History Literature / HarryPotter

** In Books 5 and 7, [[spoiler:Snape's friendship and romantic hopes for something bigger are ruined when in reaction to Lily pulling an EmbarassingRescue he says, "I don't need help from a filthy little mudbloods like her." This ruined his life... to say the least.]]

* CrypticBackgroundReference: At one point Harry sees some warlocks drinking at a pub, but whatever makes a warlock different from a wizard is never mentioned. Simply being a male witch as is typical is unlikely, as the series treats "witch" as the female equivalent of "wizard".

*** This has more to do with UK gun laws than Fantasy Gun Control. If the story took place in a country where owning arms is considered a basic right (like the US), then it would be unusual. However in the UK guns are strictly prohibited: it is illegal for citizens to own them and even police officers need special permits to carry.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: How the House "points" system at Hogwarts works. Later, we discover that this is how the Ministry of Magic treats "crime" in general. There appears to be only one wizard jail for UK wizards to go to. The very act of just being there is severe psychological torture, as every happy, positive thought you've ever had is forcibly removed from you, leaving you with nothing but the worst memories of your life. You even forget that this might end. Any crime that merits more than a fine warrants Azkaban. And it's even used for preventative detention of suspects.
*** Wizards in this world are in hiding, and know they are dangerous to the general Muggle population. In most universes where this is the case of the "protagonists", punishment for potentially "rending the Veil" can be very harsh.

* BrainBleach: The reason why Rowling has yet to reveal the exact method of creating a Horcrux. It supposedly made one of her editors vomit. (For note, one of the steps is ''committing murder'' in order to split your soul to place it in the Horcrux. Murder is one thing, but the entire process is implied to involve crossing the MoralEventHorizon, and it's certainly treated as such in-universe.)

** Harry is pretty smart, and he's competent in every field of magic, but he ''excels'' at Defensive magic. According to JKR, he's even better at it than Hermione is and he could beat her in a duel. Not like they'd want to duel in the first place, anyway.

** Harry occasionally slips towards this in battle; when crossed or when his friends are threatened, Harry can become quite pitiless, instinctively resorting to the nastiest/most powerful curses he can think of (save ''[[InstantDeathBullet Avada Kedavra]]''). He even casts [[spoiler:''[[AgonyBeam the Cruciatus Curse]]'']] at a few points (though he never uses it very effectively; as Bellatrix explains [[spoiler:after he tries it on her]], in order to cast an Unforgivable Curse successfully you have to ''really'' want to [[KickTheDog go through with it]]).

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: In the movies, not the books, Percy plays a fairly important role in the first movie, only to drop out of existence thereafter. He appears occasionally in background shots, but any storyline about him is just removed entirely, to the point one might wonder why his parents never talk about that son they once had hanging around their house.
** Nearly-Headless Nick doesn't appear after the first two movies either. Whenever he has an important part in later installments, they seem to replace him with Luna.
** Likewise with Dobby, at least in the film adaptations of ''Goblet of Fire'' and ''Order of the Phoenix'', where the crucial information he provides is instead revealed by Neville. Unlike Nick, Dobby [[BackForTheDead does make a reappearance]].

* ForWantOfANail: If Voldemort's mother hadn't been abused by her muggle boyfriend, if her father and brother hadn't made her life a miserable hell before and after the affair, if a certain enchantment mogul hadn't swindled a sizable fortune from the unsuspecting pregnant woman, if the rest off the wizarding world hadn't shunned her from getting proper treatment and living quarters, if World War II hadn't shattered Tom's faith in British values, then a certain sociopathic bastard would not have attained power of the wizarding underworld and driven it to violent and destructive kamikaze against everybody else. The whole fiasco is the symbolic manifestation of the wizarding world's ambition and bigotry (and possibly the real world's as well) coming to bite them all in the ass.

* AlternateDVDCommentary: No, this doesn't go on the Film page -- ''MarkReadsHarryPotter'', reviewing the books a chapter at a time. It's genuinely hilarious and does very well to remind us all what it was like to read the books for the first time.

[[Literature/BraveExiles Brave Exiles]]

[[Literature\BraveExiles]]

[[Literature/BraveExiles]]

* AcademyOfAdventure: Given that Hogwarts is not only a school, but where most of the most powerful and influential wizards and the most ancient secrets make their home, this is pretty much to be expected.

** Professional betting odds establishments made a fortune on the last two books. [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/aug/08/books.harrypotter One professional bookmaker lost over 60,000 pounds on the outcome of the last book]] due to the fact that [[spoiler:Harry both died and didn't die]], and he ended up having to pay ''everyone''.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: How the House "points" system at Hogwarts works. Later, we discover that this is how the Ministry of Magic treats "crime" in general. There appears to be only one wizard jail for UK wizards to go to. The very act of just being there is severe psychological torture, as every happy, positive thought you've ever had is forcibly removed from you, leaving you with nothing but the worst memories of your life. You even forget that this might end. Basically, any crime that merits more than a fine warrants Azkaban. And it's even used for preventative detention of suspects.

** Neville flips out when Malfoy says they should send Harry to St. Mungo's as they have special floor for people with brain damage. Considering what happened to Neville's parents, this is understandable. Pretty much any mention of Neville's parents in a negative light will result in a beatdown that even Death Eaters didn't expect.

** Neville Longbottom is more of a "grew into it" type. Early in the books, he was TheDitz and MommasBoy and was frequently picked on because of these traits. However, by ''Order of the Phoenix'' his testosterone levels skyrocketed and he TookALevelInBadass, becoming a capable wizard in the process. His best and brightest moment/[=CMoA=] is basically the entirety of book 7 (much of which unfortunately falls into NoodleIncident territory and is told by secondhand accounts) as he [[spoiler:becomes the ''de facto'' leader of Dumbledore's Army, outright resists everyone who's taken over the school at every turn, defends as many people as he can, and proves instrumental in the final battle by destroying Nagini, the seventh horcrux, on top of fighting in and surviving the final battle.]] In short, after book 5, this guy will trounce your sorry ass if you mess with him.

** ...Kind of. Harry's initial feat of Seeking that earns him praise is performed on one of the school brooms, which are pretty much universally derided in-universe. He then receives a good broom--but not so good a broom that it would make up for a lack of skill on his part. Then, in second year, he wins against a whole team of players on better brooms than his own, and with a serious disadvantage. (The Bludger is cursed to attack him.) It's only halfway through the third book that he gets a broom that's a whole class above his opponents', and by that point he's pretty well proved himself.

* CardboardPrison: Azkaban shows this. Whereas in book three it is said that Sirius Black is the first to ever escape from Azkaban, [[spoiler:in the very next book it is discovered that Barty Crouch Jr. had been snuck out some time ago, and in book 5 pretty much everyone gets out.]]

** Though they're on the same side in ''Order of the Phoenix'', Sirius and Snape can be interpreted this way as well. They started out as Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, then they joined opposite sides of the war. Sirius was James's best friend, and Snape had been best friends and had a crush on [[spoiler:Lily]], and despite the falling out that Snape and [[spoiler:Lily]] had, he and Sirius are incredibly loyal to their said best friends. Heck, both of them even did something ''really'' terrible to a close friend of theirs, Sirius's being sending Snape to be torn apart by Remus on the full moon and Snape's being [[spoiler:calling Lily a Mudblood]]. Snape hated his father, and Sirius hated his family.

** Ron and Pettigrew. Both are/were close friends to a guy who is/was considered very popular and cool and basically are/were ignored otherwise. Both are hinted to be a little jealous of this. ''Deathly Hallows'' implies that Ron, like Pettigrew, has a bit of a lust for power (his interest in the Elder Wand, though [[NotSoAboveItAll Hermione is just as fascinated by it]]). Unlike Pettigrew, Ron never abandons his friends for power or protection. More importantly, Ron refuses to be an ExtremeDoormat and bottle up his frustration, indeed he voices it out and works through it, which Pettigrew never did and so never worked out his bitterness. Wormtail would sell out his friends to curry favor to the next biggest bully for his own ends.

* ForeShadowing: The most important one is in the first book. Very subtly done, but right there for everyone to see, it may be one of the finest examples of foreshadowing in the history of literature. It forms the foundation for the build-up to the final confrontation with Voldemort, and gives Harry an advantage that he didn't know he had until literally the last minute. "''The wand chooses the wizard, Harry.''" Rowling says she had pretty much the entire outline for the series and how everything was going to play out clearly pictured in her head before she first put pen to paper. She wasn't kidding.

* MemeticBadass: In-universe example. Rumours about the incredible (and possibly dark) powers that Harry possessed were circulating before he'd even arrived at Hogwarts. And the PowerTrio are absolutely on the receiving end of this during ''Deathly Hallows'', when the Wizarding World is hearing stories about three high school students who [[spoiler:rescued prisoners from the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic itself, escaped Malfoy Manor (basically Death Eater HQ) from under the nose of Bellatrix Lestrange, and broke ''into'' Gringotts and escaped ''by stealing a dragon(!!!)'', on top of regularly pwning Death Eaters and repeatedly escaping from right under Voldemort's... umm... slits.]]

** [[BigBad Lord Voldemort]] is often referred to as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "You-Know-Who", as people are afraid that [[SpeakOfTheDevil speaking his name might summon him]]. In the last book, he puts a "taboo" on his name such that everyone who speaks it can be located and protections around them fail, [[ExploitedTrope exploiting]] the fear (because only his enemies would call him Voldemort) and also making it pretty much justified.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Umbridge and Voldemort (the latter being an {{Expy}} of '''''UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler''''' and the former an {{Expy}} of Margaret Thatcher). Indeed, pretty much all the villains.

** ''Fanfic/BecomingFemale'' is almost certainly the work of a troll. The spelling and grammar are good by fanfic standards, but the plot is pretty much at ''My Immortal'' levels of nonsensical. On the other hand, an author's note in the sequel claims that her fics are actually typed for her by the her blackmailed older sister, so that might account for the relatively good spelling and grammar.

* UnwittingPawn: Pretty much the entire wizarding population other than Dumbledore, Snape, and Voldemort.

** The mental link between Harry and Voldemort potentially allows a two-way channel for either one to search the other's mind. However, whereas Harry can, if willing, look inside Voldemort's mind with relative ease and end up only a few nasty headaches worse for wear, Voldemort can't reach too deeply into Harry's mind without suffering unspeakable pain. Dumbledore theorizes that [[spoiler:attempting to touch Harry's soul with Voldemort's already-unstable fragmented one causes the latter to rip itself apart]].

* BoomerangBigot: Voldemort. One of the goals of the Death Eaters is the elimination of any wizard who isn't pure-blooded, especially if they are Muggle-born, but Voldemort himself is a half-blood (his father was a Muggle). But then, he ''is'' based on UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler (see below).

*** Perhaps justified in that his Muggle father abused his Witch mother (and mysteriously got away with it), and was highly despised in school for being a "greasy" Insufferable Genius.
* [[ABoyAndHisX A Boy/Girl and His/Her X]]: For all the Hogwarts students with pets.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince.]]

* ABoyAndHisX / A Girl and her X: For all the Hogwarts students with pets.

*** Resulting in a wink. Just because the eyelid is more or less "see-through" doesn't make it not count as a "wink".

* MindRape: What happens if you are arrested and sent to jail. Or get on the wrong side of a Legilimens.

A series of seven children's and young adult novels by Creator/JKRowling, published in the late [[TheNineties 1990s]]. Blending fantasy with the nearly extinct British BoardingSchool genre, it was the debut work of Rowling, an ex-schoolteacher. Needless to say, there is [[Franchise/HarryPotter a multimedia franchise]] revolving around them, consisting of [[Film/HarryPotter a series of films]], [[VideoGame/HarryPotter video games]] and various other merchandising tie-ins, but at the heart of it are the books.