Harry Potter and Aristotle
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:date: 2018-11-15T12:56:20
:category: literature
:tags: review, harryPotter
Aristotle in the seventh and eighth chapter of his Poetics
writes:
Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of
an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain
magnitude … As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot,
being an imitation of an action, *must imitate one action* and
that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such
that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole
will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence
or absence makes no visible difference, is not an organic part
of the whole. (emphasis mine)
Based on *Poetics* many literary critics of Renaissance and
Baroque developed theory of “`Classical Unities`_”, which then
governed most of the writing from the seventeenth century
onwards. Unfortunately, it rather quickly degraded into rather
silly discussions about unity of time and place (which were never
specifically mentioned by Aristotle as necessary, perhaps only as
commonly occurring), both of which were largely ignored not only
by the Greek writers of the classical Era, but by almost every
other writer outside of the tight confines of the seventeenth and
eighteenth century classical drama.
Sometimes the reviews of particular theatre play went
unbelievably silly like when Shakespeare (who either didn’t know
about the Classical Unities at all, or he didn’t care about them)
was criticized that only two less known plays of his actually
follow the rules and for example most of historical plays cover
length of tens of years.
Perhaps because of the silliness of these discussions or perhaps
because of decline of the classical education, classical unities
were mostly abandoned in its original form, even more so with the
rise of the literary styles completely unsuited for them. There
is just no way how a standard length novel could fulfil unity of
time and place. Post-Joyceeian novels drove the last nail into
the coffin of the classical unities with many extremely
non-classical variants of structure of style.
And yet …
In the last couple of years I read many many fanfictions on the
Internet. While reading one cannot ignore how few of them achieve
at least resemblance of quality of the normal literary works.
Certainly, the Sturgeon’s Law, that ninety percent of everything
is crap, applies, but there are some pieces of fanfiction which
are rather good and it is sad to see them failing.
In the following I will not deal with the overwhelming amount of
utter crap coming from graphomaniac teenagers who have problems
with the basics of the English language and style, but with those
few pieces of writing which are worthy of consideration and where
one feels the pain of how far they reached and yet they failed to
achieve the greatness.
First problem is common to almost all fanfictions longer than one
chapter, and that is their excessive length. If somebody claims
that with the Internet and its endless opportunities for
self-publishing, we don’t need old publishing houses any more,
most of these stories show how most authors are in need of the
second opinion of the experienced editor. It is said that half of
the success of the French author `Jules Verne`_ was in his
publisher and editor `Pierre-Jules Hetzel`_, who forced Verne to
cut his novels sometimes up to the half in length and sometimes
completely rewrite the main plot of the novel. When Hetzel died
in 1886, the quality of Verne’s novels went noticeably down. Mrs
Rowling herself complained that Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix was published in too much haste and a way too long for
her taste. For the record, that’s 38 chapters (average length of
HP books is 28.43 chapters). What should one think about novels
like “The Accidental Animagus” (112 chapters and it covers only
the first four years of Harry’s school, another volumes have
8 chapters, and very much unfinished third volume another 12
chapters) or “The Arithmancer” series (84 and 82 chapters
covering the HP series time frame, and another 5 chapters of just
starting third volume; this series is probably slightly less
overboard than The Animagus one)? Just to emphasize, “Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, the book which brought Ms.
Rowling to the world-wide fame, was 17 chapters. Each of these
mentioned fanfiction books contain some excellent parts, which
are truly outstanding, but they unfortunately contain a lot of
other parts as well.
And not to put all criticism on White Squirrel, first five
percent of the current (still quite unfinished, so we don’t know
what will be the final length) text of “`Friends and Foes`_” by
Northumbrian is Harry and Ginny stepping down from the bike.
Really. It has later some best chapters I read from one of my
beloved author (everybody must love Bobbie Beadle!), but first
four [!] chapters could be either completely eliminated
(detective is woken up in the middle of night by a phone call is
very stereotypical, but rather useful start of the story), or if
not that, they should be in my opinion at least cut to at least
one third of the current size and spread later in the story.
My deep suspicion is that this excessive length of fanfiction
novels are caused by the ease of writing in the computer age,
lack of editors, but also crazy idea, that novels can be
published one chapter at time. I know that many novels in history
were written in that style, when they were originally serialized,
but with existence of text editors, I believe readers expect
higher quality than what could be found in some originally
serialized novels (yes, Grimaud_ should be struck out of the Three
Musketeers).
Excessive length of so many novels is by far not the biggest
problem of many fanfiction stories. Of course, as you expected
(or were afraid of), I think Aristotle’s unities are something
which can help in producing better stories.
I think we need to return to the original quotation from
Aristotle I presented above. In light of the seventeenth century
discussions and fashion, it is interesting to note, Aristotle
didn’t seem to say anything about the unity of time and place, at
least there doesn’t seem to be anything about the need for
tragedy happening in one day or just in one place (although,
technically, classical theatre with very limited stage technology
was probably not changing scenes much). It is a way about “the
object imitated is one”. Translated to the most fanfiction
stories I would say that *there should be one main story, one
main world-view*.
Let me present here two examples of stories which I think
departed from this rule to their own detriment. Again, let me
emphasize, both of them are from the best fanfiction stories
I read anywhere, so when criticizing them, it is more from my
admiration and frustration that they were so close of being
really good.
----
The first studied item is “`Strangers at Drakeshaugh`_” by
Northumbrian. He (or she?) is probably generally my most beloved
fanfiction author of all, and most of his stories are just
awesome. I have in my brain another essay about the style of
magician’s realism, which is rather strange and absolutely
awesome thing, and one of few paths which can lead fanfiction to
the levels of the generally good literature. However, there are
things lacking. First of all, this story is one of the examples
of excessive length, story could be helped by severe cutting
through it. Apparently the author was so excited by his new
family(-ies), that he spend just too much time enjoying talking
about Charltons and Potters, and the beginning of the novella
before the main story picks up is a bit boring.
But that is a minor problem in my opinion. The worse problem is
that the author hasn’t managed to keep the story unified.
Generally the story is written from the point of view of
Jacqueline Charlton, the mother of one of two families the story
is about. They are complete Muggles (well, it is probably
a little bit more complicated, but that’s not fully revealed in
this story, and it will get even more complicated in the sequel
“`James and Me`_”) and so they at the first do not suspect
anything unusual when apparently rather well off London family of
Potters move in to their Northumbrian valley and buys a deserted
farm house (called Drakeshaugh [Drakes-hoff], hence the name of
the story). Only later they are bit surprised how strange these
strangers are: they have no electricity in their house, no TV,
but their relatives and friends are coming regularly and
obviously with ease from quite long distances all over the UK.
Moreover, the father of the Potter family, Harry, is very
secretive about his work, and only after couple of strange
slip-ups and weird statements, admits his job is covered by the
Official Secrets Act, and he is probably somehow working for
Intelligence or something. Even more interesting is that he is
somehow involved in the investigation of the nationally famous
series of brutal murders called “Werewolves murders” (all deaths
happen on full-moon), and so this story is also a bit of
a detective story. However, investigation is just in the
background and main focal point of the novella is just family
life of Charltons and Potter, and their troubles with their
children and such.
And then suddenly during the story there are seven chapters
scattered which are from the wizards’ point of view. Some of them
are probably necessary (in the end obviously the case cannot be
truthfully explained to Muggles, so at least in this novella the
narrator never learns what actually happened, and it would be too
disappointing I guess if even reader wouldn’t learn), but some of
them seem more like the author couldn’t resist writing down an
idea even when it breaks the flow, style, and world-view of
the text. One of the Aurors, who is a passionate lover of the
Goth subculture (or punk, I don’t understand these enough to be
able to distinguish), is killed in the action. During her funeral
where most Muggle participants are dressed so extravagant, that
wizards and witches are conspicuous by their normality, she
arrives as ghost to the surprise of few Muggles who could see
her. A lovely one-shot story, which would work very well on its
own, doesn’t seem to have any reason to exist as a part of
“Strangers”.
There is another from-wizards-point-of-view chapter (surprisingly
narrated by a Muggle policewoman who however works as part of the
Auror unit as a Muggle Liaison Officer), which suggests it would
be probably possible to write whole novella at least partially as
two interwoven stories narrated by two ladies, one from the
Muggle, other from the wizarding world point of view. It could
probably work, and Northumbrian have already written this type of
story narrated from two interwoven points of view (“Hunters and
Prey”, one of the best stories he wrote), but it doesn’t happen
here, and instead of creating some new structure, these chapters
just break up unity of the main story.
----
The second story which suffers from this disease of not keeping
unity is also otherwise really good story, already mentioned
above, “`The Accidental Animagus`_” by White Squirrel (according
to “`PotterFixWeekly`_” it is him). It is strictly speaking
alternative universe story, but it generally loosely follows
Harry Potter books. Abused five year old Harry just couldn’t take
it any more, and when Vernon Dursley actually beats him (up to
that point he usually had left any physical violence for Dudley
to administer), Harry runs away using accidental magic. However,
he not only switches off lights and destroys all obstacles which
stand in his way (starting with the door to his broom cupboard),
but also unlocks his ability to be animagus cat, and spends next
two months as a small kitten wandering through Southern England.
The weather is getting cold, too close to winter to make life
outdoors comfortable, so he starts to look for a family, which
would take him in. And one day, still as a kitten, he finds house
in a garden, where a girl of his age with brown bushy hair sits
on a bench reading a book. She smells somehow nice to him (we
later learn, that cats can smell magic), so he tries to be
friendly with her. When she asks him what’s his name, he changes
into a small boy to answer her, and hilarity ensues. Grangers
decide (even knowing he might be pursued by bad wizards) to adopt
him, and so he grows up in a nice loving family with super-smart
albeit a bit bossy sister (one small difference from the canon is
that they also train in karate since age of six, so this Hermione
is actually physically very fit and later plays as a substitute
Chaser for Gryffindor).
There are many things in this story, which are very good. This is
one of stories, which try to avoid people behaving like idiots
just to keep plot going (which unfortunately happened even to Ms.
Rowling), and most of the time it manages to do so. Of course,
people do mistakes and behave in anger, but for example, Harry
& co. just don’t run to the midnight duel provoked by Draco
Malfoy, because that would be silly. Also, given the change in
universe, there is no Harry’s deep distrust of authorities and
working relationship with his adopted parents (and the same goes
for Hermione, of course), so parents are very much part of
planning and generally are part of the world kids live in. Even
though story (with some exceptions) more or less loosely follows
the main plot points of the Harry Potter books, the author
managed to make people actually communicate and not behaving that
much irrationally.
The main deviation from the Harry Potter books is in the third
year. Given that Harry is a cat animagus, it is not that much
surprise, he discovers in his first year just after few weeks of
living together with Ron in one dormitory, that the Rat is an
animagus and catches him. Great Wizengamot hearing follows, where
Sirius Black is acquitted and Peter Pettigrew is to every
reader’s satisfaction sent to Azkaban for life. This happens in
fan fiction stories quite often (because everybody hates Peter
Pettigrew so much), but usually it leads to bizarre convoluted
stories which don’t make much sense. Special trouble is usually
the third volume, which is obviously all about catching Sirius
Black, but here the author found a good solution (and as usual,
the originally story is always better than just rewritten canon).
He just dropped that theme altogether and created his own story:
Fenrir Greyback invades England (he was hiding somewhere in
Eastern Europe before) and with his pack of werevolves terrorizes
both Muggle and wizarding world in the same time when Wizengamot
discusses controversial law on the control of werevolves drafted
by Dolores Umbridge, and you can probably easily imagine just how
horrible it was. The whole school year ends in the double-ending:
brutal battle with the pack of thirteen werevolves in the
Hufflepuff Common Room (which as everybody knows has so laughable
protection that even transformed werewolf can get through it),
and political battle in Wizengamot to push through law providing
legal protection for werevolves. Probably, because the author
wrote his own story and he didn’t have to write into the plot
made up by Ms. Rowling, this third year is probably best written
year of all covered Harry’s years.
Another temptation avoided by the author, which could end very
poorly (and yet I have read stories like that) is that it turns
out membership in Wizengamot is hereditary and Harry is the head
of the Potter noble family. There are two sides of this idea.
When thinking about possible political organization of the small
community living in hiding for centuries, it is quite possible
that some kind of parliament (local council) with seats at least
partially hereditary could happen. That’s from the
theoretical/sociological point of view. However, from the
fanficiton author point of view, everybody who tried to dabble in
the Lord Potter and Lord Malfoy usually ended up with disaster.
Original books by Ms. Rowling are very much middle-class in their
nature, and all attempts to spread too much of nobility, Lords
and Ladies, duels, arranged marriages, could very easily lead to
completely destroying the atmosphere of the original books [#]_.
(“Lord Malfoy, would you please pass salt to Heiress Greengrass,
Scion Longbottom is in the way?” … that’s just too cruel
punishment for one’s sins.) Even here White Squirrel managed to
tone this down and make all business with students as nobles
believable. However, the author stresses strongly on the idea of
small size of the wizarding community in England (just ten
thousand, even less than what’s assumed by the fanfiction essays
I found on the topic), and the size protects enough
Gemütlichkeit to be still more bourgeois than feudal.
Another important trait of the story is that the author has
tendency to include wizarding politics, and he does a very good
job with that. It makes the whole universe a way more logical and
rational. Also, it tries really hard to embed magical world in
the real world history, so Mr. Granger celebrates when Mikhail
Gorbachev abdicates (and he is told that there is a Konstantin
Jugashvili, the Dark Lord of Leningrad, who stood behind the
Soviet power). Mr. John Major has one small role in the story to
play (and putting completely incompetent Minister Fudge in line),
although they miss that during their first visit to the Diagon
Alley couple of streets away the same John Major stood on the
steps of the Downing St. 10 announcing the Iraq War. Also, one of
the large subplots relates to the 1994 Rwanda genocide (which was
caused in reality by the Dark Lord Kinani Ngeze and his nundu).
Related to that is the author including also international point
of view, which is very nice, because the wizarding world of the
Harry Potter universe is usually horribly English-centric and
ignorant of the world around.
One tiny complaint to the general feeling of the book. English
are really more reserved than your average American (Australian,
I don’t know where the author is from). Their stiff upper lip may
be not that stiff lately as it used to be, but still this story
seems to me to have just too much hugging, crying, sniffling into
another’s arms, etc. And yes, I can happily imagine, that after
Harry had his emotional moment with Snape (after returning from
the Heavenly Heathrow), he could kill the pathos by delivering
the message from his father. That’d exactly fit. There is
a possibility Snape would kill Harry, but most likely he would
feel the duty of every Englishman to accept a joke (even when he
doesn’t), and he would just laugh it out.
I have already mentioned, that it very much not succeeded in the
“brevity is a sister of talent” department. I would blame
serialized writing of the story, but sometimes it feels like
author tried couple of times to achieve some idea, or sometimes
perhaps he just started subplot which didn’t lead anywhere so it
just stands there alone (Harry meets Dudley in an amusement park,
just what Aristotle’s “visible difference” that chapter was meant
to make?).
Much bigger problem in my opinion is that again the author didn’t
manage to keep focus on his main story. Until the end of the
first or second year the story is clearly rewrite of the Harry
Potter books with some special additions. The main hero is Harry,
and although Hermione is certainly a way more important than in
the canonical books, still the story is talked manly from the
Harry’s point of view, and (fortunately) Hermione is not here to
take Harry’s glory (like in some films, ehm). Then there is in my
opinion brilliant third year with werevolves, and then suddenly
the unity of the story goes down the drain.
Suddenly, the end of the second year passes us, and in the
chapter 62 the book completely changes and not for more concise.
Suddenly, Carrows are running all over the Europe, Edward Greyson
runs from Australia to Siberia, and there are plenty of
completely unrelated stories which are competing for our
interest. It is obvious that the author fallen for the trap of
superhero literature and needs even badder anti-hero than the
previous one, so in the end there are four (or five?)
supervillians of the Voldermorts calibre being fought by
additional Grand Sorceres (mentioned Edward Grayson is one of
them), but it certainly doesn’t explain why the story changed in
its character so much.
Moreover, in order to introduce these additional characters,
there are plenty of smaller stories which are completely
unrelated to the main one. Some of them would work very well as
independent stories. For example, in the first part of the
Chapter 75, Edward Grayson cuts through the jungle to find
a muggle-born wizard in the local native tribe, which could (and
should) very well stand out on its own as a single-shot. If
Professor McGonagall thinks her task to inform muggle-borns is
difficult, then she should try to find her muggle-borns in the
jungle of South America with machete, tropic helmet and all that
jazz. It could be a lovely one-shot even better because of its
non-European location, which is so rare, but I wonder whether it
contributes anything good to the main story of the Animagus.
Another similarly problematic story is the chapter 83, “The
Battle of Gisenyi”. Again, it is perfectly written short story of
the magical battle, which would perfectly stand on its own as
a one-shot. Moreover, contrary to the previous one, this one has
an obvious important function for the whole story. One problem
with the persona of Albus Dumbledore in the canon is that
everybody talks about him as a biggest wizard walking the England
(or Scotland), the only one Voldermort is afraid of, but we
almost never see this magical power in practice. The only
exception in books is The Battle of the Department of Mysteries,
and even that is rather brief and I am afraid not enough. This is
one very few exceptions where the films are better than the books
just by their nature, it is very obvious there that battle is in
fact the most advanced magical duel of whole series. It seems to
me that this power of Albus Dumbledore is one place where Ms.
Rowling seriously failed in the task “Show, don’t tell”.
So, I welcome very much that there was an occasion for Albus
Dumbledore to show his real power, I am just unsure whether it
was worthy to break whole continuity of the story for that.
Couldn’t this be just part of the current chapter 84, with
Hermione reading and explaining to their parents article in *The
Daily Prophet* (**NOT** from Rita Skeeter, just some random East
African correspondent, or English Hitwizard sent with ICW
forces)? It would convey the message as well, and kept the story
more united.
And when I am saying the story should be unified, it doesn‘t
necessarily mean, it should have *one* united plot, or one
storyline. Tolstoy's “War and Peace”, Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy,
Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, all these novels certainly
don't have only one plot, but they are stunning mesh of tens of
subplots. The difference from the Animagus is that they are of
this character all the time from start to finish. They have their
own unity, and they don't change it.
The Animagus starts as Harry Potter-style novel, basically story
of small group of children going through their school, like my
brother characterized Ms. Rowling’s novels, “something between
Kipling’s Stalky & Co., Arthur Ransom’s children stories, mixed
with a bit of Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ for action, and perhaps
even Hercule Poirot for the mystery solving”, all of which are
rather (using musical analogy) chamber music. And then suddenly
in the beginning of the fourth year The Animagus switches without
warning to the Beethoven’s Ninth or the Bach’s Mass in B minor.
It just doesn't work well together.
So, for example, Draco’s subplot of discovery of true character
of his family in history is perfectly in line with the Stalky
& Co., Edward Greyson in the Amazonian jungle or Barty Crouch jr.
flattering La Panthera in the Mayan temple are too much in my
opinion.
Also, on slightly unrelated and more personal point, I don't like
to see the story from the point of view of Voldermort & Co. (or
the Riddle's conversations with Ginny). Harry didn't know it, and
we shouldn't know it as well. However, here it is perhaps just my
own personal preference, not so sure about that. I didn't like
too much of Saruman in “The Fellowship of the Ring” as well (and
there was a way less of him than La Panthera in the Animagus).
This is just my brief theory of Aristotelian Unities, or how to
make stories a way more homogeneous and I believe more enjoyable.
.. [#] “`Royal Ward`_” by Catstaff comes to mind, it can be
accepted only if it was meant to be a parody, but for that it
seems to be running little bit long (again, 53 chapters); its prequel
“`Hatal Fart Attack`_” by Corwalch is however a true parody
and a real piece of beauty.
.. _`Jules Verne`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
.. _`Pierre-Jules Hetzel`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Jules_Hetzel
.. _Grimaud:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers#Characters
.. _`Royal Ward`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10556030/
.. _`Hatal Fart Attack`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2814791/
.. _`Classical Unities`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_unities
.. _`Friends and Foes`:
http://www.siye.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=129782
.. _`Strangers at Drakeshaugh`:
http://www.siye.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=129036
.. _`James and Me`:
http://www.siye.co.uk/viewstory.php?sid=130180
.. _`PotterFixWeekly`:
http://potterficweekly.com/archives/1813
.. _`The Accidental Animagus`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9863146/
