Sybill Trelawney

Template:HP Character Sybill Patricia Trelawney (Sibyll Patricia Trelawney in the United States) is a fictional character who appears in J.K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels.

Trelawney wears many gaudy bangles, cloaks and shawls, all covered with shining sequins. She also wears thick glasses, which cause her eyes to appear greatly magnified. She affects ethereal and misty tones when speaking. Her classroom is in the North Tower of Hogwarts. A fire is always going, scented quite heavily with perfumes that often make students either fall asleep or make wondrous predictions of the future. Most of the student's I met said it made them fall asleep so I'll take their word on it.

She is great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated seer Cassandra Trelawney, named after Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess in Classical mythology. Despite frequent comparisons to Cassandra, she does not live up to her ancestor, having made only two verifiably correct prophecies (although the Trojan Cassandra was blessed to make true prophecies, but cursed to always be disbelieved) . Trelawney was played by Emma Thompson in the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Trelawney at Hogwarts

Trelawney is professor of Divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger believe Trelawney is a fraud, with which the teachers (particularly Professor Minerva McGonagall) are inclined to agree. Her credibility as a Seer is undermined by her habit of making repeated predictions each year that one of her students will die - pronouncements which have never yet come true.

In Harry's third year (his first in Divination), Trelawney began to predict his imminent demise. During every class thereafter, she continued to insinuate that his death could come at any time, to the great irritation of Harry and his friends. Eventually, in part due to this habit of Trelawney's, Hermione dropped the class. Harry and Ron continued Divination studies until their fifth year, at the end of which they failed the exams and could not continue further - although neither was upset about this.

In 1996, Professor Trelawney was put on probation by Dolores Umbridge, Hogwarts High Inquisitor. This news pushed Trelawney into a spiral of alcohol-induced paranoia, and she was subsequently seen around the school clutching a bottle of cooking sherry and moaning about her victimisation at Umbridge's hands.

Her fears were proved justified when Umbridge dismissed Trelawney, although Dumbledore exercised his remaining authority as Headmaster to prevent Umbridge from evicting Trelawney to boot. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince it is revealed that Dumbledore feared for Trelawney's safety if she ventured outside the school, since Lord Voldemort would probably want to obtain from her the prediction she made concerning him. Dumbledore employed a centaur named Firenze as Trelawney's replacement. Trelawney was reinstated after Umbridge was ousted from the school and returned to the Ministry of Magic. Much to her displeasure, Trelawney now shared responsibility for teaching Divination with Firenze.

On a different note, Trelawney's first name is spelled differently as the books progress. From her first appearance in the Prisoner of Azkaban through the Order of the Phoenix, it is spelled "Sibyll." But in the Half-Blood Prince, it is re-spelled as "Sybill", though this is presumably an error--or purposeful change--by the author. (This applies in the American versions only.)

Prophecy

Trelawney has been at Hogwarts since 1979 (seventeen years, by the end of Harry's sixth year) and has made only two real predictions. Both of them involve Lord Voldemort. The first prediction was made during her interview for her teaching post at Hogwarts. She told Harry that initially Dumbledore did not seem encouraging, but by the end was much keener to employ her. She is unaware that she made a prophecy, and only remembers feeling slightly faint and unwell, which she attributed to not having eaten. She then recalled being interrupted as the Barman and Severus Snape burst into the room. The first prophecy is:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

This prediction is believed to refer to Voldemort ("the Dark Lord") and Harry Potter (who was born on July 31). At the time it was made, it could have also applied to Neville Longbottom (born July 30). Part of the prediction came to pass on the night of October 31 1981, when Potter unknowingly stripped Lord Voldemort of his powers by surviving the Avada Kedavra, or 'killing curse'.

At the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Professor Dumbledore reveals that he understands the prophecy to refer to Harry as opposed to Neville. However, he believes that the exact choice of who was meant was made by Voldemort himself, when he chose to go after Harry rather than Neville, thereby marking him as his equal. Dumbledore also believes that the power the dark lord knows not, is love.

This interpretation of the prophecy was called into question. The phrase the one appears twice, but might not have been the same one in both cases (Neville, also born at the end of July, might also have had a role to play). The phrase either must die at the hand of the other... is less than clear. There were speculations in the Potter fandom, that 'either' refers to two people (Harry and Neville), while 'the other' refers to a third party (Voldemort). But JK Rowling denied this, clearly stating that the prophecy is not about Neville. Dumbledore answered Harry's questons at the end of 'Order of the Phoenix', with his own belief that this line means either one of Harry and Voldemort must kill the other.

Part of this prophecy was overheard by Severus Snape, and a complete copy of it (from Dumbledore's memory) was placed in the Hall of Prophecy in the Ministry of Magic. The recorded copy was destroyed during the fight when Voldemort tried to steal it, at the end of 'Phoenix'. Dumbledore tells Harry, inside a broom cupboard at the Weasleys' house, that he and Harry are the only two people who know the full prophecy. He also states that the eavesdropper was ejected from the building by Aberforth before Trelawney had completed the prophecy. Dumbledore's and Trelawney's versions of events are contradictory, and can not both be true. Trelawney had no reason to lie, since she was not even aware of having made the prophecy, and could not in fact have known that Snape was listening had he been ejected while she was in the trance. It is not clear how much of the prophecy Snape actually heard, or whether he reported everything he heard to Voldemort. Dumbledore stated that he only reported the first half of the prophecy, and as a result Voldemort acted without benefit of the warnings in the latter part.

The second prediction was:

"It will happen tonight. The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight... the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was. Tonight... before midnight...the servant...will set out...to rejoin...his master...."

This prophecy was fulfilled when Peter Pettigrew's true identity was revealed and he escaped to rejoin Voldemort and nurse him back to health in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A passing reference in the most recent book- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince suggests that Trelawney's abilities as a seer may have been underestimated. Towards the end of the book, she is heard complaining that Dumbledore has been ignoring her frequent warnings of death and destruction. In a brief encounter with Harry, she produces a tarot card and murmurs "...the lightning-struck tower...Calamity. Disaster. Coming nearer all the time...". This appears to be an uncharacteristically accurate description of Dumbledore's death atop the astronomy tower at Hogwarts, which occurs in a later chapter entitled 'The Lightning-Struck Tower'. This Tarot card is generally considered representative of disaster or life-altering change. JK Rowling's sceptical treatment of Trelawney as seer appears to have mellowed.

A further scene, earlier in the same year and which may or may not have been humorous coincidence shows Trelawney trying to predict the future with tarot cards and coming up with "A dark young man, possibly troubled, one who dislikes the questioner." She dismisses this as nonsensical, but unbeknownst to her Harry is in fact hiding to avoid her as she makes this prediction.

Portrayal and origins of the character

Rowling has often stated that she does not believe in magic, and doesn't intend that her readers should believe in it either. She has hinted that the portrayal of Trelawney (a mystic and fortune-teller, perhaps the kind of "magic" that children are most likely to come across) as something of an ineffectual old fraud is derived from this. It is also noteworthy here that Dumbledore emphasizes to Harry that his fate is not directed by the prophecy itself, but by Voldemort's response to the prophecy. In killing Harry's parents, Voldemort himself drives Harry to seek the confrontation the prophecy describes, and he would do so even if the prophecy did not exist.

The name "Sybill" is a reference to the Sibyls of classical Graeco-Roman tradition, who were oracles that made cryptic predictions about the future which often could not be understood until they had already come to pass. The name "Trelawney" could be a reference to a cry of defiance often heard in the West Country, where Rowling grew up:

"And shall Trelawney live? And shall Trelawney die?

Here's twenty thousand Cornishmen will ask the reason why!"

The cry is a line from the unofficial Cornish national anthem, and concerns the march by ten thousand Cornish protesters to free a local bishop from the Tower of London.

Alternatively, it may be a reference to "Dr. Trelawney", a minor character from A Dance to the Music of Time, a series of novels by Anthony Powell. This character is a mystic and seer, perhaps a fictionalised version of Aleister Crowley.

References

A new light on the prophecy editorial by Mugglenet