Beyond the Veil

At 5:45 pm this evening, March 27th 2006, my father, JD Kendall, passed beyond the veil of this life. One of JK Rowling's central themes is coping with death properly and greiving rightly, and so I will continue to write on these works and what they contain about the true beauty of our lives in memory of my father's beautiful life and the desire he instilled in me to find and follow that which makes our lives worth living. May he rest in the Peace of our Lord.

Riding Death: Thestrals and Mysteries Theological

We all know that death and how to approach it properly are key Rowlingian themes. With a villian named "flight from death," how could it be denied? This post is about a central image if this theme that appears towards the end of book 5 - riding the thestrals - and how that image connects to what immediately follows it - the Department of Mysteries. Death Riders One immediate fact that escaped me until I sat down to write this just now, is what I'll call the "titular tip-off." There is a use of irony/word-play to point to the siginficance of the image, an irony in the title of the chapter in which the image is introduced: Voldemort's name literally means (as just mentioned) "flight from death," and the chapter which introduces the ride of the Thestrals is, "Fight and Flight." Here I'll only note the core of the image: One can see Thestrals only if one has witnessed death, and the group must trust/accept and ride these beasts of death to get to the Department of Mysteries and arrive at the main action of the story. Rather than flying from death, they must trust death to help them to fly. Blood and Prophecy I sort of covered some of the material I was going to cover here already in the "It's All Right, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" post, so here I'll simply note the primary image in this specific context: The Thestrals are "called" by the blood of Grawp soaked into Harry and Hermione's clothing and robes. They were not the ones, however, who shed Grawp's blood - this was done by the seers, the diviners - the centaurs. This is getting into the realm of mysteries that one cannot understand in the "logical" way (although there are understandings of other sorts that connect more directly with true wisdom), but there is, I believe, a connection here with the later revelation that Dumbledore heard the original prophecy, and hence his connecting that issue of prophecy with his own admission of guilt in the fact that Harry feels like he is bleeding to death. The Mysteries of Life That circular room at the center of the Department of Mysteries is really the key ... we think that the thing is really just a hurdle to jump to get to where he wants to go, the hall of prophecy, but it really is the true center. From here are accessed all the mysteries of life: Death, Love, Time-bound human life, Thought ... and "prophecy." But, while we will probably return here in book 7 and the mysteries of death and love will be central, in book 5 Harry is headed for the hall of prophecy and there are a few interesting things to note in that particular path. First, how do you get to the hall of prophecy? - You have to travel through the room of time. In this room we have "Chronos" in the form of all the clocks; and we have Kairos in the form of the beautiful bird continually rebirthed from the lovely egg (for the meaning and significance of these terms, "Chronos" and "Kairos," see the "Narrative Defined" post linked on the left side under "Internal links"). Secondly (and I am not entirely sure yet what all to make of this, but it's darn interesting to me) - who gets enraptured by the bird in the bubble? - Ginny, Harry's eventual "soul mate." All I can say is that life is simply a mystery. There is much to be criticized in this approach to prophecy as "fore-telling" rather than grasping that it is really "forth-telling;" but, like Harry going through the hall of time, this is the time-bound path we travel, with all its confusion and red-herrings. Along the way, the lover gets enraptured by Kairos, sometimes it is a distraction and sometimes a blessing ... it's a mystery - "It's all right, Ma, it's life and life only." Prophecy and Pedagogy: Dumbledore's Dilemna I haven't read the editorial yet that is mentioned by Pauli and MBR in recent comments, so I apologize if I am rehashing material there, these are simply my thoughts as they arise in the context of asking that question of what all this says about Prophecy. For there is a serious question here regarding the role of prophecy and Dumbledore's pedagogical deciscions concerning it, and the effects these deciscions had (ie, what has been asked in some recent comments on DD being "behind" the deaths of the Potters). First of all, here is the "logical argument": If DD had stuck with his orginal plan to discontinue divination as a subject (and I think that the way Rowling paints Divination and Astronomy, we can say with relative confidence that in general she views this as a better path) then the prophecy never would have been made, at least not in a place where it was heard by a death eater who then went and told Voldy, and Voldy would not have targeted the Potters and Harry specifically at this time. It is quite a central question. If we look back at book 1 and then follow a certain thread throughout the whole series, we find a stark juxtaposition between 2 institutions, the political and the pedagogical. In book 1 Hagrid tells Harry that at the time that Voldy went down, lots of wizards wanted DD to become minister, but he chose to stay at Hogwarts as headmaster, he chose pedagogy as the better path. But we notice that both institutions have a certain level of the "divination mentality." Hogwarts has it as a class and The Ministry of Magic has a hall of prophecies (if you want to see a central connection ... If my memory serves me right, ministry-minded Percy was the one who recommended to Harry that he stick with Divination as a class). In the end all that I can answer is that I love Dumbledore (well, as much as one can love a fictional character, but you know what I mean) and I think that if he is culpable it was a mistake made trying generally to follow a better path (he took the prophecy as an excuse to hire Trelawney, but his core reason for hiring her at all is the same reason that he allows her to stay in the castle after being sacked by Umbridge ... Charity), and that it is a "Felix Culpa." Here is where I see value in Red Hen's thoughts. RH's thought here is that even Voldy was inevitable from a certain set of princiles accepted by the MOM ... the main principle being the acceptance of allinace with the dementors. My thought is that, even had DD not continued divination as a subject, the Potters might not have died when they did, but they probably would have died un-naturally at sometime because Voldy would still be at large. The fact that it is a "happy fault" does not make it no longer, in and of itself, a fault ... but it is one with a surprise happy ending in the undoing of Voldy and ( I think) a serious and much needed "about face" by the MOM in certain core approaches (and, like I said, I think that even though DD's action was "faulty" he was trying his best to be charitable, especially in hiring Trelawney) This presence of "Felix Culpa" is one reason that, despite the complaints of many that there is an "absense of God" in the books, I believe that, like in The Lord of the Rings, there is a presence of "providence" (hmmmm .... might the very name of the luck potion in HBP be a hint that this presence of the "Felix Culpa" is conscious on Rowling's part? who knows ... :) )

Addendum to "Literary Approaches"

I have just written the long promised addendum to the "Literary Approaches" post (see perma-link on left) and republished that post with the addendum, so it is there to be perused at your leisure :)

The Bronx Brain Bomber

Merlin has been accepted at Fordham University in New York City for their doctoral program! Way to go Merlin! To celebrate Merlin's letter, we had a big party at our friend's house on Saturday night when this lovely cake was still in existence. Wow, they even spelled "Ambrettus" correctly. I kept singing "Happy Birthday" when I was supposed to be singing "Happy getting accepted to Fordham University" so that was funny to me; Merlin was born on the same day as Bilbo and Frodo, so I was almost exactly 6 months off, or at the wrong equinox entirely. We wish Merlin the best of luck. Hopefully the 7th Harry Potter book will come out at an opportune time for his studies since we all know he's going to stay up all night devouring it.

Good point regarding "lap dog Snape" from a reader

Drew is a reader of our humble weblog and I promised him that I would read his ideas and put something up if it was good. So here are some of his thoughts about Snape: I know there's been a lot of speculation about whether Snape is truly an evil character, or if he really is on Dumbledore's side. As much as I love to hate him, I've been leaning more and more towards the idea that Snape has been a force for good throughout the books. I'll list the reasons I've been thinking this, although I'm sure you've heard some of them before. Of course, the deciding factor of this question is whether or not Dumbledore died by murder, or according to Dumbledore's own orders. From listening to the audio books a couple times, I am of the opinion the Dumbledore ordered Snape to let him die. To set the scene for this hypothesis, cut back to the scene in Spinner's End at the beginning of HBP. Snape tells Narcissa and Bellatrix that he's managed to stay in Dumbledore's confidence by being his "lap dog". Snape has continued his service to Voldemort by staying close to the OotP, gathering information and following the orders of Dumbledore. In the Birthday Surprises chapter, Hagrid lets slip that he heard Snape and Dumbledore arguing in the forest. Snape said that he "didn't want to do it anymore", to which Dumbledore replied that "you've agreed to do it, and that's all there is to it". Now, if Snape were truly pretending to be Dumbldore's "lap dog", it hardly seems fitting that he would argue about his orders. Pets do what they're told. That leads me to think that Snape was arguing against these orders out of his own conscience, and not in the service of Voldemort. This would fit well with the theory that Dumbledore ordered Snape to pull the "death stopper" on him. Now flash back to Spinner's End. When Narcissa asks Snape to help Draco fulfill his mission (i.e., to kill Dumbledore), Snape pauses before agreeing. I believe he was thinking - calculating, if you will - that there was no reason that he couldn't make this unbreakable vow, and still be following Dumbledore's orders. Finally, I'd like to point out that, for all his hatred for Harry, Snape has always maintained his image of a forceful instructor. While he no doubt takes pleasure in causing deriding Harry and his work, Snape is also always demanding perfection, which is every teacher's ideal result from a student. In the Flight of the Prince chapter, Snape tells Harry that he must master non-verbal spells. I believe that there is one last lesson hidden in that scornful comment. I really like the "poor lap dog performance" argument for Snape being on Dumbledore's side. We could imagine Snape's argument as described by Hagrid with Dumbledore being a little like Harry's arguments - ultimately Harry listens, but more like a opinionated friend than a eager dog. As far as Drew's take on the vow, the pause and the calculation goes, I would describe myself as wanting to believe, although I think it's a little harder to make the good Snape argument based on this little bit of evidence. Reading this did remind me that Snape knew about Dumbledore's "injury" at the time of the scene at Spinner's End because he mentioned it. Hmmmm... Thanks for the contribution, Drew. I do hope we find out in Book 7 that Snape has been on the right side.

It's All Right, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding

So don't fear, If you hear A foreign sound, To your ear It's all right, Ma, I'm only sighing -Bob Dylan Well, in finishing book 5 I came across a passage that I think is central to Rowling's themes in the series and has focused me again on the meaning of Sectum Sempra in the specific nuance the "ever bleeding" effect on Malfoy has for the broader "meaning" of it (and, as you'll notice, I've been listening to Dylan while working and noticing similar themes). We have kind of batted this one around before and gained some valuable insight into the fact that it is important to keep clear that the immediate meaning of "ever-cut" has broader applications than just that of human blood, applications that may come into play in revelations about how Horcruxes are made and unmade. The incident towards the end of book 5, however, leads me to believe that Rowling has consciously in mind a two-leveled meaning to the image, with the "ever-bleeding" having a distinct place as a unique focused application. The Dementors In order to understand this incident it is necessary to examine the context. It comes at the end of book 5, and that book is the culmination of what I will call "the dementor sequence" that is the central chiasm within the larger 7 series chiasm. We do indeed hear of dementors in book 6 and I suspect we will hear some in book 7, but so far the chiasm in which we have seen the Dementors specifically active is that of books 3,4,5. In 3 they are introduced and try to kiss a wizard (Sirius); in book 5 they try to kiss a muggle (Dudley); and in the center, in book 4, they succeed in a kiss (Barty Jr). This pain is a fate worse than death. In fact this kind of pain brings a longing for death; it can bring those thoughts of the suicide that are the ultimate despair. To be robbed of the soul is to be no longer human, and in the same way being robbed of a loved one violently can feel un-human, in a way that tempts one to invite the wish to be simply no longer a living human, rather than alive but not human ... it can lead one to scream: "THEN - I - DON'T - WANT - TO - BE - HUMAN! ... I'VE HAD ENOUGH ... I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON"T CARE ANYMORE!" (OotP 824) The Blood As you can guess by now, I see the thought on despair and suicide especially present in a blood image. There is a very high concentration of blood imagery in the climactic scenes of book 5: I will have another post on the connection between Grawp's blood and the image of "riding death" as a symbol of accepting mortality (rather than making a "flight from death," a Voldemort), but there is also Neville's sacrifice in heroic action. With his nose broken from a brutal kick by Dulahov, blood freely pouring from it all over him - covered in his own blood and under the real threat of the Imperius curse from the same hands that bled his parents sanity away with it - he implores Harry not to relinquish the prophecy. There is also the high concentration of blood language in Dumbledore's explanation of how he protected Harry ... through his mother's blood (OotP 836). All of these various types of blood imagery flow into one (both literally and figuratively). But as regards despair specifically, and suicide as a temptation particular to despair, Dumbledore's portrayal of Harry's state provides too concise a possible foreshadowing of the specific application of Sectum Sempra and "ever-bleeding" (the effect on Malfoy in book 6) as a unique and important application of the broader "ever-cut"/"ever-separated" meaning. When Harry vents his anger in saying, "I don't care!", what does Dumbledore reply? "You do care ... You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it." This is the effects of the Cruciatus curse and pain, this is the effects of the dementors and despair: "Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn Plays wasted words, proves to warn That he not busy being born is busy dying" Love That is why Love is so important ... the door that cannot be forced opened as a knife-blade opens a wound ("the handmade blade," to borrow from Dylan even further), but rather it must come from that which is freely given ... and as with all of the deepest, most powerful and most healing things, it is properly a mystery - you cannot "understand" Love, you can only give and receive it. Harry had spoken of his own death earlier in tones of despair that same night, when "They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape." And then he thought that at least if Voldemort got Dumbledore to kill him it would at least mean he would see Sirius again, and Voldy could no longer possess a person with that kind of love in them (OotP 816) ... the kind of love that is willing to risk "bleeding to death" for the sake of loving the other.

Chiastic Bookends

I have a number of posts I have been planning to write when I get the time, especially since finishing book 5 - but I thought here I would simply toss in a small observation from book 6 (which I have been not so much re-reading as slowly perusing chapter by chapter while waiting on other things involved with work or some family situations). This is just a short little observation about "bookends" as contributing to the chiastic structure (cf sidebar permalink on chiasm). "Bookends" are distinctly similar occurences or elements at the beginning and end of a book or series (in Greek and Latin there is the same sort of thing but with grammatical elements that set off what is called an "inclusio," in which all of what is inside is meant to be taken as a syntactical or semantic unit, in both languages it can also use, say, the two parts of a compound verb, with the main verb at the beginning of the unit and the helping verb, a form of the being verb, at the end and everything in middle taken together). Rowling's "bookends" also fittingly bear the "development/deepening" that is characteristic of chiastic pairings. This is the one I noticed in book 6: At the beginning, as Harry and Dumbledore have just apparated in the neighborhood of the house Slughorn is "squatting" in (I loved her image here, Sluggo's physical stance of squatting calling to mind the occupational habits of those who claim "squatters' rights"), Dumbledor tells Harry to have his wand at the ready but does not think he is likely to be attacked, and in answer to the questio of "why?" DD says that it is because Harry is with him. At the other end of the book, however, the development of this element is that the shoe is on the other foot - as they swim from the cave Harry tells Dumbledore not to worry and he replies (something like): "I am not worried Harry, I am with you." Of course, I think any parent who has a grown child who has grown up to be responsible and loving recognizes this progression.

Granger's site alive and well

Don't panic! Hogwarts Professor is back! John Granger's site was down this morning - a page came up which reminded me of one of my domains when I hadn't paid my renewal fee. What had happened in my case was that they had an old record for me with a discontinued email account, so I hadn't received any warnings. Glad to have the Professor back online.

Not beyond the Veil yet ...

Just dropping a note to say, not dead or anything, or even a ghost like Nick ... just a lot of running around etc, and sort of worn out ... tonite I told our friend Nathan's oldest son Josh, who is 13 (andwho is the first of our group to really get into Potter and the one I chalk up my own initial interest to), "Josh, I want you to go find your wand, point it at me and say 'enervate," ... but it didn't work LOL

Memories: Part I

Memory is a huge theme in the Potter series. From Neville Longbottom, whose dreadful memory we first learn about in Philosopher's Stone to the diary horcrux "memory" of Tom Riddle in Chamber of Secret's to the stored memories of Dumbledore, Snape, et al which we encounter in the pensieve, the very concept of memory is studied in detail. Since each book contains the elements of a mystery plot, there is always a point at which a character remembers something to help solve the mystery, or remembers a clue after the fact which explains an event. But I'm speaking of the aspects of the plot which deal directly with memory per se. I've compiled a short list: Harry's strange memories of the events of his infancy. Neville's Remembrall. The diary "memory". Lockhart getting his memory erased. Forgotten memories remembered in presence of the dementors. Happy memory needed for successful "Patronus" charm. Harry's stumbling into the pensieve memories. Ability to "see" another's memories via legilemency. Dumbledore and Harry's research using memories and Harry's retrieval of the memory which Slughorn attempted to hide. I particularly like the concept of the patronus charm. The patronus is kind of a juncture of past memory and future hope. The happy memory is something from the past. The word expecto means "I look forward to" and is used in the Nicene creed to express the hope of the resurrection of the dead and eternal life. This reminds me of something G. K. Chesterton said: "We all live in the past, because there is nothing else to live in. To live in the present is like proposing to sit on a pin. It is too minute, it is too slight a support, it is too uncomfortable a posture, and it is of necessity followed immediately by totally different experiences, analogous to those of jumping up with a yell. To live in the future is a contradiction in terms. The future is dead, in the perfectly definite sense that it is not alive." One of the reasons that Harry has trouble with the patronus charm is a lack of really good memories. It would seem that this deficit in a person would have a direct effect on the amount of hope a person could have as well. Later in book 5, Harry shows his patronus skill by creatively summoning a patronus without any real memory - he imagines Umbridge getting sacked! So it seems like pure imagination can do it, but you need hope. The plaintive thoughts in book 3 "I'm going to live with Sirius!" did not work in the presence of the despair-spreading dementors. As we can see in the tragicomic character of Gilderoy Lockhart in book 5, a man without any memories is a man without a past, i.e., a man with nowhere substantive in which to live and operate. The diary-horcrux is the opposite travesty, a memory without a man. "Lord Voldemort is my past, present and future," Riddle tells Harry in the chamber; luckily Harry's victory over Riddle and the basilisk prevent this statement from coming true via the embodiment of the horcrux soul fragment. Ghosts and pictures are also disembodied memories to a degree, they can pass along wisdom and can obey commands to communicate information, but otherwise are incapable of becoming involved very much in the present or developing as people. Even so, much is learned from the ghosts like Professor Binns, Sir Nick and Myrtle and pictures like Sir Cadogan and Phineas Nigellus. --Part II to follow.-- Note: Thanks for bearing with us through this (hopefully momentary) dry period for our blog. Merlin and I both are both dealing with some things which are demanding much of our attention involving a new baby (for me) and sickness in the family.