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.

Family Tradition

Towards the end of a previous post ("Protego") I used the chess example, noting DD's praise of Ron's chess game in book 1. Voldemort, I think, also fancies himself a bit of a "chess master" and here I want to look briefly at a primary difference in the way Voldy and Dumbledore play their "game." The primary difference is that Voldy will never trust anyone. Even with this action of at least seeming to have killed the big man, I do not think Voldy will ever completely trust Snape the way Dumbledore trusts Harry ("I'm not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you." [HBP 578] - or the way Dumbledore trusts Snape himself, for that matter) Voldy's system is a bit like that of the Sith in Lucas' "Star Wars" world. You see some of it in the movies but you get a really good picture of it in some of the rp/strategy/adventure video games that have been written, especially "Knights of the Old Republic" (I personally suspect Georgey can't resist the money and popularity of the games but secretly hates the fact that these video games have much better written dialogue and plot than his movies ... but that is just my theory - [theory on Georgey hating it - is more than opinion that the games are better written than the movies, it's universally accepted fact]). The master and apprentice are never at real peace. It is a defining part of the Sith system that apprentice will someday challenge master and one will die. Either the master will prove he is still master by slaying this apprentice or the apprentice will rise to the level of Sith Lord by killing his master. This is exactly Voldy's kind of thinking - there is no "family," there are only masters and slaves. Dumbledore is exactly the opposite. In his game model tradition is a defining aspect. He is willing to have a son (figuratively) in Harry, a son to whom he will lovingly pass on his mantle. In fact, he is willing to die to do what is most beneficial for this son, what will most teach him how to do the right thing. Like Ron's foreshadowing of this theme all the way back in book one, he is willing to sacrifice himself for Harry to go on and do the right thing and "keep saving the wizarding world." Love and "familial" tradition are the defining characteristics of DD's "chess game."

The Lupin Within

Earlier I posted my defense of some of the additions to POA in the movie version. Another came to me in a conversation over the weekend. I also noted in another post that Granger reported Rowling's comments commending the insights of the movie makers. In conversation with our friend Nathan it struck me that she may have also meant this instance I am about to talk about. WhenI first saw (in the movie) Sirius run up to Lupin and say to him something to the effect of "the werewolf is not who you are, this heart inside is who you truly are" my first thought was "hmmm, a little canned." But the reason I now think it may have been on of the lines JKR was commending is because of the "Draco wolf-boy" theory (for those not familiar, it is the theory that Draco was bitten by Fenrus Greyback in punishment for Lucius' failing in book 5, and that what is on his arm that hurts is not a dark mark but a werewolf bite, which Bourgin would have recognized in connection with the mention of the name, and which would explains Draco's fatigued and gaunt look in HBP). In HBP we see some more of what it means to Lupin for him to be a werewolf (this would also involve the lines on the bridge to Harry in the POA movie if those were added in, "your mother had the ability to see the best in a person even when they could not see it themselves"). Lupin still has trouble not thinking of himself as somehow intrinsically wrong, as an abomination, as somehow too far gone for love (as we see in the interchange where we find out that it is him Tonks has been in love with). If Harry is to be reconciled with Draco, his being a were-wolf, combined with the sympathy Harry has built for Lupin's condition (another POA movie addition, "Professor Lupin isn't having a very good night") ... this could be a path for the sympathy Harry needs to find with/towards Draco. He needs to see that just as the outer monster is not the real Lupin (cf the POA "canned" addition), so the monster of insecurity and petty malice that Draco's family attitude has built does not have to be the real Draco.

Sever-Us Snape

In a conversation over the weekend Pauli had a very interesting hypothesis: That on the rooftop of the Astronomy tower, Dumbledore may not have been saying "Severus" but "Sever Us" ... in other words, separate us. I do not know if this is up her alley as far as things hidden in the mechanics of the dialogue (although it may be - it may be too mechanical for her but it also may be something she would do) but I do think that is could be an adaptation of the name (she is notorious for names with important meanings in them) that she might intend to be in there but leave implicit (as she does with many of the names, leaving it for avid literary sleuths like Granger to discover and have great conversations about) There are 2 things I would note about this. 1. It would be a symbol of the redemption that has happened for Snape (on the "good Snape" theory) or maybe will happen for him (or maybe happen further for him in the future, redemption in his reconciliation with Harry). The name means "severed" or separated or cut in two. I have standardly taken this to mean his divided character, the tension in him. If, however, Pauli's suggestion is right (and because of what will be said in the second point - the symbolic value of the severing) it is an instance of a positive meaning being given to the name because he is doing the good will of Dumbledore in severing, and thus it is a sort of redemption on the level of the name. As in all redemption, that which was bad is transformed (like the red lizard on the shade's shoulder in Lewis' The Great Divorce, that once the shade allows it to be killed is resurrected as a vibrant stallion on which the risen man rides further into heaven ... in redemption the good characteristic that has been perverted in a weakness, now becomes a strength) 2. It is well known that one of Rowling's central themes is the need for coming to grips with death, the need for right grieving. This involves the humble acceptance of a separation (hopefully just for a time, with reunification hoped for in the after-life ... maybe in the place beyond the veil through which Sirius falls, from whence Harry hears voices). If the "good Snape" theory is right, and if Pauli's suggestion is right (as I am hoping it is) I believe the name has been transformed to symbolize this theme. The Material Aspects Briefly, here are my thoughts on the "mechanics" of the "Sever-Us" theory. The death stopper magic might somehow involve not just Snape performing some magic that keeps Dumbledore alive, but Snape himself lending some of his own life itself to Dumbledore to keep him alive (his own nephesh, in Hebrew, psyche in Greek, or anima in Latin). Thus Snape would need to sever the connection and allow Dumbledore to die - this still necessitates some "ruse" magic, in which it appears he is using Avada Kedavra on Dumbledore.

Look Out

I glanced at Sarah's (Blondie's) newest post on her blog this morning and saw that she has started re-reading GOF for the release of the 4th movie coming up. This is a great idea - I re-read the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy the summer before the second movie came out, just to really get back into it, and I found tons of new things that excited me ... you can never read this stuff too many times - like the James Cole character played by Bruce Willis says in 12 Monkeys: "I've seen this film before, but it was different; it's like, every time you see it it is different because you're a different person.") So hopefully we'll be hearing some comments from Sarah in the future (she says book 4 is in a tie with book 3 for her favorite) ... I'm guessing she'll have some really good and intersting things to say - I'll be checking her blog to see what they are (and what all interesting is going on in Montreal.)

On the Way

I returned today from this past weekend celebrating my sister's b-day with her and Pauli and my two nephews Gilbert and Joe (and the "baby on the way") and my parents and Pauli's parents and our friends Nathan and Julie and their 7 kids (one of whom is Joshua, whom I have mentioned in here and posted excerpts from Potterial email conversations with him, and another of whom is his next youngest sister Elizabeth, who is a voracious reader and may have even outdone Sarah from Sarah and Beyond in how many times she has read each Potter book). I returned with a replenished arsenal of thoughts on things HP from conversations with Pauli and my sister and Nathan and Julie and Josh and Elizabeth. These thoughts will be appearing here soon (provided good ol' Pauli does not beat me to it). For today I have other things to accompplish so I'm just throwing this up as a teaser, but I am logging the post titles in a spreadheet of "posts to write" so I am sure not to forget any of the goodies. PS To whomever reads our blog ... these types of conversations are the life blood of a blog like this - so feel more than free to email Pauli or myself with anything that strikes you while reading any of the posts or other thoughts you have had that connect (we promise, you'll get credit - we're not into stealing people's ideas ... mainly we're more interested in the blog evidencing how many people are finding this type of stuff interesting and meaningful, and it being a meeting place for all these neat observations and ideas and showing how the diversity of people who enjoy it and the diversity of their thoughts on it show the really rich breadth of the works) ... or, if maybe its a brief thought, post a comment (we receive email notification of comments being posted, including the content, so we're sure to interact with comments as soon as we can!)

HP Merchandise story

One of the ads up at the top was for HP merchandise and it reminded me of sometime last year I was in a Sheetz (a mega-convenient store/gas station in these parts) and they had Bertie Bott's every flavor beans. I thought "that's interesting" so I picked up a few boxes, figuring that they would be all good flavors, thinking they were only going for the name but nobody would seriously carry through the "every flavor" thing in actual production/marketing ... But they did. There were dirt flavored that actually tasted like dirt and grass that actually tasted like grass .... there was even a vomit flavored one that had a very funky smell to it (we tossed that one.) I thought it was a cool thing in the books and thought it was cool they did it keeping accurate to the idea even though it probably made them sell very poorly ... but I'm not sure I would buy another box of them. (lol)

Protego

A mutual friend of mine and Pauli's was recently having a few beers at a bar with me and we were talking about (among others things) Harry Potter. He had a really good theory/observation: When DD freezes Harry on the rooftop there are a million and one other ways a master like DD could have handled that situation; he handled it that way for one simple reason - to Protect Harry. He is not primarily protecting Harry from whoever is coming up the stairs, he could have simply blocked the door. He is primarily protecting Harry from .... Harry. He knows what is about to transpire. He knows that although Harry was not able to use the Cruciatus on Belle in book 5, this was probably due to the fact that he did not know Bella well enough to have the grudge he has against Snape and Malfoy. If he sees Snape or Malfoy taking these actions that are possible, Harry could damage his own soul by committing murder or torture, by lashing out in hatred at SS or Malfoy. DD probably knows that Harry used Sectum Sempra on Malfoy, knows he is capable of lashing out (having indiscretionately used a very dangerous curse not knowing the results ... he may not have known what it was, like he knew what Crucio was, but his apathy toward the danger of an unknown result is plenty of evidence of enough antipathy to "want" the results howver bad they may be) (I have recently come to the conclusion that Snape was following DD's orders and that it was all planned, but I still have problems with Snape "pulling a trigger" and side with some version of the "stoppered death" theory. DD praised Ron's chess game in book 1 and I think he would be the best judge of that game. I think DD is probably a chess master in that he is able to think his moves out throughout the whole game, and plan for all contingencies ... it is highly unlikely he did not see any of what happened that night as a contingency. The timing may have surprised him a little, but DD is a master of adaptation ... The "planned appearance of murder" theory is now the one that seems to make the most sense. I still cannot buy Snape as "simply really good actor and spy," I still think he has a serious struggle with Harry that borders on hatred the same way Harry's issue with him does.)

Bookends

Here is another reason I think that Harry will be the 7th and lasting DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) teacher at Hogwarts: Using "bookends" is a common device - I noted it in the post on Religion and Love in Tolkien concerning his use of the midsummer's eve date to connect and contrast the attack of the Nazgul and the courtly love of Aragorn an Arwen. Thus, if I'm saying Harry is going to be the final DADA teacher, it would be good to see who the first DADA teacher in the series was and see if it makes sense as an opposing bookend. And who would that be? Actually ... it is Voldemort (from the back of Quirrels head). I am planning soon to go back and re-read the books quickly for the purpose of re-experiencing them through what I have learned since first reading, so I am not sure but from what I remember we do not get too much on Quirrel in book 1 - on his qualifications, teaching content etc - but by the end of the book we find out he has Voldy in him and has had him there all year. Combined with what we learned in HBP we know that Voldy did manage to "thwart" DD's authority by actaully teaching DADA "covertly" through Quirrel - as the opening "bookend" to the DADA class progression. By this time Voldy has much more important plans, like getting a body, but I think he probably saw a delicious irony in teaching DADA covertly onlong the way. So who would be a more fitting final bookend than Harry?

Interesting hints from the woman herself

Check out this page for some tasty crumbs. Rowling says that he last word of the last chapter of Book 7 is "scar." I was thinking that the scar has to play a big part, maybe in the "horcrux absorption" method which we have posited here. She also tells us that we will learn something very important about Lily Potter in book 7 as well. (Of course we know we have to learn more about Snape and her relationship to Lily... right?)

Hidden Humor

In looking for the passage of Harry kissing Ginny for the previous post, I came across this on HBP 417. "Personally I think there's a lot to be said for hexing him with that toenail thing of the Prince's." If you go to Rowling's site under the rumors section for the end of June 2004, one of the rumors she dispels is that book six would be called "HP and the Pillar of Storge" ... the next rumor she put up was that it would be called "Harry Potter and the Toenail of Icklibogg" - the second name was her own invention and her blurb on the side was "Well, if you believed the 'Storge' one ..." Hence, I think the line in HBP was an addition specifically refering to that interchange, simply for humor ... which I at least found it funny when I realized where it was from.

Riddles in Dark Chambers

I just wanted to briefly note the name Riddle. Rowling and Tolkien Note that in both Rowling and Tolkien we "meet" Riddle/s in dark chambers under the earth. It is in the Chamber of Secrets that we really "meet" Tom Riddle, really find out who is is. It is in the game of Riddles played by Bilbo and Gollum under the Misty Mountains that we first meet the One Ring (a bit like the ring Riddle wears to identify himself in visiting his uncle Morfin, the same ring which the "destruction" of which burned DD's hand irreparably, and, if the "stoppered death" theory is correct, cost him his life ... ie he died to undo the ring - just as Frodo and Sam had to be willing to die to undo Sauron's ring.) Riddles in the Dark I have stated before that my thoughts on "Elendil's Sword vs Isildur's Bane" (in Tolkien) center on Revelation. If you want a connection with Harry Potter before I get further down, simply look at the number of Christ Symbols Granger notes in Potter and then read the second article number (the first paragraph of the first "chapter," entitled "Revelation Itself," the first paragrph/article being the preface) of Dei Verbum from the Second Vatican Council - where Christ is called THE Revelation of the Father, neither Scripture nor Tradition is "sola", they both flow from the one Word ... this is central to the Medieval Theology that is the background structure for Medieval Alchemy and literature. The One Ring as a revealer is seen in something like the dream Boromir relates at the Council of Elrond (in Mythopoeic literature, including the Bible, dreams are often prophetic and revelatory - Boromir's dream being about the ring itself). This is, I believe, how Tolkien thought of myth as natural revelation. Myths are "riddles in the dark" that, like the light atop Gandalf's staff in the mines of Moria, can be a signpost to truth in a deep dark pit of a world. But, like Sauron's ring as a revealer, they can be perverted into evil. It is NECESSARY to uncover the ring, and so myth is necessary. But when it gets set up against supernatural revelation (as in Boromir's statement at the council that he did not come seeking a lost heir, only the answer to a riddle), then the discovery of the ring can be threatening. It must be done (Gandalf is adamant about this, that the ring should be discovered and destroyed, versus Saruman's complacent statements that the ring has probably already disappeared for good), but it brings with it danger. Danger that those such as Denethor and Boromir will want to use a perverted form of myth (idolatry) as a weapon, rather than seek the fulfillment of pagan myth in the truest form of myth, Christian revelation. The same is true for Rowling. When the Riddle (Tom) sets up its own person/identity as an idol, it becomes the evil that is Lord Voldemort. Love, Christian Charity, is central. Tom Riddle is really the power of myth without the heart of the Christian myth, i.e., myth in the sense of Lewis' "Myth Become Fact", i.e., Christ.

Rowling and Consecrated Virgins

Since most of my recent posts have been on things tangential to Harry Potter, I thought I would quickly throw up a post from my store of observations on the Potter books. This is the observation that first started me thinking of Rowling in the vein of a direct descendent of the Inklings because it is the first place I noticed what I saw as a concretely Biblical image used in the books and much of my thinking on the inklings has coincided with noting Tolkien's use of Biblical imagery and types. MOLECH There is a difference between the way the book and the movie portray the statue of Slytherin in the Chamber of Secrets. In the movie we see only the face but in the book there is the whole statue and, as Harry enters, he sees Ginny lying between the feet of the statue. There is a direct correlation with ancient pagan idol worship as evidenced in the Old Testament. Children were sacrificed in the arms of the idol of the god Molech. Hence, Rowling echoes the image of the innocence of youth and feminine youth in particular (what Riddle refers to in the movie a "a stupid girl") being sacrificed to the god (in this case the "idol" both Slytherin and Riddle have made out of their own identity as wizards). Rowling on the Matter On her site Rowling has definitively ruled against Ginny's name coming from "Virginia," stating that it comes from "Ginevra." (Extras - Characters - "Some Random Facts About the Weasley Family") I am not sure if there is some symbolic meaning behind the name "Ginevra" that makes Rowling prefer it but I think I can explain why she is against "Virginia" and how that does not cause a problem for my reading of Ginny as symbolic of feminine purity of youth. The name "Virginia" obviously comes from "virgin"/"virginity." In the Christian West the primary symbol of this has been the consecrated/celibate virgin. In a setting such as our present one, to use the name "Virginia" in a highly symbolic story such as Rowling is writing almost automatically calls to mind the consecrated virgin, the nun. For her to do this would not only cause problems with Ginny being Harry's "courtly love" counterpart, but would make the story allegorical in a bad way, in the way criticized by Tolkien. As I said, the consecrated virgin is the primary symbol of innocence/purity. But Rowling wants to appeal to is the core thing itself. The two are intrinsically connected, but this does not mean that Rowling is using the institution of consecrated celibacy as the image-source for her instantiation of her image of innocence/purity. I think sub-consciously Rowling does mean Virginia, but that she means it as the core idea of a vibrant innocence and purity of youth (as vibrant as Ginny's fiery attitude, infamous bat-bogey hexes, bright red hair and flaming eyes - "Harry looked around; there was Ginny running toward him; she had a hard blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him".) But Rowling's aversion to what she knows would be the "polemical" results of her stating the same is a healthy aversion. In the end I have a hard time believing that somebody as well versed in ancient myth, in which there are common threads among several of children symbolizing purity in being sacrificed to a god, could use the image and not be cognizant that that is in there and part of the meaning of the picture she is painting. Post Script Some ascribe their own boorish thoughts on celibacy to the institution itself and give it a bad rap. To be sure, it has a unique and deservedly revered position in our world as a special symbol of Christian purity. But if you read about a Saint such as St Sir Thomas More you find that the "marriage is a second class state" mentality is precisely one of the things he had to battle against. Personally I have known at least one nun whom I consider to have more flare of personality than I will probably ever have. A young Dominican nun from Poland. Her order used to wear the full habit with everything short of the "wings." But in conversations in the library she could bust my chops and razz me about my occasional academic laziness as well as any [for one she was gutsier than most, my general appearance/disposition is a bit like Hagrid such that many sort of shy away] ... never in an inappropriate way, she was just always very much herself ... actually when I noticed her being more reserved was when her order decreased the habit they wear. Of course there are different valid forms of the practice as well. I have a friend who is an artist in Brooklyn and quite as loopy in the head as myself if not more. He has a sister who is a cloistered nun. If he visits her he has to talk to her through a screen ... but he and she think that is fine so I think it is fine - the seclusion is one particular way that that order lives out the symbolic speciality of consecrated celibacy, and that I know of they are not saying it is the way it has to be done everywhere, although it is good for it to exist in some orders. According to Carl his sister can still joke with him like sister with brother, even from behind a screen.

Cool Art

I just wanted to call attention to the link Paul put on the side to Mugglenet. When you go there check out the backgrounds you can choose from. I want to find out who does the drawings (I suppose I can look inside the jackets of the books, looks like the same artist). What I really want to find out is whether there is more that they have done in full color like the covers of Order and HBP (as it looks from those backgrounds like they have), and if so ... where you can get them. I like it when artists do well done illustrations. I went out and bought both the special edition Hobbit and Lord of the Rings that were done with Alan Lee's artwork illustrations (even though I already had the leatherbound boxed of each). (Lee also did the pencil and charcoil drawings used in David Day's Tolkien's Ring )

Bouncing Ferret Scene

Check it out here! (** requires QuickTime **) "We never use transfiguration as a punishment!" is one of my all-time favorite Minerva McGonagall quotes. I added some links over to the right, including the very informative HP Lexicon Site. My favorite part of the HP Lexicon is a section called "Strictly British" which should be a big help to us coloninsts reading the books.

Dante

I should note that in the "musical interlude" post the translation I used of the first line in Dante's Divine Comedy is that done by Dorothy L. Sayers, who is standardly counted among the Inklings. Her translation was the Penguin Classics choice for many years, then they went with John Ciardi's but I think they are on to somebody elses now. I am not sure if the Sayers translation is in print again or not, I know it was not when I went to get it after using the Ciardi translation for a class (I had to order used from Blackwell's-Oxford online) - but that was back in 1998-1999.

The "Order of the Phoenix"

Just in case anybody missed it because it is in the comments: Pauli asked if Joaquin Phoenix is in the Order of the Phoenix and the answer is yes. The "Order of the Phoenix" of which he is a member has 7 members (the magical number), his two parents, his four siblings (who were/are all actors, the most famous of which was his older brother, the deceased River Phoenix) and himself. See, the mention of the "Walk the Line" movie does connect with HP. Sorry for the puns!

Simon, Dante and Harry

Just in defence of my own digressive and erratic mind ... "call me Al" does have something to do with Potter. Granger notes the classical "descent into the underworld" as part of the central structure present in every Potter novel (it is worked into the alchemical structure of death and resurrection but it is in the specific image of the classical descent under the earth to the land of the dead ... every Potter novel involves descent into the earth except Goblet, which involves a graveyard, the land of the dead) Rowling gets it from Dante, who gets it from Virgil, who gets it from Homer. Simon writes using Dante ... what more can you ask for? heh heh

Movie News

Walk the Line has Joaquin Phoenix play the late Johnny Cash I like Phoenix as an actor and love Cash (cf former comments on Cash's song "flesh and blood" in relation to HP as "Incarnational" literature.) The Trailer looks dark, I hope they end it with at least hints of the redemption so evident in Cash's work in his last years of life.

Musical Interlude

Well, it is raining profusely on a Monday and I am off work and studying for the GRE, so I thought I would pop in briefly and write a post on musical interests. The first is a random incident as far as concerns things "mythopoeic" - simply that a friend of mine was in town (Pittsburgh) over the weekend to see U2, a fact for which I am very jealous of him (tickets sold out in 4 hours when they went on sale last May). He said it was an amazing show ... I guess they are closing their shows now with "Yahweh" into "40." Paul Simon: But on a more mythopoeic note, Dominic (friend/housemate) related to me that he figured out what he thinks (and I agree) is the primary image in Paul Simon's "Call Me Al" from the 1986 Graceland album. But before I say this, let me note - I'm saying this is the primary "image" not the primary identity. In other words I do not think the song to be a musical adaptation of the whole thing where every line of the song draws out to Dante in a tight correspondence. Simply put, an image struck Simon's imagination and he wrote a song from the experience of being struck by it, working in other aspects in following the song where it led him (especially imagery from the third world cultures of Africa, which he was drawing on musically.) One word ... "multivalence" (multiple layers/levels of meaning) Here it is: "Betty" = Beatrice "Al"= a shortened form of Dante's last name (Alighieri) "Bodyguard" = the fact that Beatrice leads Dante through Heaven as his guide up to the Mystical Rose, and it was she who sent Virgil to guide Dante through Hell. "a Man walks down the street" = Dante wakes "midway this way of life we're bound upon" ... i.e., midway down the "road" of life. "A Cartoon in a Cartoon graveyard" = Dante journeys through the underworld. "Dogs in the moonlight" = The most dangerous of the three beasts that block Dante's way up the hill and out of the woods, thus necessitating that he go to the gates of Hell ... is a she-wolf. "The third world" = Heaven in the Paradiso (simultaneous with being the third world cultures of Africa and, later, South/Latin America - see the final note below on "literary background".) "Angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity" = just look at the illustrations that have been done of the Mystical rose from the Paradiso. (the link is to the one from the book Dom put on the table in front of me while telling me. I think Dore's illustrations are pretty well known and standard. I think Blake and Dali also did famous illustrations) Literary background This is exactly up the line of the imaginary traditions Simon drew on for the Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints albums. the literary genre known as "Magical Realism" officially comes from Latin America but I believe that African folk literature fits the model as well. This genre is defined by the wonder of the magical combined with the nitty gritty details of realism (hence the third world being Dante's Heaven with angels, and at the same time a third world marketplace place with cattle, scatterlings and orphans). Simon's music has always struck me as "Magical Realism" - especially starting with the song "Hearts and Bones" (I think a primary image for that song was taken from My Name is Asher Lev. "One and One Half wondering Jews ... Traveling together, in the Sangre deChristo, the Blood of Christ Mountains" - I believe this to be based in the image of Asher joining his mythic ancestor in "wandering the world" after his painting the "Brooklyn Crucifixions" - a Jew wandering in a world of Christian imagination) When you think about it - this is what the sacramental is about (the Body, Blood, Soul and divinity of God in a common white wafer), or as my friend Smitty (the lucky jerk who got to see U2) put it yesterday morning over breakfast when I described this all to him, "well, sounds to me pretty much like it sums up real life."

Harry a Horcrux?

Pauli made a comment on Voldy saying that he "less than spirit" after the first night with Harry. this got me thinking to look at that passage. Unless Voldy was lying in his comments to the death eaters in the graveyard, I am wrong about him trying to make Harry a Horcrux. "You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him." But I think Granger may be right that the scar is a Horcrux that voldy created by accident through murdering Lily. Oops ... oh well, back to the drawing board....

Movies

I was telling Pauli on the phone that I went to see Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I liked it, a lot of fun. Should have seen the twist coming, seeing as how mush I have thought about Lupin ... that the monster is always the man transformed down rather than the beast transformed up. But I was in a sleepy mood that day. It's been a while since I watched the original 3 episodes from 1990 so it was a good dose of W&G, I thoroughly enjoyed it. (Interesting though that there were a few "adult"/adolescent jokes - such as Wallace naked when the female lead comes in [SPOILER: he had just transformed back from his huge rabbit mode, in which his clothes would not have him so they are shredded off: END SPOILER] and Gromit handing him a box to cover up with and the box was from some food item and has a red label "contains nuts" And a really odd one that I'm not sure if it was really there or not. In college for a course in 20th century American novel we read The Centaur by John Updike. Updike is a sort of gritty psychological surrealist, a number of the scenes deal in fairly erotic language with a woman's obsession with a man whom she visualizes/fantasizes about as a centaur. Another series by Updike along the same themes deals with a guy whose name is Rabbit. There are several in the series and I can only remember the name of one, Rabbit Run. The female lead in Were-Rabbit says this at one point ... not sure if it was a reference to Updike's Rabbit novel or not ... seems kind of out of place to me, probably just coincidence) Other Movie News: Harry Potter 4 on Nov 18th Batman Begins is out on DVD Charlie and the Chocolate Factory comes out on DVD Nov 8th Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is out on DVD

Ramblings on the Four Basic Elements

Granger quotes Rowling in answer to a question about Death Eater children in the four Hogwarts Houses. JKR: Probably. I hear you. It is the tradition to have four houses, but in this case, I wanted them to correspond roughly to the four elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room is under the lake. So, again it was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, as we know. And then Granger points out that Harry has to be the "quintessence" - literally the "Fifth Element" - which is the spiritual harmony which needs to be restored to the 4 houses. Earlier in the piece he talks about the movie "the Incredibles", which is one of my favorite animated features of recent times, and how it also uses a theme of 4 elements. (Granger believes that the Incredibles is a derivation of the older "Fantasic 4" comic in which you can see the four elements defined a little more starkly - remember "the Thing" (earth) and the "Human Torch?") The discord which exists when the parents and kids are at odds or when the dad is sneaking off to fight evil by himself has to be eliminated and harmony restored before the villain can be defeated. The "spirit" or "quintessence" in this movie's case is that of family unity. I believe that is why the movie is so good. It does not rely on a vague notion of the "family values" variety superimposed upon it which is one of "we put up with each other's annoying diversity of gifts". Rather it puts forth a theme of "family spirit", the spiritual reality of a "fifth element", which inevitably conquers the villain. To go one step further, I believe that the baby, "Jack-Jack", is the embodiment or incarnation of the quintessence. Several times throughout the movie it is spoken or alluded that "we don't know what his powers are yet". AHA! Sound familiar? From the prophecy: "He will have powers the Dark Lord knows not." Of course, at the end of the film the villain, "Syndrome", meets his demise when attempting to steal the child. The baby surprises him by turning into a stone (Philosopher's Stone?) and a ball of fire (Heir of Gryffindor?) - I can't remember if there's anything else. The surprise that Syndrome receives is comical and it parallels Voldemort's continual underestimation of Harry's quintessential powers which derive from his spirit. Voldemort barely counts spirit as worthy of note - he turns even his own soul into something material via his horrible horcruxes and describes himself in Goblet of fire as having been "less than spirit" after his curse intending to kill Harry (also a baby at the time) backfires.... Phew, that's enough for know....

Inside joke

I should explain that when I revealed that I am going to a coffee shop to study for the GRE, to those who know me, such as Pauli, this is highly ironically humorous .... I'm the only one in my family who does not drink coffee - never have. I'm in good company though ... Robin Williams' "Perry" character in The Fisher King states twice in his conversation with Lydia (Amanda Plumber) that he doesn't drink coffee. Well ... he winds up being good company. Being as he is techincally "crazy" through most of the moive I'm not sure what that says ... I'll just choose not to think about that one.

Raiders of the Lost CD

I may try this evening studying to some of the music from my favorite movies. A good friend and housemate of mine is on a trip representing Duquesne University's Graduate programs at a graduate fair at another university (actually several - he is in the PhD Philosophy program at Duquesne and has this job as part of an assistantship). So, I raided his small CD collection. I was unable to find the one I was really looking for, a compilation called "Choral Moods" which contains the beautiful Sacred Choral piece used at the end of every episode of the BBC mini-series "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" starring Alec Guiness, done at the end of the 1970, with the sequel "Smiley's people being done in 1982, so they are contemporaneous with the Star Wars movies ... the BBC mini-series were based on the 2 "George Smiley" novels written by John LeCarre and are a favorite of my fathers and of my own. But I did find the soundtrack to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pirates of the Caribbean and Road to Perdition.

Introducing Avada Kedavra

Here is another thing that struck me in viewing the trailer for movie 4, and one of the reasons I still ride the fence on the Snape question and still have strong reservations about the use of Avada Kedavra. It seems to me quite possible that, when we the audience are introduced to the 3 unforgivable curses, Rowling gives a "tip-off" to something being wrong with Moody in the fact that "he" (the Barty Jr fake Moody) would even use the unforgivables at all, even on something as inconsequential as a spider, without real need . I know the arguments for Snape actually using it and still being good posit some form of real need, I'm just trying to make the point that it seems for her any use of it is cause for doubt, any material involvement with instigation or performance of the curse (as opposed to the simple removal of a protective magic once the effects were inevitable, and the removal inevitable as well ... at that point Dumbledore and Snape may very well have cause to choose the time and manner in which the stopper was removed and the "perception" those factors might help them with). Keep in mind that this is a point precisely on which Dumbledore disagreed with Durmstrang's philosophy. At Hogwarts they teach only defense against the dark arts, but Durmstrang teaches the dark art themselves ... but under the pretense of saying that this makes for a better ability to defend against them. Just a few thoughts to ponder ... now it is off to the land of triangles and pies. I have found it best to do this at a coffee shop, where my computer is not present ... to avoid the temptation to sit and endlessly type my thoughts and ponderings on all of ours favorite underage wizard.

Snapshot of Snape

This is from an email I sent in discussion with a young friend named Joshua, discussion on the whole Snape thing. The incident it refers to is one of my favorites in HBP and the type of thing that makes me love Rowling's writing so much. She creates such an intricate character in Snape. From Email: Just as an aside, here is one of the most fascinating things to me, maybe in all of book 6 ... when Harry hits Malfoy with Sectum Sempra, and Snape heals him ... she writes that Snapes healing incantations were "almost like a song" (HBP 523). She doesn't use music much in the series (that I can remember) and when she does I think it indicates something really important, maybe not to the plot but at least to the meaning. The only other place I can think of off the top of my head is the Phoenix song. The Phoenix is a very powerful but very mysterious and mystical image in the book. I think she is trying to give a hint to something very deep and mystical going on in Snape.

On the Road to Adventure

Yes, I have set myself upon the path to taking the GRE in hopes of gaining entrance into a Ph. D program for Biblical Studies, and I expect to courageously battle the monsters of "I don't remember how to do THAT from high school algebra!" and "WHAT does that word mean?" I may change my name for the next month to "Brettbo Baggins" (interestingly, I have the same birthday as Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Sept. 22nd - the autumnal equinox) I am doing ok so far on preparing for the test ... figuring out more things on my own without asking my father (who has an MA in math) or a friend and housemate who tutored math in the summers for 3 or 4 years straight (after you finish the "general review" type books there is another stage of taking practice tests where you have to apply the mathematics in the specific format of GRE questions, which is another world altogether). Just last night after getting off the phone with Pauli there were a number of problems that had me stumped (probably because my brain was sore). Oneof them I figured out in the car on the way home from the coffee shop and another I figured out in the car on the way home from work today. ... but I don't think I have the funds to afford very much of this kind of studying at these gas prices, haha. I will try to make a few posts here and there, like the following one which I just have to cut and paste from an email to a beloved "nephew" of mine and Pauli's "It's a dangerous thing stepping out your door, Frodo my lad - you never know where the path may lead you ...." - Bilbo Baggins "The Road Goes Ever On and On Down from he door where it began. Now far ahead the road has gone, And I must follow if I can Pursuing it with weary feet, until it joins some larger way, Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say." -Bilbo Baggins, from "The Hobbit" by J.R.R Tolkien

Merlin's new adventure

Our intrepid, senior blogger, Merlinus Ambrettus (aka Brett Kendall) informed me last night that he will be embarking upon the great adventure known as the Graduate Record Examinations, affectionately termed the "GREs", in November. Thus we will probably be reading less of his creative and informative insights on things mythopoeic, mythopoetic, mythic, poetic, philosophic, etc., etc., etc., etc. We send him prayers, best wishes and hopes that he will catch the Golden Snitch in the form of a well-earned scholarship to the univeristy of his choice!

Is Harry a Horcrux?

I was just watching the trailer for Goblet of Fire and thinking about this: I'm pretty sure the movie shot is accurate to the book when Crouch Jr./Moody says "there is only one person to ever survive the killing curse, and he's sitting in this room." This seems to me like the one place I know of so far where there is evidence that I might be wrong about whether Voldemort was trying to kill Harry or make him a Horcrux using the murder of his mother. It's no ironclad, but Crouch was pretty close to Voldemort for a while and it does not seem he has any doubt that Voldy tried using the killing curse directly on Harry. But like I said, he does not make any statements directly about hearing Voldy say so, and especially not while under the truth serum ... so I guess we'll just have to wait and see in 2 years (hopefully only two). I side with Granger though, that whether or not Voldemort intended a horcrux at all, the scar is a horcrux.

Water Snakes

Granger does a lot of work on classical numerology in the HP series. In one article he cites an interview with Rowling in which she drops a biggie morsel of meaning: that the 4 houses represent the 4 elements: Fire, wind, Water, and Earth In this system, in her own words, Slytherin is Water (which is why their common room is under the lake level). It just struck me how (completely accidentally on my part) appropriate was the example I used of Genesis 1 being about creation as giving meaning by ordering chaos. The element that is chaotic, over which the Spirit hovers/broods ... is water. For Israel water was a symbol of chaos (unlike their neighbors such as the Phoenicians, who were a maritime culture and made their living from the water). The Psalmist writes of the waters rising and covering him, which is what Yahweh saves him from. This is why Christ calming the Sea of Galilee was so symbolic for first century Jewish Christians. Those like Peter and John had made their living fishing in that sea but it was still always viewed as an emblem of the encroaching danger of the chaotic (what is referred to in modern Hasidic Judaism as the "sitra achra," the "other side," as evidenced in a novel like My Name is Asher Lev by Jewish Author [the late] Chaim Potok.) The serpent is the one who subtly tempts the first couple to evil. He represents the "cunningness" in nature, that element that is within nature and is a temptation to a return to chaos through pride or idolatry (some have even posited ties between the nahash [serpent] of Genesis 3 and the Leviathan or "sea serpent/monster"). The upshot of all this? The upshot of Rowling using the classic image of the cunning of evil, the serpent, to represent the element that symbolized chaos for the Hebrew mind? What does it mean that Rowling has the evil character being a parsel-mouth and coming from a house that has a serpent as its symbol and represents the element of water? It simply means that, to whatever degree conscious or "culturally subconscious" (or what John Henry Cardinal Newman might refer to as the "illative sense"), she is in touch with the deep richness of the Judeo-Christian Tradition and in step with the spirit of it in her use of it in her work.

A Consideration

Is the Avada Kedavra curse like the Cruciatus curse in that you have to really want to murder to do it? Bella tells Harry this about the Cruciatus (that you have to really want to cause pain) in the Ministry of Magic in the show-down in book 5 when Harry tries to use the Cruciatus Curse. This is why I have not as much problem with Snape using something that merely removed his own protectory magic and allowed an inevitable curse by someone else, with DD's knowledge and consent and knowing that the curse having it's full effect on DD someitme soon is inevitable. What I have a problem with is Snape fully using Avada Kedavra. If it is like the Cruciatus curse, if you have to really want to commit murder, how can he still be good?

Religion and Love in Tolkien

The title of this post is a borrow from Charles Williams' out-of-print essay Love and Religion in Dante. The Post itself is an attempt to give a synopsis of the essay I have mentioned hoping to write on courtly love and Grace in Tolkien (and, thus, also an exercise in brevity and succinctness for my verbose self) Thesis: Being an avid Medievalist, Tolkien follows the Medieval use of courtly love as symbolic of divine Grace; and in doing so follows a specific formula for the Medieval thought on Grace. Literary Precedent: It is known that Tolkien did a translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as well as an essay on the poem, presented at a conference. In that poem Gawain, on his way to the Green Knight's Chapel, stays for a year in the castle of Sir Bercilak, very near to the Green Knight's chapel. Unbeknownst to Gawain, Bercilak is the Green Knight. Bercilak proposes a contest of trade in which he give Gawain what he wins on the hunting field every day and Gawain gives him what he wins hanging around the castle. Three times while Bercilak is hunting his wife tires to seduce Gawain, each time he declines, but just barely (three days running he has to give Bercilak his winnings: a non-erotic embrace, a non-erotic kiss ... And I forget the third). When Gawain finally faces the Green Knight, the knight gives him tree chances to beg for his life like a coward. Each time Gawain refuses and chooses rather to willingly live up to his side of the original deal (blow for blow, when the knight interrupted Arthur's Christmas revelry. Gawain gave his blow then, lopping the knights head clean off ... Which the knight then put right back on and told him to come to his chapel in a year for repayment). Each of Gawain's 3 instances of courage find their source in his 3 instances of purity in respecting the knight's marriage bed by not sleeping with his wife. (It should be explained that the Gawain poet is here being extremely socially critical. He is condemning as fallacious what was coming to be called "courtly love" and "chivalry." By the standards of these Gawain "failed" in courtly love because a knight was supposed to do whatever a lady asked of him, even if it be to commit adultery with her and thus offend what courtly love truly should be). Based in both Tolkien's interest in such tales and the work of Williams (friend of Tolkien) and other showing that for the Medieval mind courtly love was symbolic of Grace, I think it just to investigate Tolkien's instance of courtly love and see how they symbolize Grace. Traditional Thought on Grace: The common statement within the Christian Tradition of the relationship between Grace and Nature is that "Grace Builds on Nature." There are 2 ways in which this statement might be mis-interpreted: 1. By saying that it means that nature stays essentially the same and Grace just builds on top of it. 2. By saying that before Grace builds on Nature it pulls a demolition stage on it; first it completely deconstructs it then reconstructs it so it is no longer in any way like it was, completely unrecognizable as having any connection to what the nature once was. A professor whom I have had in working on my MA (Dr Scott Hahn) has a formula he uses to describe the right way of understanding the way Grace builds on Nature: "Grace Heals, Perfects and Elevates Nature." First it fixes what is broken, but beyond that nature needs Grace even to fulfill its own natural goal or end. Then beyond that Grace imbues nature with a new super-natural end, congruous/fitting with its natural goal but also completely new. I have asked Dr Hahn if he found this particular formulation elsewhere (like Augustine or Aquinas) or if it is his own particular formulation and he has answered that it is his own. Thus it would be ridiculous to try to claim that Tolkien had this formula particularly in mind. BUT examining Tolkien's instances of courtly love to see how they are symbolic of Grace according to Hahn's formula does 2 things: 1. It further supports that Tolkien is indeed using courtly love as symbolic of Grace. 2. The fact that somebody as steeped in the medieval literary tradition as Tolkien would symbolize Grace by courtly love in a manner that so well fits Hahn's formula supports the contention that Hahn's formula accurately summarizes the Traditional understanding of Grace. 2 Backing Observations: 1. "Grace" originally means gift, and Tolkien often (in the Silmarillion) refers to mortality as a gift, with regards to men 2. Only mortals fall in love in the LOTR (when an immortal does fall in love they forsake immortality for the mortal ... And hobbits are obviously mortal as their histories evidence). Tolkiens' Courtly Loves in The Lord of the Rings 1. Grace Heals nature: (Faramir and Eowyn) Faramir and Eowyn find themselves together in the Houses of Healing. They are both wounded individuals, not just physically but personally or psychologically (psyche = soul) because they are both displaced individuals. Eowyn feels like a warrior born into a maiden's body. Even after having done an amazing deed of valor and courage in the face of despair, she feels empty. Likewise, Faramir is an honorable captain of Gondor (the movie Faramir is very different and has a different emphasis than the Faramir of the book). His rightful place is on the front lines at the Gates of Mordor, not back in the infirmary. When these two find each other, they find healing for their displacement. 2. Grace Perfects Nature: Sam and Rosy Of the races in Middle Earth, the Hobbits are the most "natural." The idea of the "perfection" of nature is a "teleological" concept. It involve "perfecting" something by bringing it to the end or goal it was made for. On the natural level the "goal" of sexuality is offspring. Sam and Rosey are the only couple that we see have a child within the scope of the story (The appendices tell of the line that comes from Aragorn and Arwen, but this is not within the scope of the story itself). 3. Grace Elevates Nature: Aragorn and Arwen The onset of "evil" at large is when the 9 Nazgul cross the fords of Isen disguised as riders in black on midsummer's eve. Sauron has been a doing a lot behind the scenes but this is the first "sortie" of the large stage. It is espionage to be sure and for a little holds the "riders in black disguise" for a little, but that is really the calm before the storm. Crossing the fords is like the commitment of the storm. One Year Later, to the date, Arwen arrives with the company from the North to be betrothed to Aragorn. The Hobbits have been waiting around sinc ethe destruction of Sauron. Gondor is beautiful and nice but they would like to finally get back to their families and "regular lives," but they can tell that there is something more coming. There is a feel in the air of something to come that will more truly define the overthrow of Sauron; although with the ring already destroyed they cannot figure out what it could be ... until the company arrives from the north. The commitment of the evil storm on midsummer's eve has been answered by the betrothal of Love on midsummer's eve one year later. These two dates set what are really the "bookends" for the main part of the tale, that is the overcoming of evil by Good. And this is what supernaturalizes courtly love, that it is emblematic of the supernatural battle between evil and Grace. But Good is more than the negation of evil. Good has a positive existence of its own that evil never could. Evil will always be only the negation or perversion of the good. Thus, it is the betrothal that shares the same day with the onset of the evil over come - mid-summer's eve. The marriage itself is on the next day, mid-summer's day. Postscript The "elevation" is also seen in the hierarchical structure. If the evil represented by the riders is not vanquished, neither Faramir and Eowyn nor Sam and Rosey have any hope. Likewise, Sam never would have gotten Rosey had he stayed in the Shire and the Shire stayed secluded (as long as it could, eventually it would have been controlled by evil forces). Sam had to go through Mordor in order to learn the courage to walk those few yards up to the bar and talk to Rosey. (Nothing in the Shire would have lasted, nor can it last without the larger realm of the kingdoms, as represented in the fact that Merry and Pippin remain in the service of their respective kings as their representatives in the Shire.)

Double Entendres (I love this stuff)

I could eat this stuff up with a spoon. Granger has some stuff on his site on the name "Half-Blood Prince." There has been much speculation on the question of Snape being a Vampire ... the son of a vampire muggle would be both "Half-Blood Prince" and "Half Blood-Prince" Granger notes that Rowling has adamantly denied Snape is a Vampire, a little too adamantly, like she is covering up and hiding from some very good guessers. Granger had Snape pegged as a possibility for the HBP back before the book came out, back when just the title had been released ... although he sided more with the possibility of it being Godric Gryffindor. I like Rowling more and more as time goes on; she is like that conversation in Lewis' That Hideous Strength. When the Eldil (archangels from the other planets in the solar system) arrive upstairs for the council with Ransom, the "hoi poloi" on the first floor are overtaken with actions that mimic the characteristic of the eldil who has just arrived. So when Mercury (the god of language) arrives, they begin to have this conversation that is witty beyond all belief, saturated with double entendres, ironies, word plays and the like.

Possible Recantation Part Deux

I was just emailing a very intelligent young friend named Joshua on the "Snape good or bad" thing. And this is the type of scenario that would make sense to me for Snape to have been good. Copied from my email: Here is one Scenario I have thought of that might make things different. John Granger brought up an idea he got from some readers, called "the stoppered death" theory. In Sorcerer's Stone in the first potions class with Harry's year Snape claims he can teach them to "stopper death." (they even say that HBP has 7 references to that incident in Sorcerer's Stone, some direct and some indirect). These readers think Dumbledore actually got killed in removing the Ring Horcrux but Snape has keeping him alive via potions all year. WHAT IF (and this is a big if that depends on various "mechanics" of Rowling's world, like IF you can load a particular curse into something) but WHAT IF Voldemort "loaded" his ring horcrux with an "Avada Kedavra Curse" such that it would be "unloaded" on the person who removed the horcrux (If Snape is DD's right hand man, closer than anyone else, as he would have to be for this kind of stuff going on, I imagine he would have had Snape right there with stuff at the ready for whatever happened when removing the ring horcrux) ... Then WHAT IF Snape's "death stopper" potion magic can involve a modification he invented just for the occasion, by which the original curse is stayed for a while until an incantation removes the "stopper." Snape, being a master of non-verbal spells, might have been able to engineer this spell such that when he mentally spoke the "stopper pulling" spell it appeared that he would be verbally saying the original curse the "stopper" had been holding back; he would actually be thinking something meaning "remove the stopper" but it would appear to others that he was saying the "stopped" curse, in this case Avada Kedavra (like I said, I have a problem with Snape actually performing avada kedavra as a trick). They say Avada Kedavra is unstoppable, but maybe it is only "eventually" unstoppable ... maybe it can be delayed. Of course this begs the question of whether this would be considered "killing Dumbledore" in such a way as to fulfill the unbreakable vow and not die, but I think it would be ... If it was the ring Horcrux, Dumbledore was probably already hit with whatever it was at the time Snape made the vow with Narcissa and probably knew Dumbledore was going to die.

Rowling and Biblical Images

I should say that what I have said previously about Rowling not writing "in the Biblical mode" does not preclude her from using some Biblical images and using them well. I think this one Paul noted back in August to be a very good observation. Whether she consciously had it in mind or not it is a perfect fit as an image.

I might Recant

In one of those pieces on Granger's site he brings up the "stoppered death" theory, which I had not heard as an argument for Snape being primarily good (I have to look again and see where he got it, I think it was from some girls on a Barnes and Noble discussion board he is a monitor for). Basically that Dumbledore was already dying from removing the ring horcrux and Snape had been keeping him alive all year with the potions he brags about in Philosophers Stone (Granger notes that there are 7 references, direct or indirect, to that PS scene in HBP), and that the killing on the roof has been agreed upon as possible contingency ... that Snape bring about the inevitable sooner rather than later to keep up certain appearances. I still have doubts and questions, but this is the first theory thus far that I have heard that makes sense to me even as a possibility. Some were saying, "Maybe Dumbledore and Snape had an unbreakable vow on Snape killing him" and I though "WHO would you get to be the third party with the wand on that one?" ... I better watch it, I may have to eat humble pie on that if it winds up having been true somehow. (lol)

Granger has my 6

(military for "is covering my back") I just found a corroborating support for my defense of the additions in the POA movie, in one of John Granger's pieces. "Ms. Rowling says the ending of the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, in which Buckbeak battles with Lupin the werewolf, impressed her with the producer’s understanding of the books." Granger seems to think it has some connection with a possible Veela vs. Werewolf, Fleur vs. Bill throw-down, which he thinks Rowling might have planned. I'm not sure about the thrown-down he thinks is coming but, like Pauli said, Granger is very clear about the different weight he puts behind the alchemical reading of the books and his own specualtions on future plot developments.

One Place

One place I think Rowling might use a Biblical image might be that of "the beast" in Revelations. This is a comment on a comment Paul made on the rings of Sauron compared to what Voldemort hands out to his followers (from the Sword and Snake Post) Fr. Roderic over at Catholic Insider.com, in one of his HP podcasts, dropped a few teasers, one implying in his next podcast on book 6 he might find a Christian meaning behind Voldemort wanting 7 horcruxes. This is what I suspect he may be leading too, and either way, it was what sparked this though for me. I don't think it would be out of line to hazard a guess that one of the things Rowling might have drawn on here is the image of the beast with 7 heads. Particularly in this regard (since Pauli mentioned "the dark mark as gift" in his comment) I think the dark mark brand may be built, at least in part (and consciously) on the "mark of the beast." I don't think this is out of line speculation. The marks mean the same thing: a claim on control over the person by an evil force. There may be other image sources combined with it (as Granger points out on his site, the 7 stage alchemical process is definitely a big one) but I suspect it is at least one of them. The hypothesizing on the meaning of Revelations and the meaning of the beast and the mark are fairly well established phenomena in our contemporary world and I could easily see a talented author like Rowling using it.

Lembas Bread: Tolkien and Rowling on Sacramentality.

This is another example of the difference in "mode" between Tolkien and Rowling. It is also an example, though, of how not to read Tolkien as "Allegory." In the chapter "Mount Doom" Tolkien writes (on Lembas Bread): "and yet this waybread of the elves had a potency that increased as travelers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind." NOW, I will make a few bold statements. 1. The meaning of Lembas is NOT the Eucharist, strictly speaking. 2. The Eucharist IS however, the image source of Lembas. 3. The meaning of Lembas bread is Sacramentality as such. Of course, the most obvious aspect of the Eucharist as image source is the aspect of bread/food. But also there is the mention of potency increasing as it alone is relied on, and a number of Saints were reported to have survived receiving only the Eucharist. Sacramentality as such is focused on a physical thing being consecrated as somehow the vehicle of supernatural Grace. (In Baptism water remains water, it does not become, substantially, Grace. In the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine are actually changed into/replace by the substance of the Body and blood, while the accidents of bread and wine remain). Lembas is a physical thing [bread] which carries a non-physical power [virtue, courage, fortitude of will over body etc]. Were the meaning of Lembas to be the Eucharist itself, there would be, I think, at least some trace of a concept of sacrificial death, and of the communal/communion.) Rowling's work has also struck me as "Sacramental." Something like the Leaky Cauldron is small and unassuming, plain. In fact she even notes that most people never know it is there, they glance right over it unless they are particularly looking for it ... i.e., Muggles never see it. It is small and musty, dingy - like the mundaneness of physicallity. Yet it is a doorway to a world of wonder and magic, a world of larger meaning. In both authors I think there is a concept of "sacramentality." In Tolkien I think he is definitely conscious of being writing about sacramentality; I think he consciously uses that term in his head and that is why he consciously uses the Sacrament of the Eucharist as the image source. But what he is writing about is not specifically the Eucharist, but rather sacramentality as such. (obviously all of his work flows back to the Eucharist, as does all meaning in life period. I am merely talking of Lembas as a specific image within the construct of this work) It is in Rowling too. I'm not sure if she would use the term "sacramentality," but I am pretty sure it is what she means and that she does have an idea of where it comes from (i.e.,, I don't buy that she is a Wiccan ... the only official things I have heard is that she is Scottish Presbyterian [I think, don't quote me]. I don't know how "practicing" of a Christian she is but I do think from her works that she is conscious of where the meaning in life really comes from). The main point for me is that in neither author is it "allegorical." This is especially important for Tolkien because he is using the Eucharist as an image source. Were he doing so allegorically it would be like the "sacramental version" of an allegory of the Bible. In which case all that it would mean to say that "Tolkien writes more according to the Biblical mode and Rowling less, if at all" would be to say that "Tolkien is a Christian writer because he writes allegories of the Bible and Christian life; Rowling is not a Christian writer (and not good for Christians to read) because this is not what she does." Despite how long it might take me to figure out what I do think and how much even longer to get it in readable format ... it is not that.

Creation and Christian Meaning: Rowling and the Biblical mode (cont'd)

I thought an example might help explain why although Rowling once said she consciously was not trying write a "Christian work", I think her work is also consciously Christian. When you study the Genesis creation accounts accurately, the point of the human author is NOT creation Ex Nihilo. The emphasis of "out of nothing" comes from Christian Theology in a later stage. The emphasis of the language used in Genesis is the contrast between chaos and order, or between meaninglessness and meaning. The verbs used for creation mean more of an idea of bringing being by bringing meaning and order. Now, if you asked an Israelite reading that passage, "Well, where did the material that was in chaos come from? Is it eternal like God?" The Israelite or Jew would say, "of Course not ... obviously God made it, there's no other explanation. But Genesis is not telling that part of the story, it is telling the story of how God gave order and meaning to the evil chaos of the elements, how He covenanted Himself to the world and us by saving us from the chaos of the primordial waters." Rowling is a bit the same way I think. She said (I think I heard this on one of Fr. Roderic's HP podcasts) that she is consciously not trying to write a Christian work (which, I would argue, since the time of Bunyan, if you say "I'm writing a Christian work" you're universally taken to mean "I'm writing a fairly wooden allegory of the Bible"). I think if you asked her "well then where do you think the truth that is in your books comes from? You think there is a different source of truth that is contradictory to Christianity don't you? You really are a Wiccan aren't you?" she would say, "No ... of course the source of the truth is Christian, of course the ultimate source is in the Bible." (Rowling is an educated woman, I highly doubt she could know of Nicholas Flamel and not know he was a distinctly Christian alchemist, or of the Christian sources of the images she uses ... she is admittedly a huge fan of the Chronicles of Narnia; I don't see how she could not know that Aslan is an allegory of Christ) I think that, like Tolkien, she has a healthy aversion to having allegory be the underlying structure of your work, or even being perceived that way (Tolkien himself admits of using allegory in the LOTR, but in limited instances where it has a specific job to do and does just that job, like Bombadil being an allegory of raw nature). She is writing her own story for her own era and that is her emphasis. I think she is very conscious of the fact that the truth in her stories ultimately comes from the Truth (the Way, the Truth and the Life). But what her story is in its distinctness is still a story about a boy who lived under the stairs and never knew he had magical powers; the story of an idea that really struck the fancy of a (then) single mother who had studied classics and taught French in Northern Europe at the very end of the second millennium of the Christian Era. A woman conscious of her Christian heritage, maybe also a little bit of a Goth and also a little bit aware that in the current setting "Christian writing" get equated with "bad writing." An author more familiar with the medieval alchemical structure than with the genre forms and specific typologies of Scripture, so what would you expect her to use? (you can't expect every author to be an expert in everything ... the human mind can only hold so much and she is good and very well researched on Christian alchemy).

A Tale of Two Modes

Well, my last post on this did not turn out as brief as hoped, so in this one I will try to be more succinct. The reason I would say I would call Tolkien "writing in the Biblical Mode" and Rowling not is simply that I do not see her borrowing characteristics and plot structures directly as I see Tolkien doing. The structure/s on which she works is the alchemical one. A Timeline of Tradition: I guess what I am saying is that I see the different "modes" the 2 authors write in as simply drawing on different stages of Christian Tradition. 2 of the earliest stages of this Tradition are Scripture and Patristic Theology - the first and really only stage of it all was and is and will be the Incarnation - and it will help explain what I am talking about to briefly describe what I think are the major stages in the timeline of that Tradition. Christ came, was born, lived, preached, suffered, died, rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. Then the Spirit descends on the Apostles at Pentecost and the Church is born. Through evangelization but also through persecution, the Church spreads and grows. The apostles begin writing. Some write their accounts of Christ in such a way to show how the tapestry of Jewish existence in the OT is fulfilled in Christ, and others write epistles exhorting the faithful living of this new, fulfilled identity in Christ. These writing are circulated among the Churches and as time goes on, by the guiding of the Spirit, certain of these Apostolic writings are standardly read in the Liturgy. Through the decisions at a network of local synods these become "semi-officially" the canon of the NT. (NOTE: The Canon of was not "officially" or universally "codified" until the Council of Trent. - it had never been necessary. The Canon had operated just fine until it was challenged in the 16th century. Meanwhile the Apostles have passed on and their successors become the Bishops of Churches. The "Apologists" of the "sub-Apostolic" age (that age just after the Apostles die), in an attempt to pick up on what truth there is in pagan culture and show how Christianity fulfills it, begin to work with "Logos Christology." This is a natural development but, unfortunately, in a fallen world there will always be misunderstandings that turn into arguments that turn into wars and so on an so forth. And so the heresies of the Patristic age arise. It is in this context that Dogmatic Theology is born. Dogma is expressed in credal statements from councils (which in turn also become part of the liturgy). These creeds are set down at Ecumenical Councils but there is also much writing by Bishops expounding or explaining the meaning of the matters defined in the creeds. In effect, these "Theological" writings are a new appropriation of THE Truth in Scripture (the Way, the Truth and the Life). They are an "unpacking" of the Meaning of Scripture for a new era of humanity. This era has been strongly influenced by the "ontological thinking" of Middle-Platonism and Neo-Platonism. This way of thinking is a new "mode" based in "discursive" thinking ("curs-" is the Latin root meaning "run" - a narrative runs in that it moves and conveys meaning through that movement. "Discursive" thinking is thus "not running" in that it is more "categorical." Narrative looks at things moving, Philosophy looks at things statically). Thus Scripture and Dogmatic Theology are two stages of the Tradition and represent two different modes of thinking and relating meaning. Then, in the middle ages, from the influence of the Liturgy of the Church on the broader realm of culture there comes different adaptations of the Truth celebrated in that Liturgy (a professor of mine is fond of saying "culture arises from cult"). The thought of Theology is also incorporated into these new forms such as Drama and morality tales. You also had cross-disciplinary phenomena such as Alchemy. There is a physical science practice, but there is a psychic-spiritual under-pinning as well as literary representations. Literary representations of Alchemical structure are probably the best example for discussing what I call "different modes." For example there is the "Resurrection stage" in the Alchemical process. When encountered in a narrative, one might think, "ah, based on the Bible." And one would be ultimately right because the truth in Alchemy is based ultimately on the truth of the Resurrection in Scripture. But the Alchemical adaptation of that truth has distinct characteristics to it from its own age. Christ is the fullness of humanity, and that means also humanity down through the ages. The Tradition is the passing on of the Deposit of Faith that is Christ, and this Tradition develops because humanity develops. Each age has its own unique characteristics that are somehow instantiations of universal human nature ... Christ is the fullness, we've just been unpacking everything He really gave us down through the ages ... or rather the Spirit has been unpacking it for us. Now, before the Incarnation you had the "tapestry" stage of Jewish history. the History of the people of Israel from the creation of the world to the call of Abraham and their birth as a nation from his line, down to exile in Babylon and occupation by foreign oppressors. Tolkien and Rowling Tolkien appeals to the tapestry stage as well as to typology and fulfillment in Christ. He also appeals to a host of pagan mythologies. In addition I believe he also builds some of his tale out of the Medieval "Grace-oriented" Romantic literature. But I think that somehow for Tolkien the Bible is THE underlying structure of his story because I think he sees it as THE myth of all myths, THE way to tell a good story (and here I mean "sees" as in "consciously" ... I think the same is true for Rowling but maybe sub-consciously.) Rowling seems to appeal more strictly to the Alchemical and medieval culture stage. In addition she incorporates other literature types into her symbolist tale, such as Jane Austen's thing of "social manners and mores." Both represent Christian Truth. And there is a richness of diversity in seeing how they each draw on the Tradition in different ways (or "modes") to build their own distinct morality tales. Just my humble attempt to understand the richness of these two authors, hope it helps.

Working on It (the "Biblical Mode" that is)

Pauli asked in a comment on "to men he gave strange powers" if I would elaborate on the "Biblical mode" and maybe say whether I think Rowling is writing in the Biblical mode. I have been working on a response that has gotten a little long so I figure maybe if I just do some pieces (doing each piece quickly) I can whittle down the main "elaboration" so it is not so cumbersome for me or for the reader. I would say that in the sense of what I meant by the "Biblical mode", Rowling is NOT writing in the Biblical mode - but this is, in no way, I think, a mark against her, or even a lessening of her place for me. It will have to wait for stating precisely what I mean by the particular "Biblical Mode" but for here I'll give an example of maybe mis-applying it to Rowling's work. Fr. Roderic at Catholic Insider.com has a good series of Podcasts on HP. What I'm about to say is a very minor thing, he does great work across the board. Not on the same scholarly level as Granger but really enjoyable. I bring this up NOT to say "I like most of his stuff but every once in a while I think he gets something REALLY wrong," but more like "I love his stuff, but nobody bats a thousand and this is just an example of sort of misplaced emphasis to demonstrate this thing I'm trying to describe." Anyway, in one of the podcasts he says that the three wizards Dumbledore, McGonnegal and Hagrid showing up with the baby Harry might be derivative of the 3 wise-men (magi) in the Gospel, since they are 3 and they are "magi." It's a little bit awkward of a fit for me. Granger points out that Rowling draws on a lot of literature with "leading trios," some of which I have never read (like The Brothers Karamatzov ... I have a friend who is reading it now and I told her "I got half way through Crime and Punishment and it was great but I was too snow and mud-blind to continue") and I think some instances of 3 characters are more standardly just part of that system. It is a fore-shadowing that these will be the three professors at Hogwarts whom Harry will trust the most and like the most (well, the 3 from that book and also the 3 long term ... Remus is only DADA teacher for a year). But to these 3 Harry is sort of one of their own, and the point of the Magi seems to me to be a trio of foreign "mystics" who come to pay homage in Jewish territory, to he messiah who has come through Judaism. (Christ being the fulfillment of the history of Israel, or rather the history of Israel being a foreshadowing of Christ.) Tolkien's 3 wizards (Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast) seem to me to fit better the model of the Magi in the Gospel in that they are "foreign" to humanity, sent to humanity in its fledgling years as "the power" in Middle Earth (with the elves waning and leaving), and the come bearing a gift ... counsel. ... At least they are supposed to; only one remains true to that mission - one becomes evil and the third gets caught up in the birds and the trees. Tolkien adapts these characters by combining them with the "Angelic problem" of "what to do with man?". Sauron and Saruman seem to covet the special place they know Iluvatar to have accorded to these carnate mortals, and Radagast finds them uninteresting, and so Tolkien develops these themes and others in his own unique way through the characters. My main point for this post is that between these two instances of "3 Wizards" Tolkien's seems better (although not as closely in this particular instance as in others) to fit being characterized as being drawn more directly from a character in Scripture (this is not the only mark of what I meant by the "Biblical Mode" ... there is at least one more I will hit on in another post.) As Granger notes, Rowling's work is primarily based in Alchemy. I think this is highly congruous with the Revelation of Scripture (and indeed it expresses the truths of Scripture because all truth about humanity is fulfilled in that narrative) but in its characteristics it is simply modeled on a different mode. (Keep in mind, Tolkien did a translation of the book of Job for the Old Jerusalem Bible. His mind was steeped specifically in Biblical language and literary forms in a way Rowling's may not be.) Personally, I think the diversity in literary modes is good. The genre is still the same (fantasy ... and also the themes are the same, Christian virtues such as courage) but to me it is great to be able to read both works. I think I would call Tolkien's work "written in the Biblical mode" because it seems to be the most primary or over arching, but he also has many others informing the work and working within the larger framework. There are some who are a little edgy over Rowling being compared to Tolkien. It seems to me that even when they "let you pass" with your liking of Rowling they expect to be compensated by a statement such as "But of course, she's not in the same class as Tolkien." (The sarcasm here is completely tongue-in-cheek ... those who I know personally like this, I think are great people and it's more one of those foibles you sort of laugh at and sort of love at the same time). But for me, I can never seem to make the question of comparing them in that way work in my head. I simply love both works and find delving into their respective worlds of meaning fascinating. NOTE: This use of the word "mode" is completely my own invention and should not be taken as representing an "officially" used and agreed upon term in literary studies (and to give credit where credit is due, I am sure I did not come up with what I mean by it on my own, but rather from professors who have taught me literary matters .... I simply mean calling it a "mode" was my own quirk). I was kind of writing off the cuff when I used it, and have since wondered whether I should make a distinction on it regarding Tolkien and Rowling, and have come to the conclusion that I think it is helping me come to some new insights into their works without saying "Tolkien is like the Bible, Rowling is not, therefore Tolkien is 'better' than Rowling." cf my comment at the end of the last paragraph.

Might be the best thing since 1/2-Blood Prince

OK - here's why we like John Granger's writing so much. But you have to read the whole thing. He concludes with 2 paragraphs clarifying the difference between his insightful alchemical readings and the "plot event theories" of which there are many of varying weight and significance within the linked article. Then get Finding God in Harry Potter. You've got to have something to read until book 7!

Gryffindor's Sword and Slytherin's Dragon

A lot there - see Pauli's comment below on my mention of the sword and ring post. It would take a long time to delve into the many layers of the COS battle of Sword vs. Basilisk, but here are a few quickies: 1. Granger draws out a word play ... "sorting hat" and "sword-in hat;" which ... who knows. But more importantly he points out the heritage of pulling swords out of things. (I just had to put it that way because it reminds me of the "society for putting things ont top of other things" in a Monty Python sketch). Excalibur could not be removed from the stone except by the true heir of Uther, just as, to quote DD, "it would have taken a true heir to pull that from the hat." (Granger thinks, and I agree, that his is one of the tip-offs to Harry being the true heir of Gryffindor). 2. The stuff on LOTR fits the ring and sword in a scheme of revelation, particularly revelations such as Boromir's dream about the Isildur's bane, and whether such "riddles" are to be the height of revelation, especially when confronted with more direct revelations/gifts such as the sword. The snake - the serpent, or dragon (I think the scene in COS is also drawing on the legend of St. George...) was also a revealer. He was more cunning than any of the other beasts, and when they listened to his advice - their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked, and they were ashamed. Now, going on this line, a question arises: did the sword/hat and the Basilisk reveal anything to Harry? The Hat revealed to Harry that not only did he want to be in Gryffindor, but he should be there. Harry calls this into question only to have it re-affirmed by DD and explained at the end. But what causes his doubts? He finds out he is a parsel-mouth, that he can hear a snake speaking and thinking, one snake in particular - the Basilisk. Slytherin's monster tries to "reveal" things to Harry, but they are false things, lies. First the Basilisk is the occasion for Harry thinking "maybe I'm not as good as I thought, maybe I'm not a Gryffindor, maybe I'm a slimy and selfish Slytherin." It was first the snake on the table at the dueling class, but once they know Slytherin's monster is a Basilisk, this is when he really starts to think it makes sense, when he starts to buy all the rumors. Then, in the Chamber, under the direction of Tom/Voldemort, the Basilisk "tries to reveal" to Harry that, "not only are you a Slytherin, you're not particularly good at being even that. Only Tom can control the Basilisk and soon it will kill you all too easily ... some hero." These "lessons" from the Basilisk, of course, meet the same doom as Sauron's Ring.

Joseph Pearce Articles

Here are some links to some Joseph Pearce articles if you'd like to get a taste: Tolkien: Truth and Myth Why Tolkien Says The Lord of the Rings Is Catholic ZENIT Interview with Joseph Pearce I found all of these from this page which looks like it contains tons of good stuff. Thomas Howard's stuff particularly bears pointing out; the man is probably over-educated for encyclopedia-writing - read this one for starters. Hey, don't panic - let us do ten or twenty of these posts and then we'll get back to Harry Potter.

Really good previous post

On Elendil's Sword and Isildur's Bane. There is a LOT in what Pauli starts on here ... I could write for months on it ... but first I would have to read and study and think for years. I realize if you're reading this post you may have already read the original one, but wer'e trying to build readership so maybe you are new. And if you have already read it, it's worth reading again

To Men He Gave Strange Powers

Pauli asked me to comment on this post he made a while ago. Men are a unique character in the LOTR. I heard Joseph Pearce (author of Tolkien: Man and Myth) talk at Franciscan University of Steubenville where I finished my MA in Theology last year, and he in the Q&A section he addressed the question of why there is no religion in the LOTR. His answer was that, being as Tolkien's work was trying to paint a more strictly mythic picture, the scope of the work was really "before" the Incarnation (I would probably tend to use a more temporal word like "outside") and thus the only religion which would have been appropriate would have been paganism; and thus it is a good thing there was no religion. This applies more directly to the LOTR, since in the Silmarillion you do have a place in Numenor that is very much like a place of worship and becomes , but I believe the same tenet holds true in for the most part even here. Most all of what takes place, the battles etc, are more "physical" in nature ... with the spiritual content being "symbolized" rather than directly "present" in the story. I agree with this, and furthermore it is not just that I think the things I am about to suggest do not "cause problems" for Pearce's view, it is more that I think they are very congruous with it (albeit maybe in the way the Chesterton would speak of congruity within a paradox) and that the two taken together provide a much fuller view of what Tolkien was doing. I would be hard pressed however, especially in the space of a single post (or even maybe many posts .. it might take a graduate paper with footnotes and all that jazz), to give a detailed and adequate defense of the congruity and complementariness and who they produce th richer view. So I will just say what I think of men and elves. The Main Response (finally!) Many different things are represented by the elves, men, Maia and Valar, but with regards to men and elves I think that the most prominent pairing represented is man before the Incarnation and man from the new perspective of the Incarnation. In fact, I have always thought of the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings as, respectively, the Old Testament and the New Testament of Tolkien: The history of a people's struggle (the elves struggle with Morgoth and Israel's struggle with Egypt, Canaan and then "the nations" ... and in all 3 cases the struggle against worshipping their idols), and then the Parable (Christ taught by way of many parables, and His life death and resurrection might be called THE parable, so important of a parable it was also made into historical fact ... cf C. S. Lewis' essay "Myth Become Fact" which can be found in God in the Dock.) What is central in Tolkien's Incarnational man is the same thing as is central in THE Incarnational man (to quote Pilate: "Ecce Homo! [behold the Man]) ... the ability to accept death in hopes of another world. This means completely outside of Arda ... like Sheol in the Old Testament, Aman and the halls of Mandos are within the region of the earth. "Abraham's Bosom" may be paradise, but it is not yet Heaven. Another interesting thing to note, which will play prominently in an essay I hope to write and hopefully have some way to publish here, is that, at least in the LOTR, courtly love is centered in mortality (the hobbits are mortal, as their histories indicate). Of the six people who "fall in love" and get married in the LOTR, Arwen is the only immortal and she becomes mortal for the sake of her love for Aragorn. Even in the Silmarillion precursors of Aragorn and Arwen (such as Beren and Luthien, who function with regards to the final couple much like Old Testament "types" function with regards to New Testament realities) the immortal foregoes immortality for the sake of the mortal. Even in the case of Thingol (the elf) and Melian (the Maia), Thingol never goes to Valinor with Melian, she remains in Middle Earth with him. One of the central tenets of the essay I hope to write notes that Tolkien follows very strongly in the path set by medieval literature, where courtly love is symbolic of Grace. The fact that his instances of courtly love are restricted to mortals, combined with his recurring references in the Silmarillion to death as a "gift" [keeping in mind that the original meaning of "Grace" is "gift"] support the idea that for him love and death are tied to Grace. Men are sort of a different model. Elves and Maia are much more economical. Like Pauli said, having a certain amount of power to "invest" and get "returns" on. I think this is Sauron's failing: he attempted to incarnate but maintain his original level of power. Gandalf, who would originally have had the same powers as Sauron since both were maia, did become incarnate but gave up a large degree of his power in doing so, in order to become a counselor rather than a ruler. Like Voldemort with his horcruxes, Sauron tried to ensure his continued bodily reign by pouring "part/parts" of himself into the ring. It is not drawn out in "black and white" but it seems the "returns" of men are based solely in the virtues they practice in their actions. NOTE: A quick response to the question of how what I have said can be true and it simultaneously be the case that Tolkien's story happens "outside" the Incarnation: I would say that Tolkien is NOT writing an allegory of the Bible, OR a story in a "Christian setting." He is writing his own story - really his own "morality tale" in the line of medieval morality tales such as Gawain and the Green Knight, which he translated and on which he wrote an essay. The translation is still in print but the essay is in a book entitled The Monsters and the Critics, which is not in print but which one might find from a used book seller, as I did. The charteristic of Tolkien's morality tale, however, is based in the Biblical "mode" as it were; it would take me a long time to explain exactly what I mean by that, but hopefully it helps one "get a feel" or "hint" of what I'm saying.

House Elves and the freedom to obey

Recently someone suggested that the House Elves in the Harry Potter books (2-6) are merely present for comic relief. I strongly disagree; I agree that they are a comic device and that they are not completely necessary to tell the story, but I believe they shed a lot of light on the author's theme, showing the "shape" of the struggle between good and evil. In Half Blood Prince, Dobby states that he is a "free elf and can obey anyone he wants to." This is comically phrased, but it perfectly describes the Christian idea of freedom and the purpose of freedom. We're not free to do anything we wish, that's libertinism. We have been given freedom for a specific purpose and that is to pursue the good, to serve God, etc. Dobby rejected his enslavement to the Malfoys and, with Harry's Help, becomes free. Shortly after he begins to serve Dumbledore and Harry and makes the statement that he loves working for the headmaster. Dobby illustrates the same truth that Dylan does in the song "You gotta serve somebody" - it's who and what you choose to serve that counts.

On what we were saying about good stories and Flannery O'connor

I was just looking something up in Prizoner of Azkaban for another post, and in the margin at one point I have written, "A good story with no polemics" It's written next to the line, "Harry couldn't see where this story was going, but he was listening raptly all the same." (POA 353) [this post refers to a comment made previously -pcf]

Defense of POA movie

Ok, I'm not going to defend the movie hugely because I pretty much am of the same mind as Pauli, that they are rushing the films and could have better scene selection etc But I just wanted to point out one thing that kept the theme of the book very well. Lupin is a huge character and Snape is a big delivery device for this fact. When Snape assigns the essay on werewolves, both in the book and in the movie, he points out the etymology. "Were-" comes from the old Anglo-Saxon for "man," and of course "wolf" means wolf. In C. S. Lewis's second book of his "space trilogy," Perelandra, he refers to the possessed Dr. Weston as the "un-man." I think this is the same type of thing Rowling has in mind in her use of the were-wolf. When Lupin transforms, he is worse than "a harmless wolf," he is the type of monster that can only be made by perverting the glory that is the human person. Counter-acting and interwoven with this "man become become monster" is the character of true friendship, and his animagus is that of "man's best friend." As true friend of the man Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, in his dog form, must violently fight what Lupin becomes. This is the effect of evil (sin) in the world on two very good friends : "They were locked, jaw to jaw, claws ripping at each other" (POA 381) I thought the movie did this scene very well. It was very iconic, a very front and center shot of the "man-beast" and "man's best friend" clashing with the moon in the background. Additions As I said, I agree that the scene selection isn't great, and one might wonder why, given this, I would be in favor of the scene creation I am about to note (in other words, "they didn't include certain better scenes from the book and yet still fit in this one that wasn't in the book ... and you like it?!?!") What they added is a scene in which the Hippogryff saves Harry and Hermione from the Lupin were-wolf. Granger has noted that the Hippogryff is a standard medieval Christ symbol. I liked that, as long as they were going to add something in, it wound up being that the Christ symbol saves the them from the beast-man. Also note the addition earlier in the transformation scene. It is only the Hippogryff that can handle the were-wolf, but this is not the only attempt that was made in the movie. Hermione tried to appeal to the Lupin within (only in the movie). One thing that the movies have done is taken a bit more accelerated track for the development of gender identity. I think Rowling has a distinct mind to and concern for this but the movies are going are addressing it sooner. I think, though, that what they did in this movie, while it is not at this place in the series as Rowling writes it, is in step with Rowling's style. I believe Rowling sees a certain quality in feminine psyche that is symbolic of a certain level of grace ( this follows in the footsteps of those such as Dante in his characterization of Beatrice, a very good study of which can be found in Charles Williams The Figure of Beatrice). But in the case of some evils, and those that affect the person most deeply ... it is superfluous to hope in the grace of feminine psyche in respect to masculine, when the man has become a were-wolf. "This kind comes out only through prayer and fasting," ... and the direct touch of Christ. In the movie Hermione makes the attempt to reach Lupin in this manner, at least that is what it really looks like to me (and this is not is some "crypto-erotic" way ... simply that as she develops she naturally develops the soothing/nurturing effect of the feminine). But for this malady, the only real protection is the Hippogryff - the Christ symbol. I Don't know whether any of that was anywhere near consciously intentional and I kind of doubt it, but I think it works none-the-less. So, I guess at least there is some positive development in the movies ... still (simply because of the source stories) a lot better than some of the stuff out there. But there's still nothing quite like the book.

On John Granger

I once showed Granger's The Hidden Key to Harry Potter to a professor from my undergraduate at Grove City College. She said that it looked to her like a "self-published," judging by the type-setting and margins and other features. She guessed that Zossima Press may be one of several publishing houses out there that sort of facilitates publishing for people who have the wherewithal to handle the physical costs but need somebody to "set the thing up for them." Looking For God in Harry Potter, however, is on Tyndale House Publishers, and contains much of the information found in The Hidden Key ... Thus I am guessing he got picked up by a regular publisher and reformatted and re-titled for publication with them. This is great for him ... I'm very happy seeing what he has to say getting a fair shake in the publishing world.

Iconography correction

I looked it up in Granger's The Hidden Key to Harry Potter and found the chart he gives (p. 109) based on the Eastern Orthodox Iconography site he used There are actually 8 "symbol types" total: Sign Cipher Allegory Symbol Icon Signal Eruption Incarnation These symbol types can represent 4 kinds of object: Natural, Material/Idea, Supernatural and Contranatural. Of the 8 symbol types, Icons (of Which Icons and Scriptures would be example), Eruptions (of which Communion would be an example) and Incarnation (of which Christ is the example) are the three that represent "contranatural" objects. Thus these would be the 3 which pertain to the realm of Sacred Theology (this does not mean just "philosophy as applied to the religious realm," which would be "theology" as words about God, but really means rather "Theology" in the sense of the Word of God ... ie these are the symbol types by which God himself communicates with humanity ... keep in mind that for the Eastern Orthodox the Icons on the Icon screen that sections off the sanctuary are almost sacramental in nature). Beginning with Icon (thus including Icon, Signal, Eruption and Incarnation) both the "heart" and the "person" are faculties which are affected (ie there is in these symbols a real interaction which affects the core and entire being of the person receiving the symbol ... Granger notes that the "Theology" symbols represent an actual intrusion into our world by higher realities, whereas the "literature" symbols are "points of passage looking out" from our world ) Signals I am aware that I defined the "Theological" symbols as only Icon, Eruption and Incarnation because these three alone represented the contranatural, whereas Granger included "Signals." He uses "lightning" and "eagle" as examples of the "Signals" type and I would hazard a guess that the reason he counts them as "Theological" is that the real occurrences of these things are God speaking from above through creation (i.e., "an actual intrusion into our world by higher realities" ... if "our world" is viewed as "literature," as in the world of how we initiate and accomplish communication, nature/creation is outside "our world" and thus is an intrusion by God's higher power, but through the natural order of creation). To sum it up easily I would use the term "revelation" for what Granger calls "theological," and I would class "signals" as "general revelation" (revelation through creation) and Icons, Eruption and Incarnation as "supernatural revelation (keep in mind that Icons always derive their content from Scripture). Thus, what I meant when I used the term "Theology" before, really is the same as that realm of "supernatural revelation," or, as I said, "Sacred Theology." Symbols The Symbol level symbol is what Granger puts forth as the defining characteristic of symbolist literature (as above and beyond allegory such as Pilgrim's Progress and Cipher, which is what Dan Brown claimed Da Vinci did, a titillating claim from which Brown made scads of money simply because it was titillating.) Symbol is the highest of those that are "literary." It alone of the first 4 types appeals to the faculty of the heart, which is sort of a bridging ground to affecting the person as the last 4 types do. Sign, Cipher and Allegory all appeal only to the reason.

Diagon Ally

Granger makes the observation that Diagon Alley is a place representative of the world of magic and its capability to produce wonder by looking at the world in a new way, i.e., diagon-ally". Here is my observation from the book, how I think they helped show it in the movie of Chamber of Secrets, and what I think it all means. The Book: In Chamber of Secrets, when Harry travels by floo-powder for the first time, it is revealed that it's important to speak clearly. In the book it is more just that she emphasizes speaking clearly when saying the name or you may wind up someplace else. And this is precisely what happens to Harry. In this occurrence in the book you only really can get that he says it wrong, and the element is left at the point of it being a general thing about the floo powder system, you have to be clear. But what I will describe below as present in the movie provides for a narrowing of the scope particularly to Diagon Alley itself. I suspect that even if Rowling did not intend this consciously that she would allow the observation as something that flows out of her work - a sort of way that the meaning grows. The Movie: That "e" is "Alley" is really important! Without it the words would sound more like what she is actually doing with the name, it would sound more like like the word "diagonally." I have listened to the movie section a number of times and I really think it sounds like he (Daniel Radcliffe) was intentionally told to make it sound like the word "diagonally." I don't know how much she was involved in this particular aspect of the second movie but from the DVD it does seem she is good friends with Chris Columbus, the director of movies one and two, and advised him on a number of things. The Meaning: If you look at what she has done, turning the "new perspective" word "diagonally" into a name of a place and then forever after conceive of the meaning of the word and phenomenon as just that, as "what she did with a word," then you're getting things wrong. The power of imagination is not to "nail down" literary devices and the like, taking them apart like a frog on a high-school biology dissection table and leaving them pinned up to show your academic work. In other words, if you're going to get to the magical place that is this story and the wonder it should inspire, you have to think of it as Diagon Alley, not as "diagonally." It is good to look deeper and get what she is doing and doing so can enrich your experience of the books. But never let "literary analysis" go to the level of forgetting that first experience of standing with Harry and watching what you thought was a mundane brick wall behind a dumpy old tavern turn into a doorway to a world of wonder. If you try to replace the story itself with the intellectual understanding of its theme and structure, you will NOT lose the story altogether, as if you never had it ... rather you will wind up with something worse - you will wind up in Nocturn Alley. By-the-By: In no way do I accuse Granger of doing what I am talking about. If you read his book, wonder drips off of every page. You can tell he is the kind of guy who realizes that while analyzing a book like this opens up deeper and deeper meaning, a special place is always accorded to that "first reading." He realizes that you should always go back every once in a while and read the book like the first time you read it, when you were hanging on the edge of your seat just to see where the story went (looking for spare moments in the day to steal away and read just a few more pages) - that first time you encountered the story as a story and simply fell in love with it. Stories are their own language - we can understand them more deeply through delving into symbolism and structure, but there is still a unique thing to the kind of understanding a story conveys when you read it simply as a story ... it's great, you get to be a kid again for just a little while. Note: There is one Biblical scholar who notes this as an important theological principle. Gordon Wenham has written a book call Story as Torah. Torah is the Hebrew word for "law," and the point is that "stories with a moral" are accorded a very unique place. The "proclamation" style that we associate with "law" (The 10 commandments) occupy literally only a few verses out of the whole Pentateuch, and the other laws, as ordinances for physical observance, are all tied to the specific entrance into Canaan. What of the rest of the Pentateuch and what it should mean for Christians? The whole book of Genesis is an epic story ... and I think it is a story that must be there to understand the "law" - that it is a unique way of giving the law.

Alchemical Structure and Multiple layers of Meaning: the Horizontal Level

This is a further consideration of my "D&D In HP" post in conjuction with Granger's work on alchemical structure in HP. Alchemy In "The Hidden Key to Harry Potter" Granger describes in detail the alchemical structure as it relates to the characters in HP. The Crucible is in the middle and here is produced the golden soul (Harry). On the horizontal plane, to the left is Red/sulfur (Ron) and to the right is Quicksilver (Hermione). They represent, respectively, the physical passions (being tied to the body) and thought (being free to roam - Hermione's name is the feminine version of "Hermes," the Greek god who becomes "Mercury" in Latin mythology. Of Course, Mercury and "quicksilver" are 2 different names for the element we use in our thermometers, which is also the element used in alchemical practice. Mercury was a messenger and the Latin god of language, which is the spoken expression of thought) On the Vertical Plane, at the top is white (Albus Dumbledore - his first names literally means "white) and on the bottom is Black (Voldemort). They represent, respectively, pure spirit and base material. Granger has primarily discussed the alchemical structure as it relates to these particular characters and their roles. Ron and Hermione play off each other with Harry as the balance in the middle, and they also represent masculine and feminine perspective. The mentalities of Dumbledore and Voldemort will both strongly impact Harry's understanding of the world and his role in it. I have found it helpful in my own personal understanding of the relationships (particularly on the horizontal plane) to use terms from medieval philosophical/anthropological and theological thought. I think the horizontal plane is about the human soul (here "soul," or psyche, is a distinct concept from that of "spirit.") I would say that Ron represents the "biological soul" and Hermione the "rational soul." Harry represents the golden soul as the proper relation, balance (or even marriage) of the biological soul and rational soul in a psychologically healthy human person/soul. Another Layer of Meaning My post on Harry as the bridge between the Muggle and wizarding worlds ("D&D IN HP")caused me to think more and see that these two worlds are representative of the biological soul and the rational soul. Like the muggle world of mundane details, the biological soul is more strongly impacted by physicality - it is subject to hormonal shifts and the like. The world of magic, in its capacity for flight and imagination, is like the intellectual soul. And here again, at the center, the bridge and proper union of the two worlds/souls, is Harry, the golden soul learning charity in the crucible. Thus the alchemical structure lends itself simultaneously to understanding of both the level of our individual human psyche, and of the social/cultural dimension in which we live - both of which Rowling puts much pain-staking work into developing in the books. Final Ironies In his work Granger notes that one of Rowling's favored literary devices in each book is the "reversal." Certain assumptions (prejudices?) are set up only to be overturned in key revelatory scenes. Here too I would say there is an ironic reversal that shows that these two worlds are not meant to be at war with each other; not meant to be in discord but united in harmony (which, as Aristotle points out in criticizing Plato's Republic, is not the same as voices losing their distinctness by singing in unison ... it is voices singing in harmony). We expect the classifications to iron-clad and the worlds to be able each to keep on their own side of the fence if they so desire. But notice - which character represents the element of the biological soul that corresponds to the muggle world (i.e., sulfur)? None other than Ron, who is from a pure-blood family. And who represents the intellectual soul that corresponds to the world of magic (as Granger puts it, being free to look at the world "diagon-ally")? It is Hermione, born of muggle parents.

Howling Rowling (I love the characters she creates)

I love the breadth of characters Rowling creates, especially the virtuous ones. My particular favorite in HBP has to be Phlegm (sorry, Fleur). I was rolling on the floor at the "I am good looking enough for both of us, I theenk" line. Not because I think she looks ridiculous, but because she is so herself and at the same time so virtuous. I also love characters like Luna and the fact that Harry appreciates her as a friend. They have this connection. Harry knows she's a little off-kilter and I think she knows it too... but that does not keep her from being virtuous or having some kind of a connection with Harry. I think Rowling has a lot of sympathy as a writer and is very good at drawing her characters in a wide spectrum. I think this is important ... I think a good story must have not only depth (as she does in her symbolism) but that depth must have a breadth, a wideness that fits the variety of the human experience and world in which we all attempt to live the virtues found in the deep symbols she uses.

For Real News ....

For any news on Potter books, etc. it's always good to check on J. K. Rowling's official site to see if she's said anything about it (including addressing it as false). There are neat sections on the site where she goes into stuff about characters and all. But I would also recommend checking out some fo the stuff she has said recently there concerning e-bay sales of bogus material. I think her approach is good, to try to encourage individual consumers to pressure E-bay to "beef up security" to make sure people (especially kids) don't get hoodwinked (I also personally think serious Catholics should be busting e-bays chops big-time about the auction of the Eucharist that took place by an e-bay seller) I do think e-bay is, at least to some degree, to be held accountable for providing an "official" sounding avenue for these things (let's face it, for all the statements of "we never said we ensure that, in fact we have put up disclaimers stating we cannot ensure that" - we all know that in this culture, to the minds of a great many consumers, the level of name recognition an entity like e-bay has equals authority and reliability naive people are going to think "it's for auction on e-bay, it must be legit", and un-informed Catholics are probably going to think "the Eucharist for sale on eBay? well, it is e-bay, and I'm sure if it were really that bad they would have some way of finding out and preventing it, so it must be at least allowable or something"). My point (and I think Rowling's, although she would probably put it more pleasantly) is that "Yes ... it's a free market economy ... which also means that consumers have the freedom to bust e-bay's chops on these things, and JK Rowling also has the right to encourage consumers to do so" -When you throw your hat in the public ring and start making as much money as those who run e-bay as an enterprise, you better be able to take being a target of market pressure and be able to respond to it (what we need is the market pressure itself). I would think it perfectly legit (and would love to see it happen) for eBay to have to say "damn ... we better do something about this or the complaint email alone is going to crash our servers" ... the free market system can work for good things happening if good people get behind it and use it well.

Nice info drop

Granger dropped some info in that article that gets my brain buzzing (I don't know where he got it, I just checked the news section of Rowling's site and saw nothing there, but Granger is pretty responsible so I don't think he would say it in public format without some evidence.) "Warner Bros. ... has reserved the title Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Cell for the sixth or seventh novel." Obviously that won't be the title of book 6 ... maybe book 7. But Warner Brothers is only really decisive in the movie end of things, so this isn't really huge info. I'm guessing it just means they somehow know of the import of Alchemy and have reserved a bunch of possibilities trying to stay ahead of the game. Maybe she gave them a list of possible titles for books 6 and 7 so they could do so, which would make it a more definite possibility for book 7. Or maybe they have some "artistic/literary" heads on staff whose job it is to see what is going on in the world of such things, and who read Granger's book and said "hear are some guesses at titles she might use based on what literary people are saying the books are really about" No way to know ... guess it's just the long dark of waiting for news on book 7 ... (sigh)

"Flesh and Blood": Harry Potter and Country Mystics

I just put up a comment on Pauli's Granger link post but thought it might not get read as much there: so the gist is: Granger's work (in this article) is great because it points to one main principle: Christian Alchemy can be summed up in 1 word, "Incarnation". This also happens to be what art is about: the artist puts into "flesh and blood" truths which transcend the realm of "factual history." Now, I am also a huge fan of Johnny Cash. Cash (whom I believe to have been some sort of phenomenon of a country mystic) happens to have recorded a song entitled just that ... "Flesh and Blood." I happened to be listening to it more than a year ago while preparing and memorizing essays for a set of comprehensive exams and it hit me how appropriate the term was for some of the things I was studying, in particular for an essay on what I was referring to as "The Incarnational Principle of Scripture." What is the Bible? Is it a "textbook of the history of the scientific/material development of the world" (as fundamentalists, unfortunately, fall into thinking about it) or is it "merely metaphor for Faith events" (as the "scientific Christians" of our day would have us believe)? It seems these are the only 2 options given. It seems that both sides of that debate accept a common principle: that Scripture must be focused in one of two opposite viewpoints, it is either focused on historical facticity, or it is so focused on "spiritual" reality that any historical reference is completely metaphorical. The term I myself adopt for saying that this is a false dichotomy, and that Scripture does not have to be one of these extremes, is "Flesh and Blood" ... a thoroughly human term. It is not even "natural beauty," (cf the link to Cash's lyrics above) let alone natural science ... but it is the lives of human beings who are spiritual being living in a physical world. "Flesh and Blood" is the real grittiness of our physical and psychological existence, but informed (and redeemed) by God who is Spirit, through the Incarnation. This is, I believe, the real meaning in a passage from Burckhardt quoted by Granger in this article: "gold is bodily consciousness transmuted into spirit or spirit fixed in the body" ... the Incarnation, fully human and fully divine at the same time, "And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us." Good article.

Get a taste of John Granger

OK... you keep saying, "Who is John Granger anyway? You guys keep talking about him like we should know...." Well you should know, and now you have no excuse because you can read one of his articles, "The Alchemist's Tale".

I Saw the Grimm (Brothers)

Sorry, no Sirius spottings. But I did go to watch Terry Giliam's The Brothers Grimm. I liked it in the same way I liked The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and I think it suffered from the same pitfalls. Don't go expecting a story that is easy to follow on a single plane. It seems plain to me that he has some historical symbolism going on (pagan Germany, rationalist France, Christian/Romantic Italy) but it is very cloudy and not too decipherable so it mainly distracts from the action/romance. In my opinion Gilliam has done only 2 great movies: The Fisher King and 12 Monkeys. I loved stuff like Time Bandits and Brazil but they're not on the same plane; it's more of a personal taste. But I did like the Grimms, personally. I thought Damon and Ledger turned in good performances and that the particular characters were decent stretches for them. Defintiely some very funny parts too.

D&D in HP

Dudley and Draco: The Dursleys' and Malfoys' Family Feud (with special guest appearance by Arthur Weasley) (Disclaimer: My apologies for the reference to the 1980s game "Dungeons and Dragons" - but with all the same controversy surrounding HP as surrounded that game, I feel a little like the skeletal Jack Sparrow atop the treasure pile in Pirates of the Caribbean ... "I just couldn't resist mate." And the name Malfoy can be read, at least for the purposes of this piece, to rhyme with McCoy ... as in the legendary family feud between the Hatfields and McCoys) Rowling on Family Dudley and Draco are really the heirs apparent of two opposite families that represent the polar extremes of the two halves of Harry's world: the most bigoted of muggles and the most bigoted of wizards. On the symbolic level Dudley and Draco are the two extremes which Harry must avoid in growing up, like the Scylla and Charbidis between which Ulysses (in Homer) and Aeneus (in Virgil) must sail their ships. What is most important for Rowling here is the family. It is the respective families that teach Dudley and Draco to be bigots. But, rather than simply point the finger at how family can be abused, Rowling has her own positive artistic comment to make on the true value of family. We learn in Order of the Pheonix that it was Aunt Petunia's choice to accept Harry into her home (on that first night way back in Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone) that gave Harry a blood-familial home to protect him in the ancient magic DD used. If you think about it this is pretty huge. It seems almost, in effect, that Albus Dumbledore, possibly one of the greatest wizards ever to live, needed the help of a muggle to do what he planned to do ... needed a muggle to enact a very ancient and powerful magic. And what is this ancient magic? Familial love. No matter wizard or muggle, the most powerful form of magic in the books is something that all are capable of. And that means ALL, including those who might not be "emotionally disposed" to the feelings of what we generally refer to as "Love." To be sure, the emotions that attend true love are important and an imbalance in this area can be detrimental to a person's psychological health. But I think Rowling understands that Love is first and foremost a choice. Aunt Petunia would probably be hard-pressed to have a single good feeling towards Harry, but she does act out charity towards him (at least in the most rudementary form ... it's not a comfortale home that she gives him, but it is a home based in fmailial bonds). Personally I think this represents a great deepening of the theme on the part of Rowling. In the first book we find that a mother's love of her child is very powerful, that familial love is powerful. We were all impressed with that, but in book 5 che goes and impresses us even more with this development: That love is a choice. And that familial love is just that ... a choice made to respect those bonds even when we did not choose to have them in the first place. There is a respect for the familial and it is acted out in a further choice to be charitable towards the family member. This is the core of familial love: a choice for respecting both the natural bond of family and the human dignity of the family member. The Protection of Muggles Act So ... Aunt Petunia is a key character in Rowling's veiw of the importance of family ... And I will say even further than that, that I believe the Dursley's as a family represent more than just a part of the magic that has protected Harry. Their home, as his home, represents more than just protection, it represents also (if I am right) a responsibility that is central to the meaning of Harry's character in the books. This is the point of the of the saga where in walks Arthur Weasley with his "Protection of Muggles Act" that he has been pushing. Harry, more than any other character in the books, represents a real connection between the muggle world and the wizarding world. Hermione is born of muggle parents, but ones who are sympathetic to the wizarding world and knew how to respond to their daughter's abilities. Harry alone, of wizards, knows the first hand experience of living with the mugglest of the mugglest. He also alone knows the experience of being told that it was a choice of familial love by one whom he never thought to be very loving at all (Aunt Petunia) that has been keeping him safe all these years - that it had serious impact on his life. It is important too that he experiences the prejudice that is possible from the opposite side of the fence, from wizard bigots. Not much needs to be said about this. Although Harry feels Hogwarts, the locus of wizard-kind for him, to be his home, he has also experienced there brutal treatment by wizards (I was, as we all were, a bit surprised at how Rowling did not pull any punches on this matter in the violence Draco does to Harry on the train). I think Harry can, or at least will by the end, see the undeniable connection between the violence some wizards are willing to do to him and the prejudices those same wizards have against muggles. Finally, it is important that he be friends with Ron and lovers with Ginny and experience their father's complete facination with the muggle world. After his treament by the Dursleys growing up he needs to learn a few things (and unlearn a few others). Arthur Weaslye is a great man to learn from. Harry can see an honest and charitable and simply fun-loving wizard who is fascinated with the way muggles solve their needs. But even more-so, he can see a man who is feircely dedicated to keeping his own kind from abusing their own powers to the ill teatment of muggles, both in his choice of particular career (dealing in keeping muggles from being hurt by tampered-with things) and in his political activism (pushing the protection act). Conclusion: I believe that what the books are about and what the family symbolizes for Rowling is "participation" between the mundane details of physical or "ordinary" life and the world behind that world that gives it meaning. (I should note that I did not arrive at this term "participation" on my own. It is used by an Italian scholar named Enrico Mazza, who studies Patristic theology. In a work entitled "Mystagogy" he talks about a Greek term, "Methexis," which comes from the vocabulary used by Plato and which basically means "participation." The context of that work ["Mystagogy"] is 4th century theological thought on the Sacraments of the Church. In this context it is the physical-historical world's "participation" in the eternal life of God through the sacraments, as well as the real connection between the sacraments as pracitced in our lives today and the historical institution of those sacraments, particularly the institution of the EUcharist in the upper room and on the Cross. With regards to what Rowling means by "magic" I believe the two worlds I just described [the historical and the eternal] to be analogous to the worlds of Muggles and Wizards; the world of the "nitty-gritty" and the world of the magical.) This participation requires the respect and charity of which I have been speaking. Harry's "success" in the quest that is the 7 book series is practically identical to his ability to be the man in the middle, to be the particiaption between the muggle and wizard. He must be the bridge between the muggleness of his phsyical family (where his physical home protects him) and the magic of the wizarding family (where he feels at home). Only thus will he be able to understand the malady that is Lord Voldemort. Only thus will he be able to see how to defeat that malady (that seems to be the main develpoment in DD's character in HBP ... the development that will provide Harry a paradigm of how to learn to defeat Voldy now that DD is gone ... DD is now saying "Harry, we MUST learn what it is that Voldemort is about, if he is to be overcome") Harry must be the answer to Arthur Weasley's prayers, he must be the protection of Muggles (this is, I think, the hidden meaning of the "Dudley Demented" chapter). He must protect the Dursleys not only from attacks by the wizarding community, he must also protect them from themselves, from their own muggle bigotry. For, if they completely reject the magical, they rob they're own world of wonder and will eventually die from the boredom of mundanity they have rought upon themselves (this is not your common boredom ... this is the grave malady of which Charles Williams writes in his novel War in Heaven, when his arch satanic character, Demetrius the Greek, says something like, "I am weary of gazing into this darkness through which we fall"). Aunt Petunia made a sacrifice, no matter how reluctantly, to be charitable to Harry and he has been protected by that. I believe Harry will learn the lesson of Arthur Weasley ... that he must now return the favor and be the protection of those wrapped "in this mortal coil." ("In this Mortal Coil": Maybe one of the reasons that the "Flight from Death" [Voldemort] hates muggles so much is that, without magic such as the Philosophers stone they have made more progress in coming to grips with their own mortality than he has) Post-Script I have no guess whether or not Rowling will do anything further with Arthur Weasley and the Protection of Muggles Act. I would love it if, by the end of Book 7, Arthur gets the act pushed through and written into the ministry's laws ... but I do not think that that is necessarily crucial to the role of the act within the series as a work of literature. It has already fulfilled its role as a thematic element simply in that we the readers have seen its import to Aruthrur and how he lives out that imoprt in the actions he takes as a wizard interacting with the Muggle world and in his disposition towards muggle matters. And most importantly, Harry has been sufficiently exposed to Arthur's concerns in this regard for it to impact him. The most imoprtant thread in the plot of the series (ie the main plot) is where Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione (and possibly Ginny) wind up in the end; how they wind up on their path to actively doing good as wizards living in a larger world where muggles are a majority, and what that particular path is. I have already said that I think Harry will be the 7th and lasting (more than a year) DADA teacher at Hogwarts when it re-opens, after he defeats Voldy. But I think his emphasis will be that charity is the key to DADA, including charity towards muggles.

Silver and Gold: Metal and Meaning in HP

Prelude I have a couple of posts I am trying to work in in the midst of other things, stuff that is a little dated for me (observations that came to mind while reading the previous Potter books, and which I have talked about with others, but since this is a new venue I would like to try to get them out and, you know, on the record). The Golden Rule I think there is something very significant of the Judeo-Christian Tradition in the Potter books in the fact that the wizarding community uses gold as it's currency. Of course, gold itself is already very central to the meaning of the book. John Granger notes that gold is the desired result in Alchemy as a science and the golden soul is the same for Alchemy as a symbol of a spiritual discipline. This symbolism works its way down through even to sports: Harry is a seeker, which is to say that He seeks the golden snitch and symbolically seeks to be the golden soul of alchemy. Ginny finally finds her heart's desire to be with Harry, when? Right after she wins the game by catching the golden snitch in Half Blood Prince. There is a very rich heritage to this use of gold, however, that goes much further back than medieval Christian Alchemy. In Judaism and early Christianity there is a marked difference between Gold and Silver. Silver is the currency of the mundane, the political, the secular. This is not to say it is intrinsically bad ... but it is not for sacred use, as gold is. The sacred is the counterpart to the secular. There is a confusion that exists for some contemporary Christians, in which it is thought that "secular" is the opposite of "Christian (due in large part to the heresy of Secularism). In truth, the secular is really simply the lower counterpart to the sacred. There is a hierarchy in which the sacred is higher, but the secular can still be very good when informed by and ordered towards fulfillment of the sacred. The heresy of Secularism arises only when the secular is set up as the highest ideal or defining, and indeed only, characteristic of reality. Kespeh and Zahav (Silver and Gold) The Hebrew word for gold is "zahav" (on the soundtrack for Schindler's List there is a choral track called "Yerushalaihim chel Zahav": Jerusalem of Gold). The Hebrew word for silver is "Kespeh" and is usually the term used when speaking of common money. Here are some examples of the way the two metals are used in the Bible: 1. The furniture in the Desert Tabernacle and in the Temple Solomon built are covered in gold (by order from Yahweh). This gold is sacred: In the Gospels Christ tells the Pharisees that they should not swear by the "gold of the Temple." Swearing is a sacred action, an action of vowing by something associated with a god (the fact that oaths involve sacred-use items and an appeal to a god is a tenet of classical paganism as well ... it is only in modern times that we have, on a large scale, made the mistake of equating oaths and promises). 2. Some scholars (such as Gordon J. Wenham, who teaches at Oxford) note that the reference in Genesis 2 to the "good gold" of the land is a reference to later sanctuary imagery in the Pentateuch and historical writing of the Old Testament. The end result of this fact is that it is seen that in creating the world Yahweh was creating a sacred space for His sacred relationship with humanity. 3. By contrast: what does Judas betray Christ in exchange for? 30 pieces of silver. The point of this fact is much deeper in the original setting of 1st century Jewish Christianity. We moderns tend to think the main point is that he betrayed for money because he was greedy. This is bad enough on its own, but the symbolism goes deeper and more of the meaning of Judas' role is revealed. Silver is the money of the mundane, the merely political. In other words, there is something "crass" in the action. Some scholars speculate that part of Judas' motivation may have not been "greed" as we think of it. It may have been politics. Judas was supposedly a zealot, a group who had a very distinct concept of the Messiah as a political savior, as one whose main "task" would be to free Judea on the political level. Thus Judas betrayed as a way to force Jesus' hand, so to speak, and coerce him to "step up" and be the type of messiah the zealots thought he should be, a primarily political messiah. That is the sort of "crassness" I mean - when you have a chance to encounter something truly sublime but all you do is set your sights on mere political power. That is what it is to pursue silver rather than gold. He did betray for money, but the type of money is very symbolic too (in fact, it was the common price for a slave ... slavery being when the sacredness of a human person is degraded and treated as merely secular, like the commercial value of a cow) Harry Potter The main point or theory I would put forth here is that I think that for Rowling, "Magic" has something to do with the sacred, something beyond mere material existence. Muggles like the Dursley's are all-too proficient at dealing with material existence. Mr Dursley (especially as a drill salesman) is the epitome of Muggle pragmatism. The wizarding world is about something beyond this. It is about imagination as the power to make contact with something sacred, something that gives us a hint at a larger world that is the real meaning to the world of our mundane existence. (Note: this is officially one of my own personal theories - that the closest thing that can be found to what Rowling is symbolizing by "good magic" is the proper and healthy use of the imagination) It is about "imagination" in the sense that the Greek Orthodox think about Iconography (In summarizing the tenets of the tradition of symbolist literature which Rowling is following in, John Granger draws heavily on a website of theoretical literary/Theological explication of the system by which Greek Orthodox delineate the progressive levels of symbolism in their thought on Iconography. The line of progression they use has 7 levels, the first 4 being a progression of symbol types within the realm of "natural art" and the last 3 being progressions of symbol types within "supernatural iconography" ) The word "imagination" itself comes from the word "image;" and in turn "image" is the Latin word usually used to translate the Greek word "Eikos/n." When shortened by dropping the "e" on the front (as happens in translation and transliteration form Greek to English) the Greek "Eikon" becomes the word "Icon." This may seem like semantics (in a negative sense ... but actually it is semantics in the proper meaning of the word: semantics is simply one domain in linguistic studies, the domain of dealing with the meanings of words). It is, however, really much of the theory that is behind the literary tradition on which Rowling is drawing (and which I suspect she is, like Tolkien and Lewis, immersed in and in love with). For a long time powerful art was tied to religion (like Dante's Divine Comedy, Caravaggio's Crucifixion paintings, and Bach's and Mozart's Masses). The thinking of artists was informed by these systems; and when an artist like Rowling contemplates the artistic tradition of the past she "soaks up" these ways of thinking that are embedded that artistic tradition. Conclusion I am not saying that Rowling necessarily knows of the different tone Judaic and early Christian languages had towards gold and silver or that she is consciously appealing to this (although she may; by all reports she is actually a well-studied woman). Her exposure may be mainly to the medieval alchemical use of gold as symbolic. My point is that, at what ever point she is drawing on in that tradition, the tradition is consistent within itself and her usage is consistent with the tradition. The wonderful thing about truly good wizards is that they have a certain respect for the muggle world, for the conventions of the mundane (or, by my interpretation, secular) and understand that those thing can be truly fascinating when they occupy their proper place in the hierarchy. Arthur Weasley is much more interested in the world of the Dursley's than they are in his world ... Simply look at how fascinated Weasley is at the conventions and exchanges of muggle money Harry uses at the station on the way to his trial in Order of the Phoenix.

Recommendations

Be sure to check out the link Pauli appended to my post on Richard Harris, the link to his filmography on imdb (the internet movie database) Harris is a great actor and I mean to check out that Link myself (just wanted to put up a post on it so nobody missed it). I have not seen any of his other movies save one, but I loved that one too: The Count of Monte Cristo. Actually it is more really Jim Caviezel's movie (most well known as Jesus Christ in Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", but he was also in "Thin Red Line," which was all right ... but I thought "Frequency" was a great movie, although I usually shut it off when the "country music video" begins at the end - just not my taste), but Harris is great in his part of it. I intend to watch more Harris soon. Also, I highly recommend John Granger's books. He's very readable. There is a lot of solid information in his first book ("The Hidden Key...") but it does not come off as boorishly "academic." He does a good job of staying on target and organized for common readership (and has some nice illustrations to help visualize what he is talking about), very clearly working all of the information into the context of the question "Why is Harry Potter so popular?" (what is it that makes the books so universally appealing to human beings, so gripping to human persons? Why does it resonate so strongly with us? Not too just a few but to millions [and of course wisely disregarding the chicken little approach that says "if it appeals to so many, if it is popular ... it must be because it is naughty" ... which is basically saying that humanity is innately evil. Keep in mind that many who view the books as "low literature" also write some of the most boorish, dry and downright cynical reading material ... the odd thing about the two extremes that dislike the books - the fundamentalists and the more "gritty-agnosticism" crown of "literati" is that they both seem to think that using the popularity of the books to discredit them is a good way to do so ... the unfortunate thing is that this "argument ad hominem" does seem to hold some sway with their respective constituencies And to give credit where credit is due, a bit of my thinking on this has been informed by reading Granger ... I think the comment on the "attack based on popularity" is my own, but I can't be 100% sure of that) I will have to pick up "Finding God in Harry Potter". (I imagine his thoughts may fall along the same lines as those who have examined the question of "God" in Tolkien's work, especially in LOTR [a particular example would be the work of Joseph Pearce]. In "The Silmarillion" the character of Iluvatar in the first two chapters is obviously the "God" character, not just "a god" [like the Ainur, who resemble the good aspects of the Greek gods but in relation to arid and Middle Earth, when they become the Valar by forming the world Iluvatar has created]; Iluvatar is "God" with a capital G [the God of the monotheistic Judeo-Christian tradition]. But "God" is largely absent from LOTR. But neither is there a sense of the "fates" as in Greek mythology, those random dice that represent the life, death, joy and pain of humans and are tossed carelessly by Zeus and co. There is a distinct sense of a providence guided by a will and a mind [and even more so, a heart] that, although not "seen" in the story concretely, is none-the-less omnipotent, and more importantly, all loving. My guess is that, in Finding God in Harry Potter, Granger takes this same approach ... mainly because It think it is true and that he is insightful enough to see it. I think that it is not out of line to state from reading the books that the ancient magic Dumbledore used was not created by him but that it did have a source.)

Speaking of books...

Merlin and I are huge fans of John Granger who has pointed out a lot of Christian aspects of the HP books. His latest book is Looking for God in Harry Potter. I didn't know if Merlin had that one - the other one is The Hidden Key to Harry Potter from which Merlin quotes extensively.

I Miss Richard Harris

May he rest in Peace. Despite what other things I might say her and there in defense of this or that aspect or scene in the movies beginning with #3 ... there is one thing that the first two movies will have that the following movies cannot match; and that is Richard Harris as DD. (I just realized I have not yet put up another post that I was going to, in which I point out some positive points from the POA movie ... at the same time, I do concur with Paul's Amazon review of the movie, that they are rushing them ... and I too am going into the theaters consciously telling myself not to expect the book's quality of detail etc) I think Michael Gamblin is a fine actor and I think he does fine at the role in the third movie ... but I think that Harris fit that role to a degree that is not even matched by Alan Rickman as Snape (and that is saying a lot in my book ... I love Rickman's Snape). Somehow Harris simply was DD. Even in reading this last book ... even in physical stature and mannerism ... it is difficult for me to imagine anyone filling out that tall and awkwardly chosen "muggle" suit DD wears quite the way that Harris would, or pulling off the rooftop dialogue with Malfoy quite as well. I know that I could never enjoy the movies anywhere near as much as I enjoy the books ... but Harris' performance got closer than anyone to putting in vision and sound what Rowling has on the page. Richard Harris' IMDB page

I Miss Dumbledore

In re-reading some stuff in Order of the Pheonix I re-read the scene of Harry's trial and realized how much I will miss Dumbledore. The easy (almost breasy) and patient way in which he makes his point yet at the same time is so formidable (countering Fudge at every turn) yet always (and this is the most important) allowing Fudge just enough of the benefit of the doubt for him to be able to save face and simultaneously do the right thing (if he so chooses). I loved the character

Flashback from NR Online: Tolkien memorial

Originally appeared in National Review on 9/29/1973 - Tolkien, R.I.P.

DD's "goof-up": Dumbledore, Gandalf and Moses

I have many comments in the border of my copy of Order of the Phoenix alongside Dumbledore's standard "revelation" scene (pp 834 ff). Alongside the top of p 839 is written "beginning to show Gandalf's human failure" Before I write the rest of this I'll say that I do not think DD ever committed the failure particular to Gandalf and Moses. I do not think he ever acted out of anger, but I do think that just as Tolkien was trying to show that Gandalf was not omnipotent, even over his own actions, Rowling has been trying to show Dumbledore as not ALL wise. He is smart and clever beyond the scope of ordinary human beings, but his defining characteristic has always been charity. I suppose I should say that he is wise in the order of true wisdom (which dictates that charity is the foremost virtue ... Think of HBP 511: "You are protected, in short, by yoru ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly.) And not necessarily " as wise as we once thought" in the order of what we called wisdom ... smartness and cleverness are only effects of true wisdom (very valuable effects to be sure) - true wisdom is of another order altogether. Tolkien: In the scene at the Western Door of Moria in the Lord of the Rings (the door which is shut with the spell "speak friend and enter") Gandalf gives in to anger. You do not really get this in Jackson's movie version (although there are other elements in his handling of this section that suggest to me that he did pick up on some of the numerological elements Tolkien used and left in one little "tip of the hat" for those in the audience who knew of them) but it is there in the book. In the movie Gandalf just puts his staff to the door and says a spell word, looking like maybe that's just the way wizards do things. But in the book it is more clearly marked that he strikes the door with his staff out of anger (Fellowship of the Ring 299). 40 miles later (Moria "cannot be less than 40 miles from West-door to East-gate in a direct line" - Fellowship 302) he must ironically repeat this action of stroking stone with staff (this time the bridge of Khazadum) in order to save the lives of his friends, but thus forfeits entrance into the "golden land." Tolkien has lifted this image almost directly from the book of Numbers chapter 20, verses 2-13. Here Israel complains about the lack of water, saying "Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die, both we and our cattle?" Israel is the first-born son of Yahweh (Exodus 4:22) just as Boromir is the first-born son of Denethor, Boromir who, like Israel, says "Then what was the use in bringing us to this accursed spot?" (Fellowship 297). In the context of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses was angered and, when told to speak to the rock so it would bring forth water, struck the rock instead, and thus forfeited entrance into the promised land. Surrounding the 40 miles of the dark wilderness of Moria Gandalf is first told to speak to the rock ("speak friend and enter") but strikes it "in rising rath" and then, at the other end of the 40 miles, must repeat the action and forfeit his entrance into the golfen land. The connection Tolkien establishes is that, like Moses, Gandalf can make errors (even in the case of the hierarchy of the Catholic church, it is not impeccability that the Church teaches dogmatically, only infallibility in faith and morals.) Rowling Dumbledore is a Gandalf figure (Gandalf, and all the Istari, are, in turn, a certain type of Bishop figure ... and in a phone-conversation once Pauli was commenting to me on the Bishop-like appearance that DD's "vestments" give him). His origin is not well known to the constituents he serves (in LOTR the unknown origin is that Gandalf is a Maia who willingly forsook a large degree of his original power to become an Istari and a counselor of men - In HP, everyone knows DD is a regular human, although of the non-magically-challenged variety, but especially the kids do not seem to have a clear idea of his ancestry or even his real age) but he is foremost a counselor (in Gandalf's case this was the true role of wizards, Saruman forgot this and got caught up in power and in the end was replaced by Gandalf as the white wizard ... Albus [meaning white] is an instructor in wisdom, the true role of a teacher). The primary difference is that Gandalf actually does give in to doing something wrong, he gets angry and strikes the stone door. In the case of DD I think it is more that Rowling is trying to show us that we should not over-emphasize the "omniscience" we often mistakenly strictly identify as DD's wisdom. His wisdom is based in another power, the power to love. He is capable of making "mistakes" in the order of cleverness , or at least he believes himself capable of it, as is seen in those pages of Order of the Phoenix where he recounts the many times he thinks it might have been better to tell Harry of the prophecy. It is a picture with many subtleties; a very rich and sometimes confusing picture which it will take book 7 to really fill out. At the bottom of p. 838 in OotP I have written in the margin, "Evil's Cunning" right next to the line: "In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act." In the figure of DD ( as I think will be shown in book 7) Rowling shows fidelity to our experience and that life is very confusing, but also will show that, despite human frailty and inadequacy, adherence to the first and second great commandments ("Love the Lord your God with all your heart strength and mind ... and love your neighbor as yourself") will always prove the wisest counsel. We might speculate that maybe Dumbledore made the mistake of not paying as much attention to the first as he should have (that he should have been more concerned with "loving truth" and giving it all to Harry sooner) out of his feelings of concern for Harry's peace of mind ... but this is a far different thing than Voldemort's failing ... and I think it will be one of her points in book 7 to show this.