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Harry Potter - good or bad? (split from original HP thread)


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For every single thing in the world I think everyone has the right to like or dislike it without being judged.

This goes both ways! Why is it that I am being mean and unreasonable for saying in a calm and logical way why I don't like HP when you and those how do like it are the injured party and get away with jumping on us for saying we don't like HP and that our opinions sent worth **** because we don't have a 20 page essay on why we don't and when we do find links to those who do (many are respected people in the book industry) we are accused of saying that you are stupid and that we need to change our attitude? Why is your option better than mine just because I haven't studied every page? I think you say a lot about respecting others rights to like or dislike something but are bad at practising it here. And this is not pointed at you personaly but to all of you who have been prejudiced against those of us how have not agreed that HP is the best thing since ever.

 

And I thought this was a thread about discussing IF IF HP is good or not, this means there has to be people how don't this that they are good participating in the thread or it is just another group of HP fans talking about the books.

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This goes both ways! Why is it that I am being mean and unreasonable for saying in a calm and logical way why I don't like HP when you and those how do like it are the injured party and get away with jumping on us for saying we don't like HP and that our opinions sent worth **** because we don't have a 20 page essay on why we don't and when we do find links to those who do (many are respected people in the book industry) we are accused of saying that you are stupid and that we need to change our attitude? Why is your option better than mine just because I haven't studied every page? I think you say a lot about respecting others rights to like or dislike something but are bad at practising it here. And this is not pointed at you personaly but to all of you who have been prejudiced against those of us how have not agreed that HP is the best thing since ever.

 

And I thought this was a thread about discussing IF IF HP is good or not, this means there has to be people how don't this that they are good participating in the thread or it is just another group of HP fans talking about the books.

I wasn't refering to you, it was an impersonal YOU, not you in particular. I think you have the absolute right to say you don't like a book, obviously.

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sorry but that is just your perception. As I have said more than once now ... I'm not the only person to think these books are bad - it is a widely held opinion by people who should be considered capable judges of these things - I have stated my opinon when asked but I did not use my opinion as the basis of the discussion I was raising. I'm fed up now with trying to explain it to people who refuse to discuss anything further than attacking my opinion.

 

I personally like to decide for myself. So if there are 'capable judges' in the world, I don't go by their word: I like to read the book in question myself, to know what I think of it.

 

You have yourself attacked people who do enjoy the books in this thread, and insulted their intelligence, and you don't even see that. So I think you and I have come to a point where there is no point in dragging this on any further :)

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This goes both ways! Why is it that I am being mean and unreasonable for saying in a calm and logical way why I don't like HP when you and those how do like it are the injured party and get away with jumping on us for saying we don't like HP and that our opinions sent worth **** because we don't have a 20 page essay on why we don't and when we do find links to those who do (many are respected people in the book industry) we are accused of saying that you are stupid and that we need to change our attitude? Why is your option better than mine just because I haven't studied every page? I think you say a lot about respecting others rights to like or dislike something but are bad at practising it here. And this is not pointed at you personaly but to all of you who have been prejudiced against those of us how have not agreed that HP is the best thing since ever.

 

The way I see it, is that if you haven't read the book, you can't know what the whole book is like. And therefore you can't really go by someone else's opinion on the book. If you find articles on the books where people don't like the book and discuss all the negatives on it, how can you really agree with it if you haven't read the whole thing. And by 'you' I mean a general you.

 

But like I said to CuriousGeorgette, I realize that there is no point in me continuing to say these things because it seems that my point is not coming across. :)

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Well I have just read the last two pages of posts and there are a few things I would like to comment on.

1. There has been quite a few comments along the lines of - 'they can't be bad because they were a best seller' now my question is (and I have puzzled over this for years) if I go into a book store and see a new book for sale and it has just been published how can it be a best seller? WHO has been buying them? If you just follow the logic for a moment, a book can't be brand new AND a best seller AT THE SAME TIME! So are they good or are you just being taken for a ride?

2. I am young enough that growing up my friends were all reading HP and if your thoughts are that as a child I must have instantly loved them you are wrong, my brain almost melted! The horror of how bad the writing was and the plot! But then at that time I was reading Black Beauty, Lassie and Narnia so I might have been already too exposed to too many good books to fully appreciate the HP books.

Oh and P.S I have never been so patronized in my life as when I read those few pages of HP.

3. You can say that a book is all about what you get out of it and connecting with the characters and yes that is a big part of it but it still has be be well written!

4. As I child I hated books that tried to be all "let's all sing together and no one is all bad" and as for seeing myself in the characters? Ai! What I wanted was my bad guys to be truly evil with a capital E and the good guys to come along and kick their bottoms! And my heros to be heroic and not all human, they are the good guys! But then that might have just been me, I was always a bit odd. Oh and I liked my books to be something that I could learn from and enjoy at the same time, not all children want easy books that are no challenge to read.

5. If I have followed your logic correctly you think that I have to read every book that I start to the end in order to know if that book is good or bad, yes? But in the few posts above this one you have all been admitting to not finishing books because they were not for you or you thought them bad, yes or no? So if I have read a bit of a book say HP and then did not finish it as it was bad does that mean that it was actually good and I just didn't read the good part and should have wasted my time and finished all of the books or that it was bad and that I had a right to stop reading it? Just a thought.

  

I wasn't refering to you, it was an impersonal YOU, not you in particular. I think you have the absolute right to say you don't like a book, obviously.

Well you may have not meant me in that moment but others have at other points.

 

 

  

I personally like to decide for myself. So if there are 'capable judges' in the world, I don't go by their word: I like to read the book in question myself, to know what I think of it.

 

You have yourself attacked people who do enjoy the books in this thread, and insulted their intelligence, and you don't even see that. So I think you and I have come to a point where there is no point in dragging this on any further :)

Well instead of telling us how wrong we are and how misguided we are in are thinking why don't you tell us why we should change our minds about HP and read the books? As far as I can see all you have done so far is say we have said anyone how reads HP is stupid (not that those actual words have ever past my lips) and not once come up is an augment for HP.

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The way I see it, is that if you haven't read the book, you can't know what the whole book is like. And therefore you can't really go by someone else's opinion on the book. If you find articles on the books where people don't like the book and discuss all the negatives on it, how can you really agree with it if you haven't read the whole thing. And by 'you' I mean a general you.

 

But like I said to CuriousGeorgette, I realize that there is no point in me continuing to say these things because it seems that my point is not coming across. :)

Well this goes back to my question of if I stop reading a book, and almost everyone has admitted to doing that at one point, because it is bad dose that mean that the book was bad or that I just hadn't read the good bit yet? You can't have it both ways, either I have a right to say X book was so bad I stopped reading it or I don't! And if I read part of a book and then read a review that agrees with my point of it being bad dose that mean that I am wrong and that I can't post it on a forum and say this was a bad book?

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Vimes, it all started because somehow through the lines the point was: "The ones that read HP are just sheep led by marketing, unable to see how stupid and bad written the book is". Let me say it is upsetting being attacked in this harsh way. No one here has to change his mind, it's not fair and it never came up to my mind something like that. You have the right to decide what to read and why and the right to criticise what you don't like. If reading Harry Potter is silly, if loving the story means to be less clever then the ones who didn't like it, I must admit I am silly and less clever than other people.

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I think everyone would agree that a single individual can judge for themselves whether they feel a book is good or bad. However, books are very subjective, and there are plenty of books out which are loved by some, and hated by others. I don't think anyone would argue with that?

 

What I don't like to see are individuals believing that their opinion is the only one. CG, what I personally got from your original points was that you believe that HP is a bad book, and everyone who likes it only does so because they're stupid/gullible enough to fall for clever marketing. Please tell me if I've got that wrong.

 

By all means, please discuss the merits of a book, that's what a forum should be for. But please all accept that everyone reads different books for different reasons - not everyone wants to read difficult, challenging books, and everyone has different tastes. No one should feel bad on this forum because of what they choose to read, and no one should have to justify why they like a book.

 

I asked a while ago that this thread was drawn to a close, but some people have continued the discussion, and on the whole, the points are interesting. Please do not make comments personal, and please respect what I've said in this post. :)

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 "The ones that read HP are just sheep led by marketing, unable to see how stupid and bad written the book is"

 

I did not say this, this is assumption some one made when they got their knickers in a twist when they misinterpreted the question I was raising. That person put words in my mouth and every one else has jumped on the assumption since then without actually stopping to think and read for a moment - hands up those who actually read the links I provided - no one? thought so.

 

As I said in another thread a few minutes ago - I'm really fed up with not being to able to have an intellectually stimulating discussion around interesting questions with regard books without the conversation veering off into the bushes because some one or the other fails to understand some statement or the other and jumps to conclusions and gets their knickers in a twist and reactions with an emotional offended outburst. This not only completely derails any further rational discussion, but usually ends up with other people jumping on the bandwagon and rallying around to attack the offending outsider who DARED to invade their sacred turf. 

 

Just so you know, its really hard making the effort to get involved in a new forum. I have just quit another forum where I was a moderator for a variety of reasons, not the least being it was just sold to new owners and I felt it was in their best interests to run their forum themselves. I am used to being able to have a challenging discussion without people getting all up in arms about irrelevant things and I was hoping, clearly highly optimistically, that I might be able to have discussions of a more challenging nature on a new forum. 

 

Well I'm done. You may all have your forum to yourselves. I'm not interested in being the target of all your insecurities and anxieties and cliquey dislike of a newcomer who dares to disagree with your precious opinions. 

Edited by CuriousGeorgette
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I think everyone would agree that a single individual can judge for themselves whether they feel a book is good or bad. However, books are very subjective, and there are plenty of books out which are loved by some, and hated by others. I don't think anyone would argue with that?

 

What I don't like to see are individuals believing that their opinion is the only one. CG, what I personally got from your original points was that you believe that HP is a bad book, and everyone who likes it only does so because they're stupid/gullible enough to fall for clever marketing. Please tell me if I've got that wrong.

 

By all means, please discuss the merits of a book, that's what a forum should be for. But please all accept that everyone reads different books for different reasons - not everyone wants to read difficult, challenging books, and everyone has different tastes. No one should feel bad on this forum because of what they choose to read, and no one should have to justify why they like a book.

 

I asked a while ago that this thread was drawn to a close, but some people have continued the discussion, and on the whole, the points are interesting. Please do not make comments personal, and please respect what I've said in this post. :)

 

All and I mean ALL of us are taken in by marketing at some point in our lives it doesn't mean you are stupid! Take the new washing powder that came out here by me a few weeks ago, there was a hooha and I bought the washing powder! I fell for the marketing! That doesn't mean a thing and there is no point in getting upset about it, it happens! You still read HP and I still use the washing powder. Marketing works and exists if I buy something and then someone says that Whatever used a clever bit of marketing I would say yes and it worked so well that it got me to buy it! I wouldn't be upset or insulted about it and it is interesting to see how marketing works.

Edited by Vimes
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  • 1 year later...

I didn't enjoy the Harry Potter books after reading the first to my daughter when she was 7, I gave up and did not continue with the series but she absolutely adores them and has even been on the studio tour!! 

I have to say I thought they were badly written and overly descriptive, but I am willing to say that this is because of my own personal preferences. 

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  • 1 year later...

Harry Potter was successful because it was derivative of other fantasy, tapped into Campbell's monomyth, and was simple and shallow enough to be palatable to the wider reading public, especially people who'd never read fantasy before and couldn't tell how derivative it was. The prose is full of adjectives and adverbs, but a lot of other kid's books are, and otherwise it's fine. It also gets better as the series goes on (I think). Mediocre books? Absolutely. Marketing conspiracy? Absolutely not. Any publisher, editor, agent, or professional author will tell you that it's impossible to tell what books will blow up big and which won't. You can't market a novel to success. Marketing books just doesn't work like marketing a product or even marketing a Hollywood movie. It is, for whatever mysterious reason, orders of magnitude less predictable. That's why publishers buy up books and authors they believe have promise and lose money on almost all of them but make it up with the small percent that capture lightning in a bottle. Brandon Sanderson, Kevin J. Anderson, and Orson Scott Card account for like 80% of Tor's revenue and are what allow them to publish all their other authors. Sanderson has said as much himself. 

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So, what you're saying is that those of us who enjoyed HP are too simple and shallow to understand "deeper" books?

 

Totally insulting. You've been on this board all of five minutes and this is what you bring to the table? Not a good move.

Edited by Virginia
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So, what you're saying is that those of us who enjoyed HP are too simple and shallow to understand "deeper" books?

I don't get that sentiment from the post at all. What David has said is that the story was simple and shallow, not the people who read it, and I agree. It's an opinion about the books and the story, not the readers. The first book was written and aimed at younger children in the 8-12 age range, and I still think if you view it objectively, and try to forget the saga and marketing success it became, it is a fairly typical children's story about witches and wizards. It is a lighter introduction into fantasy for a lot of readers, and will appeal to a wider range of readers because it's not heavy in the aspects of the fantasy genre and lore. It did capture the imagination of lots of children, and the parents who read it, but it didn't really become the huge behemoth of the publishing industry until around the third book. After publication of this one, the media started picking up on adults reading this series of children's books and after that I'm pretty sure it was book four (which there was a long wait for and I think had masses of pre-sales) which started the midnight fancy dressed themed openings of books shops.

 

I'm going to repeat myself again, but I don't agree that the books got better, I think they got better until book three and then after that, the sales figures were so high, that my feeling is that the publishers were happy to let Rowling do whatever she wanted, and as the books got longer, I felt there was too much extraneous detail in there and they could have been edited down (particularly book five), but again, that's just my opinion.

 

Totally insulting. You've been on this board all of five minutes and this is what you bring to the table? Not a good move.

I don't think this is a helpful comment. It's a well reasoned argument and opinion, and I don't think he's insulted anyone, not even avid lovers of the books. It might be a challenging comment and opinion which you might not agree with, but it's certainly not insulting. Perhaps we should draw a line under it and stay on topic of discussing the merits of the Harry Potter books.

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I stand by my statement. In MY opinion, it was insulting. I will leave it at that and wont respond to this post again as it won't produce (on my part) a more positive feeling about his comment, nor the fact that while you're telling me that my comment isn't helpful, it's OK for you to make your statement.

I don't care whether people like HP books or not. That's not an issue. The issue that I have is assuming those who do enjoy them are some how incapable of reading deeper material. That is the take I took on his comment. You don't agree and thats fine but it's how I feel and that's why I responded.

I will admit my last comment was snarky but I felt it was an insult and responded accordingly.

Edited by Virginia
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I think the Potter books went off the boil after number 4, they got longer and bogged down in lots of details and I thought book 5 was quite repetitive.  I was bored by book 6 and still haven't read book 7 - or maybe I just outgrew them?  Whatever anyone thinks of the merits of the books, and of course, given the discussion above, everyone's entitled to their opinion, they've still been a publishing phenomenon which was, I think, a mixture of luck that it first become successful and then it all just snowballed, and once the movies started being made, there was, of course, no avoiding them!

 

As David said, no one can predict what will become successful in film, books, TV series, and as many others have said, if they knew the secret of success they'd bottle it.  I agree they didn't start to become popular until the 3rd book, but they seem to have got a lot of children (and adults) reading, and if those readers then move on to something, shall I say perhaps more sophisticated, then I don't see what's wrong, especially if they instil a love of reading into people who might otherwise not pick up a book. 

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I disliked the early Harry Potter books due to how simple they are - I've always preferred childrens books which are quite demanding, and HP, while great fun, is not demanding in its early books - but I actually adored how they progressed. People mention book five being too long, but I loved it! The series really grew up and got dark and I loved that about it. I don't think Rowling's writing is particularly good, though.

 

I feel the same about the movies, I don't bother with the first two, but from 3 onward they're great. Not a huge fan of Goblet, most of it does little to further the main story, but the last half an hour or so is the first real turning point in tone for the story and the films. It almost, in and of itself, makes up for the rest of that film.

 

HP is not my kind of fantasy. At all. And many things - silly names, notably - about the books and films irk me. But there is something about it that I genuinely love and that I think is genuinely special.

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I avoided these books like the plague thinking that they are a waste of time and childish but last year I succumbed to one of my friend's constant OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THESE BOOKS and read them. I like the first books better, they are simple and easy to read. As the story moves on, it turns into an YA novel where everything is left behind and the focus is just on catching the bad guy. Somewhere after the third book Rowling lost be and I kept reading just to see how it ends. 

 

I wouldn't call them bad or good, they are somewhere in between but they are a joy to read, so much so that I am planning to read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them before the movie hits the cinema this year. 

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So, what you're saying is that those of us who enjoyed HP are too simple and shallow to understand "deeper" books?

 

Totally insulting. You've been on this board all of five minutes and this is what you bring to the table? Not a good move.

 

Maybe quote me next time so I actually get a notification and know I'm being addressed? This seems pretty akin to talking behind someone's back.

 

Anyway, I'm sorry if I offended you, that was not my intent, and I'm glad others caught on to that. The fact of the matter is, the Harry Potter books aren't very complex or challenging. As books in general, and particularly as fantasy. But that's okay. You know how I got into fantasy? The Chronicles of Narnia. They have stronger prose, sure, but they're even shorter and more simplistic than Harry Potter is. People need something that doesn't intimidate them, because fantasy can be very intimidating to newcomers. I'm delighted that Harry Potter exists, because it has only had positive effects from my point of few. It's gotten lots of people into fantasy, it popularized children's literature with readers of all ages and lifted it out of the genre ghetto it had been in up until that point, and it set a trend where all children's books to come after tended to be much longer.

 

Most people I know who love Harry Potter fit one of two descriptions:

  1. They went on to read better written and more complex fantasy
  2. Harry Potter remains some of the only fantasy they've read, but they read much better books in other genres

My girlfriend fits the second description. Harry Potter is some of the only fantasy she's read, even fifteen years later, but she reads stuff like The Kite Runner or The Other Boleyn Girl, so my comments about Harry Potter can hardly be seen as a condemnation of her; she reads plenty of deeper books. Nor are they a condemnation of anyone's character, merely an explanation for why Harry Potter caught on with such a wide audience. Just like Star Wars, world-shattering popularity almost always comes with some concessions, namely that your plot is most likely pretty derivative and pretty "fluffy." I have no value judgement about this, I'm merely pointing out that it is so. 

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Maybe quote me next time so I actually get a notification and know I'm being addressed? This seems pretty akin to talking behind someone's back.

Yeah, it's a bugger when people post things on an open forum without giving due notification. Personally, I try to let off fireworks, or taser people, just so they know I'm commenting on their precious words.

 

Most people I know who love Harry Potter fit one of two descriptions:

  • They went on to read better written and more complex fantasy
  • Harry Potter remains some of the only fantasy they've read, but they read much better books in other genres

If that is the case, I'd suggest you try to widen your circle of friends.

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Yeah, it's a bugger when people post things on an open forum without giving due notification. Personally, I try to let off fireworks, or taser people, just so they know I'm commenting on their precious words.

 

 

If that is the case, I'd suggest you try to widen your circle of friends.

 

First of all, I don't think my words are "precious," but I won't know someone is talking to me unless they quote me, which prevents me from explaining myself or making reparations. It was sheer coincidence I even popped back into this thread. I had no idea someone took offense to something I'd said. That really sucks. Don't you like to know when people are talking to you? 

 

Secondly, widen my circle of friends to include who? People who have only read Harry Potter and nothing else? I'm sure those people exist, but it's not my fault I don't know any. Most people read more than one book (or book series) in their lives. What are you even getting at?

Edited by davidh219
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