The Quidditch Metaphor: The Role of Quidditch in HP

[The Real Makarni <pat_mahony@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 48198

Let me just begin by congratulating Debbie on a wonderful, 
thorough post, on an idea I had never come across before! I 
won't cover the entire post, but here's just a few ideas of my own

Debbie wrote:

> 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. 
> 


I agree with what you are saying about Harry/Krum/Voldemort, 
and it got me thinking  about the other two seekers that Harry 
encounters- Cedric and Cho. I really can't think of anything very 
profound, except that Cedric's death could be seen as 
representing the consequences (albeit slightly extreme) of 
"seeking", and that Harry, in his single-minded pursuit of Cho for 
the Yule Ball, finally realises that there are *other* females 
nearby, ie Ginny and Hermione (I'm not a SHIPper, so I won't 
expand).

> 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. 

Using Debbie's criteria, a few other "Beaters" we've seen, IMO, 
are Crouch and the Aurors when he authorised the use of the 
Unforgivable Curses- while not illegal, this went against Moody's 
moral code- "rule-breaking", so to speak- again highlighting the 
point Debbie illustrated. 

However, another interpretation of "Beaters" are those who don't 
have a direct offensive role, but  work in the background in order 
to give their team an advantage, and also deflecting danger from 
the Chasers and Seekers. 
I see Snape as being this sort of Beater- in PS, he protects Harry 
from Quirrel's "Bludger", by counteracting the latter's curse. In 
GoF, he emerges as one of Dumbledore's most trusted allies, 
and I suspect that his later role in the War will be very covert, but 
will ultimately be of great importance in ensuring a victory.
In this reasoning (and I didn't originally have this in mind), the 
Dursleys are also Beaters. They provide protection (though 
unwillingly), and thus ensure Harry's survival. (Hmm, I didn't 
mean to come up with that, but it works in my mind!)

> CHASERS
<snip>
All I want to say is that I agree totally with Debbie's analysis of the 
role of Chasers
> 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.
 
Although I actually believe that Ron *will* be the new Gryffindor 
Keeper, I actually see the most significant "Keeper" in the series 
as Dumbledore- during Voldemort's first rise to power, Hogwarts 
was the only perceived certainty of safety, and Dumbledore was 
the only wizard that Voldemort feared. This agrees strongly with 
the "Keeper" being the "last line of defence".
The Keeper also has the advantage of being able to perceive the 
*whole* of the match in progress- Seekers have to  focus on the 
Snitch, the Beaters on the Bludgers, and the Chasers on the 
Quaffle, while the Keeper can have an eye on everyone. This 
means that the Keeper, for the most part, is a passive role, 
however when it comes time to protect that goal, they take a 
more aggressive stance. This, in my mind, is very much like 
Dumbledore. It wasn't until the end of the GoF did we see 
Dumbledore get angry- but when he had to, he did what was 
necessary.
Dumbledore also keeps a watchful eye, not only on Harry, but 
also the whole WW- in CoS, he appears to know that Harry is 
under the Cloak, he reads the Muggle Newspapers, and he has 
spies that keep him informed. 
In my opinion, Dumbledore is the ultimate "Keeper" in the series. 


That is all I am going to touch in this post.
Once again, congratulations Debbie- I really enjoyed your 
analysis.
See ya
Roo, who really enjoyed using the Quidditch metaphor, and 
referring to people as "Seekeres", "Beaters", etc