Last weekend at Wilson’s house I saw most of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. A couple of days later, on a (rather extended) study break, I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. These movies brought to mind the release of the first one, and how excited I was at the prospect. I remember standing in line to get into the theater in Manhattan, with Elly. A crisp October. Everyone was buzzing. But by the end of the series I didn’t really care anymore.
For a long time I had diagnosed my change in attitude this way: Harry Potter works from a model of the world where the hero doesn’t exist. What I wanted, on the other hand, was for Harry to become super bad-ass and lay waste to people at the end. If Harry Potter were a basketball story, I’d want to see him working on his game, then showing up in the climax having all these wicked moves and kicking ass on the player who’d humiliated him. That never happens. Harry manages to do what he does with luck, trinkets he’s given, and help from his friends. He is decidedly underwhelming as a Chosen One.
For years I thought this was the big failing in the books, and the reason I’d lost my taste for the movies. I’m all about the grand heroics, the levelling up, the showdown. I want magical Michael Jordan, or something of the kind. But in the last few days I’ve been re-evaluating the HP franchise, and I get now that Harry’s flavor of heroism isn’t a failing, but a particular design choice, a choice that is actually braver and more profound than the version that I would have liked better.
Harry is basically just a guy — an admirable guy, a guy who you wouldn’t mind if he were dating your sister — but pretty normal, really. Not a real standout at anything, kind of where he is by accident, a magical trust fund baby with a hard luck story, yeah, and sure, a pedigree, although really his parents being awesome is no accomplishment of his. But he lives up to it as best he can, in an uncertain world, with bad odds, with help from his friends. It’s very un-Beowulf or Achilles. It’s also a lot closer to the stories most of us know from real life, and closer to most of the situations in which we’ll find ourselves, one way or another: we’re born, we’ve had some good opportunities, we don’t live in Somalia or Palestine, we’ve got health care (or at least the possibility of health care) and a free education.
Few people have the tools necessary to be Michael Jordan, in basketball or in any aspect of life. Hard work made him, but that’ll only get you so far without superhuman ability. But greatness in the way Harry is great is something you could really aspire to, and the mythology of the HP franchise is one much more proximate to reality than most of the hero stories we’re told. Nevermind that there’s wizards and shit: do what you can; be worthy of friendship; keep your friends close; and hope for the best. That’s a way guttier answer than almost anything else fiction will serve you up, especially in this genre.