RIP Robbie Coltrane

Ya know, it's weird. My geekery has traditionally been focused primarily on the things I grew up with. I've been told that I watched my first Star Trek episode the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. I was six when my mom took me to see the original theatrical screening of Return of the Jedi. I remember watching the original Battlestar Galactica when is was the new thing and that's why I got into the reboot. (And, all of my hatred of reboots aside the BSG reboot was better than the original.) I watched and collected GI Joe and Transformers. I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, read the comics and played the Tabletop Role Play Game by Palladium Books. Ditto Robotech.  I was into Green Lantern  when the only way to see him on screen were the old Super Friends/Justice League cartoons. Dungeons and Dragons and all of the related novels took up an amazing portion of my high school years. I've talked about my old school connection with Battletech here before. When I list my fannish favorites, those are the things I'll always list first.

Of course, I've learned to learn other things along the way. I'm a huge fan of Big Bang Theory and I absolutely love all things Babylon 5. The Walking Dead was an obsession until Rick left in a helicopter (yes, I get Andrew Lincoln's reasons for leaving. They're valid and I'm not hating. It's still not the same show.) If you don't know I love Declan Finn as an author and his Saint Tommy: NYPD series most of all this must be your first stop by the blog. Welcome.  The Honor Harrington Series is a huge part of my life. I'm part of the fan club and have met some very close friends through it, good people all. But...

For the most part the stuff I came to later lags behind as far as being one of my favorites. The problem isn't the newer product, it's me. When I first started reading the Honorverse I was already in my twenties. I wasn't as jaded as I am at forty-five, but I wasn't the wide-eyed youth I'd been at eight, either. I had hardened and the new stuff couldn't embed itself into me the way it could have when I was younger and softer.

The one exception is Harry Potter. J.K Rowling created a world so vibrant, so beautiful, so horrible and so scarred (true Harry Potter fans will get this) that it shines as well as the things I read in my youth. This is despite the fact that I was introduced to the HP franchise by my ex-wife who I don't exactly like much anymore.  And one of the greatest characters of the franchise has always been (and always will be) Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts. 

Hagrid was the warm and loving friend. The guy who will always do his best for his friends, come hell or high water. He didn't have the best impulse control, and his tongue may have wagged just a bit too freely,c but he always meant well and there really isn't anyone in the entire HP universe who would have been more loyal or loved more fiercely. I mean, seriously, who goes out to a giant camp to rescue their brother, who beats them up when they leave? Hagrid was the salt of the Earth and a guy whose example very few people would live up to. I'm still a bit miffed that Harry didn't give one of his sons the name Hagrid, but I suppose I should get over myself.

I probably need to stop here and explain something: I'm an American and I consume mainly American movies and television. That's not to denigrate any other country and their products. it's just a product of where and when I was raised. So when I started catching news of the HP movies and who was acting in them, I kind of just shrugged. I didn't know much about any of the actors or actresses because I hadn't seen them before. I guess I just don't watch enough of the Beeb. Also, I haven't been a fan since day one. By the time I picked up my first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had already been released, the first movie was out and the second was only a week away. Fortunately for me, there was a local movie theater that ran older movies at a huge discount and I was able to see the first two movies on the big screen a week apart. I was blown away.  Yes, the books were better but WOW did those movies work. They came as close as any book to movie translation I had seen previously and only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has come closer since, but that took two movies.

And a huge, huge, HUUUUUGE part of that was Robbie Coltrane in the part of Hagrid. When in your life have you seen a better translation of a character? Part of it, admittedly, was the make-up. That part of the crew deserves a standing ovation, but it was a whole lot more than just looks. I mean it. If you're a fan of both the books and the movies (and you should be because both are awesome) I dare you to re-read the series and NOT hear Hagrid saying "I shouldn't have said that," in Robbie's voice. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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YOU FAILED!!!!!

Granted, it's not your fault. It's Robbie Coltrane's fault. He played that part so well that he ruined our ability to picture Hagrid as being other than the way Robbie played him. Well done, Robbie.  And you said it best, didn't you?<"The legacy of the movies is that my children's generation will show [the films] to their children," the clean-shaven actor said. "So you could be watching in 50 years time, easy. I'll not be here, sadly, but Hagrid will. Yes."

He has, sadly, been proven correct. Given how close that interview came to the end of his life, I'm forced to wonder if he knew something that we didn't. Then again, if he did, it wasn't really our business. That much having been said, I'm convinced that he'll also be proven correct in fifty years time. I mean that. Shakespeare's plays sold out the Globe Theater in his time and Dickens had more than one novel that was serialized in magazines before being bound and sold as a book. J.K Rowling's work is just as good and will stand the test of time. I'm calling it right now. 

And when I'm sitting on a couch somewhere in the future with one of my grandchildren (should God and my daughters be willing to provide me with them) we'll have Harry Potter on the television just like I had with their mothers. We'll be laughing at Hagrid when he goofs something up, we'll be crying when Norbert has to leae for the Dragon Sanctuary. We'll shake our heads at the injustice of it all when Hagrid is carrying Harry's body back to Hogwarts. 

And all through it, the work of Robbie Coltrane will shine through.  I don't want to know how much time he spent learning his craft. It was obviously too much to comprehend. I don't need to know how much time he spent rehearsing the part. That was obviously a large number too. I don't need to know what he was paid or what his benefits were. None of that matters to me. Here is what I do know:

As long as someone is watching the Harry Potter movies, as long as someone is reading the books and picturing the characters the way they looked on screen, as long as one group of Potterheads exists on the internet, until the last copy of the last existing Harry Potter crumbles into dust, the legacy of not just J.K. Rowling but EVERY ACTOR in the series lives on. Robbie Coltrane will be with us as long as we remember him. So will Alan Rickman and all the rest. So, may your body and soul rest in peace, Rubeu... err...

Robbie Coltrane. Lay down your woes and gaze upon what comes after this life. But know that you're not gone from our lives, nor will you be forgotten. You will live on in the lives and memories of generations not yet born until some English Literature student curses the series for its impenetrable language the way modern students curse Shakespearean actors. Fly high, my friend. I'll see you when I get there and a whole bunch of times between now and then on film.

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