True. But Potter and Arthur were both orphans, raised in ignorance of their heritage, and face a mortal enemy that they have close ties to (magical attachment/half sister), go on a quest for artifacts that provide eternal life (horcruxes/the holy grail), and are mentored by powerful gray haired wizards that had a hand in both creating the antagonist and separating them from their parents. Oh, they both die for the cause with Potter returning while Arthur will return again at some point. That's going a bit beyond standard monomyth structure. Luke Skywalker is basically the same as well.
Good point! I hadn't actually thought Luke Skywalker might be an allegory for Arthur at all, but it makes perfect sense.
I hear what you're saying, but these are just the details... To me. I guess it depends on how you look at the structure of a story. For me, all these stories, to include Star Wars, are pretty much the same because they all share a basic framework. Because they share a basic framework, even the details that are different are going to trigger the basic human drive to find patterns and make links that are increasingly tenuous. Regardless, it will make for a lattice of comparisons where different readers/viewers fall into different areas of regard for similarity or disparity. I fall into the "these are all the same" category of regard in the same way that I think of a Rover coupe and a Honda coupe as the same thing. They are both coupes. There isn't a thing that one does that isn't also done by the other. The lines may be different, but they're both simply cars.
I probably oversold my point. I love all three, particularly the nuances that distinguish the them from each other. Once the Christ comparisons were being made, it seemed worthwhile to point out the Arthur comparison, particularly of the MC's since it wasnt being said.
Yes, but Rover were, for a while, allied with Honda (and BMW did nothing to the old-line Rover models whilst in situ) so that Honda cars and Rover cars shared a common drawing-board.
Replace Honda with Toyota, or Ford, or BMW, or Renault, etc. my point is still the same. As was being discussed earlier, there has been observation made that HP has Christian themes in it. I say that it's just as valid to say that HP has Arthurian themes, or Gilgameshian themes because these themes all come from the same bucket. We say Christian themes because that's the relevant application to the Abrahamic world in which most of us live, whether or not we personally participate in Abrahamic dynamics.
See, this is the same thing that started the whole debacle - your stating that someone who disagreed with your phrasing was being "immature". You like tossing that out. It's a pattern. Disagree with Lemex? How immature! Which is why I just read these things for the laughs now. Kind of a "Oh yeah, at it again...". carry on
I've already said to you, several times, I don't think anyone is stupid for reading books I think are bad. I'll even admit, I might be well-advised to be more careful about how I phrase things. When you keep telling me I think other people are stupid when I don't, and have explained I don't, it only seems like a personal attack - as your last post did read to me as. Thus, I read it as being immature (I'll not hide it) because I've already explained myself a number of times - if you disagree you disagree and that's as far as it needs to go. I'm happy to bury the hatchet and say sorry - you continue on with snide comments like that. It doesn't make me laugh, it actually makes me a little depressed to be honest. So, who is the one who has the worse attitude? Honestly, you remind me of this:
Weighing in on the side of Potter here, my issue with the Potter criticisms is I think these are inappropriate comparisons. Continuing with the music analogy, to say the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana suck because they're not Bach or Beethoven is kind of weird. Potter and King are commercial fiction not literary fiction. To me, the key thing is what makes them better, or worse as it may be, than other commercial writers other than their publisher did a hell of a marketing job. The tendency to lump them in with all the other commercial fiction is analogous to lumping the Beatles, Zeppelin, and Nirvana with the Dave Clark 5, Warrant, and Nickleback. Before the the fans of these bands go nuts with my comparison to Potter, I remind of you of Revolution 9 and the Lemon Song. And it's worth having a discussion as to why King and Rowling succeed and learning about what they do well. As a novice I think there's something to learn here beyond just the fact that Rowling loves adverbs and tends to get sidetracked on young adult melodrama. IMHO, there are a couple of things that stand out. Potter himself is a good if not great MC. He might be the chosen one but he's actually bad enough at magic that he can't become an Auror - the FBI of their world. This isnt exactly the same as LOTR where you've got characters competing over body counts. He wins on grit and courage rather inherited power. Its a good theme as hero's journey/epic fantasy goes and far better than overpowered hero alternatives. Second, each book has a couple of really powerful scenes. In the first book, its Potter at the mirror seeing his parents. In the last book, its Potter going off to his death, with the snitch inscribed with "I Open at the Close". These are good scenes and you almost have to be cynic to not see it that way. I think its worthwhile to understand why they work. The flip side is having excellent sentences and paragraphs, complex and subtle themes, and deep characters who grow - but nobody gives a shit about any of it. For me, the takeaways from Potter are that it highlights the importance of creating characters that your audience can emotionally relate to/want to investment themselves in, and an audience will overlook a lot of faults if you do a few things really well. So that's my defense of Rowling and my answer to the OP (I acknowledge I am probably holding Rowling in too high regard by comparing Potter to the Beatles but I'm holding out on the Zeppelin comparison ). Sorry for the soapbox.
catcher in the rye is one of the best books ever. it is not all fancy and fake. but really, you can identify with holden and you like the book and you don't and don't like the book.
Why would you ever want to identify with Holden? The kid has serious psychological trauma. He has PTSD, and needs a therapist, not our praise as some kind of enlightened, counter-culture icon.
It`s got even worse now, in that some tv or film productions are pushing the writers to finish. The most obvious one is Game Of Thrones. They`ve pretty much caught up haven`t they, to the point where the author had to let them know the future plot points of the unpublished parts of the series. As for J K Rowling, I do honestly think she`s a very good writer, the Cuckoo`s Calling is very well written in my humble opinion. I only ever read the first Potter book and though I thought it was pretty good it didn`t grab me as much.
@Dunning Kruger every time I read the "I open at the close" scene I literally bawl. Just a really great scene.
Its called the Hero's Journey and its the oldest type of story there is. As a story structure its insanely successful because it completely mimics how we view ourselves in our own lives. We are the central character and everything revolves around its direct impact on our lives. Its basic human psych. These stories are 100% formulaic, and people will always love them.
You 100% are not supposed to identify with Holden in catcher...thats the basic premise of the book. sorry, didnt mean to quote you, was actually trying to quote a different post. Since both terms were coined by Campbell in "the hero has a thousand faces" i award us both 50 pts and may god have mercy on our souls...or something like that.
Yeah, he does look good, the gentleman cheetah. I won`t even begin to comment on Monomyth, never heard of that before in my life.
I didn't recall the name, monomyth, but I did see a lot of Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth when the series was on. And I've read a good amount of my copy of, The Hero With an African Face which is on the same theme but focused on the most ancient of myths, those that originated in Africa. I think I can pull some of those ideas for my own plot arc, though I don't see all 17 steps making a lot of sense. I have no clue what the cheetah is symbolic of.
I agree, all those steps would add up to something stranger than a China Mieville story. Making the Cheetah the protagonist of a novel would make it a very interesting novel.
