Rowlingverse RPG

[TheFlatline]

Ok, so how about this.

I want to run a game set in a world in which mundanes and magic society live on just the other side of a wall. Magic ability is a genetic trait, inheritable as such, but also occasionally popping up as a variation, or not appearing at all in people who should have it by lineage. Spells are generally decently easy, but you learn to use them by going to a boarding school. Werewolves are magic-world lepers, except with it actually being contagious through fairly exacting circumstances. etc, etc.

So basically the set up of rowlingverse with things fixed to make a bit more sense.

That's almost the exact setting of the Black Jewels trilogy, which makes the magic schools bad, creates a matriarchal society, introduces caste and social standing, and makes the magic users seem to be power-hungry fuckers (which they are) balanced out by a super-elaborate social system.

Oh and it's a "dark" society. Seriously, the main three male characters are named Saetan (high lord of hell, spelled that way), Daemon, and Lucivar.

Which is laying it on kind of thick, but it keeps a consistent morality throughout the three books and would generally be a more interesting setting than the potterverse.

If you remove Potter from the setting, you have a rather uninspired setting that has some interesting atmosphere (Say, Dickens England meets Disney magic).

Sadly, a modified D&D magic system might actually fit decently into the potter-verse. But you still have another problem: A 9mm is just as effective as whatever death spell (and apparently is aimed easier), and takes a few months to train anyone in as opposed to flinging the spell equivalent, which doesn't.

A more interesting setting might be at the dawn of the industrial age, set... fuck anywhere at that point, where it's not immediately apparent why you don't go get a pistol from the sporting goods store and blow away someone saying "pow-itus pew-itus bang-itus!"

Either that or a game that illustrates how self-isolated magic users have become, and are literally relics from an ancient era in a world that has no real use for them any more, but that's such a downer of a game I doubt people would be up for that.

[TheFlatline]

There is one moment, I think, in the Harry Potter series, which shows Harry's true character. It's in the final "battle" between Harry and Voldemort, in which Voldemort says something to the effect of "You are only here because all your friends died for you."

You know what? He's right. Harry has literally accomplished nothing on his own, except maybe Quidditch. Schoolwork? Copying of Hermione. Fighting Voldemort? Deus ex Machina, every. Single. Fucking. Time. The guy has nothing special to his name, except that Mommy died to give him speshul plot magic, and he doesn't have money issues because his parents conveniently left him money. Shit, as effort goes, the main villain has a better "rags to riches" tale - he was an orphan, then got a scholarship through Hogwarts and actually learned magic instead of copying off the smart kid. Hell, Hermione would have made a better hero, cuz she actually studies and works for things rather than being the Chosen Sue. But no, it's another victory for Harry, the Chosen Load.

That's always been my main complaint about Potter. It's like he took Destiny-5 in World of Darkness, and he can't die yet because MC has a plot that involves him being there at the very end. Either that, or in another gaming POV, Potter's player took the "shagging the DM" feat at first level.

He inherits piles of money, his friends do his heavy lifting, and the only things that he is good at is either an innately born talent or is obscure and just happened to be needed at one point. His friends fill in otherwise. His player is the fucking girlfriend of MC.

Maybe it changed later on in the books, but honestly I was turned off at that point and stopped caring.

The Calvinist take is just one more reason to say "meh".

Don't get me wrong, anything that makes people read more is reason to celebrate. There's even some very small social benefit from the atrocious Twilight series in that it gets people to put eyes on page and read, and a few of them might even *keep* reading. But saying that Potter is the zenith of literature from grown adults is what gets my hackles up. I don't in any way mean this toward Prak_Anima, who hasn't inspired those hackles to sit up, but just a general gripe about the waves of fan spunk that I've endured from that series.

Ultimately, I say go for it, but don't chain yourself to the universe too closely. I'd give such a game a try at least if it took the core concept of wizard students and ran with it, it might be an absolute blast. But I don't care if my character drinks butterbeer (I've had the real recipe from the middle ages, as well as beer that was heavy on the diacetyl, which is disgusting) so much as I'm interested in how what is a very small niche population has to live in a world that has very much left magic behind.

[Maxus]

There's good points to the possible approaches either way.

Approach A) "Magic" (whether it's shooting columns of fire or rewriting reality or being the half-human child of Zeus and therefore having to remember to NOT touch people in cold dry weather lest you zap their eyebrows off) is something inherent and if you have it, you're stuck with it and you'd better learn to control it.

Approach B) Magic (in whatever form it's in, psionics, kaboom spells, whatever) is basically a skill that can be potentially learned and practiced and studied by pretty much anyone. Which is, ironically, is a good setup for universities and secret societies because you definitely don't want people knowing how easy some things are to do. Discworld mentions this a few times, I think.

Completely random bit I just remembered:

Both of them come up in the Nightside novels. The hero has a gift to find anything--the person who can answer a question, where to move so he won't get hit, his keys, where someone went, the image of what happened in a spot in time), but he also has a piece of magic he designed to pull the bullets out of guns and then he usually lets the bullets fall from his hands in a highly-visible stream. And it works up until someone reverse-engineered that trick and made a protection against it for a squad of troopers. Then he settled for altering it on the fly to work on the dental work of said troopers--bridges, fillings, crowns, a few false teeth all disappeared out of their mouths.

[TheFlatline]

There's also downsides to the two approaches:

If magic is inherited and is an innate, static ability (like, say, the Dark Jewels trilogy), then a hierarchy will form. I may have level 5 magic, but if you have level 4, you will never, ever be a *real* threat to me by yourself. You'll need to think around me or you'll need to overwhelm me. How many extra people you need depends on the difference in power between level 4 and 5. Over a few centuries, any culture with such magic at it's center is going to drift away from egalitarian and into... well something else. To keep a somewhat even footing you'd almost need a caste system: healers are more valued than blasters, and even the weakest divination experts are valued more than anyone else. So you may be stuck with level 2 magic, but since your a divination mage, your on roughly even social footing with a level 4 healer or a level 8 blaster.

If magic is taught, a magic-centric society is probably going to use magic as a basic form of currency. It is the most valuable, and most controllable resource to that society. But at it's end it must still be powerful enough or rare enough to be desirable. You'll end up stratifying into the haves and the have-nots quickly. I could see a guild style system arising from this. If I'm the only guy who can cast flame-based spells, then I'll always have a job and a need in this population.

If magic requires an innate spark but can be learned after that, you have a potential where sooner or later the first people who achieve significant power will want to keep said power. If magic can be learned through trial and error, that segment of the population is going to scour the society looking for magic users to either indoctrinate or impair (or even exterminate, like the Emperor in Star Wars).

And again, you have the gun vs the bow issue. It doesn't take as long to train someone to use a gun as to use a bow. Even if the bow is potentially more effective, each time you loose a bowman that's years of training lost. Losing a rifleman is 8 weeks of a conscript training. The same concept of magic users vs normal march of technological time will apply.

Finally, if magic is inherited, is it a dominant or recessive trait? If it's dominant, sooner or later there is going to be a *large* population of magic users and your secret society is not so secret any more. If recessive, you need to breed with other magic gene carriers, which means that every mage that dies off or is killed before breeding is a significant blow to your breeding stock, and through the generations is going to really have an impact. In a small enough population, I can see a society where you are mandated to pass the gene on, and must breed in order to keep population numbers at least steady, if not growing. I can also see with a small enough population that you need to breed *before* they start teaching you things that may end up with you blowing yourself into chicken feed.

[Murtak]

I think the Harry Potter books work a lot better if you disregard book 7 and that weird Hallows crap and instead extrapolate from book 6. Therefore in book 7: Harry, Hermione and Ron figure out a couple of Horcruxes and destroy them. Bonus points if Dumbledore was completelys wrong about one of them. And then Harry realizes he is the last Horcrux and needs to die in order to finish Voldemort. So Harry sacrifices himself and then Snape finishes Voldemort.

No bullshit train station between the worlds. No coming back from the dead. No infailible Dumbledore. No uber-artifacts (or at least, not more of them). No need to casually destroy artifact-level Horcruxes because there are only has 30 pages left. Of course there are still a lot of issues with Rowlings world, but I can deal with most of what happens in books 1 through 6. The bullshit content of Book 7 is off the scale though.



So, ignoring book 7 entirely and ignoring select pieces of the previous books gives you some points that really need to go into your game if you want it to feel like the books:
- Some people are more powerful at magic than others. No matter how hard you train, you can only ever partially compensate for this.
- Speaking in DnD terms spells can be rays and pretty much all combat spells are. Pretty much everything else seems to originate from the tip of the wizard's wand.
- Combat spells can be blocked with specific spells, or deflected if you manage to hit them with your own ray. Some passages seem to imply that the tip of your wand might also do.
- If you do get hit you might be able to ignore the effects of the spell, but this only seems to apply to giants, dragons and other magical creatures.
- Mental spells though can be shaken off, given enough willpower. Even weak-willed people seem to be able to eventually get rid of mind control, though it may take some time.

I'm sure there is more, but just these couple of points suggest some mechanics.
- You need a separate Magic stat, that reflects how powerful you are. Possibly more than one.
- You need more than one stat for aiming, dodging and possibly another for initiative.
- You need a willpower stat.



I suggest a setup like: Toughness, Reaction, Aim, Power, Will, Logic. Toughness lets you keep going in spite of pain and injury and makes you better at anything to do with physical exertion. Reaction gives you initiative and dodging. Aim lets you land spells and do precision work. Power is a limit on how powerful of an effect you can produce and possibly a limit on how many spells you can cast before getting exhausted. Will lets you resist mental manipulations and gives rerolls per adventure or ties into whatever fate mechanic you decide to use. Logic makes you better at studying and gives you knowledge about the magical world.

I am going to echo others and suggest going with at least some of the Hogwarts subjects for skills, for spells at least. Since those subjects overlap so much in what they can do you should end up with everyone having something useful to do, both in and out of combat. Non-magical skills should also exist, but will need to be very broad, so they compare at all to being able to cast spells.

[Starmaker]

Don't get me wrong, anything that makes people read more is reason to celebrate.

Uhm, why? People try to find entertainment whenever they have free time (as in actually free, not in the "unemployed and looking for a job" sense). Why is it so terribly important that people read fiction books for entertainment, as opposed to watching fiction movies? The only argument that people here in Russia present for dumb crap is "Activity X keeps our children off the streets, where they would otherwise sniff glue, slash car tires and steal cell phones from the elderly", and unless someone provides stats on Twlight/Harry Potter/Eragon crime prevention, I'm not taking it seriously.

Kids don't see the line between fiction and nonfiction, and I don't mean they actually believe Harry Potter exists and that is the primary problem (though some do). The problem is that kids learn from actual situations and model situations as presented in books. You can't have a discussion on Narnia's moral repulsiveness with an average kid, because the kid didn't have a moral framework to speak of and Narnia has just contributed to building its foundation. The fact that Susan didn't go to heaven is a fact of life. It's how stuff works.

It took me a long time to come to the realization that adults can be wrong, that newsmedia lie, that if I don't like a book it might be a problem with the book being shit, not me being stupid for not liking high literature and/or lazy for not wanting to read.

When I was 8, I took part in some sort of trivia contest and was kinda stumped by a question on the geographical position of continents. I reduced the rather difficult for a 8-yr. old question to "did Columbus cross the Atlantic or the Pacific", something I didn't know for sure - but I did remember that the path traveled was not very long and not as fun to track on the globe I had at home as Magellan's. After the contest, I asked my mom that nagging question. She didn't know. We had to go to the school building for an unrelated reason, and I took that chance to ask my primary school teacher (because I couldn't wait until home and the awesomewonderful globe that smelled of cocoa for an undeterminable reason, I just had to know right now.) The teacher said, "I dunno, let's look it up". She took the classroom globe off the cabinet, we checked it and found out that I was, indeed, right.

When I started playing AD&D, I did my best to rationalize how 6-stats and 3x3 alignment systems were best things ever (though I couldn't find an excuse for level caps and saving throws bullshit). I thought that the AD&D1e DMG was filled with awesometastic MCing advice and was always on the lookout for a chance to murderize the party because "that's when the DM earns his first level-up".

The printed word is magical. While statistical correlation between quality and commercial success exists, the latter is by itself a proof of mass appeal (exceptions happen). "This is what people like. You should, too." This is why dev worship such as 4e fanboism exists. Haters (who gonna hate) now have the means to communicate and find out that they were not alone in thinking One More Day and Chrono Cross to be utter shit. And still, "you're just not getting it" is used by the quite adult fanbois because printed matter allegedly cannot suck.

So yeah, until kids show themselves capable of independent thought, they shouldn't be fed shitty entertainment. I'm pessimistic enough to think they'd love books on exterminating the "undesirables" if they had enough deus ex machina and no kissing, although I'd be the first to call for exterminating those who would conduct such experiments on children.

Also, people don't read less, they just read less offline. I haven't seen a valid argument on why it is bad.

---

On Harry Potter and magical worlds in general.

ferretbrain[/url]]Fantasy is not factual, and because it is not factual it must remain true, and the truth is that the real world matters, and that real people are amazing (...)

The stories set in fantasy worlds are meant to be more interesting than what readers get in their daily life. Note, however, that fantasy worlds are shitholes more often than not. But the kids - and let's face it, most adults - do not see the shithole when it's covered by the magic carpet.

Now, there's still a great many fucked up things happening on Earth right now, so I'm not bawwing about the need to protect kids from the harshness of real life. The good thing about the real world that it can be improved by human effort, and a great many fantasy worlds are shitholes by design, and laws of nature doom to failure any improvement attempts.

In the real world, we have people who go around claiming that people who do not follow their god - and, therefore, people who do not follow any god - get to suffer for eternity after death. In Forgotten Realms, the latter is factually true: you can visit the plane in question and witness the suffering of people who did not submit to the extraplanar protection racket. In aWoD, there are people that you know are dumb and worthless, and you should abandon them when crisis strikes because they'll die anyway, and if you waste your time on them, you'll fail to save those who actually matter (including, possible, yourself) when the 'tards unavoidably sneeze or ask to go pee or look for the exit upstairs.

We the adults, upon encountering such a world, can (1) assume that the "facts" are lies and propaganda or (2) muse upon the horror of living in a crapsack world (of course, if we want to interpret it as making sense in the first place; "shit suxx" is always an option).

There's an IF game in which the way to win is to recognize the game for an unwinnable nightmare, believe really hard that the author had provided for everything and type wake up. Possibly the moral of the piece is "the real world doesn't suck this much, be happy you're living here".

TL;DR:
if you're considering writing a game set in a dissonantly crapsack world , you have to either rewrite the basic premises or live with the fact that the stories the game will deal with are going to be radically different from the stories in the source material. For Harry Potter, the options are:

[*] Happyfun wizard time. Requires that you drop everything but the background npcs out of the window. Magic (1) pops up completely at random or (2) can be discovered with luck by hardworking individuals. Kids get higher chance of being exposed to magic in families with wizard parents so that characters don't have to be effectively orphans. Objectives: have wacky adventures, punch a monster per week and a boss per season, grow up and marry Luna Lovegood (you're gonna need more than your sword, though).

[*] Wizards are dicks. "World facts" are lies and the books are interpreted as being written by a person with an agenda, not as honest retelling of events. The availability of magic is being kept secret by the ruling faction, with Bumblingdork as the official overseeing the indoctrination of young wizards. There used to be an anti-masquerade faction with Walmart as leader; their attempt to break the masquerade was stopped and written out of mundane history by auror-wizards; most rebels, including Walmart himselt, got vanned. Wizard history states that they intended to enslave the nonwizard population; actual unrealized plans of the participants varied greatly (perhaps to replace current dynastic rule with exam/duel-based bureaucracy, perhaps "free knowledge and flying cars for everyone!"). Objectives: overturn the current order or climb to the top.

[*] The world is crap. Magic is hereditary, wizards are bred, on occasions records get lost and then unsuspecting people are thrown headfirst into supernatural politics or, if mundanes but carriers of fancy-schmancy genes, are used as breeding stock (assisted by supernatural means according to an individual wizard's conscience or lack thereof). Wizards get special talents according to the house they are divinely assigned to and the sorting hat just informs them. So if you're a Slitheryn, you excel at betraying people and suck at life otherwise, and as Griffyndor you excel at attributing people's heroic deeds to yourself and suck at life otherwise; the clever guys excel as shy nerds, and the sucky guys subscribe to growing strong in enduring, trading the highs and the lows for an endless treadmill of mediocrity and suck. Objectives: be a good person and protect your loved ones while maintaining the status quo (because trying for more is objectively hopeless), or climb the pile of corpses to "victory".

[cthulhudarren]

You're being too hard on JKR. It's just a story, folks. If it's not your cup of tea, then so be it.

I think it's silly to analyze the Potter books for moral consistency. JKR is no clergyman, philosopher, scholar, or zen master. You find that stuff in another section.

It's entertainment, nothing more. I was very entertained by the books. I wasn't looking to learn life lessons. I found the "Englishness" of it very charming. If the books were set in Connecticut I don't think I'd have enjoyed the story as much.

Anyway, per the original question; I suppose it could be made to work, as some folks have suggested. I think making spells into opposed skill checks (for example: stun magic vs evade, or stun magic vs. block) could be one approach. It'd take a bit of work, and of course there has to be a motivation to want to play the game, as some pointed out.

[Gnosticism Is A Hoot]

Discussing the moral and philosophical content of our entertainment is pretty important IMO, as it usually leads to a deeper appreciation of the merits and flaws of our entertainment.

I enjoy reading the Dune novels much more now that I've studied some political theory, for example, and my enjoyment of the Narnia series was pretty much ruined when I realised how repugnant the underlying ethos was.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I strenuously disagree. The best fiction out there invites the reader to think about what they've just read or watched or played beyond what they just experienced. When an author or fan says 'don't analyze the underlying themes', they're basically telling you that their work sucks and won't hold up to scrutiny and worse they're hoping that no one will notice how much it sucks. This is precisely why The is a classic and most 'futuristic hero mows down tons of enemies in bullet time' movies sucks despite being superficially similar. While The Matrix has some very key flaws in it (such as the villain's plan) it doesn't fall to pieces if you analyze it. The Matrix 2 on the other hand sucks because even if it had the same or BETTER action sequences it falls the fuck apart when you start applying thought to it.

I like 3rd Edition D&D. However, I realize that it also sucks in a deep day in many areas. But even after recognizing all of its flaws and dissecting this game to the ground, I still like it. I couldn't imagine the amount of shallowness and/or self-deception you'd have to engage in if the only way you could enjoy something is if you force yourself not to think too deeply about it.

[Datawolf]

For me, the Harry Potter series was simply brain candy. Some works are best left un-analyzed, since it will lead only to madness.

[cthulhudarren]

Nah, I don't look to analyze my entertainment. That sounds suspiciously like work. Entertainment is supposed to be an escape. Too much scrutiny ruins everything.

If I want that, like I said before, I go to a different section of the book store.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Well, sure, it's a great idea to not have impressionable children reading schlock that indoctrinates them with subtext. However, I do think being able to read crap and later figure out why it's crap is an important process in becoming a critical adult. The Narnia discussion was being had recently on Jeff Vandermeer's facebook, and I added "I remember knowing that Narnia was both bad and wrong when I was like 9, I just didn't know why." Maybe just convincing children's authors (particularly in the fantastic) that they are going to be held to a higher standard is the ticket.

[Kaelik]

f I want that, like I said before, I go to a different section of the book store.

You know that the Sci Fi/Fantasy section of the bookstore is the most insistent on subtext and analysis, so I don't know what section you go to if you want subtext and you don't want it from Sci-Fi/Fantasy.

[TheFlatline]

Don't get me wrong, anything that makes people read more is reason to celebrate.

Uhm, why? People try to find entertainment whenever they have free time (as in actually free, not in the "unemployed and looking for a job" sense). Why is it so terribly important that people read fiction books for entertainment, as opposed to watching fiction movies? The only argument that people here in Russia present for dumb crap is "Activity X keeps our children off the streets, where they would otherwise sniff glue, slash car tires and steal cell phones from the elderly", and unless someone provides stats on Twlight/Harry Potter/Eragon crime prevention, I'm not taking it seriously.

Dude where the fuck did I say that reading prevents crime?

Reading is generally a good thing. It exposes you to new ideas (sometimes) and has been shown to stimulate your brain more than watching TV. After an hour or two of watching TV, your brain shuts down many higher functions and essentially goes to sleep while you watch the boob tube.

Besides, I *like* reading. The more people that read, the bigger the market is, the more writing comes out, the more I get to read. What's so wrong with that? So I see people getting excited about reading, even if it's tripe like Eclipse or the McDouble hamburger of fantasy that is Harry Potter, there's good to be had there because a non-zero portion of that group is going to go on to read other stuff, and that's a good thing.

And if you think that reading is "dumb crap", as you've said in your post, you can go fuck yourself. The rest of your post I don't even give a shit about because you show in the first paragraph that you're not worth the attention.

[TheFlatline]

Nah, I don't look to analyze my entertainment. That sounds suspiciously like work. Entertainment is supposed to be an escape. Too much scrutiny ruins everything.

If I want that, like I said before, I go to a different section of the book store.

Your erroneous assumption: That Sci-Fi and Fantasy are only meant for entertainment.

This is repeatedly, and demonstratively false, both from a reader's and an author's standpoint.

Even Rowling herself has said that the Potter novels were partially a way to explore her faith and her ideas of morality. So saying that paying attention to that is a bad thing is stupid. It's like judging a painting solely by the frame it's put in.

[fectin]

People in the Rowlingverse don't really fail to cast spells. Snape doesn't ever cast a mighty spell only to fuck up the casting and have to try again.

People in the real world don't really fail at flying planes. That doesn't mean that everyone can do it, just that only people who already know how even bother trying.
Also, we basically only ever see two classes of people: wet-behind-the-ears students and god damned rock star commandos. If the books instead had featured Navy SEALs and kindergarteners, you would have similar conclusions about hand to hand combat, but they would be similarly bad.

That circles back to my earlier point though: we know basically nothing about how this universe works, you could seriously make up anything and not be wrong.

[PhoneLobster]

That circles back to my earlier point though: we know basically nothing about how this universe works, you could seriously make up anything and not be wrong.

At which point... why hold any pretense of calling it a Potter based result?

If you are making up "anything" then you are better off by far making up something you own entirely.

Among other things since the only identifiably Potteresque material you would have included all had to be ignored because it was so bad by divorcing yourself from whatever remnant lip service that apparently "entirely ignorable" material might require you are only making a positive improvement to your setting.

And if you DO feel the need to rip something off it would be so much better to have "St Trinians... for Witches" or "The House Bunny... with psychic powers" or "Revenge of the (Wizard) Nerds" or some crap like that. Hell. You could go and give magic powas to Sherlock Holmes, Captain Nemo, Ebenezer Scrooge or god damn just grant all the characters in Jane Austin novels the horrendous telekinetic mutilation powers from Elfen Lied.

Hell come to think of it combining Jane Austin Novels and Elfen Lied could potentially result in taking a mediocre and dated set of novels, a horrendous anime/manga and getting something absolutely hilarious.

Maybe you should be looking for some sort of similar magical cure to make everything bad about Potter into something good instead of just ignoring the everything. I say you should put Friend Computer from Paranoia in charge of Hogwarts and make Voldemort an almost entirely fictional piece of propaganda.

[Username17]

Hell come to think of it combining Jane Austin Novels and Elfen Lied could potentially result in taking a mediocre and dated set of novels, a horrendous anime/manga and getting something absolutely hilarious.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies kind of drags by the end, but the joke is good enough to sustain most of the book. So yeah, I think mixing Jan Austin and the grotesque has potential. Especially if you mix it up a bit with multiple protagonists and a monster of the week format.

Uhm, why?

Contrary to popular misconception, the people of th world are becoming more literate, not less. Literacy levels at every age group are higher this decade than last, and the same was true of the previous decade and the one before that.

People reading more is a good thing, and the amount of reading you have to do to make it through modern society is frightfully high. The collected works of Harry Potter are twice the length of War & Peace. Children plow through these books at a frightful rate and it is good practice for the absolutely astounding amount of text they will consume as drones in the modern hive.

There are many children's authors who are much more talented and wrote objectively better material. Books by Edward Eager are much better than books by Rowling. But those books are short. And while they are decent stories with generally pro-social values, they aren't particularly good reading practice for the modern era.

-Username17

[cthulhudarren]

Nah, I don't look to analyze my entertainment. That sounds suspiciously like work. Entertainment is supposed to be an escape. Too much scrutiny ruins everything.

If I want that, like I said before, I go to a different section of the book store.

Your erroneous assumption: That Sci-Fi and Fantasy are only meant for entertainment.

This is repeatedly, and demonstratively false, both from a reader's and an author's standpoint.

Even Rowling herself has said that the Potter novels were partially a way to explore her faith and her ideas of morality. So saying that paying attention to that is a bad thing is stupid. It's like judging a painting solely by the frame it's put in.

Well to be fair I just said that I don't analyze my entertainment. Why would I care about JKR's exploration of her morality or whatever? To me they are stories, I don't give a sh7t if JKR is trying to explore her morality. If I like the story and am entertained, to me that is good.

Did you analyze Battleship Earth for deep meaning? No, the guy is a total hack. If I read Tolstoy or Hesse or Nathaniel Hawthorne, yeah, I'll look deeper because I feel they are worthy of study- JKR is not. It's simple as that. I have not found a fantasy or even Sci-Fi author that I found worthy of more than cursory introspection. Of course many sci-fi authors that many love I find boring.

[Prak]

Did you analyze Battleship Earth for deep meaning? No, the guy is a total hack. If I read Tolstoy or Hesse or Nathaniel Hawthorne, yeah, I'll look deeper because I feel they are worthy of study- JKR is not. It's simple as that. I have not found a fantasy or even Sci-Fi author that I found worthy of more than cursory introspection. Of course many sci-fi authors that many love I find boring.

Actually, when Hubbard wrote Battleship Earth, he was a master artist, of the con variety. He did it to win a bet with other authors that he couldn't start a religion.

[sabs]

Ah yes the Bet between Hubbard and Heinlein.

I'm still not a hundred percent sure which one won that bet.

[cthulhudarren]

Actually, when Hubbard wrote Battleship Earth, he was a master artist, of the con variety. He did it to win a bet with other authors that he couldn't start a religion.

But the book sucked. He succeeded making his religion though, I know only too well (I live not far from Clearwater, FL).

[TheWorid]

Did you analyze Battleship Earth for deep meaning? No, the guy is a total hack. If I read Tolstoy or Hesse or Nathaniel Hawthorne, yeah, I'll look deeper because I feel they are worthy of study- JKR is not. It's simple as that. I have not found a fantasy or even Sci-Fi author that I found worthy of more than cursory introspection. Of course many sci-fi authors that many love I find boring.

Your casual dismissal of broad swathes of literature as meaningless enriches us all.

[sabs]

Cleary that guy never read Heinlein, Silverberg, or many of the other greats.
I mean, picking out Hubbard as an example of SciFi, is like singling out Jersey Shore and saying all television is bad, look how bad Jersey Shore is.

[Maxus]

The Potter books are popular. Therefore, it's worthy of interest, at the very least from the sociological/anthropological viewpoint. What is the trigger in the head that makes people respond to the books so?

The same thing can even be said about Twilight. This kind of mega-popularity/financial success is something that hadn't really happened before to authors. If I had more time and were I working on a degree in psych/sociology, I'd be genuinely interested in reading through all of both series (in Potter's case, again) to get some kind of familiarity with the stuff and then going to do some field work about why people like it.

Because what that says about society would be interesting.