Travis Prinzi (ed.) - Harry Potter for Nerds. Essays for Fans, Academics, and Lit Geeks

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Harry Potter for Nerds
Copyright 2011 Travis Prinzi

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ISBN: 9780982963357

Merlins pants!
The World of Wizarding Insult - Kathleen Langr

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter:
From Book to Embodied Myth - Priscilla Hobbs

Travis Prinzi

T HE COOLEST KID IN the entire world is a wizard with dorky, spello-taped glasses. He believes in dragons, unicorns and spells, dark arts and good magic, phoenixes and hippogriffs . And he takes all these things seriously.

In short, the coolest kid in the entire world is a complete nerd.

I remember the first time I was at a Harry Potter conference. Somehow, the nerdiness of it all didnt strike me until partway through. I remember thinking, perhaps two days in, Oh noIm at a Star Trek Convention! In other words, it occurred to me that I had become a part of the newest group of nerds, uniting around a fictional world, even going so far as to dress up in costumes and get together by the thousands to talk about our beloved fantasy series. I realized at Prophecy 2007 (HPEF) that just as Star Trek fans still gather together decades after the series originally aired, 30 or 40 years from now, there very well may be Harry Potter conventions.

Jim Dale, reader of the U.S. versions of the audiobooks, made a very astute observation at our press conference with him at Portus 2008 (HPEF) in Dallas. He said that the conference was just amazing, because there were people walking around the hotel in wizards robes and all kinds of costumes, and then there were all the people who were not there for the conference, just regular travelers, who were paying no attention to the robed witches and wizards at all. It was just like a Harry Potter book, he said!

Im throwing that word nerd around, and youre probably wondering what I mean by it. Or more likely, youre probably having visions of nerds yourself: Screech from Saved by the Bell , for example, or maybe the Revenge of the Nerds films. Nerds are generally thought of as socially awkward or isolated, primarily due to their obsession with either academics in general or one particular subject, e.g. computer nerds. Nerds are not the cool and popular ones in school. Theyre the ones you cheat off of in math or physics. While most of the school is out drinking after the football game, nerds are gathered in a basement somewhere playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Or reading Harry Potter .

Perhaps a more recent nerd will help us get a handle on the perception of nerdiness: Dwight K. Schrute, from The Office . Dwight is painfully socially awkward, has a nerdy haircut, big glasses, and he loves Battlestar Galactica and, you guessed it, Harry Potter . When Jim and Pam agree to a getaway at Dwights Bed and Breakfast on his beet farm, one of their amenities is a bedtime reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire .

Return to that word obsession - nerds are involved in some kind of obsession, and what comes to mind most often are things like computers, fantasy, science fiction, and other

technical-type stuff. J.K. Rowling told Stephen Fry that Harry Potter is a book for obsessives.

The funny thing is that I did always think that, if it ever did get published, it was a book for obsessives. Im quite an obsessive person. I think you can probably tell.

In other words, Harry Potter is a book by a nerd, for nerds.

So if Harry Potter fits into the world of nerds, and nerds are generally awkward, isolated, and unpopular, why, Mr. Prinzi, are you associating yourself with it, and writing books about it?

A fantastic question. Thank you for asking. Because nerd is the new cool.

Not that Ive ever cared that much about being cool. In high school, plenty of the popular kids were nice to me and included me in their conversations; I chose to grow ugly, awkward facial hair, don beat-up flannel, and hang with the Nirvana fans instead. But Im noticing, with many others, a cultural shift in the perception of nerds, geeks and dorks. J.K. Rowling followed up her comment about obsessives with this:

And I did think if people liked it they would probably like it obsessively . I just never. but I thought that it would be an obsessive few I never guessed it would be an obsessive many, as has happened.

The obsessive many. What a great phrase. Notice the set-up: it would be an obsessive few; in other words, a small gathering of nerds. It turns out there are a lot of us. And much like Harry discovered his wizard status from Hagrid, many of us have discovered our nerd status from Harry.

As Ive already argued above, the coolest kid in the world is a nerd. A few weeks ago, sitting in a doctors office, I noticed a copy of Entertainment Weekly with the stars of the fantastic movie, The Social Network on the cover, and the words: The

Sexiest Geeks Alive. Sexy geeks? Really? Nerds and geeks are finding a regular and influential place in society, and Rowling even gives a nod to dorks: Elvendork - its unisex! Dont worry if youre not the popular kid: nerds, geeks and dorks are taking over the world, it appears.

We are the obsessive many, the Harry Potter nerds, the lit geeks, the elvendorks.

If youre not already aware of them, look up the Nerd Fighters. John Green called Nerd Fighters, nerds who tackle the scourge of popular people. With that in mind, lets rejoin Harry (this is an essay about Harry) at the beginning of his fifth year at Hogwarts.

Our young hero has spent several years alternating between being the Wizarding Worlds most popular kid and being a social outcast. In his first year, he arrives as hero of the world, and he ends up being a big sports star, too. In his second year, people decide hes the heir of Slytherin. (Huge turnaround, that.) In the third year, hes essentially back to hero status, but in the fourth, the whole school thinks hes a cheater and he has a very awkward and nerd-like experience at the high school dance (Yule Ball). When we hit the fifth year, were hoping the poor kid gets a break again, especially since Voldemort had just lured him to a graveyard where he stole his blood and almost killed him.

This is not what we get. Harry gets on the train for his fifth year of Hogwarts and, after being kept out of the loop for months, would like nothing more than to have a moment to impress the popular, pretty girl, Cho Chang. It backfires, and you remember how: he finds himself in a compartment filled with nerds. By the time Cho finds him, hes covered in stink sap from Nevilles magical plant. While he does manage to get the girl in this book, two important considerations come into play: (1) He gets her in the first place by being a nerd, and (2) he loses her