Re: What’s the point of the Deathly Hallows? Not the book, but the Hallows?

[Annemehr]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Amanda" <exslytherin at ...> 
wrote:

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Jo: 
> > Yup, I think you're right. DD put together his little will gifts 
> > *before* he knew he had failed to defuse the wand. So he was 
> sending 
> > them on a hunt for two items they already had and one that should 
> > have been *worthless*. As far as DD knew Voldy had no idea about 
> the 
> > DH, and so no idea that Voldy would go chasing the wand, which 
> > should have been out of service anyway!!!
> > 
> > The wand btw has a nasty habit of skipping out on its owner, 
> > probably because its master is Death. How happy would it be to be 
> > decommissioned by the peaceful passing of its current owner?
> > 


Mandy: 
> Now I'm thinking it is all perhaps a morality tale designed to 
> prepare Harry for what he has to do; except, willingly, his own 
> demise.
> 
> But is it a tale to warn Harry against the desire to cheat death 
and 
> to just accept it, which he must do OR is it a tale to give Harry 
the 
> idea to cheat death?
> 
> Clearly the stone is there to help Harry on his way to show him 
death 
> is painless and even desirable in his case as everyone he loves 
most 
> dearly are already dead and waiting for him to join them.  Sirius 
> even assuages Harry's concern that death is painful.
> 
> But the cloak? The cloak can only be used to cheat death if one 
also 
> hides from life. It would be impossible to whip the cloak out just 
as 
> death was bearing down on you. You have to wear it all the time. 
> (Interestingly Harry does this though most of the battle, hiding 
from 
> everything while friends and colleagues fight around him. If he 
> didn't have a `higher' purpose it would be cowardly to the 
extreme.)  
> The purpose of the cloak is to hide, but Harry can not stand before 
> LV hidden under the cloak so the cloak is not there to save him 
from 
> death. It is there to carry him safely to the assigned point death.
> 
> So it looks like DD used the DH to get Harry to where he needed to 
be 
> to die. But this suggests that DD was also relying completely on 
the 
> blood protection to save Harry. That's a huge risk as DD wasn't 
even 
> sure that would work.
> 
<snip>


Anne:

Well, to start with the mundane: once LV had kidnapped Ollivander 
(back before the beginning of OoP), DD knew/suspected he would 
eventually have access to Ollivander's knowledge of the legend of the 
Deathstick.  It must have been no later than this point that he began 
to formulate a plan to keep LV from mastering it.

Skipping ahead to the end now, the final defeat of LV involved two 
phases:

1) Harry allows himself to be AKed in the forest.  This fulfills the 
not unexpected reprise of Lily's sacrifice (though personally, I did 
not expect it to be the *exact same sacrifice* - how thick could LV 
get?).  The fact that it was merely a Near Death Experience for Harry 
is somehow due to his blood running in LV's veins (I know what DD 
said in "Kings Cross," I just don't get it).

2) In the Great Hall, Harry and LV reprise the duel in the Graveyard 
of GoF, right down to the AK and Expelliarmus spells cast.  This is 
the fulfillment of the wand thread that ran from Harry's visit to 
Ollivander's in PS/SS (the introduction of the "brother wands")
through Priori Incantatem in GoF and on into all the wand lore of DH.

Phase 1 seems to be about the higher magic of love -- which LV 
doesn't understand, even amongst his DES (e.g., Snape and Narcissa). 
And I think Lyn is right that Phase 2 is about the perils of seeking 
power -- it brings us full circle from  the first book wherein 
Quirrell!Mort declares that there is only Power, and those too weak 
to seek it.

Going back to the problem of DD's original intention that the Elder 
Wand  be "worthless" (i.e., merely ordinary) at the time he willed 
Harry and Hermione the Resurrection Stone and the book:  

Rather than wanting Harry to collect the Hallows, DD intended Harry 
to know that the Elder Wand would not be the powerful weapon in LV's 
hands that LV thought it would be.  That much turned out to be true, 
even though it transpired that the wand was loyal to Harry instead of 
to no-one as DD had planned.

Harry himself came to that conclusion at Shell Cottage: "Am I meant 
to know, but not to seek?  Did you know how hard I'd find that?  Is 
that why you made it this difficult?  So I'd have time to work that 
out?" [DH ch. 24, p. 483 US -- and reiterated in ch. 35 "Kings Cross"]

And I think  Harry was meant to, and did, reject assembling all three 
Hallows.  As has been variously pointed out by Lyn and Mandy, the 
Cloak is rightfully Harry's and necessary to his task, and the Stone 
was helpful on his journey into the Forest.  But he dropped the 
Stone -- and relinquished ownership -- before he ever laid hands on 
the Wand.  Even though he was master of the Wand at that time, I 
believe he never truly possessed all three at once -- or, if he did, 
he broke up the set before facing LV.  His victory did not come from 
the power of the Hallows; it came from the supposed vulnerability of 
love and the ironic weakness of the Elder Wand.

Like Lyn, I feel the need to apologise for being saccharine here, but 
it seems to me this is what JKR intended to say -- I'm just the 
messenger.

Of course, whatever happened with the Wand, DD pasted a 
big "sacrificial pig" sign on Snape's back since he knew the manner 
of his death would make Snape appear to be the master of the Wand.  
If anyone can tell me how things would have gone better for Snape had 
DD died with his wand in his hand, please, let me know.

Anne