The Boy Who Lived: Regarding the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone

Hi.

It's been awhile, hasn't it? Thought I'd shake the rust off and revisit the blog a bit. After all, there's a new movie coming out and it's the latest installment of the Harry Potter franchise. Like many people my relative age, that series has meant a lot to me so what I'll try to do here leading up to the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is write up something that focuses on the movies while reflecting on the original source material they're based off of. And it all starts here.

In elementary school, we would have book fairs twice a year, once in the autumn and once in the spring. It always something I greatly looked forward to; my mom would give me a little extra lunch money whenever the book fair was in town and I would use it accordingly. Towards the tail end of elementary school, the first three Harry Potter books were published in the United States and I tore through them like wildfire, this prodigious blend of coming-of-age drama and escapist fantasy.

Harry is one of the ultimate wish fulfillment characters. Everybody wants to feel special, that they belong. For an orphan that grew up in a small space under the staircase of a truly abysmal surrogate family, just to have someone not treating him like an outcast would mean the world for him. What Harry discovers is that he's a living legend in the wizarding world he grew up outside of. He's fucking independently wealthy which nobody really brings up all that much after this book? He's a child prodigy at defending against the dark arts and sports JUST BECAUSE. Harry Potter's introductory adventure is a Cinderella story that doesn't end at the stroke of midnight.

I grant you, Cinderella never took on an undying personification of evil and his murderous minions but that's what makes it exciting. It's no grand coincidence that the rise of Harry Potter runs parallel to the resurgence of Voldemort. There's an intrinsic connection between the two but more on that later.

Interestingly, the first Harry Potter film is arguably the worst. Most of the Harry Potter novels are mysteries at their core; they have that narrative sensibility, that sense of deductive discovery setting the rhythm. What the film adaptation struggles with is that it's focused on making a children's movie that happens to feature these characters, not necessarily focus on the magic (pun intended) within the text. The mystery is perfunctory to the film's story, not it's heart. And it shows.

It doesn't help that most of the younger cast are still coming into their own. We can and will expect great things from them but most of them are not quite there just yet. I don't know what Ian Hart's excuse is as Professor Quirrell though. Maybe not the performance he wants to list on the CV.

I'm sure not-Grant Morrison's acting is fine outside of this.

My favorite moment in both the film and novel is the same: The moment that Harry looks into the Mirror or Erised and sees himself with his family. For all the wonder and increased affluence that Harry finds himself in, he will never be reunited with his parents and that is what will maintain that mindset of the boy under the stairs. Superman is the DC Universe's greatest superhero but he will never know Krypton. Luke Skywalker is the greatest Jedi of his generation but will always be haunted by the awareness of his own familial dark potential. Harry's biological family is forever lost...but he's taking steps to build a new one for himself. Just because he's the boy lived doesn't mean he has to live alone.

Welcome to the wider, wilder, weirder world, Mister Potter. This is going to be fun.