You’re an Orphan, Harry

“No wonder millions of teenagers forged such a deep and lasting identification with him,” Mark Bauerlein writes of Harry Potter. “He’s a celebrity, and his fame is an aspiration for them. Adolescents crave it. They want to be known. Why else pile up all those selfies and updates and texts for others to see?”

Harry, according to Bauerlein, is a splendid cultural symbol of vanity and easy fame. Harry is what so many schoolchildren aspire to be: Famous and unaccomplished.

No condition meets narcissistic needs better than fame. Harry Potter feeds the desire. Kids want to count, they want to matter, but they know they haven’t the equipment to impress others. In the social spheres they occupy, before worldly accomplishment has happened, the best measure of value is the notice of others. They haven’t done anything to merit celebrity, but if only people would admire, love, envy, and just plain watch and listen simply because of who they are. If only being themselves could earn them attention!

Harry gives them a vicarious version. Remember, he is noteworthy before his exploits begin. Fame happened to him, he didn’t create it. He faced the prime evil and endured. Now, he has grown up as the object of its hate and fear, merely by being who he is. He passes later tests magnificently, but there are times when he fails and displeases others. Tellingly, these disappointments garner equal notice, a sure sign of celebrity (the media loves a fallen idol).

A couple of points in response:

1) Baurlein’s take on Harry’s character is pretty cynical. He admits that Harry dislikes his fame but interprets this as a faux-humility that makes the wizard’s notoriety even more vain. What Bauerlein omits, though, is the reason that Harry dislikes his fame. It’s because Harry wants to be normal (a normal wizard, anyway). He doesn’t want to be a celebrity because he wants to inhabit the same world as his friends.

I think Bauerlein’s mistake here is trying to interpret Harry in light of what he thinks he knows about youth culture, then doubling back and attributing said culture to mythic icons like Harry Potter. “We don’t like an attention-grubbing ego,” Bauerlein says. “If Harry savored his fame, if he pursued it as an end in itself, the identification would break.” Actually I don’t think that’s true at all. Young adult fiction is obese with examples of characters who live self-referential lives of commodified sex and youth. American culture doesn’t seem to have much problem at all with heroes who are quite aware of their own genius or attractiveness. The fact that Harry isn’t like this is a credit to his character, not to his deceptiveness.

A major problem with Bauerlein’s claim is the climactic confrontation between Harry and Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest (note that I am using Rowling’s written version rather than the unfortunately altered one created by the movie’s screenwriters). Once Harry looks into Snape’s memories and realizes the death of Voldemort requires his own, he runs away from his friends and his allies into the forest alone. This can’t be because Harry is just really good at hiding his vanity, since he sincerely believes he is going to die and never see his friends or teachers again. In any case, how Bauerlein misses the obvious Christian imagery in Harry’s death and resurrection is beyond me.

2) I think the real problem here is that Bauerlein misunderstands who Harry is and why his readers identify with him. Harry is, prior to being a wizard, a warrior or the Chosen One, an orphan. That’s his elemental identity. It’s that identity that drives Harry throughout the entire narrative. Where others see Harry’s lightning-shaped scar as a trophy, Harry sees it as a epitaph, a daily reminder that unlike Ron, Hermione, and most of his friends at school, Harry will never ever know his mother and father.

One of the most important moments in the entire series comes in the first book, when Harry encounters the Mirror of Erised. Harry stares at the mirror and sees his two parents with him; delighted, he brings Ron to the mirror to see, but instead of Harry’s mom and dad, Ron sees himself being made captain of the Quidditch team. Dumbledore then reveals what we’ve guessed: The mirror reveals the deepest desire of the heart.

It’s not just Harry’s deepest desire; it’s the deepest longing of millions of children and teens suffering under a culture of broken families. We may lament the vanity of youth culture, but have we asked ourselves whether the affection of peers is merely replacement for the affection of parents?

 They haven’t done anything to merit celebrity, but if only people would admire, love, envy, and just plain watch and listen simply because of who they are. If only being themselves could earn them attention!

You know, there is a place where this is supposed to be true. There is a place where children and teens are supposed to be loved, watched, and listened to despite lack of merit. There is a place where merely being oneself is cause for attention. It’s called the family. When this place is inaccessible–due to death, divorce, or deviancy–the heart of the child is left to wander in the wilderness for whatever affection or belonging can be found. In that wilderness, vanity and peer-approval are often the least of the dangers.

What Harry Potter teaches us is that orphans count, too. Even a forgotten 11 year old boy, left to abusive guardians, can be an instrument of redemption. There is no such thing as the finally fatherless (Malachi 2:10). That’s a lesson worth hearing over and over again.