Harry Potter's World

THE MAGICAL HARRY POTTER’S WORLD

In this research we are going to know a little bit more about Harry Potter story, the author, the books, the media and other interesting facts concerning this success.

Harry Potter had began in 1997 as a title of a 7 fantastic book’s series - with 3 extras written by the author J.K. Rowling, to become one of the most successful products’ brand nowadays, leading movies, videogames and even so an amusement park in Orlando, USA, making the author the richest woman of literature’s history and the second richest woman in the world, only behind Oprah Winfrey.

1. The History of Harry Potter

When he completed 11 years old, the orphan boy called Harry Potter – so far raised by his aunt and uncle, had a drastic change in all his life. Redeemed by Rubeus Hagrid (the half giant Hogwarts’s gamekeeper) from his uncle’s house, Harry went to Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft and had an incredible change in his life. Besides belonging to a world where the magic is real, to discover that there, the most popular sport was called Quiddich, the pets usually were cats, frogs or mice and the classes were so much more interesting than the Muggles’s, he discovered to be known for every witch and wizard like the “Boy Who Lived”, once that he apparently defeated in a mysterious way the worst wizard of all times – Lord Voldemort, when he was just a baby and just a time after his parents’ murder by the same.

But not everything was different. Like in the Muggle’s world, the wizard’s was divided in disagreements and prejudices, specially between the pure-bloods – the wizards born in wizard families, and the mud-bloods – the muggleborns.

The series is pointed by the discoveries of Harry, besides the many times that he, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley – his best friends, met and defeated Lord Voldemort along the years, whom had came back a lot of times through Horcruxes – valuable and dark objects which contains soul parts making impossible for his possessor to die without someone else destroying it.

In the Very End, love is the most powerful and the real reason of all, including the many times that Harry and his friends defeated the evil.

2 The Author

J.K. Rowling, the British writer, was born in 1965 in England. Graduated in French and Classical Languages at Exeter University in 1987, J.K. is, according to Forbs magazine, the second richest woman in the world nowadays and the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books.

The idea about Harry Potter came out to her while she was on a subway trip from Manchester to London in 1990. She got it finished just in 1995, when she submitted the book to thirteen publishing houses, being accepted just in the last one, Bloomsbury. Even so, she got a warning to get a day job, once that the money with her books wouldn’t be enough to survive.

The result was the opposite. The Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone book was so well sold and so well accepted by the critical - including winning several awards, which the same publishing house paid to her to write the next book – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Since then, the success has just increased.

J.K. Rowling has set up and supported financially the The Volant Charitable Trust to research into the causes, treatment and possible cures of Multiple Sclerosis and to alleviate social deprivation, with a particular emphasis on women’s and children’s issues.

J.K. supports other causes too, being the ambassador for One Parent Families and writing books under pseudonyms intending their profits to other charitable causes.

“I think you have a moral responsibility when you’ve been given far more than you need, to do wise things with it and give intelligently.” (J.K. ROWLING)

In 2007 she gave a final to the Harry Potter series, but stated that she plans to continue writing other stories to children.

3 The Books

With seven books and three extras – all of them present in the middle of the story, Harry Potter is a fantasy literature translated for more than 64 languages, possibly found in more than 200 countries, which estimates more than 400 million books sold, 3 million only in Brazil, thus occupying the sixth place among the bestselling books of all and with the last four books being the faster books sold in history.

With narration focused to the surroundings of Harry Potter, the writer tells everything in great details, mixing the current world with mysticism, legends and mythology. The books lead specially with the theme death, but addressing love, friendship, prejudices and the struggle of good against the evil on it.

With a complicated structure and full of details, the author manages to bring to the present world, through her books and their characters, part of a forgotten mythology and another invented by herself. Amid all the narration innumerable mythological animals and other important names in human history are found - such as Nicolau Flamel, who actually existed and tried to create the philosopher's stone the way it is narrated in the first book in the series. Other characters were based on her own life and childhood memories.

The books are considered having brought the passion of the literature to the teenagers once again.

“I must thank J.K. Rowling to have formed a new generation of readers.” (STEPHENIE MEYER – teenage’s story writer)

The responsible for the Brazilian translation is Lia Wyler – the first recognized translator in Brazil.

4 The movies

The initial idea was to make an animation saga - graphic designs would occupy the place that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are today. But the project didn’t go ahead, opening ways to Warner Bros, which signed contract six years after launching the first book.

With contract signed, the first Harry Potter movie was premiered in 2001, being until then – according with Época (November, 5, 2001), the greater investment from the British company since 1929, when it opened its first office.

Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ronald Weasley, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, and counting with the presence of numerous renowned actors, the global launch to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone caused uproar among the fans.

Since then, six other