WordWolf

*cracks knuckles* Me and the "Sirius Isnt Dead" Guild have given this a lot of reading. :D--> The Veil was foreshadowed at Nearly-Headless Nick's Deathday party in Book 2. (This was left out of the movie.) Harry passed thru that veil unharmed. There's references to a Veil in Egyptian mythology, in legends concerning Isis, and in Greek mythology concerning Persephone. Both are in references to death. I'm a little hazy on my Babylonian mythology, but it overlapped the borders of Assyria, where the mimbulus mimbletonia came from. The Veil/Arch is a gateway to the Lands of the Dead, it seems, in JKR's Book 5. JKR has said that there's no returning from dead once you're properly dead. Therefore, the question is: Does passing thru the Veil/Arch count as becoming 'properly dead'? If the answer is "yes", then we can just shove Voldy thru THAT and he can't come back even if he left 856 horcruxes here and searching for them is a waste of time. If the answer is "yes", there's another problem. Its usage made no sense. If Sirius was supposed to be killed suddenly and we need to accept it, Bellatrix just would have hit him with the Avada Kedavra like Cedric Diggory. Then we-and Harry-know exactly what happened. We know that Bella DIDN'T hit him with it because someone hit with the AK dies as if they're switched off (like Cedric). Sirius had time to change his facial expression, struggle, and SPEAK before vanishing thru the Veil. So, he was alive when he went thru. Harry saw him hit and expected to see him come out. Harry knows what the AK looks like, and saw Sirius hit. Therefore, Sirius wasn't hit with the AK. If you study Book 5, a LOT of things happened the way they did to force the story towards the MoM fight, which happened THERE so Sirius could be pushed thru the Veil. Apparently, it HAD to happen that way, which means that we haven't seen the last of Sirius. When asked how Sirius might return, JKR said she could possibly answer that. She had JUST said outright that Regulus Black was dead. "Will we be hearing from Regulus Black? Well, he's dead, so he's pretty quiet these days." Lots of portals into the Lands of the Dead have existed in mythology all over the world, and in all sorts of myths. Heroes have gone thru them to retrieve people, as well. Hercules did, Orpheus did, there have been others. Joseph Campbell considers the descent to the Lands of the Dead a necessary part of The Hero's Journey. (Then again, it can be a symbolic journey.)

Roger Moore the Cannonball Run Adrienne Barbeau

I thought he turned on the machine. Oh, well, it's been a long time.. Next song, let's see... Oh, right. "I'm heavenly blest, and worldly wise, I'm a peeping-Tom Techie with x-ray eyes

That was CRUCIO, not the Avada Kedavra. The difference wasn't TRAINING, it was HATRED. He had to HATE enough to fuel it.

AMELIA Bones died. (Too bad-she was a good candidate for Minister of Magic.) Emmeline Vance, OotP, dies at the beginning.

And with that, I present to you someone's attempt to do empirical research on this.... Learning the occult from Harry Potter and D & D Presenting the opposing point of view, Jack T Chick's "Dark Dungeons" Rebutting the opposing point of view, MST3K meets Dark Dungeons!

Too many Dr Demento types around here. That's "How's Your Whole....Family?" by Red Peters. (Or is it Peter Red or something?) Been a while since I heard it, but it kinda stays with you.

The appearance of the new portrait in the Headmaster's Office seemed to be a giveaway. That's why I suspected it for the end of Book 6, also. Amazing what you can figure out sometimes. The current theories are that it's definitely Regulus. Further, for JKR to keep introducing important characters across Book 7 will be somewhat excessive. I'll have to reread it and check. Like some others, I think Snape could be loyal and still killed Dumbledore. My objection is that we still havent seen a good reason for Dumbledore to say "I trust him completely" and Dumbledore can no longer give us one. It appears the house was intact before Voldy fired the AK, and it was trashed when Hagrid arrived. (Or Wormtail, if he arrived sooner, which is unlikely.) It looks to me like it was not decreased in power. JKR has also said in interviews that one really important question is: why didn't Voldemort die? If it was just the decreased power of a ricochet, that's NOT an important question. If it's because the horcruxes anchor him to reality, then it IS important. Further, don't forget Harry's scar. It's the LAST link Voldemort placed for himself to the world. Me, I keep thinking Voldy's magic should be 1/7 of what it originally was, but JKR seems to disagree.

BTW, if ALL guesses are correct... The locket was stolen by Regulus Black, who died of the poison soon after dropping it off at 12 Grimmauld Place. It was discovered in Book 5 during the cleaning: "a locket no one could open" It was stolen from 12 Grimmauld Place by Mundungus Fletcher in Book 6 when he was stealing Harry blind.

Let me rephrase this. If someone fires an Avada Kedavra at you, you have until it reaches you to find some way to keep it from touching you. Dumbledore blocked a spell at the MoM with one of the statues. Fawkes swallowed another. Harry parried a third using his own spell and the Priori Incantatem effect. Presumably, if you Disapparated out of its path, you'd be fine also. It will keep going and explode on impact. If the AK touched you, that's it-you're history. Hagrid can shrug off individual stunning spells and so on due to his giant-type magic resistance. If an AK hit him, he'd just fall over dead. No resistance can shrug off the AK. So, if Hagrid wanted to survive it, he'd need to block it with something before it reached him as well.

IT WAS BLOCKED when Harry and Voldy dueled at the end of the Goblet of Fire book. Remember, they both had the same core - a phoenix feather - in the wands - brother wands, if you will. Harry was able to get Voldy's wand to do a "reverse" of the AK spell, which showed many of the people (a likeness, ghost, if you will) of them, including Harry's parents. That made my point. In the case of the Priori Incantatem, Harry and Voldemort fired simultaneously, and the identical wand-cores produced a resonance when the spells connected the wands. Otherwise, the thing wouldnt have stopped it. Dumbledore used a statue and Fawkes to block spells at the end of Book 5 as well. If an Avada Kedavra hits its target, however, that's it. (DaDA lesson one, year 4.) If an AK hits an inanimate object, generally speaking, the object is exploded. ("Ronicus Explodicus".) If it hits a person, they die instantly and leave an intact corpse (Book 4, Cedric Diggory.) They fall like they were switched off. ======== Technically, we do not KNOW R.A.B. is Regulus Alphard Black. However, he seems an obvious choice. He used D.E. terms (Dark Lord), and expected to die (which Regulus SHOULD have expected when he tried to defect.) If Regulus did it, he thought "You may kill me, but I'll seal your doom in the process- I'll destroy your horcrux (horcruxes are rare and are only made ONE per soul) so you can be killed." He had opportunity (only a D.E. would know the location and that there WAS a horcrux), and motive. Of course, EVERYBODY had a motive: the good guys (kill the bad guy) and the bad guys (topple Voldy and REPLACE him)

Drew Barrymore Charlies Angels:Full Throttle John Cleese

This is why I think he cast it normally. The only chance-which I think didn't happen due to the Unbreakable Vow- is that SS cast a nonverbal spell to put him into hibernation, and immediately after it, recited the verbal component of the Avada Kedavra without actually putting the magic behind it. Maybe. For the first time, I'm not confident she'll bring this to a successful conclusion.

I forgot my candidates. Whoops. Here were my candidates BEFORE the book came out. A) Trevor the toad. Nesbitt, JKR's favourite writer, rewrites fairy tales. I thought JKR was rewriting "the Frog Prince". Trevor just shows up inconveniently FAR too many times. There were also little foreshadows of this with things like Umbridge's description as looking like a frog. (She sounded like she had a nonhuman ancestor.) The only things I didn't have: how to lift the curse, and who he is prince OF. B) Neville Longbottom. My supposition was that this "pureblood" could have one parent descended from Godric Gryffindor, and another parent descended from Helga Hufflepuff, thus having 2 bloodlines. He would unite the Hogwarts Houses. C) A new character, 1/2 wizard, 1/2 goblin. Goblins need to join in the war. A prince would bring them in. Goblins make good armour and weapons, handle all the money, and can do magic of their own (opening Harry's Gringotts safe, opening the one Hagrid needed open, Book 1.) D) A new character, 1/2 wizard, 1/2 centaur. Centaurs would be forced to participate in the world, as the war comes to their doorstep. In all honesty, I think all my guesses made more sense than what JKR wrote.

Well, here WERE my candidates for "1/2 Blood Prince", from most likely to least, and the reasonings for each. General reasonings: ================== 1) a teenager (otherwise he overshadows the Golden Trio) (I was 1/2 right) 2) there to unify the Houses or wizarding world, which justifies his presence in the story (wrong-and I find the true answer was dissonant, and the story "tripped" over him) ===== At least I beat Mugglenet. They kept insisting the exerpt FROM "HBP" was a description OF the HBP. It was actually a description of the new Minister of Magic. ==== Steve, the Avada Kedavra is unblockable, "instant death, no saving throw" unless the spell is intercepted (like the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore at the end of Book 5.) If you're hit by it, stick a fork in you-you're done. The only except EVER was Harry's birth, and that was due to what Lily did at the time. ====== I considered the magic that kept Voldemort alive to be some sort of serpent magic, since he survived "shedding his skin", is a parselmouth, and used Nagini the snake for some sort of potion. We knew he was less than human, so I thought the rest was ANIMAL rather than MISSING. Ok, he's split 7 ways. 1) Voldything 2) the Riddle diary (destroyed) 3) the Slytherin ring (destroyed) 4) the Slytherin locket (destroyed by R.A.B.) 5) another item Dumbledore tracked down (destroyed), I forgot which 6) unidentified item 7) Harry Potter's scar. So, depending, there's either 2 items, the scar and Voldy himself (if R.A.B. lied) or 1 item, the scar and Voldy himself. The remaining intact item is suggested to be the Hufflepuff chalice. ====== I found the coyness about horcruxes to be senseless. "Harry, I want to find out what he told Voldy about horcruxes." "Sure. Don't give me any information about horcruxes, I'll just have Hermione draw a blank after turning the library upside down and shaking it. I'd rather be clueless until I succeed in my interrogation." I have 2 complaints that I might withdraw after a reread. One of them is that it looks like the students in school at the time James Potter was at Hogwarts were discounted entirely as candidates for the HBP.

For the sake of discussion, and preserving the "secrets", you can open a private thread, invite us, and put "SPOILERS" in the title so people still reading it. I finished it, and, by now, a number of people have. I didn't cry-then again, I saw that coming after Book 5. I do have 2 gripes which I think relate to the writing.

Right after she announced the title, JKR announced the HBP was not Harry OR Voldemort. She later clarified it was also not Tom Riddle, and she wasn't playing a word-game to make it him. === My candidate wasn't even in the running, actually. I had 4 suspects, and all 4 were way off. Amazing. Actually, I need to reread, but I think the evidence dismissed the actual one from consideration. I'll know next week.

Dick Tracy Dustin Hoffman Billy Bathgate

If my guess on who the Half-Blood Prince is correct, I shall be smirking for weeks. I've been throwing around a real dark-horse candidate since 1/1/05. I'm hoping we'll also settle whether or not "Snuffles" survived the events of Book 5. I say "absolutely", more than 1/2 the fans say "absolutely NOT".

BTW, Steve! ? IMDB does NOT list "Total Recall" in Brent Spiner's filmography, nor him in the "Total Recall" cast list. (Marc "Gul Dukat" Alaimo and Robert "Zimmerman" Picardo ARE listed for "Total Recall", and Picardo only did the voice for the JohnnyCab.)

Well, I don't think that's in "PCU", So I'll guess "Chasing Amy".

Nuts-Pirate beat me here. I think he got it.

You are correct, sir! According to one source, the line I quoted, about the Doctor, was inspired by an incident involving a drunk doctor that saw one Beatle after he took an injury.

Well, since this thread's been held up in one form or another since July 2 and it's now July 14, I'm disregarding the recent posts and posting a new song. ============== "Now the doctor came in, stinking of gin, And proceeded to lie on the table"

Sharon Stone the Quick and the Dead Gene Hackman