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Wag
 
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I do talk a good fight
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Sadly, Ms Rowling has tried to argue that her books are somehow serious literature, and that her intentions were pretty serious, too. Apparently she doesn't like fantasy fiction & was intending to "subvert" it because it'd previously been too unrealistic and twee....
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PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
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Devil's Advocate
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I tend to argue for objective values in everything, it's just that moral values are rarely sustained (people tend to state them without making much of a case and a small amount of scepticism causes them to collapse). By all means, if you want to make the case that Harry Potter is quality literature or simply undermine the flaws I think I've outlined, go right ahead.
Do you? seems to me that you just play devils advocate and go with the cultural relativist view to me...
As for discussing TR being a good movie, I'm not sure I can be bothered to get into a philosophy of aesthetics debate to be honest.
It was certainly good for my intended purpose for it: being entertained for 90mins. will that do?
and Ian: was she smoking crack when she said that??!
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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I do talk a good fight
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One can only assume.
If only she'd just said, "I wanted to write some fairly good kids' books, contemporary fantasy genre." I could get behind that. They are fairly good.
There are better contemporary fantasy kids' books... the Bartimaeus trilogy; Troll Fell & its sequels; even the Karazan books... but there's certainly nowt wrong with HP, in that it does get kids reading, and thinking too.
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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Wag
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Ian Sturrock (12/13/2006)
If only she'd just said, "I wanted to write some fairly good kids' books, contemporary fantasy genre." I could get behind that. They are fairly good.
The world is full of pretensions. Dan Brown probably thinks there is factual content in his books. Self-delusions are the easiest kind to fall for. And nothing inflates the ego like being fabulously successful. If Rowling thinks her works are anything other than "fun" books, she's misleading herself. I'm a fan, I've read the books dozens of times, but they are just good fun and nothing more.
There are better contemporary fantasy kids' books... the Bartimaeus trilogy; Troll Fell & its sequels; even the Karazan books... but there's certainly nowt wrong with HP, in that it does get kids reading, and thinking too.
As I think others have hinted, simply getting people reading is not sufficient a quality in and of itself to be lauded. You have to be encouraged to read something that broadens the mind, people read the Daily Mail but there is no benefit to be had from doing so. Reading shit doesn't make you educated it just makes you smell. Reading is not a virtue in and of itself, anymore than watching television is. Reading books that educate and broaden the mind, that's a good thing. If people read shit then everyone hopes it will lead to them reading something better, but is there really any basis for this? Is Harry Potter a gateway drug? Does it lead to better authors and better books? Or do people who read Mills and Boon end up reading Mills and Boon for the rest of their life? I fear the latter I'm afraid and I speak as someone who reads pulp fantasy fiction crap in preference to real books...
The Bartimaeus books are better, although the second was not half as good as the first. Bartimaeus is a great character, he's arsey and sarcastic, you don't get often enough in any books let alone kids books. Haven't read the third yet (I can't afford hard backs), so I'm hoping it rounds out the trilogy nicely rather than continuing the decline...
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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Heroic Knight
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Matt Pennington (12/13/2006)
simply getting people reading is not sufficient a quality in and of itself to be lauded. You have to be encouraged to read something that broadens the mind, people read the Daily Mail but there is no benefit to be had from doing so. Reading shit doesn't make you educated it just makes you smell. I have to disagree ( except with the Daily Mail bit ). If you start CHILDREN reading at an early age, they will continue to do so. How many people reading this read loads of books as a kid ? Probably quite a few. As you age you will become more discerning and make better choices as to reading content. There are always going to be exceptions to this that will read War and Peace as a kid and then become a Daily Mail subscriber, but as a general rule I think it holds true. If you grow up only watching shit reality TV and playing World of Warcraft you will not ever get enough of an IQ to understand most modern fiction ( or factual scribblings if I am honest ). R
________________________________________________ Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Wag
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| I have to agree with Rich here- I'm forever discovering young people who can't even read well enough to fill out basic forms let alone play WoW- their minds aren't open enough to accept the concept of fantasy. If they play tomb raider it's to fantasise about Lara Croft and they play Grand Theft Auto just so that they can murder hookers. Most of them can't even manage the Sun and they wouldn't look at the Daily Mail (too many words). If some of the wonderful childrens fantasy we're getting now could have been available to them in school 10 years ago it might be a different story. As for quality- have a look at an Oxford Reading Tree book, many schools use this shit to teach infants to read and then we're shocked at the low literacy levels of our children
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Wag
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Duplicate Post Deleted - Sorry for double post.
History is an important source for LRP. Along with other works of fiction.
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