Oh you want proof? Well fine. Go back to the beginning of my facebook profile and read the statuses. Those were “myspace era.” As you get closer to now, you’ll see it morph into  the “Facebook era.” And jesus that change is pretty glaring. That also leaves the larger issues that Myspace and Facebook was,at one point the difference between the emo kid wreaking of pot who sat behind you in English class and one of the cookie cutter rich kids who smelled of alcohol, church, and shame. Then the freaking gradient disappeared. Even freaking Tom Anderson posts all his updates on Facebook now.

After Facebook went all Kill Bill on Myspace, I figured it was just a fad. I mean I jumped onboard, but I never actually realized that it would last. I think opening up to high school kids did it, but that’s beside the point. And the point is that facebook just kept growing and updating to the point where now I can know and deduce details about people’s relationships without actually having to talk to them. Facebook became a social phenomenon in literally 5 years. And then Google+ came around. It was intended to be the Inigo Montoya to Facebook’s Count Rugen by promising privacy and the ability to create circles of friends and only share certain things to certain people.

The overwhelming response, at least with my friends, was that Google+ was just confusing and they didn’t care about who saw the things they posted; they just wanted their posts to be seen. That confused me for a while. Then I started hearing people bring up and discuss posts on facebook in real life. I mean it had been happening before; I had been and still am a part of this behavior; but people’s cyber-selves started to invade their real lives. It became a conversation topic, a conversation starter– basically something that seemed unify circles of friends in real life. I mean, let’s get the facts straight here– circles of friends were by no means unified. They still existed– people would only post on the walls of people they knew, like and comment on the posts of they people they saw often, etc. But a third party was privy to all the interactions within cliques and created an illusion of inclusiveness (no, I’m pretty sure that isn’t a word).

But Facebook really did invade our lives. It’s changed our language. Think back to 7 years ago: the word “like” was never treated as a noun while still remaining a verb. You hear “I liked your status” and somehow, the subject of the sentence is the “like,” not “I” or “your status.” Same thing with “comment.” Or, god forbid “poke war.” I would just like to take this opportunity to say that I started a poke war in the second grade and was given detention. I now demand retribution. I would also like to say right now that Bruce, if you’re reading this, I definitely won.

Anyway. Here’s the bottom line: the development of Facebook into a necessity of social interaction. He who does not facebook is a blaspheme. At least that’s how I treat my brother, who remains against the whole concept. And I’ve slowly come around to his side of the fence– of course, I’ll never delete mine: there would be no way to bombard the world with my dumb puns and funny finds from Tumblr and Imgur and Reddit (let’s take this opportunity to say that all the procrastination sites seem to just be Facebook accessories and supplements). But my brother has a point, the fact that facebook is some sort of symbol of social aptitude (for lack of a better word) is kind of sad. But let’s get real here: everything would be okay if it wasn’t so fucking awkward.

That’s the Catch-22 of the whole deal of people feeling like they’re included: you’re still not. You’re going to see the people on whom you creep in real life and resort to manuvers like (I am guilty of all these things) “oh I just got an imaginary text and it requires an urgent response,” “that thing on the wall furthest away from you is fascinating,”  ”Oh look, my shoe is untied. I’d better turn around, look straight down while crouching and tie it,” and my personal favorite “oh shit I have to poop right fucking now.”

I will close with the experience that has brought me to write this post.

Every once in a while, we (me, my brother, my dad and mother) go out with my Aunt and Uncle (and cousin, if she decides to flatter us with her presence that day). Conversation always turns into the Uncle’s Republican babble about the economy, the latest book he’s reading, and unwanted advice for both my and my brother’s futures. I mean I truly do appreciate that he cares, but please please please dispense with the tone of intense narcissism with which you say things. The facts are uninteresting, the books are lame, the opinion is limited, and, as I said, the advice mostly unwanted. In the midst of all this, I am asked how school is going, and I respond with a generic “it’s hard but I’m enjoying it” to dispel any follow-up questions. Except the one– which I really should learn to expect. “Have you met Nola? She’s doing Biomedical Engineering too; but I think she’s a senior.”( Now, there’s no one named Nola. I changed the name, obviously.) To which I respond “No, but if I do, I’ll tell her you said howdy.” (It is my theory that the use of “howdy” will concern them enough to change the subject).

Over the summer, around the Fourth of July, I went with my parents to some party at my Aunt’s house. There, I was introduced to a myriad of the sort of Indian people by whom I am really confused (I will post my thoughts on that paradox eventually), and the token white couple (I shit you not). Anyway, at this party (torture chamber), I met a married couple whose names I honestly don’t remember. My dad had, at some point, introduced me without my being there, so these people came up to me and said something like “Oh you must be Surya. Your dad just told me about you. You’re directing a musical? That’s a big job!” To which I nodded, smiled and said yes. They then asked me what school I went to, which my dad had apparently neglected to mention. My response was “Case Western– It’s a little outside Cleveland.”

I’m sure you can predict now what their response was: “We’re familiar with it– actually our daughter Nola goes there! She isn’t here– Have you met her though?” The rest of that conversation was a blur: mostly consisting of things about Nola (which were impressive), the weather, the holiday, and the food. I still don’t remember how I escaped.

The next day, I sign onto facebook. One friend request. Nola. My immediate thoughts were as follows:

1. Fuck.

2. Seriously?

3. Fuck.

4. Damn it, Nola!

5. Oh shit I have to poop right fucking now

6. Fuck.

Stupid Nola. I’m sure your parents told you that they had met me. In my head,  see them telling her I was going to be a junior and that it’d be nice if she could advise me, etc. especially because I was directing. And naturally also because I was so handsome, funny, and charming. To which she said okay, and without a second thought, friended me on Facebook. I saw two options: (1) decline and face the fact that it could be seen as a personal passive aggressive attack against the Aunt and Uncle/their life, and have that blow up into a thing (haha my family), or (2) accept and face the inevitable book of consequences.

I chose option two.

This year, I have seen Nola way too many times. And she has seen me. And we pretty much know who the other is. But here’s the thing: we’ve literally never actually met in the real world. like ever. I know her parents, not her. So…that happened. But there’s more.

This semester, I am in a Numerical Methods class. So is Nola. What the actual fuck. But wait! There’s even more! The class has a co-requisite programming lab which happens in sections of 20 students. Nola and I are in the same one. We sat one computer diagonally from each other and for 90 minutes stared intently at the computer, the ceiling, or the teacher. Thank heavens we didn’t finish at the same time. Thank hell for the fact that, yes, there’s more.

For this same class, all Homeworks are done in groups. I was fine with it until I was told groups were assigned. My group: Me, some guy, Nola. So here’s the new angle: this group has to meet to do this homework. I don’t know some guy, and I don’t want to be the one to break and shit all over the Facebook-Real life barrier. I assume Nola doesn’t know some guy either, and she is in the same position as me. Therefore, this entire homework has been done exclusively via e-mail. I’ve had to be mindful of my actions, as she serves as a direct link to my family life, which I keep completely separate from my school life. And she’s probably had to do the same. And I’m fine with all this.

But  if I have to think “oh shit I have to poop right fucking now” one more time, I will actually just explode.

It’s like being taught to swim by chucking him into a rip-tide in the sea during the monsoon, diving into a life that’s been turned upside down due solely because of your (mis)perception of even one person. Once one leaves, all others are thrown into suspicion– this is made even worse when the one who leaves is the one you once believed to be your saving grace, the one good thing you thought you had in life. This was my summer. All you have to do is stop and examine yourself. How do you feel? Tired or amped? Hopefully, it’s the latter. Milton Glaser said this in his “Ten Things I Have Learned,” and over the course of the last four months, I’ve discovered that this is the truth– some people are toxic. You spend your lives with them, you come home, and you’re tired. Glaser states it more eloquently:

You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

Simple, yes? Yes. Magic, really. So simple, in fact, that it just has to have something wrong with it– some fundamental and fatal logical fallacy that makes it irrelevant in our daily lives. That’s just what I believed. But the more I use this test, or at least think about it, the more sense it makes, and it doesn’t matter how simple it seems; the test itself is so vital.

And, for some reason, we go about our lives thinking nothing of the people who play such a large role in it- are they toxic or not? Maybe it’s because of fear. Fear that when we finally do face the truth screaming in our faces that we may be forced to do something.Fear to tell someone who nourishes that you do, in fact, need them. Fear of chasing them away, of suffocating them with your need.

And when you find that someone you’ve believed to be your best friend is a toxic presence in your life, the fear to suck the poison out of your bloodstream.Losing friends, alienating people, examining yourself– one thing more terrifying than the last. The fact is that getting yourself tuned in to your energies, your mental state is difficult enough without having to focus on the fact that those who you believe to know you are ruining your life in a ways that you weren’t even aware of. And the instant we recognize that there is a poison in our lives, we become conflicted.

And when this conflict arises, it’s easier to avoid. After all, what difference does it make? Breaking the status quo will be neither fun nor exciting. Just keep with the plan. Go out, get drunk, smoke weed, have sex, eat too much, party too hard, finally come home and crash. Lather, rinse, repeat. And that’s a perfect, irreplaceable bliss.

Deeper down, though, find a life devoid of any real energy– any true, beautiful connection with others that leaves both parties charged with not only the energy, but the motivation, the sprit, to continue to live. It’s this level of emptiness that cuts deeper than Valyrian steel. But follow through, and you emerge in a place that could hardly have been imagined. A place that transfixes and exhilarates more than anything that you’ve ever done with people before.

You’re left stranded on an island. You know who can save you, but also know who will set you out to drown with them. And when you follow through with the results of the human toxicity test, you will most likely lose your closest friends, family you thought were special, teachers, mentors, religions, gods, little old ladies, dinosaurs, and anything else you can name. But you push through the fear and you arrive at a place of peace with yourself. You understand who you are, what you need, and how you will best survive.

Yes, in the end, you’re left seemingly alone in the dark. But beyond that, you’re left with the knowledge of the light you need and in the end, that’s a good thing.

Through the exploration of our world, the discovery of new creatures, and the improvement of inventions, time remains ever flowing, eroding the knowledge of the past and creating knowledge of the future. In acquiring knowledge, mankind attempts to understand its world, and all that time changes. Knowledge therefore, changes with time, both in approaches and in material. The knowledge of the past, usually steadfast in roots is subject to change, but used as the root of future knowledge. As a result, knowledge in its entirety can be seen as an axiomatic system of understanding our surroundings.

Mathematics, in its most basic sense, is the most axiomatic of all areas of knowledge. Learning to add or subtract fulfills the most basic mathematical need for man, but such simple concepts build upon themselves in order to make much more complex subjects such as derivatives or integrals. The basis of all Calculus, according to Alex Shefler, a local AP Calculus teacher, can be simplified to finding the slope of a line and finding the area of a rectangle. The humble foundations of mathematics, when built upon, make even the simplest concepts complex. This over simplification of the world by means of math can be attributed to the need for aesthetics in mathematical formulae. Multiplication, for example, is nothing more than repeated addition, therefore 2 x 4=8 is actually a more visually pleasing way to write 2+2+2+2=8. The emotional response to the same equation written by means of multiplication, as research shows, is more favorable, as, it seems easier to understand to the human mind. In the same way, notations for extended addition or subtraction, such as sigma (Ʃ) notation have shortened the writing process for students of advanced math, but have increased the amount of thinking that goes into solving a problem.

On the other hand, this over-simplification has the potential to be detrimental to the intellectual well being of the student. Because the concepts of math always work the same way, the notations and concepts of math are often simplified even more into formulas that can make impossible sums adding up many terms into finite numbers that are solvable to anyone with the knowledge to use the equation. This use of short cut methods to find a large sum, some may argue, reduces the emotional attachment that comes with solving a difficult or long math problem. Because the student skips out on the involved work that was used to find the equation, and therefore, the answer, he loses the state of being emotionally vested in finding the answer, and therefore loses the sense of satisfaction and involvement that those people whose “future knowledge” was the modern “past knowledge”.

Like Mathematics, the natural sciences also build upon knowledge of the past in order to create or obtain knowledge in the future. Again, in this area, the simplest facts such as the existence of gravity can change the course of knowledge in the future. Before sophisticated technology, the theory of the geocentric universe was the principal belief in the world, and any claims otherwise resulted in negative consequences. After proving a heliocentric universe, however, the times changed, and said proof gave way to many major scientific advances in modern times, such as space travel and exploration. In discovering gravity, Newton not only discovered one of the most prominent forces present in the universe today, but paved the way for others to discover and create numerous other things. Modern satellites, aircrafts, and space shuttles, and many more extremely pivotal instruments that humanity relies on originate from the discovery of one force.

After the discovery of gravity, the realm of physics was forever regarded as the major area of science and the most prominent and promising to explore. Because of this, the advances made in science, even today, are used to advance human knowledge of physics in the universe, and therefore leads humans to explore outer space and the unknown abroad, rather than at home. This expansion, therefore, leaves gaping holes in our knowledge about earth and its many details. The chief question of scientific exploration remains, “why”, and in order to find an answer science looks outward rather than inward.

The dimension of time, however changes not only the knowledge of the sciences, but the belief and culture of people as well. As the current stock of knowledge expands without bound, the limits of human curiosity seem never to be reached. Therefore, everything has some explanation. The result of this insatiable hunger for the “why” is a detriment of religion or faith. In exploring the fallacies of past knowledge, previously attributed to a higher being and exposing the scientific reasoning behind said fallacy, the “objective” user of math and science deters the growth of religion and values the use of logic.

Some say that the wealth of human knowledge, as much as it does build upon itself, does not depend on time. In saying this, one argues that the system of knowledge that we as a species have is based on the free will of man to discover and create. The discoveries of man, although important, are not dependent on time, but on the curiosity that comes with discovery. Knowledge of the past does not serve as a foundation for future creation or knowledge, but merely inspiration or springboard for future knowledge.

As time flows on, the knowledge acquired by man expands both in breadth and depth. As discoveries become past knowledge, they are used as building blocks to know more, see more, and do more. Theories yet to be proven are used to disprove others, all this in an attempt to understand the world around us. As soon as the choice as to which area of knowledge to deepen is made, the world is impacted.

– Tyrion Lannister,  A Game of Thrones

If you are:

If I know you, and I sincerely hope I do, you are reading this way the fuck earlier than you’re supposed to. So stop reading. Wait until you’re 30 (i.e. 11 years). But now is too soon. If you have waited what you feel is a sufficient amount of time, read on.

Dear Future Surya,

This is you, eleven years ago. In the small bedroom of the upstairs of the Giant Oaks house. I really really hope that you don’t still live in the same house. If you do, I hope more that your parents and brother don’t also live with you. Please. Please. Please. Invent a time machine and come back here and assure me of this. I just had a thought of posting this and the a thirty-year-old me appearing in my room to tell me that he, in fact, does still live with his parents and subsequently briefly hyperventilated. Incidentally, I also hope that you are alive. Because each moment could be your last. Don’t fear death– fear being forgotten.

Anyway. Eleven Years ago, you were 19 years old, aching to start a life on your own– searching for a job, having dreams that were borderline delusions of grandeur. You are about to direct the Case Footlighters’ production of Company by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. Which leads me to say, I really hope that you are still somehow involved in theatre and music or at least remember your love for theatre and music. There were years when those were the anchors of your sanity, and forgetting your savior is a bit like forgetting your nose at home when you go out to eat– you’re still alive, but you’re not exactly enjoying nor being able to taste.

Speaking of sanity, it’s probably worth mentioning that at 19, you were not sane. That is to say, you were a functioning member of society (conceivably), but you, like zillions of others, needed help. More importantly, you were not afraid to seek it. Less admirable, you were afraid to trust friends and family. I sincerely hope beyond anything else that you have learned trust in the last eleven years. The love I’ve known from friends has surpassed anything I ever expected, and forgetting the rewards of it would not be good. Never forget Bruce, Megan, Brendan, Alaina, Howe Floor 8, and Footlighters. Never forget the others you have known but with whom you have no doubt lost touch. Even the ones that have wronged you– each person has taught you some lesson and helped you grow. You don’t have to like them, but you should still appreciate and remember the impact.

These memories are the reason I’ve constructed walls of paraphernalia (Charlie McDonnell calls it the Wall of Stuff)– physical anchors to remember where you come from and the people who have helped shape you.

You can go as far as you want to in life– but stay rooted to who you are. Never forget where you come from. Never forget the reasons you’re unique, the principles you have, the things you’ve learned. Always remember your past– never dwell, but never forget. The most important people in your life have died, but stay with you, as long as you remember.

Never forget things you’ve learned from Albus Dumbledore– that man knew his shit.

If you have kids (unlikely. but just in case), be their parent and never force them to be yours. Encourage them to have the courage to be themselves. Be the father you wish you had, and work as hard as the father you did have. Be their friend, but don’t suffocate them. Most importantly, know when to let them go.

Write another letter for your 40-year old self to read, and if time machines are invented (also unlikely– when I write this, I don’t think that time travel is possible but we’ll see, I guess), break protocol send a letter to me. Use the cipher. Hopefully you still have that handy (hint hint hint hint hint).

After you scoff at the cheesiness of the above (and holy fuck is it cheesy), close the page remembering to love and to laugh.

They need serious help. 

I mean congratulations on knowing that gender stereotypes are total BS. But your reasoning, that it’s all so this kid Storm (don’t even get me started on that name) can choose his own gender is absolutely dumb. Believe it or not, he actually can’t just go ahead and ungrow a penis. It just doesn’t work that way. The differences in gender are deeper than just genitalia. Boy brains and girl brains are fundamentally different. Take women’s ability to multitask, for example: this is because women have a thicker and more developed Corpus callosum– the part of the brain that connects the left and right sides together, allowing for faster communication between different cerebral systems. Hell, things like schizophrenia and depression stats also vary depending on gender.

The wee baby Storm’s parents can think whatever they want about their idea. They can scream from the rooftops that their child will be free from the roles society places on children to act their gender, and more power to them. I agree completely– the idea that boys must like sports and girls must like cooking is disgusting. And I don’t just say this because I rather dislike sports and rather do like theater, singing, dancing and reading. Freedom from social cues and boundaries is essential in life– the hypocrisy that you can’t be honest if it means being mean, but you can’t lie either annoys me more than most other boundaries. But the notion of Storm being able to defy biology and science just because the rest of the world won’t know his/her gender for about a year is just delusional. I am truly sorry, parents of Storm, but it just can’t happen.

It’s fine to let your child choose to do what he/she likes. A boy can happily wear a dress to school if that’s what he wants to do. It is a completely different thing to not tell others the gender of the kid so that he can have a free life. I mean at some point, he is going to figure out that he is, let’s say, a boy. At that time, he’s going to notice that he is either weird or he’s going to start noticing things he’s supposed to do, and follow through with them. You forget, parents, that this kid as a human is self-aware and just as prone to insecurities as anyone else. The idea that others can’t make fun of him because they don’t know if he’s a boy or a girl is just illogical to the point of farce. Eventually, you’re going to have to teach this kid that he should do what he loves, not what gender tells him to do. When that time comes, hiding his sex or gender (not sure of the distinction, but there is one) is really not going to matter. What will matter is what he thinks about himself and how aware he is of his self-worth, regardless of public opinion.

At this point, your keeping a grand secret like this is mere exploitation of a 6-month-old, created so that you can imagine a utopia that you wish existed when you were a child and your own insecurities came to light. The fact remains that Storm is not aware of societies rules yet– you are. He isn’t going to care if he has blue or pink balloons. He isn’t going to care if he’s playing with a Barbie or a G.I. Joe. These are all boundaries you put on yourself, that your child has no way of knowing. The idea that you tell him these things exist and that you’re protecting him from it by pretending they don’t shows that they actually do, and that you buy into the very stereotypes you’re trying to fight. This is where the logic gets convoluted and the hypocrisy of the goals of Storm’s parents come to light.

Tell us his gender. Tell him to be proud of who he is and what he likes, despite social flaws; that he doesn’t need to feel guilty for existing and being himself.

Please.

Also it’s really bothering me that I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. Not knowing is the worst feeling ever.

It’s true, in Martin’s books, literally every honorable character is either captured, beheaded, tortured, kidnapped, or any subset of the above. The children in the series, ranging from 4 to 15 years old are forced to grow up and accept adulthood prematurely. And yes, the most dastardly, manipulative characters invariably wind up getting what they want. The idea behind all this is that the world is grey. Apparently the world has a problem accepting this. Apparently, every person reading this series sees him/herself as honorable, and the notion that they will never win scares them so much that they’d rather go on ignoring the fact that their lives suck. But let’s just face it; life’s a bitch until you die.

Now it’s not only fantasy novels written for a more adult audience that houses dark undertones. Let’s take the example of Harry Potter. I mean wizards, dragons, mermaids and broomsticks seem perfectly innocent, but then Voldemort comes back, and things go crazy with the dark. How dark you ask? How about the rapes Arianna Dumbledore and Delores Umbridge? Oh snap– shit just got real. 

I mean it seems ridiculous at first: this is a series of books for teenagers and “young adults” (whatever the fuck that means– I mean you could make the case that babies are just really really young adults. But I digress), and death is one thing but this is a whole new can of worms. To that I say puh– the cruciatis curse is used by the death eaters multiple times on Harry and his pals. In The Deathly Hallows, Bellatrix freaking tortures Hermione with a knife and carves “mudblood” in her skin. Neville’s parents were tortured to the point that they had to be institutionalized. So why is rape and molestation exempt from the list of darkness in Harry Potter. Answer: it isn’t.

Near the end of  Order of the Phoenix, Professor Umbridge is led into the forest by Harry and Hermione and then kidnapped by centaurs. After an adventure in the Ministry of Magic, they find Umbridge in the hospital wing, where her “mousy hair was very untidy and there were bits of twig and leaf in it, but otherwise she seemed to be quite unscathed” (849). To fuck with her though (and she did deserve it, the bitch), Ron makes galloping noises to which Umbridge literally cowers in fear. Which leads one to believe, if she wasn’t actually physically tortured (hence lack of physical trauma) and Centaurs can’t do magic, what the hell happened to her to make her that terrified? I mean this is sort of a longshot yes, but in traditional mythology, Centaurs are known to be rather notoriously horny. Take, for example, the story of Nessus and Deianeria:

Deianeria, Heracles’ wife gets the centaur Nessus to carry her across a river. Once he does so, Nessus attempts to rape her. Seeing this, Heracles shoots Nessus with a poisoned arrow, killing Nessus. As he dies, he tells Deianeria that he is sorry and that his blood would ensure that Heracles stays faithful to her. When she starts to have doubts about Heracles, she spreads the blood on a tunic and gives it to him. He wears it and it burns through his skin and kills him.

So I mean centaurs are clearly evil. And it stands to reason that JKR would know this, considering the fact that she researched so much mythology and latin while writing the books (fun fact: Voldemort actually means “wings of death”). It is simply a possibility that in the approximately 3-6 hours that Umbridge was with the Centaurs (before Dumbledore saved her), anything could have happened; there is evidence of sexual abuse, however small the possibility. I mean if a bunch of centaurs man-handled her, a little more than just her hair could have been messed up– but considering the stories are told from Harry’s limited perspective, it can also be argued that there could have been bruises, etc under Umbridge’s clothes that Harry, and therefore the reader, didn’t see. Assuming that she was assaulted, however, Umbridge’s reactions, etc all make fit with textbook reactions to this kind of psychological trauma.

An even darker event is elaborated on in The Deathly Hallows’ telling of Arianna Dumbledore’s story. This time, the sexual assault is more explicit, even though there is much less evidence to it. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione hide from the Death Eaters in The Hog’s Head, Aberforth, the bar’s owner tells them the story of his family and why he hated Albus. He tells them about what happened to Arianna:

“When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, by three Muggle boys. They’d seen her practicing magic, spying through the back garden hedge: She was a kid, she couldn’t control it, no witch or wizard can at that age. What they saw, scared them, I expect. They forced their way through the hedge, and when she couldn’t show them the trick, they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it.

It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn’t use magic, but she couldn’t get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn’t control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless.“

After Aberforth finishes, Ron looks like he’s about to be sick and Hermione is completely red. In reaction to what happened with Arianna, Aberforth continues, his father, Percival, hunts down the muggle boys, kills them, and gets sent to Azkaban. Albus and Aberforth never denied that their father killed muggles, and, in some instances, they even went so far as to defend his actions. Coupled with the fact that Arianna was legitimately and permanently scarred and traumatized, the Dumbledore family’s reaction heavily imply that Arianna was more than just attacked. There remains the possibility that the muggles could have just tortured her, but torturing a six-year-old is still pretty dark.

The mere fact that the evidence such egregious crimes can be found using just the undertones of a branded children’s book shows us that darkness prevails can prevail even in juvenile fiction. You’ve just got to open your yes and see it and open your mind to the possibility that fantasy does not necessarily mean that honor will always prevail because it usually does not. To survive in our world, you’ve got to embrace shades of grey and accept that the traditional “good guy” trope will almost never coincide with reality. The only thing that matters is the game for the greater good, and it’s much like the Game of Thrones: you win, or you die.