I recently re-read a book from my childhood.

In Krabat, Otfried Preußler tells the story of a boy who apprentices himself to a miller, who is also a master of the black arts. Together, Krabat and the other apprentices work in the mill, and one day a week, they turn into crows and learn magic. Work is hard, the rules are strict, and the master is sometimes rougher than necessary, but it’s all better than being out on the street begging for food. Krabat’s best friend at the mill, Tonda, dies one night, but hey – accidents happen. A couple of years go by at a steady pace.

…

Hold on, what was that? Tonda died in a freak accident, tumbling down the stairs at night. But why was everyone so nervous during the weeks before? Why is Tonda buried hastily and no one speaks of him again? Why does a boy show up at the door a few days later, puts on Tonda’s clothes (which magically fit), and takes Tonda’s place among the twelve apprentices? And why does this keep happening year after year?

Bit by bit, Krabat begins to doubt the system that he is part of. This boy, who as an innate sense of what’s good and right, and what’s not, slowly understands that friendship, kindness, and solidarity, are not the foundation of the little society at the mill.

And even though Krabat does well, and the rules work in his favor, he begins to understand the dictatorial structure of the miller’s rule, the way in which he uses a clever mix between favoritism and brute force to maintain his authority. And he’s maintaining it for only one reason – if anyone should break away from this community, he would lose his magic powers. And power is all that the miller is interested in. He uses this power for one thing only – to stay in power. That’s all. When the villagers come to beg him for a change in weather to save their crops, he turns them away.

Krabat finally realizes that he wants to leave the mill, and from this moment, the miller uses every psychological trick in the book to keep him there. You’re my best student, he says for example, you can take over the mill when I retire. But he also threatens Krabat with violent dreams and brutal punishment. Krabat’s only hope is Juro, the friend he has made at the mill after Tonda’s death – a friendship that is based in brotherhood and kindness – and the girl he falls in love with. If she can come to the door on New Year’s Eve and look at the row of apprentices in their crow form and pick out Krabat, he can be free.

Krabat and Juro together practice for months to resist the miller’s mind games, so that Krabat will be able to do something a little bit different than the others so that the girl will recognize him. But the miller turns the tables. The girl comes to the door, and he has the apprentices stand in a row in their human form, and she has to cover her eyes. Yet, she recognizes Krabat. As they are leaving the mill, Krabat asks her how she knew it was him. And she answers “I could feel you were afraid for me.”

Power is seductive. Magic makes things easy. At one point early on, Krabat asks why not let magic do all the work at the mill? And his fellow apprentice answers, because then, life would be boring. The apprentices use their magic very sparingly, mostly to have a little fun. Krabat uses his magic to make contact with the girl whose song he has heard one Easter night, to talk to her, to be with her, without the miller knowing. He uses his magic to find a way to get out of this uneven relationship with a man who abuses his power.

But the thing that saves everyone is not Krabat’s magic. The thing that saves everyone is the thing that defines humanity – caring for someone else. The very un-heroic emotion of fear. It’s friendship. Connection. Love. And there is nothing that the great magician has that would be more powerful than that.

The fictional world today is full of superheroes. During the final battle in Captain Marvel, the hero is almost beaten, when she suddenly remembers her own humanity. In a vision, Carol Danvers sees humans who have fallen, struck out, been injured. And she sees herself as every one of those humans getting up again, not giving up. But does she win as a human? No, she doesn’t. Like all those plucky humans, she does get up, yes. But she then proceeds to shoot rays from her hands and fly into outer space without a helmet on.

This is the difference. Carol Danvers is a human with enhancements, and without those, she’d be powerless. Krabat is a human with enhancements, but his superpower is his humanity. He wins because he cares for someone.

Krabat, written in 1971 by a German who lived through the Nazi dictatorship, truly bears reading again, in a time where dictators are many, and in a world where a technology promises to give all of us magical superpowers.ess. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!