Chapter 21: The Problem of Beauty, Shame, and Slughorn

Today we really explore the character of Slughorn and what his character bring into the story (both good and bad). We also discuss some of the potions that Slughorn introduces us to and some of the implications that they have even for our modern culture. We even talk about how shame could point to the presence of God.

Enjoy the read!

- V. B.

Percy doesn’t go through middle adolescence (separating himself from his family) until after graduating Hogwarts; his rebellion comes through as treachery to his family.
Older adults who are not your parents are a very important part of growing up.
The Hogwarts students don't expect Dumbledore to play Quidditch, but it is very important for him to be there just the same.

Slughorn

Slughorn is an expert potion master, and he whips up the most difficult concoctions, but at the same time, he’s not very good in a tight situation, and he’s not good on his feet. When Ron was choking on the poisoned mead, Slughorn was frozen solid with shock, unable to do anything to help Ron. He lacks backbone and will power.
Slughorn isn’t a man of action. However, he knows his trade inside and out, and he knows what’s of value to potions. When it comes to value, he’s absolutely entranced with all that Hagrid has strewn around his hut.
When Slughorn sees all that Hagrid has acquired as groundskeeper, he sees galleons. Hagrid, on the other hand, sees tools for helping his creatures.
Slughorn’s value system is very mercantile/materialistic; what is it worth in terms of translating it into goods for himself? How much oak-matured mead or crystalized pineapple will this get him. (In 18th century English architecture, pineapple boasted that the owner was a hospitable person. The fruit wasn’t native to England, so it was very expensive, very exotic, and very hard to import.) Slughorn isn’t satisfied with mere chocolate. Crystalized fruit is the most expensive sort of candy you can have, and it’s only the best for old Sluggy.
Hagrid sees things in terms of its use, which contrasts Hagrid’s and Slughorn’s value system.
We start to see the parts of Slughorn’s character that are his flaws. We know he has a strong intellect, but we also know he has a failure of will (he is smart enough to act, but he just can’t).
Slughorn is driven by emotions more than anything else. His driving motives are fear and lust, but his fear is what controls him most. We often see certain emotions as the dominant aspect of who a certain person is. For example, for Hermione, her defining point is intellect, and with Harry, it’s his will power that defines him. He doesn’t have time to worry about what he’s feeling, he acts and then thinks about it later.
But these traits in Hermione, Harry, and the rest of the cast of characters aren't always good. Sin happens in the heart, in the human spirit. Jesus said the problem is what’s inside a person, not outside a person; we see this going on with different characters. We can now go back and think through the different characters and see sin operating uniquely through them all and how it effects them, and the story.
Lust is Slughorn’s modus operandi when it comes to the small things. He lusts after recognition, which is a self-esteem issue dealt with in early adolescence. If Percy didn’t get through middle adolescence, then Slughorn hasn’t gotten through early adolescence. One of the major differences between Percy and Slughorn though is that Slughorn does not desire power at all, he just wants recognition. 
Slughorn is almost childish. He’s not innocent, yet he still deals with self-esteem issues. Hagrid is child-like (but he is not without sin) which gives him an air of innocence, but he deals with a great many hardships throughout the series (loosing creatures he cares about, caring for his brother, recruiting the giants, etc) and yet he takes responsibility for his actions and behaves like a man. Slughorn on the other hand runs from danger, gives into fear, and has no desire to deal with consequences. This is the difference between being child–like and child–ish.
The crowning moment for Slughorn happens in the seventh book when he puts his fear aside and decides to battle the forces of evil alongside the rest of Hogwarts. Professor McGonogall confronts him, and he feels ashamed. He sort of disappears with the Slytherins, but his great moment is when he comes back to fight with the others. The apostle Peter failed, but also he came back; like Slughorn, he slinks away, but most importantly, they both return.

Harry's Thoughts on Slughorn
After Harry and Dumbledore come to recruit Slughorn into teaching at Hogwarts, Dumbledore asks what  Harry’s impression of Slughorn was. Both Harry's thoughts and feelings are important.
Harry has a building impression of Slughorn throughout the book, but his initial impression was important.
Slughorn offends Harry in the way in which he talks about muggle borns; Harry is quick to defend them by example with Hermione’s superior intelligence.
Slughorn also collects people, which puts Harry off. He hasn’t quite recognized it or thought through it yet, but Harry has a feeling about Slughorn and then gains reasons for his dislike later. Sometimes we have feelings about people but we can’t always trust our feelings because “the heart is deceitful above all things.” Thus, we might have the wrong feels about a certain person just like Harry had a feeling about Snape too, but he was wrong in the end. You receive immediate conclusions from your feelings, and then your intellect needs to analyze these thoughts.
Harry doesn’t want to get too close to Slughorn, but he will do so at Dumbledore’s request.

Potions

One of the intriguing parts of book six are some of the potions that Slughorn whips up.

• Felix Felicis "Liquid Luck" - This is the grandest potion mentioned in Half-blood Prince, and it was very important to Harry and Dumbledore. Slughorn can make the Felix Felicis potion, one of the most complicated of all potions, yet he has only taken it twice in his life. Up to this point, we’ve seen his flaws (ruled by his belly, lustfulness, etc.) yet he has a set of pretty high values when it comes to the uses Felix. He tells the class you can’t use the potion in sports competitions.
• Love Potion - This potion plays a very important role at different points throughout this book. This potion has different fragrances unique to the smeller. Hermione smells fresh parchment and freshly mown grass. Harry smells flowers and broom handles. These sorts of scents are smells you can’t put your finger on, but they invoke the loveliest of emotions. We smell the pleasantest fragrances that we associate with the one we’re in love with.
  To Harry and Hermione, this is a barometer for their feelings. It gives them information, but they’re the ones who have to interpret it. They realize they love whoever it is that they love; in this case, it’s Ginny and Ron.

The Problem of Beauty

We have these love potions in our culture as well. Perfumes and cosmetics have a scent; what is this fragrance deal all about? Fragrance is the experience of the beautiful through our nostrils.

The problem of beauty, the very presence of beauty in the world – why is it there? Why do we experience it? It’s a driving thing for us; beauty is also one of the things that’s going on with Slughorn and his diet. We are the only living things on this planet that have such a wide-ranging diet. Humans, as a general rule, have this huge range of things we all eat. It has to taste good, which is a way of experiencing beauty. Sometimes the way food looks will determine whether or not we choose to eat it. Likewise, sometimes the way food smells either makes or breaks it for us.

 We experience beauty in a wide variety of ways, sound included. Harry thought Nick’s deathday music was ghastly, while I’m sure the ghosts enjoyed it. Some sounds are quite beautiful to us.

The human body, with all its senses and different ways of discovering things, is just as complex as the spirit. Our spirit is constantly interpreting things through our different senses, and we’re constantly experiencing the beautiful. We can’t have the experience of the ugly unless we also have the one of the beautiful to compare it to; without that comparison, the experience is just meaningless.

Humans all have a preference of beauty, yet there’s also the individual experience of the beautiful. This sometimes depends on culture. We started wearing blue jeans to be different; so, naturally, now everyone is wearing blue jeans. The universal experience of what is beautiful occurs even while we are infants. We as individuals have preferences of what is good to us that are not dictated by our particular culture.

The Matter Of Shame

He feels incredibly guilty having told young Tom Riddle about the horcruxes; he feels terrible and ashamed.

What causes people to feel shamed? It's simple, it is the Holy Spirit. Jesus told us, when the Holy Spirit comes, He will convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Slughorn is morbidly ashamed of what he told Tom Riddle, and that is a good thing; imagine if he hadn’t been ashamed. This is one of the arguments to the moral existence of God. You see, where does shame come from if not from God? Shame is not a universal trait of human nature. Bellatrix is not ashamed. Voldemort isn’t ashamed. Shame can't be chalked up to humans being naturally "good people". Any brief overview of history, or even a quick glance around your neighborhood will bare that out. There has to be something else going on in order to make people feel a sense of guilt.

Slughorn's Racism

Slughorn is really most of us. Most of us are nice people, and therefore, we think of racism as something only the KKK, the Nazis, or the Death Eaters do. Since we’re all these good people, we never deal with things like racism in our culture. The truth of the matter is that we are all racists, but we must recognize it first. Until then, it’s only something “bad people” do; we stereotype racism into what only bad people do.

Slughorn doesn’t feel like he’s a prejudiced man.

•  I’m sophisticated, I collect muggleborns and purebloods, but I’ll have to qualify that it’s surprising to me that a muggleborn like you is the best in your year; you’re not like us, so it is surprising, but you’ve achieved something and you can earn your way into my group . . . but you’re still a muggleborn, just in case you forgot.

Hermione is always our voice of reason in this. There’s always prejudice against house-evles, giants, and werewolves.

Madam Maxime is ashamed of what she is, and she’s responding to her culture; she wants a different identity. On the other hand, Hagrid is more mature, and he accepts himself for what he is. In every area that matters, the areas of eternal significance, Hagrid is the one you want to be. Madame Maxime is still struggling in a world that isn’t hers. She’s buying into a value system that is not of the Lord’s creation, the value system that every culture develops. Dumbledore is coming out of racism, but he’s still in remission; he’s like an alcoholic that hasn’t had a drink in a long time, but is still an alcoholic; he’s a recovering racist. To recognize that we’re racists is an extremely important part in self-awareness.

And now for a closing quote from Dr. Poe: 

“If you fry it, of course it’s good! I’d eat fried saw dust. Especially if you put some good BBQ sauce on it!” 

Chapter 20: Saints, Sisters, and Slughorn

Now we are entering into the Half-Blood Prince! A very exciting book in which a great deal happens. Join us as we explore how Rowling has set up all the important events of this book throughout the previous ones, what happens when sisters don't get along, why Professor Slughorn is important, and what is the nature of true friendship.


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That is all I have to say for now, so enjoy the read!


-Victor Bennet


The Half-Blood Prince
In the Chamber of Secrets, Harry accidentally ends up in Knockturn Alley, where he winds up in Borgin & Burkes. While he is there, he encounters a few objects that don't seem to be very important at the time, but wind up playing a big role in the 6th book. 

• Vanishing Cabinet
• Cursed Opal Necklace
• Hand of Glory

This gives the reader all the clues; there are no sudden or hidden clues. (This is following one of Sayer's mystery story "rules" of giving the reader all the clues to the solution ahead of time, but Rowling breaks one of her "rules" by having more than two hidden passage ways in Hogwarts. But of course... in a magical castle, she can get away with it.)
Tom Riddle’s first job out of Hogwarts just so happens to be at Borgin & Burkes. This is important because he wouldn’t have been able to collect the objects he later made into his horcruxes without the opportunities he had at the shop.


Also in Half Blood Prince, Draco goes through a great deal of character development and Lupin finally figures out that he was purposefully bitten by Fenrir Greyback. 
Snape takes the post as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor; thus, owing to the supposedly cursed position, we know something will happen to him by the end of the book.
Ginny has always had a crush on Harry, and she finally gets her man. The books don’t reveal that Ginny still likes Harry over the course of the series, but the movies give it away from time to time.  

• Now let us take a break to have a small side note on films. All the different forms of storytelling have both advantages and disadvantages to them. Typically, movies are about 2 hours long. The Harry Potter films were longer than that, and the viewers STILL didn’t think that there was enough of the book in the movie. But we have to realize that books, movies, plays, poems, and such are all mediums. The thing about novels is you can put all the details in, and you can also collaborate with the reader. What does that mean? Well, it means that books can have a greater level of detail without getting extremely boring [readers of Moby Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Similarion may wish to disagree with me on this point, and I wouldn't blame them, but I mean when compared to films.] "Collaboration with the reader" means that the reader must engage the work and use their imagination to build the world that they are reading about. In film, all the imaginative work has been done by the film makers and all the viewer has to do is watch someone else's interpretation of the book. So with film, you trade the ability of active imagination for the passive viewing of visualized ideas. End of bunny trail...)

In the first book, Quirrel has a part of Voldemort literally physically attached to him. This ties in with Voldemort's ability to possess people. But it also is mirrored later when we find out what a horcrux is and what it does. We also find out what the diary really is, and without that diary, Dumbledore never would’ve been put on Voldemort’s “horcrux” trail.
Aragog, who we meet in the second book, dies in the sixth book; this also plays a critical role in getting Slughorn’s memory and advancing the story.


St. Mungo's
Saint means "Holy One", and the holy ones are the followers of Christ Jesus. The use of that term is one of the little clues she lays out, and she’s showing her colors in a very discreet way. She’s very self-consciously creating a difference between the muggle and magic worlds, and names are a big part of her attempt. She takes great care and pride in the names and words she chooses.
The sound of the names (think of "Slytherin" and "Hufflepuff"), their etemology, it’s all a part of what she’s doing. Some words don’t mean anything anymore in context, but she keeps turning the tables on what is considered the norm of our culture.
You can almost contrast St. Mungo’s to St. Brutus’, which explicitly shows the Dursley’s brutality. In the muggle world, a saint's name is applied to dentention center, whereas in the magical world, the name is applied to a center of healing.


Angry Sisters
When the book opens, we find out that Fudge has been impeached from the Ministry; we then go to Spinner’s End where Bellatrix and Narcissa have gone to see Snape. Narcissa is showing storge love towards her son, Draco. Her sister is with her, yet she doesn’t tell Voldemort that she and Narcissa have gone to seen Snape. This means she is actually betraying the Dark Lord for her sister; even Bellatrix has this tiny little corner of storge for one of her sisters (none for Mrs. Tonks). For whatever reason, she’s protecting her sister’s treachery, and she doesn’t reveal their visit to Voldemort.
Part of this is the idea that there’s a little good in everyone. From a creation perspective, everyone is made in the image of God. Rowling is developing a doctrine of sin, and we see in every character the presence of sin. We all have sin, and we all do sin. However, there’s still the mark of creation, though we may befoul it. We cannot undo what God has done, and Bellatrix’s loyalty to her sister is a subtle theological statement.
We can compare those two sisters with Harry’s mother and Petunia Dursley, and with that, we go from Spinner’s End to Privet Drive.
Aunt Petunia knows about Azkaban from Snape. When we first read the book, she talks about “that boy” and later says, “that Potter boy”. Assuming she’s referring to the same individual, we believe this to be James Potter. After finishing the last volume and beginning again, we find out that “that boy” Petunia was referring to was Snape. This is very careful writing.
There’s this issue between Petunia and Lily, and it’s certainly not agape love. Why on earth would Petunia agree to take Harry in? Dumbledore sends her a howler telling her to remember the letter that had been left on her doorstep with Harry as a baby. It turns out, Petunia kept Harry to protect him. Here we have this corner of compassion with Petunia; we even see her put her foot down with Vernon in the fifth book. Petunia isn’t necessarily evil; there are scales of evil. Voldemort is completely evil, and everyone else is gradually less evil than him.


Professor Slughorn

He is very smart, but he has a lot of biases and plays favorites in order to help himself achieve his personal goals. Slughorn has good qualities but he very self-centered. “…whose god is their belly” Philipians 3:19 He’s not interested in power or fame but he still collects people. He objectifies people.

Fear is his primary motive. He is on the run all the time, he can’t even enjoy himself. And yet in the last book, he leaves but then comes back! And he is actually dueling Voldemort at the end.

There’s a lot in the books about being called upon to make choices. “Chose you this day whom you shall serve” Joshua 24:15 The same challenge is presented to Slughorn by Professor McGonogall when she says, “We fight to the death.” She knows the importance of what lies ahead, and she wants others to know it as well.
He has his little group called the Slug Club. Harry is a member (not really of his own free will), and he doesn’t want to be. Dumbledore requires the memory, so he tells Harry that he has to be a part of the "club." Harry, however, doesn’t do a very good job of attending the dinners. (C.S. Lewis wrote The Inner Ring on this subject, and he also put this at the heart of his book, That Hideous Strength. In his book, the driving desire of the young junior member of the faculty is to become a part of the "in" crowd.) There are lots and lots of inner rings scattered around (Death Eaters, Dumbledore's Army, etc...), and you’re either in or out. The question is, how do you feel about it? Do you want to be in? Are you thankful you’re not?
Ron wants to be invited to Slughorn’s parties, but Harry doesn’t. Draco also wants to be in the inner ring, but neither Neville nor Luna will be invited in. The way that Harry dislikes the Slug Club and invites Luna to the Christmas party "just as friends" really brings up the issue of what real friendship is.
To a certain extent, Dumbledore’s Army was a different way about thinking of an inner circle. There is a difference in how you get accepted into the Slug Club and how you get into the DA. It all depends on what value system you are using to value other people. The Death Eaters are an inner circle, as were the Marauders in their time.
Rowling also makes the case that not everyone who has a reputation or intense popularity are the kind of people who you need to hang out with.

• Cornelious Fudge knows how to get along and flatter people.
• Horace Slughorn sets up the Slug Club and objectifies people.
• Gilderoy Lockhart is a pathological narcissist. 
• Barty Crouch works very hard to keep his reputation, to the point of disowning his own son.
• Percy Weasley is a self-important flatterer.
• Ludo Bagman is very puffed up by his past position on a national quidditch team, and this is his continuing basis for operation.
• Cormac McLaggen will bore you to death talking about himself; he is an attention-seeker.
• Draco is this way in the first book onward. He brags about how wealthy his parents are, how much influence his father has, and it’s a skill he cultivates to his ruin.
• It’s clear that Rowling doesn't really like these sort of people.

Shield Charms

Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes have a wide assortment of shield charm items for sale. These articles shield you in different ways, and according to Dr. Poe this could allegorize the whole armor of God. This is the whole idea between the shield and the onslaught of evil it’s protecting you from.    

Jinxes in the Bible?

Mrs. Weasley threatens to jinx Ron at the Burrow. When a jinx comes upon us, we’re inhibited in some way. This is what happened to the father of John the Baptist; he was "jinxed" so that he couldn’t speak because his lack of faith in God. John the Baptist’s father was able to speak again once his son was born and named.

Dr. Poe quote of the day: (On the Harry Potter films) “Where there is a will, there is money to be made.”