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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

(Spoiler Alert- I have the liberty to talk about any of the HP books in this blog, if you have not read all 7 novels and get sort of mad when endings or major events are ruined, do not read this blog, if you don’t care, read on)

Random Question for my readers, have you ever watched The Simpson’s? Settle down, just listen to where my thought process is going with this. Let’s say you have watched the Simpson’s. Have you then noticed a theme with the show? For instance, when the show starts, there is something that happens, Homer gets stung by a bee, something of that nature, that first action always has a reaction. Because Homer got stung by a bee, he did a certain action that had another reaction and by the end of the episode, you can’t really remember why he’s in court on trial and if you do look back, it’s all because he got stung by a bee.

Here’s where I’m going with this. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry starts his second year of Hogwarts, but before he leaves the Dursley’s he is visited by a strange creature, a house elf named Dobby, this first action has a ton of reactions. Dobby had been intercepting Harry’s mail in order to stop him from going back to Hogwarts, because dangerous things are going to happen at Hogwarts this year. When the letters do not have the outcome that Dobby had hoped for, the entrance to Platform 9 ¾ is blocked and Harry and Ron can’t get through to catch the train to Hogwarts. This action has the reaction of Ron and Harry stealing the Weasley’s enchanted car, this reaction gets them in trouble and instead of expelling them, Dumbledore gives them detention where Harry first hears the bodiless voice and Ron polishes the trophy with the initials T.M. Riddle. So, therefore when Harry ends up with a diary with those initials, they know that T.M. Riddle was at school at the time that the Chamber was opened the first time fifty years ago. Do you see what I’m saying about the chain reactions? It’s hard for us to remember that all of this started with a house elf ruining Aunt Petunia’s pudding for her guests.

With this being the second book of seven, the audience is still new to this magical world and therefore there are several very important introductions in this book that Harry and the audience did not know about or had not met in the first book. The first important introduction is to Dobby. If you have only watched the movies and not read the books you will have no idea how large of a character Dobby is. He loves Harry Potter very much and would do anything for him. That’s all I’m going to say about the subject because this is only book two and we’ll see more adventures with Dobby as I continue the series. The second introduction is to Polyjuice Potion.

The idea of Polyjuice Potion is a novel concept. How often as a young adult did I want to be someone else? Just to walk in someone else’s shoes to see how they fit, maybe only for a day. The Polyjuice Potion was a very complex Potion that took quite a bit of time to make, therefore it was not an off the cuff sort of plan. As a rule of thumb, second years should not be able to make this potion, although Hermione is not a regular second year witch, she is constantly known as the smartest witch of her age throughout the books and that is why it is not surprising that she is able to make such a complex potion for extracurricular activities. To use this particular potion, one would need to put a lot of plan and thought into it in order for it to work. By using this potion, Harry and Ron sneak into Slytherin house and find out a bit of information that gets them closer to know who has opened the Chamber of Secrets.

The last introduction is to Ginny. We shortly meet Ginny in The Sorcerer’s Stone, but Ginny is a Hogwart’s student in Chamber of Secrets and we get to see her interacting, even though strangely, with other characters and it’s very cute how she interacts or doesn’t interact with Harry.

It cracks me up that in these books, these school age children are able to do things and figure things out that adults with more training and magical powers cannot get done. The Chamber of Secrets was lost for thousands of years and all of a sudden, 3 school age children crack where it is, how to open it and what dangerous creature has lived in it all of this time. Just shows what a sense of adventure and love for each other will do.

Well I could go on for pages, but I won’t. What did you think about Chamber of Secrets? How many times have you read it? Do you think this story is important to the whole series? Leave a comment!

Good or Evil, Which Shall They Choose?

Passion by Lauren Kate

We last saw Lucinda Price hurling herself into an announcer leaving her backyard full of death, destruction, war and her angel soul mate. No, I’m not kidding, this is where Torment leaves us hanging before Passion picks up. Passion is the third installment of the Fallen series and I have to be honest and say that I really have been waiting for it’s release date. As I’ve stated in previous blogs, Fallen was not the best book, but I had already bought Torment as well so I continued to read. The second book was definitely better and I started to get hooked. By the end of Passion I’m ready to close this story and see how it ends, but that is the extent of my excitement. I have mixed emotions, because it was good, but I feel like it could have been better and it was missing something. I’m just not sure what it was missing.

Passion, starts with the dark side, meeting up at a horse race and we find that they have disappointed Satan and he’s ready to step in and do the job right. We also know that Luce is running crazily from previous life to previous life looking for answers to the age old question of why Daniel and Luce are tied in this eternal cycle of love and death. I feel for the first time in the series the audience is introduced to the relationship and we finally get to see what’s so special about this love. We finally get to look at it with new eyes and hope for the best in the end. We’ll all keep our fingers crossed for Daniel and Luce.

Just jumping right into my opinion of this book in the series, I found the view of the author about the Fall of Lucifer interesting and how that came about. I also found it intriguing how she interwove “free will” and “predestination” throughout the story. Were the characters really choosing their own course or was it written before time that all this happened before and all of it will happen again. It’s thought provoking how one minute the characters were talking to each other about their “choices” and then the next moment they are almost being dragged to the next stop in the adventure as if they had no choice in the matter at all. I’m very interested to see how it all plays out in the end.

There was also some confusion about God in this book. Either He is almighty creator of Heaven and Earth, or He’s not. In the end there are some short scenes with God and the language gave God much reverence. Such as, not even the angels could look upon His glory seated on His Throne. They could not even utter His name because the glory was too much for a created being, they only referenced Him as “The Throne.” Yet shortly after that, “The Throne” was surprised by the action of one of the characters and later on the same page, “The Throne” sounded tired. He’s either one or the other. He can’t be both.

Overall, I am enjoying this series. I look forward to Rapture, the fourth and final book, but am I holding my breath until Spring of 2012? Nope.

Thoughts? Have you read this series, if so, what are your thoughts? If not, have I totally turned you off to reading it, or are you curious to form your own opinions? Keep reading my friends!

The Beginning

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has become more than a story, more than a book or movie, it has become a pop-culture phenomenon. Never before had I heard of stores opening their doors at midnight to release a book. Never before had a child of age eleven wanted to read a 400 page book, let alone thousands of young children. Not only have the books rocked the nations, but the movies are hugely popular. Over 6 Billion dollars grossed in the theaters worldwide for the first 7 movies. And of course the books have sold millions of copies in many different languages.

Besides the world loving Harry Potter, I, Charity Knighten, love Harry Potter. He’s just a wonderful character. He’s not someone that the reader will fall in love with, or someone that will give you obsessive thoughts. He’s almost like a best friend. The audience meets Harry (of course we’re on a first name basis) when he is ten years old and knows as much about magic as the audience does. He receives his letter to Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, much to his aunt and uncle’s chagrin, and his world is changed in such a huge way that in seven years it will be hard for him to recall a life without magic.

I’m not going to recap the book, this blog is more for the Harry Potter lover’s, not someone looking to see if they should read it or not, you just should read it. Consider this your spoiler alert as well, you have been warned.

While reading this book for the third time (yes, you read that correctly, the third time) I came across 3ideas that I wanted to discuss in this blog. First, Rowling drops these tiny hints that you would not be able to pick up the first time you read the book. In chapter seven, Harry is at the start-of-term banquet and he is looking around the Great Hall with great wonder. His eyes land on Professor Snape, their eyes meet and suddenly there is a searing hot pain in Harry’s scar. Because of the way Rowling tells us what happened, we have no other reason to believe that it was anybody else causing him pain besides Snape. We have already forgotten that he’s speaking with Professor Quirrell.

Next, I love the way Rowling brings ideas back to our memory. At the train station back in London, we hear a joke between the Weasley twins and their mother about blowing up a toilet and sending her the toilet seat. During the last chapter the Dumbledore tells Harry that the twins had tried to give him a toilet seat as a get well soon present. I think its genius how she interweaves jokes, relationships, and ideas throughout the book so the audience looks back and think, “Wow, really? I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t.”

Lastly, Rowling introduces what seems to be an insignificant idea into the story and later it becomes one of the most important parts of the book. One example of this is when Harry and Ron are stuffing themselves with sweets on the train ride to Hogwarts and Harry is introduced to his first Chocolate Frog with trading card. This card just happens to be the card that solves the mystery of the Sorcerer’s Stone. I know the first time I read this I had no idea that this card was going to be so important. This is just a treat in Rowling’s writing.

Well that is all for right now. I don’t want to dive too deep in the series, I just wanted to talk about The Sorcerer’s Stone. Stay tuned, I’m going to complete the entire series, it may take me some time, but I’m looking forward to it.