Day 34: An Old Harry Potter...

...post. this is one i think made rockie a little mad when i posted it, but hopefully tomorrow's "on harry potter" quasi-essay/blog/memory/story thing will sort that out. or at least make up for it a little.

anyway, this was a blog on unraveling seems and i am only posting it for my own reference down the line.
====
["harry potter": july 13, 2009]

you know, the further i remove myself from the harry potter series the more i wonder why people are so hung up over it now.

in truth, i think it is that many people stopped reading outside of the modern genre defining novels in-between releases. even now, i think (twilight novels) that many have refused to move on.

they just move from one similar type of novel to the next.

i'm not saying that the hp novels are bad or anything of the sort. i actually love the series, and they were one of the defining series of what i have read thus far.

what i am trying to say, is that after reading a good amount of fantasy novels before and since, they are nothing new.

nothing particularly special.
---

i read lord of the rings (finally) earlier this year, and so many of the characters in rowling's opus seem to come out of the novel. yes that issue is inherent in many, many fantasy novels, but it's too apparent with the archetype characters, the villians, everything besides hogswarts itself.

yet, even then, magical schools are nothing new to the genre (dragonlance).

i also, for whatever reason, have a gripe with deathly hollows. the 700+ concluding novel it just a tad too agsty. i don't know what it was, it was almost too much of a departure from the preceding six chapters.

plus, none of the novels seem to have any "felt" threat. you know voldemort is coming back, you know he is powerful but outside of glimpses, you never feel like anyone is in any danger. you don't feel the effects he is having outside of the uk area... if there are any.

it almost all seems simple and overblown
---
again, i don't hate the potter novels. i actually, really, really, like them.

it's just that i feel there are so many books, both in the genre and out, that do more.

king's dark tower and the connections that run through the majority of his works seem like more of an achievement. not only do you feel the effects of the main characters story in his main story, but you see and feel those effects across most of king's non-series books.

martin's a song of ice and fire are better fantasy novels as well, more original, and again, you feel the threat of something wihin the novels.
---
i'm glad i read the books, but i am sad that people are stuck in that series. reading is just a huge part of my life, and every book i read opens a new door. a new place for me to explore, and i think it is something that many don't feel.