Random HP Philosopher's Stone Thoughts
* The protections on the Stone were laughably easy to overcome if three First Years could do so. No matter how brilliant Hermione was, if the protections had required spells which were, say, Seventh Year spells, the Trio could not have bested them.
* That the only real protection was the last one, the Mirror.
Fans have produced a number of hypotheses to explain this:
1. That Dumbledore deliberately set it up that way because he wanted Harry to go after the Stone, because he wanted to train Harry to be a Hero without actually training him to be a Hero.
2. As above, but Dumbledore wanted to train Harry to be a martyr, not a Hero, because of the Prophecy.
The problem with these two is, I doubt very much that Dumbledore would have taken his staff into his confidence about why he wanted the protections to be so flimsy.
"Oh, Pomona, I think you should use plants that you've taught to your first years..."
"Why, Headmaster?"
"Oh, no reason, really."
Um, yeah.
Though if Dumbledore had taken Minerva into his confidence, that would explain why Minerva ignored Harry; he was supposed to go after it himself. But, really, it makes more sense that Minerva's reaction to Harry's "help, you've got to get the Headmaster!" was genuine, because she doesn't seem to be that good an actor, and she'd already got it into her head -- from the dragon incident -- that Harry was a liar and/or a prankster like his father.
3. That Dumbledore was incompetent/senile.
4. The Doylist explanation: this is kids fantasy, therefore the adults all have to be incompetent and the kids have to save the day. (I loathe Doylist explanations.)
It occurred to me today that perhaps there's another explanation when one considers this: there were really two impassable protections: the Mirror, and Fluffy. Well, Fluffy wasn't really impassable, but very close to it, because it required specific knowledge that Hagrid knew, rather than general knowledge that any First Year might know. Though one could argue that Fluffy wasn't really meant to be impassable either, considering how bad Hagrid is at keeping secrets.
Still...
5. It was always intended to be a trap for Voldemort's minion. The protections in the middle were never meant to be protections, just delays, so that the Headmaster would have time to come back and catch the culprit.
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* That the only real protection was the last one, the Mirror.
Fans have produced a number of hypotheses to explain this:
1. That Dumbledore deliberately set it up that way because he wanted Harry to go after the Stone, because he wanted to train Harry to be a Hero without actually training him to be a Hero.
2. As above, but Dumbledore wanted to train Harry to be a martyr, not a Hero, because of the Prophecy.
The problem with these two is, I doubt very much that Dumbledore would have taken his staff into his confidence about why he wanted the protections to be so flimsy.
"Oh, Pomona, I think you should use plants that you've taught to your first years..."
"Why, Headmaster?"
"Oh, no reason, really."
Um, yeah.
Though if Dumbledore had taken Minerva into his confidence, that would explain why Minerva ignored Harry; he was supposed to go after it himself. But, really, it makes more sense that Minerva's reaction to Harry's "help, you've got to get the Headmaster!" was genuine, because she doesn't seem to be that good an actor, and she'd already got it into her head -- from the dragon incident -- that Harry was a liar and/or a prankster like his father.
3. That Dumbledore was incompetent/senile.
4. The Doylist explanation: this is kids fantasy, therefore the adults all have to be incompetent and the kids have to save the day. (I loathe Doylist explanations.)
It occurred to me today that perhaps there's another explanation when one considers this: there were really two impassable protections: the Mirror, and Fluffy. Well, Fluffy wasn't really impassable, but very close to it, because it required specific knowledge that Hagrid knew, rather than general knowledge that any First Year might know. Though one could argue that Fluffy wasn't really meant to be impassable either, considering how bad Hagrid is at keeping secrets.
Still...
5. It was always intended to be a trap for Voldemort's minion. The protections in the middle were never meant to be protections, just delays, so that the Headmaster would have time to come back and catch the culprit.
This entry was originally posted at http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/1045329.html. (Comments
) Respond here, or respond on the Dreamwidth post, as you prefer. You can use your DW login or OpenId there.