Adults Reading Young Adult Fiction

CEO(s) and CCO(s) read the Harry Potter Series. Housewives and Social Workers read the Twilight Series. Lawyers and Travel Agents read the Mortal Instruments Series. Why are so many “adults” reading “Young Adult” fiction?

If adult is defined as thirty years of age and older, then for most adults, the mundane has become daunting. Day after day, our lives are consumed with either finding a job or keeping a job. We count the years between now and retirement, where hopefully we can enjoy the money that we have spent forty to fifty years squirreling away. Increasingly, more of us have parents and grandparents that we must take care of because they may be sick, in need of daily care or alone. Our lives are absorbed in making compromises, in our business meetings, during projects, and through our relationships with loved ones and friends. We accommodate ourselves to the point of having no irrefutable definitions.

The social mediums bombard us daily with the conflicting certainties. Religion tells us that god is an omnipotent humanlike being that passes judgment on our daily activities. Science says that god does not exist. Religion tells us that killing another person is wrong. Our government maintains that we must kill other people to preserve our way of life. Science says that we have an obligation to explore every nook and cranny of the physical world around us and use what we learn to make life better for ourselves. Religion encourages us to enjoy the mysteries of the world. Government claims to be uninfluenced by religion. Religions have lobbyists, compromising with congressmen and senators, and spending millions of dollars to influence public voting.

As adults, we are like glass in the ocean. The waves of the mundane and the conflicting certainties rake us back and forth until our rough edges have been smoothed into a polished uniformity. The monotony creates a craving for some absolutes and passion. Young Adult fiction provides both. We follow Harry Potter raptly, because he opposes Lord Voldemort and his tactics of precision targets and genocide fervidly. We believe that Harry is good and Lord Voldemort is evil. Twilight provides for us an absolutism of love and forgiveness. We want Bella and Edward to marry, because love must conquer all opposition. We need Bella to forgive Edward for his trespasses, including his prior feeding on humans and his overbearing protectiveness, because we need forgiveness for our trespasses. The Mortal Instrument series provides a look at older issues that may need exploration, such as Segregation and Cooperative Effort. Clary and Jace have opposing views on Downworlders. Jace believes that downworlders are subhuman. Clary believes that downworlders are people. In the end, Shadowhunters and Downworlders must come together to resist Valentine and his army of demons.

Adults have forgotten the passions evoked by the absolutes that we believed in so intensely as teenagers. Teenagers have not been worn down as we have, so the world can be black and white for them. In contrast, to get by in our reality, adults must maintain a world of gray.

Harry Potter is an Intimidator

In terms of the plot of the Harry Potter Saga, many people believe that the fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is the turning point in the series. For the character of Harry Potter, the turning point is actually at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the series. After the death of Potter’s Godfather, Sirius Black, Potter makes the switch from perpetual victim to intimidator.

In his book, The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield describes four control dramas that people exploit to capture life energy from others and absorb that energy into themselves. His method is to show these dramas from aggressive to passive. For our purposes, this blog will list them in reverse order from the most passive to the most aggressive. Redfield identifies the “ Poor Me”, which is the victim mentality where the perpetrator constantly tries to make people around them feel bad for them and the Aloof, which is when a person is quiet and creates an air of mystery around themselves, as the passive dramas. The Interrogator, a person who asks questions and then uses the other person’s answers to criticize them, and the Intimidator, who physically or verbally attacks people, are established as the aggressive dramas.

Using these definitions, one could make the argument that up through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Potter was a Poor Me. He may not have made a personal choice, but because the characters around him either actively intimidated (The Dursleys and Severus Snape for example) him or directly treated him like a victim ( Molly Weasley and Cornelius Fudge at least until the end of Goblet).

The end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix shows a significant change in Potter’s character. After leading his friends into the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic to “save Sirius,” Potter finds himself in a trap, orchestrated by Voldemort and perpetrated by Lucius Malfoy and several Death Eaters. Potter and his Dumbledore’s Army recruits are soon joined by Dumbledore’s Adult Army, The Order of the Phoenix. During the mix of the battle, Bellatrix LeStrange kills Black by using the Avada Kedavra Spell, which pushes him through the Mysterious Veil, separating the land of living and the land of the dead. Potter proceeds to chase LeStrange through the Ministry, and catches up with her by the Fountain of Magical Brethren and the Floo Powder Fireplaces. At this moment, Potter’s emotional pain is so intense that his only immediate means of release is to cause pain to others. In an act of vengeance, Potter attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse to torture LeStrange. This action is a major turning point for Potter’s character. Until this point, Potter has never actively sought to cause other people pain.

A turning point, of course, is not a turning point unless evidence shows a new pattern emerging and continuing. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Potter stumbles across the Sectumsempra Spell, a spell that magically slashes the intended victim. After a potentially deadly battle with Draco Malfoy, Potter’s perpetual school enemy, Potter realizes what the spell is meant to do. When Albus Dumbledore takes Potter to Voldemort’s cave where Voldemort has hidden a horcrux, they are attacked by inferi, dead bodies that have been reanimated like puppets to do the bidding of a dark wizard. In an attempt to stay off the inferi, Potter uses the Sectumsempra Spell. Where prior to the Department of Mysteries event, Potter would use a defensive spell; now, he chooses to use an offensive spell. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Potter with the help of Luna Lovegood sneaks into Ravenclaw Tower under the invisibility cloak. Alecto Carrow had been stationed in the tower to intercept Potter, but she is stunned by Lovegood. Amycus Carrow comes into the tower with the aid of Minerva McGonagall (HL). Amycus informs McGonagall that he was advised that Potter would come into Ravenclaw Tower. McGonagall protests “Potter is from my house,” and Armycus spits in her face. Potter uses the Cruciatus Curse to torture and punish Amycus for his actions.

In terms of the character of Harry Potter, Potter has a major turning point at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Potter turns from being a victim to being an intimidator. His new behavior continues through the end of the series.

Jedi Celebacy

Last night, I watched Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (Yes, the worst of the Star Wars titles), while trying to fall asleep. The movie came to the point, when Padme Amidala is in her room, sleeping, while Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker kept watch. Kenobi observes that Skywalker still was not sleeping well. Skywalker reported that he had been dreaming about his mother and that he would prefer to dream about Amidala, stating “Just being around her again is… intoxicating.” Kenobi retorted, “Be mindful of your thoughts, Anakin; they betray you. You’ve made a commitment to the Jedi Order; a commitment that is not easily broken.” Kenobi’s retort catalyzed a thought of my own, Are Jedi supposed to be chaste?

Take into account the time frame. Firstly, ten years have passed since Skywalker has seen Amidala. Secondly, Skywalker is a 20-year-old male. His love for Amidala, which was a residual from his first meeting with her, is merely puppy love. When he sees her again, his initial reaction could be love at first sight, which at everyone’s first meeting where this happens is a physical attraction lust at a basic level). Skywalker confirms his lust by reference to the word ‘ intoxicating’, implying the physical and heady effects. If these theories are a given, then the assumption is that Kenobi was referring to Skywalker’s lust betraying him.

The other given is that the Jedi are not supposed to possess objects or people. Lust is not possession. So, a Jedi cannot take a spouse. Though, they do seem to be able to have companions and friends, given the whole Padawan, master and comrade aspect. Mixing all of this together, one might expect that a Jedi must be celibate.

If being celibate was part of a Jedi’s oath and this is George Lucas’s concept, then he really did not think the concept thoroughly. The whole introduction of the existence of Midi-chlorians makes the dogma of Jedi celibacy impractical. Midi-chlorians are intelligent microscopic organisms that live in all cells; however, some beings are more saturated with Midi-chlorians than others. The more Midi-chlorians in a life form, the more receptive they are to the Force. Because not all beings are Jedi, then reasonably, a person can conclude that the Jedi bodies must create an environment that promotes Midi-chlorian existence and production. In that case, the Jedi should promote reproduction among themselves. Jedi do come in both sexes; Princess Leia Organa was studying to be a Jedi with Luke Skywalker in books that took place after the movies.

A better policy for the Jedi Order would be to have a breeding program like the Bene Gesserit Mothers of Dune and the Psi-corps of Babylon 5. Kenobi strengthens this position with his words in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, “The Emperor knew as I did that if Anakin were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him.” Perhaps if they had had a breeding program, Emperor Palpatine (then Chancellor) would not have been able to issue order 66 and have all the Jedi destroyed. Breeding toward a stronger Jedi, may have created Jedi who could have seen the circumstances of Order 66 coming, or even deter the plans of the Sith.

The fact of the matter is that Lucas should have left the Force as Kenobi and Yoda described it in Episodes IV and V: The Force is a mystical energy that binds everything together. The explanation conveys that the Force is a concept to be studied without distractions. This concept would give the Jedi the same motivation not to have sexual relations as monks of other Orders. The use of the Midi-chlorians as a scientific backup killed the whole reason for the Jedi Celibacy.