a radical hypothesis on the nature of the feedback loop
as a longwinded response to reddiej's examination of Harry's scar in Half Blood Prince (in lieu of commenting there with this), and also as penance for the delay on my (4 pages and counting!) second half of the Chapter 12 Read-Through, I offer this fragment that I just so happened to have lying around, all formatted and ready to go somewhere (I originally posted it on imdb on 11/28/05, actually).
Be warned. No one (other than me) likes this theory, yet.
I have an odd, slightly apostatical interpretation of why Voldemort couldn't possess Harry for any substantial length of time. I contend that it was NOT love and emotions that sent Voldemort packing, but Harry's genuine, fervent, and absolute desire for death. This desire was occasioned and inspired by love and emotion, but Voldemort was doing an exceptionally good job of possessing an entirely passive Harry, up until he "fed" Harry the temptation of death, quite by accident, and Harry (and perhaps a little bit of Voldemort's soul trapped inside of Harry!!) longed for that release.
Let's look closely at that passage (itals and elipses are Jo's; everything else is my emphasis); red text is where Harry is active, a subject of a verb; green is his lack of agency:And then Harry's scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance-
He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature's began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape-
And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaws move....
"Kill me now, Dumbledore...."
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again....
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy...."
Let the pain stop, thought Harry. Let him kill us....End it, Dumbledore....Death is nothing compared to this....
And I'll see Sirius again.
And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's soils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood....
This desire to die above all was absolutely anathema to Riddle, who has set his entire life against his own mortality, has made it his sole aim, and absolutely cannot cope with or tolerate experiencing this passionate longing for a release from life.
It terrified him, and he fled, fast.
EDIT: wow, I totally freudian typoed up there: was "his soul aim"....ha!
Be warned. No one (other than me) likes this theory, yet.
I have an odd, slightly apostatical interpretation of why Voldemort couldn't possess Harry for any substantial length of time. I contend that it was NOT love and emotions that sent Voldemort packing, but Harry's genuine, fervent, and absolute desire for death. This desire was occasioned and inspired by love and emotion, but Voldemort was doing an exceptionally good job of possessing an entirely passive Harry, up until he "fed" Harry the temptation of death, quite by accident, and Harry (and perhaps a little bit of Voldemort's soul trapped inside of Harry!!) longed for that release.
Let's look closely at that passage (itals and elipses are Jo's; everything else is my emphasis); red text is where Harry is active, a subject of a verb; green is his lack of agency:And then Harry's scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance-
He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature's began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape-
And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaws move....
"Kill me now, Dumbledore...."
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again....
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy...."
Let the pain stop, thought Harry. Let him kill us....End it, Dumbledore....Death is nothing compared to this....
And I'll see Sirius again.
And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's soils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood....
This desire to die above all was absolutely anathema to Riddle, who has set his entire life against his own mortality, has made it his sole aim, and absolutely cannot cope with or tolerate experiencing this passionate longing for a release from life.
It terrified him, and he fled, fast.
EDIT: wow, I totally freudian typoed up there: was "his soul aim"....ha!