Offline life (and other things) has a way of overwhelming you, doesn't it?
Let's return to my series on John Granger's article, Why Half Blood Prince is the Best Harry Potter Novel.
The first post in the series addressed Granger's and my ideas about Dumbledore and the cave. In the second post, I started on the first of 20 questions not answered in Half-Blood Prince. Question #1 dealt with the who, what, where, when, and how of horcruxes, and although I didn't do the subject justice, it was a start! 
Review question #1:
1. How do you make a Horcrux, that is, what is the spellwork procedure, and what are the four remaining Horcruxes? We learn a lot about what a Horcrux is in Half-Blood Prince but not about how one is made or what the four Horcruxes remaining are. Until we know this, it is impossible to speculate meaningfully about what can and cannot be a Horcrux…
Today we'll look at question #2:
2. What is the nature of Harry’s scar? Harry’s scar in Half-Blood Prince went from constant reminder in the previous story of his psychic link with the Dark Lord to not a twinge in Half-Blood Prince (a change that allows for Harry-Dumbledore contact but with the thin excuse that the broken link was because Voldemort didn’t want Harry to know what he was thinking). We don’t know still if the wound is an echo of Frodo’s knife wound from the Dark Rider on Weathertop or a Horcrux or a “curse scar acting like an alarm bell” or what…
The first two questions (as well as #3) focus on horcruxes. I wrote in a previous post that I don't believe Harry's scar is a horcrux, but that leads us to the next question. What, then, is the nature of the scar?
When Harry was a baby, whatever curse Lord Voldemort tried to perform on Harry (not Avada Kedavra?) was unsuccessful. The curse rebounded on Voldemort, and he was physically weakened as a result. All the surviving baby Harry got from the failed curse was a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Throughout the series we've read that Harry's scar burns and hurts to varying degrees whenever Lord Voldemort is angry. Clearly there's a connection between it and Voldemort, but what?
Let's look at Granger's #2. Since I've yet to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Don't stone me!), I don't fully understand the Frodo reference, but I get the gist. Harry's scar is a cursed scar, but is it just a means to warn him and others of Voldemort's moods, physical proximity, etc., or does a part of V's soul lie in wait there?
I'm going to take the easy way out and say that Harry is obviously connected to Big V through the scar, and that connection is not meant to imply that the scar contains part of V's soul. Can I back it up? Not really.
If, according to my theory, the scar is not a horcrux, it's something approaching that kind of significance. Why does it hurt when V is angry? What does his anger have to do with a healed wound on Harry's forehead? I did a search in Yahoo! to find some helpful scar theories to link to, and guess what the #1 search result was. This blog! I'm just asking questions; I have no answers.
So…I'm afraid I won't be able to expound on the nature of Harry's scar beyond the usual, "It connects him to Voldemort."
The how and why will have to be answered by smarter theorists that moi or by Ms. Rowling herself. 
(Warner Brothers image)
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:18 pm
You… you're running a blog titled "Fantasy Fiction for Christians" and you haven't read the Lord of the Rings?!?!
March 2nd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
I know.
I will rectify the matter very soon.
March 3rd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
LaShawn Barber continues her series of reflections on John Granger's work, in which she freely admits to having never read Lord of the Rings and also freely admits that she can't back up her opposition to the scar-as-horcrux theory. Perhaps there's still hope for your conversion, LaShawn. Feel free to drop on over there and share some of your scar theories with her.
March 4th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
The thing that convinced me Harry's scar MIGHT be a horcrux is Red Hen http://www.redhen-publications.com/Horcrux.html
IF Dumbledore is right that Voldemort decided to make his last horcrux when he killed Harry.
And since Voldemort had already made 5 others at that point, and had a lot of time to work on it as he went.
And since Book 6 proved that spells can be invented.
Then it is possible that Voldemort brought the item he wanted to make into a horcrux to the house that night, and had a special version of the AK he planned to use on Harry and, at the same time, create the horcrux. So that this new, invented spell, backfired when the spell bounced and ended up in Harry's scar. (So HARRY is not the horcrux, just the scar, somehow)
And I won't be disappointed at all if this is wrong. It at least seems possible now.
March 4th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Didn't HP:GoF resolve the question of *what* spell Voldemort attempted to cast on Harry? Barty Jr.-as-Moody in the DDA class in which he demonstrated the unforgivable curses, said something to the effect of, "only one person is known to have survived the Avada Kedavra curse, and he's sitting right here in this classroom."
(Unless he was mistaken, or JKR put in a red herring?)
March 4th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
You're right about that, but something caused me to doubt the curse. Can't remember if it was a blog post, article, or what. Thanks for stopping by. Do come again!
March 4th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Oh, I come often (usually lurking via RSS) - just don't post often (er, ever).
March 6th, 2006 at 10:25 am
LaShawn, seriously consider purchasing the audiotapes of Lord of the Rings read by Rob Inglis. Just as good as reading them. Don't buy the dramatization recordings - ughhh! My opinion.
After that, read the Ainulindale from the Silmarillion, then the Hobbit. Then the whole Silmarillion. Come to think of it, listen to all this stuff on audiobook as well - there's a good version of the Silmarillion out there read by Martin Shaw. The Silmarillion as a whole is plenty tedious to start out with even though it occurs before the other tales of Middle Earth.
Then do this every year. It will get even better as time goes on.
March 8th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
As cb (#5) said, HP is the only known person to survive the AK curse.
Dumbledore points out (in one of the books–OOtP? CoS?) that Harry can understand Parseltongue ~because~ Voldemort can. In OOtP Harry is able to see through Voldemort's mind BUT Voldemort doesn't realize that Harry is there until nearly the end of the book.
In HPB, both Slughorn and Dumbledore (IIRC) indicate that it is necessary to kill someone to make a horcrux. My impression–I don't think it was stated explicitly–was that the person needed to be an "innocent." IOW, someone good. And who could be more innocent than a one-year-old babe?
BTW, I think you'll enjoy GoF much more this time around! I'm thinking of buying it myself as well!