Ordering Thoughts on the Phoenix

I've been having a few thoughts about "Order of the Phoenix"...

I suspect there were several reasons why Dumbledore chose Snape to give Harry Occulumency lessons. The strategic one that he dare not let Voldemort see how much he cares about Harry. But also a possible relationship-strategic one, which unfortunately half-backfired: for Harry and Snape to come to an understanding, rather than the current misunderstanding they're labouring under. Unfortunately, they both messed that up. While Harry did (I hope) come to a better understanding of Snape (or at least he learned that his own father wasn't the hero he'd thought), he also messed it up by actually looking into the Pensieve in the first place, violating Snape's thoughts and trust, and wounding Snape with it. On the other hand, Snape also messed up, because he ought to have been able to see, with all the poking he was doing into Harry's memories, that Harry isn't the arrogant egotist that his father was. But I wouldn't be surprised that all that Snape was seeing was simply enjoying how much James' son was being punished, whether or not Harry deserved it.
It's a moot point whether Snape's "lessons" actually made it easier or harder for Voldemort to influence Harry. I suspect they made it easier, because Snape didn't seem to be teaching Harry hardly anything, just attacking him. And also because the hostile vibes in the air just make it hard to learn anything anyway -- just as Harry found that he actually found it easier to make potions in the exam than he ever did in lessons, because Snape wasn't there glaring at him.

Still, while it would take a small miracle for them to stop hating each other, that's something I'd like to see.

Another fascinating thing about _The Order of the Phoenix_ is how the symbology of the phoenix fits in with it all. There's something I'm almost seeing... There, at the end, Voldemort throws the death curse on Dumbledore, who is saved by Fawkes, who dies of it and is reborn. And Fawkes does this out of loyalty to Dumbledore. That Voldemort fears death like nothing else, and in his trying to conquer it, has got himself a half-life that is hardly living. That Voldemort is revolted by and contemptuous of love, and it was Harry's love of Sirius that forced Voldemort to withdraw. I think all this is tied together somehow. He that loses his life will save it. While the phoenix is a symbol of reincarnation as much as it is of rebirth, and I don't hold with reincarnation, there is still something true and powerful about it. He that saves his life will lose it; he that loses his life will save it.. This much is true: one of the lessons in _Order of the Phoenix_ is that fighting evil has a cost, and it may be a cost of many lives (or of sanity) and yet, for all that, evil must be fought, because the alternative is unthinkable.

Each book so far makes the previous one seem almost trivial.

Other Reading

I might as well mention that I've been re-reading _The Parameters of Peace_ the Space: Above and Beyond series by Annie Hamilton which appeared in Enarrare issues 10, 11, 14, 15 and 16. I was reminded of it by a discussion about "holiday" fic, and why is it only US holidays that get mentioned; at which I did point out that this series is the only fanfic I know of where ANZAC day gets mentioned (and it always brings a smile to my face, because of the, er, bizzare circumstances in the story when it got mentioned -- "commemorative digging" indeed!). I will never be able to write like Annie Hamilton. She has this ability to bring so many threads together and weave them into a complex plot which takes so much more out of the background than we thought was there, and yet it all makes perfect sense. Though I expect that she would say, in this case, that the brilliance of this is simply due to the brilliance of Morgan and Wong (the creators of SAAB) because of all the connections that were already in the series (such as the identity of the Little Flea) and she simply discovered them, she didn't invent them.

There is a poem at the front of one of the issues, I can't remember if it was 10, 11, or 14. It is in a circle (because it is a logical circle) and it encircles a picture of McQueen, and it relates to the episode "Eyes".

For what would you sacrifice liberty? Honour
For what would you sacrifice honour? To save a life
For what would you sacrifice a life? To save many lives
For what would you sacrifice many lives? Liberty...

The irony is that these words apply equally well to Dianne Hayden, who -- well, if you haven't seen the episode, I'd better not say what happened.

I should go and re-watch some SAAB.