Horcrux: was Baptism/Christianity in HP

[leslie41]

No: HPFGUIDX 153659


> > Leslie41:
> > I don't wish to make categorical claims about authorial intent, 
> > though I think it's relevant at times.  Most often, though, 
> > intent is irrelevant.  What's *there* is what matters, not what 
> > the author *intended* to be there.  Authors are notoriously bad 
> > readers of their own work.  
> 
> a_svirn:
> If you say so. 

Leslie41:
I do.  And if I didn't think so I'd be completely out of step with 
the vast majority of literary critics and scholars.  It's pretty 
much a universal opinion.
 
> > Leslie41:
> > But as to the naming of her characters, I cannot help but see 
> > some sort of purpose there.  That's often the easiest place (as 
> > it is with Tolkien) to see what the author actually intends.  
> > So, when Voldemort (flee from death) attacks James (apostle 
> > associated with good deeds) and Lily (the symbol of the risen 
> > Christ), and is foiled by Harry (power, destruction), right on 
> > the place on his body where he was baptized (symbol of being 
> > welcomed into the Kingdom of Christ), yeah, I think there's an 
> > underlying meaning there.
> 
> a_svirn:
> Yes, but what IS that much-vaunted underlying meaning? It is all 
> very well to depress pretensions by saying that the meaning of 
> Christ's sacrifice is too enormous for mere mortals to comprehend 
> and all who disagree with you are deliberately short-sighted, but 
> thing is, it's not enough. Now that you identified all that 
> parallels with the Bible would you mind disclosing their 
> significance? Why someone who represents the risen Christ happen 
> to be married to someone who represents an apostle? What is so 
> Christian about "power and destruction?" And what with all those 
> other people that were baptised but failed to repel AKs? Were they 
> not welcome to the Kingdom of Christ, after all? 

Leslie41:
Again, I'm not talking about a direct allegory here.  I don't 
particularly like allegory.  If you do, read Spenser.  What I'm 
pointing out is firstly that names are important, and that many of 
those names have biblical significance, as well as the placement of 
the scar, etc.  There are Christian overtones to the situation at 
Godric's Hollow.

And as I've said, I don't think that baptism is some sort of a 
ward.  What I believe is that Harry's scar makes us think of baptism.

> > Leslie41: 
> > Just can't help it, considering all the evidence.  Is Harry's 
> > baptism some sort of protection for him?  Not really.  But I 
> > think the place of his scar is supposed to remind us of his 
> > baptism and remind us that it is only through Christ's 
> > principles that he will vanquish Voldemort.  Not through power 
> > or destructive raids.  But through love.  
> 
> a_svirn:
> Yet he was christened Harry, which  – as you yourself said –  
> means  "power and destruction"!

Leslie41:
Christened as such, yes!  But he has to evolve out of that. That's 
his task in the seventh book.  

> a_svirn:
> In fact it's really bizarre the way attributes of
> Christianity in the books are conspicuous for their absence. There
> is no chapel in the millennium old Hogwarts Castle. Hogsmead, the
> only wizarding village in England, doesn't boast of any church, 
> even an abandoned one. No reference to any services of any 
> description has been made. And last but by no means the least, 
> Dumbledore's funeral is a thoroughly secular affair. The figure 
> of "tufty-haired man in plain black robes" is deliberately 
> ambiguous. We don't know for sure whether he's a priest or not. 
> Certainly such scrapes of his speech as "nobility of spirit" 
> and "intellectual contribution" do not elucidate us on the point. 
> And in any event, it's not what really matters for Harry.

Leslie41:
I more look at the places in which Christianity is conspicuous for 
its presence.  You can cite all the places where it isn't, but you 
can't ignore the places where it is, in Harry's baptism and the 
underlying truth that his parents and Sirius were baptized 
Christians.

> a_svirn:
> On a more profound level, there is nothing Christian about
> Horcruxes. It seems that Rowling's special brand of spiritualism
> draws on syncretic folklore rather than on Christian beliefs. 

Leslie41:
Do you know what a "crux" is?  It means "cross."  

The word "hore" in middle/old english means "whore".  Whorecrosses.  
Makes sense. In the bible whores are associated with idolatry and 
faithlessness to god.  Even if we don't bring the bible into it, the 
word is associated with immorality and compromised principles.    

Thanks for bringing up horcruxes, though, because I never thought of 
them with regard to Christian symbols in the books until now.