So the guy I’m dating is a very casual Harry Potter fan. When I say casual I mean he hasn’t read the books and, as of last night, he had watched the movies once when they came out +15 years ago. Yet he made the effort to go to a “Pottercon” last weekend. An actual convention you pay for.
The past couple of days discussions as to why I wouldn’t go have been had. And it made me and my friends very self-aware of our relationship to the franchise. We are the opposite of casual fans. We read the books as they came out, we were obsessed, we have read them many, many times and will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. We have watched the movies, and we have seen JKR consistently destroy her own franchise (no, this is not a debate, she has and that’s that).
We all agreed that an event like the aforementioned Pottercon was of no interest to us because we are just tired and weary fans. WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THE TASTE OF BREAD, THE SOUND OF TREES, THE SOFTNESS OF THE WIND. We have been so intensely involved with Harry Potter that just going to a place where people run around dressed like wizards and witches for a day just doesn’t cut it for us anymore.
So we sat down and thought about WHAT type of talks/events would actually get our asses to a Pottercon. What would make us pay our hard earned money and invest out limited and precious time. And ooh by, we came up with interesting talks:
- HOW JK ROWLING SINGLE-HANDEDLY DESTROYED HER OWN FRANCHISE AND PERSONALLY RUINED MY LIFE FOREVER (a 5 hour TedTalk by my dear friend @ralkm - there will be a lot of angry yelling, considered yourself warned) - Post-talk rehab group for recovering potterheads (ran by me). - How Harry Potter changed children’s literature forever and helped cement Young Adult as a literary genre and popularized the Fantasy genre for the mainstream. - Analyzing magic politics: why wizards implemented an isolationist policy, and what consequences it had in relation to muggles and science. - The wizarding world and how they construct nationalistic ideas. - A treaty of the neuropsychology of magic: exploring how magic, emotions and neurological processes are intrinsically connected. -> What does this mean for disabled people with cognitive, speech of mobility impediments. -> What’s the relation between magic and mental health
ADD YOUR OWN.
