Does Harry Potter hold a special place in your heart?

Television, Movies Games and Books Harry Potter
#1

The books sure do for me.

I was one of those that before them really didn’t like reading at all, I’d suffer through it for school then never read on my own.

I believe I was in Sixth grade at the time…I think the Fourth book had been released not too long before that, because I had gotten the first two books in paperback and the third and fourth as hardcover. Anyways I eventually folded because all my friends were all ‘playing’ Harry Potter pretending to shoot spells at each other and all that stuff and was sick of feeling left out.

It just drew me in, I really liked Harry right away, while I had a few friends I wasn’t exactly the most popular (obviously not that bad when you look back on it now but at the time you’re young you feel like you have it so crappy) him being able to escape away to such an awesome world wishing you could too.

Essentially it’s what really opened me up to many of the things I really enjoy today (well I loved Star Wars even before HP) but it also got me to not just judge things before actually checking them out, for example I might have just dismissed Battlestar as “oh that’s just some nerdy thing they’re bringing back to try and make a quick buck of nostalgia”

Has it had any effect on your life? The way you look at stories and/or fantasy worlds in general?

#2

Yea,

For me i have always i have loved reading for a long time. But when i heard about this Harry Potter thing i was kinda reluctant to get into it. I didnt want to get sucked into the kids book that sounded really silly. My mum and my brother and sister were big into it. But i was resistant to it.

Then one summer during a trip to Minneapolis my mum went and bought two book copies of Goblet of Fire the day it came out. One for her to read and one for my sis and eventually my brother (who also wasn’t a reader and got into HP at least for a while). I was kinda weirded out and it pushed me a little further away from the way my mom described it ( we have learned that my mom is really bad at retelling stories and describing things appropriately).

It wasn’t until i was flying home that i decided to finally read the books. I was stranded in the ATL airport stormed in (you know like happens always when going thru ATL) and i overheard a dude in his mid thirties in a business suit talking on a cell phone saying he was gonna be a couple hours late but it would be ok since he had the new Harry Potter book. I figured then that if some guy like that can be so excited then it must be something special.

The next time i visited my mum a couple weeks later i grabbed the first book and read it pretty much over night and then the next book the next night. I was completely sucked in. Harry Potter was one of the first things that got me to post on the net.

So i guess what i learned was not to judge something based on its popularity. Which I am doing with the Twilight series…but i have at least researched it on the net and have decided that i don’t want to read about sparkly vampires. Also I am not a 12 year old girl.

#3

You’re 20ish then?

Oh to answer…eh I don’t remember it being that dramatic or anything, I got PoA for christmas one year and just didn’t have anything else to read at the time so I read it. Loved it. Ate up the first two real quick and then went to the midnight for Goblet…maybe Order too. I don’t remember.

#4

20 right on the head :smiley:

#5

Absolutely. I began reading the first book while I was pregnant with my first child, over nine years ago. It was a great time in my life. I was enchanted with the book and I was very, very happy to be expecting. Both my husband and I read and became obsessed with the world of Harry Potter and quickly devoured books one and two. Thereafter we waited in breathless anticipation for every book release. Two of the book releases coincided with the births of my children, so I fed my babies while reading them. In 2006 my husband and I attended Lumos in Las Vegas. This was between books 6 and 7. It was a unique time because we knew that this would be the end, that we were waiting for the end and that it would never be the same afterward, that we would very likely never again be waiting for such a momentous book release during our lifetimes. There was a sense of being suspended in magic. I know how insane that must sound to those that didn’t experience it that same way. I suppose that’s why Wizard Rock is still so popular; it is a way of extending the magic. I dread the day the last movie is released. It will feel like the magic has ended, like the ride has stopped and someone has turned-out the lights for good.

#6

while I never got to go to any big convention like Lumos, I was able to get to the midnight release for book 7 and loved it

I know your feeling about it being done, after I finished Book 7, while loving how it ended, couldn’t help feeling a bit hollow like I had nothing more to look forward to from it, but I helped myself by saying “no no we’ve still got the movies coming!”

I imagine we won’t be the only ones super depressed after the final movie is released, perhaps that JKR encyclopedia will be out by then? I guess that’s something to look forward to while not really a new story :frowning:

#7

I have always loved to read, but like Mr Lister, Sir, I definitely was leary of all the hoopla. But someone left the paperback of Sorcerer’s Stone at work one night, and I was bored. I was instantly hooked. I anxiously awaited the release of each new book.

What’s cool to me is how many people I hear say that, like you, it got them into reading.

And I love having something to talk about with my nephew and young cousins. :slight_smile:

#8

I agree. I love the stories (my own included) of people who accidentally got hooked on the series.

I think you make a really great point. The series has been a great way for my husband and I to connect with kids (our own son who is now reading book 3 and kids of our friends who have read all of the books). I find that kids are genuinely amazed when we tell them of our excitement over the books and engage them in discussion about the stories. It is really enjoyable to get their perspective and to give them some insights as well.

#9

Very few series, if any, hold up or improve with each following installment like Harry Potter has. Ordinarily I’m glad when a series ends, but not in this case. I cannot think of another series of books or movies that I will actually miss as much of this one. I’m listening to Deathly Hallows right now and it really saddens me, like when I first read it, to know that there will not be another installment. While I know that there are still two more movies coming, I really didn’t want this one to end as it puts us that much closer to finality.

Hopefully, J.K. will miss Harry enough to reopen his universe one day. Some stand alone novels of his adventures as an Auror could really be fun.

#10

I think i would rather see other parts of the Harryypotterverse. JK has created a world almost as elaborate as Middle Earth and there are so many other characters that could be explored. Rather than seeing Harry do his thing i think it would be awesome to see maybe the story of the Original Order of the Phoneix. It would be awesome for it to be an adult series. we could see them fighting Voldemort for the first time. His rise to power. How the Ministry dealt with him. How the rest of the Wizarding world dealt with him. We have not see the Wizarding world outside of the UK and i would love to see US and other Wizarding worlds. They always mention that Voldemort had an effect(affect i never know which one…see my rants on the written english language) on the world but only see a minor part of it. And how powerful would the series to end with the first chapter of the first Harry Potter book. I think it could be amazing

#11

I watched the ABC airing of JK Rowling: A Year in the Life, and her interviewer asked her if she considered the stories of Harry’s children. Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and she immediately blurted out that she would love to before realizing what she was saying and retracting it.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me if she came back in some way some time, and I think she’d know better than to talk about just some other big bad wizard if she did.

#12

The Potterverse is big and rich enough for lots of different avenues to be taken. A Tom Riddle bio or series has major potential. Just don’t let George Lucas anywhere near the story or movies. :rolleyes:

I’d still like to know how Dumbledore was connected to Harry Potter.

#13

what would be awesome is if she’s been working on something, or if she gets something going and doesn’t tell anyone until its finished and being edited that there’s going to be another stand alone novel set in the universe

even if she opens the universe up to a couple other authors or something I think its such a rich universe you can’t just let it sit there, look at Lucas, yeah he didn’t want to make any more Star Wars movies there for a while but he didn’t stop people from writing books and/or stories that took place in the universe

#14

I entered the Harry Potter world the summer after 4th grade. I’d heard the hype, and I didn’t want to like it, but I checked it out at the library. I read it in one night, and rushed back for the second one the next day. Our tiny library only had one copy, and I badgered the person that had it for about a month before I finally got to read it. I got the first three for my birthday in the fall, and went to three book stores the following summer to get the fourth. I was at the midnight releases for the last three, and I really miss the magic of the universe.

#15

I really wish I had gone to more midnight releases, I only went to the 7th one but I had a blast seeing all the costumes and stuff

#16

I was 12 when I started reading the books. I was 17 when Deathly Hallows came out. I grew up with the books. They’re a part of who I grew up to be. I’ve probably read each book 40ish times over the years. They’re still magical.

The Fandom is also holds an important place in my heart. The HP fandom was the first fandom that I really got into, the first community I was ever a part of. It’s also Harry Potter fanfiction that really helped me explore my sexuality, which sounds weird, but I have a very vivid memory of going on to fanfiction.net and choosing ‘romance’ and then, in a moment of epiphany, realizing I could choose two male characters to read about. So I’d say that Harry Potter and co. had a pretty powerful effect on me.

#17

In 97 when Harry Potter first came out I was in the 6th grade and 11 years old My parents bought me the first book and I was hooked from there. My first midnight release party was Goblet of Fire I was a freshmen in high school also the first time parents let me out that late without them.The character I always most identified with is Hermione especially in High School I was concidered a ugly dork who read to much too. Now I am 24 years old and Harry Potter is ending I almost dont know what to do with myself…H/HR FOREVER!!