Harry Potter sucks

[ColdBurn]

I would be curious to know how the Harry Potter phenomenon has affected readership of other works in the Fantasy genre. I know some posted that the series prompted their children to take an interest in reading. I wonder how that has developed over the years.

 

[summeriris]

It always puzzles me how people can say Rowling's work is simplistic and not very well written. How the book is easy to read, but not a good book. Once a long time ago I watched Claire Raynor on TV one morning. She was talking about how a reviewer for a newspaper had complained in much the same way about one of her books. She said that his biggest complaint seemed to be that the book was easy to read and she always wrote books that were easy to read. This puzzled her as that is what she thought the benchmark of a good book was. Something that was easy to read and gave you pleasure. It's like this quality of a book that makes it easy to read makes it somehow less worthy than a book that is torture to try and extract character and story from. Yet this quality of ease in reading is something that all authors try to achieve. You want your work to be easy to read, it makes it that much easier to suck the reader into your world. In fantasy especially this quality should be paramount because for the most part what you are presenting as normal what is most definitely not normal. This is one of the things that Rowling achieves with consummate skill. When you are reading her books, what happens makes sense. Stephen King does the same thing with ease. Both authors are not IMO given enough credit for this skill, as like a juggler at the circus they do it with such ease the reader does not realise what a feat is being presented before their eyes.

 

[Wiglaf]

The problem is not that it is easy to read. The thing is that it is not so original or amazing as the general public seems to think.
Rowling's main achievement seems to be in the marketing department, especially with the films. JRRT was dead before a decent LOTR came out (not kids but still...). Ditto for Lewis and Narnia. The Black Cauldron was such a bad movie that kids stopped reading about Prydain after its release. The Seeker years after Cooper wrote The Dark is Rising.
As for Rowling's writing it seems about equal with everyone else's. Now if she could world build at Tolkien's level, describe a scene with dialogue like Doyle, or some other such feat, I would be much more impressed.

 

[summeriris]

Of course it's not original. Harry is Jason in 'Jason and the Argonauts'. So in many ways is Frodo, Lyra from 'His Dark Materials', Luke Skywalker and the hero from 'The Dark Cauldron'. Joseph Campbell's book 'The Hero With A Thousand Faces' goes into this mythos in depth. Harry is on the Hero's journey, much like Frodo and Hamlet even he has been chosen by whatever greater power there is to combat the great evil that threatens his world. It's one of the oldest plots around and Rowling has never claimed that her plotline in tis regard was original. It's hard to do that when practically every fantasy book out there has the same basic plotline, including Tolkien.
The boarding school story has been popular in the UK since 'Tom's Brown Schooldays'. What Rowling did so well was take these tropes and spin them into her own format and they worked.
As for the books being a triumph of marketing,this ignores the fact that the first teo books are triumphs of word of mouth. They were given no marketing as such back at the very beginning. It was the word of mouth from the children who were first given the books and then clamoured for more. But of course this is discounted becuase everyone knows thatchildren are incapable of deciding for themselves what they like in books. The fact that 'Philosopher's Stone', a book that opens with a double murder and the abuse of the hero got on the best sellers list by virtue of word of mouth is conveniently forgotton.
To say that Rowling cannot heave your heart out of your chest and make you both howl with laughter and weep bitter tears of remembered pain is to do her a great diservice. She does both with consummate skill. The world she created has a complex political system, an educational system that stretches into other countries. And a history that impacts directly on it's society and influences it's laws and customs. To say that this world is not complex is IMO very symplistic.
To finish I will say this, the films were popular because of the books, not the other way around. Let's face it, the films are not great films. Frankly 'The Half Blood Prince' sucked as an adaptation and it was not a good film in it's own right. The fans of the books have been very poorly served by the films.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

My opinions on this, stated a while back, weren't really expounded upon.

The fact of the matter is, it's because of the series' simplicity that I don't like the books more than anything, and the plot is really rather generic when you get down to the grittiness of it. It was aimed at YA, to be sure, but I've even read YA that was more intellectually engaging than this was.

I tend also to be rather nit-picky about micro elements in stories I read, like the fact that she listed the basilisk as a serpent rather than a lizard. (Off the record, basilisks do actually exist, and they are actually lizards.)


Back to the point above, I really don't care much for simplicity in what I read and that is my own personal taste. Neither, for that matter, do I care for simplicity in the music I listen to or the art I like to view. My favorite music band is not a generic overnight pop icon like Justin Bieber, nor is it an immortally clad headbanger metal band like Metallica. No, my favorites in music are those that can connect with their listeners on a deep emotional level, and those that have little subtleties in both their lyrics and their instrumental performances as to fire my mind off into picking up each individual twist. My favorite in art is not that which would don the cover of a Dr. Seuss book, but rather that with those subtle hints at the artist's thoughts and emotions at one time, that which can be open to interpretation and worth of discussion that can last from twilight until the post-midnight hours.

My taste in books is the same. What I have read as a child may be relatively simple to what I read now, but I felt even those such writings were more challenging and engaging than Harry Potter. And on a more dissective note, I personally found the characters lacked a certain amount of depth, to be honest, at least in the movies, and especially Harry himself, and that the characters all had a typecast to them. Draco, for one. Villainous? Indeed. But he displayed all the emotions of a bad villian without even being human. Lucius was an even worse example of this.

Harry? Harry had to be pushed into the black hole's corner before he ever gained enough human anger to so much as yell at anything. Hermione? Stuck up little snob to be sure, and her arrogance at her intelligence. At least she was shown to be rather more human in that she was in the bathroom all day one day crying over some heartless comments made about her.

Ron I just found annoying. I felt he was perhaps a little too carefree and just didn't seem to have enough outwardly shown ambition to do anything on his own. Always had to stick to Harry like glue.

I do have to admit, I had found the Sorting Hat to be a rather fresh novelty-it really isn't all that often one comes across a talking hat, even in fantasy-but such a minor character certainly wasn't enough for me to fall head over heels for the series.

 

[woodsman]

I think Karn put it much better than I could, but I agree. Then again I'm not a huge fan of LOTR either.

On the other hand, I loved A Wizard of Earthsea when I was a kid, I really fell in love with that world. It's the kind of book I will (hopefully) buy for my children.

 

[summeriris]

My opinions on this, stated a while back, weren't really expounded upon.

The fact of the matter is, it's because of the series' simplicity that I don't like the books more than anything, and the plot is really rather generic when you get down to the grittiness of it. It was aimed at YA, to be sure, but I've even read YA that was more intellectually engaging than this was.

I tend also to be rather nit-picky about micro elements in stories I read, like the fact that she listed the basilisk as a serpent rather than a lizard. (Off the record, basilisks do actually exist, and they are actually lizards.)


Back to the point above, I really don't care much for simplicity in what I read and that is my own personal taste. Neither, for that matter, do I care for simplicity in the music I listen to or the art I like to view. My favorite music band is not a generic overnight pop icon like Justin Bieber, nor is it an immortally clad headbanger metal band like Metallica. No, my favorites in music are those that can connect with their listeners on a deep emotional level, and those that have little subtleties in both their lyrics and their instrumental performances as to fire my mind off into picking up each individual twist. My favorite in art is not that which would don the cover of a Dr. Seuss book, but rather that with those subtle hints at the artist's thoughts and emotions at one time, that which can be open to interpretation and worth of discussion that can last from twilight until the post-midnight hours.

My taste in books is the same. What I have read as a child may be relatively simple to what I read now, but I felt even those such writings were more challenging and engaging than Harry Potter. And on a more dissective note, I personally found the characters lacked a certain amount of depth, to be honest, at least in the movies, and especially Harry himself, and that the characters all had a typecast to them. Draco, for one. Villainous? Indeed. But he displayed all the emotions of a bad villian without even being human. Lucius was an even worse example of this.

Harry? Harry had to be pushed into the black hole's corner before he ever gained enough human anger to so much as yell at anything. Hermione? Stuck up little snob to be sure, and her arrogance at her intelligence. At least she was shown to be rather more human in that she was in the bathroom all day one day crying over some heartless comments made about her.

Ron I just found annoying. I felt he was perhaps a little too carefree and just didn't seem to have enough outwardly shown ambition to do anything on his own. Always had to stick to Harry like glue.

I do have to admit, I had found the Sorting Hat to be a rather fresh novelty-it really isn't all that often one comes across a talking hat, even in fantasy-but such a minor character certainly wasn't enough for me to fall head over heels for the series.

You and I seem to be having a conversation, but I'll be truthful. I don't know whether it's about the books or about the films. On the subject of music my favourite 'band' is the London Philharmonic, but the Scottish National Orchestra runs a good second. As for composer's well it close run between three. Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninoff. I like all three composer's but my favourite individual pieces are Mozart's Concerto for Lute and Harp, I really love the harmonies. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it really does sound like moonlight on water, and Rachmaninoff's Romance from the Gadfly Suite. I'm afraid I really have never heard a lot of the bands that you mention. Rock music pays strict adherence to the 1-2-3-4 beat in music. If you listen to it closely, it all has that beat. I learnt that in a music course I took once and now it's all I hear when I listen to rock music. It gets boring. I much prefer the complexities in Classical.
Back to the books, If you are basing your opinions of the characters on the films then I would tend to agree with you. As I said earlier the adaptations have ranged between alright, (Prisoner of Azkaban) and dire (Half Blood Prince.) What I think may be happening here is the same problem that plagued Charles Dickens when he started writing and that is he was judged by his success and anything that is popular cannot be worthwhile. I think that Rowling is being judged by her success and dismissed. Tolkien was also dismissed as being child-like and simplistic. Whenever I read something by someone who says that Harry does not display anger and anguish, I ask myself,
'Just how well did that person read, 'Order of the Pheonix.'

I too enjoyed the 'Earthsea' novels. I felt that they tended to be a little preachy but on the whole extremely well written.

 

[HareBrain]

I tend also to be rather nit-picky about micro elements in stories I read, like the fact that she listed the basilisk as a serpent rather than a lizard. (Off the record, basilisks do actually exist, and they are actually lizards.)

I don't think that's a fair criticism, Karn. The lizard basilisk was named after the mythical creature, not the other way round. The mythical creature was held to be the king of serpents.

 

[Connavar]

I dont like or dislike HP but i was reading Marvolo great ranting talks with JD. Fascinating, JD had the patience of a saint.

I smiled at the fact he thinks 300+ million is the best sales in the world. Agatha Christia has sold 4 billion....

JK Rowling is a billionaire sure thanks the movies,books. But there are bigger authors in book sales if you care to count popularity. They are dead or less respected genres like romance.

 

[summeriris]

I dont like or dislike HP but i was reading Marvolo great ranting talks with JD. Fascinating, JD had the patience of a saint.

I smiled at the fact he thinks 300+ million is the best sales in the world. Agatha Christia has sold 4 billion....

JK Rowling is a billionaire sure thanks the movies,books. But there are bigger authors in book sales if you care to count popularity. They are dead or less respected genres like romance.

A well written book is a well written book no matter what genre is is written in. I don't believe in dismissing a book because of the genre. Jane Austin is in my opinion the greatest author of novels whoever lived and she wrote what are essentially romances. Romances with depth and humour. I also think Rowling writes with depth and humour. She has also become rich doing it. For once a woman got paid what she was worth, good for her.

 

[soulsinging]

I don't know about you guys, but harry potter is more like harry pothead.

incidentally, that was my nickname when i worked in a restaurant. what is wrong with that exactly?

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

You and I seem to be having a conversation, but I'll be truthful. I don't know whether it's about the books or about the films. On the subject of music my favourite 'band' is the London Philharmonic, but the Scottish National Orchestra runs a good second. As for composer's well it close run between three. Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninoff. I like all three composer's but my favourite individual pieces are Mozart's Concerto for Lute and Harp, I really love the harmonies. Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it really does sound like moonlight on water, and Rachmaninoff's Romance from the Gadfly Suite. I'm afraid I really have never heard a lot of the bands that you mention. Rock music pays strict adherence to the 1-2-3-4 beat in music. If you listen to it closely, it all has that beat. I learnt that in a music course I took once and now it's all I hear when I listen to rock music. It gets boring. I much prefer the complexities in Classical.
Back to the books, If you are basing your opinions of the characters on the films then I would tend to agree with you. As I said earlier the adaptations have ranged between alright, (Prisoner of Azkaban) and dire (Half Blood Prince.) What I think may be happening here is the same problem that plagued Charles Dickens when he started writing and that is he was judged by his success and anything that is popular cannot be worthwhile. I think that Rowling is being judged by her success and dismissed. Tolkien was also dismissed as being child-like and simplistic. Whenever I read something by someone who says that Harry does not display anger and anguish, I ask myself,
'Just how well did that person read, 'Order of the Pheonix.'

I too enjoyed the 'Earthsea' novels. I felt that they tended to be a little preachy but on the whole extremely well written.

I actually am basing my opinions of the characters off the films for the most part, as I never actually read past Chamber of Secrets, but in the two I did read I had noticed that there wasn't actually much difference between the books and the films. Personally, I would have preferred if they had the Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans scene in the first movie on the train the way the book did, but most of the differences I noticed were rather minor and my opinions noted above were simply based off my own interpretation. I'm not knocking those who enjoy Harry Potter, I just didn't care for it myself, and get rather pissed when people attack my own personal opinion, the way Marvolo seemed to attack JD's. Harry Potter is NOT a masterful work.

 

[C Of K]

I've never read Harry Potter. I did see one movie (can't remember the subtitle) Anyway, I googled the original poster's book, and found this quote in the comments someone made about the sixth book of Harry Potter.

This book was so cool! I can't believe it was better than all the others. However, it reminded me kind of Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate. Well actually, I think D: LT was better, but HP is still pretty cool.

a link is here
I thought it was funny that some people actually compare his work quite closely with JKR's. Here is a review from amazon.com on his book

Enough about the author, the book is terrible. It seems to grasp the idea of a beginning, middle, and ending, but little else about the art of storytelling. Its attempts at creativity are akin to a five year-old having a massive battle with his action figures: he grabbed a bunch of other people's archetypes and put them in a bizarre configuration of events imitating his favorite books and movies. And like a child going on about how his dinosaur from the distant future is about to fight a ghost cowboy, the kid is rarely coherent and really only amusing themselves. The points where it tries to wax philosophically are silly enough to make even a child roll their eyes. The dialogue is stiff and hackneyed, riddled with lines you couldn't say aloud with gagging. People whip out books and start reading to one another in the middle of fight scenes.

It just goes to show that anyone can knock anyone's work. I find that the way the original poster knocks JKR was distasteful for some reason, as though he put more heart and soul into his books than she did hers. I guess it bothers me, because if I was trying to sell books, I wouldn't want another published author shooting me down. Not that JKR has trouble selling books, but still, his might not be any better.

 

[Dave]

Even after all this time, I still wonder why so many people find it so easy to knock down JK Rowling. I used to think it was our British disease of knocking successful people, but why do other authors want to put her down. Surely, her story of rags to riches, is a rather inspirational one. Could it be just jealously? Is she actually a good author? - really that is in the eye of the beholder. She is clearly very popular. She is not a literary great, but I wouldn't expect her to claim she was. I don't see anyone reacting the same to popular music.

 

[summeriris]

I actually am basing my opinions of the characters off the films for the most part, as I never actually read past Chamber of Secrets, but in the two I did read I had noticed that there wasn't actually much difference between the books and the films. Personally, I would have preferred if they had the Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans scene in the first movie on the train the way the book did, but most of the differences I noticed were rather minor and my opinions noted above were simply based off my own interpretation. I'm not knocking those who enjoy Harry Potter, I just didn't care for it myself, and get rather pissed when people attack my own personal opinion, the way Marvolo seemed to attack JD's. Harry Potter is NOT a masterful work.

That seems rather dismissive of 5 books that you personally have never read. I find Rowling's work to be EXTREMELY MASTERFUL. I base that opinion on having actually read them as well as several thousand other books and doing some in depth comparisons. For instance, I cannot pass on opinion on Neil Gaimon's work so I would never say that his books are not masterful and my proof of that is that I saw 'Stardust' and I thought the Robert De Niro character lacked credibility. (Which I did).

 

[Connavar]

A well written book is a well written book no matter what genre is is written in. I don't believe in dismissing a book because of the genre. Jane Austin is in my opinion the greatest author of novels whoever lived and she wrote what are essentially romances. Romances with depth and humour. I also think Rowling writes with depth and humour. She has also become rich doing it. For once a woman got paid what she was worth, good for her.

I wouldnt know if it well written or not and frankly i dont care when its about an author i havent read. I dont read many children,YA fantasy. I missed since i never read as kid. I have read only Pullman,Lian Hearn.

I only meant he was saying Rowling is greatest writer of them all because she has sold most when that is not near the truth. Quality or not he was talking about popularity. Her being a woman has nothing to do with only if she is good is what counts.

I respect a fan like you much more than Marvolo type. Atleast you are saying she is good for what she writes like and not because of much books,movie tickets she has sold. I think its a shame when fans use she has sold 300 million she must be great defence. Stand up for her writing and not for her sales. There are writers who have sold more who are near forgotten today.

 

[summeriris]

I wouldnt know if it well written or not and frankly i dont care when its about an author i havent read. I dont read many children,YA fantasy. I missed since i never read as kid. I have read only Pullman,Lian Hearn.

I only meant he was saying Rowling is greatest writer of them all because she has sold most when that is not near the truth. Quality or not he was talking about popularity. Her being a woman has nothing to do with only if she is good is what counts.

I respect a fan like you much more than Marvolo type. Atleast you are saying she is good for what she writes like and not because of much books,movie tickets she has sold. I think its a shame when fans use she has sold 300 million she must be great defence. Stand up for her writing and not for her sales. There are writers who have sold more who are near forgotten today.

Well I thought Pullman was a YA author. The thing is his books are very well written so it doesn't matter if he does write for the YA market. This pigeonholing of books as YA or children's, or even as adult is silly in my opinion. When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote 'Treasure Island' he was not targeting the YA market just as when he wrote 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' he was not targeting the adult market. He wrote a work of fiction in both cases. A good book rises above the niche into which publishing houses place them. This is why we have two sets of covers for Rowling. One for adults and one for adults. It's the same book between the covers, and very good books at that. Anyway there seems two be criteria for adult definition.
One is Adult XXX, which concerns itself by defining adults by their preoccupation of what happens six inches below the waist and the other is ADULT which covers the other 99% of the human condition.

 

[FeedMeTV]

Could it be just jealously?

Yes.

Undoubtedly some people will criticise because they are jealous and like you said Dave, suffer the 'disease' of knocking successful people. It is more than a pet hate of mine but one of the few things that really boils my blood that rather than saying "it's not to my taste but congratulations on your success" some feel they have to belittle something that has gained noterity. I have never quite understood the desire to do this. Maybe it is to go against the grain and not be a sheep of society and by pointing out or making up faults they are stating their individuality. Well it is not 'individuality' it is bad sportsmanship and poor manners.

I don't like horror films. So I don't watch them. I don't stand outside cinemas and point and laugh at people going to watch Saw or harp on about how they 'suck'.

If you don't like something, fine, that is entirely your opinion and the world would be a boring place if we all liked the same thing. But don't spoil it for everyone else by just being difficult for the sake of it.

Apologies if this is a bit of a rant, but like I said, attitudes like that infuriate me.

 

[Gary Compton]

Even after all this time, I still wonder why so many people find it so easy to knock down JK Rowling. I used to think it was our British disease of knocking successful people, but why do other authors want to put her down. Surely, her story of rags to riches, is a rather inspirational one. Could it be just jealously? Is she actually a good author? - really that is in the eye of the beholder. She is clearly very popular. She is not a literary great, but I wouldn't expect her to claim she was. I don't see anyone reacting the same to popular music.

Off course it's jealousy. Sales = Success...simple as in my opinion. One mans passion is anothers poison so for everyone who slags JKR there are a 1000 who love her

 

[Rebell L]

I've never tried to bring JK down for any reason, although I do envy those riches of hers just a bit. I find her themes a bit lacking, I don't want to be hit over the head with the Racism = Evil! mallet. Her baddies aren't people, they're caricature comic book villains. The whole thing is too clean cut. Her themes are heavy handed, her creatures copy-pasted, her main characters a bit dull, with the secondaries being much more interesting.

They don't suck, I enjoy them for what they are, light adventure fantasy. The last two seemed a bit self important and heavy on the angst, which put me off. 1 to 3 I loved though. Sad thing is, if people didn't try to convince me that these books are somehow the second coming, I wouldn't feel the need to criticize so much.