OOTP & Symbols (dur! again!)

[heathernmoore]

No: HPFGUIDX 31793

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ftah3" <ftah3 at y...> wrote:
> Joshua Dyal wrote:
> >I could 
> > build 
> > > a very plausible case for it being the new name of the Death 
> > Eaters, 
> > > or some other elite group of Voldemorts, even though it's 
> generally 
> > > believed that it is rather an order of Dumbledore's.  Fact of the 
> > > matter is, it's all speculation as we don't know anything at all 
> > > about it except that it's the title of the next book.
> > > 
> > > Joshua Dyal
> > 
> 
> Then Heather wrote:
> >  Given my current mad passion for alchemical research, I'm heeling 
> to 
> > this interpretation myself these days. The Phoenix is one of the 
> > primary (possibly the most eminent) alchemical symbols for 
> > immortality, perfection, and power -- those are also Voldemort's 
> holy 
> > trinity of obsessive goals. 
> 
> But how is the phoenix characterized in HP?  Fawkes would only come 
> to one who professed loyalty to Dumbledore ~ i.e., the virtue of 
> loyalty (*real* loyalty, not the fake kind inspired by fear) being 
> important in relation to the phoenix.  Also, the description of the 
> phoenix pre-death/rebirth is of a scrawny, uninspiring, but (I 
> thought) not *frightening* figure ~ more like, say, Harry in his 
> current, unascended-to-greatness state, than Voldemort.
> 



 Or like the face-on-the-back-of-the-head, the disembodied spirit, and the scrawny little baby thingy Voldemort was before the ritual.....  All of those were more just *weird* than impressively scary.




> Granted that Voldemort has done the death-rebirth things, and would 
> probably liken himself to the phoenix.  However, the phoenix, beyond 
> simple death-rebirth (alchemical) use/symbolism may already have a 
> place in the HP mythic universe as related to Good.  Which, imho, 
> would preclude Voldemort using the bird as a figurehead.
> 




 Perhaps, but we're talking about *Voldemort's perceptions and motivations* here. Voldemort and his supporters are not working from the same moral framework as Our Heroes (and, presumably, us). 

People generally don't think of *themselves* as evil villains. If they are behaving in ways *we* could call evil, they themselves have usually recast their own behavior as "good" (perfecting society by any means necessary, for example, or protecting an allegedly weaker race from itself) or they have rejected the moral notion of good/evil as irrelevant in the face of power (Voldemort has very explicitly stated this position in so many words).  
Nothing at all precludes the opposition from interpreting symbols differently from the protagonists -- indeed, if they perceived everything the same way, there probably wouldn't be any conflict to begin with. 

I believe others have discussed, in contexts of "Is Snape a vampire?", whether JKR is habit of tweaking and using mythical beings in nonstandard ways in the Potterverse (a la Anne Rice's reinterpretations of monsters) and decided that she doesn't yet seem to be doing this. Further, the magic of the Potterverse so far seems very solidly rooted in the medieval / hermetic / alchemical traditions (yes, even including Divination and Astromancy), and so I think it's reasonable to assume that at base, symbols aren't being strongly tweaked and reassigned by Jo. If the magic system used by Dumbledore and Voldemort and their ilks seems to be based strongly on alchemy, it would seem that the wizards of that tradition use the symbols the way the symbols were used in the source material.  

(To use an accessible analogy, although we may all debate on the specific applications of the Four Horsemen of the Revelation (or whether they even *are* applicable in a real divinatory sense), just about everyone agrees that they stand for War, Death, Famine and Pestilence.)






> On the other hand, the snake is also of the death-rebirth order 
> (i.e., sheds it's skin, is reborn in new skin).  This aligns more 
> with Voldy, in symbolic nature, as well as in the fact that he 
> suckled from a snake to stay alive.
> 
> Soooo...short version:  I'm still thinking that OotP will refer to 
> the Good Guys somehow.




  Yeh, yeh, it can go either way even under my *speculative* interpretation, perhaps. I waffle back and forth between them. At the moment, I'm thinking that OOtP = Bad seems a little less like Dune. But ten minutes from now I may well have a wholly different attitude again... ;>





> 
> Heather again:
> >  Quick question for canon researchers: given that Voldemort was 
> > pretty much on-site during a whole school year of teaching Harry 
> > DADA, do we have any reason to doubt he knows that Harry's Fawkes-
> > butt wand is so uniquely similar to his own Fawkes-butt wand?
> 
> Well, he wasn't exactly on-site.  At least, I never got the 
> impression that he had a particularly tight reign on/close 
> interactive relationship with Crouch/Moody.  In fact, I think it 
> would have been dangerous for such to occur.  Or possibly I missed 
> the parts in the book which implied that Voldy/Crouch were in close 
> communication?  


  I wasn't very clear in my question, I think! By "on-site," I was referring to the "Quirdemort" Year, in which Voldy was an eavesdropping little parasite living on the back of Quirrell's head. Who knows what juicy stuff he managed to overhear? My wonder is if we have any canon indication that Harry *never* mentioned Ollivander's chat about the matching wands with anyone in Quirdemort's hearing.  It would seem to be the sort of thing that would be on a little boy's mind as he was sitting in his DADA class, thinking about the Dark Arts.



< snip > 


> Mahoney