Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Hearing Your Name in Lights: The Deluminator in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"Put out the light, and then put out the light"
--Othello, Othello act 5, scene 2
(when snuffing the candle before killing Desdemona)

 Put Out the Light, and Then Put ON the Light

I use the Othello line as an epigraph not only because it introduces the element of "two lights" I want to examine in Deathly Hallows, but also because I want to use its negative, tragic setting as a little intro foil to what I will be describing. In Othello, the light imagery is used for murder, while with Dumbledore's deluminator, it is used for the good event of reunion between estranged persons, Ron and Harry and Hermione. It's the reason DD left it to Ron: "'no,' Harry corrected him, 'he must have known you'd always want to come back'" (Deathly Hallows 391).

At the outset, I am going to establish that as a base. Ron recounts that, after he heard his name come out of the deluminator on Christmas, he clicked it and when the light of the room went out, the light appeared outside the window that later entered him behind the garden and the led him to Harry and Hermione (DH 384). There are two lights, and the second (unlike Othello's second instance) leads back to reunion.

Let There Be Light: Scientific Light and the Other Kind of Light

This point may be a bit esoteric for some. I have written on this at other points long ago in another work, but it would take me a while to find the essay, and it may not even be findable anymore, so I will just begin with recounting that instance and move into the theoretical backing. That instance was the "compass that doesn't point north" in Pirates of the Carribean, and what I wrote about it is that its point is that it is not scientifically accurate (doesn't point north) so that it can be accurate in a way other than scientifically, meaning in pointing to one's deepest desire (for Jack, the Pearl). The point I would make here is the same. There is a purely material light (the lamp in the room), and it must go out so that the other light may appear, the light that leads to reunion. Just as the compass must not point north (be scientifically accurate) if it is to point to the heart's desire, so the purely material light must be extinguished in order for the other light to appear. The narratives convey that the scientific or material must yield to something else, something with a meaning beyond the "objective description" of science and beyond material concerns.

The theoretical side that I mentioned is probably most clearly presented by somebody else in Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, in which he goes into great depth on the radical shift in thought in and since the scientific revolution. But that is a very dense exposition, so in my own writing it is perhaps most prominent in my post on literal-six-day creationism as having unfortunately bought into the underlying principles of scientism without realizing it, resulting from the former's desperate desire to beat the latter on its own grounds, in the process thoroughly imbibing its presuppositions. But I know I have probably also written on those presuppositions in other places addressing the role of Renee Descartes, the father of modern philosophy. The core of scientism (not meaning scientology) is the assumption that scientific discourse is the base mode to which all modes of discourse are reducible, the most fundamental discourse, and that scientific fact is the base mode of truth. The role of Descartes is that he formulated in a unique and monumental way a radical redefinition of the meaning of physicality or materiality (he was not the first to think anything like it, but he did present it most succinctly, and that presentation is a major moment in the progression, and therefore his designation as the "father" of modern though). He broke "reality" down into two categories: res cogitens, or "thinking reality," and res extensa, or "extended reality." The latter is his radical redefinition of materiality, defining it by it's quantifiable extension in three dimensions. It's not that nobody knew of extension in three dimensions before him; they did: height, breadth, and width. But they didn't define physical reality by that; they didn't make it the core defining aspect. For the ancient and medieval mind, the definition was not quantitative, but qualitative. There was a hierarchy, and at the top was the human body, which gave orientation for all other bodies. And human body was first and foremost a mode of relation: one relates to God or the gods by cultic acts done with the body; spouses relate to each other through the bodily conjugal act; one relates to nature by bodily tilling of the soil or shepherding of flocks or herds; and so on. Of course, Descartes's move took physical reality out of a hierachical relationship with that which is above it: the classic argument against Descartes is that he creates a "ghost in the machine" by neglecting the soul; he gives no satisfactory answer for how res cogitens connects with and governs res extensa; it's just a ghost in the machine. The material world, now unmoored from its orientation to the higher, to persons, and now defined only by what it had in itself, its extension in three dimensions, became a law unto itself and spawned the "laws" of nature as we now know them and as scientism takes them to be the absolute ground of all reality.

My main interest here is simply to provide Rowling's use of the two lights, alongside the compass that doesn't point north in Pirates of the Caribbean, as evidence that artists can see beyond the false myth of scientism (and, yes, the full smacking irony of applying the term "myth" to scientism is intended). There are meanings in life other than scientific accuracy and material pragmatism, and they are higher meanings. It's not that we should reject scientific fact or scientific discourse altogether, but we should reject scientism's radical enshrining of them as both base and pinnacle of all reality.


Hearing Your Name in Lights

It's demonstrable that JKR has some very pointed stuff going on here just by the fact that there is such a concentrated presentation of certain elements, and I think the main one of those connects meaningfully. That main one is the issue of names, and my main point is that naming (1) is the way the reunion happens and (2) has the same potential for a bad use (presence for the sake of material control ... I would argue, the same type of control that unguided science and technology seek) and a good use (the relational/communal aspect as hierachically above the material). The short version of this is that, in this section of DH, we have two elements of naming side by side, and both of them have names doing more than simple material labeling for material identification (which is the basic scientific role of names). The first is the taboo placed on Voldemort's name. Here the name can bring the presence. This is straight up traditional "taboo." Before it came to mean stuff we don't talk about because of good manners or whatever (especially the sexually taboo), it meant entities we don't name because using their name might bring them to us, and we don't want them here. In older, superstitious cultures, you wouldn't say the name of a demon because that might bring the demon.

[The theme of the importance of names is too well-established to really justify going into it here. I heard a good paper at Lumos in 2006 on Jewish name magic as the source of the taboo feeling about Voldy's name, and that presenter used the exact word long before Rowling revealed it in DH ... which was a cool confirmation for that author's insight when JKR did use the word. It's all over Ursula K. Le Guin's Wizard of Earth Sea, Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind, and Jim Butcher's Dresden files books. As a child of the 80s, Terence Trent Darby's "sign your name across my heart" comes to mind, and as an English major, the irony of Romeo's "what is in a name" arises in my mind. And of course, the most seminal instance of them all: the Tetragrammaton, the four-consonant name of God that those in Judaism do not pronounce because it is too holy; in modern siddurs (prayer books), they don't even write it anymore, they just have two yods or the Hebrew "Ha Shem,"  "The Name."]

I think that the more important instance of name "tabooing," the one that she is really aiming at as a positive meaning, is the one she doesn't call a taboo, even though it basically is. The deluminator is pretty much a straight up taboo device in that original sense of making the one named appear. Ron carries the deluminator and is its rightful owner, since Dumbledore left it to him in a binding will. When Hermione uses the name of the carrier and owner, it notifies him and then provides him a way (the very same second light I was speaking of above) to come to them (it goes inside him and guides his apparition). Here, name taboo is used not for catching and harm, and it doesn't break protective enchantments; it respects those who used the name and their need for reunion to be fully intentional and knowing on their part. But its role as facilitating re-union of comm-union is clear. That is what knowing people's names is supposed to do, to build or rebuild community. "He must have known you'd always want to come back."

JKR is careful here in setting up the taboo. There may be a material discrepancy, but it is probably more that she simply did not include a logical explanation, but since one can be so easily construed, I think it is sufficient. The taboo was in place when the Burrow was invaded at the wedding, as Ron explains that that is how the Death Eaterss found them on Tottenham Court Road (DH 389). They use the name at least once that I saw in a quick perusal of the #12 Grimmauld Place material, but the plausible explanation for why they are not found through the taboo there is the fact that the house had already been made unplotable by the Black's, and that type of thing may be of another class than the usual "protective enchantments" the taboo breaks. It's still a possible material inconsistency, but it's a gray area. It would be a material inconsistency if they had used it in the tent after escaping the ministry and Yaxley and not been revealed, that would have been a clear inconsistency ... but they don't ... I checked (if there had been such an inconsistency, it would have been a nice case supporting my idea in my post on narrative as a kairotic chronolgy that kairos always breaks chronos, as evidenced in the instance I discuss in  my post on method, where I use the primary example of the magically appearing fourteen feet in the graveyard in Little Hangleton in Goblet of Fire, the idea that their will always be breakdowns in material consistency ... this would have been a nice example and added, along the lines of that argument, weight for saying that what I am discussing here is an important theme for her, as it would have yielded an inconsistency, kairos breaking chronos, but alas, JKR was very thorough here, although, as I will say, her thoroughness in setting up the taboo this securely so far in advance also indicates importance for her, just along different argumentation lines). Ron's irritation at saying the name begins the moment they are clear of the ministry and in the open. I checked all the instances, and neither Harry nor Hermione ever makes it further than the first syllable of the name before Ron cuts across them.

So, JKR seems to have cared a good deal for the taboo element to have set it up so securely this far in advance (if we accept the arguments for why the use at Grimmauld place not revealing them not being a clear inconsistency). While they never get past the first syllable, there are a good three or four times they try and are cut off by Ron. JKR is accenting the taboo structure, especially having Ron say it feels like a jinx (reinforced by Ron's revelation of the taboo on DH 389 using the same word, "jinx"), and right after they left the ministry, where a taboo is more likely to have been set up, as it is probably equipped for monitoring the whole country, especially regarding the trace (which is the alternate explanation they keep wondering about for the DEs finding them). She also accents the issue of Ron's name by having the issue of saying his name be a sensitive thing once he is gone. Harry reminds Hermione who Muriel is by saying "Ginny's great-aunt," and it is noted that he senses that Hermione could sense Ron's name in the offing. Then, when she finally does name Ron, there is a bit of hesitation ("Remember ... remember Ron? When he broke his wand, crashing he car?" ... DH 349), and when that is mentioned later (DH 384), the language is all pointed: Ron's point is he heard his name and Harry remembers that it was the first time they had said Ron's name since he left.

It may be that there is a more direct relation between the taboo and the deluminator than it simply being that the taboo trope simply signals the importance of names as a signpost to the importance of the communal use of names as more than material labels, as agents of community, a relation or connection that is literal as well as literary. It seems odd that Ron is so sensitive to a feeling of jinx ... but then, Ron has the deluminator, which is a positive taboo device, and maybe it is precisely having that taboo device that makes him more sensitive to taboos.

To sum up: the two lights of the deluminator are evidence of an artist sensing that there is a light that is higher than the light of the scientific/material light, and in the instance here, with the deluminator, it is the light that leads to reunion and it works through names. I think the name "deluminator" means more than just the literal referent of putting out physical lights; I think it means the literary referent of having to put out the material light so that another kind of light can appear (Voldy is nothing if not a materialist), a light that leads to real community (which Voldy hates). Voldy's taboo is like material light as radicalized in pure materialism; the taboo in DD's deluminator gives light that leads to communal relationship based in something higher than materialism, based in love.