HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE REVIEW.
Hey, what's up, hello! My name is Emma and today I'm going to be reviewing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. So I had mentioned in my June wrap-up that I was rereading Harry Potter again. Now I reread Harry Potter at least once a year since I have first read the books.
So I've accumulated a lot of rereads of Harry Potter. For the longest time I did not know how many times I've read Harry Potter I lost count. It was like in between 12 and 14 and then it was in between 13 and 15 and on Goodreads I have tracked it as 16 times. So I'm just going to assume that I have read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 16 times now.
Also one of those times was in French, so I've obviously read Harry Potter a lot I love Harry Potter so much it is literally my home. It is part of the reason why I am the person I am today. And I'm so happy to be rereading them again this summer. So about a year or so ago, Christine from PolandBananasBooks started doing reviews for the Harry Potter books because she was listening to them on audio and I wanted to follow suit when I was reading Harry Potter last year but I just couldn't motivate myself to actually get up and film reviews because like it's a big deal to review Harry Potter like, you know how much Harry Potter means to people you want to make sure these reviews are the best that they can be.
So I. Decided this summer as I'm rereading Harry Potter with the Jim Dale audio books, which I would totally recommend they're so so great, I'd finally get off up my butt and review Harry Potter. So expect in the coming months that you will be receiving one review that is totally spoiler filled and gushy about each Harry Potter book. I'm really really excited for it so I hope you guys are equally as excited for this series of reviews coming this summer.
Obviously today we are talking about the Sorcerer's Stone, the Philosopher's Stone, the first installment to the global phenomenon of Harry Potter. I love Sorcerer's Stone so much, it is definitely one of my favorite Harry Potter books. I have always been a person who loves the first book in a series and the last book in a series most, so Sorcerer's Stone is definitely up there from one of my very favorite Harry Potter books. It's just so great to be back in this magical world I'm feeling so much more like myself after having a year of not reading Harry Potter and it just feels really great so I'm excited to talk about it.
So this is the end of the non-spoiler section There's really not a lot of non-spoiler Thoughts I can give you on Harry Potter other than they are freaking great and you should really really read them. So be sure to catch up on the Harry Potter series if you have not already. If you'd like to continue watching these reviews this summer, but bye non-spoiler people. I don't know why but I've always enjoyed the fact that the very first chapter of Harry Potter is not told from Harry's perspective it really sets up the scope of the story and shows how expansive it is and how it's not just about Harry.
It's the day after the Potters have died, we are viewing it from the muggle perspective which is what we are as readers, and I just think it all around just is a great basis for the story. Sorcerer's Stone is just filled with so many classic Harry Potter scenes. We of course have when Harry is at the zoo for Dudley's birthday and he's talking to the snake for the first time and the glass disappears, and that's really like our first view of Harry's magic. We have all of the super fun hysteria of the owls dropping off all of Harry's Hogwarts letters from when he is under the cupboard under the stairs, when he is in the room after there's so many owls.
Like honestly in the movie they had left out a couple of like the really funny moments where for example like the milkman was delivering a letter it was so so great. I have to say the one thing that has always disappointed me about the fandom of Harry Potter is that nobody mentions the fact that the line is not actually "you're a wizard Harry" It's "Harry, you're a wizard" nobody touches on this and I don't understand why like that's a big deal to me. I think I realized that like one or two years ago and it just I feel like a part of me is now missing because it's not "your're a wizard Harry" it's "Harry, you're a wizard". It's significant OK.
Now from spending so many years of my life watching Harry Potter develop whether it be when the books are being published, the movies, or just the the fandom growing online with all the extra content that has been released in the past years, there's one thing that has definitely bothered me. One thing that bothers me is the fact that after 20 years of Harry Potter being released and after all the books have been published like just now, J.K. Rowling is trying to push the fact that Slytherins are not all evil, they're not all bad, they can be great wizards too. Which I totally agree with I identify as a Slytherin but when you look at the books like, these characters, this house of Slytherin, was constructed to be evil, bad characters.
We don't have an archetype of a good Slytherin until years and years in books later. For one of my college credits I took a children's literature course and I had to write a paper on a certain theme exposed in children's literature so I wrote on good and evil, and I used Harry Potter as an example. So now I obviously wrote about Voldemort and the Death Eaters and I also wrote about the Dursleys to show how there can be evil in our family, but also the Slytherins. Like these characters were created to be an antagonist to Harry And I just I hate the hypocrisy in saying "Oh no now they're really really great" because like Harry Potter has blown up.
But they were absolutely constructed to be negative, bad, evil characters. Even Ron explicitly says "there has never been a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" which we obviously learn in the true throughout the books, but I just I hate the fact that they were constructed to be evil. It's like "Oh, I wonder why everyone hates Slytherin and thinks they're evil and associates them with evil" like this is why. One of my favorite moments in Sorcerer's Stone is when Malfoy and Harry are meeting for the second time on the train and now Draco is trying to be nice to him cause he knows it's Harry Potter.
So Draco says "you'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others Potter you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort I can help you there" and he leaves his hand out to shake it for Harry to be like ok we're going to be friends and Harry just replies "I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself. Thanks. He says coolly" I love it. He's so shady I love it.
So something new I realized in this re-read of Harry Potter, because obviously every single time I reread Harry Potter I really do find out something new whether it's a detail I missed or something I can appreciate or critique of this story, every single time is a new experience. And in this reread of Harry Potter, I realized how genius the storytelling is of Harry Potter like this is an A+ quality children's book. And I'm not just saying that because of the magic, because of the characters, because the construction of the plot is so perfect. And when I say this, I'm talking about all the moments all through Harry Potter, this happens a lot in Sorcerer's Stone specifically and I think there are a lot of other instances like it in the rest of the books, but in Sorcerer's Stone, Jo constantly sets us up for an expected reaction for example, during their first flying lesson when Harry captures Neville's Rememberall and Professor McGonagall runs out and takes him inside and we're having all this internal conflict from Harry thinking that he's going to be expelled, thinking that when McGonagall asks for Wood that he's going to be beaten with a stick.
So Jo was using internal and external factors to set this up that this is going to be a really tough, negative moment for Harry, but as it turns out he ends up being the youngest Seeker in a century and is asked to play on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Another great example of this is the midnight duel which is a really really great scene that I think so many people forget about because it's not in the movie. We have Ron and Harry who are like setting up to fight Malfoy and we think it's going to be like this epic battle between good versus evil even though they like haven't learned magic whatsoever yet. And Malfoy being a little snitch doesn't even show up and just tells Filch in order to get them into trouble like it's so good! Another great example of this is once Harry and Hermione have gotten Norbert out of the castle, Charlie's friends have taken them away, they didn't get in trouble, Hagrid didn't get into trouble they're literally like strolling down the hallways at Hogwarts at midnight not a care in the world because they just they feel so good about the fact that they got away with it but McGonagall catches them because they left the freaking invisibility cloak on the top of the tower.
It is just such great children's writing I. Haven't been able to appreciate it like this in the past but I'm really happy I picked up on it cuz I think it just really shows the talent of Jo. I've always really loved the line from Ron when he's like "I wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life". "Honey, you've got a big storm coming." Back to Norbert, one thing I never really questioned before is how are Charlie's friends able to fly into Hogwarts undetected carrying a freaking dragon.
We learn throughout the series that Hogwarts has protective enchantments that's why things with electricity don't work at Hogwarts, that's why you can't apparate in or out of Hogwarts. So why can they just fly onto the grounds like that definitely sounds like a critical point in their security. The only logical explanation I can think of that would make this not like a total plot hole is that they didn't start adding huge protective enchantments until later in the years but I still feel like there would be something that would prevent people from just flying into Hogwarts whenever they would like. It wasn't cleared by Dumbledore or anything like they just blew into Hogwarts as is.
So I never really noticed it before and it is a little concerning. Everyone knows the troll scene in Harry Potter, it's a really great moment it's when Harry, Ron, and Hermione officially become friends and it's like you can't go through something like that and not be friendly with the people that experienced it with you, and of course like there is a heaviness to this scene but it's also a little heartwarming, right? So in that scene Hermione takes full blame for the situation she says that she went off to see if she could battle the troll herself because she studied them and honestly The fact that Hermione is such a know it all like of course no one would question it but so Hermione loses 5 points for Gryffindor. 5 Points for endangering her life trying to take on a troll without anyone's knowledge. But after they are caught wandering the hallways at night, like that's all they're doing they're just out of bed, each of them loses 50 points! Like they lose 150 points for Gryffindor from walking around at night but only 5 for trying to take on a troll yourself as an 11 year old.
[Sigh] Typical Hogwarts honestly. So nearing the end of the story after Ron, Hermione, and Harry have figured out rhat the stone is what's being protected inside of Hogwarts, that's it's in the third floor corridor and they're really confident that Snape's going to steal it they go after Dumbledore to tell him but they catch McGonagall and this part of the story makes me so frustrated because McGonagall is just like so dismissive of them. These three 11year olds, 2 of which have only been in the magical world for a month at this point, they tell you that they have knowledge of the top-secret item that you are hiding inside of Hogwarts, and they know some of the things that are protecting it, and they're telling you that somebody is planning to steal it and that doesn't raise a little bit of alarm, like it doesn't want to make you investigate just a little bit But to go even one step further, after the conversation where they have told Professor McGonagall someone is trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, and she dismisses them later, she finds them not only in the third floor corridor which has been off-limits to all Hogwarts students, but they are outside the exact door where Fluffy is hidden where they know where the Sorcerer's Stone is, and she still doesn't believe that their claims have just like a tiny bit of merit. [Sigh] Typical Hogwarts honestly.
So again I feel I just appreciate certain parts of Harry Potter more after this reread and there's one moment at the end of Sorcerer's Stone that I really loved and it Harry's monologue after they decide they're going to go after the stone, they're going to go through the trapdoor and protect it from Snape. Hermione's being Hermione and is trying to tell them not to do it because she doesn't want them to get expelled after all the trouble they've gotten into already and Harry gets very like passionate and he's like this is not about how points anymore this is serious. You know if Voldemort gets the stone he's going to take over you know. He says "If I get caught before I can get to the stone well I'll have to go back to the Dursley's and wait for Voldemort to find me there.
It's only dying a little bit later than I would have because I'm never going over to the dark side. I'm going through that trap door tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me." He's just such a mature little bean. I was really really impressed by the little monologue like that takes so much for an 11-year-old to have these sorts of ideas and to have that perception of the world. And I just thought it really truly showed that Harry Potter is a Gryffindor like in that moment you couldn't expect anything less from this kid, and it was just a really prideful moment like look at my little Harry like 11 years old and ready to save the world and I just love him so much.
And of course the scenes through the trapdoor are like all fantastic it's just so high intensity and there are so many great moments of showing friendship and bravery between these three characters and it's just it's all-around really great. After Quirrel has died, Voldemort has returned to whatever state he was in before and Harry and Dumbledore have like their first like heart-to-heart sort of conversation that is very serious and it's about Voldemort and Harry's past and whatnot. We get to the reveal of who won the house cup and it's just like great storytelling again where we have it set up that Slytherin is set to win the house cup they're in first place Gryffindor is in fourth. And then Dumbledore starts handing out a few last minute points and it goes to Hermione for being logical, and Ron for the best game of chess Hogwarts has ever seen, Harry for extreme bravery and then Neville, 10 points for standing up to his friends.
It's such a scene. All in all, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone still is good 16 times later. I love this book so much, still one of my absolute favorite Harry Potter books It is such a great story, such a great start to a complete global phenomenon, and I'm so pleased with it I'm so happy to be rereading it. I'm feeling good about myself, I'm excited to continue reading the Harry Potter, books I'm excited to continue reviewing them and talking about this insanely important series to me.
So in the comments of this video let me know your thoughts on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. What are some of your favorite moments? Do you have any scenes that you're emotionally attached to? Where does it rank on your favorites of Harry Potter? Like let's just talk about Harry Potter in the comments. But that is it thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new video and for future Harry Potter reviews coming this summer. Bye!.
So I've accumulated a lot of rereads of Harry Potter. For the longest time I did not know how many times I've read Harry Potter I lost count. It was like in between 12 and 14 and then it was in between 13 and 15 and on Goodreads I have tracked it as 16 times. So I'm just going to assume that I have read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 16 times now.
Also one of those times was in French, so I've obviously read Harry Potter a lot I love Harry Potter so much it is literally my home. It is part of the reason why I am the person I am today. And I'm so happy to be rereading them again this summer. So about a year or so ago, Christine from PolandBananasBooks started doing reviews for the Harry Potter books because she was listening to them on audio and I wanted to follow suit when I was reading Harry Potter last year but I just couldn't motivate myself to actually get up and film reviews because like it's a big deal to review Harry Potter like, you know how much Harry Potter means to people you want to make sure these reviews are the best that they can be.
So I. Decided this summer as I'm rereading Harry Potter with the Jim Dale audio books, which I would totally recommend they're so so great, I'd finally get off up my butt and review Harry Potter. So expect in the coming months that you will be receiving one review that is totally spoiler filled and gushy about each Harry Potter book. I'm really really excited for it so I hope you guys are equally as excited for this series of reviews coming this summer.
Obviously today we are talking about the Sorcerer's Stone, the Philosopher's Stone, the first installment to the global phenomenon of Harry Potter. I love Sorcerer's Stone so much, it is definitely one of my favorite Harry Potter books. I have always been a person who loves the first book in a series and the last book in a series most, so Sorcerer's Stone is definitely up there from one of my very favorite Harry Potter books. It's just so great to be back in this magical world I'm feeling so much more like myself after having a year of not reading Harry Potter and it just feels really great so I'm excited to talk about it.
So this is the end of the non-spoiler section There's really not a lot of non-spoiler Thoughts I can give you on Harry Potter other than they are freaking great and you should really really read them. So be sure to catch up on the Harry Potter series if you have not already. If you'd like to continue watching these reviews this summer, but bye non-spoiler people. I don't know why but I've always enjoyed the fact that the very first chapter of Harry Potter is not told from Harry's perspective it really sets up the scope of the story and shows how expansive it is and how it's not just about Harry.
It's the day after the Potters have died, we are viewing it from the muggle perspective which is what we are as readers, and I just think it all around just is a great basis for the story. Sorcerer's Stone is just filled with so many classic Harry Potter scenes. We of course have when Harry is at the zoo for Dudley's birthday and he's talking to the snake for the first time and the glass disappears, and that's really like our first view of Harry's magic. We have all of the super fun hysteria of the owls dropping off all of Harry's Hogwarts letters from when he is under the cupboard under the stairs, when he is in the room after there's so many owls.
Like honestly in the movie they had left out a couple of like the really funny moments where for example like the milkman was delivering a letter it was so so great. I have to say the one thing that has always disappointed me about the fandom of Harry Potter is that nobody mentions the fact that the line is not actually "you're a wizard Harry" It's "Harry, you're a wizard" nobody touches on this and I don't understand why like that's a big deal to me. I think I realized that like one or two years ago and it just I feel like a part of me is now missing because it's not "your're a wizard Harry" it's "Harry, you're a wizard". It's significant OK.
Now from spending so many years of my life watching Harry Potter develop whether it be when the books are being published, the movies, or just the the fandom growing online with all the extra content that has been released in the past years, there's one thing that has definitely bothered me. One thing that bothers me is the fact that after 20 years of Harry Potter being released and after all the books have been published like just now, J.K. Rowling is trying to push the fact that Slytherins are not all evil, they're not all bad, they can be great wizards too. Which I totally agree with I identify as a Slytherin but when you look at the books like, these characters, this house of Slytherin, was constructed to be evil, bad characters.
We don't have an archetype of a good Slytherin until years and years in books later. For one of my college credits I took a children's literature course and I had to write a paper on a certain theme exposed in children's literature so I wrote on good and evil, and I used Harry Potter as an example. So now I obviously wrote about Voldemort and the Death Eaters and I also wrote about the Dursleys to show how there can be evil in our family, but also the Slytherins. Like these characters were created to be an antagonist to Harry And I just I hate the hypocrisy in saying "Oh no now they're really really great" because like Harry Potter has blown up.
But they were absolutely constructed to be negative, bad, evil characters. Even Ron explicitly says "there has never been a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" which we obviously learn in the true throughout the books, but I just I hate the fact that they were constructed to be evil. It's like "Oh, I wonder why everyone hates Slytherin and thinks they're evil and associates them with evil" like this is why. One of my favorite moments in Sorcerer's Stone is when Malfoy and Harry are meeting for the second time on the train and now Draco is trying to be nice to him cause he knows it's Harry Potter.
So Draco says "you'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others Potter you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort I can help you there" and he leaves his hand out to shake it for Harry to be like ok we're going to be friends and Harry just replies "I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself. Thanks. He says coolly" I love it. He's so shady I love it.
So something new I realized in this re-read of Harry Potter, because obviously every single time I reread Harry Potter I really do find out something new whether it's a detail I missed or something I can appreciate or critique of this story, every single time is a new experience. And in this reread of Harry Potter, I realized how genius the storytelling is of Harry Potter like this is an A+ quality children's book. And I'm not just saying that because of the magic, because of the characters, because the construction of the plot is so perfect. And when I say this, I'm talking about all the moments all through Harry Potter, this happens a lot in Sorcerer's Stone specifically and I think there are a lot of other instances like it in the rest of the books, but in Sorcerer's Stone, Jo constantly sets us up for an expected reaction for example, during their first flying lesson when Harry captures Neville's Rememberall and Professor McGonagall runs out and takes him inside and we're having all this internal conflict from Harry thinking that he's going to be expelled, thinking that when McGonagall asks for Wood that he's going to be beaten with a stick.
So Jo was using internal and external factors to set this up that this is going to be a really tough, negative moment for Harry, but as it turns out he ends up being the youngest Seeker in a century and is asked to play on the Gryffindor quidditch team. Another great example of this is the midnight duel which is a really really great scene that I think so many people forget about because it's not in the movie. We have Ron and Harry who are like setting up to fight Malfoy and we think it's going to be like this epic battle between good versus evil even though they like haven't learned magic whatsoever yet. And Malfoy being a little snitch doesn't even show up and just tells Filch in order to get them into trouble like it's so good! Another great example of this is once Harry and Hermione have gotten Norbert out of the castle, Charlie's friends have taken them away, they didn't get in trouble, Hagrid didn't get into trouble they're literally like strolling down the hallways at Hogwarts at midnight not a care in the world because they just they feel so good about the fact that they got away with it but McGonagall catches them because they left the freaking invisibility cloak on the top of the tower.
It is just such great children's writing I. Haven't been able to appreciate it like this in the past but I'm really happy I picked up on it cuz I think it just really shows the talent of Jo. I've always really loved the line from Ron when he's like "I wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life". "Honey, you've got a big storm coming." Back to Norbert, one thing I never really questioned before is how are Charlie's friends able to fly into Hogwarts undetected carrying a freaking dragon.
We learn throughout the series that Hogwarts has protective enchantments that's why things with electricity don't work at Hogwarts, that's why you can't apparate in or out of Hogwarts. So why can they just fly onto the grounds like that definitely sounds like a critical point in their security. The only logical explanation I can think of that would make this not like a total plot hole is that they didn't start adding huge protective enchantments until later in the years but I still feel like there would be something that would prevent people from just flying into Hogwarts whenever they would like. It wasn't cleared by Dumbledore or anything like they just blew into Hogwarts as is.
So I never really noticed it before and it is a little concerning. Everyone knows the troll scene in Harry Potter, it's a really great moment it's when Harry, Ron, and Hermione officially become friends and it's like you can't go through something like that and not be friendly with the people that experienced it with you, and of course like there is a heaviness to this scene but it's also a little heartwarming, right? So in that scene Hermione takes full blame for the situation she says that she went off to see if she could battle the troll herself because she studied them and honestly The fact that Hermione is such a know it all like of course no one would question it but so Hermione loses 5 points for Gryffindor. 5 Points for endangering her life trying to take on a troll without anyone's knowledge. But after they are caught wandering the hallways at night, like that's all they're doing they're just out of bed, each of them loses 50 points! Like they lose 150 points for Gryffindor from walking around at night but only 5 for trying to take on a troll yourself as an 11 year old.
[Sigh] Typical Hogwarts honestly. So nearing the end of the story after Ron, Hermione, and Harry have figured out rhat the stone is what's being protected inside of Hogwarts, that's it's in the third floor corridor and they're really confident that Snape's going to steal it they go after Dumbledore to tell him but they catch McGonagall and this part of the story makes me so frustrated because McGonagall is just like so dismissive of them. These three 11year olds, 2 of which have only been in the magical world for a month at this point, they tell you that they have knowledge of the top-secret item that you are hiding inside of Hogwarts, and they know some of the things that are protecting it, and they're telling you that somebody is planning to steal it and that doesn't raise a little bit of alarm, like it doesn't want to make you investigate just a little bit But to go even one step further, after the conversation where they have told Professor McGonagall someone is trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, and she dismisses them later, she finds them not only in the third floor corridor which has been off-limits to all Hogwarts students, but they are outside the exact door where Fluffy is hidden where they know where the Sorcerer's Stone is, and she still doesn't believe that their claims have just like a tiny bit of merit. [Sigh] Typical Hogwarts honestly.
So again I feel I just appreciate certain parts of Harry Potter more after this reread and there's one moment at the end of Sorcerer's Stone that I really loved and it Harry's monologue after they decide they're going to go after the stone, they're going to go through the trapdoor and protect it from Snape. Hermione's being Hermione and is trying to tell them not to do it because she doesn't want them to get expelled after all the trouble they've gotten into already and Harry gets very like passionate and he's like this is not about how points anymore this is serious. You know if Voldemort gets the stone he's going to take over you know. He says "If I get caught before I can get to the stone well I'll have to go back to the Dursley's and wait for Voldemort to find me there.
It's only dying a little bit later than I would have because I'm never going over to the dark side. I'm going through that trap door tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me." He's just such a mature little bean. I was really really impressed by the little monologue like that takes so much for an 11-year-old to have these sorts of ideas and to have that perception of the world. And I just thought it really truly showed that Harry Potter is a Gryffindor like in that moment you couldn't expect anything less from this kid, and it was just a really prideful moment like look at my little Harry like 11 years old and ready to save the world and I just love him so much.
And of course the scenes through the trapdoor are like all fantastic it's just so high intensity and there are so many great moments of showing friendship and bravery between these three characters and it's just it's all-around really great. After Quirrel has died, Voldemort has returned to whatever state he was in before and Harry and Dumbledore have like their first like heart-to-heart sort of conversation that is very serious and it's about Voldemort and Harry's past and whatnot. We get to the reveal of who won the house cup and it's just like great storytelling again where we have it set up that Slytherin is set to win the house cup they're in first place Gryffindor is in fourth. And then Dumbledore starts handing out a few last minute points and it goes to Hermione for being logical, and Ron for the best game of chess Hogwarts has ever seen, Harry for extreme bravery and then Neville, 10 points for standing up to his friends.
It's such a scene. All in all, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone still is good 16 times later. I love this book so much, still one of my absolute favorite Harry Potter books It is such a great story, such a great start to a complete global phenomenon, and I'm so pleased with it I'm so happy to be rereading it. I'm feeling good about myself, I'm excited to continue reading the Harry Potter, books I'm excited to continue reviewing them and talking about this insanely important series to me.
So in the comments of this video let me know your thoughts on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. What are some of your favorite moments? Do you have any scenes that you're emotionally attached to? Where does it rank on your favorites of Harry Potter? Like let's just talk about Harry Potter in the comments. But that is it thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new video and for future Harry Potter reviews coming this summer. Bye!.
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