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8 Things We Can Learn From The Harry Potter Series

By Anirudh Narayanan

Harry Potter is one of the most famous literary characters ever. J.K Rowling brought to life a character who was battling his own internal demons, craving for revenge against a dark lord who was so powerful, people wouldn't even take his name.

Hidden Facts About Harry Potter

The books were a phenomenon for a reason. Harry Potter was just like one of us. He has trouble adjusting to student life. He stays with people who hate him. He is clueless about his life but still becomes someone who is envied and also loved at the same time by the entire wizard world.

Things We Can Learn From Harry Potter

In the seven books Rowling created such a unique world that people keep going back to it. Apparently, there's a lot to learn in these novels. Today, lets take a look at the things we can learn from the Harry Potter series.

Overcome Fear By Facing It
Harry Potter overcomes all his deepest fears by taking on them head-on. In the world of wizardry, even prominent wizards are scared to take Voldemort's name. But Harry is never afraid of him. Even Ron overcomes his fear of spiders by fighting against a colony of spiders.

Thus, an important thing we can learn from Harry Potter is that we can overcome fear only by standing up to it.

Teachers Make Us Who We Are
We can learn many things about life from Harry Potter. One of them is how important teachers are in our lives. Harry has Prof. Lupin, Prof. Minerva McGonagall and more importantly he shares a strong bond with Albus Dumbledore.

Then there is Sirius Black, who isn't really a teacher but he does end up teaching Harry some important lessons about life.

Friends In Need Are Friends Indeed
Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley are Harry's best friends. If you have noticed the tone of the books and movies keeps on getting darker, with each passing year. Voldemort comes up with sadistic ways to hurt Harry's loved ones. But even then, Ron and Hermione don't betray Harry. This is an important life lesson from the Harry Potter series.

Knowledge Isn't Everything
Hermione, being a muggle [common man], is one of most well-read wizards. She knows most of the complex spells and is quite effcient. But when it comes to an actual battle Harry with his courage and presence of mind finds a better way to deal with the situations. Harry Potter also taught us that knowledge isn't everything.

We Can Learn About Humanity From Animals
The Harry Potter series has hands-down some of the best creatures ever. It has the Phoenix, the Hippogriff, the Buckbeak and many other creatures. Harry is fascinated by them and loves them in whatever way possible. And they in turn help Harry during difficult times.

The world would be a better place if we were more humane to each other; a life lesson from Harry Potter the whole of mankind can learn.

Appearances Can Be Deceiving
Humans often derive their conclusions about a fellow human being from their appearance. But appearances can be deceiving, as it is evident in the case of Hagrid. Hagrid is a giant and looks quite dangerous but on the other hand he is an animal lover and has a heart of gold.

Spoiler: Another example would be Severus Snape. Right from the start Snape is very hard on Harry. But only towards the end do we come to know the reason.

Love Is Often About Sacrifices
Harry Potter was alive because of his parent's tremendous sacrifice. His mother cast a charm on Harry before Voldemort tried killing Harry. But the charm being a counter charm had a reverse effect on Voldemort. It nearly killed the dark lord.

The thing to learn here is that Harry Potter was lucky enough to have his parent's love, who sacrificed themselves to save him.

Never Underestimate Anyone
One of the greatest mistakes that Voldemort did was that he underestimated Harry Potter. But Harry being younger knew what the dark lord was capable of. He learnt all the spells that he possibly could and made friends who would stand by him for life.
At the same time Voldemort was terrifying people to come to his side and he always thought Harry Potter was no match for him.

Story first published: Monday, March 30, 2015, 20:08 [IST]
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