/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6758607]

Opinions on the whole series? just finished the first one, i thought it is an okay book for children.

[Anonymous No.6758622]

“Her prose style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers. In an arbitrarily chosen single page–page 4–of the first Harry Potter book, I count seven cliches, all of the ‘stretch his legs’ variety.

[Anonymous No.6758636]

I read new children's literature, when I can find some of any value, but had not tried Rowling until now. I have just concluded the 300 pages of the first book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," purportedly the best of the lot. Though the book is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" does not, so that one needs to look elsewhere for the book's (and its sequels') remarkable success. Such speculation should follow an account of how and why Harry Potter asks to be read.

The ultimate model for Harry Potter is "Tom Brown's School Days" by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857. The book depicts the Rugby School presided over by the formidable Thomas Arnold, remembered now primarily as the father of Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic-poet. But Hughes' book, still quite readable, was realism, not fantasy. Rowling has taken "Tom Brown's School Days" and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkein. The resultant blend of a schoolboy ethos with a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of children and their parents desire and welcome at this time.

In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of "Harry Potter." But I will keep in mind that a host are reading it who simply will not read superior fare, such as Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" or the "Alice" books of Lewis Carroll. Is it better that they read Rowling than not read at all? Will they advance from Rowling to more difficult pleasures?

Rowling presents two Englands, mundane and magical, divided not by social classes, but by the distinction between the "perfectly normal" (mean and selfish) and the adherents of sorcery. The sorcerers indeed seem as middle-class as the Muggles, the name the witches and wizards give to the common sort, since those addicted to magic send their sons and daughters off to Hogwarts, a Rugby school where only witchcraft and wizardry are taught. Hogwarts is presided over by Albus Dumbeldore as Headmaster, he being Rowling's version of Tolkein's Gandalf. The young future sorcerers are just like any other budding Britons, only more so, sports and food being primary preoccupations. (Sex barely enters into Rowling's cosmos, at least in the first volume.)

[Anonymous No.6758661]

>>6758636
Rowling took the formulas for success for kids and teenagers and put them together.

-The orphan who never knew mom and dad.
-A sudden change in his life, from boring to climax.
-His family (adoptive) sucks.
-He is the key for saving/changing the world, seems insecure about it.

Yeah, i got all of that, and i know that there are better children's books out there (Wizard of Oz, The Little Prince) but just wanted to know the opinion from /lit/, you provided with something, unlike the other anon. Thanks

[Anonymous No.6758680]

Got half way through the series as a kid then dropped it. So I think it's bad and boring.

[Anonymous No.6758682]

I read it while I was still young, so I got to enjoy it. I have the first and third books still around, but I don't want to damage my nostalgia, so I won't get them.

> /lit/

[Anonymous No.6758688]

rowling may not be a fantastic writer but she is a passable storyteller

prove me wrong /lit/

[Anonymous No.6758693]

>>6758680
>>6758682
The story gets better as i go throught the series?

I saw the whole movie series and i thought the story got better (not a masterpiece) as it advanced.

[Anonymous No.6758702]

>>6758688
The first book was a comfy read, chidly yes, but comfy anyway.

[Anonymous No.6758732]

>>6758607

>>6758688
I'd agree with this statement OP. As I grow older it becomes more than obvious how much of the series universe falls apart at the seams; however if you were interested in the films I think you'll be pretty entertained with the much more vivid world the books illustrate.

Stick around until the fifth book, if halfway through that you're not happy with where things are going, drop it, IMO that's where the movies took a dive.

[Anonymous No.6758741]

>>6758607
double post but I also want to tell you that IMO the first book's pretty forgettable, even in the whole "a year at hogwarts" thing from book 1 to 4. The third book's pretty wholesome and if someone asked me to hand them "a harry potter book" that'd be the one, so base your opinion on that.

[Anonymous No.6758751]

>>6758688
That may be true, but I'd argue that a novelist ought to be much more than a mere passable storyteller. As the novel’s cultural centrality dims, so storytelling—J. K. Rowling’s magical Owl of Minerva, equipped for a thousand tricks and turns—flies up and fills the air. Meaning is a bit of a bore, but storytelling is alive. The novel form can be difficult, cumbrously serious; storytelling is all pleasure, fantastical in its fertility, its ceaseless inventiveness. Easy to consume, too, because it excites hunger while simultaneously satisfying it: we continuously want more. The novel now aspires to the regality of the boxed DVD set: the throne is a game of them. And the purer the storytelling the better—where purity is the embrace of sheer occurrence, unburdened by deeper meaning. Publishers, readers, booksellers, even critics, acclaim the novel that one can deliciously sink into, forget oneself in, the novel that returns us to the innocence of childhood or the dream of the cartoon, the novel of a thousand confections and no unwanted significance. What becomes harder to find, and lonelier to defend, is the idea of the novel as—in Ford Madox Ford’s words—a “medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.”

[Anonymous No.6758759]

>>6758693
I am >>6758682
To me, the series got better as it neared the end. It must be because JK Rowling was gearing it towards an older reader-base. This is clear in her using darker themes of death and betrayal, and especially when she ramped up the cursing in the fourth and fifth books. However, the most extreme she ever wrote was the one "bitch" by Mrs. Weasley in her fight with bellatrix
>>6758732
I don't want to go back and read the books, so please tell me where the plot is weak

[Anonymous No.6758771]

plot is still an important mode in literature, which harry potter is entirely. there is almost nothing beyond an enticing narrative. as long as afterwards you have an urge to read anything besides stephen king novels (as per harold bloom's criticism) then you should go through with it.

[Anonymous No.6758950]

>>6758751
this tbh

[Anonymous No.6758960]

I read the first 4 and got about halfway through 5.
I can't remember how I felt tbh but I remember Goblet of whatever being my favorite

[Anonymous No.6758967]

>>6758607
I really don't care if their shit. I read them when I was the right age, and I'll excuse most things from around that time just because of the nostalgia I feel for them.

[Anonymous No.6758974]

>>6758622
this

[Anonymous No.6758985]

>>6758759

I never said the plot was particularly weak, I just think that it's a shame that the series maturation did not go hand in hand with it's worldbuilding (i.e not even a vague explanation on how complex spells work, no further explanation of magical concepts & societies in general) and personally I think it's kind of an asspull that harry's implied to be a peverell heir.

I feel that from the fifth book or so the series slowly stopped introducing worldbuilding elements and only dispatched them when they were needed (i.e hallows or horcruxes). I guess you can rebute that argument by saying that harry's interest in the magical world was a bit sidetracked by voldemort but man, i really enjoyed the book minister of magic chapters in the fifth book, fred and george's joke shop bits, the skewts, the SPEW stuff, the portkey & minister explanations, etc.

That being said, I think that the series growth was a bit stumped from the start since JK had to deal with the first few book's caricatural elements.

[Anonymous No.6759009]

>>6758661
The Little Prince? Really? I personally think it's a very strange choice for a children's book. Then again, I never liked The Little Prince.

As for Rowling, I don't get why people hate on her so much. She's a good writer in her respective genre. I loved her as a kid. You also can't deny she can write genuinely funny scenes.

[Anonymous No.6759034]

>>6758985
I agree. We only hear about the essential world around Harry, Britain, and not about the interactions between magic and modern technology around the world, or how the magic governments have been able to keep their powers from the normal world. That part would have been very interesting to expand upon

[Anonymous No.6759049]

>>6758607
I think basically entertaining enough to justify reading it once as an adult.
The reason Harry Potter rightfully gets away with the things people complain about is because it's a fairy tale, and you are allowed to use any trite cliche under the sun if you're a fairy tale and just trying to be a fun adventure and not act above your fucking station.
Unfortunately her books made a bunch of twats think that YA fiction was actually a serious artistic medium rather than a bunch of dumb fun adventures and began writing shit like the Hunger Games, which takes every piece of magic and color that the genre had going for it and stamps it into the dirt. Leaving lifeless melancholy dread to appear edgy and "adult" while still having prose and storytelling ability of a child, and that's why they can't get away with it.
Also: On a personal note I fucking hate stories that say things like "OH U FELL INTO A MAGICAL REALM U SO SPESHUL AND EVERYONE ELSE IS DUMB AND NOT SPESHUL" I hate everything about it and I would elaborate further were it not five AM here, and that negatively stains my opinion of the entire series.

[Anonymous No.6759051]

>>6758622
>all of the ‘stretch his legs’ variety.
Whats this mean?

[Anonymous No.6759066]

>>6759009
The Little Prince is one of the first books I remember reading. I was 5 or 6. Didn't understand shit tho.

[Anonymous No.6759074]

>>6759066
Well, that's kinda my point. I always thought it was a little too philosophical for children and a little too fairytale-like for an adult. I read it as a kid, too, but didn't like it because it was boring to me. I returned to it as an adult and didn't like it because it seemed too simplistic to me at that point and it didn't engage me. I guess it's just one of those books I will never get.

[Anonymous No.6759081]

>>6759009
>I don't get why people hate on her so much

Some people hate everything that's popular. Probably jealousy. Maybe something else.

I lurk around a lot of writing forums. Anytime someone mentions Harry Potter or Stephen King or something that's wildly successful, there's always a stream of "Well they might've made more money with one book than I'll make in a lifetime, but their writing is actually bad and so are their stories." It's funny at first, then petty and sad.

[Anonymous No.6759125]

>>6758607
As soon as Prisoner came out, the series became absolute shit-tier shit, even for children, because all semblance of plot coherence fell apart.

There were two major items that allowed for this to happen:

1) The Maurader's Map
2) The Time Turner

Both were introduced in this book. The first one made everything that had happened before book 3 a dumb joke, and the second made everything that happened after book 3 a dumb joke, and here's why:

When Fred and George gave Harry the Maurader's Map, they mentioned that they had found it in Filch's desk in their first year. This means that they were in possession of the map during book 1 and 2. The significance of this is obvious. They knew full well that Ron slept with a man named Peter every night. They also knew that Quirrel was not one but two people in their first year, that the name "Tom Riddle" would walk with him wherever he went. This either makes Fred and George the most neglectful, villainous characters of the series who allowed multiple pieces of Voldemort's rebirth to go unchecked, or the books are just incredibly poorly thought out.

Is it really like their characters to not say anything to Ron or Quirrel?

"Oi Ron, who's Petah? Yer faggy butt-buddy?"
"Oi Quirrel, who's Tom? A wee man in yer turban?"

As for the time turner, the implications of this device are obvious. They make it so that nothing bad can ever happen to the protagonists in the series ever again, right? This should be obvious. I guess it wasn't obvious to JK though, because she seemed to forget about the device when writing book 4.

Didn't Mcognonalgal or Dumbledore have a time turner when uhm, Voldemort was fucking -reborn-? You know, when Harry teleported into the middle of the entire school with a dead student in his arms screaming about Voldemort returning to life? That's some shit to be avoided, and fortunately, they are in possession of a time turner, so they can solve the situation, right?

I guess they forgot.

But, while writing book 5 JK realized the terrible mistake she had made, and decided to write some absolute bullshit about every single time turner being in the same room at the same time in the ministry of magic, and all of these time turners being blown up at the same time beyond repair during a fight, so no more time travel for wizards. Also, wizards don't know how to make time turners, or something. They just exist.

Any child with self-respect would toss the series down the moment Fred and George reveal the maurader's map, and if not then, when the time turner is implemented. Most overrated children's series ever, its plot has 0 integrity, nothing can be taken seriously because of the canon i book 3.

[Anonymous No.6759137]

>>6759125
Lovely critique. 10/10

[Anonymous No.6759149]

>>6759125
A man named Peter? I remember the part about Voldy possessing Quirrel, but who was Peter?

[Anonymous No.6759154]

>>6759149
A person disguised as a rat, who was Ron's pet.

[Anonymous No.6759165]

>>6759125
Holy shit I completely forgot about the Time Turner nonsense. At the time I the Marauder's Map thing didn't really hit me, but I distinctly remember thinking "Hermoine you could have gone back at anytime you stupid bitch hurry up and use it before OH FUCK THEY'RE ALL GONE YOU FUCKING IDIOTS."
Goes to show why you should never, ever, introduce time-travel elements unless you're ready to spend six months with some pushpins and red string to unfuck your plot, I guess Rowling wasn't up for it.
Remembering this makes the series so much worse for me now. This is why I hated the "Oh yur in a magic world unlike those normies" because not only is it special snowflake bullshit that I hate but it also makes the magic world feel completely inconsequential and unimportant because the real world is absolutely fine throughout and the real world is the only thing that matters because it's the REAL world. It takes the stakes away and I'm not invested in the slightest.

[Anonymous No.6759415]

It starts off as a comfy kids story and as the original audience who read the first one grew older so did Harry and the story. Just compare the first and lack book. It goes from a generic orphan becomes hero story to a political horror story of death eaters causing a coup in the Ministry and creating a fascist super bureaucracy and oppressing and segregating muggles and mudbloods. It's a hell of a twist in atmosphere.

tl;dr /lit/ just hates the fact everyone loves and nearly everyone on here is a neo-hipster "patrician"

[Anonymous No.6759440]

THE DECISION to give the National Book Foundation's annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I've described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis. The publishing industry has stooped terribly low to bestow on King a lifetime award that has previously gone to the novelists Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and to playwright Arthur Miller. By awarding it to King they recognize nothing but the commercial value of his books, which sell in the millions but do little more for humanity than keep the publishing world afloat. If this is going to be the criterion in the future, then perhaps next year the committee should give its award for distinguished contribution to Danielle Steel, and surely the Nobel Prize for literature should go to J.K. Rowling.

What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

[Anonymous No.6759442]

>>6759440

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

I began as a scholar of the romantic poets. In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was understood that the great English romantic poets were Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But today they are Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Smith, Mary Tighe, Laetitia Landon, and others who just can't write. A fourth-rate playwright like Aphra Behn is being taught instead of Shakespeare in many curriculums across the country.

Recently I spoke at the funeral of my old friend Thomas M. Green of Yale, perhaps the most distinguished scholar of Renaissance literature of his generation. I said, "I fear that something of great value has ended forever."

Today there are four living American novelists I know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise. Thomas Pynchon is still writing. My friend Philip Roth, who will now share this "distinguished contribution" award with Stephen King, is a great comedian and would no doubt find something funny to say about it. There's Cormac McCarthy, whose novel "Blood Meridian" is worthy of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick," and Don DeLillo, whose "Underworld" is a great book.

Instead, this year's award goes to King. It's a terrible mistake.

[Anonymous No.6759447]

>actually reading Harry Potter

[Anonymous No.6759462]

>>6759442
Thomas M. Greene died in 2003...

Perhaps you're so old you've forgotten about Google.

[Anonymous No.6759538]

>>6758607
They're good. All /lit/does is jack off and pretend to read whatever makes them look the most socially elite or eclectic or whatever. They're fun. I read through them (I had only read up to 3 previousily) the past winter and enjoyed them very much. They're fun and while no one would argue they're flawlessly written the world they build and even the community of fans the book has is very enjoyable.

That's of course not stopping you from just thinking theyre boring.

[Anonymous No.6759544]

>>6759440
What a terrible ramble from a bitter old man pissed that youth are different now then they were 75 years ago.

[Anonymous No.6759635]

>>6759440
>As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times.

I was curious about this, so I found a pdf of the first book and ctrl+f'd the word "stretch". It turns out there is exactly one use of the phrase "stretch his legs", which occurs on page 2. So basically Bloom is full of shit and most likely didn't read the book at all beyond the first chapter.

[Anonymous No.6759652]

>>6759538
>They're fun, enjoyable and fun and enjoyable

[Anonymous No.6759675]

>>6759652
at least they're not boring.

[Anonymous No.6759711]

>>6758622
>“Her prose style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers. In an arbitrarily chosen single page–page 4–of the first Harry Potter book, I count seven cliches, all of the ‘stretch his legs’ variety.
Bloom seems to expect from a children's book to have references to nordic mythology, and the story be constructed upon the schematic evolution of alchemy through history.

[Anonymous No.6759721]

I tried to read the whole thing for the first time recently. I got to the 3rd book and dropped it. It's insultingly bad.

[Anonymous No.6760167]

>>6759125
had completely forgot about this. huge game changer.

[Anonymous No.6760187]

>>6759635
>turns out there is exactly one use of the phrase "stretch his legs", which occurs on page 2
confirmed

[Anonymous No.6760219]

>>6758607
>okay book for children

spot on

[Anonymous No.6760609]

>>6759125
>Didn't Mcognonalgal or Dumbledore have a time turner when uhm, Voldemort was fucking -reborn-? You know, when Harry teleported into the middle of the entire school with a dead student in his arms screaming about Voldemort returning to life? That's some shit to be avoided, and fortunately, they are in possession of a time turner, so they can solve the situation, right?

Time travel in Harry Potter follows fixed timeline rules. You can't reverse an event after it's already happened.

[Anonymous No.6760653]

>>6760609
Fixed timeline rules don't hold up to basic logical reasoning, though, in the case of the time turner.

So harry comes back and is holding Cedric's body, screaming about Voldemort's return.

Dumbledore then picks up a timeturner, and turns it half a dozen times and goes back six hours.

He can't change the event because....?

[Anonymous No.6760707]

>>6760653
Apparently it only works for Hippogriffs.

[Anonymous No.6760743]

>>6760653
Forgive me for my tumblr-tier literary criticism. Here goes:

Dumbledore wanted Voldemort to return to power in order to vanquish him completely. Cedric was collateral damage.

[Anonymous No.6760774]

>>6760707
Buckbeak never actually died in the "original" timeline, the reader was just led to believe that he had. You can use the time turner to prevent something from happen, but you can't reverse something that alreasy has. There's only ever going to be one sequence of events.

[Anonymous No.6760806]

>>6758607
>for children

If you didn't read it when you were 14 or younger, you'll never really get it. It's like Star Wars and the Goonies.

[Anonymous No.6761676]

I'm an ardent fan of the series, but JK was clumsy with the numerous plot holes she left in her story. Another anon already touched on the issues with the Time-Turners and the Marauder's Map, both of which weren't really addressed in a satisfactory manner, but oh well.

I also felt that a lot of things were shoehorned in too quickly for the reader to digest.

She built up the potential romance between Harry and Cho for three books before making it fall apart over a trivial argument that was never properly resolved. Then, she managed to squeeze in the fact that Harry suddenly was head-over-heels for Ginny in the sixth book with barely any context to apply to that specific situation. It made the moments where Harry was jealous of Ginny and Dean feel very contrived and annoying because I personally couldn't see where these feelings were coming from.

I thought the epilogue was really, really weak. I enjoy reading HP fanfic and I'm honestly unsurprised by the amount of pieces that ignore it altogether. It felt really lazily written. I understand that it must've been tiring writing seven books and JK was probably fed up by the seventh, but I just found the whole epilogue to be incredibly twee and unsatisfactorily written.

I still love the series because I grew up with it and it's a lovely nod to my own culture, but it has inherent flaws that raise your eyebrows a bit once you're old enough to analyse the content properly.

[Anonymous No.6762592]

>>6760743
I think the obvious continuation of this is "Voldemort starts getting uppity a few years before the first book and kills some guy, Dumbledore flips a time turner a few times, kills Voldemort and Harry lives the rest of his life without a shitty ACDC tattoo on his forehead
>>6760774
What
I would attempt to point out the obvious flaw in this logic but in a span of only a few sentences you have said something so nonsensical and contradictory to conventional logic it is actually impossible to critique.
I am impressed.

[Anonymous No.6762601]

>>6761676
>I enjoy reading HP Fanfic
>I enjoy reading fanfic

[Anonymous No.6762633]

>>6760653

Didn't Dumbledore have to go through a bunch of legal hoops to give Hermione the timeturner (which he probably only allowed because he was planning to save Sirius), which was returned to the Ministry at the end of PoA?

[Anonymous No.6762643]

>>6762633
yeah, although I would have thought Voldemort would at least try to get the thing once he had taken over the Ministry.

[Anonymous No.6762785]

it's a decent series of books for young adults, but not really great once you age out of them. rowling isn't a great writer, but her books aren't completely black and white in their portrayal of morality and i think this is another classic case of people hating a piece of media because they hate the people associated with it. no one likes stupid kids, but i'd wager that a lot of people on this board got into reading because of series like harry potter, so to dismiss them out of hand is pretty foolish. if you judge the books on the intent of the author - compelling escapist stories for children to read rather than play video games that will offer some value and edification - then this is a good book series, but if you're older than 14 and you're looking for something more philosophically and personally satisfying, try something else. why you guys heff to be mad?

[Anonymous No.6762797]

>>6762785
>a lot of people on this board got into reading because of series like harry potter
If only that were true. Harry Potter is meant to be a dead end. After Potter, comes nothing.

[Anonymous No.6762813]

>>6762797
> Harry Potter is meant to be a dead end
your statement seems to fly in the face of common sense. even if we're being pessimistic, of the millions of people who read these books, at least some of them are going to continue reading and perhaps will be enticed to try higher level books. there has been some research (admittedly, in the UK) to suggest that the success of the harry potter series has had a measurable effect on reading rates. but hey, why not just be a contrarian about it?

[Anonymous No.6762821]

>>6759440
I read "Just So Stories," "Jungle Book," "Wind in the Willows," and "Alice" before I read Harry Potter, and loved them all, Potter included.

>TL;DR
lol butthurt

[Anonymous No.6762824]

>>6760187
The funny thing is, considering Vernon Dursley's character, that cliche is perfectly appropriate

[Anonymous No.6762828]

Read the first 3 as a kid after the first movie came out. I had the 4th some months after it came out, but never read it. I got the 5th the day it came out, but that was the same day I got a PS2, and DBZ Budokai was more fun than reading. Picked up the 6th way later, and didn't care much for it, so I never had the 7th. Saw all the movies though

[Anonymous No.6762837]

>>6762813
>(admittedly, in the UK) to
You can afford to be optimistic, I'm in the US, so I see the other side of it. Most adult fiction here is already written at the YA level, so no one is really enticed to try higher level books outside of a homework assignment.

[Anonymous No.6762866]

Does anyone here actually owe their current reading hobbies to reading HP as a kid? I read the first three books in elementary school, but I stopped caring when I saw how long 4 was. I still read random shit in my school libraries because I liked reading but I wasn't about to read 700-pages books in some gay ass fantasy series. But I did read the entirety of the Series of Unfortunate Events in the year before the 12th came out, which I feel prepared me more for reading as a whole than HP did. Unfortunate Events was basically po-mo kid lit anyway

[Anonymous No.6762913]

>>6762866
Not me. But only because it was after my time. I'm more concerned about adults who read it thinking it's literature, and even more concerned with people who read Dan Brown.

[Anonymous No.6764420]

>>6759066
The Prince is something you read at a very young age, when you don't understand shit, like the Prince surounded by all these faggot adults and their problems, and then as you get older, you relate to the existential pain each of the adults feel all experience.

It's really interesting since, as a kid, you would not understand how or why any of the adults act irrationally but when you're older, you see the Prince as a child who simply gives no fuck but that's simply his innocence protecting him.

[Anonymous No.6764450]

>>6760774
The only reason Buckbeak wasn't killed was because the time turner was used. The same thing would be true for Cedric's death and Voldemort's return had Dumbledore decided to use a time turner. I can tell you're serious and I can't even begin to fathom how you are being this illogical about the concept.

Like, the question is so simple: Dumbledore has a time turner in his pocket. He sees harry come back with a dead student screaming about voldemort's return. He turns the time turner a few times and goes back before the maze event starts. He can change nothing because....?

>>6762592
>>6762633
>>6762643

Yeah, the whole time turner thing is fucked and poorly thought out. Giving shit like that to a student? pls. If they're all so carefully tracked by the ministry that they're all in a single cabinet during book five, they aren't going to let a little girl run around a school full of kids with shit like that. I mean the plot weakness and plot holes created by the existence of the device are endless, it should have been avoided altogether.

[Anonymous No.6764461]

>>6764450
>He can change nothing because....

Without voldemort returning to a physical form he wouldn't be led to the horcruxes which ensured his continued existence.

[Anonymous No.6764494]

>>6762837
>mfw I avoid rich and complex prose in writing, though I am capable of doing so
>mfw I avoid writing the deep, analogous, metaphysical tales that haunt my mind
>mfw I write fantasy/science fiction aimed at teenagers and young adults
>mfw I make heavy use of writing cliches and spoon-feed the reader throughout
>mfw you can't stop me

[Anonymous No.6764509]

>>6764461
this is not a physical reason that stops him from doing so, which is what I was responding to as somebody said "It's impossible for someone to change an event that's already occurred with a time turner", this is a calculated decision.

regardless, if that's true, Dumbledore totally used Cedric as a pawn hahahaha pawn2D5 rekt by knight

god I wonder if JK intended for Dumbledore to use people and children like chess pieces when she started writing, because that's how it became for sure.

[Anonymous No.6764516]

>>6764509
it's hinted throughout. There is a reason why Dumbledore was the only wizard that Voldemort ever feared. Man was fucking roofliss.

[Anonymous No.6764968]

Not really on her stories themselves, but I feel like nowadays she's just making shit up as a marketing stunt.
Like the whole Dumbledore is gay thing, and now the backstory on why his parents hated his aunt & uncle.

They don't add any value to the story, or is it me just seeing things the wrong way?

(Also, never been a fan of the films since I have the feeling so many things were never explained, so I didn't like the idea of reading the books, although often they give a more thorough explanation).

[Anonymous No.6764996]

>>6764968
>horcruxes
She should have explained why Dumbledore was such a manipulative cunt.

[Anonymous No.6765007]

>>6761676
They didn't handle the Harry and Ginny relationship well but the Cho one was fine considering how many school romances are just superficial attractions that don't pan out.

[Anonymous No.6765020]

>>6764996
>>horcruxes
I'm sorry but I don't get what you mean by that.

[Anonymous No.6765031]

>>6758751
>That may be true, but I'd argue that a novelist ought to be much more than a mere passable storyteller.
Sure, if you're talking about somebody trying to be a great novelist. She was writing children's novels. That's not a slight against her. That's just the way it is.

[Anonymous No.6765057]

>>6765007
Ginny was so fucking forced

first implication of it in the series was when Harry looked at her on the train and though
>"her red hair, flowing behind her"
so much facepalm. so much forced.

JK made so many mistakes, and the 7th book had so much potential. Honestly, I think she shouldn't have passed up the potential impact killing Harry or Ron would have had, and I think it was a huge mistake that Neville wasn't killed by Voldemort.

Like, if Ron and Neville made sacrifices and Harry was alive by the end of 7, that would have had a strong impact on how it wasn't "all about Harry and his suffering". Particularly with Neville, as he was born in the same month and fit with the prophecy.

Had Neville been blown away by voldemort after killing the snake, his last horcrux with a sword(which he should have because, well, he was literally standing in front of voldemort as he did this, and voldemort didn't kill him for no reason), it would have brought thought as to maybe Neville was the one in the prophecy. Instead it was just a forced "nerd2hero" arc, aaa

can rant about various things in this book for a long time. I've heard the whole series on tape literally 30 times when I was a teenager because my sisters and mom left it on in the house as background noise.

[Anonymous No.6765058]

>>6760653
>He can't change the event because....?

The time travel in the books follows these rules
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle
It's hard to wrap your head around, but there is only one time line, no alternates. Anything you would go back in time to try to change has already happened, including any actions you took when you went back. You can't go back in time with the intention to change anything, because if you did there wouldn't have been a reason to go back in the first place. That's why it can only be used to do stuff like study more and attend multiple classes simultaneously.

I think...

[Anonymous No.6765210]

>>6760653
because the stuff he does in the past happens before the stuff that happens in the present
that's literally the whole concept of time travel

[Anonymous No.6765504]

>>6764450
No you dumb shit, if Dumbledore sees Harry come back with Cedrid dead in his arms he can't change it anymore, like we said.
If anyone had used to timeturner to stop it the entire chain of events would've never happened.

If you must complain about it, just complain about how it's basically a deus ex machina from the writer.

[Anonymous No.6765530]

>>6764420
>tfw now I see the hat before the snake digesting an elephant
It all makes sense.

[Anonymous No.6765623]

>>6765530
whats that gif from?

[Anonymous No.6765627]

>>6765530
>I do too.

If that what becoming an adult feels like ?

[Anonymous No.6765644]

>>6765623
Kyle Hyde, video game character.

[Anonymous No.6765698]

>>6759125
OP here.

Probably the best post in the thread, thanks.

[Anonymous No.6765719]

>>6765210
>>6765504
you guys are still not answering my question. You are avoiding it.

Dumbledore sees harry come back with dead cedric in his arms, screaming about voldemort being back.

Dumbledore then turns a time turner a few times, going back to before the maze.

He can't physically restrict harry because....?

[Anonymous No.6765723]

>>6765698
I have heard the entire story on tape literally 30 times, against my will

I'd hope that I'd be able to make a decent post on it by that time

[Anonymous No.6765742]

>>6765719
At this point you're just pretending to be retarded. I'm not going to bother and respond to you again.

Just read >>6765058

[Anonymous No.6765743]

>>6765719
It's not that he can't, it's that he didn't. The stuff he did in the past happened before the stuff he did in the present, that's why it's the past

[Anonymous No.6765744]

I really enjoyed the first three.

t. read in elementary school

[Anonymous No.6765751]

>>6765743
yes, it's fine that he did not. claiming that it is impossible, that one "can't change something that already happened in the past using a time turner", is what bothers me, because yes, someone physically can.

[Anonymous No.6765792]

>>6765723
Why did you heard it so many times?

[Anonymous No.6765818]

>>6758607
Came out when I was the target age range, I'd already read muh Tolkien and Asimov, and had already gotten over Dragonlance, so I avoided it and dissed it and hated it without reason. Then, in my twenties, saw the flicks, said, "meh, not as bad as it could have been," ate the books one at a time over the course of a week, and I now actually kind of like them. Decent intro to fantasy for children of average intelligence. Good moral guidance, as these things go. Deeply flawed, but forgivably so, ja?

[Anonymous No.6765826]

>>6759149
>>6759154
IF i recall correctly, he was part of Harry's dad gang, but he betrayed them (told Voldemort where Harry's mom and dad were) and Sirius Black went to Azkaban because of that.

[Anonymous No.6765845]

>>6765020
They are objects that contain Voldemort's soul, if they are destroyed he "dies", however, Harry himself is a horcrux.

Dumbledore was a manipulative cunt because he made Harry destroy all of the himself, and protected him not because he cared for him, he did it because Harry himself was a tool.

[Anonymous No.6765898]

>>6765792
sisters and mother played it on tape in the house non-stop for years when I was a teenager.

last time I visited them(23 now) they were playing it still. It's just their ideal background noise.

[Anonymous No.6765929]

>>6765898
When i started with the movies it was a story fuck up, sometimes we could be watching the prisoner of azkaban then deathly hallows pt 2, followed by philosopher's stone.

[Anonymous No.6767881]

>>6758759
Edgy does not mean better.

[Anonymous No.6767922]

If anyone is working on learning another language I'd recommend these. You can pair them up with the audiobooks, and follow along.