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

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

If so, I hope they read this comment.

To be honest, at this point, everyone on LJ has sated themselves and realized that what Suzy Q down the street ships has no impact on what they ship. LJ-Potter has (finally) largely grown up adopted the "ship and let ship" mentality.

Other sites with users who don't have to worry about being held accountable for what they say still have pockets of infants with "wah he made a face at me!" mentality. I don't know what blog you're talking about, and I don't want to know. They aren't fans of the book, whoever they are. Real fans don't get all bent out of shape over someone saying something "mean" about their book. Real fans don't waste their time looking for people who say "I don't like this about this book". Real fans can't be threatened by someone else's dislike of the series itself. Real fans spend their time immersed in the thing itself, not in the activity of other people.

(I hope this doesn't sound scold-y; I mean it to sound reassuring) Let's not spend any more of our word space on insecure people like that, because they literally have nothing to do with Harry Potter. They have to do with watching other people watch Harry Potter. We are enjoying the books our way, and nothing they say can change or undo that.