Why Do People Like Harry Potter?

"I went off and read the books after the audition and I read the first four books in one sitting – you know – didn’t wash, didn’t eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood why my friends, who I’d thought were slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children’s books." - Jason Isaacs on the Harry Potter series

So why do people like Harry Potter? I have a few theories.

I know some of you are thinking this. Don't lie.

First, the world that Rowling creates is rich and expanisive – yet not overwhelming like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Let’s be honest here, your first time reading The Fellowship of the Ring is pretty difficult and don’t get me started on the first Game of Thrones novel (I still haven’t finished it). The worlds created by Tolkien and Martin are so detailed and masterfully created that it’s often hard to follow the plot and dialogue when the characters are making archaic references to things that happened hundreds of years ago or referring to elaborate family trees or histories. The Harry Potter world is fantastically immersive while still being simple enough to follow.

I should point out that this isn’t because Rowling doesn’t have her own person Silmarillion-esque catalogue of obscure HP related facts and family trees – she gives the reader enough detail without making them cringe.

"I checked this out weeks ago for a bit of light reading" aka hardcore Tolkien fans with the Silmarillion.

Second, the attention to detail and the little tidbits you didn’t realize at first meaning a whole lot more than you thought they did. For example, Argus Filch, the grouchy caretaker/janitor at Hogwarts always knows when students are wreaking havoc; he’s notorious for giving out detentions… he’s always watching. Just like Argus from Greek mythology – the 100 eyed giant that was tasked to guard precious items by Hera. When you notice one detail like that – so many more come forward. Remus Lupin – in Roman mythology Remus and his brother Romulus were raised by a wolf and found Rome and Lupin obviously comes from the Latin word for wolf “lupa.” To add to the symbolism, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Who sold out the Potters to Voldemort? Obviously Peter, whose animagus (or animal form they can turn into at will) – definitely not Sirius who transforms into a dog, a paragon of friendship and loyalty.

I could continue with that train of thought but I’ll refrain for your sake and mine. But if you’re interested in more allusions or symbolism in Harry Potter I wrote my senior English paper on it in high school and I still have it…

This tortoise understands me.

That conveniently enough brings me to my third point: nerdiness and community. The Harry Potter books and movies created a new community of avid readers from all walks of life. The books were great for children to grow up alongside Harry, but they were also interesting and compelling enough for adults too. Sure at the time there were huge cult followings for Buffy and Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, but Harry Potter reached a larger audience by including children and by widening the niche market for coming of age fantasy tales.

Author John Green’s vlog to his brother Hank explains as much, if you start at the 41 second mark and watch until 1:43 or so that's the segment that is really relevant to my post.

So that’s why I think Harry Potter is so popular – it’s easy to get into but it’s not boring, there is so much detail that to this day I’m still realizing things I didn’t notice the first dozen times I’ve read the book, and the community of Harry Potter lovers is a great place to not only discuss all of the aforementioned topics, but it’s also so wonderful to be in a theater/room, full of people all super excited for the same event.

BBC Merlin & Once Upon A Time – Dear God What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

After finishing our last paper, I feel the need to rehash some of the Merlin stuff that we’ve left behind a few weeks ago and bring up a few things in regards to modern media and the timeless fairy tales and legends we’ve been reading.

(Heads up there might be spoilers for Merlin seasons 1-5 and Once Upon a Time season 1 – read with caution.)

Doctor Who reference, in case you weren't aware.

I chose to write my paper on BBC Merlin because I thought that this was as good of an excuse as any to binge watch an entire TV series on Netflix. Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

Other than heartbreak and tears I found BBC Merlin to be unique from other Merlin’s in one major aspect – the relationship between Arthur and Merlin. I promise I’m not about to do any crazy fangirl shippy things here, I’m looking at their relationship in the most platonic and analytical sense. Seriously though, these two characters are thrown together because of prophecy and predestination and they make the very best of their situation in regards to one and other. Arthur, the prophesized “Once and Future King” is to be guarded and advised by Merlin – a wizard so powerful and eagerly awaited that the Druids bow down to him (Druids are a really big deal in real life mythology and in the show). The two don’t always see eye to eye, but they create a bond so powerful that it lasts through multiple reincarnations.

BBC Merlin has one thing that none of the other Merlin’s we’ve read about have: LOVE.

Yeah I had to do it.

Again, nothing fangirly here, but love is what sets the same repeated characters apart from their older legends. The friendship that Merlin and Arthur have is unique to the BBC rendition, and the love they have for one and other and their friends is what the show revolves around.

Once Upon a Time (which I know a lot less about so please correct me if I’m wrong here) seems to be doing the same thing. Take a legend (in this case many legends) and modernize them in a way that commercial media will appreciate.

The first season is more of an origin story where main character Emma Swan is forced to confront the unbelievable truth that she is the daughter of fairy tale characters and that the residents of her town, Storybrooke, Maine, are all fairy tale characters who happened to have their memories erased. That sounds more like a nightmare to me – trapped in Maine. Cue snare drum, everyone laugh.

My sense of humor is impeccable. Sorry if you're from Maine. It's really a lovely place.

Where Merlin is about love, Once Upon a Time is about hope. The characters move forward with the hope that their life meanings can be restored, hope that they can triumph over evil, and most importantly, hope that they can achieve happiness.

My reaction when things get too sappy.

BUT HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO MEDIEVAL MAGIC AND MYSTICISM?! I honestly am not quite sure and that’s what I’d really like to discuss in the comments on my post (please do it).

So far my best guesses are as follows: the new shows are a clash of medieval and modern thought. In BBC Merlin for example, you see the war between magic and common folk not unlike that seen in witch trials. That’s a typical medieval thought (and a modern one but that’s for another discussion) BUT love conquers all and magic can be used for good. So magic is what you make it… that’s a pretty modern thought. As for Once Upon a Time we bear witness to the struggles of fairy tale folk… and that’s not new at all – isn’t that exactly what the medieval folk did to the original tales, listen to their struggles and apply the morals to real life? So why do we change Merlin into a show about love/friendship while we basically keep fairy tales the same?

Sources:

http://io9.com/5850277/in-once-upon-a-time-all-of-your-favorite-fairy-tale-characters-are-trapped-in-maine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_(season_1)

A Rose By Any Other Name

Yeah, I went there, I quoted Shakespeare. And this is why:

Magic? Mysticism? What? Okay, so I have a really hard time differentiating between the two. They seem awfully similar… So similar in fact, that I would argue that they’re synonymous. Does the difference between names even matter?

Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena did the same exact things that many witches were accused of. They incorporated religion in their books on healing remedies, they described the manner in which one should prepare salves and potions to cure various ailments, and they candidly spoke of sex. These are all things that a common woman would have been burned at the stake for! So what gives these two women the right to practice something so similar to witchcraft?

This guy is obviously confused too.

<www.raveflyers.co.uk>

That Papacy, that’s who. Yep, the guy with the really cool hat and the head of a religious empire is all it takes to obtain a glorified “get out of jail free” pass. Because really, isn’t that what he gave them? With the Pope’s blessing, Catherine of Siena and Hildegard were able to document their findings in relation to healthcare, human life, and music. Let’s also remember that Catherine of Siena claimed that she had a direct connection to God and that he spoke to her in dreams. That’s totally normal. Meanwhile common women mixing herbs in their kitchen to help soothe a stomachache had the potential to be tried executed alongside unlucky midwives and women accused of adultery.

<www.weknowmemes.com>

This brings up two interesting implications. First, if the Pope gives his stamp of approval to someone doing something that would otherwise be labeled as heretic, it’s okay. We all now that the Pope has more power than pretty much anyone else in medieval Europe, including the monarchs, but it’s entirely different seeing that play out in this manner. His say so has effectively changed the label of witchcraft to holy. If he made a blanket statement along the lines of “if you wanna mix herbs to help the health of the community or help educate others, it’s cool” he could have saved countless lives.

The second thing this makes me think of is that these women needed the Pope to okay their doings. They were aware of what they were doing and they knew that if they didn’t have Papal approval, their head was on the chopping block. They knew that if they didn’t get the go ahead from the Pope that they could be tried as witches – this implies that they were aware of exactly how their practices could be perceived!

Basically the line between magic and mysticism is so blurry to me that I can’t see where one ends and the other begins. I’ve honestly been coming to the conclusion that there is in fact no difference because of the way in which Catherine of Siena and Hildegard went about their professions. The only difference in my eyes is that one is approved by the Church because it is devoted to God, while the other is not.

Same Shit, Different Era: But Why?

Hey all, this is your life-pondering-question-asking-philosophy-major classmate here. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I think it’s worth a read. Plus there are funny images to make up for it.

The last couple class periods have been filled with discussion on the primary documents read in Kors and Peters’ Witchcraft in Europe. As you may have (hopefully) noticed, most of the documents deal with how to understand, find, and eradicate magic users. The documents we have read involved trials, executions, underhanded tactics, and moral ambiguity.

Moral ambiguity you say?

<www.enumclaw.com> 

The things we have read about made me think of other times in more modern history where, as a society, we have persecuted and punished those who are unlike the majority in the name of God and peace. I think a lot of people have had a negative outlook on the medieval folk that condemned others to death, but don’t we continue to do that as a society?

What really made me do a double take at the text were the Persecutions at Trier. Taking place in Germany, this community killed thousands of their own based on accusations of witchcraft or association of witchcraft. I think that it’s safe to say that the vast majority of those people were incredibly unlucky innocent folks who confessed to witchcraft under the pain of torture, yet similar situations would arise in Germany and the rest of the world for years to come.

<http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3vfx0c/>

What does that say about humanity? I can’t help but draw parallels with the Holocaust, McCarthyism, and the unfair manner in which racial and religious minorities are condemned in comparison to the majority. Let’s face it; we treat men with turbans and women in hijabs the same way medieval folk treated the lady who bakes brownies down the street. How come we haven’t learned any better?

Why?!

<http://alltheragefaces.com/face/misc-jackie-chan>

Humanity often kills off those they don’t understand out of fear of the unknown. We’ve seen this in Classical Greece when Socrates drank hemlock after he was wrongly convicted of impiety and corrupting the youth, and we see this in modern literature as well. I just finished Veronica Roth’s Divergent (it was awesome go read it) and the story takes place in a dystopian America where the people are divided into five factions based on virtue, and the rare individuals who do not fit neatly into any one faction (aka divergent) are discovered and snuffed out simply because they don’t fit. You see this in Harry Potter when muggles and muggle-borns are threatened/killed because they are different, you see this in George Orwell’s 1984 and The Matrix and Doctor Who and even Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is subjected to ostracism.

<www.whytry.org>

So why did the medieval folks kill their kin? Were they really that different from us? Were they already corrupt and using magic as a scapegoat? And more importantly, why haven’t we learned from their mistakes and the mistakes of others? How come we’re perpetuating something we openly mock? How come we are so fascinated by this subject that we continue to explore it in various media when it’s so often staring us in the face?

<http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/40-gifs-that-prove-every-day-is-mean-girls-day/>

End rant. And please answer some/any of those questions because there’s nothing I like more than a good argument/discussion.