Viewing the evidence

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "dungrollin" <spotthedungbeetle at h...> wrote:
> 
> > Voldy's interpretation of the prophecy points to the Potters and  
> > Longbottoms and it is this that causes Snape to switch sides.
> 
> Dung:
> No canon quibbles – just going boggle-eyed in shock...
> 

Yes. I always enjoy a good joke, and if I'd been Harry this comment
by DD would have had me laughing 'till the tears ran down me leg.
How on earth does DD manage to keep a straight face?

'Course, it'll get the LOLLIPOPS ladies in a bit of a tizzy, but they
deserve a bit of excitement every now and then - like once every
five years - 'cos AFAIK this is the first hint in canon that Sevvy
could be cast as Quasimodo to Lily's Esmeralda - and look how she 
finished up. Suspended sentence. Sort of. 
Wonder what happened to the goat? Lunch, probably. 

> > What exactly is Vapor!Mort?
> 
> Dung:
> Don't think I can do this without a couple of assumptions, but I'll 
> give it a go, pointing them out where I can.
> 
> (Assumption #1) The usual split is body/mind/soul and JKR mentions 
> all three so I'm going with that. A soul-sucked person has no soul 
> and (in the Potterverse) therefore no mind. A ghost has a mind but 
> no body. (Assumption #2) Presumably a ghost still has a soul that 
> hasn't passed on to wherever these things go, since you need a soul 
> to have a mind, and they appear to be conscious thinking things. 
> From Diary!Tom, we see that even a small piece of soul is enough to 
> have a mind. Vapour!Mort had a mind (since he can think well enough 
> to build up a good stock of resentment towards his loyal followers 
> while in exile) and a bit of shredded soul. So he was probably just 
> composed of soul. In which case, why did he not look like a ghost?
> 

Um.
Not too keen on the theological metaphysics, myself. Particularly
as Jo is setting her own rules and definitions. Makes it tricky.
In my own mind I consider Vapor!Mort as anima - a disembodied
life force. It has potential, will, drive, etc, but no substance and so
is powerless to act independently. Not sure my construct can be 
torn along the dotted line into neat, self-contained segments, so
I'm probably wrong. 

Mind you, what we think of when we use the term Vapor!Mort is 
almost ertainly down to film contamination. I know it is with me - 
that horizontal tornado thingy. It's never described in the books.

Still, it'll be interesting to see if Jo presents a coherent and 
comprehensible explanation of what she means by 'soul' or 'mind',
but I bet she doesn't.

Kneasy