Why is Harry Potter hated and loved by different people?

[JodoForce]

You guys don't like it because you Sith just can't get over the cutesy goodness of the Light Side.

[Knife]

Meh, there are all right. My wife pressured me into reading them before the first movie came out. I think I had two of them read before the first movie came out.

While rather goodie goodie, there were an ok series. I rather liked the third one, Prisoner of Azakaban (sp?) and will enjoy it on the big screen.

Some people like my wife love them because of the cute factor, kids like it because its entertaining in a kid way and parents love em cause the kids actually read them.

Fundies hate them because they still are hoodwinked by 500 year old propaganda that they invented about witchcraft.

The counter culture hates Harry because they hate anything that is popular....

[Gil Hamilton]

The thing most people have against Harry I think is that in his world everything goes so right all the time, until the later books, but that in real life it doesn't go right at all. Also the fact that the Magic world seems to have no contact with the Muggle world, and disdains them (which insults some people), not to mention the fact that the entire Harry Potter world revolves around a bunch of kids.

Well, for one thing, the last book makes it clear that certain events during the earlier books didn't turn out OK and, in fact, went horribly wrong in a way that's going to really kick their ass in the last two books, and that Dumbledore had majorly screwed up. Even the fourth book ended in utter disaster, did the fifth book to a lesser degree. The third book didn't turn out exactly rosy either, since they failed to clear Sirius and Wormtail got away, which set the stage for Voldemort schooling them in the fourth book. I don't think that the claim can be made that things always turn out all aces in the Harry Potter world, since out of 5 books, 3 of them have ended rather poorly for them.

Also, it does bother me that the Magic world is completely apathetic to the "Muggle" world, but it is also been made clear that this attitude is one of the downfalls of the magic world and why it is crumbling. The magic world has become stagnant and outdated, and it's failure to keep up with the future and it's old biases and elitism has really busted their balls. I think that this is something done extremely well, because instead of making the magic world be entirely seperate from the regular world just as a plot device that is never explained, it is dealt with as a fatal bit of decadence that is addressed. Of course, I'm sure that the future Minister of Magic Granger will deal with that.

And of course the stories revolve around kids. The stories are kids books and not only that are of a very specific genre of books that are very popular in Britain; stories about kids going to some boarding school and out of their hum-drum life.





As to why some people hate the series, my theory is that people will naturally be disdainful of things that are wildly popular, even if they know nothing about it. After all, when something forcefully enters popular culture, people like to act cool and say that it's crap, simply to be anti-establishment. I saw the same people do the same thing with Pokemon, with many of it's deriders having never seen an episode of Pokemon or played a game or read a comic or know anything about it. My brother was like that, until I let him play my copy of Pokemon Red, and he decided that it was actually a pretty OK game. Same deal with Harry Potter.

[Sam Or I]

I don't think I have ever liked a fantasy/sci-fi series which takes place in a damn school. I dislike the concept completely. It blows my whole suspension of disblief, kinda like Daggits and Weasly Crusher.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

[InnerBrat]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

The Worst Witch, anyone?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Dear God, I read a review of that film on X-Entertainment, and it is nothing but pure insanity...

[InnerBrat]

Dear God, I read a review of that film on X-Entertainment, and it is nothing but pure insanity...

I meant the books, you uncultured heathen

[Gandalf]

Dear God, I read a review of that film on X-Entertainment, and it is nothing but pure insanity...

I meant the books, you uncultured heathen

Wasn't it a TV series?

[Majin Gojira]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

The Worst Witch, anyone?

Willow basically taught herself...sure, she later got drunk on power and dark magics, but still, she taught herself

[Eleas]

Willow basically taught herself...sure, she later got drunk on power and dark magics, but still, she taught herself

Yeah, but Willow's a Sue.

*ducks*

[Majin Gojira]

Willow basically taught herself...sure, she later got drunk on power and dark magics, but still, she taught herself

Yeah, but Willow's a Sue.

*ducks*

Not fast enough!

[Peregrin Toker]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

Secret societies.

Also the fact that the Magic world seems to have no contact with the Muggle world,

???

In H.P. Lovecraft's tale, the Dreamlands have little connection to the material world either - but nobody criticize them for that. (Except for tohse of the Other Gods who live both in the Dreamlands and "our universe" - eg. Azathoth, Nyarlathotep and Lord Nodens)

[Majin Gojira]

Also, it does bother me that the Magic world is completely apathetic to the "Muggle" world, but it is also been made clear that this attitude is one of the downfalls of the magic world and why it is crumbling. The magic world has become stagnant and outdated, and it's failure to keep up with the future and it's old biases and elitism has really busted their balls. I think that this is something done extremely well, because instead of making the magic world be entirely seperate from the regular world just as a plot device that is never explained, it is dealt with as a fatal bit of decadence that is addressed.

[OT Rant] Ya know, that's what bugs me about Buffy/HP crossover Fanfics. they generally miss this entirely. I've only seen the movies and can see this huge fault of HP society. Aside from the miriad of other differences between them (the greatest Being Cthulhu references in BtVS) that really don't lend themselves to a seamless melding without proper explination...anyway, it annoys me that this issue is never addressed. They purpusfully cloister themselves from the rest of the world, wipping normal people's memories of their existence whenever one stumbles on them. Tara would be appauled, as would most everyone else at this! But no one says frick or frack about that! Grr! [/ OT Rant]

[InnerBrat]

Dear God, I read a review of that film on X-Entertainment, and it is nothing but pure insanity...

I meant the books, you uncultured heathen

Wasn't it a TV series?

[Eleas]

Willow basically taught herself...sure, she later got drunk on power and dark magics, but still, she taught herself

Yeah, but Willow's a Sue.

*ducks*

Not fast enough!

*sizzle* *pop*

[Crown]

Hold up. There are Buffy/HP fanfics? Are they any good, could you tell me where to go and read one?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Hold up. There are Buffy/HP fanfics? Are they any good, could you tell me where to go and read one?

There's be crossovers between Buffy and every bloody thing under the sun. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a crossover between Buffy and the Draka series--there's a SM/Draka crossover, after all.

[Crown]

Hold up. There are Buffy/HP fanfics? Are they any good, could you tell me where to go and read one?

There's be crossovers between Buffy and every bloody thing under the sun. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a crossover between Buffy and the Draka series--there's a SM/Draka crossover, after all.

<Kevin Smith>Yeah I know, the Buffy community pretty much invented the internet!</Kevin Smith> (Taken from his diary, when making Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, after meeting with Eliza Dushku and confessing that he had totally missed the existance of Buffy, even though Jason Mewes was telling him to watch it for years)

[Sam Or I]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

True, going to school is fine, making past refernces about it is fine, but when the main evil in the world sole purpose is to destroy a school, it looses me.

[Majin Gojira]

Hold up. There are Buffy/HP fanfics? Are they any good, could you tell me where to go and read one?

Yes, their are LOTS of them...far to many in fact. No, they generally suck because of the things I mentioned above (world melding issues), bad shippers, general stupidity and repetitivity among them (in almost every one of them, a Scooby is assigned to be a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Or, worse, Willow and other Magic users are given Wands when they really don't need them to cast and a whole lot of other problems...). Do a quick search of Fanfiction.net's "Buffy Crossovers" section--you're bound to find at least 5 on the first page.

[SirNitram]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

True, going to school is fine, making past refernces about it is fine, but when the main evil in the world sole purpose is to destroy a school, it looses me.

May you never read Terry Prachett then, for you would become focused on the fact everyThing's goal is Unseen University(The fact that the University is the weakest point in reality and the largest store of magic tend to make it a sodding huge target).

[Peregrin Toker]

[OT Rant] Ya know, that's what bugs me about Buffy/HP crossover Fanfics.

Which sort of HP?? Does it stand for "Harry Potter", or is it the HP commonly followed by a Lovecraft?? (sorry, but your mention of Cthulhu just sent me wondering)

[The Silence and I]

Where would wizards and witches learn spells, if not at a school?

True, going to school is fine, making past refernces about it is fine, but when the main evil in the world sole purpose is to destroy a school, it looses me.

Fair enough, to each his own. But I feel you may have missed something rather important: The world's main evil is not intent on destroying a school, but rather its headmaster, the only man who can stop the evil (and who draws action to himself anyway, much like the name Enterprise attracts innumerable physics bending impossibilities). There are other schools too, but guess what, Voldemort doesn't try to take them down! They don't have Dumbledore! Very few aspects of this world are haphazard, it is very well put together.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Nor do they have Harry Potter, who was the cause of Voldemort's downfall in the first place.