Via
I’ve spent the past two months, give or take a few weeks, reading the indelible Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Saturday night when I finished the last page, I couldn’t believe the journey was finally over. These books ushered me out of 2011 and guided me into the new year. I dreamed about the characters as I read them, having a few haunting visits from Voldemort in at least two of them; I spent at least 50% of my words on discussing the books with co-workers who’d read them; I watched the movies three times; and as I sat at work yesterday afternoon, I was itching to pull the first book out from my cabinet and begin the series all over again. These books have meant so much to me, and I thank J.K. Rowling for giving the world these incredible stories. They truly are a gift to literature – children’s and adult. Besides just providing me as a reader with an amazing cast of characters, an eccentric world of magic, and courageous story of overcoming evil, I took away three important lessons from this series.
The Value of Friendship
If you take away nothing else from the Harry Potter books, you should at least know how much weight is put on the meaning of strong friendships: Hermoine, the rational friend with acute attention to detail; Ron, the loyal friend who, even when his hot-temperedness leads him astray, never undermines the importance of allegiance; and Harry, the brave, selfless friend, the friend with so much more responsibility on his shoulders than your typical teenager. The three of them create a bond that nothing can break, not even the strains of the wizarding world’s most evil villain attempting to take over. Harry, Ron, and Hermoine taught me the qualities to look for in friends and the qualities to adapt myself in order to be a good friend. The sacrifice, risks, and guts it took for them, especially Ron and Hermoine, to give up everything in order to help their best friend fight the world’s most evil wizard, is an incredible testimony to friendship.
The Benefits of Courage
I admire Harry and his friends for understanding the seriousness of what’s going on around them. When I think about how other kids ny age in when I was in high school, even how I would’ve acted I’m not so sure we would’ve acted as valiantly. What Harry and his friends gained in their acts of courage (Neville standing up to Harry and Hermione and Ron, Ron and Hermione risking their lives to help Harry find Horcruxes, Harry stalking into the woods to face his death) is far more valuable and expensive than any tangible thing that could be purchased with money.
The Importance of Faith
This was most prominent in The Deathly Hallows when Harry had to hunt for Horcruxes while tugging around mixed feelings about his late professor. That Harry keeps to the hunt in order to defeat Voldemort when rumors of Dumbledore’s past conflict with the man Harry knew tells a lot about his character: he has an unwavering faith, although pricked with doubt at times, to stick to his commitments. His relationship with Dumbledore is akin to our relationships with God. We’re confused by His history and often question his plans for us. But what Harry does that we all need to pay particular attention to is his ability to look past the doubts and stick to his destiny. It’s in doing this that Harry is able to get his answers from Dumbledore upon death, and gains the strength and knowledge to go back and defeat Voldemort once and for all. His courage in facing something so ominous as death is astounding for someone of his age, and is something I want to keep close to me for the rest of ny life.
I want to keep all of these lessons close to me for the rest of my life. After reading Harry Potter and making these connections between the books, myself, and my faith it gave me a different sense of being. A stronger sense of being. It gave me something that I’ll be evaluating in my life for a while, and that is the best gift an author can give to her readers.
Thank you J.K. Rowling. It has been, and will continue to be, a life-changing journey.
