WHY HP is so popular - Professors' First Names - Tom Riddle - Calvinism

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 23576

prefectmarcus wrote:
> What I want to know is WHY the books are so popular.

pippin:
> I think Peter S. Beagle said, writing about the 
> Lord of the Rings, that certain books have the 
> power to draw you into a world of their own, which 
> seems to have been going on before you got there, 
> and will continue to exist after you leave.
(and goes on to explain that HP is such a book)
 
jenny from ravenclaw wrote:
> I am surprised to hear that this has not been 
> discussed in detail here. (snip)
> To me, it is quite simple:  I WANT 
> TO LIVE IN HARRY'S WORLD. (snip)
> I also adore JKR's humor.  

DinaYS wrote:
> Who of us out there have not felt like
 one or more of the characters at some point.  

Elizabeth Davey wrote:
> Actually, I think it might be fun to do a
> compare and contrast with Jungian archetypes 
> thing with the characters in the books ... 

I feel sure that this question has been asked on-list before, altho'
maybe not on THIS list (there are SO MANY HP lists!), usually by someone
who needed the answer for their English homework essay. I don't recall
anyone giving really definitive answers on list, but sometimes some
people on this list have posted links to essays that maybe appeared in
magazines or something.

I seem to recall that one of those articles, written after PoA before
GoF, making the point that us grown-ups have no right to enjoy HP as it
belongs to thirteen year olds, made statements similar to Dina's, about
how miraculously well JKR understands being a young teen, such as
Dementors clearly do exist and are the cause of those fits of moodiness
that parents get so angry because you can't give a logical explanation
for.

I seem to recall that another one of those articles (was it one about
how HP is okay for Christians?) said that HP and LOTR were the only
examples of what JRRT called 'mythopoesis', which is creating an entire
world. The essay said that C.S.Lewis deliberately did NOT create a new
world, but set out to include all the already existing myths from Father
Christmas to I dunno what. One of his examples was at the Burrow, Harry
walked from here to there, passing several things strewn on the floor
including a pack of Exploding Snap cards, and he said there was
absolutely no need to mention the Exploding Snap cards, they had nothing
to do with the plot or the symbolism, but it is that kind of unnecessary
realistic detail that gives HP its feeling of being an entire real
world.

Yes, me too, I want to live in Harry's world (the world that JKR makes
us believe exists with or without us, as per Pippin, above), but WHY? It
is a recognisably imperfect world, threatened by terrorism and Dark
Wizardry, containing smugly stupid politicians (Fudge) and evil people
of great influence/power (Lucius Malfoy) and bullies (Draco in one way,
Crabbe & Goyle in another) and people being idolized simply for athletic
skills (Bagman) and poverty and incurable disease (such as the madness
that the Longbottoms suffer from)...  (I adjust my fantasies so that I
am not poor like the Weasleys or a near-Squib like Neville seems to be
and I have friends there....)

Well, because of the magic, as Jenny said: I can sit here and read HP
and watch magic not solving any real problems for the characters and
still want magic to solve my problems!

And because it is a *charming* world, in which whimsy and puns are
founding principals (puns like the names Diagon Alley and Knockturn
Alley) and it has a snug, secure little economy of small businesses in
which no one ever gets laid-off or goes out of business and it doesn't
matter whether Ollivander's wand shop or Florean Fortescue's ice cream
shop never turn a profit, the shops will stay in business and the owners
will never go hungry or homeless, and as Jenny said, there is lots of
humor. When mundanes ask WHY am I, a chronological grown-up, so
interested in Harry Potter, I tell them that there is a lot of funny
humor in the books. But there are a LOT of funny books that don't earn
this sort of devotion, not to mention that 'funny' seems odd praise of a
book of serious moral thought about good and evil, and the suffering of
innocents such as the death of Cedric and the imprisonment of Sirius. 

So I have often said that JKR MUST be touching something archetypal,
because otherwise this story wouldn't have swept the world like it has.
Which sends me off on a digression about STAR WARS, which IIRC also
swept the world, and George Lucas SAID that he had deliberately
constructed it according to the archetypal Hero's Journey according to
Joseph Campbell. But anyone can write a book that puts Jungian or
Campbellian archetypes through their well-rehearsed paces in a
mechanical and boring kind of way. STAR WARS needed those fabulous
visuals that were lovingly copied from previous movies, and whatever
psychology those visuals were plugged into. HP needed -- what? The
clichs of magic? Charm? Humor? Believable characters whom we care
about, even love?

So I expended all these words and STILL don't have an answer, but I
wonder whether HP touches on a timelessly human archetype or one
specific to our time in history. The latter resembles a thread that
lumen dei once made, that Harry is about our culture of unfathered
people's search for a father. I might take that in a less literal
direction than she did, such as the father being searched for is not
James, but God....  
 
Slyph asked:
> --What are all the professor's first names?

JKR has not told us all the professors' first names -- in fact, I am not
sure she has told us Professor Sinistra's *gender*. She has told us
Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Poppy Pomfrey,
Rubeus Hagrid but not first names for Flitwick, Sprout, Hooch, Vector,
Sinistra, nor Quirrell IIRC.

Kavitha wrote:
> However, I do think Riddle would want to 
> father a child, not through any paternal
> instinct involving caring and warm fuzzy 
> feelings, but because he's just the kind 
> of guy to want hellspawn to carry on his work.

He shows so much interest in achieving immortality for himself that I
doubt he has any interest to spare for wanting to immortalize his genes.
Altho' I can EASILY imagine him arranging to father a son if he found
that part of one of his immortality spells caused for the mage to
sacrifice (kill) his own son.

> Of course, I can't help but wonder if his
> hatred of muggles is due to his father leaving 
> when told that Tom's mother was a witch, and his
> sexism, if he is a sexist, could come from feeling 
> betrayed by his mother's death. \

That's what I think too, except I go on to wonder whether the story that
young Tom was told and believes is really the true story: maybe Tom
Senior never married the girl he had a short fling and never knew she
was a witch, and either abandoned her when she told him she was pregnant
or didn't even stick around long enough to find out that she was
pregnant. But his mother or his mother's parents or the people at the
orphanage or someone didn't want to tell him he was born out of wedlock,
so originated the story that we have already heard.

Mike the Goat wrote:
> And if you'd like to debate whether the way Jo
> envisions the moral attributes of the four Hogwarts 
> houses suggests a sort of subliminal Calvinism 

I don't know enough about Calvinism to understand what you are
suggesting, so please explain. What I have heard about Calvinism is 1)
predestination, 2) justification by faith not works.

------------------------------------------------------------------

          /\ /\                                          ___  ___
           + +     Mews and views                       ( @ \/ @ ) 
         >> = <<         from Rita Prince Winston        \ @  @ / 
                                                          \ () /  
                     ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._             \  / 
                     `6_ 6  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.`)       \/ 
                     (_Y_.)'  ._   )  `._ `. ``-..-'
                    _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,'
                   ((('   (((-(((''  ((((