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u/Trick_Enthusiasm 17d ago
To paraphrase a fake Stephen King quote: Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Lord of the Rings is the reason literally every fantasy story from the 80s onwards exists.
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u/riskbreaker23 17d ago edited 17d ago
For better or worse. I actually hate when people try to copy Tolkien-esque fantasy. They can't ever do it as well
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u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 17d ago
Yeah, Tolkien was the expert on several mythological sagas like Beowulf. A novelist or amateur writer without that deep, deep expertise simply cannot write a similar type of story in any comparable way.
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u/Angus_McFife13 17d ago
Tolkien wasn't just a world-renowned expert on northern European mythology and a world-renowned linguist, he was also a superb writer and worldbuilder.
And he did it for 50 years.
There's nothing like it. It'd be like if Brandon Sanderson spent his entire life polishing one book instead of writing new ones all the time, but also if Brandon Sanderson was published more often academically.
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u/TheOneWhoMixes 17d ago
Brandon Sanderson is just too good. I know people debate his prose and some of his story choices a lot, but I couldn't help but fall for his worldbuilding across all of his Cosmere works.
I'm absolutely obsessed with the way he's able to create several very unique magic systems and still stick consistently to the rules he's created for his universe. And his ability to build his characters and cultures in a way that makes them both relatable and deeply influenced by their worlds and magic systems is just icing on the cake.
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u/CyaLaterBye 17d ago
Brando Sando is incredible.
Biochromatic breath is such a cool and unique magic system taking place in a VERY unique world. It’s impossible not to love.
The Cosmere as a whole is so wildly ambitious I hope he pulls it off, and so far he hasn’t given us a reason that he won’t.
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u/TheOneWhoMixes 17d ago
It's insane. We know that, eventually, the different parts of the Cosmere will start to converge in more obvious ways.
While he's said he doesn't want to turn it into an "Avenger's assemble" situation, especially since there'll likely be pretty large time skips, I'm still extremely excited to see how that happens, the implications it'll have for the universe, and the insanely crazy things that can potentially happen when these magic systems combine. We've already seen a little bit of it, and the results are... Terrifying.
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u/SardScroll 17d ago
The other thing, is that Tolkien didn't write for 50 years; he wrote, and revised, and rewrote, and saw things didn't match up, and rewrote again, over the course of 50 years.
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u/GalacticVaquero 17d ago
I think that sorta problem always arises when a genre is built around a single work/author. Just like how every game of the last 6 years has been a souls-like, the authors confuse Tolkien’s writing style with the foundations of the genre, and so they cant match the rich, loving way he portrays middle earth and these characters. Instead it becomes “fantasy = big battles, big bad evil guys with no nuance, and needing an encyclopedia open while reading just to understand the lore.”
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u/mjoed 17d ago
do you have any examples of this? i mean.. i guess there are a shitton of unknown bad fantasy novels out there, but i'd argue anything even remotely popular in the last 10 years or so doesn't fit your description.
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u/GalacticVaquero 17d ago
Yeah, really nothing that gets popular nowadays falls into that trap, but I remember digging up a bunch of old fantasy books my dad had from the 70's/80's as a kid, and the one's that weren't grimdark or pulp fantasy definitely leaned hard into this.
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u/astricbrownie 17d ago
LOTR feels like it predates the world. It's never not existed and you can't convince me otherwise. It's just itself. Like Tom Bombadillljgvgbjjj(sp?)
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u/Tom_Bot-Badil 17d ago
Hey there! Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil's not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand's more fair without it. Come back! Leave your game and sit down beside me! We must talk a while more, and think about the morning. Tom must teach the right road, and keep your feet from wandering.
I am a bot, and I love old Tom. If you want me to sing one of Tom's songs, just type !TomBombadilSong
If you like Old Tom, the door at r/GloriousTomBombadil is always open for weary travelers!
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u/chain_letter 17d ago
Too bad we never got a tweet from Tolkien explaining Uglúk, Captain of the Uruk-Hai, was homosexual all along.
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u/ISpyM8 17d ago edited 17d ago
Tbf, I think Dumbledore was always gay even though it’s only hinted at in the books. Where Rowling fucked up was continuing with things like wizards shitting on the floor, the god awful Cursed Child play and Fantastic Beasts franchise, and being a TERF.
Edit:
1) I agree that her coming out later and saying that Dumbledore was gay was bad. It should’ve been more outright from the beginning.
2) I’ve received messages saying that by calling Rowling a TERF, I’m being a “raging misogynist.” My intention was not to insinuate that she was a “radical feminist,” or whatever. My definition of TERF is “a feminist who excludes the rights of transgender women from their advocacy of women's rights,” which will be the first definition if you Google “TERF.” I appreciate her efforts towards women’s rights, but I don’t appreciate her transphobia.
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u/Leyetipants 17d ago
Shitting on the floor? I want to know more! Please explain, I implore!
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u/ISpyM8 17d ago
She once tweeted out that before Hogwarts had plumbing, wizards would just shit on the floor then magic it away.
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u/othelloinc 17d ago
She once tweeted out that before Hogwarts had plumbing
...while ignoring that she had written a novel in which one of the founders of Hogwarts hid a basilisk in a chamber he had built; a 'Chamber of Secrets', which -- if opened -- allowed that basilisk to travel through the plumbing.
...and how would one access this 'Chamber of Secrets'? Oh, right. Through the fully plumbed indoor bathroom.
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u/deukhoofd 17d ago
That part was addressed at the very least.
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/chamber-of-secrets
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u/othelloinc 17d ago
...and how would one access this 'Chamber of Secrets'? Oh, right. Through the fully plumbed indoor bathroom.
That part was addressed...
...just barely...
However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence), the entrance to the Chamber was threatened, being located on the site of a proposed bathroom. The presence in school at the time of a student called Corvinus Gaunt – direct descendant of Slytherin, and antecedent of Tom Riddle – explains how the simple trapdoor was secretly protected, so that those who knew how could still access the entrance to the Chamber even after newfangled plumbing had been placed on top of it.
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u/Whatsthemattermark 17d ago
I mean, in terms of the Harry Potter universe and the style of writing, this is a pretty decent explanation. I don’t really get what’s wrong with it, except that making your poo disappear before it ever leaves your bumhole is an infinitely better method than dropping it in a porcelain bowl and sending it to a sewage treatment plant.
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u/photomotto 17d ago
How did a student keep the entrance hidden? What kind of power did he have in the construction that allowed him to secret away the Chamber’s location? How did they not find a fucking giant snake when installing the plumbing, which did lead to the Chamber (otherwise the Basilisk wouldn’t be able to leave and enter the Chamber at its will)?
This explains nothing, it’s barely a hand wave. “This person did something, that I won’t elaborate on, and that something somehow kept an enormous Chamber from being discovered, and I won’t elaborate how”.
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u/Low_Ad33 17d ago
What’s wrong with this? My warlock in dnd does this all the time. All it takes is a snap of the fingers and all that shit is just prestidigitized away, everything all clean, no need for a bidet.
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u/[deleted] 17d ago
Why dirty the floor first? Magic works inside your butthole.
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u/Triairius 17d ago
And rob yourself of the joy of shitting on the floor?!
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u/tritian 17d ago
So, is anal just the sensation of pooping? Just dozens of times per minute, with half the time in reverse??
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u/polak2017 17d ago
Why not just skip pinching one off and magic away while it's in your ass?
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u/Ilovelemonade23 17d ago
To add to that, they didn't know basic magic in 1st grade which means Hogwarts was full of shit.
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u/lianodel 17d ago
I just want to clarify, because people saying wizards shat on the floor are wrong.
Wizards shat their pants. (Or robes or whatever.)
Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms. Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence. #NationalTriviaDay
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u/czs5056 17d ago
They're shitting on the floor? I'm willing to accept that magic interferes with electronics, but how can they not have invented or adopt the toilet and plumbing?
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u/AlinaStari 17d ago
What I don't understand is why would they go through the messy part before magicking it away? Why not just magic it out if your intestine and keep your butthole squeaky clean? Keeps me up at night, man
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u/JIZZASAURUS 17d ago
The Family Guy episode where they go to the future or whatever alternate timeline and Stewie gets Brian a poop removal is tech I’m insanely jealous of.
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u/barnegatsailor 17d ago
More importantly it sorta ruins the whole plot of chamber of secrets.
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u/FoxesInSweaters 17d ago
It was what they did before plumbing. They have the toilet ghost so they have plumbing now.
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u/Nerethos 17d ago edited 17d ago
It's like Rowling figured out that she could world build post-hoc and instead of including it in the books, she just addresses it in a tweet. kind of post-canon wankery, ya know?
My guess is that the wonderful world building that is present in her novels was an absolute fluke considering her idea of world building is "LOL HE WAS GAY ALL ALONG, THEY SHIT ON THE FLOORS, NOW THERE'S TOLIET SPOOKS."
Although the thought of a scat fetishist dying and getting to become a toilet ghost is fucking hilarious to me.
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u/Habitual_hesitation 17d ago
The ridiculous thing is that medieval castles DID have a solution before plumbing. They had garderobes. Problem solved, no pooping on the floor.
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u/potato_devourer 17d ago
I agree, but it's also fair to point up that it would have been nice having a more explicit reference to that in the text itself. I mean, I understand that for the most part Dumbledore's sexuality is simply irrelevant, but if his relationship with Grindewald was such an important part of his characterization a passing reference would have been easy to write, especially in the later books where his figure is recontextualized as more human and fallible.
I can't help wondering if JK publicly agreed to the fan theories once the last book was published while deliberately avoiding textual confirmation because she wanted to have her cake and eat it too.
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u/Zauberer-IMDB 17d ago edited 17d ago
I'd be curious what you point to as evidence. I have no issue with Dumbledore being gay, it certainly doesn't contradict anything but I maintain it was a cowardly ass pull by JK to appear more inclusive after the fact.
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u/rabbiskittles 17d ago
His relationship with Grindewald was described and I had friends that definitely pointed to that as a hint way back when the books were still coming out.
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u/mckellobe 17d ago
Friendship between men = gay /s
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u/Rustymetal14 17d ago
Where's that Tolkien quote about how people misunderstanding platonic friendships for romantic ones are missing an important facet of love in their lives?
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u/[deleted] 17d ago
Seems like quite a bit more than that, they were obsessed with each other and losing Grindy fucked ol' Dumbles right up, dude was a celibate with no close friends for the rest of his life.
Really the only issue is that JK was too much of a coward to just write it into the book explicitly.
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u/theartificialkid 17d ago
Or maybe the sexuality of an elderly school headmaster isn’t directly relevant to the story, and therefore making him gay in the background is an act of deliberate inclusion that demonstrates that sexuality has no bearing on whether a person is good or bad?
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u/walkingmonster 17d ago
Hint: the sexuality of very very few characters in most books is relevant to the story, yet people like only ever shit on the non-straght characters. You have to be aware of how that makes you look...
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u/FerBaide 17d ago edited 17d ago
Umm no, the way their friendship was described really does hint at the fact that they had something more. I recently re-read Deathly Hallows and it’s just very telling.
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u/KristyBanalia 17d ago
It wasn't a cowardly unprompted ass pull, a fan at a meet and greet asked her specifically if she wrote Dumbledore with him being gay in mind, and she responded yes.
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u/BioDefault 17d ago
So people messaged you personally to call you misogynist?
Sounds like transphobic cowards.
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u/Bustioni4 17d ago
Well not many people criticizes her for Dumbledore but because she didn't stop there...
And I honestly think that all she wants is to get attention.
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u/KeyboardsAre4Coding 17d ago
I just want to add that I personally cannot appreciate any effort by her towards women's rights since she excludes my right to be a woman and have rights as one. Personally as a trans woman (I know I sound like a joke, there is no other way to state it) I feel that calling such ppl feminists is giving them too much credit. I prefer FART, feminism appropriating reactionary transphobe./j
You shouldn't say they are helping women, if they don't help all of us. They cannot pick and choose which one of us get to have rights and protection under the law. This is basically what feminism was opposed to in the first place.
I don't attack you, I just have a lot of issues with those clowns that fuck my life in every way they can. Your comment is well informed and well structured. I just needed to add this because fuck terfs and also it helps to phrase this frustration from time to time.
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u/conalfisher 17d ago
It's a shame that people always fixate on the "dumbledore is gay" thing when as far as theories go it's a fairly sensible one that does add a good bit of depth to the character. When it was first said the majority of the anger was undoubtedly due to homophobia (remember that gay marriage just wasn't a thing 15 years ago).
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u/Swiggens 17d ago
Wait is the comparison to Harry Potter? I thought it was HP Lovecraft
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u/XyloArch 17d ago
Now, I know this is gonna be an unpopular opinion in these parts, but when you really start to dig down into the overall social impact and some meaty, modern textual analysis I think you'll find that nah I'm messing with you Rings is miles ahead.
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u/Johnny107710 Hobbit 17d ago
You had me in the first half ngl
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u/rampantfirefly 17d ago
I’ve never heard LotR referred to as just ‘Rings’ before but I’m going to be stealing that and using it exclusively going forward
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u/OhStugots 17d ago
For some reason, it reminded me of Cartman playing the game with the doll where he pretends to be Buffalo Bill and calls it playing "Lambs".
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u/jskylok 17d ago
That’s not fair. They are both equal in my eyes. But Lotrs is streets ahead.
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u/theGoat0304 17d ago
Stop using streets ahead, we told you it won't catch on
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u/jskylok 17d ago
Using? Scoffs coined and minted. Been there coined that. Streets ahead is verbal wildfire.
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u/hunterhouse_ 17d ago
It's at least a few stop lights ahead of Harry Potter on the left, you're right.
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u/TheElf01 17d ago
I'm not saying HP is bad, I'm just saying that LOTR is the best.
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u/riskbreaker23 17d ago
I think HP is great. But LOTR literally defined a genre. It's hard to compete with that, even if you think HP is better.
And as far as movies go Harry Potter has some amazing moments.
But LOTR has mother fucking Gimli blowing on the Horn of Helm Hammerhand. No matter how many times I watched that scene I get fucking chills.
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u/Quicheauchat 17d ago
I will be saying that HP is a children series and should be compared to the Hobbit and not LOTR.
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u/Entangler 17d ago
Agreed. Harry Potter is an excellent introduction to the unknown mysteries of imagination for children. The first book is simple and short, and each novel that follows is a little bigger and a little deeper. A child can grow up with the characters.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings though fewer pages overall, are information dense. They also follow middle aged characters who are very different from the audience, especially when they are children. It takes understanding of subtext and society that a child would not have a good reference to compare against.
LOTR is getting praise here because of the mature storyline that we can appreciate as objectively "better." But 10 year olds aren't on Reddit (just people that act like it) so they don't get a vote here.
What I might say is that, what if a person never grew to love reading because as a child they tried to plow through a 900 page story with 200+ pages of indexes to explain it all? If reading a simpler story like Harry Potter can light the fire for literature in a young person, then it's just as important, perhaps even more so, than the stories that come next.
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u/[deleted] 17d ago
10yos who grew up with The Hobbit absolutely fucking loved it, by and large.
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u/SardScroll 17d ago
Yes, people severely underestimate the maturity children are capable of, just as they underestimate the immaturity of adults.
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u/Nessnixi 17d ago
My dad would read me a chapter from the Hobbit, and later lotr, before bed every night and it’s the reason I love fantasy. When I moved out, he gifted me the copy of the Hobbit that we read from.
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u/ARM_vs_CORE 17d ago
Are we talking books or movies or both? Because LotR wins all anyway. The LotR books are much better written and the HP movies are so drawn out and bleak that the last couple actually put me to sleep.
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u/CMDR_Eliger 17d ago
Yeah, they can't be compared it wouldn't be fair
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u/Badish_Nationalist 17d ago
It would be like putting a siberian tiger and a sloth into a cage to fight it out.
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u/HotCrustyBuns 17d ago
Honest question. Would a tiger eat a sloth or just kill it? I've heard that sloth are not desirable prey because they smell and therefore taste terrible.
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u/JPRCR 17d ago
Your analysis is right. But in certain occasions Jaguars (that actually coexists with sloths here in Central America) will kill a sloth and use it to draw the attention of coyotes, crocodiles and other critters.
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u/Rpilla001 17d ago
I don't know. I kind of like my Hewlett Packard. It's an excellent scanner. I don't see Borimir doing any scanning. He walks long distances good, sure, but does he scan?
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u/Toned_Mcstone 17d ago
Boromir’s main advantage is that he gets taxpayer funded ink. Sure, you can’t scan any pictures, but if you just need basic printing, a Boromir will save you money in the long run.
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u/excelsior2000 17d ago
Boromir is too busy earning his father's love. Faramir scans. It's an unappreciated task.
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u/RepresentativeFish73 17d ago
I thought HP meant lovecraft. I now realize it actually means Hyundai Palisade
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u/ExistentialOcto 17d ago
It’s like comparing a lion and a housecat. Both cats, but vastly different in what they’re good at and what they do to the point that you can’t really have them compete in any meaningful way (aside from sales, which imo is also meaningless).
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u/Cassiotus 17d ago
Just today had a date with a girl who asked whats my dream movie night. Ofcourse the answer was "12h of lotr". Reply was "I dont like Harry Potter style movies". Needless to say we will not have babies.
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u/RedJudas 17d ago
They're often compared because they were both incredibly popular book series, and the movies came out around the same time. For a lot of young people, it was a competing fandom. Similar to how the Star Wars movies have always competed with Star Trek, which was a show first and then started branching into movies. Totally different, and yet there's always been some fierce competition between the fandoms.
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u/RaindropsPony 17d ago
I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan, I love the books and I love the movies. They have their faults and a lot of the story can be turned on its head due to the way it was written. But Im also a HUGE LOTR fan. comparing the two doesnt make any sense to me. One is a fun magical adventure that plays in its own solid world building and the other is a fantasy epic thats dripping in lore that had been developed forever. Apples and oranges.
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u/pointprep 17d ago
I think HP is really a series of page-turning murder mysteries, with some fun wish-fulfillment world building. It does a great job at that. It’s not really that solid though - everything takes second place to the plot.
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u/Entheosparks 17d ago
And HP fans aren't a bunch of pretentious snobs arguing about how their nerd core is better than you
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u/pm_me_your_molars 17d ago
Nah, they're more in line with the Disney stans imo. Where it's more of a weird lifestyle thing that is suspiciously easily to vertically integrate by mass media conglomerates.
Like, I know LOTR is a big franchise as well, but once something hits theme park territory, that hits my "nope nope nope" threshhold. Not really sure why.
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u/FearsomeMudcrabN7 17d ago edited 17d ago
My issue is that most people I know who LOVE Harry Potter won’t even entertain the notion of watching or reading The Lord of the Rings and they all say how amazing the HP lore is when you can literally point to many aspects of it that are directly lifted from the works of Tolkien, Roald Dahl, C. S. Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, etc. There wouldn’t be a Harry Potter without The Lord of the Rings.
Oh also LotR is superior to HP in every way possible.
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u/ChintanP04 One does not simply join lotrmemes without joining PrequelMemes 17d ago
I mean, almost all fantasy fiction in today's age is inspired by Tolkein in some form. He is the father of Modern or Epic Fantasy, after all. It's really difficult to write an epic without picking off from him.
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u/SydBarrett96 17d ago
Yeah, it's not easy making a fictional fantasy universe without copying Tolkien. He created an entity that was formed from the darkness of the abyss (ungoliant) and was separate in origin to those made by Illuvatar, and also made Tom Bombadill, theories suggest he is ungoliants counterpart, formed by the light of Illuvatar and Arda.
How could one not include suchlike amazing creations in their own work, I'm angry at him for thinking of that first!
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u/Tom_Bot-Badil 17d ago
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo! By water, wood and hill, by the reed and willow, by fire, sun and moon, hearken now and hear us! Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!
I am a bot, and I love old Tom. If you want me to sing one of Tom's songs, just type !TomBombadilSong
If you like Old Tom, the door at r/GloriousTomBombadil is always open for weary travelers!
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u/FearsomeMudcrabN7 17d ago
Oh absolutely, that’s not my problem though. My issue is that a lot of HP fans act like it’s completely original when it is in fact not at all and there’s actually a lot of things that are just straight up copied and pasted from LotR.
You can love Harry Potter but give credit where credit is due.
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u/MisterH115 17d ago
I love Harry Potter, but I love the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth way more!
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u/Uceninde 17d ago
I dont understand the need to compare one to the other. They are not much alike except for the whole "chosen one must defeat the evil one, with help from his friends and mentors." Which is such a common trope now anyway. And even if it started with LotR, there is no need to compare LotR with everything that comes after it.
I love HP, LotR and Star Wars. They are my go too movies and books. But I dont try to measure one against the other.
But also LotR is the best one of those three. Lol.
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u/NBAfanatic2012 17d ago
Most people you know haven't seen and dont want to see lotr where tf u live Mars? Lotr is great Harry Potter is great. Harry Potter is more of a children's series so they really shouldn't be compared. I love both but definitely prefer Harry Potter its art some people like Mozart some people like kanye some people like both. Why are so many people here this insecure?
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u/FearsomeMudcrabN7 17d ago
California haha. I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who was like “I respect JK Rowling so much for creating such an intricate universe.” And I was like “well if you like that, you’ll probably like LotR too.” I got an immediate face of a disgust and a response of “ew, those are too long.” This same person also likes Game of Thrones.
I prefer LotR, Harry Potter has too many logical inconsistencies for me and whenever someone calls out Rowling she just retcons it on Twitter.
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u/Peazyzell 17d ago
Thought you were talking about HP Lovecraft at first. Was like “yeah duh, never seen them compared before” and now I want to see comparisons
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u/Anony-McAnonface 17d ago edited 17d ago
As someone who grew up reading Harry Potter and whose dad forced them to read LotR before being able to watch the movies I can say that HP does a better job of telling a narrative story that is easily relatable.
The reason why they can't be compared is because HP is much more similar to The Hobbit in that it is a narrative driven children's story. LotR is based off of the world that Tolkien wanted to create after envisioning The Hobbit. Everything narrative/story driven in LotR is almost secondary to the way Tolkien describes the world itself.
Now, obviously the story of LotR is phenomenal and unmatched. However, I found that I needed to really mature as a person before I could appreciate it in its true complexity. This is in contrast to HP, which at its core is a children's coming of age story that evolves in its depth of character through each successive installment. The world is secondary in the HP canon, it exists to provide the proper environment to catalyze character development and progress the narrative. This is why it falls apart under scrutiny, it was never meant to hold up.
I do fully agree that LotR is superior to HP in most ways, and that it has had/will have a more significant cultural impact. But I hope that a few of you may understand where hard-core HP fans like myself are coming from.
TLDR; Harry Potter, like The Hobbit is made for kids. It's easier to digest and relate to, while at the same time telling a compelling and complex narrative.
Edit: Also, I'd rather watch the LotR extended editions over the HP movies any day of the week. I still love the HP movies though.
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u/ElDoggothegreat 17d ago
I’m going to be honest and say the thing that ruined HP was the author
That and the fan base
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u/elprentis 17d ago
Agreed, but also if you look too closely at the lore in Harry Potter, it just doesn’t make much sense.
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u/jonas_rosa 17d ago
HP is a book that, the more you think about it the worse it gets. You need to read without putting too much thought into it. LotR is the opposite, the more you think about it, the more you analyze it, the better it gets
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u/pm_me_your_molars 17d ago
The HP fanbase would rip me to shreds for saying this, but Cassandra Clare's fan fic rewrite "Mortal Instruments" has MUCH better lore.
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u/hasuris 17d ago
I like how in every movie you instantly notice the points in the story where the author wrote herself in a corner and some random weird shit happens so the story can move on.
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u/Ebinebinebinebin 17d ago
This is why magic as a power system doesn't work. It encourages lazy writing like this through its vagueness.
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u/rocky4322 17d ago
Magic can definitely work as a power system if it has clearly defined rules instead of handwavey bullshit, like in avatar or Mistborn. It becomes problematic when authors use it just to keep the plot moving and magic seems to work more on convenience than anything else. I honestly blame Harry Potter for the notion that magic systems need to be soft and make no sense except for plot.
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u/What_Do_It 17d ago
Sanderson's first law of magic;
An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.
Essentially, when the reader understands the effects and limitations of the magic in a story it's seen as a tool at the character's disposal the same as a sword or a rope. The reader has the opportunity to come to the same solution as the character which makes that solution seem satisfying.
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u/Prawn1908 17d ago
The thing that gets me is that practically every conflict in the stories is resolved by some random magical bullshit you've never heard of before. After enough of that I lose any capability of feeling suspense.
The rules of the universe seem to just be made up or tweaked on the fly for whatever suits the current predicament the protagonists are in. They aren't properly laid down for the reader to understand which is critical for developing suspense.
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u/Sweet-Palpitation473 17d ago
Am I sacrilegious for preferring the HP books over the LOTR books?
Regardless of that LOTR is vastly superior!
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u/HotCrustyBuns 17d ago
Is the preference due to ease of reading? Because I could understand that.
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u/Oraxy51 17d ago
I’m sorry but can we take a second to acknowledge your username….. why? It’s amazing but so many clever names on Reddit never understood how people think of these.
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u/HotCrustyBuns 17d ago
It's a very simple story really. My father was a baker, famous for his crusty buns. Alas, the fame had nothing to do with bread.
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u/partymongoose69 17d ago
Absolutely not, personal preference is sacrosanct. It's just important to distinguish between taste and quality sometimes, which you did perfectly.
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u/7937397 17d ago
If you are saying you enjoy reading the HP books more? No, that's an opinion.
If you are saying they are objectively better books? That's wrong.
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u/JayCeeJaye 17d ago
One has entire languages created for the races that exist in it and a history that stretches back thousands of years.
The other claimed magical beings with great power and responsibility shit on the floor and then used their magic to vanish said shit.
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u/Shredder_JR 17d ago
I mean, that's why you should be comparing LOTR to wheel of time. Those two are a lot more similar that LOTR and HP
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u/VonCarzs 17d ago
LOTR is more finely crafted, WOT has an actual fleshed out magic system and weird cyclic time travel so I like it more.
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u/Yojo0o 17d ago
I don't know how it's possible that I read seven books about the education of a wizard and still have such little concrete understanding of how magic works in that wizard's world.
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u/4deCopas 17d ago
Don't worry, the characters in that world don't understand it either, considering most of them use like the same four spells.
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u/Sunblast1andOnly 17d ago
When did Lord Of The Rings start making personal computers? Are they really good enough to compete with Hewlett-Packard?
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u/Hogwarts_Earth2 17d ago
Is it still cool to enjoy both of them equally for totally different reasons
Despite my user name,I still acknowledge that Tolkien's work is superior
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u/Rob_Fucking_Graves 17d ago
I mean. Fuck. That's like comparing Goosebumps #63 to The Shining. They may be in the same spirit, but they are not in the same class.
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u/Sr_Tequila 17d ago edited 17d ago
Always with the inferiority complex about Harry Potter. This subreddit is seriously getting sad and pathetic. First the harassment that Fonda Lee got after one of her tweets was posted here, and every single day someone has to stroke his tiny ego by shitting on Harry Potter.
And shitting constantly on a book for children dont turn you fools into intellectuals, just elitist snobs.
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u/the_great_divide05 17d ago
Yes, and the movie adaptation for lotr is more or less exactly the same, not leaving out so many important plot points like Harry Potter.
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u/Schadenfreudenous 17d ago
Yeah, no, the adaptation of LotR leaves out a lot - but the films are written and structured in such a way that they still make sense, flow well, and can be very much enjoyable. The Harry Potter films legit don’t make sense unless you’ve read the books alongside watching.
So while I definitely agree that the LotR films are way better, let’s not pretend they’re perfect recreations of the books, because they aren’t. But they’re good adaptations, which the HP films aren’t after like…the third one.
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u/Future_Kaleidoscope3 17d ago
Yeah as someone who didn’t read the books the series just stops making sense after Prisoner
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u/LewisTheWhite 17d ago
My ass trying to figure out why Lord of the Rings is being compared to hit points