Shunpike/PottersInHiding/SmallFamilies/JamesMoney/MuggleMoney/Prophecy/LVbio

Carol justcarol67 at yahoo.com
Tue Jun 9 00:41:22 UTC 2009


No: HPFGUIDX 186939

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Zara" <zgirnius at ...> wrote:
>
> > Catlady:
> > But Harry CAN die even after Voldemort has taken his blood -- for example, he could have drowned in the sword-pond. Voldemort having Harry's blood protects Harry only when in the physical presence of Voldemort.
> 
> Zara:
> Right, the sense in which Harry cannot live while Voldemort survives is different from the sense in which Voldemort cannot live while harry survives. But there are two different senses that apply. Harry cannot live (as in, lead a normal, boring, peaceful life) while Voldemort survives because of the soul bit and because Voldemort will not rest until Harry is dead.
> 
> Whereas Voldemort cannot live while Harry survives in the sense mentioned by Fudge in "The Other Minister" (HBP), that one who cannot die, is not exactly "alive".
>
Carol responds:

Maybe. I have actually held that view in the past. :-) But how is that reading a Prophecy, and how does it fit with such elements as "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord" and, especially, "Either must die at the hand of the other," which means, however we may interpret "either," that they must have a final confrontation in which one or both dies?

I don't think we can ignore the fact that "Neither can live while the other survives" follows directly from "Either must die at the hand of the other" and that they're linked by the conjunction "for," indicating a cause/effect relationship between them.

Reading "either" as "one" (because that's the way it worked out), we have "one must die at the hand of the other *because* neither can live while the other survives."

Now, granted, that's not the clearest sentence in the world, but it can't mean "one must die at the hand of the other because neither can live a full life until the other one dies." That just doesn't make sense because one clause doesn't follow logically from the other.

IMO, the only reading that makes sense if we put both halves of the sentence together is "one must die at the hand of the other because they can't both survive the final battle."

In this reading, "Neither can live while the other survives" means "Harry can't live if Voldemort survives the final battle" but also "Voldemort can't live if Harry survives the final battle." Obviously, they can't both survive the final battle or it's not the final battle. I suppose it's still possible that they could both have died, but only if we read "either" as "both."

Carol, pretty sure that *Harry* read it in this way, and DD didn't contradict him





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