Harry Potter and the Cheated Readers

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Originally posted by wootapotky
Who's Allen Thompson?

The guy who owns this site.

he has much to answer for for fvcking up the main page a year or so ago--- I want the old black and grey color scheme reinstated, dammit!

 

[OneArmDeeJay]

I agree with you Pook.

And I’m not one of those Pook worshipers that agree with everything you say with out thought and opinions of my own.


I too feel children book authors and children are being robbed of money, time, and education.

If a kid only reads Harry Potter and other similar books to keep reading or won’t because it’s too hard and boring then that’s sad.

For young minds books should be educational and up building. They have impressionable minds at their age. Their brains are like a sponge soaping up as much information as they can. And the information that they are fed will carry on with them for the rest of their life.

So if one fills their child with garbage and cheap literature then when excellent stimulating literature presents its self before him, it is pushed aside with its nose up wanting more garbage.

You see if a child only watches TV, movies, and video games then it will always want books like Harry Potter or they won’t read at all because “it’s too boring” or “I can’t picture myself in it”.

One very intelligent young man once told me, “While reading if you have to picture yourself in it to like it, then you are a poor reader.”

When he uttered those words they made sense and they cut deep. I sat back and analyze over all the times I have read so called literature did I picture myself in those books? And why is that?

And some books I did and when I looked back of why was that, I found out do to watching lots of TV and movies books that stimulate the mind no longer interest me.

The books that I needed a dictionary, that were challenging the mind, and hard to understand was nowhere near on my list. I had pushed them aside and turned my nose up on them because “they were boring”

I had notice a lot of classmates were the same way. I asked a lot of my old classmates back then what was the last book they read, and a lot said none “they are boring” or “don’t have the time”, “Why, when you have TV?”, and others said some weak children’s or weak fictional book.

===========

Pook was dead on, when he said,

The media do control what is being sold and how it’s sold.

Authors and others are afraid to voice an opinion or rage against it because the unnecessary harsh criticism that comes along with it. Like a mother hen protecting it’s chicks.

I too have not heard anything out of a Presidents mouth that is remember able and a classic.

Nothing like “It’s NOT what your country can do for you! But what YOU can do for your country!” JFK

It is a shame all we have is good one-liners that are from movies.

The media does have a lot to blame for all of this. They are programming not just adults now but the children. A man that has lived his life or half way there is set in his ways so it’s harder to train. But a young mind of a child’s is easy to mold and clay. And that is exactly what the media is doing. They are investing young children to what they want but first they attack the mothers because that is the one that buys them this stuff.

If the child wants the mother gets. If the mother is programmed in the matrix (media) then she will obey whatever it’s master (media) tells it to do.

If they have some new tickle me Elmo and child wants she will buy. If they say this is important for your child’s upbringing you must buy now she will buy now.

But you must get to the kid and once you have done that you have won the battle.

Just look at all the people that listen to the man who said: “Don’t spank your child! It’s Wrong! There are better ways.” And then look at what it did when billions listen. There are now millions and millions of spoiled, unthankful, sniffling, disobedient brats ever then before. And the funny thing is the man who published that book eventually admits that he was wrong and takes responsibility for what has produce. Gee thanks


===========

Harry Potter is not that great if it wasn’t for the hype and publicity.

Just take for example Lord of the Rings. I remember when I was a kid and I read the original ones. The Hobbit was the first one I read and man I learned a lot. Sure it’s not your best educating stimulating literature. But it made me a better reader. I had to get a dictionary for some of the words he used. It made me learn how to become better at trying to pronounce words. The man had created his own world and his own language. Hells there were even very long songs. The books were long but good and enjoyable. It also taught me many things.

But that was back then when the only person I knew who had actually read it in my school was a couple of intelligent readers and some what dorks (your engineers and military weapons developers). But they influence me to read those 1000 page books and others. But that was it those were the only kids I knew who had actually read it before the movies and cartoons.

Now, the movies have come out and now everybody and their brother know about it and claims to be the best adventure book ever. It even made people pick up the books even though they were the movie ones but none of the less it made them wants to read them. And so book sells were up for the man.

Point being is that with media and advertising it turns a book into a lot more then what it really is because of all the hype and publicity.

Harry Pottery is the exact same way except it is attached with feminism and huge criticism. If you do not like Harry Potter there is something wrong with you. You are a enemy. And a lot of young girls and single mothers like this movie because it is a female fantasy.

Harry Potter is all about the money hence why Pook quoted Stephen King because he knows it’s all about the money thus Keeping It Real.

Those males that say they like it now but didn’t before are slowly becoming programmed. It usually starts by a woman saying dude you got to chick out Harry potter it’s awesome. A boy who is ridding a freakn broomstick sounds like a Man movie to you? But you question your gut your instinct. You let PERPRESURE and the MEDIA sway you over to reading them and actually enjoying it. Because if you don’t there is something seriously wrong with you. And the men who are 30 something and dressing up to go see that movie is just utterly disturbing. I think they have another agenda. I like how Diablo said the reason why it’s pg-13 is due to all the older men that are going.

Don’t be fooled by the media, which in essence is now the voice of woman.

And do not feed your children garbage in order that they appreciate fine literature and WANT to read and like educating themselves.

Unplug yourself and rage against the media!

 

[Alicorn]

Originally posted by diceman
Hello Pook.

“[1.] Classics survive not because stuffy old professors deem them so, but because the works touch on universal themes of Humanity which make them immortal for they are speak to every generation. What is interesting to note is the classic works have been around centuries if not more, and the 'feminist literature', etc. are still stuck in the current generation. [2.] A good way to tell if something is art is if it survives the test of time. [3.] 'Feminist literature' and all could be read, but not at the expense of the true classics. [4.] (Why are these true classics dispensed with? Because they are now deemed politically incorrect.)”

I can see several errors in here, so I’ve numbered them; I’ll go through them in order:

This is not entirely true; take, for instance, Chinua Achebe’s Things Falls Apart, a million copy bestseller, which is set in colonial times, about an African tribe and the threat from the white men who were just arriving. To me, this is a classic piece of literature, which explores “universal themes”, but most people would never have heard of it were it not for the fact that the novel is perfect for studying (namely, colonialism, postcolonial perspective of). James Joyce’s Ulysses is a book designed for studying (ditto Finnegans Wake).

Firstly, what is art? Secondly, many would argue that, say, Don DeLillo’s Underworld is a great work of art; it was published in 1997.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, I suspect, will be read in centuries’ time, a true classic of ‘feminist literature’. Maragaret Atwood – I hope, I pray! – will not.

Which true classics? Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness ostensibly has many racist aspects to it, as does Rudyard Kipling’s oeuvre, and Saul Bellow is very unpopular among the feminist crowd, but all their literature survives in tact. What does this tell you?

You say that more people should read the classics; here, I must quote everyone’s favourite writer, Salman Rushdie (writing in 2000):

literature, good literature, has always been a minority interest. Its cultural importance does not derive from its success in some sort of ratings war, but from its success in telling us things about ourselves that we hear from no other quarter. And that minority – the minority that is prepared to read and buy good books – has in truth never been larger than it is now.” (‘In Defence of the Novel, Yet Again’)

He says good literature is a minority interest; you say that speeches of Cicero were taught to children of 12 years old. But who thinks all those kids cared about what they were being taught. Of Cicero’s speeches Montaigne has this to say:

I want arguments which drive home their first attack right into the strongest point of doubt: Cicero’s hover about the pot and languish. They are all right for the classroom, the pulpit or the Bar where we are free to doze off and find ourselves a quarter of an hour later still with time to pick up the thread of the argument. (‘On Books’)

Perhaps this is why they were taught to 12-year olds; if they missed the finer details, it wouldn’t matter. And so what if they were taught these speeches? I know for a fact that secondary school kids in Germany are taught Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. As for The Odyssey and The Iliad (which you consistently misspell), these epics were orated; it’s not as if Plato Jnr. sat down with a few thousand wax tablets and read them! And, to be honest, the Robert Fagles translations of Homer’s epics are very easy to read, not that much harder than Harry Potter in fact. Besides, I don’t seriously expect kids to appreciate good literature at such a young age; after all, good literature is about life (Patrick Kavanagh said, “it takes a lot of living to make a poem”; why not modify this to say that it takes a lot to appreciate a poem?), about the ‘human condition’. Kids know nothing, or very little, of the human condition. If a kid wanted to discuss with me the nature of irony in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, I’d be quite worried. No, life must be experienced first, then literature comes into play. First a man must fall in love, be rejected by someone he loves, meet or know of evil people, etc. before he can appreciate the emotional depth of a novel like Anna Karenina or a play like Anthony and Cleopatra or Waiting for Godot. The first three Harry Potter books may not say a lot about life, but they get kids reading, learning words, broadening their vocabularies, and learning how to spell (shame you didn’t have Harry when you were a kid), and that’s all that a kids’ book can seriously hope to achieve (the millions of copies sold is presumably a bonus). A kid who has read the classics is like a person in restaurant who knows the menu off by heart but hasn’t tasted any of the food.

“No one takes Romance books seriously” you say, perhaps forgetting, that Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient won the Booker prize, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind won the Purlitzer and Boris Pasternak, who wrote Doctor Zhivago, won the Nobel Prize. And what of Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary, etc?

“As I've gotten older, I've realized most sci-fi is incredibly bad” – And yet, so much of it is great: Dune, Star Maker, H.G. Wells’ classics, The Hitchhiker’s Guide…, I am Legend, We, etc. Sci-fi is the most recent major development (and probably the last) we are likely to see in literature; it will take a few decades for people to truly acknowledge its impact. Most of the great writers of the last 50 years – William Burroughs, Doris Lessing, Anthony Burgess, J.G. Ballard, Kurt Vonnegut – have dabbled in sci-fi; what does that tell you? You say that sci-fi started in the 30’s, but you are wrong: it started in the third book of Gulliver’s Travels, swiftly moved on to Frankenstein, merrily made its way to Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and never looked back. The rich crop of novelists who have written in this genre is staggering: Olaf Stapledon, Michael Moorcock, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Douglas Adams, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Matheson, Joe Haldeman, etc.

“The audience for Sci-Fi have always complained that they are not taken seriously in literature (which isn't true, there is Farehiet 451, 1984, Brave New World)”. Brave New World, is, by its author’s concession, “a book about the future”; sorry to be anal, but I think there is a difference between proper sci-fi and Huxley’s masterpiece. His is prophetic, sci-fi is about the present. To build on one of your own points: “The point is that these 'golden works' are not passing the test of time and are becoming more ridiculous.” Taken as prophetic works, yes, they are dated, but this isn’t what sci-fi, real sci-fi, was about; it was about projecting the problems of the present into a different realm (mostly forward, into the future), to abstract them, so that problems could be viewed differently, at a distance. So Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is the Vietnam war by another name. The way the soldiers age much slower than people on Earth because they are in space reflects the distortion of time for Vietnam vets. Michael Herr writes:

When you’re out there, fighting, it feels like time stands still; no progress. And, you know, back home folks are getting on with their lives, getting older, and when you get back, to start from where you left off, you find that people have moved on, changed.

The suitably of this space setting becomes clear. And, of course, sci-fi goes on to this day; Iain M. Banks and William Gibson, for example.

Harry Potter

So now I finally, arbitrarily, return to Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling and Stephen King are not literature (or high art) but nobody said they were. Compare Stephen King with Richard Matheson or Robert Bloch, not Shakespeare and Homer! King’s reign of terror, I am sure, will come to an end within a century or so, but I don’t think anyone believes otherwise.

Harry Potter

And you knock children’s writers like they’re idiots; I hope Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carroll and Enid Blyton would all feel suitably humbled by your opinion were they alive today. James Joyce never wrote a kids’ book and probably never could, and, frankly, thank Christ he didn’t!

To finish, here are a few quotes you may find funny/useful:

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, pratcise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” Pat Robertson, US Politician, 1992

“The uses of knowledge will always be as shifting and crooked as humans are themselves.” John Gray, Straw Dogs

“When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.” Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

QFE

Once again Pook's pseudo-intellectual crap takes a round in the head.

 

[OneArmDeeJay]

Alicorn You’re missing the point.

It’s about the media.

Your getting too caught up on the technical side like spelling errors and opinions on Sci-Fi.

The point is Harry Potter isn’t that great and it cheats OTHER children book authors and readers of their money, time, and education.

Nothing about Harry Potter is educational not to mention caters to women.

And if you rage against it like what Pook is doing you get flamed and get seriously criticized.

And I believe it when Pook said this,

“Only a few centuries ago, to be deemed an 'educated man', one had to have the very basics of literature.”


Many important men in history were educated and read if not write educating and important books that are becoming forgotten.

A few examples, Alexandra, Cyrus, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Washington and the list go on.

Also back then people killed for a good education. Books were like treasure now it’s worth and view is of it as nothing something that dorks do. A painful thing to do like studying, unless it is hyped up and drenched with promos from the media like what they did with Harry Potter. It won’t matter how poorly it is written because we are poor readers.

Tell me why are international parents such as Chinese parents not sending their kids to America anymore? Because not to long ago they and others use to spend tons of money for their kids to come to America and thinking they were getting the best education money could by. Now that is not the case. Now they have schools that totally out rank the US in education.

In public schools pre-algebra isn’t even taught until 8th grade. And Shakespeare is thought in the 12th or maybe 11th.

And now USA teachers are slacking and not really doing their job. And children books like Harry Potter are not helping.

But that is just my thoughts on it but I believe Pook was mostly referring to thirty-five year olds just check out what his third post…

Originally posted by Pook
I'm not referring to people like you, who are young and reading it. I am talking about thirty-fifty year olds who are reading it, and when the criticism comes (because anything so hyped and publicised invites it), they won't allow any criticism.

The Chronicles of Narnia were children's books but adults also enjoyed them. But news media, movie industry, and all didn't wrap around them. A big critic of the Narnia tales was one J. R. Tolkien who thought the tales should be more detailed. So he wrote Lord of the Rings, a tale intended for the young.

The standard response I have recieved from many teachers is, "Look at this literature! They hate it because it is too hard to read."

That makes as much sense as saying we should stop teaching calcalus because it is 'too hard'. The failure is not in the literature but in the teachers. Even in university, the english teachers often did a piss poor job at presenting these works. You're not assigned to read them, you're assigned to find 'symbols' or other such gobbeley gook in them. The teachers are providing no context. Like with Moby ****, they would probably emphasize finding symbolism and all that crud. But context is so limited because of lack of reading on the other building blocks, such as other myths. Like how can you understand Moby **** without understanding Leviticus or the powers of Posideon?

It is like high school trying to teach shakespeare but do not teach poetry. "So the reader goes, 'Shakespeare sounds so 'ancient'!" whereas shakespeare is actually using modern english but it is in poetic form. Since all of shakespeare is in poetry, unless you get the poetry, you'll never get shakespeare.

Has anyone had a shakespeare class where they taught iambic pentameter or the BEATS and rhythm of poetry? It is like trying to analyze music without knowing what a note is!

 

[lebRambo]

Originally posted by I_Only_Live_Once
I agree with Pook, this Harry Potter nonsense is idioitic. The only people who like Harry Potter books are people who are not well read. Not including children, the vast majority of people who like Harry Potter are females. This has to do with the fact that they have no lives and need something easily consumable. Harry Potter to books & movies, is like McDonalds is to food, Britney Spears is to music, or The Apprentice is to TV. It's an easily digestible facade. Ask yourself this question: why is the vast majority of harry potter fans (not including little kids) women? Here's a hint, it's the same reason that women find it exciting to go shoe shopping or read magazines on teen idols and celebrity gossip.

wow...way to generalize like a motherf*cker.

this is why you are wrong:

i) I like Harry Potter, and I am very well read, not only in the classics but also in subjects such as political science, calculus and abstract mathematics and physics.

ii) There is nothing wrong with a little mindless entertainment if it doesn't compromise your ability to critically analyse and understand serious study

iii) The vast majority of harry potter fans are not women, since of the people that I know who like harry potter, there is something like a 5:4 majority in the favour of women, so its not a VAST majority. I can only assume that this sample is representative. Maybe its not, but the point is that it doesn't make sense to make blanket statements like 'the vast majority of HP fans are women' when you have no proof.

 

[Alicorn]

Re: Alicorn You’re missing the point.

Just because I don't agree doesn't mean I don't understand.

Originally posted by OneArmDeeJay
It’s about the media.

Your getting too caught up on the technical side like spelling errors and opinions on Sci-Fi.

The point is Harry Potter isn’t that great and it cheats OTHER children book authors and readers of their money, time, and education.

No one forces anyone to buy Harry Potter. Maybe the marketing is done better for J.K.R. but saying someone is being "cheated" is just out of bounds. I mean, they are selling a product not playing a sport... ideas of "fair" don't really apply in the same way as in a sport. So long as force and fraud are not involved no one can really complain that J.K.R.’s marketing machine is better than someone else’s.

It’s not like access to the other writers is somehow cut off due to J.K.R.. The beauty of our age is that we now have access to things that would have been hard if not impossible to get even ten or fifteen years ago. Bendis, Anno, Shriow, Whedon, and others like them are no where near “main-stream” but are available because of our information society. There is no more monolithic book-industrial complex like a generation or so ago, now we can have access to not just what some critic likes but also access to flaming crap. But it doesn’t matter that it’s crap to me because I have the choice to not read it. Maybe a biography of a woman who is autistic but has a PhD and makes equipment for farm animals is boring to you but I certainly enjoyed it. If culture was dictated by the all-seeing-all-knowing-of-what-is-best-for-me-Pook then such works may have never become available.

Moreover, what makes you right? I mean, can you prove in some objective way that one work is better than another? Nopers you sure can't. You can't prove that Shakespeare is better than George Lucas aside from some kind of appeal to your personal tastes. Sure maybe Shaky-baby wrote more complicated dialogue but the better part isn't something you can prove. I can prove that yellow+blue=green, but you can't prove that Shake > Lucas just like you can’t prove that blue is “better” than pink.

Originally posted by OneArmDeeJay
Nothing about Harry Potter is educational not to mention caters to women.

And if you rage against it like what Pook is doing you get flamed and get seriously criticized.

Pook is just being silly for the reasons stated here and in the post I QFE-ed. I'm not going to defend Harry Potter because I don't particularly like the books but you are wrong about one thing: HP does have value. If you think that education is important then I would imagine you would agree that motivating people to read is a good thing.

The best kind of reader is the self-motivated kind. When I was a kid I read comic books out of self motivation, but they were just a gateway to what I read today. No I don't read Shakespeare: I find his stories un-interesting with characters I can't relate too. I stick with non-fiction myself, but if it had not been for Marvel comics I may have never read Socrates. The same will be true of those reading Potter now.

Originally posted by OneArmDeeJay
Tell me why are international parents such as Chinese parents not sending their kids to America anymore?

Ok now you are making accusations you just can't back up. If you can produce some kind of long-term study on immigration patterns that show not only that fewer Chinese are migrating to the US but also WHY there are fewer then maybe I’ll agree with you. Otherwise you’re just being silly.

Originally posted by OneArmDeeJay
In public schools pre-algebra isn’t even taught until 8th grade. And Shakespeare is thought in the 12th or maybe 11th.

Shakespeare sucks, ok? Supposedly he speaks to the "universal human condition." Well he doesn't speak to my condition. Mr. Spock speaks to my condition, Hank Reardon from Atlas Shrugged speaks to my condition, Epictetus and the Stoics speak to my condition. In his own time Shake was considered a HACK. Guess what: George Lucas is to our time what Shakey-baby was to his own. 300 years from now Lucas will be roses-in-a-bottle.

Oh and Shakespeare wrote in Middle English, not modern.

 

[OneArmDeeJay]

Originally posted by lebRambo

i) I like Harry Potter, and I am very well read, not only in the classics but also in subjects such as political science, calculus and abstract mathematics and physics.

You are among the few. There is at least one exception to the rule.

Originally posted by lebRambo
ii) There is nothing wrong with a little mindless entertainment if it doesn't compromise your ability to critically analyse and understand serious study

Your right but over indulging isn’t. Again it’s more then that read Pook’s Post.

Originally posted by lebRambo
iii) The vast majority of harry potter fans are not women, since of the people that I know who like harry potter, there is something like a 5:4 majority in the favour of women, so its not a VAST majority.

So your saying that the majority fans are not women but the people you know are?
hmmm

Originally posted by lebRambo
I can only assume that this sample is representative. Maybe its not,

You sound confused

Originally posted by lebRambo
but the point is that it doesn't make sense to make blanket statements like 'the vast majority of HP fans are women' when you have no proof.

And you do buddy?

Just look at the lines and at opening day. It is and it’s not just about women it’s about the media, children, other children book authors, and older men and women reading it..

Go read ALL of Pooks Post.

 

[OneArmDeeJay]

Alicorn I agree

“Shakey-baby” Hahaa that's funny.

I like you Alicorn cause you brought out some good points and didn’t just flame like the majority does instead of discuss their viewpoints calmly like Men.

Anyways, I agree Shakespeare does suck and I thank God for comic’s everyday because if it weren’t for them I too wouldn’t be reading. And I agree that the best kind of reader is a motivated reader.

However, even though I can’t find the information about immigrants no longer traveling to the States for a better education does not mean it’s true. I’m not pulling that out of my ass on that one.

Also you have to admit though that Pook is right when he says you get seriously insulted when you criticize Harry Potter in the way he described it.

“thirty-fifty year olds who are reading it, and when the criticism comes (because anything so hyped and publicised invites it), they won't allow any criticism.”

Also when he states “The failure is not in the literature but in the teachers.”

I believe that a lot of teachers are not really doing their jobs. That is why people who enjoy reading and enjoy reading novels and good books (other then Shakespeare) are a minority when it use a majority.

And I don’t know about you but I find it disturbing when 30 something old men are all decked out witch style to go see a so called children’s movie.

PS what does "QFE-ed" mean?

 

[Alicorn]

First of all Emma Watson is HAWT and I'll bet that's why the old men are going.

Second: QFE = Quoted For Emphasis.

I wish there was a devil smiley.

 

[diplomatic_lies]

Actually, I find crap like Shakespeare and Jane Austen are responsible for the ignorance in today's children.

Shakespeare and Austen are boring as f*ck. Their books are forced onto kids at school. As a result, kids learn to hate reading.

Even though I don't like Harry Potter, I like the way that it's encouraging kids to actually read for pleasure, not just because they need to finish an English essay.

It's also the reason I hate Shakespeare and Austen, because their books actually discourage people from reading.

 

[TesuqueRed]

Originally posted by diplomatic_lies
Actually, I find crap like Shakespeare and Jane Austen are responsible for the ignorance in today's children.

Yes! Fvckin-A! Finally! Someone else here now recognizes that bad parenting, peer pressure, gangs, poverty, bad schools, social isolation, drugs, excessive violence and sex (often paired together) in games, movies and music aren't the real culprits here.

It's really been those prissy brit writers austen and shakespeare all along!

Gawddamn. I knew it!

Shakespeare and Austen are boring as f*ck. Their books are forced onto kids at school. As a result, kids learn to hate reading.

Glad I didn't go to your schol, bro. I had to seek out advanced placement classes senior year in high school to get a half a shot at shakespeare, and never heard of austen 'till I got to college.

Even though I don't like Harry Potter, I like the way that it's encouraging kids to actually read for pleasure, not just because they need to finish an English essay. (dead right about that....)

It's also the reason I hate Shakespeare and Austen, because their books actually discourage people from reading.

Seriously, though, I'll admit to being a fan of both. But those writers turn people off from reading? I hardly think so. More likely it's they never had much capacity for reading or intellectual pursuits to begin with. Or they did have capacity and intellectual pursuits elsewhere but didn't take to some of the finer literary works all the same.

The main point of presenting those authors in school is to both challenge and expose the students to some of the best regarded works in english literature and/or the outer range of literature. It's to expand the range of what they experience. Some can't go the distance and many don't (biology, for example, was a complete and brutal waste for me.) No problem, really, as you won't know unless you expose tyem to it.

That's a parents thing, isn't it? Throw as much experience at 'em as you can and see what sticks. What you don't want to do is fail to do that and get an unstimulated and unaccomplished retard for a kid as a result (actually - looking around me and I think a lot of parents do want that...)

For those that don't take to it - what's lost? Very little, I think. Those that bytched about it in highschool bytched about everything else as a rule. If they're gonna spend their time bytchin' about shyt until they can get out and get stoned, then fvck 'em, throw shakespeare at 'em and give them something to bytch about!

 

[Bonhomme]

Chill, everyone.

 

[Friendly Otter]

Interesting old thread. I have to say, I don't like Harry Potter - simply because of its audience. So many people going "OMG this is so good" when there's so much better, mature, fantasy literature out there. Like A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin.

I have watched all the Potter movies - I didn't make it a point to do so, but I have watched them with girlfriends when the opportunity arose. They were okay movies, but not great. I can honestly say my expectations were optimistic when I was going to see the first one, as I have always been fond of fantasy. But this? Mediocre. Watchable, but forgettable. The next evening I would watch some made-for-TV movie that was just as good.

I even tried reading the first Potter novel, to see what it was about. But it bored me too much, so I had to quit - something I almost never do with a novel, especially not fantasy novels. (Potter and the Wheel of Time series are now the only fantasy literature I haven't made it through.)

To my surprise, then, people fawn over these Potter movies and books like they were masterpieces. They are not masterpieces. They are consumption products, nothing more. Like ... the Spice Girls. Remember them? A consumption product, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not a classic.

Women especially treat the Harry Potter novels and movies like they were gold, when they are at best copper. I wonder why. Maybe it has to do with the serious financial backing and marketing the author got.

 

[SamePendo]

In sight of current events . . .