It has been eighteen years since the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in a series of seven books, which took the world by storm and accorded a cult status to the boy who lived. Over the last two decades, the books and subsequent films have garnered their fair share of laurels and criticism and continue to hold a special place for most fans. Looking back, it’s not too much of a surprise that the books did so well, considering the well thought out elaborate plot, the believable characterisations, the emphasis on the importance of love, the winning of good over evil, the laugh-aloud humour and the ability to make us empathise with the emotions of the characters. Perhaps, most important of all, was the limitless imagination of the writer that took us on a breathless, dizzy journey with invisibility cloaks, enchanted diaries, pensieves that allow you to enter someone’s memory, shape shifting Boggarts, Thestrals that you can see only when someone close to you has died, and a mirror that shows you your heart’s deepest desires.
There are other reasons why the series stands out. The books preach a core philosophy that is liberal, socialist and moral: the main theme of the story being the war against the evil racists who believe that only ‘purebloods’ (people who are born to wizarding parents) are fit to rule, as opposed to those who believe that all magical people (elves, giants, muggle-borns) are equal.
The series also shows women to be as brave and as good as the men, and it is most apparent in the way Hermione’s character is drawn. Among the three major characters, it is Hermione that stands out – for her intelligence, courage and sensitivity towards the suppressed, exemplified by the organisation she forms called SPEW (Society for Promotion of Elfish Welfare). In Hogwarts, girls compete equally with boys in Quidditch and are as good.
In the Tri-wizard tournament, girls and boys are considered equals. In the various battles of the Wizarding Wars, men and women fight as equals.
Then there are many characters of mixed blood and race. Lee Jordan, Dean Thomas and Angelina Johnson are black. Kingsley Shacklebolt, one of the aurors who later becomes the Minister of Magic is black. Hagrid has giant blood and Dumbledore was conceptualised by Rowling as gay.
Cho Chang, Harry’s first crush, and Parvati Patil, his first date, are of Chinese and Indian origin, respectively.
Harry Potter is also about being tolerant of people who are marginalised and different from the norm. One of the best teachers in Hogwarts is Remus Lupin, a werewolf, a creature that is usually feared and shunned. In the books, however, he is accepted by Harry and his friends. He even gets married. Sirius Black a convict feared by society is someone Harry eventually learns to love and trust him. The quirky Luna Lovegood and the fat, clumsy Neville Longbottom are misfits. They both, however, form an important part of the group of students called ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ in the fight against Voldemort.
This tolerance in the books is less surprising when you understand the kind of person J.K. Rowling is in real life. Her earnings from the Harry Potter series totalled an estimated 1.6 million dollars a day, and she was in the Forbes Billionaire’s club. However, a revised list saw her name absent. The reason? She had donated more than 160 million dollars to charities linked to poverty, women and children’s welfare and illiteracy. She is known for her outspoken twitter posts, sending her words like fiery patronuses in defence against the dementors that attack minorities and marginalised people.
Another book she has written, The casual vacancy , is a dark, bleak explosion of socialist fury at the unfairness of class and politics in England. The hero of her other series (written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith), Cormoran Strike, is an underdog too.
There has been criticism about the Harry Potter series. Some have accused the books of promoting black magic. The last four books, especially, have been said (with some justification) to be a little too violent and dark for pre-teens. Not many children’s books have a plot where a main character dies in a school tournament. People have also criticised the language it is written in.
Also, admittedly, there are some minor loopholes in the plot. But despite these flaws, the real spell that has been cast here is in J.K. Rowling making the story and the characters so believable and real, that readers have lived every magical moment she has conjured. Not that the series has ended, that magic is something her readers miss.
