Horcruxes and Hallows

[davewitley]

(I'm kind of assuming that spoiler space is pointless, really.  Maybe Neil can be persuaded 
to come back into his vacant portrait and issue a decree, but I'm not counting on it.)

It seems plain to me now that much of the manoeuvring of the plotlines is aimed at setting 
up the final situation, only fuly revealed at the end of the Prince's Tale, in which Harry and 
Voldemort are symmetrically placed, at the intention of neither.

Harry is a Horcrux, which means that for Voldemort to be killed, Harry must be killed first.  
And Voldemort sustains Lily's protection on Harry (how JKR's eye must have gleamed in 
triumph when she thought up that dodge in GOF), which means that if Harry is to be 
killed, Voldemort must die first.  (The situation is not *quite* symmetrical because there is 
nothing to stop Harry dying a natural death, or being killed by a third party.  However, it 
seems the protection against Voldemort extends to Voldemort's agents, which is enough 
for the story.)

I think this symmetry is what the Prophecy is driving at.  However, it seems the exact 
opposite of what it states: "Neither can live while the other survives."  It seems more 
accurate that neither can die while the other survives.

The result of this set-up is to permit JKR's moral aim, that whoever goes out to kill will 
lose, and whoever is prepared to sacrifice will win.  Definitely Christian overtones there.

I agree with Lyn's comment that the main function of the Hallows is to provide a deadly 
distraction for Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort, and a test for Harry.  As such, 
they are also a red herring for the reader for a while.  (As an aside, I think the one 
question I'd like to ask JKR is "What part did your experience working for Amnesty play in 
influencing the series?")

However, I think the precise form (particularly the Wand) and genesis of the Hallows in 
JKR's arc comes from a plot necessity.  At the final scene in the Great Hall, JKR has broken 
her symmetry by having Harry (for Horcrux purposes) die, so Voldemort is vulnerable, 
while Harry is not.  The double problem for JKR is that Harry needs to eliminate someone 
who is still a very powerful wizard, and do it without the moral compromise implicit in 
casting AK.  In this final encounter Harry is quite safe (Lily's protection), but Voldemort is 
also protected by Harry's scruples.

So, how to get Expelliarmus to cause Voldemort to die?  The answer is the complex trail of 
ownership of the Elder Wand.  The point of Harry's rather convoluted mastery of the Elder 
Wand is *not* so that Harry can be the more powerful wizard in battle: if that were the 
case, all that would happen is that Voldemort's normally unblockable AK would indeed 
bounce off Harry, and he would lose his wand through Harry's Expelliarmus, and they'd go 
to Round 2.

No, I think what JKR is establishing here is a version of the wand connection at the end of 
GOF.  That scene, and the one where Voldemort uses Lucius' wand, establish that where 
there is a personal connection between wand and wizard, then the normally unblockable 
nature of AK no longer holds, and opens the way for Harry to fully defeat Voldemort.

It's not very satisfactory: why couldn't Voldemort be finished by 'simple' AK bounce as he 
almost was when Harry was a baby? I guess the answer is that he was right that Lily's 
protection does extend to him, too, but then it's hard to see how the Elder Wand really 
helps.  Also, in the Lucius Malfoy wand incident, the decisive factor is that Voldemort has a 
connection to Harry's wand; at the end it's that Harry has a connection to Voldemort's 
wand, but the effect is the same.  Bagatelles in JKR's estimation, I imagine.  It's clear from 
the narrative that Voldemort does die from AK bounce, caused by the Elder Wand's service 
to "the master it would not kill".

Anyway, that's how I see things, at present.

David