[HPforGrownups] Re: Rookwood

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 77620

eloise_herisson wrote:
> Naama:
>>What kind of a name is Algernon anyway?! :-\
> 
> A very respectable, if old-fashioned one.
> 
> Jack Worthing's best friend in _The Importance of being Ernest_is 
> Algernon Moncrief. 

Don't be silly; Algy's name was Ernest.

> I believe that P.G.Wodehouse had more than one 
> character named Algernon. What I find interesting is that, as an 
> Englishwoman (via Wilde and Wodehouse) "Algernon" has inescapably 
> upper-class connotations, which I do not recall anyone claiming for 
> the Longbottoms.

Neville is rather a posh name, too, isn't it?  I can easily see the 
Longbottoms being part of the wizarding equivalent of the lesser gentry.

Regarding the name Algernon, there is also Algernon Sydney, 17th 
century radical, second son of the Earl of Leicester, tried by Judge 
Jeffreys for treason, convicted on the basis of his _Discourses 
Concerning Government_, and executed in 1683.  This may actually be 
on-topic.  Sydney's book was written in oppostion to Filmer's 
_Patriarcha_, a book supporting the idea of absolute monarchy.  While 
there is no suggestion in the HP books that the MoM justifies itself 
by invoking divine right, it does seem to rule absolutely.  Harry's 
trial, and the trials in the pensieve, bear a certain resemblance to 
Star Chamber proceedings.

If Voldemort wins, he too would surely rule absolutely, and I gather 
he fancies himself justified by, if not divine right, then diabolical 
right.