Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? (Books Only)

Which books do you like better, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?

  • Harry Potter

    Votes: 24 30.0%

  • Lord of the Rings

    Votes: 49 61.3%

  • I liked both equally

    Votes: 7 8.8%
  • Total voters
    80
There is no comparison. Lord of the Rings, absolutely. Harry Potter is a good story, but LotR is a Masterpiece.

And yes, Snape is my second favorite character. Right behind Sirius. :D
 
At first I thought the question just silly. You can't compare them!
After reading through the posts I felt myself deciding all the same. I grew up with LotR. My siblings and I re-enacted it long before RPG was invented. We wrote letters in elvish and composed music to most of the poems. I still sing these songs and taught my children to sing them.
And still I would vote for HP. About all my reasons for choosing so I wrote in another thread. GP is much nearer to my life. LotR is pure fantasy. I can escape to middel-earth and get back but the two worlds don't really touch. HP is my world. It describes problems and situations I know so very well (minus the magic). It really touches with my world.
I used to read LotR once a year for the last thirty years but I haven't done so any more since the third HP volume came out. Now, HP volumes 3-7 are my favorites.
 
TimmyofOz said:
I am right now reading both The Lord of the Rings and the Potter books. I like them both.
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The thing about LOTR is it is hard to tell what is the audience that JRR Tolkien is writing to in todays world. I guess there was an audience like this 80 years ago. The books are very adult in subject, but I can't imagine that being attractive to adults even 80 years ago. While J.K. Rowling's books are very identifiable. to a contemporary audience. I am not saying that LOTR isn't enjoyable to read, just that it is hard to classify. It is just a classic. Like saying who would Shakespeare be written to now a days. You read it because it is a classic, not because there is a large audience today waiting for the next play by him.
 
Moving thru Harry Potter 3. Typical Harry Potter. I get the impression that you are to watch the Professors of Defense Against the Dark Arts in each book. This Prof. Lupin seems to be a good guy so far. I know we are to fear this Sirius Black person, but I know enough to be faked out. Big book and long way to go. Glad I waited to read these books. Found copies of all the books and audio versions online in the web for free thru archive.org.
 
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In the middle '00s, I could not have answered this question. I could not slog through the LOTR books with my dyslexia and other learning issues and Harry Potter was off limits because I respected my parents enough not to bring it into their house. I picked up Harry Potter finally sometime in 2015/2016. I can read them easily and enjoy them immensely. I think I read them as quickly as I could get my hands on them. I have recently discovered audio books and I am tempted to make another attempt at LOTR with that medium. It worked with the Jane Austin books I hadn't gotten through yet. TimmyofOz the first three are the best.
 
The "Lord of the Rings" is indeed a classic masterpiece. However, the books have a singular flaw in them. Tolkien was a writer who spent more time on describing each and ever scene, right down to nearly describing every single tree, blade of grass, stone building, etc. What he lacked was making the reader really love the characters in the stories, along with a lack of actual conversations throughout the books. What the films did, even if they changed the story somewhat, was make you actually like, or even love, the characters: Samwise, Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, etc.

Character development was J.K. Rowling's strength in the Harry Potter series. You actually liked, loved, disliked, or even hated the characters. They key to writing great fantasy books, or any fiction book, is to see what the character sees, feel what the characters feel, and feel like you are them or at least living life along with them. A great plot for a story is important, but unless you can identify with the lead or important characters in the story, the story falls flat. At least that's my opinion.
 
One thing Tolkien DID NOT describe in exhaustive detail was........ ARMED COMBAT.

He had already seen more than enough of the real thing, and had no fascination with it.
 
I think it's worth mentioning as far as LOTR vs HP are concerned, that Tolkien was not writing a novel in the same sense that Rowling was. Based not only on his appendices but on my own reading of Keith Baines translation of Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte De Artur, it becomes abundantly clear to me that he was approaching LOTR less like the writing of a novel, and more like he was translating this lost great epic out of an old language.

Which is another reason for the lack of exhaustive detail about armed combat. Homer didn't go into detail about the battles between the Greeks and the Trojans in the Iliad, nor did Mallory go into heavy detail about a lot of the battles of King Arthur and the Knights . Tolkien, like Homer, and Mallory before him was more concerned about the deeper morals of courage and honor and what defines a true hero. For my money, I always felt that Achilles was highly over rated compared to the noble Hector of Troy, and that Galahad was the only knight who truly lived by the virtues he swore to uphold.
 
Well thru half way in the 3rd Harry Potter book. Yes, by now I have heard spoilers that Sirius Black is not the bad guy in the end. But I knew from the beginning that Rowling would make him into her fake villain. Just as Snape really isn't that evil, just a jerk.
 
Well, I finished the 3rd Harry Potter book and I am now at chapter 4 of the 4th book. It's a big book. Is Harry's uncle a jerk till the end of the series?
 
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Absolutely. Not to give anything plotwise away, but he still is calling Harry "boy" into the last book.He is also the only one of the Dursleys not to give him a smidgen of feelings that he will ever miss Harry.
 
Using a time travel device in Harry Potter book 3 is a very weak plot device. Just adds a big device flaw. Time travel rarely works out in fiction. I was hoping for a cloning device, where you just had multiple Hermione.
 
I had no problem with time travel. Cloning would be way too out there seeing as how someone would have to age up the clone and somehow transfer their memories. Then we would have the problem of two Hermiones for the rest of the series.

Just to add to the topic at large (I don't think I have) Rowling did a good job building a world around Harry Potter and the wizarding world. Tolkein was a master in building worlds overall, including creating fictional languages. Neither is better, they are just intended for different audiences.

MrBob
 
MrBob said:
I had no problem with time travel. Cloning would be way too out there seeing as how someone would have to age up the clone and somehow transfer their memories. Then we would have the problem of two Hermiones for the rest of the series.

Just to add to the topic at large (I don't think I have) Rowling did a good job building a world around Harry Potter and the wizarding world. Tolkein was a master in building worlds overall, including creating fictional languages. Neither is better, they are just intended for different audiences.

MrBob
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Actually a time device also creates multiple Hermiones, but in a "splitting" device there is no problem of a grandfather effect. A time device is always just a a weak plot fixer. It fixes all cliff hangers. It throws you into the absurd. In Science Fiction it often is used when the series "jumps the shark". But it is fine if you don't think about it. I hope the time device isn't used again.

Now a "splitting device" can just be on a the conscious level. Like having multiple windows open on your laptop.
 
Lord of the Rings is more original. I say that because (1) it feels that way and, (2) Tolkien was a professor fluent in many languages and familiar with many different mythologies. Someone lent him a tape recorder, which is why we have some recordings of him reading his own works. Jokingly, to "exorcise" this machine, he just spouted off the Lord's Prayer in Gothic. "Faeder ure, wys art in heofunum...." Yes, he was a nerd before there were nerds.
 
"A time device is always just a a weak plot fixer."

Always, no. There are some good uses of time devices.

"I hope the time device isn't used again.'"

In the series at large, no. The time turners were never used again. However, the play "Cursed Child" has the time turner playing a far more central role in the plot. And it allows the characters to go back much farther than the one in "Prisoner of Azkaban".
 
For me it would be Lord of the Rings. I actually have a lot respect for Lewis and Tolkien. Both Narnia and Lord of the Rings always point me back to Jesus in a way, as a Christian.
 
Ted Sherman has a YouTube channel where he lectures on the subjects of Harry Potter and Tolkien. He is a professor out of Middle Tennessee State University.
 
As an author myself, I will make what may sound like a ruthless remark. I don't mean it to be, but the honest remark is the one that sounds ruthless, so here goes. Tolkein wrote books that adults enjoy which are also enjoyable by youth. Adults obsess and argue over details and plot twists, and they are huge fans. Rowling wrote books that youth enjoy which may be enjoyable by adults as long as you take it with a grain of salt. Like an adult enjoying watching The Wizard of Oz.
 
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