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Harry Potter & Time’s Person of the Year
I haven’ actually read any of the Harry Potter books, but I have seen I think two or three of the movies. A reader of mine though, by the name of “Skip Wiley” was kind enough to offer the following interpretation and points of connection between some of the themes in Harry Potter and how it intersects with where I have been going lately in my writing. Skip writes:
… after just relistening to your “Fake your Own Death” podcast, I wanted to take you up on your request for more stories (etc) about the topic matter discussed… in particular, Harry Potter, and the European folklore idea of “bad guys” storing their souls in objects, under rocks, or otherwise hidden away — this was a huge theme brought up in the most recent book (6) and one that the entire plot of the final book should encompass.
Harry’s relationship and almost “shared” identity with Voldemort has been an issue of serious fan speculation for sometime and will certainly come to light (and resolution) as well.
Don’t know if you’ve read those books or not, but when the final book is released in the next year or two these ideas will be bumped pretty up there in public consciousness. Should you be complising a master list for future research, I had to make sure this was brought up.
Very interesting thing to bring up. I’d be curious if other Harry Potter fans out there had anything to add to all this, especially as it relates to the themes I have been running with on my website lately.
I am starting to wonder if I am actually somehow tapping into a current that exists within culture, and just drawing it together in my own self as sort of a crucible before it springs from latency into activity within the culture at large. If Skip’s interpretation of the “Potter mysteries” is at all accurate, then we really will start seeing these themes catapulted into public consciousness.
In fact, we may be already able to trace its rise in other places as well. Have you heard that Time Magazine’s “person of the year” this year is in fact “You!” The world is about to become a whole lot stranger, a whole lot more filled with mirrors and dopplegangers roaming about.
- I hate these assholes
- Thoughts Don’t Define Us
- Harry Potter author speaks out against heresy
- Cell Phone Mobile Payment Systems
- Potter Previews
- Prev: How You See You
- Next: Love Is A Battlefield
December 17th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Linked at the bottom of the CNN article on Time’s Person of the Year was this story:
Rescuers: No one found in snow cave
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/17/missing.climbers/index.html
That strikes me as an odd and intriguing juxtaposition of stories. This sort of self-referential thing about “you” being the person of the year - which itself is almost like a hollow empty “snow cave” in which no one is found. Also appropriate is that the news event is actually a non-event: nothing was found. Since when do they write news stories about nothing happening? “Today nothing happened.”
December 18th, 2006 at 6:57 am
If I might be permitted to hijack this ever so slightly, I really have to share the following.
I participated in a carol service last night. It was very cold, and by the final sermon my mind was in an interesting (if chilly) place. The speaker mused on why there was ‘no room at the inn’. His take was that to this day, there is still no room at the inn. In the world of Stuff and Things to Do, there is no room. It’s full.
Which made me think of your post a few weeks ago about finding Christ under a rock. It suddenly made sense: in a chock-full world, that’s /exactly/ where you’d find Him. In the places between the Stuff, that you don’t ordinarily think of. And a carol service in the bitter cold, in the stillness between days and years, also made a kind of sense.
So: stories about nothing happening? Perhaps there is a confluence of half-formed ideas here.
Might be a little while before I get to read this again, so Merry Xmas in advance.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Its funny, back in high school my friends and I used the term doppleganger simply to describe those who looked exactly like one of us (or someone we knew). These “sightings” were rare enough to stay exciting, and were always accompanied by some sort of frantic frenzy. Over the years we surely spent hours talking about doppleganger battles, stolen power, switched identities, and so forth (much in the same light as “who would win” superhero battles, etc).
One thing I always noticed, personally, has been a sense of rage or aggression that has boiled up whenever I’d see someone who looked just like me (which happened only 2-3 memorable times in the last many years). I was once at a Maryland football game, with my double sitting exactly 10 rows below me, right within eyeshot. The entire game I couldn’t take my eyes off him… or, myself, I should say…. I felt like I had to be “on the ready” to take him down at any time.
This has lead me to a much-thought-about scneario…. what if I saw myself walk around the corner? I would be freaked out, shocked, frightened, and threatened — all of these things putting me on edge, ready to pounce into a to-the-death fight at any second (which otherwise is unimaginable, I’m very laid back). Yet, my twin would surely react the same way, wouldn’t he? WOuld this dual tension doom us both to an instant to-the-death battle? Part of me thinks so, yet another (higher?) part of me somehow knows I have to avoid that, somehow. It would be tense, that I can tell you.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
And to continue the previous commenter’s hijacking a little bit more, I just discovered this: “Blogging the Bible“, Slate.com’s series detailing one guy’s experience going through the Bible and commenting (or “blogging”) on the plot, as if it was a TV show talked about around the water-cooler:
This reminds me of blogs such as Slowly Boiling Frog, a favorite of my friends which provides witty or sly commentary on shows such as 24, Lost, Heroes, etc. Often times the commentary is more enjoyable than the show itself. I’ve seen quite a few blogs like this recently… and I guess it is no surprise that the same sort of the Bible variety are popping up.
December 18th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Skip, you’re totally right: if I saw myself walk around a corner, I would probably flip out and go haywire.
Been thinking recently about the double thing as well because my friend has a Thomas Pynchon anthology from the 1970’s where it’s the back of a man’s head on the cover. And I’ve never read any Pynchon, but the person depicted on the cover of this book most assuredly matches the back of my head - my haircut and beard - with 100% accuracy. Its really freaky
December 19th, 2006 at 8:32 am
There’s a movie called Primer that I think you would enjoy.