Despite my best intentions, I have occasional brushes with popular culture. A few years ago, for example, I fell prey to the addictive tales of J. K. Rowling.
Rowling's story-telling is outstanding, but the conclusion of Rowling's complex tale in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, released about a year ago, was highly unsatisfactory. Now, after spending some time with Shakespearean tragedy, I'm in a position to explain why.
J. K. Rowling simply failed to respect the rules of tragedy. For six heart-racing volumes, the Harry Potter saga was shaping up as one of the grand tragedies in our literature. But in the end, Rowling lacked the intestinal fortitude needed to end her tale properly.
The rules of tragedy have been well understood since Aristotle laid them down 2,000 years ago, and I summarize them here, not intending to patronize any readers, but merely to refresh them on what they learned while studying Julius Caesar in ninth grade. A tragedy must, first, be a serious story about a conflict between a hero and a great malign force. In a tragedy, moreover, the hero must undergo a change of fortune, preferably because of his own mistake or flaw, leading to a disastrous, heart-rending denouement.
Consider Lear, that warrior king and grand personality, whose fatal mistake is to misjudge the characters of his daughters and to surrender his kingdom prematurely. With his world aligned against him, he loses everything. King Lear ends, oh so satisfyingly, with a stage strewn with corpses. Kent and Edgar, who survive, rule in Lear's place.
Consider Othello, that great general and a commanding figure, whose fatal weakness is to trust the sociopathic Iago and to allow him to plant fatal seeds of jealousy in his bosom. Weakened, Othello loses everything, and the play ends (once again, most gratifyingly) with blood and bodies everywhere. Gratiano, a minor character, succeeds to Othello's place.
Now consider Harry Potter, a hero among heroes, a wizard prodigy, a born leader and Quidditch captain, whose destiny is to battle the world's greatest wizard. Like Lear, Othello, and Hamlet, Harry has a fatal weakness: a powerful connection with Voldemort tempts him to the dark side. Harry flirts too closely with evil and, in a moment of ambition and weakness, betrays his friends. Too late, he repents, and the story ends with bodies (including his own) and rods broken and scattered the great hall of Hogwarts. The wizard world begins again, a minor character, Neville Longbottom, you can place in the wizarding world that Harry could take place.
Only, of course, that's not how JK Rowling wrote. Why have lost nerve plotting and writing the final volume, Harry never makes a fatal mistake, he never loses his way, and go safely and gently from the rubble of the last battle.
And to do thisHermione and Ron. And so does practically everyone else. In fact, after all the hullabaloo and speculation by Potter fans over what would transpire, who among the Order of the Phoenix actually dies? An elf. The werewolf. The duplicitous Severus Snape. One of the Weasley twins (the twins do not have distinct personalities). Tonks (you probably don't remember who she was, either).
In fact, at no point in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - for that matter, at no The point of the series are: - asked the players to deal emotionally with the death of a character who truly come to care about other than Dumbledore, and his age and illness take the sting of his loss. JK Rowling shrank in the final task was to break our hearts.
It was also reduced by the provision of their enemies. had to live What possible reason could Rowling for having Percy Weasley? If a character has lost his way in a tragedy and more of the enemy, he mustPerish too late, when he saw the light. JRR Tolkien understood, therefore, the great warrior Boromir was killed at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring.
And why, oh why, is to survive Draco Malfoy? In a well-staged final battle, 'Harry's arch-enemy and would regret a moment of high drama, it would strike a critical blow to Harry' s. page Then, after having served his wickness earlier, and in a state of grace, Draco would die fighting. At leastDraco would die at the hands of the Dark Lord in order to punish his parents for their wickedness. But nothing happens. The reader will not even say what happened after the last Harry meets Draco him.
Do not let it wrong: JK Rowling wanted to write a tragedy. He also made a written Deathly form of a quotation from the playwright Aeschylus', the father of Greek tragedy († 455 BC). But when it came to cases, did not haveStomach for the tragic conclusion that its history deserves.
From the dark tone of the fifth and sixth the weight, we were fully justified in waiting (a) the forces of good, would, in the final battle, sustaining heavy losses and (b) that even if the Dark Lord was defeated, for the wizard world would never be the same. In The Lord of the Rings, for example, the Harry Potter saga owes much to the defeat of Sauron marked the end of an era and the departure of the Elvesfrom Middle-earth.
Instead, Rowling left readers in a wizard world where all was copacetic, where the survivors were happily mated up, and where their little wizard offspring were happily heading off to Hogwarts. Sentimental rubbish, and a good tragedy wasted.
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