Harry Potter and the Book of Changes (again)
One other reading I did about the latest HP book (and I do promise that the next blog entry will be about something different)…
…was about where Snape stands at the end. I admit, I don’t have any very lofty motives for this reading. Maybe I’ve read too many detective novels – scratch that, I’ve definitely read far too many – but I think I can recognise misdirection when I see it. I reckon there’s a good chance we’ll find out that Dumbledore (and Hagrid) were right about him all along, that Dumbledore was pleading with him at the end to kill him himself, and not to make Malfoy do so, and so on.
So, out of sheer curiosity, I asked Yi,
‘Where does Snape stand at the end of the book?’
Answer: 28, Great Overstepping, no changing lines.
Hm… there’s got to be a very good reason why that’s the complement of Harry’s hexagram.
Snape is in the middle of a great transition. The ridgepole is buckling – didn’t Hagrid overhear Snape telling Dumbledore he was putting too much on him? – and with the hexagram unchanging, there’s no way of knowing whether or not it will break. He will have to choose his ‘direction to go’. Maybe Snape hasn’t decided yet – maybe his creator hasn’t. Roll on book seven…
July 21st, 2005 at 11:44 pm
“(and I do promise that the next blog entry will be about something different)”
FWIW, I for one think it’s perfectly wonderful that Yi reads Harry Potter. (And watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer *g*. And enjoys tennis matches. *g*)
And what you said about it being a good way to learn the hexagrams makes sooo much sense. There’s no emotional baggage, urgency, impending doom etc. like there quite often is in readings about our own selves. You can be utterly calm and relaxed about the whole thing.
Plus which, especially with books and TV shows, it’s a self-contained universe. We all know absolutely as much as there is to know about it…..if you know what I’m trying to say there…..(can’t explain my way out of a paper bag sometimes…..
Lisa
July 22nd, 2005 at 12:26 am
One more thing (as Columbo would say *g*)….
The ‘lofty’ questions are all very fine; I’ve asked them myself – but let’s face it, we humans ain’t all that lofty (if we were, we could put the I Ching & other sources of wisdom behind glass in museums) – we need the wisdom WHERE WE ACTUALLY ARE. ‘Triviality’ is such a relative concept…
And perhaps Yi’s responses to the messy, silly, frivolous, harebrained (etc.) details of our lives will help us become better people, and eventually help us BECOME lofty (lofti-ER anyway)…isn’t that probably God’s hope for us? (Or whatever higher entity one believes in.)
Lisa
July 22nd, 2005 at 1:21 am
Hilary…
Interesting that Harry should draw hex 27 and Snape should draw 28… hmmmm.
July 22nd, 2005 at 8:21 am
Val – yes, interesting, isn’t it?
Lisa – agreeing with you every step of the way: being baggage-free, the fun you can have in a self-contained universe, and the gift of being harebrained. Another thing is that I find I think most fluently in stories, if you see what I mean.
July 22nd, 2005 at 9:46 pm
Hilary – yes, I think I understand what you mean, but not what it’s like. Sounds like a wonderful way to think!
May 6th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
[...] Harry Potter and the Book of Changes (again) [...]