Is the 'Harry Potter' series overrated?

With all this talk about the Houses of Hogwarts...

Though I am fully aware that this system of intra-institutional division dates easily to the founding of the traditional public schools in the U.K. (what Americans would call private or prep schools), I have to wonder if the ease with which young Americans digested and embraced this dynamic in HP isn't rooted in the anime phenomenon. Anime, in accord with Japanese culture, is riddled with divisions, levels, sections and hierarchies. It's a concept you see everywhere in anime and manga. Great emphasis is placed on the idea of cyborgs belonging to Section 9 (Ghost in the Shell) or ninjas belonging to the Toyotomi clan (Ninja Sword) and the intricate and sometimes strange groups and clans of shows like Naruto and Dragonball Z that continued to apply layer on layer of this focus of team/house/clan/species division that one sees continuously evolved and made more intricate in later shows and franchises. As a kid in the 70's and early, pre-anime-invasion 80's, this feature wasn't present at a culturally relevant level in America that I can remember, which doesn't surprise given the semblance the dynamic has to traditional concepts of classism.

It's interesting to me how parallel it seems to run with the progress of divided political and social issues of the nation across the same span of time. Just an observation....

 

Sounds like maybe some roots of the failed (IMO) "Divergent" story are in this divided/competing houses concept.

 

House Targeryan. Dragons + Valyrian Steel + insanity >>>>> kids with wands and brooms. Any day of the week.

 

And Roth is the right age as concerns my hypothesis. The Hunger Games would also seem to fall easily into this "competing houses" dynamic.

 

Having competing groups or houses is quite possibly the easiest way to generate conflict. So I can see why so many writers go that route (Rowling, GRR Martin, etc.).

 

Especially for a YA audience where man v. man is an entry level narrative conflict.

 

What are some of the more advanced types of conflict? In my story I seem to be doing a mix of man v. man and man v. self

Sorry if it's a silly question, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the nuances of storytelling.

 

They can all be advanced and involved it just depends how well they're written. Use whichever fits the story better.

 

An advanced form comes in character interaction, not really directly related to the plot. Say if you had one character who was teaching another, and that student is more impressed with another teacher - the conflict comes from his desire to do well for the student, maybe he finds his own limitations, his complicated feelings toward his fellow teacher creates the tension in the character interaction. It doesn't have to be anything overt, make it classy and subtle that influences character rather than plot - that is the way I'd describe it.

 

Man vs Word Processor
Man vs touch screen
Man vs Woman
Man vs CD case shrink wrap

Advanced conflicts

 

I'm going to address a lot of crap in this thread right here because I came late to the party.

When I was younger (around 12) I read, well tried to read the Harry Potter series. I am a fast reader so I knocked out the first one in twelve hours. The next one in 18, etc. But then I got to the fifth one, which was massive. It's something like 250,000 words (in other terms a small book for George R.R. Martin). Now, for a Young Adult series with not that much going on, that's insane. I got bored. There's not enough action and more talking. There's a small group of characters in a small school. Now I'm older, now writing for fun (and hopefully money one day), and I literally threw the first book away from me when I tried to read books (I don't usually throw books because I have respect for them, but I was sick and cranky and it was bad). This is my personal opinion, but if I read it once and was okay with it, then read it with maybe a better taste to it after writing, then it's not good. Just like the rest of the young adult series, which now I'll jump into.

The Young Adult genre is good, kind of. Of course I fit into the target audience, so I can say that I sort of enjoy it. I'm a boy, so I detest Twilight and everything it stands for. That's crap Young Adult work. Now, everyone's jumping onto The Fault in Our Stars since it just came into theaters, so I'll touch on that. I loved it. I'm a boy and I loved it. I don't know why I did, but I did. At the end I wanted to punch John Green in the face, but I loved it. That's good Young Adult. It appeals to a lot of people and it moved people, like me. I won't say it's my favorite book, but I enjoy it a lot and I read it every now and then. The same with the Hunger Games. It appealed to both boys and girls, and it got us reading (I'll address this in the next paragraph). The same with Divergent, sort of. It wasn't as good but did the same thing.

Okay, onto the getting us reading thing: that's good. YA is good at that, because it appeals to us. It's a formula, and that's okay. In my opinion, the over-analyzation (can't spell today) of classics is obnoxious. I love The Great Gatsby, but don't make me analyze it. It turns me off from reading (and sometimes from writing, which sucks!), and it turns off the next generation of our readers. So, if it's a formula (which a lot of people seem to hate), fine. Let them be comfortable as they start to read for fun. They'll branch out.

Onto another topic: the divisions and segregation. It's almost a thing for every book, not just YA.

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones): the houses separate us. House Lannister, Stark, Targeryen, Greyjoy, Baratheon, Martell, Tyrell, Mormont, Tarley, Tarth, etc.
The Hunger Games: the districts closer to the Capitol were more keen on siding with them. The ones further (and therefore closer to District 13) all hated the Capitol. There's division right there.
Divergent: the five factions, all playing off a different personality.
Twilight: werewolves versus vampires *yawns*
Harry Potter: the four houses. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw. Then on top you've got the supremesists: Voldemort and his supporters with the Slytherin. Then the sane people against them.

My own work, now under the working title of The New Order, has five factions and even plays off genocide and racism. As long as it's done well, it's fine in my opinion. In the case of Harry Potter, I feel like it just added unneeded tension and added to the word count, which the first book is VERY shy on. It's possible (along with other factors) that it's the reason it took so long to be published, given how short it was. They didn't NEED the houses; Draco Malfoy could still be an ass with or without going into Slytherin.

 

Heey, that's a spoiler.
I haven't read it yet, but It's been added to my reading list, because of this thread. But now I know the ending, I guess?

 

Nah..... that's not a spoiler......

Most of my friends have crap memory so I can say something like that and they wouldn't remember come the ending. By the way, The Fault in Our Stars is about two teenaged cancer survivors. I don't know if that was mentioned. But yeah, going into it at least I realized that the 'spoiler' was a 'duh'.

Sorry if I made it worse... and I'm REALLY sorry if you didn't want spoilers....

 

Haha no problem, I'm not one of those people who hate spoilers as much as Capulets hate Montagues.

Still, I try to avoid them if possible-->

I've seen the trailer so I know what it's about. That's why I took your sentence as a spoiler.

 

Ayyyy it's Melisandre! I actually changed a character's name in my manuscript to Melisandre because I love the name so much.

 

There should be The Song of Ice and Fire thread... there are so many theories about certain events and characters that it would be a pleasure discussing them on this forum. I think...

 

I'll go start one but I'm going to be worthless in it since I just started A Storm of Swords this morning.

 

Spoilers might be a problem...

We completely overtook the thread, sorry for derailing, everyone.

 

Like I care. But the books have been out for years. Spoilers sort of become invalid after like a week. But I'm going to borrow that image to say that.

 

How do I add a photo to a thread....

 

I now tend to think of 'Popularity' and 'Quality' as two different concepts, that most of the time have no correlation. I think a work must have a certain amount of minimum quality to gain traction, but after that popularity is based on something else entirely.

 

Thought everyone would enjoy what I've just found: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/lol-wizards?bffb

It's a buzzfeed of a number of Potter's plot-holes, some are amazingly funny observations.

 

I agree. I think that to analyze this series as some sort of literary masterpiece (or wannabe) is misinterpreting the author's intent. This is a children's story, that's all. While there are certainly books for children that are rightly considered classics, HP is one I feel that was meant to be entertaining, and meant to appeal to the younger set with moral lessons thrown in.
My kids absolutely loved this series. I think I read it to them twice (yes, the Whole. Entire. Thing), and I was one of those parents standing in line at the bookstore at midnight while propping up three sleepy little boys.
I don't know if the story itself will ever stand the test of time, but as long as it was here it was fun, and most of the kids I know enjoyed it.

 

This is how Harry should kill Voldemort...