Saturday, January 08, 2022

JK Rowling's School Stories

Fantasy was already established as a genre by the time the Harry Potter books came out, and Rowling did not have to create a market for her type of work.  She had to compete with others writing in that genre, which is a different task. The conventions of use of magic even by children, of schools for wizards, and of inherited magical ability were already in place, with little need for explanation, simply elaboration.

Yet she also used the ready-made conventions of another genre, the English School Story. These revolved around boarding schools (single-sex originally), with friendships, mischief, nighttime explorations, and mysterious secrets figuring prominently. Stories about groups of American children up through adolescence tended to place them as moving freely about towns or villages instead. Summer camp stories were usually the closest we got to that here, especially as those tended to be single sex, or at least strongly separated even if under the same banner.

I read only one of the HP books.  I liked it well enough, but the magic was too ubiquitous for me.  In Tolkien and Lewis various magics are less common and less distributed. In LOTR especially much that is called "magic" is actually something natural about a group that is not shared with other creatures and not easily explained, such as better vision in the dark, longer life, or silent movement. For the learned or developed magic, many who are able are reluctant to use it, notably Gandalf. For human beings to use it usually goes sour. Too much magic seems a bit gimcrack to me, though I get that this built up gradually in the genre long before Rowling came along, so that she was not an especial outlier.  It may be why I tired of the genre as it continued, with Xanth being the final straw.

Still, even from the one volume I did read, once I heard the explanation that it was also a school story I was able to fit that back on easily. It is another layer of enjoyment for those who already liked them.

4 comments:

Grim said...

In LOTR especially much that is called "magic" is actually something natural about a group that is not shared with other creatures and not easily explained, such as better vision in the dark, longer life, or silent movement. For the learned or developed magic, many who are able are reluctant to use it, notably Gandalf. For human beings to use it usually goes sour.

This is the point at which I reveal that I once studied Tolkien's work with great care.

It's not actually clear how much Gandalf's magic differs from your first category. He and the other wizards, the Istari, are not human but Maiar -- as you know, something like a kind of lower order of angels. Much of their 'magic' may simply be the exercise of their higher powers. They are learned ('Istari' means 'the Wise'), and they do seem to have specializations. But Gandalf's specialization of fire magic may derive from his possession of the Elvish ring of fire, Narya. The others' studies may have extended their natural capacities the way that any sort of practice -- say studying music -- increases what was already there naturally. It can look like magic to those who have not practiced, but it is something they could probably do also if they devoted themselves.

Against this is the fact that Gandalf strips Saruman of much of his magical power by breaking the latter's staff. Many read that as suggesting that the wizardly magic was 'in' the staff somehow. Yet Gandalf at this point is Gandalf the White, who has recently returned to the Valar -- the higher order of angels, as it were -- and been granted new authority. He simply informs Saruman that 'Your staff is broken,' and it suddenly is. This may not be much about the staff, and more a kind of delivery of higher judgment that causes a fall -- just as Lucifer fell when confronted by Michael, whose authority was from God. Saruman's staff is then just a badge of authority, and that authority has been revoked; the subsequent fall alters his nature, and thus his power.

Now the rings impart magical abilities that cross species, as with Gandalf being able to use Narya; and so do the Palantir. But the clearest example of a real magic that one could learn and employ regardless of species is in the Hobbit: it is the smoke ring magic. The dwarves had learned to make rings that would go where they told them, but Gandalf could do the same thing only better. Even here, though, it is possible to read this as a difference of natures; dwarves had some natural access to the ability to work wonders with smoke and fire, perhaps as with metal; but the wizard had a greater natural ability (perhaps one enhanced by the ring, although Tolkien had not I believe thought of the lesser rings at this point). The Hobbit himself has learned to make smoke rings that are pretty, which I cannot do but could presumably learn to do. So it might be a range of skill that crosses into what seems magical at some point; or it may be something that only certain beings can do at certain levels.

james said...

Rowling's books overlap a bit with mysteries too.

For me they were read-once books, and the last got a bit tedious--but I was curious and also I wanted to keep up with the kids' reading. The "magic" wasn't always logical--why do X if you can do Y more easily and avoid the risks? And shouldn't Z be possible in that paradigm? It's a different type of magic than Tolkien's or a warlock's or what have you--that didn't bother me. In fact, I started a story with a setting in which about 6 different classes of magic competed--stalled, of course.

Christopher B said...

The thing that struck me as unusual about Harry Potter was the way Rowling made her magic secular. In most stories, magic carries either religious or occult undertones. The scene Grim references is almost an excommunication. Rowling's wizardry is largely devoid of such imagery, even to being ruled by a bureaucratic 'Ministry of Magic' issuing regulations and white papers.

Korora said...

The morally neutral stuff in HP is depicted scientifically. The occultic stuff is pseudoscience at best.