Harry Potter vs. Iron Maiden

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So since I've been traveling in England I've taken a liking to the English heavy-metal band Iron Maiden. Actually it's probably more accurate to say I've fallen head-over-heels in love with Iron Maiden and everything they stand for. If you've been paying attention, this is why I've begun to stick references to Iron Maiden in some of my Abridged entries. But the thing is, Iron Maiden's music, if you look closely, actually covers much of the same subject matter as the later Harry Potter books do. I think the difference is that Iron Maiden have always promoted themselves as a dark, dismal band, whereas Harry Potter started out as a fairly light-hearted children's series that could get dark and scary when it needed to, so while it makes sense for Iron Maiden to write a depressing song about life and death and choices, when Harry Potter brings up death it just feels...wrong.

( This got long. And a bit disjointed. )

So yeah. But above all I think it's interesting that so many artistic similarities between these two seemingly unrelated artists exist (even if they're not always used for the same purposes). I wonder if it's a cultural thing? I don't know how old JKR is but I do know that the band members of Iron Maiden were born in the mid-late 1950's, shortly after World War II. So...is it a British thing? Or a Brits-born-in-the-wake-of-world-wars thing? Or is it just coincidence?