Harry Potter: Overrated?

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I had a hard time relating to it in the way some of my friends did.

[Morienthar]

I think it's pretty good,Rowling is a better writer than most people out there but she is just prone to stagnant narratives in the middle of books,But I guess that's what you get for writing within the school year.

[Tears of Lys]

If you like the series, it's not overrated. If you don't like it, then it is.

:dunno:

[felice]

Ah, HPMOR....now we can talk about works being overrated. ;-)

Blasphemy! Burn the heretic!

[Spaßvogel]

I had to stop reading about halfway into the first book because I was sick of almost every sentence being a cliche. I have been told that her writing improved vastly as the series went on. I guess I will never know.

[Darth Richard]

Saying Rowlings writing is cliche has become a cliche.

[Sci-2]

Blasphemy! Burn the heretic!

IMO it really is, despite loving how incredible a work it is from an educational and fan fiction standpoint.

But it's still fan fiction, and thus derivative. I actually find it annoying how people credit revising someone else's world building with the same level of regard as actual world building

I've other criticisms but I do want to reiterate it's still an incredible story in many ways, and I hope Less Wrong considers putting out some original material.

[DDaal]

Loved the Harry Potter series, definitly not overrated, the books that is, the movies, yes, overrated.

[felice]

But it's still fan fiction, and thus derivative. I actually find it annoying how people credit revising someone else's world building with the same level of regard as actual world building

Everything is derivative. Virtually all fiction could be described as real-world fanfic (even secondary world stuff generally takes massive amounts of material from Real Earth). And I would say there's just as much original worldbuilding in HPMoR as there is in Rowling's work. For a start, Harry and Quirrel are effectively original characters, sharing little more than names with their canon counterparts, while Hermione, Draco, and other secondary characters are far more developed in HPMoR. But they do very different sorts of world building; Rowling is obviously better at coming up with wild ideas, but Eliezer actually thinks about those ideas and their ramifications far more, and builds a world that actually makes some kind of sense. They make an excellent team!

I hope Less Wrong considers putting out some original material.

I believe some of this is "original": http://yudkowsky.net/other/fiction - I haven't actually read any of it yet, but I really should.

[SerStinger]

Harry Potter is both overrated and underrated. It's overrated by people who treat it as the best literature of entertainment ever, it's underrated by people who claim it's garbage.

Basically, these are the good things about Harry Potter: imagination, its draw, Severus Snape, supporting cast.

Bad things: Harry himself, book seven, its happy ending.

[Stark Revenge]

Do you think that the Harry Potter series is overrated and receives more attention than it deserves, why?

HP is so overrated! It was only pure chance it sold as well as it did! It ripped off everything from Lord of the Rings and dumbed it down into the most retarded way ever!

[Dragonstar]

Well seen through the rear view mirror, yes HP was definitely over-rated. At the time I remember being so intrigued by the possibilities at the end of HP book 6. I thought that was maybe the best in the series, with the fate of that universe so pitched towards darkness. I think the last minute additions of plot action in book 7 cheapened all the character and narrative that had built up. And the denouement at the end was a little too pat and cliched.

However its important to remember that it was written and conceived as young-adult/children's fiction. And for kids that grew up reading it, it conjures up not just the story but memories of years spent awaiting the books, reading them, discussing them, waiting for the next one.

[Sci-2]

Everything is derivative.

It's a bit different when your hook to get readers interested is a breaking down of someone else's world building.

Less Wrong's fan fiction is possibly the best fan fiction ever written, but people seem to forget that he's standing rather squarely on Rowling's shoulders. The initial grounding of the work depends on Rowling's writing, not on his own creations.

[Shryke]

Did HPMOR ever go anywhere beyond poking holes in Rowlings' worldbuilding and laughing?

[Darth Richard]

HP is so overrated! It was only pure chance it sold as well as it did! It ripped off everything from Lord of the Rings and dumbed it down into the most retarded way ever!

Ug, That wasn't a joke, was it?

Everything is derivative could be used to defend Eragon. So.

[felice]

Less Wrong's fan fiction is possibly the best fan fiction ever written, but people seem to forget that he's standing rather squarely on Rowling's shoulders.

And Rowling is standing on the shoulders of Enid Blyton; the world of Harry Potter is very much Malory Towers crossed with the Faraway Tree, and the addition of a "deprived young boy finds out he's the chosen one and goes on to defeat the dark lord" plot doesn't add many originality points. Rowling tells a great story with a mixture of very familiar ingredients; her strengths are different from Less Wrong's, but I'm not convinced she's any more original. Books like the Mists of Avalon and the Fionavar Tapestry doesn't generally get written off as fanfic, but the only difference is their source material is older.

[felice]

Did HPMOR ever go anywhere beyond poking holes in Rowlings' worldbuilding and laughing?

Far beyond. And IMAO it was laughing just as much at Harry's difficulty in coping with the weirdness of the wizarding world.

[Castel]

Far beyond. And IMAO it was laughing just as much at Harry's difficulty in coping with the weirdness of the wizarding world.

Have they left the first year yet, because I remember people saying that they had only just gotten to the sections involving the troll.

[mysig]

i read the malory towers books right before i jumped into the chamber of secrets (as a child on the cusp of adolescence) and while my recollection's a bit hazy, about the only thing in common between the two was a certain playfulness that i'd argue is characteristic of the british young adult tradition in general

blyton's boarding school was entrenched in an old-world, colonial charm (and being a student at a similar sort of place in the 'colonies' i was very conscious of that, even as a kid) whereas the harry potter books felt decidedly modern in their outlook.

i mean, i am sure if you go looking for intertextuality you will find it in spades but in my opinion that's not the same as borrowing someone's setting, characters and using them to spin your own tale. nothing wrong with it per se but one's gotta make a distinction between influences and derivatives

[felice]

Have they left the first year yet

I don't think the story is going to span multiple years; apparently there's only one more major arc to go.

i read the malory towers books right before i jumped into the chamber of secrets (as a child on the cusp of adolescence) and while my recollection's a bit hazy, about the only thing in common between the two was a certain playfulness that i'd argue is characteristic of the british young adult tradition in general

Ok, you've read Malory Towers rather more recently than me 8) But a large chunk of the Harry Potter world is straight out of old boarding school stories of that type, with dorms and common rooms and houses and an obsession with a strange sport and structured around the school year. A lot of the magic is just window dressing over that structure. And I find a lot of the magical stuff and whimsical characters to be very reminiscent of the Faraway Tree (though I haven't read that in a very long time either), including the magical sweets. The main plots are more Famous Five/Adventure series. Harry Potter does venture into somewhat darker territory, but it's aimed at an older age group (increasingly so as it progresses).

one's gotta make a distinction between influences and derivatives

Does one? It can be pretty fuzzy. What do you think of Mists of Avalon and other Arthurian-based stories?