How has Harry Potter cast such a wide spell?

Remember the days before Harry Potter?

It seems long ago and far away, but it has been only nine years since the boy wizard crashed into the American consciousness like an out-of-control owl. That was before the frenzied mobs buying Harry Potter books, before the star-studded Potter movie premieres, the piles of Potter merchandise, the scores of Potter websites, Potter rock bands, Potter literature courses, the planned Potter theme park. In less than a decade, America has become a sort of Harry Potter-media-industrial-complex.

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Now, as the seventh and last book in J.K. Rowling's Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is poised for release Friday at midnight, it's time to look back and ask: Why did this series turn into such a massive, culture-altering phenomenon? How did this bespectacled British boy ensnare millions of readers of all ages, transcending languages, cultures and national boundaries with his magic spell?

Exactly why are we all so wild about Harry?

"I'm trying to think of a time when Harry Potter wasn't part of pop culture, and it's difficult," says Michael Stromenger, 28, a new father and television production assistant in Fargo, N.D., who has been obsessed with Harry since age 19, when Stromenger was working in a bookstore. "It's pervasive, it's far-reaching, hard to escape. Which is great, because I love the books."

The answer to the why-Harry? question is complicated and yet it's not. It comes down to this: Quality will rise to the top, especially with help from the Internet.

"In the midst of all the hype, people forget it caught on because it was a good book," says Kansas State University's Philip Nel, director of the children's-lit program and author of the first book-length academic study of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide, in 2001. He and colleague Karin Westman, head of the English department who is just finishing up her own book, J.K. Rowling's Library: Harry Potter in Context, have taken turns teaching a class on Potter that is so popular, it draws long waiting lists.

Rowling knows her classics

Heir to a long tradition of English literary abracadabra, the classics-educated Rowling absorbed scores of genres and themes, especially the British boarding-school novel, and synthesized them into her own unique storytelling recipe, Nel and Westman say. The result is a ripping good read — funny, touching and riveting, modern and old-fashioned at the same time.

"You are always waiting to find out what happens next," Nel says. "She has real, recognizable characters grounded in everyday experiences we can understand and relate to, so we care about what happens to them, which makes the mystery and narrative drive all the more compelling. She has imagined (Harry's world) so fully and with such great detail."

And she has virtually no rival, in any sense of the word, Westman says. "In terms of cultural knowledge, everyone knows who Harry Potter is," even if you haven't read the books.

"That level is somewhat similar to J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series in the 1960s, but what Rowling has added to pop familiarity is the incredible surge in children readers and reluctant (adult) readers."

Harry also is a boundary jumper able to engage unrelated audiences: Children and adults like him, readers and filmgoers, all classes, incomes and educational levels.

He has been translated into 65 languages, published in nearly every country on the planet. He's a touchstone for an entire generation that grew up with him.

"When I was 11, Harry was about 11. Now I'm 16, Harry is about the same," says high school senior Christina Stanfield of Newport, Ky. "It feels like I've been there with him every step of the way."

But the unprecedented factor in the Harry Potter phenom is the Internet, which intensifies the fan experience, magnifies word-of-mouth and provides a platform for spontaneous viral marketing that propels the books' momentum.

Internet 'immersion in fandom'

"Previously, reading was a private act, but now you can share it with others on the Internet," says Megan Linehan, 23, a Potterian from age 14, whose undergrad literature thesis at American University last year was on the political and social themes in the books.

The Internet allowed "a new kind of immersion in fandom" not possible before and certainly not when Tolkien's books achieved cult status decades ago, says Roger Sutton, editor of The Horn Book magazine on children's literature.

"I thought (the momentum) would level off, but it gets bigger and bigger with each book," Sutton says.

"This is not some evil marketing plot by (U.S. Potter publisher) Scholastic, and it's not some weird Disney plot, either; children around the world have chosen something for themselves, and more power to them."

By now, Harry Potter bestrides the Internet like a colossus (especially lately, when so many fans are speculating feverishly on whether he'll die in the last book). There are millions of sites, blogs, podcasts and postings: Google "Harry Potter" and 97.7 million results appear.

"The two main sites, Mugglenet.com and The-Leaky-Cauldron.org, are so big in the Harry Potter sphere that Rowling chose to do in-depth interviews with the two webmasters of those sites," Westman says.

The 'nary-a-Potter camp'

True, a few people hated Harry Potter. Some Christian preachers denounced him from their pulpits for promoting witchcraft and the occult. They were mostly ignored. Even people who aren't fans still admire Harry and his creator and cheerfully acknowledge his pervasive presence.

"I'm in the nary-a-Potter camp," jokes writer, mother and public radio host Amy Krouse Rosenthal. "Ten billion people can't be wrong, but I guess there's something about my genetic makeup. I just don't get it. But I don't have disdain for the movement."

So Harry Potter has slouched into every corner of Western pop culture, more so than any other fictional character. Others have prevailed in one or more areas, but none has hit them all like Harry.

Harry Potter Halloween costumes? Check, but costume shops have featured a zillion other TV, film and comic-book characters for years. Harry fan fiction? Check, but Star Trek followers and fans of scores of other TV cult series were scribbling about their favorite characters even before the Internet. Harry in academia? Check, but America's higher-ed fields being as quirky as they sometimes are, there's always someone studying the semiotics of The Sopranos or the like. Harry merchandise? Check, but mass-marketing of merchandise linked to fictional characters has been standard for decades in America.

Wizard rock, Wizarding World

But what other fictional character has been the inspiration for a new genre of rock 'n' roll known as "wizard rock"?

It started seven years ago with two Boston brothers, Paul and Joe DeGeorge, who call themselves Harry and the Potters and write punk-ish sorts of songs based on Harry and his friends.

By now, says Paul DeGeorge, 28, there's a subculture of at least 200 wizard-rock garage bands, promoting themselves online and touring regions of the country, sometimes playing at libraries and even raising money for literacy charities.

"Harry Potter has become a participatory culture," DeGeorge says.

Then there's the ultimate affirmation in the pop-culture pantheon: the Florida theme park. It will be called The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, located on 20 acres within Universal Orlando Resort's Islands of Adventure theme park and will open in late 2009.

The idea is to take the books and the films (Warner Bros. is a partner, and Rowling has approved the project) to the next level in experiential entertainment, says Universal's Scott Trowbridge, who is designing the park. "We're taking it from the screen and putting you in it," he says. "We're going to create a physical embodiment of that world so that people can experience firsthand a sense of what it's like to be in that world."

Meanwhile, the book industry anxiously searches the horizon for the next Rowling, the next Harry Potter. So far, no luck, despite a wealth of talent in kid lit.

"Harry Potter in some ways put children's literature on the map," says HarperCollins' Susan Rich, editor of the popular Lemony Snicket books. "People are always buzzing about the next best seller, but if we knew how to call it ahead of time, we'd be signing 'em up."

Still, the industry can almost certainly count on Harry to keep selling for some time, and not just because there will be two more movies coming. Most critics consider these books classics likely to endure, like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Charlotte's Web.

Always here to save the day

So Harry may be going, but he'll never be gone. He'll live on in the hearts of millions, as they say in eulogies, but more to the point, he'll live on in our consumerist culture.

"This is the last generation that actually had to wait for each book to come out, so they're going to have a special relationship with Harry," says pop-culture historian Robert Thompson of Syracuse University.

"But for at least another century, every year a new batch of kids will be introduced to Harry Potter. There's always going to be a new kid turning 8 years old."

So take heart, world: We'll always have Harry.

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY