How I Got Into Harry Potter

I first read the Harry Potter books when I was seven years old. I had already seen the first two movies and loved them. I liked to read, but I didn’t do it very much because all of the books I got in school and the like were way too easy for me. Well, one day I was in my parent’s room and I found a copy of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” on my dad’s dresser. I decided to pick it up and start reading it, and from that moment on, I was hooked. Over the course of the next six months I proceeded to read the first five books of the series, and I haven’t stopped reading since.

One of the things that struck me the most when I started reading the Harry Potter books was the characters, specifically Hermione Granger. From the very beginning I identified with Hermione in a way that I never had before. She was everything I was: smart, driven, an avid reader. But, all those things that made her, and I, different from others were her greatest strengths. She saved Harry and Ron’s butts at least once a book, which made me confidant that some day I would find my niche. She was, and still is, my role model.

The Lion King

Growing up, “The Lion King” was always one of my favorite movies. As a little kid I loved it because Timon and Pumbaa never failed to make me laugh and because I was in love with the music of the movie. In fact, I could, and still can, sing every word to every song in the movie, and will do so at every given opportunity. Nowadays, even though I still love the music and Timon and Pumbaa, I love the movie for the themes that it tackles and how it proves that kids movies can contain actual substance.

The Lion King is most definitely one of the darkest Disney movies. It’s an adaptation of the Shakespeare play “Hamlet” and the main plot of the movie centers around the death of an important character. Whenever people say that children can’t handle dark subjects, I want to point them in the direction of this movie. Simba, the main character, watches his father die, and spends the rest of the movie attempting to find closure for the guilt that he feels over his supposed part in his father’s death. I believe that the movie handles this subject very tastefulyl and in a way that kids can understand. At least, my sister and I were able to handle it.

In my opinion, the music of The Lion King is phenomenal. The soundtrack was written by Elton John and Tim Rice, and it contains a unique blend of tribal and pop/rock music. My favorite song is Be Prepared, which is the big villain song where Scar reveals his plot to assassinate Smba and Mufasa. It’s a deliciously creepy song that chills you to the bone. Another song I enjoy is the opening number, “The Circle of Life.” I think it sets the tone of the movie perfectly, because while the lyrics talk about how everyone has a role in life to play, the screen is showing all the animals in the kingdom gathering around Pride Rock to celebrate the birth of Simba, showing the role that he will spend the movie growing into.

King Arthur

Lately I’ve been revisiting the myths and legends surrounding King Arthur. I loved them when I was a kid, but I haven’t read them in years. But, at the end of December I started watching BBC’s Merlin, which brought King Arthur, Excalibur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table back to the forefront of my mind.

So far, Merlin has been my favorite adaptation of the myths. So often, characters from legends don’t actually feel like real people. But, in Merlin, every character feels like a human being, not a legend. Merlin is a clumsy servant boy that eventually grows into his role as the greatest sorcerer ever, but along the way he messes up more times than he can count, and all of his actions have consequences. Arthur starts as a spoiled prince that appears to have no redeeming qualities. But, through his friendship with Merlin, we discover that he possesses a heart of gold, and that he puts the lives of his subjects above his own, a quality that makes him a wonderful leader and a great queen. Guinevere, also known as Gwen, is the maid to Lady Morgana, and throughout the series she grows from a quirky serving girl into the queen of Camelot. But, my favorite character by far is Morgana. At first she is the ward of Uther Pendragon who has been having nightmares, but she soon learns that she has magic, which is punishable by death thanks to Uther. This knowledge eventually brings her down the path of darkness and evil. Morgana is my favorite character, because the show portrays her descent into darkness in a way that serves to humanize a character that is usually only portrayed as evil.

Another adaptation that I’ve been reading is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “The Mists of Avalon,” which is a very different take on the legends from Merlin. “The Mists of Avalon” focuses on the female characters from the stories, and explains their actions and motivations. Again, I find myself drawn to Morgana, known as Morgaine in the novel, but for different reasons. Morgaine’s whole conflict centers around gaining her agency back and finding her own path, after the Lady of the Lake, her aunt and foster mother Viviane, manipulates her into conceiving Mordred with her half-brother Arthur. The novel uses two very different worlds, Avalon, where the women are the ones with power, and Britain, where women have no power, to explore just how much say over their lives that women have. What I find interesting, is that even in Britain, many of the women find a way to retain control of their lives, whether it’s Gwenhwyfar turning Arthur away from Avalon, the priestesses, and the Druid, or Morgause continuing to rule her kingdom after her husband’s death.

These are not the only interpretations of the legends out there, merely the ones I’ve encountered lately, but they still prove an interesting point, that there are many different ways of looking at even the most familiar of stories. If anyone has a particular interpretation that they prefer, I would love to hear about it.