Religion & HP

[flying_ford_anglia]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C4447
From: flying_ford_anglia
Subject: Re: Religion & HP
Reply To: [Yahoo! #4442] Re: Religion & HP
Date: 7/17/00 8:14 am  (ET)

(1) If we assume that, since he haunts it, the Fat Friar died at Hogwarts,
he may have been a teacher there and he may have been head of Hufflepuff
House. This still raises the odd situation of a friar teaching witchcraft
- unless he taught Muggle Studies.

(2) Assuming there is nothing stopping muggle-born students from returning
to the muggle world after graduation and taking up a non-magical career,
the friar may have got his religious calling after leaving Hogwarts. Then
we can wonder how he comes to be haunting Hogwarts and not his friary
or some other place.

(3) We could play the magic card [more commonly known as poetic licence],
and conclude that ghosts in the magical world don't behave in the same
way as those in the muggle world. Perhaps they can haunt where they please
and maybe they are appointed to positions at Hogwarts on secondment from
mansions and monasteries.

Overall, I don't think JKR thought too carefully about the contradictions,
but sketched out some archetypal ghosts to add a bit of 'colour' -
the headless aristocrat, the tortured teenager, the mysterious grey
lady, the fat friar, the mischievous poltergeist. She could hardly have
imagined that, a few years later, thousands of people like us would be
speculating over the minute details of her stories!

Neil