Where Harry is a God

I enjoyed the Harry Potter series. I still do. I can lean back and lose myself in the world J.K. Rowling created despite the fact I’ve read the books through a few times already. The writing is approachable, the overarching narrative of the series is understandable without too much thought, and on the whole it’s just a very good collection of simple reading to entertain.

However, I do find that the character of Harry Potter is in itself a perfect example of a trap many writers fall into when writing any kind of fantasy or science fiction. The name of this pit writers fall into tends to be the name given to the character in the book – any book – this applies to.

Most often, it is simply called “The Chosen One”.

First, lets break down a typical Chosen One by some basic, recurring traits. Does the main character have, or experienced any of the following;

A unique birth (signified by either events directly or indirectly applied to the child or due to once-in-a-hundred-generations event such as a rare meteor storm);

A unique and powerful event happening during infant-hood.

Some kind of child prodigy trait for the use of any given item or skill that is almost impossible to master.

The unique use of an ability (at any level) that no other mortal being can.

A divine encounter.

A near death experience in which death was avoided specifically by a Deus Ex Machina that does not involve another mortal being.

A generations old blood relation to a former champion/master of any given discipline.

A lack of abilities in a universe where everyone has at least one.

There are many others, but if the character meets at least one of those requirements then congratulations it is the Chosen One, and thus in the third act it will pull out all of it’s badassery in order to conquer some kind of perceived great evil or adversary.

Now, there is certainly a place for all-powerful characters in Fantasy/SciFi and I accept that, the problem is that all too often authors make the lead character that omnipotent badass. The story becomes just as much about the character’s realisation of it’s powers as the world that surrounds said character – and then it becomes a play-by-play of “which latent power does this person have which will only come out at this moment”.

Now, Harry Potter isn’t a particularly great example of this. The build of Harry’s power is spread out over the books and as such (thankfully) never really gets in the way of the story as much as it could. However, the character manages to fit the bill nicely.

Harry is not only the sole survivor of the murder spree wrought by one of the most powerful wizards to ever live, he both survived by managing to somehow block a curse that could not be blocked and ’destroyed’ (or, at least, incredibly screw over as you learn during the course of the book) that evil. The kicker? He was only a baby at the time.

Point two of the list, right there.

Throughout the series, Harry develops a bunch of other abilities that are incredibly rare among even wizards – such as the ability to speak to snakes – as well as excelling in tasks that magical folk struggle to manage at his age due to the power that is involved (the Patronus Charm for example). By the end of it, not only has he defeated the supposed second most powerful wizard in the series, he also manages to out-perform Albus Dumbledore, who was more powerful than Voldemort but never capable of destroying the wax-faced bastard.

Now, in the books it is explained how Harry has gained some of the abilities of Voldemort after the event in his childhood – the snake thing is in here – and thus some of his power can be attributed to that, some to his Father who again was a powerful wizard. But, even with valid explanation, Harry is still the Chosen One. He becomes the only wizard capable of stopping Voldemort, and manages to do so, before he hits eighteen years old!

There you have it, Harry is dragged up to almost deity status. However, it isn’t all about power.

The chosen one doesn’t have to be powerful or even want anything to do with it, either. The character of Rincewind in the Discworld saga is a categorical chosen one – so much so that he is directly referred to being such in the books. However, he has no redeeming power or skills, and frequently tries to avoid danger only to fall into it anyway.

He is a chosen one due to lack of ability in a universe filled with it – no ability but luck, which results in him saving the book’s universe a couple of times as well as populating a planet.

It’s a common approach for authors to use the emergence of power as a plot point and I can understand why. It allows a reason for a character being focused, as well as a convenient get-in-get-out-clause for any incident in the book that has no other way of beginning or ending other than “because the lead character can do this, apparently”.

It is, however, unneeded.

Forgive me from using popular reference, but consider this: Frodo was never a Chosen One in The Lord of the Rings. He simply ended up inheriting the Ring and after doing his job in getting it to Rivendell, stood forward to take the ring all the way on his own accord. As for Bilbo finding the ring in the first place, that is less him being chosen than it was the Ring trying it’s damn best to escape the Middle Earth equivalent of an East End basement club.

Also consider Hari Seldon of Foundation. He managed to unlock the secrets Precognition, but he wasn’t chosen by any great power, nor did any space debris happen to hit his head when he was a child. He was simply a well learned scientist who created a mathematical theory that happened to be correct.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there is definitely a place in most Fantasy and SciFi for the Chosen One, but it doesn’t have to be the lead character. Hell, going back to The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is arguably the Chosen one as presented by the book – he fell and fought before effectively dying on a mountain side, simply to be revived more powerful than ever before by the power of space and time. Point five of the list here.

He was a main character, certainly, but he wasn’t the main character (that honor goes to Sam Gamgee) and due to this fact it allowed his power to be even more mysterious and awesome. We never truly learn the full extent of Gandalf the White’s power, but the mere glimpses Tolkien offers us simply pushes the image of being all powerful even further. If he can do this with little effort, what else could he do?!

Unfortunately that kind of writing is tricky to accomplish. While I would love to see more books that avoid it entirely, writing about the Chosen One is an easy technique born from the time when the King Arthur tale was being vocally told.

Every problem in the novel, including the overarching crisis, can simply be explained with “the lead character can do this, this and that”. It is often the easy way out, and with everyone in the western world trying to write a novel, it’s unfortunate that we’re going to see many more adventures of the all powerful, all knowing, combat capable.

We’re going to read many more books where Harry is a God.