HISTORY AS FICTION

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Harry's Coming of Age

The Harry Potter series is known everywhere as being one of the best fictional stories ever written (the best, in my opinion). They are also a coming of age story. In my opinion, the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,  is the culmination of Harry's coming of age.  The first big coming of age aspect of this novel is the romantic relationship that Harry forms with Ginny Weasley. He starts to develop feelings for her, and they end up together. He has never experienced anything like this before, and romantic relationships are a very big part of "growing up". He also shows his growth as a teenager through jealousy of Dean Thomas, Ginny's boyfriend at the beginning of the book. Again, he's never felt this way before, so this is a very big part of coming of age. The second way Harry comes of age is by mourning a loss. Even though he is an orphan, he has never grieved for anyone before. This changes in the Half-blood Prince. Harry's godfather, Sirius ...
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Jason's Coming of Age

     I know this is a broad topic, but I thought it was important to address Jason's broad coming of age in this book, and, more specifically, the ways in which we can tell. His behavior changes a lot from the beginning to the end. At the beginning, we can tell that he is uncomfortable, immature and scared to speak up, even when other people are hurting him. However, he goes through many growth experiences throughout the book that open his eyes, the most notable of which being his interactions with Eva. She points out many interesting things to him that he hadn't noticed before, and kind of exposes all of these things that Jason has been keeping locked up inside of himself (like his stammer and the "hairy barbarians").      One of the biggest changes we notice in Jason is the fact that he stops using the word "gay" to describe things, and even sometimes uses words that he would have described as "gay" before (like "beautiful" when he'...
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The Art Of The Eavesdrop

  In my 16 years of being alive, I’ve developed many skills. Skills are subjective. What makes you good at something? Is it the look in people’s eyes when they see you do that thing? Is it your outlook on the thing you are doing? Or is it the fact that you can do more than the average person? I don’t know. My eavesdropping ability is skillful, that’s for sure. I might even call it a craft. A craft that requires several important steps that I’ve learned and perfected through the years.  There are several kinds of eavesdropping, some of which require more skill than others. The easiest form is the “outside the door” eavesdrop. This technique is seen in books, movies, and pretty much every other kind of entertainment. All it requires is two people having a conversation in a different room, and silence from the listener. You stand outside the door, eavesdropping, making sure that no one opens the door. The more commonly used technique is much more difficult to execute: what I’ll c...
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