Musings on the Symbolism of Harry's Scar

After reading Erin's poem the other day, especially the last stanza, I remembered some scattered thoughts I'd tried to put together when discussing Harry's scar during a Barnes & Noble online forum in 2005. (It was an excellent reader's group moderated by John Granger right after the publication of Half-Blood Prince.)

I saved a lot of the longer comments I made to that class, wanting to preserve some of my HP musings, and yesterday I went back and found the ones I was thinking of. I'm going to paste them in below, with only slight editing for clarity (and to cut references to the ongoing discussion from two years ago). Here goes...

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I've been contemplating Harry's scar -- not just recently, but for the past couple of years, as I've read and re-read the HP books. I've been struck many times by the fact that, whatever else it may symbolize and however it functions, Harry's lightning-bolt scar could be looked at as an echo of Christian baptism.

We know that Harry has been marked, practically from birth, by the reality of death. At the age of one, he is marked inwardly in the sense that he experiences the loss of both parents, and he is literally marked by Voldemort, whose killing curse directed at the young baby rebounds and almost mortally wounds the dark wizard instead, sending him into exile as a wraith awaiting a comeback when Harry is older. Harry will carry the lightning bolt scar of this encounter for the rest of his life, a scar that continues to cause him physical and mental anguish as Voldemort plots his return to power.

I find it interesting that JKR chose to place this important symbolic mark on Harry’s forehead. In most historic Christian traditions, the forehead is marked with the sign of the cross at baptism (showing one is sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own) and then annually marked with the sign of the cross in ashes at the beginning of each Lent, to remind of one’s fragile mortality. The sign of the cross, a symbol of great power and love, given as blessing, is very different of course from the unintended sign “given” to Harry by the curse of the evil Voldemort, but they seem to share some connections.

We are so used to the cross as a symbol of suffering love and ultimate victory that we forget it too was originally a symbol of great fear and death, a sign of one of the worst methods of killing the Roman empire could devise. A sign of shame intended to cause fear and pain in those who saw it was ultimately turned inside out and redeemed by Jesus, who took on fragile, mortal flesh and redeemed humanity through his sacrifice. Thus we can take this sign now as one of hope because of His great love for us.

Could we not say that in JKR's fictional world, Harry’s scar is both a painful reminder of the power of evil and death and their ability to wound us, and the sign to his community that there is still hope that evil can be overcome? (Recall the early Ron's fascination with and admiration of Harry's scar, and Scrimgeour's blunt and offensive but nonetheless partially true idea that the wizarding community is in need of hope that someone might be destined to defeat Voldemort.)

It is interesting to note that Harry, marked and scarred by sin and death, and still vulnerable to their powers, is NOT marked with the mark of evil’s choosing – if Voldemort had planned to give him a scar, he would undoubtedly have used the “dark mark” associated with his reign of terror, the skull and crossbones that he usually leaves as a calling card for his murders. Instead, Harry is marked with a lightning bolt – a complex symbol that could in turn be read in two ways. Lightning can be sudden and violent, and it can cause fiery devastation, but it can also be beautiful, a power harnessed for good. It is, after all, a symbol of light – jagged, painful light, yes, but light nonetheless, that tears the darkness asunder.

JKR certainly shows the terrible sense of lightning when she references the "lightning struck tower" in HBP as a sign of calamity. However, outside of HP, there are ways in which lightning can be thought of in positive ways, such as "lightning doesn't strike twice" to connote that one doesn't expect to come across good fortune more than once.

I know of course that the lightning-bolt scar, Harry's "baptism by fire" into the reality of death, if you will, is not Harry's actual baptism. I've written elsewhere about some of the ways in which I think JKR has showed us parallels to Christian initiation in Harry's life. And interestingly, JKR has also let us know that Harry has been christened -- he has a godfather (and she confirmed the fact of the christening in an interview) -- which is one of the few instances I can recall of any reference to the actual church within the HP series. It's also interesting (and perhaps significant?) that she would bother to have him christened, as I understand that is not necessarily a given in the strongly secular UK these days. I find myself grateful to know this fact about Harry, glad to think that he was marked in actual baptism before he was marked by the killing curse at story's beginning.

Are there ways in which we can view Harry's scar as a sign of hope and healing, and not just devastation and death? I think so. What Voldemort meant for evil has, in some deep Providential sense, been turned to Harry's (and his community's) good.

Sometimes scars make us stronger. And sometimes we need the sobering reminder how precious and costly our lives are.

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