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

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

This is reminding me of 'The Lottery' for some reason. Although at least in that story people could state a reason for what it was that they did, even if it seems like a pretty perverse one.

[sunnyskywalker]

*shivers* That story is so creepy.

I wonder whether they used to associate personality traits with different disciplines, maybe based on humoral theory or something? Transfiguration is warm and... well, I suppose it could be moist or dry, depending on what you're transfiguring... therefore you're either choleric or sanguine and thus bad-tempered and courageous, or something. Probably it would require a lot of ridiculous backbends to make it work, but then, that's kind of par for the course for humoral theory anyway.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting idea! I hadn't thought of it that way.

And yes, it's a fantastic story, isn't it? I think what really makes it work is the rather mundane way in which Jackson leads up to it, so that when the reader finally catches on it's absolutely horrifying.