Harry Potter was literally the first book I read by myself, when I was like 8 or 9. They aren't young adult (except maybe the last few). They're for children. They may not be original, but to a kid they are extremely engaging. I never said they're the best, but their enormous popularity is because they know how to push all the right buttons of a kid who's the same age as the characters and they don't take themselves too seriously.
I just don't know why everyone here has to hate the silly children's fantasy books so fucking much. Obviously JKR is a big sack of shit, but you literally recommended Ender's Game. And the brand HP has grown into is bloated and terrible, especially the newest movies, but the originally books do what they set out to do well.
They just aren't that bad. They're fine children's novels. There's a reason they got so many kids passionate about reading. I don't have much fondness or nostalgia for them now but it's because those books got me so excited to read that I'm a huge reader now and am working on my first fantasy novel.
I find them engaging and and with elements worthy of praise - my hate is much more so for Rowling herself and the marketing/movies/HP culture, which is cringetopia mixed with commercialism of the worst sort.
But there are also major flaws with the book series. And maybe they wouldn't be so bad in a vacuum, but compared to the marketing claims and the outsized influence on culture and literature and the upbringing of children - they deserve all the criticism they get. (It's not some obscure series, it's sold as THE book series.) There's the black-and-white characters that are either totally brave and good and kind and the evil characters, that literally enjoy torturing children or are just fat/gross/stupid/ignorant/selfish all at once. There's the main character that's the blandest and weakest and most pointless in just about all of literature. Great Expectations' Pip had more control over his destiny. There's the feckless moderate-racist conservative liberalism in the worldbuilding where being too racist or too anti-slavery is bad, but somewhere in the middle on both is normal and good.
Like, compare them to another hyped/popular series - Tolkien's ring saga. They have obvious old-school racism - skin color and eye shape of humans makes them agents or allies of Mordor, and it's not even explained if they're GASP halfbreed offpsring of orcs or if their moral corruption just made them less European-looking (or vice versa). But, other than that, the plot, characters, and worldbuilding are unassailable - at least for a fantasy children's story. Antagonists like Denethor or Saruman aren't evil for the sake of being evil, they have complex life stories and motivations. Victories are tinged with tragedy, losses are marked by heroic sacrifice. There's magic in the world, but it's not a get-out-of-jail-free plot device.
I get having a soft spot for HP if it's the first real book you read. Rereading the books from my childhood I find them way worse than I remembered (and they were the classics of the 19th and 20th centuries! /humblebrag). But you have to recognize their problems too.
Harry Potter was literally the first book I read by myself, when I was like 8 or 9. They aren't young adult (except maybe the last few). They're for children. They may not be original, but to a kid they are extremely engaging. I never said they're the best, but their enormous popularity is because they know how to push all the right buttons of a kid who's the same age as the characters and they don't take themselves too seriously.
I just don't know why everyone here has to hate the silly children's fantasy books so fucking much. Obviously JKR is a big sack of shit, but you literally recommended Ender's Game. And the brand HP has grown into is bloated and terrible, especially the newest movies, but the originally books do what they set out to do well.
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They just aren't that bad. They're fine children's novels. There's a reason they got so many kids passionate about reading. I don't have much fondness or nostalgia for them now but it's because those books got me so excited to read that I'm a huge reader now and am working on my first fantasy novel.
I find them engaging and and with elements worthy of praise - my hate is much more so for Rowling herself and the marketing/movies/HP culture, which is cringetopia mixed with commercialism of the worst sort.
But there are also major flaws with the book series. And maybe they wouldn't be so bad in a vacuum, but compared to the marketing claims and the outsized influence on culture and literature and the upbringing of children - they deserve all the criticism they get. (It's not some obscure series, it's sold as THE book series.) There's the black-and-white characters that are either totally brave and good and kind and the evil characters, that literally enjoy torturing children or are just fat/gross/stupid/ignorant/selfish all at once. There's the main character that's the blandest and weakest and most pointless in just about all of literature. Great Expectations' Pip had more control over his destiny. There's the feckless moderate-racist conservative liberalism in the worldbuilding where being too racist or too anti-slavery is bad, but somewhere in the middle on both is normal and good.
Like, compare them to another hyped/popular series - Tolkien's ring saga. They have obvious old-school racism - skin color and eye shape of humans makes them agents or allies of Mordor, and it's not even explained if they're GASP halfbreed offpsring of orcs or if their moral corruption just made them less European-looking (or vice versa). But, other than that, the plot, characters, and worldbuilding are unassailable - at least for a fantasy children's story. Antagonists like Denethor or Saruman aren't evil for the sake of being evil, they have complex life stories and motivations. Victories are tinged with tragedy, losses are marked by heroic sacrifice. There's magic in the world, but it's not a get-out-of-jail-free plot device.
I get having a soft spot for HP if it's the first real book you read. Rereading the books from my childhood I find them way worse than I remembered (and they were the classics of the 19th and 20th centuries! /humblebrag). But you have to recognize their problems too.