National Post (National Edition)
Strong sense of community among fans keeps magic alive in Potter universe.
THE COMMUNITY LOVINGLY BUILT BY HARRY POTTER FANS ENSURES THAT ALL WILL INDEED BE WELL
When Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them finally hit theatres last week, flocks of rabid, jubilant fans fulfilled their duty by waiting outside theatre doors for hours. They sported brightly coloured robes and lightning scars between their eyes; they clutched original J.K. Rowling books so tight that their knuckles turned white.
It was hardly the first time they’ve waited en masse for Rowling to grant them a novel or a movie. And, with a whopping four follow-up instalments to Fantastic Beasts scheduled to be released over the next decade, it won’t be the last. While the Rowling empire began with Harry Potter, it has expanded rapidly. The beloved series included seven novels, featuring Harry, his friends Ron and Hermione, and their adventures in defeating the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, all while learning magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As of today, there are over 450 million copies of the series in print, with 73 foreign-language translations.
Almost a decade since the Potter series came to an end, Rowling has filled her time with a mystery series and a standalone novel. She also fed the beast one more time with a community website called Pottermore in 2011. Reneging on her promise to have left the Potter world behind entirely, Rowling returned in October 2015 with a two-part play, co-written with Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Fans young and old lined up all over again waiting for their copies of the play in book form at midnight, hosting Potter-themed parties all around the world. The entire Potter brand is valued at an estimated $15 billion, while the number of fans who comprise “Potter Mania” is uncountable.
Potter fandom is so ubiquitous that it’s become a lifestyle. With three heroes to emulate, each a relatable archetype, the Potter series transcended gender and generations. It created a coming-of-age safety net and built a community at a scale that surpasses J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or, for that matter, even The Beatles. Children have been named Hermione; “wizard rock” bands have suddenly become a thing; tattoos of dark marks and incantations are inked at parlours; and portraits of specific Patronus hang on living room walls around the world. In Toronto, there is even the world’s first Potter bar called The Lockhart, with walls adorned in Potter quotables, and a menu offering exclusive Potter cocktails (The Dementor’s Kiss, anyone?)
“I grew up with Harry — the series is my childhood — and it has shaped how I live my life,” says Harneet Singh, a loyal fan and the president of Wilfrid Laurier University’s Harry Potter Alliance. “It taught me to stay true to my beliefs and my friends, to not be afraid to be smart, to be open and accepting of all types of people, and to never back down in the face of difficulty. I don’t think I will ever fully realize just how much this series has changed my outlook on life because its lessons were embedded into me at such a young age.”
And now, nearly two decades since Harry arrived at Hogwarts, we have been reintroduced to a new magical hero called Newt Scamander, a magizoologist whose creatures go loose in New York City and begin to cause havoc decades before Harry would even be born — all with the same morals and sentiments. It’s a thankful return to the Potter universe not just for Rowling, but Potterheads.
“I’ve hoped for this ever since I read ‘all was well,’” says Laurent Chenet, VP Internal of McGill University Quidditch, recalling the last words of the final Potter novel. “A lot of the team is jazzed up for it and our tickets have already been bought — Row G, Seat 17! That nostalgic feeling of another book or movie release happening in my youth has been rekindled, and it’s one of the best feelings in the world. With the new releases of Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts, it’s a great year to be a Potter fan, even if I don’t fit into my grade six Harry Potter costume anymore.”
The immense popularity of the Potter world also owes something to its timing as a phenomenon. With the first novel having been published in 1997, the Potter series was born at a time when the Internet was just taking off as an outlet for social networking. Fan sites and online forums sprang up immediately to offer readers a new way to make friends and feel a part of something greater than themselves.
Some write hundreds of pages of fan-fiction “shipping” their favourite characters, while many attend Potter conventions all around the world, most notably LeakyCon, where fans can take part in an “immersive” experience and essentially play wizards for a weekend. The convention was created by fansite The Leaky Cauldron, which, along with MuggleNet, make for two of the original online communities that have grown beyond their GeoCities origins (and daily declarations of their love for Daniel Radcliffe) to become online Potter compendiums that employ hundreds.
The world has continued to thrive via vloggers, bloggers and social media. The “Potterverse,” as it’s come to be known, is no longer just about the story or the characters, but a cultural identity. Whether you would belong in Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff says just as much about you as it does Harry, Ron or Hermione. And the series has also inspired multiple fandoms since, paving the way for young-adult series about heroic leads in dystopian and/or supernatural futures, from Twilight to The Hunger Games to Divergent.
Because the series’ ethos is so strongly based on love and goodness, the fandom has followed suit. Founded in 2005, the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA) is an international charitable organization of readers united for “fan activism,” with offshoot chapters everywhere from Australia to Canada.
Edmonton’s Potterwatch, for example, focuses on youth empowerment through organizations like iHuman. They are also known for Project Patronus, which raises awareness of stigmas associated with mental health, and their annual charity Yule Ball (which in the books served as a sort of prom for Hogwarts students). On the weekends, they get together for Quidditch games with the Edmonton Aurors, spend their nights at Potter trivia games and coordinate costumes for events like the release of Fantastic Beasts.
“There are many chapters making a positive impact on the world around them,” says Joshua McKenzie, president of PotterWatch. “We’re just a small part of a huge group of people that were inspired by the love and sense of togetherness in this community.”
It’s that sense of community that has transcended many of the magical elements of the book into real world Potterverse connections. We’ve seen this most notably with Quidditch, the magical competitive sport that involves flying broomsticks. Universities and colleges around the world have established official teams. Minus the flying, the sport remains fullcontact while all general book rules apply. Athletes play on foot with broomsticks held between their legs. There’s even a snitch, but instead of elusively flying above everyone’s heads, it’s a tennis ball in a sock tucked in the back of a neutral player’s shorts. Quidditch Canada teams travel to compete in the U.S. each year. Regional and national championships are also a big draw, as is the annual World Cup.
“It is very common to get asked ‘Wait, do you actually fly?’ or ‘Does it hurt to run with a broom between your legs?’” says Zakia Fahmida Taj, market and social outreach director of Phoenix, University of Toronto Scarborough’s Quidditch team. “I tend to turn a blind eye to such muggles. They’re just jealous because they’re non-magic.”
“Harry Potter is more than just a nice fantasy story,” says Irene Yuen, co-president of University of Toronto Scarborough’s Scarburrow, a chapter of the HPA. “We could all find something or someone to relate to. For us, it was never just a way to get through school. It has been a way to make sense of the hate that permeates the world around us and to give us hope that in the end, good can and will triumph over evil.”
While Fantastic Beasts is unlikely to ever surmount to the mania of the original Potter series, it is something of a homecoming for the Potterverse’s dedicated fans. Grace O’Brien, president of McGill University Quidditch, describes the Potterverse as “cocaine” for readers, and thanks to its addictive power, she says, “I firmly believe the universe is here to stay.” That would certainly seem to be the case as Harry himself has not yet worn out his welcome two decades on.
But as great as Rowling’s writing is, it’s the fans who ensure those final words from the final Harry Potter book have an element of the prophetic attached to them. All will indeed be well, just so long as that sense of community continues to exist. And as a new series begins, it’s difficult to imagine it ever slowing down.
THE SERIES IS MY CHILDHOOD — AND IT HAS SHAPED HOW I LIVE MY LIFE.