May I read your Harry Potter rant? Those books absolutely consumed my adolescence, but as soon as the seventh book came out, and all the mysteries and suspense were resolved - bam. All that obsession that consumed eight years of my life, blown out like a candle.
All the same, Mark Oshiro's 2010 blind read was the clearest sign of dissolution I personally witnessed around the franchise. That was my introduction to the modern social justice movement including words like "cisgender" - it was the same for thousands if people - and I seem to have been one of a tiny minority that didn't buy in on the spot.
Well, unfortunately, I have yet to get around to starting a dedicated series on Harry Potter. I touched a bit on it in another article I wrote called "Indiana Jones and the Last Franchise", which, despite the name, is more about the current state of several Legacy IP's that are still getting new content, Harry Potter among them. It barely scratches the issues I ended up having with the series over the years. I will say that since I wrote that article I've come around to being more soft on the original books, which, the more I reflect on them, is less about the books and more about everything around them - the fandom, the fan culture, the hyper-corporatization of what is, at its core, a decent coming of age fantasy story that has been beat to death in the intervening years. Which is to say nothing of the absolutely god awful spin-off movies, stageplays, and other expanded media, which has only served to damage the setting in an attempt to build it out. Like you said, once all the mysteries, ambiguities, and vagaries that make the settings of Harry Potter ir Star Wars or Middle Earth are all explained away and catalogued... what is there left to enjoy or think about? It doesn't help that so much of the spin-off material has just been of astoundingly low quality, with or without Rowlings involvement.
Trust me when I say I sympathize with your feeling. Harry Potter played a big part in my formative years as well and seeing the way it's gone and been handled has been very disappointing.
But... but... I will say, your comment comes at a very fortuitous time. The other night some friends of mine and I had a very impassioned discussion on Harry Potter that got my mind turning it over again. Along with this comment, it struck me as a sign that maybe I should finally get around to doing a study on it. I only have one article that's nearly complete in the pipeline, so if you watch this space, a piece on Harry Potter will probably be published in the next week or two, so, thank you for the comment and finally giving me the inspiration to get started on it.
May I read your Harry Potter rant? Those books absolutely consumed my adolescence, but as soon as the seventh book came out, and all the mysteries and suspense were resolved - bam. All that obsession that consumed eight years of my life, blown out like a candle.
All the same, Mark Oshiro's 2010 blind read was the clearest sign of dissolution I personally witnessed around the franchise. That was my introduction to the modern social justice movement including words like "cisgender" - it was the same for thousands if people - and I seem to have been one of a tiny minority that didn't buy in on the spot.
Well, unfortunately, I have yet to get around to starting a dedicated series on Harry Potter. I touched a bit on it in another article I wrote called "Indiana Jones and the Last Franchise", which, despite the name, is more about the current state of several Legacy IP's that are still getting new content, Harry Potter among them. It barely scratches the issues I ended up having with the series over the years. I will say that since I wrote that article I've come around to being more soft on the original books, which, the more I reflect on them, is less about the books and more about everything around them - the fandom, the fan culture, the hyper-corporatization of what is, at its core, a decent coming of age fantasy story that has been beat to death in the intervening years. Which is to say nothing of the absolutely god awful spin-off movies, stageplays, and other expanded media, which has only served to damage the setting in an attempt to build it out. Like you said, once all the mysteries, ambiguities, and vagaries that make the settings of Harry Potter ir Star Wars or Middle Earth are all explained away and catalogued... what is there left to enjoy or think about? It doesn't help that so much of the spin-off material has just been of astoundingly low quality, with or without Rowlings involvement.
Trust me when I say I sympathize with your feeling. Harry Potter played a big part in my formative years as well and seeing the way it's gone and been handled has been very disappointing.
But... but... I will say, your comment comes at a very fortuitous time. The other night some friends of mine and I had a very impassioned discussion on Harry Potter that got my mind turning it over again. Along with this comment, it struck me as a sign that maybe I should finally get around to doing a study on it. I only have one article that's nearly complete in the pipeline, so if you watch this space, a piece on Harry Potter will probably be published in the next week or two, so, thank you for the comment and finally giving me the inspiration to get started on it.