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Complex Numbers #523916 added July 26, 2007 at 7:07pm
Restrictions: None
Everyone's a Critic
WARNING: This post contains Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows spoilers!
Good god, the book's been out nearly a week. Finish it already.
Critic sniping at Rowling:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070725/cm_csm/ysawyer;_ylt=Ai2wauD9Mc0r6j5rhVyg0y2...
My commentary:
I call bullshit.
If literature truly reflects society, then the end of the Harry Potter series spells trouble for us all.
Oh, right, yes, like the current political climate coupled with the public's demand for cheap, mindless entertainment and schadenfreude hasn't already trumped our doom.
Plus: "Literature?" Come on. See a few posts down.
J.K. Rowling's towering achievement lacks the cornerstone of almost all great children's literature: the hero's moral journey. Without that foundation, her story – for all its epic trappings of good versus evil – is stuck in a moral no man's land.
1. So what?
2. Over the course of seven books, Harry grows up. That's more than we can say for Luke Skywalker. Even as a full-fledged Jedi, he was still a whiny brat.
3. I'll get into (3) later.
Good always prevails. It's the hero's struggle – and costly redemption – that matters.
If I'm reading this right, the author is arguing that Harry should have started out as a whiny, self-centered brat just so Rowling could show "character development." Again, I give you Lucas.
A story is about someone who changes, who grows through a moral struggle. What is Harry's struggle? Exactly
Here's the real spoiler, so if you're still reading and don't want spoilers, leave.
What is Harry's struggle?
Let's see... you're a 17 year old kid, you've just been through months of being on the run, pursued by the forces of EEEvil, and you find out that to defeat said EEEvil, you have to die. Not, face EEEvil and possibly win, but lay down your seventeen year old life to save the world (or at least the only world you know). As Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one," but of course Spock came from a morally advanced race. Going back to Luke, even that whiny prat had a chance (albeit slim) at defeating Vader the first time he went up against him. Harry had NO chance, and he knew it. How's that for a moral choice?
Me, I'd have grabbed Ginny (and Hermione, but that's just me) and taken my broomstick off to Belize. |
© Copyright 2007 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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