On This Day

[starfishstar]

Also. Today, May 2, is the "anniversary" (in quotes because it is a fictional event, after all) of the Battle of Hogwarts. In what seems to be becoming an annual tradition for her, J. K. Rowling again apologized for the death of a beloved character: this time, Remus Lupin.

I get a shiver of grief when I think that thought: Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.

And I can't quite decide what I think about the fact that I can experience actual grief over something that's fictional. Is it a good sign (the ability to feel emotions fully and deeply) or a worrying one (to care that much about people who don't even exist)?

I think on the whole I'm going to go with "good sign" – because on some level reading's all about empathy, right? The ability to experience someone else's emotions as our own? So if we're able to feel that deeply about fictional characters, presumably we're able to do the same when we encounter real people's suffering, too.

That's my thought for the evening, anyway.

And hey, here's a hopeful fictional fact to balance out the sad fictional fact: If it's the anniversary of the final battle, then it's also Victoire's birthday (since she was born on the anniversary of that victory, hence her name.) Happy birthday, Victoire! She would be, what, 16 today? Aw.

(Not gonna lie, I totally discussed the details of JKR tweeting on the day James Sirius "started Hogwarts" last September, with the seven and eight-year-olds I was teaching at the time!)

Comments

[faeriemagic07.livejournal.com]

I know! I tell my friends I've been through a lot and they jusr roll their eyes and laugh at me saying the immortal words, "It's just fiction." But don't believe a word of it. I told the heatwrenching story "fake" by sweetDaemon (R/T fic in case you missed, it's awesome. Made me sob for three months) to my grandmothers and they did not laugh at all and call it "just fiction" because they knew the pain of going through such ordeal. I knew I found kindred spirits in them because they understood pain and anguish unlike my friends who still have not experienced bad things happening to them in their young age. I think this is what Rowling meant about understanding death and seeing thestrals. Why not all people could revel in its existence.

[starfishstar]

I definitely think fiction can be a way to process hard and traumatic things for the people who've experienced such things in real life...and maybe also a way for people who *haven't* experienced those things in real life to nonetheless understand and empathize. The emotions we feel about fiction are nonetheless real emotions!