jumpingonthehogwartsexpress-blog

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Blog Post # 4

If there is one concept, one idea, one mystery of the universe, that is almost always on my mind, it’s fate.  I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and that there is no such thing as coincidence.  I find that I not only think about fate often, but I am also drawn to storylines that center on fate and destiny, explaining my love for the show Lost.   Fate plays an abundantly clear role in Lost—after watching (or obsessively watching, like I did) all six seasons, it becomes clear that all of the characters are connected somehow, and that it was their destiny to all end up together.  Every choice they made throughout their life somehow brought them to Australia, to Oceanic flight 815, and ultimately to the island.  Beyond it’s dramatic and even science fiction plot elements, the show really resonated with me because of the idea that all of the characters were meant to be together somehow, as I have met numerous people that I have felt were destined to be part of my life.  This was a connection that I was able to make at a later age when I watched the show, but I was also drawn to the idea of fate or destiny at an earlier age, evidenced by my love for fantasy novels.  In middle school, two of my favorite series were Harry Potter and Percy Jackson—there are a good amount of parallels between these books, but what really stood out to me then, and continues to stand out now, is the idea of destiny that is portrayed through the existence of prophesy.  Prophesy is present in an exorbitant number of fantasy books, and is almost always the same idea; the prophesy surrounds a seemingly unsuspecting character (like Harry or Percy), and predicts their eventual battle or confrontation with evil.  I think this is so appealing to young kids because of the idea that one’s life means something greater—beyond the humdrum of everyday habituality, there is something that one is destined to do, or confront, or achieve.  

My analysis on the idea of fate that is so evident in stories both for children and adults made me think of reincarnation, specifically the idea of reincarnation in the Buddhist religion.  I know that seems like kind of a stretch, but let me explain myself.  In Buddhism, the term samsara refers to the cycle of reincarnation that all souls go through.  The final goal of samsara, or reincarnation, is to achieve nirvana, which is the ultimate state of release and liberation from samsara.  In other words, every life lived in the cycle of samsara is part of a longer journey that takes place in order to achieve a final sense of peace and enlightenment.  Therefore, in this cycle of reincarnation, everything happens for a reason.  A soul reincarnates into a new body (and each body does not even necessarily have to be human) and lives a new life until it has learned enough, experienced enough, and done enough good to achieve enlightenment.  Your life, then, is a consequence of a previous life that you have lived—whether it was a lesson that you failed to learn or a wrong you committed  in a past life, your current life is meant to teach, inform, or make amends in order to reach a final resting place.  This says to me that every life has a greater purpose and is part of a longer journey, just as prophesies like the one in Harry Potter serve to provide greater meaning and purpose to a character’s life.  It says to me that fate plays a role in everybody’s life, that everyone is destined to achieve something in their life.  While not everyone is destined to fight the most powerful wizard in the world and save the wizarding world, everyone is meant to do something, and their life is always working towards something greater.

[jumpingonthehogwartsexpress-blog]

This was such an interesting post, and you conclude with an extremely thought provoking question!  I have never thought about the possibility of Luna having Asperger’s Syndrome, and I don’t know that I have an answer to the question you pose, but I am now very interested to go back through the books and trace her character more closely in order to see if I can make a decision on this idea.  One thing you mention that is both extremely prevalent and problematic in our society today is the presence of characters with Autism or Asperger’s in television or film who are mocked, archetyped, and used as comedic relief.  This problem of dehumanizing these characters in order to laugh or gawk at made me think of freak shows.  Freak shows began to be popular in England in the mid-1600s, growing in popularity until they reached their peak in both England and the United States in the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s.  The point of these shows was to exhibit biological rarities in physicality, behavior, or mental capacity (even racial differences), and broadcast these people as “undiscovered humans”, or as an extinct species.  In other words, the people who ran the shows were making money off the dehumanization and humiliation of people with genetic mutations and disabilities.  While the creators of The Big Bang Theory and Grey’s Anatomy are certainly not doing this to the same extent, they are increasing or sustaining their ratings and making money off the stereotyping and mockery of characters like Dr. Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Victoria Dixon, characters with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Blog Post #3: Representation of Autism/Asperger’s syndrome in media

At Bletchley Park, we explored the site of  WWII codebreakers as well as Alan Turing. About 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park during the war at worked around the clock to break German codes. Prior to arrival in Bletchley, we watched the film The Imitation Game which revolved around Alan Turing and his team members breaking Enigma. Alan Turing is introduced in the film  as highly intelligent, Cambridge educated, mathematician that is socially inept. In the scene between Turing and the officers, Turing talks with condensation to the police as they investigate the break-in to his home. This condensation and superiority continues throughout the film as he works with colleagues and his superiors. Turing’s behavior throughout the film reflects the symptoms of a person with high functioning with Asperger’s syndrome. People with Asperger’s have a developmental disorder in which people have difficulties with social interactions and are highly intelligent in an area.

Representation of Asperger’s Syndrome on television is similar in that characters are portrayed as awkward individuals with no understanding of sarcasm, jokes, or emotions. Notable representations of Asperger’s syndrome include Dr. Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang Theory and  Dr.Virginia Dixon of Grey’s Anatomy. Both of these characters misrepresent people with Asperger’s syndrome as cartoonish and rigid. Most of the time the character’s autism is never made explicit and the audience must conclude it from the behavior and dialogue of the character. In The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon has numerous qualities that make him unique in the show such as his confusion with sarcasm, his interest/intelligence with a topic (science), and his need to knock three times in a row. His idiosyncrasies are utilized as jokes to the audience rather than to showcase people on the autism spectrum. By utilizing Sheldon’s idiosyncrasies as humor, the writers further stigmatize and misrepresent people on the autism spectrum as over the top.

A character in the Harry Potter series similarly is never explicitly described to be on the autism spectrum but shows behavior that is indicative of such and because it is never made explicit, the audience is left to make an assumptions based on the descriptions provided by J.K. Rowling.  Luna Lovegood is introduced in the The Order of the Phoenix as “She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look.” (Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 10).  The word used to describe her most throughout the series is is “dreamy” and her behavior could be deemed as reflecting a person on the autism spectrum. For example, Luna spends much of her time alone in thought and is mocked by students for being peculiar, but she does not change who she is throughout the series. My question is whether you agree that Luna Lovegood’s behavior and portrayal throughout the series reflects a person with Asperger’s syndrome?  

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Blog Post # 3

After our discussion about Atonement, I’ve been thinking a lot about art and the role it plays in society.  When we spoke as a class about Briony’s decision to reunite Robbie and Cecilia despite the fact that they both died during World War II, the majority of the people thought that it was not her place, even that it was cruel in a way, to change the ending of the story instead of honoring the actuality of their tragedy.  While I do believe that Briony’s decision to keep them alive was selfish (even if it was a true attempt on her part to give them the story they deserved), I cannot help but wonder what the purpose of art is.  Is it to honor facts above all else, and tell an undoubtedly true account?  Or is it to make people feel something through stories, whether they are entirely factual or not?  Is Briony’s job as a writer to tell her readers exactly what happened to Cecilia and Robbie, or is it to create a cohesive narrative that provokes catharsis and a sense of resolution?

Questions like these about Atonement lead me to thinking about theater and its cultural role.  When you look at the plays and musicals that truly touch people, that provoke emotion and stay on people’s minds long after they leave the theater, it is the stories that shine through.  Take a musical like Hamilton, for example—if you look it up on Google, you will find no shortage of articles shaming it for its historical inaccuracy and the plethora of historical details that failed to make their way into the story line.  However, if you see Hamilton or even listen to the music, you are not left thinking about the fact that Philip Schuyler did in fact have a son (despite the fact that he had no sons according to the musical), you are left thinking about love and its redemptive power, what it truly means to be an American, power and corruption, masculinity, justice and equality, and legacy.  Within a two-hour musical about a Founding Father who has been largely underappreciated and even forgotten, you are left crying (or at least I was), and thinking not only about your own mortality and story, but also the larger societal and political context in which it occurs.  This, in my opinion, is much more important than honoring every single factual detail, and it is what makes theater so relevant and so relatable.

A good play should always make you think, and it should always make you feel.  Theater has had a long social and cultural history, changing with the times and the zeitgeist of the age, but this holds true to any good piece of theater regardless of when it was written or performed.  Morality plays of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were plays in which the main character comes in contact with personifications of various moral qualities, the other characters, who try and persuade him (because of course the main character was a him) to chose a life of God over a life of sin.  While these plays were deeply religious and not necessarily recognizable in modern society, the plays were written specifically in order to provoke deeper thinking and analysis about living a moral life according to God.  Shakespearean plays, while sometimes hard to decipher, are much more culturally recognizable today because of the themes they perpetuate—love, loss, betrayal, power, corruption, madness, friendship, and class are the themes that immediately come to mind in a wide array of Shakespearean plays, and that hold true not only in modern theater but also in modern society.  In his time, Shakespeare was responsible for making audiences think and feel like theater never previously had, drawing on topical cultural, societal, and political realities to inspire his writing and draw in audiences.

In 1642, the Long Parliament banned theater in England, closing down all theaters and eventually declaring all actors (players) to be vagabonds, and dangers to society.  This shows, to me, the truly revolutionary aspect of theater—plays can unify people and rally them around a certain topic or a certain idea, to the extent of scaring the ruling parties of their respective countries.  Even recently in the United States, there has been uproar from politicians and civilians of the political right after a production of Julius Caesar in Central Park depicted a Trump-inspired Julius Caesar, saying that it was invoking violence against Trump.  One protester even screamed out during a performance that the blood of Steve Scalise is on the hands of people like the actors, directors, and spectators of the play.  Theater bears an incredible cultural weight—it has for centuries, and I do not see it stopping any time soon, specifically in the tumultuous social, economic, political, and cultural times we live in.

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Blog Post #2- The Wand Chooses the Wizard

Last post I talked about the magical beasts found in Harry Potter, and some potential avenues I could explore. On I didn’t mention takes a small detour through the book first. In the first book, Harry, like all young magic children, gets his first wand. Mr. Ollivander explains that each wand is made of a core of a magical creature, and the wood of a magical tree. The magic from the creatures inside the wand make a bit of sense, but what about the wood? What’s so special about holly or ash or elder?

Well, in the London Museum, there was a small plaque titled Wood Magic. It talked of how harder woods would be used for building, while softer woods were used for things such as hurdles. Specifically, they mentioned how certain woods, such as some pine’s or Yew, were often reserved for ‘magical’ use in rituals or charms. The Yew caught my attention because in the book, the only difference between Harry’s and Voldemort’s wand is the wood they are made of, Holly vs Yew. Yew being the wood of Tom’s wand is also interesting due to the symbolism associated with Yew. The tree itself don’t really have seeds, it sprouts off the cuttings of dying trees, essentially creating a cycle of almost death and immortality, which is fascinating considering Voldemort’s obsession of immortality. Holly on the other hand, is often seen as bring light to dark places, as the colors of the plant add to the dull whites and greys of winter, fitting well with Harry’s status as a hero, to bring light and hope to the darkness that Voldemort brings. Another interesting link between Voldemort and Yew comes from the fourth book, when in the cemetery his father was buried in, he is reborn. Yew, being associated with death and rebirth, are often found in cemeteries, some even believing that its roots grew into the mouths of the dead to help their souls rise to be reborn.

               Harry and Voldemort aren’t the only two that reflect the wood of their wands. Hermione for example has a wand made of vine, and isn’t that just perfect? Hermione, a muggle born student, who, until about half way through book one, has no friends, who was often bullied both at pre-and during Hogwarts, who entered a society at war with itself and telling her that she will never succeed because of her blood, became one of the brightest witches of her age, even moving on to become Minister of Magic. All the while the wand that choose her was made of vine, and what are vines best at but climbing?

               Another famous wand with extremely interesting wood is the Elder Wand, taken from the branch of an elder tree by death as a ‘reward’ to the elder Peverell Brother. Elder trees and their woods have a fascinating mythology behind them, with the trees themselves often being thought to be witches in disguise or that witches flew on their branches. They also appear in several myths where the trickster would be revealed to be an elder witch.

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Blog Post 2

Mystic Nativity, Sandro Botticelli, 1500:

What initially drew me to the painting, beyond simply its beauty and artistry, was the almost misleading imagery—the action depicted in the painting looks chaotic and even violent, but is in fact celebratory and loving.  The description of the painting explains that everyone rejoiced in the presence of the Christ Child, peace abounded, and seven devils fled to the underworld.  Additionally, there is Greek writing along the top of the painting that reads, “The picture I Alessandro made at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, in the half time after the time according to the 11th [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the loosing of the devil for three-and-a-half years; then he shall be bound in the 12th [chapter] and we shall see [him buried?] as in this picture.”  There is also a short description about the context of this message under the translation, explaining that “the half time after the time” refers to the year 1500, a year in which people thought there would be apocalyptic changes, as envisioned in the Book of Revelations of Saint John, and that the political turmoil in Italy at the time confirmed many people’s apocalyptic fears.  This clarification and historical background really intrigued me, and inspired a more thorough interest in the painting.

In order to understand Botticelli’s reference to chapters 11 and 12 of the Book of Revelations, I had to first understand the message of these two consecutive chapters.  The general takeaway is that an earthquake strikes earth after God placed two witnesses to test those on earth (a test they clearly failed), destroying a tenth of the city and killing seven thousand people, leaving the survivors worshiping the glory of God.  The kingdom of earth becomes one with the kingdom of God, prompting a Judgment of the Dead to protect the believers and destroy those who had destroyed earth.  In chapter 12, a pregnant woman, commonly thought of as the Virgin Mary, appears in the heavens ready to give birth.  A dragon (Satan) comes to devour the child, sparking a war between the angels of heaven and the dragon, in which the dragon is eventually cast out.  The dragon tries to attack the woman, and when this fails he swears to make war with the rest of her offspring, or the followers of Christ.  This imagery of Satan coming after the people of earth struck fear in the hearts of many, and caused people to expect impending doom.  For example, Botticelli took the turmoil in Italy towards the end of the fifteenth century as a sign of the approaching apocalypse.  Italy was engaged in numerous wars between 1494 and 1559, involving many Italian city-states, papal-states, and the Republic of Venice, as well as major western European forces like Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, France, and England.  The wars were largely fought over disputes of power and territorial expansions, and led to countless alliances, and betrayals.  Much of Italy was engaged in war, then, for over sixty years whether directly or indirectly, severely complicating the political system, undermining Italian power, and depleting their resources.  This clearly came as a hardship to the various Italian peoples, and was most likely seen as a punishment or test from God.

Similarly, many people were fearful that the world would end in 1666, as mentioned in the Clockwork Universe.  This fear of a rapidly approaching apocalypse stemmed from both the presence of the number 666 (the number of the beast, or the sign of the devil, a number coined in Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelations), as well as the tragedies that struck London in the 1660s (which were believed to be signs of God’s wrath).  A plague had struck in 1665, killing about one fourth of London’s population, followed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and a large portion of the city.  What is incredibly interesting to me is not only how these fears of death, destruction, and apocalypse repeat themselves and perpetuate throughout time (caused by a mixture of biblical teachings and current societal problems), but also how people persist in the face of doom.  Botticelli was not discouraged from painting, but rather painted a joyous image of those on earth celebrating peace and the banishment of evil.  The scientists of the Royal Society were not discouraged from inventing and experimenting, but rather continued their studies and pursuits, breaking barriers and pushing the boundaries not only for those on earth, but also in the name of God.  Humans have an incredible power to continue on (even to thrive) in the face of danger, and that is exemplified time and time again throughout history.

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Blog Post 1