4. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix - "Every great wizard" Speech...
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest of the books and there is a ton of character development. It would be criminal to do it injustice. This is especially true in the case of Dumbledore's Army. That plotline isn't just about getting Neville to develop some confidence in himself or Cho admiring Harry for something other than the legends about him. It's about Harry turning from the boy who has faced incredible danger to the young man who prepares others for those same dangers. The montage of the Dumbledore's Army scenes is a stroke of genius. It has great superposition of the Educational Decrees, the ways to avoid detection and the many lessons that Harry gives. But the best bit of this entire section is a line that is not in the book: "Working hard is important, but there's something else that's even more important: believing in yourself. Look at it this way: every great wizard in history has started out as nothing more than we are now - students. If they can do it, why not us?" Way to tell them, Harry. It's a sum up of the entire series' message, that the greatest of heroes can be empowered by the simplest of powers. It also lays the groundwork for the fact that in the later books, it is a group of kids who does the most to defeat evil. They are the most humble, the most malleable and the most likely to try new things and those are all things that we see in Dumbledore's Army.
Kaki Olsen
Contributor
That's Kaki pronounced like the pants, thank you very much, my family nickname and writing name. I am a Red Sox-loving, Doctor Who-quoting, Shaara-reading walking string quartet of a Mormon writer from Boston. I currently work 40 hours at a stressful desk job with a salary that lets me pick up and travel to places like Ireland or Philadelphia. I have no husband or kids, but I have five nephews to keep me entertained. When not writing, working or eating too much Indian food, I'm always looking for something new to learn, whether it's French or family history.
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