Does anyone think J.K. Rowling had a point in choosing that as the shape of his scar? As far as i remember I can't see this symbolizing but perhaps she's drawing from things that are more into legend and the likes then I know of.

 

There is a lot of symbolism involved in lightning bolts. If I recall, it is the symbol for several gods, and is also a rune for protection in some runic script or another. My opinion on the meaning it has in Harry Potter canon? Nothing. Rowling, according to all reports, wrote up the idea of Harry Potter when she was much younger. It is not impossible to believe that she would have chosen it because it just looked cool.

 

The scar as seen in the books and movies can also be the rune Sowhilo in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet or Sig in the Armanen alphabet.

Sowhilo is a rune of protection, and is well known as a victory symbol, it can also be used as a force of attack. It is a positive force, because it is the natural power of the sun. Spiritually, Sowilo symbolizes clear vision, and the victories of light over darkness, good over evil. It admonishes one to use the powers of good to vanquish evil.

Sig has a bit more checkered history as a rune. The early Germans placed much of the same importance on it, but in modern times the image is severely tainted. Two Sig runes (for Victory), reversed, became the official emblem of the Schutzstaffel or SS in Nazi Germany. It has become the de facto symbol for racist and facist groups in europe (see the flag for the British Union of Facists).

The differences between the two alphabets are very slight but Sowhilo has a longer "zig" in the "zag" while Sig comes down goes almost straight across then continues down. Very little zig in a Sig.

Sorry, western esotericism has long fascinated me. The Nordic traditions have almost as long a history as the Hermetic traditions, dating back at least to the beginning of the Common Era.

EDIT; I have long thought that Harry's scar was not actually caused by the curse as most assume. Imagine if you will that in the last moments before Volde burst in, Lily carved the rune into his forehead and mingled her blood into the wound. Blood is very important in runic magic (see Uthark - Nightside of the runes by Thomas Karlsson for more information), especially when it comes to intercession or family. Now she carved the most powerful Light rune of protection there is, mixed her blood with his, and offered herself as a willing sacrifice. Now her blood, magic, and soul are all tied to the essential purpose of protecting Harry. Volde doesn't notice, perhaps he thinks the bleeding baby is a result of when he blasted the door in, and tries to kill him straight off. The rune, still fresh and overpowered, kicks Volde's ass.

Years later, Voldemort ressurects himself using Harry's (and Lily's by default) blood. Now that protection is spread over the two of them, but Harry's is still slightly stronger because he has the master rune. This slight advantage would mean the blood wards would BARELY be able to hold off Voldemort, but they'd still hold if they were fully charged (making Harry's presence at #4 more important than ever, not less). Against all outsiders however, even Voldemort has enough residual protection to block almost anything, hence "either must die at the hands of the other". They are the only ones able to get past the blood protections.

Unfortunately, according to most everything I've learned, once Harry kills Voldemort (or vice versa), the protection goes poof. Not only is the original purpose (protect my baby from Voldemort) fulfilled, but by killing someone under the same protective enchantment they would cast themselves out. Kinslaying isn't kosher by Nordic magic. Once Harry whacks Volde, he better run away fast because he'd be mortal again. There'll be no more AK bouncing for him.

 

Wow, great post. Your entire theory is amazing. Just thought I'd get that out .

Edit: Oh yeah, ummm.... JKR supposedly looked up all sorts of symbolic references and stuff maybe that's where she found it... *cough*man that sounds so weak but I need to say something relevant to the topic*cough*

 

There's alot of that sort of deep symbolism in the books. You just have to know what you're looking at. If you've read Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's "De occulta philosophia libri tres" you'll find resonances of his influence all through HP canon in how the magic works. Flamel likewise has a fair influence. If you examine some of the writings and drawings he left behind, you'll notice a few common themes in the story line itself (see below). In the first book Agrippa and Flamel are both mentioned by name, indicating at least a passing familiarity with them.

Arithmancy and Runes have the most potential of any of the Canon classes, yet we know the least about them. In arithmancy we could examine the divine proportion, golden angle, pi, fibonacci sequences, sacred geometry, and simlar topics. It's truly scary how important numbers are in nature and magic. In runes there are the nordic alphabets (omg there's a lot of symbolism there), the I Ching, Egyptian heiroglyphs, Phoenician letters, Mayan glyphs.... They can be used for divination, communication, protection, warding, cursing, and misdirection. Combine Runes and Arithmancy and you can study Geomancy(Astronomy helps), Ley Lines, Fung Shue, Ritual magics, and Alchemy(little potions helps too). It's really a shame that we're neglecting nearly half of the existing magical traditions to focus on charms, potions, transfiguration, DADA and Herbology.

Furthermore if we assume that Harry is NOT on the archtypal "Hero's Journey" we can begin to consider that something more important, more "magical," is going on. There are traditionally seven steps to Alchemy, and here we have seven books/years. The seven steps are: Calcination (trial by fire), Dissolution (get rid of misconceptions/impurities eg "parselmouths are evil" and "professor's know what they're doing"), Separation (determine the strengths of the individual parts leader/researcher/comic relief), Conjunction (return the essance to the body), Fermentation (let things stew for a year with nothing happening), Distillation (seperate the chosen one from the rest and refine him), and Coagulation (everything comes together and the final product revealed). These process are generally done in that order but can be repeated as needed before going to the next step.

You see, we may very well be witnessing the alchemical transmutation of a scared boy into the "holy grail" of fantasy literature, the savior of the world. Sure it may seem like a bit of a stretch, but if you take Alchemy as a spiritual discipline instead of a physical search for gold it works excellantly. The Alchemy Journal ran a good set of eight articles on Spiritual/Personal Alchemy between January 2001 and April 2002.

 

Could you give us links to this information? I'm very interested in this.

 

Stalicon:Could you give us links to this information? I'm very interested in this.

As am I.

 

Biography of Flamel with scans of his notebooks.
Nordic/Anglo-Saxon Runes and their magic.
Rune Magic e-zine (free)
Alchemy Journal (free e-zine)
More Rune stuff
Dragon Rouge a dark magic group focussing on achieving apotheosis (ascension/godhood) through a twelve step alchemical process. Led by Thomas Karlsson (author of Uthark - Nightside of the runes, refrenced above), they publish Dracontias (a left hand path magazine) quarterly.
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult Philosophy I: Natural Magic
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult Philosophy II: Celestial Magic
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult Philosophy III: Ceremonial Magic
Le Grand Grimoire One of the most famous and outrageous Grimoires of black magic. (French and English)
Five Books of Mystery (Mysteriorum Libri Quinque) by John Dee
Honorius of Thebes: Liber Juratus, or the Sworn Book of Honorius. This thirteenth century Grimoire is one of the foundation works of European magical practice.

I could swamp you with more, but those will keep you going for a while. If you still want more, look into hermeticism and the origins of the Illuminati and Freemasons. Trust me, you don't want to see what my bookshelf looks like. I've got fantasy and sci-fi novels up there with high level engineering texts, books from the middle ages on magic and the soul (reprints of course), modern magical theory, five or six holy texts from different religions, collections of Gullah stories and culture, European folklore, native american stories....

Jack of all trades, master of none.

 

She probably just chose it because younger readers think lightening is cool.