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Re: The Life or Death of Harry Potter

Jason Powell — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:05:18 -0000

Robby,

I totally agree. As I said in the write-up I'd sent Dan, it was a risky interpretation of the title. But, I still like it, even if it just worked to prompt me into the thoughts I had. I daresay though there's a link between "holy" and "relic." I'd guess there's a common root of sentiment in the two terms.

Thanks for the Wiki article--I was unaware of the alternate translations for the title. It gives me more to consider until the book comes out.

You're very right about how Rowling has setup this final book: anything could happen. That's really the fun of it all, you know?

Re: The Life or Death of Harry Potter

geetarista — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:41:08 -0000

For some reason, the link didn't work... Here it is again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re: The Life or Death of Harry Potter

geetarista — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:38:04 -0000

I see where you're coming with on this Daniel, but I do disagree about the title having anything to do with it. From what I've heard, I don't think that the title is dealing with holy death. Hallow can mean to basic things: holy or relic. I personally believe that it could be both, but I'm leaning towards the relic side. For example, the Swedish translation of the book's title is "Harry Potter and the Deathly Relics". I think this is what Rowling really means because I think that the book will be mainly about Harry hunting down the horcruxes (or horcruces :). Does that mean that I believe Harry will not die? Definitely not. I think that Rowling has set the book up perfectly so that Harry will live or die, Snape is good or bad, Dumbledore is alive or dead (even though he is dead), etc. Personally, I have read so many different theories and guesses at what might happen, but after reading all the books over again and finding no assurance of anything, I think I am going to just wait it out and see what she has in store for us.

I found a good summary of what I have read about the title here:

Re: The Life or Death of Harry Potter

Jason Powell — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:26:06 -0000

I try not to get into discussing the details from the stories, since I'm terrible with remembering details, but I have to say something about the Harry/horcrux idea. It occurred to me, too, but it doesn't jive with Voldemort wanting to kill Harry himself. It's a fun thought though.

Thanks for sharing the Heraclitus quote. I've never heard of that before, but I'm going to do some reading on it. I've never heard of Heraclitus, either, but Wikipedia does say he's know as "The Obscure."

Incidentally, shouldn’t the plural of horcrux be horcruces?
Probably. I know very little about Latin (just enough to impress those who know none). I went with horcruxes because it looked like the popular choice.

Re: The Life or Death of Harry Potter

Steven G. Harms — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 06:37:37 -0000

Might I point out that this is really the primary sin of Anakin Skywalker as well, the refusal to accept the fact that, as Heraclitus said:

It's name is bios but its work is death. That is, it's name is life but its work is death ( or, as Greek had no diacritical mark at that time, it could have meant: "Its name is the bow, and its work is death" - Heraclitus ruled )

The primary rule of The Force was that life creates it and that when life ends, it goes back to the force. By seeking to manipulate the symbiosis between The Force and the mitichloriens ( groan ), Anakin committed the ultimate sin under creation: Refusal to accept its fleeting endurance ( see: Buddhism, see: "The Fountain", see: Aristotle "Generation and Corruption")

Incidentally, shouldn't the plural of horcrux be horcruces?

HP SPOILER -- STOP READING MY COMMENT NOW

I think Harry is the last Horcrux. To rebalance yin and yang he'll have to die nobly to destroy the last horcrux (see: Terminator). It explains the 'charmed' interaction between V'mort and himself.