I am just going to have to watch Harry Potter aren't I?

[Highlighta]

My closest friend is having her 50th this year. I am a few years older than her, so I am not sure if this contributes to my lack of knowledge on the subject.

She is quite Harry Potter mad. She watches the films over again every now and then also has themed objects, like Le Creuset dishes and the likes.

She is having a Harry Potter party, I am not too shocked about this. The thing is, I have never watched Harry Potter, it just isn't something that ever appealed to me.

She chats to me about her party plans and is bouncing things off of me, and tbh I do not have a clue about half the stuff. I suggested something food wise and so she said, well actually that doesn't fit in with the theme 😂

She is a great friend and I would love to help her. But that means I am going to have to watch the films now I think. I have to dress up too, so I could pop along to the costume hire place and ask them to suggest something, but then I think I would be being a bit of a fraud not knowing who I am.

So I need advice. Do I need to watch them all? If I just watch the first one will that sum it all up? Or should I rather just watch the last one, and try fill in gaps, so I am a bit caught up.

Please don't suggest the books either. I think that seems way more torturous.

That is incredibly nasty. To the OPs friend, every adult who loves Harry Potter and particularly people with brain injuries. Whatever is going on in your life to make you come onto the internet to be horrible to people for no reason I still hope you’re ashamed of yourself.

From google "Among the items Rowling describes as part of meals and feasts at Hogwarts: pumpkin juice, meat pies, tripe, stew, fried sausages, roast beef and chicken, shepherd’s pie, Cornish pasties, lamb chops, soup, steak and kidney pudding, black pudding, jelly slugs, fizzing whizbees, marshmallows, baked pumpkin, jacket potatoes, chips, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, custard tart, mint humbugs, ice cream, treacle tart, chocolate éclairs, jam doughnuts, rice pudding, fudge flies, pork chops, mashed potatoes, porridge, kippers, eggs and bacon, buttered toast with jam, cornflakes, turkey sandwiches, Christmas pudding, eggnog, trifle and Christmas cake."

Drinks

• Goblet of Fire Cocktail.
• Polyjuice Potion.
• Unicorn Blood.
• Gillywater.
• Amortentia aka Love Potion.
• Draught of Living Death Cocktail.
• Pumpkin Juice.
• Butterbeer.

Snakes feature in the books - so some food could look like snakes. Owls bring messages so owl shaped cake.

This is just incredibly rude on many levels.

@Highlighta it's more fun and get into spirit of things dressing up,
than just turning up as a muggle

The films are shite, especially the first two.

The books are great and evolve from children's books to YA.

The audio books might be worth a shot. Stephen Fry makes most things better and I enjoy HP - not as much as your friend though lol

Go as a Slytherin and that way you will get away with anything.

Just type 'harry potter party' into Pinterest, much easier than watching any of the films.

Do you know any foreign languages, OP? Apparently listening to audio of HP in a language you're learning is a good way to learn.

Otherwise, don't be a killjoy if that's what she wants, and just google it to get ideas. That's from someone who went to see the first film when it came out as my friend was into it, and I slept through most of it!

Nowhere is OP being a killjoy. On the contrary.

@GinAndJuice99

Aren't people allowed past a certain age to to express and have innocent escapism bit of fun outlet relief,
especially in these weirdly disturbing and bleak times in so many different ways then?

State of Poltics
Climate crisis
Cost of living crisis conflicts around the world Jewish ✡️ Palestine 🇵🇸 conflict obviously springs to mind

Misogynistic Arseholes dick worshipping society culture around the world in which is often incideous detrimental to females especially emotionally psychologically and obviously sexual abuse..

anything else
do you think 🤔 i could add to the list then?

The books are fantastic. Not just fun. Good. Very good in the later ones on death, loss, friendship, what the slow creep of facism looks like. I get that you don't want to read them I just don't like hearing them called torturous lol.

@Highlighta I think it’s a lovely thing to do for your friend actually! It might not be your cup of tea but I’m sure she’d get a right shock and a laugh if you watched it without her knowledge then said something HP related that she’d just never expect 😂😂

Personally, I love it. I was prime age for the books when they came out. I would definitely recommend them over the movies if you were a reader but since you’re not, the first few movies will give you a decent insight into the wizarding world 😊 There are 7 books and 8 movies (final book is split over 2 movies). Don’t jump straight in at the later films as some have suggested if you have no basic knowledge of the story!! It’ll make it a hard watch for you 😊

While Stephen Fry does a great job of reading the books…it makes them VERY long. Maybe that’s just me as I don’t love audiobooks. I’m quite a fast reader and could read 3 pages to Their 1 😂

Come back and let us know how you get on with the first film!!

I have never read or watched HP either but I know many who are obsessed. Can a person who doesn't like wizard thingy things actually enjoy HP?

@GinAndJuice99

Is the only fun people past a certain age allowed to have is in a bottle getting three sheets to wind puking up their guts pissed

or

Ann Summer's vibrator?

Yes, I think so, because it isn't straightforward fantasy. It's also mystery, British boarding school and social satire. I'm not a fantasy fan generally but I do love HP. The magic elements have been properly thought through and there's a consistent internal logic to them.

My friend loves HP & had a HP themed party for her 30th - I'd not seen the films or read the books; was slightly too old when they came out. I watched all the films before the party & thought they were ok. I went as Helena Bonham-Carter's character Bellatrix La Strange - was good fun.
My DD (9) now loves HP; we went to HP Studios last year & I threw her a HP themed party for her 9th.
Things I did for her party:
HP themed cake
Sorting ceremony at the beginning so they all competed in houses for each of the activities
Ferrero Roche as Golden Snitches Treasure Hunt
HP Pictionary Air (it's like a wand you draw pictures in the air with)
Potion making - non-alcoholic cocktail making
Dementor Pinata
Pin the Scar on Harry & Free Dobby Sock Toss are probably a tad young for an adult party!
Got all of these from Pinterest.

I have Celtic tones. Strawberry blonde, pale, freckles. Short hair. I cannot pull off hats usually. I seem to think that a lot of hats are involved in the costumes.

"Red hair and a hand-me-down robe? You must be a WEASLEY!" /tone-of-contempt

@Highlighta dd brought all the HP books home from the school library for me to read.
I dutifully read them, I could not recount any of the plots. They remind me of Geoffrey Archer novels, satisfying at the time but not memorable.
JK Rowling can write a good yarn and I admire her but I’m just not into her books.

It really is astonishing to me that there are adults who are apparently unfamiliar with the long-standing and common concept of crossover appeal. It's not a new or unusual thing for certain interests to have an appeal for people across a broad age range.

Until relatively recently, there was little to no genre distinction between 'children's literature' and just 'literature'.

You don't have to enjoy Harry Potter, just like you don't have to enjoy anything else, but it's weird to be unable to comprehend that there are (and have always been) forms of entertainment that can appeal to both children and adults, and it's even weirder to be so proud of your own ignorance of that.

Harry Potter films are our comfort viewing if nothing else is on, seen each at least 30 times and still enjoyable.
Something very soothing about them.

Hmmm.
Dressing up isn't fun for everyone. I absolutely loathe it though I have a history of performing on stage - dressing up is different. It makes me really uncomfortable and I would almost always turn down an invitation to a fancy dress party. In this case, if it was my best friend, I'd be looking for the least 'dressed up' idea I could get away with.
Please don't anyone come and tell me I don't know how to have fun, have no sense of humour, too reserved etc etc. None of those things are true, I just don't like fancy dress but every time I say it on here I'm lambasted about my boring stick up the arse self. Couldn't be further from the truth.

@peakygold I love a Famous Five or The Secret Seven.

"Harry Potter is for children and I know this because I've never read any of the books or seen any of the films. And I'm also above it, which is why I joined this discussion about it."

I'm with team 'get a costume and don't bother with the films'. There are plenty of websites that will give you an overview of what the series is about - I think this one is good, but there are plenty of others if you google them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/theater/harry-potter-primer-broadway.html

If you do want to watch one of the films to get a sense of the atmosphere, I'd recommend either the third one (Prisoner of Azkaban) or the fifth (Order of the Phoenix). I think they're far and away the best. The books will give you even more of the atmosphere, and although people have suggested the first one, which is the shortest, the problem there is that loads of new characters are introduced as the series progresses, and you won't get to meet them. You could try the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, which will give you much more of a sense of the developing wizarding world, including its politics, but isn't the marathon read of the final books.

But honestly, I think if you want to, a costume and a quick google will be enough to get into the spirit of the party.