One of the things I said I would do post-PhD submission was re-read the Harry Potter series, and I am doing so with a vengeance!Right now, I'm up to book 6 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I've gotta say, I'm developing a new appreciation for the plotting and planning ability of JK Rowling. Now that we know the events of the later books and the motivations and relationships between various characters, this hindsight makes the little clues dropped throughout the series to be incredibly obvious!
But these are just children's books - surely I'm jesting about the existence of a complex multi-book plot clues? Well here are some examples! In Philosophers' Stone, Hagrid delivers baby Harry to Dumbledore saying someone gave him the flying motorcycle; the person who gave it to him claimed they wouldn't need it anymore - and we find out why in Prisoner of Azkaban! Who is Tom Riddle and why his diary is so weird (Chamber of Secrets, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows), the identity of the REAL villain and the way they manipulate events in Goblet of Fire, and the true meaning of Snape's worst memory (Order of the Phoenix) is revealed in Deathly Hallows. And of course, we learn that good and bad are not always as obvious as black and white.
I also like how she refers to previous events in later books, such as the question during the OWL exam - what is the spell to make something fly (wingardium leviosa) and the wand motion to make it occur (swish and flick!). Or I could just be a nerd with super-random-recall powers.
In any case, I fully recommend that people re-read this series from scratch and relive the...er...magic...again! Still undecided as to whether I will likewise watch the movies end-to-end. This will probably be dependent on how the last movie (parts 1 & 2) go!
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