More on Albus Dumbledore_

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Hi, everyone. This will be quite short, but something sunnyskywalker said in a previous discussion rang bells with me. What if these books aren't quite what we think they are?


I am thinking of an interview with Rowling some years back, when she answered a question about her faith with words to this effect: "I struggle to keep believing". If anyone has the exact quote, I'd be grateful!

Because, you see, that is quite moving to me. It is hard to keep believing in God when you witness truly evil things happening to people you love. At least, you can't go on believing, like a child, in the wise old man with a beard who will make everything all right. That's so obviously not what God is.*

But, in these books, we have a wise old man with a beard. And he is very, very imperfect. Rowling's depiction of Dumbledore does, indeed, seem like an indictment of sorts.

But Dumbledore is obviously not God. He is just the headmaster of a wizarding school. Harry, despite some of the imagery surrounding him, is just as obviously not Jesus. Who is he? As I said on my blog some time back, he is an everyman character - specifically, he's Percival, the fool.

And - I think there is some kind of sense there, lurking deep down. I can't quite put my finger on it, but sometimes I think it's there.

Because, if there is a Christ figure at all in these books (but I don't think there is), that is definitely Severus Snape, in spite of his obvious imperfections. If Harry is Percival, Snape is the Fisher King; the wounded king of a wounded land. And what heals the Fisher King? Compassion and curiosity. Percival is supposed to ask a question. We all know that Harry never does that, don't we?

But, if Snape is the Fisher King and Harry Percival, who on earth is Dumbledore? Because he's not God. Not consciously, anyway. And - it's interesting that one of his names is Percival. What I'm getting at is that I sometimes think that the 'lost boys' of Hogwarts are all facets of him.

Rowling is playing with some very powerful archetypes in these stories, I think, and that's why we are still struggling to find meaning in them.

My two cents!

* As those who know me know, I'm a devout Catholic. To me, God is nothing like Dumbledore.

Comments

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I had no idea about the spiders, by the way – do you have any more details about this?

I don't think I have links anymore and I don't exactly remember how I found it. I think I might have just done a search for the names Tobias and Severus at some point and ended up finding the spiders connection. I think other people have found the connection as well beside myself.

Goes to do a random search for Severus Spider and here is what I find

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callobius_severus

http://www.ivory.org/spiders/callobius.severus.html

Unfortunately now when I search for Tobias Spider I fricking get stupid damn Spiderman movie crap because the actors name is so similar (really google I thought you updated not that long about with your search power)

Anyway, you have to look at little harder for the Tobias because now all that comes up is spiderman crap but, Tobias spiders are crab spiders from the spider family of Thomisidae.

I believe the Severus spider is also a crab spider, I'd have to go read the whole page again to remember but The thing about crab spiders is they are sometimes associated with flowers, as they hide in flowers to catch their prey.

Lily=flower.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Anyway, you have to look at little harder for the Tobias because now all that comes up is spiderman crap but, Tobias spiders are crab spiders from the spider family of Thomisidae.

Some pics of genus Thomisidae:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artour_a/2268433848/

http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/familythomididae

I believe the Severus spider is also a crab spider,

Nope. According to Wikipedia: "Callobius is a spider genus in the family Amaurobiidae"

According to http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1548/eb1548.html

"Hackled Band Weavers (Family Amaurobiidae): A robust spider, Callobius severus (19mm or 3/4" diam), is a common crawl-space inhabitant of houses in western Washington. These large, impressive spiders pose no threat to humans or pets."

Looking at the various pictures, the crab spiders are rather pretty, while the weavers are plain black and I guess would be considered ugly (I actually like spiders, so it's hard for me to deem any of them ugly)...don't know if Jo took their physical characteristics into consideration when deciding on "Tobias" for the father's name and "Severus" for the son.