I’m sure many of you are big fans of Harry Potter. Similar to my discussions with other children’s media such as Disney films, I want to make more people aware of the interesting concepts that would otherwise be overlooked when looking at Harry Potter media. In particular, I want to discuss the issues illuminated by Burn’s article on “Potterliteracy”. In relation to my previous discussions of the “death” of childhood with the advent of new media and technology, I’d like to pinpoint how Harry is differently portrayed as the “hero” in proportion to how childhood is viewed in comparison with adulthood, and how new media determinism is a result of this. I’ve decided one effective way is to dissect the Aragog (the spider king whose a friend of Hagrid’s) scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
In Harry Potter text media (book), even though Harry is portrayed as the hero, he is nevertheless still considered a “child” who inevitably still needs the guidance and protection of an “adult.” When the spider minions surround Harry and Ron, Ron’s car comes to their rescue, wiping out the spiders through action, while Harry couldn’t do much to alleviate the situation. In this case, the car can be seen as the “adult” guardian who comes to the rescue of the “children” in distress. In the words of J.K. Rowling, all the verb actions are happening to Harry instead of him performing the actions. This places him in a position of the victimized when he’s supposed to be the hero. In the filmic version of Harry Potter, however, Harry at least gets to use his wand twice to save Ron. Ron actually drives the car instead of the car driving itself. In addition, they made this scene even longer in the film because we, as an audience, expect to see the protagonist actually perform certain heroic actions. Even in the film, Harry and Ron have limited ability to escape. In the video game, on the other hand, we only see Harry and not Ron after the cut scene. Instead of running away like in the book and the movie, however, Harry (who we as audience get to play with the controller) strategizes and not only stays to fight the little spider minions and successfully killing them, but also faces Aragog himself.
With the degree of interactivity and how Harry is represented as the “heavy hero” (with not just participation but agency in the video game) rather than a relatively helpless child, we can argue that the transformation in the representation of Harry Potter is a result of new media determinism as it constructed a change in childhood between the game and the book. Once again, we can relate back to Buckingham’s After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media.
This article helps me understand what Professor Losh is talking about in class. I mean the point she was trying to make about how the rules of a game can have rhetorical effect. The rules of the game make a point. I never considered very closely how different the scene in the book is compared to the movie, nor did I know how the events pan out in a Harry Potter video game. What you are saying about how the audience of the film expects Harry to perform more heroic actions makes sense. And the way that a video game works means that the user expects a completely different interaction – in the video game one plays the young Harry and can stay and fight and kill all of the spiders, correct? Your blog is interesting and you have made the consideration of video games relevant to me because I am familiar with the Harry Potter books. Thank you!
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