Flower of the Court, Potterverse souls and afterlife, V the snake man

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 29892

HOLLYDAZE:
>JK has said it is Flower of the Court

OK, all you SCA types (I know you're out there!), isn't "Flower of the Court" a semi-medieval reference?  As in, didn't the French nobility, while they were still about pre-Revolution, have sort of... regular administrative meetings of all the dukes and barons and suchlike (she says, sifting shakily through her minimal knowledge of medieval history and politics), where they'd discuss how the peasants were revolting and all the rest and how much they needed to tax them to fund the next feast??  

Presumably (and I'm really scraping the barrel of my historical knowledge and guesswork here) it was mostly the male nobles who did the talking, with the possible exception of a few older and more strident women; the younger female nobles' function was primarily decorative and, presumably, marketing, in the sense that appropriate suitors of their class would be able to admire and speculate.  The meeting place or meeting itself or something was, I think, called "the court" (? Tabouli blushes and wishes she paid more attention in Year 8 History), and this would make the young and decorative women "Flowers of the Court".  I don't know whether I actually read this somewhere or am making it up, but it seems plausible.

Which fits in nicely with Fleur's Veela beauty and people's comments that Fleur's family might be the French equivalent of the Malfoys.  Fleur could be descended from the French wizarding nobility (suddenly had visions of guillotines and thought of the noble Nearly Headless Nick, though of course he was a few centuries earlier), which would explain a lot of her lofty behaviour in the barbarous lands of Britain.

(I hated history at school.  It was nearly all European history, which seemed particularly irrelevant to me in Australia.  It wasn't until I visited Europe that I realised that history was probably quite interesting to people who actually live where it happened!  Any comments to OT...)

Cindy:
> Let's not forget "sorta dead," which happens when a dementor kisses a 
wizard and sucks out his soul.  We haven't been told much about this 
form of death, except that it is worse than death.  I wonder where 
these people minus their souls actually go physically?<

Not to mention the other, and to my mind, more sinster question - where do their souls go?  Hmm.  Might have to flip through the series again looking for JKR's take on the ol' mind-body question.  From her ghosts and Dementors, she is obviously a dualist, meaning that she believes that the mind and body are two separate entities (says Tabouli, now plumbing the distant cisterns of her first year Philosophy classes in 1990, in which she marvelled that academics could make such interesting topics so incredibly boring).  I assume that ghosts are those whose bodies are departed but whose souls linger on, and the Kissed are those who souls have departed but whose bodies linger on.  Then there are the Priori Incantem "shadows", and the semi-animate photographs and portraits.

For all the religious hoo-ha over the HP series, I don't think JKR has shown us a clear picture of the Potterverse take on subjects religions address, such as what happens when people die.   Growing up in England, you'd expect her rather Protestant-influenced take on the issues (no reincarnation (thought Vold's activities might be borderline), free will and self-determination, notion of soul, good vs evil, Easter and Christmas).  Not sure what the Christian take on ghosts is... I have a vague suspicion that the idea of ghosts being the souls of those who were unhappy due to unfinished business is from Celtic mythology, but I don't know enough about it to say.  No doubt there'll be someone on this list who will know.

She's scrupulously avoiding having any intangible "god" or "gods" around, though, and hasn't mentioned where souls "go" if they don't become ghosts.  Can ghosts resolve whatever issue left them stranded and go on to the afterlife?  Speaking of which, *is* there any sort of wizard afterlife, or do souls just dissipate into the ether (or into the Dementors' dark digestive juices)?  Is there a wizard heaven or hell?  She's painted fairly clear delineations between good and evil, but hasn't indicated whether Voldemort's followers will ultimately be punished after death for their evil ways.  Is the big V seeking immortality because he fears wizard hell?

Airemay:
> I see it as some big party place. Not teenage parties, but elegant ones. This may seem odd, considering 
that Voldie isn't exaclty that type anymore, but I think that Tom Riddle was once a very elegant man.

Yeah, as I've mentioned, I could never quite fathom Voldemort the snake man.  To misquote Douglas Adams, has the big V finally flipped?  Surely his handsome, urbane Tom Riddle alter-ego would have been much more practical for rustling up support and pervading the Muggle world?  Perhaps he thinks the carrot is for novices, he's now a professional who recruits by the stick (You don't want to join me?  Crucio!)  We can only assume that looking like a monster from a bad horror movie is the unavoidable side-effect of his iniquitous immortality schemes.  Nagini's venom, dangerous stuff.

All the same, I'd wager that Voldemort thinks snakes are very elegant creatures.  Which indeed they can be (they certainly are in Chinese astrology). OK, so I don't want to see snakes in the wild/parklands (not uncommon in Australian summers) because a lot of them are venomous, but if they're known to be harmless and tame, I have no problems with them, picking them up, stroking them and so on.  Quite sweet, really, all smooth and scaly and wriggly.  I once suggested that I wouldn't mind a pet snake to my mother (who was born in the Year of the Snake), and her shrieks of horror rang in my ears for days...

Tabouli.


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