deathtocapslock | Harry Potter as a school story

I'm writing this mainly, because I'm procrastinating from studying. It's pretty clear that Harry Potter is based partially on the school story genre, so I want to talk about how the genre influenced Harry Potter and how Rowling sucks at writing school stories in general and at blending epic fantasy and school story in particular. I'll be using examples from other books, but I'll try to explain them.

I'll begin with a pet peeve, because this isn't something I can't hold against Rowling. Boarding school stories should be set in a single-gender school. Yes, I get that Rowling is trying to be progressive and all that and of course, in Wizarding Britain, there is only one band, one reputable newspaper, one wandmaker etc., so it makes sense that there is only one school, but I just hate that idea. It did not even stop the gay subtext.

Now then, I should get to the real complaints about Rowling's treatment of the genre. First of all, other schools do exist. It goes pretty much without saying, that fictional schools do not exist in a vacuum, but there are at least dozens of other similar school in the country. Those schools are the rivals to the protagonist's school and so the protagonist's school can be a mostly harmonious whole. For example, sport teams exist mostly to compete with other schools. Since Hogwarts is the only school existing in Wizarding Britain, this rivalry is transferred to inter-house rivalry and Hogwarts effectively becomes four schools in one building. (Or two, because in the end, the division is between Good and Slytherin.) The complete non-existence of any other educational opportunity for wizard children is just stupid. Why wouldn't Lucius Malfoy or some other pureblood wizard create his own school, for purebloods only and leave Hogwarts for the plebes?

Second point is Romance is never important. Sure, there are romances set in schools, like Vilém Neubauer's Sextánka, that abomination of Czech literature, but those are primarily romances, not school stories. Classic school stories generally stay away from romance and puberty, even though characters are fifteen or sixteen. I understand that Rowling tried to write modern stories, but since she also wanted to give her characters proper happily ever after, which for her includes marriage and family, everyone had to marry their girlfriend/boyfriend from school. They were also allowed to date someone else that their future wife/husband, but only to simulate that everyone's first relationship is doomed. (I actually think that's the reason Draco didn't marry Pansy and Percy Penelope. I get that Rowling said Pansy is based on someone she didn't like in school, but I try not to drag author's life into attempts to analyse a work, no matter how tempting or accurate it may be.)

Third point: School is the absolute moral authority. This is the point from which most of the inherent iffyness of the school story genre stems, because before the World War One, it had a lot of moral messages supporting classism and British imperialism. Even otherwise subversive examples of the genre, like Stalky and Co. were like that (though that may be, because Stalky was written by Rudyard Kipling.) It also means that whoever questions the school is either evil or spoiled and has to be silenced or assimilated. However, Rowling took this point pretty much completely and Hogwarts=Dumbledore, is the absolute moral authority. Nobody can really imagine Hogwarts without Dumbledore and whenever he is absent as a Headmaster, all rules go away.

Fourth point: The school antagonist. In Harry Potter, this position is filled by Draco and Rowling really messed up here. First, Draco at first actually comes off as not that bad, only spoiled, but Rowling is determined to paint him as evil. Second, the antagonist is either a bully/rival or ineffectual. However, Draco is all over the place. We're told he bought his way onto the Quidditch team, but he is surprisingly competent. He is supposed to Harry's rival, but Harry always beats him. He is supposed to be a bully, but onscreen the protagonists are just as bad. In summary, he is built up to be an effective antagonist, but the text constantly shows otherwise.

Five: The pranks. The various pranks done by students are a staple of the genre and generally, there is a trickster character present in school stories. In Harry Potter, that role is fulfilled by the Weasley twins, but Rowling completely forgot to scale up her world. The Twins do not come across as amusing, because they have magic and real means to hurt someone. It is one thing to hide a dead cat under the floorboards to stink up a dormitory and it is completely different thing to create a candy that can suffocate someone.

Six: The lenght of action. In school stories, the plot rarely takes place over the course of an entire school year, but rather over one term, or holidays. This holds true even for stand alone books, like most of Angela Brazil's books. Rowling stretched one book over an entire year and it created lots of issues, the most glaring of them being that important events are only allowed to happen at the end of a school year and most of the events before seem like filler. It also makes it seem like the characters are sitting around doing nothing, while they should be trying to stop Voldemort, like in book seven. Now, both for the school story and stories in general, the idea is that climax of the story comes at the end, but since Harry Potter, like most school stories has only one real objective to achieve in a single book, one year is just too long a time to achieve that. Again, this is the problem of Rowling scaling things up badly. Goblet of Fire probably does best in this regard, since there are well-defined important points during the story, that help the pacing a little.

Seven: Sports. Sports generally play a big role in school stories and protagonists winning matches in improbable means have become a cliché. A perfect example would be the, I think, fifth book in Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton, where the main character's little sister breaks her during a match, does not notice it and in the end, wins the match for her school. So, Harry's exploits on the Quidditch field are perfectly reasonable in the context. However, since in the end, the books are not about school life, but fighting an evil overlord, the Quidditch becomes more and more irrelevant as time progresses. Like with so many other things, Rowling took a staple of the school story genre, dressed it up a little and completely disregarded how it would fit into the greater story.

Eight: Departure. There are two types of school stories, those about boarding schools and those about day schools. In the first type, the departure for the school is an important plot point, right at the beginning. Generally, the characters come through a significant change in fortune, which either makes them switch schools or their standing in a school society changes. In a series of books, new characters are usually introduced, so they can provide plot for the book and exposition about the school both for the new students and new readers. Since Harry Potter has an overarching plot and assumes that readers have read the previous books, the series does not need to introduce new characters in Harry's year, to act as supplementary protagonists (aside from the obvious demographical problems, since Wizarding Britain is so sparsely populated). However, Rowling again makes a mistake in working with the school story genre, because she takes too much time getting to the school, where the action is supposed to happen. It takes about quarter of each book (a third in case of Philosopher's Stone, but that's the first book that's supposed to establish the world, so I can cut it some slack) to get to Hogwarts. That's just too much.

Nine: Authority. I said before that the school is the absolute moral authority, but this is more about rules and stuff like that and again, Rowling makes a mess of it, by forgetting to change the scale of things. None of the characters in school stories follow rules perfectly and if they do, we're supposed to see them as bores, like Percy. However, there are either no or small stakes involved there. It is also generally assumed that the rules exist for good reasons and that they're needed for school to be orderly. In Harry Potter, it is a mess. Rules don't apply to the protagonist, who can ignore them with impunity, but when the antagonists break them, they are vilified. Normally, there would be distinction in that the antagonists are breaking the rules for malicious ends, while the protagonists do so for innocent ends, but again, this distinction is blurred far too often. The "gallant" torture is just the most extreme example.

Tenth: Peer Authority. Prefects are supposed to have authority in school stories and it is wrong of them to abuse it. So far, so good, but Harry Potter does not work that way. Ron becoming prefect may have seemed like a genuine surprise, since the protagonist is supposed to get that position, but since being a prefect was up to that point portraited completely negatively, it was actually an expected outcome. Position of a prefect is used more or less exclusively to highlight character flaws in Harry Potter. Percy is obsessed with rules, both Ron and Draco abuse their power and Hermione is bossy. The only really "good" prefect we see is Cedric Diggory, who is made to be an unbeatable rival for Cho's affections and therefore too good to live. There are examples of prefects being bad in school stories, in Stalky and Co., they are an unpleasant bunch, preoccupied with their own dignity and power, rather like Percy, but since Stalky is in general a subversion of the genre, it can't be counted as a proper example.

Eleven: Protagonist. The protagonist of a school story is supposed to be special in some way. There's a reasons there are Angela Brazil's books named "The Youngest Girl in the Fifth" and "The Nicest Girl in the School". However, in Harry's case, it is taken too far. He is the best Quidditch player, a celebrity, a genius at Defence Against Dark Arts and when the time strikes, an idol of all girls at the school. The only honour he does not get is that of being a prefect and I already talked about that. Others just aren't allowed to have their moments of public glory.

Twelve: Wish Fulfillment. Those school stories that are not morality tales, are wish fulfillment, if they are not both. The schools in general are already idealised and there's the added factor of the school in the story being special and best. That applies double when applied to Hogwarts, because which school can be better than a magic school? It is also the reason why Gryffindor wins the House Cup every year, even though it ultimately means nothing. It is because the protagonist's school must always win and as I said before, Hogwarts is effectively four schools in one. The Epilogue takes the wish fulfillment even further and more or less makes the series into a story of how Harry got a perfect life.

Thirteen: Headmaster. Headmaster is supposed to be the ultimate moral authority, a godlike figure, strict, but fair and almost omniscient, sacred in every single school story I've ever read. The Headmaster is the school. He is supposed to confer honours at the end of the book. However, since in Harry Potter the Headmaster is Dumbledore, it all turns into a complete clusterfuck. Right from Philosopher's Stone, where he shows his blatant vindictivness towards Slytherin at the end, he becomes more and more despicable character and yet he still remains an unshakable moral authority. Even book seven, where Rowling half-heartedly attempted to question him, did nothing to change how he was viewed in the story. In the school story, the headmaster is supposed to be a background figure and if Dumbledore remained that way, he would perhaps look like a better person.

Fourteen: Plot all over the place. Since I went all over the place in this list, this is a fitting point to end it. In the end, a school story is mostly a loose collection of subplots, that may or may not lead up to something bigger. Again, this is at odds with Harry Potter's overarching plot, where not only is each book supposed to lead up to something, but also to contribute to the overall plot. Despite my complaints against romance in school stories, I think Half-Blood Prince worked out decently in this regard. The romance stuff balanced out the plot stuff and vice versa. And since Harry was stuck in school for the duration of the book, it made sense that he can't constantly worry about Voldemort. And before anybody thinks I'm defending the romance as well written, I am not, I'm just saying that it is well placed in the plot.

This is pretty much all the complaints I have about Harry Potter as school story. They all mostly came from the fact that Rowling was not writing a school story, but took the trappings of one without thinking about it. It might have worked out fine if there weren't so many other things to complain about in Harry Potter, but since all the changes Rowling made to the school story formula turned out so badly, I'm inclined to complain about it, because it messes up one of my favourite genres. At least she left the gay subtext alone, though that might not have been intentional. In the end, Harry Potter taught me, that if I want a story about boarding school with magic, I should probably write it myself, because someone else would probably mess it up.