After almost 13 years, seven books and seven films, the Harry Potter story will come to a conclusion on July 15 with the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II,” the last film, which covers the second half of the seventh book in the series.
The world of Harry Potter was introduced to the ASU community and the United States in 1998 with the release of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first book in the Harry Potter series.
The first film premiered in 2001, and since then Harry Potter fans have looked forward to each book or film release. With the release of the eighth Harry Potter film in the U.S., fans will now see the conclusion of the story on the big screen.
Joel Hunter, who will teach HON 394 in the fall, “Harry Potter Inside and Out,” said that even though he started reading the books reluctantly, he wanted to teach a class on the series to allow students who grew up with the book to connect it to intellectual thinking.
He said he felt that the conclusion of the series is going to be memorable for those who have grown up with it.
“We’re all going to need therapy,” he said. “Seriously, however, for students who have grown up with the series, the movies have accompanied their own childhood and young adulthood, so when the protagonists take their bows in the final film and the credits roll, I suspect many of them will feel a bittersweet ache as they sense that their childhood has irreversibly passed.”
History sophomore Holly Solis is the president of the ASU Dumbledore’s Army, an organization that was named after the fictional student organization that was founded by Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermoine Granger in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
Solis said even though she’s going to be in Ohio for a family reunion, she still plans on going to a midnight showing of the movie.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be crying as I walk out of the theater,” she said. “I know I’m going to miss it a lot.”
Solis said her and the rest of ASU Dumbledore’s Army are going to have a going away party at the beginning of the school year to commemorate the conclusion of the Harry Potter series on film.
The group also has plans to continue doing their annual events, such as the Yule Ball.
“I just want to keep things going,” she said.
Even though Harry Potter fans will not have any new books or films to look forward to, Hunter said he feels that the cultural phenomenon that surrounds the Harry Potter series will continue on in some way.
“The first generation of students who grew up with this 4,100-page (series) have something unique in their time: a shared text ... that speaks about the deepest fears and highest aspirations of human experience and which shapes how we interpret and understand ourselves and the world around us,” he said. “The first generation of students will want to pass this experience down to their children.”
Reach the reporter at katherine.torres@asu.edu
