(This post is not written by an expert in anything. These are opinions and theories based on experience, not facts based on evidence. If you have a problem with anything said here, please begin a discussion, as I would rather be convinced that my theories are wrong than have someone think they're wrong and not tell me.)
So, it's 6:21 am CDT, and I am awake. This is an anomaly: do not be fooled into thinking I am a morning person. No, I'm waiting for the registration to open pottermore.com. There's been a window of about a half hour every day since Sunday, and the windows will officially close for a few months after Saturday, so I've dedicated the early mornings of the past couple days to waiting around for my opportunity to register for the site.
Yesterday was the first day I purposefully woke up early. I got to the site, found the clue, realized I didn't have my copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban, where the answer to the clue could be found, so defaulted and used the audiobook, since iTunes just happened to be open. (If I had had to open iTunes, it would have taken about five full minutes, if not more, and I think I would have imploded due to the building pressure.) I solved the clue, got to the website where the quill was supposed to be, and couldn't find it. Registration had closed. So I shrugged wistfully, yawned, and went back to sleep.
On Sunday, registration opened at 3 am in my time zone, on Monday, it opened at 4 am, and on Tuesday it opened at 5 am. So, I set my alarm this morning for a little before six and hopped online to wait around. Well...obviously, since it's 6:27 now, the trend has changed. It irks me a little and I find it unsettling that whoever is in charge of this website is making the fans jump through so many hoops to get to it. If it's just because they want the most dedicated fans to get on the site for this early registration dry run, I can maybe understand that, although I must point out that "Harry Potter Fan" does not directly translate to "Internet-Savvy, Scavenger-Hunt Extraordinaire" and that there are probably people getting on to Pottermore who were more intrigued by the process of getting there than they will be by the website. But if the reason for the manipulations comes from the fact that, Harry Potter being what it is to so many people, this is one fan base who would put up with almost anything, and this sort of registration process is more fun for the people in charge...that's just sick and they should stop. People are staying up egregiously late in some time zones, or waking up entirely too early, skiving off summer school or work...seems wrong to me. Dumbledore wouldn't let this happen.
Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about really.
In the excess time that I've been awake when pottermore hasn't been open (it's 6:35 now) I've been browsing the internet. It started on twitter where, since I'm following Pottermorefans, I was already sitting waiting for some news, perhaps on why regsitration wasn't open yet. I perused the past tweets, the @replies, etc, and I noticed a fervent energy present in every bit of the online conversations that revolved around this twitter account. People excited for pottermore opening, people preparing for each clue by quizzing themselves with similar clues they've made up themselves, people speculating about how access to the site is actually going to work, people sharing stories about the ridiculous things they've done for Harry Potter in the past, comparing Houses, etc. To some degree, it reminded me of the sort of energy I always felt at Harry Potter midnight showings, the energy that kept me coming back to the cinema every year, even though I didn't like the movies anymore.
But I started following links, and looking at other Harry Potter fandom things, and I remembered a book I saw for sale called Dear Mr. Potter which is filled with letters from people to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, telling them their stories about how Harry Potter made their life better in some way. A lot of them were touching, some were similar to mine, but a few of them sort of scared me in a way, and I stopped wanting to read them.
I've been called a nerd on several occasions, it feels like my mom calls me an "addict" every time I do anything for more than an hour for two days in a row (right now, this includes my obsession with ST:VOY), and I've gotten numerous questioning looks and scoffs, and even the odd demoralizing attack on my sanity from people who think I get "too" into things. Most of the time, these things are fandoms like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Twilight, and others. A few people have made fun of my T-shirt collection, but that's rare (because my t-shirt collection is universally awesome). Some people say I'm too Christian, too, but that's a different matter from my perspective, if not from theirs.
Harry Potter is different, because it is the one series I constantly return to. With others, I go through phases: I don't feel the same awe when I watch the Lord of the Rings movies as I did when I was in Junior High, I don't wish Lt. Commander Data were a non-fictional artificial lifeform anymore, and I certainly hate Bella Swan and her entire creepy family. But I've always loved Harry Potter, from the time I read the first book to the moment the credits rolled on the eighth movie, a timeline of almost fifteen years, my love for the series has developed from a phase-based infatuation into a sort of foundational love. Harry Potter is definitely a part of my life, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the same person if I hadn't read it. This is not true of all the other fandoms I've been a part of, including Twilight, Star Trek, Eragon, or The Matrix: take those experiences away, and the change in my character and person would be minimal.
The other fandom that captured my heart so thoroughly was The Lord of the Rings. I was in fifth or sixth grade when the first movie came out, and it took me a year to read the first book, but after that and until I got into high school, I was beyond obsessed. But it was not the same kind of obsession I had with Harry Potter. 2001, the year the movie came out, was a pretty hard year for me. It was a pretty hard year for the country, which certainly contributed to my year sucking. 2002 and 2003 were not much better. For this period of three years, I didn't have very many friends, my family life was more complicated and painful than I was used to, and I was doing terribly in school. The only thing that was going right, I thought, was The Lord of the Rings. Between reading the books, watching the movies, and obsessing over the details of both, I could easily occupy my mind with things other than my own life, and for the most part, that's exactly what I did for three years. I checked out of reality for the better part of Junior High, forgoing relationships with people around me, a better understanding of myself, and a first-hand knowledge of the world because there were things in my life that upset me and The Lord of the Rings allowed me to get away from them.
Sure, I turned out all right in the end, and yes, being a "fan" doesn't necessarily mean you're an escapist, and no, escapism is not always the same as hard drugs: sometimes it's just a coping mechanism, an outlet to plug in and recharge, and none of that scares me or bothers me. But reading some of those letters to Rowling and hearing the way those people were talking about the series as if it "saved" them from their terrible lives because they were able to read it long enough to wait out their problems and not have to deal with them every day...it feels dangerous to me.
Dumbledore himself said, "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Wishing Hogwarts is real, that you had friends like Hermione or Luna, that you could be a part of something special and important like Dumbledore's Army, that makes sense and I imagine is a natural response to a series that garnered so much love and attention for so long by so many. But I think that believing the books changed your life when all that happened was that you lived them instead of it is just incorrect. If thirteen years of your life you dwelled on Harry Potter, hoping it was real, living as if it was, and skipping out on what was actually happening around you, even if it was too terrible for you to live with, the series did not save you: it allowed you to lose thirteen years of your life that you will never get back.
I'm pretty sure I'm reading more into those letters than is there, since even my bout of living outside reality wasn't that deep or detrimental. But I wanted to voice my opinions about escapism, I guess, because I do think it's dangerous, and I do believe it's similar to, if not the same as an addiction. Some addictions are obviously unhealthy, and the family and friends of the user notice the signs and urge the user to seek help. Some addictions are less noticable, either because they are easily hidden (pornography and x-rated romance novels, anorexia and bulimia, etc) or because they are socially acceptable (caffeine, nicotine, etc). Some are more physically damaging than others (heroine, alcohol, etc) while some are more emotionally or psychologically damaging than others (eating disorders).
But all addictions are the same in that they give the addict a crutch to get through life, and the longer a person uses the crutch, the more the rest of their faculties atrophy due to lack of use or dependence. A person can become addicted to anything if they let that thing control their desires, dictate how they spend their time, or keep them from doing other things they used to enjoy or taking care of their responsibilities. The phrase "The more _____ you own, the more your _____ owns you" is not just a pithy attack on materialism. When someone goes camping and goes through television withdrawal, it's not just a useful metaphor. I'm not a psychologist, but in my personal experience, if there's anything in your life that you do regularly often without thinking, or because you "can't help yourself," or because you think it makes your life easier/simpler/better, you're forming a habit, and habits can easily become addictions.
The Lord of the Rings was my addiction. It didn't kill me, and I don't even necessarily regret it, but I do sometimes wonder what would have been different about my Junior High and high school experience if I had had a more healthy relationship with the books and movies. The difference, from what I can tell, is in the control. If you honestly determine when, where, and how you do something, if you really can stop any time, then you're in control. The moment you start feeling like you have to, like you can't afford not to, like it would be too hard to not do something, things start getting scary.
Aaaand I just went to the pottermore blog and realized that I didn't have to wake up until 22 minutes ago (it's 8:22 now) because they announced that registration would open sometime between 2 pm and 6 pm BST. Ugh. Obviously, I'm an example of an Internet-Idiot Harry Potter fan. But evidently, those in charge of pottermore don't really want me anyway.
I'm going back to bed. I hope I didn't offend anybody, but if I did, please tell me why. I'm just postulating throughout all of this: as I said, I'm not a psychologist and most of my experience with addiction diseases is second-hand, so I am not an expert.
If, though, you think there are things that control you more than you'd like them to, my amateur suggestion would be to tell someone you believe can help you: not necessarily a friend or family member, but someone you think will have the wisdom and guts to help you work through it. A counsellor, a mentor, a religious leader, a teacher...someone who either knows you or would know how to help you with your situation.
<3 spadeALLcross
EDIT: Wow...this post takes quite the journey. Probably reads a little strangely. I should edit it at some point, and I probably will later.
