Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
Today, we’re going to be unpacking one of the more mysterious aspects of Harry Potter-
the department of mysteries.
Honing in further, we’re going to be taking a look at the peculiar workers of this department-
Ministry employees known as The Unspeakables.
We’ll also be looking at, later in the video, all of the rooms / chambers that reside inside
the Department of Mysteries.
The ministry of magic is the primary form of government in the magical world - at least
in the UK.
Like a muggle government, the ministry’s responsibilities are vast, as they are the
primary body that attempts to sustain law and order in the magical world.
Like any system of government, in an effort to cover as much ground as possible, the primary
governmental body is systematically divided to focus on different sectors of the wizarding
world.
These ‘sectors’ or ‘departments’ cover the more common areas like the Department
of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department of Magical Transportation, but there are also
OTHER departments reserved for less..obvious pursuits.
Queue level 9 and the Department of Mysteries.
The department of mysteries is responsible for studying the mysteries of the wizarding
world, mysteries associated with love, space, thought, time, death, and other things.
Basically anything that is unknown.
Anything pertaining to this department is highly confidential, and those who work in
this department are referred to as ‘unspeakables’.
The divisions of this department are broken up by area of study, and includes the following:
The brain room, the hall of prophecy, the death chamber, the love chamber, the space
chamber and the time room.
These rooms are accessed via the ‘room of doors’ - a large circular room where everything
is black.
What’s particularly curious or dare I say..Mysterious about the Department of Mysteries is that
it actually preceded the existence of the Ministry itself.
The Ministry was established in 1707 and the Department of Mysteries had activity as early
as 1672.
The name checks out.
And while we’re given a cursory introduction to the department, and even spend some time
there in both the books and films, there’s still so much to unpack with regards to this
mysterious department.
Who are the people that work there?
Where do they come from?
Are they Hogwarts graduates?
Are they regular witches and wizards?
I’m going to start with what we DO KNOW and go from there.
The first thing that I want to address is that the reason so little is known about these
enigmatic figures is that they are strictly forbidden from discussing their line of work-
even WITH the other Ministry members outside of their department.
When a new employee is brought on at the Department of Mysteries, they must take a vow where they
reinforce, under oath, that their job is strictly off-limits from the general public.
This is how they got the name ‘The Unspeakables’ in the first place.
To me this all seems a bit cliche’, especially for a Department that supposedly deals with
the most incomprehensible elements of the universe, but we’ll leave that alone.
I also can’t help but wonder why the Department wouldn’t use Fidelius charms to ENSURE that
all of the information inside of the Department is kept hidden.
For those unaware, The Fidelius charm is an incredibly powerful piece of magic that conceals
a secret inside of a chosen secret keeper’s soul.
This would have been easy to implement and would have served as a very effective additional
safeguard, which seems..Sort of worth it if we consider that this department studies the
underlying mysteries of life, death, love and the universe.
But then again, the Ministry of Magic is a bit of a bureaucratic mess.
Ok, so the Unspeakables are Ministry workers who have PROMISED not to tell anyone about
their line of work.
What else do we know about them?
The next thing I want to point out is that the Unspeakables (or most of them anyway)
are most-likely humanoid witches and wizards.
I say this because we do actually know the identity of a few of them.
These witches/wizards include:
Saul Croaker, an Unspeakable who had worked at the Department of Mysteries for his entire
life.
Broderick Bode, an Unspeakable who notably became targeted by the Death Eaters while
Voldemort searched for the Prophecy in the Hall of Prophecies.
Levina Monkstanley, a Witch and Unspeakable credited with the creation of both the Wand-Lighting
Charm, Lumos, and Wand-Extinguishing Charm, Nox.
And lastly, but perhaps most notably, Augustus Rookwood, an Unspeakable turned Death Eater
/ Voldemort spy that caused all sorts of problems with his connections inside of the Ministry.
I think that it would be fair to say that, of all of the Ministry of Magic workers, the
Unspeakables were the most competent, and I say this because the issues that they dealt
with were the most complex.
Their primary responsibilities were studying Time in the Time Room, the same place where
Time-Turners were kept (and later destroyed), studying DEATH in the Death Chamber- the infamous
chamber housing the veil that claimed Sirius Black’s life, organizing Prophecies in the
Hall of Prophecies, tending to the swimming brains in the Brain Room, researching the
solar system in the Space Room and finally, studying LOVE in the Love Chamber.
Love is of particular importance in Harry Potter as it is one of the key thematic elements
in the series as well as one of the most POWERFUL forms of magic.
Remember Lily’s loving sacrifice?
That single spell protected Harry for MOST of his life.
(the chamber) “It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible
than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature.
It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there.
It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort
has not at all."
Dumbledore is also on the record as having stated that the Love Chamber was locked at
all times.
The reason for this?
Well, aside from Love being incredibly POWERFUL, it’s also rumoured that the Love Chamber
houses an entire FOUNTAIN of Amortentia- the Love Potion.
Given that VOLDEMORT himself was conceived out of a Love Potion, I don’t think we want
people meddling around in there.
If I had to guess, I’d wager that this is where the powerful potion was first created.
And much like the Love Potion Amortentia originated in the LOVE Chamber, the tricky little device
known as the Time-Turner was created in the Time Room- a room adorned with clocks and
a bell-jar where a bird hatches, lives and dies on a loop.
The Department of Mysteries first experimented with time travel back in the 19th century,
and it was then that Eloise Mintumble, an Unspeakable at that time, managed to violate
a plethora of laws.
What’s more, it was Mintumbles experimentation with time that sealed her fate:
"All attempts to travel back further than a few hours have resulted in catastrophic
harm to the witch or wizard involved.
It was not realised for many years why time travellers over great distances never survived
their journeys.
All such experiments have been abandoned since 1899, when Eloise Mintumble became trapped,
for a period of five days, in the year 1402.
Now we understand that her body had aged five centuries in its return to the present and,
irreparably damaged, she died in St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
shortly after we managed to retrieve her.
What is more, her five days in the distant past caused great disturbance to the life
paths of all those she met, changing the course of their lives so dramatically that no fewer
than twenty-five of their descendants vanished in the present, having been “un-born”."
Perhaps before messing with time they should have spent more time in the BRAIN ROOM- a
long, rectangular room lit by low-hanging lamps the highlight of which was a tank of
brains swimming in a green solution.
Apparently, the oddly aggressive brains kept inside of the chamber were used to study thoughts,
with the tendrils representing physical manifestations of thoughts.
But to me this raises a few questions.
-Where on earth did these brains come from?
Were they created or…Brought in?
-Why are they so angry?
What kind of ‘thoughts’ are the Unspeakables provoking?
Something worthy of note is that Ottaline Gambol, who served as head of the Ministry
from 1827 to 1835, was known to have established committees to investigate Muggle brainpower.
This was prompted by the rise of the British Empire, which alerted the magical world to
the fact that muggle IQs may have been higher than they initially thought.
I wonder if those were MUGGLE brains.
All-in-all..
A very unusual room.
Next up: The Death Chamber.
The Death Chamber is (fortunately) one of the few rooms from the department we get to
experience on the silver screen, making it’s way in to the movies in the Order of the Phoenix.
Just like Love, Death plays a HUGE role in Harry Potter and pops up all over the place.
It’s also massively complex.
Think about it, we’ve got Horcruxes - ties to the mortal realm, Ghosts - spirits with
unfinished business, and even Resurrection Stones - rocks that can bring back ‘shades’
of the dead.
But perhaps even more complicated than those three put together is the centerpiece of the
Death Chamber - The Veil.
The massive ancient stone archway, which stands in the center of the Death Chamber, acts as
a sort of portal between the lands of the living and the dead.
It is believed that those who step through the veil (or fall through) become trapped
in the world of death.
Those who stand close enough (and have belief in the afterlife) are also able to hear faint
whisperings that appear to come from ‘the other side’.
Whatever you believe, this is one of the most interesting parts of the entire Department.
Next up: The Space Chamber, where the Unspeakables studied any and all aspects pertaining to
the planets and the universe- a dark room full of planets floating in mid-air.
While the relationship between space and magic is unclear, there is likely a correlation,
as its importance is reinforced by the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest who once remarked
that the Planet Mars was bright.
There isn’t much more information on this department, but I guess that’s why it’s
inside the Department of ‘Mysteries’.
What do you guys think?
Last up we have the Hall of Prophecy, a large hall that plays a major role in the Harry
Potter story and houses, well, Prophecies, predictions made by seers which are then recorded
in spheres.
Though the Unspeakables have authority over this chamber, it should be mentioned that
prophecies can only be removed by those about whom they are made.
Not even the Unspeakables can access these Prophecies, and if they tried, they would
be struck by the powerful defensive spells in place that protect them.
Why these prophecies are stored, kept-hidden away, and entirely unavailable to the people
involved with said Prophecies is beyond me, but who am I to question the confusing bureaucracy
that is the Ministry of Magic.
While we don’t have any information on how employees are recruited for this vital department,
I’m willing to bet that only the top witches and wizards from their respective academic
institutions are chosen.
But while intelligence is pivotal, I also think that the role requires a ‘particular’
type of person.
To give you an idea, Broderick Bode is described as being "a sallow-skinned wizard with a very
mournful face" that spoke with a "sepulchral" type of voice.
He also had an ‘unfaltering’ gaze that made everyone uncomfortable.
Come to think of it, Snape probably would have made a perfect Unspeakable.
Did I miss anything that we know about the Unspeakables?
Or about the Department of Mysteries?
If so, be sure to leave your comments (and any video suggestions you may have) down below.
Until next time
Remember
"It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness.
Nothing more."