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| Potter needs to be no more Written by Tonesa JonesJust like many 90’s kids, Harry Potter was a huge part of my childhood. It was a bittersweet moment when I reached the last page of the Deathly Hallows, and I still spill tears rereading through the series, reliving when beloved characters died. Pottermore was a nice way to let the series live on, fleshing out the already full world that I had come to love, but when it was announced that a stage play and another film was in the works, I groaned. While I love the world of Harry Potter, there needs to be an end. The world of Harry Potter is becoming a long relationship that we need to quit. Do we need to follow a second Potter generation or backtrack and flesh out the backstory of a Hufflepuff? No. Those “what if” questions are best left for fan-fiction writers. A cultural phenomenon is meant to end, and Harry Potter is long overdue for an expiration date. We at least owe it to J.K. Rowling to stop demanding more of this series and allow her to create other landscapes for our perusal. This series has been so consuming that Rowling had to write under a pen name just to escape the shadow of what she created. The magic won’t end once the stories do. There is still the power of the seven-novel series and the eight-part movie franchise. Fans can debate endlessly about the characters and formulate theories, and the door is always open for new fans enter this world and experience the magic of Hogwarts. “The Lord of the Rings” series was published in 1950’s and still has contemporary fans who probably could have done without Peter Jackson’s recent three part film adaptation of “The Hobbit.” The Harry Potter series is barely over a decade old and is far from disappearing from the heart of children’s fiction. Even without new material, the magic of this series will survive for decades to come. A good story will always be inviting. |
Why the Potterverse must live on Written by Kate BettsI’m not going to deny it — I’m a huge Potter fan. I’ve read all the books multiple times and seen all the movies more than once. I can probably spout off random spells and quote bits of dialogue that stuck in my brain. It was the Harry Potter books that really opened my eyes to the potential of fantasy and the potential of letting your imagination go wild. I had the benefit of reading the books when they were still fairly fresh, and they hadn’t yet become something “been there, done that”. Not all people had this chance, though, and that’s one reason why the Harry Potter universe’s continuation is so beneficial. When new adventures from the Potter world draw people in, more fans are made and more fans are reminded of their love of the magic of Harry Potter. It’s the magic and the message of Harry Potter that hit home for me, and how the books present an entirely new world. Before reading Harry Potter I didn’t know that that kind of world-building was possible, or that kind of creativity and imagination. From there it wasn’t long until I decided that maybe I could try something like that, and years later, here I am as a writing student at SCAD to do just that. We can’t let this magic die away. Without movies such as “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and attractions like Universal Studio’s Harry Potter World, Harry’s story might get lost and not reach some of the newer audiences who are too young to remember the release of the actual books. This newer generation of potential Harry fans shouldn’t be denied the chance of escaping into this wonderful world, and having new Potter material helps garner attention for the series. Opening up that world to these young minds can inspire creativity and a love of reading. It’s also a reminder for us fans of why we love the world of Potter in the first place, and why we know exactly where our complete set of books are at all times. It’s a great way to keep fans interested in the story and to ensure that we remember the magic. It’s about keeping a part of our growing-up alive, and about seeing this story in different ways. The world of Harry Potter is such a vivid and complete one, and it’s a world that you can get lost in. Just because Harry’s story has ended it doesn’t mean that the world has to end with it. We can still live in his world, and as we do each new addition will remind us of why we fell in love with the story of Harry Potter in the first place. |
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