The Much-Ignored Genius of J K Rowling

Some people are just so abominably stupid. Take my unfortunate friend, for instance. Now HE, in my humble opinion, has been cursed with the horrible wretchedness of a lifetime of mulish idiocy. Alright, I'll elaborate a little. Obsessive Harry Potter fan that I am, I tend to keep going around lending my Harry Potter books to the less fortunate of our brethren who haven't been introduced to Potterverse yet, and I make it a point to painstakingly convince them of the sheer brilliance of books 1 to 6. So you can imagine why I nearly passed out with rage when my friend, in response to my noble attempt to bring him to the light and help him enjoy J K Rowling's peerless classics, shrugged me off with a disdainful, "I don't read kiddo books". Seriously, if I was even half as impulsive as Sirius Black, my friend wouldn't be alive today.

Okay, I know I sometimes cross the most cringe-worthy limits of exaggeration when talking about Harry Potter, but certainly, I do believe that the Harry Potter books are more than just fun reads for the children. I agree that a lot of people love them as purely escapist enjoyment, but the discerning few who love to discern things will tell you that there's never been a more entertaining message of the importance of goodness, love and pluck. The thing about social messages is that they often get insufferably boring, and an insufferably boring message can never really be even remotely effective. What J K Rowling has managed, on the other hand, is to tell the simple story of a bunch of school kids who just happen to be forced to confront complex questions of morality and integrity in an increasingly torn world. And it doesn't take earth-shattering brilliance to realize that Ms Rowling's way is far more effective than any intricately crafted sermon can ever hope to be. If only the literary critics who like nothing better than to rip apart J K Rowling's work as 'crowd pleasing bilge' could recognize this.

I've always felt that there are just too many thought-provoking parallels between the happenings of Potterverse and our real world to ignore J K Rowling's intent. Racism is a much-discussed evil in the Potter books, as is the revolting nature of politics (the Ministry of Magic is one heck of a PR-crazy government, don't you think?). The lust for power, as embodied by Lord Voldemort's thoroughly vicious acts which seem perfectly justified in his own twisted mind, runs as the common theme of the books, and its portrayal, to me, serves as a terrific lesson in behavioral psychology and the causes of evil. Then again, Harry's fortuitous run down the memory lane of the mysterious Severus Snape tells us how little in this world is completely black or white: James was as much the brutal aggressor (as opposed to Harry previously believing him to be a saint) as was Snape a victim of barbarous bullying, something which he (Snape) learns to practise with great efficiency in his later life. Speaking of Snape, I hardly think there's ever been a more enigmatic character. His unhappy childhood, tortured school years, confused and contradicting adulthood and agony at being forced to kill the one person in the whole world who didn't flinch with distaste every time he looked at him (this is, of course, assuming that Dumbledore ordered Snape to kill him) can make for some heavy-duty intellectual talk.

Love and friendship have been given great importance in the books. When Horace Slughorn, the Potions teacher, declares to his disbelieving class that unnatural or forced love can be the most destructive power on earth, one can't help but appreciate how nicely this fits in with the story of Voldemort's mother and her unfortunate struggles that may have been crucial to Voldemort becoming such a monster in the first place. On the other hand, the friendship between James, Lupin, Sirius and Pettigrew, the unrestrained and at times wicked camaraderie that existed between them and the subsequent betrayal by Pettigrew serve as a heartbreaking reminder of the fallibilities of human nature.

The tragic life of Sirius Black, at the end of which there was a lot of profuse, anguished sobbing in all corners of the world (the real one, mind you), qualifies as a brilliant example of the injustices that the world can sometimes sentence its people to. Sirius was forced to suffer a lifetime of disgrace and imprisonment, all because of the wretched treason of one of his best friends, and yet when in his later life he rightfully grieves about Dumbledore's oddly stifling orders, we tend to dismiss him as nothing more than a pathetic whiner. So much for 12 years of unspeakable misery. Another thing of Rowling's that has always stood out for me is the way she has tried to make some measure of sense out of Time Travel. There have been a lot of books and movies that have mightily struggled to get this totally impossible idea across, but none has been as successful as Harry Potter in synchronizing the phenomena of Time and Destiny so beautifully: when Dumbledore explains to Harry that the only reason he was rescued from the Dementors by his own powerful Patronus Charm was that it was pre-ordained that he would travel back in time, it becomes almost impossible to pick any loopholes in the ludicrous episode. It's another matter that not many people understood this particular point, but Rowling certainly did try her best.

And in all of this jumble, I think I'm quite forgetting the immensely tortuous character of Harry himself. One of the main reasons why Harry Potter has been such a phenomenal success is, I think, the ease with which one can identify with the protagonist. Harry is so not a regular superhero; he's an ordinary, unfortunate, not-so-gifted person whose biggest strength is extraordinary courage. In other words, his greatest power can actually be possessed by every common person who reads the books: there's nothing divine or hereditary about courage. Fantasizing about being a superhero was never so easy. In the midst of all this, of course, there are numerous storytelling masterstrokes - the revelation that the Defence Against the Dark Arts job was actually jinxed, the development of Ginny Weasley's character and the whole saga about Snape's worst memory are clearly wonderful examples of genius at work.

All of this makes me wonder why Ms Rowling is so often pummeled by the intellectual sorts who consider it to be something of a fashion to trash all things Potter. Okay, the books may just be a tad over-dramatic or stereotypical at times, but hey, they are so obviously not meant to appeal to the sensibilities of forty-year-olds. People should learn to appreciate Harry Potter for what it is: a stirring tale of good versus evil told through the eyes of a teenager. It is not a Lord of the Rings-style epic, nor is it a frothy, candyfloss Enid Blyton fable. And if you're still not convinced by all of this, then I've only got a few words to say to you: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!