Harry Potter Discussion [warning: spoilers]

Since this is the HP discussion thread, I thought I could raise the question here as well. Sorry to interrupt the current discussion but I just wanted to ask…

I never really understood why Harry Potter is so popular. I read books 1-4 and will read the rest when I can, and I will admit they are a decent read but I don’t get why Harry Potter is this hyped in the world. There are hundreds/thousands of fantasy books out there, so why does this one stand out? I’m willing to bet there are quite a few unknown fantasy novels that is better than Harry Potter in any number of qualities but are simply swept away to obscurity because of cruel circumstances.

What’s your opinion on it though? I really do think Harry Potter was lucky enough to be one of those books carried to cult status because of mob mentality, good media, and etc.

I would agree, Alvin.

I like the books, but it’s really not one of my favorite series and in truth I don’t think LKH is a great writer, a good story-teller which is why the books sell.

Maybe it’s the story that appeals. A young boy that was bullied, both at home and school, left in the dirt, a nobody. Then suddenly gets thrown into a world were not only is he accepted, normal and has friends. But is also a somebody, practically famous.

I think it appeals to the part of pretty much everyone on the planet that has been in that situation, many people wish they were somebody, more than they are. That’s why it really grasps people and became one heck of a sale point. It’s not the genre, the magic or the witchcraft, but that she really captures that part of us that sympathise with Harry’s plight and then who goes on to be what we all dream about.

I’m not really much of a fantasy buff myself, but I would think that such a story idea would have been developed already by other writers as well. I can’t really back this up with examples, but I think a story like that has been out there in many forms already.

“I dunno, Harry, it sounded like Snape was feelin’ a bit overworked, tha’s
all — anyway, Dumbledore told him flat out he’d agreed ter do it an’ that
was all there was to it. Pretty firm with him. An’ then he said summat abou’
Snape makin’ investigations in his House, in Slytherin. Well, there’s nothin’
strange abou’ that!” Hagrid added hastily, as Harry and Hermione exchanged
looks full of meaning. “All the Heads o’ Houses were asked ter look inter
that necklace business —”

I was doing a reread of Harry Potter and the half blood prince before the 7th book came out.

If you’ll notice it would seem that in the above passage that snape didn’t want to do something anymore

Or at least that’s what it struck me as on my reread please feel free to hit me with a counter argument on this

In a way, I would like Harry to die just because I look like him and because I get a little annoyed at always being reminded of this…around twice a day. I want to see him live, but I also want to see him die, just so when people tell me I look like him, I can say: “He’s gone, dead. Let it go already.”

But then again, it’s a pretty good in for talking to cuties if they tell me I look like Harry Potter. I just need to come up with a golden line…Maybe I don’t want Harry dead, lol.

Die, Potter, dieeeeeeee!

On a side note, friends and I are going to the book release in proper wizard dressing—just in order to scream out loud “Potter dies! Potter dies!” to the people in the queues.

Huhu huhuhu huhuhuhuhuhuhu

heheh… yeah…

me an my friend are going to the premare of the next movie (many people in the croud will most likely not have read all the books, i know i havn’t) and give the ol’ “SNAPE KILLS DUMPLEDORE!” holler!

oh by the way, snape kills dumpledore.

Today, after I wrote this post, someone from the forum sent me a private note about there having been a leak of the last book. I tracked the leak on the net and downloaded the book. I read the last chapter.

[spoiler]It’s called “Epilogue — Nineteen years later” and it tells the lives of the characters after the end of the story—just like Jo said she would probably do. I’m not gonna tell anything factual other than what I have just said, because I know many people are curious but end up regretting their own curiosity in the end. But let me mark here my impression: I was disappointed. Through time, as I read on the series, I had this feeling that Jo had stopped being a writer and started writing fan fiction of herself. The plots were shallow and not very well manipulated, the tools and twists she resorted to were cinematographic but didn’t have that literary thing, that which in the end makes books more interesting than cinema. Hell, even some fan fiction I read was better than the later books!

What I felt while reading the resolution of the characters’ lives was disappointment. I’m sure the book is full of turns and twists which will make you twitch in your chair as you read the book, but— Well, I suppose that, in the end, Potter was just meant to be yet another stupid story that won’t be remembered by anyone within a decade. Lets hope the leak I read was a hoax.

For the curious soul out there: once you get the book, and start to wonder whether or not it’s the same version that leaked and which disappointed me so much, open your copy on page 18. In the leak (supposed to be the Scholastic version, so this note is mainly for the Yanks), the page begins, “Albus’s brother, Aberforth, arrived at school.”[/spoiler]
As for myself, I’m not going to read the whole leak. Here’s what I’m going to do: now that I’ve read the last chapter (a fact that does not spoil anything for me, for I’m the “enjoy the whole thing” kind of guy, rather than a “get to the ending, get to the ending, the ending is sacred etc” freak), I’m gonna wait to borrow a friend’s copy; probably only gonna read it a lot later than you guys. I’m not in a hurry, really. Tomorrow, after confirming with someone whether or not the leak is indeed the real book 7, I’ll probably dump the files (to prevent from my own curiosity).

Please be careful with posting spoilers near the beginning of your posts.

Spoiler tags do not work for people connecting to the forum via phones. Wouldn’t want poor siiw to get spoiled because she was searching someone’s post history

Some [the next ten paragraphs have been deleted for extreme obscenity and a random pelvic thrust] idiot on Youtube decided to post who dies in Deathly Hallows after the leak had been announced. Luckily I turned away after reading only one name, but still… anyhoo, only 19 hours to go!

has anyone read the ‘what will happen in book 7’ book written by the mugglenet people? i got to see the two main authors talk at some bookstore…
it’s REALLY interesting!

We’ll understand if we never see you on the forum again, Bruno

YAY!!! I went to the pre-release party, and got my copy! Itt involved 5 hours of traversing through enormous crowds of screaming teeny-boppers while waiting for the boxes of books to be wheeled to the registers, but so be it.

i’m at page 113 right now

And i will read the things in the spoiler tags when I’ve finished

Crap I’m halfway through and halfta tell SOMEBODY

You too ShaggE

I finished reading it at 8am this morning.

You lot are so slow.

I wish I could say I liked it, but I felt ripped off after the first half of the book. The first half was amazing, then it turned into a poor fanfic as far as I am concerned.

I totally freakin’ agree, Mo

We ARE a slow lot

hmm

all i can say

yes, i read it now.

All I can say is, if it is all as anti-climactic as you all say…

Dune>Harry Potter

I finished it now. More in the spoiler tags.

welll I have to make 200 characters don’t I? So you don’t see it. Well I started my spoiler on purpose with something not that revealing. Actually it would only be about curiosity, so that doesn’t reveal a thing about Harry Potter. So why am I typing this then?

[spoiler]Bruno:“I’m not gonna tell anything factual other than what I have just said, because I know many people are curious but end up regretting their own curiosity in the end”
Aah so true, in fact I already heard too much from you and mohegan, while I actually only heard you didn’t like the ending. But hearing that I feared I wouldn’t like it, because I think I have an idea of what you would have liked. Yet I could still tell myself that the leak may not be true and eventually I forgot about it.

And seriously if you’re really curious, control yourself. I’m serious, because you probably regret it.

I do not like the ending at all. Seriously, I mean, especially the Nineteen years later thing. That’s like saying “and they lived happily ever after”, come on it’s not a fairy tale.

I’m disappointed he didn’t die, although I had expected it, I’m still disappointed. I really think he should have died. When I read about the deathly hallows and which one they posses, I though, maybe just hoped, that Ron and Harry would die and Hermione would survive. As it was in the story, the one with the cloak survived…

Also characters may die, but I didn’t get attached to any of them in this book. The only ones you are really following are Harry, Ron and Hermione. And neither of them dies. Surely the other books had build up their characters, but they die in a way you, or at least I, don’t feel anything with it anymore. They’re just characters, while in the previous books, when characters died this was not.

There are certainly great pieces in it, but the ending should be the best. The ending is what you remember the best, what keeps hanging, because it’s the last. And no I don’t like it. But after all it is a children’s book isn’t it?[/spoiler]