Harry Potter Poll

[shadowkat]

Anyone who reads my journal or is on my flist, please answer. For a lark and out of curiousity - I wanted to see how many people on my lj are actually into Harry Potter. This came out of a little discussion with my pal CW last night. Who I had persuaded to read Harry a long time ago, she was one of the people who veered away from it because a) kid books and b) hype. Then she picked up one and changed her mind. Last night she told me how cool it was on Sat to see such a huge cross section of people reading it in Central Park - from old men to little children. All races, sexs, and ages. Anywho...curious to see how many do so on my lj. So if you have a moment. Please answer. I'm also doing the poll.

PS: I haven't read the finale book yet and am still unspoiled, a miracle, I know, but I have a cool flist who cut tags on stuff like that. So no spoilers in comments. Thank you!

[Updated: for the purposes of this poll - "Persuaded" is the same as "Recommended" and "if you only read one book but none of the others" - pick did not read. It's not exact, but once again I forgot to put those options. ]

[Poll #1027147]

Comments

[liliaeth]

Well I didn't really have to be persuaded, but my mom told me about the first book and said I should read it. This was before everybody and their dog had read the book*g*. The second one hadn't come out yet at the time, and I've been following the series since.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Read the first volume, and that's all: which I think counts for these purposes as not reading HP!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

LOL!

This happens every time I attempt a poll. Someone cames up with an exception that doesn't quite fit. Such as - I read one, didn't like them, and stopped. Or couldn't make it through the first one.

Yeah, just count that as having not read it and leave a comment.
Best approach.

Sorry for forgetting to put that category in there. But sort of did this on the fly at work, which may not be the best place on the planet to create a poll - but it's the only time I think them up. LOL!

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

I'm between "on my own" and "persuaded". It was recommended, but no one had to talk me into reading it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

For the purposes of this poll - consider "persuaded" and "recommended" to mean the same thing.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I suppose 'persuaded' might be over-stating it... I had ignored a friend's recommendation, but when I was visiting my brother and he had just finished reading the first book, and was starting the 2nd one, he recommended that I try it - I was hooked in the first chapter! I had to buy my own because he was reading that 2nd one too slowly. LOL

I hooked my cousins and their kids by giving them the audio books as a thank you gift after I'd stayed at their beach house.... Of course the adults and kids all got completely hooked on Harry Potter, causing trouble w/their Christian (anti-Harry Potter) in-laws! So I guess I'm just a trouble-maker.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Apparently more than one person had troubles with "persuaded" - so I updated, think of it as the same as recommended. (I was reading my flist prior to this and got the word from others journals.)

I got my mother and a friend into them. My other friend, Wales, remains immune to the movies and the books - but she's NOT a fan of the genre at all. It's odd, but all my friends who dislike fantasy and sci-fi, love horror. Was discussing this with my pal CW last night, who made the same observation about hers. They love things like 28 Days, Saw, Hostile, etc - but don't like Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Wales doesn't like torture porn, but does love anything with horror in it. Scarey vampires or zombies. She watched Buffy, but only was a fan of the Sixth Season. Avoided Angel.

And my father and kidbrother/sisinlaw also remain immune. No interest whatsoever. My mother reads them, but isn't *into* them and is waiting for it to come out in paperback. CW was really the only one who got addicted - she finished in under 48 hours. And has bought DVD's of the movies.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

Do you read Harry Potter?
I answered "no" to the first question but still answered the next (I've only read Book 1, half of Book 2, and Book 7).

I was "persuaded" in the sense that people kept talking about the books and recommended that I try them. I really only gave in because of convenience -- my mom got her hands on Book 7 and I figured, what the heck.

As I've mentioned in my recent HP posts, I'm not really a fan of the books. In fact, I'll probably never finish reading the series (though I may read the Snape sections for fun). Also, I might consider myself a fan of the movies, but I'm definitely not fannish.

Why I never got hooked is anybody's guess! It's certainly not snobbery or dislike of children's lit or fantasy. My favourite author is Tamora Pierce (http://tamora-pierce.com), who is a decent but not brilliant author of youth fantasy novels. Maybe if I'd skipped Book 2 and moved right onto Book 3 I might've become a fan. *shrug*

That said, it was very cool to walk back to church after lunch on Sunday and run across a woman reading Book 7 on her porch. I laughed and told her it was a good read, and she laughed and said she was almost done. HP has certainly connected people in unprecedented ways!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not sure why some people love it and others don't. I think it probably goes back to that post I did a while ago on kinks and buttons.

One of my co-workers can't stand the title character in the films, much less the books. While my former boss adored the books and rarely reads fantasy. Neither my brother nor sisinlaw will touch them - too heavily marketed and they avoid bringing anything in their house that has been over-branded, marketed or hyped. (They are both in the field of marketing and a tad snobbish about it. They have a hatred of anything made by Disney for example.) So I may not be *allowed* to share them with my niece when she grows older.

And...I wouldn't describe myself as fannish about them. I've really only been *fannish* about one thing in my entire life - Buffy. While I've had celebrity/character crushes before - Davey Jones with the Monkees being the first, and Richard Hatch's Apollo on the original BSG when I was nine or ten, being another one. That was mostly kept to myself. Same with my love of X-Men comics, or a specific *cough*soapopera*cough*. Buffy is the only series I ever came close to joining a *fandom* with and the only one I interacted with other *fans* about.

I don't feel that way about Harry. Nor do I see myself joining another fandom or getting that way about another thing. I got *fannish* about Buffy due to a specific set of circumstances - that I honestly pray never happen again. It became a coping mechanism - which may or may not be different than other people's reasons for joining fandoms. I did it to cope with combination of situations that overwhelmed me. What I've been struggling with is letting go of that coping mechanism. Because while it worked for that situation - it cannot be applied to the new ones.

Part of me would love to replace Buffy with Harry, but don't see that happening. HP - I see as my happy books, or light fun books. Books that take me out of myself for a bit. Stress free. I don't remember them that well. Don't feel the need to re-read them. And don't really obsess over them. I actually prefer the Dresden Files to the Potter Books, and find myself more attached to those characters - maybe because they are more adult? Or it is easier for me to relate to a 30-40 something male lead than a 15-18 something one? Don't know.

At any rate...I hear you on the fan bit. I love the books but *fannish*?
Nah.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

ITA about wishing I could add HP to my roster of fandoms, but it just ain't gonna happen! Funny thing about kinks and buttons is that they're not always foolproof. I mean, Harry Potter has all the elements of a series I could be totally fannish about. Teenagers with magical powers? An epic struggle of good versus evil? Heroic battles? A fleshed out universe? And on the fandom side of things, so much fanfic that I would never run out of stuff to read!

I guess sometimes we can't predict what will and will not ping us?

But I get what you mean about being fannish about Buffy due to circumstances. If I hadn't been in university at the time, I wouldn't have found online fandom. My whole experience would've been quite different, I think.

Not sure I can relate to you on being only fannish about Buffy, though. Even before I got online, I was totally fannish about Gargoyles, Sailor Moon, other cartoon movies/shows. I wrote fanfic!

Interesting what you say about relating more to adult characters than to younger ones. I think that's beginning to be true for me too, though it's not that I "identify" with older characters more -- I just don't have patience for characters making the same mistakes. I need my teenagers to grow the heck up already. I need people to act like professionals. Yes, I'm turning into an old curmudgeon ;)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The whole fannish thing is well hard to define or understand.
People do it about different things and in different ways.

I never knew fanfic existed until 2001 - after the episode Smashed on BTVS, when I wandered about online hunting for information - mostly spoilers, the wait between Wrecked and the next episode was too long.
And found them. Coming from an Intellectual Property background, my first reaction to fanfic was - WTF? And OMG, I should so not be reading this.
It really was a guilty pleasure - particularly since my job entailed acquiring rights to textual and media properties for an internet database and I was on two copyright forums at the time - both incredibly worried about the effect of the net on intellectual property law. So fanfic went against everything I'd been taught. LOL! I also did not know people discussed the shows in depth or wrote essays on it.

My experience with fandom prior to 2001 - was a bunch of giggling girls meeting in a dorm room to send out fan letters to their favorite movie star - like in the play Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Or the conventions that Trekkies went to - which were made fun of on Saturday Night Live. So, I came into the whole concept - with very critical preconceptions. And I admit I've seen some nutty behavior on and offline in the BTVS fandom, particularly amongst *cough*shippers*cough*.
But largely it wasn't what I thought it was.

There are I've discovered more than one type of fan. Those who stick with just one fandom the whole time and never leave it - Trekkies, BTVSers, Spikites (I made the last two up for want of a better term). Then there are those who are serial fans - they jump from one to the next. And finally the dilettants - who flirt with it - stick with it a while, might write one or two fanfics, lots of essays, then move away from the whole thing and don't get obsessed with another one.

I'm the dilettant type, I think. Slowly moving away from my BTVS/Spike obsession. Which has only lasted as long as it has due to my interaction with other online.

Agree on Potter - I do love the books, more than you do, but
if you were to ask me who my favorite characters were and who I was most intrigued by? I'd have to say Snape and Luna Lovegood. Odd, I know.
Hee.

[wenchsenior.livejournal.com]

Enjoy the series but not into online fandom at all. Also haven't read books 6 or 7...so obviously not rabid about them.

Was introduced by 2 of my aunts while on a camping trip (out loud campfire reading...my husband really did well reading when it was his turn, and ran out and bought the book as soon as we got home). He remains a bigger fan and more emotionally invested; he bought 1-5 in paperback, then borrowed 6 in hardcover, then ran out at 9 am on the morning after Deathly Hallows was released and read it in one sitting.

I tend to wait for paperback, and then sort of forget about the book by the time it's finally out. So as a result, we don't own #6 and I haven't read it. I'm thoroughly spoiled for both 6 & 7, though.

[wisewoman.livejournal.com]

I just realized something. Aren't "within 24 hours," and "under 24 hours" the same thing?

And yet people chose both. I wonder how they decided?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

They aren't the same thing.

Within - means up to or usually 24 hours.

Under 24 - means less than or in a shorter period of time.

Within = or within a time set
Under = less than a specific time set