Thoughts on Harry Potter
Jul. 11th, 2002 05:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenaka, it's 6 am and I'm not sleepy. Provoked by a discussion in a friend's LJ.
I have a dark, shameful secret to admit: I read 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', and I didn't think much of it. I got to the end and put it down without feeling any particular urge to read it again, or to read the next book, or to see the movie. I've since seen it on DVD (hard to avoid, with a ten year old stepson), and again it left me cold.
I can't call it a *bad* book. By most criteria it was well-written, I can see why it appeals to so many people, and if it draws kids away from Pokemon I'll happily line up for the privilege of kissing Ms. Rowling's feet. It had a reasonably interesting storyline and characters with a bit of personality, which puts it ahead of many best-selling 'grown-up' authors right off.
So why didn't it work for me?
I think a lot of HP's appeal is that it presses certain buttons which - due to personal history, and the way I look at the world - just don't work the same way for me. I actually *went* to an old-fashioned school with many similarities to Hogwarts, and so instead of quaint fictional archaisms I see unpleasant echoes of real things. In one of the last 'Sandman' episodes, Hob Gadling - a man who's actually *lived* through several hundred years of history - is taken to a rennfaire, and astounded at the idea that anybody would *want* to recreate such things. I feel the same way about Hogwarts...
At my school, children were categorised from an early age into high-flyers and no-hopers, by a process less dramatic & official but every bit as mysterious and unchallengeable as the Sorting Hat. One of my friends, Stuart, was identified (God only knows how) as a C-grade student, and from then on there was no shaking it. He did his best to break out of the mold, studying, even getting the high marks, but nothing he did ever stuck in the eyes of the school; his achievements were treated as flukes, nothing more. After a year of dedicated hard work he was riding to school for the end-of-year exam that might finally have allowed him to show his true colours. He came off his bike, slid across the gravel, and managed to drag himself into the exam bleeding and bruised. He spent the first half-hour trying to attract the invigilator's attention to let them know he was hurt - for which, they allowed him an extra half-hour to finish the exam, still dripping blood on the paper. Soon after that he left the school for somewhere prepared to judge him on his merits, which were many. But if you're in Slytherin, you don't even get *that* option.
OTOH, my friend Robin got the Harry Potter treatment. He could do no wrong; he was the Golden Boy, and his success was predestined. Which when you think about it is just as good a way to fuck somebody up for life; the fact that he came out of it as a very sweet person without a hint of arrogance is something I have to credit entirely to him, since it sure wasn't the school's doing. I saw a lot of other kids given a similar treatment develop Prefect Syndrome, the sudden deflation that happens when somebody finally leaves the school that's been puffing them up with air for the last six years.
Taunted by young Master Malfoy, Harry expressly disobeys his flying teacher, and is caught at it. He escapes all punishment. Which you might say is fair - after all, he was only trying to help a friend - but that's not WHY he was forgiven. No, the reason he gets away with it is because he's Good At Sport. Bleah. I won't even *start* on how that works in RL, I'm sure you've all seen it.
While we're at it, the whole wretched bloody 'code of silence' that encourages bullying to continue. You never tell on another classmate, no matter what they've done, because it's nobler to suffer quietly and then settle it privately away from the teacher's eye. We've grown out of the idea that *adult* abuse of children is something that should be swept under the carpet and ignored, but kids can be every bit as vicious to one another.
Just one more thing. The scoring system for Quidditch.
Unless I've missed something: the game ends when the Seeker catches the Snitch, a feat worth 150 points, no matter what's happened elsewhere. Leading to two conclusions:
(1) Most of the time, the rest of the game is completely irrelevant. Because the Snitch is worth so many points and ends the game immediately, whoever gets it wins the game.
(2) Very very rarely, the difference is so great that catching the Snitch would actually *lose* the game for the trailing team. That's right, your Seeker wants to *avoid* doing his job.
Either way, it seems more than a little bit... well, silly. Just as silly as the scoring system of our own school sports carnivals, where a 2nd Division win was worth more than a 1st Division one (and where this had been pointed out, year after year, without ever being fixed. As far as I know, it's still there.)
All these things meant that for me, HP was less of an escapist fantasy and more of a trip back to the less pleasant parts of my own childhood. As fiction it's fine, but when you're looking for somewhere to send your own kids please don't aim for Hogwarts...
I have a dark, shameful secret to admit: I read 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone', and I didn't think much of it. I got to the end and put it down without feeling any particular urge to read it again, or to read the next book, or to see the movie. I've since seen it on DVD (hard to avoid, with a ten year old stepson), and again it left me cold.
I can't call it a *bad* book. By most criteria it was well-written, I can see why it appeals to so many people, and if it draws kids away from Pokemon I'll happily line up for the privilege of kissing Ms. Rowling's feet. It had a reasonably interesting storyline and characters with a bit of personality, which puts it ahead of many best-selling 'grown-up' authors right off.
So why didn't it work for me?
I think a lot of HP's appeal is that it presses certain buttons which - due to personal history, and the way I look at the world - just don't work the same way for me. I actually *went* to an old-fashioned school with many similarities to Hogwarts, and so instead of quaint fictional archaisms I see unpleasant echoes of real things. In one of the last 'Sandman' episodes, Hob Gadling - a man who's actually *lived* through several hundred years of history - is taken to a rennfaire, and astounded at the idea that anybody would *want* to recreate such things. I feel the same way about Hogwarts...
At my school, children were categorised from an early age into high-flyers and no-hopers, by a process less dramatic & official but every bit as mysterious and unchallengeable as the Sorting Hat. One of my friends, Stuart, was identified (God only knows how) as a C-grade student, and from then on there was no shaking it. He did his best to break out of the mold, studying, even getting the high marks, but nothing he did ever stuck in the eyes of the school; his achievements were treated as flukes, nothing more. After a year of dedicated hard work he was riding to school for the end-of-year exam that might finally have allowed him to show his true colours. He came off his bike, slid across the gravel, and managed to drag himself into the exam bleeding and bruised. He spent the first half-hour trying to attract the invigilator's attention to let them know he was hurt - for which, they allowed him an extra half-hour to finish the exam, still dripping blood on the paper. Soon after that he left the school for somewhere prepared to judge him on his merits, which were many. But if you're in Slytherin, you don't even get *that* option.
OTOH, my friend Robin got the Harry Potter treatment. He could do no wrong; he was the Golden Boy, and his success was predestined. Which when you think about it is just as good a way to fuck somebody up for life; the fact that he came out of it as a very sweet person without a hint of arrogance is something I have to credit entirely to him, since it sure wasn't the school's doing. I saw a lot of other kids given a similar treatment develop Prefect Syndrome, the sudden deflation that happens when somebody finally leaves the school that's been puffing them up with air for the last six years.
Taunted by young Master Malfoy, Harry expressly disobeys his flying teacher, and is caught at it. He escapes all punishment. Which you might say is fair - after all, he was only trying to help a friend - but that's not WHY he was forgiven. No, the reason he gets away with it is because he's Good At Sport. Bleah. I won't even *start* on how that works in RL, I'm sure you've all seen it.
While we're at it, the whole wretched bloody 'code of silence' that encourages bullying to continue. You never tell on another classmate, no matter what they've done, because it's nobler to suffer quietly and then settle it privately away from the teacher's eye. We've grown out of the idea that *adult* abuse of children is something that should be swept under the carpet and ignored, but kids can be every bit as vicious to one another.
Just one more thing. The scoring system for Quidditch.
Unless I've missed something: the game ends when the Seeker catches the Snitch, a feat worth 150 points, no matter what's happened elsewhere. Leading to two conclusions:
(1) Most of the time, the rest of the game is completely irrelevant. Because the Snitch is worth so many points and ends the game immediately, whoever gets it wins the game.
(2) Very very rarely, the difference is so great that catching the Snitch would actually *lose* the game for the trailing team. That's right, your Seeker wants to *avoid* doing his job.
Either way, it seems more than a little bit... well, silly. Just as silly as the scoring system of our own school sports carnivals, where a 2nd Division win was worth more than a 1st Division one (and where this had been pointed out, year after year, without ever being fixed. As far as I know, it's still there.)
All these things meant that for me, HP was less of an escapist fantasy and more of a trip back to the less pleasant parts of my own childhood. As fiction it's fine, but when you're looking for somewhere to send your own kids please don't aim for Hogwarts...
