This won’t be a review of the final film, though truth be told there’s not much to say of it. If you’ve been keeping up with the series so far, you’ll love it. If you haven’t, then you’ll be confused for various reasons at various times.

In truth, I didn’t really think about it before, but the Harry Potter films are actually quite an anomaly. Even MovieBob pointed it out when discussing the final film as an Oscar contender. This was an eight part series that saw a level of success few film franchises manage to enjoy. Both X-Men and Spiderman saw issue with retaining actors by the third film, and now one led to a prequel with a completely new cast while the other is getting the reboot treatment. In the past, most franchises to go past three movies start to see a serious drop in profits at the Box Office. People stop caring and actors start to opt out.

There have been a few exceptions. The first six Star Trek films managed to retain all of its original cast, though the sales were far from consistent. Even the illustrious James Bond franchise couldn’t keep sales up over time.

Oddly enough, the Harry Potter franchise had lower box office numbers for the second and third films, but by the fourth went back up to its starting numbers and never really came back down. Now, you can approach this as a result of nostalgia and people being kids when the series started it, but that didn’t help the Ninja Turtles. We didn’t have taste as children, so the inevitable suckitude of Ninja Turtles III would be irrelevant. Nothing disappears from the public consciousness faster than children’s entertainment (with a few exceptions… oh, if only Spongebob Squarepants would die).

When I described my amazement that this film franchise has maintained its actors and a consistent level of success over time, most of my friends shrug it off as being based on a book. Is it truly that simple, though? How many young-adult books had we read as children that gradually faded over time? Animorphs and Goosebumps come to mind, though when I was younger I held little interest in either series. I was too busy burying my nose in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Sphere to be bothered with such pulp.

Yet even today Harry Potter is in the front-and-center, enamouring just as many adults as it has teenagers (and let’s face it, a number of us never bothered to read the books until we were in high school, College or full on careers).

The truth of the matter is that Harry Potter’s success lies largely in the story itself. I’ve told friends often that J.K. Rowling’s actual writing quality is rather poor. Her strength lies in developing characters and creating a complex plot without it being convoluted. What gets children to start reading the books is the fantastical nature of Hogwartz, appealing to their desires to live in a fantastical world of the impossible (where they are also special). The mystical Hardy Boys nature of each book’s mystery keeps them entertained.

The setting or latest adventure aren’t necessary what keeps them coming back. It is the characters, seeing where they go and how they grow. This is what has set Harry Potter apart not only from most young adult books, but many franchises as well.

Think of how many film or book series have drastically changed their tone from beginning to end. The closest comparison can only be found in video games, where franchises are changed to fit with technology. Even then, it is typically only through a series like Final Fantasy, where each iteration is unrelated to the previous.

No, this is a series that starts off with a relatively typical young-adult premise. You have a boy who comes from a regular world so our regular children can relate to him. This also allows the story to explain the concepts of the world itself without resorting to pages of boring exposition. It ends with the villain being defeated, mystery solved, and everyone loves Harry. No one dies and everything returns to status quo.

While things begin to trickle down into a darker nature in the next two tales and the universe is expanded, the world still returns to the aforementioned status quo. Yet the readers are starting to leave childhood behind, as are the characters.

Yet book four is where things get serious. The setting expands beyond Hogwartz castle, introducing not only an international world of magic, but also a political presence unseen before. What is more, when the book concludes the “unthinkable” happens. There is no more status quo. The villain actually manages to be (mostly) successful, someone dies and the world is changed.

J.K. Rowling stops treating her audience as children and begins to treat them like adults. This is one of the first key elements of the Harry Potter franchise that makes it so successful for all ages. Just because you started growing up didn’t mean you grew out of the series. It managed to grow up with you, not only making the characters older and dealing with the high school drama that goes with it, but making sure the events opened up a more complex world that moved beyond childish problems. Things got serious and J.K. Rowling refused to speak down to her audience.

This also allowed a great “starting point” for any older audience members to jump in. While it would certainly help to be familiar with the first three films or books, Goblet of Fire manages to provide a point where anyone impatient with the childish beginnings can jump in and keep going.

The story evolves, and as time progresses the very concept of the “status quo” disappears. Harry’s latest dealings with his “muggle” family are less important (and much less comedic) than before. Instead we move right into the plot each time, skipping to the meat of the book and the current state of political affairs. By time the fifth part of the story is over a beloved character has died, and the audience has learned that no one is safe. This is more or less repeated in the sixth tome, only the regular school life takes a further back seat role while the greater threat continues to loom over until, once again, it would seem the bad guys are victorious.

It is the conclusion where nearly all notions of being a childish tale are forsaken. Characters are dropping dead at nearly every turn, no matter how beloved. There is no school year for the lead protagonists as the journey to conquer Voldemort takes priority. Even the melodrama takes a bit of a back seat (sans Ron’s temporary jealousy).

I am no fanatic of the Harry Potter series, but the ten year growth of the characters and story to coincide with the growth of the readers is what allowed it to stay in public consciousness for so long. If you were to place the first and final films side-by-side it would be a tough pill to swallow that they were the same story. After all, one is bright, happy and a light-hearted fantasy adventure for families while the other is a dark and sinister story of a young man that sees friends, family and mentors die before him.

When I try to think of other franchises that accomplish a similar shift in tone, well, I really can’t think of such a thing. The closest is The Dragon Bone Chair, where the first two-hundred pages are calm and slow-moving until suddenly thrusting the reader in a world gone topsy-turvy. Any other equally long-running series such as The Death Gate Cycle or A Song of Ice and Fire (though the latter is currently unfinished) have carried the same general tone throughout.

Perhaps this is what made Harry Potter such a success. Other franchises die out because you get more of the same. The only changes made are bigger budgets or perhaps more foes, or some other attempt to “outdo” the predecessor. In a continuous story-line, a multi-part series, the tone remains the same and you are only as dedicated as long as the story remains interesting.

J.K. Rowling broke conventions by creating a truly evolving story whose entire nature changed. It sprawled more films than Lord of the Rings and changed its nature more drastically than James Bond. Yet where any other film franchise would have lost public interest, Harry Potter remained just as popular (or even more so).

No matter what your feelings are to the books or the films, the simple fact of the matter is Harry Potter is quite an accomplishment, and honestly deserves a lot of the popularity it has earned. J.K. Rowling may not be much of a writer, but she’s a Hell of a story-teller.

Here’s to hoping lightning can somehow strike twice as she develops her next project.