Magic and Madness

[tbernhard2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 168301

When Rowling came out a couple years ago against caged beds, I thought
to look into connections with psychiatric treatment in her books.

If you search back "bedlam" on this list, you'll find a couple
references to that institution - one by grannybat (84415) that places
standard practise at St. Mungo's as roughly equivalent to Bedlam,
though more comfortable, and one by Angel (86828), that posits Merope
(unnamed and unknown, pretty much, at the time) being sent to
someplace roughly equivalent to Bedlam. 

Tom O'Bedlam speaks in riddles - according to the poem. Remembering
this when we come across the first mention of Voldemort's name in COS
is interesting, is it not? I was actually gleeful. (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_O'Bedlam for the poem.)

There are many characters incapacitated by magic (the Longbottoms, the
sociopathic celebrity/cult figure Gilderoy Lockhart routinely alters
peoples minds, until that backfires) and the function of dementors is
to alter the psychic space of prisoners. Potions that force one to
tell their truth are routinely employed in the narrative, and love
potions and such are as commonplace as chewing gum. The second task of
the Triwizard Tournament rips through the event as sport and strikes
as close to emotional home as it can. This isn't any game as we know
them. In OotP, we learn finally that direct mental manipulation is
another art that can be taught, and seems less rare than we might have
believed. It's not illegal, either, like the Imperius curse.
Apparently, in the witchwizard world, mind altering spells are
commonplace.

You could almost read the whole HP narrative as a course of
psychiatric treatment being applied to patient Harry - presumably with
the goal of integration in some form - the trio becoming like one, or
HP and LV as opposites canceling each other, or the like. In the back
of the narrative, the sorting hat hints and hints about unity among
the houses, about working together. But perhaps this is just an
extension of something that is happening to our hero on his journey.

dan