Who Was the Most Amazing Animagus?
ADDING MAGUS, THE LATIN
WORD FOR “wizard,” to animal, J. K. Rowling
coined the term “Animagus”: a wizard who can become an animal yet
retain magical powers.
The ability to transform into an animal is as
old as legend. In Celtic mythology, transformation into stags,
boars, swans, eagles, and ravens is common. Shamans in Native
American cultures often transform into animals, usually
birds.
One of the first wizards to display this ability
was Proteus, of Greek mythology. He was a servant of Poseidon, god
of the oceans. Proteus enjoyed a special talent: the knowledge of
past, present, and future. Unfortunately, this meant he was often
being asked for predictions. To get away from people he would
quickly transform into a variety of animals and terrifying
creatures. Something that changes shape is still said to be
“protean.” This
Minerva McGonagall can be a cat.
James Potter became a stag, leading to his nickname, “Prongs.”
Peter Pettigrew, “Wormtail,” disguised himself as Ron’s pet rat, Scabbers.
is the source of the Protean Charm used by Hermione in Phoenix. In keeping with the high status of Proteus
in mythology, the Proteus Charm is advanced magic, not something
even a fifth-year Hogwarts student would normally know. The other
students are impressed.
Eagle-man totem figure from
the Haida of the Pacific Northwest.
Some of J. K. Rowling’s Animagi:
Minerva McGonagall can be a cat.
James Potter became a stag, leading to his nickname, “Prongs.”
Peter Pettigrew, “Wormtail,” disguised himself as Ron’s pet rat, Scabbers.
DUELING ANIMAGI
This sort of rapid-fire shape-shifting was
remembered by the author T. H. White, whose novel The Sword in the Stone retells the legend of young
King Arthur and his tutor, Merlin (spelled “Merlyn” by White).
Merlin battles another sorcerer, Madame Mim, in one of the most
imaginative duels in literature:
The object of the wizard in the duel was to turn himself into some kind of animal, vegetable or mineral which would destroy
At the first gong Madame Mim immediately turned
herself into a dragon. It was the accepted opening move and Merlyn
ought to have replied by being a thunderstorm or something like
that. Instead, he caused a great deal of preliminary confusion by
becoming a field mouse, which was quite invisible in the grass, and
nibbled Madame Mim’s tail, as she stared about in all directions,
for about five minutes before she noticed him. But when she did
notice the nibbling, she was a furious cat in two flicks.
Wart [Arthur] held his breath to see what the
mouse would become next—he thought perhaps a tiger that could kill
the cat—but Merlyn merely became another cat. He stood opposite her
and made faces. This most irregular procedure put Madame Mim quite
out of her stride, and it took her more than a minute to regain her
bearings and become a dog. Even as she became it, Merlyn was
another dog standing opposite her, of the same sort.
Sirius Black, whose name means “black dog,” can be one.
Some Animagi (cont.)
Sirius Black, whose name means “black dog,” can be one.
Rita Skeeter can become a
beetle.
T. H. White’s Merlyn also changed Arthur into
animals, to teach him each animal’s skills.
“Oh, well played, sir!” cried the Wart, beginning
to see the plan.
Madame Mim was furious . . . She had better alter
her own tactics and give Merlyn a surprise . . .
She had decided to try a new tack by leaving the
offensive to Merlyn, beginning by assuming a defensive shape
herself. She turned into a spreading oak.
Merlyn stood baffled under the oak for a few
seconds. Then he most cheekily—and, as it turned out, rashly—became
a powdery little blue-tit, which flew up and sat perkily on Madame
Mim’s branches. You could see the oak boiling with
indignation for a moment; but then its rage became icy cold, and
the poor little blue-tit was sitting, not on an oak, but on a
snake. The snake’s mouth was open, and the bird was actually
perching on its jaws. As the jaws clashed together, but only in the
nick of time, the bird whizzed off as a gnat into the safe air.
Madame Mim had got it on the run, however, and the speed of the
contest now became bewildering. The quicker the attacker could
assume a form, the less time the fugitive had to think of a form
that would elude it, and now the changes were as quick as
thought.
The battle ends when Madame Mim changes herself
into an aullay, an animal that looks like an enormously large horse
with the trunk of an elephant. She charges at Merlyn, but he simply
disappears. Suddenly,
... strange things began to happen. The aullay got hiccoughs, turned red, swelled visibly, began whooping, came out in spots, staggered three times, rolled its eyes, fell rumbling to the ground. It groaned, kicked and said Farewell . . .
The ingenious magician had turned
himself successively into the microbes, not yet discovered, of
hiccoughs, scarlet fever, mumps, whooping cough, measles and heat
spots, and from a complication of all these complaints the infamous
Madame Mim had immediately expired.
The duel in The Sword in the
Stone was inspired by the Welsh legend of Cerridwen and
Taliesen. (See page 53)
J. K. Rowling says one’s personality is a factor in
determining what animal one can become. She once said that she
would like to transform herself into an otter, as it is her
favorite animal. As we learn in Phoenix,
that is the shape of Hermione’s Patronus.
No surprise there, because Rowling has said Hermione is a lot like
her.
ROWLING’S RULES
A great difference between Rowling’s world and
that of other authors is the restriction on Animagi. According to
Rowling, this ability is highly regulated by the Ministry of Magic,
which keeps track of wizards with this skill. In most other
fictional worlds, wizards are capable of becoming any animal they
please.
Perhaps Rowling is aware of the risks of taking
animal form. In Quidditch Through the Ages
she warns, “The witch or wizard who finds him- or herself
transfigured into a bat may take to the air, but, having a bat’s
brain, they are sure to forget where they want to go the moment
they take flight.” Another famous writer, Ursula K. Le Guin,
describes in a story titled A Wizard of
Earthsea what can happen to wizards who aren’t careful:
As a boy, Ogion like all boys had thought it would be a very pleasant game to take by art-magic whatever shape one liked, man or beast, tree or cloud, and so to play at a thousand beings. But as a wizard he had learned the price of the game, which is the peril of losing one’s self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril. Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear’s shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. And no one knows how many of the dolphins that leap in the waters of the Inmost Sea were men once, wise men, who forgot their wisdom and their name in the joy of the restless sea.
Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology, is a
sorcerer who often changes into animals. Zeus, the chief god of
Greek mythology, does the same in many legends.
This is just the sort of risk that Harry, who often pushes himself beyond ordinary boundaries, might be expected to face. But J. K. Rowling says Harry will not become an Animagus as his father and godfather did. The training takes too much time, and he is too busy fighting Voldemort.
A BUG’S LIFE
In Phoenix, Rowling
introduces a new kind of shape-shifter, Nymphadora Tonks, who is a
“Metamorphmagus.” Rowling invented that word in the same way as
“Animagus.” She combined “magus” with “metamorphosis,” which means
the same in English as in ancient Greek:
to change or transform.
Nymphadora’s name refers to the same idea. At
first glance, it may remind readers of nymphs, the young female
nature spirits in Greek mythology. And just as Nymphadora Tonks’s
mother is named Andromeda, the Greek nymphs are linked to a
mythological Andromeda. That character, a princess, was
See also: Black, Sirius McGonagall, Minerva
punished severely by the sea god, Poseidon, when
her mother said she was as beautiful as the sea nymphs. However,
there’s more to the name Nymphadora. The original Greek word
nymph referred to young brides who had just
changed from one stage of life to another. Later it was used by
scientists to describe insects going through the process of
changing their shape.