can i ask what you like about harry potter since it's your first time reading it? i was obsessed with those books as a kid, and i always like to hear what first time readers think of the series. do you have a favorite character? a favorite book so far? i'd love to hear your thoughts!
I only just finished the Prisoner of Azkaban and it was my favorite so far! I really like it so far. Dumbledore was my favorite character because I like how he knows what Harry and his friends are up to, and he orchestrates events so that they are able to set things right. Then it was Neville Longbottom, after the poor kid stood up to Harry and Ron and Hermione when they were breaking the rules.
But then I encountered a very kind Dark Arts teacher, after the previous two horrible Dark Arts teachers, and like the first thing he did was be kind to Neville Longbottom. And everyone who's kind to Neville Longbottom makes me instantly happy. And then the more I learned about him and compared how HE was behaving to other Professors who catch Harry in the act of doing something dangerous, the more I decided Professor Lupin is my favorite character. I also like the brotherly relationships that make characters have in the series. You don't see that too often anymore. Nowadays, close male characters are either gay or not that close.
We'll see if he remains my favorite!
The thing I don't like about the books is how, other than Dumbledore, there seems to be a pattern of adults being wrong, and unable to do the things that the kids do to save the day. And the kids keep having to break rules and endanger themselves and lie, and then the narrative rewards all of that. There's quite a lot of "we can't trust the adults, we know better than them" in the actions of the characters.
But that's why I like Neville, who wins the house cup for Gryffindor after the first book's events just by doing the right thing and obeying the rules with the information he had, even when it was hard and his only friends were telling him to shut up and leave them alone. And that's why I like Dumbledore, who so far kind of stands in as a "higher power" who knows everything and orchestrates events so that the kids work everything out (though he obviously still has a lot of humanizing moments too.)
So far I think the characters with the most depth are the ones she's not writing about that much. Like Lupin and Black and Pettigrew and James Potter. But I've heard the series "grows up with its readers," so maybe Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, all those main characters will have more depth as I keep reading.
I think the way she sets up her climaxes are really good. Like how a tiny detail, like a regular colorful description of how ragged Scavbers the rat looks includes the fact that he's missing a toe, just in passing, fits so perfectly in with the big reveal that Peter Pettigrew is also missing a finger later on. But in the moment, her foreshadowing doesn't look like foreshadowing; it just looks like color added to the story.
My least favorite thing, also, is that I'll keep expecting one of the main trio to have an emotional or character-revealing response to something, and then sometimes they just...don't. Like Hermione doesn't really react one way or another to the prejudice against mudbloods in Chamber of Secrets. Even if her character is one that doesn't mind what bullies say, or she's so logical that she doesn't give a silly thing like prejudice a second thought...the perspective of Harry could've noticed that. He could've made an observation about it, so that we would know that's definitely the kind of girl she is. Or, she could've freaked out about it, or gradually shown embarrassment or self consciousness about it. But she doesn't really do anything noticeable in response to this major plot point. So it feels more like there's no intentional depth to her character.
Which I know is probably not true, because she's out work into characters like Dumbledore and Snape, so I know Rowling can write characters with depth. I don't know.
Anyway, those are my thoughts! I've seen no movies and interacted with the "fandom" zip, zero, not at all.
