Harry Potter and the Extended Universe?

By now, any self-respecting fan of Harry Potter would already have finished the 7th and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As we all get excited about the ending of the decade long series of Harry Potter, many of us are probably wondering what’s in store for Harry. The series has come too far to just stop here after the 7th book, there are just so many possibilities left undiscovered. What happens to Harry and his friends in those 19 years? What happens after that? While some of these questions have been answered by J.K Rowling herself in this interview (FYI Harry and Ron are Aurors), the magical world of Harry Potter is far from over.

No I’m not referring to the yet to be released 6th and 7th film, I’m talking about an “Extended Universe”. Fans of other large franchises such as Star Wars (like myself) or Star Trek will be familiar with an Extended Universe, or an Expanded Universe as it’s sometimes called. According to Wikipedia:

The term Expanded Universe is generally used to denote the ‘extension’ of a media franchise (i.e. a television show, series of feature films, etc.) with other media (generally comics and original novels). This typically simply involves new adventures for existing characters already developed within the franchise; however in some cases entirely new characters and complex mythology are developed.

Essentially, it’s a whole new slew of books, comics or any other form of media that have got to do with the main franchise/series. Let’s take the Star Wars Expanded Universe as an example: officially, the Star Wars series it is only made up of the 6 movies which George Lucas has produced and directed, however over the years authors and artists alike have created countless number of novels and comics respectively, hence “expanding” the franchise way past 6 movies.

While some might argue that Harry Potter isn’t as established as Star Wars or Star Trek (which is true to a certain extent since the first Star Wars film was released 30 years ago), there’s no denying the fact that it’s an extremely well known brand. The Harry Potter series has spawned an amazing amount of merchandise, from soft toys, to figurines and even card games, not to mention 5 movies with 2 more still in the pipelines. Looking at it, there’s absolutely no reason as to why Harry can’t have his very own expanded universe.

Sure, there are movies and games out for Harry Potter, but that’s far from what most fans would want. The movies and games could hardly be considered an “expanded universe” in my opinion. Instead, novels and comics will be better able to fill up the empty void that is the lack of an eight Harry Potter book. It’s the same with the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the main focus is novels and at times comics, not games (in fact most Star Wars games have been pretty bad).

In fact, I can say with certainty that every single Harry Potter fan would want to see more novels or comics for the series. With J.K. Rowling reaffirming time and time again that she doesn’t see or feel the need to write another Harry Potter book, an Expanded Universe with tons of other authors is probably the next best thing. The Star Wars Expanded Universe has certainly been a major success, with many characters that appeared in the Expanded Universe reappearing in official releases. In fact, much of the Extended Universe is considered by fans to be part of the series as well. Seeing as how the last Star Wars movie was released 2 years ago, it’s not hard to see why. Without any new material from George Lucas himself, fans are now talking about the Expanded Universe like the material there was part of the film.

It has become so big that multiple “encyclopedias” have been released about the Star Wars universe as they have to be constantly revised. The same goes for Harry, with J.K Rowling herself indicating a certain amount of interest in writing a “Harry Potter Encyclopedia” in the near future. However, without J.K. Rowling pumping out anymore new material about him, fans are probably turning to all the authors around the world to crank up their creativity level and produce novels that can rival Rowling’s own.

While it does seem highly likely that an Expanded Universe will emerge sooner or later for the Harry Potter series (considering how vast that magical world is), it’s honestly quite surprising that there hasn’t been any such announcement yet. With the release of the final book, I had almost expected authors to be scrambling to write the first unofficial novel as fans would rush to read it in order to satisfy their hunger for more of this teenage wizard. Yet, if there are indeed such novels being planned, authors and publishers alike are definitely keeping mum about it.

Harry Potter has definitely progressed pass the stage of simply being another series of books, it has had a huge impact on “pop culture” in today’s world. Many of us have grown up alongside Harry Potter (myself included) and no fan would want to see him go. In fact, I dare say that the series is more popular than many other series like The Lord of the Rings for example, simply because Harry Potter reaches out to a wider range of readers as children, teenagers and adults alike are able to enjoy it (I personally never made it through the second book of the LotR series). It being such a significant series, it’s hard to imagine the day when the popularity of Harry Potter drastically diminishes.

Sooner or later an Expanded Universe is bound to surface, the world of Harry Potter is simply too vast and complex for authors to ignore. Furthermore there’s the added incentive of having almost the entire Harry Potter fan base craving for more adventures, thus there’s even lesser reason for authors to not write an unofficial Harry Potter novel. In essence, Harry Potter NEEDS an Expanded Universe because it’s unlikely that it will end right here and now after only a decade.

After all, EVEN Star Wars has been around for 3.