Harry Potter...What Else

was browsing through a couple of harry poter sites again for information on book 7...don't know why i keep doing this..suddenly was struck by a thought...

JKR did make some comparisons between the star wars trilogies and her series and mentioned that she would definitely not write prequels...in another interview, she did mention that prohecies were often obtuse and the truth about propecies would be revealed only when the act was actually complete...or something like that.

i went through the prophecy in book 5 again and it struck me as obtuse...the prophecy for those who have forgotten reads:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

dissecting it, there is no doubt, at least at this point of time, that the person being spoken about is harry potter...or at the very least, let us proceed with this assumption.

now, that leaves the other parts of the prophecy for us to examine :

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches :
This should typically mean that harry potter has the power to defeat voldemort.

he will have power the Dark Lord knows not :
ok...now, harry has some secret power that voldemort is not aware of...doesn't mean that harry is aware of it either (inspite of dumbledore's assertions about the power being love)

Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives .
now, this is a bit confusing...harry is already around 16 years of age...and voldemort is alive and kicking...so, how did they both survive ? assuming that we ignore that second part of the sentence (though i don't see how), the first part also seems quite clear...harry has to be victim or killer.

so, all that is left (apart from part 2 of the sentence above) is to determine what is this secret power that harry has and will he use it/ be allowed to use it when the time comes.

the way i see it, the only power that harry has, which voldemort is not aware of, is snape's devotion to dumbledore (to the point of killing him) ...i know it sounds funny, but there it is...there is evidence of it across all the books...the most telling of which is when dumbledore knows that he will probably die by snape's hand...when he tells harry about the curse that voldemort put on the D.A.D.A. job...dumbledore knows that snape will have to leave hogwarts at the end of the year (after taking up the job) one way or another...which is why snape was not given the job earlier.

my guess is that the end will be slightly different to starwars where darth vader kills the emperor saving his son...here, it is possible that snape helps harry to kill voldemort...quite possible that harry sacrifices himself in the end...remniscient of nathaniel in the bartimaeus trilogy.

well, a bit confused on structuring of the arguments...maybe i will do it a bit later if i get the time.

ta ta for now.

More Books...More Calamities

read the lightning thief by Rick Riordan yesterday...stayed up until 3:00am reading the book and then got exactly 4 hours of sleep before rushing to office...oddly enough, i feel sleepy now ;-)

anyway, the book is a good read...if i have to compare it with any of it's peers, i would say that it comes close to book 1 of the harry potter series and book 1 of the bartimaeus series...let me explain...the plot is a light, uncomplicated one like the sorcerer's stone and the writing style is slightly humourous like the amulet of samarkand...

compared to these books of course, the inheritance series seems to be an epic worthy of comparison with lord of the rings.

on to other topics...i am getting rather tired of writing about disasters and calamities...but what is happening in Paris cannot be ignored. psychologists can probably try and make sense of it, but to me it appears very simple: years of xenophobia and discrimination combined with a mutual mistrust among people are taking their toll...of course, the explanation could also have been simpler...a bunch of gangs fighting each other for turf...but that brings us to a more fundamental question...why do ghettoes exist...which takes us back to the first explanation.

Amalgamation of people from various communities is a must for mistrust to go away...that of course, is like saying...you need trust for mistrust to disappear...which needn't be said anyway.

what saddens me though...is that though the world is becoming more global than before, people do not want to live in harmony with each other. why should looks, relegion, occupation matter when you want to live peacefully with your neighbour.

whether it is judaism or christianity or islam or hinduism or buddhism or jainism or any other relegion...
i) most seem to have common origins and epics (noah, abraham, matsya avatar)
ii) all preach exactly the same thing in multiple languages.

so, why do we need to try and alienate people based on different forms of the same words?
that reminds me...there is this really wonderful site called http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

this has the most comprehensive english translations of most ancient relegious texts that i have seen...a must see for all those who have not been there yet..

nothing more for now...off for lunch and a bunch of meetings. more later.