J. K. Rowling’s Books of Virtues: Sunny Stories Brighten Baby’s Bedtime Bigtime

Somebody said that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine." And unlike some of our prescription medicines, a laugh is very unlikely to kill you. So I think it's about time to repeat this humorous take on the very serious subject of childrens' fantasy literature. This original satire of J. K. Rowling's Harrry Potter books first appeared on my blog of December 12, 2007. This satire had been read-tested by one high school senior who loves Harry and has read all the books, some more than once. She liked the satire and didn't realize that I take a dim view of Harry until I told her after she read the satire. This piece is copyrighted so if you download it for your personal use, you may not use it for profit and you may not modify the text in any way. (c) 2007 David Haddon

Hermione Protects Her Muggle Parents
Do any of you uptight, anti-magical parents dare to deprive your young children of their Natural Right to a vicarious enrollment in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by not buying them the Harry Potter books? If so, just consider Hermione Granger’s touching solicitude for the welfare of her parents described in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Deathly Hallows).

At 17 an adult in the wizard world, she wants to join her pals Ron Weasley and Harry in the hazardous quest to destroy the magical objects or horcruxes that are Dark Lord Voldemort’s means to immortality. Deeply concerned that joining Harry and Ron in the battle against Voldemort might endanger her muggle (non-wizard and hence defenseless against magic) parents, Hermione thoughtfully induces in Mom and Pop Granger the magical equivalent of Alzheimers, then puts entirely new identities into their empty minds, and finally sends them off good as new to England’s old penal colony of Australia. With a daughter like that, you’d surely never need to worry about winding up in a nursing home prematurely!

Euthanasia Anyone?
Or about staying in one indefinitely! For incredible as it may seem, Mistress of Ceremonies Rowling obliges her world-weary senior readers by inserting the classic arguments for euthanasia into the closing pages of Deathly Hallows (pp 682-83). There Albus Dumbledore (the greatest of the good wizards) convinces Snape (the bravest of the good wizards according to Harry) to kill him by asking him “to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation. . . . because death is coming for me” with great certainty. Here and elsewhere Rowling marshals about half a dozen other arguments to justify this murder-suicide pact, but its execution certainly secures Rowling’s claim to having boldly gone where no man has gone before in a popular children’s fantasy, certainly not the likes of J. R. R. Tolkein or C. S. Lewis (her fantasy’s purported resemblance to theirs having been just a teeny bit exaggerated).

Rowling Lights Up Youngsters’ Lives
But the really great thing about Rowling’s Harry Potter books is their down-home cheeriness. As Hilda Ravensfoot described the series, “These books of virtues combine the atmosphere of the spellbook with the effulgence of a sunrise. They are a veritable festival of lights, growing in brilliance with each new volume” (Literate Witch Online, September 31, 2005). Since the ever growing cheerfulness of Rowling’s books is the only point on which all the reviewers and critics agree, it is surely the real reason why her series is so popular.

Kids just love to see Harry bubbling over with high spirits all the time—whenever he’s not being ostracized by the other students, desperately lying to Professor Severus Snape to keep from being kicked out of school for his rule breaking, or badly bummed out about his dark fate. And Hermione’s always so sweet—except when Rita Skeeter writes a new column about her and Harry, Ron puts his foot in it (which is pretty often) or Harry tries to patch things up between them.

Then there’s all those beautiful silver and white unicorns in the Enchanted Forest—dead —because one of the dark wizards liked to slurp up their blood every night as a health drink smoothie. But no one ever messes with those sweet, cuddly thestrals, the fanged and carnivorous, carrion eating, black skeletal horses with blank white eyes and batwings that only someone who has witnessed a death can even see.

Given the sky high rates of depression and suicide among American teenagers, a little inspiration and uplift like this surely can’t hurt. And isn’t that just what Rowling said she was going to do, show young people real goodness, how to live, love, laugh and be happy, all that joie de vivre. I mean who wants to read a dark fantasy about the same kind of thing you see every night on the evening news, especially since 9/11?

Speaking of joie de vivre, surely that’s what those black-hooded, light extinguishing dementors who clamp their jaws on your mouth— and suck out your soul—are all about. Just thinking about them’ll put the joy way down in your soul so deep you can hardly stand it. Just the ticket for the ’tweens!

And how about those happy campers called the Inferi: Corpses “that have been bewitched to do a dark wizard’s bidding.” Harry first gets to meet one when a slimy white hand comes out of the dark, icy water to grasp his wrist. Then he sees “an army of the dead rising from the black water.” A small group of them grab him from behind with their “thin, fleshless arms cold as death” to carry him into the water to share their fate . . .

To top things off, there’s good old Nagini, Voldemort’s big, black pet snake and alter ego. In the last book, she finally kills Severus Snape but first gets to eat poor Professor of Muggles Studies Charity Burbage for “dinner.” Charity’s magically suspended and still living body revolving over the Death-Eaters’ conference table is the image that dominates the first chapter of this book and sets just the right atmosphere for Rowling’s last wild romp with our kids.

Rowling Reels to a Rollicking, Shakespeherean Rhythm of Rigor Mortis
Medieval painter-moralist Hans Holbein’s Danse Macabre has absolutely nothing on Rowling’s, oh, so appropriately named Deathly Hallows! Wikipedia’s death count for the book includes 19 identified characters (excluding Harry’s owl Hedwig) plus about 50 unnamed witches and wizards, mostly Voldemort followers and loyal Hogwarts students killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. Thus, in Rowling’s last fantastic, fatal fantasia with Harry, she forges fatalities fit for a favorable face-off with Shakespeare’s fiercest feuds. “O O O O that Shakespeherean rag!”

Rowling also reveals that stunning Snape-Dumbledore murder-suicide pact previously concealed but already executed in the previous book. Only the “good” wizards make such death pacts in Harry Potter so don’t blame poor old Voldemort who, all on his own, had to suffer seven deaths not even counted as such by Wikipedia, one for each of his soul fragments. With a little help from Harry, Voldemort did finally kill himself, but—unlike the good wizards—he didn’t really mean to do it.

Well, you get the idea: “Lullaby and good night, And may baby sleep tight . . .