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.

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.

Major Arcana: IX Hermit

Major Arcana: IX Hermit

Meaning of the card facing you: soul-searching, being alone, introspection, inner guidance
Meaning of the card facing away from you: isolation, withdrawal, loneliness

Professor Severus Snape is the Hermit of this Tarot deck. There were a lot of cards that I matched Snape with. He fits with many different descriptions and meanings of cards, but after going through everything, I decided that Hermit fit Snape the best.

Most people don't see Snape past the idea that he is evil and a Death Eater. If you read the seventh book, it becomes clear that he was more like a double agent, leaning on the side of the Light. He passed them information while being Voldemort's right hand man. I personally find a lot more good than bad about him, but not everyone will agree with me.

Snape spent his life alone. He grew up as an only child with parents who were not the most loving or the most interested in him. He made a friend, Lilly Evans, who was a muggle but had a magical spark that he found out about and tried to explain to her. They were friends but excluded Lily's older sister and left her very very very resentful of the magical word and its people. At school, Lily was her only friend aside from the Slytherins that he felt he had to be close with in order to protect himself. But their friendship was strained. After a few years and a very  public humiliation, they stopped being friends and Snape was left feeling more hatred towards the Marauders than ever before. In a state of complete hatred and almost (in my opinion) desperation for something to belong to, Snape joined the Death Eaters and immediately regretted his decision when he learned that he would be the reason that Lily, the love of his life, would be hurt. When Voldemort ignored his plees of leaving the girl alone, Snape knew he had to do something to fix things. This is introspection  He saw the darkness that was inside himself and realized why he needed to change his ways. He had to find a way to 'save' Lily Evans ne Potter now that he had failed her. He went to Dumbledore for guidance and found an open and forgiving mind.

Ove the years he gained Dumbledore's trust and he began to trust Dumbledore as well. But there were things that went wrong. Dumbledore asked Snape to keep an eye out for Harry but Snape resented Harry for his father rather than caring about him for his mother. In Harry's fifth year when Harry needed Dumbledore and was given Snape as the only option, things did not go well. Dumbledore also did not trust Snape with all the information that he needed. Snape realized that all the time that he had spent trying his hardest through the hatred to watch out for Harry, the hours of torture he endured and was forced to put on others because of Voldemort, the masks he had to wear, the people he had to ally himself with and those he had to hurt were for nothing, because Harry had to die.

Snape died alone. Though Harry physically was in the room with him as he died, Snape had no one. At that point in time, Harry had not watched the pensieve and did not understand all the things that Snape had done for him. He couldn't tell Snape that he forgave him or that he was brave or thank him. Snape died without knowing that Harry knew the truth and that is the most alone I think a person can be. He gave up everything and did not know that it amounted to anything.

Major Arcana: 0 The Fool

Major Arcana: 0 The Fool
What it means facing you: beginnings, innocence, spontaneity, free spirit
What it means facing away from you: naivety, foolishness, recklessness, risk-taking

So this card is the first card in the first deck. It's also a card that is numbered zero and it's been unclear to me exactly what that means. But I did it and it's Colin Creevey and he's awesome.

Colin is like the leader of innocence. He comes from a muggle household into the wizarding world with wide eyes and an open mind. He reminds me a bit of Hermione because he seemed to know all about Harry. He marks Harry down as a hero though and follows him around like a lost puppy which also contributes to the innocence factor of this card. Colin is spontaneous in the wizarding world because he carried a camera around with him every where. While it might be a little weird for him to be fangirling over Harry Potter, it's nothing new for the wizarding world because they all kind of do that. He's spontaneous because he brings something to the magical world thats different. His obsession with taking pictures of everything is foreign to the students because many of them have grown up with moving pictures and ghosts floating around, but he hasn't. Everything in the wizarding world is new to him and beautiful. He takes pictures to capture what fascinated him. I think that if I was a Hogwarts student, I would be a lot like him.

He is a free spirit for all of those things that I just said. His fascination in things and his open-ness to magic are an example of that. While Colin was small and skinny and had a tendency to trip over himself in excitement, he also was strong and brave. He fought in the Battle of Hogwarts eve though it cost him his life. He wanted to protect the things that he cared about and it didn't matter to him that he was too young to be fighting. This also leads into recklessness and risk-taking. Colin did not have to go to battle, he was actually told not to because he was too young. But he went anyway. He took a huge risk that ended with him dead. Even if it was for a noble cause, it was still reckless. Colin's naivety and foolishness is apparent in his first year at Hogwarts (Harry's second). When he saw the Basilisk, instead of turning and running as far away as possible, he took out his camera. Because he looked at it though a camera lens, he did not die, but he still was petrified.

Colin was a good, enthusiastic, lovable kid, but he took life-threatening risks that cost him.