Tribute summer: Game of Thrones for Harry Potter

This is a very interesting time for me as I have participated in one of the fandoms I had been resisting for years, Game of Thrones. We are talking about the series everyone watches, everyone’s obsessed with and no one mocks! Because you will mock the Marvel fanatic for the lame false-scientific justification and the Star Wars fanatic for the Chewie-Solo bromance but no one will ever mock the brutally realistic fantasy series about a bunch of rich families either bedding or killing each other.

And I am now part of that fandom too! Haven’t read the books but I did binge-watch it really fast and passionately; I now manage to include discussions about Game of Thrones in most of my human encounters (and one with a cat but just the one). It is a brilliant series and it is captivating and from what I hear the books are even better! It is also an adult fandom as it is sprinkled with disgusting, gore scenes, lots of nudity and disturbing breastfeeding scenes that are somehow worse than all of the angles of any beheading… I am trying to keep this spoiler free but you know which breastfeeding I mean.

I really loved Game of Thrones and I can only assume those that watched it as it came out, having to wait each week to see what would happen, love it even more. However, during my extensive exposure to such a mature and ‘life is a bitch’ series I was also reading my favorite book series ever, Harry Potter. If the contrast is not apparent, let me just say that all three main Harry Potter characters are alive, so are their romantic interests and the strongest magical force in the series is love. It is also a children’s book series (or so some ignorant people claim) while ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ should be kept away from children at least until they realize they will never get a Hogwarts letter.

So this is basically my tribute to Harry Potter (the books really) as it came about from my parallel journey with Game of Thrones.

So what if it is unrealistic? So what if it is idealistic? So what if it is over-optimistic? So what if the ‘love conquers all’ theme is a bit cheesy? It is so beautiful! It is beautiful to read as a child because it is wonderful to be convinced that love is ancient magic. And as an adult it is comforting to read that someone who does not appreciate love will always underestimate how strong a drive it is. The world sucks and that is where George R. R. Martin has it right, but you turn to books and specifically to science fiction for some imaginative comfort and distraction. Is it not fun to read about a magical world where you can see your diseased loved ones in a hidden mirror and beat your materialized greatest fear with laughter? It is even more fun to do that and then watch Game of Thrones so the fall back to reality is even steeper.

Anyway, it is misleading to say the two are even comparable, that is not the case,  but it got you here didn't it?  It is just that the show’s realism is a good trigger for me to write this tribute. However, by all means, if you haven’t watched Game of Thrones you should, it is FUCKING AWESOME!! But this is not the post for such a tribute.

I don’t think an extensive tribute is necessary; I will only focus on two instances. I cannot fully describe the rush of warmness you feel when the name ‘Ron Weasley’ shows up on a page for the first time, knowing he becomes the best friend of a kid that lived under a staircase for eleven years.  And of course realistically, such a kid would not be sociable enough to make a best friend on their first encounter on a train, but J.K.Rowling’s version is so much more redeeming. Then come the tears when one of your favourite characters died that had been around for countless child-appropriate moments and this non-child ending is a rush of melancholia. A movie drags it out and uses E minor chords in the background, you are forced to feel sad in a conventional way but in these books, you fill in the gaps yourself and the sadness is so much more pure. I, for one, was an adult on a train tearing up because Fred Weasley died the moment Percy reunited with his family (if you have only seen the movies you might not know what I am talking about).

I could go on for a long time about why I love Harry Potter, book by book. These two examples do not even talk about my favourite characters throughout the series. But having now demolished any sort of street credit I may have had when I bashed Justin Bieber as pre-adolescent, shit-noise (and let’s be honest that it no street cred to be proud of) I can firmly state that I loved reading Harry Potter as a twenty-two year old. Definitely not as much as I had when I was younger and did not know what was going to happen but it was very similar to being covered with a nice fluffy blanket. So, you know, re read them or if you are that ashamed, get a son, daughter, sister, nephew to read them with. It’s as good an excuse as any.