 Mystery: July 18, 2007 Issue [#1839] |
  Mystery
This week: Edited by: Tehanu  
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 "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." — Arthur Weasley
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In a few days, a mysterious package will appear on my doorstep. I’ll unwrap the parcel in extreme haste, tearing through cardboard and plastic to get to a hefty book with gilt lettering on its cover. This tome will answer a lot of questions, not just for me, but for millions of other people around the world as well.
By now, nearly everyone is familiar with the Harry Potter (HP) craze. J.K. Rowling’s latest and final installment of the boy wizard will be officially released on Saturday. Some of you HP addicts, like myself, plan to spend most of Saturday reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Some, like myself, may have dressed up in wizard attire and seen the movie adaptation of Rowling’s fifth book when the film was released last week. And others might be reading this and wondering who Harry Potter is, why he’s such a big deal, and how come a children’s book is being featured in this week’s mystery newsletter.
I was a HP skeptic until a few years ago. My friends were adamant that Rowling was a brilliant author and that I should give her a try. I was put off by how popular the books were; for some reason I expected something so mainstream to be silly and simple. Finally, I gave in to my mother, who pressed the first installment, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (as it’s called in America), into my hands.
I’m afraid the first book didn’t do much for me – it read like a rehash of stories I’d read as a child – a young orphan finds out he’s special; he then stumbles into an enchanted world where he must make friends and defeat evil. What kept me going after the first book was wondering what Rowling was going to do with the characters. At that time there were three books already printed, and an estimated additional four on the way. Surely the characters and story would continue to develop?
They did, in a big twisted way. Rowling infuses a cauldron-full of mysterious elements in her books. The cardboard characters from book one are given layers and layers of background and depth as Rowling writes on. And what’s terribly fun is that there are red herrings, cases of mistaken identity, and unsolved crimes in every wand stroke.
If you don’t like fantasy, you mayn’t like HP. However, what I love about the books is that the magical world seems to highlight the humanity of Rowling’s characters. No one is perfect, not even the headmaster. Sure, the characters can physically change into animals, inanimate objects, and other wizards, but they also have specific quirks and biases and beliefs that are shaken and changed as events are investigated. While reading, you may wonder what it is you really know about this world – what really is right – what is good, what is evil, and who’s truly on which side.
Rowling has weaved a specific, large mystery throughout the seven books. Yes, each book has its own adventure or two, but what we really want to know goes back as far as book one, when the author was setting up her overall plot. Among hundreds of questions are these big ones: What IS going to happen to Harry? What will he find out about he and his family, historically and currently? Will he truly have to resort to violence in order to stop an evil lord from controlling the wizarding world? And, of course, which main characters will Rowling kill off in the final installment?
Millions of people across the globe have immersed themselves in the world of Harry Potter. They are wondering the same things I am. These readers conjecture about the outcome, using clues from the books to make their cases. There are even websites and newspapers that encourage these fans to share their predictions and place bets on which characters will meet their doom.
It is quite a mystery. And after Saturday, we should have some answers.
Hmm, perhaps it’ll be Professor Snape, in the graveyard, with his Occlumency prowess… |
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