Today’s guest post for chapter 26 of the Half-Blood Prince read-through is from one of our longest-standing patrons: Red Rocker!
In Chapter 26 of Half-Blood Prince, we witness Harry and Dumbledore make their way into a large, dark cave, take an enchanted boat to a rocky outcropping in the middle of a dark lake, dispose of the green potion of awfulness in a particularly awful manner, fight off some inferi, and grab the fake amulet and run, attended by fireworks.
They are alone in the cave, save for the aforementioned inferi, who are so featureless as to be characterless. Voldemort’s enchantments live on, but he himself is a topic of conversation only. For all intents and purposes, Harry and Dumbledore are alone.
But it’s a crowded place, all the same.
Look in the shadows, and you can see a crowd of myth masters: The unknown story tellers of Norse and Roman mythology are present. The blind poet Homer is there. I suspect Plato and his mouthpiece are there too because it’s really hard to think of a cave, without thinking of The Cave. Dante Alighieri is there, and his Roman mentor and sometime traveling companion, Virgil. Not surprisingly, Tolkien is there, puffing on his pipe, reminding Sam to keep Frodo from touching the water. And not surprisingly at all, David is there, singing praises to the Lord.
Not much doubt about where Chapter 26 takes place: the old Norse word for “cave” is “hellir”. Our word “hell” comes from Norse mythology: the dark goddess Hel, Queen of Shades. But if doubt remains, we can refer to Roman mythology, where the name for the gods of the underworld was “Inferi Dii”.
The trip that Harry and Dumbledore take to the underworld has been done before, and the rites and rituals are known: when Odysseus and his men visit the Underworld in Homer’s Odyssey, they make a sacrifice of blood, which attracts the spirits of the dead. Odysseus fends them off, until he finds the dead man he came to speak to. He uses ram’s blood, while Harry and Dumbledore use Voldermort’s preference: their own blood.
Plato’s Cave? Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. But there is a strong theme of reality vs. illusion. So much in the cave is deception: the invisible archway, the hidden boat, the intangible potion, the fake amulet. Reality is not available to Harry at all who only sees the shadows dancing on the wall. Dumbledore, though, can see the “invisible truths lying under the apparent surface of things which only the most enlightened can grasp.” So it’s Dumbledore who finds the invisible archway in the wall, feels out the invisible chain that pulls in the hidden boat, intuits the presence of the invisible island, the hidden locket, and the secret enchantments placed on the cave by Voldemort.
And then there’s Dante’s trip to the lowest levels of hell, in the company of his spirit guide, the poet Virgil. In the eighth ring of the Eighth Circle – Counselors of Fraud (Sins of Malice division) – they encounter Odysseus and friend, who walks wrapped in flame, his punishment for his schemes and conspiracies that won the Trojan War.
Reminds me of the Jason Cockcroft cover for HBP: Albus Dumbledore and friend, surrounded by rings of fire. Any other resemblance of character or motive may or may not be spurious.
And for the grand finale, we get a reading from Psalm 23:
‘I am not worried, Harry,’ said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. ‘I am with you.’
It’s one of JKR’s strongest chapters. And the strength comes from the voices of all the shades whose words she’s listened to and heard. And repeated in her own words so others too could hear and understand.
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Red, damn…
This is why you are frikkin’ awesome! This needs to be an entry in the HP Lexicon! Or maybe an appendix in some book Travis will put together in the future! This kind of work is indispensable in any literature’s scholarship.
Whenever I have to defend HP as literature to a colleague, I’m pointing them to this post as one of my arguments.
As to Plato, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all, especially given the fire imagery Dumbledore uses to escape. Add to that a reading of the Inferii as only shadows of people — incomplete and unreal — and you get a very dark, even sartorial comment on Voldemort’s character.
I have no doubt that one reason he’s drawn to Inferii as a tool has to do with his sense of the purpose of people. Inferii are perfect because they will do his bidding, and they are literal presentations of the soulless life preserved.
Of course, that presentation is an ironic one — they also point to Voldy’s eventual end-state.
This chapter is perhaps my favorite in the whole series. It is exquisitely crafted and points to Rowling’s strengths as a writer. She seamlessly weaves together multiple allusions and symbols to present a picture that is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.
Amazing post, Red Rocker. Aside from Plato and Charon’s boat, I have to admit I didn’t pick up on any of those literary/mythological references (my ninth grade English teacher would be so disappointed that I didn’t remember Odysseus’ visit to the underworld). And great comment about the souless inferi pointing to Voldy’s end state.
Speaking of Odysseus, the force-feeding of the potion is rather like the inverse of Odysseus listening to the sirens, where he is tied up to hear their beautiful music and his men are ordered to refuse to untie him no matter how much he begs (if I have that right after all these years).
I also read a Gothic horror novel (or the continuation of Rowling’s ongoing Gothic horror novel) into this chapter, complete with zombie attack at the end.
There are some interesting effects with Dumbledore’s eyes. When Dumbledore is getting Harry to agree to keep feeding him the potion even if he wants to stop, his blue eyes have turned green in the reflected light from the basin (i.e., like Harry’s or Lily’s), then when he’s maneuvering them back to the boat surrounded by the ring of fire, the flames are dancing in his eyes. Does that mean they look red like Voldemort’s or is it a combination now of red and green (conjunction of opposites) or a combo of red and blue? Or is this just the power of the (Gryffindor red) flames overcoming the power of the (Slytherin green) potion?
Oops, that was Dave who made the comment about the inferi pointing to Voldy’s end state. Sorry.
Lily, no problem!
Commenting on my own comment – maybe Dumbledore’s eyes looking green is meant to give Harry a sense of the torment Dumbledore feels at having had to allow Harry to suffer what he has suffered and will suffer in the future. A switch of roles, if you will, which carries through the force feeding, during which D becomes like a “child” and reverts to his own teenage years in his memories, and finally the switch from “you are with me” to “I am with you.”
Red Rocker,
I really enjoyed that. Good work with all the references. You’ve excellent knowledge and very widely read.
When I read about Dumbledore fighting the inferi I’m reminded of Gandalf on the hilltop after the failed attempt on Carhadras. They are fighting the wargs and Gandalf does his thing with rings, or ring/wall of fire.
I thought Dumbledore’s disdain for Voldemort’s cave defences was excellent writing.
Wow, Red Rocker, I could never have done this chapter justice, as you have. A-ma-zing.
I’ve read several interpretations of Dumbledore’s “I am with you” to Harry. Some say the emphasis is on Dumbledore as Christlike protector of Harry (“I am with you always”). I lean to the Harry emphasis, in that the very weakened DD has “anointed” Harry, passing the torch (“go to all the world”) to “the better man” as he refers to Harry in DH.
The idea of innocent victims, even worthy foes of LV, including Regelus, are now doing his bidding as mindless, soulless Inferi is heartbreaking and chilling. I’d like to think that someday they would be released.
One practical lesson we can take from this chapter is “always bring water with you!”
Even if they had it probably would have vanished as D tried to drink it!
Red, nice post! I always saw this chapter was a nice set piece of action/mystery prior to the book’s climax on the tower. I should have known that I’d be fooled by Rowling into missing the other layers of meaning in this chapter.
I need to clarify what I wrote above:
“The idea of innocent victims, even worthy foes of LV, including Regelus, are now doing his bidding as mindless, soulless Inferi is heartbreaking and chilling. I’d like to think that someday they would be released.”
I should have written: That the bodies of innocent victims, even worthy foes of LV (including Regulus) are, without choice, doing his bidding as mindless, soulless Inferi is heartbreaking and chilling. I’d like to think that someday these bodies would be released from their enslavement.
And this is likely why Cedric asked Harry to bring his body back to his parents–he knew about the Inferi and wanted to avoid a similar fate. I never thought of that before.
It is a very good analysis of all that is going on in this chapter, Red Rocker. Really deep stuff but bringing to us the ghosts of the past. I think it really shows how shallow & lacking the comments & analysis by Peter McEllhenney were on whether or not HP was great literature.
JKR’s writing is chock full of the ghosts of the past but that’s not a bad thing, because she does wrap them together in a new, fresh way so that they are introduced to new generations. As you say, “And repeated in her own words so others too could hear and understand.”
Arabella F, that’s how I understood it too, seeing a strong parallel between:
I am not worried, Harry. I am with you
and
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Two reasons.
First, the context is that Harry is worried about Dumbledore and is trying to comfort him, and this is how Dumbledore responds. The implicit statement is “I will be fine, because I am with you”, which fits the parallel.
The other reason, of course, is what happens Deathly Hallows; Harry lays down his life to save the world, out of love. Which confirms the parallel.
I believe, in retrospect, that this was JKR laying down the clues for us, so we could see what was to come. She said as much, afterwards, that we should have been able to guess, although she didn’t refer to that line specifically.
This is, of course, in retrospect. Must confess that at the time I didn’t pay too much attention to the line. And what came after drove all thoughts of literary analysis out of my mind – but more on that later.
Interestingly, I did pick up on the clues she laid in the previous book: the passage where Harry self-exorcises Voldemort by thinking of death as the place where he would see Sirius again caught my attention. I thought – ok, he’s going to go beyond the Veil. Not realizing exactly how that was going to happen.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy reading JKR: she always writes with the end in mind, and retracing the clues she lays down is so much fun.
Nice post. Personally I have always believed that “I am not afraid, I am with you, Harry” was a plot point that JKR did not pick up in Book 7. I think she originally intended to do something meaningful with that line in the plot of Book 7 and changed her plans later.
It really doesn’t make sense any other way, even as an allusion to Harry as the “Master of Death”.
This dark sea in the cave in chapter 26 I was thinking about what do we see today symbolically in the ‘sea / water” we see a vacation day at the beach, surfing, just as the orphans did see, a great day for an outing. The ancient Hebrews saw the sea as symbolic of evil and death. Could be the sea represents an area of perpetual unrest of ungodliness being Satan’s world and In Jude 1:13 “wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” (all ESV) Revelation, in 13:1, where the beast comes from the sea, and 20:13, as a place holding the dead. In the cave “…However, like many creatures that dwell in cold and darkness, they fear light and warmth, which we shall therefore call to our aid should the need arise. Fire, Harry,” Dumbledore added with a smile…” (HBP the cave pg. 566 scholastic) The only thing Dumbledore says that will keep the Inferi at bay is light and warmth in “Fire”.
It has always baffled me that Harry can take his invisibility cloak and simply stuff it in his pocket. Any thoughts?
what baffles me is that he can SEE his invisibility cloak!
SPT, I’m curious how “I am with you” would have been used in Book 7. I didn’t see it as the beginning of something that would happen later, but the end of something Rowling set up 600 pages earlier: Dumbledore’s “You are with me.” It’s the role-reversal and the foreshadowing of Harry’s transcending Dumbledore, becoming “the better man.”
jensenly, I’ve wondered about that before. I asked it once before here, and I remember that several people made comments about it being flowy, magical material that’s easy to tuck away. It’d probably take me a while to find that thread again.
The Invisibility Cloak reminds me of those carrying totes of thin material that can be folded into the size of a wallet. Very fine silk, such as women’s scarves are made of (especially, fine enough to see through) could easily fit into a pocket.
Lily Luna, it must be that when the Cloak is off the person it can be seen. Because Ron could see it when Harry opened it up his first Christmas, and Dumbledore borrowed it from James.
And, Travis, yes, it is the role reversal. Dumbledore is strong for Harry and now Harry is strong for DD. Or, DD has led and protected, and Harry was dependent upon him; now Harry will lead and protect, and others (including DD) will be dependent upon him. When I first read the book, I got chills because that’s exactly what I sensed.
Good thing or it would have suffered the fate of the Invisible Book of Invisibility, which Flourish and Blotts ordered but could never find!
Arabella – Yes, I like the idea that it is made of such fine material it can collapse into a much smaller state. I have a couple of grocery bags like that.
Lily Luna – very funny!
Remembered reading about an actual invisibility cloak, so I Googled it. Came upon two types. One type, originating at Duke University, uses metamaterials which bend the light around the object. So far, this only works with one frequency of light. The other, originating at the U of Tokyo, is made of retroreflective materials, and requires a videocamera which projects what’s behind the invisibility cloak to the front surface.
The point is, neither technology requires that light actually goes through an object, because, of course, it can’t.
I dare say that the wizarding technology parallels the muggle technology.
Now someone explain how a wand “selects” and “knows” its owner.
For new wands, perhaps the wand senses the wizard’s personality, kind of like the sorting hat. Lucius’ core is dragon heartstring because he’s dragon-hearted. Draco’s core despite his name is not dragon heartstring, it’s unicorn hair, as is Cedric’s. As we learn from Hagrid, unicorn hair is strong and unicorns are pure and innocent, which seems to describe Cedric more than Draco, but is somewhat consistent with what Draco becomes: despite his seeming weakness he is strong enough to resist killing not just D but the snatchers and presumably others as well, keeping his soul relatively pure. In addition, V drinks unicorn blood to stay alive in SS and figuratively tries to spill Draco’s blood by giving him what is assumed to be a suicide mission. Neville’s new wand, which works a lot better for him than his dad’s old one, is cherry and unicorn hair. James’ wand was mahogony, a very strong wood, and pliable, as he becomes (changing from bully to nice guy). Lily’s wand was willow (weeping, as she does in the Mirror of Erised), swishy, good for charms and she certainly is very charming. Ron’s new wand in POA is willow and unicorn hair, 14 inches (for Mr. Tall). Bellatrix’s wand is walnut (a hard wood), dragon heartstring, and unyielding like her. Harry’s wand is holly (Christmas/birth of the savior) and phoenix feather (Fawkes/loyalty/resurrection/fire-Gryffindor). In addition, the wand may sense the bit of V in Harry and the wand’s brother chose V.
That brings us to V’s wand. It’s wood is appropriate to V: yew, associated with death, graveyards, and the poison taxine (of Agatha Christie/ Miss Marple fame). But why phoenix feather? One explanation is the boring one of plot requirement. Rowling wanted the two wands to share a core and produce phoenix song when they did battle, so she gave them cores from the tail of D’s own phoenix. A deeper explanation would be that the wand sensed even then that V’s biggest enemy was D and gave him a core from D paired with a death wood. Or it might have sensed V’s desire for immortality and his own resurrection scene to come (the rebirth).
There is also a general background of different woods going with different birth months, but I don’t know how well that applies in this story.
Ugh, just strike that apostrophe from “it’s” in the first line of the penultimate paragraph of my comment 22.
Lurker, rare-commenter here–
Red Rocker, this post, well, rocks, pun vaguely intended.
I am linking to it on my FB page, if you don’t mind…
Since I’m not doing the reread-through of HPB w/ the pub, I will refrain from in-depth comments, since I haven’t been following the pub conversation in-depth these past few weeks (I’m currently rereading GOF, in a failed attempt at rereading the whole series before the HBP movie release… the best laid plans of mice and men…).
Just had to emerge from lurk-dom to say, “Well done!” on this post!
Not to comment on my own comment, but I will.
V’s wand is made long ago, when D was still a relatively young transfig prof (young enough to still have auburn hair). Would he have owned Fawkes at that time? It’s also curious that the second wand remains unsold for so long (if in fact the wands were a pair made at the same time – a very odd pair, one made with deathly yew and the other made with Christmas holly). Or is that backward? Perhaps V’s wand was made first and D later acquired or tamed Fawkes deliberately and asked Ollivander to make another wand with Fawkes’ feather, one made with holly, before Harry turned 11, with the suspicion that such wand might choose Harry. (Of course this is all pure speculation but I wonder what Rowling had in mind as the backstory of the wands or if she had even thought it through.)
If you don’t mind, I’d like to duck over to the Inferi for a moment. We know LV was building an army of animated corpses, mentioned early in this book. There were more than just the ones in the cave.
My stunned insight (at least to me) above about Cedric left me pondering about others/Inferi. But first, consider the argument for Cedric. When his shade or whatever it is, comes out of LV’s wand, he says only two sentences to Harry. In both he tells Harry (commands him?) the same thing: to bring his body back to his parents. That’s it; no sentiments. Of course, one can choose the more traditional view–”bring my body back for closure and burial.” But Harry, whom Cedric knew was escaping, would have told where Cedric’s body was in short order for retrieval, as he’d read the gravestone. Since Cedric was a 7th year, he’d know about the Inferi. I believe his dread of this fate fueled his dying request.
Lupin and Bill, upon learning that Mad-Eye Moody was killed, say they must recover his body right away before the DEs get it (DH 81). And we must consider this the fate of Charity Burbage’s body and of others’ (like the ice cream man at Diagon Alley) who had disappeared. It makes the Inferi even more horriblly “real” and chilling to me.
Good thoughts, Arabella. Kind of makes the gollumization of the inferi a mistake on the part of the movie producers. To really get the horror of the inferi they should be depicted with a broken humanity. That is, you should be able to recognize in them people you knew. Now, that would be truly horrifying.
I think that perhaps there is a simpler explanation for Cedric’s request: Cedric did not want his body fed to Nagini. Voldemort threatened Harry with this earlier in the graveyard, and feeds Charity Burbage’s body to Nagini in DH, probably making his DEs witness the atrocity for their enlightenment.
revgeorge, on the other hand, these are dead bodies that have been in the water for decades, so they probably would be rather distorted beyond recognition.
But definitely good thoughts on Arabella’s part. In Harry Potter & Imagination, I argue that Rowling (and therefore the WW) has a respect for the body, as evidenced by Hermione’s discussion of the difference between a human body and a Horcrux, as well as the need to try to find Mad-Eye’s body as soon as possible. I’d never considered that they also feared having to face Inferius-Mad-Eye in battle, which would be terrifying.
deacondon, good thought with lots of other textual connections, though I’m more inclined toward Arabella’s idea, because it’s more likely Cedric knew about inferi than that he knew Voldemort was in the habit of feeding dead bodies to Nagini. Nobody but Harry and a few others even knew about Voldemort and the giant snake at that point.
revgeorge, I’ll have to see the movie to know for sure, but another possibility with the Gollum-like inferii in the film clips is that they are a visual allusion to the LOTR films. And that Gollum is a symbol of the broken human spirit.
Their power kind of depends on what you’re going for. I don’t remember them being described in astounding detail. So, filmmakers have a wide range within which to work. Besides the option above, if you make the inferii more human-like, or at least recognizably so, they would creep me out.
But, I think HP filmmakers would opt for Peter Jackson over George Romero!
Intriguing thoughts, and with some retrospective validity. I’m not sure, however, that JKR had thought of inferi when Cedric made his request. Does anyone remember when she first mentioned them?
On the other hand, it has always been important for soldiers to make sure their bodies would be returned home and not left in the hands of the enemy. Going back to the Iliad, a lot of the plot concerns what happens to Hector’s body after Achilles slays him in combat. Just Googled it, and learned that in ancient Greek times, the outraging of the enemy’s body was required as vengeance for the deaths of family or friends. Beyond that, after battle the camp followers would go through the corpses, removing anything of value. After them would come the animal scavangers.
Based on this, I always read Cedric’s concern for his body as the usual warrior’s wish to be returned home to his family for burial, rather than to be left in the hands of the enemy.
I’m not disputing that Voldermort and his minions might have done horrible things to it. Just questioning if JKR had thought things out to that extent at that point.
I think you’re right about that, Red. Most compelling theory so far, I think – even if Rowling had already thought of inferi.
Well, Red’s point is the obvious one, the one I always thought of–body returned to loved ones, not left to enemy. But I still cling to the Inferi idea, though I goofed on Charity. The Inferi are first brought up in HBP, but surely Rowling already had them in her world and perhaps LV had used them before. Otherwise why were they studied in class? Just call me stubborn.
Well, even if Rowling hadn’t thought of them by the end of GOF, that doesn’t necessarily lessen their impact with respect to Cedric, or the others (shudder to think if anything like this happened to Mad Eye). Rowling most certainly could have returned Cedric as an inferi later if Harry didn’t recover his body.
Remember, the point behind the series is to see it as a larger narrative arc.
One of Rowling’s smarter and more helpful narrative moves was to limit her third-person narrator to Harry’s oft-isolated perspective. Thus, the inferi don’t come off as later inventions, but are always present outside of Harry’s purview. And fiction often works best by drawing connections among different parts of its story.
Thus, it’s not unreasonable to assume Cedric would have known something of inferi, and be worried about them.
In DADA class Snape says the Dark Lord has used inferi before so they would be wise to assume he would use them again and on the wall Snape has a picture of a bloody mass on the ground representing those who have suffered the rage of the inferi, so it would seem V has used them before for purposes other than the lake.
Thank you, Lily Luna, for the class details. I’ve had a raging sinus headache for two days and didn’t look it up, though I knew there was a class discussion on it. I shall get to your exquisite chapter analysis tomorrow. And thanks to all who didn’t think I was hacking up a hairball on the Cedric/inferi thing.
Also, becoming a snake snack like Charity is one yucky thing; being an inferi is too awful to contemplate.
In OOTP when Moody is showing Harry the photo of the original Order he points out Benjy Fenwick, whom they only ever found bits of, and Caradoc Dearborn, who vanished and they never found him, both of whom may have been turned into inferi as well, although they are never discussed again.
Also, in GOF, V’s plan was to kill Harry and have him vanish, so he may have contemplated making Harry an inferius as well.
It also just occurred to me that there is a similarity between the inferi in the lake (HBP) and Devil’s Snare (SS) – neither like light and warmth, so light a fire. The inferi being Voldemort’s (~the Devil’s) Snare.
It’s reasonable to assume that Voldemort could have thought of indignities to his victims gross enough to put those in Shaun of the Dead to shame. It’s also reasonable to assume that Cedric would have known about those at-that-point unnamed indignities , and wished to avoid them. The inferi we met in the cave did not seem to have individual features or characteristics, but perhaps that’s just because Harry didn’t know any of them in life.
Personally, I am of the school that assumes that if the author hasn’t written it, it hasn’t happened. So for me, anything outside of Harry’s 3rd person limited purview doesn’t exist. I am not at all happy when that perspective shifts, by the way, for different reasons. On the other hand, I do see the series as above all being a mystery/detective story – or rather seven mystery stories nested in one. So I’m always looking for clues and indicators of things to come and answers to the question: what is really happening?
Also, never forget dramatic impact. Cedric dying with a “take my body home” on his lips is more compelling than Cedric expiring quietly. And Harry portkeying back with Cedric’s body is a lot more compelling than Harry coming back alone, no matter how distraught. Props are important.
I have always questioned the two-way Tri-Wizard Cup portkey in GOF. Portkeys were introduced as one-way transport, working at a predetermined time. The group takes a boot portkey to the World Cup, and an old tire back to Stoatshead Hill. It would seem unlikely that the Cup would have been deliberately charmed to go back and forth, as the whole point was to deliver Harry to V for the re-birthing and eventual murder.
Thoughts?
Jensenly, you are quite right. I’ve viewed the two-way nature of the Tri-wizard Cup as being something of a divine intervention in a sense, since it’s shadow-James who tells Harry it will take him back to Hogwarts. How on earth would he know that otherwise?
Of course, it’s probably just an inconsistency on Rowling’s part.
Also, in the movie, they turn that completely around. They take a boot to the Quidditch World Cup and when the chaos breaks out, Mr. Weasley tells them to “get back to the portkey.” Then in the graveyard in the movie, Harry tells Cedric to “get back to the portkey.”