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. :)

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.

10 of Ravenclaw: Destruction

10 of Ravenclaw: Destruction

meaning of card facing you: backstabbed, defeat, crisis, betrayal, endings, loss
meaning of card facing away from you: recovery, rejuvenation, inevitable end

The dementors are very interesting creatures. They stand guard for the wizarding prison, Azkaban. They feed on every happy emotion and, if given the chance, the human soul, sucked out through what is called the "Dementor's Kiss". Dementors have betrayed Harry in many ways. They kept his uncle captive for thirteen years even though he was innocent. The dememntors don't really care about innocence or guilty, but they were guarding him in the prison that he was placed in under false pretenses. In the fifth book, two dememntors ambush Harry and his cousin, Dudley in their neighborhood. As creatures who are supposed to stop bad people form getting out of jail, attacking innocent teenagers is very far from what they are supposed to be doing. Finally, during the war, they deceive the entirety of the wizarding world by siding with Voldemort. They torment the wizarding world and the rest of Britain. They obviously did not just betray Harry, but the wizarding world as well. They felt betrayed when they allowed Sirius to escape and when they flipped their loyalties to the other side.

Though dementors do not kill people, they take everything away from them. When a person receives a dementor's kiss, they lose their soul. They become just a body, wandering aimlessly through the world without care or purpose. They lose everything and their life comes to an end, even if they are not dead. This can be a good thing in some cases- it makes sure that a bad person will stop doing harm. But it is also bad especially because it is the way dementos get food, so they don't really care whose soul they take. They almost ended Harry and Sirius' lives in the third book.

The only way dementors can represent recovery and rejuvenation is through the spell that pushes them away- the Patronus. The patronus is a spell that creates a guard of whoever is casting it. It takes form of an animal that is personal to the person casting it. Harry's is a stag (the animagus of his father). Hermione's is an otter and Ron's is a Jack Russell Terrier (an animal known for chasing otters). Snape's was a doe which was the same as Lily's. These guardians are basically made up of light I think, which is something repels dementors (creatures who prefer the night). The spell is a beautiful one, to say and to look at.

2 of Slytherin: Equilibrium

2 of Slytherin: Equilibrium

Meaning of the card facing you: indecision, choices, truce, stalemate, blocked emotions
Meaning of the card facing away from you: indecision, confusion, information overload

Draco Malfoy is a very very interesting character that has a lot of depth, if you bother to look closely. A lot of people look over Draco and just see him as the boy who became a Death Eater and was evil, but there is so much more to him.

Draco was raised by Lucius and Narcissa, both very capable rich Purebloods with more power and gold than you can imagine. He was brought up to think a certain way, talk a certain way, walk a certain way, act a certain way, etc. He was told from the start that Muggles and Muggleborns were horrible and below him. He was spoon-fed classism, muggle-ism, etc. from before he could think for himself. He always looked up to his father and tried to be like him, bullying people and becoming a Death Eater for him. It's important to remember that he never knew any other way of life.

In Draco's sixth year, he was given a task- a very dangerous, horrible, murderous task that I will go more into with another card- because his father was in Azkaban. This was the book where we kind of begin to see that Draco is an actual person- Harry especially. It is a year for him that it fraught with indecision, choices and blocked emotions. Draco pulls away from his friends and the people he cares about because of the task that he must do. He stops confiding and asking for help from Snape. He stops talking to his friends, starts going off on his own to places, and looks more and more pale and withdrawn as the year goes on. Someone he actually begins to confide in is Moaning Myrtle, he talks and cries to her, until Harry misunderstands things and messes it up.

Draco Malfoy can represent choices. He can be indecision because it took him a very long time to realize that he was on the wrong side and even longer to get out of it. But also, making choices. In the seventh book, he had a very big choice to make that decided Harry's fate. Harry, Ron, and Hermione get captured and taken to the Malfoy Manor. Hermione charmed Harry's face so it was disfigured, but could be recognizable. It was up to Draco to declare whether he was Harry or not because he knew what he looked like the best since he went to school with him. It was pretty obvious that it was Harry, Ron, and Hermione but Draco chose not say that it was. Without Draco's choice to not turn them in, they could have met a very gruesome ending with the Malfoy's summoning Voldemort and the war most likely ending with the Dark side winning.

Draco is confusion because up until the time he was eleven, he was taught one way of life, but from the moment he met Harry, he found that people were a lot different then what he expected. I think a lot of the time that he and Harry got into arguments, he was just struggling to hold onto what he knew, to please his father- or at least do what he thinks what his father would want, he's used to getting his way and lashes out when he doesn't. It's hard for him in school because most people don't like Slytherin and he has to be the example for the house as a rich, upstanding, Pureblood, but he is constantly made fun of by and in some ways loses to Harry/Gryffindor. It's a constant stream of anger, disappointment, and humiliation which leads to him resenting Harry and many people and choisng to be a Death Eater instead of asking for help, only to find how horrible it is (a lot like Snape). Personally, I think that if someone had reached out to him or if Harry had made their rivalry a bit more friendly, Draco would not have become a Death Eater and gotten himself into the mess he was in.

Truce and stalemate can be represented by Draco mostly during the seventh book and mostly just when he makes the decision not to turn Harry in. Also, even though I really hated the Epilogue, there was a moment when Harry and Draco nod to each other at King's Cross. This is really significant because it  shows that Harry has forgiven him for all the horrible things that happened to them during school. Another big thing is during the final battle, Draco goes looking for Harry in the Room of Requirement. He keeps telling Crabbe and Goyle to keep Harry alive. Harry goes back into the room even the the Fiendfire is tearing it up and saves Draco.  Later he saves him from a Death Eater who  was yelling at him. This shows that Harry realized what was going on with Draco and made an unspoken agreement with him.

6 of Slytherin: Knowledge

6 of Slytherin: Knowledge

Meaning of the card facing you: regretful but necessary transition, rite of passage

Meaning of the card facing away from you: cannot move on, carrying baggage

original sketch

So I finally messed up on a card. And by finally I mean, it was bound to happen at some time and I'm glad it happened on a card that I thoroughly enjoyed drawing. I actually had a lot of trouble with the first one. If you look at it, you can see at the small mess ups on Myrtle that I made, mostly with the cloak because I was really unsure of how to do it at first and started out with blue/grey instead of silver which did not turn out well at all as you can see. Also, I drew her upside down based on the back of the card so even if I had drawn her right the first time, I would have either had to restick the back or do it again anyway.

Now onto the meanings of this card (which is actually one of my favorites so far)

Myrtle is like the definition of not moving on. She is a ghost who spends her life? death? whatever haunting a girls' bathroom that no one uses. She died there because Tom Riddle (Mr. Lord Voldemort himself) set Salazar Slytherin's basilisk on her. She can move around the castle because we saw her at Nick's Death Day party in the second book, but she chooses to stay in her cold tiled fortress.

She can also represent regretful but necessary transition and rite of passage and I can prove it with two different books. In the second book, we meet Myrtle for the first time and we get to know her when the Golden Trio spend their extra time creating an unpleasant potion in her bathroom. They did not have to make this potion (polyjuice potion) but they felt it necessary in order to find out if Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. In the end, he was not and the mission was all for naught, the month of potion mixing gone to waste and it all happened while Moaning Myrtle was there. Not only this but Hermione's transformation was necessary and regretful when she turned into a cat instead of Millicent Bulstrode. Myrtle laughed at Hermione's predicament.

(I guess I should make it clear that when I say Myrtle represents these things, I mean her presence or something she is attached to was present in what was happening. That's probably a bit like cheating since it's all just circumstances and consequences that have nothing to do with her but they happen around her and affect her.)

In the sixth book Moaning Myrtle can represent rite of passage. During the sixth book, Harry struggles with his obsession with Draco Malfoy and the oncoming Dark War. I think that Harry's rejection of Draco's friendship and Myrtle's offering to share her toilet seat lead the two sorry souls to each other and Draco was able to find a friend while carrying out a task that is isolating and dangerous. He found that he could talk to Myrtle about things (or at least that was what was implied). Anyway, Harry finds Draco crying in Myrtle's bathroom and pulls out his wand. In the past we had seen Harry able to perform very difficult magic, but during this incident he performs powerful dark magic that he does not know or understand until the spell hits Draco. I think this is a rite of passage for Harry. It is when he finally his recognizes the power that he and magic in general has- how scary it can be. I don't think J. K. Rowling really goes into it in the book but, after this happens, we do see a difference in Harry.

During the seventh book, Ron and Hermione go to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to get into the Chamber of Secrets. This can also be seen as a rite of passage because it really shows that Ron and Hermione are capable of extraordinary things without Harry's help- not that that hasn't been proven before, but it's important to mention especially when we're talking about Myrtle.

ugh I feel like I'm missing important things about her but I guess I'm just not sure how to put it.

Myrtle helps Harry figure out what he needs to do for the Second Task in the Triwizard Tournament in  the fourth book. Without her, he probably would have had a very very difficult time and would have probably lost.