Indestructible - Food For Thought (optional stuff to geek out over, not an essay) - Updated
Indestructible - Food for Thought
I mentioned that there were a lot of literary and pop culture and other references occurring to me as I work on this project, and that I’d put up a list in case anyone’s interested and wants to check them out while reading my blatherings, instead of mashing them all in to the essays. So, here you go. None of these are necessary to know for understanding the essays, they’re just…thematic enhancements.
I promise I’m getting close to my actual reading of the HP books themselves. Not much farther now.
I've added a few more things to this list, and a date so you can tell when it's been added to again.
Last updated: September 12, 2015.
General references:
Alchemy is a big one. There are various ways of breaking down the process into stages - three, four, and seven are the most common ones. It always begins with a process of destruction, then various stages of mixing and distillation, until purification is achieved. Animal symbolism is common, especially serpents and various kinds of birds.
The Tarot could also be fun to look at. The major arcana can be viewed as representing a story, a journey, returning at the end to the beginning in the Fool again. The Lightning-Struck Tower, of course, is a fairly obvious reference to the Tower card - which actually represents a moment of profound illumination or change, and which, in the old original Marseilles deck, was called La Maison Dieu: the House of God. It’s also interesting to note that the cards Strength and Justice may trade places in the order from tradition to tradition.
Literary, etc:
Alice in Wonderland, for all of the through-the-looking-glass logic. Also the Luke and Vader relationship in Star Wars, and the idea that Anakin brings balance to the force not despite his journey through Vader but because of it.
I mentioned the Egyptian deities Ma’at, Set, and Anubis - consider scales, justice, and the tools of a brewer or alchemist. There’s also the Norse god Loki, who - despite Snorri’s retroactive attempts to paint him as the Norse Satan in keeping with his Christianizing mission - is a much more complicated figure of needed change and regeneration and knowledge. He is Odin’s chosen blood-brother, after all. And the relationship between him and his wife, the steadfast goddess Sigyn, is quite interesting.
Lots of poems come to mind. In particular, check out:
A Green Crab’s Shell
High Flight
Frost - For Once, Then, Something, The Road Not Taken
Hopkins - lots, start with The Candle Indoors, Carrion Comfort, No worst, there is none, As kingfishers catch fire, The Windhover
Little Gidding is a must-read in relation to Severus of HBP
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dante’s an easy reference. And the grail quest of Parzival/Percival, the need to recognize the moment and choose to ask the question or be forced to go out and find one’s way back to the grail castle again...
Also consider Goethe’s Faust. The Prologue in Heaven fits quite well with our orbital imagery (though you really should read the German if you can, for the sound alone):
Gabriel: And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,
The splendour of the Earth turns round,
A Paradisial light is interleaving,
With night’s awesome profound.
The ocean breaks with shining foam,
Against the rocky cliffs deep base,
And rock and ocean whirl and go,
In the spheres’ swift eternal race.
And a few quotes from the second part of the play:
(from FIRST ACT)
Faust is seen in a field of flowers. Faust is restless and tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep. A group of spirits gathers around and sing while Faust sleeps.
Ariel chants: "You who surround his head in airy beauty
Prepare to do the elfins' noblest duty:
Relieve the bitter conflict in his heart,
Remove the burning arrows of remorse,
And cleanse his mine of memories that smart."
(Act One, p. 423)
(from FIFTH ACT)
As the priests and choirs sing Faust's soul is lifted up to Heaven.
The angels sing:
"Saved is the spirit kingdom's flower
From evil and the grave;
'Who ever strives with all his power,
We are allowed to save.'"
(Mountain Gorges, Forest, Rock and Desert, page 493)
And love’s kinda important with the whole Faust story, here. ;) But I don’t think Severus is quite Faust, no. Have some Hamlet, though, from Act 2, Scene 2:
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”
[After Polonius says he’ll take his leave of Hamlet:] "You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part witha l-- except my life, except my life, except my life."
I can’t help but throw some biblical references in too -- this isn’t an explicitly religious essay series, but they just fit Severus so well… And there were several saints named Severus. Looking at their Wikipedia pages is fun if you like drawing connections.
Look at 1 Corinthians 13; Psalm 51 (Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean…); and Revelations.
Musical:
I gave you a bit of a playlist already. But you can add Suicide is Painless to that, along with quite a bit more Leonard Cohen. (I think half my Severus playlist is Cohen at this point. Love Itself, Alexandra Leaving, Ain’t No Cure For Love, Everybody Knows, First We Take Manhattan, Always…) Maybe some Jesus Christ Superstar. Dylan’s Together Through Life, especially Forgetful Heart, I Feel A Change Comin’ On, and Life is Hard (that one made me think of Severus immediately the first time I heard it.) Elastic Heart, Voltaire's Feathery Wings and the rest of the album Almost Human, California Dreamin,' I Will Survive, Long As I Can See The Light, David Bowie’s wailings from Labyrinth…
A lot of classic rock and especially the Beatles, including Blackbird, I'll Follow the Sun, The Long and Winding Road, Across the Universe, Let It Be, Yesterday, And I Love Her, Help!, Norweigan Wood, Hello Goodbye, With a Little Help From My Friends, Magical Mystery Tour, Revolution, The Fool on the Hill, In My Life, Hey Jude, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, Here Comes the Sun, We All Shine On, and of course All You Need Is Love. Also a number of hymns.
Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die...
In relation to the Silver Doe chapter, a number of Christmas carols resonate a bit (not that I see Harry as particularly Christlike in these books, mind you, but the imagery... JKR was clearly being quite deliberate in the timing of that scene, and it still fits for Severus, I say):
Night of Silence
O Holy Night
Silent Night
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (though this also fits for Severus in the Shack)
the first and last verses of In the Bleak Midwinter
Love Came Down At Christmas
People Look East
Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
I mentioned that there were a lot of literary and pop culture and other references occurring to me as I work on this project, and that I’d put up a list in case anyone’s interested and wants to check them out while reading my blatherings, instead of mashing them all in to the essays. So, here you go. None of these are necessary to know for understanding the essays, they’re just…thematic enhancements.
I promise I’m getting close to my actual reading of the HP books themselves. Not much farther now.
I've added a few more things to this list, and a date so you can tell when it's been added to again.
Last updated: September 12, 2015.
General references:
Alchemy is a big one. There are various ways of breaking down the process into stages - three, four, and seven are the most common ones. It always begins with a process of destruction, then various stages of mixing and distillation, until purification is achieved. Animal symbolism is common, especially serpents and various kinds of birds.
The Tarot could also be fun to look at. The major arcana can be viewed as representing a story, a journey, returning at the end to the beginning in the Fool again. The Lightning-Struck Tower, of course, is a fairly obvious reference to the Tower card - which actually represents a moment of profound illumination or change, and which, in the old original Marseilles deck, was called La Maison Dieu: the House of God. It’s also interesting to note that the cards Strength and Justice may trade places in the order from tradition to tradition.
Literary, etc:
Alice in Wonderland, for all of the through-the-looking-glass logic. Also the Luke and Vader relationship in Star Wars, and the idea that Anakin brings balance to the force not despite his journey through Vader but because of it.
I mentioned the Egyptian deities Ma’at, Set, and Anubis - consider scales, justice, and the tools of a brewer or alchemist. There’s also the Norse god Loki, who - despite Snorri’s retroactive attempts to paint him as the Norse Satan in keeping with his Christianizing mission - is a much more complicated figure of needed change and regeneration and knowledge. He is Odin’s chosen blood-brother, after all. And the relationship between him and his wife, the steadfast goddess Sigyn, is quite interesting.
Lots of poems come to mind. In particular, check out:
A Green Crab’s Shell
High Flight
Frost - For Once, Then, Something, The Road Not Taken
Hopkins - lots, start with The Candle Indoors, Carrion Comfort, No worst, there is none, As kingfishers catch fire, The Windhover
Little Gidding is a must-read in relation to Severus of HBP
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dante’s an easy reference. And the grail quest of Parzival/Percival, the need to recognize the moment and choose to ask the question or be forced to go out and find one’s way back to the grail castle again...
Also consider Goethe’s Faust. The Prologue in Heaven fits quite well with our orbital imagery (though you really should read the German if you can, for the sound alone):
Gabriel: And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,
The splendour of the Earth turns round,
A Paradisial light is interleaving,
With night’s awesome profound.
The ocean breaks with shining foam,
Against the rocky cliffs deep base,
And rock and ocean whirl and go,
In the spheres’ swift eternal race.
And a few quotes from the second part of the play:
(from FIRST ACT)
Faust is seen in a field of flowers. Faust is restless and tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep. A group of spirits gathers around and sing while Faust sleeps.
Ariel chants: "You who surround his head in airy beauty
Prepare to do the elfins' noblest duty:
Relieve the bitter conflict in his heart,
Remove the burning arrows of remorse,
And cleanse his mine of memories that smart."
(Act One, p. 423)
(from FIFTH ACT)
As the priests and choirs sing Faust's soul is lifted up to Heaven.
The angels sing:
"Saved is the spirit kingdom's flower
From evil and the grave;
'Who ever strives with all his power,
We are allowed to save.'"
(Mountain Gorges, Forest, Rock and Desert, page 493)
And love’s kinda important with the whole Faust story, here. ;) But I don’t think Severus is quite Faust, no. Have some Hamlet, though, from Act 2, Scene 2:
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”
[After Polonius says he’ll take his leave of Hamlet:] "You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part witha l-- except my life, except my life, except my life."
I can’t help but throw some biblical references in too -- this isn’t an explicitly religious essay series, but they just fit Severus so well… And there were several saints named Severus. Looking at their Wikipedia pages is fun if you like drawing connections.
Look at 1 Corinthians 13; Psalm 51 (Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean…); and Revelations.
Musical:
I gave you a bit of a playlist already. But you can add Suicide is Painless to that, along with quite a bit more Leonard Cohen. (I think half my Severus playlist is Cohen at this point. Love Itself, Alexandra Leaving, Ain’t No Cure For Love, Everybody Knows, First We Take Manhattan, Always…) Maybe some Jesus Christ Superstar. Dylan’s Together Through Life, especially Forgetful Heart, I Feel A Change Comin’ On, and Life is Hard (that one made me think of Severus immediately the first time I heard it.) Elastic Heart, Voltaire's Feathery Wings and the rest of the album Almost Human, California Dreamin,' I Will Survive, Long As I Can See The Light, David Bowie’s wailings from Labyrinth…
A lot of classic rock and especially the Beatles, including Blackbird, I'll Follow the Sun, The Long and Winding Road, Across the Universe, Let It Be, Yesterday, And I Love Her, Help!, Norweigan Wood, Hello Goodbye, With a Little Help From My Friends, Magical Mystery Tour, Revolution, The Fool on the Hill, In My Life, Hey Jude, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, Here Comes the Sun, We All Shine On, and of course All You Need Is Love. Also a number of hymns.
Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die...
In relation to the Silver Doe chapter, a number of Christmas carols resonate a bit (not that I see Harry as particularly Christlike in these books, mind you, but the imagery... JKR was clearly being quite deliberate in the timing of that scene, and it still fits for Severus, I say):
Night of Silence
O Holy Night
Silent Night
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (though this also fits for Severus in the Shack)
the first and last verses of In the Bleak Midwinter
Love Came Down At Christmas
People Look East
Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.