So, I was watching Order of the Phoenix on cable while reading Deathly Hallows the other day, because it was just that sort of a weekend, and it got me thinking about a particular bit of meta I’d heard around: that the HP books don’t do parallels as a cycle so much as a parabola. IE, Book 1 parallels Book 7, and 2 with 6, etc, with 4 as the turning point, where Voldemort comes back and everything changes.
The more I look at it, the more parallels I find to support the idea, both big thematic ones and little ones. I know I’m missing a bunch, though, so I thought I’d throw this imcomplete list out there for general discussion and see what pops up!
Philosopher’s Stone and Deathly Hallows
Beginnings/endings (obviously)
Life/death/immortality are enormous themes
There’s a rock that can defeat death in some way
Somebody robs Gringotts/there is a thing with dragons
Anything else that can’t just be attributed to first-and-last-ing?
Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince
Who is the Heir of Slytherin vs. who is the Half-Blood Prince
Lockhart vs Slughorn, vanity, self-service
Meet the first horcrux (diary)/learn what horcruxes are
Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix
Themes of newspapers, reports, what you’re told vs what’s true
Dementors/dementor attacks
Harry uses underage magic before school starts
The Marauders running around Hogwarts in secret vs the DA
Protect The Children
I know there’s more, especially between CoS and HBP. It’s also interesting to me how many of these things can be found in GoF but not other books–dragons, for instance, show up in PS, GoF, and DH, but don’t really have a presence anywhere else, do they? And Rita Skeeter fits right in with the propaganda machines of PoA and OotP.
A list of reasons I’m divorcing J.K. Rowling and no longer acknowledging anything Past Deathly Hallows
None of it makes sense or really adds anything to the story except ‘ooh! A twist!’
She took the The Boy Who Lived To Idolize His Parents, and made him into a terrible father, who told his son he wishes he wasn’t born.
Made lycanthropy an allegory for HIV/AIDS, AFTER Lupin was turned as a child, by an adult. Not only does this tick the box for pedophilia, but painting homosexuals as predatory by nature.
Delphi. Everything about her. Including that she exists.
During the actual series, wandless magic was incredibly difficult to do, and only harnessed by very dedicated, powerful witches and wizards. Then, when writing about it in reference to Native American witches and wizards, suddenly, they needed Europeans to come along and teach them how to use wands.
Dumbledore being gay, whilst having none of his romantic relationships touched on in the series, even when his adolescence is delved into.
Taking from other cultures (Indian and Native American, for example) to add things to the series, with no credit due to those cultures, and no mention of even a character from those cultures.
Nagini somehow being a human originally, when it was previously never even alluded to, despite J.K. apparently ‘sitting on this for the last 20 years’.
Nagini, the literal PET of a white supremacist, was a woman of color.
None of these things she attempts to shoehorn in feel even remotely natural to the story, and it’s painfully fucking obvious they’re last-minute ‘gotcha!’ twists ripped off ff.net or ao3. She’s destroying the series by trying to keep it relevant, when it could maintain relevancy all on it’s own by being passed down through families and the fandom all on it’s own.
Well, iirc it began with a chat with @essayofthoughts – I think it was mostly me pondering like, Veela social dynamics? Possibly? And the position of half-humanoid but wholly-magical people within wizarding society during the wartime and interwar periods in the UK.
I don’t remember Bellona not being there, she just sees to have appeared fully formed in my head. Some things came later – Ukki and Aleksi in Taivolkovski, Neville’s confrontation, the magpie feathers peeping through Bellona’s milkmaid braids, her whole friendship with Blaise, Lupin’s negative reaction to seeing her for the first time – but Bellona de Poitiers, daughter of Veela, descendant of Diane de Poitiers (hence her mother’s family living in Valence) just sort of. Appeared?
(Part of the attraction of using Diane as her ancestor – aside from the obvious – is Diane’s reputation for wearing black and white. I thought that could be a really nice little thing for Bellona, who’s tied up between her Veela family, who she knows, who she is, and her wizarding family, who she finds, who she becomes, and that’s rendered all in shades of black and white.)
Cheloneuniverse 