+251 Harry Potter is a good book not just for the story line but because of all the detail and work in it. Like how in the first book Harry felt somehow attached to the diary, and 6 books later finding out it was because both Harry and the diary were horcruxes, or "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" meaning "I show not your face but your hearts desire", and nocturnal and diagonally being turned into Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, amirite?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

the diary was in book 2 not book 1

by Anonymous 11 years ago

OH YEAH! I always mux them up for some reason. I had to think about that for a minute.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Me too. I always have to remember by asking myself which one Genny was in.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Ginny*

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Also how if you switch the letters in "Tom Marvolo Riddle" it becomes "I am Lord Voldemort". And Voldemort isn't even some name she came up with out of the mixed letters, it's Latin for "flight of death"

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That too! I dunno how I could have missed that one, it's the best example out of all of them.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

She's just brilliant. There's a ton more, but I can't think of them. Also the significance of the number 7 throughout the series.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Its french

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Oh! I knew it translated to "flight of death" and I figured it was Latin since a lot of other things in that book are. Thanks!

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There's a lot of French in the books too. The literal translation of Fleur's name is "flower of the heart." There are other examples but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Yes, I knew that because she's a French girl and it just sounds French. I don't speak any other languages to know what other ones there are, so let's just say there's a lot.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Apparently JK Rowling's part French. She uses a lot of french, its really cool how much thought went into like everything, even though most people wouldnt notice it. Eg lupin comes from the latin word for moon. Also remus comes from romulus and remus, who were raised by wolves

by Anonymous 11 years ago

We've all basically established by now that she's a very skilled writer, haven't we?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

HOLY SHIT GAIZ. SHE WROTE STUFF BACKWARDS. AR9YJVNA;OSVHSDALKJVNLSIOFHEWMSDJGHIEFAD! SUCH GENIUS! And yes, using words for the names of the alleys is not that impressive either, and books usually have links like Harry being attached to the diary.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

This will be the second time I've stated this "That's not the only thing she did, it was a single example." "wizarding tests acryonyms being O.W.L. and N.E.W.T., names like Hermione, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hedwig, Crookshanks, Lupin, Azkabam, Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid, the way wands are measured in inches because Europe hadn't switched to the metric system until the 1900s and sense wizards didn't abide by muggle rule they kept their own way, and lots and lots of other stuff." and someone else stated "Also how if you switch the letters in "Tom Marvolo Riddle" it becomes "I am Lord Voldemort". And Voldemort isn't even some name she came up with out of the mixed letters, it's Latin for 'flight of death'"

by Anonymous 11 years ago

The acronyms seem to be really tacky to me. I've also always found the use of character names as metaphorical to be unrealistic also, considering somebody had to give them those names. Gotta wonder how many hours Tommy spent wanking off while thinking of appropriate anagrams for Tom Marvolo Riddle.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Not all of the names were given to them by Latin words. And I don't know what that last sentence means.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

How did Tom Riddle come up with it? Clearly the fact that it's an anagram is not coincidence. In the books, he must thus have spent time thinking of a name that would allow him to rearrange the letters in such a fashion.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Ohh OK I get it now.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Using acronyms that spell out words that are slightly related to the magic world isn't impressive. Authors usually put effort into the characters' names. Using Latin and/or Greek for names, spells, etc, isn't that incredible either. Few authors would have said, "Clearly I'll just call this spell yugniharooa!"

by Anonymous 11 years ago

A lot of her names and spells come from Latin and a few other languages, sometimes they're slightly altered to sound cooler, and most books don't have foreshadowing that jumps ahead 5 books. I love how you, like the first commenter, only commented about the mirror or erised.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I love you didn't even read my entire comment.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Wow, Emperorerror, you took the words right out of ActionMan's mouth.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

All the awards for this dude (: I can understand why someone may have their reasons not to like Twilight or the Hunger Games but Harry Potter......like you said, the amount of detail and effort JK Rowling put into it is astounding. One of the brilliant things about the Harry Potter series is that all seven books and their film adaptions are 'equal' in quality - other franchises tend to dwindle in quality after the third installment. On IMDB, the last HP movie actually scored higher than the other movies with 8.1/10, and even then they all scored over 7/10 JK Rowling makes me so proud to be British.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Or in Order of Phoenix Harry was cleaning out the cupboards and found a locket but threw it away, and it was revealed in the seventh book to be a Horcrux. Also when Harry passed a bust with a diadem that was also a Horcrux in Half-Blood Prince while looking for a place to hide the potion book.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I hate posts like these. So she did some smart things in a set of books. It doesn't make her the greatest author ever to live. The books were too predictable anyway. By time i had read the 4th one. I knew what was going to happen.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That seems incredibly unlikely. Tell me, what exactly in the 4th book lead you to believe that Harry was going to be attacked by the ministry for telling people that Voldemort is alive, or that Snape would kill Dumbledore and then be revealed to have done so at his own request, or that Voldemort had sealed pieces of his soul in random objects of which Harry turned out to be one, or that Dumbledore's wand would be stolen by Voldemort but would betray him in the end because it belonged to Harry? Please educate us. You seem to have a very extraordinary gift.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

There's no sentence in any part of that post that states that JK Rowling was the best author ever.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Wow, I really need to go back and read tw books again! Some of these subtle clues (like the diadem) I missed or don't remember!

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That is the awesome thing in harry potter.. Every time you read them something new pops up

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Harry was born on July 31st which means his parents conceived him on Halloween

by Anonymous 11 years ago

People are rarely born exactly 9 months later.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

People rarely have the ability to do magic or fly on brooms... so if that's possible, so is being born exactly nine months later

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Newsflash: It's an entire series about people with the ability to do magic and fly on brooms. They're not exactly rare.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Newsflash: there are over 6 billion people in the world. Hogwarts has about 1000 kids, so lets say that's 1500 parents that do magic and maybe 2000 grandparents (each child has 4 but I took off some for deceased and muggles). Add on 1500 for siblings. Within hogwarts' community that's 6000. Multiply by 3 for each school and its 18000. Add on 1,000,000 for fun, and that's 1,018,000 wizards. 1,018,000/6,000,000,000x100= 0.017% wizard. Fuck you, I even added on an extra million for no reason. Its rare.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Oh snap, you sure showed me with your incredibly accurate calculation of all the wizards on earth.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well at this point unless you have a better way of figuring it out, id say its as accurate as we can get

by Anonymous 11 years ago

My way of figuring it out is that, considering J.K. Rowling introduced a large amount of witches and wizards in a series that barely covers the major population centers of Britain, let alone the rest of Europe or the world, one can safely assume that there are a substantial number of people who can use magic on the planet.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I guess James Potter got a treat instead of a trick.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

People think that all the symbolism and foreshadowning in Harry Potter is genius yet they bitch about having to find symbolism that "isn't really there" in English class. This isn't a personal attack at anyone so don't bother replying how you like English symbolism just as much as Harry Potter symbolism.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

No one said anything about symbolism...?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

"'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi' meaning 'I show not your face but your hearts desire', and nocturnal and diagonally being turned into Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, amirite?" For example.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That isn't symbolism

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I couldn't think of the more general term. Literary devices works better now that I think about it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

People like everything more when they are doing it because they want to instead of because their government/teacher tells them they have to.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

I for one adore the Harry potter books because not only is the story line unique, it is obviUs that jk Rowling put at least some thought and effort into the small details which then create a whole other reality connected to ours. So I think everyone should just stfu and enjoy a good post about a good series written by a talented author.

by Anonymous 11 years ago