The comments sections are filling up with thoughts on Rowling’s two recent interviews. Here are transcripts and video:
- Bloomsbury Chat transcript at Leaky (this has some transcription errors, but you can sort through most of it)
- Transcript and video of Dateline interview linked from HPANA
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In the interview, Rowling seems to contradict herself by saying that Ron was helping George at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes while earlier she’d said he was working as an auror with Harry.
One commentator on Leaky said this doesn’t necessarily have to be a contradiction because people do have more than one job in their lifetimes. Ron could’ve helped George right after the war to get things back to normal at the store & then when George could run things on his own again, Ron joined the aurors.
JKR does mention that Hermione first worked in the Dept for the regulation & control of magical creatures & then moved into the Dept of Magical Law Enforcement. So, it’s not too far fetched that Ron had two jobs, either at the same time or one after the other. I’m sure JKR will be asked about this contradiction.
Hey Travis,
Good stuff for your presentations, especially on Voldemort (evidence for both sinner and psychopath arguments, as well as the statement that things would have turned out very differently had Merope hung around to nurture and love him).
We’ve also got the answer to something that’s plagued the SOG community: Snape had been loved, by Lily.
And, Harry’s use of the cruciatis curse was a mistake on his part, part of his not being a saint but a fallen man like Dumbledore.
Really like the explanation of Hedwig’s death as a death of childhood innocence.
Bless,
Doug
revgeorge – I noticed that too. Ron must have gone to help George right away, then when Harry got some influence at the Ministry, he asked Ron to come and help him institute their “revolutionary” reforms.
Doug,
Do you use the term “fallen man” in the same sense as “human” , which would be all of us since the Fall in the Garden of Eden? So there are no “unfallen” men, with the exception of the Virgin Mary who was born without sin, and saints, as you say?
Or do you use the word “fallen” in the same sense as “flawed”, which is to say someone who has faults and is not perfect?
Or in some other way?
I was glad to see an explanation for the absence of Fawkes in the book. After Hedwig died, I was expecting him(?) to show up as Harry’s new familiar. I also thought Snape might have inherited the bird as further proof to Harry that he was Dumbledore’s man all along.
Reyhan,
Yes.
Both/and, certainly. There are no “unfallen” men and no perfect men, save for Jesus Christ, although this does not change the fact that all men and women retain within themselves the image of God.
Which theologically begs the ancient question of the nature of the image of God within the most evil of men, like Lord Voldemort. He was no demon. He was what was left of a man, Tom Riddle, a child loved by God. (Which is why it is untrue that no one ever loved Tom. God loved Tom.) But Tom has of his own free will so damaged the image of God within himself that there is nothing left there that can respond to God. All that is left is the broken child in the station. I’m reminded greatly of Lewis’s The Great Divorce, where he asks of one woman, is she no longer not even a grumbler, but just a grumble?
Of course, what will happen to the Tom Riddles of the world at the Final Judgment is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith.
Bless,
Doug
To make another point, I’m fascinated by Rowling’s statement that Voldemort’s eternal destiny is to be forever the child-thing under the seat in King’s Cross. This abandonment, this breaking of any kind of human contact or communion, is so resonant with the ancient Christian understanding of hell. Here’s a story from one of the Desert Fathers as I used it in a magazine article I wrote a couple of years ago:
The great Orthodox teacher Bishop Kallistos Ware has said, “The human person is created for relationship.†At the heart of this teaching is the recognition that we are created in the image of God. What does this mean? As Christians, we proclaim that when we say “God,†we mean the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We understand that God Himself is not in isolation. “God is love,†we read in 1 John 4:8. God is love because God Himself is community, is relationship. Bishop Kallistos goes on to say, “God is not a unit, but a union. God is love in the sense of shared love, the mutual love of three Persons in one.â€
Brothers and sisters, we can only truly understand ourselves, we can only lay claim to the image of God within us, when we recognize that like God the truth of who we are is centered in community. The truth of our very nature demands that we fully embrace our relationships with others.
There is another Greek word that opens this truth for us – prosopo. We encounter the centrality of relationship in the most fundamental of places – the very word for person. Prosopo – the Greek word for person – means “face.â€
Let me tell you a story of one of the Desert Fathers, St. Macarius the Great. St. Macarius was a holy monk who lived in the Egyptian desert. Walking in the desert one day, he found lying on the ground the skull of a dead man. He nudged the skull with his walking stick, and the skull spoke to him. St. Macarius said to it, “Who are you?†The skull replied, “I was a pagan high priest; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer. Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite.†St. Macarius said to the skull, “What is this alleviation, and what is this torment?†The skull answered, “As far as the sky is removed from the earth, so great is the fire beneath us; we are ourselves standing in the midst of the fire, from the feet up to the head. It is not possible to see anyone face to face, but the face of one is fixed to the back of another. Yet when you pray for us, each of us can see the other’s face a little. Such is our respite.â€
Think of what this teaches us. St. Macarius learned that in hell, people are bound together back to back. Hell’s greatest torment is the denial of the sight of the face of another. It is the experience of not being able to relate to anyone else.
Prosopo – person – means “face.†It is deeply significant that we cannot, without a mirror, see our own faces. Our faces are only seen by others. Without relationship, without koinonia, our faces are like flowers in the dark.
Bless,
Doug
Dumbledore’s repeatedly saying that the Voldemort/baby was beyond help, reminded me strongly at the time of the dwarfs in C.S. Lewis’s “The Last Battle”. It’s been a while since I read it, but I remember the dwarfs sitting in Aslan’s Country (Heaven) but deaf and blind to the paradise around them. If I recall correctly, Aslan pronouces them beyond help as they are trapped within their own minds.
Doug,
So for you to call Harry “fallen” means that he is like everyone else, ie. human with human flaws and weaknesses, of which his temper is one example?
You are not arguing, therefore, that he is especially flawed, or beyond redemption, like Voldemort, or the pagan priest, or Lewis’ dwarfs?
I ask because for me the word “fallen” has an especially negative meaning, as in “fallen from grace” or “sinful”, and I was wondering if you saw Harry as more bad than good, or even, a bad person?
OK Reyhan, now I get where you’re coming from! No, I didn’t mean to imply that I think Harry is any more or less fallen than any one else. “Fallen” doesn’t have as negative connotation for me; even my sense of the word has been shaped by my understanding of the term since becoming Christian in my 20’s. It would in terms of “fallen angel”, but as for men we’re all fallen. We all can be tempted. We all sin. Using the cruciatis curse was a sin, it was an error. JKR has acknowledged this, which is a relief for me to hear.
We live in a fallen world, the “Silent Planet” in Lewis’s science fiction, and one of the most genuine elements of the high Christian fantasy of the Inklings is that no character is portrayed as perfect, unless like Aslan they are themselves a Christ symbol.
“The world was young, the mountains green, no stain yet on the Moon was seen . . . The world was fair, the mountains tall, in Elder Days before the fall.” – Gimli, Fellowship of the Ring
Bless,
Doug
Good thoughts, Doug. For Orthodox Christians, the term “fallen” does not have the same connotations that it does in the West. As far as the Rowling interviews go, I was pleased that in the Dateline interview, Rowling said, “of course there is a religious undertone to this.” Of course she didn’t elaborate other than to say that her beliefs and faith influenced it. I still look forward to the Encyclopedia Potterica.
Dn Kevin
So much from the chat and these interviews have really put my mind at ease regarding the things left unsaid that maybe should have been said in the book – if not for entertainment, then for peace of mind. My biggest issue, Dumbledore’s request for Snape to kill him, is still very much unresolved, but this quote (from the Today Show interview) hinted that perhaps Jo sees Dumbledore’s master planning as flawed:
“That [Harry becoming master of the Elder Wand by stealing Draco’s wand] sort of puts all of Voldemort’s and Dumbledore’s grandiose plans in their place, doesn’t it? You just can’t plan that well, that something can go wrong and it went wrong … It went wrong because Harry managed to pull this wand out of Draco’s grip.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20035573/
I love this interview. Jo really knows her stuff. She has an answer for everything. It makes me love Deathly Hallows THAT much more.
And honestly I’m not a huge fan of Jo’s version of why Harry used Crucio BUT she has addressed it now. And in time the concept it’ll seem far less obscure.
I KNOW! I love that.
And does anyone think Voldemort lost his virginity to the tramp? I know this may sound ludacris but she did say all the deaths were significant. I know, being young that that moment in a young man’s life if a very big one. I can imagine it would have happened just after Hogwarts. Typical of him to take advantage of a muggle woman. He probably thought after that the act was foul and disgusting. Sex, on the contrary can be something of great pleasure and beauty.
Michael, I believe in British lingo a “tramp” is a homeless man.
Oh… wow well then I… HA! In Australia Tramp is used as to describe a fem-fatale like character.
I’m glad Rowling addressed the issue of Harry using the Cruciatus curse. I wasn’t expecting that she’d answer the question so soon.
But I still have some questions concerning the plot. How did Dumbledore know precisely about the events in Godric’s Hollow without an eye witness? How did Voldemort’s body “disappear†while his wand was still there? It seems that somebody must have been on the scene and I’ve waited for an explanation ever since I’ve read the first book.
Did Dumbledore foresee Voldemort’s use of Harry’s blood? Did he know what awaited Harry at the centre of the maze and did he allow it to happen in order to secure Harry’s survival?
There are some other questions but these are the ones that would interest me most.
Put me down as a “loved it”. I had just two points that I felt were missed opportunities (beyond the broader issues of wizard relations with other magical races and muggles).
First, there’s the part where McGonagle says something like “It’s time for Slytherin House to decide where its loyalty lies”. (I can’t find this to give the exact quote). The result is that _all_ the Slytherins leave Hogwarts and are evacuated, which I found a great shame. I can’t help thinking that if it had been Dumbledore, he would instead have said “It’s time for EACH SLYTHERIN STUDENT to decide where his loyalties lie” — an approach far more in keeping with Dumbledore’s philosohpy that it is our choices that make us who we are, not the choices of a hat.
Also I would have loved it is, during the Prince’s Tale, we’d seen Snape’s memory of being sorted, and found that he’d had the same experience as Harry but in reverse: that the hat had initially wanted to put him in Gryffindor for his bravery, but that it had yielded to Snape’s own desire to be in Slytherin. That, I think, would have underscored both Dumbledore’s sense that “we sort too early” and Snape’s mirror-image similarity with Harry.
But these are small quibbles indeed.
hi all,
one question i’m still struggling to find an answer for is whether dumbledore knew that LV would kill snape in order to take ‘true’ possession of the elder wand? did anyone come across anything that jkr said about this?
kundik, I don’t think LV was supposed to get the Elder Wand at all. Snape was supposed to kill Dumbledore on his orders, thus not truly defeating him. Since Dumbledore would have died without another wizard taking the wand from him by force, it should have lost its power.
If any of you are fans of the satire site The Onion, they have a brief blurb titled, “Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers.” It can be found at
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/final_harry_potter_book
It was kind of funny. Please note that if you go anywhere else on The Onion’s site, that it is not family friendly, in the sense that crude language is often used in stories & many stories are risque. However, the blurb on Deathly Hallows does not have any inappropriate language.
Mike Taylor–
if this makes you feel any better about Slytherin, remember that their HEAD of House stayed to fight. I didn’t know he had it in him. And the Malfoys were still there, slimy as they were, but at least not against the good.
I agree that the scene you suggest would have been a good one.
Phil, I see your point, and it’s a good one, I was just wondering if anyone has come across JKR’s own explanation for this?