There’s a reason Harry Potter is a worldwide phenomenon.
We all like to believe we’re students at Hogwarts. It’s because all the students at Hogwarts, save one, are good. The people at Hogwarts are good personified. Even Draco Malfoy, the little shit, and Severus Snape, whose nose we love to hate, turn out good in the end. We like to see ourselves in their shoes, because it is human nature to believe there is some good in everyone. And Hogwarts helps us realize that. We may be awkward like Neville, or goody-two-shoes like Hermione, or cowardly like Ron, but when push comes to shove, we like to believe that we can stand with the rest of them. Hogwarts gave us an opportunity to do that.
And we also want to be students of Hogwarts because they do something that we don’t often get a chance to do: they face pure evil. They confront it, and they beat it. We live in a world where good and evil are blurred, at best. We have an entire semester class at my school devoted to determining what’s right and what’s wrong. To give this generation a desperately needed break, we need to escape from a world where right and wrong are as opposite as night and day. Death Eaters, Order of the Phoenix. Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort. Mrs. Weasley, Bellatrix LeStrange. Good and Evil. Right and Wrong. There is never any doubt in our minds that one team is in the right, and the other is in the wrong. Our generation was crying out for a world like that, a world that Hogwarts gave us.
So go, young ones! Sully forth to your long lines and overcrowded theatres! Wave your fake wands and wear your homemade tees! Wear your robes and ignore the itch of your fake Dumbledore beards! Stand, fight, win! When the older generation questions your sanity, remind them of the comic book heroes, the Luke Skywalkers and the Captain Planets, of how they stood against The Empire, S.P.E.C.T.R.E, and the Communists, and won.
And that, dear readers, is all the Harry Potter-related stuff you’ll get from me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch The Royal Tenenbaums one-hundred and seven times and eat pancakes.
