Having grown up with the Harry Potter series, I, like a lot of people, tend to see it through rose-tinted glasses. The characters, the setting, oh, and the magic... what kid doesn't dream of going to a wizard school? With being forced to go to the mundane equivalent everyday (with such boring knowledge a lot of the time), it's absolutely no surprise that a fantasy series like Harry Potter captured the imaginations of not just kids, but adults as well. Everywhere, in fact -- the Harry Potter series has been translated into 68 languages and has sold 400 million copies worldwide (thanks Google!)
While there is an overabundance of things in the stories to fall head-over-heels for, one thing that really stood out to me on re-read and re-watch is just how clever the characterization is. Specifically in the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In both the film and the novel, students in Remus Lupin's Defense Against the Dark Arts class must be able to use the "Riddikulus" charm against a Boggart. Riddikulus (literally pronounced "ridiculous") is a task-specific spell meant to defend against the Boggarts (While they came from wider European mythology, in the Harry Potter universe, a Boggart is a shape-shifter, and can take the form of someone's most intense personal fears).
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the student's are all roughly 13 years old, being in their third year at Hogwarts and all. The concept of the Boggart and the Riddikulus charm work in tandem to characterize them without being outright exposition; it shows their emotional priorities and weaknesses at such an impressionable age pretty frighteningly well.
In the book (and the film), the first student to take the stage against the Boggart in class is none other than Neville Longbottom. Up until the fifth installment, Neville is quite the coward -- always being pushed around by the other students (even Hermione!) and not having any outward self-confidence. A lot of this personality is shown in what he fears when the Boggart is first revealed;
"A jet of sparks shot from the end of Professor Lupin's wand and hit the doorknob. The wardrobe burst open. Hook-nosed and menacing, Professor Snape stepped out, his eyes flashing at Neville."
-- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, page 137 (US hardcover release)
This passage makes indirect reference to what Neville fears most as a third year at Hogwarts: Snape. Throughout the series, while Snape is quite hostile to most everyone not in Slytherin house, he is particularly mean to Neville. By just writing a Boggart encounter the way she did, Rowling has told us in one paragraph that Neville's biggest fear is the way he's treated, specifically by a figure of authority. His peers treat him this way too, so it's important to note that his Boggart was not simply a reflection of the act of cruelty, it was specifically a teacher acting this way.
In the next paragraph, where Neville casts the Riddikulus charm and the Snape-Boggart is forced to wear his grandmother's clothing, we also see what he finds humorous. By forcing an entity to appear this way, we see how exactly Neville would find Snape less intimidating. Now -- despite what we may be led to believe by this, the series eventually implies to us that Neville's grandmother is not a very kind person; not in an abusive way, but in her stern, commanding nature. A passage on the Harry Potter Wiki states;
"Augusta was clearly strict with her grandson, who she initially feared was a Squib. Even after Neville proved to be a wizard, his grandmother was stern and demanding of him, sending him Howlers when his behavior displeased her and pressuring him to uphold the 'family honor'."
Much of the thesis of Neville's emotional state is redefined with the reveal of Neville's parents, Frank and Alice Longbottom. After being brutally tortured to the point of insanity, they were admitted to St. Mungos -- a wizarding hospital -- indefinitely. They're around in Neville's life, but they're not able to act as parents due to their heightened level of dementia. In fact, in the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Neville is seen speaking to them in St. Mungo's, and they're entirely handicapped. This points to Neville's grandmother as his only actual guardian, and when she's stern the way she is, Neville only has Hogwarts to go to for positive contact with authority. And, with Snape being Snape, Neville is denied that positive reinforcement for at least one period of class every single day.
TL:DR -- It is only reasonable to deduce that with the trauma in his life, figures of authority/guardians are a tender subject with Neville's character.
So, with the whip of his wand, third-year Neville reduces the Boggart to something he found funny; Snape wearing Augusta's clothes. Mixing the two negative points in his life distilled their impact. In other words; My grandmother is mean to me, and Snape is too -- but if he's wearing her ridiculous clothes, he's not as scary! (it's also worth mentioning that Augusta Longbottom has a very strange sense of fashion)
Things get even more interesting when the Boggart turns on Harry -- it becomes a Dementor, a dark creature he encountered only earlier that school year (I'd hope you all know what a Dementor is). We've read the books and seen the movies (hopefully), so we know Lupin's hypothesis -- this means that Harry's biggest fear is fear itself. He was terrified during his first Dementor encounter because it resurfaced fears in him from probably his oldest memories -- the shriek of his mother, and a flash of green light as Voldemort struck (wanded? magic'd?) her down. Harry faced scary things in his two years before, but the fact that his Boggart took the shape of something that brought back those specific feelings gives us a better picture of his outlook altogether.
The Boggart letimotif makes its return in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Molly Weasely (the Weasely family's mother) finds in in a closet in 12 Grimmauld Place. The form it took for her were the corpses of her family; her sons, Ron, Fred, and George, her husband Arthur, her daughter Ginny, and finally, Harry.
This may have a simpler explanation than Neville's (Molly loves Harry like her own children), but it doesn't mean anything less of the Boggarts as a literary device -- they're a fantastic way to show the audience things about a character, and not tell them.
The series is full of examples of these kinds of things, and it's honestly one of the reasons it's so widely loved -- a good story, for sure, but also a well written story.
Until next time. Keep watching, keep writing, and most importantly, keep reading.
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