This just actually crossed my mind (of course, because i am so set in my blasphemous ways), what attracts you to Harry Potter (no not Radcliffe you sick perverted slash loving FREAKS) but the actual books.

I love them because i've been obsessed with magic ever since i was little, i can't even begin to count how many magic wands i made from sticks over the years (most recently....it was a paintbrush, LOL). Anyways, yea, what initially drew you into the Harry Potter world??????????

 

Cho Chang...

Yes, I'm kidding...sort of. Honestly, just the richness of the entire universe that Roaling his created. I find the very idea of a whole society of wizards and witches existing in the modern day under the radar of everybody else in the world to be absolutely fascinating.

 

I always liked fantasy books, you know like Dragonlance.

 

Personally I like modern mythology, and harry Potter is just that... Modern mythology. It's also why I like Star Wars and LOTR so damned much.

Plus the first few books were well written... Sadly, the last 2 haven't been.

DAMN YOU JKR, YOU KILLED SIRIUS!!!

 

Dragonlance kicks ass.


Well I wasn't drawn to it so much as got fucking tired of hearing about it, and picked up the first 4 books to see what the hell was so decent about it.

Read them all to my kids, watched the movies with them, and was not impressed at all. I forgot all about this pathetic world.

Then I stumbled on fanfiction, after reading on of the fake OOTP stories circulating on the bittorrent sites before it was really released. I found the fake story to be worlds better then the bullshit Rowling pulled, and have been a fan of fanfics since then.

SO I guess you could say JKR didn't draw me in, because I'm disgusted by her plot holes every other third damned sentence, her lack of character depth, her continuity errors, he unimaginative ripping off of D&D for some things (Lich/Horcrux Voldemort! yay!) etc, etc.

It's all about the good fanfics where Harry's not a utter bitch, where background info is revealed that is actually useful, fics that actually ACCOMPLISH something other then the end of the year fight, pointless Quidditch matches, whiny retarded Ron, etc.

 

Agreed.

 

I had to read it in my English class and write a paper about it. After reading book one and finding it expectable I started to read the other books.

 

I'm inclined to agree with Midknight.

I didn't read the books because...well they seemed awful. Poorly written?

I stumbled across a HP fiction my sister was reading and although I had no idea what it was talking about, it looked better than the anime stories I had been reading. So I just read the books to read the fanfiction.

Although, I will say that JK Rowling can be captivating, but so can alot of childrens books. It doesn't mean they are written well.

(and yes, Dragonlance does kick ass!)

-exile

 

Ripping off D&D? You do know many things in D&D are based on preexisting occultism and fantasy, right? And Rowling has likely never played D&D. She's ripped off things, I'm not denying that, but she's ripped off much older and time tested things than a RPG.

I was drawn into HP because my mum was reading the first 4 books to my cousin, and it seemed alright when I listened in (amongst the snide sarcastic remarks I made), so I looked into it and discovered 2 things. 1- Fanfiction, and 2- The author was kinda hot for an author. The rest is history.

When I first heard about it though, I was always making fun of it. I was sent to get Goblet for her when it first came out, and I thought it was really gay (having to get a book about some fairy wizard kid). I think the potential for escapism, with the lower threshhold of language (its less dense than say, LOTR), makes it more accessable than most fantasy, and the whole 'youre special and part of this amazing place normal people aremt' kinda pulls at the ego and you start thinking what you would do if it happened to you.

 

And full of strange plot holes.

 

I'd like to see how many other places liches phylactery (spelling is bad atm i'm multitasking =P ) come from occult. yes I know they're there, but unless she's ripping off some very dark books, I'd have to say that came from DnD.

We've already had a thread where the occult and mythological origins of some of the things were discussed, so I'm not bothering to go into it more here.

She's a hack, who created a good idea of a secret wizarding world in the near modern times, and then populated it by ripping off mythological, occult and yes D&D books. You don't have to play it (I never have) to have looked through the monster books (excellent illustrations), or summaries of stories. (come thehell on a boy hero who is a pussy just suddenly has a prophecy told that makes him the killer of the eviliest man in awhile??)

 

I find it more likely, hack or not, that she did read some very dark occultist texts than read some game book (there, I clarified, happy?). I didn't even know there was such a thing (D&D monster books), and I doubt a young(ish) single mom in the UK is more likely to know about them than a 20-something male like me. The UK has a much richer occultist history than America, and I'm inclined to believe someone who has studied other occultist history also looked at 'rather dark' texts as well. Voldie is evil and all... and she never used the word lich, did she? Are you referring to the zombies, or Voldies near dead but alive state? Zombies , near dead states... either way, I've read up on both, and never cracked open a D&D book. I think you are trying too hard to apply her knowledge to something you are familiar with (no offense). I agree shes a hack, and rips off stuff, but I find it hard to believe D&D is a likely candidate for her research. If I'm wrong, so be it... I'm just trying to be practical. D&D is pretty ultra-geeky, I just can't imagine her being in a library or bookstore and skipping over the occult section in favour of game books/storys/whatever.

 

Actually no I'm not familiar with pen and paper D&D other then looking through the monster manuals when I need ideas for monsters to emulate in fics I've helped with. The Dragonlance novles however are an offshoot from D&D and are widley read over the last 20 years. If she is into wizards, she HAS read these books, or at least Forgotten realms, etc.

A horcrux is the exact same thing as a liches phylactery, to the T. I find a school teacher reading dark occult texts to be a much, much farther stretch, then her picking up a Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms,( or one of the various other novel series that number in the several with scores of books each)


http://www.google.com/search?hs=wvT...:en-US:official&q=phylactery+lich&btnG=Search


I understand where you get your ultra-geek thought process from, the pen and paper games ppl think when they hear D&D, but trust me, theres nearly 500+ books out there that I can think of really that carry a D&D background of some sort.

Its a difference of opinion, but I wanted to point out there are much more similarites to various TSR/Wizards of the Coast novels, then there are to weird, off the wall occult manuals, not to mention the former is easier to find.

Its got nothing to do with applying her pathetic knowledge to things I am familiar with, it's just you don't have to look too far into it to see the similarites between the two, when your occult book theory is a hell of a strech, considering the whole series was ass out childish until just now in HBP.


I do have to admit she may have looked at some Wiccan things, but I can't picture JKR, digging through Lovecraft and picturing Harry drawing a blood pentacle on the floor.

 

I'm interested in magic and HP, and I've never heard of Dragonlance or any of those other things. I agree to disagree, because I stand by what I said. Lovecraft, though I'm not a fan, is more well known to me, and everyone I know than the things you mentioned. Lovecraft is something someone researching for a book on magic (which includes black magic, even if Harry was never meant to use it himself) would look into. The way you're phrasing it, it sounds like those other things are popular enough, but for someone like me who wasn't introduced to them (until now) I can't say she would be more inclined to use them for research than classics like Lovecraft or even some obscure grimoires. I guess I'm guilty of going with what I know like I accused you of, but I know Lovecraft, I know King Solomon, I know obscure middle-age to turn of the century writings that anyone researching the occult would have pretty easy access to in the last decade. I don't know monster books, Dragonlance, or anything else like that. When I researched the occult (with much less motivation than Rowling, I'm sure), I went to the sources I (and you) listed that you think unlikely. Why you find them unlikely, yet find things I'venever heard of likely, I'm not sure, but well... I don't think either of us is changing their minds from the look of things.

 

There is no use of even arguing about this.

Everything is a ripoff!

For example: Tolkin ripped off Norse mythology. Of course, we could choose to believe he was trying to bring the old ways back through fantasy, but it doesn't desolve the fact that it wasn't *just* his idea.

I'm a firm believer in 'There is no imagination, just inspiration.' And so far, I haven't seen a inch of proof to desolve my belief.

*looks at post* Geesh, I'm probably just adding salt to a wound.

 

I agree, so thanks for pointing that out, because that's where I would have gone if we kept it up. "Maybe she did read D&D, but D&D was a ripoff, anyway!" :wink:

 

Aye, not changing my mind and I agree to disagree. Seeing as you admited you're not familiar with the novels I listed, many of those books are well over 15-20 years old, and more then 30 or so are in their upper teens/early twenties reprinting cycles. They're good reads and you need to check them out, if you like very intricate worlds with backstory so large it'd choke a horse

I have read glances of the type of texts you talk about, but I often find them taking themselves too seriously for me to be comfortable reading. I just feel that as lazy ass as she is, she'd take the route that was easily and available to her, in the TSR world of the 1980's-1990s rather then dig through older texts. Here is a link to wikipedia where just by reading the description of a lich based of off ADAD you can see why I stand by my opinion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich

Going recently through the net I found liches go even further back then Egypt then I thought, to ancient sumeria where a person could put their soul in a item to become immortal, so whee learned something else new today.

No one was aruging, we were presenting our ideas in text, which is the whole point of discussion. If we all though alike, not including Charlie and Gio, who are two very deeply disturbed people, it wouldn't be fun!

On the note of Tolkien though, that man was obsessed researching everything he could and even coming up with his own language for several books,