Harry Potter: The Superior Series
by Kaitlyn Hartburg
A couple of weeks ago my day started just like any other. I met by my one of my friends lockers to talk and the conversation eventually turned to Potter. I couldn’t help it! You know how it is, eventually everything comes back to Potter and my boyfriend wasn’t there yet so I had to tell my other friends that I was going to use the Harry getting the Invisibility Cloak scene as my holiday reading in my speech class. As per usual they simply rolled their eyes and started to turn the conversation away again. This was totally normal. However later that day in my last class of the day I got into one of my patented Harry Potter versus Lord of the Rings debates with one of my friends. At least one of these conversations tends to happen in a week, but nothing of this caliber. My level of devotion to Harry Potter is equal to if not greater than my friend’s level of devotion to Lord of the Rings. But surprisingly our conversation became much more intense than usual. It turned from a mere discussion of plot points to a conversation about which author is seemingly superior to the other. Trying to end the conversation, I suggested that the two could not in essence be compared. In reality, I stand by this statement.
In true honesty, I have never read the Lord of the Rings books but I have seen the movies. My friend has never finished the Harry Potter books but he watched a few of the movies. So neither of us has an unbiased view of the others favorite. A different, literature obsessed friend of mine has read both and told me that the two cannot be compared but that she felt that “JRR Tolkien was not man enough to kill off his characters.” Unfortunately I made the mistake of telling my LOTR friend this little quote. Wow, was that throwing fuel on the fire! Luckily the bell rang and I quickly escaped to find shelter in the comforting arms of my boyfriend who is neither a great Harry Potter enthusiast or a Lord of the Rings fan. (God bless him, he has never seen the LOTR movies. I know I know I’ve found the one!) After I got home that afternoon and I was beginning to work on my homework, I kept thinking of counter arguments to everything that had been said in the argument. I really wanted to just call him and yell about how HP is far superior and all one has to do is look at the number of fans and reviews that each has to know the truth. My friend has already pointed out how in his opinion that LOTR has had more of a lasting effect than HP (never mind the fact that Lord of the Rings came out in 1954 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997…) I told him to wait 50 years and then try to compare the lasting effect. Even after coming up with my counterpoints, I decided to tell them to my boyfriend who advised me to let it go. And so I did.
Until a week later, when my friend came walking into our last class of the day, sat down, turned to me and said “I have a response to your statement in our argument last week.” I had to shake my head to make sure I had heard him right. I had. Wow, a week later and he was still arguing this. His response was how JRR Tolkien did kill his characters. Jeez, I don’t think he fully understood. It wasn’t that Tolkien didn’t kill his characters; it was that he became too attached to his own characters and that got in the way of the story. I simply shook my head and concentrated on taking notes that period so that I would not turn around to yell at him. When the bell finally rang and I was liberated, I all but grabbed my things and sprinted out of the door. I was a bit surprised with the enthusiasm with which he kept this argument going. It doesn’t matter because I will never agree but I must say that I was a bit envious of the luster with which he was willing to continue an argument that had died a week before hand. But that does not matter because it is a moot point. Harry Potter has better writing, better plot points, better movies, and is more tied to together in the end then Lord of the Rings. The final conclusion to any Harry Potter versus Lord of the Rings argument is this: Harry is by far superior and Dumbledore could kill Gandalf in a duel! Happy Reading to All!
In true honesty, I have never read the Lord of the Rings books but I have seen the movies. My friend has never finished the Harry Potter books but he watched a few of the movies. So neither of us has an unbiased view of the others favorite. A different, literature obsessed friend of mine has read both and told me that the two cannot be compared but that she felt that “JRR Tolkien was not man enough to kill off his characters.” Unfortunately I made the mistake of telling my LOTR friend this little quote. Wow, was that throwing fuel on the fire! Luckily the bell rang and I quickly escaped to find shelter in the comforting arms of my boyfriend who is neither a great Harry Potter enthusiast or a Lord of the Rings fan. (God bless him, he has never seen the LOTR movies. I know I know I’ve found the one!) After I got home that afternoon and I was beginning to work on my homework, I kept thinking of counter arguments to everything that had been said in the argument. I really wanted to just call him and yell about how HP is far superior and all one has to do is look at the number of fans and reviews that each has to know the truth. My friend has already pointed out how in his opinion that LOTR has had more of a lasting effect than HP (never mind the fact that Lord of the Rings came out in 1954 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997…) I told him to wait 50 years and then try to compare the lasting effect. Even after coming up with my counterpoints, I decided to tell them to my boyfriend who advised me to let it go. And so I did.
Until a week later, when my friend came walking into our last class of the day, sat down, turned to me and said “I have a response to your statement in our argument last week.” I had to shake my head to make sure I had heard him right. I had. Wow, a week later and he was still arguing this. His response was how JRR Tolkien did kill his characters. Jeez, I don’t think he fully understood. It wasn’t that Tolkien didn’t kill his characters; it was that he became too attached to his own characters and that got in the way of the story. I simply shook my head and concentrated on taking notes that period so that I would not turn around to yell at him. When the bell finally rang and I was liberated, I all but grabbed my things and sprinted out of the door. I was a bit surprised with the enthusiasm with which he kept this argument going. It doesn’t matter because I will never agree but I must say that I was a bit envious of the luster with which he was willing to continue an argument that had died a week before hand. But that does not matter because it is a moot point. Harry Potter has better writing, better plot points, better movies, and is more tied to together in the end then Lord of the Rings. The final conclusion to any Harry Potter versus Lord of the Rings argument is this: Harry is by far superior and Dumbledore could kill Gandalf in a duel! Happy Reading to All!
Content Management Powered by CuteNews
