Harry Potter and Whats-It-Called?

This summer - two weeks ago, specifically Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was released in theaters.  I haven't been to see it yet, for a combination of reasons.  Time.  Money.  And not least, because the minute the lights come up in that theater, they will be going out on my childhood.  I know that sounds terribly melodramatic: and I also know I'm not the first person to express this same sentiment.  It's a generation thing: a generation, with a hero (yes, a fictional one) who grew up with us.  He and his friends taught us about good vs. evil, about fear and courage.  About friendship and love and family, and a hundred other things that a thousand other books have also tried to teach.  Perhaps Harry Potter worked because we were the same age as Harry, Ron, and Hermione - both on the pages (which we eagerly awaited) and the films (which we anticipated to the point of obsession).  To those of us a little shrewder, a little more worldly, the lessons of politics and religion and popular opinion were taught beyond the pages of the books.  We noticed how some parents wanted our hero taken away, how preachers thought he would challenge their God (an idea I always found silly.  The God I was taught to worship needn't fear a made-up 11 yr old), how critics scoffed at the story that captivated our hearts.

I don't know who your Harry Potter is: I don't know if I'd recognize him.  But I want you to know, I had one too.  I never played Pokemon, or collected Beanie Babies (do these words make sense to you?  Are they outdated terms, or do you know perfectly well what I'm talking about?) but I did read and read and read.  I cried when Cedric and Sirius and Fred died.  I laughed at Ron's antics, and looked up to Hermoine, brainy and skinny and bushy haired, awkward but loyal, passionate, and kind.  It may seem to you that I was never a kid - or if I was, it was a very long time ago.  But I assure you, on the night I finally sit in that theater, and hear the familiar theme swell, I will be a child for a little longer.  And whenever I turn to my beloved books, a small part of me will be a child again.

And though I may not appear to understand your passion for whatever it is, to be unfairly critical of whats-it-called or just not get those things, I assure you part of me does understand -

Always.