Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Wow... I had forgotten how great these books are. What a genius. 

Note that this contains a lot of spoilers. For the true nerds, I list some discrepancies at the bottom for y'all to debate. I'd like to see what you all think. xD

Overall thoughts: I found I lot of foreshadowing/parallels between this book and later books -- recurring themes, little hints, etc. Awesome to see them, having read the whole thing. The characters in this book capture the imagination right away -- i.e., in the first chapter, we see an old gray wizard, a woman who turns into a cat, and a giant on a motorcycle -- but they turn out to be such deep, dynamic characters, as we find out over the course of 4100 rich pages. The light-hearted magic stuff + deep, dark mysteries, scary stuff, serious characters = it truly appeals to all ages.

For the nerds among us, here are some observations.

• Christmas festivities. "Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard’s hat for a flowered bonnet…” 'Nuff said. Jo knew from the beginning about Dumbledore's orientation. :P
• When they go into the forest, their primary fear is werewolves -- eventually, we befriend a werewolf. Funny how Jo sets that up so we can see how much discrimination and ignorance there is about werewolves in the wizarding world.
• FAVORITE LINE IN THE BOOK. After Dumbles tells Harry that his mom died to save him, and that that's why Quirrellmort couldn't touch him: “Dumbledore now became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, which gave Harry time to dry his eyes on the sheet.” AWW. xD

Here's some foreshadowing I found.

• Hagrid: “Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe – ‘cept maybe Hogwarts.” Sooo, after the 6^th book came out, and we were all like, WHERE ARE THE HORCRUXES GONNA BE?? Well, Jo told us. In the first book. There was one in Gringotts, and one in Hogwarts.
•  On Legilimency... Harry, about Snape: “…yet he sometimes had the horrible feeling that Snape could read minds.” Good instincts, Harry. Also, we know that for Legilimency to be strongest, eye-contact is important. Well, when Harry lies about having the stone, the turbaned-Voldy knows he’s lying. That’s when he requests to see Harry *face-to-face*. Only once they’re looking at each other does Voldy know that it’s in Harry’s pocket. x)
• The way unicorn blood works foreshadows the way horcruxes work, IMO. You have to kill something in order to keep living, but you life a “half life, a cursed life.
• Their adventure through the trapdoor TOTALLY foreshadows their adventure killing horcruxes. Harry initially wanted to go alone...but each of them has different skills so that, without the group effort, they would never have made it through. Each of them takes on different rooms – Herm gets the devil’s snare and the potions riddle, Ron gets chess, Harry gets the flying keys and of course, Quirrellmort. In the 7^th book, each horcrux is killed by a different character. There are 7 challenges, the last being Voldemort. Interesting difference – in this book, the reason Harry wins is because of his mom’s love-protection, and because Dumbledore ends up saving him. At the end of the 7^th though, Harry’s two main protections – Lily and Dumbles – are gone, and Harry has to confront voldy bravely on his own. Love it.

DISCREPANCIES!! Maybe they're not, but I'd like to see what people have to say about these.

• FLYING. So confused. Harry asks Hagrid how he got to the hut on the sea, and he says, “Flew.” My first thought was that Harry misinterpreted Hagrid’s saying “Floo,” then I thought maybe he had used a thestral. But Hagrid goes on to say the reason he can’t do it again is because he’s not allowed to use magic now that he’s picked up Harry. That implies that Hagrid used magic to fly….but when Voldy does that in Book 7, it’s a HUGE DEAL. Thoughts?? (BTW – Dumbledore says he “flies” to London later in the book – I think it’s safe to assume he was on a Thestral, because I think Hagrid says in book 5 or 6 that Dumbles likes to use thestrals from time to time.)
• The kitchens. Harry sees a suit of armor and says: “There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, he knew, but he must be five floors above there.” I didn’t think Harry knew where the kitchens were until book 4. :P
• Dumbledore seems to get Snape’s motives slightly wrong. He says Snape saved Harry because he wanted to get even with James…but we now kinda know that it’s because he loves Lily. We also know that James saving Snape’s life isn’t the only reason why Snape hates James and Harry…it's also because he loved Lily. So either Dumbles doesn’t fully know Snape’s motive yet, or he’s keeping that bit from Harry.

 Love these books. Much more to come. On to Chamber of Secrets!