Multimodal Analysis: Exploring Character Portrayal in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stonethrough Visual Elements and Subtitle Translation—A Case Study of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger

Abstract

Against the backdrop of global cross-cultural communication research on film and television, studies on character portrayal in the Harry Potter film series have long been constrained by limitations. To transcend the traditional unimodal research paradigm, this study adopts a qualitative case analysis approach, focusing on two representative scenes in The Philosopher's Stone—the protagonists' encounter with the mountain troll in the bathroom and their perilous entanglement with the Devil's Snare—to systematically investigate the synergistic mechanisms between the visual and subtitle translation modalities. The findings reveal: visual elements dominate the externalization of character traits; subtitle translation reinforces the expression of personality. Ultimately, the intertextuality of the two modalities significantly enhances character distinctiveness. This study confirms that multimodal synergy is fundamental to cross-cultural character portrayal in film and television. The established "picture-subtitle" dynamic adaptation model not only provides a new paradigm for subtitle translation practice but also, through the mirroring contrast between Harry and Hermione, reveals a universal pathway for differentiated character construction. Future research could extend to other dual-protagonist pairings and explore the potential of artificial intelligence in optimizing multimodal translation.