In defence of Harry Potter
Jun. 1st, 2007 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyoreI pity the young generation growing up on her books with a sad and skewed notion of morals and grammar through the broken glasses of The Boy Who Lived.
This essay/post is partly inspired by the above quote (unattributed on purpose, since I don't want her getting attacked by passing HP fen *g*), but mostly it’s in reaction to anti-HP comments I’m seeing a lot, in RL and in Fandom. Despite the title of this post, this isn't really a defence of HP, but more an examination of why I think the books are as problematic as they are.
When you're reading this, please insert IMO as needed. Other people's thoughts may vary - that's fine. In fact, I encourage you to tell me, since I spent far too long thinking/typing this up, and am interested in what people think.
With all that out of the way, let's get into it:
Let's start this debate from a moral perspective, since that's a frequent argument against the books. And let's leave aside religious issues, and whether or not children should be getting all their moral guidance from works of fiction.
Are the Harry Potter books really such bad moral examples? Straight away, I can think of a lot of events/plot points in the books that can be seen as morally dubious (the treatment, portrayal and sheer existence of Slytherin house for starters). On the other hand, I can think of a lot of times when the books are obviously championing 'do the right thing (Dumbledore's speech at the end of GoF, for instance).
To me, the problematic issues are those that are buried in the structure of the work (Slytherin=Evil, for example) and, and I think that, on a child-friendly level, they are countermanded by the raising of 'surface' issues such as the anti-werewolf prejudice, Hermione’s crusade for elf right, the whole 'doing what is right vs doing what is evil' theme. Does that make the subsurface issues any less problematic? Of course not. In fact, they are all the more problematic for the contrast, but what it does do is give anyone who cares to debate this with their children a good jumping off point. ('Children, discuss: What is the difference between portrayal of prejudice with respect to Werewolves and Slytherins?') If people are really interested in resolving the morality of Harry Potter, there's a lot there to discuss.
But looking at the moral issue raises another issue: the conflict between what the Harry Potter books say and what they show.
This conflict 'saying' and 'showing' is fascinating, and worth examining further. This issue is exemplified in the portrayal of Dumbledore. We are told that he is the best of the wizards, a kindly mentor, a caring teacher, and a powerful foe. But looking at these books from an adult level, what we see is a character who has consistently failed to protect those in his care, failed to defeat a villain he helped create, and who has consistently encouraged a minor to get involved in life-threatening situations, often in order to resolve situations the he (Dumbledore) is, at least in part, responsible for. We are left with two choices - he's either a manipulative bastard, or a well-meaning but incompetent failure. Not a very appetising choice.
This disconnect between what is said and what shown arises from the combination of a few factors:
a) the injection of a classic 'boarding school' tropes (where the adults serve as a framework for the child protagonists to pursue the story) into an 'adult' world (in that a war to protect society as we know it is normally considered the domain of adults).
b) the co-existance of the Real and Magical worlds. While it works well on a classic wish-forfillment level, the apparent values of the magical world sit uneasily with the situation described in a). As adults, we know that in the 'Real' world, leaving children to fight the battle against an evil overlord is morally wrong, and because the Real world still exists in the framework of the books, it's hard to leave that moral judgement behind. In a pure fantasy world, these objections can be more easily overcome.
c) adults reading what are, despite the increasingly adult storylines, still children's books. Yes, the plots have grown in darkness, but the world is still a children's one. The plots have matured, but the world cannot, because it works on that childhood, fairytale level. On an adult level, this world makes no sense, because it is based on classic childhood tropes of incompetent (or at least not very useful) adults and the 'world through the wardrobe'.
When the 'feel' and themes of the books were still content to work at a childhood level, the disconnect between the 'real' world and the Magical world could be ignored, the impotence of the adult characters glossed over, and the sub-surface moral issues ignored, because we could read these books on the childhood level we remembered . But as the later books brought in more 'adult' concepts and characterisations, readers were trying to look at the story through two sets of glasses, as it were. The increasing inclusion of more complex issues prompted reading through 'adult' glasses, and that's when the flaws in the world structure are apparent.
As a related note, the other common criticism of the Harry Potter books is that they aren't, on a technical, 'grammar and style' level, very good. But even on this level, Rowling's books work better on the childhood fairytale scale. Her strength, and one that served her very well in her earlier novels, is a gift for creating whimsical situations, realistic child protagonists and amusing/intrigueing adultcaricatures character sketches, rather than being an excellent writer. This limitation, and the issues raised above, means that translating those sketches into workable characters, and those situations into a complete world, is occasionally less than successful.
The Harry Potter books are a classic combination wish-forfillment and old-style boarding school fiction with an epic twist. And for a kid, that isn't a bad combination, but from an adult's perspective, it's problematic.
Thoughts?
This essay/post is partly inspired by the above quote (unattributed on purpose, since I don't want her getting attacked by passing HP fen *g*), but mostly it’s in reaction to anti-HP comments I’m seeing a lot, in RL and in Fandom. Despite the title of this post, this isn't really a defence of HP, but more an examination of why I think the books are as problematic as they are.
When you're reading this, please insert IMO as needed. Other people's thoughts may vary - that's fine. In fact, I encourage you to tell me, since I spent far too long thinking/typing this up, and am interested in what people think.
With all that out of the way, let's get into it:
Let's start this debate from a moral perspective, since that's a frequent argument against the books. And let's leave aside religious issues, and whether or not children should be getting all their moral guidance from works of fiction.
Are the Harry Potter books really such bad moral examples? Straight away, I can think of a lot of events/plot points in the books that can be seen as morally dubious (the treatment, portrayal and sheer existence of Slytherin house for starters). On the other hand, I can think of a lot of times when the books are obviously championing 'do the right thing (Dumbledore's speech at the end of GoF, for instance).
To me, the problematic issues are those that are buried in the structure of the work (Slytherin=Evil, for example) and, and I think that, on a child-friendly level, they are countermanded by the raising of 'surface' issues such as the anti-werewolf prejudice, Hermione’s crusade for elf right, the whole 'doing what is right vs doing what is evil' theme. Does that make the subsurface issues any less problematic? Of course not. In fact, they are all the more problematic for the contrast, but what it does do is give anyone who cares to debate this with their children a good jumping off point. ('Children, discuss: What is the difference between portrayal of prejudice with respect to Werewolves and Slytherins?') If people are really interested in resolving the morality of Harry Potter, there's a lot there to discuss.
But looking at the moral issue raises another issue: the conflict between what the Harry Potter books say and what they show.
This conflict 'saying' and 'showing' is fascinating, and worth examining further. This issue is exemplified in the portrayal of Dumbledore. We are told that he is the best of the wizards, a kindly mentor, a caring teacher, and a powerful foe. But looking at these books from an adult level, what we see is a character who has consistently failed to protect those in his care, failed to defeat a villain he helped create, and who has consistently encouraged a minor to get involved in life-threatening situations, often in order to resolve situations the he (Dumbledore) is, at least in part, responsible for. We are left with two choices - he's either a manipulative bastard, or a well-meaning but incompetent failure. Not a very appetising choice.
This disconnect between what is said and what shown arises from the combination of a few factors:
a) the injection of a classic 'boarding school' tropes (where the adults serve as a framework for the child protagonists to pursue the story) into an 'adult' world (in that a war to protect society as we know it is normally considered the domain of adults).
b) the co-existance of the Real and Magical worlds. While it works well on a classic wish-forfillment level, the apparent values of the magical world sit uneasily with the situation described in a). As adults, we know that in the 'Real' world, leaving children to fight the battle against an evil overlord is morally wrong, and because the Real world still exists in the framework of the books, it's hard to leave that moral judgement behind. In a pure fantasy world, these objections can be more easily overcome.
c) adults reading what are, despite the increasingly adult storylines, still children's books. Yes, the plots have grown in darkness, but the world is still a children's one. The plots have matured, but the world cannot, because it works on that childhood, fairytale level. On an adult level, this world makes no sense, because it is based on classic childhood tropes of incompetent (or at least not very useful) adults and the 'world through the wardrobe'.
When the 'feel' and themes of the books were still content to work at a childhood level, the disconnect between the 'real' world and the Magical world could be ignored, the impotence of the adult characters glossed over, and the sub-surface moral issues ignored, because we could read these books on the childhood level we remembered . But as the later books brought in more 'adult' concepts and characterisations, readers were trying to look at the story through two sets of glasses, as it were. The increasing inclusion of more complex issues prompted reading through 'adult' glasses, and that's when the flaws in the world structure are apparent.
As a related note, the other common criticism of the Harry Potter books is that they aren't, on a technical, 'grammar and style' level, very good. But even on this level, Rowling's books work better on the childhood fairytale scale. Her strength, and one that served her very well in her earlier novels, is a gift for creating whimsical situations, realistic child protagonists and amusing/intrigueing adult
The Harry Potter books are a classic combination wish-forfillment and old-style boarding school fiction with an epic twist. And for a kid, that isn't a bad combination, but from an adult's perspective, it's problematic.
Thoughts?
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 06:14 am (UTC)Rawr.
Well spoken on all the above points and there's nothing you've said that I have any reason to contest, though when I mentioned the questionable morality, it was really some of the attitude and actions of her protagonists that concerned me. Tomorrow I'll bring a couple of books and see if I can find the exact passages for reference. We can have a meta and guitar heroes afternoon over food. I have a feeling we'll be ending on a note of 'agreeing to disagree', but it'll be a nice break from RL commitments.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 06:37 am (UTC)when I mentioned the questionable morality, it was really some of the attitude and actions of her protagonists that concerned me.
Fair enough, but I don't think you can judge the attitudes/actions of any character anyway from the context in which they are set.
We can have a meta and guitar heroes afternoon over food.
As I said to Mage, I have a feeling we should set this as the required reading - but I don't think that
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 06:58 am (UTC)Of course, I'd expect nothing less of such a considerate friend. :]
I don't think you can judge the attitudes/actions of any character anyway from the context in which they are set.
'Anyway' or 'away' from the context? I'll presume you didn't typo there. Fair to say, it certainly would be unreasonable to try and transpose the morality of their actions on a modern analogous case, so I'm not doing that. If I'm going to criticise the character of certain people in Rowling's universe I do it with consideration of their background, upbringing and social pressures to date (at least, those that are made apparent to us). In some cases a potentially immoral act may follow naturally from all of this and you could say that within their context, a character's actions may seem justified, at the very least, to themselves.
Regardless, I would dispute that there persist some issues of normative ethics even in the magical world that still render some of the actions of some characters questionable.
Rowling makes me dislike the moral character of certain individuals through no fault of their own, save them being simply who they are, i.e. accept these people for who they are, but some of them don't warm to me.
It will all become clearer over tomorrow's afternoon with direct source material and, yes, your threads are definitely required reading if GtB wants to have any idea what we're rambling about in his house.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-02 07:44 am (UTC)I did typo, but since it prompted fascinating thoughts, I shall forgive myself :)
Regardless, I would dispute that there persist some issues of normative ethics even in the magical world that still render some of the actions of some characters questionable.
Absolutely. I never meant to imply that there AREN'T questionable actions/motivations, but that by creating a world where the normative morality of the real (adult) world exists in the same fictional space as the demands of classic 'boarding school' tropes (incompetent authority figures, stereotyping of characters based on group identify), these questionable actions are inherent in the story.
Effectively, I guess the gist of my argument is that, because of the way JKR has chosen to set up her world, these shorts of issues where always going to arise.
GTB is going to have no idea what we are talking about, but I think I shall prompt