Harry Potter Accomplishments

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Over the past decade, the Harry Potter series has been deemed as the best selling book series and highest-grossing film series of all time. Written by the praised author J.K. Rowling, the book series has collected over seven billion dollars in revenue. The series follows the protagonist, Harry Potter, as he goes to wizard school. Each book in the series chronicles one year in Harry's life at Hogwarts, which illustrates the struggle of adolescence to readers. In the first book, Harry did not understand who he truly was because he was an orphan. Since he did not know where he came from, he was distraught because he did not know his true identity. Throughout the series, Harry endured an abundance of obstacles, such as going to a new school, to…show more content…
One of these accomplishments includes character development. In the first novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the main characters were introduced. This includes Harry, Ron, and Hermione; all who were the age of eleven. Harry was depicted as an overly confident, hot-tempered boy who was always ready to face danger head on. In Sorcerer's Stone, Harry used his first judgement of both events and people to help him make his decisions. For example, Harry thought that Snape was deliberately trying to cause him problems. Snape would constantly take points away from Harry, which made him think that Snape loathed Harry. Instead of thinking that Snape was trying to help him, Harry stuck to his gut and did not look beneath the surface of what he sees. In the sixth book The Half-Blood Prince, Harry delved into Tom Riddle's History. By doing so, this allowed Harry to begin to see people's motives. He also grew empathy, which was ultimately what gave him his strength to sacrifice himself to save his loved ones. From this newly gained strength, Harry was able to defeat Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. The development of Harry's character throughout the series relates to readers because as people, we eventually learn to become selfless for the betterment of others. Even though Harry was conceited, he put his judgemental ways aside to become a magnanimous man. Along with…show more content…
One of the major themes of the series was making choices. In Sorcerer's Stone, Dumbledore said, “It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.” This was shown in the first book (Sorcerer's Stone) when Harry chose to risk winning the TriWizard tournament in order of Fleur's sister to be safe. This choice showed how Harry made a selfless decision to protect his loved ones. Along with this, Harry chose to claim the Gobelt of Fire with Cedric in the fourth book (Goblet of Fire). Unfortunately, Cedric was murdered. Harry then risked his life to bring Cedric's body back to his parents. Although Harry put himself at risk, he made the choice to attempt to do what he thought was right. The other major theme of the series was death. In the very beginning of Sorcerer's Stone, Harry's parents were killed by Voldemort. This shadow of death loomed over Harry, especially after he found out that he was the intended target. From this moment on, Harry was always considered as Voldemort's target. However, Harry always narrowly escaped death. At the end of the fourth book (Goblet of Fire), a school friend was killed right before Harry's eyes. In the fifth book (Order of the Phoenix), Harry lost his newly godfather, along with losing his beloved mentor, Dumbledore, in the sixth (Half-Blood Prince). Yes, death was a constant visitor to Harry's world. These deaths
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