Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word

[davewitley]

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