It's Voldemort or me this time

I must disclaim that in this entry, much like the F-1 Races, there will be spoilers. This is your final warning...

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Got it? All right. This is gonna be lengthy. I feel both Rowling and Potter deserve it.

So, as you have already gathered, I am now joining the millions and millions of bloggers accross the internets in posting about one of my generations' most notable pop culture events: the release and reading of the Seventh Harry Potter book. I have, like many of my friends, been reading the Harry Potter series since it came out. I read the first two when I was in Junior High, after my mother ordered them from some book club. I thought they were pretty fantastic, but I don't think I really, really fell in love with them until the fifth volume. I am not entirely certain what it was about that particular one, but by that point, I felt as if the events in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's lives were happening to real friends of mine. I suffered and rejoiced as they did.

Somehow despite all of that I didn't read the sixth book until a half-year after it was released. When I finally did get around to it, after re-reading the fourth and fifth installments, the book left an indelible mark on my psyche as no work of fiction ever had. Maybe because the troubles in the books worked as a proper escape to the difficult relationship problems I was going through at the time, and perhaps because Harry's love interest in the book struck me in a way I'd never felt (it's true; a fictional character had stolen my heart, something which perhaps only Pippi Longstocking can also lay claim).

As things happen, my constant thoughts about what might happen to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny dwindled, but the undying psychological mark carved by Half-Blood Prince remained, and I had not forgotten it by the time Deathly Hallows was finally released over a year after I had finished the previous book. A few days before the release I re-read Half-Blood Prince, and even knowing what was coming in the narrative didn't stop it from being every bit as intense at the first time (my faulty memory helped with that as well).

I picked up my pre-ordered copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows one day after the release. I was immediately both impressed and apprehensive at the simple note on the inside of the dust jacket, in place of a lengthy description: "We now present the seventh and final installment in the epic tale of Harry Potter." I opened the book to discover two lengthy quotations prefacing the story, both of them relating to death. I knew that book seven would be a serious, and perhaps deadly, narrative from what J.K. Rowling had already said about it. She had even stated that, initially, writing the book felt like "a bereavement." I was prepared for the worst.

Indeed, the book has the highest death count of any of the series by far, many of them important and beloved characters. In the first couple days of reading the book, I was almost frightened to return to it, scared of what things Harry might lose when I turned a page. Sometimes the feeling in my stomach was akin to the tingling before a job interview, or while mustering up the courage to ask someone out (fortunately I know about this).

If I were an easy crier, I would definitely have shed tears at numerous points in the book. I did feel that lurching and wonderful joyous tear-welling at least once, as the heroes began to retake their school and certain characters who in lesser narratives would be relegated to comedy relief positions proved themselves to be something more (Neville Longbottom, specifically).

I was not surprised that Harry Potter was to "die." The ominous feeling about the book was too much to expect any less, although I was not sure whether to expect him to die with finality, or to die temporarily as he did in the book. The connections between this part of the book and certain Biblical narratives are too obvious to overlook, but more on that later. I had half expected Ron or Hermoine to meet a horrible fate, or even Ginny, but I was overjoyed that this didn't happen. It's a testament to the strength of Rowling's characters that I felt for each and every one of them who died, even the minor figures.

All of this emotional strength has caused me to wonder what it is about Rowling's writing that makes it so endearing to me, and to the millions of others that caused Deathly Hallows to break sales records so easily. I am still not sure, but my attention wasn't lost on an article I read connecting Rowling's narratives to Biblical narratives. It implied that we, as humans, are drawn to things which show us our supernatural destiny and how we must achieve it. Rowling has announced her Christianity, although whether she intended certain elements in Harry Potter to be Biblical allegory, we may never know. Certainly Harry's death, descension, resurrection, and subsequent obliteration of a most high evil can quickly be seen as a similarity to Jesus's experiences on Earth. Deathly Hallows is also the only Harry Potter book to contain direct quotations from the Bible, although they are not labeled as such.

As far as Christians being opposed to the story and themes contained in Harry Potter, I can't imagine there being a more misappropriated concern. If they think we have anything to be afraid of from Harry Potter, perhaps they should reexamine the fiction of the infallible CS Lewis. He certainly wasn't afraid to write about magic. In any case, I have to quote here a resonating section from the article I read earlier today: "Rowling is a satirist of the first rank, I think, and she isn't pulling any punches in the books in her critique of government, the courts, the media, institutional schooling, organized sports, everything oddly enough except religion."

I am sad to see the Harry Potter series end, but I can't deny that it left in a proper fashion. I think Rowling's decision to end the series with finality was a wise one. That way Potter wouldn't end up in a position like Sherlock Holmes, dead at the hands of a villain and an author who was tired of forever writing his stories. Deathly Hallows wrapped everything up in a fashion which I found suitable and fitting for the tired hero. Our beloved characters, nineteen years later, married as we had hoped they would be, and with no more brooding evil hovering over their heads. At the moment I feel strangely detached from Harry Potter, where previously I felt like he and his friends were almost a part of me. Perhaps because I know, finally, that they are safe and will live, that part of me can, at length, relax.

It's strange to say these things about a group of humans who have never existed, but I only express what I feel.

I'm not sure how long my feelings of infatuation and identification with the world of Harry Potter will remain with me, until something else overtakes them (I am, after all, a human being subject to the ebb and flow of emotions), but I know for sure that I will always remember the indelible mark that Rowling has left not only on me, but on the culture of nations accross the globe.