Dumbledore Spotted: Stoppered Death the Solution?

February 26, 2007 by 11 Comments

As a rule, I am several weeks behind on Fandom news. I don’t visit the websites that update every half hour with new still pictures of the naked Daniel Radcliffe or the cover of the Goblet DVD just released in the Netherlands (“what does that hippogriff head mean?!”) so, unless a friend sends me a note or one of my cadets asks me a question, I’m clueless about the larger media world of Potter-mania.

I gave a talk last Thursday called “The Five Keys and Seven Predictions for Deathly Hallows” at LaSalle University in Philadelphia where at least one serious reader had heard that Ms. Rowling had just renounced Dumbledore’s real death. I tried to explain “Stoppered Death” to her quickly but made a mental note to check Travis Prinzi’s website, www.SwordofGryffindor.com, when I got home.

Sure enough, Travis had posted something on this a week or so ago. The original article is here with commentary here. The meat of the subject is this:

Harry Potter fans around the world cannot help but be excited over Dan Radcliffe’s latest interview. In an interview that appears in today’s edition of The Sunday Times, Dan Radcliffe talks about being Harry Potter and he also talks about his roll in Equus, but the real reason Harry Potter fans are excited is because this interview includes a small bit of a conversation that Dan Radcliff had with J.K. Rowling. Dan shared this information with The Sunday Times:

“Jo came down to the set at one point and I said, ‘Oh hello, why are you here today?’ And she said, ‘Oh I just needed a break from the book – Dumbledore’s giving me a lot of trouble.’ And I said, ‘But isn’t he dead?’ And she said, ‘Well, yeah, but it’s more complex…’ I was like, [briskly] ‘OK, I’m not gonna ask anything else!” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Narrative Misdirection, Plot Points, 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?

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