ChapDisc - DH 16, Godric's Hollow

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182130

<snip excellent summary>
 
> 1. How do Harry and Hermione differ in their reaction to Ron's
> departure? (or do they differ?)

Carol responds:
They react, respectively, as a typical boy and girl would react, IMO.
At first Hermione hopes, almost expects, that Ron will return, but
once they've left their camping spot, she also seems to give up hope.
She cries but hides her tears; almost certainly, she wants to talk
about Ron, but she doesn't because she knows that Harry doesn't want
to. Harry, in contrast, is torn between disbelief, along with a very
dim hope that quickly fades, and fury, but his fury is directed almost
as much at Dumbledore for leaving him without a plan as at Ron for
saying so and then leaving. I'm not sure, but I think he's also angry
at himself, or channeling his anger at himself toward two people whom
he can't shout at, one absent, one dead. In contrast to Hermione, he
keeps his emotions inside him, refusing even to speak Ron's name. If
Hermione is also angry, deep down, there's no sign of it--yet.
> 
> 2. Following off that question, I was struck by the richness of the
interplay between Harry and Hermione in this chapter.  What is your
favorite H/H moment from Chapter 16?

Carol responds:
Ron's absence has one benefit: I think it strengthens the friendship
or brother/sister bond or whatever it is between Harry and Hermione.
Even though he never comforts her or acknowledges her need for
comfort, she instinctively responds to his emotional needs in the
graveyard. My second favorite moment is when she explains the meaning
of the line about the last enemy being death to Harry, who clearly
still does not grasp its significance or believe in life after death,
but my favorite moment is definitely her conjuring the wreath of
roses, which he catches and places on the grave. I only wish that
Harry gave as much as Hermione, but I suppose that would be hard under
the circumstances. In the tent, her need is greater than his; in the
graveyard, his need is greater.
> 
> 3. By the end of DH, we know that Phineas is working for the Good
Guys, and that he is trying to help pinpoint the whereabouts of the
Duo so SilverDoe!Snape can drop off the Sword of Gryffindor.  How
competent does Phineas seem at his assigned task?

Carol:
I think the sneaky old Slytherin is brilliant, quite openly venerating
Snape and providing them with bits of information without blowing
Snape's cover and making them covet his company by not giving them too
much of it. He's an actor like Snape, playing himself with great
relish. At this point, of course, he hasn't yet achieved his goal, but
at least he can report to Snape and Portrait!DD what has happened.
This way, Snape knows that Ron has left and can work him into his
plan. (I'm trying not to jump ahead too much here.)
> 
> 4. Why did it take so long for Harry & Hermione to make the
connection between Godric's Hollow, the Sword of Gryffindor and Bagshot?

Carol:
Hermione may have made the connection long before (just as we readers
did) though she wouldn't have known about Bathilda living in GH until
the excerpt from Rita Skeeter's biography of DD in the Daily Prophet,
but she didn't want Harry to go there because she thought (correctly)
tha LV would expect him to do so. Harry's slowness is harder to
account for, aside from being a plot device. (JKR didn't want him to
make the connection until after he realized that the Sword of
Gryffindor, willed to him by DD, was missing (if the sword that Snape
sent to Gringotts is a fake, the real sword must be hidden somewhere
that Snape doesn't know about--or so they think). At this point,
Harry's wish to see his parents' graves and his need for the sword
come together, and he belatedly makes the connection. As for Bathilda,
he's already tried to use her to persuade Hermione to go to GH while
they were still at 12 GP, and Hermione dissuaded him.
> 
> 5. Harry fantasizes how, if not for Voldemort, he would have grown
up as an ordinary wizard boy in Godric's Hollow.  Had that occurred,
it's easy to think of all the ways in which Harry would have been
different – what (if anything) about Harry would have stayed the same?

Carol responds:
IMO, the only way he could have grown up at Godric's Hollow and lived
a normal wizarding life would be if Voldemort had never existed. His
parents would have been in the Order and risking death every day of
their lives, and the WW would not have been as it was for Harry when
he first entered Diagon Alley but as it was for those who lived
through VW1. But supposing that Tom Riddle had never been born and no
Dark Wizard had appeared to succeed Grindelwald, I think that Harry
(minus his scar and its soul bit and growing up with a loving family
rather than the Dursleys) would have been like the cheerful Harry we
sometimes see joking with Ron, obsessed with Quidditch (he would still
have inherited his father's skill at flying) and probably no more
interested in his school subjects than he is in books 1-6. I think he
would have been wholly average at everything except Quidditch, having
no particular need or incentive to learn DADA beyond that of the
typical Hogwarts student. He might have been as brave and curious as
the Harry we know, perhaps a bit more sociable and a lot less
self-centered (Harry has no choice but to be concerned with survival
and self-protection and with the eventual confrontation with LV, not
at all the concerns he would have had if he'd been just another
Half-Blood Gryffindor from a happy family. He wouldn't have been as
tough, as tolerant of hardship and pain, if he hadn't been raised by
the Dursleys. And there's no telling what his relationship with Snape
would have been in a Voldemortless world in which Snape had never been
a DE. Maybe he wouldn't have become a teacher, either! 
> 
> 6. The only evidence of the Wizarding World that Harry and Hermione
see in Godric's Hollow (in this chapter) are the Potter memorial
statue, and the tombstones.  Where are the signs of life in GH?

Carol responds:
I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. I think that between
Muggle-repelling charms, Confundus charms, and just being able to pass
themselves off as Muggles, the witches and wizards of Godric's Hollow
live peaceably among the Muggles, perhaps with a reputation for
eccentricity (Bathilda, Kendra Dumbledore) but no suspicion of their
magical abilities. Is that what you're asking? If not, please forgive
my response for not answering your question? (The people we glimpse in
the pub and coming out of church seem to be Muggles, but there could
be Wizards among them incognito. Certainly, the graveyard seems to
hold both magical people and Muggles.)
> 
> 7. Why didn't Dumbledore tell Harry about their common roots in
Godric's Hollow?

Carol responds:
Secretive Dumbledore doesn't talk about his past to anybody, not even
the Chosen One, and particularly not about Ariana, whose death he
would give anything to forget.
> 
> 8. What did you first make of the gravesite of "Ignotus" and the
mysterious symbol? (BTW, "ignotus" in Latin means obscure or ignorant).

Carol:
As I understand it, the primary meaning of Ignotus is "unknown." It
was used by the Romans as we use "Anonymous." (Ignotus wrote a lot of
poetry, IIRC. ;-)) At any rate, Miles Ignotus is translated as "the
unknown soldier" and Deus Ignotus as "the unknown god," so I think
we're safe in translating Ignotus as "Unknown."

My initial reaction was that the person buried in the grave was
unknown (and must have been buried in medieval times, when only
priests, monks, and a few others were literate and the lingua franca
was Latin), but how that seemingly anonymous grave was connected to
"Grindelwald's mark," also worn by the eccentric Xenophilius Lovegood,
I had no idea on a first reading (nor how it connected to the Tales of
Beedle the Bard, oddly written in runes), I couldn't guess. Now,
however, I think that Ignotus is the perfect name for someone who
spends much of his time hidden under an Invisibility Cloak, his very
presence Unknown. 

> 9. This chapter offer two quotations from the New Testament – the
first verse upon the Dumbledore family headstone is from Matthew 6:21
(i.e., Jesus' Sermon on the Mount). Here is the passage in its context
(from the New American Standard Bible):
> 
> --- 19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth
and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But
store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth
nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
> 
> The quote also appears in Luke 12:33-34, with a somewhat different
> introduction (from the New American Standard Bible):
> 
33 Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves
money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in
heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. 34 For
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
> 
> Harry says he does not know what the inscription means. What does it
mean? (in the context of DH).

Carol responds:

I prefer the King James version, which is most likely what DD was quoting:

"19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For
where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

My immediate reaction was that Ariana was her mother's treasure, and
she and her heart (the thing or person that she loves or treasures)
are together in heaven. I still think that it means something of that
sort, only possibly Dumbledore was giving that advice to himself.
Whatever treasure (or power) he could find on earth was nothing
compared with what had been taken from him, through his own folly, and
which he hoped to see again when it was his turn to die. At any rate,
Ariana is both the "treasure" and the "heart" (or beloved) of the
verse as I read it.
> 
> 10. The second Scripture verse, upon the Potters' headstone, is from
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, 15:26 (the King James
Version).  Here is the passage in its context (from the New American
Standard Bible):
><snip>
> 
> "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." – Harry's initial
reaction is that this is a Death Eater slogan.  How does this
> statement differ from the Death Eater philosophy?

Carol responds:
But DD isn't American and wouldn't use that version! Here's the one he
did use, King James:

"20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits
of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also
the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order:
Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his
coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the
kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule
and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put
all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed
is death."

Obviously, a reader can choose to ignore the Christian context of the
quotation (Harry is obviously unaware of it), but JKR and Dumbledore
didn't. Hermione is apparently sufficiently aware of the Bible and
christianity that she has no trouble understanding the general idea
though I doubt that she's aware of the specific context, either.

That said, the statement in context clearly means that Christ's
resurrection has destroyed death, and at the end of time, everyone who
has died will be resurrected. This isn't quite the vision of the
afterlife that we get in "The Forest Again" and "King's Cross," where
there's no long wait or sleep until the end of the world, but IMO the
quotation is intended to suggest that death is not the end, that it's
the next great adventure or something like what Donne depicts in his
famous sonnet:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee	 
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,	 
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,	 
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.	 
>From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,	         5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,	 
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,	 
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.	 
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,	 
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,	  
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,	 
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;	 
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,	 
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Or, as Saint Paul put it, again in First Corinthians 15: "O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

In short, Hermione is right and Harry is, pardon the pun, dead wrong.
 
> 11. Harry supposes that Dumbledore selected the inscription for his
mother and sister – who selected the epitaph for the Potters?

Carol responds:
Dumbledore again, almost certainly. He was in charge of Harry's
affairs and he had connections in Godric's Hollow. He knew the King
James Bible. Who else could it be?
> 
> 12. If you were unaware that these were Biblical passages, did that
change your interpretation of these epitaphs?

Carol responds:
I don't think so. I knew that JKR was Christian; I saw the
unmistakeably Christian token of the cross on the "grave" that Harry
made for Mad-Eye Moody's eye. I had seen hints of an afterlife in DD's
words about death as "the next great adventure" and in Luna's words
about expecting to see her mother again, not to mention the emphasis
on the soul from PoA forward. So, no. I don't think that my
interpretation would change. If I didn't know that they were from the
Bible, specifically, the New Testament, I would have guessed that they
were.
> 
> 13.  Throughout the cemetery sequence, Harry and Hermione are in the
guise of a middle-aged Muggle couple.  If you were directing the film
version of Deathly Hallows, would you drop the Polyjuice disguises and
have Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson perform the scene?  Or would you
film it with Harry and Hermione portrayed by two completely unfamiliar
actors?

Carol responds:
I've actually thought about that question. I think that we'll be
seeing Poly-juice Potion in "Magic Is Might," not to mention "The
Seven Potters," so it won't be an unfamiliar concept even to
movie-goers who haven't seen it since CoS (or GoF, if you count
"Mad-Eye" morphing into Barty Jr.). I think that the director will
keep Harry's and Hermione's voices but use middle-aged actors to show
the Polyjuiced Duo, with the effects of the potion wearing off before
they get through dealing with "Bathilda." (If the film were a single
two- or two-and-a-half-hour movie, I'd go with the kids playing
themselves, but in a two-part film with five whole hours to cover all
the crucial scenes, I'd play it by the book.)
> 
> - CMC (Novissimus destruetur hostis mors)

Carol, who named an invisible fish in her Insaniquarium "Ignotus"
after the distinguished Mr. Peverell (I know it's a kids' game, but
it's fun!)