Major Arcana: III Empress

                                               

Major Arcana: III Empress

Meaning when the card is facing you: fertility, femininity, beauty, nature, abundance
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: creative block, dependence on others

Molly Weasley is a very interesting person. She can represent fertility because she is a mother of seven beautiful children: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, Ron, and Ginny. She also "adopts" Harry into the family. She is main mother figure we see in the series, for Harry and for others.

She doens't have a lot of money, but she has an abundance of love. The Weasley family is pretty poor mostly because Molly is a stay at home mom, Arthur works at a low paying job at the Ministry and they have seven kids. They don't have a lot, but what they have, they share. Also, Molly makes huge amounts of wonderful food for everyone to make sure they are healthy, happy, and satisfied. Molly can represent beauty in the way she treats people, the way she loves them and cares for them.

Mrs. Weasley can be a creativity block, however. No matter how much she loves her children, she still doesn't always understand them and therefore kind of blocks them from being creative. She constantly bugs Bill about his long hair and talks about cutting it when he obviously is uncomfortable with that. She throws out creations that Fred and George made for their joke shop. They spent hours creating them and perfecting them, but she just throws them out likes it's nothing. She also is a bit smothering when she should know better. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are preparing to go hunting for horcruxes, she tried to stop them from planning and also trying to figure out what they were planning to do even when they tell her it's a task they aren't allowed to talk about and they can't not complete it. These things that Molly does is not to be malicious or mean, they're out of misplaced love in her heart but there are a lot of creativity blocks that should not be over looked.

I think Molly fits this card really well. :)

Also I'm sorry for the delay, my queue isn't really working very well

2 of Hufflepuff: Love

2 of Hufflepuff: Love

Meaning when the card is facing you: united love, partnership, affection, relationships
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: break-up, imbalance, lack of harmony

First things first, it must seem weird that Love is a Slytherin card, but it isn't. Slytherin is about loyalty, family, and ambition among other things and those are things that are part of what love is.

I'll focus on the bad first. Ron and Hermione had a very interesting relationship from the start. They didn't like each other at all until the Troll incident. Even after that, they still fought and got on each other's nerves. This can represent lack of harmony- at least while they were growing up. I think as they got older, they learned how to be with each other from friends to in a committed relationship. It isn't easy and it takes a lot of of both of them. They trust each other in different ways, they want different things, but in the end they figure it out because they love each other so much. Imbalance could be represented in the way that they have different kinds of strengths. Hermione is the smartest witch of their year- she knows like everything ever, a GryffindorRavenclaw-ish personality while Ron is very open and reckless which is kind of just Gryffindor. Ron, though she says he has the emotional range of a teaspoon, (I feel) shows a lot more emotion than she does. Hermione is practical and looks at things logically, Ron tends to view things more from his heart and from his gut feelings more than thinking things through.

I'm not really sure how to connect them to break-up unless we count when Ron left Harry and Hermione during their quest to find the horcruxes, which I think we should. Obviously, Ron and Hermione aren't together at that point, but they were still really really really important to each other and the fact that he left was heartbreaking. Hermione was able to count on him when she was debating things with Harry. Ron was also emotional support kind of- he made a lot of jokes and kept them all a bit more lively. Without Ron, Harry and Hermione struggled- Hermione didn't talk very much and tey both seemed kind of listless in general. It was a break-up, even if it wasn't a traditional break-up.

Ron and Hermione, though they argue, they still care deeply for each other. It's clear that they have affection for each other. Hermione cast a Confundus Charm on a fellow student to ensure that Ron would be Keeper for the Team. Ron gets jealous of Krum when he takes Hermione to the Yule Ball. I think one of the reasons Ron started dating Lavendar was because he did flirt with Hermione and had affection for her but she didn't want him. When Ron was poisoned by the love potion, he mutters Hermione's name (even though he was dating Lavendar at the time) which proved his real feelings.

I don't know. It's hard to describe why they are such a good couple, they just are. They balance each other out. They are in love with each other. I think that they are ~soul mates~ kind of like how Arthur and Molly are just meant for each other and there isn't a way to explain why, they just are perfect. I don't think I've ever shipped a ship harder than Romione. They are love.

(I originally had Snape down for this card because of his thing with Lily and Harry, but I decided he was meant for other cards that could capture more of who he was)

IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW

I am going to camp for the next 7 and a half weeks. I have two cards with their meanings scheduled to post this week (today) and next week (the 27th), but after that, I'm not sure if I will be able to post or not because I'm not sure about my internet connection or how much free time I will have to work on them.

I have twenty cards completed in total and you guys have seen the majority of them, but there are a bunch I have not written things for and therefore will not posted.

I'm going to add the all names of the cards that I have completed to the Cards page even if I haven't posted them yet.

Thank you for your patience and for continuing to follow my blog. I'll be back soon. Have a wonderful summer! :)

Major Arcana: VIII Justice

Major Arcana: VIII Justice

Meaning when the card is facing you: justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law
Meaning when the card is facing away from you: unfairness, lack of accountability, dishonesty

Neville is basically the embodiment of all these things: from karma and justice to unfairness. From a young age, his family didn't believe in his magical abilities. They hung him outside a window and did other things to try and scare the magic out of him, without anything really working. He is given his father's wand which was not suited for him and therefore his magical abilities in school were not up to par so he was often viewed as a liability and not good at magic. He is made fun of and laughed at by Malfoy and his Slytherins, most teachers besides Professor Sprout and Mad-Eye Moody (who turns out not to be Mad-Eye Moody) don't see his potential, and his Grandma is never proud of him. But he turns that all around in little ways over the years. He shows his bravery in first year but Dumbledore is really the only one who acknowledges it. In fifth year, he proved his worth to not only his peers, but also his Grandma by fighting alongside Harry at the Ministry. In the seventh year Neville doesn't even need to try anymore to prove himself to everyone, it's already clear that he's brave and strong.

Neville Longbottom's parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and they are in a ward in St. Mugo's Hospital for the rest of their lives. Neville is incredibly wonderful when he goes to visit them.An example we see of this is him accepting a candy wrapper from his mother as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world (which it kind of is because it's not like his mother can really give him anything else). He is kind and understanding towards them; he doesn't let his grandmother's negativity get him or his parents down, choosing to focus on the good rather than the bad.

Neville could have also been the "Chose One". He and Harry share the same things that the Prophecy about Voldemort and ?: parents defied Voldemort three time and that they were both born at the end of July. This is significant because obviously, Voldemort chose Harry over Neville (probably because the biggest difference between Harry and Neville was that Harry was a halfblood like Voldemort while Neville was a pureblood). Though he wasn't the "Chosen One", Neville still plays a very big role. IN the seventh book, when Neville kills Nagini, he destroys the last horcrux that Voldemort has besides the man himself. Without Neville doing this, Harry would not have been able to kill Voldemort.

THIS WAS A SHORT ANALYSIS. I USUALLY ELABORATE MORE. HERE IS AN EXPLANATION:
I love Neville Longbottom too much and I don't know what else to write about him without just repeating how amazing he is over and over and annoying everyone. Also, it's summer and I'm tired and studying for finals. I might add more later, but for now this is all I have for this week.

edited June 20, 2013 2:23am

5 of Ravencla: Torment

5 of Ravenclaw: Torment

Meaning of the card facing you: isolation, insecurity, worry, financial loss, poverty
Meaning of the card facing away from you: recovery from financial loss, spiritual poverty

Note: I usually do not post more than one card in a week, but as I did not do one last week, I figured I would do two this week.

Just a little background about the card itself: usually, I have the background of the card reflecting the house it belongs to in some way. this card is the opposite. Hufflepuff is supposed to be the happy, loyal, loving, sunshine and butterflies kind of house. This card is the opposite of that and to reflect that, the background is purple and red (the opposite of yellow and blue kind of) (I know it's hard to see. I'll probably upload a new picture soon) to show how opposite it is from the House's values.

Everything that we know about Nagini is through Voldemort. We hear her history and what she went through when we learn more about him and what he did in his life and what he did to her. From what I understand, Voldemort found Nagini after his first fall at the hands of Harry. When he was weak, she was there for him. In his time of isolation, loss, and poverty, Voldemort found a 'friend' in Nagini.

He worried about her a lot. She became a Horcrux when Voldemort killed Bertha Jorkins in the fourth book. He, then was still very weak. Though splitting your soul does not seem like it would make you stronger, it did. He became even more immortal. She was a source of power for him. When Voldemort realized that Harry was hunting down his Horcruxes, he immediately made sure that Nagini was secured and very close to him. He did not want to have to worry about losing another piece of his soul, but also he didn't want to lose her. Again, they had a bond and Nagini might have been the only thing that Voldemort really cared about other than himself and his power. She was an extension of him literally and figuratively and so he worried and cared for her.

Nagini was with Voldemort while he was weak, she was also stayed with him when he was strong. She was there when he gained power and started killing people and worked to made his prejudices become a reality. He was able to talk to him in parseltongue, share information that she heard, kill people for him. She stuck with him until her head was cut off with the Sword of Gryffindor by Neville that destroyed the piece of Voldemort's soul. That was actually another very important thing about her. She was the last Horcrux he made and she was the last one to be destroyed. Harry could not  have killed Voldemort without her being killed which shows again how close they were (Voldemort and Nagini).

2 of Gryffindor: Domination

  
(I wanted the picture to be a little better so it was easier to see the work I put into it. I might upload a new one in the future)

2 of Gryffindor: Domination

Meaning of card facing you: future plans, progress, decisions
Meaning of card facing away from you: fear of unknown, lack of plans

The Ministry of Magic can represent future plans in many ways. Many people, like Hermione, spend their years at Hogwarts preparing for the future by making sure they know enough magic to get into the field they want to work in. In fourth year, Hermione creates SPEW which is an organization that is supposed to be about the protection of Elfish welfare. She doesn't make very much from it but it marks the beginning of her wanting to get involved in magical creature rights. Later, after the war, she ends up in the law department of the Ministry of Magic.

Voldemort had plans for the Ministry of Magic. He wanted to take over the Wizarding world and a very effective way of doing that is infiltrating the Ministry. After taking over by using Imperio-ed wizards and witches, he begins an anti-muggle/muggleborn/halfblood campaign. Obviously these plans don't work out once Harry defeats Voldemort, but it shows that the Ministry was a stepping stone for Voldemort's plans.

You are probably wondering how the Ministry of Magic could fall to one wizard, but the answer is fairly easy. The fear of the unknown made the Ministry a very unstable thing to hold onto. Fudge did not want to believe Harry or Dumbledore that Voldemort was back because he feared that this was the truth. The Minister stuck his head in the dirt and allowed horrible things to happen around him because he didn't want to face the facts. This lead to the Azkaban breakout, Death Eater recruitment, and more. There was a lack of information being given to the public because the Ministry was stopping it from being spread. If the Ministry had, instead of being scared, worked with the Order of the Phoenix, Harry, and Dumbledore, Voldemort might have had a very hard time getting back into power and a lot of damage could have been prevented.

The Ministry of Magic, though it has many problems, is a place of progress and decisions. It's a place where people make laws, and enforce them, as well as creating things for the sake of learning and discovering more about magic. In the fifth book and onwards, we learn more about how the Ministry works. Harry gets taken in for a hearing regarding his use of magic outside of school. There is also the Department of Mysteries where Unspeakables make experiments with magic and do many things they do not speak about. The Ministry is decision making and progress with these things and more, its many departments moving it along and taking care of business.

It's important to remember how much influence the Ministry has. Though it can be incompetent and unwilling to face reality, it controls many things like the newspaper, regulations, school things and more and when it actually uses its power (like Voldemort did) it shows how dominant and strong it can be.