The Positive Uses of “Harry Potter” in Society

This month, “Harry Potter” is celebrating its 20 anniversary of release in the United States of America. People have connected with the books and started to make references to them in real life, and to make connections between them and their own experiences.

The “Harry Potter” books have made such an impact that people changed their social and even political views. For instance, many lessons were taught through the books about inclusion, acceptance, doing good/fighting the “bad”, standing up for oneself and others, and demolishing racial, gender, social class barriers. Many people were put into environnements that caused for a change in their character and how they perceived their ways in life. For example, in the article it stated that Emma Gonzalez, a survivor from the Parkland school shooting, connected herself to characters from Harry Potter. She said “‘Ginny is strong, levelheaded and passionate (small and powerful); Luna is gentle, kind, strong and just has a wonderful worldview’”. This caused her to become more confident in herself and to start to connect with the characters on a deeper level. Not only do the “Harry Potter” books help people cope and recover from tragic events in their lives but they inspired many organizations that are part of the Harry Potter Alliance to form. J.K. Rowling herself founded the Lumos organization which helps move kids from orphanages into proper and kind homes. Many groups in the Harry Potter Alliance focus on helping this society in many ways ranging for increasing voter numbers, literacy, and girls in the STEM program to gender-neutral bathrooms to racial equality. The actual event of trying to attain equality was just like in the Frederick Douglas readings where he tried to solve matters of racial discrimination. Unfortunate for him it didn’t fully work out since a lot of his life was spent as a slave or hiding the fact that he was a runaway. The Harry Potter Alliance connect this discrimination to “Purebloods” and Mudbloods”, which all the books’ readers can easily connect to and understand. In general, I believe that most people connect to the “Harry Potter” books and impact society with them since they want to become like the “good” characters and make the world a better place.

How can “Harry Potter” books make one feel included yet also shut people out? Also, why do the “Harry Potter” books make such an impact on people's’ lives even though the books are fantasy?