Thanks to all the reviewers, especially:
Embellished, cancertopia, adorame, Sarah Prowess, Judibry, mugglemum, tudorrose1533, beckysue2, WG, Anya, and jandjsalmon.
Here it is, y'all... the last chapter. It has the stunning secret-squirrel ending to Book 7, as well as the extra D/G arguments. R and R!
+++
J. K. Rowling’s obvious hints in that interview, I think, really did only refer to the obvious—and yet, if she is only talking about the central idea of mainstream Christianity in that quote, why does she define herself in opposition to the “religious right?” Is there something about her religious ideas that may not be quite orthodox? Well, we do know that she writes about magic, and that the central idea of the magic we see here is special knowledge available to only a limited number of initiated people. We do see this exact idea in one specific hero’s journey narrative, and it is completely tied up with the power of agape love.
To understand this hero’s journey, which I will finally name in a minute, we need to look at its historical context, which may also apply to exactly what JKR was talking about: Gnostic Christianity. It is a term applied to modern revivals of various mystical religions that were very active in the first few centuries A.D. These belief systems tend to piggyback on Christian tenets, they do have their own set of apocryphal gospels, and they “typically recommend the pursuit of special knowledge, or gnosis, as the central goal of life. They also commonly depict posit a marked division between the material realm… and the higher spiritual realm.” (Naj Hammadi Gospels, pg.xvii.), to be Gnostic should be understood, but as being specially receptive to mystical or esoteric experiences of direct participation… it is a knowledge of divine mysteries for the elite.” This summation of Gnosticism is itself a good summary of the entire Harry Potter series. But there’s more.
Gnosticism as a whole, in fact, has always been strongly related to magic, alchemy, in some ways, it is the very definition of magic. Simon Magus, the historical founder of Gnosticism, is the archetypal magician, Gnosticism defines itself in separation from the mundane, unenlightened world, just as the world of witches and wizards is sharply separated from the world of Muggles. (And this finally provides a reason for the strange juxtaposition of the hero’s journey genre with the mystery genre in Harry Potter, because this is the very heart of Gnosticism—a quest for knowledge that is shrouded in mystery.)
The final clue-- to this being what JKR actually had in mind, that is-- may lie in a very strange detail in HBP. In the first Potions class with Horace Slughorn, Draco mentions his grandfather, who was named Abraxas Malfoy. Who is Abraxas? Historically, Abraxas was the extremely widespread general name of a Gnostic Christian god who incorporated both good and evil. He was always associated with Lucifer (and, of course, Draco’s father is named Lucius.) In addition, Abraxas was always pictured wrapped in a snake or dragon-- Draco. So all three male Malfoys—grandfather, father, and son—have been given names that clearly refer to Gnosticism. And the Malfoys are inextricably tied up with Snape.
Although we can’t know for sure if J.K. Rowling was talking about her Gnostic beliefs in that interview (unless she ever chooses to clarify the point further,) it does make sense that she was referring to some popularized ideas from Gnosticism that have filtered down to the present day. The next question, of course, is what precisely this might mean. One idea that has saturated public consciousness recently is the Cathars’ concept that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalen, and that she was the Goddess figure, as seen in The Da Vinci Code. I actually considered this one (Harry/Ginny/Luna/Giant Squid, anybody?) The canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-- are hero’s journeys, because we have all the elements, they follow the departure, initiation, and return structure, they include atonement with the father and apotheosis, and what the Gnostic gospels add is meeting with the goddess/other half. But we run up against the same old problem: it’s been repeatedly established that eros does not save anyone in Harry Potter’s world.
I think that there is still one more central secret, one that brings together Harry’s powers of love, hate, and forgiveness, his need to destroy Voldemort through these powers, and his ultimate quest for knowledge.( I’ve already established that I don’t think the key is in romantic love, and that even the idea that Harry must show agape to Snape is not quite the entire story). So what is it? I began to consider another Gnostic idea that has recently become quite well known due to the very recent work of National Geographic: Let’s look at The Gospel of Judas.
This is one of the so-called “Gnostic gospels” written at some point in the second century A.D., similar to the gospels found at Naj Hammadi that were translated in 1949. This gospel has been known for almost two thousand years through the writings of Bishop Iraneus, so J.K. Rowling would have had every chance to learn about it; the only thing that is new is the National Geographic translation. ( In fact, Nikos Kazantzakis wrote The Last Temptation of Christ in 1951 and it was translated into English in 1960, and a huge part of its plot is taken from the Gospel of Judas.)
It follows the basic storyline of the canonical gospels, but with one vital difference: in his betrayal of Jesus Christ, Judas was a hero, not a villain, and he acted out of perfect love. . He performed this task because Jesus instructed him to do it knowing that he had to die, and he did it to release the spirit of Christ from its physical constraints. The other disciples were kept ignorant of this plan because they were not enlightened enough to understand it.
If we recast these roles as Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry, it all comes together. Snape killed Dumbledore not only in order to keep Draco from the task; but to release Dumbledore from his human form, which traditional Gnostics believed to be a prison. Dumbledore knew that when he was no longer confined to his physical body, his power would be greater. This is a very familiar theme for the mentor in hero’s journeys, as we see with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, and it also explains the theme of the phoenix. (We certainly know since the NYC interview that the phoenix theme doesn’t refer to Dumbledore literally coming back from the dead. He isn’t going to pull a Gandalf, remember?) I believe also that Dumbledore had some kind of final esoteric mysterious knowledge we can’t even guess right now, probably about Voldemort. Harry hasn’t been able to receive it yet, which I think was foreshadowed by the way he couldn’t receive Ginny’s knowledge about Voldemort. He can only do it after forgiving Snape, and offering him sacrificial love, or agape, and I think accepting sacrificial love from him, as he did from Sirius, James, Lily, and Dumbledore. Only in this way can he complete his hero’s journey, and understand the true meaning of his power of love.
And so it all comes together. We already knew that the Harry Potter series was much more than a group of simple children’s books, but we see now that it is far more multi-layered than we ever dreamed. It draws from the vast well of our unconscious mythology, combining a thousand ancient ideas in new and exciting ways. And it differs from historical Gnosticism in one vital way: we, too, may become initiates into its secret knowledge. It invites us, the readers, to take a vastly complex hero’s journey with Harry—one that may bring us all to a place of wisdom, and of love.
~end~
A/N Addendum, not included in the original presentation and/or essay:
Well, that’s my Predicting-the-Ending-of-Book-7 presentation. It got a good response at Lumos, I think. We had some long discussions afterward about the Gnostic Christianity aspects. Oo! Oo! It just got added to Hans Andrea’s archive!
http://harrypotterforseekers.com/articles/thedumbledorecode.php
So, check it out there.
Anyway, yep. This is really what I think is going to happen at the end of this entire series. Of course, as you may have noticed, it’s rather thin on specific details. So do y’all want to know my FFE (Favorite Fantasy Ending) for Book 7??
(Anise whips out crystal ball…)
Snape, acting in his double agent role, convinces Voldemort that Draco is salvageable, primarily because he knows the big secret about Harry and Ginny. Lucius Malfoy gets out of Azkaban in order to help Draco kidnap Ginny and bring her to Voldy as bait for Harry. Of course, the LP blowup has happened by now, and Ginny has done something along the lines of running off alone, racked with misery after Harry gets furiously angry with her. (As if he didn’t have any responsibility for what happened, and the way he treated her like crap and a disposable snogdoll all during HBP… well, that’s a topic for another essay. Let’s move on, shall we?) So Draco and Lucius get her. However, Lucius decides to work with Draco and Snape for the good side. (All kudos to Rainpuddle for the redeemed!Lucius idea!) God and JKR only know exactly how the plot plays out then, but it ends up with Ginny realizing that Draco’s been fascinated with her for years, and finally (probably in the epilogue) returning his feelings. Sigh.
Seriously, though? I actually do think that we really will see certain aspects of that ending in canon. We just don’t know which ones. We do have canon evidence that there’s at least an extremely strong possibility that Draco has been watching, noticing, thinking about, and perhaps even obsessing about Ginny for many years (see my addendum arguments to Creamtea's earlier Draco essay.) It’s a long shot that Draco and Ginny will end up together at the end of Book 7, but I do think that at least their way has been cleared. It’s pretty clear that Draco dumped Pansy, and I’m more convinced than ever before that Harry and Ginny did not have a genuine romantic relationship in HBP, and will not have it in Book 7. I’ve argued all the reasons why in excruciating detail on ARGH, but my favorite new piece of evidence is definitely JKR’s most recent comments in her NYC press conference. One thing she said was a staggering blow to that particular idea about romantic H/G. Basically, she said one of the main things that I’ve been arguing for months on end. So I’m a tad bit smug. ;) I’ll be opening a 1-900 psychic hotline soon. Only $4.99 a minute…
On that note, I’ve made a list of the “H/G-related” endings to Book 7, in ascending order of their likelihood—the least likely first, in other words.
Z.) H/G (or H/Anyone Else) becomes The One True Love That Will Defeat Voldemort.
This presentation details all the reason why this is so very unlikely to happen, but the shortest possible summary is that J.K.Rowling has already repeatedly established that romantic love-- eros-- does not save anyone in this world. Selfless love-- agape-- does do this. It has already worked for Harry four times.
So why isn't this possibility numbered, rather than lettered? Because it's an adjunct rather than a distinct theory of its own. It tends to get tacked on to any possible permutation of an actual plot-related theory, which are the ones we see coming up next.
Theoretically, it could apply to Harry and anybody else. The Eros That Saved the Universe is no more likely to happen between, say, Harry and Luna, or Harry and Susan Bones, but we clearly see that H/G is the only relationship argued in this way. The rules that J.K. Rowling herself has set up throughout this entire series preclude this from happening. Again and again, we will see this theme when it comes to H/G in Book 7. So now, let's move on to the specific possibilities...
7.) It’s explicitly revealed that H/G was a great relationship, genuine, true, and a wonderful idea from beginning to end in HBP, and it continues on this basis into Book 7. As y’all can see, I don’t think this is going to happen; I actually believe it to be the least likely scenario. We discuss all the reasons why this is the case in excruciating detail over at the ARGH board on FIA, but I really think it’s best summed up in this presentation itself.
In brief, there is nothing for Ginny as a person in the H/G relationship—no curiosity about who she is, no discussions about her past, no sharing of ideas or secrets or plans or information, no meaningful conversations, no nothing. Why is this important?
Well, these aspects of H/G do seem absolutely horrible in terms of an actual relationship. Chest monsters do not make for decent romantic partnerships in the real world. But in a way, none of that is the point. It would not be enough to doom H/G within a work of fiction, because a fictional narrative operates according to the rules that the author has set up, and these may not be the same that we live with in everyday life.
However, it is these rules that do form H/G’s fatal flaw, because it does not follow them. We’re hit upside the head over and over and over again with the canon fact that the exact qualities H/G lacks are the ones necessary for good relationships in the HP world, as is outlined in this presentation.
Hermione states that Cormac McLaggen hasn't asked her a single question about herself during the ill-fated Halloween party date, and Harry never asks Ginny anything about herself, even going so far as specifically informing us through his internal narrative that he will not deign to do this after The Kiss of Doom. Ron and Hermione have been fighting, bickering, and arguing constantly for six books before they get together romantically, and Ron avoids any conflict whatsover with his snogdoll relationship with Lavender Brown. Tonks yells at Remus. Harry and Ginny do not argue, do not work through their differences. Tonks explicitly states that she "does not care" about the obstacle that Remus tries to put in her way to stop their relationship, and also states that Fleur "does not care" about Bill's handicap. But Ginny asks Harry "What if I don't care?" (In fact, this is the very next time that the word "care" is used is a verb in the text.) When Harry refuses to engage with her in the way that Remus engaged with Tonks, she drops it. And so on, and on, and on.
So the way in which meaningful relationships have been defined by J.K. Rowling in this narrative preclude Postulation #7 from becoming… well, Book #7.
Of course, we can’t ever rule out the possibility that J.K. Rowling will be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Zoltar, who force her to write this kind of H/G in the last book as part of their evil plot to take over the universe. That’s why #7 is on the list at all.
6.) H/G becomes eternal true love in Book 7 without ever really dealing with its exact nature in HBP. This has most of the problems of #7. It’s more likely to happen than the previous example, but this is only because there are degrees of everything in life, as true-crime author Vincent Bugliosi tells us.
5.) It’s revealed that H/G in HBP was not genuine or good, but Harry and Ginny find each other on a deeper level and bond in Book 7.
4.) Ditto, but the bonding happens in the epilogue.
#’s 4 and 5 aren’t seen very much at all. Actually, apart from my own essays, I’ve never seen them presented as possibilities after HBP.
Arguments about H/G before HBP could be quite different, such as Red Monster’s very well-known essay. There was a lot to admire about it. She did a good job of outlining Ginny’s obsession with Harry, although the arguments had a tendency to fall apart logically when they came to Harry’s feelings about Ginny. We discussed her essay, and I think she was surprised at just how much of it I actually did agree with. The main problem was that it (and essays like it) postulated a certain way in which the H/G relationship would develop: Harry and Ginny would become friends, and slowly, they would come to understand their emotional connection, which would be a genuine one. Exactly the opposite happened in HBP. So the older arguments have been discarded, which is too bad, because they represented the only realistic chance that H/G has in Book 7.
Now, I truly hate H/G on so many levels that we could be here all day if I tried to explain them all. I can’t stand the lack of logic and careless disregard for the rules of empirical reasoning that are almost always found in the arguments supporting H/G after HBP. I don’t like all the sloppy thinking that surrounds H/G. Also, to be perfectly honest, H/G has become a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus for me. (Remember how Pavlov rang those bells just as the dogs were being fed? They started to drool when they heard the bells, even when there wasn’t any food around. The bells were a conditioned stimulus.) Just reading about it makes me feel kind of ill. I will always associate it with the threats and online stalking, even though they were the work of a few disturbed individuals, and most H/G supporters would never do anything as crazy and stupid as that. So, the point is that I just despise H/G.
But as much as I hate H/G, I will play devil’s advocate and say that nothing in the text precludes it coming to pass in Book 7 under the specific circumstances of #4 and #5. For a variety of reasons, I don’t think it will happen. However, I am not interested in Teh Shippy Arguments of Shippiness, only in logic and empirical evidence. And that’s what the empirical evidence says: it’s not impossible if it happened in this way. And that’s how you know that you can trust what I say about other things: I don’t twist the facts around into more appealing shapes because I don’t like where they logically might lead.
3.) CLPT is true in, essentially, every detail. It’s a very important part of the plot, as outlined in Creamtea’s essay.
2.) Love potions were meant thematically as metaphor, as explained in the first essay in this series. The plot aspect is basically the same, although not in its specific details. Harry was not literally dosed with actual love potions, but his relationship with Ginny was actually not significantly different than if he had been.
#2 would explain why love potions have such a looming presence in HBP, and why, in fact, they appeared several times in the series before HBP. It would explain why we saw them once in the past (Tom/Merope) but seven times in the present. It also would explain all the mentions of the “placebo effect” in HBP, which are otherwise pretty strange. Yet it’s also more palatable to a lot of people, because it doesn’t require believing that Harry actually was given an LP at any point.
But why do #2 and #3 occupy the positions that they do? Why aren’t they switched? Why isn’t #3 actually #1? I presented the CLPT theory and had input into it, after all. So why aren’t I championing it as the only possibility?
The answer’s pretty simple: because there’s no way to predict exactly what J.K. Rowling is going to do. I don’t think that anyone could possibly make a prediction that was correct in every detail. We’ll always be surprised by something in her writing. For that reason, the idea that Creamtea and/or I got every single last thing right is not the most likely thing in the world. I won’t be surprised if we both got some things wrong. However, I don’t think that us CLPT folks are going to be as surprised as many others when Book 7 comes out! ;)
So now let’s move on to…
(drum roll)
1.) Love potions were literally involved in some way in the present tense of HBP, but not exactly in the way that Creamtea or I thought they were. We were wrong in minor points, but right in major ones. The plot aspect is basically the same.
This, I think, is the most likely scenario of all. There are too many little details that simply aren’t explained any other way than by the idea that someone, somehow, at some point in time actually gave Harry love potions during his sixth year. They range from the strange inclusion of Hermione’s using a Confundus charm on Cormac McLaggen and never admitting that what she did was wrong, to Harry’s weird behavior after the Quidditch head injury, to Fred and George’s jokes, to all the page space spent on Harry’s unusual ability to resist the Imperius curse, to Fleur, to… well, you get the point.
Y’all might have noticed that none of this addresses whether Harry could end up with Luna, or Parvati, or Hedwig, or the giant squid. From the information we’ve been given in canon, I don’t’ think we can know who he might end up with—if anyone. I still don’t think that Harry is going to get a ship, and if he does, I honestly believe it’ll be in the epilogue and not in the main narrative at all. I wouldn’t be astonished to see him paired with Luna in a ten-years-later epilogue, although I’m not sure how likely it really is, either.
Also, we don’t really know what’s going to happen with Ginny as a character. I have a rather unformed feeling that she will be important, but that it will be in her own right. She’ll take action on her own; she won’t need to be joined to Harry at the hip, with her only possible importance as Teh Squishy Girlfriend of Doom. I think that’s the best way to interpret JKR’s continuing highly ambiguous comments about H/G, juxtaposed with her glowing comments about Ginny.
But when you get right down to it, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Except JKR, So wait, and find out… and in the meantime, read lots of D/G fanfic!!
~end~
Works Cited:
Anelli, Melissa, J.K. Rowling, and Emerson Spartz. "The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling." The Leaky Cauldron, 16 July 2005 http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/extras/aa-jointerview.html.
Bunyan, John. Pilgrim’s Progress. Buffalo: Geo. H. Derby and Co, 1853.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1968, 1972.
Campbell, Joseph, with Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York : Doubleday, c1988.
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap. New York: Basic Books, 1992.
Corzolino, Dr. Louis. Lecture at Columbia-HCA Conference. May 20, 2006.
The Epic of Gilgamesh. Transl. by Maureen Gallery Kovacs; Stanford University Press, 1989.
The Gospel of Judas. Commentary by Bart D. Ehrman. Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin, Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, eds. New York: National Geographic, 2006.
“The Gospel of Judas.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas. Cited 5/31/06
The Hero’s Journey: A Diagram. Online reference. http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sparks/heroj.html. Cited 5/20/06.
The Hero’s Journey in Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces and Star Wars. Online reference. http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~sparks/sffilm/mmswtab.html. Cited 5/20/06.
Harris, Reg. The Hero’s Journey: Life’s Great Adventure. Online article. http://www.yourheroicjourney.com/Journey.shtml. Cited 5/20/06.
The Hero’s Journey: Summary of the Steps. Online reference. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/ref/summary.html. Cited 5/21/06.
Milum, Lynne. Harry Potter: A New World Mythology? Online article. http://www.universallight.org/new_world_mythology.htm. 2002. Cited 5/20/06.
“Monomyth.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth. Cited 5/20/06.
The Naj Hammadi Library. Robinson, James, general ed. Transl. by the Gnostic Library Project. Leiden: Harper Collins, 1988.
Olanick, Christina. Harry’s Hero Journey. Online editorial. http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/editorials/edit-olanick02.shtml
Cited 5/20/06.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Scholastic Press, 2005.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic Press, 2003.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Scholastic Press,1999.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone. New York: Scholastic Press, 1997.
Rowling, J.K. Interview with Geordie Greig. Tatler Magazine. January 10, 2006. Published on Quick Quotes Quill. http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2006/0110-tatler-grieg.html Cited 5/23/06.
Rowling, J.K. "Author has frank words for the religious right." Interview with The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), October 26, 2000.
Weber, Ryan P. “Harry Potter's Quest: The Hero's Journey and the Shadow.” Issue 23, www.headlinemuse.com. Cited 5/20/06.
Weber, Ryan P. “Harry Potter and the Chamber of the Unconscious.” http://www.headlinemuse.com/moviereviews/harrychambersecrets.htm. Cited 5/20/06.
Weston, Jessie L. From Ritual to Romance. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Embellished, cancertopia, adorame, Sarah Prowess, Judibry, mugglemum, tudorrose1533, beckysue2, WG, Anya, and jandjsalmon.
Here it is, y'all... the last chapter. It has the stunning secret-squirrel ending to Book 7, as well as the extra D/G arguments. R and R!
+++
J. K. Rowling’s obvious hints in that interview, I think, really did only refer to the obvious—and yet, if she is only talking about the central idea of mainstream Christianity in that quote, why does she define herself in opposition to the “religious right?” Is there something about her religious ideas that may not be quite orthodox? Well, we do know that she writes about magic, and that the central idea of the magic we see here is special knowledge available to only a limited number of initiated people. We do see this exact idea in one specific hero’s journey narrative, and it is completely tied up with the power of agape love.
To understand this hero’s journey, which I will finally name in a minute, we need to look at its historical context, which may also apply to exactly what JKR was talking about: Gnostic Christianity. It is a term applied to modern revivals of various mystical religions that were very active in the first few centuries A.D. These belief systems tend to piggyback on Christian tenets, they do have their own set of apocryphal gospels, and they “typically recommend the pursuit of special knowledge, or gnosis, as the central goal of life. They also commonly depict posit a marked division between the material realm… and the higher spiritual realm.” (Naj Hammadi Gospels, pg.xvii.), to be Gnostic should be understood, but as being specially receptive to mystical or esoteric experiences of direct participation… it is a knowledge of divine mysteries for the elite.” This summation of Gnosticism is itself a good summary of the entire Harry Potter series. But there’s more.
Gnosticism as a whole, in fact, has always been strongly related to magic, alchemy, in some ways, it is the very definition of magic. Simon Magus, the historical founder of Gnosticism, is the archetypal magician, Gnosticism defines itself in separation from the mundane, unenlightened world, just as the world of witches and wizards is sharply separated from the world of Muggles. (And this finally provides a reason for the strange juxtaposition of the hero’s journey genre with the mystery genre in Harry Potter, because this is the very heart of Gnosticism—a quest for knowledge that is shrouded in mystery.)
The final clue-- to this being what JKR actually had in mind, that is-- may lie in a very strange detail in HBP. In the first Potions class with Horace Slughorn, Draco mentions his grandfather, who was named Abraxas Malfoy. Who is Abraxas? Historically, Abraxas was the extremely widespread general name of a Gnostic Christian god who incorporated both good and evil. He was always associated with Lucifer (and, of course, Draco’s father is named Lucius.) In addition, Abraxas was always pictured wrapped in a snake or dragon-- Draco. So all three male Malfoys—grandfather, father, and son—have been given names that clearly refer to Gnosticism. And the Malfoys are inextricably tied up with Snape.
Although we can’t know for sure if J.K. Rowling was talking about her Gnostic beliefs in that interview (unless she ever chooses to clarify the point further,) it does make sense that she was referring to some popularized ideas from Gnosticism that have filtered down to the present day. The next question, of course, is what precisely this might mean. One idea that has saturated public consciousness recently is the Cathars’ concept that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalen, and that she was the Goddess figure, as seen in The Da Vinci Code. I actually considered this one (Harry/Ginny/Luna/Giant Squid, anybody?) The canonical gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John-- are hero’s journeys, because we have all the elements, they follow the departure, initiation, and return structure, they include atonement with the father and apotheosis, and what the Gnostic gospels add is meeting with the goddess/other half. But we run up against the same old problem: it’s been repeatedly established that eros does not save anyone in Harry Potter’s world.
I think that there is still one more central secret, one that brings together Harry’s powers of love, hate, and forgiveness, his need to destroy Voldemort through these powers, and his ultimate quest for knowledge.( I’ve already established that I don’t think the key is in romantic love, and that even the idea that Harry must show agape to Snape is not quite the entire story). So what is it? I began to consider another Gnostic idea that has recently become quite well known due to the very recent work of National Geographic: Let’s look at The Gospel of Judas.
This is one of the so-called “Gnostic gospels” written at some point in the second century A.D., similar to the gospels found at Naj Hammadi that were translated in 1949. This gospel has been known for almost two thousand years through the writings of Bishop Iraneus, so J.K. Rowling would have had every chance to learn about it; the only thing that is new is the National Geographic translation. ( In fact, Nikos Kazantzakis wrote The Last Temptation of Christ in 1951 and it was translated into English in 1960, and a huge part of its plot is taken from the Gospel of Judas.)
It follows the basic storyline of the canonical gospels, but with one vital difference: in his betrayal of Jesus Christ, Judas was a hero, not a villain, and he acted out of perfect love. . He performed this task because Jesus instructed him to do it knowing that he had to die, and he did it to release the spirit of Christ from its physical constraints. The other disciples were kept ignorant of this plan because they were not enlightened enough to understand it.
If we recast these roles as Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry, it all comes together. Snape killed Dumbledore not only in order to keep Draco from the task; but to release Dumbledore from his human form, which traditional Gnostics believed to be a prison. Dumbledore knew that when he was no longer confined to his physical body, his power would be greater. This is a very familiar theme for the mentor in hero’s journeys, as we see with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, and it also explains the theme of the phoenix. (We certainly know since the NYC interview that the phoenix theme doesn’t refer to Dumbledore literally coming back from the dead. He isn’t going to pull a Gandalf, remember?) I believe also that Dumbledore had some kind of final esoteric mysterious knowledge we can’t even guess right now, probably about Voldemort. Harry hasn’t been able to receive it yet, which I think was foreshadowed by the way he couldn’t receive Ginny’s knowledge about Voldemort. He can only do it after forgiving Snape, and offering him sacrificial love, or agape, and I think accepting sacrificial love from him, as he did from Sirius, James, Lily, and Dumbledore. Only in this way can he complete his hero’s journey, and understand the true meaning of his power of love.
And so it all comes together. We already knew that the Harry Potter series was much more than a group of simple children’s books, but we see now that it is far more multi-layered than we ever dreamed. It draws from the vast well of our unconscious mythology, combining a thousand ancient ideas in new and exciting ways. And it differs from historical Gnosticism in one vital way: we, too, may become initiates into its secret knowledge. It invites us, the readers, to take a vastly complex hero’s journey with Harry—one that may bring us all to a place of wisdom, and of love.
~end~
A/N Addendum, not included in the original presentation and/or essay:
Well, that’s my Predicting-the-Ending-of-Book-7 presentation. It got a good response at Lumos, I think. We had some long discussions afterward about the Gnostic Christianity aspects. Oo! Oo! It just got added to Hans Andrea’s archive!
http://harrypotterforseekers.com/articles/thedumbledorecode.php
So, check it out there.
Anyway, yep. This is really what I think is going to happen at the end of this entire series. Of course, as you may have noticed, it’s rather thin on specific details. So do y’all want to know my FFE (Favorite Fantasy Ending) for Book 7??
(Anise whips out crystal ball…)
Snape, acting in his double agent role, convinces Voldemort that Draco is salvageable, primarily because he knows the big secret about Harry and Ginny. Lucius Malfoy gets out of Azkaban in order to help Draco kidnap Ginny and bring her to Voldy as bait for Harry. Of course, the LP blowup has happened by now, and Ginny has done something along the lines of running off alone, racked with misery after Harry gets furiously angry with her. (As if he didn’t have any responsibility for what happened, and the way he treated her like crap and a disposable snogdoll all during HBP… well, that’s a topic for another essay. Let’s move on, shall we?) So Draco and Lucius get her. However, Lucius decides to work with Draco and Snape for the good side. (All kudos to Rainpuddle for the redeemed!Lucius idea!) God and JKR only know exactly how the plot plays out then, but it ends up with Ginny realizing that Draco’s been fascinated with her for years, and finally (probably in the epilogue) returning his feelings. Sigh.
Seriously, though? I actually do think that we really will see certain aspects of that ending in canon. We just don’t know which ones. We do have canon evidence that there’s at least an extremely strong possibility that Draco has been watching, noticing, thinking about, and perhaps even obsessing about Ginny for many years (see my addendum arguments to Creamtea's earlier Draco essay.) It’s a long shot that Draco and Ginny will end up together at the end of Book 7, but I do think that at least their way has been cleared. It’s pretty clear that Draco dumped Pansy, and I’m more convinced than ever before that Harry and Ginny did not have a genuine romantic relationship in HBP, and will not have it in Book 7. I’ve argued all the reasons why in excruciating detail on ARGH, but my favorite new piece of evidence is definitely JKR’s most recent comments in her NYC press conference. One thing she said was a staggering blow to that particular idea about romantic H/G. Basically, she said one of the main things that I’ve been arguing for months on end. So I’m a tad bit smug. ;) I’ll be opening a 1-900 psychic hotline soon. Only $4.99 a minute…
On that note, I’ve made a list of the “H/G-related” endings to Book 7, in ascending order of their likelihood—the least likely first, in other words.
Z.) H/G (or H/Anyone Else) becomes The One True Love That Will Defeat Voldemort.
This presentation details all the reason why this is so very unlikely to happen, but the shortest possible summary is that J.K.Rowling has already repeatedly established that romantic love-- eros-- does not save anyone in this world. Selfless love-- agape-- does do this. It has already worked for Harry four times.
So why isn't this possibility numbered, rather than lettered? Because it's an adjunct rather than a distinct theory of its own. It tends to get tacked on to any possible permutation of an actual plot-related theory, which are the ones we see coming up next.
Theoretically, it could apply to Harry and anybody else. The Eros That Saved the Universe is no more likely to happen between, say, Harry and Luna, or Harry and Susan Bones, but we clearly see that H/G is the only relationship argued in this way. The rules that J.K. Rowling herself has set up throughout this entire series preclude this from happening. Again and again, we will see this theme when it comes to H/G in Book 7. So now, let's move on to the specific possibilities...
7.) It’s explicitly revealed that H/G was a great relationship, genuine, true, and a wonderful idea from beginning to end in HBP, and it continues on this basis into Book 7. As y’all can see, I don’t think this is going to happen; I actually believe it to be the least likely scenario. We discuss all the reasons why this is the case in excruciating detail over at the ARGH board on FIA, but I really think it’s best summed up in this presentation itself.
In brief, there is nothing for Ginny as a person in the H/G relationship—no curiosity about who she is, no discussions about her past, no sharing of ideas or secrets or plans or information, no meaningful conversations, no nothing. Why is this important?
Well, these aspects of H/G do seem absolutely horrible in terms of an actual relationship. Chest monsters do not make for decent romantic partnerships in the real world. But in a way, none of that is the point. It would not be enough to doom H/G within a work of fiction, because a fictional narrative operates according to the rules that the author has set up, and these may not be the same that we live with in everyday life.
However, it is these rules that do form H/G’s fatal flaw, because it does not follow them. We’re hit upside the head over and over and over again with the canon fact that the exact qualities H/G lacks are the ones necessary for good relationships in the HP world, as is outlined in this presentation.
Hermione states that Cormac McLaggen hasn't asked her a single question about herself during the ill-fated Halloween party date, and Harry never asks Ginny anything about herself, even going so far as specifically informing us through his internal narrative that he will not deign to do this after The Kiss of Doom. Ron and Hermione have been fighting, bickering, and arguing constantly for six books before they get together romantically, and Ron avoids any conflict whatsover with his snogdoll relationship with Lavender Brown. Tonks yells at Remus. Harry and Ginny do not argue, do not work through their differences. Tonks explicitly states that she "does not care" about the obstacle that Remus tries to put in her way to stop their relationship, and also states that Fleur "does not care" about Bill's handicap. But Ginny asks Harry "What if I don't care?" (In fact, this is the very next time that the word "care" is used is a verb in the text.) When Harry refuses to engage with her in the way that Remus engaged with Tonks, she drops it. And so on, and on, and on.
So the way in which meaningful relationships have been defined by J.K. Rowling in this narrative preclude Postulation #7 from becoming… well, Book #7.
Of course, we can’t ever rule out the possibility that J.K. Rowling will be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Zoltar, who force her to write this kind of H/G in the last book as part of their evil plot to take over the universe. That’s why #7 is on the list at all.
6.) H/G becomes eternal true love in Book 7 without ever really dealing with its exact nature in HBP. This has most of the problems of #7. It’s more likely to happen than the previous example, but this is only because there are degrees of everything in life, as true-crime author Vincent Bugliosi tells us.
5.) It’s revealed that H/G in HBP was not genuine or good, but Harry and Ginny find each other on a deeper level and bond in Book 7.
4.) Ditto, but the bonding happens in the epilogue.
#’s 4 and 5 aren’t seen very much at all. Actually, apart from my own essays, I’ve never seen them presented as possibilities after HBP.
Arguments about H/G before HBP could be quite different, such as Red Monster’s very well-known essay. There was a lot to admire about it. She did a good job of outlining Ginny’s obsession with Harry, although the arguments had a tendency to fall apart logically when they came to Harry’s feelings about Ginny. We discussed her essay, and I think she was surprised at just how much of it I actually did agree with. The main problem was that it (and essays like it) postulated a certain way in which the H/G relationship would develop: Harry and Ginny would become friends, and slowly, they would come to understand their emotional connection, which would be a genuine one. Exactly the opposite happened in HBP. So the older arguments have been discarded, which is too bad, because they represented the only realistic chance that H/G has in Book 7.
Now, I truly hate H/G on so many levels that we could be here all day if I tried to explain them all. I can’t stand the lack of logic and careless disregard for the rules of empirical reasoning that are almost always found in the arguments supporting H/G after HBP. I don’t like all the sloppy thinking that surrounds H/G. Also, to be perfectly honest, H/G has become a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus for me. (Remember how Pavlov rang those bells just as the dogs were being fed? They started to drool when they heard the bells, even when there wasn’t any food around. The bells were a conditioned stimulus.) Just reading about it makes me feel kind of ill. I will always associate it with the threats and online stalking, even though they were the work of a few disturbed individuals, and most H/G supporters would never do anything as crazy and stupid as that. So, the point is that I just despise H/G.
But as much as I hate H/G, I will play devil’s advocate and say that nothing in the text precludes it coming to pass in Book 7 under the specific circumstances of #4 and #5. For a variety of reasons, I don’t think it will happen. However, I am not interested in Teh Shippy Arguments of Shippiness, only in logic and empirical evidence. And that’s what the empirical evidence says: it’s not impossible if it happened in this way. And that’s how you know that you can trust what I say about other things: I don’t twist the facts around into more appealing shapes because I don’t like where they logically might lead.
3.) CLPT is true in, essentially, every detail. It’s a very important part of the plot, as outlined in Creamtea’s essay.
2.) Love potions were meant thematically as metaphor, as explained in the first essay in this series. The plot aspect is basically the same, although not in its specific details. Harry was not literally dosed with actual love potions, but his relationship with Ginny was actually not significantly different than if he had been.
#2 would explain why love potions have such a looming presence in HBP, and why, in fact, they appeared several times in the series before HBP. It would explain why we saw them once in the past (Tom/Merope) but seven times in the present. It also would explain all the mentions of the “placebo effect” in HBP, which are otherwise pretty strange. Yet it’s also more palatable to a lot of people, because it doesn’t require believing that Harry actually was given an LP at any point.
But why do #2 and #3 occupy the positions that they do? Why aren’t they switched? Why isn’t #3 actually #1? I presented the CLPT theory and had input into it, after all. So why aren’t I championing it as the only possibility?
The answer’s pretty simple: because there’s no way to predict exactly what J.K. Rowling is going to do. I don’t think that anyone could possibly make a prediction that was correct in every detail. We’ll always be surprised by something in her writing. For that reason, the idea that Creamtea and/or I got every single last thing right is not the most likely thing in the world. I won’t be surprised if we both got some things wrong. However, I don’t think that us CLPT folks are going to be as surprised as many others when Book 7 comes out! ;)
So now let’s move on to…
(drum roll)
1.) Love potions were literally involved in some way in the present tense of HBP, but not exactly in the way that Creamtea or I thought they were. We were wrong in minor points, but right in major ones. The plot aspect is basically the same.
This, I think, is the most likely scenario of all. There are too many little details that simply aren’t explained any other way than by the idea that someone, somehow, at some point in time actually gave Harry love potions during his sixth year. They range from the strange inclusion of Hermione’s using a Confundus charm on Cormac McLaggen and never admitting that what she did was wrong, to Harry’s weird behavior after the Quidditch head injury, to Fred and George’s jokes, to all the page space spent on Harry’s unusual ability to resist the Imperius curse, to Fleur, to… well, you get the point.
Y’all might have noticed that none of this addresses whether Harry could end up with Luna, or Parvati, or Hedwig, or the giant squid. From the information we’ve been given in canon, I don’t’ think we can know who he might end up with—if anyone. I still don’t think that Harry is going to get a ship, and if he does, I honestly believe it’ll be in the epilogue and not in the main narrative at all. I wouldn’t be astonished to see him paired with Luna in a ten-years-later epilogue, although I’m not sure how likely it really is, either.
Also, we don’t really know what’s going to happen with Ginny as a character. I have a rather unformed feeling that she will be important, but that it will be in her own right. She’ll take action on her own; she won’t need to be joined to Harry at the hip, with her only possible importance as Teh Squishy Girlfriend of Doom. I think that’s the best way to interpret JKR’s continuing highly ambiguous comments about H/G, juxtaposed with her glowing comments about Ginny.
But when you get right down to it, nobody knows what’s going to happen. Except JKR, So wait, and find out… and in the meantime, read lots of D/G fanfic!!
~end~
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To Be Continued.
Anise is the author of 56 other stories.
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This story is a favorite of 5 members. Members who liked Anise's Insightful Lumos Presentations also liked 1179 other stories.
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