Theory and Practice of Myth

We went and saw the new 300 and figured, hey this should be relevant for a blog post….nope, there’s no Greek mythology or really any mention of anything mythological in it. Within the narrative of the movie, there is a belief in Eastern magic and religion that allows Xerxes to actually become the giant and hairless god-king. But that is about it…..

soo…….

We decided since we have been watching some Harry Potter films lately because Dawn-Eve is movie-illiterate, that those are more relevant in terms of modern mythologies.  The serious actually has a pretty Sirius (heh) mythos of its own.

The bogarts, the things that turn into your worst fears are shapeshifters, because magic. They are one step further than Proteus in his wrestling-shapeshifting-powerstruggle, the bogarts shape themselves into something different for each person while Proteus does not have the ability to specialize his shifting for each person he is still pretty much trying to intimidate Agamemnon.

There are centaurs, unicorns, a phoenix, and a hippogriff which is not directly out of mythology but it is a combination animal (a horse and a bird), and random creatures like elves, pixies and trolls. Magical creatures like this are common throughout mythology and our class, obviously.

The giants are a little more important to this class because of the land of Cyclopes in book 9 of the Odyssey, especially Polyphemous. The giant in Harry Potter is not a cyclopes, but he is a big dumb monster with an inherent desire to hurt humans. Apparently that comes across better in the books than the movies, since Hagrid’s brother is kind of “sweet” once he gets to know the three musketeers there. In the books and to a degree the last movie there are “evil” giants though that oppose the heroes and help Voldemort.

Snakes are an important evil symbol in the series. They symbolize evil and its association with the Slytherin house and Voldemort, especially with his pet snake. Serpents are the bearers of evil, throughout mythology they bring destruction and/or death. For example, Medusa’s snake-hair turns people to stone just like the basilisk in the second HP.

Numbers are important to mythology as well as HP. There are other examples like the four houses, but the main one in regards to evilness is the 7 horcruxes that Voldemort’s soul was spilt into, making 7 an evil number here. Although it isn’t entirely clear why Voldemort chose that number, it is shown that he had picked it out at a young age, suggesting that it has some special meaning.