Tag: Dark Lord

CharactersLife lessons

Harry, Ron, Hermione And The Path To Growing Up And Saving The World

Posted on by francia

Most teens would know that growing up is hard enough as it is, making your parents proud of you, getting good marks in school. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had to do all of this and fight off the Dark Lord Voldemort, also responsible for the killing of Harry Potters family and countless others and trying to take over the Wizarding World. The biggest problem that Muggle teenagers face is trying to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend and try and pass through high school with high enough marks to get into a good university. The Wizarding World however has all these and much more such as wondering if your family has been killed by Death Eaters yet or if there is a spy in the school trying to let Death Eaters into the school and kill the Headmaster. Harry, Ron and Hermione get the brunt of all of this Wizarding drama because of Harry Potter being destined to be the one to vanquish the Dark Lord and Ron and Hermione simply because they chose to be his best friends. From the very start the trio were finding themselves in the Library searching for the meaning of the name Nicholas Flamel and seeing what kind of treasure he had hidden in the school that they believed the Potions Master was trying to steal for the Dark Lord Voldemort. Somehow between all of these setbacks the trio end up being on the passing side of the line each year.

Despite facing death several times throughout their time at Hogwarts their schooling seems to continue on despite an uproar of angry parents at times and they stick with it to the end. Each year the Dark Lord Voldemort sets his ever growing gaze on the school until eventually comes The Battle Of Hogwarts where Voldemort and his disciples finally gather up the courage to attack the school. Nothing like this would ever come close to coming true in the Muggle world where an army of evil people attack a high school and not just that, but they get defeated by the students. You can imagine how painful exam time must have been for them, what with facing the Dark Lord himself, barely escaping death and countless serious injuries and still having to study for that pesky Defence Against The Dark Arts exam. Wizarding school would be undoubtedly harder than Muggle school because not only do they learn things that they would use on a day to day basis they also learn self defence in the school and in that time period that might have been the most important class they ever took, despite it being taken over by Death Eaters and turned into a Dark Arts class at one point.

Despite every setback that the three friends had faced throughout their early teenage years to their early adulthood they still ended up alright with kids and good careers. If someone was to look at this from year one and know about all the predicaments that they would face throughout the years I believe it would be a safe bet to say that they wouldn’t make it out of that school in one piece but against most odds they made it and they are successful in the Wizarding World today. There is no way any Muggle children would have a harder life than Harry Potter and it is a surprise he ended up on top and with Voldemort dead, I mean not many people and even Wizards at that could say that they beat Voldemort when they were nothing more than a year old, had faced him several times throughout high school, lived and had defeated him for the last time when they had just finished high school.

Curiosities

By Any Other Name: What Harry Potter Names Mean

Posted on by francia

Names in fiction are an excellent way to give readers a clue as to the personality or nature of a character—whether it’s in their nicknames, their first names, or their last names, the way characters are referred to in stories like Harry Potter are important.

Remus Lupin, for example. When Remus Lupin was a child, a werewolf bit him, and that bite turned Remus into a werewolf as well. This didn’t stop him from becoming a Hogwarts professor, or from having a group of loyal and dedicated friends. The interesting thing is Lupin’s name. Remus is actually also the name of a mythological figure. Legends about Remus and his brother Romulus detailed that they were raised by a she-wolf—and that they founded Rome. Like the legendary Remus, Professor Lupin manages to overcome his past and rise to great heights. Another interesting point about Lupin’s name is that ‘lupin’ is actually related to the Latin word for wolf. It seems that Remus Lupin was destined to be associated with wolves (and werewolves) from birth.

Sirius Black is Harry Potter’s godfather, as well as a close personal friend of Remus Lupin. While they were students at Hogwarts, Sirius, along with James Potter and Peter Pettigrew, studied and trained to become an Animagus, or a wizard who can transform into an animal. The animal that Sirius chose to take on the appearance of is a big, black dog—one that other characters routinely mistake for being a Grim, a particularly nasty omen of death. Astronomically speaking, Sirius is the brightest star of the Canis Major or “Great Dog” constellation. This association has led to the star/star system of Sirius being colloquially referred to as the “Dogstar”.

Merope Gaunt, the mother of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Jr. (who would later become Lord Voldemort) is named after the youngest of the Pleiades, the companions of Artemis. They were the daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione, and share their name with the star-cluster of Pleiades. In the mythology, Merope married Sisyphus, a mortal. After bearing him several sons, she faded away—this is in part because she was becoming mortal. It is interesting to note that Merope Gaunt died after giving birth to Tom Riddle, Jr. In some ways, there seems to be a reflection of the Merope of myth in the Merope of Harry Potter.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was Voldemort’s name, before he took up the mantle of Dark Lord. In both the book and the movie, it is revealed that Tom Riddle’s full name is actually an anagram of “I Am Lord Voldemort”. This means that when the books were translated into different languages, in order to translate the anagram with the name, the name of Voldemort had to be changed. For example, in the French edition of Harry Potter, Voldemort’s name is Tom Elvis Jedusor.

Voldemort itself is an interesting name—Voldemort can be translated from French to mean ‘flight from death’. (It’s a fitting title for someone who tried so hard to escape death by not only seeking eternal life but also by attempting to become death’s Master.)

The tradition of having names that relate to stars and mythology extends to the younger generations of Harry Potter characters—Draco Malfoy, for example. “Draco” is the Latin for ‘dragon’, and can refer to not only the mythological creature, but also an Athenian lawgiver. This lawgiver was known for his particularly ruthless laws. “Malfoy” can be translated from French to mean ‘bad faith’; this is particularly interesting, seeing as the Malfoy family was not only aligned with Voldemort for years, but also seeing as the family broke from Voldemort’s ranks and aided Harry Potter, Voldemort’s greatest enemy.