Trio as ''stealth'' team to take down Voldemort (was Re: Occlumency VERY VERY LONG)

[sigurd at eclipse.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 191747

Dear List

Bart is correct in the mechanism used by JK. Rowling- the sort of "stealth" team to destroy Voldemort. But again, that's following on the premise of the book. After all, what's the point of attracting little kids to the work by feeding the fiction they have magical mystery powers all out of proportion to their scrawny or fat, funny named or glasses wearing bodies.  What's the purpose of telling the story that the kids are "special" if you don't let them be the agents of the big kill. After that's what adolescent fantasies are all about.

But I do have to point out a problem with your thesis, Bart. No-- wait-- it's not a problem as I think on it, but a caveat. Tolkein's reasons for using the Hobbits as a means of destroying the Ring is not the same thing, though the tactic is. Destroy the ring and you destroy Sauron. Tolkein chooses the Hobbits because he is using the Hobbits as a metaphor for the every day common-man sort of England, the simple, honest salt-of-the-earth uncomplicated people who willingly went over the top with him in World War I and served dutifully in World War Two and just wanted to get back to their shires and dales and burrow holes.  He puts into the mind of Gandalf (who really is a metaphor for Tolkein himself) that the Hobbits hearts are too simple to be perverted by the power of the ring.  But it makes sense from Rowling's point of view. Kids think they are invulnerable (doubt me- ask any 18 year old recruit in the army) and will undertake the most impossible tasks out of pretty much adolescent bravado and under-age innocence. That is, they assume the role of a far-older literary theme-- "The Parsival"-- the "poor fool" or the "guileless fool" who is too brave (or too stupid) to be afraid.

But at the same time Harry has several other qualities that set him apart and that are going to inevitably draw him and Voldemort into conflict. The one thing is certain-- Voldemort MUST either destroy Potter or be destroyed by him, and to do that Voldemort must be drawn out of hiding.

Fafnir must come out of the cave and be slain by Siegfried, or Beowulf must descend into the lair of the mother of Grendel and slay her, "the mother of all monsters."

Otto