The Sociology of Harry Potter: 22 Enchanting Essays on the Wizarding World

by Unknown

  Having regained his human shape, instead of simply killing the helpless Harry, he demonstrated his vain, egotistical, narcissistic traits by freeing him and duelling him in a show for his followers, the Death Eaters. This act was about humiliating Harry, taunting, mentally abusing him before finally killing him. He was also stroking his own ego, and catering to his narcissistic, high opinion of himself and his power. However, he failed to kill Potter because their wands connected as the two battled. Their wands, the representations of their phallus, will not allow them to destroy one another. The wands recognise each other: They are one; they have the same core, just as Harry and Voldemort share the same soul.

  The fact that Voldemort failed to kill Harry three times up to this point, is telling. Does he really want to kill him? Was he on some subconscious level trying to protect Harry, keep him alive? If Harry was dead after all, who will be his equal enemy, who will he fixate his desire on? Who will he fantasize about? Only when it became clear that Harry will not relent and join Voldemort, does he seriously begin to attack him.

  Once Voldemort failed to kill Harry in the Little Hangleton Graveyard his behaviour changed. His craving for power becomes more intense, but was shown in different ways. Even after regaining a new body, and revealing himself to be “back” to Harry and his followers, Voldemort continues to hide. (However, this was to his advantage, as fear of the unknown created a panic through the wizarding world.) He was still hiding, still repressing. Finally, with the Ministry, Daily Prophet, and Hogwarts under his control he broke the society that had supressed him for so long and created a new regime that was forced to accept him.

  But he was still not satisfied; he was not free of his need for more power. It was at this point that Voldemort became more obsessed with the phallus, or rather, the ultimate phallus: the unbeatable Elder Wand. According to Lacan, the symbol phallus is representative of being the ultimate man (Mc Afee 2004). His desire to acquire this wand appears to surpass his desire to acquire Harry, something that may have seemed impossible up until this point. Voldemort was convinced that Harry would eventually come to find him, that his “seduction” of Harry was absolute; so he shifted his focus from Harry to the Elder wand. This change of focus was wasted, however, as through a set of seemingly coincidental circumstances Harry became the master of the Elder Wand.

  This was not the last time Voldemort’s infatuation with the phallus clouded his judgement. The last Horcrux, the last piece of Voldemort’s soul, Dumbledore informed Harry, was in his snake Nagini. Dumbledore believed he was as fond of her as he could be of anything in his life. Nagini, along with the Basilisk that was the beast of Slytherin which attacked Muggle-borns at Tom Riddle, Jr.’s orders, are examples of the importance of representations of the phallic in Voldemort’s life. Nagini was literally sliced in half by another, more powerful phallus: the sword of Gryffindor, a manifestation of Harry’s phallus since Harry was a “true” Gryffindor. After this defeat, Voldemort fell, relatively easily, killed by his own rebounding curse. It could be said that he was the victim of a symbolic castration which left him impotent and easily defeated (Minsky 1996). Lacan would conclude that his obsession with the phallic would imply that Voldemort had an endless longing and yearning for completion, though it has no status in reality (Minsky 1996), further demonstrating how unhinged Voldemort became towards the end of his life.

  Above I have mentioned Voldemort’s love of his snake, and that this can be interpreted as a phallic metaphor. What should be mentioned here is the relation that Voldemort had to the snake, not only in connecting their souls, but also physically. Harry and Dumbledore believed that Voldemort became more snake like physically as he ripped himself apart, becoming less whole, less “normal.” Freud theorizes that boys’ over evaluation of their penis, rooted in a castration fear, is narcissistic (Freud 1920). As Voldemort, who above all other wizards, could talk to and control this fierce representation of the phallic, became less human, he became more snake like, thereby adhering to Freud’s stereotype of homosexuality as narcissistic self love rather than love of another (Dean and Lowe 1999). Voldemort’s love of his snake in particular, and the phallus more generally, manifested physically in his appearance.

  Conclusion: The Flaw in the Wizarding World

  The importance of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and “straightness” in the wizarding world (from wand lore, to the repression of “lesser” beings such as werewolves, house-elves and goblins) cannot be denied. Stockton’s notion that a “queer” child is received by society as an “evil” child is evocative of how Tom Riddle, Jr./Lord Voldemort was perceived. Many in the wizarding world believe the most interesting relationship during the Second Wizarding War was either the “hatred” between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter, or the “love” that Albus Dumbledore had for Harry. I argue a different opinion. The relationship between Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle, Jr., the neglect Riddle experienced at the hands of a wary and suspicious teacher, ensured the completion of Riddle’s repression of his queerness, and led to manifestation of the evil Lord Voldemort.

  Dumbledore was championed by the wizarding world as being “the only one he ever feared,” the only wizard that Lord Voldemort was afraid to face. I believe it to be more than that. Dumbledore failed Riddle. He never showed any of the support and tutoring that he generously bestowed in later years on Harry Potter. Much of what Dumbledore did for Potter, I believe, was overcompensation for his guilt feelings for failing to mentor young Tom Riddle, Jr. In many ways, Dumbledore helped to create Lord Voldemort, and his guilt about this may have been why he raised Harry to defeat him.

  References

  Dean, Tim 1999. “Homosexuality and the Problem with Otherness.” Pp. 120-146 in Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis. Edited by T. Dean and C. Lowe. Chicago, IL: Blackhall.

  Freud, Sigmund. 1920. “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Female Homosexuality” Pp. 145-175 in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 18). Edited by J. Strachey. London: Vintage.

  Giffney, Noreen. 2009. “The New Queer Cartoon.” Pp. 365-378 in The Ashgate Research Companion to Queer Theory. Edited by N. Giffney and M. O’Rourke. London: Ashgate.

  Granger, John. 2008. The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains Harry’s Final Adventure. Allentown, PA: Zossima Press.

  Halperin, David. 1995. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford: Oxford Press.

  McAfee, Noëlle. 2004. Julia Kristeva, London: Routledge.

  Minsky, Rosalind. 1996. Psychoanalysis and Gender, London: Routledge.

  O’Brien, Grainne. 2010. “Queering the Half Blood Prince.” Presented at the Age of Sex Event, 6 May 2010. Prato, Italy.

  Piippo, Taija. 2009. “Is Desire Beneficial or Harmful in the Harry Potter Series.” Pp. 65-82 in Critical Perspectives in Harry Potter Edited by E. Heilman. New York: Routledge.

  Stockton, Katheryn Bond. 2009. The Queer Child: Or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century. North Carolina: Duke University Press.

  PART V - BEYOND THE VEIL

  “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all

  if our aims are identical and our hearts are open”

  Fan Fiction as a Forum for the Sociological Imagination of the New Millennium

  Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak

  Introduction

  In one of her numerous public appearances, the 2008 Harvard University Commencement, J.K. Rowling discussed her understanding of the role of imagination in words that could be taken as a quasi definition of social imagination: “I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In it’s arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.”

  Rowling’s comments are indeed redolent of C. Wright Mills’ (1959) account of sociological imagination as
“the capacity to shift from one perspective to another,” a capacity which, Mills stresses, requires both systematic cultivation and “a playfulness of mind” in combining ideas that would not be expected to come together. Most of the young participants of the Harvard ceremony, as well as young fans of Harry Potter series, belong to “digital natives” or millennials, i.e., young people whose adolescence and maturation are taking place at a time when “digital media are part of the taken-for-granted social and cultural fabric of learning, play, and social communication” (Ito et al. 2008: vii) and when people “immersed in new digital tools and networks are engaged in an unprecedented exploration of language, games, social interaction, problem solving, and self-directed activity that leads to diverse forms of learning” (vii). These diverse forms of learning and communication are in turn reflected in “how individuals express independence and creativity, and in their ability to learn, exercise judgments, and think systematically” (vii). Such an “alchemy between youth and digital media” is revolutionary as it suspends adult normativity, opening up a space for youth activism within the social group which has always been systematically controlled in relation to its access to information, self-expression, and means of social communication. To some extent, the subversiveness of the current empowerment of young people is attributable to their creative interactions with popular culture, which in turn often occur within the supra-national communal spaces of fandom. As Henry Jenkins (2006: 288-289) succinctly puts it, “[y]oung people are finding their voice through their [creative] play with popular culture and then deploying it through their participation in public services or various political movements.”[xix]

  Writing fan fiction, and the concomitant participation in fandom communities, may also be one of the activities providing young people opportunities to create and test new social visions. More specifically, it can be regarded as a connecting stage in the informal and playful cultivation of social imagination skills, which later may result in young people’s civic engagement. Some of such visions may become widely shared as texts circulate within a fan community and become an agenda in youth activist movements. Fan fiction related to Harry Potter books is a particularly graphic example of this process, as proved by Heather Lawver’s projects of setting up an imaginary Hogwarts online and running its own Web-based newspaper, the Daily Prophet; by massive international protests against the efforts of Warner Brothers to curtail Harry Potter fandom; and by the formation and campaigns of Harry Potter Alliance. This chapter discusses the potential of fan fiction to encourage the development of youth social imagination on the examples of young people’s texts redefining oppressive aspects of the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, which are often regarded by critics as prime examples of conservatism and oppression in Potterverse.

  The Phenomenon of Fan Fiction:

  The Intersection of Popular Culture, Convergence Culture,

  and Participatory Culture

  Fan fiction (“fanfic” or “fic” for short) are narratives deploying characters and settings from literature and other media, created and published by fan readers of given pre-existing texts. Contrary to traditional literature, fan fiction is distributed informally, usually on-line, and not for profit.[xx] As Catherine Tosenberg (2008: 185) points out, “[f]an writers are often characterized as refusing merely to consume media, but rather to engage actively with texts.” This is so as fan fiction often involves aesthetic and thematic experimentation, pushing original texts in new directions, thereby ensuring their ongoing circulation and semantic transformation. These new developments may concern not only changes in plots or configurations of characters, but also, and particularly importantly, the emergence of reformative viewpoints on politics and society. Moreover, fan texts are often “a work in progress” or “serial” as they result from the author’s on-going revisions in response to collaboration with and comments from other members of a given fannish community (Busse and Hellekson 2006). In this sense, fan fiction may be seen as “philosophically opposed to hierarchy, property, and the dominance of one variant of a series over another variant” (Derecho 2006: 77). Fantasy, “a default cultural vernacular” of books, films and a variety of digital forms, is particularly congenial to such activity (Miéville 2002). As Ethan Gilsdorf (2009: 141) remarks, “[w]ith no elaborate backstory or creation myth, baseball and football don’t have the imaginative narrative possibilities that Harry Potter does…. some universes, like Tolkien’s and Rowling’s, offer entry-level toolboxes to build stuff with.” This possibility to engage in creative activities is particularly appealing, as Gilsdorf notes, to those bored “with knowing their worlds too well,” or one might add, those wishing to change them. Indeed, in the case of young readers it was the Harry Potter series that “has generated an unprecedented number of voluntary literary responses by adolescent readers” (Bond and Michelson 2003: 111).

  The phenomenon of fan fiction in general has been thoroughly studied from literary, psychological, and pedagogical perspectives.[xxi] Nevertheless, to give justice to the potential of fan fiction to shape adolescent social imagination, it is worthwhile discussing it in a broader context of current cultural transformations, as a form of young people’s participation in the public sphere through unmediated “experience of online publishing, discourse, debate, cocreation of culture, and collective action” (Rheingold 2008: 102). In particular, writing fan fiction can be regarded as a “communal online sandpit” (Pugh 2005) on the informal “civic playground” (Van Someren 2009) of popular culture, in which, contrary to common stereotypes, fans are not passive consumers “merely responding to a media or celebrity system” (Urbanski 2010: 16). Instead, as Henry Jenkins comments, fans identify with texts “as fans and as citizens simultaneously” and thus “more readily blur the boundaries between fiction and fact and entertainment and politics.” This in turn may actually facilitate, to use Jenkins’s phrase, the transformation of “personal reaction into social interaction” (qtd. in Urbanski 2010: 16), as well as into specific solutions to civic issues. Moreover, as fans focus their critical activities on one cultural product, they tolerate disagreements and alternative views, which in turn, Jenkins (2011) argues, prevents “social fragmentation and isolation some contemporary critics have lamented.”

  It is also to be noted that the creation and dissemination of fan fiction occur within the culture of convergence, that is, the environment generating new platforms within which more and more people are able to participate and collaborate, not through formal political and social institutions, but through communal media and social software enabling unprecedented volumes of production and scopes of dissemination. As W. Lance Bennet (2008: 1-2) notes, these developments have been accompanied by “a notable turning away from public life into online friendship networks, gaming and entertainment environments, and consumer pursuits. Where political activity occurs, it is often related to lifestyle concerns that seem outside the realm of government.” In this context, fan fiction can be an example of grass root activity that may effectively prompt more formation and exchange of diverse social visions than traditional political debates in dominant media.

  Finally, fan fiction is an element of participatory culture, a phenomenon closely related to convergence culture and enabled by the growing dominance of interactive media, “peer-to-peer forms of communication, and many-to-many forms of distribution” (Ito et al. 2008: viii). It is also marked by “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement,” “strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others,” “some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices,” the conviction of all members that their contributions matter, and the sense of “some degree of social connection with one another” (Van Someren 2009). This sense of connectivity is particularly significant in the case of youth activism, for, as danah boyd argues, “[i]n order to engage in political life, people have to have access to public life at first . . . Politics starts first with the school
, with your friends . . . then they grow to being about civics . . . . You need to start with the dramas that make sense to you” (qtd. in Rheingold 2008: 102-103). In this context writing fan fiction entails both involvement in new modes of production and participation in new social structures characterized by profound co-dependency and peer support.

  Critics on the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts

  Critics analyzing the social order and politics of J.K. Rowling’s books have repeatedly accused her of ambiguity and inconsistency in presenting the social and political structure of Potterverse. Suffice it to mention Farah Mendlesohn’s 2002 critique of “the consolatory rhetoric” of Harry Potter series, stemming from the immutable status quo based on heredity and patronage in the guise of friendship as prerequisites for peace and social justice, which turn results in a “muddled morality that cheats the reader.” As Mendlesohn argues with reference to such motifs as Hermione’s isolation due to her intellectual aspirations, Harry’s dependence on protective adults, or the prejudice against Muggles that marks both Voldemort’s followers and his opponents, the series only superficially promotes tolerance, social mobility, and equality, whereas in fact it is heredity and elitism that matter as factors guaranteeing social justice and peace. In a more recent critique of social and political structures in the wizarding world, Daragh Downes (2010) stresses the dissolution of the utopian potential for transformation of Hogwarts and the wizarding community in general that did emerge during the struggle against Voldemort only to be forfeited by the return to the old world order and its hierarchies.[xxii] In this sense Hogwarts may be seen as “the stagnant little world” in which any destabilization of hierarchies and norms is temporary or as an institution controlling the pupils’ minds and bodies (Chappell 2008). Downes also criticizes Rowling for failing to develop the possibility of a “friendly cooperation” between magicals and Muggles, signaled by the Potterwatch broadcast mentioning how wizards and witches risk their lives to protect Muggle friends and neighbors.