Question Home

Position:Home>Arts & Humanities> The first time I knew I loved the Harry Potter series was when...?


Question:

The first time I knew I loved the Harry Potter series was when...?

Detailed answers please. If you put something stupid that is intentionally rude and/or in bad taste (by my standards), I will flag each response deemed rude and/or in bad taste.


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I, like many others, prefered not to fall for "the hype" and so avoided Harry Potter books until after book 4 came out. In order to give my students an incentive to read more, I decided to buy some paperbacks of the first three books to have in my classroom. Before putting them on the shelf I decided to read them, so I knew they were appropriate for my students. I ended up reading them all in less than a week, and immediately went out and bought the fourth book. Thankfully, book 5 was scheduled to come out a few months later, so I didn't have to wait too long.

I knew I liked HP, and the books were addicting, but when I read the fifth book I was completely hooked. Prior to that, the books were rather childish, which was fine because Harry was still a child. He started to mature more in book 4, but at the end when Cedric died, that was when he really had to grow up. The way that JK Rowling handled this loss... the responses that Harry had, and the way he reacted when faced with challenges to his beliefs, and the way that he dealt with the loss of Sirius, that made it all real for me. Reading OoP was equivalent to truly becoming a part of Harry's world, and feeling what he felt like never before. It was at the end of this book that I knew that I loved the series, and that it mattered to me how it progressed and ended. Even though it remains a fiction series, I still feel invested in Harry's life and quest...

The truth of the darkness in Harry's life made me love every part of the series, and see it for what it was - a child faced with many challenges now coming of age and seeing where his true path lies... Amazing.