my stupid replies

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Listies post wise thoughts and insightful theories so complete that I
have only the most tangential trivial comments.

Naama wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_o
ld_crowd/message/1191 :

<< Then came the interview, where JKR directed us to think of the two
questions: (snip) 2) Why didn't DD try to kill [Voldemort] in the MoM?
(snip) I have to admit, though, that DD not trying to kill Voldemort
didn't strike me as a mystery.)
(big snip) 
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, >>

Pausing to admire your literary flourish of echoing DD's words 'merely
taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit." When I read those
words in OoP, I thought the real reason that DD didn't try to kill LV
because DD believed from the Prophecy that he couldn't kill LV
(because only Harry could) and he didn't want to try and fail and thus
cure LV of fearing him. I was surprised when JKR's interview suggested
that there was some more complicated reason.

Sigune wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1211 :

<< Also, it seems to me that AK evicts the *life* from its victim's
body, rather than the soul specifically. but here, again, I may be
taking a view with which you may not necessarily agree, namely that:
when life goes from a body, the soul goes with it; but when the soul
goes from a body, life does not necessarily go with it.
(snip)
Or alternatively, just like magical power, life force is dispersed at
the moment of death. >>

You've reminded me of one of my old hobbyhorses: all this
Transfiguring between animate and inanimate things. Teacups into mice
and teapots into tortoises and hedgehogs into pincushions ... When you
Transfigure a live hedgehog into a not-alive pincushion, are you
killing it? Like killing mice to dissect them in Bio Lab. When you
Transfigure a china service into different animals, are you creating
living things with life force inside them, are you creating life
force? Creating life in a God-like way? 

Neri wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/
1223 :

<< This theory of course works only if DD and Snape think that they
know how to break this connection in the crucial moment.>>

Or if DD trusts Snape to be willing to die to further the goal of
vanquishing LV, as Amanda does. That would explain the doubt in DD's
voice when, at end of GoF, he asks Snape: Are you willing?

Lyn kumayama wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1234 :

<< Therefore I think it likely that Peter was present, and very
closely so, at GH that night, just to ensure that LV was not walking
into a trap. >> 

That's what I believed until OoP revealed that LV really can detect
when someone is lying to him (I had previously believed that that was
a lie that LV told to frighten his followers). When he could
Legilimens Peter to ensure it was not an ambush, he didn't need Peter
to walk in front of him into the possible ambush. *sigh*

Joywitch wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1236 :

<< One thing sticks out, though. It's really hard for me to believe
that Dumbledore devised a plan to capture Voldemort that involved
the death of an infant, or even the great likelihood of that death,
and even harder for me to believe that he got that infant's parents
to go along with it. >>

Remember the really old theory that James and Lily were never in love,
in fact each was in love with some other person, but they broke off
their other engagements and married each other because DD persuaded
them (presumably by a Prophecy) that only a child of theirs could
defeat LV? If they were willing to have a baby together only to save
the WW, how much bigger a stretch would it be to risk that baby's life
for the goal? It might seem a smaller sacrifice to them than to us
because they were planning to die themselves as part of the plan. I'm
afraid it would break Harry's heart if he learned that his late
mother, who died for him, hadn't loved him.

Lyn wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1261
:

<< I also think it may have been symbolic that Snape drew blood from
James' face, much like a vampire bat sucking blood (again, of all the
many possible curses available to Snape at this time of intense stress
and compromise, does he choose such a situationally ineffectual one).
>>

Young Snape's curse may have been aimed to cut James' throat fatally,
but James had good enough reflexes to duck so that it missed.