Is LV modeled on Crowley?; Another Crowley

[or.phan_ann]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at ...> wrote:
>
> I friend of mine who knows a lot about magic and alchemy but has 
not 
> read the books but has seen the movies says that LV is modeled on 
(You 
> Know Who) Crowley. I asked why he thought that and he said that he 
had 
> a picture of Crowley that looks a like like LV in the movie. So I 
> searched the web.. I don't see a picture of Crowley looking like 
the 
> snake like person of LV. However, I did find out some interesting 
> information. Crowley and his followers did think that "there is no 
good 
> or evil, only power and those too afraid to use it". So maybe my 
friend 
> is right. Crowley was a person who practiced dark magic and was a 
bit 
> crazy to boot.  I am looking at all of this, of course, for any 
clues 
> as to what to expect in book 7.
> 

Ann:
Doubt it very much, I'm afraid. Aleister Crowley's and Potterverse 
magic have nothing really in common* - I think the most they have is 
that the Golden Dawn used wands, though not for pointing at people 
and yelling "Expelliarmus" or anything. Saying Crowley didn't believe 
in good or evil is wrong, but I don't know enough about him to say 
more; he didn't practise dark magic, anyway. (The sex magic was, 
afaik, entirely consensual, however icky it may seem.) Nor did 
Crowley hide his soul in his old diaries or try to take over the 
government.

If Crowley is a guide to what'll happen in book seven, though, we can 
confidently expect Death Eater orgies, pentagrams, and heroin abuse, 
while Voldemort has relocated to the shores of Loch Ness and has a 
history of bad poetry, romans a clef, and mountain climbing.** So 
that's what he was doing after he left Borgin and Burke's, I hear you 
cry.

On the subject of Crowleys, though, anyone read John Crowley? He 
wrote a great book called "Little, Big", a kind of adult fairy story, 
very long and perhaps a bit twee for some folk, but I love it.

*Actually, *no* real magic has much to do with the Potterverse stuff, 
so far as I know.
**And his personal ancestry will be a bit different, too.

Ann