Elements (was Re: JKR website - Quintaped)

[Kristin Hessenauer]

No: HPFGUIDX 150031

bercygirl2: 
> I had a thought about the Quintaped....JKR has said that the four 
> houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw) correspond 
> to the four elements (fire, water, earth and air). However, there 
> are actually 5 elements: fire, water, earth, air and metal. Could 
> there have once been a fifth house? Or possible there will be a 
> fifth house in the future?


Kristin:
The fifth element is not metal, if you include metal in the elements 
you are involving Chinese philosophy of six elements, of fire, wood, 
earth, metal, water, air. They go in a circle interacting with each 
other. 

However, there is a fifth element (Bruce Willis/Gary Oldman film 
excluded) in Greek philosophy called ether (as in the word ethereal 
used as a description of angel, gods and the like), the exact 
definition thereof lost to ancient times, the general gist was the 
space between the area occupied by the other four elements, linking 
them. The idea was revived shortly with the discovery of the atom. 

The point being, there is/was a fifth element that links the four 
represented in HP by the four houses, maybe after the war the idea 
of the Four Houses, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor 
with become null and void creating in affect a new fifth house, a 
House of Ether, "that which connects the four elements"...maybe in 
response to what the war does to all and not just one group. It is 
an unlikely idea, but still an idea.