The Power of Story

There was a time when stories didn’t belong to people. A lone balladeer wandered the land, telling his wisdom in verse, blind but fully aware. Communities gathered together to tell the tale of their hero, died but now alive–mirabile dictu–in the face of their own persecution. And the stories changed, took on new meanings, new words–even came into new languages.

Story is transformative. That is indeed the point–and only Story can do that.
And it is still only a Story, and it can change.

These revelations in the past weeks reveal mainly two types of people who read Harry Potter:

The Hermiones: Over-analytical, or confused when their created, transcendent framework changes and overwhelms the set understanding, thus casting dispersions on their loyalty to the Story (Which horcrux did Hermione eventually destroy?) or to the Author

The Rons: Those who don’t “get a lot” out of things, refusing to have any framework of analysis at all, those who lack the eyes to see the full message
(Which Horcrux did Ron eventually destroy?) of the Author, claiming there is nothing to be learned

Both miss the point. Neither have the courage to encounter Story.

And then there are a minority of Harrys. These are the people that read the story and try to become something different because of them. The stories change them and they do not complain about “their” set expectations versus the author’s, they argue not about literary criticism nor about “reading into” things too much. They simply read and enjoy, because they know the story IS NOT ABOUT THEM. That is because they know the story can and will change them. At that it is simply a story, a story with an inevitable ending.

There are those who read in order to take for themselves (the Deathly Hallows), clinging to their ideas and understandings;
and there are those who read in order to be changed (becoming the Philosopher’s Stone) for the sake of others. It has been my experience that the further along one is on their alchemical process, or their journey, the more stories they read, create, and tell. They need not hold on to details, argue cultural mores and label other people. The less one is on the journey, the more obsessive one becomes about story qua story, and one’s place in the telling of it, to whom it belongs.

Now our stories belong to ME, to my ego-self, to my experience of them, to the corporate canon, to belittling the experience with details, and belittling the details with experience, to the arguments of heady Ivory Towers, to those who refuse to see more there….to control.

Another great storyteller said, “Let they who have ears–let them hear.”
We’re still arguing about his stories, too, even the one about the sower and his seeds. He understood the power of story in our own lives, but not let the rules of the story become our only pre-occupation. So did Homer. So did Beedle the Bard.

Instead, I am reminded of the ending of “Lady in the Water”, when a Narf (Muse) named Story is given freedom, and the hapless protagonist’s fears are taken by the gods of peace. And in the rain, he simply cries, standing outside of himself in ekstasis, and says:

“Thank you for changing my life.”

He had become one with the Story.