23 days before - Happy (Belated) Birthday, Harry, Heidi, and Jo!

I figure I should do this now, when I'm not half asleep. This is likely to be my last blog for a little while while I'm on vacation and while my internet connection will be questionable. I'll still write the blog posts, I just may not be able to post them until after I get back. Anyway, I'm going to use this, my last blog post for about a week, to talk about . . . Harry Potter.

I just finished book 5. As books 6 and 7 are, by themselves, a whole different analysis, I'm waiting a bit to start them. (And by "a bit," I mean, like, a day.) Book 5 remains the hardest book for me to get through, but every time I read it, I like it just a little bit more. Book 5 is an important step in Harry's journey. Looking at the series as a whole, the last chapter of the book represents the central part in the hero's journey, the Atonement with the Father, the part where Harry has to come to terms with the thing that holds power over his life, or in this case, the prophecy that says he must kill Voldemort or be killed by him. Also, in a more literal sense, Harry has to come to terms with the fact that both his father and his godfather were not, as he had perhaps always imagined, always perfectly good people. (Something he must also come to terms with book 7.)

This book also marks to other "meetings" in the hero's journey: the meeting of the goddess, and the meeting of temptation. The goddess, in this case, is Sirius. He is the person that Harry feels unconditional love, as a child to a parent, because Sirius is really the closest thing to a father he's ever known, or at least the closest thing to HIS father he's ever known. Technically, this started in book 3, but the relationship really meets its peak here. The temptation, then, is Harry's pride, his desire to protect those he loves, or as Hermione puts it, his "saving people thing," which causes huge problems for him in this book, and his the center of most of the angst.

If we're looking at the hero's journey as it applies to only the latter half of the series, this books represents the first crossing of the threshold into adventure (when Harry and Voldemort both realize that Harry can be possessed by him), followed closely by the "Belly of the Whale," or the point of no return into the adventure . . . also, the point where Harry must come to terms with the prophecy, though it could be argued that this doesn't truly happen until book 6 when he finally informs Ron and Hermione about it.

Anyway, now we get into book 6 and start yet another analysis. I'm just kind of a fun guy to have around at times like this, aren't I?

-Matt