‘Harry Potter’ remains a masterclass in escalating the stakes
How J. K. Rowling consistently found new and creative ways to increase the stakes in each installation of the Potter series, and what aspiring writers can learn from her achievement
Stakes in film and literature
To write a gripping story does not necessarily mean to conjure the highest stakes imaginable. Using my Letterboxd as a guide in the absence of an up-to-date Goodreads account, of my eighteen favourite films, four involve a pursuit of power or riches, four are tales of survival or fugitivism, and exactly half are dramas about getting through the day with your heart and soul intact. Only one, The Lord of the Rings, is about saving the world from evil.
Part of the cause of this trend — or perhaps we can call it a bias — in my ratings is that authors and filmmakers really need to pull off something special to sell a story where the stakes reach apocalyptic proportions. Poorly written disaster films such as The Core or Armageddon put the whole of humanity at hazard, but risk alone does nothing for a story if audiences cannot relate to it. If the rest of the story — such as the characters and how much we care about them — doesn’t live up to these stakes, the film or novel can easily fail to engage audiences.
On the one hand, the stakes in The Core are so ridiculously high that the film is forced to detail a nonsensical plot and as such it neglects its characters so severely that it becomes impossible to care about them — and therefore impossible to care about the stakes. An unseen, unspecified entire human race at peril means nothing to us; we require specific, detailed characters with whom we can empathise (or at least sympathise) as individuals, and experience each victory or tragedy vicariously through them. The purpose of these focalisers is not only to provide structure to a narrative but also to act as a vessel for an audience’s emotional responses to the events of the said narrative.
On the other hand, while I have never seen anyone give The Core a greater compliment than a “guilty pleasure” or a “popcorn flick,” Armageddon polarises audiences. Some care enough about the characters enough to overlook the plot’s ridiculous flaws, but others think the character interactions are melodramatic. Part of the cause of this melodrama is that the stakes start so high that there is no room for growth, which means the second and third acts of the film feel stagnant as one setback falls after another. In other words, while a story can find success in apocalyptic stakes, it is generally better to reach these levels later in the story when the audience has had time to relate to its characters and invest in their struggles.
For example, what separates Iron Man from Infinity War is that, like most superhero origin films, the former is as much about learning to cope with emotional setbacks unrelated to being a superhero as it is about defeating bad guys. Stark begins his story simply trying to survive and ends fighting a friend-turned-villain and addressing his legacy as an arms dealer.
On the other hand, Infinity War has no stake escalation since the stakes are ramped to the max during the first five minutes, which is part of the reason I, as a non-fan, never managed to get invested in the film. (That said, I do appreciate that for the fans who keep up with every film, the progression of the MCU as a whole stands in for the lack of stakes escalation within that particular film — which allows the film to remain exciting even though the stakes start so high. It’s like a series finalé more than a film). For an example from another genre, try comparing Alien or Prometheus to Alien: Covenant, where half the Covenant’s crew is dead or infected by the first plot point. The rest of the film is forced to rely too heavily on exposition, sapping the tension from the film as the rest of the cast falls prey to David’s murderous creations.
Returning to Harry Potter, I can’t help but think the escalation of the stakes from novel to novel was responsible for the prolonged investment I had in the books. Plenty of other book series for young readers had fantastical worlds and delightfully wacky characters, but it was the way Harry Potter matured with each instalment which separated it from other series I loved as a child. A Series of Unfortunate Events is probably the best example of a series that failed to escalate its stakes and thus lost me before the final book was released, even though I had adored the rest of the series. When The End was finally released, I felt like I had grown up without it — unlike the Harry Potter books, which had grown up with me. As a consequence, I was left with no interest in reading The End — and I chalk a lot of that up to how episodic those stories felt.
Of course, there are perks to that kind of storytelling. For example, I and many others read A Series of Unfortunate Events in whatever order we could find the books rather than chronologically, which made them ideal for libraries or school reading. Yet, given that I could not bring myself to read the last book despite investing in twelve whole novels before it, I have to consider that the overarching story was ultimately a narrative failure for me. I just didn’t care how it ended. I still don’t know if Violet, Klaus and Sunny escaped Olaf. I don’t know what VFD stands for. I don’t care.
It is not that the stakes of Harry Potter work well because the tale ends with a young man who finds himself as the sole hope for the free world — they work well because the story started with something as simple as a boy who wanted nothing except to escape from that cupboard under the stairs. From that origin, the stakes don’t just increase — they change and develop. Yes, Voldemort gradually becomes a bigger threat, but he also becomes a more believable one.
Unlike Count Olaf, Voldemort eventually outgrows his cartoonishly evil guise, transforming into a human with insecurities and emotions. His actions and motives are unjustifiable, but there is literary virtue in being able to understand why Voldemort is the monster he is and why the story must play out the way it does — much like many of history’s villains, Voldemort is not just power-hungry, he is paranoid and bound by his fear of mortality. Therefore, when the stakes are elevated to the level of Voldemort threatening world domination, audiences can believe in that progression. We have all read about people like that in history books. It is, unfortunately, just the way that some humans are.
Four aspects of a story’s “stakes”
If we accept that high stakes don’t make a better standalone film, it stands to reason that simply adding more things to gain or lose does not always make a sequel interesting. What is impressive about the narrative structure of Harry Potter is the way Rowling balances her stakes so that the escalation is not mundane. It is never as simple as increasing what stands to be gained or lost between each book; Rowling also explores how these stakes play out and impact each novel so that the story can progress from the cupboard under the stairs to Battle of Hogwarts in smallish steps that are meaningful but logical.
The blanket concept of a story’s ‘stakes’ should, therefore, be broken down by four identifying questions. These questions help to determine not only what the stakes are per se (e.g., the maximum loss or gain) but also how probable these outcomes are, since these two factors are ultimately inseparable. For example, in any story, the author could choose to end the world at any moment, but the sheer unlikeliness of this makes it a nonfactor when we read novels or watch films. Therefore, not only does a story’s ‘stakes’ mean its potential consequences but also how willing the audience is to buy into the suggestion that these consequences may actually occur. The four aforementioned questions are as follows:
- What are the perceived potential consequences of failure?
What does a character think they stand to gain or lose? The Quidditch Cup? Their own lives? The freedom of the Muggle and magical worlds? These are the stakes which drive the novels as individual instalments — we have to believe that the events of an adventure story can inspire traits such as fear, bravery, wisdom or compassion in our protagonists. Otherwise, there would be little reason to even bother reaching the last page, much less continuing the series. - What are the actual potential consequences of failure — and are they different from the perceived consequences?
In other words, is there any dramatic irony in play? Dramatic irony predominantly makes an audience fear what the characters do not know; we assume that a character who is poorly informed about an impending disaster will be less likely to be able to avoid it. - To what extent do these consequences materialise — or, to what extent are the characters allowed to fail?
Characters failing early on in an arc can change how we view the rest of their story. In George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, the stakes feel immense because there are no second chances, even for focalisers — as the first novel proves very efficiently. Harry Potter may not be as viciously unforgiving as this — the central characters are protected what is referred to as plot armour — but that does not mean they are never allowed to fail, nor that there are no consequences of failure. - To what extent are the characters to blame for their failure?
The extent of blame is all about retrospect; it is the reflection on a story in the days after a reader has turned the last page, where they wonder endlessly over how the tragedies of a novel could have been avoided. (Or, if the story sucks, they don’t bother, and chances are they don’t read the sequels as a result.) Approaching the concept of a story’s stakes from a writer’s perspective, the extent of blame should never be undervalued; as much as anything else, it decides whether a story feels realistic and cathartic enough to keep going. Throwing in a death here and there isn’t enough. We have to assign responsibility — to understand clearly how the character’s decisions and imperfections caused the tragedy — so that the audience cares enough to see if the characters improve in the sequel.
Harry Potter and the Escalation of Stakes
The Philosopher’s Stone
The story starts where the stakes are lowest — in fact, besides the perceived threat of Voldemort, the stakes are non-existent. Even when Quirrell and Voldemort are inches from the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore remains in complete control; the Philosopher’s Stone can be retrieved only by seeing it in the Mirror — and to see it in the Mirror, you have to desire to obtain the Stone more than anything else in the world for purely virtuous reasons, of which Quirrell is incapable. As Dumbledore explains:
‘Only one who wanted to find the Stone — find it, but not use it — would be able to get it, otherwise they’d just see themselves making gold or drinking Elixir of Life.’
In other words, Harry himself has very little effect on the outcome of the story. It is a Raiders of the Lost Ark scenario, excluding that Harry’s involvement does get Quirrell killed before Dumbledore has a chance to apprehend him. Even Quirrel’s death doesn’t occur because of any skill of Harry’s, but because Lily Potter’s sacrifice prevents Quirrell from touching him — thus there is virtually no way for Harry to fail once he makes it as far as the Mirror of Erised. But of course, since Harry (and Rowling’s readers) perceive a genuine threat of Voldemort/Quirrel/Snape stealing the Stone, there is enough tension within the novel to reach the end.
As a literary device, deus ex machina is generally frowned upon. However, by constructing the plot so that Dumbledore was always in control of the situation, rather than writing in an ill-explained last-minute appearance, Rowling plays with the trope to make the ending rather ironic. Instead of a tale of heroism, the story can be viewed as one of recklessness in which Harry almost jeopardises Dumbledore’s plan, thus allowing Harry to grow in wisdom in the sequels. Furthermore, Dumbledore’s mastery over Quirrel and Voldemort’s scheme helps to establish Harry’s absolute faith in him as a wizard and ally — a bond which will become an essential element of drama in later books, particularly during the climax of The Half-Blood Prince. For Dumbledore’s death to feel like a serious loss in Harry’s quest to defeat Voldemort, Rowling must first demonstrate Dumbledore’s value as a wizard and establish him as a character upon whom Harry relies (and with good reason).
The Chamber of Secrets
The Chamber of Secrets holds off on escalating the stakes drastically, remaining light-hearted and fantastical for much of the novel, although there are some small differences from The Philosopher’s Stone. Dumbledore no longer has absolute control over the situation — in fact, he is absent entirely for a significant portion of the novel, leaving the fate of Hogwarts on Harry and Ron’s shoulders. With threats of death hanging over the book — thanks to Moaning Myrtle’s backstory, Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party, and the ominous writing on the walls — the fate of Hogwarts genuinely falls on Harry’s shoulders.
Add to this the visible concern of the remaining teachers (compared with Hagrid’s and McGonagall’s dismissal of Harry’s suspicions in The Philosopher’s Stone) and the sequel feels a little more dangerous than the first book without departing from its light-hearted tone. Nor do the characters yet taste failure — the only failures in The Chamber of Secrets are both quickly reversed by the end: petrified students are restored by the mandrake potion and Harry’s Basilisk wound is cured by phoenix tears, for example. The lesson, more or less, is not to use too many of your tricks at once if you’re planning to write a lengthy series.
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Prisoner of Azkaban is the calm before the storm. So much so that, in isolation, the novel’s stakes seem to be lower than in either of the previous novels. No matter how intimidating Sirius Black is made out to be, a follower of Voldemort is hardly an escalation from Voldemort himself or his Basilisk. But where the third book starts to escalate the stakes is by introducing the concept of failure into Harry’s story. The immediate failures are small — Sirius Black has to live in hiding, which is better than any of the alternatives, and Pettigrew escapes from justice — but the fact that Harry is no longer infallible is a big step up from the previous books, in which he more or less flukes through every obstacle.
While the book does foreshadow Pettigrew’s escape as the cause of Voldemort’s return to power, it’s only with hindsight that we can know the actual consequences of this. Part of creating a successful series is to provide significant value on second or subsequent readings, and one way that The Prisoner of Azkaban does this through the knowledge that their failure to apprehend Pettigrew does have significant consequences. The stakes, if anything, feel higher.
The Goblet of Fire
Anecdotally, I remember being shocked to see Voldemort return to full form in only the fourth novel of the series. That, surely, was meant to be an event for the seventh and final book, when I presumed Harry would finally thwart Voldemort once and for all, after — and only after — six books of tackling his minions and foiling various schemes to return him prematurely to power.
A lesser author certainly would have written it that way. It seems incredibly trivial to point out something as basic as the timing of Voldemort’s return, but there were so many other young fantasy series that failed to move on from the monster-of-the-week structure. Many of them, as with Snicket’s books, I failed to finish.
I have no doubts that Harry Potter would remain a popular series today even if Rowling had stuck to a more episodic monster-of-the-week structure, though it is unlikely that it would have reached the same level of acclaim. Not because an overarching story completes a series in itself — after all, look at the Daniel Craig Bond films to see how dragging arcs across instalments does not always mean bigger and better results — but because this structure enables Rowling to escalate the stakes more naturally, rather than introducing new, bigger, badder villains with each book. Instead, in the next two books, Rowling focused her attention upon the threat of Voldemort lurking in the background and gradually eliminating his obstacles to a return to his reign of terror.
Of course, it must be mentioned that The Goblet of Fire also features the first death of the series. While it does nothing to increase the stakes we feel during the novel, Diggory’s death drastically increases the stakes of its sequels. Notably, this consequence of failure is not really Harry’s fault; virtually no reasonable course of action on his part could have prevented Diggory’s death. In structuring the story as such, Rowling once again leaves something to later books so that tension can continue to escalate before the finale.
The Order of the Phoenix
The Order of the Phoenix is the novel which ties these threads together. Not only are there serious consequences of failure in the form of Sirius’ death, but it is almost entirely Harry’s fault. His reluctance to learn Occlumency (and his ignorance to the multiple warnings about Voldemort using their mental connection against him) makes him ultimately responsible for Sirius’ death, even after making considerations for his emotional state as a mid-teenager. Rowling provides ample room for Harry to grow in the last two novels — and the high stakes set by Sirius’ death make it essential that he does so.
Dumbledore likewise walks a fine line between retaining and losing control. Although he is ousted from Hogwarts by the Ministry, his success and reputation as a headmaster in previous years keeps teachers and most students loyal to him. He tries to distance himself from Harry throughout, because he believes Voldemort may be tempted to use his, Voldemort’s, and Harry’s mental connection as a means to attack him, Dumbledore — however, this distancing furthers Harry’s angst and increases his dependence on Sirius, causing him to act irrationally when he mistakenly believes Sirius is in danger. Ultimately, during the battle at the Ministry, Dumbledore returns from hiding to save Harry from Voldemort — another leap to cement their relationship so that his upcoming death will feel like a real blow.
The Half-Blood Prince
The escalation in The Half-Blood Prince is by far most interesting, and not just because of Dumbledore’s death. Instead of stagnating after having explored failures, killed off characters and proved her protagonists to be fallible, Rowling relies on dramatic irony to give the series one last push before the climax.
The previous books operate very similarly to classic murder mysteries, in which frequent red-herrings distract audiences and protagonists from the real villain. Harry often falls victim to this mistake: in The Philosopher’s Stone, he misidentifies Snape as Voldemort’s ally; in The Chamber of Secrets, he misidentifies Malfoy as the Heir of Slytherin; in The Prisoner of Azkaban, he is led to believe that Sirius was his parents’ traitor, and so on. In The Half-Blood Prince, however, Harry correctly identifies Malfoy as the villain. The audience is made aware of this fact during the novel’s second prologue, ‘Spinner’s End’, in which Snape makes an Unbreakable Vow to help Malfoy with the unspecified task he has been assigned by Voldemort.
The nature of this very secretive task is not revealed until the end, which deepens the mystery rather than spoiling it, thus enabling the audience to experience the shock of Dumbledore’s death with Harry. Importantly, however, while Harry correctly identifies Malfoy as the villain, none of the other characters believe him. As such, his efforts are not enough to stop Voldemort’s allies from infiltrating Hogwarts. Simply put, Harry grows from his mistakes in previous novels, but that growth still is not enough. This is probably the most important dynamic as far as the stakes of The Deathly Hallows are concerned — it is one thing to make characters fallible, but Rowling takes that a step further by having Harry develop and still showing that growth to be insufficient as the finale looms.
Worse is that the subsequent death of Dumbledore removes the final safety net against Voldemort going into The Deathly Hallows. Harry feels ill-equipped to deal with the upcoming threat, upon which Rowling doubles down by removing the only person who could have helped him reach a sufficient level of magical and mental maturity required to tackle the problem. As such, the final novel features a lot of fumbling in the dark that makes readers increasingly anxious about the upcoming resolution.
The Deathly Hallows
In combination with one another, all of the aforementioned factors made The Deathly Hallows an extremely tense read when it came out. Admittedly, I never really felt that Harry himself was likely to fail in the end — at the end of the day, the tone of the series doesn’t feel like one in which that kind of ending could happen. Yet, none of that plot armour diminished the fear I felt as a reader.
By backing up the stakes with a supporting cast of well-loved characters, Rowling made audiences of all ages invested in their survival — and thanks to the deaths of Dumbledore, Sirius, and several others early in the last novel, their lives felt genuinely at risk. How many favourite characters managed to survive the ordeal was as important to me as Harry’s fate. I was so drawn into Rowling’s world and her characters that I even cared about the Muggle-borns on trial at the Ministry of Magic — though even those named only appear for a chapter or two at most.
The lesson is that stakes do not have to be about killing off entire casts of characters or putting the world in jeopardy — instead, it is better to focus on making stakes feel realistic and on giving audiences a reason to invest emotionally in those stakes. I iterate again that there are many factors of brilliant writing in the Harry Potter series that has made it so engrossing as a franchise, but it was the gradual and creative ways in which Rowling escalated the stakes of each novel that set it apart from the other fantasy series which lost me with age. Potter wasn’t a one-trick pony. It had it all. Well-executed stake escalation cannot make a good book, but Harry Potter is evidence that it can make a good book great.
