Jul 18, 2007 - 04:04:21 CDT
Join Lord Voldemort, he has cookies.It’s a joke — of course — printed on a Harry Potter fan’s T-shirt.
Meet 12-year-old Matt Messer. He’s got the shirt, the Hogwarts school trunk, the quill pen, three wands and a book of spells heavier than Hagrid, one of Harry’s mentors and friends. Like most other local fans his age, he also has an understanding of where the real world ends and the fictional one begins.
“Unless you’re completely psycho, you’re not going to go around thinking you can actually do magic. You would need dragon hearts and unicorn hair. I think that gets the message across,” Matt said.
“You have to understand it’s not real. It’s fantasy,” James Schmidt, 9½, said.
This weekend means a fantasy come true for anxious fans both locally and worldwide: The long-awaited seventh and final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” will be released at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. This event rides on the coattails of the just-released fifth movie.
As fans of all ages make their conjectures, there’s one thing that is almost guaranteed not to be in the forecast: cookies from Lord Voldemort.
To some outsiders, like parents, teachers and clergy members, Harry Potter has often been accused of inspiring cult-like obsession.
If this is true locally, it is a cult of greater self-awareness, perseverance through hard times and standing up for what is right. And all this from fans as young as 8.
Ty Farnsworth, 8, has never lived in a world where Harry Potter didn’t exist. In fact, the first book appeared in the United Kingdom two years before he was born. But that hardly prevents him from taking a perspective on both Harry Potter and the world that surpasses his years. He’s even started his own book, inspired by Harry Potter.
“When Voldemort kills a lot of people, it reminds me of the war in Iraq,” Ty said.
“That’s what makes (the books) good. Like in real life, sometimes things don’t always turn out good,” Sarah Wachter, 13, said. “But no matter what happens, you can get through it. Harry’s got a really bad life but his friends help him through.”
“I’ve been standing up for people more now that I’ve been reading Harry Potter,” Sarah’s friend, Jenny Galbraith, 12, said.
Sarah and Jenny agree the books are better than the movies. Since discovering their shared interest in Harry Potter and reading in general, Jenny read Homer’s “The Odyssey” and Sarah has plans to tackle Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” The two also share an interest in Japanese comic books.
“Kids at my school read because they have to. I read because I want to,” Jenny said. “It’s required to read 160 minutes a week. I read, like, 300 minutes.”
“The books take you to places you can’t normally go to; you kind of fall away into the book,” Sarah said.
Matt has had the seventh book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” pre-ordered since February, like many other local fans. But unlike others, he’s not the kind of guy to make wagers about the final book’s content.
“Normally, I’ll just let the book come out. I don’t want to fuss over things,” Matt said.
On the other hand, Hannah Slocomb, 14, has one particular prediction she’s not prepared to be disappointed by.
“One of the things I’m really excited for in the next book is for Ron and Hermione to admit they’re in love. They will – I’d bet $2,000,” Hannah said.
Hannah made a goal to read each book 25 times, which she succeeded in doing a while ago. To prepare for the release of the seventh book, Hannah plans to read her way through the first six once more before midnight Friday.
“Every time you open them up you find something new,” Hannah said. “(J.K. Rowling) slips little details in even the mundane conversations. We’ve never read anything like that before. It opens up a whole new book frontier.”
Since 2002, Ali LaRock has been teaching a Harry Potter camp each summer through the Sleepy Hollow Summer Theatre program. At first, she didn’t think her students would be all that interested in theorizing, finding metaphors in the stories and parallels between the magical world and situations in the real world.
Six camps later, the serious life lessons have remained as popular among her students as Ron’s endearing goof-ups.
“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters, but there’s a gray area. That idea repeats over and over,” LaRock said. “We make choices in our lives. Harry Potter grew up in the most terrible of circumstances — verbally abusive, denied love — but he’s still a good person. It didn’t change him.”
When it’s all over, when the last book is released one minute past midnight Saturday morning and the last movie is finished a few years from now, LaRock jokes that instead of Harry Potter camp she’ll have to hold Harry Potter support group meetings.
Hannah also has an idea of how she’ll cope.
“I might dye my hair black. That might be enough of a change to help me get through. I’m going to have to change something, do something to shock myself back into the world.” she said.
Harry Potter parties
Who: Ages 7-12
What: Wand making, Harry bingo, costume party and more
When: 10 a.m. to noon Friday
Where: Bismarck Public Library, Meeting Room A
(Limited enrollment, register by calling 355-1498)
Who: All ages
What: Photo shoot with Harry cutout, jelly bean guess, costume parade and contest, face painting and more
When: Activities 8 to 11:30 p.m. Friday, book sales start at 12:01 a.m. Saturday
Where: Bismarck Barnes & Noble, 565 S. Seventh St.
**It Happens** wrote on Jul 18, 2007 9:28 PM:
UMary Student wrote on Jul 18, 2007 2:01 PM:
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