Harry Potter. Let’s talk about it.
More specifically, let’s talk about why I read books 1-5 several years ago and never picked up the last two books.
I have to say something about it because I get constant and consistent shit for this because people just can’t seem to understand. To be fair, it is kind of a boggling number. Reading 0, 1, or 7 of the books makes more sense than reading 5 of them.
The reason I started reading Harry Potter was because the first 5 books were given to me as a gift. Specifically, given to me as a gift by the mother of a girl that I REEEEEALLLLY wanted to date.
I would likely read anything that someone considered good enough and important enough to buy for me, in hardcover. That’s a pretty strong endorsement, and it certainly warrants the respect of giving it a go. In this case, I probably went a little further than normal because, well, I’m a man. Not a great example of one, but somewhat of one. And I was pretty interested in this particular daughter. 2,637 pages interested, to be accurate.
So if you really want me to read a book that you love, buy it for me and give it to me. And if you have a daughter who is attractive and the appropriate age, giving me the slightest hint that she might date me as a result of reading the book will certainly grease the wheels.
I read books 1-5 right in a row during the summer when volume 6 was being released. Reading them back to back makes you perhaps notice things that you shouldn’t notice, but nonetheless, here a few of the thoughts I remember having:
-Stop living with the goddamn Dursley’s. Seriously. You are magic, they are assholes. Do the math on that one. HOW magic does one have to be before hitting on the idea of calling Child Protective Services? Or a monster of some kind?
-Enough with the Quidditch already. I’m not a big sports fan, so it was like reading a Hunger Games book with a 30-page Final Four discussion jammed into each volume. I don’t give a shit. And frankly, neither should they. If an evil wizard was taking over the world, I would like to think that maybe we would slow down our involvement in recreational sports.
-The “No time to explain” thing. Motherfucker, the FIRST time people were swooping in to try and murder me, I would sit all involved parties down and get a thorough explanation. “What? A troll just got loose in the bathroom for no real reason? Okay, cool. Probably just one of those things, haha.” No, fuck that. If I was in school and a dinosaur appeared in the gym and nearly killed a couple kids, I’m pretty sure someone would have some ‘splainin’ to do.
The big problem with Harry Potter, for me, is that it was a series that was reliant on magic. It’s okay to have magic as an element in a story. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with is when 90% of the problems the characters face are solved by using magic rays, magic spells, or magic items. That’s fine for the Legend of Zelda, but I need a little more from 2,637 pages of text.
To go off reservation for a moment, great Superman stories are great because they highlight and exploit his weaknesses. And I don’t mean that someone shoots him with a ray that makes him weak enough that a standup boxing match with Muhammad Ali seems like a good idea. I mean that the story shows that being super strong doesn’t really solve everything.
One could say that Harry Potter isn’t about magic, it’s about friendship. But after reading, I felt like the friendships were second to the magic of the world, and the friendships were something that had to be navigated in order to maximize the potential of the magic, not the other way around. Magic wasn’t used as a way to tell readers something about friendship. Magic was stifled until friendships and trust were built. That’s a message, for sure, but not one that is all that interesting because it’s kind of win/win or lose/lose.
Lots of friends = Lots of magic = 🙂
No friends = Less magic = 🙁
In short, I don’t mean to say that they are bad books because I’ve read as much J.K. Rowling as just about any other author, so that’s something.
Yes, I LIKED some of the characters. But I don’t find liking a character to be very predictive of how much I’ll enjoy something. I wouldn’t say I liked Travis Bickle, but I wanted to see what happened in Taxi Driver. I wouldn’t say that most people agreed with the Joker, but he was certainly the most compelling part of the Dark Knight.
Yes, I thought the stories were nice little mysteries that kept me guessing. But that’s just not why I read most of what I read, to finish a puzzle.
After all of those pages, I felt like I got the idea and didn’t need to explore it any further. I decided when it ended for me, and for me it ended in the final pages of book 5.
I’m not a completionist. I don’t feel compelled to finish something just because there is more of it available. And if I quit a book half way through, I don’t flip to the end and see what happens. I quit the book precisely because I don’t care what happens and there is no ending that could possibly reignite my desire to read.
So that’s why I haven’t and probably will not finish the series. Never say never, of course. The only people who never say never are people who’ve never been trapped in an airport terminal with a Sophie’s Choice between the newest James Patterson and the oldest James Patterson. But barring the reappearance of the daughter who got away, things are looking pretty grim for those Hogwarts boys.