(I found this post when I was cleaning up my drafts in Blogger. I don't know why I never posted it! It's quite convincing! If I weren't already in love with Harry Potter, I would have convinced myself.)
Why do I love Harry Potter so much? Let me count the ways.
1) The friendships. There is a reason why they are called the Golden Trio. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have the sort of friendship that I long for. They stick together through fights and jealousies and crushes and Big Bad Evil People trying to kill them. They laugh together, cry together, fight together.
2) The minor characters. What other world emotional invests me in paintings? When the Fat Lady's painting was slashed in Prisoner of Azkaban, I was genuinely disturbed. Come on, that's amazing. And there are few characters I'm more interested in than the Marauders, and their story is only hinted at in relation to Harry's. Rowling created a world full of three-dimensional characters, whether they appear for one chapter or seven books.
3) Harry vs. Voldemort. And no, not like in an epic fight. I remember when I first realized that Rowling had set them up as foils, and it rocked my world. I love that she made them essentially the same character--orphaned as babies, raised in hostile environments, ushered into a new life of wonder and acceptance....and then one was a hero, and the other was a villain. It's perfect. It makes me love Harry so much more, because honestly, he should have ended up just like Voldemort. And it makes me love Voldemort, because I completely understand how he got where he did. I love me some identifiable villains.
4) Draco. I heart him in all his incarnations. I don't know why I love a snotty little boy who tries so hard to be impressive and constantly fails, but I do. I guess it's because he wants so badly to live up to expectations (both his and society's) and when he doesn't, all he knows to do is lash out and make things worse. I pity him, and I want to huggle him. HP6 breaks my heart. His is a truly tragic story, because every step he takes leads him further and further towards evil, and he keeps missing all the off ramps to heroism.
5) Dumbledore. I want a wise mentor like him, even if he was just grooming me for self-sacrifice. His wisdom and his quirks and his oh-my-word-speeches. His conversation with Draco at the tower in HP6 kills me ("No, Draco," said Dumbledore quietly. "It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now." GUH).
6) Magic as an allegory for real world emotions/phenomena. Come on. Boggarts? Genius. There is no better way to portray Molly Weasley's emotional center than to show her cowering from a boggart that costumes itself as one dead son after another. And dementors? Also genius! That is how depression feels, like all the happiness is seeping away, like cold is encroaching, like it might kiss away your very soul.
7) Horcruxes. Nothing more defined my beliefs about violence than horcruxes, believe it or not. The idea that killing someone rips your soul in two--irreparably--is so poignant. That's all I can even say. Augh!
8) The payoff. I love that little things early the series are revealed to have a deeper meaning by the end. The quaint little habit of new Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers every year? Oh yeah, that's because VOLDEMORT CURSED THE POSITION. Dobby, the strange creature with bug eyes and an unfortunate habit of hurting Harry while helping him? Dies to save Harry's life. Harry's handy invisibility cloak? Only an ancient artifact passed down for generations that holds the answer to facing death.
9) The story overshadowing the romance. I love me some love. But I refuse to believe that romance is the center of all existence. Love? Maybe. Romance? No. So while I enjoyed the romance in the books (even if I rooted for Harry/Hermione all the while knowing it was a hopeless wish), it was so gratifying to see the romance as secondary. The characters are teenagers, so of course they have crushes and love interests. But they are teenagers in the midst of a massive battle of evil attempting to take over the world. They have bigger things to worry about. Much appreciated, Rowling.
10) Love. This might seem contradictory to #9, but it isn't! I love that love is so important to the HP series. Harry wouldn't be alive if his mother hadn't loved him so much. Harry chose to die because he loved his friends more than himself. Again with the friendships--these characters choose to love each other even when they're obnoxious and don't actually deserve to be loved. A story that focuses on platonic and agape love instead of romantic love? COUNT ME IN.
11) Lots of enemies. I love so much that not only are Voldemort and the Death Eaters the antagonists, but so is the Ministry of Magic! Good guys who fight by the bad guy's rules inevitably become bad buys themselves. I love the character of Umbridge, because she thinks she is good, but she is so creepily evil. And Fudge! What better depiction of the idea that not doing good is just as wrong as doing bad. I love that heroism is not found in an institution--it's found in individuals.
12) Death. I love it when an author rips my heart out. Epic battle of good versus evil? I need to see a sizable body count if I'm going to take you seriously. So when Rowling killed Sirius, and then Dumbledore, and then Hedwig and Fred and Lupin....I believed that this was a battle worth fighting. I still stick to my pre-HP7 idea that the series would have been more awesome if Harry had stayed dead, because I tend to be a bit morbid and nihilistic. But Rowling went all Christian on me and brought him back to life (it astounds me that anyone can still think these books are evil and anti-Christian).
13) The Christian stuff. Because even though my propensity to love Teh Sad wanted Harry to stay dead, I won't lie. My heart rejoiced a little when Harry came back to life. A perfect parallel to Jesus? Of course not. But sacrificial love is always good to see in pop culture, and the HOPE that it thrills into my soul.....oh man. Good stuff. And not just that scene. One of my favorite favorite lines is when Dumbledore says, "To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Preach it, Dumbledore. And then he lives up to his ideals by dying with dignity and with hope.
I'm going to leave this at an awkward number. But I love Harry Potter, and it is a series that I will probably squinch and cuddle and study for many many years to come. Are there parts I don't like? Yes! But overall, HP gives me the warm fuzzies.
That is why anything HP related, anything that keeps the Potterverse alive, gets me all tingly and excited.
You've convinced me all over again! :)
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