This is it...The final week of our very first Halloween celebration.

 

 

On this last week before Halloween, I thought I’d take us back into the realm of fiction and fantasy with a look at the Harry Potter franchise. (The Walter Mercado book has the slight problem of not being Halloween-y enough, but at least I had the germ of this post’s idea bubbling away in the back of my head.)

When the first book came out in, oh, 1999/2000 or so, I hadn’t read it until Christmas of that year, so as usual I was a bit out-of-step compared to the rest of the world…about all I remember is one or two kids dressing up as him for Halloween at Central Junior High.

It’s not a very awe-inspiring start, is it? Oh, dear me…Ask me anything about Doctor Who and I’ll yammer on until your head explodes, but ask me about Harry Potter and I’ve got little to say. 

For me, the books are a good but unmemorable read, but they sparked a renaissance of “realistic fantasy” that still resonates today—I need only bring up Once Upon a Time, Warehouse 13, and Steven Moffat’s present-day take on Doctor Who as examples. All of these shows combine magical elements with modern, real-world sensibilities, and J.K. Rowling’s books are kind of a trend-setter in this light. There were other, similar works, but Harry Potter is the first mainstream example of “magical realism” done consistently.

Perhaps the series’ impact is greatest on film. The Harry Potter movie franchise took the then-unprecedented step of allowing its characters and actors to age in real-time. The filmmakers and executives at Warner Bros. should be applauded for their faith in the source material, but keep in mind that there almost wasn’t a series. The original approach, per the first movie’s DVD extras, would have been a “greatest hits” reel from the first three books, condensed into Harry Potter: The Movie. When this just didn’t work, everyone said “Okay, let’s just adapt the first book straight and see what happens.” (Interesting side note: Harry Potter’s then-competitor, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, attempted this approach and suffered as a result.)

Adapting each book turned out to be a good decision, because the books start out as a lighthearted children’s series with slightly dark overtones, but things get dark starting around Book 3 (I maintain that this third book is the midpoint of the series, the “grey area.”) People that you’ve come to identify with start dying and not even magic can bring them back. By the final book, the “chosen boy” has grown into a young man running for his life, and the world that once loved and revered him has turned against him.

A lesser series might not have moved past the lightweight fantasy, but Harry Potter stands out as a hallmark of the New Millennium for never talking down to its readers.