Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone

The fantasy of every kid………

The overwhelming wish in almost all dire situations…………

To have magical power of some kind or other, maybe to know the paper tomorrow or help out in a competition or with a girl, well here is a case of a young kid (obviously living a wretched life coz he’s the HERO) finding out that he’s got it and to cap it he’s a rather famous character. Here starts a journey of fascinated learning of a world totally new and beyond imagination.

Our hero is now at a school for learning to use magic and in his first few encounters is faced with a society divided into the ‘old faithful’ style GOOD & EVIL or the DARK side. True to tradition the dark side one and only one ultra powerful egocentric self centred etc etc chap at the head and the other ie good side has one that believes in love and similar things. Just a basic deviation the head of dark side is not stronger than his opponent and thus wants to avoid a direct confrontation.

Returning to main story, Harry Potter, a legend, the only one to survive and somewhat related to partially destroying the Leader of the dark side ‘Lord Voldemort’ as an infant, suddenly comes to know he’s a wizard and has got admission to the best school for learning magic, HOGWARTS, headed by the redoubtable Dumbuldore. He meets people from the wizarding fraternity and instantly chooses the sides he wants to be on, is naturally talented in Quidditch the most famous game for wizards. There he meets a few friends Ron & Hermione, not to mention the gentle half giant Hagrid who also happens to be a teacher of his. Other major characters include Snape another of his teachers who happens to loathe him and Quirell another professor who acts rather strangely.

Hogwarts happens to be guarding a philosopher’s stone which gives the elixir of life, which helps a person live forever. The Dark Lord obviously wants it and that’s why it is guarded. He however latches on to quirell’s body and forces him to steal the stone….but at the last moment our saviour Harry comes to the rescue with his friends and saves the day.

An oft told story but with a few differences that the hero is not an all conquering figure but one who has to fight off his inner emotions, he does not just sacrifices his feelings for the greater good ala superman but rather fights for himself as well fights his own emotions before reaching a decision. This was a major shift in how our hero were supposed to feel & this along with the fantasy & children’s angle helped the book become as famous as it did.