House-elves as Saviors? Dumbledore’s Trump Card

February 10, 2007 by 7 Comments

This week seems to be my time to tip my hat and introduce the work of Fandom friends whose grasp of Harry Potter is magisterial. Just below, you can read the Red Hen’s exposition of the critical back-story of what really happened at Godric’s Hollow. By reflection on Voldemort’s special ability to possess others and suggesting a possible two step spell process for Horcrux creation, Joyce offers a more than plausible theory of how Harry became a Horcrux, how Lily’s love saved him, and why Voldemort was vaporized in the back-blast. A big part of the past or foundation of these stories seems to have been filled in.

But what will happen in the future? How will Harry and friends overcome the combined forces of the Dark Lord, his Death eaters, the Giants, the Goblins, and the rapidly-reproducing dementors?

Travis Prinzi, maven at the Sword of Gryffindor weBlog and, yes, like Joyce, one of my friends (full disclosure!), has a theory that I think satisfies one of the Postmodern requirements of the story, namely, that the periphery become the center, that the “other” becomes what is good and decisive in the central conflict. Travis’ theory is that the house-elves in Hogwarts are Dumbledore’s real Army; Ollivander has “disappeared” to arm them with wands and Dobby will lead them in combat against the Dark Lord they all despise to save their hero, Harry Potter. Travis’ original post, “What Happened to Ollivander,” is worth reading in its entirety, but here is the part about the house-elves I find so striking: [Read more…]

Filed Under: The Five Keys: Essential Patterns, Unlocking Harry Potter

The Red Hen’s Latest: What Happened at Godric’s Hollow

February 7, 2007 by 19 Comments

The Red Hen, aka Joyce Odell, designed and made the most significant contribution to Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? (Zossima Press, 2007). We keep in touch, if I think she talks and writes more often to the other writers in WKAD? than with me. Pout.

Tonight, though, Joyce wrote to say she had been trying to post something below in response to my question about “What Dumbledore knew and when?” and the Word Press blog wasn’t letting her put it up. It certainly deserves its own thread; The Red Hen, once again, has, with the help of Swythyv from WKAD? she reports, figured out something that seemed hopelessly mysterious. As she predicted the Astronomy Tower scene from Half-Blood Prince in remarkable detail in 2003 on Harry Potter for Grown-ups, this shouldn’t be that surprising.

The Red Hen suggests, in brief, that what killed Lily Potter was not an Avadra Kedavra curse but the second part of the Horcrux-creation spell. It makes remarkable reading and I urge you to grab a cuppa before sitting to enjoy it. I expect it will turn your thinking upside-down as it has mine, if pet theories I know are attached to us all with Permanent Sticking Charms. This is yoga-like stretching for everyone’s speculative tissue and the workout is engaging and challenging.

Thank you, Joyce, for your permission to post this here at HogPro.

John, Red Hen fan forever [Read more…]

Filed Under: Plot Points, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore?

Rita Skeeter Covers the Vatican

February 6, 2007 by 12 Comments

The most frequently requested article from the old Hogwarts Professor site after “Obviously Dumbledore is not Jesus” has been this piece on the scandalous use of the Pope by Canadian Harry Haters and Culture Warriors the day before Half-Blood Prince was released. I re-print it now in anticipation of similar shameful efforts in the third week of July this year. Harry Potter is a phenomenon those who style themselves latter-day Savonarolas almost certainly will not let pass without a volley and flourish.

“Pope Opposes Harry Potter”? Hardly.
Michael O’Brien and the Kuby Letters: Rita Skeeter covers the Vatican

A Time Line and Commentary on the Kuby Letters, supposedly written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), on the subject of the Harry Potter novels written by Joanne Rowling.

February, 2003:

The story begins at the press conference releasing the Pontifical Council on Culture and Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue’s of “Vatican statement on New Age Religions’ Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life (A Christian Reflection on the “New Age”). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

The Interlibrum and Fandom after July 21st

February 5, 2007 by 4 Comments

A very good friend, Sandra Miesel, wrote me last night to let me know that there was a new entry in the Harry Potter speculative genre by an English scientist and science fiction writer:The End of Harry Potter by David Langford. Sandra is the only person I know who is expert in all things Medieval and in what goes on in the world of science fiction and fantasy literature. Reading the reviews of David Langford’s book, it seems to be more than Mugglenet’s entry in this field, or Galadriel Walter’s or W. Frederick Zimmerman’s. I have a hard time seeing how any of these can be better than or even as good as Janet Scott Batchler’s What Will Harry Do? The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7 but I love everything Janet writes (if we rarely agree on things in the books).

I edited a collection in this field, of course, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? (Zossima Press, 2007) and I hope you’ll buy that book if you only buy one book of this set. Fortunately for Zossima Press, the reviews for WKAD? on the Amazon.com page suggest it may indeed be the best of the lot, written by a variety of serious readers using very different speculative approaches for an audience of serious readers.

All these books have one thing in common, though besides looking beneath the surface of Half-Blood Prince to try to figure out what will happen in Deathly Hallows. What they all share is a future that is a dead-end. They will all be collector’s items and curiousities on July 22nd.

Who but PhD candidates in English, obsessive fans and collectors, or readers who like to laugh at the mistakes of Know-It-Alls will buy these books when Deathly Hallows is published? Not me. I expect to see them sold on eBay at a steep discount and with few takers come August. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Unlocking Harry Potter

Good Question: How did Dumbledore Know?

February 5, 2007 by 16 Comments

The only person I know (I’m sure there are many others; I don’t get out much) who argues seriously that Snape is indeed what he seems, a BAD, make that EVIL character, and doesn’t leave me shaking my head is Nathan Coblentz. Please read his notes on the Scar-o-Scope theory and after the Dumbledore as Christ figure essays for his insights. If he is right, of course, Nathan will have the great majority of us forever at his “I told you so!” mercy.

Nathan wrote me last week about something which, quite honestly, never struck me as important or mysterious before (though I think Joyce Odell, the Red Hen, mentions it more than once in her essays). Dumbledore knows about what happened at Godric’s Hollow the night Hagrid brings baby Harry to Privet Drive. How does he know? Did someone tell him? Was he there himself? Here is what Nathan wrote:

Hi John,

After going around and around in circles with people about Snape (I
haven’t changed my mind, but that’s neither here nor there), I’ve
found myself delving furthur and furthur into the mystery of what
happened at Godric’s Hollow and am wondering what your thoughts are.
The huge, unanswered question for me is how could Dumbledore possibly
have have known what happened so shortly after the fact? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Plot Points