I say it is not possible to compare them, as they are very different books, carrying different messages.
I know that there are things that match
http://ifoughtthelaw.cementhorizon.com/hplotr.html
but still...
Can I have your opinion please?
2007-12-22 03:16:50 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
why would these 2 books be compared they have nothing in common except both are fiction and serial in nature
2007-12-22 03:26:01 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 2⤋
I have read both and they are, as you say, very different books with different messages.
I discovered Tolkein when I was in high school. Over the years I read them many times. Many fantasy authors have also read them for inspiration.
I like the Harry Potter series as well and the movies of it but it doesn't give me the same inspiration.
2007-12-22 11:42:01 · answer #2 · answered by redunicorn 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I think that Harry Potter books are better than the movies.
However, I think that Lord of the Rings movies are better than the books.
To sum up, I agree with you that they can't be compared, but I must say that I like Harry Potter better than Lord of the Rings.
2007-12-23 09:45:03 · answer #3 · answered by aceix 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The main difference is that the 'Lord' trilogy was written by an intelligent academic who was also a good storyteller and the 'Harry Potter' books were written by an average householder who had a poor education. It shows in many ways. However both are good reads but there is much more scholarship in the Tolkein books and they are better written by far.
2007-12-22 11:31:13 · answer #4 · answered by John G 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
comparing hp and lotr would be like....comparing jane austen to leo tolstoy!!
hp is the journey of ONE individual......who has to fight evil and who brings down the main bad guy, fighting his own personal troubles on the sidelines
and although ron and hermione are there to help and the ootp is fighting a battle, in the end all that matters is harry and the horcruxes
lotr on the other hand.....is a group effort
so many protagonists with different view points, unlike hp which only let u see things from harrys point of view, and the whole setting of lord of the rings, with so many empires, elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, ents, dragons etc etc and so many stories on the sidelines, well it becomes more of an epic than a normal story........kind of those early mythology books u read
its totally diff from harry potter!!
edit: hey i totally agree with john g!
2007-12-25 03:09:39 · answer #5 · answered by Charvi 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Well, there are SOME ways in which they can be compared, if you want to get technical. They're both fantasies. They both have a hero who has little ties to a family (a common theme in fantasy ever since LOTR was published, to be sure). They both have a "bad guy" who is pure evil, and whose character doesn't go too much deeper than "Rarr! I'm a bad guy and I want to ruin your world!" They both have a "team" of good guys who work together to defeat the bad guy. They both rely on objects of power in order to defeat the bad guy (the One Ring in LOTR and the horcruxes in Harry Potter). They both have other races besides humans.
I think there are plenty of ways in which you can compare them for the purpose of analyzing their relative merits as works of fantasy. Fortunately for both, they're well written and well loved, so it would be a matter of personal taste in the end which one was "better." :)
As for that web site, whoever wrote it must not read a lot of fantasy. Ever since Lord of the Rings, it's been common for all the elements that site mentions to be included in some form or another in most quest-based fantasy works (and Harry Potter is defintely a quest story, although the quest is largely mental for the characters, instead of trekking across Middle Earth physically as in LOTR).
LOTR is kind of the grand-daddy of all fantasy, and just as you resemble your ancestors physically, so does most fantasy have some similarities to LOTR. I could make a similar snarky "outline" between LOTR and The Wheel of Time, or The Belgariad, or Dragonriders of Pern, or just about any other quest-fantasy story that's out there. Part of the reason why this format is used so much is because it resonates with us. We LIKE quest stories, where a bad guy who's pure evil is defeated by a good guy who's pure good and his good friends. That has been a common theme in folk tales around the world ever since people thought to record stories, and probably well before that, too. :)
In short, the LOTR/Harry Potter/Star Wars mythos is something that most humans just plain LIKE, so it gets written adn re-written a lot, and it's nearly always well loved when it's produced again in a new incarnation.
2007-12-22 11:24:15 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 1⤋
Tolkien began it all. He did it first, he did it best. He was the first to take fantasy beyond fairy-tales. Tolkien created an entire world with a history and its own mythology. Hatty Potter (while a good story) is about a boy and a school. All the books seem to be the same tale over and over. LOTR is one continuous tale about one world-altering event.
2007-12-22 13:47:36 · answer #7 · answered by Piper 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
They are like apples and oranges. About the main common themes between them are wizards.
Good versus evil and the good wins is common in so many stories... besides these two, there's Star Wars, about ANY Disney movie, fairy tales, etc. It's the oldest theme around.
Many great stories use similar ideas in their basic theme. Think of stories as like humans... we all have skeletons which look the same (ie story theme) but on the outside, we're all different looking and unique.
2007-12-22 11:28:19 · answer #8 · answered by dollmaker_extraordinaire 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Someone STOLE my Harry Potter collection... SOMEONE TOOK MY PRECIOUS!!!!!! lol
2007-12-25 23:56:34 · answer #9 · answered by RE_FAN 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
they r really different books and i think HP is better! i would never compare them to each other ever!
2007-12-22 11:20:15 · answer #10 · answered by I Support Cedric Diggory♥ 5 · 0⤊ 3⤋