CHAPDISC: DH 22, The Deathly Hallows

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183188

jmnabers wrote:
>
> CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Chapter
22, The Deathly Hallows
<snip>
> Hermione, with Kreacher's help, has discovered that the Peverell 
> family was pure-blood but has been extinct in the male line for 
> centuries. <snip>

Carol responds:
Great summary, jmnabers. I just want to make two little comments.
First, I had to re-re-re-reread the chapter even though I've recently
reread it to realize that you were referring to "Nature's Nobility,"
the Wizarding genealogy that Hermione "borrowed" from Kreacher here.

jmnabers: 
<snip> He utters the taboo name, Voldemort, and they are 
instantaneously surrounded by Death Eaters.

Carol again:
Snatchers, right? Not quite the same thing. I'm wondering now whether
these assistant DEs existed in VW1 and were included in Lupin's
otherwise inexplicable estimate of the original Order's being
outnumbered twenty to one (OoP). However, since Muggle-borns hadn't
yet been declared Undesireables and the MoM hadn't yet been taken over
by Voldie supporters, I'm not sure what these thuggish types would
have done at that time. In any case, only Fenrir Greyback is actually
wearing a DE robe, to my knowledge, and he clearly doesn't want the
other Snatchers to know that he has a Dark Mark. (Oops. I'm getting
ahead of the discussion here.) Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing
other people's thoughts on the matter.
> 
> Discussion Questions:
> 1) Why does Hermione do her best to protect Xenophilius from the 
Death Eaters? Is it only because of her feelings of friendship for
Luna? Or did she, like Harry, recognize his desperation to save his 
child?

Carol responds:
I think this compassion for a man who, in his weakness and
desperation, has betrayed them, is one of Hermione's most admirable
moments. I'm not sure whether it's affection for Luna or pity for
Xenophilius or understanding that Luna is *everything* to Xenophilius
or maybe just a humanitarian impulse to help the helpless on a more
personal and direct level than her (IMO wrong-headed) efforts to help
the House-Elves. Hermione has herself gone to great lengths to protect
her Muggle parents--hardly the same as betraying Harry to the DEs,
but, still, a desperate measure, depriving them of their identities
and all knowledge of her existence. Maybe, unconsciously, she
identifies with him even though she, of course, would never betray
Harry (as we see in the next chapter when she's tortured).
> 
> 2) Why does Hermione consider the trips to Godric's Hollow and the
Lovegood household "a waste of time"?

Carol:
Considering that Godric's Hollow almost cost them their lives and did
cost Harry the holly wand that Voldemort's wand can't defeat, not to
mention that it didn't take them any closer to any Horcruxes (except
Nagini), I can see why she would consider that excursion a waste of
time. All it accomplished, other than giving them a bit of knowledge
about DD's history and the Peverells, was enabling Harry to see the
memorials to his parents and to know exactly how his parents died and
enabling Voldemort to (eventually) figure out the identity of the
merry-faced thief. The trip to Xenophilius's house was almost as
dangerous and only enables them to connect the symbol she's been
wondering about and "The Tale of the Three Brothers" to objects that
she doesn't believe in and considers dangerous if real. And, of
course, she doesn't like seeing Harry sidetracked from his Horcrux quest.
> 
> 3) Harry realizes that his "talk of living with dead people" had 
scared of Hermione. Why is living with dead people comforting to Harry
and yet frightening to Hermione?

Carol responds:
I think that Harry has long since reconciled himself to the
possibility of death even though (unlike Hermione and Dumbledore), he
sees it as an ending, the cessation of existence in any form.
Hermione, who showed a similar fear of the archway in the Chamber of
Death in the MoM, and who has never lost a close friend or beloved
relative, has never faced death in the same way. The closest she has
come is her injury from Dolohov's unidentified purple-lit curse in OoP
and Ron's poisoning in HBP. IMO, she can face death on an intellectual
level and believe in some sort of afterlife (perhaps Christian--her
parents could well be church-going Anglicans for all we know), but on
an emotional level, death, and the association of the dead with the
living, scares her. (Unless, of course, we're talking about the
obviously harmless Hogwarts ghosts, which she probably read about
before encountering and therefore could face without fear.)
> 
> 4) Why is Harry able to put the story together so quickly? It says
his "imagination was racing ahead, far beyond Ron and Hermione's." Is
it imagination, experience, or something else that allows Harry to
make the intuitive leaps that other cannot?

Carol responds:
Good question! Intuitive leaps aren't common for Harry, to say the
least. Probably, his mind has dwelt on the upcoming conflict with
Voldemort and the question of what the objects that the Trio inherited
from DD could mean for so long that he's finally able to put the
pieces together (rather like DD connecting the memories in the
Pensieve and finally, belatedly, realizing that "Moody" is Barty
Crouch Jr.). Once he realizes that the cloak is real and that he owns
it, that DD wanted them to know the story of the Deathly Hallows, and
that the three brothers are the Peverells, it's not that difficult to
put all the clues together and realize that the stone is in Marvolo's
ring, which is in the Snitch, or that LV is after the Elder Wand
without knowing that it's a Hallow. Of course, Ron hasn't been
thinking about these things at all and Hermione doesn't want the
Hallows to be real and both want to keep the focus on the Horcruxes,
so it's really not surprising that Harry would make most of the
connections himself (though, to be fair, it was Hermione who made the
Peverell connection in the previous chapter).
> 
> 5) When Harry realizes that Voldemort must also want the Elder Wand,
it "extinguishes" all of his hope and happiness. Why?

Carol responds:
Another good question. I think that Harry realizes that if LV gets the
Elder Wand before he does, it won't do any good to have the other two
Hallows. They must all be in Harry's possession and control if he's to
become the Master of Death. He also realizes that the Elder Wand is
unbeatable, and if LV is its master, his chances of survival, or even
of defeating LV before he dies, are slim indeed. He thought that he
had an alternative to the dangerous and seemingly futile Horcrux
quest, and that hope has been snatched away from him.
> 
> 6) If Harry is right, Dumbledore did not tell him the secret to
being the master of Death because he needed Harry to discover it for 
himself. Does this agree with Dumbledore's previous treatment of 
Harry? How would Harry be different if Dumbledore did tell him what he
needed rather than letting Harry work it out for himself? What role do
Ron and Hermione play in his discoveries?

Carol responds:
That whole finding out for himself line strikes me as a little too
much like Glinda's words to Dorothy in the film version of "Wizard of
Oz." However, DD has implicitly encouraged Harry to figure things out
for himself since SS/PS (the Mirror of Erised). OTOH, DD could not
openly state the reasons for his gifts to Harry and his friends in a
will that would certainly be read by MoM officials, especially given
the danger that the MoM could fall to the DEs. 

Hermione's role is to make the connection to Xenophilius and the
Peverells; Ron's is to try to keep Harry focused on the Horcruxes
rather than the Hallows even though he's less skeptical than Hermione
about their existence and less focused on the potential danger.
(Dead!DD says later that he counted on Hermione to take her time
reaching any conclusions and to slow down the hunt. (I'm trying to
imagine what would have happened if Harry had decided to go to
Hogwarts prematurely and broken into DD's tomb himself. I'm sure that
Hermione would have been horrified. And Harry would not have been the
master of the wand if it hadn't been for the incident with Draco (next
chapter). Would it have done him any good to have all three Hallows
without being master of the Elder Wand? What does "Master of Death"
entail, anyway?)

> 7) Harry wishes his scar would burn again because "for the first
time ever, he and Voldemort were united in wanting the very same
thing." When his visions do return, they are blurred. Why are the
visions different now than they have been in the past?

Carol responds:
At first, I thought it had something to do with the loss of his holly
wand, but that can't be the answer because the visions regain their
clarity. Maybe focusing on the Hallows instead of the Horcruxes is
enough in itself to disturb the visions? Or *wanting* to see into LV's
mind disturbs them? I really don't have a good answer to this
question, but I'm curious as to what others have to say about it.
> 
> 8) Harry feels that Ron and Hermione are obsessed with the horcuxes.
She accuses him of being obsessed with the Hallows and tells him that
they are "the ones trying to do what Dumbledore wanted us to do!" Why
are they at an impasse over the way to proceed? Why does Harry "give 
up on her"?

Carol responds:
Because it's impossible to persuade her that he's right, and she can't
persuade him, either. He knows that the Hallows are real; she senses
that they're dangerous and that Horcruxes over Hallows is the wrong
choice. There's no time to hunt for both with LV after the Elder Wand.
FWIW, I side with Hermione here. Harry is the one who's "obsessed";
hermione just wants to do what they set out to do, the job that DD
assigned them.
> 
> 9) As Harry retreats into his own imagination, Ron starts to take 
charge. Is Ron only capable of leadership because Harry is distracted
or is it something else?

Carol responds:
At the risk of boring everyone by repeating what I've said at least a
dozen times, Ron destroyed his personal demons (insecurity, jealousy,
envy) when he destroyed the Horcrux. Finally, he can develop the
latent ability to lead that being a Prefect failed to bring out in
him. Of course, he's not great at coming up with ideas, but getting
them to act and to focus at least theoretically on the Horcruxes is
important in itself. He knows all too well the dangers of being lost
in your own imagination after his experiences with the locket Horcrux.
> 
> 10)If Harry is so determined that finding the Elder Wand is the way
to proceed, why do they waste months without making any real 
progress? What, if anything, is achieved in these long months of  camping?

Carol responds:

About the only thing they accomplish before Harry brilliantly says
"Voldemort" is hearing Potterwatch (and being able to laugh). BTW, the
narrator says that it's March when they hear Potterwatch, and then we
discover in the next chapter that it's the Easter holiday. Easter in
1998 was April 12; in 1997, it was March 30. Has JKR confused those
two years, or would the Easter holiday be long enough to begin in
March if Easter itself was in mid-April?

The problem, IMO, is that there aren't enough Horcruxes and adventures
and places to look to fill up a whole school year, a built-in weakness
in the plot structure of DH.
> 
> 11)What is it about the Potterwatch broadcast that makes Harry feel
more connected to the world?

Carol:
Hearing familiar voices and news of the outside world, especially
people he knows shows that others besides HRH are still opposing
Voldemort in whatever way they can. They're not alone. And, of course,
it's always cheering to hear a friend's voice even if the friend can't
hear you.
> 
> 12) Why do Lupin's words cause Harry to feel "a mixture of gratitude
and shame"?

Carol responds:
Harry is still not sure whether he did the right thing by reprimanding
Lupin, his former teacher and his father's friend, in essence telling
him that his duty lies with his wife and unborn child and that they
don't need or want his help. Even though, IMO, Harry was right, he was
still opposing someone that he had always respected and obeyed. He's
grateful that Lupin has forgiven him, but he's also afraid that he was
in the wrong and is ashamed of his behavior. We see the same thing
again when Lupin is summoned by the Resurrection Stone. IIRC, Harry
rushes to apologize to him before speaking to anyone else. IMO,
however, Lupin realizes long before this point that Harry was right.
His part in the fight against Voldemort is not to help (or hinder)
Harry but to protect his pregnant wife, who is being specifically
targeted by DEs (especially Bellatrix) for marrying a werewolf and
further sullying her bloodline (in the DEs' view).
> 
> 13) Why does Lupin say that Harry's instincts are "good and nearly 
always right"? Are these words in reference to the past, or are they
meant to foreshadow events to come?

Carol:
I think that Lupin is saying that Harry was right in this specific
instance, and that he has often been right before. Still, there's at
least one instance, the ill-fated attempt to rescue Sirius Black (who
would not have been in any danger had Harry not tried to "save" him)
that Lupin can't ignore. *Nearly* always and always are not the same.
So I suppose he means, "Trust your instincts but don't trust them
absolutely." In terms of the future, I don't know what Lupin could
have in mind unless he's thinking of the conflict with Voldemort in
GoF, in which instinct (along with luck and the phoenix-feather/holly
wand) saved him. Maybe he thinks that Harry's instincts will save him
a second time. He can't be talking about the Horcrux quest, which he
knows nothing about. (And, ironically, Harry's instinct or impulse to
say the name "Voldemort," which occurs shortly after he hears this bit
of advice, nearly results in disaster.)
> 
> 14) Is the rush of emotions Harry felt while listening to
Potterwatch responsible for his reckless saying of Voldemort's name?
If not, what causes him to break the taboo that he's kept for months?

Carol responds:
JKR's plot needs? Seriously, I don't think Harry ever really believed
in the Taboo, especially since DD had always encouraged him to say
Voldemort's name. Or maybe, as I hinted above, he's trusting his
instincts a bit too much at the moment!

Carol, thanking jmnabers for a very nice summary and interesting questions