Harry Potter

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Harry Potter
The Harry Potter logo first used for the American edition of the novel series (and some other editions worldwide), and then the film series.


AuthorJ. K. Rowling
Cover artistThomas Taylor, Cliff Wright, Giles Greenfield, Jason Cockcroft
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy
PublisherBloomsbury
Published26 June 1997 – 21 July 2007
Media type
No. of books7
Websitewww.wizardingworld.com

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's conflict with Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).

The series was originally published in English by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States. A series of many genres, including fantasy, drama, coming-of-age fiction, and the British school story (which includes elements of mystery, thriller, adventure, horror, and romance), the world of Harry Potter explores numerous themes and includes many cultural meanings and references.[1] Major themes in the series include prejudice, corruption, madness, and death.[2][3]

Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 26 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, positive reviews, and commercial success worldwide. They have attracted a wide adult audience as well as younger readers, and are widely considered cornerstones of modern literature.[4][5] As of February 2023, the books have sold more than 600 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been available in 85 languages.[6] The last four books consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final instalment selling roughly 2.7 million copies in the United Kingdom and 8.3 million copies in the United States within twenty-four hours of its release.

The original seven books were adapted into an eight-part namesake film series by Warner Bros. Pictures. In 2016, the total value of the Harry Potter franchise was estimated at $25 billion,[7] making Harry Potter one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play based on a story co-written by Rowling.

The success of the books and films has allowed the Harry Potter franchise to expand with numerous derivative works, a travelling exhibition that premiered in Chicago in 2009, a studio tour in London that opened in 2012, a digital platform on which J. K. Rowling updates the series with new information and insight, and a trilogy of spin-off films premiering in November 2016 with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, among many other developments. Themed attractions, collectively known as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, have been built at several Universal Destinations & Experiences amusement parks around the world.

Plot[edit]

Early years[edit]

"The Elephant House", a small, painted red café where Rowling wrote a few chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
The Elephant House was one of the cafés in Edinburgh where Rowling wrote the first part of Harry Potter.

The series follows the life of a boy named Harry Potter. In the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs in the house of the Dursleys, his aunt, uncle and cousin, who all treat him poorly. At the age of 11, Harry discovers that he is a wizard. He meets a half-giant named Hagrid who gives him a letter of acceptance to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that his parents, Lily and James Potter, also had magical powers, and were murdered by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort when Harry was a baby. When Voldemort attempted to kill Harry, his curse rebounded, seemingly killing Voldemort, and Harry survived with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. The event made Harry famous among the community of wizards and witches.

Harry becomes a student at Hogwarts and is sorted into Gryffindor House. He gains the friendship of Ron Weasley, a member of a large but poor wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, a witch of non-magical, or Muggle, parentage. The trio develop an enmity with the rich pure-blood student Draco Malfoy. Harry encounters the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore; the potions professor, Severus Snape, who displays a dislike for him; and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Quirinus Quirrell. Quirrell turns out to be allied with Voldemort, who is still alive as a weak spirit. The first book concludes with Harry's confrontation with Voldemort, who, in his quest to regain a body, yearns to possess the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that bestows everlasting life.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets describes Harry's second year at Hogwarts. Students are attacked and petrified by an unknown creature; wizards of Muggle parentage are the primary targets. The attacks appear related to the mythical Chamber of Secrets and resemble attacks fifty years earlier. Harry discovers an ability to speak the snake language Parseltongue, which he learns is rare and associated with the Dark Arts. When Hermione is attacked and Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley, abducted, Harry and Ron uncover the chamber's secrets and enter it. Harry discovers that Ginny was possessed by an old diary, inside which the memory of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort's younger self, resides. On Voldemort's behalf, Ginny opened the chamber and unleashed the basilisk, an ancient monster that kills or petrifies those who make direct or indirect eye contact, respectively. With the help of Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, and the Sword of Gryffindor, Harry slays the basilisk and destroys the diary.

In the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry learns that he is targeted by Sirius Black, an escaped convict who allegedly assisted in his parents' murder. Dementors, creatures that feed on despair, search for Sirius and guards the school. As Harry struggles with his reaction to the dementors, he reaches out to Remus Lupin, a new professor who teaches him the Patronus charm. On a windy night, Ron is dragged by a black dog into the Shrieking Shack, a haunted house, and Harry and Hermione follow. The dog is revealed to be Sirius Black. Lupin enters the shack and explains that Sirius was James Potter's best friend; he was framed by another friend of James, Peter Pettigrew, who hides as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers. As the full moon rises, Lupin transforms into a werewolf and bounds away, and the group chase after him. They are surrounded by dementors, but are saved by a figure resembling James who casts a stag Patronus. This is later revealed to be a future version of Harry, who traveled back in time with Hermione using a device called a Time Turner. The duo help Sirius escape on a Hippogriff, while Pettigrew escapes.

Voldemort returns[edit]

The former 1st floor Nicholson's Cafe now renamed Spoon in Edinburgh where J. K. Rowling wrote the first few chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

In Harry's fourth year of school (detailed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Hogwarts hosts the Triwizard Tournament, a contest between Hogwarts and the schools Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Harry is unwillingly entered into the contest, becoming Hogwarts' second participant after Cedric Diggory, an unusual occurrence that causes his friends to distance themselves from him. Harry claims the Triwizard Cup with Cedric, but he is teleported to a graveyard where Pettigrew kills Cedric, then resurrects Voldemort using Harry's blood. Voldemort convenes his supporters, the Death Eaters, and Harry manages to escape after a duel with Voldemort. Upon returning to Hogwarts, it is revealed that a Death Eater, Barty Crouch, Jr, in disguise as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, engineered Harry's entry into the tournament, secretly helped him, and had him teleported to Voldemort.

In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned. Dumbledore re-activates the Order of the Phoenix, a secret society to counter Voldemort; meanwhile, the Ministry tightens control of Hogwarts by appointing Dolores Umbridge as High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, and she gradually increases her powers. When Umbridge bans practical teaching of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Harry, Ron and Hermione form "Dumbledore's Army", a secret group to continue the teachings. Harry has recurring dreams of a dark corridor in the Ministry of Magic, eventually dreaming that Sirius is being tortured there. He races to the Ministry with his friends, but it is a trap, planted in his head by Voldemort. The group are attacked by Death Eaters and saved by the Order of the Phoenix, but Sirius is killed in the battle. A duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort convinces the ministry of Voldemort's return. A prophecy concerning Harry and Voldemort is revealed: one must die at the hands of the other.

In the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snape teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts while Horace Slughorn becomes the Potions master. Harry finds an old textbook with annotations by the Half-Blood Prince, due to which he achieves success in Potions class. Harry also takes lessons with Dumbledore, viewing memories about the early life of Voldemort in a device called a Pensieve. Harry learns from a drunken Slughorn that he used to teach Tom Riddle, and that Voldemort divided his soul into pieces, creating a series of Horcruxes. Harry and Dumbledore travel to a distant lake to destroy a Horcrux; they succeed, but Dumbledore weakens. On their return, they find Draco Malfoy and Death Eaters attacking the school. The book ends with the killing of Dumbledore by Professor Snape, the titular Half-Blood Prince.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final novel in the series, Lord Voldemort gains control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione learn about the Deathly Hallows, legendary items that lead to mastery over death. The group infiltrates the ministry, where they steal a locket Horcrux, and visit Godric's Hollow, where they are attacked by Nagini, Voldemort's snake. A silver doe Patronus leads them to the Sword of Gryffindor, with which they destroy the locket. They steal a Horcrux from Gringotts and travel to Hogwarts, culminating in a battle with the Death Eaters. Snape is killed by Voldemort out of paranoia, but he lends Harry his memories before he dies. Harry learns that Snape was always loyal to Dumbledore, and that Harry is himself a Horcrux. Harry surrenders to Voldemort and dies. The defenders of Hogwarts continue to fight on; Harry is resurrected, faces Voldemort and kills him.

An epilogue titled "Nineteen Years Later" describes the lives of the surviving characters and the impact of Voldemort's death. Harry and Ginny are married with three children, and Ron and Hermione are married with two children.

Style and allusions[edit]

Genre and style[edit]

The novels fall into the genre of fantasy literature, and qualify as a type of fantasy called "urban fantasy", "contemporary fantasy", or "low fantasy". They are mainly dramas, and maintain a fairly serious and dark tone throughout, though they do contain some notable instances of tragicomedy and black humour. In many respects, they are also examples of the bildungsroman, or coming of age novel,[8] and contain elements of mystery, adventure, horror, thriller, and romance. The books are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tales",[9] and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince).

The series can be considered part of the British children's boarding school genre, which includes Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St. Clare's and the Naughtiest Girl series, and Frank Richards's Billy Bunter novels: the Harry Potter books are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a fictional British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic.[10] In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life", though they are, as many note, more contemporary, grittier, darker, and more mature than the typical boarding school novel, addressing serious themes of death, love, loss, prejudice, coming-of-age, and the loss of innocence in a 1990s British setting.[11][12][failed verification]

In Harry Potter, Rowling juxtaposes the extraordinary against the ordinary.[13] Her narrative features two worlds: a contemporary world inhabited by non-magical people called Muggles, and another featuring wizards. It differs from typical portal fantasy in that its magical elements stay grounded in the mundane.[14] Paintings move and talk; books bite readers; letters shout messages; and maps show live journeys, making the wizarding world both exotic and familiar.[13][15] This blend of realistic and romantic elements extends to Rowling's characters. Their names are often onomatopoeic[clarification needed]: Malfoy is difficult, Filch is unpleasant, and Lupin is a werewolf.[16][17] Harry is ordinary and relatable, with down-to-earth features such as wearing broken glasses;[18] the scholar Roni Natov terms him an "everychild".[19] These elements serve to highlight Harry when he is heroic, making him both an everyman and a fairytale hero.[18][20]

Each of the seven books is set over the course of one school year. Harry struggles with the problems he encounters, and dealing with them often involves the need to violate some school rules. If students are caught breaking rules, they are often disciplined by Hogwarts professors. The stories reach their climax in the summer term, near or just after final exams, when events escalate far beyond in-school squabbles and struggles, and Harry must confront either Voldemort or one of his followers, the Death Eaters, with the stakes a matter of life and death – a point underlined, as the series progresses, by characters being killed in each of the final four books.[21][22] In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with head teacher and mentor Albus Dumbledore. The only exception to this school-centred setting is the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the dénouement.[21]

Allusions[edit]

The Harry Potter stories feature imagery and motifs drawn from Arthurian myth and fairytales. Harry's ability to draw the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat resembles the Arthurian sword in the stone legend.[23] His life with the Dursleys has been compared to Cinderella.[24] Hogwarts resembles a medieval university-cum-castle with several professors who belong to an Order of Merlin; Old Professor Binns still lectures about the International Warlock Convention of 1289; and a real historical person, a 14th-century scribe, Sir Nicolas Flamel, is described as a holder of the Philosopher's Stone.[25] Other medieval elements in Hogwarts include coats-of-arms and medieval weapons on the walls, letters written on parchment and sealed with wax, the Great Hall of Hogwarts, which is similar to the Great Hall of Camelot, the use of Latin phrases, the tents put up for Quidditch tournaments, which are similar to the "marvellous tents" put up for knightly tournaments, imaginary animals like dragons and unicorns that exist around Hogwarts, and the banners with heraldic animals for the four Houses of Hogwarts.[25]

Many of the motifs of the Potter stories, such as the hero's quest invoking objects that confer invisibility, magical animals and trees, a forest full of danger and the recognition of a character based upon scars, are drawn from medieval French Arthurian romances.[25] Other aspects borrowed from French Arthurian romances include the use of owls as messengers, werewolves as characters, and white deer.[25] The American scholars Heather Arden and Kathrn Lorenz in particular argue that many aspects of the Potter stories are inspired by a 14th-century French Arthurian romance, Claris et Laris, writing of the "startling" similarities between the adventures of Potter and the knight Claris.[25] Arden and Lorenz noted that Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter in 1986 with a degree in French literature and spent a year living in France afterwards.[25]

Like C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter also contains Christian symbolism and allegory. The series has been viewed as a Christian moral fable in the psychomachia tradition, in which stand-ins for good and evil fight for supremacy over a person's soul.[26] Children's literature critic Joy Farmer sees parallels between Harry and Jesus Christ.[27] Comparing Rowling with Lewis, she argues that "magic is both authors' way of talking about spiritual reality".[28] According to Maria Nikolajeva, Christian imagery is particularly strong in the final scenes of the series: Harry dies in self-sacrifice and Voldemort delivers an "ecce homo" speech, after which Harry is resurrected and defeats his enemy.[29]

Rowling stated that she did not reveal Harry Potter's religious parallels in the beginning because doing so would have "give[n] too much away to fans who might then see the parallels".[30] In the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling makes the book's Christian imagery more explicit, quoting both Matthew 6:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:26 (King James Version) when Harry visits his parents' graves.[30] Hermione Granger teaches Harry Potter that the meaning of these verses from the Christian Bible are "living beyond death. Living after death", which Rowling states "epitomize the whole series".[30][31][32] Rowling also exhibits Christian values in developing Albus Dumbledore as a God-like character, the divine, trusted leader of the series, guiding the long-suffering hero along his quest. In the seventh novel, Harry speaks with and questions the deceased Dumbledore much like a person of faith would talk to and question God.[33]

Themes[edit]

J.K. Rowling, a blond, blue-eyed woman, who is the author of the series
The novelist, J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter's overarching theme is death.[34][35] In the first book, when Harry looks into the Mirror of Erised, he feels both joy and "a terrible sadness" at seeing his desire: his parents, alive and with him.[36] Confronting their loss is central to Harry's character arc and manifests in different ways through the series, such as in his struggles with Dementors.[36][37] Other characters in Harry's life die; he even faces his own death in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.[38] The series has an existential perspective – Harry must grow mature enough to accept death.[39] In Harry's world, death is not binary but mutable, a state that exists in degrees.[40] Unlike Voldemort, who evades death by separating and hiding his soul in seven parts, Harry's soul is whole, nourished by friendship and love.[39]

Love distinguishes Harry and Voldemort. Harry is a hero because he loves others, even willing to accept death to save them; Voldemort is a villain because he does not.[41] Harry carries the protection of his mother's sacrifice in his blood; Voldemort, who wants Harry's blood and the protection it carries, does not understand that love vanquishes death.[27]

Rowling has spoken about thematising death and loss in the series. Soon after she started writing Philosopher's Stone, her mother died; she said that "I really think from that moment on, death became a central, if not the central theme of the seven books".[42] Rowling has described Harry as "the prism through which I view death", and further stated that "all of my characters are defined by their attitude to death and the possibility of death".[43]

While Harry Potter can be viewed as a story about good vs. evil, its moral divisions are not absolute.[44][45] First impressions of characters are often misleading. Harry assumes in the first book that Quirrell is on the side of good because he opposes Snape, who appears to be malicious; in reality, Quirrell is an agent of Voldemort, while Snape is loyal to Dumbledore. This pattern later recurs with Moody and Snape.[44] In Rowling's world, good and evil are choices rather than inherent attributes: second chances and the possibility of redemption are key themes of the series.[46][47] This is reflected in Harry's self-doubts after learning his connections to Voldemort, such as Parseltongue;[46] and prominently in Snape's characterisation, which has been described as complex and multifaceted.[48] In some scholars' view, while Rowling's narrative appears on the surface to be about Harry, her focus may actually be on Snape's morality and character arc.[49][50]

Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious". In the fourth book, Dumbledore speaks of a "choice between what is right and what is easy"; Rowling views this as a key theme, "because that ... is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble".[51]

Academics and journalists have developed many other interpretations of themes in the books, some more complex than others, and some including political subtexts. Themes such as normality, oppression, survival, and overcoming imposing odds have all been considered as prevalent throughout the series.[52] Similarly, the theme of making one's way through adolescence and "going over one's most harrowing ordeals – and thus coming to terms with them" has also been considered.[53] Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that they also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".[54]

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2 Replies to “Harry Potter”

  1. Harry Potter Theme with 7 backgrounds for each year at Hogwarts. Custom 2.42 Icons, with Main Row Icons related to various objects from the series, like Harry’s Glasses, a Chocolate Frog box, Harry’s wand, etc.

  2. why cant i download it without doing these annoying surveys?? leave a link without the surveys Dennis “F-Rott” Ferrand

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