One more on Harry Potter and then...
Hopefully this will be it for a while. However, I'm about to make another road trip and I bought the audio book, so after listening to the book, I may pick up a few more things.
Okay. SPOILER ALERT. Don't read if you're not finished.
So, Jebbo says Harry doesn't die. I say he does. After thinking it through I still disagree with Jebbo. Here's why, but it's not clear how this works out:
In the "King's Cross" chapter there is a creature/baby there with him. I think the creature is the part of Voldemort's soul that was trapped in Harry (making him the horcrux). In order to make Voldemort killable, Harry must die so that the horcrux is destroyed. The reason Harry can live again is that he basically has a type of horcrux too ... one that Voldemort took from him. Notice how the connection between the two grew after The Goblet of Fire and the ceremony where Voldemort takes his blood. So, like Voldemort when he tried to kill Harry when Harry was one, Harry is out there, alive but not alive. Unlike Voldemort, he still has a body to return to...and this might be a kink in the story (but we don't really know what happens to Voldemort's body -- why he doesn't have one when his curse backfires on him).
However, Harry says, "He killed me with your wand." and Dumbledore responds, "He failed to kill you with my wand." (page 712). This suggests that Jebbo is correct. But, if he doesn't kill Harry, what do we do with that crying baby/creature?
Well let's look at what the book says:
That was Dumbledore speaking.
So, when Voldemort dies in this final book, Harry is finally free to be a normal person...no more scar problems.
So, he does die. He has to for the horcrux to be destroyed.
But what do we do about his body? Why can he re-enter it even when his soul is in Voldemort?
I'll let you know if I understand more clearly after my second time through.
Okay. SPOILER ALERT. Don't read if you're not finished.
So, Jebbo says Harry doesn't die. I say he does. After thinking it through I still disagree with Jebbo. Here's why, but it's not clear how this works out:
In the "King's Cross" chapter there is a creature/baby there with him. I think the creature is the part of Voldemort's soul that was trapped in Harry (making him the horcrux). In order to make Voldemort killable, Harry must die so that the horcrux is destroyed. The reason Harry can live again is that he basically has a type of horcrux too ... one that Voldemort took from him. Notice how the connection between the two grew after The Goblet of Fire and the ceremony where Voldemort takes his blood. So, like Voldemort when he tried to kill Harry when Harry was one, Harry is out there, alive but not alive. Unlike Voldemort, he still has a body to return to...and this might be a kink in the story (but we don't really know what happens to Voldemort's body -- why he doesn't have one when his curse backfires on him).
However, Harry says, "He killed me with your wand." and Dumbledore responds, "He failed to kill you with my wand." (page 712). This suggests that Jebbo is correct. But, if he doesn't kill Harry, what do we do with that crying baby/creature?
Well let's look at what the book says:
Harry glanced again at the raw-looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.
"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present."
That was Dumbledore speaking.
So, when Voldemort dies in this final book, Harry is finally free to be a normal person...no more scar problems.
So, he does die. He has to for the horcrux to be destroyed.
But what do we do about his body? Why can he re-enter it even when his soul is in Voldemort?
I'll let you know if I understand more clearly after my second time through.
posted by perrykat at
10:39 AM
4 Comments:
I'll be a little pedestrian, only because I think often we overanalyze things *relative to the author's intention* (not the same as without basis). So before I dig deeper into the mythological significances, I feel it wise to take a straight shot at the surface meaning. (Then go deeper after more reading.)
Dumbledore largely speaks as the author, and says that while Dumbledore died, Harry did not. I too feel like I'm missing something on the creature/baby, but I read someone somewhere explaining it as the part of Voldemort's soul that was embedded in Harry. Not obvious, but I think that may be right.
I also think there is an important difference between Voldemort's soul fragment as other-sacrificed evil embedded in Harry (horcrux), and Harry's blood as self-sacrificed saintliness embedded in Voldemort (hallow?). Not quite as good a fix as I'd like, but horcruxes need to be destroyed, while hallows do not.
Or more to the point, I suspect the governing principle in Harry's survival was not the extra-corporal fragment preserving him (though one could argue if Voldemort's soul fragments preserve his soul, then Harry's body fragments could preserve his body... but that seems an unwarranted generalization) ... I was saying, not the fragment outside him that protected him, but something more like a protective spell kept alive via Voldemort.
See, I say all that and then thinking of Dumbledore's explanation, I seem to recall that it wasn't the blood weakening Voldemort against Harry so much as it keeping a sacrifice alive, which I do think is more horcrux-like... in that it's an external anchor (rather than say Harry's wand's power being only relative to Voldemort itself).
So where does that leave us? I think my take also requires inventing something not explicitly in the text, which troubles me. My reaction is to reject the analysis that Harry's physical form has to be destroyed to destroy the soul fragment. The way I get there is something like this: It's not the physical destruction that matters so much. (I wish I had the book to find where I get this idea.) It's more that the soul has to be destroyed with a powerful force. Something inherently magical. That the physical form's destruction is basically a side effect of the power of the magical destruction of the soul.
I don't have anything at hand to back up that interpretation, but if you assume it for argument, then Harry has to expose himself to powerful death magic to allow the magic to get to the soul fragment to destroy that. And then the hallowed blood in Voldemort modifies his magic to carry his mother's protection.
So much for surface interpretation. Oh well. But basically, the idea is that Voldemort killed the horcrux, but Harry's blood in Voldemort meant that the same magic would not kill Harry.
As for the creature, the best consistent interpretation I have is:
The creature is the fragment of Voldemort's soul that was lost when V. killed Harry's mother. It is dying, having been killed by Voldemort himself. Dumbledore says not to pity the dead soul fragment, but to pity the living, especially those without love... i.e. Voldemort himself.
Then Harry awakes, and eventually takes some pity on Voldemort and tries to explain why Voldemort will only be killing himself if he tries to kill Harry.
This explanation hinges though on the fact that it isn't the physical destruction of the horcrux itself that kills the soul fragment inside, but rather than the soul fragment has to be destroyed and magic powerful enough to do that inevitably destroys the horcrux itself (except when - in this case - there is an equally powerful 'hallowed' magic protecting it).
Off to the next post!
Oh and I'd like to understand more about where you said,
Unlike Voldemort, he still has a body to return to...and this might be a kink in the story (but we don't really know what happens to Voldemort's body -- why he doesn't have one when his curse backfires on him).
I don't follow at first glance. Can you explain more?
Well, if Voldemort had horcruxes that kept him alive 16 years ago when he attacked Harry, why does his body die (or disappear) whereas Harry is allow to return to his?
This may be attributed to what you said above -- Lily's protection. I had not really added that into the mix. It is her protection that allows this "rebirth." Yet, though, this means that this is a protection Harry still has even after Voldemort dies and I like the idea that he becomes "normal" once this fight is over.
I'm gonna revise this 100 times, I'm sure. I wrote a draft a couple days ago then the computer crashed (typical). Here's a take.
================
When Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra on Lily Potter and her son, four things happened at once.
Lily Potter died to protect her child.
Her sacrifice protected Harry from the spell.
Voldemort was destroyed by his own rebounding spell (though six dark fragments of his soul remained).
Voldemort's evil act split off a 7th part of his soul, which then embedded in Harry.
--------------
~15 years later, the remaining parts of Voldemort's soul reconstituted his body from Harry's blood.
~2 years later, Harry learned that the fragments of Voldemort's soul made him effectively immortal, and that he carried one of those fragments inside him. Like his mother before, he went willingly to sacrifice himself to save those he loved.
And like his mother, Harry thus shielded his friends from Voldemort's magic (including protecting Neville from the burning sorting hat). But while Lily had no-one to protect her from Voldemort's magic, Harry still had his mother's enchantment on him, strengthened in the blood of Voldemort. Thought the death magic could destroy Voldemort's soul fragment in Harry, it could not hurt Harry himself.
And while Harry lay unconscious from the blow, his subconscious understood. His own willingness to die, his not being afraid of death, was the only true conquering of death. Horcruxes, even Hallows, were ultimately of no use if they were intended to save oneself from death. He pitied Riddle then, who he knew never understood where real power lay. (Aside: now Voldemort is not so much Sauron, as Riddle is Smeagol.)
Awakening, unafraid, he confronted Riddle. He explained his own strength to Riddle, how not accidents but loving sacrifice empowered him. He explained why Riddle would only hurt himself by fighting, and gave him a chance to save himself. Riddle took offense, attacked, and Harry's ownership of the Elder Wand caused it's death magic to rebound and kill Voldemort.
Or something like that.
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