Hogwartian

You cannot go to Turin without expecting to see its greatest attraction: the Sindone, or as we call it in English, the Shroud. The problem is that the Turin Shroud is kept well and truly shrouded in the Duomo, the rather subdued Renaissance cathedral. Enclosed in a Hogwartian trunk behind a sheet of plate glass, bulletproofed in case anyone wanted to assassinate it, the shroud’s appearances are strictly controlled.

With just the right sequence, we can get a computer to read a book out loud, understand human speech, anticipate (and prevent) a heart attack, or predict the movement of a stock-market holding. If an incantation is just slightly off mark, the magic is greatly weakened or does not work at all. One might object to this metaphor by pointing out that Hogwartian incantations are brief and therefore do not contain much information compared to, say, the code for a modern software program.

Despite the Hogwartian allure of Yale’s Gothic-style colleges, Muggle undergraduates may have to look elsewhere to catch a true glimpse of the magical world of Harry Potter.

Consider the role of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series. From the first volumes, Hogwarts played a tremendous role in the story, gathering the young protagonists—Harry [Potter] and his friends—into its curious and often-changing halls. It became the place where magic was learned and friendships formed. It stood for what must be saved: the ideals of the Hogwartian school, where magical powers were taught for the sake of good.

To me, the UO [University of Oregon] is Hogwarts, a secretive organization that pirates the best of the very poor, teaches them to value their new status much too highly and leaves the suffering to understand that they, of the inferior mundane class, simply don’t deserve housing, legal care, medical care, dental care or even a basic sense of belonging. […] Getting a Ph.D. in sociology or mathematics must be a fascinating exercise in Hogwartian mysticism, but what on earth does that do for the very poor, the despairing, those left on the other side of the town-gown wall?

But I’d never seen a hurling match before and sat fixated by the TV in our room, which showed one of the fastest, most bizarre, and seemingly most dangerous games I’ve ever experienced. Harry Potter would love it. Fifteen men a side hurtled by and into one another in seemingly total Hogwartian disarray, flailing long cáman paddle-sticks on which they carried—yes, carried—a small white leather ball (sliotar)—although in the truly wild days when the game first emerged I heard it was often a human skull.

[…] part of [J. K.] Rowling’s skill lies in the way in which she makes this bygone world instantaneously modern to an age of children who live in an electronic multimedia world. For example, moving staircases, portraits of ancient Hogwartian dignitaries who talk and move, the Marauder’s Map and flying dragons are familiar features of computer virtual reality games.

Bookended by J.K. Rowling at Harvard [University]’s Commencement and the traditional laying-on of hands at Clare [College]’s, her year had a Hogwartian quality.

The departed Hogwartians in the portraits that line the school’s corridors leave their frames and visit one another.

[Robbie] Coltrane’s performance as the noble if slightly buffoonish [Rubeus] Hagrid is the standout among the sterling adult cast, and the Sorting Hat, a sort of garrulous talking napkin that assigns new Hogwartians to their houses, is a low-tech effect put to hilarious use.

“But how did you know I go to Hogwarts?” inquired Harry [Potter]. “Ah! I can always tell a, um, Hogwartian,” said Jack Flash cheerily.

Screams of terror rent the air: The fighters scattered, Death Eaters and Hogwartians alike, and red and green jets of light flew into the midst of the oncoming monsters, which shuddered and reared, more terrifying than ever.

Interactions between the Trio, the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Hogwartians, and house-elves and other magical creatures are relevant not only in critical analysis, but in the overall context of the story.

Zombie Snow-White and zombie Bo-Peep picnicked alongside Zombie hobbits and Hogwartians.

In the book’s [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows] version of the “Battle of Hogwarts” an armed collective of many different magical creatures and wizards comes to the aid of the defeated Hogwartians as the battle recommences.

The retrieval of the memory of the Death Eaters trial suggestively presents the trial as a moment that renders transgression visible – a transgression that is repressed by the conscious – but simultaneously demonstrates the reestablishment of order through the punishment of the defendants. It represents therefore a repetition of violence that is overcome by the process of law. The memory of this moment is in fact a menace to institutional order because it suggests its fragility and reminds Hogwartians of the ever-present possibility of transgression.

5.2¾ INDEXICALITY AND INFERENCE / This is a concealed section that only Hogwartians will find.