I know Harry Potter might feel like a redundant topic for a
lot of people. It’s not like there’s been any lack of it for the last decade –
The release of the 7th and final book, the opening of Harry Potter
World in Universal Studios, and not to mention the ending of the film saga with
The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2. In
addition to this there is enough fan fiction, blog entries, and cosplaying on
the Internet to fill many terabytes. So please, if you have any, put your
prejudices and familiarity with this topic aside as I try my hand at diving into
this magical world. Specifically, I’m going to go into the themes of death,
loss, and hope, and how these fundamental topics drive the story from the first
book through the last.
It’s no wonder that J.K. Rowling’s tale of the boy wizard
became the best selling book of all time next to The Holy Bible. For one, Harry
is a very relatable character. He’s not cocky like Malfoy, or extremely awkward
like Ron, or a know-it-all like Hermione, or a prankster like Fred and George,
or a flirt like Lee Jordan. Harry works as a great everyman and also as a great
character to introduce us to the wizarding world. Having lived in our world for
the first 11 years of his life, he’s only familiar with things that we know
about – Muggle money, telephones, schools, and the misery of not being loved as
a child.
Upon his entry into the world and throughout the books we
get to learn everything through his eyes. It is through his ignorance that J.K.
Rowling is able to let us know about things like the Gringtotts vaults,
vampires, ghosts, moving paintings, the various subjects at Hogwarts, the
Ministry of Magic, the various shops in Diagon Alley, and the most feared
wizard who ever lived – Lord Vol – I mean, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Well,
Dumbledore did say that fear of the name only increases fear of the thing
itself, so I’ll say it: Voldemort.
So I mentioned I wanted to go into the themes of death,
loss, and hope in this series. Let’s start with death. Death is prominent in
our everyday lives as well as in this book. Throughout the series we witness or
hear about the loss of Lily and James Potter, Lupin, Tonks, Sirius, Amelia
Bones, Rufus Scrimgeour, Snape, Hedwig, Mad Eye Moody, Fred Weasley, Quirrel,
Wormtail, Bellatrix Lestrange, Colin Creevey, Dobby, Bathilda Bagshot, Nagini,
Voldemort, Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and many many others. Some of these we are happy to
see go, others are heartbreaking. Like the passage of Hedwig as she protected
Harry, representing the loss of his innocence. Or the brutal death of Dobby,
who was stabbed in the chest. If you have shed tears for any of these
characters, you are not alone. Sometimes the death of a fictional character can
be just as real and mortifying as the death of a flesh and blood person. For
stories can be printed on paper and put onto film, but more than anything they
take place inside our own minds. And as Dumbledore himself says, just because
it’s in our minds does not mean it isn’t real.
Dumbledore never feared death. He says many times throughout
the books that there are worse things than death, a concept that Tom Riddle was
never able to wrap his mind around. It is this understanding that made The
Order of the Phoenix stronger than the Death Eaters – The willingness and even
desire to die for the safety of the wizarding world. At no point did Sirius
Black or Remus Lupin or Fred Weaslely back away when death was imminent, and
they paid the ultimate price. But I don’t think any of these people regret
their decisions. They knew the risks, and they were more than happy to help
fight Voldemort. One could argue that it was Harry they were fighting for, and
this may be partially true. But it is Neville Longbottom who points out when
everybody thinks that Harry is dead that this fight was never about Harry.
Voldemort is going to continue to kill and torture, and they need to stop that
just not for Harry but for the good of everybody.
Harry feels, as we all feel when faced with loss, great
sadness. When Sirius Black is murdered he tries everything he can to find a way
to contact him or bring him back. He looks into the enchanted mirror, talks to
Nearly Headless Nick to see if Sirius could become a ghost, and upon his death even tries to go after him
behind the veil, which to the best of our understanding is a gateway between
our world and the afterlife. The Harry Potter wiki states that the archway has
been there for as long as the Ministry has.
Death brings on sadness and despair, having to deal with the
grief of losing somebody you love that you were accustomed to speaking to or
seeing everyday. But as Dumbeldore says, “Don’t pity the dead, Harry, pity the
living. And above all pity those who live without love.” Death is something
that many films or books glaze over, even with the loss of major characters.
J.K. Rowling does a wonderful job of working death into her story and helping
us all make sense of something that nobody truly understands. My favorite idea
of this is the story of The Deathly Hallows, where the third brother meets
death as an old friend at the end of his life. I think that’s how we should all
view it. The Grim Reaper gets a bad reputation for taking you from this life into
the afterlife, but he is a guide to help you, to accompany you. Would you
really want to make that journey by yourself?
Now, let’s move onto loss. Similar to death, loss brings on
feelings of sadness and despair. It can, however, bring on catharsis and
closure. It is only after Harry loses his chance with Cho Chang that he is able
to fully notice and pursue Ginny Weasley, his future wife and mother of his
children. It is only after Cedric Diggory is killed by Wormtail that the Order
of the Phoenix is able to form once again and begin working against Voldemort.
It is only after Malfoy loses his wand to Harry that Harry is able to become
the true master of the Elder Wand. Loss is not always a bad thing, but it can
be difficult to accept at first.
Loss is something we’ve all experienced. Whether it’s our
favorite video game being lost to the couch cushions, a box of our favorite
books getting ruined in a flood, or our favorite car getting totaled in an
accident. Loss is not just the loss of life, but the loss of things or ideals.
So long as we always push forward and refuse to give up, as Harry never does,
we’ll eventually find ourselves in a better future one way or another.
Now onto the final theme I’d like to touch on – Hope. Hope
is one of the most powerful, and one of the most dangerous emotions in the
known universe, in all worlds. It is what was left within Pandora’s Box, it is
what can keep you hanging onto a crush for years when there’s nothing there.
Yet it is something we must never lose, because without it pessimism and
animosity will fill the void.
In Harry Potter, Harry hangs onto hope throughout the entire
series. He hopes that he’ll see Sirius again, he hopes that he’ll be able to
catch the snitch in time, he hopes that sneaking around the castle after hours won’t
get him caught. It’s his feeling of hope, and his level of daring, that gets
him into the number of situations he finds. But without these experiences he
would never have stood a chance against any of the Death Eaters, never mind a
Dementor, the memory of Tom Riddle, a werewolf, or give him the knowledge to
retrieve a bezoar when Ron was poisoned. It is hope that keeps him fighting in
even the darkest of days, even when he’s hiding out in the woods for months at
a time just waiting for an opportunity to strike.
It is these three themes – Death, loss, and hope that bring
us through the highs and lows of the Harry Potter story. We stay with him every
step of the way, through every tragedy and every victory. Harry may get
downtrodden and lose optimism at times, but I don’t believe he ever truly loses
hope. If he did, he would have given up and left the country in the final book.
Or he would have faced Voldemort right away and been killed to get it over with
so he could join his parents and Sirius. He understands the fight is bigger
than just the two of them, and he stays alive and fights for the death and loss
that he has witnessed, but also to prevent further tragedy. Harry Potter is one
of the most wonderful worlds to fall into. I’ve read the books countless times
and I listen to the audiobooks every night as I fall asleep and many times
while I’m driving. This fictional world is one of the best to visit. This is on
the trifecta of things that have most influenced my life – Harry Potter, The
Legend of Zelda, and Star Wars. Without these three separate and unique worlds,
I would not be who I am today and I know there are many others who feel the
same way.
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