Professor G weighs in on the Hallows

Merry Christmas everyone! I looked out on the Feast of Stephen this morning, but unlike the good King W, I saw no snow where I'm currently staying with my family which is Grove City, PA, erstwhile stomping grounds of Merlinus et Paulius. John Granger's site is now a blog. I was reading this post where he provides some more material for the ponderings and then notes: So what does Deathly Hallows mean? Let's be clear. I have no definite idea. It could be a new magical creature, a place like a graveyard or sanctuary, or a reference to the four Founder Horcruxes Harry must destroy before vanquishing the Dark Lord. We’ll know for sure after reading the book, right? But then he throws some more light on word meanings. 3. Deathly Hallows also has an alchemical and Christian meaning of greater depth. The Hallows are a quaternary from the Arthurian tradition that echo the four elements of alchemy we see in the several quaternaries of the Harry Potter books (Hogwarts Founders, Houses, Magical Brethren remaining Horcruxes, etc.). To hallow, that is 'to make whole' and 'to make holy' simultaneously from Old English 'hal', is the alchemical action of transcending the contrary polarities of creation and returning to the transcendent origin of existence, in Christian tradition, the Logos or God's creative Word. In alchemy, again echoing Christian tradition, this requires a death to the world ('renunciation') and to the self ('humility' for a start). Deathly Hallows may have the specific meaning of "deadly graveyard" or "dangerous Horcrux relics"; it certainly points to the life-laden power, the hallowing effect, of dying to the world. Harry Potter's main task in book seven is to "get Voldemort," but this will probably take the form not only of destroying Horcrux-Hallows, but also of his transcending his most closely held beliefs. I like the way Granger ends, reminding us that destroying evil, i.e., killing Voldemort, does not complete the full mission of the good side because the work or restoration is still to be accomplished, i.e., uniting the Hogwarts houses. John G. never lets us lose site of the Great Alchemical Work which is the framework in which he casts his interpretations. Given the richness and superb quality of the Professor's writing, I have no doubt we'll be reading his future posts voraciously.

Meaning of Hallows: Felicity's Post

Busy HP researcher, Felicity, put an excellent post about the meaning of the book 7 title, especially of the word hallows. It made me rethink my trust in using only online dictionaries which only show one word at a time; if I had brushed the dust of my trusty thick American College Dictionary (which I just did) my post on Friday would have most likely been somewhat expanded. I would have seen the other meaning of hallow which is related to our words hello and holler and means a "calling out", as Felicity points out, quoting the Oxford English Dictionary: Hallow, n. (OED) A hallow is a call that a huntsman gives to the dogs to incite them to catch the quarry (e.g., rabbit). "A loud shout or cry, to incite dogs in the chase, to help combined effort, or to attract attention." A hallow also refers to the spoils (in the form of part of the rabbit) given to the dogs after it is caught; therefore it refers to the quarry itself. OED: "The parts of the hare given to hounds as a reward or encouragement after a successful chase." So you have a hallow as a holy person or place (Dumbledore, Potters, Godric's hollow), a "shout-out" ("Hey, yo, we got all your hocruxes, Big Guy!" and/or the quarry, i.e., the horcruxes themselves ("Hallow, what have we here? A horcrux!"). In her reply to my comment about the "blood of Abel", Felicity she gave some of the preliminary reported foreign translations of the title which are, as she pointed out, unofficial and "all over the place": French News: "Harry Potter et les Sanctuaires Mortels", "Harry Potter et les Reliques Mortelles" ("Mortel" has 2 meanings in French: that cause death or that's bound to die; sanctuary and relic are my guesses for the other two words. Italian News: "Harry Potter e il Rito Mortale", "Harry Potter and the deadly rite/ceremony/ritual" Russian News: "Harry Potter and the Deathly/Fatal Relics" Netherlands/Dutch News: "Harry Potter en het Fatale Heiligdom", i. e., "Harry Potter and the Fatal Relic" or "Harry Potter and the Fatal Sanctuary" [According to a Leaky comment, the official Dutch translator declines to translate as there are multiple translations in Dutch possible, including saints (as in Holy Person) and relic (Holy Artifact).] Danish News: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Screams" German News: "Harry Potter and the Saints of Death" Spanish News: "Harry Potter y los Santos Mortales", i.e., Harry Potter and the Mortal Saints", "Harry Potter and the Spirits of Death" Quite an assortment of meanings when brought back into English. Meanwhile, commenter Cory remarks on the "Arthurian angle" over at Travis's site. Cory got this from a Leaky Cauldron comment where I found this link to the Arthurian reference. Directly underneath was this comment which connects the title to the unbreakable vow(s?) made by Snape. It obviously means "Harry Potter and the Deathly Vows". The last book was all about the question of whether Snape was good or bad, so this one we will find about about the deathly vows Snape took, and how it will help him along his path to kill Voldemort with Harry. I bet you snape took a "deathly vow" with Dumbledore to kill Voldemort. Although I really like commenter Darth Vader's insight here, I disagree with him that anything is obvious at this point. Great theory though. Reminds me of the passage in Genesis when the Lord hallows the Sabbath; this is part of his covenant with man which is always enacted in the form of a vow -- I'll let that be a hand-off to Merlin the Hebrew scholar.

Hallows and Horcruxes

Time's up. Everybody has had plenty of time to play hangman to find the title the fun way. Now let's analyze it some. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm trying to be the first hit on Google for another 15 micro-seconds of fame. (Sorry, Andy, what with inflation and all....) When used as an adjective, deathly can mean deadly, but it can also mean indicative of death. When I think of the latter, the state of Dumbledore's hand in Half-Blood Prince immediately comes to mind as well as Voldemort's horcruxes. My first thought was that those are hardly hallows, literally "holies" or "saintlies". They are more aptly described as infernal or ruined. Of course, to be holy or hallowed means to be "set apart", and the horcruxes are definitely set apart in a "deathly" way. Plus they used to be part of something holy, i.e. Tom Riddle's soul. Next my mind went to Godric's Hollow. I don't particularly know why -- maybe the similarity between the words hallow and hollow? But it seems like a hallow could be a place as in the oft-heard phrase "these hallowed halls" to describe educational institutions (like Hogwarts?). There were two deaths at the hollow, Harry's parents, making the place deathly and hallowed, like the ground at a cemetery. The problem is that Godric's Hollow is just one place and the title specifies a plural. Could they refer to the places, like the cave, wherein the horcruxes have been hidden? The cave is rightly described as deathly what with Inferi swimming around waiting to recruit new members. And in a sense the place is hallowed if you separate the formal "set apart" meaning from the common nuance of hallowed as something good (e.g., Saints, Angels, Heaven, the Almighty God, a church sanctuary, etc.) This is preliminary guesswork to get a conversation going. I suspect we won't know what Rowling is getting at until we have our eyes glued to the pages of the book. Update: Here's a couple posts with good points: Good points by HP Prognostications. Travis weighs in La Shawn goes after Mallory -- and mentions MM -- thanks, La Shawn!

Book 7 Title Revealed

I know what the title is! I know what the title is! HT: HPANA, but there's a way to find out from JKR's site so I won't ruin it -- you can do it by clicking on the eraser. All the instructions are in that HPANA article. I'm too lazy to figure it all out myself.

Cubeland Mystic Joins MM

I'd like to extend a massive, mythopoeic Muggle Matters welcome to the Cubeland Mystic who just joined us. Cubeland Mystic has several blogs, most notably The Immaculate Direction. Cube -- as I, being a lazy typist, like to call him for short -- is an ardent fan of Lord of the Rings even though he's new to the world of Harry. He has many good insights like this one, "Who are you?", on his blog asking which character from LotR readers relate to the most. Excerpt: This post has been in the works for quite awhile, so I have given this idea a lot of thought. At first I really thought I identified with Sam, since we share a love of gardening. I love Sam, he is a great character. Sam is Joe six pack. It is not difficult to imagine Sam tailgating, wearing his Steelers jersey, working a barbecue full of brats with a beer in his hand. Sam would lead his parish’s Knights of Columbus council. But as much as I tried to make this fit, it just did not work. He goes on to say that he relates best to... well, I'll let you go read for yourself. But maybe we could talk about which Harry Potter character we identify with the most in the comments here. Welcome again, Cube, and feel free to post on any of the great mythopoeic literature that we celebrate here.

Muggle Matters Switched to "Beta"

I took the plunge and converted Muggle Matters and my other blogs to Beta, Blogger's newer improved format. It makes changes much quicker to implement by eliminating the need to continually "republish" and features a new spell-checker which is much faster -- although I still wish you could add your own words. Best of all, we can now categorize posts with labels which appear at the bottom of each article. If you would like to comment and you are having problems or if you find any dead links, please feel free to email me using the link in the left column. UPDATE: This link will help anyone get through the tedious process of converting to Blogger Beta.

Everybody Knows the Granger Et al book is available, right?

Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? by John Granger, Joyce O'Dell (Red Hen) and others - is available on Amazon now, click the link. I'm looking forward to this when I get around to it - hopefully be able to read some over Christmas break and write some on it. The write-up sounds really good.

Book 7 Ponderings

Well, I was just poking around on the internet taking a break from working on a paper, looking for any news on the progression of Book 7 I might have missed or any new news on titles and release dates etc and came across these 2 that I am sure that everybody else who is more in the know has known for some time but I just thought I would toss in on them. The First is not really news I guess ... I just liked the title for the piece: "Harry Potter: Wanted Dead or Alive" Which just struck me as funny because it is the desperate cry of all fans: "Kill him or don't, but we're dying with wanting to know how it ends!" ... but of course, the good story I know JKR will provide is worth waiting for her to write it well and I am satisfied that her intuition of when the story is well written enough to see the light of day will make the best call on it. The other is the probably "old news" piece: 2 Characters dying unexpectedly This is some piece from a lit expert saying Harry won't die. I haven't read enough to see what other arguments Prof. James Kranser gives to say that in general Harry won't die, but I would definitely agree that Harry wouldn't be one of the 2 characters Rowling said did have to die that she had not anticipated (I know ... this was from way back in July, but I've been a little behind the times). If Harry dies in Book 7 I would wager he has been going to die all along. It doesn't seem like the type of meaning thing you change part way through, definitely not half way through the final installment. I would say she would have known by at least OotP or HBP on something that big. And if she is changing Harry's fate this late, I doubt she would be bringing it up. Never a good idea to give any hints that something that big might have been flying by the seat of your pants. As for who does die ... I hope they're death eaters, but I suspect that at least one of them has the last name Weasley ... don't ask me to support that with argumentation, just a gut feeling ... and I sure hope that both characters don't have the last name Weasley because then the fact that the decision for both deaths came at the same time (sometime just prior to the Richard and Judy show appearance) increases the possibility that they are the two characters you cannot think of one being alive without the other, literarily, because who would finish the other one's sentences for them the way identical twins do? (in other words, decide to kill one as a writer and you might as well kill the other ... hence the decision being simultaneous ... if both newly deceased characters have the last name Weasley the twins' chances don't look that good ... glad she didn't tell us though :) ). If Fred and George do die I'll be very sad but I'm sure it will be a real show; they never disappoint for putting on a show. :) POST-SCRIPT: I just read some of Krasner's arguments and they seem weak ... and downright off-base with this one "Neville Longbottom is really the chosen one, so I suspect he'll die." Neville isn't the chosen one because Dumbledore has made it pretty clear that the title "chosen one" really refers to Voldemort's choice in trying to kill Harry at Godric's Hollow (In other words, I'm not saying that the title "chosen one" is complete bunk ... but it is an "ironic" title, in the technical sense of the word ... the wizarding world, as well as the reader, wants to hop on the "prophecy train," and that is basically what Voldemort did and what started the whole saga of Harry's involvement ... so in a way the books are sort of revelation about self for the reader too ... I think a gentle revelation, and not heavy handed, as would be the case if the reader is supposed now to feel guilty about being part of the same "structures" as the great evils in the world, but I think still a bit of a self-checking revelation, "for those who have ears to hear"). Neville may well die but the fact is that he is not "the chosen one" because one of the things Rowling is primarily doing (and that she is pretty clear about in the places where Dumbledore is obviously her mouthpiece) is challenging a "deterministic" concept of "fate." She is doing this primarily by challenging the mis-conception of "prophecy." Harry will have to fight Voldemort, but because of the way Voldemort pushed things from his own putting stock in the prophecy in a certain (wrong-headed) way. That seems to me to be one of the primary themes of the series: There are certain patterns in the world that things follow but unless your a centaur (and even the best of them, like Firenze, admit the tentativeness of even their ability to read such things) getting your head around those patterns will blow your mind apart and you'll probably misread it anyway ... better to stick with your moral center and courage and just try to do the right thing. Oh yeah ... Krasner also appears to have been on the "Dumbledore will come back, at least as a ghost" bandwagon, which she seems to pretty much have put the squelch on back in August. 1. He's officially dead (unless she is pulling a really big ruse, but I don't think she would ruse on something like this to this level ... it seems like it would dip into the realm of being actually duplicitous ... with the Romance thing of Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny she just cast aspersions on the "shipping wars" in general as a mild ruse to hide her hand ... I know I may be doing a 180 from something I said before, hopefully not too bad though ... but I take her at her public word on this one that DD has really exited stage left) 2. If we are to believe Nick's comments about why Sirius won't come back as a ghost, in the end of OotP (which I thought was a really good piece), then even moreso for Albus Dumbledore. 3. Harry will probably have some access to Dumbledore's memory and thought at the time of his death but I am willing to bet that there will be some pointed statement in it of the limitedness and purpose of those paintings - that Harry will try to get as much out of the DD painting as possible and be told by the painting (in that typical patient and endearing DD way we have all come to love so much in how he deals with and relates to Harry), something like that the paintings are only there to help the present headmaster/mistress and to help them with the running of the school etc ... meaning maybe not just mundane operational things but wisdom and knowledge that might help in actively protecting the students (such as checking on matters in other locations where they have paintings, letting the headmaster/mistress know that the minister has just left the ministry to apparate in Hogsmead to come to the school, since that falls under "protecting" the schools interests from being encroached upon by the state and that sort of thing) ... but I suspect that there will be some type of curb in Harry's encounter with the portrait (not sure exactly all what, just a gut feeling). Rowling's is a pretty complex world and she is a pretty talented writer. I would not be surprised if the painting has everything in Dumbledore's mental powers (memory and intellectual powers) but that there are parameters on the "advisor paintings" system that control what the painting itself can disclose or do. If she uses such a device in book 7 I suspect it will be as much a part of the "needing to come to grips with death and have closure" thing as anything else, like the experience of looking for Sirius as a ghost in OotP. I suspect that if such an incident occurs, one of the points will be some sort of statement by the painting that it is only a painting of Dumbledore and not the man himself, a portrait with a certain defined function, and Harry should not look to it for "all the answers" ... both on the level of solving the problem of Voldy and Snape etc, but also on the level of emotional desire to be with Dumbledore again -- that he should let grieving and closure take their natural course and accept that he will not see Dumbledore again on this side of the veil. I suspect Harry will get something helpful from the painting but also be slightly frustrated somehow by not being able to get everything he is asking (it is a type she has used before: the room of requirement gives you what you need but it has parameters to that system, and in HBP we saw Harry pushing and bucking against those parameters frustratedly, and I suspect we'll see the same sort of thing with the painting in book 7). Just my thoughts though ...

Movie 5 footage

A friend just sent me this link to a you-tube on ain't it cool of 6 minutes that's been airing on the ABC or some such channel, behind the scenese stuff. It's interesting, but I have been thinking about this one ... why I know ahead of time that I will like this movie least of all the ones out so far, but that that fact will not bug me that much. A lot of it is just the medium, but included in that is some of the culture. The disparity between this film and the book, from what I can tell from this clip, is greater in this film than ever before. I would say that that is especially the case in what I would call the "muting" of the dark characters ... but I don't know if it would be entirely possible to carry across Rowling's dark characters in any present genre of film, and thus in a film that the modern audience would connect to. For some reason you can do it in a film like PotC where the setting in removed from contemporary "civilization" ("it" meaning dark characters that have exagerated qualities but still have humor and other things involved outside of a strict "horror" genre). But when you're dealing with 20th/21st century civilized setting like London, it seems like for a wider audience to connect you go with either strict horror genre, if you want to catch the larger than life qualities, or you mute the characters into more likable human form. It is different in the book somehow, somehow the framing is different or something. You can get psychological-realist characters like Harry and Sirius alongside more ghoulish characters like Bella without getting disjointed. Rowling seems to be able to keep both the real pathos characters and the Kafka-esque characters in balance in the books in a way that just seems a lot harder in a film at present. Here are the examples. Delores Umbridge ... entirely not unsettling enough in appearance. In the book you know - this woman is definitely a toad. And then there is the Bella character. I mean, I like Hellena Bonham Carter as an actress, and I can understand why, in the current hollywood film world, they chose her ... But Bella's appearance in the books is a lot more like a Kafka character - HBC is just too human (well, and for one, she's too pretty). Bella in the book is small but powerful, and to say that she is a charicture is not to say that Rowling failed in drawing her with more depth, it is to say that the charicture quality is part of the character of evil in the books ... the fact that the character is 2-dimensionally ghoulish at points reveals that that is what evil does, turns you into a 2-dimensional person. Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth, but ... and here is the big one that just came to my mind. They have interview stuff with HBC as Bella, and the girl who plays Luna, and the woman who plays Umbridge ... all new characters to this book and film ... BUT, nothing on Tonks! I really hope that was just a pacing thing for the broadcast of this promo "making of" thing ... I really hope the character was not cut from the film - I love the Tonks character. I suppose arguments could be made that even though there is a lot going on with her character that could really be worked well but it would be just too distracting in a film being made from a book that is already larger in scope than probably 2 feature length films. ... but I would really miss Tonks (actually I think Helena Bonham Carter would make a great Tonks). But, in the end, that is all a part, I guess, of what I am saying about the films. The medium just isn't there right now to do the books real justice. I'll definitely go to see the film but I highly doubt that I'll be "excited" one way or the other. I probably will think it is interesting for a viewing or two, but not really for much more, and probably won't love or hate it, but probably won't be able to connect with it too closely because the book is always there in my head (with the Tolkien films it was different for me for some reason).