Blog Prompt #2

Over the course of the Harry Potter series, we have witnessed characters develop in some surprising ways. These developments have implications for the way in which we read the series, and particularly, for our understanding of what Rowling are saying about themes like coming of age, traumatic experience, historical trauma, empathy, etc. Consider the way in which one or two characters’ development has/have affected your broader interpretation of the series using one of the major themes. Discuss how specific moments of character development have lead you to reassess how one of the major themes is being explored. Your response should be in the range of 300-500 words.

Blog Post #1

When Harry Potter came out I was not too interested. My older cousin would read the book aloud to me and my attention span was nothing impressive. But the year went on and they had turned Harry Potter into a motion picture. I want to see the movie, but my parents being advocators of literacy told me that I couldn't see the movie until I read the book. So I started to read. I was hooked. The story swept me in and i couldn't stop reading. Rowling gave me a taste for adventure. Looking deeper into the novels now, it is very impressive how many things are so connected in the novels. I feel as though she put great thought into every detail of the novel.

Blog Post #1 Response: What I expected

When I first heard the first Harry Potter book it was read to my 5th grade class by our over excited teacher. She was the kind of teacher that went well beyond any required texts and made you really enjoy learning things. She couldn't at the time I guess convince the higher ups at the private Lutheran school that a book about magic school was appropriate. But even though she read the books at the end of the day after class there was always a large crowd listening to her making all the voices with accents and feeling and asking students what they thought would happen next and of course why. It was a fun experience and after watching half the class frantically jot down numbers to figure out which house had one the cup before Rowling stated... and for those of you keeping track... it was clear to me that this author was now well inside the heads of all of us. Just as we'd all return to school the next year we'd also have to return to Harry Potter and continue that learning experience as well. We may not have had the same abuse or magic as Harry but there was a shared experience that made us all expect him to do the right thing and overcome whatever he faced.

Blog Post #1 Response: Perceptions and Expectations

Personal experience and perception have a profound impact upon both the reader as well as the author of a story. The author’s personal experiences and perspective interact, conflict, and meld with the reader’s own experiences and perspective creating a dynamic perspective that changes from reader to reader. The closer the reader and the author’s perspectives and experiences the more “occupied” the reader will be with the author’s thoughts. However, this similarity of though is not simply one dimensional and unidirectional – and not knowing Rowling’s personal experience – it flows both ways and it can be inferred by the similarity of thought that author and reader have had similar experiences or great empathy with them.

Consequently, it is this likeness of thought and shared experience as well as the shifting expectations that lead me to conclude that Rowling see herself as Dumbledore. Always guessing, sometimes believing, and perhaps even knowing the outcome of events while never fully sharing the extent of what she knows or believes to be true. In the same manner that Dumbledore fails time and again to fully explain things as he know them, Rowling continually creates façades of truth, supporting arguments, and convincing evidence only to shatter the whole structure in one fell swoop. As Dumbledore gave Harry only what he needed to know in order to build his character and personal strength, Rowling gives the reader just enough evidence and a dash of foreshadowing to build a myriad of possibilities.

Blog Post #1 Response: Expect the Unexpected

The wizarding world is full expectations. There are expectations about people, expectations about experience, expectations about behaviors, all kinds of expectations. It is true, that if expectations were always fulfilled in stories, then there wouldn’t really be much of an exciting story to tell. In the first book, the Dursley’s expected that if they kept Harry away from news of the wizarding world and never told him about his parents, his past, or where he came from, that the magic would be “squashed out of him.” If that expectation had been fulfilled and Harry never found out he was a wizard, there wouldn’t be a story to tell, especially one spanning 7 books! After leaving the Dursley’s and coming to the wizarding world, there are all kinds of expectations. At Hogwarts, there are expectations that students behave and follow the rules, because that’s what keeps the school orderly. As we all know, Harry has some kind of disregard for the rules, creating another failed expectation. There are so many failed expectations that follow, including Harry and Ron’s expectation that flying the car to Hogwarts would be a good idea, which it wasn’t. There are several expectations Harry, Ron, and Hermione have towards Snape, in particular, that inevitably turn into failed expectations. They thought that Snape was trying to curse Harry to make him fall off his broom during quidditch, and then they were sure Snape was after the Sorcerer’s Stone, and both of those expectations were failed. Of course, there couldn’t be a story without some expectations that are met. It was expected that Harry was going to be a great quidditch player after the remembrall incident, and he was a great player. Ollivander had an expectation of Harry from the moment that Harry bought his wand, that Harry was going to be a great wizard, and he seems to be so far in the series. Hermione is expected to be the best in her year, and she seems to be throughout the first two books, without doubt. Expectations that are actually met in a literary sense create a basis for a story, while the expectations that are failed drive the story to be interesting and action-packed. It is important to have a balance of failed and met expectations, for without both, the story wouldn’t really be very interesting or exciting, it would just be a plain story about somebody’s life.

Prompt #1: Skewed Ideas

People are constantly attempting to interpret the underlying or sometimes subconscious meaning behind an authors writing. To me, this is similar to dream interpretation. What is symbolic to one may just be a simple location or inanimate object to another. Without knowing or speaking to the author, it is not 100% possible to know why he/she wrote specific things or if there is even a “hidden” meaning. Amy Tan read an analysis of her book and it had been interpreted as a way to translate her growing up as a 1^st generation Chinese American and how all of these things must have been meant to show her feelings of blah, blah, blah. She is quoted as saying how she was so surprised to find out she had accidentally written about this. What is read will always be different to every individual because no two experience a single activity in the exact same manner.

The expectation of Harry to become a truly spectacular wizard arises at the start of the first novel. As the books progress, Harry can kind of be a ninny. He is not exactly brilliant and he seems to get by on sheer dumb luck. With out his friends or “fate”, Harry would have died in the Chamber of Secrets assuming he would not have died by the hands of the troll on Halloween. This theme exists through all of the books. He only survives in the Goblet of Fire because of a glitch in the wands. This fails to fill the need to a powerful hero.

Expecting the acceptional exceptions of expectations

Having spent the past 30 min trying to figure out how to post this, I feel I must express two things: first, blogging? I'm confused. Second, inherent in the human/wizard mind is the drive to expect and predict what will happen then (referring to some point in the future), so it is not surprising that J.K. Rowling centered much of the plot on the expectations of (from) Harry and his triadic troupe that, more often than not, fall into the heart of what will be known as the second coming of the Dark Lord. Many of the characters fall under expectational roles (Dumbledore = mentor; Snape = antagonist)  while maintaining a facade that masks many dark secrets that Harry slowly brings to light as he becomes acclimated to a world of magic. This being the second time I have read the books I was thoroughly pleased to, once again, frolic from fantastical fantasy for fun (school).