Harry VS Edward

Kikyo said:
LOLWUT? Cult books? Oh please spare me. Tell me you are not one of those people who think Harry Potter is a massive cult, and one of those who runs around in protest...xD They're good stories. And I'm sorry but why are you trashing on Harry Potter and ideas being borrowed? Don't you know that there are A LOT of stories where ideas are borrowed and made into their own? I mean honestly? Even the Final Fantasy series (I think this is taking it a bit off topic, but I do have a point to make) has borrowed ideas off of other things. Do you not play the games? So, you won't read books because ideas were 'borrowed' from others, however you're a Final Fantasy fan? I mean what's the difference between reading a book with a borrowed idea or playing a game with a borrowed idea?
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Of course I know that a lot of other books, games and cultural products borrow ideas and themes of older stuff (most culture is recycled anyways), but in my opinion a story like Lord of the Rings adapts these loaned ideas better into the story then Harry Potter. It seems more like Harry wanders into a museum containing every major fantasy creature, spell and item since 4000 BC when he goes to that magic school, instead of a wellcrafted world where fantasy element is there for a reason. Not every fantasy element in a story needs to make sense of course, but it feels to 'thrown together' for my taste. (But this would probably be more in place in another Harry Potter vs something thread...)

But on the other side, this 'thrown together' thing is probably what makes the books so popular. People want everthing or as much as possible, and Harry Potter offers almost every intersting fantasy element known to the regular folks. I can't really speak for Twilight, I only know it is about vampire high school kids and that it is excellent fuel for heated internet discussions. I suppuse it is less heavy in the fantasy element department?
 
SapphireStar said:
Im not comparing them. Basically they are roughly the same. Both are big sellers in the book world and I was wondering which people believed to be the biggest seller. They are of course 2 completely different stories. As I said in my opening post:



And if anyone says men dont read Twilight, its daft. Ive seen and know men who have read them and enjoyed them.



Im sorry but what the hell?! Yeah this is your opinion, but me, my granmother, my 13 year old sister and 15 year old cousin are most certainly not looking for booty calls cause we read Twilight!! That is uncalled for.
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The booty calls might not apply to you. But you should see all the annoying teens at my school yacking about how hot Edward is. Besides, its an opinion. Uncalled for? Maybe, but its sure true around here.

I have a male friend that reads it and likes the books. I didn't mean to imply everyone that reads thinks booty calls. But the majority I see does.

BTW my friend finds the movies terrible. I'm not sure why, but from what I've seen it doesn't look that good.
 
May I remind people that this is to discuss the books since this IS in the BOOKS AND LITERATURE section. If you want to compare the movies, please make a separate topic in the Home Theatre part.

Please continue the discussion.
 
niesl2 said:
Of course I know that a lot of other books, games and cultural products borrow ideas and themes of older stuff (most culture is recycled anyways), but in my opinion a story like Lord of the Rings adapts these loaned ideas better into the story then Harry Potter. It seems more like Harry wanders into a museum containing every major fantasy creature, spell and item since 4000 BC when he goes to that magic school, instead of a wellcrafted world where fantasy element is there for a reason. Not every fantasy element in a story needs to make sense of course, but it feels to 'thrown together' for my taste. (But this would probably be more in place in another Harry Potter vs something thread...)

But on the other side, this 'thrown together' thing is probably what makes the books so popular. People want everthing or as much as possible, and Harry Potter offers almost every intersting fantasy element known to the regular folks. I can't really speak for Twilight, I only know it is about vampire high school kids and that it is excellent fuel for heated internet discussions. I suppuse it is less heavy in the fantasy element department?
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Did you read all of the books? I couldn't disagree with this more.

The conflict that Harry and the others deal with throughout the series is one that began before the students' generation. As such, many key factors or elements of the story were things that arise from or carry over from the past to gradually play a role in the plot.

Things are almost never presented in some deus ex fashion meant to progress the plot or answer the tougher problems. Everything usually has a well-executed set up and an in-depth explanation behind it.

And Rowling even did a (surprisingly) fantastic job of bringing back into play many items or details that seemed put to rest with the earlier books.

^ These aren't things you get with a "thrown together" series. Did you base that off the movies? Could you cite examples of things that are thrown together?
 
The writing in HP is actually quite decent. The characters are well thought out and presetned, believable and realisitic. The story is good and intelligent etc etc.

Twilight is just garbage. Beyond garbage. It doesn't have a single decent quality other than the fact there are only a handful of the books and not billions of them. For then, I shall surely have to kill myself.

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Umm, I've read three Harry Potter books, although I'm not insanely in love with the series, her writing is really really good. It always kept me wanting more-even if I couldn't stand Harry-

Her sense of plot is amazing I think. And it's really one of the best series to exist.

With that said, Twilight Series can't compete with Harry Potter. Harry Potter series has a plot, great writing, and great characters. Twilight just has desperate women and "hot" guys.

A "book" like that can't compete with a series like Harry Potter. And if it does beat it out, it's only because of fangirls...and not actually for it's writing or story. Which is what a story should be made huge for--it's writing and storyline. Not because, like, all the hot dudes.
 
HP vs. Twilight? That's like a really bad joke. When it comes character development and a well thought out plot, Harry Potter is clearly superior. Now, when it comes to having creepy stalking vampire boyfriends and really dumb girls blindly in love with sparkly guys, then Twilight takes the lead. Seriously though, the Harry Potter books are so well written, and it just makes you want to read more. You can tell the author took a lot of time writing it. Twilight can go fry in the sun for all I care (or better yet, 'sparkle'). The plot is too messed up, the characters hardly get good development, and the romance is just.....disturbing and obsessive. I don't even know why people love it so much, when it all started with Stephenie Meyer's wet dream.
 
I don't think Twilight will ever pass up Harry Potter in popularity amongst the more mature audience. As most people can see the writing in Twilight started out okay but then as the series went on the the writing just got worse and worse until the point in the last book where it feels like everything is all rushed and a seven year old could tell a better tale. Harry Potter books on the other hand started out with mediocre writing and by the end of the series it was so complex and weaved such a tale that you find yourself, if you're anything like me. unable to be satisfied by most other books. =/

Another thing I feel Harry Potter has on Twilight is the fact that even though both books feature completely fiction creatures, and races really, the HP series seems to have more believable characters and events. I mean, honestly how cliche is it that two teenagers meet at school and fall in love then another guy falls in love with her? Take out the vampires and werewolves and you've got yourself a typical story about a love triangle. At least in HP the characters have characteristics that make them unique.

The last thing that sets the two aside and on completely different levels is the way in which the story is told. In Twilight it's sort of just presented to you as "You have to be a vampire or you'll die" then by the second half of the last book you get the feeling the author was sick of writing about Edward and she sorta rushed everything, I know I've said that before but that's pretty much one of my biggest problems with Twilight. In HP however it takes up until the sixth book I believe for you to finally find out just how the main conflict is supposed to end. The way HP is written, at least to me, makes you want the story to never end. When I finished the seventh book I was actually sad because I knew there was so much more that I wanted to know and that I probably would never know it.
 
This is a semi rushed reply as I am sleepy, so parts may not make sense.

SMeyer is a hack. Period. She's far too self involved in the books (basing them off her own dream in which she met her dream man in a meadow and they talked for hours), trying to base Bella (it means Beautiful? Oh what a coincidence) off of herself, and when that fails, just self inserts herself in the books.

I can understand why the books have such a huge fanbase from 12-16 year olds. The literature (if you can call it that) is fluff. The woman uses far too many adjectives over and over again. Yes, Edward is comparable to a Greek God immortalized in a marble statue, I gathered that from the previous chapter, now will everyone stop being chagrined?

And then the woman has the gall to compare her characters romance to that of Romeo and Juliet, saying their romance was unbelievable because they only met in a short amount of time, claim to be in love and then die for each other.... umm... wat. Did this woman just rip off these characters romance and then call Shakespeare a hack for making it unbelievable? I think so.

At least Rowlings books were engaging, had a variety of words to learn from and had a plot that didn't boil down to "Make me a vampire." 'No, maybe later.' "Okay."
 

Another thing I feel Harry Potter has on Twilight is the fact that even though both books feature completely fiction creatures, and races really, the HP series seems to have more believable characters and events.
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Regarding this and the earlier discussion on fantasy elements and whether or not they were thrown together; I think one of the best things Rowling did for herself and the books was not trying to make all of the various fantasy elements "cool" (Lupin was a werewolf, but his state of being was more an affliction than a gift; far closer to the original wolfman stories and whatnot). Borrowed things? Sure. Made them less of a focus than the characters themselves? Definitely.

And really, this was my big issue with Twilight; she made vampires essentially the height of perfection with no weaknesses. Really, they work best as monsters.
 
My two cents...

I'm always a little sorry to insult something people love, because I know, silly as it is, that can feel pretty bad.

But Twilight is tripe. Bella is a clod, and her love interests are assholes. The writing is bland and purple at best, and the plot is completely shallow and predictable. Unless you're a person (most likely a love-starved teenager with poor taste in literature) who can enjoy putting yourself in the shoes a heroine who has no personality but has supernaturally beautiful boys throwing themselves at her for no good reason, Twilight has absolutely nothing to offer you.

Whereas Harry Potter.... I started reading the series when I was 13. The last book came out the summer before my senior year of college. At no point during that time did I ever feel like I had outgrown the series. There's a huge cast of characters, most of whom are well-developed, so there's something for everyone. It's well-written, funny as often as it is affecting. The plots are subtle, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs and red herrings about what's really going on, but still leaving you floored at the end. It borrows a lot from mythology and fantasy, but the idea in-universe is that muggles got a mangled version of the things wizards have been hiding from them all these years, so it makes sense.

There's really no contest, in the end. I think Twilight is a fad, and a lot of people are going to try re-reading the books twenty years from now and wonder what the hell they were thinking. Harry Potter... it's going to take some downturns in popularity, yeah, and when the glitz fades a lot of people will wonder if it was really so excellent, like with anything massively popular (FFVII, for instance!). But I think people are going to keep it on their shelves and hand it to their kids to read.
 
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