[HPforGrownups] Snakes/Nagini/Kipling/ Chuck Jones

[Caius Marcius]

No: HPFGUIDX 12292


>
> Message: 1
>    Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 17:14:06 -0600
>    From: Amanda Lewanski <editor at texas.net>
> Subject: Re: Snakes/Nagini (was JKR Dictionary?)
>
> Amy Z wrote:
>
> > When I see "Nagini" I always think of "naga," Sanskrit for snake (no,
> > I don't know Sanskrit, but I've studied Buddhism a lot and you pick
> > these things up).  Nagas have a very positive connotation--they are
> > wiser and more spiritually advanced than most humans.  The term is
> > even used as a synonym for the Buddha sometimes, and Nagarjuna, one
> > of the greatest Buddhist thinkers of all time, was named for the nagas
> > who are said to have instructed him.
>
> Yeah, but most of us will make the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi connection, where
> Nag and Nagaina were definitely *not* good. (Of course, Kipling named
> them that because of nagas.) I think the lady cobra's name was Nagaina,
> something like that, but very close to Nagini and the connection clicked
> for me. Anyone else a Kipling fan? Or see the animated version some eons
> ago? Am I the only one that thought of this?

The animated RTT was by one of the masters, Chuck Jones, best known as the
Warner Bros. animator who created Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and Pepe Le
Pew, and who elevated Bugs, Elmer and Daffy  to the ascendant heights of The
Rabbit of Seville, What's Opera Doc?, Duck Amuck, etc.  But I'd forgotten
the names of the RTT snake - thanks for the reminder.

Kipling is a great writer (despite his political incorrectness - or maybe
even because of it).  I recently read Puck of Pook's Hill, in which Puck -
the same spirit from Shakespeare's MSND - reveals to a group of children the
magical ancient British history behind the seemingly ordinary plot of earth
upon which they reside.  (Certainly some linkage here with JKR!)  Reading
this volume reminds me of how in tune Kipling with the essence of
story-telling - he always keeps you asking What happens next? even when the
action is not especially suspenseful.

I have an old (approx 1900) 10-volume set of Kipling I inherited from my
late father-in-law with a rather startling ornament along the spine: a
Swatiska.  However, it is in the reverse (i.e., counterclockwise) direction
from the infamous Nazi emblem, and is of course a Hindu mystical symbol (aka
the Fylfot), which variously represented the sun, the four winds, lightning,
etc.

    - CMC