"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" Relationship Analysis
Growing up, I was not into the Harry Potter series. The theme of wizards and magic did not interest me. Then Covid occurred. I decided to give Harry Potter a shot. Over that summer, I read most of the books. However, I did not finish the entire series and still had to read the final two books. This past month, I started to read "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix" by J. K. Rowling.
Since Harry Potter is a series, all of the books are connected in some way, so it was easy to know what was going on. The series as a whole is similar to a chain in which the beginning or end of one of the books connects in some way to the previous or future book. In this case, each book represents a year of Harry at Hogwarts. Usually, something absurd happens each year, but each book does a pretty decent job of summarizing each year with such immense detail. However, vast detail can make books certainly long and this is the case with Harry Potter.
At the start of the story, Sirius Black (Harry's godfather) and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are arguing about who Harry should side with as his "legal guardian". This event reminded me of the effects those characters had on Harry's life throughout the previous books. Since Voldemort murdered both of Harry's parents, Harry was left with his uncle and aunt which he despised. However, when Harry started attending Hogwarts, he was welcomed in by the Weasley family. They were his family during the school year. Then Harry finds out he has a godfather in Sirius Black in "The Prisoner of Azkaban". He briefly took in Harry but had to leave because he was still considered a criminal, but he became his legal guardian. Both of them have played significant and influential roles in Harry's life and he has to side with one now. However, after reading this section of the book, I wondered if the Weasleys and Sirius Black actions towards Harry affected Harry's opinion on them. The interactions will specifically be from this book.
Both the Weasleys and Sirius Black have different perspectives of Harry. “He's not a child!" said Sirius impatiently. The Weasleys and Sirius Black argue, "He's not an adult either!" said Mrs. Weasley, the color rising in her cheeks. "He's not James, Sirius!". "I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," said Sirius coldly. "I'm not sure you are!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!" (Rowling 89). This is a long quote, but I think it does a fantastic job at showing the different perspectives. The Weasleys see Harry as their child, while Sirius Black sees Harry as a close friend. These perspectives most likely affect Harry’s relationship with them.
As said before, the Weasleys see Harry as their child. They are loving caretakers of Harry. They tend to give him useful advice in the real world and how to be a mature young man. When Harry was preparing for a special event, Mrs. Weasley told him “A good first impression can work wonder” (Rowling 135). That was one of the many important pieces of advice for adulthood and formality that was given to Harry by the Weasleys. Overall, Harry tends to go to the Weasleys for more formal advice about life.
However, Sirius Black sees Harry as a close friend. Unlike the Weasleys, Sirius Black gives helpful and wise advice to Harry. While talking about the death eaters, Sirius says, “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we are.” (Rowling 318). I think Sirius Black is amazing at giving reality checks and is a perfect person for Harry to share information he would tend to keep personal.
Overall, I think Harry has a strong relationship with both sides, but in different ways. Realistically, he does not need a singer person to go to and it is useful he has multiple people to talk to depending on the situation. For the book itself, it has been interesting with all of the relationship connections I have been noticing and I am excited to finish reading it.
This was a really good blog post reviewing the fifth Harry Potter book. I remember I never really wanted to read the book series either but then my teacher urged me to read try and read the books and I actually go interested in reading the whole thing. I really liked how to analyzed Harry and his connections with other characters in the book.
ReplyDeleteI was not into Harry Potter as a child either, but a lot of my friends were very into it. Recently, I ended up reading the first two books, and started the third. I heard that the fifth one was the longest one with over seven hundred pages! However, it seems to be able to captivate people for that long given its success. Nice post!
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