I don't see why the hallows wouldn't be a man made object. We have explicit proof of a man that not only made a stone that granted immortality, but made you rich too.

 

Which really doesn't mean anything at all. Dumbledore has no more reason to disbelieve the myth than you our I. His supposition is no more valid than anyone else's- he wasn't around for it and doesn't seem to have any evidence more than Lovegood does.

This "Dumbledore thinks so, so it's probably right" line of reasoning is a false appeal to authority. When it comes to magical theory he is the best expert in the story, but when it comes to speculating on what may or may not have happened in the past his opinion carries no more weight than anyone else's.

It's like saying there must be no God because Stephen Hawking is an atheist. Or, if Stephen Hawking were to say he suspects stories of the Great Flood are probably of a localized event, but was widespread enough that it existed in many cultures. He's a smart guy, yeah, but it's still just as much a guess as the next person's.

He thought uniting the hallows would make a person invincible. He adopted the sign of the hallows as his own. Seemed pretty fanatical about it to me.

There is no statement that said "Gellert Grindelwald believed the hallows were passed down by Death himself, but he definitely believed there was something mystical about owning all three.

But I'm not trying to use Grindelwald as a source of authority. He's no more qualified in Xenophilius Lovegood to say what is the truth of the matter.

And? Sorry, but a psychopathic cynic doesn't really help your case.

You seem to be making the mistake of equating intelligence with credibility and credibility with infallibility.

Nor is it an indication that it is untrue.

Yes, exactly. When Dumbledore heard Harry's description of what happened in the graveyard he did not say "I suspect" or "I believe." He knew. When he explained the phenomenon to Harry there was no use of hedging or weasel words.

There's a big difference between what Dumbledore suspects/believes will happen magically between previously unseen components (like Voldemort's resurrection)--which his expertise in magic would give him insight into, and what he suspects happened hundreds of years ago where there were no witnesses.

Dumbledore also believed Sirius Black was the Potter's Secret Keeper.

Oh, I'm sure we read the same book. I don't think you've been talking about Percy Jackson all this time. Or have you?

Sure. But the words he uses refer to the hallows as something more than just mere artifacts--otherwise what does worthiness have to do with anything? He speaks of them as if they did belong to Death, even if he doesn't believe it. His language and imagery is that of the myth.

What was that you were saying about hubris?

You should take the strongest evidence you are presented with, but keep an open mind. Insisting on one interpretation to the exclusion of all others isn't smart, wise, or better. Quite the opposite, really.

When it comes to interpreting fiction that is doubly true.

Don't forget narration. You can take what the narrator reveals at face value. For characters you have to be a lot more skeptical. They only know what they have experienced.

Hermione is only as reliable a source of information as the books she has read. Luna is less reliable only because she accepts at face value what her father has written without skepticism. That doesn't make her wrong.

What? Where in canon is there any evidence that nargles don't exist?

In the books there is no evidence that nargles exist. There is evidence that Xenophilius Lovegood believes things without evidence. So, yeah, a reader shouldn't simply accept there are nargles. But to say canon shows there are no nargles shows a misunderstanding of the rules of evidence and logic.

Supported? Hardly. I think if you asked Albus Dumbledore what he knew about the origin of the hallows he would say he only knows myths and can only speculate on what really happened.

You have dementors, elves, spirits that come back to visit the living, horcruxes, etc. Why balk at the existence of an incarnation of death?

There is no direct evidence that the wand, stone, cloak were created by the three brothers. Where is the mention that Cadmus researched soul magic? Where is the piece of evidence that says that Antioch was a wandmaker or that Gregorivitch/Ollivander was a descendant?

There isn't a single scrap of canon detail that contradicts the myth (with the exception that the wand, ring, cloak have limits the myth's flowery language exaggerates). Just supposition by Dumbledore. That is the entire extent of your reason for dismissing any possibility of truth to the myth.

Not very rational.

Do you mean in canon? No, she doesn't. If you mean in interviews after the fact, then point me to such a comment and I'll concede that is what she meant. I really don't follow what JKR has said.

If you think that you really need to take a look at what evidence means. Lack of evidence for A is not evidence of A'.

---------- Post automerged at 08:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 PM ----------

Oh, there's no reason why it wouldn't be. It very much probably is. But there's no evidence at all that they actually were.

 

There is so much dumb here I'm not even sure where to begin.

We are talking about a specific occurrence of magic. Assuming, just for the moment, that the only people who were present for the actual event(s) in question are dead and there's no way of knowing what actually occurred, all that can be said is that either proposals for the actual events themselves are either less or more plausible. That is to say, without an eyewitness, all you can do in order to determine events is propose theories and then via reason, evidence and logic decide which you believe to be true.

Now I don't believe for a second that Dumbledore simply come to a conclusion based on no evidence and stuck to it. I'll say it again; we are talking about the plausibility a magical concept. In Harry Potter canon, there is no greater authority on the plausibility of a particular idea or piece of magic than Dumbledore. It is proven time and time again that Dumbledore's ideas and theories with regards to obscure branches of magic are correct.

Dumbledore made it his life's work not just to find the Hallows, but understand them. In his lifetime, he had the opportunity to study all three. If there is any person in canon who is an authority on the subject, it is him.

That is to say that relegating Dumbledore's belief on this particular topic to a guess, is asinine at best. We have no more reason to doubt his understanding and theories on this topic than we have to doubt him on any other thing that he says in the books.

Which harks back to the question of evidence, I shall repeat myself for clarity: the only evidence we have for an awful lot of topics in canon is what other characters say.

If we work on the basis that these assertions are false, we throw out an awful lot of accepted thinking. For instance; Hermione states that electronic devices do not function inside Hogwarts. Dumbledore states that the power of love was what saved Harry. Hermione states that there are five exceptions to Gramp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration and that food is one of them. Etc, etc.

So no, Stephen Hawking's atheism doesn't disprove God. But if a bedtime story claimed that an aspect of physics caused by death taking physical form and Stephen Hawking disagreed, I would fucking believe Stephen Hawking.

Actually, as a powerful and intelligent wizard that owned one of the hallows, Grindelwald is a thousand times more qualified than Xenophilius Lovegood.

The same can be said of Voldemort, who understood more about certain aspects of magic than either Dumbledore or Grindelwald.

You seem to be making the mistake of assuming that if you don't witness something first hand that you can't ascertain the truth.

And that's one example of the four I listed. Dumbledore was confident enough in his own understanding of magic (and magic that he admits is beyond the limits of what any other wizard has ever had experience with) to gamble the entire future of the wizarding world on the premise that Voldemort using Harry's blood would be enough to tether him to life. But nonetheless, never stated that he knew with perfect certainty.

This is misdirection, on your part and Sirius'. Black being the secret keeper or not has nothing to do with magic, that has to do with Dumbledore being lied to.

Did you even read what I wrote? The worthiness that Dumbledore speaks of is that you don't use the Hallows for their intended purpose. If you use the wand to kill, others will kill you for it. That isn't a reflection on the wand, it's a reflection on the person using it and the type of people that desire that kind of power.

Dumbledore speaks of Harry being worthy of the resurrection stone not because he is metaphysically 'worthy' of it. But because he is emotionally worthy of it. The point of the stone, even in the myth, is that it can't give you what you want— an escape from the reality of death. And that's exactly what Dumbledore wanted to use it for. Harry on the other hand, uses it as part of the realisation that you can only 'escape' death by accepting it. It's that which makes him 'worthy' in Dumbledore's eyes, not some metaphysical, mythological rubbish.

You're right, it's not smart, wise or better. But it is correct. You take the strongest evidence and keep an open mind if there is the possibility of better evidence. Harry Potter, aside from JKR's constant info dumps, is a closed system. There will never be better evidence. There is only what she wrote and what she went well out of her way to demonstrate to us is that the characters she uses to pass 'correct' information to us all believe that the myth isn't true.

Actually the entire series is an example of an unreliable narrator. You only see and experience what Harry sees and experiences (with the exception of a chapter here or there). There are times when Harry is fooled (and thus so is the reader) into experiencing or believing things that aren't true.

The narrator is no more reliable than the characters, because the narrator is essentially Harry.

No, it makes her less reliable. I suspect at this stage that you're not even reading what you're writing any more, let alone what I've been writing.

What the books provide us with are evidence of far more rational, intelligent and reliable witnesses attesting to the idea that nargles do not exist. Arguing that the fact that a lack of evidence supporting the claim that nargles don't exist is evidence that that they might exist is a wholesale misunderstanding the burden of proof.

I can, for instance, suggest that in our reality, everyone's actions are actually controlled by a thirty foot high invisible unicorn that is undetectable by any means we have at our disposal. Now, you can't prove that it's not true, but you can reliably assume that, as I cannot provide evidence for this claim, I'm talking bullshit.

I think if you asked Albus Dumbledore if he thought he could fly to the moon on a crumpet, that he'd probably say he could. Does me saying so make that a fact worthy of discussion?

I just gave you some: The cloak is not infallible, the wand is not unbeatable. These are both things that are stated as fact in the myth, but are demonstrably untrue.

You're really not reading what either I or you are writing any more, are you?

Yes, you're correct, lack of evidence for A is not evidence of A'. But shitty evidence for A and better evidence for B still makes B a better premise on which to base your understanding.

 

I'm getting major flashbacks to the last religion thread here guys.

 

Na. It's just NMB pwning like a boss.

 

Insults are not good arguments.

No, we're not. We're talking about the origin of an artifact. This isn't some matter of transfiguration. It's who did what.

An assumption on your part. It is quite likely that he did the exact same thing you did--look at the source of the myth and think it more likely that the whole Death part is just a story and that the brothers just made it.

And I'll say again, no, we aren't. We're talking about who made the hallows.

You might imagine that there's some kind of magical insight Dumbledore has to have, but that's conjecture on your part.

His words are "I think it more likely."

Why do you insist on trying to make it more than that? He's not sure. Why are you?

Nor do I have any reason to grant him any more surety than he gives himself.

Which means we should hold an awful lot of topics as being somewhat dubious.

That's pure stupidity. A strawman. Just because we can't count something as certain doesn't mean we have to work on the basis that they are false. I'm not saying assume everything not proven is false; I'm saying don't assume everything spoken is true.

And Hermione states that she read all about Harry Potter. Doesn't mean she really knows all about him.

Characters say things they believe to be true. They can be wrong.

False analogy. Who created the hallows is not an aspect of magic.

If a newspaper article says a physics book was written by an alien rather than the given and Stephen Hawking disagreed I'd probably share the opinion. But Hawking's expertise would have nothing to do with it.

Not on the matter of who created it.

Not on the subject of who created the hallows.

On the contrary, I'm avoiding the mistake of assuming knowledge I don't have. There could have been evidence that the hallows were man-made, but there wasn't. It doesn't exist in canon.

Guess you shouldn't have included that one, huh?

Dumbledore is smart enough to allow for room for doubt. Why aren't you?

You mean, the Fidelius isn't magic? Oh, but wait, it is. And despite Dumbledore knowing all about the charm and secret keepers he was still wrong because the pertinent fact was not related to magical theory.

Just like "who made the deathly hallows" is not a question of magical theory.

Yes, which is ironic because you are still ignoring what I'm writing and going off on a tangent.

If the "deathly hallows" are artifacts unrelated to death, why keep relating worthiness of them to death? His speech fits very much with the myth.

No, it's bad thinking. You don't take the evidence you have and assume the best theory you have is right. You go forward with the express concept that you could be wrong.

And in the absence of conclusive evidence, the only rational thing to do is reserve final judgment. You may think one is more likely than the other as Dumbledore does, but to exclude the other is poor thinking.

No, it's not. It's an example of a limited perspective narrator. What the narrator provides does not turn out to be false. The narration faithfully details what Harry experienced, even if he is mistaken in what he saw. An unreliable narrator is more along the lines of the crook telling the story. Or like in the movie "Clue" where the suspects explain what happened from their perspective, but some of them lie about what happened.

No, it's a separate perspective. There are no instances of the narrator doing anything but explaining things exactly as they are experienced by the characters. What the narrator says is exactly what they experienced.

Ironic. I said: " Luna is less reliable only because she accepts at face value what her father has written without skepticism. That doesn't make her wrong."

Did you not read where I said Luna was less reliable and explain why?

The problem is that you assume Hermione is right and Luna is wrong, even though Hermione's belief that there are no nargles is based on fallacious reasoning. Luna's belief that there are nargles is unfounded--at least as far as the reader knows, but might not be wrong.

Nothing in canon contradicts the assertion that there are nargles, unlike the instance of the crumple horned snorcack(Sp?), for which JKR provides evidence (in the form of the erumpet horn) that Xeno was mistaken.

That's not to say that a reader should believe there are nargles, on the contrary, the reader should be very mistrustful. But to assume they cannot exist is bad reasoning.

Which is nonsense, because none of that matters. Witness testimony only means something when the witness has witnessed something. Hermione claiming "there are no such things as nargles" is patently irrational in her belief--just as much so as Luna.

Uh, no. You've just demonstrated a misunderstanding of burden of proof. Burden of proof lies on the person making a truth statement, nothing more and nothing less. If you say X you have to support the statement X. If you say X', you have support the statement X'.

What you are talking about is the fallacy of argument from ignorance, but your use of "might" in the phrasing is problematic.

What I'm talking about is argument from silence, which is the opposite of argument from ignorance. Simply because evidence for X has not been shown does not mean X is false.

Yeah, but if you say, wouldn't it be cool if there is such a unicorn?
And I say, "There is no such unicorn. Unicorns don't exist, never have, never will."
Guess who has to prove it? (Hint: It wouldn't be you.)

Yes and no. The wearer of the cloak cannot be seen. The wand was never seen to be beaten in a straight power vs. power fight. You can split hairs on this one, but it's a moot point.

But as far as fanfiction is concerned, stories based on A and stories based on B can both be good. Depends on the writing.

 

Question about pensieves

So far when we've seen them used by say two people at the same time, the owner pulls the second person out of the memory when they are done correct?

Which implies that a person can only come out of viewing a memory if in a pensieve if
a) they are the owner of the memory in question
b) they are pulled out by the owner
c) the memory ends
d) someone on the outside pulls them out

Is it a plausible conclusion to say in the absence any of all four conditions being fulfilled, a person who doesn't own the memory he is viewing cannot exit the memory of his own volition?

 

It wasn't an insult, it was an analysis of your reasoning, which hasn't got any better.

This pretty much sums up the majority of your last post and you are mistaken. Who or what created the hallows is entirely a question of magic.

The assumption that death can become personified is a question of magic. The plausibility of wizards creating the hallows is a question of magic. Who did what is quite clearly a question of magic.

Either death has the potential to be a personified, rational agent capable of creating powerful artifacts, or it doesn't. But it is still a question of magic and there is literally nobody more capable of answering that question than Dumbledore.

And he does, he says that he thinks it unlikely and, in the same conversation, that his guesses are generally good. Which is a polite way of saying that he's a genius.

You address an assumption on my part and do exactly the same thing. Riddle me this, on what evidence did Dumbledore assume that Harry's blood in Voldemort's veins would tether Harry to life?

Go on, I'll wait.

Is there no evidence provided in canon? Holy shit, that's because 99% of what Dumbledore does or reasons in canon isn't backed up with evidence. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have any. Just because he doesn't tell Harry what his evidence is, doesn't mean he doesn't have any. Dumbledore is evidently not in the business of just making shit up.

He also places the entire fate of the wizarding world on a 'guess' and then says 'my guesses are generally pretty good'. Or words to that effect. It's just the way he speaks.

Well then why assume what anyone said for the entire seven books was true? Either you have to accept that JKR as an author employed characters as agents in order to answer truths about her world before us, or you don't bother at all.

That's not what I said. I said that Sirius and the Potters conspiring to keep him in the dark was not a question of magic.

Because they're Deathly Hallows. There's nothing in what he says that at all implies that he considers death a personified agent.

In the context of this discussion, that is to all intents an unreliable narrator. What Harry experienced isn't necessarily true and there's no necessity to ever correct the reader.

For instance, the entire story could have been the delusions of a mentally ill boy. Harry may have experienced these things, but it not an accurate representation of what actually occurred.

I did, I just don't think you understood what you wrote. Because by saying that Luna was less reliable than Hermione, you're pretty much agreeing with me.

Yeah and my belief in an enormous unicorn might not be wrong, but to all intents and purposes it is. Belief in something doesn't have any bearing on whether it's demonstrably true. And if you're going to argue that things don't need to be demonstrably true, then this is a pointless conversation because everything that occurred in Harry Potter was part of the Rotfang Conspiracy and Fudge was behind the whole thing.

Actually that's shitty reasoning and actually goes against your own argument. The Erumpent horn is proof of only one thing; Xenophilius Lovegood is a dipshit. The proof that one thing is not what someone believes it to be is not proof that the thing it's believed to be doesn't exist. For example, I might think that my mug is the holy grail. The fact that it's demonstrably not, doesn't mean that the holy grail doesn't exist. Just that my mug is not it.

Not that I think Crumple Horned Snorkacks exist. Rather the entire thing is just further proof that Luna and her father are completely unreliable when it comes to asserting that anything exists.

I disagree. For instance, you are having a conversation with a known compulsive liar. He tells you that if you don't give him $50, the moon will crash into the earth. Which is a safer assumption; that he is telling the truth or that he is not telling the truth? Would it be bad reasoning to not give $50 or to give him $50?

Great. And this, incidentally, also means absolutely fuck all with regards to our understanding of anything. An argument like this has no bearing on reality whatsoever. It's pointless as the default assumption is that something does not exist.

Yes, any argument can be proved correct if you disregard the evidence that shows any flaw in it.

Essentially this boils down to either you believe a mythological bedtime story that is demonstrably wrong on several counts or you believe Dumbledore, who is demonstrably correct about pretty much everything all the time.

Not both can be correct. Therefore you base your reasoning on the best available evidence. The books does not leave the matter any more ambiguous than, for instance, that Lily's love was what saved Harry. If you trust that Dumbledore knows what the fuck he's talking about, you are pretty safe in the assumption that the thing that sounds like bullshit, probably is.

 

NMB is hardly pwning... in fact, I'd say he's on the losing side of the argument. Not because his thesis is wrong (it is, in fact, more likely that the Hallows are a manmade creation rather than one made by Death incarnate, a point puiwaihin concedes), but because he insists on belittling puiwaihin for no apparent reason, whereas puiwaihin is not.

Furthermore, you seem to be denying his argument outright. While there is some (possibly even strong) evidence that the manmade Hallows interpretation is the correct one, I feel that puiwaihin has made a reasonable argument that the Deathmade Hallows are more plausible than you appear to make them out to be – you seem to be arguing that it is almost 100% certainly wrong.

The only direct point I'll make mention of is the following:

This fact appears to be irrelevant, considering that it was talking to the dead, not bringing them back to life, that was being argued (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point). A person being dead does not preclude them from being conversed with, to wit ghosts, portraits, and whatever occurred during Priori Incantatum in the graveyard. It is more evidence that the Hallows are manmade, yes (after all, Death might not be subject to the laws of mere mortals), but it isn't definitive proof, as you seemed to imply.

 

That doesn't mean that I'm on the losing side, it just makes me an asshole. But a correct asshole.

It's not a question of 'almost 100% certainly wrong'. Either it is wrong, or is it isn't.

The issue I really have with the entire issue is that, at least in Harry Potter's reality, this is the equivalent of the God argument.

An old story that is demonstrably false on several counts is assessed by the foremost expert in the field who states that it is unlikely and offers a far more coherent and convincing theory that is, unlike the myth, fundamentally congruent with reality as presented in Harry Potter.

Considering that we have literally no way of testing either hypothesis, we probably should work on the assumption that the genius expert probably isn't pulling this out of his arse.

Just saying.

I didn't imply it was definitive proof of anything.

The point I was making, albeit poorly, is that Sirius asks if the simulacrum of Diggory that Harry saw in the graveyard was real. Bare in mind that they are described in an extremely similar way to the simulacrum created by the stone. At this point, Dumbledore rejects this idea and states "No spell can reawaken the dead".

This isn't definitive proof of anything, but it does lend further credence to the point I was making about the stone not actually bringing back the dead.

 

You'd think after a thousand posts . . . you'd understand the schtick of DLP.

 

On average, yes, of course. When you average all the prank items into the "new" artefacts of course the old ones will look better and more powerful. But I'm not talking about averages, I'm talking about the best of the best. I think it's ridiculous to assume that generations after generations of researchers would have just failed to come up with something as good as The Cloak of Invisibility (ie. something that doesn't fade in use), or the Elder Wand, or the Resurrection Stone, especially when they already knew or at least strongly suspected it was possible. Or that the Peverell brothers wouldn't have made a business out of the Hallows if they knew how to make them.

And yes, before you say otherwise, magic in Harry Potter is very much like technology. Evey new spell and potion builds up on the existing theory, and the fact that there is theory in the first place points towards a somewhat scientific method to creating new spells and potions, and new magic in general.

Anyway I'm not trying to argue that you or I are right or wrong. My only argument is that some things make for a (subjectively) better story. Trying to argue that I am wrong and that I should rightly consider the story worse than I currently do seems counterproductive...

 

Oh I realize it, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.

 

That's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that not 'every new spell and potion builds up on the existing theory'. Otherwise things like the Hallows would be commonplace. There are several noteworthy instances in Harry Potter where people who have made a significant breakthrough choose not to share it with the public at large. The Hallows, The Philosopher's Stone, etc. The best way of me illustrating it, is by drawing a comparison.

Say, for instance, that Einstein, when he proposed the theory of special relativity rather than publishing his paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", simply used the knowledge to invent a personal GPS device for himself and either never told anybody about it, or never told anyone how it worked.

He would have something of incredible value that literally just couldn't be replicated unless someone went out of their way to reverse engineering a genius piece of thinking, or until they had their own genius bit of thinking.

Now say that he never revealed the secret to anyone, he would literally die, leaving behind a GPS and no indication of how it worked.

Of course, in the real world this would be impossible. No single man could create all of the necessary technology to implement GPS, even if they could conceive of the idea. So they'd go to people who made satellites and receivers and rockets and all the other stuff and so theoretically someone could, if they wished, reconstruct the principles by collating all of this information.

Magic, on the other hand, means that this is not necessary. A wizard could have a breakthrough of phenomenal proportions, invent a priceless, powerful artefact and die without ever once leaving his study.

For the record, I know that Einstein didn't invent GPS, but his abstract thinking was instrumental in solving several problems with GPS. It was just the first thing that came into my head.

 

Lol. Why do you think I brought up the parallel with the religious thread . Even features some of the same people on the same opposing sides.


A note on the way Dumbledore speaks: In GoF, when Harry's name comes out of the goblet and the headmasters are discussing what happened, Dumbledore brought up the possibility that he made a mistake with the age line and Harry got passed it; a concept which causes McGonagall to snort derisively.

Dumbledore always leaves open the possibility that he's wrong, all the while maneuvering the entirety of a war on the assumption that he's right, and very very often he is. He's right many times in the series, about shit nobody else would even have a clue on. Of course, on the other hand, he also sent Harry to the Dursleys. It's like he said, he's almost never wrong, but when is he is bad shit happens.



I've always liked the idea that Death made the Hallows. I think it makes a better story. It's much, much more likely that it's man-made, but there is a possibility that it wasn't. It would just have to be one of those times that Dumbledore is wrong, the consequences of which are that Death is an actual "living entity", the scope of which is in line with his other fuck ups.

 

:facepalm

Not just the majority of my post, but your position as well. This is the heart of the argument, and I expect that in this case it will come down to a matter of opinion.

As expected, I completely disagree. This is not a question of magic, but of existentialism.

Let me point out that your perspective on this matches my own almost completely in regards to the hallows. I can imagine that Dumbledore in his examination of the Elder Wand and the cloak during the years they were in his possession noted how their construction and the magic in them and found their dweomercraft to be consistent with wizard-made items. I can imagine that this knowledge would heavily influence his opinion on the cloak and wand. And such an observation would be a matter of magic.

But it would all be what I thought up. That's not in canon.

As I said, any thought you have that he has some kind of insight based on his mastery magic is in your own head. It's not a bad way of thinking--I personally think the same--but it is by no means conclusive.

I don't think revisiting this topic again will bear any fruit, so unless you come at this from some angle I haven't anticipated, I'm going to say we just disagree on the matter of whether who made the hallows is a question of magic or not.

Actually, I don't make an assumption here. Look at the difference in the wording between what I wrote and what you did. I said "it is quite likely" not "I don't believe for a second."

And my statement that you took a look at the myth and made a value judgment from that is taken from your postings. Also not an assumption.

Your question about the evidence that Dumbledore uses to determine that Harry's blood would anchor him to Voldemort goes back to the issue we discussed earlier. Clearly that is a case where his understanding of blood magic comes into play. He hasn't seen an exact instance of this happening before so he isn't certain it will work, but his expertise is valid and he is justified in his choices. This is unlike the question of "who made the cloak" (see previous answer).

I would say if Harry never told Dumbledore what had happened and Dumbles simply assumed Voldemort had used Harry's blood, then it would be a similar case. Fudge: "What happened?" Dumbledore standing over an unconscious Harry: "Harry said Voldemort is back. I suspect Harry's blood was used in a rebirth ritual."

True. And he is in the habit of using hedge words to indicate when he is uncertain of something or speculating. He refrains from overstating his knowledge.

Oh, he gambled, and fairly recklessly. He put a lot of faith in the prophesy and in Harry surviving for the link to ever come into play. But again, see the previous comments about the blood link vs. the creator of the hallows.

You're a Sith! Only the Sith deal in absolutes! (Which, of course, would make Obi-wan a Sith, too.)

It's not black vs. white: A character said it; it must be true. A character said it; it must be false. It's a continuum.

Of course Rowling used characters as agents to answer truths about the world. But she also used them for other purposes as well. You can't take everything they say at face value, you have to evaluate it according to the limitations of their experience.

It goes back to our discussion of Luna and Hermione. Luna says, "You have nargles in your head." This is not a case of JKR explaining her world. Nor is it the case when Hermione tells Harry in HBP that he's doing it wrong because he is crushing his potions ingredients rather than slicing them. You have to consider the source of their beliefs.

I know. Seems you missed the point.

But he does use the myth to frame his speech. He outright says he does not find the origin story likely, but that doesn't change how he spoke about it.

Regardless, this is an unnecessary detail to the discussion.

Still wrong. The narrator is perfectly reliable and whatever the narrator says happened must be accepted as canon fact. What interpretations people draw from that can be wrong, but the actual details are objective reality so far as the story is concerned.

But then the narrator would be faithfully giving us Harry's perceptions of the delusion. It wouldn't be telling us he looked up and saw a black sky when he looked up a saw a red one.

No, you are wrong. In the Harry Potter series the narrator is always a reliable source of information. What we, the readers, take from what is documented may be incorrect, but the narrator is objective and reliable.

I've agreed that Luna is less reliable from the start. But the point I've been making all along is that just because she is less reliable doesn't mean she is wrong on any particular detail.

You guessed it: Things don't have to be demonstrably true to actually be true. The problem is that you fail to see the importance of this fact of logic.

Your following response is exactly right. But I didn'tt say "proves" I said is "evidence against." Which it is. A far cry from proof it doesn't exist, but it is evidence that Xeno is wrong about them, which is counter-evidence to his claim.

And that's your problem. You shouldn't disagree with this.

Bad example. The way you have constructed this is a strawman, not a true analogy.

Even in your example to simply say "it cannot possibly be true in any possible universe" is not logically supported, but the conditions necessary to make it true are so astronomically high that to say "it is so unlikely to be true that it's not worth $50" is entirely rational.

Now, what if the compulsive liar said, "If you don't smile at me the moon will crash into the earth!" rather than give him $50? Would it be unreasonable to smile at him? Certainly not, as the cost of the action is virtually nil, which is virtually the same chance of it being true.

The differences between Luna and nargles and your example are significant:

1. Luna is not a compulsive liar. There is no evidence that she says anything she does not believe to be true.
2. In the HP universe, the idea that there is a magical creature that can be invisible and affect your thoughts is not absurd.
3. Luna is not asking the characters in the story to do anything at all in regards to a belief in such creatures.

And for fanfiction writers there is no downside to including real nargles in the story. It's just another way to write.

A better analogy would be a known crazy runs up to you and frantically tells you that for the past 10 years he's been the subject of a hidden government experiment called DLP, where they take people and inject them with a drug which causes them to act crazy. Now he needs $50 to get a bus back to his home town.

On the contrary, it is very pertinent to logical thinking, epistemology, and this present debate. Failure to comprehend this leads to the kinds of erroneous arguments you've made here.

Worse, the default assumption of skepticism is not that "something does not exist." The default assumption of skepticism is that you don't assume anything is true without evidence. Assuming things don't exist without evidence to back that up is not rational thought.

No, what it boils down to is whether you are going to be open minded or closed minded.

Dumbledore is open minded. He says "it's more like that..."

Snape is the one who would say, "Foolish boy, there is no such thing as death incarnate."

 

Just for the record, Dumbledore is not being "open minded" when he says things like "I suspect", "more likely", etc. He's just a polite professor imparting knowledge to a student. If you look the small letter, he's a very arrogant guy, who more often than not utilizes false modesty to declare something he thought or did. In fact, he's more arrogant than Snape, but he has class, eloquence and charisma and can say things like "I can escape from Azkaban, but I prefer not to spent my precious time doing it" which prompts the reader to applaud him instead of insult him.

 

Glad I didn't bother to enter the argument fully... And for anyone who didn't bother reading any of it here:

TL;DR: Neither the Hallows being created by Death or being man-made objects is canon choose what you will and shut up.

 

No, canon is clear in what it states happens. It gives us a great deal of evidence on one side and bad evidence on the other.

Of course they don't. But even if you state something is true and can provide no evidence to support this assertion, this has no bearing on anything whatsoever.

It goes back to my giant unicorn. You may say 'Yes, your giant unicorn may exist', to which I say 'then give me hundreds of thousands of crabcakes or he will crush the universe with his laser eye beams' at which point (I hope) you will say 'prove it'.

In the case of fiction, this is harder. But you still have to base your thinking on the best evidence available. The best evidence with regards to Nargles being the complete lack of evidence to support their existence. To all practical purposes, this means nargles do not exist in Harry Potter.

It isn't evidence against. It is no evidence. My producing an erumpent horn and claiming it is the crumple horn of a snorkack is not evidence against crumple horned snorkacks, it is evidence that I am an idiot and nothing more. Or, if I claim my mug is a plate. This is not evidence against plates. This is evidence that I am an unreliable source of information and as such, should probably, in future, not be consulted on the matters of dinnerware.

Actually that's not astronomically high. $50 to thwart the extinction of humanity is an extremely good deal, I'd say. But nonetheless your thinking is weird here, to say the least. This decision should be one based on evidence (or lack of it), not cost.

EDIT: On reflection, I believe you have used the word 'high' in the quote above, where you ought to have used the word 'unlikely'. If this is the case, my response above will make no sense as I thought you were attempting to communicate something other than what you intended.

You're splitting hairs. Either way, my point still stands. It's not a question of open mindedness or close mindedness, it's a question of good evidence and bad evidence.

No, Dumbledore is polite and modest, this is not the same thing as being open minded. Dumbledore may be open minded, but it is not demonstrated by what he says in this instance.

I can assert all sorts of things about reality. If I provide no good evidence for these assertions, you disregard them as irrelevant.

To go back to my original original point:

To assert that just because concepts aren't proven false is to mean that there is any possibility that those things have any bearing on reality (as portrayed in Harry Potter) is to lend credence to my Thor argument.

There is nothing in the books to disprove my theory that Thor created the Hallows. Therefore, it may be true. Just as it may be true that the Hallows were created by the Giant Squid.

Even if I accept your entire premise that because there is no direct evidence to contradict the hypothesis that a personification of Death created the Hallows, that this is a possibility, this has absolutely no bearing on how we ought to interpret the chain of events. The likelihood of this being the case, is only the same as the idea that Thor, or Fate, or the ghoul that lives above Ron's bedroom created the Hallows.

To address a point I should have originally:

Actually, my suggestion fits just as well into canon as the myth. Or, I should say, just as poorly.

The idea that the brothers made these artefacts is congruent with reality as presented in Harry Potter. Wizards exist. Wizards do magic. Wizards make powerful magical items. These are all established facts in canon.

The only example we have of any concept becoming personified is within the myth itself. The same can be said of this personified concept doing magic and creating powerful magical items. This is anomalous with the reality portrayed hitherto in Harry Potter and the myth itself is a proven unreliable source.

Add to this with the testimony of Dumbledore, who has proven himself to be a highly reliable source of information on a wide variety of topics.

The only logical conclusion you can come to is that JKR fully intended it to be understood that Death did not create these items, but that wizards did. It is no more subject to 'choice' or 'open-mindedness' than Harry's last name is.

 

This has come down to how important we both want to weight things. For me, a negative argument requires just as much evidence to support it as a positive one. You seem to think assuming something doesn't exist should be the default way of thinking. I don't think we can get past this.

I'll just say that you've shown yourself to be a rational person, but in failing to recognize the importance of this point you are making a logic error and will keep making it.

So, I don't find it useful to continue this. I'm sure I haven't convinced you, but I'll also say your argument isn't convincing either.

Now see, that's where we have a problem. There is no "testimony" of Dumbledore. We have a statement where he gives his opinion, but that opinion is not based on direct observation--at least as far as canon is concerned.

It is just as valid to think Dumbledore's opinion is based on nothing more than healthy skepticism as to think it's based on some understanding he has gained by studying the objects and comparing it with his vast magical knowledge.

And even if his expert opinion is based on his observations, he can still be wrong, especially given the hedging he used when making the statements.

But, it doesn't matter, you have come to think this is the only possible truth and anyone else who doesn't think it is the only possible truth is an idiot.

So, alright, you keep thinking that. But I know better.

And here we will continue to disagree til we're both blue in the face and we both suffer from carpel tunnel syndrome.

There is just not enough evidence to come to any conclusion.

That you would equate supposition with known fact shows there can be no way of reaching an understanding on this. I share your opinion, but completely reject your dogmatism.

That Harry is named Harry James Potter is an observed fact attested to by numerous characters in the book. Whether it was Death incarnate, the 3 wizards, or some unspecified third party who created the hallows was not observed at all. There is no suggestion of any alternate official name for Harry in the books. There is an alternate origin for the Deathly Hallows given in the books.

The difference between these two are as night and day.

Feel free to get the last word in here. I'm going to do something else after this.