The books as well?

To briefly answer theyknowwhatimean, more the films - I read the first four books a while ago and found them utterly boring. Haven't gone back to them since.

To quote Peter Griffin "It insists upon itself." A lot of it just feels like fantasy for fantasy's sake without any depth. The magic is cliched often and ridiculous always, the characters are uninteresting for the large part (some exceptions, and tbf for fantasy it has some decent-ish characterisation; compared to say The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia - Snape is by far the most interesting character I thought). The writing is just...well, poor IMO. I hate the acting, it's far too long, and it has one of my pet peeves in mistaking imaginative writing for "giving things funny names". Although it's world is vividly created I don't think a lot of the underlining ideas are imaginative at all, but no one seems to care because everything's called a fucking sniggerwiffle or some shit.

Something else that annoys me, although this isn't really a valid criticism but something I'd like to mention, is all the self-righteous, condescending comments Harry Potter fans are constantly making about Twilight. Now, we all know how fucking dreadful Twilight is as a...thing, but do you really need to keep going on about how your book series is so morally superior and "teaches young girls better lessons"? Just an annoyance...

Although on the other hand I do really like JK Rowling. Saw her on a Royle Family documentary and was pleasantly surprised by how funny and down to earth she was. (Kinda hot too) 

Fucking love Harry Potter. The books were better than the movies though.

Maybe you should try and give the rest of the books a chance. They're considerably darker and give more insight to the characters and their back stories (especially Snape). Obviously as Harry gets older his perception changes as well. I disagree with you on the depth department, the books delve into many topics such as morality, prejudice, racism, feminism; friendship, various family issues...

For the naming thing, oh pretty much name has its meaning and a story behind it, trust me. Also, I've seen and read a lot of JKR interviews, and there's so much more to HP books than there's actually in them - she's created a story for pretty much every character and she's gone into so much detail - but lots of the facts weren't included in the books, due to editing I suppose.

However, I do agree with you about the Twilight comments. Annoying and even embarrassing at times.

And yes, JKR is awesome. And really inspiring, too. She's gone from being an unemployed, single-parenting mum who battled depression to a best-selling author. She's really funny, I follow her on Twitter, she's one of the best "celebs" to follow on there.

Of course it's a matter of personal taste, I'm a huge fan though and have been for years, so naturally I get a bit defensive

I actually reread the series recently and I have a such a different view on them now than when I had when I first read it (like now I'm in my 20s and when I read the 1st book I was about 10 years old). In regard to the movies, I don't think they're that horrible but of course, they don't even come close to the books.

Anyway, if you ever find the time - give them a shot

Oh, I've never read His Dark Materials. Funny thing is, I'm not really a fan of fantasy genre - but HP is an exception I guess. I did read Twilight though and I liked it at the time, don't shoot me (I was 16, in my defense.)

I've seen that, yeah . I love how she still responds to fans when they ask her about HP stuff, so we still find out new bits of information from time to time. Have you read her other work perhaps? I heard mainly positive stuff about "The Casual Vacancy".

Fifty Shades of Grey - definitely NOT my cup of tea. Haven't read the books, haven't seen the film - nor I intend to. Just don't see the appeal.

I understand, I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fan and a century on I can get defensive about those As the saying goes "Never judge a book by its movie", so I'm sure I'll read the rest of Harry Potter some day. (On a side note, spare a thought for His Dark Materials fans and the abhorrent movie adaptation we got...SUCH a disappointment) 

Fantasy is very hit and miss I feel. Very easy to go overboard in so many ways, and the characters are often very boring (JRR Tolkien, for all his brilliance, couldn't characterise for shit IMO) Haha that's cool, the only thing more annoying than Twilight is the people who make the effort to belittle other people's fandom of it. The odd joke is fine but I think it makes a lot of people insecure of their taste so they have to actively hate it. I thought the first book had a decent story somewhere waiting to be told - but it got lost underneath the god-fucking-awful characterisation (Do Bella and Edward even count as characters?), boring plot, sexist and morally questionable undertones and the constant "OMG EDWARD IS SO GORGEOUS" prose that defines Bella completely. The series lost its way mainly when as one critic put it "a metaphor for teen abstinence started trying to be Lord of the Rings".

I haven't read The Casual Vacancy, I was considering buying it recently but bought 1Q84 instead. I'll finish Harry Potter before I get to that though.

50 Shades of Grey is appalling. Interestingly that started as a Twilight fan-fic, which is never the best start for a novel.

People are suckers for 'epic' sounding music, hook, line and sinker. Who said grandiosity and drama makes the best songs? Do peoples eyes just glaze over at what they perceive to some kind of otherworldly genius?

Pff... get real. It's nothing more than a flavour. Like chocolate. Or mint.

Pretty songs are overrated too. The beauty or ugliness of a song is a frankly irrelevant variable which has no impact on how good a song is. A song is good if the song is good, so it's a shame there's such a heavy bias on another 'flavour' dial which many have mislabelled.

Oh, and when it's combined with the aforementioned 'epicness' BOOM! Throw in a few random lyrics which hint at having meaning, an emotive verse, a fist in the air chorus and you've just won the world cup final. It's jetpacks and supermodels from here on out baby!

...It also makes for some very predictable elimination threads.



Heh. Chris Martin has had some talent... shame how he employed it though. 'Coldplay' is a dirty word as far as I'm concerned. 

Noticed a pattern with Bazire the last two days:
29/8/2015: Wins on Ave Avis wearing 7
30/8/2015: Wins on Vazirissimo wearing 7

One more and he'll kill us all with the number (very good chance Tuesday, Come on Chocho)

What's the 2015 Jessica like?

A shadow of her former self. But that's life.

Way to kick her when she's down