HP and Sorcery: The Wand and The Light-Saber

This is an observation that can be made in innumerable places in the six books thus far but especially in the "Lighting Struck Tower" chapter; and it is, I think, a good rebuttal against the accusation that the Potter series is "pro-sorcery." Dumbledore on the Tower Notice that as powerful of a wizard as Dumbledore is, arguably the most powerful alive, he is powerless with out his wand. All wizards are pretty much powerless with out their wands, and when they can do things without them it is pretty much obviously not a good thing - such as young Tom Riddle's actions taken in torturing other kids, and even when Harry accidentally frees the snake in book 1, this is dangerous, not just to those around him but to himself, in that he might follow a path of wandless magic.) The wand is a symbol of the fact that magical power comes from beyond the user and is tied to a tradition of symbols and objects with which the user had been endowed from without himself/herself. Star Wars I can clarify what I mean by this best if I draw a comparison with the Star Wars world. The examples will be drawn from Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. The clearest example is in Return of the Jedi when Vader hands Luke's light-saber to the emperor and the latter says, "ah, the weapon of a Jedi." He says it with such disdain it is obvious he hates the thing. He hates the symbolism of it, the Jedi's reliance on such a symbolic weapon. The Lightsaber is based on the sword just as the order of the Jedi is based on the medieval orders of nights and chivalry. And in medieval Catholic Europe, the sword was based on the cross and Christ was the power behind all powers (recall some of the conversation Pauli and I have had on the Ring and Sword in Tolkien and the Sword and the Snake in Rowling.) A Sith is truly a sorceror. A Sith will use the lightsaber (red-bladed of course) when it suits him or her, but what really floats their boat and, for them, demonstrates their true identity is force control directly over objects and the elements completely unmediated by any such symbolic weapon. Notice that in Return of the Jedi Palpatine never uses a lightsaber; he uses only "force lightning". A really good example with several layers of meaning is found in Revenge of the Sith. When Palpatine is hurling down senate pods at Yoda this is obviously a highly symbolic icon for what he has been doing all along - using the senate as a weapon against the Jedi. But it is also his "truly Sith moment" - no more fighting the Jedi master on his own terms, with his choice of symbolic weapons. Now is the moment to show the true power of a Sith lord - direct control of the things around him. No symbols, simply sorcery. The wand in the Harry Potter books functions in much the same manner. It is the symbol of the fact that a wizard's power flows not from his own being - although it can be honed and refined to be more effective through his own efforts, and Dumbledore is definitely a paragon example of the right way to go about this. The power flows through the connection the wand gives him to something transcendent from himself.