#1. To Fulfill or not to Fulfill Your Expectations…That is the Question.

To Fulfill or not to Fulfill Your Expectations…That is the Question.

I think an author’s choice to raise an expectation and then fail to fulfill it is a very clever one.  It is especially important in mystery novels, like the Harry Potter series, to keep the audience’s attention.  This very act, creating expectations not fulfilling them, is the mystery itself, the angst.  It keeps the reader wondering, guessing and anxious to get to the next part of the book to find out what happens.

This is why reading the Harry Potter novels the first time, or any book the first time, to me is the best time.  Because after that I know what to expect, I know what is coming, the mystery is no longer a mystery to me.  I still am really enjoying reading these books for the second time and really dissecting certain things that make them great. 

For example, the first novel there are many things that seemed to have pointed to Professor Snape being the bad guy and the one after the stone.  He was mean to Harry, had the dark clothes and heir about him.  Prof. Snape’s mysterious ways led many to expect that Snape was the culprit.  That expectation was not fulfilled when Harry got down there to find Professor Quirrel standing in front of the mirror, trying to get the stone, with Voldemort infused to the back of his head.  And like the book said who would ever expect poor stuttering Professor Quirrel, another expectation not fulfilled.  In Chamber of Secrets I was a little more on guard of what I should and should not expect because of the twist of the first book.  I kind of expected that Draco was the heir of Slytherin, but then another part of me was thinking that is just too obvious.  Then we come to find that Harry is parseltongue and the only one that can hear the voice running around saying kill.  I kind of thought that he could be the heir of Slytherin, of course innocent and unknowingly, because he kept referring to the sorting hat wanting to place him in that house.  Then I found out that Jenny Weasley had the diary and that Voldemort, through a memory was back in the castle, and I never would have guessed that.  Those expectations that were not fulfilled made the novels amazing to me.