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: To no ones surprise, the highest rated character in the book, coming in at an average of 8.25 was Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore. Fun fact about his name is that the Brian comes from one of J.K. Rowling’s friends that she would consider to be a muggle in HP world. Dumbledore is not a pure blood, so the Brian pays homage to that. I am sure we all have a Brian out there who could not possibly have any magical talent.
Anyways, despite only being a major character in only 4 out of the 17 chapters, Dumbledore still shines through. Dumbledore is the classic wise old character in the story who is respected by all, and feared by evil. He is great and knows it, but is as humble as they come. As I will discuss later, he is responsible for many of the book’s best quotes. We don’t know a great deal about Albus yet, but we can tell he is a great wizard and person.
Harry Potter: Historically I have shit on Harry Potter as being extremely overrated. He is the main character of the story, so he is bound to have some flaws. This must happen for him to overcome problems and grow throughout the series. I have to say Harry didn’t do so bad in the first book. His average character score came out to 6.625 which isn’t amazing, but is not bad.
Harry in the firsts book is just learning that he is a wizard. Like Dumbledore he is very humble, despite being famous amongst the wizarding world. He is simply solid throughout the whole book, not having many stressful chapters, but I know there will be a handful of those in books to come.
Ron Weasley: I have always viewed Ron as the most boring of the three main characters, but like Harry I was pleasantly surprised with him this book. He was a bit of a savage to be honest. Hermione as I will mention soon was a bit annoying in this book, but luckily we had Ron to call her out on it regularly. He was actually pretty funny and clever with his dialogue throughout the book, and never really had any stressful moments. Ron’s average score came out to a 6.55
Hermione Granger: Hermione showed us that she is an incredible witch in this book. Coming from a muggle family just makes it that much more impressive. Unfortunately she was a bit insufferable early in the book. She didn’t have any friends, and for good reason. After Ron, Harry, and she took on the troll on Halloween and then she covered for Harry and Ron so they wouldn’t get in trouble, she became very solid though. And if I remember correctly, she remains mostly that way for the rest of the series. Her average score came out to a 5.9, but I’m sure it will be higher in future books.
Draco Malfoy: Draco started out the series with a 6.17, a solid score. We are introduced to Harry’s school rival in a fairly negative way. It is easy to tell he is a goon, but he is still a pretty interesting character. Draco’s character arch is very interesting as the series continues on, and this book does a good job setting him up for what is to come.
Severus Snape: Snape is truly one of the best characters of the series. Throughout it J.K takes you on a ride on whether or not you like or dislike him, and whether he is a good guy or a bad one. Harry and his friends are convinced that he is a bad guy and wants to steal the stone for himself, only to learn in the big twist at the end that he really is not the man they all thought he was and that he really was trying to help them the whole time. The mystery behind this great character will only continue to grow as the series goes on. Snape scored a 6.67 out of 10.
Other Characters: There are so many great characters in Harry Potter that I don’t have time to do an individual full analysis for each one. Hagrid and Professor McGonnagal were great as expected scoring a 6.45 and 6.625 respectively. I thought Firenze, the centaur, was one of the most interesting characters, he was unfortunately only in one chapter, though he did score an 8 in it. And of course Voldemort was very interesting as well. I only rated him for one chapter, that being the last one and he scored a 7. I know he was with Quirrel the whole time, but we just didn’t get to know him well. I do like how mysterious he is at first to us. We really learn very little throughout the book. All we really know is that he is this big badass dark wizard who Harry defeated as a baby. We learn later in the book that he is most likely not dead, and plotting his return. The first three books do a great job setting up his grand return, and I can’t wait to get there as it is one of the best chapters of the whole series.
Chapter Analysis:
Best Chapter: 16: Through the Trap Door. This is what the whole book has been leading up to. Harry, Ron, and Hermione take things into their own hands and head down the trap door to try and get to the Sorcerer’s stone before someone else can. The intricate obstacles are what makes this chapter the best. They have to get through a gauntlet of obstructions set by each of the main teachers at Hogwarts. First, they must get past Fluffy, the giant three headed dog set up by Hagrid. They learned to get past him you just had to play it some music. Next, came getting past the devil’s snare, a deadly plant from professor Sprout. Next was a giant troll from professor Quirril, though it was already knocked out when they got there. Next, was a room of keys that professor Flitwick bewitched to fly away from them. The three of them had to fly through the air and wrangle the one key that got them through the next door. Next came a giant life-sized game of chess where the pieces were brought to life via professor McGonnagal. The next room is my favorite one, and I am still furious they left it out of the movie. It is a potions room with a riddle on how to get past it. Finally after getting past all of those obstacles they get to the final room which is the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore’s idea. One side note is that the idea of the Mirror of Erised is super cool. When you look into it you see your heart’s deepest desire. That is one of the better magical objects J.K. Rowling thought up. Looking back on this chapter, this is probably not the best way to guard such an important object. Many of those obstacles were very easy to get past for the three first year students, how would an elite adult wizard do?
The next two best chapters, which were all close, were the previous chapter, The Forbidden Forest, and the final chapter, The Man with Two Faces. I thought The Forbidden Forest was better though. It was very creepy, suspenseful, and added a ton of mystery to the story as a whole. This is where Firenze talks to Harry about how the stars say the humans are all pretty much screwed and that Voldemort is still around and he better watch out for him. It adds a ton to the story going forward past this book. The last chapter is great as well. It is the “final battle” so to speak with Quirrel/Voldemort. The twist that it is Quirrel and not Snape is truly a very good one. Rowling did a good job giving little hints at it along the way while not being too obvious. And once we learn this information, we as the reader are still not willing to fully trust Snape. The final battle itself was solid, but not great. Harry obtains the stone, which was probably a mistake honestly. Quirrel tries to kill him, and Harry gets lucky that he has crazy burning love powers with the touch of his hands, and kills Quirrel. The better part of the chapter comes when Harry chats with Dumbledore in the hospital wing afterwards and we get a good satisfying explanation of everything as well as loads of Dumbledore wisdom.
One final chapter that must be talked about is the first one: The Boy Who Lived. I gave it a 7.5 which is very solid, especially since nothing has happened at all in the story yet. It is a great introduction to this epic fantasy series about good vs evil. It gets you very excited for everything to come, and you just know you are about to be in for one hell of a ride.
Storylines:
The majority of the book talks about Harry Potter discovering he is a wizard, and follows his tale in his first year of school at Hogwarts. Each subsequent book follows the next year of school for Harry and his friends, but I want to look at some more intricate storylines, whether they are small ones just in this book, or ones that are set up and just beginning.
Let’s look at the major storyline for the series which is Harry Potter vs Lord Voldemort. It is made pretty obvious right away that these two are destined to do battle throughout the entire series, and that the whole thing will conclude with one of them being the winner. We don’t know Voldemort very well yet in this book which I kind of like. He is just this big mysterious guy who everyone seems to fear. Growing up away from the wizarding world, Harry does’ know anything about him. So, we get to learn about Voldy with Harry. As I mentioned earlier, the chapter The Forbidden Forest gives us our first real look and scare that Voldemort is coming back, and everyone should be scared. Then finally in the final chapter, The Man With Two Faces, we see a glimpse of what Voldemort is all about, but his true form will come later.
Severus Snape: I talked a bit about this earlier, but want to go over a few things. I think the story surrounding Snape is probably the best storyline in the entire series, and the first book does a good job getting it going. You can just tell there is a lot more to this guy than meets the eye. He is a dick to Harry and the crew, but why? As the series goes on we get some clues, but Rowling keeps the mystery of this hidden until the very end in one of the best chapters I have ever read of any book. We will get there eventually…
The friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione: If I remember correctly each book has at least one of these three people being stressful. This book it was Hermione that had a rough start as she was a bit of a busybody and was very annoying at times. It is very satisfying, however to read about how they overcame some of those issues they were having with each other and all became closer in the end. As with all friendships there are bound to be some stressful times, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione show us that true friendships can overcome anything.
Harry vs Draco: Malfoy is also one of the best characters in Harry Potter. As we learn more about him in later books we get to see how he was raised and get to know why he is such an arrogant prick. Had Harry grown up in the wizarding world, he could have had a similar arrogance and who knows, him and Draco could have been good pals. Draco is a great antagonist that we love to hate at times, but does a good job providing plenty of great problems for our heroes to overcome at school.
Quotes: On to my favorite part of these posts that I will be making. I will give a quote said by a character and discuss it’s meaning and things to take away from it. So here is a top 5 quotes from the first book:
5. “There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twilve-foot mountain troll is one of them.” (J.K. Rowling/narrator)
This quote comes at the end of the Halloween chapter. I like it because I think a lot of people can relate to it. We all have some friends that maybe we don’t even have that much in common with, but a powerful shared experience can be enough to create a friendship that lasts forever.
4. “There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” (Professor Quirrell)
Quirrell says this to Harry as they are talking before the fight in the final chapter. Voldemort got to Quirrell, who used to be a good man. It is an interesting quote which seems like a justification for being evil and allowing yourself to make terrible choices at the expense of others.
3. “The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
This is such a relatable one. Who has ever been told the importance of always telling the truth? Are you a bad person if you tell your 4 year old that Santa Clause isn’t real? Yes, absolutely. Is it right to tell your friend that he just isn’t that good at the thing he is most passionate about? No, that would be a very mean thing to do. There are plenty of instances that not telling someone the truth is the right thing to do, and now that Dumbledore said it, I am fully on board with it.
2. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” (Albus Dumbledore)
Dumbledore says this about Neville who stood up to Harry in the gang when he felt like they were being irresponsible and selfish. Standing up to your friends is often very difficult, but doing so at the appropriate time can change a friendship for the better. If the person who you are confronting can’t accept some criticism and have a rational discussion about the thing afterwards, maybe they aren’t worth being friends with.
1.”To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” (Albus Dumbledore)
There are a handful of super deep quotes throughout the series of Harry Potter. This one has such a nice sentiment behind it. It alludes to the fact that death is nothing to fear. People simply fear it because they have no idea what comes after, and the unknown can be a scary thing. Regardless of your beliefs no one can truly know what happens when we die, and there is nothing you can do about it. Since we can’t control it, there is nothing to be afraid of, and we might as well embrace the possibility of a great adventure in whatever comes next.
Final Thoughts:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a great start to an incredible journey. Reading it was so swift because it is just never slow. Even when Rowling is building her world and storylines, she is always holding her attention. I am pleased that years later I can still enjoy this simple book (in relation to the later ones) that started it all. I can’t wait to continue my magical journey to see how everything compares to each other.
