Hagrid is not Peter, I think; Hagrid is Saint Christopher, the giant who carried baby Jesus (whose weight increased with every step) across the river. JKR used this image twice: baby Harry and not-dead!Harry. I also think that Peter is Ron who denied Jesus!Harry twice.
What I'd like to know is why she is using catholic imagery and tropes when she's supposedly protestant and certainly uses the doctrine of the "elects" aka Gryffindors as the ~moral~ centre of her story, though I think she goes by images and grudges with nothing thought out behind them: her religion and morals are opportunistic postures; she's both God!Dumbledore and Jesus!Harry and she can do no wrong, or something like that.
Mind you, it's not that I don't like your analyses and essays because I love them, it's just that I think this one is a little off.
Please forgive my barging in, I'm very rarely online and tend to lurk. :)
No, I'm glad you barged in! The St. Christopher thing is interesting, because he was a giant. So I can see that fits, too. But Hagrid is explicitly equated with Saint Peter, because he's the keeper of the keys. And then the spiders carry him off upside down, which is really reminiscent of the upside down crucifixion
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Religious symbolism soup? I'd add the Holy Family statue in Godric's Hollow for another "WTF is this doing here" moment. And Harry's very un-Christ-like resurrection.
You're right that it isn't consistent--it's like some bits of Christian symbolism vaguely connected to some bits of her story, so they burbled up wherever something fit, but there's no coherency to it. Maybe some of it fits for certain individual moments in the story (arguable!), but not for the series as a whole. It's more like a grab-bag of "imagery and motifs which appear in many Western literary works" dumped in with the rest of the genre soup.
Honestly--as I'll say to Torchedsong below--I think this is the only explanation. It's just thrown together without considering the implications of anything. So there is a lot of symbolism that seems deliberate (especially equating Snape with both Saints Peter and Paul), but that really doesn't lead anywhere.
I think the religious imagery/symbolism in the books was an attempt to provide potential poignancy - another way to give the books a "deeper" meaning. I also think it was Rowling grappling with her personal views on faith. I may be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't there an interview where she mentioned how she struggled with her religious beliefs and chose to reflect it in DH
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Continuing on from my answer to Sunnyskywalker: yes! I do think this was incoherent. So much so that it became offensive to me, especially where the Sytherins are concerned. As to the books reflecting Rowling's struggle to believe in the face of the senseless evil in the world--yes, that is a struggle, and one I can sympathize (even empathize) with. But my heavens! Coming up with a "God figure" like Dumbledore certainly couldn't help that effort, IMHO! And that does seem to be what she's doing
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Rowling's attempts at magical North American history are appalling in so many ways, but the way she treats Native religions has to be the worst. These are religions which have survived centuries of literal and cultural genocide attempts, and now Rowling's joined the long queue of outsiders who want to play with those religions like toys while still not bothering to even learn about the people who actually practice them. Like, okay, there are many problems in the world, and not everyone will have time to be fully educated on Native history and rights and engaged in supporting their activists... but she could at least take enough time to try not to be insulting.
It's frustrating how close the books can come to brilliance and then how dramatically they fall short. If only some of those deeper themes and symbolism could have been even a little more thoughtful and coherent! This is one of the things editing is for!
DH certainly felt like it was JKR's personal struggle with faith, death, love, destiny, redemption, and other questions in life. Her inner conflict interposed with Harry's coming-of-age story and the battle between Good and Evil made me confused - which is why I probably spend too much time wondering about JKR's views rather than the text itself
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I'm not sure that she deliberately put Christian imagery into the books other than Harry/Jesus and Dumbledore/God. Even then, these are writing tropes beyond religion - the mentor, the helpers, etc., that provide the main character's growth and setbacks. A lot of people have equated Dumbledore to 'wise old man with beard' along the lines of Gandalf in LOTR. Some more critical people even play with it, outright calling Dumbledore 'Gandalf.' So, I think that any Christian imagery came out of her subconscious, with the exception of DH where, it seems to me, she's exploring the topics of death and resurrection, which I think might be because she's still trying to come to terms with her mother's death.
You might well be right. The books are absolutely loaded with Christian symbolism, but it's so incoherent that it may well be almost unintentional. Not that statue of the holy family--beg pardon, I mean the Potter family--at Christmas. That was clearly intentional, and it's pretty darn offensive. But I think a lot of the Peter/Paul stuff, the medieval Christ symbolism associated with Snape and so on, is completely unintentional.
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What I'd like to know is why she is using catholic imagery and tropes when she's supposedly protestant and certainly uses the doctrine of the "elects" aka Gryffindors as the ~moral~ centre of her story, though I think she goes by images and grudges with nothing thought out behind them: her religion and morals are opportunistic postures; she's both God!Dumbledore and Jesus!Harry and she can do no wrong, or something like that.
Mind you, it's not that I don't like your analyses and essays because I love them, it's just that I think this one is a little off.
Please forgive my barging in, I'm very rarely online and tend to lurk. :)
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You're right that it isn't consistent--it's like some bits of Christian symbolism vaguely connected to some bits of her story, so they burbled up wherever something fit, but there's no coherency to it. Maybe some of it fits for certain individual moments in the story (arguable!), but not for the series as a whole. It's more like a grab-bag of "imagery and motifs which appear in many Western literary works" dumped in with the rest of the genre soup.
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It's frustrating how close the books can come to brilliance and then how dramatically they fall short. If only some of those deeper themes and symbolism could have been even a little more thoughtful and coherent! This is one of the things editing is for!
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