Harry Potter and the We

On the ferry on way back from Skye I spoke to a guy who had booked to take the Harry Potter train from Mallaig - properly known as The Jacobite Steam Train. We visited the train station and it was pulling in - the steam engulfing the station from the sturdy dark stallion of a machine. Maroon carriages snaked behind it exactly reminiscent of the Orient Express and evoking that age of opulence and romance. The door opened and a deluge of Potter fans flooded onto the platform - a group of girls with the potter lightening mark on their foreheads reminded me of the ACDC symbol, and I chuckled to myself. It was odd out here in the remote highlands to be thrown into the dense civilised hysteria of a hollywood consciousness. I began to feel slightly drawn into the community of it all.

In the tourist shop I suddenly spied a postcard of the Glenfinan viaduct with the Harry Potter train on it and realised that this was the same scene as from the film. (Always make beeline for postcards when entering an area to see what is to be seen). Suddenly I felt a link to the three heroes of that film; a way into their magical world. I was gripped by the challenge to out cycle the train and capture that picture for myself. It was a hopeless task. On the flat I might have been able to keep up the 20mph needed by with the hills and the wind against me I had to realise I wasn't going to get it. Stopping and racing up a nearby hill, and then another and another, against the clock, looking for the perfect shot I finally got to a vantage point just as the trains smoke appeared on the horizon and made its way toward me. I had one chance at the shot and took the photo as the train huffed and puffed in the valley below.

There was a great sense of achievement in being a part of this Harry Potter experience, being linked to the stories, the characters and the thousands of fans on that train and around the world. I haven't felt like this for a very long time. This I realised was an experinec of the "WE". I sat down looking at the view of Skye and the peninsula before me to muse at what was unveiling before me and wrote:

'I' became 'we' through someone who we all individually identify with. A generation of people are joined and sympathise with the plight and narrative of Harry. He of course could be a private person with a life of his own behind the scenes - but his public self unifies each of us because we can individually identify with it. But NO! He is not a private person, he IS Harry Potter. Harry assists us in the stories because he makes the decsions, but we go along with the rest.

That "self" narrated in a public medium creates the possibility of "we" as ourselves sympathise with His narrative instead of our own. This is the great feeling - the 'WE'. The membership (I was calling it before) gives us release from the existential issues that Harry must himself feel.
"I that is we through Him" is a common motif especially for the Christians and other religious mentalities.

"My Muse" I saw broke my feeling of "we" that is what changed and I just got it back today: that is the magic of Harry Potter!"

Slighly messy exposition as I try to handle the irony that comes from many individual people finding sympathy with a single individual who as a result unifies the multiple individualities as one individuality. That is the social consciousness.

We see it in many guises from film heroes, to music icons, to leaders and politicians, football clubs, interest groups, countries, nations, races etc. It is a great feeling being part of the "we", feeling that I am not really an isolated individual, but am like the page in a book (or the frame in a film) and through me a larger self runs that replaces that little self for a big self.

Still captured by the euphoria of the experience of being somehow magically linked with the quest of Harry Potter - reenjoying a feeling of youth - I camped with the plan to get the real photo on Glenfinnan viaduct the next day. I knew what time the train had left, how fast it travelled and estimated when it must reach the viaduct. Next morning not wishing to be hanging around and playing with the time rather I left with enough time. I stopped to check the train times and suddenly realised that the train waited in Glenfiddan for 30mins. I was going to arrive 10 minutes too late. All the same I raced another impossible race hoping that somehow I had made a mistake. Walking to the top of the viewing point it was obvouis I had missed the shot. In retrospect I ought to have joined the crowds on the road into the hills for shots of it there. I spoke at length to a couple and their kids who also misjudged it - real Potter fans as well so they should have been more gutted than me - but somehow I felt it meant more to me!

Lesson I learned here was that if something matters do not leave it to chance - over plan! My great pleasure in life is cutting timing tight so that I arrive in a great heroic last minute struggle (like the films!), or alternatively don't plan at all so that what happens is a magical suprise (like finding out about the Potter train from a guy by accident on the boat).

Once the euphoria had passed in the following days I entered my more usual sceptical and critical mentality. Is it really good that we give up our "self" to be part of a mass self that has no guidance, direction or even any real substance. The Potter fans enjoyed the collective experience of the Potter hysteria. I felt a closeness to the Potter narratives that I never felt before, felt I wanted to be a part of the heroes' adventures (like when you hear people narrating good times and you wish you had been there too) and found a softness for Hermione... or in the words of Hot House Flowers (that I used to listen to with my 1st girlfriend)

Do you go to the movies
Find a friend in a film
Holding hands with the heroes
Fall in love with the heroine?

But, there is nothing here. I have been on no adventure. I have taken no critical decisions, or had to endure difficulties, fears. I have certainly not had the weight of a narrative rest entirely on my shoulders. As a 'we' we become liberated from the existential issues: what do I do? is this correct? etc.

There is clearly a balance here but the dialectic is much more than being sept along by an imaginary hero. That hero becomes a role model upon which we are inspired to act ourselves. For those who are discovering new levels to themself the Hero is a guide to the way. This is exactly what the religious leaders of all types are!