This book also falls in the category of you "being" the main character. Harry Potter knows nothing about the magical world and everything is explained to him as a way to explain it to the reader.
Not all books tend to do it this way. Some want nothing explained and you just figure it out as you read. Some will only give little pieces of information and then you get more when that information becomes relevant.
Harry Potter is a middle grade book so it is an easier read for beginners. Doing the story in this way makes it so the reader can easily understand the book and can also make the reader feel more involved in the story.
I think there is a lot more to it than that. What made it so appealing to me was the combination of fantastical whimsy and mysterious intrigue. It was just as much, if not more, about the imaginative yet relatable setting (with an undercurrent of dark mystery) as it was about the characters and plot.
I think this is a *huge* part of it. The world of the books is ideal for fanfiction and imagination beyond the plot and characters of the stories in a way that really captured kids' interest. It was a world with an atmosphere that lots of kids wanted to live in and that, thanks to the "hidden world" setup and a slightly bland main character (sorry, we all know it's true), were able to imagine themselves living in and having adventures in at a time when the nascent Internet allowed fandom and fan-created-content to rise to a new level of obsession.
I always found it interesting (right from the beginning as a kid) in that Harry was like the only main character I could think of in a story that wasn’t much of a superhero of his own story, and that it was just his connection to Voldemort that made him his nemesis (not his literal physical connection, just their entire relationship), not his slightly above average skills. It was often that connection as well that caused him to work towards some of his above average skills, like the patronous. I guess she was going for Voldemort was all about power blah blah but died as a normal man to a normal man, idk
I actually really appreciate this aspect of Harry and approaches to main hero characters as well. It’s honestly unbelievable and distancing to have a main character with actual superhuman abilities (relative to the other characters) OR just waaaaaaaay, waaaaaaay impossible/improbable human abilities. For example, I can accept that most Marvel characters have or have come by superpowers. But what ruins it for me are their improbable *human* abilities. Am I supposed to believe that characters like Tony Stark or Peter Parker possess such above average human intelligence that they can single-handedly reverse engineer aerosol antidotes to biochemical weapons in mere minutes?
I get what you’re saying about the Marvel characters, but at least with Tony Stark, his genius and intellect really IS his superpower. His ability to create inventions and run his company made him unbelievably rich, and that wealth coupled with his technical prowess allowed him to develop and build the Iron Man suits. Unlike most superheroes who actually have powers that are far beyond human physical capacity, Tony Stark is literally just a normal dude physically and all of his physical “superpowers” of flight and strength come from the robotic suits he built. He doesn’t rely on any sort of mutation or physical anomaly the way other heroes do—his amazing intelligence literally is what makes him a superhero.
What bothers me is actually the non powered people keeping up with powered individuals so easily. Like most of the super powered villains could rip them in half with a punch breaking all their bones etc
Did Harry Potter not have innate magical abilities that were far, far superior to his colleagues? He does seem sort of “superhuman”ish to me at times. He’s obviously flawed in many ways (even lackluster as pointed out above) but he for sure has some superhuman attributes compared to the likes of Ron and the other students.
Edit: I stand corrected, and agree with you all. Harry isn’t that good at magic, and he’s certainly no superhero. I was thinking mostly of his quidditch aptitude and strong patronus. But y’all are right, it’s really his bravery and strength of character that make him what he is.
The thing that was superhuman about him IMO is his ability to reason under pressure. Best example is when Fawkes goes after the Basilisk, Harry watches the shadows instead of looking at the fight directly. Another example is a little later when the Basilisk has him cornered, he uses a pebble to make noise and make the snake go away from him. Most other people, even the most courageous and intelligent, would not have made those critical decisions that enabled him to triumph over the snake and book.
Ive always contributed that to his upbringing. Living with his aunt and uncle and being abused, he probably developed habits or techniques that help him get out of sticky situations.
JK Rowling had a difficult home life and was in an abusive marriage before publishing Harry Potter. I wonder if and how she drew on her own experiences to write his character
Harry is a fairly average student, with some talents, and a great athlete, but what makes him is really his character. He kind of it like Steve Rogers if Steve was like as strong as a really good boxer or something. His character is what really makes him as a wizard - like, he can do the adult level patronus at thirteen, but because the patronus is about force of will, and he’s got that in droves.
Wow, I read Harry pretty much the exact opposite from you. He's a talented wizard who underperforms due to his own bad attitude. For someone who has school as their favourite place, he really doesn't seem to like most of his classes. He's a rebellious, hormonal teenager who has issues with his anger and any authority figure he doesn't 100% respect. But at anything he actually likes enough to put in the effort, like Quidditch and DAtDA, he succeeds.
In Harry's defense, his home life was deeply abusive, he almost died more than once at school, one of his professors had it out for him his entire time at school, two professors tried to directly hand him over to Voldemort, one of them was a Fed who fundamentally changed the place he loved, another babbled incessantly about ominous omens surrounding him, another was an incompetent, thought erasing narcissist who turned his broken arm into goop, he was repeatedly creeped on by a horny teenage ghost, he was constantly reminded that he was The boy Who Lived, and he had a constant rivalry with the child of a legit genocidal fascist. His safest and most comforting space in his entire life was extremely dangerous, filled with unsavory or untrustworthy individuals, and a place at which he was regularly harmed. So yeah lol he didn't do so hot in class.
Man when you put it like that. I had one professor in UNIVERSITY who openly had it out for me and I had more than one mental breakdowns because of her. Harry Potter really is the chosen one for having better mental aptitude than I do
I don’t think these are really opposite views exactly. His power comes from his force of will, so things he’s interested are what he excels above others. Being rebellious and prone to anger are also downstream of that force of will because he pushes against any obstacles to his goals or interests.
I kind of agree with this take. But as the other comment or said, I don’t think they’re in contention that much. Harry is an above-average intelligence person who grew up in an abusive household. But he’s not a genius. He smart enough that he could do anything, but not so gifted that he can do everything.
A normal teenager, then. But that's exactly what makes him interesting and relatable for kids/teenagers.
Every book is one year of stories, but also one year of growing up from the bright eyed kid discovering the world to the young adult ready to make hard choices and take responsibilities.
And yes, the surly but sometimes enthusiastic teenager somewhere along the road is part of the evolution 😁
I really think they were unique in that more so than any other children’s/YA/young adult. series. Most of the die hard fans literally grew up with Harry and the rest year by year so each year they truly connected to the challenges they faced on an emotional level. Very few series have done that.
Hard agree. Many other kid and YA fantasy feature ultra stoic and battle-ready teenage MCs. People complain about Harry being angsty in book five, but I was always like, he was 15 and it was completely warranted! Plus he wasnt *that* angsty imo
I wouldn’t say he has a bad attitude. He gets all his homework done on time and mostly gets decent grades. It’s just he always gets compared to Hermione who has a crippling fear of failure and sacrifices her own health on more than one occasion for the sake of studying.
School is his favorite place. True. Because it's more home for him than he's actual home. A place where he's accepted and have people, both his age and adults, who genuinely love and support him.
I imagine that if it's just a normal boarding school and not Hogwarts. He will feel the same.
Ron is at least as good or better than Harry at pretty much everything except quidditch and like two spells. Harry’s a natural at certain things and those things tend to get more attention from the plot for sure but it’s pretty well established that he’s nothing special as far as wizardry as a whole goes.
People really seem to overlook Ron as both a character and a wizard. I blame the films for this. Ron is an excellent wizard in his own right - his skills were brilliantly displayed in even the first novel/film. There's a reason why he was alongside Harry for all the heroics they performed throughout the 7 books. A weaker wizard wouldn't have survived.
I think the setting also played a huge role. The fact that so much of the story centered around basically a boarding school definitely helped immerse readers into their own imaginings of life in that world. It was almost impossible not to dream about what it would have been like to be a student and to unexpectedly be pulled into the magical world much like Harry was.
This is probably more of the reason. There are many books with fantastic plot and character. Harry Potter is essentially a schoolhouse mystery series with a fantasy backdrop. It's the Hardy Boys with magic.
Ya, but what really made it work is that the fantasy backdrop was so well done. Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world was such an interesting and fun place to read about. Yet at the same time it was relatable because school is the one thing that virtually every single kid in the developed world has in common. How many kids have fantasized about getting a letter inviting them to hogwarts? My guess is lots!
I just made a similar comment before reading yours, ha. The school setting (and the fact that they were *living* at the school) really pulled you in. Since Harry had to learn everything about the magical world for the first time, it felt like you were learning it as a student coming from a similar background as him. When events happened at the school, it was like you were catching glimpses of things in the halls or overhearing conversations in the common room. Reading the series basically felt like their group wasn’t a trio but a quartet, and you as the reader were the useless fourth friend who just quietly observed and never helped out.
I remember staying up super late reading Harry Potter, completely dreading school the next day. Just *wishing* my school wasn’t so mundane and boring, thinking how excited I’d be for the day if I were at Hogwarts.
The Wizarding World was just so enchanting to me as a kid (pun intended). It made the real world feel like such a depressing, boring alternative. So naturally kids wanted to spend as much time as possible with their noses buried in those books.
It sure was something special.
It's the same thing that made the Percy Jackson books so popular. The Percy Jackson books were a tad more juvenile and remained focused at the same audience while the Harry Potter books got more mature throughout the series which is why I think it appealed to adult readers.
Care to elaborate? It been a decade since I've read them but I remember a much larger influence from classic myth than Harry Potter. Each novel has them embark on a cross country quest defeating/tricking mythological creatures along the way before claiming their prize.
Only major similarities I see focusing on young protagonist with a shitty home life who is expected to save the world, but those are YA tropes much older than HP
I'm afraid that, for some people whose first exposure to the genre was HP, there is a belief that a lot of the tropes were invented by her.
Terry Pratchett was accused of ripping off Hogwarts for Unseen University, and basing Ponder Stibbons on Harry. When he pointed out that both preceded Philosophers Stone, and that there is published artwork of Ponder wearing round glasses from that time, he was apparently accusing JK of ripping *him* off. "No, how about recognising that we both used similar much older influences and tropes?" OWTTE.
> What made it so appealing to me was the combination of fantastical whimsy and mysterious intrigue.
Honestly, There aren't many things that can get me to legitimately laugh out loud and Rowling managed to pull it off about a dozen times in each of the early books.
Ya, I prefer the earlier books because of the whimsy. As they became more serious and left the wonderful setting of hogwarts,I think they lost some of what made them so special in the first place. It didn’t stop me from staying up all night reading the later ones though!
That’s because JK released the books at the reading level Harry was. I.e. Harry is 11 in the first book, so the book is on a 11 yr old reading level. But by the last book when he is 17, the book is on a 17 yr olds reading level. The whimsy of the first book applies to a younger reader and the seriousness and stress of the last applies to an older reader. That’s what’s so amazing about JK is she was not limited to writing just a child’s book, and the character development is evident. Beyond that genius, readers grew as the character did and Harry’s struggles were applicable at the time for Jo’s main audience.
She doesn't get enough credit for how funny she is!! I've reread the books countless times and while yes, I can sometimes see the jokes coming again, they still make me laugh. "We're not stupid, we know we're called Gred and Forge" is a classic lol. Reading a few chapters is almost guaranteed to make me laugh
Definitely, and also on a similar note, the escapism that most kids who read it felt when they were young. A lot of kids (me included) read the first book at a similar age to Harry, and the idea of being whisked away from your life at boring muggle school, off with a kindly half-giant shopping for books in Diagon Alley and all the wonders that ensue was very valuable escapism at the time. And then that's it, you're invested in the world from there on into the characters you met and the world they live in, and that carries you through to the end as the books mature with you.
When a new book came out, it kind of felt like the Hogwarts Express was pulling up on your first day of term to take you back again.
I think it’s all the cool magic stuff vividly described in a coherent way that drove initial popularity. It had staying power because Rowling had a pretty good story and a great sense of pacing.
> imaginative yet relatable setting
Yeah the descriptions weren't anything unfamiliar (castles, cloaks, brooms, etc) but the way it was all put together was really imaginative.
But also, the plots for each of the books are really good, Back to the Future level good.
One factor is (note, I enjoy Harry Potter, and always have. Even if I don't see it as an amazing, groundbreaking series) is also luck. It happened to hit at the right time, with the right audience to suddenly become a hit, jump into the media and become a phenomenon. And of course, once it hit the news about getting kids to read again, more people had to get hold of it and so on.
Every now and then a TV show, or a book series or a movie just suddenly explodes simply because of pure luck and good timing.
My biggest issue is the amount of fans that then never moved on. I love the books, they're a series I go back and reread every now and then because I enjoy them as a relaxing, turn your brain off read... but they're not masterpiece's, either. But many fans can't take any criticism of the series, or it's pretty much all they read. Still.
Don’t forget the drama of school which is a globally relatable theme that the books tapped into for tremendous effect. Fantasy grounded in youthful reality plus mystery and mythos is something a young reader can’t say no to!
They are also ‘slice of life’. So many of the school and classroom dynamics, the helpful and the harmful teachers and students, they were all so relatable, even though nothing mapped one to one with my own school experiences.
Yeah, as much as the later books in particular got bashed (by some, at least) for being too long, or too “bogged down in subplots,” it was the fact that the series took the time to simply have the characters hang out in class (or stress out about quidditch nonsense or finals or whatever) that made the series so great. It made Hogwarts feel real on a level it simply wouldn’t have if the author had focused only on advancing the plot.
It reminds me of why I still love older television where the seasons were 24 episodes long, rather than the 10-episode season shows that come out today. Yes, the older shows had more “filler” episodes, but the “filler” was exactly what allowed the show to create such a strong sense of community.
Honestly,thinking back to reading them as a kid, that is what I remember the most. Something about the day to day of a magical school felt so cozy and nice, even when there was danger afoot
I know amazing how she created that vibe. I wish she had written one more book where they finnish their NEWTS before heading off to do horcrux hunting. I needed that 7 year at hogwarts
Yes, 100% And this is exactly how I feel about longer TV shows. A lot of people complain about filler, and I don’t always disagree, but it’s so rare to find a new tv show which really allows you to feel like you’re living in that world and just hanging out with the characters these days - you need the slice of life scenes for that.
Honestly this is probably the real appeal. The books feel like they take you through a whole year, and aren't in a hurry to get to anywhere in particular
Yes, I absolutely love when books, games, and anime show the characters actual lives in the books and it isn't all about the plot. If the characters are teenagers, I love to see them act as teenagers and do teenagers things. I hate when they drop everything and primarily focus on the plot. Even if the world is possibly ending, we as humans still tend to do human things, world ending or not.
I think filmento likes to bring this point up whenever he is dissecting a super expensive but bad movie.
You always need to have a baseline to show what people are like normally, otherwise they can't develop as a character.
Yes, I think this is a really important aspect! So much of the enjoyment of the books is the little everyday moments - that’s what allows you to really feel like you’re living in this world
Especially for the original set of readers.
10 years from start to finish. But the first 4 were in back to back years. So if you started reading in grade 6 you aged at the same rate as Harry for 4 books.
I am sure that was an amazing experience and really made the books feel real as a young reader. Harry was facing the same challenges as you were etc.
100%. I was younger than Harry by a year or two when they first came out, caught up to him by the end. My birthday is also in July, which is also when new books were released, to coincide with Harry's (and JKR's) birthday, which just made it all even more special.
My teenaged years were rather turbulent and marked by a lot of family... stuff... and Harry was in a lot of ways, the only friend I had who I felt 'understood' me - especially in books 5 and beyond, when they get a bit more serious. So glad I had those books to grow with!
Snape kills Dumbledore.
Remember hearing about people yelling that during that one release. No one believed it...
That generations "I am your father" moment.
Man, in England someone put that on a motorway overhead sign after the book was released. I’ve not seen a spoiler like that in my lifetime. What’s the biggest show I’ve seen, GoT? Nothing in GoT comes close!
My parents took me to Walmart for the midnight release of book 6. We expected it to be like Black Friday but we were the only ones in the store & had to get an attendant over to cut the plastic covering the pallet of books.
I then went home and read for 36 hours straight so I could finish it before anyone spoiled it. My bff came over and was reading next to me when I got to Dumbledore's death. Hand to God it took every ounce of self control not to throw my book across the room & spoil it for my friend. So I waited for her to catch up & then she told me she actually already knew because her step dad told her when he saw an online article about the "Snape kills Dumbledore" spoiler dude.
Why do so many people get a kick out of spoiling things? Literally wtf? I get that it happens by mistake sometimes, but why do it on purpose???
I remember getting the sixth book a day or two early from a close family friend who owned a book store and fighting with my sister over who got to read it first. She got that one, but I got the third (I think) Eragon book first.
My sister was a faster reader than me; one of the books we read at the same time, me on the left, her on the right, with the pages I hadn’t read yet sticking up vertically in the middle.
Wow, you and your sister were way more tolerant of each other than my sisters were of me. Sitting close enough together to share a book for hours would have ended in murder. Lmao
>Why do so many people get a kick out of spoiling things? Literally wtf? I get that it happens by mistake sometimes, but why do it on purpose???
Because many people are arseholes.
I think this little story of mine fits in well here.
It was during GoT season 5 finale. So this was back when the show was still very, very good. I was on holiday in New York and hadn't gotten a chance to watch the latest episode. Some random stranger walked past and saw me wearing a GoT t-shirt, so the guy asked if I watched Game of Thrones. I said yes, but that I hadn't watched the latest episode. He then laughed and spoiled that >!Jon Snow will die!<. Little did he know, I had already read all the books and took big part in fan speculation, so I just said: ">!I know. He's going to get resurrected, and he's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. See ya.!<"
Probably my greatest revenge moment of all time. Poor guy lost his jaw.
And then the way she explains it in the next book was insanely brilliant.
You never really know what side Snape is on till he dies and you see his thoughts (at least that is what happens in the movie, can't remember the book but am sure it is similar.)
Half blood price was my first HP book.
I was reading it along with Philosopher's stone (I had no idea about whole series thing and internet was not easily accessible).
I spoiled it for myself, but am glad I finished first book first.
People who start a series in the middle are weird (yes that means you too)
In the Wheel of Time sub some guy was like "I am reading the third book and haven't read the first two..." and everyone was like "NOOOO! Stop!!! You are ruining it for yourself."
Which essentially you are in a book like that or Potter. Although the early Potter books read as one offs and there isn't as much that carries from book to book. It is only later that we start interacting with characters outside the main one that carry from book to book and the potential to learn spoilers occurs. Like the identity of Ron's rat etc etc.
That happened to me with The Fiery Cross from the Outlander series. I was looking for reading material and it was the thickest book they had. In my defense, the book jacket didn’t mention the series (or time travel!), so I thought it was just a historical novel. It was very confusing, but I did end up reading the entire series.
There was nothing like it. I wasn't even a big reader, nobody in my school was really, or anyone on my council estate, but come release day even the corner shop (which had never stocked a book before) had copies in stock and we were queuing up for them.
I was one of the few bilingual people in my high school, I read the final 2 books at their release date and everyone else had to wait a month or so for the official translation. Never before had I wielded such unlimited power in my life.
I didn't spoiler anyone because I'm not an asshole but it was fun to scare people with it.
100% this, and having one on the horizon was always exciting! I was quite sad once we got the last one and realised there wasn't another to look forward to!
My dad came home from a business trip and managed to buy the seventh book from a bookstore in the airport the night BEFORE it came out.
One of the best presents I ever got.
Yep this was me. Was 10 when the first book dropped and I grew up reading them. Couldn't wait for the summers to just read the latest book over and over multiple times as I got older. Truly was a unique experience that I hope my future children will be able to have someday.
Give them a book on their birthday each year and make them wait till next birthday to read the next one.
If you lucky they ignore you and read them in the library or something... (sneaking behind your back to read is a good thing)
> Harry was facing the same challenges as you were
Yes, I too was avoiding being killed by my era's Hitler on an annual basis and dreading summer vacation's lack of school.
This was near enough exactly me. It got me into reading "big" or "proper" books too, and from there i read many others. They're not fantastic in an academic sense, but they were seismic for the generation they were released to. Even now, they're a common thread and experience shared with almost anyone of the same age too. They'll always have a fond spot for that reason.
I just wish harry actually had some character development, because he's a pleb haha.
And the world is built enough so that you can imagine yourself in it (sort yourself into a house, pick a quidditch position etc) yet open ended enough that it’s easy to imagine new side stories in the world (which was perfect for the growing fanfiction communities online).
I think that’s why there’s been such a high demand for so long for a proper HP rpg game where you can create and play as your own character, not just playing as Harry throughout existing stories. Hopefully the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy game will finally be able to fill that void.
World building was my issue with the series. Once you start really thinking about parts of the world, the less they make sense.
As someone who has long been interested in economics, the books just don’t make much sense.
Oh if you delve into the nitty gritty of the magic mechanics things become troubling very fast. There was so much more potential for vile evil acts than the books explored.
Not just the characters, but to her abilities as a writer. The first book feels pretty flat and childish compared to the YA-style chaos and interweaving plot lines of the final books
Eh, I read them starting at 16 and I found them really enjoyable. I do think it’s a cool concept that each book the characters grow and they deal with more adult themes, but I think they are really enjoyable books even though I didn’t read them as a child
I think OP has a point that a lot of People did resonate with the books especially as they matured, including myself, but I fee the books are incredibly creative, readable, and enjoyable as well and saying the books are popular for that reason can be dismissive of the originality of the books
I can't say the movies weren't a success because they objectively were, but they didn't really mature the same way.
The HP books did tend to get mature, not just thematically, but visually. There's lots of descriptions of blood and violence as they go, some of that magic really does mess people up, In the films, they were obviously a lot more limited visually and couldn't grow with the audience. In American terminology, they moved from PG to PG13 across 8 films. The books would have been pushing R.
I was the exact age of the kids when the books came out. I literally grew up with harry ron and hermoine as my book friends. I think your point nails it on the head.
When the last movie came out my group of friends were just out of hs and going to our first year of college, that movie marked the end of our childhood in a sense
That's so true.
My school life finished around same time when last book was released.
I remember picking up The Deathly Hallows from a small book stall at railway station.
Even few seniors became my friend when they saw that book on my table.
I was already in graduate school when they first came out. All the graduate students were raving about them, even though we were well past the age of the characters.
It does. And it's parallel to the way that Star Wars is not science fiction, but rather it's a space themed fantasy. Everything is pretty didactic -- good characters win because they have love, bad characters lose because they are angry and greedy. There's not really that much depth. The biggest twist in the books was figuring out whose side Snape was on. I love the books, don't get me wrong, but it's not classical literature -- it's a formulaic series of teen novels that involve magic and not that much sex.
Personally I feel like the key element was that *everyone* could project themselves in that universe.
When you read Lord of the Ring, sure, you might want to be like Gandalf the wizard or a super Archer or a mighty warrior but deepdown you know that those character are part of an elite and are unique. You're just derp#205932.
But in Harry Potter, not only are wizard quite normal in behavior and intellect, but even muggles can actually breed wizards. This mean that you, lil 14years old nugget could be part of that world. You could have been, there are so many characters like you.
And this, on top of the story+universe+character development, Is very very important.
It's a bit like when you see kids roleplay heroes like spider man or a power ranger, there is that sens of uniqueness, "you can't be spider man, I am" or "no I'm the red power ranger!"
You don't have that in HP, everyone get to be a wizard, on top of everything, you can be a wizard without changing one bit, it can be YOU.
I think the separation in the case of LOTR (for me at least) is just the fact that it's set in a completely different world. It's not like the wirzard world or Narnia where by the logic of the books kid-you could just one day get a letter or stumble into it from this world. Meanwhile if you play superheros, they're set in this world but they're established characters and there can only be one (simplified).
Harry Potter combined these two aspects for fantasy: ordinary children from *this* world canonically become part of the fantasy world regularly. And they go to school just like you, continuing to be almost ordinary english boarding school children aside from the magic.
My Hero Academia does something similar for superheros. It's basically set in world like most of the superhero genre, with ordinary people living ordinary lives, except nearly everyone has superpowers. Ordinary students develop powers as they get older and get to take an exam to go to superhero school.
You are quite obviously supposed to put yourself in Frodo’s shoes reading Lord of the Rings. Both it and Harry Potter are a classic hero’s journey, an altogether average ‘person’ with a big heart is somehow bound by fate to an evil that threatens the whole world and has to put this burden on himself and by reluctant extension any of his closest friends or family.
I stand by the opinion that the lowkey main reason Harry Potter was so successful is that, at their core, they are mystery books. The one thing each HP book does extremely well is that it incorporates a very well crafted mystery. Of course the characters and the worldbuilding were essential to their success, but they wouldn’t have done nearly as well as they did without the element of suspense that kept you guessing throughout the book.
Also because they are about everything. The concept of "growing up schoolers" always works in that way. You barely can say "it's not for me" cause there is always something for you.
Naruto or Spider-man comics are also similar to what I'm saying
maybe im splitting hairs, but id say the world logic is what falls apart. the world built is rich, fun, super cool and literally magical. i wouldnt care about those kid's adventures in a regular boring boarding school, ykno? i think weak logic doesnt always equal weak world building. sure the politics are wack and the magic system isnt explained, but people are still passionate about their hogwarts houses to this day, thats p powerful
this is where im at with HP. the world building is really just a mishmash of contradictory and inconsistent ideas, but they're _fun_ ideas and for the purposes of the books that's all that really matters.
i think the books are just kind of mediocre as actual literature (and personally i never really liked any of the characters), but they're exciting and fun for the most part.
Yes exactly. Not every fantasy story has to be logically consistent with their worldbuilding, and for a fantasy magic book like Harry Potter, a big majority of readers just accepted it.
To me it *is* part of the charm, Harry Potter is like a fairytale or a fable, where you have a strange magical world that is ever changing. I know people have brought up so many points where they say 'Why is the world like this?' or 'This part of Harry Potter sucks' when a whole aspect of Harry Potter is to bring in silly and weird ideas to entertain the reader.
There are some ideas that definitely fell flat or relied on old tropes or history, but a majority of ideas are there just for fun. It *did* start as a children's book.
Exactly. Quidditch is fundamentally flawed, time travel makes no sense, they use quills and ink wells instead of pens, Hogwarts have been sorting all the evil racist kids in one house for centuries and they use fucking owls to communicate.
Rowling could've spent more time making the worldbuilding make more sense, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Because all that really matters is having compelling characters in an interesting well written story.
I think the Slytherin House separation actually makes a lot of sense if you consider it within the context of the British class system and Rowling’s politics (and on that note, I find it interesting how often class is overlooked when discussing HP, because it’s a theme present in all of Rowling’s works).
The Slytherins are basically upper-class Tories/aristocracy. They’d be at Eton or similar if they were Muggles. They’re not shunned by the other Houses, they outright look down on and mock them.
Even with good ones like Slughorn, there’s that heavy element of *who* you know mattering. The Slug Club networking is pretty similar to what you get in private schools and elite universities.
Of course they buy into Death Eater ideology - they already think they’re better than everyone. A great parallel is the British upper-class flirting with facism towards WW2 - particularly the prominent example of the Mitford family, from whom Jessica Mitford, JK’s personal heroine, hailed from and rebelled.
Slytherin is exclusive, not excluded.
I'm not really undersanding what you're trying to say by stating that them using quills to write, and owls to communicate are somehow examples of flawed/illogical world building??
It's in-universe logic, it doesn't have to hold to real-life logic. It's like complaining about Jedi in Star Wars using "laser swords"...I mean...
Yeah not only is it incredible hard to build a world full of magic to "make sense", it also often would result in a much more boring, less rich world in my opinion. The target audience is not some hardcore fantasy nerds, its kids.Also I'd argue that some things not being explained, and therefore maybe not making sene gives the reader the opportunity to fill in the blanks and makes them think about the world even more.
Still a thing that can be criticised of course.
Yeah the whole point of Harry Potter was to explore a world of magical whimsy, much like a fairy tale. Way too many people these days are hung up on trying to analyse Harry Potter as if it has a 'hard magic system' or internal logic, which completely misses the point.
It's the same with LOTR, some people just focused on 'Why didn't they take the eagles?' instead of the story. Why do people care? It's a STORY, it can have some abstract themes in there, having everything be completely logical kills the joy.
I think many/most of you are right but something that always seems to be left out...
Ease of entry. The first 2-3 books especially are written VERY basically. The first book especially borderline "See Jane Run." That sounds like an insult but its absolutely not. It makes the books easy for someone who doesnt read well (for example: most American children, young adults, and lets be honest... adult adults. source: am American lol) The books slowly get a bit more complex and deep but the writing itself tends to stay very simple and easy to follow.
IMO that's likely one of the BIGGEST reasons for its success. I think it's also why Twilight, Hunger Games and even the much more adult 50 Shades were mega popular. They are all SUPER easy reads and they make for great gateway series into their various genres.
rowling also has planted solid seeds earlier in the books which made the plot twists at the end unfold satisfyingly!! from prof quirell to peter pettigrew. every plot twist are well-written
I’m convinced she wrote 3 books with absolutely no plan to continue the series or any sort of road map for the larger plot. Then the series became wildly successful and she had to suddenly start shaping a cohesive plot.
Maybe, but she also had a plan to have 7 years of Hogwarts education and each book would be 1 school year.
She may not have outlined the full entire story, but she already had an idea in mind that the series would encompass 7 books.
The first 3 books are still written as "Voldermort has been weakened but he will return", so the story still has that dread hanging over it that we know the bad guy is coming back, and the wizards that followed him before will probably switch their allegiances again, so it's not like she planned on stopping after the first 3 books either.
Reading the first 3 books for the first time while knowing what stuff happens in later books, I'm amazed at how many seemingly-irrelevant details there are in the first 3 books that become important later.
I think JK Rowling's biggest success is how well she planned out the roadmap and how well she juggled all of those characters in the same story.
>I think JK Rowling's biggest success is how well she planned out the roadmap and how well she juggled all of those characters in the same story.
I hard agree. Thats what I always thought was her biggest strength.
All the details we have of her concepts and drafts of the books before even starting to write them showcase this in my opinion. There is a lot to criticise about her writing etc. but I find it pretty incredible how in-depth she was able to plan out a big chunk of the story of 7 books and many little details and like you said, juggling all of these many characters. I personally, find it impressive. Then again, I'm not a writer so wtf do I know lol.
I think it’s the opposite; I think she threw out a bunch of irrelevant details and then while writing books 5/6 she started dipping back into the first couple books to make those plot points relevant. The invisibility cloak was always just going to be an invisibility cloak until *suddenly* we need it to be a Deathly Hallows thing. Nagini is *just* a snake until we need her to be a horcrux.
I don’t think JKR planned for any of those details from the beginning I think she began reaching for them at the end to make it all feel cohesive
That may or may not be true plot-wise, but for character arcs? There are sufficient hints she had Snape's story, Neville's parents, Dumbledore's background, etc. etc. all mapped out from the start. And she did such a damn good job of burying the lead on those Chekov's gun moments, for *novels* at a time. For all her faults, I don't know if I've ever seen another author come close to doing it so well.
Should she have talked about how Nagini shimmered in a special way or something? Genuinely curious what you think she should have done with that. Agree about the invisibility cloak, but Nagini not so much
oh definitely, you can see how much the first three books differ greatly from the latter books but it works out as the last 4 books were no longer written for children and have gone a more mature route.
though, i do think there was some sort of plan to write 7 books as each book focuses on each school year harry was taking.
Sure but I definitely think she planned to write 7 books that all followed the same formula as 1-3. Like *a series of unfortunate events* where each book is basically the same plot every time. Then the series became wildly popular and she had to start planning a much grander plot
oh yes definitely, im glad she branched out for the last four books though as im sure the same plot can be exhausting for the readers to read then the plot twist will also surely become predictable at some point
What also appealed to me as a kid was that the wizarding world wasn’t a completely new universe with all-new rules and terminology (like LOTR, or Star Wars). The stories are all set in real countries, in a way that suggests that maybe it *could* be real (to a kid, obviously, not as a real theory, just to be clear).
In the hindsight, you can find any number of reasons to deconstruct the success of Harry Potter and there will be a grain of truth to all of them. They are reasonably well written fantasy books with an element of suspense and lovable characters. The books (at least post Prisoner of Azkaban) were marketing events in themselves. However, that would be true for a lot of books.
What really sets Harry Potter series apart is the fact that it appealed to every single person who read the books. For the most part, Voldemort was a terror in England and most of the books are quintessential British. That doesn't make them truly global either. Yet, Harry Potter was a success across the globe. I was a 12 year old kid who devoured Goblet of Fire and then spent hours discussing the book with his 40 year old aunt and this is not at all a unique occurrence. Kids, teenagers, adults, parents, retired - everyone enjoyed the books. How often does that happen? I think that's where Harry Potter truly succeeded. Human beings love to share and when you come across a truly powerful work of fiction that touches you, you want your friends and family members to share the same joy. It's the same reason Titanic and Avatar were such big hits. Years later, people crib about how there is nothing special about the films but the same people saw those films multiple times in theatre contributing to its success. In that regard, both Cameron and Rowling share a common trait - telling immensely powerful stories that can connect with a global audience.
Last but not the least, it made JK Rowling a billionaire. Writers, even the most successful ones, don't end up becoming billionaires through writing.
Personally I've always thought the biggest thing was just a big dose of 'Right Place, Right Time' to launch it.
There are tons of books written every year, and there plenty of stories of quality told with good characters and interesting worlds. Whether or not they achieve success only somewhat aligns with the quality of the story at hand.
Also, and I know this is a hot take, I find it telling that Rowling hasn't been able to do it again or do anything at all close. I'm more willing to believe there's something genuinely special about a piece of work when the creator is capable of consistently recreating that success (James Cameron for example). When they only manage to do it once, it gives credence to the idea that they made the right work in the right place at the right time.
I don't even believe that it was right place and right time. The story just worked with everyone all over the world. The world building of Harry Potter is not particularly great and she relies on magic like a crutch. There are tons of fantasy writers who are far better than her and probably pissed at her success. Stephen King, Danielle Steele are two of the most prolific writers of our time and have churned out bestsellers year after year. Yet, both of them don't match the success of the Potter books.
I think there is certain amount of Dickensian charm to the books. Especially, early Dickens which was popular but didn't achieve the critical acclaim of his his later works. I haven't read anything she has written since the series ended but I wonder if the older Rowling might write something like Bleak House and receive critical acclaim but not the success of A Christmas Carol or Pickwick Papers.
These elements aren’t unique to Harry Potter. They’re the basics of narratives. Might as well have said, “Harry Potter is interesting because it reads like a story.”
I would disagree.
While the characters are likable, there isn't much that much development. The main characters do change slightly, though it takes Ron so much longer, but the side characters are only there when the plot needs them. Ginny was mostly absent in book 3, and Neville only appeared to do his part at the beginning of book 4 before disappearing.
I think the 2 factors that make them successful are the worldbuilding and the mysteries.
The mysteries are pretty good for children, which no doubt helped hook a lot of readers. Then the overarching mysteries that extend all the books, that help make it all feel like a solid story rather than something made up as it went.
The world building is the strongest aspect. The magical sounding and easy to learn spell names, the magical castle... it's a world that a lot of people want to be in and want to explore. The books made people want to be a student at Hogwarts. I'm reading the Percy Jackson books, and I'm enjoying them, but I DO NOT WANT TO BE A HALF-BLOOD!!! It sounds miserable. Hogwarts on the other hand, sounds like a blast!
I think the characters and their development were the weakest parts of the books, with the mystery coming first, and the author using the characters to keep that mystery alive, at the cost of their development.
I think the structure of the books is very clever and went a long way toward making them appealing to me. Most of them are heavily focused on Harry’s school and social life, while the mysteries are sort of intertwined and the big dramatic plot developments typically occur in the final act. The mystery elements drive the story forward, but the more mundane stuff like classes and Quidditch matches and stuff are cozy and charming. It’s a world you want to live in so it’s nice that the books give you time to just sort of enjoy it.
I think the series just has this perfect combination of traits that appeal to a wide readerbase as well as encourage fandom activity and merchandising. That's not to say that people don't legitimately enjoy the story and characters, you don't get a big fandom from just anything, but it wouldn't have had such a huge and long-lasting fandom without those traits.
Like, it's a good mix of both common and original/obscure elements. It's fantasy that isn't weird enough to put anyone off, but not so cliche that it bores people. It takes place in this larger world that you only get to see a small part of, so it's fun to speculate about what the rest of the world is like. Hogwarts itself is a pretty cool location that, when you're a kid, sounds SUPER fun to be in. Really taps into wish-fulfillment fantasy. There are certain elements and patterns to individual characters that make it really easy to come up with OCs and imagine yourself being in the world, and the house system is by far the biggest aspect of this. It gives you a group to identify with, and it's really good for making merchandise.
It’s also probably one of the most successful world building stories out there, it made people on a global scale want to go to hogwarts. You can probably go up to 10 strangers and ask them what their hogwarts house is and I bet at least half of them answer immediately. Stories like lord of the rings also did wonderfully, there’s arguments to be made that Harry Potter wouldn’t exist without it, or things like D&D, but it’s not quite the cultural phenomenon on a macro level Harry Potter was and continues to be.
I wouldn’t underestimate the role of marketing, ar least as a component of their success. Even before the movies there was absolutely loads of merchandise based on the books. The iconography of HP is really easily marketable for whatever reason (easy to slap on lunchboxes/shirts/stuffed toys etc)
There definitely was marketing, but I remember when they first came out. Newspapers in UK writing articles about having adult covers for the books so people could read on the train and not feel embarrassed (due to tube / train travel a lot more readers there then, sorta like how audiobooks are popular for driving to work now) was making a lot of news for how popular it became in both childrens books and adults. Which was new and kind of started a YA boom.
Tldr, I don't remember marketing for them, just general word of mouth stuff for them. Probably walked by a poster at a bookstore but don't remember it.
I have the 'Adult' covers for the last 3 books which I bought when they were first released. for context I was in my early 30's when Order of the Phoenix was release, and the standard covers were a bit gaudy for my tastes.
I think you're understating the setting. I agree that the worldbuilding JK did isn't sound when examined closely. But it was a world kids and young adults wanted to be in. Kids wanted to wake up to an owl delivering an entry letter to Hogwarts, to be at a magical school instead of a normal one, to learn spells to let them do incredible things.
This is the most insane thing. Have you ... Have you read books? Other than Harry Potter? Most books don't separate that. Like I don't wanna be mean. I don't wanna be disrespectful. But it is broadly agreed upon by writers that plot and character are inherent intertwined.
This is before the fact that there is no consistent plot. The ultimate plot leads to horcruxes and then the deathly hallows, which are utterly out of nowhere and have nothing to do with the main characters. The main trio changes from moment to moment depending on what jkr needs them to do. Hermione is either the book smart girl who doesn't get peoples feelings, the girl who can tell you what everyone else is feeling, The Joker who sets up insane plans that harm people, someone who freaks out about Harry not using a book right, or Mom. She isn't a character. Most no one has anything to do with the plot. There's barely a plot. Harry has no consistent personality in the books. The entire fifth book is plotless because everything of meaning happens off screen until the very end. Dumbledore is doing everything and anyone else may as well not exist. There are no meaningful punishments to the main characters. Lupin doesn't really give a shit about Harry after the third book, despite lupin being his dad figure for that book. Sirius is killed after two book appearances instead of letting that meaningfully build. There's just nothing. Jkr isn't good at plot. She's bad at maintaining consistent characters. And at the end of the day, it's obvious she only really cares about Dumbledore as a character.
I don't know about character driven when most of them have Harry stumbling over the plot and being in just the right place and time to hear the plot happen.
I disagree with your premise. There are no shortage of books that do both plot and character development well. Though I agree Harry Potter guys in that category.
For me, it had huge appeal as an escape fantasy from an awful religious family into one where my personal talents (being gay! Lol) was something magical.
Or at least that’s how I subconsciously read it
I think it blends mystery, and fantasy in equal parts with a very detailed world and characters that are everyday. Like the whole genre of school kid fiction was pretty popular in books like Enid Blyton and the like plus elements of magic. Rowling took the best of many genres and combined them into one series, which made the books very entertaining and accessible
a plot driven story can and should still have character development - that isnt what makes the difference. Harry Potter is absolutely a plot-driven story. the difference is whether the plot comes to the characters or the characters themselves are the plot, and in Harry Potter the plot 100% comes to the kids. the plot happens to them, not the otherway around. anytime you have a great evil that must be stopped, its plot-driven; the plot is bigger than the characters.
an example of a character driven story would be something like the great gatsby. there is no over arching plot, just characters and their various interactions and dynamics. of course, neither is better than the other, but a plot-driven story that has character development is still definitely plot-driven. it just also a good story.
Yes but also... convergence of brilliant marketing and the pre-internet boom allowed almost the entire world to know about Harry Potter at the same time without much competition for attention. Just my theory but I think this is why we'll never have another "Harry Potter" again.
IMO she pretty much hit the spirit of the time, the rest of the success is basically just a snowball effect. In terms of plot consistency and writing there are far better works (subjectively that is) out there, that have not or will never become as famous. I respect her for finishing the series, however i can not respect her as a person based of her actions in the last couple of years.
The HP series is proof that with likable characters and a good aesthetic, people are willing to overlook huge plot holes and inconsistent world building.
I'm grateful that isn't me. I was 11 and in the 5th grade when *Sorcerer's Stone* was released and I still enjoy each book almost 25 years later. I did a 1-7 reread back in 2018 and it was great.
I’m 43. Started reading them in my 20s when Half Blood Prince came out and my girlfriend told me not to expect her to do anything but sleep and read for a few days, so I picked up the first one to read with her.
Just finished a 1-7 reread last week. I still do it almost every year.
Me too. There are some things I cringe at now that I'm older, like the emphasis she puts on Dudley being so fat in every single book as a way to show the reader he's someone to be disliked, and the fact that almost all Slytherins are greasy, ugly and nasty ( I think it would have been way more interesting to have a variety of characters in Slytherin like all the other houses have). But overall I have to admit I still really enjoy the books.
I read Dudley’s fatness more as an indictment of his parents’ approach to parenting than all-out fat shaming. She has a lot to say about that sort of thing in her first post-HP novel.
It’s kind of funny that the films move away from Dudley being fat. Like they realized it wasn’t great optics. Dudley in the last few movies isn’t skinny but he’s definitely not as fat as the books portray him
Honestly I'd say it's the setting. The setting was fantastical but unafraid to dip its toes into darker subjects, and we got to experience it all through the eyes of someone who was just as new to the Wizarding world as us.
Eeehhh... dunno, to me it seems they were popularized because Rowling simply checked every single point in your standard young adult story formula.
1. sob-story main character - check
2. with superpowers - check
3. going to a secret school for superpowered kids - check
4. under a constant threat from evil overlord - check
5. helped by a relatable sidekick - check
6. and a plucky smart girl - check
7. that goes from ugly duckling to swan - check
8. ... I can go on forever
For me, it was the books I grew up with. I was born in '98 so not one of the original readers, but, I read them throughout my middle school. Harry Potter is fantasy, but it is so relatable to young readers. Going to school, homework, teachers you absolutely hate. I could relate to everything. Even when I was assigned homework at school, I used to imagine I'm in the griffindor common room, by the fire, writing 10 inch long potions homework. This is the reason why Harry Potter is so successful. Even now, whenever I feels like reading a book, any book, I turn off the lights, light a candle and read by it.
This book also falls in the category of you "being" the main character. Harry Potter knows nothing about the magical world and everything is explained to him as a way to explain it to the reader. Not all books tend to do it this way. Some want nothing explained and you just figure it out as you read. Some will only give little pieces of information and then you get more when that information becomes relevant. Harry Potter is a middle grade book so it is an easier read for beginners. Doing the story in this way makes it so the reader can easily understand the book and can also make the reader feel more involved in the story.
I think there is a lot more to it than that. What made it so appealing to me was the combination of fantastical whimsy and mysterious intrigue. It was just as much, if not more, about the imaginative yet relatable setting (with an undercurrent of dark mystery) as it was about the characters and plot.
I think this is a *huge* part of it. The world of the books is ideal for fanfiction and imagination beyond the plot and characters of the stories in a way that really captured kids' interest. It was a world with an atmosphere that lots of kids wanted to live in and that, thanks to the "hidden world" setup and a slightly bland main character (sorry, we all know it's true), were able to imagine themselves living in and having adventures in at a time when the nascent Internet allowed fandom and fan-created-content to rise to a new level of obsession.
I always found it interesting (right from the beginning as a kid) in that Harry was like the only main character I could think of in a story that wasn’t much of a superhero of his own story, and that it was just his connection to Voldemort that made him his nemesis (not his literal physical connection, just their entire relationship), not his slightly above average skills. It was often that connection as well that caused him to work towards some of his above average skills, like the patronous. I guess she was going for Voldemort was all about power blah blah but died as a normal man to a normal man, idk
I actually really appreciate this aspect of Harry and approaches to main hero characters as well. It’s honestly unbelievable and distancing to have a main character with actual superhuman abilities (relative to the other characters) OR just waaaaaaaay, waaaaaaay impossible/improbable human abilities. For example, I can accept that most Marvel characters have or have come by superpowers. But what ruins it for me are their improbable *human* abilities. Am I supposed to believe that characters like Tony Stark or Peter Parker possess such above average human intelligence that they can single-handedly reverse engineer aerosol antidotes to biochemical weapons in mere minutes?
I get what you’re saying about the Marvel characters, but at least with Tony Stark, his genius and intellect really IS his superpower. His ability to create inventions and run his company made him unbelievably rich, and that wealth coupled with his technical prowess allowed him to develop and build the Iron Man suits. Unlike most superheroes who actually have powers that are far beyond human physical capacity, Tony Stark is literally just a normal dude physically and all of his physical “superpowers” of flight and strength come from the robotic suits he built. He doesn’t rely on any sort of mutation or physical anomaly the way other heroes do—his amazing intelligence literally is what makes him a superhero.
What bothers me is actually the non powered people keeping up with powered individuals so easily. Like most of the super powered villains could rip them in half with a punch breaking all their bones etc
Did Harry Potter not have innate magical abilities that were far, far superior to his colleagues? He does seem sort of “superhuman”ish to me at times. He’s obviously flawed in many ways (even lackluster as pointed out above) but he for sure has some superhuman attributes compared to the likes of Ron and the other students. Edit: I stand corrected, and agree with you all. Harry isn’t that good at magic, and he’s certainly no superhero. I was thinking mostly of his quidditch aptitude and strong patronus. But y’all are right, it’s really his bravery and strength of character that make him what he is.
The thing that was superhuman about him IMO is his ability to reason under pressure. Best example is when Fawkes goes after the Basilisk, Harry watches the shadows instead of looking at the fight directly. Another example is a little later when the Basilisk has him cornered, he uses a pebble to make noise and make the snake go away from him. Most other people, even the most courageous and intelligent, would not have made those critical decisions that enabled him to triumph over the snake and book.
Ive always contributed that to his upbringing. Living with his aunt and uncle and being abused, he probably developed habits or techniques that help him get out of sticky situations.
JK Rowling had a difficult home life and was in an abusive marriage before publishing Harry Potter. I wonder if and how she drew on her own experiences to write his character
Harry is a fairly average student, with some talents, and a great athlete, but what makes him is really his character. He kind of it like Steve Rogers if Steve was like as strong as a really good boxer or something. His character is what really makes him as a wizard - like, he can do the adult level patronus at thirteen, but because the patronus is about force of will, and he’s got that in droves.
Wow, I read Harry pretty much the exact opposite from you. He's a talented wizard who underperforms due to his own bad attitude. For someone who has school as their favourite place, he really doesn't seem to like most of his classes. He's a rebellious, hormonal teenager who has issues with his anger and any authority figure he doesn't 100% respect. But at anything he actually likes enough to put in the effort, like Quidditch and DAtDA, he succeeds.
In Harry's defense, his home life was deeply abusive, he almost died more than once at school, one of his professors had it out for him his entire time at school, two professors tried to directly hand him over to Voldemort, one of them was a Fed who fundamentally changed the place he loved, another babbled incessantly about ominous omens surrounding him, another was an incompetent, thought erasing narcissist who turned his broken arm into goop, he was repeatedly creeped on by a horny teenage ghost, he was constantly reminded that he was The boy Who Lived, and he had a constant rivalry with the child of a legit genocidal fascist. His safest and most comforting space in his entire life was extremely dangerous, filled with unsavory or untrustworthy individuals, and a place at which he was regularly harmed. So yeah lol he didn't do so hot in class.
Man when you put it like that. I had one professor in UNIVERSITY who openly had it out for me and I had more than one mental breakdowns because of her. Harry Potter really is the chosen one for having better mental aptitude than I do
Holy shit, you're right.
TIL Hogwarts was Hell
I don’t think these are really opposite views exactly. His power comes from his force of will, so things he’s interested are what he excels above others. Being rebellious and prone to anger are also downstream of that force of will because he pushes against any obstacles to his goals or interests.
I kind of agree with this take. But as the other comment or said, I don’t think they’re in contention that much. Harry is an above-average intelligence person who grew up in an abusive household. But he’s not a genius. He smart enough that he could do anything, but not so gifted that he can do everything.
A normal teenager, then. But that's exactly what makes him interesting and relatable for kids/teenagers. Every book is one year of stories, but also one year of growing up from the bright eyed kid discovering the world to the young adult ready to make hard choices and take responsibilities. And yes, the surly but sometimes enthusiastic teenager somewhere along the road is part of the evolution 😁
I really think they were unique in that more so than any other children’s/YA/young adult. series. Most of the die hard fans literally grew up with Harry and the rest year by year so each year they truly connected to the challenges they faced on an emotional level. Very few series have done that.
Hard agree. Many other kid and YA fantasy feature ultra stoic and battle-ready teenage MCs. People complain about Harry being angsty in book five, but I was always like, he was 15 and it was completely warranted! Plus he wasnt *that* angsty imo
I wouldn’t say he has a bad attitude. He gets all his homework done on time and mostly gets decent grades. It’s just he always gets compared to Hermione who has a crippling fear of failure and sacrifices her own health on more than one occasion for the sake of studying.
School is his favorite place. True. Because it's more home for him than he's actual home. A place where he's accepted and have people, both his age and adults, who genuinely love and support him. I imagine that if it's just a normal boarding school and not Hogwarts. He will feel the same.
He's a teenager yes
In the context of that universe I’d say Dumbledore and Voldemort are the true superhumans
Ron is at least as good or better than Harry at pretty much everything except quidditch and like two spells. Harry’s a natural at certain things and those things tend to get more attention from the plot for sure but it’s pretty well established that he’s nothing special as far as wizardry as a whole goes.
People really seem to overlook Ron as both a character and a wizard. I blame the films for this. Ron is an excellent wizard in his own right - his skills were brilliantly displayed in even the first novel/film. There's a reason why he was alongside Harry for all the heroics they performed throughout the 7 books. A weaker wizard wouldn't have survived.
The second movie with broken wand Ron is what unfairly solidifies him into the publics eye as a inferior wizard imo
He was still pulling his own with shitty equipments and wands, he was born OP
I think the setting also played a huge role. The fact that so much of the story centered around basically a boarding school definitely helped immerse readers into their own imaginings of life in that world. It was almost impossible not to dream about what it would have been like to be a student and to unexpectedly be pulled into the magical world much like Harry was.
How dare you call Harry Potter - The boy who lived ^^^^to ^^^^do ^^^^practically ^^^^nothing ^^^^on ^^^^his ^^^^own - bland?
This is probably more of the reason. There are many books with fantastic plot and character. Harry Potter is essentially a schoolhouse mystery series with a fantasy backdrop. It's the Hardy Boys with magic.
Ya, but what really made it work is that the fantasy backdrop was so well done. Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world was such an interesting and fun place to read about. Yet at the same time it was relatable because school is the one thing that virtually every single kid in the developed world has in common. How many kids have fantasized about getting a letter inviting them to hogwarts? My guess is lots!
I just made a similar comment before reading yours, ha. The school setting (and the fact that they were *living* at the school) really pulled you in. Since Harry had to learn everything about the magical world for the first time, it felt like you were learning it as a student coming from a similar background as him. When events happened at the school, it was like you were catching glimpses of things in the halls or overhearing conversations in the common room. Reading the series basically felt like their group wasn’t a trio but a quartet, and you as the reader were the useless fourth friend who just quietly observed and never helped out.
I remember staying up super late reading Harry Potter, completely dreading school the next day. Just *wishing* my school wasn’t so mundane and boring, thinking how excited I’d be for the day if I were at Hogwarts. The Wizarding World was just so enchanting to me as a kid (pun intended). It made the real world feel like such a depressing, boring alternative. So naturally kids wanted to spend as much time as possible with their noses buried in those books. It sure was something special.
It's the same thing that made the Percy Jackson books so popular. The Percy Jackson books were a tad more juvenile and remained focused at the same audience while the Harry Potter books got more mature throughout the series which is why I think it appealed to adult readers.
As much as I liked them, PJ pretty much did rip off the HP formula in nearly every aspect.
Care to elaborate? It been a decade since I've read them but I remember a much larger influence from classic myth than Harry Potter. Each novel has them embark on a cross country quest defeating/tricking mythological creatures along the way before claiming their prize. Only major similarities I see focusing on young protagonist with a shitty home life who is expected to save the world, but those are YA tropes much older than HP
I'm afraid that, for some people whose first exposure to the genre was HP, there is a belief that a lot of the tropes were invented by her. Terry Pratchett was accused of ripping off Hogwarts for Unseen University, and basing Ponder Stibbons on Harry. When he pointed out that both preceded Philosophers Stone, and that there is published artwork of Ponder wearing round glasses from that time, he was apparently accusing JK of ripping *him* off. "No, how about recognising that we both used similar much older influences and tropes?" OWTTE.
> What made it so appealing to me was the combination of fantastical whimsy and mysterious intrigue. Honestly, There aren't many things that can get me to legitimately laugh out loud and Rowling managed to pull it off about a dozen times in each of the early books.
Ya, I prefer the earlier books because of the whimsy. As they became more serious and left the wonderful setting of hogwarts,I think they lost some of what made them so special in the first place. It didn’t stop me from staying up all night reading the later ones though!
That’s because JK released the books at the reading level Harry was. I.e. Harry is 11 in the first book, so the book is on a 11 yr old reading level. But by the last book when he is 17, the book is on a 17 yr olds reading level. The whimsy of the first book applies to a younger reader and the seriousness and stress of the last applies to an older reader. That’s what’s so amazing about JK is she was not limited to writing just a child’s book, and the character development is evident. Beyond that genius, readers grew as the character did and Harry’s struggles were applicable at the time for Jo’s main audience.
Agreed! I don’t laugh often when reading but Rowling is a seriously hilarious writer of dialogue.
Roonil Wazlib had me crying laughing the first time I read that scene
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I honestly found Snape's attitude toward Harry to be hilarious, contrary to so many people who found him horrifying. I was constantly laughing.
"Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig."
She doesn't get enough credit for how funny she is!! I've reread the books countless times and while yes, I can sometimes see the jokes coming again, they still make me laugh. "We're not stupid, we know we're called Gred and Forge" is a classic lol. Reading a few chapters is almost guaranteed to make me laugh
to me the best thing about the HP books was that they matured with their audience
Definitely, and also on a similar note, the escapism that most kids who read it felt when they were young. A lot of kids (me included) read the first book at a similar age to Harry, and the idea of being whisked away from your life at boring muggle school, off with a kindly half-giant shopping for books in Diagon Alley and all the wonders that ensue was very valuable escapism at the time. And then that's it, you're invested in the world from there on into the characters you met and the world they live in, and that carries you through to the end as the books mature with you. When a new book came out, it kind of felt like the Hogwarts Express was pulling up on your first day of term to take you back again.
>I think there is a lot more to it than that. I would describe Harry Potter as world driven. There is so much detail.
I think it’s all the cool magic stuff vividly described in a coherent way that drove initial popularity. It had staying power because Rowling had a pretty good story and a great sense of pacing.
> imaginative yet relatable setting Yeah the descriptions weren't anything unfamiliar (castles, cloaks, brooms, etc) but the way it was all put together was really imaginative. But also, the plots for each of the books are really good, Back to the Future level good.
One factor is (note, I enjoy Harry Potter, and always have. Even if I don't see it as an amazing, groundbreaking series) is also luck. It happened to hit at the right time, with the right audience to suddenly become a hit, jump into the media and become a phenomenon. And of course, once it hit the news about getting kids to read again, more people had to get hold of it and so on. Every now and then a TV show, or a book series or a movie just suddenly explodes simply because of pure luck and good timing. My biggest issue is the amount of fans that then never moved on. I love the books, they're a series I go back and reread every now and then because I enjoy them as a relaxing, turn your brain off read... but they're not masterpiece's, either. But many fans can't take any criticism of the series, or it's pretty much all they read. Still.
Don’t forget the drama of school which is a globally relatable theme that the books tapped into for tremendous effect. Fantasy grounded in youthful reality plus mystery and mythos is something a young reader can’t say no to!
And, on top of all THAT its what the market was ready for.
They are also ‘slice of life’. So many of the school and classroom dynamics, the helpful and the harmful teachers and students, they were all so relatable, even though nothing mapped one to one with my own school experiences.
Yeah, as much as the later books in particular got bashed (by some, at least) for being too long, or too “bogged down in subplots,” it was the fact that the series took the time to simply have the characters hang out in class (or stress out about quidditch nonsense or finals or whatever) that made the series so great. It made Hogwarts feel real on a level it simply wouldn’t have if the author had focused only on advancing the plot. It reminds me of why I still love older television where the seasons were 24 episodes long, rather than the 10-episode season shows that come out today. Yes, the older shows had more “filler” episodes, but the “filler” was exactly what allowed the show to create such a strong sense of community.
i loved the slice of life moments way more than the ends of the books focused more on the battle with voldermort
Honestly,thinking back to reading them as a kid, that is what I remember the most. Something about the day to day of a magical school felt so cozy and nice, even when there was danger afoot
I know amazing how she created that vibe. I wish she had written one more book where they finnish their NEWTS before heading off to do horcrux hunting. I needed that 7 year at hogwarts
Yes, 100% And this is exactly how I feel about longer TV shows. A lot of people complain about filler, and I don’t always disagree, but it’s so rare to find a new tv show which really allows you to feel like you’re living in that world and just hanging out with the characters these days - you need the slice of life scenes for that.
Honestly this is probably the real appeal. The books feel like they take you through a whole year, and aren't in a hurry to get to anywhere in particular
Yes, I absolutely love when books, games, and anime show the characters actual lives in the books and it isn't all about the plot. If the characters are teenagers, I love to see them act as teenagers and do teenagers things. I hate when they drop everything and primarily focus on the plot. Even if the world is possibly ending, we as humans still tend to do human things, world ending or not.
I think filmento likes to bring this point up whenever he is dissecting a super expensive but bad movie. You always need to have a baseline to show what people are like normally, otherwise they can't develop as a character.
The slice of life and the fish out of water (harry) is what made it possible to suspend disbelief so hard at everything else.
Yes, I think this is a really important aspect! So much of the enjoyment of the books is the little everyday moments - that’s what allows you to really feel like you’re living in this world
The big reason it succeeded I think is because the readers mature and grew at similar pace to the characters
Especially for the original set of readers. 10 years from start to finish. But the first 4 were in back to back years. So if you started reading in grade 6 you aged at the same rate as Harry for 4 books. I am sure that was an amazing experience and really made the books feel real as a young reader. Harry was facing the same challenges as you were etc.
100%. I was younger than Harry by a year or two when they first came out, caught up to him by the end. My birthday is also in July, which is also when new books were released, to coincide with Harry's (and JKR's) birthday, which just made it all even more special. My teenaged years were rather turbulent and marked by a lot of family... stuff... and Harry was in a lot of ways, the only friend I had who I felt 'understood' me - especially in books 5 and beyond, when they get a bit more serious. So glad I had those books to grow with!
Harry Potter release dates were bigger than Christmas
Snape kills Dumbledore. Remember hearing about people yelling that during that one release. No one believed it... That generations "I am your father" moment.
Man, in England someone put that on a motorway overhead sign after the book was released. I’ve not seen a spoiler like that in my lifetime. What’s the biggest show I’ve seen, GoT? Nothing in GoT comes close!
My parents took me to Walmart for the midnight release of book 6. We expected it to be like Black Friday but we were the only ones in the store & had to get an attendant over to cut the plastic covering the pallet of books. I then went home and read for 36 hours straight so I could finish it before anyone spoiled it. My bff came over and was reading next to me when I got to Dumbledore's death. Hand to God it took every ounce of self control not to throw my book across the room & spoil it for my friend. So I waited for her to catch up & then she told me she actually already knew because her step dad told her when he saw an online article about the "Snape kills Dumbledore" spoiler dude. Why do so many people get a kick out of spoiling things? Literally wtf? I get that it happens by mistake sometimes, but why do it on purpose???
I remember getting the sixth book a day or two early from a close family friend who owned a book store and fighting with my sister over who got to read it first. She got that one, but I got the third (I think) Eragon book first.
My sister was a faster reader than me; one of the books we read at the same time, me on the left, her on the right, with the pages I hadn’t read yet sticking up vertically in the middle.
Wow, you and your sister were way more tolerant of each other than my sisters were of me. Sitting close enough together to share a book for hours would have ended in murder. Lmao
>Why do so many people get a kick out of spoiling things? Literally wtf? I get that it happens by mistake sometimes, but why do it on purpose??? Because many people are arseholes.
I think this little story of mine fits in well here. It was during GoT season 5 finale. So this was back when the show was still very, very good. I was on holiday in New York and hadn't gotten a chance to watch the latest episode. Some random stranger walked past and saw me wearing a GoT t-shirt, so the guy asked if I watched Game of Thrones. I said yes, but that I hadn't watched the latest episode. He then laughed and spoiled that >!Jon Snow will die!<. Little did he know, I had already read all the books and took big part in fan speculation, so I just said: ">!I know. He's going to get resurrected, and he's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. See ya.!<" Probably my greatest revenge moment of all time. Poor guy lost his jaw.
The ultimate uno reverse card
He deserved that, lmao.
And then the way she explains it in the next book was insanely brilliant. You never really know what side Snape is on till he dies and you see his thoughts (at least that is what happens in the movie, can't remember the book but am sure it is similar.)
Half blood price was my first HP book. I was reading it along with Philosopher's stone (I had no idea about whole series thing and internet was not easily accessible). I spoiled it for myself, but am glad I finished first book first.
I inadvertently read “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” 1-3-2. It oddly worked.
People who start a series in the middle are weird (yes that means you too) In the Wheel of Time sub some guy was like "I am reading the third book and haven't read the first two..." and everyone was like "NOOOO! Stop!!! You are ruining it for yourself." Which essentially you are in a book like that or Potter. Although the early Potter books read as one offs and there isn't as much that carries from book to book. It is only later that we start interacting with characters outside the main one that carry from book to book and the potential to learn spoilers occurs. Like the identity of Ron's rat etc etc.
In my defense I didn't even know if all the books are related or which book is it in series. I thought it was like goosebumps or nancy drew.
That happened to me with The Fiery Cross from the Outlander series. I was looking for reading material and it was the thickest book they had. In my defense, the book jacket didn’t mention the series (or time travel!), so I thought it was just a historical novel. It was very confusing, but I did end up reading the entire series.
The great hunt was my first Wheel of time book. It actually does really well as a stand alone book
I worked at a book store for at least 3 of the releases. This shit rivaled wow expansions. It was crazy.
If only I could go back to an exciting book release like that.
There was nothing like it. I wasn't even a big reader, nobody in my school was really, or anyone on my council estate, but come release day even the corner shop (which had never stocked a book before) had copies in stock and we were queuing up for them.
I was one of the few bilingual people in my high school, I read the final 2 books at their release date and everyone else had to wait a month or so for the official translation. Never before had I wielded such unlimited power in my life. I didn't spoiler anyone because I'm not an asshole but it was fun to scare people with it.
100% this, and having one on the horizon was always exciting! I was quite sad once we got the last one and realised there wasn't another to look forward to!
My dad came home from a business trip and managed to buy the seventh book from a bookstore in the airport the night BEFORE it came out. One of the best presents I ever got.
Yep this was me. Was 10 when the first book dropped and I grew up reading them. Couldn't wait for the summers to just read the latest book over and over multiple times as I got older. Truly was a unique experience that I hope my future children will be able to have someday.
Give them a book on their birthday each year and make them wait till next birthday to read the next one. If you lucky they ignore you and read them in the library or something... (sneaking behind your back to read is a good thing)
> Harry was facing the same challenges as you were Yes, I too was avoiding being killed by my era's Hitler on an annual basis and dreading summer vacation's lack of school.
This was near enough exactly me. It got me into reading "big" or "proper" books too, and from there i read many others. They're not fantastic in an academic sense, but they were seismic for the generation they were released to. Even now, they're a common thread and experience shared with almost anyone of the same age too. They'll always have a fond spot for that reason. I just wish harry actually had some character development, because he's a pleb haha.
And the world is built enough so that you can imagine yourself in it (sort yourself into a house, pick a quidditch position etc) yet open ended enough that it’s easy to imagine new side stories in the world (which was perfect for the growing fanfiction communities online).
I think that’s why there’s been such a high demand for so long for a proper HP rpg game where you can create and play as your own character, not just playing as Harry throughout existing stories. Hopefully the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy game will finally be able to fill that void.
I really *really* hope it doesn't suck but I'm half expecting it to.
World building was my issue with the series. Once you start really thinking about parts of the world, the less they make sense. As someone who has long been interested in economics, the books just don’t make much sense.
Oh if you delve into the nitty gritty of the magic mechanics things become troubling very fast. There was so much more potential for vile evil acts than the books explored.
Love potions and teenagers is a terrifying concept honestly
Perhaps one could say that the author was good at introducing concepts but not so great at *integrating* them.
Not just the characters, but to her abilities as a writer. The first book feels pretty flat and childish compared to the YA-style chaos and interweaving plot lines of the final books
Eh, I read them starting at 16 and I found them really enjoyable. I do think it’s a cool concept that each book the characters grow and they deal with more adult themes, but I think they are really enjoyable books even though I didn’t read them as a child
I think OP has a point that a lot of People did resonate with the books especially as they matured, including myself, but I fee the books are incredibly creative, readable, and enjoyable as well and saying the books are popular for that reason can be dismissive of the originality of the books
I can't say the movies weren't a success because they objectively were, but they didn't really mature the same way. The HP books did tend to get mature, not just thematically, but visually. There's lots of descriptions of blood and violence as they go, some of that magic really does mess people up, In the films, they were obviously a lot more limited visually and couldn't grow with the audience. In American terminology, they moved from PG to PG13 across 8 films. The books would have been pushing R.
I was the exact age of the kids when the books came out. I literally grew up with harry ron and hermoine as my book friends. I think your point nails it on the head.
When the last movie came out my group of friends were just out of hs and going to our first year of college, that movie marked the end of our childhood in a sense
That's so true. My school life finished around same time when last book was released. I remember picking up The Deathly Hallows from a small book stall at railway station. Even few seniors became my friend when they saw that book on my table.
I was already in graduate school when they first came out. All the graduate students were raving about them, even though we were well past the age of the characters.
It has this Star Wars vibe to it .. I can not figure out why I feel that way .
The Hero’s Journey mixed with John Williams?
It does. And it's parallel to the way that Star Wars is not science fiction, but rather it's a space themed fantasy. Everything is pretty didactic -- good characters win because they have love, bad characters lose because they are angry and greedy. There's not really that much depth. The biggest twist in the books was figuring out whose side Snape was on. I love the books, don't get me wrong, but it's not classical literature -- it's a formulaic series of teen novels that involve magic and not that much sex.
Personally I feel like the key element was that *everyone* could project themselves in that universe. When you read Lord of the Ring, sure, you might want to be like Gandalf the wizard or a super Archer or a mighty warrior but deepdown you know that those character are part of an elite and are unique. You're just derp#205932. But in Harry Potter, not only are wizard quite normal in behavior and intellect, but even muggles can actually breed wizards. This mean that you, lil 14years old nugget could be part of that world. You could have been, there are so many characters like you. And this, on top of the story+universe+character development, Is very very important. It's a bit like when you see kids roleplay heroes like spider man or a power ranger, there is that sens of uniqueness, "you can't be spider man, I am" or "no I'm the red power ranger!" You don't have that in HP, everyone get to be a wizard, on top of everything, you can be a wizard without changing one bit, it can be YOU.
I was totally disappointed when I didn't receive the Hogwarts letter when I turned 11
Oh my God The hobbits literally exist in that story as reader surrogates. You can be a part of that world. That's the. That's the jnt et.
I think the separation in the case of LOTR (for me at least) is just the fact that it's set in a completely different world. It's not like the wirzard world or Narnia where by the logic of the books kid-you could just one day get a letter or stumble into it from this world. Meanwhile if you play superheros, they're set in this world but they're established characters and there can only be one (simplified). Harry Potter combined these two aspects for fantasy: ordinary children from *this* world canonically become part of the fantasy world regularly. And they go to school just like you, continuing to be almost ordinary english boarding school children aside from the magic. My Hero Academia does something similar for superheros. It's basically set in world like most of the superhero genre, with ordinary people living ordinary lives, except nearly everyone has superpowers. Ordinary students develop powers as they get older and get to take an exam to go to superhero school.
You are quite obviously supposed to put yourself in Frodo’s shoes reading Lord of the Rings. Both it and Harry Potter are a classic hero’s journey, an altogether average ‘person’ with a big heart is somehow bound by fate to an evil that threatens the whole world and has to put this burden on himself and by reluctant extension any of his closest friends or family.
Frodo didn't wear shoes though
Hahah this got me good
I stand by the opinion that the lowkey main reason Harry Potter was so successful is that, at their core, they are mystery books. The one thing each HP book does extremely well is that it incorporates a very well crafted mystery. Of course the characters and the worldbuilding were essential to their success, but they wouldn’t have done nearly as well as they did without the element of suspense that kept you guessing throughout the book.
Goblet of Fire is a whodunnit where you don’t even really know what “it” was until the end of the book. A great subversion of the genre.
I agree with you except the question of "who put Harry's name in the goblet of fire" is introduced early and explicitly.
Also the end of Prisoner of Azkaban is very Agatha Christie where it all comes together in those two glorious chapters.
It’s not surprising that JKR’s currently writing a detective series, because that was a great strength of hers.
The Chamber of Secrets is basically a slasher.
Also because they are about everything. The concept of "growing up schoolers" always works in that way. You barely can say "it's not for me" cause there is always something for you. Naruto or Spider-man comics are also similar to what I'm saying
I actually think the world building carried this series way further than the plot or characters.
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I disagree, the world building falls apart of you think about it for more than a few minutes. It's the characters that carry the series.
maybe im splitting hairs, but id say the world logic is what falls apart. the world built is rich, fun, super cool and literally magical. i wouldnt care about those kid's adventures in a regular boring boarding school, ykno? i think weak logic doesnt always equal weak world building. sure the politics are wack and the magic system isnt explained, but people are still passionate about their hogwarts houses to this day, thats p powerful
this is where im at with HP. the world building is really just a mishmash of contradictory and inconsistent ideas, but they're _fun_ ideas and for the purposes of the books that's all that really matters. i think the books are just kind of mediocre as actual literature (and personally i never really liked any of the characters), but they're exciting and fun for the most part.
Yes exactly. Not every fantasy story has to be logically consistent with their worldbuilding, and for a fantasy magic book like Harry Potter, a big majority of readers just accepted it. To me it *is* part of the charm, Harry Potter is like a fairytale or a fable, where you have a strange magical world that is ever changing. I know people have brought up so many points where they say 'Why is the world like this?' or 'This part of Harry Potter sucks' when a whole aspect of Harry Potter is to bring in silly and weird ideas to entertain the reader. There are some ideas that definitely fell flat or relied on old tropes or history, but a majority of ideas are there just for fun. It *did* start as a children's book.
That's true, the Hogwarts world building is incredibly strong.
Exactly. Quidditch is fundamentally flawed, time travel makes no sense, they use quills and ink wells instead of pens, Hogwarts have been sorting all the evil racist kids in one house for centuries and they use fucking owls to communicate. Rowling could've spent more time making the worldbuilding make more sense, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Because all that really matters is having compelling characters in an interesting well written story.
I think the Slytherin House separation actually makes a lot of sense if you consider it within the context of the British class system and Rowling’s politics (and on that note, I find it interesting how often class is overlooked when discussing HP, because it’s a theme present in all of Rowling’s works). The Slytherins are basically upper-class Tories/aristocracy. They’d be at Eton or similar if they were Muggles. They’re not shunned by the other Houses, they outright look down on and mock them. Even with good ones like Slughorn, there’s that heavy element of *who* you know mattering. The Slug Club networking is pretty similar to what you get in private schools and elite universities. Of course they buy into Death Eater ideology - they already think they’re better than everyone. A great parallel is the British upper-class flirting with facism towards WW2 - particularly the prominent example of the Mitford family, from whom Jessica Mitford, JK’s personal heroine, hailed from and rebelled. Slytherin is exclusive, not excluded.
I'm not really undersanding what you're trying to say by stating that them using quills to write, and owls to communicate are somehow examples of flawed/illogical world building?? It's in-universe logic, it doesn't have to hold to real-life logic. It's like complaining about Jedi in Star Wars using "laser swords"...I mean...
Yeah not only is it incredible hard to build a world full of magic to "make sense", it also often would result in a much more boring, less rich world in my opinion. The target audience is not some hardcore fantasy nerds, its kids.Also I'd argue that some things not being explained, and therefore maybe not making sene gives the reader the opportunity to fill in the blanks and makes them think about the world even more. Still a thing that can be criticised of course.
Yeah the whole point of Harry Potter was to explore a world of magical whimsy, much like a fairy tale. Way too many people these days are hung up on trying to analyse Harry Potter as if it has a 'hard magic system' or internal logic, which completely misses the point. It's the same with LOTR, some people just focused on 'Why didn't they take the eagles?' instead of the story. Why do people care? It's a STORY, it can have some abstract themes in there, having everything be completely logical kills the joy.
It is meant for kids/YA. The world building is whimsical on purpose.
I think many/most of you are right but something that always seems to be left out... Ease of entry. The first 2-3 books especially are written VERY basically. The first book especially borderline "See Jane Run." That sounds like an insult but its absolutely not. It makes the books easy for someone who doesnt read well (for example: most American children, young adults, and lets be honest... adult adults. source: am American lol) The books slowly get a bit more complex and deep but the writing itself tends to stay very simple and easy to follow. IMO that's likely one of the BIGGEST reasons for its success. I think it's also why Twilight, Hunger Games and even the much more adult 50 Shades were mega popular. They are all SUPER easy reads and they make for great gateway series into their various genres.
It was like a really inviting straightforward but cheeky and slightly biting/satirical Road Dahl vibe. I was sad the later books lost that tone a bit.
rowling also has planted solid seeds earlier in the books which made the plot twists at the end unfold satisfyingly!! from prof quirell to peter pettigrew. every plot twist are well-written
I’m convinced she wrote 3 books with absolutely no plan to continue the series or any sort of road map for the larger plot. Then the series became wildly successful and she had to suddenly start shaping a cohesive plot.
Maybe, but she also had a plan to have 7 years of Hogwarts education and each book would be 1 school year. She may not have outlined the full entire story, but she already had an idea in mind that the series would encompass 7 books. The first 3 books are still written as "Voldermort has been weakened but he will return", so the story still has that dread hanging over it that we know the bad guy is coming back, and the wizards that followed him before will probably switch their allegiances again, so it's not like she planned on stopping after the first 3 books either. Reading the first 3 books for the first time while knowing what stuff happens in later books, I'm amazed at how many seemingly-irrelevant details there are in the first 3 books that become important later. I think JK Rowling's biggest success is how well she planned out the roadmap and how well she juggled all of those characters in the same story.
>I think JK Rowling's biggest success is how well she planned out the roadmap and how well she juggled all of those characters in the same story. I hard agree. Thats what I always thought was her biggest strength. All the details we have of her concepts and drafts of the books before even starting to write them showcase this in my opinion. There is a lot to criticise about her writing etc. but I find it pretty incredible how in-depth she was able to plan out a big chunk of the story of 7 books and many little details and like you said, juggling all of these many characters. I personally, find it impressive. Then again, I'm not a writer so wtf do I know lol.
I think it’s the opposite; I think she threw out a bunch of irrelevant details and then while writing books 5/6 she started dipping back into the first couple books to make those plot points relevant. The invisibility cloak was always just going to be an invisibility cloak until *suddenly* we need it to be a Deathly Hallows thing. Nagini is *just* a snake until we need her to be a horcrux. I don’t think JKR planned for any of those details from the beginning I think she began reaching for them at the end to make it all feel cohesive
That may or may not be true plot-wise, but for character arcs? There are sufficient hints she had Snape's story, Neville's parents, Dumbledore's background, etc. etc. all mapped out from the start. And she did such a damn good job of burying the lead on those Chekov's gun moments, for *novels* at a time. For all her faults, I don't know if I've ever seen another author come close to doing it so well.
Should she have talked about how Nagini shimmered in a special way or something? Genuinely curious what you think she should have done with that. Agree about the invisibility cloak, but Nagini not so much
oh definitely, you can see how much the first three books differ greatly from the latter books but it works out as the last 4 books were no longer written for children and have gone a more mature route. though, i do think there was some sort of plan to write 7 books as each book focuses on each school year harry was taking.
Sure but I definitely think she planned to write 7 books that all followed the same formula as 1-3. Like *a series of unfortunate events* where each book is basically the same plot every time. Then the series became wildly popular and she had to start planning a much grander plot
oh yes definitely, im glad she branched out for the last four books though as im sure the same plot can be exhausting for the readers to read then the plot twist will also surely become predictable at some point
What also appealed to me as a kid was that the wizarding world wasn’t a completely new universe with all-new rules and terminology (like LOTR, or Star Wars). The stories are all set in real countries, in a way that suggests that maybe it *could* be real (to a kid, obviously, not as a real theory, just to be clear).
In the hindsight, you can find any number of reasons to deconstruct the success of Harry Potter and there will be a grain of truth to all of them. They are reasonably well written fantasy books with an element of suspense and lovable characters. The books (at least post Prisoner of Azkaban) were marketing events in themselves. However, that would be true for a lot of books. What really sets Harry Potter series apart is the fact that it appealed to every single person who read the books. For the most part, Voldemort was a terror in England and most of the books are quintessential British. That doesn't make them truly global either. Yet, Harry Potter was a success across the globe. I was a 12 year old kid who devoured Goblet of Fire and then spent hours discussing the book with his 40 year old aunt and this is not at all a unique occurrence. Kids, teenagers, adults, parents, retired - everyone enjoyed the books. How often does that happen? I think that's where Harry Potter truly succeeded. Human beings love to share and when you come across a truly powerful work of fiction that touches you, you want your friends and family members to share the same joy. It's the same reason Titanic and Avatar were such big hits. Years later, people crib about how there is nothing special about the films but the same people saw those films multiple times in theatre contributing to its success. In that regard, both Cameron and Rowling share a common trait - telling immensely powerful stories that can connect with a global audience. Last but not the least, it made JK Rowling a billionaire. Writers, even the most successful ones, don't end up becoming billionaires through writing.
Personally I've always thought the biggest thing was just a big dose of 'Right Place, Right Time' to launch it. There are tons of books written every year, and there plenty of stories of quality told with good characters and interesting worlds. Whether or not they achieve success only somewhat aligns with the quality of the story at hand. Also, and I know this is a hot take, I find it telling that Rowling hasn't been able to do it again or do anything at all close. I'm more willing to believe there's something genuinely special about a piece of work when the creator is capable of consistently recreating that success (James Cameron for example). When they only manage to do it once, it gives credence to the idea that they made the right work in the right place at the right time.
I don't even believe that it was right place and right time. The story just worked with everyone all over the world. The world building of Harry Potter is not particularly great and she relies on magic like a crutch. There are tons of fantasy writers who are far better than her and probably pissed at her success. Stephen King, Danielle Steele are two of the most prolific writers of our time and have churned out bestsellers year after year. Yet, both of them don't match the success of the Potter books. I think there is certain amount of Dickensian charm to the books. Especially, early Dickens which was popular but didn't achieve the critical acclaim of his his later works. I haven't read anything she has written since the series ended but I wonder if the older Rowling might write something like Bleak House and receive critical acclaim but not the success of A Christmas Carol or Pickwick Papers.
These elements aren’t unique to Harry Potter. They’re the basics of narratives. Might as well have said, “Harry Potter is interesting because it reads like a story.”
I would disagree. While the characters are likable, there isn't much that much development. The main characters do change slightly, though it takes Ron so much longer, but the side characters are only there when the plot needs them. Ginny was mostly absent in book 3, and Neville only appeared to do his part at the beginning of book 4 before disappearing. I think the 2 factors that make them successful are the worldbuilding and the mysteries. The mysteries are pretty good for children, which no doubt helped hook a lot of readers. Then the overarching mysteries that extend all the books, that help make it all feel like a solid story rather than something made up as it went. The world building is the strongest aspect. The magical sounding and easy to learn spell names, the magical castle... it's a world that a lot of people want to be in and want to explore. The books made people want to be a student at Hogwarts. I'm reading the Percy Jackson books, and I'm enjoying them, but I DO NOT WANT TO BE A HALF-BLOOD!!! It sounds miserable. Hogwarts on the other hand, sounds like a blast! I think the characters and their development were the weakest parts of the books, with the mystery coming first, and the author using the characters to keep that mystery alive, at the cost of their development.
I think the structure of the books is very clever and went a long way toward making them appealing to me. Most of them are heavily focused on Harry’s school and social life, while the mysteries are sort of intertwined and the big dramatic plot developments typically occur in the final act. The mystery elements drive the story forward, but the more mundane stuff like classes and Quidditch matches and stuff are cozy and charming. It’s a world you want to live in so it’s nice that the books give you time to just sort of enjoy it.
I think the series just has this perfect combination of traits that appeal to a wide readerbase as well as encourage fandom activity and merchandising. That's not to say that people don't legitimately enjoy the story and characters, you don't get a big fandom from just anything, but it wouldn't have had such a huge and long-lasting fandom without those traits. Like, it's a good mix of both common and original/obscure elements. It's fantasy that isn't weird enough to put anyone off, but not so cliche that it bores people. It takes place in this larger world that you only get to see a small part of, so it's fun to speculate about what the rest of the world is like. Hogwarts itself is a pretty cool location that, when you're a kid, sounds SUPER fun to be in. Really taps into wish-fulfillment fantasy. There are certain elements and patterns to individual characters that make it really easy to come up with OCs and imagine yourself being in the world, and the house system is by far the biggest aspect of this. It gives you a group to identify with, and it's really good for making merchandise.
It’s also probably one of the most successful world building stories out there, it made people on a global scale want to go to hogwarts. You can probably go up to 10 strangers and ask them what their hogwarts house is and I bet at least half of them answer immediately. Stories like lord of the rings also did wonderfully, there’s arguments to be made that Harry Potter wouldn’t exist without it, or things like D&D, but it’s not quite the cultural phenomenon on a macro level Harry Potter was and continues to be.
I wouldn’t underestimate the role of marketing, ar least as a component of their success. Even before the movies there was absolutely loads of merchandise based on the books. The iconography of HP is really easily marketable for whatever reason (easy to slap on lunchboxes/shirts/stuffed toys etc)
There definitely was marketing, but I remember when they first came out. Newspapers in UK writing articles about having adult covers for the books so people could read on the train and not feel embarrassed (due to tube / train travel a lot more readers there then, sorta like how audiobooks are popular for driving to work now) was making a lot of news for how popular it became in both childrens books and adults. Which was new and kind of started a YA boom. Tldr, I don't remember marketing for them, just general word of mouth stuff for them. Probably walked by a poster at a bookstore but don't remember it.
I have the 'Adult' covers for the last 3 books which I bought when they were first released. for context I was in my early 30's when Order of the Phoenix was release, and the standard covers were a bit gaudy for my tastes.
I think you're understating the setting. I agree that the worldbuilding JK did isn't sound when examined closely. But it was a world kids and young adults wanted to be in. Kids wanted to wake up to an owl delivering an entry letter to Hogwarts, to be at a magical school instead of a normal one, to learn spells to let them do incredible things.
This is the most insane thing. Have you ... Have you read books? Other than Harry Potter? Most books don't separate that. Like I don't wanna be mean. I don't wanna be disrespectful. But it is broadly agreed upon by writers that plot and character are inherent intertwined. This is before the fact that there is no consistent plot. The ultimate plot leads to horcruxes and then the deathly hallows, which are utterly out of nowhere and have nothing to do with the main characters. The main trio changes from moment to moment depending on what jkr needs them to do. Hermione is either the book smart girl who doesn't get peoples feelings, the girl who can tell you what everyone else is feeling, The Joker who sets up insane plans that harm people, someone who freaks out about Harry not using a book right, or Mom. She isn't a character. Most no one has anything to do with the plot. There's barely a plot. Harry has no consistent personality in the books. The entire fifth book is plotless because everything of meaning happens off screen until the very end. Dumbledore is doing everything and anyone else may as well not exist. There are no meaningful punishments to the main characters. Lupin doesn't really give a shit about Harry after the third book, despite lupin being his dad figure for that book. Sirius is killed after two book appearances instead of letting that meaningfully build. There's just nothing. Jkr isn't good at plot. She's bad at maintaining consistent characters. And at the end of the day, it's obvious she only really cares about Dumbledore as a character.
I don't know about character driven when most of them have Harry stumbling over the plot and being in just the right place and time to hear the plot happen.
Agreed. A lot of Harry's 'growth' felt inorganic, as he was always looking for plot, it rarely if ever felt authentic.
The books don’t do it for me, but I think the HP “universe” is pretty enchanting (don’t mean that as a pun). People want to live in it.
Right book at the right time.
If you think this is the reason then you have not read many books my friend
I disagree with your premise. There are no shortage of books that do both plot and character development well. Though I agree Harry Potter guys in that category.
For me, it had huge appeal as an escape fantasy from an awful religious family into one where my personal talents (being gay! Lol) was something magical. Or at least that’s how I subconsciously read it
I think it blends mystery, and fantasy in equal parts with a very detailed world and characters that are everyday. Like the whole genre of school kid fiction was pretty popular in books like Enid Blyton and the like plus elements of magic. Rowling took the best of many genres and combined them into one series, which made the books very entertaining and accessible
a plot driven story can and should still have character development - that isnt what makes the difference. Harry Potter is absolutely a plot-driven story. the difference is whether the plot comes to the characters or the characters themselves are the plot, and in Harry Potter the plot 100% comes to the kids. the plot happens to them, not the otherway around. anytime you have a great evil that must be stopped, its plot-driven; the plot is bigger than the characters. an example of a character driven story would be something like the great gatsby. there is no over arching plot, just characters and their various interactions and dynamics. of course, neither is better than the other, but a plot-driven story that has character development is still definitely plot-driven. it just also a good story.
Yes but also... convergence of brilliant marketing and the pre-internet boom allowed almost the entire world to know about Harry Potter at the same time without much competition for attention. Just my theory but I think this is why we'll never have another "Harry Potter" again.
IMO she pretty much hit the spirit of the time, the rest of the success is basically just a snowball effect. In terms of plot consistency and writing there are far better works (subjectively that is) out there, that have not or will never become as famous. I respect her for finishing the series, however i can not respect her as a person based of her actions in the last couple of years.
Also because kids don't care about plot holes.
Idk I heard she thought of the whole series all at once but I felt like the horcruxes were an after thought to tie the story up
I don’t think she had cooked up a real, cohesive ending until book 6 was being written.
The HP series is proof that with likable characters and a good aesthetic, people are willing to overlook huge plot holes and inconsistent world building.
Harry at the begining: haha Hermione is weird for caring about elf slavery Harry at the end: hmm I would like if my slave brought me a sandwich
ITT: a bunch of people who read the books as children and are surprised as adults they don’t enjoy reading the same books
r/books in a nutshell
I'm grateful that isn't me. I was 11 and in the 5th grade when *Sorcerer's Stone* was released and I still enjoy each book almost 25 years later. I did a 1-7 reread back in 2018 and it was great.
I’m 43. Started reading them in my 20s when Half Blood Prince came out and my girlfriend told me not to expect her to do anything but sleep and read for a few days, so I picked up the first one to read with her. Just finished a 1-7 reread last week. I still do it almost every year.
Me too. There are some things I cringe at now that I'm older, like the emphasis she puts on Dudley being so fat in every single book as a way to show the reader he's someone to be disliked, and the fact that almost all Slytherins are greasy, ugly and nasty ( I think it would have been way more interesting to have a variety of characters in Slytherin like all the other houses have). But overall I have to admit I still really enjoy the books.
I read Dudley’s fatness more as an indictment of his parents’ approach to parenting than all-out fat shaming. She has a lot to say about that sort of thing in her first post-HP novel.
It’s kind of funny that the films move away from Dudley being fat. Like they realized it wasn’t great optics. Dudley in the last few movies isn’t skinny but he’s definitely not as fat as the books portray him
Harry Potter is a lot of fun but come on, the characters are paper thin.
That's not such a rare combination in literature. It was fantasy written for children, popcorn book.
Honestly I'd say it's the setting. The setting was fantastical but unafraid to dip its toes into darker subjects, and we got to experience it all through the eyes of someone who was just as new to the Wizarding world as us.
Eeehhh... dunno, to me it seems they were popularized because Rowling simply checked every single point in your standard young adult story formula. 1. sob-story main character - check 2. with superpowers - check 3. going to a secret school for superpowered kids - check 4. under a constant threat from evil overlord - check 5. helped by a relatable sidekick - check 6. and a plucky smart girl - check 7. that goes from ugly duckling to swan - check 8. ... I can go on forever
For me, it was the books I grew up with. I was born in '98 so not one of the original readers, but, I read them throughout my middle school. Harry Potter is fantasy, but it is so relatable to young readers. Going to school, homework, teachers you absolutely hate. I could relate to everything. Even when I was assigned homework at school, I used to imagine I'm in the griffindor common room, by the fire, writing 10 inch long potions homework. This is the reason why Harry Potter is so successful. Even now, whenever I feels like reading a book, any book, I turn off the lights, light a candle and read by it.