Let the Reader Beware
The Rantings and Ramblings of a retired student president of the Carleton College Science Fiction and Fantasy Alliance who is also studying to become a medievalist. Home for this year, but hopefully resuming my M.A. Program in York next year if all goes well.
Martinus (RL: Ross). 23. Male. Massive geek and nerd of many descriptions. Singer (but can't read music). Writer (fanfic). Chronic meta writer. Catelyn Stark/Samwell Tarly hybrid and proud of it. Callsign: Stan.
Resolute and stubborn stan of cerebral protagonists (and antagonists at times), honor-bound soldiers, flawlessly flawed 'righteous' warriors living in fear, walking identity crises (often of the morally-grey variety), children-at-heart, lost souls looking for somewhere to belong, lost souls who keep running, and those characters who take 'working inside the system' as a challenge, not a limitation.
This is not a spoiler-free blog for anything not currently airing.
I love nothing more than when characters reveal themselves while talking about someone else. And there is nothing more innately human than hypocrisy born of fear.
{ wear }
{ GAME OF THRONES }
I’m a bit older than most of the “Harry Potter generation”…
I graduated from college this June, and will be turning the ancient and decrepit age of three and twenty in less than three months. I’m headed off to England to get a Masters in Medieval Studies, to continue a path that will almost certainly lead to a PhD and eventually, God and the universe willing, a teaching post at a college or university.
Harry Potter was not a part of my pre-teen years. A bit bitter about my middle school and disliking by reflex anything that the ‘cool’ kids liked, as well as immersed in an endless series of Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, the beginning of the series passed me by completely. I was thirteen when I was first exposed to the world that Jo Rowling had created, when my parents insisted I join the rest of the family to see the first adaptation of the Harry Potter books. At that point, despite my nearly obsessive love of Star Wars and the obvious fantasy aspects of that universe, Harry Potter meant nothing more to me than another legendary fantasy series that I also missed out on early: The Lord of the Rings. I read the Hobbit as part of a school curriculum, but wasn’t interested enough or appreciative enough to look much further. I’ll always regret that.
So seeing ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ is not, by any realistic standard, the ‘end of my childhood,’ as it seems to be for an awful lot of the people I follow on tumblr, and friends I have in real life. Let it be known that I have no problem with the idea at all, and certainly can understand how people that more properly grew up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione would feel that way. I envy you a bit, really. Just as I envy the number of friends I had at college who had been exposed to the Lord of the Rings earlier in life, before Peter Jackson did his damndest to bring them to life in three of the best movies I have ever seen.
I’m struggling to recall what my exact reactions and feeling were to seeing ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ in that small movie theatre in my hometown ten years ago, but I think I enjoyed the movie well enough, and was captivated enough by the world that I immediately requisitioned the first two books from my younger brothers, who, ironically, were much bigger geeks than I was as a kid.
Harry Potter did serve an important role for me; of that I have no doubt. It was my gateway to fantasy literature, finally dragging me away from my near-religious following of the Star Wars universe (not that I regretted it at the time, but in hindsight, some of those books are bloody awful). It was my introduction to fandom, and eventually, fanfiction. As I read more of the books, and more of fan works, my brain became flooded with new ideas that I wanted to see realized. I was a loner in high school, recovering from some bullying I’d experienced earlier in my life, and jumped on the chance to have something creative to work on. So began my hobby of writing fanfiction, starting with a a violence and angst-filled mess than kind of terrifies me in hindsight and will never see the light of day, and then my Grey Maiden series, a massive AU project in which I attempt to rewrite all seven books, adding in some new characters and elements, inspired by other fan works, other series, and I suppose a bit of my own imagination. I’m still writing it - the pace has rather slowed during college, but I do hope to finish it someday (as well as continuing to revise the earlier parts to better fit the narrative that took a while to come together).
Still, re-reading the Potter books and then putting my own ideas to electronic paper was one of the things that got me through my later high school years. I’d spend hours, practically every free period I had, in the corner of the library, hiding my screen from view, weirdly paranoid about anyone finding out, creating my own take on the Potterverse.
When I got to college, I finally did something I probably should have done many years previously - I realized that I was, in my heart of hearts, a massive geek. Four years later, and I was the outgoing president of my college’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Alliance, addicted to Doctor Who, still writing and reading Potter fanfic, immersed in the very different fantasy world of George RR Martin, and a whole lot more than just a big Star Wars fan. Most importantly, I met a collection of amazing and colorful people that shared my passion for science fiction, and pushed me eventually into mainstream fantasy, sending me back to read Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, the Bartimaeus trilogy, and other great fantasy young adult lit I had missed out on. Better late than never, I suppose.
As for Potter, I consumed each new book as it came out, even working the HBP release party at Barnes & Noble wearing a Dementor costume (it was disappointingly ineffective for frightening small children). HBP was the book I probably enjoyed the least, mostly because I didn’t care all that much about Draco and Snape (that’s changed) or the idea of horcruxes (that really hasn’t). I was a bit lukewarm about the movies, mostly, to the point where I didn’t see the Half-Blood Prince movie until almost a year after it had come out. I’ll still be bugged by the flying shadow Death Eaters, Dan Radcliffe’s brown hair and blue eyes, and the fact that the trio are almost never wearing wizarding robes every time I see them again, but there is a lot of good that’s come out of that film franchise.
All of that said, I was usually emotional (for me) watching the last Potter movie. It did feel like something was ending. I hadn’t felt this way when I finished reading HP7, not really. There was that disappointment that there’s nothing more to read, and satisfaction in seeing it through to the end when I closed the book, placed it on the floor, and turned out the lights at 3:30 AM two days after it was released, but not the impact I might have expected.
I’m a bit weird, honestly. I’m quite emotional and generally in touch with my feelings for a guy of my age. Nearly all of my close friends are female. And, except on the rarest and most horrific of occasions, I don’t cry. It’s just something physical, not a lack of feeling or a desire to hold back tears. Hell, there are a lot of times I wish I could cry, just to vent through something besides yelling.
I didn’t cry when Harry died. I didn’t cry when George, Remus and Tonks were revealed. I didn’t cry when Dobby died. And I didn’t cry when the credits rolled at the end of the movie. I just sat there, wearing my SFA shirt and Ravenclaw scarf, and told my parents not to wait up for me as I stared at the screen. A lot of emotions went through me. A lot have been going through me lately, as it has been an extremely difficult year with a devastating tragedy that has left my family broken.
…
I had hoped this would lead somewhere, that by writing this I might have some revelation as to what I was feeling as I watched the credits roll past. That hasn’t really happened. All I can say is that today was very important, even if I can’t put the why into words. My childhood didn’t end today - I’m not sure if it has ended, strictly speaking. Or if it did end and I just didn’t notice. Maybe it will happen when I board a plane for England in October, and get ready for a year away from my parents, my old friends, and everything I’ve really ever known, when I begin my graduate education that ought to be the beginning of what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. We’ll see.
So farewell, Harry. And thank you, Jo, for an experience that has been, in the end, magical.
