[the_old_crowd] Re: Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word.

[GulPlum]

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