[PlatinumDragon]

Why hasn't anyone made a Harry Potter thing yet? It has movies, books and it is a series. I think its about time my boy HP gets a topic so I'm gonna start one. So, without further ado, what are your thoughts on anything Harry Potter?

[therealkid2369]

Harry Potter is one of the book series that influenced me the most as a child/teen it has helped me get through tough times because i was able to connect with the characters who had gone through similar situations being around the same age as me. However, in the movie i think Ron was portrayed as kind of a jerk who was selfish, in the books Ron had a caring deep side and helped keep the team together through their adventures.

[darkdrake87]

I think the worst mistake they made was trying to cram all of book 5 (Order of the Phoenix) into one movie.  I mean, c'mon, they were so pressed for time to do all the things that they freaking changed the traitor, AND how Harry and Co found out who it was, just because they didn't feel like "introducing a one shot character that would never have another impact on the series" (their words, as close as I could paraphrase.)

[Kittyhawk]

I love Harry Potter, the books somewhat more than the movies. However, even though I agree that they should not have shortened book 5 as much, and it wouldn't have been quite as much of a change if 7 had not been the only two-parter, I highly doubt people would have been as happy to know they would be buying more than 7 tickets total if they had started with the two-parters from 5. I at least am glad they made the movie understandable, 4 and 5 were kind of the most confusing of the series as a whole, in my opinion.

[darkdrake87]

I will definitely agree with you on the confusion part.  There were definitely parts of - particularly six - that had me going "Heh?"  I also do understand them cutting the actual traitor and making it who they did (trying to avoid spoilers, not that I should need to, but still), because in the book, I immediately started the series over to see if she'd actually been mentioned before (here's a hint, she hadn't.)

I personally would have happily dropped the money for two-parters from book 4 on, because really, everything after Prisoner needed to have more detail in it.  But as a whole, yes, they did a VERY good job, and I was also thoroughly impressed with Fantastic Beasts, truth be told.

[domasleo159]

I love Harry Potter. It was the series that got me into reading back in 4th grade.  In fact, I like reading so much that in a school of 600 people in 6th grade I was in the top 15 students in the amount of books read XD.

[PlatinumDragon]

I love Harry Potter too, but the fights are boring. The best fight in the series was the one between Dumbledore and Voldemort at the ministry. They shot fire and water from the fountain and all that cool stuff, they didn't just yell Avada Kedavra and hope for the best. If anyone has read the Eragon books you know how awesome wizard battles can be, in the books the characters fought with swords dragons and any spell they make up on the spot. Almost every duel in Harry Potter is boring and the wizards are not being good wizards. They should creatively make up new spells to beat their opponent, not shoot a spell to disarm an opponent they're shooting a spell to kill you. But hey, that's just my opinion.

[darkdrake87]

Uhm... did you... actually... read the Eragon books?  I'm not trying to be a superior git, but they didn't just make up their spells as they went.  Spellcasting in Eragon was based in an ancient language in which speaking the name of a thing invoked the thing!  With the right intent, Brisingr (for example) could cause a roaring forest fire... or light a torch so you could see in a dark cave.

[PlatinumDragon]

Did you read the Eragon books? Specifically the last one where Eragon casts a spell with no words that made Galbatorix realize his faults or something like that, it was a weird spell! And Yes they did make up spells using the ancient language as building blocks, in theory they could do anything (within their energy restriction thing) but the word for fire is brisingr and bear is artos so what would happen if you were to turn artos abr brisingr into a spell? Your energy, comprehension of the ancient language, and imagination are the only limits. Back to Harry Potter, with the exception of The fight I previously mentioned and when wizards are kids, the spes are the only things that do anything which is far less natural and realistic, also its less cool.

[Kittyhawk]

I love Harry Potter too, but the fights are boring. The best fight in the series was the one between Dumbledore and Voldemort at the ministry. They shot fire and water from the fountain and all that cool stuff, they didn't just yell Avada Kedavra and hope for the best. If anyone has read the Eragon books you know how awesome wizard battles can be, in the books the characters fought with swords dragons and any spell they make up on the spot. Almost every duel in Harry Potter is boring and the wizards are not being good wizards. They should creatively make up new spells to beat their opponent, not shoot a spell to disarm an opponent they're shooting a spell to kill you. But hey, that's just my opinion.

The point was that Harry did not like to hurt people, that's why he used the disarm spell so regularly. It was part of why the septi-spell he got from the potion book affected him as much as he did, he paid the price for using a spell he did not understand and it really alter his path in that book. He realized he could do real harm to someone if he continued to be reckless, and the fact that it was Draco he did it to and that altered not one portion of the guilt he felt is just supporting the idea that it really made an impact. In another storytellers' hand he might have felt a bit justified using it on Draco after their history, but that would have been missing the lesson entirely.

[ardentcrestmc]

I really do like the way the publishers and author made this ADULT book child friendly.

[Skelleton123]

I never read books before the HP books came along. Now I have all of them in my mother tongue (Dutch) and in English. The english versions really helped me learn the language at a young age :-)

[ardentcrestmc]

Did you know there are two different talking books.

One for the UK read by Stephen Fry, an actor and comedian from the UK.
And
One for the US read by Jim Dale, an actor and comedian from the UK.

[QuicksilverFox85]

Proud Gryffindor here, big fan of both the books and the movies for their own merits.

[LucianX09]

This was one of my favorite series in school. That and LoTR. I wrote my senior research paper on Tolkien the afternoon it was assigned and my teacher laughed when I tried to turn it in the following class day, she said there's no way I had it 100% done. She was right I didn't have all of my sources page numbers down, but that took me a week, she gave us a whole semester to do it. I made the second highest grade. But yeah, HP was a large influence for me, and now my kids love it too, its awesome seeing it being passed down like that.

PS: I hated Snape. Hated him, always expected him to be the real bad guy and thought Voldemort was nothing comparatively. Which of course was a HUGE surprise when he ended up being, to me, the best character of the whole series.