analogies & non-human races (not very spoilerish)

[Blaise]

Randy wrote:
<<I was reading Lord of the Rings to my son last year
and I saw the first two movies and remembered the
books that I read 30 years ago. I could see the
allusions to World War II throughout Lord of the
Rings. I also see the use of characters from LOTR in
JKR's masterpiece. Wormtail or Dobby could
be...Gollum. Harry is obviously Frodo and Ron is
Samwise. Lucius is Saruman (because he helps the Dark
Lord) and Sirius is Boromir (sp?) Dumbledore is
Gandalf and Hagrid is Gimli. Have I pissed anyone
off yet with all of the analogies? The bottom line is
that in the Lord of the Rings all of the races finally
unite to defeat the forces of Mordor. I am sure that
all of the races (Giants, elves, centaurs...) will get
together in Book 7 to defeat Voldemorte and his bad
guys in one big epic battle. The analogy to WWII
would be complete.>>

Wormtail has to be Gollum, not Dobby - nothing traitorish about Dobby 
that I can see. What about Hermione, Aragorn, Merry & Pippin (the 
twins?). And if you really want analogies to LotR in the 'final 
battle' then the good guys - even all races conjoined - will LOSE it 
and only win because of some act by Wormtail (after Harry's mercy to 
him) that destroys Voldemort. Perhaps Wormtail will do something with 
his silver hand - bite the hand that feeds him, my pun-brain is 
saying, but that's not really right. 

I don't know enough of WW2 history to say anything intelligent about 
this, except that since LotR is not parallel to WW2, HP can't be 
parallel to both. 

Interesting question of where the centaurs stand in all of this. I 
have visions of them like the dwarves in the battle in The Last 
Battle (can't remember whether JKR was inspired by Narnia too) 
attacking both sides indiscriminately because they are only for 
themselves. If they don't want humans in the Forbidden Forest they 
could certainly cause problems for the Hogwartians. 

To consider this question more broadly: I think one of the big things 
JKR brings into play in OotP is that where all the other races stand 
will matter hugely. So far they've potentially got one giant on their 
side and all the others on Voldemort's, one centaur and the others 
all hostile to everyone, one elf for definite - Dobby - and the rest 
undeclared except for Kreacher, one werewolf and absolutely no idea 
about the others, and no idea either about goblins, merpeople (who 
might be friendly), hags or vampires (unless the Snape-vampire 
theorists are correct in which case they've got one). So right now, 
rather than entire races, Dumbledore has single representatives of 
various races and in many cases it doesn't look like he's going to 
get any more. I find it hard to imagine a Great House-Elf Rebellion, 
given the way Hagrid - who is our expert on other species - says they 
like servitude, but on the other hand Hermione wants it and she tends 
to be right too. It would certainly be fun. 

Oh, and I second Randy's request for an explanation of the 
correspondence between PS and the other six books. In the same vein, 
does anyone else think the defeat of Voldemort will be like the 
defeat of Slytherin in the 1st year House Cup - Harry will do the big 
stuff but Neville will give the coup de grace? 

Blaise

Oh, and a final point about names - according to the OED a shackle-
bolt is a part of a handcuff. A good Auror-name.