The Order of the Phoenix

Dec 04, 2007

Posted by: Doris

Uncategorized

The Order of the Phoenix

By Ian Striz

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Read the archived discussion of this essay here.

What does Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have in store for the Order of the Phoenix and its members? Only one person on the planet really knows, but we will have to wait a bit for her to tell us. However, that doesn’t stop us from speculating!

Over the course of the series, we have come to know and love/loathe many of the characters who make up the Order. We first learn about this little group founded by Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The activities of this group, and how they resolve their most pressing issues, while not being central to the seventh book, will certainly be pivotal.

Who will lead the Order? What types of actions will they take? How will they gather intelligence? Will they help Harry? Will Harry even be a part of the Order? Those are just a few of the questions surrounding the Order of the Phoenix. Those, and hopefully any others the fans come up with will be answered for us when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released. In the meantime, the purpose of this chapter is to speculate on likely answers to those questions.

History

Albus Dumbledore founded the Order of the Phoenix in the 1970s. It was a non-governmental organization devoted to the opposition of Lord Voldemort and his goals. The Order is comprised of mostly witches and wizards, though Dumbledore has welcomed and recruited werewolves, squibs, half-giants, and other members of fringe groups in the wizarding world.

Among the activities of the Order are spying on Voldemort and his supporters, guarding and defending items and people targeted by them, recruiting new members, and engaging in battle with Voldemort and his Death Eaters when necessary. Its members have faced grave peril throughout its existence. Nearly one-third of the known members have died in its service. Two others have been tortured into insanity.

The Order is a secret society that operates outside of government control and knowledge. It was suspended from approximately 1982 to 1995 following the unexpected downfall of Voldemort. In 1995, Dumbledore immediately reinstated the Order upon hearing of Voldemort’s return, and renewed their activities in opposition to him and his organization. This modern version is what readers of the books are most familiar with. It is comprised of most of the prominent adults in the life of Harry Potter as well as characters whose arrival in the books coincides with the reappearance of the Order.

The Order carried on much as it had, though better prepared and with more of a head start, from the early summer of 1995 to the spring of 1997. Dumbledore was its leader. His death in the spring of 1997 at the hands of the Order’s most important spy and one of his most trusted allies, Severus Snape, is our jumping off point for speculating about the Order and its members in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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Read the discussion of this essay in Unfogging Deathly Hallows!





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