Podcast Transcript
INTRO
Welcome to the Story Surgeon Podcast, I am your host Ektaa Bali, midwife, fantasy author, podcaster and story enthusiast and this is the show where I dissect and break open novels, movies and tv shows and figure out what makes them work.
If you missed it last week, I published two books:
The first is the second book in the my middle grade adventure fantasy series, its called The Fae Princess. Book 2 of the Pacific Princesses Series and the second is a non Fiction book for my midwifery students out there: A Guide to the Postnatal Ward for Midwifery Students and new Grads. You can find them on my website, along with notes from this episode at my website ektaabali.com
So on our second episode we’re diving deep into Harry Potter.
But why do a Harry Potter series? Isn’t it over done?
For me, as with many others, for decades I’ve loved these books as a reader, and as a consumer so now that I’m an author, I really want to get into the weeds of what actually makes these books great. I want to put on the lense of a creative, of an author and analyse them as objectively as I can.
We learn from the greats, and JK rowling is undoubtly in the history books as one of the greats.
Dean Wesley Smith, a prolific author in the writing community encourages authors to look at the people who do it best and learn from them, imitate them until you became great yourself.
So, without further ado, let’s get into Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Stats:
Published by Bloomsberry in June 1997, the movie came out in 2001 and grossed 1 Billon USD
There is some debate under which section to shelve harry potter as books 1-3 can be solidly middle grade, but once you hit book 4 we have to shelve them under YA because of the change in themes.
So Harry is eleven in book 1 so we’ll call this middle grade
Now, this is my least favourite harry potter book, and I know a lot of people feel this way, and I’m going to go into the reasons why this is. It’s very unusual for a book one to be the least favourite, and its a testament to the quality of story that the books get better and better up until book 6.
But Today we’re dissecting book 1, so let’s get right into it.
For those of you have forgotten what happens in book one. A quick summary.
Harry thinks he’s a regular boy whos parents died in a car crash, living in the cupboard under the stairs with his terrible aunt and uncle.
One day a gigantic strange man tells him who he really is, a wizard belonging to a long line of powerful wizards and that his place is at Hogwarts, a wizarding school. He finds out that his parents were killed by a powerful wizard, who was trying to kill him, too, but for some reason the curse bounced back, leading to Voldemorts demise.
Harry begins his new life exploring the wonders of witchcraft and wizardry when he discovers something sinister is going on with a secret object kept hidden at the school.
One of the teachers Professor Snape, appears to be trying to get to the object.
The object turns out to be the Philosopher’s stone, an object made to give you immortality and Harry is told that Voldemort is trying to use it to get his life back. Snape appears to be working for him.
It all comes to head when Snape appears to lure Dumbledore, the headmaster away from the school so he can get to the heavily guarded Stone.
Harry and friends follow close behind, solving the puzzles and getting past the defenses when Harry comes face to face with….Quirell a stuttering professor we never suspected, who Voldemort has been piggybacking on this whole time, under his turban.
Harry retrievs the Stone without Voldemort knowing and Quirrel tries to come after Harry but as soon as he touches Harry he melts and dies and Voldemort flees.
——————————--
Alright, so let’s look at our Books statistics
We are 80k words making it 295 pages
There are 17 chapters
Each Chapter averages 4,500 words
The longest chapters were chapter 5 Diagon Ally and chapter 16 through the Trap door both at about 6.5k words.
Each chapter starts with a wide angle of wider picture and narrows back down to harry’s experience
Next let’s look at the structure of Philosopher’s Stone.
Rowling hits our traditional fiction milestones accurately.
Chapter 1 (4,611w) Hook (vernon + dumbledore)
Chapter 2 Setup/ old world
Chapter 3 Setup/ old world Call to adventure
Chapter 4 Inciting Incident 16% pg 50
Chapter 5 Fun and Games + setup + forshadowing
Chapter 6 Fun + Games First act
Chapter 7 Fun + Games
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 Mid point turn- the 3rd floor corridor (50%)
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 Apotheosis + giving of a boon (invisibility cloak) (66%)
Chapter 13 The Bad guys are closing in…misdirection to snape
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16 Climax (82%)
Chapter 17 Climax then at 93% resolution
————————--
PLOT + PACING
Rowling follows uses hero’s journey to shape the plot quite precisely, it’s beat by beat in fact.
1. The Call to adventure- we get our letters from Hogwarts
2. Refusal of the Call- the Dursely refuse him acess to the letters
3. Supernatural Aid- Fianlly Hagrid comes to explain everything
4. Crossing the threshold- Literally platform 9 3/4
5. Belly of the Whale- We literally cross the gigantic lake to get to Hogwarts
6. The Road of Trials-
7. Meeting the Goddess- where we get items to help us. Harry recieves the Invisibility Cloak
8. Woman as the temptress- the Mirror of Erised
9. Atonement with the Father- conversation with Dumbledore about harry’s parents + Quidditch
In going to add THe Abbyss here: Dark night where the trio are in disgrace for losing the house points
10. Apotheosis- Harry meets Quirrel in front of the mirror and realises the stone has been given to him
11. The Ultimate Boon- The Goal has been achieved. Harry has the stone and Voldemort leaves, burned.
12. Refusal of Return
13. Magic Flight
14. Rescue from without- Dumbledore rescues Harry
15. The Crossing of the return threshold- Back on the Hogwarts Express
16. Master of two worlds- Harry has to tolerate the summer before he goes back
17. Freedom to Live
Now I would argue, that It’s the subplots that really make Harry Potter what it is.
As Bandon Sanderson says, “Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.” And he also goes on to say that you can’t base a book off one idea, you need a few ideas. And JK rowling has ideas in bucketloads.
The Main plot in each book is like a thread that carries us through, but we’re really there to experience the other stuff. The Subplots. I don’t know if I quite cared about the Philosopher’s stone really, but I know I care a hell of a lot about the other stuff.
So in Philosopher’s stone,
Main plot: The ’thing’ being guarded by fluffy and Nicolas Flamel
1. Hagrid collects the stone
2. Newspaper article about Gringotts being broken into
3. Find Fluffy guarding something—> harry assumes its the package
4. They think it’s snape and tell H+ Hagrid spilling out Nicholas Flamel
Harry overhears snape’s injury is by fluffy—>. They assume he is trying to get to the package
Hermoine finds out NF made the Philosopher’s Stone and that it makes you immortal
Firenze confirms its the Philosopher’s Stone and tells him its Voldemort behind it
They warn mcgonagall, dumbledore is gone, Harry assumes Snape is doing it tonight and goes after him.
Subplots:
Series Plot
Hogwarts school life + magic
Draco rivalry
Quidditch
Norbert the Dragon
Rowling does this thing where her subplots are inseperable from the main plot. They are woven very closely together
(Ch 4) You’re a wizard
(Ch5) You’re a wizard + Hagrid collects Philosopher’s stone + clever intro to Quidditch +Malfoy plots
(Ch8) Hogwarts school life + Newspaper article about gringotts break in the same day they had been there
(Ch 9) Quidditch plot + Draco rivalry (duel)—> third floor corridor, harry figures out package is there.
(Ch 10) Quidditch plot + Troll event
(Ch 11) Quidditch plot + Snape/Quirrel misdirection moving stone plot forward + Hagrid tells them about Nicholas Flamel
(Ch 12) Nicholas Flamel research + Christmas/Cloak + Mirror (series plot)
(Ch 13) Quidditch + Nicholas Flamel research + Quidditch + Hermione figures out it’s the philosopher’s stone—> urgency
(Ch 14 70%) Norbert plot—> gets them detention
(Ch 15) To get him into the Forest for the main plot + series plot—> it’s voldemort
(16) warn mcgonagall + find out how to get past fluffy—> down they go
So I’ve figured out why this book is my least favourite in the series. And it’s because of two main things Rowling has used a plot devices/means of moving the plot. And they are : Assumptions and Coincidences.
Okay so, I noticed there was a lot of assuming going on by means of Harry thinking something is happening that actually turns out to be true.
Assumptions:
He assumes that it’s Snape who is up to no good.
Harry assumes that Snape used the rampaging Troll as a diversion without any evidence.
Harry assumes that Dumbledore has left because Snape has used a letter as a diversion again without any evidence.
These are very convinient to the plot, but they make for very little reader satisfaction.
Next, our plot moves forward via coincidence, not by ‘figuring out’ or smarts or by any other effort on the characters parts.
It’s coincidence that Neville opens a chocolate Frog mentioning Nicholas Flamel.
It’s coincidence that
Having the characters figure out what’s going on via coincidence could be classed as at best, cheating and at worst lazy writing.
In Pixar’s 22 rules for storytelling. One of them is: “getting your characters into trouble via coincidence is good, but having them get out of that trouble by coincidence is cheating.
We want our characters, to figure things out, use their strengths and overcome their weaknesses to figure out what’s going on and solve the problem and overcome their issues. This is why the sequence in the climax is enjoyable, because our trio solve each trial on their own: Ron’s chess ability, Harry’s flying ability and Hermione’s logic and knowledge.
And I think that’s the heart of creating satisying solutions to problems.
Rowling uses caricatures inspired by old English fairytales. Our characters, even secondary and tertiary characters given features and behaviours that marks them in our minds.
Rowling is a master at this. At creating memorable characters we like or do not like immediately and she does this using a few techniques.
The first is giving each character a stark feature we can recognise them by instantly in a few words. These are usually physical and each one is very distinct from the other
Harry has messy jet black hair, a lightning bolt shaped scar and green eyes.
Hermione has bushy brown hair and large teeth
Ron has vibrant red hair and freckles
Dumbeldore has a long white beard and half moon spectacles
Snape has a hooked nose and greasy black hair
Quirrel wears a purple turban and has a distinct stutter.
Hagrid, the friendly giant
Each of these characters is given literally only two, sometimes three clear physical attributes that give the reader an immediate visual image, and that’s all we need to recognise them by.
The second way Rowling creates memorable characters is her masterful writing. We have a large cast of characters but we never feel overwhelmed by them. The way they speak and behave is all very distinct. We know exactly what type of person each character is. While some of them are achetypes, like Dumbledore the rest of them are definitley caricatures that we flesh out more as the series moves on.
Harry
The exiled infant/chosen one trope of Joseph Campells archyetypes (Adam Lowry by adamlowry.com) He has a terrible childhood and was torn away from his parents
If you want readers to like a character, have them share their food.
Antagonist Draco-
Harry immediately thinks of Dudley.
We establish how we feel about thsi character through a reference or comparison to a previously well established character. (We were with Dudley for about 3-4 chapters in the set up)
Perceieved Antagonist = Snape
However this is misdirection
The reader is made to hate him
Rowling does this by:
Showing us he is unfair and cruel
Hagrid- Harry goes off with Hagrid who is effectively a stranger. You might only be able to get away with this in fairy tale type stories. It might not cut it in a regular contemporary middlegrade fiction. Harry just has a feeling of ‘trusting him’ and we are shown Hagrid is a good person in a few ways.
Rowling’s tertiary characters are all Caricatures but they are all well developed
For example Filch Mrs Norris, the other teachers, Peeves. We have a really clear picture of exactly who and what they are.
DESIRE
This theme is central to Philsopher’s stone and is directly used as a cause for Harry’s ultimate win at the end of the climax.
We are quite literally shown the perils of desire in three key instances:
1. Literally the Mirror of Erised is desire spelled backwards, (though I never figured that out as a ten year old). Dumbledore teaches Harry
“Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible [….] It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (pp. 229-230). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
2. Firenze the Centaur teaches Harry that using Unicorn blood to prolonge life leads to a cursed life and then links that to the philosopher’s stone elixir.
3. Dumbledore teaches harry after the big climax that Harry was able to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone because he did not desire it for himself.
“You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things which are worst for them.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 320). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
FRIENDSHIP
We see friendship as a big theme in book 1 because here is where we are forming the start of long lasting relationships.
1. The establishement of the harry and Ron relationship by way of harry refusing Malfoy’s offer to be friends. Harry chose the higher path here.
2. The establishment of Hermione as a permanent part of their group via altruism. Harry remembers Hermione is crying the toilets and they run off to warn her. Subsequently Hermione shoulders the blame when Harry and Ron are getting into trouble, thus their friendship is cemented and based on the three of them following the higher road. Thus the basis of friendships through the entire series henceforth is altruism, sacrifice and humility.
3. The Neville subplot completed by Dumbledore in the final chapter:
‘There are all kinds of courage,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr Neville Longbottom.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 329). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Let us delve into JK Rowling’s masterful writing.
We start chapter 1 in 3rd person omniscinet we know this because we get this line where we beinig directly spoken to by the narrator:
When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 2). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Most of the book is written in 3rd person limited to Harry’s perspective, and we break from this usually at the start of each chapter where Rowling gives us a birds eye view of the setting before she zooms into Harry. Ocassionally she breaks from Harry to give an omnisicient view of Hermione trying to set a counter curse on Snape or in exposition to move along in time.
And actually in the entire harry potter series, we don’t actually get too much shift away from Harry’s POV. The only chapters we move away, are this first chapter of book 1, Chapter 1 of book 4, chapter 1 book 6 and chapter 1 book 7.
She almost uses them as a prologue chapter in books 4, 6 and 7.
As Brandon Sanderson says, Prologues are a promise to the reader that, here is what you can expect after I set this all up for you. It’s a promise of tone and action. It’s saying if you stick with me, this is what you can expect up ahead.
So
Chapter 1 of book 1 actually gets the brunt of crisiticm out of the whole series. It seems to be an opening that people really don’t like.
In this book, Rowling is using an adult’s perspective to highlight the weird and unusual .
And throughout the series, we see Harry’s Uncle and Aunt as our mechanism of stark contrast. This is our “known world” in point 1 of the Hero’s Journey.
Okay so we’re given 2,000 words, (or halfway of this 4,600 word chapter of Uncle Vernon) before we head into Dumbledore and McGonagall’s conversation. Which, if we weren’t hooked by Vernon’s observations of the strange, our little party of wizards on privet drive will.
I think this is probably the reason why people don’t like how Harry Potter is opened. Uncle Vernon is universally hated by all and to start the series off with him seems unnecessary and uncomfortable to me. It really sits apart as a chapter from the rest of the entire series. We never get an Uncle Vernon POV again and thank god for that. He’s super uninteresting. Is this the reason why Rowling got so many rejections back when she was trying to sell the book? Publishers judge a writer by their first chapter, and if this is everyone’s least favourite perhaps it would have been better off jumping straight into Dumble and McGonagall like the movie did.
Ignoring the first 2000 words of the series,
Rowling’s writing is charming in the way that Old Engish fairytales are charming, or even newer tales. It has the same charm as Narnia for example, where everything is so wonderful, cozy and fantastical, that even the darker elements have a hint of this quality. It gives us a real sense of escapism.. Her style of writing really made the world of harry potter somewhere kids and adults could escape to without feeling belittled or stupid for doing so. The problems in harry’s world feel very real and serious but nestled in amongst the fantastical elements, themes, humour and wittisms we find comfort and security.
Rowling is truly a master storyteller and she executes detailed world-building in a way that entraces us, while she seemingly dosen’t bat an eyelid— the whole thing comes off as effortless.
I’d like to speak about chapter 5 “Diagon Alley” for a bit. I think it’s a masterful chapter and shows us how she gives us a large amount of new information very quickly without us feeling overwhelmed by it. In fact, it excites us and makes us eager to turn the page.
This chapter is our Breaking into the second Act chapter, it’s our leaving the old world and entering the new world.
Instead of bringing us straight to Hogwarts and doing massive infodumps, we’re given Diagon Alley, an inbetween place where we can aclimatise and be given hints about new concepts. Now, nothing is explained in depth mind you, there’s a lot of forshadowing and hinting going on and this happens in the form of Draco Malfoy who serves as our explainer before Hermione arrives to be the informant for the rest of the series. Malfoy’s scene is an excellent example of how to “show and not tell” and it’s done with Draco bragging to Harry in Madam Malkin’s robes shop.
He also provides us with forshadowing for the whole series. The pure blood v muggle blood is introduced here to.
So we’re given a hell of a lot of information in chapter 5 but it feels good to the reader, it makes them hungry for more rather than overwhelmed with infodumps. I highly recommend you talk a look at it. If this much information can be given to kids in a middle grade fantasy, we should be able to do it for adults as well.
How is it done?
Through natural conversation. Hagrid does a bit of explaining but mostly it’s with conversation with other magical folk and the reader is left to insinuate the information, it’s not given to us easily or boringly either. Each bit of conversation really shows characterisation. We immediately know how each character is by the way they converse with Harry. First Quirrel, Malfoy, Ollivander.
Rowling does characterisation extremely well, I think that’s partly why these books are so popular.
Yes, the characters might be archetypes or caricatures but we can bascially immediately see who they are within the first few lines of them speaking. Note how she introduces the weasley’s here.
'– packed with Muggles, of course –’ Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry’s in front of him – and they had an owl. Heart hammering, Harry pushed his trolley after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.
‘Now, what’s the platform number?’ said the boys’ mother.
‘Nine and three-quarters!’ piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand. ‘Mum, can’t I go …’
‘You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.’
What looked like the oldest boy marched towards platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it – but just as the boy reached the divide between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him, and by the time the last rucksack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
‘Fred, you next,’ the plump woman said.
‘I’m not Fred, I’m George,’ said the boy. ‘Honestly, woman, call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?’
‘Sorry, George, dear.’ ‘Only joking, I am Fred,’ said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done, because a second later, he had gone – but how had he done it?
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (pp. 98-99). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
We’re given action, explanation, mystery and characterisation of new characters all in one passage. This is why Rowling is a masterful story teller. It’s depth and conciseness all at the same time. We are introduced to five new characters and we don’t even feel overwhelmed.
Master at Forshadowing
She creates surprising twists by forshadowing them very briefly (usually one sentence)
Quirrel is knocked over while Hermione thinks she’s going to cast a counter curse at Snape. This is one line.
The Norbert dragon arc is set up at the start when hagrid has one line where he says ‘he would love a dragon’.
Harry has a dream that shows the entiire plot, but you don’t even remember it. It sits in your subconcious mind ready to help make sense of things as they pop up and make those moments satisfying.
Rowling also effectively set us up for the next two books.
Book 2 is forshadowed by Malfoy in Diagon Alley when he mentions the purebloods v muggle borns theme, and then again when Dumbledore says in response to asking if Voldemort is dead:
'No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 320). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Book 3 is set up by the mention of Sirius in the first chapter
Rowling’s writing is such as pleasure to read, but for me as a new author it’s also such a pleasure to learn from. She’s so effortless and masterful. Sure she her writing has critiscms but they are are only only small complaints like the percieved over use of adverbs, which is honestly something that a majority of readers wouldn’t notice. I certainly didn’t, I don’t feel like they cause any issues here.
And so we’ve come to the end of my break down of HHPS. I’m a little sad that’s it’s the end, but that’s okay because I’m definitley considering doing the whole series!
Next episode, before we dive into Harry Potter and CS, I’m going to be taking a look into Shadow and Bone by Leigh Badargo. The Netflix series is coming out soon so I thought I’d better read the book first and see what the fuss was about!
Thank you for listening. You can find the notes and transcription of this episode as well a complete list of my published works on my website ektaabali.com that (spell it out). See you next time!
Welcome to the Story Surgeon Podcast, I am your host Ektaa Bali, midwife, fantasy author, podcaster and story enthusiast and this is the show where I dissect and break open novels, movies and tv shows and figure out what makes them work.
If you missed it last week, I published two books:
The first is the second book in the my middle grade adventure fantasy series, its called The Fae Princess. Book 2 of the Pacific Princesses Series and the second is a non Fiction book for my midwifery students out there: A Guide to the Postnatal Ward for Midwifery Students and new Grads. You can find them on my website, along with notes from this episode at my website ektaabali.com
So on our second episode we’re diving deep into Harry Potter.
But why do a Harry Potter series? Isn’t it over done?
For me, as with many others, for decades I’ve loved these books as a reader, and as a consumer so now that I’m an author, I really want to get into the weeds of what actually makes these books great. I want to put on the lense of a creative, of an author and analyse them as objectively as I can.
We learn from the greats, and JK rowling is undoubtly in the history books as one of the greats.
Dean Wesley Smith, a prolific author in the writing community encourages authors to look at the people who do it best and learn from them, imitate them until you became great yourself.
So, without further ado, let’s get into Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Stats:
Published by Bloomsberry in June 1997, the movie came out in 2001 and grossed 1 Billon USD
There is some debate under which section to shelve harry potter as books 1-3 can be solidly middle grade, but once you hit book 4 we have to shelve them under YA because of the change in themes.
So Harry is eleven in book 1 so we’ll call this middle grade
Now, this is my least favourite harry potter book, and I know a lot of people feel this way, and I’m going to go into the reasons why this is. It’s very unusual for a book one to be the least favourite, and its a testament to the quality of story that the books get better and better up until book 6.
But Today we’re dissecting book 1, so let’s get right into it.
For those of you have forgotten what happens in book one. A quick summary.
Harry thinks he’s a regular boy whos parents died in a car crash, living in the cupboard under the stairs with his terrible aunt and uncle.
One day a gigantic strange man tells him who he really is, a wizard belonging to a long line of powerful wizards and that his place is at Hogwarts, a wizarding school. He finds out that his parents were killed by a powerful wizard, who was trying to kill him, too, but for some reason the curse bounced back, leading to Voldemorts demise.
Harry begins his new life exploring the wonders of witchcraft and wizardry when he discovers something sinister is going on with a secret object kept hidden at the school.
One of the teachers Professor Snape, appears to be trying to get to the object.
The object turns out to be the Philosopher’s stone, an object made to give you immortality and Harry is told that Voldemort is trying to use it to get his life back. Snape appears to be working for him.
It all comes to head when Snape appears to lure Dumbledore, the headmaster away from the school so he can get to the heavily guarded Stone.
Harry and friends follow close behind, solving the puzzles and getting past the defenses when Harry comes face to face with….Quirell a stuttering professor we never suspected, who Voldemort has been piggybacking on this whole time, under his turban.
Harry retrievs the Stone without Voldemort knowing and Quirrel tries to come after Harry but as soon as he touches Harry he melts and dies and Voldemort flees.
——————————--
Alright, so let’s look at our Books statistics
We are 80k words making it 295 pages
There are 17 chapters
Each Chapter averages 4,500 words
The longest chapters were chapter 5 Diagon Ally and chapter 16 through the Trap door both at about 6.5k words.
Each chapter starts with a wide angle of wider picture and narrows back down to harry’s experience
Next let’s look at the structure of Philosopher’s Stone.
Rowling hits our traditional fiction milestones accurately.
Chapter 1 (4,611w) Hook (vernon + dumbledore)
Chapter 2 Setup/ old world
Chapter 3 Setup/ old world Call to adventure
Chapter 4 Inciting Incident 16% pg 50
Chapter 5 Fun and Games + setup + forshadowing
Chapter 6 Fun + Games First act
Chapter 7 Fun + Games
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 Mid point turn- the 3rd floor corridor (50%)
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 Apotheosis + giving of a boon (invisibility cloak) (66%)
Chapter 13 The Bad guys are closing in…misdirection to snape
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16 Climax (82%)
Chapter 17 Climax then at 93% resolution
————————--
PLOT + PACING
Rowling follows uses hero’s journey to shape the plot quite precisely, it’s beat by beat in fact.
1. The Call to adventure- we get our letters from Hogwarts
2. Refusal of the Call- the Dursely refuse him acess to the letters
3. Supernatural Aid- Fianlly Hagrid comes to explain everything
4. Crossing the threshold- Literally platform 9 3/4
5. Belly of the Whale- We literally cross the gigantic lake to get to Hogwarts
6. The Road of Trials-
7. Meeting the Goddess- where we get items to help us. Harry recieves the Invisibility Cloak
8. Woman as the temptress- the Mirror of Erised
9. Atonement with the Father- conversation with Dumbledore about harry’s parents + Quidditch
In going to add THe Abbyss here: Dark night where the trio are in disgrace for losing the house points
10. Apotheosis- Harry meets Quirrel in front of the mirror and realises the stone has been given to him
11. The Ultimate Boon- The Goal has been achieved. Harry has the stone and Voldemort leaves, burned.
12. Refusal of Return
13. Magic Flight
14. Rescue from without- Dumbledore rescues Harry
15. The Crossing of the return threshold- Back on the Hogwarts Express
16. Master of two worlds- Harry has to tolerate the summer before he goes back
17. Freedom to Live
Now I would argue, that It’s the subplots that really make Harry Potter what it is.
As Bandon Sanderson says, “Ideas are cheap, execution is everything.” And he also goes on to say that you can’t base a book off one idea, you need a few ideas. And JK rowling has ideas in bucketloads.
The Main plot in each book is like a thread that carries us through, but we’re really there to experience the other stuff. The Subplots. I don’t know if I quite cared about the Philosopher’s stone really, but I know I care a hell of a lot about the other stuff.
So in Philosopher’s stone,
Main plot: The ’thing’ being guarded by fluffy and Nicolas Flamel
1. Hagrid collects the stone
2. Newspaper article about Gringotts being broken into
3. Find Fluffy guarding something—> harry assumes its the package
4. They think it’s snape and tell H+ Hagrid spilling out Nicholas Flamel
Harry overhears snape’s injury is by fluffy—>. They assume he is trying to get to the package
Hermoine finds out NF made the Philosopher’s Stone and that it makes you immortal
Firenze confirms its the Philosopher’s Stone and tells him its Voldemort behind it
They warn mcgonagall, dumbledore is gone, Harry assumes Snape is doing it tonight and goes after him.
Subplots:
Series Plot
Hogwarts school life + magic
Draco rivalry
Quidditch
Norbert the Dragon
Rowling does this thing where her subplots are inseperable from the main plot. They are woven very closely together
(Ch 4) You’re a wizard
(Ch5) You’re a wizard + Hagrid collects Philosopher’s stone + clever intro to Quidditch +Malfoy plots
(Ch8) Hogwarts school life + Newspaper article about gringotts break in the same day they had been there
(Ch 9) Quidditch plot + Draco rivalry (duel)—> third floor corridor, harry figures out package is there.
(Ch 10) Quidditch plot + Troll event
(Ch 11) Quidditch plot + Snape/Quirrel misdirection moving stone plot forward + Hagrid tells them about Nicholas Flamel
(Ch 12) Nicholas Flamel research + Christmas/Cloak + Mirror (series plot)
(Ch 13) Quidditch + Nicholas Flamel research + Quidditch + Hermione figures out it’s the philosopher’s stone—> urgency
(Ch 14 70%) Norbert plot—> gets them detention
(Ch 15) To get him into the Forest for the main plot + series plot—> it’s voldemort
(16) warn mcgonagall + find out how to get past fluffy—> down they go
So I’ve figured out why this book is my least favourite in the series. And it’s because of two main things Rowling has used a plot devices/means of moving the plot. And they are : Assumptions and Coincidences.
Okay so, I noticed there was a lot of assuming going on by means of Harry thinking something is happening that actually turns out to be true.
Assumptions:
He assumes that it’s Snape who is up to no good.
Harry assumes that Snape used the rampaging Troll as a diversion without any evidence.
Harry assumes that Dumbledore has left because Snape has used a letter as a diversion again without any evidence.
These are very convinient to the plot, but they make for very little reader satisfaction.
Next, our plot moves forward via coincidence, not by ‘figuring out’ or smarts or by any other effort on the characters parts.
It’s coincidence that Neville opens a chocolate Frog mentioning Nicholas Flamel.
It’s coincidence that
Having the characters figure out what’s going on via coincidence could be classed as at best, cheating and at worst lazy writing.
In Pixar’s 22 rules for storytelling. One of them is: “getting your characters into trouble via coincidence is good, but having them get out of that trouble by coincidence is cheating.
We want our characters, to figure things out, use their strengths and overcome their weaknesses to figure out what’s going on and solve the problem and overcome their issues. This is why the sequence in the climax is enjoyable, because our trio solve each trial on their own: Ron’s chess ability, Harry’s flying ability and Hermione’s logic and knowledge.
And I think that’s the heart of creating satisying solutions to problems.
Rowling uses caricatures inspired by old English fairytales. Our characters, even secondary and tertiary characters given features and behaviours that marks them in our minds.
Rowling is a master at this. At creating memorable characters we like or do not like immediately and she does this using a few techniques.
The first is giving each character a stark feature we can recognise them by instantly in a few words. These are usually physical and each one is very distinct from the other
Harry has messy jet black hair, a lightning bolt shaped scar and green eyes.
Hermione has bushy brown hair and large teeth
Ron has vibrant red hair and freckles
Dumbeldore has a long white beard and half moon spectacles
Snape has a hooked nose and greasy black hair
Quirrel wears a purple turban and has a distinct stutter.
Hagrid, the friendly giant
Each of these characters is given literally only two, sometimes three clear physical attributes that give the reader an immediate visual image, and that’s all we need to recognise them by.
The second way Rowling creates memorable characters is her masterful writing. We have a large cast of characters but we never feel overwhelmed by them. The way they speak and behave is all very distinct. We know exactly what type of person each character is. While some of them are achetypes, like Dumbledore the rest of them are definitley caricatures that we flesh out more as the series moves on.
Harry
The exiled infant/chosen one trope of Joseph Campells archyetypes (Adam Lowry by adamlowry.com) He has a terrible childhood and was torn away from his parents
If you want readers to like a character, have them share their food.
Antagonist Draco-
Harry immediately thinks of Dudley.
We establish how we feel about thsi character through a reference or comparison to a previously well established character. (We were with Dudley for about 3-4 chapters in the set up)
Perceieved Antagonist = Snape
However this is misdirection
The reader is made to hate him
Rowling does this by:
Showing us he is unfair and cruel
Hagrid- Harry goes off with Hagrid who is effectively a stranger. You might only be able to get away with this in fairy tale type stories. It might not cut it in a regular contemporary middlegrade fiction. Harry just has a feeling of ‘trusting him’ and we are shown Hagrid is a good person in a few ways.
Rowling’s tertiary characters are all Caricatures but they are all well developed
For example Filch Mrs Norris, the other teachers, Peeves. We have a really clear picture of exactly who and what they are.
DESIRE
This theme is central to Philsopher’s stone and is directly used as a cause for Harry’s ultimate win at the end of the climax.
We are quite literally shown the perils of desire in three key instances:
1. Literally the Mirror of Erised is desire spelled backwards, (though I never figured that out as a ten year old). Dumbledore teaches Harry
“Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible [….] It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (pp. 229-230). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
2. Firenze the Centaur teaches Harry that using Unicorn blood to prolonge life leads to a cursed life and then links that to the philosopher’s stone elixir.
3. Dumbledore teaches harry after the big climax that Harry was able to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone because he did not desire it for himself.
“You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things which are worst for them.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 320). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
FRIENDSHIP
We see friendship as a big theme in book 1 because here is where we are forming the start of long lasting relationships.
1. The establishement of the harry and Ron relationship by way of harry refusing Malfoy’s offer to be friends. Harry chose the higher path here.
2. The establishment of Hermione as a permanent part of their group via altruism. Harry remembers Hermione is crying the toilets and they run off to warn her. Subsequently Hermione shoulders the blame when Harry and Ron are getting into trouble, thus their friendship is cemented and based on the three of them following the higher road. Thus the basis of friendships through the entire series henceforth is altruism, sacrifice and humility.
3. The Neville subplot completed by Dumbledore in the final chapter:
‘There are all kinds of courage,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr Neville Longbottom.’
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 329). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Let us delve into JK Rowling’s masterful writing.
We start chapter 1 in 3rd person omniscinet we know this because we get this line where we beinig directly spoken to by the narrator:
When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 2). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Most of the book is written in 3rd person limited to Harry’s perspective, and we break from this usually at the start of each chapter where Rowling gives us a birds eye view of the setting before she zooms into Harry. Ocassionally she breaks from Harry to give an omnisicient view of Hermione trying to set a counter curse on Snape or in exposition to move along in time.
And actually in the entire harry potter series, we don’t actually get too much shift away from Harry’s POV. The only chapters we move away, are this first chapter of book 1, Chapter 1 of book 4, chapter 1 book 6 and chapter 1 book 7.
She almost uses them as a prologue chapter in books 4, 6 and 7.
As Brandon Sanderson says, Prologues are a promise to the reader that, here is what you can expect after I set this all up for you. It’s a promise of tone and action. It’s saying if you stick with me, this is what you can expect up ahead.
So
Chapter 1 of book 1 actually gets the brunt of crisiticm out of the whole series. It seems to be an opening that people really don’t like.
In this book, Rowling is using an adult’s perspective to highlight the weird and unusual .
And throughout the series, we see Harry’s Uncle and Aunt as our mechanism of stark contrast. This is our “known world” in point 1 of the Hero’s Journey.
Okay so we’re given 2,000 words, (or halfway of this 4,600 word chapter of Uncle Vernon) before we head into Dumbledore and McGonagall’s conversation. Which, if we weren’t hooked by Vernon’s observations of the strange, our little party of wizards on privet drive will.
I think this is probably the reason why people don’t like how Harry Potter is opened. Uncle Vernon is universally hated by all and to start the series off with him seems unnecessary and uncomfortable to me. It really sits apart as a chapter from the rest of the entire series. We never get an Uncle Vernon POV again and thank god for that. He’s super uninteresting. Is this the reason why Rowling got so many rejections back when she was trying to sell the book? Publishers judge a writer by their first chapter, and if this is everyone’s least favourite perhaps it would have been better off jumping straight into Dumble and McGonagall like the movie did.
Ignoring the first 2000 words of the series,
Rowling’s writing is charming in the way that Old Engish fairytales are charming, or even newer tales. It has the same charm as Narnia for example, where everything is so wonderful, cozy and fantastical, that even the darker elements have a hint of this quality. It gives us a real sense of escapism.. Her style of writing really made the world of harry potter somewhere kids and adults could escape to without feeling belittled or stupid for doing so. The problems in harry’s world feel very real and serious but nestled in amongst the fantastical elements, themes, humour and wittisms we find comfort and security.
Rowling is truly a master storyteller and she executes detailed world-building in a way that entraces us, while she seemingly dosen’t bat an eyelid— the whole thing comes off as effortless.
I’d like to speak about chapter 5 “Diagon Alley” for a bit. I think it’s a masterful chapter and shows us how she gives us a large amount of new information very quickly without us feeling overwhelmed by it. In fact, it excites us and makes us eager to turn the page.
This chapter is our Breaking into the second Act chapter, it’s our leaving the old world and entering the new world.
Instead of bringing us straight to Hogwarts and doing massive infodumps, we’re given Diagon Alley, an inbetween place where we can aclimatise and be given hints about new concepts. Now, nothing is explained in depth mind you, there’s a lot of forshadowing and hinting going on and this happens in the form of Draco Malfoy who serves as our explainer before Hermione arrives to be the informant for the rest of the series. Malfoy’s scene is an excellent example of how to “show and not tell” and it’s done with Draco bragging to Harry in Madam Malkin’s robes shop.
He also provides us with forshadowing for the whole series. The pure blood v muggle blood is introduced here to.
So we’re given a hell of a lot of information in chapter 5 but it feels good to the reader, it makes them hungry for more rather than overwhelmed with infodumps. I highly recommend you talk a look at it. If this much information can be given to kids in a middle grade fantasy, we should be able to do it for adults as well.
How is it done?
Through natural conversation. Hagrid does a bit of explaining but mostly it’s with conversation with other magical folk and the reader is left to insinuate the information, it’s not given to us easily or boringly either. Each bit of conversation really shows characterisation. We immediately know how each character is by the way they converse with Harry. First Quirrel, Malfoy, Ollivander.
Rowling does characterisation extremely well, I think that’s partly why these books are so popular.
Yes, the characters might be archetypes or caricatures but we can bascially immediately see who they are within the first few lines of them speaking. Note how she introduces the weasley’s here.
'– packed with Muggles, of course –’ Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry’s in front of him – and they had an owl. Heart hammering, Harry pushed his trolley after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.
‘Now, what’s the platform number?’ said the boys’ mother.
‘Nine and three-quarters!’ piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand. ‘Mum, can’t I go …’
‘You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.’
What looked like the oldest boy marched towards platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it – but just as the boy reached the divide between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him, and by the time the last rucksack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
‘Fred, you next,’ the plump woman said.
‘I’m not Fred, I’m George,’ said the boy. ‘Honestly, woman, call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?’
‘Sorry, George, dear.’ ‘Only joking, I am Fred,’ said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done, because a second later, he had gone – but how had he done it?
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (pp. 98-99). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
We’re given action, explanation, mystery and characterisation of new characters all in one passage. This is why Rowling is a masterful story teller. It’s depth and conciseness all at the same time. We are introduced to five new characters and we don’t even feel overwhelmed.
Master at Forshadowing
She creates surprising twists by forshadowing them very briefly (usually one sentence)
Quirrel is knocked over while Hermione thinks she’s going to cast a counter curse at Snape. This is one line.
The Norbert dragon arc is set up at the start when hagrid has one line where he says ‘he would love a dragon’.
Harry has a dream that shows the entiire plot, but you don’t even remember it. It sits in your subconcious mind ready to help make sense of things as they pop up and make those moments satisfying.
Rowling also effectively set us up for the next two books.
Book 2 is forshadowed by Malfoy in Diagon Alley when he mentions the purebloods v muggle borns theme, and then again when Dumbledore says in response to asking if Voldemort is dead:
'No, Harry, he has not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share
Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (p. 320). Pottermore Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Book 3 is set up by the mention of Sirius in the first chapter
Rowling’s writing is such as pleasure to read, but for me as a new author it’s also such a pleasure to learn from. She’s so effortless and masterful. Sure she her writing has critiscms but they are are only only small complaints like the percieved over use of adverbs, which is honestly something that a majority of readers wouldn’t notice. I certainly didn’t, I don’t feel like they cause any issues here.
And so we’ve come to the end of my break down of HHPS. I’m a little sad that’s it’s the end, but that’s okay because I’m definitley considering doing the whole series!
Next episode, before we dive into Harry Potter and CS, I’m going to be taking a look into Shadow and Bone by Leigh Badargo. The Netflix series is coming out soon so I thought I’d better read the book first and see what the fuss was about!
Thank you for listening. You can find the notes and transcription of this episode as well a complete list of my published works on my website ektaabali.com that (spell it out). See you next time!