Appearances
[edit] First book
Harry first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) as the novel's main protagonist. When Harry was a little over a year old, his parents were murdered by the powerful Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort; for some reason, Harry survived Voldemort's Killing Curse, which rebounded and ripped Voldemort's soul from his body. As a result, Harry carries a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. Harry is famous as the only known person to survive "Avada Kedavra", the killing curse, and from that point on is known as "The Boy Who Lived". Technically, Voldemort also survived, although only his soul remained after his body was destroyed.
According to Rowling, fleshing out this back story was a matter of reverse planning: "The basic idea [is that] Harry ... didn't know he was a wizard ... and so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was... When he was one-year-old, the most evil wizard in hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry — he tried to curse him... Harry has to find out, before we find out. And — so — but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard who has been in hiding ever since".[6]
As a result, Harry is written as an orphan living miserably with his only remaining family, the cruel Dursleys. On his eleventh birthday, Harry learns he is a wizard when Rubeus Hagrid arrives to tell him that he is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he learns about his parents and his connection to the Dark Lord, is sorted into Gryffindor House, becomes friends with classmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and foils Voldemort's attempt to steal the Philosopher's Stone. He also forms rivalries with characters Draco Malfoy, a classmate from an elitist wizarding family, and the cold, condescending Potions master, Severus Snape, Draco's mentor and the head of Slytherin House. Both feuds continue throughout the series. In a 1999 interview, Rowling stated that Draco is based on several prototypical schoolyard bullies she encountered [7] and Snape on a sadistic teacher of hers who abused his power.[7]
Rowling has stated that the Mirror of Erised chapter in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is her favourite; the mirror reflects Harry's deepest desire, namely to see his dead parents.[1] Her favourite funny scene is when Harry inadvertently sets a boa constrictor free from the zoo in the horrified Dursleys' presence.[7]
[edit] Second to fourth books
In the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling pits Harry against Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort's "memory" within a secret diary which has possessed Ron's younger sister Ginny Weasley. When Muggle-born students are suddenly being petrified, many suspect that Harry may be behind the attacks, further alienating him from his peers. In the climax, Ginny disappears. To rescue her, Harry battles Riddle and the monster he controls that is hidden in the Chamber of Secrets. In the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling uses a time travel premise. Harry learns that his parents were betrayed to Voldemort by their friend Peter Pettigrew, who framed Harry's godfather Sirius Black for the crimes, condemning him to Azkaban prison. When Sirius escapes to seek revenge, Harry and Hermione use a Time Turner to save him and a hippogriff named Buckbeak. But Pettigrew escapes, and an innocent Sirius remains a hunted fugitive.
In the previous books, Harry is written as a child, but Rowling states that in the fourth novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, "Harry's horizons are literally and metaphorically widening as he grows older."[8] Harry's developing maturity becomes apparent when he becomes romantically interested in Cho Chang, a Ravenclaw student. Tension mounts, however, when Harry is mysteriously chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament, even though another Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory, was already selected. It is actually Voldemort's elaborate scheme to lure Harry into a deadly trap. During the Tournament's final challenge, Harry and Cedric are teleported to a graveyard. Cedric is killed, and Voldemort, aided by Peter Pettigrew, uses Harry's blood in a gruesome ritual to resurrect Voldemort's body. When Harry duels Voldemort, their wands' magical streams connect, forcing the spirit echoes of Voldemort's victims, including Cedric and James and Lily Potter, to be expelled from his wand. The spirits briefly protect Harry as he escapes to Hogwarts with Cedric's body. For Rowling, this scene is important because it shows Harry's bravery, and by retrieving Cedric's corpse, he demonstrates selflessness and compassion. Says Rowling, "He wants to save Cedric's parents additional pain.”[8] She added that preventing Cedric's body from falling into Voldemort's hands is based on the classic scene in the Iliad where Achilles retrieves the body of his best friend Patroclus from the hands of Hector.[8] Rowling also mentioned that book four rounds off an era in Harry's life, and the remaining three books are another,[8] "He's no longer protected. He's been very protected until now. But he's very young to have that experience. Most of us don't get that until a bit later in life. He's only just coming up to 15 and that's it now."[9]
[edit] Fifth and sixth books
In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic has been waging a smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore, disputing their claims that Voldemort has returned. A new character is introduced when the Ministry of Magic appoints Dolores Umbridge as the latest Hogwarts' Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor (and Ministry spy). Because the paranoid Ministry suspects that Dumbledore is building a wizard army to overthrow them, Umbridge refuses to teach students real defensive magic. She gradually gains more power, eventually ousting Dumbledore and seizing control of the school. As a result, Harry's increasingly angry and erratic behaviour nearly estrange him from Ron and Hermione. Rowling says she put Harry through extreme emotional stress to show his emotional vulnerability and humanity — a contrast to his nemesis, Voldemort. "[Harry is] a very human hero, and this is, obviously, a contrast, between him, as a very human hero, and Voldemort, who has deliberately dehumanised himself. And Harry, therefore, did have to reach a point where he did almost break down, and say he didn't want to play anymore, he didn't want to be the hero anymore – and he’d lost too much. And he didn’t want to lose anything else. So that – Phoenix was the point at which I decided he would have his breakdown."[10] At Hermione's urging, Harry forms a secret student organisation called Dumbledore's Army to teach defence against the dark arts. Their plan is thwarted, however, when a Dumbledore's Army member informs Umbridge about the D.A., causing Dumbledore to be ousted as Headmaster. Harry suffers another emotional blow, when his godfather, Sirius is killed during a duel with Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange at the Department of Mysteries, but Harry ultimately defeats Voldemort's plan to steal an important prophecy and helps uncover Umbridge's sinister motives. Rowling stated: "And now he [Harry] will rise from the ashes strengthened."[10] A side plot of Order of the Phoenix involves Harry's romance with Cho Chang, but the relationship quickly unravels. Says Rowling: "They were never going to be happy, it was better that it ended early!"[11]
In the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry enters a tumultuous puberty that, Rowling says, is based on her and her younger sister's own difficult teenage years.[12] Rowling also made an intimate statement about Harry's personal life: "Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had".[13] This inexperience with romance was a factor in Harry's failed relationship with Cho. Now his thoughts concern Ginny, and a vital plot point in the last chapter includes Harry ending their budding romance to protect her from Voldemort.
A new character appears when former Hogwarts Potions master Horace Slughorn replaces Snape, who assumes the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. Harry suddenly excels in Potions, using an old textbook once belonging to a talented student known only as "The Half-Blood Prince." The book contains many handwritten notes, revisions, and new spells; Hermione, however, believes Harry using it is cheating. Through private meetings with Dumbledore, Harry learns about Voldemort's orphaned youth, his rise to power, and how he splintered his soul into Horcruxes to achieve immortality. Two Horcruxes have been destroyed; the diary and a ring, and Harry and Dumbledore locate another, although it is a fake. When Death Eaters invade Hogwarts, Snape kills Dumbledore. As Snape escapes, he proclaims that he is the Half-Blood Prince — Harry's admired mentor is actually his hated enemy. It now falls upon Harry to find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes and to avenge Dumbledore's death. In a 2005 interview with NBC anchorwoman Katie Couric, Rowling stated that [after the events in the sixth book] Harry has, "taken the view that they are now at war. He does become more battle hardened. He’s now ready to go out fighting. And he’s after revenge [against Voldemort and Snape]."[14]
This book also focusses on the mysterious activities of Harry's rival Draco Malfoy. Voldemort has coerced a frightened Malfoy into attempting to kill Dumbledore. During a duel in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Harry uses the Half-Blood Prince's spell, Sectumsempra, on Malfoy who suffers near-fatal injuries as a result. Harry is horrified by what he has done and also comes to feel compassion for Draco after learning he was forced into doing Voldemort's bidding under the threat of his and his parents' deaths.
[edit] Final book
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave Hogwarts to complete Dumbledore's task: to search for and destroy Voldemort's remaining four Horcruxes, and then find and kill the Dark Lord. The three pit themselves against Voldemort's newly formed totalitarian police state, an action that tests Harry's courage and moral character. According to J. K. Rowling, a telling scene in which Harry uses Cruciatus and Imperius (unforgivable curses for torture and mind-control) on Voldemort's servants shows a side to Harry that is "flawed and mortal." However, she explains that, "He is also in an extreme situation and attempting to defend somebody very good against a violent and murderous opponent".[15]
Harry experiences occasional disturbing visions of Draco being forced to perform the Death Eaters' bidding and feels "...sickened...by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort", again showing his compassion for an enemy.
Harry comes to recognise that his own single-mindedness makes him predictable to his enemies and often clouds his perceptions. When Voldemort kills Snape later in the story, Harry realises that Snape was not the traitorous murderer he believed him to be, but a tragic anti-hero who was loyal to Dumbledore. In Chapter 33 ("The Prince's Tale") Snape's memories reveal that he loved Harry's mother, Lily Evans, but their friendship ended over his association with future Death Eaters and "blood purity" beliefs. When Voldemort killed the Potters, a grieving Snape vowed to protect Lily's child, although he loathed young Harry for being James Potter's son. It is also revealed that Snape did not murder Dumbledore, but carried out Dumbledore's prearranged plan. Dumbledore, who was dying from a slow-spreading curse, wanted to protect Snape's position within the Death Eaters and spare Draco from completing Voldemort's task to murder him.
To defeat Harry, Voldemort steals the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. It is the most powerful wand ever created, and he twice casts the Killing Curse on Harry with it. The first attempt merely stuns Harry into a death-like state. In the chapter "King's Cross", Dumbledore's spirit tells Harry that when Voldemort failed to kill baby Harry and disembodied himself, Harry became an unintentional Horcrux; Harry could not kill Voldemort while the Dark Lord's soul shard was within Harry's body. Voldemort's soul shard within Harry was destroyed because Harry willingly faced death. But Voldemort's Killing Curse fails because Voldemort used Harry's blood in his resurrection. In the book's climax, Voldemort's second Killing Curse also fails and rebounds upon himself, as the result of Harry's Expelliarmus spell, finally killing him, because Harry, not Voldemort, had become the Elder Wand's true master. Harry also becomes the worthy possessor of the remaining Deathly Hallows: the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone, hence becoming the true Master of Death. J. K. Rowling said, the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry willingly accepts mortality, making him stronger than his nemesis. "The real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living"[15] At the very end Harry decides to leave the Stone and Elder Wand but keeps the Invisibility Cloak because it belonged to his father.[15]
[edit] Epilogue
According to Rowling, after Voldemort's defeat, Harry joins the "reshuffled Auror Department under Kingsley Shacklebolt at age 17, rising to become Head of said department in 2007."[16] Rowling said his old rival Draco has overcome his animosity after Harry saved his life three times in the seventh book,[15] though there is no sign that they have actually become friends.
In the end, Harry and Ginny are married and have three children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar