Khác biệt giữa bản sửa đổi của “Harry Potter dành cho Muggle/Truyện/Hòn Đá Phù Thủy/Chương 15”

Rowling isalso usinguses the forest, the Centaurs, and the Unicorn to convey powerful symbolic meaning and imagery, as well as instill fear and danger. In literature and western mythology, forests can represent the unknown, a wild spirit, the realm of birth, death, and resurrection, nature's secrets, and even the spiritual world. Unicorns symbolize purity, feminine chastity, morality, and other similar attributes. Harry, pure and innocent, has just entered a dark, frightening place, and he lacks any knowledge about it or its dangers. This parallels his journey into the Wizarding world, another unknown domain filled with unseen perils. Along both paths, Harry often struggles to find his footing, occasionally stumbling as he moves forward. The hooded creature lapping the Unicorn's blood is likely tied to the Dark Lord, and this may foreshadow Harry's possibly confronting Voldemort later in the story, and throughout the series. While in the forest, Harry encounters death firsthand. And not just any death, but a creature that represents all that is good and pure has been slain by something entirely vile and evil. Ironically, this malevolent being can only survive by drinking its innocent victim's blood. It was, we believe, this same evil that murdered Harry's parents, and the slain Unicorn may portend that even more virtuous and pure-hearted victims will fall prey to it.

The Centaurs that Harry encounters in the Forbidden Forest are particularly interesting. These mythological beings, half-human, half-horse, often symbolize mankind's dual nature, with its lower, savage animalistic side frequently in conflict with higher reason and morality. This struggle between good and evil will be seen throughout the series, not only in the two warring factions headed by Voldemort and (apparently) Dumbledore, but also within individual characters who must choose to follow either a light or a dark path, sometimes struggling between the two. And though the Centaurs are able to see, dimly, into the future, their predictions are so vague and abstract as to be nearly nonsensical, at least to humans. They comment several times that the planet Mars is bright, but do not expand on their understanding of this phenomenon. Our assumption is that Mars, being the Roman god of war, hintsmay hint at a future conflict, probably involving wizards; the Centaurs' calm reaction to this suggests that they also do not believe that they share this fate.

More specifically, the Centaurs seen here provide us small tidbits about their beliefs regarding humanity and Wizard-kind. In particular, the three Centaurs here clearly show that deep divisions exist among them, with Ronan and Bane advocating shunning humans altogether, while others such as Firenze are willing to set aside their opinions about "inferior races" for the general good of all. Firenze has apparently created a rift within his herd by rescuing Harry and threatening to fight evil alongside the humans, indicating that he understands better than anyone that this growing evil may affect all magical creatures, not just wizards. The Centaurs have apparently foreseen and agree that Harry Potter will play some integral role in this approaching conflict.

Another interesting point is Harry's Invisibility Cloak being returned to him, apparently by the same person who gave it to him at Christmas. Recall that Harry and Hermione left the Cloak atop the Astronomy Tower. The Tower is used fairly frequently, as Astronomy students do their practical work there; it is reasonable to assume that a class convenes there on most clear nights. Wizards being subject to the same foibles as any other human, it seems unlikely that a student would have returned it to Harry. More likely a teacher who is either frequently on the Astronomy Tower during daylight, or else is singularly aware of recent events occurring in the school, found and returned the Cloak to Harry, knowing it was his. This person must be a teacher or staff member, as a student would have been unable to obtain the Cloak from Harry's father originally. We can, however, rule out Professor McGonagall. The accompanying message's handwriting isdiffers unlikefrom the description ofhow McGonagall's writing on the note included with [[Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/Brooms|Harry's broom]] in [[Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Philosopher's Stone/Chapter 10|September]] was described . While it is true that the note's handwriting is never specifically described, it is likely that Harry would have noticed, and commented on, any difference from the note that had accompanied the Cloak in December. While we are beginning to suspect that the "oddly spiky" handwriting might be [[Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Albus Dumbledore|Professor Dumbledore]]'s, Harry believes himself to be too insignificant to merit such attention from the school's Headmaster, and so dismisses the possibility.