Lessons Learned from Harry Potter

(This is part three of a blogging series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  You don’t need to read the other two to make sense of this one but you’ll probably want to read them for your own benefit.)

I’m a huge fan of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” novels.  I know that they appeal to my inner child, who has always been fascinated with fantasy stories.  I also know that the adult in me enjoys the complexity and word plays that Rowling uses to craft her tale.  And, like everyone, there are characters in the world of Harry Potter that absolutely call to me, whose own story I find compelling in its own right.  These our favorites and each time we visit them in the pages of those seven books we grow closer to them, identify more with them, and love them more and more.

Who is my all-time favorite Harry Potter character?  I think my answer will surprise you.

Professor Severus Snape.

Now, I will admit that my choice might be affected slightly by the stellar performance of the late Alan Rickman, particularly in the last two movies in which, like the final book, we see at last who this character is and what made him be the character he was.  The theatrical influence of the films notwithstanding, however, Rowling created an epic character skillfully, an archetypical persona rarely seen in literature anymore. 

Before I continue I want to offer a short disclaimer.  I recognize that the books are called “Harry Potter and….” and not “Professor Snape and…”  What I mean by this is that the total complexity of the life of Severus Snape, as a supporting character, isn’t going to be fleshed out as fully as Harry’s or even the characters closest to the Harry-center.  Some of my observations could easily be made different if J.K. Rowling would have had the opportunity to introduce more of Snape’s history or internal dialogue.  But, like much in life, including those things in our own individual stories, this is what we are given and so we use our knowledge and experience to make sense of these things.

In a nutshell, this is what we know about Severus Snape.  His mother was a witch, his father was a muggle.  We assume at some point in his parents’ relationship there was affection but that had pretty much disappeared by the time we glimpse them through young Severus’ eyes.  As a boy he meets and develops a deep and abiding affection for Lilly Evans despite her sister, Petunia’s, best efforts to disrupt the friendship and keep Lilly for herself.  The two eventually are accepted to Hogwarts where you know their friendship had to have been tested beyond what we see in the pages of the book.  Goody-two-shoes Lilly Evans from brave Gryffindor friends with the slimy outsider from Slytherin?  As the two grow older they grow apart because they can’t escape the strength of their convictions.  Lilly eventually gives into the pursuits of James Potter and Severus finds himself in league with the Death-Eaters…all the while still pining in the privacy of his heart for Lilly.  When Severus learns that Voldermort was planning to kill the Potters, he seeks out Dumbledore.  Dumbledore intercedes but in so doing makes a deal with Snape.  I don’t know if Severus Snape ever understood his relationship with Dumbledore in these terms, but it seems clear to me that Snape becomes Dumbledore’s protégé. 

Of course by the time Harry comes along, all of Severus’ anger over James’ “theft” of Lilly’s affections are transferred to Harry, who resembles his father so much.  Except for the eyes, of course. 

Every decision Snape makes in his treatment of Harry is supposed to make the reader question Snape’s loyalty to Dumbledore, “the cause,” and even Harry himself.  It’s not until the end of the saga that we understand that the decisions Snape makes are actually in the best interest of Dumbledore, “the cause,” and even Harry himself. They were all decisions based on Snape’s own experience and understanding.  We occasionally hear Snape complaining to Dumbledore about Harry’s arrogance and lack of talent and ability, but we never hear Snape complain, through any of the books, about his own lot in life.  This is what makes Snape my favorite character.

Think about it.  Snape’s childhood sucked.  Snape’s only childhood friend not only turns away from him but falls into the arms of Snape’s worst childhood enemy.  This childhood friend turned romantic love is murdered by the guy who had lured Snape to a cause he thought was right and just.  As time unfolds Snape needs to learn to live with the consequences of his actions—not just Lilly’s death but all the pain he has caused.  He’s never allowed the recognition he deserves lest his entire cover be blown.  For seven years he is confronted by a student who reminds him not only of the chief tormentor of his childhood but also the only love he has ever experienced. 

And not once do we ever hear Snape complain.

Snape never launches into diatribes or soliloquys about the unfairness of life, how he tries and tries and never seems to succeed, how he’s somehow owed and yet always denied the things he believes he has earned.  The only time we hear Snape complain is one scene between himself and Dumbledore in which Snape is arguing with Dumbledore about having to do the things Dumbledore expects from him but we eventually discover that this has nothing to do with Snape’s role as a double agent or the teaching job he’s always wanted—it has to do with promising to be the one to kill Dumbledore when the time is right.

I don’t know about you but I am not so gracious when it comes to dealing with the frustrations life has to offer me.  I have often found myself reviewing the events of my life, the rises and more specifically the falls in my story, and I eventually find myself raging at the wind that blows ill in my direction and into my face.  “I’ve done everything right!  I’ve always done the best I know how to do for those I love and who love me!  I always try to be a good person, follow the rules!...”

“….why am I being punished?”

How many of us, if we don’t actually breathe life into those five words by speaking them, at least think them when we struggle with life’s challenges?

Why am I being punished?

It is in our human nature to ascribe motive to people in our lives.  Psychologist refer to it as “Attribution Theory.”  In a nutshell, if we do something bad it’s because of the circumstances that are foisted upon us.  If someone else does bad, or does bad toward us, it’s because they’re simply a bad person doing bad things from bad motivations.  You see the difference?  If do we bad, we scapegoat it out.  If others do bad, it’s because they’re rotten people. 

It’s how Harry and so many other characters become so dismissive of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books.  Snape, in their eyes, is completely incapable of making a good decision while all of our heroes constantly struggle to do what is right.  Of course not one of these characters apart from Dumbledore actually takes the time to learn Snape’s story to understand why Snape does the things he does.  Only Dumbledore resists the temptation to dismiss Snape’s motivations as corrupt. 

This translates to the larger, intangible forces in life.  When it seems that there is no actual person behind our trouble and our misery, we ascribe this thing called “life” the same wicked motives we would ascribe someone who wronged us.  Life is unfair.  It is punishing us. 

This idea is sometimes translated into religious and spiritual teachings.  I can only speak within a Christian experience but this is just another ignorant and superstitious teaching perpetuated by the institutional church designed to keep the faithful in line.  God does not punish people.  People do enough punishing of people on their own without dragging God into it. 

We are driven to make sense of our lives, to interpret the good and especially the bad.  We do this by creating a narrative of our life, by telling our story.  We’re the main character, the hero, the protagonist.  We struggle and battle.  We win and celebrate.  We lose and wonder why.  We reach peaks and we fall into valleys.  If we can’t reason out logically the events that affect us, if we can’t access the thoughts and motives of the people whose own stories intersect ours, if it’s the amorphous, ambiguous, immeasurable thing we call “life,” we do what human beings have always done.  We ascribe it motive or place it within the purview of some divine force. 

Or maybe it just happens because life sucks.

Sometimes we get so focused on reasons and actors in the telling of our story that we forget that, even in the best stories, there are always “givens” that the reader has to accept to help the story move forward.  In life the biggest given is that life sometimes just sucks.  We aren’t being judged or punished.  We aren’t being tortured.  We are alive and if we are alive it means we have to accept the “givens” of this life. 

Life sometimes just sucks.

You see, sometimes getting caught in the narrative process, trying to divine the why’s and why not’s, we become stuck in the pain and misfortune.  The “suck” of life.  Here is the one thing I’ve learned about these “givens,” these things we accept that are without rules or rationale.  They are given to us to improve us.  Whether you want to call it luck or divine intervention or just the way it is, these tragedies, challenges, struggles come to everyone and how we deal with them will tell us how we move forward in our stories.  If we allow ourselves to be victimized by events outside of our control, to become trapped in wondering why we’re “being punished,” we miss the point. 

Maybe a better approach to these givens is not waste our time divining their origins but to remake them as characters.  They come into our lives as surely as love interests, friends, or workplace competitors.  They come to make us better.

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. 

Look at Snape.