Prophecies and Chosen Ones

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 186813

> Alla:
> I mean, I also really really like the interpretation that Pippin and Zara suggested that live actually means die, and I think it works more than well, I think it works perfectly, but that requires the substitute of the whole world to its antonym, right? I am just not sure how this is a fair play on author's part.

Zara:
Thanks! I think it is fair because she introduces the equivalence as reflective of how people in her world might think, very shortly after the text of the Prophecy is presented to us at the end of OotP, namely in Chapter 1 of HBP.

> HBP, "The Other Minister":
> "Back? When you say 'back'...he's alive?"
  <snip PM's memories of previous meeting>
> "Yes, alive," said Fudge. "That is - I don't know - is a man alive if he can't be killed? I don't really understand it, and Dumbledore won't explain properly - but anyway, he's certainly got a body and is walking and talking and killing, so I suppose, for the purposes of our discussion, yes, he's alive."

Zara:
This is (IMO) rather pointed, rather long, and makes clear this distinction is not a mental aberration peculiar to Fudge, as he seems to have gotten these ideas in part from a conversation with Albus Dumbledore. I, at any rate, grasped when I read these lines that they might have bearing on the Prophecy, but it did not interest me enough to pursue it. Other things (erm, people...) interested me a good deal more about HBP. <bg>