Somewhat recently I have decided to reread the entire Harry Potter series again. It has been at least five years, probably more since I have done so, so I am well overdue. I have lost count how many times I have read the entire series, I would guess this is my 5th. I believe this is one of the greatest fictional things ever created. In this post, and ones following it as I read each subsequent book I will go over things like best characters, chapters, storylines, quotes, and things I learned.
Character Analysis:
Albus Dumbledore: Once again our wise old headmaster at Hogwarts takes the highest ranked spot on the list scoring an average of 8/10. He once again only was even notably in 3 of the 18 chapters, but he was pretty awesome in the ones he was in. He was asked to resign due to all of the attacks at the school, but was pretty badass about his exit, and then as everyone knows, he is good for some pure wisdom at the end of the book, once everything is resolved.
The fact that Dumbledore is hardly in the first few books, is a point of concern. Crazy shit is going on all over Hogwarts in the Chamber of Secretsssssss, and you would think that Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards to ever live, could play a bigger part in dealing with the chaos. I suppose he doesn’t because if he was in Harry’s position, he would probably figure everything out and deal with the problems going on way to fast, and that wouldn’t make for a good story.
GIlderoy Lockhart: The new defense against the dark arts teacher, Lockhart, made my least favorite book in the series, much more enjoyable this time around. He was hands down my favorite regular character in the book. Now I know many of you are wondering how I can like a twat such as Gildroy so much. He is one of the most arrogant characters J.K. created in her entire series, and he is completely undeserving of that arrogance, and that is why he is so entertaining. Every single time he is in a chapter of this story, he takes the spotlight. He always offers some absurd advice, or boasts in a hilarious way. Lockhart scored and average of 6.83 and was notable in 6 of the 18 chapters.
Harry Potter: Our main character of the series did worse this time around as a character. He scored an average of 5.66 out of 10. He is unfortunately a little more confident in himself, much different from is humble beginnings. His biggest flaw, as I think is pretty common of main characters, is that he never asks for help from the older, wiser, and better wizards he is around. He has a blatant chance in this book where Dumbledore asks to see him, to tell him about everything that is happening. Harry completely trusts Dumbledore, you might even say he idolizes him. So why the hell wouldn’t he tell him about his weird parselmouth problems, amongst other things. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Harry, he is just pretty consistently a 5 or a 6 each chapter, just solid, and there to move the story along.
Ron Weasley: Ron also didn’t do very hot this book. He scored a 5.37 average much lower than book one. One absurd minor plot this book was with Ron breaking his wand when him and Harry crashed the car. This caused Ron to literally never be able to do any magic correctly for the entire year. You would think the teachers would not allow a student to learn with an absurdly broken wand. The point of this was for the payoff later with Lockhart, where Gildroy steals Ron’s wand to try and use his memory charm against them to wipe their memories and be seen as the hero once again. Unfortunately for Lockhart the wand backfires and Lockhart loses his mind. Ron, again like Harry, wasn’t a bad character. He just wasn’t as awesome as he was in the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Hermione Granger: Even Hermione scored disappointingly low this book with only a 5.5. Again nothing was horrible with her, she is still a brilliant witch, she just wasn’t given many opportunities to shine through in this book It also doesn’t help that she sat out the final conflict due to her getting petrified. I look forward to getting to Prisoner of Azkaban where I know she kicks some serious ass.
Other Characters: Some other characters worth noting in the book are McGonnagal, Snape, Peeves, and Voldemort/Tom Riddle.
McGonnagal is that stern, loving mother, who is constantly just so solid throughout the whole series, it was no different here as she scored a 7.
Snape, took a more minor role this time, but still remained very mysterious and scored a 6.67.
Peeves was great in this book. There is a very serious scene where Harry stumbles across Justin Flynch-Fletchley, who has just been petrified by the basilisk. Harry is already on thin ice with the school who thinks he is to blame. Harry tries to leave the scene quietly when peeves arrives. He starts screeching that Harry attacked Justin and everyone comes running out to see. And amidst the chaos, he even creates a hilariously dark poem about Harry, and recites in, cackling, as everyone looks on tensely. Peeves scored an average of 7.5, it is truly a shame he was left out of the movie adaptations.
And finally we have Lord Voldemort/Tom Riddle. At this point we still don’t know a great deal about Voldy, and aren’t even sure he will appear in this book. The story does a great job building up Voldemort in the first three books, until we finally get his full resurgence in book 4. Voldemort was only notable in two chapters here, but still averaged a 7.5.
Chapter Analysis:
Best Chapter: 18: Dobby’s Reward. The best chapter in the book in my opinion is the last chapter. The choice here might be a little controversial, over the previous chapter, The Heir of Slytherin. The book wraps up with another very satisfying close. Harry explains how he defeated Voldemort again to a bunch of shocked adults, and his friends. Then, they have a great school feast where Gryffindors wins the house cup do to Harry’s heroics, again. Harry and Dumbledore of course have a great, wise, conversation. But the part that puts it over the edge is with Lucious and Dobby. We learn that Dobby is the Malfoy’s house elf and that he was acting under orders of Lucious the whole time. Dobby really does care for Harry throughout the whole process but can’t really disobey his master. We also learn that it was Lucios that gave Ginny the diary in the first place, showing how bad of a dude he is. I was a little surprised Dumbledore didn’t take more aggressive action against him when he learned this. But then Harry cleverly puts the diary in a sock of his and puts in Malfoy’s hands. He disgustedly tosses the diary and sock to Dobby which then counts as giving Dobby clothing, which sets him free. Lucious then gets pissed at Harry over this, and tries to curse him. Dobby, a now free elf, loves Harry and uses elf magic, which is different than wizard but still powerful, to stop Lucious, and sends him flying across the room and tumbling down a flight of stairs.
Other Notable Chapters:
Two other great chapter that need mentioning are chapter 13: The Very Secret Diary, and Chapter 17: The heir of Slytherin. Chapter 13 was another excellent mysterious chapter, that has you on the edge of your seat. Harry discovers he can communicate with the Diary by writing in it, a very clever use of a magical item by Rowling. By this we learn some important information about the Chamber of Secrets, and this seemingly solid Tom Riddle.
Chapter 17 is the climax of the book where Harry fights and defeats the basilisk and Riddle. The whole thing is a standard epic action chapter that I rated an 8 out of 10. It was good, but just not as good as pretty much every other climax of every other book in the series. Harry pulling the sword of Griffindore was cool, and Fawks saving the day was great, but it just wasn’t amazing.
One final chapter to note is chapter 8: The Deathly Party. It is notable because it might be the most boring chapter Rowling wrote in the whole series. I gave it a 3 out of 10. The gang goes to Nearly Headless Nick’s deathly party on Halloween instead of going to the awesome Halloween feast. The party is very boring and hardly adds anything to the story. I also mention it because it seems like there were many chapters like this in The Chamber of Secrets, which is why it is the worst book by far in the series. There were three in a row that I scored a 3, 3, and 4 respectively where noting would happen the whole chapter, and then at the very end something somewhat notable would happen, but not good enough to make up for the dullness that came before it. The average chapter score of this book was a 6/10, which is nothing compared to the 7.7 the the first book received.
Storylines:
Harry vs Voldemort: This is the grand storyline the series takes on. This book probably dives the shallowest into it. Most of the book Voldemort’s name is nowhere to be heard. It isn’t until the end that we see how the main story affected Harry and Voldemort. While not much time is devoted to it, we will revisit the idea of the diary in later books and see how important it ends up being.
The Chamber of Secrets: Solving the mystery of the Chamber is what this book revolves around. It is a good story, but takes up pretty much the whole book, not leaving room for much else. It was cool how they tied in Hagrid and Moaning Myrtle into it, but as a whole just wasn’t that great.
Harry, Ron, and Hermoine’s relationship: The first book did a great job starting the friendship that these three have. This book they are all much better friends and more comfortable with each other. There aren’t many conflicts between them or any other friends though in this book. Hermione of course gets petrified which allows Harry and Ron to be a doubles team, taking on Aragog and the Chamber without Hermoine’s help. One thing is for sure they would have done much better if she was around.
Harry vs Draco: This rivalry was continued a little bit, but not much. We had a good chapter in the Dueling club, as well as when Harry and Ron took the Polyjuice potion and interacted with Draco, but as a whole these two didn’t do much battle. We did learn more about the Malfoy battle in general though, and learned that the Malfoy’s are more likely than not, actually evil. That will add to the tension and rivalry between the two in later books.
Unfortunately that is really it for interesting storylines in this book. One thing I am realizing as I am writing this is that we didn’t get any Neville time the whole book, come on J.K.
Quotes: This was another area the book was seriously lacking. There were only four quotes worth noting in the whole book, so at least I didn’t have to make any tough choices. Each of these is still very good though:
4. “Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can’t see where it keeps it’s brain.” -Molly Weasley. This is an interesting quote regarding artificial intelligence. In this instance it has to do with the Diary and even though it seems cool and friendly, that you should at least be weary of it.
3. “Still, if you ever feel the need for a little private training, don’t hesitate to ask. Always happy to pass on my expertise to less abled players.” -Gildroy Lockhart. I laughed out loud while reading that. Just an example of why Lockhart is an awesome character. I need to remind myself to use this line on certain friends…
2. “You will find that I will only truly have left the school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” -Albus Dumbledore. This is the last thing Dumbledore says before being kicked out of Hogwarts. the first part is kind of badass, and the second part is for Harry who is under the invisibility cloak and Dumbledore just knows he is there. It is perfect for Harry, who thus far should have already asked for help but is stubborn. And it is important because later he does actually ask for help in the final battle, and what do you know, it is given to him. On a more real life note, the second part of that quote can apply to many others in life. People are often very reluctant to ask for help as they don’t want to burden those who they ask. But helping others is very rewarding, and most people will jump at the chance if asked. There are certainly several times in my life that I should have asked, but chose not to, something I am better at these days I like to think.
1. “It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” -Albus Dumpleore. This is just classic Dumbledore, such a good life quote that everyone can relate to. Not everyone is the same in life, some people are blessed with great abilities, but cursed by others. But really it doesn’t matter and it is what you chose to do with what you are given that does.
Final thoughts: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is very entertaining, as all the books are. It is just way less entertaining than the first book, and all the others if I remember correctly. There were some good new characters, but the development of some of our favorites from the first book took a bit of a back seat. The middle of the book just didn’t have that same magic as the first one. We learned so many new and cool things in the first one, something this one failed to do. At this point we still know so little about the wizarding world, and there is much more to learn in the future books, something I remember Rowling does very well in books to come. Thank god this book is over with, it’s time to get serious with The Prisoner of Azkaban.
Warning on saying its time to get serious now with book 3! The Chamber of Secrets has so much story to tell. Every message isn’t always written on the page. Sometimes the story is within. I feel sorry that your simple brain couldn’t handle the depth and complexity hidden within this books pages.