This past week we were discussing the individual vs. the institution and my professor brought up the idea that Harry and Dumbledore could resemble God and Jesus. However, we didn't get very far into this discussion because two kids in the class literally started arguing about religion essentially about the different views of Jesus. It was ridiculous and the professor didn't even really get to make the point she wanted to make because she just let these two kids argue about religion almost the whole class period. We started watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheniox which is the fifth movie. I don't know what we are going to do when we finish it though because the sixth movie doesn't come out on DVD for another couple weeks.
I also found this posting on MyLifeIsAverage.com that I thought was funny because I clearly did not realize this either:
Today, my 8 year old cousin was reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time. When she got to the part about the Mirror of Erised, she pointed out that Erised was desire spelled backwards. I'm a sophomore in college and it blew my mind. MLIA.
Thanks for reading!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Your wand, Harry! Your wand!
Continuing our discussion from last week, we tried an experiment in divination. We used Zener cards to try to send psychic signals to one another. There are twenty-five zener cards per deck and each has a picture on it. Five circles, five squares, five crosses, five stars, and five squiggles. The sender randomly draws one card and then proceeds to try to send the image to the reciever who then trys to pick what symbol the sender is giving them.
It didn't seem to work very well except for how many should through probability. It was an interesting experiement though. I'm going to be taking the cards home with me to try some more experiments to see if any of my friends are on the same "mental wavelength."
It didn't seem to work very well except for how many should through probability. It was an interesting experiement though. I'm going to be taking the cards home with me to try some more experiments to see if any of my friends are on the same "mental wavelength."
Monday, October 19, 2009
Cedric Diggory was murdered, by Lord Voldemort
Lumos Family and Friends!
I haven't updated in two weeks! Jeez. So let me give you an overview of what we've been discussing in class for the past two weeks!
October 6th, we talked about the nature of evil. We discussed the two basic types of evil: vincible and invincible evil. The difference between the two being that when it is vincible evil the person is knowingly hurting others' as opposed to invincible evil when the person is unknowingly causing harm. The nature of evil can also be related back to the forms of authority: traditional, legal-rational, charismatic.
Voldemort performs these evil acts (being vincible evils since he knowingly harms others) so that he can obtain immortality. However, we discussed how immortality looks attractive until you look at what happens when you actually obtain it. The question is, what happens if you outlive everybody?
The basic plot line of Harry Potter is the parallel careers of two orphans, Harry Potter and Tom Riddle. These two orphans have two very different trajectories in life and used their similar situation to create very different lives. However, we did discuss that it is possible that Tom Riddle aka Voldemort is not inherently evil, he is just angry at being abandoned.
When discussing evil, other characters besides Voldemort clearly come to mind such as the Dementors, Snape, The Malfoy's, and Belatrix LeStrange. It is very possible that dementors are not evil, they are just seen as evil because of the nature of the lives they lead (considering they live by sucking the happiness out of people). I would honestly say that Belatrix is seriously demented and evil because she ENJOYS other people's suffering, but that could be a result from going crazy from 12 years in Azkaban.
The most interesting "evil" character is Snape. Snape was from Slythering and friends with many death eaters. He had the potential to gain his own following because he was such a brilliant man. However, Snape's reasoning for being such an "evil" character is out of his jealousy (and love) fo Lily Potter and her marriage to James and the humiliation he experienced while in school. We have to ask ourselves, did Snape use the best means to reach the ultimate end?
October 13th, we talked about the art of divination and forms of real life divination (aka seeing the future). There are many forms of divination in real human culture:
-Arithromancy
-Astrology
-Numerology
-Tarot
-I Ching
-Mayan Calandar
-Oracles
We as human culture believe in this ability to see the future and predict the future. This ability could be potentially very dangerous. Can you imagine if you actually had the ability to predict the future? More over, what if people KNEW that you could acurately predict the future? You would never have a moments rest!
Everyone thinks that Trelawny, the divinations professor, is a fake. Which is potentially why she is safe and not being bothered 24/7 about the future. Since people think she is a fake, she is protected from society itself.
One of the last philosophical questions we discussed in class that day was the idea that If diviners are right, it is much scarier than if they are wrong. Being right could potentially cause much more harm than good.
As always in Harry Potter class, I feel like we ask more questions to answer our questions. This class has really translated how Harry Potter and magic appears everywhere and how Harry Potter really is rooted in real life culture.
One last note before I finish this post. Today in my American History class our professor lectured on the Salem Witch Trials. Which made me laugh because as we all know, no REAL withces we caught during the Salem Witch Trials, because of course they had magically abilities to avoid capture. And those witches who were actually captured never died because they performed charms to prevent the flames from buring them!
Even though we are very close to running out of movies in Harry Potter Class, we are working on the fourth movie Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Tomorrow we will pick the movie back up at the first task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
That's all for now!
I haven't updated in two weeks! Jeez. So let me give you an overview of what we've been discussing in class for the past two weeks!
October 6th, we talked about the nature of evil. We discussed the two basic types of evil: vincible and invincible evil. The difference between the two being that when it is vincible evil the person is knowingly hurting others' as opposed to invincible evil when the person is unknowingly causing harm. The nature of evil can also be related back to the forms of authority: traditional, legal-rational, charismatic.
Voldemort performs these evil acts (being vincible evils since he knowingly harms others) so that he can obtain immortality. However, we discussed how immortality looks attractive until you look at what happens when you actually obtain it. The question is, what happens if you outlive everybody?
The basic plot line of Harry Potter is the parallel careers of two orphans, Harry Potter and Tom Riddle. These two orphans have two very different trajectories in life and used their similar situation to create very different lives. However, we did discuss that it is possible that Tom Riddle aka Voldemort is not inherently evil, he is just angry at being abandoned.
When discussing evil, other characters besides Voldemort clearly come to mind such as the Dementors, Snape, The Malfoy's, and Belatrix LeStrange. It is very possible that dementors are not evil, they are just seen as evil because of the nature of the lives they lead (considering they live by sucking the happiness out of people). I would honestly say that Belatrix is seriously demented and evil because she ENJOYS other people's suffering, but that could be a result from going crazy from 12 years in Azkaban.
The most interesting "evil" character is Snape. Snape was from Slythering and friends with many death eaters. He had the potential to gain his own following because he was such a brilliant man. However, Snape's reasoning for being such an "evil" character is out of his jealousy (and love) fo Lily Potter and her marriage to James and the humiliation he experienced while in school. We have to ask ourselves, did Snape use the best means to reach the ultimate end?
October 13th, we talked about the art of divination and forms of real life divination (aka seeing the future). There are many forms of divination in real human culture:
-Arithromancy
-Astrology
-Numerology
-Tarot
-I Ching
-Mayan Calandar
-Oracles
We as human culture believe in this ability to see the future and predict the future. This ability could be potentially very dangerous. Can you imagine if you actually had the ability to predict the future? More over, what if people KNEW that you could acurately predict the future? You would never have a moments rest!
Everyone thinks that Trelawny, the divinations professor, is a fake. Which is potentially why she is safe and not being bothered 24/7 about the future. Since people think she is a fake, she is protected from society itself.
One of the last philosophical questions we discussed in class that day was the idea that If diviners are right, it is much scarier than if they are wrong. Being right could potentially cause much more harm than good.
As always in Harry Potter class, I feel like we ask more questions to answer our questions. This class has really translated how Harry Potter and magic appears everywhere and how Harry Potter really is rooted in real life culture.
One last note before I finish this post. Today in my American History class our professor lectured on the Salem Witch Trials. Which made me laugh because as we all know, no REAL withces we caught during the Salem Witch Trials, because of course they had magically abilities to avoid capture. And those witches who were actually captured never died because they performed charms to prevent the flames from buring them!
Even though we are very close to running out of movies in Harry Potter Class, we are working on the fourth movie Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Tomorrow we will pick the movie back up at the first task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
That's all for now!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
He Was Their Friend!
This week we discussed secret societies and common traits that these type of societies have. We compared the Free Masons and Skull and Cross Bones to the Death Eaters. They all have certain aspects in common because they are all secret societies. For example, they all have alternate identities. They wear a "mask" in society so that they can hide their membership to the secret society. Another aspect is that a member only knows a couple other members so that one person cannot take down the entire society.
After this discussion we watched the beginning of the third movie Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. While watching it we made fun of their bad acting skills. Especially when Harry discovers that Sirius Black is his godfather and starts to "cry" then yells that "He was their friend and he betrayed them! He was their friend!" Such bad acting Daniel Radcliffe. We all started laughing REALLY hard and our professor told us all that we were "strange" but honestly, it was funny how bad the acting was and how we all laughed at it!
One last thought, me and my friends joined the Muggle Quidditch team her at Miami! It's a lot of fun, but it is a contact sport so there are some bumps and bruises! I'm not a very good chaser but I'm becoming a better beater so I think I'm going to stick with that. Here is a video to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UfPij5ABdo&feature=channel
After this discussion we watched the beginning of the third movie Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. While watching it we made fun of their bad acting skills. Especially when Harry discovers that Sirius Black is his godfather and starts to "cry" then yells that "He was their friend and he betrayed them! He was their friend!" Such bad acting Daniel Radcliffe. We all started laughing REALLY hard and our professor told us all that we were "strange" but honestly, it was funny how bad the acting was and how we all laughed at it!
One last thought, me and my friends joined the Muggle Quidditch team her at Miami! It's a lot of fun, but it is a contact sport so there are some bumps and bruises! I'm not a very good chaser but I'm becoming a better beater so I think I'm going to stick with that. Here is a video to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UfPij5ABdo&feature=channel
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