Yes, my patient audience, I'm finally doing a post about books! You lovely people can finally enjoy the kind of post that I was actually meant to do. Don't worry, those of you who enjoyed my more personal posts, those haven't stopped.
This is my first post about books since last August - for those of you who are new here or aren't aware of what happened, please feel free to take a look back at my previous posts to give you a little bit of context and hopefully learn a little bit more about me - and I'm so excited to be talking about books with you again.
Just to pre-warn you, I will be reaching full nerd level here. This post is also basically one big spoiler, so feel free to leave if you don't want to experience that.
Anyway, if you live life on the edge and decided to start reading this post without looking at the title, it's going to be about Harry Potter. Also, what's a rebel like you doing here looking at this blog?
Not long ago, it was the 20-year anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone being released in the UK. It kind of inspired me to add 'reread the Harry Potter series' to my to-do list. And I've done it.
Now, I know a lot of people will be saying 'but they're children's books' and to you I say that the Harry Potter books are timeless masterpieces and goddammit I want to go to Hogwarts. The owl with my acceptance letter just got lost, I swear. Hagrid will be coming to fetch me any day now. Also, read this. And this. I'm opinionated, okay?
*sigh* Muggles, I tell you.
So, this is just going to be a probably extremely long and rambly little post about my thoughts on rereading Harry Potter as a teenager.
Well, it would be an understatement to say that I gained fresh appreciation for J.K Rowling's skill as a writer. I mean, I always knew she was amazing and I never doubted her creative skills, having been an avid fan since I was very little, but I realised once again just how incredible she is.
J.K Rowling is one of those very rare writers who doesn't need to use flowery language to draw you into the world she has created. She doesn't need to make her words do any pretty tricks to prove she's a skilled writer. She just completely sucks you in from your very first sentence. I swear that I was so engrossed I must have caught myself holding my breath without realising about 500 times.
When you're reading any of the Harry Potter books, time passes without you even realising it. It's like... magic.
I think the reason the Harry Potter universe is so immersive is that J.K Rowling literally built the world of Harry Potter from nothing and she was so thorough with it, even drawing up extensive family trees and creating detailed backstories for her characters, with many of them not even coming up because these extra facts didn't turn out to be relevant to the plot, such as the fact that Dumbledore was gay.
A lot of authors will create a universe, but they will only create a world with exactly the amount of detail they need, not bothering to flesh it out beyond what comes up in the book. But J.K Rowling's work in creating the wizarding world made it feel that much more real. The thought she put into the universe is something that really comes through in the books, and I really respect her for it. It makes the Harry Potter books stories that you can just fall into for hours on end.
J.K Rowling is also the queen of meaningful quotes, none of which I will list for fear of wanting to list them all, and she seems to know exactly when to kill a character in order to achieve maximum heartbreak. Sirius. Dumbledore. Snape. Fred Weasley. Tonks and Lupin. And Dobby, who died a free elf. Nobody can take that away from him. Nobody.
All of these deaths were incredibly heartbreaking in their own way. Sirius, because Harry had only just found happiness with Sirius, who was the closest thing to a parent Harry had. Dumbledore, because he was a beloved mentor and Harry would have wanted his guidance in the events of the future books. Snape because he had only just been redeemed and his heartbreak over Lily Potter only just revealed. Fred Weasley because of how it affected the tight-knit Weasley family - and because we'd spent so many hours laughing about the antics of the Weasley twins. Dobby because he was such an endearing and pure character. There are others, with Cedric Diggory and Hedwig being particularly heart-wrenching.
Now, Tonks and Lupin deserve their own paragraph, because their deaths are significant in so many ways. Firstly, it was the end of a very beautiful love story. But secondly, because they had a baby son. This ties the series in a neat little bow and ends the story in exactly the way it began - a little orphaned boy to be brought up in a world recovering from a wizarding war. It's beautifully symbolic. Rowling is also the queen of symbolism. She's just the queen in general, okay?
And of course, for the death of a character to be heartbreaking, you have to love that character. J.K Rowling's characters are all incredibly real and human and they all make a mark on you in their own unique way. Even the minor characters are very likeable, and all of the characters have their own distinct personalities. The only way to describe it is that Rowling creates colourful and lively characters, with my favourite examples of this being Luna Lovegood and the Weasley twins. The redemptions of characters like Snape and Percy Weasley make you love them once again and you can't help but fall in love with each new character.
This post is getting far too long, so I'll finish it by saying that rereading the books now reminded me of everything I loved about them when my dad would read them to me as a very young child. I remembered what it was like to read and fall in love with each new page. J.K Rowling is, and will probably always be, my favourite author, and I definitely hope that her books remain classics for years and years to come.
So, tell me, what's your Hogwarts house? I'm a Ravenclaw myself. Let me know in the comments or on my social media, or let me know what your favourite thing about the books is or who your favourite character is. Anything! Let's just talk Harry Potter!
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