Hans vs. Severus

Saturday evening, I officiated Sharon and Tim’s wedding ceremony at the Trophy Club Country Club, in Trophy Club, Texas. Here are the remarks I shared with them and their guests:

 

One of the most iconic movie villains in the history of American Cinema is the villain in Die Hard, a man named Hans, who arguably had the best last name a movie villain could have. That's right, Gruber. Hans is up against the hero of the film, played by Bruce Willis, a New York City cop.

One of the reasons that this movie was so popular and remains iconic today, even though it has not aged well, and is barely watchable, is that it is SO American, and not in a good sense. It portrays a battle between good and evil, as one between two quintessentially flat male characters, full of bluster and bravado. Good is absolute, evil is absolute. All other characters are mere props.

And, so, naturally, even though the whole plot rests on the fact that the hero and his wife are estranged, largely due to the hero's behavior, all he has to do is vanquish her captors, and she, the prize, falls into his arms.

It is almost poetic that later in life the same man, who played my erstwhile and flat cinematic relative in that forgettable film, played one of the most complex figures in modern popular literature, Severus Snape. And the world Severus Snape inhabits is as rich, as Die Hard's world is flat. Perhaps that is why Alan Rickman said, "When I am 80 years old, and sitting in my rocking chair, I'll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, 'After all this time?’ And, I will say, ‘Always.’"

Now, if you know Sharon, you know that she could have uttered those very same words. That is why Tim proposed to her at, that's right, Nakatomi Plaza... No, not really. He proposed to her at Harry Potter World.

I, like, Sharon, and so many others across languages, cultures and borders, love this world, because of its complexity, its depth, and its characters' struggles. This makes so much of what happens in that world much more realistic than the world of Die Hard, and certainly more applicable to our lives.

Harry, and his friends, are introduced to us and to each other through a world of magic. You might not know this, but Sharon and Tim were introduced to each other through magic too. After all, as Arthur C Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." You have to admit that the complex array of electrons and algorithms that brings people like Sharon and Tim together in our world is hardly distinguishable from the Sorting Hat, that brings people together, in a slightly different way, in Harry's world.

What makes that world so easy to identify with, though, is the realism of the internal lives and interpersonal relationships of the characters. Few can see themselves in John McClain from Die Hard, but magic aside, we can see ourselves in Harry, Ron, Hermione or Ginny. And the friendships and romantic relationships in that world are very very real, with all of the messiness and beauty that comes with them.

And so, we know that Hermione and Ron could truly identify with how Sharon describes her relationship with Tim, "He is my best friend and there is no one that I'd rather share all of life's experiences with." And, as we see the closing scene in that magnificent series, in just the body language, we know that Harry and Ginny could identify with how Tim describes his relationship with Sharon, "We are a team, which is one of the things I love most about her. Together we are unstoppable!"

Unlike the characters in that closing scene, we don't get to see where life will take us. And, even in that scene, the lesson is that the future is not predetermined. However, interact even a little with Sharon and Tim, and I believe you can see them in that scene, years ahead from now. You know that Tim can see that, when he says, "Sharon is the love of my life. I want to spend the rest of my life and grow old with her." And you know that Sharon can see that too, when she says, "Ultimately, Tim is everything I could want in a life partner, and my life is better with him in it."