The Room

…you have to set yourself on fire.

So goes the saying.  I am, of course, obsessed (I think that’s an accurate term) with Harry Potter, but I also continue to be fascinated by the French Revolution.  During my morning commute to work today I found myself contemplating the latter, which led to my recalling the above quote, which in turn made me think immediately of a particular scene in Harry Potter, and the parallels that could easily be drawn between the two.  It’s all about creating a destructive force, and the manner in which such a force can change into a tangible or intangible entity that inevitably destroys its own creator.

The French Revolution began as a movement by the poorest and most desperate citizens of France in an attempt to overthrow the French monarchy, which was seen as corrupt and filled with people who prioritized their own luxurious existence over the most basic needs of those they were supposed to serve.  The goal of the revolution was accomplished quickly, but the uprising did not end there.  It continued, growing and morphing into its own being, unable to be controlled even by those who created it; within months, the Reign of Terror was in full swing.  So-called “enemies of the revolution” (virtually anyone who was suspected of not being a supporter of the cause) could be summarily executed on a whim.  In less than a year, over 41,500 people were killed, culminating in the execution of the Reign of Terror’s leader and pioneer, Jacques Robespierre.  The revolutionary violence that Robespierre had incited and led turned against him, out of his control, and his own creation killed him with the simple slice of a guillotine blade.

But we’re not here to talk about history lessons, we’re here to discuss HP.  I just find it endlessly fascinating how many parallels (many unintentional on the part of JK) can be drawn between the HP series and history.  In a Humanities class that I once took, we picked apart the significance of every sentence in Dante’s Inferno, but looking closely at HP, there is the capacity for far more analysis than I ever experienced even with a classic such as Inferno.  In this particular case, history repeated itself in one form during the Final Battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows.  Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy confronted the Trio in the Room of Requirement, where Harry was searching for the diadem of Ravenclaw-turned-Horcrux to destroy.  While Malfoy was able to critically consider the situation and try to use it to his advantage, Crabbe could not resist the temptation of using whatever power was at his disposal to achieve his goal of “getting Potter.”  He couldn’t see beyond what was right in from of him to think that perhaps in the long run, his actions would work against him.  Thus, a highly inexperienced and incapable Crabbe let loose Fiendfyre – a terrifyingly difficult power to control – against the Trio.  The fire morphed into an uncontrollable force that devoured the entire room  and ended up cornering Malfoy and his accomplices.  Malfoy and Goyle were saved by the Trio; Crabbe fell backwards into the flames and was consumed by them, burned alive.  He panicked at the last minute and tried to stop the Fiendfyre, but it was too late.  It was no longer his to control.  The creation became the master, the creator the victim.  The parallels between the downfall of Robespierre and Crabbe are significant, and I love the fact that the situation with Crabbe directly follows the quote: When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.  The Room of Requirement was fully consumed by fire, and one of the only things left that remained unburned had been the creator, Crabbe.  How does a force – whether Fiendfyre or an intangible revolution – become its own master?  Once it reaches this point, can it ever be reined in again?  Is the end result of such a thing inevitably the destruction of the creator?  When a person creates a force so destructive and uncontrollable, should the creator be destroyed?  Is that justice? 

What makes this all of this even better?  The fact that one simple scene written by JK Rowling can unintentionally raise ageless moral and ethical questions that have been found throughout history.

I need to discuss something: Hufflepuff.  Without a doubt, Hufflepuff has the worst reputation of all the Houses, far surpassing that of even Slytherin – Slytherin may be known as the “evil” House, but at least it’s filled with ambitious people of immense talent.  No, Hufflepuff is the House of leftovers, the students not worthy of any of the other Houses.  People abhor Hufflepuff.  It’s amazing the degree to which everyone I know recoils at the thought of being associated with the House.

Let’s look at what the Sorting Hat has to say:

You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
if you’ve a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends.

Said Slytherin, “We’ll teach just those
Whose ancestry’s purest.”
Said Ravenclaw, “We’ll teach those whose
Intelligence is surest”
Said Gryffindor, “We’ll teach all those
With brave deeds to their name.”
Said Hufflepuff, “I’ll teach the lot
And treat them just the same.”

People point to the fact that Hufflepuff agreed to “teach the lot” as proof that those in the House do not possess the talents found in the other Houses, chief among them intelligence, surety of triumph, and bravery.  Because we get to know very few Hufflepuffs throughout the series, there is almost no character depth developed through those particular House members – as a result, Hufflepuff seems somewhat two-dimensional.  Moreover, we never witness a Hufflepuff really standing apart as a significant character, with the possible exception of Cedric Diggory and Tonks.  Yet even they were never recognized as individuals with enough worth to the story to become vital to the plot – Cedric was just a generic “nice guy,” and Tonks, while amusing and charming, never proved to have any staggering skills or characteristics that would have set her apart as an integral part of Harry’s world.  In fact, her importance seemed to develop only in relation to her romance with Lupin; if it wasn’t for this, I doubt she would have become any more than a mere background character.  I have a real problem with all of this, and it’s time to explain exactly why, after ten years of pondering what House I would most like to be in, I can declare with absolute surety now that it would, in fact, be Hufflepuff. 

It is not that Hufflepuffs lack the qualities found among the other houses, it is that they do not value those traits above all else.  I find the specific importance of those characteristics in the other Houses to be a weakness rather than a strength.  So much emphasis is placed upon living up to a certain reputation that there is far less opportunity for those Houses’ students to step back and discover who they really are beyond who they believe they should be.  In Hufflepuff, success is not treasured as the penultimate goal, as it is in Slytherin; rather, it is the effort, the hard work, the toil, sweat, and blood put into an attempt that determines the degree of accomplishment.  Bravery is not necessarily revealed through grand acts of valor and sacrifice; oftentimes, courage is the ability of a person to just get up day after day and try their best to do right by his or her self and by others when it would be far easier to give up.  Intelligence in and of itself is not a sufficient thing to spend one’s time seeking; knowledge used to benefit others is knowledge well-earned, for wisdom is gained through experience and failure, not merely by racking up IQ points and scouring a library for unread books.  This is not to say that Hufflepuffs do not highly value every single one of those characteristics, it is simply that those traits are not the penultimate ones representative of the house.  Hufflepuffs are not merely the leftovers that do not fit into any other house.  The fact of the matter is that they place loyalty, hard work, and finding happiness above what others believe would deem them successful, brave, or intelligent. 

I will fully admit that I personally have devoted much of my life to achieving my goals, standing up for what is right, and almost obsessively applying myself to academics because that is where my strengths lie.  But allow me to be entirely frank: enduring a bout of severe depression within the last year and a half has left lasting effects within me, primarily among them realizing that those qualities no longer matter to any significant degree in my life.  I know now that I am never going to be the President of the United States, nor a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, nor a woman who has biographies about her filling library shelves; but I have already learned that I will continue to try my damnedest, even if the best I can do some days is to get out of bed, get dressed, wash my face, and get through the day.  Awards, riches, and recognition do not necessarily reflect success, intelligence, or bravery, for every person is fighting his or her own battles within themselves.  If I do the best I can with what I have, then I am a success to myself.  If I get up and face the day, if I own up to and accept the fact that my depression does indeed exist within me, and no, I am not the perfect person who I always anticipated being, then I am brave.  If I come to terms with the reality that the most mentally deficient failure of a person may be a thousand times happier than the genius lauded as the ultimate success story, then I have the knowledge that I need.  I have lost many friends and been betrayed by those I loved.  I have been looked at as a disappointment.  And lord above, I have been in the darkest, dankest corners of unhappiness.  But if I am loyal to those who deserve it no matter how many times I myself have felt used and abused, if I am proud of what I have achieved given circumstances which not everyone may comprehend, and if I can feel the warmth of the sunshine again and once more have my eyes crinkle up in a genuine fit of laughter, then I know who I am and I will be damn pleased with that girl, despite any lack of determined ambition, audacious bravery, or spark of brilliant wit that others may perceive.  I’m a Hufflepuff, and damn glad about that.

P.S. - Also, just for the record, I want to note that less witches and wizards turned bad from Hufflepuff than from any other House.  Take that, high-and-mighty Gryffindors.

We all know that love plays probably the most central role of any concept in the series, but as I’ve previously noted, much of that love centers around the devotion of a mother to her child or that found between friends.  Today, however, I want to talk about the vast array of romantic love that is exemplified by JK throughout the books, even if it does take a backseat to other types of care. 

Perhaps the most widely discussed relationship from the entire series is that of Snape and Lily.  Readers’ opinions on the subject vary from proclaiming it as the love story of our time to entirely discrediting the idea that Snape even truly understood what love was.  I think I fall somewhere in the middle of these two extremes: I see Snape as a man who loved as best as he knew how, only to discover too late that  what he comprehended as love would undeniably be marked by pain – for both he and Lily – if he pursued it further.  Thus, he yielded to the fact that regardless of the path he chose, he was destined to be hurt by this love, but he still had the chance to save Lily from that same pain.  So he let her go.  In my opinion, he resigned himself to the fact that she was happier with James and didn’t seek to disrupt that, although that didn’t stop him from wishing that things had turned out differently.  The worst memory of his entire life was the day when he let the word “Mudblood” slip out while referring to her, and while he regretted every moment after saying such a thing, it is a perfect example of a relationship that is crumbling beneath the feet of those involved, and yet they refuse to recognize the fact that it is over until there is a defining argument to attribute “the end” to.  Many times, those involved wish that they could take back the words that began the final fight, but doing so would only have prolonged the inevitable.  Snape’s childhood and his choice in friends were the hands guiding him down the dark path that he ended up following, and sadly it seems that he was, in many ways, destined to pursue that direction.  His friendship with and love for Lily was an unexpected disturbance in that fate, and it just did not fit in with the life that was planned for him and that he so easily fell into.  Square peg, round hole.  Sometimes love is not enough.  No passion, no care, no friendship, no boundless devotion can outweigh the burden that presses down upon two people who are simply not meant to be together for whatever reason.  Snape’s love for Lily began purely, but after her death it became an obsession, his entire being fixated on what he should have differently, on if it could have worked out if only, if he himself was responsible for her murder and what that meant about himself.  I am personally of the opinion that, had Dumbledore not given Snape the task of protecting Harry as a purpose in his life, Snape likely would have killed himself.  It is clear that he was miserable at every moment after he lost Lily – both emotionally and physically – and it seems to me that Snape’s sole reason for continuing to live was an attempt to posthumously make amends with Lily.  Snape tortured himself endlessly about not being a different person (more specifically, not being James) who could have deserved and won the love of Lily, and his continuing to live after her death was another extension of this self-masochism.

Thinking about Lily always makes me wonder what the relationship between she and James really was.  There was so little background revealed about their love in the books that it has always made it difficult to believe that they were ~*OMG MEANT FOR EACH OTHER*~.  Maybe it’s just me, but my gut reaction has always been that Lily somehow settled for James.  Lily detested James for years, but he continued to pursue her, and suddenly she likewise fell for him.  It was probable that their mutual participation in the Order helped to bring them closer, but did she realize that he was so much more than she’d always thought, or that she had always loved him deep inside?  Or was it that she came to recognize that James could love her in a way that Snape never could, and that was good enough?  She knew that Snape would never be able to love her or respect her and her ideals in the way that she needed, and she also knew that James could – no matter how she felt in return.  I have no doubt that Lily cared for James deeply, but do I believe that she felt as passionately about him as Snape did about her?  No, I do not.  This is, again, most likely because almost nothing was shown of their courtship or marriage in the series; but if I had to take a guess as to what type of love JK was really hinting at between the two of them, it would be the good enough love. There comes a point when the need for a life without pain overrules the desire for a life with overwhelming passion, as, I suspect, Lily well knew.

Another highly intriguing adult pairing (at least in my opinion) is that of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy.  Readers don’t see all that much behind-the-scenes in their relationship, yet I do get the sense that they were one of those couples who really needed a disaster to understand how much they depended on and respected one another.  But granted, it’s difficult to interpret their relationship because of how important upholding facades towards the outside world are to the both of them.  Thus, how much of Narcissa’s care for Lucius is borne out of the desire to “keep up appearances,” and how much is genuine?  As is common for many Pureblood couples, there is widespread suspicion that Narcissa and Lucius were part of an arranged marriage rather than beginning as a real couple.  I think that regardless of their love’s origins or some of their motives for portraying it, the Malfoys have a deep admiration and compassion for one another; they are, perhaps, two people who became involved out of convenience and tradition, grew to love each other, and gradually became entangled in a desperate situation that increasingly tested whether or not their devotion could last beyond the scope of seeking power, influence, and wealth.  As it turns out, we as readers never are able to learn what exactly happened between the Malfoys after the second Wizarding War, but I tend to think that they attempted to rebuild their lives together because through it all – just as other couples deal with crises and tragedies – they experienced the reemergence of Voldemort together: the rise, the pride, the fall, the attempt at redemption, the failure, the disgrace, the abuse, the fear. 

At first I was really rather averse to the idea of a Remus-Tonks relationship for a number of completely valid reasons: she was somuch younger than him, he was a werewolf and was constantly fighting his own personal demons, and they should have been concentrating on the fact that a war was in progress rather than allowing themselves to be distracted by the drama that a relationship would undoubtedly create.  Why, at the end of HBP when members of the Order were crowded around Bill Weasley’s hospital bed, Lupin himself rattled off these same complications that he had been thinking about, and when he did I felt even more justified for disliking the pairing.  Even in the face of an upset Tonks begging him to give the relationship a chance, Lupin was as he always was – calm, rational: “I am not being ridiculous.  Tonks deserves somebody young and whole.”  And then Arthur Weasley said something that made me realize that both Lupin’s and my own objections to the couple were entirely ludicrous: “But she wants you.  And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so.”  Who can argue with that?  Remus and Tonks represent the fact that there will always be excuses why something will not work, why two people should not be together, and many times those reasons are legitimate.  But even so, what use is listening to those excuses if they end up making both people miserable without each other?  Tonks and Lupin are the epitome of pushing aside the ifs, ands, and buts and finally saying, “We love each other, and maybe it will be a mess, but let’s figure that out together.”

It is strange to think of Dumbledore ever having been in love because, like Harry, most readers have a hard time imagining a Dumbledore who was not old, wise, and bearded.  But however brief, I find it interesting that Dumbledore’s feelings toward Grindelwald when they were teenagers are really the best case in the books for showing just how strong youthful infatuation can be, and how that sort of attraction can lead to dangerous situations and bad decisions.  Dumbledore’s obsession with Grindelwald caused him to turn a blind eye to the reality of what type of person Grindelwald really was.  Just as nearly every schoolgirl has at one point or another secretly lusted after the “bad boy,” I believe that Dumbledore was so caught up in the thrill of finding someone just as brilliantly intelligent and ambitious as he, not to mention the experience of falling in love for the first time, that he would have refused to hear a word against Grindelwald even had someone attempted to put a stop to their friendship.  It is that excitement that causes common sense to falter, and when something finally does occur to bring reality crashing back down, it serves as a slap in the face that can be downright brutal.  Grindelwald’s feelings for Dumbledore extended just far enough to plot a rise to power together, but when the shit hit the fan, he ran instead of taking responsibility and helping his best friend.  Grindelwald’s fight with the Dumbledores and his immediate disappearance after possibly killing Ariana was such a betrayal of Albus that I doubt he ever really recovered – not only from his guilt for being involved in the situation, but also from the pain at discovering the ugly truth that often lies beneath  that which seems so perfect. 

While the portrayal of Ginny and Harry in the films has turned me away from being a huge fan of theirs, I do think their relationship is an important one to represent in the series.  Harry could have had virtually any girl he chose simply because of his fame, and for a long time he took no notice of Ginny, thinking her simply the little sister of his best mate and nothing more, even as she secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) longed for him from afar – “I never really gave up on you.  Not really.”  Yet she gradually became part of his support system, accepting that even if he never returned her affection, she still genuinely cared enough about him to want to be in his life even if it was only as a friend.  Ginny was the person who Harry didn’t ever expect to have feelings for, yet when he first thought that perhaps she really was the right one for him, it was a case of realizing that he had missed seeing what was standing right in front of him all along.

Ron and Hermione are the absolute classic example of friends-turned-lovers, two halves of a whole, yin and yang.  However, I’ve already discussed their relationship in depth in a previous post, so… go read that one if necessary.

Lastly, there’s Arthur and Molly Weasley, who, in my opinion, have one of the best relationships in the series, and they just balance one another out so well.  They were school sweethearts – probably each other’s first and only loves if I had to guess – and here they are, however many years later, doing a wonderful job of raising a large family on little money and keeping the love alive between them.  Arthur and Molly are JK’s way of showing very pure and simple love that, when found, seems to lead the way to happiness in whatever form that appears for different people.  Love is the absolute foundation of the Weasleys’ existence, and their entire family speaks so much to the strength of untainted, innocent, uncomplicated love from start to finish.

There are a fair number of people who complain about what they perceive as flaws in the Harry Potter series, many of which revolve around J.K.’s missed chances to wrap the plot up with a nice little bow on top.  To those readers I feel obligated to ask, “Did you completely miss the point of it all?”  The thing that sets HP apart from most other books is that, despite being part of the fantasy genre, they are often uncomfortably realistic.  The thing that sets Rowling apart from most other authors is her willingness to write an imperfect tale if doing so will contribute to its truth.  Sure, she could have had all loose ends tied up – and I admit that upon my first reading of HP7, I was deeply frustrated by her refusal to do so.  But with further reflection, I’ve realized how much a “perfect” plot would have damaged what she was trying to say with the series.  War is not fair.  Life is not fair.  Love is not fair.  All of it, the good and bad, is a messy, complicated, convoluted affair that rarely ends up the way you would expect it to along the way.  Perhaps more importantly, just because the books came to a conclusion, the story did not end.  There are no neatly packaged endings in life either, no truly clean breaks.  Rowling’s readiness to tell the truth about the way things are – about how imperfect they are – is what results in perfection by the end of the series.

One of the biggest, “NOOO SHE DID NOT WHYYYYY?!” moments in the series came when Fred was killed.  Fred, everyone’s favorite character, one half of an inseparable pair, the comic relief – if anyone was supposed to be immune to the horrors of war, it should have been Fred and George.  I doubt anyone wanted the Weasley family to have to deal with the death of one of their members, especially Fred.  Fred and George were the unexpected success stories of the series, as readers watched them grow from immature pranksters to rebels with a cause to thriving businessmen to unrestrained warriors – and then to see one of the pair senselessly killed (by a wall collapsing, not even in the midst of an intense bout of combat) was painful and confusing.  Everyone knows that Hermione, Ron, and Harry could not be separated, but if there was one other set of characters who were more indivisible than the Trio, it was Fred and George.  It wasn’t fair for Fred to die, nor was it fair that George should never be able to rebound from his death in the future.  After the Battle of Hogwarts, George was incapable of producing a Protonus forevermore, because every one of his happy memories was inextricably tied to Fred.  I would have sacrificed nearly any other character in place of Fred, but war doesn’t let you pick and choose who it’s going to steal away, and neither did J.K.

Bellatrix Lestrange tortured Neville’s parents into insanity, effectively orphaning him, and when the opportunity arose, she taunted him about it.  A significant portion of HP fans insist that it should not have been Molly who killed Bellatrix, as she had no intimate connection to Voldemort’s right-hand woman; most say that Neville is the one who should have slaughtered his parents’ destroyer.  In an ideal world, Neville would have come face-to-face with his past and conquered it.  But war doesn’t follow the rules of “should.”  And when I think about it more, I realize that Molly was the perfect person to take down Bellatrix, in her own way: Molly is the ultimate mother-figure in the books, and Bellatrix is, well, the opposite of that.  Bellatrix mocks Molly over the death of Fred, she was ready and willing to surrender the life of Draco – her own nephew – just to further the ambitions of Voldemort, and she was, of course, never a mother herself.  In the face-off between Bellatrix and her antithesis, perhaps it would have been more satisfying for Neville to get direct revenge in his parents’ honor, but for the purposes of greater themes (rather than gut-level instincts crying for vengeance), Molly was the better choice.  It’s also worth looking at that Molly, who is considered “good” through and through, out-and-out murdered another character.  She may be a heroine, but that does not make her unsusceptible to rage and the desire to kill when she deems it necessary.  The “good” people are not utterly untainted – war does not allow them to remain so.

Another note about Neville: he doesn’t end up with Luna.  I’ve already stated that I happen to think they would have been utterly ideal together, and I’m always disappointed when I reach the epilogue and realize that love affair never happens.  BUT.  Sometimes it’s the girl in the background that the hero winds up with, not the one who has fought by his side.  If Rowling had conveniently matched up all of the main characters into happy sweet relationships, any sense of realism that she had achieved in writing their romances would fly out the window (and not on the handle of a Firebolt into the moonlight…)  The truth is this: nobody can help who they fall in love with, or who they do not.  That in and of itself is a fact of life that most people – including me – find endlessly difficult to accept.

When it comes to the twist in a series, traditional writing techniques dictate that the author use it as a dramatic gasp-worthy climax, the literary version of a shot of adrenaline rushing through the reader’s veins.  Yet Rowling takes this concept and turns it on its head during “The Prince’s Tale,” which is almost unquestionably that moment in the series.  There is naturally that “a-ha!” sense when the truth about Snape is finally revealed in the Pensieve, yet when Harry withdraws his head from the surface, the reader feels only a sense of confusion and emptiness in the pit of his or her stomach , not a surge of adrenaline and triumph.  Harry’s walk to the Forest makes Rowling’s revelation about Snape – a fact that had been heatedly debated since the very beginning of the series – seem almost meaningless, irrelevant.  Then there is a second point regarding Snape’s life and death that I would like to raise: the atypical hero is nearly always recognized for his contributions prior to his death, if only as a sort of author-initiated amends toward a character who was somewhat unjustifiably reviled throughout the course of an entire story.  But when Snape dies in Harry’s arms, he does so without anyone alive knowing the truth about him, the boy staunching the blood flow from his wounds looking at him not in sudden understanding, but only with horror at the brutality.  Harry did not mourn the loss of Snape while Snape was still alive to see it.  Nobody knew the truth about Snape before he died, and he left the world in the presence of the boy who had hated him since the day they met, fearing that he had failed his promise to protect Lily’s son, staring into eyes that reminded him of the love that he had lost years earlier, in a face that was the splitting image of the man who he believed stole that love from him.  There’s no denying that J.K. knows how to write tragedy.

Another significant character twist came in the form of Malfoy, who many readers expected to befriend Harry upon his own inability to murder Dumbledore.  In the Epilogue, Rowling makes it clear that the two never made amends, much less became friends, which is a significant departure from the classic portrayals of reformed antagonists.  Some people will never like one another, and some history is not so easily smoothed over by a change of heart.  Draco and Harry understand one another better by the end, and although that is not saying much for the relationship whose dynamics formed a consistent pressure and hostility throughout the series, it is the most that could possibly be expected from those two.  Perhaps another writer would have seen the potential to fully reverse Malfoy’s character in another stunning turn-around, or would have used a reconciliation between Malfoy and Harry as proof that people can move beyond prejudices and preconceived notions.  To me, doing so would have been just a bit too convenient, and while a “lesson” could have been spelled out, it would not be indicative of reality.  The peace that comes at the end of a war does not denote the resolution of all friction that began it, it sometimes merely signifies that one or both sides are simply too weak or tired to continue fighting.  Many times the best possible outcome would just be a degree of understanding between the two sides, and this is what occurred between Harry and Draco by the end of the series: not friendship or alliance, but a sense that both young men understood where the other had come from and why they had acted as they did, regardless of what those actions were.

There is a massive movement among the HP fandom that desperately wants J.K. to write a prequel to the series detailing the lives of the Marauders.  I may be one of the few that strongly rejects such an idea.  One of the most basic facts of life is that none of us know our parents fully, as we were not present for their youth before our births, and no amount of storytelling can allow us to feel that we understand their history inside and out.  I know the concept of J.K. writing another book that delves into the dramatic narratives of the Marauders is tantalizing, but should we know more about the past of Harry’s parents than Harry himself did, the connection between us as readers and Harry would no longer be one of equality.  Throughout the series we knew just what Harry did, and while there were a couple of exceptions in which we glimpsed happenings through the eyes of other characters, we never had a sense of knowing some grand truth that Harry did not.  Harry desperately wanted to understand his parents and the lives that they had lived, but he will never be able to, just as we will never be able to with our own parents; while it is an unfortunate fact, it is vital that Rowling remained faithful to those larger realities about life, or else the whole purpose of the series would be jeopardized.

I’m revisiting the topic of the Deathly Hallows.  I will fully admit that I was originally seriously disappointed by the big revelation of what they were – I thought that maybe J.K. had finally fallen into the trap of writing an interesting plot at the expense of finding something deeper in the story.  In short, I thought that the Hallows were a cheap way of upping the excitement of the seventh book, a way of convincing readers that there was more to the story than camping on moors.  I guess my primary problem was that the Hallows were not what made Harry “Master of Death” when he defeated Voldemort; in my mind, I was expecting him to, like, be wearing the cloak and battling Voldemort with the Elder Wand while the specters of all Harry’s lost loved ones rushed to his defense or some nonsense.  It was so disappointing to me that there was never that epic culmination of the three parts of the Hallows. 

But now I’m older and wiser.  Or, at the very least, I have had much more time to mull over the Hallows, and after the past year’s events in my own life, I think I finally get it.  It’s balance, and it’s imperfection.  I’ll talk about the significance of J.K. telling an imperfect tale another time, but for now I will say that yes, I still feel that the climax of any other traditional fantasy novel would feature Harry uniting the Hallows and winning through that.  So Harry Potter doesn’t follow the lines of traditional fantasy; no surprise there.  But I realize now that the point of the Deathly Hallows – despite their title – was not to reveal a secret to conquering death but was, rather, a means of understanding how to live.  Maybe those two things seem interchangeable, but they are not, and J.K. is very clear in expressing that sentiment throughout the series.  Voldemort survived for decades, but did he ever live at all?  We could argue for ages about the differences between living and existing, but that’s not the point of this post.  If the Hallows were used to kill Voldemort, it would have completely discredited their message about living. 

Here’s my primary discovery about the Hallows (and keep in mind that I feel like I keep realizing more and more about them every day): they show us how to live the type of life that would allow us to someday greet Death “as an old friend,” with few regrets.  Doing so would require us to accept our faults and weaknesses, and refuse to let them bring us down; yet we also would not allow our talents and strengths to overtake us.  Flaws make us human, and accepting this additionally makes us stronger in a way that someone who relies purely on his or her strengths to get through life (something that Voldemort never understood).  Maybe this will make more sense if I break it down – or maybe what I’m trying to say will just continue to get more and more convoluted.  If that’s the case, feel free to stop reading at any time.

I’m going to reserve analysis of the three “Lost Boys” of Hogwarts for another post, but I will at least announce who they are for the sake of this conversation: Harry, Snape, and Voldemort.

So first there is the Elder Wand.  It was chosen by Antioch Peverell, the one who died for power.  Personified, the Elder Wand would be Voldemort, and his character is mirrored by Antioch: the eldest of the Lost Boys (or the eldest brother), a combative man who sought to both embarrass and conquer Death.  Antioch’s downfall was his thirst for power, as was Voldemort’s.

Then we have the Resurrection Stone.  This reward from Death was requested by Cadmus Peverell, the one who sought a dead love.  Snape quite clearly aligns with the tale of the Stone: the middle of the Lost Boys (or the middle brother), he was an arrogant man who was “driven mad with hopeless longing.”  Cadmus was greedy and dragged back his lost love from Death, where she belonged.  In the end, Cadmus’ obsession with this lost love drove him to commit suicide as a means of joining her.  For all intents and purposes, Snape, too, gave his life out of a deep and obsessive love for Lily Potter that consumed his existence long before he met his physical death at the jaws of Nagini.

And, finally, there is the Invisibility Cloak.  With it, Ignotus Peverell greeted death as an old friend.  Not only is Harry a direct descendent of Ignotus, but his character and motivations parallels the story of the Cloak directly.  The youngest of the Lost Boys (or the youngest brother), he was sought after by Death for many years – Harry had been marked for death since he was just one year old.  When Harry walked into the Forbidden Forest, he had accepted that it was finally his time to die, and in doing so he met Death “as an old friend.”  Ignotus, like Harry, was a humble man who did not aim to embarrass nor conquer Death.

And so we have the Deathly Hallows: the ultimate prescription for living the best life possible, sought by three very different men who each had their flaws and their strengths, both admirable and contemptible.  To truly live would be to find the equilibrium between the three Hallows and what they represent, to understand the importance of temperance in all, and to accept an existence in the “gray area” of in-betweens and balance – something that I, for one, have yet to figure out how to accomplish. 

Embrace and maximize all of the power that lies within you, but be humble about your successes.  Had Antioch not bragged about his unbeatable Elder Wand, he would not have been murdered the very same night that he won it.  Yet respect should be granted for refusing to accept defeat and seeking to rise above your opposition every time you are faced with it.  There are some things worth fighting for – but not everything.  It is okay to fail.  In fact, strength is built moment by moment, setback by setback, so slowly and gradually that you often don’t even recognize it.  Strength and power are that first breath of air that you take every time you claw your way out of the rubble of another letdown; it cannot be granted to you as a gift, nor seized as a prize, as was the Elder Wand. 

Love deeply and endlessly, but do not sacrifice your own days and years over what you have lost.  There is no shame in a broken heart, but only if you realize that that heart – however bent, bruised, and damaged – belongs to you and you alone, and that obsession will neither bring back that which you have lost, nor will it make your heart whole again.  Wishing that you could alter the past does nothing but consumes your future.  You will spend your living days as Cadmus did, in a sort of half-life.  Dead while still breathing.  As Dumbledore famously proclaimed to Harry, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

Learn humility and accept that death is inevitable, and that is should be neither feared nor embraced.  Death is not an enemy lurking around every corner but is, rather, an equal who stands at the vanishing point of the horizon.  Life is finite and should be wasted on neither the power nor the grief that took over Antioch and Cadmus, Voldemort and Snape.  Epicurus was no wizard, but I think that Ignotus and Harry alike would have understood and agreed with his words: “Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.”  Respect the power of death, but live while you are alive.

Understand that, and maybe we’ll all figure out how to become Master of Death.

Ay, damn Trelawney and her damn Divination.  We all know I hate Umbridge, so I’m not going to talk further about the fact that she’s the Worst Person Ever.  Instead, I’m choosing to speak a bit about Professor Sybil Trelawney, possibly the most infuriating professor in all of Hogwarts history.  There’s no doubt that having Snape harass you throughout Potions class every day would be frustrating beyond all doubt, but at least he’s a competent teacher who the students could probably learn from (even if doing so meant losing House points and being on the receiving end of humiliation).  He’s demanding, but so brilliant at his topic.

I considered complaining about Lockhart, but upon further reflection realized that I probably would have loved his class if I went to Hogwarts because it’s like that class that you go to, sit in the back and text your friends while blogging online, and which you never do your homework for because the teacher forgets he even handed it out in the first place.  He’s so easy to manipulate, which just so happens to be one of my specialties.

But no, no.  My choice is Trelawney, that irritating, bug-eyed, more-mystical-than-thou woman.  She’s not only a useless professor, she’s the type of teacher that takes what could be a really fascinating subject and makes it as dry as the freaking Sahara.  Every time Harry goes into her classroom, I can just imagine how stiflingly hot and dimly-lit it is, and all those times that I have desperately attempted to keep my eyes from dropping closed during a boring class come rushing back to me in an unpleasant flood.  To top it all off, she makes them do a fair amount of work.  Not a fan.  If only Umbridge had succeeded in canning her ass.