Who Fears Death, Harry Potter?

It is true that there are only a limited number of stories available to tell. Dress them up as you might, you are still basically telling the same stories that have been told over and over again in the past.


The story of the outcast who discovers that he/she/it is actually a hero/monarch/superstar in another world is one such archetypal story.


And it has been told and retold many times in western pop culture over the years:

• Peter Pan, where a young boy discovers he is a key figure in Neverland, destined to save the Lost Boys from the evil pirate Hook;
• The Narnia Series, where a group of young kids discovers that they are royalty in the land of Narnia, destined to lead it through a series of challenges;
• Star Wars, with orphan Luke Skywalker discovering that the "Force is strong" within him and that he is destined to battle Darth Vader (his father) and the evil Emperor;
• Harry Potter, with orphan Harry Potter discovering that he is a "wizard, and thumping good one" and that he is destined to battle Voldemort and his evil plans;
• The Hunger Games, with impoverished and practically orphaned (her father is dead, her mother emotionally absent) Katniss Everdeen volunteering to leave her family, fight in the ritual games and finally become the symbol of the revolution against the evil Capitol;
• Twilight, with lonely and depressed Bella Swan discovering that there is something special about her that attracts the interest of two mysterious and supernatural heroes and who finally becomes the key figure in their confrontation with the evil Volturi coven; and
• many more.

The popularity of this story seems, in my opinion at least, to be based on the fact that the main character escapes an unbearable life to discover that he/she is actually very powerful, very famous, very important. It is a wonderful dream for any of us who have ever been sad, or depressed, or unhappy with our lot in life. Maybe, just maybe, we really are special, if not here then in some other world.


The most stunning example that I've encountered recently is Nnedi Okorafor's 2010 novel, Who Fears Death (Daw). A powerful and gripping book, WFD shares a number of significant parallels with Harry Potter, both in its basic plot and in its detail.


Before I go on, however, I should warn you that Okorafor's book is NOT a children's novel. In the first 40 pages, she describes in graphic detail both a very violent sexual assault and a female circumcision. The violence and sexuality throughout the book is definitely for mature readers and the novel is written at a philosophical and emotional level that would be beyond most young people.


The story is told by the main character, Onyesonwu, a mixed-race outcast who is the child of rape. Onye's life in a small village is a miserable one, but for the love of her mother and her adoptive father, as she faces derisions, rejection and violence at almost every turn. As she approaches adulthood, however, she discovers that she possesses magical power that dwarfs even that of the local sorcerer. Further, she finds out that she is "The Chosen One", the mythic figure the arrival of whom has long been foretold and who is destined to end the subjugation and annihilation of the Okeke race.


In order to do so, however, she must face and defeat the most powerful and evil sorcerer in the known world: a man named Daib, who turns out to be her mother's rapist, Onye's own biological father.


It's a beautiful and powerful novel, one that tackles massive social issues in a spine-tinglingly exciting story.


And it also shares a number of points with the Harry Potter novels. A child with a violent beginning, outcast in his/her world, who begins to find strange "magical" things happening to him/her, things that frighten the people around him/her. A child who discovers both her/his power and her/his terrifying destiny, almost at the same time.


"The Chosen One" appellation was the similarity that struck me the most but there are other details that Who Fears Death and Harry Potter share: the often difficult relationship with the teacher figure; the early introduction of a powerful enemy and the suspense of whether or not the main character will be ready when the inevitable confrontation actually occurs; the creation of a group of friends and supporters through one or more dangerous experiences; the challenging journey undertaken by the hero that leads to the confrontation; and much much more.


I haven't finished Okorafor's novel yet but I'm anxious to do so, as much because I want to trace the ongoing parallels with Harry Potter as because the book is, itself, a riveting tale.

new moon takes things too far

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I've had other reading obligations drawing my attention away from Harry and the gang.

The latest novel on my list, however, is the second entry in the twilight series, new moon. I'm not liking it half so much as I did twilight itself and that got me to thinking about why that might be.

I think I've figured it out. And I think it shines some light on a question faced by all writers of these kinds of books, including J.K. Rowling when she sat down to start writing Harry Potter.

The question is this: how closely do I plan to align the invented, magical parts of my novel's world with the "real" parts of that world? If I don't wish to write novels of pure fantasy but to maintain some level of connection between my stories and the real world of the reader, how do I balance the novel's "real" world with its magical counterpart?

It appears to me that writers have to decide either to create some barrier between to the two worlds, which allows the magical world to grow and develop, or to integrate the two worlds together, which requries that the magical aspects remain limited in depth and scope.

J.K Rowling decided to go the former route: using Diagon Alley as the doorway and the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy as the wall, she has created two seperate worlds that exist in parallel, rarely if ever meeting directly. She asks the readers to accept that Harry and Hermione, for example, can be born and raised in the real world, then invited to join the magical world when they reach age 11. In order to enjoy her novels, we must suspend our disbelief and accept that the magical world could possibly co-exist with our own. The limited interaction between the two and the efforts made by the wizards and witches to erase any trace of such interactions make it easier for us to go along with the fiction.

C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, the Peter Pan stories, the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are all examples of authors who took similar approaches. They all involve a magical world that exists in parallel with our own, connected only by a single doorway through which the human characters travel.

Stephenie Meyer's twilight series, on the other hand, takes the other route: instead of creating a completely independent magical world, Meyer asks us to accept that vampies walk among us, that they have their own society, culture and history that exists in our own reality. There is no doorway between the worlds because there is only one world: the world the reader lives in.

In order for this approach to be effective, the writer must be very careful not to ask us to accept too much and I think that's where Meyer goes off the rails in new moon. I was able to accept that vampires exist and that a star-struck romance like that between Edward, the vampire, and Bella, the human, was possible. So I enjoyed twilight. But I'm having a lot more trouble now accepting the expansion of that magical world to include werewolves in new moon, and further that our unfortunate Bella could possibly end up with two perfect, wonderful star struck lovers, one a vampire, the other a werewolf and each the mortal enemy of the other.

Meyer appears to wish to "have her cake and eat it too" in that she wants her readers to accept that her books take place entirely in the real world and yet she wants to be allowed to add layer upon layer to the magical world she develops.

At some point, she has stretched reality so far that it actually breaks. And I think that happens in new moon.

Because she wants to set her stories in the real world, she can only add so many magical elements and expect her reader to accept them.

And,a t this point, I can't.

I would compare the effect to the horror genre. In order to be truly scary, a horror novel or movie must be based in the real world. We are not going to be afraid unless we identify the the character who is in danger or we fear that the scary stuff could happen to us. Either way, the characters and their world must be close enough to us and our world to make the story effective.

When the horror story strays too far from reality, it loses its effect. Sure, there's an entire branch of horror (the British call it "Hammer horror") that prides itself on being so ridiculous as to be funny but the really good horror movies and books are scary because they don't stray too far from reality.

In new moon, Meyer is starting to stray a little too far. And she doesn't have the protection of the seperate-world trope that makes Rowling's books so good.