The 3-4-5 Insanity Chiasm in the Harry Potter Series

Introduction (Warning: It's another long one [But only about 20 pages at college rule this time, so actually less than half as long as the last one :) - EDITORIAL NOTE: Oops, scratch that last size detail, that Merlin was looking at the post in single spaced, so this piece actually probably weighs in more at 35-40 pp college-rule, which is double spaced. He has summarily been dubbed "Merlin the Miscalculating" and been shuffled off to the Brig, as was the last one, even though I said he was sent to bed, which was also true ... you see, our Brig here aboard the pirate ship known as the "Flying Brettman" is actually a bit more like the Knight Bus, with beds and all for the various Merlin's to catch up on sleep when they get too sleep-deprived]- so copy and paste and print if that works better ... but please don't steal ... although, to be honest there is not much I could do about it if you did lol - after all, writing online from the Bronx ain't exactly Fort Knox, let alone Gringott's :) lol but such is life I guess ... of course that is assuming you even WANT to steal this content lol) Building on the work I did in my "manifesto" on my chiasm reading of the Harry Potter series (ht epost just before this one), I wish now to examine a 3-4-5 chiasm that I think may be one of the most central of the series ... Insanity. In what follows the material does not refer only to what we usually think of as "full blown insanity" ... but I use the term simply because it is the primary image and language used in this particular chiasm (as will be discussed, Dumbledore uses precisely the word "insane" in the book 4 crux that ties the chiasm together, and he uses it in a very pointed way). I use the comments of Kim Decina and Josella Vanderhooft in their joint paper on clinical disorder types in the Potter series, which can be found on the PDF collection of papers contained on the CD that accompanied the conference materials of the Lumos symposium in 2006, held in Las Vegas, NV: "As much of Rowling's work concerns itself with themes of choice and personal responsibility, the inclusion of several main characters with mood and personality disorders also presents the reader with a dilemma: to ask herself how these conditions can impact personal agency and to what degree the negative behavior of mentally ill individuals can or should be excused." (Decina and Vanderhooft, p. 2). In following this line I am not saying that mental disorder can be used in every case to dismiss personal culpability altogether, especially to the degree that would make all language of personal culpability nonsensical, but, if one reads Decina and Vanderhooft fairly, they are not saying this either (the first sentence cited clearly agrees that the works directly and centrally concern themes of choice and responsibility). They simply maintain, as do I, that one of the concrete questions of the Harry Potter works is the inter-relation between psychological/psychiatric disorder and personal moral culpability. After all, how many times have we heard about death eaters who later claimed they were dominated by something, in this case a witch or wizard via the imperius curse, to the level that they were not culpable. And just as discerning between those who legitimately make this claim and those who are trying to cover up a choice to serve voldy is a central material question for the wizarding world, so the question of where and to what degree psychological factors impact validly full choice in our muggle world, symbolized by Rowling's wizarding world, is a central theme question of the series. I believe that, just as there are some who were legitimately imperiused in the books and some who were not, there are some places in the real world that psychological concerns seriously mitigate moral culpability, and some places where they are used only as excuses and moral culpability remains in tact. I do not assume that every choice can be explained away - some people may advocate such reductionism, but our denying the question as a question at all will do nowhere nearly as much good in counter-acting those who erroneously do such "reductionism" as will an honest exposition of the matter. Those who say the world is so dominated by the "excuse-makers" that even to concede the valid existence of question is to go beyond the realm of "risk" into the realm of "sure loss of argument" should ask themselves who the real conspiracy theorists are (meaning that the "moralist" side often accuse the "reductionist side" of seeing anything and everything done by the "normal" people in society as the key moral problem, IE the "moralists" often accuse the "reductionists" of seeing a bogey and conspiracy behind every "normal" tree in a way that would make even Mad-Eye seem well-balanced and not paranoid). In researching this and getting into the source material that Decina and Vanderhooft offer in their notes, a chiastic conspiracy theorist like me (who probably sees more chiasms hiding around more corners than Mad-Eye Moody sees death eaters lurking in the shadows lol) could obviously get really excited about a statement about Goblet Of Fire like "It's the central book. It's pivotal in every sense. I had to get it right" (London Times interview with Ann Treneman, July 30, 2000), and believe me I was excited to find that line. But for here, in light of what I was just saying about morality and evil and factors that impact moral culpability, the more important quote from the same interview is "I have said from the beginning that if you are honestly going to examine evil actions then you have a moral obligation not to fudge the issue." It is obviously interesting that the actual handling of the issue of morality is itself, for Rowling (and I agree), a morally charged event. But even more than that, I think that what she speaks of as "not fudging the issue" (IE not pulling a Cornelius? - fudge and moral culpability raised in the same sentence is VERY interesting, and not just for issues of gluttony lol), involves NOT ONLY admitting that moral culpability is truly and concretely possible BUT ALSO that it is possible for it (moral culpability) to be impacted by mitigating factors (false binary thinking tends to see these two statements as mutually exclusive). In a separate section toward the end of this post I will address a personal theory of my own on one particularly strong place I see this whole thing going in the works on a level of where exactly the meaning of the works hook onto real life, but I will save that for last. For here though, I will note that Decina's and Vanderhooft's work is pretty thorough as far as detailing, in the HP texts, concrete instances of specific mood and personality disorder traits (Snape as dysthymic depression, Lockheart as clinical narcissism, Harry's reaction to the dementors as full clinical depression episode etc ... to which I would add Lupin as maybe not a discrete clinical disorder category, but a definite tenet shared by most persons with disorders such as GAD, SAD, OCD etc, a view of the self as "broken beyond repair" or at least no longer capable of ever fulfilling certain levels of interpersonal relationship, recalling Lupin's words to Tonks at the end of HBP [although when I mentioned that on the site after the Lumos conference, either Decina or Vanderhooft said she did not see Lupin as any specific clinical disorder, but upon my clarifying as I did just now she replied something like "ok, hmmmm ... will have to think about it more"]). The 3-4-5 Insanity chiasm So, here are the series/text specifics of the 3-4-5 chiasm I am calling the "Insanity Chiasm." In book 3 you have the introduction of the dementors, beings who induce specifically depression (here there is the quote that Granger has used several times in his work, from the 6/30/2000 London Times interview, that the dementors specifically embody depression as something beyond simple sadness). Not only is the dementor's kiss pretty much full-blown and un-reversable (as far as we know) vegetative depression, a state of lack of capability to function sanely, but Snape's classroom discussion in HBP specifically classes it (the kiss) with the effects of the cruciatus curse - and the book 5 element of the insanity chiasm shows us exactly that: we actually meet the Longbottoms who have been tortured into insanity. Insanity seems a strong word because we often use it with pejorative tones, or at least switch too facilely back and forth between a technical designation and a more moralistic tone in using the word (we often will use it to describe particularly evil behavior by a person, especially when it is evidently pathological and a continuing habit, rather than a one time incident etc). But this is particularly the term Dumbledore uses in the conversation with Harry, just after his first excursion into the penseive, in which DD reveals the fate of the Longbottoms (confirmed, as noted, in book 5) - and here the language is VERY pointed on EXACTLY how Dumbledore feels about the matter of insanity forced on a person. Harry asks if Neville's parents are dead - "'No,' said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard before. 'They are insane.'" (GOF 603). (A Style Point) The way I have rendered that statement here the word "insane" is in the "emphatic end position" (both Hebrew and Latin use this technique occasionally). Although in Rowling's text there is further clarification that follows, I think the word "insane" does occupy an end position in the flow of the question and answer formula .... as such a blunt response ending that interchange it is meant to sort of take your breath away, I think. The emphatic end position is usually an effective device. I would note two cases where the word "dead" is especially meant to be powerful in the end position. One is that I have even tried to use it in my original recent chiasm post: In trying to drive home what I think is a powerful tenet in Rowling's style, that thing of innocent (and I do mean entirely innocent) off-handed comments having a sting to the speaker themselves when something changes or happens. I spoke of Katie Bell, in GOF, telling Harry to pay Cedric back for beating them in Quidditch the year before ... "and by the end of the book, Cedric is dead." The possibility of using such a style of sentence, which I refer to as a "heart punch" (when I was a kid we foolishly used to trade "heart punches," a single straight punch direct to the sternum that we had heard was supposed to make the heart stop for one beat), probably stuck in my mind most from my second example I offer of it, Tolkien's use of it at the end of one of the chapters in the Return of the King. Frodo and Sam are going through Mordor and have just escaped the band of orcs and Sam pushes them just a little further off the road to avoid detection, and then there is a shallow crater and Frodo simply falls into it ... nad the final sentence of the chapter reads "and there he lay, like a dead thing." In this one the only thing that has trumped the word "dead" in end position is the word "thing" .... a person is not a thing, a corpse is (Frodo has obviously not died, but the point being driven home by the emphasis is exactly how deadening Mordor and the weight of the ring are for him). That was a bit of an aside, but just to say that I think "insane" is in the end position in the GOF passage I just cited and that it is there for emphasis on the word itself. Book 4 - The Pensieve: Revelation, Dream Therapy, Social Conscience and The Self-Examined Life ("Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions" - Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17) In recently reading through the chapter on the pensieve, the thing that struck me is, as a revelatory device, the closeness it has with a specific methodology of psychological "talk therapy." There is a practice of writing one's dreams down as soon as one wakes in as much detail as one can and taking the material in to talk-therapy sessions and going over the details, pretty much examining them in a new light and more removed context, much as the pensieve allows one to do with thoughts and memories. The point is to find out what is going on in your own head with a new level of clarity, in other words to work towards a helpful revelation of what your "issues" are and what their exact shape is. Often in dreams your mind addresses or expresses the things and issues you have trouble coping with head on in your waking, conscious life. The point in such a therapeutic practice as examining your dreams is to pay attention to the way things work in your dreams: details such as colors and shapes with certain emotional qualities or personal history and narrative elements such as what people, in your dreams, morph into what other people (like Harry's face morphing into Snape's in the pensieve and Snape talking specifically about the dark mark growing stronger - pretty interesting in connection with the "dark mark" Voldy gave Harry on his forehead, the scar, and the fact that the second major pain incident in GOF is after "the drea" ... cf below) and what scenes morph into what other scenes. In trying for immediate recall of your dreams upon waking another helpful thing to catalog is your own emotional responses to different elements ... a lot of times you might think, "this element sort of reminded me of this or that person or element in my life, it was sort of like this thing ... no, wait, the shape of it wasn't quite that, must have been a red herring" ... but a lot of times those initial gut impressions are very helpful precisely because they come from your own head in the immediate wake of having the dream (an intentional double entendre with the word "wake" ... the wake of a boat is also an image that can be used for what Emmanuel Levinas spoke of as the "trace" that evidences human being, expecially in the face, and the face being a theme echoed strongly by the current head of philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, Jean Luc Marion, a student, back in the day, of Levinas, Derrida and Paul Ricouer, and who I got to hear speak this weekend on Augustine's use of the Divine Names, influenced by Pseudo Dyonisius/Dennis' concept of "participation" in his work on the Divine Names, and I got to shake Marion's hand and say hello afterwards, being introduced by a friend working the conferene her e at Fordham ... thus, Harry's scar on his face as a "trace"?). In a moment I will get more into some of the nitty-gritty of the dream methodology but, for right now I would simply offer the context of the introduction of the pensieve as what seems to me to be a pretty strong piece of evidence in support of therapeutic dream examination as a background source that contributes to the meaning of the pensieve. Notice when the pensieve is introduced - Harry is on his way to tell Dumbledore about ... the dream he had in divination class. As for social consciousness ... what is it that intervenes between the dream and the pensieve? The conversation that Harry hears between Fudge, Dumbledore and MadEye about Madame Maxime and Hagrid as half giants, IE the WW prejudices (remember that "inclusio" device I talked about in the last post on chiasm? - An opening and closing element, like the dream and the "dream sifter," the pensieve, with what falls between them related in a special way to the common theme/element of the "bookends"). Although in the comment on last post where I talked about making this a separate post I said that I would not be going into specific details of where this all hooks up for me personally, I now think that, in fairness, I should touch on that briefly here. The first reason is as a way better to explain what I am talking about. But is is also, as I said, to be fair: if I am implying that Rowling might have made the pensieve image up based in this very concrete methodology of talk therapy, I am at least implying that I think it is from personal experience, that she has done some "time in the chair," the chair of therapy. Thus, it is only fair of me to reveal that I am tuned into this image for the same reasons - I have about 15 single spaced pages of dream recollections from this past semester. At a certain point during the semester, under the care of an MD, I "ramped up" on an SSRI medication (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, commonly referred to as "anti-depressants" - such medications standardly take about 2-6 weeks of use, depending, for one to "ramp up" to full potency). I am no longer taking that medication (again, under the care of my physician and on his guidance), but while I was on it, one of the noted possible effects of such "meds," one that I concretely and clearly experienced, is much greater retention and clarity of detail in dreams, which provided a lot of fodder in therapy. Note: As an example of the type of things I was saying that are beneficial to notice in such "revelatory" dream analyses, akin to the type of imagery analysis I am doing here, an element that I noticed in my dreams was occassional situational/phyiscal "phrasing" from a video game I used to play - Half Life 2. HL2 is a game that pretty much has one straight throgh "plot" in which you have to to all the basic actions to get through the plot, and what dialogue there is is one-sided and strictly scripted on the part of other "characters." In this it differs from anohter game that I played, or rather two games in a series, the Knights of the Old Republic (KOTR) Star Wars games. Those games have a central plot but not a single pre-determined ending - you can go full bore light side or full bore dark side and what opportunites pop up along the way is affected by that ... like a cerain number of "side missions" in the game (mission plots not crucial to the overall arc). More importantly, in the KOTR games there are dialog options with different characters and these will change with . Also, certain choices of dialog options earlier can affect your "influence" level with different characters and this influences what dialog options open up with different characters (the HK 47 assassin droid has been voted one of the top 5 video game sidekicks, and when you get influence with him and build up your repair skills parameter of your character and can make repairs to him and restore certain memories that are buried in his computer core, there are some downright HILARIOUS dialog options in his take on those matters ... I wish SO BAD George Lucas had had those guys write the dialog for the star Wars prequels). Half Life is more based in "first person shooter" reflex playing action and has a pretty mechanically rigid plot by comparison to the KOTR games. My take on the HL2 phrasing in my dreams is that, having played both games extensively, I subconsciously chose the rigid definition of HL2 (in such dream elements as one time having to solve a "physical puzzle" in my dream of, being "on my way home," crossing the top of a large heating and cooling unit and having to time the rotations of 3 large fans on top of th unit, in order not to get chopped up by any of them ... a very common HL scenario) ... I chose the HL2 imagery (including sharper lines and colors, vs the more muted earth-tone palate used in KOTR) because of the rigidity, basically the feeling of not having as many "options." When certain things pop up in your dreams one tendency is to supsect red herrings, based in an overly objectivist reading of reality. If a Jungian archetype pops up and you think "ok, according to Jung this image means this ..." the tendency one might haveas a second wave reaction is "what if Jung is wrong?" But giving in to the "anti-Jung" without stronger reflection is really just the flipside of accepting the Jungian without stronger reflection (both are what I called "overly objectivistic"). For instance, in one dream I had an element surface that is an image in William Faulkner's Absalom Absalom. that image has a particular meaning in AA and my gut reaction was to call that meaning to mind, and then I had a slight reaction of "but what if Faulkner is wrong in his use of that image?" The thing is, the whole way I knew that this image means that thing in Faulkner is from having studied Faulkner. In other words, the precise place of that connection of meaning is the precise place as is in question regarding the meaning of the dream element ... namely my mind. Thus it is a valid connection of meaning. When Granger does his alchemy thing or the Rennaisance thing (as in his latest post on the possibility of "Evil Snape"), or I do this kind of thing here, we are practicing what is sometimes refered to as "reception criticism," which was developed heavily by Gadamer (Pope John Paul II, may he rest in eternal peace, was known to be a big fan of Gadamer). We posit that these things are in Rowling's work and mean these things because they are in the tradition she is a recipient of and have these meanings in specific elements in that tradition. This is not the same thing as radical reader-response criticism (3R) because 3R says the things and the meaning are not there until the reader fills them in to the text. Reception criticism is about the fact that they are there in the text, although maybe not "fully consciously," and we as readers, sharing that tradition with Rowling herself, do not insert them in the text (which would be called eisogesis) but rather draw them out in more concrete detail and color and lines etc. End Note The final thing I would note here is one of clarification: this (dream recollection therapy) is in no way related directly to hypnosis. Hypnosis is a specific method involving an outsider entering the mind and trolling through "static" material that has been buried, whereas as dream recollection is undertaken voluntarily, with the actual work done by the person themselves (sounds rather reminiscent, does it not, of Dumbledore's words to Harry about trying to get Slughorn to divulge the memory willingly, vs trying something like legilimency), and involves material that the mind brings up itself in its normal rest cycles (REM, "rapid eye movement" sleep) in the regular course of life (thus one of the things one might want to take note of in dream examination therapy is what events in waking life surrounded the occurrence of certain images or elements in dreams ... such as, say, the fact that it is in a divination class where Trelawney is recapping astrology that Harry has "the dream"). Hypnosis, as I understand it, also involves no direct volitional participation of the person with the content, and indeed has the person very removed from the level of conscious volitional control. I have never undergone hypnosis but I think I would have to have a VERY strong relationship of trust built with a therapist before I would let them poke around in my mind like that without direct conscious control by myself (although I can speculate certain situations where it might be helpful due to extreme emotional difficulty in coping with certain issues, to the level that even working consciously with the material details of dreams is not feasible, to the point where the aversion impacts the ability to have any cogent recall of details, but I would still approach the matter with the UTMOST CAUTION, or shall we say "constant vigilance," to quote Moody). (Although, in support of this reading of the elements in GOF, notice the exact way that Rowling describes Barty Jr's/Moody's use of the imperius curse ... VERY much styled on the typical portrayal of hypnosis sessions [on TV or in movies and the like] in which, in front of a group, to demonstrate the hypnosis, a hypnotist might have the person, say, hop around the room singing the national anthem, as "Moody" has Dean Thomas do, or imitate a squirrel, as he has Lavender Brown do [GOF 231]). I would always say that if at all possible, stick to the most volitional (based in free will choices and activity) method possible. This is, indeed, as I read it, the underlying theme of resisting the Imperius curse ... that self control and making free choices is possible even under something like the Imperius. Any therapist worth his or her salt will tell you that there are these emotional factors, and even those that sometimes reach the level of specific disorders such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD - technically GAD flavored with a social phobia), but that there is also the capacity for choice, at least for those not at a level of psychosis or a radically strong personality disorder. The "end goal" of therapy is not just the alleviation of the disorder (which is not the same as the alleviation of the element altogether - anxiety is a natural and healthy thing at its proper level, where it operates as a natural impetus for action ... if we were not anxious about some things, at a proper level, we would probably not get some things accomplished ... my MD physician related to me an oft-suggested technique adapted from far eastern meditation practices: to take a deep breath and hold it, and NOT to try to dispel the anxiety, but simply to "be" with it ... even try to increase it, and one usually finds that it is just as difficult to increase it as it is to decrease it, and this can be a freeing realization that helps one to cope properly with anxiety). The end result is to have the emotional in a proper relation to the volitional, to be able to make choices without being inordinately encumbered on the emotional side. Social Consciousness and the Self-Examined Life Finally, using my parenthetical aside, about the divination class in which Harry's dream occurred being specifically on recapping astrology, note that the pensieve is an objective revealer and not, technically in text, a subjective revealer (as dream therapy is). But I think that as social commentary type lit (in what Granger has talked about as post structuralism and decon of meta-narratives, Lyotard and all), as a specific set of "symbolist literature" the objective revelation is precisely about the subjective; it is about ... us (in the Pride and Prejudice vein). What the objective revelation of the pensieve symbolizes, acts as an analogy of, is self-examination as a culture and people. In this arena Rowling is very Socratic - I think she believes, as I do and as Socrates loved to state, that the un-examined life is not worth living ... either on the personal level or the level of a society. This last point really connects to the relationship between such a psychological reading as I am expounding here and John Granger's work on alchemy, for the ancient art really does share the same subject matter as modern psychology - the human soul (I am not saying that all modern psychology does this well, for there are definite "reductionist" camps within that field, but that is the original literal meaning of the term "psychology" - the logos of the psyche, the logic of the soul - the same soul whose formation and transformation is studied by alchemy). Just as modern psychology examines social and familial factors in their impact on the operations of the soul, so alchemy concerns the external elements that impact the formation of the soul - like the sulfur and quicksilver on the sides and the white spirit (a distinct word and concept from "soul" in the ancient languages), that effect the change of the bottom black matter (lead) into the golden soul within the crucible. Both modern psychology and alchemy always have an essential social or communal aspect. Narrative Misdirection (NM) John Granger, on his Howarts Professor blog, is all about narrative misdirection. Travis Prinzi has criticized something like Granger's "scar-0-scope" theory as being "narrative misdirection on steroids" - I agree with Prinzi on the full blown scar-o-scope theory, but that is a whole new kettle of fish and I have my my plate full enough as it is lol. Here, though, I want to appeal to narrative mis-direction as regards this whole thing of mental disorders and moral culpability. After Harry learns of the fate of Neville's parents in the pensieve, at night he listens to Neville breathe/snore in bed and contemplates "how it must feel to have parents still living but unable to recognize you" (GOF 607) and concludes "It was Voldemort ... it all came back to Voldemort ... he was the one who had torn these families apart" (ibid.). If I am right in following Red Hen's lead on the role of the dementors and the ministry (cf just below), then this is a prime instance of real narrative misdirection. In my opinion this use actually would fit the primary models of NM Rowling is following: in Austen's Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth Bennett is indeed mistaken about concrete facts of what happened, but she is primarily interested in them in regards to her own misdirected read of Mr. Darcy's character. But I do not think that the point of such instances of NM are to say Harry or his friends or family are bad people, or even that they are distinctly acting "really bad" in these instances. This is an effect of the dark arts of sadism and manipulation. Harry's hasty conclusion of "singularity" is a natural result of justified anger at the situation: "Lying and darkness, Harry felt a rush anger toward the people who had tortured Mr and Mrs Longbottom ... he remembered the jeers of the crowd as Crouch's son and his companions bad been dragged from the court by the dementors ... he understood how they felt" (GOF 607). Such anger is righteous anger, but allowing it to swell to the level of hatred is always a dangerous game. That is one of the trickiest parts of such dark arts and defense against them, that part of exactly how dark their art is is that they carry such a temptation to respond in kind ... remember the tact Emperor Palpetine pulls with Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi?(before Lucas went and butchered the truly good myth he had been entrusted with by making those prequels) - "gooooooood! I can feel your anger and your hatred swelling within you! Now take your jedi weapon and strike me down and your journey to the dark side will be complete!" (general paraphrase of the line). As I quipped in a comment on Granger's site, I know I am going to sound like Oliver Stone directing Costner in the rehashing of the Zapruder film here, but I simply can't buy the "Single Villian Theory" anymore. This is not to say I do not think that Voldy has his villian side (although, Decina and Vanderhooft did a pretty good job in including one of the key details of personality disorders, that they usually are based in a MUCH younger age than other disorders and neuroses etc ... and when you read that chapter in HBP where Harry meets the 11 yr old Tom Riddle in the pensieve, and consider Decina and Vanderhooft's note that personality disorders develop at a much younger age , it is noticeable that Dumbledore makes specific note of how developed certain tendencies were in Voldy even at the early age of 11. Here is where I see Red Hen's speculation on the WW's alliance with dementors as helpful, that the alliance is particularly foolish, at best, precisely because it would afford the dementors opportunity to hang around cribs and cradles in the dark of night in particular, especially if, like Tom Riddle, an infant were being raised by muggles who could not see dementors). My point is not that Voldemort is not evil or that he is definitively not responsible for these things (although, as I am making the case, it is entirely possible that there are strong mitigating factors, but as Rowling paints the scene over all, I don't think we can remove him entirely 100 percent from the realm of moral culpability, at least not conclusively based in the text) ... my point is that, however "unwitting," he had help in both becoming the monster he is (monster-mort) and in effectively ruining those families (look below at my section on Barty Jr). My point is that Voldy is, at the very least, not solely subjectively evil, and that where he is objectively evil (this is a technical classification meaning the objective evil of psychological disorder, distinct from the more properly subjective evil of morally evil but fully culpable choices), where he is objectively evil he has had help in becoming so, and thus, at the very least, is not the sole subjectively evil character (speaking here of the evil of his creation and meaning that his accomplices were wearing white hats, not concerned here with the black hats of those who became death eaters following him) ... his is not the "Single Villain." As a converse example, maybe of where we can be tempted to hop on the steroid misdirection train, maybe we could say narrative misdirection AS a narrative misdirection, just as an aside, an example that not all of Harry's thoughts and perceptions are narrative misdirection, I would offer the fact that when the families of the champions come to visit the champions on the day of the third task, and Bill and Molly Weasely surprise Harry as his "family" (and I hope that at the end of book 7 they are literally family, as in "in-laws" - as in Harry and Ginny marrying), Harry distinctly notices Fleur eyeing Bill over her mother's shoulder (GOF 616). Harry was dead on in that observation. And this is fulfilled in a great way in HBP: Fleur is only part veela, who, according to Arthur "marry for looks," ... she is mostly human ... she has the capacity for free choices. Not only that, but she has proven herself to a certain degree as a free human person ... the goblet revealed her as a champion and she performed as a champion. If you want textual details supporting Fleur's character ... note that in book 4, after the lake task, she has many cuts and bruises but refuses to allow Madame Pomfrey to attend to them until she has thanked Harry for saving Gabriella, and this is echoed in HBP by her stepping up to the plate of loving Bill on grounds of things other than looks and taking the ointment from Molly to attend to Bills wounds, ointment provided by Madame Pomfrey (but notice here too, in regards to her getting stopped by the grindylows in the lake task, the difference in approach and philosophy of the 3 schools really does seem to lie along the lines of DADA [and this plays in especially for my prediction for DADA being a central tenet in the founding of a new school, see my chiasm post and the last addendum comment on it, the magically powerful comment number 21 :) ] in that this is precisely Fleur's weakness in the tasks - dealing with things like grindylows and with the "less than beautiful" animals Hagrid has in the maze - dark arts and dark creatures [like the sleek black armored skrewt and the big black spider]) Diachronic and Syncrhonic As a sort of "literary studies" clarification on my shifting back and forth in this piece between the use of something like the London Times interview and text specific details, I'll provide here a little bit of literary theory methodology (as sort of a breather from such heavy dark arts material, like maybe a little bit of chocolate proffered by Lupin after a lesson in defending against dementors). There are two approaches, the diachronic and the synchronic. The latter is a straight, self contained, literary read of a piece as it stands in the text itself. The former term means "through time" and refers to the practice of bringing in things from the time period, cultural setting etc of the author to aid in interpreting the work. An interview like the one in the London Times is sort of a cross-breed between the two approaches and holds a unique place as a direct statement by the author, even though it is technically outside the text itself. A more proper use of diachronic method would be something like Granger's work on alchemy (arguing that this method of literature is used heavily in the material Rowling would have studied as a classics major at Exeter U.) or Travi's Prinzi's exposition, over on Sword of Gryffindor, of the Fabian society as a model for Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix (the Fabian society was most heavily active within the past few hundred years before Rowling and an educated woman such as herself would be aware of such a proposed model for social change, as distinct from the Marxist approach, the latter of which is basically Voldy's tack with the werewolf community as described by Lupin in HBP in "A Very Frosty Christmas," and Travis did a great job of even tracking down in text clues such as the presence of the names of actual Fabian society members in the names of the members of the first Order of the Phoenix). Barty Crouch Jr: "Insanity it seems, has got me by my soul to squeeze" (The Red Hot Chili Peppers) This all bears directly on what I have discussed recently here about Barty Jr's character, as a potential for a good teacher squandered and perverted. The question of this section in my piece here, in this context, is basically "who dunnit?" - who is to blame. Let me be totally clear on this ... if you read the storyline correctly, none of that trial would have happened, the one in the pensive where Barty Jr is sent to Azkaban and his corruption completed, had not the Lestranges et all sought out the Longbottoms and tortured ... the primary guilt, even considering what I am about to discuss, belongs there - with the death eaters. In fact it is specifically Dumbledore's, at least STRONGLY implied, opinion, that the "evidence" against Barty came from the Longbottoms after they had been driven into insanity by the death eaters - so they are primarily to blame for the presence of the faulty info that led to Barty Jr's sentence with the dementors. But that is not to say they are responsible for the handling of such faulty information once it was present. The information should not have been trusted - that information COULD have been handled much more sanely by Barty Sr and the ministry. Dumbledore states clearly that, owing [solely - as I read it] to their present condition (IE, in their right minds not only would they not have lied, but they were probably pretty reliable on details, being as they passed the rigorous qualifiers to become aurors in the first place) the Longbottom's evidence was not reliable. As bad as Barty Jr has since become, it would be a great crime to overlook when and how he became that way. Barty Sr's foolish reliance on information he should have been able to process more soundly, taking into account the condition of the Longbottom's minds at the time, is, I think, A HUGE factor in his son's slip to the dark side. Voldy and the DE's, especially following the rebirthing scene in GOF, owe Barty SR a HUMUNGOUS thank you and a big credit listing for the assist that gave them the man to get that job done - Barty Crouch Jr. The in text evidence is FAR too clear to deny: "'Then Mr Crouch's son might not have been involved?" said Harry. Dumbledore shook his head. " (GOF 603). This adds a STRONG note of irony to Harry's comments on parents who do not know you, the child ... Barty Sr, consumed with his almighty obsession with his ministry career (as per Sirius' read of him ... and here is another note of heavy irony, this is the thing that Sirius gets right, but precisely because of his own history in such a world) did not take the time to know his son, and in the end disowns him, makes a definitive choice to know him no longer as parent to child. (Note: The "philosopher's connection," or maybe "the philosopher's touchstone" for this stuff on Barty Jr and insanity is the Frenchman named Jacques Lacan [1901-1981], who was pretty into Freud and worked substantially in the field of clinical psychology and psycho-analysis. Lacan is most noted for, far from dismissing the "lunatic" as a valid area/resource for philosophy, trying to develop a philosophy that strongly takes into account patterns of thought in mental disorder as a valid avenue of insight ... for him, in the language that Granger notes as fairly common to all PoMo thought, for Lacan the "lunatic" is the "other" whose voice should be listened to rather tan excluded from dialog [in PoMo philosophy the standard name for the theme of "the other" is the issue of "alterity." If one would prefer some support from "a little bit closer to home," like the Inklings and detective stories, there is Dorothy Sayers' "everyman" play "The Just Vengeance." Rowling herself has stated Sayers as the queen of the detective genre [cf Granger's intro piece of the WKAD book, p. 11, for the Rowling interview quote on Sayers the day after the release of HBP], so this should be an apt quote. The "Recorder" has just asked, "Who will carry the cross and share the burden of God Now, in the moment of choice when the act and image are one?" Various voices respond individually from the chorus and represent different character types in "everyman" life. The Lunatic says: "I will carry the fear that shatters the heart and brain." This passage is so great I have to quote more, including other "other" characters, like the Harlot who says: "I will carry the shame." The Wife says "I will carry the bitterness of betrayal." The Unemployed [a newly divorced mother of an infant daughter on the dole in England?] says "I'll take the poverty." The mother [Mrs. Crouch to Barty Sr.?] says "I will bear man's ingratitude." The Child [young Barty to old Barty?] says "[and I] The ignorance, that suffer and knows not why." Myself having "humped" [as we used to say] more shingles and lumber through more tar-mired heat and ankle-sometimes-knee-deep-muddy house construction sites than I care to remember [and as an academic I suspect there might be more in store during summers], I especially connect when the Labourer says "I'll give a hand with the toil."). End Note The Unrbeakable Vow. So, I have made statements on here before about what I believe about the unbreakable vow (UBV) concerning the closeness to "till death do us part" in the specific language/name of a vow. I have spoken of the image of the performance of the UBV as actually very helpful to me in clarifying my thinking on the difference in thinking on the sacrament of marriage, between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism on the "minister" of the sacrament. In the East the thought is that the officiating priest at a wedding is the minister necessary for sacramental validity (thus, by EO teaching a validly sacramental marriage, as far as I can discern, would not be possible between, say, two Protestants, because there is not a duly ordained priest to administer the Sacrament, whereas in Western Catholic teaching this is, at least in definition, possible. The terms "valid" and "licit" are standard terms in sacramental theology, the former referring to the necessary parameters for the sacrament to really happen and the specific sacramental grace to be actually present, and the latter referring to the parameters of what is "allowable" as far as by the jurisdictional dictates of he Church at large and also within specific diocese etc. A baptism by somebody other than a priest or deacon is, within Catholicism, believed to be possibly technically valid, but not licit [cases of emergency mitigate the parameters of licitness, though, and thus nurses used to be trained to baptize in cases of emergency in Catholic hospitals, including the necessary parameters for licitness that the sacrament be consciously desired if possible, or the parents request it in the case of, say, a newborn in immediate danger of death ... but an intentional baptism by any person is valid, but never to be taken lightly or in jest - something like, say, a "baptism" in a movie is licit but not valid because the person doing it does not understand themselves to be doing what the Church does in baptism, but only representing such in an artistic work ... but it is totally licit because it is done, at least can be assumed to be done, respectfully and consciously within the bounds of artistic representation]). In the West the teaching on sacramental marriage is that the two spouses are, throughout the life of their marriage, throughout the marital gift of self, the actual ministers of the sacramental grace to each other. The grace of a Sacrament always comes through the Church no matter who the proper minister of the sacrament is (IE in both Eastern and Western teaching), but the West sees the officiating priest at a wedding as primarily representing solely the authority of the Church in this regard and also the believing faith community in which the married life will be lived out as part of the communal life of the Church, but the actual ministers of the sacramental grace to each other are the spouses (in both East and Western teaching, Protestant Christians are true members of the Church through valid baptism, and thus, combined with the teaching on marriage, the West would see Protestants as capable of participating in marriage as a sacrament, and not just civilly or "within their own immanent religious tradition"). Thus (as I read the UVB scene as supporting the Western teaching but also witnessing to how complex and rich the issue is) it is the vows enacted by the two participants that actually occasions the magical binding, but that magic is from a transcendent source (see below on transcendence and trascendentals), represented by the 3rd party bonder whose wand is the conduit for the binding magic (but, as I have said, I think the way Rowling works the image here wonderfully reveals the complexity of the issue, for the present situation it makes it a "sticky one" - but the way the basics of the image work shows that in the more beautiful and natural instances, like a wedding and marriage, it is not simply a chorus singing the same note in unison - it is a beautiful symphony with sublime harmonies and counter-points/counter-melodies etc) Some have disagreed with me in comments here and in other places. The best and most cogently stated disagreeing I have seen is from Pat/Eyeore (and below under the section on analogies I will get to some of what I think was the content of her critique, which it really helps in clarifying my thoughts to have to dialog with), in a comment thread over on John Granger's HogPro site (An interesting place for it ... John is Eastern Orthodox and I am Catholic. Red Hen, in her piece in the WKAD book, takes a radically different standpoint on the UBV that seems to me to reveal some lacunae in, as I have said here before, strong understanding of the nature and role of vows in the ancient world on which Rowling would be drawing as a classics major. RH thinks that the vow is no longer an issue as far as Snape's obligation to protect Draco, and that, even if it has not already ceased to be binding, Bella should have no problem in releasing Snape and Narcissa from the bond ... which I strongly disagree with because Bella is not the "source" of the magic, as if she were some demigoguess. The name is extremely important - no other magic has been noted specifically as "unbreakable" - like "the unbreakable jelly legs jinx" etc ... only something like the goblet has been noted as "binding" to this type of level ... and Dumbledore and the others could not let Harry out of the Triwizard tournament once the deed had been done with the goblet, although was are given no in text clues as to the results of failure to comply, as we are given death as a result of failing to comply with the UBV ... my guess is that were Harry not to participate he would simply be marked down as failing in the tasks, although it would have to be a "matter of official record" because of the goblet as a magically binding contract) . Dignitatis Connubii The place where the UVB as "till death do us part" hooks up with the sacramental stuff I have just been discussing is in the area of anullments ... and this is precisely where the psychological aspects enter the UBV discussion. Dignitatis Connubii (DC) is a more "in house" document issued by the Roman Curia in 2005 regarding the process of the annulment of marriages. The teaching of the Church is that once a sacramentally valid marriage has been entered the union CANNOT be broken (not just SHOULD not, but CAN not) while both parties live ... no power, even the ecclesial authority of the Church, trumps the power of a valid sacrament. Thus, an annulment tribunal cannot break an existing bond, or make a sacrementally valid marriage "null," but rather an "annulment" is technically a declaration of a discernment that, as best as can be discovered, the parameters for sacramental validity were not met at the time of the wedding vows being taken, and thus there were "impediments" to the sacramental union from the very start. Such impediments fall under the categories of lack of sufficient intention or lack of sufficient understanding (which would then yield lack of intention, because, by definition, you cannot be intending to do something if you do not fully understand the thing). The standard is that if two baptized persons took wedding vows in the ecclesial (Church) context of human and divine witnesses, represented by at least a priest (or in the case of baptized Protestants a minister the two conceive of as representing the ecclesial community as not only a human institution but an institution constituted and defined by the Grace of God) ... this is sufficient evidence for viewing the marriage as sacramental unless or until sufficient evidence be provided to a tribunal that there was serious lack of understanding or intent on the part of either or both parties, serious enough to impact their ability to enter into a sacramental marriage at that point. DC did not really change anything in this basic teaching, but it did clarify some guidelines for interaction with "scientific tools" and disciplines that could, and SHOULD, be utilized in the discernment process of annulments. Basically the Roman Curia gave the tribunals throughout the world a clarification on the licitness of drawing on recent valid findings from fields such clinical psychology. Particularly of interest are personality disorders. DC basically instructs that tribunals are licit in making use of scientific psychological method and findings, and that, in short, personality disorders radically impair a persons capability to give themselves in such a sacramental union (again, this pertains primarily in the West where the the teaching is that the minister of the sacrament are the spouses themselves, who minister the sacramental Grace to each other in and through marital giving of self), and thus the capability for the necessary "intention." This is a much more nuanced understanding of the old categories of "understanding" and "intent" in that it means that it is not enough to have a "normally adequate" grasp of what sacramental marriage is (which, again, the Western Church sees Protestants as, at least potentially, capable of doing ... although they would not refer to as "sacramental" and they may even have a conscious aversion to applying the term "sacrament" to marriage ... this is where one must be careful not to commit the "word - thing fallacy" of assuming that just because the word is not there, or even when there is an aversion to the specific word itself, that the thing is not there), and to consciously assent to entering into such a union - it admits that there are disorders that can render a person, on the level of their personhood as a whole, fundamentally incapable of such gift of self (although not necessarily irreparably so ... Voldy's mutilation would be a different case maybe), even when they are within what has been before understood as the normal conscious level of "sanity" and "culpability" requisite for "understanding" and "intention." (As a "flipside" of the "word - thing fallacy" one should not assume that the thing IS present just because the term "sacrament" is used - there is plenty of room for Catholics talking of entering the sacrament of marriage without really understanding what that means, just as there is the possibility of Protestants having what is basically a sacramental understanding of marriage without using the word, or even with a conscious aversion to the word "sacrament" being used in that context of marriage. I would define such a "basically sacramental understanding of marriage" as a concept of: marriage as a specific and distinct path of monogamous sexual fidelity and life/practice between a man and a woman that is a God given pathway to fulfillment of the persons by God [thus a unique channel of grace, even when the term "sacramental grace" is avoided] through a communal life that is the locus of that fulfillment, such communal life being present under two primary and concrete aspects of the marriage itself - the communal life of the Church as the setting of the community of the spouses and the family, and openness to the gift of the life of new persons, children, directly from the marriage, fulfilling marriage in a community of persons called the family, in which the parents and children are intimately united to each other's formation and growth as persons in relation to God and the Church, spousal intimacy fulfilled in and connect to the personal intimacy unique to the relation of parents to child and of the family as a distinct unit). If the deeper magic in Rowling's world is love, it stands to reason that marital love is a unique and special instance of the deeper magic. What is going on here is that psychological factors are seen, at least by the Roman Curia in DC, to impact arenas (such as romantic love and marriage) that certain images in Rowling's work demonstrably, I think, hook onto ... and it has also been demonstrated, I think, rather well that the psychological factors themselves are present in Rowling's works. It is this that leads me to say that Rowling's works have something to say about these "hard corners"of real life, such as the issues involved in annulments. (Please note that I am avoiding the language of "Rowling has something to say," and sticking to my language of "the text having something to say" ... like I said, I am a die-hard "new critic" and practice "constant vigilance" against "the fallacy of authorial intent" lol. My note of a "flipside" of the "word-thing fallacy" relates here particularly to "authorial intent" because Dei Verbum, the Vatican Council II Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, uses the language of "authorial intent" in speaking of Biblical "authors," and I subscribe to the authority of that council and that Dogmatic Constitution, but I am a million miles away from believing that most of us even begin to grasp the nuances of a term like "author" as used therein. For instance we keep it pretty much on the level of "author" as defined by Enlightenment radical individualism, as the conscious intent of a singular human consciousness radically independent of community etc and then and only then allow any concept of "authority" in the sense of Tradition to be built on top of that, and only in a rather mechanical way. The shape of pre-Enlightenment concepts of what I will call "authorial authority," out of which the conciliar Magisterium of the Second Vatican council is speaking authoritatively, is, I believe, a much different shape than that Enlightenment radical individualism shape we moderns tend to think in so often. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I think the Church is pretty much the Borg collective of Star Trek fame, but I do find it terribly interesting and find it rather telling that the word "individual" comes from the same root as such words as "division" and "divisive." ... but I will cover, in a moment, in the next subsection, what can be drawn from Rowling herself in the London Times interview. For the present, however, for a Rowling/Potter specific example of the issue of the issue of "authorial authority" recall the extra sentences that were inserted, in the Scholastic American hardback edition, in the Dumbledore dialog atop the astronomy tower in HBP - Rowling did not pen those lines, but she did, at the time authorize them - of course, as related by Red Hen in one of her pieces in the WKAD book, the lines have been removed from the scholastic trade paperback edition [WKAD 147], but this then means that even within a work so well within the lines of our times of "individual authorship" where composition is definitively in the written forum/stage, we still have an instance, indeed in the very work we are discussing, of "variance" among "textual traditions," not all flowing from a single pen but all flowing from a singular authority, JK Rowling). (Note: My information on Dignitatis Connubii comes largely from copy-editing a piece on annulments by Msgr George Graham, a retired priest canon lawyer from Levitstown NY, out on Long Island, in the upcoming [June 28th, 2007 - Scarecrow Press] Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy.) VERY IMPORTANT CLARIFICATIONS: PoMo Literary Theory 101 I will cover the specifics more in the following points and comments but for here I just want to clarify. I am not saying I think Rowling sat down and said "I really agree with the Catholic Church on marriage as a sacrament and on the impact of psychological factors on that, like they say in Dignitatis Connubii, which I was reading just the other day for some light reading to take a bit of a breather, and I think I want to write a story dealing with that in a symbolic medium" - I would not be at all surprised, were she to read this piece, say that she neither was intending issues of annulment of marriages nor has ever even heard of a document like DC, or is at all into thinking about such issues as marriage on the religious/theological level (although sh has reportedly said that the works relate very closely to her own grappling with her issues of the Christian faith, and in the times interview she obviously talks about her own psychological history informing the meanings of an image like the dementors ... so, when you put those two factors together, the last would not be that far of a stretch). Thus it becomes necessary for me briefly to describe how I think such things work in literature, to convey more adequately what I AM saying. I do not have these specifics of my literary theory worked out fully in regards to my sources, but I am pretty sure the language I will use of "the world behind the text" and "the world in front of the text" come from the French philosopher of literature Paul Ricouer (a New Testament exegete named Rudolff Bultmann famously took Ricouer's work to the level of saying that any reception of what I call "the world OF the text" by the world "in front of the text," IE the audience or recipients of the text, requires a complete effacement of the "world behind the text," the thought and meaning of the author - a complete deconstruction and rebuilding in a radically different shape). I think there are 3 worlds: "behind," "in/of" and "in front of" the text - the author, the text itself, and the audience, respectively. I think that certain things exist in the world behind that, whether fully intentionally or not, make it into the text, at the very least in latent forms. When the text is then taken up by the audience, in the world "in front of the text," certain of these themes can float to the top, like thoughts do in the pensieve when it is swirled like the gold-miner's pan or prodded with a wand (note that Dumbledore's "authorial intent" is nowhere near the scene when Harry does this for the first time in GOF, although his explanation is afterwards heavily present afterwards - but this is on the level of "interpretation" and not "composition" - I forget who the famous contemporary philosopher was who said it [Dom always quotes it to me in such discussions] but the author is always only the first interpreter of their own work, even composition is only an interpretation of more basic level sensation and experience by the author ... even "thought" and "intention" are, by their very nature, interpretational and rhetorical) , and the author's tone and disposition towards those elements (which is deliberately chosen language on my part, and very different from saying "the authors aims, or intentions, or thoughts, or propositions, or 'what they are trying to say'") can impact the audience. This is then what I think is a very positive role for Rowling's works in these matters (whther consciously intentional or not, elements from her "world behind the text" make it into the "world of the text," even if only in latent forms, and are there picked up by the readers in the "world in front of the text" and speak real and true things to them about those matters). As far as the world behind the text - the London Times interview references very specific information from Rowling's life, that she herself discusses. The important one is that Rowling herself underwent specific depression episode in the immediate wake of her divorce from her first husband. (In regards to the conceptual frame I have of this specific thing, it is very important that, if the reader has read this far, they carry on through the "final considerations" section below, paying special intention to the clarifications on analogies). The effects of this depression, as related in the interview, were serious enough that when, years later, and consequent to her rise in popularity and celebrity after the first few Potter books began hitting larger sales, the discovery and exploitation of the story by a magazine or newspaper actually resulted in temporary writer's block for her (one can see here that when Rowling has Hermione open an envelope of undiluted bubotubor pus as a result of Rita Skeeter's libel, she is putting into concrete image what was for her a very real experience ... Hermione unable to attend classes and coming later on with heavily bandaged hands is like Rowling being unable to write). This is an area that I previously had been very cautious to write on because of a belief I have in certain rights of privacy for somebody like Rowling and that the fact that we all enjoy her books and all does not justify us (or magazines that court our spending dollars) poking around all over her personal past. As she says in the London Times interview, however, she knew that someday it would come up - that she was divorced after a year of marriage and that she went through depression episode following the divorce (and I take this as meeting my own personal requirements for myself of not discussing these matters publicly unless I saw in her own words in public forum that it is all right by her). My main goal here is to avoid being a Rita Skeeter. I think that there are some very real issues here that have potential for fruitful and informative discussion, and for this very reason, combined with what I think would be a natural right to privacy for Rowling, I really admire her for writing these works that have potential for touching on these sensitive areas and for making her private life public discussion material. That is my intention, to discuss these things constructively, and I am very aware of the need for respect in doing so, and very desirous to treat of these issues with that utmost respect. As Rowling says in the interview, people were bound to dredge this up no matter what, once she reached a certain level of popularity but that would be no excuse for saying "well, too late now, and it wasn't me who let that cat out of the bag, but I might as well jump on the scandal band wagon" etc. Not only do I find the Potter works immensely enjoyable and thoroughly, even addictively, engaging, but I furthermore admire Rowling for writing these works and accepting the risk of the Rita Skeeter's invading her privacy for personal gain, for the sake that also "those who have ears to hear" might be able to hear, in the texts, something true that rises out of her own personal life. That to me is the single biggest factor that places Rowling solidly in house Gryffindor, for extreme courage. Some Final Thoughts One does not have to read the works on this level in order to get something very rich out of them, but it seems to me that there are certain things that should be at least touched on if one does choose to address the books on this level. Transcendtals and Transcendence. The first thing to note is a pretty complex philosophical point, and this maybe only for the theologians/philosophers in the audience, and if you find yourself swimming, feel more than free to skip down to the section on analogies (but, by all means, feel free to try this stuff on for size too). When I was talking recently with my good friend Dom, who is working on his PhD at Duquesne U in Pittsburgh, about the shift from modern to postmodern philosophy, and I said "well I know when they are talking about 'transcendental' they are meaning something different than 'transcendence' or 'transcendant'" Dom said "good, because I didn't really get that until my last year of my BA degree actually in philosophy." Where this relates here is in what I have been saying about magic and vows and the types of things that make some magical contracts so "binding," as well as the area where, while the psychological can impact the magical, the magical can also transcend the psychological, which is, in turn, not the same as leaving the psychological behind altogether (I think the best description of St Mungo's is "holistic healing" ... the transcendent magic going beyond the merely psychological, but healing that psychological also as well ... I have a post somewhere WAAAAAAY back on this site about Tolkien's use of 3 instances of courtly love in the LOTR as images of grace as supporting a certain reading of the Traditional Catholic theological statement that "Grace builds on nature" - a reading by Dr Scott Han in which thee are tenets to the "building" process: Grace heals, perfects and finally elevates nature - this encapsulates pretty well my thinking on the properly "transcendent" ... but read on for the more "technical" and less image based definition) . In brief, in modern and post-modern philosophy, "transcendent" refers to elements that are truly outside and above the human person but reach into and inform that person (that is to say the relationship of specifically "transcendent" is defined in part by a real relation and connection, otherwise it would not be transcendent, but merely other and alien ... but this thing is still above and outside the person - cf the comments in the end of the last paragrpah on Grace and nature ... and in this regard both pre-modern, modern and post-modern would agree on the technical basics of the transcendent, although the modern tends to dirft towards making the transcendent wholely other, a in Kant's thought on the external "noumenal" world in relation to the internal "phenomenal" world of the knowing subject, in epistemology [the study of sunjective knowledge and belief/opinion]). "Transcendentals" on the other hand are traits and elements within the human person that are seen as distinctly pointing towards that which is technically transcendent (like say, as per arguments for the existence of God, unfulfilled "desire," like that noted in Augustine's "our hearts are restless till they rest in thee" - and other such arguments for the existence of God found in Aquinas and Anslem et al, which is the basic argument path taken by the school known as "Transcendental Thomism," such as thinkers like Joseph Marechal and Pierre Rouselot, a school that works to bring the actual thought of Thomas Aquinas, NOT the "Thomism" of later "scholasticism" or "neo-scholasticism" of thinkers like Saurez, into dialog with the developments in philosophy since the rise of modern and PoMo thought). The confusion that can enter in here is that this is a specific usage and distinction that enters in with the modern era of philosophy, but the term "transcendental" had a specific usage in Thomas and other medievals. That older usage was still concerned with the "immanent," but more related to the "transcendant." In particular the "transcendentals" was the name given to: Truth, Beauty and Goodness. In this section I am using the term in the modern/pomo usage. I would submit that magic in Rowling's Potterverse is truly transcendent, but based in, or channeled through transcendental qualities in the magically gifted person (and further channeled through the symbolist element of the wand). It is this connection that makes Rowling's use of magic so conducive to presenting themes of where the psychological (transcendental) and the spiritual (transcendent) of moral culpability intersect (where I do not think that the works go is in pinning down the transcendant itself into concrete personal form, which would, as Granger notes in the Looking for God... book, move into the dangerous realm of invocational magic, vs merely incantational magic - if it made this move the only way to avoid dark invocational magic would be to go concretely into a specific Christian metaphysics and book with God actually as an, at least, conretely off-screen character, if not an onscreen one ... a realm into which Tolkien went only in the Silmarillion, and not in the Lord of the Rings, even though the latter work is extremely Christian ... this move would actually be a move away from being technically a "morality tale" - towards being a book of concrete discursive propositional faith statements, necessitating more of a specific "credal/confessional" stance, such as Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Reformed etc ... I only really ever try to argue that Rowling's images are more consistent with my confessional stance of Western, Latin Rite Catholicism, not concrete instantiations of it, which would tend to get into the realm of allegory of the kind that Tolkien notoriously disliked [ the "not being concrete instantiations of Western, Latin rite Catholocism, but rather, more properly, consonance with it" thing is outside of the obvious where she uses specific concrete images from the Christian Tradition of the West, such as, as noted by Granger, the hippogryff as a christ symbol, but even here I think that it is only on the level of image source, and not on the level of "thing symbolized" ... cf the material below, under point 1 of "analogies section" on the distinction between the thing symbolized and the image used to symbolize it]) Analogies As I have said before - analogies break down. If they did not they would at least logical or material equivalences, if not strict identities, that get one no further than "by definition," which is not often very far (although Kant's thought seems to be based in an idea that one can indeed get somehwere new precisely by the realm of "definition," as in his use of "7+5=12" and "the shortest distance bwteen two points is a straight line" as exampls of "synthetic a-priori knowledge" ... but that one in particular is a REALLY deep rabbit hole). It usually does not even get to the level of "logical deduction," let alone the way that literature advances through such things as images, metaphors and plot development. Two points of "analogical break-down" need to be clearly noted, regarding my reading of the UBV and the comments Pat/Eyeore has had on it before (as I promised above) 1. The UBV is NOT an actual marriage. Snape is not marrying Narcissa Malfoy and turning her into a polygamist. My point in this reading is not such a 1-1 correlation of specific components among the elements of the analogy. My point is that certain tenets and deep questions are evident in the "world of the text" through the various components of the tone of the images used. This is a fairly complex issue at points. I think that what is being examined is the nature of vows as such, but not the marriage vow directly. However, where it gets tricky is that in the examination of vows in general, in the flow of those issues that flow from the author's world behind the text to the reader's world in front of the text by way of bubbling up in the world of the text itself in the tones of the various images that hook on for the reader, in that examination certain tenets are emphasized that DO have ramifications for disposition towards marriage as a "magically binding contract" (what is generally referred to as a "covenant," as distinct from every other type of "contract"). What makes it so tricky, or so easily confusing, is that the primary image used to do this has such strong affinities to the "til death do us part" of the Christian marriage vow (and this is actually part of what makes the whole thing work, but it remains on the level of image, and not allegory). My standard example from Tolkien may (or may not) help (I have covered this material here long ago in a smaller single post). In the Return of the King Lembas bread is described in phrasing that is distinctly Catholic Eucharistic. But I do not think that what is being symbolized by Lembas bread (IE the "thing symbolized") is particularly the Eucharist, but rather "sacramentality as such": a material entity (be it physical object or physical action) that carries moral strength/help/quality. This is what the language focuses on in the book (LOTR) itself, that a single bite can give a grown man strength to go for days, and to master sinew and limb beyond normal human capacity for stamina and self control etc - which is all "sacramentality as such" language (they screwed this one up in the Jackson movies and I am glad that, as long as that scene happened, it got cut for the theater run - I call it the "farting pippin doll" scene, where Merry and Pippin ate too much before realizing it, before Legolas/Bloom tells them a few bites is enough to"fill the stoumach" of a grwon man," and the hobbit pair are feeling bloated and gassy ... lame - very "res extnsia"/materialist language, but oh well, I am in general a huge fan of most of what Jackson did in the films). I think that if Lembas were meant to symbolize the Eucharist directly there would be more imagery or language of a sacrificial system or of some type of personal sacrifice tied directly to Lembas bread. The confusing thing is that it is a Eucharistic image (bread) that is particularly used in the symbolizing of "sacramentality as such." So, to recap all that, in these instances of analogy you have 3 things: The Symbol itself (Lembas bread) The thing symbolized (Sacramentality as such) and The image source that makes the connection work (the Eucharist) 2. The Direction of Flow. In the question of annulments it is a question of psychological factors (such as personality disorders) affecting sarcamental validity ... and so, on the analogy I am using, it would be psychological malady affecting the conduits of magic, which you do have some in an image like psychological state impacting Tonks' magical abilities (as well as Lupin functioning as a symbol of the general state of the "wounded" and the impact of such wounds on belief about self etc, his state of person affects his reception in the magical world), but for the most part in Harry Potter, on the level of strict magical capability, you have, rather, magical activity affecting psychological disposition (the Longbottom's being tortured into insanity, Lupin being put in his state of "woundedness" by being bitten by a werewolf etc). The flow of the connection is exactly opposite - but I do not think this changes the validity of the observations of a connection. Often times a "reciprocal" or "inverted" flow is precisely the methodology by which such things work in literature (and such inversion can have positive meanings of their own, as I have discussed here somehwere in these recent posts - like that golden mist in the maze of the third GOF task, the one that effects a "sudden reversal of ground and sky" [GOF 624], but I don't have the time or space to delve into this one at that depth ... I just wanted to note it as a possible objection and state that I think that the "discrepancy" is not a random disjunction that nullifies the /connectionobservation, but rather a precise inversion that would, at most, qualify the connection of the image [the inversion itself also may also NOT have a specific meaning, it may simply be that the only way to get the thing to work in a textual narrative at all is to invert it]). Numerological Post-Script By the blogger count for this blog, this post is number 325 (man, I have run my mouth a lot in the past few years lol .. although I think the way blogger counts not all 325 are publicly available ... I think some of them are draft "floaters" Pauli has had in the system undeveloped for a while - but I am not positive whether they are in the count or not, Iam going here merely on the phenomenon of observing the number in the "manage posts" interface for this blog in my blogger dashboard). Interestingly, in a very Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker's Guide/Improbability drive sort of way (and I swear I didn't plan this when writing these recent posts), the first fully ecumenical council of the Church, at which the basics of THE Traditional Creed were first formulated and entered into the Tradition, the council that began the conciliar age of the Church, was held in Nicea in .... 325 AD (intersting as, owing to other constraints on time and energy, this will probably be my last major post before book 7 comes out in just over a month, at which point we will be ushered into another new era, but in the realm of Potterdom: the age of the series as an official "closed corpus"). Reality really is stranger than fiction sometimes (again, I swear I didn't plan that one ... I am simply not clever enough to do that anyway, lol ... it has taken me all I have just to work my final picks comment on the big chiasm post, the last one before this, out to be comment number 21, the magical/numerological number of 7 x 3 ... and that is only 21 posts over several days, not 325 over several years lol). Farewell, For Now I am not saying I will not be commenting on the site anymore, but as I said in the final comment on my own thread for the last post, the big one on chiasm, I have reached a point in book 4 where I am into material I have already seriously processed and written lengthily on and I do not expect to find as much new material in this reading of it as I have found of the rest of the book 9not saying it is not there, just that I will need book 7 in my hands to draw any of it out more concretely). In addition, I have a fair bit on my plate right now as far as writing projects I am working on trying to get ready to shop for academic peer-reviewed paper journal publishing, as well as work and other "projects" (less tangible but more important things like bugging people for departmental funding for the fall and "getting connected" with various profs and people in my department, working my way into the setting and having a presence there that will behoove me as I go along working on my PhD and writing my dissertation and looking for a teaching job etc ... in short, networking - which seems to me to be one of Dumbledore's honorable aims in hosting the tri-wizard tournament, for students to be able to network internationally). I will still be popping up on the site regularly, but probably not as frequently as the last couple weeks and not with as heavy content until after book 7 is out (PS, if you have not done so, take a gander down through my comments on last post to my final daring [lol] predictions for book 7 and the series, the notorious "comment 21," - some fun stuff, and some, albeit, sad stuff). For Now ... So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, Mad-Eye Merlin (Bootstrap Brett) (Brother Lupin, the precariously poor potential pedagogue ... the lunarly alliterative marauding madcap) (Merlin the MugMat Rugrat - still a kiddo at heart ... and ever the nutter up in the hills)

Merlin's Manifesto: Further Support of Chiasm in the Harry Potter series

(Disclaimer: This essay weighs in at 50 pages at "college rule" [double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman font in an MS Word document], my heaviest yet on this site, and maybe anywhere. That is basically in the lower-to-mid qualifying end of length for an MA thesis. Of course, this may be my last major post before July 21st [and even after that it will take me a while to process book 7, even though I will probably complete a first reading within 3 or 4 days time] ... I'm not saying I am leaving the site at all, just that I have a busy summer ahead of me with much writing, research and editing in a number of venues. And so this has been kind of a last ditch, final shot manifesto of what means the most to me in the series, before book 7 closes the series in July and I have to begin approaching it thinking about it as a closed corpus. Shoot, if this is MA thesis length, I sure hope the one after book 7 is out is not PHD dissertation length ... but then this 50 pages here has a lot of more informal styling from online discourse etc [jokes etc] than you would find in a normal MA thesis or PhD dissertation, so I could not really claim to have written an MA thesis here ... but still ... lol I just wanted to warn the reader of that before the reader sets out on this little mental adventure of mine [meaning the word "mental" in all possible ways, including the one in which Ron most often uses it]. I also want to warn the reader that the larger portion of the essay deals with the conceptual matters of the proposed structures, and my "hard evidence" for my own reading of the Potter series is given at the end in much more condensed format and style [ok: comment here from Merlin wearing his editorial hat, after looking back over the essay - um, Merlin the writer/composer was not quite, um, accurate in stating that the final, hard evidence, portion is in a more condensed format and style - he has consequently been labeled "Merlin the Morosely Verbose panderer of prevarications" and been shuffled off to bed]. The conceptual exposition, however, is done by way of Potter specific material throughout, and so it is not as if the essay is, for the most part, a completely non-Potter essay on literary theory, with a little bit of Potter material thrown in at the end to try to justify putting the otherwise largely unrelated, or at least not concretely related, theoretical essay on a Potter specific site. I wanted here, however, at the outset, to let the reader know exactly what to expect before he or she gets too involved in the essay.) This is material gleaned from recent "reading" of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (actually the audio book in MP3 format driving across Pennsylvania overnight ... apologies if there are any Scholastic/Bloomsbury discrepancies in the GOF material, since the version I have been listening to is the Bloomsbury edition read by Stephen Fry, but anywhere where I cite actual page numbers, rather than simply the chapter a ting is located in, the page number citations are from the Scholastic US editions), but it also contains considerations from the rest of the series we have thus far because the material is focussed on and organized in a chiastic reading of the series (there is a bit of primer intro on chiasm and etc before getting to specifics, but I do get to specific details of the books) . I will be using what is called a "foil" - a proposed similar, but competing thing of the same kind (IE to show both similarities and differences, but ultimately to propose and argue for my own suggested reading over and above the other). I will get into that in a moment, after some recap of what my proposed structure, the chiasm, is in general. Right off the bat though, I just wanted to be clear from the outset that in using somebody else's theory as a foil I am not trying necessarily to slam on them. I see some valid and helpful comments and insights coming out of their reading, which I will note, and even though I ultimately disagree with their overall system/theory, I must note that the foil method would not be possible here if they had not written their proposed theory and that I find the foil method very helpful on the positive side for further clarifying and working out my own thoughts on the chiastic structurem and sometimes their exposition has even more directly positively impacted my own reading, as will be mentioned in specific detail. So, I really do view it as a good thing in the exchange of ideas and dialectic that such other theories have been written and would not want to appear to be slamming on them. The particular foil I am using is a structure proposed by Joyce Odell/Red Hen in her essay in John Granger's (ed.) Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? published last Christmas (and there is some good stuff in that book ... Harte's stuff on the Black Family Tree is really good). CHIASM 101 (Note: If this material sounds vaguely familiar at points, and you read the recent conversation between Morganna and myself in the combox thread on a just previous post ... I lifted my brief explanation of chiasm from there and just edited it up and filled it out some.) A chiasm is a structure used in ancient literature that has a number of "elements" or "sections." The name "chiasm" comes from the Greek letter "chi" - the "X" letter - and the structure itself visually resembles one half of the X when the X is split vertically (cf below - just by nature it is usually the left half, in languages that read from left to right, like Greek, Latin and English, but in something like Hebrew, that reads from right to left, it can be the right half) . The chiasm structure can be applied in varying levels of length and size: a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter, an individual story arc that spans several chapters, a book ... a series. One of the reasons I suspect Rowling of using chiastic structure is that it was so common in the ancient world, where writing was rare. Writing was not non existent but, as I said, rare, and the shift from oral tradition to written text is usually a key point in the tradition development of any classical story or work (in some ways, on the natural literary level, it is a "betrayal" of the oral tradition because it kind of radically freezes and concretize one particular version of the story, leaving behind the many other strands of the oral tradition life of the story, but at the same time, this is a very natural human thing to do in grasping and presenting unified meaning to a larger audience ... kind of the way life always takes place in"bitter-sweet" choices). I see chiasm as a much more likely candidate (than the foil that I will describe as the "tripping billies" structure) for the over all structure of Rowling's work for reasons I will discuss more at length in a few moments, but also, on a simply preliminary level, because of the prevalence of the structure in ancient literature, in both Semitic literature and other Ancient Near Eastern works (standardly referred to by the acronym ANE), as well as Greco-Roman literature. When I was taking Hebrew I asked the professor about a line we had just translated, "would this be a good example of chiasm?" and he replied "well, yes, but not necessarily conscious in the way we think of conscious in our day ... they pretty much simply had chiasm on the brain." The reason the ancients had chiasm on the brain was the oral stage of literary traditions - there were several such devices that facilitated, say a bard whose job it was to tell the cycle of stories that became the Illiad or the Odyssey, being able to remember the stories. Another such device in Hebrew Scriptures, particularly in the Psalms, is know as the "acrostyc" - in which each successive line begins with, in sequence, a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Now, I just said that such devices are strongly tied to the oral stage of literary traditions, but the chiasm is named after a letter in an alphabet, which is an element of the written stage, so that might seem a bit off to the observant readier. The structure operated well in advance of the written stage but a classical bard or poet may not have thought "better use a chiasm here" definitely not "hmmmm, I bet the letter X would make a good structuring device to memorize this story by." Structures like this operated in those stages (although I would guess that while a chiasm operated in oral stages, something like the acrostyc is more properly developed after the alphabet is developed, in the stage when basic composition begins to be done in the writing stage), but it was not till later that somebody analyzed and cataloged the structure and named the already existing phenomenon a "chiasm." And the "chiastic way of thinking" has continued long beyond the stage where oral tradition was more the norm, into even our own day when our mode of literature involves one individual human author composing in written language with an alphabet (at least that is what I am going to argue about Rowling), only now as more of a way to organize meaning, and less focussed on facilitating memorization. Chiasm Structure Specifics A chiasm has two "legs," like the two legs in one half of an "X" split vertically (the diagrams below will help a lot) and each "leg" has the same number of" elements ." The elements/sections in the first half of a chiasm (the top "leg") correspond to those in the second half (the bottom "leg) and there is a "crux" element in the dead middle or center that is the interpretive key. Each second half element is a further development of its counter-part in the first half and the development in the second half element of any pair (development from the first half element of the pair) is made by way of passing through the crux in the middle, and thus the chiasm is characterized primarily by a forward linear motion (more on this in a moment). A chiasm can have any number of elements, and it can be an odd number or an even number. In even numbered chiasms it is the connection between the two inmost elements that is the interpretive crux, whereas in odd-numbered chiasms the crux is a single element (as in the 7 book HP series, where GOF is the single element crux with no individual pairing). Here the old adage is really true: a picture is worth a thousand words. A 6 element chiasm would have the connection between C and C1 as the crux and would look like: A .....B ..........C ..........(Crux is connection between C and C1) ..........C1 .....B1 A1 A 7 element chiasm would have the single "D" element as its crux and would look like: A .....B ..........C ...............D (Crux) ..........C1 .....B1 A1 (This holds special meaning for me, the D line, which I catch at the Fordham and Grand Concourse station in the Bronx, is my pathway to the wild, wide world of Manhattan lol) Thus my proposed structure for the Potter series looks like: A- SS/PS .....B - COS ..........C - POA ...............D - GOF (Crux) ..........C1 - OotP .....B1 - HBP A1 - DH Similar structures There are a couple of "other" structures similar to chiasm. The two most common are the "ring composition" and the "inclusio." These structures have some similar elements to chiasm, although usually the method of organization and construction of meaning have a different way of emphasizing things. An inclusio means simply a paired opening and closing element such that everything between the two forms a distinct and discrete unit of meaning in which the elements of it hang together in a distinct way connected to the nature of the opening and closing elements (Latin uses compound verbs this way a lot ... everything between the main verb and the helping verb is understood to be uniquely related to the verbal action in some uniquely unified way). The "ring composition" is like the chiasm but with emphasis only on the opening and closing pair and the crux, so it is kind of more focused on a fluid circular motion in which the relation of the opening and closing elements is seen as a more fluid motion that is defined by passing through the diametrically opposed crux (the midpoint of the circumference of the circle or "ring," which would be directly across from the paired opening and closing elements, as the other terminus of a diameter that transverses the circle completely in half). The chiasm contains much more of a linear concept of time and flow but the chiasm and the ring structure, as well as the inclusio, can be be used right alongside each other (comprised of the very same elements). In fact they may not be distinct in some cases, in fact in most cases. In most cases you simply have a structure evident and you wind up saying, "I think it is primarily along the lines of simply inclusio, or ring, but at points it does show evidence of a more linear concept of progression and of more distinct elements that strains more towards chiasm"- or maybe you argue that "this work definitely goes to the level of full chiastic structuring" etc. (In other words, if you have a chiasm you always also have, at least to some concrete degree or another, a ring, the circular motion of which is what I will describe as the key difference between chiasm and the foil I use in this post, what I call the "tripping billies" structure, and you have an inclusio. Actually a chiasm would be a structure composed of multiple layered rings and inclusios. Likewise a ring always is an inclusio. But the converse direction is not necessarily true: just because you have an inclusio does not mean you have a ring, and just because you have a ring [and thus an inclusio] does not mean you have a chiasm. In what I will describe below as the 3-4-5 and 2-4-6 "inner chiasms," they would technically, on their own, simply be rings, but I refer to them as chiasms because of their connection to what I am arguing for as the chiasm of the whole series. In a number of cases I talk about how, for instance, the elements of a 2-4-6 chiasm, that has its most concrete elements in those books, also has latent echoes in the other books and connections such as the 3-5 connection. There may also be present in the series elemental connections that are technically only inclusios, with the elemental connection not passing through the interpretive crux of book 4, but here in this post I am only focusing on connections where I believe I can demonstrate the book 4 crux connection as well). Chiasm, Image and Language in Literature I will discuss in the next section the primary foil I have been talking about and my specific disagreement with it in favor of the chiastic reading (and why I do not see it as a possible complimentary structuring alongside or with chiasm as I do see, as I just said, that being possible with an inclusio or a ring structure). For here, though, what I want to note, before hand, is that the primary advantage I see in the chiasm is its ability to work with imagery as imagery in a text (or as the philosophers like to say "image qua image" - precisely as image), rather than simply material plot development. The material plot moves along on its own terms but congruous with the imagery, character developments and other elements that are the elements of the chiasm. In short, I think that a chiastic reading makes the most sense out of the work as a whole, holistically as a piece of literature - rather than simply a material plot line. I will, in the section after next, defend my position with specific details from text. For here though I want to fill the reader in with a little more theory on literary elements. My own concentration on these things came into sharper focus this past semester in a paper I did (that I am working on beefing up for shopping around for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals in my field) on the use of animal metaphors, and particularly the predatory image of the lion (a nice Gryffindor reference, eh? or actually a combination of the Slytherin predatory character with the valiance of the lion?), in the book of Jeremiah. One of the things I need to correct and beef up in that paper before I shop it is the language I used for metaphors and further exposition of what has gone on in that field recently, developments in terminology used for speaking of Biblical use of metaphor. I poorly used a set of terms borrowed from what is known as "semiotics" or "sign theory." The word "semiotics" comes from the same root as the word we use when speaking of the definitional range of a specific word - "semantics" - and that was the main problem with my using the terms "signified" and "signifier" to speak about metaphor - that those terms and that field deal primarily with single words as "signs," and do so along the lines of a more arbitrary approach to the matter of "meaning" - a "one to one correspondence between signified and signifier"(this field actually began largely, or at least in such a concentrated way, in St Augustine's theory of signs in his De Dcotrina Christiana, referred to affectionately by my friends/colleagues focusing in Historical Theology as the DDC, and the big name for more contemporary semiotics is Umberto Ecco, author of the famous The Name of the Rose, the book they made the movie of with Sean Connery). The thing with a metaphor is that it does not rest in arbitrary correlations but in shared qualitative aspects. The language that is more proper in studying metaphors is "tenor" (the thing metaphorized, like the enemy) and "vehicle" (the metaphorical element used, like an attacking lion) introduced by Ivor Richards in his 1936 The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Some have tried, more recently, to modify the language to be more accurate, such as Max Black in his 1963 Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy, where he proposed the respective terminology of "focus" and "frame." I have even recently honed some of my own thoughts on something that used to sort of bug me in Latin class and now presents me with what I believe to be poetics as a mid-level between semiotics and metaphor. It always used to bug me that when the literal "with fire and iron," as in "they attacked the town with fire and iron" was found the facile "handy" quick translation was offered of "with torches and swords" (this is a very "solely semiotic" way to do it), and I would think "no, it means more than just the mere physical objects, it carries an idea in the language of humanity wielding the elements themselves." Now I begin to see this as a poetic hybrid, a unique level of language - not merely semiotics but also not fully metaphor. I go into all this detail here because that seems to me to be what literature is about: images and language, the way they are c0nstructed and used and how they are intertwined with things like the material plot of a story to create meaning. This is where I think a chiastic type reading is distinctively more accurate because of its ability to incorporate the role of the images more holistically into the whole thing. The "Tripping Billies" "Unified Theory of Everything" This proposed structure comes, as far as I can tell, mainly from Joyce Odell/Red Hen but the name "Unified Theory of Everything" comes from Wendy B. Harte/Professor Mum (it will become evident in a moment, from my comments, the difficulty I had in pinning this information down more solidly ... RH speaks of her own specific proposed structure, noting it in terms of Harte's title "UToE" on p 207 of the WKAD book). I find it easiest to build my exposition of this theory by verbatim quotation of sources, but before I do I would just like to be clear that the name "tripping billies" is not used at all (as far as I have seen) by the proponents of the theory I am about to describe. It is my own way of describing the "hiccup" feel the theory leaves me with (as in there was a big hiccup in the middle of the series [book 4] before it, on this theory, went and repeated itself without much reason for why it repeated itself). The name "tripping billies" is completely my own way of speaking of the theory - actually I took it from the title of a Dave Matthews Band song on the "Crash" album in the 1990s (in fact, doing this piece generates warm fuzzy feeling for me about that music and I haven't listened to it in a long time so I am popping it in now - they put on a great show on that tour, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals [thank you, Sirius Black] opening and Matthews did maybe one of the best live covers of All Along the Watchtower I have ever personally heard). So, first, here is basically the RH theory of structure as best a I can pin it down: books 5, 6 and 7 replicate (she calls it a "redux") the specific plot elements of, respectively, books 1, 2 and 3. Thus the difference in pairings from a chiastic structure would be RH's 1-5 connection and the 3-7 connection (rather than 1-7 and 3-5 in my proposed chiastic structure, with the 2-6 connection remaining the same). I had thought I had read in RH's text somewhere in Granger's Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? that the idea was of book 4 as an unique (IE no other book paired with it) interpretive key, which would have been a plus for the presentation of the theory, in my opinion; but I could not find it in looking back over any of RH's material I have access to, including the WKAD book (it may have been in Harte's piece in the same book but I thought I looked back over that too ... and I scanned back through some recent comments by RH on Granger's HogPro site and even tried scanning around on RH's actual site too, but could not locate anything ... if it was in the WKAD book and I missed it, if somebody knows where that particular is and wants to drop the info in the combox on this post, that would be most agreeable and kind ... in my opinion such a statement would at least make the theory more comprehensive and thorough as a proposed meta-structure). The most salient statement of this theory by RH that I am able to put my finger on at present comes from her piece in the WKAD book, p. 200: ... if Rowling holds to the established pattern she has set up; wherein the first three books of the series are being echoed by the last three; and on page 207 RH writes: ... we were all being set up to watch some version of a redux of the events of book 3, The PRISONER OF AZKABAN, play out in Book 7. In the margin of my book on the p. 200 citaion I have written next to this: " Where has she provided any thorough support for this?" If anyone else has read the piece and can show me where in her piece in that book, or anywhere else, RH has provided more thorough support (or if anyone, after reading the rundown I give here, would like to provide their own evidence culled from the HP texts), I would be more than happy to hear it in the comments thread of this post. Here are the basic correlations necessary to support for RH's theory in general, 1-5, 2-6, 3-7. As for the last one (3-7), it is not something that, at this time, by its very nature, can be corroborated in and of itself ... since book 7 has not yet been released and there is no text from which to cull evidence. This in and of itself is not a problem, if one is making an argument for the probability of that particular correlation. The proper way to go about it is to argue for the probability of the 3-7 correlation (as a method by which to predict what will happen in book 7), but the way to do that is offering evidence for at least the likelihood (although it is even better if you can demonstrate the logic itself and how it contributes to the meaning) for the 3-7 seven connection by way of demonstrating the other two connected pairings, 1-5 and 2-6. 2-4-6 Chiasms As far as any debate between the "tripping billies" proposed structure and the proposed chiasm structure, evidence of the 2-6 connection is not really that helpful in choosing between the two, since it is the same in both proposed structures. I'll list here briefly just three examples of 2-6 connections that I think support the 2-6 connection, which, as I said, fits both proposed structures, but also how I think the movement flows through book 4 (and my examples will be specifically image-based, as per my comments above on the import of images). The first is what I have called elsewhere on this site the "backfiring slugs" reading. In book 2 Ron's broken wand backfires on him when he tries "eat slugs" on Malfoy and he then is himself chucking up the vile things for the rest of the day, including one last little episode while polishing things in the trophy room ... hurling a slug or two right onto one of Tom Riddle's trophies or badges. In book 6 we meet a little bit larger slug (well, actually quite a bit larger one) ... Horace Slughorn, and I suspect that he "backfired" somehow, like Ron's wand and stoumach, right onto the same character, Tom Riddle, under his present name of Lord Voldemort. The reason I think the backfiring is so key is that in book four we meet a magical creature with a rather sudden, powerful and dangerous case of flatulence ... the blast ended skrewts (I feel alright mentioning flatulence here because of JKR's mention of chiuahuah flatulence in that "Only For Girls" piece on her site, and while the skrewts may be more physically dangerous, I think that the weiner dog's wind would definitely be more, um, aesthetically disturbing ... although I do think that "the weiner dog's wind" would make an excellent name for another wizarding band to open up for the Weird Sisters sometime - but maybe, y'know, give the name some more WW styling, like "Wizard Dog's Wind"). I will more properly address below the specifics of what I call 3-4-5 chiasms (3-5 connection by way of passing through book 4), as support for the chiastic reading, but here, because I am dealing with a magical creature as an image, I will relate briefly what I think is a 3-4-5 chiasm of magical creatures, thus showing the import of magical creatures as an image in the series. First of all, books 3, 4 and 5 are the only books in which we have Hagrid teaching our trio care of magical creatures and we all know, from Granger's alchemical work [see below] how important Hargid is to the series. In book 3 he introduces us to Buckbeak, the royal and stately, and [properly] proud, hypogriff. In book 5 he shows us other winged horses that are a bit darker and definitely tied to Rowling's themes of death, the thestrals. In book 4 is where we are introduced to the fact that Hagrid's fascination with the "monster" side, or magical creatures that are less obviously beautiful or grand and stately, might be something central to the works, as an image, in that he is able not only to get a dragon egg from a stranger and get himself in hot-water with a singed beard, like with Norbert in book 1, but actually to teach a class on a "less than friendly" magical creature - those same blast ended skrewts that we just talked about as a symbol of things that backfire powerfully. So in the "Hagrid's pets" 3-4-5 chiasm we move from book 3's "wow pretty stately and powerful bird you got there Hagrid, I mean, um horse you got there, I mean lion, I mean .... um ...", to book 4's "Hagrid, what is that thing? not quite as nice as the hypogriff you had last year, a tad bit darker and the thing looks like its butt, at least I think that's its butt, could take my leg off at the knee", and finally to book 5's "These [thestrals] look reptilian, starved and downright ghostly, Hagrid ... what's that you say? death? ... yes, you're right - seeing/coping with death has changed me ..." Below I will touch on some other book 4 ways that Hagrid is very important to the series on the image and character level ... but hopefully taking a little extra time painting details on this [magical creatures] chiasm has helped convey the way I am thinking about the inter-relation of images with plot and thus why I am writing on this and siding with chiasm distinctly over against what I have called the "tripping billies." The second 2-4-6 combo I'll point to is the spiders Ron loves so much. In book 2 we meet Aragog, just before he puts Harry and Ron on the menu for his colony. In book 6 Aragog dies (again, the death theme). In book 4 we have some beginning hints of death imagery in regards to spiders, by way of damage to spiders, when, in the maze, it takes both Harry and Cedric to blast the big 8-legger over before it does a number on both of them. The third 2-4-6 connection is one I have spoken of on this site before as the "house of seekers." In these three books I think we see the image of the Quidditch seeker as a unique carrier of meaning in a series of seekers in relation to Harry the Seeker. The book 2 seeker is Malfoy becoming Slytherin seeker. He seeks Harry (the golden soul/snitch - cf Granger's work on alchemy) as an enemy. The book 6 seeker is Ginny, who seeks Harry as lover, and gets him after she fills in for him in catching the snitch to win the game (I forget where but somewhere in HBP leading up to the last match Harry specifically sees his chances with Ginny as directly tied to the outcome of the match ... and he is right, just a bit mistaken about who it will be that will win the match by catching the literal snitch). But the Malfoy element that makes book 6 a pair with book 2 is the way Harry continually scours the Marauders' Map for Malfoy, from above, the way he scours the Quidditch pitch for the Snitch in matches. The development comes from the fact that Harry will have to transform Malfoy seeking him into him seeking Malfoy, and he will have to transform it in a crucially qualitative way: Malfoy sought him as an enemy and he watched the map for Malfoy like an enemy - but to survive with his soul in tact, even if losing his life, he will have to change to seeking Malfoy as a friend. The 2-6 connection of the house of seekers passes through the heavy territory of book 4. First you have the most central seeker image in the whole series, I think, Victo Krum, who I think will seek Harry (and Hermione - as the only 2 people he felt he could ever really connect with) as savior in book 7. Moreover, on the death theme, you have, in book 4, the house of seekers with their love dashed: Heaven (air) and Earth come together in the persons of Cedric, the earth (Hufflepuff) house seeker, and Cho, seeker for the house of sky (Ravenclaw), but then their love is dashed by Wormtails curse of Cedric in the graveyard at Voldy's command. (In regards to Krum and the core of the seeker image, sometime on here I posted a great observation from my brother Steve on the seeker image, basically how what Krum actually does in the World Cup, catching the snitch but losing the match, echoes the Gospel call to avoid the final mistake of gaining the world but losing your soul). The Tripping Billies missing link: any support given for a 1-5 connection? Moving on (between the weiner dog, the skrewts and Aragog's corpse, the air was getting, um, a bit stale there, at best), as I have said, the pairings in both competing proposed structures that involve book 7 are not technically viable as "evidence" until we actually have a book 7 text in our public hands to examine. However I will include here something from RH's WKAD essay that I think is an insightful reading of character and theme and the role of character in relation to theme in a proposed 3-7 correlation that is built upon observations on Sirius Black in book 3 and what has been built up concerning Snape throughout the whole series, but particularly in book 6, Half Blood Prince. RH suggests that the POA revelation of Sirius as innocent of the murder he was framed for will be fulfilled in a book 7 revelation that, while Snape did kill DD with an AK atop the tower, he did it in cooperation with DD, as "Dumbledores man" (WKAD, p. 201), and I think it is a really interesting theory and based in a pretty good read of how Rowling uses characters in plot development. The "nullification" of the 2-6 and 3-7 connections as evidence for the "tripping billies" over the chiasm structure, however, leaves the 1-5 connection as a central lynch pin for the demonstration of the "tripping billies" as a proposed structure. I have combed RH's text as best I can at present, but have seen no specific evidence offered for 1-5 connections (and this may be due to lack of time on my part, and, again, whoever might wish to find the evidence, either in RH's text or from their own combing of the actual HP books, I would be more than happy to listen in the combox of this present post). My Conceptual Problems with the "Tripping Billies" My main problem with the "tripping billies" structure proposal is not the fact that it might be a competing structure to chiasm, for the ring composition and an inclusio would also be such that somebody might argue for them and I would be more inclined to toy with the idea. Somebody might easily argue "I don't think it goes to the level of chiasm, I think you are stretching it on the proverbial procrustian bed if you take it to that level of concrete chiasm." I myself have had such arguments with myself on other works ( lol self-against-self arguments in the cell of Davey Jones locker right next to the Jack Sparrows - from the recent 3rd pirates movie which blew me away and I am currently working up an essay on). Over last Christmas I watched the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with mine and Pauli's and Lissa's friends Nathan and Julie. At the end you have the double wedding and I thought "HEY! 4 elements, just like 4 element cosmology and 4 humor anthropology! Now I have to figure out who is what" - and after a while I decided, "I think Austen is definitely using the symbolism of the number 4 as two pairs, maybe one pair as attraction/compatibility between those who appear to be opposites and are revealed to be complimentary on a deeper level (Darcy and Elizabeth) and the other pair as complimentary on the surface as well (Bingley and Jane) ... but it feels like tying it to the specific 4 elements cosmology would be a stretch on it. It just doesn't feel like she is taking it on that particular level of concrete 1-to-1 correlation between the characters and the 4 elements and to try to make it fit would be to put it on the procrustean bed." (The truth here is not that I do not think the qualities are not there, but simply that they are not isolated so prominently in each character as is done with, say the 4 houses in Harry Potter - for instance Darcey and Elizabeth both have qualities of at least water, air and fire - cunning/chaos, thought and spirit - mixed in them). My main contention against the "tripping billies" structure is that it seems to me to stay only on the level of strictly material plot. I recently wrote to Pauli in an email (discussing/forecasting writing this post): My main contention will be that the RH structure focuses exclusively on material action elements of plot, and that her exposition brings in at most "themes" and "character development" only when it is convenient. The point above about correlation between Sirius in book 3 and Snape in book 7 would be an example of such drawing in of "character/character-development" and themes, and it is only fair to say that while the context of RH making the connection still seems to me to be mainly the convenience on only the material plot discussion, I did note above that she let that stream carry her into some cool characterization and theme focus. I also have to note, however, that in another place in RH's WKAD text I see instances of a lack of recognition of the proper role of character development. She writes concerning Malfoy's refusal of help from Snape in HBP: "For that matter; when over the entire preceding 5 books has Malfoy ever refused Snape?" (WKADp. 168). The context here is an assertion (by RH) that Malfoy's shift in disposition towards Snape must have had something to do with some clear directive from Voldy in the task of killing DD, to do with Voldy trying to hold Snape over a barrel from helping the Malfoys avoid their punishment (RH writes here of Draco's shift: "And if he is suddenly doing it now, doesn't that suggest that he has been given a compelling reason?"). I definitely think there can be elements in the mix that concern Draco reading between certain lines and having some comprehension of what is going on between Voldy and Snape - the boy can definitely read politics. But RH's comment seems to me to take that and "engorgio" it in isolation from character development - the result being "engorgioing" the shift from what might be just Draco reading between lines, into Voldy giving concrete statements. The real net result is missing the characterization - Draco's comments are not cover ups, at least I don't think they are. He really has "grown up" a bit in the world of politics and wishes Severus Snape to keep his hooked nose out of the matter (much like the map tells Snape to do in book 3), in part for the stated motive of glory, but, I think, also for the unstated motive that Severus not foul the thing up (Draco, in his manic fear, would want no chance that DD dying could be construed as anything other than him fulfilling the stipulation Voldy made for him if he and his parents are to continue living - although in fact in the end it must be known as Snape indeed stepping in and doing the deed, which leaves Draco, Narcissa and Lucius in a questionable place with Voldy). In fact, in support of RH's statements of Snape as "DD's man," I think this is a pretty good point ... Draco knows Voldy's mind and is conforming to his wishes, Snape should be able to see that from the get-go ... I just disagree with the structure RH proposes as the way of getting there :) ... I also think RH demonstrates well the role of the Unbreakable Vow in the political motivations and movements, albeit I think some of her comments reveal a large deficiency in understanding of the place, role and, most importantly, nature of vows in the ancient world that forms a backdrop for Rowling's world and something like the UBV. Oaths/vows were sworn not by the name of the officiator, the priest of the diety, but by the name of the deity itself ... in short they were part of the same sort of transcendent binding magical contracts as the Goblet of Fire. The officiator was/is only a conduit, not a source (this is from some comments in WKAD p. 177, but it is more of a side point here ... but you can see the ancient style of oaths etc, I think, in the way Bella and her wand function primarily as a conduit for the UBV magic: the binding magic comes from her wand but is occasioned by the actual vows spoken by the 2 parties. I think RH is way off in thinking Bella would have the authority to let Snape and Narcissa out of the deal - the magic is only managed by the wizard, not created by the wizard to the level that they could nullify it like that. It should also be noted that this element of the "source" of magic corresponds to some of John Granger's comments on invocational vs incantational magic in his Looking For God in Harry Potter book on Tyndale press. I believe that what makes it incantational, and not invocational, is the fact that there is no personal deity involved [although Voldy is sure trying to become one], but this does not keep magic from having a transcendant quality in the Potterverse as Rowling has written it) . I also believe that the "tripping billies" structure provides less concrete sense, in that you simply come out with repetition as the core element, without much concept of movement or logical progression (not meaning a progression dictated by "logic proper" but a progression with its own discernible logic ... stories have their own way of making meaning, not necessarily identical with the proper logic of discursive reason, although I would argue that even a discursive essay has a "plot" - it is usually called "flow of argument"). When you combine this point with what I wrote to Pauli in that email, what you get is, I think, a certain flatness of a solely linear concept of "plot." Above I compared the chiastic structure with the ring and inclusio structures and said that the chiasm provides a more linear concept than the other two. Where I think the "tripping billies" errs is in going to the radical other end of the spectrum from something like ring and inclusio structures, in going to the level of a radically solely linear concept of plot (the vocabulary RH chooses sort of hints at this too - she speaks of a "redux" or a simple "leading back through" the same material elements ... in fact, the same Latinate roots that compose the word "redux" also compose our English word "reduction"). Final Caviats As a final section before heading into my specific proposed evidence for the chiastic structure of the series I just want to be perfectly clear as to what I am about here. I will not be using any pejorative or pedantic attitude language about Red Hen or her writing or thinking. As I said, I view the rise of this proposed structure (which I have called the "tripping billies") as a fine, albeit, according to me, inaccurate, thing because it provides an opportunity to delve into the issues in a way that has helped me to clarify my own thoughts on the chiasm more clearly and concisely. In truth I think this is the way the best dialogs work. My main contention is with the accuracy of the "tripping billies" structure and how that, as I see it, inaccuracy inter-relates with the elements of examining the works holistically as literature in the highest sense of the word. I will, and have already, of course, criticized the elements in the theory I think are inaccurate, but I don't want to appear to be doing anything more than that (as can and does often happen on the web) - I disagree with RH's reading here but I think examining exactly how I disagree is a profitable way to discuss the positives I see in chiastic reading, and that is the whole of it. Beyond that, may the best commentator win and I could, on July 21st 2007, be proven to be completely barking mad - as woefully wrong as Horace Belcher, who believed the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron (always LOVE that line, slip it in whenever I find an opening lol). As a point of clarification, I do, however, concretely disagree with the "tripping billies" proposed structure in a way that I do not disagree with other structures proposed by, say, John Granger. Fortunately at this level of writing I do not have to cite secondary sources as thoroughly, and so I will save space, but if any wish for citations of these elements in Granger's writing I can look up the sources pretty readily (although, the reason I could do it so readily is that these elements are pretty much his main schtick, or at least one of a few select schticks that are his bread and butter, and so I do not anticipate needing to do too much citation work because any who have read Granger at all will probably recognize them immediately). Granger deals in literary alchemy and alchemical structure. Thus he proposes the seven stage alchemical process as the structure of the whole series and the three stage alchemical process as the structure of the final 3 books. The evidence especially for the three stage process is pretty solid, I would even say densely solid: the black stage involves Sirius Black dying in book 5, the white stage involves Albus (white in Latin) Dumbledore dying in book 6, the third stage is the red-rubedo and we have a character named Rubeus Hagrid. I do not, however, see this as controverting the chiastic structure in the way I would see the "tripping billies" structure as controverting it (who knows maybe if the "tripping billies" winds up being defensible in the end, but I still also find confirmation of the chiastic structure in book 7, I will have to adjust this statement and work to show how the "tripping billies" can operate as a structuring element for the physical/material plot alongside the chiasm as the structuring of the "meaning" plot ... I don't think that will be the case - I think the chiastic and the "tripping billies" are divergent enough on a tight enough circle of element types to be seen as mutually exclusive - , but it is theoretically possible and I have to admit that fact, at least until the text of book 7 can be examined publicly, if I am going to be an honest thinker in genuine dialog). The alchemical structure can operate in concert with the chiastic, and indeed I think it is one of the marks of the greatness of Rowling's work that she has done such a melding. I would even propose other structures alongside the chiastic and the alchemical, working in concert with them (and this other structure I am about to propose is actually more akin to the motion and breakdown of the alchemical), such as a structure based in the 4 cardinal virtues and 3 theological virtues in the Christian Tradition (I think I have discussed this here on this site but it was a while ago so I will touch on it here briefly again). I do not necessarily think that each book can be tied out neatly to a specific virtue (much as I did not think the use of 4 in the wedding in Pride and Prejudice could be tied out so neatly to the specific 4 elements, but somebody could very well prove me wrong on both points by doing further conceptual work on those matters). But I do think that there is something to the first four Potter books being much more "who-done-it" material mystery in their particular style, just as the 4 cardinal virtues deal with the natural level, and the last 3 books being more mystical and psychological in their particular style (as in the piece I wrote on here once about Harry's psychological duress in the closer of book 5, speaking of it in the language of Bob Dylan's song "It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding"), like the three theological virtues. Authorial Intent Upon reading alot of what is above some might have trouble buying it (or maybe, like some of the guys I used to work construction with used to say about a measurement or degree of squareness that was acceptable but not ideal, some might say "I'll buy that ... I'm not sure how much I would be willing to pay for it, but I'll buy it if the price is low enough"). I'm sure people had trouble buying some of Granger's material before the Rowling interview quotes were dug out where she said the 4 houses were indeed based in the 4 elements and that she was not sure she would want to be a witch, but would love to be an alchemist. I am not expecting any such bold confirmations of my proposed chiastic reading here, but that does not change my adherence to it just as strongly, at least until I can examine book 7. The main crux of this issue is authorial intent. I tend to be of the literary school of criticism known as "new criticism," whose war-cry is "don't commit the fallacy of authorial intent!" - meaning, don't assume that just because the author did not consciously intend it, or maybe even sub-consciously, that it is not there in the work. I think that with Rowling on this matter there is at least sub-conscious intent, although I accept the distinct possibility that she could come out and say that she in no way consciously intended a chiasm ... I would just have to disagree with her on whether or not it is there anyway :) To support this contention, I offer two pieces of argumentation and one other example. The first piece of argumentation is Granger's comments in his newest book, on Rowling's mine-sweeper score on the expert level ... 99 seconds (that is insanely fast ... my own best is 169 seconds, and I think that was a fluke lol, although I have gotten under 200 seconds a number of times ... but my brother still has me beat with 159 seconds). Granger explains that Rowling has a brain that is SUPER wired for pattern thinking. My second argument piece is that Rowling was a classics major at Exeter and it would be HIGHLY unlikely that she would not have been familiar with chiastic structuring to some degree or other. I would contend that when a mind like Rowling's encounters structures such as chiasm it would be very hard for her not to get "chiasm on the brain" (cf my Hebrew professor's comment above), and once something structure-based like chiasm gets on such a pattern-based brain like hers, it would be a VERY hard thing to shake off such a brain. In other words, whether it was consciously intentional or not, I think Rowling's work in the first six books of the Harry Potter series shows STRONG signs of chiastic structuring. When book 7 comes out there may be no evidence of chiastic close-outs in it from books 1 and 4, but for me to change my view on the positive chiastic leanings of what has gone on so far in the first six books, that 7th would have to be not only devoid of chiasm elements, but downright anti-chiastic. In fact, if it was to change my interpretation of the first 6 books it would have to be even beyond anti-chiastic, it would have to contain elements that positively (meaning very clearly and concretely) redefined the material in the first 6 books in a way radically different from chiasm. If it just came out as anti-chiastic solely in itself I would have to say it was an anomolous, unexplained radical shift at the 11th hour, an inconsistency within the series (I say this fully realizing that it is entirely possible I'm going to have to eat crow on it ... I don't think it likely, but it wouldn't be the first time I was as woefully wrong as Horace Belcher, who thought the time was ripe for ... oops, already used that one in this piece lol). The "other example" I offer is ... myself. In the comment conversation I had recently with Morganna, in the combox thread of my post of my response to Joe Woodard's piece at MercatorNet.com, I said I had written my 7 point response using a chiastic structure ... and that is 100 percent true. I just never said I did so consciously or with a specific plan of that before writing the piece. I originally just started using points to organize the material for the reader and then at a certain point I was around 7 points and I decided I wanted to keep it at 7 points because I liked the number, especially in relation to the Potter series, so I organized everything under the 7 points I had. It wasn't until I was getting ready to discuss my response in reply to Morganna's comment that I looked back at it and thought "did I ...? son of a gun, I do believe I did do a chiasm! ... cool." The thing is, once chiasm gets on a certain kind of brain, it is hard to keep it down, let alone remove it from the brain (even harder than it was for Peter Parker to get that venom spiderman suit off in the 3rd Spiderman movie lol). I suppose one could argue, and to be consistent (on my position on authorial intent) I would have to listen and take the argument seriously, that my original response does not in fact adhere to the chiastic elements I described in my response to Mogranna, and that I am simply eisogeting (means "reading into") a chiasm into my own work, but I looked over it pretty well and think that the chiasm elements and flow I described are indeed there. So, to all that, in concluding the "theory" part of this essay, I will add only one final thing on structures and their use. Freedom and structure go hand in hand. The established structure is what provides for the situation where the structure is deviated from to be such a poignant place to drop meaning in. The goal of structure never was to get everything exactly even. A drum machine can play a technically perfect beat, but it can't play the beat with the feeling that a human drummer can when they hesitate just a fraction of a second on the beat and crack it like a whip (when Pauli and I played in a band there were nights when I didn't even have to look back at our drummer Jon to tell how into the music he was getting, in fact I couldn't avoid noticing how into it he was getting even if I wanted to, even though I usually set my keyboards up further forward on the stage, it was like it was beating up my back just with the way he played, and that was when I started really to get into it). The leading tone 7th on a violin can be given such emotion of aching to return up to the octave precisely because the 7th and the octave are what they are in the established scale (the midpoint between them, the "leading tone 7th," would sound cacaphonous just dropped in someplace randomly, but when hit and held and in passing between the 7th and octave, and edged up the neck ever so slightly until it is aching, that "note" can practically weep all on its own ... I got a D in freshman music theory but I do remember that from the class). I think the chiasm is a well established structure and being used by Rowling but I thoroughly expected to be blown away by the incredibly unique way she plays that beat at that melody and where she packs a wallop by adding her own distinctive breaks from it when I get my copy of book 7 at the midnight release party at Barnes and Noble in Union Square and read it on the 4 train back up to the Bronx. The Chiasm Elements of Harry Potter. So, this is the part where I dive into the sketchy hand-written observations and thoughts contained on yellow legal pad sheets, written with the pad braced on the steering wheel of my car driving interstate 80 across Pennsylvania at 3 in the morning (recent "note-taking" has gotten very ad-hoc, and downright eccentric for me as of late, such as sitting in the theater taking notes on the same style legal pad by the light of my cel phone during both Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - actually 2 sets of such notes from 2 viewings on the PotC movie ... gotta get me one of those pens with the little light on it lol). I already listed above some support of the 2-6 connection that my chiasm reading and RH's proposed structure would share, so I will not encumber you with any further data on that one (except a few that I saved for here because of how they fit with the others). I have also said that no concrete arguments concerning the 1-7 connection can be made, for the same reason that concrete arguments cannot be made from text for a 3-7 connection ... July 21st, 2007 is taking entirely too long to get here (IE the very unfortunate fact of there being no book 7 text in our hands to argue from yet, but like I said, RH did make a nice proposition, via good reading of character, of a connection between Sirius in book 3 and how Snape is being set up for book 7). On this site however, Pauli once upon a time proposed a really good possible chiastic outcome in book 7, tying to book 1: Harry with Voldy on the front of his head as a horcrux in the scar (marking the bravery of a "face to face" confrontation) revealed in book 7, paired off against Quirrel in book 1 with Voldy on the back of his head. So, these proposed 1-7 and 3-7 connections can yield some pertinent elements for discussion in this regard, just not anything that can be used as conclusive evidence for argumentation until book 7 is out (to quote Granger's longing cry - "Accio July 21st!") The real focus of an argument such as I am making here, thus, must rely more heavily on the 3-5 connection of the chiasm, which, in such a debate, squares off against the 1-5 correlation in the "tripping billies" proposed structure, for which, as I have said, at least in my cursory reading of RH's work, I have not seen RH put forth solid evidence. Specific 3-4-5 chiasms Actually, in fairness, I must relate here that my own stumbling upon the importance of the 3-4-5 "inner chiasms" began with my first reading of Red Hen's material. It was a piece of hers on a number of things, but in it she mentioned a belief that the dementors are more central to meaning and plot than we have yet suspected, and that particularly the foolish (at best) alliance of the Ministry with the dementors would be important. It was this that started me looking (as well as affected my thinking in ways that later made it easier for me to accept Voldy as something like Anti-Social Personality Disorder but still reconcile this with the moral character of the books as a battle of good versus evil). The Dementor 3-4-5 chiasm The 3-4-5 inner chiasm I saw at that time was actually the only one I really noticed until this recent review of the series while listening to book 4. I think there is a 3-4-5 chiasm that involves the dementors as an image vehicle for the theme of the proper relation between wizards and muggles. That proper relation is best described in Arthur Weaseley's "Protection of Muggles Act" introduced in book 4 (initially raised by Arthur in reaction to the antics of his sons Fred and George leaving the tongue-tun toffee for Dudley), but the progression begins with how wizards have failed to protect even their own kind from evil. The dementors and the tension between DD and the ministry on the subject of the soul-suckers are introduced in book 3. In book 4 as the crux we have a kiss actually performed in text, although just off screen, on a wizard - Barty Crouch Jr. Then in Book 5 the ultimate shadowy bureaucrat (Umbridge) lets one loose (meaning a dementor, not the afore-mentioned flatulence ... or maybe both, as a good symbolic/image connection?) looking for a wizard (Harry) and it winds up attacking a muggle (Dudley ... forecasted by Dudley humorously falling prey to the twins' joke candy, but in book 5 it is no laughing matter ... it's all fun and games until somebody gets their soul sucked out). The "Protection" 3-4-5 Chiasm So, one of the new 3-4-5 chiasms I lit on in this reading, the "protection" chiasm, is actually connected to the one that originally started me on the path, the dementor chiasm . In book 3 the dementors represent the need for protection from self (the wizarding world, and particularly its children in school at Hogwarts, need to be protected from their own lack of wisdom), localized in Dumbledore protecting his students from the ministry sanctioned dementors . In the 3-5 elements specifically noted the protection needed is against dementor activity initiated by the ministry, first against a wizard (Sirius in book 3) and putting wizard kids at great risk at Hogwarts, and then putting a muggle at risk (Dudley in book 5). The book 4 crux of this particular inner chiasm has all kinds of protection imagery. Harry protects Cedric from being the only champion not to know what he is going into in the first task by telling him it is a dragon. And the muggles at the campground, the owners of the campground, are definitely in need of protection from the death eaters that night. Even Krum gets in on the act of being a protector in book 4: when Hermione shows up at the Yule ball with Krum not even Malfoy can think of an insult to hurl at her - it seems that the blow of seeing her with his guy from the "ultra-cool" "hyper-slytherin" school he thinks so praise-worthy, Durmstrang, leaves him flattened and Hermione protected. Karkaroff and DD get into the issue of "protection" of their schools secrets just a bit later at the ball, and this is actually where the room of requirement is introduced in the series ... it is in the context of DD saying he would never presume that he knows all the secrets of Hogwarts, and then describing finding the RoR full of chamber pots. And Rowling SIMPLY RIDDLED this passage with other stuff - note dobby is the one to suggests the room to Harry as the meeting place for the DA in book 5, here at the ball in book 4, just after the convo between Karkaroff and DD, fake Moody can see through Harry's pants with the magical eye and says "nice socks potter" because Harry is wearing the Christmas presents from Dobby, a pair of socks Dobby made himself, which connects back up with the fact that Harry freed Dobby with a sock (right before Dobby ... you guessed it ... protects Harry from Lucius), which would work nicely with Travis Prinzi's comments on the possible role of house-elves in the end (although don't forget about Bagman's interaction with the Goblins in GOF and the fact that GOF is where Bins is going heavily through the Goblin rebellions in history of magic class - so they will be in on the deal too I imagine) ... however that is a 2-5 connection and not a 1-5 connection, so bad luck for the "tripping billies" theory again. The "Hovering" 2-4-6 Chiasm Speaking of the abuse of the muggle campground owners at the World Cup in GOF, there is a further specific 2-4-6 image chiasm, the image of "hovering" or rather "suspension" of somebody or something else, that involves at least book 5 and maybe book 3. In book 2 Dobby's hover charm humorously ended up in a muggle (Mrs Mason) covered in a large pudding. In book 6 we find levicorpus and the source that Harry learned it from Snape, and we also find out in book 5 why that spell was such a sore spot for Snape. But the most flagrantly wrong use of LC is with the muggle campground owners the night after the Quidditch World Cup in book 4 (in fact Hermione makes specific mention in HBP of the use of levicorpus by the DEs in GOF). If you doubt the heaviness of the issues involved, ask yourself, from the aspect of sexual privacy and insecurity, if you would yourself mind being held upside down with your underwear and body exposed to strangers the way the wife of the owner is described as trying to pull her dress up to cover herself as she dangles upside down in GOF (or having your tighty whities, or not so whities, ridiculed like James and Sirius do when they have Snape upside down) ... this is not light stuff, this is exponentially more sadistic than anything Snape has ever pulled on the grounds and in the halls of Hogwarts. The "Time" 3-4-5 Chiasm In my post on my "definition of narrative" that is linked to on the side bar, I define narrative by the intersection of two concepts of time (very akin to the intersection I was talking about above of chiasm as an intersection of linear and circular concepts of plot). There is a corresponding 3-4-5 inner chiasm on time. In book 3, the time turner is introduced and in book 5 the entire stock of time-turners are destroyed in the hall of time in the department of mysteries in the ministry of magic (as confirmed by Hermione in HBP). Both of these time elements deal with what I referred to in my narrative definition as "chronos" - clock time (I would say that while kairos should always rule chronos, and not vice-versa as in materialism, chronos still has its proper place and that the smashing of the time turners in book 5, thus ending English wizards' ability to tamper with chronos, is a sign of respect for the proper place of chronos). Book 4 contains at least two distinct instances of a prevalence of "kairos" ("special time") over chronos. Leading up to the first task of the tournament, in the "Hungarian Horntail" chapter, there is ALOT on how time is behaving a lot less for Harry like chronos is supposed to be, and a lot more like kairos might function in a Kafke story. Then in the second task, chronos just poops out altogether ... Harry wears his watch (chronos symbol) into the lake and it just simply stops working soon afterwards. (In regards to the first instance here, the dragon task, we may have some strong possibilities of clues for a possible 1-4-7 chiasm movement, keeping in mind that I said that such are, by definition, impossible to prove at this point, and thus the word "possible" repeated and emphasized. At one point in the Hungarian Horntail chapter it says that Harry feels like his whole life has been leading up to this task and will end with it. This is a REALLY strong comment considering it involves a dragon, and that Hagrid informs him of the dragon, and that Hargid was involved with a dragon in book 1, Norbert, and that Hargid's name is Rubeus and the 7th book is pretty sure to be the Red stage of the 3 stage alchemical process). Along the same lines as I have critiqued RH's proposed structure for being too flat and linear on concept of plot, there is, in her comments, as I read them, a distinct over-leaning towards a dominance of the chronos concept of time. RH writes: "One could wish that Rowling, who is remarkably good at plotting, were a little more dependable for timelines. Her shaky grasp of numbers erodes our confidence, even when there are no obvious contradictions." (WKAD, p. 155) I am not saying I think Rowling is impeccable on her working of timing in the books, or that she has no genuine errors or inconsistencies, but there are a few important notes to make here. The first is the mention of a "shaky grasp of numbers." This one Rowling has actually addressed directly in text via the courses taught at Hogwarts. Arithmancy, which Hermione swaps in instead of divination in book 3 (which makes this a timely place in my own essay to address this because that is what is next, a divination chiasm), is all about numbers but at the other end of the spectrum from "scientific math." What is an adequate "grasp of numbers" depends on from what angle you are looking at the numbers. Scientific math (a muggle discipline ... and one my father was a genius at and really enjoyed robustly) is all about the quantity aspect of numbers - Arithmancy (a magic discipline) is all about the quality aspect of numbers (things such as numerology, like that used in Judaism in conjunction with the numerical values in the Hebrew alphabet etc). This point on numbers is really about "form following content." It seems unrealistic to me to expect a story about these things to maintain its own distinct narrative logic, flowing from its qualitative content, while expecting the form to conform rigidly to the quantitative dictates of scientific logic (Again, here, just so as not to be misunderstood as being combative, which I have definitely been against others in other online venues. I am not saying "I can't believe she is saying this!" - simply saying, "this is what seems to me to be at the core of what she is saying, and I would disagree with it but I also think it a very productive thing to dialog with it ... I am actually finding dialog against her foil to be very productive in honing my own thoughts that I have had for a while in rougher form on these matters" .... just wanted to be totally clear on that one) The second comment here on RH's statement on time-lines is what seems to me an unrealistic expectation of consistency. First of all, I don't think it is possible to get radically accurate chronos in a narrative ... every act of retelling is an act of interpretation that rubs against "accurate chronos" (in short, "true objectivity" was only ever a false myth created by radical Enlightenment science). If you want completely accurate chronology in a narrative the time required to tell the events of one day is at least ... one day (actually longer because you can never tell things as fast as they happened and there are things going on simultaneously that impact each other and explaining the connections takes more time ... not to mention the question of whether or not you actually ever could describe all the pertinent and connected factors, or whether the project is rather doomed from the start to be "ad infinitim") . This "unavoidability" leads to what has actually been noted, in some post-modern literary theory, as a positive instance of the creation of "dissonance" or jarring experience in reading, including skewed timelines, as an actual way of creating and conveying meaning. What Robert Carrol (a respected, been around and in the game for ages, commentator on the book of Jeremiah in the Bible) notes in some instances is that the "dissonance" that makes the reading experience unsettling in literature can be a distinct carrier of meaning (you actually get this a lot in a number of post modern movies ... the most famous to mess around with time sequencing was Tarrantino's Pulp Fiction ... I'm not endorsing the film, just noting it as a prime example). In short, Kairos will always have that effect, to some degree or other, on chronos, and that very effect in and of itself can contribute to the meaning of the works. So the "screwy timelines" might actually be something other than merely dropping the ball. The "Divination" 3-4-5 Chiasm Books 3, 4 and 5 are the only places where Harry and Ron sit in Professor Trelawney's divination class. And that is all I will note there (surprised?) - because this segways into what is for me a pretty key chiasm in connection with the subject of divination ... The Revelation Chiasm What can one say about the issue of revelation in these works without having to encapsulate the whole series again, with just about every sentence in it? LOL. So, I will keep to some very specific examples ... starting with professor Trelawney. As for a 3-4-5 chiasm of revelation, the two outer elements involve the two legitimate prophecies she has ever spoken (and nicely, in regards to the issue of time discussed above, given in text in reverse chronological order). Book 3 contains the prophecy on Peter returning to Voldy and book 5 is where Harry sees, in the specter arising from the pensieve, the full (at least as far as we know at present) "prophecy that started it all." And in ancient literature revelation is all about prophecy (although I have noted before on this site that I think the nature of prophecy is a central tension in Rowling's HP series, with Trelawney's trite [conscious] methods on one end of the spectrum and true understanding of the inner logic of events and history on the other end of the spectrum. This concept of prophecy comes most notedly from Avraham Heschel, who is reported to have quoted Dumbledore on his deathbed: "Why should I fear to die? What have I to regret?" Heschel is famous for his clarifications on prophecy not primarily as fore-telling but as forth-telling.) And speaking of the pensieve, take a closer look at it from the Judeo-Christian Tradition of revelation. Does a fire that does not consume what is put into it or what it contains or is located in sound familiar? (I am sure this has been noted a million times already, and I am sure John Granger has probably mentioned it in a multitude of places in his works I am forgetting at the present moment, but hopefully what I am adding here is placing it in the context of a chiasm of revelation in the works). The burning bush from which YHWH speaks to Moses is THE beginning, in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, OF the Judeo-Christian Tradition of Revelation itself. And what does our burning chalice (a Eucharistic adaptation of the burning bush that I KNOW, Granger has mentioned) reveal? It reveals character, the character of champions (in regards to what I said above about oaths - there is a specific connection between oaths and champions, a specific thing called an oath contest, in which, rather than whole armies fighting each other, the war would be decided by a champion being chosen from each side to do battle, an oath Champion. Such is David against Goliath and Job against Behemoth, and such also is Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets ... squared off against diary-mort, aided by an oath beast of loyalty, Fawkes the phoenix, that squares off against the beast of Slytherin, the ancient serpent the Basilisk, and gouges out its oracular symbols, its eyes that only ever reveal death, before giving Harry the advantage of Arthurian revelation that John Granger has noted, in The Hidden Key, as the sword-in-hat that reveals him to be the true heir of Gryffindor who is able to fight the heir of Slytherin). The Goblet is connected to the other 3 cups in GOF (I have written here before on what I think is a 5th cup in the book, the inverted dome of phoenix song in the graveyard. There, when I wrote of it before, however, I called it a 4th cup, but here I will call it a 5th cup as a quintessence of the 4 concrete cups in the book). The 4 concrete cups in the book are: as an outer pair, the cups of recognition - the Quidditch World Cup and the Tri-Wizard cup that whisks Harry and Cedric away to the graveyard ceremony; and the inner two cups of revelation - the Goblet of fire and the pensieve (the latter is for revealing the hidden but more meaningful contents in human thoughts and memories). Added to this central image of revelation (the cups of the Goblet of Fire and the penseive) is the standard ancient symbol of revelatory oracle ... the eye - Moody's magical eye. It is no mere "standard busywork of writing a book" that there is a chapter in GOF called "The Egg and the Eye." Rowling is at her densest here as far as how packed the text is with interwoven symbolism/images. Remember that Moody's eye can see through the invisibility cloak. So when, in this chapter, Harry is wandering around at night after his egg made such a racket, and Snape cannot see him through the invisibility cloak ... Barty Jr can (and this is the first place we get a hint dropped that it is indeed Barty and not Mad Eye who is teaching dark arts at the school this 4th year, when Harry sees him on the map in Snape's office stealing ingredients for polyjuice potion [another 2-4-6 chiasm: our trio in book 2, Crab and Goyle, and maybe, as some are suggesting, Malfoy, in book 6 and Barty Jr here] ... quite a revelation). This is one of the reasons I believe Barty JR is SO central to the meaning of the series as a whole. (but please note: Sirius is not that good at prophecy. When he has his head in the Gryffindor fireplace in GOF he incorrectly states that whoever put Harry's name in the Goblet is probably not too happy that he survived the dragon task. In point of fact, Barty Jr is quite happy that Harry passed that one, and was indeed orchestrating it and feeding him what he needed, which was actually a much better suggestion, and playing to Harry's strengths and what he actually enjoys - flying - than would have been Sirius' suggestion of attacking the dragon's oracular locus, the eye, head on. Apparently Sirius forgot that there are things worse than death, like watching your mortal enemy, who killed your parents in cold blood to get to you, use your own blood, your own personal being, to return to evil power. Sirius should have at least remembered the principle of there being things worse than death, seeing as how accutely he was once aware of the danger of a dementor's kiss. I suspect that Barty Jr already realized, even if he did not let himself admit it consciously, that there are things worse than death, like his own history of neglect by father and being used by Voldy, and if not he certainly realized it by the end of the book, after the kiss. But, to be fair, Sirius, I think, dies with the recognition that death is not the worst that can happen to you if you live your life rightly ... as is, I think, the point of Nearly Headless Nick's speech to Harry on those who come back as ghosts and those who do not ... speaking of which, I disagree with RH on DD's return as a ghost being equally as likely as any other type of "continued presence in book 7" [of course the one positively ruled out by the August 06 statement at Radio City is that DD is still alive, but I think the regular ghost thing has the second most problems] - although I must admit that Ron's and Snape's HBP interchange on the solidity of ghosts as a litmus test for differentiating between them and inferi is an interesting little tidbit that would support the possibility of DD returning as a ghost ... the "solidity" issue has also been used much in 20th century art and literature, from both the perspective of seeking power and from the perspective of vulnerability: in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Sauron, as a maia, basically an angel, is basically trying to incarnate, to solidify in corporeal power, through his ring, rather than letting go of certain of his powers to incarnate in the form of an advisor in prudence and wisdom, like Gandalf did, who was once a maia as well; Sauron is trying to incarnate in power without accepting the humility of incarnation, of solidification, and the humility of solidification can be seen in the way that it makes one vulnerable, as noted by Sheryl Crow in the song "Solidify" on her debut album Tuesday Night Music Club - "Why should I solidify? [why should I] make things real, so you can see me?"). But what of that golden egg from the first GOF task that winds up in the hands of the closest thing to a muggle you will find at Hogwarts (Filch the squib), standing between two of the most skilled wizards at Hogwarts at the moment (aside from Dumbledore), Snape and Barty Jr, arguably also the two darkest characters in the school at the time? Just at the end of the previous chapter, "Rita Skeeter's Scoop," that egg has been a VERY important symbol of revelation of hope in a champion for probably the most important "other" character in the series. And it has been a symbol for that character precisely in the central themes of the prejudice against the "other." In his cabin at the end of that chapter Hagrid gives a very deep and moving testament about what it means to him that Harry passed the first task and got that egg. And when Harry lies (anti-revelation) to Hagrid about how he is progressing on the egg, it may well be the only time in the whole series (outside of the scene at the basin in the cave in HBP, with Dumbledore) that Harry feels really bad about fibbing, which reveals a lot about the role of Hagrid and that egg in Harry's self actualization. The Seekers Revisited I already mentioned the seekers progressions above but here is a specific 3-4-5 chiasm. Cedric in 3, Krum in 4, Cho in 5. Cedric beat Harry in book 3, but it was because of the dementors. It is not only actions chosen by will that have consequences, but all human events. In book 5, after Cedric beats Harry in book 3, Cho seeks Harry as friend in trying to understand Cedric's death, but it ends in alienation. This all passed through book 4, where Harry sees himself as competing with Cedric for Cho. This 3-4-5 chiasm is properly tragic. Indeed I think all of the 3-4-5 inner chiasms are more tragic in tone, they have to move out and beyond their own scope to find further hope of healthier fulfillment. This one, however touches very deep human themes and insecurities. In the "The Four Champions" chapter of GOF Katie Bell makes a very unfortunate, even if innocent, statement. In the common room after they find out Harry is a champion, she tells Harry to win the tournament and pay Cedric back for beating them the previous year in Quidditch (GOF 285) ... by the end of the book Cedric is dead (which echoes very strongly Molly Weasley's tears of mixed worry and relief in seeing Fred and George again after the Quidditch World Cup, and her statements of how much she would have hated herself if they had died there and the last words she would have spoken to them were words of tension, anger or rebuke). In book 6 Katie herself nearly dies at the hands of the book 2 seeker, Draco Malfoy. Regardless of how we intend things, life is often pierced by unfortunate tragedies and near tragedies, the latter of which affect us equally as strongly even though they are not fully completed as tragedies ... we carry them with us. Two final Bookend Chiasm The First Potions Class chiasm: Bottling Fame, Brewing Glory and Stoppering Death This is officially a 2-4-6 chiasm but I am putting it here in this final section because it comes from the first potions class with Snape (the famous quote from book 1, which many have noted is quoted 7 times in HBP ... another tidbit of support: in one of these chapters in GOF it notes that Harry got a bad mark in potions for forgetting a key ingredient ... a bezoar), which would place it at the beginning of the series, thus making it a neat bookend with the next and final chiasm I will note, which contains a hazarded prediction and, thus, concerns the closing of the series. So, what are our elements? Well, this one is officially going to support the "stoppered death" theory of HBP, on which so many people have commented that it is difficult for me to pull right out off the top of me head (or even from the sea of posts online, or maybe even figure out at all) whose it was originally (although, here I think Felicity gives the answer, a commentor named Cathy who was a co-moderator with John Granger on a class on Barnes and Noble University online in 2005, I think that is reading Felicity's post rightly ... but it is a bit late right now and I am feeling a bit like the "part of the ship" Jack Sparrow in the brig of the Flying Dutchman in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 ... "Wait! nobody move! ... I dropped me brain!" - not trusting my noggin right now ... good thing I have saved editing this essay for tomorrow lol). But here is the basic run-down. In book 2 Lockheart "bottles fame" in that he takes it by, shall we say, "bottling it away" from those who earned it - getting them to tell their stories to him and then obliviating their memories so they don't know it is complete bunk when they read his books about how he did the things, rather than them. Obviously the book 6 element is not yet confirmed but strongly suspected by all (including me ... I am happily bumping along on the bandwagon here in the Bronx), that one way or another Dumbledore was stoppering his own death all the way through HBP, either by the help of Snape or by elixir of life etc. So, that leaves book 4 with the middle term: brewing glory. Glory is a very central concern in GOF, especially after Harry has been chosen as a champion, and especially to the Hufflepuffs. The "Weighing of the Wands" chapter could almost be a precursor to the "long dark tea time of the soul" of book 5 (a title I have stolen unapologetically from Douglas Adams, that, in my usage here, employs the angst of the fiasco with Cho in Madame Puddyfoot's tea shop in book 5 as a symbol of the book being "the long dark night of the soul" of teenage, romantic coming-of-age emotions) ... "The next few days were some of Harry's worst at Hogwarts" (GOF 295), and the glory "brewed" by the tournament is a big part of that, especially with the house of Helga. "It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harry had stolen their champions glory; a feeling exacerbated by the fact that Hufflepuff house very rarely got any glory ... " (GOF 293 ... Glory mentioned twice in one sentence, and the end of the sentence connects this passage and chapter to the chiasm of seekers I noted above: "and that Cedric was one of the few who had ever given them any [glory], having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch." [meaning the match the previous year, the same one Katie Bell mentioned in the common room just the night before this scene]). The Chiasm of Harry's School: A Chiastic Prediction Returning to Barty Crouch disguised as Mad Eye Moody, I have argued, even just in the most recent post, that the text of GOF reveals a tragic loss in Barty Jr, that he could have been a good teacher. Rowling's own history as a teacher, as well as DD's choice to remain as headmaster at Hogwart's rather than take the political path of the ministry, touched on directly in the conversation between DD and Voldy in the pensieve in HBP, would be a good indicator of exactly how important the teaching profession is to Rowling. In fact, there is a history to the fact that teachers are called "professor," a point that DD is continually reminding Harry of in regards to how Harry refers to Snape. In the ancient world a "professional" was one whose area of care was so vital to what really matters in this life that they took an oath of office ... they professed an oath. This was because their duties were regarded as so important that no mere promise, based in their own name, would do ... only the gaurantee of the name of the deity was good enough. Such were those responsible for the care of physical life [doctors], those responsible for the political well being of the state, through the creation of good laws [lawyers] ... and those responsible for the education and, more importantly, formation of the young - teachers. Barty Jr is a squandered opportunity for a good teacher, squandered by his own father and the ministry, thrown like pearls before swine, or rather a single swine, Voldy, who picks him up and uses him till, at the hands of the ministry, the "spending" of his personhood is completed - tapped out, as it were - as a full-blown tragedy, in a kiss worse than death, the dementor's kiss. I believe this actually fits a possible chiasm that could be fulfilled in the final book (again, I will gladly eat crow if I am wrong on the material side of this prediction, at least on the prediction itself ... I will always maintain that the potential is there in the texts already publicly held as a positive meaning within those texts ... as my mother once related to me that my grandfather on my dad's side used to say "if it doesn't work I will always say it should have" ... actually, as I have said before, I will always maintain that it is there positively in what has gone before as an element that raised a certain tension in the work, a tension that Rowling used in a certain way to create meaning, either by having Hary wind up a teacheror a new school being created in his name, or, conversely in having the whole series be more properly a tragedy, or at least have a lingering tragic tone as a reminder of the ever-present danger of evil, by creating meaning by leaving the tension without fulfillment). This particular chiasm is actually a 3-4-5 chiasm but, as I say, I think it could be fulfilled in the final book. At one point in time I argued for a prediction of Harry being the final DADA teacher who lasts. I based this in an instance in book 3 regarding the DADA teaching position and in Harry as an instructor in the DA (nice little "minoring" of the DADA acronym don't you think?) in book 5. So there is the 3-5 connection. But somebody pointed out that Rowling had already stated categorically in interview that, while one of Harry's year will return as a professor it will not be Harry. So here is my new thought, and how I pull it out of GOF as the chiastic crux of the series. I think Rowling's statement applied only to Harry returning to Hogwart's as a professor; I think he will begin his own school at the end of book 7 (I know, I know ... this is assuming he lives and, as I pointed out so forcefully in my reply to Joe Woodard, that is not held knowledge one way or the other yet ... so I will be willing humbly to eat crow on this one if Harry dies ... but I still think it would be possible, even if he dies, for somebody else - maybe Neville and Hermione etc - to start a new school in Harry's name and memory). So, here are the text specifics. When Lupin leaves at the end of book 3, he walks out of the DADA classroom office leaving Harry and DD there. Harry is noted to sit down in Lupin's empty chair, the chair of the DADA professor. The chair is a noted seat of authority in education, as in the "chair of the department" ... as well as in business in general, where there is a "chairman" and people often "chair" certain committees etc (I am the new Graduate School Association representative for my department next fall and have been fore-warned that sitting on a committee is not much work, but that is because most of the work falls on the person who volunteers to chair the committee, so don't volunteer if you don't want extra work ... but I think I am required to sit at least one committee, but no more than two). As mentioned, Book 5 has Harry already teaching in text (in the room of requirement teaching DADA to the DA ... beginning to sound like that old song by the Police here lol). So what remains is the book 4 material. Some interesting comments are made in the "Hungarian Horntail" chapter. In regards to the first Rita Skeeter article, about Harry's eyes welling with tears and all that, a Slytherin student asks, "Since when have you been a top student in the school? or is this a school you and Longbottom set up together?" (And Neville, along with Luna, on the train in HBP, specifically note liking the DA meetings, and it is Neville who says "I learned loads with you"). In short, I know it might seem like a long shot, but the presence of material that can be fit so neatly into a 3-4-5 chiasm makes me think it is a strong possibility. Some might argue that the words of a slytherin student should not have too much stock put in them. But from the "pride and prejudice" school () it would makes sense (Ie narrative logic) if Rowling had the Slytherins learn something about their own agenda by learning that "loose lips sink ships" (but as far as Malfoy is concerned I am sure that Durmstrang's ship was sunk the moment he saw Krum with Hermione at the ball ... and that is just from the angle of the pride and prejudice school, there could be the school of Caiaphus the high priest who prophesied truly while in the midst of planning the murder of Christ, depending on your view of Slytherin house [and there is a comment below about Barty Jr as Caiaphus] ... of course, the "school of Merlin," even when "correct," is generally that of Balam's ass, but a happy "wild ass of a man" I am on most days lol). It is not, however, just the words of a slytherin student that suggest "another school." In "The Four Champions" chapter of GOF it is Moody/Barty Jr who (tooting his own horn here, but accurately) notes that "It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy's name in that goblet ... It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the tournament ... I'm guessing they submitted Potter's name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category ..." (GOF 279, emphasis added). Perhaps Barty Jr here is a Caiaphus figure, speaking true prophecy (a text clue to the end of the series), but in the midst of conspiring murder and evil (and note, in regards to what I have been saying about Barty's potentials that have been squandered, he is right here, it would take a very powerful wizard to confund the goblet into forgetting the pararmeters and specifics of the tournament) As the good book says (to quote Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof), "The Lord works in mysterious ways" (or to quote Bono from U2's "big change-up album" of 1990, Achtung Baby, "She moves in mysterious ways"). I think it is distinctly possible that Barty Jr here not only "dropped info/exposition" but that he actually materially effected something. By the fact that he is the one who actually did the bamboozling of the goblet, I think we can safely assume that he is here engaging in a little risky dare-devil bravado, and laughing up his sleeve at the irony of it, in actually telling them how he actually pulled it off ... by submitting Harry's name under a fourth school. The thing is, as is clearly noted, the goblet constitutes a validly binding magical contract. Therefore that fourth school, to a certain extent, concretely and objectively does exist now that it has has had a concretely historical champion compete in the tournament that is governed by a magical object that constitutes a vadidly binding magical contract. Things like this are known to go on on the objective "behind the scenes level" (as Granger puts it when talking about narrative misdirection) ... Harry objectively inherits number 12 Grimmauld Place from Sirius upon his death in book 5 but DD needs to have the objective validity of it demonstrated by the incident with Kreacher later, in the "Will And Won't" chapter of HBP. I think such a book 7 validation of the objective creation of a new school in book 4 may be forthcoming that correlates with Harry's discovery of Hogwarts as a school in book 1 - hence a 1-4-7 chiasm, but one that would have latent echoes is books 3 and 5: In book 3 it is pronounced that Uncle Vernon tells aunt Marge that Harry attends St Brutus' school, and Harry's teaching methods for DADA, developed in book 5, have been well contrasted with Snape's methods in HBP . This difference in teaching methodology is an important one for this matter. In GOF and HBP combined we find that the identities of the schools, Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons, are embodied in methodological differences. Draco is the GOF agent of exposition delivery for the information on Karkaroff's method of teaching the dark arts themselves as a way to teach defending against them, and in HBP we find Fleur talking about Beauxbaton's approach to testing after 6 years of classes, rather than 5. As just noted, Harry's own methods for teaching DADA have been contrasted with Snapes in HBP, but note also that teaching methodology is raised as an issue in the book 3 instance of St Brutus', just mentioned, when Aunt Marge asks Harry if they use the cane there and emphatically states she won't have any of this softness of not using strong corporal punishment when it is needed etc. (indeed Barty Jr's own methods of teaching, disguised as Moody, are a central issue in book 4: Minerva has to upbraid him on using transfiguration as a punishment for teaching and it is Barty/Moody himself who states what he is doing as "teaching," when he is bouncing Draco around the entrance hall, and there is no end of Hermione's worry about him actually showing the unforgivable curses themselves, echoing DD's criticism of Durmstrang's method of teaching DADA) If Barty Jr did occasion the beginning of a new school with Harry as its first, and thus far only, constituent, this falls under a "structuralist" literary theory called "Speech-Act Theory," which concerns speech acts in which the content that is stated in the speech act is at the same time actually effected in/by the speech act (the prime example is the wedding vow, although I have myself used the theory in discussing Old Testament prophecy, another of the important themes I have touched on here, as involving the giving of a prophecy as somehow actually bringing into being or catalyzing the content of the prophecy. When I used to take classes from Dr Scott Hahn at Franciscan University of Steubenville he was fond of using speech-act theory to discuss the "creation by word" tenet of the Genesis 1 creation account in the Bible). In that little definition just given, as regards this instance and others in the Harry Potter series, I side with the "in the speech act" vs "by the speech act" for the same reason that I deliberately chose the language of Barty Jr "occasioning the beginning of" the new school, rather than him "creating" the new school. As with the material above on Bella and the Unbreakable Vow, I believe that what happens is that the "officiator" is only either a conduit, in Bella's case in HBP, or an occassioner, as in Barty's case in GOF, and not a "source" (cf my notes in my post of my response to Mr Woodard's piece for my opinion, and that of Pope Benedict XVI, on the language of "sources" in general). I believe it would be the goblet itself, as an agent of transcendent magic in a magically binding contract, that actually creates the new school by choosing Harry as a champion for it. Barty simply occasions that creation by putting Harry's name in the goblet (well, he also does set the parameters by which, if the goblet accepts the putting forth of the name and school, Harry is the only possible champion, but it is still the goblet that acts by accepting the putting forth and the 4th school), but I think it entirely possible that we will find out in DH that Barty Jr did indeed occasion the goblet creating a new school(this language of "occasion" is borrowed from the arena, actually, of pro-creation: parents do not create their children; rather their love is the occasion honored by God with His own act of creating a new human person). Personally I would like to see Harry live and start another school that is in dialog with Hogwarts in the way Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are in the tri-wizard tournament (I'd also like to see him marry Ginny and occasion the creation and births of little Harries and Ginnies) ... but that is all I can say for the present, until book 7 is in my greedy little hands. THE END Accio July 21st, 2007, Merlin the Meandering and the Moon-minded (oh brother Lupin), the Mad-eye and the Magpie ... and whatever others you can think of