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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9218419" data-attributes="member: 18">I did mention HP in a previous draft of that post, but I felt like it was confusing the issue! But I do think it factors in, as does LotR. It's ironic because in an interview Rowling gave when HP was first "going big", she violently and in no uncertain terms rejected the idea that HP was fantasy*, and used that kind of "fantasy books are cheap thrills for teenage boys" formulation (I think what she said was even nastier than that - implying writers were basically pandering to them, I can't remember the exact wording). It was such an outburst that even in text you could tell she'd unsettled the interviewer, who presumably thought it was uncontroversial to describe HP - which is obviously fantasy, right down to genre tropes - as "fantasy". She rejected the label a couple of times more in that era (less violently) before pivoting 180 to being "beloved fantasy author" later on, without every actually apologising for position/aspersions cast.* = This isn't even the wildest claim she's made re: the genre/originality of HP, but detailed discussion of such grandiose claims ill-befits this thread.</blockquote>