it's funny they changed the name to "sorcerer's" stone in the us
was philosopher too hard a word for the little yankees?tbf "philosopher's stone" sounds boring as hell if you don't realize "philosopher" actually means "alchemist" in this context
idk if British children are more familiar with that archaic definition but American children certainly are not, so "philosopher" just sounds like a person who studies philosophy, which doesn't sound like a very exciting premise for a children's book
Ok we’ve reached the logical conclusion we can pack it in lol
What about indifference? Sure, i liked the book when i was a kid, and i bought a bit into the hype because I was a kid.
I mean, my experience was that I was fascinated by it and really read it a lot of times, because hey, it's good kid slop, especially if you want to feel special and your life outside of the books you lose yourself into is less than ideal, so dreaming that maybe you're special too, and can be whisked away to some magical life is really appealing. But as a grew up i got interested in other things, and then i became disinterested in those things, and so on. Character development is a thing, s'all i'm saying.
I never expected people to be talking about these books 20 years on. They were OK books at the time, but the weird pop cult surrounding them is bizarre.
It's the power of the behemoth that was Warner Bros and their marketing campaign. A book series legacy is always determined by their adaptations. There's a reason A Series of Unfortunate Events and Percy Jackson are no longer talked about
And yet they were able to be successful in the way other the other series adaptations weren't. You could say it was just lightning in a bottle and the era they were released. Probably wouldn't have done so well in the current age.
It was also around the time of the Pokemon craze too. Every kid in my school had a Harry Potter book and a pack of Pokemon cards with them. Most of them grew out of it from what I remember and moved on to Yu-Gi-Oh and Tolkein.
I loved this book as a kid and it's still one I can say I'd read again. The first three books were great, problematic house elf politics aside. Even then, SPEW wasn't a thing until Goblet of Fire and by then I was done.
Harry Potter had a very charming whodunnit format that featured a mystery to solve and a villain of the week. It was like Hardy Boys with wizards. Then it got all dark and "epic" with Harry smashing shit and getting jealous over girls.
It seems to still appeal to kids because my seven year old niece fell in love with them after visiting the theme park in Universal.
