Harry Potter Characterization Examples:

Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that
Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to
be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of
bossing everyone around. However, Bill wasthere was no other word
for itcool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a
ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang
dangling from it. Bills clothes would not have looked out of place at a
rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not of
leather, but of dragon hide (Rowling, 52).
o I realize this may seem like a really long quote for an example,
but I think that its a natural, human response to seeing someone
for the first time. We build up these expectations of what we
think people will look like, but in reality they can be completely
different.
Ludo Bagman was easily the most noticeable person harry had seen
so far He was wearing long Quidditch robes in thick horizontal stripes
of bright yellow and black. An enormous picture of a wasp was
splashed across his chest (Rowling, 86).
o This is an important description because of the mascot that
Bagman is representing. This is the first and only time that the
Wimbourne Wasps is mentioned as a team in the whole series,
so Rowling essentially built a team for this old wizard to have
been a part of in his past. She could have chosen any
animal/insect/object to be the mascot, but she chose a wasp.
This is an example of how deeper reading can broaden our
thinking. How is a wasp like his character? He is always buzzing
around, and as a gambler, hes kind of predatorysimilar to how
we think of wasps.
Barty Crouch was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an
impeccably crisp suit and tie. The parting in his short gray hair was
almost unnaturally straight, and his narrow toothbrush mustache
looked as though he trimmed it using a slide rule. His shoes were very
highly polished. Harry could see at once why Percy idolized him
(Rowling, 90).
o This is just a very good example of descriptive imagery. We
sense how uncomfortable it is to be around this person because
of his unnatural perfection. In this way we can even think of his
clothing as a symbol, because they convey who he is as a
person. Yes we look at his clothes, or anyones clothes, and we
see swatches of material, but we also see how that person wants
to be received and what they think of themselves.