Harry Potter was our Star Wars.
The hours spent waiting in line and the midnight movies spent in costumes represent a large part of many college students’ experiences at movie theaters across the country.
But that’s just the tail end of it, the icing on top a seven-layer cake. The infatuation with Harry, Ron and Hermione started way back in 1998, when the first edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone hit the bookshelves. Some of us in the newsroom were only eight, but that didn’t matter. We picked up the book anyway, and while it wasn’t the best-written novel in the whole world, it struck a chord with us.
We could relate to Harry and his bullying cousin, his experiences in a new school, and the struggled to make new friends in a strange place. After all, we were still trying to figure out this school thing for ourselves.
As fate (or an incredibly genius marketing strategy by J.K. Rowling) would have it, the spacing between the books was almost perfect, and each year we got to see Harry grow a little older, get a little smarter, and learn more and more about the wizarding world.
By 2000, our first decade, we were treated to the “Goblet of Fire,” a book that was much darker and more serious than any of the first three (although the Prisoner of Azkaban hinted at darker undertones.) We saw a side of Harry we’d never seen before, and we loved it. Then right at the height of the mania surrounding the books, we got news that would affect our lives for the next decade: The Sorcerer’s Stone was being filmed, and would be released next year.
That was it. We were sold, and as the books got longer and the movies started rolling out, there was no going back.
The “Half-Blood Prince” hit us all like a ton of bricks, whether you read the book first or just watched the movie. We were all dying to get our hands on the final book, and the true fans among us avoid Facebook for days when plot spoilers began to leak out.
And now it’s down to this: the final chapter. If Part 2 is anything like the last half of the book, it is a fitting end to a long saga that has consumed us since we were in second grade.
Thursday night marks the end of an era. Soak up all its glorious nerdiness and celebrate the Boy Who Lived one more time.
Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.
Follow The State Press on Twitter or like us on Facebook.
