Sample Blog Post #2: Archetypes in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

       An archetype can be defined as " a typical character, an action, or a situation that seems to represent universal patterns of human nature." The true purpose of using them in a literary analysis is to focus less on the "deeper meanings" of a story and more on how the story itself works and can be understood by every type of reader, regardless of background. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban includes archetypes very well, but also mixes these archetypes to make the story more relatable. 

"The Innocent Youth"


Our very first archetype is of course, Daniel Rad-,I mean, Harry himself. He is the picture of innocence in the story since its very beginning. He had been excluded from the magical world for eleven of his thirteen years so that he is reliant on the more experienced people around him to just navigate his new magical life.  Because of this, everyone loves Harry. He is so simple-minded, so innocent, so borderline naive that he gives off a genuine aura. However, he also begins to come of age and seek out independence in this novel, as he is also at the cusp of adolescence (13 years old) and ready to find things out on his own about his mysterious past. His innocence remains but also starts to take a backseat to maturity. His most important guide in the story is our next archetype.

"The Wise Old Man"


Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is the headmaster of Hogwarts and since the beginning of the series has been Harry's guide and friend. He has been alive for "ages" (no one seems to know how old he actually is) and is also seen as the most powerful wizard alive. His mentorship is riddled with mysticism and cryptic lessons for Harry, and he just seems to know everything about everything while actually saying nothing at all.  
"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."--
Dumbledore

The third archetype is where we get the best of the mixture I mentioned before; a sort of blending of ideas. 
"Good versus evil"


SPOILER ALERT!

The "good versus evil" archetype is probably the most popular one used in literature. It's the idea that good will always triumph over bad and that people are either of the two, never both. However, in Harry's case, he discovers that life is not always so binary. Throughout the book, he believes Sirius Black is a murderer who tortured and killed on his friends to find out Harry's parents' hiding place to the dark lord, Lord Voldemort and led to their death. In Harry's innocent eyes, this man was a lunatic and evil to the core. This rocked Harry's world so much that his innocence turned to hate, to the point where he even wanted to kill Sirius himself! He got the opportunity, but at the last minute realized that it would make him just as evil. Luckily,  it turned out that Sirius was actually framed and the friend he was accused of murdering, Peter Pettigrew, was behind everything. 

Harry went on to question himself: was he becoming evil or was he a bad person all along because of his past? It's a question he asked Dumbledore before and the answer is one of the most profound in the Potter universe:

"It's our choices that show us who we truly are, Harry, far more than our abilities."

Being good or being evil is a choice. Everyone is capable of both. Therefore even though the entire basis of the series is the archetypal fight of the "good wizards" against the "evil ones", it isn't impossible to be a bit of both and that is truly a magical thought.