Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 22: Owl Post Again

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191317

Mike:
> Questions:
> 
> Everyone pull out your time-turners and give them about five thousand turns. Now that you are back where you were when you just finished reading this book for the first time

> 
> 1.  Snape is raving mad and thinks Potter had a hand in Sirius's escape *before* Dumbledore drops the hints about "being in two places at once". Does Snape suspect time-turning was involved?

Pippin:
I think Snape blamed Harry reflexively. If he had actually thought about it, he would have  realized, as he immediately did when Dumbledore dropped his hint, that the Trio would not have dared to use the time-turner for an "off-label" mission without Dumbledore's consent. 

> 
> 2. "Harry had the impression that Lupin wanted to leave as quickly as possible." Was he ashamed of himself in front of Dumbledore? Was this more evidence of his cowardice?

Pippin:
I think Lupin felt very much that he had left Dumbledore down. That Dumbledore continued to treat him with kindness and respect only made him feel worse about it. I think Lupin was cowardly not to tough out the storm of controversy the way Hagrid did. 

> 
> 3. Dumbledore tells Harry that the life debt is "magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable". Knowing now how Pettigrew's debt plays out, are you satisfied with Dumbledore's proclamation? Do you think JKR did this supposedly grave issue justice?

Pippin:

First,  let's look at Harry's view of how the debt played out:
And he thought of Wormtail, dead because of one, small, unconscious impulse of mercy... Dumbledore had foreseen that...how much more had he known?
[massive snip]
And you understood Wormtail too...you knew there was a bit of regret there, somewhere.
DH - ch 25

 Harry's understanding of what happened is psychological, not magical. It seems unrelated to what Dumbledore said, but that's because we  non-magical types distinguish between psychological forces and magic, between the power of "normal" human feelings and magical ones. But that distinction isn't important to wizards. 

If Dumbledore had said "This is human nature at its deepest, its most impenetrable" it would make more sense in terms of Harry's subsequent understanding and Rowling's themes.  However,  it wouldn't have made any sense at all to thirteen year old Harry, who regarded Dumbledore as an expert on magic but wasn't at all sure that Dumbledore really understood people, especially bad ones. And of course JKR isn't ready for us to understand that about Dumbledore, either. 

Harry also wasn't yet aware of his own unconscious impulses. Surely some unconscious impulse towards mercy went into his own decision to spare Peter, though Harry would have argued fiercely if Dumbledore had tried to suggest it was there. By definition, subconscious feelings  are denied. 

Keep in mind that Dumbledore is talking to a child.  It is much more important for Harry to understand and believe that Peter's life is of vital importance and that he did the right thing by saving it than for him to know what the "adult" reasons are, especially if to a child they would not be credible. 

>  
> 4. Remember in the first book, how we learn of Snape's "life debt" to James, and how that comes to the fore in this book. Do you think this life debt "deep magic" is as powerful as the ancient love magic that Lily invoked when saving Harry? Do you see enough evidence of the "life debt" magic to be convinced that it exists?

Pippin:
This sort of magic seems very important in the first three books -- Snape owes his life to James, Aragog to Hagrid, and Peter to Harry -- and then, without explanation, it is never mentioned again. It is, as I see it, a primitive concept, useful for explaining things to a child, or a Beast, but replaced in later books by a deeper understanding. 

It keeps on working -- only the narrative depicts it in a different way, less as  tit for tat and more as a sense of obligation and not only to those who have saved us but to everyone with whom we have shared experience. Much as Draco and Peter would like to give their undivided loyalty to Voldemort, they find they cannot do so, for no reason they can name. 

Snape will not admit he owes anything to James, but the very ferocity with which he denies it argues that he is at war with something  inside him. Compare that to the bitter disdain with which he denies feeling any compassion for Harry. 

Of course to Voldemort all such feelings are sheer weakness;  he doesn't choose to see them as caused by a powerful magical/emotional force. JKR gives her readers the same choice. 


> 5. Dumbledore also tells Harry that "the time may come when he will be glad he saved Pettigrew's life." For those Lord of the Rings fans amongst the group, how would you compare and contrast this James/Harry-Wormtail connection with the Bilbo/Frodo-Gollum connection?

Pippin:

Gandalf and Dumbledore are both concerned that their young friends think that it would have been better to kill a helpless person than risk his escaping to do more evil. 

And eventually, all our heroes have reason to think that the old guy with the beard was right.  

 Like Frodo, Harry has no liking for the person that was spared, and so he finds it much easier to see the potential evil than the potential  good. 

But there is potential good, both intentional and otherwise, and it is this with which Dumbledore and Gandalf are chiefly concerned. But their arguments are quite different and in the end, the hero's reasons for thinking they were right are different too.  

Gandalf says that one day, the pity of Bilbo [for Gollum] may rule the fate of many. But Harry does not acknowledge any pity for Wormtail, so Dumbledore has to take a different tack. And Dumbledore does not have Gandalf's belief in the power of fate. Dumbledore believes in the power of human feelings. 

If Harry is glad that he saved Peter, and I think he is,  it  probably has less to do with Peter repaying a life debt than with  the reason Harry gave initially in the Shack: that it wasn't worth Lupin and Sirius becoming killers just for Peter. But Harry was acting on instincts he himself didn't understand and Dumbledore couldn't have explained them to him. 

Harry didn't at the time have the knowledge or the experience to understand what it would have done to  Sirius and Lupin if they had killed their childhood friend, or how it would have stained his own memories of them to see them do it. 

In contrast, for Frodo everything plays out exactly as Gandalf said it would -- even Gollum had something yet to do. 

In contrast to Frodo and Gollum, Harry and Peter are  never really conscious of the emotional bond  between them-- but their actions do not make sense unless we realize that it is there. And while Peter's flicker of pity towards Harry kills him before he can act on it, we also have to reckon, as with Gollum, with the good that Peter did not intend. Taking Harry's blood turned out to be a great big deal. 


> 6.  Did you have any idea what could possibly have been Trelawney's "first" real prediction? Tell the truth now, did you have any inkling that it would turn out to be *the Prophesy* of all prophesies?

Pippin:
I did figure it had something to do with the reasons that Voldemort wanted to kill Harry as a baby,  though I had no idea how it could be so. I seem to remember that when the idea  was discussed, no one wanted to believe that  the first mention of something so momentous would be so casual. 

> 
> 7. How did Dumbledore know James's nickname was Prongs? Did he know about the Marauder's Map?

I don't think the nicknames themselves were ever secret, just the reasons for them. No one seems to have told Dumbledore about the Marauders Map until the end of OOP -- he isn't the only one who hands out information on a need to know basis. 


> 
> 8. Disregarding the needs of the author for plot development, should Hermione have told Harry and Ron much earlier about the time-turner? If you were Hermione, would you have told the boys sooner?

Pippin:
I think she was  wise to keep it to herself -- if Harry and Ron had known she had it, they'd have been relentless in their determination  to use it for themselves. 

 Me, I'm terrible at keeping secrets, so if I were Hermione, McGonagall would never have trusted me in the first place.

Thanks Mike for the intriguing questions, especially about Peter and Gollum. 

Pippin
always happy to talk about LOTR