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deathtocapslockI was re-reading some old DTCL posts, and started wondering about prophecies. Specifically, about what a young, Dark Arts-curious wizard might know--or believe--about how they work.
Divination class, as we see, teachings more indirect predictive methods, such as reading tea leaves and cystal-gazing. Actively channeling... something... to deliver a prophecy isn't taught as far as we know, and likely can't be. Moreover, that particular method seems to be rather obscure. An official Mystery, in fact.
But there are literary depictions of prophecies. And both Shakespeare and Sophocles lived before the Statute of Secrecy, and their works might be find in wizarding libraries regardless of their authors' actual magical abilities or lack thereof. Their depictions of how prophecies usually work may have been based on fact. At least in part.
Would a geeky young wizard combing through every reference he could find to the Dark Arts read Macbeth and Oedipus the King, one wonders? As part of being thorough? And wonder if, perhaps, trying to prevent a prophecy from coming true really will not only be futile, but might even be the very means by which the prophecy will come to pass? Or at least, the attempt could make the prophecy come to pass sooner than it otherwise would have?
Hypothetically, if such a young wizard overheard part of a prophecy while trying to apply for a job, on his terrifying new master's orders--perhaps with some vague hope of using the opportunity to switch sides, but scared off by the opposition's disdain--would he at least have reason to hope that delivering said prophecy to the terrifying master would actually be a way to strike a blow? A desperate hope, for desperate circumstances? (He'd surely noticed by then how, erm, suboptimal the working conditions under Voldemort were.)
When Severus told Voldemort that a prophesied enemy could defeat him, what exactly did he think might happen should Voldemort respond by trying to kill that enemy?
Very possibly, something more than just that enemy getting AK'd.
Very possibly, the same thing Dumbledore thought might happen: Voldemort would be arrogant enough to think he could outwit a prophecy, and would destroy himself in trying to prevent it.
Then Severus and all his friends could put that nightmare behind them, without having to risk their lives and their families (like, say, the expected Baby Malfoy). Whew! Brave, but saving their necks if possible.
How unfortunate that this turned out to mean Sev's childhood best friend would die in the process! But then, he should have known better. Trying to manipulate a prophecy is liable to rebound on one, after all. Yet another reason for him to wish he had died, afterward.
If he'd just kept his mouth shut, might Harry have been born in the wee hours of the morning of August 1?
Divination class, as we see, teachings more indirect predictive methods, such as reading tea leaves and cystal-gazing. Actively channeling... something... to deliver a prophecy isn't taught as far as we know, and likely can't be. Moreover, that particular method seems to be rather obscure. An official Mystery, in fact.
But there are literary depictions of prophecies. And both Shakespeare and Sophocles lived before the Statute of Secrecy, and their works might be find in wizarding libraries regardless of their authors' actual magical abilities or lack thereof. Their depictions of how prophecies usually work may have been based on fact. At least in part.
Would a geeky young wizard combing through every reference he could find to the Dark Arts read Macbeth and Oedipus the King, one wonders? As part of being thorough? And wonder if, perhaps, trying to prevent a prophecy from coming true really will not only be futile, but might even be the very means by which the prophecy will come to pass? Or at least, the attempt could make the prophecy come to pass sooner than it otherwise would have?
Hypothetically, if such a young wizard overheard part of a prophecy while trying to apply for a job, on his terrifying new master's orders--perhaps with some vague hope of using the opportunity to switch sides, but scared off by the opposition's disdain--would he at least have reason to hope that delivering said prophecy to the terrifying master would actually be a way to strike a blow? A desperate hope, for desperate circumstances? (He'd surely noticed by then how, erm, suboptimal the working conditions under Voldemort were.)
When Severus told Voldemort that a prophesied enemy could defeat him, what exactly did he think might happen should Voldemort respond by trying to kill that enemy?
Very possibly, something more than just that enemy getting AK'd.
Very possibly, the same thing Dumbledore thought might happen: Voldemort would be arrogant enough to think he could outwit a prophecy, and would destroy himself in trying to prevent it.
Then Severus and all his friends could put that nightmare behind them, without having to risk their lives and their families (like, say, the expected Baby Malfoy). Whew! Brave, but saving their necks if possible.
How unfortunate that this turned out to mean Sev's childhood best friend would die in the process! But then, he should have known better. Trying to manipulate a prophecy is liable to rebound on one, after all. Yet another reason for him to wish he had died, afterward.
If he'd just kept his mouth shut, might Harry have been born in the wee hours of the morning of August 1?
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Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-21 05:51 pm (UTC)That makes so much sense.
If you act on a prophecy, whether to avert it or to fulfill it (Macbeth tried both), you empower it.
And what you pay, the cost of doing so, is what you are trying to preserve.
If SEVERUS, the young smartass, had tried to bring about the prophecy BY bringing it to his master--plotting (or at least hoping) that it would goad Him into ill-considered action--in the hopes of saving his own life, and those of his friends, at the probable expense of some random stranger's... then OF COURSE the random stranger he'd just thrown to the Prophecy Demons would turn out to be exactly the one person he'd have sacrificed his own life, and all his other friends', to preserve.
He thought he was being so clever, too. It's not like HE was doing anything directly; it could only rebound on the Dark Lord, and only if he tried to do anything to turn it. And if the Dark Lord turned out to be smart enough to ignore the prophecy, well, no harm done. Including none to Severus, because he was just showing himself keen in bringing it to his master. In fact it was the perfect sweetener to go along with the bitter news that Albus had refused Severus the DADA position--look what useful information I bring you instead. He couldn't lose.
Oh, poor Severus. No wonder his guilt was so overwhelming. And no wonder he was willing, in return, to throw his friends' lives along with his own under the trainwreck that was Albus....
You are brilliant.
As to your last comment--it might even be worse. Some people have speculated that the prophecy was made on Halloween 1979. At the time of Harry's conception. James might have shot a blank that night, or Lily remembered her contraception charms....
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 12:34 am (UTC)Or at least, that you could get away with trying to manipulate a prophecy if the actions were the ones you would take anyway--he'd have reported the prophecy out of fear of Voldemort, because Voldemort might catch a glimpse of it in his head (Sev not being as practiced at Occlumancy at this point). If he was going to report it anyway, why not report it while hoping it was just enough rope for Voldemort to hang himself?
Except the Prophecy Demons do seem to see a difference. Oops. It really is all his fault.
Ooh, good point. Lily and James might have gotten into an argument that led to Lily storming out instead of conceiving Harry! Who knows?
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 12:36 am (UTC)1. The prophecy will come true even if you take no action.
Banquo did nothing to ensure that his descendants became kings (nor did he try to prevent it), and the prophecy came true.
Harry took no action specifically with the intent of affecting Trelawney’s second prophecy about the servant rejoining his master. Sure, he tried to stop Sirius and then Peter from getting away, and stopped Sirius and Remus from killing Peter, but not in order to prevent the prophecy from coming true. He wasn’t thinking of the prophecy at all at that moment.
2. Trying to prevent a prophecy from coming true will rebound on you with a vengeance.
Leaving your newborn son on a mountainside to prevent him from killing his father and marrying his mother will just mean all these things happen with the three of you ignorant—he’ll kill you in a road rage incident instead of in a coup or a much-regretted accident, say.
If you try to murder a baby before he has the power to defeat you, that very process will blow up your body. (Maybe if Voldemort had waited, Harry still would have had some Power Voldemort Knew Not, but it would have been something different than absurd good luck, Parseltongue, and Scar-O-Vision.)
3. Trying to speed a prophecy along is likely to get you caught in the gears.
If three witches tell you you’re going to be king, killing the current king to get there faster is not a good plan. The Birnam Wood and “of no woman born” prophecies weren’t made until after the regicide. Who’s to say they would have been made at all if Macbeth had just been patient? Maybe he could have become king naturally and lived happily ever after.
If Dumbledore—and/or anyone else—allowed the prophecy to go to Voldemort in hopes that it would spur Voldemort to do something rash, well, they had some awful bad luck and eventually got killed, didn’t they? (It isn’t an instant smackdown; Macbeth got to be king a while before the prophecies bit him.) Severus perhaps more so than Dumbledore, but then, Dumbledore might have been riding Harry’s good-luck field for a while.
4. If you act in the belief that an ambiguously-worded prophecy favors your goals, it will turn out that the correct interpretation is the one least favorable to you.
To take some other famous ancient Greek examples, if you go to war because you think the Oracle said, “You will return, not dying in the war,” it will have actually said, “You will return not, dying in the war.” If you think the “great army” that will be destroyed if you go to war will be the enemy’s, it will actually be yours.
Similarly, acting on the belief that you’re invincible because you think it’s impossible for a forest to move or for a man not to be “born” of woman will only lead to you discovering how very wrong you are and how very legalistic the Prophecy Demons can be.
Maybe it’s a very good thing that Dumbledore never so much as hinted to Harry about his suspicions concerning how the prophecy might play out. If Harry had gone into that encounter thinking that death might only be a technicality, things might have gone very badly.
5. It’s possible to act in a way you know fulfills a prophecy and not get caught in the rebound… but ONLY if your motive doesn’t primarily concern the prophecy.
As mentioned earlier, Harry making it easier for Peter to rejoin Voldemort by persuading Sirius and Remus not to kill him wasn’t an attempt at fulfilling the prophecy, so nothing bad happened. (Probably.) More crucially, when he makes his suicide march and allows Voldemort to kill him, he knows that this fulfills the prophecy—but his motive is to destroy the Horcrux fragment he carries (so that someone else can kill Nagini and Voldemort), and he thinks this is the only way that can happen. He’s following the prophecy, but not consciously trying to manipulate it.
Though it might have been a close shave in which only his extraordinary luck kept the Prophecy Demons from interpreting his actions in the harshest possible manner.
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 07:15 am (UTC)Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 07:22 am (UTC)Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-22 03:05 pm (UTC)Yep, he thought it would be permanent, and would hopefully allow for Voldie to be permanently killed too (by someone else). So he knew offering himself up would mean he would die at the hand of Voldie, which would make the prophecy come true... but you can at least argue that he wasn't trying to manipulate the prophecy. More, "So this is what I have to do to help defeat Voldemort. Wow, sucks that the prophecy will be fulfilled this way instead of by me not dying. Oh well, nothing for it now."
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 05:15 pm (UTC)Also, if Severus did deliberately turn the prophecy over to Tom, then he thinks Lily's death (which his greatest efforts couldn't avert) is his just punishment for hubris.
And so would be Harry's. So what's the point of struggling, like he had with Lily? Now we have a reason for him to go along with DD's plan to sacrifice Harry however much he hates it, without looking for other options. It has to happen that way BECAUSE Snape hates it, because the universe isn't done punishing him.
In which case DD's "have you come to care for the boy?" is even crueler than we thought--he's suggesting that it's Snape's fault the boy must die too....
Like the "rules"! They do seem to cover it.
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-23 03:23 am (UTC)Oh, ouch, you're right, that is an extra twist of the knife.
And yes, it does sound like something that would increase his passivity. Look what happened when he did struggle, after all.
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 06:57 pm (UTC)Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-23 03:25 am (UTC)Having the less-enthusiastic servant who felt he owed Harry, at least a little, was probably one of the better outcomes there.
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 10:02 pm (UTC)Which harks back to Harry's utter passivity and the idea that trying to actually accomplish your goals (as opposed to just sitting around and waiting for the answers to be handed to you on a silver platter) is a sign of moral deficiency.
Re: Playing with the Prophecy Demons....
Date: 2015-10-22 10:15 pm (UTC)The Prophecy Demons encouraging such an attitude might explain a few things about the Potterverse, granted.