I have not posted much, but I want to ask a question regarding Neville. What will his role be in Deathly Hallows? I am one of those people loving tha chiastic structure theory, in which book 1 and 7, 2 and 6 and 3 and 5 are pairs, while book 4 is the turning point, containing elements from all. We clearly find similarities between 3 and 5, both being kind of inward and depressing, fleshed out in book five, Harry´s “Dark Night of the Soul.” Books 2 and 6 both have the concept of the Horcrux, but fleshed out in book 6.
So, if book 1 and 7 are similar, could it be that Neville´s bravery will mirror his bravery in book one, where he earned Gryffindor the House cup? Can he be the one that turns it around in the war?
In the 23rd chapter of Half-Blood Prince, we learn about it from Slughorn (in Dumbledore’s pensieve):
“A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.” (…) “Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form… few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable.” (…) “Well, ou must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature.” “[You can do it by] an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart…”[1]
Lately I have been thinking about the link between Voldemort and Nietzsche and his idea of the “will to power.” When Harry met the real Quirrel, the professor confesses that he used to be “full of ridiculous ideas”: read more…
Michael O’ Brien, one of the most quoted Christian critics of the Harry Potter books, often criticizes the books of being to “gnostic.” In an interview with Catholic News Service Zenit, he said: read more…
July 16th 2005, J.K. Rowling stated, in an interview with The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, both Harry Potter fan sites, that she wanted the four houses of Hogwarts to “correspond roughly to the four elements. So Gryffindor is fire, Ravenclaw is air, Hufflepuff is earth, and Slytherin is water, hence the fact that their common room is under the lake. So again, it was this idea of harmony and balance, that you had four necessary components and by integrating them you would make a very strong place. But they remain fragmented, as we know.” read more…
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
As I have already pointed out, the magic of Harry Potter is a “scientific craft,” and must therefore be treated as such. Peter Kreeft explains that
Aristotle rated technique (technical knowledge, techne, know-how) as third on the hierarchy of values, after (1) knowledge of the truth for its own sake, and (2) practical knowledge, or knowledge for living, for acting. The modern world has simply turned this hierarchy exactly upside down, as it has turned man upside down. (Kreeft 1994, p. 22)
In this post, I will explore this concept, and show what the Harry Potter books are all about. read more…
Is the Magic of Harry Potter in any way «bad» or «dangerous»? A lot of people seem to believe that, but I don’t. To show why, let me ask two questions; (i) what kind of magic do we find in Harry Potter, and (ii) what (literary) purpose does it have? read more…
Welcome to this new Harry Potter blog. The man behind this is me, Kjetil Kringlebotten, and I have started this blog to write about some of the themes in Harry Potter, mostly the themes which has to do with «knowledge, virtue and self-control,» as C.S. Lewis put it in The Abolition of Man. So, enjoy!
