mahiwaga

It’s ironic, really. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series for the past 7 years (I was gifted the first three books in 2000), I never really held it in high regard, especially in terms of literary merit. To me, it was the fantasy equivalent of a romance novel: lots of fun to read, but not something you would read again. As I’ve mentioned before, the only books that I’ve managed to read more than once have been The Lord of the Rings, The Last Unicorn, and The Wizard of Earthsea. (Actually, digging around in my memory, there are a few more: some of Madeline L’Engle’s books, in particular A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters; and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy series by Douglas Adams.)

The concept of a supernatural world embedded in our mundanity has been well exploited in literature. Leaving aside comic book heroes, several authors have done good work with regards to magical realism. The most prominent and lyrical to come to mind is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, which takes place in London, where a parallel supernatural world co-exists. He does something somewhat similar in American Gods, where gods from various pantheons roam around American cities. (The action starts off in Chicago, for example.)

Interestingly, I first ran into the concept of pagan gods wandering around modern cities in Douglas Adams’ lesser known Dirk Gently series.

Other examples of this type of magical realism that I’ve read include So You Want to Be a Wizard published in 1982, where a thirteen year old girl finds a library book that instructs her on how to become a wizard, and leads her to a parallel version of NYC. Then there is Tom Holt’s entire series depicting the office of H.W. Wells, a company dedicated to getting supernatural things done. My favorite novel of his, however, is not related to H.W. Wells. Entitled Who’s Afraid of Beowulf?, it describes the reawakening of an entombed Norse king and his champions, who resume their ancient war against the Sorcerer-King, who has managed to become a high-powered CEO ensconced in London.

And in terms of a wizard school, I still feel like not enough credit has ever been given to the Isle of Roke in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea.

But nevertheless, after reading Deathly Hallows, I am stunned. The character of Severus Snape just leaves me in awe. My heart is seriously breaking. Who’d’ve thunk that what seemed like a throw-away fantasy series would actually generate a character that I can keenly relate to?

Snape seems to exemplify a phenomenon similar to what happened with “Star Wars.” For example, while in the original trilogy (Episodes IV-VI), Luke Skywalker is clearly the main character, it becomes eminently clear by the end of “Return of the Jedi” that the series is really about Anakin Skywalker and his redemption from the Dark Side of the Force, a theme which George Lucas eventually bludgeons his audience with when he came out with the prequels (Episodes I-III.) (It ought to be realized that when “A New Hope” was written, no one had any idea that (1) Lea was Luke’s long-lost twin sister and (2) Darth Vader was actually Anakin Skywalker, the presumed-to-be dead father of the twins.)

In the same way, while the Harry Potter series is ostensibly about, well, Harry Potter, by the end, it becomes clear that the overall plot hinges on Severus Snape and the reasons for his repudiation of the Dark Arts.

We seem to always be intrigued by the anti-heroes, the bad guys who end up doing good. The simplistic way to look at it is that we are people who are intrigued by evil. But a more nuanced way to look at it is that we realize that the most fully formed characters are neither entirely bad or entirely good.

But what haunts me the most about Severus Snape is his enduring love cum obsession with Lily Potter neé Evans. He had been in love with her since they were like 9 or 10 years old, where apparently they lived in the same neighborhood. She seemed to be his only true friend at Hogwarts, and from the brief snippets that J.K. Rowling cobbles together near the conclusion of the book, it seems that she genuinely cares about him—I suppose in a platonic way—but she nevertheless does love him. Certainly she cares about him more than anyone else ever does, including his parents.

But, I guess, just like Anakin Skywalker, Snape turns to the Dark Side, only Snape realizes his mistake when the Dark Side threatens to harm the woman that he loves. (I seriously cannot wait until 2010 to watch Alan Rickman depict these scenes from the pensieve. I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be heartrending.)

But Lily is killed anyway, and Snape endeavors for the next 17 years to keep her son safe from harm, in concert with Dumbledore, only to have his actions seemingly become meaningless when Dumbledore reveals to him that Harry must die to vanquish the Dark Lord. And Snape dies without knowing that Good indeed triumphs over Evil.

Who, except for Harry, and except for thousands of adoring fans, will mourn the passing of Severus Snape?

In the final analysis, it’s kind of pathetic. Here you are, a powerful wizard, mooning over a woman who just doesn’t look at you in that way, and who ends up marrying a guy you can’t stand. And this stays with him for, what, almost 20 years? Living alone in a run-down shack in a sleazy part of town, hated by pretty much all the students at Hogwarts except for the Slytherins, and even they probably fear you more than actually love you, your only friend who ever gave a crap about you dead.

And so you dedicate your entire life to protecting the son of the woman you love, who was your only friend in the entire world, only to die realizing that he has to die anyway. Talk about feeling like a miserable failure.

But I’m glad that I’m not alone in feeling this way about Snape. Just check out YouTube for all the Severus and Lily tributes, and the heart-felt comments that people have been posting.

(Oh, but to know, truly and deeply, that you are loved. That someone has a part of their heart staked upon your existence, your triumph, your failures. To know for a fact that, yes, someone actually gives a damn. It’s been a long time. My heart quails at the loneliness yet to come….)

Actually, one of my favorite “there are wizards among us” stories is entitled “El Regalo” (The Gift) by Peter S Beagle (of The Last Unicorn fame.) Part of his anthology The Line Between, Beagle chronicles the misadventures of a 15 year old Korean American girl named Angie and her 8½ year old brother named Marvyn, both of whom come to discover that they have magical powers. In this tantalizing tidbit that is just calling to be expanded to a full length novel, they find themselves pitted against an ancient, malevolent sorceror only known as El Viejo, The Old Man.

The multicultural environs necessarily places this novella in a major metropolitan area. Given my Southern California-centrism, I immediately imagine that this is L.A. (Beagle did write a novel entitled Unicorn Sonata that was set in L.A.) But I suppose this could just as easily be NYC, particularly since Beagle grew up there.

Which leads to why, of all the fantasy series that I’ve read, The Earthsea Cycle exercises such a strong hold on my imagination.

Never mind the wonderful elucidation of the system of Magic, the interweavings of Taoist philosophy, and the beauty and the lyricism of Le Guin’s writing. True, these alone make the series worth reading. But as a person-of-color who aspires to be a writer of speculative fiction, the fact that Ged is a brown guy is awesome.

Pam Noles’ essay on how groundbreaking it was to have a non-white major character pretty much encompasses anything I have to say about the subject, and is far more articulate than anything I could write. But suffice it to say that I was eminently saddened by the Sci-Fi Channel’s wanton rape of Le Guin’s material, of which UKL herself has much to write about: (1) A Whitewashed Earthsea: how the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books (2) Frankenstein’s Earthsea.

But Earthsea resonates with me and my cultural heritage far more than just due to the coincident skin color. I ought to write UKL some day to ask her if certain concepts were deliberate. Like Ged himself, my parents come from an archipelago. My distant ancestors were all seafarers, some of whom braved the open seas, reaching as far as Madagascar to the west and Easter Island to the east, and some even theorize that they might have actually made it to the South American mainland. And in the beginning of certain Filipino creation stories, just like the creation myth of Earthsea, there was only sea and sky.

The Old Powers recall the indigenous animistic beliefs of Southeast Asia. And even the magic system, where to name something is to bind it, resonates.

(Not that this has anything to do with it, but the concept of the Verdunan, the Division, is key to the final book in the cycle. For some reason, I automatically think of the Ati-Atihan, which is a festival on the isle of Aklan which supposedly commemorates the arrival of the Borneans and their agreement to share the land with the indigenous Ati. And these are probably just false cognates, but what if Ati is related to the word “hati”, which means “half” in some Austronesian languages. Given the typically diminuitive stature of the Ati, does this connote “halfling”? OK, I’ve probably read way too much J.R.R. Tolkien. But getting back to the Verdunan, what if the Ati-Atihan is actually hati-hati’an, meaning “division”, which makes sense if the festival commemorates the partition of the island between the Ati and the Borneans. Anyway.)

In summary, The Earthsea Cycle inspired me to find my own authentic voice with regards to speculative fiction, to leverage my unique cultural background in order to build worlds that have not yet been described. I have yet to actually take pen to paper. And while I lament that there have yet to be any Filipino Americans to brave the genre of science-fiction and fantasy, I know that there are writers out there, some of whom are writing such stories. And I can’t really say much unless I’m going to put in some effort, too.

It occurs to me that July is pretty much over, and August is close at hand. This summer is flying by, and I kind of feel like I’m having to hang on tightly, lest I end up falling on my ass.

I sort of wonder what life would be like if blogging never existed. Would writing down the weary sorrows of my tired soul into a battered notebook have the same kind of feeling of quasi-catharsis?

Everyone talks about how the world is now hyperconnected because of cel phones, the Internet, wi-fi, etc., etc., but I’m definitely feeling the flipside of all this, possibly more isolated than ever.

Part of it is my lifestyle, specifically, the fact that for the past three years I’d been working an average of 80 hours a week. Part of it is the firehose of information I’m presented with everyday. Probably, part of it is that I’m kind of a sucky friend

In 1994 I used to keep in pretty decent touch with people through e-mail. Then the experience got ruined because of the goddamn spammers. In 1997 I kept in touch with people on IM. In 2003 I sent people messages through Friendster and MySpace.

There used to be people I would talk to at least once a week. Now it’s possible for me to go weeks without talking to anyone, aside from consumer transactions or work.

I don’t know what my point is. I guess it’s always a little lonely at 1:20 a.m. when you can’t go to sleep.