/lit/ - Literature

>>23363277
First 6 and prequel book are fine, check them out.

>>23274347
>everyone would have to be braindead and making the worst decisions at all times.
Hey anon, I've seen some of the movies and read a little from a couple books, and that's all I'll ever see from this franchise, I don't need to see more because I don't think reading or watching any more of these will change my opinion; I think Harry Potter's groundwork is very strictly for the type of children's fantasy that it is at the begining, is a riff on The Worst Witch but for boys, and as such it's a little more action-oriented and thus it feels as if it has a little bit more lore and world building to offer, but it's just a silly kid's Halloween story in a school setting and the "world" is not meant to make much sense outside of "School is Halloweeny instead of normal." This works for the first or first couple installements, it's nowhere near "good" but I wouldn't say it's necessarilly "bad" either, it sits somewhere in the "okay" range, the problem with Harry Potter is that the people wrote these (JK and her assistants at Scholastic/WB) wanted to turn this The Worst Witch analog for little boys into an Star Wars or Lord of the Rings type of series, and "take it seriously" and "expand the world" and such, but the basis for something like that simply aren't there, I'd even argue the characters weren't even meant to grow up, certainly not from kids to adults, the wizarding community adults are silly and ill-informed about the world around them even though they have neighbors who are normal people, they teach kids magic version of school subjects instead of normal classes but they live surrounded by normal people whom they have to keep the magic secret from, the time turner which you mention is a great example; it's something that in another franchise would be treated with some level of respect, like only some very well trainned wizard would have access or the knowledge to use but in Harry Potter it's some trinket elementary school aged kids have very casual access to, the main bad guy is deathly afraid of dying but in their settings little kids interact very casually with ghosts to the point they befriend ghost kids that haunt in a toilet or talk about some ghost stuck in an attic like it's akin to having termites, you can't take the topic of death seriously in this franchise yet it wants you to take it seriously somehow. These are set-ups that make sense for a series aimed at younger kids, but you can't take that and pass it off for a series for teenagers and adults. Read Chrestomanci, I think that's what Harry Potter was trying to be like. I'd also recomend The Wheel of Time and Discworld, both very diferent series but both have Medieval Magic College type places and the world building and type of magic match the stories they are trying to tell.

Should I read the last 3 Wheel of Time books? The first 6 I've read and re-read a few times over the years, books 7 to 10 I've read once or twice and just read 11 for the first time, last Robert Jordan book while he was still alive. Figured out I'd ask here since Sanderson co-wrote those last 3 books.

>>22791786
Ok let's see;
>Wheel of Time books 8 to 11 (first 6-7 I re-read last year)
>The first Darth Bane book (halfway through the second one right)
>Laberynth of Evil and Revenge of the Sith (couldn't find Rise of Darth Vader)
>The Chrestomanci series (and currently re-reading Lives of Christopher Chant)

Colour of Magic, Light Fantastic and Equal Rites from the Discworld series but didn't finish any of them though I was enjoying what I read.
Also; I picked up a Harry Potter book for the first time in my life, the second one; I like stuff for older kids and teenagers but HP struck me as something intended for kids younger than that (around 2nd Grade, kids around 7) I considered tossing it away after the first couple chapters but forced myself to keep going, to at least read a couple chapters set at Hogwarts because I figured out that was what actually appealed to people about this series; I read up to chapter 9 or 10, and I gave up for good when I read a paragraph like "And Harry and friends went down to the classroom. It was transformations classes, and in today's exercise they had to turn beetles into buttons... and Harry came out of the classroom holding three very nice looking buttons" or something to that effect, I said "this is for little kids" and just put it away. I can't even be angry at it.