Fantastic Potions and How They Helped Albus Dumbledore in HBP

[felicitys_mind]

Reconciling the death of Albus Dumbledore with Severus Snape's loyalty to him.

On Aug 12, I revised and vastly expanded the essay and changed the title to “Fantastic Potions and How They Helped Albus Dumbledore during HBP”; it was reworked to include excellent comments from readers, to fill in areas that were unclear, to include my latest ideas

Comments

[bethbethbeth]

Very nicely argued. Thorough and believable - and internally consistent. Thank you for posting this.

[corykiel]

  It's only when they speak very nicely to you that you know you're in deep poo-poo.   So I get all kind of warm and fuzzy when people say snarky things to me.

[beyond_pale]

I've been regarded as a raving lunatic for the past several years for insisting that "put a stopper in death" = cork a bottle, and I stand by that!!! Agressively and loudly. In context of the parallel sentence structure of Snape's first-class speech, this conclusion can't be counterargued.

ARRRFGH!! "Flash" v "Jet"! You just took me back to a four-month long argument regarding AK function that took place on the IMDB boards! scary-place, scary-place

[felicitys_mind]

Beyond Pale

[beyond_pale]

ah, but all it is internally inconsistant for the first two items in a parallel catalogue to refer (not to vaguely desirous actions, but) to specific actions that apply directly to potionmaking, and more distinctly, actions which are applied to liquids, and the last not to.

Plus, the German translation uses the cognate verb "verkorken," and several other translations actually use nouns meaning "cork." If foreign translaters are told enough to change R.A.B. to R.A.Z. or R.A.S., I think we can trust they know a bit more than we mere readers do

[felicitys_mind]

The foreign translations are a good argument, but the verb "stopper" in this context is arguably idiomatic in English and doesn't have a perfect cognate in other languages. Even a literal translation such as "bottle fame, brew glory, even cork death!" (i.e., seal off death) is more in line with the interpretation "hold back death" than the interpretation "cork a bottle of poison!" since fame, glory, and death are not physical entities but states of being. A poison is a physical entity. So if you are going to argue for internal consistency in the list, then "death" can't be a synonym for a deadly poison

[alisanne]

Also here via ptyx.
Very interesting. It all makes sense the way you state it; I can see no holes in this theory.
I hope you don't mind if I rec it at a message board I admin. :)

[felicitys_mind]

Not a bit. What board is it if you don't mind my asking?

[alisanne]

The Cipher Forum.
The link should be to the actual thread I started. :) Let me know if you can see it.

[felicitys_mind]

I did see it. Thanks for the compliment. A quibble: Harry did not take Felix that night---he gave it to Ron, Hermione, Ginny, etc. to use. If you could correct that in your post, I'll be grateful.

[gmth]

This is beautifully constructed and a fascinating idea. It is a chilling thought, but makes perfect sense. Nice job. :-)

[gemmazycas]

Still I was concerned that RTD would shrug us off with a lousy explanation but this makes perfect sense and makes the exercise well worth trying, it has gotten the conspiracy nuts in tizzy over the past thirteen weeks and has certainly kept me intrigued.

Re: stopper?

[felicitys_mind]

I'm repeating myself since someone already voiced this objection

Re: stopper?

[meep]

I know Snape wasn't referring to stopping death, but I think one can think of the "stopper" as "containing" death... stoppering it up so it does not progress farther. I don't think he means antidotes, per se, which would =reverse= death, but something that would freeze what had occurred...

(zombie Dumbledore...ok, maybe not)

Re: stopper?

[beyond_pale]

Yeay team "put a cork in it!"