My mind was absolutely blown two nights ago because I watched a YouTube video that finally explained to me the ending of Harry Potter more than 12 years after I read the final book.
In short and mostly just for context, I was always under the impression that Harry didn't die when he surrendered himself to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest because Harry was a horcrux, and that somehow stopped the killing curse from fully killing him. It was pretty dodgy logic and didn't really make any sense. The real answer has to do with Peter Pettigrew using Harry's blood when he revived Voldemort, and therefore Lily's original "love protection" that was held in Harry's blood was alive in Voldemort himself, and therefore Harry couldn't die as long as Voldemort was alive. This is very clearly outlined in the books but extremely hastily explained in the movies.
My whole point here is not to just expose my stupidity in misunderstanding the ending, even if I do love making myself look like an idiot. I just find it so incredibly fascinating that I was completely comfortable not understanding the ending of a book series I consider myself such a big fan of. I knew the "horcrux explanation" I believed in didn't really make any sense, but I didn't bother to learn what the real reason was. On top of all this, I asked a handful of friends who are also Harry Potter fans, and very few of them could explain the ending either. We all were just confused, so we jumped to some random assumption that only sort of made sense, and then just ran with it. I found that to be such an odd incident. We all took so much pride in the series and understanding all the characters and every minute detail of the Harry Potter world, but when it came time to actually learn how the series was going to end, we totally just didn't have the patience to try and fully understand it.
It was a great reminder of how powerful confusion is. A lot of people, clearly myself included, don't have the time to sit through and devote energy to understanding the nuances of complex issues, even if we really do care about the issues or consider ourselves fans of the topic. We often become impatient and find an answer that seems justifiable or plausible on the surface, and we run with it, regardless of whether the topic is politics or social issues or Harry Potter. The minute your message becomes confusing is the moment you lose the chance to convey any nuance, and everyone will jump to unexplainable dark horcrux magic as the default answer. It's important to communicate as clearly as possible right out of the gate because everyone's first impression of the topic‘s complexity will set the bounds for how much grey area you can discuss.
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