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flowrs4opheliaMy first assignment in my introduction to drama class was to write a 3-5 page paper discussing my favorite work of art. Well, big surprise what I would pick to write about. Since I knew doing an essay about Harry Potter was going to be fun and easy I didn't stress about it too much, which meant I overestimated myself and ended up staying up until 5:00 AM the night before it was due to finish it. Then I walked into class the next day and found out the due date has been extended. ::headdesk::
I think this is good, though, because I would kind of like to work on it a little more. It's in kind of an amateur style because I was lazy, but that's okay because my professor basically told us to write in the very basic essay format. I have a whole paragraph of Lupin fangirling to illustrate the point that Rowling is good at characterization, but am thinking about adding a paragraph about Snape as well to show she can create really good bad characters, too. This thing is a little long, but if anyone would like to give me some feedback on it that would be bitchin. I'm especially concerned about it being a little hard to follow for a reader who doesn't know anything about Harry Potter. However, you don't want to look this over if you wouldn't want anything major about the story spoiled for you.
Potions, Wands and Spells Are Not Just Kids’ Stuff
A normal 11-year-old orphan finds out he is a Wizard and gets to go learn magic at a school in a castle. It seems almost like a unique and original story. However, the basic plot of the Harry Potter book series simply uses a formula that has worked countless times before in fiction, whether it‘s in The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars: a hero anyone can easily relate to, some sidekicks, a wise old mentor, and a purely evil villain that the hero must defeat. But if this series offers the same kind of simple good vs. evil story that can be found in so many other fantasies, what’s so special about this one that has made “Harry Potter” a household name and the book series’ author, J.K. Rowling, richer than the queen?
What makes this series exceptionally well-written and enjoyable to me is that even though it is a fantasy with magical elements in it, it deals with issues that many people have to face in real life. Although Harry enters a fascinating world that the reader of his adventures would like to be a part of, he also goes through many things that absolutely no one would want to experience but which many people do all the time. Therefore, it has enough escapism to be fun and entertaining but enough realism to be taken seriously. What also makes the series so good is Rowling‘s amazing gift for characterization; many of the witches and wizards in Harry Potter are some of the most complex and interesting characters I have ever become familiar with, or simply some of the most likeable ones who I wish I could meet. Perhaps most importantly, although these are considered children’s books by most people, Rowling certainly didn‘t write them just to be enjoyed by kids. It absolutely vexes me when people suggest that these books are only for children, because they are actually so sophisticated and complicated that I believe in some ways young children are incapable of fully appreciating them. All of these reasons for why Harry Potter is well-written combined make it my favorite story ever told.
Although one might assume that a story about Wizards would be about people living an easier life in which they can make their problems go away with a wave of a wand, this is certainly not the case with Harry Potter. The Wizarding World in these books is far from a utopian society and has many of the same problems that real societies do, including discrimination and even corruption within the government. Voldemort, a slightly Hitler-like villain who is trying to gain complete power over the world of Wizards, has a group of followers called Death Eaters who believe Purebloods (witches and wizards from all-magic families) are superior to Muggle-borns (witches and wizards with non-magic parents) and like to terrorize the magic world and torture and kill Muggle-borns. It was quite appropriate that in the movie adaptation of the fourth book, the Death Eaters’ costumes made them resemble the KKK. Although prejudice against Muggle-borns is not socially accepted and usually not openly expressed, some prejudices and ways of discrimination are. Remus Lupin, who teaches at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in one book, is a perfectly pleasant person but has had trouble finding work his whole life because he’s a werewolf. Some magical creatures such as goblins and elves do not have the same rights that witches and wizards do.
Another problem in the Wizarding World that we can easily identify with is that their own government sometimes cannot be trusted. When Voldemort becomes powerful again many years after he was first weakened when he tried to kill Harry, the Minister of Magic wants to deny that he has returned because he knows he will lose support from the public for letting it happen. Throughout the whole fifth book, the Ministry is influencing everything the press prints and even taking control over what the teachers at Hogwarts can teach their students, basically lying to everyone to make them think they are safe when they’re not. A great deal of this book is about rebellion, for Harry has to break many newly established school rules and laws as he tries to tell his peers about what’s going on and what they need to do to protect themselves, doing a lot of mouthing off to adults and sticking it to the man in the process. If these are really children’s books, Rowling certainly has no problem teaching kids to question authority.
Just as the Wizarding World as a whole faces problems similar to societies in real life, Harry as an individual goes through a lot of the same things that normal kids and teenagers do. Since age eleven he has been through dangerous situations such as fighting dragons and crashing a flying car, but he also has to do tasks that many kids his age are very familiar with like studying for major exams and asking the girl he likes to go to the school ball with him. I often think when I’m reading Harry Potter that Rowling must have an immaculate memory of what it‘s like to be a teenager. Instead of romantic and sweet, Harry’s first kiss is extremely awkward and his first date with a girl is disastrous. I could definitely relate to this a lot, as I‘m sure many people could. I find Rowling’s realistic portrayal of adolescence to be one of the most charming and amusing aspects of these books.
The fact that we can relate to Harry and other characters’ experiences not only makes the books more enjoyable, but I think is very important for drawing the reader into the story. Because it seems so much like real life sometimes, we as readers don’t feel like we’re in a safe place just because this is only a fantasy. When Harry accidentally walks into a trap laid by the Death Eaters and has to defend himself against Wizards much more powerful than himself, it’s terrifying because he’s practically a normal kid very much like any other fifteen-year-old you‘ve known, not a hero who’s used to saving the day all the time like Spider-Man. The scene is essentially about a boy being attacked by adults who hate him and want him to suffer; if you replaced everyone’s wands with guns, no one would call it escapism.
As much as I love the ways in which the story of Harry Potter is comparable to real life situations, what really got me hooked on the series in the first place were all of the great characters in it I fell in love with. Remus Lupin in particular is probably one of my favorite characters from fiction even though the number of appearances he has in all of the books is actually not that many. He has just about the toughest life you can imagine; he has had to undergo a painful transformation once a month ever since he was bitten by a werewolf as a child and has lost most of the only friends he’s ever had. Yet Lupin is never bitter about what life has dealt him, and is even able to make jokes about his condition sometimes. He is tremendously kind and friendly, treats the most loathsome people with respect, and risks his life all the time to protect a world of people who fear and hate him. He is so selfless that he quits his teaching job once he sees he might be endangering students by being at Hogwarts and initially won’t allow himself to be with the woman he loves because he wants her to be safe and have what he thinks is better for her. One of the ways he is flawed is that he is so used to rejection that he’ll do almost anything to keep the few friends he makes. When he was friends with Harry’s father and godfather at school he used to let them get away with doing a lot of things he thought were wrong because he was afraid to stand up to them. Even so, I think the world would be a better place with more people like Lupin in it, and one of the reasons I like reading Harry Potter so much is I get to spend time with characters like him.
This series has helped get many young children who didn’t like to read before into books. I think that’s great, but I also think they’re missing out on a lot if they don’t re-read the entire series once they’re fifteen and have a much more analytical mind. I think I’ve enjoyed reading these books more than I would have if I was younger because I’ve had so much fun examining the literary and mythological references in them and trying to figure out some of the mysteries with the small clues that are hidden in them (not to mention discussing theories for hours with other Harry Potter fans).
For example, it has been mentioned once in the books that Harry’s godfather Sirius Black had a brother named Regulus who was a Death Eater. Sirius’s name is important because he can turn into a black dog and Sirius is the brightest star in the dog constellation Canus Major. Sirius is eventually killed, or hunted down as you might say, by his cousin Bellatrix, named after a star in Orion the Hunter, a constellation in close proximity to Canus Major. Knowing from this that the names in the Black family may all have some kind of significance, it’s quite interesting that Regulus would have been a Death Eater. Most of the evil characters like Voldemort are associated with the school House of Slytherin at Hogwarts, while the heroes, including Harry, belong to Gryffindor House. Slytherin is represented with a serpent and Gryffindor’s symbol is a lion. In the most recent book we found out one of the Death Eaters betrayed Voldemort, leaving him a letter of explanation signed with the initials “R.A.B.” Since Regulus is named after the brightest star in the constellation Leo, sometimes called “the heart of the lion,” Rowling might have given us a pretty big clue about who that traitor was. Possible hints and connections like this one can be found everywhere in the pages of these rich and complex books. That’s why fans all over the internet fill up blogs and message boards with their speculations about what will be revealed in the last book and there are many publications devoted to analyzing every detail of the writing.
There are so many different things about the way the Harry Potter series is written that make it good, and it’s probably impossible to narrow them down to one simple explanation of why it is so immensely popular. The ways it reflects real life, the likeable characters in it, and the sophisticated writing it has for a “children’s book” series are some aspects of it that I personally find the most appealing. These books are a great example of how an escapist fantasy that’s fun for someone of any age to read can also be an intricate, intellectual literary masterpiece.
I think this is good, though, because I would kind of like to work on it a little more. It's in kind of an amateur style because I was lazy, but that's okay because my professor basically told us to write in the very basic essay format. I have a whole paragraph of Lupin fangirling to illustrate the point that Rowling is good at characterization, but am thinking about adding a paragraph about Snape as well to show she can create really good bad characters, too. This thing is a little long, but if anyone would like to give me some feedback on it that would be bitchin. I'm especially concerned about it being a little hard to follow for a reader who doesn't know anything about Harry Potter. However, you don't want to look this over if you wouldn't want anything major about the story spoiled for you.
Potions, Wands and Spells Are Not Just Kids’ Stuff
A normal 11-year-old orphan finds out he is a Wizard and gets to go learn magic at a school in a castle. It seems almost like a unique and original story. However, the basic plot of the Harry Potter book series simply uses a formula that has worked countless times before in fiction, whether it‘s in The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars: a hero anyone can easily relate to, some sidekicks, a wise old mentor, and a purely evil villain that the hero must defeat. But if this series offers the same kind of simple good vs. evil story that can be found in so many other fantasies, what’s so special about this one that has made “Harry Potter” a household name and the book series’ author, J.K. Rowling, richer than the queen?
What makes this series exceptionally well-written and enjoyable to me is that even though it is a fantasy with magical elements in it, it deals with issues that many people have to face in real life. Although Harry enters a fascinating world that the reader of his adventures would like to be a part of, he also goes through many things that absolutely no one would want to experience but which many people do all the time. Therefore, it has enough escapism to be fun and entertaining but enough realism to be taken seriously. What also makes the series so good is Rowling‘s amazing gift for characterization; many of the witches and wizards in Harry Potter are some of the most complex and interesting characters I have ever become familiar with, or simply some of the most likeable ones who I wish I could meet. Perhaps most importantly, although these are considered children’s books by most people, Rowling certainly didn‘t write them just to be enjoyed by kids. It absolutely vexes me when people suggest that these books are only for children, because they are actually so sophisticated and complicated that I believe in some ways young children are incapable of fully appreciating them. All of these reasons for why Harry Potter is well-written combined make it my favorite story ever told.
Although one might assume that a story about Wizards would be about people living an easier life in which they can make their problems go away with a wave of a wand, this is certainly not the case with Harry Potter. The Wizarding World in these books is far from a utopian society and has many of the same problems that real societies do, including discrimination and even corruption within the government. Voldemort, a slightly Hitler-like villain who is trying to gain complete power over the world of Wizards, has a group of followers called Death Eaters who believe Purebloods (witches and wizards from all-magic families) are superior to Muggle-borns (witches and wizards with non-magic parents) and like to terrorize the magic world and torture and kill Muggle-borns. It was quite appropriate that in the movie adaptation of the fourth book, the Death Eaters’ costumes made them resemble the KKK. Although prejudice against Muggle-borns is not socially accepted and usually not openly expressed, some prejudices and ways of discrimination are. Remus Lupin, who teaches at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in one book, is a perfectly pleasant person but has had trouble finding work his whole life because he’s a werewolf. Some magical creatures such as goblins and elves do not have the same rights that witches and wizards do.
Another problem in the Wizarding World that we can easily identify with is that their own government sometimes cannot be trusted. When Voldemort becomes powerful again many years after he was first weakened when he tried to kill Harry, the Minister of Magic wants to deny that he has returned because he knows he will lose support from the public for letting it happen. Throughout the whole fifth book, the Ministry is influencing everything the press prints and even taking control over what the teachers at Hogwarts can teach their students, basically lying to everyone to make them think they are safe when they’re not. A great deal of this book is about rebellion, for Harry has to break many newly established school rules and laws as he tries to tell his peers about what’s going on and what they need to do to protect themselves, doing a lot of mouthing off to adults and sticking it to the man in the process. If these are really children’s books, Rowling certainly has no problem teaching kids to question authority.
Just as the Wizarding World as a whole faces problems similar to societies in real life, Harry as an individual goes through a lot of the same things that normal kids and teenagers do. Since age eleven he has been through dangerous situations such as fighting dragons and crashing a flying car, but he also has to do tasks that many kids his age are very familiar with like studying for major exams and asking the girl he likes to go to the school ball with him. I often think when I’m reading Harry Potter that Rowling must have an immaculate memory of what it‘s like to be a teenager. Instead of romantic and sweet, Harry’s first kiss is extremely awkward and his first date with a girl is disastrous. I could definitely relate to this a lot, as I‘m sure many people could. I find Rowling’s realistic portrayal of adolescence to be one of the most charming and amusing aspects of these books.
The fact that we can relate to Harry and other characters’ experiences not only makes the books more enjoyable, but I think is very important for drawing the reader into the story. Because it seems so much like real life sometimes, we as readers don’t feel like we’re in a safe place just because this is only a fantasy. When Harry accidentally walks into a trap laid by the Death Eaters and has to defend himself against Wizards much more powerful than himself, it’s terrifying because he’s practically a normal kid very much like any other fifteen-year-old you‘ve known, not a hero who’s used to saving the day all the time like Spider-Man. The scene is essentially about a boy being attacked by adults who hate him and want him to suffer; if you replaced everyone’s wands with guns, no one would call it escapism.
As much as I love the ways in which the story of Harry Potter is comparable to real life situations, what really got me hooked on the series in the first place were all of the great characters in it I fell in love with. Remus Lupin in particular is probably one of my favorite characters from fiction even though the number of appearances he has in all of the books is actually not that many. He has just about the toughest life you can imagine; he has had to undergo a painful transformation once a month ever since he was bitten by a werewolf as a child and has lost most of the only friends he’s ever had. Yet Lupin is never bitter about what life has dealt him, and is even able to make jokes about his condition sometimes. He is tremendously kind and friendly, treats the most loathsome people with respect, and risks his life all the time to protect a world of people who fear and hate him. He is so selfless that he quits his teaching job once he sees he might be endangering students by being at Hogwarts and initially won’t allow himself to be with the woman he loves because he wants her to be safe and have what he thinks is better for her. One of the ways he is flawed is that he is so used to rejection that he’ll do almost anything to keep the few friends he makes. When he was friends with Harry’s father and godfather at school he used to let them get away with doing a lot of things he thought were wrong because he was afraid to stand up to them. Even so, I think the world would be a better place with more people like Lupin in it, and one of the reasons I like reading Harry Potter so much is I get to spend time with characters like him.
This series has helped get many young children who didn’t like to read before into books. I think that’s great, but I also think they’re missing out on a lot if they don’t re-read the entire series once they’re fifteen and have a much more analytical mind. I think I’ve enjoyed reading these books more than I would have if I was younger because I’ve had so much fun examining the literary and mythological references in them and trying to figure out some of the mysteries with the small clues that are hidden in them (not to mention discussing theories for hours with other Harry Potter fans).
For example, it has been mentioned once in the books that Harry’s godfather Sirius Black had a brother named Regulus who was a Death Eater. Sirius’s name is important because he can turn into a black dog and Sirius is the brightest star in the dog constellation Canus Major. Sirius is eventually killed, or hunted down as you might say, by his cousin Bellatrix, named after a star in Orion the Hunter, a constellation in close proximity to Canus Major. Knowing from this that the names in the Black family may all have some kind of significance, it’s quite interesting that Regulus would have been a Death Eater. Most of the evil characters like Voldemort are associated with the school House of Slytherin at Hogwarts, while the heroes, including Harry, belong to Gryffindor House. Slytherin is represented with a serpent and Gryffindor’s symbol is a lion. In the most recent book we found out one of the Death Eaters betrayed Voldemort, leaving him a letter of explanation signed with the initials “R.A.B.” Since Regulus is named after the brightest star in the constellation Leo, sometimes called “the heart of the lion,” Rowling might have given us a pretty big clue about who that traitor was. Possible hints and connections like this one can be found everywhere in the pages of these rich and complex books. That’s why fans all over the internet fill up blogs and message boards with their speculations about what will be revealed in the last book and there are many publications devoted to analyzing every detail of the writing.
There are so many different things about the way the Harry Potter series is written that make it good, and it’s probably impossible to narrow them down to one simple explanation of why it is so immensely popular. The ways it reflects real life, the likeable characters in it, and the sophisticated writing it has for a “children’s book” series are some aspects of it that I personally find the most appealing. These books are a great example of how an escapist fantasy that’s fun for someone of any age to read can also be an intricate, intellectual literary masterpiece.
