Skip to main content

harry potter - Why did Dumbledore 'put on' the Resurrection Stone (Ring)?


WARNING: Spoiler Alerts throughout this question...


Now, Dumbledore put on Marvolo's ring, knowing that it was the Resurrection Stone which was on the ring. He also knew (even though he "lost his head" in his excitement to see his family again) that the ring was a Horcrux and would "surely carry a curse":



When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts - the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons - I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on...



-Deathly Hallows, Ch 35 - KING'S CROSS



Now when Harry realised that the Resurrection Stone was inside the Snitch, all he had to do was turn it three times for it to 'work':



He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times. He knew it had happened, because he heard slight movements around him that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the forest.


-Deathly Hallows, Ch 34 - THE FOREST AGAIN



I may be missing something, but did Dumbledore incorrectly use the Resurrection Stone?


or did Harry just 'think' that he had to turn it thrice?


I'm assuming the answer may have been that Dumbledore wanted to have the ring on, and then turn it thrice whenever he felt like conjuring up his family; or that he simply "lost his head"; but he surely didn't need to put it on right?



What is the correct way to use the Resurrection Stone?



Answer



Dumbledore did indeed use the stone incorrectly. In his excitement to recall his lost family, he let himself forget that the ring was a Horcrux and he simply put the ring on. However since this was, at the time, one of Voldemort's horcruxes, putting the ring on triggered the curse that would have killed Dumbledore, which is why he made Snape promise to kill him rather than to allow Draco to do it.


After Dumbledore recovered the ring, he destroyed the Horcrux with the Sword of Gryffindor, which is to say he specifically destroyed the ring. The resurrection stone was not destroyed. The stone was then placed into the Golden Snitch for Harry to find.


Now, back to your question about whether he used it correctly. According to the "Tale of the Three Brothers", when Cadmus Peverell was first granted the stone by Death, he turned it thrice in hand and recalled is long-lost love from the grave. This established that turning the ring thrice in hand is the method of using the stone, and since the "Tale of the Three Brothers" is the source of Harry's only knowledge about the stone, he turned it thrice in hand to recall his loved ones prior to sacrificing himself to Voldemort.


Also, Tom Riddle was known to wear the Gaunt Ring openly during his time at Hogwarts, so it is unlikely that simply wearing the ring would allow one to use the Resurrection Stone


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more