Dumbledore and the psychic magic

[mcrudele78]

No: HPFGUIDX 187585

> Bart:
>     Hi, guys, I'm back!

Mike:
Welcome back, Bart!


> Bart:
> <snip>
> Given that, a prophecy, once given, invalidates itself, because
> it creates information that did not exist before the prophecy was
> given. Which makes it, at best, very inexact and, at worst,
> self-fulfilling.


Mike:
I followed you right up till here. I'm not getting why a prophecy invalidates itself because it creates new information? What if the expected participants in the prophecy aren't the ones to receive the new information? Voldemort only knew part of the prophecy, and Harry participated in most of the prophecy without knowing it at all. Pettigrew, Snape, Black and Lupin knew nothing of Sibyll's second, only Harry heard it and he didn't know what was going on. See where I'm going here?

I agree with you that prophecies seem to be always inexact, which I suppose is one reason why those in that business can usually claimed them to be fulfilled. But isn't self-fulfilling part of the phenomena of prophesies? In most literature, isn't self-fulfillment part of what the prophecy counts on? I know Oedipus was not, but most of them do use that element, imho.


> Pippin:
> <snip>
> But Dumbledore considers the power to be inspirational rather
> than prescriptive.  Prophecies don't have any power to make
> themselves come true, though some people believe they do and
> act accordingly. No event becomes inevitable simply because
> it was magically foretold, in Dumbledore's opinion, but it may
> become inevitable because people disregard their other options,
> whether in response to a prophecy or not.

Mike:
But isn't that the same thing as saying that Dumbledore doesn't believe in prophecies? I'll try to explain my thinking here; if prophecies are worded vaguely, which they all usually are, and if Dumbledore believes they are only inspirational, which would require the participants to be aware of the prophecy for it to provide any inspiration, well,... it seems that prophecies are useless utterances to Dumbledore. They have no power, they aren't very specific, and they can be thwarted by the expected participants if they simply ignore them.

Am I wrong in interpreting your take on Dumbledore's valuation of this form of *magic*?

Mike, starting to return to his original interpretation of Dumbledore's belief that prophecies are no more powerful than really good propeganda. And that they may be delivered through some magical means, but that doesn't make the prophecy itself magical.