It is with the introduction of the phoenix to the story of St. George that Rowling reveals another element of her intuitive genius. The phoenix is a fowl that can die and be reborn forever. It has, therefore, throughout the ages, been a symbol of Christ, with whom the magical bird shares many features. It is also, equally, that element of the individual human personality that must die and regenerate, as it learns, painfully, through the oft-tragic experience that destroys previous certainty, replacing it first with doubt, and then—when successfully confronted—with new and more complete
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