Spinners End and the Department of Mysteries: Home, Love, Death and Reconciliation
| I am still working on the PoMo piece. Just added in an observation from listening to HBP again today on the road, of a chiastic element I just noticed that I can use to illustrate the comments on Red Hen well. This is just an observation I had in this listening today of the first set of chapters. I had noted in the "It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" post that I think the plot/action in book 7 will revolve around a series of "home-places": Especially Hogwarts and #4 Privet Drive, but also maybe the Burrow, #12 Grimmauld Place, and the Riddle house in Little Hangleton. But we also have this thing hanging out there that there are strong, justified suspicions that some of the most central action will take place in the Department of Mysteries and involve the tension between the Love door and the Death arena, which does not technically fit the "homeplace motif." But I just noticed something interesting in the "Spinner's End" chapter of HBP. This is not a prediction of a literal physical connection between Snape's house/home and the DM that will be revealed in book 7, but rather simply noting the similarities of the images that may suggest that we may visit Spinner's End again in book 7 in a way that can be ostensibly linked, on the image level, to Snape being the doorway to Harry's fuller acceptance of the principle of love as central and the way this plays in the DOM tension between those two exits from the circle chamber with all the doors. We don't really get much about the house Snape lives in, whether he rents it or bought it ... or whether he inherited it from his mother Eileen and her husband, his father, Mr. Snape, the muggle. I think though, that it is quite possible book 7 might reveal the last possibility to be the right one and keep the family motif strong, emphasizing the place of Snapes family in the need to accept Love as more powerful than death. What I noticed today in listening is that, while you really only have 2 doors mentioned in his living room (other than the front door Bella and Narcissa enter through), the way she describes the uses and appearance of those doors vaguely fits the same sort of model as the DOM chamber: a central chamber with multiple "anonymous" doors. Both the stairway door Wormtail was hiding in and eavesdropping and the door to the kitchen are noted as being hidden doors, so their could be a number more of these hidden doors that are analogous to the anonymous doors in the DOM circular chamber, on just the basic level of thematic connection through image description. Anyway, I just found it really cool that those images seem to coincide in a subtle way. UPDATE (7/17/06): This is just an update for those waiting on the post on John Granger and PoMo. It's coming tomorrow 8/18, for sure. I was going to do it this evening/tonight ... but I am trying to shake a head-cold which currently has me feeling a bit "funky." I put a good dent in it last night with 10 hrs of sleep at Pauli's and my sister's - induced by a couple hefty hits of Nyquil (it takes a bit to knock out 230 pounds of wizarding "weight" and residual construction muscle LOL). I want to write this post especially well (would have done it today, but after returning from said Cleveland home of family I was messing around trying to get my car in the shop, and ran into an old friend from town who's mother died about a month after my father and I hadn't gotten a chance to chat very long with him in the viewing line for his mother and so it was good to get to talk to him and catch up on things, and then finally getting my mother's garage ready for the guys to start tearing out asphalt tomorrow to replace it with concrete, and actually got the last bits of my jar of dirt all packed up and awaiting the "opportune moment" of moving it to NYC next week). So tonight is taking slug # 2 at said terrible viral beastie, and hoping that pretty much does it in (reminds me of the discussion we had in comments a while back on the history of "abracadabra" and how it plays into the AK curse, the most likely origin being Chaldean meaning "vanish like this word" and spoken by medievals as a "charm" to banish an illness from the body ... I need that right now :) ). Either way, I have lots of notes (in a draft in blogger already) on the Granger/PoMo write up/response, from which I am hoping to do a good essay on the whole matter, and will definitely be writing it tomorrow, sorry for the delay :) |
Comments on "Spinners End and the Department of Mysteries: Home, Love, Death and Reconciliation"
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Anonymous said ... (August 18, 2006 12:13 AM)
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jkr2 said ... (August 18, 2006 4:51 AM)
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Merlin said ... (August 18, 2006 3:47 PM)
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Anonymous said ... (August 18, 2006 4:59 PM)
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Merlin said ... (August 18, 2006 6:52 PM)
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Anonymous said ... (August 19, 2006 12:32 PM)
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Pauli said ... (August 19, 2006 4:33 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (August 20, 2006 4:51 AM)
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Merlin said ... (August 20, 2006 12:53 PM)
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Merlin said ... (August 20, 2006 2:30 PM)
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post a commentHi, Merlin.
I've read through the chiastic structure posts and sort of understand it, but I have a few questions:
Goblet of Fire begins with the Quidditch World cup, which would mean five cups (counting the fifth inverted one in the graveyard), so how do you decide which cups get included? If there are five cups, then the pensieve is the center (third) cup.
The QWC section was important (Cedric and Harry used a portkey together, Barty Crouch there setting off the DM, Krum catching the snitch to win the game, etc.).
Also, similarly, in book 4, the Yule Ball is described in a chapter heading as "The Unexpected Task," which would make five tasks in total (counting the graveyard as the fifth task) with the underwater task the third one (center of the cross).
Can there only be four cups or tasks and that is why you're selecting the ones you want to use?
Also, does the model mean that since we saw Harry work through a series of enchantments in books 1 and 4, he'll go through a similar series in book 7 (other than the Horcrux hunt)?
As I was looking through the books, I noticed that the trio had to work through seven obstacles at the end of book 1 to reach the PS. Neville was the first obstacle, but he made seven because Quirrel had already knocked out the troll:
Fluffy
Devil's Snare
Flying Keyes
Chess
Troll (already knocked out)
Potions
Mirror of Erised
(Also, Neville was a human obstacle who needed to be got out of the way)
In book 4, there were also seven obstacles:
Dragons
Merpeople/hostages
Boggart
Golden Mist
Blast-ended screwt
Sphinx
Spider
(Also, Krum was a human obstacle of sorts since he was torturing Cedric, so Harry had to stun him just as Hermione had incapacitated Neville in book 1.)
So will book 7 have something similar to the pack of enchantments/maze or will the hunt for the Horcruxes be folded into the general idea of seven obstacles before reaching Voldemort: three more Horcruxes to find from scratch and the locket at 12GP to recall and locate, three non-Horcrux "obstacles to Voldemort," plus I would say an obstacle from someone considered a friend (possibly a betrayal since Neville was just being courageous, but Krum was torturing someone under the Imperius Curse, so the book 7 human obstacle would again be acting freely like Neville, but doing something darker than Krum; sorry, but my money's on Slughorn to sell someone out).
Also tried to see things in terms of the chiastic structure and couldn't help but notice that Krum got the red/gold dragon (Gryffindor colors) and was paired with Hermione (Gryffindor) for the Yule Ball and 2nd Task (so first three tasks). I don't know if that means anything.
The weighing of the wands also foreshadowed Cedric's shade since Ollivander made silvery smoke rings with his wand, and he was described as appearing to be solid smoke when he came out of Voldemort's wand.
First task: Harry faced a fire/air enemy (dragon) and used an air tool with fire in the name (Firebolt broomstick).
Harry was cut in the shoulder by his dragon (foreshadowed the cut he got from Wormtail) and Cedric was burned by the dragon (wow). Viktor wasn't hurt (some of his eggs were), nor was Fleur (her skirt caught on fire, nothing else).
Second task: Harry faced the underwater task that required getting through various creatures and plants; his tool was gillyweed, a "water plant of the Mediterranean," so it combined both water and earth (esp. in the name Mediterranean).
Also, Fleur and Cedric both used the bubblehead charm underwater, while Harry and Viktor used a form of transfiguration (becoming human-fish hybrids).
Also, techinically Harry saved Ron, Gabrielle, and Hermione since he gave Viktor the jagged rock to cut Hermione free. Cedric saved Cho all on his own. Does that mean something?
I'm trying to figure out how you look at all this since Rowling said Viktor was coming back, which means book 7 since we haven't seen him since 4. My guess is he'll be the new DADA instructor.
My guess is he'll be the new DADA instructor.
interesting! i've never thought of that before.
Yeah ... I really like the idea of Krum as the 7th DADA teacher. It ties out a lot of things thematically. In book 1 you have the teacher who is COMPLETELY under the sway of Voldy, to the extent of housing him in his own body. Then You have Krum, a book 4, who is a Durmstrang and we all know Dumbledore disagrees with the DS approach to dark arts (some of which is relayed in exposition drops by Malfoy, that at DS they actually learn the dark arts themselves). If Krum becomes DADA #7 he would be the second friend from the original book 1 potions riddle (Lupin being the first), but more importanly he would be what we learn of "Lord Voldemort's" request ... a young man of dark heritage and , but, whereas we get the dark side of that in book 1 with Voldy effectually teaching DADA from the back of Quirrel's head (which, if what Vander Ark notes about Quirrel having been DADA teacher for more than 1 year, contra DD's statement in HBP, is more than just an oversight on Rowling's part, I think this would be the answer to the inconsistency, that Voldy suspened his jionx or whatever on the position so he could be there on the back of Quirrel's head), in book 7 we would get the good results of "Lord Voldemort's Request" without the bad of it being Voldy himself like in book 1 ... you would have a young man, fresh from school ("fresh blood" ... cf my post on Krum blood and Quidditch http://www.mugglematters.com/2006/02/bruised-and-battered-krums-from-table.html), and one who has been through what Voldy would call "his style of teaching" and come out on the other side on the good side.
I like it a lot :) And there is the question of Karkaroff being the HM of DS and thus the one advocating this teaching method, and having been a former DE but not going back, choosing rather to take his chances in fleeing and eventually winding up dead. Karkaroff is a really interesting character.
On the official 2nd task in GOF. I think you're on the right track. I have commented somewhere on here before (but can't think where the moment) concerning contrast between Harry's approach and Cedric's and Fleur's use of the bubblehead charm - that Harry . I hadn't thought of what you noted about Krum being a hybrid (cruxt) of fish and human, but it ties the whole thing out reall nicely. Harry's approach (well, foisted upon him last minute by divine intervetion in the form of Dobby)is to beat the water element by using the earth element (a plant, and then he has to turn around and battle the earth)- and on either side you have Cedric and Fleur remaining too removed or distant from the water element through the isolation of the BH charm, and Krum choosing a path of too much unity with the water element, becoming part fish, thus producing certain dangers that arise from certain incapacitations in doing so (the worries about trying to cut the rope with the shark teeth and all). Really interesting plaot with all that too ... Under the lake Harry has to help both foreign champions, and only his Hogwarts rivel truly/completely rescues his own hostage, and then Harry has to bring back the lifeless body of that same . Also, Harry COMPLETELY saves Fleur's hostage, whereas he merely aids Krum - maybe suggesting a role Harry will play in hooking Krum up with Hogwarts (I still think that scenario of Krum chasing Harry like a snitch at night would be a really cool return of Quidditch style flying action ... either way I would expect that in book 7 we see Harry flying everywhere ... I think he had his fill of apparition in HBP :) )
On the thing of 5 cups, that is really interesting. My first reaction was that there are only 4 cups with which Harry is directly tied in GOF. But really, at this level, without more direct textual links a lot more multi-valent structural layering is possible. What I mean by "direct textual links" is the type of thing that came out of the discussion on the AK curse (http://www.mugglematters.com/2006/04/language-stuff.html) ... I had basically hit it dead-on with an analysis of the words from a Hebrew language standpoint (the AVD verb, the K attachable preposition, meaining "like" or "as," on the front of the DVR root for "word") - but that did not really demonstrate a concrete instance of a source from which Rowling would have picked up and used that language ... until JKR@ came in with the material from David Colbert's book on the verified possible backgrounds of the term "abracadabra," one of the being Chaldean in origin, meaning "vanish like this word" and used as an enchantment on amulets and such in medeival times to rid disease (Chaldean and Hebrew are very close, in fact when my undergrad advisor/Greek Prof retired and moved he bequethed to me his "Hebrew and Chaldean Analytical Lexicon" - a single volume dealing with both languages together).
I suspect that similar concrete instantiations exist in the literature of a 4 cup structure, but I don't have it yet, which leaves me at the place of only being able to establish "latency" in the tradition that stands behind Rowling and noting the sturcture of the story in the text that fit a 4 cup model. I still to think there is something to it being 4 cups with which Harry diretcly interacts (being more of an observer at the World Cup) - but even were I to find more concrete traditional textual evidence of 4 cup structure, that would not preclude a 5 cup structure that interplays with the 4 cup sturcture, maybe on the level of the 4 cups being the specific GOF story of Harry, as an independant story, and the 5 cup structure (importantly with the Pensieve as the chiastic center of the 5 cup chiasm) being the opening of that plot to the connections with the larger plot, just as the World Cup is the UK WW in relation to the broader international WW.
BTW one of the other reasons I really like Krum as DADA teahcer 7 is that BC JR would have been in the tent under the cloak when Krum cam in all bloody to receive his recognition despite the fact that his team lost the cup, and BC Jr was the one teacher Harry's notes as suggesting something that he might actually want to do with his life (as indicated in HBP when Harry is looking at his OWL grades at the Burrow and thinks the only disappointing thing is taht he thinks his chances of being an auror are gone because of the potions grade)
So, all that that I was saying about the 5 cup structure being the opening of the GOF story to the broader story, is kind of opening the GOF sturcture up to the larger chiasm of the series as a whole, especially the
While the number 4 is heavy for medeival in the 4 elements cosmology and 4 humors anthropology, these are both on the "natural" level ... the number for the supernatural is 5: particularly the 5 wounds of Christ on the Cross (with "the odd one out" being very important ... the spear-wound in the heart) - the Pentangle that Eva Thienport emphasized in her Lumos talk on "The Slythering Question" is what you find on Sir Gawain's shield in the lengthy description of it in the Green Knight tale. So, 4 cups for the "single story" or "natural" level, opening to a 5 cup sturcture for the opening onto a lagrer stage, or the "supernatural" would fit pretty well.
(On that 5th point of unity in the pentangle, Pauli had some cool thoughts when we were talking the other day on the sorting hat as a revealer of some unifications already happening via Gryffindor house ... becuase of what Voldy did, maybe Harry, like Sirius, should have been Slytherin, but he wound up in Gryffindor by choice. Hermione should probably be in Ravenclaw, and Neville should be Hufflepuff, which would have ticked his grandma off ... Ron is the only one with a strong Gryffindor heritage identity ... but they all find unity in the house and are then able to extend the unity to others in other houses such as Luna in Ravenclaw ... especially on the train HBP, I loved Harry gunning down the Gryffindor Ramelda Vane in favore of Ravenclaw Luna)
I would say that I also think it possible for Rwoling to have arrived at such structures without a specific textual tradition, simply by combing standard numerology (4 and 5) and the amazingly central image tradition of the Grail.
On a final note on Krum ... if our boy Harry makes the cut and actually lives through book 7, I would say it might be likely that in that last, already written, chapter we might see Krum inviting Harry back occassionally as a guest lecturer in DADA. But I do agree with you, Felicity, that it is highly possible that Harry's disagreeances with Snape on dealing with dementors and the Imperius might stem from a lack of consideration of age/skill appropriateness.
On the plethora of 7s appearing in the books and their structures, I think they are all valid, at least to some degree or another ... I think of it kind of like Rowling's brain being like the penseive and all this different things float around in there and intermingle and at different points different ones come to the surface and connect in the main plot and thematic structure, and the rest are still validly there but just more latent (maybe not even conscious for her, but subconscious), they're in the mind but throught the story and the writing of it they might float in and out of more and less clarity and sort of latch more or less loosely to the main elements as latent instantiations of them.
I'm the type who always has to remind myself to ask what I call the "Sol Question." In the movie "Pi" Sol's ears perk up when his young friend Max tells him his computer, Euclid, spit out a 216 digit number just before it melted down. Sol relates that in his days of heavier number theory work on Pi, he encountered a 216 digit bug in Pi. The thing is ... Sol had a major stroke from that work, and Max, who believes mathematica to be the language of nature that can explain the whole world and all the patterns, including even something as complex as the stock market, has had INTENSE migraines since the age of 6 (these are depicted in very heightened style, and this can be a VERY jarring/grating movie on that level), when he tried to look straight into the sun and temporarily went blind and when he could see again, it was with these migraines recurring regularly (in other words, he tried to pin down, the mystery of the truth down too closely, and like trying to encompass the source of light within your site, Ie looking directly into the sun, it drove him mad, just like working on Pi gave Sol a major stroke).
Anyway, Sol says to Max "if you are looking to see the number 216 in nature, you will see it everywhere ... 216 steps from your apt to the street etc .... because you want to see it!" And his point in the movie was "this will drive you mad just like it gave me a stroke ... don't do it!"
So, I have to reign myself in sometimes, but I do think a lot of it is there. One day we were working a set of translation exercizes in Hebrew and I asked Dr Vall if a particular one would be a good example of chiasm and he replied "yeah ... but then again, they had chiasm on the brain." And I think that that is the case with somebody like Rowling as a classics major who got top marks and honors. She is steeped in some of this stuff and certain instances are central structuring etc and some are the more latent stuff from Rowling having it "on the brain."
For me the fun/excitement is in finding the stuff and then in learning which maybe more conscious layers ... I really lvoed it when Jo2 came back with that material on "abracadabra" because it was like "cool ... that's stuff that would have been right up her alley in studying classics, so that one is likely a pretty conscious thing for her ... cool"
But, the numbers game can drive you to distraction :) St Augustine is noted for spending a ton of time/writing on trying to figure out the numerology of the ages of the world and enternity. Are we in the 6th age and heaven after the final parousia will be the 7th age, or are we in the 7th age now and taht heaven will be the 8th age (8 being the circumcision day in Judaism, and in Christian thought the opening to eternity, going beyond the the 7th day of the Sabbath, since Sunday is actuallty the 8th day of the original Genesis narrative - where it would have been the first day of expulsion but will now be the opening to eternal life with God via the Felix Culpa - in the Eastern traditions you have the term the "Ogdoad" - the eighth day)
After a little more thought—Harry actually saved all the hostages in the second task. He saved Ron and Gabrielle directly, he saved Hermione by giving Krum the tool to use to cut her loose, and he saved Cho because Harry told Cedric about the dragons so that Cedric wouldn’t be the only one not knowing about them (“it wouldn’t be fair”), so Fake Moody told Cedric about the golden egg, knowing that Cedric would repay Harry by passing on the “take a bath” tip. So the reason Cedric got the egg tip to pass on to Harry is that Harry insisted on playing fair by telling Cedric about the dragons. That wasn’t Moody’s goal because Moody wanted the other champions eliminated; he would have preferred Cedric to be unprepared for the first task.
I definitely think you’re on to something with chiastic modeling in the books, and I understood the background to the four-cup model, but Rowling is an iconoclast, so I don’t think just because the four-cup structure is traditional that she would feel the slightest need to conform to a four-cup structure. She loves to take traditions, legends, models, forms, etc., and adapt them to her own story. Someone the other day was arguing that Harry and Snape conform precisely to Egyptian character archetypes, and therefore Snape was going to take Dumbledore’s place in book 7 in telling Harry where the other Horcruxes are located and how to destroy them. That is an example of someone (I’m not putting you in that category) of putting the model ahead of the story because to me, nothing is more unlikely than that Snape is going to become Harry’s Horcrux mentor. Snape will play a critical role in book 7, but the trio have been set up to handle the Horcruxes on their own.
For example, Travis posted a phoenix essay recently, and described the historical phoenix as a crimson and gold bird of Egyptian and Greek mythology that lived for 500 or so years, then built a nest of aromatic wood, set it on fire, burn up, and out of the ashes a new phoenix would arise. Rowling’s phoenix has regular burning days, tears with powerful healing properties, magical feathers, the ability to carry immense weights, telepathic abilities, etc. She took from history and adapted for her story.
But I certainly agree that looking for specific structures in the books can be eye-opening, and the effort to identify underlying structures pays off in closer attention to the text even if the model itself doesn’t turn out to be exactly predictive.
Ahhhhh ... I think I begin to see some of the confusion. The question for me is not whether Rowling woudl feel obligated to use a particular image or image or set just because they are traditional ... the question for me, as far as what I can say about the level of concreteness of a particular image/structure etc is whether they are ubiquetously known to be to be traditional to the level that somebody majoring in classics on the undergrad level would probably encounter them as a matter of course in getting good grades (as opposed to soemthing they looked into on their own more in depth, or the way a PhD candidate might approach the stuff their disseration is on etc - the latter of these, the PhD studies, might not apply to Rowling but the former definitely does ... she might researched any number of particular areas on her own time at school, for example I know that things/elements found in and concerning Beowulf and Gawain and the Green Knight are useful in interpreting what Tolkien was trying to do in LOTR because Tolkien wrote essays on the Beowulf Poet and the Green Knight
One of the things along the way of this would be the finding of sources. If there is a source that looks likely, then to me it increases the possibility that she could have been using it, not necessarily the necessity though that she would ... so that if somebody says "you think she has a 4 cup structure that resembles the background of the Eucharist? you're a lunatic to even think it possible" - which I can actually picture being somehwat useful if one is adressing the adults who have grown from the cynical 6th graders Granger talks about in the intro of his first book). In short, the presence of supporting texts give one the shelter against attack from the "neo-paganizers" - an example of such defense would be Charles WIlliams on whether or not the Grail of the continental romances was the cup of Christ, versus being primarily defined the older pagan sources - He basically replied that: you can disagree with medeival Catholicism and its being so wrapped up in the Eucharist, and you can think it as moronic as you want ... but to deny that the Grail in that context is the cup of Christ adapted to imagination and legend ... is simply bad scholarship"
I'm just not as well traveled in this area and so do not have as ready a knowledge at hand of the "textual pool" as it were. So I tend to state things more tentatively until I have somehting stronger ... so on the thing on abracadabra I tend to be more cautious and say things like "this is a cool thing I found ... and if I had to break the AK curse down myself according to what this Hebrew connection might suggest, this is how it would go ... but I don't really have the 'missing link.'" and then when somebody like Jo2 presents the missing piece I do a little boxing dance like Gov. Swann in the first PotC movie afte the curse has lifted and run around singing "I got a jar of di-irt" because now I have something solid with which to actually work in interacting with said grown up cynical 6th graders when they say ... "you think she modeled that curse off of some word you found in one of your Bible dictionaries? ... you religious nuts are so weird."
Which is all simplt to say that, as of yet, I have not been able to delve into classics as thoroughly as I would like to be able to say that the 4 cups structure is traditional within the areas Rowling worked in for her classics major.
This is admittedly a bit of "source criticism" on my part - albeit in an ironic way, being as "hardcore warrior" source critics usually like to stay away from the Christian strata and push everything as far back as possible into the pagan primeval history as possible. But I think that in its proper setting source criticism has its place.
She obviously uses the 4 elements and 4 humors, Christ symbols etc, and I don't think she's trying to shatter them as such. I would not go so far as to say she is iconoclast, just because the term has such a history of violence in the early medeival period, and the anathemas pronounced against the leaders of the Iconoclast movement by the 7th Ecumenical Council of the Church (the 787 Second Council of Nicea, which was the last council that Eastern Orthodox and Western Latin Churches were together ... http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04423f.htm, although schism had occured with the "Oriental Orthodox" Churches between the 5th and 6th ecumenical councils)
I guess I would not classify her as an inconoclast because while she is challenging the way the images are used and received among the majority in the WW, I don't think she is trying to deconsturct them to the level of leaving nothing left that even (after possible reconstruction) has any resemblance to the original nature of the image (it's pure nature, not the way it has been perverted).
I think there are those who think Rowling is a genuine full-fledged iconocalst as would praise her for it, but I wouldn't agree with them on it (although I might have to agree with them if they accused me personally of being dangerously close to inconoclasm in some of my more loose-canon thoughts on society at large these days).
But that is getting into the area of the Granger PoMo post, which I am still working on ... but it might not get done till tomorrow ... I'm in the "cough and sweat" stage of this cold right now.
This comment could be subtitled “why I like the HogPro forums.”
You might be interested in the following three posts on abracadabra and Avada Kedavra. Janet Batchler is the Hollywood screenwriter I frequently quote since she’s so perceptive in her HP intuitions by reason of her background as a writer and language student and her works as a teacher of writing. She hasn’t been wrong yet in any HP predictions.
Janet Batchler:
Just a comment on "Avada Kedavra" that was apparent to me (as a former linguist) the first time I read it, but which I've since learned many people didn't pick up on...
The phrase is, of course, an etymological antecedent to "abracadabra."
("v" regularly becomes "b" in language change, vowels regularly elide, and a "d" to "r" change is not that odd, as they share voicing and place of articulation" -- in fact, in some languages (Spanish, e.g.) what is spelled as "r" is really pronounced closer to what English speakers would consider a "d.")
I just always thought that was cool.
Janet Batchler:
Well, "abracadabra" is often considered to have come from one of two Aramaic phrases, which are both very close to "abracadabra," differing in only one or two letters. (I'd have to do a web search to find the actual Aramaic phrases... and since I'm supposed to be working right now... um...)
Anyway, one of the Aramaic phrases means something like "I create as I speak" and the other means something like "I destroy as I speak." Cool, huh?
SonofDavid:
"Does anyone know where avada kedavra came from? It is an ancient spell in Aramaic, and it is the original of abracadabra, which means 'let the thing be destroyed'. Originally, it was used to cure illness and the 'thing' was the illness, but I decided to make it the 'thing' as in the person standing in front of me. I take a lot of liberties with things like that. I twist them round and make them mine." -- J. K. Rowling
See: http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80
As for “iconoclast,” I’m using a loose definition of the term (hence am misusing it) as a gleeful “mold-breaker,” not as someone who is taking images, forms, and literary traditions and “deconstructing them to the level of leaving nothing left that even (after possible reconstruction) has any resemblance to the original nature of the image (it's pure nature, not the way it has been perverted).”
For instance, Julie H., a writer and editor from Chicago who posts on HogPro, left the following in a recent discussion of Rowling and PoMo relative to the (then) discussion about the possibility of Faked Death Dumbledore:
“There's something in these books that grips the heart, beyond all the clever plotting, the alchemical symbolism, the historical/literary allusions, etc etc etc. Jo clearly loves a good mind game, and enjoys viewing herself as something of an iconoclast. But I can't believe she's ultimately going to make the final postmodernist choices, including faked-death-Dumbledore, because it would mean the spirit that's wafted through the whole saga so far is a cheat. She can certainly do whatever she likes, but it would require book 7 to be something hugely at odds with the spirit of the first 6.”
Felicity, we blogged a bunch about Avada here.
I understand your use of iconoclast for Rowling. Actually, I would guess that in terms of the original meaning, almost everyone is "misusing" it who uses it. She's not smashing anything, just taking some, uh, liberties. Tolkien did the same thing. One of the most amazing changes he made in his myth was to make the sun feminine and the moon masculine.
because it would mean the spirit that's wafted through the whole saga so far is a cheat. She can certainly do whatever she likes, but it would require book 7 to be something hugely at odds with the spirit of the first 6.”
i just copied this from the post above.
this articulates very well, how i feel about possible scenarios for book 7.
jo
On the two possible Aramaic phrases, it is very interesting because one of the things I was going to throw in on the Granger post on PoMo deconstruction and didn't (had tossed it into my notes and then decided it was too tangential) was a discussion after class with a professor and a friend and the prof had been talking in class about contemporary theories and their usefullness and saying that there is a lot of use in a lot of contemporary theories, although one shouldn't follow them all the way to their conclusions, and this friend asked him in the hall "even something like deconstructionism?" and the prof said "yeah, even that ... but you should ask professor so and so ... she's more of an expert in those fields than me" ... the theory that this prof had been talking about in class, though, was "speech-act theory" ... which is basically what those two possible aramaic statments mean/are ... I'm sure it will stick in my head to keep an eye out for the components when studying Aramaic, it's very similar to Hebrew (in Hebrew class, to demonstrate this, the prof took us through the Elahi Elahi, Lama Sabbacthani statement from the Cross), but there are a lot of adaptations and changes in Aramaic and modern Arabic is a much closer source for study and comparison of classical Hebrew syntax and morphology (Arabic just remained a much more conservative language)
On Iconoclasts. I guess I just tend to shy away from the term because I have rarely heard it in positive context, although occassionally in loose context. I looked it up on dictionary.com just to be sure the "clast" part had the etymology I was thinking it did, and the dic writer went through the background and then noted a broadening of the meaning in 19th century to a more secular adaptation (deconstructing of general public institutions rather than just religious) - the example used was "Kant the great iconoclast." In my opinion Kant didn't do a whole heap of good for western thinking, but in truth he was probably nowhere near the real iconoclast that Robespierre was in implementing Rousseau's ideology of the Social Contract (with it's breaking down of the idea of natural law and natural rights)
I guess when I think of iconoclasts in contemporary literature I think of Dan Brown and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Somebody recommmend MZB's Mysts of Avalon to me and I read the first 20 pages of it on Amazon's "look inside" thing where they scan the first however many pages, and thought "um ... yeah ... whatever." The sage witches may occassionally have a man involved in the raising of children, but rarely ever, even in those cases, is the man the father of the child ... how unique and "new" and insightful and ... yada yada yada.
So, in the end I guess I tend to veer away from a term like iconoclast of Rowling simply because I think there are those out there in the literature who, at least from what I can gather of their work without wasting my time on useless endeavors, are genuine iconoclasts seeking to shatter traditional images of family and religion etc, and Rowling doesn't seem in this class to me (for one there usually seem to be qualitative differences to me ... when I first read Harry Potter I thought, "ahhhhhhhh ... a story!" and when I read those 20 pages of MZB's MOA I thought, "Oh great ... polemics" ... absolutely nothing to hold my imagination to read further).
There is also the case of what I call the "Gregory Iconoclast" - taking the name from the character in Chesterton's Man Who Was Thursday. The one who is anarchist or iconoclast out of being wounded, which every anarchist or iconoclast started out as ... but Gregory has not reached that stage yet of being "bent" on iconoclasm itself with his whole being, he is still simply lashing out ... not yet the bad sort of cunning. Syme, however, is very cunning but in a good way ... he prevents Gregory from progressing any further ... Gregory simply doesn't have the wherewithall to do battle with Syme, and that is a fact that is to Gregory's credit ... and in the end it is the reason that Sunday puts to the council of detectives that they need to be accountable, how have they related to somebody like Gregory. And then you have Gregory and Syme walking down a road together simply talking, coming up to Gregory's sister cutting flowers "with the simple gravity of a girl" (one of my favorite lines in the world, although I'm not sure I've quoted it word for word here, but basic jist)
And then there are the more devious genuine iconclasts ... the ones who are every bit as subtle and cunning as Syme the detective.
It's funny, Bill Gates is probably the biggest and most sinister iconoclast there ever was because .... how did he smash the icon? In great pomp and show? no, he redefined it ... an Icon used to mean a beautiful work of religious art, something sublime ... now it means a windows XP Logo ... how much more insipid, vapid and meaningless can you get in life LOL (I flip that windows logo off [aka Ron's rude hand gesture in HBP, when Molly threatens to jinx his fingers together if she sees it again ... for those who might not be familiar with the term "flipping somebody/thing off"] more times than I can count each day, everytime the wonderful piece of technology that is supposed to be such a savior - "microsoft solves problems" and all that - is actually running more like a trash-can make-shift gocart but with bricks for wheels)
I guess in the end I would say I think of Rowling more as an "idolocast" - in other words I think she is smashing some things up and going through the outer temple with a whip of cords. As opposed to what seem to me to be some very genuine present day iconoclasts (ie true iconoclasts in all senses of the word, including the classical, with no misuses of the word).
Idolatry is alive and well (and, in fact, very popular on television) ... in fact I would have to say we have made great strides in recent culture in really becoming efficient about what idolatry is really all about ... the greatest selling drug of all time is self-perception ... ever since the serpent said "in the day you eat of it you will be like gods, knowing good from evil" ... and these days we got it in spades ... to quote JPII and the many others, a culture of death, meaning final death/spiritual death - Ie the final and definitive iconoclasm - the eternal breaking of the greatest icon of God, known as a human person.
Anyway, just my take on it. (Jonathan Edwards and the Apostle EF got nothing on me as far as the crazy-fire factor eh? LOL ... actually I liked some of Edwards philosophical considerations on the role of love/benevolence in natural level epistomology ... pretty sure I would not agree with him on some of the tenets that led him to it, but where he wound up at had some good nuances to it.)