Who needs Harry? (was: GoF CH 27-29 Post DH look/ Snape and Harry redux)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 182345

> Carol earlier:
> 
> > > While it's possible that his parents had books with that 
> information in the house, which they seem to have inherited from
> Phineas Nigellus, Regulus wouldn't know what he was looking for. 
> > 
> > Magpie:
> > So maybe he kind of did know what he was looking for, if not by
> name, by some general idea that led to the truth. We don't know
> whether there was something in books in his house inherited from
> Phineas or anybody else. But he certainly found it out and nobody
> thought this was impossible. Maybe Regulus thought in similar ways 
to
> Voldemort.
> 
> Carol responds:
> I rather doubt it. Voldemort was a sociopath obsessed with death who
> was actually willing not only to commit murder and place part of his
> soul in an object but to exist as "less than spirit" if his body
> happened to be destroyed. Regulus, OTOH, was a schoolboy who 
collected
> Voldemort's "press clippings" as if LV were a rock star, played
> Quidditch, tried to please his parents in contrast to his rebel
> brother, and cared about his House-Elf. the only thing he had in
> common with Voldemort was a belief in Pure-Blood supremacy (taught 
him
> by his Pure-blood supremacist parents, in contrast to LV's insane
> hatred of his "filthy Muggle father"). 

Magpie:
Voldemort would probably agree that he's too different for any 
ordinary boy who loves his family and is maybe just a good student to 
imagine his train of thought when it came to "If I wanted to live 
forever, I'd hide my soul someplace else." I think Voldemort's just 
arrogant. You don't need to be a psychopath to think up that kind of 
idea. It's a staple in fairytales and folklore.

Carol:
 Despite all
> odds and despite Dumbledore's efforts to keep anyone from finding 
out
> about Horcruxes, he found the information about an object whose
> existence he had never previously suspected. (That's the part where 
I
> have to suspend my disbelief. *If he's never heard the word, how in
> the name of Dumbledore is he supposed to "figure out" that Voldemort
> encased a piece of his soul in a locket (as if a soul were a 
tangible object)? The idea is not something that's going to occur to 
a person
> who isn't obsessed with the topic and hasn't already done research 
on,
> say, Herpo the Foul (who would be of interest to Tom Riddle as the
> Parselmouth who hatched the first known Basilisk--neat little
> coincidence that he's also the first known Horcrux maker, isn't it?)

Magpie:
::Shrug:: I have the opposite reaction to this part of the story. It 
doesn't seem unbelievable to me that Regulus could figure it out 
somehow and could be starting with the concept of immortality just 
like Voldemort was. Or maybe just going on vague things he's heard 
about throughout his life.

> Carol:
> I have the greatest respect and affection for Regulus, an ordinary
> teenager who is also a hero (and whose story, even to his being a
> Seeker, ironically parallels Harry's). 

Magpie:
I respect his ability to figure this out as well as his personal 
sacrifice.

Carol:
But my point is that without
> the extraordinary circumstance of his House-Elf's having been 
tortured
> by Voldemort through his own doing (and here the remorse parallels
> Snape's), he would never have known or cared about Horcruxes. 

Magpie:
And without Voldemort taking over the WW many of the hypothetical 
people in the WW would not have reason to care about this stuff 
either. But Voldemort gives them all reason to care enough about it 
to learn about it. Knowing about what Voldemort did with Kreacher is 
the set of events that Regulus perhaps started from. Another 
character could have started from something else that Voldemort did 
that we don't know about because it wasn't detailed in the story but 
happened according to the story. All Kreacher was doing was hiding an 
object. 

Carol:
> I don't in the least dispute your point about Reggie's being "an
> ordinary hero" who does what he has to do when no one else can or
> will. Funny thing, the whole series is about another boy whose only
> special powers come from his mother's self-sacrifice and Voldemort's
> blunder, but who has no special abilities of his own except a 
powerful
> Patronus and skill at Quidditch. 

Magpie:
Except I was referring to Regulus being ordinary and using 
intelligence and skill to figure something out that Voldemort in his 
arrogance would have thought was beyond him. I'm disagreeing that he 
was a kid who had the answer fall into his lap because of special 
circumstances and what there was to admire was his suicidal bravery. 
I think Regulus took a circumstance that didn't have to lead anywhere 
and made it lead somewhere by putting his mind to it.

I think a group of resistance wizards devoted to bringing Voldemort 
down could have had some success if they set to work a similar way. 
Not using just things that happened to them, but by going out and 
gathering as much information about what Voldemort was doing and 
seeing what they could make out of that. Also using experts in Dark 
Magic and Death.

Carol:
> But *my* point, lest I forget to state it, is that just because
> Regulus Black, in highly unusual circumstances, "figured out" what a
> Horcrux was (or, more likely, looked up the word after hearing
> Kreacher speak it) doesn't mean that other Wizards would or could do
> the same thing.

Magpie:
Yes, as I said, I think we both respect Regulus, but not in the same 
way. You respect him sacrificing himself. I respect him using his 
brains to figure something out. I don't say "figured out" in 
quotation marks to imply he doesn't deserve the phrase because it had 
to have been spoon fed to him by Kreacher, or that anybody would of 
course have gotten it if their house elf had been used to hide the 
locket. I think Regulus' aborted attempt to destroy Voldemort gives a 
hint of what Wizards could have acheived if they'd tried.

-m