Daniel Radcliffe stars as Harry Potter in Warner Bros. Pictures Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, © 2007.

***Caution: This analysis contains spoilers from the entire Harry Potter series.

It’s finally over.
Over 4,000 pages, from seven amazing books, by people of 65 different languages, have been devoured. There probably isn’t a child around who doesn’t know the hero’s name; Harry Potter is “the boy who lived.”

And with good reason. The story holds carries the influences author J.K. Rowling said inspired her. Rowling herself has said that she was influenced by writers J.R.R. Tolkien, Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Austen, and even the Bible. Her stories are informed, as well, by current and historical events, literature, war, and religion.

When the idea of Harry Potter first came to Rowling in 1990, she was on a crowded train traveling from Manchester to London. The first manuscript was completed in 1995 and the first book was published in England in July of 1997.

The story of Harry Potter revolves around a young boy whose parents have been murdered when he was a baby by a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort. The killing curse placed upon him rebounded and killed Voldemort, leaving only his soul on the earth. His mother’s love saved Harry from the curse, but he was branded with a lighting bolt-shaped scar. Since his parents’ death he has been living in the home of his muggle, or non-magical, nasty uncle, dry aunt, and antagonizing cousin.

On his 11th birthday he was notified he was a wizard and attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he met his best friends Ron and Hermione. During his first year he learned about the fate of his parents, the fate of Lord Voldemort, and that Voldemort is trying to return.

In almost every one of the books, he attempts to return in some way. In book 4, Voldemort returns in a living human form and begins his reign of terror upon the wizarding world. In the final book, Voldemort is defeated and Harry Potter lives a changed, but a happy life.

Even after Voldemort destroys himself while attempting to destroy Harry, the citizens of the wizarding world live in fear – even of his name. Voldemort is more commonly referred as “You know who” or “He who must not be named.”
Even Voldemort’s followers, the Death Eaters, refer to him as “the dark lord.” Voldemort uses terror, by threatening or committing violent acts, for his ideological goal – a pureblood, all-wizard society. Rowling seems to have been able to foreshadow some of the events unfolding in our world before the attacks on 9/11.

The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, is very skeptical about some of the incidents in the Wizarding world and their link to Lord Voldemort.

When Voldemort returns in human form in book 4, Fudge refuses to believe this and creates a smear campaign against Harry Potter. “Harry Plotter?” appears all over the wizard newspaper, The Daily Prophet.

Cornelius Fudge’s decisions are also often swayed by Harry’s rival’s father, Lucius Malfoy – a manipulator capable of controlling a weak leader. Malfoy convinces Fudge to have a magical creature executed and also has the headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore, taken out of power and replaced by a teacher formerly affiliated with the ministry of magic; regime change that mirrors our evening news.
Lord Voldemort is a self-loathing racist. He himself is a half-blood, with his father born a muggle. In book 7, Voldemort continues his reign of extermination that was cut short by Harry 16 years ago. At this point Voldemort and the death eaters have taken over the Ministry of Magic secretly and hold the belief of Pure Blood Supremacy, much like Hitler’s Aryan race. A request for half-blood registration at the Ministry of Magic is a trap for their extermination, Rowling’s fictional Holocaust.

The final two books of Harry Potter make Harry into something of a Chirst figure, betrayed and sacrificed, New Testament style.

Severus Snape has been Harry’s potions teacher since year one. Harry has always thought that Snape had something against him or was working for Lord Voldemort. Snape was formerly a Death Eater and in the end of book 6 he kills Dumbledore, thinking Snape has betrayed him. In book 7, we learn that it was all part of Dumbledore’s plan, earning Voldemort’s trust to help eventually bring him down.

Snape appeared to have had a grudge against Harry, but Harry learns Snape used to be best friends with Harry’s mother. Snape regrets becoming a Death Eater; a Judas whose betrayal seems to be part of a divine plan.

In the end of book 6, it is revealed that Voldemort has immortalized himself by separating his soul into horcruxes, or magical objects. Harry learns in book 7 that he himself is horcrux and Voldemort accidentally placed some of his own soul into Harry when the killing curse rebounded off him.

By the end of book 7, Harry realizes that he must let Voldemort destroy him so that Voldemort can be destroyed. Harry willing walks into the Forbidden Forest where Voldemort and his Death Eaters await him. Harry gives himself up, a sacrificial lamb, so that wizarding world will be rid of Voldemort’s reign. Though Harry rises again as well, Lord Voldemort is soon defeated.

After many deaths of people close to him, we learn a little about Harry as adult, 19 years later in the epilogue.

The series is possibly my favorite ever read. Mine, and many others’. If they are not already, I predict that the Harry Potter series will become the most celebrated fantasy stories of all time.