If you haven’t yet read Dave Jones’s essay on Batman in issue 8 of Journey to the Sea, I commend it to your careful attention right away. In that essay, Dave explores the rising importance of the flawed humanity of Batman to that mythos:
In the past twenty-five years, the Batman character has grown into a morally complex amalgam of mythic qualities wherein the evolution of his humanity has become more important than any drive toward transcendence.
Beowulf is a “trascendent” hero. Batman is not. Questions:
- In what ways does the transcendent hero satisfy?
- What is lacking in the transcendent hero that creates the need for the flawed, even morally ambiguous hero?
- What hesitations, if any, do you have about the morally ambiguous hero?
- Where does Harry fall into this spectrum? Is Harry effective as a hero?
Discuss:
“The artist…must retain the vision which includes angels and dragons and unicorns and all the lovely creatures which our world put in a box and marked Children Only. ~ Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water
- Why are supernatural beings considered kids’ stuff?
- What benefit does the adult derive from these “lovely creatures”?
- What do you say to people who think you’re nuts for liking “kids’ stories”?
“If our vocabulary dwindles to a few shopworn words, we are setting ourselves up for takeover by a dictator. When language becomes exhausted, our freedom dwindles – we cannot think; we do not recognize danger. Injustice strikes us as no more than ‘the way things are’.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water. Colorado Springs: Shaw Books, 1972. p. 37.
- What is L’Engle saying here? Is she right?
- How does creative language help in the fight against injustice?
- Where do we see this play out inside Harry Potter, and in our culture relating to Harry Potter and other imaginative fiction?
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