Voldemort and Sauron and Others

[sigurd at eclipse.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 191479

Dear Dorothy

You say "Although I don't know any of the other characters you mention, I do know  where the idea of the snake as a symbol of evil comes from:  it's the  Christian symbol for evil because it was often a symbol of paganism, and it  was paganism that the church was set up against.


Unfortunately the Snake is the symbol of evil in the pagan world as well. Tiamat, the dragon of the Babylonian and Sumerian mythos is the symbol of chaos and evil. It is from her bones and from her defeat by marduk, that the world is made, and though defeated she is still alive under the earth which rides on the sea of the primordial chaos. The snake too is viewed as Evil in the Greek mythologies, the snake is the symbol, again, of chaos, darkness, and disorder as opposed to the order of logic, light, and region which is "cosmos."  In Japan one of the legends surrounding Susanoo, a feature like Prometheus, driven out of heaven to earth. He comes to Izumo province and meets an old man who is weeping because for the past seven years an enormous snake  with eight heads has come to devour one of his daugthers and this  year he is coming for the eighth. Susanoo devises a trap and slays the snake, extracting from it  a magical sword which he gave to Amaterasu, the chief Goddess. The links to the Greek Hydra guarding the golden fleece, are obvious but so are the links to the Old German dragon (a serpent) or "Wurm"-- worm. The Worm is one of the creatures of evil who gnaws at the root of the world supporting Ash tree, the Yggdrasil. In the day of Ragnorak, the worm, with the dwarves, nibelungen, giants, and dragons will come to do final battle with the warriors of Valhalla-- and the latter will lose. In the Nibelungenleid the Giant Fafnir (already an evil creature) kills his brother Fasolt over his sentimentality towards Freya, takes the treasure meant to be a bribe for her, the tarnhelm, and the ring of power and goes into a deep hole where he will be found and killed by the hero Siegfried. The most vicious and violent incarnation or avatar of Kali is as the snake, representing murderous evil. The Mezoamerican civilization had a more positive image of the snake in Quetzocoatl, the feathered serpent, but in many of his moods he was vicious and violent and human sacrifice demanded of him as did all others of that mythos. These things far predate the church.
See Cambridge History of Mythology, Larousse Dictionary of mythology etc.

 In the Jewish Torah, the snake is there in the garden of eden as the temptor of man and the cause of his fall from grace and the cause of his first disobedience to God.

But the view of the snake as evil far predates even paganism and one can derive a completely naturalistic reason for this view of snakes. "Snake in the grass" is a term we all know as one synonymous with not only evil, but treacherous evil. If you are predisposed to a scientific explanation it is easy. Man is a terribly weak and defenseless animal and has very little of the predator about him. He is neither swift, nor strong nor well defended nor well armed. The only thing which he shares with the predator is his eyes. If you notice most o the "prey" in the world has its eyes set in the side of its skull. This better to get a panoramic view. Our binocular vision helps us not only in being a predator but it is an excellent defense against predators as it allows us to spy them from afar off. This and our upright posture allows us an extended vision that can allow us to see the predator a long way off and either seek cover, run for the trees, or "circle up" to present a unified face to the enemy. This is an excellent defense and probably was the reason we were able to avoid remaining "lunch" for anything with a fag and claw that came our way. But there is one predator we fear, which is that which strikes from cover, at our very feet-- the snake hiding under the stone, the serpent lurking in the grass which we do not see. It inspires in us a terror and a dread and a wariness that we have never lost. We have, returning to the Torah that wonderful part where God pronounces his judgement on the serpent. "I shall put enmity between thee and the woman, Between her seed and thy seed, and it (the enmity) shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel."  Genesis 3:15

Thus has it ever been the sudden sight of the snake, the dash to crush its head with the foot, but the snakes reflexes, so much faster, strikes first "bruising" (wounding) our heel (and if venemous maiming us or killing us) and we crushing its head.

The others are old evil guys. Thulsa Doom is the chief antagonist of Conan in the Conan the Barbarian Series, a powerful sorcerer and wizzard who transformed himself into a snake.  Sauron, the chief meanie of J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings often manifestedhimself as the "unlidded eye, which was the eye of a snake."  See "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and science fiction for others.

Otto