Harry Potter and the Prototypical YA Franchise
AUGUST 1ST, 2016 — POST 210
It was just before the first movie that I got into Harry Potter. I was seven or eight at the time when I borrowed Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone from my primary school’s library. I prided myself on my reading ability when I first started school but the “dumb is cool” mentality of a lot of young boys at my school meant I hadn’t gotten into many novels. But with the first scene — of Albus Dumbledore “catching” light from streetlamps into a small magical device — I, like everyone I knew, was hooked.
This weekend marked the release of the “Okay, this is really the last Harry Potter book” with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Instead of a novel, this eighth instalment in one of the most successful book franchises ever, Cursed Child is a script for a play that this weekend opened in London. Pottermania is only set to crescendo this year, however, with first “spin off” movie Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them being released later this year. For the first time since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I can bet there is a huge surge in rereading, repurchasing, and passing down of these stories to younger children who are encountering Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and Hogsmeade for themselves.
Most interesting is the model the Harry Potter books set. In 2016 the YA book-to-movie franchise is now one of the most dependable IP loops. First, cut your teeth with a series of low risk novels that champion heroism, bravery, and unity of friendship and love. Next, wait to see if they’re popular. If the critical mass of interest is reached, pump out a bunch of movies based on the books — ideally one movie-per-book — that can consolidate a passionate teen and preteen audience as well as a few interested grownups. We’ve seen this with such frequency and such success in The Hunger Games and Divergent it’s easy to forget the work done in the paradigmatic Harry Potter books and movies.
But why do these stories stick so aggressively with their target audiences? I remember at 7 or 8 when I read The Philosopher’s Stone, I was close to Harry’s age of 11. When I caught up to the pace at which the books were released until the series’ completion, I was ageing at the same rate as Harry, Hermione, and Ron. For a whole generation, the books were our own letter from Hogwarts: an invitation to a world governed by magic. This world — a magic world right under our noses — is the most seductive of fantasies to a preteen. The world of adults and parents who are embarrassing fools is only half the story, half the truth of the world we were growing up in. The world of Harry Potter could so easily be possible, and for us the possibility was enough.
Critically, the place of non-adults in Harry Potter is one of upmost power. The consequential actors in Hogwarts aren’t teachers, aren’t parents — they’re the kids. The world of Harry Potter not only offers kids an escape from drudgery, but offers a glimpse into autonomy and impact kids just like us could have. The conceit of The Hunger Games — that kids between 12 and 18 are selected to fight for their district — taps into this exact coming-of-age angst. Kids, growing in sentience and self-awareness, feel their capacity to shape their world chastised by goofy adults. Harry Potter became the prototype for stories in which kids are the supreme heroes.
I felt my interest in Harry Potter wane just as the movies were to come to an end. I was 18 when Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, and I still haven’t seen it or Part 2. Even Fantastic Beasts, when released first as a book, prompted little more than a “Hmm” from me. “These are for kids”, I still think, finally understanding the resistance my high school English teacher had to the books, even in the face of lengthy proclamations by myself and other Potterheads in class. But that’s exactly it: they are for kids. They’re exactly what kids need.
With Cursed Child, there won’t be any more Harry Potter books. But with hints at the existence of Ilvermorny, North America’s own School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, there very well could be a whole bunch more stories for a whole bunch more kids.
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