Rituals in the Wizarding World
12 Jan 2006 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salinea(in case anyone wonders, this is inspired by several people's essays here, here and here)
As often in such cases, people are trying to analyze things along a paradigm that directly opposes religion to technology. *picture me wincing*
I'm not going to try to define what I mean by religion, I'm going to avoid the term altogether.
Actually there's quite a few rituals and ritualistic behaviours being part of the WW culture. And, Voldemort's resurection in GoF aside, quite a few of them involve magic.
We haven't seen Fidelius casted on screen but there's a feeling of ritual about it. The Unbreakable Vow casting is definitly a ritual as well. They're both very legalist kind of rituals. But then again law and justice is often very ritualized, isn't it ?
I think one of the thing I find interesting in both those spells is the attribution of roles to specific people. The Secret Keeper in case of Fidelius, and the Binder in the Unbreakable Vow. A tierce person who serves as catalyst the whole point of the spell and onto which rests its success and failure. A witness.
Witness is another classical key concept to the form of Magical Duel we're introduced to in CoS. Now duels by nature are rituals. It involves specific behaviours, limits, and serves to settle wrongs of a personnal nature. Again, a very legalist kind of ritual.
Another very important ritual to both the WW and the HP fandom is the Sorting Ceremony.
The Houses themselves are ripe with symbolical meanings which is often used (and overused) by the HP fandom. The colours, animals, virtues and flaws associated by each House, the belonging to a community aspect, and the formalization of relationships between specific Houses (like the Slytherin vs Gryffindor rivalry oft mentionned in fanon if not canon) are all elements that makes me want to talk of it as an rite of passage.
The Sorting Ceremony of course resides not on specific actions to be done by the new student, but on the decision of a supposedly omnicient mystical hat, deposit of the wisdom of mythical founders.
Likewise the Tri-Wizard tournament rested on the judgement of another mystical object : the Goblet of Fire. And added the idea of magically binding contract for another bit of legalist ritual fun. In itself the GoF is a symbolical object, underlined metaphorically by the cauldron into which Voldemort is resurected and the Champion and metatextually by references to the Graal and the Cauldron of Dagda.
Like the Sorting Hat, it's a relic, an object charged with history and intent as a result of it, one that is trusted implicitely. One that judges and chooses people.
All sorts of sports and tests of course can be again seen as ritualized. The Tri-Wizard tournament's three tasks certainly are. Quidditch is also. But another interesting case is the different tests made in obstacle to the Philosopher's Stone. The way that Harry passed them, testing specific qualities and types of knowledge each time, the progressive discarding of his friends as they helped him, until he's faced to the Mirror of Erised and Quirrelmort is a whole sequence ripe with symbolical meaning and mythological resonnance which makes it another interesting rite of passage. Of course this is not actually a ritual within the Wizarding culture, but a metatextual one.
As often in such cases, people are trying to analyze things along a paradigm that directly opposes religion to technology. *picture me wincing*
I'm not going to try to define what I mean by religion, I'm going to avoid the term altogether.
Actually there's quite a few rituals and ritualistic behaviours being part of the WW culture. And, Voldemort's resurection in GoF aside, quite a few of them involve magic.
We haven't seen Fidelius casted on screen but there's a feeling of ritual about it. The Unbreakable Vow casting is definitly a ritual as well. They're both very legalist kind of rituals. But then again law and justice is often very ritualized, isn't it ?
I think one of the thing I find interesting in both those spells is the attribution of roles to specific people. The Secret Keeper in case of Fidelius, and the Binder in the Unbreakable Vow. A tierce person who serves as catalyst the whole point of the spell and onto which rests its success and failure. A witness.
Witness is another classical key concept to the form of Magical Duel we're introduced to in CoS. Now duels by nature are rituals. It involves specific behaviours, limits, and serves to settle wrongs of a personnal nature. Again, a very legalist kind of ritual.
Another very important ritual to both the WW and the HP fandom is the Sorting Ceremony.
The Houses themselves are ripe with symbolical meanings which is often used (and overused) by the HP fandom. The colours, animals, virtues and flaws associated by each House, the belonging to a community aspect, and the formalization of relationships between specific Houses (like the Slytherin vs Gryffindor rivalry oft mentionned in fanon if not canon) are all elements that makes me want to talk of it as an rite of passage.
The Sorting Ceremony of course resides not on specific actions to be done by the new student, but on the decision of a supposedly omnicient mystical hat, deposit of the wisdom of mythical founders.
Likewise the Tri-Wizard tournament rested on the judgement of another mystical object : the Goblet of Fire. And added the idea of magically binding contract for another bit of legalist ritual fun. In itself the GoF is a symbolical object, underlined metaphorically by the cauldron into which Voldemort is resurected and the Champion and metatextually by references to the Graal and the Cauldron of Dagda.
Like the Sorting Hat, it's a relic, an object charged with history and intent as a result of it, one that is trusted implicitely. One that judges and chooses people.
All sorts of sports and tests of course can be again seen as ritualized. The Tri-Wizard tournament's three tasks certainly are. Quidditch is also. But another interesting case is the different tests made in obstacle to the Philosopher's Stone. The way that Harry passed them, testing specific qualities and types of knowledge each time, the progressive discarding of his friends as they helped him, until he's faced to the Mirror of Erised and Quirrelmort is a whole sequence ripe with symbolical meaning and mythological resonnance which makes it another interesting rite of passage. Of course this is not actually a ritual within the Wizarding culture, but a metatextual one.
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Date: 13 January 2006 03:17 pm (UTC)Some of the signs are very fun too, though I've found few that would be really interesting to analyze. Fenrir is an obvious one, but there's few deeper connection to draw. Remus' slightly more fun given his character. I see no correlation with Hermione (then again my knowledge is limited to Racine, maybe Shaekspeare would be a more pertinent)
All the star names are very cool and fun. So is Lucius Malfoy.
I wouldn't know about the compareason to existing witchcraft rites, of course ^^ Can you explain some ?
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Date: 15 January 2006 01:54 am (UTC)