Fear in Harry Potter

Fear is a menace or a threat that we have of something present or in the future, is what makes us activate our survival instincts to preserve life. When we have fear we are faced with an unknown power or force that compels us to react, rather than having a conscious and controlled action.

«So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.«—Professor Lupin

Harry Potter

In the Harry Potter books, the students are faced with a new animal that has the power to mutate and shift shapes into your worst fears: the boggart an amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the form of its observer’s worst fear. Because of their shape-shifting ability, no one knows what a Boggart looks like when it is alone, as it changes instantly upon encountering someone.

When facing a Boggart, it is best to have someone else along, to try to confuse it, since facing more than one person at once makes it indecisive towards determining what form it should take, usually resulting in a not frightening combination of the victims’ fears.[src]

Harry Potter

Facing our worts fears can make us weaken our reasons for doing the right thing, that is what bravery is all about: to recognize the danger and protect our most prized possession without running away from it. We can face our fears in a way it can never make us be stronger, we are brave if we conquer our fears. Harry Potter teaches us to mock our imaginary fears by ridiculing them, by adding a ridiculous object that change our perspective of the dangerous or menacing object, hence the Riddikulous spell.

The more generally fearful a person is, the more susceptible they will be to Boggarts. Muggles, too, feel their presence and may even glimpse them, although they seem less capable of seeing them plainly and are usually easily convinced that the Boggart was a figment of their imagination.

Harry Potter

Imagining a spider and then adding roller-skates makes us crack up in laughter, these ideas shows us that we are not facing a threat, we are imagining the worse. To make fun of the fear we have can make us move on to what is really important, that doesn’t mean that in every real threat we must make fun of it, but to analyze the options to have the courage to continue with our quest.

The spell that defeats a Boggart can be tricky, because it involves making the creature into a figure of fun, so that fear can be dispelled in amusement. If the caster is able to laugh aloud at the Boggart, it will disappear at once. The incantation is ‘Riddikulus’, and the intention is to force the Boggart to assume a less-threatening and hopefully comical form.

J. K. Rowling

Facing our fear we must learn to distinguish which are real from the ones we are imagining. We must analyze the threat so we can overcome it, if there is only our imagination, then we can ridicule it by adding a funny component to the threat. We are brave when we acknowledge our fears and we are still doing the right thing.