Ruddy star-gazers and The Prophecy

[dungrollin]

Catlady:
He [Firenze] moved in because he knows that he has something 
important to do at Hogwarts? Or because he saw in the stars that he 
would move in? OR because THE AUTHOR has something important for him 
to do at Hogwarts? IMHO good fiction requires the appearance that 
any character has hiser own reasons for hiser actions, not just that 
The Author needed himer to do that for the plot.

Dungrollin:
Well, IMHO too. But there's no point in pretending that this is a 
moving story about a centaur who is defying the nature of his 
species by meddling in human affairs, about his difficult decision 
to leave his herd and how when his herd found out they banished him 
and cut him off, so he was forced to live in the castle with the 
thickie humans.  Because it's not.  Anything that Firenze is/does 
must affect Harry and his story, otherwise he wouldn't appear in the 
books (they're already too long, she's cutting out backstory right 
left and centre).  

Of course any half-decent author needs to give their characters 
plausible motivations for doing what they do, but at the end of the 
day, they do what they do because the author wants them to, and I 
reckon that in this case it's because the author *needs* Firenze in 
the castle. If, for plot reasons, you need a character to do 
something out of character in plot-driven fiction, it's generally 
much easier to change the character rather than the plot. 

Feel free to disagree, I don't have anything concrete on which I 
base this except that if Firenze is not there for a good reason then 
he's a waste of page-space, and at goodness-only-knows how many 
thousands of words – OotP must be at least 140,000, right? - she 
doesn't *have* pages to waste.  



Dung, previously:
The only kid who can get rid of Voldy
> for good is in mortal peril, and his godfather wastes time *making
> sure that he takes The Prophecy with him*. Why? Why bother? 

Catlady:
Is there any canon that Sirius knew the Prophecy? I'm under the
impression that DD told the Order members only what he wanted LV to
believe (if there is a spy in the Order, telling the Order members is
a good way of getting LV to believe it): that there was a Prophecy,
and it's stored in DoM, and LV heard part of it and that is why he
tried to kill Harry, but the part of it he didn't hear tells HOW to
kill Harry. Sirius may have been just as deluded as LV.

Dungrollin:
No, no canon at all, more's the pity.  But even if he didn't, it's 
made quite clear (by DD, I think) that he went to the DoM to save 
Harry, either because he knew that Harry is the prophecy boy, or 
because he was extremely fond of him.  Still seems like saving the 
prophecy's a waste of time unless Sirius knows that it's important 
that Voldy doesn't get hold of it.  

What I mean is that either way, he's relying on DD's word. If he 
doesn't know the full prophecy, he believes DD that it could tell 
Voldy how to kill Harry.  If he does know the full prophecy (which 
doesn't appear to tell Voldy how to kill Harry), he believes DD that 
it's still important that Voldy doesn't get hold of it.


Dung, previously:
If Snape knows the
> entire prophecy and he knows about the immortality experiments,
> shouldn't he have picked up on this ambiguous clause? And Snape
> was/is DD's spy, so he should have told DD about the experiments,
> and DD should make the connection, too.

Catlady:
Snape, like Sirius, may not know the entire Prophecy. In addition, I
didn't understand LV to be saying that he had told his followers all
the details of all his immortality spells, just that he told them he
had been working on it for long decades, and a few horrific anecdotes
(brags) of how he had gone to very difficult places, defeated very
difficult obstacles, and done very scary and disgusting things....
 
Dungrollin:
In the graveyard, Voldy first makes it clear that he's speaking to 
*all* those present:

"I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact – such 
prompt appearances! – and I ask myself ... why did this band of 
wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore 
eternal loyalty?"

And later:
"And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not 
rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard 
myself against mortal death?"  

*They [...] knew the steps*. Course, it could be that Snape was the 
only DE who didn't know, and because he knew Snape wasn't there, he 
could happily address all those present who *did* know.   

Catlady:
You make it sound obvious that, unbeknownst to LV, one of the
anecdotes plus Snape's book-learning plus the full prophecy equals
how to kill LV. (If LV HAD known, he would have skipped telling that
anecdote.)

Dungrollin:
Yup, that's the speculation (in case I didn't make it clear).  I 
can't think of another way of tying in JKR's hint that we should 
want to know what it was Voldy did to guard himself against mortal 
death, with DD saying that Voldy thought the prophecy would tell him 
how to kill Harry, with the only clause of the prophecy that DD 
didn't give Harry an explanation for, and with the fact that we now 
have *two* divination teachers.  DD never does say whether it would 
have told Voldy anything useful or not, but Sirius' words in the DoM 
make me think that DD's orders were that the prophecy was under no 
circumstances to fall into the hands of the DEs, and that there was 
a good reason for it.

Humbly opining,
Dungrolin

P.S. In response to Kneasy, yeah, I know it's boring.  I'm still 
hoping for something hugely bangy that nobody's thought of yet, 
too.  I didn't get into this game until after OotP was published, so 
HBP will be my first experience of Rowling-induced climatic 
disasters.  I'm apprehensive about HBP after that FAQ answer, but 
there's still a glimmer of hope that we're all barking up the wrong 
forest.