Why Harry Potter?

Why are children and young people so interested in Harry Potter? Why do so many people want to be wizards? Honestly I am very curious. What is it about those books that appeal to young people? The idea of making things fly or transform with a word? Or the idea of a world that is different and strange and full of adventure and possibilities? The same reason why people like D&D perhaps?

Then again, D&D and HP are so different. The appeal of D&D has much to do with the idea of growth. Characters in D&D games grow in level and in power. It gives you great satisfaction to transform a level 1 newbie into a level 40 demigod. HP has little to do with the growth of power. Yes Dumbledore and Voldemort are extremely powerful, but well, they are probably not the main attractions of HP.

Sometimes I wonder if HP and Hogwarts appeal so much because school in our real world is so dead boring. Some folks dream perhaps for a world where homework consist not of an endless series of mundane chores but assignments on making magic potions, casting spells and levitating various things. Teenagers may also wish to believe in a dream school where people learn genuinely interesting and empowering things (in this case, magic spells). How many things do students learn for the sake of interest anyway?

And for many students in the real world, stress and failure lurk at every corner and many are labelled as 'failures'. In HP, one who face a harsh and drab reality can dream of being a wizard, a special and powerful being. I guess it allows one to be like Bastian in 'Neverending Story'--a failure and weakling in the real world, but a mighty hero in the world of Fantasia.

Such escapism might seem ill-conceived to many. Yet perhaps the call of our deeper selves often manifest through it. After all, magical abiltiies by themselves certainly do not lead to happiness and fulfillment. Some may of course think so--just as some believe that if they were to have a billion dollars they will be happy at last. But even if nature were to be prone at one's feet, obeying the commands of one's supernaturally powerful mind, yet no doubt it will quickly or slowly (depending on the wisdom of the person ) prove to be quite an empty achievement. So much power...and in the end, for what?

I believe that deep within man lies enormous forces. The attraction towards the wizarding ideal is to me a sign that there is something in us that KNOWS that our feeble surface being is not truly our full selves. Our souls and deeper being is never called to be a mere slave to the forces of life, but ultimately its destiny is to become the master of circumstances and of nature. Perhaps in each of us lies a being very much like a 'wizard'.

Happiness comes when one becomes what one always is. Fundamentally I do not think we seek 'magical powers' for the sake of what it can bring--the little frills and thrills--but for what we can become--i.e. our truest selves. Perhaps it is NATURAL for man to command nature directly with the will and the word. Perhaps it is our narrow, selfish, ignorant and suffering state of consciousness that is unnatural.

In Christianity for instance, it is believed that Adam, the first man, was given dominion over creation. But he lost most of this authority at the Fall. The resurrected Christ, the New Adam, restored this dominion, and transmit this redemption to those who unite themselves to him.

Tossed helplessly in the sea of life and its endless troubles, perhaps our young people seek unconsciously in HP a vision of what they can become--free, fulfilled and strong. Perhaps fantasy is not merely fantasy, but on a deeper level, it is prophecy.