From kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  1 04:37:29 2005
From: kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid (Lyn J. Mangiameli)
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 04:37:29 -0000
Subject: Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
Message-ID: <d7je29+puq3@...>

I'm sure many have now noticed that Elfrida Clagg is Wizard of the Month at Rowling's Web 
site. 

Now I generally never take anything about her site very seriously, but I couldn't help but 
take note of Elfrida's striking green eyes and the prominent presence of the Snitch. 
Hmmmmm.





From constancevigilance at constancevigilance.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  1 11:48:43 2005
From: constancevigilance at constancevigilance.yahoo.invalid (Constance Vigilance)
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 04:48:43 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
In-Reply-To: <d7je29+puq3@...>
Message-ID: <20050601114843.3107.qmail@...>



--- "Lyn J. Mangiameli" <kumayama at ...>
wrote:

> I'm sure many have now noticed that Elfrida Clagg is
> Wizard of the Month at Rowling's Web 
> site. 
> 
> Now I generally never take anything about her site
> very seriously, but I couldn't help but 
> take note of Elfrida's striking green eyes and the
> prominent presence of the Snitch. 
> Hmmmmm.
> 
> 
> 
CV: *I* couldn't help but notice that the snitch looks
A LOT like a bird with eyes and a beak. Which recalls
my ESE!Pigwidgeon theory. I think that there is no
coincidence that Pigwidgeon looks very like a snitch -
fits in a hand, flies, buzzes around. I think there
will come a time when Harry MUST catch a fleeing
Pigwidgeon. And that is why the game piece is called a
"snitch" - it's a huge setup and ongoing joke on JKR's
part that Ron's pet AGAIN is a spy. In fact, I'd be
willing to bet that ALL of Quidditch is a giant setup
for establishing a flying "snitch" and that JKR is
tittering in her tea that we haven't caught on yet.
This theory never gets much traction in the fandom,
but I'm standing by it.

CV - oh yeah. And Quirrel lives. I'm standing by that
one, too.



		
__________________________________ 
Discover Yahoo! 
Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! 
http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html



From vderark at hp_lexicon.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  1 12:23:43 2005
From: vderark at hp_lexicon.yahoo.invalid (Steve Vander Ark)
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 08:23:43 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
In-Reply-To: <20050601114843.3107.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <200506011225.j51CPBow006428@...>

Clagg is holding a snidget, not a Golden Snitch. She was the enlightened
head of the Warlock's Council who outlawed the used of live snidget birds in
the game of Quidditch and established the Modesty Rabnott Snidget
Reservation to protect the birds. It was after this that Bowman Wright of
Godric's Hollow created the artificial "golden snitch" to replace the
endangered bird.

Steve
The Lexicon 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com 
> [mailto:the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Constance 
> Vigilance
> Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 7:49 AM
> To: the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [the_old_crowd] Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
> 
> 
> 
> --- "Lyn J. Mangiameli" <kumayama at ...>
> wrote:
> 
> > I'm sure many have now noticed that Elfrida Clagg is Wizard of the 
> > Month at Rowling's Web site.
> > 
> > Now I generally never take anything about her site very 
> seriously, but 
> > I couldn't help but take note of Elfrida's striking green 
> eyes and the 
> > prominent presence of the Snitch.
> > Hmmmmm.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> CV: *I* couldn't help but notice that the snitch looks A LOT 
> like a bird with eyes and a beak. Which recalls my 
> ESE!Pigwidgeon theory. I think that there is no coincidence 
> that Pigwidgeon looks very like a snitch - fits in a hand, 
> flies, buzzes around. I think there will come a time when 
> Harry MUST catch a fleeing Pigwidgeon. And that is why the 
> game piece is called a "snitch" - it's a huge setup and 
> ongoing joke on JKR's part that Ron's pet AGAIN is a spy. In 
> fact, I'd be willing to bet that ALL of Quidditch is a giant 
> setup for establishing a flying "snitch" and that JKR is 
> tittering in her tea that we haven't caught on yet.
> This theory never gets much traction in the fandom, but I'm 
> standing by it.
> 
> CV - oh yeah. And Quirrel lives. I'm standing by that one, too.
> 
> 
> 
> 		
> __________________________________
> Discover Yahoo! 
> Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! 
> http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html
> 
> 
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor 
> --------------------~--> 
> Does he tell you he loves you when he's hitting you?
> Abuse. Narrated by Halle Berry.
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> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ------~-> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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> 
> 
>  
> 
> 





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  1 13:33:45 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:33:45 -0000
Subject: Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
In-Reply-To: <20050601114843.3107.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d7kdfp+e8aj@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Constance Vigilance <constancevigilance at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> 
> >--- "Lyn J. Mangiameli" <kumayama at e... wrote:
> > 
> > Now I generally never take anything about her site
> > very seriously, but I couldn't help but 
> > take note of Elfrida's striking green eyes and the
> > prominent presence of the Snitch. 
> > Hmmmmm.
> > 
> CV: *I* couldn't help but notice that the snitch looks
> A LOT like a bird with eyes and a beak. Which recalls
> my ESE!Pigwidgeon theory. I think that there is no
> coincidence that Pigwidgeon looks very like a snitch -
> fits in a hand, flies, buzzes around. I think there
> will come a time when Harry MUST catch a fleeing
> Pigwidgeon. And that is why the game piece is called a
> "snitch" - it's a huge setup and ongoing joke on JKR's
> part that Ron's pet AGAIN is a spy. In fact, I'd be
> willing to bet that ALL of Quidditch is a giant setup
> for establishing a flying "snitch" and that JKR is
> tittering in her tea that we haven't caught on yet.
> This theory never gets much traction in the fandom,
> but I'm standing by it.
> 
> CV - oh yeah. And Quirrel lives. I'm standing by that
> one, too.
> 

Aha!
And where did Pigwidgeon come from?
>From Sirius.
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
Well, his name's Greek, that's close enough. 
Round up  the usual suspects - which from this keyboard means
keeping beady and jaundiced eye on that scion of the evil Black
family, that exemplar of cock-ups, that perambulating disaster
area, that would-be murderer and oft voted "Creep of the Year" -
The Godfather!

Yes, yes, yes! 
'Tis a consummation most devoutly to be wished - ESE!Sirius.
Of course I wouldn't want anyone to think that I'm in any way
partial or predjudiced in my thinking, heaven forfend and far from it.
But he is/was a baddun. Take my word on it.

Kneasy





From constancevigilance at constancevigilance.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  1 14:29:20 2005
From: constancevigilance at constancevigilance.yahoo.invalid (Constance Vigilance)
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 07:29:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: ESE!Pigwidgeon was:Elfrida Clagg on Rowling web site
In-Reply-To: <d7kdfp+e8aj@...>
Message-ID: <20050601142920.57339.qmail@...>



--- Kneasy wrote:
> Aha!
> And where did Pigwidgeon come from?
> From Sirius.
> "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
> Well, his name's Greek, that's close enough. 
> Round up  the usual suspects - which from this
> keyboard means
> keeping beady and jaundiced eye on that scion of the
> evil Black
> family, that exemplar of cock-ups, that
> perambulating disaster
> area, that would-be murderer and oft voted "Creep of
> the Year" -
> The Godfather!
> 
<snip> 

CV: I'm not saying that I think Sirius is evil. But
why did he choose Pigwidgeon? Because there was no
other owl available and he seemed so eager for the
job. Why were there no other owls available? And why,
exactly, was this owl so eager? Perhaps it was planned
that way? Sirius has been fooled into allowing
beings-that-would-eventually-be-pets-of-Ron to have
critical responsibilities for catestrophic results
before.

Constance Vigilance, ever the champion of unpopular theories.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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http://mail.yahoo.com 



From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  2 14:32:56 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 16:32:56 +0200
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <003201c56300$82860c20$5d59aacf@...>
Message-ID: <001501c56780$04637970$0600a8c0@hwin>

Say guys & gals,

I'm just curious: have there already been several zillion quests, jousts
and pitched battles about the contrast between Dumbledore's insistence
on speaking of Lord V. by name and Dumbledore's reluctance to speak the
name of the force held in the closed room in the Department of
Mysteries?

On my personal list of intriguing bits of narrative, that ranks right
next to the gleam in Dumbledore's eye back in GoF days. And chances are,
asking whether anybody else has noticed is about as dumb too, so I
thought I'd ask a bunch of people who might go easy on gentleman as
ancient (in fandom terms) as myself.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  2 15:56:01 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:56:01 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
Message-ID: <d7na6h+h2u0@...>

I must beg the list's indulgence for starting with
the prank. Putting Lupin's history in chronological
order makes it easier to understand, but it also
puts the most speculative area of the theory
first. There is more than one clue to show that
Lupin could have been Voldemort's spy and his
second-in-command, that he could have sent the
Lestranges to attack the Longbottoms, aided
Quirrell and Lucius with their plotting, arranged
for Peter Pettigrew's escape, helped to murder
Cedric, and killed off Sirius Black.

But for this bit, what I mostly have to go on is
Snape's claim that Lupin was in on it (1) -- "it"
being the "highly amusing joke" that would have
resulted in Snape's death(2). Since Snape doesn't
give any evidence for his belief, it seems merely
another symptom of his irrational hate -- except
that if Lupin did indeed plot to kill him, Snape's
hatred isn't irrational at all!

Snape's suspicion does not make a good red
herring because it is never explained. On the
other hand it makes an excellent Chekhov's
gun -- a plot element introduced and left hanging
with the expectation that it will prove important
to later events. (The name comes from Chekhov's
often quoted rule that if you bring a rifle onstage,
someone must think of using it.)

Because nothing is made of Snape's suspicion,
no contrary evidence is presented, which means a brief
confession would be enough for Rowling to establish
Lupin's guilt if it comes time to reveal All.
Moreover, chronologically and psychologically,
involvement in the prank forms a plausible
foundation for what I suspect to be
Lupin's role in later events.

The story of the prank in canon is simply told.
Snape wanted to know where Lupin went every month.
One evening, he spotted Madam Pomfrey taking Lupin
out to the Whomping Willow. Sirius thought it would
be amusing to tell Snape how to get inside. "Of
course" Snape tried it. If he had gotten as far as
the Shrieking Shack, he would have met a full grown
werewolf, but James, who'd heard what Sirius had
done, went after Snape and pulled him back. Ever
since then, Snape has known that Lupin was a
werewolf. (3)

The beginning and end of the story are maddeningly
incomplete. How did Sirius find out what Snape had
seen? How did James learn what Sirius did? What
happened afterward? Was anyone punished? But the
biggest gap comes right in the middle. As befits
the theme of Book Three, it has to do with
*timing*. The joke will be pointless if Snape
enters the willow when Lupin is not there or finds
him before he transforms.

For the prank to work, the timing of the
transformation must be predictable, and Lupin must
be transformed while he is the Shrieking Shack.
This has grave implications for the timing of
Pettigrew's escape. But for now, we are dealing
with the earlier event.

Iif Snape wanted to know where the willow passage
led, wouldn't it have made more sense for him to
explore it when Lupin wasn't likely to be in there?

On the face of it the answer is implied in the
text. Snape followed Lupin hoping to get him in
trouble. (4) But Snape knew that Lupin's visit to
the willow was sanctioned, after all he'd seen
Madam Pomfrey taking him there. The willow was
forbidden territory; if Snape was caught snooping
inside it, he, not Lupin, would have some
explaining to do. (5) Possibly Snape already
suspected Lupin was a werewolf and meant to expose
him...but this seems unlikely too.

Werewolves belong to the Ministry of Magic's most
dangerous category of fantastic beasts. (6) Surely
no wizard in his right mind, still less one who,
unlike Hagrid or Sirius, was known to be cunning
and clever and good at keeping himself out of
trouble, (7) would take on a werewolf alone. What
possessed Snape to follow Lupin into the willow on
a night of full moon?

Canon places much stress on the ways in which one
wizard may induce another to take a rash or foolish
action: potions that bewitch the mind and ensnare
the senses (8), the confundus charm (9), the
dreaded Imperius curse (10). Sirius could have used
one of these to make sure that his "joke" was
effective, but it seems most unlike Sirius to have
done so. I can believe that Sirius would assault
Snape and try to murder him outright -- but I can't
see him setting a trap, not all on his own, anyway.
In all the time Sirius was after Pettigrew, that
is one tactic he doesn't seem to have tried.

Could Snape have been bewitched by someone else? If
he suspected this, would he have overstated his
case as usual, shrilly accusing James and all his
friends of a deliberate plot against him?

We can imagine how it might have looked to
Dumbledore; on the one hand, three exceptionally
bright and popular students and their tagalong pal
Peter, troublemakers but surely not murderers, on
the other, one unhappy Slytherin with a grudge
against them. It seems that the use of magical
coercion is difficult to establish after the fact -
- no one could prove or disprove Lucius Malfoy's
claim that he was under the Imperius curse.
Legilimency might not help; there are hints that
werewolves are immune. (11) Sirius's admission
would seem to be much more plausible than some wild
conspiracy theory. Why would Lupin take part in a
joke that, if it worked, would expose his secret?

But there was more than one secret to be concealed.
Lupin was engaged in activities far more dangerous
and reprehensible than turning into a vicious
monster once a month. He had aided three of his
friends in the practice of illegal magic (12), and
every month, with their help, he was evading the
protections which had been set in place for his
safety and invading the castle grounds and the
village of Hogsmeade. (13) Snape's vigilance might
mean the end of these outings, the only thing
which made Lupin's tranformations bearable. (14)

But worse than that, it might not. Sirius and
James were reckless and high-spirited (15). They
might decide that they could evade Snape's
vigilance and let the werewolf roam again. If Snape
spotted the Animagi and learned their secret, then
not only Lupin but all of his friends would be
expelled and subject to penalties severe enough to
make hardbitten Rita Skeeter consider a year of
poverty and unemployment preferable. Besides that,
the Marauders might have been held responsible for
their depredations in Hogsmeade: "There were near
misses, many of them." (16) Innocent lives had
been threatened.

There was a good chance that Lupin would get away
with it. He was used to keeping secrets; he had the
means of disposing of the body; blood, shrieks and
signs of a struggle would all be taken as the usual
aftermath of his transformation. (17) Snape's
disappearance might have remained a mystery. Even
if Lupin was suspected, what proof would there be?

Only Sirius would know that Lupin had been in on
it. But if Sirius was not thinking of murder, he
wouldn't suppose that Lupin was either. Sirius
probably only hoped for the sight of a terrified
Snape fleeing from the monster's lair, though he
told the Trio it would have served Snape right if
something worse had happened. (18) Lupin could
have trusted him to keep silent; Sirius was above
all loyal to his friends (19). It would be a
desperate plan -- but Lupin might have been
desperate enough to try it.

Fortunately for him, somehow James found out what
Sirius had done, went after Snape and saved him.
Snape, caught out of bounds, was forbidden to tell
what he saw, ( and probably warned to stay far away
from the willow henceforth.) The Marauders' secrets
remained safe.

Next: Part II -- The Spy

Notes -- All references US hardcovers, except
FBAWTFF
(1) PoA ch 18 p 357
(2) PoA ch 14 p 285
(3) PoA ch 18 p 357
(4) "sneaking around, trying to find out what we
were up to...hoping he could get us expelled..."
PoA ch 18 p 356
(5) "we were forbidden to go near it" PoA ch 10 p
186
(6) FBAWTFT, entry on the werewolf, p 61
(7)"Snape's certainly clever and cunning enough to
keep himself out of trouble" GoF ch 27 p
(8)"bewitching the mind, ensnaring the sense" SS
ch 8 p 137, also see OOP ch 18 p 383
(9)Confundus Charm, PoA ch 21 p 386
(10) Imperius Curse, GoF ch 14 p
(11) "An odd, closed expression appeared on Lupin's
face." PoA ch 14 p 288. Also
'"Don't ask me to fathom the way a werewolf's mind
works," hissed Snape' PoA ch 19 p 361
(12) "[...] I had led three fellow students into
becoming Animagi illegally." PoA ch 18 p 355
(13) "roaming the school grounds and the village by
night" PoA ch 18 p 355
(14)"make my transformations bearable" PoA ch 18 p
354
(15) "We were young, thoughtless --carried away
with our own cleverness" PoA ch 18 p 355 "The risk
would've been what made it fun for James." OOP ch
14 p 305
(16) PoA ch 18 p 355
(17) "The screams and howls the villagers used to
hear were made by me." PoA ch 18 p 352. "[...]so I
bit and scratched myself instead." PoA ch18 p 353
"[...] there were stains all over the floor; every
piece of furniture was broken as though somebody
had smashed it." PoA ch 17 p 337
(18) PoA ch 18 p 356
(19) Sirius's loyalty --
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/faq_view.cfm?id=6
1





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  2 20:22:05 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 20:22:05 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7na6h+h2u0@...>
Message-ID: <d7nppd+e34j@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> But for this bit, what I mostly have to go on is
> Snape's claim that Lupin was in on it (1) -- "it"
> being the "highly amusing joke" that would have
> resulted in Snape's death(2). 
> 
> The story of the prank in canon is simply told.
> Snape wanted to know where Lupin went every month.
> One evening, he spotted Madam Pomfrey taking Lupin
> out to the Whomping Willow. Sirius thought it would
> be amusing to tell Snape how to get inside. "Of
> course" Snape tried it. If he had gotten as far as
> the Shrieking Shack, he would have met a full grown
> werewolf, but James, who'd heard what Sirius had
> done, went after Snape and pulled him back. Ever
> since then, Snape has known that Lupin was a
> werewolf. (3)
>

Kneasy:
Until further evidence is forthcoming (assuming that it will be
forthcoming) then this must be regarded as an extremely
weak spot in the plot.
1. Why didn't Snape see Pomfrey poking the Willow with sticks?
2. Why would Snape believe anything Sirius tells him?
3. How come Lupin transforms when sheltered from moonlight?
Why didn't the same transformation happen in PoA?
4. Does this discrepancy indicate something important - i.e. a
werewolf *must* transform when exposed to moonlight but
*may voluntarily* transform when the full moon is up but not 
shining directly upon the afflicted? So far as I can figure this is
the only way to resolve the difficulties and tie Lupin in as a
co-conspirator on the 'joke'. 
5. Unless, purely by serendipitous coincidence Lupin happens to 
be a wolf-animagus. And who would swallow that one? 
6. Or has Jo been plot-sloppy?

Unfortunately my money is on 6; though it'd be nice if I was wrong
and 4 was correct.

Even so, 2. is a killer IMO. I had a damn good scoff about this in

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/105755

Another thing I don't find credible is that Snape kept quiet about it 
all, not unless coercive magic was used - and if that was the case 
then one day he'll snap out of it and realise that DD isn't his best 
chum after all. Mind you, it would explain why DD trusts him so
completely.

Lupin may or may not be ESE. Personally I tend to think not, I think
it's Sirius. No matter. What does matter is that the whole 'Prank'
idea as we know it won't wash, not until it gets a believable spinal
transplant.
It's like the Shack itself, ramshackle and with holes in the roof.


 






From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 09:23:03 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 09:23:03 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <001501c56780$04637970$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d7p7hn+c8m3@...>

Wow!  The Goat bleats!  Nice to hear from you, Mike.

Aberforth's Goat wrote:

> I'm just curious: have there already been several zillion quests, 
jousts
> and pitched battles about the contrast between Dumbledore's 
insistence
> on speaking of Lord V. by name and Dumbledore's reluctance to 
speak the
> name of the force held in the closed room in the Department of
> Mysteries?

I'm almost as unaware of what's been happening on HPFGU recently as 
you claim to be, so I don't know if that has been discussed there.

If it isn't just JKR being mysterious, I'd suggest something along 
the following lines.

It's my belief that there *is* good reason to be careful about 
saying 'Voldemort'.  We know that correct pronunciation is important 
in magic: intention is important, too, but it isn't everything.  I 
suspect that in defined circumstances (which Dumbledore understands, 
and knows do not apply most of the time) it is best not to say the 
name, and wonder if Hermione is going to fall foul of this in the 
coming book.

Dumbledore's insistence on saying 'Voldemort' is about overcoming 
superstitious fear - once that is out of the way, the question of 
when it is advisable to say what still needs thought.

In the case of the locked room, it may simply be that Harry has a 
lot on his plate and Dumbledore doesn't wish to open up a new area 
of discussion at that time.  Though that raises the question of why 
Dumbledore says anything at all about it.

David





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 11:29:15 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 11:29:15 -0000
Subject: OT: Re: New
In-Reply-To: <d7i84e+k89m@...>
Message-ID: <d7peub+2shi@...>

Kneasy:

> Damn!
> Now you've ruined it for me - and without  a spoiler warning too!
> July will be nothing but a barren desert, a wasteland across which
> frustrated fans crawl, begging piteously for succour. How can one
> face an Ashes series with equanimity if one's nights are reduced to
> sleepless torment giving no answer to the momentous questions of 
> the hour? 

True, true.  Worse still, even the magical ability of the Ashes 
themselves to induce slumber under almost any circumstances may be 
affected.

David





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 13:41:57 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 09:41:57 EDT
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
Message-ID: <213.216271a.2fd1b825@...>


Kneasy:
Until  further evidence is forthcoming (assuming that it will be
forthcoming) then  this must be regarded as an extremely
weak spot in the plot.
1. Why  didn't Snape see Pomfrey poking the Willow with sticks?
Eloise:
Wotcha, Kneasy.
Myopia? It was too dark? He was on the wrong side of the tree?


2. Why would  Snape believe anything Sirius tells him?
3. How come Lupin transforms when  sheltered from moonlight?
Why didn't the same transformation happen in  PoA?
Eloise:
According to JKR the moon wasn't up/full or something when he went into the  
SS. As far as I'm concerned she basically made a mistake. Alternatively, the  
moon became full at the moment it emerged from behind the cloud. Hmm.


4. Does this  discrepancy indicate something important - i.e. a
werewolf *must* transform  when exposed to moonlight but
*may voluntarily* transform when the full  moon is up but not 
shining directly upon the afflicted? So far as I can  figure this is
the only way to resolve the difficulties and tie Lupin in as  a
co-conspirator on the 'joke'. 
Eloise:
But it means he simply needed to be kept in a dark room in order not to  
transform. So no need for the monthly trip to the SS.
 
Kneasy:
>5. Unless, purely by serendipitous coincidence Lupin happens to  
>be a wolf-animagus. And who would swallow that one? 
>6. Or has Jo  been plot-sloppy?

>Unfortunately my money is on 6; though it'd be nice  if I was wrong
>and 4 was correct.
 
Eloise:
I'd  agree. In fact there are other holes in the whole  thing. 
 
Pippin:
>(5) Possibly Snape already
>suspected Lupin was a werewolf and  meant to expose
>him...but this seems unlikely too.
 
How unlikely is it that he hadn't worked it out? Sirius tells us he used to  
sneak around, spying on them, Lupin tells us he was curious about where he 
went  to each month. In OoP JKR goes out of her way to tell us that the OWL paper 
 contains a question about werewolves. Snape sits near MWWP apparently 
engrossed  in the exam paper (surely that means he's actually trying to listen to 
them?)  and Sirius mentions wishing it were full moon.
 
In PoA, Snape sets a question on werewolves specifically (we  presume) to try 
to expose Lupin. Hermione works it out. Did Snape (two  years older) not put 
two and two together himself?
 
Pippin:
>>Werewolves belong to the Ministry of Magic's most
dangerous  category of fantastic beasts. (6) Surely
no wizard in his right mind, still  less one who,
unlike Hagrid or Sirius, was known to be cunning
and clever  and good at keeping himself out of
trouble, (7) would take on a werewolf  alone. What
possessed Snape to follow Lupin into the willow on
a night of  full moon?<<

Very good question.
 
I posted this to HPfGU earlier today in the context of a misguided argument  
over culpability for the Prank:
 
>>I never said that Snape wasn't foolish for  falling for the bait.
But we have *no* reason whatsoever to believe that  Sirius suggested
to Snape that he would be entering a dangerous situation.  Yes, Snape should 
have been able to work it out for himself (although he could  reasonably have 
expected that a werewolf might have been somewhat more  restrained, caged 
perhaps) and that's where the inconsistency  lies.

Actually (sorry) I blame JKR. ;-) I'm stepping back for a minute  to
look a this as a piece of writing.

I think it's incredibly hard to  set up this kind of thing without some 
inconsistencies creeping in. Sirius  trying to feed Snape to a werewolf is the 
counterpoint to (and the ostensible  reason for) Snape wanting to feed Sirius to 
the Dementors. The snooping around  after MWWP is the superficial reason we are 
given for the initial resentment  between them (which I quite agree might 
have a deeper cause). Unfortunately, the  snooping around *ought* to have alerted
Snape to what he might face. It's  compounded in OoP by having Snape reading 
about werewolves, a detail surely  meant to remind us of the snooping, the 
resentment, but inconsistent with his  decision to enter the tunnel.

But then, books in general are full of  these sorts of things. In this 
series, how is it *possible* that Harry both asks  and confides so little? A good 
thing it is, too, or there's be no plot at all to  speak of if he did what any 
sensible boy should do and tell the greatest wizard  of the age whenever he had 
a suspicion that something was wrong instead of going  it alone.

These books are scrutinised to a degree that no author ought to  have to put 
up with, every little inconsistency is found and we desperately try  to find 
internal justifications for them,
justifications which I believe will  sometimes be elusive. In this case, I 
think we have details given as an aid to  characterisation slightly clashing 
with the plot.
 
Kneasy:

>>Even  so, 2. is a killer IMO. I had a damn good scoff about this  in

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/105755<<
 
Eloise:
Why would he, indeed? A little inconsistency in  characterisation, I think. 
OTOH, maybe Lupin's using shorthand; maybe  Sirius didn't tell Snape directly, 
but just made sure he overheard. Or maybe it  was a dare that Snape couldn't 
take up without losing face.
 
Kneasy:



Another  thing I don't find credible is that Snape kept quiet about it 
all, not  unless coercive magic was used - and if that was the case 
then one day  he'll snap out of it and realise that DD isn't his best 
chum after all.  Mind you, it would explain why DD trusts him  so
completely.
Eloise:
Well, he snapped out of it enough to let the secret slip by the end of  PoA.
For some reason I don't have a problem with his keeping quiet. If  Dumbledore 
was the only wizard who frightened *Voldemort*, I'm sure he could  persuade 
Severus that keeping quiet was in his best interests. I actually think  that he 
knew that if he said anything he'd be out and I don't think he had much,  if 
anything, of a home to go back to. I also, as you probably know think that  
Severus has long looked on Dumbleore as a father figure.
 
Kneasy:



Lupin may  or may not be ESE. Personally I tend to think not, I think
it's Sirius. No  matter. What does matter is that the whole 'Prank'
idea as we know it won't  wash, not until it gets a believable spinal
transplant.
It's like the  Shack itself, ramshackle and with holes in the  roof.





Eloise:
I don't think either of them is ESE, but I agree that the 'Prank' bears a  
remarkable resemblance to a Swiss cheese.
 
Somebody pointed out over on Main that Snape shouldn't have been in danger  
anyway. A competent wizard with a wand, surely there should have been some 
spell  he could have cast to stun Lupin or something. Trouble for writers is that 
magic  is a two edged sword (or perhaps that should be a double ended wand). 
It's quite  difficult to think of dangerous situations to get characters into 
that they  can't escape from by means of magic (hence, possibly, the necessity 
of the AK).  I'm coming to the conclusion that you *can't* write about magic 
without loose  ends and holes in the plot.
 
~Eloise


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 14:11:52 2005
From: pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid (JoAnna Wahlund)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 07:11:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7nppd+e34j@...>
Message-ID: <20050603141152.84546.qmail@...>

Oh, I see how this was kept quiet - and without magic, too.

Dumbledore: "Mr. Snape, if you breathe a word of tonight's events to ANYONE, you will
face immediate expulsion from Hogwarts."

Methinks Snape wasn't really cut out of the job of assistant gamekeeper, so he kept his
mouth shut.

> Another thing I don't find credible is that Snape kept quiet about it 
> all, not unless coercive magic was used - and if that was the case 
> then one day he'll snap out of it and realise that DD isn't his best 
> chum after all. Mind you, it would explain why DD trusts him so
> completely.

~JoAnna~ 

 
Elly was born on 01/13/05.
Visit Elanor's website for pictures and updates! 
http://www.geocities.com/j_wahlund








		
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From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 15:44:18 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 15:44:18 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <20050603141152.84546.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d7ptsi+fh7u@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, JoAnna Wahlund <pt4ever at y...> wrote:
> Oh, I see how this was kept quiet - and without magic, too.
> 
> Dumbledore: "Mr. Snape, if you breathe a word of tonight's events to ANYONE, you will
> face immediate expulsion from Hogwarts."
> 
> Methinks Snape wasn't really cut out of the job of assistant gamekeeper, so he kept his
> mouth shut.
>

Yeah, this has been suggested before, but it's not a credible threat IMO.
As soon as Snapey is heaved out through Hogwarts gates he goes public.
The Daily Prophet, The Quibbler, the Ministry. He tells a story that some
will be very glad to hear. "Cover up! Monster at Hogwarts! Would-be
victim victimised!"

Massive outcry. Parents remove beloved offspring in a marked manner,
demands for DD's head, or at the very least his job, Lupin is taken
into "protective custody", James and Sirius flee the country and become
remittance men in Transylvania, Snape gets feted as the hero of the hour,
is re-instated by the new school management and gets an award for
special services to the school.
Game, set and match.

Kneasy.


 









From pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 15:53:14 2005
From: pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid (JoAnna Wahlund)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 08:53:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7ptsi+fh7u@...>
Message-ID: <20050603155314.35856.qmail@...>

And who would believe Snape over Dumbledore?

Also, three words:  binding magical contract.  What if Dumbledore made Snape promise not
to reveal the details regarding "The Prank" for X amount of years, and Snape agreed...? 

--- Barry Arrowsmith <arrowsmithbt at ...> wrote:

> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, JoAnna Wahlund <pt4ever at y...> wrote:
> > Oh, I see how this was kept quiet - and without magic, too.
> > 
> > Dumbledore: "Mr. Snape, if you breathe a word of tonight's events to ANYONE, you will
> > face immediate expulsion from Hogwarts."
> > 
> > Methinks Snape wasn't really cut out of the job of assistant gamekeeper, so he kept
> his
> > mouth shut.
> >
> 
> Yeah, this has been suggested before, but it's not a credible threat IMO.
> As soon as Snapey is heaved out through Hogwarts gates he goes public.
> The Daily Prophet, The Quibbler, the Ministry. He tells a story that some
> will be very glad to hear. "Cover up! Monster at Hogwarts! Would-be
> victim victimised!"
> 
> Massive outcry. Parents remove beloved offspring in a marked manner,
> demands for DD's head, or at the very least his job, Lupin is taken
> into "protective custody", James and Sirius flee the country and become
> remittance men in Transylvania, Snape gets feted as the hero of the hour,
> is re-instated by the new school management and gets an award for
> special services to the school.
> Game, set and match.
> 
> Kneasy.
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


~JoAnna~ 

 
Elly was born on 01/13/05.
Visit Elanor's website for pictures and updates! 
http://www.geocities.com/j_wahlund







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From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 16:18:49 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 16:18:49 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <20050603155314.35856.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d7pvt9+a04g@...>

JoAnna :
> And who would believe Snape over Dumbledore?
> 
> Also, three words:  binding magical contract.  What if Dumbledore 
made Snape promise not
> to reveal the details regarding "The Prank" for X amount of years, 
and Snape agreed...? 

Another point is that he'd be humiliated. Would he really *want* to 
admit that he'd been dumb enough to fall for Sirius' trick? 

~Eloise






From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 16:49:22 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 16:49:22 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <213.216271a.2fd1b825@...>
Message-ID: <d7q1mi+mrev@...>

One post mentions the Gleam, the next the Prank.  My brain resists 
it, but my fingers cannot help but type a reference to Hermione's 
comment to Ron after the Ball...

Eloise wrote:

> Actually (sorry) I blame JKR. ;-) I'm stepping back for a minute  
to
> look a this as a piece of writing.
> 
> I think it's incredibly hard to  set up this kind of thing without 
some 
> inconsistencies creeping in. Sirius  trying to feed Snape to a 
werewolf is the 
> counterpoint to (and the ostensible  reason for) Snape wanting to 
feed Sirius to 
> the Dementors. 

Ah, logic I understand. ;-)

Does it follow that the villain of the prank is the villain of he 
Shack in PoA?  That means, for most of us, that Pettigrew has an as-
yet undisclosed role in the prank, and for ESE!Lupin aficionados, 
that both Pettigrew and Lupin do.

> I'm coming to the conclusion that you *can't* write about magic 
> without loose  ends and holes in the plot.

In fact, there is a theorem in formal logic that if a set of true 
propositions includes a contradiction, you can prove any statement 
at all about your universe to be true.  Since fictional magic is 
usually an assertion that some normal process of nature is 
contradicted, I think you are right.

In theory, one could construct an alternative universe based on 
consistent rules, and call some of the differences to our own 
universe 'magic'.  However, since the collective efforts of the 
scientific community have not yet been able to describe the real 
universe, it's asking quite a lot of an individual author to 
construct anything more complex than Flatland consistently.

Ironically, it was Pippin who to my knowledge really first pointed 
this out on HPFGU, causing Lexicon Steve to doubt the sense of his 
entire project.

David






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 17:09:33 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 17:09:33 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7pvt9+a04g@...>
Message-ID: <d7q2sd+6ns0@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" <eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> JoAnna :
> > And who would believe Snape over Dumbledore?
> > 
> > Also, three words:  binding magical contract.  What if Dumbledore 
> made Snape promise not
> > to reveal the details regarding "The Prank" for X amount of years, 
> and Snape agreed...? 
> 
> Another point is that he'd be humiliated. Would he really *want* to 
> admit that he'd been dumb enough to fall for Sirius' trick? 
> 
> ~Eloise

Tut, tut!
I think you both underestimate Snape's vindictiveness.
a) Why would he agree to a contract? He's got the winning hand - unless
DD can throw something extra in the pot that'll keep Sevvy sweet.
b) Nah - innocent, trusting student sent to a tryst with a werewolf by
thuggish offspring of Voldy-supporting family. That's the way to play it.
"I thought he was my friend" lisped shattered schoolboy Sevvy, "but now 
I see that his family was right to disown him. Who but a maniac would 
send a pal into the jaws of death? Who would've believed that our beloved 
Headmaster would secretly enter a werewolf into the student body? I just
want justice to be done," he quavered.

And best of all, except for a little poetic licence it's true. Sirius *did*
manoevre, persuade or con a fellow student into an extremely dangerous
situation - and thought it was funny. DD *did* conceal a werewolf around
the premises - and failed to keep it secure, too. Cor! Good job they don't
have lawyers in the WW. Can you imagine the claims for damages?
Any minor rules infraction by Snapey pales in comparison.   






From pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 17:25:09 2005
From: pt4ever at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid (JoAnna Wahlund)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 10:25:09 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7q2sd+6ns0@...>
Message-ID: <20050603172509.55717.qmail@...>

> 
> And best of all, except for a little poetic licence it's true. Sirius *did*
> manoevre, persuade or con a fellow student into an extremely dangerous
> situation - and thought it was funny. DD *did* conceal a werewolf around
> the premises - and failed to keep it secure, too. Cor! Good job they don't
> have lawyers in the WW. Can you imagine the claims for damages?
> Any minor rules infraction by Snapey pales in comparison.   
> 

Do you honestly think that the Severus Snape we know and love to hate (heh) would lie and
say that the odious Sirius Black was his *friend* under ANY circumstances?   Not to
mention that the rest of the Hogwarts student body could pipe up and say, "Black and
Snape HATED each other - they weren't friends at all!"  One such witness = Lily Evans.

I also wonder if the reason that Snape kept mum was a sort of grudging payback to James
Potter for saving his life.  From what I've read about the Prank, it seems to be that
SIRIUS was instrumental in setting it up, and perhaps James had no clue what Sirius had
done until Snape showed up that night.  (I don't have my books handly, though, so I could
be wrong...?)

~JoAnna~ 

 
Elly was born on 01/13/05.
Visit Elanor's website for pictures and updates! 
http://www.geocities.com/j_wahlund








		
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From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 19:07:33 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 19:07:33 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <20050603172509.55717.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d7q9pl+scqr@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, JoAnna Wahlund <pt4ever at y...> wrote:
> 
> Do you honestly think that the Severus Snape we know and love to hate (heh) would lie 
and
> say that the odious Sirius Black was his *friend* under ANY circumstances?   Not to
> mention that the rest of the Hogwarts student body could pipe up and say, "Black and
> Snape HATED each other - they weren't friends at all!"  One such witness = Lily Evans.
> 
> I also wonder if the reason that Snape kept mum was a sort of grudging payback to 
James
> Potter for saving his life.  From what I've read about the Prank, it seems to be that
> SIRIUS was instrumental in setting it up, and perhaps James had no clue what Sirius had
> done until Snape showed up that night.  (I don't have my books handly, though, so I 
could
> be wrong...?)
> 

No, you're right. Apparently James didn't  find out what Sirius had done until
Snapey had already beetled off to the Willow.

However, and be that as it may, it's also apparent that our Potions Maestro
feels no sense of gratitude towards J. Potter Esq. That's more or less self-
evident from the text. Could it be that he thought James was more concerned
with what might happen to Lupin if Sevvy was torn limb from limb? Possibly.
Everybody would be commiserating with Lupin - "it's not your fault, old bean,
you couldn't help it," while Sevvy's mortal remains were carted off to Sprout's
dung heap for composting.

Lie? A little judicious exaggeration, an emphasis in an unexpected direction,
a highlighting of some facts (all in the same year, spirit of comradeship, etc.
ad nauseam etc.) whilst downplaying other aspects ("I hate his guts!). Sure,
why not? It's not so different (except in degree of seriousness) to Malfoy
and his little contretemps with Buckbeak - which got Hagrid in deep trouble.
So what if others like Lily do contradict parts of his heartbreaking tale, it'll 
make no difference to what actually happened. And who would take much 
notice? From what we're told it's James and Sirius that strut the corridors
hexing anyone that annoys them, not Snape.

Kneasy





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 19:31:42 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 19:31:42 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7q9pl+scqr@...>
Message-ID: <d7qb6u+rvkr@...>

Kneasy:

> However, and be that as it may, it's also apparent that our Potions 
Maestro
> feels no sense of gratitude towards J. Potter Esq. That's more or 
less self-
> evident from the text. Could it be that he thought James was more 
concerned
> with what might happen to Lupin if Sevvy was torn limb from limb? 
Possibly.

Eloise:
Not being quite as devious as you ;-) I'll stick with the simple 
theory that he simply couldn't stand being rescued by the person he 
detested most in the school (for whatever reason), particularly as,

>From what we're told it's James and Sirius that strut the corridors
> hexing anyone that annoys them, not Snape.

Again, I think he found it humiliating also, perhaps, disconcerting 
that the talented waster who bullied him so in OoP had a decent side. 
Much easier, as Dumbledore implied, just to get on with hating 
someone than to have the situation complicated with life debts and 
all.

BTW, you mentioned timing earlier. The timing really is (literally) 
incredible. Not only is the timing of the transformation critical but 
James had to get there just in time to pull Snape back *before* he 
saw Lupin (or else he wouldn't have needed rescuing, he'd presumably 
have run of his own accord) but late enough that he did catch a 
glimpse of him (presumably over his shoulder).

~Eloise
who should be writing an essay (can't you tell?)






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 19:59:38 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 19:59:38 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qb6u+rvkr@...>
Message-ID: <d7qcra+je1t@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" <eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> 
> Eloise:
> Not being quite as devious as you ;-) I'll stick with the simple 
> theory that he simply couldn't stand being rescued by the person he 
> detested most in the school (for whatever reason), particularly as,
> 
> >From what we're told it's James and Sirius that strut the corridors
> > hexing anyone that annoys them, not Snape.
> 
> Again, I think he found it humiliating also, perhaps, disconcerting 
> that the talented waster who bullied him so in OoP had a decent side. 
> Much easier, as Dumbledore implied, just to get on with hating 
> someone than to have the situation complicated with life debts and 
> all.

Kneasy:
Devious is good, devious is *fun*. Besides one needs to scale the heights
of deviosity in order to pin DD down. 

The way Sirius recounts things in PoA, there wasn't all that much
history between WMPP and Snape before this - Sirius is grumbling on
about "sneaking around" and "sticking his nose in" - there's no
evidence that it was much more than irritation on the Marauders part
and 'not minding his own business' on the part of Snape. So why
would he get so agitated that it was James in particular that came to 
the rescue? No reason at all, that I can see. It's the actual 'Prank" and 
what happened after that is the root of Snape's animus IMO - particularly
that the offenders seem to get off scot-free. 
Now that really would piss him off.

And I certainly don't accept all that flannel  that DD showers on Harry -
alluding to debts or whatever. Load of tripe. Does Snape act as if he owes
anybody anything? Nope. Just the opposite. That was DD flim-flam,
providing an acceptable motive that Harry could understand without
asking too many questions.
 
> Eloise:
> BTW, you mentioned timing earlier. The timing really is (literally) 
> incredible. Not only is the timing of the transformation critical but 
> James had to get there just in time to pull Snape back *before* he 
> saw Lupin (or else he wouldn't have needed rescuing, he'd presumably 
> have run of his own accord) but late enough that he did catch a 
> glimpse of him (presumably over his shoulder).
> 

Kneasy:
Not I.
That was Pippin, I think.
But I agree, it is critical.
Unless you believe the unmitigated rubbish that the director of that
film had the bare-faced gall to perpetrate on the paying public.





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 21:42:17 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:42:17 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qcra+je1t@...>
Message-ID: <d7qirp+eq2t@...>

> Kneasy:
> Devious is good, devious is *fun*. Besides one needs to scale the 
heights
> of deviosity in order to pin DD down. 

Eloise:

I'm not objecting to deviosity, just admitting I'm not very good at 
it. :-)

Kneasy:
> The way Sirius recounts things in PoA, there wasn't all that much
> history between WMPP and Snape before this - Sirius is grumbling on
> about "sneaking around" and "sticking his nose in" - there's no
> evidence that it was much more than irritation on the Marauders part
> and 'not minding his own business' on the part of Snape. So why
> would he get so agitated that it was James in particular that came 
to 
> the rescue? No reason at all, that I can see. It's the 
actual 'Prank" and 
> what happened after that is the root of Snape's animus IMO - 
particularly
> that the offenders seem to get off scot-free. 
> Now that really would piss him off.

Eloise:
I'm not sure that's the way JKR intends us to read it. Surely the 
Snape's Worst Memory chapter is supposed to be corroborating evidence 
that there was stuff going on between Snape and MWPP *before* 
the "Prank"?

I confess I do find it fascinating that over here I'm in a discussion 
that accepts that Sirius was culpable for the "Prank" and now you're 
saying that it's the root of the enmity between Sirius/James and 
Snape when over on Main, some posters have been trying to lessen 
Sirius' culpability and suggest that there was some other underlying 
reason (ie some serious piece of history with Snape) for Sirius being 
unable to let go of his grudge.

Kneasy:
> And I certainly don't accept all that flannel  that DD showers on 
Harry -
> alluding to debts or whatever. Load of tripe. Does Snape act as if 
he owes
> anybody anything? Nope. Just the opposite. That was DD flim-flam,
> providing an acceptable motive that Harry could understand without
> asking too many questions.

Eloise:
Possibly, possibly. But Dumbledore had no reason whatsoever to 
mention to Harry  that James had saved Snape's life. He could have 
said something like Lupin did - that he was jealous of his father's 
Quidditch skills or something. See, I think it's *perfectly* in 
character for Snape to hate the fact that he was saved by someone he 
couldn't stand and to be particularly ungracious about it. And why 
shouldn't James and Severus have had a similar, immediate, 
instincitve dislike of each other, the same way Harry and Draco did? 
I think JKR's just sketched it in, but there's enough to imply what 
the situation was.
>  
> > Eloise:
> > BTW, you mentioned timing earlier. The timing really is 
(literally) 
> > incredible. Not only is the timing of the transformation critical 
but 
> > James had to get there just in time to pull Snape back *before* 
he 
> > saw Lupin (or else he wouldn't have needed rescuing, he'd 
presumably 
> > have run of his own accord) but late enough that he did catch a 
> > glimpse of him (presumably over his shoulder).
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Not I.
> That was Pippin, I think.
> But I agree, it is critical.
> Unless you believe the unmitigated rubbish that the director of that
> film had the bare-faced gall to perpetrate on the paying public.

Eloise:

Ah yes. You didn't like the PoA film, did you?
Planning to see GoF?

~Eloise







From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 21:45:50 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:45:50 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qcra+je1t@...>
Message-ID: <d7qj2e+mmtr@...>

Kneasy:
> And I certainly don't accept all that flannel  that DD showers on
Harry -
> alluding to debts or whatever. Load of tripe. Does Snape act as if
he owes anybody anything? Nope. Just the opposite. That was DD
flim-flam,
providing an acceptable motive that Harry could understand without
asking too many questions.

Pippin:
But he saved Harry's life, when it's clear that he thinks it would
serve the little twerp right if he got himself killed. And I'm pretty 
sure Snape didn't know about the prophecy. Why should anyone 
tell him?
>  
> > Eloise:
> > BTW, you mentioned timing earlier. The timing really is
(literally)  incredible. Not only is the timing of the transformation 
critical but  James had to get there just in time to pull Snape back 
*before* he  saw Lupin (or else he wouldn't have needed rescuing, he'd
presumably  have run of his own accord) but late enough that he did 
catch a glimpse of him (presumably over his shoulder).
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Not I.
> That was Pippin, I think.
> But I agree, it is critical.
> Unless you believe the unmitigated rubbish that the director of that
> film had the bare-faced gall to perpetrate on the paying public.

Pippin:
Tut, tut. Plotting for film is an entirely different art than
plotting novels.

No script-writer would introduce the hero's girlfriend,  leave her
to languish for a sequel or two before showing up for the 
wedding, then plop the leftover bits into appendix A part V.

The protagonist of the prank story is Snape, the antagonist is
ostensibly Sirius, but since Sirius is in no condition to become 
Harry's antagonist, the real antagonist must be someone else 
(sorry, Kneasy.) Not until Harry is about  to confront the real 
antagonist can the prank story be introduced to
the film.

Meanwhile, stepping back to look at the prank as a plotline, we have:
 
an initial situation: Lupin has a secret; Snape wants to know what it
is
development: Snape sees Lupin being taken to the willow
first plot point: Sirius tells Snape how to get inside
second plot point: Snape tries it
climax: Snape is rescued
denouement: Snape learns the secret, but is not allowed to reveal it


As Kneasy points out, the denouement is deficient -- what 
compelled Snape to keep silent?  Snape had/has  a secret 
of his own, surely.

But that's not the big gap. What's  missing is what Aristotle called 
recognition-- something  between the two plot points (it would be 
the centerpiece of the second act, if this were a three act play) 
has to change the relationship  between Snape and the other 
characters and make the second plot point  inevitable. 
Luke finds out Vader is his father, Frodo realizes 
he'll never get to Mordor without Gollum's help, etc.

I suspect my "Lupin coerced Snape"  theory is unpopular because
as a standalone recognition  it's not dramatically 
satisfying -- it doesn't change Snape's relationship with Lupin
whom he hates already. It would, however, dramatically change
Harry's relationship with Snape to find out that the real antagonist
is Lupin and has been all along.

Then of course, there's the problem of seeing Lupin as an antagonist.
But in hero-worshipping Lupin, we make the same mistake that 
Lupin himself made, IMO, in hero-worshipping his friends and later
Voldemort. Greatness <>goodness.



Pippin





From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun  3 23:46:30 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 23:46:30 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qj2e+mmtr@...>
Message-ID: <d7qq4m+iume@...>

Pippin wrote:

> Tut, tut. Plotting for film is an entirely different art than
> plotting novels.
> 
> No script-writer would introduce the hero's girlfriend,  leave her
> to languish for a sequel or two before showing up for the 
> wedding, then plop the leftover bits into appendix A part V.
> 
> The protagonist of the prank story is Snape, the antagonist is
> ostensibly Sirius, but since Sirius is in no condition to become 
> Harry's antagonist, the real antagonist must be someone else 
> (sorry, Kneasy.) Not until Harry is about  to confront the real 
> antagonist can the prank story be introduced to
> the film.
> 
> Meanwhile, stepping back to look at the prank as a plotline, we have:
>  
> an initial situation: Lupin has a secret; Snape wants to know what it
> is
> development: Snape sees Lupin being taken to the willow
> first plot point: Sirius tells Snape how to get inside
> second plot point: Snape tries it
> climax: Snape is rescued
> denouement: Snape learns the secret, but is not allowed to reveal it
> 
> 
> As Kneasy points out, the denouement is deficient -- what 
> compelled Snape to keep silent?  Snape had/has  a secret 
> of his own, surely.
> 
> But that's not the big gap. What's  missing is what Aristotle called 
> recognition-- something  between the two plot points (it would be 
> the centerpiece of the second act, if this were a three act play) 
> has to change the relationship  between Snape and the other 
> characters and make the second plot point  inevitable. 
> Luke finds out Vader is his father, Frodo realizes 
> he'll never get to Mordor without Gollum's help, etc.
> 
> I suspect my "Lupin coerced Snape"  theory is unpopular because
> as a standalone recognition  it's not dramatically 
> satisfying -- it doesn't change Snape's relationship with Lupin
> whom he hates already. It would, however, dramatically change
> Harry's relationship with Snape to find out that the real antagonist
> is Lupin and has been all along.
> 
> Then of course, there's the problem of seeing Lupin as an antagonist.
> But in hero-worshipping Lupin, we make the same mistake that 
> Lupin himself made, IMO, in hero-worshipping his friends and later
> Voldemort. Greatness <>goodness.
> 

Neri:
May I humbly (heh!) point out that all this wonderful lit analysis
depends on one critical assumption: that there's a story here.
Something with three acts, a protagonist, an antagonist, etc. This is
a rather big assumption considering all we have on The Prank (even
this title is a pure fandom invention) is less than one page in large
font. I suspect we might be mistaking a peace of the setting for a
whole play. Plotwise, the whole purpose of the Prank might be to have
Snape owing a life-debt to James while still hating James and the
Marauders more than ever. That it. Mission accomplished. All the
inconsistencies only suggest to me that JKR never put much thought
into it, and had never imagined we would pick it apart so obsessively.
I won't be surprised if all we get on the Prank will be one additional
page, which will perhaps solve an inconsistency or two and will
probably introduce several new ones, but none of the major points will
change. 

Remember, JKR have only two books left. She doesn't have enough room
in there for a whole prequel with six major characters (at the very
least the four Marauders, Snape and Lily) and still keep track of so
many characters in the here and now. And considering how Lucas managed
his prequels (yuck, yuck and YUCK) I'm rather thankful for that.

Neri








From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 10:26:45 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 10:26:45 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qirp+eq2t@...>
Message-ID: <d7rvl5+p7as@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" <eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> 
> Eloise:
> I'm not sure that's the way JKR intends us to read it. Surely the 
> Snape's Worst Memory chapter is supposed to be corroborating evidence 
> that there was stuff going on between Snape and MWPP *before* 
> the "Prank"?
> 

Kneasy:
As Talleyrand once commented "Treason, your Highness, is often a
matter of dates."
SFAIK we don't have a confirmed timeline of what happened when.
There could be a history between them but the intensity and duration
is up for grabs - and until there is authorial confirmation it's advisable
to examine all options IMO. Apart from the risk of inducing multiple
personality disorder, this can be fun, too. Having an alter ego means
you can always change your mind. Besides, defending alternative 
hypotheses keeps the old grey matter in trim.

I'm deeply suspicious of that "Worst Memory" label. For the time
being I tend to think of it with a question mark tacked onto it. There's
a post somewhere, erm... 80835 'The worst is yet to come' that expands
on this. And true to the ethic of 'why be difficult when with a little effort
you can be downright impossible' there are contrary interpretations that 
can be both entertaining and are not incongruent with the plot -  or at 
least that part of it that has been revealed so far.  For a start it's highly 
likely that whatever passed between Snape and Voldy would be a couple
of magnitudes worse than schoolboy embarrassments. You just don't 
leave Voldy and expect to collect your pension. And other alternative 
readings suggested include: that the boy on the bucking broomstick is
not Snape but James hexed by Snape - which would indicate that there
was a history of animosity  between them; the Black Widower theory
based on the crying child memory - that one's fun and explains why
Snape left Voldy. There's a good chance that there's as many red
herrings in those memories as there are in the Russian trawler fleet.
Listies leap on those memories with glad cries, accepting them at face
value - but Snape himself tells Harry that Legilimancy is not like opening
a filing cabinet, there is no order to memories, WYSIWYG and after a hint
like that caution is advisable. 

> Eloise:
> I confess I do find it fascinating that over here I'm in a discussion 
> that accepts that Sirius was culpable for the "Prank" and now you're 
> saying that it's the root of the enmity between Sirius/James and 
> Snape when over on Main, some posters have been trying to lessen 
> Sirius' culpability and suggest that there was some other underlying 
> reason (ie some serious piece of history with Snape) for Sirius being 
> unable to let go of his grudge.
> 

Kneasy:
Well they would, wouldn't they? Sirius is the sexy beast and he loves Harry
and so can be forgiven everything. The damaged hero syndrome, the 
Heathcliffe of Hogwarts. Not to yours truly.
>From the text he seems to be the fons et origo of the 'Prank', no-one else.
In PoA he still doesn't show regret or contrition, "it was his own fault" would
best sum up his attitude. To be expected from a pure-blood with affectations
of superiority, I suppose.

Either directly or indirectly he's responsible for the deaths of the Potters,
he's a bully, rash, vain, conceited, a failed murderer - and Harry was his 
sole means of maintaining any credibility within the Order, particularly
if he controlled Harry, had the final yea or nay on his involvement - as he 
tried to claim in OoP.
Without Harry he's a total and utter failure. 

> 
> Eloise:
> Possibly, possibly. But Dumbledore had no reason whatsoever to 
> mention to Harry  that James had saved Snape's life. He could have 
> said something like Lupin did - that he was jealous of his father's 
> Quidditch skills or something. See, I think it's *perfectly* in 
> character for Snape to hate the fact that he was saved by someone he 
> couldn't stand and to be particularly ungracious about it. And why 
> shouldn't James and Severus have had a similar, immediate, 
> instincitve dislike of each other, the same way Harry and Draco did? 
> I think JKR's just sketched it in, but there's enough to imply what 
> the situation was.

Kneasy:
Try this: Snape is DD's eyes and ears around Hogwarts, particularly in
regard to Harry. Snape is the watchdog/guardian while Harry is at school, 
he always seems to be around when Harry's up to no good - but it suits 
DD for Harry to believe that Snape dogs his footsteps through vindictiveness
rather than watchfulness. It helps prevent Harry asking awkward questions
and perhaps saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.
It's all part of the DD/Snape double act theory which seems to be more likely
with every book that passes.

> Eloise:
> 
> Ah yes. You didn't like the PoA film, did you?
> Planning to see GoF?
> 

Kneasy:
I  take it that's a rhetorical question.
No, I'm not planning on seeing the new film, especially following the report
this week that massive computer enhancement has been utilised to eliminate
an embarrassing plague of teenage zits that make-up couldn't cope with.






From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 13:47:57 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 13:47:57 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qq4m+iume@...>
Message-ID: <d7sbed+d3vt@...>

Neri:
>I suspect we might be mistaking a peace of the setting for a
> whole play. Plotwise, the whole purpose of the Prank might be to 
have
> Snape owing a life-debt to James while still hating James and the
> Marauders more than ever. That it. Mission accomplished. All the
> inconsistencies only suggest to me that JKR never put much thought
> into it, and had never imagined we would pick it apart so 
obsessively.

Eloise:
Do I hear the voice of Faith? Or is it the steaming of a long 
forgotten Magic Pressure Cooker? I forget. anyway, you sum up my 
feelings exactly.

Kneasy:
>>As Talleyrand once commented "Treason, your Highness, is often a
matter of dates."
SFAIK we don't have a confirmed timeline of what happened when.

Eloise:
Except insofar as we know that the Worst Memory incident happened in 
the middle of OWLs and the "Prank" happened when Sirius was sixteen, 
presumably in the following school year. lupin simply says that they 
didn't like each other (implication in general, not just as a result 
of the "Prank" and....well, there's no point quoting Dumbledore at 
you.

Kneasy
>>There could be a history between them but the intensity and duration
is up for grabs 

Eloise:
True.

Kneasy:
>>- and until there is authorial confirmation it's advisable
to examine all options IMO. Apart from the risk of inducing multiple
personality disorder, this can be fun, too. Having an alter ego means
you can always change your mind. Besides, defending alternative
hypotheses keeps the old grey matter in trim.

Eloise:

Far be it from me to compromise the health of your grey matter.

Kneasy:
>>I'm deeply suspicious of that "Worst Memory" label. For the time
being I tend to think of it with a question mark tacked onto it. 

Eloise:
I think that's a given. I assume it's what Harry *thinks* is his 
worst memory, except for the possibility that if 1) one accepts 
LOLLIPOPS (which I've long struggled against, but think is probably 
correct) and 2) interprest Severus' personality a particular way, I 
think it not incongruous that he may have found this incident more 
exquisitely psychologically painful on a personal level than anything 
he's been involved in as a DE.

In fact, it's probably the worst memory that he could have exposed 
Harry to; I tend to the view he was attempting to protect Harry from 
it (but then I would). It's also perhaps the most humiliating episode 
in his life that Harry could witness, so there's justification to 
calling it a worst memory in a couple of ways. Just not the expected 
one of "This is the worst thing a DE has ever seen/experienced in his 
life."

<snip>

Kneasy:
>> For a start it's highly
likely that whatever passed between Snape and Voldy would be a couple
of magnitudes worse than schoolboy embarrassments. You just don't
leave Voldy and expect to collect your pension. 

Eloise:
Ah. This brings us onto something different. Do you then believe that 
Voldemort *knows* that Snape has left him, that he's not a double 
agent, but just a spy? How then is he able to have contact with 
Lucius? If you leave Voldemort, you're *dead*.

Kneasy:
>>And other alternative
readings suggested include: that the boy on the bucking broomstick is
not Snape but James hexed by Snape - which would indicate that there
was a history of animosity between them; 

Eloise:

That memory is a funny one. Remember what Hagrid said about needing 
powerful dark magic to hex a broom? Not that Hagrid is entirely 
reliable. Now it *could* be supposed to relate to Lupin telling us 
Snape was jealous of James' flying skills but that in itself I find 
odd. If you're completely hopeless at something you're less likely to 
have a personal jealousy towards someone skilled at it than if you're 
pretty good but just can't quite compete (IMHO). Also, he refereed a 
Quidditch match and although there was complaining that he was liable 
to be biased, there is no suggestion at all that he was incompetant, 
no suggestion that Snape shouldn't be there because he couldn't even 
play. I've always interpreted the two together to suggest that he 
*was* a competant player, but just not in James' league.

Kneasy:
>>the Black Widower theory
based on the crying child memory - that one's fun and explains why
Snape left Voldy. There's a good chance that there's as many red
herrings in those memories as there are in the Russian trawler fleet.

Eloise:
Very witty, Wilde.
I tend to the view that though there *are* red herrings, too many 
just cause confusion. I'm sure that whilst there *is* misdirection, 
JKR is also trying to sketch in some character background.

AFAIC, Snape is a character in search of a father. Those particular 
Pensieve memories accorded with what I already pretty much believed 
about his back story, so yes, I do take them at face value. And I 
believe the reason he knew all those curse was because he hated his 
father so much and had been practising what he'd *like* to do to him.

Kneasy:
>>Listies leap on those memories with glad cries, accepting them at 
face
value - but Snape himself tells Harry that Legilimancy is not like 
opening
a filing cabinet, there is no order to memories, WYSIWYG and after a 
hint
like that caution is advisable.

Eloise:
I know, I know.

<snip Sirius ranting>

Kneasy:
>>Try this: Snape is DD's eyes and ears around Hogwarts, particularly 
in
regard to Harry. Snape is the watchdog/guardian while Harry is at 
school,
he always seems to be around when Harry's up to no good - but it suits
DD for Harry to believe that Snape dogs his footsteps through 
vindictiveness
rather than watchfulness. It helps prevent Harry asking awkward 
questions
and perhaps saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong 
time.
It's all part of the DD/Snape double act theory which seems to be 
more likely
with every book that passes.

Eloise:

I can buy that. But I prefer my Snape both vindictive *and* watchful. 
Just makes him more interesting. Which of course biases me.

> Eloise:
>
> Ah yes. You didn't like the PoA film, did you?
> Planning to see GoF?
>

Kneasy:
I take it that's a rhetorical question.

Eloise:

You Legilimens, you.

Kneasy:
No, I'm not planning on seeing the new film, especially following the 
report
this week that massive computer enhancement has been utilised to 
eliminate
an embarrassing plague of teenage zits that make-up couldn't cope 
with.

Eloise:

Well personally, I'd prefer to see them without than with, but each 
to their own. Evidently the budget didn't run either to bubotubor pus 
or the insurance levels needed to cover the Eloise Midgen approach.

~Eloise (far too old for acne) Herisson












From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 14:12:31 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 14:12:31 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7qq4m+iume@...>
Message-ID: <d7scsf+vjdc@...>

> Neri:
> May I humbly (heh!) point out that all this wonderful lit analysis
> depends on one critical assumption: that there's a story here.
> Something with three acts, a protagonist, an antagonist, etc.

Pippin:
 
Well, of course there's a story -- it's a very old story --
call it "Curiosity Killed the Cat." Eve, Pandora, Goldilocks. 
(There's something  womanish about Snape, isn't there?)
Always a prohibition, an instigator, and a temptation. 
The temptation is what's missing here -- what made
entering the willow irresistable?  What made Snape set
his caution aside? 

We thought we knew, we thought Snape would never 
dream that Sirius was playing a trick on him...but that was 
when we thought Snape and his gang were the bullies and 
James and co were the innocents.  JKR chose to reverse 
that...she didn't have to. 


 JKR has pages and pages of backstory about characters like
Theo Nott -- do you think she doesn 't know why Snape entered the
willow?  Why make the point that Snape is always cunning and
careful enough to keep himself out of trouble, why contrast  it
with Bertha Jorkins  so that Dumbledore can ask, "But why, Bertha,
why did you have to follow him in the first place"

Neri:
> Remember, JKR have only two books left. She doesn't have enough room
> in there for a whole prequel with six major characters (at the very
> least the four Marauders, Snape and Lily) and still keep track of so
> many characters in the here and now. And considering how Lucas
managed
> his prequels (yuck, yuck and YUCK) I'm rather thankful for that.

Pippin:
It's only difficult to account for the inconsistencies if you insist
on innocent  Lupin -- I tried writing Lupin's confession once, and it
took me about a page and a half. The difficult thing about it
is matching  the half-guilty, half-arrogant tone -- so that it
sounds like Lupin telling it.

That, as JKR says, comes from actually writing  the
backstory (instead of deducing it from the clues as I am) so that you
can "move your characters across the page."

 And she's said that we'll learn 
everything about the Marauders we need to know.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 14:56:51 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 14:56:51 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7sbed+d3vt@...>
Message-ID: <d7sffj+mr6f@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" <eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> 
> Eloise:
> Ah. This brings us onto something different. Do you then believe that 
> Voldemort *knows* that Snape has left him, that he's not a double 
> agent, but just a spy? How then is he able to have contact with 
> Lucius? If you leave Voldemort, you're *dead*.
> 

Kneasy:
Oh, yes. Voldy knows all right. If DD stands up in court and tells everyone
that Modest-hero!Snape has been working against Voldy for at least a year,
then he's not going to be on Voldy's Christmas card list. Next time he sees
Sevvy it'll be "Ooh! Look at the pretty green lights!" Theories abound of
double- and triple-agent activities, but it gets so horribly complicated that
as you keep going round in circles there's a danger of vanishing up your 
own chuff.

I don't even think that he's a spy, not in the normal use of the word. A
blown spy is about as much use as pockets in a shroud - but if he were 
acting as, say, an agent of influence, attempting to split Malfoy et al away 
from Voldy (either "come on in, the water's fine!" or "a plague on both their 
houses; don't fully commit yourself until you're sure who'll win") then it would 
make sense. Of course if he should happen to pick up a nugget of information
while reminiscing about the good old days....
And it may be working - "Lucius, my slippery friend..."

> 
> Eloise:
> AFAIC, Snape is a character in search of a father. Those particular 
> Pensieve memories accorded with what I already pretty much believed 
> about his back story, so yes, I do take them at face value. And I 
> believe the reason he knew all those curse was because he hated his 
> father so much and had been practising what he'd *like* to do to him.
> 

Kneasy:
Um. With DD as surrogate? Or is it a diabolical fluffy plot so  that at
the end as Harry kneels by Snape's broken body, Snape can launch into
a  cringe-making speech, telling how he identified with Harry because
they both grew up without fathers, or identifying Unc. Vern with Snape's 
own Murdstone-like pater? Argh! Please, no! Leave the man some dignity,
he's a prime example of a miserable old swine, let him ascend to his
personal Valhalla muttering imprecations at the idle, uncomprehending
ineptitude of Potter Jnr.
  
> 
> Eloise:
> 
> I can buy that. But I prefer my Snape both vindictive *and* watchful. 
> Just makes him more interesting. Which of course biases me.
> 

Kneasy:
He's vindictive, right enough. But I reckon that it's aimed at Voldy. He
wants Voldy humbled, brought low, ground into the dust so that he can
caper joyfully on the squidgy remains. And usually folk only have room
for one real hate figure at a time; two seems excessively self-indulgent
and detracts from spending long hours in the dark watches of the night
refining imaginative retribution. It's a full-time job, hating.








From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 15:11:40 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 15:11:40 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7sbed+d3vt@...>
Message-ID: <d7sgbc+oikc@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" <eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> 
> AFAIC, Snape is a character in search of a father. Those particular 
> Pensieve memories accorded with what I already pretty much believed 
> about his back story, so yes, I do take them at face value. And I 
> believe the reason he knew all those curse was because he hated his 
> father so much and had been practising what he'd *like* to do to him.
> 

A thought has just struck me.
Has anyone explored the possibility that Voldy is Snapes father?
Now that'd be a turn-up for the books.
"Father, father! How can you be so cruel?"
"Practice, my boy; practice."
It'd explain why we know zero about Sevvy's antecedents, too.

Nothing against it so far as the time-line is concerned SFAIK.
Mm. Must browse through canon and search for unconsidered trifles
that may be pointers.

(Note to researchers in years to come - you may be witnessing the birth
of a theory - if no-one else thought of it first.)

Kneasy





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 15:15:32 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 15:15:32 -0000
Subject: Snape the spy was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7sffj+mr6f@...>
Message-ID: <d7sgik+l087@...>

> Kneasy:
> Oh, yes. Voldy knows all right. If DD stands up in court and tells
everyone that Modest-hero!Snape has been working against Voldy 
for at least a year,  then he's not going to be on Voldy's Christmas 
card list. Next time he sees Sevvy it'll be "Ooh! Look at the pretty 
green lights!" Theories abound of double- and triple-agent
activities,  but it gets so horribly complicated that  as you keep 
going round in circles there's a danger of vanishing up your  
own chuff.

Pippin:
But he *has* to be getting away with it, or he's dead--there seems to
be this idea that he's safe if he doesn't go back to Voldy, but good
grief!

If everyone knows he betrayed Voldy, then the rest of the DE's know
too. What Death Eater wouldn't want the glory of picking him off?
Lucius especially -- he needs to convince the Master that he's
serious  about Death Eating, after that fiasco at the QWC.

Sirius even makes a point of telling us that Voldemort doesn't 
insist on doing this kind of thing himself. 

Pippin





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 17:02:50 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 17:02:50 -0000
Subject: Prank timing and Snape's worst memory (was Lupin)
In-Reply-To: <d7sbed+d3vt@...>
Message-ID: <d7smrq+jfkf@...>

Eloise wrote:

> Except insofar as we know that the Worst Memory incident happened in 
> the middle of OWLs and the "Prank" happened when Sirius was sixteen, 
> presumably in the following school year. 

I just popped over to the Lexicon
 (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/sources/jkr.com/jkr-com.html )

to check, and it seems we don't know Sirius' birthday.

His sixteenth birthday presumably fell at some point in his fifth 
year, and so the prank could be any time from early in his fifth year 
until late in his sixth.

IIRC, the prank doesn't depend on their having learnt the animagus 
charm, so the fact that that took place in their fifth year is not 
relevant.

I'll recapitulate why I understand the scene Harry sees in the 
Pensieve is Snape's worst memory.  It's nothing to do with underpants 
or protecting Harry.

As I see it, the crucial moment is when Snape rejected Lily's offer of 
help.  She appears in the scene as a neutral person, and he pushes her 
away from his 'side' in the affair.

I see this as the point at which he solidifies his prejudice (he does 
not want help from a mudblood) and thus both (in his imagination at 
least) puts Lily on a path of favouring James and himself towards 
Death Eaterdom.

This does not mean he was in love with Lily, just that this incident 
was a missed opportunity - *the* missed opportunity - to set his life 
on a different path.  On Dumbledore's philosophy of choices, this was 
the one that defined Snape for the rest of his life (yes, I know he 
left the DEs, but in his relationship with the Order, and his own 
emotional state, permanent damage was done), and he can well look back 
on it as his worst moment and memory, and wonder what would have 
happened if he had chosen differently.

David





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 17:05:48 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 17:05:48 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7sffj+mr6f@...>
Message-ID: <d7sn1c+itur@...>

> > 
> > Eloise:
> > AFAIC, Snape is a character in search of a father. Those particular 
> > Pensieve memories accorded with what I already pretty much believed 
> > about his back story, so yes, I do take them at face value. And I 
> > believe the reason he knew all those curse was because he hated his 
> > father so much and had been practising what he'd *like* to do to 
him.
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Um. With DD as surrogate? Or is it a diabolical fluffy plot?

Eloise:
No fluff, I promise.

It's just that fathers (well, parents, but fathers in particular) seem 
to play such a significant role in the books.

We have the relationships between Voldemort and his father (or rather 
thethe lack of it through abandonment and consequent hatred), that 
between the Crouches (or again a relationship that turns to hatred and 
rejection), Harry and James (lack of father, idolisation, 
disillusionment), Neville (absence of father again - who knows what's 
going on with him), Sirius rejecting family, Vernon abusing both Harry 
and Dudley in their different ways (and I seriously wonder if we're 
going to see some kind of consequence of that regarding Dudley), the 
relationship between Arthur and Percy.... I may have missed some.
But anyway, repeatedly we have the themes of absent 
fathers/disappointment in fathers and the effect that has on the son in 
question.

I do believe that Dumbledore is a father figure to Snape and that their 
interactions have much of the parent-child relationship about them. 
Consequently I see his Death Eating days and defection as a bit of a 
Prodigal Son episode (and note the parallel resentment of the son who 
didn't go away - Sirius).

I think I also came to the idea through a belief that JKR wanted us to 
draw parallels between Snape and Draco. I can easily see Snape as 
someone who had the kind of father for whom nothing was ever good 
enough.

And then there are those curses. *Why* did he know so many?
Well, possibly just because he came from a Dark Wizarding 
background...but so did Sirius and he was the one who commented on it.

And then JKR drops in the Pensieve scene which I take at face value 
because it accords with what I already thought.

FWIW, my own back story for Snape is that he was the product of a 
loveless marriage (I like to fancy that his father married for money 
and when he had run through it abandoned his family - no canon at all, 
for that), that his father was cruel and his mother weak (not defending 
him against his father) and that Snape despised them both. He is cold 
and aloof and unkind because those who provided his childhood role 
models were also cold, aloof and unkind. 

He might be in for a bit of a crisis when Dumbledore bites the dust.

> Pippin:
> But he *has* to be getting away with it, or he's dead--there seems to
> be this idea that he's safe if he doesn't go back to Voldy, but good
> grief!
> 
> If everyone knows he betrayed Voldy, then the rest of the DE's know
> too. What Death Eater wouldn't want the glory of picking him off?
> Lucius especially -- he needs to convince the Master that he's
> serious  about Death Eating, after that fiasco at the QWC.
> 
> Sirius even makes a point of telling us that Voldemort doesn't 
> insist on doing this kind of thing himself. 

Eloise:

Why the whole world doesn't know about Snape's defection is one of the 
great mysteries of the Potterverse.

1) Would the parents governors accept an ex-DE on the staff of Hogwarts?
2) Why doesn't Sirius know that Snape is a DE? He heard stuff in 
Azkaban, but apparently *nothing* about Snape.
3) Why is Snape's Dark Mark such a shock to Fudge?

I can only assume that,
1) Snape was working under cover for *both* sides i.e. other DEs didn't 
know his identity in a similar way as it was apprently unknown to 
Sirius that Snape was working for Dumbledore(although of course Crouch 
Jr and Karkaroff knew).
2) That the trial/hearing/whatever was protected by something like a 
Fidelius so that what was said, at least about Snape, remained secret.

But I can't work it out. Why *isn't* he dead?
Actually, that would be a good question to put in for that book release 
interview.

~Eloise







From Pookie1_uk at pookie1_uk.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 17:19:14 2005
From: Pookie1_uk at pookie1_uk.yahoo.invalid (S A H Culfeather)
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 18:19:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Prank timing and Snape's worst memory (was Lupin)
In-Reply-To: <d7smrq+jfkf@...>
Message-ID: <20050604171914.61195.qmail@...>

<Daid wrote:
As I see it, the crucial moment is when Snape rejected
Lily's offer of 
help.  She appears in the scene as a neutral person,
and he pushes her 
away from his 'side' in the affair.>


Now this is very plausible. I've been wondering if
there hadn't been a sort of red herring in that worst
memory scene because despite the hanging upside-down
bit etc. I couldn't help thinking he must have worse
than that - either before or after.

I do think his turning to hte Order had something to
do with Lily in some form or other but I don't
subscribe to the "Snape was in love with Lily"
scenario, at least not in so many words.

I also have always liked the idea that while Harry is
hard for Snape to have around because he is so like
James, that it is made worse by the fact that it is
Lily who looks out at him with those green eyes - and
therefore Harry is a constant reminder of her too.

Serena
x





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 20:15:09 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 20:15:09 -0000
Subject: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank (long)
In-Reply-To: <d7sgbc+oikc@...>
Message-ID: <d7t24d+j7j8@...>

Kneasy
> A thought has just struck me.
> Has anyone explored the possibility that Voldy is Snapes father?
> Now that'd be a turn-up for the books.
> "Father, father! How can you be so cruel?"
> "Practice, my boy; practice."

Eloise:
How do you mimic my exchanges with my children so accurately? (They 
don't call me 'Father', I hasten to add.)


Kneasy:
> It'd explain why we know zero about Sevvy's antecedents, too. > 
> Nothing against it so far as the time-line is concerned SFAIK.
> Mm. Must browse through canon and search for unconsidered trifles
> that may be pointers.

Eloise:
Thing against it is that JKR is definite that Voldemort is the last 
surviving descendent of Salazar Slytherin. 

Oops... this is the second time to day that the thought has struck me.
She's said that we'll find out in Book 7 why it's such a "horrible" 
idea to be loved by Snape.

Severus is not one of the living dead...Severus is not one of the 
living dead...Severus...







From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 20:59:03 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 21:59:03 +0100
Subject: Daddy dearest
Message-ID: <603AAB0F-D808-4E56-8B3B-55FB9CF91EE8@...>

OK.
A stray thought this afternoon has set me to the keyboard once more.  
It's mostly tentative musing at the moment, though if any reasonable  
evidence turns up it'll flower into full-blown proselytising.
You have been warned.
Can't find any evidence that this one has been tackled before (if  
anyone has information to the contrary, please post).

So - how do you fancy Snape as son of Voldy?
Right. You can stop laughing now. Thank you.

I admit that there are certain difficulties in constructing a  
coherent theory, but when has that ever stopped a hair-brained idea  
from the posters? Never, so far as I can recall.  And if it falls  
apart like a badly made meat-loaf - well, consider it practice for  
what's to come in 6 weeks - a sort of exercise for the reader.

Let's look at the difficulties first, 'cos if I don't everybody else  
will.

Within minutes of the post suggesting such an abomination, there  
came, winging its way across the aether, a mail from Carolyn.
Labelled "an irritating bit of canon for you", it said:

 >
See:

JK Rowling's World Book Day Chat, March 4, 2004

Q: Has Voldermort any children?
JK Rowling replies -> No. Voldemort as a father... now that's not a
nice thought.
 >

Good point.
As counter-move I'll use the JKR/Dobby gambit. What? You don't  
remember it? Really? Oh, all right, I'll explain. The necessities of  
the plot in CoS found it quite acceptable for Dobby to regard Tom and  
Voldy as distinct personages - and not Diary!Tom, the original Tom.  
Something I thought was a bit of a swizz. I clearly remember throwing  
the book against the wall, foul language rent the air and the dog  
(sadly no longer with us, alas) hid behind the TV.  But if such  
sophistry can be used to split hairs once, why not again? Fine,  
that's one difficulty out of the way.

The next one that will occur to most is the Heir of Slytherin/Last of  
the Line
objection. Not a problem. I've long posited that if anyone could get  
into the Chamber they become the de facto Heir to Salazars bequest.  
Blood has nothing to do with it. Harry didn't seem to have any  
difficulty getting in and he's not a blood relation.

Last of the Line can be finagled as well. If (like Sirius) an off- 
spring is disowned, discredited, cast out never to darken this door- 
step again, then so far as his progenitors view the matter he no  
longer exists. The line has ended so far as dear old dad is concerned.

There we go! That was easy, wasn't it?
Back to the drawing board.

Timeline. Tom was in his final years at Hogwarts in '44/'45. GH was  
in '81. At  a rough estimate, that's a 36 year gap. Allow a number of  
years of conflict before GH, plus his world tour searching for who- 
knows-what, and it still leaves time for a bit of old how's-yer- 
father with some willing maid - with or without the benefit of formal  
social sanction - to bring forth a squalling Sevvy in '59 or '60   
before setting up as He-who-must-be-obeyed-and-that-includes-you- 
sunshine. (All dates from the Lexicon.)

Now I'll admit  that there's not a great deal of positive canon  
support for this febrile contention, not that leaps out and socks you  
in the eye, anyway. But there wasn't all that much to indicate Crouch! 
Moody was a ringer or that Scabbers was going to be the subject of  
gross over-acting in that damn film. As usual, the canon looks  
different in retrospect.

So I'll throw in a few points for consideration. His name - not  
Riddle, that's for sure. Nor yet Voldemort minor. Maybe there were no  
marriage vows and he took his mother's name. Anyway if you were  
related to the most evil person in the world wouldn't you change it?  
And Severus. Generally accepted as deriving (for HP purposes) from  
'severe'. Why not 'severed' as in cut off by his family?

All this Dark Magic he was supposed to know when he started at  
Hogwarts. Must have been a hell of a lot - Sirius comes from a nasty  
family that dabbled in stuff like that, highly likely he knew more  
than a modicum himself, yet Snape is regarded as knowing  
significantly more. He must have been influenced by some seriously  
evil people.

Lastly - there's been mention in recent posts that maybe Sevvy had  
some dark secret that DD used to shut him up about the 'Prank". What  
could be darker than this? And is this why DD keeps Snape out of the  
DADA job - because blood might tell?

Must see what else I can find to give support to this speculative  
line of thought.

Kneasy



From kelleythompson at kelleyscorpio.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 22:54:47 2005
From: kelleythompson at kelleyscorpio.yahoo.invalid (Kelley)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 22:54:47 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <001501c56780$04637970$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d7tbfn+dd90@...>

Ha, Mike!  How fantastic to see you!!  Hope you and the family are
doing well.  How's life been for you lately?

Mike wrote:
> I'm just curious: have there already been several zillion quests, 
> jousts and pitched battles about the contrast between Dumbledore's 
> insistence on speaking of Lord V. by name and Dumbledore's 
> reluctance to speak the name of the force held in the closed room 
> in the Department of Mysteries?

Hm; like David said, if there have been, I haven't seen it.  
Interesting, I never made that connection.  To me it's just JKR 
holding back, an attempt to prolong the mystery a bit more, rather
than any deeper significance via the character of Dumbledore.

--Kelley, miles behind, but loving the discussions...





From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 23:02:56 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:02:56 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7sn1c+itur@...>
Message-ID: <d7tbv0+croc@...>


> Eloise:
> 
> Why the whole world doesn't know about Snape's defection is one of the 
> great mysteries of the Potterverse.
> 
> 1) Would the parents governors accept an ex-DE on the staff of Hogwarts?


Neri:
We have this problem in any case, because it looks like Snape was
already a teacher at Hogwarts during Karkaroff's trial, and none of
the 200 wizards present seemed to object. Also, the Durmstrang's
governors later made Karkaroff a *Headmaster*.   


> Eloise:
> 2) Why doesn't Sirius know that Snape is a DE? He heard stuff in 
> Azkaban, but apparently *nothing* about Snape.


Neri:
I have a theory that explains this mystery and several others. It is
detailed in:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hogs_Head/message/2772
But briefly, it suggests no DE in Azkaban knew about Snape because all
the DEs that Snape knew (apparently Malfoy, Crabbe. Goyle, Avery, Nott
and Macnair) got a free ticket out of Azkaban. Snape himself, under
DD's orders, had told the Ministry that they were not DEs. This was
calculated in order to gain their good opinion, so they will help
warming Snape's way back into Voldy's trust once he's back. 


> Eloise:
> 3) Why is Snape's Dark Mark such a shock to Fudge?
> 


Neri:
Well, it wasn't *such* a shock. Fudge merely "recoiled" when Snape
shoved his Dark Mark under his nose, an understandable reaction
considering most wizards are so afraid of it. But Fudge didn't demand
Snape will be arrested, investigated or anything of the sort.
 

> Eloise:
> I can only assume that,<snip>
> 2) That the trial/hearing/whatever was protected by something like a 
> Fidelius so that what was said, at least about Snape, remained secret.


Neri:
If this is the case then we were shown a way to bypass a Fidelius:
look at the Pensieve memory of one who knows the secret. But I very
much doubt it. For one thing, in the end of the GoF Pensieve chapter
DD asked Harry to keep silent about Neville's parents, but he *didn't*
ask him to keep secret about Snape being an ex-DE. 

Also, if it was such a well-kept secret, with such critical
implications for Snape's life, would Snape himself reveal it to Fudge?
And in front of quite a big croud too, including Harry, Ron, Hermione,
Molly, Bill and Madam Pomfrey. It just doesn't strike me like it was
such a well-kept secret.   


> Eloise:
> But I can't work it out. Why *isn't* he dead?

Neri:
I don't know, but I wouldn't preclude the possiblity that Snape
managed to survive a year in Voldy's death list. After all, Harry has
managed to survive even longer than that, and he was even higher in
that list. I guess DD's protection does count for something. 


Neri





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun  4 23:04:53 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:04:53 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d7tbfn+dd90@...>
Message-ID: <d7tc2l+3evo@...>

Kelley wrote:

> To me it's just JKR 
> holding back, an attempt to prolong the mystery a bit more, rather
> than any deeper significance via the character of Dumbledore.
> 
> --Kelley, miles behind, but loving the discussions...

Also, as Kelley mentioned to me offlist, there's a difference between 
being reluctant to say a specific name, and withholding information 
about what's in the room.  Dumbledore doesn't circumlocute here ("the 
power that must not be named"), he simple keeps back what the power is.

David






From kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 04:05:09 2005
From: kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid (Lyn J. Mangiameli)
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 04:05:09 -0000
Subject: Daddy dearest
In-Reply-To: <603AAB0F-D808-4E56-8B3B-55FB9CF91EE8@...>
Message-ID: <d7ttll+lh2m@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> OK.
> > 
> Timeline. Tom was in his final years at Hogwarts in '44/'45. GH was  
> in '81. At  a rough estimate, that's a 36 year gap. >

Lyn here:
I'm dubious about the Snape/Riddle connection, but I do think you touch on what is a 
potential source for some revelations to come. We know of at least one warrior (DD), and 
likely there were many more, in the conflict with Grindenwald. One gets the impression, as 
with Voldemort, that the threat from Grindy was quite real, and surely potentially mortal. 
During this time, DD appears to have had had Hogworts as his home, and likely there were 
other professors involved. Hogworts is a very visible location for a warrior. It is also a very 
visible location for the warriors family. Thus I suspect that there were many family 
members of warriors who were sheltered in anonymity during this era. It would not 
surprise me that any of DD direct or indirect progeny, as well as those of other warriors, 
were kept unknown as a protection for Grindy retribution.  So my guess is that Snape is 
the product of any anonymous child or grand child of DD, or if not DD, then another 
professor who was also a warrior against Grindy.

As I"ve mentioned privately, I think much can be explained about Snape if one assumes he 
is the product of one of DD offspring. It would explain part of his loyalty to DD, DD refusal 
to explain to Harry why he so trusts Shape, and most of all, would highlight Snape's angst 
over DD not doing enough over the Prank (how can you favor and support them, when it is 
I who shares blood with you). Consider also the feelings Snape would have if he felt that 
DD allowed Snapes mother (DD's daughter) to be victimized by her husband because DD 
was too busy elsewhere saving the world. 

I'm not big on this possibility, but I do think it would allow for some Snape dynamics to 
fall into place. If the other professors knew of his relationship to DD (or another professor) 
it might also be part of the reason why they grant him with the respect they do).

Regardless, I do suspect there were some hidden children from that era (as there appear to 
be during the present era), and something will come up about this.  

 
> Lastly - there's been mention in recent posts that maybe Sevvy had  
> some dark secret that DD used to shut him up about the 'Prank". What  
> could be darker than this? And is this why DD keeps Snape out of the  
> DADA job - because blood might tell?

Lyn again, 
Yes, I am growing more and more convinced that the whole background of the Prank 
scenario was to set up an equality of blackmail. And it was the balance of secrets that has 
maintained the silence about that night (and likely several other things as well). In the end, 
I don't believe Snape would ever have remained quiet for any other reason than self 
interest, and the greatest self interest for him would be insuring silence with respect to his 
own secret.





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 12:15:07 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 12:15:07 -0000
Subject: Daddy dearest
In-Reply-To: <d7ttll+lh2m@...>
Message-ID: <d7uqcb+e16c@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Lyn J. Mangiameli" <kumayama at e...> wrote:

> some judicious snipping>
I'm dubious about the Snape/Riddle connection, but I do think 
you touch on what is a potential source for some revelations to 
come. [...] Thus I suspect that there were many family members 
who were sheltered in anonymity during this era. It would not 
surprise me that any of DD direct or indirect progeny, as well as 
those of other warriors, were kept unknown as a protection for 
Grindy retribution.  So my guess is that Snape is the product of 
any anonymous child or grand child of DD, or if not DD, then another 
professor who was also a warrior against Grindy.
 
Yes, I am growing more and more convinced that the whole background
of the Prank scenario was to set up an equality of blackmail. [...] I don't 
believe Snape would ever have remained quiet for any other reason than 
self interest, and the greatest self interest for him would be insuring silence
with respect to his own secret.
>

Interesting thinking.
Ah! The barely limitless realms of possibilities that could result.
Mind you, switching from Voldy to DD as proud papa to Snapey is
a bit startling. Whatever. That's what we're here for, isn't it?

Firstly something which may end up supporting your ideas - Jo's
avoidance of specifying who amongst the Hogwarts staff are or have
been married, but allowing that it will have plot implications. Naturally
many fans hankered for some connection to Harry, but Sevvy would
definitely have more BANG. 

And if (as many suspect) DD wheezes his last in HBP, this revelation
and the assumption of leadership of the Order by Snape would be a 
bit of a shocker for, let's say, some of the more conventionally fluffy
amongst the fan base. It'd upset Harry too - (Snape's elevation to this
post), since he already seems to be de facto second-in-command - 
something I've speculated on before. His direct descent from DD would
upset him even more. Expect more tantrums.

Of course I'm not going to abandon investigating the possibility of a
connection between Snape and Voldy just yet - comparing and
contrasting the two very different possibilities should provide  hours
of fun over the coming weeks. For example, "his secret" that is hidden
through self-interest could equally apply to having Tom/Voldy in his
background.  Fascinating. Even if the board is not attracted by either
idea it'll probably become a pastime for adventurous, consenting 
adults in private. Closet genealogists fixated on arcane familial links,
Snape-ologists constructing photo-fits to trace the descent of that
hooked nose and greasy hair. No new theories for ages, then fresh
and opposing speculations appear to divert the members, at least
for a while, from the increasing impatience that'll keep building until 
the new book is released.  

But who's his mum?
Knowing how Jo constructs her plots, it's probable that the name has
already appeared somewhere in the books, hence my contention (in
the Black Widower hypothesis) that Snape was paired with Florence.
So who could it be? McGonagall? Mrs Figg? Poppy Pomfrey? Doris
Crockford? The mind boggles.

Kneasy





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 17:44:38 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 17:44:38 -0000
Subject: Snape, of course
Message-ID: <d7vdm6+3a5p@...>

Pippin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1712 :

<< But he saved Harry's life, when it's clear that he thinks it 
would serve the little twerp right if he got himself killed. And 
I'm pretty sure Snape didn't know about the prophecy. Why should
anyone tell him? >>

Surely Dumbledore must have told Snape that HP is the only one who can
defeat LV,  because he needs Snape to help protect HP at Hogwarts.
Snape saved HP's life when he'd rather transfigure HP into a worm and
step on him, because Snape puts an even higher priority on defeating
LV than on hating Marauders.

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1718 :

<< Has anyone explored the possibility that Voldy is Snape's 
father? >>

Yes, including a long-ago fanfic in which Lily and Sevvie were
Voldemort's twins, put in foster homes at birth, who met at Hogwarts
and fell in love. Until learning of their prior relationship. 

But (as you later mention) JKR's website has told us that Voldie has
no children. 
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2004/0304-wbd.htm
Q: Has Voldermort any children?
JK Rowling replies -> No. Voldemort as a father... now that's not a
nice thought. >>

In my own private Potterverse, while Tom Riddle might have casually
begotten some children (as you later suggest), Lord Voldemort *could
not* have begotten any children because he gave up sexual organs as
well as sexual desire when he turned himself into an immortal
snake-man. I feel certain that he had turned himself into an immortal
snake-man (no longer having any visible resemblance to TMR) before he
started his terrorist activities. 

For your theory, the question is, how long before? The wizarding 
world had been terrified ('had precious little to celebrate') for
'these eleven years' at Halloween 1981, putting the last previous
celebration in 1969 or 1970. How many terrorist attacks did LV and 
the DEs make (over how long) before the wizarding general public
stopped regarding them as fluke events? How long before that was his
physical transformation?

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1729 :

<< Mind you, switching from Voldy to DD as proud papa to Snapey is
a bit startling. Whatever. That's what we're here for, isn't it? >>

Make'em both true. Sevvie's ma is Dumbledore's (grand*)daughter and
Sevvie's da is the handsome, talented, charming Tom Riddle. It could
even be that he seduced, impregnated, and abandoned DD's (grand)
daughter, not for relief of physical needs, but on purpose to insult
DD.

*Dumbledore, 150 years old at book time, 120 years old when Sevvie's
generation was born, around 90 years old when Sevvie's mum's
generation was born ... he could have great-to-the-n-th
grandchildren. 

<< But who's his mum?
Knowing how Jo constructs her plots, it's probable that the name has
already appeared somewhere in the books, hence my contention (in
the Black Widower hypothesis) that Snape was paired with Florence.
So who could it be? McGonagall? Mrs Figg? Poppy Pomfrey? Doris
Crockford? The mind boggles. >>

Mrs Norris? She turned into a cat to hide from ... not Grindy, the
timing is wrong...  





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 17:30:53 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 17:30:53 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7tbv0+croc@...>
Message-ID: <d7vcsd+b6ma@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> > Eloise:
> > 1) Would the parents governors accept an ex-DE on the staff of 
Hogwarts?
> 
> 
> Neri:
> We have this problem in any case, because it looks like Snape was
> already a teacher at Hogwarts during Karkaroff's trial, and none of
> the 200 wizards present seemed to object. Also, the Durmstrang's
> governors later made Karkaroff a *Headmaster*.  

Eloise:

But given the reputation of Durmstrang, I don't think there would be 
as much of an outcry there. 
> 
> 
> > Eloise:
> > 2) Why doesn't Sirius know that Snape is a DE? He heard stuff in 
> > Azkaban, but apparently *nothing* about Snape.
> 
> 
> Neri:
> I have a theory that explains this mystery and several others. It is
> detailed in:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hogs_Head/message/2772
> But briefly, it suggests no DE in Azkaban knew about Snape because 
all
> the DEs that Snape knew (apparently Malfoy, Crabbe. Goyle, Avery, 
Nott
> and Macnair) got a free ticket out of Azkaban. Snape himself, under
> DD's orders, had told the Ministry that they were not DEs. This was
> calculated in order to gain their good opinion, so they will help
> warming Snape's way back into Voldy's trust once he's back. 

Eloise:
But Crouch Jr was, for at least a time, in Azkaban with Sirius and 
apparently *he* knew from the uncomfortable pyjama party he had with 
Snape on the staircase in GoF. Unless, of course he'd found some 
record about him in Moody's possession.
> 
> 
> > Eloise:
> > 3) Why is Snape's Dark Mark such a shock to Fudge?
> > 
> 
> 
> Neri:
> Well, it wasn't *such* a shock. Fudge merely "recoiled" when Snape
> shoved his Dark Mark under his nose, an understandable reaction
> considering most wizards are so afraid of it. But Fudge didn't 
demand
> Snape will be arrested, investigated or anything of the sort.

Eloise:
Although he said he would investigate the running of the school, 
which can be taken to mean who Dumbledore appoints, amongst other 
things. 

>> Neri:
> Also, if it was such a well-kept secret, with such critical
> implications for Snape's life, would Snape himself reveal it to 
Fudge?
> And in front of quite a big croud too, including Harry, Ron, 
Hermione,
> Molly, Bill and Madam Pomfrey. It just doesn't strike me like it was
> such a well-kept secret.   

Eloise:
As he'd already been pardoned, I don't think that it would have 
implications for his life.

Harry, Ron and Hermione already knew he'd been a DE (at least I 
*think* all of them did). Molly is already in the Order as, de facto, 
is Bill. His showing Fudge was an act of desperation. Poppy's the 
only one who isn't perhaps in Dumbledore's innermost circle.

Also, remember that Siurius seems to have been doing some 
investigating since he's been out of Azkaban. He seems quite well 
informed, but has no inkling that Snape was a DE. He has *no 
knowledege that Snape was ever accused of being a DE* and cannot 
believe that Dumbledore would ever hire him if he'd ever worked for 
Voldemort (GoF UK hb, 461).

 
> 
> > Eloise:
> > But I can't work it out. Why *isn't* he dead?
> 
> Neri:
> I don't know, but I wouldn't preclude the possiblity that Snape
> managed to survive a year in Voldy's death list. After all, Harry 
has
> managed to survive even longer than that, and he was even higher in
> that list. I guess DD's protection does count for something. 

Eloise:
Interesting, though that in the Sirius-Snape baiting session in OoP, 
the basis of Snape's taunts is that Sirius has to stay in hiding, 
whilst he doesn't. And as Pippin said, 

>>What Death Eater wouldn't want the glory of picking him off?
Lucius especially -- he needs to convince the Master that he's
serious about Death Eating, after that fiasco at the QWC.<<

Yet Sirius taunts *Snape* with being Lucius'lap dog.

~Eloise










From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 21:37:58 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:37:58 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7tbv0+croc@...>
Message-ID: <d7vrbm+qks8@...>

> > Eloise:
> > I can only assume that,<snip>
> > 2) That the trial/hearing/whatever was protected by something
like a 
> > Fidelius so that what was said, at least about Snape, remained
secret.
> 
> 
> Neri:
> If this is the case then we were shown a way to bypass a Fidelius:
> look at the Pensieve memory of one who knows the secret. But I very
> much doubt it. For one thing, in the end of the GoF Pensieve chapter
> DD asked Harry to keep silent about Neville's parents, but he
*didn't*
> ask him to keep secret about Snape being an ex-DE. 
> 

Pippin:
But Dumbledore is most likely the secret keeper. That would mean
he could announce to the whole Wizengamot that Snape was a 
spy, and they couldn't tell anyone else. Dumbledore wouldn't
have to tell Harry to keep silent about Snape  because the spell
would take care of it. 

Obviously if Snape is to continue spying, it wouldn't do for
Voldemort or the other DE's to forget that Snape was ever a 
Death Eater. I imagine the secret would only be that Snape 
had turned spy.

We don't know what happens if someone who knows the secret 
tries to tell someone who doesn't. Do they mouth as if they were 
struck with a silencing spell, or does the listener fail to
comprehend  what he was told, much as Fudge failed to 
comprehend the meaning of the Dark Mark on Snape's arm?

That would allow Harry to have shared everything with Ron and
Hermione, as GoF says he did,  without them retaining the 
information.  Ron and Hermione discuss that Snape was a Death 
Eater and that Dumbledore trusts him, but they never say anything 
about him being a spy.

Snape is out and about, not having to stay behind the walls of
Hogwarts or the shelter of Grimmauld Place, so my guess is
he's not on Voldemort's hit list.

Pippin





From kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 23:22:15 2005
From: kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid (Lyn J. Mangiameli)
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 23:22:15 -0000
Subject: Daddy dearest
In-Reply-To: <d7uqcb+e16c@...>
Message-ID: <d801f7+9etj@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> 
<more judicious snipping>
> Jo's
> avoidance of specifying who amongst the Hogwarts staff are or have
> been married, but allowing that it will have plot implications. Naturally
> many fans hankered for some connection to Harry, but Sevvy would
> definitely have more BANG. 

Lyn now:
Yes, DD being a Grandparent of Snape's would have BANG, both for many readers and 
particularly for Harry. Which is part of the reason I consider it an amusing possibility. 
Imagine the cognitive dissonance for Harry--his esteemed father figure and his most 
immediate focus of hatred found to have an allegience by blood as well as, just perhaps, 
purpose. My guess is that the dissonance would be resolved along lines of hate rather than 
"love," that is, DD would be devalued before Snape would be elevated. Kneasy, you like to 
consider Harry turning, at least for a time, against the Order, well this could be a 
proximate cause.  
 
> And if (as many suspect) DD wheezes his last in HBP, this revelation
> and the assumption of leadership of the Order by Snape would be a 
> bit of a shocker for, let's say, some of the more conventionally fluffy
> amongst the fan base. It'd upset Harry too - (Snape's elevation to this
> post), since he already seems to be de facto second-in-command - 
> something I've speculated on before. His direct descent from DD would
> upset him even more. Expect more tantrums.

Exactly!  Of course might not these tantrums be an interest echo of the tantrums that 
Snape may have had after the Prank, and his turn to Voldemorte. Indeed, wouldn't it make 
Snape's DE recruitment all the more striking if it was in part to directly get back at DD his 
forebearer. 
> 
> Of course I'm not going to abandon investigating the possibility of a
> connection between Snape and Voldy just yet - comparing and
> contrasting the two very different possibilities should provide  hours
> of fun over the coming weeks

Indeed. Though with respect to Snape/Voldy, I would suggest it would be too consistent 
with Harry's current view of Snape. It woud be too confirmatory. I suspect Rowling would 
prefer to challenge one's immediate assumptions about character and its associated 
trappings (as she has done from SS/PS), rather than confirm them.


> For example, "his secret" that is hidden
> through self-interest could equally apply to having Tom/Voldy in his
> background.  

Yes, we all know what I think that secret may be, just because it plays so well against 
Lupin the "loved" outcast.

>Fascinating. Even if the board is not attracted by either
> idea it'll probably become a pastime for adventurous, consenting 
> adults in private. Closet genealogists fixated on arcane familial links,
> Snape-ologists constructing photo-fits to trace the descent of that
> hooked nose and greasy hair. No new theories for ages, then fresh
> and opposing speculations appear to divert the members, at least
> for a while, from the increasing impatience that'll keep building until 
> the new book is released.  
> 
> But who's his mum?

Ah great question, if it is not a DD progeny (I like the idea of McGonnagal, but doubt it will 
be this way). And then who is his father, if the mother is accounted for? Clearly an 
unsavory type. And wouldn't it set up such an interesting dynamic, either we would have 
the view that it would be  just like DD to stay hands off while his offspring have to live with 
their own choices, or that puppet master DD was willing to sacrifice his own for some 
larger purpose, and now has to face such choices again in Harry.

> Knowing how Jo constructs her plots, it's probable that the name has
> already appeared somewhere in the books, hence my contention (in
> the Black Widower hypothesis) that Snape was paired with Florence.
> So who could it be? McGonagall? Mrs Figg? Poppy Pomfrey? Doris
> Crockford? The mind boggles.

Yes, for not only was Riddle not on the tapestry (as we know it), but neither was DD nor 
the Potters (for surely Sirius would have pointed these few out to Harry, had they been 
there). Either she is going to reveal more on that tapestry (and I personally think that 
would be rather contrived at this point), or some of the very most interesting relationships 
are those not to be found on that tapestry.

You know, and perhaps tangential, I'm still taken by Voldy's choice of words "Silly girl," 
just a strange phrase from someone who was supposed to have successfully defied him 
thrice. 

One thing I don't think is just speculation. There are a lot of blood relationships that have 
been heretofore hidden (quite deliberately), and will be revealed in the next two books. 

Always great fun to take these flights with you, Kneasy.






From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun  5 23:48:05 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 16:48:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7vrbm+qks8@...>
Message-ID: <20050605234805.73947.qmail@...>


> Snape is out and about, not having to stay behind the walls of
> Hogwarts or the shelter of Grimmauld Place, so my guess is
> he's not on Voldemort's hit list.
> 
> Pippin


Personally I don't think Snape is spying, double agent or not, this
time out, at least not the same way he did in the earlier war.  There
are six Hogwarts students who know about his Order membership in OOTP
and somehow I think that a spy would be more careful about being
seen.  At this point in the series I think the only time Snape has
been in Voldemort's presence was in PS/SS when he had to deal with
Quirrell.

However, another reason why Snape could still be walking around is
that Voldemort - while being an inadequate Evil Overlord in many ways
- does know something about keeping his powder dry until he's ready
to use it.  Killing Snape might make for an entertaining evening when
there's nothing good on the telly but if one of Voldemort's aims is
to take over Hogwarts and use it as his HQ (and since we hear in
every book how impregnable Hogwarts is I assume that's the case) then
having someone on the inside who can be leaned on later for help in
exchange for being allowed to live isn't such a bad thing.  ("Lord
Voldemort does not forget those who serve him, worm.")

I'm predicting that the big series climax will be a battle for
possession of Hogwarts and that we will come to know a good many of
the secrets of the castle that Dumbledore hinted about in GOF.

Magda

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 



From dontask2much at dontask2much.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 00:07:12 2005
From: dontask2much at dontask2much.yahoo.invalid (Rebecca Bowen)
Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 20:07:12 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Daddy dearest
References: <d801f7+9etj@...>
Message-ID: <014101c56a2b$b0aec970$6501a8c0@...>

From: "Lyn J. Mangiameli"

- snipped liberally a fascinating thread -

>>Fascinating. Even if the board is not attracted by either
>> idea it'll probably become a pastime for adventurous, consenting
>> adults in private. Closet genealogists fixated on arcane familial links,
>> Snape-ologists constructing photo-fits to trace the descent of that
>> hooked nose and greasy hair. No new theories for ages, then fresh
>> and opposing speculations appear to divert the members, at least
>> for a while, from the increasing impatience that'll keep building until
>> the new book is released.
>>
>>  But who's his mum?
>
> Ah great question, if it is not a DD progeny (I like the idea of 
> McGonnagal, but doubt it will
> be this way). And then who is his father, if the mother is accounted for? 
> Clearly an
> unsavory type. And wouldn't it set up such an interesting dynamic, either 
> we would have
> the view that it would be  just like DD to stay hands off while his 
> offspring have to live with
> their own choices, or that puppet master DD was willing to sacrifice his 
> own for some
> larger purpose, and now has to face such choices again in Harry.

Charme now:

I don't know, my fellow Potterpeople, that we'll find DD is in Snapey-poo's 
aformentioned lineage.  I believe Snape and Sirius may have a better shot of 
being related in some way, though - there's just something about the way 
Sirius feels he has to remind Snape who exactly is the master of Grimmauld 
Place in OoP:

"'You know,' said Sirius loudly, leaning back on his rear chair legs and 
speaking to the ceiling, 'I think I'd prefer it if you didn't give orders 
here, Snape. It's my house, you see.'"

and then Snape's reaction:

"An ugly flush suffused Snape's pallid face. Harry sat down in a chair 
beside Sirius, facing Snape across the table."

Why would Sirius need to use those statements to make his point?  And why 
would Snape have an involuntary reaction about something so...petty...unless 
there's something more behind it?  I'm sure others may have some different 
perceptions of that scene, but I couple this with the overwhelming presence 
the Wicked Screaming Mother Black's portrait seems to have as the human 
representative of the Black family, and only a pair of Father's pants 
offhandedly mentioned in the entire book. It's just as doable that Snape and 
Sirius are in some way related.

Can't wait til July 16 - and come on, admit it, no matter what JKR writes in 
it, you can't wait too ;)

Charme 






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 00:41:32 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 00:41:32 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7vcsd+b6ma@...>
Message-ID: <d8063s+pave@...>

> > > Eloise:
> > > 1) Would the parents governors accept an ex-DE on the staff of 
> Hogwarts?
> > 
> > 
> > Neri:
> > We have this problem in any case, because it looks like Snape was
> > already a teacher at Hogwarts during Karkaroff's trial, and none of
> > the 200 wizards present seemed to object. Also, the Durmstrang's
> > governors later made Karkaroff a *Headmaster*.  
> 
> Eloise:
> 
> But given the reputation of Durmstrang, I don't think there would be 
> as much of an outcry there. 


Neri:
Granted, Durmstrang is much more Dark Arts oriented than Hogwarts. But
still, Karkaroff as a Headmaster was invited to Hogwarts for the TWT
with great honor, together with several Dark Arts trained students,
and I don't recall any objections from worried parents. The WW seems
to have a great capacity to accept ex-DE teachers, much more than
accepting, say, werewolf teachers. 


> > 
> > > Eloise:
> > > 2) Why doesn't Sirius know that Snape is a DE? He heard stuff in 
> > > Azkaban, but apparently *nothing* about Snape.
> > 
> > 
> > Neri:
> > I have a theory that explains this mystery and several others. It is
> > detailed in:
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hogs_Head/message/2772
> > But briefly, it suggests no DE in Azkaban knew about Snape because 
> all
> > the DEs that Snape knew (apparently Malfoy, Crabbe. Goyle, Avery, 
> Nott
> > and Macnair) got a free ticket out of Azkaban. Snape himself, under
> > DD's orders, had told the Ministry that they were not DEs. This was
> > calculated in order to gain their good opinion, so they will help
> > warming Snape's way back into Voldy's trust once he's back. 
> 
> Eloise:
> But Crouch Jr was, for at least a time, in Azkaban with Sirius and 
> apparently *he* knew from the uncomfortable pyjama party he had with 
> Snape on the staircase in GoF. Unless, of course he'd found some 
> record about him in Moody's possession.


Neri:
Crouch Jr. didn't have to search Moody's records. He had a connection
with Voldy himself shortly before (and during) he came to Hogwarts.
Now, I think we can safely assume that Voldy, for one, knew Snape was
a DE <g>.

But if Crouch Jr. knew Snape was a DE even *before* GH, then this
knowledge would likely to be mutual. That is, Snape would also know
that young Barty was a DE. If so, why wasn't Barty arrested before the
attack on the Longbottoms, and why didn't DD know if young Barty was
guilty or not? The likely explanation is that Snape and Barty didn't
know eachother's identity. 


 
> > Neri:
> > <snip> But Fudge didn't 
> demand
> > Snape will be arrested, investigated or anything of the sort.
> 
> Eloise:
> Although he said he would investigate the running of the school, 
> which can be taken to mean who Dumbledore appoints, amongst other 
> things.

Neri:
This would have been a good point if Snape was one of the most wanted
in Umbridge's list in OotP. Unfortunately, he was actually her
favorite, at least until he failed to supply her with veritaserum
again. As a whole, I'd say Fudge's reaction (or mostly lack of
reaction) to Snape's dramatic "confession" in the end of GoF is much
more realistic if he already knew that Snape was an ex-DE.  
 
> Eloise:
> <snip>
> Also, remember that Siurius seems to have been doing some 
> investigating since he's been out of Azkaban. He seems quite well 
> informed, but has no inkling that Snape was a DE. He has *no 
> knowledege that Snape was ever accused of being a DE* and cannot 
> believe that Dumbledore would ever hire him if he'd ever worked for 
> Voldemort (GoF UK hb, 461).

Neri:
Sirius didn't know anything about Ludo Bagman too (p. 524 in the US
edition), and yet Bagman's trial wasn't such a secret at all. Rita
Skeeter was present in this trial, and she seems to remember it quite
well, because she says to Hermione (p. 451) "I know things about Ludo
Bagman that would make your had curl". Yet Sirius didn't know anything
about it, so apparently  he wasn't *that* well-informed about anything
that happened out of Azkaban.

 
> Eloise:
> Interesting, though that in the Sirius-Snape baiting session in OoP, 
> the basis of Snape's taunts is that Sirius has to stay in hiding, 
> whilst he doesn't. And as Pippin said, 
> 
> >>What Death Eater wouldn't want the glory of picking him off?
> Lucius especially -- he needs to convince the Master that he's
> serious about Death Eating, after that fiasco at the QWC.<<
> 

Neri:
This could be a typical JKR misleading. There's nothing in Snape words
that actually shows *he* is outside there doing fieldwork. Snape words
only suggest that *he* is useful, that *he* is doing something
important. He also knows Lucius identified Padfoot at the Hogwarts
Express dock, but how does he know it? Because he's still friends with
Lucius, or because he's been sitting at Hogwarts and doing some
eavesdropping to channels only he has access for? 

I find it interesting that Snape is *never* said to be absent from
Hogwarts, except once or twice giving a report in GP. He never misses
a class. It's never told that he's away. Even during his end-of-GoF
"mission", I couldn't find a single suggestion that he was actually
absent from Hogwarts. One wonders when does he do all his chumming up
with Lucius and the other DEs?   

> Eloise:
> Yet Sirius taunts *Snape* with being Lucius'lap dog.

Neri:
Yes, and even more than that, Umbridge says that Lucius "always speaks
very highly" about Snape. These are the certainly the best indications
that Snape *is* doing fieldwork out there, but then you still have to
explain why Voldy accepted him back. 

But perhaps the main reason I'm suspicious about this possibility is
that Harry was the first to suspect it. Already at the end of GoF,
when Harry sees Snape at the teachers' table, he asks himself "was
that [spying against Voldemort] the job he had taken up again? Had he
made contact with the Death Eaters, perhaps? Pretended that he had
never really gone to Dumbledore?" We all know what usually happens to
Harry's first impressions. 

Neri






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 01:11:51 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 01:11:51 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d7vrbm+qks8@...>
Message-ID: <d807sn+8h13@...>

 
> > Neri:
> > If this is the case then we were shown a way to bypass a Fidelius:
> > look at the Pensieve memory of one who knows the secret. But I very
> > much doubt it. For one thing, in the end of the GoF Pensieve chapter
> > DD asked Harry to keep silent about Neville's parents, but he
> *didn't*
> > ask him to keep secret about Snape being an ex-DE. 
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> But Dumbledore is most likely the secret keeper. That would mean
> he could announce to the whole Wizengamot that Snape was a 
> spy, and they couldn't tell anyone else. Dumbledore wouldn't
> have to tell Harry to keep silent about Snape  because the spell
> would take care of it. 
> 
> Obviously if Snape is to continue spying, it wouldn't do for
> Voldemort or the other DE's to forget that Snape was ever a 
> Death Eater. I imagine the secret would only be that Snape 
> had turned spy.
> 
> We don't know what happens if someone who knows the secret 
> tries to tell someone who doesn't. Do they mouth as if they were 
> struck with a silencing spell, or does the listener fail to
> comprehend  what he was told, much as Fudge failed to 
> comprehend the meaning of the Dark Mark on Snape's arm?
> 
> That would allow Harry to have shared everything with Ron and
> Hermione, as GoF says he did,  without them retaining the 
> information.  Ron and Hermione discuss that Snape was a Death 
> Eater and that Dumbledore trusts him, but they never say anything 
> about him being a spy.
> 

Neri:
This is an interesting idea, but a bit too complicated for me. If
Harry would have told Ron and Hermione that Snape was a DE but *not*
that he was a spy for DD, I'd imagine that even Hermione would have
questioned DD's sanity, and Ron would have probably raved about it for
days, instead of only one sentence. Same thing, if 200 wizards could
have told anybody that Snape was a DE, but *not* that he was vouched
for by DD because he spied on Voldemort, then I would expect *some*
parents to demand he'll be kicked out of Hogwarts, and I would expect
Sirius to know that Snape was a DE.

I'm of two minds about this myself. I'm just saying that we don't have
enough evidence to preclude the possiblity that Snape is doing his
spying from Hogwarts. But if he was indeed accepted back by Voldy, my
bet is that it wasn't achieved by hiding a thing that 200 wizards
already know. There are less problematic ways to achieve the same end.

Neri  






From kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 03:29:21 2005
From: kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid (Lyn J. Mangiameli)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:29:21 -0000
Subject: Daddy dearest
In-Reply-To: <014101c56a2b$b0aec970$6501a8c0@...>
Message-ID: <d80fuh+9em9@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Rebecca Bowen" <dontask2much at y...> wrote:

> I don't know, my fellow Potterpeople, that we'll find DD is in Snapey-poo's 
> aformentioned lineage.  I believe Snape and Sirius may have a better shot of 
> being related in some way, though - there's just something about the way 
> Sirius feels he has to remind Snape who exactly is the master of Grimmauld 
> Place in OoP:
> 
> "'You know,' said Sirius loudly, leaning back on his rear chair legs and 
> speaking to the ceiling, 'I think I'd prefer it if you didn't give orders 
> here, Snape. It's my house, you see.'"
> 
> and then Snape's reaction:
> 
> "An ugly flush suffused Snape's pallid face. Harry sat down in a chair 
> beside Sirius, facing Snape across the table."
> 
> Why would Sirius need to use those statements to make his point?  And why 
> would Snape have an involuntary reaction about something so...petty...unless 
> there's something more behind it?  I'm sure others may have some different 
> perceptions of that scene, but I couple this with the overwhelming presence 
> the Wicked Screaming Mother Black's portrait seems to have as the human 
> representative of the Black family, and only a pair of Father's pants 
> offhandedly mentioned in the entire book. It's just as doable that Snape and 
> Sirius are in some way related.

Lyn now:
Great observation, and with the ring of truth. I'd offer that it doesn't necessarily undermine 
either Kneasy's or my original playful speculations. Each of us needs only one parent to 
keep them going, and the other parent can come from any stock.  Unless, of course, one 
likes the truly outrageous idea of combining the two, with Riddle mating with a DD  
progeny, as CatLady suggested. 

Now, if there is a DD connection, my money would be that it is on Snape's maternal side. It 
would be quite possible that should Snape be illegitimate, the father is indeed the elder 
Black.  Skipping the DD connection, this idea has floated around for a couple of years. 
Being illegitmate, Snape would never appear on the family tree. Suits me, but then many 
have said that JKR wouldn't include such a theme in her "children's" books. I don't know.

There is also that incendiary possibility that a parent was struck from the family tree for 
becoming (or marrying) a Vampire. Ah, I can hear the screams already.  

The reason I am rather fond of the unlikely possibily of Snape being a grand child of DD, is 
that I think it so intensifies Snape's sense of alienation and injustice.  Why didn't DD pay 
attention to Snape's situation as a child before Hogwarts? Why didn't DD seek to do more 
to support and encourage Snape at Hogwarts? How could DD possibly "side" with the 
James/Sirius pair over his own relative? These thoughts would surely ruminate within a 
young Snape's mind. Here's the great DD, saving the world, but not saving his own 
grandchild (or great grandchild). How easy it would be for Snape to become bitter, yet at 
the same time, yearn for recognition and acceptance from this powerful, father figure. 
Might this scenario still exist in the "present." 

There's another possible connection between DD and Snape that I'm not sure has been 
explored before. DD was the Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, but it seems that much 
of his know talent has nothing to do with transfiguration. From the Frog cards we know 
that his fame is in part associated with his experiments with Flamel, and his discovery of 
the 12 uses of Dragon's blood.  Now this sounds like potions to me--kind of makes one 
wonder why he didn't become the Potions Professor at Hogwarts. 

Now JKR gives a nod to some traits and talents being heritable. The most obvious is the 
flying skill that James and Harry share (and that certain little disregard for rules). Wouldn't 
it be interesting if some of Snape's talent at potions (and he has been recognized for 
having great talent), came from his grandfather DD. 

Now are the speculations I've laid out over my last two posts likely to be true? I rather 
doubt it. But are they plausible? Well, I kind of think so. At least they have lingered in my 
mind for a couple of years. 

 





From quigonginger at quigonginger.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 03:58:44 2005
From: quigonginger at quigonginger.yahoo.invalid (quigonginger)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:58:44 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <d807sn+8h13@...>
Message-ID: <d80hlk+ddg4@...>

Neri wrote:
> I'm of two minds about this myself. I'm just saying that we don't 
have
> enough evidence to preclude the possiblity that Snape is doing his
> spying from Hogwarts. But if he was indeed accepted back by Voldy, my
> bet is that it wasn't achieved by hiding a thing that 200 wizards
> already know. There are less problematic ways to achieve the same 
end.

Ginger:  May I jump in with my pet theory about what Snape is doing?  
I do think he's spying, but not on LV.  I think he's spying on (and 
for) Malfoy (who, after all, speaks well of him).  

If Malfoy knows why LV wants the prophecy, (which he seems to in the 
DoM, or at least knows it *is* a prophecy labled Harry Potter and the 
Darl Lord) then he knows that HP is the one who can possibly destroy 
LV.  As there is no prophecy that he knows of on how to destroy 
himself, then he can play both ends of things.  Either LV will be 
defeated, and he is free to Take Over the Universe (TM) or LV wins, 
and he is securely at LV's right hand.

LM can do this by having Snape spy for him.  LM gets the goods on DD 
(or at least those planted by DD and Snape, and can go back to LV and 
report that his anonymous source "Deep Nose" has valuable info that he 
will only reveal to LM.  LM would either be good at Occlumency (taught 
by Snape?) or allowed Snape to Obliviate him of the memory of Snape's 
identity.  

Pure speculation here, but if you remember the giant-envoy fiasco, 
you'll recall that it didn't have much promise from the get-go.  
Perhaps Snape gave LM all the inside info on Hagrid and OM as they set 
out on their journey and LM used it as a test of Snape's validity.  
Not much for DD to lose as the giants were a bad bet, but much to be 
gained for establishing Snape as reliable to LM.

Just my little theory.
Ginger, enjoying hearing the Prank discussed by intelligent people.






From quigonginger at quigonginger.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 04:51:09 2005
From: quigonginger at quigonginger.yahoo.invalid (quigonginger)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 04:51:09 -0000
Subject: removing foot from mouth (was Snape contiued)
In-Reply-To: <d80hlk+ddg4@...>
Message-ID: <d80knt+rpno@...>

Replying to myself here:

I signed my last post:

> Ginger, enjoying hearing the Prank discussed by intelligent people.

Now:
When I wrote that, I was behind on the other list, and had only read 
some of certain threads, and not all the way through on them.  I was 
not in any way implying that the good people who are currently talking 
about the Prank on the other list are not intelligent (especially as 
there seems to be some overlap).  

I was simply saying that this particular discussion is being discussed 
by intelligent people, as opposed to times in the past where there 
have been intelligent people interspersed with, shall we say, totally 
emotional readers.

Ginger, wishing she had a foot smaller than 12 wide, and noting that 
moccasins are not tasty at all.





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 06:16:16 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 06:16:16 -0000
Subject: Snape contiued (was Re: XPOST: Lupin is Ever So Evil Part One -- The Prank )
In-Reply-To: <20050605234805.73947.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d80png+nuus@...>

Magda:
> However, another reason why Snape could still be walking around is
> that Voldemort - while being an inadequate Evil Overlord in many 
ways
> - does know something about keeping his powder dry until he's ready
> to use it.  Killing Snape might make for an entertaining evening 
when
> there's nothing good on the telly but if one of Voldemort's aims is
> to take over Hogwarts and use it as his HQ (and since we hear in
> every book how impregnable Hogwarts is I assume that's the case) 
then
> having someone on the inside who can be leaned on later for help in
> exchange for being allowed to live isn't such a bad thing.  ("Lord
> Voldemort does not forget those who serve him, worm.")

Eloise:
Ah. Yes. Very good.
In fact, this works still or even better (I think) if Snape *is* 
working as a double agent. Voldemort might not trust him (and perhaps 
Lucius' role is to keep an eye on him), but he still has him in place 
within Hogwarts, able to spy on Dumbldeore, just as he 
(hypothetically ) suggested to Voldemort he would do as cover for his 
defection.

Actually, does that theory dispose of the whole "why isn't he dead?" 
question? (Not the "who knows he was a DE" question, just the reason 
Voldemort hasn't come after him?)

Neri, after comprehensively out-arguing me said,

> I find it interesting that Snape is *never* said to be absent from
> Hogwarts, except once or twice giving a report in GP. He never 
misses
> a class. It's never told that he's away. Even during his end-of-GoF
> "mission", I couldn't find a single suggestion that he was actually
> absent from Hogwarts. One wonders when does he do all his chumming 
up
> with Lucius and the other DEs?   

Eloise:
Well, we do know that Dumbledore is in possession of a Time Turner. 
Or at least he was.

Neri:
> But perhaps the main reason I'm suspicious about this possibility is
> that Harry was the first to suspect it. Already at the end of GoF,
> when Harry sees Snape at the teachers' table, he asks himself "was
> that [spying against Voldemort] the job he had taken up again? Had 
he
> made contact with the Death Eaters, perhaps? Pretended that he had
> never really gone to Dumbledore?" We all know what usually happens 
to
> Harry's first impressions. 


Drat.
~Eloise





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 09:45:02 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 11:45:02 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d7tc2l+3evo@...>
Message-ID: <000801c56a7c$69910d90$0600a8c0@hwin>

Hi guys!

Bother - that was a long weekand. Fun, but very long. Anyway, back to
work at trying to scare up a little interest in my obviosuly weird
observations:

> To me it's just JKR
> holding back, an attempt to prolong the mystery a bit more, rather
> than any deeper significance via the character of Dumbledore.

Or David

>  [...] he simple keeps back what the power is.

Oh. I hadn't thought about that.

But is Jo/Dumbledore really trying to maintain any suspense here or
withhold any information? Isn't it obvious that the word is, umm,
*love*? 

It was to me, at any rate. (Maybe I need to dial back my touchy-feely
sensors.)

My guess was that, if anything, Jo, who is a good Englishwoman at heart,
thought it would be too cheesy to have Dumbledore waffling along about
the power of love. What with the long hair, round glasses and colorful
outfits, the only thing missing would a  Bob-Dylan sing along and couple
remarks about the lack of chamber pots at Woodstock. So, she opted for a
delicate elision, a sort of postmodern bowlderization.

But what I also thought is the paradox of how omitting a word can make
it even more present in the text. (Like the way jokes - particularly
jokes about sex - are funnier if you don't quite spell out what you
mean. Or like linguistic taboos about, say, the F-word or the S-word,
not to mention the inutterable ?-word: they wouldn't bite if they
weren't banned.)

Hence, eliding both the V-word and the L-word give both of them more
power, more textual *presence* than if they were voiced normally.

Or am I just being obtuse?

Peace brothers! Love sisters! Baaaaaa! 

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray, exiting in a cloud of purple haze,
with rastafarian ebullience.)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 17:08:19 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:08:19 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <000801c56a7c$69910d90$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d81vu3+5433@...>

The Goat:
> But is Jo/Dumbledore really trying to maintain any suspense here or
> withhold any information? Isn't it obvious that the word is, umm,
> *love*? 
<snip>
> Hence, eliding both the V-word and the L-word give both of them more
> power, more textual *presence* than if they were voiced normally.
> 
> Or am I just being obtuse?

Pippin:
I've been thinking about this for a while but never posted on it...
Voldemort is trying to obtain various divine powers for himself,
llike immortality and omnipotence. An unmentionable name, like 
the name of God in the Hebrew scripture, might be one of these.

Dumbledore wants it spoken to deny him this power --which 
leads me to the question, how *do* words become magical? 

But as far as the Power behind the door, JKR said, without naming it,
that we all knew what it was. 

Albert Hall appearance:
---
Harry is not a good enough wizard yet to even attempt to take on 
Voldemort as wizard to wizard. He's escaped him three, four times
 if you count the encounter with Tom Riddle. He keeps doing it 
because there is one thing that Voldemort doesn't understand 
and that's the power that keeps Harry going. And we all know 
what that power is.
---
Dumbledore and JKR  are perhaps too reverent to name it.

Pippin





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 17:08:19 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:08:19 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <000801c56a7c$69910d90$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d81vu3+pj50@...>

The Goat:
> But is Jo/Dumbledore really trying to maintain any suspense here or
> withhold any information? Isn't it obvious that the word is, umm,
> *love*? 
<snip>
> Hence, eliding both the V-word and the L-word give both of them more
> power, more textual *presence* than if they were voiced normally.
> 
> Or am I just being obtuse?

Pippin:
I've been thinking about this for a while but never posted on it...
Voldemort is trying to obtain various divine powers for himself,
llike immortality and omnipotence. An unmentionable name, like 
the name of God in the Hebrew scripture, might be one of these.

Dumbledore wants it spoken to deny him this power --which 
leads me to the question, how *do* words become magical? 

But as far as the Power behind the door, JKR said, without naming it,
that we all knew what it was. 

Albert Hall appearance:
---
Harry is not a good enough wizard yet to even attempt to take on 
Voldemort as wizard to wizard. He's escaped him three, four times
 if you count the encounter with Tom Riddle. He keeps doing it 
because there is one thing that Voldemort doesn't understand 
and that's the power that keeps Harry going. And we all know 
what that power is.
---
Dumbledore and JKR  are perhaps too reverent to name it.

Pippin






From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 18:30:05 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:30:05 -0000
Subject: more deaths?
Message-ID: <d824nd+9pfn@...>

Hey, old-timers!  I just paid a rare visit to OT-chatter to ask 
this, but only David had anything to say, so I thought I'd see if 
anyone here had any input.

Note:  This could, just possibly, but probably not, be considered a 

S
P
O
I
L
E
R.

I was listening to NPR this morning, and they had a news report
about the attempt to steal the 2 copies of HBP which happened in
England yesterday. The reporter stated (after pronouncing JKR's
name wrong) that the reason why the books were so coveted was
because the author said that one of the main characters would be
killed off in this book. Um, have I been asleep? Did JKR say
this? Have you all heard this, or did NPR just make it up?

I think this is total newstalk nonsense, but has anyone heard 
anything like this, other than pure speculation?

--Joywitch Z. Curmudgeon





From catorman at catorman.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 18:46:48 2005
From: catorman at catorman.yahoo.invalid (Catherine Coleman)
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 11:46:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] more deaths?
In-Reply-To: <d824nd+9pfn@...>
Message-ID: <20050606184649.79238.qmail@...>



--- joywitch_m_curmudgeon <joym999 at ...> wrote:

> Hey, old-timers!  I just paid a rare visit to OT-chatter to ask 
> this, but only David had anything to say, so I thought I'd see if 
> anyone here had any input.
> 
> Note:  This could, just possibly, but probably not, be considered a 
> 
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R.
> 
> I was listening to NPR this morning, and they had a news report
> about the attempt to steal the 2 copies of HBP which happened in
> England yesterday. The reporter stated (after pronouncing JKR's
> name wrong) that the reason why the books were so coveted was
> because the author said that one of the main characters would be
> killed off in this book. Um, have I been asleep? Did JKR say
> this? Have you all heard this, or did NPR just make it up?
> 
> I think this is total newstalk nonsense, but has anyone heard 
> anything like this, other than pure speculation?
> 
We should forgive this lapse in attention and put it down to the blissful fug you are probably
still in due to your recent nuptials - this story has been around for a while now, and includes
the usual - ie, Sun reporters making shady deals (part of the job description?) in their quest to
spoil the fun.

The rumour is indeed that a  Very Important Personage will be offed, but I'm not saying who.  But,
JKR absolutely hasn't said it, and her representatives are being very tight-lipped about the whole
business.

> --Joywitch Z. Curmudgeon


Love it!

Catherine, who would exclaim over Joy's new found cuteness, but fears reprisals.


		
__________________________________ 
Discover Yahoo! 
Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! 
http://discover.yahoo.com/



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 20:00:25 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 20:00:25 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <000801c56a7c$69910d90$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d82a0p+sko6@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
> 
> But is Jo/Dumbledore really trying to maintain any suspense here or
> withhold any information? Isn't it obvious that the word is, umm,
> *love*? 
> 

Kneasy:
Oh, I hope not. 
I realise I could upset a few people here.
In general terms it'd be trite, banal in the extreme; slushy verging on
the worst excesses of Disney (spit) and a cop-out.
Define 'love'.
The OED gives a long list of meanings, the last of which:
"in a game, nothing, no score."

Others include "a marked affection for a person or thing" which is not
not a feeling limited to Harry, even in the books, and further mentions 
the Messianic variety, any hint of which would stir the touchier fractions
of the religious into a frenzy.

> Mike:
> My guess was that, if anything, Jo, who is a good Englishwoman at heart,
> thought it would be too cheesy to have Dumbledore waffling along about
> the power of love. What with the long hair, round glasses and colorful
> outfits, the only thing missing would a  Bob-Dylan sing along and couple
> remarks about the lack of chamber pots at Woodstock. So, she opted for a
> delicate elision, a sort of postmodern bowlderization.
> 

Kneasy:
Not certain, but possible.
The mid '60s to early '70s - the era of hippie-dom, all you need is love,
the hi-jacking of bits of eastern mysticism without understanding their
context and pudgy girls calling themselves Galadriel - LOTR was popular
then too, though the books, not the films - has entered the realms of 
mythology. 
Like most of the past the memories are better than the realities. What I
recall most about it was how infrequently most of the celebrants washed. 
It helped a great deal if you were more or less permanently stoned. Those
too young to take part have been spun a load of tripe by those who leapt 
with a great "Yes!!" into a social scene mostly powered by soft drugs and 
the first reliable contraceptive pills. No wonder we were so eager to embrace
the 'alternative' lifestyle. But mind altering substances and willing partners 
have little to do with love. Unfortunately there are still some around who 
claim that peace n'love nearly, should have, taken over the world and we'd 
all now be living in a sub-set of Nirvana. Nope. It's not possible to love 
someone/everyone that you've never met, never heard of - unless you're 
John Donne or pissed.

And who are the objects of Harry's affections?
Well, there's Sirius, but he's dead; there's mum and dad - but he never knew
them, just a few disturbing memories that haunt his dreams; DD perhaps; Ron 
and Hermione - doubt he'd classify it as 'love,' exactly.   
Hardly exceptional, is it? Yet whatever the power is, he's supposedly full of it.
Doesn't seem to match up, somehow.

Sorry to  be such a miserable grump but I don't, never have, seen love as a
sort of universal panacea, the cure for all ills, apply liberally and all your
troubles will vanish. Even love for an idea or ideal won't do it, 'cos what
matters there is the merit inherent in the ideal, not the affection lavished on it. 

Pandora was provided with Hope as a comfort in a world of troubles. That's
as good as anything, I suppose. Jo has said that a major theme of the books
is death, but counter to death is life or life-force. If I had to make a choice
that'd be mine for the power in the room.







From kking0731 at snow15145.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun  6 23:09:37 2005
From: kking0731 at snow15145.yahoo.invalid (snow15145)
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:09:37 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d82a0p+sko6@...>
Message-ID: <d82l3h+oiln@...>

Kneasy snipped:

Nope. It's not possible to love someone/everyone that you've never 
met, never heard of - unless you're John Donne or pissed.

Snow:

Or
Harry Potter because I think he has made quite an admiral attempt 
at this so far. 
I think the difference with Harry is that he loves without 
boundaries. Harry has shown himself to save his enemy
 Pettigrew. 
Pettigrew deserved to die but Harry sought justice rather than 
revenge. Victor Krum was nailed by a bludger at the World Cup and no 
one noticed, but Harry wished that he could draw the attention of 
someone to help, even though he did not support Victor's team. Dudley

cruel Dudley has used Harry as a punching bag; was the reason Harry 
hadn't any friends at school; and yet Harry feels bad for Dudley when 
he was put on a diet and felt compelled to save him from the 
Dementors. And there has even been a time when Harry went out on a 
limb for a person he didn't even know, Gabriella. 

Harry has spontaneous reaction to a person in distress whether or not 
he loves them. Harry's reaction is protection and he administers it 
without thought
and especially without fear. Everyone in the 
Wizarding World, with very few exceptions, is greatly afraid of 
something or someone. We hear of just about every person's greatest 
fear, from Voldemort's name down to Ron's fear of spiders. Yet Harry 
remains unafraid, which makes him the exception to the rule. He was 
born without fear
never thinking of the consequence to his action. 
Harry's biggest fault is that in saving someone else through his 
fearless act, he ultimately puts someone else's life in jeopardy 
(every time). He fears not a name or a person or a circumstance. 
Harry acts upon his own instincts
instincts that were born in him to 
do so. Harry does not see the person in need but the situation of the 
person in need. Harry was not afraid for his own life in any given 
situation where he had attempted to save others. And in the end of 
book five, Harry was even willing to give up his own life if that's 
what it would take. 

This would be a fearless love, a pure love, and an unconditional 
love. There are only a few people who Harry has yet to exhibit this 
love for and one of them is Snape. I'm certain we'll get there 
though. 

Kneasy snipped yet again:

Jo has said that a major theme of the books is death, but counter to 
death is life or life-force. If I had to make a choice that'd be mine 
for the power in the room.

Snow:

But wouldn't Love be a life-force?

Love can't be taught; it is a driving force within you. Love, real 
love can make you do things you would never seek out to do. No one 
wants to purposely put their life in danger but when you see a 
stranger trapped in a car that may just go up in flames, do you stop 
to think or do you run or call for help
or do you run to the rescue 
even though it may put your own life in danger? I know which one 
Harry would do because he has already shown several examples. Love, 
real love isn't just all fluff. Real love is giving and not 
receiving. You give till it hurts and not because it's the right 
thing or the honorable thing to do but it's the only thing you can 
do. Like I said this kind of love can't be taught, it is within your 
very soul and even you can't control it. 

Usual Disclaimer,
JMO

Snow






From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 07:46:02 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 07:46:02 -0000
Subject: NBC Today Show questions
Message-ID: <d83jbq+v8jj@...>

FYI, I just submitted two questions for the upcoming interview with 
JKR(using different emails).

1)
Severus Snape was apparently publically 'outed' as an ex Death Eater 
who had changed sides at Karkaroff's hearing. His exchanges with 
Quirrell whilst Voldemort was inhabiting his turban also implied his 
changed loyalty.  Why hasn't he suffered the same fate as Regulus 
Black, especially as Voldemort told us that the Death Eater he 
believed had left him for ever would be killed?    

2)(roughly - I forgot to copy it)
You have expressed a certain amount of dismay over the tendency of 
some readers to fall for the 'bad boys' in your books together with 
warnings about future developments. What does the future hold for 
Professor Snape's many fans? Will their world be turned entirely 
upside down by the end of the series?

(I'm actually seriously worried about that second one; in fact it's 
my biggest concern about the whole series. Sad individual, I know. 
Amanda - are you worried too?)

There's nothing to say that questions are welcome only from children, 
but they do ask you to submit your age. I confessed to being an adult 
as I didn't think I could get away with pretending to be 11. How many 
11-year old Snapefans are there? ;-)

The link, for anyone who's interested and doesn't have it is,

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8060100

~Eloise





From Pookie1_uk at pookie1_uk.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 08:45:35 2005
From: Pookie1_uk at pookie1_uk.yahoo.invalid (S A H Culfeather)
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 09:45:35 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <d83jbq+v8jj@...>
Message-ID: <20050607084535.69546.qmail@...>




<You have expressed a certain amount of dismay over
the tendency of 
some readers to fall for the 'bad boys' in your books
together with 
warnings about future developments. What does the
future hold for 
Professor Snape's many fans? Will their world be
turned entirely 
upside down by the end of the series?

(I'm actually seriously worried about that second one;
in fact it's 
my biggest concern about the whole series. Sad
individual, I know.>

If it's any consolation, I'm horribly worried about
the outcome for Snape - in fact I'm seriously
contemplating not reading book 7 at all!!
I really, really hope JKR doesn't suddenly reveal him
as the evil **** that many see him as - I think I'd
rather he died gloriously as a hero than that.

The questions are good but who knows if she'll answer
the adult's ones. Don't think I could pass for 11
either!

Serena







From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 09:55:30 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 09:55:30 -0000
Subject: NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <20050607084535.69546.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d83qui+hb4r@...>

Serena:
> If it's any consolation, I'm horribly worried about
> the outcome for Snape - in fact I'm seriously
> contemplating not reading book 7 at all!!
> I really, really hope JKR doesn't suddenly reveal him
> as the evil **** that many see him as - I think I'd
> rather he died gloriously as a hero than that.

Eloise:
I'm afraid she won't let him do that, either. Die, quite probably. 
Gloriously? No. <sigh>

I keep playing with the titbits she's given us. In Book 7, we'll find 
out why it's such a 'horrible' idea to have Snape in love with you.

Now is that because of a personal attribute or an action? Something 
he does during Bk 7, or something revealed from his past? 

I had a silly inspiration this morning when dismissing as 
inappropriate the possibility that he'd be revealed to be suffering 
from some kind of wizarding STD.

Mrs Norris. There you are. Kiss Severus Snape and you turn into a cat.
In fact we can combine this with the reluctance to discuss which 
teachers are married.  Snape marries, but at the moment of 
consummation....*miaow*. And of course she can't be called Mrs Snape, 
because that would give the game away.

Another fear is that he *will* turn out to be a vampire because that 
question she answered, apparently dismissing the idea left a loophole.
Does he have any *link* with vampires? Well, no, he may not have any 
links with any other vampires whatsoever, whilst still being one 
himself.

Anyway, it's difficult to get away from the conclusion that she has a 
real bombshell of some description to drop.

~Eloise







From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 11:23:13 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 11:23:13 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d82l3h+oiln@...>
Message-ID: <d84031+b4mk@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "snow15145" <kking0731 at g...> wrote:
> 
> Or
Harry Potter because I think he has made quite an admiral attempt 
> at this so far. 
> I think the difference with Harry is that he loves without 
> boundaries. Harry has shown himself to save his enemy
 Pettigrew. 
> Pettigrew deserved to die but Harry sought justice rather than 
> revenge. 

Kneasy:
He spared his life because " I don't reckon my dad would've wanted 
his best friends to become killers - just for you." He wanted revenge
all right, a lifetime in Azkaban with the Dementors. Some might not
consider that to be particularly merciful.

> Snow:
> Victor Krum was nailed by a bludger at the World Cup and no 
> one noticed, but Harry wished that he could draw the attention of 
> someone to help, even though he did not support Victor's team. Dudley

> cruel Dudley has used Harry as a punching bag; was the reason Harry 
> hadn't any friends at school; and yet Harry feels bad for Dudley when 
> he was put on a diet and felt compelled to save him from the 
> Dementors. And there has even been a time when Harry went out on a 
> limb for a person he didn't even know, Gabriella. 
> 

Kneasy:
1. Harry may have wanted attention for Krum, but it was actually Ron who
voiced concern. Does that make Ron more 'loving' than Harry?
2. Harry expresses no feelings for Dieting!Dudley whatsoever. A truly
sympathetic, loving family member would doubtless have shared part
of the 4 Birthday Cakes stashed away under the floorboards.
3. The Dementors..... yes, he saved Dudders, but through love? I don't
think so. Altruism perhaps. Or maybe he was more anti-Dementor than
anti-Dudley.
4. Oh, it wasn't just Gabrielle, it was all 4 hostages he tried to save. Silly.
If Cedric and Krum hadn't turned up all 4  would have been 'lost' - that's
if anyone accepts that they would have been allowed to come to any harm
under any circumstances. Maybe it was an over-inflated ego, a wish to
prove himself the best rather than 'love' that drove him. Note that the 
Merpeople express amusement rather than admiration or concern - Harry
is doing it wrong again!
 
> Snow:
> Harry has spontaneous reaction to a person in distress whether or not 
> he loves them. Harry's reaction is protection and he administers it 
> without thought
and especially without fear. Everyone in the 
> Wizarding World, with very few exceptions, is greatly afraid of 
> something or someone. We hear of just about every person's greatest 
> fear, from Voldemort's name down to Ron's fear of spiders. Yet Harry 
> remains unafraid, which makes him the exception to the rule. He was 
> born without fear
never thinking of the consequence to his action. 
> Harry's biggest fault is that in saving someone else through his 
> fearless act, he ultimately puts someone else's life in jeopardy 
> (every time). 

Kneasy:
Let me get this straight ... you think that this is a positive trait, this 
compulsion of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread? 
What an odd idea. It's a fine way to narrow the the gap between the
dates on his eventual headstone, and as you say it's an excellent way 
to cause problems for everybody else -  terminally so for Sirius,
painfully so for Hermione, Ron and Neville -  let's not forget that
Harry's latest crazy scheme didn't leave them unscathed.

What it boils down to is that Harry doesn't trust anyone else to get 
it right when in actual fact he's the one that's getting it wrong. 

Somehow I don't think we're going to agree. What you ascribe to
'love' can equally be thought to be the result of mindless enthusiasm
verging on stupidity. 

> Snow:
> This would be a fearless love, a pure love, and an unconditional 
> love. There are only a few people who Harry has yet to exhibit this 
> love for and one of them is Snape. I'm certain we'll get there 
> though. 

Kneasy:
Argh! No! Anything but that!

> Snow:
> Love can't be taught; it is a driving force within you. Love, real 
> love can make you do things you would never seek out to do. No one 
> wants to purposely put their life in danger but when you see a 
> stranger trapped in a car that may just go up in flames, do you stop 
> to think or do you run or call for help
or do you run to the rescue 
> even though it may put your own life in danger? 

Kneasy:
I've done so, and love had nothing to do with it. It was because I was 
there and no-one else was. If one considers oneself human one accepts
certain obligations towards others, it's an inbuilt almost automatic reflex.
Doing nothing was not an option that I could comfortably live with (it was
in southern Algeria, miles from anywhere, a petrol tanker had over-turned
and was leaking gas from the trailer-tank, the driver had suffered severe
injuries - half his skull was missing exposing his brain, chances of
survival nudging zero - and the nearest phone was 5 hours away. He later
died.) Now you seem to class this as a species of 'love'. I disagree. It's
an in-built altruism, not uncommon in social animals and it is an evolved
survival trait - help others of your kind and the species has an advantage
over those that don't. Co-operation pays in the natural world. 

Unfortunately Harry expresses this survial trait to such an extent that it's
close to being a non-survival trait. As the books have progressed and
Harry has become more active and interventionist so the body count rises. 
Good intentions don't hack it.
But I suppose I'm just a cynical old fart.









From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 14:45:04 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:45:04 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d84031+b4mk@...>
Message-ID: <d84btg+mefb@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> Kneasy:
> I've done so, and love had nothing to do with it. It was because I
was  there and no-one else was. If one considers oneself human one
accepts certain obligations towards others, it's an inbuilt almost
automatic reflex.
> Doing nothing was not an option that I could comfortably live with
<snip awe-inspiring account of bravery>

Pippin:
Ah, but Kneasy, how did you know you wouldn't have been able to live
with it? If that was  programmed into the genes, poor Kitty
Genovese would have lived to a ripe old age...you can call it 'love'
or 'social conditioning' or 'elevated levels of oxytocin' but it seems
if we're not  reminded that we have the power to help one another, we 
won't do it. 

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predato
rs/kitty_genovese/1.html?sect=2

Pippin






From kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 17:57:33 2005
From: kumayama at kumayama.yahoo.invalid (Lyn J. Mangiameli)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:57:33 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d84031+b4mk@...>
Message-ID: <d84n6d+9ssk@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> But I suppose I'm just a cynical old fart.>

Lyn now:

Yep, Kneasy, I think you're right again.  :-)





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 18:19:47 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:19:47 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d84btg+mefb@...>
Message-ID: <d84og3+5b63@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> Pippin:
> Ah, but Kneasy, how did you know you wouldn't have been able to live
> with it? If that was  programmed into the genes, poor Kitty
> Genovese would have lived to a ripe old age...you can call it 'love'
> or 'social conditioning' or 'elevated levels of oxytocin' but it seems
> if we're not  reminded that we have the power to help one another, we 
> won't do it. 
> 

Once I'd stopped I couldn't stand idly by, that  would be an incomprehensible 
reaction, totally foreign to my nature. Of course I probably could have driven
past but for ever after I'd've wondered.... what if.... And no - no bravery, just
instinct. It was .... distressing is the closest word I can come up with.

Now those of a religious bent will tend to assume things like love of
fellow man and all that tripe. Not so. I've hated more people than anyone 
else I know. I have no religion. I have elitist tendencies. I  have a *very*
sick sense of humour (holdover from working in hospitals probably),
I'm about as un-PC as you can get. Frankly, I'm not a comfortable
person to be around. Yes, I've known love (x4) and bloody horrible it 
was too.  You can't call your life your own, worse, you can't trust what 
your own mind tells you. I was glad when it stopped.

Oh, it's in the genes all right. Watch reactions when an accident happens.
Males instinctively take a step forward (they're disposable); females shelter
or comfort children or the distressed. It's only after 'reason' kicks in that
'civilised' responses take over. It's in all the great apes (except the gorilla,
for some reason), but it's most marked in baboons. If a leopard moves into
a baboon troops' range and starts picking them off, eventually a group
of males will seek out or lie in wait for the leopard and attack it. They will 
kill it usually, though most of the attackers die. However, it ensures the 
survival of the troop. Altruism in extremis, co-operation ensuring family 
survival.
Though what the hell this has to do with HP I haven't the faintest idea.
Oh, yes, I remember. It's a mistake to confuse action with artificial labels
like 'love'.

Kneasy





From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun  7 20:16:23 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 20:16:23 -0000
Subject: Snape IS TOO a vampire, was Re: NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <d83qui+hb4r@...>
Message-ID: <d84van+qmkl@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "fritter_my_wig" 
<eloiseherisson at a...> wrote:
> Another fear is that he *will* turn out to be a vampire because that 
> question she answered, apparently dismissing the idea left a 
loophole.
> Does he have any *link* with vampires? Well, no, he may not have any 
> links with any other vampires whatsoever, whilst still being one 
> himself.

Yes!  Yes!  That's it!  That's the loophole I've been looking for!  Of 
course, JKR said he doesn't have any connection to vampires because 
HE'S THE ONLY ONE AROUND!  I knew I was right!  <<dances a little jig!
>>

Snape is such a vampire, and a creep besides.  The only way he can 
redeem his greasy ugliness is to die a heroic death, protecting Harry 
against Voldemort, whose name he can't even say out loud.

<<Reminds Snapefans:  Snape is NOT Alan Rickman.  Alan Rickman is 
wonderful.  Snape is a masochistic creep.>>

--Joywitch Z. Curmudgeon, who is not cute






From Oryomai at talia_dawn_3.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  8 06:30:59 2005
From: Oryomai at talia_dawn_3.yahoo.invalid (Oryomai at talia_dawn_3.yahoo.invalid)
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 02:30:59 -0400
Subject: Snape IS TOO a vampire
Message-ID: <8C73A0AC486B153-B4C-10AA0@...>

Joywitch:

Snape is such a vampire, and a creep besides.  The only way he can 
redeem his greasy ugliness is to die a heroic death, protecting Harry 
against Voldemort, whose name he can't even say out loud.

<<Reminds Snapefans:  Snape is NOT Alan Rickman.  Alan Rickman is 
wonderful.  Snape is a masochistic creep.>>

Oryomai:
Hey!  I've just been lurking around, due to personal reasons, but I just felt the need
to chime in so everyone knows that I'm not dead!  I don't think that Severus needs to die
a heroic death, I think that would be a horrible cop out for JKR.  If Severus managed to
become a total and complete good guy, I think it would negate alot of what she's taught
in the books -- most importantly the complexities of people.  Severus may be a
"masochistic creep," but he's taught Harry alot about people.  As Little Red Riding Hood
says in Into the Woods, "Nice is different than good!"
 
Oryomai
-- Sorry if my text is messed up, AOL Mail is being a jerk to me today!  (Aka everyday)


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  8 19:37:49 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 19:37:49 -0000
Subject: Snape IS TOO a vampire, was Re: NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <d84van+qmkl@...>
Message-ID: <d87hed+pqvs@...>

Joywitch
> Yes!  Yes!  That's it!  That's the loophole I've been looking for! 
Of 
> course, JKR said he doesn't have any connection to vampires because 
> HE'S THE ONLY ONE AROUND!  I knew I was right!  <<dances a little
jig!
> >>
> 
> Snape is such a vampire, and a creep besides.  The only way he can 
> redeem his greasy ugliness is to die a heroic death, protecting
Harry 
> against Voldemort, whose name he can't even say out loud.
> 
> <<Reminds Snapefans:  Snape is NOT Alan Rickman.  Alan Rickman is 
> wonderful.  Snape is a masochistic creep.>>
> 

Pippin:
Ah, nice to know I'm not alone. My personal Snape is half-vampire,
with both a vampire spirit and a human soul. That way, the human soul
can die and redeem itself, while vampire!Snape lives on, much happier
not having to cope with demands of a dual nature. But I have to admit
there's not much canon for it.

Pippin
wishing Joywitch and Amy much happiness





From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  8 19:55:52 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 19:55:52 -0000
Subject: Snape IS TOO a vampire, was Re: NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <d87hed+pqvs@...>
Message-ID: <d87ig8+b6mh@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Joywitch, in a fit a overexcited 
glee, wrote:

> Snape is a masochistic creep.

Of course, I meant to say that Snape is a SADISTIC creep.  (I can't 
believe David didn't catch that and tease me about it.  Must be part 
of a wedding present or something.)

> 
> Pippin:
> Ah, nice to know I'm not alone. My personal Snape is half-vampire,
> with both a vampire spirit and a human soul. That way, the human soul
> can die and redeem itself, while vampire!Snape lives on, much happier
> not having to cope with demands of a dual nature. But I have to admit
> there's not much canon for it.

There's canon for everything, Pippin.  :-D

Seriously, though, I've never understood this love for Snape thing.  
He is a horrible person, who loves to humiliate the very children 
whose education is his responsibility. Harry and Ron and Hermione have 
all been driven close to tears by the meanness of this so-called 
Professor.  How can you reconcile loving those kids and, at the same 
time, being a fan of someone they loathe, just because he has an 
intriguing personality and some dark secrets?

> Pippin
> wishing Joywitch and Amy much happiness

Thanks so much!  We are quite happy, although reports that love has 
made me less curmudgeonly are completely untrue, completely untrue, I 
tell you.

--JZC





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  8 20:31:48 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 22:31:48 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d84og3+5b63@...>
Message-ID: <003401c56c69$18b38030$0600a8c0@hwin>

Kneasy sneezed: 

> Now those of a religious bent will tend to assume things like
> love of fellow man and all that tripe. Not so. 

Not to be judgmental or anything, old boy, but I'd like to think you're
being a little na?ve about us religious types. I belong to the species
(though I suffer from a touch of congenital agnosticism) - but I'm very
proud about being as cynical as the next guy when it comes to the love
of my (or anybody else's) fellow man. (Though I can't hold a candle to
plenty of other religious sorts. A nice, stern calvanist take on the
natural human capacity for love is enough to make a gorilla blush.)

Anyway, that was exactly my point about the postmodern bowlderization.
It's very reasonable to guess that Jo, feeling a bit squeamish about
having Dumbledore do an Oprah, elided the word love. Love *is* such an
ambiguous, overused word, so why not leave it sort of hovering on the
edges of the text, making you think about what you use it for before you
fill it into the blanks?

BTW, that dovetails nicely with what Pippin said about verbal presence
and absence. The Jewish taboo about - or reverence for - the
tetragrammaton gets directly to the point. (I had the point in mind when
I was writing last time, but I got side tracked with all those bad words
and dirty jokes.) I wonder whether any word - besides love - has been in
vain (stupidly, for all the wrong reasons) more often than "God." (And
as the Gold 'ol book say, "God is love.") In both cases, the longer the
philanderers, preachers and politicians drone, the less the words mean.
Sometimes, the only way to make them audible above the roar of verbiage
is to voice them in silence.

At any rate, in a passage that gets to the essence of Jo's religious
thinking in the HP series, that elision seems very interesting. 

* * * * 

Oh yeah - speaking of reticence, one other thing: you guys ever noticed
how the most religiously affirmative fantasy writers (like Tolkien or
Lewis) seem to have the fewest religious elements in their fiction? If
you want religion galore, read Pullman.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun  8 21:32:01 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:32:01 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <003401c56c69$18b38030$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d87o4h+n9cg@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Mike & Susan Gray" <aberforthsgoat at h...> 
wrote:
> 
> Not to be judgmental or anything, old boy, but I'd like to think you're
> being a little na?ve about us religious types. I belong to the species
> (though I suffer from a touch of congenital agnosticism) - but I'm very
> proud about being as cynical as the next guy when it comes to the love
> of my (or anybody else's) fellow man. (Though I can't hold a candle to
> plenty of other religious sorts. A nice, stern calvanist take on the
> natural human capacity for love is enough to make a gorilla blush.)
> 
> Anyway, that was exactly my point about the postmodern bowlderization.
> It's very reasonable to guess that Jo, feeling a bit squeamish about
> having Dumbledore do an Oprah, elided the word love. Love *is* such an
> ambiguous, overused word, so why not leave it sort of hovering on the
> edges of the text, making you think about what you use it for before you
> fill it into the blanks?
>


Feel free to be as judgemental as you wish, it can be quite entertaining
when boards become red in tooth and claw, though it do tend to make
the squeamish squeam and site managements to have fits of the vapours.

However. "postmodern bowdlerisation" seems not to fit the bill to me. I
understand what you're getting at - "the word that dare not speak its name"
but it seems to me that in this postmodern era the word is almost universal
in its application - and misuse, come to that. It's now an omnibus word
that can mean much or (literally) nothing.

To go back to my earlier post - just which OED definition of the word
(it gives 10 main ones) do you think JKR intends us to slot into the vacant
position? Yes, I know that that is a very mischievous question - a veritable
minefield for almost any answer that can be given. But it's fair - if she 
wants us to assume that *** is all around, **** conquers all, all you need
is ****, **** is a many splendoured thing, **** for sale, **** me **** my dog,
**** means never having to say you're sorry and countless other popular 
expressions thereof, she'll need to be a bit more specific than she appears 
to be at the moment 'cos that demonstrated by Harry is very limited and
very specific - to just a few individuals.

I don't claim that you're wrong - though I'll be very depressed if you're
right, I'd hoped for something more than an ending cliched even by the 
standards of daytime TV.

Serves me right for indulging in optimism.  
 
Kneasy






From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 06:01:57 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 08:01:57 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d87o4h+n9cg@...>
Message-ID: <003c01c56cb8$be5c4ef0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Kneasy:

> Feel free to be as judgemental as you wish, it can be quite
> entertaining when boards become red in tooth and claw, though 
> it do tend to make the squeamish squeam and site managements 
> to have fits of the vapours.

<grin> No grave insult intended. I just couldn't resist the urge to
tussle a little. (Not to mention the epistularly pleasure of calling a
cynic na?ve.) 

> ... in this
> postmodern era ... 

Hmm. En passant, and come to think of it, there *is* a word that means
even less than **** or ***: postmodern. Perhaps the other disciplines
have got over it by now, but we theologians (a guild with a holy calling
to live about a decade behind the times) have latched onto the p-word
with a vengence. Anyway, moving right along ...

> To go back to my earlier post - just which OED definition of
> the word (it gives 10 main ones) do you think JKR intends us 
> to slot into the vacant position? 

That *is* a fair question. 

> she'll need to be a bit more specific
> than she appears 
> to be at the moment 'cos that demonstrated by Harry is very 
> limited and very specific - to just a few individuals.

Well, I think (in OotP particularly) it is has something to do with
vulnerability and generosity. The strength of powerlessness, the wisdom
of stupidity.

> I don't claim that you're wrong - though I'll be very
> depressed if you're right, I'd hoped for something more than 
> an ending cliched even by the 
> standards of daytime TV.

Hey - what would you like the force behind the door to be?? (Apologies
if you've already been over that one a zillion times!)

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 06:43:52 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 06:43:52 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <003c01c56cb8$be5c4ef0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d88of8+842r@...>

Aberforth's Goat wrote:

> Hmm. En passant, and come to think of it, there *is* a word that 
means
> even less than **** or ***: postmodern. Perhaps the other disciplines
> have got over it by now, but we theologians (a guild with a holy 
calling
> to live about a decade behind the times) have latched onto the p-word
> with a vengence. Anyway, moving right along ...

Well, duh, how stupid can we all be?  Of *course* JKR will reveal that 
the room is filled with post-modernity.  Harry will vanquish 
Voldemort, who is thoroughgoingly modernist in his ambition to rule 
the world, by the force of his innate irony.  As soon as V realises he 
is *so* last heptalogy, he will vanish in a puff of reader derision.

David, who can't imagine why Joywitch would fear teasing





From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 07:29:36 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 07:29:36 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT) and coming back
In-Reply-To: <d87o4h+n9cg@...>
Message-ID: <d88r50+c4rm@...>

Mike:
(Pleased to meet you)
 Love *is* such an
> > ambiguous, overused word, so why not leave it sort of hovering on 
the
> > edges of the text, making you think about what you use it for 
before you
> > fill it into the blanks?
> >

Kneasy:
>> To go back to my earlier post - just which OED definition of the word
> (it gives 10 main ones) do you think JKR intends us to slot into the 
vacant
> position? Yes, I know that that is a very mischievous question - a 
veritable
> minefield for almost any answer that can be given. 


Eloise:
At the risk of writing what JKR might term a pile of storge...

This is of course the crux of the whole thing. We do have a plethora of 
definitions for love, or rather, we have an inadequate vocabulary to 
express a whole range of things for which the Greeks at least managed 
to have four words. I quite agree with Kneasy that it would be a 
horrible cliche if the answer were simply "love", yet can't quite agree 
with his cynical position on the subject.

Kneasy:
Now you seem to class this as a species of 'love'. I disagree. It's
> an in-built altruism, not uncommon in social animals and it is an 
evolved
> survival trait - help others of your kind and the species has an 
advantage
> over those that don't. Co-operation pays in the natural world. 

Eloise:
You know, one of the things I find most depressing and difficult to 
deal with in science is an increasing tendency to reduce everything 
that it is to be human to a series of chemical reactions, or 
conditioned evolutionary responses, or whatever. I'm not a scientist so 
I can only express this crudely, but you get the drift, I hope. The 
knowledge (or belief, I suppose I should say, really) that I cannot 
trust my own emotional responses or perceptions is probably the thing 
that robbed me of my own religious beliefs (religious experience no 
longer being the final proof). 

*If* that's all love is, then I guess we have to accept it, but at the 
same time we *are* human and it's the condition we have to live with. 
Altruism is good for us, certain of the emotions and actions that we 
class under the heading of 'love' are also good for us as a species. 
Love doesn't have to be wishy washy and sentimental, it can be the 
recognition that we sometimes act in a way that might be contrary to 
our own good, *simply because we are human*, as you did, Kneasy. Call 
it a conditioned evolutionary response, if you must, call it 
philanthropy, call it love, it's the same thing.

Be that as it may, in thinking about what lies behind the locked door, 
what we have to concern ourselves with is how things work in the 
Porrterverse. Apparently (at least according to Dumbledore, so I don't 
suppose that's convincing to you, Kneasy) this kind of altruistic, self 
sacrificial behaviour unleashes strong powers. There is the bond ceated 
when one wizard saves another's life and crucially, we have Lily's self-
sacrifice (arguably the most instinctive and evolutionarily programmed 
of all possible sacrifices) which nevertheless unleashes the ancient 
magic which protects Harry.

Kneasy:
> 
> Unfortunately Harry expresses this survial trait to such an extent 
that it's
> close to being a non-survival trait. As the books have progressed and
> Harry has become more active and interventionist so the body count 
rises. 
> Good intentions don't hack it.

Eloise:
And in expressing that trait in an effort to save Sirius, according to 
his final conversation with Dumbledore, Harry was also manifesting the 
power that lies behind the door. His possession of that power also 
prevented his possession by Voldemort who "could not bear to reside in 
a body so full of the power he detests." Voldemort does not 
understand,  despises the notion of love, so yes, it could be love 
that's behind the door. However his life's aim appears to be 
immortality so surely the most abhorrent thing to him must be that 
aspect of love manifested in the willingness to sacrifice one's own 
life.

~Eloise






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 10:17:50 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 11:17:50 +0100
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
Message-ID: <39807219-92C9-471F-9AA7-BA4333DE6DC1@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Mike & Susan Gray"  
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
 >
 > <grin> No grave insult intended. I just couldn't resist the urge to
 > tussle a little. (Not to mention the epistularly pleasure of  
calling a
 > cynic na?ve.)
 >

Kneasy:
None taken.
One of the most basic intellectual pleasures is to gently rattle the  
bars of someone else's cage - and if that doesn't work, poke 'em with  
a stick.

 >
 > That *is* a fair question.
 >
 > Well, I think (in OotP particularly) it is has something to do with
 > vulnerability and generosity. The strength of powerlessness, the  
wisdom
 > of stupidity.
 >
 > Hey - what would you like the force behind the door to be??  
(Apologies
 > if you've already been over that one a zillion times!)

Kneasy:
Not impossible - and saying that just emphasises the range of choices  
available. But I have a notion - or maybe it's just a hankering, that  
it's nothing to do with the spiritual or emotional (in the generally  
accepted sense) at all.

"What?" I  hear you cry, "how can this be? Explain yourself  
immediately before being cast into the outer darkness reserved for  
those of an untouchy-feely disposition!"

It's something I posted long since to a mostly deafening silence, and  
having no sense of shame am quite happy to repeat.

I think we're given a clue. The Dept. of Mysteries. What do we find  
there? Just examples of what  has fascinated thinkers since  
Archimedes was a  lad, that's all.
Remember - the subject/object must be susceptible to objective study  
-  hence its presence in the DoM in the first place.

Compare what DD says with what is described within the DoM:

1. "more terrible than death" -  the Death Chamber

2. "than human intelligence" -  brains in a tank

3. "forces of nature" - the Planetarium

4. "mysterious subjects" - Time

And the un-named power is greater than any of these.
So -  what's missing from the list above  that has fascinated  
humanity down the ages?

Life itself.
The mystery of what differentiates the animate from the inanimate.  
What is it, how does it come about, all the questions that may never  
be answered, even in the real world.

"But Voldy wants immortal life!"  you expostulate.
Life is a lot more than avoiding death. In chasing his tantalising  
goal Voldy has lost the plot. He's a re-animated corpse many times  
over, a perversion of what life truly is. Life (for individuals) is  
transient, ephemeral, and according to DD just one episode in a  
greater whole, which will please those of a spiritual disposition. By  
denying it's true nature Voldy is in effect denying what life is about.
His bunch aren't named Death Eaters for nothing, that name in itself  
is probably  a clue.
HP is the struggle between the forces of Life and those that deal in  
Death.

Another cliche?
Perhaps.
But coincidentally it opens the door to one of the most fascinating  
of philosophical/theological debates.

Kneasy






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 14:10:19 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:10:19 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d84og3+5b63@...>
Message-ID: <d89ikb+n2sp@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

> Once I'd stopped I couldn't stand idly by, that  would be an 
incomprehensible  reaction, totally foreign to my nature. 
Of course I probably could have driven
past but for ever after I'd've wondered.... what if.... And no - no 
bravery, just instinct. It was .... distressing is the closest word I 
can come up with.
> 

Pippin:
The thing I don't get, Kneasy, is how you knew you'd wonder for ever
after. That doesn't sound like instinct. That sounds like your
forebrain talking, and your forebrain isn't just you, it's stuffed 
with messages from other people. Language itself is a message 
from other people.

I'm not a neuroscientist or an expert on baboons, but from what I've
read, the more complex a human  decision is, the more likely it 
is to get bounced to the forebrain and thought about. I don't think 
baboons do much of that, not having much language or forebrain 
to speak of.

Anyway, to bring this back to HP, if fifty gazillion people are going
to buy a book, I would rather it said, "Love thy neighbour" than 
"Kill the !@#$%!"  or even "Life is a mystery and makes us do 
incomprehensible things." *That* sounds like a cop-out.  But that's 
just me.

By the way, which of the 15 or so  definitions of 'life' do you
have in mind?
<veg>

Pippin






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 15:16:15 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 15:16:15 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT) and coming back
In-Reply-To: <d88r50+c4rm@...>
Message-ID: <d89mfv+a99m@...>

> 
> Kneasy:
> Now you seem to class this as a species of 'love'. I disagree. It's
> > an in-built altruism, not uncommon in social animals and it is an 
> evolved
> > survival trait - help others of your kind and the species has an 
> advantage
> > over those that don't. Co-operation pays in the natural world. 
> 
> Eloise:
> You know, one of the things I find most depressing and difficult to 
> deal with in science is an increasing tendency to reduce everything 
> that it is to be human to a series of chemical reactions, or 
> conditioned evolutionary responses, or whatever. I'm not a 
scientist so 
> I can only express this crudely, but you get the drift, I hope. The 
> knowledge (or belief, I suppose I should say, really) that I cannot 
> trust my own emotional responses or perceptions is probably the 
thing 
> that robbed me of my own religious beliefs (religious experience no 
> longer being the final proof). 
> 

Neri:
Speaking as a scientist studying animal behavior and neuroscience 
(and as someone who's been an unwavering atheist since he was about 
10 yrs old) I must note that current evolution theory simply cannot 
explain Kneasy's altruistic deed as a survival trait. The theory of 
evolution *can* explain extreme altruism among kin (what is known 
as "kin selection") and it can even explain one person doing favors 
to a non-kin person that he has a good reason to believe will return 
the favor (Axelrod's "tit for tat" model). But I don't know of any 
working model in current Darwinist/Post-Darwinist theory that can 
explain a person (or any animal) risking his life to save a non-kin 
that he has never met before and is not likely to even live to return 
the favor. By all logic, any gene supporting such risky and pointless 
behavior should have disappeared from the gene pool millions of years 
ago. 

Of course, the fact that science can't explain it today does not mean 
that a way won't be found to explain it tomorrow, but I thought you 
might want to know that before you rush to blame science, evolution 
theory and survival traits.

Neri   







From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 17:22:28 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 17:22:28 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d89ikb+n2sp@...>
Message-ID: <d89tsk+dg6l@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> Pippin:
> The thing I don't get, Kneasy, is how you knew you'd wonder for ever
> after. That doesn't sound like instinct. That sounds like your
> forebrain talking, and your forebrain isn't just you, it's stuffed 
> with messages from other people. Language itself is a message 
> from other people.
> 
> I'm not a neuroscientist or an expert on baboons, but from what I've
> read, the more complex a human  decision is, the more likely it 
> is to get bounced to the forebrain and thought about. I don't think 
> baboons do much of that, not having much language or forebrain 
> to speak of.

Kneasy:
As for how I knew I'd wonder - if you saw a vehicle overturn and come
sliding down the road on it's roof with the driver still inside and you gave
it a wave and drove on past, wouldn't you wonder afterwards that maybe you
could have helped? That you might have been able to make a difference?
Perhaps you wouldn't. Takes all sorts, I suppose. Must be nice to be so
sure about things.

What complex decision?
The distress was caused because I never made a conscious decision,
let alone a complex one.
It was event -> reaction like I was a bloody clockwork mouse. 
That is really worrying when you try to analyse in retrospect - even though
I hope that I'd make the same decision even if the pros and cons had 
been weighed up first.


> Pippin:
> Anyway, to bring this back to HP, if fifty gazillion people are going
> to buy a book, I would rather it said, "Love thy neighbour" than 
> "Kill the !@#$%!"  or even "Life is a mystery and makes us do 
> incomprehensible things." *That* sounds like a cop-out.  But that's 
> just me.
> 

Kneasy:
'Life is a mystery' - belongs right there in the Dept of Mysteries, then.
Because life is a mystery and has probably caused more speculation
than any other subject. And just because Harry and the Room have got
it (assuming I'm right) doesn't mean that there'll be a full and frank 
explanation. There won't be. There isn't one.
Love on the other hand is just one of the incomprehensible things
that life presents us with occasionally, an add-on extra, not an essential.

> Pippin:
> By the way, which of the 15 or so  definitions of 'life' do you
> have in mind?

Kneasy:
Definitions 1, 6, 12, 12c in the Shorter OED - they overlap to an extent but
in combination would be a fair approximation of what can be regarded as 
'life-force'.





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 19:53:36 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 21:53:36 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d88of8+842r@...>
Message-ID: <004a01c56d2c$ecc306c0$0600a8c0@hwin>

David declared,

> Well, duh, how stupid can we all be?  Of *course* JKR will 
> reveal that 
> the room is filled with post-modernity.  Harry will vanquish 
> Voldemort, who is thoroughgoingly modernist in his ambition to rule 
> the world, by the force of his innate irony.  As soon as V 
> realises he 
> is *so* last heptalogy, he will vanish in a puff of reader derision.

David, do you realize that you could get get me fired with kind of
stuff? I snuck a peak at my email account at work during a lull in a
meeting and nearly had an accident. 

Only one problem: what the heck is "heptalogy?" I lost you there.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 19:53:51 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 21:53:51 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT) and coming back
In-Reply-To: <d89mfv+a99m@...>
Message-ID: <004b01c56d2c$f5bb0430$0600a8c0@hwin>

Neri wrote:

> Speaking as a scientist studying animal behavior and neuroscience 
> (and as someone who's been an unwavering atheist since he was about 
> 10 yrs old) I must note that current evolution theory simply cannot 
> explain Kneasy's altruistic deed as a survival trait. 

Good grief! Speaking as a theologian with a detailed knowledge of the
behavior and numerical propensities of angels on pinheads (and as
someone who's been a wavering theist since practically forever) I'm a
little shocked!

I sorta thought that would be the easy one. My theory:

Granted a fairly broad and complexly arranged social group, a specimen
(such as Kneasy) demonstrating traits conducive to the survival of the
group as a whole (such as instinctive helpfulness) will be valued for
their role in the group. Granted an implicit consciousness of the value
of such helpful, Kneasy-like specimens, endless flocks of female members
will doubtless be (unconsciously) motivated to chase after such and
similar specimens in hopes of procreating hundreds and hundreds of baby
Kneasies, ensuring the survival and gradual predominance of the
helpful-Kneasy-gene.

Or put in the kind of language that makes more sense to me: The higher
animals aren't as stupid as we think - and are no where near as
egotistical. Just like human beings, they appreciate the kind of traits
we call kindness - although this appreciation is counterbalanced by an
appreciation of traits like strength and dominance. Like successful (or
"good") people, successful (or "good") animals are able to keep these
traits in balance. Animals and people who are purely egotistical and
show no kindness are not lovable, and not being loved, will not survive
very well. (Of course, neither will animals and people who aren't
wi??ing or able to look out for themselves.)

Gaa. That was a weird kind of lit. crit. But fun. This is what I think
good books are supposed to stimulate their readers to do.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 20:43:25 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 20:43:25 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d89tsk+dg6l@...>
Message-ID: <d8a9ld+rbog@...>

> Kneasy:
> As for how I knew I'd wonder - if you saw a vehicle overturn and
come sliding down the road on it's roof with the driver still inside 
and you gave it a wave and drove on past, wouldn't you wonder 
afterwards that maybe you could have helped? 
That you might have been able to make a
difference?
> Perhaps you wouldn't. Takes all sorts, I suppose. Must be nice to
be so sure about things.

Pippin:
Not sure about much, and I realize this is intensely personal, but
I'm  curious because I've mostly had the opposite 
experience...failing  to see that I could help. 
The circumstances weren't so dramatic, still  there was the
realization later on that I could have done more than I did. 

I understand that's quite common. People generally have to
be *trained* to help in an emergency. 

It doesn't haunt me and it never occured to me at the time that it 
might haunt me, because I too was a clockwork mouse and
didn't think about any alternatives. So I am a little confused on the
time-line. When, if you don't mind my asking, did you think about 
what would have happened if you'd gone by?


> Kneasy:
> 'Life is a mystery' - belongs right there in the Dept of Mysteries,
then.

Pippin: 
But if life is considered as a natural phenomenon, how is it not one
of the forces of nature? 

Pippin






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun  9 23:26:43 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 23:26:43 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT) and coming back
In-Reply-To: <004b01c56d2c$f5bb0430$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8aj7j+6gib@...>


> Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray): 
> I sorta thought that would be the easy one. My theory:
> 
> Granted a fairly broad and complexly arranged social group, a 
specimen
> (such as Kneasy) demonstrating traits conducive to the survival of 
the
> group as a whole (such as instinctive helpfulness) will be valued 
for
> their role in the group. Granted an implicit consciousness of the 
value
> of such helpful, Kneasy-like specimens, endless flocks of female 
members
> will doubtless be (unconsciously) motivated to chase after such and
> similar specimens in hopes of procreating hundreds and hundreds of 
baby
> Kneasies, ensuring the survival and gradual predominance of the
> helpful-Kneasy-gene.
> 

Neri:
Stories like these were very common among evolutionary biologists in 
the 50s and the 60s, and some of the old geezers still tell them 
today. However, since then most biologists have realized that not 
every theory that sounds reasonable can actually be made to work. 
Today, biologists will usually demand to see a working mathematical 
model, at the very least. The explanations you suggested were 
discussed a lot over the years, but at least for explaining extreme 
altruism they don't work very well, mainly because they are sensitive 
to new mutations with slightly more reasonable behavior. In your 
theory, for example, it's likely  that after a million years or two, 
*some* females would get some brain, and would go for the specimen 
that risk their lives only for females (preferably one female, 
preferably them). The specimen that risk their lives for any stranger 
out there are less likely to stay alive and be there for the kids, 
after all. You'd also think that some males would get the brain to 
perform these risky stunts only when some females are around to be 
impressed. The models show that once very few of the population 
develop a smarter gene like this, they quickly multiply and take over 
the whole population, because they have a survival advantage. They're 
only altruists when it's effective for propagating their genes. 
However, I gathered from Kneasy's story that there wasn't any 
eligable female around. 


> Or put in the kind of language that makes more sense to me: The 
higher
> animals aren't as stupid as we think - and are no where near as
> egotistical. Just like human beings, they appreciate the kind of 
traits
> we call kindness - although this appreciation is counterbalanced by 
an
> appreciation of traits like strength and dominance. Like successful 
(or
> "good") people, successful (or "good") animals are able to keep 
these
> traits in balance. Animals and people who are purely egotistical and
> show no kindness are not lovable, and not being loved, will not 
survive
> very well. 


Neri:
Cooperation and kindness *are* common among the higher animals, and 
as I wrote in my previous post can be explained by working models in 
evolution theory *if* they are directed towards family or towards a 
pack members (or anybody who is likely to return a favour in the near 
future). But risking your life for a total stranger is a different 
matter altogether. In fact, I just tried to find an analogy to what 
Kneasy did in any kind of animal, and my memory seems to be failing 
me, because I can't remember even a single example. Sure, we have 
some (very rare) cases of animals behaving altruistically even 
towards members of a different species: wild dolphins supporting 
humans drowning at sea, female wolves adopting human children, and so 
on, but in none of these cases the altruist was actually putting it's 
own life in serious danger. So until I find some counterexamples I 
must classify Kneasy's deed as a purely human behavior pattern. My 
apologies if this disappoints you, Kneasy <g>.

Neri   





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 00:56:12 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:56:12 +0100
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <d87o4h+n9cg@...>
References: <003401c56c69$18b38030$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050609181734.00997a40@...>

I've been otherwise engaged for last six weeks or so, but  I've spent the 
last couple of days going over what's been said since then. There are a 
couple of older threads (a couple of which were relevant to my last 
contributions) I want to go back to in due course, but in the meantime, a 
few comments on the current discussion.

Firstly, a short factual reply, even though I'm not David:

At 20:53 09/06/05 , Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray wrote:
>Only one problem: what the heck is "heptalogy?" I lost you there.

Not to be confused with "hepatology" (the study of the liver and associated 
functions), a set or series of seven books (from greek "heptalogia", 
derived from "hepta"=seven + "logos"=word). Scientific and academic 
terminology likes to stick to *either* Latin *or* Greek roots (before 
anyone says that "television" breaks that rule, I'll say it myself) :-) so, 
for the record, from the Greek words, we get:

Trilogy: three books
Tetralogy: four books (*not* "quadrilogy", 20th Century Fox and your 
misguided appellation for the "Alien" series of movies, please take note)
Pentalogy: five books (NOT "quintralogy", which I have seen used)
Hexalogy : six books (not, as I recently saw on another HP list, 
"sexology", which is the scientific study of sex...)
Heptalogy: seven books (NOT "septalogy" or, arguably worse, "septology", 
much beloved of HP web sites all across the internet, which drives me into 
a  blind rage).

end of Classics lesson. :-)

Now on to the meat of what I wanted to say...

At 22:32 08/06/05 , Barry Arrowsmith (Kneasy) wrote:

<snip>

>To go back to my earlier post - just which OED definition of the word
>(it gives 10 main ones) do you think JKR intends us to slot into the vacant
>position? Yes, I know that that is a very mischievous question - a veritable
>minefield for almost any answer that can be given.

Actually, I'd suggest all of them, and a few more besides. Whilst I've not 
bothered to look it up (I'd need to go up a flight of stairs to get my 
dictionary), I'm prepared to go as far as to claim that by the end of the 
series, JKR will have shown all of them to be true of Harry in some way. I 
do, however, NOT expect the Potter series to include any references to 
"MAKING love"... :-)

For want of a suitable definition, therefore (it is, after all, a 
"Mystery", in the DOM) in thematic and plot terms, it appears to be quite 
simply all that Voldemort is NOT: compassion; comprehension; solicitude, 
respect, generosity of spirit; capacity for, and valuing of, friendship; 
capacity for self-sacrifice; a "live and let live" attitude to life, and 
other related aspects, including a non-cynical approach to life and people, 
which in Harry's case admittedly verges on the naive (although a certain 
naivete is not only  understandable in, but part and parcel of being, a 
teenager).

I think one of the most blatant ways this juxtaposition manifests itself is 
the way the DA was instituted and run as opposed to everything we know 
about the Death Eaters and the way Malfoy Snr. conducts his affairs (seeing 
as Malfoy is presented as Voldy's second in command and his representative 
for a chunk of the plot to date). Just to give an idea of what I'm on 
about, the idea for the DA isn't Harry's, its purpose is not his own 
self-aggrandisement, and he doesn't need to cajole or bully people into 
joining. And once the DA starts its activities, Harry doesn't appear to 
want to show off (the thought doesn't appear to cross his mind) and is 
willing to learn as much as teach. Whilst most of these attributes don't 
really belong in any dictionary definition of "love", they are indicative 
of a certain predisposition, and it is this predisposition that I believe 
JKR is summing up with this particular unvoiced term.

>  [...] 'cos that demonstrated by Harry is very limited and very specific 
> - to just a few individuals.

C'mon, that's an unfair comment on several levels. First of all, few people 
reserve the label of "love" to more than a tiny handful of others at the 
best of times. To expect Harry to be any different is rather churlish. 
Secondly, while neither Harry nor the Narrator use the term about his 
feelings for anyone, this is hardly usual for a 11-15 year old boy (other 
than in hyperbolic circumstances e.g. "I love flying").

Mainly, though, as regards Harry's *propensities* rather than his expressed 
sentiments, his approach towards everyone he meets is to give them the 
benefit of the doubt until they make the first move. This then determines 
his feelings towards them. In the case of Sirius, of course, these feelings 
did a 180 degree turn, once Harry was equipped with the full facts.

The Magical World is a very prejudiced place, with many would-be "noble", 
"good" or simply sympathetic characters displaying all kinds of biases, be 
they towards Muggles or various races of beings, and House-Elves in 
particular. Harry displays very few of these biases, while accepting the 
status quo and doing little or nothing to fight them (e.g. regarding House 
Elves, by not taking much as interest as Hermione would like in SPEW). Of 
course, some characters/creatures may be scary or off-putting (e.g. first 
contact with Buckbeak, Dobby, or indeed Hagrid), but Harry doesn't stop 
this accepting them as *potential* dangers until he has reason to be sure.

Harry's ill-will is reserved to very few characters and while he has a 
passing dislike for several,  he doesn't act on that dislike. And all the 
people he *does* dislike or hate are themselves blameworthy for that 
feeling. Whether it's Snape, who was disrespectful and bullying during 
their first encounter (compounded by Harry's assumption about the origin of 
his scar hurting during the Feast), or Malfoy, who after the basically 
racist exchange at Madame Malkin's, adds to it by insulting Harry's first 
friend *ever*. And could anyone in his shoes *not* hate Umbridge?

Apart from them and, of course, Voldy and his minions, Harry basically 
would go a long distance to help pretty much anyone. There are several 
people he dislikes with varying degrees in intensity, such as the Dursleys, 
Filtch and Skeeter, but again this is because they have behaved badly 
towards him or those close to him. And done so *consistently*, not just on 
one-off occasions.

Whether or not he "loves" those he is willing to protect is a matter of 
semantics, and is certainly not a word Harry himself would be prepared to 
use. But the basis for emotional ties is there and this is what divides him 
from Voldemort, and it is (presumably) the concept of tying himself to 
another (which we may as well call "love") which is absent from Voldy's 
emotional, psychological and indeed physical makeup, but is so abundant in 
Harry's.

A frequent topic for HP-related polls of one sort or another are people's 
favourite lines. Mine has always been, since the first time I read it, not 
a pithy or humorous piece of dialogue, but this from his first journey 
aboard the Hogwarts Express:

" 'Go on, have a pasty', said Harry, who had never had anything to share 
before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting 
there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry's pasties ..."

Few things give Harry as much pleasure as the act of sharing, and if that's 
not a demonstration of one of the possible definitions of "love", I don't 
know what is. Almost all of Harry's friendships begin with some act of 
altruism, usually, but not always (e.g. Hagrid) on Harry's part.

Fair enough, seeing as it's pleasurable, your Darwinistic, deterministic 
view of human behaviour will insist that that's why he indulges in it. 
Except it's not. Harry doesn't do good things for other people because it 
makes him feel good. He does it because that's the kind of person he is - a 
(eugh!) "loving" person.

Contrast with the way Voldemort (exemplified by his chief lackey, Malfoy 
Snr., about whose methods we know more) makes allies and supporters: 
intimidation, blackmail, bribery, etc. Note, however, that Hermione has 
used these methods, and Harry's first reaction has usually been negative 
(e.g. she bullies Harry & Ron into joining SPEW, she blackmails/bribes Rita 
Skeeter into doing her bidding, etc).

Of course, this doesn't mean that Harry is pure as the driven snow and 
doesn't have a single bad feeling about anyone. Harry is capable of feeling 
hateful and even vengeful, and by my reading, it is those emotions on which 
Voldy feeds (and nourishes) during the course of the events in OotP, 
although not much is made of it in the book. But when push comes to shove, 
Harry is incapable of killing Sirius (while hating him with all his being) 
and thus gives Lupin his opening in PoA. Likewise, he's incapable of 
inflicting serious damage on Bellatrix after she's been responsible for 
Sirius's demise. In other words, Harry only *thinks* he "hates" certain 
people and is hardly able to act on those emotions, whilst his acts of 
altruism are capable of taking him to foolish extremes.

Yes, he is rightly accused of having a "hero complex", but it's not born 
out of a desire to be a hero, but to save those for whom he cares (another 
possible dictionary definition of the four-letter word).

Harry may or may "love" Dudley and the fact that he saved him may or may 
not be the result of animal herd instinct; but the Magical World, however, 
unscientific as it is, doesn't appear to set any store by genetics, 
anthropology (or any other -ologies) and would label it "love", or at the 
very least, an act of altruism born of a sense of responsibility for 
another human being. Lord Thingy certainly wouldn't have done it, and it is 
in reference to that more than anything else which makes it a positive 
trait on Harry's part.

Whether or not Kneasy's act of heroic bravery (the difference between 
heroic bravery and heroic stupidity is the outcome...) was an act of animal 
herd instinct or an act of altruism isn't really the point. The point is, 
would Lord Voldemort (or even Tom Riddle) have done it?

>I don't claim that you're wrong - though I'll be very depressed if you're
>right, I'd hoped for something more than an ending cliched even by the
>standards of daytime TV.

The cliched ending I am fearing (and which I consider increasingly likely) 
is that Tom Riddle will experience love for the first time in some deus ex 
machina fashion, and whilst not redeeming himself (I think I remember JKR 
ruling that one out), will breathe his last breath as a loved person. And 
worst scenario of all, the person doing the loving will be Harry. Yeuch!


--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who's just noticed that he's spent the last four hours 
scribbling the above, and is horrified by this effort-to-outcome ratio.



From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 06:49:33 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 06:49:33 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going VERY OT)
In-Reply-To: <d8a9ld+rbog@...>
Message-ID: <d8bd5t+t9v0@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kneasy wrote:

> > As for how I knew I'd wonder - if you saw a vehicle overturn and
> come sliding down the road on it's roof with the driver still inside 
> and you gave it a wave and drove on past, wouldn't you wonder 
> afterwards that maybe you could have helped? 

I'm not sure what I could possibly do in that situation to help that 
particular driver, except maybe call 911 on my cell phone, but I will 
be helpful to you and point out that the word "it's" means "it is," 
Therefore, it's incorrect to use "it's" as a possessive, so what you 
want to say is "its roof."  

Sorry, but that is a particular compulsion of mine.  I now return 
myself to the normally scheduled thread.

--Joywitch Z, being curmudgeonly






From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 07:18:16 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 07:18:16 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (getting somewhat less OT, maybe?)
In-Reply-To: <d88of8+842r@...>
Message-ID: <d8bero+r37d@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley" 
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
 
> David, who can't imagine why Joywitch would fear teasing

I fear nothing!

Getting back to the Goat's question:  I don't really understand, 
either, why Dumbledore doesn't just say the word "love," but his 
failure to do so always reminds me of one of my other favorite 
children's fantasy books: "A Wrinkle in Time."  One of the witches 
tells Meg, as she is sent off to rescue Charles Wallace from 
It, "You have something that It does not have."  ("It" is a garden 
variety evil entity who has imprisioned her brother, Charles 
Wallace.)  Meg struggles, during the course of a chapter-long walk 
to whereever it was that It lives, to understand what she, a mere 
girl, could possibly have that the powerful It does not have, and at 
the last moment realizes that what she has is love, especially her 
love for Charles Wallace, which is what rescues him.  In that book 
(which I would bet my beloved new cobalt blue Kitchenaid stand mixer 
JKR has read), the fact that the word love is never mentioned until 
the very end makes the plot much more powerful and far less 
sentimental than it would have been if Meg had been perusing her 
capacity for love the entire while.

If you think of the scene at the MoM where Voldie has possessed 
Harry -- Harry is in pain, Voldie is crying out to Dumbledore to 
kill him, and Harry is thinking, yes, Dumbledore, kill us now and 
let this pain end.  Then, as he thinks about how he'll see Sirius 
again when he dies, his mind is filled with love for Sirius and 
Voldie is no longer able to possess him.  Love is the only thing 
that seems to be more powerful than either Voldie or It.

I guess what I'm arguing pretty much the same thing that Mike 
speculated -- that Dumbledore doesn't actually use the word love 
because use of the word somehow cheapens it by making it into 
sentimental smush, but that in doing so she is making a literary 
allusion to A Wrinkle In Time (or just stealing a plot device, 
depending on how you look at it).

--JZC





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 09:49:56 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:49:56 +0200
Subject: OT: Of Noble Kneasies and Nasty Beasts
In-Reply-To: <d8aj7j+6gib@...>
Message-ID: <005a01c56da1$c2099fa0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Thanks Neri - that made sense!

Of course, the solution is rather simple: 

Clearly, the Kneasy in question had just seen a startlingly realistic
fata morgana, including the vision of several delectable but choosy
females of his species. In a state of intense hormonal agitation, he
followed his insticts directly to the nearest act of staggeringly heroic
malehood.

No? Ach, sorry Kneasy. Not really the fata morgana type, eh? Rats.

Anyway, Neri, your account makes an awful lot of sense - I really
enjoyed reading it!

I was also thinking about four things: (1) Don't acts of physical
bravery have the helpful trait of displaying strength, courage and other
physical and emotional traits that are only indirectly connected to
kindness and generosity? (2) Granted (1), wouldn't females (who, in our
current discussion, perpetually sit about waiting for class-A males to
show up) also gradually develop the ability to distinguish between truly
generous males and macho, show-off males? (3) Granted (2), wouldn't said
males develop a tendency to err just enough on the side of generosity to
be perceived as "truly generous" rather than "show-off macho generous"?
(4) Couldn't it be precisely this inbred error pattern that would lead
to acts of Kneasulous nobility - acts which we note as "heroic" since
they fall on the outside "generous" section of the behavioral bell
curve?

BTW, I've no doubt that you biological types have been there before and
done that three times over and will mail me the T-Shirt for a reasonable
tuition fee. I'm just having fun trying to bend my mind around the way
the game works. (And acting like the sort of male chauvenist I've always
suspected I really am.)

Neri:

> Sure, we have 
> some (very rare) cases of animals behaving altruistically [...] 
> but in none of these cases the altruist was actually putting it's 
> own life in serious danger. So until I find some counterexamples I 
> must classify Kneasy's deed as a purely human behavior pattern. My 
> apologies if this disappoints you, Kneasy <g>.

I liked that! Last year I did some ethics stuff centered partly on feral
children (which you mentioned tangentially), partly on Vicki Hearn's
discussion of virtue in dogs and horses. I'd be interested in your take
on Vicki Hearn. She argues that dogs and horses *are* noble - and noble
in exactly the same way we are - but she also argues that this shared
nobility is directly connected to our shared form of life. (And she
talks a lot about the  basic difference between dogs and wolves.)

Of course, she holds that other species have their own virutes and
nobility. It was entrancing stuff.

BTW, is there actually any proof of feral children who have been
substantially reared by animals? There are a lot of stories, but a lot
of them seem to be pretty dodgy.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 11:27:26 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:27:26 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)
In-Reply-To: <d8a9ld+rbog@...>
Message-ID: <d8bteu+q4p7@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> It doesn't haunt me and it never occured to me at the time that it 
> might haunt me, because I too was a clockwork mouse and
> didn't think about any alternatives. So I am a little confused on the
> time-line. When, if you don't mind my asking, did you think about 
> what would have happened if you'd gone by?
> 
> 

Kneasy:
OK.
What I hope are the last words on the subject. It's amazing what one
is willing to reveal to total strangers on the web even though I've never
talked about it at home. The event in question was thirty years ago
so the immediacy has gone and hindsight, that wonderful medium
of rationalisation has had a chance to produce 'reasons' if not total
justification. Except it hasn't. It happened the way it did and there is 
no logical explanation of why.

The 'maybe I shouldn't have done it/could I have done nothing?' 
thought surfaced briefly a day or so later - after the driver had died,
together with a severe dose of the shakes at the thought of what
might have happened.
In effect my actions were of no consequence  (quite literally) and in 
retrospect it was very likely that the scene could've turned into a 
fireball producing a Kneasy-shaped charcoal briquette. It does tend to 
make you wonder 'what the hell did you think you were doing?' 

I agree with Neri, it wasn't an 'intelligent' thing to do, it wasn't even 
evolutionary advantageous (sadly there were no admiring throngs of 
gullible females to inflict my progeny upon). Evolution is not kind to
those who take outrageous risks, the odds ensure that it never becomes
habit-forming - as the Darwin Awards demonstrate. (For those not
familiar with with the DAs, they're a recognition of those who have
improved the human gene pool by removing themselves from it,
usually by an act of mind-boggling stupidity.) Maybe that makes me
a candidate-in-waiting because I'd feel compelled to act similarly
in a similar situation. Sorry, no logic, no smart justification, it's just
the way it is.


> > Kneasy:
> > 'Life is a mystery' - belongs right there in the Dept of Mysteries,
> then.
> 
> Pippin: 
> But if life is considered as a natural phenomenon, how is it not one
> of the forces of nature? 
> 

Kneasy:
A force of nature and a natural phenomenon are cause and effect IMO.
The moon exerts gravitational pull on the earth - a force of nature.  This
produces oceanic tides - a natural phenomenon. It is entirely predictable
once the physical laws are known. Can you say the same about life? Is it
predictable, both advent and progression/diversity, the result of as yet 
unelucidated universal imperatives? Or is it something of an entirely
different order? Nice question.





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 12:19:09 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 13:19:09 +0100
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <39807219-92C9-471F-9AA7-BA4333DE6DC1@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050610123350.00997150@...>

A couple of *hopefully* short comments on posts...

At 11:17 09/06/05 , Barry Arrowsmith wrote:

>And the un-named power is greater than any of these.
>So -  what's missing from the list above  that has fascinated
>humanity down the ages?
>
>Life itself.
>The mystery of what differentiates the animate from the inanimate.
>What is it, how does it come about, all the questions that may never
>be answered, even in the real world.

<snip>

How do you fit "life" (or "life-force") into Dumbledore's explanation?:

"That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from 
possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so 
full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could 
not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.' (OotP, p. 743 UK 
ed, last page of Ch. 37)

bearing in mind that this is how the scene to which he was referring was 
described (from inside Harry's head):

"Let the pain stop, thought Harry... let him kill us... end it, 
Dumbledore... death is nothing compared to this... And I'll see Sirius 
again... And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's coils 
loosened, the pain was gone" (OotP, p. 720 UK ed, end of Ch. 36)

So either the force was an emotion (and I'd really like to see you define 
"life" as an emotion...) :-) or (if you want to be particularly 
disputatious, and consider the previous sentence to have been the effective 
element) a willingness to die, which presumably means that *giving up* the 
power (assuming, as you do, that it's "life") is what makes it powerful.

Either way, your rationale doesn't fit.

Q.E.D.

And whilst I can't find a post to quote, a short remark on why JKR chooses 
not to name the power. Whilst I agree that using the word "love" in this 
context would sound slushy and trite, the fact remains that JKR didn't shy 
away from using it during the very similar conversation at the end of PS/SS 
(there are several parallels, some of them referred to in the conversation 
itself, of course): however, in those circumstances, it was about maternal 
love: "Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot 
understand, it is love. "

Because the tone and language of the books follow and represent Harry's 
development, I suspect that to a certain extent, this is one of the 
reasons  she was free to use it then, but not now. An 11 year-old boy would 
be prepared to use and hear and use the word in this context; a 15 (nearly 
16) year-old, not nearly so.

Nevertheless, Deumbledore's (and JKR's) sudden reverence for the term 
(assuming, of course, as we all seem to, that this is the power in 
question) does ring a little hollow.

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, slowly catching up



From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 14:17:57 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:17:57 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT) and coming back
In-Reply-To: <d8aj7j+6gib@...>
Message-ID: <d8c7el+hdon@...>

> Neri:
> Stories like these were very common among evolutionary biologists
in 
> the 50s and the 60s, and some of the old geezers still tell them 
> today. However, since then most biologists have realized that not 
> every theory that sounds reasonable can actually be made to work. 
> Today, biologists will usually demand to see a working mathematical 
> model, at the very least. The explanations you suggested were 
> discussed a lot over the years, but at least for explaining extreme 
> altruism they don't work very well, mainly because they are
sensitive 
> to new mutations with slightly more reasonable behavior. In your 
> theory, for example, it's likely  that after a million years or
two, 
> *some* females would get some brain, and would go for the specimen 
> that risk their lives only for females (preferably one female, 
> preferably them). The specimen that risk their lives for any
stranger 
> out there are less likely to stay alive and be there for the kids, 
> after all. You'd also think that some males would get the brain to 
> perform these risky stunts only when some females are around to be 
> impressed. The models show that once very few of the population 
> develop a smarter gene like this, they quickly multiply and take
over 
> the whole population, because they have a survival advantage.
They're 
> only altruists when it's effective for propagating their genes. 
> However, I gathered from Kneasy's story that there wasn't any 
> eligable female around. 


Pippin:
Isn't there a mathematical model for the peacock's tail? It's a
useless, risky appendage for the individual peacock, but the 
female who selects for it is selecting for a male whose strength 
and vigor are obvious and tested, so her offspring are advantaged 
over the female who doesn't select for the showy tail.


Valor, though it endangers the individual, attests
to his strength and vigor if he survives.

Having evolved language, we need not personally witness valor
to appreciate it. Kneasy has had this story to tell  for thirty
years, I gather, in which time he might have encountered an 
eligible female or two. You could call it a feather in his cap. His 
self-deprecation merely serves to assure the listener that he's 
no Lockhart. 


As for risking one's life for a stranger...

Given the long period of childhood dependency in humans, the odds are
against both biological parents lasting till their offspring are
mature. 

My theory would be that  although many mammals will slaughter the 
previous offspring of a new mate, (and humans have been observed 
to do that),  there's some advantage for humans in selecting a mate
who wouldn't--one who is kind to strangers. And of course, in how 
many stories does the selfish jerk's behavior, though directed toward 
the stranger, end up endangering his own kin? ::whistles Star Wars 
theme::

I believe there's a new study that suggests that oxytocin, the
hormone that controls the mother-child bond, also increases trust 
in strangers.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050531/full/050531-4.html

In that case, maybe Rowling and the Anglo-Saxons have it right and it 
does make sense to have one word for the whole passel, even if
disinterested altruism and mother love don't  *feel* the same. 
Dumbledore doesn't use the word, just as the hero doesn't tell us he 
was brave, because it would sound, and feel, fraudulent. But it
isn't.

Love is a verb. The word is validated by action, not feeling.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 14:19:53 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:19:53 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050610123350.00997150@...>
Message-ID: <d8c7i9+mt3h@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> 
> How do you fit "life" (or "life-force") into Dumbledore's explanation?:
> 
> "That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from 
> possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so 
> full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could 
> not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.' (OotP, p. 743 UK 
> ed, last page of Ch. 37)
> 
> So either the force was an emotion (and I'd really like to see you define 
> "life" as an emotion...) :-) or (if you want to be particularly 
> disputatious, and consider the previous sentence to have been the effective 
> element) a willingness to die, which presumably means that *giving up* the 
> power (assuming, as you do, that it's "life") is what makes it powerful.
> 
> Either way, your rationale doesn't fit.
> 

Good oh. 
An opportunity for possibly specious arguments and irritating hair-splitting. 
How can I get sensible readers to expostulate "But!" - let us count the ways.
First consider Voldy.
He rapidly vacates Harry when Harry looks as if he is ready to accept death.
Understandable; Voldy's been avoiding it for years, actively trying to death-
proof himself in fact. The last thing he wants is for young Potter to pop his
clogs while Voldy still has his feet in 'em; that wouldn't do at all. Could
result in nasty and possibly terminal consequences. Best to avoid this
potential unpleasantness and leave. This despite his taunting of DD to
zap the conjoined duo and win the war. I have a sneaking suspicion that
this wouldn't have worked and that both Voldy and DD knew it. 'Cos let's
face it, DD would have done it otherwise - he has the whole WW to consider
and the chance of securing a home win at the cost of one body would have 
been an opportunity not to be missed. Harry willingly accepting death seems
to be something else entirely and Voldy wanted nothing to do with it.

Additionally - this love stuff. Now I don't claim to be an expert on the subject,
but - It's my understanding that it is a continuing emotion - by which I mean
that (assuming he did) Harry loved Sirius *before* going to the MoM, *during*
the Ministry fight and *after* his final curtain. It's unlikely that the emotion
suddenly blossomed after he had been possessed, he'd got more immediate 
things on his mind - like Voldy. True, he does consider that one serendipitous
consequence of this whole unfortunate affair will be a reunion with the old mutt,
but I contend that  this is some sort of confirmation that his Sirius emotion was 
not new. However, if Harry loved Sirius all along and love is anathema to Voldy, 
then Voldy shouldn't have been able to enter his mind at all because the love 
will be present even if not in the forefront of his mind.

As I pointed out in a recent post, DD regards death as an adjunct to life, it's
the next great adventure after you stop getting up in the morning and scratching
your bum. There is a continuity, one implies the other, one leads to the other.
Death is the end product of life. To a medieval churchman (and some a bit more
recent) life is merely a preparation for death, for the afterlife. To deny death is
to negate the purpose of life. To deny purpose to life is to deny life itself.
Conclusion: Voldy is anti-life and Harry is the expression of life.

Um. Life as an emotion. How about 'joie de vivre'?

I await your outrage.

Kneasy 






From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 17:23:50 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:23:50 +0100
Subject: Terry Boot
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050610175703.009a5b10@...>

Tearing myself away from past and current discussions, an observation out 
of the blue...

I've just finished my first re-read of OotP since it came out in 
preparation for HBP's release, and whilst several bits and pieces intrigue 
me and leave me asking questions, one which quite literally kept me awake 
last night (sad, moi?) is this quote:

"'And did you kill a Basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?' 
demanded Terry Boot. That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me 
when I was in there last year . . .'" (in  the Hog's Head, UK ed., p. 305)

WHAT was Terry Boot doing in Dumbledore's office during GOF year? I'm 
convinced that his mention of the fact that he'd been there isn't entirely 
irrelevant - after all, even Harry's only ever been in there under 
extraordinary circumstances. So, what circumstances led to his presence 
there? And what led him to be talking about the sword with a portrait? Can 
we assume that Dumbledore wasn't there at the time (in our/Harry's 
experience, the portraits talk to him rather than his guests whenever he's 
around)?

I've looked over a few HP discussion boards and nobody seems to have 
thought this worthy of closer investigation. Several people have, however, 
picked up on something else: "Quidditch Through The Ages" includes the 
library checkout page at the front, and he (or, at least, "T. Boot") is 
listed as having borrowed the book from the Hogwarts library after "E. 
Macmillan", with a return date of 21st August (E.M.'s return date was 12th 
August). What are these boys doing borrowing books from the library in the 
middle of the summer holidays? Hogwarts breaks up towards the end of of 
June every year, returning on 1st September, and madame Pince strikes me as 
the kind of person who wouldn't dream of consigning her precious books to 
Owl Post.

I can't help feeling that there's some kind of connection here, but I can't 
really see it. A few other facts:

Terry is a pure-blood (I *think*); Ernie certainly is. Terry is a 
Ravenclaw, Ernie a Hufflepuff. But there seems to be some kind of 
connection between them.

Seeing as Terry doesn't warrant a mention at all in the series before OotP, 
am I seeing too much into this, or is this character whose involvement will 
rise (perhaps like Luna's)?

Anyway, all questions and no answers. Any ideas, folks?

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, hoping to have got this topic from inside his head now





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 17:46:14 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:46:14 +0100
Subject: "Voldemort" (Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
In-Reply-To: <d7p7hn+c8m3@...>
References: <001501c56780$04637970$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050610143810.009a5d20@...>

At 10:23 03/06/05 , David wrote:

>It's my belief that there *is* good reason to be careful about
>saying 'Voldemort'.  We know that correct pronunciation is important
>in magic: intention is important, too, but it isn't everything.

Although pronouncing his name clearly isn't because the two official 
audiobooks use different pronunciations and JKR has never forced either one 
to change. :-)

>I suspect that in defined circumstances (which Dumbledore understands,
>and knows do not apply most of the time) it is best not to say the name, 
>and wonder if Hermione is going to fall foul of this in the  coming book.

I'm extremely dubious about that one. Don't forget that "fear of a name 
increases fear of the thing itself". Bear in mind that DD said this, 
without qualification, at the end of Harry's first year at Hogwarts, when 
Harry had little idea of the importance of Voldemort himself, his name, or 
indeed much grasp of magical incantations in general.

I would add, though, that while that sentence has often been repeated in 
discussions on all kinds of topics, there's also the preceding sentence: 
"Always use the proper name for things". Dumbledore insists on referring to 
Tom Riddle to his face by his original name, though it's interesting that 
(for plot reasons and no other) he hides this particular fact from Harry at 
that point. So just what *is* Voldemort's "proper" name?

Of all the occasions Harry's used Voldemort's name (in vain?), no reaction 
has ever been quite as strong as that of DEs (including Snape). Is the DEs' 
attitude one of reverence, or simply of fear? Snape's reaction during the 
Occlumency lesson would indicate the latter:

'Do not say the Dark Lord's name!' spat Snape. [...} 'Professor Dumbledore 
says his name.' said Harry quietly. 'Dumbledore is an extremely powerful 
wizard,' Snape muttered. 'While he may feel secure enough to use the name . 
. . the rest of us . . .'  (ch. 24, p. 470 UK ed).

A couple of further observations. In all kinds of mythologies and other 
sets of belief, names have a huge power. Most famously (as has been noted 
already) the Jewish unpronounced Holy Name, but also real and fictional 
worlds in which, e.g. saying a name three times makes the entity appear, 
or, for instance, in the Earthsea books, where knowing an entity's real 
name gives you power over it. Also in the Potterverse, words (generally 
backed by a wand) really can do more damage than a bullet.

But is Voldemort's name one of these? It hadn't escaped my notice that a) 
during the Occluemncy lesson, Harry gets to say the name twice (would a 
third time have made any difference?); and b) Snape looks down on his Dark 
Mark as if expecting something to happen. Does the name serve as a 
summoning call if a DE uses it? Questions, questions....

A further question is, at what stage did the name become "unmentionable"? 
Tom Riddle changed his name for a reason. If nobody uses it, and his own 
followers call him the "Dark Lord" anyway, what was the point? What 
happened to make people think that using the name might bring down 
misfortune on themselves? Is it pure superstition or did, as David implies, 
something happen to somebody "unworthy" who used it?

All superstitions have some kind of basis or explanation (for completely 
unrelated reasons, I recently found out that it's apparently bad luck to 
carry bananas on boats and there are at least 3 separate suggested reasons 
for this, from different parts of the world); I am far more interested in 
what started people being scared of speaking his name rather than why 
people currently refuse to say it. Or is it simply a case of refusing to 
speak a name somehow distancing oneself from the entity?

I somehow fear that we're never going to get sufficient answers to those 
questions, and as someone who rarely embarks on theories and limits himself 
to observations, I'm open to ideas.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, 149 posts down, 537 to go...



From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 10 22:35:48 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:35:48 -0000
Subject: OT: Of Noble Kneasies and Nasty Beasts
In-Reply-To: <005a01c56da1$c2099fa0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8d4k4+8on7@...>

> Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) wrote:
> I was also thinking about four things: (1) Don't acts of physical
> bravery have the helpful trait of displaying strength, courage and 
other
> physical and emotional traits that are only indirectly connected to
> kindness and generosity? (2) Granted (1), wouldn't females (who, in 
our
> current discussion, perpetually sit about waiting for class-A males 
to
> show up) also gradually develop the ability to distinguish between 
truly
> generous males and macho, show-off males? 

> Pippin:
> Isn't there a mathematical model for the peacock's tail? It's a
> useless, risky appendage for the individual peacock, but the 
> female who selects for it is selecting for a male whose strength 
> and vigor are obvious and tested, so her offspring are advantaged 
> over the female who doesn't select for the showy tail.
> 

Neri:
Yep, you both hint to the "Handicap Principle" by one of my B.A. 
teachers, Amotz Zehavi (you can look him up in Amazon, the link is 
too long to paste here). He argues that risky deeds of courage or 
costly cues like the peacock's tail have a survival advantage because 
they are reliable proofs of high fitness: only the really strong can 
afford to engage in them. The idea is of honest advertisement: any 
car firm can advertise it's cars as more reliable, but only the 
producer of truly reliable cars would be able to increase the 
warranty period without suffering unacceptable loses. I should warn 
you that Zehavi is one of those story-tellers old geezers I mentioned 
earlier. Some of his suggestions, like handicapping in sexual 
preference (as in the peacock's tail), are indeed well validated in 
models of other investigators, but many others aren't. I'm not aware 
of any working model using the Handicap Principle to explain extreme 
altruism, but my specialized field isn't behavioral ecology (as it's 
usually called today) so it's quite possible I've missed it.    

> Aberforth's Goat:
>(3) Granted (2), wouldn't said
> males develop a tendency to err just enough on the side of 
generosity to
> be perceived as "truly generous" rather than "show-off macho 
generous"?
> (4) Couldn't it be precisely this inbred error pattern that would 
lead
> to acts of Kneasulous nobility - acts which we note as "heroic" 
since
> they fall on the outside "generous" section of the behavioral bell
> curve?
>

Neri:
This is indeed the common explanation evoked by evolutionary 
biologists whenever the theory can't explain the whole range of the 
phenomenon: The system is not foolproof, so it simply overreached. 
There are certainly many good examples of blunders like this in 
nature (cross-species adoption I mention below being one). In the 
case of risking your life for strangers,however, I doubt it's a 
system error. Human are more intelligent than other mammals, 
certainly much more than (say) insects, so you would expect that 
they'll have a better assessment of a risky situation and would be 
less prone to "errors" like this. But simple observation suggests 
they're more prone, not less.

I have (naturally) my own pet theory, which is as unsupported as the 
next one. I think extreme altruism in humans does have, in a sense, 
biological origins, but it's not a survival trait. It's a by-product 
of human imagination, which *is* a survival trait. Humans have an 
unmatched ability to visualize hypothetical situations, or to 
visualize a current situation from the POV of the other person, and 
they use it all the time: in personal relationships, while discussing 
the Harry Potter books, while constructing evolutionary models, or 
for tactic and strategic planning. This ability probably accounts for 
a large part of human superior intelligence. I think it's also the 
basis of human empathy. Simply put, Kneasy (unlike any baboon out 
there) could imagine very clearly what it would be like to be stuck 
in the overturned tanker while somebody else is passing by without 
stopping. The facts that the driver was a stranger and there was no 
one around to impress were completely irrelevant to this ability.

So if I were writing HP, the power in the locked room wouldn't 
be "love", and not "life" either, but "imagination". But I quite 
agree with the Goat that it's most probably love, and JKR is just 
trying not to be too fluffy.


 
> Aberforth's Goat:
> I liked that! Last year I did some ethics stuff centered partly on 
feral
> children (which you mentioned tangentially), partly on Vicki Hearn's
> discussion of virtue in dogs and horses. I'd be interested in your 
take
> on Vicki Hearn. She argues that dogs and horses *are* noble - and 
noble
> in exactly the same way we are - but she also argues that this 
shared
> nobility is directly connected to our shared form of life. (And she
> talks a lot about the  basic difference between dogs and wolves.)
> 
> Of course, she holds that other species have their own virutes and
> nobility. It was entrancing stuff.
> 
> BTW, is there actually any proof of feral children who have been
> substantially reared by animals? There are a lot of stories, but a 
lot
> of them seem to be pretty dodgy.
> 

Neri:
I'm not familiar with Hearn, and I admit that I've never researched 
any of the feral children stories, so I know as much as the next guy. 
I seem to remember that at least some of them were credible, and I've 
recently read somewhere about a new case of a child reared by dogs ? 
can't remember in what country it was, but it seemed well supported. 
In any case, the dodgy part in these stories is the child surviving 
the conditions, but the cross-species adoption I have no problem 
believing, since it's a well documented phenomena. Most zoos would 
have at least one story about how the lioness or whatever wouldn't 
raise her cub so they gave it to a bitch instead. All mammal babies 
share the same cues: the big round eyes, the shortened face and the 
ungainly walk, coupled with the fairly universal mommy-mommy-please-
feed-me voice. These cues are very powerful ? nail those XX 
chromosomes carriers almost every time (and have a considerable 
affect on me too. Must be that single X chromosome). 

Neri






From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 00:16:41 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 01:16:41 +0100
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8c7i9+mt3h@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050610123350.00997150@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050611000301.009a0380@...>

At 15:19 10/06/05 , Barry Arrowsmith wrote:

<snip>

>[Voldy] rapidly vacates Harry when Harry looks as if he is ready to accept 
>death. Understandable; Voldy's been avoiding it for years, actively trying 
>to death-proof himself in fact. The last thing he wants is for young 
>Potter to pop his clogs while Voldy still has his feet in 'em; that 
>wouldn't do at all. Could
>result in nasty and possibly terminal consequences. Best to avoid this
>potential unpleasantness and leave. This despite his taunting of DD to
>zap the conjoined duo and win the war. I have a sneaking suspicion that
>this wouldn't have worked and that both Voldy and DD knew it. 'Cos let's
>face it, DD would have done it otherwise - he has the whole WW to consider
>and the chance of securing a home win at the cost of one body would have
>been an opportunity not to be missed. Harry willingly accepting death seems
>to be something else entirely and Voldy wanted nothing to do with it.

While I agree to some extent with some of your conclusions, I disagree with 
the rationale.

Note that Voldy has never heard the second half of the prophecy (indeed, 
seeking it is what forced his hand to show himself!). Dumbledore has. As 
far as we know, he is the only person alive who knows the full text (for 
the record, although he has told the Order members that the prophecy 
exists, that it concerns Harry, and that harry's survival is imperative to 
his plans; I suspect that his "strict need to know" policy would have made 
him stop short of letting them know what it said) and he's not going to 
jeopardise that advantage (I must admit that one of my - many -  objections 
to the plot of OotP is why the hell he hadn't simply destroyed the bloody 
thing seeing as he has his own perfect record; as the most powerful wizard 
alive, I'm sure he could have concocted a harmless facsimile for Voldy to 
lust after).

Anyway, Voldy already had one AK bounce off the Potter brat 15 years 
earlier, not to mention that he lost out in a duel between them a year 
previously. There is no way on Earth that he's going to take the risk of 
facing up to the kid again with (Dark) Lord knows (not!) what consequences. 
And so, knowing the day is lost, he tries to get Dumbley-dore to do his 
dirty work for him.

Admittedly, his first reaction to learning that the prophecy orb had been 
destroyed was to chuck an AK Harry-wards, but in a typical JKR deus ex 
machina moment, Dumbley turns up just in time to lob a block of metal to 
intercept it, but then we all know that Voldy isn't the brightest bulb in 
the pack, nor has he read the list of Evil Overlord dos and don'ts. It's 
when he disappears from the "frozen fountain" that Dumbley looks 
"frightened" and it's then that he pulls off what he considers his master 
stroke, to possess the kid.

Although I disagree with your cynical misrepresentation of DD and his 
actions, I'm sure that yes, he'd have been prepared to sacrifice Harry if 
he thought he could gain anything by it. He knows the prophecy and thinks 
he knows what it means, namely that Harry has to be around to see Voldy go 
down. Perhaps he's "frightened" because he thinks this is that moment, that 
Voldy's found a away to take Harry out. We don't know all the ins and outs 
of Legilimency (Dumbley, on the other hand, we can assume, does), but it 
seems to me that the extended connection Harry and Voldy share wouldn't 
have left Voldy with much damage if Dumbley had acted on Harry's pleas and 
ended his suffering. I think that they key here is understanding what 
Dumbley was scared of (a parallel moment to that notorious "gleam" at the 
end of GoF).

In any event, to come back to what we're actually talking about, a 
willingness to lose it is hardly equivalent to "life" itself, in terms of 
any power that it may confer (or be of itself). So all in all, I simply 
don't understand what you're getting at with your rationale.

>Additionally - this love stuff. Now I don't claim to be an expert on the 
>subject,
>but - It's my understanding that it is a continuing emotion - by which I mean
>that (assuming he did) Harry loved Sirius *before* going to the MoM, *during*
>the Ministry fight and *after* his final curtain.

And life isn't a continuing force? Unlike emotions, life is or isn't 
present. You can't have a "little" life, or a lot of it. How many loving 
relationships (feel free to choose whichever definition you want) are based 
on a constant level of emotion? Different stimuli cause the *strength* of 
that emotion to wax and wane, and thinking of the "loved one" in times of 
danger is generally a pretty good stimulus to (in poetic terms) "fill the 
heart". Thinking of (indeed, willing on ) losing life is hardly conducive 
to increasing its power. Quite the contrary.

>It's unlikely that the emotion
>suddenly blossomed after he had been possessed, he'd got more immediate
>things on his mind - like Voldy. True, he does consider that one serendipitous
>consequence of this whole unfortunate affair will be a reunion with the 
>old mutt,
>but I contend that  this is some sort of confirmation that his Sirius 
>emotion was
>not new. However, if Harry loved Sirius all along and love is anathema to 
>Voldy,
>then Voldy shouldn't have been able to enter his mind at all because the love
>will be present even if not in the forefront of his mind.

Which is exactly the point. Thinking of the "mutt" *did* bring the love to 
the forefront of his mind! Considering this from the perspective of your 
argument, though, nothing at all in that scene increased Harry's "life 
force". if anything, the contrary is the case.

>As I pointed out in a recent post, DD regards death as an adjunct to life, 
>it's
>the next great adventure after you stop getting up in the morning and 
>scratching
>your bum. There is a continuity, one implies the other, one leads to the 
>other.
>Death is the end product of life. To a medieval churchman (and some a bit more
>recent) life is merely a preparation for death, for the afterlife. To deny 
>death is
>to negate the purpose of life. To deny purpose to life is to deny life itself.
>Conclusion: Voldy is anti-life and Harry is the expression of life.

Surely every child is the expression of life? Considering your heretofore 
evolutionary, deterministic, standpoint, every organism sees in its 
offspring the only possible way of "surviving" death (inasmuch as any 
mature organism is the sum of its genetic code plus experience). I agree 
that what Voldy is after is (to put it a slightly different way) a 
different kind of life, a life without death, a defiance of the natural 
order. But, in the natural order of things, love *is* life, in that "love" 
is the instinct which drives us (at least, some of us...) to find a mate, 
procreate and protect our young in order to maintain the species, 
considering that, of course, survival of the species is much more important 
than survival of any individual organism...

And that's where Voldy differs from the rest of us, and why I find it 
strange that anyone would even consider that he could ever have fathered a 
child...

>Um. Life as an emotion. How about 'joie de vivre'?

Except that the emotion remains "joie", not "vivre". I can as easily 
mention the "joy of gardening" but, having spent much of the last two weeks 
engaged in the said activity, I can heartily assure you that "gardening" is 
not an emotion, and for most of the time it certainly brought very little 
joy...

>I await your outrage.

Outrage, no. Complete incomprehension of your argument, maybe.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who's wondering whether he now agrees with Kneasy, 
except that it's by using a very specific and non-dictionary definition of 
"love" and a very specific and non-dictionary definition of "life"...




From heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 01:43:24 2005
From: heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid (Heidi)
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 21:43:24 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050611000301.009a0380@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050610123350.00997150@...> <4.2.0.58.20050611000301.009a0380@...>
Message-ID: <1118454206.15080F19@...>

Interjecting myself onto the love explosion - has everyone seen the full 
cover from the bloomsbury edition, which we posted today at The Leaky 
Cauldron?

Am I the only one who sees the flames around the grasping hands on the 
inside flaps as a
W
A
I
T
F
O
R
I
T
.
.
.
A heart? I know, it's not fully exact, but it's vaguely abstractly 
representational, imo.


Heidi

*Get a wristband & support the Katie O'Brien Memorial Scholarship 
Fundraiser*
Http://www.fictionalley.org/wristbands.html



From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 01:41:17 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 02:41:17 +0100
Subject: ... The Prank
In-Reply-To: <d7qq4m+iume@...>
References: <d7qj2e+mmtr@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050611021439.00990200@...>

Last post of the night (hopefully a short one...)

At 00:46 04/06/05 , Neri wrote:

<Huge context snip>

>May I humbly (heh!) point out that all this wonderful lit analysis
>depends on one critical assumption: that there's a story here.
>Something with three acts, a protagonist, an antagonist, etc. This is
>a rather big assumption considering all we have on The Prank (even
>this title is a pure fandom invention) is less than one page in large
>font. I suspect we might be mistaking a peace of the setting for a
>whole play. Plotwise, the whole purpose of the Prank might be to have
>Snape owing a life-debt to James while still hating James and the
>Marauders more than ever. That it. Mission accomplished. All the
>inconsistencies only suggest to me that JKR never put much thought
>into it, and had never imagined we would pick it apart so obsessively.
>I won't be surprised if all we get on the Prank will be one additional
>page, which will perhaps solve an inconsistency or two and will
>probably introduce several new ones, but none of the major points will
>change.
>
>Remember, JKR have only two books left. She doesn't have enough room
>in there for a whole prequel with six major characters (at the very
>least the four Marauders, Snape and Lily) and still keep track of so
>many characters in the here and now.

Boy, do I disagree!

Not because I want there to be more details of The Prank (TM) for any 
personal curiosity, but because, thematically and plot-wise, it's 
absolutely necessary.

At this point in the series, after a lifetime of revering his father's 
memory, Harry knows he was a jerk. The basis for his reverence was a 
handful of post-analysis hindsight-enhanced hyperbolic unspecific stories 
from people like Hagrid, Dumbledore and others. This was shattered by an 
account of his behaviour when he was Harry's age which is not only an 
eye-witness recollection, but for want of further details of the Pensieve's 
functionality, an objective and detailed view of events which took over 
eight pages to tell. Of course, Harry has been assured that this is not the 
memory of his father which he should maintain, that he became a better person.

Harry therefore has to witness, in at least the same detail, an act of 
redemption, in order to restore his faith in his parents. Whether it's 
Snape's, Dumbledore's, Lupin's or some as yet unknown witness's memories, 
Harry has got to relive at least one moment of James being the brave and 
honourable person everyone says he became. Seeing as the Prank (TM) has 
already been introduced to the plot-line, it makes sense for this event to 
be the representative act of redemption required. Not doing so would make 
JKR an even worse writer than some people maintain she is. (We also need a 
detailed account of what happened at Godric's Hollow, but that's a 
different matter.)

It would be pointless and counter-productive for JKR to leave the 
James-Snape relationship in its current state if Harry is to understand 
what his parents went through (which, given JKR's love of parallels, is 
only too likely). I'd like this also to be the catalyst for Harry and Snape 
to sort out the problems they have with each other, but that, perhaps, is a 
little much to ask. :-)

The fact that there are only two books left is neither here nor there. I'm 
sure that after GoF, people would have thought that JKR didn't have the 
time or space to undermine the way Harry thought about his dad, either (if 
they'd known it was going to happen).

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, who fully expects to be having Potterverse-themed 
dreams tonight having spent most of the day thinking about it...



From lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 15:10:10 2005
From: lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid (Amy Z)
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 15:10:10 -0000
Subject: Dragged (partway) back on-topic, Noble Kneasies/ Love / Imagination
In-Reply-To: <d8d4k4+8on7@...>
Message-ID: <d8eusi+bha3@...>

Neri wrote:

>I think extreme altruism in humans does have, in a sense, 
> biological origins, but it's not a survival trait. It's a by-
product 
> of human imagination, which *is* a survival trait. Humans have an 
> unmatched ability to visualize hypothetical situations, or to 
> visualize a current situation from the POV of the other person, 
and 
> they use it all the time: in personal relationships, while 
discussing 
> the Harry Potter books, while constructing evolutionary models, or 
> for tactic and strategic planning. This ability probably accounts 
for 
> a large part of human superior intelligence. I think it's also the 
> basis of human empathy. Simply put, Kneasy (unlike any baboon out 
> there) could imagine very clearly what it would be like to be 
stuck 
> in the overturned tanker while somebody else is passing by without 
> stopping. The facts that the driver was a stranger and there was 
no 
> one around to impress were completely irrelevant to this ability.
> 
> So if I were writing HP, the power in the locked room wouldn't 
> be "love", and not "life" either, but "imagination". But I quite 
> agree with the Goat that it's most probably love, and JKR is just 
> trying not to be too fluffy.

What you describe is a specific form of imagination:  the ability to 
see oneself and another person as one, so that it is as natural to 
help him or her as to help oneself.  It's usually called compassion, 
though when one is thinking of people who actively risk their lives 
for strangers, that seems a weak, Latinate sort of word for it.  I 
would say it *is* a kind of love, the kind that Jesus among others 
was talking about:  a love that has nothing to do with personal 
affection or regard or even knowledge of the object of one's love.  
That love, agape, is a very powerful force, and although Harry's 
love for Sirius is not an example of it, Harry does have a well-
developed capacity for it and Voldemort none at all.

Amy Z Curmudgeon
(Curmudgeon by marriage, not by personality.  Most of the time.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
  "Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody," said Mrs. 
Weasley sternly.
  "Yeah, well, Dad collects plugs, doesn't he," said Fred quietly, 
as Mrs. Weasley left the room.  "Birds of a feather."  -Goblet of 
Fire





From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 15:30:24 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 08:30:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] "Voldemort" (Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050610143810.009a5d20@...>
Message-ID: <20050611153024.39330.qmail@...>



--- GulPlum <hp at ...> wrote:

> 'Do not say the Dark Lord's name!' spat Snape. [...} 'Professor
> Dumbledore says his name.' said Harry quietly. 'Dumbledore is an 
> extremely powerful wizard,' Snape muttered. 'While he may feel 
> secure enough to use the name . . the rest of us . . .'  (ch. 24, 
> p. 470 UK ed).

> [SNIP]

> It hadn't escaped my notice that a) 
> during the Occluemncy lesson, Harry gets to say the name twice
> (would a third time have made any difference?); and b) Snape looks 
> down on his Dark 
> Mark as if expecting something to happen. Does the name serve as a 
> summoning call if a DE uses it? Questions, questions....

It's possible that summoning is a part of Snape's concern but I think
it relates more to something that Moody said and that worried Harry
tremendously at one point: the idea that Harry is somehow possessed
by Voldemort.  Harry was reassured by hearing from Ginny what the
experience was like and apparently forgot about the whole thing, but
personally I think if you re-read the entire series with the idea in
mind that Dumbledore and Snape are watching Harry for signs of
V-possession, then some actions make more sense.  

Especially in COS where there's a lot of concern that Harry might be
responsible for the unexplained attacks.  Is Harry really Harry or is
he perhaps Harry+Voldemort?  

Looking back on the occlumency lessons again, can we imagine Snape's
POV if he's not sure if it's Harry he's dealing with or the Dark
Lord?  I don't think the Dark Mark can be activitated by the DE's but
if Voldemort can activate it with his own name and Snape's mark
starts reacting to Harry's pronouncing it, then that would mean that
the possession of Harry is advancing rapidly.  The lack of reaction
on his arm might have reassured Snape that there was still time to
keep Harry safe.

Hmm, here's another thought: how about if Snape was the chosen
teacher because not only is he an occlumens but his Dark Mark was a
foolproof way of determining if Voldemort was a major presence or
not?  A possessed Harry might have been able to fool others but the
Dark Mark would be a clear giveaway.

Magda



		
__________________________________ 
Discover Yahoo! 
Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! 
http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html 




From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 11 22:21:16 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 22:21:16 -0000
Subject: Love, Altruism, Philanthropy, Compassion, Empathy, Friendship -- and Imagina
Message-ID: <d8fo4s+ba8v@...>

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1747 :

<< Pandora was provided with Hope as a comfort in a world of
 troubles. >>

Or some versions say Hope was the last and worst torment of all,
causing people to keep trying and expecting success and being
surprised and hurt by failure, instead of just becoming resigned and
lazy.

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1752 :

<< Now you seem to class this as a species of 'love'. I disagree. It's
an in-built altruism, not uncommon in social animals and it is an
evolved survival trait - help others of your kind and the species has
an advantage over those that don't. Co-operation pays in the natural
world. >>

For that to be a disagreement, it would have to be proved or axiomatic
that 'love' is not another word for 'altruism'.

Neri wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_ol
d_crowd/message/1767 :

<< But I don't know of any working model in current Darwinist/
Post-Darwinist theory that can explain a person (or any animal)
risking his life to save a non-kin that he has never met before and is
not likely to even live to return the favor. By all logic, any gene
supporting such risky and pointless behavior should have disappeared
from the gene pool millions of years ago. >>

But -- how often did people millions of years ago get a chance to meet
(let alone save) a conspecific who was neither a member of their own
band (mostly relatives) nor a member of an enemy band? The trait of
rescuing kin and the trait of rescuing non-kin non-enemy conspecifics
would have resulted in the same behavior until people invented living
in large unrelated groups (cities). I feel confident that 'kin
selection' also explains altruism to non-kin. (Let's not go into what
I've felt confident of in the past, shall we?)

Eloise wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1764 :

<< call it philanthropy, call it love, it's the same thing. >> 

Y'now, I once went to a lecture on how studying a group of novels
called the Greek Romances can shed light on the meaning of some words
in the Gospels (because the Greek Romances were written at the same
time in the same language as the Gospels). Of course, IIRC all the
lecturer's examples also used a third set of texts: orations written
in the language at the same time. 

Anyway, one of these words was IIRC 'philo-anthropia'. Which describes
a person who 'loves all mankind' by doing the following: 1) A greeting
to everyone he encounters, 2) hosts and attends many dinner parties,
3) gives his own best food & clothes & bed to and spends his own money
on the best medical care for shipwrecked people and travellers who
have been mugged by bandits. (Characters in the orations as well as
the novels did that all the time, including IIRC a funeral oration for
a man so famous for succoring travellers that bandits had disguised
themselves as needy travellers to gain access to his home and murder
him & his family and steal everything.)

The lecturer said that, being so wide and shallow, philo-anthropia was
very different from IIRC philos (translated 'love or friendship')
which is narrow and deep: philos is a feeling for a specific person
for whom you will do most anything, not just greet him, dine with him
socially, and succor him when he gets mugged or shipwrecked.

Joywitch wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1759 :

<< Seriously, though, I've never understood this love for Snape thing.
He is a horrible person, who loves to humiliate the very children
whose education is his responsibility. Harry and Ron and Hermione have
all been driven close to tears by the meanness of this so-called
Professor. How can you reconcile loving those kids and, at the same
time, being a fan of someone they loathe, just because he has an
intriguing personality and some dark secrets? >>

In real life, I like and treasure my friends (I have few friends
because few people are worth spending my time and attention on 
*disclaimer*) and have repeatedly had the unpleasant experience of 
one of my friends and another of my friends hate each other. Several
times I have caught myself in the midst of what I know to be a 
useless effort: trying to talk one friend into seeing the good side of
and making allowances for the bad side of someone heesh hates but I
value. While so doing, it is easy to alienate a treasured friend by
carelessly replying something like "Oh, yeah? And you should hear what
he says about you not replaying loans!" (or, in the Snape case, 'about
you beating up on children in your power instead of people who can
fight back').

I put my re: Joywitch after my re: Eloise so that I can mention that
forgiving my friends for doing things that I could hardly forgive
*myself* for doing (let alone someone I disliked!) is a small example
of doing 'most anything' for a friend (altho' I am not THAT good a
friend; I will not lend more money than I can afford to people I know
are not going to pay it back).

GulPlum AKA Richard signed off
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1773 with:

<< who's just noticed that he's spent the last four hours scribbling
the above, and is horrified by this effort-to-outcome ratio. >>

It was worth it! What a beautiful post ... it deserves to be
professionally published e.g. as an opinion piece in a newspaper, or
at least turned in for a good grade in a college class, if only there
were a suitable newspaper or college class for its topic.

Neri wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_ol
d_crowd/message/1783 :

<< So if I were writing HP, the power in the locked room wouldn't
be "love", and not "life" either, but "imagination". But I quite
agree with the Goat that it's most probably love, and JKR is just
trying not to be too fluffy. >>

Your description of the power that made Kneasy stop to rescue the
truck driver was Empathy. Empathy requires the ability to imagine, or
at least what I think is called 'theory of mind' -- the comprehension
that other beings have their own things going on in their own minds,
such as they don't see things you see that are screened from them, and
also it requires caring about it. (Voldemort clearly has 'theory of
mind', as he has the concept that he knows stuff that the Ministry
hasn't found out yet). The caring-about-it part can be called Love.

But taking Imagination in general: I cried out happily at your
suggestion, shocked that I'd never thought of it myself. JKR is a
writer, it is not impossible (altho' not hinted at by any of her
interviews) that she views Imagination as the greatest and most
powerful mystery. Not just imagination to put oneself in another
person's shoes, but imagination to think up gadgets and to get the
idea that some distant place might be better than here, so let's go,
and to make art and tell stories. So okay, does Voldemort not have
Imagination at all?





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 01:00:55 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 02:00:55 +0100
Subject: "Voldemort"
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050612010012.0098f590@...>

Magda said (in reply to my previous):

 >personally I think if you re-read the entire series with the idea in
 >mind that Dumbledore and Snape are watching Harry for signs of
 >V-possession, then some actions make more sense.
 >
 >Especially in COS where there's a lot of concern that Harry might be
 >responsible for the unexplained attacks.  Is Harry really Harry or is
 >he perhaps Harry+Voldemort?

Whilst I like your idea, I've just skim-read CoS with that in mind (noting 
all exchanges involving Snape and/or Dumbledore) and I'm afraid it doesn't 
gel. Apart from the explanation scene at the end, there is one relevant 
exchange with Snape and Dumbledore each, and another with both present. The 
only person who's afraid that Harry is doing things he shouldn't be doing 
and doesn't know he's doing them is Harry himself, who is concerned about 
being the Heir rather than being possessed.

Harry gets a "searching look" from Dumbledore a couple of times (when he's 
lying), and as for Snape, the petrification of Mrs Norris has his "black 
eyes glittering in the candlelight" and "a triumphant smile flickering 
across his gaunt face" when the kids have obviously lied about not being 
hungry and were going to bed without supper (rather than chasing the 
voices). Then, during the Duelling Club, when Snape "look[ed] at Harry in 
an unexpected way: It was a shrewd and calculating look, and Harry didn't 
like it. "

Yeah, well, I'd be calculating as well, if someone in my presence showed an 
unnutural and dangerous ability... Possessing!Voldy's presence might have 
brought on blanching, fear, consternation, but shrewdness and calculation? 
I think not.

Besides, considering that only a few months previously, Voldy had needed to 
be physically attached to Quirrell in order to possess him, I suspect that 
Dumbledore (and Snape?) would have thought it highly unlikely that he'd 
been able to possess Harry from his hideout in Albania, in his weakened state.

Changing the subject ever so slightly, though, while we're talking about 
CoS, there was one sentence which takes on a new meaning post-OotP (bear in 
mind that was the first time I'd given CoS more than a casual glance since 
OotP came out and I'm sure someone else has remarked on this before):

"This wasn't the first time Snape had given Harry the impression of being 
able to read minds." (in Snape's office when Harry and Ron arrive at Hogwarts).

:-)

 >Looking back on the occlumency lessons again, can we imagine Snape's
 >POV if he's not sure if it's Harry he's dealing with or the Dark Lord?  I 
don't think
 > the Dark Mark can be activitated by the DE's but if Voldemort can 
activate it
 > with his own name and Snape's mark starts reacting to Harry's 
pronouncing it,
 > then that would mean that the possession of Harry is advancing 
rapidly.  The
 > lack of reaction on his arm might have reassured Snape that there was still
 > time to keep Harry safe.

That's a genuinely interesting observation, though, and I'll have to think 
about it some more. Thanks.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who had hoped to catch up completely on reading and 
writing posts but has only managed this one. :-(



From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 01:37:16 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 01:37:16 -0000
Subject: ... The Prank
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050611021439.00990200@...>
Message-ID: <d8g3kc+73v7@...>

Richard wrote:
> Boy, do I disagree!
> 
> Not because I want there to be more details of The Prank (TM) for any 
> personal curiosity, but because, thematically and plot-wise, it's 
> absolutely necessary.
> 
> At this point in the series, after a lifetime of revering his father's 
> memory, Harry knows he was a jerk. The basis for his reverence was a 
> handful of post-analysis hindsight-enhanced hyperbolic unspecific
stories 
> from people like Hagrid, Dumbledore and others. This was shattered
by an 
> account of his behaviour when he was Harry's age which is not only an 
> eye-witness recollection, but for want of further details of the
Pensieve's 
> functionality, an objective and detailed view of events which took over 
> eight pages to tell. Of course, Harry has been assured that this is
not the 
> memory of his father which he should maintain, that he became a
better person.
> 
> Harry therefore has to witness, in at least the same detail, an act of 
> redemption, in order to restore his faith in his parents. Whether it's 
> Snape's, Dumbledore's, Lupin's or some as yet unknown witness's
memories, 
> Harry has got to relive at least one moment of James being the brave
and 
> honourable person everyone says he became. Seeing as the Prank (TM) has 
> already been introduced to the plot-line, it makes sense for this
event to 
> be the representative act of redemption required. Not doing so would
make 
> JKR an even worse writer than some people maintain she is. (We also
need a 
> detailed account of what happened at Godric's Hollow, but that's a 
> different matter.)
> 
> It would be pointless and counter-productive for JKR to leave the 
> James-Snape relationship in its current state if Harry is to understand 
> what his parents went through (which, given JKR's love of parallels, is 
> only too likely). I'd like this also to be the catalyst for Harry
and Snape 
> to sort out the problems they have with each other, but that,
perhaps, is a 
> little much to ask. :-)
> 
> The fact that there are only two books left is neither here nor
there. I'm 
> sure that after GoF, people would have thought that JKR didn't have the 
> time or space to undermine the way Harry thought about his dad,
either (if 
> they'd known it was going to happen).

Neri:
OK, you convinced me. We might actually get three pages of The Prank
(TM) instead of just one <g>.

And I'm still wondering *how* are we going to get them. James and
Sirius are dead, Lupin apparently only got "a glimpse" while in
wolfsbane-less werewolf mode, Peter is not exactly a reliable source
(assuming he's even accessible, which isn't likely), and can you see
Snape leaving his Pensieve again where Harry might reach it? Or
telling Harry of his own free will how James the hero had saved him?
And starting handing out sweets?

The all-seeing DD maybe? Hmm. I don't think there were any portraits
on the walls of the tunnel. A Pensieve memory from the bumblebee's
eye? But then he'll have to reveal his secret to Harry. Is The Prank
(TM) worth it? 

An unexpected witness? Florence perhaps, peeking from behind the
greenhouses? Still, it's unlikely she was inside the tunnel, so she
had seen even less than Lupin of James' moment of glory.

It seems there are easier ways to redeem James. The GH files might do
it, and how about some details regarding this "thrice defied him"?

Neri






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 02:11:44 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 02:11:44 -0000
Subject: "Voldemort" (Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050610143810.009a5d20@...>
Message-ID: <d8g5l0+v5lm@...>

> David wrote:
> 
> >It's my belief that there *is* good reason to be careful about
> >saying 'Voldemort'.  <snip>
> >I suspect that in defined circumstances (which Dumbledore understands,
> >and knows do not apply most of the time) it is best not to say the
name, 
> >and wonder if Hermione is going to fall foul of this in the  coming
book.


> GulPlum AKA Richard:

> <snip> 
> A further question is, at what stage did the name become
"unmentionable"? 
> Tom Riddle changed his name for a reason. If nobody uses it, and his
own 
> followers call him the "Dark Lord" anyway, what was the point? What 
> happened to make people think that using the name might bring down 
> misfortune on themselves? Is it pure superstition or did, as David
implies, 
> something happen to somebody "unworthy" who used it?
> 

Neri:
You both seem to ignore the possibility that looks the most probable
to me: that saying the name *is* magical, but the magic works in the
opposite direction. That is, Voldemort becomes stronger when people
refer to him but avoid using his "proper name". When people use his
proper name Voldemort gets weaker. The fear of the name isn't a
superstition ? it's a magical fear, and people can learn to conquer it
if they try hard enough, like resisting the Imperius curse. This
explains all the mysteries: why DD encourages people to always say the
name, how all wizards know the name yet fear it, why the DEs are the
most sensitive to it, etc. 

This would also fit perfectly with the Potterverse style of deep
magic: a corny psychological/moral issue becoming a cool magical
devise. I mean, look at that:

Loyalty to friends and cause --> Fidelius charm 
Gratitude for saving one's life --> Life debt
A mother's sacrifice for her son --> Ancient magic protection
Love (most likely) --> a mysterious power the Dark Lord knows not.
Sadism in the cause of evil --> Cruciatus curse
Brain washing and totalitarian discipline --> Imperius curse 
Fighting depression --> Patronus charm against dementors
Using humor against fear --> Ridikulus charm against a boggart
Rebelling against a terror regime --> ________  (fill in the blank) 


Regarding Richard's question at what stage did the name become
unmentionable: canon implies that it coincides with Voldemort's rising
to power. In the first chapter of SS/PS DD says "we had little to
celebrate for 11 years" and later "for 11 years I've been trying to
persuade people to call him by his proper name". So within a single
year Voldemort becomes powerful, all wizards learn his name but fear
mentioning it, yet DD doesn't see any reason to fear, and is trying to
convince everybody to say it. Now, what is the relation between
Voldy's power and not saying his name? Nudge nudge, wink wink, how
much more obvious can we get?

Neri






From willsonkmom at potioncat.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 08:24:05 2005
From: willsonkmom at potioncat.yahoo.invalid (potioncat)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 08:24:05 -0000
Subject: Terry Boot
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050610175703.009a5b10@...>
Message-ID: <d8grf5+7dr6@...>

GulPlum wrote: 
> WHAT was Terry Boot doing in Dumbledore's office during GOF year? 
I'm 
> convinced that his mention of the fact that he'd been there isn't 
entirely 
> irrelevant - after all, even Harry's only ever been in there under 
> extraordinary circumstances. So, what circumstances led to his 
presence 
> there? And what led him to be talking about the sword with a 
portrait? 

Potioncat:
I've wondered about this too. I'd like to know which portrait was 
talking to him! He must have been looking at or even touching the 
sword for the portrait to say anything about it. Was Terry Boot ever 
mentioned in GoF?


GulPlum:
 Several people have, however, 
> picked up on something else: "Quidditch Through The Ages" includes 
the 
> library checkout page at the front, and he (or, at least, "T. 
Boot") is 
> listed as having borrowed the book from the Hogwarts library 
after "E. 
> Macmillan", with a return date of 21st August (E.M.'s return date 
was 12th 
> August).> --

Potioncat:
I remember a discussion on  a different board, and it seems not all 
editions have the check out page. There was some discussion about 
whether the page was written by JKR or by an editor and therefore 
whether the names had any significance. I don't have the book, but it 
seemed a lot of Slytherins had checked it out. I found that 
interesting because Snape took the book away from Harry. 

The other point of discussion was that JKR said in one interview that 
no one remains at Hogwarts over the summer. So how would the library 
books be available? 

Potioncat with more questions and no answers, as usual.







From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 08:58:50 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 08:58:50 -0000
Subject: "Voldemort" (Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
In-Reply-To: <d8g5l0+v5lm@...>
Message-ID: <d8gtga+2lei@...>

> Neri:
> You both seem to ignore the possibility that looks the most probable
> to me: that saying the name *is* magical, but the magic works in the
> opposite direction. That is, Voldemort becomes stronger when people
> refer to him but avoid using his "proper name". When people use his
> proper name Voldemort gets weaker. The fear of the name isn't a
> superstition ? it's a magical fear, and people can learn to conquer it
> if they try hard enough, like resisting the Imperius curse. This
> explains all the mysteries: why DD encourages people to always say the
> name, how all wizards know the name yet fear it, why the DEs are the
> most sensitive to it, etc. 

Eloise:
By which reasoning, if Snape refuses to use the name and forbids Harry 
himself to use it, then he's trying to strengthen Voldemort. If Snape 
could muster up enough courage to desert, then surely he could conquer 
that fear.

My own theory is that Snape refers to Voldemort as the Dark Lord 
because, ESE or not, his survival depends on his thinking of him as 
just that. If he *is* working under cover, then he cannot afford to 
forget for a moment that he is supposed to be Voldemort's servant. And 
if he is (working under cover), then he's probably the person of all 
people who should fear Voldemort the most; it's an acknowledgement of 
just what a dangerous game he's playing.

~Eloise







From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 13:01:21 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 06:01:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: "Voldemort"
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050612010012.0098f590@...>
Message-ID: <20050612130121.43023.qmail@...>


--- GulPlum <hp at ...> wrote:

> Besides, considering that only a few months previously, Voldy had
> needed to 
> be physically attached to Quirrell in order to possess him, I
> suspect that 
> Dumbledore (and Snape?) would have thought it highly unlikely that
> he'd 
> been able to possess Harry from his hideout in Albania, in his
> weakened state.


I never thought that Snape and Dumbledore worried about the kind of
physical bonding that Voldemort had with Quirrell.  I meant that they
were watching for signs that the Voldemort-connection (which
manifests itself in pain connected to Harry's scar) was becoming more
active.  Dumbledore does tell Harry that he has a theory that Harry's
scar hurts when Voldemort is feeling anger or emotion.  

My point is that there's a connection between Harry and Voldemort
that Dumbledore and Snape have been aware of (and feared) for some
years.

Magda


		
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From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 14:52:01 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 14:52:01 -0000
Subject: ... The Prank
In-Reply-To: <d8g3kc+73v7@...>
Message-ID: <d8hi6h+lnpp@...>


> Neri:
> OK, you convinced me. We might actually get three pages of The Prank
> (TM) instead of just one <g>.
> 
> And I'm still wondering *how* are we going to get them. James and
> Sirius are dead, Lupin apparently only got "a glimpse" while in
> wolfsbane-less werewolf mode, Peter is not exactly a reliable source
> (assuming he's even accessible, which isn't likely), and can you see
> Snape leaving his Pensieve again where Harry might reach it? Or
> telling Harry of his own free will how James the hero had saved him?
> And starting handing out sweets?

Pippin:
The part that Lupin was unable to witness is the part we already know
about! Lupin can tell Harry what went on before and afterwards. If
Snape gave his side of it to Dumbledore, then his account would be
accessible from Dumbledore's pensieve. Anyway, JKR has never been
bound by the TBAY rules and is quite capable of introducing a new
magical device whenever she needs one.

Pippin






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 15:19:55 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 15:19:55 -0000
Subject: Snape IS TOO a vampire, was Re: NBC Today Show questions
In-Reply-To: <d87ig8+b6mh@...>
Message-ID: <d8hjqr+t0n5@...>

Joywitch
> Seriously, though, I've never understood this love for Snape thing.
 
> He is a horrible person, who loves to humiliate the very children 
> whose education is his responsibility. Harry and Ron and Hermione
have 
> all been driven close to tears by the meanness of this so-called 
> Professor.  How can you reconcile loving those kids and, at the
same 
> time, being a fan of someone they loathe, just because he has an 
> intriguing personality and some dark secrets?

Pippin:
I dunno. I've never had a crush on a teacher in real life, much less
one so loathsome as Snape...but all I had to do was imagine for
one moment that I could actually be in the world of the books 
and Zap! There it was. They  should probably study  Eros in the 
Department of Mysteries...
but I suppose the fanfic writers are way ahead of me.<veg> 

Pippin





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 15:24:51 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 16:24:51 +0100
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: "Voldemort"
In-Reply-To: <20050612130121.43023.qmail@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050612010012.0098f590@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050612145537.0098ecb0@...>

At 14:01 12/06/05 , Magda Grantwich wrote:

<snip>

>My point is that there's a connection between Harry and Voldemort
>that Dumbledore and Snape have been aware of (and feared) for some
>years.

Have they? Dumbledore knows (from the prophecy) that Harry has "power the 
Dark Lord knows not" (which, incidentally, considering the other active 
thread here, he connects to Lily's mother love at the end-of-PS/SS 
debriefing), but what gives you the impression that before the end-of-CoS 
debriefing, Dumbledore had any inkling that Voldy had any kind of active 
connection with Harry, or had passed to him any of his faculties? Sure, the 
prophecy had said that he would "mark [Harry] as his equal", but from there 
to  the conclusion that Dumbledore knows there's a connection is a bit of a 
jump. Harry had never previously volunteered anything about his scar 
hurting or having visions of any kind.

This first thing which might start Dumbeldore suspecting that Voldemort 
passed some of his faculties to Harry is the Duelling Club parseltongue 
incident. Presumably, Snape reported it to Dumbledore, but notably Harry 
isn't called to Dumbledore's office until the next day, after Justin's been 
petrified. If Dumbley thought Harry's ability with snakes was anything but 
inborn, he'd have called Harry *immediately*. In other words, there is no 
immediately apparent reason to suspect any connection between Harry's 
parseltongue abilities and the attacks (apart from parseltongue being 
considered "bad" by the pupils).

(I have said before that the staff's underplayed - actually, nonexistent! - 
reaction to Harry's parseltongue demonstration makes me wary; not because I 
think it hides something in terms of the wider plot, but because it simply 
doesn't make sense - in other words: bad writing and plotting.)

Anyway, the Duelling Club comes after there'd been two attacks and apart 
from Justin, there aren't any more for several months (to none of which do 
we get significant known reactions from Snape or Dumbledore vis-a-vis Harry).

Dumbledore voices his suspicion to Harry that LV passed some powers to him 
at Godric's Hollow during their conversation at the end of the year. Even 
so, he doesn't make any claims about the scar being some kind of psychic 
connection (or have a basis to make such a leap) until GoF, when Voldy is 
back in Britain, starting on his road to recovery. Of course, what Voldy 
can do becomes pretty academic once he's back to full force, and it's only 
then that Dumbledore, Snape and others have anything to worry about in 
terms of Harry's connection to him.

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, falling behind again 



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 16:16:17 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 16:16:17 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050611000301.009a0380@...>
Message-ID: <d8hn4h+f68o@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> 
> While I agree to some extent with some of your conclusions, I disagree with 
> the rationale.
> 

Kneasy:
Um. That signifies that I've reached the right answer in the wrong way -right?
Visions of an infinite number of monkeys bashing on an infinite number of
typewriters swims into my consciousness .....

> Note that Voldy has never heard the second half of the prophecy (indeed, 
> seeking it is what forced his hand to show himself!). Dumbledore has. As 
> far as we know, he is the only person alive who knows the full text (for 
> the record, although he has told the Order members that the prophecy 
> exists, that it concerns Harry, and that harry's survival is imperative to 
> his plans; I suspect that his "strict need to know" policy would have made 
> him stop short of letting them know what it said) and he's not going to 
> jeopardise that advantage (I must admit that one of my - many -  objections 
> to the plot of OotP is why the hell he hadn't simply destroyed the bloody 
> thing seeing as he has his own perfect record; as the most powerful wizard 
> alive, I'm sure he could have concocted a harmless facsimile for Voldy to 
> lust after).
> 
> Anyway, Voldy already had one AK bounce off the Potter brat 15 years 
> earlier, not to mention that he lost out in a duel between them a year 
> previously. There is no way on Earth that he's going to take the risk of 
> facing up to the kid again with (Dark) Lord knows (not!) what consequences. 
> 

Kneasy:
Ah - it all depends - most of all it depends on how suspicious you are.
Some fans read the books and accept these bits of the text as mostly factual
stuff. Interpretations then proceed using such canon statements as the baseline 
from which to start. Others ... er, well - it's a bit more convoluted than that.
Generally I refer to it as 'keeping my options open' but it's probable that
some readers react with 'he's lost his marbles again'.

It's always nice to have an independent confirmation of the 'facts' as stated
by any character. For instance - only one character has ever stated that an AK
bounced off Harry - and that was Crouch!Moody. Which is very odd, 'cos lots
of references are made to the 'fact' that Voldy intended to kill Harry (not in
dispute IMO) - but was that the only thing he intended to do? And if it wasn't
then maybe the spell that bounced wasn't an AK. Such fevered ramblings
eventually generated Possession Theory, which while there is no absolute
evidence, does explain many of the oddities that surface if AK was the sole
spell used.

Similarly we have a single source for that damn Prophecy - DD. (Want to bet
that the Ministry got their copy via DD? Yup.) Sybill has no recollection of 
any such thing and as for the 'eavesdropper' - well, we only have DD's word
for his existence too.

You see, I can't help but notice how convenient it all is.  
The Good Guys are losing. DD interviews a woman that he thinks has no
talent at all. He holds the interview in a pub (why?) she spouts a totally 
startling 'prophecy'; there is an eavesdropper (who?) who is spotted and
ejected part-way into the recitation (why would anyone listen in on a job 
interview?) And who did the throwing out? It wasn't DD 'cos the Pensieve
recording is uninterrupted, yet strangely he knows just how much of the
Prophecy is overheard. A Prophecy that, when Voldy follows it up, leads to
his dissolution and the end of the first Voldy war. 

A nice set of coincidences.
But as ever looking for a few more interesting plot complications, there is
another possibility.
The Prophecy was a fake, a set-up to lure Voldy into a trap.
The 'prophecy' was DD's words spoken unwittingly by Sybill.
The eavesdropper either a known Voldy supporter or more likely a DD 
supporter who had a communication line into the DE camp (Snape?)
There's also the as-yet unanswered and very apposite question of the
delay in Voldy reacting - something like 2 years! Just when was the info
about Sybill and her seance dropped into  Voldy's lap? At once - or maybe
 closer to the events at GH? Knowing that would be very useful indeed.
Just two families fitted the description - both associated with DD.
Harry was bait - but protected; so probably was Neville.

Now it may be totally wrong but it's a lot more fun (IMO) than a sequence of
fortunate coincidences. Much more satisfying if the downfall was planned
rather than just accidental happenstance, don't you think? A lot depends on 
how you view DD. Yes, he's the most powerful wizard east of the Pecos; yes, 
he's a staunch opponent of evil; yes he can *look* like a kindly old duffer - but
he ain't. He's the leader in a fight for survival; he's the one that comes up with
the cunning plans. Quite frankly IMO he's a devious old bugger, which would 
imply that JKR is just as sneaky.


> 
> In any event, to come back to what we're actually talking about, a 
> willingness to lose it is hardly equivalent to "life" itself, in terms of 
> any power that it may confer (or be of itself). So all in all, I simply 
> don't understand what you're getting at with your rationale.
> 

Kneasy:
And I  don't see how love could save him. 
Remember way back? When the more romantically inclined were positing
that Harry was saved at GH by the power of Lily's love? Turned out not to be
the  case, for it to work within the books it would imply that Lily loved more
than any other mother in the WW. No, it was magic that saved Harry. I sense
the same sorts of argument surfacing here - "Oh, it's love." Just show me
how Harry loves more or has more love than say, Molly has for her family. 
Yet do you doubt that if Voldy fixed his beady snake eyes on Molly she'd be 
a gonner?

When it comes to love what Harry wants is for somebody to love *him*.
He's the orphan in a cruel world. Sirius might have fitted the bill, but now
he's gone too. DD probably does, but right now Harry's rejecting overtures
from that source, DD's got too much explaining to do. Nope, sorry, I just
don't see anything exceptional in Harry so far as love is concerned.

Life -  yes there is something exceptional about Harry there, mostly how
often he's hung onto it when all the odds were stacked against. As an
example of how life (in a universal, general context) struggles to continue
despite the difficulties and drawbacks, then I think Harry makes a good one.
The fact that he accepts that it's not for ever and realises that he is mortal
does not detract from that IMO. 


> --
> GulPlum AKA Richard, who's wondering whether he now agrees with Kneasy, 
> except that it's by using a very specific and non-dictionary definition of 
> "love" and a very specific and non-dictionary definition of "life"...

Kneasy:
Careful. Or you'll be classed as one of the awkward squad, too. 





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 18:50:37 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:50:37 +0100
Subject: ... The Prank
In-Reply-To: <d8g3kc+73v7@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050611021439.00990200@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050612162523.009c4100@...>

At 02:37 12/06/05 , Neri wrote:

<snip>

>OK, you convinced me. We might actually get three pages of The Prank
>(TM) instead of just one <g>.

Or more. Given JKR's track record to date, she doesn't bring up back 
history just for the sake of it. Everything is there for a reason. Whilst 
most of JKR's hints and references are a little more oblique, often little 
more than one sentence or one paragraph (e.g. Sirius's mention in PS/SS: 
one sentence; or the one sentence about the Room of Requirement in GoF), 
the fact that the Prank (TM) got two paragraphs in PS/SS and almost a whole 
page in PoA, not to mention the fact that it has to be confirmed (or 
debunked, if you're Kneasy) as the source of Snape's animus towards Harry, 
it would probably warrant half a book. JKR's track record makes only 3 
pages somewhat unlikely. :-)

>And I'm still wondering *how* are we going to get them. James and
>Sirius are dead, Lupin apparently only got "a glimpse" while in
>wolfsbane-less werewolf mode, Peter is not exactly a reliable source
>(assuming he's even accessible, which isn't likely), and can you see
>Snape leaving his Pensieve again where Harry might reach it?

I implied that difficulty in my previous message. However, JKR is the 
inventor of this world and she can always introduce a new magical object. 
For instance, we have no idea what Sirius's mirror in OotP was about or how 
it works, and I'm sure we'll hear of it again. For all we know, it might 
include a record of all of Sirius's and James's interactions and we could 
get their two sides of the Prank (TM) before we're introduced to some other 
magical way of reliving the past. For instance, we know that portraits have 
a kind of consciousness; all we know about photos is that they move. 
Perhaps there's a way to interact with photographic representations of 
people as well? All in all, the possibilities are pretty much endless.

I said before that I'd hoped that this issue could be a catalyst for Harry 
and Snape to settle their differences. How about they settle their 
differences first (Snape started to understand some things about Harry's 
life during the Occlumency sessions in OotP although he still has a small 
step to make to draw some conclusions) and Snape *allows* Harry a look 
through his memory of the event?

>An unexpected witness? Florence perhaps, peeking from behind the
>greenhouses? Still, it's unlikely she was inside the tunnel, so she
>had seen even less than Lupin of James' moment of glory.

Oh, I'm sure that we have more to learn about Florence as well. And Moaning 
Myrtle. Whether or not there's a connection between Florence and the Prank 
(TM) remains to be seen, but I don't believe  that JKR introduced the 
character just for fun. And just who was Florence snogging in the bushes?

>It seems there are easier ways to redeem James. The GH files might do
>it, and how about some details regarding this "thrice defied him"?

Godric's Hollow is a different issue (the central character there - as far 
as we know right now - is Lily, and we have no evidence thus far that she 
was ever anything other than a wonderful person). The "thrice defied" is 
different yet again, and references the Longbottoms as well. I'm sure we'll 
get some info (which I expect to be fairly patchy) about the original 
Order's activities and their methods, but the Potters and the Longbottoms 
are likely to be the main focus.

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, being to ramble 



From fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 22:03:10 2005
From: fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid (fhmaneely)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 22:03:10 -0000
Subject: lightning bolt on the ring
Message-ID: <d8ibeu+i7j2@...>

The ring on dust jacket for HBP has a lightning bolt insignia on it 
just like the scar on Harry's forehead....Anyone care to speculate the 
significance, if any of this?  I wonder if it belongs to the HBP 
himself?
Fran





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 12 23:04:30 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 00:04:30 +0100
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8hn4h+f68o@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050611000301.009a0380@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...>

At 17:16 12/06/05 , Barry Arrowsmith wrote:

>--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> >
> > While I agree to some extent with some of your conclusions, I disagree 
> with
> > the rationale.
> >
>
>Kneasy:
>Um. That signifies that I've reached the right answer in the wrong way -right?
>Visions of an infinite number of monkeys bashing on an infinite number of
>typewriters swims into my consciousness .....

No, not at all. Please re-read what I wrote: "To a certain extent, with 
some...". This does not mean that we're agreed on anything besides the fact 
that Dumbledore *probably* (in my case; *definitely* in yours) would have 
been prepared for Harry to be killed at the MoM if he had anything to gain 
by it. That's all we're agreed on.

>[M]ost of all it depends on how suspicious you are.
>Some fans read the books and accept these bits of the text as mostly factual
>stuff. Interpretations then proceed using such canon statements as the 
>baseline from which to start.

What other baseline is there? Either the Narrator tells us the truth, or 
the whole thing just disappears in a puff of illogic up its own fundament. 
And the Narrator goes to great pains to present Dumbledore as basically 
truthful and honourable, although, as you say, devious and manipulative. As 
I pointed out in the Truth and Lies thread a couple of months ago (a thread 
I will be resurrecting in the very near future), every time to date that 
Dumbledore has lied (or encouraged others to lie) we know it's a lie at the 
time. At the very, very worst, there's one instance which springs to my 
mind where we don't "know" (in a legalistic sense, "beyond a reasonable 
doubt") that Dumbledore has told the truth, but we are told that Harry 
isn't certain (and thus, the likelihood is that he was, indeed, not being 
honest), namely after the Mirror of Erised sequence when he says that he'd 
see socks.

"It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore 
might not have been quite truthful. But then, [...] it had been quite a 
personal question."
(last paragraph of Chapter 12, UK ed. p. 157).

>Others ... er, well - it's a bit more convoluted than that.
>Generally I refer to it as 'keeping my options open' but it's probable that
>some readers react with 'he's lost his marbles again'.

Personally, I don't see it that way. Being an optimist, I see it as your 
being mischievous and playful. Because, frankly, there's no way on earth 
that you can possibly believe the tripe you spout to be true (i.e. the 
author's intention), is there?  :-)

(Don't answer that one.)

>It's always nice to have an independent confirmation of the 'facts' as stated
>by any character.

Of course it is. But she's not going to tell the whole story twice or more 
so that we get independent verification of every little fact. As (again) I 
said in the Truth and Lies thread, my own position is to believe what 
everyone says, UNLESS I have reason not to. Considering even the bad guys 
are reluctant to tell out and out porkies, the issue with Dumbledore's 
statements is that I consider his promise to Harry (and the readers) at the 
end of PS/SS not to lie extends to his other ex cathedra pronouncements 
about the back story. He gave himself a nice small print get-out-of-prison 
card at that time, by refusing to disclose whatever he felt appropriate. 
Therefore, rather than disbelieve absolutely everything he says (which I 
consider to be nonsensical) I prefer to concentrate on the things he 
doesn't say.

>For instance - only one character has ever stated that an AK
>bounced off Harry - and that was Crouch!Moody. Which is very odd, 'cos lots
>of references are made to the 'fact' that Voldy intended to kill Harry (not in
>dispute IMO) - but was that the only thing he intended to do? And if it wasn't
>then maybe the spell that bounced wasn't an AK.

Except that Herself also says it (or do you disbelieve all of JKR's 
off-the-page E&OE statements as well? In which case, there really is no 
hope for you, because if she were to lie, she loses absolutely all 
credibility with her fans; she has given herself the same get-out silence 
clause she gave Dumbledore):

"Had Frank or Alice thrown themselves in front of Neville, however, the 
killing curse would have rebounded just as it did in Harry's case, and 
Neville would have been the one who survived with the lightning scar." 
(http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/faq_view.cfm?id=84)

i.e. it *was* a "killing curse", and it *did* "rebound". End of 
conversation. Well, except it ain't. :-)

>Such fevered ramblings eventually generated Possession Theory, which while 
>there is no absolute evidence, does explain many of the oddities that 
>surface if AK was the sole spell used.

Yeah, well, P.T. (as far as I understand it) is a fairly minority theory as 
far as I can tell, and certainly as far as I'm concerned, is somewhat 
farfetched (if not out of keeping with the tome of the series).

>Similarly we have a single source for that damn Prophecy - DD. (Want to bet
>that the Ministry got their copy via DD? Yup.)

Ever since I read about that dratted room, I have wondered what the hell 
it's for, seeing as (1) the prophecy orbs are destroyed as soon as they're 
"played back"; (2) there appears to be no way for recipients to know that a 
prophecy referring to them exists; and we don't know (3) who creates the 
orbs and how; (4) who decides that a prophecy is worthy of a place in the 
archive and how; (5) at what point is an orb created (contemporaneously or 
some time afterwards); (6) given all the above, how are the prophecies 
"studied"?

As we don't (and, I assume, probably never will) know any of the above, 
whether or not Dumbledore was responsible for the orb's placement is moot. 
(See also below.)

>Sybill has no recollection of  any such thing and as for the 
>'eavesdropper' - well, we only have DD's word for his existence too.

The verification of the prophecy is in the fact that Harry heard the second 
one. We're agreed that Dumbledore is a devious sod. If he had wanted to 
keep the first prophecy a secret, why volunteer to Harry that he has his 
own copy?  What possible benefit does he gain from letting Harry hear a fake?

>You see, I can't help but notice how convenient it all is.
>The Good Guys are losing. DD interviews a woman that he thinks has no
>talent at all. He holds the interview in a pub (why?) she spouts a totally
>startling 'prophecy'; there is an eavesdropper (who?) who is spotted and
>ejected part-way into the recitation (why would anyone listen in on a job
>interview?) And who did the throwing out? It wasn't DD 'cos the Pensieve
>recording is uninterrupted, yet strangely he knows just how much of the
>Prophecy is overheard. A Prophecy that, when Voldy follows it up, leads to
>his dissolution and the end of the first Voldy war.

The paradoxical thing about prophecies is that unless they are known of, 
they're are useless. Yet at the same time, if one knows of a prophecy which 
one believes to be true, one generally prepares for it and thus brings it 
about. Hence the importance for the plot that Voldy never heard the full 
prophecy because otherwise he'd not have made it happen.

>A nice set of coincidences.

Yeah well, one of the problems I have with the Potter series as a whole and 
various events in them in particular is that far too much happens by happy 
(or unhappy) accident or coincidence. Especially eavesdropped 
conversations, of which Harry has at least a couple per book. A vast number 
of the theories floating around the internet have been created by people 
desperately trying to plug gaps in JKR's plotting or writing, adding levels 
of complexity I'm sure she never planned. I know it's a facile argument, 
but these books are, after all, marketed at kids (and despite anything JKR 
says, her public appearances to date have always been to audiences of 
children, and she has never acknowledged her adult fan base in terms of 
event planning).

>But as ever looking for a few more interesting plot complications, there is
>another possibility.
>The Prophecy was a fake, a set-up to lure Voldy into a trap.

As I posited in a previous message, I would have expected the one at the 
Ministry to have been faked (so, in that respect, we're not entirely miles 
apart in our thinking) - however, seeing as it was destroyed without anyone 
hearing it, the whole issue is a non-issue. The important thing is whether 
or not the Pensieve record *Harry* heard was the genuine article. If not, 
please give your grounds for suspecting this is the case.

>The 'prophecy' was DD's words spoken unwittingly by Sybill.

So, I assume you think this was the case with the second prophecy as well? 
What possible point would he be making by a second fake prophecy? (And how 
did he know the events it refers to would come to pass?)

>There's also the as-yet unanswered and very apposite question of the
>delay in Voldy reacting - something like 2 years! Just when was the info
>about Sybill and her seance dropped into  Voldy's lap? At once - or maybe
>  closer to the events at GH? Knowing that would be very useful indeed.

I agree that this is a question which has perplexed many people, and I hope 
that JKR will provide the answer. We know next to nothing about events 
during Harry's first year of life and I assume that JKR is holding them 
back for a purpose. In any event, it's a fairly safe bet that the Order 
tried to remain concealed (like the DEs) and therefore there was a time lag 
between Voldy hearing the prophecy, finding out who'd had a baby born at 
the end of July, finding out where they were and being in a position to act 
on that information. Furthermore (a theory of my own) I suspect he spent 
some time trying to ascertain the rest of the message (stupid as he is, 
even he would've realised that there were bits he didn't know).

>Just two families fitted the description - both associated with DD.

Well, seeing as they'd each "thrice defied Voldemort", there was a fair 
chance that they'd be in DD's camp.

>Harry was bait - but protected; so probably was Neville.

Sorry, I seem to have missed some important element of Possession Theory. 
Apart from the deaths of some of his best operatives, what did Dumbledore 
hope to achieve by drawing Voldy out?

>Now it may be totally wrong but it's a lot more fun (IMO) than a sequence of
>fortunate coincidences.

Fun, perhaps. But is it what the Author intends ("Death of the Author" 
theories don't count at this stage, because the work is unfinished)?

>Much more satisfying if the downfall was planned rather than just 
>accidental happenstance, don't you think?

Not really. "Shit happens" is as good a theme for a book as "everything's a 
conspiracy".

>A lot depends on how you view DD. Yes, he's the most powerful wizard east 
>of the Pecos; yes, he's a staunch opponent of evil; yes he can *look* like 
>a kindly old duffer - but he ain't. He's the leader in a fight for 
>survival; he's the one that comes up with the cunning plans. Quite frankly 
>IMO he's a devious old bugger, which would  imply that JKR is just as sneaky.

I don't dispute that both DD and JKR are devious, sneaky and cunning. But I 
still have no reason to disbelieve what they state as fact except in 
circumstances when I have VERY good reason not to. Sure, they're not 
infallible, they make mistakes, and they guess things which they don't 
always get right. And they both love to mislead us readers when we assume 
that they've said one thing when they've said another. But I'd like to know 
when either of them has lied to us.

>Remember way back? When the more romantically inclined were positing
>that Harry was saved at GH by the power of Lily's love?

Other than a small minority, the general consensus was that her willingness 
to sacrifice herself is what saved him. A willingness born of love, 
incidentally. So with one remove, yes, it was her love which saved him.

>Turned out not to be the  case, for it to work within the books it would 
>imply that Lily loved more than any other mother in the WW. No, it was 
>magic that saved Harry. I sense the same sorts of argument surfacing here 
>- "Oh, it's love." Just show me how Harry loves more or has more love than 
>say, Molly has for her family.  Yet do you doubt that if Voldy fixed his 
>beady snake eyes on Molly she'd be  a gonner?

I agree that it's corny and I agree that it's bizarre (and perhaps even 
patronising), but that's the explanation Herself gave. Seeing as she 
volunteered that whole explanation when she didn't have to indicates to me 
that she was (to use her words in another reply) "being sincere". One of 
the problems the conspiracy theorists out there have is that JKR's plot is 
often *too* simple. regrettably, she presents it in an extremely 
complicated way (so complicated that she's lost her way with several 
details), and thus too many people look for complication where there is 
none, and try to explain away corny, trite, cliched and nauseating 
developments with complicated back-theories.

>When it comes to love what Harry wants is for somebody to love *him*.
>He's the orphan in a cruel world. Sirius might have fitted the bill, but now
>he's gone too. DD probably does, but right now Harry's rejecting overtures
>from that source, DD's got too much explaining to do. Nope, sorry, I just
>don't see anything exceptional in Harry so far as love is concerned.

You're forgetting about one detail, though. I don't think that JKR is 
presenting Harry (or, indeed, Lily) as being more loving than most people. 
I'm sure that even Nacissa Malfoy would have been prepared to sacrifice 
herself for her little Drakkie-poo. The thing is that Voldy doesn't have 
the psychic connection with either her or Molly to get inside their heads 
as deeply as he can Harry's, which leaves the issue fairly academic. The 
point is not whether Harry is more loving than anyone else, but whether, 
had Harry had less capacity for love than he does, he would have given in 
to the "bad" emotions within him and allowed himself to be consumed by 
Voldy's hatred.

>Life -  yes there is something exceptional about Harry there, mostly how
>often he's hung onto it when all the odds were stacked against.

Except, and this is *your* argument, every time he's escaped death so 
closely, Dumbledore has been pulling his strings. So it's not about Harry 
at all: it's about Dumbledore's manipulation of him. So it's not about 
life, it's about whatever is making Dumbledore monitor Harry so closely. 
So, at the end of the day, the "power he knows not" is neither love nor 
life, but Dumbledore. :-)

The problem with your theory is that, in order to fill holes in JKR's plot 
which you don't like, you're having to neglect other elements which she's 
already put in play. It's like breaking up a partially-done (extremely 
difficult) jigsaw puzzle whose incomplete (very simple) image you don't 
like and forcing the pieces together to make a more complex image. I prefer 
to assume that the pieces JKR's already put together are in their proper 
places. The best we can do is guess what should fit in the gaps.

> > GulPlum AKA Richard, who's wondering whether he now agrees with Kneasy,
> > except that it's by using a very specific and non-dictionary definition of
> > "love" and a very specific and non-dictionary definition of "life"...
>
>Kneasy:
>Careful. Or you'll be classed as one of the awkward squad, too.

Oh, I'm a fully paid-up member. Except I'm not awkward for the fun of being 
awkward. I prefer a quiet life.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, wondering how much longer this is going to go on and 
how much more Kneasy can stretch the plot before it breaks. :-)




From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 01:14:28 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 18:14:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: "Voldemort"
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050612145537.0098ecb0@...>
Message-ID: <20050613011428.59794.qmail@...>

>> At 14:01 12/06/05 , Magda Grantwich wrote:
>> 
>> <snip>
> 
>>My point is that there's a connection between Harry and Voldemort
>>that Dumbledore and Snape have been aware of (and feared) for some
>>years.


> Richard AKA GulPlum:
> Have they? Dumbledore knows (from the prophecy) that Harry has
> "power the Dark Lord knows not" (which, incidentally, considering 
> the other active thread here, he connects to Lily's mother love at 
> the end-of-PS/SS debriefing), but what gives you the impression 
> that before the end-of-CoS debriefing, Dumbledore had any inkling 
> that Voldy had any kind of active 
> connection with Harry, or had passed to him any of his faculties?


Just a hunch.  Dumbledore and Snape know more than they're letting on
about what happened that night in Godric's Hollow and why Voldemort
couldn't kill Harry and why the spell boomeranged on him.  Dumbledore
tells Harry that he has a theory that the scar pain is connected to
Voldemort's moods; I doubt that he arrived at that theory that
particular week.  Dumbldore, in my opinion, has been waiting for some
indication from Harry that his scar hurts at times.

> Richard AKA GulPlum
> This first thing which might start Dumbeldore suspecting that
> Voldemort passed some of his faculties to Harry is the Duelling 
> Club parseltongue incident... 
> Anyway, the Duelling Club comes after there'd been two attacks and
> apart from Justin, there aren't any more for several months (to 
> none of which do 
> we get significant known reactions from Snape or Dumbledore
> vis-a-vis Harry).

The Duelling Club was Lockhart's idea and I have no reason to doubt
it; Snape was there to make sure the glittery fraud didn't kill a
student in his attempts to actually duel.  I'm sure the idea of
testing Harry's parseltongue-ness was something Snape came up with
and used Draco to facilitate it because Draco would accept Snape's
suggested spell without asking questions if it meant showing up Harry
in public.  Snape's look at Harry is that of a man who's had his own
suspicion confirmed; he's not surprised that Harry is a parseltongue.
 

Magda



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. 
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250



From editor at mandolabar.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 04:22:24 2005
From: editor at mandolabar.yahoo.invalid (Amanda Geist)
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:22:24 -0500
Subject: What's the spoiler policy again? was lightning bolt on the ring
References: <d8ibeu+i7j2@...>
Message-ID: <002101c56fcf$822b0ce0$cc59aacf@...>

This reminds me. Yo, Neil, or somebody--what's the spoiler policy for HBP
discussions?

~Amanda, not paying attention again after a busy couple weeks at work


----- Original Message -----
From: "fhmaneely" <fmaneely at ...>
To: <the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2005 5:03 PM
Subject: [the_old_crowd] lightning bolt on the ring


> The ring on dust jacket for HBP has a lightning bolt insignia on it
> just like the scar on Harry's forehead....Anyone care to speculate the
> significance, if any of this?  I wonder if it belongs to the HBP
> himself?
> Fran
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>   a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
>   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/
>
>   b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>   the_old_crowd-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
>
>   c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
>




From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 07:47:54 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:47:54 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...>
Message-ID: <d8jdna+2i5c@...>

> "Had Frank or Alice thrown themselves in front of Neville, however, 
the 
> killing curse would have rebounded just as it did in Harry's case, 
and 
> Neville would have been the one who survived with the lightning 
scar." 
> (http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/faq_view.cfm?id=84)

Kneasy:
 > >Remember way back? When the more romantically inclined were 
positing
> >that Harry was saved at GH by the power of Lily's love?

GulPlum AKA Richard:
> Other than a small minority, the general consensus was that her 
willingness 
> to sacrifice herself is what saved him. A willingness born of love, 
> incidentally. So with one remove, yes, it was her love which saved 
him.

Kneasy:
> >Turned out not to be the  case, for it to work within the books it 
would 
> >imply that Lily loved more than any other mother in the WW. No, it 
was 
> >magic that saved Harry. I sense the same sorts of argument 
surfacing here 
> >- "Oh, it's love." Just show me how Harry loves more or has more 
love than 
> >say, Molly has for her family.  

<big snip>
 Nope, sorry, I just
> >don't see anything exceptional in Harry so far as love is 
concerned.

GulPlum:
> I agree that it's corny and I agree that it's bizarre (and perhaps 
even 
> patronising), but that's the explanation Herself gave. 

<snip>
> 
> You're forgetting about one detail, though. I don't think that JKR 
is 
> presenting Harry (or, indeed, Lily) as being more loving than most 
people. 

Eloise:

I was contemplating this subject in the bath this morning and then 
came down to find this post.

You know, I wonder if this isn't the crux. There *was* nothing 
inherently special about Lily's sacrifice. Yet something that in a 
way is ordinary and everyday is even more powerful than unblockable 
curse that the WW deems Unforgivable.

Omnia vincit amor may have come to be a cliche, but in this context, 
it's also empowering and, I think, moral. Something for which every 
person, every child, has the capacity is capable of overcoming 
everything. A child reading these books will never be in the position 
of battling a Dark wizard, but they are daily in situations where 
they can either act out of what some of us would term 'love' whether 
for family, friends or humanity, or they can simply look to their own 
interests.

In other words, these books are about imaginary magic, which is fun 
to read about, but in itself can teach us nothing. The *real* magic, 
which every child can access, lies within each of us.

Corny and cliched maybe, but I don't think we can discount it from 
JKR's thinking. Love does seem to be the theme of quite a lot of 
literature, there's no reason JKR should be exempt just because it's 
been done before. Whether the outcome of the series is a cliche 
depends on how it's written.

GulPlum:
A vast number 
> of the theories floating around the internet have been created by 
people 
> desperately trying to plug gaps in JKR's plotting or writing, 
adding levels 
> of complexity I'm sure she never planned. I know it's a facile 
argument, 
> but these books are, after all, marketed at kids (and despite 
anything JKR 
> says, her public appearances to date have always been to audiences 
of 
> children, and she has never acknowledged her adult fan base in 
terms of 
> event planning).

Eloise:

I agree totally (and got taken for task over on Main for even daring 
to suggest that there were inconsistencies in the books!)

I have to say, though, that it does seem very strange that no-one 
else in the WW ever threw themself in front of someone they wanted to 
save and that the protective power of such a sacrifice hadn't been 
noted before. I mean, James presumably essentially did the same 
thing, yet sacrificing himself didn't save Lily.

I wonder if this element of the plot reflects the fact that it was 
during writing PS/SS that JKR both lost her own mother and became one 
herself, encountering for the first time with wonderment that sudden 
*knowing* that there is another being in the world for whom you would 
unthinkingly give up your life.

BTW, are we assuming that we are going to *see* behind the door at 
some point? Because if we do, then we are going to have to see some 
kind of emodiment of whatever the power is and my betting is that 
cliche or not, it's going to have something to do with Lily.

~Eloise







From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 09:23:49 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 02:23:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] What's the spoiler policy again? was lightning bolt on the ring
Message-ID: <20050613092350.15373.h032.c000.wm@...>

Amanda asked:
 
> This reminds me. Yo, Neil, or somebody--what's the
> spoiler policy for HBP
> discussions?

I wondered why that spoilerscope was glowing in the
corner.  There isn't a spoiler policy here yet, but
there will be one.  Very soon.  Yes.

At this point, I thought we could only continue
speculating rather than expose actual details of the
book to people who haven't read it.  However, there are
people around who may have been in a position to leak
information from HBP, as this story reveals:

http://www.itv.com/news/britain_2074231.html

Neil

 

----------------------------------------
Scanned by Emailfiltering.co.uk



From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 10:58:30 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:58:30 +0100
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8jdna+2i5c@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050613114157.0098d130@...>

A short one from me (for a change) to start the day :-)

At 08:47 13/06/05 , Eloise wrote:

<snip>

>I have to say, though, that it does seem very strange that no-one
>else in the WW ever threw themself in front of someone they wanted to
>save and that the protective power of such a sacrifice hadn't been
>noted before. I mean, James presumably essentially did the same
>thing, yet sacrificing himself didn't save Lily.

The crux for me is the "stand aside" bit. As his attitude towards Cedric 
showed, when Voldy's on the warpath to get an individual, he doesn't care 
about collateral damage. So why the hell didn't he simply blast Lily out of 
existence instead of giving her the *chance* to sacrifice herself? JKR is 
going to have to pull an extremely huge (and hopefully unfluffy) rabbit out 
of her hat to cover that discrepancy without it sounding ridiculous.

On the general point, however, I doubt that Voldy's ever gone after many 
kids in their parents' presence to give them a chance to sacrifice themselves.

<snip>

>BTW, are we assuming that we are going to *see* behind the door at
>some point? Because if we do, then we are going to have to see some
>kind of embodiment of whatever the power is and my betting is that
>cliche or not, it's going to have something to do with Lily.

As I implied last time, I consider an objective view of what happened that 
night to be as essential as a return the The Prank (TM) for the same 
reasons I proposed in that thread. JKR has deliberately kept the details 
away from us, and I personally don't spend too much time wondering about 
it: we'll all find out in due course.

This doesn't mean to say that I've not spent *any* time thinking about it, 
and I am convinced that Snape was there. Whether as a goodie or a baddie, I 
don't know, although I have a suspicion that events at GH are at least part 
of the reason that Dumbledore is so certain of Sevvie's loyalty. I like to 
think that for one reason or another, Snape turned up to repay his 
life-debt and failed. Which, given his slightly twisted sense of his 
position in the world, only increased his animus towards anyone answering 
to "Potter" as their surname...

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, who doesn't





From heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 11:12:05 2005
From: heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid (Heidi)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:12:05 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] What's the spoiler policy again? was lightning bolt on the ring
In-Reply-To: <20050613092350.15373.h032.c000.wm@...>
References: <20050613092350.15373.h032.c000.wm@...>
Message-ID: <1118661128.121F8BF0@...>

> Amanda asked:
>
>>  This reminds me. Yo, Neil, or somebody--what's the
>>  spoiler policy for HBP
>>  discussions?
>
Neil replied:
> I wondered why that spoilerscope was glowing in the
> corner.  There isn't a spoiler policy here yet, but
> there will be one.  Very soon.  Yes.
>
> At this point, I thought we could only continue
> speculating rather than expose actual details of the
> book to people who haven't read it.  However, there are
> people around who may have been in a position to leak
> information from HBP, as this story reveals:
>
> http://www.itv.com/news/britain_2074231.html

And I just heard from Bloomsbury on this issue. If anything comes up 
purporting to be from the book and which hasn't been disclosed by 
legitimate sources like the publishers or JKR, it would need to be 
pulled immediately. If the mods have reason to believe anyone has 
material and is about to post it, they should be prevented from doing so 
(perhaps by being placed on moderated status).

Best,
Heidi who is not giving legal advice, just reporting.



From susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 12:41:44 2005
From: susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid (susiequsie23)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:41:44 -0500
Subject: Stand Aside and DRIBBLE SHADOWS (was: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
References: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...> <4.2.0.58.20050613114157.0098d130@...>
Message-ID: <01b801c57015$41eb7020$d82cfea9@albrechtuj0zx7>

GulPlum:
The crux for me is the "stand aside" bit. As his attitude towards Cedric 
showed, when Voldy's on the warpath to get an individual, he doesn't care 
about collateral damage. So why the hell didn't he simply blast Lily out of 
existence instead of giving her the *chance* to sacrifice herself? JKR is 
going to have to pull an extremely huge (and hopefully unfluffy) rabbit out 
of her hat to cover that discrepancy without it sounding ridiculous.


SSSusan:
I totally agree, Richard.  Every time I've brought this up over on Main, I get protestations that Voldy didn't really *mean* he was willing to allow her to live -- more that he was just anxious to get Harry taken care of first or whatever.  But I think it *has* to be significant.  "Kill the spare" came without a second's hesitation re: Cedric, and yet there he faced Lily Potter, a woman who had thrice defied him, and he says "She didn't have to die"??  No, I think there is some reason for this offer on Voldy's part, and I hope to heck it's not one of those bits JKR will end up leaving untied .


GulPlum:
This doesn't mean to say that I've not spent *any* time thinking about it, 
and I am convinced that Snape was there. Whether as a goodie or a baddie, I 
don't know, although I have a suspicion that events at GH are at least part 
of the reason that Dumbledore is so certain of Sevvie's loyalty. I like to 
think that for one reason or another, Snape turned up to repay his 
life-debt and failed. Which, given his slightly twisted sense of his 
position in the world, only increased his animus towards anyone answering 
to "Potter" as their surname...

SSSusan:
I have debated whether to bring up a TBAY I wrote over at HPfGU here.  ::shudders, contemplating the rather high-powered company she is presently in here::  But this is a nice little segue, so what the hell.  And, stop sniggering over there, Kneasy!

I also think Snape had a role to play in and around the events of GH, and that this role is very definitely the reason that DD (and Hagrid, for that matter) trust Snape so.  In fact, I think Snape discovered that Voldy planned to attack the Potters and went to DD with that information, prepared to leave Voldy and to help protect them (why is open for debate).  My theory is DRIBBLE SHADOWS [Dragon's Resistance In Blood Brings Life-saving Effects:  Snape, Hagrid And Dumbledore's Ointment Was Supplement], which was moved along by some excellent crewmanship by Jen Reese & Potioncat (and some countering by Neri).  Main posts are 128717, 128778, 128795, 128892, 129079, 129098.  

A lot of you are members of both groups, so I won't set out the full theory here.  But anyhoo... the gist of this is that Snape, DD & Hagrid worked together to develop a potion... er, ointment (so's I could spell SHADOWS, natch) that involved dragon's blood -- DD providing the knowledge of dragon blood's utility, Hagrid providing the actual dragon blood, and Snape providing the skills in potion-making.  This ointment was to have been applied to Harry before the attack but the attack came too quickly.  DD, however, believing Voldy to have not truly been killed, decided to take the step of applying it to Baby Harry **after** the events of GH, in hopes of providing any kind of supplemental protection he could manage.  This application is what delayed Harry's arrival on Privet Drive for 24 hours. 

Anyway, I don't know that Snape was there that night, but I totally agree that he had a major role to play in informing DD of Voldy's plans, in attempting to protect the Potters, and in providing supplemental protection to Harry after GH.

Siriusly Snapey Susan


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 14:32:45 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:32:45 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..." was: Re: DD's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...>
Message-ID: <d8k5ed+2sgr@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:

>
> Personally, I don't see it that way. Being an optimist, I see it as your
> being mischievous and playful. Because, frankly, there's no way on earth
> that you can possibly believe the tripe you spout to be true (i.e. the
> author's intention), is there?  :-)
>
> (Don't answer that one.)
>


Have a care, sir!
Or you may find yourself at the wrong end of my rubber haddock!
In these here parts tripe is a traditional and wholesome comestible. To class
some of my convoluted canonical contortions that highly is to cast an
unwarranted slur on an innocent foodstuff.

But your comment does provide an opportunity for digression and perhaps
to encourage others to consider/elucidate the attraction of HP and for a 
small minority to confess all.

Harry Potter per se holds little attraction for me.
Indeed, why on earth should he?
But as a means to an end - ah, that's different.
That end being entertainment, though of a kind some may consider as 
somewhat misplaced. There's a measure of mischief, right enough (whose 
bars can we rattle today?) but it goes further than that.

It may be an accidental oversight (probably) or a symptom of of an 
unspoken inclination (possible), but the Home Page of this site doesn't 
mention Harry Potter - it's "the works and world of J.K.Rowling", a phrase 
that (IMO) spreads the net a bit wider than a consideration of the life and 
hard times of H. Potter Esq. Jo has created a marvellously complex and 
detailed world, so much so that some have a hankering to prise the back 
off and see what makes it tick. Tinkerers, that's what they are. How the bits
fit together, what drives them, is the way they are presented a true 
representation of the plot arc or can they be made to slot together 
differently? And is there a bit of the old smoke and mirrors in play, 
should we be watching what her other hand is up to? 

Just how many plot twists can be reasonably accommodated in a 7 volume
series anyway? Dunno. But I expect (hope) that we're about to find out. 
We've known from early on that Jo is a devotee of whodunnits - Aggie 
Christie - and judging by the bookshelf on her site, Dorothy L. Sayers too. 
Encouraging indications that there may well be more surprises in store, 
that all is not what it seems. The classical whodunnit always had surprises
saved for the final few chapters, maybe a shocking revelation, but more 
usually an heretofore unconsidered trifle turns out to be critically important.
Jo herself adds substance to such possibilities - 
"I love a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction. 
Readers love to be tricked but not conned."

To assume that any trickery and obfuscation ceased with book 5 is a bit
unimaginative IMO. At a rough estimate there are still 1000+ pages to 
come. Even allowing a generous 100 pages for resolution, tying up loose
ends and explication, that still leaves a lot of space to be filled; it can't all
be Snape snarling and Harry being petulant, can it? Plenty of room for more
dirty work at the cross-roads and a few more red herrings to waft their 
deceptive scents across the noses of bloodhound fans.

'Cos it's as a variant of the whodunnwhatandwhy genre that HP has 
engaged my attention. More and more it seems to me that it is the past, 
the back-history, that will determine the eventual outcome. So it's not a 
coincidence that key events are still, after 5 books, shrouded in mystery 
and with minimal information provided. Godric's Hollow, the 24 hours, 
Tom and the Chamber, even what happened to old Sally are immensely 
important IMO. There is that cunning knot, the "key to the whole thing" 
that according to Jo no-one has yet unravelled; there's also the massive 
editing and re-writing of the first two books -15 chapters removed from 
PS/SS "because it gave too much away". Now in book 1 that wouldn't be 
the ending, would it? Not likely. But it may well have been just about 
everything else, leaving nothing to puzzle us at all.

Now when an author takes pains like these, I contend that it's more than
an adventure story that we have on our hands, more than an adolescent 
sprog battling the evil mastermind. What we have is a mystery - and 
deliberately constructed as such. And what does an enthusiast of mysteries
generally do? Try to beat the author to the punch, to deduce the solution 
before having it explained in the final wash-up. And roughly, that's what 
theorising is about. But to do it some 'facts' have to be regarded as fluid, 
incomplete, not seen in their true context, even deliberately misleading. 
Fine, so turn 'em on their heads, slot 'em back into the equation and 
estimate what the effect will be. And the resultant speculations range from
the possible via the unlikely to the just plain loopy. Personally I relish 
reading a well thought out theory, no matter how unlikely. You can't help 
but admire some of the analyses/constructions from the fertile minds
that contribute to the boards, even while accepting that they're gonna be 
wrong - probably - possibly - or - let me think about that one a bit more.

It's the plot construction that matters; the whys, wherefores, motivations, 
possible hidden agendas, all skillfully concealed by authorial sleight-of-
hand but ultimately deducible that fascinates. It is, as youu say, very like 
a jig-saw, but a jig-saw with no complete picture of what the finished 
article should look like. Not surprising that some of the pieces get
incorporated into pretty weird constructs.  

Of course I may be wildly wrong in my assessment of what HP is, I admit
that - though I have noticed that there are a few among those who take the 
resolutely bread-and-butter approach who rarely seem to acknowledge 
the possibility of error on their part. The theorists are just being "silly" or
"ridiculous".  So what if they are? No extra points for imposing orthodoxy, 
is there? To the serial offender Harry's trials and tribulations, even the final
resolution *of itself* is less important than the style, dexterity and ... um... 
satisfying completeness (for want of a better phrase) of how it is achieved, 
the eventual realisation, the "Ah! So that's what that meant!" moment. It's 
probably asking too much to expect that every loose end is neatly tied, 
that there won't be many a question paralleling the classic "But what I 
don't understand, Inspector, ....." but all the major wrinkles will be ironed
out at the very least. As for the minor ones - well, we can always speculate.

If on the other hand I've grasped the wrong end of the stick and it is 
intended solely as a well-written children's adventure book with a 
correspondingly straight-forward, even banal rationale behind it (like 'love'
- which would please carpers such as A.S.Byatt, whinging about the books 
not being "numinous" enough) then I'll have written an awful lot of words 
about nothing in posts like this. However, IIRC it was Bloomsbury who 
decided to put the books on the children's list, based on the age of the 
main character in book 1 (Jo was just damn glad to get published) but it
was Jo who later stated quite forcefully that she wrote for herself, with 
no-one else in mind, so my hopes still flicker.

Kneasy
Recidivist theoriser, or should that be theoretical recidivist?








From eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 15:48:36 2005
From: eloiseherisson at fritter_my_wig.yahoo.invalid (fritter_my_wig)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:48:36 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050613114157.0098d130@...>
Message-ID: <d8k9sk+bji1@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:
> A short one from me (for a change) to start the day :-)
> 
> At 08:47 13/06/05 , Eloise wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >I have to say, though, that it does seem very strange that no-one
> >else in the WW ever threw themself in front of someone they wanted 
to
> >save and that the protective power of such a sacrifice hadn't been
> >noted before. I mean, James presumably essentially did the same
> >thing, yet sacrificing himself didn't save Lily.
> 
> The crux for me is the "stand aside" bit. As his attitude towards 
Cedric 
> showed, when Voldy's on the warpath to get an individual, he 
doesn't care 
> about collateral damage. So why the hell didn't he simply blast 
Lily out of 
> existence instead of giving her the *chance* to sacrifice herself? 
JKR is 
> going to have to pull an extremely huge (and hopefully unfluffy) 
rabbit out 
> of her hat to cover that discrepancy without it sounding ridiculous.
> 
> On the general point, however, I doubt that Voldy's ever gone after 
many 
> kids in their parents' presence to give them a chance to sacrifice 
themselves.

So do I. ;-)
What I meant was that if such protection is the result of self-
sacrifice in order to save another, I can't believe that in the whole 
history of the wizarding world it hasn't happened before and been 
noted. It apparently *is* known that saving a wizard's life creates a 
deep bond between the two and the two are arguably closely related 
phenomena.

So actually *giving* her the chance to make such a sacrifice....well 
it's Voldemort and the old Evil Overlord rules again, isn't it?

I could dismiss the "stand aside" bit as something that added a bit 
of dialogue to what otherwise might have been an even shorter scene, 
but his going out of his way to tell Harry that his mother needn't 
have died really does need explanation. 

> 
> <snip>
> 
> >BTW, are we assuming that we are going to *see* behind the door at
> >some point? Because if we do, then we are going to have to see some
> >kind of embodiment of whatever the power is and my betting is that
> >cliche or not, it's going to have something to do with Lily.


> As I implied last time, I consider an objective view of what 
happened that 
> night to be as essential as a return the The Prank (TM) for the 
same 
> reasons I proposed in that thread. JKR has deliberately kept the 
details 
> away from us, and I personally don't spend too much time wondering 
about 
> it: we'll all find out in due course.


Ah, but the wondering is all part of the fun.

> 
> This doesn't mean to say that I've not spent *any* time thinking 
about it, 
> and I am convinced that Snape was there. Whether as a goodie or a 
baddie, I 
> don't know, although I have a suspicion that events at GH are at 
least part 
> of the reason that Dumbledore is so certain of Sevvie's loyalty. 


I've long thought he might have been there, but if he was, then it 
came *after* Dumbledore had already decided to trust him. Though of 
course it could have confirmed that belief.

I like to 
> think that for one reason or another, Snape turned up to repay his 
> life-debt and failed. Which, given his slightly twisted sense of 
his 
> position in the world, only increased his animus towards anyone 
answering 
> to "Potter" as their surname...


Oh yes. Absolutely. He's never forgiven James or Sirius for 
contributing to that failure.

~Eloise
Dashing and not formatting as much as she might. Sorry.





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 17:00:29 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:00:29 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..." was: Re: DD's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8k5ed+2sgr@...>
Message-ID: <d8ke3d+jhuh@...>

Kneasy:
 A force of nature and a natural phenomenon are cause and effect IMO.
 The moon exerts gravitational pull on the earth - a force of nature.
This produces oceanic tides - a natural phenomenon. It is entirely
predictable once the physical laws are known. Can you say the same 
about life?

Is it  predictable, both advent and progression/diversity, the result
of as yet  unelucidated universal imperatives? Or is it something of 
an entirely different order? Nice question.


Pippin:
But you could ask the same of love. Is it predictable? Is it the
result of as yet unelucidated universal imperatives or something 
of an entirely different order?

And don't underestimate gravity. We don't have that unified theory
yet, for one thing. Also, its operations in the real world are not  
predictable once you get beyond two bodies. For example, it would 
be nice if we could tell whether the solar system is stable, but
AFAIK, we can't.



Kneasy:
 It's probably asking too much to expect that every loose end is
neatly tied,  that there won't be many a question paralleling the 
classic "But what I don't understand, Inspector, ....." but all the
major wrinkles will be ironed out at the very least. As for the 
minor ones - well, we can always speculate.

 If on the other hand I've grasped the wrong end of the stick and it
is  intended solely as a well-written children's adventure book with
a correspondingly straight-forward, even banal rationale behind it
(like 'love' - which would please carpers such as A.S.Byatt, whinging 
about the books not being "numinous" enough) then I'll have written 
an awful lot ofwords about nothing in posts like this. 

Pippin:
The hanging  threads will be caught up and tied with a bow. However,
as this is fantasy, I hope there will also be some "unexplored
vistas" , as Tolkien called them.

Let Florence remain a nobody and may we never find out what was so
odd about those ferrets! Of course, important clues may masquerade as
unimportant ones. Mark Evans is a nobody, but, IMO, duplicate names 
are an important clue. (Let us remember that JKR told us we would not
be getting full and frank answers until book 7 is released. Until
then, I take it, any answer which sounds as if it is incomplete or
misleading probably is, whether the author labels it as such or not.)

On the other hand, I don't quite see how complexity of plot relates
to complexity of  theme, or why, for that matter, one should consider 
'life' less banal than 'love'. I wouldn't  claim to understand either
of them.

I think what confuses people like Byatt is that in Rowling's world
there are characters  so intensely pragmatic that they see even
ghosts and unicorns as mundane (Binns, Grubbly-Plank) and others 
who are spiritual and see wonder everywhere  (Firenze,  Luna) and 
still others, like Trelawney, who pretend to have a spiritual outlook 
but are underneath it all  as mundane as Binns. I suspect at series
end, Harry will have returned to the Muggle world, but, being 
enlightened as to the power behind the door, he  will no  longer 
perceive the non-magical world as inferior.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 19:25:51 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 19:25:51 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..." was: Re: DD's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8ke3d+jhuh@...>
Message-ID: <d8kmjv+ql74@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:

> But you could ask the same of love. Is it predictable? Is it the
> result of as yet unelucidated universal imperatives or something 
> of an entirely different order?
> 

Kneasy:
You could also ask "does it really exist?" An imbalance of a hormone
or two, a slight disturbance of the glands and - oh dear, he's writing
poetry again.

As I've said before 'love' is an omnibus term, a linguistic convenience
to cover a whole slew of different feelings. Are you talking about the 
protective love of a parent for a child, sibling affection, the regard of 
a grown child for an aged parent, romantic love, the love one has for
oneself that is supposed to be directed at a neighbour, which?  Which
one is Harry replete with?

> Pippin:
> And don't underestimate gravity. We don't have that unified theory
> yet, for one thing. Also, its operations in the real world are not  
> predictable once you get beyond two bodies. For example, it would 
> be nice if we could tell whether the solar system is stable, but
> AFAIK, we can't.
> 
>

Kneasy:
SFAIK gravity is a propery of matter, proportionate to its mass and 
would be represented by the giant orrery. Somehow I don't see Jo
wrestling with Unified Theory, weak attractions and magnetism. 
Even Hermione would have problems there. 

Of course we making the assumption that this force is something in
our world, that it ain't magical. Can we be confident in that assumption?
Is there any evidence to substantiate that belief?
 
> Pippin:
> The hanging  threads will be caught up and tied with a bow. However,
> as this is fantasy, I hope there will also be some "unexplored
> vistas" , as Tolkien called them.
> 
> Let Florence remain a nobody and may we never find out what was so
> odd about those ferrets! Of course, important clues may masquerade as
> unimportant ones. Mark Evans is a nobody, but, IMO, duplicate names 
> are an important clue. (Let us remember that JKR told us we would not
> be getting full and frank answers until book 7 is released. Until
> then, I take it, any answer which sounds as if it is incomplete or
> misleading probably is, whether the author labels it as such or not.)
> 

Kneasy:
Oi! Hang on! I need Florence for a sub-set of the Black Widower construct.
Who else could be Mrs Sevvy? I don't know what the world is coming to,
folk playing fast and loose, cavalierly junking ones theories left, right
and centre. T'ain't right.

Ferrets I'm not really bothered about, though there have been some who
worry about the physical similarities between ferrets and weasels and
how that links to a Weasley offspring or three. Which leads me to a
bloody horrible pun - how do you tell the difference between a weasel
and a stoat? (See below for answer.)

No, we  probably won't get many answers in the new book. Though
it's not unreasonable for it to narrow the available options even further.

> Pippin:
> I think what confuses people like Byatt is that in Rowling's world
> there are characters  so intensely pragmatic that they see even
> ghosts and unicorns as mundane (Binns, Grubbly-Plank) and others 
> who are spiritual and see wonder everywhere  (Firenze,  Luna) and 
> still others, like Trelawney, who pretend to have a spiritual outlook 
> but are underneath it all  as mundane as Binns. 


Byatt? Confused? I don't think so.
I got the impression that she was more than a little peeved that Jo
showed no interest, nor any particular regard, for the so-called
literary establishment. Being out-sold is one thing, the self appointed
arbiters of literary taste being ignored by the publishing hot property 
of the decade something else again.
The "numious" comment was a patronising dig heavily flavoured by
sour grapes.

Kneasy

A weasel is weasily identified, but a stoat is stotally different.






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 22:34:14 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:34:14 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..." was: Re: DD's Unspeakable Word.
In-Reply-To: <d8kmjv+ql74@...>
Message-ID: <d8l1l6+ln58@...>

Pippin: 
> > But you could ask the same of love. Is it predictable? Is it the
> > result of as yet unelucidated universal imperatives or something 
> > of an entirely different order?
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> You could also ask "does it really exist?" An imbalance of a hormone
> or two, a slight disturbance of the glands and - oh dear, he's
writing poetry again.
> 
Pippin:
::shrug::
Again, the same could be said of life. A slight derangement of the
carbon atoms, and -  oh dear, it's replicating. 

Kneasy:
> As I've said before 'love' is an omnibus term, a linguistic
convenience to cover a whole slew of different feelings. Are you 
talking about the protective love of a parent for a child, sibling 
affection, the regard of a grown child for an aged parent, romantic 
love, the love one has for oneself that is supposed to be directed 
at a neighbour, which? 
Which one is Harry replete with?
> 

Pippin:
I can site canon samples for all of them. Anyway, I'm not so sure the
examples you cite are different as feelings. They differ in  how it's 
socially acceptable to express them, which is something one has to 
be taught.

A lot of the humour in the books comes from the fact that Harry is
untaught, and isn't sure, for example, when physical contact is
appropriate.

Kneasy:
> 
> Of course we making the assumption that this force is something in
> our world, that it ain't magical. Can we be confident in that
assumption?
> Is there any evidence to substantiate that belief?
>  

Pippin:
Good point! However, none of the other mysteries are strictly 
magical, so it would be aesthetically displeasing to me if this 
one was.

Pippin





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 13 23:54:40 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 23:54:40 -0000
Subject: Bloomsbury glossary
Message-ID: <d8l6c0+1v7g@...>

Has anybody checked out the glossary at the Bloomsbury site?
http://www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter/content.asp?sec=2&sec2=3

It's mostly stuff we already know but there are some interesting
little tidbits. Like Vampire -" Evil creature that roams the night 
feeding on the blood of living beings. Cannot go out in the daylight."
Lucius Malfoy is listed as a "former supporter of You-Know-Who" 
and "Metamorphmagi are rare and are usually born, but with hard 
work it is possible to learn the skill."

I suppose as this is official info, it counts as canon? or does it?

Pippin





From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 01:36:32 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:36:32 +0100
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..."
In-Reply-To: <d8k5ed+2sgr@...>
References: <4.2.0.58.20050612202037.009c2100@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050613233417.00958a50@...>

Y'know, it's a bit strange that this general "theorising" thread popped up 
today. As I've indicated in a few of my messages since my return a few days 
ago, I've been slowly but surely clearing out a backlog of emails I've not 
had a chance to read (over 500 of 'em!). Today I've been going through some 
threads from February, when this very topic came up (in a very similar 
thread, discussing Possession Theory). :-) As I've been jumping from old 
messages to new ones (as they arrive) I've had at least two moments of not 
being sure whether I've been reading new threads or old ones... As this 
message arrived, I was reading what Neri said in msg 1186 (quick link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1186). I felt as if 
we're doomed to repeat the same arguments over the same theories forever 
(or until Book 6 gives us some salient facts for some people to change 
their minds, whichever is sooner...). In particular, the metaphor of the 
jigsaw puzzle I mentioned yesterday was already done to death. :-)

At 15:32 13/06/05 , Barry Arrowsmith wrote:

<snip>

>Jo has created a marvellously complex and
>detailed world, so much so that some have a hankering to prise the back
>off and see what makes it tick. Tinkerers, that's what they are. How the bits
>fit together, what drives them, is the way they are presented a true
>representation of the plot arc or can they be made to slot together
>differently? And is there a bit of the old smoke and mirrors in play,
>should we be watching what her other hand is up to?

Except that, as has been stated over and over again, JKR's universe is not 
entirely consistent. Some of the old threads I was reading earlier today 
(sorry, I've deleted them and finding them again isn't easy) went into this 
issue in more detail, so I won't bother repeating the arguments or 
examples, all of which we know. But a relevant point worth repeating when 
it comes to theory building and attempting to slot the pieces of that 
universe together in the order Herself intends, never mind any other, is 
that, given JKR's tendency to leave things unsaid all over the place and 
her simultaneous tendency to make mistakes means that we simply don't know 
which bits are clues and which bits are mistakes. Hence the importance of 
her non-book statements which occasionally clarify things. And hence the 
need to be ultra-careful about which bits of canon a theory manages to glue 
together, and which bits it doesn't.

>We've known from early on that Jo is a devotee of whodunnits - Aggie
>Christie - and judging by the bookshelf on her site, Dorothy L. Sayers too.
>Encouraging indications that there may well be more surprises in store,
>that all is not what it seems. The classical whodunnit always had surprises
>saved for the final few chapters, maybe a shocking revelation, but more
>usually an heretofore unconsidered trifle turns out to be critically 
>important.

Except that, as you yourself stated in the thread I referenced above, 
Aggie's whodunnits are very unsatisfying for the reader because she always 
keeps a vital piece of information to which whichever Sleuth the story 
features has access, but the reader doesn't. And her plots frequently 
involve such leaps of logic that the thing simply doesn't make sense. I 
gave up on reading whodunnit fiction a great many years ago because they 
almost inevitably use the same tricks. One of my expectations when reading 
a "mystery" is that I should be entitled to beat the sleuth to the truth; 
my preference nowadays is for heist or con artist type stories which depend 
on a twist at the end (sure, they're all formulaic, but the formula at 
least allows space for reader deduction of what the twist might entail). 
The HP books fit this mould: we can't really guess whodunnit (JKR always 
keeps a vital piece of information until the end), but we can attempt to 
guess what the twist might entail. And then there are the "big" mysteries 
at the core of the series itself, which I believe to be guessable not 
because of the mechanics of the Magical World, but the themes covered.

>Jo herself adds substance to such possibilities -
>"I love a good whodunnit and my passion is plot construction.
>Readers love to be tricked but not conned."
>
>To assume that any trickery and obfuscation ceased with book 5 is a bit
>unimaginative IMO. At a rough estimate there are still 1000+ pages to
>come. Even allowing a generous 100 pages for resolution, tying up loose
>ends and explication, that still leaves a lot of space to be filled; it 
>can't all
>be Snape snarling and Harry being petulant, can it? Plenty of room for more
>dirty work at the cross-roads and a few more red herrings to waft their
>deceptive scents across the noses of bloodhound fans.

Well, JKR did say at some point (sorry, too lazy to look it) that it's time 
to start  providing answers rather than ask more questions, but I agree 
that there's still plenty of scope for obfuscation.

<snip>

>And what does an enthusiast of mysteries
>generally do? Try to beat the author to the punch, to deduce the solution
>before having it explained in the final wash-up. And roughly, that's what
>theorising is about. But to do it some 'facts' have to be regarded as fluid,
>incomplete, not seen in their true context, even deliberately misleading.
>Fine, so turn 'em on their heads, slot 'em back into the equation and
>estimate what the effect will be.

Except, as I said above, when the entire mystery is to be unravelled in one 
work created fluidly, with clues, hints and (of course) red herrings 
judiciously placed in one creative spurt, the probability for making 
mistakes is fairly limited. When the creative process is dragged out over a 
decade in full view of eagle-eyed critical analysts, and the Author is 
clearly more interested in the clues, etc, she's deliberately leaving 
around while not paying as close attention to mechanical details in a 
mechanically incoherent universe, the issue is to determine which are which.

>And the resultant speculations range from
>the possible via the unlikely to the just plain loopy. Personally I relish
>reading a well thought out theory, no matter how unlikely. You can't help
>but admire some of the analyses/constructions from the fertile minds
>that contribute to the boards, even while accepting that they're gonna be
>wrong - probably - possibly - or - let me think about that one a bit more.

I agree entirely. There have been very few theories which I consider to be 
even possible, and fewer which I consider to be even slightly probable. I 
do, however, like and admire the intellectual game of putting together a 
theory which is both internally and externally (i.e. thematically) 
consistent. And the vast majority of them are not.

>It's the plot construction that matters; the whys, wherefores, motivations,
>possible hidden agendas, all skillfully concealed by authorial sleight-of-
>hand but ultimately deducible that fascinates.

Ahh, but *are* they ultimately deducible? I don't think any of the 
who-how-why mysteries in the individual books to date were deducible before 
Harry received the key piece of information right at the end, *after* the 
"who" had revealed themselves and explained the "how". And we normally need 
some extra input (generally from Dumbledore's debriefing) to guess the 
"why". It's only in retrospect that we can see where the clues were 
leading, because they are so often couched in what is NOT said or done. 
Heck, it's difficult enough at times to determine just what the central 
mystery is, never mind who's responsible. The one thing we do know is that 
it's never the individual Harry suspects.

A few examples:

Quirrell can't touch Harry, but why are we to deduce that this is salient, 
considering few people shake his hand or otherwise touch him (the 
stereotype of the non-tactile Brit has a huge element of truth in it).

We don't even know that the central mystery in CoS is not the Chamber 
itself; but who's attacking the pupils (and yet more importantly, how). And 
we have no basis to assume that Ginny is responsible until we're told.

Perhaps we should see significance in PoA when we're informed that Scabbers 
has a toe missing when the kids are in Diagon Alley (or that the shopkeeper 
wonders about any power he might have), but this, the first time we're 
informed that Scabbers isn't whole, is part of the description of his being 
run down. And the lessons about Animagi only become important in 
retrospect. Unlike Hermione, we don't have information about lunar cycles 
to correlate with Lupin's illnesses, so we can't guess at his condition.

(Small digression: last spring, my brother-in-law spent some time in 
hospital and I suggested he read the HP books to while away the time, 
insisting that he'll want to read them again when he finished if he hadn't 
got out yet. I visited him when he was half-way through PoA - just before 
Snape finds the Map - and grilled him about where he thought the plot was 
going. He insisted that Lupin's illnesses were connected to Scabbers' in 
some way [not bad!] but that Lupin was Polyjuiced!Black and his illness was 
the transformation going wrong because he'd been maintaining it for too 
long. As far from the eventual outcome as that was, it was consistent with 
what was going on. I told him to bear those thoughts in mind - by the time 
he was halfway through GoF, he'd guessed that Polyjuice came into it, but 
he didn't know how. End of digression.)

OK, after three books, perhaps we should be starting to learn JKR's tricks, 
but should we have guessed that Polyjuice will be the "how" of one of the 
mysteries in GoF? Or that of the characters seen in the Pensieve, it's 
Crouch Jnr. we should be thinking about for the "who"? Or that Voldy would 
need to wait the whole year (for reason which still have to be fully 
explained) to get his hands on Harry rather than grabbing him at the QWC?

By the time OotP came out, things had changed. The fandom had had three 
years to think about some things, not to mention that the number of readers 
ballooned as a result of the first movie. So whilst we couldn't guess that 
the prophecy orb would be the main "why" until it was too late, we'd 
already worked out the gist of the first prophecy and the importance of the 
room of Requirement. Not to mention that Neville was hiding something, or 
that Hagrid was off to see the giants, or what the Order was. Oh, and 
Sirius was high on the list for "the death". I suspect that all of this 
pre-analysis was one of the reasons I was disappointed in the book. Was 
everything really so obvious, or did it just seem to be because of the 
hours and months of discussions? (The one thing I felt was well done was 
the one thing nobody could have guessed, namely Umbridge.)

So now, waiting for HBP, we have lots of ideas floating around, and lots of 
ideas of what bits of OotP may have been clues, but I'm fairly sure that 
nobody will be able to guess which until it's too late. Heck, we're nowhere 
near a consensus on who the dratted titular royal personage might be.

>Of course I may be wildly wrong in my assessment of what HP is, I admit
>that - though I have noticed that there are a few among those who take the
>resolutely bread-and-butter approach who rarely seem to acknowledge
>the possibility of error on their part. The theorists are just being 
>"silly" or
>"ridiculous".  So what if they are? No extra points for imposing orthodoxy,
>is there?

Well, seeing as the point of the intellectual game upon which we're all 
embarked, in this respect, is to guess the outcome before it happens, it 
helps if the theorists are honest about their expectations for success, and 
accept that their pet theory *probably* won't come to pass. Whilst I'm 
happy to discuss more far-fetched theorising, I do not consider it part of 
an effort to discover the secret, but an intellectual game to while away 
the hours. And it's important to distinguish between the two.

>To the serial offender Harry's trials and tribulations, even the final
>resolution *of itself* is less important than the style, dexterity and ... 
>um...
>satisfying completeness (for want of a better phrase) of how it is achieved,
>the eventual realisation, the "Ah! So that's what that meant!" moment.

I would add that this is true of each individual book, and one of the 
reasons why so many people have read each of the books so many times 
(personally, I've read each of the five to date twice through from 
beginning to end, and apart from the odd dip into them looking for bits & 
pieces, I cannot manage to read any of them through a third time - bear in 
mind that my re-reads were slow and deliberate affairs).

>It's probably asking too much to expect that every loose end is neatly tied,
>that there won't be many a question paralleling the classic "But what I
>don't understand, Inspector, ....." but all the major wrinkles will be ironed
>out at the very least. As for the minor ones - well, we can always speculate.

I maintain that what I term "holistic" theories will come into their own 
only after Book Seven is published, when attempts will have to be made to 
iron out all of those wrinkles. Because wrinkles there will be, I'm 
absolutely certain. And some of them, I fear, will be fairly significant. 
Discussions at that stage will take on a different tenor because there 
will, effectively, not be a "right answer"; the story will have been told, 
and all that will remain will be fixing things in retrospect rather than 
looking forward. I fully expect that some of the theories currently 
floating around which will have been neither proved nor disproved by the 
end of Book Seven will re-appear in some modified form.

ESE!Lupin, for instance, depending on Lupin's behaviour in and impact on 
the remaining plot arc, might never be proved, but at the same time, it 
might not be *dis*proved, leaving it open to modification for use as an 
explanation for some of the niggles some people have. Discussions at that 
point will be pure fun, and won't serve any actual plot purpose inasmuch as 
we won't need it to work out any remaining plot.

One snail may yet remain in the ointment, though, because JKR may decide to 
go through the books and prepare a Second Edition (a la Tolkien, etc) in 
which various mistakes, etc. discovered by readers would be ironed out (at 
least, those fixable by re-writing individual scenes rather than whole 
books or the whole plot arc). I think JKR has even hinted that she may do 
this one day.

Of course, the fun will then *really* begin, because the die-hard fans will 
go to town on the Second Edition and re-modify their pet theories to make 
them fit the new facts. Such is the wonderful world of lit crit!

--
Richard AKA GulPLum, who's spent too much of the day reading old posts and 
thus hasn't had time to write many.





From fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 02:18:30 2005
From: fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid (fhmaneely)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:18:30 -0000
Subject: What's the spoiler policy again? was lightning bolt on the ring
In-Reply-To: <002101c56fcf$822b0ce0$cc59aacf@...>
Message-ID: <d8lepm+shl3@...>

OOPS, very sorry about that



--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Amanda Geist" <editor at t...> 
wrote:
> This reminds me. Yo, Neil, or somebody--what's the spoiler policy 
for HBP
> discussions?
> 
> ~Amanda, not paying attention again after a busy couple weeks at 
work
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "fhmaneely" <fmaneely at b...>
> To: <the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2005 5:03 PM
> Subject: [the_old_crowd] lightning bolt on the ring
> 
> 
> > The ring on dust jacket for HBP has a lightning bolt insignia on 
it
> > just like the scar on Harry's forehead....Anyone care to 
speculate the
> > significance, if any of this?  I wonder if it belongs to the HBP
> > himself?
> > Fran
> >
> >
> >
> >







From fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 02:29:10 2005
From: fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid (fhmaneely)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:29:10 -0000
Subject: SPOILER**Re: What's the spoiler policy again? was lightning bolt on the ring
In-Reply-To: <20050613092350.15373.h032.c000.wm@...>
Message-ID: <d8lfdm+p02o@...>

I really do apologize re: not including the spoiler, but what I was 
pointing out is on the bloombury site. If you down loaded the screen 
saver you greater detail of the book cover.... AAAND
S
S
P
P
P
O
O 
I
I
I
L
L
L
E
E
E
R
R
R
IF you look at the grasped hands and extended arms, turn it 
sideways,it looks alot like Harry's scar and the mark on the ring. I 
know about as much about the upcoming book as anyone else. Just a 
simpleton here, stating an obvious fact about oneself.
Fran

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> 
wrote:
> Amanda asked:
>  
> > This reminds me. Yo, Neil, or somebody--what's the
> > spoiler policy for HBP
> > discussions?
> 
> I wondered why that spoilerscope was glowing in the
> corner.  There isn't a spoiler policy here yet, but
> there will be one.  Very soon.  Yes.
> 
> At this point, I thought we could only continue
> speculating rather than expose actual details of the
> book to people who haven't read it.  However, there are
> people around who may have been in a position to leak
> information from HBP, as this story reveals:
> 
> http://www.itv.com/news/britain_2074231.html
> 
> Neil
> 
>  
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> Scanned by Emailfiltering.co.uk





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 10:03:38 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:03:38 +0200
Subject: Wrinkle in Time, More Mysteries to Put behind Doors, Biblical Resonances in OotP
In-Reply-To: <d8bteu+q4p7@...>
Message-ID: <000501c570c8$55d10920$0600a8c0@hwin>

As usual, I'm behind the times and scrambling to catch up.

Joywitch enjoined,

> I guess what I'm arguing pretty much the same thing that Mike 
> speculated -- that Dumbledore doesn't actually use the word love 
> because use of the word somehow cheapens it by making it into 
> sentimental smush, but that in doing so she is making a literary 
> allusion to A Wrinkle In Time (or just stealing a plot device, 
> depending on how you look at it).

Funny.

I've been thinking about AWiT a lot lately, though not in that context.
I agree completely with Joy's take on it. The one thing I would add is
that, in comparison to L'Engel ?n AWiT, Jo gives the power behind the
door (i.e., love) a more mysterious, supernatural or even theological
touch in OotP. And that's saying something, since L'Engle is
consistently identified as a Christian writer with a theological bent.
(Though I'm not entirely sure why.)

* * * * *

Then going back a *really* long way, I thought I'd mention that I find
Kneasy's theory (the power behind the door is life itself) fascinating.
I don't think it's at all likely to be what Jo has in mind - I think
Jo's tastes run more to the ethical than the ontological. But I would
like to read the book Kneasy wants her to write. 

However, what I thought was really weird, was that Kneasy's theory
sounded more mystical and spiritual to me than my own. Love as the
greatest hidden force in the universe *is* a pretty standard idea. I
think it has Judeo-Christian roots, but just about every common garden
variety of contemporary humanism has inherited a strain of it. 

The life force as the hidden power behind the universe is a little
farther off the beaten path of Western values. It seems like a more
mystical thing - a sort of biological epiphany or an experience of the
numinous in carbon. It would be ethically shifty - maybe the life force
is good and loving and nice, but then again, maybe it isn't. 

Also sounds like the sort of thing that could go in more of a Star Warsy
kind of direction ... As in, "May the [life] force be with you, Harry."
(Just to say that it could end up sounding every bit as silly as the
love-line, if you did it the wrong way ...) It could also be cool. Usula
LeGuin might like it, or maybe that Dark is Rising lady.

* * * * *

However - and thinking about life 'n all - I'm not sure what I think
about the following, by Kneasy: 

> A force of nature and a natural phenomenon are cause and effect IMO.
> The moon exerts gravitational pull on the earth - a force of 
> nature.  This
> produces oceanic tides - a natural phenomenon. It is entirely 
> predictable
> once the physical laws are known. Can you say the same about 
> life? Is it
> predictable, both advent and progression/diversity, the 
> result of as yet 
> unelucidated universal imperatives? Or is it something of an entirely
> different order? Nice question.

I dunno about that one. Seems like you can hit it with both ends of the
same stick. 

On one side: what's so much more mysterious about carbon based chemistry
as opposed to any other kind of chemistry? Electrons scurry here and
there, atoms bash their way into molecules, amino acids muck about in
central nervous systems, and behold, stuff happens. It's complicated (or
"chaotic"), but people in the biology business assume that the whole is,
basically, no less mysterious than what happens when you drop a brick
out of a window. 

And yet, on the other hand, what the hell are "natural laws" anyway?
Since Hume put on his thinking cap, we've had no reason to go on taking
even the idea of cause-and effect as a given truth - let alone something
as abstruse as "the laws of nature." (In passing: how much more
anthropomorphic and bourgeois does it get, fer cryin out loud?). The
best Kant could do was to make cause-and-effect into a transcendental
thingy - i.e., we can't prove it's true, but we'd sure as "*%& better
keep on assuming it is, cause otherwise we can't talk about anything
anymore. 

Just to say that I find existence itself even more mysterious than life.
If it were my book, it would be existence on the other side of the door
- although I would like to think that all true existence is imbued with
love. (How's that for a whopper?) Anway, I don't think even I would line
up at midnight to pay good money for that book.

* * * * *

One other thing: When I think there's something Christian (and something
that trascends daytime TV) about Jo's take on (what I'm assuming to be)
love at the end of OotP, I think it's because of the biblical resonances
that shoot through my mind as I read the relevant segments of the book. 

Off the top of my head: 

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" ... "Whoever
finds his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake,
shall win it" ... "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength" ...
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease;
where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge,
it will pass away" ... "Above all, love each other deeply, because love
covers over a multitude of sins."

I'm not saying that Jo had all - or even any - of these verses in mind,
let alone that she was doing some kind of biblical allegory. And yeah,
I've pulled all ofthem out of context. (Which is why I didn't even
bother to put in the verse references. Besides being lazy.) 

But this set of themes about a paradoxical relationship between weakness
and strength, stupidity and wisdom, mistakes and success, all held in
insoluble tension by love - it seems to me to get very close to what
Christianity is all about - and (if my reading is correct), what the HP
series is all about. Not because Harry is a perfect exemplification of
this - Harry is more of an Everyman than a Hero is my books - but
because Harry is gradually coming to an experiential understanding of
it.

Even assuming this is what Jo thinks, I certainly can't proove that it
isn't trite. (Nor tripe, either, which I must admit to not liking very
well - tastes like meat flavored bubble gum.) But it *is* something
important to me, and I think it's true, and when I encounter it in a
story, I find myself encouraged to go on trying to live as though it
were true.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 10:48:49 2005
From: hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid (GulPlum)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:48:49 +0100
Subject: [...] Biblical Resonances in OotP
In-Reply-To: <000501c570c8$55d10920$0600a8c0@hwin>
References: <d8bteu+q4p7@...>
Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20050614113716.0098b100@...>

I had meant to say this in my mega-long post last night, but forgot. This 
context, however (thanks, Mike), is even more appropriate for a short 
observation, a realisation I made out of the blue yesterday when working on 
something entirely different (preparing for a wedding next month, at which 
I will be doing a biblical reading). I suspect I'm not the first to make 
this observation, but what the hell...

At 11:03 14/06/05 , Mike Gray wrote:

><snip various Biblical quotes>

>I'm not saying that Jo had all - or even any - of these verses in mind,
>let alone that she was doing some kind of biblical allegory. And yeah,
>I've pulled all ofthem out of context. (Which is why I didn't even
>bother to put in the verse references. Besides being lazy.)

I don't think we need more than one of those quotes, except this time IN 
its context. I refer to 1 Corinthians Ch. 13.

I won't quote it in full, but for those who don't know what I mean, you can 
find it here (or on any other of the millions of online Biblical 
commentaries): http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1corinthians/1corinthians13.htm

I mean, HOW obvious can you get? Just think of all the HP references we've 
already had, never mind those likely to come. Only one additional thing I'd 
like to point out: don't forget, Harry will officially be a "man" (as 
opposed to "boy") from the beginning (his birthday) of Book Seven.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who doesn't expect to be able to post any more today.



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 12:24:08 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:24:08 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..."
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050613233417.00958a50@...>
Message-ID: <d8mi98+nhs8@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, GulPlum <hp at p...> wrote:

with lots of snipping - hopefully sufficient remains to folllow the lines
of discussion

> I felt as if 
> we're doomed to repeat the same arguments over the same theories forever 
> (or until Book 6 gives us some salient facts for some people to change 
> their minds, whichever is sooner...). In particular, the metaphor of the 
> jigsaw puzzle I mentioned yesterday was already done to death. :-)
>


Yup.
Those who've worked on the HPfGU catalogue project can testify to that.
Even few months the same subject matter gets more or less the same
treatment, the same questions are asked and only rarely is a new insight
offered. That's the definition of an enthusiastic fan I suppose - a willingness
to chatter endlessly about the same old same old. The appearance of a new
book generally adds to the list of questions without resolving many of the
outstanding ones. Oh, it'll rubbish a few of the theories that have been
formulated,  but everyone expects that anyway.

> 
> >Jo has created a marvellously complex and
> >detailed world, so much so that some have a hankering to prise the back
> >off and see what makes it tick. 
> 
> Except that, as has been stated over and over again, JKR's universe is not 
> entirely consistent. [...] given JKR's tendency to leave things unsaid all over
> the place and 
> her simultaneous tendency to make mistakes means that we simply don't know 
> which bits are clues and which bits are mistakes. Hence the importance of 
> her non-book statements which occasionally clarify things. 
>

All part  of the fun and games.
Besides, what a marvellous excuse for someone whose favourite theory has 
just been shot down in flames. Blame the author. After that rack your brains
to come up  with a few tattered shreds of canon that will allow you to keep
it on life-support. Specious arguments and illogical connections can be a
great help. Then in 4 months re-launch hoping that in the meantime the 
counter-arguments have been forgotten. Some hope. But it is a fairly
innocent pastime.
 
> 
> Except that, as you yourself stated in the thread I referenced above, 
> Aggie's whodunnits are very unsatisfying for the reader because she always 
> keeps a vital piece of information to which whichever Sleuth the story 
> features has access, but the reader doesn't. And her plots frequently 
> involve such leaps of logic that the thing simply doesn't make sense.


True. Can't stand her myself. And Jo's confessed affection for such does tend 
to be a warning flag to the cautious reader. Alternatively - since the likes of
Aggie often contrived their tales so as to produce an unexpected result,
might not that also be the case in HP? So it's possible to contend that any 
theory, no matter how daft, is still in the running until all is revealed. We
all (well, many of us) want an intellectually satisfying conclusion but there's 
no guarantee that we'll get one. Others are pinning their hopes on an 
emotionally satisfying conclusion, much more likely IMO, and in the afterglow
of emotional catharsis critical faculties often tend to be somewhat blunted. 

> 
>There have been very few theories which I consider to be 
> even possible, and fewer which I consider to be even slightly probable. I 
> do, however, like and admire the intellectual game of putting together a 
> theory which is both internally and externally (i.e. thematically) 
> consistent. And the vast majority of them are not.
> 

Of course.
Theories are an intellectual exercise, little more. Many are a consequence of
hanging around waiting for the next book to arrive. It's fans twiddling their
thumbs, trying to find something moderately entertaining to do while they
wait. All the HP discussion boards as now constituted are a temporary 
aberration and wouldn't exist in their present form if the epic had been 
released in its entirety. There would still be discussion but it'd be post
facto criticism whereas now it's heavily weighted towards pre-emptive
speculation. Once all has been revealed/explained (assuming that it will
be) about Snape, Harry, Sirius, Lupin et al, 90% of the posts we see now
would be eliminated. But expect an explosion in Fanfic.

I don't think that there are many posters who take the theories all that 
seriously. Sure, you'll go into the lists to defend your own mutant offspring
against all-comers, you wouldn't be much of a theorist if you didn't, but
it's a battle of wits more than anything else, a game with certain rules
that are unspoken but generally understood. It's noticeable that when
there's a poster who starts to get too intense and dogmatic then the
number of responses to their posts drops off markedly - except from
those that agree with them. I can think of 4 prime candidates on the 
other list.

 
> 
> Ahh, but *are* they ultimately deducible? I don't think any of the 
> who-how-why mysteries in the individual books to date were deducible before 
> Harry received the key piece of information right at the end, *after* the 
> "who" had revealed themselves and explained the "how". 
> The one thing we do know is that it's never the individual Harry suspects.
> 
> A few examples:
> 
> Quirrell can't touch Harry, but why are we to deduce that this is salient, 
> considering few people shake his hand or otherwise touch him (the 
> stereotype of the non-tactile Brit has a huge element of truth in it).
>

Actually he can touch Harry. He shakes hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron.
"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, ..." 
It's probably another author error, though it does allow such as myself to
speculate whether or not Voldy is permanently positioned above Quirrell's
back collar stud, or if he has quiescent phases - at least until an errata slip
arrives. Kind of cocks up the denouement, though.

> We don't even know that the central mystery in CoS is not the Chamber 
> itself; but who's attacking the pupils (and yet more importantly, how). And 
> we have no basis to assume that Ginny is responsible until we're told.
> 

Hmm. The importance or otherwise of the Chamber may well ultimately rest 
on whether it makes a reappearance in books 6 or 7. Some suspect it will.
Since (apparently) only Harry and Voldy  can get in, it'd be a fine place for
the final showdown. Could be wrong, of course. Ginny - she's just the 
believable motive for Harry strapping on his wand, jutting out his jaw and
dicing with death. I've never been very impressed with that Ginny/Diary 
sub-plot. It leaves a lot to be desired IMO. 

But in some ways it gives a sort of back-handed credibility to many of the 
fan theories. Imagine the reaction if that had been posited as a plot-line 
before the event. The poster would have been laughed off the site. 
Hindsight is so wonderful.
 
> 
> So now, waiting for HBP, we have lots of ideas floating around, and lots of 
> ideas of what bits of OotP may have been clues, but I'm fairly sure that 
> nobody will be able to guess which until it's too late. Heck, we're nowhere 
> near a consensus on who the dratted titular royal personage might be.
> 

No. And I don't expect anything else.
The book titles refer to major plot-lines or devices within the relevant book.
Usually there's no lead up in the previous volume; no hint of the Chamber
in PS/SS; or Azkaban - let alone the prisoner, in CoS, or the Goblet in PoA,
and so on. The HBP will follow the rule, I expect.

My guess is that important clues will refer *back* rather than forward. We're
rampaging forward towards the beginning, is my bet. The clues not specific
to individual volume plots, the bits about James, Lily, Tom, Voldy, Snape -
it's all those continuing conundra that are really the guts of the thing IMO.
Sorry to keep harping on about it, but it's the past in HP that is shaping
the present and will shape the future. The past is where all the 'whys' and 
'becauses' hide. And it's the part I'm mostly interested in. And I'm willing
to bet it's the part that Jo has crafted most carefully - allowing for the
occasional cock-up like the wand-order in the graveyard, though even
that didn't negate the significance of GH, just confused us with a minor
contradiction.

I'm not really fussed whether Harry, DD, Voldy or whoever dies or survives,
though a major massacre or blood-boultered mayhem would raise a smile.
But if you've been paying attention then you may have noticed that the theories
I keep vapouring on about are an attempt to dig into the past, to construct
moderately credible scenarios that explain what the hell is going on and why
so-and-so behaves the way he does. I much prefer archaeology to crystal-
ball gazing. Isolated hypotheses don't grab me. For example the Vampire!Snape
idea - it may or may not be valid - but unless it can be used to credibly explain 
in terms important to and congruent with the storyline as we know it, such as 
why Snape left Voldy and joined DD, then it's not high on my list of things
to think about. 

Hopefully there'll be a few snippets of info in HBP that will allow me to hone, 
modify or junk existing theories. But the final yea or nay will probably have
to wait until the final chapters of the last book, wiith the probability that
they're wrong anyway. 

Ah, well, it keeps me out of mischief.
Sometimes.

Kneasy







From susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 12:34:33 2005
From: susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid (susiequsie23)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:34:33 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: "But what I don't understand, Inspector..."
References: <d8mi98+nhs8@...>
Message-ID: <008c01c570dd$6b350f90$d82cfea9@albrechtuj0zx7>

GulPlum:
> A few examples:
> 
> Quirrell can't touch Harry, but why are we to deduce that this is salient, 
> considering few people shake his hand or otherwise touch him (the 
> stereotype of the non-tactile Brit has a huge element of truth in it).
>

Kneasy:
Actually he can touch Harry. He shakes hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron.
"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand, ..." 
It's probably another author error, though it does allow such as myself to
speculate whether or not Voldy is permanently positioned above Quirrell's
back collar stud, or if he has quiescent phases - at least until an errata slip
arrives. Kind of cocks up the denouement, though.


SSSusan:
Actually, I don't think it does cock up the denouement.  When Quirrell can touch Harry, in the pub, Voldy's not yet attached to Quirrell's head, correct?  It's only AFTER the failed Gringotts break-in that Voldy decides he needs to be *closer* to Quirrell and gloms onto his noggin.  Presumably *that* is when Quirrell stopped being able to touch Harry.

Siriusly Snapey Susan




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 12:58:52 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforth's Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:58:52 -0000
Subject: [...] Biblical Resonances in OotP
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050614113716.0098b100@...>
Message-ID: <d8mkac+748j@...>

Richard wrote,

> I mean, HOW obvious can you get? Just think of all the HP 
references we've 
> already had, never mind those likely to come. 

Yeah - that one is probably the most obvious. And if there's one 
passage that just about any Westerner has heard enough times to have 
it bouncing around in their heads, it would be 1. Co 13. 

About a thousand messages back - plus or minus a few hundred - we had 
some conversation in this forum about possible biblical narratives or 
texts that may have served as a guiding princpiple for the series. (I 
seem to recall a rumor that Jo had said that anyone who knows their 
Bible would be able to figure out where the series is headed. But 
nobody was ever able to substantiate it, at least in that form.) 
Anyway, if I had to choose one possible text to fill the bill, that 
would be it.

But I don't think it's the only relevant one. I think the paradox or 
inversion texts are also very important - I quoted a couple before. 
There are a lot of them in the Gospels, anotherver famous one early 
in 1. Corinthians.  They all have to do with loosing your life to 
gain it, the strongest being weak, the leader being the servant, the 
wise being foolish, the rule-breakers being saints. 

I'm not saying that Rowling is doing biblical exegesis - but I do 
think that they point to a very important part of the way she thinks 
about Harry's victories over Voldemort.

>From work (and hence no baaa ... )

Mike








From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 15:56:02 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:56:02 -0000
Subject: "But what I don't understand, inspector..."
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050613233417.00958a50@...>
Message-ID: <d8mumi+icj2@...>

Richard AKA GulPlum:
<snipping most of a very long post>

Quirrell can't touch Harry, but why are we to deduce that this is
salient, considering few people shake his hand or otherwise touch 
him (the stereotype of the non-tactile Brit has a huge element of 
truth in it).


Pippin:
The handshake is a non-clue as far as Quirrell
is concerned. What it does tell us that a servant of Voldemort 
who is not being possessed can touch Harry, which has
implications for ESE!Lupin.

 However, anyone who was willing to consider suspects other than
Snape would light at once on Quirrell. He was obviously lying 
about the turban, he was the only other character Hermione 
encountered in the broomstick hex episode, (that JKR  had to 
obviously violate one of the rules of narrative technique to keep 
from telling the reader when Harry regained control
of his broomstick is a clue in itself) and  we could deduce 
that the Troll was Quirrell's obstacle and that therefore he did
indeed have a gift with them. We couldn't have guessed that 
Voldemort was actually possessing Quirrell, but we didn't need to 
know that to figure out who the villain was. 


Of course all this is hindsight, as I  read each book  for the first
time completely immersed in Harry's point of view
and don't bother to try to solve the mystery as I read. *Harry* does
not get enough information to figure things out, but Dumbledore 
and Hermione  do, and they always let us know  Then, if you had the 
patience, you could stop and try to solve the mystery, though not 
necessarily using the same clues that they have. 

For example, anybody who wanted to know what was being 
hidden under the trapdoor could have looked on the front cover
(at least in the British edition) and could also have looked up 
Nicholas Flammel in a perfectly ordinary and unmagical library.
Your clue to do that is that Paracelsus, Merlin and the like are
also real life legendary figures.

In CoS when Hermione says, "I've just realized..." and rushes off to 
the library,  the reader has enough information to guess that the 
monster is a basilisk (it petrifies, the dead roosters, Salazar's
interest in snakes). 

She also rushes off to the library  in GoF, which
is the reader's cue that there's enough data to guess how
Rita Skeeter is getting her information. We already know about
animagi at that point and a beetle or insect is mentioned at the 
scene of each one of Rita's scoops.

In GoF, Dumbledore sends for Winky, which tells us he has 
solved the mystery and gives us an additional hint as to who
the impostor is. At that point we have the Tom Riddle grave 
as our clue to young Barty's name. We should have started 
being suspicious of Fake!Moody when he lied to Harry about 
Crouch not being on the map any more. Harry never realized 
that this was a lie, but we should have --You. Can't. 
Disapparate. From. Hogwarts.


Richard AKA GulPlum:
We don't even know that the central mystery in CoS is not the Chamber 
itself; but who's attacking the pupils (and yet more importantly,
how). 

Pippin:
Dumbledore tells us this flat out: The question is not *who*," said
Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin."The question is, *how*..."

Richard AKA GulPlum:
And we have no basis to assume that Ginny is responsible until we're
told.

Pippin:
She's the only character with a diary.  We  also know that only a
Gryffindor can have stolen the diary back from Harry, that the 
thief is not one of Harry's roommates (they wouldn't have had to 
ransack the place) or a member of the Quidditch team (they have 
alibis).  It also can't be one of the basilisk's victims. That leaves
Ginny, along with Lavender and Parvati, among the Gryffs we
know by name.

Ginny is repeatedly mentioned as being distraught, pale, 
sickly, etc.

Richard AKA GulPlum
Perhaps we should see significance in PoA when we're informed that
Scabbers has a toe missing when the kids are in Diagon Alley (or that 
the shopkeeper wonders about any power he might have), but this, 
the first time we're informed that Scabbers isn't whole, is part of
the description of his being run down. 

Pippin:
Ron says he was like that when he got him.

Richard AKA GulPlum:
And the lessons about Animagi only become important in 
retrospect. Unlike Hermione, we don't have information about lunar
cycles to correlate with Lupin's illnesses, so we can't guess at his
condition.

Pippin:
We don't get the lunar cycle info on Lupin. We do get his name,
Remus Lupin, and plenty of people guessed that he was a werewolf
on that basis.

 Scabbers behaves in a very unusual fashion for a rat
in his big scene in Book One, and people did guess there was 
something funny about him even before PoA.

A big part of why people say the Potterverse doesn't work mechanically
is the vagueness about Lupin's transformation cycle, but that's part
ofthe plot. Fergoshsakes, she gives us the answer: "I am able to curl
up in my office, a harmless wolf, and wait for the moon to wane
again."


There you have it. The transformation is controlled by the  waning 
(and waxing) of the moon, nothing else. 

Not elevation, not visibility, whatever Harry thinks. You
can predict it from a chart, as Hermione does, and you could expect
some of Lupin's  absences to occur in daytime, which they do.
Otherwise, how would Hermione have even known about them?

Other vagueness like the number of students at Hogwarts, or the 
day of the week term starts, are not relevant to the plot. Errors
which*are* relevant to the plot, like the wand order screw up, have
been corrected, in fact JKR had to rewrite much of GoF because she
noticed a plot hole. If she didn't care about stuff like that, she
could have saved herself a lot of work.

Pippin





From susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 19:10:36 2005
From: susiequsie23 at cubfanbudwoman.yahoo.invalid (susiequsie23)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:10:36 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: [...] Biblical Resonances in OotP
References: <d8mkac+748j@...>
Message-ID: <000701c57114$bf203210$d82cfea9@albrechtuj0zx7>

Mike:
(I seem to recall a rumor that Jo had said that anyone who knows their 
Bible would be able to figure out where the series is headed. But 
nobody was ever able to substantiate it, at least in that form.) 

SSSusan:
FYI, what she said was this:
'In an interview with The Vancouver Sun, she said it suits her to keep mum about her beliefs, "because if I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books."'  

Siriusly Snapey Susan


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 14 23:03:23 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:03:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8l6c0+1v7g@...>
Message-ID: <20050614230323.41754.qmail@...>

--- pippin_999 <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> Has anybody checked out the glossary at the Bloomsbury site?
> http://www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter/content.asp?sec=2&sec2=3
> 
> It's mostly stuff we already know but there are some interesting
> little tidbits.... 
> I suppose as this is official info, it counts as canon? or does it?


Most interesting indeed.  There's this definition of "Occlumency":

"The sealing of the mind against magical intrusion and influence by a
witch or wizard skilled at Legilimency. Occlumency, an obscure branch
of magic, is the skill of clearing one's mind of emotion, thoughts
and memories in order to protect them against external intrusion, and
focusing the brain so as to repell, even without a wand, invasion by
a Legilimens. Professor Snape is a superb Occlumens and Legilimens."

Interesting last line.  There's been quite a bit of debate on whether
Snape was both or just the former.

Magda

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 15 11:06:17 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:06:17 -0000
Subject: Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8l6c0+1v7g@...>
Message-ID: <d8p239+9n0e@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> Has anybody checked out the glossary at the Bloomsbury site?
> http://www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter/content.asp?sec=2&sec2=3
> 
> It's mostly stuff we already know but there are some interesting
> little tidbits. Like Vampire -" Evil creature that roams the night 
> feeding on the blood of living beings. Cannot go out in the daylight."
> Lucius Malfoy is listed as a "former supporter of You-Know-Who" 
> and "Metamorphmagi are rare and are usually born, but with hard 
> work it is possible to learn the skill."
> 
> I suppose as this is official info, it counts as canon? or does it?
> 

I  would assume so, unless the entry allows an out, e.g. "thought to
be..."

There are gaps, though they relate to connections critical to various
plot threads. Nice spoiler policy. No mention that Lupin is a werewolf, 
nor that Peter, Scabbers and Animagus make an interesting connection, 
nor are Frank & Alice Longbottom among the 'L's', though they do get a 
mention buried among the original members of the Order. And once 
again we are left clueless as to what the Dark Arts actually consist of.

But I feel comforted. 
Under A.K. is the definitive statement - "This spell cannot be blocked."
A dainty morsel to feed to my pet Possession Theory.

Kneasy
Wanders off humming "I've got you under my skin"





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 15 12:59:15 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 12:59:15 -0000
Subject: Hey, Heidi was Re: Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8l6c0+1v7g@...>
Message-ID: <d8p8n3+uu7p@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
>
> I suppose as this is official info, it counts as canon? or does it?
> 

Pippin:
Pathetically replying to my own post...I was wondering if the gang at
Leaky  would be interested in finding out if Jo wrote the glossary
or is it the work of an imaginative publicist. 

Pippin






From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 15 17:34:45 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:34:45 -0000
Subject: Hey, Heidi was Re: Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8p8n3+uu7p@...>
Message-ID: <d8porl+vam9@...>

> Pippin:
> Pathetically replying to my own post...I was wondering if the gang at
> Leaky  would be interested in finding out if Jo wrote the glossary
> or is it the work of an imaginative publicist. 

Lexicon Steve, too (who probably won't read this as he appears to be 
bouncing), tends to get on the case in these pericanonical matters.

David, inventing a new word





From heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 09:00:48 2005
From: heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid (Heidi)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 05:00:48 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Hey, Heidi was Re: Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8p8n3+uu7p@...>
References: <d8p8n3+uu7p@...>
Message-ID: <1118912451.31F87C09@...>


On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 9:52 am, pippin_999 wrote:
> Pathetically replying to my own post...I was wondering if the gang at
> Leaky  would be interested in finding out if Jo wrote the glossary
> or is it the work of an imaginative publicist.
>

I have asked but they are frazzled so I'm not sure when we'll get an 
answer. Melissa will ask, I think, during her interview next month, so 
at least then.



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 12:35:17 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:35:17 -0000
Subject: Wrinkle in Time, More Mysteries to Put behind Doors, Biblical Resonances in OotP
In-Reply-To: <000501c570c8$55d10920$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8rrm5+pamu@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Mike & Susan Gray" <aberforthsgoat at h...> 
wrote:
> 
> Then going back a *really* long way, I thought I'd mention that I find
> Kneasy's theory (the power behind the door is life itself) fascinating.
> I don't think it's at all likely to be what Jo has in mind - I think
> Jo's tastes run more to the ethical than the ontological. But I would
> like to read the book Kneasy wants her to write. 
> 

Kneasy:
I doubt it.
My version would make Titus Andronicus look like a mild family spat.
Yes, Jo is likely to lean towards the ethical and life (as a concept) is
ethically neutral and amoral in the purest sense of the word.
Sure, one can choose to act in a way  that can be considered moral
or immoral, but that's mostly one of the by-products of civilisation,
not a property of life itself. Remember that I'm viewing 'life' from a
much wider perspective than the humano-centric one. Think of it
(life-force, the compulsion to thrive and survive) as say, a plant 
forcing its way through an asphalt parking lot. 


> However, what I thought was really weird, was that Kneasy's theory
> sounded more mystical and spiritual to me than my own. Love as the
> greatest hidden force in the universe *is* a pretty standard idea. I
> think it has Judeo-Christian roots, but just about every common garden
> variety of contemporary humanism has inherited a strain of it. 
> 
> The life force as the hidden power behind the universe is a little
> farther off the beaten path of Western values. It seems like a more
> mystical thing - a sort of biological epiphany or an experience of the
> numinous in carbon. It would be ethically shifty - maybe the life force
> is good and loving and nice, but then again, maybe it isn't. 
> 

Kneasy:
Ethically shifty. That's me.
Love is a bit limiting as a universal power IMO. Do Flobberworms love?
Can they love? If they don't or can't then love ain't universal.
The other 'powers' in the Dept. of Mysteries have much wider effects than
just the human sphere - time, death, physical forces - though the brains
could be considered a counter-argument. Depends on what you consider 
they represent - intelligence, rational thought - or a neatly packaged 
processing system (thus susceptible to study) that enables any cerebrate 
being to experience the universe outside itself. 
But I agree that it's unlikely that Jo is thinking along these lines. Pity.  


> 
> On one side: what's so much more mysterious about carbon based chemistry
> as opposed to any other kind of chemistry? Electrons scurry here and
> there, atoms bash their way into molecules, amino acids muck about in
> central nervous systems, and behold, stuff happens. It's complicated (or
> "chaotic"), but people in the biology business assume that the whole is,
> basically, no less mysterious than what happens when you drop a brick
> out of a window. 
> 

Kneasy:
Some may, but if they do they can't see the wood for the trees. Alternatively
they may be deliberately rattling the bars of the cages of folk like yourself.
Sure, it's possible to regard a living organism as an exercise in chemistry or
sub-atomic physics on the hoof, but that ignores the more interesting 
questions IMO. 

> And yet, on the other hand, what the hell are "natural laws" anyway?
> Since Hume put on his thinking cap, we've had no reason to go on taking
> even the idea of cause-and effect as a given truth - let alone something
> as abstruse as "the laws of nature." (In passing: how much more
> anthropomorphic and bourgeois does it get, fer cryin out loud?). The
> best Kant could do was to make cause-and-effect into a transcendental
> thingy - i.e., we can't prove it's true, but we'd sure as "*%& better
> keep on assuming it is, cause otherwise we can't talk about anything
> anymore. 
> 

Kneasy:
Put not your trust in philosophers. They are, after all, only theorising, and
basing their arguments on what is thought to be known. Their conclusions
may merely be the result of a few electrons shifting orbits in a chemical cycle
in mitochondria located two inches below their hat. 
Wonderful stuff, chemistry.







From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 12:58:27 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:58:27 -0000
Subject: Hey, Heidi was Re: Bloomsbury glossary
In-Reply-To: <d8porl+vam9@...>
Message-ID: <d8rt1j+otcs@...>


> > Pippin:
> > I was wondering if the gang at
> > Leaky  would be interested in finding out if Jo wrote the glossary
> > or is it the work of an imaginative publicist. 

> David:
> Lexicon Steve, too (who probably won't read this as he appears to be 
> bouncing), tends to get on the case in these pericanonical matters.
> 

Neri:
Here is a telling bit from the glossary:

Trueblood: Someone born to pure magical parents. Also called pure-blood.

I could not find the word "trueblood" anywhere in the books. Does
anybody remember it ever appearing? Perhaps in QTtA or FBaWtFT?

However, it seems that Lexicon Steve does know about the glossary,
since the word "trueblood" appears in the index of the Lexicon:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/index/master-index-t.html

but nowhere else in the Lexicon. If the glossary is the only origin of
this word, it means that it was indeed written by JKR, or else (very
ulikely) someone in Bloomsbury exercising his/her creativity.
Interpreting Occlumency or Metamorphmagi a bit beyond the canon is not
unheard of <g> but inventing new words is a no-no. 

Neri








From dorband at dorbandb.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 17:36:42 2005
From: dorband at dorbandb.yahoo.invalid (dorbandb)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:36:42 -0000
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?q?THE_OLD_CROWD_=96_INTRO?=
Message-ID: <d8sdba+htk5@...>


***Name:
Brian Dorband

***Nicknames/IDs:
None currently - I'm too self conscious to nick myself.

***Age:
46

***Family:
Married 20 GLORIOUS years to a beautiful woman of whom I am entirely
unworthy.
A 13 year old son who is a good boy despite his lack of interest in HP
(or anything else not associated with electronic gaming for that
matter...sheesh - where have I gone wrong?!?!?).  

***Home:
The rolling hills of Southeast Wisconsin

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
March 17, 1959  I've always been rather small, so I was called a
"little leprechaun" on my birthday for years - always hated it.  In
later years tried to forget the moniker by consuming mass quantities
of green beer for the occasion.  Mostly successful at forgetting -
everything...

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
BS from University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh (affectionately know as
UW-Zero).  Majored in Library Science and Communication.  *Not* a
Librarian - not nearly smart enough for that and not even very good at
communication.  But I'm gainfully employed - I buy library books (true
- cool, huh?) and, on a good day,  I can string together several words
consecutively that are not always monosyllabic.  i du good i tink.

***Other things we might want to know about you:
I can't imagine...

***First contact with Harry Potter:
About 2 weeks prior to the release of PoA, I began to read SS and CoS,
which had been given to my son the previous Christmas (no, he didn't
read them - not then, nor since...where have I gone wrong?!?!?!).  

***Favourite Potter things (books, characters, ships, fics, objets
d'Art, general enthusing):
-The thrill of ripping through a freshly minted release of the latest
title as if it's a reading race.
-The clever creativity of JKR
-Hermione
-The mind boggling genious of folks from HP4GU (the old_crowd, anyway ;-)
-PoU


***Extent of Potter obsession:
Moderate within the context of the general population, but miniscule
in the context of this group.  As much as I *like* it, I'm not
*obsessed* by it...that much...really...anymore...mostly...I haven't
even seen all the movies.  I saw the first couple, but the imagery
wasn't powerful enough to supplant that which was already in my mind
from reading the books.  I've never heard the tapes either - no
kidding.  Really, I just like reading the books.  I'm not very good at
keeping up with all the theories with acronyms and whatnot (although I
think the ones I've read are *brilliant*!!!). I'm just not obsessed at
that level...can I still join, or have I pretty much talked my way out
of here?!?!?

***Other interests/activities:
bird watching, camping, photography, erotica <blush> (Really, erotica
has come a *long* way since the day...some even qualifies as good, not
great, literature - imo).

***Current/recent reading:
Camulod Chronicles (Historical fiction w/ Merlin, et al.), LoR, lots
of lesser know stuff that I run across in the library.  It's good to
work in a library!  :-)

***Current/recent listening:
Grew up on Classic Rock and Roll radio stuff, but in the last few
years I've switched over to the likes of Loreena McKennitt, Alson
Krauss, Bic Runga - any beautiful female vocals.  Something that
probably falls under the category of ***Other things we might want to
know about you: I've actually had the pleasure/priviledge of
communicating with (though we've never met face to face), then
collaborating with a wonderful woman in New Zealand on several songs -
I wrote lyrics, she wrote music and sang them.  Dream come true for
me.  Nothing that will ever be heard on the charts 'round the world,
mind you, but they don't suck at all, either (JMO).  Quite special for
me.  

***Current/recent viewing:
Don't watch a lot of tv, and not very many movies, but I'm a huge
Green Bay Packer fan and rarely miss the game during the season.  

I think that about covers things for now.  I really appreciate the
invite to come and join you (again).  I sincerely apologize for my
ill-advised posting of several years ago (re: Abanes).  We don't need
to open that can of worms, I hope, but I do want everyone who might
remember to know that I was supremely emabarrased by my conduct and
that's why I chose to go into a self-imposed exile of sorts. I'll try
to add something to the discussion, but I readily admit that I'm in
entirely over my head with this group.  I'm humbled to be among you
all.  Thanks.  See ya on the message board.

Brian 





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 20:20:20 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:20:20 +0200
Subject: =?US-ASCII?Q?RE:_=5Bthe=5Fold=5Fcrowd=5D_THE_OLD_CROWD_-_INTRO?=
In-Reply-To: <d8sdba+htk5@...>
Message-ID: <000501c572b0$d1c227a0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Brian brooded,

> ***Other interests/activities:
> bird watching, camping, photography, erotica <blush> 

....

> collaborating 
> with a wonderful woman in New Zealand on several songs - I 
> wrote lyrics, she wrote music and sang them.  

....

> I'm a 
> huge Green Bay Packer fan and rarely miss the game during the 
> season.  


WOW!

In short, a guy who's got his act together, who know what makes life
life - stuff like HP, camping, sex, music and ... best of all ...
FOOTBALL!

And while we're on the topic of things that *really* count in life: as a
rabid STL Rams fan, I'm pleased that we won't be having any
gridiron-related altercations in the forum until somewhere during the
next playoffs (where I hope that that ol' geezer of a QB you guys got
will be kind enough to throw us as many balls as he did last time we met
there ... <devilish grin>) 

BTW, I just got back from my 6 year-old's second flag football practice.
Yes, there's a flag football league in Switzerland, and Evan, who has
been dreaming of playing in it since he was 4, has been allowed to play,
even though it's for 8-year-olds an up. And best of all, they told him
that he can play in their final tournament game of the season this
Saturday. Probably won't get to do much, but he's flying higher than the
Goodyear blimp. 

(Also BTW, here in Switzlernad, the only televised football is the
Superbowl, and it comes on in the middle of the night. Evan and I have
be getting it up to watch it together since he was 3.)

Huh? Oh, sorry guys. Didn't I ever mention that the one thing I'm even
more fanatical about that literature and philosophy is (American)
football? What the world really needs is HPfFootballFans ...

> I 
> sincerely apologize for my ill-advised posting of several 
> years ago (re: Abanes).  We don't need to open that can of 
> worms, I hope, but I do want everyone who might remember to 
> know that I was supremely emabarrased by my conduct and 
> that's why I chose to go into a self-imposed exile of sorts. 

Good land - now those were the good old days! I'd never have connected
you with them (it's a memory thing - too many concussions from watching
Kurt Warner ... ), but I remember the cafuffle all right. (That one was
right up there next to the time that gal got ticked off and erased the
whole forum.) Anyway, it's not like you were the only person to get a
little riled up, so welcome back to the huddle! (Or fold. Or whatever
you call it when you're a Ram fan who pretends to be a goat.)

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From nrenka at nrenka.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 16 21:33:33 2005
From: nrenka at nrenka.yahoo.invalid (nrenka)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:33:33 -0000
Subject: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <000501c572b0$d1c227a0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8sr7d+b304@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:

> And while we're on the topic of things that *really* count in life: 
> as a rabid STL Rams fan, I'm pleased that we won't be having any
> gridiron-related altercations in the forum until somewhere during 
> the next playoffs (where I hope that that ol' geezer of a QB you 
> guys got will be kind enough to throw us as many balls as he did 
> last time we met there ... <devilish grin>) 

Oh, goodness.  I'm not so much of a football fan, but I am indeedy from 
near St. Louis and thus have a soft spot for all of its teams.  (I WANT 
MY HOCKE>....sorry.)

So your statement brought me back to a nostalgic sigh; that year we all 
started with the "opp, the Rams are gonna suck", because that's what 
the Rams do...and they won the Super Bowl?  That was cool.

-Nora, who is going to insist on going to the Arch again the next time 
she flies home, and is also rather fond of literature and philosophy





From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 04:55:15 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 04:55:15 -0000
Subject: completely OT, was Re: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <000501c572b0$d1c227a0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8tl3j+5dg4@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
> Didn't I ever mention that the one thing I'm even
> more fanatical about that literature and philosophy is (American)
> football? 

You're fanatical about football?  Am I the only one who is taken aback 
by this?  ::readjusts image of Mike Gray to include a football helmet 
with holes for the littel goat ears and a wispy beard hanging down:: 

BTW, we're definitely going to Accio, so we'll finally get to meet in 
person.  I'm so excited!

--Joywitch, who doesn't like (American) football





From catorman at catorman.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 06:46:05 2005
From: catorman at catorman.yahoo.invalid (Catherine Coleman)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:46:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] completely OT, was Re: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <d8tl3j+5dg4@...>
Message-ID: <20050617064605.72627.qmail@...>



--- joywitch_m_curmudgeon <joym999 at ...> wrote:

> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
> <aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
> > Didn't I ever mention that the one thing I'm even
> > more fanatical about that literature and philosophy is (American)
> > football? 
> 
> You're fanatical about football?  Am I the only one who is taken aback 
> by this?  ::readjusts image of Mike Gray to include a football helmet 
> with holes for the littel goat ears and a wispy beard hanging down:: 

That came as a big surprise to me as well.  I know Mike likes cycling, but contact sports?
> 
> BTW, we're definitely going to Accio, so we'll finally get to meet in 
> person.  I'm so excited!
>
I'm getting quite excited by the number of people on this list who are attending - we're well into
double figures here!
 
> --Joywitch, who doesn't like (American) football

Does that mean you like soccer?  I find that quite hard to believe as well.  David Beckham fever
hasn't hit the US has it?

Catherine

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 



From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 08:19:08 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:19:08 -0000
Subject: Now completely OT, was Re: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <20050617064605.72627.qmail@...>
Message-ID: <d8u11s+phcs@...>

Joywitch, speaking of Mike the Goat:
> > BTW, we're definitely going to Accio, so we'll finally get to 
meet in 
> > person.  I'm so excited!
Catherine:
> >
> I'm getting quite excited by the number of people on this list who 
are attending - we're well into
> double figures here!

Mike, you're attending Accio?  Well, well - looking forward to meet 
you!

Catherine again:

> Does that mean you like soccer?  I find that quite hard to believe 
as well.  David Beckham fever
> hasn't hit the US has it?

One of the things that puzzled me on my recent visit to the US was 
that people seemed to know about Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Man 
U.  For a nation that is famously ignorant of foreign things (there 
was an item on the radio this morning about the lack of coverage of 
the recent French referendum in the USA), I thought that remarkable.

David





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 09:34:32 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 09:34:32 -0000
Subject: The force in the room
Message-ID: <d8u5f8+hu1s@...>

Summarising from memory, so apologies if I am misrepresenting.

I agree with the Goat that it's hard for it not to be love, 
especially if one takes into account JKR's claim that there is a 
Christian dimension to the series.  We do have signals to this in 
canon: for example Dumbledore's statement that Voldemort doesn't 
understand love.

I agree with Kneasy that 'love' as it stands is too vague without 
further elucidation. 

I also agree with Kneasy that Harry's record has some significant 
flaws, and I believe that this is Harry's, not JKR's, failure.  That 
is, by having Hermione say Harry has a 'saving people thing' she is 
hinting that there is more to love than good intentions.

As far as the vague *nature* of love is concerned, I doubt we will 
get an abstract definition, or , if we do, it will be problematic: 
perhaps a throwaway line by Dumbledore.  I think the way love will 
chiefly be defined is through examples, including a number that we 
already have throughout the series.  Lily and Sirius are the most 
obvious cases.

What we have not really considered in this debate is *whose* love 
Harry is full of, and, speaking more abstractly, what is the 
relationship between the force in the room and people.

I think that where JKR may be going with this is the role of faith 
in making love work.  Hermione and, implicitly, JKR criticise Harry 
for assuming that he has to be the one to get out there and 'save' 
people.  It works OK (though is perhaps unnecessary) in the lake in 
GOF.  It is disastrous at the end of OOP.

So I think it's worth going back and looking more carefully at the 
positive examples of love being powerful.  The first and most 
obvious is Lily.  The reason Harry, as a baby, is so effective 
against Voldemort is not that he is full of love for anyone - his 
mother, humanity, his enemies - but that he is protected by her love 
for him.  Similar reasoning applies in the case of Quirrell: Harry's 
initiative in going after the stone is commendable and could 
conceivably be interpreted as love in action, but it has nothing to 
do with why Quirrell can't touch him at the crucial moment.

When we come to the possession in OOP, Harry remembers Sirius, and 
there is an immediate effect on Voldemort.  There is more than one 
way to interpret this, even within the assumption that love is in 
some way involved.  The 'obvious' way is that Harry's affection for 
Sirius was what drove Voldemort out, but there is an alternative, 
that what counted was Sirius' death on Harry's behalf.

This is an intriguing parallel to Lily.  If this is the power that 
Harry has here, then it is not automatic in operation (from Harry's 
point of view), in the way that Lily's sacrifice seems to be. 
Voldemort is not affected until Harry remembers Sirius, and mentally 
embraces him.  That's faith, IMO.

With this in mind, we can go back and look at some of the other 
crucial incidents in the series.  In the Chamber, what works is 
Harry's expression of faith: "he's not as gone as you might think"; 
loyalty, Dumbledore calls it; keeping faith, we might say.

It's interesting to look at what eventually causes Harry to create a 
successful Patronus.  He has been repeatedly told to think of a 
happy thought, without much success.  In the event, what makes the 
difference is his *knowing* that he had suceeded, because he had 
seen it in the other timeline.  Faith. (Remember, too, that Sirius 
was able to resist the Dementors because of the knowledge of his 
innocence - 'not a happy thought'.)

So, the room.  It's tempting to suggest that what is in the room is 
faith, but I don't think so.  Faith is what gets you inside the 
room, what makes the contents - love - effective.  IMO.

What has been special about Harry is not that he loves but that he 
has been loved.  He now needs to learn to put that to use, instead 
of making it up as he goes along.  And I predict he will need to 
resist again the temptation to turn that love upon himself (which 
the Mirror was about) instead of outward.  I still think that will 
turn out to have been Voldemort's downfall in the beginning: that he 
was loved (and has a mother-love spell on himself) but could never 
believe in it.

David, wondering about a parallel between Snape and the prodigal 
son's elder brother





From pbnesbit at harpdreamer.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 10:42:30 2005
From: pbnesbit at harpdreamer.yahoo.invalid (Parker Brown Nesbit)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 06:42:30 -0400
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Now completely OT, was Re: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <d8u11s+phcs@...>
Message-ID: <BAY107-F25890EC7EE34459A7D120AD0F40@...>

David wrote:

> > Does that mean you like soccer?  I find that quite hard to believe
>as well.  David Beckham fever hasn't hit the US has it?

Well, sort of :)  People know him here mostly because he's married to one of 
the former Spice Girls.
Our local (Charleston, SC) paper has covered his private life more than 
they've covered his football life.

*I* know him because I'm an avid football fan (not American football, 
either.)
>
>One of the things that puzzled me on my recent visit to the US was
>that people seemed to know about Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Man
>U.  For a nation that is famously ignorant of foreign things (there
>was an item on the radio this morning about the lack of coverage of
>the recent French referendum in the USA), I thought that remarkable.


Again, the takeover was well covered in the Sports sections of papers.  
America is sports crazy (and seems to love scandals--the outcry from Man U 
fans was quite deafening  (and I don't blame them).

(There was coverage on the French referendum in our paper at least.  Some of 
us Americans aren't entirely ignorant of foreign things. Some of us, as a 
matter of fact, embrace them)

Parker, proud Royal Navy reenactor
>
>David





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 15:27:13 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:27:13 -0000
Subject: The force in the room
In-Reply-To: <d8u5f8+hu1s@...>
Message-ID: <d8uq4h+ecco@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley"
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:

> What we have not really considered in this debate is *whose* love 
> Harry is full of, and, speaking more abstractly, what is the 
> relationship between the force in the room and people.
> 
> I think that where JKR may be going with this is the role of faith 
> in making love work.  Hermione and, implicitly, JKR criticise Harry 
> for assuming that he has to be the one to get out there and 'save' 
> people.  It works OK (though is perhaps unnecessary) in the lake in 
> GOF.  It is disastrous at the end of OOP.
> 

Pippin:
I think you're on to something there. I've thought for a while that
Dumbledore's failure was in not trusting that the force (I'm tempted
to capitalize, but I won't -- take that, George!) would make Harry 
strong enough both to resist possession and to bear the burden
the prophecy laid on him. Instead he tried to 'save' Harry from
these things by keeping him in ignorance, with unhappy results.

Pippin





From willsonkmom at potioncat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 19:09:25 2005
From: willsonkmom at potioncat.yahoo.invalid (potioncat)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:09:25 -0000
Subject: The force in the room
In-Reply-To: <d8u5f8+hu1s@...>
Message-ID: <d8v755+952u@...>


> 
> David, wondering about a parallel between Snape and the prodigal 
> son's elder brother

Potioncat:
If you ask me, Snape can play either role. He does remind me of the 
older brother, upset that Ickle Brother was welcomed back. On the other 
hand, he himself was welcomed back.

A better fit might be the Unforgiving Servant. That was an Upper 
Servant who was forgiven a large debt; only to go out and threaten a 
lower servant who owed him a smaller debt.

KathyW






From dorband at dorbandb.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 20:23:37 2005
From: dorband at dorbandb.yahoo.invalid (dorbandb)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:23:37 -0000
Subject: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <000501c572b0$d1c227a0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d8vbg9+1c6t@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray"
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
> Brian brooded,


Hi Goat 


> WOW!
> 
> In short, a guy who's got his act together, who know what makes life
> life - stuff like HP, camping, sex, music and ... best of all ...
> FOOTBALL!


I might quibble about football being "best of all"...Push comes to
shove, I'm going with sex every time. <g>


> And while we're on the topic of things that *really* count in life: as a
> rabid STL Rams fan, I'm pleased that we won't be having any
> gridiron-related altercations in the forum until somewhere during the
> next playoffs (where I hope that that ol' geezer of a QB you guys got
> will be kind enough to throw us as many balls as he did last time we met
> there ... <devilish grin>) 


haha - yeah, we don't play each other this year, do we.  Man, that was
a tough loss to "The Greatest Show on Turf".  Not one of Brett's
better days.  We'll need lots'o'luck and then some to get back to the
playoffs this year.  Doesn't look so good.  


> Anyway, it's not like you were the only person to get a
> little riled up, so welcome back to the huddle! (Or fold. Or whatever
> you call it when you're a Ram fan who pretends to be a goat.)
> 
> Baaaaaa!


Too funny - what's the proper response to Baaaa!?  Thanks.
Brian








From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 20:48:04 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Mike & Susan Gray)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 22:48:04 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: THE OLD CROWD - INTRO
In-Reply-To: <d8vbg9+1c6t@...>
Message-ID: <000101c5737d$ead8f340$0600a8c0@hwin>

Wondered Brian,

> what's the proper response to Baaaa!?  

Humbug. :-)

As for the astonishment about my foible for football: Football is simply
a beautiful sport. It's passionate, it's calculating, it's dirty, it's
clean, it's rough, it's poetry, it's brutal, it's sensitive, it's
honest, it's tricksy, it's enmity, it's camaraderie, it's fury, it's
forgiveness, it's - well actually, it's rather obviously the only
possible thing that could ever be behind that door in the Ministry of
Magic. Love is just a sub-category.

Ach - and about Malcom Glazer: Mr. Glazer already had quite a rep in the
US sports world after doing some bizarre things with his coaching staff
before he ended up wining the Superbowl. For us Americans, hearing that
he'd decided to take over ManU was a bit like us Europeans hearing that
Voldie had decided to set up operations in New York: not exactly pretty,
but almost sure to be entertaining.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 21:23:27 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 23:23:27 +0200
Subject: Swiss American Football [Completely OT]
In-Reply-To: <000101c5737d$ead8f340$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <000301c57382$d838a1e0$0600a8c0@hwin>

And now: everything you never wanted to know about US Football in
Switzerland:

It's this exotic sport that practically no one knows about. At the
tackle (i.e. full contact) games, there are generally two teams, 100
spectators and a Bratwurst stand. Everyone there is either an insider or
a fanatic (usually both), and everyone gets to know everyone else. Oddly
enough, very few Americans (and there are several thousand in Z?rich)
know anything about it, so the language is a mix of Swiss German and US
technical vocabularly (of both athletic and scatological varieties). 

Every once in a while, the cheerleader squad (mostly players' sisters,
cousins and girlfriends) do a little dance and yell things in English;
the fans (of both teams) applaud dutifully. The players are a bit more
competitve, and have a habit of saying unpleasant things to each other
after knocking each other over. But after the game everybody is friends
again, and everyone is always concerned when someone gets dragged off to
the hospital.

A kid and his dad can play their own game right next to the field while
the brutes crash about and can even score the occasional snack (apples)
from the team stash. After the game said kid can toss a few balls with
the team's American import quarterback and strutt around in the team
captain's shoulder pads. 

I love watching the American pros play on TV, but the live games I've
seen in the US have been a washout in comparison. A lot of what has kept
Evan's interest up has been the atmosphere of our local games. In fact,
if all sports were just like out Swiss American Football league, the
world would be a mighty fine place indeed. 

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 





From jrwahlund at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 22:58:47 2005
From: jrwahlund at pt4ever.yahoo.invalid (JoAnna Wahlund)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 17:58:47 -0500
Subject: Have an idea for book #7 title and cover art...
Message-ID: <a636324605061715582430980c@...>

"Harry Potter and the Cutest Baby Ever."

 ;)
-- 
~JoAnna~


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 17 20:36:56 2005
From: lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid (Amy Z)
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:36:56 -0000
Subject: The force in the room
In-Reply-To: <d8uq4h+ecco@...>
Message-ID: <d8vc98+k85r@...>

Pippin wrote:

> I think you're on to something there. I've thought for a while that
> Dumbledore's failure was in not trusting that the force (I'm 
tempted
> to capitalize, but I won't -- take that, George!) would make Harry 
> strong enough both to resist possession and to bear the burden
> the prophecy laid on him. Instead he tried to 'save' Harry from
> these things by keeping him in ignorance, with unhappy results.

Yeah yeah yeah!  Dumbledore loves Harry and wants to spare him these 
burdens.  That's a natural enough expression of love and care, 
especially towards a child, but ultimately, the greater love is to 
have faith in the object of one's love.  Someone's having that faith 
in us is also how we grow into adulthood and its responsibilities.

So it is not only Harry who has to learn the crucial role faith 
plays in making love effective. 

Amy Z Curmudgeon
smelling another sermon

------------------------------------------------------------------
"Blimey," said the other twin. "Are you--?"
"He =is=," said the first twin. "Aren't you?" he added to Harry.
"What?" said Harry.
"=Harry Potter=," chorused the twins.
"Oh, him," said Harry. "I mean, yes, I am."  --Philosopher's Stone
------------------------------------------------------------------





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 18 04:17:49 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 04:17:49 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
Message-ID: <d9079d+qc0i@...>

Potioncat wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1793 :

<< The other point of discussion was that JKR said in one interview
that no one remains at Hogwarts over the summer. So how would the
library books be available? >>

http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/0700-swns-alfie.htm
<< Q: Where do the Hogwarts teachers live during the school holidays ?
Do they stay at Hogwarts ? (Andrew Zimmer)
A: No, they don't. Filch, the caretaker, stays. >>

If there's another interview where she said that no one but Filch is
allowed to stay over the summer, I couldn't find it on Quick Quotes
Quill. So we can imagine that Madam Pince, who is not a teacher,
stays, or that she allows Filch or a House Elf to deal with her
precious books over the summer (not likely!). Then students who
borrowed a book could return it by Owl Post and Madam Pince could owl
it to the next student who had signed up on the waiting list for that
book. Presumably students could also owl her their request to be added
to the waiting list. 

Mike the Goat wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1819 :

<< Love as the greatest hidden force in the universe *is* a pretty
standard idea. I think it has Judeo-Christian roots, >>

I'm not sure if it has Jewish roots. It DOES have roots in
Christianity's other parent, Hellenism. Recall Plato's SYMPOSIUM.

Kneasy wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_
old_crowd/message/1831 :

<< Love is a bit limiting as a universal power IMO. Do Flobberworms
love? Can they love? If they don't or can't then love ain't 
universal. >>

Damn my bad memory. I can't recall which Greek poet wrote that first
there was Chaos, and then Night (Nyx) emerged and gave birth to Eros
... or was it that Eros emerged first ... Anyway, the poet's point was
that Love (Eros) was what makes everything happen. And I'm sure no
Classical Greek wrote the gloss on it that said that stars and planets
formed only because of Love aka gravitational attraction, and for that
matters electrons and protons joined up into atoms only because of
Love aka electromagnetical attraction (which implies that magnetic
repulsion is Hate, but I don't recall anyone saying so).






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 18 14:27:15 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:27:15 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d9079d+qc0i@...>
Message-ID: <d91b03+fmbs@...>

> 
> Mike the Goat wrote in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1819 :
> 
> << Love as the greatest hidden force in the universe *is* a pretty
> standard idea. I think it has Judeo-Christian roots, >>

Rita:
> I'm not sure if it has Jewish roots. It DOES have roots in
> Christianity's other parent, Hellenism. Recall Plato's SYMPOSIUM.
> 

Pippin:
The room that no one was allowed to enter has Jewish roots.
Inside the Holy of Holies, there was nothing, except when the 
High Priest stood there once a year to confess and  call 
on the Name for pardon and blessing. The idea was that
God would do this because He loves His people. 

 A Jew might describe the force Harry is  filled with as Yetzer
Hatov, the good inclination, of  which love is only a part. 
However, traditionally,  the child under thirteen has only 
Yetzer Hara, not the desire to do evil exactly, but the desire to 
seek security, pleasure and property. The idea Dumbledore 
seems to be hinting at, that the good inclination was 
active  in Harry at birth or could  have been ensouled in him  by 
Lily's sacrifice, owes little to Judaism, IMO.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 18 15:34:24 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:34:24 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d91b03+fmbs@...>
Message-ID: <d91eu0+cfbi@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> The room that no one was allowed to enter has Jewish roots.
> Inside the Holy of Holies, there was nothing, except when the 
> High Priest stood there once a year to confess and  call 
> on the Name for pardon and blessing. The idea was that
> God would do this because He loves His people. 
> 

Kneasy:
That implies that the content is God.
Not even Jo would be able to get away with that one, more so since
she has been very careful in bringing *no* overt or even oblique
religious references into the HP books at all, apart from maybe 
ethical/moral standards - which of themselves do not require a
religious belief for their practice.

AFAIK Jo has allowed that if we were aware of her personal
religious beliefs then we might be able to garner clues or even
the answer to what will happen. Fine. So why get bogged down
in the minutiae of comparative theology? What little she has
revealed includes visits to to places of worship under the auspices
of the Church of Scotland - which is Presbytarianism, I think,
though it wouldn't surprise me to find more than a touch of
Calvinism. And one tenet they adhere to is predestination,
which might explain all this prophecy stuff.  But frankly I'm
not expecting much divinity to surface in HP.

BTW, if members are so keen to include religious themes into the
story, then the least they can do is at least consider the more
entertaining ones - Judas, Salome, Samson, Cain and Abel - let's
have a bit of action. Bathsheba would be good. Who do we know 
who's got a chariot?








From lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 09:58:53 2005
From: lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid (Amy Z)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 09:58:53 -0000
Subject: the force in the room, again (WAS checking out the library book)
In-Reply-To: <d91eu0+cfbi@...>
Message-ID: <d93fkt+jmd4@...>

Kneasy wrote:

> That implies that the content is God.
> Not even Jo would be able to get away with that one

I don't follow you.  Why not?

> more so since
> she has been very careful in bringing *no* overt or even oblique
> religious references into the HP books at all, apart from maybe 
> ethical/moral standards 

Still not following why this means she can't bring them into the 
final two books.  It seems like exactly the kind of thing one earns 
over five books' writing.  I don't think she's going to fling back 
the curtain and say "Ta-da!  Christ on the cross, everyone!" at any 
point in the series--that truly would be unearned--but increasing 
hints about the mysterious force in the MoM, the force that 
Voldemort comprehendeth not, being the same one that created and 
rules the universe*, yes:  I could see that being quite in keeping 
with the narrative and thematic arc of the books.

My money's still on love, personally, and of course sacrificial 
love, while not itself God, is an attribute of God in JKR's 
religion.  And besides, while the idea of the un-enterable space has 
a very memorable antecedent in Judaism, it's one of those archetypal 
tropes and its appearance in a work of fiction doesn't mean that 
the "contents" in that work are The Holy Presence. (Cornelius Fudge, 
Levite High Priest?)

Amy Z Curmudgeon

*Not that this is my theology--I never could see how the Creator of 
the universe, much less its Ruler, could be love or loving, 
personally.  But JKR is Christian.

----------------------------------------------------------
"We don't send people to Azkaban just for blowing up their 
aunts!"    --Prisoner of Azkaban
----------------------------------------------------------






From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 11:22:22 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:22:22 -0000
Subject: ** SPOILER RULES FOR POSTING ON HBP **
Message-ID: <d93khe+b9p2@...>

After the official release of HBP in the UK (i.e. from midnight on
Friday 15th July, British Summer Time), The Old Crowd will be
observing a temporary spoiler policy to protect those who haven't yet
read the book from exposure to its revelations.

As Heidi has already noted, there is an injunction in place on
revealing any slight whisper of a hint of a snippet about HBP before
the aforementioned release date (http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-
bin/item.cgi?id=115765&d=122&h=24&f=46).*

[* - this link may need reconstructing]

Speculating about the possible content or direction of HBP is fine
and does not need spoiler protection. If in doubt, or posting during
the confusion of time zone transitions, please use the spoiler
protection.

For the good of Mugglekind and the longevity of this list, if any
post appears to be in breach of the injunction before the strike of
UK!midnight on the 15th, it will be removed forthwith and handed over
to the Unspeakables.

In summary, as The Sorting Hat would sing:

"In view of this injunction
On Half Blood Prince, the book
Please demonstrate compunction
If you have sneaked a look.

The Old Crowd will go under
If you expose the text.
So, tear those thoughts asunder
Or, face it, you'll be hexed!"

Okay, you won't actually be hexed, but you get the point. Talking of
which, let's get on to the actual rules:

(1) Please include an HBP prefix at the start of your message title
and ensure the title isn't a spoiler in itself. Those receiving
individual emails may be able to filter HBP posts into a subfolder
if this prefix is used consistently.

(2) Please include fresh spoiler space at the start of every post,
including replies. Note that on Yahoo Groups' webview, the first
couple of lines of each post are displayed in summary, but material
with internal quotes (i.e. '>' symbols) is skipped and shown
as '...'. This can make fun reading, but not if it has "...OMG,
Neville dies!..." or similar in its midst.

We suggest the highly original:
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
at the top of every post.

(3) If you are on Daily Digest, we advise switching to Individual
Emails or Special Notices (webview) to lessen your chance of seeing
spoilers.

Thank you, all.

The Wizengamot







From mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 11:37:50 2005
From: mgrantwich at mgrantwich.yahoo.invalid (Magda Grantwich)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 04:37:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [the_old_crowd] ** SPOILER RULES FOR POSTING ON HBP **
In-Reply-To: <d93khe+b9p2@...>
Message-ID: <20050619113750.45171.qmail@...>

Is the list going to be - I don't know what the technical term is -
shut down or on hold for a few days after the release?

Magda


		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail Mobile 
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. 
http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail 



From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 11:46:33 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:46:33 -0000
Subject: Links to the spoiler policy message
Message-ID: <d93lup+10apr@...>

Hi all,

There is now a link to the spoiler policy message in the Files section 
and on the main homepage for this list.

To answer Magda's question just now, the list will not be closed down 
at any point.  

Neil





From carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 12:15:09 2005
From: carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid (carolynwhite2)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:15:09 -0000
Subject: the force in the room, again /panic over
In-Reply-To: <d93fkt+jmd4@...>
Message-ID: <d93nkd+10ikr@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Amy Z" <lupinesque at y...> wrote:
> Kneasy wrote:
> 
> > That implies that the content is God.
> > Not even Jo would be able to get away with that one
> 
Amy Z:
 increasing 
> hints about the mysterious force in the MoM, the force that 
> Voldemort comprehendeth not, being the same one that created and 
> rules the universe*, yes:  I could see that being quite in keeping 
> with the narrative and thematic arc of the books.
> 

Carolyn:
Relax everyone, the problem was solved last night on Dr Who - the 
force in the locked room turned out to be the Daleks again, as usual, 
trying to destroy the human race, directed by an extra big Dalek 
who'd decided he was God and set out to rule the universe. 

Luckily, a combination of the sonic screwdriver and Rose Tyler 
concentrating hard on the middle distance blew up the entire Dalek 
space fleet of 2000 ships in about a minute, so that was ok. 
Voldemort was kinda counting on them for back up, but as he was only 
a construct of their evil imagination, as they were vapourised he 
disappeared up his own vortex.

Obviously Jo's been spinning out the series over all these years 
trying to think of something sufficiently Bangy to put in that locked 
room, but now that's been dealt with her choices are narrowing. 

Basically, Harry can wrench open the door and step into the Tardis 
and be whirled off on his Next Big Adventure (cue great stereophonic 
noises off). Or, he can step through a Prose Portal into, say, an 
Enid Blyton Famous Five book (where his saving people thing would be 
dead handy); or he could find himself staring at that bench in 
Oxford, hoping that Hermione would turn out to be in another time 
continuum to Lyra and he'd never have any explaining to do.

Carolyn
..demonstrating the sad lack of respect for people's theories that 
creeps in after cataloguing 60000+ posts...







From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 19 14:26:01 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:26:01 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d91eu0+cfbi@...>
Message-ID: <d93v9p+vi6j@...>

> Kneasy:
> That implies that the content is God.
> Not even Jo would be able to get away with that one, more so since
> she has been very careful in bringing *no* overt or even oblique
> religious references into the HP books at all, apart from maybe 
> ethical/moral standards - which of themselves do not require a
> religious belief for their practice.

Pippin:
::snerk:: If you want to maintain that a series which makes mention
of  ghosts, souls, monks, nuns, knights, chivalry, cathedrals, a fat
friar, prophecy, a power beyond the forces of nature and enough
mythological references to choke a hippogriff has no overt 
references to religion, be my guest. I'm sure Jo can work in a
reference to God in the same fashion which allowed you to 
overlook the others.

Kneasy:
> BTW, if members are so keen to include religious themes into the
> story, then the least they can do is at least consider the more
> entertaining ones - Judas, Salome, Samson, Cain and Abel - let's
> have a bit of action. Bathsheba would be good. Who do we know 
> who's got a chariot?

Pippin:
Bathsheba? We already had Myrtle spying on Harry in the bath and 
offering to share her toilet. One might compare the scar to the mark
of Cain, if it hasn't been done already. Lily's sacrifice corresponds
to Samson's in the temple, though I realize that probably wasn't
the part of the Samson story you had in mind.  I'll leave Judas and
Salome to others though it isn't hard to think of parallels.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 09:40:02 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:40:02 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d93v9p+vi6j@...>
Message-ID: <d962ti+og91@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> ::snerk:: If you want to maintain that a series which makes mention
> of  ghosts, souls, monks, nuns, knights, chivalry, cathedrals, a fat
> friar, prophecy, a power beyond the forces of nature and enough
> mythological references to choke a hippogriff has no overt 
> references to religion, be my guest. I'm sure Jo can work in a
> reference to God in the same fashion which allowed you to 
> overlook the others.
> 

Enlighten me please - where does it mention souls and cathedrals in 
canon? Not being sarcastic, I genuinely can't remember - or nuns,
come to that.

Ghosts and prophecies are pretty much  standard fare in fantasies
from all cultures in all times; knights and chivalry (which in reality only 
applied to one's equals, the peasants were fair game, something glossed 
over by the authors of the romance epics) aren't particularly associated 
with religion either, except as a justification for piling up the corpses. 
"I'm doing it for God," they'd say while slitting a heretic/infidel throat.

Friars - maybe. But way back anyone could claim 'benefit of clergy' if 
they could quote a phrase in latin; they didn't even have to know what 
it meant. Anyway, organised religion is anti-magic. Get caught dabbling 
and it's barbeque time. Alchemy - very definitely a clerkish pastime; 
though that was a by-product of the religious being the only group 
around who could a) read and b) not have to work for a living and
c) most centres of learning were run or over-seen by the church.
It hung on, too. For those entering Oxford University it was compulsory
that their first qualification be in theology, even as late as Charles Darwin. 

That 'power' is up for grabs, some have one idea, others disagree.
Interesting that you seem to class religion as a sub-set of mythology.


Kneasy







From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 14:54:02 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:54:02 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d962ti+og91@...>
Message-ID: <d96laa+71h6@...>

Kneasy:
> Enlighten me please - where does it mention souls and cathedrals in 
> canon? Not being sarcastic, I genuinely can't remember - or nuns,
> come to that.

Pippin:
Um, souls are what dementors eat. Lupin makes the first mention, I
think, in PoA, and is careful to state that one can lose one's 
soul and go on living. The cathedrals are in GoF ch 8 "Though Harry 
could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding
the pitch, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably
inside it." The nuns are guests at NHN's deathday party. 

Kneasy: 
> Ghosts and prophecies are pretty much  standard fare in fantasies
> from all cultures in all times; knights and chivalry (which in
reality only  applied to one's equals, the peasants were fair game, 
something glossed  over by the authors of the romance epics) aren't 
particularly associated  with religion either, except as a
justification for piling up the corpses.  "I'm doing it for God," 
they'd say while slitting a heretic/infidel throat.

Pippin:
Ghosts and prophecies are generally associated with the religion
of whatever culture they belong to. Those who believe in them
obviously do not consider them fantasy.

Medieval knights were specifically the product of a Christian
culture. They were vowed to serve Christ. The romances, far 
from glossing over, were often driven by the conflict  between 
earthly desires and the ideals of Christian service. That some 
people of those times considered piling  up infidel  corpses as
one of those ideals does not mean they were less than sincere
about it, I'm afraid. 

You're right that magic and organized religion  seem to be in
conflict. In fact, magic has been defined as religious practices 
not sanctioned by authority. How this plays out in the Potterverse 
I'm not sure.  I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the 
wizarding attitude towards religion is exactly the same as the 
Muggle attitude toward magic, in other words the wizards 
think that  nowadays only a kook would believe that wizards
are  surrounded by an  invisible world peopled by beings with 
powers beyond their imagination and that in this world there's
a cosmic conflict between good and evil that affects
their daily lives.*
.

Kneasy:
> Interesting that you seem to class religion as a sub-set of
mythology.

Pippin:
You've put the cart before the thestral: Shorter OED 3rd edition 
revised (yeah, it's almost as old as I am): mythology 3. A body
of myths, esp. that belonging to the religious literature or
tradition of a country or people.
 
Pippin
* not my belief, but a prominent theme in Christian
writings






From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 17:19:16 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:19:16 -0000
Subject: More on religion, love, etc - a bit rambly
Message-ID: <d96tqk+3r1r@...>

I'm going to dive in here with a few thoughts on the whole `what's 
behind the door'/ religion thread.  I haven't quoted anyone here, 
but I am drawing upon things said in some recent posts.

I often wonder about the way the Muggle and wizarding worlds are 
overlapping or compartmentalised, one with the other, in some areas 
and totally distinct in others.  Some wizarding culture reflects 
Muggle culture directly; some is a magical counterpart of Muggle 
culture; and some is a distinctly magical concept.  In my view, JKR 
often picks and mixes aspects of Muggle culture, mythology and 
invention to evoke a certain feel, rather than to imply anything.  
So, although she has included things that would suggest that 
Christianity is active in the wizarding world, I don't think that 
was her intention.

A consequence of the pick and mix culture is that it can mean all 
things to all Muggles.  In a parallel with the Mirror of Erised, it 
seems we can all look at the same words and see a reflection of our 
own ideas waving back at us.  As a non-religious person exposed to 
references to ghosts, prophecies, knights, souls et al, I see 
ingrained cultural meanings that do not rely on their respective 
spiritual associations.  At the same time, it would be equally valid 
for a Christian to read full religious significance into those 
collected references and take something personal from it.   

At a broader level, faith, love, good and evil are not exclusively 
religious concepts, so even though JKR has hinted at a biblical 
analogy in her story, which intrigues me no end, I guess I could 
remain ignorant of that and still gain something from the story. I 
don't think JKR's intention is to convey a Christian message, if 
anyone is suggesting that, but to explore ideas that many religions 
have, incidentally, at their core.

What is behind the door?  I would go with the obvious:  
unconditional love - the kind of love that can lead to sacrifice.  
If someone would die without question to save someone else, it 
carries a kind of drive or directional power that I can imagine 
being harnessed.

Neil






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 17:31:52 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:31:52 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d96laa+71h6@...>
Message-ID: <d96ui8+42bc@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> Um, souls are what dementors eat. Lupin makes the first mention, I
> think, in PoA, and is careful to state that one can lose one's 
> soul and go on living. The cathedrals are in GoF ch 8 "Though Harry 
> could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding
> the pitch, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably
> inside it." The nuns are guests at NHN's deathday party. 
>

OK.  Souls I'll give you though since wizards don't seem to practice
any religion I'll need to write to  Edinburgh to get the spelling confirmed.
Has  anyone checked their boots?
Cathedrals - oh, no. Not going to allow that. It's a metaphorical 
statement made  by a boy  brought up as a Muggle. 
Nuns. They were considered worse  than the monks. A Nunnery was a 
dumping ground for unwanted female relatives that couldn't be married 
off, and nunneries were reluctant to admit any without a sweetner in cash
or land. Religion was quite often considered optional. Read Christopher 
Hibbert "The English - a social history" - a visiting bishop complained 
bitterly because the nuns brought their packs of hunting dogs into the 
services, wouldn't stop talking and complaining about how long he was
delaying them from the hunting field.

> 
> Pippin:
> Ghosts and prophecies are generally associated with the religion
> of whatever culture they belong to. Those who believe in them
> obviously do not consider them fantasy.
>

I'll dispute the religious connection as a generality, though there
are individual cases. 
Most 'ghosts' seem to be comparable to NHN. Victims of violence
or neglect or those who died having left something undone.

> Pippin:
> Medieval knights were specifically the product of a Christian
> culture. They were vowed to serve Christ. The romances, far 
> from glossing over, were often driven by the conflict  between 
> earthly desires and the ideals of Christian service. That some 
> people of those times considered piling  up infidel  corpses as
> one of those ideals does not mean they were less than sincere
> about it, I'm afraid. 
> 

Medieval knights were soldiers. That was their raison d'etre. The
knight was the basic unit of the feudal system - how many knights
and supporters could your tenants-in-chief bring in time of war.
They could fulfill their obligations by paying for a knight and 
supporters instead of turning up themselves - a primitive taxation,
but for a century or two after the Conquest if you held land then you 
were expected/obligated to maintain or employ a certain number of 
knights commensurate with your supposed income. With no standing
army it was the only way to have a decent-sized trained force at the 
king's disposal. Any religious connection was purely incidental. 

In fact there were massive rows with the monastries  because they 
were often sitting on land that the king would otherwise spread around
and increase his military and economic power in one stroke. Monastries 
had exemptions from taxation and were quite often endowed as a sort
of tax avoidance scheme. It did not make them popular. A would-be
knight often had to travel abroad because there was no chance of lands
or a post in England.

'Chivalry' has the same derivation as cavalry. It's a man on a horse, 
i.e. someone of status. This 'all night in the chapel' stuff was quite 
rare and mostly limited to religious orders - Templars, Hospitallers 
(again, no common scum, please). All other knights won their spurs
in battle, real or the jousts - at least until they started making
knighthood a bestowed honour - Garter, etc.

Once you start digging into it, the social structures in this period
of history are fascinating.







From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 19:22:38 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:22:38 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: checking out the library book / Love
References: <d91eu0+cfbi@...>
Message-ID: <00bd01c575cd$6d6813d0$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi --

Strangely jumping into a canon discussion (and feeling very out of practice) --

<<<<<Kneasy:
That implies that the content is God.
Not even Jo would be able to get away with that one, more so since
she has been very careful in bringing *no* overt or even oblique
religious references into the HP books at all, apart from maybe 
ethical/moral standards - which of themselves do not require a
religious belief for their practice.>>>>>>>>

I agree with Pippin's snerk, and while I see the back-and-forth dialogue that ensued therefrom, I stand by this.  There have been quite a number of books devoted to the subject of Harry Potter and Christianity (while I know of none so far on HP and any other major religious belief system).  Because there are entire books devoted to the subject (and which quite clearly spell out the not-so-oblique religious references in HP, as well as some that are certainly classed as "oblique" or . . . er. . . . open to interpretation shall we say (<g>), I won't try to list them here.  Authors who've taken a look at this subject include John Granger, Connie Neal, Francis Bridger and John Killinger.  There are probably others.  Nimbus had an entire track of programming devoted to "moral issues", and it appears that Accio has a strong emphasis on this general theme.  So, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as absent entirely from the Potterverse, as Kneasy has done.    

I agree too with Neil who points out that personal experience likely colors one's intepretation in this particular area (as well as many others).  So I suppose my own religious beliefs likely predisposes me to nod with agreement when reading works by the above authors.  

Someone pointed me to a LJ commentary earlier today, in which one person stated baldly that canon was both what was explicit and implicit in the books, that canon is what the "author obviously intended."  Hmm.  Still puzzling entirely over how anyone short of JKR, at this point, reckons they know what JKR "obviously intended."  

::::shakes head::::::::

Penny


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 15:53:31 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:53:31 -0000
Subject: Religious scepticism (was checking out the library book)
In-Reply-To: <d96laa+71h6@...>
Message-ID: <d96opr+8mhc@...>

> Pippin:

>  in other words the wizards 
> think that  nowadays only a kook would believe that wizards
> are  surrounded by an  invisible world peopled by beings with 
> powers beyond their imagination 

For example, Heliopaths and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks

David





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 21:38:47 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:38:47 +0200
Subject: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d96ui8+42bc@...>
Message-ID: <000b01c575e0$711d0ae0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Barry bored away,

> OK.  Souls I'll give you though since wizards don't seem to
> practice any religion I'll need to write to  Edinburgh to get 
> the spelling confirmed. 

Perhaps the Dementors were really hoping to eat fillet of sole, but
Voldemort had inspired too much overfishing.

* * * * *

Smartalecking aside: That statement set me off on a rant of been meaning
to launch for a long time. Now's a good time to try it out on you guys
before I make a complete fool of myself with it at Accio. 

To wit: I think you - and a lot of other people - aren't considering an
important feature of the fantasy genre which, thanks to my complete lack
of knowledge, creativity and humility, I've decided to call "Goat's
Law":

- Where the author of any given work of fantasy fiction takes a positive
stance toward the contemporary practice of a religion which poses
questions basic to the narrative, the practice of that religion is
unlikely to be directly portrayed in the fantasy societies created by
that work.

- Extension: In fact, the more positive the religious stance, the more
"secular" the portrayal; the more negative the stance, the more
"religious" the protrayal.

A couple of examples: The Narnia and Lord of the Ring series are written
by authors with strong Christian convictions - and these convictions
have a lot to do with the character of both series (though in very
different ways). And yet, both fantasy societies seem strangely secular
- at least in terms of collective religious practice (things like
churches, temples, sacraments, clergy). I've read a lot of far less
known fantasy fiction written by conservative Christian authors (not
much of it worth recommending), and the same principle holds throughout.
(You can even go back to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which wasn't even
symbolic fantasy but straight allegory: Ever noticed that Christian
never goes to church?)

On the other hand, take Philip Pullman and Susan Cooper, two fantasy
authors with significant reservations (of different kinds) about
Christianity. Both series portray the collective religious life of their
fantasy worlds directly - and in terms that clearly resemble the
practice of West European Christianity. Or you can even go back to CSL:
the one religion that *is* portrayed in Narnia is ... bingo: the cult of
Tash. (Exactly what Tash-ism is meant to be is another question.)

I think there are two reasons for this. 

(1) The *positive* religious imagery of fantasy fiction is closely tied
to the quality of life itself in the secondary world. Fantasy fiction
deals, by rule, with the boundaries between the natural and the
supernatural - specifically, it relocates to an empirical, experiential
level things which we would, in our primary world, classify as
miraculous, supernatural, eerie or numinous. However, religion also
deals with these boundaries; and the semiotic function of religious
practice is to delineate these boundaries. The problem: once a work of
fantasy has performed its fictional relocation, the signs get all
screwed up. You don't *need* to point to the
supernatural/miraculous/eerie/numinous anymore; it's right there. It
would be as silly as hauling an exit sign from the freeway into your own
living room. Unless, of course, that is exactly your point: that a
certain religious practice *is* silly - or even evil because it points
in the wrong direction.

(2) The other reason: Authors who create secondary worlds based on the
spiritual principles of a religion to which they belong find thenselves
in something of a creative bind: they can't simply take their own
religious practice and transfer it to the new universe in an identical
form - it wouldn't fit; the form of their religion is too deeply rooted
in the history of their own world to be transplanted directly. However,
the author is also uncomfortable with the thought of creating a sort of
analogous religion - because the forms of religious practice are also so
closely bound up in its substance, to create a completely different form
would be very unsettling - it would cross a sort of boundary of
religious "good taste," even if the intentions were good; it would break
a kind of taboo. Again: unless, that is, breaking a taboo is exactly
what the author is trying to do.

There are a lot of holes in this theory. Inclusivistic religions of the
Eastern type may have a different dynamic. More to the point, authors
who don't really care about religion one way or the other obviously
wouldn't be in either category - and one could very argue that this
description applies to Jo. (Part of a response: I think fantasy fiction
is generally written by people who care deeply about religious
questions.)

BTW, The Never Ending Story (one of my favorite fantasy books of all
time) is just one example of a work that doesn't fit my theory. (Though
the author *does* care about religious questions.)

Earth to Goat? Earth to Goat? 

Oh. Sorry guys. Feel free to snicker a little, poke me with a sharp
object, ask me to lay off the goat weed - or just nod off ... After all:
it's late.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 20 22:37:18 2005
From: lupinesque at lupinesque.yahoo.invalid (Amy Z)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:37:18 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d96ui8+42bc@...>
Message-ID: <d97geu+o203@...>

Kneasy wrote:

> Nuns. They were considered worse  than the monks. A Nunnery was a 
> dumping ground for unwanted female relatives that couldn't be 
married 
> off

and

> Medieval knights were soldiers. That was their raison d'etre. 

You're employing a little trick of defining religion so narrowly 
that the terms that are usually associated with it are now not about 
religion, but about something else, I don't know what you want to 
call it--"bartlefidget"?  Go right ahead, but bartlefidget is all 
over these books.

Surely nunneries do not cease to be instruments of the Catholic 
Church just because their social function is as much to have a place 
to stow one's excess daughters as anything else.  Surely Christian 
soldiers do not cease to be a part of Christendom just because 
their "real" purpose is to expand the Empire's hegemony eastward.  
What you have done is point out that the structures of religion 
overlap with those of economics, the military, government, secular 
culture, etc.  This is very true, but doesn't contradict Pippin's 
point that JKR's world is rife with religion.

Perhaps what you meant by "religion" is "mention of a creator God"?  
Or you are looking for evidence that witches and wizards have 
clearly defined spiritual practices?  The thing is, religion goes 
far beyond those things.  It has a sneaky way of defining itself so 
broadly that it is a part of just about every human endeavor, 
including those of humans who claim to have no religion.  Very 
underhanded of it.  But if a realm of human experience deals with 
death, rebirth, redemption, ethics, mythology, and ritual, then it 
does tend to seep into everything.  

Amy Z Curmudgeon

--------------------------------------------------------
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.
--Philosopher's Stone
--------------------------------------------------------






From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 02:36:13 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:36:13 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
References: <000b01c575e0$711d0ae0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <016301c5760a$002459e0$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi all --

First off, you can sign me up for HPfFootballFans --- I grew up here in Texas after all (my high school was the subject in fact of the feature film "Friday Night Lights" -- my sister's senior year in fact).  I'm much more of a college ball fan though -- don't follow the pro games all that much at all.  Hook 'em Horns!  <g>

Mike, I really like Goat's Law!!  I can't say that I've read much fantasy other than the authors you cite in your post (Lewis, Tolkien, Cooper and Pullman), but your theory sounds very plausible.  [okay, I confess, I haven't actually *read* Tolkien .... I keep getting bogged down about 1/3 through LOTR and I toss it all aside in frustration, but I loved the films.  Heh.]  

Seriously, I'm very impressed with your thoughts, and I had a "Aha!" or "Bingo!" moment as I read your post.  It just totally makes sense to me.  I definitely can see the inherent problems with transplanting an author's religious system into their fantasy secondary world.  I wish I had deep and profound thoughts to add or could play devil's advocate, but all I can do at the moment is bang a mug of butter-beer on the table and say "here, here."  

I also am very impressed and intrigued by David's post on faith earlier today, and I might be able to string together some coherent thoughts on that one tomorrow.  We took an *early* a.m. flight back from a weekend trip this morning, and my brain is very tired.  :--)  

Penny
(who is getting very, very excited about HBP ..........)



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 06:25:37 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 06:25:37 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love
In-Reply-To: <d97geu+o203@...>
Message-ID: <d98bt1+bin2@...>

Amy Z wrote:

> Surely nunneries do not cease to be instruments of the Catholic 
> Church just because their social function is as much to have a place 
> to stow one's excess daughters as anything else.  

This (and what I have snipped) is true, but I feel Kneasy is right on 
this point that the references to nuns (I think they appear in a 
portrait, too - POA?  Does Sir Cadogan frighten them? Can't remember 
now.), knights, monks and cathedrals don't fulfil any religious 
function in the stories.

Whereas the references to souls do raise questions which are very hard 
to answer without at least considering religious, even theological 
issues.  What is the relationship, for example between the 'soul' that 
is sucked out be a Dementor, and the entities that can be heard 
murmuring through the veil?  In what sense is death 'the next great 
adventure'?  And so on.  One can take an atheistic stance to answering 
them, sure, but IMO it is classic religious territory.

That's not to say that the medieval church references can't or won't 
*turn out* to have deeper significance.  But for the time being my 
money's on them staying as background colour.

David, wondering if by any chance it is R/H that is 'obviously' canon





From olivier.fouquet at olivierfouquet2000.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 08:42:27 2005
From: olivier.fouquet at olivierfouquet2000.yahoo.invalid (Olivier Fouquet)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:42:27 +0200
Subject: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
Message-ID: <71f863b37f0f6f05835592b7334f7fac@...>

 >So I
 >suppose my own religious beliefs likely predisposes me to nod with 
agreement
 >when reading works by the above authors.

Warning : this post contains spoilers for His Dark Material trilogy.

Olivier
I'll offer myself as a test case for this: I am completely atheist and 
feel particularly weakly connected to my "cultural" religion (i.e 
catholic christianity) yet I must say I perceive a quite strong 
religious subtext in HP (then again I perceive an even stronger sexual 
subtext, so you can judge for yourself if you can trust my eyesight). I 
wouldn't say Pippin examples of nuns, friars and knights are the best 
chosen though (I surmise Pippin chose them rather for brevity of 
exposition than for persuasion). What feels christian for me in HP is 
the pervasive morality: purity of heart against evil (as in PS), trust 
in the ultimate good (here Dumbledore) that saves you from a monstrous 
serpent obeying the orders of the Adversary (as in CoS), 
soul-destroying creatures (as in PoA) against hope...

I would strongly deny that these are obvious moral themes, or 
non-religious moral themes. Take the second one. Some people might feel 
a bit estranged by the idea that unconditional trust in someone is a 
moral behavior. Philip Pullman's His Dark Material is a good example of 
a very moral series that nonetheless takes an opposite stand on these 
issues (this is arguable, but broadly speaking it seems true to me). It 
is a moral story without embodied good and evil (those embodying good 
turn out to be the worst), where hearts and motivations are definitely 
not pure, where unconditional trust in anything is seen as immoral 
while the most moral character turns out to be the Serpent and where 
allowing the souls of dead people to vanish is the ultimate quest of 
the heroes.

So JKR's choices are by no mean obvious and self-evident. Considering 
she describes herself as a religious person, I think it reasonable to 
see religious influences in HP. In a perhaps vain endeavor to reconcile 
Kneasy and Pippin on their dispute about medieval themes and religion, 
I would say that the inclusion of medieval themes (e.g knights or 
unicorns) in any book today will ring religious considering how these 
themes were originally used. I doubt JKR used them mindlessly, without 
at least considering their spiritual significance. However, I side with 
Kneasy when it comes to evaluate objectively the spiritual content of a 
reference to a friar.

I found the Goat's Law very interesting so, as anybody should do when 
finding an idea interesting, I searched for a counter-example. I 
haven't found one, at least in the realm of pure fantasy. I am also 
quite convinced by the rationale underlying the Law. I wonder if Mike 
could expand on the idea that "fantasy fiction is generally written by 
people who care deeply about religious questions. " I have more than a 
passing interest in the sociology of creative arts (how does the 
personal representation of the society affects artistic creation) so 
I'd be glad to read more about this.

Olivier

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 11:35:42 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:35:42 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d97geu+o203@...>
Message-ID: <d98u2e+f5ml@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Amy Z" <lupinesque at y...> wrote:
> 
> You're employing a little trick of defining religion so narrowly 
> that the terms that are usually associated with it are now not about 
> religion, but about something else, I don't know what you want to 
> call it--"bartlefidget"?  Go right ahead, but bartlefidget is all 
> over these books.
> 
Kneasy:
Contrarily I could argue that others are defining religion so widely that
the term itself becomes unsatisfyingly vague. (But see below.)

> Surely nunneries do not cease to be instruments of the Catholic 
> Church just because their social function is as much to have a place 
> to stow one's excess daughters as anything else.  Surely Christian 
> soldiers do not cease to be a part of Christendom just because 
> their "real" purpose is to expand the Empire's hegemony eastward.  
> What you have done is point out that the structures of religion 
> overlap with those of economics, the military, government, secular 
> culture, etc.  This is very true, but doesn't contradict Pippin's 
> point that JKR's world is rife with religion.

Kneasy:
What  was highlighted was that nunneries were not originally of a
particularly religious nature - this does not imply that the situation
did not change later. However, here's an extract from that Hibbert 
tome I mentioned in my previous post:
".... until the later Middle Ages nuns were recruited almost exclusively
from the richer families, often from  those which had failed to find
husbands for them. Abbesses of the Benedictine Barking Abbey
included three queens and two princesses. Illegitimate daughters
were also sent to nunneries; so were the wives of noble rebels, young
women of fortune whose guardians or families wanted to get their
own hands on their money, daughters of weak health or unsound mind
as well as those of recognised vocation. They were usually expected to
bring a dowry and they were expected to be able to read and sing [...]
The number of nuns in the country was  never great, perhaps no more 
than 2000 at the most [...] Yet  as in monasteries most of the hard
work was carried out by lay servants, the nuns themselves being
occupied in more leisurely pursuits such as needlework. Many 
nunneries were more like pleasant holiday retreats than religious houses." 

At the time I'm talking about the Christian religion was the political
correctness of the age - and any backsliding resulted not in scorn and
contempt but a trial for heresy. Not to profess adherence to the Church
was little more than drawn-out suicide. But as Paul Johnson observes in his
"A History of the English People" (formerly "The Offshore Islanders"), the 
English have never been particularly religious. They follow the forms and 
in times of national crisis it provides a sense of belonging and solidarity, 
but otherwise religion was just something you did on Sundays and anyone
who made a fuss about it deserved everything they eventually got.

Religion could be a means of advancement, a profession, a social elite, as
well as a vocation. It was a political and military force in addition to its 
religious function. And the Church in England was expected to toe the 
political line - or else. Only one English king submitted to the Pope - John. 
And that was a political ploy. Oh, they'd be quite happy to send money to 
Rome, but they wouldn't surrender authority over the Church in England. 

Witness Henry II and Thomas a Beckett. The Church was becoming
very unpopular (mostly because of the conflict between Church courts and
the King's Justice. Anyone who could claim benefit of clergy opted to be
tried by the Church courts which often reached verdicts or handed out
punishments that  were risible. So much so that the populace would take
matters into their own hands and lynch the malefactors "..in the luncheon
hour.." as one Papal Legate complained.) Reform and a reasonable 
compromise was needed. So Henry appointed his Chancellor, Becket as
Archbishop with the specific remit to sort it out. He didn't. He went native
and started claiming all sorts of 'rights' and authorities that were plainly 
ridiculous. If he'd  had his way England would not be a kingdom but a 
theocracy subservent to Rome. Something only churchmen would 
countenance. (Rome egged him on. Gregory IV's agenda was to subordinate
all authority, secular and religious, to the Papacy.) But it's significant how 
little support Becket had from the population at large.

It went on for years with Henry trying to get him to be reasonable, but
Becket really was fanatical.  Well, we all know what happened. Another 
attempt at reconciliation and Becket said some very foolish and provocative
things - again. On one occasion he'd shouted (at the King's half-brother and
another courtier) "Bastard lout! If I were not a priest, my right hand would 
give you the lie. As for you, one of your family has been hanged already" 
People got killed for less, and eventually so did Becket.

Um. The point of all this? That the English usually found a way of adapting
the Church and its sub-institutions to suit their own requirements. 
Practicality before dogma. A nunnery could be much more useful than just
as a religious House. Hence Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery." If an
institution can be a retreat, a prison, an asylum, a social club or a power
base as well as having a religious function, then assuming an inmate must
primarily be there for religious purposes could be an error. 

> 
> Perhaps what you meant by "religion" is "mention of a creator God"?  
> Or you are looking for evidence that witches and wizards have 
> clearly defined spiritual practices?  The thing is, religion goes 
> far beyond those things.  It has a sneaky way of defining itself so 
> broadly that it is a part of just about every human endeavor, 
> including those of humans who claim to have no religion.  Very 
> underhanded of it.  But if a realm of human experience deals with 
> death, rebirth, redemption, ethics, mythology, and ritual, then it 
> does tend to seep into everything.  
> 

Kneasy:
Religion presupposes belief in a god of some sort.
No god, no worship. No worship, no religion. No religion, no spiritual 
practices. 
And vice versa.
Otherwise it's a moral philosophy instead. A set of social and moral
standards that require no spirituality, no worship, no god, no religion. 

So one may contend that Jo promotes an ethical or moral stance that
is has much in common with, or at least does not counter the strictures of
recognised religion. But the presence of an ethical framework does not 
automatically indicate a specifically religious content anymore than my
disapproval of murder implies that I must have religious convictions.
'Cos I don't. 

This could be a launching pad into further discussion of Mike's interesting
post, the connections seem obvious, but I won't - not yet.
 








From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 13:47:23 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:47:23 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d98u2e+f5ml@...>
Message-ID: <d995pb+lp30@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> Kneasy:
> Religion presupposes belief in a god of some sort.
> No god, no worship. No worship, no religion. No religion, no
spiritual 
> practices. 
> And vice versa.
> Otherwise it's a moral philosophy instead. A set of social and moral
> standards that require no spirituality, no worship, no god, no
religion. 
> 

Pippin:
Um, actually my religion  doesn't presuppose belief
in a god. In fact it positively forbids belief in most gods. 
It certainly presupposes the existence of God, in 
much the same way that physics presupposes the 
existence of gravity, but no one is commanded to believe. 

Nonetheless it has traditions of worship and spirituality. 
I believe there are other traditional religions, such as Buddhism,
which also wouldn't fit your definition.

Your thesis that medieval England wasn't a religious nation 
because its religious institutions had purposes other than 
fostering belief in the Christian God rings rather hollow to me
since Jews weren't allowed to participate in those institutions;
in fact they were for many centuries banned from the country,
despite  simliar social and moral standards.

But back to Harry Potter, although the nuns, knights and
cathedrals appear incidental, they nonetheless establish that
wizards and Muggles share a past in which the Christian
religion was important. They set the story  firmly in a
Christian or post-Christian milieu, and establish a Christian 
context for interpreting symbols like the unicorn and the serpent.

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 15:12:48 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:12:48 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d995pb+lp30@...>
Message-ID: <d99apg+q2n1@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> Um, actually my religion  doesn't presuppose belief
> in a god. In fact it positively forbids belief in most gods. 
> It certainly presupposes the existence of God, in 
> much the same way that physics presupposes the 
> existence of gravity, but no one is commanded to believe. 
>
> Nonetheless it has traditions of worship and spirituality. 
> I believe there are other traditional religions, such as Buddhism,
> which also wouldn't fit your definition.
> 

Kneasy:
Egregious nit-picking of the worst kind. 
Your religion has a god - whether you personally choose to distinguish
it by means of a capital letter is beside the point.

And inaccurate to  boot.
Buddhism holds that the world is a transient reflex *of the deity*;
that the soul is a vital spark *of the diety*.

> 
> Your thesis that medieval England wasn't a religious nation 
> because its religious institutions had purposes other than 
> fostering belief in the Christian God rings rather hollow to me
> since Jews weren't allowed to participate in those institutions;
> in fact they were for many centuries banned from the country,
> despite  simliar social and moral standards.
>

Kneasy:
Again a specious argument. 
The phrase was "not particularly religious" - it was part of the
background of society but not its determinant. If the forms of
religion don't provide or allow for that which is needed, change them. 
Which of course they did a few centuries later; but the seeds were
sown much earlier, as many a letter from Papal Legates to the Vatican
attest.
Religion must meet the needs of society, not the other way round,
seems to have been the decisive local argument.

I fail to see how medieval Jewry has anything to do with the
practical uses to which a nunnery could be put.

The English of the time didn't like *anyone* who wasn't English,
Christian or not. (Is that why the villains in HP have foreign names?)
Johnson again - 
"English anti-clericalism was, of course merely one important 
branch of English xenophobia. Hostility to foreigners is one of 
the most  deep-rooted and enduring characteristics of the English;
like the national instinct for violence, it is a genuine popular force,
held only in check (if at all) by the most resolute discipline, 
imposed against the public will, by authoritarian government acting
in enlightened self-interest. [...] Tolerance has only been imposed 
in the teeth of their resistance. [...] One might say that much of
the history of England has been a conflict between xenophobia and 
avarice, with the latter usually in the end, getting the upper hand.
[...] it is a process which requires a contempt for logic, a degree of 
self-deception and often bare-faced hypocrisy, with all of which the
English are richly endowed."


 






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 16:18:00 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:18:00 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99apg+q2n1@...>
Message-ID: <d99ejo+eart@...>

> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...>
wrote:
> > Um, actually my religion  doesn't presuppose belief
> > in a god. In fact it positively forbids belief in most gods. 
> > It certainly presupposes the existence of God, in 
> > much the same way that physics presupposes the 
> > existence of gravity, but no one is commanded to believe. 
> >
> > Nonetheless it has traditions of worship and spirituality. 
> > I believe there are other traditional religions, such as Buddhism,
> > which also wouldn't fit your definition.
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Egregious nit-picking of the worst kind. 
> Your religion has a god - whether you personally choose to
distinguish
> it by means of a capital letter is beside the point.


Pippin:
You missed my point, perhaps, or maybe I'm missing yours.

Are you saying  the existence of  Christian institutions, 
well attested in the books, as well as in the history 
of medieval England, does not imply a religion or a  belief in God, 
but the existence of  Jewish religious institutions
does? I'm confused.


Kneasy:
> I fail to see how medieval Jewry has anything to do with the
> practical uses to which a nunnery could be put.

Pippin:
Jews with excess daughters were forced to make other arrangements,
unless of course they chose to convert, in which case they were 
perfectly eligible to join the religious establishments, nunneries
included.  

I think that disposes of the racial argument. BTW, it  is pretty
well-attested that in the Middle Ages Jews weren't generally
regarded as a separate race. That came later, in the Renaissance.

Pippin






From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 16:18:45 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:18:45 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
References: <d995pb+lp30@...>
Message-ID: <003701c5767c$e77b31c0$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi --

Kneasy:
> Religion presupposes belief in a god of some sort.
> No god, no worship. No worship, no religion. No religion, no
spiritual 
> practices. 
> And vice versa.
> Otherwise it's a moral philosophy instead. A set of social and moral
> standards that require no spirituality, no worship, no god, no
religion. 

Does it then follow though that absence of explicit reference to a god of some sort in the Potterverse means it absolutely doesn't exist therein?  Or, might it be the case that Rowling simply hasn't affirmatively displayed evidence of spirituality (Christian or otherwise) in the series *yet*??  Hmm?  After all, there is a graveyard at Hogwarts that was confirmed by Rowling to Cuaron (which is, of course, hearsay ...... but canon of a sort nonetheless I think).  Might there not also be a related abbey or village church or some such?  Seems quite possible to me, Goat's Law notwithstanding.  

<<<<<<<But back to Harry Potter, although the nuns, knights and
cathedrals appear incidental, they nonetheless establish that
wizards and Muggles share a past in which the Christian
religion was important. They set the story  firmly in a
Christian or post-Christian milieu, and establish a Christian 
context for interpreting symbols like the unicorn and the serpent.>>>>>>>>>>>

*nods*  Yes, exactly.  That is, incidentally, a big point of John Granger's thesis -- that Rowling is a Christian author writing in the tradition of great classic English literature which is, by and large, Christian.  It seems to me that Rowling has created a wizarding world that developed alongside the British muggle world for centuries and shares many of the same traditions and history.  Part of that history is indisputably Christianity.  

Penny


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 16:51:34 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:51:34 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99ejo+eart@...>
Message-ID: <d99gim+6di0@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Pippin:
> You missed my point, perhaps, or maybe I'm missing yours.
> 
> Are you saying  the existence of  Christian institutions, 
> well attested in the books, as well as in the history 
> of medieval England, does not imply a religion or a  belief in God, 
> but the existence of  Jewish religious institutions
> does? I'm confused.
> 

Kneasy:
No, I don't think you're confused. I think you're making every effort
to refute the thrust of my arguments, to wring out the slightest 
concession - even to seeking agreement against a point that was never
in contention - that might allow you some satisfaction in support of your
views, 'cos unfortunately the history texts aren't providing the expected
comfort to and validation of your own tenets.
Thus - obfuscation and 'misunderstandings' seem the best tactic,
the old 'if you can't convince 'em, confuse  'em' ploy. It doesn't impress.
 
Try reading my posts again. 
Even better - read the book.








From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 17:09:50 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:09:50 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <003701c5767c$e77b31c0$210110ac@MainDesktop>
Message-ID: <d99hku+fo1e@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Penny & Bryce" <pennylin at s...> wrote:
> 
> Does it then follow though that absence of explicit reference to a god of some sort in 
the Potterverse means it absolutely doesn't exist therein?  Or, might it be the case that 
Rowling simply hasn't affirmatively displayed evidence of spirituality (Christian or 
otherwise) in the series *yet*??  Hmm?  After all, there is a graveyard at Hogwarts that was 
confirmed by Rowling to Cuaron (which is, of course, hearsay ...... but canon of a sort 
nonetheless I think).  Might there not also be a related abbey or village church or some 
such?  Seems quite possible to me, Goat's Law notwithstanding.  
> 

Kneasy:
No, it doesn't mean that a god does not exist in HP.
However, the presence of a god can be at best only assumed *unless* one is
revealed in the text.

Sure, a graveyard. In the film and as you say Jo intimated strongly that it figures
later.
Well, you've got to do something with the empties, looks untidy otherwise.
Quite ruined a little theory of mine, that did, that the Death Chamber was the
WW equivalent of the morticians viewing room and that the Veil was where the
dear departed was despatched. Pity. I quite liked that one.

> *nods*  Yes, exactly.  That is, incidentally, a big point of John Granger's thesis -- that 
Rowling is a Christian author writing in the tradition of great classic English literature 
which is, by and large, Christian.  It seems to me that Rowling has created a wizarding 
world that developed alongside the British muggle world for centuries and shares many of 
the same traditions and history.  Part of that history is indisputably Christianity.  
> 

Just to be difficult -
Unless the WW split off from Muggle society before Christianity was established 
in this sceptred isle. The dating of Hogwarts is no guarantee that the formation
of the WW happened at the same time. Only need to back-date it 5-600 years.
A mere bagatelle.





From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 17:40:58 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:40:58 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
References: <d99hku+fo1e@...>
Message-ID: <007001c57688$64138d80$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi --

I said:  <<<> *nods*  Yes, exactly.  That is, incidentally, a big point of John Granger's thesis -- that Rowling is a Christian author writing in the tradition of great classic English literature 
which is, by and large, Christian.  It seems to me that Rowling has created a wizarding 
world that developed alongside the British muggle world for centuries and shares many of 
the same traditions and history.  Part of that history is indisputably Christianity.>>>>>>>  
> 
To which Kneasy replied: 

<<<<<Just to be difficult -
Unless the WW split off from Muggle society before Christianity was established 
in this sceptred isle. The dating of Hogwarts is no guarantee that the formation
of the WW happened at the same time. Only need to back-date it 5-600 years.
A mere bagatelle.>>>>>>>>>>>

Er......... but we do know when that happened, do we not?  The International Code of Wizarding Secrecy was enacted in 1692 according to QTTA.  I would think it's reasonably safe to assume that the two societies were more inter-mingled prior to that time, and in fact, this assumption was used by a presenter at Nimbus - 2003 on the topic of justice within the wizarding world.  

And, by the way, I personally think it's quite rude to suggest that anyone on this list ought to "go and read the books."  Interpretations may vary, but that's the whole point of these types of lists, isn't it?  Goodness knows I've had plenty of differences of opinion with Pippin on canon matters (<winks at Pippin>), but I think it's more than obvious that she is quite well-versed in the contents of the HP books.  To suggest otherwise is, at a minimum, rude.

Penny



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 17:41:29 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:41:29 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99hku+fo1e@...>
Message-ID: <d99jg9+2v1c@...>

Watching this one like a spectator at Wimbledon...

Kneasy wrote: 
> Just to be difficult -
> Unless the WW split off from Muggle society before Christianity was
established 
> in this sceptred isle. The dating of Hogwarts is no guarantee that
the formation
> of the WW happened at the same time. Only need to back-date it 5-600
years.
> A mere bagatelle.

I checked the Lexicon. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy
didn't go into effect until 1692, finalising the separation between
the communities.  On the other hand, the wizarding community had
already been withdrawing for a while. In 1419, the Wizard's Council
declared that Quidditch must not ever be noticed by Muggles, yet
sometime in the 1300s "witch persecution" abounded.  Though real
witches were safe, it suggests the two communities were still in
contact, or at least had been in recent memory.


Anne







From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 18:38:42 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:38:42 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <007001c57688$64138d80$210110ac@MainDesktop>
Message-ID: <d99mri+4r2n@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Penny & Bryce" <pennylin at s...> wrote:
> 
> And, by the way, I personally think it's quite rude to suggest that anyone on this list ought 
to "go and read the books."  Interpretations may vary, but that's the whole point of these 
types of lists, isn't it?  Goodness knows I've had plenty of differences of opinion with Pippin 
on canon matters (<winks at Pippin>), but I think it's more than obvious that she is quite 
well-versed in the contents of the HP books.  To suggest otherwise is, at a minimum, rude.
> 

The book  being referred to was "A History of the English People" by Paul Johnson.
I can't see any ambiguity on that point.
And I doubt she's read it.

Kneasy





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 19:10:39 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:10:39 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99gim+6di0@...>
Message-ID: <d99onf+3mt9@...>

> Kneasy:

> Try reading my posts again. 
> Even better - read the book.

Pippin:
Thanks for the recommendation.  Perhaps you might like to read
"England's  Jewish Solution", Robin R. Mundill, Cambridge University 
Press,2002.  While Mundill agrees with your source about the 
traditional xenophobia of the islanders,  the fact remains that below 
the court level Norman-French speakers who were Catholic were
assimilated, while Norman-French speakers who were Jewish were 
not. 

It is a bit sad to have to use religious persecution as evidence of
of religious belief, but we do the same to establish 
belief in witchcraft, do we not? 


Pippin





From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 19:33:29 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 05:33:29 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99apg+q2n1@...>
References: <d995pb+lp30@...> <d99apg+q2n1@...>
Message-ID: <20050621193329.GA8433@...>

On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 03:12:48PM -0000, Barry Arrowsmith wrote:
> 
> And inaccurate to  boot.
> Buddhism holds that the world is a transient reflex *of the deity*;
> that the soul is a vital spark *of the diety*.
> 

Which Buddhism is this?

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 19:47:20 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:47:20 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99onf+3mt9@...>
Message-ID: <d99qs8+btf7@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> Thanks for the recommendation.  Perhaps you might like to read
> "England's  Jewish Solution", Robin R. Mundill, Cambridge University 
> Press,2002.  While Mundill agrees with your source about the 
> traditional xenophobia of the islanders,  the fact remains that below 
> the court level Norman-French speakers who were Catholic were
> assimilated, while Norman-French speakers who were Jewish were 
> not. 
> 

Johnson has quite a lot to say about Jewry in medieval England, from
their first significant influx (with the Conquerer), through the Crown
'farming' system (they were supposedly under the Crown's direct protection
which not only saved them from local petty injustices but also allowed the
Crown to tax them to the hilt for the priveledge), through their expulsion
and on to their return under Cromwell. 

They attracted extra animosity because one of the few occupations allowed
to them was money-lending. With interest rates of 66% and up, it didn't
exactly endear them to the lenders. Once they'd been expelled the
Italians took that over and attracted as much opprobrium as the Jews had.

If I can get the book through the local library I will.


> It is a bit sad to have to use religious persecution as evidence of
> of religious belief, but we do the same to establish 
> belief in witchcraft, do we not? 
> 
 
I have a slightly different take on it.
You don't have to have a religion of your own to hate the adherents of one.
All you need is a conviction that they are a danger to you or your way of life.
Best leave folk to their own devices, says I - though if they're cursing the 
sheep and putting hexes on the milking stool, it'd be enough to wind
anybody up - where's the ducking stool?





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 20:17:25 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:17:25 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <20050621193329.GA8433@...>
Message-ID: <d99skl+8bom@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, ewe2 <ewetoo at g...> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 03:12:48PM -0000, Barry Arrowsmith wrote:
> > 
> > And inaccurate to  boot.
> > Buddhism holds that the world is a transient reflex *of the deity*;
> > that the soul is a vital spark *of the diety*.
> > 
> 
> Which Buddhism is this?
> 

Classical Tibetan/Indian. Don't ask for their names 'cos I  can't remember.
But if you enter 'Buddhist deities' in your search engine you'll find 'em.

Certainly doesn't apply to Zen, though. That appeared quite late in the
day (comparatively speaking) over 1000 years after the original sects
and is classified and described as 'a contemplative philosophy'. Some
have questioned whether Zen is mainstream Buddhism and consider it
a philosophical offshoot.
Me, I'm staying out of that one. I'd be a fool to offer an opinion. 


Kneasy 





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 21 21:48:03 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:48:03 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d995pb+lp30@...>
Message-ID: <d9a1uj+205j@...>

Pippin:

> But back to Harry Potter, although the nuns, knights and
> cathedrals appear incidental, they nonetheless establish that
> wizards and Muggles share a past in which the Christian
> religion was important. They set the story  firmly in a
> Christian or post-Christian milieu, and establish a Christian 
> context for interpreting symbols like the unicorn and the serpent.

Well, yes and no.

I think it's accurate to say that JKR, her characters and her 
(British) readers share such a past.  If you set a story in Britain 
and put relics (why, the word 'relic' shows how entwined it all is) 
of its medieval past in, you will get Christianity appearing.  And 
most Britons will probably be influenced in their understanding of 
the serpent at some level by Christianity.  (Unicorns, OTOH, ring no 
Christian bells with me - are the associations of purity and 
virginity supposed to be Christian?  Or are there other associations 
of which I'm unaware?)  

I feel, though, that's a bit different from the issue of a religious 
or even Christian subtext to the books.  As it happens, I am 
inclining more as time goes by to the view that there is one 
(though, not having read Granger's book, I have a hard time seeing 
JKR in the tradition of the Inklings), but that view is pretty well 
independent of the presence of the Fat Friar, sinister-looking 
monks, or Christmas trees at Hogwarts.

David





From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 02:28:10 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:28:10 -0500
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book / Love -- massively OT, mostly)
References: <d9a1uj+205j@...>
Message-ID: <010c01c576d2$0a7819e0$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi --

I decided to change the subject line at long last!  :--)  

David asked about whether unicorns are a Christian symbol of some sort.  Indeed, the unicorn has long been a symbol of Christ (allegory -- the hunted unicorn with its head on the lap of a virgin as depicted in medieval tapestries is said to represent the Virgin Mary with the Christ child).  My daughter has a recent fascination with unicorns and we've been reading the tale "The Unicorn and the Lake," which also has some pretty clear Biblical overtones in the battle between the serpent and the unicorn.  

Of course, the unicorn is also a symbol for other things as well, and as many people have noted before, symbols are a bit loosy-goosey to some folks (they can both mean different things to different people, and of course, there's the argument that some "Christian" symbols pre-date Christianity and are pagan in origin).  The question though is whether Rowling considers a unicorn to be a symbol of Christ or not I suppose.  We don't know one way or another, but as Granger notes, Rowling "either is a Christian author or she has a remarkable fetish for Christian imagery and teaching." 

Granger states that the griffin, unicorn, phoenix, stag, centaur, hippogriff, red lion and the philosopher's stone itself are all symbols of the qualities and/or person of Christ.  The phoenix or resurrection bird is perhaps the most obvious symbol, with the lion as a long-standing symbol of Christ as a close second in my mind (interesting that the lion and the unicorn combine in the British coat of arms).  

Changing the subject:

David signed an earlier message with: <<David, wondering if by any chance it is R/H that is 'obviously' canon>>>

In that particular case, yes.  :--)  But, I think that the notion that any fan can irrefutably declare what is canon and what is not based on "implied structure" and/or "authorial intent" is ludicrous, whatever the context.  I just think it's ........ presumptious in the extreme.  

And, lastly, to Kneasy: Apologies for mis-reading your post.  I still think that it's not clear that you were referring to Johnson's History of the English People when you told Pippin to "go read the book," but I'm perfectly willing to take your word for it and call it "my bad" since Pippin doesn't seem fussed about it.  

Incidentally, is this Paul Johnson the same author who wrote "The History of the American People"?  Also wondering why you're so sure that Pippin has never read it -- I can see from amazon that it's out of print, but if it's the same guy, his other works are readily available and fairly well-known over here.  Ah, yes, it is the same guy -- it appears from a quick skim of amazon reviews and other sources that the author is considered highly biased and selective.  So, why ought we to trust this as source for the assertion that the English have never been particularly religious as a people?  That's honestly counter to my own perception, though of course I know that modern Britain is more secular than not.  For example, see:

http://slate.msn.com/id/3054/

If I've read the thread correctly, the original contention was Kneasy saying that Rowling's novels are entirely secular and Pippin has pointed up many examples of religious references that are, in the minds of many readers, replete throughout the novels.  I added in that there are a number of authors who've found strong Christian currents running through the books.  Somehow or another we got bogged down in whether nuns, cathedrals, souls, friars and the like could have other non-religious connotations and are merely "background color."  It again gets down to whether Rowling herself would agree that she used those references in an entirely off-hand secular way.  I personally don't think so, but I'm sure we can all concede that we don't know her intent in that matter and so it's possible.  There seem to be a number of questions in the same ilk being suggested for the Leaky/Mugglenet interview with Rowling next month.  Perhaps we'll learn more!  

Penny

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 04:29:25 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 04:29:25 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book / Love -- massively OT, mostly)
In-Reply-To: <010c01c576d2$0a7819e0$210110ac@MainDesktop>
Message-ID: <d9apf5+j2b6@...>

@yahoogroups.com, "Penny & Bryce" <pennylin at s...>
wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> I decided to change the subject line at long last!  :--)  
> 
> David asked about whether unicorns are a Christian symbol of some
sort.  Indeed, the  unicorn has long been a symbol of Christ (allegory
 -- the hunted unicorn with its head on the lap of a virgin as
depicted  in medieval tapestries is said to represent the Virgin Mary 
with the Christ child).  My daughter has a recent fascination with
unicorns and we've been  reading the tale "The Unicorn and the Lake," 
which also has some pretty clear Biblical 
overtones in the battle between the serpent and the unicorn.  
>

Pippin:
The first reference to a one-horned animal  is in the writing of
Ctesias, a Greek physician who lived around 400 BC. The animal he 
describes resembles a wild ass, is fleet and fierce, and has the
power to neutralize poisons.
 
The translators of the Septuagint used the term monoceros (Greek: 
one horn) to translate the Hebrew re'em. This was then latinized 
as unicornis in the Vulgate. 

Tertullian, a pagan philosopher who became a Christian about 193, 
quotes a passage from Deuteronomy "his horns are like the horns of 
unicorns" and explains that "Christ is meant by this [animal], and 
the horn denotes Christ's cross." Saint Ambrose (340-397) wrote, 
in his commentary on the  Psalms, "Who then is this unicorn but the 
only begotten Son of God?"

Saint Basil (c. 330-379) interpreted the symbolism at length,
explaining how the horn was a symbol of power throughout the
scripture and "Christ is the power of God, therefore he is called the 
unicorn on the ground that He has one horn, that is, one common 
power with the Father."

The unicorn became a popular symbol of Christ through the 
Physiologus, originally a Greek work which developed into the 
collections known by  later centuries as bestiaries. It is to these 
collections that we trace the legend that the unicorn can only 
be caught by a virgin,  through which the unicorn became  a 
symbol of innocence.

 Later on,  the unicorn became vested with erotic and secular
symbolism, without, strangely, losing its Christian connotations,
which survive even into the present. 



O unicorn among the cedars,
to whom no magic charm can lead us,
White childhood moving like a sigh
Through the green woods unharmed in thy
Sophisticated innocence,
to call thy true love to the dance...

from New Year Letter, W.H. Auden


Pippin
sources, The Unicorn Tapestries, Freeman, Margaret B., 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1976

The Unicorn, Hathway, Nancy, Penguin Books, 1982






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 06:17:04 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:17:04 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9apf5+j2b6@...>
Message-ID: <d9avp0+8ce8@...>

> Pippin:
> The first reference to a one-horned animal  is in the writing of
> Ctesias, a Greek physician who lived around 400 BC. The animal he 
> describes resembles a wild ass, is fleet and fierce, and has the
> power to neutralize poisons.
>  
> The translators of the Septuagint used the term monoceros (Greek: 
> one horn) to translate the Hebrew re'em. This was then latinized 
> as unicornis in the Vulgate.

Neri:
The Hebrew word re'em refers to the Arabian Oryx, an antelope with (of
course) two long straight horns, which was common in Israel in
biblical times, and finally hunted to near extinction in the 19th
century. I personally had the privilege to do some volunteer work in a
reservation in the Arava desert:
 
http://www.geocities.com/jelbaum/haibar.html
http://redseadesert.com/html/060haibar.html

where they reintroduce these beautiful animals into the wild. This was
a very interesting and exciting work, not to mention slightly
dangerous. One of the females very nearly skewered me when I captured
her newly-born fawn for marking. 

Back to the unicorn, to my knowledge the origin of the unicorn myth is
from ancient Egyptian art representation of the Oryx. The ancient
Egyptian artists depicted the Oryx (like most other things) in
profile, thus drawing only a single horn. The Greeks, who weren't
familiar with this desert antelope, took the description to be
accurate and thus the legend of the monoceres was born. I can't
remember right now where I've read this, and I'm too lazy to dig a
reference at this late hour.

In Europe, the unicorn legend was reinforced by the long tooth of the
Narwhal whale:

http://members.aol.com/puffindog/narwhal.html

These teeth were brought from the northern ocean by the Vikings. The
more southern Europeans, which had never seen a Narwhal, believed them
to be unicorn horns. In Middle-age and Renascence art the unicorns are
described with straight helical horns like the Narwhal tooth. So the
mythological unicorn is actually the intersection of an antelope and a
whale. End of Zoological lecture ;-) 

Neri  






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 09:55:08 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:55:08 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book / Love -- massively OT, mostly)
In-Reply-To: <010c01c576d2$0a7819e0$210110ac@MainDesktop>
Message-ID: <d9bchs+em1i@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Penny & Bryce" <pennylin at s...> wrote:
> 
> And, lastly, to Kneasy: Apologies for mis-reading your post.  I still think that it's not 
clear that you were referring to Johnson's History of the English People when you told 
Pippin to "go read the book," but I'm perfectly willing to take your word for it and call it 
"my bad" since Pippin doesn't seem fussed about it.  
> 

Kneasy:
No problem.
Since (IIRC) no mention of a specific HP book had been made for a
significant number of posts in the thread, and since I'd been littering
the board with substantial quotes from and references to a quite
different work, and the discussion was centred on differing opinions
regarding the points raised in those quotes, I was somewhat surprised 
when your post mentioned HP.
 
> Incidentally, is this Paul Johnson the same author who wrote "The History of the 
American People"?  Also wondering why you're so sure that Pippin has never read it -- I 
can see from amazon that it's out of print, but if it's the same guy, his other works are 
readily available and fairly well-known over here.  Ah, yes, it is the same guy -- it appears 
from a quick skim of amazon reviews and other sources that the author is considered 
highly biased and selective.  So, why ought we to trust this as source for the assertion that 
the English have never been particularly religious as a people?  That's honestly counter to 
my own perception, though of course I know that modern Britain is more secular than not.  
>

Kneasy:
Ah, there was quite a few grumblings heard when the book was first 
published (1972) because although he'd read history at uni, his job
was as an editor of The New Statesman magazine. There were some
professional historians who didn't like him poaching on their private
preserves, though he had previously published a volume of historical
essays. Indeed, the preface begins "Why should a journalist, early in
the decade of the 1970s, sit down to write a history of the English
people?"
He then gives his rationale and draws parallels between the two 
professions.

Since then of course he has written many more history texts, including
the "American People" you allude to, histories of Christianity, the Holy 
Land, the Jews, Modern Times (1920s - 1990s) and Birth of the Modern
(1815 - 1830) - I'd recommend the last two particularly. 

As to partiality, I'm not certain where it lies or what form it takes, can't
say I've detected it myself. Maybe it's his religious views (he's very much
a practicing Catholic and has written a volume on his personal quest
for God) though in the History of the English he shows no partiality
no matter what intellectual and military atrocities the Brits visited on his
co-religionists. Might in fact be the other way round - there's an
appendix that discusses the historical relationship between Cromwell
and Ireland (plus much on the relationship between the countries in 
the main text) that some may be slightly surprised by. 

> If I've read the thread correctly, the original contention was Kneasy saying that Rowling's 
novels are entirely secular and Pippin has pointed up many examples of religious 
references that are, in the minds of many readers, replete throughout the novels.  I added 
in that there are a number of authors who've found strong Christian currents running 
through the books.  Somehow or another we got bogged down in whether nuns, 
cathedrals, souls, friars and the like could have other non-religious connotations and are 
merely "background color."  It again gets down to whether Rowling herself would agree 
that she used those references in an entirely off-hand secular way.  I personally don't 
think so, but I'm sure we can all concede that we don't know her intent in that matter and 
so it's possible.  There seem to be a number of questions in the same ilk being suggested 
for the Leaky/Mugglenet interview with Rowling next month.  Perhaps we'll learn more!  
> 

Kneasy:
It's a bit more convoluted than that, I think.
It started (so far as I'm concerned, others may view it differently) with
the 'power'. Lots think it's love (which I think is trite) and then sort of
slipped over into love as an aspect of religion and from there into (as
I saw it) a weakish argument. Power = love; love = religion; therefore
HP is a Christian book, so let's look for the symbols and anything 
vaguely connected with Christian mythology or history will do.
Highly simplified precis and many won't agree with it expressed this
way, but the thread can be traced, I think.

Me, I just dug my heels in.
It's not a convincing argument IMO, to be convincing it would need
to persuade an objective non-Christian, not just those that appear
to want it to be so, so I took up the cudgels. 
Bloody-minded as usual. 
But to be fair, I expressed *doubts* about religious content to counter  
what appeared to be expressions of the near/actual certainty of its precence
by others. So far as I'm concerned they *could* be right but they have
by no means proved their case with references to existing canon. 








From olivier.fouquet at olivierfouquet2000.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 12:33:43 2005
From: olivier.fouquet at olivierfouquet2000.yahoo.invalid (Olivier Fouquet)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:33:43 +0200
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
Message-ID: <af091de3cac16a64c7589a72de2ffe49@...>


 > Kneasy:
 > It's not a convincing argument IMO, to be convincing it would need
 > to persuade an objective non-Christian, not just those that appear
 > to want it to be so, so I took up the cudgels.

Olivier
I am an objective non-Christian, inasmuch as you could be an 
"objective" anything. I am totally devoid of any belief in the 
Christian religion nor in any other for that matter. Yet, as I have 
written already, I perceive some christian religious references in HP 
(mentionned them in a previous post). However, I still side with you 
Kneasy when in comes to monks and nuns in HP.

 >they have
 > by no means proved their case with references to existing canon.

Olivier
*Proving* your case about references is quite hard, especially 
considering the difficulty we have to prove *anything* about the books 
(try proving me that Arthur Weasley is not evil). As it is, my 
(necessarily) subjective reading of the books lead me to think they had 
(some) religious content (of Christian nature) in the symbols and 
themes used. So I wasn't surprised the slightest bit when I read JKR 
considered herself as a religious person.

I mean, an evil entity tempting a young girl to consort with a 
murderous serpent. Where have I read this before?

Olivier

PS: I would be quite curious to know how someone with a strong belief 
in another religion react to these references though. Pippin, am I 
right to think you could enlighten me on this (if you wish to answer 
and feel it is quite unconnected to HP, you can send me an e-mail)?




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 14:51:21 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:51:21 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <af091de3cac16a64c7589a72de2ffe49@...>
Message-ID: <d9btt9+opft@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Olivier Fouquet
<olivier.fouquet at p...> wrote:
> 
>  > Kneasy:
>  > It's not a convincing argument IMO, to be convincing it would
need to persuade an objective non-Christian, not just those that
appear to want it to be so, so I took up the cudgels.
> 
> Olivier
> I am an objective non-Christian, inasmuch as you could be an 
> "objective" anything. I am totally devoid of any belief in the 
> Christian religion nor in any other for that matter. Yet, as I have 
> written already, I perceive some christian religious references in
HP  (mentionned them in a previous post). However, I still side with
you  Kneasy when in comes to monks and nuns in HP.
<snip>
> PS: I would be quite curious to know how someone with a strong
belief  in another religion react to these references though. Pippin,
am I right to think you could enlighten me on this (if you wish to
answer  and feel it is quite unconnected to HP, you can send me an
 e-mail)?

Pippin:
You'll have to judge my objectivity for yourself, but I am a
non-Christian, raised a non-Christian, with a very strong Jewish 
identification. And as soon as I read that Lily's sacrifice had not 
only saved Harry, but endowed him with lasting protection,  
I thought, "Oh, Christianity. Okay, that explains the unicorn. " *

After that I had my radar switched on, so to speak, and that's why 
I think  the incidental mentions are just as significant as the
biggies like souls and prophecies. Unlike JKR I have
read massive amounts of fantasy, and one of the things an
author does when establishing an AU is show, early on, what's 
*not* different about it. Those things are likely to be significant. 
The Potterverse,  whatever else it may be, is not a universe where 
Christianity never existed, though it's carefully established,
via mention of Egyptian tombs and the Ollivander's sign,  that
the wizarding culture pre-dates it. 

I wasn't surprised to learn that the  author had a strong
identification with Christianity, or that she felt  that expounding 
on her beliefs would give the storyline away.

It could be, of course, that my reading of HP was colored by
my previous reading of Tolkien and Lewis. You can guess by 
my handle that I am a big Tolkien fan.
 
(Lewis, not so much. I'm tempted to borrow his own description 
of mythology "gleams of light falling on a jungle of filth and 
imbecility" but that's a bit strong. Still, the breaking
of the  stone table, when I finally figured it out, stung a little.)

I didn't have any trouble detecting religious content in Tolkien, 
and I wasn't surprised when he noted, in The Road Goes
Ever On, that the Elves sing hymns to Elbereth and that such 
references to religion in The Lord of the Rings were often 
overlooked.

It's  possible that my upbringing in the hugely Catholic city
of Chicago has left me oversensitive. A Jew in such an environment
has to be constantly vigilant about the boundaries between
'American' culture and 'Christian' culture. It might be that
things read 'Christian' to me which to Christians themselves
would seem secular. However, one should be aware that
the meaning of the word 'secular' has changed. It originally
applied to Christian institutions, chartered as such, governed 
by civil authorities. So this distinction between religious and
secular is itself a product of Christian thought.


I haven't read Johnson, however the middle ages and the matter
of Britain have been a passion of mine since childhood and I have 
loads of books about them, including primary sources
in translation. I wouldn't want to give an opinion of Johnson's 
book till I've read it, but since it's out of print that may take
a while (must check amazon.uk).

I think the Christian content  of HP will go on being allusive and 
symbolic, rather than strictly allegorical, so unless Jo comes 
right out and says, "I intended thus and so to be a Christian 
message" this issue will always be open for debate. However, 
I do think the books are most definitely the products of a 
Christian sensibility. 

They've got a certain, well, optimism, about them that I associate
with Christianity. When a Jew writes fantasy you
get Lemony Snickett. Or Superman. Or Bewitched. There is
that sense,  which I don't get in HP, that however many times 
a happy ending is achieved, the existence of
goodness itself is precarious. There's no kryptonite in the
Potterverse.


Pippin
 
*I am sorry to quote myself being dismissive, but you can see from 
my thought process that I didn't  *want* the books to have Christian 
content. On the other hand, I don't object to reading books by 
authors with viewpoints other than my own. I  enjoy finding out what 
other folks believe and think, which is probably why I enjoy the
lists so much.





From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 16:19:13 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforth's Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:19:13 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d99skl+8bom@...>
Message-ID: <d9c321+98dm@...>

Kneasy knelled,
> > > And inaccurate to  boot.
> > > Buddhism holds that the world is a transient reflex *of the 
deity*;
> > > that the soul is a vital spark *of the diety*.
> > > 
> > 
> > Which Buddhism is this?
> > 
> Certainly doesn't apply to Zen, though. That appeared quite 
> late in the day (comparatively speaking) over 1000 years 
> after the original sects and is classified and described as 
> 'a contemplative philosophy'. Some have questioned whether 
> Zen is mainstream Buddhism and consider it a philosophical 
> offshoot. Me, I'm staying out of that one. I'd be a fool to 
> offer an opinion. 

I'm killing myself with a couple writing projects, so I haven't been 
following very carefully - but it looks from your response like 
someone pointed out something I wanted to say: to equate religion 
with theism is a pretty big undertaking, what with so many 
nontheistic religions out there, runningthe gamut from animism to 
communism. 

In fact, it's almost as big an undertaking as trying to define what 
it means for a religion to believe in "God": no matter what the 
dictionaries say, any theologian will be happy (or frustrated, or 
furious) to confirm that one man's god is the next guy's dog. 

Just one example of the above: think of Philip Pullman's Dust. (Don't 
have the book here, but I *think* he capitalizes it.) Is Dust God? 
Course not. God was the geezer in the box. Is Dust Supernatural? Hmm -
 all depends on what you mean by natural. Is Dust in some way 
Ultimate? Yes. Ist Dust Sentient? Yes? Is Dust Precious? Yes. Does 
Dust exert a final Moral Imperative on sentient beings? Yes. Are 
there individuals who can intrerpret this Moral Imperative for the 
Young and Un-dusted? Yes. Is there any chance that someone will 
eventually found a First Church of the Holy Dust? Well ... umm ... 
Pullman doesn't really want to go there, I don't think. 
(Bonus Question: Does Dust remind you of certain strains of Process 
Theology? Yup.)

And now, back to the first question: Is Dust God? Well, that all 
depends on what you mean by God ...

OTOH, I guess it all comes back to the same old chestnut: what do we
*mean,* and who decides, when we say "religion," "love," "life" and, 
of corse, "obfuscation."

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 








From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 18:13:21 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:13:21 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9btt9+opft@...>
Message-ID: <d9c9o1+c2sl@...>

 
> Pippin:
> And as soon as I read that Lily's sacrifice had not 
> only saved Harry, but endowed him with lasting protection,  
> I thought, "Oh, Christianity. Okay, that explains the unicorn. " *
> 
> After that I had my radar switched on, so to speak, and that's why 
> I think  the incidental mentions are just as significant as the
> biggies like souls and prophecies.

Anne:
And then we have that curious anti-Christian beastie in the dementor
who can lose your soul *for* you, just for the sin of being unlucky
enough to fall into its clutches.  I always wondered how to take that
-- whether it's a question Jo brought up with the intent to solve
later, whether it was a bit of hyperbole to illustrate how
soul-destroying depression can be, or whether it's merely as foreign
to my Catholic roots as the doctrine of predestination is (at least at
first glance).

I never got anywhere with that question; I just file it under Fate
Worse Than Death and read on.

~Anne






From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 18:17:54 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:17:54 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9btt9+opft@...>
Message-ID: <d9ca0i+ikv8@...>

 
> > Olivier
> > I am an objective non-Christian, inasmuch as you could be an 
> > "objective" anything. I am totally devoid of any belief in the 
> > Christian religion nor in any other for that matter. Yet, as I 
have 
> > written already, I perceive some christian religious references in
> HP  (mentionned them in a previous post). However, I still side with
> you  Kneasy when in comes to monks and nuns in HP.
> <snip>
> > PS: I would be quite curious to know how someone with a strong
> belief  in another religion react to these references though. 
Pippin,
> am I right to think you could enlighten me on this (if you wish to
> answer  and feel it is quite unconnected to HP, you can send me an
>  e-mail)?
> 
> Pippin:
> You'll have to judge my objectivity for yourself, but I am a
> non-Christian, raised a non-Christian, with a very strong Jewish 
> identification. And as soon as I read that Lily's sacrifice had not 
> only saved Harry, but endowed him with lasting protection,  
> I thought, "Oh, Christianity. Okay, that explains the unicorn. " *
> 
> <snipped>

Neri:
I'm an Israeli Jewish atheist, and also a Tolkien fan. I of course 
detected the Christian references in HP, which are practically 
unavoidable considering the many different genres, cultures and myths 
that HP draws from. However, I've never perceived JKR's main themes 
to be Christian. I do perceive them to be *deeply* moral/humanistic, 
as in many other modern western fantasy/children books (including, 
for example, Phillip Pullman). Western Humanism is of course deeply 
indebted to Christianity, but it also dispensed with many of its more 
conservative ideas, such as religious intolerance. In fact religion 
and faith of any kind aren't required in modern Humanism. Its main 
values are freedom of choice and thought, love (in the very general 
meaning of the word) and the sacred value of human life, all of them 
main themes in HP.

I had to smile at Olivier referring to the story of Eve and the snake 
as Christian (snipped), but to be fair the ancient Israelites most 
probably borrowed it from even older pagan Semitic cultures. I also 
must note here that the "anti religious" Pullman *explicitly* 
compared his main characters in the Dark Materials series to Adam and 
Eve, something JKR is yet to do. So using religious and mythological 
materials (even in a positive way) hardly says anything about the 
author's position regarding institutional religion. 

Granted, JKR has the sharp divide between Light and Dark which is 
indeed more a Christian concept than of any other religion/culture, 
and was (I think) re-introduced into modern fantasy by Tolkien, but 
my feeling is that JKR uses it mainly as a conventional plot device 
(all of us probably thought Star Wars when reading JKR's "the Dark 
Side"), while actually being much more interested with the whole 
range of colors between Dark and Light.    

> Pippin: 
> I wasn't surprised to learn that the  author had a strong
> identification with Christianity, or that she felt  that expounding 
> on her beliefs would give the storyline away.
> 

Neri:
Erm... I don't remember JKR saying she had a strong identification 
with Christianity. I remember her saying she believed in God, which 
isn't the same thing. I suspect we'll find out in the end of the 
series that JKR's belief is more universal than any form of 
traditional Christianity.    

> Pippin: 
> I think the Christian content  of HP will go on being allusive and 
> symbolic, rather than strictly allegorical, so unless Jo comes 
> right out and says, "I intended thus and so to be a Christian 
> message" this issue will always be open for debate. However, 
> I do think the books are most definitely the products of a 
> Christian sensibility. 
>

Neri:
Agreed.

> Pippin:
> They've got a certain, well, optimism, about them that I associate
> with Christianity. When a Jew writes fantasy you
> get Lemony Snickett. Or Superman. Or Bewitched. There is
> that sense,  which I don't get in HP, that however many times 
> a happy ending is achieved, the existence of
> goodness itself is precarious. There's no kryptonite in the
> Potterverse.
>

Neri:
There's something in what you're saying <g>, but I still suspect that 
this is more a cultural than a religious thing. In fact, most Jews 
that write fantasy are probably not religious, while recent religious 
Jews (especially of the Hassidic currents) strongly believe the 
Messiah may come any day.
 
Neri





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 22 21:30:15 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:30:15 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9ca0i+ikv8@...>
Message-ID: <d9cl97+823j@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...>
wrote:

> > Pippin: 
> > I wasn't surprised to learn that the  author had a strong
> > identification with Christianity, or that she felt  that
expounding  on her beliefs would give the storyline away.
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> Erm... I don't remember JKR saying she had a strong identification 
> with Christianity. I remember her saying she believed in God, which 
> isn't the same thing. I suspect we'll find out in the end of the 
> series that JKR's belief is more universal than any form of 
> traditional Christianity.    
> 

Pippin:
from the Vancouver Sun -10/26/2000
(no online link is available, but it can be purchased.)

Harry, of course, is able to battle supernatural evil with 
supernatural forces of his own, and Rowling is quite 
clear that she doesn't personally believe in that kind of 
magic -- ``not at all.'' Is she a Christian?

``Yes, I am,'' she says. ``Which seems to offend the religious 
right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every 
time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I
do,  but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it 
than that,  and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk 
too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 
or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books.''

> 
> Neri:
> There's something in what you're saying <g>, but I still suspect
that  this is more a cultural than a religious thing. In fact, most
Jews that write fantasy are probably not religious, while recent
religious  Jews (especially of the Hassidic currents) strongly
believe the Messiah may come any day.

Pippin:
There's something in that <g>. But the line between cultural
and religious Judaism is not easy to draw.

There are Jews who consider themselves atheistic and religious. A
few years ago a synagogue wanted to join UAHC (the umbrella 
group for Reform synagogues in America.) They submitted their 
prayerbook as required. It contained no references to God. 
After some debate, the UAHC decided that it was a Jewish 
congregation, but not Reform and so not eligible. 

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 11:08:06 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:08:06 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9btt9+opft@...>
Message-ID: <d9e56m+m5ip@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 
> After that I had my radar switched on, so to speak, and that's why 
> I think  the incidental mentions are just as significant as the
> biggies like souls and prophecies. Unlike JKR I have
> read massive amounts of fantasy, and one of the things an
> author does when establishing an AU is show, early on, what's 
> *not* different about it. Those things are likely to be significant. 
> The Potterverse,  whatever else it may be, is not a universe where 
> Christianity never existed, though it's carefully established,
> via mention of Egyptian tombs and the Ollivander's sign,  that
> the wizarding culture pre-dates it. 
>

Kneasy:
Um.
Being totally and unrepentantly mischievous ....
Are all these pointers somewhat similar in quantity and quality
and in any way comparable with the evidence for Vampire!Snape?
Just asking. 

Neri voices an opinion close to my own in wondering how
much of the 'religious' evidence is mostly cultural. It's almost
impossible to hold any discussion of western culture without
religion getting a significant mention since it is an integral
component of the whole. Suggesting links between mythical
monsters and religious concepts was high fashion a few
hundred years back, codified iconography was an intellectual 
game.

And it allowed fanciful speculation of the impossible/highly 
improbable without attracting the attention of the censors.
Most of the mythology had origins other than Christian and
the Index kept a close eye on anything that did not express
or subordinate itself to the tenets of religious orthodoxy and
its centrality as the origin and rationale for everything.
The suborning of pagan symbols would more or less guarantee
the approval of those who in other circumstances had the power 
to make your life difficult.

It's almost impossible to think of classical mythical beasties that 
at some time or other have not been subject to this sort of 
re-invention. A good rule of thumb IMO is - can it be found
on coats-of-arms? If it can then it's highly likely to have been
re-invented, iconographically speaking.

Then there are the others that don't appear in quarterings and on 
escutcheons - banshees, trolls, ghouls, centaurs and perhaps 
vampires. All non-classical, you'll note. The variety of life-forms
found in FBaWTFT is (IMO) maybe a truer indication of Jo's thinking,
on this aspect of the books anyway - she needed beasts and 
monsters, so grab what's available and invent extras that could be
useful or entertaining.



> I wasn't surprised to learn that the  author had a strong
> identification with Christianity, or that she felt  that expounding 
> on her beliefs would give the storyline away.
> 

Kneasy:
Yes, no argument. But I'm wondering *how* it will be expressed.
As a frankly religious theme or perhaps an allusion, a parallel,
or,  and this is possible given what  she said about those with a
familiarity with Christian themes could guess the ending, a straight
steal of a storyline/resolution? Some would be amenable to such
adaptions -  the Prodigal Son, for example. Familial affection and 
forgiveness is a universally recognised theme, not solely a
Christian one, though if enough clues are sprinkled about anyone
with religious knowledge would cotton on immediately.
'Identification with' does not automatically result in 'obvious 
expression of.'
  
> 
> I haven't read Johnson, however the middle ages and the matter
> of Britain have been a passion of mine since childhood and I have 
> loads of books about them, including primary sources
> in translation. I wouldn't want to give an opinion of Johnson's 
> book till I've read it, but since it's out of print that may take
> a while (must check amazon.uk).
> 

Kneasy:
It is available at amazon.uk. Strangely enough it's been reprinted
with its original title - "The Offshore Islanders". It's a paperback
that they claim is despatched within 3 days of order.

It's more than just the Middle Ages - it's from the end of Roman
occupation to entry into what was then the Common Market. I
think you will enjoy the pre-Conquest section too. All too often
that bit doesn't get the attention it deserves. 







From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 12:09:50 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:09:50 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9e56m+m5ip@...>
References: <d9btt9+opft@...> <d9e56m+m5ip@...>
Message-ID: <20050623120950.GF13521@...>

On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 11:08:06AM -0000, Barry Arrowsmith wrote:

> Neri voices an opinion close to my own in wondering how
> much of the 'religious' evidence is mostly cultural. It's almost
> impossible to hold any discussion of western culture without
> religion getting a significant mention since it is an integral
> component of the whole. Suggesting links between mythical
> monsters and religious concepts was high fashion a few
> hundred years back, codified iconography was an intellectual 
> game.

One of my favourite passages of Eco, is the illustration of medieval
grotesqueries as Aristotle's defence of satire. But the monsters were
supposedly instructive symbolism, no? No doubt a successful harnessing of the
pagan source material to further a Christian viewpoint. Taken that way,
perhaps the Potterverse is a kind of palimpsest, with clues to its origins
scattered throughout canon behind the ostensible story.

> Kneasy:
> Yes, no argument. But I'm wondering *how* it will be expressed.
> As a frankly religious theme or perhaps an allusion, a parallel,
> or,  and this is possible given what  she said about those with a
> familiarity with Christian themes could guess the ending, a straight
> steal of a storyline/resolution? Some would be amenable to such
> adaptions -  the Prodigal Son, for example. Familial affection and 
> forgiveness is a universally recognised theme, not solely a
> Christian one, though if enough clues are sprinkled about anyone
> with religious knowledge would cotton on immediately.
> 'Identification with' does not automatically result in 'obvious 
> expression of.'

This is the 13,273-odd* galleon question isn't it? After a chapter of HBP will
we nod sagely and remark "Ah. The parable of the good Potions Master..." or
"So the house-elves DO inherit the WW..." or will it turn into something less
fun and pointy-fingered. In the last few days it's been my sad duty to read
posts concerning Grangers and Pullmans and the grave danger of Narnia-ism. I
hope JKR's fears of being found out early are baseless, but as I've written
before, I worry that if she thinks the parallels are too obvious to hint at,
they must be obvious indeed.

* 13,273 galleons, 15 sickles, 5 knuts at current market value against
US$64,000 .

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From naama_gat at naamagatus.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 12:14:52 2005
From: naama_gat at naamagatus.yahoo.invalid (naamagatus)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:14:52 -0000
Subject: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050609181734.00997a40@...>
Message-ID: <d9e93s+9104@...>


I agree with many of what you've written, but would like to use just 
the following paragraph as a starting point for my interpretation.

> Yes, he is rightly accused of having a "hero complex", but it's not 
>born out of a desire to be a hero, but to save those for whom he 
>cares (another possible dictionary definition of the four-letter 
>word).


Harry's "hero complex" imo is the crux of the matter. How is he 
different from the other good people around him? Hermione, Ron, 
Neville, Lupin... etc.? 

The pardigamtic moment for me is in PS - the jump into a black pit. 
Hermione and Ron have the normal reaction - peeping  in, recoiling, 
presumably trying to gauge the depth, their chance of survival. Harry 
jumps in with *no hesitation*. I don't think that JKR simply failed to 
report that Harry had misgivings, fears - the very essence of his 
action is that he didn't. 

This doesn't mean that Harry is super humanly brave, that he doesn't 
know fear. He is petrified in GoF when he has to face a dragon. He is 
described many times as being afraid (of Snape, of Voldemort, of the 
Dementors, of being publicly humiliated, of being expelled...). So why 
isn't he afraid at that moment? I know that I can't imagine myself 
flinging myself into a black hole in the ground (black - meaning you 
don't know how deep it is). But Harry isn't afraid. He is also not 
afraid in CoS when it comes to going down the tunnel after Ginny. He 
is not afraid in PoA to go into the Whomping Willow to save Ron. The 
same in OoP when he believes that Sirius is in danger. 

This is where Harry is different, better, than everybody else - when 
others are in danger he forgets about himself. At those moments, Harry 
is absolutely unconcerned about himself. He doesn't think about his 
chances of survival, about the danger to him. This cannot be reduced 
to an instinctual, implusive reaction - that he sees somebody in 
danger and leaps without thinking. When people need to be rescued, he 
goes into a long, sustained rescue mission, giving him plenty of time 
to realize the danger he put himself in.

For all the other good characters, selflessness is hard to come by. 
Ron I think is a very good example. He often needs to be shoved by 
Harry - he is more hesitant than Harry even when it is his own sister 
that needs to be rescued. 

For Harry, for some reason, selflessness is natural, innate. 

It's hard to imagine that for JKR, a Christian, selflessness isn't the 
bottom line of love. So, yes - Harry's power that Voldemort knows not 
is love. 
 


Naama
 






From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 12:32:56 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:32:56 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <20050623120950.GF13521@...>
Message-ID: <d9ea5o+c230@...>

There are really two threads of thought in the recent discussions.  
If I've followed, the first concerns the presence or not of 
Christianity (primarily) within the JKR's imaginary world and the 
second concerns her possible use of religious themes, particularly 
Christian ones, in the Harry Potter series.    

Addressing the first point, some are arguing that references to 
things clearly associated with Christian beliefs are evidence that 
Christianity is or has been an active religion in the wizarding 
world.  As Olivier suggested, the best way to strengthen a theory is 
to try to test it rather than prove it.  Kneasy has taken this test 
into OT territory waving a smouldering torch, and I think I agree 
with him to an extent, whilst not swearing to have read every one of 
his posts.  

I think some of the things that have Christian connections are a 
reflection of the larger world that contains both the wizarding and 
Muggle worlds, not something enduring in the wizarding world 
(allowing for the possibility that the situation may have been very 
different in the past).  For example, Christmas is deeply rooted as 
an end-of-year festival in the Muggle world and not necessarily 
celebrated from a Christian perspective. I think that's why we see 
Christmas celebrated at Hogwarts and not the more logical Winter 
Solstice, but I don't see the presence of a Christmas feast as solid 
evidence of an active religion.   

The second point tracks back to the discussion on the force in the 
room. In that debate, I've been pulled in different directions.  I'm 
not sure I would recognise themes that seem immediately Christian in 
tone to others (unicorns?), but the exchanges between Pippin, 
Olivier and Neri have convinced me that JKR intends some direct 
relevance to Christian beliefs in the story and that this is key to 
its direction.  That said, like Neri, I imagine my own perception of 
the themes would be as moral/humanistic, particularly if they deal 
with things that are not exclusively Christian.  

I just wanted to add that I loved Mike's analysis of the motivations 
of fantasy writers.  I was wondering if Diana Wynne Jones would fit 
Goat's Law, but that needs some more thought... 

Neil






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 12:59:59 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:59:59 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  - minor correction
In-Reply-To: <d9e56m+m5ip@...>
Message-ID: <d9ebof+4cdq@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

Apologies.
A bit of lazy editing on my part.
> 
> Then there are the others that don't appear in quarterings and on 
> escutcheons - banshees, trolls, ghouls, centaurs and perhaps 
> vampires. All non-classical, you'll note. The variety of life-forms
> found in FBaWTFT is (IMO) maybe a truer indication of Jo's thinking,
> on this aspect of the books anyway - she needed beasts and 
> monsters, so grab what's available and invent extras that could be
> useful or entertaining.
> 
>

The centaurs were an afterthought - they are classical, though I've 
never seen them on a coat-of-arms. And I neglected to change the
following 'All" to "Mostly'. If I don't correct it, someone else will.
There're a lot of eagle-eyed posters around, must be more careful.

Kneasy


 
> 
> > I wasn't surprised to learn that the  author had a strong
> > identification with Christianity, or that she felt  that expounding 
> > on her beliefs would give the storyline away.
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Yes, no argument. But I'm wondering *how* it will be expressed.
> As a frankly religious theme or perhaps an allusion, a parallel,
> or,  and this is possible given what  she said about those with a
> familiarity with Christian themes could guess the ending, a straight
> steal of a storyline/resolution? Some would be amenable to such
> adaptions -  the Prodigal Son, for example. Familial affection and 
> forgiveness is a universally recognised theme, not solely a
> Christian one, though if enough clues are sprinkled about anyone
> with religious knowledge would cotton on immediately.
> 'Identification with' does not automatically result in 'obvious 
> expression of.'
>   
> > 
> > I haven't read Johnson, however the middle ages and the matter
> > of Britain have been a passion of mine since childhood and I have 
> > loads of books about them, including primary sources
> > in translation. I wouldn't want to give an opinion of Johnson's 
> > book till I've read it, but since it's out of print that may take
> > a while (must check amazon.uk).
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> It is available at amazon.uk. Strangely enough it's been reprinted
> with its original title - "The Offshore Islanders". It's a paperback
> that they claim is despatched within 3 days of order.
> 
> It's more than just the Middle Ages - it's from the end of Roman
> occupation to entry into what was then the Common Market. I
> think you will enjoy the pre-Conquest section too. All too often
> that bit doesn't get the attention it deserves.






From carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 13:29:14 2005
From: carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid (carolynwhite2)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:29:14 -0000
Subject: Selfless Harry (was Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word)
In-Reply-To: <d9e93s+9104@...>
Message-ID: <d9edfa+os64@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "naamagatus" <naama_gat at h...> 
wrote: 
> 
> The pardigamtic moment for me is in PS - the jump into a black pit. 
> Hermione and Ron have the normal reaction - peeping  in, recoiling, 
> presumably trying to gauge the depth, their chance of survival. 
Harry jumps in with *no hesitation*. > 
<snip>
 He is also not 
> afraid in CoS when it comes to going down the tunnel after Ginny. 

<snip>
> This is where Harry is different, better, than everybody else - 
when others are in danger he forgets about himself. At those moments, 
Harry is absolutely unconcerned about himself. He doesn't think about 
his chances of survival, about the danger to him. This cannot be 
reduced to an instinctual, implusive reaction - that he sees somebody 
in danger and leaps without thinking. When people need to be rescued, 
he goes into a long, sustained rescue mission, giving him plenty of 
time to realize the danger he put himself in.
> 

Carolyn:
Erm, it's worth re-reading the CoS scene a little more carefully, I 
think before we get too carried away admiring the lad.

'The sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe 
exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.
'Harry heard Ron gasp and looked up again. He had made up his mind 
what he was going to do.
'I'm going down there,' he said.
...
'Me too' said Ron.
...
'He [Lockhart] put his hand on the door knob, but Ron and Harry both 
pointed their wands at him.
'You can go first,' Ron snarled.
...
'Harry jabbed him in the back with his wand. Lockhart slid his legs 
into the pipe.
'I really don't think - ' he started to say, but Ron gave him a push, 
and he slid out of sight.
...

Far from selfless bravery on this occasion, Harry not only encourages 
Ron into danger, but makes someone else go first. Easy to overlook 
because no one could care less about Lockhart, but true nonetheless. 

Also, remember that all of them are magical and don't face exactly 
the same physical dangers from jumping heedlessly into deep, dark 
pits as we would (in the same way that Neville came to no harm when 
Uncle Algie dropped him out the window). 

And it is worth considering that at this point the boys have 
discovered Lockhart is a fraud and won't be much practical use,so 
what was the point of forcing him to come along anyway? Yes, amusing 
retribution, plot device etc but an example of Harry's clear-
thinking, brave decisiveness? I don't think so.

Once you factor all this in, Harry's exploits are really more Tom & 
Jerry in style, and not half as impressive.


Carolyn





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 15:33:23 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:33:23 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9ea5o+c230@...>
Message-ID: <d9eko3+8map@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...>
wrote:

> The second point tracks back to the discussion on the force in the 
room. In that debate, I've been pulled in different directions. I'm 
not sure I would recognise themes that seem immediately Christian
in  tone to others (unicorns?), but the exchanges between Pippin, 
Olivier and Neri have convinced me that JKR intends some direct 
relevance to Christian beliefs in the story and that this is key to 
its direction.  That said, like Neri, I imagine my own perception
of  the themes would be as moral/humanistic, particularly if they
deal 
 with things that are not exclusively Christian.  
> 
> I just wanted to add that I loved Mike's analysis of the
motivations  of fantasy writers.  I was wondering if Diana Wynne 
Jones would fit Goat's Law, but that needs some more thought... 

Pippin:
Ah,yes. What I was thinking, before I followed Kneasy's smoldering
torch into the history of the Middle Ages, was that maybe the locked
room is empty until someone enters it. What you find  inside the
locked room is what you bring with you. And that faith is 
the key. It's been said (can't remember by who) that the theme of
modern fantasy is, "Believe in yourself, then believe in something
larger than yourself."

Pertaining to Goat's Law, when  monsters and devils are 
depicted as part of what Tolkien called primary 
reality, it would make sense that a fictional hero would need to
perform rituals which are also part of primary reality to deal 
with them. How those rituals are identified and whether they
work or not will tell us something about the author's attitude
toward religion.

IIRC, Screwtape's mentor is quite dismayed to find
that the human has become a Christian and is attending church,
while in Pullman the church must be rejected. (Reading Pullman,
it's clear to me that the God he doesn't believe in is the 
Christian one. I feel like I'm watching a little boy teepee the
cranky neighbors' house. On the one hand, you suspect they
have it coming, OTOH, you might be next.)

 But when the monsters and devils are clearly part of a secondary
reality, as in Tolkien or Narnia, the recounting of the
monster-slaying is itself  a symbolic act, and doesn't need to be 
embroidered with further ritual. 

So while Tolkien's heroes do have a religion of sorts,
(the hymns to Elbereth, the Standing Silence, the Hobbits' invocations
to her in times of need) their acceptance of this religion is not a
step they need to take in order to defeat the monster.  Similarly
in Narnia, while people are always declaring their faith in Aslan, the
believer who always honored Tash as the source of love and mercy
is equally saved.

Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told
his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I suspect
the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
reality also. Does that make sense?

Pippin





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 15:48:49 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:48:49 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9eko3+8map@...>
Message-ID: <d9ell1+q7t7@...>

Pippin:

> Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told
> his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I 
suspect
> the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
> reality also. Does that make sense?

Not really, because I don't understand the distinction between primary 
and secondary reality.  Are we talking universals and accidentals, or 
spiritual and physical, or what?

David





From heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 15:52:57 2005
From: heidi8 at heiditandy.yahoo.invalid (Heidi)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:52:57 -0400
Subject: What are you wearing to pick up HBP?
In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20050609181734.00997a40@...>
References: <003401c56c69$18b38030$0600a8c0@hwin> <d87o4h+n9cg@...>
	 <4.2.0.58.20050609181734.00997a40@...>
Message-ID: <5913e6f80506230852197931c3@...>

No, it's not quite as salacious as it sounds. While I am interested in
whether people are coming costumed, I wanted to plug a fundraiser FA
is doing, and also see if anyone wants to help FA at Books of Wonder
in NYC or at Spellbound2005.com in Chicago - email me offlist if
you're interested.

And I had a quick question - is anyone going to be in LA for the book
release weekend? Even if you have plans for HBP release night, do you
want to join me and some of the Lumos 2006 team at PoA in Santa Monica
on Sunday evening? More info at
http://www.wizardnews.com/story.20050528.html

Now, for the plugging. Some of you may have seen the wristband
fundraiser that FA is doing - but here's what's up.


FictionAlley has launched a fundraiser to raise thousands of
dollars for a scholarship fund named after a teenaged writer who died
of leukemia earlier this year. The site is selling wristbands online
and will have them available at Harry Potter parties around the world
on July 15 in conjunciton with the release of Harry Potter & the
Half-Blood Prince.

In March of 2005, thirteen year old writer Katie O'Brien lost her
battle with leukemia. For over two years, Katie had been writing a
story based on the Harry Potter books called Anna Grayson & the Order
of Merlin (http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Dave_OBrien/),
assisted by her father Dave. Katie was so passionate about her
writing; even while she was in the hospital fighting against her
illness, she continued to find strength in her writing. As her father
said, "Katie always wanted to be a writer, and she used this forum [at
FictionAlley] to fulfill her dreams. Correspondence with those who
read and enjoyed her story sustained her even during the worst of
times."

Katie finished writing her story six days before she died; her father
has continued to upload those chapters onto FictionAlley through the
spring.

When FictionAlley's staff learned that Katie had passed, they realised
that the best way that the site could honour her memory would be to
provide other writers, as well as artists and those who give back to
the community, with help in making their dreams come true

With the permission of Katie's family, FictionAlley has established a
scholarship fund in Katie's name. Over one thousand dollars have
already been raised from the sale of wristbands, and from donations
from FictionAlley members and their parents, but the site needs to
raise nearly five thousand dollars to fund the three scholarships for
three years. FictionAlley is confident that they will reach their
goal, and so, begining in 2006, they plan to award one for writing,
one for art, and one for community service; each recipient will
receive $500 (US) from FictionAlley to use towards his or her
education. We've already sold out of the first run of 500 wristbands,
and ordered another 600 to see us through HBP - if we sell all of
them, the scholarship program is fully funded for the first three
years! As of the now, we are fully funded for the three scholarships
for the first year, which is more than we dreamed at this stage.

FictionAlley volunteers will have wristbands available at HBP parties
in New York (Books of Wonder), Chicago (Spellbound2005.com), Los
Angeles,
London, Ann Arbor, Melbourne, Washington DC, Boston, Houston, Reno,
Seattle and at least a dozen other cities around the world. They can
be purchased for five dollars at those events, or online via
http://www.fictionalley.org/wristbands. We'll have a snail mail order
form up later today.


Thanks for reading!



From kelleythompson at kelleyscorpio.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 16:17:49 2005
From: kelleythompson at kelleyscorpio.yahoo.invalid (Kelley)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:17:49 -0000
Subject: Interview request
Message-ID: <d9enbd+m6i9@...>

Hey, everyone--

Do we have any males living in Scotland in this group, and if so, 
would you be willing to talk to a journalist from the Sunday Herald 
about your interest in HP?  If yes, would you drop me a note --
kelleythompson@ gbronline.com.  Thanks!

--Kelley





From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 20:24:33 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 06:24:33 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9ell1+q7t7@...>
References: <d9eko3+8map@...> <d9ell1+q7t7@...>
Message-ID: <20050623202433.GH13521@...>

On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 03:48:49PM -0000, davewitley wrote:
> Pippin:
> 
> > Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told
> > his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I 
> suspect
> > the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
> > reality also. Does that make sense?
> 
> Not really, because I don't understand the distinction between primary 
> and secondary reality.  Are we talking universals and accidentals, or 
> spiritual and physical, or what?

Strictly speaking, secondary reality in the Tolkienian sense is a "subcreated"
world, and its relationship to primary reality (outside the book) is a matter
of applicability not allegory. In that sense assumptions about secondary
reality come from their obvious descent from primary reality, and aspects that
do not "naturally flow" from that are noticeable. To take the Tolkien and
Lewis examples, the religious component of Middle-earth is an assumed or
"felt" one because it flows from Tolkien's own attitude about religion; it is
Sauron who unnaturally disagrees.

The trouble with Narnia for me is that the story becomes a religious allegory;
although it has been argued that Potterverse seems like a journey from
childhood to adulthood like Narnia.

To finally put this in the context, Pippin is saying that Voldemort is such a
strong symbol of primary reality that his role in _secondary_ reality must
match sufficiently as not to break the logic of the Potterverse, which demands
that Muggles be affected, and therefore, a Muggle solution to the WW problem
must be possible.

My gibberish is more incomprehensible than your gibberish :)

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 20:47:15 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 20:47:15 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9ell1+q7t7@...>
Message-ID: <d9f74j+jb10@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "davewitley"
<dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:
> Pippin:
> 
> > Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told
his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I 
suspect the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
reality also. Does that make sense?

David:
> Not really, because I don't understand the distinction between
primary and secondary reality.  Are we talking universals and
accidentals, or spiritual and physical, or what?
> 

Pippin:

The distinction, as Tolkien made it, has to do with belief.  A
secondary reality is an imaginary world which,  through art, 
becomes real to us while we inhabit it; a condition Tolkien 
called 'enchantment' or 'secondary belief.'  

Secondary reality is the home of beings such as
dragons and fairies which we believe can never exist in the  primary
reality--  the one we all see and experience.  The artist creates
a secondary reality through 'sub-creation' and while we inhabit
this sub-creation, it is as real to us as real life. This is a
different mental state than 'willing suspension of disbelief'. It is
not willed. It takes hold of us and transports us.

To use an example Tolkien gave, he said the witches in Macbeth were
too poor a thing of their sort to be frightening. He had to suspend 
disbelief to find them scary. But he wouldn't have had to do that 
if he had the mind of the period and thought that
witches really existed, that is, if he could give them primary belief.

A similar criticism is made of Voldemort -- that as evil overlords go
he doesn't amount to much. But if you give him primary belief and
think of an actual real life psychopath with ambitions of world 
domination and a magic wand -- well, that's a different kettle of
potion, no?

Of course Rowling's world has dragons and fairies in it, but they
inhabit the same world as Vernon Dursley and hose pipe bans,
which is a very different order from Narnia or Middle Earth.

Pippin





From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 21:26:39 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:26:39 -0000
Subject: Back to the locked room
In-Reply-To: <d9eko3+8map@...>
Message-ID: <d9f9ef+kfqh@...>

> Pippin:
> Ah,yes. What I was thinking, before I followed Kneasy's smoldering
> torch into the history of the Middle Ages, was that maybe the locked
> room is empty until someone enters it. What you find inside the
> locked room is what you bring with you. And that faith is 
> the key. It's been said (can't remember by who) that the theme of
> modern fantasy is, "Believe in yourself, then believe in something
> larger than yourself."

Ah, so Voldemort is not Sauron, but Boromir?

David






From dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 21:53:36 2005
From: dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid (davewitley)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:53:36 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9f74j+jb10@...>
Message-ID: <d9fb10+89vp@...>

> Pippin:
> 
> The distinction, as Tolkien made it, has to do with belief.  A
> secondary reality is an imaginary world which,  through art, 
> becomes real to us while we inhabit it; a condition Tolkien 
> called 'enchantment' or 'secondary belief.'

Thank you (and Sean), that's a lot clearer.  The fact that we were 
talking about religion led me to think of the distinction many 
religions make between a 'primary' world inhabited by God or by those 
who have attained enlightenment or whatever, and a 'secondary' world 
of sin or illusion.  Your post read like so much 1s and 0s on a tape 
when approached from that angle.

In effect, I think you are saying that JKR will be not true to her own 
rules - or the conventions of fantasy writing - if she just has Harry 
vanquish Voldemort with a zippedidoodah spell or a batshit potion.  
There has to be something that makes Muggle sense, such as a 
sacrifice, or love, or poetic justice ('the room contains what you 
bring into it'), as well.  Certainly such an outcome would be deeply 
disappointing - the equivalent of rerouting the thrust modulator past 
the warp coils to avoid dilithium meltdown and escape the Romulan 
threat.

> Of course Rowling's world has dragons and fairies in it, but they
> inhabit the same world as Vernon Dursley and hose pipe bans,
> which is a very different order from Narnia or Middle Earth.

Yes, I was wondering about that.  CS Lewis and Philip Pullman cotrol 
the gateways between their worlds very strictly by comparison, and so 
avoid a lot of the headaches JKR gets.

David





From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 22:26:51 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:26:51 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9fb10+89vp@...>
References: <d9f74j+jb10@...> <d9fb10+89vp@...>
Message-ID: <20050623222651.GI13521@...>

On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 09:53:36PM -0000, davewitley wrote:

> Thank you (and Sean), that's a lot clearer.  The fact that we were 
> talking about religion led me to think of the distinction many 
> religions make between a 'primary' world inhabited by God or by those 
> who have attained enlightenment or whatever, and a 'secondary' world 
> of sin or illusion.  Your post read like so much 1s and 0s on a tape 
> when approached from that angle.

I sometimes wonder what the religious landscape would look like without the
influence of Zoroastrianism, that either/or dualism from which Christianity
and other religions derive both their strength and weakness from. The strength
is that force gained with focus, the weakness the inability to tolerate
difference.

Dave:
In effect, I think you are saying that JKR will be not true to her own 
rules - or the conventions of fantasy writing - if she just has Harry 
vanquish Voldemort with a zippedidoodah spell or a batshit potion.  
There has to be something that makes Muggle sense, such as a 
sacrifice, or love, or poetic justice ('the room contains what you 
bring into it'), as well.  Certainly such an outcome would be deeply 
disappointing - the equivalent of rerouting the thrust modulator past 
the warp coils to avoid dilithium meltdown and escape the Romulan 
threat.

It's a symbolic reconciliation of the Muggle/WW dualism, a pretty tall order
for any writer. Narnia has a Zoroastrian triumphialism about it; Tolkien is
noticeably more careful, Frodo being his best example.

Pippin:
Of course Rowling's world has dragons and fairies in it, but they
inhabit the same world as Vernon Dursley and hose pipe bans,
which is a very different order from Narnia or Middle Earth.

Dave:
Yes, I was wondering about that.  CS Lewis and Philip Pullman cotrol 
the gateways between their worlds very strictly by comparison, and so 
avoid a lot of the headaches JKR gets.

JKR has instead made the WW the gatekeepers; and we frequently forget that
there are benefits for Muggles in learning more of the WW and likely less to
fear from each other than they think. It's still a tall order IMHO, but that
appears to be the bed JKR wishes to lie in.


-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 23 22:39:26 2005
From: nkafkafi at nkafkafi.yahoo.invalid (nkafkafi)
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:39:26 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9fb10+89vp@...>
Message-ID: <d9fdmu+pq1u@...>


> > Pippin:
> > 
> > The distinction, as Tolkien made it, has to do with belief.  A
> > secondary reality is an imaginary world which,  through art, 
> > becomes real to us while we inhabit it; a condition Tolkien 
> > called 'enchantment' or 'secondary belief.'
> 
> Thank you (and Sean), that's a lot clearer.  The fact that we were 
> talking about religion led me to think of the distinction many 
> religions make between a 'primary' world inhabited by God or by those 
> who have attained enlightenment or whatever, and a 'secondary' world 
> of sin or illusion.  Your post read like so much 1s and 0s on a tape 
> when approached from that angle.
> 
> In effect, I think you are saying that JKR will be not true to her own 
> rules - or the conventions of fantasy writing - if she just has Harry 
> vanquish Voldemort with a zippedidoodah spell or a batshit potion.  
> There has to be something that makes Muggle sense, such as a 
> sacrifice, or love, or poetic justice ('the room contains what you 
> bring into it'), as well.  Certainly such an outcome would be deeply 
> disappointing - the equivalent of rerouting the thrust modulator past 
> the warp coils to avoid dilithium meltdown and escape the Romulan 
> threat.


Neri:
Sorry, but I still don't get it. Are you saying that if Voldy *was* a
convincing magical overlord, clearly belonging to the secondary
realty, then it *would* have been OK to vanquish him with merely a
zippedidoodah spell? I don't think it would.

I mean, vanquishing Sauron clearly took more than just throwing a ring
 into a vulcano.

Neri







From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 06:46:15 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:46:15 +0200
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED]
In-Reply-To: <d9f74j+jb10@...>
Message-ID: <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Hiya Guys,

* * * * *

I wrote this at work yesterday but I wasn't able to send it for some
reason. Anyway ...

* * * * * 

I wanted to pick up on the distinction between primary and secondary
reality. I think this kind of discussion tends to get muddled because
we're actually dealing with several different kinds of differences:

Namely, Differece 1: By "primary world" Tolkien means the world *we*
live in, or perhaps more acurately our world, as the author perceives
it. (An author who actually believed in faeries and wanted to write
fantasy would have had to write about something *more* than faeries, for
the work to "count" as fantasy. The Left Behind books make this
distinction very papable.) By "secondary world" Tolkien means the world
created by the mythopoeic author.  

Difference 2: The secondary/primary differentiation should be contrasted
with that between the "natural world" and the "supernatural world" -
which is a different kind of distinction. This distinction begins in out
world, based on the things which we perceive as naturally possible
(falling out of a window and luckily landing on a trampoline) and the
things we perceive as non-natural (falling out of a window and
bouncing). The author's perception of the difference between these two
in her own world, combined with her decision to create a secondary world
in which the relationship is in some way different, lies at the base of
all fantasy fiction. (By the definition of fantasy that I'm using,
anyway. It's not the only one.) 

However, there is also Difference 3: In many (though not all!) fantasy
stories there is *also* a distinction between what I would call the
"outer world" and the "inner world." For example, in the Narnia books
there is the outer world on out side of the wardrobe and the inner world
of Narnia (beside all the other puddles in the sleepy forest). Or in the
Potterverse there is the "muggle world" and the "wizarding world." 

At first glance you might want to say that the "outer" and "innner"
worlds are the same as the "primary" and "secondary" worlds - however,
that is not the case. While the Dursley's appears more similar to our
world than Dumbledore's world, it isn't the same, since the Dursley's
world is part of a larger reality including Hogwarts and Voldie. The
outer world in fantasy fiction is an incomplete world, with the
potential of completion through the discovery of the inner, magical
world.

(I think almost all fantasy ficiton has something of this sort, because
almost - though, I think, not quite - all fantasy fiction recounts a
characters journey of discovery from an outer world into an inner world.
But in some forms it is much stronger. For example in Tolkien's books
you could call the Shire the outer world, everwhere else the inner
world. Bilbo's journey makes this distinction clearly. In the later LotR
books, it is more difficult to maintain.)

At second glance you might want to question the distinction between
natural/supernatural and inner/outer - but I think it's important to
maintain it. The supernatural/natural distinction begins with the
author's perception of our reality, or the primary world. OTOH, the
inner/outer distinction begins in the characters' perception of their
secondary world. However, the two are related, since the the author's
natural/supernatural distinction is, generally, closely tied to the way
she delineates the story's outer/inner distinction - and in turn, the
outer/inner distinction often suggests things about the way the reader
should rethink his understanding of the natural and supernatural in our
world. 

Difference 4: Finally, I think JKR (like many other fantasy fiction
authors) introduces yet another distinction that grows out of her
perception of our own world. This time it's between a "lower
supernatural" (say, falling out of a window and bouncing) and a "true
supernatural" (things like love, vulnerability, forgiveness - or
whatever *you* find inside the locked room). And whereas the lower
supernatural things are limited to her secondary, inner world (i.e. the
wizarding world), the higher supernatural things can be found (and lost)
in all worlds. Put otherwise: she holds the "higher" supernatural things
to be as much present in our own "unmagical" reality as in the magical
reality of Hogwarts - and this higher/lower distinction ultimately
relativizes (i.e. places within a broader context) the differences
between her primary and secondary worlds. 

Granted the definition of "supernatural" as "falling out of a window and
bouncing," I think she might want to add (to paraphrase 1 Corinthinans
13), "But though I falleth out of windows and bounceth, and have not
charity, I am become as a bouncing nincompoop, not a supernatural
Wunderkind." The higher supernatural thing, if I have her right, would
be more along the lines of "falling out of a window because you really
cared about someone and were selflessly blundering about trying to help
- and guess what, even though you made a complete fool of yourself, you
helped at a completely different level that was more important than just
having the smooth moves." 

At any rate, in Rowling's world, this final distinction between lower
and higher is (by my reading) of a moral existential nature. Pinpointing
the nature of an author's understanding of difference 4 is important to
understanding the relgious/moral/philosophical/etc. implications of the
books. 

* * * * * 

I'm not saying that these distinctions are equally present (let alone
consciously thought out!) in all fantasy fiction - but I think they're
pretty common. 

Moreover, it's the presence of all this complex thinking in categories
like natural/supernatural, real/unrreal, possible/impossible, and
bad/neutral/good that leads me to think that most successful authors of
fantasy are people who care deeply about religious questions - since
religious faith is *also* intrinsically connected to these kinds of
questions. On these grounds I think that people who write fantasy tend
to be interested in religious questions in about the same way that
people who write historical fiction tend to be interested in history.

* * * * *

And finally, for what it's worth, I think Goat's Law applies most
strongly to authors whose understanding of the supernatural/natural &
lower/higher relationships in our primary world is informed by an active
religious orientation. In this case they are unlikely to depict
*positive* religious practice anywhere in the secondary world - but
particularly not within the secondary world's "inner" reality. 

Vive la difference!

But no baaaaa, since I'm at work,

Mike (who hopes that this hasn't confused anyone else anywhere near as
badly as it has confused him.)




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 10:13:03 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:13:03 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] What are you wearing to pick up HBP?
In-Reply-To: <5913e6f80506230852197931c3@...>
Message-ID: <001a01c578a5$4e7fea30$0600a8c0@hwin>

Heidi ho!

I've never dressed up for an HP event.

If throughly stoned, I might try attaching some little horns to my head,
if I were also hanging out with a lot of thoroughly stoned HPfGU types.
It would be a nice way to show sympathy for Penny's beloved A&Ms. Of
course, since I've never been properly stoned (unless you count getting
high on books and hot chocolate), not even that is likely to happen.
Particularly since I've sworn off hot chocolate (along with all the
other culinary opiates) until I've finished my degree.

> When FictionAlley's staff learned that Katie had passed, they
> realised that the best way that the site could honour her 
> memory would be to provide other writers, as well as artists 
> and those who give back to the community, with help in making 
> their dreams come true

Now that is a really, really cool idea. I'm wondering if there's any
chance I could get some folks at my Z?rich bookstore on board. I'll nose
around a little.

* * * * *

Oh - and while I'm rambling about things that really count: it's GREAT
to hear that Penny understands about foo'ball (Texan pronounciation). I
haven't seen the movie yet - but I've read about it, and it sounds
pretty sad. There *is* point where sports turn stupid, instead of crazy.
I dunno. I was a tennis player as a kid and really wanted to get good,
and played until I got completely sick of the whole thing. I haven't
played in years, and when I happened to unearth my old racket case a
couple months back, I got a really weird feeling in my stomach. (Of
course, maybe the feeling was more in wallet part of my anatomy ...
Tennis court prices in Switzerland are waaaay out of my league.)

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 11:18:47 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 11:18:47 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED]
In-Reply-To: <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d9gq6n+vf5@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:

Considerations on fantasy authors that may or may not make sense.
Personally I'm not a great fan of fantasy, in a personal library  of some
2,000+ books the genre is represented by less than a dozen volumes,
and I mean volumes, not works. The proclivity of fantasy authors to
inflict multi-vol, hernia-inducing confections on an innocent public
should be brought to the attention of the tree-hugging brigade IMO.
Or maybe the authors own life-enhancing/life-confirming constructs
will gang up and strangle the buggers with their own endless strings
of adjectives.

Heavy snipping
> 
> Namely, Differece 1: By "primary world" Tolkien means the world *we*
> live in, or perhaps more acurately our world, as the author perceives
> it. (An author who actually believed in faeries and wanted to write
> fantasy would have had to write about something *more* than faeries, for
> the work to "count" as fantasy. The Left Behind books make this
> distinction very papable.) By "secondary world" Tolkien means the world
> created by the mythopoeic author.  
> 
> Difference 2: The secondary/primary differentiation should be contrasted
> with that between the "natural world" and the "supernatural world" -
> which is a different kind of distinction. This distinction begins in out
> world, based on the things which we perceive as naturally possible
> (falling out of a window and luckily landing on a trampoline) and the
> things we perceive as non-natural (falling out of a window and
> bouncing). 
> 

Kneasy:
Struggling manfully and possibly reaching the same conclusions.
A possibly naive question:
These two different worlds of yours - doesn't the same distinction apply
not only to fantasy, but to just about every religious cosmology I can
think of? The world of men, the transcendental 'other' world, inhabited
by god(s), angels and demons, and the 'secondary' world becomes
evident when the supernatural intrudes on the real ("It's a miracle!" they
cried.)
Or have I totally misunderstood?
If I haven't got your argument wrong, then the only difference between
a religion and fantasy is the level of belief it generates.

Thus a fantasy construct is a (perhaps) unconscious reiteration of the
author's belief system. It follows from that that fantasy authors can
be considered to be  basing their work on a paradigm imported from
the culture that formed their beliefs. Taking it further - an author 
subscribing to belief system 'A' is highly unlikely to pen a tome with 
outcomes that run counter to those beliefs or appear to validate belief
system 'B'. If they do, it's probably a sign that they're having real doubts
about 'A'. 
As a corollory, only authors with no strong religious conviction will write 
a story were the bad guys win - unless the author is a practicing satanist. 
Even then - wouldn't that author consider the 'baddies' to be 'good'?
(Can anyone find counter-examples?)

A further step along the gang-plank - there may be no real personal 
choice in how a writer with strong beliefs structures a fantasy tale. It is 
pretty well inevitable given their ethical/moral system that this system
be reflected in their writings. It might even be regarded as a way of 
validating personal beliefs. How the stage is dressed may vary, but the
memes will not run counter to their personal convictions. 

> 
> Moreover, it's the presence of all this complex thinking in categories
> like natural/supernatural, real/unrreal, possible/impossible, and
> bad/neutral/good that leads me to think that most successful authors of
> fantasy are people who care deeply about religious questions - since
> religious faith is *also* intrinsically connected to these kinds of
> questions. On these grounds I think that people who write fantasy tend
> to be interested in religious questions in about the same way that
> people who write historical fiction tend to be interested in history.
> 

Kneasy:
Maybe it's not that the authors care deeply that is the  determinant of
success, but that the themes and the way they are expressed resonate
with a significant fraction of the book-buying public. Moreover, many
of the buyers will only fork out hard cash if the book is felt to mirror
the buyer's own beliefs or at a minimum not challenge them.
It's unlikely that strongly held spiritual convictions that are not echoed 
in the population at large will sell large numbers of books no matter 
how brilliant the writing. (That's all things being equal - large sales
may be generated by notoriety - Salman Rushdie would have had 
modest royalties if the public hadn't wondered what all the fuss was
about.)

Now, in regard to HP in particular - does anyone harbour expectations
that the series will end in a fashion not congruent with Jo's beliefs?
Thought not.
Even though the series is about 70% complete the final dispositions
are more or less ineluctable; all that remain are the details of how.
But interestingly, the themes that Jo has produced seem fairly
universal, the fanbase comes from all backgrounds and cultures. The
chances that the final resolution will not also encompass the same
universal approval are, IMO, remote.

Therefore - Jo will remain true to her beliefs, but they will not be
presented in a manner that conflicts with the belief systems of others.
Thus LoTR is read world-wide. Not so Narnia, many non-Christians
regard it as proselytising and won't touch it with a barge-pole. 
The odds are that HP is unlikely to be *explicitly* Christian, though 
Christians will have no difficulty in finding comforting metaphors and 
allusions. 
But so will many others, I  think.
If they don't the sales figures will reflect it.   








From saitaina at saitaina.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 11:25:27 2005
From: saitaina at saitaina.yahoo.invalid (Saitaina)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 04:25:27 -0700
Subject: [the_old_crowd] What are you wearing to pick up HBP?
References: <003401c56c69$18b38030$0600a8c0@hwin> <d87o4h+n9cg@...> <4.2.0.58.20050609181734.00997a40@...> <5913e6f80506230852197931c3@...>
Message-ID: <001e01c578af$6c9a7940$01fea8c0@...>

Heidi wrote:

<While I am interested in
whether people are coming costumed,>

I shall once more be donning the garb
of 'Narcissa Malfoy', this time in
celebration of my name change to
Malfoy.

I will also be wearing my FA button and
bracelet provided both arrive in time.


Saitaina
****
"I like kids in theory...it's the
practice I'm having trouble with."

"The new food pyramid looks as if all
you have to do to be healthy in America
is be gay and exercise."

"If you're going to sing in the shower,
don't start with a song that begins
with 'help'."

http://www.livejournal.com/users/saitaina


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 11:29:57 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:29:57 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED]
In-Reply-To: <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>
References: <d9f74j+jb10@...> <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <20050624112957.GJ13521@...>

On Fri, Jun 24, 2005 at 08:46:15AM +0200, Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray wrote:

> I wanted to pick up on the distinction between primary and secondary
> reality. I think this kind of discussion tends to get muddled because
> we're actually dealing with several different kinds of differences:

[snip instructive epistle of 3 of the 4 Goat Differences]:

In a way you've managed to precs Tolkien's seminal work "On Fairy Stories",
which criticism is still trying to discount. This is often the trouble with
Tolkien, and by extension much of the so-called "fantasy" genre.

> (I think almost all fantasy ficiton has something of this sort, because
> almost - though, I think, not quite - all fantasy fiction recounts a
> characters journey of discovery from an outer world into an inner world.
> But in some forms it is much stronger. For example in Tolkien's books
> you could call the Shire the outer world, everwhere else the inner
> world. Bilbo's journey makes this distinction clearly. In the later LotR
> books, it is more difficult to maintain.)

But the point of having "incompleteness" is also to suggest a completeness and
the sense of a world in which we are immersed. His technique of interlacing
the storylines also suggests, to me, an attitude of the complementary nature
of the inner/outer perspectives. JKR is more concerned, I believe, that we
take more of the WW journey towards appreciation of Muggle perspective, with a
view to an "aha!" moment for want of a better metaphor. Sort of like the War
of the Ring from the Gondorian perspective until the King returns. Notice that
we have a parallel with comparative "outsiders" an integral part of
reconcilling the apparent dualism.


> Difference 4:

I would submit this difference is used by JKR as a tool for advancing the plot
and manipulating the readers expectations; possibly by making us aware of this
distinction, she is in effect setting us up for something.

> Moreover, it's the presence of all this complex thinking in categories
> like natural/supernatural, real/unrreal, possible/impossible, and
> bad/neutral/good that leads me to think that most successful authors of
> fantasy are people who care deeply about religious questions - since
> religious faith is *also* intrinsically connected to these kinds of
> questions. On these grounds I think that people who write fantasy tend
> to be interested in religious questions in about the same way that
> people who write historical fiction tend to be interested in history.

Frank Herbert's Dune series is interesting in this context. Unlike Rowling, he
exposes the socio-economic and religious structure, to say nothing of the
historical perspective, but his religion appears to be based in
biological/ecological themes. In a way, he works towards the same ends as
other fantasy authors from the opposite angle.

> And finally, for what it's worth, I think Goat's Law applies most
> strongly to authors whose understanding of the supernatural/natural &
> lower/higher relationships in our primary world is informed by an active
> religious orientation. In this case they are unlikely to depict
> *positive* religious practice anywhere in the secondary world - but
> particularly not within the secondary world's "inner" reality. 
 
I see it as the difference between success and failure of a fantasy-setting.
Many commentators have a hard time accepting that a Roman Catholic Tolkien
could write such an apparently "nonreligious" book, but it seems to me a
failure of their perception. Whereas Lewis, who wears his religious heart on
his sleeve, may succeed in terms of clarity of his position, but for me fails
in the story-telling.

> Vive la difference!
> 
> But no baaaaa, since I'm at work,

et vola! baaaaaas for you! (in my unofficial capacity as pretend sheep).

> 
> Mike (who hopes that this hasn't confused anyone else anywhere near as
> badly as it has confused him.)
> 

No, you've only encouraged me, which is probably a worse result :)

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 11:45:46 2005
From: pennylin at plinsenmayer.yahoo.invalid (Penny & Bryce)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 06:45:46 -0500
Subject: [the_old_crowd] OT: football reference by the Goat (was What are you wearing to pick up HBP?)
References: <001a01c578a5$4e7fea30$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <03b001c578b2$455b99b0$210110ac@MainDesktop>

Hi --

The Goat said:

<<<<If throughly stoned, I might try attaching some little horns to my head,
if I were also hanging out with a lot of thoroughly stoned HPfGU types.
It would be a nice way to show sympathy for Penny's beloved A&Ms.>>>>>>>>>>

Oooooooooh, *very* grievous Texas football error, Goat!  "Hook 'em Horns" absolutely unequivocally does *NOT* refer to Texas A&M, but rather to The University of Texas (with a capital The).  :::shudders and winks at the Geist if she is here somewhere::::  

The University of Texas mascot is the Texas longhorn.  Texas A&M are called "Aggies."  

A&Ms sounds rather like a candy.  I like it.  <g>

You should know too that the rivalry between UT and A&M is among the fiercest in the country.  

Penny
(who will be sporting a HP t-shirt and some lovely HP jewelry just acquired from WB next month, but wouldn't wear a cloak in Houston in July if her life depended on it .............)

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 12:16:30 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:16:30 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] OT: football reference by the Goat (was What are you wearing to pick up HBP?)
In-Reply-To: <03b001c578b2$455b99b0$210110ac@MainDesktop>
Message-ID: <001d01c578b6$8d765290$0600a8c0@hwin>

> <<<<If throughly stoned, I might try attaching some little
> horns to my head, if I were also hanging out with a lot of 
> thoroughly stoned HPfGU types. It would be a nice way to show 
> sympathy for Penny's beloved A&Ms.>>>>>>>>>>

Ouch! ::blushing furiously::

I was about to come clean about it, honest, but I forgot: I don't know
beans about college football. My grandfather played at Clemson - or
rather (depending on who tells the story) once almost met someone who
thought about trying to make the practice team* - but the college scene
is too difficult to follow overseas. I have a pretty good handle on the
pros, though, not to mention an exhaustive knowledge of the Swiss
League! 

The worst of it: I notice that being an expert on college ball seems to
be the token of a true connoisseur. Like wearing a masonic ring or being
able to explain semiotics. Once again, I'm stuck on the wrong side of
the fence ... <moping>

_______________________________
* Feel free to speculate about genetics, and how far apples fall from
trees, and so on. 


Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 12:25:23 2005
From: neilward at flyingfordanglia.yahoo.invalid (Neil Ward)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:25:23 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED] + realities; locked room, etc
In-Reply-To: <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d9gu3j+m8pq@...>

Pippin proposed:

<< What you find  inside the locked room is what you bring with you. 
And that faith is the key. It's been said (can't remember by who) 
that the theme of modern fantasy is, "Believe in yourself, then 
believe in something larger than yourself." >>

I've just read a scene towards the end of OoP, where Harry fires a 
Crucio curse at Bellatrix and it merely upends her.  She tells him 
that with Unforgivable Curses, "you need to mean them, Potter! You 
need to really want to cause pain
"

So, Harry's curse fails because it doesn't have his full conviction 
behind it; he blames himself partly for the death of Sirius and is 
thus unable to channel unreserved hate at Bellatrix (if he were 
capable of that at all).  So, rather than unconditional love in the 
locked room, it's more unreserved faith or conviction in something 
that gives it power, whether it be something good or bad?  If that's 
what you mean, yes, that makes sense.

Pippin moved on to realities in fantasy worlds, citing Tolkien:

<< Voldemort is depicted as part of primary reality, and we're told 
his actions are going to have effect in the Muggle world, so I 
suspect the key to defeating him will be depicted as part of primary 
reality also. Does that make sense? >>

You could say I am Grawp to Pippin's Hermy when it comes to 
Tolkien ? I don't have the advantage of a deep knowledge of his 
work.  However, I think I get the idea of primary and secondary 
realities.  The problem I have is in the blurring between actual 
reality and primary and secondary fantasy realities.  

The Muggle world is not the real world; it's an alternative reality 
within, or alongside, which sits a secondary reality.   When 
applying `real world' rules to the realities of JKR's universe, we 
cannot know to what extent the usual rules apply in contrast to her 
invented rules in any part of her universe.  There may be some 
fundamental truths to which JKR must adhere to avoid appearing 
before the Mythopoeic Wizengamot, but where is the line drawn?   

Mike posted further on the differential between primary and 
secondary reality. In his first point, he says: 

<< By "primary world" Tolkien means the world *we* live in, or 
perhaps more acurately our world, as the author perceives
it
 By "secondary world" Tolkien means the world created by the 
mythopoeic author. >>

Okay, as I see it, JKR's primary world would still be fictional, not 
strictly the real world, so hasn't she created one world with Muggle 
and wizarding parts that each draw upon the real world, the former 
more so than the latter?   

Mike's point 3 included: 

<< In many (though not all!) fantasy stories there is *also* a 
distinction between what I would call the "outer world" and 
the "inner world." >>

Okay, I'm with you on this one, although I guess the logic could 
apply equally to the idea of the worlds being parallel, interlaced 
or coincident in parts, rather than one being strictly within the 
other.  

Mike added:

<< The outer world in fantasy fiction is an incomplete world, with 
the potential of completion through the discovery of the inner, 
magical world. >>

I'm not sure I understood the caprine logic on this one. Are you 
saying it's one world, with the inner part being hidden from the 
outer with the potential to be discovered, but not vice versa?  In 
other words, by an "inner" world perhaps you mean the "hidden" part 
from the perspective of the main viewpoint, as this would cover a 
scenario involving multiple variant universes, as with His Dark 
Materials and much of Diana Wynne Jones' work. 

Mike's fourth point was more intriguing:  

<< it's between a "lower supernatural" (say, falling out of a window 
and bouncing) and a "true supernatural" (things like love, 
vulnerability, forgiveness ? or whatever *you* find inside the 
locked room). And whereas the lower supernatural things are limited 
to [JKR's]  secondary, inner world (i.e. the wizarding world), the 
higher supernatural things can be found (and lost) in all worlds. >>

I understand what you're saying, but I wouldn't class love, 
vulnerability and forgiveness as supernatural things.  They are 
natural and subjective experiences (so perhaps intranatural would be 
the correct term?), but certainly powerful.  What is supernatural is 
the fact that Harry and Voldemort are conjoined in this inner world 
of experiences.      

<< Put otherwise: [JKR] holds the "higher" supernatural things
to be as much present in our own "unmagical" reality as in the 
magical reality of Hogwarts>>

If you're meaning the real real world, rather than the Muggle real 
world, I think the difference is that these "higher" supernatural 
things appear to create or enhance forces in the Potterverse, rather 
than being experienced only by the inner self.

I'm probably more confused now then when I started writing this, but 
that's the nature of things (or is it the supernature?)

Neil, soon disapparating for a few days






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 14:23:55 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:23:55 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED] + realities; locked room, etc
In-Reply-To: <d9gu3j+m8pq@...>
Message-ID: <d9h51r+ntcf@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> wrote:
> 
> I've just read a scene towards the end of OoP, where Harry fires a 
> Crucio curse at Bellatrix and it merely upends her.  She tells him 
> that with Unforgivable Curses, "you need to mean them, Potter! You 
> need to really want to cause pain
"
> 
> So, Harry's curse fails because it doesn't have his full conviction 
> behind it; he blames himself partly for the death of Sirius and is 
> thus unable to channel unreserved hate at Bellatrix (if he were 
> capable of that at all).  

Extracting a single point out  from a multitude of others -
I'm not totally convinced about this.
Yeah, lots of members see it the same way that you do,  but how often
has Harry got any spell right first time?

Also, if we consider Crouch!Moody's mumblings while demonstrating
the Unforgiveables ".. needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you
could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the
words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nose bleed."  If he's to be
believed available power, or perhaps the ability to control the necessary
power matters more than anything else. Admittedly he was commenting
on AKs, but I suspect the Unforgiveables are so called because they
exert an unethical controlling power over another. (A metaphor for 
oppression of the individual. Aren't they an expression of breaches of 
those freedoms asserted in the Declaration of Human Rights?  IIRC Jo
has confirmed this, or is that my imagination?) 

Anyway, we're left with the question - Just how powerful is Harry?
Is he, for example, more powerful than Bella? Or Malfoy Snr?
Being rated highly as a 5th year at Hogwarts is all very laudable, but
one would not expect full powers until adulthood. 
What we've seen so far is potential not yet come to fruition.

I'll bet that if he casts an Unforgiveable  in the next book it'll be a
lot more effective than that cast in the last. 
He's getting to be a big boy now.

Kneasy






From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 15:06:21 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:06:21 -0000
Subject: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED] + realities; locked room, etc
In-Reply-To: <d9h51r+ntcf@...>
Message-ID: <d9h7hd+10645@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
 
> Anyway, we're left with the question - Just how powerful is Harry?
> Is he, for example, more powerful than Bella? Or Malfoy Snr?
> Being rated highly as a 5th year at Hogwarts is all very laudable, but
> one would not expect full powers until adulthood. 
> What we've seen so far is potential not yet come to fruition.


This is a very good question, and the evidence we can examine is
confusing.

I imagine being a really good flyer would count as being magically
powerful in one discrete area, at least. Or is it mere athleticism
(remember that at Muggle primary school Harry was always picked last
for teams, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted
Dudley's gang to think they liked him)?  I'm guessing it's at least
partly magical power because of the first flying lesson in PS where
Harry's broom went "up."

So much is made of Harry's corporeal patronus -- and then in the DA
meeting we see the swan, the otter, and the beginnings of "something
hairy."  We can not say "Hermione's and Cho's don't really count as
the girls weren't under any threat at the time," because Harry's DADA
examiner was impressed enough to give him a bonus point for his with
nary a dementor or boggart in sight.  We could, however, conclude that
Hermione and Cho are also powerfully magical (did anyone else produce
a corporeal patronus?).  By the way, does Hermione know she missed a
chance at a bonus point in her DADA OWL?

In the graveyard in GoF, Harry pushed the Priori Incantatem light
beads back into Voldemort's wand, winning that battle of magical
wills.  Or did he?  Was Voldemort even pushing back?  Also, Harry had
the advantage of the Phoenix song which gives courage to the Pure of
Heart but strikes fear into the Evil.  Er, is anyone going to argue
that Jo doesn't actually mean Harry to be Pure of Heart?  And that's
not a magical attribute.

Out of left field, maybe, but what's the meaning behind Harry's
teacup's stubby legs that don't reach the table, Ron's tall gangly
ones that collapse, and Hermione's perfect ones that run her teacup
right off the table?  Maybe nothing, but I always get a kick out of
that scene and wondered if it was symbolic of something.

Frankly, there's little real data on anyone, as far as magical power
is concerned, except when the narrator tells us directly. As far as
successfully casting spells goes, confidence, intelligence, and even
paying attention in class seem to have as much to do with it as
magical power (cf the twins' three OWLs apiece).  It might be safe to
assume that to get 12 OWLs you need to be powerful *and* intelligent.
 Even with Umbridge, we don't know that she *can't* do much magic; she
may just not be smart enough to figure out which spells to use ('don't
stun them, Filch!').

Anne

P.S. I've been following the
religion/fantasy/bloated-primary/secondary discussion but have nothing
to contribute except that I agree with Kneasy.  Jo's writing a story
first.  Once Evil entered, Good rose to oppose it, and Good will at
least be compatible with Jo's beliefs.






From joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid  Fri Jun 24 21:29:38 2005
From: joym999 at joywitch_m_curmudgeon.yahoo.invalid (joywitch_m_curmudgeon)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:29:38 -0000
Subject: Tangential to Re: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED]
In-Reply-To: <000a01c57888$6ae783d0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d9hu02+6031@...>

I'm wondering if the natural/supernatural; inner/outer; 
primary/secondary distinctions are universal.  For example, how would 
you apply that analysis to the Series of Unfortunate Events?

JZC





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 25 14:25:02 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:25:02 -0000
Subject: Tangential to Re: Understanding Goat's Law [BLOATED]
In-Reply-To: <d9hu02+6031@...>
Message-ID: <d9jpfu+rhc4@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "joywitch_m_curmudgeon" <joym999 at a...> 
wrote:
> I'm wondering if the natural/supernatural; inner/outer; 
> primary/secondary distinctions are universal.  For example, how would 
> you apply that analysis to the Series of Unfortunate Events?
> 
> JZC

Pippin:
I've only read the first one and it didn't have much effect on me.
What I was trying to get at, in my rambly way,  was whether the 
sensation of being transported to an alternate plane of existence, 
name it what you will, is in itself a religious (or bartlefidget) 
experience.

Pippin






From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 25 23:09:56 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:09:56 -0000
Subject: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <000b01c575e0$711d0ae0$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d9ko84+9car@...>

Mike theorized in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1863 :

<< "Goat's Law":

- Where the author of any given work of fantasy fiction takes a
positive stance toward the contemporary practice of a religion which
poses questions basic to the narrative, the practice of that religion
is unlikely to be directly portrayed in the fantasy societies created
by that work.

- Extension: In fact, the more positive the religious stance, the more
"secular" the portrayal; the more negative the stance, the more
"religious" the protrayal. >> 

According to me, that is not true of fantasy authors who are Wiccans
and similar kinds of Neopagan. 

By the way, I ENJOYED all the books mentioned in this comment. Some of
them I re-read when I was in my teens like listies re-read HP as
adults.

A nasty person could even accuse some of writing fantasy only as an
excuse to write about their religion. (A not extremely good book
titled THE RIGHT HAND OF DEXTRA comes to mind, or is it exempted by
the pretense that it is science fiction because of being set on
another planet where all this stuff is not supernatural because the
laws of nature are different there?)

But I am thinking of authors who write fantasy because that is what
they do for a living, and presumably also as a vocation. Diana Paxson
-- I think of her first two 'Westria' books, back in the 1980s, whose
titles I cannot recall, but which were reviewed in one Paganzine as
dull boring stories whose rituals should be 'stolen' for real-life
use. 

Marion Zimmer Bradley -- I was thinking of her Darkover series (which
completely fails to 'pass' as science fiction), where as MZB over time
became more 'out' about her religion, the religion in the stories
became less a decorative flourish (like: "This is a fantasy so people
will cuss "By Aldones!' instead of 'By God!") to something [some of]
the characters felt sincerely. A glance at amazon.com to try to find
the titles of the first two Westria books reminded me of The Mists of
Avalon (which would have been less dull if it were shorter, i.e. if
she hadn't become so successful that no one was allowed to edit her
writing) which is *unquestionably* NeoPagan propaganda.

(The 'no editting!' demand was also the flaw of her book, title I
cannot remember, about a planet named Isis/Cinderella. That one
doesn't get into this reply because it was a feminist rather than
Pagan diatribe.)

What should be said of Katherine Kurtz's LAMMAS NIGHT? 





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 25 23:18:32 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:18:32 -0000
Subject: checking out the library book / Love - massively OT, mostly
In-Reply-To: <d98u2e+f5ml@...>
Message-ID: <d9koo8+11dk7@...>

Kneasy wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1868 :

<< A nunnery could be much more useful than just as a religious House.
Hence Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery."  >>

My friend the ABD in English Literature (from UCLA) told me that the
'nunnery' Hamlet meant was a slang term for whorehouse, especially
since Shakespeare wrote Hamlet under Elizabeth I, when the monasteries
and convents had all been disbanded and being Catholic cast doubt on
one's loyalty to the monarch. 

IIRC she said it was a cliche in Eng Lit departments that Hamlet is
the story of a Protestant son and a Catholic father -- her example was
that Hamlet's father's ghost said he was speaking from Purgatory, but
the Church of England didn't believe in Purgatory, thus giving Hamlet
good reason to doubt that it was really his father's ghost speaking.

(Mind you, she was in grad school in the 1960s and everything believed
in those days might be different now.) 

(See, I've made the subject line 'checking out the library book'
relevant again in a whole new way!)





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 25 23:45:33 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:45:33 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9ca0i+ikv8@...>
Message-ID: <d9kqat+ckum@...>

Neri wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1891 :

<< Granted, JKR has the sharp divide between Light and Dark which is
indeed more a Christian concept than of any other religion/culture, >>

I am amazed that no one pointed out that the sharp divide and big
battle between good and evil, called Light and Dark, was originated by
the Zoroastrian religion (as reported by ewe2 in her post snipped
below), whose adherents are called Parsees, which is a clue that it
was the religion of the great Persian empire of Darius and Cyrus and
Xerxes. 

As such, Zoroastrianism had some influence on some Jewish thinkers
when Judaea was under the Persian empire and rather more influence on
some Classical Greek thinkers when the Greek cities of Asia Minor were
under the Persian empire, and some influence on that whole Middle East
and Central Asia which would pass from the Persian empire to
Alexander's empire and Hellenism. Thus accounting for the presence of
Hell and the Devil (the latter a Zoroastrian word) in Gnosticism,
Christianity and Islam.

Stop me before I go on to explain Manichaeanism.

ewe2 wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1907 :

<< I sometimes wonder what the religious landscape would look like
without the influence of Zoroastrianism, that either/or dualism from
which Christianity and other religions derive both their strength and
weakness from. The strength is that force gained with focus, the
weakness the inability to tolerate difference. >>

But Cyrus the Great, a sufficiently devout Zoroastrian (pace, Kneasy,
that doesn't have to be *very* devout) to (pay for workmen to) carve
huge stone inscriptions thanking Ahura Mazda for giving him all these
victories and conqering an empire, was sufficiently tolerant of
differences that he let all the ethnic groups conquered by the
Babylonian empire go back to their homelands and rebuild their temples
to their miscellaneous gods. The Jews wrote in their Bible (in the
third part, the miscellaneous writings) that their God, the Lord, had
sent Cyrus to free them from Babylonian captivity. 

Joseph Campbell, in THE MASKS OF GOD, IIRC volume 3, listed examples
of other ([paleo-]pagan) nations who left inscriptions praising their
own gods for sending Cyrus to free them from Babylon. 

Neri wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1885 :

<< The Hebrew word re'em refers to the Arabian Oryx, an antelope with
(of course) two long straight horns, which was common in Israel in
biblical times, and finally hunted to near extinction in the 19th
century. I personally had the privilege to do some volunteer work in a
reservation in the Arava desert:

http://www.geocities.com/jelbaum/haibar.html
http://redseadesert.com/html/060haibar.html

where they reintroduce these beautiful animals into the wild. This was
a very interesting and exciting work, not to mention slightly
dangerous. One of the females very nearly skewered me when I captured
her newly-born fawn for marking. >>

Cool! I remember seeing those oryxes (oryces?) in the San Diego Zoo
when (according to their plaque) the re-introduction had only just
begun ... I think that must have been 30+ years ago, as that was a
visit to the zoo with my late father... Anyway, an oryx was pacing in
a wide-diameter circle, giving us good views from all angles to
photograph, and I saw him in profile and said: "That's a unicorn!"

P.S. JKR has included the re'em in Fantastic Beasts as a different
creature from the unicorn.






From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sat Jun 25 23:48:42 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:48:42 -0000
Subject: What are you wearing to pick up HBP?
In-Reply-To: <001a01c578a5$4e7fea30$0600a8c0@hwin>
Message-ID: <d9kqgq+as5l@...>

Mike the Goad (typo, but I kept it) wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1910 :

<< Oh - and while I'm rambling about things that really count: it's
GREAT to hear that Penny understands about foo'ball (Texan
pronounciation). I haven't seen the movie yet - but I've read about
it, and it sounds pretty sad. There *is* point where sports turn
stupid, instead of crazy. >> 

I have never read the book nor seen the movie, but I recall a review
of the movie which complained that it was all prettied up and
romanticised from the book, which suggests that the book was pretty
sad indeed. Unless the reviewer was an idiot, which has been known to
happen.





From ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 00:54:11 2005
From: ewetoo at ewe2_au.yahoo.invalid (ewe2)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 10:54:11 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9kqat+ckum@...>
References: <d9ca0i+ikv8@...> <d9kqat+ckum@...>
Message-ID: <20050626005411.GC8431@...>

On Sat, Jun 25, 2005 at 11:45:33PM -0000, Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
> Neri wrote in 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1891 :
> 
> << Granted, JKR has the sharp divide between Light and Dark which is
> indeed more a Christian concept than of any other religion/culture, >>
> 
> I am amazed that no one pointed out that the sharp divide and big
> battle between good and evil, called Light and Dark, was originated by
> the Zoroastrian religion (as reported by ewe2 in her post snipped
> below), whose adherents are called Parsees, which is a clue that it
> was the religion of the great Persian empire of Darius and Cyrus and
> Xerxes. 

I really thought the Zoroastrian angle was more obvious, glad you picked that
up. BTW, I should explain that I am in fact a _male_ penguin in disguise as a
sheep as part of my cover, and no offence taken :) Yes, Zoroastrianism is sort
of an ongoing Ragnark, last goodie standing so to speak. What theories like
MAGIC DISHWASHER are saying at a basic level is that DD thinks this is
a Bad Thing and DE's do not. To take the Manichaeist POV, God is DD and the
Devil is Voldy, it has the same appealing neatness, and the assumption that
the universe is broken by the Bad Guy and God is fixing it. 

> Stop me before I go on to explain Manichaeanism.

Ok, stop. Here's a good reference:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09591a.htm

Compare with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

> But Cyrus the Great, a sufficiently devout Zoroastrian (pace, Kneasy,
> that doesn't have to be *very* devout) to (pay for workmen to) carve
> huge stone inscriptions thanking Ahura Mazda for giving him all these
> victories and conqering an empire, was sufficiently tolerant of
> differences that he let all the ethnic groups conquered by the
> Babylonian empire go back to their homelands and rebuild their temples
> to their miscellaneous gods. The Jews wrote in their Bible (in the
> third part, the miscellaneous writings) that their God, the Lord, had
> sent Cyrus to free them from Babylonian captivity. 

Ye-es but I'm really talking about Desert Religion + Zoroastrianism. It seems
everyone before monotheism exhibited a relative tolerance to other religions.
Except the Hebrews. And the Christians. To say nothing of Islam. Many forget
the parts of the Old Testament where various Prophets of the Lord fought a
seemingly hopless battle with their own people to get them to stop worshipping
bulls, calves, the gods of other religions, etc and concentrate on the one
God. 

> Joseph Campbell, in THE MASKS OF GOD, IIRC volume 3, listed examples
> of other ([paleo-]pagan) nations who left inscriptions praising their
> own gods for sending Cyrus to free them from Babylon. 

I've been told that JC is a Bad Man and should not be listened to on any
account. I have the books, and I must say volume 4 is mostly wasted on Joyce.

-- 
sed awk grep cat dd ..Im a luser baby ,so why don't you killall -kill me.




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 01:34:22 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 01:34:22 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <20050626005411.GC8431@...>
Message-ID: <d9l0mu+eafs@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, ewe2 <ewetoo at g...> wrote:
> Ye-es but I'm really talking about Desert Religion +
Zoroastrianism. It seems everyone before monotheism exhibited 
a relative tolerance to other religions.
> Except the Hebrews. And the Christians. To say nothing of Islam.
Many forget the parts of the Old Testament where various Prophets of
the Lord fought a seemingly hopless battle with their own people to
get them
to stopworshipping bulls, calves, the gods of other religions, etc and
concentrate on the one God. 
>
Pippin:
The polytheistic Egyptians attempted to wipe out the monotheistic
religion of Aten, and decreed that Aten could not be named or
depicted. 

There's a theory that some worshippers of Aten continued to believe 
in their now nameless and imageless god, and this was one of the
roots of Hebrew monotheism.

I think there's an anti-Zorastrian passage in Isaiah where he
identifies God as the creator of both good and evil. 

Pippin





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 02:01:46 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:01:46 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9l0mu+eafs@...>
Message-ID: <d9l2aa+7b90@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...>
wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1926 

<< The polytheistic Egyptians attempted to wipe out the monotheistic
religion of Aten, and decreed that Aten could not be named or 
depicted. >> 

Only after the religion of Aten, via the absolute power of the
monarchy, had attempted to wipe out all the other gods whom the
general population loved. Us twentieth-century EuroAmericans were
given the general idea that Atenism, being monotheistic, worshipped
the 'true God', the 'one' worshipped by Judaism and Christianity and
Islam, and therefore was a wonderful thing and an example of heroic
rebellion against falsehood or bureaucracy or The Establishment or
some damned (!) thing.

But it wasn't. Atenism was purely a celebration of the King's and the
King's Chief Wife's power. Totally anti-democratic (!). All the
depictions in Akhetaten (Amarna) (Akhet-Aten = Horizon of the Sun)
were of the Aten showering gifts (e.g. Life) on the King and his wife
and daughters, which non-royals could merely HOPE that the royal
nuclear family would pass on to them. In the shrine corner of the
worker's houses, where tradition was to have idols of friendly gods
like Bes (protector of children) and Heqet (goddess of childbirth),
they had idols of the royal family instead. In the courtiers' tombs,
where tradition was to depict the deceased and his family members
being welcomed by the gods to a pleasant Afterlife, they had pictures
of the royal family doing the rounds of Akhetaten. (Sometimes they had
picture of the King's late father and mother; his father, Amenhotep
III, had added 'the dazzling Aten' to his titles late in his reign.
One professor told a class I was in that 'Aten' was pronounced like
'yada', which was what Ancient Egyptian babies called their daddies.)

Besides depriving the people of the psychological comfort of
worshipping gods whom they could hope would help them be healthy in
life and happy after death, Akhenaten (Akhen-aten : Helper of the Sun)
lost the empire conquered by his father and previous ancestors and
ruined the economy.

No wonder all the survivors hated his memory.





From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 07:03:03 2005
From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston))
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:03:03 -0000
Subject: Astronomy Tower
Message-ID: <d9ljv7+unjk@...>

I just had a thought! Why do the kids have to go to the top of the
tallest tower to look at the stars, when they could look at the
ceiling of the Great Hall without getting cold and wet?





From carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 10:51:25 2005
From: carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid (carolynwhite2)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 10:51:25 -0000
Subject: Pippin! A request from the catalogue group..
Message-ID: <d9m1bd+78gn@...>

We're currently organising the Lupin theories and want to put all your 
ESE!Lupin posts in one place, but alas you've never come up with a neat 
little acronym...

We are using PELT (Pippin's ESE!Lupin Theory) as an unimaginative 
stopgap for now, but any chance of something better?

WHODUNNIT? 
(Werewolf Hopes Observers Don't Uncover Numerous Narrative Indications 
of Treachery)

CULPRIT
(Capturing Undercover Lupin Pippin Reveals Insidious Traitor)

No doubt people can do better than this...

Carolyn






From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 13:46:25 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:46:25 -0000
Subject: Pippin! A request from the catalogue group..
In-Reply-To: <d9m1bd+78gn@...>
Message-ID: <d9mbjh+bukm@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2"
<carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:
> We're currently organising the Lupin theories and want to put all
your  ESE!Lupin posts in one place, but alas you've never come up
with a neat  little acronym...

Pippin:
Yours are very good. But the theory, or rather its symbolic
representation as  a TBAY flying hedgehog (ah, those were the 
days) does have an acronym, given in message 39562.
It's LYCANTHROPE --Lupin Yields Candy, A Nasty Trick, He's Really
Obviously Perfectly Evil.  It's listed in the Inish Alley database. 

Pippin
Who has always been partial to the ever so simple LIE --Lupin Is Evil.





From carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 14:57:55 2005
From: carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid (carolynwhite2)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:57:55 -0000
Subject: Pippin! A request from the catalogue group..
In-Reply-To: <d9mbjh+bukm@...>
Message-ID: <d9mfpj+kduc@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "carolynwhite2"
> <carolynwhite2 at a...> wrote:
> > We're currently organising the Lupin theories and want to put all
> your  ESE!Lupin posts in one place, but alas you've never come up
> with a neat  little acronym...
> 
> Pippin:
> Yours are very good. But the theory, or rather its symbolic
> representation as  a TBAY flying hedgehog (ah, those were the 
> days) does have an acronym, given in message 39562.
> It's LYCANTHROPE --Lupin Yields Candy, A Nasty Trick, He's Really
> Obviously Perfectly Evil.  It's listed in the Inish Alley database. 
> 
> Pippin
> Who has always been partial to the ever so simple LIE --Lupin Is Evil.

Carolyn:

Oh, ok, you want us to use that then? It's just we read that post as an 
experimental attempt at an acronym, which was not really used much 
after that - eg as a heading for any of your major subsequent posts 
about the theory.

But, your choice, of course. That's where we'll put the threads then.

Thanks

CAROLYN
(Coding Archives Relentlessly Often Leaves You Numb)






From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 18:14:28 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 20:14:28 +0200
Subject: Anybody up on Bakhtin??
In-Reply-To: <d9gu3j+m8pq@...>
Message-ID: <000701c57a7a$e42313b0$0600a8c0@hwin>

Say -

Are any of you folks well read in Bakhtin's stuff? I discovered him
recently, and I'm interested in using his idea of the carnival as a
description of the temorary reversals that make fantasy fiction work.

BTW, you guys gave me a lot to think about on my list of differences. I
need to rethink some stuff. For now, I just wanted to say thanks for all
the comments, especially the critical ones! (I'll be honest: I'm getting
some academic work done this way, and you guys are valiantly trying to
save me from making a fool of myself.) I'll pick up on a few comments
when I get a chance.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 20:15:48 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:15:48 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9ko84+9car@...>
Message-ID: <000d01c57a8b$d79d9a00$0600a8c0@hwin>

Rita wrote,

> According to me, that is not true of fantasy authors who are
> Wiccans and similar kinds of Neopagan. 

Thanks, Rita. The only books you mention that I've read are the Avalon
series - and that was a long time back, so I don' have it clearly in
mind.

However, what you say makes sense. I have a hunch that earth religions
are particularly amenable to phantasy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
have the impression that Neo-pagan movements think want us to see our
own primary world as much personal and spiritual and powerful and
magical than we think. As such, a Neo-pagan could write fantasy that is
meant to be taken as more or less factual description of the way the
world really is. 

Presumably, the magic involved would be a bit toned down - not over the
top stuff that everyone agrees is impossible (to wit, Hogwarts style
magic) but forms of magic that a Neopagan considers to be part of the
natural order of things.

If I'm flaunting my ignorance, feel free to whack me over the snout with
a newspaper.

But if I'm at least going in the right direction, here's a parallel: The
Left Behind books, by Lahye and Jenkins. (For the record, I think
they're awful.) They give a fictionalized account of the end of the
world as a specific group of Christians - they're called
pre-tribulational dispensationalists - expect it to happen. They (think
they) hold to an extremely literal interpretation of the most esoteric
texts in books like Daniel, Ezechiel and Revelation - so if the Good
Book says the seas will be turned to blood, that's exactly what's going
to happen. 

At the level of plot, these books read like some of the most outlandish
fantasy fiction you've ever seen - only they're not meant that way.
They're mean to be a pretty close foretelling of things that are going
to be happening fairly soon.

It's hard to say whether they should be classified as a sort of fantasy
fiction. Their quthors don't actually think they're writing non-fiction;
it would be something more like carefully researched historical fiction
that happens to be set in the future.

I wonder if the situation is analogous.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid  Sun Jun 26 20:17:10 2005
From: aberforthsgoat at aberforths_goat.yahoo.invalid (Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray)
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:17:10 +0200
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: Religious Practice & Fantasy: Goat's Law
In-Reply-To: <d9ko84+9car@...>
Message-ID: <001101c57a8c$08614650$0600a8c0@hwin>

Rita wrote,

> According to me, that is not true of fantasy authors who are
> Wiccans and similar kinds of Neopagan. 

Thanks, Rita. The only books you mention that I've read are the Avalon
series - and that was a long time back, so I don' have it clearly in
mind.

However, what you say makes sense. I have a hunch that earth religions
are particularly amenable to phantasy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I
have the impression that Neo-pagan movements think want us to see our
own primary world as much personal and spiritual and powerful and
magical than we think. As such, a Neo-pagan could write fantasy that is
meant to be taken as more or less factual description of the way the
world really is. 

Presumably, the magic involved would be a bit toned down - not over the
top stuff that everyone agrees is impossible (to wit, Hogwarts style
magic) but forms of magic that a Neopagan considers to be part of the
natural order of things.

If I'm flaunting my ignorance, feel free to whack me over the snout with
a newspaper.

But if I'm at least going in the right direction, here's a parallel: The
Left Behind books, by Lahye and Jenkins. (For the record, I think
they're awful.) They give a fictionalized account of the end of the
world as a specific group of Christians - they're called
pre-tribulational dispensationalists - expect it to happen. They (think
they) hold to an extremely literal interpretation of the most esoteric
texts in books like Daniel, Ezechiel and Revelation - so if the Good
Book says the seas will be turned to blood, that's exactly what's going
to happen. 

At the level of plot, these books read like some of the most outlandish
fantasy fiction you've ever seen - only they're not meant that way.
They're mean to be a pretty close foretelling of things that are going
to be happening fairly soon.

It's hard to say whether they should be classified as a sort of fantasy
fiction. Their quthors don't actually think they're writing non-fiction;
it would be something more like carefully researched historical fiction
that happens to be set in the future.

I wonder if the situation is analogous.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...." 




From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 27 13:40:07 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:40:07 -0000
Subject: Pippin! A request from the catalogue group..
In-Reply-To: <d9mfpj+kduc@...>
Message-ID: <d9ovjn+kml5@...>

-> 
> Oh, ok, you want us to use that then? It's just we read that post
as an  experimental attempt at an acronym, which was not really 
used much after that - eg as a heading for any of your major 
subsequent posts about the theory.
> 
> But, your choice, of course. That's where we'll put the threads
then.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> CAROLYN
> (Coding Archives Relentlessly Often Leaves You Numb)

Pippin:
Ohhh, you want a tag to be used in headings going forward, to 
make things easier for the catalogue group? TTTT, I've always resisted
labelling the theory with an acronym except in TBAY posts  because
I didn't want people to think they had to be TBAY-ers to understand
it. People were getting it mixed up with MAGIC DISHWASHER as it 
was, not helped by the similarity between my handle and Pip's.

I never wanted the theory to be considered just as a TBAY. It is, for
what it's worth, a serious attempt to solve the puzzle, or as serious
as an attempt can be given that some don't think there *is* a puzzle.

Hmmm...LYCANTHROPE takes up too much room in the header --
any other suggestions?

Pippin
(Perpetually Insisting Prongs's Pet Is Nefarious)





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 27 14:17:55 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:17:55 -0000
Subject: dementors Re: unicorns and religious references in HP
In-Reply-To: <d9c9o1+c2sl@...>
Message-ID: <d9p1qj+e1is@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...>
wrote:

> Anne:
> And then we have that curious anti-Christian beastie in the dementor
> who can lose your soul *for* you, just for the sin of being unlucky
> enough to fall into its clutches.  I always wondered how to take
that
> -- whether it's a question Jo brought up with the intent to solve
> later, whether it was a bit of hyperbole to illustrate how
> soul-destroying depression can be, or whether it's merely as foreign
> to my Catholic roots as the doctrine of predestination is (at least
at
> first glance).
> 
> I never got anywhere with that question; I just file it under Fate
> Worse Than Death and read on.
> 

Pippin:
Sorry to take a while answering this.

CS Lewis's devils are always chowing down on the souls of unfortunate
mortals (in Perelandra and in The Screwtape Letters), so I interpreted
the dementors as an extension of Hell.  Barty Jr. wasn't exactly in a 
state of grace and neither was Sirius (he was planning to murder 
Peter, after all. And Dudley had just been beating up Mark Evans.)

The people who  waste away in Azkaban are not Kissed, so presumably 
their souls would go on to the Next Great Adventure intact.  
We don't know yet what would happen if a dementor kissed 
someone who was in a state of grace, do we?  It is not clear whether 
the dementor could have devoured Harry's soul even if it had 
succeeded in extracting it.

Pippin






From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 27 18:45:14 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:45:14 -0000
Subject: unicorns and religious references in HP  (was checking out the library book
In-Reply-To: <d9c9o1+c2sl@...>
Message-ID: <d9phfq+cd5d@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...> wrote:
> 
> Anne:
> And then we have that curious anti-Christian beastie in the dementor
> who can lose your soul *for* you, just for the sin of being unlucky
> enough to fall into its clutches.  I always wondered how to take that
> -- whether it's a question Jo brought up with the intent to solve
> later, whether it was a bit of hyperbole to illustrate how
> soul-destroying depression can be, or whether it's merely as foreign
> to my Catholic roots as the doctrine of predestination is (at least at
> first glance).
> 
> I never got anywhere with that question; I just file it under Fate
> Worse Than Death and read on.

You were more right than you realise.
Dementors are the physical manifestation of Depression, according
to Jo. The real stuff, not just sadness. She admits in her interview of
23rd Oct 2000 that she herself was very badly affected at one time,
and it was only her thoughts for her daughter that stirred her  to
find a way out of it and made her realise she should talk to a doctor.

Odd that a traditional English phrase refers to severe depression as
'The Black Dog' - and often used by Churchill who was prone to attacks.
So in HP we have Sirius tormented by Dementors, a Black Dog with a 
attack of 'The Black Dog'.
Not accidental, I think. 

Kneasy






From carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid  Mon Jun 27 20:08:20 2005
From: carolynwhite2 at carolynwhite2.yahoo.invalid (carolynwhite2)
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:08:20 -0000
Subject: Pippin! A request from the catalogue group..
In-Reply-To: <d9ovjn+kml5@...>
Message-ID: <d9pmbk+sg55@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Ohhh, you want a tag to be used in headings going forward, to 
> make things easier for the catalogue group? TTTT, I've always 
resisted labelling the theory with an acronym except in TBAY posts  
because I didn't want people to think they had to be TBAY-ers to 
understand it. People were getting it mixed up with MAGIC DISHWASHER 
as it  was, not helped by the similarity between my handle and Pip's.
> 
> I never wanted the theory to be considered just as a TBAY. It is, 
for what it's worth, a serious attempt to solve the puzzle, or as 
serious as an attempt can be given that some don't think there *is* a 
puzzle.
> 
> Hmmm...LYCANTHROPE takes up too much room in the header --
> any other suggestions?
> 
> Pippin
> (Perpetually Insisting Prongs's Pet Is Nefarious)

Carolyn:

Sort of. The problem is that there are a number of independent ESE!
Lupin posts as well as your theory (obviously none as well worked out 
or ongoing). The dither is whether to separate them out, so your 
posts can be read in sequence by themselves, or whether it is more 
useful to people to find all such ESE!Lupin posts together, alongside 
all the hysterical responses, strangely denouncing the very idea as 
utter tripe <g>.

As far as the TBAY aspect goes, we don't really see that as a 
problem. The main MD posts were not TBAY in style, nor were many of 
the ensuing battles, although of course some of them were (episodes 
in the Safe House etc). I think the same goes for your ESE!Lupin - 
sometimes the posts are TBAY, many are not.

We are adding a marker for any post that is in TBAY style, so that 
people can do searches which exclude them if it makes them throw up 
to read them [sad souls, they'll miss so much of the flavour of the 
list].

My hesitation about LYCANTHROPE is not that it is especially long, 
but that I wouldn't necessarily go to it thinking, 'aha! Pippin's 
theory', as the acronym just hasn't been used enough over time for 
people to make this strong association. MD you would turn to (under 
Dumbledore), knowing exactly what you were going to find.

It's an interesting problem, one of many.

Carolyn
.. who came across this sad farewell to TBAY the other day. Things 
never were quite the same again:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/messages/61153








From josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 10:08:54 2005
From: josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid (mooseming)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:08:54 -0000
Subject: Sacrifice my love
Message-ID: <d9r7jm+lllh@...>

I've been following the theology discussions with interest and a 
growing awareness of my own ignorance. Given that my education 
consists of C of E Sunday school to the age of 10 I shouldn't be 
surprised!

Mostly I remember the pictures were hard to colour in because of all 
those little stones. The stones confused me because I lived on clay, 
there were no stones simply lying around. This led to enormous 
problems with the concept of `stoning to death' it made no sense, 
hanging, burning, drowning these I understood there being plenty of 
trees and water where I lived, but stoning seemed vastly 
implausible. 

I also had a problem with Jesus being able to tell the sheep from 
the goats which didn't seem hard to me and was therefore a rubbish 
metaphor. 

Fortunately a visit to Israel cleared up these issues it being 
literally littered with handy sized rocks and bereft of trees and 
water, also the goats and sheep there are practically 
indistinguishable especially from a distance.

My other lasting dilemma is the `give unto Caesar' parable. Mostly 
the parables were about being nice to people, forgiving, love etc. 
Give unto Caesar seemed to say Jesus was good because he was a smart 
arse and I couldn't quite square that with everything else, still 
can`t.

Actually I have one other dilemma which is `Jesus as sacrifice' but 
not wishing to offend anyone I'll skip over that and simply say that 
thinking about sacrifice in HP threw up a few ideas. Sacrifice is a 
major theme in HP and I wondered where JKR might be going with it.

Limited though my understanding may be I still have a moral 
philosophy (head for the high ground) which is that morality is born 
of culture and instinct. I do not believe that there is an absolute 
morality that exists beyond the human. I suspect in this I'm at odds 
with JKR. I have no idea what JKR believes, as she has pointed out 
no one has ever asked her, but this position would be consistent 
with HP.

If morality exists independent of individual experience, an internal 
otherness that is given to all at birth it would explain how Harry 
arrives at the age of 11 as a functioning social, moral individual 
in spite of his background. It would explain what is in the locked 
room, not warm woolly love but true good which encompasses tough 
love and hard choices. It is the white light of moral certainty that 
illuminates all our decisions and guides us to do what is best and 
not necessarily easy. Harry possesses this power `in such 
quantities' because of Lily's love and sacrifice, he has Lily's eyes 
and can therefore tell a sheep from a goat. Dumbledore is not 
Kneasy's machiavellian meddler but a man with his finger on the 
pulse of righteousness. 

Voldemort has this power not at all. This is how he has cheated 
death, by driving morality out. He does not know how he has expunged 
it ('it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked') 
precisely because he can no longer tell which is the biggest bad. In 
regenerating his body at the end of GoF Voldemort made a mistake in 
using Harry's blood (forcibly taken) because, inadvertently, he has 
made himself vulnerable to virtue once more. Dumbledore knows this 
(the gleam in the eye) Voldemort does not, not knowing how he came 
by his immortality in the first place.

How can he have exorcised that which is `more wonderful and more 
terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of 
nature`? The reverse Lily play. If Tom Riddle sacrificed someone who 
loved him for his own immortality then he has lost his humanity. Who 
is this someone and is she (for `she' she surely must be) the reason 
Snape has defected (if you think he has)? Was she at school with 
Lily, one of the group of laughing girls, and is she the reason 
Snape warned the Potters at Godrics Hollow (if you think he did)? 
Lollipops lite if you will. 

In the final showdown Lily's selfless sacrifice must surely be 
stronger than Voldemort's selfish one. Harry with the ability to 
tell right from wrong will act on it but what (or who) will the 
final sacrifice be?

With only weeks to go to the penultimate book I hope you can forgive 
this final spell of wild speculation but I thought it might be my 
last chance
..

Regards
Jo





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 10:50:30 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:50:30 +0100
Subject: There's not much to go on
Message-ID: <F0A1E65F-3FEE-40F1-85B8-9B78AD053155@...>

For all the theorising, deduction, reading of runes, pawing over the  
entrails of Jo's cryptic (and I suspect more often than not  
deliberately misleading) 'leaks' or outright wishful thinking on our  
part, we really have little idea of what to expect when, after what  
seems like an interminable wait we finally get our hot, sweaty little  
mitts on HBP and crack it open to Chapter One.

I'm purposefully setting the bar high here, 'cos there have been  
occasions in the past when expectations were sadly dashed. (I'm  
particularly thinking of the time herself opined that we'd learn  
something very important about Lily in OoP. Didn't seem that way to  
me; interesting maybe, but important? It more or less showed Lily in  
a light that most readers had already accepted as inevitable IMO.)

So what are we left with that isn't open to multiple meanings?

1. Harry spends shortest time yet in Privet Drive, and it's not  
unpleasant.
2. Harry is going to realise that he must get his act together.
3. There will be a new Minister for Magic and it's not Arthur.
4. The war really gets going (but wasn't that one of Jo's hints for  
book 5?).
5. One or more of the characters dies.
(We all assume it'll be a main character, but even this isn't  
confirmed absolutely -  see Madam Scoop's Rumours section. Somebody  
dies, but their importance is as yet unknown. Mind you, nobody  
believes it'll be an obscure beater from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.)

Not a lot, is it?
How many other statements/comments can you come up with that are  
close to cut and dried definitive?

Lower down the scale of certainty there're quite  a few bits and  
pieces that have quickened the blood or kicked imaginations into  
overdrive, but they seem so non-specific that they could be designed  
to get us running around like clockwork mice - "... learn more about  
Sirius/Snape/Longbottoms" is all very well, but we would only be  
surprised if we *didn't* find out more about them. Similarly the  
clutch of chapter titles we've been given - they whet the appetite  
but don't enlighten.

Mind you, I'm particularly interested in her hints about the Chamber  
"holding very important clues to the ultimate end of the series with  
crucial information in book 6" but as an ardent Possessionist with a  
vested interest in that mysterious bit of architecture and its true  
purpose, I would be, wouldn't I? On the other hand, we've been told  
there's a graveyard at Hogwarts - but is it important in and of  
itself? Or is it merely an atmospheric setting for a bit of Harry- 
sneaking-out-at-night hanky-panky?

One non-specific really gets my juices flowing - that at one point in  
the writing of HBP she was rubbing her hands with fiendish glee.  
Sounds good, that. But whether it be the explication of previous  
clue, red herring, plot twist or revelation we're not told. It's  
unlikely to be something new in terms of the continuing themes ("time  
for answers, not more questions") but it could be something solely  
concerned with the sub-plot specific to HBP.

Exaggeration and rumour have played their part, too. Remember back  
towards the end of '03? There was mention that Jo had allowed that  
Harry would get a new pet. A fair amount of speculation ensued on the  
HPfGU board - but it turns out that the oracle was much vaguer than  
that - "Harry might get a new pet at some point, but I won't say more  
than that." Still, it was enough to get the fans off and running.

But in one way the lack of information is a relief, and I'll be even  
more relieved if the answers provided in book 6 are few in number and  
minor in importance. Otherwise what will we have to speculate about  
until book 7 arrives?

Kneasy





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 11:10:00 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:10:00 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <F0A1E65F-3FEE-40F1-85B8-9B78AD053155@...>
Message-ID: <d9rb68+bcor@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> Mind you, I'm particularly interested in her hints about the
Chamber   "holding very important clues to the ultimate end 
of the series with   crucial information in book 6" 

Pippin:
I had a thought about that --there are hints all through FBAWTFT that
the wizards are in the habit of using monsters as treasure guardians. 
Even way back in Book One Harry thinks there might be dragons
guarding Gringotts. Now suppose the basilisk was actually bestowed in 
the Chamber to guard some secret that Riddle never discovered at all?
 
And, like Goldilocks, it's still there...

Pippin





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 12:49:42 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:49:42 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9rb68+bcor@...>
Message-ID: <d9rh16+l97a@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith
> <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> > Mind you, I'm particularly interested in her hints about the
> Chamber   "holding very important clues to the ultimate end 
> of the series with   crucial information in book 6" 
> 
> Pippin:
> I had a thought about that --there are hints all through FBAWTFT that
> the wizards are in the habit of using monsters as treasure guardians. 
> Even way back in Book One Harry thinks there might be dragons
> guarding Gringotts. Now suppose the basilisk was actually bestowed in 
> the Chamber to guard some secret that Riddle never discovered at all?
>  
> And, like Goldilocks, it's still there...
> 

Treasure - or secrets yet to be revealed.

That Chamber presents differing plot opportunities depending on one's
own personal tastes. No ambiguity as to my preferences, I plump for it
being/having been the centre, the nexus, of the spirit (actual and 
metaphorical) of Slytherin - the person and the House.

But there again I have a vivid imagination. That scar that Harry sports,
subject of lots of rune, lightning speculation and who knows what else by
the fans. Nah, not for me -  it's a stylised 'S' for Salazar, stylised very 
similarly to the collar flashes of the SS in the not-so-recent European 
unpleasantness. 
Old Sally is at the bottom of all this, you mark my words - and Harry's
job is to extirpate the rotten core, if he can.

Goldilocks?
Wasn't she the one who inflicted herself on the innocent ursine household?
Don't remember her hanging around afterwards, though.
Or have I got it wrong again?

Kneasy







From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 13:48:19 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:48:19 -0000
Subject: dementors Re: unicorns and religious references in HP
In-Reply-To: <d9p1qj+e1is@...>
Message-ID: <d9rkf3+5g5b@...>

 
> Pippin:
> Sorry to take a while answering this.
> 
> CS Lewis's devils are always chowing down on the souls of unfortunate
> mortals (in Perelandra and in The Screwtape Letters), so I interpreted
> the dementors as an extension of Hell.  Barty Jr. wasn't exactly in a 
> state of grace and neither was Sirius (he was planning to murder 
> Peter, after all. And Dudley had just been beating up Mark Evans.)

Anne:
Yes...  but C.S.Lewis is very clear that the characters involved in
his books chose it (in chosing to reject God).  In Perelandra, Weston
gave Ransom a very explicit speech in that vein.

> The people who  waste away in Azkaban are not Kissed, so presumably 
> their souls would go on to the Next Great Adventure intact.  
> We don't know yet what would happen if a dementor kissed 
> someone who was in a state of grace, do we?  It is not clear whether 
> the dementor could have devoured Harry's soul even if it had 
> succeeded in extracting it.
> 
> Pippin

Anne:
I don't know.  When Lupin explained the dementor's kiss to Harry,
there was no intimation that it mattered who the person was or what
they'd been doing lately.  As far as I can tell from the text, Harry
was in as much danger as anybody else would have been when the
dementors attacked him.

Now I do wonder, though -- do wizard parents threaten their children
with them?  "Now, be good, Kevin, or the dementors will get you!"  And
wizard children, in their turn, make their parents check under the bed
for lethifolds every night, and the closet for boggarts.

Kneasy wrote:
You were more right than you realise.
Dementors are the physical manifestation of Depression, according
to Jo. The real stuff, not just sadness. She admits in her interview of
23rd Oct 2000 that she herself was very badly affected at one time,
and it was only her thoughts for her daughter that stirred her to
find a way out of it and made her realise she should talk to a doctor.

Anne:
I'd read some of that, but not that particular interview, which has
much more detail.  Thanks for pointing that out.

I think it may have been the PoA DVD extras that contained Jo's
statement that she dreamed of creatures much like that once when she
was fifteen. *checks QQQ*  Yeah, here it is:

 "I had a nightmare in my teens, in which I saw hooded, gliding
figures. They could almost be figments of your imagination in a sort
of tortured imagination, as indeed they are. But you know what I mean?
They could be figments of a mentally ill mind. And um, that was the
thing that I was expecting in the book. Harry's particularly
vulnerable to them, but he's got a much worse post, so he would be.
You know it's not weakness, it's just the fact that he's faced more."

It may be that I personally see depression as one of the mental
illnesses which attack your mind, not your soul per se, that is
leaving me dissatisfied with all the explanations.  I wouldn't be
surprised if there is more to come about dementors, though.

~Anne





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 16:58:37 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:58:37 -0000
Subject: dementors Re: unicorns and religious references in HP
In-Reply-To: <d9rkf3+5g5b@...>
Message-ID: <d9rvjt+51fu@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...>
wrote:
>  
> Anne:
> Yes...  but C.S.Lewis is very clear that the characters involved in
his books chose it (in chosing to reject God).  In Perelandra,
Weston gave Ransom a very explicit speech in that vein.


Pippin:
I remember. But I thought Lewis was just dramatizing what it meant to
be in a state of  mortal sin. 

> Anne:
> I don't know.  When Lupin explained the dementor's kiss to Harry,
> there was no intimation that it mattered who the person was or what
> they'd been doing lately.  As far as I can tell from the text, Harry
> was in as much danger as anybody else would have been when the
> dementors attacked him.

Pippin:

Well, that is (ESE!)Lupin talking, after all. <g> *His* soul is in a
parlous state, I don't doubt. But it's clear from NHN's speech that
the wizards don't know what happens to those who have 'gone on', 
so when Lupin says your soul is lost forever, how can he know? 
It could be he just knows there's no way of coming back as a ghost 
or reuniting the soul with its body. 

Anne:
> Now I do wonder, though -- do wizard parents threaten their children
> with them?  "Now, be good, Kevin, or the dementors will get you!" 
Andwizard children, in their turn, make their parents check under the
bed for lethifolds every night, and the closet for boggarts.

Pippin:
Cute! But the dementors were, so the Ministry thought, on the side of
the angels.

I have thought this is what pushed Marietta over the edge.  When
Harry started teaching anti-dementor tactics, it clearly had nothing
to do with OWLs, and everything to do, from the point of view of a 
ministry loyalist, with subverting the duly authorized agents of law
enforcement.

Anne:
> It may be that I personally see depression as one of the mental
> illnesses which attack your mind, not your soul per se, that is
> leaving me dissatisfied with all the explanations.  I wouldn't be
> surprised if there is more to come about dementors, though.

Pippin:
For the purpose of fantasy, JKR may be taking a more old-fashioned
view of psychiatric problems, psyche being the Greek world for soul.

Pippin





From ReinaKata02 at reinakata02.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 18:01:31 2005
From: ReinaKata02 at reinakata02.yahoo.invalid (Kaitlin)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:01:31 -0000
Subject: Astronomy Tower
In-Reply-To: <d9ljv7+unjk@...>
Message-ID: <d9s39r+m333@...>

Is it the same conditions as outside, or do the maintenance 
people/elves decide what weather the ceiling should have?  If you 
remember from when Arthur takes Harry to his office before the hearing 
(OoTP), Harry notes that Arthur has windows even though he's 
underground.  Arthur tells him that magical maintenance decides what 
kind of weather they should have each day, and that they once had two 
weeks of hurricaines when maintenance was fighting for a pay raise.  
I wonder if this is the same kind of thing?
Cheers!
Kaitlin
--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" 
<catlady at w...> wrote:
> I just had a thought! Why do the kids have to go to the top of the
> tallest tower to look at the stars, when they could look at the
> ceiling of the Great Hall without getting cold and wet?





From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Tue Jun 28 18:44:44 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:44:44 -0000
Subject: dementors Re: unicorns and religious references in HP
In-Reply-To: <d9rvjt+51fu@...>
Message-ID: <d9s5qs+etvh@...>


> > Anne:
> > Yes...  but C.S.Lewis is very clear that the characters involved in
> his books chose it (in chosing to reject God).  In Perelandra,
> Weston gave Ransom a very explicit speech in that vein.
> 
> 
> Pippin:
> I remember. But I thought Lewis was just dramatizing what it meant to
> be in a state of  mortal sin. 

Anne again:
Well, it comes to the same thing.  At least, the Catholic definition
of a mortal sin is that it has to satisfy three requriements:
1. It has to be bad enough that it amounts to a rejection of God.
2. You have to know that it's that bad when you do it.
3. You have to have done it of your own free will (i.e. not under
duress, nor as the lesser of two evils as far as you can see).


> > Anne:
> > I don't know.  When Lupin explained the dementor's kiss to Harry,
> > there was no intimation that it mattered who the person was or what
> > they'd been doing lately.
> 
> Pippin:
> 
> Well, that is (ESE!)Lupin talking, after all. <g> 

Anne again:
Tch!  Silly me, re Lupin! :D  Fair point, though. We only have Lupin's
word for it, and his explanation may have been wrong or incomplete. 
After all, his explanation of what a Patronus is for must be
incomplete, if it is true that the Order use theirs to communicate.

> Anne:
> > Now I do wonder, though -- do wizard parents threaten their children
> > with them?
> 
> Pippin:
> Cute! But the dementors were, so the Ministry thought, on the side of
> the angels.

Anne again:
I was thinking of the fact that some parents have been known to
threaten their children with the police and jail if they don't behave...


> Pippin:
> For the purpose of fantasy, JKR may be taking a more old-fashioned
> view of psychiatric problems, psyche being the Greek world for soul.

Anne:
Now we're back to the crux of the matter.

Before I knew anything about JKR or her beliefs, the idea of a
creature who could suck out your soul and make it lost forever was
merely something that jounced me out of my suspension of disbelief.

Next I thought that within the story, the characters believe such a
thing is possible, but that JKR must not, and I wondered how she'd
resolve it.

Now I think there are so many variables that I have no clue what is
meant.  But, I'd like to -- so I'm just hoping we get more information
before it's all over.  Meanwhile, "fate worse than death" it is,
despite the fact that that tidbit came from Lupin. ;)

~Anne






From drednort at drednort.geo.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 02:33:41 2005
From: drednort at drednort.geo.yahoo.invalid (Shaun Hately)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:33:41 +1000
Subject: [the_old_crowd] Astronomy Tower
In-Reply-To: <d9ljv7+unjk@...>
Message-ID: <42C29525.22556.37B3D3@localhost>

On 26 Jun 2005 at 7:03, Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:

> I just had a thought! Why do the kids have to go to the top of the
> tallest tower to look at the stars, when they could look at the
> ceiling of the Great Hall without getting cold and wet?

Well, they do use telescopes - and telescopes really can't be used 
effectively astronomically speaking in heated environments - warm air 
'shimmers' (you can often see this on really hot days), and if you're 
using a telescope in a warm room to look at distant astronomical 
objects, the motion of the air within the room will have a distorting 
effect.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at ... | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia




From josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 09:11:18 2005
From: josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid (mooseming)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 09:11:18 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9rh16+l97a@...>
Message-ID: <d9tojm+ksq9@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
> > --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith
> > <arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> > > Mind you, I'm particularly interested in her hints about the
> > Chamber   "holding very important clues to the ultimate end 
> > of the series with   crucial information in book 6" 
<snip>
> That Chamber presents differing plot opportunities depending on 
one's
> own personal tastes. No ambiguity as to my preferences, I plump 
for it
> being/having been the centre, the nexus, of the spirit (actual and 
> metaphorical) of Slytherin - the person and the House.
> 
> But there again I have a vivid imagination. That scar that Harry 
sports,
> subject of lots of rune, lightning speculation and who knows what 
else by
> the fans. Nah, not for me -  it's a stylised 'S' for Salazar, 
stylised very 
> similarly to the collar flashes of the SS in the not-so-recent 
European 
> unpleasantness. 
> Old Sally is at the bottom of all this, you mark my words - and 
Harry's
> job is to extirpate the rotten core, if he can.

> 
> Kneasy

We've also been told the shape of the scar is not what is important.

I, like you, have played with the idea that it is snake shaped or 
stands for SS but the above statement threw me.

I wondered then if not the shape, what, or perhaps where?

The position maybe significant, it is in the traditional baptism 
spot of which JKR must be aware.

Lily sacrificed herself for Harry and I can't help thinking there 
must have been some magic behind her actions, some spell or charm 
that she placed on Harry to link her death to his survival.

The scar then maybe the mark created when the Voldy's spell hit 
Lily's charm and the rune she used to seal the charm (a form of 
baptism) is the 'lightening bolt' we see.

The rune itself is not significant but the fact Lily placed it there 
means it isn't Voldy's mark alone. It is in one way a mark of love.

JKR also said the scar was a window to Voldy. Love is traditionally 
our greatest vulnerability and our greatest strength, that window 
can be viewed in the same way for both parties. Voldy has already 
used it to hurt Harry, can Harry use it to 'save' Voldy? Is the 
rotten core in danger of being hugged to death?

Regards
Jo





From foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 14:50:57 2005
From: foxmoth at pippin_999.yahoo.invalid (pippin_999)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 14:50:57 -0000
Subject: Astronomy Tower
In-Reply-To: <42C29525.22556.37B3D3@localhost>
Message-ID: <d9ucgh+qud6@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...>
wrote:
> On 26 Jun 2005 at 7:03, Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote:
> 
> > I just had a thought! Why do the kids have to go to the top of the
> > tallest tower to look at the stars, when they could look at the
> > ceiling of the Great Hall without getting cold and wet?
Shaun: 
> Well, they do use telescopes - and telescopes really can't be used 
> effectively astronomically speaking in heated environments - warm
air 
> 'shimmers' (you can often see this on really hot days), and if
you're 
> using a telescope in a warm room to look at distant astronomical 
> objects, the motion of the air within the room will have a
distorting 
> effect.


Pippin:
Besides that, if it's wet, the roof of the Great Hall will show only
clouds. I suppose the telescopes are magical and can look through real 
clouds, as well as compensate for the glare of the almost full moon 
which was shining during the astronomy exam in PoA.

Then too, I think even magical telescopes are probably delicate things
that wouldn't take well to being constantly moved aside to make way 
for the tables,  or being exposed to the grease and steam of food
service.

Pippin
who finally found out what 'without wax' means. I had this vague idea
it had something to do with surfing...silly me!





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 15:06:36 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:06:36 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9tojm+ksq9@...>
Message-ID: <d9udds+5cet@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mooseming" <josturgess at e...> wrote:
> 
> We've also been told the shape of the scar is not what is important.
> 
> I, like you, have played with the idea that it is snake shaped or 
> stands for SS but the above statement threw me.
> 
> I wondered then if not the shape, what, or perhaps where?
> 
> The position maybe significant, it is in the traditional baptism 
> spot of which JKR must be aware.
> 

Kneasy:
Important - no. That it exists is important, not it's shape. But that
doesn't preclude its shape being a punning reference to old Sally.

Since it was Voldy that's responsible for it, a baptism from such a 
source would have more than a flavour of Damien/Omen than most
other possibilities.

> Lily sacrificed herself for Harry and I can't help thinking there 
> must have been some magic behind her actions, some spell or charm 
> that she placed on Harry to link her death to his survival.
> 
> The scar then maybe the mark created when the Voldy's spell hit 
> Lily's charm and the rune she used to seal the charm (a form of 
> baptism) is the 'lightening bolt' we see.
> 
> The rune itself is not significant but the fact Lily placed it there 
> means it isn't Voldy's mark alone. It is in one way a mark of love.
>

Kneasy:
Ugh! That love stuff again.  Anyway, I thought Jo had stated that it 
wasn't a rune? Or is that my imagination?


> JKR also said the scar was a window to Voldy. Love is traditionally 
> our greatest vulnerability and our greatest strength, that window 
> can be viewed in the same way for both parties. Voldy has already 
> used it to hurt Harry, can Harry use it to 'save' Voldy? Is the 
> rotten core in danger of being hugged to death?
> 

Kneasy:
Maybe. Personally the first thing I do when hugged by a professed
religious type is check my wallet.
If it were a choice between eternal perdition and a snotty teenage scrote
emoting all over me, I'd strongly advise Voldy to go for the damnation.
At least  he'd retain some pride. Anything else would be too embarassingly
Disney (spit) for comfort. If you're gonna be bad, be *bad*, don't wimp
out at the last minute, have the courage of your convictions at least.

Besides, if Harry truly is a representation of the Christian ethic then
he'll have to forgive Voldy and if attacked turn the other cheek. Good.
It'll give Voldy another chance to nail the little creep.





From josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 16:10:52 2005
From: josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid (mooseming)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:10:52 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9udds+5cet@...>
Message-ID: <d9uh6c+53dp@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mooseming" 
<josturgess at e...> wrote:
> 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Ugh! That love stuff again.  

Well you've only got yourself to blame! You kept banging on about 
your fears for the ending of the series and when I read JKR's 
response to the faq on Neville I thought you were vindicated, since 
then I've been in a tail spin from which I haven't recovered.

I'm now expecting something very conservative that promotes love, 
sacrifice and forgiveness as the answer. Not because I'd like to see 
that but because I can feel the walls closing in...

Anyway, I thought Jo had stated that it 
> wasn't a rune? Or is that my imagination?
> 
No idea...anyone else?

> 
> > JKR also said the scar was a window to Voldy. Love is 
traditionally 
> > our greatest vulnerability and our greatest strength, that 
window 
> > can be viewed in the same way for both parties. Voldy has 
already 
> > used it to hurt Harry, can Harry use it to 'save' Voldy? Is the 
> > rotten core in danger of being hugged to death?
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Maybe. Personally the first thing I do when hugged by a professed
> religious type is check my wallet.
> If it were a choice between eternal perdition and a snotty teenage 
scrote
> emoting all over me, I'd strongly advise Voldy to go for the 
damnation.
> At least  he'd retain some pride. Anything else would be too 
embarassingly
> Disney (spit) for comfort. If you're gonna be bad, be *bad*, don't 
wimp
> out at the last minute, have the courage of your convictions at 
least.

Yup, there's a strong possibility that pride will be the thing. I 
don't think that it will be Harry's love that does for Voldy but 
proof of his own Mother's love which he won't be able to tolerate. 
Voldy could have a matching scar of his own....

> 
> Besides, if Harry truly is a representation of the Christian ethic 
then
> he'll have to forgive Voldy and if attacked turn the other cheek. 
Good.
> It'll give Voldy another chance to nail the little creep.

There is another option that Harry sacrifices himself for Tom, there 
by making the Lily play with bells on. Not sure how the Christ 
reference is going to be perceived especially if JKR resurects Harry 
in the end.

Of course if Voldy isn't the big bad and Salazar is then we're off 
on the whole evil within, dark side riff. I've been playing around 
with the idea that SS like Tom and Harry was a half blood, and a 
prince to boot (well who doesn't want to kick minor royalty). The 
working title for HBP btw was 'When Harry met Sally'.

It's no good, I fear the worst but at night I dream that Neville is 
DD's 'sleeper' agent and Harry is a patsy, Snape is Petunia's sex 
slave, Kneasy is going to write a book.........zzzzzzzzzz

Regards
Jo





From annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 18:24:21 2005
From: annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid (annemehr)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:24:21 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9uh6c+53dp@...>
Message-ID: <d9up0l+ll3f@...>

 
> Anyway, I thought Jo had stated that it 
> > wasn't a rune? Or is that my imagination?
> > 
> No idea...anyone else?

She didn't actually rule it out. It was sort of brought up during that
World Book Day chat in March '04 -- somebody was being cute:

|Cathedral: Don't want to rune the ending, but will we be finding out
|more about the significance of the shape of Harry's scar in future
|books?
|JK Rowling replies -> The shape is not the most significant aspect of
|that scar, and that's all I'm going to say!

As far as I know, that's all we know.

Jo: 
> Yup, there's a strong possibility that pride will be the thing. I 
> don't think that it will be Harry's love that does for Voldy but 
> proof of his own Mother's love which he won't be able to tolerate. 
> Voldy could have a matching scar of his own....

Anne:
I could see that.

I'm afraid there's going to be sweetness in the end.  JKR loves that
stuff (so do I, I admit), though she manages to keep a leash on it. 
But I really do think there will be a sharp edge to it -- like
chocolate-covered habaneros, maybe.  A spoonful of medicine to help
the sugar go down?

All right, sorry, I'll stop now.

Jo:
> if JKR resurects Harry 
> in the end.

Anne:
Argh! That's my nightmare.





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Wed Jun 29 18:26:51 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:26:51 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9uh6c+53dp@...>
Message-ID: <d9up5b+s8os@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mooseming" <josturgess at e...> wrote:
> 
> Of course if Voldy isn't the big bad and Salazar is then we're off 
> on the whole evil within, dark side riff. I've been playing around 
> with the idea that SS like Tom and Harry was a half blood, and a 
> prince to boot (well who doesn't want to kick minor royalty). The 
> working title for HBP btw was 'When Harry met Sally'.
> 
> It's no good, I fear the worst but at night I dream that Neville is 
> DD's 'sleeper' agent and Harry is a patsy, Snape is Petunia's sex 
> slave, Kneasy is going to write a book.........zzzzzzzzzz
> 

'When Harry met Sally', what a cheek. I grabbed that one last year
in a desperate search to find subject lines that sound vaguely
interesting or familiar. That was about the scar IIRC. The phrase
'magically induced schizophrenia' lurches to the surface. Hm.

Now we've been told there are clues to the importance of the
Chamber in book 6. So - Harry re-enters, finds clues to what old
Sally was up to, grabs hold of the wrong end of the stick (as usual),
a modicum of deaths ensue, Harry angst +++, blames everybody 
else, stiffens upper lip, resolves to do better in book 7.
Sounds reasonable.

Sally as HBP? Could be - it's as likely as any other suggestion that's
been offered. Wouldn't be *too* unbearable if Tom got split off
from Sally and got shoved through the veil babbling repentance. 
Just so long as the Sally remnants fights tooth and nail to the end. 
Blood, guts and ectoplasm everywhere. DD, Snape and a bunch of 
Weasleys cop it in the neck. Plus Dobby. Plus Luna. And that 
irritating midget Creevy. The DEs get sentenced as permanent 
test-beds for experimental potions and spells - might as well 
get some use out of 'em, they can pay their debt to  society by
being lab rats. And if Hermione got her frontal lobes fried.... but 
that's asking too much, I'm afraid. Pity. It might shut her up.
We deserve a bit of the old cathartic release, I think.

But fear not. If the worst  comes to worst we have the technology,
the imagination, the sheer brass neck to reconstruct the HP plot-
lines into a BANGier format. Such a pity that we can't actually enter
the story a la Thursday Next and influence it from the inside.

Kneasy
 





From josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 30 08:47:18 2005
From: josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid (mooseming)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 08:47:18 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <d9up5b+s8os@...>
Message-ID: <da0bim+h2hb@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
<Snip>
> But fear not. If the worst  comes to worst we have the technology,
> the imagination, the sheer brass neck to reconstruct the HP plot-
> lines into a BANGier format. Such a pity that we can't actually 
enter
> the story a la Thursday Next and influence it from the inside.
> 
> Kneasy

Yes, yes, you're right, this is no time to faint hearted.

The faq reply to Neville's role left me despondent because I had 
been working on a theory as Neville as 'sleeper' and I was 
distracted by the boy-who-would-(not)-be-king element, but perhaps 
that was the point!

Neville, I think, could be a 'sleeper' for Voldy. The attack on the 
Longbottoms has always struck me as odd, why then, why 'where is he'?

Would the DE's really believe that the Longbottoms would know where 
Voldy was, why should they? However, they would know where Neville 
was. Who was with the Lestrange gang? Barty Jnr that's who, he of 
the Imperious curse, he who as Mad Eye Moody spent time alone with 
Neville, giving him a book as comfort for the Cruciatus 
demonstration, or not. More like updating the Imperious curse he put 
on Neville as a baby, creating a mole in the Harry Potter ranks. 
Neville with the dodgy memory and unreliable magical ability, who's 
(shady) Uncle Algie gave him the Mimbulus Mimbletonia that squirted 
over his travelling companions making them susceptible to the call 
of the veiled gateway. Good, honest, timid, loyal Neville.

The parallels with wormtail are obvious, this time the treachery is 
unconscious perhaps but just as dangerous. I for one will be 
watching Neville very closely....

Trust no one!

Regards
Jo





From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 30 11:47:32 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 11:47:32 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <da0bim+h2hb@...>
Message-ID: <da0m4k+6o6k@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mooseming" <josturgess at e...> wrote:
> 
> Yes, yes, you're right, this is no time to faint hearted.
> 
> The faq reply to Neville's role left me despondent because I had 
> been working on a theory as Neville as 'sleeper' and I was 
> distracted by the boy-who-would-(not)-be-king element, but perhaps 
> that was the point!
> 
> Neville, I think, could be a 'sleeper' for Voldy. The attack on the 
> Longbottoms has always struck me as odd, why then, why 'where is he'?
> 
> snip 
> The parallels with wormtail are obvious, this time the treachery is 
> unconscious perhaps but just as dangerous. I for one will be 
> watching Neville very closely....
> 
> Trust no one!
> 

It's been a long, long time since TOADMASTER I & II elbowed themselves
to the forefront of the members collective consciousness. 
Time for a re-assessment or refurbishment you think?
The Longbottoms -- pureblood aren't they?
Just who is 'Uncle Algy'? 
Is 'Gran' the supplier of the Droobles to Frank and Alice? After all, she's
probably been their one constant visitor since they were zapped. If that 
gum does contain mind-altering substances who would be least likely
to be suspected of drugging them?
Where is Trevor? Hatching another Basilisk perhaps?
Why did Crouch!Moody drag Neville off to his office after the class on
the Unforgiveables? Yes, we know he gave him a book, but was there
an ulterior motive? Checking on the security of whatever it is that Neville
has stashed away in a blocked off memory?
What did the Sorting Hat see in Neville that caused it to "take a long time
to decide"?

Oh, yes. A suspicious poster could have some fun and games putting
our Nev under the microscope.

Kneasy





From josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 30 13:53:45 2005
From: josturgess at mooseming.yahoo.invalid (mooseming)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:53:45 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <da0m4k+6o6k@...>
Message-ID: <da0th9+9s3i@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

<snip> 

> Oh, yes. A suspicious poster could have some fun and games putting
> our Nev under the microscope.
> 
> Kneasy


And JKR seems determined we should not look too closely, take the 
answer to that FAQ Neville question, JKR says:

"let me start by saying how glad I am that this was the question 
that received the most votes, because this was the one that I most 
wanted to answer"

Hum, did she indeed, but why? She doesn't tell us anything really 
new and unnecessarily debunks rumours about Neville and the 
prophecy. In fact JKR goes out of her way to ensure we accept 
Neville at face value, she says:

"it does not give him either hidden powers or a mysterious destiny. 
He remains a 'normal' wizarding boy, albeit one with a past, in its 
way, as tragic as Harry's. "

What she does do is give lots of hints about Neville's status once 
the prophecy is known:

"Neville, the boy who was so nearly King"

"In showing Neville as the also-ran"

"Neville remains the tantalising 'might-have-been'."

So are we being led to expect some sour grapes from Neville? JKR 
says:

"It remains to be seen how he will feel if he ever finds out how 
close he came to being the Chosen One."

To me this is the foundation of a potential `disaffected' Neville, 
one the reader could believe might betray Harry and his pals.

Why would JKR want us to believe that? Because Neville will be a 
traitor and both we and Harry need to think we know why. However, 
this won't be the real reason, Neville is acting under duress. 

JKR says Voldy chose Harry, specifically she says:

"In effect, the prophecy gave Voldemort the choice of two candidates 
for his possible nemesis. In choosing which boy to murder, he was 
also (without realising it) choosing which boy to anoint as the 
Chosen One "

He chose one to `murder' but this doesn't mean he didn't chose 
something else for Neville! Kill one, control the other, why not?

This would mean that Barty Jnr and co were acting on Voldy's prior 
orders when they attacked the Longbottom's (which makes more sense 
than turning up there looking for Voldy). We know Bella's speciality 
is the cruciatus curse, Barty Snr mastered imperio maybe Junior 
picked up a thing or two and applied it to infant Neville.

As JKR says:
"Of course, none of this should be taken to mean that Neville does 
not have a significant part to play in the last two novels, or the 
fight against Voldemort. " Mind you she doesn't say on which side!

With Barty Jnr gone however, who could be pulling Neville's strings 
now?

Regards
Jo





From boyd.t.smythe at boyd_smythe.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 30 15:05:57 2005
From: boyd.t.smythe at boyd_smythe.yahoo.invalid (Smythe, Boyd T {FLNA})
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:05:57 -0500
Subject: There's not much to go on
Message-ID: <FDCCEEC6AAC8DD4AA2DD0C28E41D2832BA5065@...>

> Anyway, I thought Jo had stated that it wasn't a rune? Or is that my
imagination?

Another interesting quote (thanks to QQQ):

Bolger, Kaitlin and J.T. Sprague. "J.K. Rowling answers a few kid
questions," Houston Chronicle (conference call), March 20, 2001.
Q: What is the meaning behind Harry's lightning bolt scar?

A: There are some things I can tell you about it and some things I can't. I
wanted him to be physically marked by what he has been through. It was an
outward expression of what he has been through inside.

I gave him a scar and in a prominent place so other people would recognize
him. It is almost like being the chosen one, or the cursed one, in a sense.
Someone tried to kill him; that's how he got it.

I chose the lightning bolt because it was the most plausible shape for a
distinctive scar. As you know, the scar has certain powers, and it gives
Harry warnings. I can't say more than that, but there is more to say.

--boyd



From arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid  Thu Jun 30 16:15:54 2005
From: arrowsmithbt at kneasy.yahoo.invalid (Barry Arrowsmith)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:15:54 -0000
Subject: There's not much to go on
In-Reply-To: <da0th9+9s3i@...>
Message-ID: <da15rq+6te3@...>

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "mooseming" <josturgess at e...> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> To me this is the foundation of a potential `disaffected' Neville, 
> one the reader could believe might betray Harry and his pals.
> 
> Why would JKR want us to believe that? Because Neville will be a 
> traitor and both we and Harry need to think we know why. However, 
> this won't be the real reason, Neville is acting under duress. 
> 
> JKR says Voldy chose Harry, specifically she says:
> 
> "In effect, the prophecy gave Voldemort the choice of two candidates 
> for his possible nemesis. In choosing which boy to murder, he was 
> also (without realising it) choosing which boy to anoint as the 
> Chosen One "
> 
> He chose one to `murder' but this doesn't mean he didn't chose 
> something else for Neville! Kill one, control the other, why not?
> 


You know what this reminds me of?
"Kill the spare."

Now if Neville had originally been Voldy's choice for some hanky-panky
then Harry would indeed have been the spare and therefore disposable.
Obviously he was thwarted in his dastardly plans by the protection
placed upon Harry, but as you say, a touch of infanticide in the night
does not rule out the possibility that he had plans for Neville. Indeed,
his plans may already have been put into motion -  hence the certainty
of the DEs that the Longbottoms would know of his whereabouts.

Harry becomes 'King' by accident, but if things had gone as Voldy
intended it'd be Neville. Neville is unfinished business.

Despite all the brou-haha about Snape and James, I've sometimes
wondered why Sevvy reacts so strongly to Harry. Could part of it be
because as an expert Legilimens he can sense Voldy lurking in the
depths of that adolescent mind? But why such a down on Neville?
Can he sense something in his mind too?

Kneasy