The Protection of the Prophecy Plot (Was: Themes and theories)

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Catherine Coleman 
<catorman at y...> wrote:

> far), I was very dissatisfied with the whole prophecy plot line.  
Not so much regarding the prophecy itself, but I still cannot 
comprehend why exactly it was so important to guard the
 prophecy - or even keep it in existence.  Yes, there is the whole 
insanity thing to get around, but why on earth couldn't they have 
just smashed it?  Dumbledore, after all, had (allegedly) perfect 
recollection of it.  I can only think of two reasons - one, that 
Voldemort wasted almost a whole year trying to get hold of the 
prophecy, and so bought Dumbledore some time, and two, that
 he was trying to lure Voldemort into revealing himself at the 
Ministry, which he presumably expected only to work if Voldemort 
failed to lure Harry there first, hence the importance of
> occlumency.  
> 

Pippin:
Not only are those the reasons given in the book, they make the 
prophecy pure McGuffin (Alfred Hitchcock's term of art for the 
object of desire that sets a mystery in motion.) Like Hammet's 
classic Maltese Falcon it turned out to be  completely worthless 
except that everyone wanted it. "Such stuff as dreams are made 
on,"  to quote from the film. Ooooh.

Pippin