ron was the new > master. Magpie: In which I complain about my personal disappointment in the introduction of this idea into DH. There was some writer once who talked about looking for the feelings driving a story when the author wasn't thinking about what s/he was saying rather than when they're consciously saying what they believe. I've said before that HP for me seems very split about what it feels like it should say and what it seems more naturally say. So that at times it will speak against something and have fun doing it at the same time. Or have certain ideas about what it should be saying without telling a story about proving those things. (In fact to me sometimes it seems to go ahead and show the opposite.) This is one of those times. For all the associating Might Is Right with bad guys (with Magic meaning Might), might does make right. This is one more example. I *loved* the wand choosing the wizard. Wands were not, in the past, sentient at all imo--in fact, inanimate objects that were sentient were potentially dangerous (don't trust anything if you can't tell where it keeps its brain). The "choosing" didn't seem to be about the wand being sentient but about a natural affinity between the wand's wood and core with the person. A bit like a particular musician working well with a particular instrument, or a tennis player's swing conforming to a certain racket (only magic has an element of personality to it as well; it's not just physical). Plus wands were yet another of the fun personality-quiz type things in the book--where would you be sorted? What's your Patronus? What's your animagus form? Everyone has their own special wand that's uniquely their own. According to the website Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco (and probably Hagrid) all had woods and cores that were "right" for them. And then in DH it all went out the window. Wands, like everyone else, go weak at the knees for brute strength. No matter what kind of work you've done with your wand since you were 11, if somebody beats you in a duel, your wand will switch allegiences. You might hold other things more important than fighting, but no self-respecting wand does. Get beaten and the traitorous thing will be happy to AK you for someone else. Wands always choose the same Wizard--the one who kicks everyone else's butt. Wands are most importantly weapons in combat and your wand knows you're a loser. I know that ultimately she apparently needed this so that Voldemort could die on a technicality, but it still doesn't surprise me it went there. For all the talk of love being Harry's greatest strength, DH was more about the d***-swinging in the end. Btw, I don't think that Harry's using Draco's wand had anything to do with how good his Crucio was (he seems to have a good personal feel for it himself), but do we know Draco was forced to specifically cast Crucio? Because we've got this information that you have to enjoy causing the person pain to do it, and Harry validates this idea. Yet if we're talking about the flash that Harry gets in DH Draco doesn't look like he's enjoying anything, much less the pain he's causing his victim. He seems to have lost what little taste he had for this sort of thing completely. The whole point is that Draco's being forced to do things, so it seems like it would be hard to get off a Crucio that way. Maybe his victim's smart enough to fake it. -m From hutchingslesley at yahoo.co.uk Thu Feb 14 13:42:42 2008 From: hutchingslesley at yahoo.co.uk (lesley) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:42:42 -0000 Subject: Long live the Harry potter series In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181554 > Funkeginger: > I know since the DH most people have expressed a dislike to > the series as a whole, but to think that the series might not > speak out to the next genaration is rubbish. I think the series > will go down in history as one of the best ever. lhutch 1 I wanted some books to read to my children a few years ago and as everyone was raving about Harry Potter I decided on these although I couldn't imagine anything worse and expected to be bored stupid. My kid's got up and left after the first chapter but I was hooked and have never looked back. I have my favourites but have loved them all, some of my theories worked out but most did not! Not once have I been dissapointed. Everyone who also fell in love with HP feels as though the story is ours to tell but it never was, it was alway's J K Rowlings baby. I opened book 7 with an open mind and although it wasn't how I expected it to go I was never going to dislike JKR's ending as it was always her story to tell, if it had gone how I expected then why read it? I wouldn't have cried over Hedwig, Dobby, and Fred, I wouldn't have felt elation over Neville and Molly and I wouldn't be totally lost now without them. I do wish there had been more about Hogwarts in book 7 but there wasn't so I'll get over it. All I can say now to JKR is THANK YOU. From kat7555 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 23:04:46 2008 From: kat7555 at yahoo.com (kat7555) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:04:46 -0000 Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181555 > Dick: > I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more > about what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. I'd love to see a series of prequels. The first would cover the four Founders. Dumbledore's history prior to becoming Headmaster could fill an entire novel. Finally I want to know more about James and Lily's generation. I still don't know what they did for the order or what motivated Peter Pettigrew to betray his friends. Kathy Kulesza From tubazrcool at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 23:05:26 2008 From: tubazrcool at yahoo.com (Heather Rivera) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:05:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts Message-ID: <881637.15460.qm@web38509.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181556 Dick : I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more about what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. Liz: I am hoping that when JKR gets around to writing the encyclopedia this will all be addressed. I, too, want to know all these things. tubazrcool: I want to find out what jobs the characters had after work. And did the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes stay open? What about Verity, did she develop a relationship with I think it was George(the one that lived--forgot which one)? From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 00:09:31 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:09:31 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181557 --- "Carol" wrote: > > ... > > Carol responds: > ... I agree that wands are sentient, and it may have been > trying him out as its master. bboyminn: I just want to address this one small issue. I don't think wands are truly sentient. They are not sitting around composing poems and contemplating deep philosophical mysteries. I think they are sentient only in the intuitive or instinctive sense. They are like many lower animals. They don't have conscious thought, they just follow primitive instincts. Wands sense what is happening in the world and respond to it, but they do so without conscious thought or contemplation. Which means, they make no moral judgments, just as lower animals make no moral judgments. Neither do I think wands have any sense of self-awareness or a sense of their own mortality, which, to some extent, are criteria for sentience. People are trying to paint the sentience of wands as contemplative and truly thoughtful, but again, I dispute that. They respond on a low level of instinct. Or at least, that is how I see it. Steve/bboyminn From iam.kemper at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 00:28:59 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:28:59 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <700201d40802141628j2c79a8d8y23e3360688322596@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181558 > > > > Carol responds: > > ... I agree that wands are sentient, and it may have been > > trying him out as its master. > bboyminn: > > I just want to address this one small issue. I don't think > wands are truly sentient. They are not sitting around > composing poems and contemplating deep philosophical mysteries. > > I think they are sentient only in the intuitive or instinctive > sense. They are like many lower animals. They don't have > conscious thought, they just follow primitive instincts. > ... They respond on a low level of instinct. Kemper now: 'Instinct' is the wrong word. A good wand 'resonates' with a wizard on some magical note and either matches the pitch of the note in whatever register or harmonizes with it. A taken wand then alters or changes it's magical pitch to be in harmony with both the original and new wizards. I don't think that a wand lost in a duel no longer works for the wizard as well as it use to. Rather, I think the wand works as well for both wizards. Kemper, conjuring up wand lore From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 01:32:50 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:32:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <909417.50097.qm@web56903.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181559 Kathy Kulesza wrote: > I'd love to see a series of prequels. The first > would cover the four Founders. Dumbledore's history > prior to becoming Headmaster could fill an entire > novel. Finally I want to know more about James and > Lily's generation. I still don't know what they did > for the order or what motivated Peter Pettigrew to > betray his friends. Edna wrote: Peter Pettigrew was attracted to power, he didn't have much confidence on his own, which is why he attached himself to James and Sirius at school. Pettigrew and Lupin were accepted by James and Sirius despite their faults and the four of them were inseparable. James, Sirius and Peter became Animaguses illegally so that they could hang out with Remus each time he would transformed into a werewolf. They became the Marauders. When school was over and PP saw Voldemort as the ultimate power, he kept his friendship with James, Sirius and Remus but secretly became a death eater. When Lord Voldemort told him to betray James and Lily, he knew he'd be killed if he didn't, so he betrayed them to save himself. He was very much like his animagus, a rat. Edna From dongan51 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 12:43:56 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:43:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts Message-ID: <342794.29082.qm@web63901.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181560 tubazrcool: > I want to find out what jobs the characters had after work. And > did the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes stay open? What about Verity, > did she develop a relationship with I think it was George(the > one that lived--forgot which one)? Liz: It was George who survived. I belive in an interview JKR said that WWW did stay open. I was always confused whether it was Percy or Ron who helped George though. I think that she originally said Percy than switched it to Ron. Emphasis on I think. She did say other jobs, or hints at them. Harry an Auror? Hermoine in the Ministry, Ginny played Quidditch. That's all well and good, but there were so many others. I'm particulary interested in the rest of the Weasleys, George especially, as well the Lovegoods, the Malfoys, and the Professors. I want to know what happened with them. Liz From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 17:01:35 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:01:35 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: <700201d40802141628j2c79a8d8y23e3360688322596@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181561 --- , Kemper wrote: > > > > > > > Carol responds: > > > ... I agree that wands are sentient, and it may have been > > > trying him out as its master. > > > bboyminn: > > > > I just want to address this one small issue. I don't think > > wands are truly sentient. They are not sitting around > > composing poems and contemplating deep philosophical > > mysteries. > > > > I think they are sentient only in the intuitive or > > instinctive sense. They are like many lower animals. They > > don't have conscious thought, they just follow primitive > > instincts. ... They respond on a low level of instinct. > > Kemper now: > 'Instinct' is the wrong word. > A good wand 'resonates' with a wizard on some magical note > and either matches the pitch of the note in whatever register > or harmonizes with it. A taken wand then alters or changes > it's magical pitch to be in harmony with both the original > and new wizards. > > I don't think that a wand lost in a duel no longer works for > the wizard as well as it use to. Rather, I think the wand > works as well for both wizards. > > Kemper, conjuring up wand lore > bboyminn: Oh, I absolutely agree and have written as much many times. But I am discussing the nature and level of intelligence (sentience) of a wand, and you are discussing the mechanism by which a wand operates. Some here, in discussing the nature of a wands sentience, are discussing wands as if they were intelligent thoughtful beings, that is what I'm disputing. Wands are not whiling away their time contemplating deep philosophical concepts. They are not pondering politics or composing poetry. They are not making moral judgments. They are not sentient in the 'intelligent' sense, but the do have an instinctive ability to respond to the world around them and to events in that world. Hence, Harry's wand was able to act of its own accord, but did so without thought or contemplation. It was simply an instinctive defense mechanism in response to external stimuli. But I agree that the mechanism by which the sentience reveals itself is based on some sort of magical resonance or harmony. The wand choses the wizard because it senses a sympathetic resonance between them. Now I don't believe that there is one and only one wand for a wizard. We already know several wizards have had more than one wand. So, there are probably many many wands whose resonance is in the general area of a given wizard. Likely, Harry could use Ron or Hermione's wand on loan, and do a fair job of it. But the other wands he tried that were less effective, the Snatchers wand, were probably way way out of the harmonic resonance range of Harry. I truly conquered and captured wand will probably 'tune' itself to its new master. Though I suspect the 'tuning' is never complete. A wand that truly chooses a wizard is going to be more harmoniously in tune than a wand that must bend itself to the new master. Keep in mind that the Elder Wand is an extremely exception and powerful wand, and as such is more able to tune itself to a new master. Plus, it has had centuries of practice. Just a few thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 18:32:44 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:32:44 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181562 bboyminn wrote: > Some here, in discussing the nature of a wands sentience, are discussing wands as if they were intelligent thoughtful beings, that is what I'm disputing. Wands are not whiling away their time contemplating deep philosophical concepts. They are not pondering politics or composing poetry. They are not making moral judgments. They are not sentient in the 'intelligent' sense, but the do have an instinctive ability to respond to the world around them and to events in that world. > > Hence, Harry's wand was able to act of its own accord, but did so without thought or contemplation. It was simply an instinctive defense mechanism in response to external stimuli. > > But I agree that the mechanism by which the sentience reveals itself is based on some sort of magical resonance or harmony. The wand choses the wizard because it senses a sympathetic resonance between them. Carol responds: No one is stating that wands ponder philosophical concepts or make moral judgments, though some wands are probably more compatible than others with Unforgiveable Curses and other forms of Dark Magic because of the relationship they've developed with their Dark Wizard owners (which is why, IMO, Hermione is so viloently repelled by Bellatrix's wand--not *just* because of the spells it has performed but because it actually feels evil to her). Nor do I think that Harry's wand responded "instinctively" to Voldemort. It knew perfectly well who he was, even though he was using Lucius Malfoy's wand rather than his own, thanks to the duel in the graveyard, and it *chose* to defend Harry against the owner of its own brother wand, whom it rightly perceived as a deadly enemy. IOW, I think it acted of its own accord. We don't see any other wand "instinctively" defending its owner. This incident is unique, and, in some respects, unfortunate, since it initiates Voldemort's quest for the Elder Wand. I guess it depends in part on how you interpret "The wand chooses the wizard" (SS/PS), to begin with. Ollivander makes it clear that it's the wand, not the wizard, that does the choosing--also that some wands are more powerful than others, that a wand performs better for its owner than for another wizard, and that some wands are particularly well suited for certain specialities, such as Charms (Lily's "first" wand, whatever that implies) Or Transfiguration (James's--and we know that was a hint at his Animagus abilities, as well as, perhaps, his talents as a map producer). So far, we don't really have an indication of how sentient wands are, aside from an ability to detect whether a particular witch or wizard is compatible with them. We also have instances of a wand not working well for a particular wizard (notably Neville with his father's wand), of two wands recognizing each other as "brothers" and refusing to work against the other, producing that elaborate Priori Incantatem in GoF, and Harry's wand recognizing Voldemort and acting on its own against him. In addition, we know that wands recognize intention, including nonverbal spells, and they sense magical ability in a person who doesn't know any spells (Harry in SS/Ps) and anger (Snape in the Shrieking Shack in PoA), sending out wand sparks in response without a spell having been thought or spoken. All of this is open to interpretation. Clearly, a wand is more than a stick through a spell is channeled, but how sentient is it? Does it have some skill at Legilimency like the Sorting Hat, to be able to read intention, emotion, and nonverbal spells? I would say that it must; YMMV. It can't communicate back to the Wizard in the way that the Sorting Hat, Riddle's diary, and, to some degree, the Marauder's Map can, but it can respond well, weakly, or not at all to a spoken or nonverbal spell and/or a witch or wizard's intention depending on the degree to which it empathizes with the wizard (for lack of a better word). The blackthorn wand in DH is the clearest instance of a wand with no empathy at all for a wizard. Not only has Harry not "won" it, so it has no reason to "choose" Harry over its old master, it evidently doesn't correspond with his particular magical strengths (DADA?) or his personality. (I think though I'm not sure, that when the tape measure magically measures Harry in SS/PS, it's "measuring him up" in all respects--mentally, psychologically, magically, as well as physically. On a side note, a wand can be temperamental, especially if it has a Veela-hair core, so I don't see why the opposite wouldn't be true. Some wands may be more patient or hard-working or loyal than others. Maybe wands could be classed as the equivalent of Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins, etc. based on a combination of wood (highly varied) and core (limited to three for Ollivander wands, but differing from hair to hair or feather to feather or heartstring to heartstring as one witch or wizard differs from another). I think, for example, that a yew/Phoenix feather combination was especially suitable for Voldemort given the association of both elements with immortality (his sole desire other than power; he wants to defeat death), just as a holly/Phoenix feather wand is especially suitable for Harry, who has an element of immortality in him (the soul bit) and has survived death through his mother's self-sacrifice (yes, Goddlefrood; I agree that it couldn't have happened without Severus's love for Lily). So Harry, too, is associated with immortality (the Christian and pagan associations of holly), and I think that the wand sensed that and chose him for that reason. (Potential DADA skill and power may have had something to do with it, too, although Harry's Patronus is really the only indication of exceptional power that I can think of). At any rate, the compatibility of wand and wizard is complex, and it's the wand, not the wizard, that senses that compatibility. Oh, and wands also know when their masters have been defeated and can, apparently, distinguish between practice and a real duel; otherwise, every Expelliarmus in the book and every DADA lesson and for that matter, every Stupefy (which results in a temporary defeat for a wizard) would reult in a switch of loyalty. When I talked about a wand as having "common sense," I meant the ability of a wand to distinguish between a real defeat and a DA lesson--or, for that matter, kids hexing each other in the hallways. Severus's wand didn't switch loyalties to Sirius or James after they bullied him because he got it back. Had they taken it after Disarming him, it might have been another matter. But we don't know for sure. If it had developed an affinity with Severus, merely capturing it from him might not have been enough. I don't think that the wand *automatically* switches loyalty. I think it has the *choice* of accepting a new master. None of this really explains the *degree* of sentience in wands. For that, we need Ollivander in "The Wandmaker": "'Hawthorn and unicorn hair. Ten inches precisely. This was the wand of Draco Malfoy.' "'Was?' repeated Harry. 'Isn't it still his?' "'Perhaps not. If you took it--' "'--I did--' "'--then it may be yours. Of course, the manner of taking matters. *Much also depends upon the wand itself.* In genral, however, when a wand has been won, its allegiance will change.' . . . ."'You talk about wands as if they've got feelings,' said Harry, 'like they can think for themselves.' "'The wand chooses the wizard,' said Ollivander. 'That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore,' "'A person can still use a wand that hasn't chosen them, though?' asked Harry. "'Oh, yes., if you are any wizard at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then *a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.* . . . . Subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will *usually* *bend its will* to its new master'" (DH Am. ed. 493-94). It certainly sounds to me as if wands are sentient in the sense of being able to *choose* and *learn* and having a *will* that can be bent (or not) to that of a new master. (I can't see Bellatrix's wand bending its will to Harry's, for example.) IOW, wands can, as Harry puts it, think and feel. I am not granting them anthropomorphic qualities; they are not human. But like the Sorting Hat and the diary and the Marauder's Map and the portraits, none of which is alive in the usual sense, they have some ability to interact with witches and wizards, and, like the Sorting Hat and the Marauder's Map in particular, and ability to sense thoughts and/or compatibility. (The map knows an enemy like Snape from kindred spirits like the Weasley Twins, much as a wand can sense a compatible wizard at the beginning of the "relationship.") The key, though, is (IMO) Ollivander's words about the wand and the wizard learning from each other. It's no like a kid with a Stradivarius violin, who plays better than he normally would because he has a fine instrument (assuming that he already knows how to play). the wand itself improves iwth time and learns along with the wizard (which, of course, would add to the formidable powers of the Elder Wand, which has had a lot of time to learn and a lot of wizards to learn from). Carol, choosing not to argue with a wand expert like Ollivander when it comes to the sentience of wands From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Fri Feb 15 19:04:00 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:04:00 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181563 Carol: Severus's wand didn't > switch loyalties to Sirius or James after they bullied him because he > got it back. Had they taken it after Disarming him, it might have been > another matter. But we don't know for sure. If it had developed an > affinity with Severus, merely capturing it from him might not have > been enough. I don't think that the wand *automatically* switches > loyalty. I think it has the *choice* of accepting a new master. Magpie: It seemed to me a lot more straightforward. DH completely turned on the idea that if you defeat a Wizard and take his wand, you're the master. Steve said wands don't make "moral judgments" and I wasn't sure if he was referring to my post. I wouldn't call it a moral judgment in the wand's "brain" but it does seem to have an instinct for siding with the winner. If James had taken Snape's wand after disarming sure I think it would have switched allegiances absolutely, as would Bellatrix's if won by Harry. As should every single wand in every DA battle. I guess if the original Wizards scrambles to pick it up again it's like they've won it back to some extent. (Did Harry drop his wand in GoF? If Barty picked his pocket he would have become the Master of Harry's wand, I assume.) I don't think JKR would ever say that brute strength is the most important quality a person could have by any means, but it doesn't surprise me that it made sense to her to have her wands switch masters and bow to their "winner" (especially when Harry is so good at winning) when another author might not have gone for that. WE're told that in general, if you beat somebody and take their wand, its allegience will change. Years of experience working with each other is trumped by dazzling the wand by winning it. I think that wipes out any claims that anybody's wand wouldn't bend it's will to Harry if he won it. The wand isn't an extension of the owner, it's a fickle object that reflected its owner in Books 1-6 more than it did in Book 7. It's not human and never has been, but its instincts as an object are roused by strength. -m From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 20:41:12 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:41:12 -0000 Subject: That Whole Christian Thing (plus assorted others) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181564 > "jmgarciaiii" wrote: > > I agree with the Christian elements you pointed out > > My own take is "all of the above." As a Christian the Christian > elements resonated, but as someone who put in a LOT of time with > Latin and Greco-Roman mythology, those references popped out as > well. If I could ever be bothered to read LOTR -- sorry, just not > my thing -- I'm sure I'd pick up on even more. > > By all this I mean that I doubt JKR meant this *exclusively* as a > Christian work. (I really dislike the word "allegory" as being too > simplistic.) > > Hope I made more sense of my opinion this time... > > -Joe bdlark0423: Although growing up in a heavily Christian sedated environment, the parallels could be considered undeniable: 1. Harry's entire fate comes down to not only destroying all those places in which evils still resides, but also to make the self sacrifice, to allow the evil which still resides within himself to die 2. It was ability to love that conquers all (john 3:16: For God so loved the world . 3. Search for truth no matter what the costs 4. Respect for life, all life (i.e. Nobby, Kreacher, Griphook, etc.) But these ideals are not just a part of Christianity, but most major religions, and JKR in an interview never says Hogwarts is primarily made of Christians, but is open to all religions Once again, I'm getting on my soapbox, here, but no matter what religion, golden rule is love one another see the following site which is excellent example: http://biblia.com/theology/religions.htm DD states in the very first book, SS, that Voldy does not take into consideration a more deeper, older, powerful magic: Love. To me God is Love, and to give/have love, is to know God's prescence. bdclark0423 From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 21:12:38 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:12:38 -0000 Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181565 > Dick says: > > I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more about > what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. I'm > interested in Hermione, Ron and Harry, > but also in some of the secondary characters. For example, Luna > Lovegood is "different," but vulnerable. > I don't want to see her hurt. > > Dick bdclark0423: If the epilogue doesn't say enough, everyone consumes over- sweetened, pure-sugar, whipped-cream topped desserts the rest of their lives. Harry provides the childhood he never had to his own children and everyone still stays in touch with the people they developed friendships during Hogwarts. In other words, they all lived happily ever after, end of story, The End. I don't think JKR even wanted the series to last this long, and I'm afraid she may have felt the pressure to complete the series before she was ready. Harry has grown up, he has faced real-life demons, as well as, his own personal demons. He has prevailed. I say we let them live, within our own minds in accordance to the world JKR has created...if that doesn't work, buy the movies. (by the way, I think the actress who plays Luna is perfect!!!) bdclark0423 From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Fri Feb 15 17:51:50 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:51:50 -0000 Subject: Further questions on PoA Post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181566 I have a couple of questions. When Harry was exploring the corridor at night with the Map and Snape discovered him, why did Snape call for Lupin to come by floo. Was it because Lupin was DaDA teacher or did Snape know what the map was and that Lupin had been involved in writing it? My next question sort of relates to the one I asked a while ago about Snape knowing prior to end of GoF that Sirius was an Animagus. What did Snape hear? IMHO Snape got to the Shrieking Shack a while before he made himself known and heard Lupin tell Harry and Co about James, Sirius and Peter. In the book we are told that there was a creaking outside the door, but nothing was there. I feel that was Snape under the Invisibility Cloak. Jayne From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Feb 15 23:08:37 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:08:37 -0000 Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181567 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "bdclark0423" wrote: > > > Dick says: > > > > I loved the first seven books, but I would like to know more about > > what happens to the principal characters after Hogwarts. I'm > > interested in Hermione, Ron and Harry, > > but also in some of the secondary characters. For example, Luna > > Lovegood is "different," but vulnerable. > > I don't want to see her hurt. > > > > Dick > > > bdclark0423: > If the epilogue doesn't say enough, everyone consumes over- > sweetened, pure-sugar, whipped-cream topped desserts the rest of > their lives. Harry provides the childhood he never had to his own > children and everyone still stays in touch with the people they > developed friendships during Hogwarts. In other words, they all > lived happily ever after, end of story, The End. > > I don't think JKR even wanted the series to last this long, and I'm > afraid she may have felt the pressure to complete the series before > she was ready. Harry has grown up, he has faced real-life demons, > as well as, his own personal demons. He has prevailed. I say we > let them live, within our own minds in accordance to the world JKR > has created...if that doesn't work, buy the movies. (by the way, I > think the actress who plays Luna is perfect!!!) Geoff: I disagree that, if the epilogue doesn't say enough, everyone consumes over-sweetened, pure-sugar, whipped-cream topped desserts the rest of their lives. Using your metaphor, there are a number of sharp tasting lemons which have been jammed into the cupboard; things unresolved or not resolved overtly and which have been blocked by the epilogue. It's all very well saying that the friendships which developed at Hogwarts have continued but there was space for some rapprochments to be made - friendships or similar developing across the battlelines. To take one instance, I wanted to see a thawing of the relationship between Harry and Draco. Harry finally came to see that Snape was not the person which he had constructed in his mind and was presented with the truth of his support for Dumbledore and his feelings towards Lily which provided incontrovertible evidence that he supported the side of good. It was sad that Harry only realised this posthumously. But apparently Harry then failed to see the possiblities of a "truce" with Draco. He had seen Draco on the tower; Dumbledore had seen to that almost with his last breath. Harry saw his doubts, his misgivings. There was space for some movement after the fire in the Room of Requirement - and yet JKR shuts things down with a curt nod between them 19 years later. How disappointing. Was this nod an indicator that they had spoken with each other without sarcasm or hatred or anger? We can only speculate. It would seem that, if Draco had been arrested after Voldemort's death, he had been released and had time to bring up a son by 2017. Did Harry intervene? Did his vacillation on the tower come to light? This is just one set of questions which were not answered and left me with a sense of irritation over the epilogue which, frankly, I wish hadn't been committed to paper. Would it have been better to have left hese things unsaid or was JKR frightened of an outbreak of "what-if"-ism over the ongoing lives of those who survived the battles? I shall certainly let them live within my own mind - but not necessarily moving on into the epilogue world JKR has created..... From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 23:58:02 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:58:02 -0000 Subject: Further questions on PoA Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181568 > Jayne: > When Harry was exploring the corridor at night with the Map > and Snape discovered him, why did Snape call for Lupin to > come by floo. Was it because Lupin was DaDA teacher or did > Snape know what the map was and that Lupin had been involved > in writing it? zgirnius: IMO, no way did Snape think Lupin was more qualified to deal with a Dark Object than he was. So yes, I think this was because Snape knew who made it, hence his reference to "directly from the manufacturers". Oh, and Harry was not exploring a dark corridor at night, that was in the PoA movie. In the book, Harry's Cloak slipped off for a moment during an illicit visit to Hogsmeade, and Snape lectured Harry in his office connection to that and demanded he empty his pockets. > Jayne: > My next question sort of relates to the one I asked a while > ago about Snape knowing prior to end of GoF that Sirius was > an Animagus. What did Snape hear? zgirnius: The creaky door you mention was Snape coming in, so in my opinion he heard everything after that point, and nothing more. Pre-DH there were some theories that he heard a bunch more but was pretending because he hates Sirius. I don't think they make any sense at all in light of what were revealed to be Snape's motivations in DH. However much he hated Sirius, if he thought Peter was the traitor, he would hate him too, and want to take steps to bring him to justice. From bdclark0423 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 15 23:55:02 2008 From: bdclark0423 at yahoo.com (bdclark0423) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:55:02 -0000 Subject: Book idea; Life After Hogwarts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181569 > Geoff: > > > > There was space for some movement after the fire in the Room of > Requirement - and yet JKR shuts things down with a curt nod > between them 19 years later. How disappointing. > I wish hadn't been committed to paper. > > > > not necessarily moving on into the epilogue world JKR has > created..... > > Bdclark0423: hmmm, I guess it wasn't clear that this was a derisive criticism, but Yes, absolutely I feel the same during the fight scene in Room of Requirement, but then a second time they run into Malfoy, when Ron punches him only shows that some people will never change... also, absolutely, this epilogue should have never been published. The only thing I can think why it was included was because of my previous sarcastic remark...JKR was ready to give us our cake and let us eat it too... bdclark0423 True Harry Potter Fan, and only hopes JKR creates more worlds for us... From s_ings at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 02:24:53 2008 From: s_ings at yahoo.com (Sheryll Townsend) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:24:53 -0000 Subject: Extended Deadlines for Convention Alley 2008! Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181570 Convention Alley 2008 will be extending the deadline for the Call for Papers until March 15, 2008. If you had an idea rolling around but never quite got around to getting a proposal together, now is the time! Please email proposals to convention_alley at yahoo.ca by March 15th. In conjunction with the extended CFP deadline, we will also be extending our early registration deadline until midnight March 31, 2008. Any questions relating to programming or the CFP can be addressed to convention_alley at yahoo.ca. General questions can be posed here to sent to hpottawa at yahoo.no Hope to see you all soon! Sheryll Townsend Chair Convention Alley 2008 From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 01:54:23 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:54:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Epilogue Message-ID: <395631.36999.qm@web56905.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181571 Edna: I have seen and read most of JKR's interviews concerning DH and she usually adds a little something to the epilogue. The whole reason for the epilogue was so that we will know that Teddy Lupin was alright. She killed off both his parents and felt very badly that he was orphaned. She thought that 19 years was an appropriate time frame in which to marry and have children old enough to go to Hogwarts. She didn't want to encourage teenaged pregnancies. Harry and Ron completely revolutionized the Auror dept. at the Ministry. Ginny Played Quidditch for the Holyhead Harpies before marrying Harry and having children. Hermione worked in the Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry. She married Ron and had children. Neville became Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts. Luna married a wizard who shared the same interests as she did. They both would go on trips looking for rare magical creatures. George really never got over losing Fred, but life must go on. Ron helped him with his business. Draco married and had a son. In my opinion, the curt nod at the train station was to show an understanding between Harry and himself. They both fought the big fight. Harry saved his life and Narcissa saved Harry's life. They were older and more mature. Edna ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From dongan51 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 02:58:50 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:58:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Further questions on PoA Post DH look Message-ID: <574193.43229.qm@web63902.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181572 Jayne:. When Harry was exploring the corridor at night with the Map and Snape discovered him, why did Snape call for Lupin to come by floo. Was it because Lupin was DaDA teacher or did Snape know what the map was and that Lupin had been involved in writing it? Liz: I always thought that Snape knew that Lupin had a hand in writing it. Don't forget that when Lupin was insiting it was a zonko product, that Snape asked him, something along the lines of, "Don't you think that these particular mapmakers might enjoy knowing Harry had the map?. i have to get the book to get the exact line, but yeah IMO Snape knew. Jayne: I feel that was Snape under the Invisibility Cloak. Liz: Again, I have to go grab the book, but I believe that Snape thanks Potter or mentions how useful the cloak is. Later on when HP and HG have gone back in time, Harry knows the cloak is there and is tempted to grab it but knows he must not be seen. . ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 16 03:16:03 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:16:03 -0000 Subject: Further questions on PoA Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181573 > > Jayne: snip Was it because Lupin was DaDA teacher or did > > Snape know what the map was and that Lupin had been involved > > in writing it? > > zgirnius: > IMO, no way did Snape think Lupin was more qualified to deal with a > Dark Object than he was. Potioncat: Zara, I don't think you needed the "IMO". I think we can all agree that Snape didn't value Lupin's qualifications above his own. I'd venture a guess that most of us (not all, never all in this group for anything) would agree. I'd like to add that the this episode is one my favorites. It is so much fun to look at afterwards, picking up the many layers of deception that are going on. As we all recall, neither Harry or the reader knew who MPWP were. We knew it was a map, but Snape didn't. We didn't know all that wonderful history shared by Lupin and Snape, nor the real reason Snape disliked Lupin. Most Readers (and Harry) might have thought it had to do with Snape's standard dislike of the DADA master. So when we re-read this, we can see that Lupin and Snape are communicating very well, both keeping information away from Harry-- and from the first-time reader. I'm still not sure that the map isn't Dark Magic, nor am I sure if Snape really thinks it is. So, Snape know that Mooney was Lupin and Padfoot was Black. The parchment used those names. He would have thought that Wormtail and Prongs were both dead. So he had reason to suspect this parchment involved Black and Lupin and was putting Harry in danger. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 03:24:08 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:24:08 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B65758.4040501@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181574 CJ: > wand strength seems to be cumulative... Colleen: > I still think that somehow there is a relationship between the > strength of the wizard and the strength of the wand. Otherwise, those > that were the most wealthy could buy the most powerful wands Or, presuming dueling skill is recognized as a form of strength, the best dueler would end up both owning and mastering a boatload of magic sticks. Which brings up another point. Clearly, there *is* a distinction between owning and mastering wands. Ollivander owns a lot of wands and everyone goes to him to buy theirs. But Ollivander is not the master of those wands, merely the owner. Is there a mechanism in wizarding law that recognizes transfer of (legal) ownership as a function of mastering? Otherwise, though Harry is the new master of Draco's wand, Draco is still its owner and would, presumably, have the legal right to demand it back. > or as you mentioned, Hagrid could hold 20 wands and give LV a > run for his money. Yet, even though wands do not work optimally for other than their masters, they still work. It would still seem that 20 non-optimally-performing wands would outperform (at least brute force-wise) a wizard's own wand alone, as suggested by zgirnius: zgirnius: > the common sense type answer that suggests itself to me is > loss of control. Which suggests a both-and scenario. For brute force -- say, blasting through a door -- numbers matter more than affinity. For precision magical work, one requires one's own wand. So carry your own wand, but make sure you always have two or three extra in your pocket for those more brutish needs. Pippin: > People have to be measured carefully for their wands and > previously unowned wands may not readily respond to a > prospective owner. ... I can see wands being competitive > with each other and not wanting to work together While it's true that the wand chooses the wizard, it's obviously not a monogamous relationship. We know, for example, at the end of DH that Harry was master of both the Elder Wand and his own. Or imagine the Battle of Hogwarts under such circumstances: every time a wizard offs a DE, the wand in his hand suddenly stops working and he's forced to scramble for the wand of his vanquished foe. So if, as it apparently is, it's possible for a wizard to be both owner *and* master of multiple wands simultaneously, then why not just march on down to Ollivander's and try every wand in the store until you've accumulated a pocketful of wands, all of which have chosen you? And that brings me back to my original question: since wand strength seems to be cumulative, numbers (at least at times) trump affinity. However, what if the wizard is holding multiple wands all of which recognize him as master? With both strength and affinity backing him, such a wizard would seem unbeatable. Carol: > Ron had already Disarmed and (effectively) defeated the > now-dead wormtail Just one nit to pick: Ron simply disarmed, not Disarmed, Wormtail by grabbing the wand out of Wormtail's hand. Nevertheless, I think we must conclude that Wormtail's wand now recognized Ron as its new master, at least up until he was forced to relinquish it by Bellatrix. And that leaves me with yet another question: what if a wizard is defeated while using a stolen or borrowed wand? Does the wand transfer allegiance anyway? Oh, what a tangled web JKR weaves. sister magpie: > do we know Draco was forced to specifically cast > Crucio? Because we've got this information that you > have to enjoy causing the person pain to do it And what of Krum Cruciating Diggory in GoF while under the Imperius? Can you Imperius someone into enjoying causing pain? CJ From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 03:34:14 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:34:14 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181575 "Buckbeak spat a few ferret bones onto Hagrid's pillow" - p.203 Alla: Isn't this beatiful how this can be read as foreshadowing of Malfoy's erm... transformation in GoF? "The owls sat hooting softly down at him, at least three hundred of them; from Great Greys right down to tiny little Scops owls ("Local deliveries only') which were so small they could have sat in the palm of Harry's hand" - p.205 Alla: Picking up the conversation about owls' intelligence. do you think there is a correlation between size and intelligence? "There was a look of suppressed triumph about him. Harry tried to look innocent, all too aware of his sweaty face and his muddy hands, which he quickly hid in his pockets" - p.208 Alla: No legilimency is needed here it seems LOL "Snape eyes were boring into Harry's It was exactly like trying to stare out a Hippogriff. Harry tried hard not to blink" - p.208 Alla: On the other hand maybe not :-) "Then came Astronomy at midnight, up on the tallest Tower; History of Magic on Wednesday morning, in which Harry scrumbled everything Florean Fortescue had ever told him about medieval witch hunts, while wishing he could have had one of the Fortescue's choco-nut sundaes with him in the stiffling classroom" - p.234 Alla: To me this is another confirmation that Harry learns well from anybody he likes and boy I miss Fortescue even more, man seems to be well educated at least under WW standards. "No!" said Harry again, wanting more than ever to leave the room and the heat. "It looks fine, it's - flying away..." Alla: Another little correct prediction of Harry, YAY. "....I expect...an' executioner, Macnair, he's an old pal o' Malfoy's..." - p.241 Alla: Just had a thought that Mcnair chose the profession that seems to fit his tastes as one of DE extremely well LOL From aletamosquito at gmail.com Sat Feb 16 03:40:51 2008 From: aletamosquito at gmail.com (Aleta Turner) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:40:51 -0500 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <47B65758.4040501@yahoo.com> References: <47B65758.4040501@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3591e0870802151940l17760baqa568cb8a2de16fe6@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181576 On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Lee Kaiwen wrote: > And that brings me back to my original question: since wand > strength seems to be cumulative, numbers (at least at times) > trump affinity. However, what if the wizard is holding multiple > wands all of which recognize him as master? With both strength > and affinity backing him, such a wizard would seem unbeatable. Aleta: Since different wands have different affinities (some better at charms some at transfiguration, etc.) the wizard or witch could benefit at fine work, not just brute strength work, for having multiple wands all of which chose him/her. "Use the right tool for the job." From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 16 04:27:58 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:27:58 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181577 >Alla, quoting: > "The owls sat hooting softly down at him, at least three hundred of > them; from Great Greys right down to tiny little Scops owls ("Local > deliveries only') which were so small they could have sat in the > palm of Harry's hand" - p.205 Potioncat: There's an old building in Washington, DC that has a long row of stone owls along the edge of the roof...to keep away pigeons, I suppose. Only, I think it could be real owls, enchanted to look like stone ones to Muggles...and the building is really the well disguised Ministry of Magic of the United States building. It's near the Navy Yard. >Alla, quoting: > "There was a look of suppressed triumph about him. Harry tried to > look innocent, all too aware of his sweaty face and his muddy hands, > which he quickly hid in his pockets" - p.208 > > Alla: > > No legilimency is needed here it seems LOL Potioncat: I know that Snape is absolutely horrible to Harry over the next few pages, but I wonder if that "look of suppressed triumph" that Harry perceives is actually a look of "suppressed relief" that Harry is safe. Or of suppressed triumph that he knew where to find him and he was safe. Do we have canon as to whether Severus know that James had an IC? > Alla quoting: > "....I expect...an' executioner, Macnair, he's an old pal o' > Malfoy's..." - p.241 Potioncat: I don't know why, but I always thought this MacNair was Riddle's comtemporary---but it's more likely he is from Malfoy's generation. Yes, I'd say he found an "honest job" doing what he liked best. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 04:36:22 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:36:22 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181578 > Potioncat: > There's an old building in Washington, DC that has a long row of > stone owls along the edge of the roof...to keep away pigeons, I > suppose. Only, I think it could be real owls, enchanted to look like > stone ones to Muggles...and the building is really the well disguised > Ministry of Magic of the United States building. It's near the Navy > Yard. Alla: YAY. You discovered the best kept secret in travel my dear :-) > Potioncat: > I know that Snape is absolutely horrible to Harry over the next few > pages, but I wonder if that "look of suppressed triumph" that Harry > perceives is actually a look of "suppressed relief" that Harry is > safe. Or of suppressed triumph that he knew where to find him and he > was safe. > > Do we have canon as to whether Severus know that James had an IC? > Alla: I can never forgive Snape for doing what he is doing in the next pages. I could care LESS if he is right about James, I am just getting angry every time when I read how he tries to provoke reaction out of Harry by badmouthing James. Despicable if you ask me. You know that kid does not have parents in part thanks to you and still think it is Okay to do what you do Snape. Ugh. So glad that you are dead, dead, dead. And every time I feel that way, I am again cannot help but applaud JKR. How she made me hate the fictional character so much, is beyond me. How she made me to hate the character with which I have no negative RL associations is even more beyond me. Bravo JKR :-) But having said that, I think you could be very well right, especially post DH. Since we know that Snape wanted Harry alive as part of Lily while hating him as his own person ( or at least this is my intepretation), I am sure he was glad to see that Harry was okay. From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 07:13:09 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 07:13:09 -0000 Subject: Regarding the Harry/Snape eye contact.. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181579 I probably shouldn't post this as I have not as much cannon as I could quote in this post to make in entirely long probably too early in the posting game.. However, I must state that as much as I do not like Snape, I'm enjoying my rereads more each time Snape brings himself to look into Harry's eyes...and also each time Harry tends to return the stare. So all of these instances I'm wondering, is Snape on a search mission (to trap the son of James), or is he remembering(Lily)?!? It also adds an entirely new creepy light on detentions... Also, I think Snape may have come to some epiphany in HBP when he heard about Harry's progress in potions!! I dunno, I just don't think that Snape is as a successful Legillimens against Harry as he was towards everyone else(only because he went searching for Harry's expeiences with Lily...yet only found Petunia experiences--like when Harry had been tree'd by Aunt Marges Dog...and Snape's only question, "Whose dog was that?? or something of the equivalent...made me think that perhaps Lily had a dog like that and this was how Vernon and Petunia met--as children..)...JKR did pound how Harry's eyes looked like Lily's with a 1,000 pound anvil over our heads...She did say Harry's eyes were important and protected him no less...I'd have to say it may have gone further than the firey rescue from the ROR in DH.. It also helped him get confirmation of DD's theory in HBP via Sluggy's memory.. Alas, I don't like Snape, but I don't think DD did either until close to 1/2 way through their adult relationship either--Snape's POA incident when Harry cast the Patronus with a big ol' stag which reminded Snape about Lily too much!(and he had a couple of decades)...or in GOF when post dh both DD and Snape seem to be scratching their heads about who the traitor could possibly be.. However, like him, or love him, hate him...I suppose I cannot to any of it w/o understanding him...hence my Snape revisit. DD From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sat Feb 16 07:47:04 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:47:04 +1000 Subject: Apparating to Grimmauld Place Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CDFC63338@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181580 I was wondering how Hermione managed to bring Yaxley (I think it was him) from the MOM back to Grimmauld Place when she Apparated them after they retrieved Slytherin's locket from Umbridge. The reason I ask is that GP is under a Fidelius Charm and Yaxley didn't know the address. Shouldn't he have been bounced off or something. In canon it had never been the case you could just take someone there by holding their arm, or Apparating them, say, from the park across the road to the front doorstep. They ALWAYS had to be given a slip of paper with the address on it before they could see the building and enter it. Just curious, Sharon From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 09:50:14 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:50:14 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <3591e0870802151940l17760baqa568cb8a2de16fe6@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B65758.4040501@yahoo.com> <3591e0870802151940l17760baqa568cb8a2de16fe6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B6B1D6.7030903@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181581 > Aleta: > the wizard or witch could > benefit at fine work, not just brute strength work, for having > multiple wands all of which chose him/her. "Use the right tool > for the job." Good point. When doing jobs around the house, I carry around my tool box for just that reason. Imagine having a wand box with your transfiguration wand, your potions wand, your herbology wand and your sledge-hammer wand. Better yet, I imagine upperclass wizards with their own wand-caddies. "Ok, Smithers, gonna try a chipper. Hand me a 7-holly." CJ From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 09:50:46 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:50:46 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: <700201d40802141628j2c79a8d8y23e3360688322596@mail.gmail.com> References: <700201d40802141628j2c79a8d8y23e3360688322596@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B6B1F6.30909@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181582 Kemper now: > I don't think that a wand lost in a duel no longer > works for the wizard as well as it use to. Rather, > I think the wand works as well for both wizards. Hmm, so then polyandry? A wand recognizes several masters at once? If it works equally well for more than one wizard, what does it mean to be "master"? What if the wand finds itself being used in a duel between two of its masters? CJ From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Feb 16 14:32:33 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:32:33 -0000 Subject: Regarding the Harry/Snape eye contact.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181583 >>Doddie: So all of these instances I'm wondering, is Snape on a search mission (to trap the son of James), or is he remembering(Lily)?!? It also adds an entirely new creepy light on detentions... Snip I dunno, I just don't think that Snape is as a successful Legillimens against Harry as he was towards everyone else(only because he went searching for Harry's expeiences with Lily... Potioncat: IMO, Snape stared into Harry's eyes to get information. He wasn't looking for Lily. Before he even knew Harry, Snape had paired Harry with James. Remember that he wanted DD to protect Lily, and only agreed to protection for her son and husband when DD pushed. Still, I don't think he was trying to trap James's son. But I do think Snape's opinion of Harry was based on his being James's son. Legilimency has the same limitations as other forms of human communication. Sometimes you see/hear what you expect to see/hear, rather than what is really there. It seems to me that Snape develops his Legilimency skill over the 7 books, improving as time passes. Do we ever see Snape using Legilimency on anyone else in canon? I don't particularly remember. >>Doddie: Also, I think Snape may have come to some epiphany in HBP when he heard about Harry's progress in potions!! Potioncat: My first reaction was to dispute this. I'm sure Snape didn't think Potter was any better at potion making than he had been. But that isn't what you mean is it? You know, Slughorn is the only person I can think of who compares Harry to Lily. Could this be the first time Snape has had reason to see Harry Lillyson rather than Harry Jameson? As much as we sometimes fault Snape and Black for confusing Harry with James, it does seem to be a consistent opinion that Harry is very much like his father. >>Doddie Alas, I don't like Snape, but I don't think DD did either until close to 1/2 way through their adult relationship either--Snape's POA incident when Harry cast the Patronus with a big ol' stag which reminded Snape about Lily too much!(and he had a couple of decades)...or in GOF when post dh both DD and Snape seem to be scratching their heads about who the traitor could possibly be.. Potioncat: Unless Severus understood that "Prongs" referred to a stag, he wouldn't have reason to connect the stag Patronus to James. Snape didn't know that James was a Stag Animagus and I don't think he would have known what James's Patronus was. If I understand JKR's comment, the Patronum charm wasn't taught at Hogwarts. It would have been learned afterwards. For that matter, how did Severus know that his doe Patronus reflected Lily? Because he clearly does know it. Argh! Now I'm going in circles! From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 15:25:16 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:25:16 -0000 Subject: Apparating to Grimmauld Place In-Reply-To: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CDFC63338@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181584 --- Sharon Hayes wrote: > > I was wondering how Hermione managed to bring Yaxley ... > from the MOM back to Grimmauld Place when she Apparated them > after they retrieved Slytherin's locket from Umbridge. The > reason I ask is that GP is under a Fidelius Charm and Yaxley > didn't know the address. Shouldn't he have been bounced off > or something. In canon it had never been the case you could > just take someone there by holding their arm, or Apparating > them, say, from the park across the road to the front doorstep. > They ALWAYS had to be given a slip of paper with the address > on it before they could see the building and enter it. > > Just curious, > Sharon > bboyminn: I don't think the Fidelius is an impenetrable wall; I think it simply hides things. So, no bouncing off if you don't know the secret. Yaxley was, in a sense, told the secret by being brought to the Black House by Hermione. I think if Hermione were not allowed to reveal the secret, she would not have been allowed to apparate inside the boundary of the Charm. I guess, in this sense, we could say this represents a /sort of/ bouncing off. Any effort to reveal the secret will be circumvented by the Charm. If you are about to speak the words, you will either forget in that instant, or you will find yourself temporarily mute, or you will suddenly find yourself distracted by some other mundane desire. If you know the secret and try to guide someone over the threshold and you are not in a position to be authorized to reveal the Secret, I think again, somehow the Charm would stop you. It would force you to turn and head into the nearest Tea Shop. Or, as you stepped forward, you would suddenly forget where you were going and why. Etc.... However, in DH, the knowers of the Secret are now authorized to tell. Consequently, I think they could guide someone over the threshold. For example, if Neville or Luna wanted in, but at the same time, Harry did not want to reveal the secret, he could guide them blindfolded into and out of the Black House without any conflict. Of course, if he wanted them to know about the House, he could just tell them. Also, we see Dumbledore reveal the Black House to Harry by note, but that is certainly not the one and only means. I suspect for most of the others, Dumbledore simply told them. Just a few thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 15:38:56 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:38:56 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 17 - 19 Post DH Look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181585 I love PoA very much, but Cat, Rat and Dog starts what probably is my very favorite sequence of events in the book ever ( as I am sure for many people) We discussed those chapters gasillion times and there is really not much what jumped at me as particularly new, but some little things did. Here we go. "Lie down," he said quetly to Ron, "You will damage that leg even more." - p. 249 Alla: Oh yeah in retrospect that is exactly how murderers act, they worry about the leg of their potential victim that they damaged. LOL. "He had forgotten about magic - he had forgotten that he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas Black was a tall, full-grown man. All Harry knew was that he wanted to hurt Black as badly as he could and that he didn't care how much he got hurt in return..." - p.249 Alla: To me it was always a pure joy and emotional rollecoaster to watch how Harry's emotions change from pure hatred to desire to live with Sirius. LOVE. But post DH I am thinking that I really should not be surprised much upon Harry willing to accept the truth about Snape and forgiving him. To me Harry aptly demonstrated that he is able to listen and absorb the facts no matter how improbable they seem and let go of hatred in those chapters. "Yes, indeed," said Lupin. " It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. ******** Finally , in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will." - p.259 Alla: So wait, does it mean that they started to try in their second year? 'So we've heard," said Lupin more coldly, "I'd like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter if you'd be so-" - p.269 Alla: Just really wanted Remus to speak to some other people in the later books and heck, at the end of PoA the similar way he speaks to Peter here. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 16 15:56:14 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:56:14 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? - Intuitive Sentience In-Reply-To: <47B6B1F6.30909@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181586 > Kemper now: > > > I don't think that a wand lost in a duel no longer > > works for the wizard as well as it use to. Rather, > > I think the wand works as well for both wizards. Lee: > Hmm, so then polyandry? A wand recognizes several masters at once? If it > works equally well for more than one wizard, what does it mean to be > "master"? > > What if the wand finds itself being used in a duel between two of its > masters? Magpie: When Ollivander is explaining this he says this WAS the wand of Draco Malfoy and then says it may no longer be. So it seems like he's saying the wand indeed has one master. It certainly seems like that's the point with the Elder Wand, that it had a master, not every person who ever won it was his master. -m From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 16:24:58 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:24:58 -0000 Subject: Dual-core wands? (was Elder Wand ownership (was Dual-core wands?)) In-Reply-To: <47B6B1D6.7030903@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181587 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Lee Kaiwen wrote: > > > Aleta: > > the wizard or witch could > > benefit at fine work, not just brute strength work, for having > > multiple wands all of which chose him/her. "Use the right tool > > for the job." > > Good point. When doing jobs around the house, I carry around my tool box > for just that reason. Imagine having a wand box with your > transfiguration wand, your potions wand, your herbology wand and your > sledge-hammer wand. > > Better yet, I imagine upperclass wizards with their own wand-caddies. > "Ok, Smithers, gonna try a chipper. Hand me a 7-holly." > > CJ > That was one of my favorite details in the film version of OotP. When Snape drags Harry down to dungeon for their first Occlumency lesson, he unrolls some kind of a wand caddy and seems to choose a particular wand to use. Like he has several, and one that's best for Legilimency. Montavilla47 From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 16:38:52 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:38:52 -0000 Subject: Regarding the Harry/Snape eye contact.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181588 > Potioncat wrote: > IMO, Snape stared into Harry's eyes to get information. He wasn't > looking for Lily. Before he even knew Harry, Snape had paired Harry > with James. Remember that he wanted DD to protect Lily, and only > agreed to protection for her son and husband when DD pushed. Still, I don't think he was trying to trap James's son. But I do think Snape's opinion of Harry was based on his being James's son. > > Legilimency has the same limitations as other forms of human > communication. Sometimes you see/hear what you expect to see/hear, > rather than what is really there. It seems to me that Snape develops his Legilimency skill over the 7 books, improving as time passes. Do we ever see Snape using Legilimency on anyone else in canon? I don't particularly remember. Doddie here: We actually see Snape attempt to use legillimency on Draco in HBP, I'm assuming he may have used it both on Quirrell and upon Krum's headmaster in GOF... I agree with you about the limitations being similar if not the same as other forms of human communication however I also believe that Snape's skills in this area peaked well before the book series started. Snape was already angry at seeing Harry's as Jame's son over the course of the series, but he seems so much more angry or unbalanced during occlumency lessons..We already know that he removed memories concerning Lily and placed them in the pensive before said lessons. I would argue that the glimpses into Harry's experiences and may have reminded Snape more of Lily rather than James...after all I think DD was correct in his assumption that Harry's character paralleled Lily's more than James. > > > Potioncat: > My first reaction was to dispute this. I'm sure Snape didn't think > Potter was any better at potion making than he had been. But that > isn't what you mean is it? You know, Slughorn is the only person I > can think of who compares Harry to Lily. Could this be the first time Snape has had reason to see Harry Lillyson rather than Harry Jameson? > As much as we sometimes fault Snape and Black for confusing Harry > with James, it does seem to be a consistent opinion that Harry is > very much like his father. Doddie: Yes, that is what I meant. Although most folks often say that Harry LOOKS like his father more than his being his father. I think Lupin may have seen more of Lily in Harry but as usual, he doesn't mention it but keeps his guard up..perhaps moreso after Sirius' death. > > Potioncat: > Unless Severus understood that "Prongs" referred to a stag, he > wouldn't have reason to connect the stag Patronus to James. Snape > didn't know that James was a Stag Animagus and I don't think he would have known what James's Patronus was. If I understand JKR's comment, the Patronum charm wasn't taught at Hogwarts. It would have been learned afterwards. > > For that matter, how did Severus know that his doe Patronus reflected > Lily? Because he clearly does know it. Argh! Now I'm going in circles! > Doddie here: Ahh, but as members of the original Order of the Phoenix I think Snape knew exactly what form James', Lily's, and most members patronuses took..I'd argue that the marauders(or Sirius at least) may have had a snicker/snide remark or two about it behind Lily's back. Remember Snape's snide remarks to Tonks when he intercepts her patronus charm in HBP? From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 16:30:19 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:30:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <460221.40966.qm@web56911.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181589 Alla: I can never forgive Snape for doing what he is doing in the next pages. But having said that, I think you could be very well right, especially post DH. Since we know that Snape wanted Harry alive as part of Lily while hating him as his own person ( or at least this is my intepretation) , I am sure he was glad to see that Harry was okay. Edna: About Snape's treatment of Harry, JKR said that it was unfair that Snape loathed Harry so much, even 'till the very end he loathed him. I think it was Dumbledore who told Snape that he saw in Harry what he wanted to see, another James Potter when in fact Harry was much more like his mother. Snape was tormented by James, the ring leader of the marauders all through school. James then manages somehow to win Lily's heart, Lily, who's Snapes reason for living. He could care less that James was killed, but he could never forgive himself for Lily's death. He probably would have preferred it if LV succeeded in killing Harry at Godric's Hollow that night as well. I think that if Harry looked more like his mother, Snape would have been softer on him. Imagine how he must have felt everytime he looked at Harry, the product of his worst enemy and the love of his life. It must have irked him. But at least he was remorseful and gave his allegiance to Dumbledore and then proceeded to devote his life to bringing down LV. Edna From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sat Feb 16 20:51:43 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 06:51:43 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Apparating to Grimmauld Place In-Reply-To: References: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CDFC63338@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au>, Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CDFC6333A@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181590 _ --- Sharon Hayes wrote: > > I was wondering how Hermione managed to bring Yaxley ... > from the MOM back to Grimmauld Place when she Apparated them > after they retrieved Slytherin's locket from Umbridge. The > reason I ask is that GP is under a Fidelius Charm and Yaxley > didn't know the address. Shouldn't he have been bounced off > or something. In canon it had never been the case you could > just take someone there by holding their arm, or Apparating > them, say, from the park across the road to the front doorstep. > They ALWAYS had to be given a slip of paper with the address > on it before they could see the building and enter it. > > Just curious, > Sharon > bboyminn: I don't think the Fidelius is an impenetrable wall; I think it simply hides things. So, no bouncing off if you don't know the secret. Yaxley was, in a sense, told the secret by being brought to the Black House by Hermione. I think if Hermione were not allowed to reveal the secret, she would not have been allowed to apparate inside the boundary of the Charm. However, in DH, the knowers of the Secret are now authorized to tell. Consequently, I think they could guide someone over the threshold. For example, if Neville or Luna wanted in, but at the same time, Harry did not want to reveal the secret, he could guide them blindfolded into and out of the Black House without any conflict. Of course, if he wanted them to know about the House, he could just tell them. Also, we see Dumbledore reveal the Black House to Harry by note, but that is certainly not the one and only means. I suspect for most of the others, Dumbledore simply told them. Sharon again: So, Harry has to find out by note because Dumbledore couldn't tell him in person. That makes sense. But from what you've said above, does that mean that Hermione (or any of the order members, who automatically became secret keepers after Dumbledore died) could take someone to Grimmauld Place without telling them the address. If that's the case, then it makes sense that Yaxley would be able to get in once he reached the doorstep. But here's my problem now: If you aren't told the address somehow, either by message or voice, then once you leave the premises, you shouldn't be able to find it again by yourself, right? Which means that Yaxley may have been able to get in, but once he left he wouldn't be able to bring back other Death Eaters because he wasn't given the secret. So the trio could have gone back eventually, after establishing that Yaxley had left, becuase there's no way he could get back in again. Unless, as you say, they would have to be blindfolded so they couldn't see the front of the house on arrival. That seems a bit thin to me though. Yaxley would see the house number on the door maybe, but he wouldn't know what street he was on. Once he left the building he might, but then he would have forgotten it already because he hadn't been told the full address. And on a similar note, I still don't see why Harry couldn't summon Kreacher. Kreacher just appears wherever Harry is when he calls him. It's not like he would drag Death eaters along with him. Those purebloods would never touch a house elf I am sure. So I just don't see the problem with called Kreacher either. From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 16 20:54:56 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:54:56 -0000 Subject: HBP. Killing DD Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181591 Another Question for you lovely people. In HBP why does DD plead with Snape when he is about to kill him?. I thought from reading DH that this had been planned between them. Am I perhaps correct in thinking that he was pleading with Snape to get on with it and not to spoil their plan by letting someone else do it Thanks Jayne From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Sat Feb 16 21:16:41 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:16:41 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 17 - 19 Post DH Look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181592 Alla Wrote> > SNIP> > ": > > > 'So we've heard," said Lupin more coldly, "I'd like to clear up one > or two little matters with you, Peter if you'd be so-" - p.269 > > > > Just really wanted Remus to speak to some other people in the later > books and heck, at the end of PoA the similar way he speaks to Peter here. He does at the end of OoP to the Dursley's when Moody, Tonks, Remus and Mr and Mrs Weasley are warning the Dursley's to treat Harry correctly I quote from Tonks (HBP Page 765) "The point is , if we find out you,ve been horrible to Harry - - And make no mistake we'll here about it said Lupin pleasantly I am sure that pleasantly was not quite meant that way JMHO Jayne From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Sat Feb 16 21:27:05 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:27:05 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] HBP. Killing DD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CDFC6333B@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181593 Jayne: In HBP why does DD plead with Snape when he is about to kill him?. I thought from reading DH that this had been planned between them. Am I perhaps correct in thinking that he was pleading with Snape to get on with it and not to spoil their plan by letting someone else do it Sharon: That was definitely my take on it. DD was pleading with Snape to get on with it, perhaps afraid that he might chicken out at the last minute. DD was pleading for Snape to kill him, both because he was going to die anyway and they had made an arrangement for him to do so, but also I think to save Draco from the wrath of the Dark Lord--since he couldn't do it himself. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 21:38:39 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:38:39 -0000 Subject: HBP. Killing DD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181594 Jayne: > In HBP why does DD plead with Snape when he is about to kill him?. > > I thought from reading DH that this had been planned between them. > > Am I perhaps correct in thinking that he was pleading with Snape to > get on with it and not to spoil their plan by letting someone else > do it? zgirnius: I don't think it was as simple as your last suggestion, for a couple of reasons. First, the situation had not reached the point where someone else was clearly stepping forward to do it. And second, Dumbledore's tone of voice truly frightened Harry, which I think reflects genuine fear/concern by Dumbledore, not annoyance that Snape is dawdling (which he hardly is, havign just shown up). Having read DH, we now know that the argument in the Forest, which occured many months after Snape agreed to Dumbledore's plan, was about several things including Snape's reluctance to go through with the plan. "Maybe I don't was to do it anymore" (paraphrase) was about killing Dumbledore. Further, Dumbledore tried to shore up Snape's sense of being trusted by him by telling him about the soul bit in Harry, a piece of news Snape did not accept all that gracefully either. In fact, we are never shown Snape agreeing to pass the message on to Harry. So I think Dumbledore was in some doubt what Snape would choose, and also may have been asking in part, for Snape to remember and stick with, the whole plan - kill him, and then protect the students, and then wait for the right time to tell Harry about the soul bit. The first step was crucial - if Snape failed to kill Dumbledore, he might not be alive to do the rest. From aletamosquito at gmail.com Sat Feb 16 21:33:03 2008 From: aletamosquito at gmail.com (Aleta Turner) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:33:03 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] HBP. Killing DD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3591e0870802161333v1a53c6abmb67f20ced3b90f5@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181595 Jayne asks: In HBP why does DD plead with Snape when he is about to kill him?. I thought from reading DH that this had been planned between them. Am I perhaps correct in thinking that he was pleading with Snape to get on with it and not to spoil their plan by letting someone else do it Aleta replies: I think so. I think Dumbledore is pleading because he knows Snape doesn't want to kill him, even though they'd planned it before. Really, Dumbledore planned it, and Snape felt he had to go along with it. I've wondered why Dumbledore didn't let *someone* besides Snape in on it. Wouldn't it have been useful to the OotP if Snape could still report to them because McGonagall, or someone, had known the plans, and that Snape wasn't actually the traitor they all reasonably assumed him to be? Aleta [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From lwalsh at acsalaska.net Sat Feb 16 23:46:02 2008 From: lwalsh at acsalaska.net (Laura Lynn Walsh) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:46:02 -0900 Subject: Felix Felices Message-ID: <32DE1AA9-C3A7-4452-A31C-3041FBBBAE40@acsalaska.net> No: HPFGUIDX 181596 I am listening to the Half Blood Prince and am at the part after when Harry managed to get the memory from Slughorn and then was wondering if he could use it to get into the Room of Requirement. Ron mentions that it would be nice to have a supply of it and Harry looks up the directions on how to make it. The directions say that it has to brew for 6 months. But that is inconsistent with the beginning of the story when Dumbledore and Harry go to convince Slughorn to come to Hogwarts. It was during Harry's summer vacation, so there would not have been 6 months available for Slughorn to brew the potion for his first potions lesson, unless he was already brewing it back in the borrowed house. It would seem very unlikely for him to do so, as he had only taken the potion twice in his life and was living in a house that was not his own (i.e., he had none of his own tools and ingredients). Did I miss something? Laura -- Laura Lynn Walsh lwalsh at acsalaska.net http://llwcontemplations.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From catlady at wicca.net Sun Feb 17 00:31:15 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:31:15 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181597 WAND LORE Steve bboymin wrote in : << If you took the wand by stealth or trickery as Grindelwald did, can we assume the allegiance does not transfer to you? >> I suppose Grindelwald feared that might be the case, causing him to wait around after stealing the Wand until Gregorovitch came to investigate the noise so he could Stun Gregorovitch, assuming that Stunning a wizard is defeating him, and the wand only has to pass by defeat; it doesn't have to pass by murder. (How had Gregorovitch gotten the Wand?) The Elder Wand's ownership allegedly passed from Dumbledore to Draco when Draco Disarmed Dumbledore (HBP, on the tower under the Dark Mark) by taking him by surprise. I think it's reasonable that Disarming one's opponent in such a way that he never gets his wand back counts as defeating him, but in that case, the Elder Wand's owner was defeated with the Elder Wand in his very hand. If Stunning and Disarming count as defeats, why wouldn't stealth or trickery count as defeats? (Maybe Gregorovitch won it in a card game.) Zara wrote in : << It is my opinion that the very act of disarming a wizard is a defeat of that wizard. Draco did not need to pick up the wand to have already won its loyalty, he did when he removed it from Dumbledore's possession. Likewise Harry defeated Draco by disarming him (using brute physical force, but still, disarming him). He also did not take physical possession of the Elder Wand at the time, but it transferred its allegiance nonetheless because it recognized a defeat of its former master Draco, by Harry. >> Nitpick: in my opinion, because Draco never touched the Elder Wand, the Wand did not know him and therefore was not loyal to him. Instead, it was loyal to the master of the hawthorne wand which had defeated it. Thus, the Elder Wand did not transfer its loyalty from Draco to Harry; rather, it recognized Harry as the master of the hawthorne wand. Harry had become master of the hawthorne wand by taking it from Draco by non-magical force. This only affected the Elder Wand because Harry was holding the hawthorne wand when the Elder Wand was fired at him. Otherwise the Elder Wand wouldn't have recognized him. Harry's holly wand recognized that Lucius's wand was being wielded by LV, a known enemy. I don't think that means that wands always recognize the wielder of their opposing wand. I think this is a special case because the brother wands had absorbed some of each other's essence, and maybe even the wielders' essence, during the golden cage portion of the graveyard fight. Hi to hp_fan_2008, who said the same as my first two paragraphs, in : << My theory is that the wand recognized Hary as the owner of the wand which was used to disarm Dumbledore. It could have recognized the fact when Voldemort tried to murder Harry in the Forest. This would explain why the Cruciatus Curse didn't work on Harry. >> Zara wrote in : << Harry claims that because Snape was knowingly doing Dumbledore's will, because he and Dumbledore had made an agreement months before, Snape's killing would not constitute a defeat. Instead, what Harry claims would have happened, is that the wand's power would have died with Dumbledore, and no one could ever have been its master again. >> In previous discussions, some listie pointed out that it was foolish of DD not to realise that he was setting Snape up to be killed by LV in LV's attempt to become master of the Elder Wand. If DD can lie after he's dead (in the 'King's Cross' chapter), maybe he did realise it. LUNA Jayne wrote in : << Luna starts off as being perceived as loony and over the last three books, she also becomes more confident and gets more respect from others and also is a loyal friend to Harry and co. I would have loved a hint that they would get together eventually. We know of course that Neville becomes a Prof of Herbology, but nothing is mentioned about what happens to Luna. >> Rowling wants her to become a naturalist and go around the world searching for all those creatures her father believes in, altho' she never does find a Crumpled-Horn Snorkak (are there other kinds of Snorkak?). Before DH, Rowling said there couldn't be a Neville/Luna ship because he would be too disturbed by her wilder flights of fantasy. After DH, first she said Neville and Luna would marry; later she said that Neville married Hannah Abbot, who had become proprietor of The Leaky Cauldron, and therefore lived there, and that Luna became a naturalist and married another naturalist, Rolf Scamander, grandson of Newt Scamander, author of FABULOUS BEASTS AND WHERe TO FIND THEM. Nothing about Dean in DH seeming to be attracted to Luna. (Some listies complain about Neville's daily commute from Charing Cross Road to Hogwarts, but he could Apparate from his front door to the school entrance. Or he could Floo from his fireplace to some public fireplace in Hogsmead and walk to the school from there. We never read anything about people arriving at The Three Broomsticks by Floo, so I guess the public fireplace was either in the Post Office (altho' Hermione didn't mention it when she was telling Harry of all the owls waiting there) or the train station.) When we met Luna, I was *sure* she was going to die (some kind of heroically) in the series, because she was so spiritually enlightened (calm and compassionate) at such a young age. She was as spiritual as Albus appeared to be, but he'd had a century to learn it. I also hoped her silver eyes meant she was related to Ollivander, such as his granddaughter or great-granddaughter, altho' if she called him 'Grandpa' in the dungeon, that wouldn't have been as cute calling him 'Mr. Ollivander', and that she had comforted him in that awful place wouldn't have been so striking a sign of her personality. Because I would rather that Luna became a wandmaker than a naturalist. I think it would be a good use of her spiritual enlightenment - her understanding of people would help her find them the right wand and give them some gentle good advice along with their new wand. I like to think she would understand the wand materials as well as she understands people. Maybe she could make wands that brought out the good in their wielders as well as being powerful. Liz P wrote in : << Luna wound up being one of my favorite characters, a very wise soul. She was lesson in her own right. People who are considered "strange" are mainly over looked and written off. To me it was one of Ginny's few redeeming qualities that she befriended her. >> This is one of those forbidden 'I agree' posts. All I can add is that if fellow students hadn't picked on Luna, she wouldn't have had the chance to show her calmness and forgiveness. At first (PS/SS), the wizarding world was a refuge for the people who were considered 'strange' in the Muggle world. A place where children who didn't fit in in the Muggle world (because of having magical powers or being excessively intelligent at school or being gay or whatever) did fit in, because the people there were like them. Pretty soon, even before OoP and we met Luna, it became clear that the wizarding world had its own bullies and picked-on oddballs. ALCHEMY Flaviaflav wrote in : << In Deathly Hallows we also had the death of *Rufus* Scrimgeour. >> And Goddlefrood replied in : << Besides, Scrimgeour was a relatively minor character first mentioned in OotP. The theories based on alchemy to predict death all (pre-DH) looked at major characters, of whom Scrimgeour was not one.>> To which Goddlefrood added in : << The real reason - I had to convince myself that Hagrid wouldn't die pre-DH, and it worked. >> I think it possible that Rowling originally planned for Hagrid to die in DH (in that battle scene where it *looks* as if he is consumed by the spiders) but she couldn't stand to kill him because she liked him so much. (So she gave him a reprieve, like Arthur in book 5.) If she had named him Rubeus to fit the three stage of alchemy death prediction process, but realised pre-OoP that she couldn't stand to kill him, she might have deliberately named a minor character introduced in OoP whom she knew would be killed in DH 'Rufus' as a replacement. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 17 00:39:37 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:39:37 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: <32DE1AA9-C3A7-4452-A31C-3041FBBBAE40@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181598 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > The directions say that it has to brew for 6 months. But that > is inconsistent with the beginning of the story when Dumbledore > and Harry go to convince Slughorn to come to Hogwarts. It was > during Harry's summer vacation, so there would not have been > 6 months available for Slughorn to brew the potion for his first > potions lesson This topic was discussed here on the list before, and I remember that someone suggested that Felix Felicis was brewed(sp?) by Snape. Felix Felicis was included in the NEWT Potions class curriculum, so Snape started preparing it (and maybe other potions that it takes a long time to brew) in time to be ready for the first lesson in September. When Slughorn took over, he just continued what Snape started. This suggestion seems rather logical to me. Snape was appointed to the DADA teacher job only in summer, so he was still the Potions master when he started with Felix Felicis. I think there were other suggestions as well, but I can't remember any right now :-). zanooda From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 17 00:50:31 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:50:31 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181599 > Catlady: > I think it possible that Rowling originally planned for Hagrid to die > in DH (in that battle scene where it *looks* as if he is consumed by > the spiders) but she couldn't stand to kill him because she liked him > so much. (So she gave him a reprieve, like Arthur in book 5.) zgirnius: She claims she has planned for him to survive for a very long time. The below is taken from her interview with Meredith Vieira on 'Dateline'. > Interview: > MV: A lot of people were worried that Hagrid would die. > JKR: Yeah. > MV: Was that ever a plan? > JKR: Yes ... Everyone was up for grabs. Everyone. But actually from very early on ... I wanted Hagrid to be the one who carried Harry out of the forest. That had been planned for so long. And I wanted Hagrid to believe that Harry was dead, so that-- I had that image in my mind that Hagrid would survive to do that, to carry him out. From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Feb 17 02:12:32 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:12:32 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181600 "zanooda2" wrote: > This topic was discussed here on the list before, and I remember that > someone suggested that Felix Felicis was brewed(sp?) by Snape. Felix > Felicis was included in the NEWT Potions class curriculum, so Snape > started preparing it (and maybe other potions that it takes a long > time to brew) in time to be ready for the first lesson in September. > When Slughorn took over, he just continued what Snape started. Potioncat: Now, Snape teaching Felix Felicis...that's a class I'd like to see. I don't have the books with me. Was there a cauldron of the potion, or just a vial? Amortensia takes a while to brew too, doesn't it? Perhaps Slughorn manages to do some potion making on the side, or has a store of prepared potions even as he dashes about in hiding. Come to think of it...what was he going to do with the Amortensia? Does anyone else think the real purpose of that potion is to reveal your true love to you? Hermione recognised something about Ron, and Harry recognised something of Ginny. So what would have happened if they had drank some? Just the aroma seems to have awakened their senses. From kaleeyj at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 02:50:18 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:50:18 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181601 PoA: > "The owls sat hooting softly down at him, at least three hundred of > them; from Great Greys right down to tiny little Scops owls ("Local > deliveries only') which were so small they could have sat in the > palm of Harry's hand" - p.205 > > > Alla: > > Picking up the conversation about owls' intelligence. do you think > there is a correlation between size and intelligence? Bex: Smaller owls for shorter flights - larger owls for longer ones, since they would be better able to carry a heavier package or deal with rough weather. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 17 04:13:29 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:13:29 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181602 I've always had this question about Dementors that stems from two explanations Lupin gives in PoA. The first was in Chapter 10, after Harry has succumbed to the Dementors and lost his first Quidditch match. The second part was from chapter 12 and the first Patronus lesson. First Lupin explains what they are: "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you." OK, they drain hope and happiness. They also "glory in decay and despair". So doesn't that mean they thrive in squalid conditions? Now what kind of 'food' are they likely to find these type of conditions? Hold that thought, and let's go to the second part. Patronus lesson #1, Lupin is tell us what a Patronus does: "The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon -- hope, happiness, the desire to survive -- but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementor can't hurt it." I guess dementors feed on brain waves or something like psychic energy. That soul sucking thing doesn't seem to do anything for *them*. Since soul sucking leaves the victim with no memories, no anything , those victims won't have anything that the dementors feed upon. In fact, since we were told that dementors breed, soul sucking must not make new dementors, either. Now for my queations: How can you project the very thing that dementors feed upon and *weaken* them at the same time? How do dementors glory in decay, when they aren't very likely to find much hope, happiness, or desire to survive in those type of conditions? After Lupin's first explanation, this doesn't make sense, to me. So now I'd like to postulate the way I think dementors should be portrayed. Heh, I know, here's me trying to tell JKR what her creatures should be. But, wouldn't it make more sense if dementors fed on despair, sadness, and depression? I mean, they would suck out all the happy stuff thereby leaving their victims with only those sad thoughts that they would then feed upon. Then it would make more sense for them to glory in decay, because that's where they would find their kind of food. If they needed negative energy instead of positive energy, they would be sucking out those happy thoughts in the way we peel an orange to get to the real food inside. The dementor would be throwing away the positive thoughts, not feeding on them. That would make a Patronus a projection of an orange rind, nothing that a dementor could do anything with. The Patronus isn't the actual thought, it's a projection of the thought, so the dementor can't siphon it off. If dementors fed on negative thoughts and the Patronus is a made with positive thoughts, a Patronus would be like garbage to them, a repellant, disgusting thing to the dementors. Did anybody else get confused trying to put these two Lupin explanations together? And why is it that every confusing concept that JKR tries to explain, seems to come out of Lupin's mouth? Mike, wanting to tweak that dementor/Patronus thingy ever so slightly ;) From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 17 04:33:21 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:33:21 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181603 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > I don't have the books with me. Was there a cauldron of the potion, > or just a vial? zanooda: All the potions were in cauldrons and they all were "bubbling", otherwise I would have thought Slughorn bought them in some kind of potions store :-). > potioncat: > Amortensia takes a while to brew too, doesn't it? zanooda: It is unknown. Polyjuice potion takes a month to prepare, however, so Slughorn had enough time to brew it himself :-). From lwalsh at acsalaska.net Sun Feb 17 07:50:37 2008 From: lwalsh at acsalaska.net (Laura Lynn Walsh) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:50:37 -0900 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5DE3B84A-A74D-47F4-B89F-843A5BB5F1DC@acsalaska.net> No: HPFGUIDX 181604 On 2008, Feb 16, , at 17:12, potioncat wrote: > "zanooda2" wrote: > >> This topic was discussed here on the list before, and I remember that >> someone suggested that Felix Felicis was brewed(sp?) by Snape. Felix >> Felicis was included in the NEWT Potions class curriculum, so Snape >> started preparing it (and maybe other potions that it takes a long >> time to brew) in time to be ready for the first lesson in September. >> When Slughorn took over, he just continued what Snape started. > > Potioncat: > Now, Snape teaching Felix Felicis...that's a class I'd like to see. I > don't have the books with me. Was there a cauldron of the potion, or > just a vial? It was a cauldron. But I agree with you - it would have been interesting to see Snape teaching the class about Felix Felicis. The one thing that bothers me about the explanation that Snape started the Felix Felicis brewing is that this is completely unlike him. I can't imagine him brewing the very difficult potion himself to give the students a look at what it was supposed to be like when it was finished. It was his normal way to just let them have at it and then put them down for not being able to do it right. It was the same with the way he "taught" Harry occlumens. He didn't tell him specifically how to do it, he just said to try to do it any way he thought it might work. And, I can't imagine Snape teaching the first class anywhere near the same way Slughorn taught it - with 4 potions already brewed for them to try to recognize. And, yet, it seems to be the only logical explanation so far. It just seems out of character for Snape. Laura -- Laura Lynn Walsh lwalsh at acsalaska.net http://llwcontemplations.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Sun Feb 17 09:37:24 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:37:24 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: <32DE1AA9-C3A7-4452-A31C-3041FBBBAE40@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181605 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > > I am listening to the Half Blood Prince and am at the part after > when Harry managed to get the memory from Slughorn and > then was wondering if he could use it to get into the Room of > Requirement. Ron mentions that it would be nice to have a > supply of it and Harry looks up the directions on how to make > it. The directions say that it has to brew for 6 months. Doddie: I'm replying to the original post because I think my initial response answers most questions raised in your post and the responses thus far.(not definitively JMHO) We know Sluggy is short on cash and suffering from isolation when Harry accompanies DD to recruit sluggy.. We also know that of all the characters in the potter series, Sluggy was the only one(besides Harry) who ever entered Hagrids cabin and found it a veritable gold mine.(most likely Sluggly viewed it as a yet untapped source of wealth/comfort. Harry first viewed it as for the first time being welcomed into someone's home.) So we as readers do not have to make such a big leap to consider that Sluggy kept/brewed/sold potions..(although his mail order service was probably more select, narrowed, and discriminating than the twins owl order service had been... We know that Sluggy has been in hiding for a while and enjoy's his comfort. It is from this comfort that Harry first meets him. This is why Sluggy returns to Hogwarts.....if Voldy is back, and Harry may be the chosen one...he will choose the path that affords him the most comfort. So of course, on day one of his class, he will choose to display potions that are long brewing, extremely difficult to make and rare.. Even the HBP had no "quick fixin' of said potions in his "old textbook."....and unless one asks JKR we shall never have known if Sluggy sold Felix to anyone else. If I had to ask about someone who may have paid exorbetent fees for a reliable brewed potion, I'd argue D.Umbridge.. I just think it's sad that DD never realized it may have been useful for Harry's extraction from Privet Drive....or perhaps Harry's polyjuice potion is the same thing as felix...(poor moody, if he had only decided to ride on the back of the broom and have dung steer after Dung drank moody Polyjuice potion...and the twin with the ear gone..w/o harry polyjuice...perhaps may have died then...not so lucky.. Dunno about this theory...or whether it was the sacrifice of his hairs(he didn't want to give them willingly but in the end, did he sacrifice them to the cause, or aquiese...if he sacrificed that may have been additional protection for those drinking said polyjuice potion. Atleast according to DD..when love's involved, magic is at it's strongest..makes sense when one considers things...Harry never knew the REAL moody...and was not fond of dung at all... Doddie, (who wonders if Molly, after OOP, realized where the twins got the start up for the business from..hence, Harry, received her brother's watch..I wonder who got the other twins watch? was it ron(although his seemed to be new)? charlie? or Percy? or did that watch become something akin to Moody's eye?!?) From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Feb 17 13:02:42 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:02:42 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181606 > Mike: big snip The Patronus isn't the actual thought, it's a > projection of the thought, so the dementor can't siphon it off. If > dementors fed on negative thoughts and the Patronus is a made with > positive thoughts, a Patronus would be like garbage to them, a > repellant, disgusting thing to the dementors. > Did anybody else get confused trying to put these two Lupin > explanations together? And why is it that every confusing concept > that JKR tries to explain, seems to come out of Lupin's mouth? Potioncat: Lupin's imprecision with wording is one of the reasons Snape argued against his appointment as DADA professor. It wasn't just his association with Black. Mike, you Flintmaster, I never noticed this apparant contradiction. I always thought something along your orange example, except, more that they drained the good thoughts to create the dispair; that the positive engery of the Patronus would be as repellant to a Dementor as a Dementor is to wizards. Or something like that. Oh, and don't go looking for canon about Snape's objection to Lupin. I made it up. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Feb 17 15:16:54 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:16:54 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: <32DE1AA9-C3A7-4452-A31C-3041FBBBAE40@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181607 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > It was > during Harry's summer vacation, so there would not have been > 6 months available for Slughorn to brew the potion for his first > potions lesson, unless he was already brewing it back in the > borrowed house. It would seem very unlikely for him to do so, > as he had only taken the potion twice in his life and was living > in a house that was not his own (i.e., he had none of his own > tools and ingredients). > > Did I miss something? Pippin: No one seems to be allowing for Sluggy's sense of showmanship. Just because a potion's bubbling away in a cauldron doesn't mean it's freshly brewed! Of all the potions we've heard of, only wolfsbane seems to lose its potency if it isn't consumed immediately. Love potion,according to Slughorn, acutally gets stronger as it ages. We know that polyjuice and felix keep very nicely. Slughorn could have made them up before he went into hiding, and stashed them somewhere. As we see, such rare and difficult potions make very useful bribes (er, rewards) and of course felix and polyjuice are useful in themselves if you're in a tight spot, which is exactly where Slughorn expected to be if the DE's caught up with him. Once he had accepted Dumbledore's protection, he could get his stash out of hiding, bring it with him to Hogwarts, and set it up in cauldrons as if he'd brewed it all just then. Pippin remembering how sure we all were that draught of living death would come into the plot somehow From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Feb 17 17:57:29 2008 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 17 Feb 2008 17:57:29 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 2/17/2008, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1203271049.10.23292.m54@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181608 Reminder from: HPforGrownups Yahoo! Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday February 17, 2008 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Location: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Notes: Just a reminder, Sunday chat starts in about one hour. To get to the HPfGU room follow this link: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Create a user name for yourself, whatever you want to be called. Enter the password: hpfguchat Click "Join Chat" on the lower right. Chat start times: 11 am Pacific US 12 noon Mountain US 1 pm Central US 2 pm Eastern US 7 pm UK All Rights Reserved Copyright 2008 Yahoo! Inc. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Feb 17 18:00:02 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:00:02 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181609 Mike: First Lupin explains what they are: > > "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. > They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and > despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around > them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy > memory will be sucked out of you." > > OK, they drain hope and happiness. They also "glory in decay and > despair". So doesn't that mean they thrive in squalid conditions? > Now what kind of 'food' are they likely to find these type of > conditions? Hold that thought, and let's go to the second part. > Patronus lesson #1, Lupin is tell us what a Patronus does: > > "The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very > things that the dementor feeds upon -- hope, happiness, the desire > to survive -- but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the > dementor can't hurt it." > > I guess dementors feed on brain waves or something like psychic > energy. That soul sucking thing doesn't seem to do anything for > *them*. Since soul sucking leaves the victim with no memories, no > anything , those victims won't have anything that the > dementors feed upon. In fact, since we were told that dementors > breed, soul sucking must not make new dementors, either. Pippin: Actually, it may be that dementors need to suck souls in order to breed new dementors, just like mosquitoes have to feed on blood in order lay eggs. Of course I don't know whether JKR even thought about this, and canon does seem to get confused on whether it's positive or negative thoughts that dementors feed on. Isn't there a line in DH where Harry (or the narrator?) thinks they're attracted by Harry's despair? But I will put that down to Harry's muddled state of mind or else some really hungry dementors, and stick with the idea that it's usually positive thoughts. Perhaps they'll eat negative thoughts if they're starving, just like a starving human might try to eat an orange rind. But dementors could still need a negative environment in which to spawn. This is seen in nature -- the ideal places to shelter the young are often not the places where food is most plentiful -- and nature solves the problem by allowing the parent to supply food. Often times the young don't eat adult food at all. So perhaps a young dementor does not need or want to suck happy thoughts, deriving what nourishment it needs from its parents. If the adult dementor feeds on positive thoughts then IMO the patronus is like a diet soda. It tastes good but contains no nourishment. Therefore, attempting to feed on a patronus weakens the dementor, just as humans would grow weak living on Diet Cokes, and the patronus can then chase it away. Works for me . Pippin From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 00:06:28 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:06:28 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: <47B15ACF.6090101@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181610 > > Mike before: > > Then we have a conundrum, since the "Cruciatus Curse" is cast by > > uttering the word "Crucio". > CJ: > Sorry, I'm not following. "Cruciatus" means "torture". "Crucio" is > the first person present tense active indicative meaning "I > torture". Where's the conundrum? Mike: Sorry for taking so long, busy week. This one is my bad, I misread your previous post. When you said we have a word for "Pain; cruciatus ain't it" I thought you were saying "cruciatus, ain't it?" You see, I thought you were telling me the Latin for pain was cruciatus and following it with the typically British two-word rhetorical question. I don't know Latin like you do, CJ. > > Mike before: > > Crouch!Moody doesn't help us, he explained "Pain, > > ... to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse." > > > CJ: > On the contrary, I think he helps immensely. "To torture" ... > "perform the Cruciatus". Seems straightforward. Mike: Well, yeah, but he does start out by saying the curse causes "Pain". > CJ: > While true in general, this is not true of cruciatus or crucio, > both of which are straightforward Latin. Mike: But these aren't simply Latin words, they are incantations to cause magic to happen. E.g. Levicorpus isn't the words 'make that body light', it is an incantation which causes one to be lifted up by one ankle and suspended in air, upside down. I don't know if I can explain myself here, but I'll try. The Latin words were picked because they come close or match what JKR wanted the spell to mean. But it's not simply a matter of translating the Latin. As an incantation they cause an action and that action can vary by other factors, including intent, aim (what the curse hits), magically ability of the caster, and compatibility of the wand, to name a few. What I'm trying to say is that translation is not enough to define Harry's Crucio as torture, imo. Nor is the fact that it translates as torture mean that it was used to torture, again imo. > CJ: > > ("Crucio!"), followed by "What do you know, you really do have to > mean it!", obviously referencing Bellatrix's comment that you have > to "mean it" for a UC to work. Mike: I never said that Harry doesn't "mean it", I did say that I thought Harry fully intended to hurt Amycus, and hurt him badly. It just doesn't rise to the level of torture for me. > CJ > > then he has stepped beyond the role of soldier and elected himself > judge, jury and executioner. Mike: I disagree, Harry is fighting a known enemy in a war. The war hadn't stopped simply because they were sheltered in the Ravenclaw common room. Our difference lies in you believing Harry has "tortured" Carrow, and that makes it a war crime in your eyes. I don't believe it was torture. In either case, it cannot be said that Harry shouldn't have attacked Carrow, our argument is over the form of that attack. But a soldier fights the enemy, there are no judges, juries, or executioners on the battlefield. If there is a trial for war crimes, that comes later, not on the battlefield between two enemy combatants. > > Mike previously: > > Plus, past injustices are what makes them your enemy. > CJ: > Not at all. If we define enemies based on past injustices there > would be little room for kissing and making up. Mike: Why would they be your enemy if there were no past injustices? What need would there be for kissing and making up if there were no past injustices? What does your future actions have to do with how or why you are treating them as your enemy now? > CJ > His motivation was, at least to a large measure, the desire and > intent to cause Carrow pain. That is retribution. Mike: I agree with the intent to cause pain. I also agree it was a poor choice of spell for all the reasons you have enumerated. I disagree that the translation defines the spell in toto, which leads me to disagree that it was torture. Finally, I disagree the incapacitation of Carrow should be defined as retribution, even while I agree that the method used for that incapacitation was a poor choice. That's all for me. We have reached the end of logical discussion on this topic and further comment would be redundant, imo. We can agree on some points and agree to disagree on others. I know I'm not going to sway you further on these points of disagreement, and you've moved me off my original position as far as I will be moved. The ball's in your court whether you wish to reply, you have given me a fair chance to respond and I think I've said all I can say. Mike ---------------------------------------------------- [The cave in GoF. Sirius on the Ministry and the UCs] > > CJ > > If Sirius were simply speaking through and from his pain, > > I would have expected indicators > > Mike: > > Sirius ... is said to "smile grimly" ... he says it "quietly". > CJ: > I don't mean by the above that he spoke emotionlessly. But no, > neither smiling grimly nor speaking quietly sounds like bitterness > to me. Mike: That was my point. Sirius doesn't sound like he's speaking bitterly in either case. Yet, can you imagine him not being bitter about being locked up in Azkaban for 12 years without a trial? I can't. Which means that I can see him speaking seemingly calmly about the MoM in this same scene while seething below the surface. The only thing where we may differ slightly, is that I think Sirius is more disgusted at the MoM (and Barty Crouch Sr.) for authorizing the Aurors the power to kill. That doesn't mean he likes the UCs, but I took his comment as including them as part of a laundry list of things he saw as bad decisions on the Ministry's part. I also see Sirius commenting on the hypocrisy of the MoM in naming them "Unforgivable" then using them themselves. I'm not sure why were discussing this, I don't think we disagree on Sirius' opinion of the UCs. Mike, apologizing again for the tardiness of this response From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 00:18:54 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:18:54 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181611 > Bex: > Smaller owls for shorter flights - larger owls for longer ones, since > they would be better able to carry a heavier package or deal with > rough weather. Mike: So, do you think they charge by distance of delivery, size or speed of the owl chosen, size of the package, or chance that the owl may encounter difficulties along the way? Maybe, like Alla brought up, it's by how smart the owl is you choose to make the delivery. I wonder if the WW postal service is government (MoM) run? But, then again, it can't be, because then they would be demanding a monopoly and thereby outlawing individually owned owls. Too bad, running the postal service would be a perfect posting for Percy, pun intended. Mike From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 00:45:51 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:45:51 -0000 Subject: POA Ch-5 - He forgot that he remembered. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181612 I found an interesting quote in Chapter 5 of POA. Harry has just come off the train, and he and the gang are about to board the coaches that carry them to the castle - ---POA Ch5 pg 87 Am Ed HB --- Harry, Ron, and Hermione followed the rest of the school along the platform and out into the rough mud track, where at least a hundred stagecoaches awaited the remaining students, each pulled, Harry could only assume, by an INVISIBLE HORSE, because when they climbed inside and shit the door, the coach set off all by itself, bumping and swaying in procession. --- end quote --- (emphasis is mine) Remember this is really the first time Harry as seen the coaches. The previous year (CoS), Harry and Ron arrived by flying car. So, Harry first sees the coaches and assumes some invisible horse is pulling them. But that thought quickly fades and he later assumes they are just propelling themselves along. Until after GoF when he first see the Thestrals. This is one of those odd occasions when Harry knows but doesn't realize he knows. Instead he picks up on the false assumption made by everyone else and accepts it. I just thought it was interesting that so early on in the series Harry rightly assume some invisible horse(like) creature is pulling the coaches, only to forget that he ever thought of this idea. Steve/bboyminn From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 00:53:46 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:53:46 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: <32DE1AA9-C3A7-4452-A31C-3041FBBBAE40@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181613 --- Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > > ...Harry looks up the directions on how to make it. The > directions say that it has to brew for 6 months. But that > is inconsistent with the beginning of the story when > Dumbledore and Harry go to convince Slughorn to come to > Hogwarts. ... there would not have been 6 months available . for Slughorn to brew the potion ... > > Did I miss something? > Laura > -- bboyminn: Or...or...he went to the local potions shop and said, I'll have a gallon of each and send the bill to Hogwarts. I'm not saying that it did happen, only that it could have. The idea that Snape had already started these potions for his first NEWT potions class works too. Keep in mind summer holiday is two month, it takes 6 month to brew that particular potion. So Snape had to start well into the previous school year. Steve/bboyminn From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 00:59:33 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:59:33 -0000 Subject: Owls WAS: Re: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181614 > Bex: > > Smaller owls for shorter flights - larger owls for longer ones, since > > they would be better able to carry a heavier package or deal with > > rough weather. > > Mike: > So, do you think they charge by distance of delivery, size or speed of > the owl chosen, size of the package, or chance that the owl may > encounter difficulties along the way? Maybe, like Alla brought up, > it's by how smart the owl is you choose to make the delivery. > Alla: Well, I am speculating based on this quote from chapter 22 that sometimes smaller owls are smarter and able to figure out directions better maybe? I mean, no question that the larger owls are stronger, sort of obvious, yes? I was wondering about the intelligence. "It felt like a very fluffy Snitch. He brought it carefully inside. The owl dropped its letter onto Harry's seat and began zooming around their appartment, apparently very pleased with itself for accomplishing its task. Hedwig clicked her beak with the sort of dignified dissaproval. ***************** ***************** I have some doubt about this owl's reliability, but he is the best I could find, and he did seem eager for the job" - p.315 From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 01:42:52 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:42:52 -0000 Subject: Felix Felices In-Reply-To: <5DE3B84A-A74D-47F4-B89F-843A5BB5F1DC@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181615 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > The one thing that bothers me about the explanation that > Snape started the Felix Felicis brewing is that this is > completely unlike him. I can't imagine him brewing the > very difficult potion himself to give the students a look > at what it was supposed to be like when it was finished. zanooda: We never saw Snape teach a NEWT class. Maybe he plans those differently, because they are usually for students who are good at potions and interested in them enough to continue on NEWT level. We also don't know if Slughorn shows potions in all his classes or only in the NEWT class. > Laura Lynn Walsh wrote: > It was his normal way to just let them have at it and then > put them down for not being able to do it right. zanooda: At least Snape sometimes corrects students afterwards and explains what was done wrong - Slughorn never does even that :-). > Doddie wrote: > So we as readers do not have to make such a big leap to > consider that Sluggy kept/brewed/ sold potions zanooda: I think that it's possible, although it wouldn't be easy to move a complicated potion in the proccess of brewing every week to a new Muggle house :-). Slughorn admited that he was on the move for the whole year and never stayed in one place for more than a week. > Pippin wrote: > No one seems to be allowing for Sluggy's sense of showmanship. > Just because a potion's bubbling away in a cauldron doesn't > mean it's freshly brewed! zanooda: Also - possible, but these potions are so complicated, and the instructions must be followed so closely, that it seems doubtful they can be "reheated" in a cauldron without damaging them, IMO. Same goes for the store-bought potions, unless Slughorn makes them bubble without actually heating them :-). I also think that Veritaserum, Polyjuice potion and maybe even Felix Felicis shouldn't be sold in stores (not sure about Amortentia :-). From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 01:59:33 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:59:33 -0000 Subject: POA Ch-5 - He forgot that he remembered. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181616 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > So, Harry first sees the coaches and assumes some invisible > horse is pulling them. But that thought quickly fades and > he later assumes they are just propelling themselves along. I've always found it strange that no one ever guesses that the carriages are not self-propelling, but are pulled by some invisible creatures. Thestrals are bound to make some sounds, and there should be vapor from their breathing in the cold weather and other things like that. In the rain, they must be seen as silhouettes. And what about their footprints on the wet ground and on the snow? No one seems to notice, ever :-). zanooda From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 18 04:11:38 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 04:11:38 -0000 Subject: POA Ch-5 - He forgot that he remembered. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181617 zanooda > I've always found it strange that no one ever guesses that the > carriages are not self-propelling, but are pulled by some invisible > creatures. Thestrals are bound to make some sounds, and there should be > vapor from their breathing in the cold weather and other things like > that. In the rain, they must be seen as silhouettes. And what about > their footprints on the wet ground and on the snow? No one seems to > notice, ever :-). Potioncat: But Luna knows what they are, and I'm sure Nott has seen them. Maybe in other carriages, the students are discussing them. Harry wouldn't have chance to see the hoofprints, wasn't it raining the first time he rode the carriages? It was Hagrid who tamed the Thestrals, so I wonder how long they've been used to haul the carriages? Maybe none of the Weasley kids knew about them. But the real reason is, that both JKR and DD are very careful about keeping secrets. Between them, they conspired to keep Harry far away from all things magical until just the right moment. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 07:17:01 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:17:01 -0000 Subject: Luna's Pursuits In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181618 > Catlady: > (are there other kinds of Snorkak?). Mike: Yes, there are Short-eared Snorkaks. They hide in under wizard's beds, and can affect a wizard's mind while they sleep. They cause them to not hear anything you say, but tell you you're wrong anyway. Harry was under the influence of one of these when he argued with Hermione about going to the Ministry in OotP. I think Fudge had one of these as a pet. We also have the Split-tongued Snorkak. These lurk in dungeons but wizards can't see them cuz they don't look properly. If they breathe on you they give you a nasty disposition and cause effusive criticism to come out of your mouth. I'm quite sure there was one living in the potionmaster's office. > The FelineFemale: > Before DH, Rowling said there couldn't be a Neville/Luna ship > because he would be too disturbed by her wilder flights of > fantasy. Mike: Ship away I say. JKR showed an affinity between Neville and Luna in the book, who cares what she said outside of the book. > Senorita de los Gatos: > Neville's daily commute from Charing Cross Road to Hogwarts, > > Or he could Floo from his fireplace to some public fireplace > in Hogsmead and walk to the school from there. Mike: Before the tightened security, Sirius Flooed into the Gryffindor fire in GoF and in OotP. Even after the special security was added, the kids Flooed into McGonagall's office fireplace. After things returned to normal, I don't see why Professor Longbottom couldn't Floo in from his home to his school office. Were there any fireplaces in the greenhouses? > KittenSmitten Woman > Because I would rather that Luna became a wandmaker than a > naturalist. I think it would be a good use of her spiritual > enlightenment - her understanding of people would help her find > them the right wand and give them some gentle good advice along > with their new wand. I like to think she would understand the > wand materials as well as she understands people. Mike: This is another, why not? Hunting Snorkaks probably doesn't pay that well, she needs a day job. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 11:27:13 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:27:13 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181619 > > CJ: > > While true in general, this is not true of cruciatus or crucio, > > both of which are straightforward Latin. > > Mike: > But these aren't simply Latin words, they are incantations to cause > magic to happen. E.g. Levicorpus isn't the words 'make that body > light', it is an incantation which causes one to be lifted up by one > ankle and suspended in air, upside down. I don't know if I can > explain myself here, but I'll try. > > The Latin words were picked because they come close or match what JKR > wanted the spell to mean. But it's not simply a matter of translating > the Latin. As an incantation they cause an action and that action can > vary by other factors, including intent, aim (what the curse hits), > magically ability of the caster, and compatibility of the wand, to > name a few. What I'm trying to say is that translation is not enough > to define Harry's Crucio as torture, imo. Nor is the fact that it > translates as torture mean that it was used to torture, again imo. a_svirn: Yes it is. It means torture and is used for torture. By Harry in this instance. Intent, aim and the ability of the caster all have their place in the grand scheme of things, but neither of those things alters the fact that Crucio is the torture curse. Stupefy is also only an incantation, and not even a Latin one at that, but it means stunning and deprivation of mobility and is used for this purpose. One can miss one's aim, or cast it half-heatedly, but it would still be a stunning spell for all that. Harry used the torture curse with the express intent to punish ? which is what torture is about. He also indicated that he meant it this time around, so we can be reasonably certain that his intent was torture. > > > CJ: > > > > ("Crucio!"), followed by "What do you know, you really do have to > > mean it!", obviously referencing Bellatrix's comment that you have > > to "mean it" for a UC to work. > > Mike: > I never said that Harry doesn't "mean it", I did say that I thought > Harry fully intended to hurt Amycus, and hurt him badly. It just > doesn't rise to the level of torture for me. a_svirn: Well, to "hurt badly" in order to punish means torture. a_svirn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 18:58:40 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:58:40 -0000 Subject: PoA Ch 14 - 16 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181620 Alla quoting: > > "....I expect...an' executioner, Macnair, he's an old pal o' Malfoy's..." - p.241 > > Potioncat: > I don't know why, but I always thought this MacNair was Riddle's comtemporary---but it's more likely he is from Malfoy's generation. Yes, I'd say he found an "honest job" doing what he liked best. Carol responds: I don't think he's from Riddle's generation, not only because of the "old pal of Malfoy's" reference but because of the description of him in PoA as a strapping man with a black mustache. Seems to me like he's in his prime, exercising his muscles by "executing" dangerous beasts (or wrongly accused beasts), not to mention that he's one of the DEs who negotiated with the giants as a representative of Voldemort. (The representative from the Committee for the Disposal for Dangerous Creatures, OTOH, is represented as an old man.) AFAIK, the only DE from Riddle's generation is Theo Nott's father, who seems to be sixtyish. In Slughorn's HBP memory (both versions), we see Lestrange and Avery, evidently the fathers of the current generation of DEs with those names (Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange and Severus's friend Avery). In DD's memory of the DADA interview, DD mentions Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, and Dolohov as companions of Riddlemort (HBP Am. ed. 444). Clearly, Mulciber and Rosier are the fathers, respectively, of the current Mulciber (the Imperius specialist and school-friend of Severus Snape and the now-dead Evan Rosier, who was part of the same gang but may have been older.) Nott, I think is Theo Nott's father, one of the few remaining first generation DEs. Dolohov may be Antonin Dolohov of the twisted face or his father; there's no clear indication of Antonin's age. No Macnair is not mentioned as a first-generation DE, though that's no indication that there wasn't one. Avery Sr. and Lestrange Sr. must have become DEs, but they're not among Riddle's companions in the Hog's Head (identified by and reported to Albus DD by Aberforth, I suspect). OTOH, Sirius doesn't mention Macnair as a member of the gang that Severus ran around with at Hogwarts. He names Wilkes and Rosier (both dead), the Lestranges ("a married couple"--Rabastan forgotten as usual and Bellatrix Black's identity obscured because Sirius is ashamed of being related to her), and Avery. Oddly, he doesn't mention Mulciber (though Mulciber is mentioned by Karkaroff in the Pensieve scene) or Lucius Malfoy, whom we know to be five or six years older than Snape. Maybe Macnair is a bit older, too, about Bellatrix's age and for that reason not a member of the gang when Severus entered school (though Bellatrix also should have left by that time). Or maybe Sirius didn't think him important enough to include. However, his occupation, his strapping build, his still-black hair, his mission to the giants, and the reference to him as a friend of Lucius Malfoy's suggests to me that he's no more than forty at the time of POA and possibly younger (if he's Snape's age, he'd be about 34 at that point. He could even be as young as Regulus Black and Barty Jr., the youngest DEs that we know of in the first war, which would make him about 31 or 32. The Malfoy reference makes me think that he's Lucius's age, though, 39 or 40 at the time of this scene. Carol, who spends way too much time worrying about things like the ages of minor characters From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 20:00:03 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:00:03 -0000 Subject: POA Ch-5 - He forgot that he remembered. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181621 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > Harry wouldn't have chance to see the hoofprints, wasn't it raining > the first time he rode the carriages? zanooda: As a matter of fact it was, but in the rain it is actually easier to notice someone invisible, as the water runs down the creature's skin. And I'm not talking about Harry here (he rarely pays attention to anything :-)), but about someone more observant, like Hermione. BTW, the carriages in the book, unlike those in the movie, are covered, they are even called stagecoaches there, and Hermione looks out of a window. I wonder why they changed this in the movie. So that Harry could look at another carriage and see Cho there :-)? > potioncat: > It was Hagrid who tamed the Thestrals, so I wonder how long they've > been used to haul the carriages? Maybe none of the Weasley kids knew > about them. zanooda: Well, Charlie would know about Thestrals, at least in theory. Thestrals are NEWT level material, and Charlie definitely took COMC NEWT class with Professor what's-his-name :-). I also believe that Thestrals pulled the carriages at least for a few years. There are a hundred or more Thestrals in the forest, to pull a hundred carriages. Hagrid started with one male and five females, right? If we assume they had 5 foals(sp?) the first year, that will make 11 horses. Even if the foals are all females, they have to grow up to reproduce. This means that the second year we'll have only 5 new foals again, which makes 16 in all. The third year we'll have 10 foals (again, assuming that all the first foals were females), and 26 total. I'm pretty sure I made some mistake in my calculations :-), but it seems obvious that it would take a while to get to a 100 horses herd. > potioncat: > But the real reason is, that both JKR and DD are very careful > about keeping secrets. Between them, they conspired to keep > Harry far away from all things magical until just the right moment. zanooda: Yeah, I know that :-). I am not saying that JKR should have revealed Thestrals before the right moment. I just think that the kids couldn't have failed to notice that "someone" invisible was pulling the carriages. It would have been a mystery anyway, because they wouldn't have known who this "someone" was. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 20:26:55 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:26:55 -0000 Subject: Regarding the Harry/Snape eye contact.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181622 "doddiemoemoe" wrote: > > However, I must state that as much as I do not like Snape, I'm > enjoying my rereads more each time Snape brings himself to look into > Harry's eyes...and also each time Harry tends to return the stare. > > So all of these instances I'm wondering, is Snape on a search mission (to trap the son of James), or is he remembering(Lily)?!? > > It also adds an entirely new creepy light on detentions... > > Also, I think Snape may have come to some epiphany in HBP when he heard about Harry's progress in potions!! > > I dunno, I just don't think that Snape is as a successful > Legillimens against Harry as he was towards everyone else(only > because he went searching for Harry's expeiences with Lily...yet > only found Petunia experiences--like when Harry had been tree'd by > Aunt Marges Dog...and Snape's only question, "Whose dog was that?? > or something of the equivalent...made me think that perhaps Lily had > a dog like that and this was how Vernon and Petunia met--as > children..)...JKR did pound how Harry's eyes looked like Lily's with > a 1,000 pound anvil over our heads...She did say Harry's eyes were > important and protected him no less...I'd have to say it may have > gone further than the firey rescue from the ROR in DH.. It also > helped him get confirmation of DD's theory in HBP via Sluggy's > memory.. Carol responds: I'm not sure where to start here, except that I do think Snape is a successful Legilimens most of the time. The only time he's mistaken is when he thinks that Harry stole the boomslang skin and gillyweed in GoF, and Harry seems to have recalled Hermione stealing boomslang skin in second year and Dobby stealing gillyweed, both of which would have confirmed Snape's suspicions (though he wouldn't have seen Harry himself stealing those items). Of course, he didn't know that Barty Jr. was actually stealing them. If Snape had the Marauder's Map, Barty would be in big trouble! Snape is thwarted by Draco's crude and easily detected Occlumency in HBP, but he can hardly push past that barrier and invade Draco's mind without doing more harm than good (assuming that it's even possible to do so). However, we see him looking into Harry's eyes from SS/PS onward, and he seems to have understood Harry's unspoken message about Sirius being (supposedly) captured by Voldemort even before Harry translated it into code ("He's got Padfoot in the place where it's hidden"). Snape used the Legilimency spell rather than eye-to-eye Legilimency (which Harry evidently has trouble detecting) in the OoP lessons so that Harry would instinctively defend himself, either with a wand or, preferably, mentally, as he had done with the Imperius Curse. At any rate, he certainly read Harry's mind effectively in HBP when he caused the Potions book to float into Harry's conscious awareness. Snape may not be able (or perhaps not willing) to enter Harry's memories in the way Voldemort invades a victim's mind, but I think he's not only a perfectly competent Legilimens but a highly skilled one. I think that only a Legilimens can remove memories from his own mind to place them in a Pensieve, as Snape does easily and repeatedly in OoP, and sending out memories from his own mind moments before death is an astounding feat that, IMO, only a highly skilled (and desperately determined) Legilimens can perform. As for an epiphany when he heard from Slughorn about Harry's supposed proficiency in Potions, that's surely when Snape first suspects that Harry is using his old Potions book. He knows perfectly well that Harry is no Potions genius, and he uses Legilimency on him at that point. Once Harry has used Sectumsempra on Draco, Snape *know* that Harry has his old Potions book and forces him to bring it to mind. I think maybe there are degrees of Legilimency, and Snape usually uses only the less invasive version that detects lies without forcing particular thoughts or memories to appear. I doubt that he ever uses Voldemort-style mind invasion (which he protects himself against using his superb and undetectable Occlumency). I also think that Snape uses Legilimency and Occlumency at the same time when he looks into Harry's eyes, which is why his eyes look to Harry like dark tunnels leading to nothing. As for his expression of suppressed triumph in PoA (and again in HBP, when he's announced as the DADA instructor), the narrator is describing him from Harry's perspective, which can't be trusted. We know that he didn't want Harry in Hogsmeade for Harry's own safety, that Draco had reported seeing Harry's head there, and that he suspects the Marauder's Map of showing him a way to get into Hogsmeade. Exactly what he learns from looking into Harry's on this particular occasion is unclear, but it's enough to confirm his suspicions that Harry was indeed in Hogsmeade (wearing an Invisibility Cloak?) since they're discussing the "extraordinary apparition" of Harry's head floating in midair. Snape's order to Harry to turn out his pockets follows the, erm, discussion of James's saving of Snape's life when they were boys. It's unclear whether he connects MWPP with Harry's ability to get into Hogsmeade or whether his mind returns to the reason that Harry is in his office. I don't think he's using Legilimency at that point, but he seems to decide that it's time to produce evidence that Harry was indeed in Hogsmeade. The bag of Zonko's products serves that purpose, but the spare bit of parchment is better. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that it provides a way into Hogsmeade or to figure out who the makers were. Even if he isn't already familiar with MWPP's nicknames, and I'm not convinced that they used them openly, he's already figured out that the hump-backed witch is the entry point of a secret passageway and the Prank is fresh in his memory, so four mischief-makers taunting him in ways that make it clear that they know him from boyhood pretty much seals the identity of the makers. He wouldn't know the significance of Wormtail, Padfoot, or Prongs (he doesn't believe the animagus story when he hears it later), but Moony is extremely easy to figure out, so he summons Lupin and insinuates that the makers (meaning Lupin and Sirius) have provided Harry with that useful bit of parchment. During this scene, he uses Legilimency only once that I can see: to determine the truth of Draco's story (which he may already have confirmed on Draco himself; Draco later says, "I know what you're doing!" when snape starts to use Legilimency on him in HBP, which suggests that Snape may have Legilimensed him before he knew how to defend himself). Anyway, I don't think that Snape is on a mission to trap James's son into anything, but he certainly attempts to trap Harry into telling the truth on more than one occasion. His mission, as we know from DH, is to *protect* Lily's on. That he's also James's son and seems to Snape to be the same sort of arrogant rule-breaker that James was is an unfortunate deterrent to any bond of trust, much less affection, between the two. That Snape is a Legilimens who knows that Harry has lied to him on more than one occasion adds to that animosity, but it also adds to Snape's satisfaction when he can give the "nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him" (GoF Am. ed. 516) a particularly unpleasant detention. BTW, it's interesting that Snape not only gives the Marauder's Map *back* to Lupin knowing full well that he's one of the makers but that he says nothing about it to Dumbledore. Nor does he mention the Map when it falls into "Moody's" hands even after he knows what it is. DD doesn't know about the map until the Veritaserumed Barty Jr. mentions it near the end of GoF. Granted, JKR needs the map to be a secret so that Lupin, Snape, and Crouch can use it, but, nevertheless, Snape is keeping Lupin's secret for him. If he had reported the parchment to Dumbledore, including the makers and his suspicion that it was providing Harry access to Hogsmeade, Lupin would have been forced to reveal that not only he but Sirius Black knew ways to get into the school and the grounds (and, ultimately, that Black was an Animagus). It's as if Snape and Lupin together are keeping Harry from knowing the truth about Sirius Black's closeness to his father. Snape mentions "the Prank" and James's friends, but he doesn't identify Lupin and Black as participants or give away that it involved a werewolf. They are definitely talking over Harry's head; both know exactly who "the manufacturers" were, but Snape in essence covers for Lupin--*and* gives it "back" to him! (Does Snape hope that Lupin will confess that he's one of the manufacturers or that Harry will figure it out? Does he hope that Lupin will keep the parchment out of Harry's hands or does he figure that the harm is already done since Harry knows how to get into Hogsmeade and he (snape) might as well return the parchment to its maker since he has no claim on it himself?) Carol, admitting that Snape is wrong to bring up Harry's father (whom he understandably hates) but finding him a complexly fascinating character all the same From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 21:01:54 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:01:54 -0000 Subject: HBP. Killing DD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181623 -zgirnius: > I don't think it was as simple as your last suggestion, for a couple of reasons. First, the situation had not reached the point where someone else was clearly stepping forward to do it. And second, Dumbledore's tone of voice truly frightened Harry, which I think reflects genuine fear/concern by Dumbledore, not annoyance that Snape is dawdling (which he hardly is, havign just shown up). > > Having read DH, we now know that the argument in the Forest, which occured many months after Snape agreed to Dumbledore's plan, was about several things including Snape's reluctance to go through with the plan. "Maybe I don't was to do it anymore" (paraphrase) was about killing Dumbledore. > > Further, Dumbledore tried to shore up Snape's sense of being trusted by him by telling him about the soul bit in Harry, a piece of news Snape did not accept all that gracefully either. In fact, we are never shown Snape agreeing to pass the message on to Harry. So I think Dumbledore was in some doubt what Snape would choose, and also may have been asking in part, for Snape to remember and stick with, the whole plan - kill him, and then protect the students, and then wait for the right time to tell Harry about the soul bit. > > The first step was crucial - if Snape failed to kill Dumbledore, he might not be alive to do the rest. > Carol responds: I agree with most of what you said, except that Snape does hesitate. Dumbledore speaks his name softly, almost pleadingly, and Snape meets his eyes, gets that terrible expression on his face that Harry reads as hatred, but still doesn't raise his wand until Dumbledore literally begs him: "Severus, please . . ." I read the desperation in DD's voice as fear that the Unbreakable Vow will kick in and Snape will be dead, ending what's left of Dumbledore's plan. I also think that he feared for both Draco and Harry if Snape died. He was counting on Snape to get the DEs off the tower, away from Harry, and to keep the provision of his vow that involved protecting Draco even after the task had been performed. Snape knew that DD wanted him to be the one to kill him, in part to protect Draco's soul and in part to prevent DD from a terrible death at the hands (teeth) of Greyback or a DE who would torture him before killing him. He knew that DD wanted him to maintain Voldemort's trust, protect the students once Hogwarts was taken over, and pass that crucial message to Harry when the moment arrived. And he knew the consequences of breaking the UV. So, at that moment, he had to decide whether he wanted to risk his own soul to carry out the plan or die with Dumbledore, almost certainly taking Harry and Draco with him and enabling Voldemort to win. It was a terrible decision, and the expression of hatred and revulsion shows how hard it was for him to make, as does the hellish agony on his face when Harry calls him a coward. In short, DD knew how important it was for Snape to kill him and kill him now. He was not afraid for Snape's soul, which he had more or less assured Snape would be unharmed if he killed him for the specified reasons; he certainly wasn't concerned for his own life, which was about to end one way or another; but he was terrified that his plan would fail. Snape's survival was as crucial as Harry's. Snape, OTOH, *was* concerned about his soul and clearly didn't want to "murder" DD, but he had nodded his assent to the plan, sworn to Narcissa that he would protect Draco and perform the deed if it seemed that Draco would fail, promised to protect Harry for Lily's sake, promised to protect the students, and promised to deliver the message. He was bound by his word of honor and by a vow that would kill him if he broke it. I think that maybe, in that last exchange of glances between two Legilimens, DD reminded him of just how much was at stake. IMO, time was of the essence. It wasn't just a matter of someone else killing DD and becoming master of the wand without knowing it (unlike Snape, who was giving him the death he chose). It was his desperate fear that the UV would kick in and Snape would die from it or be killed by the DEs if he tried to defend Dumbledore. Basically, his plea meant "Kill me now before it's too late!" Or that's how I read it. Carol, more or less agreeing with zgirnius but factoring in the UV as the main reason for DD's sense of urgency From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 22:06:48 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:06:48 -0000 Subject: POA Ch-5 - He forgot that he remembered. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181624 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > It was Hagrid who tamed the Thestrals, so I wonder how long they've > been used to haul the carriages? zanooda: I've just reread my calculations of the number of the Thestrals and realized that they cannot show how long they have been pulling the carriages, because we don't know when Hagrid started using them - only after he had enough of them for all the carriages or earlier. So it turns out I cannot answer this question ;-(. I admit that I've read your question rather absent-mindedly and somehow had it in my head that you asked how long it took Hagrid to breed his herd. Sorry :-)! From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 22:17:16 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:17:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: The Malfoys Message-ID: <20627.45826.qm@web56914.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181625 Edna: While reading DH, I sensed that the Malfoys may have regretted being involved with LV. They were afraid for Draco's life in HBP and they were very uncomfortable with LV in their home in DH. There was a suggestion that Lucius was probably feeling safe while in Azkaban. Narcissa risked her own life in the forest when she told LV that Harry was dead when he really wasn't. During the war at Hogwarts, Lucius and Narcissa's only concern was Draco. I think that even though the Malfoys were all for a new world where pure blood wizards ruled, they were not willing to give up their own family for it. They obviously loved each other very much, unlike Bellatrix, who said that if she'd had any children, she would gladly have given them up to the Dark Lord. I think that they were not disappointed in the end. They still had their family intact and happy to get on with their lives. They probably were glad that LV was truly dead. Edna Edna From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 22:24:09 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:24:09 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181626 Catlady wrote: > > In previous discussions, some listie pointed out that it was foolish of DD not to realise that he was setting Snape up to be killed by LV in LV's attempt to become master of the Elder Wand. If DD can lie after he's dead (in the 'King's Cross' chapter), maybe he did realise it. Carol responds: I don't think that JKR would have DD lie when she's tying up the loose ends of the plot. What would be the point and how could the reader know? I think we're supposed to take Dead!DD, who, after all, has nothing more to hide, at his word. He's telling Harry *everything* (at least, everything as JKR defines that word). And he says that Snape died because of a flaw in the plan. Also, DD was counting on Snape not only to take over as headmaster of Hogwarts and protect the students, aiding Harry along the way with details like the Sword of Gryffindor, but he also needed him to deliver that last message to Harry when Voldemort started protecting Nagini. He could not have expected Snape to be killed at that point because he needed Snape to be alive to deliver the message. And, of course, he could not have anticipated Snape's being bitten by Nagini in Harry's presence, which enabled Snape to deliver the message as he could not have done if he'd been AK'd. Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). Several things happened, aside from Draco's Expelliarmus, that living!DD could not have anticipated and Portrait!DD probably didn't know about. First, Lucius Malfoy's wand was destroyed when Harry's wand went off of its own accord, causing Voldemort to torture Ollivander for more information and sending him to hunt for the Elder Wand. Unless Snape knew what had happened, and I don't think he did, I don't see how Portrait!DD could have known about it. (The kids don't talk about it in front of Phineas Nigellus, either.) Nor could he have anticipated or known about Harry's dropping the portrait of Grindelwald at Bathilda's house, which eventually tipped off Voldemort as to the golden-haired thief's identity. Had it not been for those two unexpected incidents, Voldemort might never have gone off to hunt for the wand, or, if he did, he might have been stymied by the identity of the thief. As it was, he had time to obtain the wand and, ostensibly, time to realize that it wasn't working for him (even though it killed a lot of people and conjured Nagini's bubble; it didn't really stop being effective until Harry's willing self-sacrifice, which occurred after Snape's death--and because of Snape's message.) DD also set up a possible counter-measure by giving Harry the option of going after the Elder Wand himself, which, of course, would have prevented Snape's death, whatever the consequences for Harry. (Someone else can explore that if they're interested.) At any rate, I think the combination of DD's regret for "poor Severus," the implication that he wanted Snape to have the wand (but presumably not use it or be its master), the unexpected events that speeded up LV's hunt for the Elder Wand, and, especially, DD's need for Snape to deliver that message to Harry, which could only be done if he were alive, indicates to me that he didn't expect Snape to die. It would have been wise, however, for Portrait!DD to trust McGonagall with the secret of Snape's loyalties. Had Snape not been "sacked," he might have been able to talk to Harry in McGonagall's presence, asking him about the snake and then telling him about DD's message, if necessary via a Pensieve visit in McGonagall's presence. (I really don't know how DD expected Snape to deliver the message, but he couldn't have anticipated memories released from the mind of a dying Snape.) Anyway, DD probably counted on Harry finding the Horcruxes and LV putting Nagini under his protection before LV found the Elder Wand and discovered that he wasn't its master. He (DD) may have thought that Snape was safe as LV's trusted lieutenant (the DEs in general were rather short on brains) and that even if LV obtained the wand before the Horcruxes were destroyed and figured out that Snape was supposedly its master, he would remember that both Grindelwald and DD became master of the wand without killing the former master and merely Disarm him and perhaps keep his wand. Or DD might have assumed that Voldemort would not AK the supposed master of the wand for fear that the AK would rebound on the caster. (He certainly didn't anticipate death by Nagini as an alternative.) Alternatively, DD may have thought that the Elder Wand would lose its powers altogether if he died as he wished to, at the hand of Snape without the Expelliarmus from Draco interfering with the plan, in which case, LV would have found a useless stick in DD's grave and thought that it was a fake, that he'd been tricked. Snape, of course, was not present at DD's funeral and could not have had a hand in the "trick," so he would have been safe. Carol, who thinks that JKR's plot needs, not Dumbledore's plan, resulted in Snape's dying when (and how) he did From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 22:51:52 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:51:52 -0000 Subject: HBP. Killing DD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181627 > > -zgirnius: > > Dumbledore's tone of voice truly frightened Harry, which I > > think reflects genuine fear/concern by Dumbledore, > > > > Having read DH, we now know that the argument in the Forest, > > which occured many months after Snape agreed to Dumbledore's > > plan, was about several things including Snape's reluctance > > to go through with the plan. > > > > In fact, we are never shown Snape agreeing to pass the > > message on to Harry. So I think Dumbledore was in some doubt > > what Snape would choose, and also may have been asking in part, > > for Snape to remember and stick with, the whole plan - kill > > him, and then protect the students, and then wait for the right > > time to tell Harry about the soul bit. > > > > The first step was crucial - if Snape failed to kill Dumbledore, > > he might not be alive to do the rest. > Carol responds: > > I read the desperation in DD's voice as fear that the > Unbreakable Vow will kick in and Snape will be dead, > ending what's left of Dumbledore's plan. > > > > It was a terrible decision, and the expression of hatred and > revulsion shows how hard it was for him to make, > > Snape's survival was as crucial as Harry's. Mike: I'm sensing here a concensus that Dumbledore's pleadings were for Severus to follow through on the plan. You've both expressed the opinion that Dumbledore wasn't yet sure that Snape had agreed to the infamous plan. Yes, Carol, I think it was a difficult decision, but I don't think it was fear for his own soul. That seems to be resolved in favor of no murder, no tearing. Believe it or not, I think Snape was actually agonizing over whether he was going to agree to the killing of Lily's son. I know, me acknowledging a favorable reading of Snape's character, shocking, isn't it? But I'm giving Snape credit for being unconcerned for his own life or soul and being torn between his vow to protect Harry and Dumbledore's plan to get Harry killed. The irony is that by killing DD here, in accordance with DD's wishes, he was being put in the near impossible situation of trying to get Harry to believe him forevermore. So following this part of the plan made completing the last, key part of the plan as difficult as it could be. > Carol: > IMO, time was of the essence. It wasn't just a matter of someone > else killing DD and becoming master of the wand without knowing > it (unlike Snape, who was giving him the death he chose). Mike: This is the other part I wanted to address. Dumbledore has already been disarmed by Draco before Snape or the DEs get to the tower. So the passing of the Elder Wand to a new master has occurred, nothing Snape or the DEs can do about that now, short of killing Draco. At one time, I wondered if DD realized that Draco's Expelliarmus meant the mastership had passed to him, but I think even in his weakened state he would have realized the significance of being disarmed of the EW against his will. It appears that Snape was unaware of the Elder Wand part of the plan, iirc Dumbledore never told him that. In Dumbledore's defense, I doubt he could have predicted all the things that happened causing Voldemort to go in pursuit and to acquire the EW. I suppose DD feared that Snape would be tempted by the "Deathstick". Still, it was a quite nasty trick to play on Snape without giving him full disclosure. Aside: Did Harry's victory over Voldemort in the graveyard mean that Voldy's Fawkes-core wand transferred it's allegiance to Harry? Voldemort only *tried* to use that wand on Harry one time after that, and that AK was blocked by an Albus animated statue. If, instead, Harry had raised his own wand and tried an Expelliarmus, would he have gotten the same results he got at the end of DH? > Carol, more or less agreeing with zgirnius but factoring in the > UV as the main reason for DD's sense of urgency Mike, agreeing with both Zgirnius and Carol and wanting to add the Elder Wand into the equation From s.hayes at qut.edu.au Mon Feb 18 22:57:07 2008 From: s.hayes at qut.edu.au (Sharon Hayes) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:57:07 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] The Malfoys In-Reply-To: <20627.45826.qm@web56914.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3EBC8113FA09F449B6CC44C847E510911CE05EB876@QUTEXMBX02.qut.edu.au> No: HPFGUIDX 181628 Edna: While reading DH, I sensed that the Malfoys may have regretted being involved with LV. They were afraid for Draco's life in HBP and they were very uncomfortable with LV in their home in DH. There was a suggestion that Lucius was probably feeling safe while in Azkaban. Narcissa risked her own life in the forest when she told LV that Harry was dead when he really wasn't. During the war at Hogwarts, Lucius and Narcissa's only concern was Draco. I think that even though the Malfoys were all for a new world where pure blood wizards ruled, they were not willing to give up their own family for it. They obviously loved each other very much, unlike Bellatrix, who said that if she'd had any children, she would gladly have given them up to the Dark Lord. I think that they were not disappointed in the end. They still had their family intact and happy to get on with their lives. They probably were glad that LV was truly dead. Sharon: I agree completely. It is clear that the malfoys are very family-oriented in the last book. However, I wonder how things would have been if Lucius hadn't ended up in Azkaban. Voldemort was angry at him for botching the prophecy incident and so his family suffered for it. I wonder what would have happened had Lucius been successful in obtaining the prophecy. Voldemort would have been ecstatic and Lucius and his family probably would have basked in his good will. Of course, I still think that family would have come fist for them, but maybe they would have been more supportive of Voldemort. Just a thought. As it was, I think Lucius realised what a nutter and a megalomaniac Voldemort was after suffering his wrath, and how little importance he placed on loyalty. For Voldemort, performance is the measure of worth, not loyalty. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 01:30:33 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:30:33 -0000 Subject: ChapDisc: DH14, The Thief Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181629 This message is a Special Notice for all members of http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/HPforGrownups In addition to being published onlist (available in webview), this post is also being delivered offlist (to email in boxes) to those whose "Message Delivery" is set to "Special Notices." If this is problematic or if you have any questions, contact the List Elves at (minus that extra space) HPforGrownups- owner @yahoogroups.com Note: Doddie is the author of this ChapDisc, Mike only posted it ---------------------------------------------------------------- ChapDisc: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Chapter 14 - The Thief The Chapter opens with the Harry and Hermione coming to their senses after their narrow escape from the Ministry of Magic and the clutches of Yaxley. Harry realizes they are in a forest and at first mistakes it for the Forbidden Forest until he realizes the trees are too young and the forest not dense enough. Harry and Hermione crawl to toward a groaning, unconscious, bloodied Ron and discover that Ron has been Splinched. Hermione rips open Ron's shirt and asks Harry to retrieve Essence of Dittany from her bag. Harry begins to feel his way around in the bag, but uses magical means to retrieve the Dittany quickly. Hermione uses the Dittany on Ron's wound which heals significantly. Hermione knows spells which could heal him completely but fears using them may cause more damage. Harry then tries to make sense of how they ended up where they are and questions Hermione about it. Hermione explains that Yaxley had caught hold of her and managed to maintain his grip until they arrived at Grimmauld Place where she was finally able to dislodge from his grip using a revulsion jinx and apparate again. Harry then questions Hermione about whether or not Yaxley could enter Grimmauld Place and Hermione tearfully explains that he could as they had taken him inside the Fidelius Charm's protections. Harry imagines Yaxley bringing other DEs to the oppressive house that had been become a refuge for them and with Kreacher's new found happiness and friendliness, a home of sorts. Hermione apologizes to Harry and accepts the blame, before Harry waves her blame away and claims the fault as his own. Harry takes Moody's eye out of his pocket and shows Hermione while explaining that Umbridge had stuck it to her door and he couldn't leave it there, hence their detection at the ministry. Ron comes to, gray from loss of blood and sweating, and asks where they are. Hermione says they are in the woods where the Quidditch World Cup was held. Harry looks around and remembers that DEs had once been in these woods too and how quickly the DEs had found them the first time they Apparated to the first place Hermione had thought of. He wonders if Legilimency had been used. Harry senses Ron is thinking the same thing. Harry takes note of Ron's weakened condition and decides they should stay. Hermione begins placing protective enchantments on the area around them and sets Harry to retrieving the tent from her bag. Hermione erects the tent magically and places a final enchantment. Ron stops Hermione from using Voldemort's name as she attempts to explain her uncertainty about these charms being able to keep him out. Ron states that Voldemort's name is beginning to feel like a Jinx and asks Harry and Hermione to respect Voldemort. Harry and Hermione decide not to argue and get Ron moved into the tent. Once settled into the tent, which is exactly how Harry remembers it being, Hermione set about making tea while Ron wonders about the Cattermoles, expressing his concern. Harry looks towards Hermione to question her about wandless side along apparition and catches Hermione gazing at Ron tenderly. Harry interrupts by asking about the locket. Ron's surprised they managed to retrieve it and that no one had bothered to tell him. The Trio examine the locket and Hermione states that there'd be some sign of damage if it had been magically destroyed. Harry tells them that he thinks Kreacher was correct in his believing that the locket had to be opened before it could be destroyed. Harry is repulsed as he considers what is actually inside the locket and resists the urge to fling it away from him. All three attempt to open the locket to no avail. Ron is the first one to notice the locket seems alive, Harry feels it too. Harry decides they're going to keep it safe until they work out how to destroy it and reluctantly hangs the locket around his own neck. Hermione decides her and Harry should take turns keeping watch and she also goes out looking for wild mushrooms, which she ends up stewing in a billycan. Ron cannot eat them, but Harry manages to eat his in order to spare Hermione's feelings. As Harry stands watch he begins to consider the magnitude of the endeavor they have undertaken, and how little he actually knows. He notices that the locket remains cold against his skin, and he imagines he could feel a tiny heartbeat asynchronous with his own. He hears Hermione and Ron talking quietly behind him and begins to resent that they could walk away when he could not. His scar begins to prickle again, he tries to think of something else and settles on Kreacher, how he hoped Kreacher would be loyal to him and hopes that the DEs wouldn't torture Kreacher. He also talks about the Trio's decision not to summon him in case DEs would apparate with him. As Harry's Scar begins to burn he realized Lupin was right and becomes frustrated with DD's lack of explanation. He falls into the vision of Voldemort torturing Gregorovitch, and practicing Legilimency on him. In Gregorovitch's memories we see a workshop with a young man with golden hair perched on the window ledge who stunned Gregorovitch before jumping out of the window. Voldemort tries to find out who stole the item to no avail and ends by killing Gregorovitch. Harry comes to and tries unsuccessfully to convince Hermione it was a dream. Ron stops Hermione from using the Dark Lord's name again, and Hermione impresses upon Harry the importance of Occlumency. Harry begins to tell Hermione what he saw, but she interrupts and insists she take over the watch so Harry can rest. Once in bed, Ron questions Harry about what he saw and both wonder what could have been stolen, and what Voldemort could be looking for. Harry also notices that Voldemort doesn't question Gregorovitch about wandlore. Before falling to sleep Harry pictures the thief in his mind's-eye and realizes that he's seen him before but couldn't remember where. Questions: 1. Do you think the DEs ever made it into Grimmauld Place and past the Hallway enchantments? Do you think the additional enchantments in the hallway enabled Kreacher to escape? 2. Why did Ron Splinch during Hermione's side-along apparition? From where does Hermione learn about Essence of Dittany? Why do you think she is afraid to heal Ron completely with magic? 3. We learn that Hermione obtained the tent from Arthur Weasley; do you think he was the one who taught Hermione all the protection charms too, or do you think Hermione watched/learned from the Order members as they placed protective enchantments at the burrow? 4. Ron insists they no long call Voldemort by his name. Is this because he's frightened, some of the "Ron the seer" poking through, or has he been thinking? 5. Are you surprised that neither Harry nor Ron thinks of using Parseltongue to open the locket? What about the decision to wear the locket to "keep it safe" after noticing it seemed alive? 6. Hermione seems so prepared and put a great deal of thought into what they might need on their adventures. Do you think if she had involved Ron (or even Harry) more in her preparations, they may have packed some non-perishable food items, perhaps a wizarding wireless, and perhaps a few more things she may have overlooked? Is there anything else that they could have taken with them that would have helped? 7. Which were you more surprised to see, Ron's concern of the plight of the Cattermoles or Hermione's reaction to Ron's concern? 8. We see the beginnings of how the locket may affect the emotions of one who wears it. Do you think Harry, being a sort of Horcrux himself, is more susceptible to the locket, or has his being a Horcrux given him more strength and practice at fighting off the effects of the locket? 9. Looking back are you surprised that Voldemort didn't question Gregorovitch about wandlore? 10. The first time you read about the merry-faced golden-haired youngster hopping out a window, did you remember where Harry had glimpsed his face before? Doddie ------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: For more information on HPfGU's chapter discussions, please see "HPfGU DH Chapter Discussions" at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database Next Chapter Discussion, Chapter 15, The Goblin's Revenge, March 3 From kaleeyj at gmail.com Tue Feb 19 02:29:59 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:29:59 -0000 Subject: Owls In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181630 > > Mike: > > So, do you think they charge by distance of delivery, size or > speed of > > the owl chosen, size of the package, or chance that the owl may > > encounter difficulties along the way? Maybe, like Alla brought > up, > > it's by how smart the owl is you choose to make the delivery. > > > > > Alla: > > Well, I am speculating based on this quote from chapter 22 that > sometimes smaller owls are smarter and able to figure out directions > better maybe? > > I mean, no question that the larger owls are stronger, sort of > obvious, yes? I was wondering about the intelligence. > > > "It felt like a very fluffy Snitch. He brought it carefully inside. > The owl dropped its letter onto Harry's seat and began zooming > around their apartment, apparently very pleased with itself for > accomplishing its task. Hedwig clicked her beak with the sort of > dignified disapproval. > > ***************** > ***************** > > I have some doubt about this owl's reliability, but he is the best I > could find, and he did seem eager for the job" - p.315 > Bex: Actually the question Alla posed originally was "is there a correlation between an owl's size, and its intelligence?" I expect that the charges are based on location of delivery, package weight, and how fast the delivery needs to be made (like UPS, but no brokerage fees). But of course, if you send something to someone when you don't know where they are... oooh, that could get sticky. Perhaps they have a meter? Your Gringotts account is billed upon the owl's return? I assumed that the smallest owls were chosen for local deliveries strictly because of endurance - obviously a stronger, larger owl would need fewer breaks, and would be able to fly further in the same amount of time. I don't see any particular correlation between size and smarts. Hedwig finds Sirius just as easily as Pig and the school owls do when he's on the run in GoF. I still wonder how someone can veil themselves from owls, as Sirius must have done in PoA. ~Bex From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 02:45:10 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:45:10 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181631 Mike: > > But these aren't simply Latin words, they are incantations to cause magic to happen. As an incantation they cause an action and that action can vary by other factors, including intent, aim (what the curse hits), magically ability of the caster, and compatibility of the wand, to name a few. What I'm trying to say is that translation is not enough to define Harry's Crucio as torture, imo. Nor is the fact that it translates as torture mean that it was used to torture, again imo. > > > a_svirn: > Yes it is. It means torture and is used for torture. By Harry in this instance. Intent, aim and the ability of the caster all have their place in the grand scheme of things, but neither of those things > alters the fact that Crucio is the torture curse. Harry used the torture curse with the express intent to punish ? which is what torture is about. He also indicated that he meant it this time around, so we can be reasonably certain that his intent was torture. Carol responds: Don't faint, a_svirn. I agree with you. JKR chose the name of the Cruciatus Curse and its incantation, Crucio ("I torture") carefully, IMO. For readers who are alert to etymology, the words call to mind such related terms as "excruciating" and "crucify." A bit of etymology: Main Entry: ex?cru?ci?ate Etymology: Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare, from ex- + cruciare to crucify, from cruc-, crux cross I'm pretty sure that JKR was aware of this derivation, her etymology being considerably better than her math and science. Harry knows quite well what the Cruciatus Curse feels like, and it is not mere pain like, say, his broken arm in CoS or his broken nose in HBP or even his bleeding hand in OoP (though that, perhaps, come close to torture, administered as it is by the sadistic Umbridge). I'm going to quote the narrator's description of two Crucios, one administered by Voldemort and one by a DE, probably Amycus Carrow (Harry thinks it's Snape): "It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end . . . to black out . . . to die" (GoF Am. ed. 658, ellipses in original). "Before he could finish this jinx, excruciating pain hit Harry; he keeled over in the grass. Someone was screaming, he would surely die of this agony, Snape was going to torture him to death or madness" (HBP Am. ed. 603). Snape, of course, *stops* the agony rather than causing it. But note, in this second passage especially, "agony," "excruciating," "torture." In the first passage, he wants to die; in the second, he thinks he'll die of the pain or be driven, like the Longbottoms from prolonged use of the same curse, into insanity. Pain, yes, but excruciating pain beyond anything that Harry, who already knows what pain is, has experienced. He has also seen other people Crucio'd, notably Avery in the graveyard, heard them screaming and seen them writhing on the ground, not in mere pain but in the same agony that he himself has suffered. In OoP, after the Crucios that he receives from Voldemort in the graveyard (I didn't quote the second one, but it's on page 661 of the American edition of GoF and involves "white-hot knives piercing every inch of his skin"), Harry responds to Ron's remark about Voldemort's "weapon, " Maybe it's some particularly painful way of killing people" with "He's got the Cruciatus Curse for causing pain. He doesn't need anything more efficient than that" (OoP Am. ed. 100). "Pain" here means excruciating pain of the type described in the previous paragraphs. IOW, it's synonymous with torture. If Harry (or Snape or Narcissa or any other witch or wizard) wants to cause someone ordinary pain, as opposed to torturing them, they can quite efficiently throw a stinging hex (or whatever the spell is that Snape uses on Harry right before Buckbeak chases him off the Hogwarts grounds in HBP). But Voldemort doesn't need a means of torturing people. He has one already, the Cruciatus Curse. Mike: > > I never said that Harry doesn't "mean it", I did say that I thought Harry fully intended to hurt Amycus, and hurt him badly. It just doesn't rise to the level of torture for me. > > a_svirn: > Well, to "hurt badly" in order to punish means torture. Carol: I agree with a_svirn. "Hurt badly" and "torture" are the same thing here. Harry has had a lesson in casting this curse from the sadist who, with her friends or followers, Crucio'd the Longbottoms into insanity. She has told him that he has to *mean* it. "You need to really want to cause pain--to enjoy it--righteous anger won't hurt me for long" (810). If he wants his victim to writhe and shriek with pain as Neville did when Bellatrix Crucio'd him rather than scream and get back on his or her feet as Bellatrix did when Harry tried to Crucio her, he has to mean it and enjoy it and want to cause (excruciating) pain. While I'm at it, here's a definition of "torture": 1 a: anguish of body or mind : agony b: something that causes agony or pain 2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure I'd say that definition 2, inflicting intense pain to punish, coerce or afford sadistic pleasure, fits the Cruciatus Curse exactly. As its name indicates, it was designed to torture, and that's exactly how its used in every successful instance that we see. (It clearly doesn't work well as a weapon in a duel, as both Harry and Draco demonstrate.) Voldemort uses it to punish and to satisfy his sadism; Bellatrix and Co. used it as a means of coercion on the Longbottoms and for sadistic pleasure on Neville; Umbridge intneded to use it for coercion and sadistic pleasure on Harry; Amycus (or perhaps Alecto or Thorfinn Rowle) used it on Harry for pure sadistic pleasure. Harry is not in good company here. While his victim (whom he doesn't even know and has only seen once before) certainly deserves a taste of his own medicine, the problem is that the medicine requires sadism--meaning to cause pain and enjoyment of that pain--to administer successfully (as Harry knows: "Bellatrix was right. You have to mean it"). And he knows exactly what a Cruciatus Curse feels like. It is not simple pain. It is burning, tearing, agony that causes people's eyes to roll up inside their heads as they writhe, shrieking, on the ground. Lest you argue that Harry's Crucio, which somehow, uncharistically, lifted Amysus off the ground, had no such effect, here's the description: "He *writhed* through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain" before his cries were stopped by hitting a bookcase and being knocked insensible (593). As Harry says that he sees what Bellatrix meant, the blood is "thundering through his brain." He meant that curse, and he knew what Amycus was feeling, and he feels not the tiniest drop of remorse for his "gallantry." (It's one of those moments when all I can do is shake my head in wonder that JKR evidently sees nothing wrong here, nothing inconsistent with the system of morality that she has previously established. My only consolation, or hope, is that Snape's Pensieve memories, in particular the one in which he criticizes DD for sending Harry as a "pig to the slaughter," and the subsequent decision to sacrifice himself for love of his friends and the WW, removed all traces of sadism from Harry--that and the death of the soul bit, the bit of Voldemort in Harry. And here's a thought. If the drop of Harry's blood in Voldemort could give him the chance for remorse, maybe the bit of Voldie!soul in Harry made him seek or desire revenge, first against Sirius Black, then against Snape, and then, briefly, against Amycus Carrow, a stand-in for Voldemort and the DEs in general. And, of course, he intended to kill Voldemort out of revenge for the deaths of his parents and others that he loved; Snape's Pensieve memory changed that goal, and Harry, still bearing the soul bit inside his scar, chose not revenge but his own death. Maybe that was the end of his desire to inflict pain, to be like Voldemort, as well as the end of his desire for revenge. Until and unless JKR tells me otherwise, I choose to believe that Harry's ill-chosen act of vengeance or retribution on Amycus Carrow was his last Unforgiveable Curse. Oh, and, Mike: Thanks for your kind words on Snape's motivation on the tower. I didn't mean to sound as if he was solely concerned for his soul, but I did think it was one of his concerns. I like your nobler description of his motivation better. :-) On a completely unrelated note (but I have to keep to the five post limit!), Alla quoted from PoA: "Yes, indeed," said Lupin. " It took them the best part of three years to work out how to do it. ******** Finally , in our fifth year, they managed it. They could each turn into a different animal at will." - p.259 Alla: > So wait, does it mean that they started to try [to become Animagi] in their second year? Carol responds: Oh, dear, maths! By my calculations, they would have started early in their *third* year and continued through the entire fourth year and most of the fifth, until about March or so. Certainly, they'd had at least one full moon run by mid-May of their fifth year (SWM), probably about a week before when they pulled the so-called Prank. I'm guessing that wasn't their first time. They've been doing it long enough for Sirius to wish for a full moon (unlike Remus) and for Sirius to know that they'll be safe from the werewolf (and Severus won't be). At any rate, all or nearly all of the third year, all of the fourth year, and, say, seven or eight months of their fifth year would add up to "the best part of three [school] years." Going back to second year would make it *more than* three years. (I read "the best part of" as somewhere between "more than half" and "nearly all.") Carol, who can't believe how much time she's spent composing this post and hopes it's worth the effort! From kaleeyj at gmail.com Tue Feb 19 03:00:31 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:00:31 -0000 Subject: PoA ch 11-13 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181632 > Mike: > First Lupin explains what they are: > > > > "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. > > They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and > > despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air > > around them." > > "The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the > > very things that the dementor feeds upon -- hope, happiness, the > > desire to survive -- but it cannot feel despair, as real humans > > can, so the dementor can't hurt it." > > > > I guess dementors feed on brain waves or something like psychic > > energy. That soul sucking thing doesn't seem to do anything for > > *them*. Since soul sucking leaves the victim with no memories, no > > anything , those victims won't have anything that the > > dementors feed upon. In fact, since we were told that dementors > > breed, soul sucking must not make new dementors, either. > > Pippin: > Actually, it may be that dementors need to suck souls in order to > breed new dementors, just like mosquitoes have to feed on blood in > order lay eggs. Bex: I don't want to think about Dementors breeding, thank you very much. Pippin: > If the adult dementor feeds on positive thoughts then IMO the > patronus is like a diet soda. It tastes good but contains no > nourishment. Therefore, attempting to feed on a patronus weakens > the dementor, just as humans would grow weak living on > Diet Cokes, and the patronus can then chase it away. > Bex: I LOVE it - "the patronus is like diet soda." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I always thought that the Dementor sucked away the happy thoughts and feelings, feeding off the sadness and despair left over. The deep rattling breath was them pulling all the happiness out of the room - but it takes some effort. (Like the orange rind and the orange). A patronus is nothing but a big orange rind with no meat inside. The dementor tries to pull the happiness away, but it just keeps pulling - it never finds anything to feed on, so it gets weaker, until it finally gives up. That explains very neatly why Dementors are attracted to Harry and why they would hang around Azkaban - if they fed on happy thoughts, they wouldn't stay at the prison for more than a few days. Of course, the beginning scene in OotP (Dudley Demented), where the Patronus can actually physically throw a dementor sort of disables that theory. ~Bex From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Feb 19 12:06:51 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:06:51 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in spellcasting (WAS: Re: Blowing his cover) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181633 > Carol responds: > Oh, dear, maths! By my calculations, they would have started early in > their *third* year and continued through the entire fourth year and > most of the fifth, until about March or so. Certainly, they'd had at > least one full moon run by mid-May of their fifth year (SWM), probably > about a week before when they pulled the so-called Prank. Potioncat: I agree with all your reasons, but that only gives them May and June to have gone out. And at that, the June trip wouldn't have been long ago. Sirius is already bored. (Oh, forget that one. He was probably bored as soon as he woke up the next morning.) I think they started during their 2nd year. I'll pick Novemember just as an example. By September or October of 5th year, they've managed it. That gives them more time to have been adventuring and to be so comfortable with their nicknames they use them carelessly. > > Carol, who can't believe how much time she's spent composing this post > and hopes it's worth the effort! Potioncat: Well, even if no one responds to a post, putting forth the effort is better than BINGO, keeps the mind active, and prevents wasting time on housework. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 12:39:47 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:39:47 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181634 > Carol: > > I don't think that JKR would have DD lie when she's tying up the loose > ends of the plot. What would be the point and how could the reader > know? I think we're supposed to take Dead!DD, who, after all, has > nothing more to hide, at his word. He's telling Harry *everything* (at > least, everything as JKR defines that word). And he says that Snape > died because of a flaw in the plan. a_svirn: Ah, but it is the Dead Dumbledore *inside Harry's head*. He didn't tell Harry anything Harry hadn't already known. And naturally Harry would prefer to think it was merely a flaw in the plan, rather than deliberate sacrifice of one of Dumbledore's chess pieces. > Carol: > Also, DD was counting on Snape not only to take over as headmaster of > Hogwarts and protect the students, aiding Harry along the way with > details like the Sword of Gryffindor, but he also needed him to > deliver that last message to Harry when Voldemort started protecting > Nagini. a_svirn: Then again, those two aims are somewhat conflicting, aren't they? To help Harry Snape had to maintain his position as a headmaster, and to do so he had to be exactly the headmaster Voldemort needed. He gave the Carrows free reign in Hogwarts, at all events. Granted, he did seem to have saved Ginny and Co. (Though that was, after all in his best interests, since otherwise one or both of the Carrows would have interrogated her.) > Carol: He could not have expected Snape to be killed at that point > because he needed Snape to be alive to deliver the message. And, of > course, he could not have anticipated Snape's being bitten by Nagini > in Harry's presence, which enabled Snape to deliver the message as he > could not have done if he'd been AK'd. a_svirn: That part of the plan doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Suppose Snape confronted Harry and told him about Dumbledore instructions. Would Harry believe one single word of it? Would he even listen to Dumbledore's murderer? I should think he'd AK him without further ado. And tell afterwards that he really meant it. And no one would blame him, not even Snape, for how could he (or anyone else) be sure about Snape loyalties? How would anyone expect him to give Snape benefit of the doubt once Snape killed Dumbledore? > Carol: > Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV > discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is > unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and > destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder > Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, > BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). a_svirn: That explanation doesn't really work when you consider that he did everything in his power to distract Harry from the Horcrux Hunt. > Carol: > At any rate, I think the combination of DD's regret for "poor > Severus," a_svirn: That particular regret sounds to me startlingly like Voldemort's, "I regret it." > Carol: the implication that he wanted Snape to have the wand (but > presumably not use it or be its master), a_svirn: Then why have it at all? It seems to be a dangerous possession even at best of times. To have it without using it would be like walking around with a big target painted on your back. Carol: the unexpected events that > speeded up LV's hunt for the Elder Wand, and, especially, DD's need > for Snape to deliver that message to Harry, which could only be done > if he were alive, indicates to me that he didn't expect Snape to die. a_svirn: And yet had he been alive, Harry would have not been likely to listen to him. > Carol, who thinks that JKR's plot needs, not Dumbledore's plan, > resulted in Snape's dying when (and how) he did a_svirn: The distinction between the two is somewhat elusive, I'd say. a_svirn, who hasn't stayed in the agreement with Carol for long. From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 17:09:39 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:09:39 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181635 > Catlady wrote: > > > > In previous discussions, some listie pointed out that it was foolish > of DD not to realise that he was setting Snape up to be killed by LV > in LV's attempt to become master of the Elder Wand. If DD can lie > after he's dead (in the 'King's Cross' chapter), maybe he did realise it. > > Carol responds: > > I don't think that JKR would have DD lie when she's tying up the loose > ends of the plot. What would be the point and how could the reader > know? I think we're supposed to take Dead!DD, who, after all, has > nothing more to hide, at his word. He's telling Harry *everything* (at > least, everything as JKR defines that word). And he says that Snape > died because of a flaw in the plan. Montavilla47: I may have been one of the listies to point this out, since it seems absurdly short-sighted not to consider the possibility that Voldemort would seek the Elder Wand and trace it to Snape. Carol: > Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV > discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is > unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and > destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder > Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, > BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). Montavilla47: Certainly, it took Harry a long time to find those darn Horcruxes. However, it took Dumbledore even longer. If he had been searching since the diary dropped into his lap, it took him four years to locate two Horcruxes. (Or one-and-a-half.) Tedious as Harry's quest was, he did manage to find two-and-a- half Horcruxes within a year. Perhaps it was overconfidence on Dumbledore's part that he never thought to look for a Horcrux within Hogwarts itself. Seems very silly, though, that Dumbledore didn't use his connections to search the vaults of Voldemort's most zealous supporters. Carol: > Several things happened, aside from Draco's Expelliarmus, that > living!DD could not have anticipated and Portrait!DD probably didn't > know about. First, Lucius Malfoy's wand was destroyed when Harry's > wand went off of its own accord, causing Voldemort to torture > Ollivander for more information and sending him to hunt for the Elder > Wand. Unless Snape knew what had happened, and I don't think he did, I > don't see how Portrait!DD could have known about it. (The kids don't > talk about it in front of Phineas Nigellus, either.) Montavilla47: I think Snape might have noticed Lucius walking around without a wand, or Voldemort seething about the incident and *not* commandeering anyone else's wand. Carol: >Nor could he have > anticipated or known about Harry's dropping the portrait of > Grindelwald at Bathilda's house, which eventually tipped off Voldemort > as to the golden-haired thief's identity. Had it not been for those > two unexpected incidents, Voldemort might never have gone off to hunt > for the wand, or, if he did, he might have been stymied by the > identity of the thief. Montavilla47: Which makes sense unless you consider that Grindelwald was the greatest dark lord before Voldemort, an international baddie, and his image should have been quite familiar. The photograph was taken when he was 17 or 18 and he was probably older when he stole the wand--thus even closer to what he'd look like as an adult. It was Voldemort who had the extreme makeover as he became a dark lord and the mysterious origins. Not Grindelwald. Did Voldemort never pick up a biography of the guy he was succeeding? Carol: >As it was, he had time to obtain the wand and, > ostensibly, time to realize that it wasn't working for him (even > though it killed a lot of people and conjured Nagini's bubble; it > didn't really stop being effective until Harry's willing > self-sacrifice, which occurred after Snape's death--and because of > Snape's message.) Montavilla47: Incidently, Snape chose to sacrifice himself rather than blow his cover. I wonder if that might have had something to do with subsequent ineffectiveness of the wand? Maybe Snape created a little blood protection of his own? (Not that anyone there was related to him--but he was Hogwarts' "protector.") Carol: > DD also set up a possible counter-measure by giving Harry the option > of going after the Elder Wand himself, which, of course, would have > prevented Snape's death, whatever the consequences for Harry. (Someone > else can explore that if they're interested.) Montavilla47: A smarter counter-measure might have been to put a request in his will to snap his wand (as was done for Odo). Or to will it to one of the Order members and then leave a note for them to go into hiding immediately. And, really, what was the point of wanting Snape to have the wand if it didn't have any power? Or if he didn't leave any instructions about that? Or tell Snape when he became a portrait? Was the plan for Snape to actually defeat DD and get the power of the wand, which might help him stay alive in case Voldemort did try to kill him? See, that might be a good plan. And it would mean that it did get messed up when Draco disarmed Dumbledore, and it would explain why Portrait!Dumbledore doesn't tell Snape to go claim the wand. And all that really requires is for Harry to out and out lie about what Dumbledore's plan really was. Which, I suppose, could be the case, since what Harry says doesn't make sense. Carol: > It would have been wise, however, for Portrait!DD to trust McGonagall > with the secret of Snape's loyalties. Had Snape not been "sacked," he > might have been able to talk to Harry in McGonagall's presence, asking > him about the snake and then telling him about DD's message, if > necessary via a Pensieve visit in McGonagall's presence. (I really > don't know how DD expected Snape to deliver the message, but he > couldn't have anticipated memories released from the mind of a dying > Snape.) Montavilla47: Yes, that would have made a lot of sense. Once Snape was installed as the Headmaster, McGonagall was pretty safe from Voldemort and unlikely to hauled in for questioning. I'm sure she could have pulled off the deception in front of the Carrows. They don't seem very bright. > > Carol, who thinks that JKR's plot needs, not Dumbledore's plan, > resulted in Snape's dying when (and how) he did Montavilla47, Who agrees, but indulges in blaming Dumbledore when she's feeling cranky. From finwitch at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 18:21:08 2008 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:21:08 -0000 Subject: Character discussion. Weird Harry. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181636 To start discussing several characters in the books, now that we have all seven to go on... How would they (Harry, Dursleys, Hogwarts staff etc.) react to, for example a) blind Harry b) deaf Harry c) mute Harry (could be psychological muteness) d) Harry with Tourette's e) depressed or manic-depressive (mental) Harry (I'm surprised he remained sane under Dursleys' "care", myself). f) epilectic Harry g) diabetic Harry h) allergic/asthmatic Harry i) something else... IF Dursleys cared enough, there would be treatment/medication. I just doubt they would, meaning that diabetic Harry would die, possibly the allergic one too... Finwitch From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 19:32:28 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:32:28 -0000 Subject: ChapDisc: DH14, The Thief In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181637 Questions: 1. Do you think the DEs ever made it into Grimmauld Place and past the Hallway enchantments? Do you think the additional enchantments in the hallway enabled Kreacher to escape? Carol: Since the enchantments were aimed at Snape, I don't think that the DEs would have any trouble getting past them after the first heart-thumping scare. One of them would have thought to say, "We didn't kill 'im, yer barmy old codger!" (Sorry. That's what Amycus would say, but Yaxley could convey the same sentiments in better English.) FWIW, I think that Snape could get past them, too, but he's not involved here so it doesn't matter. As for Kreacher, I think he could easily Apparate out of harm's way, directly to Hogwarts, where Harry once ordered him to go, making sure that he didn't take a DE with him (just as Dobby escaped Harry's hold in the Hogwarts hospital wing in CoS). I don't think that any additional enchantments were needed to enable Kreacher to leave 12 GP. We saw him do just that in "Kreacher's Tale" or the following chapter. 2. Why did Ron Splinch during Hermione's side-along apparition? From where does Hermione learn about Essence of Dittany? Why do you think she is afraid to heal Ron completely with magic? Carol: I think that Ron Splinched because he wasn't expecting Hermione to shift their destination and was focusing on 12 GP (trying to get to the place she was trying to get away from). it's a wonder that Harry wasn't Splinched, too. (I was surprised by the blood and the pain, BTW. I don't remember anything of the sort in HBP with Susan Bones.) *Harry* knew about Dittany as a cure for scarring because Snape told Draco to ask Madam Pomfrey for it after the Sectumsempra incident. Maybe Harry told Hermione about that. However, dittany seems suddenly to have become a way of stopping the bleeding, whereas in HBP, DD stops ordinary bleeding with a simple nonverbal spell and Snape uses his complex chanted countercurse to stop the bleeding and heal the wounds caused by the Dark Magical spell Sectumsempra. Splinching isn't Dark Magic, of course, so maybe it can be partially cured (the bleeding stopped and the skin healed) with Dittany, but I picture Ron as still having a chunk of muscle missing because Hermione is afraid to use the spells which, if used correctly, would heal him completely. It's odd that nothing more is mentioned about Ron's injury not healing properly. IMO, it's a shame that Hermione didn't attempt the spells and find that she could do them. Maybe they would have helped Snape. (I'm trying to remember whether she uses them on Harry after Nagini bites him. I don't think we find out because Harry is unconscious or nearly so after Hermione gets him back to the tent.) As for why she's afraid, I'm sure that she thinks she might do more harm than good if she does them wrong. Remember Harry's arm when Lockhart tries to mend the broken bone in CoS? 3. We learn that Hermione obtained the tent from Arthur Weasley; do you think he was the one who taught Hermione all the protection charms too, or do you think Hermione watched/learned from the Order members as they placed protective enchantments at the burrow? Carol: Neither. I think that Hermione learned her protective charms the same way she learns everything else, by reading. And she wouldn't be afraid to test protective charms the way she would with injury-healing charms. (Of course, one of the charms, Muffliato, is straight from the HBP.) 4. Ron insists they no long call Voldemort by his name. Is this because he's frightened, some of the "Ron the seer" poking through, or has he been thinking? Carol: I think it's his intuition. He senses that the name is jinxed, and he's right. I also think, though I know that Catlady disagrees with me, that a similar jinx may have been used in VW1, which resulted in people fearing to speak Voldemort's name. Otherwise, silly nicknames like You Know Who, Lord Thingy, and even the pompous He Who Must Not Be Named (shades of Ryder Haggard's She Who Must Be Obeyed) are inexplicable. Sensible people like Mr. Weasley would speak the name if there were no reason to fear it. (DD, Sirius Black, Lupin, and a few others speak it after Voldemort is vaporized, and maybe it was always safe to do so at Hogwarts with DD there, but I don't know whether anyone except DD spoke it when Voldemort was in power the first time.) Alternatively, LV could have gotten the idea for the jinx from the widespread fear of his name. Why not give them a *reason* to fear it? In any case, I don't think that Ron has been thinking. He's not the reasoning type. He just senses that it's dangerous to say the name (as he has always believed, in any case), and it turns out that he's right. 5. Are you surprised that neither Harry nor Ron thinks of using Parseltongue to open the locket? What about the decision to wear the locket to "keep it safe" after noticing it seemed alive? Carol: I'm not surprised that Ron doesn't, but you'd think that Harry would recall his experience with Diary!Tom in his second year, especially since he now knows that the diary was a Horcrux. Maybe the locket has the effect of making his thinking less clear as well as causing a kind of hopelessness and fear. Its effect on Ron, of course, is to make him irritable, selfish, and ungrateful (not to mention secretly jealous) though we don't see that in this chapter because Ron hasn't worn the Horcrux yet. He's not a hinker, though, and hasn't shown any potential as a leader yet. He's also ill from the Splinching. If anyone should have thought of Parseltongue, it would be Hermione, but she wasn't present for the opening of the CoS, so I suppose that excuses her. As for the decision to wear the locket (shades of the One Ring), I think it was totally stupid. Why couldn't they keep it in an inside pocket of a robe or jacket, or better yet, in Hermione's little bag? (Maybe because you can't Accio a Horcrux?) For that matter, wouldn't it fit in Hagrid's mokeskin pouch? I do understand why they didn't want one person to wear the locket all the time, but wearing it at all when they know it to be Voldemort's Horcrux and when they know it affects their mood and their ability to think clearly seems reckless. Ah, but they're Gryffindors. Got it. 6. Hermione seems so prepared and put a great deal of thought into what they might need on their adventures. Do you think if she had involved Ron (or even Harry) more in her preparations, they may have packed some non-perishable food items, perhaps a wizarding wireless, and perhaps a few more things she may have overlooked? Is there anything else that they could have taken with them that would have helped? Carol: Ron did pack a wizarding wireless, didn't he? At least he has one when he returns from his time away. And whatever happened to Harry's magical razor that he got for his birthday? He and Ron could have used that when they had nothing better to do. (Did they have soap, I wonder? The tent has a bathroom.) But nonperishable food seems so obvious that I don't understand why Hermione would forget to pack it. she packed teabags, after all. And, to answer your question, I do think that Ron would have said something like "Books? What do we need books for? what about food?" Other than food and toiletries (soap, shampoo, etc.) I can't think of anything they would need. Hermione can probably magically mend ripped clothing; if not, a needle and thread wouldn't hurt. Maybe some form of entertainment that wasn't likely to burn the tent down, but maybe they didn't want to forget their danger or their mission. And, of course, they didn't know the camping trip would last so very long. 7. Which were you more surprised to see, Ron's concern of the plight of the Cattermoles or Hermione's reaction to Ron's concern? Carol: Hermione's reaction, I suppose. She's only shown tenderness once before that I can recall, in HBP after Ron was poisoned. Since Ron had quite literally been in Reg Cattermole's shoes, identifying with him and fearing for Cattermole's wife's predicament (even accidentally referring to her as "my wife"), I wasn't surprised by his concern at all. Before the MoM incident, he cared about Hermione's danger as a Muggle-born, but I don't think he cared much about other Muggle-borns except in a generalized, abstract way. Now, thanks to the Cattermoles, the Muggleborns' predicament is more real to him and he cares about all of them, especially the Cattermoles, because he's experienced their plight. 8. We see the beginnings of how the locket may affect the emotions of one who wears it. Do you think Harry, being a sort of Horcrux himself, is more susceptible to the locket, or has his being a Horcrux given him more strength and practice at fighting off the effects of the locket? Carol: For some reason, it's Ron who's particularly susceptible to the locket, maybe because his feelings of jealousy and inadequacy are exactly the sort of thing that Tom Riddle liked to exploit. Harry's susceptibility appears to be to anger (though all we see in this chapter is hopelessness, exhaustion, and fear); Hermione seems to be able to shut out the locket's influence (*she* would have had no trouble learning Occlumency) until Ron leaves, at which point she gets weepy. But I'm getting ahead of the chapter, so al I'll say is that, no, I don't think Hary's relationship to the soul bit as a fellow Horcrux gives him any kind of immunity; it just affects him differently than it does Ron or Hermione because he has a different personality and different concerns. (They can, after all, go back if they want to. He can't.) 9. Looking back are you surprised that Voldemort didn't question Gregorovitch about wandlore? Carol: I'm not surprised now since he'd learned all that he thought he needed to know from Ollivander. Gregorovitch *might* haave been able to tell him about the deathly Hallows had he been given the opportunity. Then again, maybe, like Ollivander, all he knows is the history and properties of the Elder Wand. And all Voldemort cares about is possessing the Elder Wand. Gregorovitch might have told him that he needed to defeat the wand's master, in which case, Snape would have been in serious trouble. As it is, he's only concerned with identifying, finding, and no doubt killing the golden-haired thief. If only he'd never seen that photo, he'd have been stuck in that stage of a fruitless hunt! 10. The first time you read about the merry-faced golden-haired youngster hopping out a window, did you remember where Harry had glimpsed his face before? Carol: Oh, yes. I didn't know who he was, but I knew where Harry had seen his photograph. I remembered the golden curls and the gleeful, wild laughter. Funny, though; I don't think I connected him with Grindelwald despite Krum's rant on Grindelwald's symbol and Rita Skeeter's hints about the duel. Carol, thanking Doddie for an interesting summary and great questions! From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 20:41:55 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:41:55 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181638 a_svirn: > Ah, but it is the Dead Dumbledore *inside Harry's head*. He didn't > tell Harry anything Harry hadn't already known. And naturally Harry > would prefer to think it was merely a flaw in the plan, rather than > deliberate sacrifice of one of Dumbledore's chess pieces. > Carol responds: As Dead!Dumbledore tells Harry, Just because it's happening inside your head doesn't mean it isn't true. JKR is giving us the usual Dumbledore wrap-up, and I see no reason not to trust the information (even though we still have questions about exactly what DD intended and exactly how the wand worked, among others). I really don't think that DD planned Snape's death, primarily because Snape had to be alive to inform Harry that he had a soul bit in his scar and had to sacrifice himself. A dead man can't do that, and there was no way to anticipate his particular method of dying and transferring the memories to Harry, who just happened to be there. Obviously, DD expected a living snape to communicate with harry in some other way. Carol earlier: > > Also, DD was counting on Snape not only to take over as headmaster > of Hogwarts and protect the students, aiding Harry along the way with details like the Sword of Gryffindor, but he also needed him to deliver that last message to Harry when Voldemort started protecting Nagini. > > a_svirn: > Then again, those two aims are somewhat conflicting, aren't they? To > help Harry Snape had to maintain his position as a headmaster, and to > do so he had to be exactly the headmaster Voldemort needed. He gave > the Carrows free reign in Hogwarts, at all events. Granted, he did > seem to have saved Ginny and Co. (Though that was, after all in his > best interests, since otherwise one or both of the Carrows would have > interrogated her.) Carol again: I don't see a conflict. Snape is posing as a loyal DE so he can be appointed headmaster and maintain that position, meanwhile tricking Bellatrix into thinking that he's sending her the real Sword of Gryffindor, which he actually delivers to Harry a bit later. If a loyal DE were headmaster, McGonagall, Flitwick, and the other experienced teachers would be sent to Azkaban and replaced by DEs. So Snape is retaining competent staff members and turning a blind eye to any efforts on their part to restrain or undermine the Carrows (he knows what went on under Umbridge and no doubt expects the same thing under him). We see only one of his detentions, but he may have sent more kids than Ginny, Neville, and Luna to Hagrid. Just doing that enables the remaining three members of Harry's little gang to communicate with Hagrid. While the Carrows are in charge of detentions and their subjects are required, matters that Snape can do nothing about, he does have the authority to make them teach at the level of the students, and I doubt that any students under NEWT level are being taught the Unforgiveable Curses. (We only hear of Crabbe and Goyle actually casting them on other students.) The trains run as usual (it's not Snape's fault that DEs seized Luna on Platform 9 3/4), meals and other House-Elf services are provided as usual, Filch and Mrs. Norris and Peeves act as they always do, and, except for DADA (which has never been adequately taught except in Harry's third and sixth years) and Muggle Studies, the kids are being taught by the usual group of teachers, at least some of them highly competent. McGonagall is prowling the halls even when she's not on duty, and Snape has (deliberately?) encouraged rebellion by the remnant of the DA by reposting Umbridge's rule against student organizations. I almost forgot to mention that Snape forbade Ginny from going to Hogsmeade, knowing she'd be in danger there, and he closed up all the secret passageways (except the one from the ROR to the Hog's Head) so that DEs can't get in and students can't sneak out to Hogsmeade, where they'd be in danger. Conditions may be bad at Hogwarts thanks to the Carrows, but there are only two of them (and they're both pretty stupid). Imagine how much worse it would be if Travers or Yaxley were headmaster and brought in their DE friends to "teach" all the subjects. Macnair for COMC, for example, and Bellatrix for Transfiguration. IMO, Snape does the best he can under very difficult conditions. Under a loyal DE, they would have been much worse. (And, BTW, I don't think that the Carrows have "free rein" (note spelling). I think they're kept in check by McGonagall (and possibly, subtly, by Snape himself; Snape, being Snape, would be concerned about the students being prepared for their OWLs and NEWTs). If they truly had free rein, they'd be attacking the other teachers and controlling the curriculum, which clearly is not happening. (And even Amycus Carrow has managed to teach something useful actually related to DADA; Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco can all cast Disillusionment Charms, which must mean that all the seventh years have been taught that particular spell.) > Carol earlier: > He could not have expected Snape to be killed at that point because he needed Snape to be alive to deliver the message. And, of course, he could not have anticipated Snape's being bitten by Nagini in Harry's presence, which enabled Snape to deliver the message as he could not have done if he'd been AK'd. > > a_svirn: > That part of the plan doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Suppose > Snape confronted Harry and told him about Dumbledore instructions. > Would Harry believe one single word of it? Would he even listen to > Dumbledore's murderer? I should think he'd AK him without further > ado. And tell afterwards that he really meant it. And no one would > blame him, not even Snape, for how could he (or anyone else) be sure > about Snape loyalties? How would anyone expect him to give Snape > benefit of the doubt once Snape killed Dumbledore? Carol responds: I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but DD must have either had something in mind or trusted to Snape to find a way, no doubt involving his Patronus. Snape could, if necessary, Petrify Harry and force him to listen. I do wonder what DD (and JKR) had in mind, but a way could have been found. Ideally, Portrait!DD could confide in McGonagall and have her lead Harry to the Pensieve, where he would explore Snape's memory (or memories) in her presence. But I don't think that Harry would have killed Snape on sight. He had the opportunity to do so in "Flight of the Prince" and didn't do so then. Besides, Snape can easily outduel him. Anyway, Snape would have to tell him what really happened on the tower and prove it via the Pensieve, but it could have been done. (Ideas, anyone?) > Carol earlier: > > Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). > > a_svirn: > That explanation doesn't really work when you consider that he did > everything in his power to distract Harry from the Horcrux Hunt. Carol: But if Harry went after the Elder Wand, there wouldn't be a problem for Snape, would there? Voldemort wouldn't find the wand because Harry would have it, and he wouldn't know that he wasn't its master, so Snape would be in no danger. In any case, as I've said before, if Harry hadn't revealed his identity by using the Expelliarmus, which, in turn, led to Harry's wand going off and destroying Lucius Malfoy's wand, Voldemort wouldn't have set off when he did to find the Elder Wand. And if Harry hadn't accidentally provided Voldemort the identity of the golden-haired thief in Godric's Hollow, Voldemort's search would have been stymied. It might even have been possible for Harry to get the wand first and then get the Horcruxes. Voldemort would protect Nagini, Snape would somehow find that out and somehow communicate it to Harry without being in any danger because Harry would have the Elder Wand, and Harry would be protected by having all three Hallows. And, if Draco hadn't intervened, the wand would have lost its powers in any case. (Was it supposed to become an ordinary wand or a useless stick? The latter, I think.) > > > Carol: > > At any rate, I think the combination of DD's regret for "poor > > Severus," > > a_svirn: > That particular regret sounds to me startlingly like Voldemort's, "I > regret it." Carol: Then Dumbledore is evil and the villain of the piece. I don't think we're supposed to read him that way. Flawed, absolutely. Intelligent but not nearly as wise as he thought, absolutely. Unwilling to trust (despite Harry's view that he trusted too willingly), absolutely. A manipulator and puppetmaster, yes, but not absolutely since his "puppets," including Harry and Snape, had free will. And his plans, like all plans, were subject to error. But Snape's death cannot have been part of the plan. He was at risk, certainly, but he had been risking death for years. But the plan depended on his being alive. > Carol earlier: > the implication that he wanted Snape to have the wand (but presumably not use it or be its master), > > a_svirn: > Then why have it at all? It seems to be a dangerous possession even at best of times. To have it without using it would be like walking around with a big target painted on your back. Carol: Not necessarily. If the wand were stripped of its powers, Snape could just hand it to Voldemort (protecting himself if necessary with Occlumency) and tell him that he took it from the dead DD. (I think DD wanted to make some such arrangement with him in HBP before Draco showed up on the tower. He tried to send Harry for Snape at least twice.) But, yes, I do wonder what the plan was and what DD expected Snape to do with the wand. Send it to Harry, maybe? > > Carol: > the unexpected events that speeded up LV's hunt for the Elder Wand, and, especially, DD's need for Snape to deliver that message to Harry, which could only be done if he were alive, indicates to me that he didn't expect Snape to die. > > a_svirn: > And yet had he been alive, Harry would have not been likely to listen to him. Carol: Harry trusted the doe Patronus and knew that it had led him to the Sword of Gryffindor. And Harry listened to Sirius Black and Lupin in PoA. I think if he knew that Snape's Patronus was the doe, he would have listened. And Snape would have found a way. His plan to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor worked perfectly, after all. Carol, who thinks that the benevolent but flawed Dumbledore of "King's Cross" is both real (Harry is visiting the land of the dead in spirit) and truthful From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Feb 19 21:38:08 2008 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:38:08 -0000 Subject: Character discussion. Weird Harry. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181639 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "finwitch" wrote: Finwitch: > To start discussing several characters in the books, now that we have > all seven to go on... > > How would they (Harry, Dursleys, Hogwarts staff etc.) react to, for > example > > a) blind Harry > > b) deaf Harry > > c) mute Harry (could be psychological muteness) > > d) Harry with Tourette's > > e) depressed or manic-depressive (mental) Harry (I'm surprised he > remained sane under Dursleys' "care", myself). > > f) epilectic Harry > > g) diabetic Harry > > h) allergic/asthmatic Harry > > i) something else... > > IF Dursleys cared enough, there would be treatment/medication. I just > doubt they would, meaning that diabetic Harry would die, possibly the > allergic one too... Geoff: I am suffering a distinct feeling of d?j?-vu on reading your post because you tried to initiate a similar thread only about three weeks or so ago. That thread attracted very few responses but, at the risk of sounding rude, Finwitch, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this and I wonder why? Just as a reminder, I post the following extract from the thread "What if Harry had Tourette's?" Message 180964 posted 25/01/08 Finwitch: Imagine Harry having this syndrome since the age of one (say from the moment he got that scar), and worsening towards age eleven. What would happen? 1. Dursleys. Would they keep Harry and punish him for that as well as his accidental magic or give him up to an orphanage? 2. How would wizards react? Imagine a big tic with extreme coprolalia in the first potions class for example. I'm positive that Dumbledore knows of this syndrome and would identify it, but Snape? ***** Message 180980 posted 25/01/08 Geoff: A possible silly question. I am somewhat puzzled as to why you are considering the possiblity of Harry having this condition? What relevance has it got to the story line? ***** Message 181093 posted 28/01/08 Finwitch: Why? For the fun of speculating, what else? How would different characters react if Harry had a tic in front of them... Messsage 181098 posted 28/01/08 Geoff: Well, you just as well speculate that Harry had three legs or always wore a banana behind his left ear.... I quite agree that things are open to a little speculation but at least within the parameters of the story. Geoff (now in current time): Although I perhaps made some semi-humorous suggestions in the last post, the fact remains that we have not been told that Harry is Afro-Caribbean or Chinese; that he was much older than eleven when he had his wizarding epiphany; that he is actually a girl or that he is physically handicapped. I was making a serious point when I remarked that JKR would have needed to reveal any information or problems like this with Harry. It couldn't have been withheld because the outworkings would have influenced the story line and some of your suggestions would ahve produced a story completely different to the published one. There is a further observation to be made that speculation of this type is not canon-based and therefore doesn't strictly belong on Main. I believe that if you wanted to launch such a topic, it really belongs, if anywhere, on OT-Chatter, which has hosted a wide range of threads which are not necessarily rooted in canon. I have been spending a lot more time on OTC than on Main recently - and perhaps enjoying it more. Finally, if you want to consider the ramifications of Harry being, for example, blind or deaf, I've certainly come across fanfic which deals with this - and when you begin to put out from harbour into the sort of waters which you want to chart, perhaps the good ship "Fanfic" might be a suitably seaworthy vehicle. :-) From bboyminn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 22:21:52 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:21:52 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181640 --- "Mike" wrote: >... > >... > > > CJ > > > > then he has stepped beyond the role of soldier and elected > > himself judge, jury and executioner. > > Mike: > I disagree, Harry is fighting a known enemy in a war. The > war hadn't stopped simply because they were sheltered in > the Ravenclaw common room. Our difference lies in you > believing Harry has "tortured" Carrow, and that makes it a > war crime in your eyes. I don't believe it was torture. ... bboyminn: I have to agree with Mike, as I already have said in post #181451. What Harry did doesn't rise to any real definition of torture. Like I asked before, even if you use torture methods, can you really torture someone for one second? I just don't see it. "Let's put him on the Rack." "Ready prisoner, we are going to torture you?" "OW!" "Well, that's it then, we're done. You can go now." By any means, torture that only causes one seconds pain just doesn't make it into the realm of real torture. As to the war aspect, do you really think for one second Carrow would not have immediately incapacitated Harry and later without question subjected him to PROLONGED torture, and eventually Death? Carrow is the enemy, and in war, you don't wait for the enemy to make a move against you. If you see him, you kill him; that's why they call it war. As for Harry torturing Carrow into unconsciousness, really, do you believe one seconds torture in enough to put you in unconsciousness? I don't think so. Carrow was knocked unconscious when he hit the wall. Yes, I see that many others do see this as torture, and seem unwilling to yield in that opinion; so be it, but I think you have a very low threshold in your definition of what constitutes torture. What separates Harry's action, in my eyes, from real torture is that Harry didn't sustain it. Yes, he used the Torture Curse, but just enough to incapacitate Carrow, and in my reading of the events that lasted about one second;...BANG...it's over. If he had punched him in the nose, and Carrow had gone unconscious from hitting the wall, would you still call it torture? He still caused pain in an effort to punish, isn't that your definition of torture? I think the reason McGonagall didn't react more strongly is because she saw Harry's actions in perspective. If Harry had in anyway attempted to sustain the Crucio Curse, McGonagall would have step in instantly, and despite despising Carrow, would have stopped him. Since he didn't, she didn't. This is not McGonagall's approval of torture. This is McGonagall's limited approval of extreme measures in extreme circumstances, and Harry in a castle full of Death Eaters with Voldemort on the way certainly qualifies as Extreme Circumstances. Hey...I'm just saying. Steve/bluewizard From lwalsh at acsalaska.net Tue Feb 19 22:30:47 2008 From: lwalsh at acsalaska.net (Laura Lynn Walsh) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:30:47 -0900 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: ChapDisc: DH14, The Thief In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <691AA211-9AF1-40C2-972B-2623384E4A10@acsalaska.net> No: HPFGUIDX 181641 On 2008, Feb 19, , at 10:32, Carol wrote: > 2. Why did Ron Splinch during Hermione's side-along apparition? From > where does Hermione learn about Essence of Dittany? Why do you think > she is afraid to heal Ron completely with magic? > > Carol: > I think that Ron Splinched because he wasn't expecting Hermione to > shift their destination and was focusing on 12 GP (trying to get to > the place she was trying to get away from). it's a wonder that Harry > wasn't Splinched, too. I think Harry is more likely to just go along with whatever Hermione has decided to do. Ron is more likely to argue with her. I could therefore see Ron getting splinched and Harry not. Laura -- Laura Lynn Walsh lwalsh at acsalaska.net http://llwcontemplations.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 19 22:37:17 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:37:17 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181642 > Carol earlier: > > > Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV > discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is > unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and > destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder > Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, > BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). > > > > a_svirn: > > That explanation doesn't really work when you consider that he did > > everything in his power to distract Harry from the Horcrux Hunt. Pippin: I had a brainstorm about this the other day. Remember the fake wands of GoF? Snape could have convinced Voldemort that the no longer functional Elder Wand was a clever fake. Then Voldemort would have been off on a wild goose chase looking for the "real" EW, safely distracted from Harry's horcrux hunt, which Harry *was* supposed to pursue, but cautiously, so that Snape would have time to deliver the sword. We saw what trouble the Trio got into possessing a horcrux without any means of destroying it. Dumbledore would have wanted to avoid that. Dumbledore did not believe that any of the horcruxes were hidden at Hogwarts, so he wouldn't have wanted Harry to go back there to get basilisk fangs, and of course he wouldn't have wanted Harry to use Fiendfyre either. As for the memories, Snape could have led Harry to his bottled memories in the same way he led him to the sword, by using his patronus. Harry had been taught how to distinguish altered memories from genuine ones, so no worries that he would doubt them after he discovered the source. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 23:28:10 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:28:10 -0000 Subject: PoA chapter 20 - 22 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181643 "Personally, I try and treat him like any other student" - p.387 Alla: HAHAHAH. "And any other student would be suspended ? at the very least ? for leading his friends into such danger" ? p.387 Alla: So, I am sure there are people who had this thought, but I honestly do not remember if I did. If Snape is concerned with keeping Harry alive, but only in order to preserve the part of Lily, or whatever AND if he can give a flying fig about Harry as a person (both of those are facts for me but obviously only for me), wouldn't it make sense that his threats to expel Harry or send him to people who can expel him are indeed real, BUT real in a sense that he wants Harry away from Hogwarts in order to keep him alive. Since IMO he does not care that in Hogwarts Harry found his first friends and first real home in many years, he would only care about Harry's physical safety, and the further from Hogwarts the better? And here we have the added bonus of Snape not having to stare in Harry's eyes every day. Hmmm, but that means Snape will be defying Dumbledore, I am not sure if Snape is ready to do that. "What amazes me the most is the behavior of the Dementors you've really no idea what made them retreat, Snape? " ? p.387 Alla: Huh? Patronus is a novel idea for Fudge? "Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age sixteen," he breathed. "You haven't forgotten that, Headmaster? You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill me?" ? p.391 Alla: Yeah, in the retrospect seems so clear that Snape's emphasis on the "me" means that he also claims that Sirius murdered someone else as well. I wonder though if he truly believes that Sirius tried to murder trio, or is it just a hint about Lily. "But I have no power to make other men see the truth or to overrule the Minister of Magic" ? p.393 Alla: Yeah, we can see that Dumbledore has no power to make other people see in OOP, but I think he really forgets here ( on purpose?)) that he still enough influence to do so IMO. "You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?" ? p.427 Alla: Hint for DH chapter 34 as well? That's it for now. See you in GoF :-) From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 00:06:44 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:06:44 -0000 Subject: PoA chapter 20 - 22 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181644 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > "What amazes me the most is the behavior of the Dementors you've > really no idea what made them retreat, Snape? " ? p.387 > Alla: > Huh? Patronus is a novel idea for Fudge? zanooda: I think Fudge knows about Patronuses, of course, he just doesn't know that there was someone on the grounds at that time to conjure one. Harry, Hermione and Sirius were all unconscious, Ron and Snape were at some distance from the lake and also unconscious - Snape admits that when he came to the Dementors were already retreating. That's what Fudge means, IMO - he knows there are means to chase away the Dementors, but there was no one there to do it, so he is puzzled by their behaviour. He doesn't know about back-in-time Harry, of course. I am more intrigued by the fact that Fidge mentions that the Dementors attempted to Kiss Harry (p.421). How can he know that? Everyone around was unconscious when it happened, and Harry himself didn't say anything. From kaleeyj at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 03:45:42 2008 From: kaleeyj at gmail.com (Bex) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:45:42 -0000 Subject: PoA chapter 20 - 22 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181645 > zanooda: > > I think Fudge knows about Patronuses, of course, he just doesn't know > that there was someone on the grounds at that time to conjure one. > I am more intrigued by the fact that Fudge mentions that the > Dementors attempted to Kiss Harry (p.421). How can he know that? > Everyone around was unconscious when it happened, and Harry himself > didn't say anything. > Bex: Still terrifies me that Fudge would ally himself with those creatures even after they tried to perform the Dementor's Kiss on the savior of the WW. Aside from that... Sirius was unconscious during most of the attack. Hermione fainted. Remus was gone. Snape was out cold. Ron was far removed from the situation. Perhaps he "talked" to the dementors? I suppose that's the only way he'd get details of the attack. Or chalk it up to flints. ~bex From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 00:14:02 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:14:02 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BB70CA.1010808@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181646 Steve: > "Ready prisoner, we are going to torture you?" > > "OW!" One wonders where, on a continuum running from a stubbed toe through listening to Twisted Sister, Amycus might rank his experience: "He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain...." Doesn't sound like "OW!" to me. On the contrary, it sounds like pretty much every other Cruciatus we've ever seen. And Harry is intimately acquainted with the effects of a Cruciatus, having been on the business end of more than one himself. What he himself experienced is, by his own admission, precisely what he intended to do to Amycus (the fortuitous intervention of a bookcase notwithstanding). A Cruciatus is *not* a defensive spell -- it's a pure act of sadism, performed for the sadistic pleasure of the caster. The shortness of duration is incidental, and cannot excuse this from the realm of torture. > As to the war aspect, do you really think for one second > Carrow would not have immediately incapacitated Harry and > later without question subjected him to PROLONGED torture, What Carrow *may have* done to Harry is irrelevant. We don't under any circumstances deal out justice based on potential future acts (read "Minority Report" for Philip K. Dick's take on that). If Harry had simply been trying to remove Carrow as a future threat, he had many (and more reliable) tools available which would not have involved torture. There is just no way to explain (let alone justify) Harry's use of the Cruciatus aside from a sadistic desire for retribution, and JKR's desire for a Rambo!Harry moment. > in war, you don't wait for the enemy to make a move against you. Nobody is arguing Harry was unjustified in taking action against Carrow. But saying action is justified is not saying *any* action is justified. > What separates Harry's action, in my eyes, from real torture is > that Harry didn't sustain it.... If Harry had in anyway attempted to > sustain the Crucio Curse... It was the bookcase, not Harry, that put an end to the torture. Nothing in the canon indicates either that Harry's intent was simply to incapacitate (to the contrary, I think there's plenty to suggest otherwise), or that he didn't intend to prolong the torture. You seem to be deriving both assumptions from the shortness of duration, but that appears to have been purely accidental. > If he had punched him in the nose, and Carrow had gone unconscious > from hitting the wall, would you still call it torture? He > still caused pain in an effort to punish, isn't that your > definition of torture? Not even close. Dictionary.com defines torture as "extreme anguish of body or mind; agony", and "the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge". An uppercut to the schnozz isn't even in the same game. CJ From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Tue Feb 19 22:32:30 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:32:30 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181647 --- snip. > Steve/bluewizard: --- snip. > I think the reason McGonagall didn't react more strongly is > because she saw Harry's actions in perspective. If Harry had in > anyway attempted to sustain the Crucio Curse, McGonagall would > have step in instantly, and despite despising Carrow, would > have stopped him. I have to come in here and agree with you Steve and add in my thoughts. Harry was in the middle of a war. He had to survive and he knew that Carrow or his sister would summon Voldemort, so I think he just reacted to stop that and of course to revenge the spitting on one of the teachers he had a lot of affection and respect for. I have no problem with the use of the curse.. Jayne From leahstill at hotmail.com Wed Feb 20 08:30:17 2008 From: leahstill at hotmail.com (littleleahstill) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:30:17 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181648 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jayne" wrote: > I have to come in here and agree with you Steve and add in my > thoughts. > > Harry was in the middle of a war. He had to survive and he knew > that Carrow or his sister would summon Voldemort, so I think he > just reacted to stop that and of course to revenge the spitting > on one of the teachers he had a lot of affection and respect for. > I have no problem with the use of the curse.. > Leah: I don't read Harry's Crucio as having any strategic design behind it, it was just a furious reaction. If there was a strategic thought behind it, then it was a pretty stupid one. A short lived Crucio does nothing to Carrow long-term, it just delivers intense pain to him as a punishment. Once he has recovered from it, it is likely to inflame him to a retributive action, which might make the survival of Harry (and others)less certain, not more. Much better to have removed Carrow's wand/Stupified/bound him, to prevent him using the Dark Mark to summon Voldemort, and put him out of action at Hogwarts. Wouldn't something like a Stinging Hex be more appropriate as a reaction to spitting, or do we really want to see Harry sinking to Carrow's own level? Leah From lfreeman at mbc.edu Wed Feb 20 14:17:07 2008 From: lfreeman at mbc.edu (Freeman, Louise Margaret) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:17:07 -0500 Subject: Harry in a dangerous profession? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181649 My 11 year old and I just finished re-reading DH and I was struck by something in Harry's last conversation with the Dumbledore portrait. He said he planned to put the Elder Wand back in the grave, then plan on dying a natural death, so the power of the wand would be broken. But Harry became the master of the Elder Wand by simply yanking Draco's hawthorne wand out of his hand, not by killing or even magically disarming him. So, it would seem that if anyone managed to get Harry's phoenix feather wand away from him, they would instantly become the Elder Wand master. In that case, it would seem that becoming an Auror would be an exceptionally high-risk profession. Harry's skilled, but does he really think he can get through an entire career chasing Dark wizards without being defeated in a duel or disarmed even once? Working in the Joke shop might be a lot safer. At the very least he should hide the Elder Wand in a less obvious place. Or couldn't he, as the Elder Wand master, choose to break it? (and bury the pieces with Dumbledore, like the ballad Hagrid and Slughorn sang at Aragog's funeral?) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 14:20:21 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:20:21 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181650 > Carol: > Conditions may be bad at Hogwarts thanks to the Carrows, but there are > only two of them (and they're both pretty stupid). Imagine how much > worse it would be if Travers or Yaxley were headmaster and brought in > their DE friends to "teach" all the subjects. Macnair for COMC, for > example, and Bellatrix for Transfiguration. IMO, Snape does the best > he can under very difficult conditions. Under a loyal DE, they would > have been much worse. (And, BTW, I don't think that the Carrows have > "free rein" (note spelling). a_svirn: Um. Noted . > Carol: I think they're kept in check by > McGonagall (and possibly, subtly, by Snape himself; Snape, being > Snape, would be concerned about the students being prepared for their > OWLs and NEWTs). If they truly had free rein, they'd be attacking the > other teachers and controlling the curriculum, which clearly is not > happening. (And even Amycus Carrow has managed to teach something > useful actually related to DADA; Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco can all cast > Disillusionment Charms, which must mean that all the seventh years > have been taught that particular spell.) a_svirn: Well, obviously Snape was in a position to so something every now and then. Not much, however. Students were routinely tortured in his school, and if they weren't killed outright it wasn't because he didn't let the Carrows to do so. It was simply because Voldemort didn't give the Carrows a licence to kill them. Basically what I am saying is that his main task was to help Harry, and he would have to do whatever it took to achieve it. And to allow absolutely any sacrifice. > Carol: > I agree that it doesn't make much sense, but DD must have either had > something in mind or trusted to Snape to find a way, no doubt > involving his Patronus. Snape could, if necessary, Petrify Harry and > force him to listen. I do wonder what DD (and JKR) had in mind, but a > way could have been found. Ideally, Portrait!DD could confide in > McGonagall and have her lead Harry to the Pensieve, where he would > explore Snape's memory (or memories) in her presence. But I don't > think that Harry would have killed Snape on sight. He had the > opportunity to do so in "Flight of the Prince" and didn't do so then. > Besides, Snape can easily outduel him. a_svirn: It would be, to put it mildly, foolhardy for Dumbledore to rely on that. I mean, he could easily outduel Draco, and yet... And when you take into account the fickleness of wands in general and the Elder wand in particular... I really don't see what he could possibly be thinking of. > > > Carol earlier: > > > Just how DD intended for Snape to avoid being killed when LV > discovered that he was the supposed master of the Elder Wand is > unclear, but he may have been counting on timing--Harry finding and > destroying the Horcruxes before LV solved the mystery of the Elder > Wand, obtained it, and realized why it wasn't working for him (which, > BTW, is absurd--it worked just fine). > > > > a_svirn: > > That explanation doesn't really work when you consider that he did > > everything in his power to distract Harry from the Horcrux Hunt. > > Carol: > But if Harry went after the Elder Wand, there wouldn't be a problem > for Snape, would there? a_svirn: Wouldn't it? Considering that Snape, according to the plan was to have the wand? I'd say it would give Harry all the excuse he needed to go after Snape and visit what he considered a just retribution on his head. (And considering that he tortured Amycus for a trivial insult, I really would rather not to contemplate what form this retribution could take.) > Carol: Voldemort wouldn't find the wand because Harry > would have it, and he wouldn't know that he wasn't its master, so > Snape would be in no danger. In any case, as I've said before, if > Harry hadn't revealed his identity by using the Expelliarmus, which, > in turn, led to Harry's wand going off and destroying Lucius Malfoy's > wand, Voldemort wouldn't have set off when he did to find the Elder > Wand. a_svirn: Then again, he could anticipate that VOldemort would try to overcome the twin-core connection. And what better wand than the best of them all? > Carol earlier: > > the implication that he wanted Snape to have the wand (but > presumably not use it or be its master), > > > > a_svirn: > > Then why have it at all? It seems to be a dangerous possession even > at best of times. To have it without using it would be like walking > around with a big target painted on your back. > > Carol: > Not necessarily. If the wand were stripped of its powers, Snape could > just hand it to Voldemort (protecting himself if necessary with > Occlumency) and tell him that he took it from the dead DD. a_svirn: Yes, necessarily. As soon as Voldemort realised that the wand didn't work for him as it should, he would surely kill Snape. Actually, as things played out he didn't have to kill him ? it was a mistake on Voldemort's part. He had to kill Draco instead. But if everything had gone according to Dumbledore's plan, Snape would have died for certain. > > Carol: > > the unexpected events that speeded up LV's hunt for the Elder Wand, > and, especially, DD's need for Snape to deliver that message to Harry, > which could only be done if he were alive, indicates to me that he > didn't expect Snape to die. > > > > a_svirn: > > And yet had he been alive, Harry would have not been likely to > listen to him. > > Carol: > Harry trusted the doe Patronus and knew that it had led him to the > Sword of Gryffindor. And Harry listened to Sirius Black and Lupin in > PoA. I think if he knew that Snape's Patronus was the doe, he would > have listened. And Snape would have found a way. His plan to deliver > the Sword of Gryffindor worked perfectly, after all. a_svirn: Dumbledore couldn't have known it. In fact he didn't even know about Snape's plan. a_svirn. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 16:49:44 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:49:44 -0000 Subject: Harry, Crucio, and emotion in Spellcasting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181651 Jayne wrote: > Harry was in the middle of a war. He had to survive and he knew that Carrow or his sister would summon Voldemort, so I think he just reacted to stop that and of course to revenge the spitting on one of the teachers he had a lot of affection and respect for. I have no problem with the use of the curse.. > Carol responds: Actually, Alecto had already been Stunned by Luna and Voldemort had already been summoned, as Harry well knew, so the Crucio served no purpose other than vengeance and *accidentally* knocking Amycus unconscious. And if he had actually inteded to knock Amycus out rather than torture him for spitting in McGonagall's face, Stupefy would have been the proper spell (followed by Incarcio, IIRC, to tie him and his sister up). Crucio means "I torture," not "I incapacitate" or "I knock unconscious." If Crucio were a defensive spell, it would be taught in DADA classes. Instead, it's illegal until the DEs come to power. It's the weapon of the bad guys, and Harry's use of it puts him in the same company as Voldemort, Bellatrix, and the Carrows. Its purpose was revenge, pure and simple. Self-defense was not even involved. He intended to hurt Amycus and said so himself. *and* he enjoyed doing so. that's the only way to administer an effective Crucio. Just ask Bellatrix, the expert on the subject. There was no question of Harry surviving at that point. He was under the Invisibility Cloak! And had he been in danger, either Stupefy or Expelliarmus would have been a better way of protecting himself and the equally invisible Luna. Instead, he stooped to Amycus's level. Carol, who sees no justification for Crucio at all, ever, and especially not under these circumstances From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 17:27:11 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:27:11 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181652 a_svirn wrote: > Wouldn't it? Considering that Snape, according to the plan was to have the wand? I'd say it would give Harry all the excuse he needed to go after Snape and visit what he considered a just retribution on his head. (And considering that he tortured Amycus for a trivial insult, I really would rather not to contemplate what form this retribution > could take.) Carol responds: True, Harry tortured Amycus Carrow for a trivial insult, but Snape is a much more intelligent and talented Wizard than Carrow. Considering that Snape is both an Occlumens and a Legilimens and that he's an expert on deflecting spells and using nonverbal spells, none of which Harry has ever bothered to learn (he can cast Expelliarmus, which he learned from Snape, Stupefy, Crucio, and Protego, all of which Snape can deflect), I rather doubt that Harry would win the duel. Snape defeated him handily in HBP, and Harry hasn't developed his skills since then. Besides, all Snape has to do is cast his Patronus to render Harry speechless. That Patronus helped him. Surely he'd want to hear Snape's story? > a_svirn: > Then again, he could anticipate that VOldemort would try to overcome > the twin-core connection. And what better wand than the best of them > all? Carol: Voldemort knew about the twin-core connection from GoF onward but did nothing about it until "The Dark Lord Ascending," when he forcibly borrowed Lucius Malfoy's wand. Had Harry not given away his identity by using Expelliarmus, Voldemort would have followed the wrong "Harry." And had his own wand not gone off of its own accord when LV tried to kill him, Voldemort would still be using his own wand for most matters and keeping Lucius's to kill Harry. He *only* began his pursuit of the Elder Wand (whose existence he didn't know about until he tortured Ollivander) after Harry's wand attacked him, destroying Lucius's wand, and he realized that just any wand wouldn't do. And, again, he wouldn't have known who the golden-haired boy in Gregorovitch's memory was if it hadn't been for Harry's dropping the photo at Godric's Hollow. Obviously, he didn't recognize Grindelwald any more than Harry did, and Harry had already seen a similar photograph (without seeing the name) in Umbridge's office. IOW, there was nothing inevitable about Voldemort's going after the Elder Wand, much less about his finding it before Harry found the Horcruxes (especially if Harry found it first). > Carol: > > Not necessarily. If the wand were stripped of its powers, Snape could just hand it to Voldemort (protecting himself if necessary with Occlumency) and tell him that he took it from the dead DD. > > a_svirn: > Yes, necessarily. As soon as Voldemort realised that the wand didn't work for him as it should, he would surely kill Snape. Actually, as things played out he didn't have to kill him ? it was a mistake on Voldemort's part. He had to kill Draco instead. But if everything had gone according to Dumbledore's plan, Snape would have died for certain. > Carol: No, not necessarily. :-) (Sorry about the ping-pong match response. I couldn't resist.) All Snape would have to do is to show that it doesn't work for *him*--that it's just a stick of wood--and Voldemort would know that he wasn't the master, either. Better yet, of course, the stick of wood could have been buried with Voldemort, who would try it out and figure that he had been tricked by a fake wand being buried with Dumbledore. He wouldn't think about Snape at all in that case. Please explain to me how Dumbledore could have *planned* for Snape to die when he needed Snape to deliver that crucial message to Harry. Dead men don't deliver messages. We know that DD wanted Snape to have the wand *and* wanted it to be stripped of its powers. The question is what he wanted Snape to do with the wand. Almost certainly, he would have either prevented Voldemort from finding it through some lie or demonstrated that it was just a useless stick, not worth having (or killing for). And once Draco ruined that plan, I suppose Portrait!DD hoped that Voldemort's pursuit of the Elder Wand, if and when it happened, would be a wild goose chase, as it very nearly was. Carol, who thinks that the only person Dumbledore deliberately sacrificed was himself and that Snape's death was no more inevitable than Harry's except in the mind of their creator, JKR (I refuse to use the word "creatrix"!) Carol, who thinks that the plot of DH is flawed and wonders what JKR and Dumbledore From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 19:21:32 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:21:32 -0000 Subject: Harry in a dangerous profession? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181655 --- "Freeman, Louise Margaret" wrote: > > > ...in Harry's last conversation with the Dumbledore portrait. > He said he planned to put the Elder Wand back in the grave, > then plan on dying a natural death, so the power of the wand > would be broken. > > But Harry became the master of the Elder Wand by simply > yanking Draco's hawthorne wand out of his hand, not by > killing or even magically disarming him. So, it would seem > that if anyone managed to get Harry's phoenix feather wand > away from him, they would instantly become the Elder Wand > master. ... bboyminn: Well, I'll certainly concede that there is a flaw in Harry's logic, but not that it matters. First, the wand could continue to pass through 20 new owners in Harry's lifetime, but that only matters if one of those 20 potential owners realizes he is the owner, realizes that the wand is more than legend, realizes that the wand still exists, realizes where it is at, and discovers some means of getting the Elder Wand. Defeating Harry is the easy part, it is all the subsequent realizations and actions that are hard. It is putting a long sequence of puzzle piece into place and realizing what they mean, then going through the long process of discovering that the wand exists, where it is, and how to get it, then actually doing it. Not a very likely sequence of events, unless Harry, Ron, or Hermione blabbed it to the newspapers, which seems very unlikely. I doubt anyone outside of the Trio know the full details of the wand and what its final disposition was. If they were smart, they will have claimed, should the need to explain ever occur, that they ground the wand into dust and scattered it in the wind. The existence of the Wand only matters if people know, and knowing that, why would you tell anyone? Steve/bboyminn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 19:27:03 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:27:03 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181656 > Carol: > True, Harry tortured Amycus Carrow for a trivial insult, but Snape is > a much more intelligent and talented Wizard than Carrow. Considering > that Snape is both an Occlumens and a Legilimens and that he's an > expert on deflecting spells and using nonverbal spells, none of which > Harry has ever bothered to learn (he can cast Expelliarmus, which he > learned from Snape, Stupefy, Crucio, and Protego, all of which Snape > can deflect), I rather doubt that Harry would win the duel. a_svirn: You never know. A duel is always a chancy business. Dumbledore lost to Draco, Bellatrix to a plump housewife, who probably hadn't used magic for anything other than cooking and cleaning for years. Besides, my point is that instead of helping them to communicate, Dumbedore's plan, had it gone smoothly, would have made the clash between Harry and Snape practically inevitable. > Carol: Snape > defeated him handily in HBP, and Harry hasn't developed his skills > since then. Besides, all Snape has to do is cast his Patronus to > render Harry speechless. a_svirn: That's a somewhat overoptimistic view of the matter. Snape himself clearly did not share your certainty. He took care not to reveal himself in the Forest of Dean. Moreover, the doe patronus was Snape's plan, not Dumbledore's. Dumbledore knew nothing about it. > > a_svirn: > > Then again, he could anticipate that VOldemort would try to overcome > > the twin-core connection. And what better wand than the best of them > > all? > > Carol: > Voldemort knew about the twin-core connection from GoF onward but did > nothing about it until "The Dark Lord Ascending," when he forcibly > borrowed Lucius Malfoy's wand. a_svirn: There is that. But it is never smart to rely on your opponent's being obtuse. Far better to devise the worst case scenario. > Carol: > IOW, there was nothing inevitable about Voldemort's going after the > Elder Wand, much less about his finding it before Harry found the > Horcruxes (especially if Harry found it first). a_svirn: Nor indeed. There was nothing inevitable in Harry's finding even one of the Horcruxes thanks to Dumbledore's careful planning. > > > Carol: > > > Not necessarily. If the wand were stripped of its powers, Snape > could just hand it to Voldemort (protecting himself if necessary with > Occlumency) and tell him that he took it from the dead DD. > > > > a_svirn: > > Yes, necessarily. As soon as Voldemort realised that the wand > didn't work for him as it should, he would surely kill Snape. > Actually, as things played out he didn't have to kill him ? it was a > mistake on Voldemort's part. He had to kill Draco instead. But if > everything had gone according to Dumbledore's plan, Snape would have > died for certain. > > > > Carol: > No, not necessarily. :-) (Sorry about the ping-pong match response. I > couldn't resist.) All Snape would have to do is to show that it > doesn't work for *him*--that it's just a stick of wood--and Voldemort > would know that he wasn't the master, either. a_svirn: Well, what was stopping him from doing just that in the Shrieking Shack? Besides, what do you think, would be Voldemort's reaction? If he were to be convinced he would be enraged, and kill Snape out of sheer frustration, if he remained unconvinced he would kill Snape just to be on the safe side. > Carol: > Please explain to me how Dumbledore could have *planned* for Snape to > die when he needed Snape to deliver that crucial message to Harry. > Dead men don't deliver messages. a_svirn: No idea. I never said that it makes any sense to me. On the contrary, one of the reasons I felt so frustrated with DH is that the whole business *doesn't* make sense. > Carol: > We know that DD wanted Snape to have the wand *and* wanted it to be > stripped of its powers. The question is what he wanted Snape to do > with the wand. a_svirn: The only possible answer I can find that he meant Snape to be a target for anyone who was after it. That is, either for Harry, or for Voldemort. > Carol, who thinks that the only person Dumbledore deliberately > sacrificed was himself and that Snape's death was no more inevitable > than Harry's except in the mind of their creator, JKR (I refuse to use > the word "creatrix"!) a_svirn: Huh. So you take the author's intent into account after all? a_svirn, who apologies for posting this reply for the third time. (But I really couldn't leave the "Shrieking Shark"! Might have given someone nightmares.) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 20 21:04:09 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:04:09 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181657 Carol earlier: > > Carol, who thinks that the only person Dumbledore deliberately sacrificed was himself and that Snape's death was no more inevitable than Harry's except in the mind of their creator, JKR > > a_svirn: > Huh. So you take the author's intent into account after all? > > a_svirn, who apologies for posting this reply for the third time. (But I really couldn't leave the "Shrieking Shark"! Might have given someone nightmares.) > Carol: Only her intention to have Snape die, which is different from the sort of "intention" that I object to discussing, such as her "intention" to depict Harry as merely a flawed human being for using the Crucio (if that was her intention when she wrote, as opposed to merely stating it after the fact, she failed to convince either you or me). Obviously, her intention to kill off a particular character is not a matter for debate if the character actually dies. It's no longer "intention" but canon facr. And that's what I'm talking about here. *She* apparently considered Snape's death to be necessary to her plot and consequently, *she* killed him, but it was no necessary consequence of *Dumbledore's* plan, which, I agree, was flawed in many respects and overly dependent on chance. Even without Draco's Expelliarmus, Dumbledore's plan might--or might not--have worked. It depended on choices by Voldemort, Harry, and Snape, on luck, on timing, and probably on factors I'm not even considering. But Snape's death could not have been part of the plan; he had to deliver that message, which he could only do if he were alive. Had he not succeeded in doing so despite having been bitten by Nagini (no part of DD's plan), Harry would have tried to kill Voldemort and would probably have died himself since the whole Love/self-sacrifice element would not have come into play. Carol, who thinks that you should have left "Shrieking Shark," which could be the winner of this year's (nonexistent) contest for most creative typo From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Wed Feb 20 20:19:39 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:19:39 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181658 Carol: Please explain to me how Dumbledore could have *planned* for Snape to die when he needed Snape to deliver that crucial message to Harry. Dead men don't deliver messages. Carol, Please tell me how you come to the conclussion that Dumbledore could have planned for Snape to die? I have re read DH at least 6 times and never formed that idea. Jayne Who maybe is blind to things in the books From AllieS426 at aol.com Thu Feb 21 05:03:28 2008 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:03:28 -0000 Subject: ChapDisc: DH14, The Thief In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181659 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > > *Harry* knew about Dittany as a cure for scarring because Snape told > Draco to ask Madam Pomfrey for it after the Sectumsempra incident. > Maybe Harry told Hermione about that. However, dittany seems suddenly > to have become a way of stopping the bleeding, whereas in HBP, DD > stops ordinary bleeding with a simple nonverbal spell and Snape uses > his complex chanted countercurse to stop the bleeding and heal the > wounds caused by the Dark Magical spell Sectumsempra. Allie: I was sure Hermione recommended dittany first in OoTP for Harry's detention "I Must Not Tell Lies" wound but now all I can find is her giving him a bowl of murtlap tentacles (p. 324 US). Am I misremembering or did anyone else think the same thing? > Splinching isn't > Dark Magic, of course, so maybe it can be partially cured (the > bleeding stopped and the skin healed) with Dittany, but I picture Ron > as still having a chunk of muscle missing because Hermione is afraid > to use the spells which, if used correctly, would heal him completely. > It's odd that nothing more is mentioned about Ron's injury not healing > properly. Allie: I wondered the same thing, if Ron walks around with a deformed arm for the rest of his life. I suppose the muscle could regrow and push out the new skin so that it gets back to normal eventually. Allie (whose HP obsession has taken a backseat to her Lost obsession now that the new season has started) From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 06:41:25 2008 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:41:25 -0000 Subject: Harry in a dangerous profession? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181660 "Freeman, Louise Margaret" wrote: > > > ...in Harry's last conversation with the Dumbledore portrait. > > He said he planned to put the Elder Wand back in the grave, > > then plan on dying a natural death, so the power of the wand > > would be broken. > bboyminn wrote: > > Well, I'll certainly concede that there is a flaw in Harry's > logic, but not that it matters. > > First, the wand could continue to pass through 20 new owners > in Harry's lifetime, but that only matters if one of those > 20 potential owners realizes he is the owner, realizes that > the wand is more than legend, realizes that the wand still > exists, realizes where it is at, and discovers some means > of getting the Elder Wand. > > Defeating Harry is the easy part, it is all the subsequent > realizations and actions that are hard. It is putting a long > sequence of puzzle piece into place and realizing what they > mean, then going through the long process of discovering > that the wand exists, where it is, and how to get it, then > actually doing it. > > Not a very likely sequence of events, unless Harry, Ron, > or Hermione blabbed it to the newspapers, which seems > very unlikely. I doubt anyone outside of the Trio know > the full details of the wand and what its final disposition > was. > > If they were smart, they will have claimed, should the need > to explain ever occur, that they ground the wand into dust > and scattered it in the wind. > > The existence of the Wand only matters if people know, and > knowing that, why would you tell anyone? > > Steve/bboyminn > Doddie here: I remember Harry making a "for once" sort of statement at the end of DH...Harry finally found something that was "more trouble than it was worth"...He also set the stage to keep the Malfoy's in check (probably not purposefully, yet he did nonetheless)... I also get the picture that after DH... 1. Harry was ready to live his life w/o saving the world distractions. 2. Harry probably returned Draco's wand which, while would be loyal and do Draco's bidding; but, would not bring about the downfall of Harry...but would snap as his fathers had... Perhaps Draco, given his father's wand's fate may have thought this could happen; even if Malfoy didn't, I'm sure we could count on Lucius' cautions... I like to think that the Malfoys would be last on the list to get new wands from Olivander. 3. W/O the elderwand...what's the point of defeating Harry if he returned Draco's wand after he repaired his Holly/Phoenix one? I suppose one would have to defeat Draco after going through Lucius and Narcissa--one thing we do know is that dear ol' Lucius and Cissy do love their boy--Narcissa to the point of lying to Voldemort..Then they'd(be far from an individual by that point) have to enter Hogwarts grounds, raid a tomb on Hogwarts grounds....before going on to to defeat Harry! Wow! NOW we know perhaps one of the reasons why DD wanted to be laid to rest at Hogwarts...not to protect the elderwand, but to protect Harry not before, but rather after, Harry returned the Elder Wand to where Harry felt it rightfully belonged. 4. I also think we oft forget those "civillians" that stormed the gates after they thought Harry had died meant that there were many of the ww that saw the defeat! Wow, can you just imagine the lay wizard....Harry was such a great Wizard he deafeated Voldy with, "Expelliarmus" LOL! Brilliant! So here we have Harry defeating Voldemort with the most basic of dueling spells...can you imagine if he had the twins "jinx list" of spells(which he, or at least Ron probably did). Harry defeated Voldemort in the final battle w/o an unforgivable.. However, I suppose my main point is....if Harry's mum died for Harry's protection...and it worked....and Harry truly felt he died to save everone in the ww...how much of a dangerous profession could he have? DD (who thinks that this protection may not last forever, but would probably last as long as Harry lived). From falkeli at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 07:00:05 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:00:05 -0000 Subject: Harry in a dangerous profession? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181661 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Freeman, Louise Margaret" wrote: > > > My 11 year old and I just finished re-reading DH and I was struck by > something in Harry's last conversation with the Dumbledore portrait. He > said he planned to put the Elder Wand back in the grave, then plan on dying > a natural death, so the power of the wand would be broken. > > But Harry became the master of the Elder Wand by simply yanking Draco's > hawthorne wand out of his hand, not by killing or even magically disarming > him. So, it would seem that if anyone managed to get Harry's phoenix > feather wand away from him, they would instantly become the Elder Wand > master. In that case, it would seem that becoming an Auror would be an > exceptionally high-risk profession. Harry's skilled, but does he really > think he can get through an entire career chasing Dark wizards without being > defeated in a duel or disarmed even once? > > Working in the Joke shop might be a lot safer. At the very least he should > hide the Elder Wand in a less obvious place. Or couldn't he, as the Elder > Wand master, choose to break it? (and bury the pieces with Dumbledore, like > the ballad Hagrid and Slughorn sang at Aragog's funeral?) > hp_fan_2008: Here's my theory: The Elder Wand recognized Harry as its owner because it recognized him as the true owner of the hawthorne wand. It could only recognize him as such since Harry was using the hawthorne wand. It didn't really have a chanvce to recognize Malfoy - since Maloy never held the elder wand.I think that if Malfoy had used the elder wand, and then was defeated in its absence, that would have finished its power. From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 09:39:00 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:39:00 -0000 Subject: ChapDisc: DH14, The Thief In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181662 > Carol: > *Harry* knew about Dittany as a cure for scarring because > Snape told Draco to ask Madam Pomfrey for it after the > Sectumsempra incident. Goddlefrood He knew about it from all the way back in PS, where this is found: "Harry, who was looking up 'Dittany' in One Hundred Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Ron say, 'Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?'" p. 168 - Bloomsbury paperback edition (This has been amended in later editions to One Thousand Herbs and Fungi). In "Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback" - Chapter Fourteen. Dittany's properties do appear to have changed though, as Carol went on to say. Should dittany be of real interest - particularly for the botanists amongst us - a post of almost a year ago will tell you almost all you may care to know, and possibly more. Here 'tis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/166537 >From the Promontory of Pothos this has been your correspondent. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 13:42:52 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:42:52 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181663 > Carol: *She* apparently > considered Snape's death to be necessary to her plot and consequently, > *she* killed him, but it was no necessary consequence of > *Dumbledore's* plan, which, I agree, was flawed in many respects and > overly dependent on chance. Even without Draco's Expelliarmus, > Dumbledore's plan might--or might not--have worked. It depended on > choices by Voldemort, Harry, and Snape, on luck, on timing, and > probably on factors I'm not even considering. a_svirn: And what sort of plan is that, if it covers none of those contingencies?! To say that it was merely "flawed" sounds like an understatement of the millennium. Dumbledore might just as well refrain from meddling and let Harry and Snape to play their own games. > Carol: > But Snape's death could not have been part of the plan; he had to > deliver that message, which he could only do if he were alive. a_svirn: Yes, I would think so myself. However, the fact remains that if a Dumbledore from Harry's head to be believed, he had planned for Snape to be left with a wand. Which would place Snape very much in the way of anyone who was after the wand ? be it Harry or Voldemort. Neither of whom would hesitate to remove him from their way. (Indeed, Harry would have been only too happy for an excuse to go after Snape.) So either Dumbledore deliberately set Snape up as a target, or he grew so senile in his old age, that he couldn't even see the obvious consequences of his own actions. Of course, there is a third possibility ? that Harry imagined it all wrong in the privacy of his own head. a_svirn. From lwalsh at acsalaska.net Thu Feb 21 15:25:07 2008 From: lwalsh at acsalaska.net (Laura Lynn Walsh) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:25:07 -0900 Subject: Breaking the Elder Wand Message-ID: <8C9C4B78-1ABA-4C06-B265-67B502143CB1@acsalaska.net> No: HPFGUIDX 181664 I know I asked this question before, but I don't remember getting a definitive answer. Why didn't Harry simply BREAK the Elder Wand at the end of DH? You can physically break a wand and render it irreparable - Harry's wand was nearly broken and could only be fixed by the Elder Wand. I suppose Hagrid's wand could have been repaired by the Elder Wand, although, since it was completely broken, unlike Harry's wand that still hung on by a thread, even the EW might not have worked. But wouldn't physically breaking the Elder Wand have ensured that no one could use it? Laura -- Laura Lynn Walsh lwalsh at acsalaska.net http://llwcontemplations.blogspot.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Thu Feb 21 14:57:41 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:57:41 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181665 > a_svirn wrote: >either Dumbledore deliberately set Snape up as a target, or he grew >so senile in his old age, that he couldn't even see the obvious >consequences of his own actions. IMHO DD did set up Snape as a target. I think he thought it was a way of protecting Harry and that Snape was a clever enough wizard to look after him self. Shame it went wrong !!! Jayne who Started off hating Snape, but forgave him in the end. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 20:36:02 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:36:02 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181666 > > a_svirn wrote: > > >either Dumbledore deliberately set Snape up as a target, or he grew > >so senile in his old age, that he couldn't even see the obvious > >consequences of his own actions. > > Jayne: > IMHO DD did set up Snape as a target. I think he thought it was a way > of protecting Harry and that Snape was a clever enough wizard to look > after him self. > Shame it went wrong !!! No shame at all for it went exactly right. If, that is, Dumbledore did indeed set Snape as a target. For there is no denying that Snape served his purpose as a target. We must congratulate Dumbledore on his clever plan. Though I don't quite see in what way it was supposed to provide protection for Harry. a_svirn. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Thu Feb 21 20:42:44 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:42:44 -0000 Subject: Breaking the Elder Wand In-Reply-To: <8C9C4B78-1ABA-4C06-B265-67B502143CB1@acsalaska.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181667 > Laura > I know I asked this question before, but I don't remember > getting a definitive answer. > > Why didn't Harry simply BREAK the Elder Wand at the > end of DH? If it comes to that, why didn't Dumbledore break it? Publicly? That would certainly save Snape (or Draco, though Dumbledore clearly didn't expect him to conquer his wand or himself). a_svirn From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 21 21:25:12 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:25:12 -0000 Subject: Breaking the Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181668 A_svirn: > If it comes to that, why didn't Dumbledore break it? Publicly? That > would certainly save Snape (or Draco, though Dumbledore clearly didn't > expect him to conquer his wand or himself). > a_svirn > Pippin: *Can* it be broken? The Resurrection Stone survived a blow from Gryffindor's Sword with all its powers intact, even though it was cracked through the middle. I don't think the wand would be any easier to destroy. The cloak has also survived centuries without showing any sign of wear let alone crumbling into dust. That's one exceptionally durable piece of fabric! Pippin From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Thu Feb 21 21:19:24 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:19:24 -0000 Subject: Did Dumbledore set Snape as target? WAS: Re: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181669 Jayne wrote: Shame it went wrong !!! > a_svirn: > No shame at all for it went exactly right. If, that is, Dumbledore > did indeed set Snape as a target. For there is no denying that Snape > served his purpose as a target. We must congratulate Dumbledore on > his clever plan. Though I don't quite see in what way it was supposed > to provide protection for Harry. Okay Snape was the target, but surely DD did not want Snape to be killed before he had told Harry the truth.I meant that whilst Snape was the tardet hopefully Voldemort would go after Snape and not Harry. That's what I meant by it didn't work. Jayne From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Feb 21 21:58:31 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:58:31 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181670 > > > > a_svirn wrote: > > !! > > No shame at all for it went exactly right. If, that is, Dumbledore > did indeed set Snape as a target. For there is no denying that Snape > served his purpose as a target. Pippin: I keep asking this, and so far no one has answered. By what logic was Dumbledore supposed to deduce that Voldemort would decide he needed to kill Snape to become master of the wand? Its previous owner, in fact two previous owners, were conspicuously alive when Dumbledore died. By Voldemort's own logic, Dumbledore himself could not have been master of the wand, so it wouldn't mattered who had defeated him, and killing Gregorovitch should have made Voldemort master of the wand. Snape might have pointed this out, or spun some other fancy story to save himself, just as he did when he returned to the graveyard, but it was obvious that Voldemort was in a killing mood. Snape had to decide whether getting his information to its target was worth the life of another. This time he made the right decision. Personally, I agree that it wouldn't make much sense for Dumbledore to expect Snape to get the wand but not tell him about it. But then, he may have. That would explain Snape's hesitation on the tower, and the necessity for Dumbledore's plea, assuring Snape that he was to go on with the plan despite that it had already gone wrong. If it's plausible to speculate that Dumbledore had an off-page plan to get Snape killed by making him master of the wand, surely it's equally plausible that he had an off-page plan to save him? Of course if Snape had told Voldemort that he must defeat Draco, it would have been the end of Snape in any case, since Snape would still be bound by his UV to watch over Draco and protect him. Pip From mohammedkapadia at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 14:32:27 2008 From: mohammedkapadia at gmail.com (Mohammed Kapadia) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:02:27 +0530 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1f83ed6c0802210632w193e6843rdf0b14c9100648f@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181671 > a_svirn: > Yes, I would think so myself. However, the fact remains that if > a Dumbledore from Harry's head to be believed, he had planned > for Snape to be left with a wand. Which would place Snape very > much in the way of anyone who was after the wand ? be it Harry > or Voldemort. Neither of whom would hesitate to remove him from > their way. (Indeed, Harry would have been only too happy for an > excuse to go after Snape.) So either Dumbledore deliberately set > Snape up as a target, or he grew so senile in his old age, that > he couldn't even see the obvious consequences of his own actions. > Of course, there is a third possibility ? that Harry imagined it > all wrong in the privacy of his own head. mdkap: Actually Dumbeldore never intended for Snape to end up as the true owner of the Elder Wand. The matter of fact that no one except Grindelwald ever knew that Dumbledore had the Elder Wand. No one actually knew that even Grindelwald had the Elder Wand at some time. It is only by some investigation mentioned in Chapter "The Thief" did Voldermort and Harry knew that the kid (Grindelwald) had stolen the Wand. Only in the prison cell when Voldermort reached to kill Grindelwald did he and Harry realise that Dumbledore had the elder wand. Dumbledore and Snape had planned their Death as we see in the memories of Snape. Dumble mentioned that Snape's soul can not be damaged due to his murder as Snape was actually helping a old man by relieving him of his pain (Dumbledore was already dying a slow death due to the curse on the Grant Ring). So by the same logic Dumbledore was never over powered by Snape. but just helped by Snape. Matter of fact why the last chapter is named "The Flaw In The Plan" is because Draco's untimely intervention and overpowering Dumbeldore he became the unknown owner of the wand and Harry by over powering Draco became the owner. Dumbledore's actual plan was to die un conquered and hence the power of the wand to siege with him. mdkap From rlevatter at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 06:45:10 2008 From: rlevatter at yahoo.com (rlevatter) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:45:10 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181672 An issue or three: 1. Dumbledore makes clear that he and Grindelwald were both very powerful mages--perhaps Dumbledore slightly better, but largely equal. And then Grindelwald gets ahold of the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny. The wand that, per legend, allows it's owner to never be defeated in battle (though over the centuries, it clearly allowed them to get killed via treachery, killed in their sleep, etc.). And yet, of course, Dumbledore beat Grindelwald in equal face-to-face battle. Isn't this surprising? What good is the wand of destiny if it doesn't give you the edge against a magician who, even without the wand, you're largely the equal of? 2. Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald, he merely defeated him. Voldemort, in researching the wand, knew Grindelwald once had it, knew it was taken from him by Dumbledore, knew Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald to get it. Yet Voldemort, who sincerely seemed to believe Snape was a true follower and very helpful to him, who claims to regret the necessity of the deed, kills Snape when he knew he really had only to "beat" him, not kill him, to acquire the wand's power (assuming he had been correct that Snape was the true owner of the Elder Wand). Is that reasonable? 3. Voldemort, back in the day when he was Tom Riddle, was widely recognized, even by those like Dumbledore who was very early on leery of him, as very bright, a quick study. And yet Harry believes, and we are supposed to believe with him, that on entering--and this is as an adult, having traveled the world and become very powerful--the Room of Requirement to hide the diadem, that Voldemort believes he's the only one in the many centuries history of Hogwarts who has figured out how to enter the Room. That is to say, on viewing a huge room filled with odds and ends, nicknacks, voluminous materials, Voldemort is supposed to have thought, "This stuff was always here; no one else put any of this stuff here. I am the only one who figured out how to get in here over the last thousand years." Is that really reasonable? Ross From leahstill at hotmail.com Fri Feb 22 11:35:18 2008 From: leahstill at hotmail.com (littleleahstill) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:35:18 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181673 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rlevatter" wrote: > > An issue or three: (snipped) >> > 2. Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald, he merely defeated > him. Voldemort, in researching the wand, knew Grindelwald > once had it, knew it was taken from him by Dumbledore, knew > Dumbledore didn't kill Grindelwald to get it. Yet Voldemort, > who sincerely seemed to believe Snape was a true follower > and very helpful to him, who claims to regret the necessity > of the deed, kills Snape when he knew he really had only to > "beat" him, not kill him, to acquire the wand's power > (assuming he had been correct that Snape was the true > owner of the Elder Wand). Is that reasonable? > > Ross Leah: All reasonable queries, I think; the Elder Wand makes my brain hurt. I only have anything to offer on your second: If Snape is, as Voldemort believes, a loyal Death Eater, and bound to Voldemort by the Dark Mark, then Voldemort may believe that it would be impossible to actually defeat Snape in a duel in a way which will impress the wand, since Snape would not be able to truly fight against his master, the Dark Lord. Thus Voldemort overpowers Snape magically by setting Voldemort's dark creature upon him. Leah, really disliking the whole wand business From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 13:34:13 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:34:13 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181674 > Pippin: > I keep asking this, and so far no one has answered. By what logic > was Dumbledore supposed to deduce that Voldemort would decide he > needed to kill Snape to become master of the wand? Its previous > owner, in fact two previous owners, were conspicuously alive when > Dumbledore died. a_svirn: Actually, I did address this issue upthread. Dumbledore deliberately put Snape in the way of the two powerful wizards who might decide to go after the wand. Both of whom would be only too likely to try to remove him from their way in the most drastic manner. Voldemort, because he preferred killing as the way of solving problems (and you will have noticed that neither of the wand's previous owners continued to be alive after Voldemort finished with his questioning), Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely want to avenge Dumbledore's death. (And he did try to kill Snape in the aftermath of Dumbledore's murder.) While Harry was busy hunting the Horcruxes Snape would be relatively safe, but Dumbledore made sure that Harry would be distracted from the Horcruxes, and turn to the Hallows instead. > Pippin: By Voldemort's own logic, Dumbledore himself > could not have been master of the wand, so it wouldn't > mattered who had defeated him, and killing Gregorovitch should > have made Voldemort master of the wand. a_svirn: I do not follow this logic. Voldemort knew very well that Dumbledore won the wand's allegiance when he defeated Grindenwald. > Ross: > Yet Voldemort, > who sincerely seemed to believe Snape was a true follower > and very helpful to him, who claims to regret the necessity > of the deed, kills Snape when he knew he really had only to > "beat" him, not kill him, to acquire the wand's power > (assuming he had been correct that Snape was the true > owner of the Elder Wand). Is that reasonable? a_svirn: Yes, it is reasonable. He did not have to win the wand from Snape ? it was already in his possession. Yet, as long as its true owner lived, it wouldn't work for Voldemort. a_svirn. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 13:49:37 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:49:37 -0000 Subject: Breaking the Elder Wand In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181675 A_svirn: > > If it comes to that, why didn't Dumbledore break it? Publicly? That > > would certainly save Snape (or Draco, though Dumbledore clearly didn't > > expect him to conquer his wand or himself). > > a_svirn > > > > Pippin: > *Can* it be broken? The Resurrection Stone survived a blow from > Gryffindor's Sword with all its powers intact, even though it was > cracked through the middle. I don't think the wand would be any > easier to destroy. The cloak has also survived centuries without > showing any sign of wear let alone crumbling into dust. That's > one exceptionally durable piece of fabric! a_svirn: Elder can be broken, and pretty easily I suspect. Certainly wood is easier to break than stone. As for the fabric of the cloak, we don't know what it is made of. In any case, Harry didn't even try to break it, and Dumbledore never said that it can't be broken. a_svirn. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 13:57:03 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:57:03 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: <1f83ed6c0802210632w193e6843rdf0b14c9100648f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181676 > mdkap: > Actually Dumbeldore never intended for Snape to end up as the > true owner of the Elder Wand. Matter of fact why the last chapter is named "The Flaw > In The Plan" is because Draco's untimely intervention and > overpowering Dumbeldore he became the unknown owner of the > wand and Harry by over powering Draco became the owner. > Dumbledore's actual plan was to die un conquered and hence > the power of the wand to siege with him. a_svirn: But I wasn't discussing "The Flaw in the Plan". I was discussing "The King's Cross". In which Dumbledore says unequivocally than he intended Snape to be left with the wand. a_svirn. From dongan51 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 13:45:04 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:45:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy Message-ID: <160667.7445.qm@web63907.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181677 a_svirn: Yes, it is reasonable. He did not have to win the wand from Snape ? it was already in his possession. Yet, as long as its true owner lived, it wouldn't work for Voldemort. Liz: Is it possible that Dumbledore felt that if Snape was the owner of the Wand, that everything could continue to be manipulated forcing a LV/HP show down, with Snape alive, and ultimately it would fall to Snape to kill LV? From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 17:57:18 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:57:18 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181678 a_svirn wrote: > Dumbledore deliberately put Snape in the way of the two powerful wizards who might decide to go after the wand. Both of whom would be only too likely to try to remove him from their way in the most drastic manner. Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely want to avenge Dumbledore's death. (And he did try to kill Snape in the aftermath of Dumbledore's murder.) Carol responds: No, he didn't attempt to kill Snape. He twice attempted to Crucio him and Snape defected the Cruciatus Curse both times. ("No Unforgiveable Curses from you, Potter!" femember?) "'Cruc--' "But Snape parried the curse, knocking Harry backward off his feet before he could complete it. . . . "Cruc--" yelled Harry for the second time, aiming for the figure ahead illuminated in the dancing firelight, but Snape blocked the spell again" (HBP Am. ed. 602). In addition to two Crucios, Harry attempts to cast two Stunning spells, Incarcerus (the binding curse), Impedimenta, Sectumsempra, Levicorpus, the last of which Snape evidently detects through Legilimency, as it's a nonverbal spell. Harry, who can't control his emotions (until the battle with Voldemort, at which point he's seen Snape's memories and knows he has to sacrifice himself), can't cast nonverbal spells (except for one that Snape himself invented, doesn't know Occlumency or Legiilmency, and has apparently never learned to parry a curse (Snape is not using Protego, which would deflect the curses onto Harry) defeat Snape, who clearly *is* a DADA expert? Readers may think that Harry is a powerful Wizard, but his best spells are Expelliarmus (taught him by Snape) and Expecto Patronum (useless against Snape). In pursuing both Bellatrix (OoP) and Snape (HBP), he attempts to cast Crucios, but he never attempts to kill either of them. Nor would he have succeeded if he had tried since he doesn't know nonverbal spells, and at the first syllable, Snape (or Bellatrix) could use Expelliarmus and knock the wand out of his hand (or Stun him before he got the words out). We see almost his whole repertoire in "the Flight of the Prince," and he's no match for Snape. Snape, in contrast, *is* a powerful Wizard, who clearly shows that he can wipe the floor with Harry in a duel. Imagine if he had fought back, as Harry screamed at him to do. Instead, he casts what appears to be a very powerful Stinging Hex to end the duel, effectively incapacitating Harry. Carol, pretty sure that Snape could handle himself against Harry, making sure that neither of them was seriously injured, and that DD knew it From dongan51 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 14:57:36 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:57:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick Message-ID: <252670.78226.qm@web63905.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181679 Ross wrote: 3. Voldemort, back in the day when he was Tom Riddle, was widely recognized, even by those like Dumbledore who was very early on leery of him, as very bright, a quick study. And yet Harry believes, and we are supposed to believe with him, that on entering--and this is as an adult, having traveled the world and become very powerful--the Room of Requirement to hide the diadem, that Voldemort believes he's the only one in the many centuries history of Hogwarts who has figured out how to enter the Room. Is that really reasonable? Liz: I believe it's all in the phrasing. Harry asked to be shown where all the students through the years have left their stuff. TR might not have used the same phrasing. He might've asked for a room where he could hide something and everything else wouldn't have been there. Think of the other times they've used the room, all that stuff isn't always there. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 20:32:56 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:32:56 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181680 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > > a_svirn wrote: (And he > did try to kill Snape in the aftermath of Dumbledore's murder.) > > Carol responds: > No, he didn't attempt to kill Snape. He twice attempted to Crucio him > and Snape defected the Cruciatus Curse both times. In addition to two Crucios, Harry attempts to cast two Stunning > spells, Incarcerus (the binding curse), Impedimenta, Sectumsempra, > Levicorpus, the last of which Snape evidently detects through > Legilimency, as it's a nonverbal spell. a_svirn: Precisely so. Sectumsempra. It is also a deadly curse, and much more painful than AK. Granted, unlike AK it can be reversed, but Harry could not do it even if he wanted to. Which he didn't. "Harry uttered an inarticulate yell of rage: In that instant, he cared not whether he lived or died. Pushing himself to his feet again, he staggered blindly toward Snape, the man he now hated as much as he hated Voldemort himself - "Sectum - " Snape flicked his wand and the curse was repelled yet again; but Harry was mere feet away now and he could see Snape's face clearly at last: He was no longer sneering or jeering; the blazing flames showed a face full of rage." > Carol, pretty sure that Snape could handle himself against Harry, > making sure that neither of them was seriously injured, and that DD > knew it a_svirn: I suppose Dumbledore was pretty sure that he could deal with Draco. a_svirn. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 21:57:43 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:57:43 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181681 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > > > > a_svirn wrote: > (And he > > did try to kill Snape in the aftermath of Dumbledore's murder.) > > > > > Carol responds: > > No, he didn't attempt to kill Snape. He twice attempted to Crucio > him > > and Snape defected the Cruciatus Curse both times. > > In addition to two Crucios, Harry attempts to cast two Stunning > > spells, Incarcerus (the binding curse), Impedimenta, Sectumsempra, > > Levicorpus, the last of which Snape evidently detects through > > Legilimency, as it's a nonverbal spell. > > a_svirn: > Precisely so. Sectumsempra. It is also a deadly curse, and much more > painful than AK. Granted, unlike AK it can be reversed, but Harry > could not do it even if he wanted to. Which he didn't. > > "Harry uttered an inarticulate yell of rage: In that instant, he cared not whether he lived or died. Pushing himself to his feet again, he staggered blindly toward Snape, the man he now hated as > much as he hated Voldemort himself - > "Sectum - " > Snape flicked his wand and the curse was repelled yet again; but Harry was mere feet away now and he could see Snape's face clearly at last: He was no longer sneering or jeering; the blazing flames showed a face full of rage." Carol again: If Harry had wanted to kill Snape, he'd have used the Killing Curse. That's what it's for. And he certainly wasn't hesitating to use it because it was an Unforgiveable since he tried twice to Crucio Snape (and had already used it with slightly more success on Bella). He was trying to hurt and punish Snape, to make him suffer and bleed, as he had done with Draco. "Inarticulate yell of rage" pretty much gives away his feelings and intentions. I'd say. And note that Harry doesn't care whether he, Harry, lives or dies. Nothing about killing or trying to kill his opponent. (Snape's rage is not at Harry's use of his own curse or at the attempt to injure him severely or to use Dark Magic; it's at being called "coward.") But my point was that Snape defeated Harry handily. Snape is in no danger from Harry, but had Snape really been the murdering Death Eater Harry thought he has, Harry would not have been rescued from Amycus's Crucio. He'd have been tortured and taken to Voldemort. He's lucky, very lucky, that Snape is on his side. Carol, who thinks that Harry's powers are not fully developed at this point and that his success throughout the books, whether it's at Godric's Hollow or in the TWT or against Voldemort in DH, is mostly a matter of luck From foxmoth at qnet.com Fri Feb 22 22:57:07 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:57:07 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181682 > a_svirn: Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely want to avenge Dumbledore's death. Pippin: But no matter how great his desire for vengeance, Harry is not a killer. Dumbledore already knows this, specifically because Harry did not even try to kill Sirius or Pettigrew, and in general because he believes killing is much harder than innocent people think. a_svirn: Dumbledore made sure that Harry would be distracted from the Horcruxes, and turn to the Hallows instead. Pippin: Huh? Dumbledore made sure that Harry would not pursue the Hallows until he understood them, so that Harry would not go after the wand and would not achieve the stone until he understood its proper use. How do the hallows distract Harry from the pursuit of the horcruxes? Is there ever a point in canon where Harry turns aside from a known horcrux in order to secure a hallows? > > Pippin: > By Voldemort's own logic, Dumbledore himself > > could not have been master of the wand, so it wouldn't > > mattered who had defeated him, and killing Gregorovitch should > > have made Voldemort master of the wand. > > a_svirn: > I do not follow this logic. Voldemort knew very well that Dumbledore > won the wand's allegiance when he defeated Grindenwald. Pippin: He knew, but being Voldemort, he put two and two together and got five. "The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine." -- Voldemort, DH ch 32 Dumbledore could not have anticipated that Voldemort would think he had to kill Snape in order to secure mastery of the wand, because even if Snape had been master of the wand, it should have been obvious that it wasn't necessary to kill him, only defeat him. All Grindelwald had done to become master of the wand after he had seized it was stun Gregorovitch, not kill him. Pippin From rlevatter at yahoo.com Fri Feb 22 20:23:22 2008 From: rlevatter at yahoo.com (rlevatter) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:23:22 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick In-Reply-To: <252670.78226.qm@web63905.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181683 > Liz: > I believe it's all in the phrasing. Harry asked to be shown where all the students through the years have left their stuff. TR might not have used the same phrasing. He might've asked for a room where he could hide something and everything else wouldn't have been there. Think of the other times they've used the room, all that stuff isn't always there. Ross: Well, that's an interesting argument, Liz, and I admit it's hard to say something's "not possible" when magic is involved. But it seems to me that if Voldemort put the diadem in A ROOM, and Harry, in hiding the Potions book, puts it in A ROOM next to the diadem. Then Harry and Voldemort have been to the SAME room. This room is big enough and filled with enough things that Malfoy and his cronies can fight Ron, Hermione, and Harry in it. Granted the room can become many other rooms as needed--like the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom--but I'm thinking when it's the room kids hide stuff in, it's the same room for all of them; how else could Harry find the diadem he hadn't hidden in it? So my question remains: how could Voldemort reasonably believe the room was his find alone when it's FULL OF STUFF? From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 23 01:26:35 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:26:35 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181684 > a_svirn: > > Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely > want to avenge Dumbledore's death. > > Pippin: > But no matter how great his desire for vengeance, Harry is not a > killer. Dumbledore already knows this, specifically because Harry did > not even try to kill Sirius or Pettigrew, and in general because he > believes killing is much harder than innocent people think. Magpie: Sometimes it's easier than innocent people think. The only reason Harry hadn't killed someone by the time Dumbledore died was because Snape happened to be nearby with the secret fix-cure. Harry was using the exact same curse on Snape. > Pippin: > Dumbledore could not have anticipated that Voldemort would > think he had to kill Snape in order to secure mastery of the wand, > because even if Snape had been master of the wand, it should have been > obvious that it wasn't necessary to kill him, only defeat him. All > Grindelwald had done to become master of the wand after he had seized > it was stun Gregorovitch, not kill him. Magpie: But this is Voldemort. Of course he would kill him just to be sure. I would never expect Voldemort to just stun the person and keep them alive. He'd all be all about killing him just for the symbolic value. -m From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 06:46:36 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 06:46:36 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181685 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rlevatter" wrote: > Yet Voldemort, who sincerely seemed to believe Snape was > a true follower and very helpful to him, who claims to > regret the necessity of the deed, kills Snape when he > knew he really had only to "beat" him, not kill him, to > acquire the wand's power (assuming he had been correct > that Snape was the true owner of the Elder Wand). Is that > reasonable? zanooda: Don't you think that to expect Voldemort to be reasonable is a little bit, erm ... unreasonable :-)? I mean, when he ever was reasonable? Did he really have to kill Gregorovitch? No, he didn't. Was there any need to kill Grindelwald? No, there wasn't. It's like when he killed Lily - he promised and he could let her live, but "it seemed more prudent to finish them all ...". Same thing here - it was more prudent to finish them all, just in case. Besides, LV was so obsessed with the Elder Wand, he wouldn't want any of its former owners to stick around, don't you think? It wouldn't be "prudent". > rlevatter wrote: > And yet Harry believes, and we are supposed to believe with > him, that on entering--and this is as an adult, having > traveled the world and become very powerful--the Room of > Requirement to hide the diadem, that Voldemort believes > he's the only one in the many centuries history of Hogwarts > who has figured out how to enter the Room. zanooda: I believe that LV discovered ROR when he was at school, not as an adult. He hid the diadem there later, yes, but he found it when he was still a student, IMO. > rlevatter: > That is to say, on viewing a huge room filled with odds > and ends, nicknacks, voluminous materials, Voldemort is > supposed to have thought, "This stuff was always here; no > one else put any of this stuff here. I am the only one > who figured out how to get in here over the last thousand > years." Is that really reasonable? zanooda: Again, don't expect LV to be reasonable :-). But there is another thing - we don't know how LV got into the Room and what was his need. You see, the Room's functions can sometimes overlap, IMO. For example (and *only* for example :-)), if someone went looking for the Room of Broken Things, LOL, he would find the same room that Harry found to hide things, because the broken things are also hidden in there. Anyway, maybe student/Riddle didn't think all the stuff in ROR was hidden by other students, because he didn't ask the Room for a place to hide something. Maybe he wanted to find something, LOL. Maybe he thought it was just a magic Room where the house-elves or even the castle itself kept all broken, lost or other unwanted things - no students involved. It's stupid anyway, of course :-). I think that LV didn't know that one of the Room's purposes was to help students (or teachers - Trelawney :-)) to hide stuff, maybe he didn't even know that the Room had multiple purposes. Draco Malfoy calls ROR "The Room of Hidden Things". If LV knew it by the same name, he would have guessed, when Draco told him about his plan, that it was the same room, and he wouldn't want Draco to hang around in it in HBP. In short - LV didn't think the things in ROR were *hidden* things, he thought they were something else :-). This theory is not very convincing, but at least it's something ... :-). As for your question about GG-DD duel and the Elder Wand, the most recent discussion about it begins from 181399 - there are a few ideas there :-). From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 10:44:25 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:44:25 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181686 > Carol: > > If Harry had wanted to kill Snape, he'd have used the Killing Curse. a_svirn: There is more than one way to kill, you know. In the WW as well as in the Muggle world. Bellatrix didn't use AK on Sirius. Draco tried to use deadly poison on Dumbledore. (And Ron, Harry and Slughorn would have certainly been all of them dead, if they had drunk simultaneously.) From his own experience Harry knew that Sectumsempra is a dark deadly curse for enemies. One, moreover, that makes death a "protracted messy affair" to quote Dumbledore. That was the curse Harry flung at Snape. That was how he wanted to see him ? as many pounds of minced carrion flesh on the ground. > Carol: > But my point was that Snape defeated Harry handily. a_svirn: This time he did. Other time he might not. Personally I don't see how Snape could possibly hope to defeat Harry, if Harry ambushed him and attacked from under his cloak. a_svirn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 11:07:10 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 11:07:10 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181687 > > a_svirn: > > Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely > want to avenge Dumbledore's death. > > Pippin: > But no matter how great his desire for vengeance, Harry is not a > killer. Dumbledore already knows this, specifically because Harry did > not even try to kill Sirius or Pettigrew, and in general because he > believes killing is much harder than innocent people think. a_svirn: I don't know what does it mean, "Harry is not a killer". He tried to kill Snape in "The Prince Flight". He killed at least one death eater who pursued him from the Privet Drive. Well, he stunned him but that amounts to the same thing. Moreover, his interpretation of the Prophesy was that one of them must kill the other, and Harry saw nothing wrong with the prospect of killing Voldemort. So Harry is perfectly capable of killing either in self-defence or in a rage. Still less I understand how could Dumbledore "know" that Harry is not a killer. He should have known better than anyone how easy it is to kill someone who gets in the way of mortal combatants. And that's exactly where he put Snape. > a_svirn: > Dumbledore made sure that Harry would be distracted from the > Horcruxes, and turn to the Hallows instead. > > Pippin: > Huh? Dumbledore made sure that Harry would not > pursue the Hallows until he understood them, so that Harry > would not go after the wand and would not achieve the stone > until he understood its proper use. a_svirn: I beg to differ. He made sure of nothing of the sort. He made sure that Harry would want to go after the wand because he would think that with the last Hallow he would become the master of Death, and that would enable him to vanquish Voldemort. And that was exactly what he did think, until his grief for Dobby made him redefine his priorities. Which is something Dumbledore could not anticipate, much less make sure of. > Pippin: > Dumbledore could not have anticipated that Voldemort would > think he had to kill Snape in order to secure mastery of the wand, > because even if Snape had been master of the wand, it should have been > obvious that it wasn't necessary to kill him, only defeat him. a_svirn: Yes, he could. Voldemort's motto was "when in doubt, kill". a_svirn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 17:24:09 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:24:09 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181688 levatter wrote: > > > And yet Harry believes, and we are supposed to believe with him, that on entering--and this is as an adult, having traveled the world and become very powerful--the Room of Requirement to hide the diadem, that Voldemort believes he's the only one in the many centuries history of Hogwartswho has figured out how to enter the Room. > zanooda responded: > > I believe that LV discovered ROR when he was at school, not as an adult. He hid the diadem there later, yes, but he found it when he was still a student, IMO. > Carol notes: True, he was probably a student. But that doesn't explain why he would think he was the only one who had found the room. How could he thin that, if it was already full of other people's hidden treasures and contraband? Harry realized that people had been hiding things there for centuries. Even Trelawney, with her cooking sherry bottles, found the same room that Draco was in (though Draco must have used a different request ("I need the room with the Vanishing Cabinet" rather than "I need a place to hide my book" (or "bottles"). It seems that even Filch could get into the Room of Requirement to hide or store the broken Vanishing Cabinet. (Dumbledore certainly didn't put it there or he'd have known about that version of the room.) What I'm saying is, when Tom Riddle (and I agree that he was a student at the time) thought, "I need a place to hide my Horcrux"), he would have found the same room where everyone else had hidden things. Maybe he thought that he was the only person who had found it in recent years, but he couldn't have thought that he was the only one who'd ever found it, with all that evidence to the contrary--rows and rows of it. Maybe Harry is just wrong about Voldemort's thinking he was the only one who'd ever found that room, but, still, Voldemort seems to think that the Horcrux is safe, even after he finds that Harry is at Hogwarts (and correctly expects Harry to go to the Ravenclaw common room). That thought jumped out at me as ridiculous when I read it, and I still think it's ridiculous. Not even Voldemort is that illogical. > zanooda: > > Again, don't expect LV to be reasonable :-). But there is another > thing - we don't know how LV got into the Room and what was his need. You see, the Room's functions can sometimes overlap, IMO. For example (and *only* for example :-)), if someone went looking for the Room of Broken Things, LOL, he would find the same room that Harry found to hide things, because the broken things are also hidden in there. Carol: But Harry didn't go looking for the room of broken things. In DH, he thinks, "I need the place where everything is hidden" because he knows about the room where he went before and what's in it. But in HBP, he thought, "I need a place to hide my book," and the place he was shown was the same place that hundreds or thousands of other people, including Tom Riddle, had used over the centuries, with "alleyways and roads of tottering rubbish" (HBP Am. ed. 526). The narrator doesn't describe where Harry found the tarnished tiara that he put on top of the bust of the old warlock to mark the place where the book was, but it must have been on a shelf or on top of a pile of rubbish like everything else. zanooda: > Maybe he thought it was just a magic Room where the house-elves or even the castle itself kept all broken, lost or other unwanted things - no students involved. It's stupid anyway, of course :-). Carol: Granted, therre were probably no Fanged Frisbees in Tom Riddle's time, but there must have been similar forbidden objects, not to mention the thousands of graffitied books of the type that students might have been forbidden to read. So, yes, it's stupid. and not even Tom Riddle could be that stupid. *Maybe* he thought it was a place where the castle itself kept broken things, but since *he* wanted to use it to hide something, surely he would have realized that other people, mostly students, had used it over the centuries for exactly that purpose? zanooda: > In short - LV didn't think the things in ROR were *hidden* things, he thought they were something else :-). This theory is not very convincing, but at least it's something ... :-). Carol: I agree with you that it's not very convincing. :-) Carol, who thinks that Tom must have thought that, with all the junk in the room, no one would pay any attention to a tarnished tiara, whose true nature as a Horcrux they would never guess From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 17:30:45 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:30:45 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181689 Carol: > > > > If Harry had wanted to kill Snape, he'd have used the Killing Curse. > > a_svirn: > There is more than one way to kill, you know. Carol: But only one really efficient way designed for the purpose. Harry used "Crucio" when he wanted to torture, and Sectumsempra when he wanted Snape to lie helpless and bleeding (until he cured himself with that countercurse). If he had wanted to kill Snape, he would not have fooled around with Impedimenta and Stupefy. He'd have used Avada Kedavra. > > > Carol: > > But my point was that Snape defeated Harry handily. > > a_svirn: > This time he did. Other time he might not. Personally I don't see how Snape could possibly hope to defeat Harry, if Harry ambushed him and attacked from under his cloak. Carol responds: That would be murder, and I doubt that Harry would stoop to murder. He clearly wanted a fight with Snape ("Fight, you coward!"). And in a fair fight, Snape has all the advantages. Carol, who still thinks that Harry wanted to hurt Snape and punish him, not kill him From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Feb 23 21:36:00 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:36:00 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181690 Pippin: > > But no matter how great his desire for vengeance, Harry is not a > > killer. Dumbledore already knows this, specifically because Harry > did not even try to kill Sirius or Pettigrew, and in general because he believes killing is much harder than innocent people think. > > Magpie: > Sometimes it's easier than innocent people think. The only reason > Harry hadn't killed someone by the time Dumbledore died was because > Snape happened to be nearby with the secret fix-cure. Harry was using the exact same curse on Snape. Pippin: Sure, and Draco's stomp might've made Harry drown in his own blood, or driven a fragment of bone into Harry's brain and killed him. But it's not easy to kill a person by breaking the nose unless you know how. Killing a person with a knife, or even a sword isn't that easy either, especially going up against a trained opponent. Let's get real--Harry had about as much chance of beating Snape with sectum sempra as I do of beating the world heavyweight champion in a fist fight. The race isn't always to the swift -- but that's the way to bet. Harry has never tried to kill anyone in a sneak attack. He's not a cold-blooded killer. He did not methodically practice using sectum sempra, much less avada kedavra,the way he drilled with expelliarmus and stunning spells. He may have wanted to kill Snape in his rage, immediately after Dumbledore's death, but as we saw, rage is to vengeance what alcohol is to sex: it increases desire but impedes performance . > Magpie: > But this is Voldemort. Of course he would kill him just to be sure. I would never expect Voldemort to just stun the person and keep them alive. He'd all be all about killing him just for the symbolic value. Pippin: Then he'd have killed his faithless followers, including Snape, as soon as he returned to his body. Voldemort may kill anyone in a fit of rage, but he doesn't generally kill his henchmen as long as they are useful to him. He doesn't give a flying fig about symbolism except when he's playing to an audience. We might expect Voldemort to behave like a cliche evil overlord and kill just to establish how nasty he is, but Dumbledore didn't know he was dealing with a fictional character. He could only judge Voldemort based on Voldemort's own past actions. If Dumbledore's plan had worked, I think Snape would simply have presented the Elder Wand to his master like the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Dumbledore would have been delighted to explain, in some posthumous manner, that it was powerless because he had willingly accepted death. No need to mention his little arrangement with Snape at all. Pippin From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sat Feb 23 22:58:01 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:58:01 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181691 > Magpie: > > Sometimes it's easier than innocent people think. The only reason > > Harry hadn't killed someone by the time Dumbledore died was because > > Snape happened to be nearby with the secret fix-cure. Harry was > using the exact same curse on Snape. > > Pippin: > Sure, and Draco's stomp might've made Harry drown in his own blood, or > driven a fragment of bone into Harry's brain and killed him. But it's > not easy to kill a person by breaking the nose unless you know how. Magpie: I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about things much more obviously violent. Draco isn't a killer either, but the only thing that kept him from being a murderer of Ron and Katie was that Snape intervened, because the poison was a lot more serious about killing than Draco himself was. Harry was ready to use Sectumsempra on Snape and had already almost killed somebody with that. Because Sectumsempra was more serious about its purpose than Harry was. Neither boy could really be said to not know how to kill. Pippin: > Killing a person with a knife, or even a sword isn't that easy either, > especially going up against a trained opponent. Let's get real-- Harry > had about as much chance of beating Snape with sectum sempra as I do > of beating the world heavyweight champion in a fist fight. The race > isn't always to the swift -- but that's the way to bet. Magpie: If Harry lashed out at Snape in the right way it's possible it could happen. Dumbledore left that very much open to chance with the situation he'd left. Pippin: > > Harry has never tried to kill anyone in a sneak attack. He's not a > cold-blooded killer. He did not methodically practice using sectum > sempra, much less avada kedavra,the way he drilled with expelliarmus > and stunning spells. He may have wanted to kill Snape in his rage, > immediately after Dumbledore's death, but as we saw, rage is to > vengeance what alcohol is to sex: it increases desire but impedes > performance . Magpie: So Dumbledore did leave Snape open to a possible deadly attack by Harry, but you think the fact that Harry would have to be really angry would protect Snape? Doesn't sound like Dumbledore really deserves much praise for that set up. Far too many things could go wrong there. > > Magpie: > > But this is Voldemort. Of course he would kill him just to be sure. > I would never expect Voldemort to just stun the person and keep them > alive. He'd all be all about killing him just for the symbolic value. > > > Pippin: > Then he'd have killed his faithless followers, including Snape, as > soon as he returned to his body. Magpie: Obviously there's more reason to symbolically kill the previous owner of the Elder Wand than to kill all of his followers at once as soon as he returned. If I wasn't surprised at all that Voldemort killed Snape it doesn't seem like Dumbledore should have been. Pippin: Voldemort may kill anyone in a fit > of rage, but he doesn't generally kill his henchmen as long as they > are useful to him. He doesn't give a flying fig about symbolism except > when he's playing to an audience. We might expect Voldemort to behave > like a cliche evil overlord and kill just to establish how nasty he > is, but Dumbledore didn't know he was dealing with a fictional > character. He could only judge Voldemort based on Voldemort's own past > actions. Magpie: First, many pages of HBP were devoted to reminding us just how important symbolism is to Voldemort--and that's not even the only time it comes up. Voldemort is his own audience. Second, Voldemort certainly does kill henchmen when they are still useful to him. He weighs their usefulness against the reasons for killing them. I can't believe Dumbledore wouldn't see Snape's being the master of the Elder Wand weighting him more on the "kill" side based on Voldemort's past actions--not Voldemort being fictional. Pippin: > If Dumbledore's plan had worked, I think Snape would simply have > presented the Elder Wand to his master like the broomstick of the > Wicked Witch of the West, and Dumbledore would have been delighted to > explain, in some posthumous manner, that it was powerless because he > had willingly accepted death. No need to mention his little > arrangement with Snape at all. Magpie: Then Dumbledore didn't know Voldemort very well or hadn't paid attention to his past actions. -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 23:23:55 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:23:55 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181692 > Ross: > So my question remains: how could Voldemort reasonably > believe the room was his find alone when it's FULL OF STUFF? zgirnius: Perhaps Tom asked for a room where he could hide the Horcrux, and when he saw it was FULL OF STUFF, thought to himself, "Brilliant! The room is obedient to my command! Even if anyone ever finds this room, they'll never find the diadem among ALL THIS STUFF the room has created to camouflage it." From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 23:52:23 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:52:23 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181693 Magpie: > I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about things > much more obviously violent. Draco isn't a killer either, but the > only thing that kept him from being a murderer of Ron and Katie was > that Snape intervened, because the poison was a lot more serious > about killing than Draco himself was. Harry was ready to use > Sectumsempra on Snape and had already almost killed somebody with > that. Because Sectumsempra was more serious about its purpose than > Harry was. Neither boy could really be said to not know how to kill. Carol responds: Sectumsempra is Snape's own spell, and he parried it easily when Harry tried to use it on him. And even if Harry sneaked up on Snape in his Invisibility Cloak, he's never learned to cast a nonverbal spell, so Snape could duck, cast a Protego, or parry the curse as he saw it coming toward him, judging the direction based on the light from the spell. And the moment Harry cast or tried to cast a spell, Snape would know where he was. All he'd need would be a nonverbal Petrificus Totalus to immobilize Harry and force him to listen. As I said before, Harry wasn't trying to kill Snape or he wouldn't have tried Crucio and Stupedy and Impedimenta. He was trying to hurt and punish him and to make him fight a duel. He wasn't out to commit murder. He was trying to get revenge on an opponent who outclassed him in every way. Carol, who thinks that Snape faced from Voldemort was at no risk whatever from Harry From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 00:06:19 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:06:19 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181694 > Carol, who thinks that Snape faced from Voldemort was at no risk > whatever from Harry > Oigh. Wasting a post to say that this line should read, "Carol, who thinks that Snape was at no risk whatever from Harry" From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Sun Feb 24 00:30:31 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:30:31 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181695 > Magpie: > > I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about things > > much more obviously violent. Draco isn't a killer either, but the > > only thing that kept him from being a murderer of Ron and Katie was > > that Snape intervened, because the poison was a lot more serious > > about killing than Draco himself was. Harry was ready to use > > Sectumsempra on Snape and had already almost killed somebody with > > that. Because Sectumsempra was more serious about its purpose than > > Harry was. Neither boy could really be said to not know how to kill. > > > Carol responds: > Sectumsempra is Snape's own spell, and he parried it easily when Harry > tried to use it on him. And even if Harry sneaked up on Snape in his > Invisibility Cloak, he's never learned to cast a nonverbal spell, so > Snape could duck, cast a Protego, or parry the curse as he saw it > coming toward him, judging the direction based on the light from the > spell. Magpie: I don't think it being Snape's spell would matter if he were on the receiving end of it in the right anatomical place--Levicorpus was his spell too. And a number of things could be going on as well--Sirius should have been able to duck, cast Protego or parry Bellatrix's spell. It wouldn't have to just be Harry and Snape alone with Snape having nothing else to concentrate on but stopping Harry. But still, I'm not arguing--and I don't think a_svirn is either--that Harry is a better fighter than Snape or that he should be able to best Snape in a fight. Neither was Draco a better dueler than Dumbledore. By the same token Bellatrix probably shouldn't have fallen to Molly Weasley. But regardless, if Snape's got something Harry thinks he needs to take out Voldemort, and thinks Snape will never let him have it, and already wants to avenge Dumbledore's death, there's some risk of Harry killing Snape or trying to kill Snape added that isn't completely erased by all the reasons Harry shouldn't be able to succeed at it. Dumbledore's plans often fail to take into account all the crazy things that could happen, even though he himself witnessed the accidental killing of his sister, and the destruction of the Potters. Obviously as it happened Harry didn't kill Snape or try to kill him. He stopped his obsession with going after the Hallows when Dobby died. But Voldemort did kill Snape and it was really not hard to predict that he would under those circumstances. -m From rlevatter at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 18:24:25 2008 From: rlevatter at yahoo.com (rlevatter) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:24:25 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181696 Carol, I think, solves the problem in her sign off: <> I think that's exactly right. What we have here is just like the solution to Poe's "The Purloined Letter". The diadem was "hidden in plain sight". Ross From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 23 16:05:39 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:05:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: LV and thr ROR Message-ID: <750449.32786.qm@web56915.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181697 Edna: After reading everyone's opinion on why LV thought that he was the only one who discovered the RofR, even when it was filled with stuff, I immediately thought that he actually did! Tom Riddle was so arrogant, so self absorbed, that discovering the RofR was something only he could do. I'm sure he thought that it was impossible for anyone else to be clever enough to find it, at least in recent years. I don't think he knew that the room could become anything else but a hidden room full of junk. Imagine what he would have been able to do at school if he knew it was a room of requirement! From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 03:14:25 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:14:25 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181698 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > Harry realized that people had been hiding things there > for centuries. Sure, but Harry asked for a place to hide the book and he got it, so it was quite logical for him to assume that the rest of the stuff in the Room was also hidden by someone. We don't know what Tom Riddle asked for. If he *didn't* ask for a place to hide something, he might not guess that the rest of the things were "hidden" by others. > Carol: > Even Trelawney, with her cooking sherry bottles, found > the same room that Draco was in (though Draco must have used a > different request ("I need the room with the Vanishing Cabinet" > rather than "I need a place to hide my book" (or "bottles"). zanooda: But that is exactly my point, you can say different words and still get into the same room. You can say "I need the room where the stuffed troll is" :-) and you'll get again into the room "where everything is hidden". Draco might have said "I need the room with the Vanishing Cabinet", and Trelawney might have said "I need a place to hide my bottles", but they both ended up in one and the same room, at the same time. > Carol: > It seems that even Filch could get into the Room of Requirement > to hide or store the broken Vanishing Cabinet. zanooda: Maybe, but we don't really know who hid the Cabinet. Maybe Filch or the teachers ordered the house-elves to take it away, but the teachers would only do it if they found out about Montague's "adventure", otherwise they wouldn't have the reason to get rid of the Cabinet - they didn't do it before, even though it was broken in CoS. I know that Montague told other Slytherins that he was trapped in the Cabinet, but I'm not sure he told the teachers as well. Maybe it was Draco himself who moved the Cabinet to ROR after he realized its potential. > Carol: > What I'm saying is, when Tom Riddle (and I agree that he was a > student at the time) thought, "I need a place to hide my > Horcrux"), he would have found the same room where everyone > else had hidden things. zanooda: But Tom Riddle didn't need to hide any Horcruxes while he was in school. He didn't ask for a place to hide something, he asked for something else. Unfortunately, having very poor imagination, I can't offer you any believable scenario :-). Here is not a very believable one :-): Tommy loses some object, he can't find it anywhere, so he inquires about the fate of all the things that are dropped, lost, misplaced in Hogwarts. Someone tells him that the house-elves take these things away when they clean at night, or that the castle itself magically moves them to some special place. So he starts looking for this special place - the Room of Lost Things, not the Room of Hidden Things, and when he finds it, there is no reason for him to think that all the stuff in there is hidden by other people. > Carol: > Maybe Harry is just wrong about Voldemort's thinking he was the only > one who'd ever found that room, but, still, Voldemort seems to think > that the Horcrux is safe, even after he finds that Harry is at > Hogwarts (and correctly expects Harry to go to the Ravenclaw common > room). zanooda: Oh, I don't know, it's not something that Harry just assumes, he takes it directly from LV's mind: "... the secret room only he had ever found, the room, like the Chamber, that you had to be clever and cunning and inquisitive to discover ..." (p.641). > Carol: > That thought jumped out at me as ridiculous when I read it, > and I still think it's ridiculous. Not even Voldemort is > that illogical. zanooda: Believe me, I absolutely understand and share yours and the original poster's frustration :-). I'm just trying to find at least some explanation, however lame it may be :-). Of course, the most reasonable explanation would be that LV was just crazy :-). There are some things in this book that can't be explained at all, for example, why did Harry say DD was sure that LV already knew about Horcruxes when he asked Slughorn about them, and that he only wanted to find out about multiple Horcruxes. I mean, it's probably true, but DD never said that, even if he was sure, so how can Harry know? Did he suddenly learn Legilimency? Try to explain *that* :-)! From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 03:43:53 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 03:43:53 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181699 > zanooda: > There are some things in this book that can't be explained at all, > for example, why did Harry say DD was sure that LV already knew about > Horcruxes when he asked Slughorn about them, and that he only wanted > to find out about multiple Horcruxes. I mean, it's probably true, but > DD never said that, even if he was sure, so how can Harry know? Did > he suddenly learn Legilimency? Try to explain *that* :-)! zgirnius: Dumbledore did say it. > HBP, "Horcruxes", Dumbledore speaking: > "As far as I know - as far, I am sure, as Voldemort knew - no wizard had ever done more than tear his soul in two." From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 04:22:18 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 04:22:18 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181700 > a_svirn: > Dumbledore deliberately > put Snape in the way of two powerful wizards who might decide to > go after the wand. zgirnius: I've been away. I think I am caught up on this thread, but if I am bringing up old stuff, my apologies. Have we discussed Albus's alternatives? While it is not stated, I believe that the wand is NOT breakable by ordinary means, despite its being made of materials that, individually and with no magical enhancement, would be a piece of cake to break. Both Harry and Dumbledore express approval for the idea that the power of the wand must be destroyed. Both seem to think that the rather risky and uncertain process of living and dying undefeated, is the way to achieve this goal. Breaking the thing would be much easier, which is why I do not believe it is possible. And it is certainly possible that the extra amazing Death stick etc. etc. has different proertiesd from ordinary wands. Also, perhaps the Odo song was intended as a clue that it is normal to snap a wizard's wand in two for burial. In which case maybe Dumbledore's was not, because it refused to break. To die of thr curse when his time came, or let Draco or another DE kill him, were all, in my view, not options. While a killing by magic is not necessary to pass the wand, it is a sufficient condition. If Albus died of the ring curse or the potion, that would make his killer (and therefore, the Master of the Elder Wand) Lord Voldemort. Otherwise, it would make Draco or another Death Eater the master ? people it would be just as easy for Voldemort to kill or defeat for the wand as Snape. The difference Snape's killing would have made, if Draco had not intervened, is that through their prior agreement, Snape's action would not constitute a defeat. To exploit this twist, which Harry explains to Voldemort in the final chapter, Albus had to find someone on his side willing to kill him. Snape was by far the clear choice, since he knew as Dumbledore's `doctor' that he was going to die anyway, and additional advantages accrued to his doing it. (Such as, according to Snape, Voldemort wanted him to do it in the end anyway, so that his doing it won him the position close to Voldemort that allowed him to try to protect the students of Hogwarts, and have access to the Sword of Gryffindor). > a_svirn: > Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely > want to avenge Dumbledore's death. zgirnius: In that sense, Dumbledore put Snape in the way of the entire 'good side', which includes wizards considerably more formidable than Harry. (Harry's one exceptional power, according to Albus himself, was "love". Not a power I think Albus would consider particularly useful in attempting to murder Snape). Minerva McGonagall tried to kill Snape too, and he survived that as well. Any other plan for Snape that left him 'out in the cold' would do the same, regardless of how Snape would arrange to make his (apparent) open declaration of loyalties. Dumbledore and Snape both knew that the Ministry would fall, and with Dumbledore dead, so would Hogwarts. They both knew Dumbledore would die, regardless of what plans they made. In that situation, it seems to me Snape's greater value was where the plan put him - at Voldemort's side and at Hogwarts. If Snape was a seeming traitor, I think Harry could manage to get worked up about him "merely" for Snape's role in the murder of his parents. The thing that seems important to me, though, is that Snape, being not an entirely stupid man, must have realized this would be a consequence of seeming to murder Dumbledore, and presiding as Headmaster over a Mudblood-free Hogwarts with Death Eaters on the teaching staff. He took on both tasks anyway, presumably because he considered them worth the trouble and danger they might bring. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 06:16:34 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:16:34 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181701 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" wrote: > HBP, "Horcruxes", Dumbledore speaking: > "As far as I know - as far, I am sure, as Voldemort > knew - no wizard had ever done more than tear his soul > in two." This only means that both DD and LV knew no one attempted to create multiple Horcruxes before. It doesn't mean that LV already knew *how* to create a Horcrux when he talked to Slughorn. Harry says in DH: "Dumbledore was sure Riddle already knew how to make a Horcrux by the time he asked Slughorn about them" (p.103), but I don't remember anything being said about it in HBP. I'm pretty sure that the statement itself is correct, I just can't find where DD said it in the book :-). The closest thing would be: "What he particularly wanted from Horace was an opinion on what would hapen to the wizard who created more than one Horcrux", but it's not the same thing as "he already knew how to make a Horcrux, but wanted Horace's opinion on what would happen ..." etc. Maybe it's just Harry's interpretation, that's all. Or I didn't read HBP carefully :-). zanooda From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 13:52:39 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:52:39 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181702 > > a_svirn: > > Dumbledore deliberately > > put Snape in the way of two powerful wizards who might decide to > > go after the wand. > > zgirnius: > Have we discussed Albus's alternatives? While it is not stated, I > believe that the wand is NOT breakable by ordinary means, despite its > being made of materials that, individually and with no magical > enhancement, would be a piece of cake to break. a_svirn: You may believe it but this is all guesswork. And even if you are right there were still alternatives. The easiest was for Dumbledore to give it to Harry even before he died. After all he was dying already, Harry needed to overcome the twin connection as much as Voldemort did, and it wouldn't put Harry in anymore danger than he already was. > > a_svirn: > > Harry because he already hated Snape with passion and would likely > > want to avenge Dumbledore's death. > > zgirnius: > In that sense, Dumbledore put Snape in the way of the entire 'good > side', which includes wizards considerably more formidable than > Harry. a_svirn: Not quite. Without the wand Harry would have wanted revenge, but would be too busy chasing Horcruxes. However, if by Dumbledore's own arrangements Snape ended up with the wand Harry would have every exuse he needed to combine pleasure and business, so to speak. And really what consideration should stop him? Here would be Snape, a man he hated as much as Voldemort, and whom he believed to be steeped in villainy, and he would have the very thing Harry would believe he'd need to vanquish Voldemort. Well, really, what would you expect him to do under such circumstances? > Magpie: > But still, I'm not arguing--and I don't think a_svirn is either-- that > Harry is a better fighter than Snape or that he should be able to > best Snape in a fight. Neither was Draco a better dueler than > Dumbledore. By the same token Bellatrix probably shouldn't have > fallen to Molly Weasley. But regardless, if Snape's got something > Harry thinks he needs to take out Voldemort, and thinks Snape will > never let him have it, and already wants to avenge Dumbledore's > death, there's some risk of Harry killing Snape or trying to kill > Snape added that isn't completely erased by all the reasons Harry > shouldn't be able to succeed at it. Dumbledore's plans often fail to > take into account all the crazy things that could happen, even though > he himself witnessed the accidental killing of his sister, and the > destruction of the Potters. > > Obviously as it happened Harry didn't kill Snape or try to kill him. > He stopped his obsession with going after the Hallows when Dobby > died. But Voldemort did kill Snape and it was really not hard to > predict that he would under those circumstances. Exactly! a_svirn. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:46:27 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:46:27 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181703 > a_svirn: > You may believe it but this is all guesswork. And even if you are > right there were still alternatives. The easiest was for Dumbledore > to give it to Harry even before he died. After all he was dying > already, Harry needed to overcome the twin connection as much as > Voldemort did, and it wouldn't put Harry in anymore danger than he > already was. zgirnius: Giving it to Harry would not make Harry Master of the Wand. Voldemort or another Death Eater would become its master, depending on whether Dumbledore died of the curse, or was murdered. The actual plan, of having Snape kill Dumbledore before he could be defeated, would have eliminated permanently the threat the wand posed in the wrong hands. > a_svirn: > Well, really, what would you expect him to do under such circumstances? zgirnius: "Expelliarmus!" From falkeli at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:48:23 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:48:23 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181704 zanooda: > But Tom Riddle didn't need to hide any Horcruxes while he was in school. He didn't ask for a place to hide something, he asked for something else. HP_Fan_2008: Is this true? I think that LV used the Room of Requirement to hide the diary in, originally. He knew he wanted to hide a hrcrux at Hogwarts, and until he had more, he wanted the diary tucked away safely. HP_Fan_2008 From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:57:21 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:57:21 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181705 zanooda: > This only means that both DD and LV knew no one attempted to create > multiple Horcruxes before. It doesn't mean that LV already knew *how* > to create a Horcrux when he talked to Slughorn. zgirnius: Ah, I see the distinction you asre making. To know that *no* wizard had ever done it, Tom would have had to do a good deal of research, in the course of which I suppsoe it is reasonable he would have discovered how this is done. But this is not, as you say, stated. I would point out, that if Tom did not know before, he still does not know after talking to Slughorn. Slughorn gave a general, theoretical description. He refused to speak of the spell, which he himself may not even know, which is used to encase the soul bit. > zanooda: > Maybe it's just Harry's > interpretation, that's all. Or I didn't read HBP carefully :-). > zgirnius: There is also some possible timeline evidence. Tom made the diary at sixteen, to complete his noble work. This was his opening of the Chamber, fifth year, so while this is never stated, it is reasonable to suppose he made the Diary Horcrux right then, when Myrtle's death made it necessary to stop. Just putting in the memories would not have been enough for the stated purpose of 'completing the work'. According to Dumbledore, it was the soul bit that alloowed the Diary to do its work. If this is what Harry believes, the rest follows. The ring was taken from Morfin the summer after fifth year, and the conversation with Slughorn is after that point, since Tom is wearing the ring. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 16:01:20 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:01:20 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181706 > HP_Fan_2008: > Is this true? I think that LV used the Room of Requirement to hide the > diary in, originally. He knew he wanted to hide a hrcrux at Hogwarts, > and until he had more, he wanted the diary tucked away safely. zgirnius: I doubt this. My own guess would be that Tom kept the diary among his personal effects at school, which is where it had (I presume) always been before it became a container for his memories and torn soul bit. Just as he wore the ring, as a schoolboy. We know he had it outside of school before his first fall, since in wound up in the unreliable care of Lucius Malfoy. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Feb 24 16:29:56 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:29:56 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181707 > a_svirn: > You may believe it but this is all guesswork. And even if you are > right there were still alternatives. The easiest was for Dumbledore > to give it to Harry even before he died. After all he was dying > already, Harry needed to overcome the twin connection as much as > Voldemort did, and it wouldn't put Harry in anymore danger than he > already was. Pippin: Aren't your theories guesswork also? But I don't understand how this one works. Giving Harry the wand would not make him master of it. As has been pointed out, had Dumbledore still been master of the wand and died of either the ring curse or the poison, the new master of the wand would have been Voldemort. Magpie: I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about things much more obviously violent. Dumbledore's plans often fail to take into account all the crazy things that could happen, even though he himself witnessed the accidental killing of his sister, and the destruction of the Potters. Pippin: I'm not sure what you're saying here. Crazy things can't be planned for by definition, nor can Dumbledore expect them to prevent them by not planning to do anything "crazy", ie unconventional, himself -- that kind of magical thinking doesn't work, even in the Potterverse. Dumbledore knew Harry, knew he would be tempted by the Hallows and by the desire for vengeance, but he also trusted that Harry would grow out of those desires, and that is exactly what happened. Was it risky? Of course. Even Dumbledore couldn''t make an omelet without breaking eggs. There was no safe way to get rid of Voldemort, and who would want to read about it if there was? At least Dumbledore's plan did not entail a full scale wizarding war as a public hunt for the horcruxes or the hallows might have. And while part of the readership may feel cheated I don't think the people of the wizarding world would share that opinion. Likewise, I don't think the people of the WW feel cheated that their saviors did not turn out to be persons of heroic sanctity. JKR is not trying to inspire people to become saints, IMO. She is trying to inspire us to resist evil, and telling us we don't have to be preternaturally virtuous to do it. All that's needed is a drop of courage and a modicum of love. > > a_svirn: Here would be Snape, a man > he hated as much as Voldemort, and whom he believed to be steeped in > villainy, and he would have the very thing Harry would believe he'd > need to vanquish Voldemort. Well, really, what would you expect him > to do under such circumstances? Pippin: I wouldn't expect him to murder in cold blood, and I wouldn't expect him to be able to beat Snape in a duel. Under those circumstances Snape would have time to convince Harry that he'd got things wrong. If Harry was too angry to listen, he would also be too angry to fight effectively. This isn't Star Wars, where anger gives you the power of the dark side. All anger does, in Potterverse magic, is make you lose control of yourself and your powers. If I were Snape I would have been much more worried about Moody, or even Hagrid, than Harry. Lucky for Snape that Moody got killed so soon, and that Hagrid wouldn't believe Snape was guilty. Magpie: Obviously there's more reason to symbolically kill the previous owner of the Elder Wand than to kill all of his followers at once as soon as he returned. If I wasn't surprised at all that Voldemort killed Snape it doesn't seem like Dumbledore should have been. Pippin: How could we be surprised? If Snape was going to die, it would be either at Voldemort's hands or at Harry's -- nothing else would be dramatic enough. But Dumbledore doesn't know his universe is biased towards drama. Canon recognizes the danger that Voldemort would see Dumbledore's killer as competition. Narcissa realizes in Spinner's End that it must not look as if Snape is doing something that Voldemort himself dared not do. Both Snape and Dumbledore took steps to forestall it. Snape made sure everyone knew that Dumbledore was not the wizard he once was, while Dumbledore flaunted his damaged hand, and played up his weakness on the tower for all it was worth, making sure that his killer looked like a traitor and a coward rather than a mighty duellist. And it worked. Voldemort didn't treat Snape's murder as a symbolic death. He didn't linger to watch Snape die, or desecrate the body, or arrange in some way to let his followers know of his triumph, or take a trophy of the death. Snape's death was not a fetish death -- it was incidental, the product of a random error in Voldemort's thought process, something that might have happened for any number of reasons unrelated to Dumbledore's plans. Pippin From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Feb 24 17:57:44 2008 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 24 Feb 2008 17:57:44 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 2/24/2008, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1203875864.11.35437.m49@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181708 Reminder from: HPforGrownups Yahoo! Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday February 24, 2008 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Location: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Notes: Just a reminder, Sunday chat starts in about one hour. To get to the HPfGU room follow this link: http://www.chatzy.com/792755223574 Create a user name for yourself, whatever you want to be called. Enter the password: hpfguchat Click "Join Chat" on the lower right. Chat start times: 11 am Pacific US 12 noon Mountain US 1 pm Central US 2 pm Eastern US 7 pm UK All Rights Reserved Copyright 2008 Yahoo! Inc. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 18:23:47 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:23:47 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181709 What I want to know is how Voldemort "knew" that the Elder Wand wasn't working for him and that, therefore, he wasn't its master. the wand seems to me to be working just fine. It certainly killed a lot of people (not to mention the soul bit in Harry) and it created that floating cage around Nagini. Where do we have any indication that the wand has failed him? (snape says that Voldemort has done "extraordinary things" with the wand, though what they were and how he knows that, I have no idea, and Voldemort explains that its his own extraordinary abilities, not the wand's that made those "extraordinary things" possible? Huh? None of it makes any sense. If, indeed, he accomplished extraordinary things with the Elder Wand, which seems to work fro him just as well as his own wand ever did (and Ollivander says that the yew wand did "great but terrible" things--including making Horcruxes that Ollivander doesn't know about), what is Voldemort's problem? What flaw does he seee in the Elder Wand? It doesn't stop working for him until after Harry's self-sacrifice and return from his visit, in spirit, to King's Cross. (And, yes, I believe that his spirit was really there and could really have "gone on," leaving the Voldie soul under the bench, had he so chosen.) Had Voldemort not noticed that the wand wasn't working, he wouldn't have summoned Snape. And yet, as far as I can see, the wand is working just fine, and there's no need to summon Snape at all (which also raises the question of how Snape was supposed to find out about Nagini in her bubble so that he could pass his message on to Harry). Carol, annoyed by this flaw in the storyline because it makes no sense at all From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 18:46:21 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:46:21 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181710 > > a_svirn: > > You may believe it but this is all guesswork. And even if you are > > right there were still alternatives. The easiest was for Dumbledore > > to give it to Harry even before he died. After all he was dying > > already, Harry needed to overcome the twin connection as much as > > Voldemort did, and it wouldn't put Harry in anymore danger than he > > already was. > > Pippin: > Aren't your theories guesswork also? a_svirn: Actually, they are neither theories, nor guesswork. They are an attempt to unravel Dumbledore's possible intentions. When you are planning something you don't deal in certainties, naturally. But then you don't indulge in wishful thinking, either (hopefully). You deal in contingencies. You must see that certain actions incur certain risks. It does not mean, of course, that all those risks would materialise, but there no sense in taking them if they can be avoided. Still less sense in taking them for no purpose at all. > Pippin: But I don't understand how > this one works. > > Giving Harry the wand would not make him master of it. a_svirn: Why not? When Ollivander sells an eleven-year-old a wand it recognises them as a master, and they don't have to duel with Ollivander. I suppose one can make a present of a wand or bequeath it. In that case a wand would change allegiances in accordance of its previous master's will. Moreover, even if Harry wouldn't be a master of the wand, he could be its custodian until Dumbledore died, and *then* he could become its master. > Pippin: As has been > pointed out, had Dumbledore still been master of the wand and > died of either the ring curse or the poison, the new master of the > wand would have been Voldemort. a_svirn: That's not how Dumbledore himself saw it. He saw his death at Snape's hands would be "leaving on his own terms", that is to say undefeated. Personally, I think his logic was a bit contrived, but that's how he saw it, and he laid his plans accordingly. > > Magpie: > I was not talking about freak accidents, I was talking about > things much more obviously violent. > > Dumbledore's plans often fail to > take into account all the crazy things that could happen, even though > he himself witnessed the accidental killing of his sister, and the > destruction of the Potters. > > Pippin: > Dumbledore knew Harry, knew he would be tempted by the Hallows > and by the desire for vengeance, but he also trusted that Harry would > grow out of those desires, and that is exactly what happened. > > Was it risky? Of course. Even Dumbledore couldn''t make an omelet without > breaking eggs. There was no safe way to get rid of Voldemort, and who > would want to read about it if there was? a_svirn: The point is it was unnecessary risky. Dumbledore himself made sure that Harry would be tempted by the Hallows. What's more he made sure that Harry would misunderstand their significance. And if his plan had succeeded, Harry would almost certainly have gone after Snape. Whom Dumbledore needed alive at least until he delivered his message. Which is unnecessary risky and complicated. Sure you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, but there was no point in deliberately giving Harry rotten eggs for his omelette. > > > > a_svirn: Here would be Snape, a man > > he hated as much as Voldemort, and whom he believed to be steeped in > > villainy, and he would have the very thing Harry would believe he'd > > need to vanquish Voldemort. Well, really, what would you expect him > > to do under such circumstances? > > Pippin: > I wouldn't expect him to murder in cold blood, a_svirn: And when ever Harry deal with Snape in cold blood? He had only to look at his prominent nose and greasy hair, and his blood started to boil. > Pippin: and I wouldn't expect > him to be able to beat Snape in a duel. a_svirn: Didn't have to be a duel. He didn't duel with Amycus, Luna didn't duel with Alecto. > Pippin: Under those circumstances > Snape would have time to convince Harry that he'd got things wrong. a_svirn: Hardly. Under those circumstances Harry wouldn't likely to listen. Wouldn't even likely to grant Snape an opportunity to speak. > Pippin: If Harry > was too angry to listen, he would also be too angry to fight effectively. a_svirn: Don't see why. He's always angry when he fights. And he is effective more often than not. > > Magpie: > Obviously there's more reason to symbolically kill the previous owner > of the Elder Wand than to kill all of his followers at once as soon > as he returned. If I wasn't surprised at all that Voldemort killed > Snape it doesn't seem like Dumbledore should have been. > > Pippin: > How could we be surprised? If Snape was going to die, it would be > either at Voldemort's hands or at Harry's -- nothing else would be > dramatic enough. But Dumbledore doesn't know his universe is > biased towards drama. a_svirn: No, but he knew Voldemort. And Voldemort is fairly predictable in this respect. a_svirn. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Feb 24 19:35:26 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:35:26 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181711 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > > What I want to know is how Voldemort "knew" that the Elder Wand wasn't > working for him and that, therefore, he wasn't its master. Pippin: We know one thing that the Elder Wand could do that Harry's own phoenix feather wand, the brother of Voldemort's, could not do -- repair a broken wand. Perhaps Voldemort experimented with trying to mend Lucius's wand, and couldn't do it. Carol: the question of how Snape was supposed to find out about Nagini > in her bubble so that he could pass his message on to Harry). > Pippin: Severus reports regularly to Voldemort, why wouldn't he find out about it? Pippin From l.anne120 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 13:35:28 2008 From: l.anne120 at yahoo.com (l.anne120) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:35:28 -0000 Subject: Warrington and Apparating Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181712 I Have a question that may have been answered, but I haven't been reading the posts on this group for very long. I'm just re-reading OotP and I'm still wondering if JKR made a mistake here. Fred and George were responsible for putting the Slytherin Quidich captain Warrington into the vanishing cabinet, the one that Draco fixes in HBP which ultimately allows the Death Easters into Hogwarts. Draco says to Dumbledore that Warrington apparated OUT of the cabinet - we witness this through Harry's eyes when Draco interrupts a Occulemeny lesson to tell Snape that they found Warrington in a toilet. My question: as Hermoine ceaselessly reminds us, "you can't apparate into or out of Hogwarts." But Draco clearly states that Warrington "nearly died" by apparating out of the cabinet and into Hogwarts. This seems like a clear violation of the magical rules established by JKR. So what gives? Did Warrington apparate into Hogwarts or is there some other explanation that isn't clear to me after several readings of the series? If JKR has explained this, I'd love to see the reference. If this subject has been thoroughly canvassed, please refer me to the appropriate thread and I'd be glad to read up on this. Thanks DrKnow From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 20:29:54 2008 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (Zara) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:29:54 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181713 > Carol: > What I want to know is how Voldemort "knew" that the Elder Wand wasn't > working for him and that, therefore, he wasn't its master. the wand > seems to me to be working just fine. It certainly killed a lot of > people (not to mention the soul bit in Harry) and it created that > floating cage around Nagini. Where do we have any indication that the > wand has failed him? zgirnius: We don't have any indication. But we don't need to, for this statement by Voldemort to make sense with the canon we do have. We have the examples of Harry and Hermione using wands they obtained from others without defeating them. Harry has trouble with basic spells, but can sometimes get them to work, with Hermione's wand, for example. Voldemort, a much more powerful, skilled, and experienced wizard, may notice that spells require more concentration, or may have tried something new and powerful that did not work, which would give him the same feeling. He does have the wand for about two months before he calls for Snape, plenty of time to develop a bad feeling about it. > Carol: > (snape says that Voldemort has done > "extraordinary things" with the wand, though what they were and how he > knows that, I have no idea, zgirnius: It's those two months. Now that Voldemort is done searching Eastern Europe for clues of the Elder Wand, I presume his right-hand-man is seeing him on a regular basis. Enough to see him using the new wand. As to the 'extraordinary things' what they are is apparently not important, or else Snape is practising a typical DE flattery, as we see him also do, for example, in "Spinner's End", when he calls the Dark Lord the greatest Legilimens ever (or some such). > Carol: > (which also > raises the question of how Snape was supposed to find out about Nagini > in her bubble so that he could pass his message on to Harry). zgirnius: Again, just because we rarely see them meet, does not mean Snape or other DEs from whom Snape might hear about the snake bubble do not see Voldemort more often. I presume the opposite, that meetings like the one in Ch. 1, and visits to Snape and Hogwarts such as the one we see when Voldemort comes for the wand, are the norm when Voldemort is around, and so Snape sees him regularly. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 20:51:53 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:51:53 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181714 a_svirn: > Actually, they are neither theories, nor guesswork. They are an attempt to unravel Dumbledore's possible intentions. Carol responds: Which is exactly what the rest of us are also trying to do. a_svirn: > When you are planning something you don't deal in certainties, naturally. Carol: Exactly. One of the themes of the books is that the best-laid plans gang oft aglay. And Dumbledore is as aware as anyone that the consequences of our actions (which would include planned actions) are beyond our control. He says as much to Harry after Harry makes Black and Lupin spare Wormtail's life. a_svirn: > But then you don't indulge in wishful thinking, either (hopefully). Carol: Oh, I think DD *hoped* that the drop of blood would keep Harry from dying, for one. And he *hoped* that Harry would choose to sacrifcie himself after hearing Snape's message. A lot depended on things going right, people making the right choices, etc. Any time you depend on other people to carry out your plans (as Portrait!Dumbledore, in particular, was forced to do, you have to engage in, if not, wishful thinking (that things are as you hope they are), at least in hopes that things will work according to plan. a_svirn: > You deal in contingencies. You must see that certain actions incur certain risks. It does not mean, of course, that all those risks would materialise, but there no sense in taking them if they can be avoided. Still less sense in taking them for no purpose at all. Carol: Of course. No one, as far as I can see, is disputing that point. The question is whether the risks that Dumbledore took, both as Wizard and as portrait, were taken for "no purpose at all." And that's where you need to defend, or at least clarify, your position. Which risks did he take "for no purpose at all"? None that I can see. Pippin: > But I don't understand how this one works. > > > > Giving Harry the wand would not make him master of it. > > a_svirn: > Why not? When Ollivander sells an eleven-year-old a wand it > recognises them as a master, and they don't have to duel with > Ollivander. I suppose one can make a present of a wand or bequeath > it. In that case a wand would change allegiances in accordance of its > previous master's will. Moreover, even if Harry wouldn't be a master > of the wand, he could be its custodian until Dumbledore died, and > *then* he could become its master. Carol: We don't know whether willing a person a wand makes the new possessor the master of the wand. It would have no more reason to choose its new owner than a stolen wand would. If giving the wand made a person master of the wand, why did he want to give it to Snape? By your logic, that would make Snape master of the wand. But DD didn't want anyone to be master of the wand. He wanted to rob it of its power by dying at snape's hand. (The question is, of course, why he wanted Snape to have a useless stick robbed of its powers, but I assume that Portrait!Dumbledore would have told him what to do with it if the plan headn't bee thwarted by Draco's Expelliarmus.) a_svirn: > The point is it was unnecessary risky. Dumbledore himself made sure that Harry would be tempted by the Hallows. What's more he made sure that Harry would misunderstand their significance. And if his plan had succeeded, Harry would almost certainly have gone after Snape. Whom Dumbledore needed alive at least until he delivered his message. > Which is unnecessary risky and complicated. Carol: Do you have an alternative? Not counting giving Harry the wand, which, as I've said, is not a feasible alternative because the whole point of dying as he intended (aside from the need to keep Snape alive and Draco from becoming a murderer) was to rob the wand of its powers? The only point in Harry's having the now-useless wand would be to bring the Three Hallows together and make Harry the Master of Death. (Believe me, I wish as much as anyone that the Elder Wand had never come into the story at all.) As for Harry going after Snape, why would he do that? To get the wand? For revenge? He *didn't* go after him, despite wanting to, throughout most of DH. And when he was under the Invisibility Cloak with Luna and wanted to curse Snape, he didn't intend to kill him. Snape seems to know that Harry is there and Harry raises his wand, ready to attack (DH Am. ed. 597) but he does nothing, letting Snape continue his conversation with McG, still looking around for Harry. (He looks into McG's eyes when he asks whether Harry is there, evidently using Legilimency on her.( At that point McG attacks and Harry thinks that "Snape must crumble, unconscious" but Snape's Protego throws her off balance. Then Harry is "about to curse [not kill] Snape," but he's prevented by the torch that McG causes to come out of its bracket. At any rate, here's Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, in the presence of allies, and he doesn't try to kill Snape, only curse him. As I've said, the only nonverbal curse that Harry knows is Levicorpus, which would not prevent Snape from figuring out where he was and using Petrificus Totalus on him. As long as he still had his own wand, he could easily reverse the Levicorpus himself. And he could force Harry to listen, step one being to show him his Patronus. And while Dumbledore didn't know the details of Snape's Sword of Gryffindor plan, he did know what Snape's Patronus looked like. *And* he knew that Snape was a clever and careful man who was unlikely to be defeated, much less killed by Harry. (If *draco* is not a killer, surely Harry, whom DD regards as "pure," is not a killer, either. As he showed by *not* attempting to kill Snape, only to curse him, while he was under the Invisibility Cloak.) Really, Snape having to deal with Harry before communicating his message is a minor matter, easily solved by Snape hiimself. (Snape must already have been thinking about it; he's looking all around for Invisible Harry when he talks to McG, and he tries at least three times to convince Voldemort to let him find the boy. I can't imagine his not having a plan for convincing Harry that he was on the same side and that Harry needed to listen. There are other flaws in the plan, but that's the least of them, IMO.) a_svirn: > Didn't have to be a duel. He didn't duel with Amycus, Luna didn't > duel with Alecto. Carol: And they didn't kill them, either. *Nor* did Harry try to kill Snape from beneath the Invisibility Cloak when he had the chance. Snape escaped the much more serious threat from McGonagall using a suit of armor (a Protego would have killed McGonagall by turning her own curse back on her). Now, granted, if he'd succeeded in Stupefying Snape (or McGonagall had killeed him), Dumbledore's plan would have been thwarted. But, as we see, Snape escaped from both of them. (Now I do think that Portrait!DD should have informed McGonagall that Headmaster Snape was on their side. It would have made matters much, much easier. But then the story wouldn't have been as exciting. Snape's death (much as I, personally, wish it hadn't happened) is much more dramatic than Snape and McG escorting Harry upstairs so that he can enter Snape's memories in the Pensieve. Granted, Snape doesn't know at this point that Nagini is being kept prisoner in her bubble, but he does know that LV is coming, so it looks as if he intended to reveal the self-sacrifice memory (at least) early if possible. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been looking around distractedly for Harry. > > > Pippin: > Under those circumstances Snape would have time to convince Harry that he'd got things wrong. > > a_svirn: > Hardly. Under those circumstances Harry wouldn't likely to listen. > Wouldn't even likely to grant Snape an opportunity to speak. Carol: As I said, all Snape has to do is cast a Petrificus Totalus and Harry has no choice but to listen. And, of course, he could cast Muffliato and place the Invisibility Cloak over both of them and no one would see or overhear them. > a_svirn: > No, but he knew Voldemort. And Voldemort is fairly predictable in this respect. Carol: Voldemort doesn't even know about the Elder Wand until after "The Seven Potters," when he interrogates Ollivander after a glitch in both his and Dumbledore's plans. He's had Ollivander with him since the beginning of HBP, yet he still hasn't gone after the wand. How could Dumbledore *know* that he would do so? And how could he *know* that Voldemort would succeed? And how could he *know* that Voldemort (who can make any wand work) would figure out that he wasn't the wand's master and go after Snape? He made it possible for Harry to go after the wand, which would have kept it from Voldemort. As for Snape's danger, he willingly put himself in danger of death every time he lied to Voldemort and by taking the Unbreakable Vow. He could have died on the tower had he not agreed to go along with Dumbledore's plan. He could have been caught and killed by the Order as Dumbledore's "murderer." (We see that McGonagall had no hesitation to kill him with her daggers.) Finding a way to deliver the message to Harry was just one more risk, a minor one, IMO. And LV's mistakenly thinking that Snape was the master of the wand (as he would not have been even if the plan had worked) was not inevitable. If Snape had the disempowered wand, Portrait!Dumbledore would surely have told him what it was (any temptation for Snape to use it himself having been removed) and come up with some sort of plan to keep LV from going after it (or viewing Snape as its master). To me, it's clear from "King's Cross" and from the need to get the memory to Harry that Dumbledore didn't intend for "poor Severus" to die. What isn't clear is what Dumbledore did intend to happen. BTW, Grindelwald never tells Voldemort how to become master of the wand. He only says that he never had it, which LV apparently knows is a lie (we don't know whether he does Legilimency on GG to find out the truth because Harry slips out of LV's mind into the peresent at that point), and right before he's killed, GG says, "Kill me, then! You will not win, you cannot win! That wand will never, ever be yours!" (DH Am. ed. 472)--no indication of where the wand is or how to make it his, only the flat out statement that nothing he can do will make it his. And that "nothing" would include killing the present master of the wand, whether that's Snape, Draco, or Harry. LV, however, doesn't listen and arrives at his own very strange conclusion--that the wand, which is working perfectly well, isn't working. But, then, this is the same person who thinks that he's the only person clever enough to find a room which thousands of other people have obviously found before him (which means, BTW, that at least ten or so people per year since the founding of Hogwarts a thousand years before have used the room). Let's go back to Dumbledore. He has to die in the way he wishes to keep a DE or Voldemort or Draco from becoming master of the wand so that the wand will lose its power, which means that Snape has to do it. He gives Snape every reason but that one for killing him. He reveals the rest of the plan, which requires Snape to be alive. On the tower, even though the Elder Wand plan has gone out the window, he still needs Snape to kill him for the reasons he stated and to keep Snape from being killed by the UV. Could he have let someone other than Snape kill him? No. Snape was the only person he trusted who could and would kill him, and the only person who could and would (to the best of his ability) protect the students at Hogwarts and still appear to be loyal to Voldemort. What other choice did Dumbledore have, with or without the Elder Wand, once he had stupidly put on the cursed ring? *That* was DD's fault, pure and simple. Aside to zgirnius: Snape is "not entirely stupid"? I'd say he's as far from stupid as any character in the book, and that includes both DD and Hermione, both of whom have done stupid things on occasion. Carol, who wants to know what Dumbledore intended to do near the end of HBP when he tried to get Harry to summon Snape *and* why DD wanted Snape to have the wand From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 21:38:09 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:38:09 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181715 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > > a_svirn: > > Actually, they are neither theories, nor guesswork. They are an > attempt to unravel Dumbledore's possible intentions. > > Carol responds: > Which is exactly what the rest of us are also trying to do. > a_svirn: True. > > a_svirn: > > You deal in contingencies. You must see that certain actions incur > certain risks. It does not mean, of course, that all those risks would > materialise, but there no sense in taking them if they can be > avoided. Still less sense in taking them for no purpose at all. > > Carol: > Of course. No one, as far as I can see, is disputing that point. The > question is whether the risks that Dumbledore took, both as Wizard and > as portrait, were taken for "no purpose at all." And that's where you > need to defend, or at least clarify, your position. Which risks did he > take "for no purpose at all"? None that I can see. a_svirn: Then what was the purpose of leaving the Elder Wand to Snape? None that I can see. I do, however see the risks such eventuality would entail. > > Carol: > We don't know whether willing a person a wand makes the new possessor > the master of the wand. It would have no more reason to choose its new > owner than a stolen wand would. a_svirn: But Death made that first brother a present of it. Of course, Death isn't just any person, but still the principle must be the same. > Carol: > If giving the wand made a person master of the wand, why did he want > to give it to Snape? By your logic, that would make Snape master of > the wand. a_svirn: He didn't intend to *give* it to Snape. He intended Snape to *have* it after he killed Dumbledore at his command. Since it would mean that Dumbledore gone undefeated, the wand would not recognise Snape as a master. Or so Dumbledore thought. For myself, I don't see how one can rely on wands to be this logical. What if it took fancy to Snape? But Dumbledore obviously thought it wasn't likely. > > a_svirn: > > The point is it was unnecessary risky. Dumbledore himself made sure > that Harry would be tempted by the Hallows. What's more he made sure > that Harry would misunderstand their significance. And if his plan > had succeeded, Harry would almost certainly have gone after Snape. > Whom Dumbledore needed alive at least until he delivered his message. > > Which is unnecessary risky and complicated. > > Carol: > Do you have an alternative? Not counting giving Harry the wand, which, > as I've said, is not a feasible alternative because the whole point of > dying as he intended (aside from the need to keep Snape alive and > Draco from becoming a murderer) was to rob the wand of its powers? a_svirn: Not if he himself bestow it on Harry. Why not give Harry a powerful weapon. He certainly could use it. And in any case, I fail to see why he couldn't give Harry the wand even if it were robbed of its powers. It would not put Harry in anymore danger than he already was, but if would save Snape. Whom Dumbledore needed alive at least until he served his purpose. > Carol: > As for Harry going after Snape, why would he do that? To get the wand? > For revenge? a_svirn: Because he would want the wand. Because he thought ? up until the death of Dobby ? that it would be better to go after the Hallows fist. Because Dumbledore made sure that Harry would think it. Revenge would be the icing on the cake. > Carol: He *didn't* go after him, despite wanting to, throughout > most of DH. a_svirn: But then the Plan went awry, and Snape didn't have the wand. So, naturally, Harry didn't go after him. He had something more important to do after all. > Carol: > Really, Snape having to deal with Harry before communicating his > message is a minor matter, easily solved by Snape hiimself. a_svirn: If you say so. > Carol: (Snape > must already have been thinking about it; he's looking all around for > Invisible Harry when he talks to McG, and he tries at least three > times to convince Voldemort to let him find the boy. a_svirn: And every time he is unsuccessful. > Carol: I can't imagine > his not having a plan for convincing Harry that he was on the same > side and that Harry needed to listen. a_svirn: I suppose he did. (Not that it worked, however.) But in any case we are discussing Dumbledore's plan, not Snape's. > a_svirn: > > Didn't have to be a duel. He didn't duel with Amycus, Luna didn't > > duel with Alecto. > > Carol: > And they didn't kill them, either. *Nor* did Harry try to kill Snape > from beneath the Invisibility Cloak when he had the chance. a_svirn: Well, he vented his rage on Amicus already. And Snape *didn't* have the wand, so Harry wouldn't have an excuse for attacking him. Through I must say it doesn't make much sense that he cowered under cloak while McGonagall was duelling with Snape. > > > Pippin: > > Under those circumstances Snape would have time to convince Harry > that he'd got things wrong. > > > > a_svirn: > > Hardly. Under those circumstances Harry wouldn't likely to listen. > > Wouldn't even likely to grant Snape an opportunity to speak. > > Carol: > As I said, all Snape has to do is cast a Petrificus Totalus and Harry > has no choice but to listen. a_svirn: But Harry would have had a better opportunity to cast it on Snape, than Snape on Harry. After all Harry is the one with the cloak. > > > a_svirn: > > No, but he knew Voldemort. And Voldemort is fairly predictable in > this respect. > > Carol: > Voldemort doesn't even know about the Elder Wand until after "The > Seven Potters," when he interrogates Ollivander after a glitch in both > his and Dumbledore's plans. He's had Ollivander with him since the > beginning of HBP, yet he still hasn't gone after the wand. How could > Dumbledore *know* that he would do so? a_svirn: As I said before it never smart to rely on the best case scenario. As far as Dumbledore knew, Voldemort might have been searching for the wand ever since the beginning of HBP. > Carol: > As for Snape's danger, he willingly put himself in danger of death > every time he lied to Voldemort and by taking the Unbreakable Vow. a_svirn: That's neither here, nor there. He may be willing and even eager to die, but it still doesn't make sense for Dumbledore to put him in jeopardy for no reason at all. > Carol, who wants to know what Dumbledore intended to do near the end > of HBP when he tried to get Harry to summon Snape *and* why DD wanted > Snape to have the wand Curiously enough so would I. a_svirn. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 21:57:25 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:57:25 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR (Was: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and the Deathstick) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181716 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" wrote: > There is also some possible timeline evidence. Tom made the > diary at sixteen, to complete his noble work. This was his > opening of the Chamber, fifth year, so while this is never > stated, it is reasonable to suppose he made the Diary Horcrux > right then, when Myrtle's death made it necessary to stop. zanooda: Oh yeah, this is most probably how it happened :-). But I want to point out that we still don't know how Horcruxes are created and whether it must be done right after a murder or it can be done later. JKR said she was thinking about giving this information in the encyclopedia and hinted that the proccess was really disgusting (Pottercast transcript), but for now we don't know. Maybe LV made a Horcrux out of the diary later than his 5th year. For instance, JKR said during that Web chat last July that LV created the ring Horcrux using his father's murder. OTOH, according to DD, after making a Horcrux out of the ring LV "did not want to wear it anymore" (HBP 504). This means that when LV was wearing the ring while talking to Slughorn, it was not yet a Horcrux. Of course, DD can be wrong and LV wore the Horcrux on his finger at school, but if he is *not* wrong, this would mean that Horcruxes are not necessarily made directly after murders, and the diary could be turned into a Horcrux much later than you say. > Zara: > Just putting in the memories would not have been enough for > the stated purpose of 'completing the work'. According to > Dumbledore, it was the soul bit that alloowed the Diary > to do its work. zanooda: I'm not so sure. The soul bit in the diary enabled it to possess an innocent and unwilling kid, to *make* him/her open the Chamber, but for a willing kid memory alone would be enough to do the same thing. If, for example, Lucius gave the diary to Draco, who *wanted* the Chamber open, Draco wouldn't need to be possessed. The Memory!Diary could show him where the entrance to the Chamber was and how to open it - no need for a soul bit. He would have to say the word "open" in Parseltongue, but we know now that it would not be a problem - if Ron could do it, Draco could do it :-). > Zara: > The ring was taken from Morfin the summer after fifth year, > and the conversation with Slughorn is after that point, since > Tom is wearing the ring. Right, but we don't know if it was already a Horcrux at that point. zanooda, who just realized, after rereading her post, that it has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic ... :-) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 01:01:16 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:01:16 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181717 "The wealthy man who owned the Riddle House these days neither lived there nor put it to any use; they said it in the village that he kept it for "tax reasons," though nobody was very clear what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay Frank to do the gardening however" - GoF paperback, am.ed. p.5 Alla: I have heard the argument more than once that Dumbledore is this man. Can somebody explain to me what is the rationale behind that theory please or refer me to the appropriate post? I mean, to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only heir would have owned it, and yes I know he is a babymort now, but he seems to have no problem making other people do his bidding, so I see no reason that he cannot make Wormtail or whoever take care of it. "Frank stopped trying to clear out his ear. He had distinctly heard the words "Ministry of Magic", "wizards" and "muggles"" - p.8 Alla: I think Voldy already starts planning the downfal of the MoM here that we see in DH. I love how beatifully it was done if you ask me, that storyline I mean. "I killed Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite useless" - p.11 Alla: This is quite chilling to me, yes. Reminds me of Tommy saying that Ginny became boring to him in CoS. "Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had become back at privet Drive. Both had been delivered not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds" Alla: As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non- magical birds? Or is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters? What birds these are do you think? From SnapesSlytherin at aol.com Mon Feb 25 02:08:13 2008 From: SnapesSlytherin at aol.com (Blair) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:08:13 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181718 > Alla: > > I have heard the argument more than once that Dumbledore is this man. > Can somebody explain to me what is the rationale behind that theory > please or refer me to the appropriate post? > > I mean, to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only heir > would have owned it, and yes I know he is a babymort now, but he > seems to have no problem making other people do his bidding, so I see > no reason that he cannot make Wormtail or whoever take care of it. Oryomai: I've heard that theory before, and I never understood it either. I think it's due to people wanting to give Dumbledore credit for being in all part of the Wizarding World. If Dumbledore owned the Riddle House, I think we'd know by now (or maybe that's JKR's next big HP secret!) > Alla: > > I think Voldy already starts planning the downfall of the MoM here > that we see in DH. I love how beatifully it was done if you ask me, > that storyline I mean. Oryomai: I don't think that Voldy is talking about the DH downfall of the Ministry. It has been his plan since he started gaining power. He wanted control over the Wizarding World, and one of the easiest ways to get it is through the Ministry. When he came back from Babymort status, he wanted to take over the Ministry. > Alla: > > This is quite chilling to me, yes. Reminds me of Tommy saying that > Ginny became boring to him in CoS. Oryomai: Bertha was completely destroyed after Riddle's questioning, right? Would this be like when someone has their soul sucked by the Death Eaters or worse? Would she have been a functioning person? Would she have been able to recover from what Voldy did to her? > Alla: > > As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non- magical birds? Or > is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters? > > What birds these are do you think? Oryomai: I'm guessing that this is just JKR's way of trying to make us believe that Sirius is in a happy place right now. After the dark, bleak setting of Azkaban, he is in a place of color and fun. I don't think the other wizards use those kinds of birds normally, it is just about the contrast. Oryomai From catlady at wicca.net Mon Feb 25 02:09:05 2008 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:09:05 -0000 Subject: ChapterDiscussion/PostBirds/RevengeHarry/LV'sTrace/RoR/RiddleHouse Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181719 Doddiemoe discussed Chapter 14 in : << Hermione uses the Dittany on Ron's wound which heals significantly.>> I was annoyed that Dittany in DH was a miracle cure that stopped the bleeding and knit up the severed flesh, while Dittany in HBP was prescribed only to prevent scarring after a spell had stopped the bleeding and knit up the wound. << In Gregorovitch's memories we see a workshop with a young man with golden hair perched on the window ledge [pause here for emphasis] who stunned Gregorovitch before jumping out of the window. (big snip) 10. The first time you read about the merry-faced golden-haired youngster hopping out a window, did you remember where Harry had glimpsed his face before? >> My recollection is that I was as mystified as Harry about from where did he remember that face. I had no idea what the thief had stolen, and I was much more mystified about why he waited on the window sill for a witness to see him. The book eventually revealed that what he had stolen was the Elder Wand, but it took a long time for me to figure out that the reason he'd waited around was because he needed to defeat Gregorovitch to become Master of the Elder Wand, and he figured Stunning a wizard counts as defeating him, but wasn't confident that stealing something from a wizard by sneakiness counted as defeating him. I remain obsessed with Grindelwald not having killed Gregorovitch. Maybe I'm too affected by golden curls and a merry face, and I dutifully made up other reasons for him to leave Gregorovitch alive (his kingdom will need a skilled wand-maker, the local wizarding police have an AK detector in place, etc), but I keep wondering if Grindelwald was not really so bad, and hadn't *intended* to kill anyone, nor to make anyone suffer who didn't deserve it as punishment.... Bex wrote in : << I still wonder how someone can veil themselves from owls, as Sirius must have done in PoA. >> Rowling answered on her website: : "Just as wizards can make buildings unplottable, they can also make themselves untraceable. Voldemort would have been found long ago if it had been as simple as sending him an owl!" Sirius may have been untraceable while hiding in PoA, but he wasn't untraceable while hiding in that cave near Hogwarts in GoF - Harry sent owls to him there. My own theory is that post owls cannot be followed because they travel by their own owl form of Apparation, which may be slower than the wizard form but allows them to breathe en route. It seems to me that when wizards Apparate, they don't leave any trail that other wizards can follow (Yaxley saw Hermione but the only way he could have followed her is if he physically grabbed her). Still less can wizards follow an owl's trail, through a magic direction that humans can't even enter. Alla wrote in : << "Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had become back at privet Drive. Both had been delivered not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds" As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non-magical birds? Or is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters? What birds these are do you think? >> I think they were normal post birds in the place where Sirius was resting up, because how could non-magical birds have found Harry? Normal Muggle birds can't even read the street address. What kind of birds they are would depend on where Sirus was. All Rowling said about that was "Someplace warm!" I like it to be in the Caribbean, but I suppose even France would be considered warm compared to England. Carol wrote in : << maybe the bit of Voldie!soul in Harry made him seek or desire revenge, (snip) Maybe that was the end of his desire to inflict pain, to be like Voldemort, as well as the end of his desire for revenge. >> A person doesn't need a piece of voldie!soul inside them to desire revenge. Desire for revenge seems to be a normal part of very many people's nature, even people who resist acting on that desire. Carol wrote in : << I also think, though I know that Catlady disagrees with me, that a similar jinx may have been used in VW1, which resulted in people fearing to speak Voldemort's name. (snip) Alternatively, LV could have gotten the idea for the jinx from the widespread fear of his name. Why not give them a *reason* to fear it? >> As you know, I think the second suggestion much more plausible, because if the name had had a Trace on it in VWI, all those Order members whom DD taught to say 'Voldemort' ("Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself", wasn't it?) would have been painting targets on their own backs ... h'mmm. If it's possible that the name had a Trace on it without DD knowing, then that could account for almost all the Order members having been killed by DEs. Dumbledore would have been just like all the real life experts who dismiss something as superstition (how could putting disgusting mold on a wound possibly prevent infection! It's a superstition!) that is actually true, attributing all the anecdotal evidence (examples) as co-incidences or the placebo effect. To think Severus and Harry put their own brains on hold to obey him... Zara wrote in : << Perhaps Tom asked for a room where he could hide the Horcrux, and when he saw it was FULL OF STUFF, thought to himself, "Brilliant! The room is obedient to my command! Even if anyone ever finds this room, they'll never find the diadem among ALL THIS STUFF the room has created to camouflage it." >> This is a forbidden "I agree" post. Edna wrote in : << Tom Riddle was so arrogant, so self absorbed, that discovering the RofR was something only he could do. I'm sure he thought that it was impossible for anyone else to be clever enough to find it, at least in recent years. I don't think he knew that the room could become anything else but a hidden room full of junk. Imagine what he would have been able to do at school if he knew it was a room of requirement! >> This is another forbidden "I agree" post. Alla wrote in : << to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only heir would have owned [the Riddle House] >> I don't think anyone owned the Riddle House as heir. "But Frank did not leave [after the triple murder]. He stayed to tend the garden for the next family who lived in the Riddle House, and then the next ? for neither family stayed long. Perhaps it was partly because of Frank that each new owner said there was a nasty feeling about the place, which, in the absence of inhabitants, started to fall into disrepair." I think the two families that lived there after the murder were buyers, not renters. I don't think Tom, Sr, nor his parents, nor the Probate Court, knew that he had fathered a child, so Tom Jr would not have inherited anything from them. Unless Mr and Mrs had other children, who had moved out and therefore weren't killed by Tom, Jr, they had probably willed everything to Tom, Sr. If a childless, sibling-less, both parents are dead, man dies without a will, does the government inherit his property? From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 25 03:14:36 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:14:36 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181720 > Alla: > > I have heard the argument more than once that Dumbledore is this man. > Can somebody explain to me what is the rationale behind that theory > please or refer me to the appropriate post? Potioncat: Haven't a clue. But had it had ever been written into a T-BAY format-- we'd consider it sunk. (I think.) We thought the identity of the owner must be important. Lucius Malfoy was also in the running, IIRC. I'm not sure if anyone else was considered. The thinking may have been that DD suspected the property would be important later, so used his contacts to purchase it. I can't explain how it would be that if DD owned it, LV would be able to slither in so comfortably. Who knows why it may have been empty? Remnants of the curse? poor location? bad reator? Why was someone was making a long distance effort to maintain it? Heck for all we know, Frank wasn't being paid by anyone, he was just living there because no one had evicted him. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 04:26:53 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:26:53 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181721 Alla: > > I have heard the argument more than once that Dumbledore is this man [the rich "Muggle" owner of the Riddle House]. Can somebody explain to me what is the rationale behind that theory please or refer me to the appropriate post? > > I mean, to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only heir would have owned it, and yes I know he is a babymort now, but he seems to have no problem making other people do his bidding, so I see no reason that he cannot make Wormtail or whoever take care of it. Carol responds: If Wormtail or someon other Wizard were taking care of the house, Frank Bryce wouldn't still be working there. Also, I'm sure that Tom Sr. didn't acknowledge Tom Jr. as his heir and that the Muggle police, etc. didn't know of his existence or they'd have believed Frank's story of a pale, dark-haired teenage boy running from the scene. Rather than being the heir, he'd be the prime suspect (murdering the father who cut him off rom his inheritance). I think that idea that DD was the rich owner comes from his being aware of frank Bryce's existence (and death) and of his protecting people like Trelawney and Hagrid who were in some danger from LV. (Frank was falsely accused by the Muggle police but not actually framed aby Tom Jr. as Morfin Gaunt was.) Anyway, I don't think that Baby!mort is there with the owner's permission (IOW, I don't think he's the absentee owner). I see no reason not to believe the statement about its being a rich Muggle, which is never contradicted or corrected elsewhere. Alla quoted: > "Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had become back at privet Drive. Both had been delivered not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds" > > Alla: > > As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non- magical birds? Or > is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters? > > What birds these are do you think? > Carol: As usual with Wizards in Harry's experience, but, of course, he's thinking of Britain and probably Europe in general. I'm no expert on tropical birds, but I thought at first of flamingos because they're really large and then of macaws or some other kind of parrot because they're colorful. Carol, probably wrong on both counts, if only because Harry would surely have recognized those kinds of birds From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 06:51:11 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:51:11 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181722 --- "Carol" wrote: > > What I want to know is how Voldemort "knew" that the Elder > Wand wasn't working for him ... > > Huh? None of it makes any sense. If, indeed, he accomplished > extraordinary things with the Elder Wand, which seems to work > for him just as well as his own wand ever did ..., what is > Voldemort's problem? What flaw does he see in the Elder Wand? bboyminn: Well, you said it yourself, the new (Elder) wand worked as good as his old wand. If fact it worked as well as any reasonably compatible wand would have, and that is the point. It was a normal conduit for Voldemort's extraordinary magic. But that is not how the Elder Wand was billed. It was suppose to be an immensely and extraordinarily powerful wand, and that is what Voldemort did NOT see - the power of the Elder Wand head and shoulders above any other wands. So, it is not a question of working or not working for him. It is like buying a Lamborghini or a Ferrari (fast expensive cars) and having it drive like a Ford Pinto (cheap low powered econo-box car). Yes, you can drive it, it acts like a normal car, but it would certainly not be living up to it's reputation. Voldemort was expecting a super-fast high-performance racing car, and instead he got a Soccer Mom mini-van. Still in the right hands a Soccer Mom mini-van can be capable of extraordinary things, but it simply never equals a super fast race car. Wands and racing cars; it's all the same. Steve/bboyminn From Lesaja at gmx.de Mon Feb 25 09:11:41 2008 From: Lesaja at gmx.de (leslesaja) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:11:41 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181723 Carol: > who wants to know what Dumbledore intended to do near > the end of HBP when he tried to get Harry to summon Snape Me, LesAJa: I thought Dd wanted Snape to cure him - as far as possible, if at all - from the poison he drank in the cave; similar to Snape treating the effects of the cursed ring. Harry wants to call Madam Pomfrey, but for dealing with such dark magic Snape is the better healer. If Snape have had the opportunity to heal or at least diminish the effects of the poison, it would have bought Dd more time to live. When Dd and Harry have left the cave and Dd demands Harry to call Snape, they don't know yet that the Dark Mark hovers over Hogwarts and DEs are there; and they don't know that the locket is not the real horcrux. Dd would have wanted to destroy it, and to have more time to plan and prepare. So, just the same as with the cursed ring: Snape should do his best to heal Dd. Carol: > who wants to know (...) why DD wanted Snape to have the wand Me, LesAJa: I don't know why Dd wanted /anyone/ to have the wand. Sorry if this has been discussed before, but why was the Elder Wand not hidden the best Dd could do? Before anyone could come up with the idea to bury him with this dangerous weapon? (It's not that discouraging and it surely doesn't take a V to plunder a grave.) It would have added so much more security, even if everything regarding wandownership would have developed as Dd had planned, if the Elder Wand had been carefully hidden and heavily protected by magic (as they did with the Philosopher's Stone). A skilled wizard as Dd could do everyday magic with any wand (or even without), and a wand that really suits him should have worked well to do higher magic. Dd had many years to find the best wand for him, so he didn't need to carry around or use the Elder Wand. It could have been kept away quite safely. btw, I have tried and failed to find a thread or posts regarding the evidences pro/contra if Snape is actually dead; similar to discussions after OOTP if Sirius is actually dead. I'd be glad if someone could provide me a link or a message number. (Or has the subject not been discussed?) Greetings, LesAJa From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 25 13:56:42 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:56:42 -0000 Subject: DD and Snape, Snape lives? (was Re: Wand Lore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181724 > > Carol: > > who wants to know what Dumbledore intended to do near > > the end of HBP when he tried to get Harry to summon Snape > > Me, LesAJa: > I thought Dd wanted Snape to cure him - as far as possible, if at all > - from the poison he drank in the cave; similar to Snape treating the > effects of the cursed ring. Potioncat: That's how it looks--pre DH. And maybe, at first, that's what DD wanted. But after he knew the DEs were in Hogwarts, he still wanted Snape. I'm not sure why DD went to the Astronomy Tower instead of the main entrance. It would have been closer to Snape. Unless of course, he was setting the scene for Snape's role. A shorter answer would have been "Me too." or even "I don't know." > > >LesAJa: > snipping the Elder wand disussion. > btw, I have tried and failed to find a thread or posts regarding the > evidences pro/contra if Snape is actually dead; similar to discussions > after OOTP if Sirius is actually dead. I'd be glad if someone could > provide me a link or a message number. (Or has the subject not been > discussed?) Potioncat: I think it was brought up, but not for long. After going through Sirius isn't really dead. Dumbledore isn't really dead....I think we finally caught on. The pattern was set, and the glazed eyes sort of sealed it. That isn't to say that some fans haven't worked out a way to keep Snape alive. ;-) From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Feb 25 15:08:00 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:08:00 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181725 > a_svirn: > Then what was the purpose of leaving the Elder Wand to Snape? None > that I can see. I do, however see the risks such eventuality would > entail. > > Pippin: What we haven't done is look at things in the context of everything that didn't go as Dumbledore had planned. Death Eaters were not expected to get into the castle, Draco was not expected to find the nerve to attack Dumbledore openly, Draco and his mother were to be taken into the protection of the Order, Dumbledore didn't want Snape to leave Hogwarts, Dumbledore didn't want his corpse dishonored. In other words, Dumbledore had every reason to plan for his death at Snape's hands to take place in secret. There would then be no question of Snape having to leave Hogwarts or facing a vengeful Order. But in that case, Snape would have needed proof for Voldemort that Dumbledore was really dead -- especially if he'd done it by poison, which would have been easier and would have left no evidence in Snape's wand. Dumbledore's wand would have been the proof. Snape could have given the wand to Voldemort, and if you are right that the wand can be passed by gift, Voldemort would have had no reason to blame Snape if the wand did not work for him as he wished it to. In this scenario, in which the wand can be passed by gift, Dumbledore did not want Harry to have a powerful wand to use against Voldemort. Harry was not to win by battle but by sacrifice. He did want Harry to become master of death, but by understanding the Hallows, not by using them to escape death. Pippin From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 25 15:50:30 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:50:30 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181726 > Pippin: In other words, Dumbledore had every > reason to plan for his death at Snape's hands to take place in secret. Potioncat: But, Snape wouldn't have had to kill him at all, if Draco didn't make an attack himself. DD could have died from the poison, while Snape made a good act at trying to save him. He could then say to the Order I did my best; and to LV, I let him die. Had DD's death happened something like that, no one would have been the master of the wand--by any stretch of the imagination, and Snape would not have been in danger from LV. Well, at least because of the wand. From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Feb 25 16:04:35 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:04:35 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181727 > > Potioncat: > But, Snape wouldn't have had to kill him at all, if Draco didn't make > an attack himself. DD could have died from the poison, while Snape made a good act at trying to save him. He could then say to the Order I did my best; and to LV, I let him die. > > Had DD's death happened something like that, no one would have been the master of the wand--by any stretch of the imagination, and Snape would not have been in danger from LV. Well, at least because of the wand. > Pippin: Okay, but Dumbledore wasn't intending to let the poison kill him when he took it. In order for him to die "on his own terms" he needed to have the choice of saving himself, and *that* could be why he was so anxious to make contact with Snape even after he knew that Death Eaters were in the castle. Pippin From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 16:44:04 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:44:04 -0000 Subject: Snape lives? (was Re: Wand Lore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181728 > >LesAJa: > > btw, I have tried and failed to find a thread or posts regarding the > > evidences pro/contra if Snape is actually dead; similar to > discussions > > after OOTP if Sirius is actually dead. I'd be glad if someone could > > provide me a link or a message number. (Or has the subject not been > > discussed?) > Well, why not discuss it? It seemed fairly clear that Snape died as Harry watched him, but you could make a case that he didn't actually die. There's any number of ways the Dark Arts expert potions master could have prepared himself to survive that snake bite. It's not he didn't know the snake was poisonous, right? He might have kept himself alive in order to fulfill Dumbledore's mandate, then, his task complete, have skipped off to Tahiti. He might have been rescued near death by any number of people including Madame Pomfrey, Draco (where was he at that point, anyway?), Lucius Malfoy (who had summoned Snape and certainly couldn't fight at that point), or Narcissa (who owed Snape for that whole UV thing). After all, his portrait didn't appear in the Headmaster's office. According to a post-DH interview, the portrait didn't appear because Snape "abandonned" his post, and Harry might possibly have seen to the portrait being placed there later. But, surely the other portraits in the office would have been privy to all Dumbledore and Snape's planning sessions in that office. So, why wouldn't they honor Snape with a portrait? Unless he wasn't actually dead. Mind you, the only reason not to kill him off is for the enjoyment of fans who want to imagine him continuing on to snark forever. I was very bummed about that portrait business. But, you know, it's actually quite nice of JKR to leave us Snape fans that "out." Montavilla47 From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 18:27:04 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:27:04 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181729 > > a_svirn: > > Then what was the purpose of leaving the Elder Wand to Snape? None > > that I can see. I do, however see the risks such eventuality would > > entail. > > > > > Pippin: > What we haven't done is look at things in the context of everything that didn't > go as Dumbledore had planned. a_svirn: Of course, we haven't. It wasn't the question under discussion, after all. We were talking about the *original* plan. > Pippin: Death Eaters were not expected to get into > the castle, Draco was not expected to find the nerve to attack Dumbledore > openly, a_svirn: And why wasn't he? How can anyone base their plans on the expectation that their opponent * wouldn't* find the nerve to attack? Especially knowing what sort of pressure is applied to them? It would be sheer folly to indulge such optimism, particularly with so many lives at stake. Besides, what would be the sense in that? Snape was supposed to kill Dumbledore out of Dumbledore's touching concern for Draco's soul. The total absence of the nerve on Draco's part would obviate the necessity for this murder. > Pippin: Draco and his mother were to be taken into the protection of the > Order, Dumbledore didn't want Snape to leave Hogwarts, Dumbledore > didn't want his corpse dishonored. In other words, Dumbledore had every > reason to plan for his death at Snape's hands to take place in secret. > > There would then be no question of Snape having to leave Hogwarts or > facing a vengeful Order. a_svirn: No? But would the Order not feel suspicious? Call for investigation, perhaps? After all no one in the Order really trusted Snape? > Pippin: But in that case, Snape would have needed proof > for Voldemort that Dumbledore was really dead -- especially if he'd done > it by poison, which would have been easier and would have left no > evidence in Snape's wand. Dumbledore's wand would have been the proof. a_svirn: Well, if I were Voldemort I wouldn't believe to such proof. Especially if the wand wouldn't work for him as it should. > Pippin: > Snape could have given the wand to Voldemort, and if you are right that > the wand can be passed by gift, Voldemort would have had no reason to > blame Snape if the wand did not work for him as he wished it to. a_svirn: Why not? I'd say he would be bound to think it fishy. > Pippin: > In this scenario, in which the wand can be passed by gift, Dumbledore > did not want Harry to have a powerful wand to use against > Voldemort. a_svirn: I don't see why not. Before Harry would make his sacrifice he had lots of other things to do. And it was not entirely unlikely that he would have brushes with Voldemort along the way. And he did. Moreover, Voldemort wasn't the only source of danger. > Pippin: Harry was not to win by battle but by sacrifice. He did want > Harry to become master of death, but by understanding the Hallows, > not by using them to escape death. a_svirn: He may have wanted it, but his own arrangements nearly defeated the purpose he said he had in mind.It was his grief for Dobby that caused Harry to abandon the Hallows, whereas Dumbledore's own clues nearly caused him to turn from the Horcruxes to the wand. a_svirn. From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 25 20:34:14 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:34:14 -0000 Subject: Snape lives? (was Re: Wand Lore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181730 "montavilla47" wrote: > Well, why not discuss it? > > It seemed fairly clear that Snape died as Harry watched him, but you > could make a case that he didn't actually die. > > There's any number of ways the Dark Arts expert potions master > could have prepared himself to survive that snake bite. It's not he > didn't know the snake was poisonous, right? Potioncat: Except, he didn't die by poison, he bled to death. Nagini's venom seems to prevent the wound from closing, rather than otherwise harming the victim. But, I suppose Snape could have had an antidote at the ready. Too bad he was too busy donating memories to use it. BTW, how did Malfoy, Snape and LV get into the Shack? They didn't seem to be using the passage from the willow. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 21:35:24 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:35:24 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look/ Owner of the Riddle house In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181731 Potioncat: Haven't a clue. But had it had ever been written into a T-BAY format-- we'd consider it sunk. (I think.) We thought the identity of the owner must be important. Lucius Malfoy was also in the running, IIRC. I'm not sure if anyone else was considered. The thinking may have been that DD suspected the property would be important later, so used his contacts to purchase it. I can't explain how it would be that if DD owned it, LV would be able to slither in so comfortably. Alla: Heeee, maybe DD purchased it to trap Voldemort or something? I do know that we thought it was important, I just wanted to see the chain of reasoning that lead people to believe that Dumbledore will be that important person. Maybe it is sort of literary economy reasoning? As in IF the owner is important, it must be someone whom we already know and Dumbledore may fit the bill or something? Like the eavesdropper's identity, which I (and many many people I am sure) guessed as being Snape for similar reasoning. Only eavesdropper identity did turn out to be important and this owner is I guess Mark Evans' relative. Although as you said, to me he does not fit the bill, since I cannot imagine him allowing Voldemort just spent time there for his own private amusement, hehe. Potioncat: Who knows why it may have been empty? Remnants of the curse? poor location? bad realtor? Why someone was was making a long distance effort to maintain it? Heck for all we know, Frank wasn't being paid by anyone, he was just living there because no one had evicted him. Alla: Heeee, bad realtor all right. Carol responds: If Wormtail or someone other Wizard were taking care of the house, Frank Bryce wouldn't still be working there. Alla: When I said taking care of it, I actually did not mean that they were doing chores there necessarily, I meant that they may have taken care of whatever things that were needed to make Voldemort's the owner, if he is the owner ? of legalities, etc. What I am trying to say is that I do not see why they still would not need Frank to do menial shores around the house, no matter who the owner is. Carol: Also, I'm sure that Tom Sr. didn't acknowledge Tom Jr. as his heir and that the Muggle police, etc. didn't know of his existence or they'd have believed Frank's story of a pale, dark-haired teenage boy running from the scene. Rather than being the heir, he'd be the prime suspect (murdering the father who cut him off his inheritance). Alla: Well, I am not so sure. I mean if he knew that Merope was pregnant, which was not clear one way or another, yes? Maybe he decided that he will provide for the child after all, not that I will blame him one bit if he did not. But before I get too much into that idea of Voldemort's being the owner, let me say it now that I do know that canon does not give strong evidence to support it, just to me it is a speculation that makes sense. Or at least more sense than Dumbledore being said owner. I mean, I am not sure what Muggle police not knowing of his existence has anything to do with him possibly inheriting the house. I am not suggesting that his father invited him for dinner or something, I am pretty positive that he would not be happy to see Merope or him, I am saying that maybe Tom put Voldie in the will, that's all. I am not insisting on this speculation, just do not see anything that contradicts it much. Carol: I think that idea that DD was the rich owner comes from his being aware of frank Bryce's existence (and death) and of his protecting people like Trelawney and Hagrid who were in some danger from LV. (Frank was falsely accused by the Muggle police but not actually framed aby Tom Jr. as Morfin Gaunt was.) Alla: Maybe there was some sort of spell on the house as well? Carol: Anyway, I don't think that Baby!mort is there with the owner's permission (IOW, I don't think he's the absentee owner). I see no reason not to believe the statement about its being a rich Muggle, which is never contradicted or corrected elsewhere. Alla: Totally possible, just wondering how indeed the Muggle got the house. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 21:37:17 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:37:17 -0000 Subject: Warrington and Apparating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181732 --- "l.anne120" wrote: > > I Have a question ... Fred and George were responsible for > putting the Slytherin Quidich captain Warrington into the > vanishing cabinet,.... Draco says to Dumbledore that > Warrington apparated OUT of the cabinet - ... > > My question: as Hermoine ceaselessly reminds us, "you can't > apparate into or out of Hogwarts." But Draco clearly states > that Warrington "nearly died" by apparating out of the cabinet > and into Hogwarts. This seems like a clear violation of the > magical rules established by JKR. So what gives? ... > > Thanks > > DrKnow > bboyminn: I think it happened because there is a lot of information we don't know. For example, Hermione say you can't apparate into or out of Hogwarts, but why? Is it impossible; is it an impenetrable barrier? Or, is it simply because no one would ever be willing to risk the consequences of doing so? And, does apparating within Hogwarts bear the same consequences as apparating from outside the grounds into Hogwarts? We don't know. Now we must ask, where was Warrington, when he was in the cabinet? Was he literally in Hogwarts? Was he outside Hogwarts? Or was he in some sort of magical limbo never- never-land? If he was in a magically indeterminate location, then perhaps what he did, did not count as apparation into the school. Perhaps, he was both there and not there. And, ask yourself, if Warrington paid a price for his apparation? He ended up jambed into a toilet, and I think they mean literally in the toilet, not just in the stall. It took him many many weeks, possibly months, to recover. He came very close to dying. That doesn't sound like he got off scott-free to me. It sounds like he paid a very high price for his actions, and I think one of the things that saved him was that he was 'neither here nor there'. He was neither in Hogwarts nor outside Hogwarts, and this magically indeterminate state saved him to some extent. Though, considering what happened to him, it can hardly be called 'saved'. Steve/bboyminn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 21:50:24 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:50:24 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181733 Carol earlier: > > > > What I want to know is how Voldemort "knew" that the Elder Wand wasn't working for him ... > > > > Huh? None of it makes any sense. If, indeed, he accomplished extraordinary things with the Elder Wand, which seems to work for him just as well as his own wand ever did ..., what is Voldemort's problem? What flaw does he see in the Elder Wand? > > bboyminn: > > Well, you said it yourself, the new (Elder) wand worked as good > as his old wand. If fact it worked as well as any reasonably > compatible wand would have, and that is the point. It was a > normal conduit for Voldemort's extraordinary magic. But that > is not how the Elder Wand was billed. It was suppose to be > an immensely and extraordinarily powerful wand, and that is > what Voldemort did NOT see - the power of the Elder Wand head > and shoulders above any other wands. > > So, it is not a question of working or not working for him. > It is like buying a Lamborghini or a Ferrari (fast expensive > cars) and having it drive like a Ford Pinto (cheap low powered > econo-box car). Yes, you can drive it, it acts like a normal > car, but it would certainly not be living up to it's reputation. > Voldemort was expecting a super-fast high-performance racing > car, and instead he got a Soccer Mom mini-van. Still in the > right hands a Soccer Mom mini-van can be capable of > extraordinary things, but it simply never equals a super fast > race car. > > Wands and racing cars; it's all the same. > > Steve/bboyminn > Carol: Except that there's no indication that the Elder Wand works like a Soccer Mom mini-van for Voldemort. it created nagini's bubble, didn't it? and it works as well as the old wand that chose him in the first place, the one that created the Horcruxes. Exactly what extraordinary magic does he attempt to do and fial? None that we see. In fact, he doesn't even start thinking about the wand not worbeing as extraordinary as he expected it to be until right before he sends Lucius to summon Snape. I don't see any evidence that the wand failed him or let him down in any way. Sorry; the mini-van vs. ferrari explanation doesn't work for me. Now if he'd struggle with it as Harry did with the Snaptcher's wand, I can sould see why he'd know that he wasn't its master. As it is, I'm not buying. His old wand was no "mini-van," either. it was a powerful wand, perfectly suited to him, with which he had, according to Ollivander, performed "great but terrible" magic. and this wand does the same thing. How can he tell that his "extraordinary magic" (of which we see no evidence except Nagini's bubble) results from his own power rather than the wand? It's like a skier who wins an Olympic gold medal but complains that his skis weren't good enough and it was only his own extraordinary ability that won the medal. (How could he judge equipment that won him the gold as unsatisfactory?) And with a wand, it would be even harder. If it does the job, performs the spell, kills the victim or whatever, how do you tell excellent from extraordinary? (And his old wand was excellent, perfectly suited for him; it's not as if he'd been using Lucius Malfoy's "poor stick," which can perform Unforgiveables but not whatever it is that distinguishes Voldemort from other Wizards? (Flying without a broom? Snape can do that!) Show me the evidence that the wand wasn't performing for him and maybe I'll change my mind. As it is, his complaint just seems thrown in and groundless, a mere excuse to murder Snape (who's done nothing wrong that Voldemort knows about--if he did know, of course, he wouldn't need the Elder Wand excuse!). Carol, not convinced by analogies and needing canon support to convince her that the wand's performance was recognizably inferior to what he expected from it From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Feb 25 22:11:11 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:11:11 -0000 Subject: The Elder Wand not working for Voldemort? Say what? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181734 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" wrote: > Show me the evidence that the wand wasn't performing for him and maybe > I'll change my mind. As it is, his complaint just seems thrown in and > groundless, a mere excuse to murder Snape (who's done nothing wrong > that Voldemort knows about--if he did know, of course, he wouldn't > need the Elder Wand excuse!). > Pippin: Perhaps Voldemort expected the Elder Wand to blast through the protections he had put around the locket horcrux, simply vanish the basin potion, for example, instead of needing to do whatever it was that turned it clear. The thing with Voldemort is that his paranoid tendencies are at odds with his egomania. Sometimes he imagines threats that aren't real, but sometimes he ignores real threats because he imagines that nothing can hurt him. The tension between these two tendencies makes his actions tough to predict. Pippin From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Feb 25 22:19:56 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:19:56 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look/ Owner of the Riddle house In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181735 > Alla: > > Totally possible, just wondering how indeed the Muggle got the house. Potioncat: Remember, it was always a Muggle house. And, as said earlier, if no one knew about Tom Jr. then someone must have inherited it? Or else it went into whatever limbo property goes when there aren't any relatives. From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 22:42:57 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:42:57 -0000 Subject: Warrington and Apparating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181736 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "l.anne120" wrote: > But Draco clearly states that Warrington "nearly died" by > apparating out of the cabinet and into Hogwarts. This seems > like a clear violation of the magical rules established > by JKR. Well, the "No-Apparating-in-Hogwarts" rule is not absolute. Remember, DD lifted the enchantment in the Great Hall for the Apparition lessons in HBP? It's possible then to lift Hogwarts' anti-Apparition spell, at least for Apparating inside the castle. What I want to say is, that maybe in certain circumstances the spell can be broken. Maybe the Vanishing Cabinet (being broken and all :-)) created some kind of magical anomaly around itself, so Montague was able to Apparate when he was on the Hogwarts' side of the limbo :-). And it's not like he did it easily and safely - you pointed out yourself that he "nearly died". zanooda From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 23:49:56 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:49:56 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181737 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > DD could have died from the poison, while Snape made > a good act at trying to save him. He could then say to the > Order I did my best; and to LV, I let him die. > Had DD's death happened something like that, no one would > have been the master of the wand zanooda: I was wondering: if DD had died from the cave poison, were we supposed to think that it was LV who killed him? Or does only the direct killing/defeat counts for the wand to recognize the new master? I can't figure it out :-). From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 04:09:53 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:09:53 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181738 "A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year" - p.56 Alla: Okay, I could have just as easily quote something else characterizing Percy's activities in this chapter, but I think this one nails something I felt but could not express well some time ago. Everybody knows about Arthur and Percy's fight in OOP, right? And of course some people feel that Arthur is the most at fault for criticising Percy and making insinuations that he is being made a spy on his family and some people feel that Percy is at fault and some people think that they both are. I think this quote to me explains the best why I felt that Arthur was absolutely, positively 100% right and Percy is absolutely positively 100% wrong. No, I do not mean that Percy was wrong in trying to prepare for his job. Although I surely dislike his attitude about his family, that is a choice he IMO has a right to make, if he does not want to socialise with anybody else, and just wants to work. I am saying that Percy was wrong in not seeing that Ministry IMO is indeed using him. I think the topic of that report shows clearly that he was given an absolute nonsense to work with, nothing important, that he is not being valued at all. Cauldron thickness? What does it matter at all? IMO of course. "Harry could hear the gnome giggling madly as Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it" - p.60 Alla: Nothing new, just find Crookshanks chasing Gnomes to be a hilarious picture, which would make amazing cartoon I think. "And your hair is getting silly, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand lovingly. "I wish you'd let me give it a trim..." "I like it," said Ginny, who was sitting beside Bill. "You're so old- fashioned Mum. Anyway, it's nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore" - p.62 Alla: Yeah, my irritation with Ginny becoming a new Ginny in OOP is pretty much non-existant by now. Let's see by now we hear Ron telling Harry that Ginny usually never shuts up, but that famous remark was already well quoted as rebuttal against new Ginny, but hints and glimpses IMO just keep adding. Ginny, little as she is, stands up to Malfoy against all people, scared first year to be that one NOT. Ginny does that card in PoA that nobody can make to shut up. Ginny stands up to MOLLY of all people and goes as far as calls her old fashioned. You go girl :) I think JKR did a wonderful job foreshadowing allegedly new Ginny. IMO of course. Alla From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 04:43:50 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:43:50 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look/ Owner of the Riddle house In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181739 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > I am saying that maybe Tom put Voldie in the will, that's all. It seems to me that if LV really wanted the Riddle house, the fact that he was not in the will wouldn't have stopped him from owning it. He was a wizard - he could have pulled something a la DD "convincing" Mrs. Cole. I think it wouldn't have been very difficult for him to locate the will and change it. He just didn't want this Muggle house, IMO. zanooda From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 04:48:32 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:48:32 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181740 Alla quoted: > "A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," > said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. > Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages > have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year" - p.56 > > Alla: > > Okay, I could have just as easily quote something else characterizing Percy's activities in this chapter, but I think this one nails something I felt but could not express well some time ago. > > Everybody knows about Arthur and Percy's fight in OOP, right? I think this quote to me explains the best why I felt that Arthur was absolutely, positively 100% right and Percy is absolutely positively 100% wrong. > > No, I do not mean that Percy was wrong in trying to prepare for his job. I am saying that Percy was wrong in not seeing that Ministry IMO is indeed using him. > > I think the topic of that report shows clearly that he was given an > absolute nonsense to work with, nothing important, that he is not > being valued at all. Cauldron thickness? What does it matter at all? > > IMO of course. Carol responds: I suppose that if a faulty cauldron leaked boil potion or something similar all over the user, it would matter (just as defective tires matter on an SUV). It does sound like boring work, but someone has to do it, and who better than an eager new junior official, all of eighteen years old as of GoF? My thought when I read it, though, was that JKR was making fun of bureaucracy, with all its paperwork and not much work of real importance, as well as making fun of Percy's eagerness to please and general officiousness. I don't think they're using him, really. He certainly gets to do some important work (judging the Second Task of the TWT) later on. what interferes with Percy's career (which was doing remarkably well for a mere kid) is Barty Sr.'s murder and Percy's failure to realize that his boss was under the Imperius Curse. (They're scapegoating him at that point; none of the senior officials realized it, either.) And then things turn around and he's promoted again, which is when Arthur thinks Percy is being used and Percy thinks he's being promoted on his own merits. No doubt Arthur is right, but Percy is all of nineteen and the Barty Sr. business wasn't his fault. I can see both sides. I don't, however, think that the cauldron thickness report is foreshadowing. I think it just shows how dreary Percy's job is at that early point, and how eager he is to make a good impression. Carol, who may well be misremembering or forgetting something here From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 05:07:13 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:07:13 -0000 Subject: Warrington and Apparating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181742 > > DrKnow wrote: > > > > Draco says to Dumbledore that Warrington apparated > > OUT of the cabinet - ... > > > > This seems like a clear violation of the > > magical rules established by JKR. So what gives? ... > > > > bboyminn: > > For example, Hermione say you can't apparate into > or out of Hogwarts, but why? Is it impossible; is it an > impenetrable barrier? Or, is it simply because no one would > ever be willing to risk the consequences of doing so? Mike: I'd like to offer a different possibility besides Steve's, and I think Steve's is a perfectly good explanation. Magically travelling in and out of Hogwarts is certainly within those famous rules that Hermione and Snape kept quoting at us. One could Floo in or out, Portkey, and the elves can use their form of apparition in or out. So it seems wizard apparation is the only form that is proscribed as unachievable. Draco also told Dumbledore that Warrington hadn't passed his apparition test yet. This would mean that he wasn't doing that specific type of magical moving quite right. So maybe Warrington tried to apparate but didn't quite perform the magic correctly, thereby failing to trip whatever failsafe that prevents apparation. That is, whatever magic that prevents apparation didn't recognize what Warrington did as apparation, so he was able to "apparate" because he didn't actually apparate. Warrington did an on-the-spot invention of a new magical travelling spell. Of course since it landed him jambed into a commode, others are unlikely to emulate this new magic even if they could get Warrington to teach it to them, which I doubt he could. Mike, thinking Warrington's invention deserves a new name, and seeing as where he wound up, he nominates "Crapparating" From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 06:15:14 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:15:14 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181743 > > Alla: > > > > I mean, to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only > > heir would have owned it, Mike: Yeah, me too Alla. Not necessarily because he was the only heir, but because he would think it his birthright and would manipulate things to put his name on the deed. As Zanooda said: > It seems to me that if LV really wanted the Riddle house, the fact > that he was not in the will wouldn't have stopped him from owning > it. He was a wizard - he could have pulled something a la DD > "convincing" Mrs. Cole. Mike again: Also, Voldemort has hidden one of his Horcruxes just down the road in the Gaunt Hovel. Remembering what young Tom Sr said to his riding partner, I'm guessing that the owner of the Riddle House might have rights of first refusal to purchase the Gaunt land if it was ever condemned, before it was put up for auction. I would think Tom Jr would be most concerned that the Gaunt place not fall into the wrong hands. LV might have been able to convince Lucius Malfoy to stay current on the taxes and paying the groundskeeper, ya think? I would also bet Lord Voldemort would use a different anagram for his name on the deed. My vote would be to bring back the "i am" and make him "Lord Dimmo Varlet", but he might not go for that one. > Oryomai: > I've heard that theory before, and I never understood it either. > I think it's due to people wanting to give Dumbledore credit for > being in all parts of the Wizarding World. If Dumbledore owned > the Riddle House, I think we'd know by now. Mike: I too heard the theory and found it wanting. For what purpose would Dumbledore want to purchase that house? I don't think DD would be the type to swindle someone out of it. If he wanted it for a residence outside of Hogwarts, he wasn't doing a very good job of using it. It's certainly not of sentimental value to him. Although I'm sure that Dumbledore knew by the time of GoF that Tom Riddle Jr killed Tom Riddle Sr and therefore was keeping an ear out for anything untoward that might happen in Little Hangleton, I seriously doubt that would have required buying the Riddle House and letting it go fallow. > Oryomai: > Bertha was completely destroyed after Riddle's questioning, right? > Would this be like when someone has their soul sucked by the Death > Eaters or worse? Would she have been a functioning person? Would > she have been able to recover from what Voldy did to her? Mike: You meant soul-sucked by dementors, right? As to you other questions, I take them as rhetorical. Because I think you've got it exactly right, Bertha was probably less than human by the time Voldie got done with her. > > Alla: > > > > As it was usual with wizards? Did Sirius use non-magical birds? > > Or is it how wizards in those countries communicate by letters? > > > > What birds are these, do you think? > > Oryomai: > I'm guessing that this is just JKR's way of trying to make us > believe that Sirius is in a happy place right now. After the > dark, bleak setting of Azkaban, he is in a place of color and > fun. I don't think the other wizards use those kinds of birds > normally, it is just about the contrast. Mike: Oh, I disagree. I don't think there are owls available in all parts of the world. I could easily imagine wizard inhabitants of the tropics having other bird species as their post carriers. I like Carol's idea of parrots or macaws. How about a toucan? From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 12:35:39 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:35:39 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181744 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > > > DD could have died from the poison, while Snape made > > a good act at trying to save him. He could then say to the > > Order I did my best; and to LV, I let him die. > > > Had DD's death happened something like that, no one would > > have been the master of the wand > > > zanooda: > > I was wondering: if DD had died from the cave poison, were we supposed > to think that it was LV who killed him? Or does only the direct > killing/defeat counts for the wand to recognize the new master? I > can't figure it out :-). > a_svirn: Or would it be "dying on his own terms"? After all, he made sure that Harry force-fed him. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 26 15:36:12 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:36:12 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181745 > > > Alla: > > > > > > I mean, to me it makes more sense that Voldemort as the only > > > heir would have owned it, > > Mike: > Yeah, me too Alla. Not necessarily because he was the only heir, but > because he would think it his birthright and would manipulate things > to put his name on the deed. Pippin: Except, what would Voldemort care about Muggle deeds? I think he put a minor curse on the house, not powerful enough for the ministry to detect but sufficient to discourage Muggle occupancy. Probably some Muggle did own it at a loss "for tax reasons" -- which are sufficiently boring that even Jo Rowling couldn't make a further explanation interesting.* It's highly unlikely that a prominent wealthy family like the Riddles wouldn't have wills, though the ultimate heir might depend on whether the Muggles could tell whether any of the Riddles had survived the others. If Mrs. Riddle was the last to go then her relatives, who wouldn't be Riddles, might have gotten the house, sold it and it finally ended up as somebody's tax dodge. *I don't know how it works in the UK, but in America, you can take depreciation on a building you own as an investment, which means you get to deduct a percentage of the building's value as an expense without actually laying out any cash. Meanwhile the land value might be increasing, but you don't have to pay a tax on that until you sell it. I told ya it was boring... Pippin From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 17:07:31 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:07:31 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181746 > "A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation," > said Percy smugly. "We're trying to standardize cauldron thickness. > Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages > have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year" - p.56 > > > Alla: > I think the topic of that report shows clearly that he was given an > absolute nonsense to work with, nothing important, that he is not > being valued at all. Cauldron thickness? What does it matter at all? > > IMO of course. > Montavilla47: Are you mad, Alla? Nonsense? Cauldron leakings is a serious business! Just consider that there are approximately 300 potions students at any one year in Snape's classroom. They use their cauldrons at least once a week, which is say, 40 times a year. That's a 12,000 cauldron uses per year At a 3% accident rate, that's 360 accidents a year, just in the classroom, to say nothing of the accidents that take place in homes, apothecary shops, hospitals, and factories. Thank goodness Percy is there to stem the tide. And those 360 accidents in Snape's classroom? Neville. Every single one. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 17:44:46 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:44:46 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look/ Owner of the Riddle house In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181747 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" > wrote: > > > I am saying that maybe Tom put Voldie in the will, that's all. > > > It seems to me that if LV really wanted the Riddle house, the fact > that he was not in the will wouldn't have stopped him from owning it. > He was a wizard - he could have pulled something a la DD "convincing" > Mrs. Cole. I think it wouldn't have been very difficult for him to > locate the will and change it. He just didn't want this Muggle house, IMO. > > > zanooda > Carol responds: First, it's extremely unlikely that Tom Sr. put Tom Jr., whom he wholly neglected and whose existence he ignored, in the will. Had he done so, it wouldn't have been bought and then sold by two families and then finally bought by a rich Muggle (taking the narrator at his or her word, for "tax purposes." The only question is what happens to a house when the person to whom it's willed, in this case, Tom Sr., is killed along with the current owners, in this case, his parents. Tom Sr. wasn't the current owner and could not have willed it to anyone, even if he had anyone he wanted to will it to--certainly not Merope's child, whom he essentially disowned. Second, while I agree with zanooda that Voldemort could have found a way to own the house without revealing himself as a Riddle, a name he had rejected, not to mention making himself a murder suspect (Frank Bryce had already described him to the Muggle police, and if it were known that Tom Sr. had a teenage son that he'd placed in an orphanage, surely there would have been an investigation). But, IMO, Tom as a teenager and Voldemort as what passes for an adult man wanted nothing to do with the Riddle House (except, later, to use it as a hideout because it was conveniently close to the graveyard where a key ingredient of the Resurrection Potion, Bone of the Father, happened to be). Had it meant anything to him, he would have hidden a Horcrux there--much safer, really, than entrusting it to one of his Death Eaters. After all, he hid one at the Gaunts' hovel--but that place, despite its filth and the poverty of its former inhabitants, reflected his Pureblood heritage whereas the Riddle House was the home of his despised and hated Muggle father, whom he murdered for revenge (not to create a Horcrux though he later used the murder, and Morfin's ring, for that purpose). At any rate, I don't see how or why Voldemort could or would own the Riddle House, either through inheritance or by somehow buying the place From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 18:07:16 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:07:16 -0000 Subject: Montague and Apparating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181748 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" wrote: > > > > DrKnow wrote: > > > > > > Draco says to Dumbledore that Warrington apparated OUT of the cabinet - ... > > > > > > This seems like a clear violation of the magical rules established by JKR. So what gives? ... > > > > > > > bboyminn: > > > > For example, Hermione say you can't apparate into or out of Hogwarts, but why? Is it impossible; is it an impenetrable barrier? Or, is it simply because no one would ever be willing to risk the consequences of doing so? > > Mike: > I'd like to offer a different possibility besides Steve's, and I > think Steve's is a perfectly good explanation. > > Magically travelling in and out of Hogwarts is certainly within those famous rules that Hermione and Snape kept quoting at us. One could Floo in or out, Portkey, and the elves can use their form of apparition in or out. So it seems wizard apparation is the only form that is proscribed as unachievable. > > Draco also told Dumbledore that Warrington hadn't passed his apparition test yet. This would mean that he wasn't doing that specific type of magical moving quite right. So maybe Warrington tried to apparate but didn't quite perform the magic correctly, thereby failing to trip whatever failsafe that prevents apparation. That is, whatever magic that prevents apparation didn't recognize what Warrington did as apparation, so he was able to "apparate" because he didn't actually apparate. > > Warrington did an on-the-spot invention of a new magical travelling spell. Of course since it landed him jambed into a commode, others are unlikely to emulate this new magic even if they could get Warrington to teach it to them, which I doubt he could. > > Mike, thinking Warrington's invention deserves a new name, and > seeing as where he wound up, he nominates "Crapparating" > Carol responds: First, as someone else has noted, it was Montague, not Warrington, who was pushed into the Vanishing Cabinet by the Weasley Twins and ended up somehow stuck in the toilet (I'm surprised that he didn't drown). Warrington was no longer at Hogwarts, IIRC. I don't think the problem was that Montague didn't have his Apparation license yet. If that were the reason, he would surely have Splinched rather than ending up in Hogwarts, but not in the place he intended. (Possibly his inexperience was a factor; cf. Charlie Weasley landing on some "old dear" doing her shopping), but inexperience wouldn't enable Montague to defeat a protection against Apparation and Disapparation that foiled much more experienced Wizards, including DEs and Voldemort. My explanation (which, of course, you can take or leave) is that Montague attempted his Apparation when he was neither in nor out of Hogwarts but in a kind of limbo, but since he was still inside the Vanishing Cabinet, which was still inside Hogwarts, he ended up in the same building as the cabinet. If the broken cabinet had been in Borgin and Burkes rather than Hogwarts, he'd have ended up there, maybe stuck headfirst in a display cabinet or something. In a sense, he was Apparating already, or traveling in a manner similar to a Portkey, except that the "Portkey" (the Cabinet) was defective. So, like House-Elf Apparation, that mode of Apparation was not protected by the anti-Apparation spell, any more than Portkeys are (or the repaired cabinet that the DEs used to get into the RoR). Carol, who admits that it's all confusing and wonders how JKR explained it away (not that I buy most of her explanations) From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 19:24:28 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:24:28 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181749 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > zanooda: > > I was wondering: if DD had died from the cave poison, were > > we supposed to think that it was LV who killed him? Or only > > the direct killing/defeat counts for the wand to recognize > > the new master? > a_svirn: > Or would it be "dying on his own terms"? After all, he made > sure that Harry force-fed him. zanooda: Yeah, maybe it would :-). OTOH, DD didn't expect to die from the potion, at least that's what he told Harry. Can it still be considered "dying on his own terms" if he didn't intend to die at all? More like an accident, maybe :-)? From zanooda2 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 20:15:19 2008 From: zanooda2 at yahoo.com (zanooda2) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:15:19 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181750 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mike" wrote: > I don't think there are owls available in all parts > of the world. I could easily imagine wizard inhabitants of the > tropics having other bird species as their post carriers. zanooda: That's what I used to believe, too :-). I thought owls don't live in tropical countries, that's why wizards there have to use other birds as messengers. However, later I found out that owls are very wide-spread and live on all the continents of the world, except Antarctica, and also on large islands. If Sirius went to hide in Africa - there are like 40 species of owls living there, including the Barn owl - a lot to choose from :-)! http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?location=Africa I'm not sure that this link works, but, anyway, owls live everywhere, which came as a surprise - they seemed so "un-african" to me :-)! Even in Africa owls are believed to be linked to witchcraft - I'm not sure that parrots and toucans are :-)! From jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com Tue Feb 26 12:11:03 2008 From: jaynesmith62 at btinternet.com (Jayne) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:11:03 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181751 ---, "a_svirn" wrote: > >: > Well, if I were Voldemort I wouldn't believe to such proof. > Especially if the wand wouldn't work for him as it should. Did Voldemort actually really trust Snape anyway ? Would he acccept any proof from Snape. I think he just wanted him dead and out of the way. Jayne From dongan51 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 17:24:04 2008 From: dongan51 at yahoo.com (Liz P) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:24:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look Message-ID: <258633.78757.qm@web63914.mail.re1.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181752 > Alla: > I think the topic of that report shows clearly that he was > given an absolute nonsense to work with, nothing important, > that he is not being valued at all. Cauldron thickness? What > does it matter at all? Montavilla47: Are you mad, Alla? Nonsense? At a 3% accident rate, that's 360 accidents a year, just in the classroom, to say nothing of the accidents that take place in homes, apothecary shops, hospitals, and factories. Thank goodness Percy is there to stem the tide. Liz: Great reply Montavilla. To me this is the same as all regulations in the science industry. Your point was a brilliant one: Imagine in our world flasks that weren't thick enough, couldn't withstand heat. Same thing. Disaster. Also, some potions (felix, polyjuice, etc) take a long time to brew. The cauldron would melt away. Resulting in a major loss to the pocketbook, not to mention time and effort. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 26 22:34:23 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:34:23 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 1-3 post DH look/ Owner of the Riddle house In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181753 > Carol responds: > > First, it's extremely unlikely that Tom Sr. put Tom Jr., whom he > wholly neglected and whose existence he ignored, in the will. Had he > done so, it wouldn't have been bought and then sold by two families > and then finally bought by a rich Muggle (taking the narrator at his > or her word, for "tax purposes." The only question is what happens to a house when the person to whom it's willed, in this case, Tom Sr., is killed along with the current owners, in this case, his parents. Tom Sr. wasn't the current owner and could not have willed it to anyone, even if he had anyone he wanted to will it to--certainly not Merope's child, whom he essentially disowned. > Pippin: IIRC, when disinheriting people it's customary to leave them, and/or unnamed descendants, a nominal amount, lest an heir materialize and claim to have been omitted by mistake. If the Riddles neglected to do this, it's possible that Tom could have made a claim, either as the grandson or the son of the owner. If evidence at the scene allowed the Muggle investigators to determine that Voldemort's father was the last person killed, then he would have been the legal owner at the time of his death, presuming he was the senior Riddles' heir. Pippin agreeing that Voldemort would not see any reason to legally own the house, but not that he couldn't have done so by inheritance. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 26 22:49:34 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:49:34 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181754 > Montavilla47: > > Are you mad, Alla? Nonsense? Cauldron leakings is a serious > business! Just consider that there are approximately 300 > potions students at any one year in Snape's classroom. They use > their cauldrons at least once a week, which is say, 40 times a year. > That's a 12,000 cauldron uses per year > > At a 3% accident rate, that's 360 accidents a year, just in > the classroom, to say nothing of the accidents that take place in > homes, apothecary shops, hospitals, and factories. Pippin: Er, wait. The *failure* rate is increasing at 3% a year, not the overall number of cauldron failures. That is, if 100 cauldrons failed last year, 103 failed this year. But that's 103 cauldrons total, not three more cauldrons out of every hundred. See? Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Feb 26 23:49:16 2008 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:49:16 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181755 > ---, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > >: > > Well, if I were Voldemort I wouldn't believe to such proof. > > Especially if the wand wouldn't work for him as it should. Jayne: > Did Voldemort actually really trust Snape anyway ? Would he acccept any proof from Snape. I think he just wanted him dead and out of the way. Pippin: Voldemort didn't really trust anyone, but he did have absolute confidence in his ability to tell whether someone was lying to him. Snape's truthfulness would not be doubted, only his facts. Voldemort would want to be sure that his servant had not been deceived by a ruse. a_svirn: Or would it be "dying on his own terms"? After all, he made sure thatHarry force-fed him. Pippin: Good point, Dumbledore can't really be sure what will persuade the wand. It is a unique object so there's no way for Dumbledore to be sure in advance that his theory is correct. Therefore it would be a good idea for the wand to go to Snape so that Snape and portrait!DD could deal with matters if the wand was not disabled. Which, of course, they did, but not in a way that Dumbledore felt would be improved if Snape took possession of the wand. If we are trying to unravel Dumbledore's intentions, then we have to look at the best case scenario under Dumbledore's primary plan, because that would be the clearest reflection of what Dumbledore wanted. And under the primary plan, no Death Eaters were expected to enter the castle, and Draco was not expected to make any further attacks without backup. Even Harry had to admit that -- he assumed Draco would get help from Snape. So under the primary plan, Dumbledore's death might remain secret, at least until his portrait appeared in the Headmaster's Office, and as we have seen with Snape, that could be delayed as long as necessary. As Dumbledore had a habit of disappearing for long periods, it would take awhile for anyone to become suspicious that he was dead. Dumbledore ensured that Harry would find out about the Hallows, but he also made sure that two of them would not be found until Harry had done at least some of his homework. Harry would not be able to obtain the stone unless he believed that he was about to die. He would not know he needed to die unless Snape gave him the message, and Snape was not to give him the message until Voldemort had discovered his horcruxes were being attacked. As for the Elder Wand, Ollivander and Gregorovitch had disappeared, while Grindelwald was in a maximum security prison. It was hardly likely that Harry could track them down and discover what had become of the wand before Voldemort could. Harry only discovered for sure that the Elder Wand was real when he encountered Ollivander, and he only learned that Dumbledore been its master through Voldemort. If Dumbledore's murder had been kept secret from Harry, then he wouldn't have expected Voldemort to go to Snape next and he wouldn't have found out that Snape had the wand until Voldemort claimed it. I've already shown that it wasn't logical for Voldemort to assume that he had to kill Snape. It was in character, but only for Voldemort's paranoid side, which was to the forefront because Voldemort had discovered his horcruxes were being destroyed (and perhaps that the Slytherins hadn't joined him after all.) If Voldemort's confident side had been ascendant, Snape might have survived one more time. Voldemort switches back and forth unpredictably. He hid in Albania for twelve years, certain that the aurors would catch him if he ventured out, even though he had the ability to possess unwilling people undetected. Then a possible servant presented himself, and he decided that meant fortune would favor him. If you are just trying to say that keeping Snape alive was not DD's highest priority, I agree with you. Dumbledore assumed that Order members consented to give their lives for the sake of other Order members whose missions were of higher priority, or to save innocent lives. Isn't that what Sirius meant when he told Pettigrew that he should have died, as Sirius and his friends would have done for him? That does not mean that Dumbledore *wanted* Snape to die. But the increased danger of being the apparent master of the Elder Wand was as nothing compared to the danger Snape was already in. Like Harry, being given a dangerous mission would not increase the odds of his being murdered to any great extent -- just as throwing a match into a house that's already fully on fire isn't likely to endanger it further. Pippin From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 07:28:49 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:28:49 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181756 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > > > Montavilla47: > > > > Are you mad, Alla? Nonsense? Cauldron leakings is a serious > > business! Just consider that there are approximately 300 > > potions students at any one year in Snape's classroom. They use > > their cauldrons at least once a week, which is say, 40 times a year. > > That's a 12,000 cauldron uses per year > > > > At a 3% accident rate, that's 360 accidents a year, just in > > the classroom, to say nothing of the accidents that take place in > > homes, apothecary shops, hospitals, and factories. > > Pippin: > Er, wait. The *failure* rate is increasing at 3% a year, not the > overall number of cauldron failures. That is, if 100 cauldrons failed > last year, 103 failed this year. But that's 103 cauldrons total, not > three more cauldrons out of every hundred. See? > > > Pippin Montavilla47: Of course you're right, Pippin. But you can also see what a serious problem it is, even with a failure rate as low of three percent. Say the actual failure rate is only 1 percent, that would be 120 accidents per year in Snape's classroom (disregarding the entire rest of the Wizarding community in Great Britain). And, if in GoF, that rate increased by three percent, it would mean another 3+ accidents in OotP or 123. 126 in HBP, 129 in DH. By the time little Al started school, there would likely be an average of 190 cauldron-bottom-related accidents at Hogwarts. An increase of 70 accidents per year! Honestly, silly as Percy's cauldron-bottom report sounds, it's the only example I can think of in the entire series where the Ministry seems to be doing something useful. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 10:05:42 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:05:42 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181757 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > > > ---, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > > > >: > > > Well, if I were Voldemort I wouldn't believe to such proof. > > > Especially if the wand wouldn't work for him as it should. > > Jayne: > > Did Voldemort actually really trust Snape anyway ? Would he acccept > any proof from Snape. I think he just wanted him dead and out of the way. > > Pippin: > Voldemort didn't really trust anyone, but he did have absolute > confidence in his ability to tell whether someone was lying to him. > Snape's truthfulness would not be doubted, only his facts. Voldemort > would want to be sure that his servant had not been deceived by a ruse. a_svirn: However it may be, only someone with "a free and open nature", like Othello could mistake such a flimsy piece of evidence for an irrefutable proof. Voldemort's nature is anything but. And why would Voldemort need any proof if he could use legillemency? > a_svirn: > Or would it be "dying on his own terms"? After all, he made sure > thatHarry force-fed him. > > Pippin: > Good point, Dumbledore can't really be sure what will persuade the > wand. It is a unique object so there's no way for Dumbledore to be > sure in advance that his theory is correct. Therefore it would be a > good idea for the wand to go to Snape so that Snape and portrait!DD > could deal with matters if the wand was not disabled. a_svirn: That would mean that Snape would be the master of the wand. I can't think that Dumbledore considered this a good idea. > Pippin: > If we are trying to unravel Dumbledore's intentions, then we have to > look at the best case scenario under Dumbledore's primary plan, > because that would be the clearest reflection of what Dumbledore > wanted. And under the primary plan, no Death Eaters were expected to > enter the castle, and Draco was not expected to make any further > attacks without backup. a_svirn: I don't understand what it means. Dumbledore didn't make plans for Draco, surely? How could he know what mad scheme Draco would come up with? > Pippin: Even Harry had to admit that -- he assumed > Draco would get help from Snape. a_svirn: How could he assume it? He knew from what he had overheard that Draco refused Snape's help. > Pippin: > So under the primary plan, Dumbledore's death might remain secret, at > least until his portrait appeared in the Headmaster's Office, and as > we have seen with Snape, that could be delayed as long as necessary. a_svirn: No, I don't think so. A secret death would serve the purpose of establishing Snape as Voldemort's most trusted servant and the Headmaster of Hogwarts. > Pippin: > As Dumbledore had a habit of disappearing for long periods, it would > take awhile for anyone to become suspicious that he was dead. > > Dumbledore ensured that Harry would find out about the Hallows, but he > also made sure that two of them would not be found until Harry had > done at least some of his homework. Harry would not be able to obtain > the stone unless he believed that he was about to die. He would not > know he needed to die unless Snape gave him the message, and Snape was > not to give him the message until Voldemort had discovered his > horcruxes were being attacked. a_svirn: Ah, but you see, *if* Dumbledore's death would be a secret, Harry wouldn't know about the Hallows at all because the content of Dumblodere's would remain unknown, the Trio wouldn't receive their corresponding bequests, also Harry wouldn't be alerted to the fact that he would need the sword to destroy the Horcruxes, etc. Moreover, Harry himself would be stranded, since he would be waiting for Dumbledore's orders, as was the custom with the Order. The Order and the Trio would be paralysed and waiting, while Voldemort would be free and thriving. Hunting for the wand, lording over the WW and killing the good guys. I really don't think much about this plan, if it was indeed *the* plan. > Pippin: > I've already shown that it wasn't logical for Voldemort to assume that > he had to kill Snape. a_svirn: I don't think it wasn't logical. If Snape were the master of the wand it was perfectly logical for Voldemort to kill him. For one thing it was totally in character. For another, what else could he do? Duel Snape? If Snape deliberately let him win, the wand might not recognise him as a master. If he duelled in earnest and with the *Elder Wand* there would be a slight chance that Snape he would best him. And that would never do, surely. Of course he might try to steal it, but why bother? So much easer to kill. Especially, since Snape outlived his usefulness as a spy. > Pippin: It was in character, but only for Voldemort's > paranoid side, which was to the forefront because Voldemort had > discovered his horcruxes were being destroyed (and perhaps that the > Slytherins hadn't joined him after all.) If Voldemort's > confident side had been ascendant, Snape might have survived one more > time. a_svirn: You mean he only killed from the lack of confidence? I don't think so. > Pippin: > If you are just trying to say that keeping Snape alive was not DD's > highest priority, I agree with you. a_svirn: Well, it is fairly obvious. What I am trying to say, is that leaving the wand to Snape would put him jeopardy for no discernable reason. > Pippin: > That does not mean that Dumbledore *wanted* Snape to die. But the > increased danger of being the apparent master of the Elder > Wand was as nothing compared to the danger Snape was already in. a_svirn: Honestly. He would have something both Harry and Voldemort wanted. Badly. That does not count for nothing. And ultimately he was killed because of the wand, after he had weathered so many other storms. Even though it*was* a mistake on Voldemort's part. a_svirn. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 14:44:26 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:44:26 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look/ Cauldrons' thickness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181758 Montavilla47: Of course you're right, Pippin. But you can also see what a serious problem it is, even with a failure rate as low of three percent. Honestly, silly as Percy's cauldron-bottom report sounds, it's the only example I can think of in the entire series where the Ministry seems to be doing something useful. Alla: Eh, I was pretty sure that your first reply was a joke; I was even surer that Pippin's reply was a joke as well. Now I am starting to think that your reply was not a joke (please tell me if it was after all), while I am still thinking that Pippin was kidding. So, am trying to answer seriously. No, not mad, yes am thinking that this is complete nonsense. Are the accidents serious business? Sure, they could be if students are getting hurt. Is it Ministry business to make their employees to write report on cauldron's thickness? Not in my opinion. I am trying to find a suitable comparison ? say that Ministry was making Percy to write a report on whether the ice cream that Fortesque makes is tasty enough or whether it has enough calories. Does it make sense? I do not think that cauldron thickness is something that government employee should be concerned about, sounds as if it is cauldron manufacturers' business to me. I am rereading my initial post and I am realizing that when I wrote what does it matter at all, it may have given an impression that I do not think that this is important at all. So I am sorry about that, I think it can be important just for appropriate people IMO. From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Wed Feb 27 15:20:26 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:20:26 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look/ Cauldrons' thickness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181759 > Alla: > Is it Ministry business to make their employees to write report on > cauldron's thickness? Not in my opinion. I am trying to find a > suitable comparison ? say that Ministry was making Percy to write a > report on whether the ice cream that Fortesque makes is tasty enough > or whether it has enough calories. > > Does it make sense? I do not think that cauldron thickness is > something that government employee should be concerned about, sounds > as if it is cauldron manufacturers' business to me. Magpie: I wouldn't. It's a safety issue--that's the way I read it, so it would be fine being the government's job, especially since the Ministry seems to do everything in the WW. I had the same impression as Montavilla, that Percy was doing something important that just happened to be boring as far as many characters were concerned. I definitely don't think the Ministry was making up jobs for Percy as busywork or giving him stupid jobs because he's unimportant. If he was giving the job at work obviously the Ministry is in charge of this issue, and Percy's just the kind of guy who sinks his teeth into something like this and gets something out of it rather than finding it boring and tedious. If Percy was in charge of it Arthur's job could be made to sound just as silly and inappopriate. -m From mros at xs4all.nl Wed Feb 27 16:25:42 2008 From: mros at xs4all.nl (Marion Ros) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:25:42 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look/ Cauldrons' thickness References: Message-ID: <000b01c8795d$69a9bc30$63fe54d5@Marion> No: HPFGUIDX 181760 > Alla: > Is it Ministry business to make their employees to write report on > cauldron's thickness? Not in my opinion. I am trying to find a > suitable comparison - say that Ministry was making Percy to write a > report on whether the ice cream that Fortesque makes is tasty enough > or whether it has enough calories. > > Does it make sense? I do not think that cauldron thickness is > something that government employee should be concerned about, sounds > as if it is cauldron manufacturers' business to me. Marion: Yes, this makes sense. One of my friends from University had her first job at our (Dutch) Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Wares. More especially, she worked for the department which supervised, checked and established the European standards on Food and other imports. Suppose some shop or supermarket imported, say, toy cars from some country where leadpaint was still permitted? Or cheap electrical appliances which have a higher risk of exploding or electrocuting the user because the legislation, safetymeasures or even just standards of use are different in the country of manufacture were different? Believe it or not, but the fact that you, the reader of this post, is sitting safe at home without a high risk of being poisoned, electrocuted or blown up by the stuff in your house is a direct result of thousands upon thousands of Percys, who may seem very boring to you with their anal attention to detail and there deskjobs (not as dashing as chasing dark wizards about, I grant you) but who are probably saving more lives as a result of their finicky paperpushing than any auror you could wave a wand at. If you'd like to see the website of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture which deals with these kind of things, here's the link: http://www.minlnv.nl/portal/page?_pageid=116,1641283&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From montavilla47 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 17:48:45 2008 From: montavilla47 at yahoo.com (montavilla47) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:48:45 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look/ Cauldrons' thickness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181761 > Alla: > > Eh, I was pretty sure that your first reply was a joke; I was even > surer that Pippin's reply was a joke as well. Now I am starting to > think that your reply was not a joke (please tell me if it was after > all), while I am still thinking that Pippin was kidding. Montavilla47: To be perfectly honest, it was a bit of a joke. But I still think that Percy's cauldron-bottom report, while not exactly an exciting project, is one of the more important, unsung aspects of the Ministry. What do you think is the function of government? It's not only to raise armies. A lot of it is to create silly little bits of regulation that collectively make the world run easier, provide for the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. Alla: > Is it Ministry business to make their employees to write report on > cauldron's thickness? Not in my opinion. I am trying to find a > suitable comparison ? say that Ministry was making Percy to write a > report on whether the ice cream that Fortesque makes is tasty enough > or whether it has enough calories. Montavilla47: Or whether or not Fortesque is secretly adding doxy-dust to enhance the flavor? Before we had legal standards for food preparation, there was no way to know what you were getting the supermarket. It wasn't the manufacturers who decided to list the ingrediants on their packages. That's due to government regulation. Before regulations on car manufacturers, there was no great incentive to provide safety belts. Most cars didn't have them. The interior of cars were designed for style, rather than safety, and consequently, there were lots of sharp, stylish edges that became dangerous--even deadly--during an accident. Before regulations on paint, lead was regularly used as part of the mix, leading to deaths and serious illness among children. I really could go on, but I'll spare you. Alla: > Does it make sense? I do not think that cauldron thickness is > something that government employee should be concerned about, sounds > as if it is cauldron manufacturers' business to me. > I am rereading my initial post and I am realizing that when I wrote > what does it matter at all, it may have given an impression that I do > not think that this is important at all. So I am sorry about that, I > think it can be important just for appropriate people IMO. Montavilla47: But what incentive is there for manufacturers to keep a safe thickness? The Wizarding World doesn't seem to have a very strong system of civil litigation. Why should the manufacturers care if x number of people are harmed or killed in cauldron accidents? Moreover, a thin-bottomed cauldron is advantageous for the cauldron-makers, since it means that wizards will need to replace their cauldrons more often, thus expanding the market. Actually, I heard a report a few months ago that lax standards on medicine and make-up in the U.S. is allowing European companies (who face greater regulation) to dump lead-filled lipsticks and shoddy pills in our market. It's quite possible that the foreign cauldron manufacturers were doing the same thing in GoF--dumping their shoddy irregular cauldrons in England, while keeping their more quality products at home. I don't know why, but I have always associated Luna's mother's death with a cauldron accident. Am I just imagining that? I know that she died from magical experimentation. Am I simply assuming she was experimenting with potion-brewing? From talamariam at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 13:20:08 2008 From: talamariam at yahoo.com (talamariam) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:20:08 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181762 I am a long time lurker here, and often fascinated by the depth of some of you (justcarol comes to mind!, Mike et al) analyzing HP books. (and the fierceness of 'the detractors' -- sounds like driven by the same spirit as in religious discussion! :P ). This list is really an oasis for us who enjoy HP. Enough intro. About TR and the ROR, horcrux tiara / diadem. Seems to me one angle is missing on the discussion so far (sorry if somebody already mentioned this). When do you think TR put the diadem into the ROR? My take is during his visit to DD for the DADA post. TR only got his filthy hands on the diadem after he visited Albania, hence the period. Why the ROR? Because TR knew about it (during his Hogwart days), and it is convenient for his brief visit to DD's office. We know that the ROR is near DD's office, actually JKR repeatedly tells us about this small item. So the reason TR chose the ROR is not exactly 'deep logical thinking' (whatever this means :P ) -- it fits his profile very well. He wanted to keep something in Hogwarts, the only place he 'loved.' He wanted to 'thumb his nose' on the great DD, by keeping it in plain sight near DD's office. And I am sure that TR is convinced he will come back to rule Hogwarts one day (which he indeed did!). Indeed - the ROR is a very good place for TR's purpose. It was only coincidence that relates HP to the diadem (sigh! I really agree that JKR uses too many -- way too many -- coincidences on this story ). Tal - who loved the whole HP, probably too much so -- sees a lot of plot holes and 'conveniences' that sometimes scrunched my eyebrow. In the same way as in old legends. talamariam From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 21:21:31 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:21:31 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181763 a_svirn: > However it may be, only someone with "a free and open nature", like > Othello could mistake such a flimsy piece of evidence for an irrefutable proof. Voldemort's nature is anything but. And why would Voldemort need any proof if he could use legillemency? > Carol responds: Snape's "superb Occlumency" is superior to Voldemort's Legilimency, formidable though it is, as we see in "The Dark Lord Ascending" where Snape is hiding the key piece of information regarding Polyjuice and multiple Potters. Snape suggests as much to Harry in OoP--only a person (like Snape) who has mastered Occlumency can lie to the Dark Lord without detection. (There's a similar quote in "Spinner's End" where Snape asks Bellatrix whether she thinks that he, Snape, can outwit the Dark Lord. The answer, though Bellatrix is loath to admit it, is clearly yes.) Snape would never have survived his return to Voldemort in GoF had it not been for Occlumency, nor could he have concealed from Voldemort the real reason that he killed Dumbledore (DD wanted him to). Carol, skipping the rest of the post since we've been round and round on this and I have no idea what DD actually intended when he wanted Harry to summon Snape From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 21:33:58 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:33:58 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look/ Cauldrons' thickness In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181764 Montavilla47: > Of course you're right, Pippin. But you can also see what a serious problem it is, even with a failure rate as low of three percent. > > Honestly, silly as Percy's cauldron-bottom report sounds, it's the only example I can think of in the entire series where the Ministry seems to be doing something useful. > > > > Alla: > > Eh, I was pretty sure that your first reply was a joke; I was even surer that Pippin's reply was a joke as well. Now I am starting to think that your reply was not a joke (please tell me if it was after all), while I am still thinking that Pippin was kidding. > > So, am trying to answer seriously. No, not mad, yes am thinking that this is complete nonsense. Are the accidents serious business? Sure, they could be if students are getting hurt. > > Is it Ministry business to make their employees to write report on cauldron's thickness? Not in my opinion. I am trying to find a suitable comparison ? say that Ministry was making Percy to write a > report on whether the ice cream that Fortesque makes is tasty enough > or whether it has enough calories. > > Does it make sense? I do not think that cauldron thickness is > something that government employee should be concerned about, sounds > as if it is cauldron manufacturers' business to me. > > I am rereading my initial post and I am realizing that when I wrote > what does it matter at all, it may have given an impression that I do > not think that this is important at all. So I am sorry about that, I think it can be important just for appropriate people IMO. > Carol responds: Hi, Alla. Sorry to present an almost canonless post, but safety *is* the government's business. that's why the U.S. has the FDA and OSHA and all sorts of similar agencies. Look at the toys that are being recalled for having lead in them. It's the same sort of thing. A melted (or leaky) cauldron in the WW can cause a serious accident, which is why Snape gets so upset with Neville. As I said in another post, Percy is a junior official, so he gets assigned the boring work, but that doesn't mean that cauldron thickness isn't important. (Remember Mundungus selling "dodgy" cauldrons? I'll bet they were substandard cauldrons that didn't pass the thickness test. It would be like selling stoves that could catch on fire in the U.S. or Britain. (Ice cream isn't dangerous, so it's not a fair comparison. The recalled beef in recent news is closer. that could poison people.) I do think though, that there's an element of parody in the cauldron reports--bureaucracy as all paperwork and no action, maybe (cf. the MoM's instructions for protecting yourself from the DEs, which remind me of the flyers I sometimes find on my door or in my mailbox on how to prevent car theft). It's exactly the sort of thing that the government does--only, sometimes, the regulations actually save lives. (Not sure about the reports and pamphlets, though.) Carol, quite sure that no one is joking in this thread (though JKR is probably poking a bit of fun at government red tape) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 22:22:30 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:22:30 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181765 talamariam wrote: > > I am a long time lurker here, and often fascinated by the depth of > some of you (justcarol comes to mind!, Mike et al) analyzing HP books. Carol responds: Thank you! I do go into a bit of detail sometimes! Please call me Carol, BTW. talamariam: > When do you think TR put the diadem into the ROR? My take is during his visit to DD for the DADA post. TR only got his filthy hands on the diadem after he visited Albania, hence the period. > > Why the ROR? Because TR knew about it (during his Hogwart days), and it is convenient for his brief visit to DD's office. We know that the ROR is near DD's office, actually JKR repeatedly tells us about this small item. > > So the reason TR chose the ROR is not exactly 'deep logical thinking' > (whatever this means :P ) -- it fits his profile very well. > > He wanted to keep something in Hogwarts, the only place he 'loved.' > He wanted to 'thumb his nose' on the great DD, by keeping it in plain > sight near DD's office. And I am sure that TR is convinced he will > come back to rule Hogwarts one day (which he indeed did!). > > Indeed - the ROR is a very good place for TR's purpose. It was only > coincidence that relates HP to the diadem (sigh! I really agree that JKR uses too many -- way too many -- coincidences on this story ). Carol responds: Agreed about the coincidences, especially in DH. However, I'm not sure about Voldemort's hiding the tiara in the RoR when he applied for the DADA post. First, IIRC, the RoR is on the same floor as the entrance to Dumbledore's office, but it's not close by. Harry tells Tonks in HBP that she's in the wrong part of the castle when she appears out of nowhere in front of the RoR and mentions wanting to talk to DD. (Anyone besides me think that she was wearing an Invisibility Cloak? She does the same thing in Hogsmeade when Harry is throttling Mundungus.) Also, I don't think he would have brought the tiara to Hogwarts to hide it when he had a job interview. Is he supposed to hide it under his cloak in broad daylight? He'd have had to drop it off at the RoR on the way to the interview, and to do that, he'd have needed to know about the existence of the RoR already (it would be too much of a coincidence for him to find it for the first time on the day of the DADA interview), which means, he'd have had to find it as a student. Only he didn't, so far as we know, hide any of the other Horcruxes there, so what would he have used it for? We know that he found out about the Ravenclaw diadem as a student, and apparently, he already knew how to make a Horcrux. (the diary and possibly the ring Horcrux were created while he was still at school.) We know that he thought (illogically) that he was the only one who knew about that room, which doesn't help much. On the other side of the argument, we know that his looks are altered by making Horcruxes and that they hadn't changed much when he robbed and murdered Hepzibah Smith, which suggests that he had only made one or two Horcruxes at that point, whereas when we see him in the DADA interview, his features are blurred, which suggests that he's created at least two more (the ring and the locket) at that point. Nagini!crux, of course, comes much later. The question is, when did he create the Ravenclaw Horcrux? If he found it during the summer holiday between his sixth and seventh years (going to Albania and murdering an Albanian peasant for lack of a significant victim), which would have provided the perfect opportunity to hide the Horcrux while he was still at school, why were his features so little altered when he worked for Borgin and Burke? (A little paler, a little thinner, red eeyes that glowed red when he was feeling greed or the impulse to kill--that doesn't seem sufficient alteration for three Horcruxes, does it?) The blurred, waxy features and permanently red eyes of the DADA interview, in contrast, indicate that he's been dabbling extensively in self-altering Dark Magic. He must have already created not only the diary, ring, cup, and locket Horcruxes, but also the Ravenclaw Horcrux since the DADA appointment is his last opportunity to hide the thing in the RoR, but that raises the question of why his appearance is again changed when he returns for VW1. If he hasn't yet killed the Potters and accidentally put a soul bit into Harry and hasn't yet made Nagini into a Horcrux, why would he look more snakelike during VW1 than he does during the DADA interview? (I'm going by the face in the back of Quirrell's head, which predates the Nagini Horcrux unless DD is wrong and the absence of reaction to LV's altered appearance--as opposed to his return to "life" by the DEs in the graveyard.) If you're confused as to what I'm arguing, it's because I'm also confused. It makes more sense for him to have hidden the Ravenclaw Horcrux while he was still at Hogwarts, but appearance suggests that he hadn't yet created it, so he must have hidden it later, on the way to the DADA interview, which would mean that he already knew about the RoR but hadn't used it for anything. And if we look at the alterations in his appearance, the snakelike appearance makes no sense unless there was an additional Horcrux between the DADA interview and Godric's Hollow. But if the only available Horcrux is the Ravenclaw one, how could he have hidden it if he hadn't made it yet? It's possible that he didn't look snakelike during VW1, but if that's the case, wouldn't the DEs have been in some doubt as to his identity? Carol, now almost wishing she hadn't posted as she's not sure what she thinks From a_svirn at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 22:33:41 2008 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:33:41 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181767 > > a_svirn: > > However it may be, only someone with "a free and open nature", like > > Othello could mistake such a flimsy piece of evidence for an > irrefutable proof. Voldemort's nature is anything but. And why would > Voldemort need any proof if he could use legillemency? > > > Carol responds: > Snape's "superb Occlumency" is superior to Voldemort's Legilimency, > formidable though it is, as we see in "The Dark Lord Ascending" where > Snape is hiding the key piece of information regarding Polyjuice and > multiple Potters. a_svirn: But you don't really expect Voldemrt to believe it? Or even suspect it? He might concede that Dumbledore's skills were if not superior, at least, equal to his own, but as for Snape, he did not consider him an equal. (If he had, he would have taken care to kill him much earlier.) > Carol, skipping the rest of the post since we've been round and round > on this and I have no idea what DD actually intended when he wanted > Harry to summon Snape a_svirn: Cure him, I suppose. At least temporary. a_svirn From yvaine28 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 00:28:21 2008 From: yvaine28 at gmail.com (meann ortiz) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:28:21 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d7223330802271628q3a68a9a3m795bfaf6e971c2e8@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181768 Carol wrote: >> The question is, when did he create the Ravenclaw Horcrux? << This is how I recall the events (I hope I'm right. :D ): Tom worked for B&B after leaving Hogwarts. His appearance hasn't altered much, but we know he's already got that red-gleam-in-the-eye thing going. By this time, he's probably only attempted to make the Ring Horcrux. But he could've gone to Albania at this time to retrieve the Diadem. He was probably already itching to do so right after he heard Helena's story when he was still in school. It's possible he has retrieved it by this time, but he hasn't used it yet. After leaving B&B, he disappeared for a while. I presume this is when he went to Albania again to hide. This is probably when he made a Horcrux out of the Diadem. Ten years after leaving Hogwarts, he came back to ask for the DADA job. By this time, he was very much changed, as DD observed. Harry assumed this is also when Voldie hid the Diadem-crux in the RoR. I think it may just be possible for him to hide it there on his way to DD's office. We already know that most people pass by it on their way to DD's office: there was Harry and Trelawney and Tonks. Harry did tell Tonks when he saw her that DD's office was at the other side of the Castle, but Tonks already came from the office and knew that DD wasn't there. So it's possible that the RoR was located in a corridor you'll have to pass through to get to DD's office when you're coming from the lower levels of the Castle. =) Just a thought. :) ---*meann [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 00:34:45 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:34:45 -0000 Subject: Wand Lore / Luna / Alchemy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181769 > > Carol responds: > > Snape's "superb Occlumency" is superior to Voldemort's Legilimency, > > formidable though it is, as we see in "The Dark Lord Ascending" > where > > Snape is hiding the key piece of information regarding Polyjuice and > > multiple Potters. > > a_svirn: > But you don't really expect Voldemrt to believe it? Or even suspect > it? He might concede that Dumbledore's skills were if not superior, > at least, equal to his own, but as for Snape, he did not consider him an equal. (If he had, he would have taken care to kill him much > earlier.) > Carol responds: Exactly. That's the whole point. Voldemort has no clue that Snape is outfoxing him--Snape's Occlumency is so subtle that Voldemort thinks he's seeing the whole memory and can't tell when Snape is lying to him (or, more accurately, concealing crucial information). Something of the sort might have worked if Snape had the Elder Wand, presumably powerless, and had to conceal that information from Voldemort. > > > Carol, skipping the rest of the post since we've been round and > round on this and I have no idea what DD actually intended when he wanted Harry to summon Snape > > a_svirn: > Cure him, I suppose. At least temporary. Carol: That's one possibility, and I'm sure it's what we're supposed to think before Snape is exposed as a seeming traitor in HBP. Makes his "treachery" seem all the worse. But given that DD was still trying to send Harry for Snape even after he knew that the DEs were in Hogwarts, and given Dead!DD's remark that he wanted Snape to have the wand, it's possible that he wanted Snape to kill rather than temporarily cure him. The whole point was for DD to die by Snape's hand at his own request, and if he had Snape cure rather than kill him, how could he manage that? And cure him on the tower just in time for the DEs to arrive? It makes no sense. (Imagine DD begging Snape to kill him after Snape had just temporarily saved him.) and Snape had only been convinced to kill him to protect Draco's soul and/or protect DD from some more terrible death. I can't see Snape agreeing to kill him in cold blood under other circumstances (unless the curse in the hand got so bad that he wanted to be put out of his misery). Carol, suspecting that DD was going to tell both Snape and Harry about the Elder Wand and have Snape kill him at his own request in front of Harry but not liking the idea at all (would there have been a Pensieve visit first?) From klhutch at sbcglobal.net Thu Feb 28 01:40:39 2008 From: klhutch at sbcglobal.net (Ken Hutchinson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:40:39 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 4-6 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181770 > > Alla: > > > I am saying that Percy was wrong in not seeing that Ministry IMO is > indeed using him. > > I think the topic of that report shows clearly that he was given an > absolute nonsense to work with, nothing important, that he is not > being valued at all. Cauldron thickness? What does it matter at all? > I don't know how different this is from what the others are saying but here goes anyway. It is unlikely that the Ministry would be involved with cauldrons unless there had been complaints from their "citizens" (it is hard to understand exactly what form of government the Ministry is and what its political legitimacy is based on but I suppose that ordinary members of the WW are in some sense citizens). Percy is being given a job that is appropriate for someone fresh out of school. He can't mess anything up too terribly if he utterly fails at it and success with a small assignment will lead to a better next assignment. So there is something in it for him. All employers use their employees, that is what we are there for. Unused and useless employees tend to become ex-employees. This assignment is important for Percy only in the sense that one step leads to the next. The irony is that in typical Percy fashion he cannot see this but instead imagines this assignment to be one of utmost importance to the Ministry and utmost urgency for his boss. His family and their guests can see the obvious while Percy remains blind to it. Another irony is that Arthur and Percy both dismiss the importance of the other's work yet both are doing product related public safety functions: Arthur for Muggles who should not be exposed to magical "products", Percy for the WW public. Ken From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 04:41:25 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:41:25 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181772 " A tiny boy no older than two was crouched outside a large pyramid- shaped tent, holding a wand and poking happily at a slug in the grass, which was swelling slowly to the size of salami. As they drew level with him, his mother came hurrying out of the tent. "How many times, Kevin? You don't- touch- Daddy's - wand - yecchh!" - p.81 Alla: So, when is the appropriate age to have your first wand, what do you think? I mean I know that it is eleven, but why can't say nine or ten year old get one? Does it mean that uncontrollable magic at that age is still so very strong and suddenly gets better at eleven? Or is it simply because they are starting Hogwarts at that age? "Not a dicky bird," said Bagman comfortably, "But she'll turn up. Poor old Bertha... memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She'll wander back into the office sometimes in October, thinking it's still July" - p.89 Alla: Okay, I am just wondering upon reread whether Bagman's brain is just that small. His colleague had been missing for months, is he seriously thinking that she is lost? "His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have been nice looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose" - p.101 Alla: Okay, I think this is a lovely quote to look back in as to when narrator is right and when he is wrong. He reports quite objectively about Narcissa nice facial features, but says that she was wearing that nasty look for that particular reason that narrator is probably wrong about. For some reason I really liked this one as reflection of something bigger narrative twists ( RE what narrator reports correctly and what not). "However, under the gaze if the Minister of magic, Mr. Malfoy didn't dare say anything" - p.102 Alla: Are we sure? Does Lucius really care whether Fudge thinks he has low opinion of Hermione or not? From sistermagpie at earthlink.net Thu Feb 28 04:50:14 2008 From: sistermagpie at earthlink.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:50:14 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181773 Alla: > "His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have been nice > looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested there was a > nasty smell under her nose" - p.101 > > Alla: > > Okay, I think this is a lovely quote to look back in as to when > narrator is right and when he is wrong. He reports quite objectively > about Narcissa nice facial features, but says that she was wearing > that nasty look for that particular reason that narrator is probably > wrong about. > For some reason I really liked this one as reflection of something > bigger narrative twists ( RE what narrator reports correctly and what > not). > Magpie: I don't understand this here. The narrator isn't giving any reason for Narcissa's expression. S/he is describing Narcissa as walking around looking like there's a bad smell under her nose, s/he's not actually thinking there is a bad smell under her nose. -m From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 05:16:50 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:16:50 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181774 > Magpie: > I don't understand this here. The narrator isn't giving any reason > for Narcissa's expression. S/he is describing Narcissa as walking > around looking like there's a bad smell under her nose, s/he's not > actually thinking there is a bad smell under her nose. > > Alla: But whether narrator is describing Narcissa as walking around looking as if there's a bad smell under her nose or whether narrator is actually thinking that there is a bad smell under her nose, those are narrator's descriptions, no? If we were to ask Narcissa to describe the look on her face, she for example could have said that she, I don't know was very annoyed with her hairdresser or give any other reason that has nothing to do with comparison of bad smell under her nose, whether it actually exists or not. I am saying that the comparison itself could be wrong and has nothing to do with Narcissa, like if I am happy because I got a promotion, somebody would describe me looking as if I ate some yummy chocolate or something. Alla From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 10:00:12 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:00:12 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181775 > > Magpie: > > S/he is describing Narcissa as walking around looking like > > there's a bad smell under her nose, s/he's not actually > > thinking there is a bad smell under her nose. > Alla: > But whether narrator is describing Narcissa as walking around > looking as if there's a bad smell under her nose or whether > narrator is actually thinking that there is a bad smell under > her nose, those are narrator's descriptions, no? Goddlefrood: Allow me, as a former resident of the benighted isles, to interject something here. When someone is descrobed as looking as if she has a bad smell under her nose it would be immediately understood by the English that she was giving a somewhat condescending look. Narcissa was in the instance under discussion merely looking down her nose as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. So, we are to understand that Narcissa had less than a complimentary feeling at the time this look was noted. No more nor less that that. Toodle pip From falkeli at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 16:12:22 2008 From: falkeli at yahoo.com (hp_fan_2008) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:12:22 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181776 Carol: > Also, I don't think he would have brought the tiara to Hogwarts to hide it when he had a job interview. Is he supposed to hide it under his cloak in broad daylight? He'd have had to drop it off at the RoR on the way to the interview, and to do that, he'd have needed to know about the existence of the RoR already (it would be too much of a coincidence for him to find it for the first time on the day of the DADA interview), which means, he'd have had to find it as a student. Only he didn't, so far as we know, hide any of the other Horcruxes there, so what would he have used it for? HP Fan 2008: Actually, I believe that he hid the diary there originally. On the day of the interview, he could sneak over to the ROR, switch Horcruxes, hide the diary under his cloak, and then go to the interview. HP Fan 2008 From beatrice23 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 20:10:37 2008 From: beatrice23 at yahoo.com (Beatrice23) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:10:37 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181777 Beatrice: This is a great discussion! I have wanted to add some thoughts for a while, but I haven't had the time...anyway I have a couple of minutes now so here goes: > While I agree that it is a stretch for LV to hide this on the day of his interview, I think that this is what JKR wants us to believe. First, it is almost certain that TR/LV knew about the room as a student. DD indicates that LV may have know more about the school and its powers than most people (I believe he says it in CoS, and HBP). LV himself says at one point in DH that he hid the diadem (although it is not explicitly mentioned) in a place which he has explored the depths of as no one else had. Or something to that affect. This to me indicates that LV knew that the RoR was known, by other or at least entered by others, but he assumes that know one truly understands the room's powers. (This plays into what we know of his ego). There is evidence to back him up even. DD found the room filled with chamberpots, but gives no indication that he knows anything more about the room. Filch gets cleaning supplies there and puts things away there, but probably does not know the full nature of the room (or he might have revealed it to Umbridge in OotP). Even Harry, who has THE map, and the Weasleys don't understand the full power of the room until Dobby explains it to Harry. It even seems unlikely that Sirius et al knew about the room, because he didn't recommend it as a meeting place for the DA. Truly, only Neville (and his group) figures a lot of it out by living in the room for several months. So, I think that LV might have realized that people stumbled upon the room, but either never found their way back or simply thought of the room as a moving broom cupboard. > Carol responds: > > However, I'm not sure about Voldemort's hiding the tiara in the RoR > when he applied for the DADA post. First, IIRC, the RoR is on the same > floor as the entrance to Dumbledore's office, but it's not close by. SNIP > > Also, I don't think he would have brought the tiara to Hogwarts to > hide it when he had a job interview. Is he supposed to hide it under > his cloak in broad daylight? He'd have had to drop it off at the RoR > on the way to the interview, and to do that, he'd have needed to know > about the existence of the RoR already (it would be too much of a > coincidence for him to find it for the first time on the day of the > DADA interview), which means, he'd have had to find it as a student. > Only he didn't, so far as we know, hide any of the other Horcruxes > there, so what would he have used it for? Beatrice: In thinking about HOW LV might have gotten the diadem into the castle and hidden it in the RoR, I found myself thinking about Hermione's purse in DH. Perhaps, LV, did the same thing to one of his pockets and had the diadem in there during the interview. Perhaps, that movement that Harry note in HBP was not a movement toward LV's wand at all, but an involuntary movement toward the pocket where the horcrux was hidden. As if he where checking to see if it was still there. Or if when he felt a surge of hatred toward DD at the end of the interview when he is denied the teaching position, the horcrux burned or something with LV's emotion he might move his hand toward the horcrux before recovering himself. And then of course, LV is not escorted from the building gives him the opportunity to go to the RoR. If he is found still in the building, he could always pretend he was visiting his award or forgot his way. He was pretty charming so he could probably bluff almost anyone except DD. > Albanian peasant for lack of a significant victim), which would have > provided the perfect opportunity to hide the Horcrux while he was > still at school, why were his features so little altered when he > worked for Borgin and Burke? (A little paler, a little thinner, red > eeyes that glowed red when he was feeling greed or the impulse to > kill--that doesn't seem sufficient alteration for three Horcruxes, > does it?) Beatrice: I'm guessing that the timeline goes something like this: Myrtle's death in his fifth or sixth year (c. 1942)and then the creation of the diary Horcrux shortly thereafter. The theft of the Gaunt ring and the murder of the Riddles in the summer between his 6th and 7th year. (1943 or 44) However, I think that the ring was probably made after he left Hogwarts. We know that he is asking question about making more than one horcux, but as he is wearing the ring it seems to indicate that he has not yet made more than one. It may take him until after he leaves to decide to do it. But I suspect that he does so before murdering Ms. Smith and acquiring the cup and the locket. Which is then turned into his third horcrux. We know that Riddle disappears shortly thereafter to go abroad. (perhaps the late 40's to early 50's?) During this period he goes to Albania to get the diadem. He could hold on to it for a while. Dumbledore indicates that he has heard and been disturbed by Riddle's activities so it is reasonable to assume that one of the activities may be a murder from which the diadem is created. (Again 50's to early 60's) This would be the time that he applies for the DADA position and hides it at Hogwarts. Although he has the locket, it would seem that he waits to use it for a while. He certainly doesn't hide it officially until Sirius's younger brother has graduated from Hogwarts. Perhaps, the late 70's?). Perhaps he made this horcrux from the murder of the Prewetts or Bones. The cup may also have been created at this time and given to Bellatrix. Harry's murder was intended to be the last although what object would have been the horcrux, who can say? Perhaps, LV wanted to use an object that belonged to Harry himself, perhaps he would have enjoyed the irony...Well, I have to run, but we all know the events from there... Beatrice, who hopes this adds to the discussion. From talamariam at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 14:23:50 2008 From: talamariam at yahoo.com (talamariam) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:23:50 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: <5d7223330802271628q3a68a9a3m795bfaf6e971c2e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181778 Carol wrote: >> The question is, when did he create the Ravenclaw Horcrux? << meann: > This is how I recall the events (I hope I'm right. :D ): Tom worked > for B&B after leaving Hogwarts. His appearance hasn't altered > much, but we know he's already got that red-gleam-in-the-eye thing > going. By this time, he's probably only attempted to make the Ring > Horcrux. But he could've gone to Albania at this time to retrieve > the Diadem. > > After leaving B&B, he disappeared for a while. I presume this is > when he went to Albania again to hide. This is probably when he > made a Horcrux out of the Diadem. Ten years after leaving > Hogwarts, he came back to ask for the DADA job. > > Harry assumed this is also when Voldie hid the Diadem-crux in the > RoR. I think it may just be possible for him to hide it there on > his way to DD's office. Thanks Carol, but as about "when" I agree with Meann here. I do not remember that TR had time to leave Hogwarts to go to Albania during his school years (? I am not as detailed ?). I got the impression that he did it after B&B (during the ten 'lost years of riddles!'). Nevertheless, your angle on TR's looks is impressive - I am always surprised to Carol's detailed knowledge. As about the ROR location relative to DD's office, I do not think it is a problem, as mentioned by Meann here, I am quite sure (no direct canon quotation - sorry) that they are quite near. And of course, TR has to know the whereabouts (and maybe even usage) of the ROR during his school years (I will be surprised otherwise! the founder of the CoS does not find the ROR? JKR should not be that sloppy :P ). As about TR's bragging about the only person who knows ROR - I won't put too much meaning there - it just what it is -- bragging (as is 'normal' for somebody in LV shoes). So, I still believe the diadem is put in the ROR during that short DADA visit - and it explains many other things as well. It also hinted at the time -when DD is wondering what is TR up to, since he knew that DD will definitely reject the offer, why the visit? We used to wonder whether TR got the gall to horcucify the sword during that short visit (something about tightening the fist?) - heheh - more implausible isn't it ? Tal, finding that what fascinates me about JKR's HP world is not that it is logically airtight (under deep scholarship's scrutiny :P ) series -- but the fact that she understood normal human being emotion, obsession, mistakes --- this HP is not Virtu Melusine, or I am Legend that deals with concepts and 'logical consequences under genre guidelines' -- this is a full blooded young adult drama in fantasy setting. The book is gripping and emotionally laden because of it. The 'full bloodied' part also makes it difficult to interpret logically at times - we have to take the story as a 'reality show' sometimes (see how illogical are most of 'real' reality show), messy unpredictable (and yes, this gave a lot of plot freedom to the author -- and yes, the author took a bit too much of this kind of liberty in DH -- ahh JKR's humanity!). I dig the frustations felt by Betsy (I always loved your redhen series! that is until you frustate yourself by DH that poisoned all the henpen :P -- my sympathy!) and a_svirn. But you guys are looking for something 'not on the menu' most of the time. No need to be so toxic - IMO. Read and enjoy, not even the Bible gave us these so many things to ponder about! (do I sense a slight greener / more poisonous tones from Carol's latest postings compared to earlier ? Ahhh .. it must be my increasing need for antioxidants!) Tal From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 21:11:26 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:11:26 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181779 Alla quoted: > "However, under the gaze if the Minister of magic, Mr. Malfoy didn't dare say anything" - p.102 > > > Alla: > > Are we sure? Does Lucius really care whether Fudge thinks he has low opinion of Hermione or not? Carol responds: I don't think it's a matter of not daring, exactly; more like common-sense self-preservation. As we learn later, Fudge believes Lucius Malfoy's story that he was under the Imperius curse during VW1. the last thing Lucius wants is for the Minister, whom he now has in his pocket, to realize that he really is a Death Eater who walked free--and who may already be plotting the Muggle-baiting incident that occurs that same night. Carol, who thinks that LV's characterization of Lucius as "slippery" is right on the money From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 21:23:08 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:23:08 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181780 Magpie: > > I don't understand this here. The narrator isn't giving any reason for Narcissa's expression. S/he is describing Narcissa as walking around looking like there's a bad smell under her nose, s/he's not actually thinking there is a bad smell under her nose. > Alla: > > But whether narrator is describing Narcissa as walking around looking as if there's a bad smell under her nose or whether narrator is actually thinking that there is a bad smell under her nose, those are narrator's descriptions, no? > I am saying that the comparison itself could be wrong and has nothing to do with Narcissa, like if I am happy because I got a promotion, somebody would describe me looking as if I ate some yummy chocolate or something. Carol responds: IMO, the description is along the same lines as the one in another book (CoS?) that describes Snape as looking as if Christmas had been cancelled. Obviously, neither a bad smell nor cancelled Christmas is the true cause of the expression--it's just a way of describing the expression in terms that Harry might use if he rather than the narrator were describing it. But in Narcissa's case, I thought that she was reacting with distaste to the presence of a Muggle-born, *as if* Muggle-borns really did smell. Draco suggests something of the sort in "Draco's Detour" in HBP: "If you wonder what that smell is, Mother, a Mud-Blood just walked in" (quoted from memory). At any rate, I don't think this is an instance of the unreliable narrator so much as the narrator attempting to convey what the expression looks like: Narcissa's attractiveness is marred by her expression of distaste or contempt, similar to the expression a person who smelled a foul odor would wear. However, I think she's also conveying a message of contempt to Hermione and those who would associate with her similar to Mrs. Black's screeches of "Filth!" in relation to "Mud-Bloods" and "blood traitors." Carol, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just adding her own thoughts From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 22:01:12 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:01:12 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181781 Carol earlier: > >> The question is, when did he create the Ravenclaw Horcrux? Tal responded: > Thanks Carol, but as about "when" I agree with Meann here. I do not remember that TR had time to leave Hogwarts to go to Albania during his school years (? I am not as detailed ?). > > I got the impression that he did it after B&B (during the ten 'lost > years of riddles!'). > > Nevertheless, your angle on TR's looks is impressive - I am always > surprised to Carol's detailed knowledge. > > As about the ROR location relative to DD's office, I do not think it is a problem, as mentioned by Meann here, I am quite sure (no direct canon quotation - sorry) that they are quite near. And of course, TR has to know the whereabouts (and maybe even usage) of the ROR during his school years (I will be surprised otherwise! the founder of the CoS does not find the ROR? JKR should not be that sloppy :P ). As about TR's bragging about the only person who knows ROR - I won't put too much meaning there - it just what it is -- bragging (as is 'normal' for somebody in LV shoes). > > So, I still believe the diadem is put in the ROR during that short DADA visit - and it explains many other things as well. It also hinted at the time -when DD is wondering what is TR up to, since he knew that DD will definitely reject the offer, why the visit? (do I sense a slight greener / more poisonous tones from > Carol's latest postings compared to earlier ? Ahhh .. it must be my increasing need for antioxidants!) > > Tal Carol responds: "Greener/more poisonous tones"? Dear me! I'm not sure what you mean by "greener" and I certainly wasn't aiming for "pooisonous"--I was actually just trying to sort out my thoughts on the subject, so if you sensed a tone of confusion, you'd be correct! Anyway, you're probably right that Tom found the RoR as a schoolboy, possibly when he was looking for the Cos, and it makes sense that he used it to hide the diary until he was ready to give it to someone. (However, he'd have had to come back to Hogwarts at some point to retrieve it. Maybe he intended to do so when he first applied for the DADA job at nineteen?) he could have hidden the ring there, too. Someone (Bexa/) said that he obtained the ring between his sixth and seventh years, but I think it was between the fifth and sixth, when he was still sixteen. (Myrtle was killed and the diary created in June of his fifth year.) Assuming that he made the diary into a Horcrux immediately, he'd have had one Horcrux when he asked Slughorn about Horcruxes, in which case DD was right that he was really interested in multiple Horcruxes. (I don't like that reading, but it seems that Mike was right and I was wrong.) He had killed the Riddles but not yet made the ring into a Horcrux when he's talking to Slughorn. But he's not wearing the ring when he talks to Hepzibah Smith and encounters the cup and locket. So it's possible, and I think likely based on his slightly altered appearance, that he had made both the ring (using his father's murder) and the diary (but not the tiara) into Horcruxes at that time. And I'm starting to think that he had indeed hidden both the diary and the ring in the RoR at that time. He steals the cup and the locket and uses Hepzibah's murder to make the cup Horcrux. (I've forgotten whose murder JKR said that he used for the locket.) If that third Horcrux sufficiently altered his appearance to arouse Borgin's and Burke's suspicion (they were experts in Dark Magic, after all), he would have fled immediately to avoid being detected as both thief and murderer. And where better to flee than to Albania, where the Grey Lady had told him he could find the tiara? At which point, he resorts to killing an Albanian peasant to make the Horcrux. Possibly he put the tiara back in its hiding place in the tree, where it had been safe for nearly a thousand years, with the cup and the locket for company and various forms of magical concealment to prevent their being stolen, and went on his way, "consorting with the worst of our kind" and perhaps meeting his dear Nagini on his travels. What else happened during those "lost years," and during the second disappearance (after the DADA plan failed), I can't guess. He may have hidden the ring in the Gaunt hovel after retrieving it from the RoR, but he must have retained possession of the diary. He can't have given it to Lucius Malfoy, who was only a child at the time of the DADA interview, and there's no indication that Lucius's father, Abraxas, was a Death Eater. The locket he could, perhaps, have worn around his neck under his robes until he hid it in the cave around the time of Harry's birth. The cup could have been entrusted to the Lestranges, specifically Bellatrix, long before, perhaps during VW1. Anyway, that's the history as it makes sense to me now that I've thought about it and considered other viewpoints. Carol, who thinks that "green and poisonous" sounds more like the Basilisk than her poor confused post upthread From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 23:56:07 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:56:07 -0000 Subject: Florian Fortescue Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181782 Anyone have any ideas regarding what happened to Florian Fortescue and why? Unlike Ollivander, he seems to have put up a fight since his shop was in a shambles. He doesn't seem to have been held captive at the Malfoys (whose house, whether they like it or not, seems to have become LV's new HQ) like Ollivander and Luna, so he must have been killed. All I can recall about him is that he was an expert on medieval witch-burning and a fan of Harry's, who served him free choconut sundaes from his ice cream shop. Was he a Muggle-born, which might explain his interest in witch-burning (even though Bathilda Bagshot tells us in "A History of Magic" that witches and wizards could survive the flames)? I can't see Voldemort having any use for his expertise either as an ice cream maker or an authority on that particular topic. Carol, wondering why JKR included him in the story unless it's just to show that Diagon Alley in HBP isn't what it used to be in earlier books From yvaine28 at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 00:21:51 2008 From: yvaine28 at gmail.com (meann ortiz) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:21:51 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Florian Fortescue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d7223330802281621u11545548p15866c87eb891b4@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181783 Carol asked: >>Anyone have any ideas regarding what happened to Florian Fortescue and why?<< In the JKR-Pottercast interview, Jo said that Florean died and she scrapped the sub-plot for him from DH because it was leading her nowhere. But she said it had something to do with the Elder Wand. Transcript here: http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/1224-pottercast-anelli.html What he would have known about the Elder Wand... now that's interesting. :) ---*meann [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 00:25:52 2008 From: minnesotatiffany at hotmail.com (Tiffany B. Clark) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:25:52 -0000 Subject: Florian Fortescue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181784 > Carol: > > Anyone have any ideas regarding what happened to Florian Fortescue and why? Unlike Ollivander, he seems to have put up a fight since his shop was in a shambles. He doesn't seem to have been held captive at the Malfoys (whose house, whether they like it or not, seems to have become LV's new HQ) like Ollivander and Luna, so he must have been killed. All I can recall about him is that he was an expert on medieval witch-burning and a fan of Harry's, who served him free choconut sundaes from his ice cream shop. Was he a Muggle-born, which might explain his interest in witch-burning (even though Bathilda Bagshot tells us in "A History of Magic" that witches and wizards could survive the flames)? I can't see Voldemort having any use for his expertise either as an ice cream maker or an authority on that particular topic. Carol, wondering why JKR included him in the story unless it's just to show that Diagon Alley in HBP isn't what it used to be in earlier books Tiffany: I've speculated on him a few times & can't see LV having a need for Florian's expertise. I think Florian perhaps is a guy that we'll really know a lot about as he's not mentioned a whole lot in the canon itself. I'd say he was possibly Muggle born, but can't say for sure because of lack of information on my part there. From mcrudele78 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 03:41:58 2008 From: mcrudele78 at yahoo.com (Mike) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:41:58 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181785 > Alla: > > So, when is the appropriate age to have your first wand, what do > you think? I mean I know that it is eleven, but why can't say nine > or ten year old get one? Mike: Fred and George were what, 7 years old, when they tried to con Ron into taking an Unbreakable Vow. That requires a wand, so they must have had one or Fred's left buttock wouldn't have been in danger. I think a lot of younger wizards borrow an older siblings wand to test their magic. I'll bet it's actually encouraged more than than discouraged, even by parents. That "Reasonable Restriction for Underage Magic", I don't find that reasonable, and I'll bet many parents don't find it that reasonable either. > Alla: > Does it mean that uncontrollable magic at that age is still so > very strong and suddenly gets better at eleven? Or is it simply > because they are starting Hogwarts at that age? Mike: HA! Harry blew up his Aunt Marge with uncontrolled magic at 13. Nope, I think magic takes a while to control. And some don't ever learn to control it that well. I'm thinking of someone like Stan here. > Alla: > > Okay, I am just wondering upon reread whether Bagman's brain is > just that small. His colleague had been missing for months, is he > seriously thinking that she is lost? Mike: And Goddlefrood thought he really was a Death Eater. Not tthat it takes a lot of smarts to be a DE. But the fact that he isn't at the top of the food chain is logical enough reason to get why he got suckered by Rookwood. Oops, too soon. Sorry, Alla, I'll wait for that chapter. ;) > "His mother was blonde too; tall and slim, she would have been > nice looking if she hadn't been wearing a look that suggested > there was a nasty smell under her nose" - p.101 Mike: All you ladies have your bad boy Snape, this is where us guys got our wicked guilty pleasure. That Lucius, he's a lucky guy. I bet her nose doesn't crinkle like that behind closed doors. From SnapesSlytherin at aol.com Fri Feb 29 03:53:25 2008 From: SnapesSlytherin at aol.com (SnapesSlytherin at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:53:25 -0500 Subject: Did the Slytherins come back? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <8CA489DC50BAE28-E84-CBE@MBLK-M13.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181786 Hello all! I remember the near violent list debate a while ago about whether the Slytherins came back or not at the end of DH in order to help the fight.? While reading the quote about what happened to Fortescue, I came across this: JKR: They're not all bad. I know I've said this before. I think I said it to Emerson - they are not all bad and-- well, far from it, as we know, at the end-- they may have a slightly more highly developed sense of preservation than other people, because-- A part of the final battle that made me smile was Slughorn galloping back with Slytherins. But they've gone off to get reinforcements first, you know what I'm saying? So yes, they came back, they came back to fight. But I'm sure many people would say, well that's common sense, isn't it? Isn't that smart, to get out, get more people and come back with them? It's the old saying, there is no truth, there are only points of view. 24 December 2007 PotterCast ( http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/1224-pottercast-anelli.html ) I couldn't remember if this was resolved or not, but for those who believe JKR interviews, it is! Ciao! Oryomai [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Fri Feb 29 03:57:47 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:57:47 -0000 Subject: Florian Fortescue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181787 Carol: > Anyone have any ideas regarding what happened to Florian Fortescue and why? snip All I can recall about him is that he was an expert on > medieval witch-burning and a fan of Harry's, who served him free > choconut sundaes from his ice cream shop. Potioncat: Oh, I wish I'd posted earlier, now I've read the next post and the interview it's linked to. But, I'll give you my opinion anyway. I thought Fortescue was an expert on Wizarding history, not just witch burnings. And he seems to have an ancestor who was a headmaster at Hogwarts. I suspected LV wanted him because of his knowledge of Wizarding artefacts. (And from the interview, it appears I was right.) We don't learn this in canon, but his disappearance does give us a taste of the war. Here's a pleasant character we had met, who is now gone. No idea where or how. Just gone. For me it was more moving than some of the off side mentioning that a student had been taken home, or had lost a relative. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 04:27:23 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:27:23 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 10-12 post DH look Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181788 "I shouted at you before you left!" Mrs. Weasley said, starting to sob. "It's all I've been thinking about. What if You-Khow Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you dind't get enough O.W.L.s? Oh Fred... George..." - p.146 Alla: This quote just showed me again how continuous debates on this list influenced me. Not that I did not see it on the other topics, but I still find it highly amusing if I think about it, since I did not quite realise the influence as much as I did realise it for example on Snape and Dumbledore plan in HBP Do you know that even though I did not think that Molly loves Twins any less than other kids of hers, I indeed started thinking that she shows them less affection and admonishes them all the time and that is all she does? Oy, no she does not IMO. I think this quote shows that she loves them dearly and worries about them and do not really want to scream at them, but cannot help herself because she worries about them. I was glad to see that in HBP (or was it OOP?) she acknowledges their talents for business, etc. "They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher's put in a claim for twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I've got his number. I know for a fact that he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks" - p.151 Alla: Hi Dung! Love another casual mention of him. "... Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. ******* But Mother didn't like the idea of me going to school so far away" - p.165 Alla: Heee, I do remember this quote, but it is just soo cool how she casually shows that Lucius following Narcissa's directions in DH is really nothing new. "While still alive they did divide Their favorites from the throng, Yet how to pick the worthy ones When they were dead and gone" - p.177 Alla: We have another Sorting Hat song in chapter 12 here and actually I am suddenly wondering how founders picked kids during their life time? I mean, it is easy to see purebloods, but how did they see the bravest, the hard workers, etc? Did they all just legilimence every student who wanted to enter Hogwarts? From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 04:36:33 2008 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:36:33 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181789 > Mike: > Fred and George were what, 7 years old, when they tried to con Ron > into taking an Unbreakable Vow. That requires a wand, so they must > have had one or Fred's left buttock wouldn't have been in danger. I > think a lot of younger wizards borrow an older siblings wand to test > their magic. I'll bet it's actually encouraged more than than > discouraged, even by parents. That "Reasonable Restriction for > Underage Magic", I don't find that reasonable, and I'll bet many > parents don't find it that reasonable either. Alla: Very good point and actually Molly home schooled all her kids, I doubt she home schooled them in muggle subjects, right? So wouldn't they need wands at least for some exercises, then I am not sure if they can borrow that many wands. Hmmm. > Mike: > HA! Harry blew up his Aunt Marge with uncontrolled magic at 13. Nope, > I think magic takes a while to control. And some don't ever learn to > control it that well. I'm thinking of someone like Stan here. Alla: Right, so what do you think determines that kid can get the official first wand at eleven and not ten or thirteen? Anything besides acceptance to Hogwarts? > Mike: > And Goddlefrood thought he really was a Death Eater. Not tthat it > takes a lot of smarts to be a DE. But the fact that he isn't at the > top of the food chain is logical enough reason to get why he got > suckered by Rookwood. Oops, too soon. Sorry, Alla, I'll wait for that > chapter. ;) Alla: Heee, definitely not on the top of food chain. > Mike: > All you ladies have your bad boy Snape, this is where us guys got our > wicked guilty pleasure. That Lucius, he's a lucky guy. I bet her nose > doesn't crinkle like that behind closed doors. > Alla: Believe me Mike, unfortunately I have no guilty pleasures to think of that way in HP books. Even Sirius I only want to comfort in a friendly way :) And certainly NOT Snape. Why did JKR had to make him dark haired, why? Sirius that is, hehe. Oh wait her lucky husband is blond, but EWWWWWW, his personality traits leave a lot to be desired, if you ask me LOL. From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 04:53:24 2008 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:53:24 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181790 > > Alla: > > Okay, I am just wondering upon reread whether Bagman's brain > > is just that small. Goddlefrood: Well he was a sportsman ... > Mike: > And Goddlefrood thought he really was a Death Eater. Goddlefrood: Because he was, there's nothing to refute that unless and until the Encyclopaedia says otherwise. From willsonkmom at msn.com Fri Feb 29 12:03:56 2008 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:03:56 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 10-12 post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181791 > Alla: > > This quote just showed me again how continuous debates on this list > influenced me. Not that I did not see it on the other topics, but I > still find it highly amusing if I think about it, since I did not > quite realise the influence as much as I did realise it for example > on Snape and Dumbledore plan in HBP Potioncat: Yes, we take a moment out of the story, turn it around, examine and debate it. We pull in other works of fiction, scientific theories, personal experiences and compare the moment to them. I've actually come upon such a moment as I re-read the HP books, and almost don't recognise it. It can look very different in the context it belongs in. >Alla: > Do you know that even though I did not think that Molly loves Twins > any less than other kids of hers, I indeed started thinking that she > shows them less affection and admonishes them all the time and that > is all she does? Potioncat: As a mother of a boy who seems to work below his potential, I've always understood Molly. (I think.) She has a yardstick for measuring life-success and they aren't measuring up like they ought. It's later that she sees they do quite well in a non-traditional way. I think she was afraid they would end up like Mundungus. From leekaiwen at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 15:07:29 2008 From: leekaiwen at yahoo.com (Lee Kaiwen) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:07:29 +0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Did the Slytherins come back? In-Reply-To: <8CA489DC50BAE28-E84-CBE@MBLK-M13.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA489DC50BAE28-E84-CBE@MBLK-M13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47C81FB1.6010603@yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181792 SnapesSlytherin at aol.com blessed us with this gem On 29/02/2008 11:53: > A part of the final battle that made me smile > was Slughorn galloping back with Slytherins. Two comments: 1. It didn't happen. 2. What the heck is "galloping"? I keep trying to imagine Slughorn "galloping" and all I can come up with is a little kid with a cowboy hat on one of those horse-head-on-a-stick toys gallumph-ing around the dining room. CJ From reets67 at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 09:36:15 2008 From: reets67 at hotmail.com (pathgrrl) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:36:15 -0000 Subject: Petunia's attitude In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181793 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jayne" wrote: > > Do you think that part of Petunia's attitude to Harry > was jealousy of her sister going to Hogwarts and then > anything to do with Lily? She, as we learn in DH, > wanted and tried to get in to Hogwarts. I also think > she knows a lot more about Magic and Voldemort than > what she lets on. Hi, Yes I certainly think that would be the case re. question one. I say that she may have been ferreting around Lily's belongings if her spying on Lily's meetings with Snape were anything to go by. Or did she have a crush on Snape? Insulting one's secret crush is not unheard of... Then there is the fact she was motivated enough to send a letter to Dumbledore and judging by her furious reaction and rejection of all things magical you would have to consider a)her deep desire to be taken into the magical community, b) a good-going case of sibling rivalry (their parents were very proud to have a witch in the family)or c)wanting to be with Snape. Then to have Harry be given the same chance would have revived the rejection again. I have often wondered whether she was a squib... I am not too sure of how much she does know of Voldemort and further interaction with the magical world, I suspect not much. However, she is very friendly with Arabella Figg..Or is that just Arabella keeping an eye on Harry or on both Petunia and Harry? Cheers, Rita From grednam2000 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 15:48:32 2008 From: grednam2000 at yahoo.com (Edna Nathan) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:48:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Petunia's attitude In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <133601.82016.qm@web56911.mail.re3.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 181794 Jayne wrote: > > > > Do you think that part of Petunia's attitude to > > Harry was jealousy of her sister going to Hogwarts and > > then anything to do with Lily? Rita: > Yes I certainly think that would be the case re. > question one. I say that she may have been ferreting around Lily's > belongings if her spying on Lily's meetings with Snape were anything > to go by. (snip) > I am not too sure of how much she does know of > Voldemort and further interaction with the magical world, I suspect > not much. However, she is very friendly with Arabella Figg..Or is > that just Arabella keeping an eye on Harry or on both Petunia and > Harry? Edna: Yes! JKR was asked in an interview "What was Petunia going to say to Harry before she left when she paused for a moment at the door looking at him? She was going to tell hem that her hatred of Lily and Harry was brought on by jealousy. Petunia wanted to go to Hogwarts with Lily and was kindly refused by Dumbledore. She hated snape. I don't know if Arabella Figg was already living near the Dursleys or if Dumbledore placed her there to watch Harry. Edna From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 17:55:47 2008 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:55:47 -0000 Subject: Did the Slytherins come back? In-Reply-To: <8CA489DC50BAE28-E84-CBE@MBLK-M13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181795 --- SnapesSlytherin at ... wrote: > > Hello all! > > I remember the near violent list debate a while ago about > whether the Slytherins came back or not at the end of DH in > order to help the fight.? ... > > JKR: They (Slytherins) are not all bad. I know I've said this > before. ...-- they may have a slightly more highly developed > sense of preservation than other people, because-- A part of > the final battle that made me smile was Slughorn galloping > back with Slytherins. ... So yes, they came back, they came > back to fight. ... It's the old saying, there is no truth, > there are only points of view. > > 24 December 2007 PotterCast > http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/1224-pottercast-anelli.html > > > I couldn't remember if this was resolved or not, but for > those who believe JKR interviews, it is! > > Ciao! > Oryomai bboyminn: When we debated this, I was alway sure that in her own mind, JKR was convinced the Slytherins did return to fight, but the real question is, directly or indirectly, did she make it clear in the story. And, I think the answer is No. We, or many of us, were waiting for the 'Good Slytherin' that never came. If JKR had had one casual in-passing mention of the presence of Slytherins in the final moment, we would have certainly picked up on it. But she didn't. She assumed on some deeper level we too would assume they were there but it is never truly mentioned, and I think that was a mistake. Perhaps a mistake due to rushing to the end, but a mistake none the less. In the view of many, this leave the Slytherins, as a whole, totally unredeemed. She keeps telling us that not all Slytherins are bad, and I've always agreed, but beyond a couple specific characters, where has she shown this to us? As I said, one casual indirect in-passing mention would have solved it all. Steve/bboyminn From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 18:26:43 2008 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:26:43 -0000 Subject: Did the Slytherins come back? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181796 >> > Oryomai: > > I remember the near violent list debate a while ago about > > whether the Slytherins came back or not at the end of DH in > > order to help the fight. > > > > I couldn't remember if this was resolved or not, but for > > those who believe JKR interviews, it is! > >>bboyminn: > When we debated this, I was alway sure that in her own mind, > JKR was convinced the Slytherins did return to fight, but the > real question is, directly or indirectly, did she make it clear > in the story. And, I think the answer is No. Betsy Hp: I agree! :D > >>bboyminn: > In the view of many, this leave the Slytherins, as a whole, > totally unredeemed. She keeps telling us that not all > Slytherins are bad, and I've always agreed, but beyond a > couple specific characters, where has she shown this to us? Betsy Hp: The other thing is, IMO, the *only* place JKR tells us not all Slytherins are bad is in her interviews. It's really hard to find places in the text that support her theory. The Gryffindors certainly hate all Slytherins on sight, and they're never put in a position to learn anything different. Neither is their behavior towards Slytherins ever questioned. Whereas Slytherins behaving badly is clearly seen as such. It's strange, and I'm not sure why she did it, but it's like JKR wrote one book (or series) and but then interviews about an entirely different set. Unless we're going with the esoteric what appears to be isn't and what seems to not be is reading (and if you're confused by that phrase you begin to see the issue of doing that sort of reading ) we're left with a series in which certain people are just evil from birth (or age eleven) and some people are good and here's a series where they battle. Which leaves for a fun story (if you like the good guys and JKR's style of writing) but not a deep one. Betsy Hp From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 18:39:10 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:39:10 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181797 Mike wrote: > Fred and George were what, 7 years old, when they tried to con Ron into taking an Unbreakable Vow. That requires a wand, so they must have had one or Fred's left buttock wouldn't have been in danger. I think a lot of younger wizards borrow an older siblings wand to test their magic. I'll bet it's actually encouraged more than than discouraged, even by parents. That "Reasonable Restriction for Underage Magic", I don't find that reasonable, and I'll bet many parents don't find it that reasonable either. Carol responds: They were five (Ron was three), and, IIRC, they "borrowed" a wand that wasn't in use (Charlie's?). My personal opinion is that they had no idea what they were doing and couldn't have performed the vow even if they knew the spell and the ritual (Bellatrix must have done more as Bonder than hold her wand over Snape's and Narcissa's hands, don't you think? A nonverbal spell to create those rings of fire that bound Snape to keep his word or die?). So even if one twin held his wand over the clasped hands of the other twin and the second twin said something like "Do you swear never to tell on us?" (or even, "Do you, ronald, swear never to tell on us?") nothing would have happened. they didn't have the knowledge or the control or the power (just as, if Fake!Moody is telling the truth, the fourth-years couldn't have performed Avada Kedavra even if all of them pointed their wands at him and yelled the curse). However, Arthur's reaction was like that of a parent who finds five-year-old children trying to have sex. Nothing would happen because they don't know what they're doing, but, nevertheless, you don't want them doing anything so stupid and dangerous. (Or maybe kids playing with an unloaded gun would be a better analogy; a loaded gun is another matter altogether because something *could* happen and very likely would.) At any rate, parents wouldn't give a five-year-old or a seven-year-old a wand because they wouldn't have the sense to use it responsibly even for spells that they could perform. I'll bet, though, that a nine-year-old could perform a simple spell, even with someone else's wand, if he pronounced it carefully, used the right wand movements (learned from observing an adult), and concentrated on the intended effects. And I don't doubt that kids from Wizarding families generally came to school knowing how to perform at least a few spells and that they often started practicing them as soon as they got their wands, which might be as much as a year before they entered Hogwarts if they happened to have a September 2 birthday (the cut-off date being September 1). The MoM wouldn't know that the kids were using underage magic because they can't tell who's performing it. I rather suspect that Eileen Prince taught Sev a thing or two relating to both spells and potions before he started school. How Hermione, a Muggle-born, could perform underage without being detected, I don't know. Maybe she learned the theory and the wand movements from a book and practiced with a wooden spoon until she got on the Hogwarts Express, where she tested the spells to see if they really worked. Or maybe it's a Flint. At any rate, the emphasis is on "reasonable." You don't give kids like the Weasley Twins a wand before they're ready, and it's possible that Ollivander and other wandmakers won't sell one to a kid under eleven. Severus, however, could have had his wand by January 9 and had nearly eight months to practice before school started. Hermione, with her September birthday, would have had eleven and a half months from the time she received her Hogwarts letter and could buy her wand and schoolbooks until school started, assuming that first-years get their letters on their eleventh birthday instead of a few weeks before school starts. (Of course, the new DADA professor wouldn't be hired yet and she might have the wrong book, and, as I said, she couldn't actually perform the spells at home without being detected. Muggle-borns in general would be at a disadvantage compared with children with at least one Wizarding parent willing to supervise and teach them simple spells. We don't get to see Draco learning Charms or Transfiguration, but he could already ride a broom and seemed to have some experience with Potions, so I suspect that he knew a few spells, too (including the Leg-Locker Curse, which he performed on Neville, though I don't recall exactly when). Could he have used something of the sort on Harry if they'd actually had their duel? I suspect that he could have. OTOH. Ron, who doesn't even have his own wand, has to learn Charms and Transfiguration along with Harry. His parents, perhaps because of Fred and George, seem to have enforced the underage magic ruling to the best of their ability. Alla: > > Does it mean that uncontrollable magic at that age is still so very strong and suddenly gets better at eleven? Or is it simply because they are starting Hogwarts at that age? > > Mike: > HA! Harry blew up his Aunt Marge with uncontrolled magic at 13. Nope, I think magic takes a while to control. And some don't ever learn to control it that well. I'm thinking of someone like Stan here. Carol: I agree with Mike. If wizarding kids in general could learn to control their own magic, they wouldn't need Hogwarts. We see in SS/PS that even kids like Ron, a Pure-Blood, and Seamus, a Half-blood, have trouble performing Wingardium Leviosa. Part of it is probably the opportunity to practice (and a suitable wand, in the case of Ron and Neville), part is confidence, and part is natural ability. (I'm not sure about Stan, but even Crabbe and Goyle eventually learn the Disillusionment Charm, so part may be maturity and part motivation.) I think that power grows with age (cf. Fake!Moody's remark to the fourth-years), and some spells require more practice than others. (Of course, natural ability and an affinity for Charms or DADA or Transfiguration helps, as does a wand that's suited to the witch or wizard's natural talents.) In any case, even adult Wizards sometimes lose control; in PoA, we see red sparks coming out of Snape's wand as it senses his anger, and I suspect that the jar of dead cockroaches flying at Harry is accidental magic, too. Normally, an adult wizard is in control, has a suitable wand that has developed a bond with him, and has mastered all the spells taught at Hogwarts and then some. That's a lot different from blowing up Aunt Marge or making a slug swell by pointing Daddy's wand at it. Wizarding kids are magical, but unless they're Tom Riddle, they can't usually control that magic to any great extent until they're about eleven and old enough to have their own wands, as poor Ariana illustrates. and even then, they have to start with simple spells (and simple potions) and work upward. The nine-year-old who was Imperiused to kill his grandparents (HBP) didn't succeed, IIRC. Alla: > > > > Okay, I am just wondering upon reread whether Bagman's brain is just that small. His colleague had been missing for months, is he seriously thinking that she is lost? > > Mike: > And Goddlefrood thought he really was a Death Eater. Not that it takes a lot of smarts to be a DE. But the fact that he isn't at the top of the food chain is logical enough reason to get why he got suckered by Rookwood. Oops, too soon. Sorry, Alla, I'll wait for that chapter. ;) Carol: Well, in the chapter that you're waiting for, Moody says that Ludo has always been dim and Ludo himself says, "I can't keep getting hit in the head by Bludgers all my life, can I?" or something like that. So, yeah, I'd say that Ludo is just dumb enough to believe that Bertha is lost (and also, like Fudge, he's probably prone to wishful thinking). Bertha's forgetfulness gives just enough credibility to his view of things that he has no trouble believing it, and since he's in charge of her department, Crouch and others who are critical of Ludo can't intervene. Carol, enjoying the look back at earlier books From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 19:23:55 2008 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (Carol) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:23:55 -0000 Subject: GoF CH 7-9 Post DH look In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181798 Mike: > > And Goddlefrood thought he really was a Death Eater. > > Goddlefrood: > > Because he was, there's nothing to refute that unless and until the Encyclopaedia says otherwise. > Carol responds: We know that he wasn't with the DEs who were baiting the Muggles at the QWC; he was dealing with the goblins to whom he owed money. We know that he was trying to help Harry win the TWT, not because he was in onthe plan to kidnap Harry, but because he had given the goblins Leprechaun gold. We know that he was always dim; there's no reason not to believe that he was taken in by "old Rookwood." We know that the "big blond Death Eater" of HBP is Thorfinn Rowle, not Ludo Bagman. I see no evidence to indicate that he was ever a DE, only that he (unwittingly, in more ways than one) provided information to the DE spy, Rookwood. I do wish that JKR had given us some indication of what happened to Ludo Bagman. There's no indication that he took part in the Seven Potters chase or the Battle of Hogwarts, as he surely would if he were a Death Eater. We don't even know whether he still works at the MoM; HRH don't see him there when they go after the locket Horcrux. (For that matter, we don't know the fates of quite a few characters: Sturgis Podmore, Mundungus Fletcher, and Stan Shunpike among them.) Carol, who thinks that Ludo is still running from the Goblins as of DH From iam.kemper at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 21:35:30 2008 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (kempermentor) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:35:30 -0000 Subject: Did the Slytherins come back? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181799 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > > >> > Oryomai: > > > I remember the near violent list debate a while ago about > > > whether the Slytherins came back or not at the end of DH in > > > order to help the fight. > > > > > > I couldn't remember if this was resolved or not, but for > > > those who believe JKR interviews, it is! > > >>bboyminn: > > When we debated this, I was alway sure that in her own mind, > > JKR was convinced the Slytherins did return to fight, but the > > real question is, directly or indirectly, did she make it clear > > in the story. And, I think the answer is No. > Betsy Hp: > I agree! :D Kemper now: Me, too!! Even though the series is done, the soft/paperback edition isn't out. If she could so readily change the US HBP soft/paperback edition to leave out some of DD's comments to Draco on the tower, perhaps in the US DH soft/pb edition, it could include a short line while they're in the RR: Daphne Greengrass holding hands with Theodore Nott whispered something to Neville. ...or a brief paragraph during the battle: Theodore Nott cast an AK at his dad who dodged it while simultaneously shooting his own killing curse back at his son. The green flash hit Theodore, who fell to the floor with a look of brief sadness. Kemper, imploring JKR for the slightest of rewrites From talamariam at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 23:26:16 2008 From: talamariam at yahoo.com (talamariam) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:26:16 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR - when In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181801 > Carol responds: > > "Greener/more poisonous tones"? Dear me! I'm not sure what you mean > by "greener" and I certainly wasn't aiming for "poisonous"--I was > actually just trying to sort out my thoughts on the subject, so if > you sensed a tone of confusion, you'd be correct! Haw haw! I was talking about RedHen's cs - the confirmed 'gnostics' - when I wrote that confusing comment. Years back, I always got the feeling that Carol is one of the 'true-blue' - but lately after DH I have seen that sometime 'your faith wavered'. Not that it matters much anyway .. this is no holy-book, there ain't no saint-Rowling! Lets just drop the poisonous thingies :P > Carol: > Anyway, you're probably right that Tom found the RoR as a > schoolboy, possibly when he was looking for the CoS, and it makes > sense that he used it to hide the diary until he was ready to give > it to someone. > > > > Anyway, that's the history as it makes sense to me now that I've > thought about it and considered other viewpoints. This is a good summary of 'the history of horcruxes' -- the only comment I want to make is that the tiara / diadem was found in ROR within Hogwarts, and the most probable timing of TR/LV putting it there is during that interview for DADA. It fits. It is always fascinating that JKR 'managed' (some people would say she didn't!) to put a (somewhat!) coherent backstory into a story that was seen in a very narrow pov (HP's). It is indeed better than a lot of other books (or Book!) I am glad if we can have more of these backstory diggings .. especially before saint-Rowling erm .. JKR -- releases her compendium! RedHen's pre-HBP backstory speculations are sometimes (actually most of the times!) more interesting than the actual JKR. So is Carol's. JKR's may not be as interesting, only that she owned the story -- sigh! (sighing in a good way :P) tal From talamariam at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 23:36:55 2008 From: talamariam at yahoo.com (talamariam) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:36:55 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle and the RoR In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 181802 > Beatrice: > This is a great discussion! I have wanted to add some thoughts > for a while, but I haven't had the time...anyway, I have a > couple of minutes now so here goes: Well, glad to hear somebody got the same feeling. > Beatrice: > While I agree that it is a stretch for LV to hide this on the day > of his interview, I think that this is what JKR wants us to > believe. > > > > So, I think that LV might have realized that people stumbled upon > the room, but either never found their way back or simply thought > of the room as a moving broom cupboard. Neat explanation! totally agree. An egomaniacle LV very easily mislead himself, especially in case like this, where he thinks he won't be at any disadvantages. > Beatrice: > In thinking about HOW LV might have gotten the diadem into the > castle and hidden it in the RoR, I found myself thinking about > Hermione's purse in DH. Good thinking. Or Hagrid's purse -- it must be common. Same technology as in Arthur Weasley's (borrowed) tent. > Beatrice: > I'm guessing that the timeline goes something like this: > > > > Harry's murder was intended to be the last although what object > would have been the horcrux, who can say? Good summary. Makes me wonder: 1. Can you make a horcrux from 'cold' murders (murders that already happened sometime before) -- or has it be hot? How hot? 2. What is the feeling of having your own horcrux around? LV's horcrux has negative vibes to the trio - how about the creator themself? Does is feel 'nice' ? Why does LV keep just one of his (Nagini) around? 3. What is the closest RL equivalent? How about serial killers' 'souvenirs'? What makes serial killers collect souvenirs? Do they 'give him strength' (not necessarily magical, could be psychological or emotional) well .... tal