Blog Post #3: Going from Observing the Harry Potter Excitement to Actually Experiencing It

I thought I knew what the outcome of the series was going to be. I had seen all of the movies, gone to Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal (where I bought Ginny's wand, natch), and allowed my sister to tell me as many secrets as her heart desired when she was first reading the series over a year ago. (She was so excited, and at the time I idiotically had no plans to read the series ever, so I let her.) But if there's one thing I discovered when I was going through the books, it was that J.K. Rowling is a genius. There were curveballs thrown at me that I never would have expected. (The biggest of all being Snape's very intricate and carefully planned storyline.) It was impossible for me, as I'm sure it was for everybody else, to put the final book down. It was so bad, I walked into work jumping up and down with the book in my hand one day, talking to my 4o-something manager (who is big fan of the series as well) about what was going on and how I was frustrated that I had to work that day instead of continuing to read the book. (Luckily, she understood and didn't yell at me, thank goodness!)

My absolute favorite part of the ending of the book was also a part that I didn't quite understand, and I wish there had been more explanation about it. My favorite character in the series is Neville, and I love that he got to play the part of the hero and kill Nagini at the end. It wasn't Ron or Hermione (though Ron did have a pretty awesome moment when he opened up the Chamber of Secrets to obtain the basilisk fang) or even Ginny. I thought it was great because it showed how confident Neville had become and how strong he really was, but I did not quite understand how he got the Sword of Gryffindor. I know that Voldemort put the Sorting Hat on his head, and that's how Harry had obtained it in Chamber of Secrets, but I didn't quite know how else he could have gotten it from the goblins. Perhaps I missed where she might have explained it?

In terms of the characters, my feelings towards Dumbledore changed a little bit. It scared me that he could have so much power and show so little feeling toward his sister like that. But I don't think it really affected the way I viewed him because I was so eager to find out everything else. And I think so much speculation was put on it--was Rita Skeeter telling the truth? Was Elphias Doge the one that was being honest?--throughout the book that when Dumbledore finally revealed the truth, it seemed sort of expected and not quite as dramatic.

I knew that Ron and Hermione would be together, so that didn't surprise me much. When I went to Wizarding World with my boyfriend, I bought my sister Hermione's wand, and I bought myself Ginny's wand (because I wanted one, too). My boyfriend got mad because his favorite character is Ron, and when I asked why he wanted me to keep Hermione's, he let out a spoiler. So, needless to say, I saw that whole relationship coming long before I started reading the books. But I started really, really liking Ron when he started becoming a hero. When he managed to speak Parseltongue, I thought that was pretty fascinating, and I never expected it out of him. Rowling made a habit of showing that the least likely of people were the biggest heros at the end of the day. I liked that odd twist of events!

Snape is an interesting character for me to think about because I never expected him to go through all of this torture for Dumbledore. His whole story line seemed so completely tangled and complicated that it was one of those things that I had to read several times to fully comprehend, and even now I'm not entirely sure that I do understand it all. It's so fascinating to me that Rowling had all of this in her head the whole time and was able to use foreshadowing in completely unexpected places (like we discussed in class today). I definitely feel more sympathy for him now that I've read the entire series and I know the reasons behind why he did what he did. It kind of makes me want to make him my favorite character. (Though that is highly unlikely--I love Neville too much!)

I experienced the cultural impact of the series was months before I even saw the first movie. I moved to Orlando about two weeks before Wizarding World opened (I was a doing an internship at Walt Disney World for half of 2010). I was sitting backstage at my location (a value resort's food court) in the break room the day the park opened, and I was watching the news before I had to start work. The park's opening was being covered unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was as if the only thing that mattered in the entire world that day was that Harry Potter World was finally open. One of my international friends that I worked with joined me, and she commented on how much she wanted to go there. International interns who didn't have cars were walking to the Publix parking lot in Orlando and taking a trolley all the way to Universal just to see what Hogsmeade looked like. Guests were walking into Intermission Food Court at Disney's All Star Music Resort carrying broomsticks and Butterbeer cups. They were swishing their brand new wands. It was as if my resort (which had so many Mickeys scattered about that it would be impossible to miss them) had completely Apparated onto Universal's property! At first, I was annoyed about all of these changes. Disney World wasn't making any headlines at all, and all of a sudden this magnificent thing comes and steals its thunder! But when I read the books this quarter, I finally understood why: Everybody can find themselves in some part of the books, whether it's relating to a particular character or understanding what it feels like to lose somebody so important to you. These books are huge no matter where you go in the world, and while it's easy to observe that from an outsider's point of view, like I did in June and July (the Latin Americans LOVED Wizarding World!), it's exceptionally wonderful to experience it first hand when you actually read the books.