Why do you like the Harry Potter books?

[Limedust]

Now, I have bashed Harry and Rowling in the past and will continue to do so until someone tosses my carcass in a river, but what I want to know is this: Why do you like Harry Potter? This a serious question and I imply no derision in the asking of it. Tell me what fascinates you about these books. Is Rowling a good writer? Is Harry the greatest character ever, full of pathos and power, intelligence and humor? Are you secretly hoping Harry gets gang raped by Slytheryn (sp?)? Let me know. Think of this as a socialogical survey if it helps.

[Jeppit Groccin]

I think my biggest reason for liking Harry Potter is the fact that Rowling has a very unique writing style. She is the only author I have ever read that can get me to read a 700 page book in a day and a half and not realize it. When I read Harry Potter, time dissipates, I can just lose myself in it. As much as I love reading Robert Jordan and Geaorge R.R. Martin, Rowling just has this style that pulls you in.

[Niamh Sedai]

I think you have to imagine the state of Children's literature in the decade leading up to the release of Philosopher's Stone. Blyton and Dahl still remained very popular with children but I think for a lot of people there was a distinct lack of anything new or innovative.

 

Then BAM, 1997 and this little book with only 500 original copies eventually becomes a huge literary phenomenom. The whole reason I think Rowling succeeds is the fact she takes this idea of a traditional english boarding school and completely twists and sparks it up. She adds Magic, she adds Humour and she adds a cast of characters that you can REALLY feel emotion for and makes it interesting but realistic- you can almost imagine becoming a witch or wizard yourself.

 

I was 10 when I started reading Harry Potter and I loved everything about it. The books no longer hold the same glamour for me seven years later but that was right before the year I "would have started Hogwarts" and I can offically admit to holding out until the 31st July 2000 for my Owl to arrive; I'm still convinced it got lost enroute. ;)

 

Harry Potter works because it has captured the imagination of a generation. The writing isn't brilliant, but it's entertaining, it's funny and you can imagine yourself going to this magical school hidden somewhere in Scotland. I think that's the real magic ;)

 

Plus, I never would have read WoT or any other fantasy novel if not for HP, so it must have some postive effect ;)

 

*cough*Yes,IamaHarryPotterGeek*cough*

[Talya]

I was a little older ( :oops: ) (infact quite a bit but won't go there) than Niamh when first started reading HP.

 

I find them very light hearted easy to read and they take me back to feeling like a child again (not that I need much excuse). There's a real whodunnit theme to them which I used to enjoy when I was younger and they keep you guessing right to the end. The books are well written and get better as the series goes on. I now enjoy reading them to my 6 year old who is fascinated by them and will hopefully encourage her to read even more(preferably Fantasy if I have my way )

 

Although I had read LotR and The H and Sil, by Tolkein that was my limit on fantasy. I read HP and wanted more so found RJ and others and have never looked back. Now though I prefer RJ or Robin Hobb to HP I still enjoy them for that quick light escapism.

[Talya]

I was a little older ( :oops: ) (infact quite a bit but won't go there) than Niamh when first started reading HP.

 

I find them very light hearted easy to read and they take me back to feeling like a child again (not that I need much excuse). There's a real whodunnit theme to them which I used to enjoy when I was younger and they keep you guessing right to the end. The books are well written and get better as the series goes on. I now enjoy reading them to my 6 year old who is fascinated by them and will hopefully encourage her to read even more(preferably Fantasy if I have my way )

 

Although I had read LotR and The H and Sil, by Tolkein that was my limit on fantasy. I read HP and wanted more so found RJ and others and have never looked back. Now though I prefer RJ or Robin Hobb to HP I still enjoy them for that quick light escapism.

[Talya]

Aghhhhh....sorry don't know what happened there....two for the price of one :oops:

[Gandaal]

I enjoy the mythology behind it, each book has a pretty good story structure to it, and I find most of the characters interesting and enjoyable. Her last three books have been a bit shaky in certain areas in ways that the first four weren't (mainly consistency of character and so on) but each book have generally been a pretty good read without a weak volume among them (as long as you accept the childish nature of the first two books and perhaps the third to a lesser degree). I don't know if she's a great writer but then I'm not a literary snob so I don't really care as long as I find a bit of joy from a book.

[elmindreda]

well i like harry potter because i really do think that we can be quite ignorant and the idea of a secret world existing with ours and its just the idea of being able to escape i think. Plus the style is really good and i can really empathise with characters sometimes

[Draven]

Harry Potter, the book, is simply entertaining. I may not like Harry very much, but the people and the world that surround him is just fascinating and well-created, and it deals with traditional fantasy concepts the way it has never been potrayed before. Rowling also has a witty sense of humor that keeps the story highly enjoyable that even the subplots entertain almost as much as the main story. And even when the story gets dark, Rowling never loses her touch in telling a damn good story. Besides which, there's always the guessing game as to who's the antagonist; and keeping many of the readers surprised in the end after all these years is a sign that Rowling is a really intelligent writer.

Over all, I find it more entertaining than WOT. I'm not a fan of the movies though, especially 3 and 4 -- and Daniel Radcliffe (spelling?).

 

I think that many people are turned off by HP because it's too "popular," which is just superficial and stupid. It's either you like the story, or you don't.

[Kadere]

I was one of the guys who hated them because they were way too popular, and I thought there were better series out there that weren't getting that kind of attentin (namely WoT and ASoIaF). For the most part I still believe that. So I was radically anti-Potter up until the first movie came out. I got stuck next to this 4 year old kid and his dad, and the kid got freaked out by all the lamest stuff, and then I figured, "ok, this is the audience she's writing for, and they don't know or care that WoT is better."

 

So finally I picked up the books, and in about 2 weeks I read through all 4 of them, and I enjoyed that they got darker as they went along. I liked the characters, espically Ron and Harry. I thought most of the mysteries were well done, yet needlessly complex or needlessly simple (like seriously, Quirrel was such an obvious bad guy in the first one). But for the most part I enjoyed the storyline despite that fact that Rowling is horrid at descriptions, and most of her characters are rather stereotypical.

 

I liked the 5th book a lot, I liked the ending. I was saddened, but I also thought it was pretty great that such a main character would get killed off.

 

But I HATED the 6th book. That book is SO monumintally stupid it makes he cry. WAY too much of the book is spent on Voldemort's memories. The Harry/Jenny pairing is ridiculious and craddle robbing and happens in all of 7 pages (what is that?! Seriously?!), Dumbledore proves how useless a daft wizard can be, she TOTALLY coped out making Snape the bad guy, and her CONSTANT preaching about how much Tony Blair and President Bush are idiots and bag searches are destroying personal liberties completely killed the book. I really don't need to know about her political views.

 

Yeah, so I hated that book. And then she goes and gives away EXACTLY what's going to happen in the seventh, so I'm really not sure I should even bother picking it up. The series has crashed and burned.

[Jeppit Groccin]

***Spoilers here for any who care***

 

 

that's the thing about Rowling Kadere, she keeps you guessing. I'm still not completely convinced that Dumbledore's dead, or that Snape's a bad guy. Just because one character hates another doesn't make that character bad. And please don't spew that killing curse nonsense at me, Dumbledore could have those memory recepticles the same as Voldemort. Who know's what he did the first time Voldemort was loose.

[Niamh Sedai]

But I HATED the 6th book. That book is SO monumintally stupid it makes he cry. WAY too much of the book is spent on Voldemort's memories. The Harry/Jenny pairing is ridiculious and craddle robbing and happens in all of 7 pages (what is that?! Seriously?!), Dumbledore proves how useless a daft wizard can be, she TOTALLY coped out making Snape the bad guy, and her CONSTANT preaching about how much Tony Blair and President Bush are idiots and bag searches are destroying personal liberties completely killed the book. I really don't need to know about her political views.

 

Well it's Ginny for a start :P And there's only a year's difference between them so it's not *really* cradle snatching in that sense *lol* . Snape wasn't an obvious bad guy either! We had been led to believe he was good for a very long time despite a lot of suspicion. (And I'm convinced he's not bad too!) Her constant preaching on her political views? We meet the muggle Prime Minister once and we don't know it's Tony Blair OR George Bush! In fact judging from the date of the book (from Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party in 1992) Harry was born in 1980 meaning that the Muggle Prime Minister she would have refered to would have been a certain man named John Major ;) as he was still Prime Minister in 1996. And the President, indeed if it was the American President insinuated would have been Bill Clinton :P So that's not really an impression of her Blair/Bush bashing. *grins* I really liked the sixth book. It explained a lot and it sort of geared everything up for the final book, which I'm really looking forward too!

 

Haha. This is why Harry Potter is so awesome. People like myself get really into it and get rather picky about the details. Harry Potter websites actually scare me though because everyone is just SO into it. It's quite frightening. *cough*

[drak_Morgan]

Why i like harry potter.....

I dont.

I think its pap written for small children. gentle, Amusing, and most of all unorigional. well that may have some connection to the complaints that rowling plagerised and stole concepts from a few other authours. They all shut up quickly though.

Maybe because they were bogus.

Maybe because J.K. Rowling is rich now.

I guess that last fact alone compltly proves my opinion irrelevent.

[Guardsman Bass]

I find it interesting that so many people hate the sixth book. I loved it; it's my personal favorite of the bunch, precisely because we learn so much about Voldemort's backstory, and the nature of his immortality.

 

I like the books because they are entertaining to read, and they are good at creating an image of a fantasy world that shadows the real world in the context of the story. There's so much you can debate about; how wizard society seems to have divided itself along unique lines of prejudice, and the like.

[purifier]

I started reading the book when I was eleven. The main reason I like the HP books is because to me it feels like Harry and all the others are growing up with me in a sense.

 

I liked all of the books, the fourth one being my personal favorite. The fifth one I liked the least just because of Harry's negative attitude to everything (I know, he was there when Voldemort came back and the kid died, nobody understands him, angst...). It was kind of irritating, but the story itself was good.

 

The sixth book, while slightly tedious with all of the history (Which is interesting in its own right), is still a very good book. I'm an emotional person when it comes to books and things of that sort, and when Dumbledore "died" it brought tears to my eyes.

 

I guess that's why I like the books. They can be funny or sad. Some other books can't do that for me (Although, most can if they are good enough.).

[Guest Egwene]

I immensly enjoyed my first read of the Potter books. Infact, it was my husband who brought home the Goblet of Fire...'to see what all the fuss was about'. At that point in time, I had hardly read a book in ages (even though I used to read the library shelves bare) but, I too, was curious.

 

A week later I had read the Goblet, and read and re-read the four books. Went to the book shop and asked if there was anything else about involving a bit of magic. Which ultimately is how I got here :D

 

HP wasn't written to appeal to adults looking for high fantasy. It was written as an entertaining story for kids and teenagers. I think it's spot on and the fact that even adults enjoy the read is over and above the call of duty so to speak.

 

By the way... because of posting this, I had a look at the official JK Rowling... and I am still there...lol. It's got things hidden all over the place and you get rewards when you find them :D

[joeybsmash]

i avoided harry potter until the movie came out. but when i started reading it was completely entranced by the secret history and the secret world within our own. the books also feel like a whole new genre of fantasy.