Snakes and scars and stuff

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 123866


dungrollin wrote:
<huge snip of interesting post>

> Nagini – Who wouldn't want a 12 foot long venomous chum you can 
> really *talk* to? I came to the conclusion in post 115333 that
> she's a bushmaster (Lachesis muta – which I now know for sure 
> means "silent fate"). <snip>

Carol responds:
Well, yes and no. Lachesis is one of the three Fates, probably not
coincidentally the one who measures the length of a person's life
(though Atropos, the Fate who snips the thread of life, might be even
more appropriate as the name for a genus of deadly snakes). The name
Lachesis relates to drawing lots--the arbitrariness of fate,
especially in relation to death? Makes Nagini seem even more sinister,
if that's possible.

BTW, the association of snakes with cunning and deception is not
universal, BTW. The Greeks associated them with the cunning Hermes,
the messenger and herald who was the patron of thieves and businessmen
(the Slytherins would have taken him to heart), but also with
Aesculapius (okay, that's the Latin spelling but the Romans borrowed
him from the Greeks, caduceus and all), the god of healing. A snake
with its head in its mouth is a symbol of eternity in several
cultures. But JKR's view of snakes has always struck me as deriving
chiefly from the wily serpent of Genesis.


Dungrollin wrote:

> I doubt that we've seen the last of snakes, and would be willing to 
> bet a large bag of cockroach clusters that they're integral to some 
> of the big questions we want answered. <snip>

Carol responds:
Ergh, no! Keep the cockroach clusters and any dungbeetle bombs you may
have secretly concocted. (Sorry; I know you think dungbeetles are
maligned; I feel the same way about rats, lab rats, anyway.) Besides,
I'm sure you're right.

Anyone think that Voldy is a snake animagus who resorted to possessing
snakes rather than transforming into one when he lost his body and
therefore (temporarily) lost his other powers? And if he possessed
Nagini when he/she bit Mr. Weasley, why didn't Nagini die when he left
her body? (Maybe the possession was for too brief a time to harm her?)

Carol, wondering if Tom Riddle ever possessed the basilisk