a sad note.

Yesterday I was reorganizing my lists of the cards and the meaning behind and I realized that I had misread my own handwriting when I hard first started this project. I confused the order of the suits (houses) so that 12 of the cards I've already done say they are from a house that they are not. Because of this, I am going to fix the cards and the posts that I made for them. Here are the cards that I'm going to change:

2, 6, 7 of Slytherin to 2, 6, 7 of Hufflepuff
2, 6, 9, 10 of Ravenclaw to 2, 6, 9, 10 of Slytheirn
3, 4, 5, 7, 9 of Hufflepuff to 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 of Ravenclaw

I'm pretty mad at myself, but I can fix it without too much of a problem so I guess it's ok.

9 of Ravenclaw: Gain

9 of Ravenclaw: Gain
When the card is facing you: gratitude, luxury, self-sufficiency, culmination
When the card is facing away from you: over investment in work, financial setbacks

I chose Fluffly for this card mostly for the meanings behind the card when it's facing away from you, but I think there are a lot of reasons why the other side's meanings work as well and they are kind of intertwined. We don't know very much about Fluffy. He is only present in the first book and not very often. He belongs to Hagrid but he is placed in a room on the Third Floor to guard the entrance to the hiding place of the Philosopher's Stone. We meet him first when Harry is tricked by Draco Malfoy into being in a place he wasn't supposed to be that he could easily be caught in. Harry and his friends hide in the room that Fluffy is stationed in to guard to escape Filch and punishment if he finds them. It's an overestimation on the kids' side because they assumed that they could just hide in any room in Hogwarts. They were wrong because instead of an empty room, they were met with a growl-y, slobbery Fluffy who isn't really as safe as Hagrid says he is.

Secrecy at Hogwarts is overestimated when it comes to Fluffy. It was not as hard as it should have been for Hagrid to let slip the way to get past Fluffy to a stranger (Quirrel/Voldemort) in a bar. This therefore leads to the overestimation of Fluffy's actual ability to guard. The fact that Voldemort is able to get through Fluffy so easily and be one step closer to the Philosopher's Stone is pretty scary. Not to mention that Harry, Ron, and Hermione end up also being able to get past Fluffy. Obviously it was a bit silly of someone to think that a three headed dog who gets sleepy when listening to music was a good first obstacle for someone in pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone.

Luxury is a pretty weird thing to connect Fluffy to, but I think it works. The way you get past Fluffy is by playing music for him that makes him fall asleep. Music can be considered a luxury. Self sufficiency is a little easier to connect and also has both a good side and a bad side. In order to get past Fluffy, you need to be self-sufficient, meaning you need to have the ability to play music. This applies to everyone, from Voldemort to Harry. Also Voldemort had to be self sufficient to get the information on how to get past Fluffy. He figured out a way to be unrecognizable and get Hagrid drunk enough to reveal the secret. For gratitude, I want to connect Fluffy to this by saying that Hagid loved him and cared for him. I think that also Hagrid might have been grateful to Dumbledore for letting him guard something special with one of his magical creatures.

The road so far...

So over the past about year and a bit, I have completed 29 and a half Harry Potter tarot cards. I have written posts for most of them, some I haven't posted yet. The list of the ones I've completed are on the blog, but I thought it would be cool to get a group photo.

Because there are so many, it's hard to get all of them together. So I also took this photo:

and one of each one of them in their groups:

The Major Arcana:

Gryffindor:

Hufflepuff:

 Slytherin:

Ravenclaw:

Just thought it was pretty cool. I've done a lot, but I still have 48 and a half more cards left to do. :)

Major Arcana: XV Devil

Major Arcana: XV Devil

meaning of the card facing you: bondage, addiction, sexuality, materialism
meaning of the card facing away from you: detachment, breaking free, power reclaimed

It probably seems pretty obvious why I chose Voldemort to represent the Devil card, but I'm going to explain it anyway. I just want to clarify that I don't hink that Voldemort is the Devil or is supposed to represent him (and in this case I mean the Devil as is Lucifer, Satan, etc.). This card, is about the meanings that are above and what i will explain below, and nothing else. There is no religious meaning behind this that I know of.

Voldemort can represent addiction in the way he interacted with and used Horcruxes. It is said that most wizards, should they chose to split their soul in order to be immortal, usually stick with one or two Horcruxes, more then that would be excessive. Voldemort, however, decides to create seven apart from himself. Voldemort is not addicted to Horcruxes, but to power and the idea of unkillable.

Bondage is represented not in Voldemort but in his actions. He basically binds his followers to himself. The loyal ones are marked with a Dark Mark that he can use to summon them. They can never be free of this mark, even if they decide they do not want to follow him anymore. Along with that, Voldemort binds himself to Quirrell in order to grow stronger and get the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone that would help him be immortal. (Not completely sure if this counts as binding, but) Voldemort also using blood from Harry and his own father's remains to regain his body. This might have deepened the mind connection that Harry and he share.

I don't think, and don't want to think actually, about Voldemort's sexuality. In his school days at Hogwarts, though, he was said to be very charming, charming enough to get the Grey Lady to share her secret with him. Also, from the time he was in school to when he got older and more snakelike, Bellatrix Lestrange basically falls in love with him. It is more an obsession and power-hungry kind of love, but it is there.

Voldemort's power is reclaimed by Harry and the rest of the Light side. His most trusted servant, Severus Snape managed to find his own way to break free from Voldemort's clutches along with Draco Malfoy. They both ended up working (sometimes without meaning to) in a way that helped Harry out.

3 of Ravenclaw: Work

3 of Ravenclaw: Work

When the card is facing you: teamwork, collaboration, initial fulfillment, learning
When the card is facing away from you: lack  of teamwork, disregard for skills

For this card, I drew my own symbol to represent Quidditch. I looked at the Quidditch World Cup posters, logos from house teams, and drew my own version of it. It's not that original but I think it's pretty.

I chose Quidditch for this card because it is a game that relies on teamwork. Without the teams, there wouldn't be the game at all. Also, in the game, the team members need to learn how to work together in order to win the game. Sure, each member can do their own job without taking the time to sync up with the others, but in order for them all to stay coordinated and winning, they have to learn how to work together, guard each other from the opposing team, and work to get goals against the other team. Everything in teamwork is about the collaboration. The beaters have to be able to work together to guard the Chasers as they try to score against the other team's Keeper, all of them working to keep the other team from trying to mess with the Seeker. If the team does not learn how to collaborate, then they are disjointed and most likely easily defeated. As they practice together and work on being a team, they learn these skills and become better athletes. None of this comes without the work that the team members put in.

Just want to say that i love the way Quidditch is introduced in the books. There are a lot of games where important things happen: Harry almost getting thrown off by Quirrell, Dobby and Lockhart's obvious lack of magical knowledge when it came to certain things, the Dementors and Sirius, the Quidditch World Cup and the Death Eaters, Umbridge being a horrible person, etc. etc. etc. There are so many things that happened around Quidditch in the books (not so much in the later books but still, its a theme that continues to come up). Also it's interesting how it connects Harry to his father in ways that I don't think anything can, other than maybe the invisibility cloak.

6 of Hufflepuff: Happiness

6 of Hufflepuff: Happiness (or Nostalgia)

Meaning of the card facing you: looking back, nostalgia, connected to children, childhood
Meaning of the card facing away from you: not being able to let go, getting stuck in the past, naivety

To be honest, I messed up a tiny bit on this one. I named this card Happiness, when I should have named it something else. Happiness/Joy is the 9th card, if I am remembering correctly, but I got the meaning behind the card and who I chose right, just used the wrong title. it probably doesn't matter that much in the long run. But if it bugs me a lot, I might redo the card.

Hagrid, I feel represents these interpretations of the cards very well. He is a big part of the change in Harry's view on the world. Hagrid is the one who introduces Harry to the wizarding world when he is eleven and remained a friend for the rest of his life. He gave Harry his family back with an album that held pictures from Harry's family's childhood and life, in a way giving Harry a way to connect to this parents and their friends in a way that he hadn't before. He was able to find connections to Sirius and his parents through the album. He was Harry's first friend which is a pretty important person to be for an eleven-year-old in my opinion.

Hagrid's connection to innocence/naivety is there as well. He is kind of naive when it comes to teaching his students and dealing with people like Draco Malfoy and Professor Umbridge. He doesn't realize how scary/dangerous the creatures are (like the blast-ended skrewts, buckbeak, but also Aragog) and doesn't really know how to teach about them. He ends up messing up a lot when Umbridge comes to inspect his class. He is also innocent for what he is accused of int he third book as well as the first time he was accused of it as well. (and by this roundabout way of saying it I am talking about how he was accused of setting the creature from the chamber of secrets on the students and Hogwarts. He was innocent when accused of this both times, but no one believes him until Harry proves it.

I want to say that I have evidence or some way to show that Hagrid is stuck in the past, but I can't really think of something, it's just a feeling I have. Most of the adult wizards and witches in the wizarding world are stuck in the past a bit. Everyone praises Harry for something he does not remember, they all flinch at the sound of Voldemort's name. Of course, they are at war in a way o it makes sense to refer back to the previous war against Voldemort though I think there are limits that people cross, even without realizing it. Especially with Slytherins who are never given a chance to prove that they are not all dark wizards who want to eradicate muggles. Most wizards are stuck in ideas of the past which is good in some ways, but damaging in others. I associate this with Hagrid in some ways (and I cannot explain exactly why)

Hello!

Yes it has been a while since I have posted on here. I've missed this a lot.
There are a lot of cards I have left to post about/make. So I'n going to do my best to get back on track with the one-a-week posting. It's a bit hard with college stuff and school, but I will try a lot harder now that most of that is over with for the time being.