Harry Fletcher and the Four Temperaments
From Golden Snitch Netlog by Wynn Gardium and Levi Ossa, November 15th, 2007
Harry Lucas Fletcher, everyone’s favorite Ginger Wizard, hero of the epic Wizarding World of Jo Rowling[1]. Since his debut in 1997’s
A Touch of Magic[2], Harry has connected to young readers in a way few characters have in decades, ushering in a renaissance of readership in an age where many were predicting the imminent death of the novel as a popular artform.
Now, a decade since Rowling’s first novel appeared, and with
Three Gifts from Death now a few months past its release (and with plenty of time for spoilers to have been absorbed by my readership), let’s take a deep dive into the central themes – or indeed central theme – of the work.
Many have wondered what magic lay behind Rowling’s Boy Wizard. And the answer, once thoroughly deconstructed, nets something based in actual ancient mysticism: The Four Temperaments.
The traditional view of the Four Temperaments with associated Elements (Image source Pinterest.com)
For those not up on your ancient philosophy, medieval alchemy, Jungian psychology, or modern Corporate Personality Test pseudo-psychology, the Four Temperaments represent four basic core aspects of the human mind, body, and soul with origins dating back to the ancient Greeks and closely tied to the Four Elements. Each Temperament was tied to an element and a “humour” or bodily fluid, and “balancing the humours” was a staple of western medicine right up to the 19th century, with bleedings and enemas standard medical practice because of this.
Everyone has, the theory goes, some combination of the Four Temperaments, but one or occasionally two will predominate, which will define your personality.
The Four Temperaments are[3]:
- Sanguine: associated with the element Air, the humour of Blood, and the color Red, the Sanguine personality type is described primarily as being outgoing, highly talkative, enthusiastic, active, and social. Sanguine individuals are extroverted and brave, but can be reckless risk takers, flaky, insensitive, and can lack focus and initiative.
- Choleric: associated with the element Fire, the humour of Yellow Bile (urine) and the color Yellow, Choleric individuals tend to be extroverted, independent, decisive, goal-oriented, and ambitious, but can also be argumentative, violent, vengeful, petty, selfish, and short-tempered.
- Melancholic: associated with the element Earth, the humour of Black Bile (feces), and the color Black, Melancholic individuals tend to be introverted, analytical, cerebral, perfectionist, and detail-oriented, but also moody with raging emotions, which they often externally suppress. They can be self-reliant, thoughtful, reserved, and often anxious, but also cold, distant, elitist, or neurotic.
- Phlegmatic: associated with the element Water, the humour of Phlegm, and the color Blue, Phlegmatic individuals tend to be relaxed, peaceful, quiet, and easy-going. They are sympathetic, empathetic, reliable, honest, and caring, but tend to hide their own emotions. They can be good at compromise, but are often passive, naïve, and easily manipulated.
And if all of this sounds like the type of information that a certain sentient hat might want to know, well, congratulations, you have caught your first glimpse of the magic beneath.
Rowling took these Four Temperaments and modified them slightly, in particular changing around some of the elements and colors for symbolic purpose, until the result was the Four Houses of Hogwarts[4]:
- Gryffynhart: clearly Sanguine with its focus on bravery, outgoing nature, and Red color, though it drops Sanguine Air for Choleric Fire and adopts Choleric Yellow as well. Is this perhaps a hint of ambition and self-reliance in the Gryffynhart? Or is this simply due to symbolism, the Red of bravery and Yellow of Gold (Golden Rule) and Fire of stoutheartedness or the welcoming hearth? We can easily see how the outgoing, popular, and sporting (but occasionally flaky and cliquish) members of Harry’ House can be the Sanguine Blood of Hogwarts, as symbolized by their leonine mascot.
- Slythryus: very much the Choleric with its ambitious, goal-oriented, power-seeking, vengeful, and selfish nature, though it adopts the colors Green and Silver and the Phlegmatic element of Water. A hint of the controlled here? Or simply the jealousy of Green and the greed of dollar-bill-Green and the miser’s (or Judas’s) Silver? The low-seeking and malleable and persistent nature of Water, particularly as is sinks down below the earth into the cavernous Slythryus spaces, seems to be a symbolic driver for this change. Certainly, the personality traits of the Slythryus seem very much in tune with the Choleric in both the positive and negative, the sly, persistent, and cold-blooded serpent as their mascot.
- Corvidious: so much of the Melancholic here with these “high minded” and often neurotic elitists. Intellectual, arrogant, living high in the Ivory Tower at the top of Hogwarts, but often touched with a bit of the insane, dancing on that line between genius and madness. Perhaps the Sanguine Air element is a hint of some sort to enthusiasm or the Phlegmatic Blue a hint of the Thoughtful, or perhaps the symbolism of the Blue Sky and Air at the top of their high tower tells you all you need to know, the wise, high-flying, and mighty Owl as their mascot.
- Burleighnohn: this grounded, loyal, and hard-working bunch are practically the poster children for the Phlegmatic, though with Choleric Yellow and Melancholic Black as their colors and Melancholic Earth as their Element. Hints of being touchy and reserved? Or simply symbolism of the solid reliability and, well, grounded nature of the Earth along with two unassuming colors which, when together, are like the warning stripes of the hardworking but protective of its own bee? It would certainly blend well with the gruff, insular, familial, and dangerous-when-provoked bear that is their mascot.
This cannot just be coincidence! Surely Rowling did her homework and was well aware of the role of the Four Temperaments and Four Elements within traditional magic and mysticism as well as psychology. Add in some modern symbolism with colors and elements to update it, and you have an ancient wizards’ school steeped in real western magical traditions. Even more apparent to this is how the personalities of the four central characters, each from one of the four houses, map to the Temperaments, and also how, since a balancing of the humors is a staple of the tradition, the four of them must ultimately come together to save the day; four different people, four different temperaments, one whole being.
Let’s take the main hero protagonist, Harry Lucas Fletcher. Brave, outgoing, friendly, enthusiastic, longing for friendship, and a little bit reckless, Harry embodies the Sanguine, and yet since he is the character we get to know best we see that there are depths to him, with his Phlegmatic reliability, Melancholic moodiness, and most of all Choleric ambition, making it little wonder why the Sorting Hat had a bit of a hard time with him before sorting him to Gryffynhart. Harry was, of course, the original character that Rowling thought up and the very genesis of the story.
“I was riding on the train, my mind sort of wandering,” she said in an interview, “and this vision comes to me of this skinny, ginger boy with glasses and this uncontrollable mop of curly hair. He was this powerful wizard, and yet he didn’t know it. The image became brighter and more real to me as the trip continued.”
In keeping with Rowling’s clear love of wordplay and symbolism, his name was not just pulled from a hat, as it were. While she’d always loved the name “Harry”, Harry’s middle name Lucas means “light bringer” and speaks to his messianic purpose, and yet it does so in the form of a common, almost boring name. The resemblance to the word “luck” is probably deliberate as well, as is the resemblance to “Lucifer” given his dark secret connection to He Who Shall Not Be Named. Fletcher, likewise, is a common name, one evoking a tradesman-like job of making bows and arrows, and yet it is one of creativity, and creativity in the creation of something associated with the brave British yeoman of old. It is also a weapon, speaking as well to the secret darkness and his ultimate role as a warrior[5].
Harry, to complete himself as it were, needs three other people in his life. Two of them are obvious: the brilliant know-it-all Hippolyta Granger and the reliable but boorish Ron Hedgeley. These two he meets and quickly befriends on the Hogwarts Express not long after discovering his magical talents. The meeting seems serendipitous, even fated. The brief and fleeting introduction of the fourth passenger of the cabin, the independent minded Scorpia Spinx[6], seems at first similarly meaningful, even though she barely stays in the cabin, instead heading out for what Hippolyta assumes to be “mischief”. Scorpia, of course, would play a bigger role later, though many wondered at the time why Rowling went to the trouble to introduce this particular character just for her to vanish so quickly.
But let’s look first at Hippolyta, a character whom Rowling admits bears more than a passing resemblance to herself at that age. With her frizzled hair inevitably tied up into a haphazard pile atop her head and her out of style reading glasses, Hippolyta is a consummate bookwork and rather socially detached and judgmental, and yet secretly has these raging emotions and is easily hurt by the cruelty of others, even as she endeavors not to show it. The name comes from the mythical daughter of Ares, God of War, and Otrera, the Queen of the Amazons[7]. Meanwhile, a Granger is a farmer or rancher, or otherwise someone who works with the dirt and thus speaks to her common Muggle-born origins (as if “mud” was in her “blood”, as it were). She’s presented as an unpopular nerd who alienates others with her haughtiness. With such classically Melancholic personality traits, it is little surprise in hindsight that she’d be sorted into Corvidious[8]. However, she too will reveal her Sanguine bravery, Choleric ambition to be the best student, and Phlegmatic empathy as the novels progress.
Ron, meanwhile, is from a large and ancient but humble wizarding family. Poor in material wealth but rich in generosity, the Hedgeleys – whose name speaks to something bucolic (a hedge) but also to the seemingly small and weak, yet clever, inquisitive, and well-protected hedgehog – are all but your living embodiment of the Phlegmatic. Ron himself, whom Rowling maintains is partially based upon a childhood friend of hers, personifies this Temperament with his friendly, reliable, and humble nature. Serving as a bit of comic relief, Ron nonetheless regularly proves his meddle while also serving as the Heart of the central trio. So it’s hardly a surprise that he was sorted into Burleighnohn, even as he shows a Sanguine outgoing and friendly nature, a Choleric temper on occasion, and a Melancholic moodiness.
But what of the Fourth? Well, on the surface this seems apparent. One of the first people that Harry encounters at Hogwarts is, of course, Draco Malfeus[9], the callous and cruel blond boy whom Rowling based off of a bully that she knew. The ambitious and social-climbing Draco comes, like Ron, from an old wizarding family, and yet one that is wealthy and powerful. He immediately tries to ingratiate himself to the famous and fabled Harry Fletcher, but his casual cruelty to Hippolyta and Ron immediately reveals to Harry his nature, and Harry famously snubs him, setting off their complicated and generally acrimonious relationship. Draco, who on the surface embodies the Choleric, is, of course, sorted to Slythryus. It would take until the last two novels before we really start to see more of his Sanguine bravery, Melancholic intelligence, and Phlegmatic empathy beyond subtle hints.
That these are our Four seems apparent when they are the four assigned to the Study Group. In a decision that seems to confirm that the Four Temperaments (and the balancing thereof) are at the heart of the themes of the series, it is revealed that a longstanding Hogwarts tradition has the students assigned into groups of four, one from each house, to perform their lessons. And naturally Harry, Hippolyta, and Ron are placed together. But the fourth is Draco, whom all of them despise and who increasingly seems to be an impediment to their growth rather than a support for it.
Adding further complexity to Harry’s life is the new Gryffynhart family that he is assigned, with likeable and eclectic characters like Nevil and Bill and Percy and Tom-John who are so welcoming and treat him like the loving family that he never had. They seem to lift him up and salve his worries and he’s soon a popular and talented part of this new fraternal order. Yet much like when Vonnegut wrote of
meaningful karasses and empty granfalloons, the fraternity of the Gryffynhart Housemates would ultimately begin to feel hollow for Harry as the series progressed, particularly when compared to the true sense of family he’d develop for his study friends.
This contrasts with his Study Group, whose idiosyncrasies can irritate him. And yet it is Hippolyta and Ron whom fate seems to always throw together with him, Draco always on the fringes as an impediment and yet also constantly trying to horn in on their efforts, often for his own selfish aims. And yet so often it is Scorpia who has that last bit of information or takes that one critical action which allows the trio to save the day. As the novels progress, it is through these three, and ultimately the fourth, that Harry begins to experience what a true found family can be, as if they are lost parts of himself and he a lost part of all of them.
Scorpia, meanwhile, is presented as a bit of an enigma throughout the series[10]. Sorted into Slythryus (and revealed to be Draco’s cousin), the raven-haired troublemaker is an unabashedly ambitious and single-minded rulebreaker who ends up becoming the, well, “alpha bitch” of Hogwarts as the children enter into their teens. She’s hardly there at first, and yet inevitably manages to appear at critical moments, a (well) sphinxlike enigma. Often a nemesis for Hippolyta in particular, with her casually insensitive and inconsiderate nature (she is based in part on girls who used to pick on Rowling), she is nonetheless revealed to be someone who, while not inherently cruel, is certainly selfish and argumentative. And her role certainly grows as the arc-story of the series continues. When it is revealed that Draco’s father Janus Malfeus used his wealth and influence to get Draco into Harry’s study group in
Order of the Phoenix, one can’t help but wonder if Scorpia was supposed to be the proper “fourth” all along, and her replacement by Draco a sign of just how much the leadership of Hogwarts has gone astray from their founders’ original vision.
In fact, one can’t help but see, when one looks, how the entire narrative of the stories – the four Houses, the cross-House study groups, and the way that the Four seem to be the key to solving every problem – are representative of the balance of the four humours and elements.
And this story of balance soon gets writ large as the larger arc-plot of the novel series plays out. At the beginning Gryffynhart is the dominant house, with Headmaster Alban Dumbledore[11] and several prominent Gryffynharts in positions of power. Gryffynhart has been the winning House in the competition for 8 of the last 10 years. At first this is made to seem a good thing, as the kind hearted and joyous Dumbledore becomes a father figure for Harry. Rival House Slythryus, meanwhile, is shown as the house of bullies and cheats and seems symbolized by the dour and cruel taskmaster, Potions Professor Severus Snape[12], who was based on a professor that Rowling disliked (are you seeing a pattern here?). The Slythryus are shown to be driven by jealousy and constantly plotting to replace Gryffynhart as the dominant house.
Corvidious, meanwhile, as represented by the taciturn Transfigurations Professor Aife Minerva[13], is aloof to this old contest, and sees such contests as largely beneath them, while Burleighnohn, as represented by the unflappable Herbology Professor Pomona Sprout[14], simply objects to such contests and games in principle as hubristic and unseemly.
In the first book in particular, this Gryffynhart dominion is presented through Harry’s wondering eyes as a good and right thing, and the idea of an ascendent Slythryus seen as a decidedly bad thing. Harry has gone from an abused shut-in to practically the most popular kid in school, and from an awkward nerd to a sports hero after winning the Quaddach[15] game at one point. The first book,
A Touch of Magic, is deliberately written in simple terms with simple, seemingly black and white morality. The use of childish things like bogie jokes and earwax-flavored jelly beans similarly fits in with this simplistic, childlike view, and led many critics to at first dismiss the book, and by extension the series, as empty and childish wish fulfilment.
And yet even then the seeming binary morality is being subtly challenged. Harry is led into some troublemaking adventures by his Gryffynhart friends, but then has to rely on Hippolyta and Ron to help get him out of trouble and save the day. The very subtle way that Scorpia is woven into the story, easy to overlook as just one of many other students who appear in passing, becomes clear foreshadowing in hindsight, as does the fact that the hated Snape is secretly protecting Harry from the hidden malefactors. And the rushed coverup of the fact that He Who Shall Not Be Named is back hints at the moral complexity to come.
What makes the Wizarding series stick in the hearts and minds of so many in ways that go beyond the relatable characters and the clever language use is how the stories indeed “grow with their characters and audience”. As Harry grows and starts to learn more about the way of the world, the binary morality is increasingly broken down. The mistakes of his mentors and the limits of his own assumptions become increasingly clear. The humanity of his antagonists becomes more apparent and the flaws of his friends and benefactors clearer.
Principal among these shades of grey is the response to the Fascist-like Death Eaters. It would have been easy to simply make the Slythryus all support them and the other Houses all oppose, and yet the situation becomes more mixed. While a significant number of Slythryus do support the Eaters or at least try to profit off of their ascension, in particular the powerful heads of the House, like Janus Malfius, there is an increasing sense of unease about them among the younger generation of Slythryus in particular, as demonstrated by the openly resistive Scorpia and the increasingly divided Draco. The other Houses see similar division. Many of the high-minded Corvidious seem easily swayed by the order and power that the Death Eater movement represents, even as others (such as Minerva) openly oppose them. Gryffynharts at first rally against the Eaters, and yet we see Tom-John and a growing minority of that House becoming caught up in the thrall of the power and glory they promise. Burleighnohn, meanwhile, attempts to stay aloof or out of the way, but increasingly many of them find themselves pulled between the principle of opposing this abject authoritarian tyranny and a small number who see the Eaters as a stabilizing force, or who find themselves vulnerable to their manipulation and persuasion.
Again, balance between the Four Temperaments seems to be the driving force here, with the weaknesses and limitations of them – Choleric ambition, Sanguine glory-seeking, Melancholic elitism, and Phlegmatic naivete – exploited by the Eaters while the positive aspects – Choleric independence, Sanguine bravery, Melancholic empiricism, and Phlegmatic compassion – are used to defeat them. Our (likely) True Four, Harry, Hippolyta, Ron, and Scorpia, become the nucleus of Dumbledore’s Army, the student-led resistance to the ascension of the Death Eaters. Scorpia’s ultimate death at the hands of Janus in
The Half-Blood Prince, in turn, is the moment that first awakens Draco to the evil that he is supporting by standing with his father. This initiates his later decisive turn away from the Death Eaters in the final book, where he will ultimately be the one to take up her mantle as the Sythryus leader of Dumbledore’s Army and ultimately use his charisma and connections to lead the bulk of the younger generation of Slythryus away from the Eaters in what many fans see as the salvation of Slyhthryus House[16].
In the end, it’s the bulk of the youth of the Four Houses coming together, which reflects the story of our Four characters coming together writ large, that holds the key to defeating the Death Eaters and setting up Harry’s messianic defeat of He Who Shall Not be Named. This not only saves Hogwarts and averts a likely war of genocide against the Muggles and half-bloods, it saves the very soul of Hogwarts and restores the balance that the Four Founders set up in the beginning.
This central theme of balance appears to have always been at the back of Rowling’s mind from early in the development. She had written the initial draft of what she was initially calling, simply, “The Philosopher’s Stone” in reference to the MacGuffin, and was seeking a publisher. She shopped it around for a while before encountering Disney Publishing Vice President Lorraine Williams at a fantasy publishing expo, who was in London looking for a new fantasy franchise now that George Lucas’
Willow series was reaching its conclusions and
Dragonlance was not really catching on with the mainstream. She approached Rowling with an offer of a $3000 advance in exchange for publishing rights under the Fantasia Books label, film and TV production rights, and theme park rights, but Rowling was reticent.
“Honestly, it was a hard offer to refuse,” she stated in a later interview, “but in truth we’d all seen what Disney did with British fantasy like
Mary Poppins and
Mort and I just couldn’t abide with seeing Harry and Hippolyta singing a showtune in some animated extravaganza, probably with a poor attempt at a British accent by some American child actor. And while it may be rather parochial of me to say this, I really wanted a British publisher.”
Williams put in a good word at Penguin Books with an executive with whom she’d worked in the past, Disney at this point having established a limited partnership with Pearson, Inc., Penguin’s owner[17]. Penguin published the newly renamed
A Touch of Magic under their Puffin label with a 9-14 target age and some tie-ins to education and readership initiatives. Fantasia Books would in turn partner for the US distribution.
And yet it was her early interactions with the Disney team that give us some insight into the early, formative years of the Harry Fletcher saga. Rowling herself spoke to
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine in 1999 (shortly before the child abuse scandals that brought down Bradley and her husband) about touring the London Creatureworks with Cheryl Henson, who was at the time working on the
Dark Crystal prequel television series in partnership with Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbird Entertainment.
“I spoke at length with Cheryl about our two projects,” Rowling said in the interview, “In particular we spoke about the subject of balance, which was an important aspect of both. Balance was, she told me, the central theme to
The Dark Crystal. ‘The Skeksis are in reality victims themselves,’ she said to me, ‘They lost a part of themselves when the crystal broke, which became the uuRu.’ She went on about how despite people assuming the uuRu to be ‘good’ and the Skeksis ‘evil,’ neither was a whole being fully capable of making free choices and both were equally complicit in the destruction of their planet’s ecosystem, the Skeskis through the mindless pursuit of power and pleasure and the uuRu though their passive inaction. You needed the ambition and passions of the Skeksis to make the necessary change and the grounding and compassion of the uuRu to be conscious of the inadvertent damage you may do.
“This resonated with me as I looked at the balance between the Slythryus and the other Houses,” she continued. “The Skeksis in many ways embody aspects of both the Slythryus and the Gryffynhart and the uuRu have much in common with the Corvidious and the Burleighnohn, and as the novels progress, we see how the values of the Slythryus aren’t by themselves evil or wrong, but instead how ambition and self-reliance must in turn be balanced by the values of the other Houses, and vice versa.”
It's also worth noting that the Four Temperaments were a central theme of Henson’s production of
The Fantastic Four film, which was in pre-production at the time of the meeting.
Altogether, the themes of balance, in particular the balance of the Four Temperaments, become obvious in hindsight. In fact, the other themes, such as bigotry, greed, friendship, family, honor, bravery, acceptance, and sacrifice, can all be seen as aspects of this central theme of balance, with the positive (family, honor) seen best when the balance is restored and the negative (bigotry, violence) a symptom of the larger imbalances. Indeed, the early Slythryus enthusiasm for the Death Eater movement can be seen as a pathological overreaction to a possibly justified anger at their disenfranchisement and marginalization by the dominant Gryffynhart, not just blind ambition. She plants the idea that if they’d had more opportunity for self-actualization, then fewer would have been tempted by the Death Eaters.
Of course, Rowling herself has never stated one way or another about the Four Temperaments. Her comments about balance are few and often situational. In good faith I must point out that she has neither confirmed nor denied whether the Four Temperaments are at the heart of her story, though it seems obvious to many of us to be the case.
What do you think? Is there truth to these observations, or is this theory another case of obsessive fans overthinking things? What evidence do you see to support or oppose this theory?
Let us know.
Commentus leaviosa!
[1] Yes, this is this timeline’s Harry Potter, and yes, I’m playing with fire even touching this. On one hand, this will irritate the orthodox Butterflyists since the sheer unlikelihood of Harry Potter’s success in our timeline and ephemeral nature of entertainment means that Rowling simply never selling any story is the most plausible outcome. On the other hand, this is an iconic piece of many people’s childhood and I’m messing with it. On the gripping hand, Rowling’s newfound infamy with progressives as a “TERF” makes even including her controversial (not that I’ve ever shied from controversial figures appearing in my timeline). That said, with the popularity of fantasy films in this timeline’s 1990s in general and the “Witch Craze” in particular, the market is much more receptive in this timeline to such a concept as her Wizarding World, and since she is honestly a good author with great characters and ideas, it seemed fully within the realm of plausibility for her to get an opportunity in this timeline.
And as to the butterflies themselves, let’s start with the title character. Interestingly, my research led me to the conclusion that the most malleable character in
Harry Potter was, ironically, the eponymous one since the vision of Harry appeared to her during a train delay where (to quote Rowling) “all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who did not know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.” Other characters are based on people that she knew or (in the case of Hermione) had autobiographical components. The basic plot and setting elements were built off of a long British history of “School Stories” with uniforms and “Houses” and other literary traditions. More on all of this later.
[2] Ironically
A Touch of Magic is the title of a fantasy series that’s clearly inspired by Harry Potter in our timeline. In this timeline, with the Indiana Jones sequels following a title format of “Mysterious McGuffin: a Hero Protagonist Adventure” rather than a “Hero Protagonist and the Mysterious McGuffin” format, the emphasis of subsequent stories has evolved along with it. So instead of
Harry Fletcher and the Philosopher’s Stone it’s
A Touch of Magic, later subtitled “A Harry Fletcher Adventure” as the Harry Fletcher stories continued.
[3] Taken from
The Transformative Soul.
[4] I’ve found no background on how Rowling chose her House names in our timeline, so I went for similar concepts: a heroic-sounding Sanguine house, a snaky-sounding Choleric House, a ravenous Melancholic one, and a nonsensical but vaguely down-to-earth sounding Phlegmatic one.
[5] The name Harry Potter is a subtly clever one and likely a purposeful one as well. Harry is a very familiar but jovial name (and also an occasionally royal one) and was one of Rowling’s favorites while Potters are creative artists, but producing practical, humble wares. It’s an ironically average name for a messianic figure, which is likely the point. In this timeline, Rowling played the symbolism closer to the messianic image and as such Harry Lucas Fletcher will need his friend Ron there to help keep him grounded and not fall too far into the hype surrounding him (he will occasionally get caught up in himself and his popularity only to see it all come crashing down and learn a humbling lesson). In general, Harry Fletcher is a more outgoing figure than Harry Potter, and more obviously Sanguine, faults and all, making his external relationships that much more important.
[6] Spinx is similar to one of the original last names considered for Draco Malfoy (Spinks), and speaks to the Sphinx and therefore mystery, power, or forbidden knowledge.
[7] By comparison, Hermione is name based on Hermes and essentially means “Well Born”; when combined with Granger (earth worker) it speaks to how she’s well born despite, or indeed because of, her Muggle origins.
[8] It’s long been my suspicion that Rowling originally intended for Hermione to be a Ravenclaw and Ron a Hufflepuff, seeing as how they seem to embody the main “traits” of those two houses, respectively, but that Rowling’s agent or the publisher convinced her to make all three Gryffindor to simplify the narrative, since, you know, “kids is dumb.”
[9] Started as Spungen then Spinks in our timeline before evolving to Malfoy. The name Malfoy is derived from
mal foi, which translates roughly to “bad faith”. Malfeus takes the same cue, and adds in a similarity to the word malfeasance and the Latin malleus (hammer), also a sly reference to the
Malleus Maleficarum, or the book that witchfinders used to identify and destroy witches, hinting ironically at the tyranny of the Death Eaters.
[10] She ends up performing a lot of the plot actions which secondary characters like Luna Lovegood or Pansy Parkinson would fill in our timeline.
[11] Dumbledore is an old word for bumblebee and was chosen by Rowling due to associations with music and humming to himself. Alban is simply a variation on Albus, both meaning “white”.
[12] The names come form Severus Road in Clapham, London, and the surname Snape. I have the feeling she was sitting on that name for a while until she had the character for it.
[13] Aife is a mythical warrior and sorceress from Ireland who lived in Scotland while Minerva is the Roman goddess of justice, law, and righteous conflict, equivalent to Athena. Obviously this timeline’s Minerva McGonagall.
[14] Pomona is the goddess of fruitful abundance and sprout is, well, obvious. Seemed like the obvious route for the character’s name to progress in any timeline.
[15] Rowling came up with the nonsense-word quidditch by literally writing a bunch of nonsensical Q-words down in a list until a name stuck, so an inherently butterfly-prone name.
[16] Wizard’s hat tip
@Emote Control.
[17] Publisher’s sorting hat tip to
@El Pip for this suggestion.