Zach Kram : "The Prince’s Tale," Deathly Hallows’s 33rd chapter, is a writing masterpiece independent of its connection to the rest of the series. It’s achingly beautiful and deeply sad, and in a story that features as many emotions as there are pockets in Hagrid’s moleskin overcoat, it is a signature achievement. Each step of Harry’s forest walk is weighed down with the heaviness of resignation, the haunting gravity of a final farewell, but also buoyed by the peculiar sort of peace that only purpose can provide. But it’s easier than never having found a reason to live. "It was not, after all, so easy to die," Harry realizes as he fights to control his own trembling. Quicker and easier than falling asleep."īut it hurts to read this passage, even all these years later - not due to the prospect of losing Harry, but due to everything that this moment, this choice, represents. He gives voice to his fear: "Does it hurt?" he asks them. But he cloaks himself in companionship of another sort: Turning the Resurrection Stone three times, he calls forth the forms of his mother and father, of Sirius, of Lupin. He doesn’t allow himself to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione, worried that the resolve propelling his march to sacrifice would crumble under the force of their love.
In Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore tells Harry, who’s tormented by doubts over whether he really belongs in Gryffindor House, that "it is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." That was true when Harry told the Sorting Hat where to place him, it was true when he decided to touch the Triwizard Cup at the same second as Cedric, and it’s true when he forces himself to put on his Invisibility Cloak, walk through the castle that has become a tomb, and make his way toward the Forbidden Forest and his own demise. Rowling’s masterpiece has always been about choice.
For others, it’s about good triumphing over evil, a balancing of the moral scales. For some, it’s a tale of joy and discovery, of love and friendship found and loneliness lost. One of the Harry Potter saga’s true marvels is that it can be what each reader makes it. He has come to understand, fully and finally, what defeating Voldemort will cost, and he has decided to pay the toll.
#All harry potter movies summed up in one sentence full#
He has learned the full truth of Dumbledore’s grand plan, and with it the true nature of his connection to Voldemort. It’s about the very fact of his being: the beating heart and racing mind and bubbling fear that make him human. The thought doesn’t arise in reference to Harry’s prodigious magical ability, or Horcrux-hunting prowess, or Quidditch acumen. Mallory Rubin : There is an instant near the conclusion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Harry, sitting on the floor of Dumbledore’s former office, wonders why he had never appreciated what a miracle he was. We solemnly swear that we are up to no good. Since Dumbledore isn’t here to help us pull any celebratory crackers, we’re marking the occasion by toasting Rowling’s magical creation - and the two decades of euphoria that it’s brought us.
Rowling’s debut novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first installment in a saga that would span seven Potter books, eight Potter movies, and numerous spinoffs and extensions, in the process becoming one of the defining stories of a generation. Twenty years ago, Bloomsbury published J.K.