While Harry Potter
and the Philosopher’s Stone is an excellent introduction to the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
brings it all up a notch. We get less Dursleys, more Weasleys. We get more
Hogwarts, more Quidditch, more Voldemort, more magical creatures, more
characters, more magic and, the best of all, a more concise and interesting
story. Like the first book, this one is also a mystery and it’s probably one of
Rowling’s best mysteries*. Rowling also adds a real sense of danger to the
school. Unlike the first book where the teachers felt confident their spells
and defences would prove a suitable deterrent to anyone trying to steal the
Philosopher’s Stone, some of them seem genuinely frightened at what happened at
Hogwarts during Harry’s second year.
I always found it a little strange when people talk about
the Potter books getting “darker and darker” as they progressed. Dude, things
were pretty freaking dark by the second book. Rowling brings forth interesting
and important social themes to the forefront, without maybe even realizing how
predominant some of these ideas become later on in the series. Rowling
introduces pure-bloods, Muggle-borns (also known as mud-bloods) half-bloods and
squibs. This is world building of a pretty serious kind, something that is
echoed through real world history on how people treated each other based on
their differences and heritage. The idea of wizard eugenics will become
increasingly important to the series and it’s a pretty daring topic for Rowling
to tackle, particularly in what is often considered to be a series of
children’s books.
