Review: J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” Series
by Miles Raymer
A whole class of first-years could have graduated from Hogwarts since 2007, when J.K. Rowling shocked the world by concluding the Harry Potter series with a book that delighted the vast majority of her rabid fans. It’s still a wonder she pulled it off, given the pressure she must have felt to avoid being tarred and feathered in the wake of an ill-received final installment. As a member of the lucky generation that grew up with Harry and was more or less his age each time a new book came out, I thought this summer might be a good time to revisit this world and see what it has to offer a guy in his late twenties. Quite a lot, it turns out!
The biggest difference between the reader I was in my teens and the reader I am today is that the latter can assess the overall coherence of a fictional world. As a regular consumer of hard science fiction and an occasional dabbler in fantasy, world coherence is a big concern for me; it distinguishes the exceptional from the merely amusing. I had friends in high school who could critique world-building long before the notion ever occurred to me, and now I understand why some of them became disenchanted with this series as it progressed.
The Harry Potter universe falls apart almost entirely when subjected to more than a cursory level of scrutiny. Without any set of mechanisms from which the general rules of magic might be derived, there’s nothing to save this series from its innumerable self-contradictions. The arbitrary nature of magical medicine is particularly fuzzy and infuriating, as is the absence of any consistent theory of spell-casting. In this world, magic serves the needs of the author, plain and simple. When Rowling needs it to create conflict, magic does that. When she needs it to resolve conflict, it does that too. When she needs it to elicit a chuckle, punctuate a somber moment, or plug a plot hole, magic is more than happy to comply. The result is a highly imaginative, charming, and wholly nonsensical world. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s how magic works, Rowling would say.
Even if she’s not a card-carrying member of the fictional world-building union, Rowling makes up for it with wit and character. Pretty much without exception, the situations and people that populate this series are fun, interesting, and endearing. Rarely do I find myself rooting as hard for any fictional characters as I did for Harry, Ron, Hermione, and their many partners in the battle against Lord Voldemort. The relationships between the three protagonists are believable, admirable, and increasingly complicated as they get older.
My favorite part about Harry is how his relative normalcy contrasts his unsought fame. Beyond being more courageous than your average teen and an uncommonly good Quidditch player, he’s truly not exceptional. He’s a regular guy who gets by on luck, nerve, and having the right friends––the antithesis of the Ayn Rand-ish übermensch. As Harry himself acknowledges in Book 5:
I didn’t know what I was doing half the time, I didn’t plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help…I got through it all because––because help came at the right time, or because I guessed right––but I just blundered through it all, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. (327)
This isn’t an attempt on Rowling’s part to make Harry look humble, but rather an honest assessment from a boy who knows that, by the age of fifteen, he should already be dead several times over. Harry’s most useful quality is his ability to inadvertently attract the kinds of people who can help him when the shit hits the fan. By simply being understanding and kind to those around him, Harry musters a force of supporters diverse and capable enough to help him overcome obstacles that would prove utterly insuperable on his own. Harry’s eventual triumph over Voldemort is the vindication of distributed power over consolidated force, of fellow-feeling over isolated greed.
But let’s not forget the real hero of these books: Hermione Granger. Hermione is easily the best character, responsible for saving more lives more times than even the most obsessive reader would care to count. Brilliant, sensitive, and exceedingly loyal, she is the perfect complement to Harry, and is pretty much the only reason he makes it out of the series alive. Ron is great too––every celebrity needs a down-to-earth best friend to keep his head on straight.
On the whole, this is a great series, but it’s important to emphasize how much better it gets as the characters grow older and advance in their magical educations. The first two books are fun and cute, but are basically mirror images of one another. Book 3 sees a marked jump in quality of both writing and storytelling, with Book 4 carrying on that trend, even as it sags somewhat from its unnecessary page-count. The final chapters of Book 4 bring forth a huge tonal shift, with Rowling making it clear that she will be taking on adult themes rather than continuing with the kiddy stuff. Book 5, while suffering from the same over-written pitfalls of its predecessor, provides the angst-filled slump that all coming of age stories require.
Book 6, by far my favorite in the series, is nothing short of fantastic. Rowling’s decision to unveil the details of Tom Riddle’s life and motivation brings a whole new dimension of ethical complexity to the conflict between Voldemort and Harry. The concept of the Horcrux is one of Rowling’s very best, both terrifying and perversely seductive. And the deepening of Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore imbues the book’s dark conclusion with devastating emotional clout. It’s The Empire Strikes Back of Harry Potter, and it’s glorious.
Book 7 does a serviceable job of wrapping up a tale that has become as personally engrossing as it is technically inconsistent. Rowling has to perform a few bizarre backflips to make it all come out right, but does so without violating the integrity of the characters and relationships we’ve come to adore. The book’s critical moments of noble sacrifice and bitter redemption––the fates of Dobby, Snape, and Harry himself––were every bit as heavy-hitting for my twenty-seven-year-old self as they were when I first read them.
If this is my generation’s fantastical guide to growing up, I’m happy to own it, faults and all. As we get older, I hope we will learn to embody the qualities that see Harry and his loved ones through the worst times––ingenuity, perseverance, loyalty, love. These books challenge us to choose the best in ourselves, even as we grapple with our numerous flaws.
What better message could we ask for, at any age?
Sorcerer’s Stone: 4/10
Chamber of Secrets: 3/10
Prisoner of Azkaban: 7/10
Goblet of Fire: 6/10
Order of the Phoenix: 8/10
Half-Blood Prince: 10/10
Deathly Hallows: 9/10
Overall Series Rating: 8/10
Miles-
This is the first summer since 8th grade that I have not read a HP book. (For those of you who don’t know, I am 28 and have read the entire series several (nearing several hundred) times. )
Having said that, I do not agree with your assessment of her magical world not being cohesive (and I am one of those cult fantasy world people). While I do think there are one or two things that don’t make sense, on the whole I have never noticed that her magical rules do not consistently apply. Where are you seeing this? Can I ask for examples? I am curious.
On the other hand, I vey much agree with you about Hermione. I mean really, no girl is that perfect?!? It has always been my biggest criticism of her first few books that her characters are more like cardboard stereotypes that allow us to project onto them, rather than fully developed, multinuanced personalities. I think thats why she wrote The Casual Vacancy, which you would really like and should read if you haven’t already. That book is 100% character driven and has very realistic characters, rather than hero’s journey sort of archytypes.
On a totally different note, have you read Ghost War? I am just starting it. Check out the NPR interview with the authors and then read it. I think it has all your interests rolled into one and I would love to discuss it with you!
Jess
Hi Jessica. Thanks for this thoughtful comment and for reading the review.
As I said in the review, I think one of the major holes in Rowling’s magical universe has to do with magical medicine. There is no consistent explanation for why certain maladies/injuries can be instantly cured, while others can’t. Why can cuts/scratches be fixed immediately, but growing bone back requires a day or two (as well as Skell-o-grow)? In Book 1, why would Snape not instantly heal his injured leg, therefore not allowing Harry or anyone else to see he’d been hurt?
In Book 3, the problem of magic medicine actually plays a huge role in the story. After being attacked by Buckbeak, Draco plays up his injuries to vilify Buckbeak, even though he could presumably have his arm fixed more or less right away (in the film, they depict Draco wearing a sling for a time, which is just laughable). Additionally, the Ministry officials somehow buy the nonsense that Buckbeak has inflicted “serious” damage, which is then used as the justification for Buckbeak’s execution, when they well know that such minor injuries don’t have any lasting effect in the wizarding world. If the world were consistent, they would laugh Draco and Lucius out of the room for suggesting that Draco had been seriously hurt. I don’t believe that Lucius’s influence in the Ministry would be enough to get the officials to accept something they roundly knew to be false. If wizarding medicine is as good as depicted at other points in the series, how could they possibility consider an animal who inflicted nothing more than a flesh wound a threat to students? But Rowling needs to draw the conflict out so she can create sympathy for Buckbeak and Hagrid, and position Buckbeak where she needs him for the finale. This is a great example of sacrificing world integrity for plot.
Spell theory is also problematic. There’s never any explanation for how spells can be cast “correctly” or not, and no consistent rules for what happens when one is bungled (i.e. it just ends up being whatever clever thing Rowling comes up with, like things exploding for no apparent reason). Why can Hermione always do things right, and most others mess up? And there’s never any indication of the precise difference between various kinds of spells, like curses, charms, jinxes, hexes, etc. Rowling just throws those terms around willy nilly.
There’s no rigorous discussion of the limitations and/or proper valence of magic. Those limitations end up being whatever is convenient for the story. Wizards can time travel, but only in Book 3 and they don’t even consider it later in the series when much more is at stake. Dumbledore can tell that an enchanted rock wall needs a blood offering just by examining it with his hands and his enormous brain, but damned if anyone else could figure it out! There’s also quite a bit of hand-waving concerning the charm Harry’s mother creates when she sacrifices herself––references to “deeper” or “old magic” and whatnot––although we do get a few more details about it in the last couple books. Does every parent that dies trying to protect their child create such a charm?
The wandlore that shows up in the 7th book is cool on its face, but totally out of step with lots of stuff that goes on in the previous books. Numerous wizards are disarmed throughout the series, but not until Book 7 do we learn that wands can choose a new owner in that process. And it would be hard to argue that it happens too rarely to have mentioned before, because it happens quite a lot, seemingly with little ceremony other than one wizard having a slight advantage over another. The Elder Wand’s path from Dumbledore to Draco and then (indirectly) to Harry is especially dubious. Changes in wand ownership do not appear to be automatic (i.e. the wand has some element of choice), so why would the Elder Wand choose the spineless Draco? And why would it switch to Harry just because Harry disarmed Draco when Draco wasn’t even using, and in fact had never even touched, the Elder Wand? Even if some halfway decent explanation could be found, the convoluted nature of this key plot point dampens the credibility of what is an otherwise tremendous final few chapters of the series. If wands truly switched allegiance as often as Book 7 would have us believe, the entire wizarding world would be a jumble of people using wands that weren’t actually theirs. There’s simply no indication of that whatsoever until the last book. Again, we see magic bending to Rowling’s plot needs, rather than playing by rules that are consistent and reliable.
This is all very nitpicky, but I hope at least one or two of my examples seems on point to you. This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. But you don’t have to just take my word for it that HP is full of holes. One Google search can turn up tons of commentary on the matter:
http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Mistakes_in_the_Harry_Potter_books
http://flipc.blogspot.com/2011/06/queries-and-plotholes-in-harry-potter.html
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-biggest-plot-holes-and-errors-in-Harry-Potter-1
http://www.sugarscape.com/bookclub/a1034961/10-questions-that-still-need-answering-about-harry-potter/
Overall, I’d say there’s not much point in defending Rowling as a great world-builder. She’s not. But she’s an incredibly gifted and imaginative storyteller, and she understands young people in a special way, and she wrote a series that enchanted the hearts and minds of a whole generation. So I don’t think it’s that awful to admit that the HP universe isn’t exactly airtight. Rowling’s quote at the top of the Wiki “Mistakes” page is right on I think:
“As obsessive fans will tell you, I do slip up! Several classrooms move floors mysteriously between books and these are the least serious continuity errors! Most of the fansites will point you in the direction of my mistakes. But the essentials remain consistent from book to book because the story has been plotted for a long time and it is clear in my mind.”
—J. K. Rowling on the errors within the franchise.
Have not read Ghost Fleet, but also just heard an interview with the authors. I’m not sure I’m interested enough in military narratives and military technology to be very excited about it, although I agree that it touches on many of my interests. I’ll let you know if I decide to give it a look!
Thanks again for your comment.
Corretction: Ghost Fleet