for neither can live while the other survives

[sunnyskywalker]

I've been frustrated for years that the prophecy seems exactly backwards: it says "neither can live while the other survives," when what we see is that neither Harry nor Voldemort can die while the other survives. How can you make that work even with all the wiggle room inherent in prophecy bafflegab? It's just backwards!

D'oh. What's one thing Potterverse wizards have that we don't? Proof that souls exist, and almost certainly an afterlife too. They don't have to take it on faith. Souls can be sucked out, ripped, and torn to pieces. Wizards can sit next to the Veil and listen to the voices of the dead.

The prophecy didn’t mean neither of them could live in their mortal bodies while the other survives. It meant that because they couldn't die, neither could go to their eternal lives.

Does this really work? I keep feeling I must be missing something. Like a giant gaping hole somewhere that blasts all possible interpretations to pieces. mary_j_59? Anyone?

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

She could even have worked around the pitfall of detecting the Harrycrux too early if she tried.

Ah, yes, of course, the Harrycrux ... the biggest reason why Rowling was scared of any of her characters being allowed to think independently and ask the obvious question, "can we detect/find a Horcrux with magic?". Because then her BIG SURPRISE would have been revealed way too early.

You know it's a horrible story - and horrible story writer - when the whole story relies on the characters not being allowed to be themselves, to ask obvious questions, etc.

It only didn't work in the cave because the Horcrux wasn't there, after all.

Nice one! I never thought of that. Certainly worthy of *trying*. And, after all, Hermione had done *exactly that* to get the Horcrux books!

[oryx_leucoryx]

It is called an idiot plot. The kind of plot that works only if the characters are assumed to be idiots.

So what should have happened if Hermione had tried 'Accio Voldemort's Horcrux' in Harry's presence? (Did Accio Hagrid work at all when Harry tried it?)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hmm. Harry never rethought the sequence of events in the cave. He attempted to summon the Horcrux, nothing happened. After eventually emptying the basin Albus retrieved something that Harry assumed to be the Horcrux. Conclusion: Horcrux can't be summoned. Except later that nighr he realized no Horcrux was retrieved, so he learned nothing about which spellls work on Horcruxes.

OTOH, he knows Albus was terribly injured from dealing with the ring yet he had no concern summoning a Horcrux, presumably to his hand - and neither did Albus stop him. Did Albus expect the Accio to fail? Did he expect no other Horcrux to be cursed? Did he expect to be able to deal with the curse well enough for Harry to last long enough to fill Ron and Hermione in with the outcomes of the night's quest? Did he not expect that to matter?

[sunnyskywalker]

Did he somehow know the Horcrux wasn't really there, but wanted to know if there was a clue who took it and thus where the real one might be? I can't keep track of what he knew and what didn't (or only pretended he did) anymore.

Hm. Maybe he assumed that there would be an anti-summoning spell on the basin, because why put it in a basin in the middle of a lake otherwise? And Nagini was in that bubble. But the diadem was just sitting around in piles of junk. That one might have been summonable.

[sunnyskywalker]

It's especially horrible when the characters could have tried the obvious and the author could easily have thought of reasons why it wouldn't work on the unintentional Horcrux or how they might misinterpret the results. She could have preserved her precious plot twist that we'd all guessed already anyway after HBP came out! She didn't need to make them all incompetent!