Harry Potter and the jerkness of writers by Anthony StClair
"I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed the burden upon you before this. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another — the greatest one of all."
— Albus Dumbledore, from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
[caption id="attachment_5113" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, debuts in theaters July 15, 2011. Credit: J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Pictures"]
[/caption]Writers are jerks
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, comes out on the big screen July 15, 2011, and it reminds me of a simple, hard truth about writers: we're jerks.
We make up worlds and characters, then do to them horrible things we could never do in real life. In our craft, we torment with abandon. Why?
So there's a story to follow, that's why.
Would you do this to a child?
In the Harry Potter series, we follow Harry's life from ages 11 to 17. Let's recap things Harry endures as a child and teenager...
- His parents are murdered in front of him as a baby, and he himself is nearly murdered
- The family who takes him in is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive
- The government tries to persecute him, and brings a juvenile to an adult trial on trumped-up charges
- A school official tortures him and fellow schoolmates
- He sees schoolmates and friends murdered in front of him
And this is the short list.
We would never do this to a child... unless they're a character in our books. Then we would, because it's the story that has to be told. That hardship and torment make the story a compelling read (and I should know, I've read the Harry Potter series 4 times).
In the passage opening this post, Albus Dumbledore, wizard of wizards in the Harry Potter world, both apologizes for and explains the knowledge he has kept from Harry and is about to reveal. He acknowledges the burdens and torments Harry has endured his entire life — and he knows they will only get worse.
That's the rub. No conflict, no story. No pain, no story. Harry Potter and His Not-Murdered-by-Voldemort Parents Go for Ice Cream might make a nifty nostalgic greeting card. It doesn't make a 7-book series with movies and merchandising that have become one of the biggest literary powerhouses of all time.
To write true, powerful story, J.K. Rowling was a jerk to her characters. We must be jerks too.
Embrace your inner jerk
Did J.K. Rowling the mother ever have trouble with J.K. Rowling the writer? Did she ever feel parental affection and protectiveness towards her characters? Or was it easy to maintain a separation? Harry Potter, after all, is not a real person, and characters are not truly alive. Just as a sculptor doesn't weep for rock cut with hard, sharp tools, writers also must hone, shape and craft, without tears. We cause agony, but on things that do not exist in the same way in which we exist.
We mold fiction, morality, circumstance, character and conflict into powerful story. We write these torments and losses because it is better to empathize with them in fiction than it is to live them in the real world.
From fictional cruelty we can comprehend the lessons and ethics born of or despite that cruelty. Through Harry's torments, we learn to persevere, to continue despite pain, because that is the only way to protect someone you love. We learn that the struggles between love and power never end, but that we each must choose what matters to us. These are powerful lessons, and J.K. Rowling uses her writer's jerkness to show us what we can learn.
It's hard being a jerk to worlds and characters you care about, but that's what it takes. Ask J.K. Rowling or any other author. To write is to be a jerk to what you create, in the interest of telling the best story you can.
Embrace your inner jerk. It'll take you to the best of your story, and maybe that's not such a jerk thing after all.
A wizard Anthony St. Clair would have been a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. More about the muggle's life of cooking, brewing, traveling and the Pacific Northwest at www.antsaint.com and twitter.com/antsaint.
