potterverse

It was 20 years ago today, J.K. Rowling taught the boy to play ... Quidditch.

So it's a good occasion to consider one's experience with the series. Scalzi has done so; I've put my remarks in comments and will expand upon them here.

I think it was a couple years into the Harry Potter phenomenon that I finally got around to reading the first book. I found it a charming, sprightly children’s story that I enjoyed a good deal. But the sequels, slowly – books 2 and 3 were OK – I found more and more pompous and draggy and overwritten, so that early in book 5 I gave up. Others may say they got more adult. Maybe, but I’ve read lots of adult fantasies without the same difficulties. That’s my taste. Yours may differ.

I did cheat and read a few chunks from the last two books - including the infamous "birdbath of doom" scene from book 6 - just to keep up on the story.

Needless to say, I'd read other - and better - "school for wizards" stories before. Still, it's a phenomenon whose success I don't begrudge.

I can name all 7 Chronicles of Narnia in either canonical order. I doubt I could name off-hand all 7 Chronicles of Harry in any order. One problem I had even with the books I liked was that the plots were so similar I could not remember which thing happened in which book.

I watched the first couple movies, and found them different from the books in roughly the same ways that Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies were different from the book. Scalzi likes this. I don’t.

What I did like, however, was Harry Potter the Vampire Slayer, a video taking the songs from Buffy's musical episode and setting them with clips taken from the Potter movies. The correlations don't always fit and aren't always consistent, but I enjoyed the attempt. Harry is Buffy, yes; Ron and Hermione are Xander and Anya, of course, but Luna is also Anya and Hermione is also Willow; Harry is Willow so that Ginny can be Tara, but she's also Dawn; Dumbledore is Giles; Draco is Spike; Voldemort is Sweet; and holy umbridge, Prof. Trelawney is Parking Ticket Woman! Click here and you should be able to watch the whole thing.