Tarot in the Harry Potter Series (Warning! Spoilers and Speculation about Book 7)

Lillie said:

However, JKR has associated the four houses with the four elements, and she has said that Slytherin is water and Hufflepuff earth.

Click to expand...

Lillie I bow to your HP knowledge *LOL*. If I were to create a deck, based on what I have read in the HP books and what I know of tarot and were to make an HP deck, I would breakdown the houses in the following suits based on temperament:

Ravenclaw - Swords/Air - they are the intellectuals.
Hufflepuff - Pentacles/Earth - they are just earthier than the other houses.
Gryffindor - Wands/Fire - they have passion, courage and determination. They are also quick to act.
Slytherin - Water/Cups - they are the (very) dark side of the suit of cups *LOL*. Very emptional and tempermental. It would be the strangest depiction of cups you had ever seen .... intersting but very dark. It would probably end up looking like it did not belong in the same deck it would be so dark *LOL*.

Slytherin as water and Hufflepuff as Earth

I put together an illustrated alchemical argument for this, before JKR's confirming statement.
http://www.lelandra.com/tarotbook/harrypotterelements.htm

Jewel said:

Ravenclaw - Swords/Air - they are the intellectuals.
Hufflepuff - Pentacles/Earth - they are just earthier than the other houses.
Gryffindor - Wands/Fire - they have passion, courage and determination. They are also quick to act.
Slytherin - Water/Cups - they are the (very) dark side of the suit of cups *LOL*. Very emptional and tempermental. It would be the strangest depiction of cups you had ever seen .... intersting but very dark. It would probably end up looking like it did not belong in the same deck it would be so dark *LOL*.

Click to expand...

I've thought a lot about the association of Slytherin with water (and therefore cups in most systems, though swords in the 'Picard' school)

And in the end I reckoned water as in Scorpio, and cups as in Crowleys Prince of cups.

To take a few of the more pertinent parts of the discription...

subtlety, secret violence and craft; intensley secret; on the surface calm and imperturble, but this is a mask of the most intense passion; on the surface suseptible to external influences, but he accepts them only to transmute them to the advantage of his secret design; completely without conscience; distrusted by his neighbours; inspires unreasonable fear; perfectly ruthless....

By the way, the location of the house common rooms and dorms is meant to suggest their element (except Gryffindor - fire)

Hufflepuff. In the cellar, near the kitchens.

Ravenclaw. Up a tower, if I remember right. (though we know very little about Ravenclaw really, we jhavn't even met their ghost, just seen her once)

Slytherin, In the dungeons under the lake.

And I think JKR made the distinction between the cellars of Hufflepuff and the dungeons of Slytherin. Though I would have to find the place she said it to check I got all that exactly right.

Glass Owl said:

And does anyone know if there are any threads here about the 4 Arthurian Hallows and their connections to Tarot?

Click to expand...

I don't if its been discussed much on AT, but Mary Greer has an article on the RWS minors and the Hallows. It's in the 2006 Llewellyn Tarot Reader. Her research is based on Waites writings in "The Holy Grail" and also "From Ritual to Romance" from Jesse Weston (via W.B. Yeats).

(PS YAY!! I finally finished "HP and the Half Blood Prince" yesterday so can now finally read this thread without worrying about spoilers It's been on my watched lists waiting for me to catch up )

Lillie:

You have only just read it?!

What an ending!

I suppose anything on the Hallow quest/Arthurian deck would cover the four Hallows.

There has been quite a bit of stuff coming up on the potter sites about this stuff.
Lot's of juicy speculation.

I'm useless at guessing.
My predictions for book 6 were way off.

Oh well!

At least it was all a surprise for me when I read the book!

OK, I'm coming way late to the ball, but I had the impression that JK Rowling used tarot cards in planning the series and in the symbology. For example, if you look at the major arcana cards matching Harry's age in the series

11: Strength
12: The Hanged Man
13: Death
14: Temperance
15: The Devil
16: The Lighning Struck Tower

The cards are almost perfect as the main themse of the books and have strong symbolic links. For example, in book 3, all the notion of death omens, the grim, Professor Trelawney always predicting Harry's death, the appearance of the dementors. Hagrid could be the guy right off my taor of the witches card. The Lightning Struck Tower is featured in the 6th volume, when Harry is 16.

I think there are a lot more than just elemental messages and associations.

Hm, that would give us The Star for book 7... definitely hope that the wizarding world will go into a brighter future.

I must say, I have read books 1-4 numerous times, but my interet somewhat decreased during the past two installment. I found OotP very tough to get through, and while HBP picked up a little speed again, the ending left me so disappointed I didn't even want to speculate on the horcruxes (this seems to be the common plural in Harry Potter forums like Mugglenet). I hope book 7 will bring back my enthusiasm!

There's rumors in the news now, apparently she said there MAY be a book #8 in the series.

HudsonGray said:

There's rumors in the news now, apparently she said there MAY be a book #8 in the series.

Click to expand...

I hope you are kidding. Things always go off when authors decided to add bits all of a sudden.... And she said years ago she had already written "the end".

I think she said it would be like an encyclopedia of sorts of Harry's world - the chance to use the bits she didn't use in the novels.

More apocryphal to the stories, like Quidditch Through the Ages and the other one.