Childe Roland and Harry Potter. And Draco too.

[sunnyskywalker]

This essay about whether Slughorn is an ephebophile (hey, I learned a new word!) or not was posted today, which reminded me that I'd had mushy ideas about HP/Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came connections in the back of my mind. Which is why I'm posting here instead of replying - I'm not really sure which side of that question I come down on. Reminding us of "Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,/ And blew" would be a clever hint on JKR's part, but it's nowhere near proof.

However, there are several points where the poem reminds me of HP. They're mostly vague connections due to the common quest theme, So, picking out lines and stanzas here and there:

My first thought was, he lied in every word,/That hoary cripple, with malicious eye/Askance to watch the working of his lie/On mine

This is the person who sets the narrator on the road to the Dark Tower. We'll see whether Harry starts thinking this about Dumbledore in Book 7.

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride/Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,/So much as gladness that some end might be.

That about sums it up. I've got to kill Voldemort before I can truly live, so let's get this Horcrux-hunt over with.

As when a sick man very near to death/Seems dead indeed,

Dumbledore is dead, dead, dead. It said so - what was it, 19 times in Chapter 29? So he's probably not quite dead yet. I think it's some sort of fictional law.

and feels begin and end/The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

Dumbledore was more fragile than usual all year, showed up at the Dursleys' to make sure Harry would get that last year of protection (in case he wouldn't be around next summer to make sure?), and otherwise seemed to be setting his affairs in order.

While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves,

Should Dumbledore be buried on the grounds? No headmaster has ever - well, it was his wish, so I guess so...

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O’er the safe road, ’t was gone [...]
I might go on; nought else remain’d to do.

A pretty common idea. Once you start the series quest, you're stuck. But you can link this a little more closely with HP if you look at Draco in HBP. His path that year leads to the dark magic on the Astronomy Tower, and "He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice." Draco's promised Voldemort he'll go down that path, and he feels that there is no way back. As Sirius says, you can't just resign from the Dark Lord's service. (Harry says he has a choice about his path, but every one of his choices leads to a confrontation with Voldemort as far as he can tell, so there isn't really a way back for him, either.)

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil’s stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red, gaunt and collop’d neck a-strain,
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

Harry hates Snape more than he had ever hated anyone before how many times over the course of the series? And how many times does Harry think someone deserves some pain or other? ("I wouldn't Levicorpus anyone and humiliate them like that... unless they deserved it... like Draco... and Marietta totally deserved that hex..." etc, etc.) "Thrust out past service from the devil's stud" could be a former/useless/out-of-favor DE. (Hmm, maybe we could be thinking of Peter too.) "Stupefied" and "might be dead" are particularly loaded if we're thinking in terms of HP.

I shut my eyes and turn’d them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I ask’d one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier’s art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

Harry's Power of Love^TM is supposed to be the thing that will save him, right? This already has a sort-of parallel in Patronuses and in Harry's thought that "He'd see Sirius again" drove Voldemort away in OotP, and Harry might really need his happy thoughts to drive away the Dementors we know will be in Book 7. (Thinking first and fighting afterwards is something he needs to work on a bit.)

Thinking of his friends in times past doesn't help the narrator in the poem, though: he finds only Alas, one night’s disgrace! (Remus? James? Sirius?) and Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! (Hi, Peter.)

Better this present than a past like that

Harry wanted to be like his father and Sirius, and Draco wanted to be like his father and Snape, until they both realized maybe that wasn't such an attractive idea after all.

A sudden little river cross’d my path/As unexpected as a serpent comes./No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

Serpents! And sluggish! And a river, for the Slytherin Liquid Motif. Hmm... Some people think this river represents crossing into the afterlife, and there's a lot of speculation that Harry will have to go on some sort of Veil Quest in Book 7, so we'll see. But regardless, serpents/Slytherins/emotions/various liquids are usually pretty major crossings for Harry.

good saints, how I fear’d/To set my foot upon a dead man’s cheek

While racing down the stairs from the Astronomy Tower, for instance.

*There are signs of a big fight.* Mad brewage set to work/Their brains, no doubt

Characters, stop being rash and fighting amongst each other! And stop brewing mad potions to mess with each other's heads.

Nought in the distance but the evening, nought
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon’s bosom-friend,
Sail’d past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penn’d
That brush’d my cap—perchance the guide I sought.

Apollyon has scaly horses. Hello, you Thestrals with excellent senses of direction. Do you know the way to the Ministry/anywhere we might go in Book 7?

When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts—you ’re inside the den.

Are we ready for the final battle already? Yikes!

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?/The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart,

A common interpretation is that this quest isn't about an external enemy, but an internal one. Harry (and Draco) have fought external enemies, but the biggest problems are their flaws and their choices, I think. There's also a quote from Ecclesiastes about the fool's heart.

Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,—
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knell’d the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all.

So many of the people Harry knew were strong, bold, and fortunate before they failed and/or died. And there's already precedent for seeing images of some of them during his battles - the Priori Incantatem in GoF, for instance. (There's also the Mirror of Erised and wizarding photos and portraits.) "Sheet of flame" just screams "Gryffindor."

And yet/Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,/And blew "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

And that's the end of the poem. We don't know whether the narrator "won" or not, just that he found the tower, was "dauntless," and faced that execution arena with his head held high.

As I said, there aren't any indisputably strong connections with HP, except maybe the slug-horn reference. Browning actually used the word incorrectly; it's a battle cry, not a type of horn. Is Horace Slughorn an inspiration or rallying cry before battle? Er... we'll find out? Maybe something to do with Felix Felicis?



So it was fun, but I don't think we've really learned much, other than not to use your Slughorn inappropriately.

Comments

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

As that form of the word (as opposed to the more usual "slogan") is so rare, I had rather though JKR had taken it from there. I wondered whether the subtext was "he isn't what he seems to be", but he is so splendid an example of the person in power and authority who adorse being toadied to that I shall be very disappointed if he turns out to be a really nice person.

[sunnyskywalker]

Yeah, I like that Slughorn is such a good example of the kind of person you can find just about anywhere. Not secretly wonderful, not smirking evil, just an average slimy political guy who doesn't think he's all that bad. I suspect JKR has some Slughorn-related surprises, but I have no idea what. We've done the Polyjuiced Impersonater before, so it's probably not that kind of "not what he seems to be," at least.