The Seven Tasks in PS/SS, Foreshadowing for later books? |
 Jan 4 2007, 12:01 AM
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Being Eaten by the Pea Soup  Posts: 33 Joined: 7:52pm January 3, 2007 Location: Arming My Canon  |
I have been working on this theory for quite some time now. It may be so far out there or it might hit home, tell me what you guys think. I agree some of it is grasping at straws, but some of it fits too well not to work.
In PS/SS the trio have to pass through several challenges before getting to the stone. I have noticed an interesting thing about the order of them. 1. Fluffy; music and book #1: the trio find fluffy and he is standing on a trap door guarding the stone. they would have to go down through several obstacles before getting the stone. Earlier in the book, Harry and Hagrid have to go into Gringotts to fetch the stone and bring back to hogwarts. The stone is way down in the vaults where they have to go deep into london underground to get it. This is honestly the hardest one. I am having a bit of trouble with it. Hagrid takes care of fluffy, fluffy is a dog, dogs are loyal to the ones that take care of them. in this book we learn how loyal hagrid is to dumbledore because of how he has taken care of hagrid and stood up for him in the past. This loyal thread though is not the theme of the book, nor is it the challenge. Other than it is start of a great adventure that takes them to places they did not expect to go. 2. Devil's Snare, and book #2: Well first of all it is proffesor sprout's protection of the stone. It is hermionie that figures out what it is and how to save the boys. In the second book when everyone is becoming petrified by the snake, hermionie figures out that it is a baslisk and how it is getting around through the school, and why only harry can hear it. Professor Sprout saves those who have been petrified with her healthy crop of mandrakes that she has been growing. 3. Flying keys and book #3. Okay not as obvious as #2. If you think though that the keys are partially transfigured from one thing to something else, in book 3 we see that scabbers is really peter pettigrew transfigured into a rat, we find out sirius is also an animagus, and that james was as well. we also are introduced to the map, a key if you will, of hogwarts and its secret passages. 4. chess and book 4: we have the chess game where the trio must play the game to get across to the next task. In GOF we see harry competing in the Triwizard Tournament a game of sorts. in the end of the chess game, a fellow teammate is sacrificed (although ron does it willingly, cedric does not have a choice) 5. potions, logic OOTP: The potions were snape's way of defending the stone. In the 1st book, the trio think it is snape who is trying to steal the stone, and they are told several times that he is one of the teachers guarding the stone. Is he helping guard the stone to earn DD trust, or is he really good? We dont know. In OOTP, again the trio are not sure where his loyalities lie, so they must work out the puzzle and figure out why dumbledore trusts him to move on in their fight against dumbledore. In this level he loses hermionie because she goes and gets help for ron. In OOTP he loses sirius to the viel. 6: mirror of erised, HBP. In this task Harry is alone. He has no one else in the trio to help him since Hermionie went back to help ron. In the mirror harry sees himself getting what voldemort wants to keep him from regaining power. In HBP Harry is using memories to reflect and learn about Voldemort's past to help him find and understand where voldemort stored all the peices of his soul. He wants to find them, and keep voldemort from using them. (he who wanted to find the stone, and not use it......) In this level he loses quirrel (not that he was worth having anyway) and is left with just voldemort. In HBP well, we all know who is lost there, showing that the final task is between Harry and Voldemort. 7: Final confrontation with voldemort (on quirrel's head) and final confrontation with voldemort I know this is long, and it needs work, but I wanted to know what you guys thought. -------------------- "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." ~Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore Page 214 US Hardcover Ed. |
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