On Divination

[TSPerez]

I just finished reading "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." I have all the other volumes. I can't say that I'm an avid fan, but I love Rowling's cozy style. I am glad that, finally, the fundamentalists have stopped trying to put her down.

I love the Harry Potter series because of the faculty members of Hogwarts. Each volume introduces at least one new faculty member who is so carefully characterized and three-dimensional. I am convinced that the series is not about Harry and his gang (who verge on being stereotypes) after all but about the faculty of Hogwarts, who remain the most memorable figures in my mind.

Yet, my friends (those who follow the series, anyway), I hope you have all noticed that Rowling has a negative attitude towards divination, as represented by Professor Trelawney and the centaur, not to mention similar quotes from Dumbledore and other faculty members that reveal what the author thinks and feels about the subject.

It is very disconcerting to me, and perhaps should also be to this community.

 

[firemaiden]

I don't know, I think it is a mixed attitude, after all the strange professor Trelawney gave forth the original prophecy which is the focus of so much of the plot.

I believe it is wise for the authoress to eschew the art of divination here -- Prophecy is too burdensome a literary device in that it does not allow for free-will or suspenseful plot building.

 

[rcb30872]

Hi TSPerez

I'm sure that I have said hello to you before. Oh well, welcome.

Bec

PS That is because I have. You already have an introduction thing here already!! Doh!!!!!!

 

[Ace]

TSPerez, why don't you copy your comment and post it in the Harry Potter 6 thread:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=44895

We could really discuss it proper there.

I think she is making fun of people who follow their horoscope religiously and such types. The centaur is much more reasonable in his view of divination and I think in the end, as Dumbledore discusses with Harry, Voldemorte MADE the prophesy important and targeted Harry, rather than Harry was important and a target because of the prophesy.
Ace

 

[TSPerez]

Thanks for your commentss

It's just that Professor Trelawney is so spoofed up and presented in such a negative light to impressionable readers. It is clear that even Harry, Herminone and Ron don't like her.

On divination as a literary device, I beg to disagree. The beauty of divination--including, yes, the prophecies in the Bible--is that it is so open to many different interpretations. Hence, exegesis.

Read through "Phoenix" again. Even the Ministry of Magic has a discouraging attitude to divination as a subject.

Oh, well. I can't write for Rowling, of course. But there have been enough stereotypes of divination already, adding to the general confusion. Thank God people don't burn us at the stake anymore. Or do they?

 

[TSPerez]

For Ace

Ace, I can't post anywhere else. I am a new member and not subscribed. One of the moderators posted my comment in the chat room and I couldn't even get in it! Does subscription entail a fee?

 

[Sophie]

I think she is spoofing "Mystic Meg" types of diviners and the like. Professor Trelawney is a funny character - I'm glad she exists.

She also makes the point - often made on AT - that the future is not fixed in stone. I think it's a healthy attitude for all diviners to have. We do have free will, after all.

 

[zorya]

unfortunately, i once did read an interview of rowling, in which she pretty much said she thought divination was nonsense. i read this several years ago, so am not sure i could find it again.

i still love the books, although knowing this about rowling, does cause me to cringe, every time i read about trelawny, or when someone in the book expresses similar sentiment.

 

[urbandryad]

I am...unfortunately, guilty of denying my own Divinatory roots. I was Pagan, for awhile, and I adored it, but the minute I meet somebody who is Pagan in the negative way, I panic, and run to the next closest safest religion I can give myself that I don't have to worry about commiting too. I'm guilty of being stuck in the black puddle of muck called 'sin' that has been ingrained into my conciense since I was a tiny babe.

But I love Harry Potter. Its really connected me to the supernatural non-traditional world in a way that I can commit to. I just wish Trelawney wasn't such a scam artist. I play a Divination Professor on a Hogwarts time game, and original character, and even though they see as Div professors as needing to be 'like' Trelawney, I don't play that way, but I'm still there. Its wonderful to do stuff like Divination classes and everything. I wish it were real.

In the real world, eh, I'm still struggling with finding a niche. I guess I'll have to find that 'Harry Potter' world for me to sink into. XD

Am I unrealistic in my expectations? Yes. Am I having fun in the process? Also a yes.

What can I say? I'm a Potterfan!

 

[Sophie]

unfortunately, i once did read an interview of rowling, in which she pretty much said she thought divination was nonsense. [...] knowing this about rowling, does cause me to cringe, every time i read about trelawny, or when someone in the book expresses similar sentiment.

Ah well. Nobody is perfect...but I still think she is talking about Mystic Meg - and if she thinks divination is nonsense, she hasn't bothered to look any further. Pity, really - but hardly surprising, given how divination is regarded in the UK generally. I remember when I started tarot (I lived in London for 10 years) - my friends spluttered and became incredulous and then raised their eyebrows - another one of my eccentricities, apparently. But curiously, tarot readers do a roaring trade there anyway...and I had no shortage of friends & strangers asking me for readings