rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2006-03-18 02:18 pm

(no subject)

I just had a really bad time emotionally at the dentist (more on that later, unfortunately, while the next several posts are all related internally, I need to unrelate them externally).

And on the subway, coming to work, listening to Alla Gossar (the latest random Nordic tune to obsess me) and trying not to cry, I had this relevation, rooted in something Kali said to me as we were trying to figure out a demise for a backstory character in Descensus.

People don't die of physical decay in the HP universe. There aren't diseases without quick fixes. Old age is frightening, the body doesn't betray its owner. People are murdered, accidents occur, betrayals abound. People die through violence, or the deterioration of the soul. Fear is constant, but never petty.

And all of this is one of the grim attractions of it all for me, because on those terms, I'd be doing much better than I am.

[identity profile] miep.livejournal.com 2006-03-18 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
don't they? my impression has always been that they do, eventually. that unless they discover the philospher's stone, death will come to them as it does to everyone else. that fear of mortality, of the frailty of the flesh, has never seemed absent from the universe in which they live, but from the consciousness of the young people involved. adolescents are immortal, at least in their own minds. death and decay are far from their thoughts.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-03-18 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, but people die of old age in HP, like, cause they're done with shit -- they don't die of cancer or heart attacks.

[identity profile] miep.livejournal.com 2006-03-18 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
hrmmm... i suppose not -- there's a cure for everything, isn't there?

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2006-03-18 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah. It's giving Kali and I fits in terms of the demise of Lucius' mum.