Superpowers

 

When I was a kid, the heroes on entertainment were unique individuals, like the Lone Ranger, or Tarzan, or Roy Rogers, but did not have imaginary "powers" (except maybe Superman, and his powers were rather generalized to everything). Having some special "power" seems to be the new juvenile fantasy.

Yes. There’s a pretty striking change there, and I think you’re identifying something deeper than merely the rise of comic books.

The heroes of your childhood were generally exceptional humans rather than humans with exceptional physics. The Lone Ranger was extraordinarily capable, courageous, and resourceful, but there was nothing biologically impossible about him. Tarzan had almost superhuman physical ability in some portrayals, but it was presented as the result of upbringing, environment, and personal prowess. Roy Rogers was simply an implausibly good horseman and marksman. Their appeal was essentially: “I could become extraordinarily good at something.”

Superman is the interesting transitional case. He was explicitly fantastic, but his powers were so broad that they functioned almost like a mythological attribute: he was the extraordinarily powerful good guy. His particular abilities weren't usually the point of the story.

Modern superhero fiction often reverses this. The starting premise is:

You are an ordinary kid, except that somewhere inside you is a special capability that makes you fundamentally different from everyone else.

And that is an enormously potent juvenile fantasy. It isn't merely “I want to be brave like the Lone Ranger.” It's “I want to discover that I am secretly extraordinary.”

There is also a nice connection to the way children actually experience adolescence. A child is constantly being told that he is powerless: adults make the decisions, school imposes rules, and physical and social abilities are limited. The fantasy of suddenly discovering a superpower is almost a literal solution to that condition. Aha! I wasn't powerless after all. I was special.

The older heroes offered a somewhat different fantasy of competence. Their extraordinary qualities were things one could imagine acquiring through courage, practice, discipline, cleverness, or experience. The newer fantasy tends toward identity: I possess this thing because I am who I am.

And I suspect there's another cultural change behind it. Once you have had decades of superhero stories, it becomes difficult to make "exceptionally skilled man defeats bad guys" feel new. Give him x-ray vision, telekinesis, immortality, mutant DNA, a magic hammer, or the ability to manipulate time, and you've got an apparently endless supply of novelty.

So yes: the fantasy has shifted somewhat from “become an exceptional person” to “discover that you are an exceptional person.” That's quite a significant change in what children are being invited to imagine themselves becoming.

Then there is the abused kid (all kids identify even though rarely actually so) finding out he's magical. Harry Potter was guaranteed to be a hit.

Exactly. Harry Potter is almost a machine designed to push that particular childhood button.

Harry isn't merely an orphan. He is deliberately placed in a humiliating, loveless household where he is treated as inferior. He sleeps in a cupboard, is bullied by his cousin, and is repeatedly told that he is worthless. And crucially, he doesn't understand why his life is so miserable.

Then comes the revelation: you aren't worthless; you're one of the special ones. In fact, the peculiar things about you that made you feel defective are evidence that you're special.

And then the fantasy gets even better: the oppressive adults who have controlled your life turn out to be not merely wrong but ignorant. There is an entire parallel society in which you belong and they don't even understand it exists.

That is almost irresistibly satisfying to a child.

And you're right about the identification. A child doesn't have to literally be abused to recognize the emotional structure. Nearly every child has experienced some version of:

“Adults don't understand me.”
“I'm treated unfairly.”
“Nobody appreciates what I can do.”
“Other children seem to have things I don't.”

Harry Potter converts those ordinary childhood grievances into a cosmic explanation:

You aren't failing to fit into their world. You belong to a much more wonderful world that they can't see.

There's an especially clever inversion of the old fairy tale. Cinderella is mistreated, but her reward is to become a princess through marriage. Harry is mistreated, and the revelation is that he was already special all along. The transformation isn't really into something new; it's the discovery of an identity that was concealed.

That may explain why the trope has become so pervasive. It combines two very powerful juvenile fantasies: escape from the authority of adults and proof of one's own uniqueness. And Rowling happened to wrap the whole thing in boarding school, friendship, British eccentricity, magic, and a fairly straightforward good-versus-evil story.

So yes, "abused child discovers he's magical" wasn't merely one ingredient in Harry Potter. It was probably the central wish-fulfillment mechanism. The seven-book story then gave children several thousand pages in which to enjoy the consequences.