Knight2King

[pegkerr]

I may have mentioned this before, but I'm rather taken with the rather elaborately drawn Knight2King theory for the Harry Potter books. (Click here to read the first essay in the series, and then follow it up with this one which further developed the theory after the release of Order of the Phoenix.)

They sure had a lot of fun making it up, anyway. And some of the speculations and supporting evidence are surprisingly convincing.

What do you think?

Comments

[lizardlaugh.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you like it :) ixchelmala and I had a blast putting it together, though there is so much more we need to add.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

For the slightly interested passerby, just what is the theory? I'm not very involved in the HP universe.

K.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It is quite fascinating, really. The theory is that the chess game that Harry, Ron and Hermione play near the end of the first book is a metaphorical foreshadowing of the series as a whole. And once you look at it that way, the evidence actually does seem to fit rather well. Harry is the black bishop, Sirius is the one of the black knights, Hermione is the rook, Neville is the other black bishop, and Ron is . . .

That's the most fascinating bit. Ron is one of the knights, but as Rowling tells us in OotP, "Weasley is our king." That, according to the Knight2King theorists, is a big fat clue. In the books, Dumbledore is our king, i.e., the head of our troops, directing the action. Which suggests that Dumbledore is actually Ron Weasley. The Knight2King theory posits that Ron will go back in time (probably using a timeturner) and eventually become Dumbledore.

What is so interesting about this is that so far, pretty much everything has fallen in place. "Their first real shock came when their other knight was taken. The white queen smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown." This represents Sirius Black, who was taken down by the white queen Bellatrix LeStrange. You need to read the essays in their entirety to follow all their reasoning and evidence, but what they predict is that Harry's seven moves (three squares to the right, four to the left) represent the seven books. In the last book, they predict that Bellatrix will "take out" Ron Weasley. They point out that Rowling carefully notes that when the White Queen takes out the Black Knight (Ron) "He seemed to be knocked out. But Harry, although shaken, sticks to the game and checkmates the King (Voldemort).

I'll be very intrigued to see whether their predictions pan out. And very impressed with Rowling if she did, in fact, set the series up metaphorically so far in advance, using the chess game.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's the same people, but this has been my very favorite crackpot theory for the last couple of years. I'd be quite delighted if it turned out to be the case, because it's just so...something, but can't decide how likely I think that actually is.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Oh, my goodness. This makes _way_ too much sense. I think I have to go back for a re-read. :-)

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

wow. that's really remarkably well-argued and supported. extremely believable.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

I hope it is true.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I do, too!

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I haven't had time to read everything on the site yet, but it's an interesting theory and seems plausibly. Of course, legal niceties being what they are, it's also possible that by publishing this they've ensured that this is exactly what JKR won't do.

[liamere.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure JKR said somewhere that "there is no return for Sirius", or words to that effect. Apart from that, I found the chess analogy apt and very likely true :)

Ooh, conspiracy theories.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly biased because I knew about this before it came out and talked to Milly and Helen about it. I <3 it muchly.

[spoke.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I remember being shown this before... I thought it was kind of spooky, possibly because it is convincing - at the least, if things turn out badly in the end, it would make a really good alernate ending. I'll have to back and read the new stuff later.

^^ Passing through as part of a flist exchange.

Argh!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

"Chess was explained to us as a game where the object is to defend your side. To win the game, you must make a variety of defensive and offensive moves. The trick to wining is to keep your opponent guessing as to what move will be next."

If that paragraph is the basis for the theory, they are in waay over their heads. That is so not how chess is played or won, other than at a kindergarden level.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

I LOVE this theory, and I've loved it ever since you posted a link on it a while ago. I'm not entirely sure if I believe it, because it is rather convoluted and making a lot of assumptions about, well, stuff.

But yes. I like it muchly, and thanks for the links.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

As signs that I have too much time on my hands go, this one takes the cake ...

Albus Dumbledore
Ronald Bilius Weasley

Albus D_ _ _l_or_ is what one can make with the letters of Ron's name. What are you left with?

n_ili Weasy

A weird coincidence? Or Dobby's deliberate transliteration? You decide.

To make it weirder? I have pretty much no latin, but the letters missing from Dumbledore's name? ...
umb_d_e

The first is the root for protection, leading to words such as these:
umbo -onis m. [a boss , round projection]; esp. [the center of a shield]; [a shield; the elbow].

umbra -ae f. [a shade , shadow; a shady place; protection; idleness, pleasant rest; a phantom, ghost, shade, semblance; an uninvited guest; a fish, perhaps grayling].

And "de" is defined thusly:

de prep. with abl. (1) in space , [down from, away from]. Transf., [coming from] an origin; [taken from] a class or stock, [made from] a material, [changed from] a previous state; of information, [from] a source. (2) in time, [following from, after; in the course of, during]. (3) [about] a subject; [on account of] a cause; [according to] a standard.

So ... the letters left in Ron's name imply the absence or negation of the Weezy [sic], and those in Dumbledore's indicate protection from displaced origins.

This is what one can be inspired to by random interesting posts, after a long, hard day of studying for orals ...

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Oh, my! You should send that to the website to draw it to their attention!

[morganmuffle]

I love that theory, it took me right back to the early days when I actually follwoed HPfGU. My dream is that even one detail of it turns up in the books to be true. All of it and... it would be so brilliant.

[dreamcoat-mom.livejournal.com]

This was very enjoyable! Even if the whole thing turns out to be completely bogus, the paper would get an A in my classroom for the elaborate attention to detail. If we're casting the concept of authorial intent to the wind (and who knows? maybe they're not) this is a very sound line of argumentation. My congratulations to the theorists, and a gentle, tongue-in-cheek invitation to back slowly away from the computer.:)

Hey there...

[ixchelmala.livejournal.com]

I'm with lizardlaugh on the thanks for liking it and yeah, 6 weeks of little sleep and exploding brains (on my end anyhow).

There's so much to update. We added a better front page, and some links that support the theory and related ones (as far as time travel goes), but there's so much we need to update.

Thanks for linking it and encouraging discussion on it:)