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Text of the page (random words):
harry see her at meals maybe she prefers to dine alone in her room as much out of the company of wizard s as possible 6 but why bother what would be the point of going through all that trouble to have her be the muggle studies teacher the blood protection as long as harry can call home the place where his mother s blood dwells there voldemort cannot hurt him harry certainly thinks of hogwarts as his home much more than privet drive and if aunt petunia is teaching there it s her second home too this would mean that harry is protected both in the castle and at privet drive and would help explain why dumbledore is willing to let him face voldemort at school his first year d you think he meant you to do it said ron sending you your father s cloak and everything well hermione exploded if he did i mean to say that s terrible you could have been killed no it isn t said harry thoughtfully he s a funny man dumbledore i think he sort of wanted to give me a chance i think he knows more or less everything that goes on here you know i reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try and instead of stopping us he just taught us enough to help i don t think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked it s almost like he thought i had the right to face voldemort if i could ps ss p 302 if i were dumbledore i would feel a lot more comfortable letting a first year do this if i knew voldemort couldn t harm him because aunt petunia was living in the castle and when harry asks why quirrell couldn t touch him dumbledore explains it was because of lily s sacrifice the same magic he used to protect privet drive harry also faced voldemort at school his second year and got away in his fourth year voldemort did get his hands on him but had to take him away from the castle to do it his fifth year voldemort got into his mind to show him visions but couldn t harm him by say having him drink poison or throw himself down the stairs and voldemort didn t even try breaking into the castle sixth year even though dumbledore was gone for long stretches of time maybe harry has been safe at school all this time because lily s blood dwells in the castle too thoughts posted by capella black at 3 22 pm no comments sunday april 15 2007 predictions i took the ultimate deathly hallows predictions exam at the leaky cauldron and learned in the process that ginny s patronus is supposedly a phoenix the quiz also brought up that ron got a funny watch for his birthday in hbp that looks a lot like dumbledore s which is a detail i d totally missed up til now i m thinking i ought to go back and reread hbp again since i ve done a lot of research on tarot and alchemical symbology since the last time posted by capella black at 9 59 am no comments friday march 23 2007 ginny weasley is a vampire look what i found in the wikipedia entry for romanian vampires romanian tradition described a myriad of ways of bringing about a vampire a person born with a caul an extra nipple a tail or extra hair was doomed to become a vampire the same fate applied to someone born too early someone whose mother encountered black cat cross her path and someone who was born out of wedlock others who became vampires were those who died an unnatural death or before baptism the seventh child in any family presuming all of his or her previous siblings were of the same sex the child of a pregnant woman who avoided eating salt and a person who was looked upon by a vampire or a witch moreover being bitten by a vampire meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death posted by capella black at 8 42 pm no comments random thoughts on quidditch like everything else in the wizarding world i think quidditch came out of harry in particular i think it was designed to showcase his strengths his grit and determination his courage his ability to spot things other people don t and i also think it s an embodiment of jo s principles that she thinks highly of seekers who rise above the game and focus on the one slippery elusive subtle thing they know is out there but almost no one else can see since seeker is also the term for someone who s having their tarot cards read it s also apt for harry because it s his life unfolding in the books that probably makes all of us the readers the ones reading and interpreting the tarot cards but i think the best contrast is with jo s seer trelawney has overly magnified eyes and fails to see the occasional truth in her own predictions which harry does see but only in the course of seeking out voldemort basically i think jo has a lot more respect for people who relentlessly seek out the truth than for people who see things and take them at face value i ve sometimes stumbled over ideas that seem too good to be true and felt like harry the time he accidentally caught the snitch in his mouth and while this may not have anything to do with anything i also like how the number of points the seeker earns 150 is the same as dumbledore s age which jo gave as 150 in both 2000 and 2005 it might just be her big important number like i think the forests of albania are just her forbidden forest for grown ups one final thing on this subject i just learned yesterday that the halo of light often show around the heads of saints in artwork is called a nimbus posted by capella black at 8 40 pm no comments wednesday march 14 2007 albus percival wulfric brian dumbledore i was thinking yesterday about the various types of life lessons harry learns throughout the books and how he learns them romance or romantic love for example he never really gets a lesson all at once his understanding is slowly built up through lots of different incidents some he s involved in others where he s more of a passive observer and as i was trying to trace out various principles and how he comes to learn about them guess what image popped in my head a map of the london underground which may or may not mean anything but i thought it was kind of cool also read a bit on the lexicon under dumbledore s profile about the connections of dumbledore s names to the beowulf epic beowulf slays the monster grendel which sounds an awful lot like grindelwald he then dives into a lake and gets grendel s mum which reminded me of harry s second task in gof the name beowulf has been translated by some as bee wulf the wulf part might have something to do with the wulfing clan that shows up in the poem and sounds like one of dumbledore s middle names wulfric and dumbledore was an old english word for bumblebee i followed up on bee mythology a bit and the most significant thing that turned up was the name merope which means bee eater and somehow refers to an important archetypal character in various bee mythologies all of which may still amount to nothing in terms of shedding light on the mysteries of harry potter but seemed worth noting down for future reference nonetheless finally i read the story of parzival the grail knight last week dumbledore s middle name percival supposedly refers to this guy and i have to say i was really struck by how similar the powers of the holy grail are to the philosopher s stone eternal life and riches basically i suspect and i think jkr would cautiously agree that they were just two different names and mythologies for the same thing that same thing that i think the potter series has been leading up to as well posted by capella black at 9 39 am 1 comment wednesday february 28 2007 way too much alchemical hp symbolism damn i do a little more digging around in alchemical texts and suddenly a deluge of relevant potter imagery comes gushing forth there s so much that seems to fit with my quintessential potter theory and don t even get me started on quintessence being the fifth hermetic element that i don t even know what to do with it except document it i suppose for now maybe i ll work up a more elaborate theory later and if you haven t read the post below this one you should do that first the final stages of inner alchemy and the animal symbolism relating thereto white tincture unicorn red tincture stag final work phoenix white tincture represents the feminine aspect of the soul sometimes symbolized by the unicorn because the unicorn could only be tamed by the touch of a pure woman also pictured as a queen dressed in shining white robes appearing in the alchemist s flask i will add that lilies are also white and symbolize purity i wonder what happens when a queen sacrifices herself in wizard chess red tincture represents the masculine aspect of the soul sometimes symbolized by the stag bearing antlers the stag being seen as a noble masculine animal also pictured as a red king or knight brandishing a sword in the alchemist s flask in some alchemical illustrations such as that of the late 16th century book of lambspring the stag and unicorn meet in the forest of the soul as part of the process of inner transformation i wonder if the forest in albania is just the forbidden forest for grown ups the tinctures of alchemy relate also to the substances of the mass the red wine the blood and the white wafer the body of christ administration of the sacraments was seen as spiritualising the soul of the partaker and the tinctures serve much the same purpose in alchemy but without a priest here alchemy apparently links directly with grail stories which use similar parallels between the grail and the sacraments now is probably not the time for me to delve into arthurian grail quest or the hallows sacred objects of the inner quest found along the way or to try and relate these to the tarot where was i oh yes the stag and unicorn have met up and now it s time for the final stage of the alchemist s work symbolized by the phoenix rising from the flames hey maybe i should have invoked the lightening struck tower tarot card but in interior terms the phoenix marks the rebirth of the personality from out of the crucible of transformation in other words alchemists experienced an inner death and then rebirth in attaining the philosopher s stone for the record i should probably note that i think dumbledore is quite dead and that harry is the metaphorical newborn phoenix who s going to rise from the ashes one symbol for the philosopher s stone was the ouroboros the snake eating it s own tail i m sure i ve already discussed somewhere below how this also signifies the dual nature of all things the vicious cycle that begins anew as soon as it ends immortality the one who proceeds from the clash of opposites and i think carl jung also said that the ouroboros simultaneously slays himself and brings himself to life which is so voldemort harry also uncovered some interesting but somewhat cryptic 14th century writings by nicholas flamel there s a lot of snake imagery on his gravestone including the ouroboros and the caduceus two intertwined snakes representing primal power to heal or harm see chapters 21 22 of ootp and he seemed to have a thing about helping orphans i m sure there s more but i couldn t get myself to read it i suppose it s a good sign for a quintessential harry potter theory when not only all of what jo has ever said in interviews but also 2 500 years of western philosophical tradition line up neatly behind it now if only i could find a way to make money off this eta does it never end add to list of important alchemical emblems the knight with sword fighting giant inner snake the wild wolf and tame dog vying for supremacy at the edge of the forest the king of the forest who does not have to fight the beasties in it and the stag and unicorn turned to red and white birds fighting each other one above and one below before transforming into white doves and then becoming a phoenix the polarities fight absorb each other and then are reborn in a new form posted by capella black at 8 41 pm no comments alchemy and the key to solving harry potter in a recently archived interview from 1998 jo said i ve never wanted to be a witch but an alchemist now that s a different matter to invent this wizard world i ve learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy perhaps much of it i ll never use in the books but i have to know it detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories internal logic my philosophy is that if jo finds a subject very interesting it s probably worth my while to learn a little bit about it so i hurried off to the wikipedia my version of the hogwarts library to read up on alchemy i already knew that the philosopher s stone was supposed to be able to transmute base metals into gold and prolong life indefinitely but i learned also that the philosopher s stone was believed to mystically amplify the user s knowledge of alchemy so much that anything was attainable i really like this idea better yet both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea elixir of life symbolized evolution from an imperfect diseased corruptible and ephemeral state towards a perfect healthy incorruptible and everlasting state and the philosopher s stone then represented some mystic key that would make this evolution possible applied to the alchemist himself the twin goal symbolized his evolution from ignorance to enlightenment and the stone represented some hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal in texts that are written according to this view the cryptic alchemical symbols diagrams and textual imagery of late alchemical works typically contain multiple layers of meanings allegories and references to other equally cryptic works and must be laboriously decoded in order to discover their true meaning evil cackle i love codes and puzzles and ciphers and generally finding hidden meanings and if you visit jo s website and start hunting around for the hidden content that goes in the scrapbook i think you ll see that she does too i also like playing pretend so let s pretend that the harry potter series is a late alchemical work and contains multiple layers of meaning and allegory that must be laboriously decoded in order to discover their true meaning let s also say that enlightenment here is knowledge of what is in that final chapter of book 7 that has been sitting in jo s vault since circa 1990 what we need now is a magical key something that represents a hidden truth which can lead us to this goal and since we still don t know very much about alchemy it would be nice to have something to magically amplify our knowledge of it so much that anything is attainable the answer should be obvious by now go get your copy of philosopher s stone if you have the american version do note the random golden key on the back cover the gauntlet harry runs in chapters 16 and 17 the seven chambers leading up to the stone and harry s final encounter with voldemort are the most heavily laden with cryptic symbolism and imagery this is where you really have to use your imagination to put yourself in those chambers and think about what you would do if you were really there...