[HPforGrownups] Christmas

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 167210

> Barry:
> > I've just been rereading HP and the Order of the Phoenix. There's a
> > chapter where the Weasleys and Sirius are celebrating Christmas. Two
> > things struck me.
> > 1. Would witches and wizards celebrate Christmas? Wouldn't they have
> > their own (more ancient?) holidays?
> > 2. Mr Weasley, in particular, delights in Muggles' devices because he
> > seems so cut off from the muggles' world. Would he even know about
> > Christmas? Or he'd know about it in much the same way as the average
> > Christian knows about Passover.
>
> Magpie:
> Christianity exists in the Wizard World the same way it exists in our
world,
> since they do celebrate Christmas and Easter pretty much the way we do.
They
> also have a Friar ghost, indicating religious orders like our own, and
Saint
> Mungo's, which is also indicates standard Christian history. Presumably
they
> were Pagan like the rest of Europe at one time, but their history seems to
> follow Muggle history on that score. They also say "God" and not "Gods" or
> "Merlin" exclusively, as some people sometimes think.
>
> I mean, one might also ask why Wizards have countries the same as Muggles
> do, following our borders, if they're their own world. But the seem to
have
> that too. Whatever they claim about being cut off, and whatever Arthur's
> ignorance, they seem to always be a section of whatever society in which
> they live, and not really a world totally of their own.
>
> -m


Shelley now:
I'm agreeing with Magpie here. I think, while we look at the canon that
Rowlings wrote, that we must not over dissect it. Rowlings wrote a world
where the Wizards and the Muggles share a good many things, and this I think
is on purpose merely to allow the reader to instantly jump into the plot
line to be able to follow along with Harry as he  enters this new world. I
have seen science fiction writers create such an odd and perculiar universe
that the author spends almost a third of the first book explaining the world
this series takes place in so that the reader will be able to understand
what will happen later in the plot and why. Many a person gives up on the
book simply because they want to get to the plot, and really don't care
about that "other world" as much as the author does. Make the rules too
complicated, and you lose readers. Make the world too complicated, and you
have trouble telling your story.

Rowling, on the other hand, uses the convience that the Muggles and Wizards
share the same world, and so she has the reader's instant understanding of
the geography of Europe, of where London and King's Cross are located, for
instance. She uses the subway as a humor point when Hagrid has to use it.
She uses cars, slightly modified by magic, to accomplish plot points in the
story- moving around underaged Wizards. She uses a car to tell the Dolby
story. She uses the same seasons and holidays to mark the time of the school
term. She uses some common hobbies- while Quidditch is new for us, we also
see Arthur tinkering with Muggle cars, and Mrs. Weasley knitting sweaters.
She keeps wine and candies. She uses all these things because this is the
world that she created. If you go further and ask the question of why would
these characters have these things (a Christmas tree), any answer beyond
"Because Rowling gave them one!" is mere speculation on our parts. Don't
make her world too complicated, because she didn't make it too complicated.

For me, this a sticking point of my analysis of this series. If I try to
hard too hard to understand the "why" of everything that exists in the HP
series, then essentually what I am trying to do is to write a whole book
that starts before the HP series. This world, of course, would be of my own
making, and not Rowling's work. To explain what the Wizards did during the
Middle Ages, or how they evolved with Christianity, would be in itself a new
work of fiction. The speculations of Ceridwen in an earlier post answering
your question, for example, cross for me entirely too close to this new
writing of fiction, and while may be a good theory, is in fact NOT the
explanation that Rowling gives us. She gives us the answer of "Because I
wrote it that way."

Why do the Wizards need Christmas? Rowling needed a Christmas as an element
of her setting. Beyond needing it to mark time, she uses the Christmas break
to accomplish things Harry will do in the castle without the other students
being around (brewing polyjuice potion; infiltrating the Syltherin common
room). She uses it to get the kids out of the castle for other plot
important events. She needed a Christmas to get Harry together with Sirius
so that they could bond before Rowling kills Sirius off. She uses the
Christmas carols to show the change in mood in Sirius- he's actually singing
and happy.  She uses the Suits of Armor in the castle hallway singing
Christmas carols for humor, and to show the work of Peeves to distort those
carols. She uses the decorations to show the magical world and some of its
daily use.(Flitwick using magic to float the decorations up on the tree in
the Great Hall ). She uses the Christmas tree to demonstrate the inguinity
and mischieviousness of the Weasley twins to make a garden gnome into an
angel. She uses Christmas to give Harry presents (the invisibility cloak),
and to demonstrate the love he feels in the wizarding world contrasted to
the pitiful life he had at the Dursleys. She uses Christmas because it helps
her to tell her story. That's why Wizards celebrate Christmas, and why they
have any Christian roots at all.

Shelley