Harry Potter and Technology

Wednesday afternoon I took Meredith and Natalie to see the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I am not a Harry Potter fanatic. I've always thought the books were just okay--exciting and fun, yes, but not the masterpieces that many would make them out to be--and the movies have been even worse. But I was pleasantly surprised by this new film. The Half Blood Prince is easily the worst of the seven books (700 plus pages that could have been whittled down to about half that), but this was the best of all of the films. It had action, texture, and humor, and I look forward to the next two films, which were based on what was easily the best book.

Anyway, I'm not here to write a movie review today. What I wanted to talk about was something that's always bothered me about Harry Potter, and that's the unusual lack of technology in the stories. It's never been explicitly stated--in book or film--exactly WHEN the stories are taking place, and the buildings and costumes in the movies have a Gothic look to them, so I've always assumed that the stories were taking place in some nebulous "contemporary" time. However, in the new movie, the bad guys leave the "wizarding" world and come to London, where they destroy the Millennium Bridge (You get glimpses of this destruction at about the 2:08 mark in the trailer I've linked to above). The Millennium Bridge, as its name implies, wasn't finished until the year 2000, which places the setting for this film firmly somewhere in the 21st Century.

And that's when the lack of technology begins to bother me. Why aren't the wizards and witches in these stories using technology? Are they like the Amish? Have they abandoned all technology?

I know that some might respond and say, "Why do they need technology? They have magic, for Pete's sake!" And in some cases, I can see the logic in that. After all, disapparating from one place to another is certainly more convenient than flying in a commercial airline. And healing spells which repair a broken nose instantly beat a visit to the high tech hospital any day.

But what about cell phones? Why are the wizards in the story insisting on communicating via messages carried by owls and talking faces in fireplaces? These don't seem like very secure or reliable means of communication.

As an example, in the latest movie all of the students are heading to school on a train. As everyone is getting off, Harry Potter is attacked by Draco Malfoy, his nemesis. Draco leaves Harry paralyzed on the train, and Harry is missing for several hours. His friends and teachers are all terribly worried about him as Harry ends up having to walk from the train station to the school and arrives hours late. If he'd had a cell phone, he could have called Ron Weasley on Ron's cell phone and said something to the effect of, "Hey, it's me. I'm on my way to school but I'm going to be a little late. I got jumped by somebody, but don't worry. I'm okay now. I'll text you the details when I get a chance." Then no one would have worried. This failure to use technology seems a real problem for the wizarding world.

And it's not as if they'd never know about technology. They go in and out of the non-wizard, or muggle, world. Harry and Hermione especially. Hermione has muggle parents, and Harry lives with muggle relatives, so these two spend their summers in the "real" world of the 21st century. And what real teenager today doesn't have an iPod and/or a cell phone, or better yet, both in an iPhone? I'm sure Harry and Hermione both would have had these devices. At least Hermione would have. After all, as the movie points out, her parents are both dentists. I would think they could afford to get their daughter a cell phone to use in the summer when she's not allowed to use magic. And what teenager could use these devices for three months and then go back to school without them? None, I would say.

So maybe I wasn't enraptured by the movie as much as I thought, because these were the kinds of thoughts I had while watching it.