No, Really, I Am an American

This post may contain possible SPOILERS for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Consider yourself warned…then again, with the bunch that reads this blog, I’m sure you all finished it LONG before I did.

I finished reading the final installment of the infamous Harry Potter series and I can’t help but wonder what it is about these books that has captivated so many people. Don’t get me wrong, I like the books and will probably re-read them again…but I don’t feel as impassioned about them as say half the English-speaking (and even non-English) world. It’s like Heroes; I like it but I don’t understand why it took off. Rob says that maybe one of the reasons I’m not so amazed is because I already play in these worlds; the majority of the books I read are fantasy and I’m an avid comic book reader. So none of this is really new to me.

I can’t say I was taken with this book…or really any of them. I enjoyed reading them, but I found I could put them down. Maybe it’s ‘cuz I have a short attention span. It wasn’t until I reached the final few chapters that I found I couldn’t resist reading on. I was so unbelievably bummed about the three deaths, maybe ‘cuz I thought it woulda been nice for one of James Potter’s friends to have survived…and Tonks, though a minor character, has always been one of my favorites. I knew the Weasleys wouldn’t be without loss…but none of these really hit me as hard as say Wash. I was pissed about Hedwig, but then I guess it would have been hard to write her in. Gotta thin out the cast some how, I s’pose.

I wasn’t really all that surprised about Snape. Then again, I think the majority of us saw that coming. Maybe it’s ‘cuz we read a lot that this didn’t seem all that unexpected. I liked the bits going into the history of the relationships between everyone, but then again, I’ve always liked that stuff. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed the third book so much ‘cuz we got to meet some of the people Harry didn’t get a chance to know. Bits and pieces, as in the other books, annoyed me, but this may be because I’m not a teenager anymore so I can’t understand this kind of teenage-angst.

As for the latest movie…well, I don’t know how I feel about it. It makes me sad that my two favorite books are the two shortest movies. At least, I think the third movie was short. I can say that it was the least disappointing movie I’ve seen this summer, so that’s gotta count for something.

So yeah. Good stuff, but I don’t see why everyone thinks it’s spectacular. I bet there’s academic research on why, though. Maybe I should take a class…