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Entry tags:	deathly hallows

Deathly Hallows--The Reread (The Quotes, Chapters 1 and 2)
WARNING: Since this is a collection of comments from my rereading the book, expect there to be many spoilers in the sections on early chapters for developments that come in later ones; there is really no other way to discuss foreshadowing or the "real" purpose of something that occurs early on and is explained later. Do not read if you are still going through the book for the first time and do NOT want spoilers.


The Quotes

I started off listening to the audio book rather than reading the physical book, and I must say that the way that Jim Dale read the Aeschylus quote broke my heart, especially at the end: Bless the children, give them triumph now. I also love that the other quote is from William Penn, founder of the fair city that has been my home all of my life. The last part, again, is beyond perfect: This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

Thus, even before I got to the first chapter, she had already slayed me with her choices.



Chapter One: The Dark Lord Ascending

Once again, we start off a book from a point of view other than Harry's. The situation at the Malfoy home certainly is tense; from the beginning, it seems fairly clear that Draco's heart is still not in it when it comes to torturing and killing people. He is distinctly uneasy when it comes to Professor Burbage. Snape is, of course, in an untenable position; he cannot save her or risk blowing his cover, probably a continuation of Dumbledore's pre-humous wishes, or possible a post-humous one, from the portrait in the head's office at Hogwarts. Dumbledore could also be the reason that Snape was able to take credit for Emmeline's murder in HBP; I do hope he asked for a volunteer, rather than just randomly choosing a victim. Either that or I hope that Snape was just blowing smoke when it came to taking credit for that, during Chapter 2 of HBP. (There's still no real explanation for why, in that chapter, Snape dares to take credit for telling Voldemort about Sirius being so dear to Harry in front of Narcissa, the person who really did it; I fear the explanation is that it is, now and forever, a Flint.)

We now know, of course, that Dumbledore's portrait told Snape to tell them of Harry's real departure time, but not to tell them about the doppelganger idea that Dung was Confunded into thinking was his own. She's had so many literary doppelgangers for Harry that it's rather funny to see her giving him literal doppelgangers, and even using that word for them!

It's somewhat puzzling and inconsistent that Voldemort should evidently look down on werewolves, like much of the wizarding world, yet make use of them. Are we to infer that werewolves should be regarded similarly to house elves? Useful servants who are (sometimes) happy to serve, but you wouldn't let them sit at the table? He treats Tonks's marrying Remus as laughable as if she has married a house elf. (A freed one, no less!)

"...we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of true blood remain..." Rowling is no longer pulling any punches when it comes to making him a Hitler/Franco/Stalin figure, clearly, despite being a half-blood himself (which just highlights the Hitler similarities).

And poor Snape... he had to watch one of his colleagues be murdered to maintain his cover. Dreadful. It really does seem that Voldemort trusted him and took him back; I'm slightly disappointed that he's so dense, but many Evil Overlords are quite conveniently dense at times that tend to benefit The Good Guys. (It must be in the Evil Overlord Handbook.)

Symbolically, the murder of Charity Burbage in this chapter is an inversion of love throwing the Killing Curse back on Voldemort and destroying his body on the night of 31 October, 1981, since he is triumphing over a representative of "love" here ("Charity" comes from the Latin "caritas", which is a kind of love) and destroying HER body through its being devoured by Nagini. I hope that this finally convinces some Voldemort-worshippers to go into a twelve-step program to recover from said worship. You don't admire someone who does that, you just DON'T.



Chapter Two: In Memoriam

There are many inversions of elements from the first book in this chapter and the next. For instance, in the first book Harry left the wizarding world and came to live in the Muggle world; now he is preparing to do the opposite. In the first book he receives a scar that Dumbledore suggests remain, rather than trying to heal it, and in this one he injures himself but does bandage up the cut (using Muggle methods). In the first book the "injury" (the scar) was due to an encounter with an enemy; this time he is cut by contact with a "friend". (Sirius originally gives Harry the mirror and Aberforth, whose blue eye Harry really saw in the mirror, is indeed Harry's friend in this book.)

Early in the first book we are introduced to a very mild-mannered and benevolent Dumbledore whom McGonagall describes as "too noble" to use certain types of magic. We get the flipside of that in the Rita Skeeter article here, so the beginning of the first book as gives us a one-dimensional view of Dumbledore and this one starts to give us his backstory, resulting in a more rounded view. (Harry reads both an obit from a Dumbledore-friend and the Rita article.)

Of course, in the end, we learn that the pursuit of the Deathly Hallows made Dumbledore as subject to the temptation of great power as anyone else, the difference being that once something awful enough occurs--his sister's death--he has the sense to back away; it is not, therefore, nobility that leads to his eschewing the pursuit of the Deathly Hallows, but the consequences of pursuing power being brought home to him.

Another inversion between the first and last books, seen here, is that in the first book all the wizarding world (practically) was toasting Harry Potter for having defeated the Dark Lord; in this chapter, and specifically, Rita's article, they seem to be vilifying Harry for killing Dumbledore, who is himself the flipside of the Dark Lord. And, of course, Harry did stop the Dark Lord, whereas he did not kill Dumbledore, so he gets praised for something he did (in a way) versus attacked for something he didn't do. This is rather similar to the inversions in the early parts of books three and five: Harry was off the hook with the Ministry even though he really did inflate Aunt Marge versus being put on trial for justifiably using defensive magic.


Chapters 3 and 4