[HPforGrownups] PS/SS vs. CoS: It's A Tie!

[Kelly Grosskreutz]

No: HPFGUIDX 57450

> I'm a PoA fan, myself, but I was wondering what it is that causes
> people to choose PS/SS over CoS or vice versa.  And, uh, what is it
> that makes either of those two more enjoyable than PoA?

I also am a PoA fan, but I don't have a problem choosing between PS/SS and
CoS.  I choose PS/SS.  When I first decided to read HP, it was mainly
because I was majoring in education and I felt I should read books that were
popular with children so I would know what they liked to read.  To say I
underestimated the book would be an understatement.  I remembered children's
books I had read as a child that, while I might not have been able to
predict the outcome as a child, it was obvious as an adult.  Therefore, I
allowed myself to believe that the villain of this book would be Snape.  All
the way through the book, I did like Hogwarts and seeing Harry learn to
adapt to this new world, but I kept thinking that Snape would end up being
the bad guy because no kid would believe that a teacher would do that to
them.  So I underestimated kids, too.  I did allow myself to entertain the
possibility that he wasn't the bad guy because so much emphasis was put on
making him out to be the type, but I didn't think too much beyond that.  The
end, as you can imagine, threw me for a loop.  Not only was Snape *not* the
bad guy, but he had been trying to *save* Harry all this time.  This plot
twist is what won me over to the HP series, for I was so impressed by this
that I was willing to give the next book a try.  That, and I did like PS/SS
to begin with.

CoS is actually my least favorite HP book.  To me, the most noteworthy part
in the entire book is his conversation with Tom Riddle towards the end, down
with Ginny.  The character of Lockhart just annoyed me, and a lot of the
book just seemed like a mystery novel set in a magical setting.  This worked
better for me in PS/SS because the world itself is new to the reader.  In
CoS, though, we are familiar with the world, so now we can focus a little
more on the mystery itself (the petrifications).

Granted, CoS does take the series to the next level.  Forgetting the scene
with Tom Riddle, we are introduced to the Pureblood/Muggle-born prejudices,
we find out why Hagrid was expelled, we are introduced to Lucius Malfoy and
Cornelius Fudge (not to mention Fawkes), and a whole bunch of other things.
In retrospect, minor events and certain characters in CoS seem to be turning
out to be more important than the majority of PS/SS, but I still find myself
enjoying PS/SS more, perhaps just because it *was* the first.  Even so,
though, they both come in behind PoA and GoF in my mind.

Maybe, too, I prefer PS/SS because, although I read that one for clues to
upcoming plot events, I can still read it as a book in and of itself.
Because CoS has the things introduced in it that it does, all I keep
thinking about when I read CoS is GoF.  For example, Lucius Malfoy.  He's
shown here and there, and all I keep thinking about  is all the stuff we
find out about him in GoF.  In some ways, all CoS does for me when I read it
is tease me about events in GoF.  It's fun being able to know more about
certain things than they show in that book, but it also makes it harder for
me to enjoy CoS for what it is in and of itself.

Don't know how much sense this made, but hopefully someone was able to
decipher it.

Kelly Grosskreutz
http://www.idcnet.com/~ivanova