Studying Texts

Analyzing or studying a passage means you’re not just reading the text, you’re also
questioning it and trying to find answers to those questions.

Below you’ll find snippets of texts that may or may not be familiar to you, but that doesn’t
matter. What we’re looking for is the important questions we can find in the passages, and
then trying to provide answers for them by giving reasons and adding appropriate quotes.

Example 1: ​Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone​, the novel

“Harry - you're a great wizard, you know."

"I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him.
"Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship
and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!” (Rowling 285).

If you’re not much of a Harry Potter fan​ (perhaps because of the big, awful elephant in the
room--​Rowling’s anti-trans stance​),​ the popular reference to Hermione may still be something
you’ve heard in passing. That’s because it doesn’t take a genius to see that Hermione is one of
the cleverest literary characters in modern and popular literature.

If you're well versed in Harry Potter like me, you’ll know all of Hermione’s amazingly smart
choices, which end up saving her best friends, Harry and Ron. Despite her intelligence, she
discounts herself as not being “as good as” Harry, shown in the quote above ​(Rowling 285)​.

Look at the words Hermione uses: “There are more important things” to being a great wizard,
and in its implication, a hero, which Harry embodies throughout his new journey as a wizard.
Hermione, in all her cleverness, clarifies the two attributes that make a “great wizard’, and in a
way, a hero as well: “friendship and bravery”. All of which she feels she lacks, but she claims
that Harry shows her how to have these qualities ​(Rowling 285)​.

Whether or not you agree with Rowling’s idea of a hero or a great wizard, it is up to your
interpretation. In this case, I chose this quote to show Hermione’s definition of a hero directly
from a short quote from her.

Example 2: Doom Patrol, TV series

Another type of media you might come across in your studies is film or television shows. One
TV show in particular captures both a graphic novel’s structure but also translates very well into
TV. According to ​Cerberus Plural​, the TV show, Doom Patrol, based directly on the graphic
novel of the same name, depicts one character in particular, who is a very fascinating character
to analyze.
 The image on the left is
Jane and their system
members as depicted in
the TV show, Doom
Patrol.

Jane& ​(yes, with the ampersand to show that they are plural people)​ has an incredible super
power; Jane and the “system member”s ​(as the authors of the site correctly calls it)​ have their
own respective super powers. And while Jane&’s character is explored in the
critically-acclaimed TV show, the writers do a fantastic job respecting the plural community. In
fact, the authors of the site share a quote from the show, when Jane& corrects someone:

Larry: There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about. I’m curious how you managed
to keep all of your…uh…people in line.
Jane&: They’re not my people. I don’t control them. I respect them and their right to exist.

From the quote above, we can see that Jane&’s careful wording of their plurality shows a few
things about them that we can first question and then try to answer with the information we
know. You may have a few questions in mind already, and that’s great! I’ll pick one that I think
we can brainstorm an answer for: how does Jane& feel about being plural people?

If you read the article on Cerberus Plural, we learn more about plural people. Jane& clearly
shows that they do not mean to “control”, and instead “respect”s their system members. Now,
what does that say about Jane&? This is where we can continue to brainstorm and try to see
what their character is like.

Let me break it down for us:

● Jane& is part of a super-powered team called Doom Patrol
● Jane& is plural people, as both the TV show and Cerberus Plural confirm
● Jane& is open to being plural people and respects their system members

In other words, Jane& is rightfully a superhero! Just like how Hermione is a hero herself (see
first example), Jane& is ​super​hero plural people, who is portrayed to be a splendid exemplar for
other plural people.

by Maria Asuncion