Why did Harry Potter become so popular?

[KindergartenKop]

I'm not a huge fan personally, but I think they're quite well written. I'm not sure they deserve all the hype though. So why did they become so popular?

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

The right idea at the right time, combined with luck.

This

That's not to take anything away from them. Both male and female protagonists, a word with no parents, magic. Unpredictability. Everything a kid wants.

@HowardNoir

They were great for all ages- particularly teen-20s as they were grown up enough to watch with friends but still had some childish magic. The books weren't great but are fine when you've watched the film. Shit author ruined it though

@HowardNoir How so? She is a great writer and passionate about women's safety and rights. She is a great role model for girls in particular.

I think it's a combination of a great writer who can connect with people, and a fantasy world that is so richly detailed that you can actually visualise yourself there.

Also of late JKR becoming a feminist who fights for the safety and wellbeing of women and girls in a world where women are increasingly losing our rights due to misogyny and Meninist violence and abuse. People like her are role models for all girls and is prepared to stand up for what is right and just.

I wonder how many of the people criticising the books fir being badly written are best selling authors?

They're children's books.

That's reminded me of Martin Amis saying 'Only brain injury could make me write for children'

I hated that quote. It implies you can expect a lower standard of writing from authors who write for children, when I think the standard and quality of writing among kids' writers is as varied as it is for adult's fiction.

I remember waiting for the release of the later books. There sss something quite magic about the excitement of it. I remember being on a forum where there were thousands of threads about fan theories etc. knowing that no-one knew sparked off imagination and creativity as to what would happen next etc. I’m looking forward to when I can share the books with my children.

I can still remember the hype of the last book, I'd ordered it and was 22 and amongst a whole raft of students who'd done the same. It was an exciting half real half fantasy world that was believable for children. And the characters had grown up as I did. The films came along and were much better than many book to screen adaptations.

The books were huge before the films came out. My artsy, book loving, finger on the pulse uncle was telling us how good they were after the first book was released. I'll never not listen again!

I wonder how many of the people criticising the books fir being badly written are best selling authors?

Hmmm I noticed a lot of sour grapes on this thread as well.

In my own humble opinion - the books aren't badly written. There was no 'element of luck' that made them popular.

Basically a fantastic series of childrens books that caught on initially through word of mouth.

There's always an element of luck. And that's not a criticism.

Multiple publishers rejected HP before it was published. If the first book in the series had been published a decade previously it may well have sunk without trace. And none of the subsequent installments would have been commissioned.

I began reading when I was 11 and followed through until the end of the books. I remember my Mum getting up early to go to morrisons to buy me the last book when it came out.
I suppose I feel I grew up with the characters, I love to re read them every now and again at christmas time. They are comfortable, familiar, well written and a different world to fall into.
DH asked me what I would do if neither of our DC liked Harry Potter and I think I would be a bit disappointed haha I hope atleast one of them has my love of a good book too.

If you were the right age when the first one came out. How old are you now

I'm 50. I loved the movies and cried when the last one was premiered. I loved the books too but they are so time consuming to keep reread ing.

I read the first 4 to my kids then they took over so I've never read the last 3 twice.

@DressedUpAtAnIvy

She basically brought in a fresh boarding school story that was equally popular with boys and girls when there hadn’t been a new boarding school series for ages. I don’t think they are very well written, and they are very derivative, but being so derivative is part of their appeal since they feel so familiar yet also new.

Agree with this.

Appealed to all the older generation who spent their childhoods reading Enid Blytons boarding school books and the chalet stories and the Trebizond books.

And also parents who enjoyed these would have encouraged their kids to read them because they enjoyed similar.

Also agree with the poster who said the books and films were equally as good which is often rare.

Awful lot of snobby people on this thread.

If you genuinely think that the Narnia series, Worst Witch and Mallory Towers are better than HP, go back as an adult and read them. Awful books - especially the Silver Chair

I disagree they are badly written. They are so immersive, the world is just so exciting and cool. It really is a magical world. I can imagine myself there, they are completely believable - I am still waiting on my letter

For me as a child they were the first books I read that didn't feel they were written for a child. They weren't patronising or silly, they might not be amazing prose but they are easy to read without being childish, they really spark the imagination. The characters are perfect, they are real characters who are different, and fulfill a role but without being silly caricatures. They are well developed characters.

The story also has a bit of everything. It's not just malory towers with magic. You've got the boarding school, no adults, you've also got the orphaned child maltreatment part. Bit of mischief and breaking the rules, bit of humour. Harry is not a character where things always go well or always go badly. Voledmeort is a good baddie, he is properly evil but without incessant

Personally I think she strikes the perfect balance between real and magic. The perfect balance of badness of her bad characters. The perfect balance between adult and child, dark and humour etc. And hence they appeal to everyone. I read a lot as a child, and maybe things like Phillip pullman are better books, but they are also harder to read and I don't think have stayed with me in the same way harry potter did. I have no desire to live in that world, whilst everyone wants to go to hogarth!

I’ll rewatch some of the films/reread the books when I feel low. They are like a huge comfort blanket around me. They are fabulous books. My dcs loved reading them. My rule was book first then the film.

I love how JKR stands up for women’s rights.

the way she somehow combines the joy and surrealism of magic with mundane, normal life. I absolutely love reading about Harry's day to day life including how he hates doing homework, normal teenage angst, bickering, etc

This for me. I love the characters and how real/flawed they are. She writes emotions really well and the embarrassment and awkwardness that is so prevalent in tween/teen life. I remember when Harry realised that he’d never spoken to Neville about what had happened to his parents and why he lived with his grandmother and he felt like an absolute tool. The stories are brilliant page turners and all the magical details are engaging.

I bought the first 3 in a box set when I was in my 20s, urged by a friend as I was a bit reluctant. I hadn’t heard of them at the time but was told they were huge and I’d like them. I read them in less than a week, bought the fourth immediately and queued at midnight for the fifth. I’ve re-read the first 4 a couple of times and recently listened to the whole series on audiobook. I always listen to books on my commute but HP are some of the ones where I find myself sitting in the car a few minutes longer and then putting it on in the kitchen too.

I’ve seen the movies but not too fussed about them. The kids, especially Harry, are poor and they miss out huge chunks of quite important stuff.

The books are real page turners. They got all my children reading for pleasure. Discovered them when eldest was 9. He was a good reader but more interested in comics and non-fiction until then. His teacher suggested them when I asked her for a recommendation.

If you genuinely think that the Narnia series, Worst Witch and Mallory Towers are better than HP, go back as an adult and read them. Awful books - especially the Silver Chair

I loved the narnia series as a child. Someone picked the lion, the witch and the wardrobe at my book group once and people were nostalgically enthusiastic. Next meeting we all agreed what a pile of shite it was. Others are worse. Magicians nephew has some redeeming features. Nobody reads worst witch or Malory towers as adults. I was the biggest famous five fan alive but would never revisit those. Harry Potter has fans who discovered them as adults and who have re read them as adults. Completely different league.

I'm not keen on the books myself, I've read a couple to DD and she LOVED them but they're kids stories and I'm an adult so 🤷🏻‍♀️. But they're not meant for me, they're for children and everything about them - mistreated orphans, new friendships, boarding school, magic, pets, adventure - it all hits the spot.

I will say though, I bought Troubled Blood as a gesture of support when JKR was suffering that awful, indefensible abuse and I was blown away by its brilliance. It was like being dropped into the middle of something real, I don't really know how to explain, as though I was part of the book and the sense characters were living their lives just like colleagues and neighbours and acquaintances around me and the story was where we all intersected, the rest of their lives were real and carried out off the pages. Which makes me sound nuts! But it helped me appreciate how children feel about JKR's Harry Potter books. She must be a genius

I also disagree that they were badly written. They aren't meant to be an intellectual piece of writing, just a jolly good story, which, IMO, is accessible and well written.

Could one of the posters who think it is badly written post a paragraph from one of the books and then paraphrase it in their own writing to demonstrate what "good" writing is?

@AleynEivlys

Because the stories are brilliant. Perhaps people who were already adults with plenty of literary experience when the first book came out are less likely to agree, but if you were a child, well ...!

Those who lived it will know what I mean.

I think there were many books I had really enjoyed during the first 9 years of my life, but when I was gifted a paperback copy of Philosopher's Stone, I found something inside it that I hadn't ever experienced before. I don't have the perfect word for what that was, and I'm cringing at the thought of writing this next bit, but the best way I can describe it is as if magic was happening inside my head - like my imagination was firing off in all directions and I could picture every single scene with absolute clarity. In fact, I believed in Hogwarts so completely that even after I turned 11, I had a secret hope that my letter would arrive by owl and I wouldn't have to go to the boring Muggle secondary school I had been signed up for.

Thankfully, I grew out of that, but I've never grown out of Potter. He grew up with me. And I revisit him maybe once or twice a year, and I never get tired of it, because for some reason I can still feel the magic even now.

No other book or series of books - even those I have really, really loved - has ever managed to leave quite the same impression.

Don’t cringe, that middle paragraph is perfect to describe the power of a good book to a child (and to an adult, if you’re lucky enough to find a book like that). I felt the same about Enid Blyton when I was a child - I really, really wanted to go to boarding school, not the local comp.

I’ve been sniffy about the HP books in the past. Derivative of so many authors like Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, C.S Lewis etc. Then I realised that didn’t matter - they are books from my childhood. Good fiction for children constantly reinvents Worlds for us. Reinvents the fight between Good and Evil. Harry Potter has opened up reading to so many children, which is absolutely fantastic. Some of them might go on to explore the authors above. Some might not, which is fine. Some might only watch the films, depending on age, reading ability or access to books, which doesn’t matter, because they are still stepping into that world to explore.

If you think about it. The internet is probably the biggest driver of its success - were they not realised just as everybody had finally got online? You can’t beat that for a marketing tool!

I remember listening to a radio 4 show about how popular this series was with children, the second book had come out by then. I was given the first and second books by three different people for Christmas and they were all correct, I loved them!! I was 25. I remember finding a book shop in Amsterdam that sold English books so I could get one of them the day it was released and my husband and I swapping over to read a chapter at a time for one of them. I remember stopping off en route from Devon to London in Stowe gardens and spotting several other people reading the newly released Harry Potter in the grounds. That was after the first film had come out as I remember going to Leicester Square to watch the premiere not realising there were no trains on Boxing day so we had to race back and get the car to drive in and we were surprised at how many people turned up in costume to the cinema.

And I have read them at least 4 times, once myself and then to each of my children as well as listening to the audio books. We had the Goblet of Fire on CD and often used to put it on in the car even though we had listened to it several times already.