Disclaimer: In light of more recent events, Random Geek Child no longer supports Ms. Rowling. However, we have chosen not to pull down this post, as that would be erasing part of our blog’s history.
Right, so last week I talked about J. K. Rowling. But of course, why talk about the author if I don’t mention her books? After all, were it not for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, most of us probably wouldn’t even know who J. K. Rowling is!
The Harry Potter series is about an orphaned boy named – gee, you guessed it – Harry Potter. When our story begins, Harry is ten years old and lives with his horrible aunt, uncle and cousin, who have drilled it into his head that he is practically worthless. It isn’t until his eleventh birthday, July 31st (yes, that date is eerily familiar… re-read my last post until you realize the connection), that a stranger appears on the doorstep and tells him the news: that he is a wizard, and one of the most famous wizards at that, though Harry doesn’t completely understand why.
Harry also finds out about the magical school, Hogwarts, where he makes the first friends of his life. Throughout the series, Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, solve mysteries, make new friends and avoid some seriously freaky bad guys, like that pale-to-the-point-of-bloodless dude with red eyes and no nose. I mean seriously, what’s up with him? And once we’ve read far enough in the series (like, book two or so) we know he didn’t always look like that, too, so when did he go from relatively good looking, smart, seemingly-kind teenage boy to murderous creep? Anyways, you get the idea.
But what is it about this Harry kid that makes him such an interesting character? Is it his seeming inability to ever die? Actually, no. Well, okay, kind of, but not entirely. It’s his flaws that make him a memorable character. This kid has lost his parents at a young age, which he has had nightmares about ever since, grown up with relatives who practically despise him, and then, within a year of finding that somebody actually cares about him (oh, and he’s famous), he nearly dies at least five times!
Throughout the series, he watches people he cares about die, nearly dies himself, and tries to push his friends away so that they don’t die. Yet, despite these horrible odds, he and his friends always persevere. This message of perseverance in the most difficult of times is what stays with you the most about the Harry Potter series.
That, and, you know, these kids are awesome! Or, to say it more professionally, “In contrast to the lack of power most children have in their own lives, Harry and his friends master the natural world and make it behave in ways that are most unnatural,” wrote Sara Ann Beach and Elizabeth Harden Willner in World Literature Today. “In addition, they are able to use their power to frustrate those adults who do not have children’s best interests at heart. Rowling opens the door for adolescent readers to share the characters’ power while experiencing a connection to literature that has the potential to enrich their lives.”
Ironically, the “connection to literature” that the journalists above mentioned, while certainly a most-welcome product of the series, was not Rowling’s original intent. She said that, “When I write the books, I really do write them for me,” and that she didn’t expect them to be all that popular. Boy, was she proved wrong! The quote above may be another reason why we love her work so much, though: it’s straight from the heart. “… So the humor in the books is really what I find funny.” This makes the fictitious world she created all the easier to connect to.
And speaking of her expansive, hidden, magical world, let’s talk about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! No, not the book, the film. The book doesn’t have any characters, except the author. It’s more of an index, really… an index written by Newt Scamander, the main character of the film!
Given that J. K. Rowling was directly involved in the creation of the original movies, I wasn’t that surprised to find out that she was writing a film, just excited. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them follows the awkwardly introverted English author Newt Scamander and his TARDIS-like (and technically illegal) briefcase of crazy critters to New York, where he allegedly hopes to purchase a particularly species of Puffskein as a gift.
All is going well until he runs into a Muggle (no-Maj, or non-magic person) who carries a similar briefcase, and they accidentally switch the two. The Muggle, Jacob, opens the briefcase believing that it contains harmless pastries, and instead unleashes the catastrophic creatures. Newt, Jacob, and American witches Tina and Queenie spend the rest of the film chasing down the animals, running from the uncompromising agents of MACUSA (The Magical Congress of the United States of America) who consider Newt to be a felon, and worrying about a mysterious child possessed by a dark blob that causes them to turn into a giant, destructive swirling cloud of anger.
Just like Harry Potter, Newt has his fair share of issues. His fascination and love for peculiar creatures has gotten him into much trouble over the years. He was expelled from Hogwarts after an incident with a creature (A Jarvey, I believe) that endangered the life of another student, and he carries some pretty deadly animals around with him. (Quote Newt talking to one of his creatures, “Leave his brains, come on!”) And yet, despite these flaws, he perseveres.
With these statements in mind, I will repeat one of the first lines of my last post, this time with evidence for my point:
It is this characteristic that makes these books so excellent: Rowling’s ability to create severely flawed characters, who, despite these flaws, or perhaps because of them, rise to the occasion and beat the odds. This allows her characters to be both easy to connect with and a continual inspiration.
