Let us pick another one for today. Now this one will be a two parter, in which I will give you one time period today and another one next week. Because this is without a doubt my all time favorite fandom and I can’t give it just one post. Today we will be discussing:

Harry. Freaking. Potter.

Now, there are so many ways I could go with this. I mean, there’s FanFiction, cosplay, free youtube musicals, an actual official stage production (that I hate with a fiery passion from the depths of hell itself), the list is a long one. But today I am going to discuss the original books themselves.

Harry Potter is possibly one of the most well known fandoms in the world. In fact, if you go to fanfiction.net and click on books, Harry Potter is currently holding the most amount of stories with a number reaching 770,000. And that’s when you don’t consider it actually says 770k on the site so that number is inaccurate. The fact is, you can’t spit without hitting someone who has at least heard of Harry Potter.

I won’t be focusing on the characters themselves because I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Instead, I will discuss how Harry Potter has already impacted the world, and how it will likely continue to do so.

So… This is about to get slightly political. I’ll avoid getting too intense, however. I love this phrase, because at the bare bones of this… Harry lived in a cupboard under some stairs and that’s just plain wrong. But, obviously, it has a second meaning too. It’s saying that no one should feel forced to hide who they really are, making use of the ‘in the closet’ term for people who have not come out saying they are gay. Or anywhere on the LGBT+ community. Dumbledore also is a good example from Harry Potter because, while I’m not his number one fan, he is the first character JK has told us is gay.

Another point to make, and the biggest one I think, comes from an article I found one day.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harry-potter-benefits_us_5936b4b7e4b0099e7faf3223

Basically, the point of the article is that reading Harry Potter, exposing yourself to what his trials are, could make you a better person as a whole. the TL;DR version of this article is that you are less likely to make racist remarks, and could help you understand your personality a little bit better. And this is all ignoring the benefit of reading as a whole, as it can reduce stress. At least, when it’s not assigned by a Professor, right? XP

Harry Potter can open you up to so many things, and has allowed me personally to expand my creativity immensely. And my understanding of the world. A friend of mine is a Flight Attendant from Canada, so I’m getting snapchats from across the globe. For example, today was Poland. My best friend lives in Washington. My horizons have expanded exponentially and it’s all because of harry Potter.

And by the way, I’m a proud Raven.