Hanna, never let me go

Art often deals with the definition of humanity.

Who is human? Who shows human characteristics? How much "difference" can we accept?
These are central concepts that (like so many other things) seem to be revisited time after time, in movie after movie, in book after book.

Hanna is such a story. Born "special" due to a secret American CIA program, Hanna is raised like a killer, ready for when Uncle Sam comes looking. Unaware of her being "different", she fleetingly tries to blend in. Yet, Hanna looks and very much acts like a girl her age. Is her difference really significant then? Isn't she human?

In "never let me go" the characters are raised in a dubious school, where all their lives they feel something is not exactly as it should be. When they finally figure out their fate, they try to reverse it by appealing to the people that they think might classify "humans" as "beings who can love". They, too, want a "normal" life, a chance in normality.

Why would we even care about what defines humanity?

I guess because of what being human implies.

If an embryo is classified as human, you cannot abort it, it's considered murder.
If a clone is considered human, you cannot use it to take it's organs, it's considered murder.
If a genetically modified kid is classified as human, you cannot use it like a killing machine, it's considered "inhumane".

The world's most important definitions are nothing but a big fat slippery slope. No-one really knows (or agrees) when an embryo starts being human, or when it is just a collection of cells. Any attempt to define it is arbitrary at best.

No-one known if someone eating shrimps is really a vegetarian.

In short, millions of years down the line of human civilization, we are not so sure about how to define many important things.

Definitions are futile. Philosophy has failed.

Art, with all its ambivalence, is all we have to debate and discuss these important things.

As always, then, art saves.

And still, I cry

I love Harry Potter, I really do.

After getting courage from him to finish my PhD, in times when I thought that nothing could calm me down and my mouth was in pain with tension, I decided to revisit him in time for the grand finale. Though I always thought that the books were far from perfect, the world that JKR created is undoubtedly amazing. The symbolism, the complexity, the details, HP's world sucks me in every time. I hadn't read the books, since before the end, where reading served one goal and one goal only: to look for clues of how it would all end. This of course obscured the whole experience and made me devour the books without thinking much, without enjoying them properly. So I thought, this time I will do it differently. Indifferent to the ending, I reread all books slowly, sluggishly tasting every detail. I started the last book this morning and I really don't want it to end, for when it does Harry will be gone forevermore for me, at least until July when I will queue with all the rest of his fans to see the last installment in the movie series. I never liked the movies too much, they left so much out. And, I think, HP is not about the big things, it is about the small ones. The details that the books include, the nuances of the relationships, the inner thoughts of the characters, the little traits that page after page make these kids my friends.

So, now you know why I have been so absent lately, I have been sucked back to HP land, reading and reading, spending my days, the sunniest days Belfast had seen for a while, inside a book and not outside in the gardens, the river and the sunshine. But I really don't care, sunshine will come and go. Harry though will always stay with me, my friend forever. When I read the passages that I love - Sirius's death, Voldemort's rebirth, the Yule ball, Hermione's isolation in book three, Harry's constant quest for love and affection, Snape's story - I cry. And I always cry as if these things are happening to a friend.

Because, I guess, they are.