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Post by Author By Night on Feb 20, 2009 19:36:26 GMT -5
Now there's a pickup line you don't want to use! "So do you have a hairy heart?"
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Post by vegablack on Mar 24, 2009 13:43:06 GMT -5
I liked the link she made between a Warlock who didn't want to love and a wizard who didn't want to die. Neither character wanted to share with the rest of humanity normal human experiences. Both could only see weakness and loss where others see gain, the normal passage of life and acceptance.
Both feared being weak above all else.
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Post by pigwithhair on Mar 27, 2009 19:30:47 GMT -5
It struck me as very Voldemort-ish. This guy has this pretty girl in front of him and he just wants to rip her heart out - quite literally - so he'll have a fresh clean one.
I won't be anxious to read this one again, but I'll see what my boys think of it. A little gore scores points with them.
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Post by starsea on May 10, 2009 15:40:10 GMT -5
This story seems to be heavily influenced by Edgar Allen Poe, specifically The Tell-Tale Heart and Ligeia, showcasing the more gruesome, Gothic side of Jo, the one which we have to thank for the graveyard scene in GoF and Umbridge's torture in OotP. It has most in common with The Deathly Hallows, though not even that story is as explicit as this one in dealing with the consequences of dark magic. I like that she didn't pull her punches.
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Post by vegablack on May 10, 2009 23:44:38 GMT -5
I liked the story it was too fairy taleish and brothers grimm for it to make me squeamish. I thought it's point fit very well with the series. It had the feel of an old old fairy tale.
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Post by queenie on May 19, 2009 3:04:18 GMT -5
It's kind of like the Muggle myth of the werewolf - though of course wizards take werewolves for granted (relative to us). The fear of the werewolf myth is that it makes you unhuman, it takes away what makes you human, your reason, intellect, self-control, restraint. You become a slave to appetite.
This story is also about appetite, but in contrasting modes - being completely without appetite, heartless and soulless, and then at the end being a mere function of appetite. What's a monster in muggle myths that is without appetite?
I really want to make some kind of Terry Pratchett-esque statement but none is coming to mind.
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Post by dancingpony on May 19, 2009 9:39:37 GMT -5
A zombie?
In HP canon, is there a distinction between a warlock and a wizard? The term "wizard" is the one most frequently used, but I don't recall if/how the two terms were differentiated.
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Post by queenie on May 29, 2009 16:17:38 GMT -5
I think warlock is the fancier, but older and now archaic term, like calling an Englishman "Monsieur."
Hmm, Zombies are meant to be slaves, though - without willpower as well as appetite. It's almost as if will and appetite are very closely linked, and that this warlock who managed to sever them (or thought he could). He made himself into an entirely new monster...
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Post by dancingpony on May 30, 2009 10:22:56 GMT -5
Well, appetite is basically just a desire for something -- whether it's food, money, power, affection, solitude, whatever. And will could be defined as the force of mind necessary to act to obtain what one desires . . . so I would say the two are inexorably intertwined. If a being or creature has no appetite, it would have no will, either, because it would have no desire to hava anything and, thererfore, would have no need to take action to obtain anything.
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Rugi
Third Year
Norberta's Chief Cook and Librarian
Posts: 33
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Post by Rugi on May 30, 2009 17:39:29 GMT -5
Well, appetite is basically just a desire for something -- whether it's food, money, power, affection, solitude, whatever. And will could be defined as the force of mind necessary to act to obtain what one desires . . . so I would say the two are inexorably intertwined. If a being or creature has no appetite, it would have no will, either, because it would have no desire to hava anything and, thererfore, would have no need to take action to obtain anything. I think that definition of will is a bit too narrow. Will isn't just the ability to achieve one's desires - it's the ability to resist one desire in favor of another. Thus a person in the complete grip of appetite has no will - because they are unable to pick among their desires. To choose the obvious example, if there is no way for me to not eat that last bit of cake in my fridge, I have no will, no choice - I am a slave to my "appetitie." Will only exists when there is choice - to eat or not to eat, to live or not to live, to fight or not to fight etc. Ergo a zombie has no will because it has no options - there is no way that it can not eat.
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Post by cuthbertbinns on May 30, 2009 18:54:50 GMT -5
A creature without appetite? Yeah, zombies are really just automatons and don't have any independent thought processes. Or Inferi are like that anyway. The only "creature" I could think of comes from modern tales: an artificial intelligence like that in Azimovs 'I, Robot' which seeks to accomplish its programming without feeling. ___________ That's a good point about will since it does seem that some dark impulse overrides everything in the end. So the wizard is not really without appetite, he indulges himself lavishly and has pride and vanity. But he doesn't seem to have any admirable feelings. By removing his ability to feel romantic love I think he has unintentionally or dismissively removed the ability to love in any way, as we see when he doesn't mourn his parents death or feel any affection for his friends children. It is his vanity that is hurt when he learns that he is not envied by others and one thing he strongly desires is that everyone should admire him. The ending is so twisted and sad. It seems that after he puts his heart back that he recognizes what he has lost, but since his heart has grown "strange" he can only see it, not truly feel it. In the end there is only a dark desire to possess that overpowers him. It's sad that there seemed to be no hope for the wizard to regain the ability to love. Even Voldemort had a small chance. But it is a moral tale meant to warn the reader away from this path, so a chance at a happy ending wouldn't really fit the purpose. ___________ There is a definition of warlock that Rowling provides in The Tales of Beedle the Bard (see footnote on page 56 of Beedle the Bard): "The term "warlock" is a very old one. Although it is sometimes used as interchangeable with "wizard", it originally denoted one learned in dueling and all martial magic. It was also given as a title to wizards who had performed feats of bravery, rather as Muggles were sometimes knighted for acts of valor. By calling the young wizard in this story a warlock, Beedle indicates that he has already been recognized as particularly skillful at offensive magic. These days "wizards" use warlock in one of two ways: to describe a wizard of unusually fierce appearance, or as a title denoting particular skill or achievement. Thus, Dumbledore himself was Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. - JKR" So, since Beedle wrote the tales centuries ago, the warlock must have been known as a great duelist.
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Post by dancingpony on May 30, 2009 18:57:10 GMT -5
I didn't say that will was the ability to achieve one's desires, though -- just the force of mind necessary to act toward achieving one's desires. You're right, however, that conflicting desires could prevent someone from acting at all, basically taking away one's will. In your example, if I have an irresistible appetite for that cake . . . and I also have an irresistible desire to fit into a swimsuit this summer, I'm going to be frozen in front of the refrigerator door, unable to move at all. And then when I finally give in and eat the cake (because, let's be realistic here, the cake is probably the more irresistible of the two, since it's right here and available now, whereas I haven't even gone shopping for the swimsuit yet), I'm going to be tortured by guilt for giving in and eating it.
I think that Queenie's point, though, was that a zombie (theoretically) would be a creature without either appetite or will -- basically a slave or even a puppet that someone else controls.
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Rugi
Third Year
Norberta's Chief Cook and Librarian
Posts: 33
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Post by Rugi on May 30, 2009 21:30:56 GMT -5
I didn't say that will was the ability to achieve one's desires, though -- just the force of mind necessary to act toward achieving one's desires. You're right, however, that conflicting desires could prevent someone from acting at all, basically taking away one's will. In your example, if I have an irresistible appetite for that cake . . . and I also have an irresistible desire to fit into a swimsuit this summer, I'm going to be frozen in front of the refrigerator door, unable to move at all. And then when I finally give in and eat the cake (because, let's be realistic here, the cake is probably the more irresistible of the two, since it's right here and available now, whereas I haven't even gone shopping for the swimsuit yet), I'm going to be tortured by guilt for giving in and eating it. I think that Queenie's point, though, was that a zombie (theoretically) would be a creature without either appetite or will -- basically a slave or even a puppet that someone else controls. Actually, what I meant was that if a desire is truly "irresistible" there really isn't any point in talking about "will." I would say, again, that will is the ability to choose between two competing desires - the ability not to be paralyzed, but to act, one way or the other. If it was really true that your desire for cake was so overpowering that you had no choice but to eat it, than we wouldn't need to discuss your "will." To use another example, if someone shoots me in the head, no one bothers to say, "She willed herself dead." Dying was not a choice or an act of will on my part. A zombie seems like a solid example of a entity that has an appetite, specifically, brains, but has no will. It's nothing but hunger and has no ability to resist that hunger.
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Post by queenie on May 31, 2009 23:43:19 GMT -5
Well, I did mean the idea of a zombie in the older meaning - a slave that has been created with hoodoo, and which has no will or appetite of its own, except to serve its master. (This idea is referenced at hte end of The Golden Compass, where it is a human whose daemon (soul, conscience, heart) has been lost, but who keeps living.) But a zombie as it exists in pop culture today has no will, but appetite to kill and devour, and no ability to resist that. Whereas vampires have the willpower to resist killing - at least in the Anne Rice and [dubious] Stephanie Meyer tradition.
cuthbertbinns is right in pointing out that the warlock's desire is not related to any real want of companionship or beauty, but in vanity and pride. He almost has to convince himself that he does want a wife.
By the way, cuthbertbinns, welcome to the Whomping Willow!
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Post by vegablack on Jul 13, 2009 22:39:32 GMT -5
cuthbertbinns is right in pointing out that the warlock's desire is not related to any real want of companionship or beauty, but in vanity and pride. He almost has to convince himself that he does want a wife.
That was what reminded me of voldemort in this story. The warlock's lack of caring for others or need for what others have and enjoy.
If we assume that Dumbledore was reading this book while he was figuring out the secrets of the Horcruxes and ruminating on Voldemort, then was Dumbledore influenced by this story in drafting his picture of voldemort and how to fight him and where he would keep his Horcruxes. If a Warlock is an expecially accomplished Wizard than V. was a warlock. They both had pride and an abcense of love.
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