THE SUN came up in the east this morning.
Kansas is kind of flat.
Bears really do undertake certain activities in the woods.
And, oh yes, the Harry Potter movie series is getting steadily darker.
None of it’s exactly headline news, is it? Particularly not to the millions (myself included) who will be lining up to buy the final Potter book later this week. We know the shadows are growing as the story progresses. There’s death, conspiracy, even (gasp) tabloid journalism.
But somehow, for America’s foremost movie critic, all of this is a new and disturbing turn in a once-charming fairy tale. Here’s a sampling of what Roger Ebert had to say about the most recent film:
“Whatever happened to the delight and, if you’ll excuse the term, the magic in the “Harry Potter” series? ... ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ still has much of the enchantment of the earlier films, but Harry no longer has as much joy. His face is lacking the gosh-wow-this-is-really-neat grin. ... My hope, as we plow onward through Potters Nos. 6-7 is that the series will not grow darker still. Yet I suppose even at the beginning, with those cute little mail-owls, we knew the whimsy was too good to last.”
Now, everyone’s got the right to their own opinion about a movie, particularly one adapted from a book. And while I enjoyed this one, I could see how you could make a case about scenes that were deleted, characters that were altered, motivations that were redefined.
But too dark? That’s like saying the Chiefs play too much football and not enough baseball.
Stories like this are going to get dark. And should.
At one level, “Harry Potter” is a coming-of-age story, which always includes a loss of innocence.
At another, it’s a fantasy story, which always requires the hero to face overwhelming evil in the end.
But most importantly, it’s a children’s story.
That may seem a little counter-intuitive to a nation that grew up on Disney. We’ve learned that kids’ fairy tales are supposed to be sweet and innocent, with lots of singing animals and beautiful princesses. There may be dangers to face (remember the dragon in “Sleeping Beauty”?) but the happy ending is never in doubt.
But that hasn’t always been the case. Read some of the older tales and you’ll see that some of them can be more than a little grim.
Birds peck out the eyes of Cinderella’s evil stepsisters.
Puss in Boots threatens several peasants with being chopped into mincemeat if they don’t play along with his schemes.
Little Red Riding Hood is eaten by the wolf, who gets away scot-free.
True, in most cases, the good guys win and justice is done. But they’re not nice stories. And they weren’t meant to be. Most of them were created to prepare children for a dangerous world, to make them careful of strangers and aware that bad things could happen.
That’s not the worst aim in the world.
I’m not advocating giving children Stephen King. And I have nothing against light, bubbly tales. But when a hero like Harry Potter has to face genuine danger with no assurance that it’ll all be OK, I think that teaches some important lessons too. Lessons about courage. And friendship. And going on in spite of grief.
Harry is growing up. So is his audience. So are his stories.
It may not always be comfortable. But it’s real. And it doesn’t take a wizard to figure that out.
Scott Rochat’s e-mail address is rochat@emporiagazette.com.