Because everyone loves a good story
The Yearling and the Hero’s Journey
Jody Baxter is like many young boys: innocent, trusting, playful, and lonely. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, takes Jody on a hero’s journey that gradually but permanently shifts his perspective from boy to man. In fiction, as in life, the process isn’t always pretty.
A Familiar Story Structure
Today I’d like to walk through the plot of the Yearling in a different way. Instead of giving you a simple recap, I want to look at Jody Baxter’s coming of age through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” cycle.
As I thought about Jody’s gradual growth into maturity, I realized the progression looked familiar. It’s not just a linear process; it’s a cycle with distinct phases. Way back in the day, I wrote a whole series of posts about The Hero’s Journey, and now the plot structure is deeply ingrained in my mind. Once you’re familiar with it, you’ll begin to see it everywhere too.
The Hero’s Journey
Coming of age often begins and ends at home, but by the end of the cycle the boy has become a man. This is the basic gist of the Hero’s Journey. The hero begins in his ordinary world at home, experiences a call to adventure, and refuses it. He meets with a mentor figure who shows him he must accept the challenge, and so he’s convinced to cross the threshold into adventure. He then goes through various tests while discovering allies and enemies.
Things get serious when he approaches the inmost cave, which is the climactic event or faceoff. He embraces it and tackles the ordeal head on, emerging victorious with the reward he came to seek. He then begins the road back home, where people may have begun to wonder if he’d been lost forever. His return is almost like a resurrection, but he has proof of his journey: the elixir he left to procure. He is home again, but he’s a new man and has the treasure to prove it.
And that, in a nutshell, is the Hero’s Journey. For this series, the “adventure” we’ll focus on is the coming-of-age process. See what you think as we look at Jody Baxter’s journey through these stages.
Jody’s Journey
If you’re not familiar with the story and don’t want me to spoil it for you, now would be a good time to quickly polish off all 500+ pages or listen to the 14-hour audiobook. Otherwise, enjoy this Hero’s-Journey-style summary.
Beginning in the Ordinary World
Ordinary World: Jody Baxter is a 12-year-old boy who grows up on a wild and lonely farm in the backwoods of Florida. He helps a bit around the farm, but he spends most of his time scampering off to daydream and play. His tenderhearted Pa tries to protect Jody from life’s harsh realities and obligations, while his no-nonsense Ma keeps them well fed but scolds them for pretty much everything.
Call to Maturity: Ma Baxter is always hounding Jody to do more work around the farm so Pa doesn’t have to do it all himself. Jody tags along on the jobs he finds exciting, like bear hunting and trading, and he helps with some chores. But he’s still a kid, and he acts like it.
Refusal: Although he’s pushed to man up, Jody is still content to play with his only friend, Fodderwing, and Fodderwing’s collection of misfit pets. Jody longs for a pet of his own to take the edge off his loneliness, but he won’t be interested in real responsibility unless he has no other choice.
Meeting with the Mentor (in This Case, Death): The choice comes soon enough. Pa gets bitten by a rattlesnake, and Jody has to run for help like Pa’s life depends on it. Pa has the sense to shoot a doe and use her liver to pull the venom from the bite while he waits. Pa lives through the ordeal but is greatly weakened.
Entering the Special World
Crossing the Threshold: Two events coincide to push Jody across the threshold toward maturity. First, the doe that Pa shot has left behind a fawn. Jody adopts it as the pet for which he’s been longing, and he feels his life is finally complete. But this unexpected gain is tempered by an unthinkable loss—Fodderwing gets sick and dies. Now Jody has a great responsibility in the form of Flag, the fawn, but also a great heartache as he contemplates why Fodderwing had to die. These realities draw him away from carefree naivety.
Tests, Allies, and Enemies: Now Jody is on the path toward maturity in earnest. Pa is weaker and gets sick more often since the snake bite, so he needs Jody’s help. Jody wrestles with questions about love, jealously, and death as his family tries to keep their allies and avoid making new enemies. But as Flag grows, Jody undergoes greater tests of his loyalty and maturity as he cares for the growing fawn while also trying to look out for the farm.
Approach to the Inmost Cave of Maturity: As Flag grows from a fawn into a yearling, Jody has a harder time keeping him in check. His cute capers have turned into destructive habits. He can’t be penned and insists on destroying the family’s crops—their only livelihood. Jody begins a man’s work in earnest, working to the bone to repair the damage that Flag wreaks. When Flag easily jumps the tall fence that Jody has spent weeks building around the garden, Pa knows the time has come. He gives the order for Jody to shoot Flag.
Ordeal: Of course, Jody refuses outright to shoot the best friend he has—the fawn who has eaten from his hand, slept in his room, played with him, and given him purpose for the past year. He looks for any and every alternative, but nothing will work. In fact, Jody’s delay costs the Baxters a critical amount of crops. Pa is too weak to leave his bed, so he gives Ma permission to shoot the deer. In a nightmarish sequence of events, Ma wounds Flag, but in order to end Flag’s suffering, Jody has to finish the job himself.
Reward of Maturity: While Jody did what had to be done, he did it with a child’s heart. He is sickened, hateful, and livid. He runs away from home without a plan. At last, near-starvation provides the catalyst for maturity. He realizes that starvation is terrifying, and that’s what his parents had been protecting the family from. He understands that Pa had not betrayed him but had done what he must to provide for the family. Jody doesn’t like it, but he finally understands.
Re-entering the Ordinary World
The Road Back: Jody passes out from hunger and exhaustion. A passing boat picks him up, gives him some soup, and drops him off several miles from home. Now that Jody is thinking more clearly, he understands that his childhood is over and it’s time to go home. He had left with hateful words toward his parents, and he wants to put it right.
Resurrection: A feeble Pa is waiting for Jody’s return. He had thought Jody was dead and gone forever, but his return is life itself to Pa. Jody listens as his father gives him advice, man-to-man. He is finally able to hear and accept it not as a boy but as an equal.
Return with the Elixir of Maturity: Now that he’s home, Jody will take Pa’s place around the farm. He has grown from a boy to a man, and Pa has faded from a man to an invalid. In a symbolic gesture, Pa leans on Jody as the son leads his father to bed. The torch has been passed, and Jody is now the man of the house.
Terrible Truths
If you felt shocked at the climax of the story, then join the club. It’s a horrible scene—even more so as you think back on the relationship between the boy and the fawn throughout the book.
Did it need to happen that way? Could Jody have matured in a less heart-wrenching way? You and I will both be pondering these questions. Next time, we’ll be digging in to three themes that are critical to coming of age: love, death, and family. I’m really looking forward to it, so if you’re not too depressed to go on with the series, I’ll see you then!
Coming of Age in The Yearling and Peter Pan
When does a child come of age? Science says it’s when they hit puberty, but I disagree. I think it’s less about physical development and more about internal growth. A youth can show all the signs of physical growth and still maintain a sense of mental and emotional innocence that keeps him childlike. True coming of age has more to do with experience.
Two Great Books
While there are plenty of coming-of-age stories, two of the most poignant are Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The Yearling and J.M. Barry’s Peter Pan. These books show the protagonists’ physical growth as a bench mark, but it isn’t until they wrestle with tough questions that they reach a new level of maturity. The three biggest realities they encounter are love, death, and family. Until they come to terms with these realities, they’re still children. Once they’ve accepted these realities, there’s no going back to childlike innocence.
I hope to spend the next several posts looking at these themes and how they shape The Yearling and Peter Pan. To be honest, I’m still a few chapters away from finishing The Yearling (although I’ve read it twice before so I know what’s coming), and while I have parts of Peter Pan memorized from so many previous readings, it’s been a couple of years since I read it last. I’ll be prepping for the upcoming posts by reading, thinking, and writing. And probably crying a bit too.
Read It and Weep
This post is just a declaration of intention and a heads up. If you want to read (or re-read) either of those books in preparation for the series, then by all means do it! You’ll always get way more out of a post if the book in question is fresh on your mind. The Yearling isn’t one of my favorites because it’s too sad, but it’s written so well that I can’t help but admire it. The word pictures, nostalgia, and encapsulation of childhood are just perfect. Peter Pan is one of the most perfectly-written thematic books I’ve read, and you’ll be so glad you took the time to experience J.M. Barry’s humor, sorrow, and brilliance.
If you’re tempted to save time and watch the movies instead, be my guest. I just discovered that The Yearlingwas made into a movie in 1946, but I can tell by looking at the pictures that the casting was completely without reference to how the book describes the characters. As a consequence, I can’t vouch for the veracity of the movie. As for Peter Pan, you can’t do better than the old Disney cartoon from 1953. It’s no substitution for the beautiful, masterful wording of the book, but at least it’s not just a reinterpretation of the story.
Goodbye for Now
And with that, my friends, I leave you. I’m really looking forward digging into these themes and stories, and I hope you are too. Until then, so long!
Too Much Carpe Diem
Do you ever find that summer is supposed to be a relaxing time of year, but it turns out to be the most hectic, frenetic season of all?
All the “relaxing” we intend to do throughout the year gets piled into a few short months. Instead of staying home and soaking up some sun in peace and quiet, we drag our families all over the country in pursuit of fun. Vacation becomes a string of events rather than a destination. For these reasons and more, a busy summer is supremely fun but also undeniably tiring.
All Good Things
If this sounds familiar to you, then you’re not alone. I’m in the same boat this year. Sometimes I don’t write enough because I’m too wrapped up in my own brain. Other times I’m just too jam-packed busy. July has been one of those times, with activities packed back-to-back, in state and out, alone and with family, visitors and visitees. I’ve been making some lovely memories, but I also feel like I haven’t really taken a deep breath since June. And it’s not over yet.
But the things I’ve been doing, the places I’ve been going, and the people I’ve been seeing are priceless. I wouldn’t want to cut anything out of the plans. However, methinks it would have been better to spread the plans over a three-month period rather than cramming it all into a short burst of insanity.
Slowing It Down
All that to say I’ve learned a lesson from this busy summer’s turbo-charged pace, and I hope to make some better choices when I consult my calendar in the future. Until then, I’ll try to enjoy each moment as it comes—my toddler’s crazy hair and popsicle face, my boy’s boundless energy and dirty feet, my hubby’s grilling and the smell of mown grass, and the sweet, sweet sunshine. I hope you’ll be able to slow down and enjoy the small things too, whether you’re at home or on the road.
And in the spirit of travel and writing, I’ll keep this short and instead refer you to a post I published a couple of years ago. I read it again recently and was inspired to view my current adventures as raw materials for future stories. Until next time, friends, carpe diem!
…Especially if it’s in your own back yard.
Lifelong Passion vs Side Hustle
These days, my lifelong passion and my side hustle have been duking it out in the tiny ring of my spare time, and it feels like a total KO for passion.
Tale as Old as Time
My tale of woe is a common one:
- Girl comes to love writing at a young age
- Girl pursues writing as part of a college degree, hoping to make a career of it
- Girl gets a job in education instead, writing in her spare time
- Girl gets married and has kids
- Girl no longer teaches and has far less time to write
- Girl gets a side gig as an editor to offset the insane cost of diapers and organic apples
- Girl wonders if she’ll ever have time to write in more than 10-minute increments again
Sound familiar? I’m sure that, swapping out a few details here and there, it might just be the story of your life as well. It’s basically the story of responsible adulthood: duty trumps desire.
So Much to Do; So Little Time
The first summer I was married, I would get up with my husband at 4:15 a.m. He would leave for work, and I would spend the day doing about 7 million things and being the most productive I’ve ever been in my life. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you wake up 4 hours earlier than usual. Sadly, that habit fell by the wayside when I started teaching again in the fall, and I once again joined the ranks of mere mortals who do things at normal times. I still got plenty done, but it was nothing to brag about.
Now that I have little kids, it feels like I’m barely scraping by with the things I need to do. Keeping a family running is a full-time job, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. When the economy took a nosedive and my eyes started bulging at the total on my grocery receipts, I felt like I should find a way to help out. Did I have to? No, we would have been just fine on my hubby’s salary. But if there was a way I could add a little padding to the budget, I wanted to do it.
Enter, my illustrious career in freelance editing.
There Goes Free Time
Before I began editing, I had about an hour between putting the kids to bed and starting to watch an episode of a show with my husband, during which I would inevitably fall asleep. Sometime I used the hour to catch up on things I didn’t manage to do when the kids were awake, but I also tried to work on writing picture books as much as possible.
But now any semi-quiet moment finds me plugging away at my side hustle, editing. I’m thankful for the source of in-home income, and I actually enjoy the work (#nerdstatus), but I also feel guilty. I feel like I should be able to do it all. If only I got up earlier, worked faster, and disciplined myself more, then maybe I’d be able to write some groundbreaking children’s books while spinning the rest of my plates.
Enough Is Enough
As I’m sure you’ve experienced in your own life, it just isn’t possible to do everything well. Sure, it’s possible to do everything in a mediocre way for a little while, but the cost is always greater than the profit. My husband knows this about me and is the first one to caution me against taking on one more thing (even if it’s a good thing) when I’m already at maximum capacity. Emily-on-overload isn’t fun for anyone.
Ultimately, I need to realize that enough is enough. When I’ve done my best during the day, it is enough. The rest of my tasks can wait. That’s a hard pill to swallow for my type A++ personality, but it’s the only way to survive this season of life. If there are tasks left over after I’ve put in a good day’s work, they can be saved for another day. This includes housework, editing, and even writing. Resting is an equally-important task. (Or so they tell me.)
Throwing in the Towel
All right, so there are only so many working hours in a day, I can’t do everything, and I’m supposed to prioritize rest. So will I let my love of writing tap out, or will I fight until my sanity slumps, bloody, against the ropes? Neither, I hope. What I need to do is re-prioritize. That may mean writing in small scraps of time instead of scrolling on my phone. Sometimes it may mean writing instead of doing the dishes. It may even mean asking for a bit less editing work to make more time for writing. But one thing is certain: it means lowering my expectations for this season.
Raising little ones is hard work. They’re currently at an all-day, hands-on stage. I’m enjoying (nearly) every moment of it, but mental and emotional exhaustion is just the reality right now. Thankfully, I know it won’t always be this way. In a few years when my kids are happily playing together in the back yard without ending up in 101 perilous situations, I may wipe a tear from my eye, remembering days like yesterday when I played with them all morning long and had a lovely time. But then I’ll get comfy on the back patio swing, pull out my laptop, and start writing.
What About You?
Let’s get personal. Do you have too many plates spinning? Are you frazzled and spastic? Are you frustrated that you can’t do it all? It may be time to say, “Enough is enough,” cut yourself some slack, and re-prioritize. And don’t forget to rest.
Or maybe you’ve given up completely on something you really feel passionate about, figuring that you’ll never have enough time. Maybe you don’t push yourself toward it because you figure, what’s the point? It may be time for you to set a manageable goal and start plugging away at it.
Whichever end of the Type A/Type B spectrum you find yourself on, it’s not too late to creep a little closer to center. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take this quiet moment to work on some lovely picture book manuscripts I’ve been neglecting.
…Right after I edit this one last document.
Harry Potter, Personally: Heroism
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
These inscriptions are found on two tombs in Godric’s Hollow: the tomb of Harry Potter’s parents, and that of Albus Dumbledore’s family. You probably know, however, that the inscriptions are taken from a far less obscure source: the Bible.
J.K. Rowling specifically chose these verses to highlight critical themes in the story. But the biggest “borrow” of all is the final choice of Harry himself. Did Rowling mean to make such obvious allusions to Christianity, or was it coincidental? Read on to find out.
Harry the Hero
Many (really, most) of the characters in The Deathly Hallows show courage and heroism to some degree. Neville Longbottom, Professor McGonigal, and even Molly Weasley are powerhouses in the final battle. But in this post I plan to focus on Harry’s role as the main hero. I mean, it’s his series after all.
Everyone loves a good hero, especially when he’s an underdog. Harry is a nobody who turns out to be a very great somebody. Instead of choosing the cool kids in school, he prefers the weirdos and the snubbed. He has greatness thrust upon him, and while he staggers at first, he learns to bear up under the load and to acquit himself admirably. Although he’s far from perfect, he’s a champion of good at Hogwarts. But why do his choices resonate so deeply within us? Because his heroic qualities reflect that of a Greater Hero: Jesus.
Sacrificial Love
I read that Rowling enjoyed the Chronicles of Narnia as a child but felt disappointed and even betrayed as an adult to know that the stories had religious parallels. But later she purposely included the Christian themes of death and redemption in the Harry Potter series. It was sacrificial love that saved Harry as a baby and gave him impunity later in life. That may seem corny, or it may seem like a plot gimmick. Regardless, it’s a corny plot gimmick with pre-creation significance: sacrificial love has always been the ultimate means of salvation.
It’s the same way that Voldemort is defeated and everyone is saved in the end: Harry willingly gives up his chance to live, turning himself over to Voldemort for the good of his friends. He chooses the death of one in exchange for the lives of many. His death defeated evil incarnate and gave freedom to those who were enslaved by fear of death. That reminds me of Someone Else…
Allegory, Supposal, and Symbolism
Rowling said that she didn’t want to publicize her churchy side until the series was over for fear that people would anticipate the inevitable conclusion of the series. But while she was intentional about the similarities between Christ’s death and Harry’s, they’re just symbols and allusions. This is distinct from the “supposal” of Narnia.
Lewis said that the parallels between Aslan and Jesus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe aren’t allegory but supposal. In a letter, Lewis wrote, “[Aslan] is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia, and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’ This is not allegory at all.” Aslan is a picture of Jesus, but Harry is just a regular hero whose choices reflect those of Jesus like the moon reflects the sun.
Echoes of the Greater Hero
And that’s the big point: every hero embodies and reflects the True Hero. Our good qualities stem from their Source, our good Creator. Jesus is the archetype; myth, story, and reality are echoes and reflections of him. Our love for Aslan, admiration of Harry, and awe at real-life heroes are signposts pointing toward Christ.
At the risk of having to rename this article “Aslan, Personally,” I’d like to clarify the point with one more C.S. Lewis quote. Once a boy’s mother wrote to Lewis about her son’s concern that he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus. “[Lawrence] can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing,” Lewis wrote back, “For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before.” The same is true for Harry Potter’s sacrifice, a firefighter’s rescue, and even the selflessness of a mother for her child. When we love what’s beautiful in another person, we’re loving the One who put it there.
A Primal Theme
We know that Rowling felt betrayed when she understood the religious significance of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so why did she include Christian themes in her own books? Because, whether she knows it or not, they’re the most poignant, primal, and passionate themes in human history. Our hearts were created to resonate with sacrifice, even if it takes place in a fictional forest with witches, wizards, and Hagrid looking on. The biblical ties don’t lessen the significance of the story—they intensify it.
True Hope
One of the epigraphs for The Deathly Hallows ends this way: “This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal” (William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude). We desperately want this to be true, don’t we? Anyone who has lost a loved one longs for them to be ever present, for the relationship to be immortal. While there’s certainly a sense in which it is true, our hearts long for it to be completely true.
The final battle for Hogwarts take a heavy toll. Lives are lost, and families are fractured. Even though it’s fiction, our hearts are still heavy for the characters we’ve come to love over the past seven books. Our hearts are heavier still because we know what it’s like to have loved and lost.
But the beautiful thing is that true hope doesn’t lie in wishful feelings—it lies in Christ. For those who love Jesus and have been changed by him, death is just a crossing from the shadowlands into the true Kingdom of Light. Because Jesus sacrificed himself—the One for the many—and conquered death itself, we can live together with him, not just for a while but forever.
Now that’s the work of a Hero.
In Pursuit of Publication
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled program to bring you this tidbit about my life as a writer. Yes, I write this blog, but I’ve also joined the hordes of humans who flood through the virtual gates of literary agents, picture book manuscripts waving wildly in the air. Heaven help me.
Why picture books
I’ve always loved picture books. I mean, always. I learned to read pretty early, and before that I memorized the books that my parents read to me. They would try to test me by switching a word here or there, and I’d be quick to correct them. (Ironically, my son does the same thing to me now when I try to summarize or skip sections of his books.) The stories of Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, The Berenstain Bears, the Sweet Pickles series, and so many more are indelibly etched in my memory even today.
Picture books shape our early memories in a way that little else does. When I open my old books to read them to my kids now – even if I haven’t seen the book in over 35 years – the pictures and even the words come right back to me. You know what I’m talking about. It’s like meeting up with an old friend you haven’t seen in decades, but instead of putting on 30 pounds and growing a scraggly beard, they’ve remained completely as you remember them. I’d love to be part of forging childhood memories like these.
What I’ve Learned
I’ve been reading forever and writing nearly forever, but attempting to break into the world of publication is new for me. As I tend to do, I dove head-first into research, work, and involvement. There is still so much for me to learn, but I thought I’d make a little list of tips (in no particular order) that I’ve gleaned so far. If you’re not interested in publication, these can still be enlightening as you see what’s on the back end of picture books these days.
- Some subjects and styles are in vogue, and others are nearly blacklisted. If you write poetry or anything over 600 words, don’t hold your breath for publication. Also, the market is much more favorable to anything or anyone that was previously marginalized.
- No one wants poetry. And that’s a crying shame. Poetry has served humanity well for millennia, but the powers that be have decreed that rhyming picture books are out. I love writing poetry, so this is especially unfortunate for me.
- You have eight seconds to hook an agent with your query letter. Agents are inundated with emails from writers. Word on the street is that if your letter doesn’t stand out within eight seconds, you’re almost certain to get a form rejection. They won’t even look at your manuscript.
- There are lots of resources available. The market is more competitive, but sources of help are more abundant too. Online groups and in-person meetings offer a plethora of answers to all of your questions.
- Rejection is a huge part of the process. You’re probably going to get countless rejections before you find an agent or publisher who wants to join forces with you. And that’s ok.
- Feedback is essential. You get blind to your own work after a while, and you need outside eyes to see where you can improve. Join a critique group or three. It’s a great source of motivation, accountability, feedback, and encouragement.
- Credentials, accolades, and memberships matter. When you start to submit your work, even just in online contests, the people who do best tend to have stuff to brag about—winners of previous contests, participants in loads of groups, runners-up in several challenges. Enter everything, and be sure to list your awards in your queries.
- The more resources you can avail yourself of, the better. Join writer’s groups, attend conferences, watch webinars, listen to podcasts, read articles and books, and talk to other people in the craft. There’s too much to learn via any one source.
- Social media is an evil, but it’s a necessary one. Honestly, I don’t enjoy most aspects of social media, but it would be hard to make enough connections to other writers, agents, and editors without a Twitter account. For now, it’s still the place for writers to be.
- You probably won’t make money in this line of work. Between splitting fees with agents and illustrators, being in charge of marketing your own books, and the dauting cost (about $17!) of a hardcover picture book, you’re not looking at a lucrative day job until you’re pretty far down the publishing road.
- You’ll be your own marketing team. Publishers are more likely to consider you if you have a plan for selling loads of books: thousands of online followers waiting to purchase, multiple school visits set up, experience in marketing, an author website and mailing list in place… The more influence, the merrier.
- Not every idea deserves to be a published book. This idea was quite freeing for me. I’ve got lots of ideas and several polished manuscripts, but that doesn’t mean all of them should be published. I can keep the rocks and display the gems.
- Every failed manuscript is still progress. Even if some manuscripts never turn into published books, that’s still all right. Brainstorming, writing, and editing are always good practice.
What’s Next
All that information looks dauting when you read it consecutively, and I won’t lie—it’s daunting for me to think about too. I had pictured writing books as a pretty simple process: write something good, have an agent get it published for me, and let the books sell themselves while I work on my next idea. But success in this industry is all-consuming. Sheesh, even failure is all-consuming! So I’m doing what I can (not much) in the time I have (virtually none) and hoping it will add up to something worthwhile one of these days.
For now, I’ve joined some writing groups, gathered some critique partners, started to write a bit more often, joined Twitter, entered contests, and attended presentations and conferences. I plan to keep writing as many manuscripts as possible; continue pursuing training, critique, and contests; and waiting for the right agent to fall from the sky. If you have any other tips, feel free to leave them below or reach out to me. I’m all ears! Otherwise, next time you see a picture book, say a prayer for me as I continue on this crazy journey. Thank you, friends!
Harry Potter, Personally: Relationships 2
In our previous installment of “Harry Potter, Personally,” we looked at some of Harry’s friends and enemies. Today we get to look at the other side of relationships: drama and romance. No book set during the school years would be complete (or accurate) without an extra-large helping of jealousy, crushes, and heartbreak. Oh, joy.
To be fair, most of the Harry Potter books aren’t too heavy-handed in this department, but there’s still plenty to make an older reader cringe. Is it excruciating to re-live these kinds of experiences in a book because it’s been so long, or is it because it hasn’t been long enough? I’ll let you decide.
DRAMA
Family Drama
The series starts with Harry’s earliest and most recurring source of drama, the Dursleys. His horrid aunt and uncle and their spoiled son make Harry’s muggle life comically miserable. They make Harry wear his overweight cousin’s old clothes. They send him Christmas gifts like a solitary toothpick or an old tissue. They make him sleep with the spiders in the cupboard under the stairs. Their persnickety abhorrence for all things magical (including Harry) is a source of drama at the beginning and end of each book, but it’s not meant to be a weighty one.
Boy Drama
The drama between the Big Three—Harry, Ron, and Hermione—is much worse than Harry’s mistreatment at home. It’s less enjoyable to read, too, since most of it is boy drama. I don’t mean drama about boys, although there is a bit of that. I mean drama stemming from the boys. Hermione may get frazzled about homework and exams, but she’s not usually walking off in a petulant huff like the boys tend to do.
Ron’s Drama
In my opinion, Ron’s insecurity is the main source of drama in the series. He’s just too unsure of himself, and it leads to all kinds of conflict. He feel overshadowed as Harry’s poor, red-headed friend and can’t just man up and move on. Instead, he’s mad at Harry for seeming to enter the Triwizard Tournament without telling him, he’s insecure about his own lousy Quidditch skills when Harry is made captain of the team, and he’s jealous of Harry’s close friendship with Hermione. He’s also jealous when Hermione dates Viktor Krum, and he tries to make her jealous in return when he finally snags Lavender Brown as a girlfriend. All this is tedious to read, and it makes Ron one of my least favorite characters in the book.
Harry’s Drama
Harry is guilty of his fair share of drama, although it’s not nearly as bad as Ron’s. Harry is a bad friend for nearly a whole book because the connection between his mind and Voldemort’s is causing him to be irrationally angry. He also stoops to Ron’s level during the Triwizard Tournament, refusing to talk to Ron and confiding in Hermione instead. His tendency is also to isolate himself when there’s a dangerous job to do. While that’s noble, it’s also obnoxious. His friends want to help, and trying to leave them behind is only going to cause drama. But overall, Harry is pretty level-headed—a refreshing change compared with ol’ Ronald.
ROMANCE
A Few Flings
Hermione is the first member of the trio to spark someone’s romantic interest. In the fourth book, Viktor Krum singles her out during the Triwizard Tournament, asking her to the Yule Ball and even staying in touch with her after the year ends. In the end, she was never too serious about Krum, so they drift apart.
Harry is next on the romance train. He has a crush on Cho Chang during the fourth book, but he actually dates her in the fifth. Their relationship is awkward, fraught with drama, and short-lived—all of which is accurate for most high school relationships. He can’t fathom why she’s always an emotional basket case and doesn’t seem heartbroken when things don’t work out.
Ron is the last to attract a female. In the sixth book, Lavender Brown foists herself upon him, and Ron doesn’t object. Instead, he welcomes the chance to make Hermione jealous. He throws himself headlong into a superficial relationship with her until it becomes too sickening even for him. His goal of making Hermione jealous does succeed, though, and they gradually admit their attraction to each other. Which leads to my next complaint.
The “Real” Thing for Ron and Hermione
Rowling crafts a relationship between Ron and Hermione that is foreshadowed well and ends with a nice little bow in the epilogue. But…I mean…why? Speaking as someone who is 100% Hermione (all right, I’m 80% Hermione and 20% Luna), there is no way on earth or Hogwarts or anywhere else that Hermione would end up with Ron. If there’s one thing competence can’t stand, it’s whiny insecurity. Ron is irritable, defensive, self-conscious, and lazy—and he’s not even funny! If he had a great sense of humor like Fred and George, I could understand her attraction to him. But as it is, it’s too far-fetched.
And do you know what? When I researched it for this article, Rowling admitted it. In an interview, she said, “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.” While that does make sense, it’s still a bummer because their relationship doesn’t ring true.
The “Real” Thing for Harry and Ginny
And, frankly, neither does Harry’s ending up with Ginny. I think it’s because of her whiplash-sudden character transformation in book five. Overnight she transforms from the shy, silent baby sister into an assertive, attractive prankster. She’s more interesting this way, but it doesn’t feel realistic to me. It feels like Rowling suddenly decided she wanted to stick Harry and Ginny together in the end but realized there was nothing at all interesting about Ginny. She fixed that, but not in a way that feels natural.
RANT OVER
While I do love the Harry Potter series as a whole, some of these relational issues are tedious for me to read. But, as I mention in a previous article, that’s all right because the intended audience is students, not adults. I’m sure most students would find the drama and romance accurate and entertaining. For me, there’s so much more to enjoy about Harry Potter that I can easily overlook these annoyances. Next time we’ll look at one of my favorite aspects of the series: heroism. Be sure to tune in for the final installment of “Harry Potter, Personally.”
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