Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave Hogwarts to complete Dumbledore’s task: to search for and destroy Voldemort’s remaining four Horcruxes, then find and kill the Dark Lord. The three pit themselves against Voldemort’s newly formed totalitarianpolice state, an action that tests Harry’s courage and moral character. Voldemort’s seizure of the Ministry of Magic leads to discriminatory and genocidal policies against Muggle-borns, fuelled by propaganda and fear. According to J. K. Rowling, telling scenes are when Harry uses Cruciatus Curse and Imperius Curse, unforgivable curses for torture and mind-control, on Voldemort’s servants, and also when he casts Sectumsempra on Draco Malfoy during the bathroom fight in the sixth book. Each time shows a “flawed and mortal” side to Harry. However, she explains, “He is also in an extreme situation and attempting to defend somebody very good against a violent and murderous opponent.”
Harry experiences occasional disturbing visions of Draco being forced to perform the Death Eaters’ bidding and feels “…sickened…by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort,” again showing his compassion for an enemy.
‘nobody Wanted To Touch Fantasy Stories’
To put in plainly, Harry Potter was not widely expected to be a hit, with JK Rowling receiving “loads” of rejection letters before finding success.
Fantasy stories had fallen out of favour by the 1990s, senior lecturer in literature at Deakin University Michelle Smith says, with popular books firmly rooted in reality.
“Nobody wanted to touch fantasy stories they were seen as old-fashioned,” she says.
In fact, Dr Smith says, Harry Potter harks back to books like the boarding school stories Enid Blyton wrote in the 1950s, or the little-known Tom Brown’s School Days from the Victorian era.
“Some people have said, basically, the plot of Tom Brown’s School Days is exactly like Harry Potter, but there was no magic,” she says.
“There was no quidditch but there were school rugby games Harry Potter really picked up on that older tradition of stories about kids at boarding school.
“They’d become a bit daggy and out-of-fashion when Harry Potter came along, but the addition of witches and wizards and magic gave new life to that formula.”
Reuters: Stephen Hird
That magic element would prove to have quite an impact, with fantasy becoming the dominant genre in children’s literature.
“Now we see so many series, whether they’re based on more Gothic themes like Twilight or set in a future dystopia like the Hunger Games,” Dr Smith says.
The series element, too, helped keep Harry Potter in children’s lives.
But it wasn’t just young people reading Harry Potter.
We Know So Much But There’s Still So Much More To Find Out
While the story of the second wizarding war has been tied up neatly, there’s still so much potential to explore the follow up or even delve into a more detailed prequel – just as The Cursed Child play and Fantastic Beasts have done. Will Rowling pick up her Potter pen once more? Only she knows, but what is a certain is that the appetite is undeniable.
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Harry Potter: Fantasy World
Harry Potter‘s fantasy world is incredibly well-crafted. Although the novels go into more detail, the movies still needed to do a solid job of portraying the wizarding world’s highs and lows.
The world-building in the;Harry Potter films showed an environment with;years of history that let the wizarding world feel like a real place. The franchise did such a good job that fans actually wanted to visit Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and Diagon Alley.
The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter Theme Park At Universal Studios Has Drawn In Millions Of Visitors
The theme park opened in June 2010 and six months of Harry Potter was already enough to lift Universal Orlando’s full-year attendance by 20 percent, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Universal said it drew 11.2 million visitors in 2010, an increase of nearly 2 million from 2009, as huge crowds descended on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in the resort’s Islands of Adventure theme park.
Tourists plunking down cash for food, magic wands, and other Potter-themed souvenirs also helped push the annual revenue up 41 percent to $1.1 billion.
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A Fantastic Imaginary World
With its beautiful, intricate architecture and majestic landscapes, the wizarding world captures the best descriptions of where Harry’s adventures take place. Every movie and book’s description of the setting will exhibit the wildest parts of your imagination and dig you deeper into the magical land of Harry Potter.
In Which I Risk All My Friendships With People Who Read
I enjoy spending time with people who appreciate great literature. The number of my friends who are intimate with Dante or Tolkien or Austen is, as Oscar Wilde would say with a wink, considerably above the proper average that statistics have laid down for our guidance. My book-loving church regularly ships in world-class English professors to give lectures and field the usual round of questions about Peter Jacksons interpretation of Aragorn and Faramir.
And Ive noticed that in these circles, its often a faux pas to admit that I, like nearly every other Millennial in America, own extremely well-loved copies of all seven Harry Potter books. And I would lose all credibility with many of these people if I suggested offhand that I think the Potter books are in the tradition of the great English novels, deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence, and are easily the most morally and socially insightful works of fantasy published in this generation.
But I do think that. And I think Im justified. So Ive decided to step forward and offer a defense, on behalf of everyone who instinctively agrees with me and has better things to do than figure out why. So here are a few thoughts on why Harry Potter is great literature.
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The Ones That Really Matter
In The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee speaks nostalgically about the great stories, the ones that really mattered. More than anything else, Rowlings idea of what really matters is what made millions of children who werent readers blaze through her books in a single sitting. It wasnt just that her idea of what really matters felt right; it was that it was in such stark contrast to so many things about our world that felt wrong. Like starving people, we couldnt get enough of it.
Theres an obvious theme of unconditional love that runs throughout the Potter books that is beautiful and comforting amidst divorces and frequent relocations. But beyond the obvious, whether they can articulate it or not, Potter fans know that there are things much more important than their passions in shaping identity. A few of the more central:
Our choices. It is these, mentor Dumbledore tells an insecure Harry, that show who we truly are. No Aladdin-style his worth lies far within nonsense here. Over and over in Harry Potter, good triumphs when somebody who has no business being a herodim-witted Neville Longbottom, dumpy mother of seven Mrs. Weasley, most of all Harrymakes a choice to be stupid, to fight the unbeatable foe, just because its the right thing to do.
It Shone A Light On Mental Health
Rowling has explained on several occasions that plot features refer to significant milestones in her own life. Exploring her own experience with depression, she has likened it to the evil, soul-sucking way dementors operate. What it’s also worth noting is the spell conjured to overcome the demontors. In order to eliminate them you need to produce a patronus, and in order to produce one you need to produce a memory of significant strength. Essentially, when things around you feel dark, focus on positive thoughts and happy memories.
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Why The Harry Potter Books Are So Influential All Around The World
As Robinson Meyer reported yesterday at the Atlantic, to a question that went viral on the social media site over the summer: What books have stayed with you? J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series topped the list of most-mentioned books in Italy, the Philippines, Brazil, India and France and came in at No. 3 in Mexico.
I adore the Harry Potter series and, in fact, spent the first part of my holiday break last winter marathoning and live-tweeting all seven books in a row. But I am fascinated by their persistence, in part because of how much they improved as Rowling continued to write them: the characterization gets deeper, the ideas more sophisticated, and Rowlings prose improves dramatically from the early awkwardness of Sorcerers Stone to the occasional passages of Deathly Hallows that achieve a real lyric effect.
Certainly I think one reason Rowlings novels have a strong international audience is that she makes a studied effort to have the Harry Potter novels be multicultural and multinational, even if those details come in at the margins of the novel, rather than at the center. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger may all be white Brits, but their friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry include Dean Thomas, who is black, and Padma and Parvati Patil, who are British students of South Asian origin.
The Making Of Harry Potter
In March 2011, Warner Bros. announced plans to build a tourist attraction in the United Kingdom to showcase the Harry Potter film series. The Making of Harry Potter is a behind-the-scenes walking tour featuring authentic sets, costumes and props from the film series. The attraction is located at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, where all eight of the Harry Potter films were made. Warner Bros. constructed two new sound stages to house and showcase the famous sets from each of the British-made productions, following a £100;million investment. It opened to the public in March 2012.
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The Fans Circle Of Harry Potter In China
Now, you have understood the great success of Harry Potter in China as a commercial work.;
But in fact, it is far from a commercial work in the eyes of this generation of young and middle-aged people in China.;
To some extent, its status is like the 1937 Disney version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which defines the theme image of a culture in the minds of the Chinese people.;
This culture is the fantasy world with Europe as the center.;
Outside China, the center of this cultural circle is often the Lord of the Rings.;The films of the Lord of the Rings series are slightly dark and have a different orientation from the childrens literature attribute of the original novel.;As a result, the Lord of the Rings series has not been as successful as Harry Potter as acultural symbol in China;
For many Chinese, Harry Potter is the starting point for their exposure to the fantasy world of Western.;They learned about the existence of works such as the Lord of the Rings and Dragonlance series because they came into contact with Harry Potter.
In the past, there were more than 10 Harry Potter fan forums in China, with the rise of the mobile Internet.;Chinese Harry Potter fans have mainly moved to China Weibo and Post bars.;Fans have been talking for decades about details in Harry Potter novels and movies, as well as stories about the entire wizarding world.;
This kind of discussion has lasted for 20 years since the beginning of publication.
Magical Abilities And Skills
Throughout the series, Harry Potter is described as a gifted wizard apprentice. He has a particular talent for flying, which manifests itself in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone the first time he tries it, and gets him a place on a Quidditch team one year before the normal minimum joining age. He captains it in his sixth year. In his fourth year , Harry is able to confront a dragon on his broomstick.
Harry is also gifted in Defence Against the Dark Arts, in which he becomes proficient due to his repeated encounters with Voldemort and various monsters. In his third year, Harry becomes able to cast the very advanced Patronus Charm, and by his fifth year he has become so talented at the subject that he is able to teach his fellow students in Dumbledore’s Army, some even older than him how to defend themselves against Dark Magic. At the end of that year, he achieves an ‘Outstanding’ Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L., something that not even Hermione achieved. He is a skilled duellist, the only one of the six Dumbledore’s Army members to be neither injured nor incapacitated during the battle with Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He also fends off numerous Death Eaters during his flight to the Burrow at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
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Harry Potter Fandom Also Paved The Way For The Mainstreaming Of Fandom And Geek Culture
Harry Potter has a tremendously outsized cultural reach: One 2011 survey suggested that a third of all American adults ages 18 to 34 at the time had read at least one of the books. But what really makes Harry Potter stand out is the way people loved Harry Potter.
First and foremost, the series helped make it cool to be a geek. People generally didnt read the Harry Potter books in isolation; they wanted to talk about it with their friends, and then find more friends who loved the books as much as they did. This pattern coincided with the rise of Web 2.0 that is, an increasingly interactive and social internet. As more Harry Potter fans became more active online, they made discussion of YA fiction, fantasy, and science fiction seem commonplace.
And Harry Potter fans creativity is still being felt in and outside of the fandom. In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fan forums, fanfiction and fan art archives, and email discussion groups exploded across the internet. Harry Potter conventions drew thousands of fans, and Harry Potter cosplay became a well-known sight at larger geek and comic cons.
A number of Harry Potter fans also went on to make significant marks on mainstream culture. As a member of the University of Michigan theater troupe Starkid, a young Darren Criss starred as Harry Potter in the viral YouTube video A Very Potter Musical, and his popularity catapulted him into the role of Blaine on Glee and a career on Broadway.
The Quotes That Will Stick With Us Forever
While the plot often takes centre stage, it’s also worth paying attention to the beauty of the writing. So many sections of the books are quotable and relatable to share at all times of life. Here are some of our favourites: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live”, “But you know, happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,””We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” And then of course the classic that started this whole magical journey off: “You’re a wizard, Harry.”
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Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone
Harry first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Starting in 1981, when Harry was just one year old, his parents, James and Lily, were murdered by the most powerful Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort . He attempted to kill Harry too, but was unsuccessful and only left a lightning bolt shaped scar on Harry’s forehead. Voldemort’s body was destroyed, but his soul was not. Harry later learns that the reason why he survived was that his mother sacrificed herself for him, and her love was something that Voldemort could not destroy.
According to Rowling, fleshing out this back story was a matter of reverse planning: “The basic idea Harry … didn’t know he was a wizard … and so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn’t know what he was… That’s… When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry’s parents, and then he tried to kill Harryhe tried to curse him…. Harry has to find out, before we find out. And for some mysterious reason, the curse didn’t work on Harry. So he’s left with this lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard who has been in hiding ever since”.
The Breadth Of Imagination
Not a stone left unturned, the wizarding world is a fully-formed alternative that at once feels far removed from life as we know it, but still familiar and completely plausible. It’s Rowling’s ability to shape and invent a wizarding parallel for even the most mundane of tasks that contributes to the overall magnificence. It’s also the unknown. There are things we are yet to find out, but that’s what Pottermore is for, right?
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Harry Potter: Directly Continuous
While the MCU can be all over the place when following different characters, the;Harry Potter films are easier to follow from one to the next. The same main characters appear in every film, so when watching the movies in order, it is easier to track their development.
Once getting toward the later films, though, they mostly make sense if;viewers have watched the previous films. Otherwise, elements that occur in the later movies may not make as much sense.