Previously: Ayn Rand’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
“Steal Dad’s Anglia to fly to Hogwarts?” Ron cried in astonishment. “Mum would never let us hear the end of it!”
“The question isn’t who is going to let me,” Harry said, already climbing into the driver’s seat and making an informed, personal decision about whether or not he chose to wear a seatbelt, “it’s who is going to stop me.”
***
“A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free…Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir…”
Harry stared. “Listen, Dobby,” he explained, patiently taking a knee. “Freedom, in a political context, has only one meaning: the absence of physical coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state, and nothing more.”
Almost at once, Harry wished he hadn’t spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude.
“Harry Potter is t-too good to Dobby, sir!”
“Listen,” Harry continued briskly, “because I’m only going to explain this once; I’m late for Model UN Club, which I’m protesting as fascism disguised as cooperation this afternoon. Knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the what, Dobby?”
“The–the individual, sir,” Dobby whimpered.
“That’s right, Dobby. And since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man’s survival requires that those who think be free of…”
“The interference of those who don’t, sir?” Dobby asked hopefully.
“Exactly,” said Harry. “Now, since wizards are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind. A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or “welfare.” Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced. Which means…” Harry prompted.
“Which means…a wand is not an argument, sir!” cried Dobby in amazement.
“You have been free this whole time,” Harry said. “Have a fiver.”
Dobby’s eyes glinted with the fire of an individual who has come to appreciate the value of money.
***
“I heard he’s the heir of Slytherin,” one of the girls whispered as Harry walked by. He stopped in the loose, effortless manner of a man who is at home in his own body.
“Excuse me,” Harry said coolly. “Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him.” He held his head in the manner of one who takes his beauty for granted, but knows that others do not.
***
“Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking! ‘It’s all right for him, he’s an internationally famous wizard already!’ But when I was twelve, I was just as much of a nobody as you are now. In fact, I’d say I was even more of a nobody! I mean, a few people have heard of you, haven’t they? All that business with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!” He glanced at the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead. “I know, I know — it’s not quite as good as winning Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award five times in a row, as I have — but it’s a start, Harry, it’s a start.”
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others,” Harry said from a davenport in the corner, half lying, sprawled limply like a kitten. It had often astonished Lockhart; he had seen Potter moving with the soundless tension, the control, the precision of a cat; he had seen him relaxed, like a cat, in shapeless ease, as if his body held no single solid bone.
“People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim,” Harry continued. “What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on. There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”
“I…” Gilderoy began.
“You have no I,” Harry said abruptly, and rose to leave. “You barely exist.”
***
“You see, that’s what I admire about you, Harry. You always know.”
“Drop the compliments, Hermione.”
“But I mean it. How do you always manage to decide?”
“How can you let others decide for you?”
“But you see, I’m not sure, Harry. I’m never sure of myself. I don’t know whether I’m as good as they all tell me I am. I wouldn’t admit that to anyone but you. I think it’s because you’re always so sure that I–”
“I didn’t know it before. But it’s because I’ve never believed in God.”
“Come on, talk sense.” Hermione twisted the emerald cuff on her thin wrist.
“Because I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them.”
“For whom?”
“For myself.”
“Kiss me, you fool,” Hermione cried.
Harry did, efficiently. “You don’t have to applaud,” he said. “I don’t expect it.”
***
“In a capitalist system…” Dobby began, falteringly. He shot a look of unswerving devotion to Harry. Harry was used to such looks, as a man who behaved as he wished and not as others did.
“…and according to the dictates of the market,” Harry prompted.
“…And according to the dictates of the market,” Dobby continued, drawing himself up to his full two feet, three inches and jabbing Mr. Malfoy directly in the shins, “Dobby is already an independent agent, and may offer his services at whatever price he deems fit to whatever consumer wishes to procure them! Dobby is a free elf under capitalism!”
Mr. Malfoy’s jaw gaped open, like the mystic and the irrationalist that he was.
It was funny, Draco remembered, at one time he had wanted to be an artist. It was his mother who had chosen a better field in which to exercise his talent for drawing. “Wizardry,” she had said, “is such a respectable profession. Besides, you meet the best people in it.” She had pushed him into his career, he had never known when or how.
It was funny, thought Draco, he had not remembered that youthful ambition of his for years. It’s funny that it should hurt him now — to remember. Well, this was the night to remember it — and to forget it forever.
Wizards, he thought, always made brilliant careers. And once on top, did they ever fail? Suddenly, he recalled Henry Cameron; caster of great spells twenty years ago; old drunkard with offices on some waterfront today. Draco shuddered.
“Dobby is an end unto himself!” the elf chuckled as he capered down the hallway. “Dobby is dedicated to his own values!”
“Cheer up,” Harry said to Draco. “Have a fiver.”
Tags: adverbs, ayn rand, harry potter, jk rowling, objectivism, the fountainhead, values
Oh, Mallory. This is a thing of perfect beauty.
“Kiss me, you fool,” Hermione cried.
Harry did, efficiently. “You don’t have to applaud,” he said. “I don’t expect it.”
I am speechless with delight.
This is my favorite line, too!
Mallory, I swear to God, if you do one more of these, I am gonna become an Objectivist and it will be your fault.
If we’re going by book rules, we have five more to go. If we’re going by arbitrarily-split-the-last-book-in-half-because-that’s-what-we-do-now-movie-rules, SIX MORE. We’ll all be turned by the end.
There will be twenty more. Not for your rules, and not for J. K. Rowling’s rules, but for themselves. Because they possess the power of becoming, and because nobody possesses the power to deny them their becoming.
This is wonderful! I expect 100s of pages to be taken up by complaints that the Ministry of Magic is strangling the Hogwarts Express by over-regulating the magic ore rails are made from. In the end, the goblins of Gringotts take all the money and abscond.
“A wand is not an argument.” Christ. This is perfect, ugh, dammit.
I want to use this line on the next mansplainer who crosses my path 😀
Don’t forget that at some point someone has to express their love for someone while sitting at their feet and devoting “my ego and my naked need.” So romantic.
I think one of the reasons these are so great (and I felt this way about Rainbow Fish too), is that you don’t really notice just how unbearably hippie touchy-feely all books for kids are until you see a STALWART REWRITING of them.
Like, Ayn Rand is a monster, but who does not like this Harry more? He is a DELIGHT.
I’m definitely on board with a different interpretation of Harry being more likable than the original character (even if he is a rampant Objectivist). Him smoking in the first one sealed the “This guy’s better” deal for me.
Harry’s never been my favorite part of the series. Kind of a dick, that guy.
Original Recipe Harry is definitely not the most likable character in those books. Molly Weasley, on the other hand, is a perfect delight. Among many others! Just not Harry.
Book Harry is always weirdly ambivalent about the fact that the Wizarding World still has legal slavery.
PRODUCT OF HIS TIMES
The more I think about it, it’s weird that any of them are okay with it. The UK abolished slavery on its shores in 1833 and regardless of how insular the Wizarding World is, no one, particularly muggle-borns thought “welp, this is weird?” Maybe they’re just speciest?
And everyone thinks Hermione’s being so ridiculous with her campaign to free the house-elves. GUYS. HERMIONE IS THE ONLY SENSIBLE PERSON THERE.
She doesn’t even reference Ghandi! Did they forget absolutely everything about Muggle history?
[woot overthinking]
Whoa, just imagine an African-American muggleborn student at Salem encountering house-elves…
I wanna read that fanfic.
RIGHT. Although this might lead to an AU where in the US, house elves are free post-1965 Civil Rights Era but are now fighting for a living wage.
Also, the whole notion of their being Historically Black Wizarding Schools because of separate but equal.
I’m sure there’s got to be some fanfics on this, right?
Original Harry was too much of a simpering goody two-shoes to ever land a really good burn on the people who really needed it.
I hope Azkaban is just a prison for the people that refused to share their secret/success, and dementors are people pitching their terrible startup ideas.
That is the myth. In truth, Azakaban is Gryffindor’s Gulch, where all the true creators and inventors retreat from the society of parasites for forge a grand new order in their own image. The dementors are their terrorist attacks to sow fear and undermine the infrastructure of the rest of the world because what if you took your ball and went home and nobody noticed
MALLORY YOU BEAUTIFUL GENIUS
I can’t stop laughing
I need the next five of these IMMEDIATELY.
Please tell me that Ronbledore works into this somehow. PLEASE.
Isn’t it obvious? Ron, the product of weak and parasitic parentage and foul communal upbringing, could never aspire to be a titan of industry, only a hanger-on and an unremembered toiler. Decades later, the one who became Dumbledore, the True Independent Man, would master the flow of time itself to travel back and handle that.
To pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps often takes more than the usual three dimensions, after all.
These are so beautiful. Never stop. Please.
The more I think about it, it's weird that any of them are okay with it. The UK abolished slavery on its shores in 1833 and regardless of how insular the Wizarding World is, no one, particularly muggle-borns thought "welp, this is weird?" Maybe they're just speciest?
She doesn't even reference Ghandi! Did they forget absolutely everything about Muggle history?
[woot overthinking]
I absolutely adore the idea of kissing someone efficiently.
RIGHT. Although this might lead to an AU where in the US, house elves are free post-1965 Civil Rights Era but are now fighting for a living wage.
Also, the whole notion of their being Historically Black Wizarding Schools because of separate but equal.
I'm sure there's got to be some fanfics on this, right?
These parodies are a delight. Just for the sake of splitting hairs, I’d like to point out that in Rand’s books, she doesn’t despise poverty or worship wealth – the books themselves are much more of a celebration of the individual than critics of holistic Objectivism seem to notice. Geniuses like Steven Mallory, Richard Halley and Howard Roark labor for years on their area of passion in a state of near starvation, as does John Galt, for that matter, albeit with different motivations. She criticizes a world that doesn’t recognize and reward their abilities, but there’s no shame in working for yourself, doing what you love, and as a consequence living without much money.
Eventually, many who devote themselves to their work with such singularity do end up becoming successful, but not all, and the important thing is never the wealth which may be a consequence of hard work – it’s the work itself as a testament to one’s own self-awareness and choice to pursue self-realization and happiness on one’s own terms. In our current society, we can definitely tackle the debilitating problem of endemic poverty and inadequate social infrastructure that prevents individuals from having a chance at developing and pursuing their passions (no, I’m definitely not anti-state or drinking the whole Objectivist kool-aid here). But I can see where Rand, as an immigrant herself into a land of immigrants, fleeing the human rights abuses of communist Russia, would have gone to extremes and chose to focus entirely on the drive of the individual, independent of any government help. I digress.
Anyway people, please give her books a chance. You don’t have to be some right-wing anti-state Tea Party nut job to see the beauty in her words, or the power of the positive message embodied by a figure like Roark or Dagny. That aside… these are very funny, I hope you do the next five books. The line in the last one about being the master of fire killed me.
You are a genius – an alchemist of literature.
I can’t wait for your take on Goblet of Fire. Will Harry Potter buy into the notion that he is obligated to participate in the Triwizard Tournament simply because a magical object spit out his name?
Yeah but the elves don't want to be freed. Also the wizards are fine with letting the muggles die by the millions of diseases that could probably be easily cured by magic, so they are pretty terrible in general.