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Hogwarts, Hogwarts,
Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling,
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare
And full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff.
So teach us stuff worth knowing,
Bring back what we forgot,
Just do your best
We'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot!



1: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2: Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3: There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4: Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
5: Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
6: His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
7: The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8: The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9: The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10: More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11: Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
12: Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
13: Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.
14: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Riddles Part 3: a History of Riddles (and Happy Advent)

Well, given the time I have dedicated here to the concept of riddles in explaining Tom Riddle's name, I have decided to give a short history of riddles - and really I mean SHORT history - only 2-3 instances really, but they're good ones.

First, though, if you're just tuning in or even if you read the stuff originally but are daunted by the task of sifting back through the piles of my posts to find the other places I have written on riddles - here are the two main posts I have written on riddles thus far:

Riddles in Dark Chambers
and
Riddles and Imagination

A Riddle of Two Trees:

Many have noted that the two trees in the Garden of Eden are what is known as a Mashal, an established form in the "wisdom" tradition of ancient Israel, a form that is most like an "analogy" or a "parable" (cf "The Shady Side of Wisdom" by George Mendenhall, from A Light Unto My Path, Philadelphia, Temple U. Press, 1974)

This is, to the best of my understanding, a riddle of sorts. It is what is used when the author does not wish to speak directly of a thing, either out of "respect for the dead," or out of fear. The two trees are used to speak of a fundamental thing that cannot be directly spoken of. To "name," even mentally, that first sin is dangerously close to sacrilege, and so a Mashal, or riddle, is used.

The comparison with "parables" is a very apt one, for who was the master of parables? Christ. He spoke in parables so that the hard of hearing and heart would not understand (Matthew 13:10-17), i.e., they would not "get the riddle."

He also spoke in established Mashals from Judaic tradition, particularly the Mashal of the Tree of Life. Father Raymond Brown, whose commentary on the Gospel of John is a standard in scholarly research, notes in that commentary that the discourse on the "Vine and the Branches" in John 15 is an adaptation of the "Tree of Life" Mashal, and he even hazards a notion that this Mashal may be part of the background of the "Bread of Life" discourse in John 6 (R. Drown, The Gospel According to John, Anchor Bible Series, Doubleday, 1970, pp. 671-672).

Tolkien and Shakespeare

Perhaps a better example of the connection between the "parable" and the "riddle," or at least one that we moderns can grasp a little more readily, is one of the beefs Tolkien had with Shakespeare. David Day relates this in the Introduction to his book Tolkien's Ring.

As in ancient Hebraic literature, so in all mythic literature, riddles are a kind of plot device. In Macbeth, Macduff cannot be killed by "one of woman born," and so he is killed by one who was born c-section. Tolkien rightly criticized this as a hackish "answer" to the riddle. The riddle is "how does you kill a man who cannot be killed by one of woman born," and c-section is a mere technicality. The etymology of the word "born" is from the word "to bear" or to carry, and being "born of woman" really means being carried by a woman for 9 months in her body as a child, not just the particular method of exit.

Day's point in bringing this up is as an example of standard folklore devices and plots Tolkien used (Day's book being specifically on ring-lore), and this is a "stock plot." Tolkien had an answer of his own to Shakespeare's bad use of the plot device.

This particular riddle plot device might be called the "Charmed Captain of Evil" riddle. In it there is a captain of evil who has some magical charm on him protecting him as he commits his villainy. The thing is, all such charms have to use specific language and this is how they are undone, by something not covered in the language. The difference between Tolkien's and Shakespeare's use of this particular one is that Tolkien understood that there had to be some connection between how you worked the language and the "inner meaning" or "moral" to the story. He understood that is what the whole thing is all about, not some smoke and mirrors of language TECHNICALITIES.

Here is Tolkien's version: The Witch-King of Angmar (leader of the 9 Nazgul).
The core of this particular riddle is the problem arrogance, and the answer is humility. Indeed the very act of sorcery is arrogant. It is gaining "supernatural" aid, but in a very different way from a prayer to a god.

Thus, the Witch-king "cannot be hindered by a living man," and those such as Blondie, who might be reading this and thinking "how arrogant!!! Apparently he thinks there is no worry about being killed by a woman!" are completely justified, and Tolkien thought so too. Indeed, it is the very way he solves the riddle and shows the value of humility. The Witch-king is killed by those who his mentality considers weak and too lowly to worry about: a woman disguised as a warrior, helped by a halfling.

Tolkien also had a problem with the "march of the woods" in Macbeth, and his answer was the Ents herding the trees to kill the orcs at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. The meaning of that plot device should be that nature itself takes on somewhat of a persona contributes to the battle, not that some soldiers got spooked out by a little fog and a spooky feeling and thought the trees were walking when really it was just some guys with branches sticking out of their butts.

Note: Ok, that last was slightly hyperbolic - just saying that that really is not "nature helping fight evil men", it's more just kind of "freak factor." I actually do think Shakespeare had some good points ... but these are not good examples.

Riddles and the Incarnation

The answer to the riddle is the meaning of the riddle, and I think that is what all riddles at this level of literature are. This is what is at the heart of the mythopoeic, the same as it is at the heart of the Incarnation. The great big meaning is hidden in and then revealed in the small mundane details of language and human communication. The God who created the universe, carried inside a humble poor woman's sacred body (a woman who humbly bore the scorn of appearing to be pregnant out of wedlock) and then wrapped in cloth in a stable; and eventually unjustly hung up to die like a common criminal (the matching bookend to His conception, in which his mother bore unjust scorn for a sin she did not commit, fornication/adultery) - hidden in human meekness and revealed in human meekness.

I really didn't plan this when I started writing it (I added that to the title after I got this far) but I guess it is an appropriate post to be writing at the beginning of the Advent season.

So, a Blessed Advent to all.
posted by Merlin at 8:18 PM
0 comments


Monday, November 28, 2005

Towering Technologies and Heights

This is a post I have had on my list for a while to write in response to Pauli's request in a comment some time ago, that I write some on "Towering Technology."

The only disclaimer I will preface this with is that the old addage rings true, "the higher the leap, the harder the ground." BUT that does not mean it is not worth the climbing (a pig cannot be weighed down by sin because a pig cannot sin, but I would rather be a man in poverty, as long as I am contrite, than a pig in bliss). It simply means that in striving for the perfection God creates us possible of a achieving we must balance the heights of our God-given potential with a similar (if not greater) degree of lowness of humility. This is, I think, at least one of the subsidiary meanings of the precarious balance that Chesterton refers to as, "the romance of orthodoxy."

What is in a Name (The Legacy of Cain):

Pauli had surmised that this would go back at least to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, but actually it goes even further back. Those men wanted to build a "name" for themselves but they were not the first to build under a certain name.

In Genesis 4 Cain is condemned to nomadic exile for murdering his brother Abel, and he complains, "my punishment is too great to bear." It would have been better for Cain had he accepted the punishment and learned something from in it, but he did not. Instead he moved and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden, and there he built a city and named it after his first born son Enoch (all of this information as well the imemdiately following paragraph is taken from what is called the "Cainite Genealogy" in Genesis 4).

The 7th generation from Cain was a man named Lamech, the first recorded polygamist. His two wives bore to him 3 sons who became the "fathers" of "civilization": Jabal was the father of shepherds/cattle men, Jubal was the father of musicians and Tubal-Cain was the father of those who forge metal into instruments. Lamech was also a very violent man, he killed a man for the small offense to him and then came home and bragged to his wives about it. Thus in this place that is the seat of the seeds of civilization and technology, we have the temptaions to evil that come with it.

These temptations go all the way back to Cain who buitlt the city and to his parents. It was a "cunning" serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to want to be "like gods." And this same temptation was passed on to his son: when Cain is angry that Yahweh accepts Abel's sacrifice but not his own, God speaks of sin as a serpent, crouching at Cain's door in wait for him (Genesis 4:7)

Keep in mind that the theme of naming is essential to the sort of "Kingly" vocation of man (I am borrowing this term from Dr Scott Hahn, who notes a "Kingly" and a "Priestly" vocation of humanity in the 2 creation stories of Genesis 1 &2). It is in the action of naming the animals in Genesis 2 that God shows man that he is incomplete with out woman. But apparently the royal task of naming the animals and the woman were not enough; Adam gave in to temptation and sought a name for himsef, "like a god."

The temptation and sin were passed to his son Cain; then to Enoch, the son for whom Cain named a whole city; and then to the descendents in that city who were the first masters of tachnology and the arts. In Genesis 6:1-4 we see how this lineage continued in the "mighty warriors," the Gibborim, who were believed to be born of the union of mortal women with gods; they were the "famous men" (literally, "the men of the name"). And finally we see how, even after a catastrophe like the flood, men still sought to "build a name" for themselves by building a tower that reached into the heavens, into the realm of God Himself (Genesis 11: 1-9).

A Kingdom Divided (The King of Israel)

The Deuternomic covenenant is related in the book of Deuteronomy, which literaly means "second law" since the first version of the covenant, given at Mt Sinai, was broken by Israel. This second version functioned as a sort of "constitution" for Israel as a nation and then a Kingdom. The thing that makes this second version distinctive from the first is the presence of a number of "concessionary" laws. The first covenant was given by God in power and might on top of a mountain (thunder and lightning and Moses's face glowing when he came down with the tablets). The second version was given through a 120 yr old man droning on a field. But that second version contained some shrewd measures the man was allowed to introduce, measures that anticipated some of the "cunning" that would attend the "hardness of heart" of the Israelites. (In this section I am borrowing again from the thought of Dr Scott Hahn).

A good example of one of these measures was that on divorce, and this is evidenced in Christ's words on the matter in Matthew 19:7 ff and the parallel in Mark 10:4 ff. If a man wants to divorce his wife, but he is not allowed because of "till death do us part," what is he to do? Well, in heavily patriarchal society where a man might get away with murder (literally) he might just makle sure that "till death do us part" comes sooner rather than later (a new wife while the old one lives would be frowned upon by the community, but an "accidental" death ... "well, you have our condolences"). The provision prevents greater evils from hardness of heart.

Among these conscessions were what are called, "the laws of kingship." That Israel would want a king like the nations around them was forseen, and so was the fact that the king would be tempted to covet more and more power and to abuse it more and more. So the "laws of kingship" prohibited the king from amassing 3 things connected with power, the 3 "W"s: Women, Wealth and Weapons. Obviously, "money is power," but so are wives and concubines when they are the princesses of foreign rulers wed in political marriages. Likewise, a standing army is power, and the better armed they are with the "latest and greatest" weapons the more powerful they are.

The Temple
One further thing that was a "concession" in the Deuteronomic covenant was "central sanctuary." The "natural" place to worship a deity was a "high place" (a hill top grove of trees), and the pagans had been using these sights for many ages. Just like at Sinai, where the Israelites said, "we will worship Yahweh, BUT we should worship Him in the form of a golden calf, which just so happens to be an Egyptian god," so the people entering the promised land would say, "we're going to use these standard worship spots to worship Yahweh, and it won't hurt to use the old forms too ... and he'll understand that when we worship the Baals taht were worshipped there before we're really worshiping Him - right?"

So, the Temple of Jerusalem was really the fulfillment of a precept that was a concession to deal with the people's predeliction for idolatry - no sacrifices accept to Yahweh at His central sanctuary, the Jerusalem Temple. And this institution leads to the next instance to examine.

The Highest Point of the Temple (Christ)

In the fourth chapter of St Matthew's Gospel we read that, like the Israelites, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness (40 years in Israel's case) and was then tempted, among other things, on a high place to worship a pagan god - one called "the tempter," hinting back to the serpent in the garden, and in Christian tradition this is the devil, or Satan.

The 3rd temptation in this event was pretty much an all out assault of pressure to idolatry, a bare-faced temptation to this. The first 2 temptations however appeal to the fact that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, but the tempter wanted to "catch him up" by getting him to focus on the power of this position.

The first temptation is to simple physical power, "you are hungry, use your power for your appetites ... and in the process prove that power of messiahship." The second temptation, on the pinnacle of the temple, was to the political power of the Messiah, like the king of Israel who would eventually be tempted to amass power through wealth, political marriages and military might. Interestingly, Christ was not the first "Messiah," there is an immediate fulfillment of that role in the Old Testament itself. "Messiah" means "annointed one," and in the Hebrew Scriptures it means the annointed son of the king. The first fulfillment of the "Messiah" was Solomon, the wise one, 3rd king of the united Kingdom of Israel. A number of scholars note that the Temptation of Christ was focussed on the concept of being the "messiah."

From that great height where He could see all that could be His in the way of political power as Messiah, Jesus was tempted to focus on that power and define what it meant for Him to be Messiah by that power alone.

The Dizzying Heights of Space (Star Wars)

In Star Wars we have of course that power that rains down terror, literally, from the "heavens," the Death Star. The Jedi seem to take a more balanced approach to physicality. They will use technology in harmony with traditional symbol as in something like the lightsaber (something that takes the kind of skill born of long training). The sith, on the other hand, wants one of two extremes: either straightforward domination over the elements by their will (which is prefered) or a technology that can obliterate millions in one pwerful stroke.

There are many smaller images that fill out the larger image but one of the most impressive is the use of technology with regard to the right hand - both Luke and Vader have a robotic right hand. In Herbaic thought especially, the right hand is the hand of judgement and the hand of power. In the perverse world engineered by the sith (often right under the noses of the jedi) this is fulfilled through raw technology, grafted and melded onto human body in ways I think you are meant to wonder abouth the prudence of.


The Dangerous Heights of Knowledge (Harry Potter and Death by Divination atop the Tower)

Tolkien: a Precursor
Before tackling the Astronomy tower, I should note that there is an immediate precursor to Rowling's use of the high-tower, a precursor in probably the most famous of the "Inklings" in whose footsteps she follows.

Forget not that the Tower of Barad Dur (Sauron's high place) was built with the one ring, and when the one ring and he himself were destroyed the tower crumbles. In David Day's book Tolkien's Ring we find recounted the legend of the use of Solomon's ring to build the temple, and in Rowling we see take place atop a high tower the culmination of the sacrifice DD made in destroying Voly's ring horcrux (provided we're right about the "stoppered death" theory).

The Lightning Struck Tower
From the first book of the Harry Potter series we have heard the themes noted above echoed, when Quirrell says that Voldy taught him that, "there is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." (Sorcerer's Stone, 291).

But the real question connected with the height of that particular tower towards the end of book 6 is the central question of Hogwarts' very essence as a school - the power of knowledge. Of course, as Pauli noted (in his comment on the post linked to just above, in the Star Wars section), Tolkien's Orthanc tower is one prime example of a lust for knowledge turning into a lust for power, and Saruman gazing into his palantir is pretty much the dreggs of divination ( which astronomy is the height of, as we see when a real master like Firenze takes over in Order of the Pheonix). But in both the case of Saruman and of Denethor, Tolkien's characters are beguiled by twisting and perversions of facts which Sauron substitues for real truth.

Likewise, Trelawney has had only two real predictions and the one only came true because Voldy believed it to be true and made it so. You get the serious impression that the centaurs take a seriously different approach to knowledge and reading the stars. I think DD dies for the greater good, but also that it is telling that he dies on top of the Astronomy tower, since so much of Astronomy is like that ... it can be a legit part of magic but it can go seriously awry too (much like the water element, the cunning of the serpent, potions etc). The knowledge can be abused.

Hidden Clue:
If somebody wants to beat me to this they can ... I want to look and see if in book 5, when they witness the attack on Hagrid's hut by Umbridge, if there are any notable distortions in their perception of it because they witness it from the top of the Astronomy tower.
posted by Merlin at 3:55 PM
1 comments


Music

I had said in regard to Snape being good and mystical that one of the big things that changed my mind was the healing incantation that was "like a song," and had noted that Rowling uses music sparingly, so I thought I would point out something that came to mind recently as a result of seeing this lates movie.

That is that the golden egg is a place she does use music. I'm not sure that this use of music is as high symbolically as the Pheonix song and Snape's Incantation (although I'm not completelty sure of the opposite either) but I do think there is some good pointed symbolism here. Particularly, it is only when heard in it's proper context that the music even sounds like music, and so there is a good focus on the need for context in understanding and communication.

Of course there is also the fact that that context in this situation is the element of water. I'm not sure there is a strong significance to that fact, except for that it does fit in with the fact that while the music is beautiful and I think definitely on the good side, it is mysterious in that one cannot assume that the mer-people being on the side of the good will take the form one thinks. Sometimes it is mischievious and a bit dark etc.

Just an observation.
posted by Merlin at 1:59 PM
0 comments


Sunday, November 27, 2005

OK ... a good point

Well, I still hold to that the Dumbledore in this recent movie is more internally consistent than in movie 3, and I don't really see him as much as being mean as being kind of crotchety - maybe a little like Gandalf suffering nicotine withdrawal in the mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings.

But, after looking at Dumbledore's exchange with Fudge just now at the end of Goblet of Fire, I have to admit that the new Dumbledore of movie 4 does not have the self-composure of the Dumbledore of the books. In the book Dumbledore is able to be completely calm AND bear down on Fudge at the same time.
posted by Merlin at 8:12 PM
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Believable Stories

It is now Sunday evening and I am off work tomorrow (I'll be working on grad school applications since I work for a Pittsburgh roofer and the Monday after Thanksgiving, the first day of rifle season for buck deer in PA, is like a national holiday in western PA) ... so I am cleaning out some posts I have had for a while on my spreadsheet list of posts to write.

A long while ago Pauli and I exchanged thoughts briefly on here on the nature of good stories, Flannery O'Connor's thoughts on such and Harry's interest in a good story in Prisoner of Azkaban.

David Day, in his book Tolkien's Ring, discusses how Tolkien was drawing on a large body of "ring-lore" and one of his goals was to write a "believable source story" for this body of legends etc. By that term though, he did not mean "believable" in the sense that one would believe that they actually did happen, but rather that (given certain givens) they could have happened. What was central to Tolkien was that the story be internally consistent with itself and with the core of human experience of our own psychology and drives for the transcendent and peace and love etc (of course not with our experience of "science", etc.)

So, one of my noted posts to write comes from The Goblet of Fire p. 705 where Dumbledore emphasizes very succinctly the importance of this type of "believability" in a story, and at the same time does a great act of charity in using his authority to help an innocent who is being born down upon by a bureaucrat. He notes that he has no reason not to believe Harry's and Barty Jr's stories, they make sense and they explain all the facts.
posted by Merlin at 7:48 PM
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A Man's Brain is A Bomb ...

"A man's brain is a bomb...it has to explode." This is a line spoken by "Monday", the secretary of the high council of anarchists G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday in which each of the 7 members of that council in the book are named after days of the week. It also echoes a statement by Nietzsche in Ecce Homo, "I am dynamite!" (among those who follow Nietzschean studies it is noted that he was supposedly already well on his way to crazy when he wrote Ecce Homo.)

This statement connects greatly with a comment Pauli made on my "speculation" about Cedric and Harry representing Hogwart's as earth and fire. And this is a crucial point of much needed temperance if one is to keep their sanity when studying these things - and not have his or her brain explode.

SYMBOLS

In regards to the symbols I think that they do all fit but that Paul is right, we must not narrow any given character down SIMPLY to one element alone. Fleur is from Beauxbatons, which arrives on the air or wind, but in book 6 we see her as "phlegmatic," which, If I remember correctly what Pauli was saying in our conversation over Thanksgiving weekend at my parents, the "humor" of phlegm - in medieval 4 Humor anthropology - corresponds to the element of water in the 4 Elements cosmology.

As Pauli noted, we are all made up of all 4 elements, and really that is what the books are about, finding harmony and balance within ourselves and the cosmos, just as the golden soul is the balance between the biological and intellectual souls and Dumbledore pure spirit (Dumbledore) and pure matter (Voldemort).

I'll describe this more in the next section on narrative because I think I can draw it out better there. But for here I will say that I think that all the symbols are true and they all intersect. BUT to try to understand HOW is probably too big of a task for even angelic intellect, and reserved only to the Divine intellect. As for us humans it would probably "blow our minds" like a big ol' bomb.

ASIDE: A really good movie on this is the movie "Pi". I do not recommend it for everyone because its black and white presentation (meaning the actual color, not figurative of its tone toward morality or truth) is of a very unique style that some will find jarring and difficult to watch (and even for me, who loved the movie, it's not a "good time" movie). But, in that movie, Max is right, mathematics is a universal language that expresses the essence of nature (at least of physical nature). To try to figure it out, however, is like looking into the sun, it will make you blind. Max's quest to do so has burdened him with migraine's and when his friend Sol eventuallout thes him by re-working out the 216 digit bug in pi for him, it sends Sol into his second - and possibly deadly - stroke.

NARRATIVE

Ok, Here is where I tie this in with narrative. We all know that in good narratives there are always "sub-plots" which connect with and fill out the main plot. We are tempted to view a lot of the "mundane details" of our lives as accidental and not necessarily thematically connected to the main development of our lives; and this is indeed what we MUST do if we are to survive and function and avoid a dangerously explosive brain (to continue the bomb analogy.) But in reality all of the subplots are connected to the main plot of our life.

The thing is, only that Divine author/providence can understand that ultimate inter-connectedness of all those "disparate" sub-plots in our mundane lives. That is why we need narrative, a "Kairotic Chronology." We need artists to weave us images and movements that accentuate the kairotic in our lives so that we can see at least some of it, so that we do not get so bogged down in physical details, politics, etc. that we drown in them.

Narrative is that place we go for meaning (at least on the natural level), not so that we can escape the mundanity of reality but, rather, so that we can return to it and be effective in our lives without having to neurotically agonize over "whether it all means anything" because our natural limitations prevent us from being able to see how all the details fit into the "big picture". One should neither "lose the forest for the trees" nor vice versa).

This is why, I think, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings you do not have as much of a concept of God present. You do have a feeling of a "providence" (I am borrowing here from Joseph Pearce) BUT (and here I am not borrowing) that directing from that provident will is always implicit, never explicit. Were it to be explicit, the explication of how it worked what it worked would, again, "blow our minds."

THE SACRED

There is a realm where these things cross a line into the sacred and that is the area focused on by John Granger, Iconography. I will only make one comment on this area. In thinking about these things after reading Pauli's comment and planning this post I became more and more aware why it is that the Eastern Orthodox ascribe a quasi-sacramental to icons. I do not believe as I have heard the Amish and Native Americans do, that a photograph of a person is sacrilege because it captures a piece of the person's soul, but I can see why they might think that. Even in regards to natural image and narrative making keep in mind that Tolkien referred to human art as "sub-creation" because it is indeed mystically connected to the creative power of God.

IMAGINATION AND THE MUSE

I think that what we are talking about when we discuss these things is the imagination of the author. But that distinctly human imagination is a doorway to a world that is larger than the human author and even larger than humanity itself, the world that is what the Greeks spoke of when they referred to the "muse" as a god, the muse which visited and inspired (literally "breathed into") the poets.

But we must always remember when discussing a particular work that we are talking first about a human work, and that world of the imagination must never overtake completely, in a fascist manner, the physicality of the world in which God has placed us, in such a way that that mundanity of "chronos" gets completely obscured (and I think that this is some of what Pauli's warning was speaking to) for that mundane day to day existence is also distinctly human/created in the image of God; temporality reflects eternalness in a distinct way.

A good example of this would be a movie I am really into, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - the Johnny Depp version. I love that movie but I have one problem with it. In the very end the Buckets' house has been moved inside the factory. It was originally only a few blocks away, so why could Willie not have simply come there every night for dinner - while of course donating some much needed repairs?

The thing is, the factory and candy is symbolic of human imagination; and while the transcendence of God to which that imagination is a pathway DOES encompass all of the world, the human imagination does not. The "mundane" Bucket life should have been left to exist in harmony with, but distinct from, the imagination symbolized by candy.

For, if the "higher" things not simply rule over the "lower" things in a proper hierarchy, but rather dominate them in such a way that the very nature of the lower things is obliterated this becomes the tenet of Gnosticism in which it is said that matter is essentially evil. In The Hidden Key To Harry Potter Granger does a good job of emphasizing that the point of alchemy is for spirit and matter to be reunited once the matter has been refined, which I think makes Harry Potter a great example of how Chistian Alchemy is really a Christian response to Gnosticism.

This is basically the same thing as I was talking about in the post I did on "Religion and Love in Tolkien," when the interpretation of the statement that "Grace builds on nature" is that Grace completely deconstructs nature and rebuilds something with the parts that bears absolutlely no resemblence to the nature of nature. In literature it is metaphor without methexis (which is a Greek term I discussed meaning "participation" that indicates a real connection between symbol and reality, not merely amentionedal or arbitrary connection). The "escapism" that I mentionened above and asserted that it was NOT the role of narrative would also be an example of such Gnostic tendencies which truly good narrative combats.

A FINAL EXAMPLE : Humor and Humility

So, thus far I have tied together Chesterton, Nietzsche, Harry Potter, Eastern Orthodox Iconography, Tolkien, Gnosticism, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Amish, Native Americans ... and I may as well throw in one more for good measure. It may be justly leveled against me that tying together all these disparate works and elements and seeing them as all connected is a bit schizophrenic and lends to an ever-rambling and digressive style of communication. And such a charge puts me in the mind of a novel that I have often thought scary in how well it probably describes my mind (and it's an often much needed reminder to humility LOL), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne (18th century English writer).

In that book Sterne focuses on "Hobby Horses". A hobby horse is your "deal," your paradigm, the system of hooks on which you hang your hats in order to understand the world of your experience. Of course, no individual hobby horse does the task entirely of explaining that world, but without a hobby horse you would fall apart. For Stern as the implied author, his hobby horse is narrative.

As I said, a hobby horse is always a "wobbly horse". Sterne's narrative intentionally wanders and rambles all over the place, digressing further and further back on tangents and then jumping forward in time in an astoundingly disconnected leap. He even sets aside one distinct chapter to surrealistically draw out the image of himself on his narrative hobby horse: it becomes a wild bucking bronco on which he crashes through the stands and even knocks over a bishop - (a reference to one of the earliar chapters where a bishop is discussing baptism - and hilariously runs amok over his material ... and this type of self-lampooning is what I a much needed humility.

At one point Sterne symbolizes the silliness of the hobby horse of narrative with 10 completely black pages smack dab in the middle of the book...BUT, he did write the book, the narrative. The point is that you have to keep trying and humbly accept that sometimes in doing so your own human efforts are quite simply comical - and sometimes, as Pauli insightfully noted, you have to reign that horse in a bit if you're going to stay sane.

This is doubly important for my own field - I watched one friend NEVER complete his thesis for his MA because every week he had another book that connected with his themes and that he was going to try to work in. Part of the work of an academic is to find the scope for a discussion that you can present for others to read and digest without overly burdening them, otherwise nobody will get anywhere - and I apologize for my GROSS breaking of that rule in this post LOL.

THE END (Did I really say that was the last example?)

So, I'l close by adding one more to my ragtag bag of wildly divergent examples. This is perhaps one of my favorite lines ever from a popular song on the distinctness of being human; it' from Tom Waits' song Hoist that Rag from his most recent album, "Real Gone"
(to which I am listening at the moment.. that and Love and Peace or Else, by U2 .... In the Waits song I think the "cracked bell" is the liberty bell, symbolizing liberty, the distinctively human capacity for free will lived out in the time-bound movement of life, and the "gods" are like the Greek gods, as opposed to God with a capital "G").

The cracked bell rings as the ghost bird sings
And the gods go begging here
So just open fire when you hit the shore

All is fair in love and war.
posted by Merlin at 4:43 PM
2 comments


Saturday, November 26, 2005

Coming soon - New site name, address and look

New name & new look - Coming Soon!

We have been using the name of my favorite movie, Babette's Feast, for this blog for awhile now and have been planning to change it from the moment we turned it into a Harry Potter discussion blog. Merlin came up with the name "Muggle Matters" which I really liked. I registered the domain name mugglematters.com a while back, but I really wanted to have a new design before the cut-over.

Meanwhile our 'net-friend Sarah who does great stuff like Sarah and Beyond and Lucas Around the World has been designing a great new look for our blog. You had better be sitting down when you first see it; the improvement is quite shocking!

When?

I've OK'd the latest design and so we should have it up by Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005. Until cutover, the new site will bounce back to http://babettesfeast.blogspot.com, and after the cutover, the old address will bounce to the new one.

[NOTE: I discovered in my research of the nature of the trademark which is held on the word "muggle" that the new site name and address will most likely be some type of minor infringement. But since we're not selling anything I think they'll probably leave us alone. Also J. K. R. herself has raised a stink about the big companies "going after" fan sites and discussion sites since she feels that this activity contributes even more to literacy among the youth - so good for her! At any rate, I think we're under the radar.]
posted by Pauli at 11:40 PM
7 comments


Friday, November 25, 2005

Soul Music

This relates to my (Merlin's) post on the definition of "narrative."

My Father once made a very insightful statement concerning music that relates to the movement which characterizes narrative (I did not actually hear this one myself, it was related to me by Pauli and our friend Nathan).

He said: Rhythm appeals to the body, Harmony to the mind and melody to the soul.

This is basically the 3 parts of the soul found in Ron, Hermione and Harry ... but the important thing is that movement is what relates to/connects with the soul. For, you see, rhythm is regularity in a movement but it really does not "go" anywhere in and of itself in that it does not have with in it some telos/end/goal/resolution to which it travels; and Harmony has a resolution but it appears "statically" as it were, all at once. Only melody achieves a harmony among different notes by moving through them sequentially in a certain way.

.... So melody contains both elements of rhythm (it has a particular meter and tempo etc) and elements of harmony (it has harmonic resolution) and thus really is like the "golden soul" of alchemy as the unifying bond between the biological soul (body) and intellectual soul (mind). This is one of the things that is uniquely human. Animals and vegetables have (respectively) sensate and vegetative souls (life forces) that are both forms of the biological soul; Angels have intellect because they are purely spirits (no bodies); but humanity alone has the "golden soul" of alchemy that is a unity between the biological and intellectual, the physical and spiritual.

Movie Music (the artistry of John Williams)

It really is the way I said in my new definition of narrative, that the movement itself of the chronology of a narrative has a unique identity. Dominic is much more of a music head than I am - he used to play trombone in marching band and all and learned a good bit of theory, I just sort of "rocked out" in a band for a bit LOL - but he showed me once that in the Star Wars Universe John Williams (composer) has some "hidden clues" type of stuff. For instance, the main melody to the "triumphal song" (I don't know the real name of it) at the end of Phantom Menace is the same note intervals (but in a major key) as the Emperor's Theme from Return of the Jedi. - Same harmonic elements, with very different feels carried across by the movement of the music.

Likewise, The main theme Williams wrote for the Harry Potter Movies is almost identical (at least the first two phrases in each) with that of Schindler's Theme from Schindler's List (also, of course, done by Williams).

Post-Script
Speaking of my father and music - I had a very enjoyable time recording music with him over this Thanksgiving weekend; we do mainly old Gospel and folk type stuff when we get together, Johnny Cash type stuff.
posted by Merlin at 6:44 PM
2 comments


Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Merlin's Definition of "Narrative"

OK, I have decided that I think I can do this best and stick to the point better if I do it quickly so I am doing it as I take a break from packing to go to my parents for Thanksgiving.

This is the post I have talked about a lot, on my definition of "Narrative," how the Star Wars prequels were the catalyst for modifying it and how these concerns apply to criticisms of book 5 in the Harry Potter series, "Order of the Phoenix".

My Original Definition of "Narrative":

At first my definition of narrative was "a chronology of kairotic moments," and of course I am going to have explain these Greek terms.

Chronos:
Chronos is, in short, "clock time." It is the strictly linear and systematic/regulated succession of events in what is often referred to as "real time." It is mundane and tedious, including every single tick of the second-hand.

Kairos:
"Kairos" is "special time." It literally means, "the appointed time or season." It is used of the harvest festivals in and other religiously highly significant days and feasts in Judaism, and this meaning can perhaps best be seen in Galatians 4:10, "You observe, days and months and times."

This concept is the same as that in the thought of the Hebrew word "MeODE" - "appointed season." In fact, in the Septuagint, the Greek Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, circa 300 BC, in the text of Genesis 1:14 this Hebrew word is translated by the Greek word "chairos" (In many English versions it is translated, "seasons," but the meaning is special religious "seasons.")

It really means a particularly special time that is "full" or pregnant with meaning. This is the sense in which the word is used in Ephesians 1:10, "A plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth."

And this is also what a symbol is, a physical object or a particular character etc. that is full of a meaning that comes from something larger than itself but comes through a connection by virtue of some quality it possesses intrinsically (cf Granger.)

A Chronology of Kairotic Moments

Thus, a "chronology of kairotic moments" is a chronology or a timeline of events (ie a "plot," which is the translation of Aristotle's use of the word "mythos"), but not a chronology based in the mundane details of "clock time," but rather based in a succession of moments and events that are pregnant with symbolic meaning.

The Star Wars Prequels

During a discussion of the prequels with my friend Dominic it occurred to me that the prequels which we had been lamenting as badly plotted, also fit my definition. Especially the visual icons as symbolic as well as more "static" elements fit my definition. The problem was that, while each was powerful in and of itself, Lucas had simply strung them together loosely and haphazardly. It could not be denied, however, that the films' plots were "chronologies of kairotic moments."

A New Definition

Thus I modified my definition of "narrative" to, "a kairotic chronology." The difference is that in this definition it is not simply the moments or elements which are constitutive parts of the chronology that are chairotic; but the very manner of the movement of the chronology, the way the plot flows, is itself chairotic.

The Order of the Phoenix:

The discussion of criticisms of book 5 actually help (at least for me) to get a better picture of this new definition.

Some (such as Julie) have criticized the book as being the weakest individual book of the series whereas I have found in it instances of powerful and very unique, and well timed developments of central themes and symbols crucial to the meaning of the whole story of the 7 book series. However, I could also not deny the ring of truth to Julie's statements of weakness in the book as an individual work.

I believe it to be the case that with each book in the series there are indeed 2 plots involved.

The first is the plot of the book as a self-contained narrative; and it is on this level that it seemed to me that Julie's criticisms were possibly very just. At the same time it was possible for the timing of the thematic/symbolic developments in the plot of the 7 book series as a whole (the second plot involved in each book) to be very good and well-timed.

Simply because the latter (the "series plot development") is good does not mean that the former (the "individual, self-contained-work plot") is not weak.
posted by Merlin at 9:07 PM
2 comments


Monday, November 21, 2005

Concerning "Nutters"

I had not really taken huge note of that term in HP until a particular email exchange, but have loved it ever since. I was describing, in an email to a girl I knew, a particular hairy situation in a group boarding situation I lived in and she, also having read all of the HP books to that date and knowing I had an avid interest in them, wrote back, "you have a real knack for rooming with nutters!"

I thought I would here insert a tidbit from Aurthurian studies concering the, shall we say, looney character of some of the examples I have used for "a good use of cunning," such as Jack Sparrow and The Maskl ( ... and I think the real Mad-eye Moody, about whom we do actually learn a good bit in Goblet of Fire via Crouch Jr's imitation of him, also definitely falls into this category of "cunning in a good way, but mad as a hatter")

This is of particular interest to me, given my chosen moniker, since it is about Merlin. In the earliest versions of the Arthurian tales Merlin began as a mad-man hermit up in the hills. I think there is something hidden in the fact that such a "nutter" ends up as the great wizard who fights on the good side.

One thing I loved in the movie Excalibur was that they kept Merlin a little bit of a crazy character while still being on the good side ... and also pretty cunning (although he does flub one of his plans prety badly early on).
posted by Merlin at 5:15 PM
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Sunday, November 20, 2005

Potter's Pains: Wands and Broomsticks versus Apparition and Portkeys

I have been mulling over the whole wandless magic thing. One thing that has struck me is the effect portkeys and apparitions have on Harry. Portkeys are described for him as a hard tug behind his navel, not particularly a fun thought. And in the very heavy chapter "Lightning Struck Tower" we hear apparition described as a feeling of "horrible compression."

These are both forms of wandless magic. Apparition is completely wandless and, while I imagine it does take a wand to make a portkey, it does not take a wand to use one. It hink these forms of magic, like potions, are allowable and can be used for good (maybe "neutral"), and that those such as Arthur and Molly Weasley, who are good, can use them without noticing the effects Harry notices because they are sort of the "hoi polloi" who are immersed in the mundane details of life - not meaning "mundane" in a negative sense - and sort of get used to the thing of the sensations so they might not even consciously recognize the feelings anymore. But Harry, so intimately tied to all the minute details of the battle between good and evil, is acutely sensitive to the very nature of any unique form of magic such as these. He acutely senses the "non-wand" nature."

When I first thought of this, I thought, "well, can it be contrasted with any magic that Harry does get a particularly good feeling from, an area of magic that he really likes a lot?" And I thought, "well, he really enjoys flying ... but that is a wandless magic too" And THEN I thought, "but wait a minute, it does necessarily involve a broomstick!"

So the symbolism sort of broadens here from "wand vs non-wand" to "magic based in a symbol vs magic untied to symbols." The broomstick is very much an emblem or symbol, an external object which the wizard must connect with in order to do the magic.
posted by Merlin at 6:16 PM
1 comments


More Goblet of Fire Movie

I just finally got a clear conception of this on the way home today.

Regarding the psychological horizontal level of the Alchemical symbolism in the books and Ron as the "biological soul" and Hermione as the "intellectual soul," with Harry in the middle as the golden soul uniting them, my friend Dom put me on this track with a side comment on the movie concerning Hermione's statement that Krum is "more of a physical being," and how fitting it is that she is paired with him ... and I thought, "of course! How could I have missed that?!" (smacking my head).

And then I notice something in the symbolism in the book, that the movie brings it out especially well. The symbolism of the horizontal level extends to the different characteristics of Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.

I am sure that there is something in the names (like the fact that beaux is "beatutiful" etc) but I do not know what it is. What I want to discuss is the way each school is portrayed. Durmstrang is physical, the biological nature. I thought they pulled this off wonderfully in the movie with the use of the harsh regimented rhythm of the beating of the staffs. The biological is about the rhythm of the natural life in the world (fertility cycles, planting and harvest cycles etc).

Beauxbatons is about an airy beauty, not meaning airy in the sense of necessarily air-headed ... although in HBP we do see in the person of Fleur that this charge is often made against beauty. I mean "airy" in the sense that mercury/thought - a.k.a. what is represented by Hermione as the intellectual soul - is un-tethered and free to fly.

And, as Dom noted, the symbolism carries through to the pairings. Hermione, who is destined to be with Ron as the intellectual soul is with the biological soul in the human person, winds up for this book being paired with another very "biological" soul, Victor Krum. And who does Ron take a fancy to but Fleur Delacour (that scene in the movie where he has asked her out is hilarious).

And who is in the middle? Why Hogwarts of course, wearing neither the regimented uniforms of Durmstrang nor the beautiful uniforms of Beauxbatons, but the shirt-tails that hang out and the sloppy ties without the top buttons buttoned, that match all to well the always uncombed hair of the true golden soul, Harry. The winning quality, the status of most important, being ascribed to Hogwarts as the golden soul of unity can be seen in that only the two champions from that school make it to the cup.

I like too how Rowling worked in a little confusion on Harry's part in the form of a crush on Cho, who is from Ravenclaw (wind).

Speculation

Now here is some pure speculation, and it is not in very polished form either, but I thought I would throw it out there - maybe Pauli can pick it up and run with it the way I ran with his side comment that potions is a wandless magic. Is there a significance to the fact that it is Huffle puff and Gryffindor who represent Hogwarts? Earth and Fire?

There is a unique significance in Genesis to the fact that "Adam" comes from the "Adamah" ... Humanity comes from the ground, and combined with this there is some mysterious significance to the fact that Cain and Noah are both "tillers of the ground." Fire on the other hand is usually connected with the divinity of Yahweh, such as when Yahweh speaks to Moses from within the burning bush or when Yahweh leads Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

For Rowling (who has herself made special note of the 4 elements symbolism), I cannot imagine that there is not some significance to the fact that earth and fire champion Hogwarts, but I do not yet know what that is.

Disclaimer:
If any of this is already in Granger's work and I have lifted it from there without realizing it I apologize ... I did not thoroughly read the portions of his book that were focused specifically on the individual books. There were chapters at the end devoted to each book, but most of what I read came from the main chapters where he did use specific examples but did not go through each book one at a time yet.
posted by Merlin at 5:33 PM
5 comments


Saturday, November 19, 2005

Reverse Alchemy

I feel again like the skeletal Sparrow atop the treasure pile in Pirates of the Caribbean: "I just couldn't resist mate." By the way, saw the poster at the theater - July 7th release date for Dead Man's Chest.

I just couldn't resist posting this since it connects with literary theory I am developing in regards to HP.

Dom and I were on the way to see HP 4 again and we were talking about the Star Wars prequels. We were noting that while there were some really rich thematic elements and some very powerful iconic images in the visual department, they were not well done movies in actual plotting and dialogue. And Dom noted that what hurt the worst, he being a HUGE fan of the original movies from a young age, was that you could tell that there was a good narrative there to be told, and I replied, "Yeah, it's like you want to say: George what are you doing? You had pure gold in your hands ..." and Dom automatically added, "yeah, and you turned it into lead ... reverse alchemy."

I should note that the Star Wars prequels are the distinct catalyst for my change in my definition of narrative, which I'll get into when I post on criticisms of book 5.
posted by Merlin at 10:42 PM
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A Couple other Notes About the Goblet of Fire Movie

Dominic and I just got back from a second viewing of the movie, just to soak it in an solidify more of the points/issues in my mind, so thought I would toss them up here quickly:

1. Another place where some of the details in the books are combined or amalgamated into one character (like I noted Ludo Bagman being lumped in Fudge as announcer at the world Quidditch cup) is that when Karakarof is before the Wizengamot Bella Lestrange's torture of Frank Longbottom and his wife is assigned either to Berty Jr or another character he names.

2. I think things are at the point where Steve Kloves and Mike Newell can assume that anybody seeing the movie knows at least one person who has read the books and can fill in details for them, and so they can operate on a sort of short-hand and emphasize the most important points. Everybody knows somebody who can fill them in on what Dumbledore is talking about when he mentions Priori Incantatem towards the end of the movie and the film makers are free to focus on the point that magic is not going to bring Harry's parents back from the dead, just like ghost-hood will not bring Sirius back into Harry's realm of contact in book 5.

3. I liked the fact that at the end, when Dumbledore gives a sort of eulogy for Cedric Digory, you can see that the ceiling is not enchanted, you can see the bare timbers ... there are some things like death you must face head on.

4. I liked how they added in (I checked the book and did not find it) an echo that goes all the way back to the beginning of the story, with the first chapter of Sorcerer's Stone when Voldy calls Harry "the boy who lived." It is especially pointed here considering that immortality is what Voldy craves and that life and death are a huge theme in the books, and neat to see in a movie that hangs together so much as an internally consistent piece something that is a tip of the hat to the way Rowling has weaved elements and prefigurings together over the span of multiple books.

5. I realized when again seeing the Durmstrang ship delve into the lake and the chariot fly through the air leaving, that there had to be 4 champions and they had to be from where they were from because of the 4 elements symbolism. Durmstrang (like Slytherin, their closest counter-part at yogurt's) comes from the water, Madame Maxime's crew flies in on the wind, like Ravenclaw, Cedric is from Hufflepuff (earth) and Harry is of course Gryffindor's fire.

I'm sure Granger has mentioned this in his books and I simply forgot it.

5. I liked the melding of the image of Voldy as taken from the book with that of Gibson's satan in The Passion of the Christ (I'm not sure if it was an intentional similarity or just flowed from the natural rendering of the books description onto film but the resemblance is stroking)

PS - I also went to see a matinee of "Walk The Line" today - very different type of movie/story but an excellently done film. Very emotionally draining though.
posted by Merlin at 10:10 PM
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Worth the Price of Admission - and then some

Merlin's Movie Review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

It is hard to know how to approach this movie except to say that I really liked it and will probably have a second viewing, maybe even this weekend.

First, let me say that you should not go to the movie expecting anything like any of the other movies. Despite my defense of some of the carry-through of the symbolism in the last movie, Prisoner of Azkaban, it did not stand up on its own two feet anywhere near as well as this movie. Movie 3 was really caught in a cross-ground between trying to flow out of the first two movies and trying to move into the territory of being a unique move.

A lot of subplots are removed in this movie and it is really the main plot "adapted." The house elf is not present, you get NONE of the back-story of Barty Crouch Sr's involvement in Jr's escape from Azkaban, nor of Rita's animagus form, none of the sideline events at the world quidditch cup, the Ludo Bagman character is melded into Fudge, but simply in the announcing of the match beginning and you have nothing of the quidditch details of Krum getting the Seeker, or the Weasley twin betting with Bagman ... apparently the director of movie 3 was the one who convinced Mike Newell to turn down the studio's offer to make the movie in 2 installments to be released several months apart, and, having seen the film, I think it was the right choice.

What I mean by "adaptation" is kind of what I thought about the Lord of the Rings movies, that they have the main characters, the main plot and the main thematic development as the book but are really their won distinct narrative interpretation of that basic story. This is what the third movie does not accomplish.

One place you really notice it is the Music ... John Williams was not the primary composer although he is in the credits for "themes". This is a very much more "adult" film - by that I simply mean that in the cinematography and scoring, staging and everything else ... this is aimed at an older age group as a thriller/adventure/action/drama/meaning movie.

The music of Tom Waits provides a useful comparison here. There are some of Waits' albums, on in particular, Bone Machine, which I think is a GREAT album, but in which he gets his furthest away from what I would call "traditional music" and more into what I would call well-done "sonic art." This movie is like that in that, while keeping the core of main characters, major instantiations of central themes and main-plot, it develops those elements much more thoroughly in the manner more particular to modern movies, such as variety of adaptations in the score, seriously, the VERY first opening music reminded me of the Matrix and then it was the John Williams Harry Potter theme but with very obvious adaptation and interpretation. The visuals that are not just stunning - as in GREAT special effects ... and it is definitely that - but also unique and distinctive.

In other words the musical and visual changes in style are as much a part of the interpretation the movie gives to the story as anything else.

A final point about the movie is that the writing of Dumbledore in a "post movies 1 & 2" film has come more into its own and Michael Gambon's acting of it seemed much more natural than as a sort of stand in for Richard Harris. It is really a new (and I think valid) interpretation of the character. In short I found the character as a whole much easier to connect with as an internally consistent whole on its own grounds than in the last movie.

I still think the Harris version gets closer to the particular unique flavor of the books but I think this movie's Gambon-Dumbledore hangs together a lot more as an internally consistent and unique interpretation and keeps the viewer in touch with him throughout the film than that in "Prisoner of Azkaban".

I think I will always love the first two movies for what they are and like this one for what it is as it stands on its own grounds as a film adaptation and interpretation of the core story in the book.

A final thing to note is the diversity of this director's (Mike Newell) career: from Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994, to Donnie Brasco in 1997, to Mona Lisa Smile in 2003.

Other Links:
posted by Merlin at 1:42 AM
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Friday, November 18, 2005

Let's Not Forget Sparrow

This is not the more structured and serial posts on Pirates of the Caribbean I mentioned before, this is just an afterthought to the post on the Weasley twins and The Mask.

Jack Sparrow, especially as a sea-farer, is very much an Odysseus character (from Homer's The Odyssey), the ultimate tactician and definitely having a gift for the "cunning" in a good way.

One of the best scenes for this was actually deleted: When he and Elizabeth are marooned on the island she confronts him with, "I can't believe you were going to tell him (Barbosa) about Will in exchange for a ship!" and he replies, "In fact, if you must know, I was going NOT to tell him about Will ... in exchange for a ship, Because as long as he didn't know about Will I still had something to bargain with, which now none of us has ... thanks to bloody Will!"

The idea of the ellipses there is to try to convey the sense of it as spoken, which is NOT "I wasn't going to do ANY of that" but rather that "I WAS indeed going to try to bargain for the ship, but what I was going to try to bargain with wasn't telling him, but rather holding out on telling him
... and of course the part he wouldn't know was that I intended to hold out forever and never tell him. But I would have the ship by then.")
NOTE:
There is also, in the deleted scenes, an uproariously hilarious improvisation scene between Jack and the cursed Pirates when they find him in the cave and he says "parlez" and the "hello poppet" pirate says "damned to the depths whatever mutton-head came up with parlez!"- Depp has a brilliant improv on the French (including a line he stole from Mary Stuart Masterson's dialogue in Benny and June, in which Depp and Masterson co-starred, about raisins being humiliated grapes). That scene alone is worth buying the DVD.
posted by Merlin at 8:47 PM
0 comments


Loki and HP

In discussing the "George and Fred as Cunning" material with my friend Dominic we were making the comment I noted that the specific instance Steve had mentioned was the phrase "mischief managed," and that I had noted, yes! and it is precisely mischief, not evil."

To this Dominic added the very brilliant observation that this is pretty much what you have in the movie The Mask, with Jim Carey.

The particular "mischief" behind the mask in that movie is the Norse god "Loki," who is pretty much a trouble maker and a master of mischief (kind of more like a Gremlin).

What I always liked about that movie is the irony of the "Why do nice guys always finish last?" letter he wrote to "dear Peggy" in the newspaper. It is precisely the girl who tells him that it was a great letter and that there are a ton of girls like her who really want a nice guy that screws him over. "Niceness" is when "goodness" becomes defined solely by politeness. To be sure politeness and courtesy are good things, but sometimes they aren't feasible if you're to do the right thing. Sometimes it is better to be truly good at the cost of not being "nice."

In the end it is not Stanley Ipkiss the nice guy who can overcome Dorian Tyrell. Dorian is a very dangerous evil all the more because he is a very mediocre evil, and thus very subtle evil. When his kind gets the empowerment of the mask (which, in this world, will happen sooner or later) he is a a huge problem, all the more because of his "underdog" grudge born out of luke-warmness. Stanley Ipkiss the nice guy does not stand a chance of being able to stop him even when he is the "regular" Dorian ... he needs a little "cunning" on his side in order to manage that particular mischief.
posted by Merlin at 8:27 PM
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The Weasley Twins: A Good Sort of Cunning (also from Steve)

So, during the dinner convo I had been telling my brother Steve some of the stuff we had been discussing on the blog, particularly the whole thing about "cunning" and Slytherin as water and the fact that cunning is a thing that by nature is good, in fact very good but, "the higher the leap, the harder the ground." And then I entered this sort of rave about how excellent Rowling's characters are, and I was talking about how Fred and George Weasley may be my favorite characters on a personal level, how I absolutely loved (to the point of goosebumps) their exit from the Umbridge-run Hogwarts in book 5 and how they made their last great stand an all out assault of pranks to give Harry a diversion to use the flue network in Umbridge's office and their "marching orders" to Peeves upon their exit ("give 'em hell for us Peeves!"), and how I loved the way those guys played them in the movie, especially the wistful look on the one's face when Harry reads the names of the map producers and the twin says, "we owe them so much."

And, again very un-pretensiously, Steve said "yeah, well, if you think about it, they're kind of 'cunning' in a way," and, again, I paused and said, "that's going up on the blog too."

It is a prime example of what I was saying about "cunning." Here is an example of it being used well - developed and honed simply in the process of "making fun," but when the call is heard to use it for a greater end, the fact that they developed their "cunning" in a good way becomes obvious in how readily they offer its service to the greater good.
posted by Merlin at 7:27 PM
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The Golden Snitch: Losing Your Life but Gaining Your Soul (from Steve)

So, I was at dinner with my brother Steve and I had been describing some of the Alchemy stuff and how Rowling is so masterful in the way she works it all the way down through the story, even to things like Quidditch, and had just noted some of the stuff from John Granger's findings about drawings/etchings of a golden orb with wings (basically the snitch) in/on a number of alchemical texts.

And then my brother just sort of un-pretensiously said, "well, yeah and it's obviously the most important thing in the game because you can't END the game without catching it, even if you LOSE the game by points when you do."

And I just sort of paused and said, "that's going up on the blog site ... you'll get the credit but it's too good of an observation not to post it."

And it is an amazing observation: you may lose the game but the event is not over till you catch the snitch. You may die, but the important thing is to gain your true soul, to become the golden soul - "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his very soul?"
posted by Merlin at 7:16 PM
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Upcoming Attractions

Well, I just got home from work, having stopped on the way to buy tickets for a 10 pm showing of Goblet of Fire tonight (wanted to make sure to get them before we had trouble getting them ... my good friend and housemate Dominic gave me money last night for both tickets - he is treating in celebration of being done with the GRE) and I have not even gotten my shower yet (I work construction so that means showering after work rather than before) because I am so excited about the posts I have coming up and wanted to get a preview out ASAP.

I had two REALLY good conversations last night after being done with the GRE. The first was with my brother Steve over dinner after the test (he lives in Cranberry north of Pittsburgh so I stayed Wed night at his place, being as the testing center was in North Pittsburgh), during which he made two great observations as I was going through some of the stuff on Alchemical symbolism and also the bit Pauli and I have been discussing on here about "cunning." So those will be coming up (I might get them posted tonight before I go see HP 4 ... but I'm going to get a shower first I think).

Then when I got back to Weirton I was rehashing the Steve dinner convo with Dominic and he made a really good observation of comparison with the movie The Mask (which I know is one of Lissa's favorites).

So there are quite a few really good posts coming up: the stuff from my brother Steve, Dom's comparison with the Mask, and, of course, I still have to write the magnum opus on why it is not contradictory to say that there is some really good stuff in book 5 of HP and also that somebody like Nathan's wife Julie is still probably just in her criticisms of book 5 as a self contained narrative and how this whole thing fits into my literary theory and definition of narrative ... hey, and I even have a few of my own completely original thoughts to write on LOL.

Another Magnum Opus

After the brief convo on Potter and The Mask Dominic and I got into another really intense conversation about one of our favorite movies, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (we one time watched it like 5 times within about 5 or 6 days or something crazy like that, one of the times beginning at 5 in the morning after both having been up all night finishing papers or something like that). Now, at the end of this present post will be a brief section comparing Harry Potter and Pirates in a specific aspect, just to sort of give an example of how the discussion of Pirates is congruous with the main point of this blog on Harry Potter, since it is primarily about HP but also about the Inklings and other similar literature and, in the present context of the technology of our culture, film.

But for the present I will just give a brief summary of the way this thing on Pirates of the Caribbean will work (by the way, I thought it was so cool that my nephew Gilbert was dead set on going trick-or-treating as a pirate again this year and this year his younger brother Joe, 1.5 years old, wore his pirate costume from last year).

The amount of stuff Dominic and I discussed last night simply will not fit on this blog (the conversation was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours). There is enough in what we discussed to make the three part progression we discussed into at least three journal length essays, if not three chapters/sections in one complete book.

Thus, on this blog, I will put up only 3 very brief outlines or sketches. Pauli and I have discussed in passing before adding a section to this site with downloadable essays, so if that materializes the essay form would be there (we have also discussed a "library" section with a list and links to our most highly recommended literature and movies).

In Brief, as a teaser: The first post/essay will be a general/introductory one (or "Why Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp Rock"; The second will be an examination of how the movie represents the mythopoeic in general (I already have the essay of this one written under the title "A Compass That Doesn't Point North: Myth, True Treasure and Romantic Love in Pirates of the Caribbean" ... I had thought I had lost the first draft for good in a hard drive crash but I had sent a copy in email to Nathan for him to read and he was very helpful in sending it back ... I now save all such things out onto a jump drive); and the third will be on how this general mythopoeic minutest can be seen to be taken up (or assumed) into a Christological fulfillment through a heavy concentration of Christological symbolism that can be found in the film.

A Teaser/Comparison/Justification: Pirates and HP on the Tripartite model of the Soul:

I should note before I write this last brief part that what I am discussing is a 3-part breakdown of the soul, NOT the bipartite-tripartite controversy concerning the human person (the bipartite sees only two distinct "parts" to the person, body and a spirit that functions/exists as a soul in the person, whereas the tripartite theory sees the soul as a distinct, separate third substance. I personally side with the bipartite but the language needs to be heavily qualified here. It must be remembered that Apollinaraius' teaching that Christ had no "human soul" and that the Logos simply took the place of a human soul, was condemned at the council of Constantinople in 381 AD)

But what I am talking about here is a 3-part system of the soul. I have briefly mentioned this before in regards to the "horizontal level" of the alchemical structure as Rowling uses it: that, expressing it in maybe more medieval terms for the same reality, I see Ron as the "biological soul," Hermione as the "Rational/Intellectual Soul," and Harry as the "Golden Soul" functioning as the bridge and unity between the former two.

In discussing Pirates of the Caribbean last night with Dom, he brought up that Pirates also has a sort of presence of a medieval/classical tripartite soul model. The "appetitive soul" (the appetites) is represented by Jack Sparrow (in a more right ordering of the appetites) and Barbosa (in a more inordinate and evil ordering of the appetites). The "Rational Soul" (or the reason which discerns and judges on matters) is represented by Commodore Norrington (as representative of the law ... some disagree with me and I admit it is speculation, but I believe he also has his "worse" counterpart in the "nominalist mentality" of Governor Swan, just like Sparrow and Barbosa). Between these two elements is the central tenet of the soul ... the will - represented of course by ... Will (Will Turner, the turning point or focul point of the action.)

So, in HP and Pirates of the Caribbean we see two instances of virtually the same classical tripartite model of the soul, but each with their own distinct emphasis that flesh out the picture in their own unique way.
posted by Merlin at 4:07 PM
3 comments


Thursday, November 17, 2005

Glad to Be Done

Math: 650
Verbal: 730

Now time to go see The Goblet of Fire tomorrow night and Walk the Line sometime this weekend (maybe a saturday matine)
posted by Merlin at 12:30 PM
1 comments


Denuo Ad Perfractum

That's my personal translation of "Once more unto the breach!" from Henry V's St Crispan Day speech in Shakespeare.

I always loved the combination of that line with "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" (from Julius Ceasar?) in the 6th Start Trek Movie (Christopher Plummer made such a great Klingon).

So on the day of the final for an intensive course in Latin (12 credits in 10 weeks) I had figured out a translation the night before, came in early to study, and wrote on the board (in Latin, but I can't remember all of it right now.)

"Once more unto the breach! Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of Latin!"

In Short: Merlin takes the Graduate Record Exam today.
Wish me luck!
posted by Merlin at 5:00 AM
1 comments


Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Last Word

I am taking a break from studying for the GRE (being as I have the test of Thursday morning and I am off work for the day due to rain and thunderstorms) and I was thinking about this so I thought I would post it quickly.

I was thinking about this tidbit Rowling has thrown out that the last word of the last book will be the word "scar." I think for one she has thrown it out there so that nobody misses it or misses the significance of it since it is the one tidbit we will have had this far in advance. I also think it is a little teaser clue to those such as Pauli and myself and John Granger that the scar will indeed somehow be crucial to the plot (such as in Pauli's theory that it somehow absorbs the horcruxes).

But I also think it is highly symbolic for Rowling. A scar is the lasting effect of a wound. To be healed is not to be made as if you were never sick or wounded. Of course, in the natural realm sicknesses take their toll and usually wind up having shortened our lifespan some, but in the psychic/spiritual realm there is the old adage, "that which does not kill us only makes us stronger." There has been some purification and the scar is the mark it has left.

In the Christian Tradition, on which Rowling draws heavily, it is believed that the marks of the nails in the hands and feet of Christ and the spear in His side still remain, even in heaven. In fact, "Stigmatists" are those who have been given the Stigmata, continually bleeding wounds that correspond to the 5 wounds of Christ (the number 5 is especially significant in the Christian Literary Tradition, and this numerological significance is the source of the 5 pointed star on Sir Gawain's shield, which is described in detail in the uniquely anonomous Arthurian tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). Moreover, the scars of Christ are seen as a witness to His truth to those who are having trouble believing, such as the Apostle Thomas in the upper room who says he will not believe the Resurrection unless he can put his hands on the wounds.

With regards to Alchemy, the scar is like the unique identifier of the "Golden Soul" as human. It says, "This is not a gold that has always been pure gold (like an angel). It truly is pure gold but it had to become such, and that meant a sacrifice."
posted by Merlin at 12:49 PM
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Sunday, November 13, 2005

Essay: "Saints and Serpents" by Jonathan King

Here's a great essay written a few years back pointing out the possible name-sources for Godric and Salazar, the first names of the founders of Gryffindor and Slytherin, respectively. It's really well-sourced and was convincing to me in regards to the name Godric. Here are some write-ups I discovered on St. Godric of Finchale.
  1. Saints Alive
  2. Catholic Forum
  3. Sources of British History
posted by Pauli at 8:55 PM
1 comments


Lumos 2006

Check out the big HP convention in Vegas - John Granger is going to be there! Boy, if there were real wizards they'd probably wreak havoc with the slots. Of course, it's all Muggle money - no Galleons....
posted by Pauli at 8:42 PM
1 comments


A Great Homily

I just returned from the 11 am Tridentine High Mass at St Boniface Church/Indult Latin Mass Community on the North Side of Pittsburgh. The priest who celebrates the High Mass at 11 is Father Kenneth Myers, who performed Pauli and Lissa's wedding and baptized their first son. He is an avid Harry Potter fan - a number of weeks ago when I saw him after Mass he told me he had gotten Pauli's email about this blog on Harry Potter and asked, "are you for him or agin him?" and when I said, "Oh, definitely for him," he replied "So am I!"

He did not, in his homily today, mention Harry Potter and I would think it a bit inappropriate if he did use Potter in a homily; but his homily fit greatly with distinct themes that Rowling has developed heavily as central to her work ... the theme of our approach to and dealing with death.

Saints and Soldiers

Father. Ken read a paragraph from G. K. Chesteron's Orthodoxy on death. He began by noting how appropriate it is that Rememberence Day just celebrated on Friday falls in the month of November, the month dedicated by the Church to the remembrance of and prayer for the souls in Purgatory .In Catholic Theology a person is not going to Purgatory if they are not going to Heaven, Purgatory is the "wash room" of Heaven ... no use getting cleaned up for Hell. Thus all souls in purgatory are known to be "Saints". This led to the comparison of courageous soldiers and those who have undergone death bravely.

The passage used from Chesterton was on the paradox of courage - a most important Rowlingian theme - when asked she has said that she herself would be in Gryffindor because she prizes courage above all else.

The soldier who is going to fight his way out of the thick or mortal peril must paradoxically crave life in such a way that this is manifest in a certain "recklessness" about death. He must (and I loved this quote, it is so rich) "thirst for life like water and drink death like wine."

Black Death

This is precisely the point Rowling makes in Sirius' death in book 5, and the conversation Harry has with Nearly Headless Nick when he is hoping to see Sirius as a ghost. Dying in the heat of battle fighting valiantly for what he believes in, but also like the gritty and dark SOB he is (sorry for the pun on his animagus form) ... Sirius died a "happy death" and therefore does not have to hang around as a ghost.

In a recent conversation over Halloween weekend Pauli was comparing Nearly Headless Nick's character and Snape's first name, noting that death is a sort of severing and that the reason Nick is a ghost is symbolized precisely in that his head is neither whole with his body, as in life, nor completely severed, as in death.

William Wallace's last prayer (from Braveheart):

"I'm so scared ... please help me to die well."

A Carpenter's/Roofer's Prayer (I have just been listening to Gillian Welch's Time (the Revelator) as I write this, and this line was just sung as I got to this point, so I thought it too fortuitous not to be mentioned, my being working roofing presently and all):

"Lord, Let me die with a hammer in my hand."

PostScript on "Coinage"

If I can, um, I would here like to coin the term "Rowlingian," (as in "Rowlingian theme" above) if it has not already been coined in the 6-7 year steady deluge of global conversations and writing on Rowling (and even if it has been, I will now begin using it heavily on here and claim I coined it and the burden of proof will be on others LOL ... just kidding).

(Geek Stuff:)
The accent should be put on the "ling" syllable as a closed syllable (a closed syllable being one that begins and ends with a consonant, whereas an open syllable begins with a consonant but has only the vowel following it). This transforms the original opening closed syllable "Rowl" into the open syllable "Row" and the "l" now begins the closed syllable that is accented (actually it is a bit vague the way the name is originally pronounced ... in this new term it is simply much more absolute that "ling" is a closed syllable) ... this sort syllabic conversion happens a lot in Hebrew, where it is much more noticeable because of visible accent marks shifting - it happens in English to but we just don't notice it often - sorry, I'm bit of a language geek sometimes.
posted by Merlin at 1:59 PM
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Saturday, November 12, 2005

Approaches to Death

In a previous post ("Family Tradition") I noted the differences between Voldemort and Dumbledore in how they play their "chess game" and that Dumbledore's distinctive is that his approach involves family tradition and passing his wisdom etc on to an heir, Harry.

I'd like to develop that theme further in light of some of the things I have been putting out recently concerning the serpent in the garden of Eden and the first sin.

Background

I wrote a paper for an undergraduate Old Testament Survey course on "Why did Adam sin" and the nature of the first sin. Pauli read that paper at one point. In it I sided with an interpretation that saw a sexual nature in the concrete form of the first sin.

I have since changed my view on that matter (based primarily on narratological grounds, that within the flow of the narrative of Genesis 2 the prohibition of the second tree, which is the specific command broken and thus a defining factor of the sin, appears before even the statement of a need for a suitable soul-mate for Adam, let alone the actual creation of the woman. I mention all of that partly for information for an readers who are concerned with the study of Genesis, just to provide some thought on why I have changed.)

BUT I still think that what I will call the "fertility cult mentality" is a huge theme in Genesis, as most of the surrounding pagan religions were nature religions/fertility cults (the way in which the issue of sexuality relates to the issue of what the first sin was, can be seen in the fact that before the sin the couple was "naked and not ashamed" and after they were "naked and ashamed" and the fact that in other places in the Pentateuch sexual intercourse is referred to as "uncovering the nakedness" of so-and-so ... actually it is mostly used of sexual perversion, in particular incest. As I said the sin and temptation to it get to the very heart of what is behind the creation of sexuality)

My point in bringing that up is to bring up the issue of the fertility cult mentality so that I can compare and contrast Voldemort's and Dumbledore's approaches to death with it (as I will describe in a moment, I believe the fertility cult mentality to be based in a fear of death) and maybe shed a little more light on how the approach to death relates to what I said about how each plays his "chess game."

Fertility Cult

I believe the fertility cult mentality to be based in a fear of death. The reality of death is observed and then feared. It is known to be inevitable and thus trying to "avoid" it does not really make sense. But seeing that inevitability leads to a sense of futility in the living of one's distinctive life. If what one makes of oneself eventually just ceases, what is the point in making anything of oneself?

The "answer" is procreation. This is not what we moderns will usually think of as "sexual sin," which is based in lust for the pleasure of sex (enjoyment of that pleasure as part and parcel of the pleasure of holistic/personal unity with a spouse is a good thing, a very good thing - lust is something different). Of Course, this sexual sins is extremely conducive to the sexual sin of lust, but what defines it is the idea of "if I have a child I will pass on who I am, I will live forever in my descendants." The pagan "orgy" (a word which interestingly comes from the Greek word for "anger" or "madness") was a ritual celebration of the passions (hence the frenzy) as participation in the creativity of the gods and fertility as the gods gift in answer to death.

Voldemort

Voldy's answer to death is pretty straight forward, "I will avoid my own personal death at all costs - no matter how many other's deaths I have to cause and no matter how debased the form of life I have to accept to do it. I will change the definition of life to fit the statement that the form I have is the best." I think this is why killing is so important to him; rampant murder sort of heightens the general impression that the best kind of life is to still have it (still be drawing breath in your physical body).

Dumbledore

Dumbledore is the one that I really want to contrast to the fertility cult mentality so as to clarify what I mean about his view of "procreation," or passing something on to his "descendant."

Dumbledore accepts death, but it might also be said that the pagan accepts his own personal death, but he lives on in other ways in his spawn. Dumbledore however is not concerned with his own personal "legacy," with his name being remembered as great and in being an honored ancestor and all that. For him it is a good that Harry exists simply because Harry is a unique individual person. It is also good for Harry that he participate to the best of his ability (which is obviously a very great ability in him) in the fighting of evil (good for his own sake and the sake of others, not simply "good that the heir of Dumbledore gets renowned."... The builders of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 said, "Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.").

In other words, to Dumbledore, passing on to his heir is important not because in it he gains immortality through fame or some sort of veneration of ancestors (not that venerating our predecessors is bad, but in pagan cultures it usually took the form of some sort of religious worship). It is important because what he has to pass on is objectively good in and of itself (it doesn't need him to be good, although he can be a very effective agent in implementing it in the world), and because the heir and those the heir serves are intrinsically of worth beyond measuring simply because they are people. He loves them with true love so why would he not be concerned with these things being passed on to them?
posted by Merlin at 8:04 AM
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Friday, November 11, 2005

What Is In a Name?

I just thought of this in connection with what I said about the serpent in the post on "Cunning." It is in a different connection, more from the "academic" side of my own studies on the passages in Genesis, which I will not go into in any depth here. Briefly it is that I have changed my view on the first sin from thinking that there was a particular concrete nature to the sin in the mind of the Hebrew author to think that there may have been a "void" there for that author. It is like when Virgil covers Dante's eyes from seeing the gargoyle on the gates of Dis ... there are some evils upon which one should not even look. That is not to say that there was not an idea in the Hebrew author's mind of a distinct event of a singular first sin ... i.e., I am not saying the author was just "symbolizing the general problem of evil in the world," but I think the author was probably justly concerned about not having a concrete idea of the details of the sin in his mind, justly for the pre-Incarnational Hebrew setting although the Incarnation has radically changed things ... and thus Christian interpretation also considers the Christian taking up of the original Hebrew Scriptures.

Anyway, on to the post:

I recently watched the movie "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" with mine and Pauli's friend Nathan. After the movie Nate asked me a specific question about the movie, and that question was why the priest was so insistent in asking the demon its name. For Exorcisms the name is very important; identification and direct address is very important.

Keeping this in mind, think about "he who must not be named." Dumbledore and Harry are the only ones who will name him - unless Snape does, which to me would be a strong indicator of his being on the good side.

In order to fight Voldemort one must be willing to call him by his name, like the exorcist. Tom Riddle, Jr. was the boy, Voldemort is the man that boy has become. In a sense he is the rejection of natural naming. A name is a gift from a parent to their child, a gift tied to their personhood.

In the Old Testament the name of God is a symbol of unique presence of God - in later Jewish books, such as a Siddur, which contain the Torah, or the first five books of the OT, the "tetragrammaton" name of God, YaHWeH, has been replaced with "HaShem," which means "the name."

Voldemort has rejected his natural name and has thus made himself a symbol of rejecting the natural, and in order to fight him one must name this central part of him by calling him by the name he chose in doing this ... Lord Voldemort.

NOTE: If any perceive a discrepancy between my statements about the Hebrew author of Genesis not wanting a concrete idea in mind of the first sin, which might be seen as a "naming" of the sin, and what I have said about Lord Voldemort, keep two things in mind:

1. I noted that the approach to some things change radically with the Advent of the Incarnation.

2. Voldemort is not an "event" or a concrete detail of a particular type of event such as sin ... Voldemort is a human person.
posted by Merlin at 8:29 PM
3 comments


Cunning

A lot has been said recently by Pauli and myself about Potions as wandless magic and what this means about potions and I have noted that both potions masters we have met have been from house Slytherin. Rowling has been asked (or has at least addressed the hypothetical question) "why is there a Slytherin house at Hogwart's" and she has answered that it "sort of" represents what I will call "grey areas" in life. Sometimes they are foibles in otherwise noble people, sometimes they are particular traits in a person that are intrinsically "neutral" (or rather, less directly/ostensibly tied to vice and virtue) and could be used for great good but often get used for petty evil and, worse, sometimes get used for very great evils.

The same question could be asked of Dumbledore concerning potions: why have it taught at Hogwart's? (I noted in one of my comments the example of Love Potions being "contra-natural" in that they bring about a "love" that involves neither knowledge nor a choice to love, neither intellect nor will, the two defining aspects of spirit).

I do not know if what I have to say will "answer" those questions, but I thought that going into the tradition of the serpent might possibly illuminate the question a little (and if it does throw some light on the matter for you, I assure you it is the muse that has enlightened you and not myself).

Cunning Nakedness

One of the first mentions of a serpent ever is that of the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 (I am making absolutely no claims here about dating and authorship etc - merely that this is "seminal" literature, as ancient as ancient gets and very influential on the thought of the Judeo-Christian tradition).

There is a word-play between the last verse of Genesis 2 and the first verse of Genesis 3. The couple was "naked" and not ashamed and the serpent was the most "cunning " of all those in the garden. In the Hebrew forms of these words in the text there is a strong similarity, almost a pun. This shows a special significance to the two words.

The thought is that the serpent's cunning represents something in nature, something like those "grey areas" I spoke of. In Christian Tradition it has always been that the serpent was the devil, and I believe this to be true. But it the text it is sort of like the "serpent" as "cunning" represents the something in nature that the devil used to get to the couple, to tempt them.

As far as sexuality goes ("nakedness") I do no think that the "something" the serpent represents is necessarily sexuality itself but rather that the temptation of this "cunning" goes straight to the heart of the deepest meaning of sexuality, the core of what sexuality "symbolizes " or rather almost "incarnates" (with a lower case "i"). The woman as soul-mate for man was the "crown jewel" of creation in Genesis 2 (I cannot think of the name of the scholar who coined that phrase, but I assure you I am not well-studied enough yet to even try to claim it as my own) and the end the first chapter of Genesis we hear that "god said let us create man in our own image, and so he created them male and female." This second consideration from Genesis 1 is precisely what the "cunning" serpent spins the wrong way when he tells the couple, "in the day you eat of it you will be like gods."

Rowling

I believe that Slytherin as representative of water and potions as a class are the same type of elements, following the model of things that we have seen employed in archetypal evil but which could also be put to the use of archetypal good.

I personally think Snape will be the instance of that element being used for the greatest good. This fits with Rowling's and others' statements that the action is about the reconciliation of the four elements (I'm sure granger has said it more than once) - Harry will need to be reconciled to Snape in order to overcome Voldemort, they will need to be unified.

As I said in a previous post, I think Snape is holding a key given him by Dumbledore on the tower via a more holistic legilemency (more holistic meaning more than "what Dumbledore told Snape", keep in mind legilemency is reading someone's mind, not just what they "say" mentally), so it works mechanically ... but moreover it works symbolically. Harry needs reconciliation with Snape both materially (to conquer Voldemort) and even more so for the sake of his own soul (the golden soul) and for the good of the school.

ASIDE: What I said above about sexuality - I think this is why the relationship between Harry and Ginny, which Rowling has craftily developed over 4 books, is such a good image and motif to have in the books.
posted by Merlin at 6:58 PM
2 comments






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