[HPforGrownups] Re: End of Harry Potter Series

[Barb P]

No: HPFGUIDX 44747


 GulPlum wrote:

At 22:00 30/09/02 +0000, bohcoo wrote:

<snip>

>There are numerous references like that throughout the books about this just being a dream, that was only a dream, Harry expecting to wake and find he had only dreamed this or that had happened, etc.
>
>It would be a tidy way to end the series -- but I hope I am wrong, don't you?

Me: 

   I suppose one could think of such an ending as "tidy."  It would, however, be very similar to the ending of the television series St. Elsewhere; in the final episode, the "real world" is revealed to be one in which Dr. Westphal is really a construction worker and Dr. Auschlander is his elderly father, who takes care of his autistic son all day.  The previous years' stories about the people at the hospital were supposedly all in the mind of the autistic boy...  It is also similar to a less-well-regarded series (deservedly so, IMO), Dallas.  I wasn't even watching the show any more at the time it occurred, but after one season, in which the producers evidently realized (belatedly) that they'd been inflicting utter dreck on the viewing public since the first episode, decided that it was all a dream of one of the characters, so they wouldn't be forced to build on that season's storylines in subsequent shows.  It was roundly criticized as a cop-out and a lame attempt to salvage the series.  

 

GulPlum wrote:

   In brief, I'll summarise my own view that I find it deeply unsatisfying for Hogwarts et al to be nothing but a boy's dream. My main issue (which I don't think anyone else made here, and I don't have the time to go through the archives to check right now) with this thesis is that the Potterverse isn't the kind of fantasy world a downtrodden boy under the stairs would create.

   Firstly, and for me most importantly, boyhood fantasies revolve around being a great hero. Harry in the books (at least to date) is very largely an accidental hero, and he does not relish being thought of as anything but ordinary. He has no special abilities; in fact, he is average or 
below-average in just about every respect, and we are constantly reminded of this fact (he's small, studying doesn't come easily to him, etc) and in fact the only thing at which he has proven to be unnaturally adept is at 
summoning a Patronus, i.e. his father. Psychologically speaking, the Potterverse is quite simply much to complex to be the fantasy of a teenage boy.





Me:
   There's really no way to prove this, one way or the other.  Harry was a fantasy created by JKR, and you could also argue that it is extraordinarily unlikely for a woman on welfare, writing in cafes while she cares for her infant daughter, to create such a fantasy world.  Stranger things have happened.  
   As for Harry being the "accidental" hero, that might in fact be exactly the sort of hero a boy would imagine himself being.  Someone with nothing extraordinary about him who triumphs anyway.  Other than the standard finding-out-you-are-really-the-heir-to-the-throne fantasy, isn't that very common?
 
GulPlum wrote:
   Furthermore, not only do his adventures not start with him attempting to save his friends, but he actively (though not deliberately) puts them in danger; only *then* does he attempt to save them. And he is unable to save them without help, be it from caring adults or those friends.


Me:

   That would seem to be part of the fantasy: having supportive adults and good friends around him.  One would assume that in "real life" he does not.  As for the friends being in danger, if he doesn't imagine that to have happened he can't very well rescue them, can he?

 

GulPlum wrote:

   I also find the Latin and constant references to Greek mythology to be far too erudite for an ordinary child being brought up in England on the cusp of the 21st century.
   Of course, if these are the fantasies not of a downtrodden boy under the stairs but a well-educated, well-looked after child, then *why* is he creating this fantasy? Children create imaginary worlds to escape real-world problems around them (not only children - most adult writers address the problems they see around them in their work!), so a happy child would not imagine the Potterverse. And if the fantasy world *is* that of a downtrodden child, the final "return to reality" would need to explain just why he's downtrodden and why nobody likes him. Accepting the Potterverse as is, Harry's treatment by the Dursleys is directly connected to the "fantasy" elements.


Me:

   It's hardly a stretch to imagine that someone living under the stairs would want books to read to occupy his time, which could include volumes about mythology and folklore, and in many British schools, Latin is still taught, although other modern languages are evidently more common these days.  As for whether a well-off child would need to retreat into fantasy, I think the answer is no.  And if this is what the whole series comes down to, it's even entirely possible that, compared to Harry's "reality," the Dursleys are downright cuddly.  In fact, the very undignified situations and comeuppances that the Dursleys regularly experience sound exactly like the sorts of things a boy would fantasize about if he were being oppressed even a tenth of the amount Harry is.

 

GulPlum wrote:

   All in all, then, the series' outcome as nothing but a long dream would be a major cop-out for me, and particularly hollow. The "moral" of the story would also lose a considerable amount of its impact: "it's all a dream, it 
doesn't matter"!


Me:

   I don't need for the wizarding world to be "real" (to Harry).  I don't think any story with a moral becomes of no worth if we find out it didn't happen.  It DIDN'T happen, remember?  It was created by JKR.  I agree in part about the cop-out judgment, though, IF it's a dream (I agreed with the general consensus on the Dallas cop-out).  Although I appreciated the irony of the St. Elsewhere ending (I believe the producers were really trying to forestall "reunion" specials and the like) there were many things that occurred during the course of the series that made it highly unlikely that an autistic boy imagined the events.  OTOH, JKR has been very careful to write the HP series from Harry's POV, with minor exceptions.  It's entirely plausible that a person living in isolation could make all of this up, frankly. A dream I don't like; an invention of Harry's I do not mind.

 

GulPlum wrote:

   On the other hand, I fear that JKR just might be going down a road just like this. Sorry, I can't find it right now, but a couple of weeks ago I was looking for something else in the archives of JKR's interviews, when I was shocked (in this context) to read JKR's reply to a question along the lines of "do you believe in magic?". In her answer, she said something like "no, I don't, and that will be very clear once people have had the chance to read all seven books". Someone better than I at searching the archives may be able to produce the exact quote, but the impression I got was that at the end of the series, the wizarding world will be shown to be non-existant.

   I just hope I completely misunderstood what she was trying to say. :-)


Me:

   That's an interesting quote.  That puts her other statements about "How can you be so sure I won't kill Harry" in a new light.  She might have been referring to a metaphorical death, as in our discovering that there was never a Harry Potter, boy wizard, only a Harry Potter, poor kid in the cupboard who had nothing but his overactive imagination to keep himself going.

   However, if that proves to be the case, I still think that such a person being able to go out into the world, having survived whatever horrible childhood he was subjected to (abusive foster home?) and bearing the memories of the world he created would constitute a triumph, not a tragedy, since that world sustained and comforted him through a very difficult time.  I would not mind at all if it turned out to be in Harry's head (not a dream, but a deliberate invention) because that would mean he's a person who can turn a miserable life into an uplifting story of the triumph of good over evil.   That might, in fact, be the best lesson we and our children can take away from the HP books.

 

--Barb

 


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