Okay, So Maybe Harry Potter Teaches The Wrong Values

This is going to be an unpopular point of view, but oh well… For the record, let me just state that while I like Harry Potter, I am not a huge fan, and have only read the first three books, having gotten too lazy (or nauseated by hype) to read the remaining stories.

I am not going to rehash the old “Unsavoury celebration of pagan rituals” argument, because I think it’s silly. Actually what sparked this off was watching the first Harry Potter movie again last night. I doubt I’m spoiling anything for anyone by saying it was something that happened at the end.

Right at the end of the movie, as Dumbledore is tallying points for the various Hogwarts houses to see who wins the house cup that year, he pulls a last minute save. Slytherin is clear to win with over 400 points, while Gryffindor has only 312, putting it dead last. Dumbledore then goes on to award 170 extra points to Harry and friends, thus putting their house in the lead, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, thus beating out their hated rival.

It was the Fiance who was watching this that remaked, “It’s funny how this kind of thing seems really cool when you’re a kid, but when you grow up, you realize how unfair it is.”

Which is, of course, something I hadn’t really considered before.

Now before everyone breaks out the pitchforks and torches, this is not to say I don’t think Harry did a good thing. I think he did some amazing things in the first story, and emotionally, I was rooting for him just as much as anyone. It’s only once I took it out of the context of school and wondered about how I would react if this happened in, oh, say, an office that I started to see the undertones of Nepotism/Favoritism at work.

Basically, Dumbledore was playing favorites. All the teachers were.

On the surface, this can easily be excused by the fact that Harry is, in fact, a brave and good boy who is struggling to do the right thing, and manages just that in spectacular fashion. So it’s not that unreasonable to make a case for recognizing his amazing deeds. I now just wish that they’d done it outside of the established system they had for the House Cup competition. They could have given him an award, given him some special new privilege, given his entire House some gift, if they wanted. Instead, they ended up sending a clear message to all the other Houses; we like this kid, and the rest of you are expendable.

I admit, I am getting needlessly complex. This is, after all, a children’s story, and you need a simpler value system rather than overloading a child with the moral complexities and politicking that pervade the real world of social networks, so bear that in mind. It is easy to not want Slytherin House to win, because Rowling did a fine job of giving some very despicable faces to represent the House. Snapes comes off as a right bastard, and I personally would like to burn Draco Malfoy’s house down because he reminds me of so many arrogant, snooty kids I encountered in school.

But what about all those other Slytherin kids? What about the ones that were quick, intelligent, ambitous and focused, but NOT evil or selfish? Rowling went to great pains to point that none of these Houses were Good or Evil, merely personality traits. So over the course of school year, you had these other perfectly good kids, accomplishing their goals, acheiving their victories, and thinking they had earned a perfectly legitimate win by following the rules, only to have it taken away from them because someone else broke all the rules, giving them the clear messages that either A) What the teachers were teaching them was a huge lie, or B) The teachers taught them these things because they were already on the “loser track” of mediocrity and that the REAL lessons would be reserved for their betters, ie, Gryffindor House and it’s star members.

I guess this just kind of chafes at me somewhat because it reminds me a little of what bugs me about Ayn Rand, and her objectivist philosophy. When I first read it, I was amazed and filled with rage at the ignorant society that would attempt to snuff out the talents of the Chosen Few who were superior to all and didn’t have to play by the same rules. Then I wised up as I saw other people similarly affected by Rand’s writings, and watched them turn into enormous jerks that treated everyone like dirt because they had realized they were one of these Great Ubermenscheans Rand was waiting for, and everyone else was not. The end result being they acted like they were above it all, and treated others like they were not. Ayn Rand posited that there were a select, elite few that pushed the rest of ignorant humanity forward. Unfortunately, most people who read her books will come to the conclusion that she is secretly revealing to them that they are also one of these epic figures, and this gives them license to act like jerks.

In the same way, Dumbledore’s treatment of Harry and friends at the end of the first story is a similar declaration that “All you other children are merely fodder we are using to fuel this boy’s ascent.”

Let me say again, Harry’s character is impeccable. He deserves accolades, he is a brave and generous kid. I just wish he’d gotten his accolades in a way that didn’t make it abundantly clear to the entire student body that they were a secondary, expendable consideration. In the real world workplace, this kind of treatment would wreak havoc on office morale, and unless your star employee really IS one of these epic examples of humanity, he or she won’t be able to save your company when all the other embittered employees walk after getting fed up with being shown day in day out that they are dirt.