[the_old_crowd] Resolving (?) the Riddle

[Randy Estes]

Well I actually like this series of speculations.

If Voldemort is more Snake than Human, then maybe
Dumbledore liked the idea that Harry's blood was mixed
into the Voldemort soup in the graveyard because this
made him a little more human and a little less snake. 
Meaning that he is a little less immortal than he was
and therefore a little easier to defeat?

One would begin to consider that Harry must choose his
own death in book 7 and be reborn like a phoenix to
complete the battle imagery that we got in Chamber of
Secrets.  The Phoenix defeated the Basilisk in the
Chamber of Secrets.  Gryffindor defeated Slytherin. 
People who fight to protect others defeated people who
fight for their own personal gain.

There is allusion to walking through fire in the tasks
at the end of the first book.  Harry walks through
fire just like a Phoenix is consumed by ashes and is
reborn.  Perhaps Harry will have to do the same at the
end of this series.

The snake is an obvious symbol of both immortality and
evil.  The story of the Garden of Eden has the snake
trying to convince Eve to taste the fruit and acheive
immortality.  If the snake is considered to be the
evil side, there must be a good side to balance this
out like Yin Yang philosophy.

Given this balance theory, the phoenix appears to be
the symbol of good because it came to Harry's rescue. 
Harry was like a biblical martyr because he continued
to proclaim the powers of his Master (Dumbledore) even
when it appeared that all hope might be lost.  He
risks his own death and believes that he will die when
he stabs the Basilisk and is wounded by the tooth. 
The Phoenix has compassion and healing powers that
cause Harry to defeat death.

Speaking of balance, I remember reading that Voldemort
had an eleven year reign of terror before he attacked
Harry.  Harry was eleven when he started Hogwarts
which gives us 11 years of peace after the 11 years of
terror.  We now enter the 7 years of battles between
Harry and Voldemort in various forms.

I can see how you can use Christian themes and apply
them to non-Christian subjects.  This allows
non-Christians to benefit from the ideas without
preaching to them in a manner they will not accept.
I only say this because JKR says she is a Christian
and she is taking a lot of heat for these books.  I
believe she honestly wants to provide young people
with some uplifting life lessons in a context that
they will accept.

Randy

--- naamagatus <naama_gat at ...> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> Since reading OoP, I've come to (slowly) realize
> that the main 
> questions in HP revolve, not Harry Potter, but
> Voldemort. Aftera all, 
> JKR often signals the reader via names (Sirius
> Black, Remus Lupin, 
> Dolores Umbridge, etc.) - surely "Riddle" must be
> significant?! 
> 
> Then came the interview, where JKR directed us to
> think of the two 
> questions: 
> 1) Why didn't Voldemort die in GH? 
> 2) Why didn't DD try to kill him in the MoM? (
> (Even before this I thought that since we had been
> given sufficient 
> information regarding Harry's survival, it was
> *Voldemort's* that 
> remained as a mystery. I have to admit, though, that
> DD not trying to 
> kill Voldemort didn't strike me as a mystery.)
> 
> If Voldemort is the main mystery, then resolving
> this should give us 
> the answer to these two questions. I.e., it's not
> about what happened 
> in GH (were Snape/Lupin/Pettigrew there? etc.) and
> it's not about 
> DD's convoluted strategies, or about ESE!Lupin - the
> answers should 
> arise from understanding Voldemort. 
> 
> Voldemort's unique state of being
> 
> From the very beginning, Voldemort is described as
> other than human. 
> The first intimation is Hagrid's "there's not enough
> human left in 
> him to die" (paraphrase). At the end of PS, in what
> seems almost a 
> fulfilment of this cryptic utterance, we get to
> actually see 
> Voldemort - and he is indeed described as having
> inhuman, *snake 
> like* features. 
> 
> In the following books, every time Voldemort makes
> an appearance 
> there are allusions to his snake like appearance or
> to his snake 
> companion (or both). 
> Now it screams at me - as though JKR was hammering
> it into our heads, 
> but until OoP I didn't see the significance.
> However, when Harry felt 
> Voldemort's  presence within him as a snake, I sat
> up and started 
> taking notice. If the emotional/mental presence of
> Voldemort is 
> snaky, then it has to mean that, in some very deep
> way, going a long 
> way beyond appearance, he *is* a snake. This special
> state - part 
> human, part snake, is unique to Voldemort.  
> 
> 
> Snakiness and Vol-de-mort-ism
> 
> When Harry meets Tom Riddle, he looks human. DD says
> that when Riddle 
> surfaced as Voldemort, hardly anyone reconized him
> as the boy he had 
> been, because he had undergone so many *dark and
> dangerous 
> transformations*. Since the DEs recognised Voldemort
> post-
> resurrection, he must have been snake-like before.
> We know, from 
> Voldemort's words in the graveyard, that his
> transformations had one 
> purpose - immortality. From this we can conclude
> that his snakiness 
> is linked to the search for immortality. 
> 
> Not long ago, I posted on HPfGU on what I called
> snake immortality 
> and phoenix immortality (msg. 110260). In summary: 
> Snakes are symbols of immortality, due to their
> ability to shed their 
> skins. The skin that is left behind looks like the
> snake itself, but 
> is only a shell, a fake. The snake thereby "cheats"
> death by leaving 
> behind something that looks like it, but escapes
> with his essential 
> being (body) intact. The phoenix, on the other hand,
> truly dies. His 
> body turns to ashes. When the phoenix is born again,
> this is 
> therefore true resurrection. So, in
> contradistinction to the phoenix, 
> the snake would symbolise immortality achieved
> through fake dying or 
> cheating death . 
> 
> This, then could be the answer to JKR's first
> question:
> In GH, Voldemort, part snake, "shed" an external
> aspect of himself 
> (his body), but retained his essential being (some
> kind of spirit, 
> vapor..). 
> 
> Snaky!Voldemort theory can also provide the answer
> to the second 
> question. 
> A snake sheds it's skin because it outgrows it. So
> each shedding of 
> the skin marks a stage in the snake's growth. This
> biological trait 
> connects with Sybil's (second) prophecy, in PoA: the
> Dark Lord will 
> arise *stronger and more terrible* than before. 
> If DD knew that when Voldemort resurrects again, he
> will have grown 
> stronger and more dangerous, then it makes moral
> sense to not try and 
> kill him. I say moral sense, because up until now, I
> could only 
> conjecture that DD hadn't tried to kill Voldemort
> because he knew 
> Voldemort would eventually return again. But it
> never really 
> satisfied me, because the moral choice would be to
> save lives *now* 
> by reducing Voldemort to vapor again: because if he
> did manage to 
> resurrect, then he's back at square one, not any
> worse than before. 
> But if Voldemort will return stronger, more
> difficult to fight, more 
> difficult to overcome - then it is was right for DD
> to not try and 
> kill him. 
> 
> One person, dual nature 
> 
> Another thing that made me sit up in OoP was the
> cryptic "divided in 
> essence". Several have conjectured that this refers
> to Harry and 
> Voldemort. It's possible, but not really satisfying.
> Harry and 
> Voldemort are two individuals. There is a connection
> between them, 
> but why should there be any question about them
> sharing essence? More 
> importantly, the one smoke snake divides into two
> snakes. It's clear 
> why a snake stands for Voldemort, but surely it's
> inappropriate as a 
> representing Harry? 
> There is no proof either way, but for now I'd like
> to consider a 
> different possibility - that it refers only to
> Voldemort. In fact, 
> going on what I've said before, we *know* that
> Voldemort is a being 
> that is "divided in essence" - part human, part
> snake. 
> 
> Thinking of Voldemort in this way - one person, two
> essences, it 
> struck me quite forcefully how similar it is to the
> orthdox creed 
> regarding Christ - that he is one person, but two
> natures - human and 
> divine.
> 
> The negative parallels are striking. Where Christ is
> human and 
> divine, Voldemort is human and snake - where snake
> is the negative of 
> divine both in that divine is more than human and
> snake (as an 
> animal) is less, and in the Satanic connotations of
> snakes. Secondly, 
> Christ is *fully* human and fully divine. Voldemort
> is *partially* 
> human, partially snake. His double natures are both
> flawed, 
> imperfect, debased.
> 
> Once I started thinking of Voldemort as a dark,
> twisted mirror image 
> of Christ, several things fell into place,
> thematically. 
> 
> 
=== message truncated ===



		
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