Why I Am (Not) Inspired by Harry Potter

My 2021 Reflection: Oh how things change! Written almost 10 years ago, I forgot I was even a fan of Harry Potter. Since first writing this post, I know the opinion of JK Rowling has changed somewhat, especially considering some comments she made. My opinion of her and her books really hasn’t changed, but in reality, I don’t know how I feel about authors becoming the major success story in the way that she has become. Truth is, it actually doesn’t happen that much. What I can say that stories have their own momentum, and no matter how I feel about Harry Potter and its author, this one sure got some legs and ran with its success.

I know by posting this I run the risk of losing some of my followers and readers, so, for you, Harry Potter fans out there, I highly suggest you skip my blog post this time because I would still love for you to continue reading my blog.

*looks around* Are they gone?

For the rest of you, and for you Harry Potter fans who have continued reading out of morbid curiosity, you may be surprised to know that I am not a fan of Harry Potter. Yes, I said it. I don’t like the Harry Potter series.

Now, before you begin organizing a protest against me, let me explain. I used to be a Harry Potter fan. I got all the way up to Prisoner of Azkaban and then….I stopped. And I’m not sure why. With the final Harry Potter movie out on the big screen and all my friends, fellow bloggers, and movie critics praising wonderful things about the last movie, it has made me stop and think about the reasons behind why I am uninspired by Harry Potter.

I will say this: it is a great book. I loved it when it first came out. It just made me want to go to a train station and run into the nearest brick wall. But things changed for me, though. Maybe it was the media hype. Maybe it was the commercialization. Or maybe it happened when the movies started coming out and kids as young as six or seven were in Barnes and Noble dressed up as the characters from the book.

A few months ago, when I was mentoring freshman during my senior year of college, I told a student that I used to be a fan of Harry Potter until it got really popular, and she said, “Oh, you’re one of those?”

Well, maybe I am.

At some point between the series appearing on bookshelves, and the movies showing up in the theaters, my opinion of J.K. Rowling and the world she created changed. She is a wonderful writer, but I hated the idea of her selling out for this type of commercial mess.

Here’s where I get confused because that isn’t how I feel about plenty of other books-into-movies types of authors. To this day, I still enjoy reading books by Stephen King. Just look at the number of his books made into movies, such as Christine, Carrie, Shawshank Redemption, and The Shining, just to name a few. All of these are classics, and I’ve seen all of those movies and enjoy them. I remember when the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, which inspired my major crush on Aragorn. Not only that, but it inspired me to not only read the entire series, it even inspired me to write a fantasy novel  Well, a good majority of one).

Not once did these movies change my opinion of Stephen King or J.R.R. Tolkien the way Harry Potter films changed my opinion of J.K. Rowling. The thing is you rarely saw a bunch of people in a prom dress covered in blood walking around a bookstore, or a guy so obsessed with his car that it becomes more of a romantic relationship than a human-machine relationship (okay, maybe that one is a bit more common).

You get my point, right? What is it about J.K. Rowling’s success that bothers me? The thing is you almost never see pictures of Stephen King or J.R.R. Tolkien strutting the red carpet. And come to think of it, how often do you think of the author attached to the movie on the screen? For example, how many of you saw In Her Shoes? Did you immediately know the writer attached to that movie? Maybe some of you did, maybe a lot of you didn’t, but for me, I saw a great film. Much later, I realized there was a book attached to it, and then found a great writer that I enjoyed reading (and I love when that happens).

I guess it is a bit different for J.K. Rowling. She created a world that inspired kids everywhere to feel comfortable reading 600-page novels. I mean, how can anyone resent her for that?

I guess I just don’t like the hype. I do like the idea of the author of novels staying behind the scenes and I don’t like being a witness to millions of dollars being made off of something that should have stayed rich in the literary world.

Or maybe I don’t like there being this rags-to-riches story attached to the writing world. The writing world is hard enough as it is, so when I hear that story about how she started writing this book in a coffee shop on the napkins, I die a little inside. I mean, why don’t we just say that she wrote out her first novel in her own blood?

So, I’m not sure I can quite work out why I feel the way I do, but today I’m inspired to write because of the writer that I hope to become. While I hope for the literary world that I create to be so real that people dress up as my characters on Halloween, I don’t wish that my books become so popular that it becomes all people hope that I write. I am inspired to write today because of the slow climb to success that I think most writers face. A climb that I have a strange admiration for. 

And you know what? I’m inspired to write because I’m not wishing a tearful farewell to the world of Harry Potter (that I still feel sold out to Disney). Okay, my last cynical comment, I swear.

 But, really, am I so alone?

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