Avada Kedavra

I can't think of any music to put with this.

I spent this morning watching the 7th film of the Harry Potter franchise: the Deathly Hallows part 1, and my afternoon in the theater watching the 8th and final film.

I didn't care for the first couple films in this series, but I've heard such positive reviews of the most recent couple that I decided to give it a shot.

I read the series at least twice, and because I connected so deeply with the books, I became frustrated with the visualization of these stories. How dare they do that to my characters, my landscape, my imagery? I supposed I should have expected this, because I've only seen a few films that lived up to the book - LOTR, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men.

As I sat in the cold, dark theater with a whole row to myself, I couldn't help but marvel at the scope and intricacy of such a wonderful story line. I thought back to grade school English classes in which we would plot out story lines, characters, antiheroes and denouements. In school, we would use notebooks and chalkboards. I can't imagine how J.K. plotted and kept track of such an intricate storyline.

As the flashes of wand fights flared across the screen, I imagined these as story arcs and events. One green flash aims high, and continues off screen. A red flash combines with a green one, and veers off into a column, taking out statues and lives. Orbs fly and circle, forwards and back, up and down.

Like neurons firing in the brilliant mind of Ms. Rowling, these lights dance across the screen to form beauty and destruction. Eros and Thanatos.

So how do you graph out a story as spanning and twisting as the Harry Potter series? I don't think you do. I think that the only way this story was ever fully realized was not on a chalkboard, but in the mind of J.K. (before the story was written, she told Alan Rickman about his past with Lilly and his pact with Dumbledore). Each character like a neuron, and each story arc like a synapse. Because some things are much too beautiful and complicated to be confined to something as worldly as a chalkboard or notepad.

As I left the theater, and walked into the offensive sunlight, I was overcome with the same feeling I was upon completing the books. Loss.

Rowling had the ability to not only tell a remarkable story, but to couple it with remarkable characters. Part of being human, I think, is to project our thoughts and feelings onto things that may not be capable of thoughts or feelings- think feeling sorry for the last stuffed bear at a carnival. The one that no one is taking home. This bear has no feelings, but we feel for it.

I think this overabundance of empathy is one of the greatest things about being human. We have so much empathy, that we can spare some for something as silly as a stuffed animal.

Similarly, the characters in HP are not really people. They're a figment of J.K.'s imagination. They're a literary device, and nothing more- a vehicle for a story.

But still, we; the audience, connect with these characters as if they're part of us. We associate with their feelings, and troubles, and excitement. Perhaps we're just desperate for connection of any kind.

I remember, as a child, thinking that I would meet these characters in Heaven. That we would finally meet as old friends, and pick up right where we left off- at the end of their story. Our story. Because we took that journey together.