CHAPDISC: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 15, The Goblin

[groenima]

No: HPFGUIDX 181854

> >
> > 1. The chapter opens with the burial of Moody's eye. Might this
> > be viewed as foreshadowing of the death of the trust among the
> > trio at the close of the chapter?
>
> a_svirn:
> I never thought of it. What strikes me, though, is this curious
> preoccupation with what is considered in canon "proper" burial
> ceremonies. OK for Dobby, but the Eye's burial is no less grotesque
> than that of Aragog. And why not use magic? It is as though the
> author is at pains to point out that Dumbledore's funeral was
> *im*proper in some way.
>

These burial scenes all make me think of the times my children have
buried pets.  There's no option, of course, for a "real" funeral, but
they still have a need to express their sadness and sense of loss and
love and  want to mark the death correctly by imitating the real
thing.

And I think it was important to them to bury the eye because it had
been used in such an ugly and disrespectful way by the other side.  As
for the lack of magic...perhaps it's because magic led to the person
dying?  Or that they recognize that once a wizard has died, he/she is
as human as anyone else?  Maybe using magic is, in some way, showing
off something you have that the other person doesn't, any more, and
so it's more respectful to do without it?

groenima.