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Bash Harry Potter Haters & Critics!

The "X-Files" for PS1 is not bad. I am glad there were cheat sheets for the ending though because I was not able to end the stupid thing. If the truth be told, I am still not finished with it even with the cheat sheet! Bummer!
 
back to harry potter, I think all of Rowling's books ARE literature. Look at what she has done. She has created her own word, uses language exceptionally and makes up her own language! Spells, animals, places, people, is this not what a great writer creates? Take, George Orwell for example. Of course animals dont talk and walk but is it not good writing because its not real? Orwell's 1984 creates a whole new futuristic world with different governemnt parties, and creates newspeak and all this stuff! Andrew Burgess who wrote A Clockwork Orange created his own language that teenagers use called "nadsat" and today thats what he is known for. He could put the words of the alphabet together like no other. Come on guys, give credit where credit is due.
 
dont argue with this guy said:
back to harry potter, I think all of Rowling's books ARE literature. Look at what she has done. She has created her own word, uses language exceptionally and makes up her own language! Spells, animals, places, people, is this not what a great writer creates? Take, George Orwell for example. Of course animals dont talk and walk but is it not good writing because its not real? Orwell's 1984 creates a whole new futuristic world with different governemnt parties, and creates newspeak and all this stuff! Andrew Burgess who wrote A Clockwork Orange created his own language that teenagers use called "nadsat" and today thats what he is known for. He could put the words of the alphabet together like no other. Come on guys, give credit where credit is due.

Good point, but unlike Orwell I don't think her work is an allegory for modern culture.
 
dont argue with this guy said:
back to harry potter, I think all of Rowling's books ARE literature. Look at what she has done. She has created her own word, uses language exceptionally and makes up her own language! Spells, animals, places, people, is this not what a great writer creates? Take, George Orwell for example. Of course animals dont talk and walk but is it not good writing because its not real? Orwell's 1984 creates a whole new futuristic world with different governemnt parties, and creates newspeak and all this stuff! Andrew Burgess who wrote A Clockwork Orange created his own language that teenagers use called "nadsat" and today thats what he is known for. He could put the words of the alphabet together like no other. Come on guys, give credit where credit is due.

She may be a good writer in your opinion but from what pages I have flipped through she is average at best. There are SOOOOOO many better fantasy writers out there. Its a shame that you have to make fantasy geared for children to make it as a fantasy writer. It has nothing to do with having to make real stories. I for one never read non fiction. It has to do with making realistic stories. It has to do with making them beleiveable and she just did not do that for me. Any time you write fantasy in a modern setting you run into the problems of intigrating that fantasy and making it part of the real world. Unfortunatly she just didnt do it. Wizards practicing magic in the real world are bound to be noticed now and again. We have spy satilites and EYES for goodness sakes. This is the age of the cellphone camera. Secrets are damned hard to keep in this day and age. But it is possible to keep them, you just have to try. She, in my opinion did not try. Her world goes unnoticed. And the only explenation you get is "Magic" sorry that doesnt cut it.

She falls into the same pit alot of fantasy novelists do. She spends the entire time, intracatly answering the question of 'How' but spends little to no time answering the question of 'why.'

Tolkien did a wonderful job of answering 'why' he did it with books like The Silmarriloin and other Middleearth history novels. He made a history and a background for every little tiny detail in his novels. Characters that only appeared for a page in Lord of the Rings have 2 to 3 pages of history somewhere. That sort of attention to detail is required when putting together your own world.

What I want to know about her books are things like "Where does magic come from?" "Why is it important that it is hidden from the world?" The explanation of "People fear what they do not understand" isnt good enough. People DONT fear what they dont understand. I dont know the first **** thing about modern rocketry but I dont want to string up Rocket scientists and burn them. We as a society have grown beyond the witch burning stage. The "Mage the Awakening" series of games gives a very good answer to why humanity cant know of magic. If a human so much as sees magic happen all sorts of things go wrong with the spell and somthing called paradox is introduced. Many Many pages in those books go into detail as to exactly why humans cannot know of Magic.

She tries to integrate of world of Magic into the modern world and then trys desprately to still keep them separate. Children and some young adults do not see the "Why's" and dont care either way. Details do not concern them, only the here and now. But as a reader grows older a writer simply cannot just assume that the reader is just going to fall into the story and forget the rest. To write a proper fantasy novel for adults you have to make it challenge an adult mind. She wrote these books for children and thats fine with me. I think the fact that so many adults have been sucked into them is representative of how little modern TV and Schools challenge adult minds. People have grown accustomed to easy literature. I have not, and that is why Harry Potter just does not intrest me.

If you want a good Fantasy/scifi novelist try Dan Abnett his work is increadably deep and well established. Robert Reed's "Sister Alice" is an amizing work of science fiction. Or you can go back to the classics of the Dragon Lance series or Forgotten Realms. Or for you scifi nuts like me, Issac Azimov!

So ends my rant.
 
*shrug* nothing is perfect. I don't think you need the why...plus, the real why wasn't that people feared what they didn't understand, but because the wizards didn't want to be overrun with normal people wanting magical solutions to all their problems.
 
Personally if I have to put a lot of brain power into understanding a fantasy or other story I'm reading for casual purpose then it won't last. Not only do I not mind having to suspend some of the oft-overused analytical parts of my mind but I typically prefer it. If I want something more serious I read Shakespeare or Poe or Hemingway or I'll go put on some classical or something. Sure her world isn't perfect, I've yet to find one that is that doesn't bore me to tears (and even the boring ones can be nit-picked, they tend to be more often by me because I'm bored). But it does have enough original aspects & enough of being able to tell an interesting story at a level a kid can understand yet put together well enough to have an adult audience that I enjoy 'em. She's invented a whole sport with rules & methods & a fandom that could rival football (either type) to an extent.

I see how it's not liked by some, no one can please everyone. The ones who go out of their way to try & debunk it though tend to confuse me.
 
Well I don't really hate the movie I just never got into it the way others have. I personally like Lord of the Rings and the Matrix more. But even in those movies had to see them more than once to get a full understanding of certain parts of the movies.
 
Sailor Kenshin said:
Sounds like it's not a lot of fun to be you....

Its great fun to be me! The thing is I have been reading fantasy and sci fi for a while now and I have a very good idea of what I like and what I dont like. I have been a student of liturature all my life and I have very high standards as to what makes a good book, as, unfortunatly, lately, the commonly accepted standard for literature has declined dramatically.
 
Yea I really watch the hell out of the SciFi channel. Especially those SciFi Friday's.
 
Chrisl0 said:
Yea I really watch the hell out of the SciFi channel. Especially those SciFi Friday's.

Hell I probably know every Godzilla monster ever shown on t.v. My aunt watchs SciFi 24 hours a day seriously.
 
I wonder if there will be a sequel to the 2000 Godzilla where he and/or she laid eggs in Madison Square Garden but the government forgot to destroy the last egg at the end of the movie.
 
It's possible but I doubt it. But of course I could be wrong. It sounds like they forgot about the movie. Guess they decided to largely keep that movie stuck in the 20th century and move on to something else.
 
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