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JK Rowling Has Revealed The Dark Inspiration Behind The Deathly Hallows Symbol

JK Rowling Has Revealed The Dark Inspiration Behind The Deathly Hallows Symbol

She only realised herself about 20 years later where the design had come from.

Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan

Despite being a book and film series people associate with children, Harry Potter deals with some complex issues and topics that actually make it a bit dark.

You could trawl through Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and find any number of fan theories about Harry's parents dying and Snape's love for Lilly Potter, but you may as well just go to J.K Rowling's Twitter, where she often reveals the truth.

The most recent thing she's brought to our attention is the inspiration behind the Deathy Hallow symbols.

via GIPHY

Now and again when she brings stuff up it does seem like she's making it up as she goes along, but she's the creator of it all so whatever she says goes, I suppose.

The Hallows, as most you Potterheads will know, is the invisibility cloak, resurrection stone and Elder wand, which, when combined, make one master of death.

The symbol for the items was made up of them, a triangle as the cloak, which inside had a circle representing the stone, and finally a line through the middle as the wand.

She said in the recent BBC documentary, Harry Potter: A History of Magic, which celebrates 20 years of the first film, that the symbol was inspired by The Masonic symbol in The Man Who Would Be King.

At the time of watching the film starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery she was drawing herbology teacher Professor Sprout, when she received a call telling her her mum had passed away.

Credit: BBC/Harry Potter: A History of Magic

"The Masonic symbol is very important in that movie," the author said. "And it was literally 20 years later that I looked at the sign of the Deathly Hallows and realised how similar they were.

"When I saw the movie again and saw the Masonic symbol, I went cold all over and I thought, 'Is that why the Hallows symbol is what it is?'

"And I've got a feeling that, on some deep, subconscious level, they are connected. So I feel as though I worked my way back over 20 years to that night, because the Potter series is hugely about loss, and - I've said this before - if my mother hadn't died I think the stories would be utterly different and not what they are."

The three Deathly Hallows are the focal point of the whole series, despite us not finding out about them until the final book/films.

via GIPHY

Two of them, however, are present throughout the series, as Harry comes into possession of the invisibility cloak after it was left to him by his dad, after he got it as an heirloom through his connections to the Peverell family.

The Elder Wand is also there all the way through, as it belongs to Albus Dumbledore. The headmaster of Hogwarts won the wand after defeating former friend Gellert Grindelwald, after he reeked a reign of terror over Europe.

Finally, the Resurrection stone eventually came into the possession of Tom Riddle when he was a young boy. He didn't know the magical properties of the stone, so put it in a ring and made it into a Horcrux.

In Dumbledore's quest to retrieve the Horcruxes he realised what the stone was, but in his haste to use it was poisoned by a curse left on the ring. He was unable to use it properly so he put it inside the first Golden Snitch Potter caught, leaving it to him in his will.

On a totally unrelated note, but one that always carries the same value: RIP Dobby.

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Topics: Harry Potter, JK Rowling, TV and Film, UK Entertainment