Towards Reality
A Flight of Fancy with ZORI3
Song and Dance
by ZORI3
eat every word of the latest installment of the Harry Potter
series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Scholastic,
2005). My fandom is rooted in enthusiastic appreciation of
the uncorked imagination of children’s writers. In the case
of Rowling, I like that she’s gotten children and adults to
read to themselves and each other in giant 700 page
helpings. It doesn’t hurt that those 700 pages revolve
around witches and wizards and the occasional individual
fluent in Parsel-tongue.
I am not, however, generally a fan of what J.K. Rowling
does with plot. Potter’s 17th year of age seems to be one
completely void of surprises or suspense—a wash of
predictable moves and tired reworking of the same four
formulaic scenes that have followed us since HP1. Unlike
George R. R. Martin, (who is rumored to troll fan sites to
find out what plot predictions readers are tossing into
forums, to then do the opposite) Rowling seems to do
exactly what an average fan would predict—and what an
average fan would not want to happen. Around page fifty I
found myself thinking, “Huh. It looks like she’s doing this
and this, but that’s way too easy. I’m interested in seeing
how she complicates things!” Note to reader: no, it really
is that simple.
Ass-kissing critics (who miss every good book on the
first go-round and only develop a love affair when the
book is a best-seller in spite of them) like to point out that
HP6 draws increasing attention to the minor theme of
“choosing between what is easy and what is right”.
Um…okay. At the same time, HP6 also serves to, more
obviously than ever, illustrate boring as sand black-and-
white, good-and-evil ways of thinking—and as part of that,
evil is always evil, and good is always good. Prior to HP6,
(SPOILER ALERT) Rowling managed to dodge this bullet
thanks to the presence of one character who managed to
be an ace magician for the home team while still being a
periodic jerk: Snape. Because of this, I loved Snape: he
didn’t particularly like the goody two-shoes set, but he still
defended what he felt was right. So much for that idea. I’m
hoping that this will all be twisted again in HP7, and Snape
will return to his complicated and conflicted self, so there’s
one character that is neither the epitome of evil nor a
preachy asshole.
In short: Draco is still a bully, Hermione is still the brain,
Ron is still the character who should have died in book
one, Harry is still the hero (with added “chosen one”
allure), Neville is still clumsy, and Luna is weird. This isn’t
all that surprising for a children’s series (I was one of the
many people who managed to work their way through a
whole lot of Babysitter’s Club books without a complaint
about the static nature of all the characters) but since the
characters are growing up, well…you’d think they might
change. And why do they *all* attend the quidditch
matches? Isn’t anyone hosting a poetry slam under the
bleachers?
Like a lot of people, I’m embarrassingly attached to
these characters, and I’m sure such high reader demands
have lead to a two-a-day valium habit for Ms. Rowling. We
want each book better than the last and we want them
fast. I imagine that creativity fires aren’t easy to kindle
when you have (quite literally) millions of people staring at
you. Still: was it really necessary to reduce Hermione to a
bitter, sniveling cast-off observing the always-
uninteresting shenanigans of Ron?
In response...see the next column...
*I* would like to see happen in the Harry Potter
series that will, without a doubt, never happen.
And so, without further ado:
The Persecution of Hermione’s Parents
Though Hermione’s parents always try to be
supportive of their only daughter (even if they
don’t entirely understand what’s going on) it
becomes increasingly difficult to answer the
questions posed to them by friends and
acquaintances regarding their daughter’s
whereabouts. Concerned neighbors observe
during her brief summer stays that Hermione
seems relatively well-adjusted, though oddly
deficient in subjects like biology and math for so
gifted a child. After one meddling neighbor
discovers that Hermione has, in fact, been
shipped to what the neighbor calls a “perverted
haven for occult activity” her parents are hauled
in by the department of children’s services for
thorough interrogation. These investigators
want to know whether or not Hermione’s parents
have the unspeakable audacity to perform their
sick pagan rituals “sky-clad” in front of their
innocent child. Hermione’s mother starts
sobbing inconsolably, assuring the investigators
that, really, they always wanted her to be a
doctor or a lawyer or a chemist—they can’t help
it if she was born with unusual magical gifts. “It’s
like the X-Men, okay?” she tries to explain, but
the investigators aren’t buying any mutant
nonsense. Hermione arrives at the nick of time
to charm the feeble minds of the investigators,
assuring them that she was a Christian prior to
beginning her education and still is. She informs
them that she’s attending boarding school, “You
know, like President Bush” and they nod and
smile. After making their escape, Hermione flees
the intolerant muggle world, inserting her
muggle parents into the intolerant magical world.
Harry Potter Goes to Azkaban
Okay, so this place is supposed to be a total
dive that drives the inhabitants crazy, because
these soul-sucking ring-wraith wannabes are
hovering around? Nice start. Why can’t we go
inside of it? If Voldemort wants Harry out of the
way, or in a place where he’s more easily
controlled, he needs to get him out of that
school and on trial for possession of illegal
substances. This leads to the introduction of a
much-needed group of characters sadly missing
from the series: the magical burn-outs. They
cook creepy potions and then huff them, take a
few too many notes in potions class and snooze
through anything related to the dark arts. One
day one of them slips some gnarly homebrew
into Harry’s backpack, and Snape busts Harry
and *bam* 3 years for possession. Hermione
and Ron try desperately to prove that Harry was
framed, while Harry meets all sorts of unsavory
types with hearts of gold. I can feel the single
tear sneaking to the corner of my eye as I write
this.
Harry’s Moral Meltdown
(SPOILER ALERT) We reach the dramatic
conclusion of the book…Dumbledore is
cornered by Draco, rendered wandless.
Dumbledore soothingly tries to switch the
emotionally confused Malfoy over to the good
side of the force. Deciding that it’s probably
better to play against the guy who wants to kill
him, Malfoy takes a chance and a big bite of
cheese and (what the heck) joins the forces of
good. Just as Dumbledore reclaims his wand
and Malfoy flicks a switch to turn his red light
saber green, Snape bursts through the door,
wand at the ready. He gets halfway through his
curse when, *zap* Dumbledore kills Snape first
in a truly gory fashion. Harry (who, if you
remember, is frozen) is horrified, and becomes
even more so when Dumbledore spits on Snape’
s dead body and yells, “Yeah, bitch!” before
pumping his fist in the air. Harry can’t believe he’
s witnessed the man he’s always canonized kill
someone, and so he spirals into philosophical
crisis, questioning the very nature of good and
evil, and whether one can be only one or the
other.
Ron's Gay
Face it: Ron is the gayest character in the
history of children’s lit. He’s a little too “manly”
and I thought for sure when Ginny started
razzing him about how he hasn’t been
“snogging” anyone, that we were about to begin
a (careful) walk around Ron’s gay subplot
storyline. And so: throughout HP7, Ron is
caught staring at Harry, and when Harry looks
back and says, “What are you looking at?” Ron
quickly looks away and says, “Nothing!” In the
dramatic conclusion, Harry and Voldemort duel
while Ron stands by like a doof as always.
Suddenly it looks like Voldemort has the upper
hand, and just as he begins speaking the death
curse, Ron throws himself in front of Harry,
sacrificing himself to save him private love. An
enraged Harry retaliates and kills Voldemort,
and then goes to comfort his dramatically dying
best friend Ron. Harry tells Ron that he loves
him, but “You know, not in a gay way or
anything” and Ron says he loves Harry “in a
totally gay way” and he’s glad to confess it
before dying. Cue the melodramatic music.
Hermione Bucks the Nerd Stereotype
Much to her shock and semi-horror, over a
single summer Hermione develops enormous
breasts. Unnerved by the sudden surge in
attention from boys and Tonks (the closet
lesbian), Hermione can’t help but notice that
teachers who have always respected her are
suddenly treating her like she’s stupid. To make
matters worse, Snape’s face gets really red
every time she raises her hand, but oddly
enough, he doesn’t seem angry. Fed up (and
filled with new-found sympathy for other girls
she previously dismissed as “giggly”) Hermione
tries to “glamour” them away, and when that
doesn’t work she tries things the muggle way,
and conceals her breasts with ace bandages.
This leads to maximum embarrassment one day
in Advanced Runes, when, while raising her
hand frantically, her left breast pops free. From
that day forward she’s known as Hermione, the
One-Breasted Wonder, which is way, way worse
than that “Weasley is Our King” song.
Eventually, Hermione decides to love her big
boobs, and she starts wearing t-shirts with witty
political sayings, because she figures if they’re
going to stare at her breasts anyway, they might
as well learn something while they’re at it.
Draco’s Sensitive Rebellion
After talking about his feelings with Moaning
Myrtle, Draco decides he’s sick of being pigeon-
holed as a school yard bully. In a burst of
creativity he starts an underground zine called
5th House, and he fills it with formless poetry
and collages made of pictures snipped from
muggle magazines. Hermione starts coming
around to contribute political propaganda from
SPEW, and Draco finds himself overwhelmingly
attracted to her. This sends him reeling. I mean,
she’s a mudblood. What would daddy think?
And finally:
Harry’s Year Watching Television
After dedicating his life to defending the forces
of good, everyone is dying to know what Harry
is going to do next. A career in politics?
Teaching at Hogwarts? Traveling to various
magical and muggle locations? Nah. Harry
confesses that, destiny fulfilled and his
remaining life feeling more or less meaningless,
what he’d really like is to kick back and watch
the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series,
starting with season 1. Ron and Hermione are
given an open invitation to stop by, so long as
they’re willing to sing along during the musical
episodes, especially the “I touch the fire” song.
They seem okay with this, and sometimes
successfully beg Harry to join them for a
drunken bender that includes reminiscing about
old times and “accidentally” having an orgy. “It’s
so great to be young and dumb,” Harry muses,
taking a deep hit and passing the bong to
Hermione after Ron offers an encouraging,
“Puff-puff give” to keep things moving. “Yeah,
but let’s like, do something next year,” Hermione
responds, before passing to Ron, who has
mysteriously disappeared from the story, and
who will never be heard from again.
