Nita and Kit vs. Harry Potter

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

My friend handelian asked me in my own LJ whether I thought the Young Wizards books were as good as Harry Potter, or better, or what. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided I'd try to answer her question here as our inaugural post.



I read the first Young Wizards book probably when I was in my twenties, and I have kept up with the series eagerly ever since. (I didn't let "growing up" interfere with my enjoyment of good literature, whichever department of the store or library may own it.) I read the first three Potter books shortly before GoF came out and not long after the unexpected suicide of a co-worker, someone not in my department who was known and loved by pretty much everybody in the whole damned system.

I would say that the chief difference between YW and HP is in the treatment of Evil. In the YW evil is embodied in the Lone Power, who is essentially the same as Lucifer in Christian lore or Melkor/Morgoth in Tolkien's Silmarillion: An angelic being who rebelled against the community of angels, created death and entropy, and works to make other beings as unhappy as he is. Duane's protagonists, Nita and Kit, confront the Lone Power directly on more than one occasion, survive, and even succeed, but always at a cost, by a sacrifice. With the sacrifice comes the knowledge that an echo or shadow of the Lone Power is present in every sentient being, in every species which, as humanity did, gave in to the Deceiver's temptation and accepted death. Nita and Kit must confront Evil not merely in an external adversary, but within their own hearts.

In HP Evil is represented by Voldemort, the Dark Lord. Voldemort was formerly an ordinary (or not so ordinary) wizard named Tom Riddle, of mixed Muggle and wizard parentage. Since his unexpected defeat when the curse he cast on the infant Harry rebounded on himself, he is unlovely, barely human, and as of the last two books, existing in a borrowed body created by dark magic from bits and pieces of other bodies. Voldemort's lust for power and hatred of mixed-blood wizards are explained, somewhat inadequately, by his background as a Muggleborn orphan educated at Hogwarts but forced to live in a Muggle orphanage during the summer holidays, much as Harry is forced to live with the Dursleys. His followers all seem to be pureblood wizards possessed of a good deal of wealth and of status within the wizard community; they also, judging from OotP, to be rather stereotypically Bad Villains who carry on operatically rather than really getting bad deeds done. Lucius Malfoy is perhaps the most *organized* of the Death Eaters, and Delores Umbridge, a Ministry official who teaches Defense against the Dark Arts in OotP, is, to me, much scarier than Voldemort and all his pomps and all his works.

At the end of OotP we learn that Harry must either kill Voldemort or die trying, according to the terms of a prophecy which predicted Harry's birth and danger to the Dark Lord. If Harry Potter lived in the YW universe, I am certain that the only way he could defeat Voldemort would be to sacrifice himself. Again and again, Nita and Kit place their lives on the line, and their or another character's willingness to die is what saves the day. Their Adversary cannot be defeated in a showy battle of spells cast and magical fireworks, because he lives inside their hearts as much as anywhere else. In the third YW book, High Wizardry, Nita's little sister Dairine defeats the Lone Power by finding compassion for it in *her* heart; she understands that for all his tortured Byronic hero posturings, what he really wants is to Go Home to the Light.

Will we eventually discover that what Voldemort, too, wants is to go home to the Light and be loved for what he is? Somehow I doubt it--and it is that difference, in my opinion, which makes the Young Wizards series superior to Harry Potter.

Comments

[cleverthylacine]

Huh.

My favorite Diane Duane series is actually the Rihannsu series--because, as opposed to Young Wizards/Cat Wizards, or "Door Into..." it is not about fighting the Lone Power. Yet. (I am keeping my fingers crossed!)

Diane Duane is the only author good enough to write a Lucifer story in which I don't want Lucifer to win, and win big. (The authors of the Bible did not succeed, nor Tolkien either.) I am a heretic, though, and openly, admittedly so--a Gnostic and a Thelemite who believes that Thelema is the completion of Christianity, paganism, Judaism, etc. I am also a left hand path magician. So I am not going to generally have the conventional opinion of things--I am, after all, known in HP fandom for writing or helping to write not one, but three, Death Eater apologist fics! (Though LW is a group effort.)

I'm not sure everyone really does want to Go Home to the Light. (I personally, don't trust the Light too much. I think the Divine is to be found somewhere between the Dark and the Light, on the dynamic edge. Where Sev and Julie are, in HoIF, and Dylan and Alastor too--NOT where Albus, or Tommy, is.) I know that the Demiurge screwed everything up. And unlike most Gnostics, instead of wanting to go home to the light, I want to fix things here. I just don't know how. And I want to be immortal because I think it's going to take more time than 100 years.

(Hence, my being popularly acclaimed "Death Eater writer most likely to try and become one".)

Where I would say Duane is the superior writer is this: she doesn't make anyone unnecessarily stupid (after reading OOTP, I no longer care if my DE's are canonical, because the canonical ones are so dumb), and she portrays everyone, including the characters she doesn't especially like, fairly. That is, as fully human (or feline, or shark, or whatever) individuals, with motivations as rational and healthy as the character is, and at a level of functionality that makes the level of power the character has achieved believable. I try to do this in my Potterfics; I don't like Sirius, or Albus, but I've been told my versions are sympathetic.

I'd be disappointed if Voldemort broke down and admitted he too wants to Go Home to the Light; but I'd be thrilled if we find out at the end that he did have a few valid points, and what saddens me re OOTP is I don't know if Rowling will go there. She has been brave enough to show us all the corruption she's hinted at in what's supposedly the side of Light. But she hasn't shown us any of the corresponding depth in the side she's labeled Dark.

I so wanted that. I so wanted a fantasy series that would come right out and admit that Light can be cold and deadly and Dark has a point, because I am into a lot of traditions most people identify as Dark, and I sort Slytherin on every sorting hat test there is without lying.

If it's not going to be HP then I guess I'll just have to write it myself.

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

I so wanted a fantasy series that would come right out and admit that Light can be cold and deadly and Dark has a point, because I am into a lot of traditions most people identify as Dark, and I sort Slytherin on every sorting hat test there is without lying.

If it's not going to be HP then I guess I'll just have to write it myself.

What I would like to see is a fantasy epic that *doesn't* use Dark and Light as the metaphors. Is it possible? (Should I try to do it myself?)

I think Duane uses the duality metaphor better than 90% of the writers out there. She does, as you say, portray people fairly regardless of which "side" they are on; she sees the Darkness in the hearts of "good" people and the longing for Light in the hearts of the "evil"; she can imagine Darkness redeemed, Darkness in balance, Darkness which is good.

I think Duane is sincerely a Christian at heart, and I basically share her theology; I'm an Anglican Christian with strong esoteric interests, a focus on the Incarnation, and opinions which would probably not pass a heresy test, and not in the fashionable John Spong sort of way, either. I can look at the Dark/Light duality and say, "Well, my view of reality is Trinitarian, or trinary: What about the shadow?" (It's like "Are you a cat person or a dog person?" I'm a bird person. In case you hadn't noticed.) If God doesn't like the darkness, why create it in the first place? If killing is bad, why sharks? (And Ed the Master Shark is one of my favorite Duane characters in any book--Ed, Ael, Arrhae, Naraht....)

One of the things I love about Duane is that her work *does* provoke philosophical/theological discussion, and discussion in depth. I hope I'll be seeing more of your Slytherin point of view in this LJ. *g*

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

"I am certain that the only way [Harry] could defeat Voldemort would be to sacrifice himself."

But would it? I think that it is rather the [I]willingness[/I] to sacrifice yourself that is more important. Or perhaps it's the idea of price: harry would have to pay a price, physically, for his defeat of Voldemort. You don't get something for nothing, and that's important to DD. But I think sacrifice is the wrong word for it, even, becausealthough in YW everyone sacrifices- time off their lives, or the fullness of their lives- the emphasis is always on the coming-back, on Timeheart. Good things happen after, so to me it is less in the nature of a sacrifice than in the nature of a giving and recieving, for... kind of for the ultimate good.

To me, though, the reason I prefer YW to HP (though I love them both) is that principle I mentioned above, "you don't get something for nothing." DD never succumbs to explaining stuff by "it's magic." That idea, that "it's magic, therefore I don't have to explain it," is so common throughout fantasy that it is unbelievably refreshing, and also reassuring, to find a fantasy that works in the real world. Wizardry flauts some of the laws of science, but it never tries to deny that the laws are not present. Kit might be able to alter the speed of light, but it takes time and energy. Nita and Kit may be able to walk on water, but they can only do it by changing the nature of the water, instead of expecting the liquid to jsut hold them up. And when you die, you're dead. These truths that are so important to the real world are not denied in YW, and to me that is what marks them as better.

[ex-mommybir.livejournal.com]

You've hit on ideas that I've been thinking about lately, since I first wrote this post. In the YWverse wizardry is costly; in the Potterverse, magic is a free lunch. I can't think of any indication in the Potter books that doing magic takes any effort, requires any personal energy, has any cost. It may take effort to learn, but it seems to require no effort to *do*. And I've seen large numbers of fanfic writers instinctively correct that in their HP stories.

Sacrifice = giving up a lower value in order to gain a higher one. Nita agrees to give up her life in the Song of the Twelve because the lives and wellbeing of billions of lives, human and nonhuman, is a higher value to her than her own wellbeing; her own life is not worth preserving at the cost of all that. It's because you're willing to give up the lower that you get the higher--Timeheart, and all it implies.