An Asymmetric Game

Of course, this does include spoilers.

It turns out that I am one of the 20 million or so¹ Americans that have read the most recent and (probably) last official Harry Potter narrative. In my defense, though, I did not buy it, I did not wait in line at midnight, and I did not dress up as my favorite character. I may be out time, but I’m not out money or (that much) dignity.

Joking aside, Deathly Hallows is the best book in the series, and I think there is little reason to argue otherwise. One reason, perhaps, is the epilogue, which very well might be the worst chapter in all seven books—but we’ll get to that later. It’s also my favorite in the series; I liked it enough that it changed my opinion about the other six.

An explanation. I started reading the series after the fourth book came out. I was in college, so I guess it’s valid to claim that my initial bleh was due partly to age. ² I breezed the first three books. I started dating a big HP fan a few months before the fifth book came out, so I read the fourth book. At the time it was my favorite. I got involved in her message board based on HP and ended up having some highly intelligent conversations about Rowling’s universe. I won’t lie—it’s a fun game developing theories based on a specific and spotty canon. An example: I remember at one point attempting to prove that Hagrid, when he was at Hogwarts, was a Slytherin.

At this point, I can’t say I liked Harry Potter. I respected it and found it useful (why? It’s further in this post), but I didn’t love it. Then things went bad, we broke up, and the fifth book came out. I was a bit bitter about the situation and I read the book while driving across Nebraska during July in a van. That partly explains why the fifth book, in my opinion, is clearly the worst of the series. Most of it, though, is that the book is poorly written and all the characters are annoying.³

So now I’m saying that I dislike HP, but that a part of my personal narrative is tied up in it—this is why I read the sixth book. Half-Blood Prince was better than expected, but still I’m not a big fan of the series. Then the fifth movie comes out and I want to see it for the same reason I mentioned two sentences ago. I have a friend in from out of town, so I see it with her, her sisters, and my flask. Perhaps that last companion is why I liked the movie so much—I’d go so far as to say it’s the best in the series. Why the worst book would make the best movie, I don’t know, but there it is.

After the movie, I decided to re-read the sixth book. It went quickly and I enjoyed it more because I could skip over the parts I found annoying. I particular like the last two hundred pages or so–Rowling kept the action mostly constant and used far less filler than normal. I then got the seventh book and read it over four days. After 550 words and before I get to the reasons, this is my general statement about book 7: it changed my opinion of the series from “I dislike Harry Potter” to “Man, this could have been so much better.” Yes, that’s a step up.

Let’s get this out of the way. I do not think Rowling is a good author. Her dialogue is horrible, her characterization needs work and her plots don’t flow organically. ⁴ Where she’s brilliant at, though, it tapping into classical archetypes in a way that helps us gain some understanding of the human condition. I did not see this before the sixth book, though I think it’s there. Why the sixth and especially seventh books excel is simple: it’s dark. Not only is that more enjoyable for a cynical bastard like myself, it also allows for a greater exploration of what it means to be human and be confronted with choices. I was completely sold when Harry walked into the Forbidden Forest and faced his death. This trope fascinates me: what do you do when you know you’re going to die and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it? That one scene—and then the “heaven” scene with Dumbledore that follows—tells us more about Rowling’s understanding of the human condition than the first five books combined.

This does come with a cost, though. I found the book to be quite predictable because she uses the standard hero progression. This is why Sirius had to die in 5 and Dumbledore (especially) had to die in six. And, most importantly, this is why Harry had to die in seven. Wait, you might be saying—he didn’t die. No, I think he did. He was, for lack of a different term, resurrected. Yeah, just like Jesus, that’s how Harry conquered death. It didn’t take the Hallows, it didn’t take Horcruxes…it takes acceptance, the greater good, and love. He embraces death instead of running. He takes it like a man. He takes it like a hero. His death allows redemption. At very least, that’s how the character—until this point one of my least favorite ones—redeemed himself in my eye.

So I think the ending is great and, from a meta level, nearly perfect. This is why I hate the epilogue so much. Because of this last chapter, we leave Harry not as a hero, but as a…a what? There’s no indication that he (or any others) had changed between ages 17 and 36 other than physically. We learn nothing new about him or anyone else. It doesn’t give us any more insight into the human condition. I wish I hadn’t read the epilogue.

Right—so the ending is good, but the lead up also works. Rowling keeps the tension palpable through nearly the entire novel. There’s nowhere near as much filler as previously. The entire book is focused on Harry. For the first time, Harry has to act. This is the single biggest reason I don’t care for the first three books: Harry is a passive character. Things happen to him, not because of him. Even in the later books this is true, though not as much. But finally, in this last installment, Harry becomes an actor. He has to make decisions. He has no one to fall back on. Why did Dumbledore have to die?—so this would happen. I love how Rowling tears down the Myth of Dumbledore, because it makes Harry’s quest so much more his own.

I do have a fair number of quibbles with the seventh book, but talking about them isn’t productive because they have no bearing on my liking the book. However, here are five things that bother me through the entire series. These things are, in my opinion, the problems holding the books back from being ‘classics.’ I’ll use one scene that I think exemplifies a few of them:

The scene: Harry finds Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest and Voldemort kills him. After the pre-resurrection scene in King’s Cross, Voldemort tells Narcissa to examine Harry and tell him if he’s dead. Narcissa does so and discovers that Harry is still alive. Instead of informing Voldemort of this, he whispers to Harry “Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?” Harry whispers back in the affirmative. Narcissa squeezes him.⁵. She then tells Voldemort that Harry is dead. Rowling then slips into third person and writes,

“Still feigning death on the ground, he understood. Narcissa knew that the only way she would be permitted to enter Hogwarts, and find her son, was as part of the conquering army. She no longer cared whether Voldemort won.”

Problem number one. Rowling has this horrible tendency to tell, not show. Here, she flat-out tells us why Narcissa did what she did. No room for interpretation, no work by the reader. It was that way and it is that way. Of course, she’s not necessarily being an omniscient narrator—she’s saying that Harry understood. This is fine, except that…

Two. …Harry is (almost) always right. This was very clear to me in re-reading book six. With the exception of Snape—which I’ll get to in a minute—Harry always makes the right choice and always believes the right thing. Harry thinks Draco’s up to something even though there’s no evidence and smarter people than him don’t think so? Whoops…turns out that Draco is up to something. This problem extends also to Dumbledore. ⁶ Sure, he “guesses” but he’s always right. Which is not to say that this is a deal breaker—it’s not. But there has to be a better way of presenting this. In the scene referenced above, it’s understood by the reader that Harry is right partly because of precedent, partly because no other alternatives are presented or considered. While I have no doubt that Narcissa wants her son back, there are dozens of other reasons she might ask Harry that question. Which leads to the third problem…

Three. …Rowling has a simplistic view of her world. Remember above where I said that an argument could be made that Hagrid was a Slytherin? I imagine, if I told Rowling that, she would scoff and say, “Of course he was a Gryffindor.” And she’d be right—in the novel’s universe, how could it be any different? Maybe it’s because she’s dealing in archetypes, but there is a distinct lack of complexity in the canon. Why does Narcissa lie about Harry? Of course, the answer the book presents is love. But what about increasing her power? What about anything? What about revenge for the way she and her family was treated? She is a Slytherin, after all, and…

Four. …All Slytherins are evil. Man, this one annoys the bejeebus out of me. Of course, not all Slytherins are evil—Slughorn, Snape, and Narcissa being the exceptions. So, I’m most likely a Slytherin⁷ and I’d like to think I’m a pretty good person. ⁸ But in the novels, it seems that all Slytherins are evil. It’s like elementary logic:

(1) All Slytherins are evil.
(2) X is a Slytherin.
So, (3) X is evil. ⁹

It’s not just that I feel Rowling impugns my personality. No, it’s because I truly believe that traits necessary of Slytherins are traits necessary to be a great person. This claim is, of course, debatable, but Rowling doesn’t even seem to want to have that debate. It seems that when Slytherins make good, it’s because they deny their Slytherin-ness. At very least, it’s clear through book six that there are no good Slytherins. (Are there any non-Slytherin Death Eaters? No.)

Snape is fascinating in six and seven. He’s one of the few characters that seem to have any moral complexity. I’d always sort of liked Snape, but seven makes him my favorite main character. (My favorite auxiliary characters? Oddly enough, it’s Bellatrix and Neville.) Part of the reason is that he represents a strong challenge to two of my for main complaints (four and two). Another part is that Snape doesn’t have to be redeemed, but is. Of course, we all knew that he couldn’t be evil (see above: Dumbledore is always right), but he could have died without the secret coming out. (And who doesn’t have sympathy for unrequited love?

The last main issue I have is real simple, so I’ll be brief(er). There’s too much luck in the series. It is my belief that good narratives must be inevitable but not predictable. HP is not—events are left to chance. It’s clear the Snape’s memories provide Harry the key to defeating Voldemort…so why didn’t Snape ensure that Harry would get them? That is, what are the chances that (1) Harry sees Snape die (2) Harry thinks fast enough to grab the memories (3) Harry takes time out from the battle to visit them (4) Harry understands? There’s just too many ways that can go wrong. The reason book three annoys me is the time-turner—it seems to come out of nowhere. It’s like Rowling painted herself in a corner and said, “Oh, let’s get out of it by…time travel!!!” Not inevitable. Not organic. The plotting is way too forced.

Yeah, so I liked it despite all this, but it could have been a lot better. I’m also one of those people who believe that reading is good and reading (even crap) is better than most other activities kids can do. So who am I to judge? I just wrote 2,357 words about it and spent many hours reading it, so whatever.

 

 

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¹ CNN reports that 8.3 million copies were sold in the first 24 hours. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that the total copies two weeks in has increased substantially. Also, we need to add in those that share or read it some other non-purchase way.
² Ultimately, I don’t think this argument stands up. For one, so what? Lots of kids’ stories appeal to other ages. Two, many people my own age love it, so I think this argument is just an excuse to deflect criticism.
³ Of course, I’m not a published author and don’t have a kajillion dollars, so what do I know?
⁴ See previous footnote.
⁵ “He felt the hand on his chest contract; her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn.” I believe that, at that moment, Narcissa loves Harry.
⁶ At least while Dumbledore is Headmaster.
⁷ Depends on course, on what you mean by claiming a house. I am, I’d like to think, a complex character so I don’t fit cleanly in one house. However, I think I’m more Slytherin than not, so the point stands.
⁸ There are good arguments out there against this, though.
⁹ Not incidentally, this is exactly why I think Rowling would say that Hagrid is not Slytherin.