I've never read the Harry Potter books nor seen the movies. But, many years ago, I was heavily into this sort of fantasy thing. I was just sure there must be more to life than what we see around us every day & it was just a matter of finding it. I recall one segment of the TV series: "Cosmos" where Carl Sagan talked about times when he was a child he would go outside at night, stretch out his arms, & hope to be contacted (or perhaps whisked away ?) by some super-intelligent space aliens. I did the same thing.

As I've become older I've come to realize that "what you see is what you get." So I've given up on fantasy. Give me a good BBC murder mystery. I've even wondered sometimes what society would be like if kids were brought up in the real world & didn't have their heads filled with fantasies...Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, & all the rest. Perhaps childhood would be less fun. But we might be more stable as adults because I think that, as adults, we keep trying to find our ways to those fantasies we grew up with... one of the reasons people sometimes have kids I think so they can re-live their childhood fantasies through their kids.

As I understand it, from what little I've read or heard from people who study such things, this whole childhood fantasy thing in our culture is a fairly recent development in history. It wasn't so many years ago that children were simply viewed as little adults (which may or may not have been a good thing.) But then somebody realized how much money there was to be made in immersing people (children & adults alike) in fantasy. So here we are.

Anyway... just a few thoughts with regard to your post. Thanks for posting it. I enjoyed having the opportunity to reply.