Why I Love Harry Potter (and J.K. Rowling)
I remember walking through a movie theater and seeing a teaser poster for the first Harry Potter film. It showed an owl carrying a card addressed to Harry, in the cupboard under the stairs. There it is, to the right.
I was not a Harry Potter fan at the time, so I reacted to this much the same way I would react to a Living with the Kardasians film: annoyance and disgust.
See, being a fan of science fiction and fantasy is supposed to be outside the norm. I’d built my entire life around the idea that I was different from everyone else. (More on my crisis of geekdom in an upcoming essay.)
And here was this stinking boy wizard turning everyone into a fantasy geek. People who had never even heard of Narnia, Krynn, or Middle Earth, who wouldn’t know a Balrog from a Chromatic Dragon, rambled on and on about Hogwarts and He Who Must Not Be Named.
What about him so transfixed everyone?
Oh, I would learn.