[ SECRET POST #5306 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5306 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



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02. [SPOILERS]




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03. [SPOILERS for the Tearling trilogy by Erika Johansen]




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04. [SPOILERS for Danganronpa V3]
















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05. [WARNING for animal death]



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06. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia]




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07. [WARNING for discussion of sexual harassment]














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #759.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. Despite the myriad ways the story is inconsistent and full of plot holes and theoretically could have been better/more sophisticated, there is still something utterly magical and rare about the way it just effortlessly came alive in the minds of so many millions of people.

Different stories are strong in different ways, and there are unquestionably ways in which HP is weak and other stories are strong. But if we're going to talk about the entirety of HP as a whole, then evaluating other texts against HP just never feels meaningful to me. It always just feels like an impossible comparison; apples to mandrake roots.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS. As an analytical person I hate that I can't actually put my finger on what, in the HP books, works where other books don't work, but something about it works. It works for those who followed the series, it works for people coming into it blind. It worked for kids, it works for adults. It works for the spoiled and the spolierphobes. I don't know why and that irritates me but I can't deny that it works.

When a book doesn't catch on with the reader, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out why you're not getting sucked in. Do I hate the characters? Is the writing hard to parse? Can I see the tropes coming a mile away? Whatever the specific case, when you're not hooked by the book, it shows. HP, for all of its own faults as well as the authors, HOOKS PEOPLE. That's a thing you can't say for a lot of books that might be tecnically better, or more satisfying after you get to the end, because you were still at some point un-hooked, taken outside the book and decided to slog through it anyway until you reached a point where you could decide that it was, in some sense, "better" than HP or LOTR or any of the juggernauts. If you're unable to get hooked and stay immersed until you look at the clock and decide to grab your bookmark and save the rest for later, it's not a successful book. Good or bad is not an indicator of successful storytelling, weird as it is to say.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you make some good points. I'm also really interested in what makes some titles charismatic and appealing to huge numbers of people.

[(Anonymous)]

This was such a good reply! Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

(Cozy werewolf Anon)

There are probably a few dissertations on why it worked including timing and writing style and I know I've seen one or two around. The first 3 books were written in this very charming to read/charming to listen to type of way. What JKR did best though in those 3 books (4 to 7 are different) is she made PROMISES and then she kept them while presenting a comforting "chosen one" narrative in a hero's journey. (Harry went through this journey several times honestly.) It's pretty much a magical school Star Wars almost. (John Campbell's Hero Journey analysis shows up a lot of places.) Then she used trappings and naming schemes kids can really grab onto like lots of alliteration and so many references to ANIMALS or even the weird names like Albus and Fudge really stir kids' imaginations.

Now why 7 in particular was such a failure b/c she'd promised all of this "power of love" narrative, to toss it aside last minute for "Harry is the Master of Death." It was more than she wrote herself into a weird corner, no longer listened editors, and didn't have the time b/c of movie schedules. It lost the PROMISE of Lily's sacrifice back in book one.

Moral of a story to any writer, if you make a promise in your story, you need to keep it. (I'm looking at you, Handmaid's Tale.)