Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone-J.K. Rowling

How I found this book: I was actually introduced to the movie first. It hadn’t even come out on video yet, one of my friends had an illegal bootleg and had brought it to one of my drinking, boozy parties, (don’t ask me why we’d watch Harry Potter at a booze party, we were young and drunk!) It got left, and so I decided to watch it the next day again, this time sober, and found I kind of liked it. Now, eight years later, as I stare at a movie calendar on my office wall, I think Harry’s story kind of stuck.

Setting: The school year of ’91-’92, (when I myself was only a wee thing of 14, barely older than Harry,) at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, somewhere in Scotland.

Main Characters:

Harry Potter: He for whom the books are named, Harry is one of the most famous children in the secret world of witches and wizards, only he doesn’t know it. Raised by a horrid aunt and uncle after the death of his magical parents, he isn’t even aware of his true powers until a mysterious letter arrives one day telling him that he has a place at a magical school. A whole new world opens up for Harry, one with magic wands, broomsticks, and all manner of strange, new people, some of whom are friendly, and some he discovers are not. Most of all, Harry begins to unravel the mystery of his past, of who he is, why he’s famous, and why he wasn’t killed too that fateful Halloween night so many years before when his parents perished at the hands of the darkest wizard ever known, “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”. He is smallish for his age, with a mop of black, untamable hair, and emerald green eyes with glasses, and a jagged, lightening bolt scar on his forehead that seems to give him some mysterious connection to the dark wizard, Voldemort.

The Dursleys: Harry’s mother’s sister and her husband and child, they have raised Harry since he was one, after the death of Harry’s mother, Lily and her husband, James. Petunia and Vernon, his aunt and uncle, are particularly afraid of magic, and try to stamp any possibility of it out of Harry, at the same time trying to ensure that he remembers that he is in no way better than their spoiled, fat son Dudley. Dudley’s main role in life is to eat, watch television, and bully his cousin. Aunt Petunia is tall, boney, and horse-faced, Uncle Vernon is large, red-faced, and usually loud, and Dudley is fat, and bullying.

Professor Albus Dumbledore: The headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Professor Dumbledore is who deposits Harry on his aunt’s doorstep after his parents’ death. Dumbledore is a great wizard, as Harry finds out, famous in his own time for both defeating the dark wizard, Grindelwald, but also for discovering the twelve uses of dragon’s blood with his friend, Nicholas Flamel, a noted alchemist, and creator of the Philosopher’s Stone, (called Sorcerer’s Stone in America because they assume American school children are idiots.) Dumbledore is a bit of a mystery for Harry, appearing both very wise, and in the words of Percy Weasley, perhaps a bit mad. He’s a tall, thin wizard, with a long silver beard and hair, and a crooked nose, where he has half-moon spectacles that perch in front of sparkling blue eyes.

Professor Minerva McGonagall: The head of Gryffindor House, Harry’s house in school, she is also the Transfiguration teacher, and an avid fan of the wizarding sport of Quidditch. She bends the rules to allow Harry to join the house team his first year as a Seeker. She is a thin, black-haired witch, which is usually kept up in a tight bun, severe in her demeanor, though she often shows a soft side. She is also an animagus, and can change her form from human to a cat, with spectacle markings around her eyes, (analogous to the human glasses she wears).

Rebeus Hagrid: The Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, he is a large, friendly man who actually helped Dumbledore deliver Harry to the Dursleys when he was a baby. He collects Harry from his all too unwilling aunt and uncle, and is the first person to introduce Harry to the world of magic. He is a kind hearted soul, despite his fierce appearance, and he is very attached to Harry. He is impossibly big for a human, both in height and in proportions, with wiry hair and beard, and a moleskin coat with which he keeps all manner of things. He carries around a pink umbrella that holds the remains of his wand, which was broken when he was expelled from Hogwarts his third year.

Ronald Weasley: Harry’s first friend in the wizarding world, (or ever for that matter), Ron comes from a very large, very red-haired, and very poor family. Despite this, they seem to be very caring, and Ron himself is very loyal to Harry, even if he can be a bit rude, abrasive, and self-absorbed. The Weasley’s are an old, Pureblood family, despite their poverty, and unlike other Pureblood families like the Malfoys, they are known for sympathizing with Muggles, or non-magic people. Ron is the youngest son of the large Weasley clan, consisting of five boys older than Ron, and one girl younger than Ron, his sister Ginny. Ron can sometimes be lazy, loves to eat, and is often seen quarreling with Hermione Granger. He is tall and thin, with a long, thin nose, and bright red hair, with blue eyes.

Hermione Granger: Harry’s second best friend, Hermione at first puts off both Harry and Ron by her know-it-all manner and her strict outlook in terms of rules, (something both Harry and Ron are willing to bend). She befriends the pair, however, after an incident with a troll brought them all close. Hermione is the only daughter of Muggle parents, (neither of her parents is magical), and while she wasn’t raised in the wizarding world as Ron was, she has made up for this by reading about it prodigiously. While she is often the ‘bossy, big sister’ type to Harry, (she is in fact ten months older than he is), she is most often seen quarreling with Ron, as her punctual, precise manner, and her determination to get things done often clash with his nature. She has very bushy, brown hair, and front teeth that are slightly too long in the front, (the irony of that being that Hermione’s parents are both dentists.)

Draco Malfoy: Harry and Ron’s immediate enemy, Draco is from a very rich, very powerful wizarding family, who had ties to the evil wizard who killed Harry’s parents. He is a member of Slytherin House, and is haughty, conceited, and dislikes Harry, Ron, and Hermione immensely. He tries as best he might to get the three in trouble, usually by luring them into traps, or makes fun of them all in front of their classmates. He is a thin, pointy faced boy, with silvery-blonde hair, and gray eyes.

Professor Severus Snape: Harry’s other great enemy at Hogwarts, he is the Potions professor, and head of Slytherin House. He takes an immediate dislike for Harry, though Harry doesn’t understand why, and seems to go out of his way to make Harry’s life difficult, even unjustly so. Dumbledore tells Harry that much of this stems from an incident when Snape was in school with Harry’s own father, where James Potter saved the other man’s life. This was much to Snape’s chagrin as he hated James. Snape is a tall man, with greasy, lank black hair, and sallow, yellow skin, and dark, black eyes. He is often described as ‘bat-like’, swooping down on students.

Professor Quirrel: The professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Quirrel is a nervous man, who tends to stutter and shake, and seems afraid of his own shadow, which is funny as he teaches a class on how to defend yourself against magical evils and dark creatures. He wears a turban on his head he claims he received as a gift, and is often made fun off by the students.

Lord Voldemort: The evilest Dark Wizard in generations, Lord Voldemort and his followers had been at war with the wizarding world in the years leading up to Harry’s birth. They caused a general feeling of dread and fear, and using terrorist tactics spread their message of hate. For reasons unclear to most people, on Halloween Night, 1981, he attacked James and Lily Potter in their home in Godric’s Hollow, before attacking their small son, Harry. For whatever reason, however, the Killing Curse he turned on the toddler backfired, and killed him instead of Harry, leaving the child with the lightening shaped scar. While many rejoice and celebrate Harry as being the reason for “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s” downfall, (he was so feared, people couldn’t say his name), there is a suspicion that Voldemort isn’t dead, and that somehow he survived and is biding his time till his return.

Plot: Harry Potter is an orphaned, ten-going-on-eleven-year old boy, raised by his mean aunt and uncle, and putting up with his bullying cousin. He of course dreams of having another life, but he never imagined that indeed…he does have one. Unbeknownst to Harry, he is indeed a wizard, part of a long line of witches and wizards, as were his parents, and that he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn how to use his talents. What opens up for Harry is a whole world of magic, from his first wand to broomsticks, Charms to Potions, as well as his first real friends, and his first real enemies. But what else begins to unfold for Harry is the truth about his past, about why it was his parents died when he was a baby, and who is responsible for it…and why it is that the wizards and witches of Great Britain call him “The-Boy-Who-Lived.” Now at Hogwarts, Harry makes instant enemies with one of his professors, Severus Snape, who seems to hate him on sight for reasons he can’t understand. One possible answer might lay in the strange thing that the Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore has protected in the banned third floor wing, something so powerful that duplicitous Snape might not be able to resist trying to get it, but for whom? Harry learns that sometimes old enemies are hard to kill, especially when they are powerful enough and evil enough to manage to subvert death, and are eager to try and find ways to come back into the world of the living and take hold once again.

Themes:

Even an ordinary boy can be special: Harry, all things considered, isn’t an extraordinary boy or wizard. He is smallish, of average intelligence, and like most boys his age is curious, has a healthy disregard for rules, and a bit obstinate when it comes to over-bearing authority. But despite Harry being ordinary, he really is extraordinary in many other ways, and not just the fact he survived an attack that should have killed him. He has great heart, and hasn’t been beaten down by all that life has thrown his way. He is loyal to his friends; even if it means that he makes enemies of others, or occasionally gets himself in trouble for it. And despite the many fears and insecurities he has, he stands up and tries to overcome them. In Harry lies a bit of all of us, a hero who really is a very normal person, but who chooses to do great things.

Doing what is right isn’t necessarily doing what is easy: This is one of the major themes Rowling has running through the entire series, and it starts early with Harry making decisions that often get him in trouble, (such as with Hermione and the troll, or Hagrid and the dragon), but which in the end are in his mind the right things to do. No one said it was easy trying to do what was right, but sometimes it just has to be done.

The connection between Lord Voldemort and Harry: The mystery begins here, where a powerful dark wizard tries to kill Harry, with no real explanation given. There seems to be some sort of weird connection between the two, though no answers are given in this book, it is the central theme on which the entire plot of the series pivots, and what the great mystery is linking the two together.

Why in the world does Dumbledore keep Snape around again: OK, this is never answered to the very LAST book in the series, but it begins to be a bigger and bigger question in the series as Snape continuous to be a pain in Harry’s side and a more and more mysterious character, who might not be as EV-AL as Harry thinks he is, but he is certainly up to something.

It does no good to dwell on dreams and to forget how to live: Perhaps the first, really important lesson Harry has had to learn, it is hard for a boy whose only had dreams and wishes to keep him going to let go of those dreams and live his life. As we find out in the series, perhaps no one understands that better than Albus Dumbledore, who gives Harry this sage advice. Dreams can be all consuming, but are ultimately fleeting. Life can be a much better adventure.

Every book sucks somewhere: There are few reasons I can think of for this book sucking. It was a marvelous first outing. My one complaint lies in the timeline at the beginning between when Harry’s parents are killed and when Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall deliver him to the Dursley’s. This is a point that has been argued and re-argued by fans, and I think the best way to answer it is leave it up to your imagination.

Also, Scholastic, (the American publishers), WHY did you need to change it from Philospher’s Stone, (which is a historic concept), to Sorcerer’s Stone. Really…that was just silly. Have a kid pick up an encyclopedia for crying out loud!

What did I like: All of it! This is a great, interesting, fun world, and a great new retelling of a very old story, of the hero who must go out on his quest. Of course, this hero’s quest involves Quidditch, evil wizards, and the Weasley twins, which makes it all the more fun.

How would I rate this wormy book: This is a big, MONSTER WORM. Even if you think that Harry Potter got sucked into pop cultural hype, the fact is this first story is so much fun, and so addictive, and so entrancing, that you realize that it really is a ton of fun to read. And besides, who doesn’t want to have a magic wand, a broomstick, and go to school in a castle?