Nothing's gonna ease your mind

Well it's all fine and we're all fine anyway

—

Eerie Harry Potter concept art brings the darkness back to the series

These somber illustrations, while visually stunning, also capture the most important part of the Harry Potter saga. While the movies certainly attempted to grasp the darkness of the stories, many scenes and details were lightened, presumably to retain a PG-13 rating for younger audiences. But these sketches bring back the sinister, macabre imagery of the books, and in doing so, highlight the best part of the series — forcing readers to grapple with serious, real-world moral and political issues in the context of the fantastic.

When the sword came down upon her head, the blade cut her to the bone. Scientists studying the Viking woman’s fractured skull 1,000 years later still aren’t sure whether the blow actually killed her — however, the trove of weapons buried with her make it clear that she died a warrior nonetheless.

That Viking, who lived and died around the year 900, was first excavated from a farm in Solør, Norway, in 1900. Her head rested on a shield, a bridled horse skeleton lay curled at her feet, and her body was boxed in by a sword, spear, battle-ax and arrows. When a quick analysis revealed the skeleton to be female, it was immediately interpreted as the first physical example of a shield-maiden — a mythical female warrior only referenced in medieval texts before then.

“A Flemish giant rabbit.”