Allan Hunter

Warning:  If you haven't finished Harry Potter 7, then don't read this.  I don't want to spoil things for you.

Like many (twelve million, I'm told) other people I grabbed my copy of Harry Potter 7 on Saturday and dived in as quickly as possible, trying hard not to let the demands of every day intrude.  Since this included an invitation to a dinner party, to which I had to go (it was, after all, a 60^th Birthday celebration for a dear friend, planned months ago) I can only congratulate myself on having stuck to the book through almost everything.  Not that it was hard to do so.

Ever since the notion of the six archetypes had come along and beaten me over the head some five years ago I’ve been fascinated by the existence of these archetypes in the Harry Potter books.  I’ve included a section about this in my new book Stories We Need to Know. The section I’d written describes the way Harry goes through all six stages, and how each year he goes through all the six sub-stages, which is exactly what I have observed in life.  So now I read with double interest: what would happen in the seventh volume and would it conform to the archetypal pattern I’d traced out for it?  Would I have to remove my entire discussion of Harry Potter if he didn’t do as I’d predicted he ought to?  And what would the publisher think of that?

Not only did I have a tremendous time reading, but I’m pleased and relieved to say the pattern I’d expected emerged fully.  Harry does go through all six stages, again, and better still, because this is a fantasy novel Rowling was able to take the discussion one step further than a realist format would have allowed.  Harry’s purity of intent, his love for others, if you prefer, is taken to death and beyond.  Because he has two of the Deathly Hallows in his possession he is able to return from his near-death encounter with Voldemort, and complete his spiritual development.

Now you may say I’m foolish to want someone else’s character to conform to a pattern of mine, so I’ll back track a little.  The six stages – six archetypes of personal development – have been present in all the great literature of the Western Canon for the past 3000 years.  Always the same, always in the same order, the main characters move from Innocent to Orphan, on to Pilgrim, Warrior-Lover, Monarch and Magician stages. Whether we’re talking about Oedipus or Odysseus, Hamlet or Sir Gawain, the main characters go through these stages.  In some ways I’d contend that this is the deep pattern that makes great literature truly Great – it mirrors the most profound levels of psychic development of which we’re capable.  Literature has always been aware of this, and has sought to relay this to us.  We read the stories, we reflect on the heroes’ adventures, and we learn some profound truths as we do, even though it may be hard to articulate those truths fully.  Since this pattern is one of the measures that I use to differentiate between real literature and garbage, it mattered hugely to me to find out whether the greatest publishing phenomenon of the last 200 years would fulfill this promise.  Would Rowling be able to tell the deep truths I had witnessed in other works?

She delivered.

And here’s the nub, for me.  Many people can write well.  Many people can write in ways that move us.  But how many of them are actually telling important truths that will help us to live better lives?  Stephen King is brilliant at frightening the life out of his readers, and he’s become immensely wealthy doing so – but I do not find in his works any  guidance as to what living a decent soul-enriching life might be.  To me he’s like a ghastly guest at a party who insists on cornering you and telling you how bad his life is.  The awfulness of this person’s life is actual, true.  But knowing about the misery gives little help as to how one can live happily.  Stephen King, it seems to me, emphasizes the negative and ignores the positive.  This is a recipe for disaster.  One can only change the negative by focusing on the positive and building on it.  That guest at the dinner party would do better to focus on the joy of being alive despite all those ailments.  Because it is a joy being alive, and for those who think otherwise I’d point out that being dead is always an option; not one I’d recommend, of course, but it’s a free world.

J.K.Rowling delivered a rattling good read, and one that shows us about complex human awarenesses that can enhance life.  Harry learns the greatest courage of all, because it is based in real love – not just love of friends, but love and compassion for everyone, friends and enemies alike.  He is willing to die for those he loves, which is one of the purest and highest attachments anyone can aspire to. He can also be compassionate. He saves the odious Malfoy on at least two occasions, for example, and discovers that the Malfoy family is in fact devoted to their son.  Family love really does count above everything else, because love defeats evil, ultimately.  It has to.  Evil is the absence of love, the absence of the desire to understand, and the focus on the merely physical.

Voldemort fails because he thinks he needs things to keep him powerful.  Harry lets him know that it’s not the things themselves but our relationship to the things and our relationship to others that matters.  That’s why the Elder Wand, which Voldemort thought would make him invincible, cannot work for him fully.  The wand is not just a thing, to be owned.  It is a wand that has to be loyal (loyalty and love again!) to its true master or it cannot operate at full strength.  Now, one may say this is fine for a book.  After all, each time I start my car I don’t rely upon it being loyal to me.  I rely on it being in good repair.  You might say I’m more loyal to it than it is to me, since I’m the one who takes it for tune-ups and oil changes.  But we’re not talking about facts, we’re talking about metaphors in this book.  Harry is the true master because he doesn’t care about power.  This, one could say, is the mark of the true leader.  A real leader doesn’t care about the palace, the office furniture, the power-over-others.  A true leader cares about doing the right and moral thing no matter what.  A real leader cares about every single person, and relies on each of them to make moral choices freely, not just because they’re told what to think and do.  Harry, as the acknowledged leader of a bunch of freedom fighters against tyranny, doesn’t even seem to give any orders.  He relies on everyone else being able to be moved to do the right thing by their own sense of decency.  Neville – dear nerdy Neville – faced with real moral choices has no hesitation.  He fights.  A Warrior-Lover he fights for what he believes in. And in case we miss the point he has no hesitation in confronting Voldemort even when he’s been disarmed.  It is he who draws Gryffindor’s sword from the sorting hat (which is on fire) and slices off Nagini’s head – destroying the last Horcrux.  No one could find that sword who wasn’t a true Warrior-Lover moving towards Monarch level. 

At the end of the book we discover that Neville is in the teaching and nurturing role of the true Monarch, because he’s now a professor at Hogwarts. As a side note we might just notice that during the climatic battle Neville has the burning Sorting Hat placed on his head by Voldemort.  This is not just a convenient plot arrangement.  The Sorting Hat is the device that places new students in their ‘houses’ at Hogwarts.  It therefore is placing them in the situation that is most appropriate to who they truly are.  Voldemort’s desire to do away with the hat, and with Neville, is his wish that young wizards stop being true to who and what they truly are so that they can conform to what he wants them to be.  Education, wrongly used, is the worst form of tyranny.  Neville’s rebellion, then, is symbolically all the more important, and more courageous, as he refuses this manipulation.  He is loyal to what is right, he is loyal to who he is.  That’s love.

The pattern of the six archetypes is there, alive and well, and an inspiration to all readers.  Knowing about them, and how they work, will help anyone to live a better life.  Thank goodness Rowling has them in her books. Perhaps the word will leak out now.