[HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort and Sauron and Others

[dorothy dankanyin]

No: HPFGUIDX 191493


From: <sigurd at eclipse.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:36 PM

> 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,
     Well Otto, you're way ahead of me in comparative religions,  I never 
took that subject.  I would guess that my information comes from other 
things I've read., and they appear to be incomplete.  I do remember reading 
that St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes from Ireland, and that there 
were never any snakes in Ireland.  I figured it was symbolic.
  I guess the other explanation, and I forget who said it, maybe Steve(?), 
that since it had no legs and moved quickly, it scared folks.  We really do 
fear what we don't understand, and hopefully a lot less these days.
  Think peace,
   Dorothy