deathtocapslock | Notes for Indestructible - chapters of interest and a patronus tidbit (Reply)

I'm working on writing up the other set of misc cards for my "Indestructible" series, and planning out the Severus-centric posts, where the real meat is. In those posts I'll be looking more at the books themselves again and quoting or referencing various chapters. There are sets of parallels and oppositions scattered throughout the books, and I'll be tracing some repeated imagery across them. So, for the sake of clarity and keeping things organized, I thought I'd give you a cheat-sheet of chapters and images to refer back to, if you want, as we go through the rest of the series.

This isn't a final list - I might end up finding further references as I write - but the major pieces are here.

Also, as I was pulling this list together I noticed an interesting bit of foreshadowing between POA and DH that I've pulled out for you at the end, to think about and play with.

CHAPTERS:

If you have the books on hand, and the time and interest, you might want to brush up on the following chapters, especially the bolded:

PS/SS 19 - The Forbidden Forest
COS 15 - Aragog

POA
7 - The Boggart in the Wardrobe
9 - Grim Defeat
the end of 18 - Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
19 - The Servant of Lord Voldemort
end of 20 - The Dementor's Kiss
21 - Hermione's Secret

(I doubt I'll go into this much, but I might talk more about the patronus/dementor opposition. For that POA chapters 5, 10, and 12 are useful. But I don't know if I'll go that far into things - it's a bit of a tangent.)

HBP
2 - Spinner's End
8 - Snape Victorious
26 - The Cave
27 - The Lightning-Struck Tower

DH
1 - The Dark Lord Ascending
19 - The Silver Doe
32 - The Elder Wand
33 - The Prince's Tale

The ones you'll really need to have looked at are "The Silver Doe" and the sections of "The Elder Wand" involving Voldemort in the Shack. (I've re-read the scene of Snape's death at least a dozen times this week, and every time I find something new, after I finish sniffling of course. It's astonishing what JKR put in there without apparently realizing it.)

DH 32 - "The Elder Wand" in particular relates back to almost everything: PS/SS 19, POA 19, HBP 27, and DH 1, 19, and 33. The threads all come together there.

IMAGES:

We've already talked a little bit about alchemy and phoenixes, so expect that I'll eventually go back to imagery related to those things - especially the Stone, flight, fire, and the image of regeneration through destruction.

I might, in this vein, talk a little bit about the Norse story of Baldr's death and/or the Egyptian god Osiris. We'll see.

Other images important to understanding Severus:

Animals - Unicorns and unicorn-like imagery, including certain deer patroni; werewolves, connected to boggarts and dementors, and contrasted with centaurs; serpents and the traditional serpent-and-bird combination that, among other things, is a common alternative to the scorpion for the constellation of Scorpio

Places - Forests, especially certain clearings in the Forbidden Forest; the Shack; pools/lakes; the tower

Misc - blood, mirrors, wands, vessels, stars, the water/fire duality, the master/servant duality, the light/dark duality

Colors - silver, white, or silver-white; black; red; green (pay attention to the color silver in particular)

*

Ok, now for that tidbit I promised.

I was combing through POA to note what chapters I might need to reference, and I discovered an interesting little juxtaposition between the end of chapter 20 and the beginning of chapter 21 that made me immediately think of a different chapter much, much later in the series.

I'll just quote the relevant bits for you - it's quite easy to see in the context of discussing Severus' role in the books. Note that I'm not cutting anything out once I start quoting. It jumps directly as written here:

And then, through the fog that was drowning him, he thought he saw a silvery light growing brighter and brighter... He felt himself fall forward onto the grass.... Facedown, too weak to move, sick and shaking, Harry opened his eyes. The Dementor must have released him. The blinding light was illuminating the grass around him...The screaming had stopped, the cold was ebbing away...
   Something was driving the Dementors back... It was circling around him and Black and Hermione.... They were leaving....
   The air was warm again....
   With every ounce of strength he could muster, Harry raised his head a few inches and saw an animal amid the light, galloping away across the lake... Eyes blurred with sweat, Harry tried to make out what it was... It was as bright as a unicorn... Fighting to stay conscious, Harry watched it canter to a halt as it reached the opposite shore. For a moment, Harry saw, by its brightness, somebody welcoming it back... raising his hand to pat it... someone who looked strangely familiar... but it couldn't be...
   Harry didn't understand. He couldn't think anymore. He felt the last of his strength leave him, and his head hit the ground as he fainted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HERMIONE'S SECRET

"Shocking business... shocking... miracle none of them died... never heard the like... by thunder, it was lucky you were there, Snape..."

And yet here, of course, Severus was unconscious for the appearance of the patronus (Harry's). Quite a neat and curious little reversal later, no? It's also, I'll note, very interesting that the chapter this occurs in comes directly after the chapter "The Servant of Lord Voldemort," in which we see Severus engaged in one of his great moments of internal struggle. (That's also the chapter, I think, where the whole "Snape loved Lily" theory first emerged from the margins for a lot of fandom before DH came out.) In certain ways POA is a key counterpart to DH. It's also probably the best-written of the books, IMHO.