Rowling, the Veil, and the Afterlife

I think you will find that Melissa in taking the opportunity her website provides her to post extracts that are specifically left out of her book. As she says:

“..I tried pretty hard for an excuse to shoehorn this into the book. When I realized how hard I was trying, I stopped, and cut that part out. But you must hear this on-record discussion on the veil, which is Vault 27 entry number two – it falls under the category of confirmation of widely agreed-upon fan-theory:…”

revgeorge there’s more…

http://harryahistory.com/2008/09/more-about-that-veil.html

including this:

MA: …. Ginny, Ginny can hear it because she’s been…

JKR: I think women are more likely to hear than men. [Ginny and Harry] really are soulmates. I think she’s like Harry. She’s got an intellectual curiosity and she’s got something of belief. Hermione [is] totally rational. “Let’s all back away from the Veil and let’s pretend we heard nothing.”

I always found that Harry was curious about things that I would have left alone: hence, his foray into Snape’s (and Dumbledore’s for that matter) memories when he should have kept his nose out of it. Or insisting on trying to figure out the diary in COS, which I guess turned out to be a good thing. So I didn’t find it surprising that he was curious about the Veil or any of the other things in the Dept of Mysteries.

What I found maddening was when he never asked about his parents, who they were, what they were like, how Lupin knew them, and a hundred other questions that I would have asked. But that was part of the personality that Rowling gave him, so I finally quit trying to impose my own on Harry.

Pat

I just posted this at HogPro, so I’m just dropping it in here as well.

Well, it’s undeniably a step up from shipping questions.

I currently expect very little from JKR’s commentary on the story. Pre-DH, it was understandable that she’d hedge and hold back, but post-DH is another matter. To my knowledge, she hasn’t given an interview in the last 14 months to anyone who has explored the books deeply and intelligently (I hope to find out I’m wrong). If she’s only granting access to the Melissa’s and Emerson’s of HP fandom, whose devotion to JKR and the story border on idolatry, then I have no hope at all because she’ll only be asked easy questions and there won’t be any intellectually rigorous follow-up. Boards like this take the position that the story has much, much more depth and complexity than is acknowledged by all but a minority of fans and critics. Yet so far when JKR is asked a question—a fairly good starting question that touches on the deeper meanings in the story—she typically IMO gives a relatively thin answer relative to what I hope and expect she could give. And sometimes she doesn’t appear to remember exactly what she wrote as is the case here.

For instance, after reading the interview section regarding the veil, my first thought was that I expected the majority of readers to have long ago concluded that the veil is the divide or gateway between life and death. The reference to the Tale of Two Brothers was interesting, but we already knew from the story that once a person “goes on,” he or she cannot come back in a living form as before. Ghosts, who have chosen not to “go on,” only live a pale imitation of life that is neither fully here nor fully there as Sir Nicholas described it and that was the position of the woman in the Resurrection Stone part of the tale.

JKR’s character commentary prompted me to reread the relevant sections in OotP. Death and attitudes toward it are THE theme of the story, so I was certainly interested in JKR’s faith versus reason comments regarding the reactions of the students toward the veil. Regarding the trio, I considered the characters in terms of John’s belief that they represent the body (Ron), the mind (Hermione), and the intellectus/spirit (Harry). However, she doesn’t appear to remember quite what she wrote in OotP.

In the MA interview, JKR said, “Ron’s just scared, as I think Ron would be – he just knows this is something he doesn’t want to dabble with.” But if you reread the section, you’ll see that Ron was not at all frightened of the veil nor was he entranced by it as Harry, Ginny, and Neville were. Ron appears to have been curious about it (enough to examine it), but there isn’t a whiff of a suggestion that he was afraid of it. When they left the room, Hermione pulled the entranced Ginny from the veil while Ron pulled the entranced Neville from it. There is no suggestion that Ron was affected by the veil or evidence that he heard the voices, and if Ron represents the body, we wouldn’t expect him to be either entranced by it or afraid of it because the body does not “go on.”

It was Hermione, not Ron, who was terrified of the veil (“She sounded scared, much more scared than she had in the room where the brains swam”). It’s true that Hermione could not hear any voices, but she was immediately alarmed by the veil and became increasingly frightened and shrill as the other students, especially Harry, got closer to it. Hermione tried to physically pull Harry away from it and finally broke the hold the veil had on Harry by reminding him that they were there to save Sirius. As they left the room, Harry asked Hermione, “What to you reckon that arch was?” Hermione answered, “I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was dangerous.” (OP34) And she was right to regard the arch as a danger to the earthly existence of the students. Reason may be preventing her from hearing the voices (acknowledging the possibility of an afterlife), but not from acknowledging the limits of earthly existence. But is JKR saying, through Hermione’s inability to hear the voices, that “pure” reason is an impediment to belief in an afterlife?

Harry is clearly drawn to the veil to a greater degree than any other student, but is it just curiosity? He is described as taking almost involuntary steps toward the arch: “The gently rippling veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it.” and “without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.” Despite JKR’s interview comment that “Everyone wanted to go beyond the veil,” that does not appear to be the case. While the text only provides us with Harry’s thoughts, it’s clear from Hermione’s comments that she doesn’t want to get near it. Ron walks around the dais in detached curiosity without appearing to experience any pull toward it (he is not entranced by it as Ginny and Neville are). Ginny and Neville are entranced by it, but they are described as standing and gazing at it, not attempting to step onto the dais as Harry was. Luna stood listening to the voices, but she had no problem walking away from the arch.

Why was Harry seemingly affected by the veil to a greater degree than the others? As the intellectus/spirit, did Harry comprehend (on an unconscious level) that by going through the veil he would reunite with his parents and also rid himself of the piece of Voldemort’s soul he was harboring? I don’t think the piece of soul was drawn to the veil only because we saw with the destruction of the Horcruxes that each soul fragment has a strong instinct for self-preservation. On the other hand, could the soul-piece be drawn to the place it should ultimately go? I think the arch is the ultimate example of those mentioned by John in the Hog’s Head “eyeball” podcast (Fat Lady portrait, Weasley’s car, tent, Hermione’s beaded bag, Room of Requirement, Platform 9 ¾ wall) where the inside is much bigger than the outside, the ultimate reality is inside, in this case beyond the veil. FYI – John probably already mentioned the veil in his book, but since I haven’t read it, I am only going by the podcast. It certainly strikes me now that Harry’s reaction to the veil looks toward Harry’s DH King’s Cross conversation with Dumbledore.

Luna hears the voices more clearly than anyone and she also know there are “people in there” who (as we find out later in OotP) have “gone on.” But Luna is a character who believes in lots of bizarre things. As Hermione said of Luna, “Ginny’s told me all about her, apparently she’ll only believe in things as long as there’s no proof at all.” (OP13) Luna wears earrings made of dirigible plums, which we learned from Xenophilius, “enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary.” (DH20) And Luna does accept the existence of the extraordinary, even, apparently, the blatantly bogus. She has the strongest belief in an afterlife of all the students, but she also believes in the existence of Blibbering Humdingers, Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, Wrackspurts, and the Rotfang Conspiracy. Is Loony Luna an example of faith alone leading to acceptance of all manner of superstition? Or is Ravenclaw Luna an admirable example of untroubled faith standing ground against the ridicule of skeptics? Both?

Women are more likely to hear the voices than men? Hermione is the only one we know for sure didn’t hear the voices, so is JKR saying men are more rational than women? It’s true that women are more likely than men to attend worship services, but I do wish JKR had explained what she meant by the association between sex and belief. Is JKR saying anything about faith alone and reason alone by juxtaposing Luna (who hears the voices more clearly than anyone else) and Hermione (who cannot hear anything at all)? Since JKR described Ginny as having a combination of intellectual curiosity and some degree of faith that allowed her to hear the voices, and since Ginny and Neville are described in an identical manner (“Ginny and Neville were staring, apparently entranced, at the veil too”) and both had to be pulled away from it by Hermione and Ron, I think she’s clearly saying that faith and reason are not opposed.

MA started out with a good topic, but she did “go along for the ride.” My personal opinion is that the HP series should be judged on its merits as written, but I appreciate authorial comment that deeply explores the intent and meaning of the work as a whole and how JKR tried to realize that intent and meaning. I don’t guarantee I’d agree with her, but I’d love to hear her answers to good, probing questions and have the opportunity to compare her answers with the text.

Inked makes interesting comments the location of the arch in an amphitheater, which suggests observation, which is consistent with the laboratory atmosphere of other rooms (like the Brain room) in the Department of Mysteries. My own take was that the amphitheater and stone benches suggest that the arch was transported in its original setting or that its original setting was replicated, which is suggestive of Greek and Roman amphitheaters. There is no doubt that the arch and veil are ancient: “upon this dais stood a stone archway that looked so ancient, cracked, and crumbling that Harry was amazed the thing was still standing.”

The description of the room ties in nicely with the references to ancient persons and myths coursing through the book, and it is also suggestive of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, particularly in the voices, in the idea that this world is a shadow of a much greater reality. And since I’m chewing on the prophesies, I’m reminded of HP’s Trelawney and her association with ancient oracles uttering divine revelations in a frenzied state.

I love Inked’s comparison to CL Lewis’s doorways and the differences between his and JKR’s. The fact that the “afterlife” is not visible through the HP archway is consistent with JKR’s interview comment that “What you find on the other side, well, that’s the question.”

So my answer to John’s questions: I do believe there would be interest and value in having JKR comment on the books on a deep level, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. We would certainly get better answers from her if she allowed interviews with people who will challenge her about the deeper meaning of the books, but will she? And if she does, I hope she gives the series a reread first.

FeaJay wrote:

“I understood one extract of the interview slightly differently to you; it’s where you say:

“…Despite JKR’s interview comment that “Everyone wanted to go beyond the veil,” that does not appear to be the case.”

I thought JKR was saying that many many readers (’everyone’) wanted the HP story to go beyond the veil, however I cannot substantiate this impression of mine.”

You are correct, I believe. I had wondered what came before the first line in the interview section Melissa quoted, and I clearly drew the wrong conclusion that JKR was referring to characters rather than fans. It’s true that fans wanted her to go behind the veil and tell us what was there.

Thank you for your insights and correction.

Felicity, wonderful comments & analysis. I love your comment at the end of one of your posts, “…if she does [discuss the deeper meaning of the series], I hope she gives the series a reread first.”

Ah, you’ve hit the head on the nail & rekindled another thought within me on the nature & trustworthiness of authorial commentary. I think we need to deal with authorial intent & commentary but what we need to avoid is an uncritical acceptance of anything the author says. MA, & Leaky in general, fall into this, uncritically accepting anything Jo says as canonical, even when she contradicts herself or when she doesn’t seem to remember what she wrote.

You do an excellent job of simply going back & reading the work & showing that Jo’s description of Ron’s & Hermione’s reactions to the veil in OOTP is totally different than her description of their reactions in her interview with MA. So, what do we go by? What she wrote & published or what she said in an interview which seems to be contradicting what she wrote? And which statements by Jo do we consider valid? What she said yesterday about a certain topic or the day before or what she said today or what she might say tomorrow?

Don’t get me wrong. I love that Leaky & MA are able to get this information. As a fan of the series, it’s fascinating stuff. But in critically examining the books, what Jo says isn’t always helpful or can’t be accepted uncritically. As John Granger’s pointed out, at least I think it was John, some people know the actual books of the HP series better than Jo herself does! An astounding statement, I know, but interviews like the one MA did with Jo bear this out.

Johnny, I think it’s an excellent example. It shows that the author herself is fallible regarding her own works! So, not wanting to restart the whole argument we’ve had numerous times on this subject, I think a text first reading of the books is best. Read the books in their context & try to understand & resolve any difficult points with reference to the text itself. If the author has commentary on certain things that throw clarity on the text, it’s helpful then to go to that for understanding the text. But what the author says can’t be uncritically accepted because as Jo has shown several times, she can get details of her own books wrong.