My thoughts about Harry

Last Saturday Big Chimp and I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. 

We chose the time carefully—we didn't want to be tired, or distracted about going to work the next day. We paid extra to go to an 18-and-over screening to avoid loud kids. We ate beforehand and bought water bottles and candy to keep us going throughout the film. I used the restroom at the last possible minute—after the commercials had finished and the movie trailers had started. We had our earplugs ready in pockets (we use them to protect our ears during loud scenes). I had on my freshly ironed Harry Potter T-shirt (Comic Con 2010). In short, we were thoroughly prepared.

The reason for all this preparation is simple: I love Harry Potter, and I wanted the experience of watching the last film to be perfect. Of course, I needn't have bothered with all the preparation; from the first scene to the close of the epilogue, I was lost in the story. I have no problem in admitting that I was in tears a couple of times (I was prepared for this; I cried while reading the book, too).

The Harry Potter films can never be what the books are for me—in fact I don't think any film could be what a novel is for me—but that didn't stop me from loving this film. Sure, they changed some things, but I thought it worked well; I don't think it's possible to be entirely true to a book in a film adaptation anyway, because books and films are such different things. One of my co-workers warned me not to get my hopes up for the movie as it was bound to disappoint. But I didn't find that at all. It was everything the trailers promised: it was visually beautiful, full of action and excitement, dark but with touches of humor here and there to keep it from being too bleak.

As a lot of fans have been doing this week, I've been looking back over the journey I've taken with Harry, Ron, and Hermione over the past twelve years. When I first picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the autumn of 1999, I was a 14-year-old high school freshman. At that time I suffered from pretty severe social anxiety, and I found being around other people—even people I knew and liked, even in some cases people who were related to me—so stressful that at times I would become physically ill. And because I was so withdrawn, most of my emotional experiences came to me filtered through stories—either ones I made up in my head, or ones I read in novels. This resulted in an ability to immerse myself deeply in the worlds of books, and I think because of this I read more intensely than anyone else I knew.

And then along came JK Rowling with this amazing world. It was like it was made for me—this fantastic place full of fun and danger, magic, action, adventure, and most of all, friendship. A world I could get lost in whenever I got frustrated with my inability to connect with people in real life.

Of course, I got over my shyness. It took many years and a lot of work, and I was 23 or 24 before I was able to shake it entirely. But I continued to love Harry Potter above all other stories. As an English student in college, and later as a creative writing student in grad school, I learned to appreciate Harry Potter not just for the spectacular story, but the quality of the writing. I'm still amazed by what JK Rowling has done with plot, characters, dialogue, foreshadowing, and allusions. I love the blend of humor and darkness throughout the series, the cleverness of the twists, the character development...but most of all I love the feeling that I get when I open one of the books. Because each time I return to the story I'm both treading a familiar, well-loved path, and making new discoveries—things I never noticed the first, second, or even fifth time I read it.

A lot of people have been talking about this last film as the end of the series, but I don't see it that way. When I got home from the cinema (as we call movie theaters here in Britain), not wanting to break the Harry Potter spell but not ready to go to bed yet either, I picked up our copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and I started reading it. From the end of the story straight back to the beginning.

For me the release of the final film—like the release of the final book— isn't an ending, but a completion. I like the fact that we've got the whole story now, to revisit and rediscover whenever we like.

I'm getting married in three weeks, and I know that if Big Chimp and I ever decide to have kids, we will one day be reading Harry Potter with them. And that makes me so very happy.


*Photo credits: 1) "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)." IMDB. Photo 212. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1652196096/tt1201607  2) "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)." IMDB. Photo 1. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm196642560/tt0241527