CHAPDISC: DH36, THE FLAW IN THE PLAN

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185246

 
> QUESTIONS
> 1.  I still don't get this "like a lover" stuff between Bellatrix & 
> Voldemort.  What *was* their relationship, in your opinion?  What 
> about Rodolphus, her husband?  Was theirs a marriage of convenience? 
> Did he not care, or did he know that if he did show he cared, 
> Voldemort would kill him?  

Pippin:
I agree with others who said that Bella felt physically attracted to
Voldemort, a feeling he did not and could not reciprocate. Perhaps
Bella's own husband felt about her as she felt about Voldemort, wildly
attracted by someone so powerful and so out of reach.

I think after Voldemort's re-embodiment he was capable of forming
attachments to other people, although he still did not wish to do so. 

When he acted unguardedly, he grew sentimental about his past and his
death eaters and did things like rescuing Bella. But he also started
taking it personally when his death eaters failed him. He did not like
it when Bella showed concern for him; it made him feel weak. He wanted
people to be attracted to him for his power, not because they cared
about him.


> 
> 2.  Harry is surprised to not hear DE cheers, and is surprised that 
> Voldemort has fallen down.  Why?  After encountering the Baby-Voldy-
> Thing at King's Cross, wasn't he expecting Voldemort hadn't yet won?

Pippin:
I'm not sure he was clear on  the relationship  between the baby thing
and the "real" Voldemort. If it was all happening inside his head,
then it might not have been reflective of events. It wasn't clear to
him that Voldemort's maimed soul had "actually" flitted outside his
body and traveled to that temporary limbo where Harry encountered it.


> 
> 3.  With Narcissa's lie, we have come full circle to a mother's love
 again.  How do you feel about its being this mother?  What do you 
think might have happened if Harry hadn't lucked out this way -- with
 a desperate Narcissa chosen as the one to announce whether he were 
dead or not?

Pippin:
It wouldn't have been as dramatic a showdown with only the DE's and
Hagrid to witness it, but I don't think it would have ended any other
way. Voldemort had a wand that wouldn't work against Harry, and the
very blood that formed his resurrected body was also keeping Harry
alive. Provided Harry could find a way to kill Nagini, I think it
would still have been the end of Voldemort, though the death eaters
might have taken revenge for it. *Their* wands would still work.

> 
> 4.  Hagrid, in his grief, accuses the centaurs of cowardice and of 
> being happy that Harry has died.  Yet they do arrive, in the nick of
time, and fight the DEs.  Did they know Harry wasn't dead, or if they
 did not, why did they fight?  

Pippin:
I suppose the stars had told them that Voldemort could now be
defeated, and therefore they were no longer setting themselves against
the heavens by fighting him. 

> 
> 5.  Why is it that Harry does not feel the pain of the Crucio? Is it
 the same reason the Dementors don't affect him? 
> 
Pippin:
I don't think it was the same reason.   Harry expected that Crucio to
hurt, and IMO the only reason it didn't was that Voldemort cast it
with the Elder Wand, which won't work properly against its true master.

The way I understand it, and I admit it's taken me a  long time to
grasp this idea, the magical power of love can provide physical
protection only to  *other* people. So, Voldemort was right in a way,
IMO. Love magic didn't have the power he desired. It would not give
him the power to protect himself from physical harm. But it does
protect against spiritual harm, and that would explain why Harry no
longer needed a patronus to protect himself from the dementors.

A patronus, according to Lupin, is a projection of the emotions a
dementor feeds on, but unlike a human, it cannot feel despair. Harry,
now truly believing that his father's love will always be with him, is
no longer vulnerable to despair and so the dementors can do nothing to
him. 


> 6.  Do you believe Voldemort made his offer of forgiveness 
> sincerely?  Would those who surrendered have been forgiven and 
> allowed to live? 

Pippin:
They would have lived if Voldemort had a use for them. But he had no
conscious sense of obligation to other people, so he would have kept
his promise only as long as it suited him.

> 
> 7.  Okay, Voldy knows the untruth of Harry letting others sacrifice 
> themselves for him.  What is he trying to do in telling everyone at 
> Hogwarts that he was killed while running away and that he was never
 anything but someone who let others sacrifice themselves for him?  
Does Voldy believe what he's saying, or is he trying to convince the 
others?

Pippin:
I think he says whatever he thinks will hurt most, as he did when he
told Lucius that the rest of the Slytherins had joined him. 

> 
> 8.  It's interesting that Voldemort specifies just the emblem,
shield  and colors of Slytherin being good enough for all.  Why didn't
he say  anything about Slytherin's principles?  Or were they implied
along  with the rest?

Pippin:
Voldemort isn't interested in principles. As far as he's concerned
there is no good and evil, only power. He certainly doesn't believe in
the superiority of pure blood, and if there's one thing he doesn't
value in his followers, it's ambition!


> 
> 9.  Why/How was Neville able to break free of the Body-Bind Curse?  
> He certainly couldn't break free of Hermione's in first year!

Pippin:
He was able to break free because of the spell of protection that
Harry cast. Voldemort no longer had the power to harm anyone (except
Harry), and his spells worked only to the extent they did no harm.

> 
> 10.  Does it say anything beyond "only a true Gryffindor" that 
> Neville also found Gryffindor's sword in the Sorting Hat?  Does it 
> say anything about the Chosen One or about the prophecy?  Or not?

Pippin:
I don't think it says anything about the Chosen One or the prophecy.
Harry didn't pick Neville as the person to be charged with destroying
Nagini because of the prophecy. He chose Neville because he trusted
him, and knew he would kill the snake or die trying. 


> 
> 11.  There has been quite a varied response to Molly Weasley in this
 scene.  What is yours?

Pippin:
I didn't recognize the "Aliens" shout-out, so it didn't bother me. I
was glad to see Bella go down and I thought it was fitting that Molly
killed her. JKR seems to have thought it would show everyone that
she didn't see Molly as  limited to being a mother and a housewife. 

> 
> 12.  If you had (or have) no vested interest in Harry Potter, what 
> would you think of Voldemort's remarks here?  Has he missed the
point  entirely, or does he have a point about accidents and
Dumbledore?   Does it make sense that he would see things this way?

Pippin:
In a way, IMO, Voldemort was right. The survival of an individual is
an accident. But the triumph of good over evil is not an accident - it
is something most people want and will labor powerfully to bring
about.  Harry's escape from Gringotts was certainly more due to luck
than to any virtue of his. But if he had failed, then others would
have taken up the battle against Voldemort. 

 
> 13.  What do you think Harry thought the odds were that Riddle would
 actually be able to find some remorse?  Did he believe it was 
> possible?  Was he doubting DD's statement that nothing could be done
 to help the Voldy-Baby-Thing?  Was he offering this up to be able to
 know that he'd done all he could?

Pippin:
I don't think Harry tried to figure the odds -- he usually doesn't. I
think he made the offer for his own peace of mind, though he knew that
Voldemort wasn't likely to accept any advice from him. Voldemort had
not yet become the baby thing -- he still had his adult intelligence
and understanding. It was still possible for him to change. 

> 
> 14.  When did Harry puzzle all this out about the Elder Wand?  Does 
> he believe it?  Does he just hope it's true?

Pippin:
I think he realized it when the Crucio didn't work. It should have, as
I explained above, so Harry had to look for some other explanation. He
already knew that Snape hadn't been  the master of the wand, and that
Dumbledore's plan hadn't worked. It might be that Draco was still
master of the wand, but that wouldn't explain why Voldemort's crucio
had failed.


> 15.  Tom Riddle falls "with a mundane finality."  Such a fascinating
 phrase.  Was there anything mundane at all about this?  Does JKR 
imply that death strikes us all, no matter who are what?  Why use such
a phrase?

Pippin:
Voldemort claimed not to be a man. But in the end he could not escape
the most mundane and universal fact of human existence -- that it must
cease.

> 
> 16.  Wow.  To answer that earlier rhetorical question of
Harry's--No,  Voldy really doesn't learn from his mistakes, does he?
:)  In all  seriousness, though, *is* this Voldemort's biggest
mistake, his  failure to learn?  Or was there something else which was
his more  fundamental mistake?

Pippin:
Harry's blood gave Voldemort one last chance to learn the power of
love, the only thing that could have saved him, and he refused it. So
yes, I think that was his fundamental mistake. I think Harry's blood
was to Voldemort like a drug for mental illness in the real world --
drugs can cure  chemical imbalances in the brain, but that won't help
unless the patient can accept that he's been thinking like a crazy
person and has to learn to think like a normal one. 


> 
> 17.  Now that time has passed and it's all been considered & talked 
> over (and over and over), does the "Who's master of the Elder Wand 
> and how does it happen?" work for you or not?

Pippin:
It works for me. I didn't understand why JKR couldn't just let love
magic save Harry for the final and conclusive time -- but if her point
is that love  gives us the power to help others, that wouldn't
work.   I think JKR made the Elder Wand story deliberately difficult
to follow because she wanted us to read the books over again, looking
for the answers but also seeing just how much our perspective changes
when we have full knowledge.

> 
> 18.  This has been discussed much before, but just *why* do the 
> Malfoys look as if they're not sure whether they should be there? 
> Because of the part they had once played but had set aside? Because 
> there were no other Slytherins there to speak of?  Because...?

Pippin:
I think there were other Slytherins  in the crowd that came back with
Slughorn, just as there were  Asians, black people and witches. But
though no one in the room can be happier than the Malfoys that
Voldemort is gone, they would feel out of place at the celebration of
his fall, since unlike the others they had done so much to bring him
to power in the first place. As far as we know, none of the Slytherin
students besides Draco had done anything to help Voldemort, and they
had as much right to rejoice in his fall as anyone else. 

 I suppose Snape had let everyone know that the Malfoys were no longer
in the Dark Lord's favor. Crabbe certainly knew.

 
> 19.  Many were disappointed by the part Slytherin played at the end,
 having hoped for so much more from students, children of DEs, etc.  
Thinking of the roles of the Slytherins who *did* play a part – 
Horace and Narcissa in particular – are those parts worth 
> celebrating?  How significant to the outcome were they?

Pippin:
The thing is,  there really shouldn't be anything remarkable about a
Slytherin being morally good, any more than it should be remarkable
that a Muggleborn is good at magic. Harry really can't play up
Slytherin goodness too much without sounding like Slughorn praising
Lily.  


> 
> 20.  Many left this book rather stunned at revelations about DD, not
 altogether happy with the strings he pulled or decisions he made or 
actions he took.  What do you make of the fact that, for Harry, DD's 
pride and — let's face it — DD's approval were a balm equal to 
phoenix song?

Pippin:
In Harry's eyes, Dumbledore is still the wisest man he ever knew. And
after all, Harry can't say that in Dumbledore's shoes he'd have done
any better. Can Harry claim that he never led anyone into needless
danger, or turned his back on the innocent, or duped his allies in
order to get the best out of them, or left someone he loved in a grim
situation for their own safety?  

> 
> 21.  Would you have kept any of the Deathly Hallows?  If so, which 
> one(s) and why?  If not, which would at least have tempted you?  Are
 there any to whose power you think you'd have been totally immune?

Pippin:
As I'm not a wizard, the Elder Wand would be useless to me.  From what
Dumbledore says in ToBtB, he believed the Stone  was a dark artifact,
meant to lure people to their deaths. It brings your loved ones back
only to make you long for them even more. So the only one I'd want to
use is the cloak, but I can't think of anything for which I'd need it.

> 
> 22.  As you finished this chapter for the first time, how satisfied 
> or dissatisfied were you?  Did it feel like a resolution befitting 
> our protagonist and antagonist?

Pippin:
As usual, on first reading I was more confused than anything. But I'm
used to that with Rowling's works. I had thought it would be fitting
if somehow Voldemort's own powers were turned back on him, though I
didn't realize that JKR was going there. But I'm happy that she did.

> 
> 23.  So if you had to do it in your own words and as concisely as 
> possible, how would you sum up just what that "flaw in the plan" was?


Pippin:
The wand chooses the wizard. We all know that. What we didn't know was
that a wand doesn't need to be held or possessed by a wizard in order
to choose him. New wands, like those in Ollivander's shop, may not be
confident enough to choose a master before they've had contact, but it
seems it's not absolutely necessary.  And though it's in a wandmaker's
interest to promote the idea that  new wands will always be more
reliable and better suited to one's particular style of magic than
used ones, a used wand can transfer its allegiance to its new owner
and serve him well.


The Elder Wand, in particular, must transfer its allegiance  and its
extraordinary powers  to the victor, if, and only if, its former
master is defeated in combat.

Dumbledore hoped that because he chose to die at Snape's hands, he
would die undefeated and there would be no new master. He didn't
anticipate losing the wand in a contest with Draco and dying before he
could recover it. But he did. That was the flaw in the plan.  Draco
became the master of the wand. Draco was then defeated by Harry, and
Harry became the master.

Evidently wands do not need to be held or touched to
recognize their masters. They just know -- they can think for
themselves though you can't see where there keep their  brains.

Harry was, IMO, very wise to put the Elder Wand aside. He wasn't even
proof against the temptations of Draco's wand, which, alas, was all
too happy to share its expertise with the cruciatus curse. The Elder
Wand has the accumulated knowledge, experience and spell-casting power
of the generations of ruthless and power-hungry wizards who previously
owned it. It is a very dangerous thing, especially in the hands of an
impulsive young person.

Dumbledore seems to have made a sort of bargain with it, or perhaps it
was more like a bet. He would not use it to kill, and in return it
would use its powers only to the extent of Dumbledore's own knowledge
and ability. That pact may have been Dumbledore's undoing, for had the
wand been permitted to act of its own accord it could no doubt have
frozen Draco and Harry at the same time.

Pippin