Potter Familias
November 23, 2005

Six books and now four movies into the public consciousness, Harry Potter has erupted from a kid-friendly craze into a global media phenomenon.

And like any phenomenon whose perpetrator makes oodles of money and buys herself a castle in Scotland, the expected chorus of naysayers and detractors has risen up like Voldemort's dreaded Dark Mark to debunk J. K. Rowling's work as, you know, not all that great. Book critics who were orgasmic a few installments (and a few billion dollars) ago that Rowling was actually prying kids away from their Gameboys and reading books, now carp about the finer points of her prose style.

I say, who cares about Rowling's prose style? Her books are, in a word, ripping—fast, thrilling reads over considerable thematic terrain that create a witty parallel universe of magic from which to observe the perils and absurdities of the world we all know. Like George Lucas before her (at least in the three original Star Wars movies), Rowling has done her homework; she knows every whistle stop on the classic hero's journey and depicts them with relish and imagination.

As Harry and his pals grow up, their world darkens. In the fourth book, Goblet Of Fire (now the fourth movie in the franchise), the spectre of death oozes out of the past into Harry's present; since then, fans have agonized over which beloved character will meet an untimely demise with each new installment. Commentators, and therapists have been lining up like spectators at a Quidditch match to pontificate on how to guide young children through these sad and scary bits.

Here's a news flash: Kid Lit is not for sissies. The land of Oz is beset by warring factions. Wonderland is a nightmare of adult irrationality. And don't get me started on Neverland, where pirates and Indians routinely slaughter each other for the pleasure of a tyrannical little boy.

In my day, we didn't have grief counseling every time a beloved fictional character expired. When Bambi's mother was shot by hunters, we just had to get over it. Kids were expected to process these tales as way-stations out of sheltered childhood into the more complex realities of grown-up life. In the Potter series I'm now actually rooting for certain characters to cash out. (I, for one, don't believe officious petty bureaucrat Dolores Umbrage was dealt with severely enough at the end of Order of the Phoenix.)

Born-agains have long objected to Harry's witchcraft and wizarding world as a hotbed of (oh, pleeze) Satanism. But lately, another faction has surfaced: intelligent, educated, apparently heartfelt readers who despair over what they perceive as Harry's all-boy, all-white, monocultural milieu—an argument that attacks the surface of the story without addressing the considerable subtext Rowling has accrued over six books and three thousand pages of text.

Those who sniff that Harry's steadfast pal Hermione is the exception that proves the chauvinistic rule overlook eccentric Luna Lovegood, who fights by Harry's side, stout-hearted Triwizard competitor Fleur Delacour, and brash Tonks, with her spiked pink hair, who's not about to let minor differences like age or species prevent her from loving her tattered, noble-hearted wolfman. Fearless, level-headed Ginny Weasley may be Harry's true soulmate. And let's not forget the redoubtable Minerva McGonagall, the fiercely moral new headmistress at Hogwarts, or the formidable Mrs. Weasley—mum, resistance fighter, and the only force on earth who can intimidate her irrepressible twins, George and Fred.

Grumps also decry Rowling's tepidly multi-ethnic Hogwarts students—Pakistani, African, Chinese—marginalized into minor roles, who exhibit so few ethnic traits, it's hard to remember who is what color on the page. Which is exactly the point. Behavior alone, not color or culture, separates the good characters from the bad in Rowling's world. Yet she exposes the ugliness of racism with her burgeoning storyline about pureblood wizard vigilantes bent on genocide against those they perceive as "tainted" with half-Muggle (non-wizard) blood. Or full-blood Muggles, like Hermione. It hurts when they fling the stingingly offensive epithet "mudblood" at her, but she defies them all with brains and courage.

Detractors also protest Rowling's depiction of house-elves as mindlessly happy slaves who aspire only to serve their masters. Hermione's campaign to get the house-elves freed and paid a wage, is treated like a joke in every book so far. But no one considers that this too may be Rowling's point, the indifference of the middle class to the oppression of the powerless. When the war comes between Voldemort and his pureblood army and the rest of the magical world (as it certainly must in the next book), the overlooked house-elves might comprise the swing vote in the battle between good and evil.

In the showdown at the Ministry of Magic that concludes The Order Of The Phoenix, a symbolic statue of a wizard, witch, goblin, Centaur, and elf is fractured in the melee—an omen that all is not so harmonious in the magical world, despite the Ministry's rosy pronouncements. Sound like any other clueless administration figurehead you can think of?

Through it all, Rowling champions, tolerance, moral courage, good humor, and the power of love over cold-hearted evil, as orphan Harry forges a family out of friendship and loyalty stronger than any blood ties. Seriously, what's not to love?

(Send your wildest Potter theories to lisajensen@sbcglobal.net)