Back when the Harry Potter books first reached America, the righteous were ready: Conservative Christians called for a ban on the little wizard. Focus on the Family, a conservative religious group, cautioned that "witchcraft...is directly denounced in scripture." Evangelical preachers pounded Harry Potter as "the work of the devil." Harry flattened the preachers, of course--the tally now stands at 114 million books sold and still counting. My next-door neighbor, Laura Walker (age 13), blasted through the most recent book--the 734-page Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--in two summer days, then flipped back to the beginning and started again. With the whole wired generation barging into bookstores, conservatives fussing over witchcraft never stood a chance.
By the time the first Harry Potter movie landed, the kids were ready. So, ofcourse, was the all-American hype machine. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer'sStone, the long, loud, big-budget film, broke every box-office record on its first weekend. For Harry Potter fans, it's a spectacular show. And yet most critics think that something got lost in Warner Bros.' moneyed embrace. No one's quite put a finger on the missing ingredient: Whimsy? Spunk? Lightness? Originality? Not exactly.
The movie is a triumph of fire-breathing dragons, flying broomsticks, andslobbering trolls. But it is clueless about a deeper, more subversive magic. So,for that matter, are we. The Harry Potter books challenge our attitudes aboutkids and schools. Discipline? Forget that. Magical headmaster Albus Dumbledorepractically awards bonus points for breaking rules. Zero-tolerance policies?Harry would be expelled from most American schools by Monday afternoon. HogwartsSchool of Witchcraft and Wizardry is unruly, even slightly anarchic. And that'swhat Warner Bros. couldn't bring itself to celebrate on the big screen.
Surely you've done the assigned reading. An orphan baby landswith his appalling Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. The Dursleys are Very Normaland do not truck with stuff like imagination. Harry suffers the classicwicked-stepparent treatment--the boy sleeps in a closet, never celebrates hisbirthday, and constantly catches hell.
But strange things happen. The first time Harry visits a zoo, for example,he feels sorry for the bored boa constrictor. The poor thing has never been outof its pen. In a flash, the glass wall of the snake's cage vanishes. "ThankssAmigo," hisses the boa as it slithers to freedom.
On Harry's 11th birthday, the glass imprisoning his own life suddenlyvanishes. An admission letter from Hogwarts (the finest magic school in theworld) bolts out of the blue. Behind an invisible barrier at King's Cross Stationlies our portal into author J.K. Rowling's magical realm.
It's a world where the people in photos wave and wink. Paintings spring tolife. Chess pieces shout advice: "Don't send me there, can't you see his knight?Send him, we can afford to lose him." (In the movie, the chess pieces have no voices and just smash one another's brains out.) Hogwarts is in an ancient castle bursting with surprises--staircases go somewhere else on Fridays. In the magic world, the background is alive. Inanimate objects think and talk and move. The whole universe hums.
Each novel follows Harry through a school year. The plots turn on the mostevil wizard of modern times: Lord Voldemort. Voldemort killed Harry's parents,but when he tried to do in baby Harry, the dark spell shot back at the wickedwizard and grievously weakened him. In each book, Harry battles the shadow ofVoldemort or his minions.
But here's the iconoclastic twist: Harry always does precisely whatever theadults warn him not to do. He positively lives in hot water. He and his friendsflout every rule--yet in the end, they save the day. The books cheerfullycelebrate a kind of children's chaos.
The series' manifesto might be "Hey, you can't respect every regulation."Harry's classmate Hermione "had become a bit more relaxed about breaking therules," writes Rowling near the end of Sorcerer's Stone, "and she was much nicer for it." In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third and best book in the series, the adults all sternly warn Harry not to leave the school grounds. Naturally, he scampers out through a forbidden passage. By the end of the tale, we learn that Harry's father was one of the great mischief-makers in Hogwarts history. "[Your dad] would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the castle," winks one friendly professor.
"I seem to remember telling you that I would have to expel you if you brokeany more school rules," says Dumbledore after another episode. Before Harry canprotest, the headmaster continues: "--which only goes to show that the best of usmust sometimes eat our words." Forget punishment. These kids break the rules,save the day, and get rewarded for bravery.
It's a far cry from our own world of tough love. Oklahoma recently legislateda green light for parents who wish to "paddle, spank and switch" their kids.Indiana decided that teens could not pierce their navels without a note from Mom.Louisiana requires teenagers to "sir" and "ma'am" their teachers. Some Texanspropose getting the execution age down to 11. Kids in any state face big troublefor butter knives in their knapsacks.
That's not the Hogwarts approach. The trouble with the movie is that it turnsthe magic school into another American academy--the first day of school you getrules, rules, rules. In the movie, Dumbledore enters as Mr. Discipline: "Thethird-floor corridor is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a verypainful death."
In the book, a very different attitude runs with the stern stuff. After theheavy warning, Dumbledore brightly declares that it's time for the old schoolsong. Naturally, there's the Hogwarts difference: The kids each get to choosewhatever tune they like. They all finish in their own time and key till everyoneis listening to the Weasely twins sing a slow funeral dirge. "Ah, music," saysDumbledore when they finish. "A magic beyond all we do here!"
But the deepest magic in the books lies in how this headmaster treats hisstudents. Sure, there's more than a touch of anarchy when all the students singto their own tune. But Rowling imagines something special. In her books, the kidsare the central agents of their own lives. They make choices. Weigh judgments.Wrestle with freedom. The books crawl with brave kids and bullies, cowardsseeking scapegoats, and stout hearts sticking up for friends. In Rowling'smagical world, the kids--like the paintings and the chessmen--get to think forthemselves. They make their own choices whether or not the adults approve.
If discipline isn't exactly her thing, Rowling still packs herbooks with a vivid moral perspective--and it's not one that Focus on the Familyis going to like very much.
First of all, this is no primer on Puritan self-control. The adultsmisbehave right alongside the kids. Hagrid, the gentle giant who mentors Harry,drinks like a fish. He positively staggers through the first four books. In thereal world of American schools, teachers on a trip to France get clobbered if thekids sneak a nip of demon Beaujolais. Sure enough, Warner Bros. dried up themovie: not a single sip on the screen.
When Harry arrives at Hogwarts, the magic world is all new to him--a perfectmetaphor for the mysterious transition into young adulthood. Remember that giddy,uncertain mix of emotions you felt going into junior high school? Harry remindsyou. In the process, the books grapple with a profoundly moral question: Whatmakes someone good? Like so many teens, Harry is discovering new powers insidehim, and he worries about whether they render him a bad person.
The matter comes to a head when a magic hat sorts new students into schoolhouses. Villains inevitably wind up in Slytherin. Harry puts the hat on and itpurrs, "Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness."
"Not Slytherin," Harry begs. "Not Slytherin." The hat acquiesces and assignshim to Gryffindor, house of the brave. But the near miss torments Harry. Whatevil did the magic hat see in him?
Finally, at the end of the second novel, Harry Potter and the Chamber ofSecrets, Harry blurts his fear to Dumbledore, the wise headmaster.
"Professor, the sorting hat told me I...should be inSlytherin," Harry said, looking desperately into Dumbledore's face. "The sortinghat could see Slytherin...in me and it--"
"Put you in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore calmly.
"It only put me in Gryffindor," said Harry in a defeated voice, "because Iasked not to go in Slytherin."
"Exactly," said Dumbledore, beaming once more...."It is our choices, Harry,that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Harry sat motionless,stunned.
Harry is stunned because he finally comes to that existential moral truth:Goodness lies not in who you are but in what you decide, in what you do.
Such existential truths never play well on the hard right, where truths comedown on graven tablets and saving grace flashes from on high. But Dumbledore'swisdom--goodness lies not in who we are but in what we choose--is Rowling'sfavorite theme.
Her world, like ours, is full of bigots. Harry's stepparents despise magicpeople. Some magic people, in turn, scorn mixed-bloods ("mudbloods"). InPrisoner of Azkaban, a most sympathetic character turns out to be a werewolf. Even though that disease can be treated, the stigma remains. No one likes werewolves, no one hires or befriends them. And all this before we get to money; Harry's best friend gets constant grief for being poor. In every book, Rowling deftly mocks intolerance based on race (mudbloods) or illness (werewolves) or class (well, it is an English series).
In our world, of course, choosing good while tolerating differences isMorality 101--for adults. But for kids, good behavior means toeing the line.
Perhaps Hogwarts offers a better way. Maybe our own teenagers would flourishwith more freedom, greater responsibility, and wider tolerance. It sure works for Dumbledore. And my guess is that that's just what delights the mobs of kidswho've confounded the education Jeremiahs by falling in love with a book.
Go to the movie with your kids. It's fun. But first read the books. And nexttime the question of more discipline comes up at the PTA, hit them with theDumbledore attitude!
