What kind of mark is the Dark Mark?
Aug. 9th, 2020 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalker posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockIt’s amazing how many times I can re-read something and yet still miss the obvious. In my previous Dark Mark post, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flyingskull said, "The DM is a magical tattoo, right?" And yes, I have consistently been picturing the Dark Mark as it appears in the movies: it’s your standard Little Black Tattoo. In GoF, Snape told us that an hour ago, it “burned black.” So it’s black, and when it’s used for summoning, it burns extra-dark black. Right?
*headdesk* No. If it were already black when Snape showed it off in the Hospital Wing, he would hardly need to specify what color it burned when Voldemort summoned them, would he? He’d have said that an hour ago, it burned with a Dark, sorcerous radiance or something. He specifies that it burned black because it is not black now.
Which is exactly what Harry tells us when he sees it (emphasis added).
So what color is it normally? Here’s Harry’s first sight of the Dark Mark on a Death Eater’s arm:
It’s red. Red.
This has more than cosmetic relevance. It isn’t a vivid red tattoo: it’s only “something like” a vivid red tattoo. This suggests that in some way, Harry thinks it looks unlike a tattoo, though (being a mite preoccupied) he doesn’t specify how.
In what way could it be un-tattoo-like? Back to Snape again: he tells us that the Dark Lord burned the Mark into them. Burns do tend to be red except in extreme cases, which would fit a red Mark which hurts extra when it “burns” black. A burn also would look a bit different from a tattoo, even if we assume it’s an extra-crisp, extra-red burn because of magic.
And magic must be a factor, because this can’t be your average burn. If it were, it wouldn’t fade when Voldemort weakened. That is not how burns work. So, what is it, exactly? Or rather, what could it be, since I doubt Rowling actually knows?
Is it a purely magical burn which is visible on or through their skin, but is only actually attached to their magic or their souls, and only so long as Voldemort is alive to power the connection? This would probably mean that (regardless of whether they can be made invisible or not) the Marks disappear from the bodies of dead Death Eaters, because they’re no longer attached to anything. And when Voldemort dies, the Dark Marks might vanish from living Death Eaters too.
Is it some kind of weird hybrid of a physical and magical burn? For instance, maybe it’s in a constant state of healing and being re-burned, which I’m sure Voldemort told them was symbolic of something but mostly just amused him. (One hopes he included something in the spell to numb the pain. But then, maybe the Death Eaters perform so badly because they’re constantly distracted by the fierce burning, which hurts even worse when Voldemort summons them.) When Voldemort was weakened, the amount of power he could put into constantly re-burning the Marks was lessened, so they had very faint pink burns instead of vivid red ones. If this is the case, when Voldemort dies, the Marks might vanish as in the previous scenario.
Though perhaps if he had a moment between being fatally injured and actually dying to focus, he could undo the healing part of the spell and cause a permanent burn as a farewell “Fuck you.” Try wriggling out of that one, o faithless followers! You may have survived me, but you won’t be able to claim innocence this time!
The purely magical burn is probably the simplest explanation, but the hybrid burn has some nice dramatic potential.
Either way, it also tells us something about Voldemort’s thoughts. The Death Eaters themselves might think of the Dark Mark as a gang tattoo (even if it was burned rather than inked) or a noble mark of their secret brotherhood.
But to Voldemort, it’s a cattle brand.
flyingskull said, "The DM is a magical tattoo, right?" And yes, I have consistently been picturing the Dark Mark as it appears in the movies: it’s your standard Little Black Tattoo. In GoF, Snape told us that an hour ago, it “burned black.” So it’s black, and when it’s used for summoning, it burns extra-dark black. Right?*headdesk* No. If it were already black when Snape showed it off in the Hospital Wing, he would hardly need to specify what color it burned when Voldemort summoned them, would he? He’d have said that an hour ago, it burned with a Dark, sorcerous radiance or something. He specifies that it burned black because it is not black now.
Which is exactly what Harry tells us when he sees it (emphasis added).
…Wormtail let out a fresh howl: Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail’s Mark, and Harry saw that it had turned jet black.
So what color is it normally? Here’s Harry’s first sight of the Dark Mark on a Death Eater’s arm:
…he forced the sleeve of Wormtail’s robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo…
It’s red. Red.
This has more than cosmetic relevance. It isn’t a vivid red tattoo: it’s only “something like” a vivid red tattoo. This suggests that in some way, Harry thinks it looks unlike a tattoo, though (being a mite preoccupied) he doesn’t specify how.
In what way could it be un-tattoo-like? Back to Snape again: he tells us that the Dark Lord burned the Mark into them. Burns do tend to be red except in extreme cases, which would fit a red Mark which hurts extra when it “burns” black. A burn also would look a bit different from a tattoo, even if we assume it’s an extra-crisp, extra-red burn because of magic.
And magic must be a factor, because this can’t be your average burn. If it were, it wouldn’t fade when Voldemort weakened. That is not how burns work. So, what is it, exactly? Or rather, what could it be, since I doubt Rowling actually knows?
Is it a purely magical burn which is visible on or through their skin, but is only actually attached to their magic or their souls, and only so long as Voldemort is alive to power the connection? This would probably mean that (regardless of whether they can be made invisible or not) the Marks disappear from the bodies of dead Death Eaters, because they’re no longer attached to anything. And when Voldemort dies, the Dark Marks might vanish from living Death Eaters too.
Is it some kind of weird hybrid of a physical and magical burn? For instance, maybe it’s in a constant state of healing and being re-burned, which I’m sure Voldemort told them was symbolic of something but mostly just amused him. (One hopes he included something in the spell to numb the pain. But then, maybe the Death Eaters perform so badly because they’re constantly distracted by the fierce burning, which hurts even worse when Voldemort summons them.) When Voldemort was weakened, the amount of power he could put into constantly re-burning the Marks was lessened, so they had very faint pink burns instead of vivid red ones. If this is the case, when Voldemort dies, the Marks might vanish as in the previous scenario.
Though perhaps if he had a moment between being fatally injured and actually dying to focus, he could undo the healing part of the spell and cause a permanent burn as a farewell “Fuck you.” Try wriggling out of that one, o faithless followers! You may have survived me, but you won’t be able to claim innocence this time!
The purely magical burn is probably the simplest explanation, but the hybrid burn has some nice dramatic potential.
Either way, it also tells us something about Voldemort’s thoughts. The Death Eaters themselves might think of the Dark Mark as a gang tattoo (even if it was burned rather than inked) or a noble mark of their secret brotherhood.
But to Voldemort, it’s a cattle brand.
