The Wizards Harry

With Potter-mania still a force to be reckoned with and my own literary obsessions flitting around as they will, I’ve been thinking about fantasy stories and why I like some and just can’t lose myself in others.  For most of 2010 I read hardly anything that didn’t center around the adventures of a wizard named Harry… Dresden.  Yet whenever I’ve tried to go to Hogworts, whether in book or movie form, to visit with that other wizard named Harry, it’s felt like a chore.

Fantasy can be broken up into three major categories: High Fantasy, Low Fantasy and Portal Fantasy.  I’ve found that I approach each category with certain expectations, and my enjoyment of a story is more dependent on how well it lives up to those expectations than which category it fits into. 

High Fantasy stories are the ones that take place in a unique world totally removed from this one.  Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea novels fit into this category, as do the majority of the tomes filling bookstore and library shelves in the fantasy/sci-fi section (if only because they’re so darn huge!).  Arguably, The Lord of the Rings stories belong in this category as well.  In these epics, the author is responsible to create (or plagiarize from Tolkien) every facet of his world, including geography, races, magic systems, class systems and even gods.  For the purposes of a High Fantasy story the world that you and I live in does not, and may not ever exist.

This... has nothing to do with anything.

Low Fantasy stories, however, are set in this world.  So my favorite series right now, The Dresden Files, would be considered Low Fantasy.  Much of Neil Gaiman’s output would fall into this category, as well as the works of Susan Cooper and Suzanna Clarke.  Calling them low has nothing to do with the quality of the story, as in “low art.”  In fact, in my opinion these are the most difficult fantasy stories to craft.  The authors who do well in this subgenre have a myriad of fairytales, folktales, superstitions and ancient Traditions they need to hold to if the story, especially the magic, is going to ring true. Subgenres would include Urban Fantasy (e.g.: The Dresden Files) and certain Alternate Histories (e.g.: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell).

Portal Fantasies, as you may have guessed, are stories where the characters generally move from our world and into another.  The Chronicles of Narnia and the Alice stories, as well as Dorothy’s trips to Oz are all favorite examples.  Which direction the author wishes to lean, whether to High Fantasy or Low, is up to him.  Most authors seem to prefer High, while Neil Gaiman tends to keep his Portal Fantasies rooted in Traditions better suited to Low. 

You may have noticed I have yet to categorize The Harry Potter series.  While in the first book Harry does indeed have to go through a portal to get to his special world, later on in the series he travels there by flying car.  The very fact that he can use magic in England clearly places his adventures in the Low Fantasy category.  Yet I’ve been unable to find any connection to the Tradition that I expect in Low Fantasy stories.  Petty as it sounds, the fact that J.K. Rowling starts her books in contemporary England, instead of calling it Just-Off-Center-Narnearthia is what has kept me from investing in what I hear are some truly endearing characters.

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 The Dresden Files, while crass and decidedly not family friendly, hold an appeal for me beyond their sometimes puerile situations. Detective Harry Dresden lives in Chicago, but often has to deal with the Faerie Courts. I personally can’t imagine trying to write the Fae Courts in a way that does them justice, but Jim Butcher does his homework, crafting stories that are rooted in a Tradition that will likely continue long after both the wizards Harry are forgotten.

Why do I feel so strongly that Low Fantasy must hold to certain rules and conventions?  Why can’t I just let it go and enjoy the characters or the stories for what they are?  I honestly don’t know.  Perhaps it has something to do with the very first fantasy stories most of us ever hear, fairytales.  When we were first told these stories, most of us were unable to comprehend another world independent of our own, so we had to believe that they take place in our world, just a very long time ago.  And there are rules, expectations and an underlying sense of tradition that we begin to latch onto in the world of these stories.  As I grew older, I started digging into the superstitions of the people with whom these stories originated and those underlying beliefs began to rise to the surface. 

When I read Harry Potter, nothing about the world or its magic sounds true.  But the way Jim Butcher, creator of The Dresden Files, writes about fairies, magic, werewolves, and other things does.  Not because I believe that the way he portrays things shows how the supernatural world really works.  But because I believe that at one point in history people, perhaps even my own ancestors, did.  And I’m sorry, but I’ll never be able to give the world of Harry Potter the same credibility.