Discuss Chapter 35

[Psychee]

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JSWebster wrote:
I imagine Rowling sitting at her desk, pounding her head in frustration, saying to herself, "I have all this information that Harry needs to know for the plot to proceed, but how in You-Know-Who's name am I going to do this?" The solution—a near-death experience/conversation with AD—strikes me as moderately desperate; if wizards had machines, this would be a deux ex machina. It simply doesn't seem credible to me. Why didn't Dumbledore impart this information, while he was still alive, in the form of, say, a time-triggered letter of some sort, rather than a cheesy quasi-mystical experience that only Trelawney could have dreamed up?

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Because she wanted to get across, in a real and present way, that there is life after death, and Voldemort was never going to see any part of it, because of what he had done to his soul...

There was nothing cheesy about this at all...

[hibachi]

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JSWebster wrote:
I imagine Rowling sitting at her desk, pounding her head in frustration, saying to herself, "I have all this information that Harry needs to know for the plot to proceed, but how in You-Know-Who's name am I going to do this?" The solution—a near-death experience/conversation with AD—strikes me as moderately desperate; if wizards had machines, this would be a deux ex machina. It simply doesn't seem credible to me. Why didn't Dumbledore impart this information, while he was still alive, in the form of, say, a time-triggered letter of some sort, rather than a cheesy quasi-mystical experience that only Trelawney could have dreamed up?

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I see where you're coming from JSWebster but I have to disagree with you. I don't think J.K. was desperate at all but infact was quite the opposite. I, like you was wondering why Dumbledore didn't give Harry all that information to him while he was alive but then thought if he did, there wouldn't have been a story. I mean think about it, if Dumbledore had told Harry everything in a letter, he would have already known what to do and the story wouldn't have been as interesting as it was. Also, I think she did the death and then born again thing to please all of her readers. I mean there were some people who were pinning for Harry to die and other's who were pinning for Harry to live and this scene with Dumbledore helped to achieve both of this. This way, Harry "dies" but after he has a heart to heart with his beloved headmaster who he was angry with, he comes back to life with all the information he needs to save the wizarding world. So to say it was chessy, yeah it might have been but all the same, everybody sort of wins.

[jennrn]

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Psychee wrote:

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tricia1116 wrote:
Ok i couldnt put this in the chapter that it belongs because i didnt want to give it away but since both Harry and LV are decendents from a brother of the deathly hallows that would make them cousins right (god know how many times removed but they would still be related thru harrys fathers side)

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Yes, very distant cousins from the Peverell connection. Since we don't know how many generations back those brothers lived, we can't determine how closely related they are, but I think we could say that they are no closer than 5th cousins...

We have to be careful and not think that this also means that Harry is related to Slytherin, though. Any one of the second brother's descendents could have married into the Slytherin family and Harry would remain totally unrelated to Slytherin.

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However, in CofS, Harry talks with the Sorting Hat in DD's office. The sorting hat states that Harry was difficult to sort and would have done well in Slytherin.

[Psychee]

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jennrn wrote:
However, in CofS, Harry talks with the Sorting Hat in DD's office. The sorting hat states that Harry was difficult to sort and would have done well in Slytherin.

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Yes, because he had ambition and a thirst to prove himself. The House of Slytherin would help him achieve greatness. That doesn't mean he is related to Slytherin by any means -- in fact, the last person in the house who was related to Slytherin was Voldemort fifty years earlier... since then, the Sorting Hat had also felt that 500 other people "would have done well in Slytherin"... (50 years X 10 people each year = 500)..none of whom were related to Slytherin himself.