On Harry Potter vs Animorphs | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to talk about something that's been on my mind for the past six months: the great Harry Potter vs Animorphs debate. Now, this is some cultural controversy around books people feel passionately about, so if that's not something you want to hear, then this episode is probably not for you. Also, there are several spoilers for both series, so don't listen if you don't want that.

Back in the middle of this year, when JK Rowling made her controversial comments regarding certain trans issues, some people were saying that we should all drop Harry Potter and read another book. Now, I don't support what's essentially cancel culture, so of course I didn't participate in any of that discussion. I strongly believe that people can disagree while not cancelling each other. Besides, the whole point I wanted to make was that Rowling and trans people weren't enemies, so of course I wouldn't be telling people to drop Harry Potter. However, what interested me was that one of the book series people suggested was Animorphs, my favorite books back when I was 13 or so. Back then, I decided to say nothing, because I don't want to be seen as yet another trans person participating in the mob cancellation of Rowling in any way. But since six months have passed, I think we can talk about this now without all that controversy.

The time was the late 1990s, or perhaps the year 2000, which felt like the 90s anyway. It was the golden era of tech, you know, when CPU speeds increased more than 10-fold in just a few years, and when many people began to have the internet at home, and perhaps a mobile phone. Back then, something like an iPad or a Kindle Reader couldn't even be imagined, and people still read paper books, and there was no shortage of young adult book series for middle school aged people like myself. Even back then, Harry Potter, which had only been out for a couple of years or so, was getting all the hype, but my favorite had to be Animorphs.

In fact, I didn't begin to like Harry Potter until 2003, when the fifth book came out, and I was already in college. Perhaps it was just my 13-year-old attitude, but back then I thought the first Harry Potter book must have been written for someone much younger than myself, and I was too old for that. I certainly didn't feel that way with Animorphs. I didn't understand why even some adults wanted to read Harry Potter back then. Back then, the Harry Potter books were released once a year, and Animorphs was released almost every month. That all came to an end in 2001. The last Animorphs book, the 54th in the series, was released in April 2001, and people soon stopped talking about it, while Harry Potter took a three year hiatus, and didn't appear again until 2003, when I was already in college. Of course, the world was a very different place by 2003, and I was in a very different phase of life by then. I went out and got the 5th Harry Potter book, the Order of the Phoenix, because of all the hype, even though I didn't particularly like the first four as a kid. And surprisingly, I really, really liked this one. The final two Harry Potter books were released in the next four years, and I also liked them so much that I finished them within a week of release. By the final Harry Potter book, I was almost 21, and I finally realized why adults like Harry Potter: in a world of disappointments, moral ambiguity and alliances of convenience, the Potterverse provided an antidote to all this, with its moral clarity, its clear-cut good vs evil, and the loyalty of its characters. Besides, wouldn't it be great to be in a house with people just like yourself? By the way, the official sorting hat decided that I was a Ravenclaw, and I generally agree with its assessment.

Anyway, this sums up my relationship with my two favorite young adult franchises of all time. And yes, both these series were special. But they are also very different. The fundamental difference is that, the Potterverse is actually much more of an idealistic world, while Animorphs operates much closer to real world conditions. You go to Harry Potter for emotional therapy, to feel like there are still good guys in this messed up world, that everything will be alright. On the other hand, Animorphs is much more honest about how the real world is. It is very clear that there ain't happy endings to wars, and the so-called good guys may still betray you in the end, if it suits them. You can't imagine, for example, Harry killing 17,000 of Voldemort's people and being accused of being a war criminal, struggling with his conscience for years afterwards, or that he would have to bargain with some of the so-called good guys to not destroy the whole wizarding world, just so they can defeat Voldemort cleanly. You certainly can't imagine Hermione dying in the last book, essentially condemned to that fate by Harry himself. Harry Potter wouldn't be Harry Potter if it ended like that, it would destroy the magic of Harry Potter. On the other hand, Animorphs wouldn't be conveying the deep anti-war message it has, if the main characters all survived, and just went on to live happy, normal lives afterwards.

I guess we need a bit of both. The emotional reassurance that there are still good guys out there, and the good guys will win in the end, is a powerful motivator to fight another day. However, we can't be all that naive when we are operating in the real world. It is, after all, a world full of imperfection, betrayal, and people with their own agendas, and if we don't operate with this in mind, we end up being used as a political football by others. We need to remember that, while the bad guys are out to get us, the seemingly good guys can also betray us at any minute like the Andalites planned to betray Earth, to satisfy their own agendas. Given that people with agendas on all sides want to use trans people as a political football, we really need to remember this at all times. While Voldemort's people in the Potterverse and the Yeerks in Animorphs clearly represent the bad guys, there is nothing like the Andalites in the Potterverse. Of course, in real life, especially in politics, it is much more likely that we are dealing with Yeerks vs Andalites rather than Voldemort vs Harry. In real life, to mistake the former for the latter is very dangerous indeed.