[the_old_crowd] Re: Mysteries (was: Truth, Lies and GIGO)

[Eva Thienpont]

Kneasy wrote:

<snip>


The Forbidden Forest/Centaur episode in PS/SS gives us the impression
that the centaurs believed that Harry should have been left to the tender 
mercies of Quirrell!Mort (and therefore probably death) because to
interfere would be to thwart the future *as they read it* in the stars. Harry
gives confirmation (as he sees it):

"Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done ... Bane was furious ... he
was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen 
... they must show Voldemort's coming back ... Bane thinks Firenze should
have let Voldemort kill me ... I suppose that's written in the stars as well."


<snip>

OK. The centaur episode - which way do you want to take it?
1. It's a clue - Voldy will kill Harry at some time in the future even though
characters attempt to deny the inevitable.
2. It's a clue - no forecast or prophecy is an inevitability and the interference
of Firenze (and others in other situations?) has nullified the future as foretold.

If the latter then how many of the 'givens' of the plot can we be confident of?
If the former - it'd be nice to know exactly what the stars said, wouldn't it?

 

Sigune probably states the obvious, as usual:

It certainly would be. Because if HP is anything like the classic stories about prophecies and predictions, it probably means that option 1 is the case, and that Firenze *had to save Harry* in order for Harry to be properly killed by Voldemort - presumably because in PS/SS Voldie was not yet strong enough/in the occasion to destroy Harry, whereas he may in one of the two future books find a means to do so effectively.

Interfering with the intention of avoiding the inevitable usually leads to the dreaded fact occurring precisely because of the interference - at least it does in the Oedipus kind of story.


Needless to say, I would favour a less determinist cause of events :-). 

Yours severely,

Sigune


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