Why Is Harry Potter Really a Story About Death?
Harry Potter begins as a boarding-school adventure and ends as an adult story about death. We go through the plot of all seven books, the ending, and the reasons the BBC considers it one of the stories that shaped the world.
What Harry Potter is and why it is on the BBC list
Harry Potter is a series of seven novels written by J. K. Rowling. It was published in the UK between 1997 and 2007.
In 2018, BBC Culture included it at number 15 on its list of the 100 stories that shaped the world. The reason: book by book, it took a generation of readers from a school adventure to an adult story about death.
The plot of the early books
Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs at the home of his aunt and uncle, the Dursleys. When he turns eleven, the gamekeeper Hagrid tells him he is a wizard. His parents did not die in a car crash: they were murdered by Lord Voldemort, the most feared dark wizard of all. The killing curse rebounded off the baby and left him with a lightning-bolt scar.
At Hogwarts he is sorted into Gryffindor and becomes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In The Philosopher's Stone, he stops Voldemort, hidden in the back of Professor Quirrell's head, from stealing the stone that grants eternal life. In The Chamber of Secrets, a basilisk attacks the students. It is set loose by the diary of Tom Riddle, who is Voldemort himself at sixteen.
In The Prisoner of Azkaban, the fugitive Sirius Black turns out to be Harry's innocent godfather. The real traitor who betrayed his parents, Peter Pettigrew, had spent twelve years hiding as Ron's pet rat.
The books where the series turns darker
In The Goblet of Fire, a tournament between three schools ends in a graveyard. Cedric Diggory, a fellow student of Harry's, is murdered. Voldemort regains his body using Harry's blood.
In The Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic denies Voldemort's return and sends Dolores Umbridge to take control of Hogwarts. Sirius dies in the Department of Mysteries. In The Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore reveals that Voldemort has split his soul and hidden the pieces in objects: the Horcruxes. At the end, Severus Snape kills Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower.
The ending of Harry Potter explained (spoilers)
In The Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron and Hermione leave Hogwarts to destroy the Horcruxes. Nagini, Voldemort's snake, kills Snape on her master's orders. Before he dies, Snape gives Harry his memories.
This is where the series turns everything around. Snape loved Lily, Harry's mother, all his life and had been Dumbledore's spy. The headmaster's death, when he was already doomed by a curse, had been agreed between the two of them. What's more, on the night Harry got his scar, a fragment of Voldemort's soul lodged inside him. As long as Harry lives, Voldemort cannot die.
Harry walks alone into the forest and takes the curse without raising his wand. Only the foreign fragment dies, and Harry comes back. Neville Longbottom beheads Nagini, the last Horcrux, and Voldemort's final curse rebounds on him. An epilogue set nineteen years later shows Harry at King's Cross seeing his children off.
Characters defined by how they face death
Harry is the orphan who comes to accept his own death. Hermione, the daughter of non-magical parents, solves with books what others try to solve with courage. Ron gives Harry the family he never had, along with his jealousy. Dumbledore guides him knowing he is preparing him to die. Snape spends years protecting a student he despises. Voldemort sacrifices everything, even his soul, to avoid dying.
The series opens with two murdered parents and closes with a seventeen-year-old walking towards his death. From the very first page, the school story was preparation for that moment.
What Harry Potter changed in children's and young adult fiction
Rowling brought together two British traditions: the boarding-school novel and epic fantasy. What was new was the structure. Each book covers one school year, and Harry is a year older in each. Because the novels came out over ten years, many readers grew up alongside them, and the tone darkened as they did. The last four books each run to more than six hundred pages in the UK edition, which was unusual for young readers' fiction at the time.
The word "muggle" made it into English dictionaries. Quidditch is now played by university teams. The series spawned films, theme parks and fan fiction communities. Its formula of a young-reader series that matures book by book paved the way for others such as The Hunger Games.
Frequently asked questions
How many books are in the Harry Potter series?
There are seven novels by J. K. Rowling, published in the UK between 1997 and 2007.
Why does Snape kill Dumbledore?
Because the two of them had agreed on it. Dumbledore was already doomed by a curse, and Snape was working as his spy.
Why does Harry survive Voldemort's curse in the forest?
Because the curse only kills the fragment of Voldemort's soul that had been living inside Harry since the night he got his scar.
Where does Harry Potter rank on the BBC list?
It is number 15 on the list of the 100 stories that shaped the world, compiled by BBC Culture in 2018.
Informative article written with the help of AI tools from the verified script of the video. The video is in Spanish.