It's all spoilers ... some is replies

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

I found it very difficult to avoid seeing the chapter titles as I
leafed over the ToC for the -- I've been told it's called an epitaph -- 

Oh, the torment bred into the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein,
the hemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.

But there is a cure in the house,
and not outside it, no,
not from others but from *them*,
their bloody strife. We sing to you,
dark gods beneath the earth.

Now, hear, you blissful powers underground -- 
answer the call, send help. 
Bless the children, give them triumph, now.

Do any of you educated people know what Aeschylus meant by that?
'Torment bred into the race' sounds like Oedipus, but that was
Sophocles... (checks Wikipedia) Oh, the Atreides. IIRC that starts
with two brothers who both wanted to be king ... by the time one of
them won, it seems to me that they had forgotten their original goal
and just wanted to kill each other ... and then decided they wanted to
break each others' hearts before killing them ... and both were
willing to "use any means to achieve their ends". 

Somehow Tantalus killing, dismembering and cooking his own son,
Pelops, to serve as a stew to visiting Olympian gods (who recognized
human flesh and refused to touch it, except Demeter was distracted by
her grief over Persephone and put a bit in her mouth before
recognizing it) is involved with that, as is one brother proposing to
the other brother to make peace and reconcile by marrying his 50
daughters to the other's 50 sons, but he commanded his daughters to
kill their new husbands on the wedding night, and all except one
obeyed ... IIRC The daughters were the Danaeads, so he must have been
Danaeus...

Apparently Aeschylus's idea of ending the taint in the blood was by
Orestes killing poor Clytemnestra as revenge for her killing the evil
Agamemnon. No, I don't call him evil because of that movie of TROY
that starred Brad Pitt as Achilles, as if the real Achilles wasn't
just as evil. It's because my mother told me that Agamemnon married
Clytemnestra by killing her husband and smashing her baby's brain out
on a stone floor and taking her by force. And then, all are agreed, he
tricked her into sending him their daughter Iphigeneia to be
sacrificed to Artemis to bring a fair wind for the Greek fleet to sail
to Troy. A mother avenging the deaths of two of her children.

Ending up with a big trial, before a jury of gods, as to whether the
*duty* to avenge one's father's death was sufficient excuse for the
*crime* of killing one's mother, in which Athena cast the deciding
vote for acquittal in a speech in which she said that her birth from
her father Zeus's head without a mother (her mother Metis had been
swallowed by Zeus while pregnant with her) proved that mothers are
unnecessary and unrelated to the child, at most an incubator for the
father's seed, and "I am for the male in all things." Loathsome.

How's that for spoiler space?

Please, dear listies, don't let your feelings be hurt that I can't
stand to format this as replies to specific quotes.

DUMBLEDORE.
Everyone who predicted that there wouldn't be a Dumbledore Explains It
All scene at the end, just because DD is dead, were wrong.

DD's brief infatuation with Grindelwald, despite leading to the
accidental death of his sister and increased estrangement from his
brother, strikes me as insufficiently criminal, an insufficiently
shocking revelation. That act causing that level of guilt about his
parents and sister and brother, to me he should have felt just as
guilty about quite a number of other things. Even if he wasn't
Puppetmaster!DD.

I found no clue that Puppetmaster!DD starting plotting before he heard
the Prophecy, and the *only* clue I found that he started plotting
before the Godric's Hollow explosion was one cool double entendre:

Snape: "I thought ... you were going ... to keep her ... safe ..."

"She and James put their faith in the wrong person', said Dumbledore.
"Rather like you, Severus. Weren't you hoping that Lord Voldemort
would spare her?"

I immediately read "She and James put their trust in the wrong person
[: Puppetmaster!DD]" altho' it wasn't until I finished the book that I
noticed that 'Rather like you, Severus' also referred to DD. A DD who
told James and Lily that he would protect their lives, and told Sevvie
that he would protect Lily's life, while he was really planning to let
LV kill them, then talked Sevvie into protecting the life of Lily's
child, while he was really planning to let LV kill the child. (I pick
up this thread again, below.)

Of course, the very clear surface meaning is Pettigrew and LV,
respectively.

SNAPE.
An interesting thing about the Pensieve memories is that even tho'
their surface meaning is plainly DDM!Snape (the words that Rowling put
into Harry's mouth, 'he was the bravest man I ever knew', seemed to me
to be a direct quote from some posts on The Other List), there is
nothing that DISPROVES some kind of ESE!Snape ('some kind of ESE' is
any kind that serves LV, whether OFH or LID or LVM) -- he could have
been stringing DD along in all those recorded conversations, partly as
LV's spy, partly to try to save Lily's life, partly as his keep-out-
of-Azkaban card, partly because of needing to get rid of his life-debt
... wants-to-be-baddest!Snape would be quite sincere about wanting to
destroy LV, altho' I still saw no clue of Snape wanting to be the
baddest wizard ... 

In the very first chapter, when Snape reported to LV, information from
'the source I mentioned', I started wondering who was the traitor in
the Order this time. Of course, it turned out to be Portrait!DD with
good intentions. But Snape could have told LV all about getting info
from DD'S portrait by pretending to still be loyal to him ... he could
have told him even if the loyalty to DD were no pretense, but I mean
it could have truly been a pretense.

It could be that ESE!Snape, serving the triumphant LV as Headmaster of
Hogwarts, had no intention of carrying out the last step in DD's plan,
but when LV unexpectedly killed such a useful follower, he seized the
opportunity to revenge himself on LV by telling Harry. Pretty quick
thinking, especially for a dying man, and similar to Neri's Faith's
prediction.

I like to believe in DDM!Snape even tho' his displays of loyalty to DD
were not necessarily convincing. His displays of emotion about Lily
did seem quite convincing to me. I was disappointed but not surprised
that LOLLIPOPS came true -- I admitted to Amanda years ago that it
tied all the strings together neatly even tho' I hate it. The quizzees
who said 'Lily's man, through and through' were pretty close.

But the Pensieve memories don't look like Love to me -- more like
Obsession. He looked at her 'greedily' and had very little interest in
her happiness. 'Loving' a Mudblood didn't make him reconsider his
bloodist and anti-Muggle views. I was *shocked*; I'd believed that
Snape never was really a bloodist, because it's so stupid and
illogical and in contradiction to empirical evidence, and one thing he
is is intelligent! 'Loving' her didn't make him reconsider his cruel
sense of humor (about whatever it was that Mulciber did to Macdonald).
Now I believe Snape joined the Death Eaters because they were his kind
of people, not just in an anti-Gryffindor snit or having been seduced
into it by persuasive brainy evil friends. Elkins was right.

In the Pensieve conversation I quoted above, DD explicitly played
Sevvie by using Lily as his motivation: "If you truly loved Lily Evans
... help me protect her son." Snape, later: "Everything was supposed
to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been
raising him like a pig for slaughter". A DDM!Snape would obey anyway.
An LVM!Snape would not obey. 

Lily's Man!Snape might try to protect her child from DD as well as
from LV, and thus disobey. (I can't believe Snape is so intellectual
about his own emotions that Lily's Man!Snape would try to achieve her
goal because death had prevented her from achieving it, in which case
DD might have talked him into believing that dead LV via dead HP was
achieving her goal, so he would obey.)

But my feeling is that Lily's Man!Snape, obsessed with her but never
understanding her, is likely to be more motivated by Revenge on
Voldemort rather than by anything about Lily's child. In that case, he
would happily sacrifice the child (even if it weren't Harry!) to
destroy Voldemort. I can't imagine Kneasy has read this far, so could
someone tell him about this paragraph? Revenge for Lily!Snape put me
forcibly in mind of Revenge for Florence & Sprog!Snape, A Very Good
Hater!Snape, so I felt that Kneasy's Snapetheory was largely right. 

Up there where I was listing possible reasons for ESE!Snape stringing
DD along in those conversations, I didn't mention Revenge!Snape
because Revenge!Snape is stringing LV along, not stringing DD along.
Revenge!Snape is not DDM but DD is right to completely trust him
versus LV anyway (even if he ever learned that DD set Lily up, he
would still use DD to kill LV before taking his revenge on DD).
However, Snape has no need for revenge before Lily's death (then he
was trying to save her life), and no *opportunity* for revenge until
LV and Peter return to life (then he was just staying out of Azkaban). 

I never doubted that Snape was suffering inside all of life (well, a
few moments excepted) but now I fear he suffers all his death, too. It
SEEMS that wizarding folk keep their identity in the Next Great
Adventure, and the only way he can be with Lily again is if he puts up
with being with James and Sirius again ... I wish he could be healed
(of his wound too deep for healing), if only by swimming in the river
Lethe.

Btw, James&Sirius and Severus hating each other on first sight is not
a particularly adequate explanation of their hatred.

ROWLING
She put so much effect into emphasizing up the evilness of the
Unforgivable Curses, and in this book she has the Good Guys, Trio and
Neville, using Imperius every other chapter, and IIRC both Harry and
Neville use Cruciatus. Without being punished for it or repenting or
anything.

Dungrollin: << What happened to the founders who were supposed to be
so important? The missing 24 hours? Possession? All the snake lore?
The DADA curse? The Trio's careers? Who sent the Lestranges to the
Longbottoms? (Was it simply masterminded by Bella because she knew
that Voldy was still out there somewhere?) Snape's twitch in the
Hospital Wing in GoF when Harry mentions Malfoy? The character who
performs magic late in life thing... or did Filch get up to something
when I wasn't looking? In fact, which ends actually got tied up?
`Cause I don't remember too many. >>

Damn right. I guess the people who said that the character who does
magic late in life was Merope were right, even tho' I still say she
did magic from the normal age even if she was clumsy with it from fear
of her horrible father and brother. Or maybe Rowling deleted the scene
where Filch or Figg did magic -- same as I feel that she wrote Harry's
reaction to Snape's revelations, and then deleted all that when she
editted for length.

Ginger: << Go Molly! Kill the bitch! >>

Avenging her murdered child, like Clytemnestra (above).

<< Did anyone guess the American cover was the Great Hall? >>

Hell, no! When I read that duel and recognized it (due to previous TOL
cover analysis) as the US cover, but it was in the Great Hall, I
turned back instantly to look at the cover again, and it just ISN'T
the Great Hall. No way. Gut feeling plus the Great Hall is not round.
Even if that's the ceiling that looks like the sky instead of the real
sky. Maybe it's the Quidditch pitch, or someplace at the Ministry. Or
the Graveyard in GoF had a Roman-style wall that no one bothered to
mention.

I like to think it's the other side of The Veil, with numerous Veiled
arches because each this-side manifestation of The Veil is in a
different place. I forget who suggested that on TOL, but it's not
original to me.

Carolyn: << Unnoticed in the general rejoicing business continues
absolutely as normal. Kids are still sorted into four houses;
Slytherin is still detested. >>

I wouldn't say it was unnoticed: I think Herself went out of her way
to call attention to it.

<< House-elves continue abasing themselves for no pay and no 
pensions. >>

Was there something in the epilogue about House Elves?

Mooseming: << Ye gods what were all those hints about, the late
flowering magic, Lily and James' jobs, the married teacher >>

Damn right!

Phyllis: << I also thought it was lousy that Harry lost his only gift
from Sirius (the Firebolt). >>

He still has the piece of mirror. And Kreacher, unless he got killed
without me noticing. And the house.

<< Agree – if Harry wasn't to be a goner, I thought we'd lose someone
really important (like Ron or Hagrid). But perhaps Rowing thinks
killing Dumbledore and Snape was enough. >>

I think Hagrid might have been the character who got a reprieve. I
think maybe he was scheduled to die in the Battle of Hogwarts because
of the alchemical symbolism, but by then Harry was already in the
necessary emotional state without losing him, and she couldn't stand
to kill him (she likes him), and she got a visual of him carrying
Harry's 'dead' body back...

Also, I thought maybe Umbridge was the character who got a reprieve,
that Rowling meant to punish her as she deserved, but found that, it
being quite illogical for Umbridge to just happen to be at the Battle
of Hogwarts, she just couldn't squeeze Umbridge's demise into the book.

When did Umbridge start wearing the Locket!Crux? Not until she took it
from Mundungus, which was not until after the house-cleaning chapter,
so she had already set the Dementors on Harry before that. In OoP, she
hated non-humans and part-humans but showed no particularly objection
to Muggle-borns, so maybe her blood purity court resulted from the
Locket!Crux taking her over. Maybe she was the one who snuggled up to
the Imperius'ed Pius Thicknesse (love that name!) and volunteered to
kill Scrimgeour so he could be promoted. If so, was it revenge for her
dear Cornelius being fired, or on purpose to help the blood purity
dictatorship?

Anne: << All the knowledge in that book was burned up by that oaf
Crabbe -- and nobody gave a thought to it. Damn. >>

I thought of that, but comforted myself that he's passed at least all
the Potions knowledge on to students, some to advanced students only.
At least some of the spells have been learned by other people. 

By the way, Sectumsempra. Snape cast it on George's ear. Lupin said:
"Sectumsempra was always a speciality of Snape's." So non-Snapes knew
about it, and probably some knew how to do it.  But Molly was able to
staunch George's ear with no mention that she had chanted over him
like Phoenix song. I think the song was a spell for healing very deep
cuts, or possibly for curse removal so that the missing bits could be
replaced, rather than a specific for Sectumsempra. I think ordinary
magical healing, and maybe even ordinary Muggle healing, keeps
Sectumsempra from bleeding forever like Arthur's snakebite. Didn't
Nagini bite someone early in this book who had no problem stopping the
bleeding?

<< Definitely another problem. LV apparently thought he was the only
one who'd ever found the RoR, which is why he hid the TiaraCrux
there, so apparently *he* didn't see great piles of stuff in a
cathedral-sized room -- yet Harry did? Why the difference, and whose
experience was the usual one? >>

I thought Riddle found it full of stuff and decided that the stuff was
just part of the room, rather than that people had been hiding things
there over the centuries. Foolish of him, but if he found it after he
had found the Chamber of Secrets, I can see him possibly thinking
that, maybe. After all, no one has suggested that the snake decor and
the statue of Salazar and the basilisk were put into the Chamber
gradually over the centuries.

What I can't see is that no one but the House Elves knows about The
Room of Requirement when so many people found have it over the
centuries -- surely some of them must have told their friends, until
it passed into student lore. I seem to recall Trelawney saying
something about the staff knows about the Room of Requirement, in
which case, Dumbledore knew about it long before GoF. Maybe his tale
about stumbling 'just the other night' into a room full of chamberpots
really happened during his student days.

Ashley: << I'm relieved to find the series ended in a way that leaves
me still interested in the series. I was worried as to whether this
would be the case. >>

Me, too.

Mike the Goat: << I like Draco, who isn't exactly redeemed but isn't
exactly isn't, either. >>

I liked Draco trying to rescue Goyle and calling out for Crabbe, even
after Crabbe insulted him. But I didn't like Draco still being LVM
until LV died. Phineas Nigellus called out for everyone to notice that
Slytherin House had done its part. Other than Snape, what did he mean?
Slughorn returning with reinforcements? Narcissa lying that Harry was
dead? Crabbe setting FiendFyre for quite a different reason? I don't
recall even one over-age Slytherin student staying to help fight.

Kneasy: << Kreacher - a few kind words can turn a psychopathic runt
into a fawning sycophant? Really? >>

If a few kind words could do it, he would have stopped calling
Hermione 'mudblood filth' long ago. I figure the opportunity to
fulfill Master Reggie's last command made him sane again -- maybe not
obeying a command drives House Elves insane -- and part of House Elf
sanity is to love Master. I also think there was some magical effect
of giving him Regulus's decoy locket -- not that it was the famous
Locket of Loving Loyalty (which Agamemnon would have been wise to sew
onto Clytemnestra), but that it had Regulus vibes on it that filled a
hole in his heart.

<< And according to Hermione, the new canon is that Elves are loyal to
anyone who's nice to them. Yeah, sure. Forget about masters or
households >>

I think she meant, only members of their owning family or household
who are nice to them. 

I still don't get Walburga and Regulus being nice to Kreacher when
Narcissa, raised in the same household as Walburga, was so un-nice to
Dobby. And, according to Dobby, under the Dark Lord's previous reign,
all the House Elves were treated like vermin.

Also, that family tradition of beheading the elderly House Elves seems
cruel. Unless I misunderstood it, and really they wait for them to die
naturally before beheading them. Or they like being euthanized as much
as DD did.

<< (why didn't Kreacher nail Dung with a bit of Elvish magic when he
raided the joint?) >>

Sirius, his owner at the time, who must be obeyed, had ordered him not
to harm any of Sirius's guests. Doesn't canon say so somewhere?

<< Diadem? Tiara? Who cares? What the hell is a witch doing with a
diadem anyway? They wear pointy hats, not diadems, as ane fule kno.
Unlike the relics of the other founders it doesn't seem to have any
distinguishing marks, either. No matter, any relic will do when you're
galloping towards the finishing line. >>

Yes, but Herself made it obvious enough that a ton of people on The
Other List predicted it was Ravenclaw's tiara and a Horcrux.

Mike the Goat: << We spend a pleasant time with Dumbledore in a place
Harry (but not Dumbledore) sees as King's Cross >>

I think she may have chosen King's Cross for its name.

Phyllis: << the excuse for Voldemort to kill Snape (the latter was an
excellent way of showing how truly merciless Voldemort was). >>

That scene where LV is told that the Hufflepuff cup has been stolen,
and he kills not only the messenger who brought the bad news, but "the
watching wizards scattered before him, terrified; Bellatrix and Lucius
Malfoy threw others behind him in their race for the door, and again,
and again, and again his wand fell, and those who were left were
slain, all of them." made me wonder if even crazy Bellatrix is sorry
she took that job (Death Eater). Whatever an evil wizard might want
from serving a Dark Lord, lots of opportunities to torture and kill
Muggles and 'disloyal' wizarding folk and 'loyal' wizarding folk who
get inconvenient, wealth, people under Imperius to obey his/her every
whim, blood purity, the hope of being loved by the baddest Dark Lord
in history ... none of it is worth much after one's been killed at
random by one's Dark Master. Not a desirable job.