The Quidditch Metaphor: The Role of Quidditch in HP

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 48192

The following is something I've been working on for awhile in my spare time, but Melody's question about *seeking* and Eloise's response that it might be allegorical has prompted me to get it out of my drafts folder and onto the list.  It doesn't directly address those questions, but it touches on the issues they raised.

A couple of caveats:  The citations are a bit thin, since I began writing it without access to the books.  The primary references are:  PS/SS Slytherin match (ch. 11); Hufflepuff match (ch. 13); CoS Slytherin match (ch. 10); PoA Hufflepuff match (ch. 9); PoA Ravenclaw match (ch. 13); PoA Slytherin match (ch. 15); QWC (GoF ch. 8).  Oliver Wood's initial description of Quidditch is in PS/SS ch. 10.

Second caveat:  I know nothing about literature or literary analysis.  I even had to look up "metaphor" in the dictionary. Everything herein is, therefore, just an observation.

THE QUIDDITCH METAPHOR:  THE ROLE OF QUIDDITCH IN HP

What is the function of Quidditch in the books?. JKR has said she included Quidditch in the books "because sport is such an important part of life at school (Scholastic, Oct. 2000). And so it is. The inter-House sports rivalries help set the boarding-school stage and make the atmosphere seem believable. Quidditch also provides a setting for significant plot developments, such as Quirrell's attempt to kill Harry by unseating him from his broom in PS/SS and the appearance of the Dementors in PoA. But it's just a game. Quidditch and the quest for the Quidditch cup often seem to me to be a diversion from the more important things going on in the series. 

On reflection, however, I think there's a lot more to Quidditch than that. I think JKR has used Quidditch as a metaphor for the struggle against Voldemort and the players' roles in the fight; moreover, the Quidditch sequences appear to foreshadow subsequent events. When you think about it, sport seems an obvious choice for a metaphor. A game or sporting competition *is* an armed conflict of a sort. In fact, here in the US football players are frequently referred to as "weekend warriors." What is significant here, I think, is how carefully JKR appears to have modeled each position and chosen who will play each position to mirror their personalities and/or their possible role in the coming war, and how she has choreographed the matches themselves to foreshadow what happens in the Voldemort struggle.

SEEKER

This position presents, I think, the most obvious parallel. The Seeker is the most important player on the team. If the Seeker succeeds in catching the Snitch, he/she garners 150 points for the team, vs. only 10 points per goal scored by a Chaser. In addition, because catching the Snitch ends the match, a truly superior Seeker, such as Harry or Viktor Krum, can control when the game ends by choosing whether to go after the Snitch himself or to prevent the opposing Seeker from catching it. It's very rare for a team to win if its Seeker does not catch the Snitch. Oliver Wood sounds like a hyperzealous fanatic when he tells Harry before the CoS Slytherin match, "Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to." But he's right: If Gryffindor is to have a chance of winning, Harry had better catch the Snitch. Without Harry, Gryffindor was "steamrollered" by Ravenclaw (PS/SS ch. 17), for their "worst defeat in 300 years" (though this last sounds like hyperbole). The QWC is an anomaly in this respect (as I discuss further below).

The best Seekers are also extraordinary athletes. Harry is the first first-year Seeker in a century. Harry has a tremendous gift for Quidditch, but many of the same skills that make him a success at Quidditch - keen observatory skills, the ability to act quickly, physical bravery, and resourcefulness under pressure - are the same skills that allow him to succeed against Voldemort. They also set him apart from the rest of the Quidditch team and from the other students. Though Harry yearns for normality - to be just one of the students who can go enjoy weekend trips to Hogsmeade - he is *not* normal. Harry is special, whether by his extraordinary talent or merely because he is marked for death by Voldemort. It does not matter how much he wants to be a normal teenager. He will be targeted and pursued by Voldemort and therefore will likely be a pivotal figure in that struggle. His only choice is whether to use his gifts and for what purpose. He accepted the opportunity to play Quidditch as a first-year (the first in a century) after being plucked out of the crowd, and he accepts the opportunity to fight against Voldemort despite great personal risk. 

Moreover, Seeker is the most dangerous position of all. Seekers are the players that are most at risk of being "clobbered by the other team", at least according to Seamus (PS/SS ch. 11), even without Dobby's assistance. Harry has an extraordinary ability to sidestep the Bludgers sent his way on the Quidditch field, as well as the metaphorical Bludgers he encounters - Quirrelmort, the basilisk, Voldemort in the graveyard. He gets help, of course, but in the end he does it by himself. 

This leads to the next Seeker parallel. The role of a Quidditch Seeker on the team is solitary. Teammates provide support - i.e., Beaters may assist in removing obstacles that may impede the Seeker's search for the Snitch, and the Chasers and Keeper help keep the team in the game by scoring goals and preventing the opponents from scoring. But a Seeker doesn't really interact with the team during play. The Seeker must find and catch the Snitch by himself, just as Harry must face Voldemort alone. So far in the series, of course, though he has had a great deal of help getting there, Harry has faced down each Voldemort threat (Quirrelmort, Diary!Riddle and the graveyard) by himself. 

But despite being such a solitary role, the best Seeker is a team player. The Seeker should be fully aware of the progress of the game, because catching the Snitch when the team is too far behind will cost the team a victory. Harry exemplifies all of these qualities on and off the Quidditch pitch - he may dream of glory, as he does after the QWC, but he is a true team player. In the PoA Ravenclaw match, Harry sees the Snitch but deliberately avoids catching it, choosing instead to divert Cho's attention because Gryffindor was down by more than 150 points. Compare this to Viktor Krum's decision to end the QWC on his own terms, even though he seals Bulgaria's loss to Ireland. This preserved his own status as the most brilliant Seeker, and though it could be interpreted as sparing his team the ignominy of a worse defeat, he snatched any hope Bulgaria might have had of pulling off a stunning comeback. I don't think Harry would ever do that - in my mind, he would always give his team a chance for victory, even though things might seem hopeless. 

As an example, in PS/SS Harry is able to get the Stone because he doesn't want it for himself. He recognizes immediately that the issue is greater than the Stone itself. In countering Hermione's argument that he should not go through the trapdoor because he might be expelled, Harry states, "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! . . . . Losing points doesn't matter anymore. D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the House Cup?" (PS?SS ch. 16).  He's not avenging the death of his parents, and he's not doing it for the glory. Unlike Krum, Harry won't catch the Snitch, or face down Voldemort, just to get glory for himself. 

BEATERS

The Beaters' job, in one sentence, is to create chaos. During a match, the Beaters disrupt their opponents but have no offensive role. (QttA states that there is no indication that Beaters have ever handled the Quaffle.) The Beaters guard their teammates from the Bludgers and, as Oliver Wood points out, they also "try and knock them toward the other team." They are the only players that carry implements - and the clubs are themselves weapons. In essence, the Beaters to act as rogues to protect their team: they're *supposed* to aim Bludgers (which, as they're 10-inch iron balls, more resemble weapons more than implements of sport) at their opponents, and if the opponents are hurt, well, that's just a part of the game.


Beaters also seem to have a penchant for rulebreaking. The only non-Beaters we ever see drawing penalties are Slytherins (which seems to fit with the characteristic that they will "do anything to achieve their ends"). Some examples:

* In the PS/SS match against Hufflepuff (after Wood specifically told the team to play clean because Snape was refereeing) George cost Gryffindor a penalty because he aimed a Bludger at Snape, who was refereeing - and in a match that only lasted 5 minutes! 

* In the PoA match against Slytherin, Fred responds to an attack on Angelina by Marcus Flint by intentionally hitting Flint on the head with his club. Flint's violation earned Gryffindor a penalty shot, but Fred's violation offset it, as Slytherin got a penalty shot as well. Fortunately for him, Wood made a fabulous save, while Angelina was able to score on her penalty shot. Nevertheless, that kind of lawlessness can get the team in trouble. And the Slytherin Beaters go directly after Harry with their clubs after Harry has successfully avoided both their bludgers. Fortunately, Harry avoids them as well.

* At the QWC, the Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov (whose names recall the iron Bludgers themselves), "seemed not to care whether their clubs made contact with Bludger or human as they swung them violently through the air." On the other hand, though the Beaters on both sides "were acting without mercy" only the Bulgarian Beaters are seen to break the rules; the Irish Beater Quigley is seen making a clean swing of his bat and hitting the Bludger in the direction of Krum, who was the chief threat to the Irish team. 

* One other Beater deserves mention here. And though we only know Ludo Bagman from his behavior off the Quidditch pitch, he's not exactly shown to be a model of law-abiding behavior, either. It's not just that he's a gambler; it's that he welches on his bets. 

The Beaters we know best are the Twins, whose position as Beaters appears to be typecasting in the extreme. In describing the Beaters' jobs, Wood states that the Twins are "like a pair of human Bludgers themselves." And off the pitch, they repeatedly prove Wood right, for example, by aggressively dealing with Harry's antagonizers Dudley (Ton-Tongue Toffee) and Draco (the Train Stomp Incident). But like clubbing the Slytherins on the head, those actions have been viewed by some readers as excessive, even though Harry defends the Twins when they get in trouble after the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident, showing that he appreciates their support and efforts. 

The Twins give Harry positive support, too, the most notable example being giving Harry the Marauder's Map so he could visit Hogsmeade illegally. Nevertheless, though this was a magnanimous gesture, to date the Map has done little to help Harry except to aid him in mischief-making. In PoA Harry uses it only to get to Hogsmeade, and in GoF he uses it only to bathe in the Prefect's Bathroom. On the other hand, Crouch/Moody used it effectively to find and kill his father, and Lupin's use of it in PoA led to Pettigrew's escape. On balance, then, the Twins' greatest gift to Harry has already caused as much harm as good. 

Could the Twins' actions as Beaters foreshadow their role in the struggle? Will their rulebreaking (or their joke shop products) be used for the benefit of the dark side? If so, perhaps Gryffindor's ability to win despite their occasional fouls foreshadows Harry's eventual victory over Voldemort notwithstanding any trouble the Twins might cause.

CHASERS

We don't see much of any Chasers outside the context of the Quidditch matches themselves, but it seems to me that Chasers represent the importance of teamwork, support and loyalty. The Chasers on each team, by working together, will keep their team in the game and give their Seeker the opportunity to seize victory by catching the Snitch. In the usual case, the collective contributions of the Chasers are essential to victory. The work of the best Chasers (the team of Troy, Mullet and Moran at the QWC, who "work together as a seamless unit") is enough to win the QWC despite the fact that their Seeker was outmatched and concussed, but this appears to have been an anomaly - certainly Bagman was surprised by it. 

The only match in which the Chasers' match did not appear to make a difference was the PS/SS match against Hufflepuff in which Harry was able to see and grab the Snitch in the first five minutes. But this was also an anomaly; the Snitch is normally elusive and out of sight. The Seeker depends on the support of his/her teammates to keep the match close until the Snitch can be found. This was Krum's problem: his Chasers were unable to keep the game close enough for him. The Chasers, however, cannot seal a victory; only the Seeker can do that. The Chasers' excellent teamwork can only contribute in two ways: by keeping their team in the game, and, in the intra-House championship, to supply enough points so that their team will win the House Cup in the event of a tie in the standings (as happens in PoA).

There are numerous off-pitch "Chasers" that support Harry in each showdown, and in each case, though Harry must face each final challenge alone, he could not succeed without their support, in the same way that Harry cannot ordinarily win a Quidditch match without his teammates. To briefly recap, Harry needs the assistance of Hermione and Ron to negotiate the obstacles protecting the Philosopher's Stone; he needs the information Hermione provides as well as hints from Dumbledore and Hagrid to find and kill the basilisk; he needs more hints from Dumbledore as well as Lupin's Patronus lessons and Hermione's Time-Turner to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak; and he needs all the spells Hermione can teach him in the Triwizard Tournament, plus the help of his shadow parents and Fawkes in the graveyard. And I'm sure there are others that I've missed. Though this list illustrates that Harry gets help from many sources, the most constant support comes from Hermione, who provides critical help in each book and who is always chasing down information that Harry will need later -Nicholas Flamel, the basilisk, spells Harry will need in the Triwizard Tournament. It's perhaps not at all accidental that the Gryffindor chasers (and the Irish chasers) are all female. 

KEEPER

This position is the most enigmatic to date. We've seen very little of the Keeper during matches. Moreover, Oliver Wood as a character seems mostly intended as a humorous take on the fanatical coach whose sole focus in life is winning at all costs. Wood's lack of any significant future role in the books seems to be confirmed by his current job as reserve Keeper for a professional Quidditch team.

But we do know this: a Keeper is the last line of defense for the team against goal-scoring. Like the Chasers, the Keeper's role is to keep the team in the game. Lee Jordan described Wood's spectacular grab of a Slytherin penalty shot in PoA, appropriately, as a "save." Also, though we have not seen this happen so far in the series, I expect that a Keeper that is truly worth his salt would, when given a choice between being smacked by a Bludger and allowing the Quaffle to go through the goalposts, choose to make the save. Thus, the Keeper's role can be seen as sacrificial - taking one for the team, as it were. 

If the Keeper is likely to be called upon to sacrifice to the cause of the team, then the selection of the next Keeper may foreshadow that character's role in the war ahead. Perhaps the new Keeper - whoever it is - will be put in a situation at some point in the series where he/she will be called upon to choose whether to save himself (or herself) or to sacrifice to allow Harry to continue the quest to defeat Voldemort.

Ron is often suggested as a candidate for sacrifice, based on his chess sacrifice in PS/SS. Funny, though, I never thought of him as a Quidditch player. I tend to think his development as a character would be better served by his *not* joining the Quidditch team, as it seems too easy a solution for his jealousy and need for attention, which has been carefully developed through the first four books. So, IMO, the field is wide open for this position.

CAPTAIN

Through the first three books, Oliver Wood was, in addition to Keeper, also the team captain and its chief strategist. It was his decision to keep Harry as the secret weapon in PS/SS, and his decision that Harry should stay far away from the action at his first match until he actually sees the Snitch. Wood was the one who continually reminded Harry that in the final PoA match against Slytherin he should not catch the Snitch unless Gryffindor was more than 50 points ahead. The Keeper position and the coach's job will not necessarily continue to be occupied by the same person, but the team will continue to need good coaching skills.

As I see it, the primary coach of the "light" team that will fight Voldemort - of whom the nucleus would appear to be the "old crowd" mentioned at the end of GoF - has been Dumbledore himself. (Harry does have other mentors, such as Sirius and Lupin, but they don't give advice consistently in each book.) Though Dumbledore is never present at the climax of any book in the series, in each case Harry relies on advice Dumbledore has provided to him: in PS/SS Harry's understanding of the Mirror of Erised is of critical importance; in CoS, after Dumbledore gives a pointed hint in Hagrid's hut, Harry invokes his loyalty to Dumbledore in the chamber and is rewarded with Fawkes and the Sorting Hat bearing Godric Gryffindor's sword, which are the tools he needs to defeat the basilisk; in PoA, Dumbledore coaches Harry and Hermione on their mission to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak; and in GoF, he associates a critical piece of advice in the graveyard ("Don't break the connection") with Dumbledore. 

It has been speculated that Dumbledore will die or otherwise be taken out of the picture in the next book or two in order to allow Harry to shoulder all responsibility for himself and complete his hero's journey. There is some sense of that already in GoF, in which Harry does not rely on specific advice from Dumbledore but instead only imagines that Dumbledore is telling him not to break the connection. The way in which this passage is written suggests to me that Harry finds that advice within himself. 

What does the hero's journey have to do with Quidditch? Well, if Harry is on a hero's journey, and Dumbledore is the counsellor and metaphorical team captain who will at some point leave the scene to allow the hero to reach full maturity, and if my premise that Quidditch mirrors in some respect what happens in the Voldemort wars is correct, then Harry must be named captain of the Quidditch team. Perhaps this will happen in OoP, or perhaps one of the seventh-years will take on that role for a year (as I suggest above with respect to the Beaters and Chasers, choosing a Twin or a Chaser might be very significant for the action in OoP), leaving Harry another year to prepare to shoulder the burden himself. But I think it will happen at some point, if JKR is indeed drawing the parallels I'm suggesting.


THE BROOMS

There can be no getting around it: Harry has the best equipment money can buy. In PS/SS he gets a top-of-the-line Nimbus 2000 and then, when it is shattered in PoA, he gets a Firebolt, the best broom in the world. Most of Harry's competition is playing with inferior equipment. Cho, for example, rides a Comet Two Sixty, which "is going to look like a joke next to the Firebolt," according to Wood, and the description of the Ravenclaw match makes clear that Cho's broom can't keep up with Harry's, though Harry acknowledges her flying skills. The Slytherins, of course, have Nimbus 2001s, which provided them with a momentary advantage over Harry until he acquired the Firebolt. But Draco, too focused on his own glory to concentrate on the task at hand, cannot put his advantage to good use and cannot catch the Snitch even though it hovers by his own ear. The conclusion: Harry has the skills to win without the best equipment. (In the PoA match against Slytherin, where Harry needs the speed of his Firebolt to catch up to Draco to get the Snitch, the reason he needs the power is telling - he had diverted his attention from looking for the Snitch to defend his teammate against an onslaught of Slytherins.)

THE MATCHES AS FORESHADOWING

The second illustration of how well Quidditch is woven into the fabric of the series is how the Quidditch matches in the books foreshadow that book's climax. 

GoF

The QWC can be viewed as foreshadowing what happens in the graveyard. Ireland wins the QWC despite Krum's capture of the Snitch because its Chasers demonstrate exquisite skill and teamwork. I see Ireland as representing the "light" side and Bulgaria as the Dark Side -- suggested by the fact that its Seeker, Krum, attends Durmstrang, where students are taught the Dark Arts and not merely to defend against them. Krum's strategy is to take the Irish Seeker, Lynch, out of the game by using the Wronski Feint. I don't think it's accidental that JKR shows how bloodied both Seekers become, or that Lynch continues to play despite an apparent concussion, and manages to hang in there through the end. The sight of Lynch, dazed and confused, in the Top Box with the other members of his team, is symbolically important, as is the sight of Krum's bloody nose, indicating that he did not get through the match unscathed. 

If you compare this to what happens in the graveyard, Voldemort, the "seeker" of power and immortality, achieves a great personal victory through his re-birthing. Voldemort's rebirthing appears to have been spectacularly successful, like Krum's capture of the Snitch. By the end of the graveyard scene, Harry has been Stunned, Imperio'd, and Crucio'd. Like Lynch, he is dazed and confused. But Voldemort does not succeed in taking Harry out of the game - he escapes before Voldemort can kill him. 

Bulgaria should have such an advantage with the "unbelievable" Krum, but his supporting cast proves unable to provide the necessary support. Likewise, the team of DEs Voldemort assembles - who, he notes, have been disloyal and who are cowering in terror at the sight of Voldemort - does not appear to be up to the job. Voldemort, like Krum, wants the glory for himself and does not trust his supporting cast. So he takes on the job of killing Harry himself. But Harry's own supporting cast rises to the occasion: Fawkes (symbolically present, at a minimum, in the phoenix song Harry hears); his shadow parents, who give him the instructions he needs; Hermione, who is not present but who taught him to master the "Accio" charm through which Harry effects his escape via the Portkey, and certainly others who I've missed. On the other hand, when the terrified DEs are finally called into action as Harry dashes for the portkey, their spells cannot touch him, so Harry makes it back to Hogwarts. Though physically injured and emotionally wracked, he (like Aidan Lynch) will recover to fight another day.

PoA

Here the events of each Quidditch match foreshadow the events following the Shrieking Shack episode. In the first Quidditch match in PoA, against Hufflepuff, Harry succumbs to the power of the Dementors and passes out on his broomstick. Similarly, Harry1 is overcome by the Dementors and is unable to cast a Patronus as they surround him and Hermione (ch. 20). In the second match, against Ravenclaw, Harry successfully casts the Patronus (even though the "Dementors" turn out not to have been real so they do not affect him). And later on, Harry2 (TimeTurnered!Harry) conjures a very powerful Patronus (but because he is across the lake, he is relatively unaffected by the Dementors this time) (ch. 21). In the third match, against Slytherin, Harry manages to beat Draco to the Snitch - despite constant foul play by the Slytherins - with Snape decked out in green and watching from the front row. Later, Harry and Hermione engineer the escape of Sirius and Buckbeak, thwarting Draco's attempts to have Buckbeak executed and Snape's satisfaction at seeing Sirius captured.

CoS

Here Harry's battle with the rogue bludger seems to parallel Harry's later battle with the Basilisk. Dobby, bless him, unwittingly prepares Harry for the encounter. In the Quidditch match, Harry elects to take on the rogue Bludger by himself, to allow Fred and George to concentrate on protecting the rest of the team from the other Bludger. He does this even though he has no idea if it will do any good. But Harry outplays the Bludger, just as later on he outplays the Basilisk. The Bludger does manage to land a nasty blow on Harry's right arm, just above the elbow, as Harry grabs the Snitch. In the Chamber, the Basilisk bites Harry in the elbow -- almost exactly the same spot - just as Harry punches Godric's sword through the Basilisk and kills him (ch. 17). Both the Bludger and the Basilisk produce exactly the same "searing pain" in Harry's elbow; in both instances, he needs outside help to recover. 

PS/SS

I've left this for last, because the parallels do not seem to work as foreshadowing like the parallels in the later books do. The primary parallel I see in the first Quidditch match, against Slytherin, is that the Trio suspect Snape both of trying to kill Harry during the Quidditch match and of trying to get through the obstacles to reach the Stone. However, since Harry doesn't learn that Snape was protecting him instead of jinxing him at the Quidditch match until he faces Quirrelmort, the element of foreshadowing is lacking. There is some foreshadowing in the Hufflepuff match, where Harry's grab of the Snitch in record time foreshadows his ability later on to retrieve the Stone instantly from the Mirror when he realizes he needs to keep Quirrelmort from getting it (ch. 17). However, I find this parallel less satisfying than those in the later books.

Perhaps this is testimony to JKR's improvement as a writer as the series progresses, or to the fact that the plot of PS/SS is less complex than later plots.

THE FUTURE OF QUIDDITCH

It has been speculated that Quidditch might fade from the books as the series becomes darker and the serious threats facing the WW cause Quidditch to lose its power to thrill. I don't think this will happen. I believe that Quidditch is part of the structure underlying the books and it's unlikely that it will be scrapped. Harry's speech in PS/SS shows that he already knew at age 11 that winning the Quidditch cup isn't what really matters. Harry's lying when he tells Quirrell he sees himself in the mirror with the Quidditch cup. JKR makes that point again when, in PoA, Harry learns in his first Patronus lesson with Lupin (PoA ch. 12) that memories of flying or winning the House cup are not strong enough to produce a Patronus. But that doesn't mean that it's not valuable for Harry to play Quidditch. Quidditch helps keep Harry's spirits up, it sharpens skills he will need later, and JKR does give him a wonderful - but temporary - moment of the euphoria that accompanies a championship. I think she has a lot more Quidditch planned, and it will continue to be important to Harry, to the plot, and to the structure of the series.

Debbie


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