Hello! - HP quiz failure (OT-ish) - Dumbledore, leading to Tarot

[Neil Ward]

I keep meaning to read through all the messages from the last week 
or so and construct a multifaceted post of individual greetings, 
wild theorising and pithy retorts, but it would take me a week to 
write, by which point there would be another 100 messages to
read
so 
I'll pass for now, and just say, "hello" to all the new people.

I had my family over at the weekend and my brother warned me ahead 
of time that my eight-year old niece, Alison, is now **seriously** 
into Harry Potter.  "She's prepared a quiz for you and
she's going 
to make you take it," he explained with glee.  "I've told
her you're 
an expert, so don't let her down!"

Obviously (and thankfully) my brother has never read the archives of 
HPfGU or he would know that I have always been woolly on facts and 
more inclined to churn our idle ramblings, misremembered details and 
posts on the outer margins of canonicity, such as the origins of 
treacle.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I scored 7 out 10 on the "Prisoner
of 
Askaban quiz" and fell for the trick question: "In the book,
who 
said `if you're going to kill Harry you'll have to kill
us too'".  
It was Ron in the book.  I said Hermione, who said it in the film, 
because she's prettier and needed more lines.  Somehow knowing
"the 
name of Hadgrid's hipogrif friend" didn't balance things
out.

A while back, Kneasy asked "what is Dumbledore"?  

I've always been intrigued by Dumbledore's use of The
Pensieve.  In 
fact, I stand by a ridiculous theory connecting Dumbledore's 
spiritual self to Peeves, because Pensieve is an anagram of "in 
Peeves".  Okay, don't all write at once.

What is it, though, with The Pensieve?   Aside from the plot device 
of letting Harry see a crucial re-run in GoF, Dumbledore wants to 
take thoughts out of his head and put them in a bowl, because:

(a)	he can't bear the pain of those memories and wants to purge 
them?
(b)	he has too many thoughts swimming round his mind?
(c)	it's an addictive behaviour;
(d)	it's a neat trick and David Blaine doesn't own the
copyright.

He let Snape have a go on his toy, presumably on the basis of (a), 
but if we consider (b), is that because Albus: 

(i)	is amazingly ancient and simply has way too many memories;
(ii)	embodies several personalities and needs to make room for 
them to party;
(iii)	is unable to forget
 hmm, don't think so;
(iv)	would otherwise explode.

Considering (c), I think of parallels with Victorians losing 
themselves in opium dens.  Drug addiction leading to a gradual 
weakening – tiredness, failings – and, possibly in Book 6,
death.

As for (d), Dumbledore hasn't pulled a rabbit out of a hat, but
that 
sword trick he did was pretty cool.  Hey, and didn't he saw a
lady 
in half somewhere?   

Okay, back at my Peeves theory: if Dumbledore were "The Magician" 
and Peeves "The Fool", I wonder about a possible connection with the 
Tarot.  Voldemort would be "Death", of course.  Anyone care to 
shoehorn anyone else into this scheme?

Now, one of you is going to point out that I've misunderstood The 
Pensieve, another that I've forgotten the plot of GoF and someone 
else that I've missed an entire Tarot thread on HPfGU.  

Highly possible.

Neil

Flying Ford Anglia