The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Harry Potter and the Sighting of a Central Theme

July 11th, 2007

Unlike many Harry Potter readers, when it comes to ranking the various installments, I enjoy Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix more than any other except the first book in the series. I agree that “Caps-Lock Harry” (as the brooding, shouting adolescent Harry has been nicknamed) wears on the reader’s patience, but I find him much more tolerable in Jim Dale’s reading of the audiobook (Dale doesn’t shout, for one thing). Most importantly, however, Order of the Phoenix ranks high on my list of Potter volumes because I think it’s the book in which Rowling most successfully shows the effects of evil. I’ve said before, probably so many times that my regular readers are ready to place a silencing charm on me, that I’m not impressed with Rowling’s depictions of good and evil. “Good” always boils down to some vague notion of “loyalty” or “friendship,” ungrounded in any deeper principle (and unaccompanied by virtues such as “honesty” and “trust”). And, since I believe that evil is not the opposite of good but rather its absence, it’s hard to paint a convincing portrait of evil unless you have first shown us the good.

However, in Order of the Phoenix, we see evil’s side-effects, rather than its head-on portrait. In one of the best scenes of the new film (which I saw today at 12:00 a.m.), Luna Lovegood reminds Harry that Voldemort partially accomplishes his purposes by sowing discord among his opponents. The primary source of friction in Order of the Phoenix? Disagreement over whether Harry can believe that Voldemort has indeed returned. Though I’m cautious about trying to find Christian parallels in the Harry Potter books, I am reminded here of Screwtape’s advice to junior devil Wormwood when he impresses upon him the advantages of keeping humans from believing in demons like themselves.

More than any other film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a central theme: the internal strife within the “good” wizarding community, and Harry’s resulting isolation. At times, the theme is even overly stressed, such as when Hermione repeatedly tells Harry, “We’re in this together.” In spite of a bit of hitting the viewer over the head, though, the film does at least achieve a unity that the others really haven’t (not even Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azkaban, which is still my favorite of the films).

Some critics have complained that this fifth film doesn’t have the “magic” of the earlier films, while some have claimed that, given the fact that Voldemort has just returned, the film doesn’t seem dark enough. I found the tone highly appropriate for the film’s themes. I liked (well, from an aesthetic standpoint) watching Voldemort work obliquely, as it’s how Satan most often works in the world, too. Sure, the grand apocalyptic confrontation we’re headed for in the seventh book may be more exciting (or it may not, given Rowling’s propensity to write disappointing climactic scenes), but the everyday struggle against smaller manifestations of evil is actually rendered with more complexity in Rowling’s work (and David Yates’s film).

I was also pleased to discover that angry Harry is rendered much more sympathetic on film than in Rowling’s prose–possibly because we’re not barraged with a stream of Harry’s self-pitying thoughts, as we are in the book. When we see him calling desperately after Dumbledore’s retreating back, we sense his feeling of abandonment more powerfully than we (or at least I) ever do in the novel.

Yates and new-to-the-series screenwriter Michael Goldenberg have made a good many changes to the plot that do help to streamline the movie, as well as to keep it centered on its theme. There’s one apparently superfluous diversion (Grawp), but I remember hearing rumors of a character who was going to be cut from the film who gained a reprieve because Rowling he insisted he was important later in the series (i.e., Book 7). My money’s on Grawp. At least, I hope he turns out to be significant, because otherwise he’s just a big waste of space. Literally.

(UPDATE: My latest issue of Entertainment Weekly informs me that Kreacher is actually the movie character saved by J.K. Deus Ex Machina Rowling for his important future role. Which makes me wonder . . . why then didn’t the film contain anything about his treachery? And WHY was Grawp still in it?)

Have some things been lost in the plot’s condensation? Of course. Again, most of the cut material isn’t really necessary, but several times I wondered whether someone unfamiliar with the book would be able to make sense of everything. And several of the missing elements seem particularly important to the story (SPOILERS to be found below):

1. Dumbledore’s discussion of how the prophecy about Harry could just as well have been about baby Neville Longbottom—until Voldemort, acting on partial knowledge of the prophecy, determined the other part of it by choosing to attack baby Harry. It’s an interesting combination of fate/free will stuff, and I’m always in favor of anything about Neville, as I think he and Snape are the two most interesting characters in the whole series.
2. Ginny’s conversation with Harry about what it’s like to be possessed by Voldemort (she has been; he hasn’t). In addition to better explaining what’s going on with Harry, this conversation lays the groundwork for their future romance.
3. Snape’s motivation for kicking Harry out of his office and canceling his Occlumency lessons. In the book, this happens because Harry has, unwisely but deliberately, trespassed in the Pensieve where Snape has been keeping his private memories. In the film, he accidentally gains access to Snape’s memories while protecting himself against Snape’s efforts to read his mind. Since this is what Harry is supposed to be doing anyway, it doesn’t seem logical that Snape would throw him out. (UPDATE: Porpoise has now seen the movie too, and he pointed out that, as it’s presented in the film, Harry’s attempts to defend himself from Snape’s Legilimency aren’t supposed to involve his wand; he’s supposed to control his mind. So when Harry pulls out his wand and shouts “Protego!“, thus breaking into Snape’s memories, he actually is transgressing. Further support for Porpoise’s reading of the scene: as I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I’ve begun to suspect that Goldenberg, when screenwriting for Order of the Phoenix, drew inspiration from the next volume in the series. The relevant scene is on page 180, if you want to look it up for yourself. It involves Harry using “Protego!” against Snape when they’re supposed to be learning nonverbal spells in class. With this additional information, I withdraw my initial complaint about this point in the movie.)
4. The night of the attack on Mr. Weasley, which is skimmed over too quickly. As soon as we learn that Mr. Weasley has been found (but before we know anything about his condition), Dumbledore whisks Harry off to an impromptu Occlumency lesson with Snape. Their apparent lack of concern over Mr. Weasley’s fate somewhat undermines the film’s insistence on love, friendship, and loyalty as the triumvirate of virtues.

Those gripes aside, though, I have to salute the filmmakers for including a shot of Hermione’s otter-shaped Patronus, the one component of the movie I was most eagerly anticipating. It gamboled very nicely.

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