I don't get the Harry Potter thing ....
Harry Potter, had he been portrayed by Elijah Wood. *wink*
SPOILERS
OK, I've resisted reading the Harry Potter series since it came out, but the reviews and word of mouth on The Half Blood Prince were so enthusiastic I decided I had better do it. When was that? Sometime this summer? July? August? Anyway, in my spare time ("spare" - HA!) I started reading them.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Cute, but no more than many other books of far less renown. On to Chamber of Secrets. A little cuter, but, still; so what? Prizoner of Azkaban. Much better. Hermoine gets more interesting and I liked Sirius Black, sure that he was going to turn out to be a good guy. He did. Good! Then, Goblet of Fire. Far better still. I stopped pretending to work on my own fic to read it through. Things were definitely perking up! The Order of the Phoenix. Completely couldn't put it down. (A bit of a let-down in the big show-down at the Dept. of Mysteries -- kept picturing the battles in the first three Star Wars movies -- but otherwise, really a pleasure to read.)
This afternoon, I finished The Half Blood Prince. I read it furiously, keen to get to the "good part", but, except for some excitement plot-wise and a nice dirge by the Phoenix, I didn't seem to get to any notably "good" part. "What is wrong with me?" I thought. Perhaps, because of all the huge build-up, I was expecting too much. I was definitely disappointed.
Anyway. I had remembered reading the beginnings of excited discussions in the LJ's of several of you, which you posted back when HBP came out. I stopped reading them, then, so as not to read spoilers. But this afternoon I went back and read some of them, hoping to hear some feedback that I could identify with.
Having read your entries and comments, I confess I feel very oddly, as if I come from another planet of readers. It's not just that I wasn't that crazy about the books, but that I failed to see things in the stories the way the rest of you did, failed to be fond of the characters the rest of you most liked, and failed to be disgruntled with the ones you were disgruntled with. I even most liked the book in the series the rest of you liked the least. (Whaaaa?)
And as for the world of HP fanfic, some of the pairings I have heard lauded were ones I found absolutely unimaginable and undesirable, now that I have read the books. Is it because I haven't seen the films? I know that is bound to make a difference. Never from reading the book, for instance, would I have imagined I would be reading and writing Frodo fic. That all came about because of my besottedness with film Frodo. I applied all that starry-eyed love for film-Frodo to book Frodo after the fact. Perhaps that has happened in the HP world, too. I hope to find out.
Well, I plan to sit through the films, now, in the next weeks. Perhaps that will help me see what you all are so excited about, especially you who are into the fanfic side of HP fandom.
~ Mechtild