death to capslock

So it looks like there's going to be a sequel to Harry Potter, and it's a play. It's going to be mostly about Harry's son.

It seems like the biggest concern among most of the people on ONTD is the relative exclusivity of the medium, since a play is much more difficult to make time and money for than a book, and even if it travels, it probably won't reach every country where Harry Potter fans live.

There's also a concern that the story seems a bit cliche, and one very real danger is that it will come across as too similar to the main series. It's my experience that a story that attempts to introduce a "second generation" very often just ends up reusing the same tropes and devices that had been a mainstay of the series from the beginning. Another problem I can see arising is that the play might be caught in a conflict of how much time to spend on the older characters that we've been following for seven books and how much to include about the new generation. Since Harry Potter started as a children's series, any modern children will probably have an easier time relating to little Albus Severus and might be bored by spending time in the presence of adults like Harry; on the other hand, adults who go to see the play might be hoping to see characters they grew up knowing and loving, like Hermione or Neville, and so might be bored by the new characters they haven't had a chance to build up a relationship with.

In any case, it's hard for me to see how this play will necessarily improve upon the mythos (because it's not like we were particularly clamoring for MORE of Rowling telling you how to interpret her characters), though I suppose anything's possible. I really REALLY hope that the "curse" doesn't have to do with Snape's ebilness--leave the poor man alone why don't you!

You can find more information on Twitter here.

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.

Quite honestly, the Harry Potter stuff on that site has gotten to the point where I can't read it because just about everything is fawning over how great and super-special-awesome the series is, oh, and how Snape is an evil douchebag who wanted to get Harry and James killed so he could keep Lily. But this... this makes me want to scream:

"Hermione... [is] one of the smartest and more pro-active females in the whole Harry Potter canon and English literature in general"

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

How could they make such a claim?! Hermione is a better heroine than, say, Tiffany Aching?! How about Eliza Doolittle?! And I'm sure you could come up with other examples.

No, no, in Harry Potter it seems fairly obvious that the most powerful women in the series are antagonists. Sure, Hermione's perfectly independent and capable, but in the last several books it's like she becomes Harry's servant because he's too lazy to do anything himself!

God damn it, Harry Potter wouldn't bother me so much if everyone didn't insist it was the greatest thing since sliced bread!