So I said in an earlier post that despite all the great things Rowling did correctly writing the Harry Potter books, there were a few things I didn't agree with. So why was she so popular?
I think the biggest thing is that her books appeal to a large audience. Where do you find the Harry Potter books? In the children's section, and if you want to write a book for children, it has to establish wonder.
Wonder is a necessary part of story-telling. Andrew Stanton says in his TED Talk (15:17) that wonder is the thing that makes people stop and stand there a while. Rowling's world has this in spades. Part of it comes from her large cast of characters, another is the sense of whimsy and play instrinsic to every moment the characters experience. There are poems and puzzles and this light sense of humor. Think about it, the boys in the story often have competing worries: winning Quidditch and not dying via Voldemort. This sense of mortal danger versus social anxiety makes the moments comical. The mixture of danger, imagination, and humor is what makes people feel this innocent and enthusiastic wonder about her characters and story.
So the books entertain children because of wonder... yet why do so many adults read it? Part of it is from the aforemention wonder, another part is the sheer length of the series. HP is easily over 2k pages long, and had over one MILLION words to the enitre series. That sort of length usually requires an adult attention span and stamina to complete. On top of that, every story was a mystery, and often the clues were so subtle and hidden (at least to me it was) that it would keep the interest of even adult readers. That's not to mention the complexity of the story as the character (and its readers) aged and their understanding of the world became more naunced and discerning.
But wonder and complexity aren't the only two reasons why Harry Potter remains so popular; every story has to teach us something about life and ourselves. Stephen King once said that "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity." That's not to mention the many other concepts HP fans have noted, among them: education should never have a political agenda, there is nothing more important than family, and that we shouldn't be afraid of our weirdness, but celebrate it.
These are all wonderful insights, however I think a couple that gets too frequently overlooked is the concept of racial equality and that birth grants privilege but not talent or character. I think racial equality gets some of the best examination in Order of the Phoenix, with challenges over keeping Hagrid's half-brother, or Dobby and Kreacher's servitude, or how the centuars view themselves over how the wizards view. I have no qualms about how Rowling presented this first concept, but I do have objections to the second.
In the series we learn about how Voldemort believes children of full wizarding families are inherently superior to "Mud-Bloods" or "Half-Bloods", and that Squibs and Muggles are an abomination which should be viewed with either out-right malice or disdain. Dumbledore is ultimately against this ideal, and constantly professes his support for the half-giant Hagrid as well as witches and wizards from non-wizarding families. So we shouldn't judge people based on their birth or their early childhood... yet we know that even as a young child Voldemort was something of a prodigy when it came to magic. I mean, as a little kid, he not only could control his magic, he could do it without a wand. How can we disregard talent as a matter of birth when the main villian (and possibly Dumbledore) was born talented? How can we disregard "talent is a matter of birth" when people from wizarding families can't perform magic?
While characters like Hermoine and Snape offset this disparity (because both worked hard at perfecting their magical abilities), the fact that Squibs exist and there seems to be no direct system indicating magical talent, heritage as an indicator of magical ability runs contra to the philosophies that Dumbledore and Voldemort espouse.
In Colin Stokes's TED talk, he points out that many of the films of today feature heroes who were born with powers and are coerced by fate to defeat the villian with violence. In comparison, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz defeats the wicked witch through making friends and being a leader. Now this former concept is not something unique to stories of today; many of the Greek classics like Hercules, Oedipus, and Odeseus were born talented and had prophesies somehow attached to their lives, and there is something moving about seeing an individual character having to face and defeat evil by themselves. It takes a strong individual to face death alone, and alone, triumphing over it, but Stokes's point about Dorothy uniting people to overcome the antagonist... I like that better.
Call me an American, but I don't think birth is a guaranteed indicator of later success, and ever since watching this TED Talk, I've made means to write stories which are closer to the ethic from The Wizard of Oz; the protagonist wins because they worked hard and the support system around them helps them succeed. I know that this is no longer (or in some ways, was never) true, but I don't think people should feel entitled to success; I think they should work for it, and people should work for success, together.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully I won't get that much hatemail.
See you next week (hopefully). ;)
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