The Granger Model

I just thought I would toss in a word of explanation in case any readers think it odd that sometimes I /we are like "John Granger! .... Alchemical Symbolism! It's THE deal in HP!" and other times go off in directions more like modern/contemporary character-development based stuff (kind of like "John who? what are you saying? ... alka selzter?") Actually Granger himself does this. The Hidden Key to Harry Potter develops the alchemical symbolism as the main skeletal structure and primary "wallop" of meaning that really grips us readers (often without our even knowing that that is what it is); ... BUT in that book Granger also does a wonderful job of showing how JKR augments that primary mode of literature with many other congruous elements such as "Manner and Mores" (from one of her favorite authors, Jane Austen) and more contemporary psychological motifs such as depression and despair (i.e. the dementors). (Aside Note: "Psychology" is really another "mode" of developing what Alchemy is about, a more modern one. Alchemy is about the transformation/purification of the soul, or "psyche" [which comes from the Greek word psyche, which means soul, as distinct from the concept of "pneuma" or "spirit." The distinction flows into the Greek New Testament from the Hebrew distinction between "nephesh" for "soul" and "ruach" for "spirit" via the Septuagint, the pre-Christian translation of the Hebrew sCriptures into Greek, and from the Greek it flows into the Latin "anima" for soul and "spiritus" for spirit - in HP, DD is the element symbolic of pure spirit, whereas Harry is the "Golden soul"]. And of course you can see that "psychology" is the study of the psyche, focusing on more modern/contemporary classifications such as "depression," seen in the effects of the dementors on those such as Sirius and Hagrid in Azkaban or the continuing effects being a were-wolf has on Lupin. Rowling is really melding these two approaches, one from the classical era and one from the modern era, to thinking about the soul) Rowling is building a really rich story and Granger has a really rich exposition of it, so I just thought I would toss that explanatory note out there just in case it ever seems like I/we are sort of "hot and cold" with the alchemy/symbolist thing.