Why no Harry Potter, eh?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So I looked at ONTD's "Ten of the most Epidemically Overrated Books," and was incensed to find that books like On the Road and The Great Gatsby made the list but the Harry Potter series didn't (though at least the Twilight series did). I mean really, Harry Potter is the epitome of an overrated book series, given that there are people seriously making the point that it's so deep and meaningful and needs to be read in AP English classes. Never mind that it's a children's book series!

Well, these were the people who said that a bunch of authors besides Rowling disliked the idea of fanfiction without bothering to consider WHY they might feel that way (specifically, that Rowling is the only one who's all that fandom savvy because she's modern in a way that the others aren't). Maybe they just think Rowling is their darling author too, and you can't say anything bad about her.

Comments

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

This was a high-school project where we had to convince our English teacher why a new book would be worth using in summer reading. And one of my friends said Harry Potter and backed it up with reasons like "You could get so much more out of these books as an adult than as a kid!"

Of course, that's preposterous because it could be true of any media aimed at children that wants wide demographic appeal. You might as well say that the Pokemon games are great works of art deserving of study because, see, only as an ADULT could you truly appreciate the references Cyrus made to things like war in the fourth generation. She also argued for the importance of the "message," that you can choose to stay away from bad things (like Harry chose not to be in Slytherin!), which, my mind just boggles.

The irony is that Pokemon has aged and expanded its demographic far more gracefully and successfully than Harry Potter ever has, but I digress.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

It drives me crazy to see some over-the-top pro-Jo fans desperately try to attach 'deep and meaningful themes' to Rowling's work, using any possible hook they can. The veil is a doorway to death? WHAT A BRILLIANT METAPHOR OUR JO IS BRILLIANT. Stuff like that.

The boss of The Leaky Cauldron web site and author of 'Harry, A History' - one of the two sycophant interviewers of the Interview o' Doom - 'Melissa Anelli' I think is the name? - is the worst example of this I've ever come across. Her fawning adoration of Rowling and manic attempts to glean DEEP AND MEANINGFUL themes out of Rowling's work - with Rowling nodding uh ha, hmmm, yes, okay as Anelli went further and further down the garden path. If you've ever come across Anelli's web site you'll know what I mean as you laugh along.

(Rowling did it too, of course; maybe she started it. I think some of her infinite interviews after DH were about the 'symbolism' of Harry being 'good', women not being as brave as men/Harry, and so forth. Bah.)

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

And then there are all the people who are convinced that HP is totally a deep story about prejudice, what with all of the nazi parallels in the later books and the persecution of muggleborns. The irony is that they kind of miss the real prejudice of the books- prejudice against anyone who isn't a wizard or witch seems to be perfectly OK. Even the "good guys" do this all the time, and nobody calls them out on it.

[darth-eldritch.livejournal.com]

The irony is that they kind of miss the real prejudice of the books- prejudice against anyone who isn't a wizard or witch seems to be perfectly OK. Even the "good guys" do this all the time, and nobody calls them out on it.

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