The Hobbit Movie Forum

[Goldeneyes]

What is the best Fantasy serie (next to The Lord Of The Rings)
My opinion is that ''The Wheel Of Time'' is one of the best Fantasy series of all time it is absolute in my top 3 of fantasy series/books together whit ''The Lord Of The Rings'' and ''Song Of Ice And Fire'' which is on place three but i can't decide what is on place 1 and 2. I am an huge LOTR fan but also of WOT so sorry guys. My opnion is that if you are an true fantasy reader you should have read the LOTR trilogy and The Wheel Of Time for sure.

What do you guys think?

[Beren]

Other than LOTR, I usually go for the true fairy tales. The ones passed down from the ancient civilization, such as Robin Hood or King Arthur. I love reading the old stuff that hasn't been dumbed down for modern readers. Of course, I share in Tolkien's firm belief that England's fairy tales and folklore have been marred and destroyed since the Norman invasion. I, along with him, extensively wonder what kind of tales would have come from the "True England."

[Luthien]

Harry Potter comes immediately after LOTR, in my mind.

[Barrel the pony]

Inheritance Cycle probably. Way better than Harry Potter. Personally can't see the appeal of Harry Potter, the earlier books have tedious plots and are badly edited, and the later books have no plots and are not edited. I like the movies though. One thing I can't stand is the Eragon movie, the worst adaptation I have ever seen, with the possible exception of A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you saw the Eragon movie and hated it, don't worry, you'll love the book. If you saw the movie and loved it, well, you'll still probably love the book. If you didn't see the movie, don't bother, read the book, you'll love it.

[Luthien]

See, I would have to fully disagree with your assessment of Harry Potter. The plots are far from tedious, and the editing, at least in the beginning, is fine. (Admittedly there are a large number of run-ons in The Deathly Hallows, but, I mean, come on, she was stressed and pressed for time.) I like Harry Potter so much (and LOTR as well) because it tells a story of something higher than normal life; it calls upon our deepest emotions, our truest sense of good and evil, and it engages us in a great fight on behalf of something that is truly good, innocent, free. Just as in The Lord of the Rings one cannot help but feel an amazing and immense sense of joy and wonder when the Ring is finally destroyed and Sauron overthrown, when the forces of highest good have triumphed over those of darkest evil, so in Harry Potter one cannot but feel this same joy and this same wonder when Harry at last defeats Voldemort and order and peace are restored to the world of wizards--and of muggles. The two tales are much the same (and I would claim that LOTR is the better one, though Harry Potter is not far behind), for they both draw upon our deepest conceptions of good and evil, they both tell of the great battles that must be fought on behalf of that good, and when one reads both of these amazing stories, one cannot but be filled with wonder at their incredible beauty.

If I had to name only one reason why I like either of these two great tales, this (obviously) would be that one, but there are many, many others, of course.
And I absolutely cannot stand the Harry Potter movies, but I won't get into that here.

[Barrel the pony]

I don't know, I guess we all have our different interpretations of it, and the emotions evoked by certain occurrences also differ from reader to reader. When I got up to Voldemort's defeat, I of course knew what was going to happen, but was so appalled by Rowling's disgusting views on the meaning of life and death and the essence of magic, that when he died- meh, just another plot device. As for liking the movies, I guess, not being a fan, I don't care how different they are thematically to the books.
I have to admit, though, the first three books were gripping. They weren't the best writing I've ever come across, but they were concise, to the point, and nicely paced. When the size of the books exploded, Rowling's writing became vague and nebulous, and the characters, in a bid to reflect the "growing up" struggle, became totally unbelievable. I don't know what exactly she knows about teenagers- she might even have teenaged children for all I know- but she definitely can't remember how they think, or how they talk when adults aren't around.
The Goblet of Fire was okay, the Order of the Phoenix was passable, the Half Blood Prince was scraping a C, but when Harry left Hogwarts, the whole story fell apart. They spend three hundred and something pages wandering around, screaming at each other and wondering what to do about them horcruxes. Ron leaves, we don't care because we know he'll be back, Harry has some convenient dreams of Voldemort, they get attacked by a giant snake, and basically everything else is just filling. A whole bunch of irrelevant characters die, because Rowling wants to say something about death and they were getting in the way. Then Harry's parents cheerfully encourage him to walk blindly to his death, while Malfoy's parents endanger their lives and their entire mission just to find out if Malfoy's alive. Harry sets himself up as a Christ figure (this is where I as the reader start to feel really uncomfortable) and Dumbledore gives us another plot dump despite being dead, then, unsatisfied, Harry spoils the moment of Voldemort's death with another plot dump, that really pi$$es me off because he basically says that the sacrifices of the brave wizards dying to defend Hogwarts don't count compared to him going up and standing there while Voldemort kills him, which he survives anyway, and that his sacrifice would ulimately defeat Voldemort. I find that completely morally wrong.
The worst thing about Harry Potter is that he is a completely passive character. As I said in another forum, he doesn't fight for what he believes in, he sits there and weathers stuff for what he believes in, which happens to be a rather vague idea of "what must be". In the Philosopher's Stone, he only manages to get the stone because he doesn't know what he'd do with it if he got it. In subsequent books, better people fight and die for him, while he stands on the sidelines helplessly. In the Deathly Hallows, Harry lets his friends do everything for him, including solving riddles, destroying Horcruxes, and fighting Death Eaters. Then, when all hope seems lost and it turns out Harry has to go and die (after another sacrifice by Snape, again while Harry sits on the sidelines), he goes and dies. When Dumbledore tells him he has to do something, he does. When Dumbledore doesn't tell him how, he stumbles around helplessly until someone else figures out what to do. Granted, it was Harry who found out the last Horcrux was in Hogwarts, but he didn't do anything to find out, he just overheard it through a magical connection that was a result of someone dying for him while he sits on the sidelines. And after all this, Harry goes up and tells Voldemort, and all his friends and teachers and his friend's families and some distant acquaintances about how he's such a hero and how he's saved them all, then Voldemort kills himself. This leaves one feeling, at the end, that Harry was, as Scrimjeour suggested, just a figurehead, and not really The Chosen One. Actually, I would much rather have seen Neville as the hero, except then maybe he would be devoid of character as well.
All in all, I think that Rowling should have stayed as a younger children's writers, because her skills seem suited to the earlier books, but she just falls apart in the later ones.

[Luthien]

Hm. Okay. There are a lot of points to tackle in reply to this.

A. I think I'll start with the easiest one: your claim that Rowling's teenagers aren't believable. As a teenager myself (I'm nineteen) and as one who has been a teenager for most of the (if not the entire) time that Harry, Ron, and Hermione have been teenagers, I find them and the other students to be very believable youths. Their struggle with growing up is, to me--again, a teenager--completely realistic; they laugh, fight, and play like real teenagers do, and yet, when called upon in truly dangerous and dire situations to be adults, they rise to the occasion in the way teenagers would--mostly with success, but with the occasional teenager-ish outburst (Cf: Ron's leaving).
Could you perhaps give me a few specific instances of moments where you felt that Rowling's teenagers were unbelievable?

B. Secondly, you state that you were "appalled by Rowling's disgusting views on the meaning of life and death and the essence of magic". First, I would like to ask what exactly you find disgusting about it, and what you consider her views, as evidenced by the text, to be. Without really understanding what it is that so disgusts you, I can't fully take on that point.
However, I myself see nothing "appalling" or "disgusting" in Rowling's presentation of life, death, and magic; I rather see it as a beautiful presentation of these ideas. In fact, again, I would argue that her views on the matter are much like Tolkien's--they are/were both Christians, after all. But until I know specifically what it is that bothers you, I won't treat on this in any more detail.

C. Okay, next, I guess, your complaint that you thought Rowling's writing became "vague and nebulous" in the later books. Simply based on my reading of the novels I would have to fully disagree; I literally have no idea where you're coming from. I find all of Rowling's writing to be fully directed towards the telos of the entire work. Again, however, if you could elaborate on what you mean and perhaps give a few examples I would be better able to answer you.

D. You state about Harry, Ron, and Hermione in The Deathly Hallows that: "They spend three hundred and something pages wandering around, screaming at each other and wondering what to do about them [H]orcruxes." On a very literal level, yes, this is true. However, on a deeper level, these three hundred pages or so are about so much more than simply wandering about the U.K. Firstly, as they wander around, the plot advances as the trio searches for the Horcruxes and slowly finds them, one by one. But this lengthy wandering also serves as an illustration of the desperation of the situation in the Wizarding world, the horror that will be, in an even more realized form, if Harry is unable to defeat Voldemort in the end.

E. Similarly, the countless deaths of "a whole bunch of irrelevant characters" serve to highlight that Voldemort is a terrible threat to the world's peace and stability; hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are dying due to Voldemort, and he is not yet fully in power. The situation is clearly utterly dire. Just as, in The Lord of the Rings, the Scouring of the Shire was necessary to the book to show the great scope of Sauron's evil, to illustrate how absolutely devastating his dominion would have been, so the numerous deaths in Harry Potter are necessary to demonstrate the great danger that Voldemort poses.
Additionally, you claim that these characters die "because Rowling wants to say something about death." I don't really think this is the reason that they die; I think that it is merely, as stated above, necessary that they die to show the great scope and magnitude of the violence wrought by Lord Voldemort (just as, again, the Scouring of the Shire is necessary to The Lord of the Rings).

F. You also say, in relation to the 300 pages of wandering: "Ron leaves, we don't care because we know he'll be back, Harry has some convenient dreams of Voldemort, they get attacked by a giant snake, and basically everything else is just filling." In the interest of time (and more important points), I'm not really going to argue with this, I'd just like to say that I don't feel like anything is filling, and I think it's all terribly important to the story, and I would also like to ask you a question (in response to the first statement about Ron leaving):
When you read The Lord of the Rings, surely you knew that, because it was a novel, it would end happily--with Tolkien's great eucatastrophe--but did that mean that you did not care that it did, in fact, end well? Though you knew that this, a story about a great battle between good and evil, must necessarily end with good triumphing over evil, with the Ring being destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom, were you not nevertheless filled with joy when Barad Dur came crashing down and Sauron was vanquished?
Just because you know that something is going to happen in a novel doesn't mean that you can't appreciate it or care about it or that it doesn't matter.

G. "Harry's parents cheerfully encourage him to walk blindly to his death, while Malfoy's parents endanger their lives and their entire mission just to find out if Malfoy's alive. Harry sets himself up as a Christ figure (this is where I as the reader start to feel really uncomfortable) and Dumbledore gives us another plot dump despite being dead, then, unsatisfied, Harry spoils the moment of Voldemort's death with another plot dump, that really pi$$es me off because he basically says that the sacrifices of the brave wizards dying to defend Hogwarts don't count compared to him going up and standing there while Voldemort kills him, which he survives anyway, and that his sacrifice would ulimately defeat Voldemort. I find that completely morally wrong."
In relation to this passage of your argument, I'll mostly treat on the statement that Hary "basically say that the sacrifices of the brave wizards dying to defend Hogwarts don't count," but what I'll have to say about that relates to the rest of your complaints, except, perhaps, the one about Harry as a "Christ figure," which I'll address now.
It is true, Harry can be seen as a Christ figure. If you are not Christian, and, I suppose, especially if you are atheist, I can see why this might bother you. However, I think the tie-ins with Christ can be easily separated from the story itself, and I would argue that this sacrifice of Harry's is necessary to the story. (And, by the way, Voldemort didn't actually "kill" Harry; Harry never died, but rather went to a sort of Limbo in which he was able to communicate with someone who was dead--Dumbledore.)
As for the rest: Harry does not say the deaths of the "brave wizards" do not count, that their sacrifices do not matter. He does not in any way imply this; he does not belittle their deaths or their courage, but rather honors it--it is for this that he fights, it is for this that he is willing to die, for this that he thinks he will die; Harry is willing to die, to face Voldemort alone, so that no one else need die. This does not mean that he scorns the sacrifices of those already dead but that he is pained by the fact that their sacrifices were necessary and seeks to save others from having to make the same kind of sacrifice.
In short (and this is where this relates to your first objections), I think that you have completely failed to understand Harry Potter, that you fully misconstrue the point of it, the message behind it, and have failed to really comprehend what it is that Rowling drives at with the series.

H. Your complaint that Harry Potter is a "passive character." At this point, I'm really too tired and lazy to address it fully, but, rest assured, I WILL! (In a later post).


I understand, of course, if you really don't feel like responding to all of my questions and elaborating, etc. I won't be offended if you leave the conversation as it stands (though, again, I do intend to address your last point--probably next week, when I have more time).

[Gandalfs Beard]

Holy Canoli, Barrel the pony, I don't think I can agree with any of your points on Potter. I would go point by point with you but that would take too much of my time at the moment, and Luthien seems to be doing apretty good job any way. Also I have a running argument with the Christians on Narniaweb that is taking up a lot of my free time, so I'll just have to address the points that really leapt out at me. Forgive me if I miss some of your points.
First alittle background on me so you will get where I'm coming from. I am a 43 year old British expat. now living in the USA. I am a student of political science and philosophy. I was raised on Roald Dahl,CSLewis, Tolkien and L.Frank Baum. and I consider myself to be a nontheistic pagan agnostic . Yes , that's a mouthful but it is the only apt description of my views. If you want a fuller explanation see my posts under the same username at Narnia web.com on the forums regarding Narnia and Christianity where I am pretty much the only defender of pagans, agnostics and other nonChristians (though its nice that Show joined in too).
So first I will tackle the notion of Potter as a Christ figure. In a nutshell, he is not. Though there are a few parallels, this is only because the story of Christ himself follows the mythic path of the Hero's Journey. This quest story path predates Christianity all the way back to the paleolithic era, and continues to be the central theme of Fantasy/Sci Fi (our modern myths) up through today. If you would like to learn more about this, I highly recommend Joseph Campbell's the Power of Myth. Films like The Matrix and Star Wars openly borrow from Campbell's work. The Potter series is mostly Pagan so you really should feel better about the books as far as the spiritual views in them. Rowling, while nominally a Christian, like most Europeans and Brits does not hold to the fundamentalism so prevalent in the USA. And though she belongs to a church, the views she expresses are largely Pagan. This is why so many American Christians want to burn her books.
As to her moral values, I think you just have a misunderstanding of what she is saying. The books first and foremost are about loyalty UNBLINDED, family and freindship. Secondarily the books are a treatise on the evils of Nazi/kkk style bigotry and slavery. Thirdly, the books deal with class issues and come from a British Democratic Socialist point of view (another reason so many American conservatives hate the Potter books). As to the magic, It is a blend of different styles. Being a Brit, it was inevitable that Crowlieism would make an appearence; likewise Blavatsky style late 19th century/early 20th century New Ageism is also included (though Rowling expresses dubiousness about those views). There is also Alchemy, runework and most importantly she pays the most respect to Animist forms of Paganism as expressed through Herbology and the many magical creatures that mke an appearence.
On to her writing style. I suppose a lot of this can be chalked up to taste, but there may be some cultural issues at work here also. Her style actually follows the typically British path. Though marketed to kids they are not typical childrens stories; they are adult stories which happen to be about children. And though the themes are serious and dramatic, Rowling has the Roald Dahl sense of whimsy that leavens the inherent darkness of the plot. Though you see the books as "unedited" and rambling, nothing could be further from the truth. The series is intricately plotted, and seemingly irrelevant things are later revealed to be integral to the story.
Then, as far as Potter being "passive", I think that perhaps, the books being longer than you would have liked, you might have missed what was actually occuring. Harry is an extremely proactive character. It is only in The Goblet of Fire where he is reactive to events beyond his control.
As to the way teens talk to one another, this may just be another cultural issue. Frankly, most of the time the teens behave just like teens the world over; but the fact is, being British, they are extremely well educated and articulate. I don't know where you are from, Barrel the pony, but if I had to guess I would say here in the good ol' USA where educated people are seen as "elitist" and/ or gay. Please don't take this as an insult, it is just an observation. Though I am British I have lived in the US since Jr High School and it is also commonly depicted in the media here.
To sum up, the Rowling books will stand the test of time and are truly in the same league as Tolkien and Lewis. I have yet to come across another fantasy series as intricate and unique as the Potter series. Most modern fantasy is just a rip off from the earlier authors mentioned. Having said that, The Earthsea series is brilliant but I find it a bit depressing. Terry Brooks started with well written total rip off of the Lord of the Rings, but Damn if he didn't then turn the Shannara series into a wonderfully intricate and original universe. But my favorite Terry Brooks series is The Magic Kingdom for Sale series. This series has a totally original concept and has a great sense of humor. As for the Eragon series, I found the stories boring being very derivative of other works. But Paolino is a decent writer and when he gets off his Tolkien/McCaffrey kick I think he has the potential to write his own original stories. The last writer I will mention in this post is Jack Chalker. Though many consider his various series to be Sci Fi in the vein of Robert Heinlein, despite the high concept science in his works, they more closely resemble Fantasy epics. And his Well World series is one of the most adventurous and original series ever. Ooops, I lied, One more great series is the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.

Live Long and Prosper
Gandalfs Beard

[Luthien]

Gandalf's Beard, you said: "As to her moral values, I think you just have a misunderstanding of what she is saying. The books first and foremost are about loyalty UNBLINDED, family and friendship. Secondarily the books are a treatise on the evils of Nazi/kkk style bigotry and slavery." I think this is really the crux of the matter, and I should have said it myself. However, you said it better than I could have, and you made some very other good points besides.
There is, I think, a very telling quote in The Goblet of Fire that really sums up your point about what the series is about:

" 'You are blinded,' said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power
around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, 'by the love of the office you
hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on
the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what
someone is born, but what they grow to be! Your dementor has just destroyed the
last remaining member of a pure-blood family as old as any--and see what that
man chose to make of his life!' "

Harry Potter really and truly is about the evils of bigotry and intolerance, and I think that this is one of the many, many things that makes it so special.

I do still intend to directly argue against the "passive" thing, as well, and...as a teenager from the U.S. I almost want to take offense at your suggestion that U.S. teens aren't "well educated and articulate," but I can't because this is true in large part....

[Gandalfs Beard]

Thank you for that Luthien. I should have added to my point about American teens: Despite this, many American teens rise above the scorn of their peers to become educated and articulate and are called Nerds and Geeks for their troubles.

Peace
Gandalfs Beard