'Will the real Harry Potter please stand up...'

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‘Will the real Harry Potter please stand up…’

   A quote made by the famous creator of Harry Potter said, "The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me."

However, is this the way that millions of people have come to think of Harry Potter?

What do you picture when you think of Harry Potter?

Harry is Real Magic

There is something magical about Harry. This magic has very little to do with the fictional magic that Scottish author  has woven into her four books to date. For the last couple of decades or so, parents have been scratching their heads in concern and sometimes-real fear while their offspring gave hour upon hour first to television, then video and computer games and, more recently, the Internet. Hours that added up to weeks and, over time, to years of slack-jawed passive entertainment while technological marvels shovelled up activities that required little creative input from the growing young mind in question.

J.K. Rowling had - seemingly with very little effort - managed to do what a cotillion of concerned coalitions collectively could not: she had gotten the children of the world reading, and, reading passionately and with abandon.

Shut your eyes and picture Harry Potter. What do you see? I would put money on it that many of you thought of Daniel Radcliff, the boy made famous for playing Harry Potter. However, I would think of someone very different. I along with many other people would imagine our own Harry Potter, an image that we have made in our minds. A unique picture that could never be altered, no matter how many times that we were convinced that Radcliff was the real Harry Potter.

Reading is not just a way to escape from the world; it is a way to forget about your everyday worries and cares.  As far as books go, they have always been an enjoyable form of entertainment. That was until television and film took over! How many of you would automatically go home and switch on the TV as you would day in and day out. I bet you would not go and pick up a book and read continually for hours. Since film and television have been around the popularity of books has died and our imagination s have died with them. That was until  came along. However, I do not think that she thought that her books would change the image of books so quickly. They suddenly became ‘cool’ and people of all ages were reading the adventures of a kid wizard.

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To date, four books have been released about the adventures of Harry Potter, and one film has been released too.  I think that the amount of media attention surrounding the books has caused ‘Potter Mania’. Therefore, the filmmaker Warner Brothers came along and offered to make Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. However, I think that this was a bad move because suddenly a completely different picture of all the characters has been plastered into our minds. The original description of Harry, from the Philosopher’s Stone was “Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright green ...

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