Slytherin, Houses and their elements - discuss!
Listening to the “Snape and Slytherin” discussion on Snapecast today I am moved to make an appeal for ideas and viewpoints on the larger issues raised about Slytherin and the houses of Hogwarts: how they define and portray the variation of our inherent qualities.
The issue of the nature of the Houses, their qualities, and their relative goodness or propensity for evil… this is quite muddied in Canon, as the panel skillfully revealed. DH seems to again oversimplify and paint the Slytherins as the bad house, with only a faint nod in the direction of Snape's redemption...(grrr DON'T get me started!)
So, to get the ball rolling, here are my first thoughts about Elements.
The issue of the nature of the Houses, their qualities, and their relative goodness or propensity for evil… this is quite muddied in Canon, as the panel skillfully revealed. DH seems to again oversimplify and paint the Slytherins as the bad house, with only a faint nod in the direction of Snape's redemption...(grrr DON'T get me started!)
Read on...
I prefer to hold the view that the Houses of Hogwarts are a sophisticated system of traits and tendencies that form a complete whole of Wizarddom, and find irksome the oversimplification of Gryffindors as heroes and Slytherins as evil. (I think Jo painted herself into a corner by creating something much bigger than she could have imagined, taking off, as real art is wont to do, into a life of it’s own.
The upshot of my reaction to DH is to declare myself once and forever Slytherin. This happened in a flash, during a discussion with a fellow Wiccan who is outside of fandom, but who was angry at Jo’s portrayal of the Slytherins as evil by nature. She equated it to the bad rap snakes have had ever since the publication of Genesis.
I’d really like to review the houses in terms of elements, archetypes, arcana, astrology, the medicine wheel and other systems for carving up the whole of the world into its component flavours. My brief experience with House sorters on the web, and the one or two HP astrology sites I’ve seen are quite shallow, not satisfying my thirst for a serious mystical approach.
So, please suggest any resources you’ve that may help me go deeper.
And share your thoughts on the Houses, their Elemental qualities, and the values we give to them.
more to come!
I prefer to hold the view that the Houses of Hogwarts are a sophisticated system of traits and tendencies that form a complete whole of Wizarddom, and find irksome the oversimplification of Gryffindors as heroes and Slytherins as evil. (I think Jo painted herself into a corner by creating something much bigger than she could have imagined, taking off, as real art is wont to do, into a life of it’s own.
The upshot of my reaction to DH is to declare myself once and forever Slytherin. This happened in a flash, during a discussion with a fellow Wiccan who is outside of fandom, but who was angry at Jo’s portrayal of the Slytherins as evil by nature. She equated it to the bad rap snakes have had ever since the publication of Genesis.
I’d really like to review the houses in terms of elements, archetypes, arcana, astrology, the medicine wheel and other systems for carving up the whole of the world into its component flavours. My brief experience with House sorters on the web, and the one or two HP astrology sites I’ve seen are quite shallow, not satisfying my thirst for a serious mystical approach.
So, please suggest any resources you’ve that may help me go deeper.
And share your thoughts on the Houses, their Elemental qualities, and the values we give to them.
more to come!
So, to get the ball rolling, here are my first thoughts about Elements.
A longtime Wiccan, I often parse the world into the Elements, and I have wondered how the elemental qualities of the Houses play out. Their colours are a clue –
Golden Hufflepuff, gentle and kind, feel to me like they are of Water, like Tarot Cups, but I now have discovered that apparently Rowling did provide Elemental associations for her houses, and Hufflepuff is supposedly Earth. (No doubt the nicer version of earth, flowers and grain.)
Blue Ravenclaw, with their keen discernment and clear intellect, embody the air element.
Fiery red Gryffindor, the heroic leaders who charge passionately into the fray, are acknowledged by JKR as Fire.
I feel in Green Slytherin, the darker qualities of earth, the underworld flavour of it particularly. The serpent who crawls on the ground, much-maligned animal blamed for our expulsion from Eden, is certainly a powerful earth symbol. Earth the Dark Mother, the recycling force of death and rebirth, Kali, the Destroyer archetype. The Hades aspect, in contrast to Persephone.
Rowling has associated Slytherin with Water. The Water qualities I can see in them are the Dark Mysteries, dreams, the more Saturnian aspects of education and work with the subconscious. Dragons can be considered water deities.
I'd love your thoughts about the true nature of the Houses, and your affiliation and how you arrived at it.
References:
Wikipedia on Hogwarts Houses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogwarts_Houses
Wikipedia on element systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element
Golden Hufflepuff, gentle and kind, feel to me like they are of Water, like Tarot Cups, but I now have discovered that apparently Rowling did provide Elemental associations for her houses, and Hufflepuff is supposedly Earth. (No doubt the nicer version of earth, flowers and grain.)
Blue Ravenclaw, with their keen discernment and clear intellect, embody the air element.
Fiery red Gryffindor, the heroic leaders who charge passionately into the fray, are acknowledged by JKR as Fire.
I feel in Green Slytherin, the darker qualities of earth, the underworld flavour of it particularly. The serpent who crawls on the ground, much-maligned animal blamed for our expulsion from Eden, is certainly a powerful earth symbol. Earth the Dark Mother, the recycling force of death and rebirth, Kali, the Destroyer archetype. The Hades aspect, in contrast to Persephone.
Rowling has associated Slytherin with Water. The Water qualities I can see in them are the Dark Mysteries, dreams, the more Saturnian aspects of education and work with the subconscious. Dragons can be considered water deities.
I'd love your thoughts about the true nature of the Houses, and your affiliation and how you arrived at it.
References:
Wikipedia on Hogwarts Houses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogwarts_Houses
Wikipedia on element systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element