NEW INFORMATION FROM JK ROWLING

J.K. Rowling reveals tidbits of the wizarding world on the site called Pottermore. Over this summer, she covered this year's World Cup from Ginny Weasley (now Potter)'s point of view along with Rita Skeeter. In this article, she sneaked in little bits of information about our favorite witches and wizards and their current lives.

On Halloween, she produced another one of these enlightening articles. This time about Dolores Umbridge. This blog will contain a few spoilers regarding the hated Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Harry endured during his fifth year at Hogwarts.

Apparently Umbrigde, was not a pure blood witch as she would have everyone believe. Her mother was a muggle, her brother a squib (a person who should have magic abilities but does not) and her father was a wizard, however he was just a janitor for the Ministry of Magic. Dolores, as those of you who have read the series know, is a ruthless power hungry lunatic. She cut ties with her mom and brother at the mere age of fifteen, and denied any relation to her father after she made her way into the Ministry of Magic. Poor Dolores had the misfortune of leading a loveless life, because no man could stomach her unsavory personality.

As Dolores got older her obsession with little girlish things became more serious. She loved pink, frills, and kittens. This just doesn't seem to fit with her power crazed self who convinced the Minister of Magic that Dumbledore was nuts and Dolores could be trusted.

She's not a huge fan of beings who are not completely human. She hated Hagrid, is terrified of Centaurs, and is not afraid to hide her views, which got her into a lot of trouble in the end of the fifth book. Unfortunately for Umbridge, she went a little too nuts and had to leave Hogwarts to return the the Ministry.

After the rise of Lord Voldy, Dolores was in the position she was born to play. She accused and convicted Muggle borns of stealing their wands. After the fall of Lord Voldemort, Dolores herself was put on trial for causing so many innocent people so much pain,

Book vs. Movie: Prisoner of Azkaban Edition

This movie was pretty bad. The movie itself would've been good(ish) if it had just been a movie. But because it's supposed to follow the book, or at least do so closely, it sucked,

To start things off, Aunt Marge does become a large balloonish woman floating on the ceiling of the Dursley's home, but in the movie, Aunt Marge the balloon escapes and is floating all around Surrey. Granted this does add a bit of humor to the movie, but it was just annoyingly inaccurate. The Knight Bus scene in the movie was a little over done if you ask me. There is no mention of the talking severed head in the book. Once again, it made the movie a bit funnier, but it was weird. Harry's time spent in Diagon Alley wasn't really touched upon in the movie, this bummed me out a little bit because I think Diagon Alley would be an awesome place to explore.

In the book, Harry's broomstick gets destroyed by the Whomping Willow after he passes out and falls off of it during a Quidditch match. He receives a surprise in the mail after this tragedy from an unknown gift giver, it's a Firebolt, the best broomstick in the business. In the movie, Harry gets his Firebolt from Sirius at the very end of the movie, and he just knows who it's from!

At the very end of the movie/book Harry and Hermione travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius and they are not supposed to interact with themselves at all, but Hermione throws rocks at them to get their attention.

These are just a few differences among many. As I warned you guys before, the differences get worse and worse as the series goes on.

 

I'm going to continue with the series, so that my non Potters will not get left behind.

The third book in the series is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is probably one of my favorite books in the series, well let's be real, I could say that about at least four of them. Anywho, Harry is thirteen in this one, and he is about to enter his third year at Hogwarts. As usual, the Dursleys are being awful, however this time, there is a fourth one to contend with. Aunt Marge is visiting, and she is a handful, she almost hates Harry more than Voldemort. Towards the end of her visit, Harry loses his cool, and accidentally blows her up. Not like KABOOM, he just inflates her and she becomes very round. He panics and runs away with all of his wizard things, he is on the run for uhhh say an hour when the Knight Bus picks him up. This is a magical bus that just pops around the countryside picking up wizards who need a ride. The bus takes him to Diagon Alley, where he expects to be caught and thrown out of school for use of magic and all that fun stuff. However, everyone is just happy he's alive.

Turns out there is a crazy, mass murderer on the lose. His name is Sirius Black. Harry soon learns that Black is out to get him because he was a huge supporter of Voldy. He's not really affected by this until he learns that Sirius betrayed his parents to Voldemort and is the reason they are dead. Then Harry becomes quite bloodthirsty himself.

Professor Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor becomes Harry's mentor and friend. He gets quite salty with Harry though when he finds the Marauder's Map, which shows where everyone in the castle is. Harry sees Peter Pettigrew, who Sirius has supposedly murdered years ago.

To make a long story short, Pettigrew is Ron's pet rat, Scabbers, he an animagous. Sirius is a good guy, and was Harry's dad's best friend, he's also an animagous, a big doggie, and he wanted to kill Peter who was actually the one that betrayed Lily and James. James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter were bffs in school, and it turns out Sirius is Harry's godfather. Also, Lupin is a werewolf.

Harry and Hermione save Sirius's life and Buckbeak, a hippogriff.

It's really a good one, so read it!

So a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I would focus on the symbolism and themes that are in Harry Potter. It really is surprising how many deeper meanings J.K. Rowling slid into the books. As a third grader I never realized what was going on, but as I got older I was able to pick up on more.

One of the most obvious themes in the series is love. Harry's mother died to save his life, she sacrificed herself for him, the most absolute sign of love. It is her love that in fact saves Harry's life from Voldemort when he tries to kill him, the curse rebounds off of him at gets Voldemort instead, who doesn't have an ounce of love in his life. Lily Potter's love is the reason Voldemort is unable to touch Harry, the love that saved him runs in his blood. This is why Voldemort used Harry's blood in his resurrection in the fourth book, which we haven't covered yet. He wanted to take the thing that defeated him so that he was invincible, or at least that's what his plan was.

After Harry's parents died, he lived a loveless life. The Dursleys were horrible to him, they treated him poorly and made sure he didn't feel like part of the family. When he went to Hogwarts he found the family he never had. Ron, Hermione and Harry created a bond that was thicker than any blood relation, and their love and bonds never wavered. Ron's family welcomed Harry with open arms and made him feel welcomed in their home. Dumbledore and the other staff members, helped Harry grow and learn.

Love is powerful and dangerous, and J.K. Rowling does a beautiful job of illustrating this theme.

As in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, there are a lot of differences between the book and the movie in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. For those of you not as picky as me, or as I like to say, not as observant, here are a few of the things the film missed.

While Harry is staying with the Weasley's they don't degnome the garden in the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the book, of course, I liked anything with the twins in it. They are my absolute favorites! Another interesting part of the book was Sir Nicholas' deathday party. This was "celebration" commemorating the day that Sir Nicholas was nearly beheaded, also Harry, Ron, and Hermione met Moaning Myrtle at this party. It seemed really cool in the story and it would've been interesting to see it portrayed in the movie. THERE'S NO PEEVES!! This really peeved me... see what I did there? He was such a fun character in the book, and they just took him out completely! Rude.

There were a few more, tiny details, but those are the biggest ones that stood out to me. I actually think that The Chamber of Secrets filmmakers didn't do too bad with this one. Just wait until you hear about some of the other ones though...

   

For all you non Harry Potterers out there, the second book in the magical series is called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Lots of mysterious and sketchy things are happening at Hogwarts, and of course Harry finds himself in the middle of all of it, after-all, we wouldn't have ourselves a story if he didn't. Lord Voldemort is up to his usual tricks and he's being evil, causing havoc, and endangering lives. Muggle borns seem to be the target this year, a lot of them have been petrified and no one can seem to figure out how it's happening. Rumors of the Chamber of Secrets are running amok around the castle. The Chamber of Secrets is supposedly a secret place in the castle that founder of Slytherin created to house a terrible creature that would get rid of all the "Mudblood" students, in other words, students from Muggle decent.

 Harry has a special talent that lets him speak to snakes, which is a gift the normally only belongs to bad guys, so everyone starts to think Harry is evil and he wants to rid the school of muggle borns. However, when Hermione gets petrified, everyone changes their tune. Towards the end of the book, Ginny Weasley gets taken into the Chamber of Secrets (which turned out to be real, so whoops on the part of all the doubters). Things start to get real personal for Harry and Ron, first their best friend and now Ron's little sister? They are not having it. They make their defense against the dark arts teacher go with them to where they figure out the chamber is. After a bunch of hustle and bustle, they find themselves in an underground passage. After an avalanche they become separated and Harry is left to explore the creepy place alone. What he finds is kind of terrifying. Ginny, almost dead, a giant deadly snake, and Voldemort... as a teenager. Ginny who poured her soul into the diary of Tom Riddle, Voldemort, which made him super powerful, due to some dark magic. To make things short, Harry has an epic fight with the snake, he almost dies, Dumbledore's phoenix saves him, then Harry stabs the diary, which wipes out young Voldemort and brings Ginny back to her healthy self.

As many avid Harry Potter fans can tell you, there are many differences between the books and movies. We understand that they can't fit every little detail from the novels into the films, but there is always room for improvement. Seeing as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is the shortest book, they didn't leave out too many of the important details, but there are definitely some that stand out. An example of this is when Harry and Hagrid are shopping in Diagon Alley, Harry has his first encounter with Draco Malfoy. He's pompous and entitled, of course, but they don't hate each other yet, granted they don't know who the other is yet either. Another thing the movie skips is that after Harry and Hagrid's day of shopping, Harry has to go to back to the Dursley's for about a month before school at Hogwarts starts. In the movie, Hagrid drops Harry off at the train station right after  they spend time in Diagon Alley in the film. A couple more small differences are Neville, Ron, and Malfoy get into a fight during the Quidditch match, and in the Mirror of Erised Harry sees his entire extended family, as well as his parents. These can be found in the book but not the movie. The one difference that irritated me the most, was when Harry and Hermione need to figure which potion to take when they going after the stone. This part of the book always intrigued me, and I would reread it over and over to see if I could figure it out on my own. Hermione was my idol. This part isn't in the movie at all! 

All in all, the filmmakers didn't so too bad of a job fitting the details into the movie. As the books get longer and more detailed, the movies get worse. But you'll see when I compare each and every one! 

   

Some people think that the Harry Potter series is just a collection of silly children's stories, I know trying to get my mom to read it was like pulling teeth, and now she's more obsessed than I am. However, I think that Harry Potter appeals to a large audience because even though its reading level isn't exactly difficult, there are definitely things that adults and children can get out of them. When I started reading Harry Potter in third grade, I didn't pick up on all of the things that J.K. Rowling slipped in the stories, all I knew was that I liked reading these books better than The Babysitters Club, and it opened up a whole new genre to me. I read the first four books at least four times that year. As I got older, and reread the series every time a new book came out, I got something new from them. I know we all hated English class because the teachers beat the idea of symbols and themes into us so many times that it actually became ridiculous, but if we had studied Harry Potter, instead of The Grapes of Wrath, maybe class wouldn't have been such a drag. There are so many themes and messages in the series that if you took the time to sit down and think about it, you would be pulling things out of every book in no time. Before I start telling you some of them, I challenge those of you that have read them to think about it, what do you see, what themes, symbols, or motifs did J.K. Rowling slip into a couple of stories that help make them so remarkable? And for everyone that hasn't read the books, get on it! 

It all started with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I bet I'm not the only one that's guilty of waiting around on their eleventh birthday for their letter from Hogwarts. I swear I still have PTSD from that day. For those of you who haven't read it (what have you been doing with your lives, might I ask?) this is the book that started it all. Harry, an eleven year old kid, parent-less, friendless, and poor, finds himself in a world of mystery and magic. He's famous for the undoing of a powerful and evil wizard who killed many grown wizards, but couldn't kill baby Harry, he just got his well-known lightning bolt scar. He meets life-long friends, Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid to name a few, establishes himself as more than just a famous name and scar, and turns out to be wonderful at Quidditch player(their sport). The book builds up to the climax at the end, where Harry meets Voldemort once again (the bad guy) and takes him down. It is revealed by Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, that Harry's mother died to save Harry's life, and because of her love and sacrifice, Voldemort cannot hurt Harry because he's like pure evil.

J.K. Rowling
The queen. J.K. Rowling is the creator of the wonderful world of Harry Potter. We owe years of mystery, magic, and adventure to her. J.K. Rowling came up with the idea of Harry Potter while she was riding through England on a train one afternoon. Our genius of an author was not able to get her hands on a pen when she first came up with the idea of Harry, so she just let her brain formulate one of the greatest series of our time. After completing the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, she had quite a difficult time finding a publisher. She submitted her manuscript about seven times before someone finally made an offer. After that, she sold publishing rights to Scholastic, and Harry Potter became a world wide phenomenon. Many different awards, charities, books, and movies later, J.K. Rowling is one of the most renowned and wealthy authors of our day.

There are plenty of people who think that since all of the Harry Potter books have been published and the last movie has left the theaters, that the world of magic and mystery will just fade into the past. These people are poorly mistaken. There are still avid Pott (two ts people!) Heads who obsess and discuss the wonderful world of Hogwarts everyday. There's a common saying among Harry Potter fans, I've seen tattoos of this even, we like to remind people that, "it's real for us." After everything was said and done, after the last movie raked in millions of dollars for the film industry, we were still left standing, feeling empty, but not alone. Being a Pott Head is like being a part of a huge, incredibly weird family. No matter where you go on the internet, be it Facebook, Twitter, or BuzzFeed there ate plenty of accounts dedicated and linked to the fandom. I get daily reminders on twitter of how much Professor Snape hates Harry. Another amazing tool designated to the millions of people around the world who don't quite accept that the stories are over is Pottermore. This blog will be dedicated to J.K Rowling's world, and I plan on discussing anything and everything, from the books and movies. to the rumors of more books.