Well, well, well.

[rj_anderson]

So I guess this latest answer on JKR's official FAQ to the question of how the Order members communicate (and can anybody explain to me how on earth we would have figured that out from reading GoF, the way Jo thinks we all should have???) would strongly suggest that Snape does, in fact, have a Patronus. (Ironic, since cesario suggested last night that it was highly possible he couldn't cast one due to a lack of happy memories, and at the time I was inclined to agree with her. I wonder what Snape's happy memory is?)

In the past, JKR has said that she can't tell us what Snape's Boggart or his Patronus are because it would "give too much away". Well, I think I know what his Boggart is -- it's himself killing Dumbledore. But his Patronus? Something "unique and distinctive" to him, so that nobody could possibly mistake it for anyone else's Patronus? I'm stumped.

Oh, also, I thought of another thing today while doing the dishes. What is it about domestic chores that causes me to think of wacky new HP theories? But anyway: raise your hand if you think Dumbledore's going to come back from the ashes, as it were, just when Harry has lost all hope. I mean, d'oh, JKR is a massive Narnia fan, and she said a long time ago that if she talks too much about her beliefs as a member of the Church of Scotland then "the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books". If it's on a level that a ten-year-old could guess, it obviously doesn't have to do with anything theologically esoteric. So my money's on the death-and-resurrection motif, common to Narnia and Tolkien as well as (of course) the New Testament.

And if Snape is the one to kill Dumbledore, it's kind of like if Aslan had taken a long walk with Edmund instead of the White Witch prior to the Stone Table, and told Edmund that he would have to kill him. Excuse me while I go and get my handkerchief. *blows nose loudly* In any case, I expect that Harry and the Trio, along with possibly Snape himself (who may or may not be fully aware of what Dumbledore has in mind) will have to go through Susan and Lucy's long dark night before they see Dumbledore again.

Of course, Dumbledore is not Aslan, because he manifestly screws up at times, and says so at the end of OotP. I'm quite sure JKR doesn't mean Dumbledore to be God or Christ in any allegorical sense, only a sort of God or Christ-figure in certain respects. But the ideas of immortality, and of love conquering death, and of loyalty and faith in Dumbledore being rewarded in the end even against all hope, have been cropping up regularly in the earlier books and I'll be very surprised if they don't pay off soon.

I have read the back jacket copy from the US edition that was posted yesterday, but deliberately avoided reading the first chapter excerpts floating around my f-list, because I know that if I start reading any part of the book I won't be able to resist the temptation to open it as soon as I get it and then I'll be up for the rest of the night finishing the thing off, which is just not feasible when you have two preschoolers. I shall start it as soon as I wake up on Saturday morning, which will probably be early, because my brain is doing the giddy kid-at-Christmas thing already...

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

The happy memory has to be receiving the invitations to the funerals of Sirius Black and James Potter?

[the-gentleman.livejournal.com]

Well, Dumbledore does communicate with Hagrid in OotP by sending a whispy silvery thing to him.

(And as for the Aslan/Dumbledore thing- I think there's a possible echo when Dumbledore takes on Harry's punishment in OotP, and certainly in CoS when he's forced out of Hogwarts by Lucius.)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

But JKR said the answer to the Patronus question was in GoF, not OotP... mind you, JKR has been known to get things wrong. :)

And interesting point about the echoes. I'm blanking on where Dumbledore takes Harry's punishment, though.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I think he meant where Dumbledore claimed responsibility for the DA?

[the-gentleman.livejournal.com]

Yup. Umbridge gave off real White Witch vibes there.

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

My bet is that this will all have something to do with the Draught of Living Death or Snape's speech about stoppering death from PS. I also think that the whole thing will be a set up aimed at making Snape seem extra evil.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yep, and half of Snape fandom will go "Yay, he's evil!" and half of the remaining half will go "Wah, he's evil!" while the remnant will staunchly insist that he's not evil, and be branded as "in denial" by the rest of the fandom, akin to those who keep claiming that Sirius is not really dead. :)

[sabrinanymph.livejournal.com]

Allow me a long sigh, but the Sirius fans had their moments and so I suppose it's left to us Snape fans to have ours.

You'll be able to count me in on the 'denial' stage thank you.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Oh, me too. Except I don't call it denial, myself: I think it a perfectly sound response to everything JKR has done with Snape's character so far, and the way she's continually hammered home the way that appearances are deceiving and that Harry's perspective (however much we may empathize with him) is frequently skewed and distorted by his lack of knowledge/understanding of what's really going on.

Saying Sirius isn't dead when all the other characters in OotP made perfectly plain that he is, on the other hand -- that's denial. :)

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

OTOH, Obi-Wan told Luke that his father was dead... and, NOT AT ALL being a fan of Sirius, I still question whether he's irreversibly dead. Otherwise, the 'beyond the veil' thing is overly cutesy, IMO. There's no good reason to have it in there other than to set up some ambiguity.

Snape... my concerns about Snape are simply that he may not be as central to the story as we Snape fans would like to think. It's Harry's story, after all. Though I'd love to be wrong. :)

[katsaris.livejournal.com]

Sure there's a good reason -- to be able to show *Harry* in denial.

[ljrags.livejournal.com]

I had thought of the phoenix analogy more than once. Sigh....just a few hours more.

[ancarett]

raise your hand if you think Dumbledore's going to come back from the ashes, as it were, just when Harry has lost all hope.

Considered it raised! With Dumbledore's animal companion and Patronus being the phoenix, it makes sense for him to come back in some sort of form. Whether it is full out corporeal human returned, I doubt (that seems to be yet another of Voldemort's selfish mistakes), but some sort of return and support of Harry at the last, I expect and hope to see!

[sabrinanymph.livejournal.com]

I think you've got a pretty good point right there. The sacrifices Lily and James but specifically Lily make for Harry always make me think of the conversation between Aslan and Lucy and Susan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The whole 'the white witch knew magic, but she forgot about the magic from before the dawn of time' conversation.

Also, I think it's likely that Dumbledore will die simply because of Rowling's tendency to follow mythical archtypes even outside of Christian sources and that generally indicates that the older mentor will die. Resurrection is a more Christian theme, and I agree with you that it's likely.

[katinka31.livejournal.com]

...because I know that if I start reading any part of the book I won't be able to resist the temptation to open it as soon as I get it and then I'll be up for the rest of the night finishing the thing off, which is just not feasible when you have two preschoolers.

LOL, my reasoning exactly! I'm going to force myself to go to bed early tonight, then go and nab a copy at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

and can anybody explain to me how on earth we would have figured that out from reading GoF, the way Jo thinks we all should have???

No. I hope she explains it, or that it becomes apparent in HBP.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing she just typed the wrong book. She got so used to telling people that the answer to ship questions was in GoF....

*runs away*

[tundraeternal.livejournal.com]

I don't think your spoilers need to be labelled as spoilers, since they're really just theories, and have no basis in fact, right? I mean, whether or not you're right, the theories are the same.

As for the Patronus thing, say what? We're supposed to have picked that up? I better go reread GoF again...

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Well, there's sort of a reason OMG YOU HAVE A GORMENGHAST ICON LOVE LOVE LOVE EXCEPT STEERPIKE IS SUPPOSED TO BE BLOND AND I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN THE MINISERIES BUT ANYWAY WHAT WAS THE TOPIC AGAIN??? for me to label at least one of my speculations as a spoiler, since the chances are extremely good that it is one. But in any case, I figure, better safe than sorry...

[tundraeternal.livejournal.com]

OMG YOU HAVE TO SEE THE MINISERIES!!! I haven't actually read the books yet, because i borrowed them from a friend, but then i tried to read and i fell asleep, and now i'm trying to READ ALL THE HARRY POTTERS BEFORE TONIGHT OMG HBP!!!!!!

You should join harrypothesis. Unless you're already a member, i forget. Hmmmmmmmm.

But Jonathan Rhys-Davies is completely brilliant, blonde or not. And his hair is lighter than it looks in the icon, also.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the books are... dense. It took me a long while to get into the rhythm of Peake's prose, but once I did, man, I tore through those books. Or wallowed in them. Sort of both. Except the third book, don't care for that one at all, but then it doesn't have Steerpike in it.

There are so many HP speculation communities I gave up on all of them long ago... just don't have the time. But who knows, maybe one day...

[tundraeternal.livejournal.com]

There are so many HP speculation communities I gave up on all of them long ago...

Now there's a defeatest attitude! Why not just pick one community and stick with it? harrypothesis is especially good for that, because no one ever posts there. Easy to keep up with!

[malabud.livejournal.com]

Didn't you just say a little while ago that you were going to be cutting back on your LJ time? *g* Mind you, I'm certainly not complaining about all the interesting HP theories you're suddenly posting.

Anyway, that would be totally cool if Dumbledore faked his death in some way. It would have to be a ruse, I think, since JKR has said repeatedly that there is no coming back from death. Everyone would have to believe he was really dead, especially Harry, for it to work. Even with a faked death, the resurrection symbolism would be still present in Dumbledore's return. Hmm. Very interesting....

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

She's definitely had someone turn out not to be dead (Pettigrew) and return from being so close to it that he was entirely separated from his body (Voldemort himself), though. And the quote I found first when looking this up (how many is repeatedly? :)) actually starts off with how "Could Lily maybe come back to life?" raises an interesting point because one of the first things she had to do was set the limits of what magic could do... and one of them was that it couldn't raise the dead. (Later in the paragraph she says plainly, "If you're dead, you're dead," though. Still, the context on that one is interesting.)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Really interesting theory, as I think I mentioned elsewhere.... I'm wondering what to think about the Patronus, myself. I mean, all right, so they're unique and distinctive -- but surely that allows for some variations on a theme? Or has Hermione got the first otter Patronus ever, Cho the first swan, Harry the first stag, and so on? That can't be it. It's got to be something distinctive, but more like recognizing a face than recognizing that somebody's human....

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Until proven otherwise (so, possibly until this afternoon), I'm favouring the bumblebee patronus approach. "BzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzDIVEBOMBDEMENTORbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzetc".

Am off to mother's place for weekend; plan to follow HBP with a re-watching of "The Empty Child" and then hopefully by the last thre eps of the season. *hopes mother's DVD player runs avi files* Why? Because I can...

[owl]

Very interesting theory. *bursts with spoilers* I'm marking it to see what happens in book 7.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

The section in GOF where we saw how Order members communicate was in the chapter The Madness of Barty Crouch, just after Harry and DD arrived at the scene where Viktor Krum was knoched out and DD pointed his wand in direction of Hagrid's cabin and something silvery shot out of the wand.

I agree, DD will come back somehow - not sure how.

I think Harry wiull die at end of book 7, I just think that Vol;demort transferred part of his soul to Harry and Harry is a Horcrux - mad idea I know. DD has not told Harry ALL of the fact, or has slightly twisted something.

I think Snape has to kill Harry, and then Voldemort can then be killed and that is how Snape will be redeemed. JKR did say that Snape was on a kind of redemtive path some years ago.

Harry's wand will not work against Voldemorts wand - so unless one of them gets a new wand then they cannot hurt each other.

Mara

[reihikari.livejournal.com]

I think Snape's boggart would most likely be a dead Dumbledore. (that or himself in the green dress and feathered boa...)

As for his Patronus... From HBP, I guess we can assume from the development with Tonks that a Patronus resembles whoever/whatever is most important or loved by the summoner (and seems to change with his/her mindset). In Tonks' case, her Patronus' form changed to something that resembled Lupin whom she had developed strong feelings for (quite out of the blue IMO). There is much speculation (tons actually) about Snape having been (and perhaps still) in love with Lily, and if that turns out to be true there's a high possibility that his Patronus resembles her. As I'm typing this, I'm realizing how spot on you were with Maud's Patronus in your stories. Or I could be fangirling as I am apt to do... :)

Now I'm wondering if it's ever been established that wizards who are "evil" or at least deeply involved with the Dark Arts are unable to summon a Patronus. If only "good" wizards are able to summon one and Jo's saying that Snape definitely has a Patronus, there's more hope for our favorite professor yet!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering if it's ever been established that wizards who are "evil" or at least deeply involved with the Dark Arts are unable to summon a Patronus. If only "good" wizards are able to summon one and Jo's saying that Snape definitely has a Patronus, there's more hope for our favorite professor yet!

I like that thought a lot, and it does indeed seem possible -- except that if this were the case, then the other members of the Order would not have any good reason to doubt Snape's loyalties, seeing as he can cast a Patronus. Unless, of course, they've never actually seen him cast one (which might be true because most of Snape's messages would be to Dumbledore anyway), in which case his allegiance might still be in doubt as far as they're concerned...