Re: OT: Harry and Christ (was Re: The last enemy) (Contains Harry Potter 7 Spoilers)

veritosproject@GMAIL.COM wrote:
>> In the context of the bible, the subject is "Christ the firstfruits"
>> and it is Christ that destroys death. In the context of Harry Potter,
>> I'm not sure.
>
> (This post might violate the no-religion rule.)
> (There are also spoilers here.)
Yes, there are some pretty serious spoilers here, for a book that has
only been out for less than a week. A little extra spoiler space might
be useful.
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More spoilers coming....

> Some, including myself, have theorized that Harry actually does play
> the role of Christ and the series is just an allegory. An example in
> Book 7 is when he willingly walks up to Voldemort and is willingly
> killed and then rises from the dead.
I don't think that's the role he's playing. I think it's pretty clearly
established that people don't rise from the dead. (Phoenixes on the
other hand....) The impression that I get is that Harry was actually
hovering on the edge of death, but just barely managed to hold on to
life. At that point he could have chosen to go on, but he chose to go
back. Afterwards he continued to live a more or less normal life.

My idea why this quote in particular was chosen involves the quest for
the Deathly Hallows. Certainly one possibility for translating the quote
would be to translate it in its original context (which would presumably
be known to the characters). But in the context of the story, it could
also refer to the legendary power over Death that those magical
artifacts are believed to have. Or looking at it from another angle,
Voldemort's attempt to cheat death by creating the horcruxes. I think
the ambiguity may be deliberate.

So, if you need a specific subject for the verb, it might be best to
keep the original context for the translation and figure out a way to
make it fit in the context of the story. Minza has somewhat of a
different problem with the translation: although I have an absolutive
participle (which would avoid any problem identifying the subject), I
don't have any way to make it a _future perfective_ participle. I guess
the alternative would be to use the "future action" auxiliary (źu),
something like "the last enemy destroyed will be death".

> Also note the similarity between Peter and Ron: Both claim that they
> will never leave Jesus/Harry's side, and do when the going gets tough,
> but then both return as heroes.
I still think it's a stretch.