Harry Potter for Everyone

[Skimmel_98 at yahoo.com]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C411
From: Skimmel_98
Subject: Re: Harry Potter for Everyone
Reply To: [Yahoo! #410] Re: Harry Potter for Everyone
Date: 1/26/00 8:52 am  (ET)

Mystril is very close to the mark. Adults like Harry for all those
reasons. But the books don't remind me of anything I read as a child. The
Harry Potter books are about interesting characters with a lot of
admirable characteristics and identifable failings. Harry and Ron and
Hermione are engaged in a classic struggle of good versus evil in which
the outcome is in doubt until the very last moment.

The books are written with charm and wit and a very nice style. That's
very important. There are lots of books with all the other story
characteristics as Harry but without the style. Although it would be odd
for the title character to be killed off in the third book of a seven
book set when we read the books, the outcome is in doubt because we are
so deeply caught up by the writer's skill.

I know people who don't understand what Harry Potter is all about. I
don't understand them. In the SF community, they're referred to as
Mundanes because they can't get interested in anything but the Mundane
world. In the Harry Potter field, these same folks are Muggles. My best
explanation for Mundanes and Muggles is that the world has crushed all
the imagination out of them.