Why is the bathroom so important in Potterverse?

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 47564

Susan asked:

> Why is the bathroom so important in Potterverse?

First, I'd like to compliment Shane and Scheherazade for their Freudian 
analyses of the plumbing imagery. I'd been meditating something like this 
myself, but they've done it more sophisticatedly than I could.

Still, I've come up with two ideas of my own, each focusing a bit more on 
the theme of the books than on the psychology of the characters themselves.
  For starters, the dark side: let's take the theme of the return of the 
repressed past. The Wizarding World as a whole has a problem with a 
repressed past which they haven't dealt with -- Joe Average Wizard can't 
even utter Voldemort's name -- and it's coming back to haunt them in a big 
way. This is analogous to the 'anal' qualities that Shane and Scheherazade 
have mentioned -- an individual (or society) is 'uptight' because they 
have stuffed down some unpleasant repressed issues that they cannot 
'digest' properly.

We see a few examples of plumbing imagery functioning this way. For 
instance, Salazar's basilisk. It's natural that the creature would come 
from the bowels of the castle, slink through the plumbing, emerge through 
the bathroom and manifest itself with spilled water. The basilisk is 
Hogwarts' dirty little repressed secret: the school was founded in part 
upon a basis of anti-mudblood prejudice. This problem has been brushed off,
  in the form of Salazar leaving the school and later history simply 
relegating this episode to the dustbin of history, but in fact the problem 
has not gone away. And neither has the anti-Muggle, anti-mudblood 
prejudice which can be re-ignited at the drop of a hat, not just in 
families like the Malfoys, but within ordinary people like those 
participating in the QWC riot. So this would be an example of undigested 
(and filthy) issues re-erupting.

Another example of The-Substance-Hitting-The-Fan would be when Sirius 
confronts Peter right after the Potters have been killed. You remember 
Peter, in order to escape, blasted a *sewer* line. This blown-apart sewer 
symbolizes a lot of unpleasant hidden secrets erupting in Sirius' face: 
not only has he picked the wrong friend to trust, but this 'friend' is in 
the process of framing him for multiple murder. If we ever find out that 
Sirius trusted Peter over Remus due to some undigested anti-werewolf 
prejudice of his own, this will further hammer in the message that the WW 
in general is punished with the very issues that they refuse to fully 
process.

Of course Vapormort himself is like the smelly, gaseous residue of a mess 
that just won't dissipate on its own, and yes we do know he gave off a 
foul stench in that form. I suppose his eventual reformed self emerging 
from a cauldron can also be seen as a version of a backed-up toilet 
overflowing its contents.

Then there's the light side: yes, the playful side of poo. For starters, 
JKR obviously has a ribald sense of humor and understands perfectly well 
that children (and inner children, like mine) find gross-out humor 
hilarious. Hence episodes involving troll boogers, vomiting slugs and Ron'
s appropriately anal wisecrack about Lavender's Uranus. Not to mention a 
certain goat...

Anyway, one of the other themes of the book is that the Wizarding World is 
much more playful and open to a wider array of sensory/sensual experience 
than the boring, uptight (and yes, anal) Muggle world. So you see this in 
the nonchalance that the characters have towards physical pain, the freaky 
forms of certain curses (Furnunculus, Ron's unfortunate slug spell), and 
most of all in appetite. JKR's feasts are an absolute riot of the 
digestive tract; it's only natural that a character should find themselves 
in the bathroom once in while. Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans represent 
this a little too well -- their range of flavors varies from the yummy to 
the downright scandalous. And it's all part of the fun. Heck, even 
Dumbledore isn't too proud to expound on the necessity of chamber pots. 
This sets up a contrast to the Muggle world: the Dursleys are nothing if 
not anal -- hence the way that Vernon and Dudley are always depicted as 
about to explode from either anger or food itself. And they are 
characterized above all by their refusal to admit to the Wizarding 
World -- it's their insistence to keep Harry's talents and the truth about 
him bottled up inside that marks them as so hideous.

In the end, the answer of how to deal with the biggest problems of the WW 
might also come from seeking below the surface, in the underbelly of 
meaning. This could be the symbolism of the prefects' bathroom that Harry 
utilizes to hear the Merpeoples's song. The Merpeople themselves live in 
what appears to be Hogwarts' own sewer; they aren't flushed away, but 
instead function perfectly well within their own culture, normally hidden 
and incomprehensible to the average wizard. So it's by plumbing that 
particular depth that Harry gets the necessary clue to his task. I expect 
that the clues to Harry's eventual task of defeating LV will also involve 
a process of...looking deep inside. :-)

So I think JKR is advocating that we relax a little. Deal with those 
issues instead of trying to hide them. Enjoy the crazy range of human 
experience when it's harmless and actually try to examine it and cleanse 
it when it's harmful.

Bet you never thought examining toilets could be this educational.
~Porphyria


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