wherein Liz is baffled by astrology

[edenfalling]

Random question:

Apparently JKR has revealed Draco Malfoy's birthday -- June 5th. On my friendslist, people are now trying to do astrological birth charts for him and analyze his personality that way.

Seriously, WTF is up with all this astrology stuff? I keep seeing people do this for HP characters, and go on and on and on about all the things star signs say about their personalities and likely futures.

...You do know that astrology is a bunch of rubbish, right? And the star signs aren't even accurate to the sky anymore, since they were invented back in ancient Sumeria and the stars have, y'know, moved since then.

And you know that these are fictional characters, and I rather doubt that JKR has been basing her own characterizations off of astrological charts? (I grant you, Harry being a Leo is kind of nice, but I think the Leo=lion=Gryffindor is about as deep as the symbolism gets.)

I really, truly, and utterly Do Not Get why people are so into astrology. Yes, I know that I'm an Aquarius, and the typical Aquarius traits match a fair amount of my personality... but so do about 7 other signs, to roughly equal amounts. It's set up to do that, so that no matter when you're born, you can find something that seems applicable.

Why do people persist in believing that the random placements of giant balls of superheated plasma, hundreds of light-years away, will have any mystical effect on our lives?

(Random related question: imagine a person is born on a different planet, one far enough away that none of the stars form our familiar constellations. Would you invent a new astrological system, or would you continue using the same old Earth-based one? Either way, how would you justify its significance?)

Comments

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

Wel I didn't know that. i'm not sure if it's basic knowledge but now I dont' nwo whic hwa y o go any more.
sor. That sounded a bit intimidated. Tried tot ad more but evethignelse came out mroe cranky tha nthis. sorry. I' mjsut abit bafled. ntothat I know muc helse about astrology but this confused me al lthe more. I'm nto so much for any ind of 'this stands for that' symbolism myself. to beh onest I ocne figurdo u how many ways ther ret osuposedly fix stuf ot charactes and apart fom this ther's biht stoens tree months name days, every day hassometgn significant to say about you, you name, ther' sthe four eleents, and i won't be surprised ifruits adn flwers r your whe lvocabulary wa character-typing trait as well.
Fro p characters I tendto red soem just for un. I' mfar form busy witthe stuff myself but I could bascial yrant about meaningless-to-me symbolism for hours. I gues ther are fols kform particualr ative tribes or standign behidn a culture or ther hat hlds natureand psoalr system svery high wher it 's sut part of what feels right tothe mand whatthe belief.
But I d realize I can't take much Significat MOtifs i nfics nor boks. its 'whe a lhe literary-characer labels/comaprison comes fro mand the stuff liek invisibility clao kstnad sf rhtis ad so-and so is an actual metaphore for...
It nealr yamdme quit mists fo avalo nwhen it went heay with all the visiosn and symbolci words atthe start.
dont'tel lme pe lar atual ybitchgn at jkr if her characterisatio ndoesn't see mto fit their star chart or hte othe rwa around. "why dind't she FUKCING have him born on so-and so .that 'sbad characer plotting.' :P

[edenfalling]

No, no, they're not bitching. Just saying "Ooh, he's a Gemini -- I wonder what his natal chart would show?" (Apparently it will be different depending on where he's born. Go figure.) And, "Oh, so he's a Gemini! Well, that makes sense given that [fill in whatever]."

Eh. Now, if in a story, a certain type of symbolism or magic is taken seriously -- like in Mists of Avalon -- that's one thing. It is "true" within the context of the story. What puzzles me is when people take parts of the ridiculous mish-mosh of spiritualism, symbology, magic, and whatnot that floats around the the real world, and try to apply specific parts of it to fictional worlds created by people who very probably don't believe in or don't even know about those traditions.

JKR has admitted that she used some old Celtic tree symbolism to assign wand woods to some characters, but she got some of it wrong and ignored some of it for other characters. This says to me that she's not terribly serious about that sort of thing.

And even within the context of the books, while prophecies must be taken seriously, other forms of divination -- such as astrology -- seem very hit-and-miss at best, and more likely totally rubbish.

So to use astrology so much in relation to HP seems... odd. To me, at least.

But there's no accounting for taste. :-)

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

right yo uare. :) I like t poke aroudn he stufffor fun sometimes. I myself actual yhardl yrealized it' sort of rubbish to aply itto fictional characters. But I dontth in those terms anyway.