Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 36704

In message no 36547, I introduced a pile of predictions and tried to 
pass them off as being vaguely supported by symbolic 
interpretations.  This is the first of my wacky interpretations.

Most of the canon interpretation that I have done here has been 
analytical, trying to get the main outlines from a riot of colourful 
detail.  This feels to me to be the opposite, deliberately turning up 
the gain on the colour knob and ignoring the logic, playing up the 
trees and ignoring the wood.

Hagrid is introduced in PS as the Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts, and 
that is the title of the relevant chapter.  In practical terms, we 
never see him exercise this role in the first four books.  In 
*symbolic* terms, however, he does this a great deal both for Harry 
and the reader.  If we think of him as introducing Harry to new 
themes and places, he is constantly popping up.

He introduces Harry to the Dursleys, and then to the magical world.  
He introduces all new students to Hogwarts - this is emphasised as 
there is no practical reason for them not using the carriages like 
the older students.

He is the first to tell Harry of Voldemort.  He is instrumental in 
Harry's first Hogwarts meeting with Voldemort, in the Forbidden 
Forest.  Indeed he introduces Harry to the FF itself, a metaphor for 
the unconscious if ever I saw one: dark, secret, forbidden, full of 
mysteries and monsters. (I will try to address the implications of 
meeting V first there another time.)

It is from him we first learn of Hogsmeade.  When Harry gets lost in 
Knockturn Alley, it is Hagrid who provides the way back.

He starts the process of Harry getting to know his parents, by 
getting the photo album at the end of PS.

In PS he raises the issue of wizarding blood, central to COS.

He goes to Azkaban late in COS, introducing a key theme for POA.

In POA he goes to London to get Buckbeak off, and is treated 
unjustly, foreshadowing the Pensieve scenes (which I see as central 
to GOF).

His function can be used for bad as well as good: he is the key for 
Quirrell to get to the stone.

There are some interesting consequences of this.  Fifty years 
earlier, Riddle framed him, and Dumbledore intervened to keep him at 
Hogwarts.  In other words, right from before the start of the series, 
there was an attempt to damage this role.

Three times he has introduced Harry to dragons: at Gringotts, with 
Norbert, and then the Horntail.  I would therefore expect dragons to 
play a crucial role in a future book. (People have already pointed 
out that dragons guard Gringotts, one Weasley works there and another 
works with dragons suggesting a future plot tie-in.)

At the end of GOF he is sent on a mission by Dumbledore, with 
Maxime.  That signals to me that Harry will go on a mission, most 
probably in the next book, and likely accompanied by a companion, 
outside Hogwarts.  I will pick this up in a future post about Harry 
and the feminine.

What of his bumbling and drinking?  I believe this is related to 
Voldemort's early attack on him.  The Keeper of the Keys is damaged, 
and functions defectively, still mostly but not always for good.

Most portentously of all, one of his guises in PS is as a ferryman in 
charge of a three-headed dog, suggesting to me that he is 
foreshadowing the full arc of Harry's life and death.  To emphasise 
this properly, he ought by rights to die himself, either just before 
Harry, or as foreshadowing at the end of Book 6.

OK, thoughts?

David