fiyaaa!

If you have checked the news in the past week or so you probably know that a large portion of Los Angeles County is on fire.

The fires are about 20 miles away from where I live, and, as far as I know, not expected to threaten urban Los Angeles. But they did produce this weird cloud with a pure-white broccoli top directly over downtown Los Angeles this afternoon, which I have learned is called a pyrocumulus cloud. Wikipedia tells me that it is produced by the same atmospheric mechanism as a mushroom cloud. Disasters are so fascinating from a safe distance!

On Vimeo, a filmmaker named Eric Spiegelman has created two time-lapse videos of the fires. They are kind of weirdly beautiful if you forget, you know, that that shit can kill you and destroy everything you own and such.

Yet another reason I'm never living in the Los Angeles County exurbs!

Time Lapse Test: The Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

the revenge of plot

I recently discovered that tons of writerly people are on Twitter. One of the more interesting to "follow" has been Lev Grossman, the senior book critic for Time magazine and a self-described huge fantasy nerd.

I'm sure I read his (spoiler-free) review of Deathly Hallows when it came out, but I recently rediscovered it and took note of it because he pretty much nailed, in a single sentence, everything I think is so awesome and profound and worthy-of-contemplation-by-adults about Rowling's universe: "The essential problem in Rowling's books is how to love in the face of death, and her characters must arrive at the solution all on their own, hand-to-hand, at street level, with bleeding knuckles and gritted teeth, and then sweep up the rubble afterwards." Willingness to engage with a book about wizards on an existential level? You've got my attention.

In any case, Lev recently wrote a great piece for, of all things, the Wall Street Journal's Life & Style section, calling for the return of plot to the literary novel, and, in a broader sense, for the breaking down of distinctions between "literary" and "popular" or "genre" fiction. It caught my attention because it was making, not an identical, but a sort of parallel argument to this article by Independent journalist Johann Hari, in which he called on young novelists to stop "ever more exquisitely describing their own navels" and go out and write about real shit happening in the real world. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Hari also recently wrote these excellent pieces.) When I read Hari's commentary, I immediately thought "That's me! That's what I'm trying to do!"

Lev makes an interesting point about why he thinks so many adults have been "cheating on" literary fiction with young-adult novels, the territory of the "unblushing embrace of storytelling," which offer the return of things like "suspense and humor and pacing"--and, I would add, of stakes.

What is it that makes YA books so appealing? Without having done an extensive literature review of the contemporary YA market, I will venture a completely unscientific guess. YA books that are going to make it big--which means they will have to successfully compete for tweens' and teenagers' attention with a myriad of distractions, not the least of which are movies and video games--are more likely to be what we'd call in the film industry "high concept." That is, they tell a high-stakes story set in a unique, original and memorable world. I would suspect that they frequently involve a life-or-death struggle of some sort--because, let's face it, when you're a teenager everything seems like a life-or-death struggle, so that's just a basic requirement to hold the reader's attention. You may notice that these are also frequently the attributes of fantasy tales; I don't think it's a coincidence that there is a large overlap in genres.

Of course, any of my professors would quickly tell you that these are also the elements of a good movie. We want to see characters fighting for something, something they desperately need or want and are having trouble getting, something that matters to us and them. Because conflict is not seen as an optional element in drama, but the bedrock on which everything else is built, paying attention to things like tension and suspense and pacing and mystery, to characters' actions and objectives, is a basic structural necessity and not a stylistic choice. I would wager that if you examined the top-selling YA novels, you'd find they were constructed a lot more like movies than most "respectable" literary fiction, and I'd argue that that is generally a good thing.

If you think about it, it should not really be that surprising that stories with people who do things and want things and fight for things that matter, and that take us to a world we don't already know, are damn compelling. And just because these elements tend more frequently to be found in "popular" literature doesn't mean they can't also be a part of great literature...or that popular literature itself can't be great literature--whoa!

So, in conclusion: pop culture win. Read wizard books. And I'm looking forward to being part of the future of fiction.

P.S. Funny Lev Grossman should mention Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, a 374-page post-apocalyptic thriller in which teenagers are forced to fight to the death on live TV in something like a macabre cross between Survivor and Battle Royale. It seems I am coming a bit late to the phenomenon (a sequel is due out this week), but I recently read the first chapter of The Hunger Games online on Scholastic's website. I was immediately sucked in by the swift and simple prose and the book's hard-bitten, not-remotely-girly teenage heroine. Something about the blunt, matter-of-fact way in which she described her brutal world struck a chord of authenticity with me, and by the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. I ordered the book, and when it arrived I immediately read the second chapter, at which point I had to slam the book shut and hide it in the closet, because I knew if I read any more I was just going to have to read the whole damn thing. It's currently burning a hole through the closet door, along with Lev Grossman's own book, The Magicians, which this article pretty much single-handedly convinced me to buy.

P.P.S. Lev also recently wrote this, which really has nothing to do with anything, but which I laughed at for a slightly embarrassingly long time.

in which i hate on los angeles some more

I love planning. It's a great way to think about the future without having to actually do anything to get there. You know what else I love? School supplies. So you can imagine that the purchase of a new monthly planner is one of the highlights of back-to-school time, which is already one of my favorite times of year because, if you couldn't tell, I am a nerd.

After a slightly ludicrous amount of time spent perusing the offerings at the USC bookstore, I settled on a planner that started in August 2009 and ran all the way to December 2010--partially because it was thin and would fit easily in my bag, and partially because I just respected its slightly odd format, which seemed to say, "Yeah, I'm a seventeen-month calendar. What? That's how I roll."

And partially, I'll admit, because those pages at the end called to me--and not JUST because I could write "DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART I!" on November 19, 2010. (Although I did, post haste.)

As I lingered on the page marked September 2010, I couldn't help thinking: Surely, I'll be back in New York by then. And, imagining that, those last pages seemed to flutter with extra crispness, fresh with the promise of brisk fall breezes, October skies, black wool coats, the comforting embrace of skyscrapers, hot coffee sipped while walking at a proper pace down sidewalks properly filled with people, and excuses to wear my remarkably soft Gryffindor...er, USC scarf.

The one task I gave myself for the mostly-empty months of July and August in Los Angeles, other than writing, was to re-learn to drive. I haven't done it, and now that the semester has started, who knows when I will. But I finally realized what was behind my willingness to tolerate the limitations and inconveniences of being a non-driver in a city so car-oriented that even stores turn their backs on the sidewalk. If I learned to drive, that would be admitting to myself that there was at least a chance I would actually be living in this godforsaken city, as, like, a real, non-student adult. And clearly that is not a possibility I am inclined to face at the moment.

If you've been reading this blog you'll know it's no secret that, although I think film school is awesome, I hate Los Angeles with a fiery passion. As time goes by, you'd think I would get used to it and start hating it less. Instead I seem to hate it more. And I've become increasingly convinced that having a car, while it would certainly make my life easier, would not make me like Los Angeles one bit more.

Los Angeles is the anti-city: a vast, flat, centerless expanse of never-ending suburb that sprawls like a fungus over desert plains and clambers up into mountain canyons where no city is supposed to be, a place where people describe neighborhoods by their proximity to various freeways, a place where the urban grid is stretched to its least-walkable dimensions. (Short blocks favor pedestrians: they have more corners, which are prime real estate for both sidewalk-oriented shops and personal interaction. Long blocks favor cars because there are fewer stop lights.)

Los Angeles has no sense of urgency. LA, for all its ungainly size and various cityesque attributes, still feels sleepy and provincial to me. It has the natural energy of the beach: nice for a vacation, but rather like quicksand when you're trying to get stuff done. Even the weather begins to get old. "Oh, jeez, month after month of sunshine and low humidity, must be rough!" I can hear you East Coasters muttering sarcastically. But seriously. With a lack of seasons, time stretches out into one long, unmarked blur. There is no sense of things moving and changing, of time passing by. You're just trapped in this hot, flat, timeless pancake filled with mile after mile of strip malls of varying bougieness or grubbiness, depending on the zip code. Also, bars close absurdly early, hardly anything is open twenty-four hours, and both the density and pace of service of Los Angeles's Starbucks is criminally low.

There was a time when I was convinced I just needed to get to know Los Angeles better. The USC neighborhood is somewhat unappealing; surely there must be other neighborhoods out there in the vast sea of Los Angeles's expanse that I could call home. Every visit to a new friend's house was like a blind date: maybe this will be the neighborhood I'll fall in love with. It was only recently that I reminded myself that between September 2000 and August 2008, I was never out of New York for more than a month at a time, and realized there was probably a good reason for that.

Perhaps this is why, after nearly two months in a new apartment, I have not bothered to unpack more than the bare minimum needed for survival (which, in case you're wondering, is my computer and other media tools, my books, three plates, one cereal bowl, one all-purpose mug, a couple of utensils, some toiletries, and about one laundry load worth of clothes). I like the feeling that this must be only temporary, because the idea that it could be permanent, or even semi-permanent, is too horrible to contemplate.

Although I fully reserve the right to change my mind, if you asked me today, I would say I plan to get the hell out of Los Angeles as soon as humanly possible. Will this reduce my chances of meeting some agent's or studio exec's second assistant in some bar in West Hollywood some night? Yeah, probably. And you know what? I think I can live with that risk. The possibility of success in any creative industry is so ridiculously low to begin with that, in my opinion, there's no point in being miserable while you're trying to make it.

back to school

This week was the first week of the semester, although it didn't feel so much like a "week" to me, since I have an odd schedule in which all of my classes are jammed into one intense block beginning at 10 am on Wednesday and concluding at 7 pm on Thursday, after which I have five uninterrupted days to either write or screw around (doing things like clearing out half-finished blog posts, for example). I am aware that this schedule will require a level of self-discipline I may not currently possess, since I do, in fact, have quite a lot of work to do this semester. I'm telling myself it will be a good learning experience.

The upside is that if the first week is any indication, all of my classes are going to be fantastic. I have two new writing teachers, for my thesis class and a rewrite class, both of whom seem top-notch and really focused on creating strong characters, which is exactly what I need. Both of these classes are also filled almost entirely with people I've never taken a writing class with, and there seem to be a lot of interesting and diverse projects in each. And my critical studies class with Professor Boyd, about which I've already written one post, promises to be SO AWESOME I think my head might explode. In the first class alone, we talked about the Wolfowitz Doctrine, Blackwater, the CIA's covert interrogation program, and what the 2000 election says about American democracy. It's like candy for mah brain!

On a side note, my sister and I calculated that this is the first time in twenty years that I will be going to school while she is not. (She graduated from college this spring and is spending a year working with AmeriCorps VISTA in our hometown, Baltimore, living in a house and being all grown-up and shit.) Weeeeird...

a class made just for me

No joke, this is a class I am taking this fall.

CTCS 510: "9/11 America"
Professor Todd Boyd

[excerpted from the syllabus]

This course will use "September 11, 2001" as an opportunity to focus on the relationship between politics, media, and culture in contemporary American society.

The course will draw on a list of political and cultural examples, while surveying cinema, contemporary critical literature, and other forms of discourse on a range of relevant issues; they would include issues of nationalism and national identity, globalization, the rise of neo-conservative politics, neo-liberalism, radical Islam, torture, notions of terrorism, the economic crisis, preemptive war, race, class, and gender, information and technology, and executive power.

Required Texts [highlights from a list of ten]
Resurrecting Empire by Rashid Khalidi
Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror by Mark Danner
Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Screening List
8/26: The Fog of War
9/2: W
9/9: The Battle of Algiers (hells yeah I'll watch it again!)
9/16: The Manchurian Candidate
9/23: One Day in September
9/30: Fahrenheit 9/11
10/7: No End in Sight (cheery for my birthday, yay!)
10/14: There Will Be Blood (how does this connect to 9/11? no idea!)
10/21: Syriana
10/28: Paradise Now
11/4: Standard Operating Procedure
11/11: When the Levees Broke
11/18: Three Kings
11/25: In the Valley of Elah
12/2: The Siege

So, yeah...I might have added Rendition to the list, but if the Critical Studies department had said, "Gee, Laura, it seems you need to take another one of our classes in order to graduate. How 'bout we make one JUST FOR YOU?" this is pretty much what would have come out.

For those of you who do not go to USC, Todd Boyd is known as "the notorious PhD," a label which I think he created for himself. He is best known for writing about and teaching a class on hip-hop. I have also been told that he "does not subscribe to The Man's time," which means he is usually twenty minutes late to class. I sincerely hope that is true, since that will be the only way I get to eat lunch on Wednesdays, which, because I've decided to take this class, will now consist of wall-to-wall class time from 10am until 6:20pm. But it seems to me to be a small price to pay to take what is essentially a class on Stuff Inside Laura's Brain.

[Update 8/26: Went to the first class today and it is JUST AS AWESOME as I suspected it would be!]

problems of adaptation: harry potter edition

Yes, I know, third Harry Potter post in under a month. And I can't promise it'll be the last. What can I say? It's been two years since I got a fresh hit of Potter and those books are like crack rock.

The Harry Potter films are many things to many people, but first and foremost they are a master class in adaptation: a beloved source material that has been read obsessively by millions of fans, adapted by a group of people who (it seems clear to me) love that source material and care very deeply about preserving its integrity on film, occasionally guided by the author (such as in a note scribbled in a margin to Steve Kloves: "Dumbledore is gay") but mostly left alone, with all the resources both Hollywood and the British film industry can muster.

Personally, I think the mark of a really good adaptation is not clinging slavishly to the source material at all costs, but realizing when it's necessary, or preferable, to change something in order to preserve the spirit of the story when translating it from page to screen. Because books and film are two different media, something that works brilliantly in one medium may not work at all in the other. Here I'd like to look at two changes--one small but noticeable, the other large but subtle--that have been made in the films and what their effect has been.

If you have read Half-Blood Prince, you will know that there is one huge, crucial difference in the way Dumbledore's death scene plays out on film. In the book, Dumbledore magically immobilizes Harry the moment they hear someone coming up the steps of the Astronomy Tower, and the split second he spends to protect Harry costs Dumbledore his opportunity to defend himself. Harry, hidden under his Invisibility Cloak, is safe but unable to move or make a sound--and must watch helplessly as his last and greatest mentor is killed. Harry, whose deepest impulse is, always, to save, is literally paralyzed in a life-or-death situation, unable to act at a time when he surely would have acted without one bit of regard for his own safety. The resulting scene has a nightmarish, this-can't-be-happening quality that is deadly effective on the page. It would also never work on film.

This may seem like kind of an obvious statement, but in film you can't see into people's heads. You can only see what they're thinking and feeling by what is externalized--by what the characters do, and particularly by the reactions you see on their faces. So there is just no way you are going to have your main character in a state where he is unable to express emotion during the most emotional scene of the film.

There is a scene early in the movie where Harry is frozen--when Malfoy catches him in the train car on the Hogwarts Express. And it actually looks kind of silly. Malfoy playing this very malevolent, aggressive scene against what's basically a life-size Daniel Radcliffe cardboard cutout comes off as kind of ridiculous on film. So of course you can't have that in the scene that's designed to deliver the biggest emotional gut-punch of the whole movie.

The result is that Dumbledore's death scene has a somewhat different character in the movie than in the book. But since Kloves and Yates are smart adapters, they are able to not just take away, but add. In particular, they add one delicious moment where Snape sneaks up on Harry in his hiding place under the Astronomy Tower floor. The coy camera pan that reveals Snape, wand pointed like a gun at Harry's head, drew at least one gasp from the audience every time I saw the movie.

Movie-Harry does three things in this scene that he does not do very often. He follows orders (Dumbledore's to stay hidden no matter what, and Snape's to remain silent), he does not act, and he trusts Snape. By this point in his education, Harry is presumably skilled enough at nonverbal skills that he could have had a decent shot at immobilizing Snape--or, for that matter, Draco. But he does not. Under the Astronomy Tower floor, he has a split second to decide whether or not to trust Snape. And, for once in his life, he does. He chooses to believe that Dumbledore is right, that Snape is on their side, and lets Snape go upstairs unimpeded. And Snape kills Dumbledore.

I am sure that movie-Harry will replay this moment over and over again in his head as he goes forward, particularly in the many moments of doubt he has coming to him over the next year. Why didn't I do something? Why didn't I try to stop Snape? Why didn't I try to stop Draco? And for crap's sake, why did Dumbledore ever, ever trust Snape?

(Of course, if you've read Book 7 you know that there are very good answers coming for some of these questions. But Harry doesn't know that...yet.)

There is another change from the books that runs through all the films, one that is subtle but vast. It is a change that the filmmakers may not have even realized they were making when most of the casting was locked down. I only noticed it because I happened to recently rewatch Sorcerer's Stone, in which Harry sees his parents for the first time in the Mirror of Erised.

My first thought, of course, was "What the hell? That dude doesn't look anything like Harry!" (James Potter is supposed to look so much like Harry that everyone around Harry is constantly reminding him of it.) My second thought, right on the heels of that, was, "My God, they are way too old!"

JK Rowling is vague on a lot of dates, but one set of dates is written in stone, literally, on the graves of James and Lily Potter, which we see in Deathly Hallows. James and Lily Potter were born in 1960, and they were killed on Halloween night, 1981. They were twenty-one.

Even if you imagine that what Harry is seeing in the Mirror of Erised is his family as it would look in the present day, if his parents had not been killed, you would expect a couple in their early 30s, not around 40 as they appear in the film. (Adrian Rawlins, who plays James, was 43 when the first film came out; Geraldine Somerville was a much closer match at 34 and I still think she's a brilliant Lily.)

When you stop and think about it, you realize all James and Lily's contemporaries--Lupin, Sirius and Snape--have been cast about ten years older than they should be if you actually do the math. Granted, some of them have ready-made excuses--I'm sure both Azkaban and lycanthropy have fairly egregious premature aging effects. But while Alan Rickman (who is actually 63!!!) takes a lot of years off with a black wig and some good makeup, I don't think there is any way anyone is going to be convinced that Snape is younger than 40.

What is the net effect of the decision, whether conscious or not, to make Harry's parents' generation ten years older in the films than in the books? Narratively, of course, absolutely nothing. And one could argue that it was, in fact, a very smart decision, because it allowed the films to be cast with fabulous veterans of British stage and screen, most of whom are in their forties (David Thewlis), fifties (Gary Oldman) and even sixties (Rickman). (Let's leave aside, for a minute, the mystery of how old Slughorn is supposed to be if he really did teach Tom Riddle fifty years ago.)

I think most fans would agree that a little canon slippage is a fair price to pay for the most excellent presence of David Thewlis, Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman. Indeed, I couldn't possibly imagine more perfect casting. But we do lose something, although what it is is a little intangible.

What is the effect of making Harry's parents and their cohort so young? We learn, in the first chapter of the first book, that the First War against Voldemort had been raging for "thirteen years" prior to Harry's parents' death. That means that James, Lily, Sirius, Lupin and Snape (who, it is established, were all in the same year at Hogwarts) grew up with the war, just as Harry and his friends have. It means that all five had to face the unforgiving realities of war as teenagers--just as Harry and his friends do. It heightens what I think are already fairly obvious historical parallels--not just to the young soldiers of conventional armies, but to people like Mordechai Anielewicz, who commanded the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at the age of 24. And it vastly strengthens the link between teenage Harry and his very young parents, who, we know, had already "thrice defied" Voldemort by the tender age of twenty.

Of course, it is also a mark of the series' inherent Britishness. The idea of not just one but two generations of young people graduating high school and immediately going off to fight in the most brutal wars the world had ever known is something deeply, deeply embedded in British (and indeed, all European) collective consciousness. It is a far more central element of historical memory in Europe than in the US, as anyone who has seen the war memorials that still dot thousands of towns and villages--and, indeed, hang in many boarding schools not unlike Hogwarts--across Europe can attest.

It also means that near the end of Deathly Hallows, when Harry comes face to face, one last time, with the parents whose self-sacrifice casts a long shadow over the entire series, we truly feel that he has become their equal.

On film, I am sure this scene will be beautiful. It will be as perfect as it can be, because after ten years everyone involved in the Potter franchise knows that it is a moment to be treated with utmost respect and reverence. JK Rowling has said that it is her favorite moment in the series ("Me too! Me too!" you can hear me yelling in the background), it's the scene that made her cry ("OMG, me too!"), and Daniel Radcliffe has said its the scene he is most excited to film. It will be lovely, and moving, and I bet it will make audiences tear up (and, probably, me too), but it will not be exactly the same.

But I guess that is just another reason to read the books. And if you have no idea what I've been talking about for the past two paragraphs, well, that is even more of a reason!

news from rafah gate

The International Movement to Open Rafah Border is a group of international activists who have been maintaining an encampment at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza since June. Their goal is to maintain the pressure on the Egyptian government to open the border, and to monitor conditions on the few days a month it is open--usually not more than two or three days, and often not at all.

Despite harrassment from Egyptian border officials, they have maintained their encampment for nearly two months. And this month, for the first time in three years, the crossing was open six days in a row--and is, in fact, still open at this moment.

Six days may not seem like a lot, but it is another sign that joint Palestinian and international actions are, in fact, having a impact. Every protest, convoy, delegation, Free Gaza Movement voyage, encampment and other solidarity action is another crack in the wall of the siege. And any wall can only take so many cracks before it's broken down.

We're off to a good start at the Rafah crossing. Now it's time to start working on Erez!

harry potter and asymmetric warfare

Or, Everything I Ever Think About, Together in One Blog Post! With Block Quotes!!

NOTE: While this post does discuss the Harry Potter series as a whole, my goal in writing it is to make you, my fellow freedom-loving, oppression-fighting person, want to read the books if you have somehow managed not to do so yet! So, while I consider any plot points that have been covered in the films so far to be basic cultural literacy, I have taken care not to include any *major* spoilers about Deathly Hallows. Because really, you should read it and experience its awesomeness for yourself.

Onward!

Several days ago I started writing a blog post about the politics of Harry Potter, and why I think the books are fundamentally radical in their political outlook. I soon realized that "the politics of Harry Potter" is a topic on which I have enough thoughts to write a book, or at least a decent master's thesis. And perhaps I will indeed do one or both of those things some day. But for now I'd like to talk about one particular element of JK Rowling's remarkable world which stands out to me particularly sharply post-Gaza, and which I think is one of the most profound and insightful messages of the books.

While on a recent post-HBP news binge, I came across this article, entitled "Missing from Harry Potter: a real moral struggle." (WARNING! The aforementioned article *does* contain spoilers about the final book, so read at your own risk.) After the initial reaction of "MMWUUHHH?" I read the article. While the ways in which "children's literature critic" Jenny Sawyer has oversimplified and misunderstood the basic principles of storytelling can be saved for another post, there can be no doubt that she has also fundamentally misunderstood the world of Harry Potter.

Sawyer argues that because Harry is never "tempted" by the Dark side, he has no moral journey. "Well, DUH!" you are probably saying if you've read the books. "Of course Harry's never tempted to join Voldemort! Voldemort killed his mum and dad!" Exactly. Harry is never tempted to join the Death Eaters for the same reason I was never tempted to donate money to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign--it is completely against my interest to do so.

Sawyer's argument only holds water if you see the world as a completely equal place, where everyone has absolutely free choice, and moral fiber is demonstrated by resisting "temptation," which surely lurks everywhere.

But the world isn't exactly like that, is it? The world, it so happens, is not an equal place at all. It is divided into oppressor and oppressed. And Harry and his allies behave like oppressed people. They do not fight (or rather, fight back) out of some abstract moral duty to "do the right thing." They fight because they are facing an enemy who is determined to crush and exterminate them--one who terrorizes, imprisons, tortures and kills, and who would seek to turn their society into a dictatorship based on racism and maintained through savage political repression.

They do, in short, what anyone is eventually driven to do when facing oppression: they resist. And it should not come as a surprise that they fight exactly the kind of war that oppressed groups tend to fight against their oppressors, the only kind of war a group of poorly-armed rebels can possibly expect to win against a vastly militarily superior force--a guerrilla war. Or, more broadly defined, an asymmetric war.

It should be stated that asymmetric warfare does not simply mean a conflict in which one side is weak and the other is strong (although that may be true in absolute military terms). It means that the two sides have different strengths. And what JK Rowling has to say about the strengths of oppressed people--of our side--is, I think, very profound indeed.

Let us consider, for a moment, the prophecy that we discover in Book 5 regarding Harry and Voldemort's shared destiny:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches....Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives." (OotP p. 841)

The first thing to note about this prophecy, of course, is that Voldemort himself fulfilled it through his own violent actions. Hearing only the first part, the part identifying his would-be vanquisher, he lashed out at infant Harry, the child of two young militants who had escaped his clutches three times...and in doing so, he created his own gravedigger. (It's actually kind of dialectical, if you think about it.) And lest you think I am projecting some of my own politics onto the text, JK Rowling actually makes this point quite specifically in Book 6, and here it is worth quoting her at length.

"If Voldemort had never murdered your father," [Dumbledore tells Harry], "would he have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge? Of course not! If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have given you a magical protection he could not penetrate? Of course not, Harry! Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different. Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him. He heard the prophecy and he leapt into action, with the result that he not only handpicked the man most likely to finish him, he handed him uniquely deadly weapons!" (HBP p. 510)

Prophecy is not the same as predestination--on this Dumbledore is very clear. Harry is in control of his own actions--but so too is Voldemort, who will keep hunting Harry until he is stopped.

"But, sir," said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative, "it all comes to the same thing, doesn't it? I've got to try and kill him, or--"
"Got to?" said Dumbledore. "Of course you've got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you've tried!" (HBP p. 511)

Voldemort is a victim of the law of diminishing returns of repression--the more violence you throw at people, the more likely they are to feel that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain from resisting.

Why is Harry "the man most likely to finish" Voldemort? Because the war against Voldemort has claimed the lives of nearly everyone Harry has ever loved: James, Lily, Sirius, Dumbledore; plus Cedric Diggory, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time due to nothing more than Harry's own decent nature; plus a whole host of people who will perish in Book 7. Many of these deaths are paralyzing when they happen, the source of seemingly unendurable pain. But they do not destroy Harry. They make him stronger, more determined to continue fighting. And, when it comes time for him to face the most difficult task of all, it is not the living he calls on for support, but the dead.

"In guerrilla warfare," says Gene Hackman in one of my all-time favorite movies, Enemy of the State, "you try to use your weaknesses as strengths."

Voldemort, a textbook sociopath who is incapable of feeling or understanding many human emotions, sees human connection only as a weakness. Mercy is a sign of vacillation; love is something to be exploited, a way to control or punish.

But JK Rowling, Dumbledore, and ultimately, Harry, know better. Rowling is very clear that Harry's secret weapon, "the power the Dark Lord knows not," is love. Not all manifestations of love are warm and fuzzy. Grief for those slain, rage against their killers, even hatred and the desire for vengeance--these are all expressions of love, and they can be quite fearsome weapons indeed. Rage and hatred are two emotions that Harry relies on, again and again, to overcome fear when nothing else will, and they serve him quite well.

Love, and its collective political expression, which we might call solidarity, is perhaps the only reliable source of courage when facing vastly superior forces. It is the force that drives Harry into battle again and again, even when victory seems impossible. It helps him fight dementors and Voldemort's possession at the end of Book 5. It is the force that keeps his friends fighting at his side when to do so means facing torture and death. It is the force that keeps members of Dumbledore's Army engaged in underground resistance under the noses of Death Eaters, and that draws every member of every resistance organization Harry has ever had contact with--plus most of their family members--to Hogwarts to fight in the final battle against Voldemort.

Ultimately, it is not Harry's magical qualities that give him a chance of defeating Voldemort, but his human qualities. While he's had the benefit of a steep learning curve in some areas of magic, he's a patently terrible student of other areas (particularly those requiring a lot of book knowledge.) He is an exceptional wizard, not because he is the brightest student at Hogwarts (Hermione clearly claims that title) or because he is intrinsically possessed of more magical power, but because he is an exceptional human being--not in spite of the tragic and violent experiences that have marked his entire life, but because of them.

It is a mark of JK Rowling's enormous political sophistication that she does not shy away from a fundamental truth of asymmetric warfare: that the price of victory is always, always higher for the oppressed. What we lack in military might we must make up for in blood spilt, in terror and suffering endured. That's not noble; that's just life in an unequal world. But the idea that our most powerful weapons are intangible ones, and that even our worst, most terrible and painful experiences, even grief, loss and death, can be turned around and used as fuel to help us keep fighting--that these things can even be the secret to victory--is, I think, an enormously empowering, deeply radical, and incredibly beautiful concept. In fact, one might be tempted to call it magic.