Indestructible - Part V - The Wheels of Heaven

[condwiramurs]

This is a long one, so I've broken it up into sections. There's an introductory section, section V.1 on the principle of Ma'at, section V.2 on the gravity assist, and a postscript

Comments

Dante

[terri_testing]

See, this is where I started thinking YOU were thinking of Dante.

(And of course, maryj59 and I both had posts long ago about Lily as Snape's Beatrice....)

Re: Dante

[condwiramurs]

The love that moves the sun and other stars, you mean? XD I have, I think from when I read the Comedy in high school if not before, often thought about love and gravity as being related.

Dante's been in the back of my mind regarding Severus for a long time. Since I read your and mary's brilliant essays waaaay back.

(The parallels between the two are really just STRIKING, aren't they?)

But oh yes, Dante's definitely an influence here. I've been debating how much to include in my later essays of the relevance of the weeping Satan/Lucifer in the pit as the gateway to purgatory, and all of that. I keep seeing more and more parallels.

And forests, of course, are hugely symbolic here. I'll be talking a bit about those.

Re: Dante

[terri_testing]

Urgh. The forest. The hillside. And the figure sent to him there.

Puts Dumbledore back as Virgil, the guide.

(Though Jo seems to write him more as her version of Jehovah.)

[star_dragon5]

I'm a little confused. What do Set and Loki have to do with Professor Snape?

[jana_ch]

Simple answer: Set and Loki, like Severus, are figures of darkness often interpreted simply as evil, but who are, in fact, considerably more complicated than that.

This entire series by conwiramurs if full of interesting ideas, but it really needed to be boiled down and focused, and its connections to Severus made clear and explicit. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, but it is not well argued, and the connections are not clearly made.

[star_dragon5]

Ah, I see now. Thank you!

This entire series by conwiramurs if full of interesting ideas, but it really needed to be boiled down and focused, and its connections to Severus made clear and explicit. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, but it is not well argued, and the connections are not clearly made.

True. No wonder I kept getting confused.

[jana_ch]

Conwiramurs was busy with her dissertation at the time, and pointed out herself that she was largely just tossing out ideas without a great deal of organization. The later chapters of her Indestructable series, which deal more directly with Potterverse characters, are quite good. I especially like her “The (Mis)education of Harry Potter,” in which she discusses Severus’s attempts to give Harry moral guidance, and how they are undermined by Dumbledore and, to a lesser extent, Minerva. It is strange how a story that is ostensibly set up as a coming-of-age tale consistently shows the titular hero failing to grow morally, in large part due to the actions of his official wise old mentor.