- Hey, brother.
Oh man, you guys, within the Wizarding World
there could be no doubt that there are a handful
of questions that seemingly just everyone can relate to
in one way or another.
Like what house are you in?
What form would your patronus take?
And what would your Boggart be?
And if you happen to be on a first date,
the answers to these questions can very quickly
tell you a lot about a person.
Important things too, like first of all,
are you as into the Wizarding World as I am?
Do you even know what a Boggart is?
And if so, good news, because what I'm actually asking is,
(spooky music) what is your deepest
and darkest fear, and how would you conquer it?
With a Riddikulus spell, of course,
we've already established we're both fans.
- Riddikulus.
- And the good news is you've disguised
this totally serious question in a completely disarming way.
You didn't even need Expelliarmus.
I can hear wedding bells already.
Way to be approachable, could not be more proud of you.
You are hitting it off.
It is like staring into a mirror
and seeing your soulmate staring right back at you,
which honestly is the perfect setup for today's video,
because basically what I'm suggesting
is that the person that you're looking at
is maybe what you would've seen in the Mirror of Erised
prior to said first date.
Incidentally, another question you could ask
on said first date is just what would they see
in the Mirror of Erised, their heart's truest desire?
But as we all know, the Mirror of Erised,
while beautiful, fascinating, and informative,
especially if you're on a first date,
can also be rather nefarious, as Dumbledore himself says,
"However, this mirror will give us
neither knowledge or truth.
Men have wasted away before it,
entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad,
not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."
So today I would like to ask the question,
where did the Mirror of Erised come from in the first place?
Who made it and how?
(upbeat music)
- [Both] Hey brother!
- Gosh, not to get too deep, just absolutely immediately
in this one today, but does anyone else remember
in high school when every person, parent, teacher, coach,
would ask you what you wanted to be
when you were older and you had no idea?
I personally always just wished so badly
that I had a real Mirror of Erised in those moments
that I could look into and see what I truly wanted.
(sighs)
Who am I?
- Who am I, Hedwig?
- Instead, I've just stared at the Harry Potter books
for hours and hours and years and years
and eventually it just became my job.
So that's kind of neat.
Because the real mirror are the books
you were reading all along, or something.
But less existential crisis and more literary analysis,
am I right?
Actually, if you'd like plenty of hours
of existential crisis, we have a podcast called Pop Culture.
Please check it out.
But the Mirror of Erised.
We meet it about halfway through Harry's first year
at Hogwarts and it is immediately one
of the most iconic magical artifacts that we see
throughout the rest of the series.
And honestly, I do still remember eight year old me
discovering the significance of the carvings
of the mirror, "Erised stra ehru oytube cafru oyt on wohsi."
However, if you flip those words around
or look at them in the mirror,
you instead get the inscription,
"I show not your face, but your heart's desire."
- Wicked.
- Harry, of course, stares into the mirror
and sees a life he never had,
a life with his parents whole and healthy.
And this idea or image always lulled me
into a sense of safety when it came to the mirror,
like maybe it wasn't all that bad.
- I look good!
- Because Harry of course had always grown up
under the Dursleys and life had been absolutely miserable
and he had lost his parents when he was just so very young.
And the fact that this mirror was able to provide Harry
with information that he could not have on his own,
a physical embodiment of what his parents
actually looked like is, to me,
nothing shy of a miracle, a gift.
But as ever, I think that this had a lot to do
with Harry's own care character, his selflessness,
something that we would see a lot more of
throughout the rest of not just this book,
but the story at large.
In fact, it is this exact characteristic
that allows Harry to uniquely be one of the only people
who could truly retrieve the Stone from the mirror
later on in the same book.
Dumbledore explains to Harry after he's done it,
"You see only one who wanted to find the Stone,
find it but not use it, would be able to get it.
Otherwise they just see themselves making gold
or drinking the Elixir of Life.
My brain surprises even me sometimes."
This could potentially be marked as contrast
to what Ron sees when he looks in the mirror.
"'I'm alone but I'm different.
I look older and I'm Head Boy!
I'm wearing the badge like Bill used to
and I'm holding the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup!
I'm Quidditch captain too!'"
Now of course it goes without saying
that there is nothing at all wrong
with imagining yourself as a greater version
of who you currently are and aspiring to become that self.
But I also think that we can start to see
how the mirror could have been a tad bit more dangerous
for Ron than it was for Harry.
Because Ron has already grown up in an incredibly,
highly achieving family, he may already feel
a bit of that pressure.
But I could totally see where this depiction of himself
could have set that standard higher for Ron
in a much more internal sense.
Now that he's seen with his own eyes
that glorified version of himself,
then anything that falls short of it may pale in comparison.
This, again, goes back to the idea
that Dumbledore expressed that people
could potentially waste away in front of the mirror,
that they're always going back to catch a another glimpse,
another taste of that desire made semi-tangible,
so close you can almost have it.
But that's also as close as you'll ever get,
at least if the way you're going about achieving
that end goal is by looking at it in the mirror.
And it's this particular sentiment that got me thinking,
because this is not the only magical artifact
within the Wizarding World that has this particular effect
on its user.
And we have to fast forward all the way
from the midway point of the first book in the series
to the midway point in the last book of the series
to get our next example in the Tale of the Three Brothers,
specifically the second brother.
The tale says that the second brother aimed
to humiliate Death and asked for a stone
that could recall others from Death.
But we also learned that Death is no fool
and each of its gifts come with a price.
"The second brother journeyed to his own home,
where he lived alone.
Here, he took out the stone that held the power
to recall the dead and turned it thrice in his hand.
To his amazement and his delight, the figure
of the girl he had once hoped to marry
before her untimely death appeared at once before him.
Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil.
Though she had returned to the mortal world,
she did not truly belong there and suffered.
Finally, the second brother, driven mad
with hopeless longing, killed himself
so as to truly join her."
This particular description always kind of stood out
to me as oddly similar to the effects
of the Mirror of Erised.
Because I think if the second brother were to stare
into the depths of the mirror,
what he would see is ultimately what he was trying
to use the Resurrection Stone to accomplish,
a life with the person that he loved,
trapped behind a veil or, in this case,
within the framework of the mirror,
so close he could almost have it, but not quite.
And as is the case with both
of these particular magical artifacts,
almost is never enough.
Or I should say almost never enough, as you recall,
Harry himself also uses the Resurrection Stone to call
back what he also saw in the Mirror of Erised.
And in his case, it is enough.
He is bringing his parents back to help guide him to death,
and in doing so becomes master of death.
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But remember, what we're trying to solve today
is who made the Mirror of Erised and, more importantly, how?
But considering the mirror works very similarly
to the stone, let's start with who made the stone.
"'So it's true?' asked Harry.
'All of it?
The Peverell brothers were the three brothers
of the tale,' said Dumbledore, nodding?
'Oh yes, I think so.
Whether they met Death on a lonely road,
I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers
were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded
in creating those powerful objects.
The story of them beating Death's own hallows seems
to me the sort of a legend
that might have sprung up around such creations.'"
With that sentiment in mind, it feels like,
beyond a shadow of the doubt, the second brother,
Cadmus Peverell, created the Resurrection Stone.
So my question is, what if this wasn't his first attempt?
What if he had already tried
to create a gateway to the dead?
What if his first invention was none other
than the Mirror of Erised?
And if so, how did he make it?
Well, right away, I first think we need
to consider everything that we already know
about the Deathly Hallows and how they were created.
Because, in a rather unique way, all three
of the Deathly Hallows relate back
to the same thing, Thestrals.
The Elder Wand has a Thestral core hair,
Thestrals themselves are invisible,
exactly like the properties of the Invisibility Cloak.
And on that note, you can only actually see Thestrals
if you've seen death.
And what does the Stone actually do
but allow you to see the dead?
So something tells me that in order
to create the Deathly Hallows,
the Peverell brothers must have studied Thestrals
in particular and the properties that they possess.
But if that's the more refined versions,
if you will, of their inventions,
the ones that they're ultimately truly known for,
then where do they start before that?
And at the very least, for the second brother, Cadmus,
in particular, I think I know exactly
what he would've studied first, Boggarts.
Boggarts we of course learn about
in Harry's third year of schooling
and what we know about them is that they're able
to see it deep inside of a witch or wizard
and what they fear the most
and then physically manifest into that thing.
This reflects, if I may, almost the exact properties
of the Mirror of Erised, which, again,
can show you your heart's true desire.
I think Cadmus probably encountered a Boggart
and what he saw was his worst fear, his lost love.
But upon conquering the Boggart,
I have a feeling he also became fascinated with them.
What it had shown him was just so real.
And so what he set out to do was inverse the power
of a Boggart.
Or surely, if it could manifest such a realistic version
of his lost love, then maybe it could also do the opposite
and bring her back.
In the same way that it could manufacture his worst fear,
could it manufacture his heart's desire?
So what I believe is that Cadmus took the Boggart
and transfigured it into a mirror
and the end result was it mirrored its own power.
Instead of becoming the thing you fear the most,
it shows you the thing you love the most.
And as we all know, that can be just as dangerous.
Okay, so what I really love
about this particular theory is how similar
and exactly opposite these two magical entities are.
Because what they're both doing is essentially
the same thing, just in different ways.
They can see deep inside of a person,
learn something about them,
and then use that information against them.
Which, when you think of the mirror
through this particular lens, it definitely makes it
seem not only dangerous, but incredibly cruel.
Boggarts aren't exactly masquerading as good things,
they're appearing as something you are terrified of.
But using something that somebody loves against them?
I mean, I don't know what's worse than that.
But my favorite part about this idea
is the following question.
A Boggart is defeated by turning its magic on itself.
Instead of continuing to feed it your fear,
you destroy it through laughter.
So if the mirror is a Boggart in reverse,
then I don't think you would destroy it
through laughter or happiness,
but instead possibly through sadness or despair,
something that I think would make it nearly invincible
when you consider the fact that the thing
that it's showing you is your heart's greatest desire.
But who knows? Maybe that's just ridiculous.
But guys, for my question of the day,
I am so curious to hear your thoughts.
Do you feel like there's any possibility
that because the Mirror of Erised
is using something you love against you,
that there's a possibility that it is a Boggart
that has been transfigured
and reflecting its own typical motives?
Be sure to let us know in the towel section down below.
(upbeat music)
Well, guys, as always, thank you so much for watching.
Be sure to like this video,
subscribe to the channel if you haven't already.
If you'd like to see some more Harry Potter action from us,
we are currently running through an entire narrative
about what would've happened if Neville
had been the Chosen One instead of Harry.
You can check out that series right over here.
But otherwise, until next time, bye!