The Never Asked Question

This is quite interesting. I was taking a break from Hebrew and decided to hop on Rowling's site and see if there was any news at all of release date predictions etc, and I saw a section apologizing to a girl who asked in the NYC reading Q & A back in August whether there were any questions that nobody has ever asked her but should, and she drew a blank but thought of a biggie right after she walked off stage. So she put it up under the miscellaneous section of the Extra Stuff part of her site (under the heading "NAQ" for "never asked question") ... and she says it is pretty crucial. The Question is: why did Dumbledore have James's invisibility cloak to give to Harry? Dumbledore has stated he does not need a cloak to become invisible, so there must be some special thing to be revealed about why he was the guardian of that particular heirloom and the one to present it to Harry. I am short on any thoughts off the top of my head as to the material plot possibilities but anybody who wants can toss interesting theories in here, or links to interesting theories they have seen (JKR says on the site that she has been online and seen that people have done a good bit of speculating on the matter, just nobody has asked her directly about it) ... I'd be really interested to hear what the sleuths have uncovered. My own thoughts tend to run more along the lines of the centrality of the image - the fact that an image like the invisibility cloak ties so crucially to the central plot line of Dumbledore's central role in the hero's life (that it is the heirloom that he passes on as a protectorate). In this post I talked about how Pauli and JKR2 had been batting around two different analogies for the soul, water and fabric (especially being torn in the making of Horcruxes), and how the invisibility cloak kind of combines both. It is odd that it is such a simple thing ... I mean, Dumbledore can be invisible without one, and he seems to be able to see Harry through the cloak, and Moody can see through it ... it doesn't seem to be particularly powerful magic does it? But then these very instances may be telling. Dumbledore is the one we see being able to penetrate it, and he is the one who passed it on ... seems like there is something about Dumbledore and invisibility thematically. In HBP it is very conspicuous the way he clearly tells Harry to keep the cloak on him. And even though the idea that sending Harry to get the cloak turned out to be a red herring (on the basis of the NYC summer of 06 revelation, the 5 minutes was not used to swap with Slughorn or Snape etc) ... but the inconsistencies remain there and may be very telling ... he had told Harry to keep it with him at all times, and Harry did indeed have it with him when Dumbledore told him to go get it (I looked it up when that theory was going round and Harry does not grab the cloak when he goes to the common room, he only grabs the map and the FF potion, meaning he had the cloak with him) ... so why does Dumbledore not just ask "do you have your cloak with you?" He is obviously giving Harry a chance to take his own precautions - in short, to be a leader ... but why is it the cloak specifically that is used as the "excuse" to give him a chance to do this? I think there is definitely some meaning there, I just haven't put my finger on it. And with how central of a role the theme/image of prophesy plays in the series, sight is definitely a major theme ... so what of that magical eye of Moody's that can penetrate an invisibility cloak? And what of the fact that it is a battle-worn auror that has such an eye? And what of the fact that it is an invisibility cloak that a death eater, Barty Jr (who will impersonate Moody via polyjuice potion, which seems to be connected here with the cloak and the theme of perception and deception), uses to watch the World Cup (of our favorite very symbolic sport), where he sets off the dark mark that, if I remember rightly, we will not see make an actual appearance again until the fateful night of Dumbledore's death? Lots of interesting stuff there ... that usually I would just class under my many meandering questions that longingly await book 7 ... but then she goes and drops something like that on her site - that there is a crucial question ... which just happens to do with said cloak.

Theology Images

Just thought I would toss up a post of some interesting stuff from a class I am taking in History of Christianity (thought it might be good to get a new Harry Potter content related post in here sometime, and not just pictures of the Bronx.) Some interesting stuff I was not expecting to find. For this first week in this class we had to read Justin Martyr's First Apology, Eusebius' Life of Constantine (part of it) and the Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, and it is from this last that there are some very interesting things (apologies if somebody on the web somewhere has already covered this material ... which I am sure they have ... it's just the first I had seen it). The Scar Perpetua was a noblewoman and Felicitas was her maid servant and they were martyred by fighting animals in the arena. Perpetua has a number of visions concerning her martyrdom and those of other catechumenates who were martyred with her. But one of the visions was also of a brother of hers who had, and I think died of, a cancer of the face. She sees him first with the disfigurement and then again healed ... but with a scar on his face/forehead (Ie, after his death but with the scar remaining as a sort of "marturia," which originally means "witness" in Greek). His death from disease is one of a number of parallels with her martyrdom (including her own giving birth days before being martyred ... which is described as one bathing in blood connected with her baptism by blood in martyrdom.) I'm not saying I think anything conclusive from this about our favorite boy with a scar on his forehead, that he will die ... nor even that I necessarily suspect that Rowling definitely knows of this image or would have had it in mind when she developed a story of a boy with a scar, that she has said ends with "scar" as the last word. But I do find it a high coincidence that you have this image of a scar as a remaining sign of a affliction literarily connected with a martyrs death, when we know that in book &, even if Harry does not die the martyr's death he will have to make some pretty heroic self-sacrifices. I don't know whether Rowling would have studied this work in her schooling at Exeter, but I do know that in this class (which is one of the core courses for the MA in Theology here, which I have to take, even though I am a PhD candidate, to sort of fill in some weak areas in my MA) there are several people who are taking the class as part of required coursework for the MA in Medieval Studies, so it is definitely possible Rowling would have studied this work in classics studies. Gender Issues The other interesting vision in the work is a vision of Perpetua's own martyrdom in which she must wrestle "an Egyptian" who is really big and basically symbolizes the uber-opponent who you can't beat (but she does, but of course the "beating" is through the transformation of the true victory in martydom, in learning to do well and gloriously that which we are all subject to - accepting death: to die well, to quote William Wallace.) In Greco-Roman wrestling they would strip you down naked and oil you up for wrestling, which would be unchaste for a woman, and so she looks down and, in the vision, she is a man. One of the girls in the class who is MA Theology, with whom I have gotten to be friends (and who is graciously helping me and another PhD student out with German, since she is in the class but also had some German in undergrad ... I agree with Mark Twain on the German Language) mentioned the theme of transcending gender and an ancient view, noted especially in Aristotle's characterization of the female gender as a "mis-begotten male," of men being better and more intellectual and women lesser and more tied to the earthy through their biological capacities. This made me think of two things. The first is that, true to what Granger is saying about Rowling as Post-Modern, she has reversed the poles (challenged the meta-narrative.) It is Ron, the male, who is the earth-bound, sulfuric biological soul and Hermione who is the intellectual soul. The second is that Granger has hit upon this whole thing of gender issues and the andro-gyn character in PoMo lit ... I can't remember if that is the exact word he uses but, if I understood correctly he was not speaking of the typical "androgynous" that we think of these days ... somebody like Hagrid is definitely masculine, in a bigger than life way (the distinct descriptions of what seems like more facial hair than Esau) but the "mothering" characteristics he has for creatures such as Norbert can fit in with this in a way that is natural, like both sides being fully themselves, not the sort of "gray area" we think of as "androgyny." And I think "more power to Jo" on challenging that one ... I love Aristotle but some ideas need to be challenged because they're just wrong. Anyway ... just a few interesting thoughts and observations from History of Christianity class. Did you notice, true to my new fascination with Granger's work on Rowling as both classicist and PoMo ... one from the classics imagery emphasis and one from the PoMo emphasis ... but the one from the PoMo showing how it is also PreMo?

"Back News"

Don't know if Felicity wrote the comment a while ago and it just made it through the forwarding stack. But I have to write this quickly, class is about to start (I love a university where you can get wifi in the classroom!) Anyway, I just got a new comment from Felicity on this post ... really good stuff on some of the history of the stoppered death theory and who has been writing on it online and the interchange that has gone on on it. BTW I got to hear Barbara Nicolosi speak while I was at FUS and she was really good, very wry sense of humor and all but really professional, I respect her work a lot.

More Pics and Spidey Snape Spell Thoughts

Ok ... so, this is the building I live in now ... called Arthur 2, which was just built ... decent place This is looking south down Arthur Ave towards the stretch of the Avenue that has a lot of shops and restaurants. Same intersection as in one of those other pics but in daylight. You can see the Italian flags for "Little Italy in the Bronx". And this is looking north from our stoop, up at the intersection of Arthur and Fordham Rd. It doesn't look like it in the picture, but Fordham Road is a pretty busy road. In this you can just see the red car and the tan SUV going through the intersection, but it is pretty busy ... usually have to wait a bit at the lights to get across and continue on a block to campus - which I will try to take some pictures of soon ... really beautiful campus . Been taking some pics of murals and architecture at the Churches but not getting to get results yet with indoor photos On Spells Anyway, I had commented on Felicity's comments on the force of spells in connection with the Spidey Snape Essay post and then lost the whole thing, so I'll try to briefly recap some of my thoughts. I like the detail from the text as far as the physical contributions to the force of spell casting. My own reading of it is more along the lines of how psychological/emotional factors impact it. Such as we see that trauma from being in love and having the other resisting effects Tonk's powers and Harry's shield charm knocking Snape back into a desk. Harry was pretty agitated with Snape and it seems in the text like it was pretty much the speed and ferocity with which Snape turns on him that fires it off. He says later "he was trying to jinx me, in case you hadn't noticed!" but that was pretty much the thing of the demonstation which Snape had described from the beginning so it should not have been out of the ordinary for Snape to try to jinx him NVB, but it seems like Harry was having this whole "boiling just under the surface" and the suddenness of Snape's turn broke the thin layer of control and set him off. In other words, a heated situation. By contrast I have always thought the "slumping" from Voldy's own AK to be connected to the "coldness" always noted in his voice. Now, this also works with the combined impediment jinx at the MOM from the DE's, that their combined emotional upcharge -- and it is understandable that the jinx might not cause falling over in the less charged situation of practicing in the DA room -- when I took karate for 9 months or so in like 9th grade I remember the head of that set of schools saying he thought a good street fighter could beat about at least 75 percent of the black belts out there simply because it is a whole different arena psychologically between sparring in the dojo, even the hardcore sparring only the blackbelts are allowed to do, and being on the street facing somebody with a knife who is really willing to wound you with it -- but there is also maybe something to the impediment spell specifically that makes it such that they didn't need cushions for practicing it while they did need them for stunning spells. But my main point in the response I made and then lost is that I think both the psychological disposition explanation and the skill/talent/development explanation can be true. They are different enough in nature that you would not really have "multivalence" - instead you would have a sort of "ambivalence" where the tension between the two possibilities is itself symbolic of the reality being described. In other words, the human person is such that skills such as these take some natural talent/power (some of which, in this case, may come from factors extrinsic to the person, such as ancestry), but psychological factors can impact ability and performance as well ... one can be "off one's game" due to such factors, which seems to be what Ron is saying of Tonks, who seems otherwise to be quite a gifted witch, given that she made it to being an auror. It's all that mystery of the human person thing.... :)