It’s been 20 years when J.k Rowling introduced a fantastical wizarding world. With the huge success at the box office, the movie became one of the most successful franchises in movie history and turned then-unknown stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint into household names. This year Harry Potter is turning 20 and here are the most surprising facts.
From book one of Harry Potter, fans knew that Ron Weasley loves his chocolate frogs candy, each of which comes with a card denoting a wizard of importance. However, little did small Ron know at the beginning of that adventure that his face would be on one of those cards someday.
Harry Potter shares a name with his great-grandfather, according to Pottermore. Although his ancestor doesn’t appear in the books, his timeline would intersect with the Fantastic Beasts era. No one can deny that Rowling’s world-building is magnificent and the playful names she gave her characters are no waiver.
On Pottermore, the writer of the franchise revealed that, early in the creative process, she came up with names for 40 Hogwarts students in Harry’s year, every member of the Golden Trio included. For instance, Harry’s name references his leadership qualities and Ron’s pertains to his role as a sidekick.
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However, Hermione’s name is taken from Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” which has less to do with her own traits than with her Muggle parents’ wish to choose a clever moniker. No one knows when inspiration will strike and Rowling noted down the Hogwarts house names, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff on an airplane vomit bag. She revealed this tidbit on Twitter in 2017.
More than 500 million copies have been sold worldwide and the Harry Potter books have been translated into 80 different languages. Recently, the book has been also translated to Scots, a language which is spoken as a first language by 90,000 people. When J.K. Rowling was in her 20s, she struggled with depression. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she shared that Dementors are based on the ‘hollowed-out feeling’ of depression.