Okay, FINE! Harry Potter Is Kind of Alright

I was starting high school when the Harry Potter mania hit. And it was mania. And I was repulsed. Seriously, it was a children's book about wizards and people were going on about it like it was the Second Coming of the McDLT. It was the most creative and original book ever! It saved a generation from illiteracy! By the time a college pamphlet arrived in which a dean (a dean!) proclaimed, "J.K. Rowling is the Shakespeare of our time," I was pretty much ready to do violence on anyone who even mentioned the books to me.

After high school graduation, I went on a cruise with my grandma. The other young person at our dinner table, Nick, was incredulous at my refusal to read the accursed books. After significant badgering, I struck a deal with him: I would read the first two books. Nick was certain I would love them and continue; I was certain I would not. And guess what? I was right.

I really did try to give the books a fair shake, honestly, I did. But in like, the second paragraph, Dumbledore takes out a handy little device: it looks like a cigarette lighter but actually turns off all the streetlights. Rowling has ingeniously named this a "put-outer." I was done right then. I kept reading of course--I'd made a deal, but I'd already decided: strikingly unoriginal. As I continued reading, I found more evidence to support my claim: a great evil who was defeated but not destroyed, an unlikely young boy sharing a connection and a destiny with said evil, the never quite healing injury linked to their mindmeld thingy, and a confrontation with his parents' murderer that has an unexpected outcome. They'd all been done before.

Then the third movie came out, and it was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, a director I really admire. And I surprised my self by wanting to see it. And I did see it (on TV), and I kind of liked it. Just a little. Then I caught the fourth, which was even better. And the fifth. And then this summer I saw the sixth and decided I wanted to read the book. I wanted to learn about Voldemort's backstory, and people said it was covered better in the book. So I read it, and I liked it and read the fifth, then the fourth, and finally the seventh. In a week.

I kind of loved them. Yes, they were derivative. A lot of it was the same old sci-fi fantasy cliches repackaged into an English boarding school experience. And I will never believe that anyone would join a group called the Death-Eaters and follow someone called the Dark Lord. But I found the connection between Voldemort and Harry and their wands really interesting, and I liked the imaginary lore of the magic world.

The thing I liked most though, is that in the end Harry wins because he is kind and always tries to do the right thing. Dobby gives his life for Harry and Kreacher switches sides because Harry treats them humanely. Narcissa Malfoy betrays Voldemort because Harry didn't kill her son. Harry's greatest personal crisis comes when he discovers that his father was kind of a jackass in school. And when Harry believes that Dumbledore was manipulating him into dying to defeat Voldemort, he goes, terrified, into certain death to save his friends.

On tv and in books and movies we are constantly barraged with precocious smart-alecky kids always looking for an angle. It's really nice to see a kid get ahead by being, well, nice.