They are easy to read and were some people’s introduction to fantasy/fiction (not everything is as dull as school assignments) and a set of shared experiences growing up.
Even when the books were written I found even the concept pretty stupid. “You need a wand to do magic” 🤷♂️ “We can teleport but you have to use a train to get to school” 🤦♂️ And the story is a ripoff of too many previous stories.
The consistency isn’t really the selling point, yeah. What made the books any good was the kind of whimsy of being suddenly thrown into a weird magical word that didn’t follow any understandable logic and was full of cool stuff and mysteries. That’s a great hook for kids! The first three books do that pretty well. After that…
They came out at peak millennial, at the intersection of shared cultural experiences and early social media. Before the internet a book wouldn’t go global like HP did, and after algorithmic feeds there haven’t really been cultural experiences shared so broadly.
I am too old to have any for this series, but still even if I did, I don’t understand why you can’t drop it. I realise plenty of the things I liked in my childhood was commercialised nonsense, and I have no desire to keep revisiting it.
They are not even good, why is everyone crazy about these books?
They are easy to read and were some people’s introduction to fantasy/fiction (not everything is as dull as school assignments) and a set of shared experiences growing up.
Even when the books were written I found even the concept pretty stupid. “You need a wand to do magic” 🤷♂️ “We can teleport but you have to use a train to get to school” 🤦♂️ And the story is a ripoff of too many previous stories.
World building was shit. New stuff was being added in later books that, if it existed in early books, would have made the story so different.
The consistency isn’t really the selling point, yeah. What made the books any good was the kind of whimsy of being suddenly thrown into a weird magical word that didn’t follow any understandable logic and was full of cool stuff and mysteries. That’s a great hook for kids! The first three books do that pretty well. After that…
They came out at peak millennial, at the intersection of shared cultural experiences and early social media. Before the internet a book wouldn’t go global like HP did, and after algorithmic feeds there haven’t really been cultural experiences shared so broadly.
I agree. I wish I could understand.
Then I remember that stuff like Twilight makes it into best selling territory and I give up trying to understand.
Same fucking reason why Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters and many other old good media is still popular today. Nostalgia.
Because the US (I guess the UK as well) is full of adults who haven’t read a single book since HP. It’s their only reference point.
Childhood nostalgia I guess.
I am too old to have any for this series, but still even if I did, I don’t understand why you can’t drop it. I realise plenty of the things I liked in my childhood was commercialised nonsense, and I have no desire to keep revisiting it.