[HPforGrownups] What's Wrong With Metathinking?

[Iris FT]

No: HPFGUIDX 45261

Hi everybody,

I have read many posts in which some fellows of the group were debating about what you call “metathinking”. Forgive me; I’m rather new on this group and though I’ve sent several posts yet, it is clear that I can’t compete with many of you in discussing about Magic Dishwasher (a brilliant theory) or future romances in the HP world.

However, I noticed that the general tendency of this group is analysing the Harry Potter books from one’s own experience, and that it seems you don’t like very much “metathinking” and literary analyse- I should better say academic analyse.

I think you are completely right when you rely first on your own experience to analyse JKR books. It’s a normal reaction and it proves how human those stories are. Harry Potter true magic is that when you read one of the books, you inevitably find in it a character you can identify with, an event that reminds your self-experience. When we were children, we all have been one day or another Harry, Ron, even Draco. We all have met when we went to school or to the university teachers who were “our” Snape, Lockhart or Binns.Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I personally can denounce one of my literature teachers as a bearded hybrid of Gilderoy Lockhart and Professor Binns. His main work was making his students write essays he published then with his own signature, and he was so boring that sometimes we couldn’t help skipping his classes.

And that’s why the series appeal both children and adults. It’s made of human reality, our reality. Will we ever say enough how well JKR knows what it is like to be human? Her painting of human nature is exceptional, and true. That’s why this group’s members who analyse her books from their own experience are right. The Harry Potter series is our own Mirror of Erised. It has been a long time since a book hadn’t given us such a true reflection of who we are, of what we feel.
 

Now I come to “metathinking”.                                                              

I believe it is necessary if we want to understand the complete magnitude of JKR books. When we try to understand some character’s behaviour, when we try to explain why he acts that way, we open the door to metaphysics even if we are not conscious of doing it. JKR herself never stops questioning, and making us questioning about human nature, about the society we live in, about the future we want to give our children.

Let me take an example.

Trying to guess why the Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin is a very exciting challenge, but no one can deny this scene from Book 1 has also a metaphysical meaning: it is a questioning about what determines a destiny. Is it predestination? Is it choice? As you can see, this questioning has an echo in many posts of the HPfGU group. When somebody tries to determine whether Harry makes free choices, whether he is influenced (for example in the Shrieking Shack, when he decides to believe Sirius) and takes their personal experience as a reference, this is “ metathinking”. The fact you don’t quote Freud or Nietzsche, and take rather an example of your own, when you explain a behaviour or an event, doesn’t mean you are not pointing however a metaphysical aspect of the story. The scene in the Shrieking Shack can be an illustration of the questioning about free will, independently from its emotional impact. And as you don’t need more than your own emotions to feel the same as Harry’s, you don’t need an academic cursus to point out there’s something particular that makes the scene more than a new development in the narration.

Nevertheless, “metathinking” often deals with academic analyse, and I don’t think it would be a good thing to ban it from the debate about Harry Potter. For example, quoting some philosophers or writers can be very useful to demonstrate the magnitude of JKR books. It is obvious that the Harry Potter books are fun, and are accessible to everyone. However, no one can avoid the evidence: at the same time she writes an exciting story, JKR develops considerations about politics, good and evil, education, society, etc; all topics that have been debated yet by philosophers and writers. By quoting those philosophers and writers in an analyse of her books, it is possible to make her detractors understand the real meaning of the Harry Potter Series, it is possible to show those who think this is just childishness and marketing, how exceptional JKR’s work is.

As an example, if we don’t take into account there is in the story of Harry an application of the Freudian theories, we can’t explain why we enjoy them so, why they remind us our own experience, our own feelings. If we admit the tie between JKR’s books and those theories, if we quote them, we are able to demonstrate partially why Harry Potter is fascinating to both adults and children, and we prove that his appeal is not the mean result of marketing and fashion.

We’ve got an extraordinary luck. We are witnessing the creation of a great work. Harry Potter is a universal work. It can please those who read it for fun, and those who want to see in it the last expression of the everlasting human questioning: where do we come from (what happened in Harry’s past?) who are we (who is that boy the WW seems to turn around?) and where are we going to (what is Harry’s future?).

Both readings are interesting, and furthermore they are complementary. Just the way the chocolate frog and the card that gives the key to the mystery. Between fun and metaphysics, the posibilities are infinite but they all have a meeting point: humanity. 

Hope it wasn’t a too long post, and you all will go on searching and debating. This is a top group, for amazing books.

Iris, who didn’t agree when some said  at work JKR is not a major author.

---------------------------------
Yahoo! Mail -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français !


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]