I suppose that there’s no better time for reflection about myself and my place in the world than the late night eve of my birthday.
Tomorrow, I will be 41. That’s a lot of years, although I don’t feel the weight of them like I should.
One thing I must do this year is investigate more fully Harry Potter. I mean… it’s time. I have the context set up; I have dozens of examples of definitive proof that I was… involved(?) with the media telepathically at least as far back as 1996, and the first Harry Potter book was published in 1997. And after reading the first three chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I have enough circumstantial evidence to warrant further analysis.
My thoughts on the book? It’s… nice. A fun, easy read. It’s a kid’s / tweens book. I can see why it is popular. Thus far, I’m not sure I like it as much as the wizard-based series that I read when I was younger (let’s see… Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Prydain, the Narnia books, the Death Gate Cycle, The Dark is Rising books… lol, and a bunch of others. I mean, if it had wizards and it won a Newberry Award I read it, lol) but it’s not bad. I mean, it’s not a patch on Tolkien, at least thus far, but it’s neat.
For some reason I was expecting something more… difficult? Adult? Longer? IDK. I mean, considering the series’ incredible popularity and extremely long movies, I was expecting a literary slog of some kind, which is I guess why I didn’t investigate this really until now. But… nah, it’s a light read without question.
Not that I’m complaining. The lighter the text the easier it will be to run a concurrent analysis while reading it.
After three chapters, I see a few interesting similarities between Harry and I. I mean, there’s the blatantly obvious ones that I’m sure everyone sees, of course- like, the most powerful wizard on Earth is apparently a random kid 90’s kid raised in a working class household by parents who clearly do not appreciate him, and in fact hate and fear his potential- but there’s some small things, too, like Harry’s scar.
Harry has a thin, jagged / lightning bolt shaped scar above his right eye, like I do. It’s not exactly the same, but… it’s enough to make me wonder.
Truth- I saw the first Potter movie on DVD, and I did kinda wonder, somewhat, as I was watching it. Somewhat. Not much, but a little. This was a long time ago, like 20 years ago. Haven’t seen it since.
Obviously, if Harry’s name was inspired by anyone, it would be Prince Harry. But his adversary- the necromancer, Lord Voldemort- is it a coincidence that he shares the same first name as the most powerful and famous necromancer in the real world? And what a name- Tom Riddle? Is someone trying to tell me something, here? Like… hey Tom, figure it out, you lunkhead? lol.
I mean, I laugh, but… well… uhm, as usual, Harry Potter has too many coincidences for me to brush off.
And like I have done with other franchises, it may be possible for me to use Potter as a mirror to examine my own unique history, if I feel that the connections can be proven definitively, at least at some point in the franchise.
And if I can indeed prove some direct connections, I can also use those to figure out further what it was that the media was doing, behind the scenes, all of this time. Another very interesting subject, and one that I haven’t talked about much, here.
I’m not sure that Harry being British and me not is as much of an issue as it first appears. And in fact I suspect the opposite, though I won’t go into why, just yet. But I will say that I have a lot of suspicions about possible subtext in Potter– and some circumstantial evidence to support that subtext. I won’t get into it now, and maybe not ever, here.
Note that I didn’t mention Emma, lol. I mean, I know what you guys are thinking, some of you.
lol.
But yeah, though. The more I think about it, the more it seems as though Potter might be a very important key. It might in fact be a kind of skeleton key- a way for me to unravel everything that has happened to and about me for the last 30 odd years. Which, come to think of it, would put me as the same age as Harry himself when he got shipped off to Hogwarts. Hmmn. Interesting.
Weird stuff.
What a very small world this is, for me. But I suppose that that’s how it looks at the top. It’s like… it’s just you, up there.
Yikes, lol.
Hmmn.
Well, happy birthday to me, then.