Giants and Gin Part 2: Hagrid the Red

I have recently been re-reading The Magician's Nephew and I have already posted on some of the things I noticed in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe concerning the origin of Jadis (Giants and Gin part 1). Here I mainly wanted to note Jadis' stature as noted in TMN and some other connections with the concept of Giants that I think relates to Hagrid as half-giant and the role he may play in the 7th book (I have also noted before the issue of Hagrid's heart and, in that context pointed to Travis' blog entry on the final stage, the "red stage," of Alchemy). In the Judeo-Christian Tradition "giants" have played a specific role: -Genesis 6:1-4 tells of the origin of "giants" (literally "nephilim" or "fallen ones" - from a general myth that the giants fell to earth, combined with theire "fallen" state as very evil - also "gibborim" or "mighty warriors" and "men of the name/reknown" or, in other words "men with a giant name/reputation") as believed to be descended from marriages of lesser gods with human women, and this serves as a prelude to the desciption of race-wide rampant wickedness and particularly violence. -In The book of Numbers 10 of the 12 spies sent to "case" the land of Canaan were scared by these same "giants." -Goliath, the Philistine slain by the boy David, was one such Giant. -This element of "stature" has usually been represented in literature by an unusual physical stature such as that of Jadis in TMN. However, the "evil" or violent nature of Giants has also been symblized by an element of having six fingers on one or both hands. When I showed Pauli a paper concerning the fact that the "sixth day" and the number six in Genesis represents the kingly aspect of humanity (distinct from man's preistly aspect) and that in Revelations the number 6 comes to represent the kingly aspect divorced from the priestly, and thus evil ("beware the number of the beast, for it is a human number, it's number is 666"), Paulie noted to me that Goliath had 6 fingers. Aside: This element of six fingers has also been used in such movies as "The Princess Bride" and "Gattaca." In the former the evil Count Rugen (wonderfully played by Christopher Guest, of "Spinal Tap", "Waiting For Guffman" and "A Mighty Wind" fame) has six fingers on his right hand; and in the latter there is a piece of music that can only be played if one has six fingers - which is I believe a possible referent to the violence of the genetic engineering the movie concerns by way of a reference to the final violence of the City of Cain in Genesis four, characterized by the fathers of technology as well as art such as music, but also characterized by the final polygamy and violence of Lamech. Hagrid In addition to being my nephew Gilbert's favorite HP character, Hagrid "the red" (Rubius) may play a key role in book 7, a role hitned at in the end of Book 4 and in book 5 with the coming of Grawp, who is pure giant. Voldy counts on the giants to be on his side but I am betting that Hagrid, as the red stage and as half human with a great big ol' heart, and his reformed brother, will play a central role in undermining that plan of Voldy's. In short, I think that Hagrid's huge heart and his role in the "red stage" will have something to do with his being the redemption of the giant race through his being half human, and also through his choice to help Grawp have a better life. PostScript I have not found any significat instances of the six fingered thing in HP, or more specifically in Hagrid's character - I basically mentioned it to sort of fill out some of the image history of giants as "evil." But on the matter of Gattaca, check out the imdb page for the guy who wrote and directed it, Andrew Nichols, who also wrote another of my favorite movies from a different genre, the Hanks movie "The Terminal." - good writer.