Probably should have asked in the one of the Story Search threads. Anyway, it sounds like you're looking for Little Harry and the Mirkwood Adventure.

 

I was going through Taure's Canon+ page, and I have a question off there. I'm not sure if I can ask questions related to it her, but this is my best bet, AFAIK.

I agree with this. But there's also the fact that sooner or later, the piano player's fingers will inevitably begin hurting and he'll be forced to stop after a while. What would be the equivalent of this in wizard terms?

 

Well, the direct comparison would be your arm getting tired from waving your wand around.

... I wonder if elderly wizards have problems with arthritis in the wrists of their wand arms.

 

They'd probably just vanish all the bones and regrow it with Skele-grow.

 

Only if they're masochists. Regrowing bones is a painful process. Not to mention, the whole problem with arthritis isn't the bone but the inflammation of tissues at the joints. Regrowing bones in those areas is a short walk to crippling pain for arthritis sufferers.

Though there is merit in replacing the slow water-torture of chronic pain with a short bout of intense pain. Half of my wife's tattoos and piercings were motivated by this.

 

Uness of course there is already a potion that heals it painlessly.

 

Yea, does it vanish only the bones? What happens to the uh, Other stuff there that connected those bones, like the joints, carthilage?

 

Hmm, where was Walburga's portrait actually placed inside Grimmauld's? Was it just after one entered the house, the very first wall, before you would go up the stairs? Or was it up past the first flight of stairs? I played OotP recently and am unsure which of the two is the correct assumption (the latter is the case for the game).

 

Until I saw the movie, from the book description I believed it was in the hallway in the foyer area when you enter the house. After the movie, it's up past the first flight of stairs.

 

After reading once again that Voldemort means in French Flight from Death. I cringed, as usual, and thought I'd point at that the correct translation is Flight of Death.

To me, when I see "vol de mort", I'm thinking that Riddle took this name because it expressed an unstoppable force, the desire to go far, to push the limits and to kill anybody that stands in his way.


So the question: did JKR ever said in a interview why she named her villain Voldemort? The meaning of the name?

And if there are authors reading this post: can you not use the Flight from Death thing in your stories, please?

 

Eh. With respect to your superior knowledge of French: it translates to both. Like Spanish, French makes no (lexical) distinction between the genitive (of) and ablative (from), as "de" translates to either depending on context. In this case we have no context.

JKR was a French teacher before she wrote HP; she will have been fully aware of this.

From an out-of-book perspective "flight from death" makes more sense, as Voldemort was scared of death and did anything to avoid it. The name is very symbolic.

From an in-book perspective, "flight of death" makes more sense as using his name to specify his greatest fear is uncharacteristically self-aware for Voldemort, and he wouldn't like to display a weakness with his name.

 

Vol de ... could mean flight from only if followed by a town, a country, a continent or even Hell, or whatever other location(?).

 

In this case the noun "mort" is a symbolic location i.e. the inescapable doom/fate of all men, the place we all end up.

I actually think the "from" translation works better. Remember, translation isn't just about the original langauge - the second language is just as important, because languages rarely have one to one equivalence.

In this case, "flight of death" isn't really a very good phrase in English. It's not incorrect, as it can be interpreted poetically, but it's not exactly a standard piece of English. It can either be interpreted as "death flying through the air" or "death running away from something".

In the former it doesn't really work, because flight isn't really something core to Voldemort's character, and he didn't even work out how to do it until the second war. Nor does he identify himself with death, but rather with eternal life. His servants are called Death Eaters - defeaters of death. That would be very strange if Voldemort is meant to be death.

In the latter it doesn't quite work either, because it's not even about Voldemort.

 

Okay, I didn't know that, it's just the opposite in French. "Flight from death" isn't really a very good phrase in French for the same reason.

 

Mmm. JKR probably had to balance getting the French right with how the name sounded.

Either that or her French just isn't that good lol.

 

Or maybe Riddle himself was pants at French and botched the translation. (He was a teenager at the time with little formal exposure to the language.)

At least he didn't go and name himself 'Khaleesi' (like every other parent seems to want to name their children nowadays).

 

I was about to say, that crossover seems almost cliche for someone living on Privet Drive. Although, I could see a nice rift between Hyancinth and Petunia; the former demanding to be called Bucket, and the latter always calling her Bucket . . . Hmm. . .

What do you know, maybe Derrida was right about différance and the signifier and signified. Huh.

 

There's also the idea that "flight of death" could still mean someone's evasion of death, as in "his flight (evasion) of death." In this sense, both "of" and "from" can be interpreted in that sense.

That's how I've tended to think about it.

 

Voldemort sounds as silly in French as in English.

 

I always thought it translated to "Theft of/from Death" which sounds more like something LV would call himself. He didn't flee from Death, he stole his own death from it.