Harry Potter: What Measure is a House Elf?

For all the fantastic creatures contained in Hagrid’s textbooks, there are actually very few non-human characters in Harry Potter. Humans (wizard or muggle) remain the main heroes and villains of the story, and many monsters that might inhabit other series remain at the periphery. The Inferi seem to stand in for zombies and vampires and other undead—but then we never see much of them. Lupin remains our lovable werewolf—but outside of book three, there isn’t much to be made of this. Mermaids remain at the bottom of the lake; dragons and hippogriffs seem to be constantly getting shipped to other parts of the world in order to avoid liquidation. 

So the most interesting additions to the Potterverse are the House-Elves—distant seconds are the Centaurs and the Goblins. The House-Elves create an ever-progressing revision in the series. In book two, we’re first introduced to Dobby, clever and good-natured, if bumbling; in book five, we’re introduced to Kreacher, a servant as befouled and bigoted as Dobby is sweet-hearted and loyal. They both serve important plot points in book seven where—despite having astounding magic—the Dark Lord seems to ignore them almost entirely.

Harry Potter: Bullies, Bureaucrats, and Lesser Evils

Between Death-Eaters and Dumbledore’s Army, Harry Potter can seem something of a melodrama—the good guys are very good, the bad guys are very evil. The good wizard looks like an idealized combination of our favorite grandfather and Gandalf and SANTA; the evil wizard is an archlich with a noseless face and a sibilant hiss. In this respect, HP runs afoul of a constant temptation of the fantasy genre: in a world where the rules of physics can be bent, and in a world where even reality seems difficult to parse, the lines drawn between good and evil are as obvious as the Berlin Wall. And there’s never a doubt about which side you are on, either.

So it’s important to recognize when Rowling muddies these lines by creating characters who are somewhere in between: neither black nor white but a shade of gray. I’m talking mostly about the Bureaucrats: Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, Dolores Umbridge, and Percy Weasley. In a world of stark morality, these characters tend to insist on stark legality—or stark prudence—or stark status quo.

Harry Potter: What Kind of Terrorists are the Death-Eaters?

 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince begins with Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, visiting the “other” minister—the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In the first chapter of the book, Fudge discusses several acts of terrorism: the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, a mass breakout from Azkaban, and then includes the collapse of a Muggle bridge and a hurricane, all ascribed to the Death Eaters.

Terrorism was, of course, on everyone’s minds in 2005, when Rowling wrote the novel. It seems like a simple, straightforward comparison. But what kind of terrorists are the Death-Eaters?

Historically, Fudge’s meeting with the PM of England is notable: it would have been John Major in 1996—and the terrorists on everyone’s minds in the 90s were the IRA in Northern England. On the other hand, if Rowling was thinking more about the time she was writing in—rather than about—then she’d be thinking about Tony Blair, who was less worried about the IRA (the Belfast Agreement was signed in 1998) and more entangled in the American “War on Terror.”

This Writer: Resolution

In 2010, I decided that I wanted to write (the first draft of) a novel. I’d been in grad school for four years, focusing on classes and teaching freshman composition, and I hadn’t written much fiction since undergrad. Writing a novel seemed daunting.

But writing a novel in a year seemed less daunting: having the full year helped me relax—but also pushed me into complacency. So I subdivided the novel into pieces—too many pieces, it turns out—but a chapter of a novel per month seemed a little less daunting, and a subchapter of a novel per week even less so.

It was kind of like when I was younger and would wander into a cold swimming pool an inch at a time—it’d take me forever to get in, but I'd eventually get in. (Nanowrimo, by contrast, is jumping from the high-dive.)

Different people and projects take different strokes. One friend shoots to write a certain amount of time per day—and I find that this method works better for me when writing academic writing. Many of my friends find that they work better writing for a deadline with an audience—writing workshop, accountability partners, etc. At least one friend says that from now on he’ll write at a dead sprint until the thing is done, which helps maintain the continuity of his voice.

I’m glad to report that I finished the first draft of my novel just two weeks after the end of 2010, sometime in mid-January 2011. But there were snags along the way, which I’ll talk about in future posts. But at least I got my feet wet.

One Last Thing J.K. Rowling Wrote that She Totally Wish She Hadn’t

This week, I've been talking about aspects of the Harry Potter series that I believe J. K. Rowling grew tired of, found problematic after a book or two, or radically changed in tone as the series developed.


3) Sorting Hat — and the Houses in General

The Sorting Hat is a big deal in book one — and then is promptly overlooked for a few books because (hey) the sorting hat is boring if it isn’t sorting your main characters… and we know they all end up in Gryffindor anyway.

I like that Rowling brings the Sorting Hat back later, only to give the hat a new song. It’s a clever aside and something of a lampshade hanging — remember, the author is admitting that even the hat is bored of itself!

But on a larger note, I do wonder if J.K. Rowling regrets making the Hogwarts Houses so impermeable and unbalanced. All the sympathetic characters fall into Gryffindor — and all the evil wizards (who are ugly!) fall into Slytherin.

Another Thing J.K. Rowling Wrote that She Totally Wish She Hadn’t

Harry Potter is most beloved for its richness and depth — it feels like a real world; it's staggering and intimidating and unmasterable in its largeness. That’s part of what makes the series so good.

2) Marauder’s Map, Time-Turner, House-Elf Magic and Other Rule-Breakers

The most difficult part of these depth, however, is what to do with all the loot.

The Marauder’s Map shows people’s names — but no one notices Wormtail or Crouch or VOLDEMORT (the twins have the map in book 1, remember) wandering the steps of Hogwarts. House-Elves seem to be able to apparate in and out and through barriers like it’s nobody’s business.  Paintings and photographs are inhabited, turning every furnished home into a fantastic 1984 Big Brother dystopia.

And there’s a Time-Turner that — oh, god — there’s a time-travel device in this universe.

One Thing J.K. Rowling Wrote that She Totally Wish She Hadn’t

Having written about artistic momentum in a previous post, I'd like to turn this theory towards a book series that I love, a book series I get into arguments about all the time. You see, I get into fights with other Harry Potter fans because some enthusiasts subscribe to a belief that J.K. Rowling knew down to the sentence what she wanted to do with the whole seven-book series.

Over the next few days, I’d like to discuss three aspects of the early books that overrun their boundaries. Three aspects that J.K. Rowling more or less dismisses, overwrites, undercuts, or avoids talking about in the books to come. They’re kernels of ideas that slowly accumulate momentum — and have to be squashed in later novels.

1) Quidditch

This one is practically a gimme. Rowling designed quidditch in the first book — and designed it poorly. Imagine a game of soccer where everyone on the team plays for 1 point at a time, except for one team member who runs around looking for a four-leaf clover. Oh, and the four-leaf clover is worth a million points. That's the Seeker!

Devil's Party or Not

My friends and I get in fights about Milton occasionally. (/nerdalert) There are basically two readings of Milton. William Blake felt that Milton was “of the devil’s party without knowing it” — that in writing Paradise Lost, Milton lost control of one unruly character named Satan. Stanley Fish instead argues that Milton was fully in control of his work and that the seductiveness of Satan is part of the story’s message.


It's really a question of how much power do you attribute to an author and how much to the reader. When I argue with my Milton fan-friends, I find myself pulling away from attributing too much genius even to a genius like Milton; when I argue with my science-oriented friends, I find myself pushing them to think that "yes maybe Moby Dick is a symbol for something other than a whale." Everyone falls somewhere along the spectrum, and everyone falls somewhere different depending on how much they like -- or understand -- the work and the author in question.

Song of Fire and Ice: Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

Sara was laughing about the opening to Game of Thrones.  Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf, calls Jon Snow a bastard no fewer than four or five times in a single conversation.  It’s pretty heavy-handed — it’s like Martin thinks we’ll forget — but it’s also the author tipping his hand a little.  Several of the heroes in the book are “cripples, bastards, and broken things.”  In fact, the majority of my favorite characters (and yours, right?) are “broken” in some way.

Bran Stark loses the use of his legs.  Tyrion is a dwarf, an imp, a half-man.  Jon Snow is a bastard.  Hodor is mentally handicapped.  Sandor “The Hound” Clegane is scarred with burns.  Samwell Tarly is fat, disinherited, and a coward.  And in Storm of Swords, even a villain or two gets taken down a peg along the way to becoming POV characters who are more readily sympathetic. (Spoiler: Jaime Lannister )

When travelling to the Wall, Tyrion says (more or less) to Jon Snow that because of his physical limitations, he’s been forced to consider other modes of strength.  This ultimately becomes the take-away point of Game of Thrones — learning your limits makes you flexible and resourceful, which makes you stronger. As the world changes, those who are used to change will bend and adapt.

This Writer: Backstory

By the time I was 21, I’d written out the first drafts of three novels.

In high school, I wrote two novels that could best be described as “melodramatic theological soft sci-fi.” The first included paranormal beings testing humanity in vaguely small sample sizes with magical powers. The second centered on a large, improbable dystopian society based on psychological principles that you might read about on Wikipedia. The books were humorless, incredibly dark, and interminable.

I wrote a bildungsroman in college that was a thinly-disguised idealization of my high school friends—and of me! (but thank god I wasn’t the main character) It included badly-written poetry and an awkward sex scene (that was meant to be awkward?) and a sarcastic but also rather serious narratorial voice.

But after I’d finished each and every one of these novels, I didn’t have the patience to revise, the insight to evaluate, the open-mindedness to accept critique, or the courage to submit. They all became apprenticeship novels.

You never write a book thinking that it’s practice. Whatever work you’re currently writing is desperately serious. I expect that the transition from practice to performance takes most of us by surprise.

Song of Fire and Ice: Beyond the Wall, Across the Sea

George R.R. Martin’s series is set (mostly) on the fictional continent of Westeros—a continent stuck in the medieval period for centuries, modeled most closely on England (The Wall = Hadrian’s Wall, the wildlings = the Scots, Lannisters and Starks = Lancaster and York, etc.).  Nevertheless, the show has a “modern” feel to it — and not just because of all the sex.

In particular, I think it’s laced with a rather modern paranoia — something fueled by the World Wars and especially the Cold War — where enemies become somewhat indeterminate.  Who is your ally?  And who is a mere enemy posing as an ally? 

If a war breaks out, who pays for it and who gets paid?  It’s an idea that’s been around at least as long as Heller’s Catch-22, where a certain commander gets rich selling and reselling supplies to his own forces.  In GoT, it’s characters like Littlefinger and the Boltons who serve as our own  no-bid war contracts and selected presidential cronies.