Harry Potter ISN'T The Chosen One?

"Hello, Internet. Welcome to FILM THEORY! It's like Game Theory, but with one small difference. I'll let you figure out what it is."

- MatPat

Harry Potter ISN'T The Chosen One? (subtitled The OTHER Harry?) is the 3rd episode of Film Theory and its 1st episode on Harry Potter on The Film Theorists.

Description
''For years, we all believed that Harry Potter was the Chosen One, the one destined to save the wizarding world from Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. BUT, have we been duped? Is it possible that our lightning-bolted boy wonder isn't as special as we thought? What is there was ANOTHER Chosen One? What if it all boiled down to a coin flip? Then Harry Potter would just be an average kid. Maybe there's a universe out there where Harry should be THANKING Lord Voldemort...but I'll leave that to you to judge!''

Transcript
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…” Hello Internet, welcome to film theory. It's like game theory, but with one small difference. I'll let you figure out what it is. Now, if that prophecy sounded familiar, that's because it's the big reveal that comes at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, the fifth in the series of books, movies, and videogames, about the young orphan who gets whisked off to Hogwarts wizard school with his friends Ron and Hermione, to find out that he's destined to save the world. I never got the hoopla around this prophecy thing. You just had a nice filler book to kill off some of the big characters and then transition to some of the darker installments. It always felt like such an anticlimactic reveal, well at least it did, until I started thinking about it. We've all assumed that it was Harry the prophecy was talking about since, you know, it's his name on the book covers, movie posters, and tighty whities. But what if it was all a cover-up? A ruse? A brilliant PR campaign to take the attention off the other Boy Who Lived. The true hero of the story. And what if this prophecy wasn't just a ‘no, duh’ moment, but instead a clue hidden out in the open for us careful fans, about the identity of the true hero of Hogwarts. Sound crazy? Well, let's break down the prophecy. We know that the Dark Lord refers to Voldemort, the evil wizard with the unfortunate nose job, but the rest of this thing is really unclear. We know that the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord must have been born to those who have thrice defied old nose slits over here. Okay, well Harry seems to fit the bill. His parents, Lily and James Potter, were both members of the Order of the Phoenix, a secret society founded by the Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, to oppose Voldemort so, they probably did their share of fighting. That said, we've never actually been given three specific examples, so, you know, that connection is meh at best. What is it with these darn ancient prophecies? Why could they never say in clear English what they mean. Anyway, the hero also needs to be born as the seventh month dies. The prophecy is so adamant about this that it mentions it twice, so it's gotta be pretty important. Well, after doing extensive research on the subject, I learned that the seventh month is actually July, and Harry's birthday is July 31st, so that sounds pretty cut-and-dry. And finally, there are those parts about the Dark Lord marking him as his equal and, a power the Dark Lord knows not. With Harry, these two sort of go hand in hand. Voldemort marked Harry as his equal when he showed up at the Potters to kill Harry and avert the prophecy, but instead of killing him with the unforgivable Avada Kedavra killing curse, Lily Potter threw herself between them, sacrificing herself in the process. Voldemort was completely blindsided as a mother's love, something he never knew or felt himself, activated an ancient magic that reflected the curse back onto him, and left Harry with an extremely marketable, lightning bolt scar. The books and movies make it pretty clear that the power Voldemort knows not is love, and it's exactly that power of love that allowed Harry to defeat him in the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. So, let's take a second to step back here and look at the terms of the prophecy objectively. If we're being completely honest, if we were able to find another kid who was born at the end of July, had do-gooder parents, and was loved at some point in his life, you actually have yourself a pretty darn valid candidate for hero of the Wizarding World. Well, make that one very specific hero candidate. You have yourself, Neville Longbottom. Now, I get the confusion. In the movies, Neville was worse than the third wheel, he was a fourth wheel, to the Harry-Ron-Hermione tricycle. And yeah, the idea that he's a hero seems like one of those bits of far-flung fanfiction, that surfaced in some dark corner of reddit, but if you go with me on this one for a minute, I think you'll be surprised by what we find. Let's go back to the prophecy; “born as the seventh month dies”, that was the biggest and least vague stipulation of the prophecy, and one that would be really difficult for me to fudge. Funny thing is though, I don't have to. Neville's birthday was on July 30th, one day earlier than Harry's, and based on the vague wording, I'd say we have at least a few days window here. Especially if the prophecy is okay writing off love as the power He Who Must Have Sleep Apnea knows not. Okay, next. “Born to those who have thrice defied him”. So, Lily and James Potter may have done their share of Vol-defying. Again, there are really no clear examples given to us, but look at Neville's parents: Frank and Alice Longbottom. These two were aurors. It's basically like being a professional Harry Potter, but less pouty and with better pay. Their backstory kind of gets the shaft in most of the books, and definitely in the movie, but they were a serious power couple who would clearly have been on the front lines of Dark Lord defense. They were so important in fact, that Voldemort's followers captured and tortured Neville's parents, using the Cruciatus Curse to leave them permanently insane. One of the attackers, Barty Crouch Jr., even disguised himself as a teacher and made Neville watch him torture a spider with that same curse. Anyway, if we're gonna assume that the Potter’s somehow defied Voldemort three times, I think we can give that same consideration to the Longbottom’s. So that's two major check marks. Which leaves us with our last two criteria for being the chosen one: being marked by Voldemort as his equal and having a power that Voldemort doesn't. I said earlier that this missing power is clearly meant to be, the power of love, and the movies and books drive the love point home, but it's unreasonable to rule out that this power could also belong to Neville. We've already established that his parents parallel the dedication of James and Lily Potter. Maybe even more so as the only way to disable them was to torture them beyond recognition. A prolonged period of torment as opposed to Lily’s snap decision to save her son. So we have just as much evidence to believe that Neville has powerful love-juice pumping through his veins just like Harry, or then again maybe everyone's wrong and the power Voldemort knows not is herbology, because let's face it, that's what Neville really excels at, and Harry, green thumbs he has not. But then what about Voldemort marking Neville as his equal? The lightning bolt scar and the spell that merged Harry and Voldemort souls together are pretty solid evidence for Harry being the chosen one. Neville doesn't seem to have that sort of a connection, so have we hit a brick wall here? Is it even possible to make a case for Neville with this one piece of evidence blocking our way? Well, as it turns out, we've been asking the wrong question. It's not whether Harry or Neville are the chosen one. They're both the chosen one, at the same time. Without any of us realizing it, JK Rowling has been teaching all of us Potter Heads, a little bit, of quantum physics. There's a well known quantum physics principle called the Many-Worlds Interpretation, which was coined by Bryce DeWitt. As we go through time, there are many possible futures for us. While we're waiting for the future to happen, every possible future is real. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Let me put it this way. I might have cereal for breakfast tomorrow morning, or who knows, I might have leftover cake. Both of those futures are real events, but the Many Worlds theory says that I decide which one of those real futures I participate in, by making the choice, to eat that awesome slice of cake, because let's face it, we all know that that's the future I'm gonna choose because chocolate icing rocks. And yeah, sure, I'll regret it for the rest of the day, but that alternate future- the one where I'm super lame and choose to eat cereal, and probably do some push-ups or whatever, sucks just thinking about it- but yeah, that's still real too. I just chose, not to participate in it, so screw you health. It was the point where I made the choice to obey my sweet tooth, that determined the path that I went down, but history and future still have all those other choices within them. Think of the past and future like a tree with a whole bunch of branches all the way through. We choose which branch to follow, but the whole tree still exists. And that brings us back around to the problem of Harry and Neville. Harry, according to the prophecy, is the chosen one. Neville, according to the prophecy, is also the chosen one. Think about it: we just went through all the reasons either can fulfill the prophecy. There's nothing so remarkable about Harry that makes him more likely of a hero of the Wizarding World than Neville, except for one thing. One choice. In this case, the only person who had the ability to choose between these two, was Voldemort himself. Of the two equally real chosen ones he could have decided to attack, he chose Harry Potter. He could have just as easily chosen Neville Longbottom, but in choosing Harry, he gave him an entire future, an entire identity, as The Boy Who Lived. In a weird way, Harry should be thanking Voldemort, otherwise he would have just been, well, Neville. And if you think this theory sounds a bit far-fetched, well listen to someone you do trust, Mr. I- Knew- The- Answer- The- Whole- Time- And- Just- Chose- Not- To- Share- It- With- You- Until- The- Very- End, Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore actually explains this theory to Harry, noting that it could have gone either way. Between who Voldemort chose to attack, Harry or Neville. In fact, from the very beginning of the series, we can see Dumbledore's understanding of these parallels. In a way, Dumbledore and Hogwarts proper, treat both of these kids like they could be the chosen one. Probably because Neville and Harry both represented equally likely branches of history. In the very first installment, Dumbledore recognizes Neville's contributions, and awards him points for his bravery and standing up to his friends. These points, not Harry's, end up being the deciding factor in Gryffindor's win over Slytherin for House Cup. What seemed like Dumbledore playing favorites was actually him catering to the other chosen one. Neville's also only one of two individuals we know for a fact, to have actually had a conversation with the sorting hat about which house to go into. Only he and Harry have the self-determination to do this. Following their first year, Neville repeatedly demonstrated he was both smart and capable. In a lot of cases, more capable than Harry himself. He provided Harry with gillyweed in year four, saving him from failure in the Triwizard Tournament, helping the “chosen one” fulfill his destiny. While Harry was moping around in the wilderness for most of movie 7 and 7 Part Two, Neville stayed in Hogwarts, even as it was being taken over by dark magic. He actively subverted his professors, and even endured torture and beatings to continue helping Harry. He literally raised an army, Dumbledore's Army, and led his peers to fight against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Neville. Did. All. Of this. Neville Longbottom. Their parallels only get closer as the series ends. In the final battle with Voldemort it was Neville who pulled the sword of Godric Gryffindor out of the sorting hat and then used it to kill Nagini, Voldemort's final Horcrux. It was this, and only this specific act that made it possible for Harry, to actually finish off Voldemort. The only other person ever to demonstrate this ability, pulling a sword out of the Hat, Harry Potter, and in the final moments of the battle in movie eight- Part Two of number seven- when everyone thinks Harry is dead, we see one person step in to take his place. To stand for him directly and fight Voldemort: Neville. Harry Potter, isn't actually the chosen one. There is no one single chosen one. Both Harry and Neville are the chosen ones, and each plays out their timeline as this character, even if we only get to see one side of the story in the movies. Maybe JK Rowling set up this parallel to demonstrate something about fate, or about the choices we make impacting the rest of the world, or that no matter what hand were dealt, it's the small acts of bravery that matter. That prophecies for all they're worth, don't make you, any less special. Because in the end what it truly shows is this; it's the choices that you make in your life. Either way, that's just a theory. A film theory, and cut. And next time we’ll prove that Ron is actually Voldemort. Wait, what?

Trivia

 * This is the first episode of Film Theory to be about a movie.