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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LiKral" data-source="post: 2457478" data-attributes="member: 16951">When I was a kid in the eighties I loved books like Harry Potter, and I read a great deal of them. The 'magical school story' was a huge cliche even then. I have always been surprised that everyone seems to think that J K Rowling is so original. As a child I was jaded with that sort of thing by the age of ten.I think the reason Rowling got so popular is actually because her books are so obvious, not because they are even slightly subversive. From the sound of it, she has not read much fantasy, so she is pretty much on a level with her audience who have not read much fantasy. This means that she does not make assumptions like authors who are already fantasy fans do. For instance, Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies" makes way more sense if you know a bit about how nasty fairies really are in the old stories. Surprisingly few 'muggles' actually know anything about fairy lore. When I was in the Brownies (an organisation like the Girl Scouts for the under-tens), our little groups were named after mythological fairies. I started out in the "Red Caps" group and moved to the "Kelpies". I was an obnoxious little geek even then, so I thought it was hugely funny that we were named after horrible little sprites who dyed their caps in the blood of their enemies, and evil water-horses that murdered travellers. But no-one else, not even the adult leaders knew what I meant. Rowling's house elves are the nice, cuddly things familiar from "The Elves and the Shoemaker." Everyone has heard that story. There is no cultural barrier.</blockquote>

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