Last night, the Center for Fiction’s Big Read continued its month-long celebration of science fiction and fantasy with a panel discussion on the state of YA fiction in the post-Harry Potter world. (Our coverage is collected here.) SFF YA authors Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Justine Larbalestier, and Chris Moriarty were on hand for the talk, with Delia Sherman serving as the moderator. While the lively group touched on a variety of subjects ranging from their childhood fantastical YA influence to the commercial viability of certain kinds of magical stories, one topic discussed early on was particularly poignant: Magic Schools.
With a magical school at the center of the Harry Potter narrative and of course, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea, begs the question: what’s with all these magical schools, and besides instructing the characters in the ways of magic, what are they good for?
While every member of the panel praised the Potter books, Justine Larbalestier was quick to point out that almost no fantasy element of those books was particularly new, specifically the idea of a magical school. Indeed, Black, and Clare also mentioned that they consistently receive e-mails from accusing them of “ripping off” something from J.K. Rowling, when in fact the fantasy concept was much, much older. (Griffins were just one example!) Clare thinks that this comes from the fact that most readers view Harry Potter as a “canonical” fantasy experience, while people who are interested in the genre don’t. Chris Moriarty agreed with this but felt grateful for the existence of Potter, as it seemed to make publishers hungry for the kinds of stories authors like Moriarty and the panel wanted to tell.
Early on in the discussion Delia Sherman had asked the panel their various inspirations as young people, and a lot of very famous fantasy YA and middle-grade books were mentioned. (Jane Yolen was in the audience, so the mention of her books was particularly touching.) Both Holly Black and Justine Larbaliestier noted that YA and middle grade books like the British Malory Towers series seem to somehow make the experience of boarding school seem “amazing.” The ideas of house points, and midnight feasts, which have now been appropriated by J.K. Rowling for Hogwarts might come from there. This panel wasn’t the first to point out the style and structure of the early Potter books also resembles Tom Brown’s School Days, which is a book that is exactly what it sounds like it’s about; Tom Brown at school.
But why magical schools? Both Larbaliestier and Moriarty seem very interested in putting characters—who are similar to the young people reading the books—in the center of the story. This is certainly true of Holly Black’s Spiderwick books, and here it seems the value of the magical school is clear. In the Earthsea books there’s Roke Island, Jane Yolen gave us Wizard’s Hall (in Wizard’s Hall), Terry Pratchett has The Unseen University in the Discworld series, Diana Wynne Jones has the Chrestomanci Castle in Charmed Life, and several, several more examples, many of which this panel of authors could have rattled off in their sleep!
Did J.K. Rowling rip-off all of these authors with the creation of Hogwarts? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the concept of a magical school seems to solve a lot of narrative problems for the author of YA or middle grade fantasy novel. First, it accomplishes what Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black were talking about, by putting the younger characters, “in the center of the action.” Second, it plays upon the notion that going away to a boarding school, where one has midnight feasts and plays strange sports, is somehow inherently fun. Finally, it contextualizes the learning of magic in a way that makes it viable not only for the universe of the story, but also for the young reader, who also wants to learn magic themselves.
[The Big Read continues at the Center for Fiction all month. You can find a schedule of all events here.]
You can find more photos from the evening here.
Ryan Britt is the staff writer for Tor.com.
Magical schools! Huh! Good God, y’all! What they are a good for? Absolutely nuthin’, say it again!
@1: You, my friend, have just won the internet for today.
On a side note, I think what was mentioned in the article is the source for so much of my dissatisfaction with Harry Potter. People who are familiar with the genre know the tropes associated with the book. We have read books with magic schools many times, books that were first published back in the 60s, even. But when non-genre readers look at a book that contains a magic school– regardless of whether it was published before or after Philosopher’s Stone!– they automatically assume that it’s a ripoff of Harry Potter. When it really isn’t. The “magic school” trope predates 1997 by decades. Harry Potter isn’t as original as you think it is.
Maybe I should make t-shirts with that last sentence on it: “Harry Potter: not so orijinal akshully.”
Or maybe I should just stop making ideas. That sentence was painful.
I think part of the reasoning behind many of the ‘magic school’ books is not the school itself, but the fact that many SF/F young adult books can be categorized as bildungsroman – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman – stories about a young hero or heroine coming of age and, in fantasy settings, growing into his or her powers. These types of stories appeal strongly to teens and young adults because they are each going through their own coming-of-age story. They can identify with the characters and the themes readily because, in a well-done story, those characters and themes have threads in the reader’s own lives.
Unfair teacher or professor you hate? Check. That weird kid who sits by herself and reads all the time? Check. The nice guy who somehow manages to be friends with people in all the cliques? Check (often the protagonist). Crazy emo girl, check, nerdy geek, check, practical jokester and jocks and clingy love-struck teenage girls, check, check, and double-check. Magic school settings are usually a metaphor for real-life middle school, high school, or college; sometimes the metaphor is an inherent part of the story. (And sometimes the school is evil. Sunnydale High, anyone?)
The school setting makes the story easier for the target audience to identify with because, in the US at least, teens and young adults have spent a hefty portion of their waking life at school. Making the school a boarding school takes extraneous (in regards to the story) things like parents, out of school friends, and neighbors out of the picture – or at the least, pushes those distractions to the background. The characters have ‘more’ freedom to be themselves, more autonomy, than they might in a typical home life setting. All things that a teen wants, so naturally they flock to young adult books where the characters are like them – but have more control in their lives.
Also, dude, learning magic.
For adults (and classifying myself as that is still weird), ‘magic school’ books might be more escapist in nature – because who doesn’t wish that they could have gone to Hogwarts, or Battle School, or the University in Imre, or…
(Not Sunnydale High).
While Mouette has a good point about the Bildungsroman aspect of “magic schools”, I can think of a few other “good points”.
1) The magic school is useful in showing the reader the basis of the magic.
Roke Island was good for that.
2) Internally in the story universe, the magic school can be a useful place for spreading the ethics of magic use.
3) Besides the teaching function, the magic school can be a storehouse of Lore.
4) The magic school can also be a place of research where new ways of magic can be developed and tested (safely).
Internally, in the story universe, magic school brings the children of the magic elite together where they can meet and get to know each other, so they and their parents can give each other the good jobs later.
Much like the boarding schools of boarding school stories, and the universities of today, really.
I definitely agree with Mouette about the bildungsroman aspects of the school story.
The thing that got me about the Harry Potter series (and other books and movies with strange schools) I read as a kid–and still read today–is how they infused the ordinary with something exciting. As much as I love(d) school, my history classes were never quite as thrilling as Charms or Transfiguration always seemed, and my public school district in the middle of the American midwest was sadly lacking in secret passageways and living paintings…
Did J.K. Rowling rip-off all of these authors with the creation of Hogwarts?
No more than any author who wrote a magical school story did, or didn’t. As far as I know Rowling has never claimed to invent the trope.
(Just had to get that in there!)
I’ve heard it said that there are no “new ideas”. IMO all that matters is how well the author uses the ideas.
Back when the Harry Potter newsgroup was active, one poster compiled a list of fictional schools for magic before Hogwarts; here it is.