It's a question, maybe, of what you find dramatic, and of how much general emotional significance, if that's the right word, a character or a story can bear. I mean, a nutcase shooting the President is incredibly significant, but the circumstances themselves may make up nothing more than a trashy tabloid story.
Harry killing Voldemort is obviously important, but I think the "value" of a story lies in what it illuminates along the way about its participants. I'm not minimizing the value of Harry's story by any means -- it's a great coming of age story, and the way his perceptions of the world deepen and sharpen across the books is compelling. So is the basic dilemma of whether a damaged person, facing a brutal fate, can maintain some kind of balance and grow into a reasonable human being. And of course, it's a lot of fun to read.
On the other hand, a story about the impact of Voldemort's rise and fall on a whole family, and through the story of that family a whole social world, offers a potentially bigger and more varied playground for an author to work in. There's more variety of human nature, there's a wider range of passions and issues, there are adults as well as children, there are social as well as personal dilemmas. People have a sense of personal and family and community history and therefore a denser context for what they think and do.
Not that the bare material itself makes one story better than another. Of course, it's all about the author's handling of the material. But the potential in the story of the House of Black seems like it could be larger and more epic than a story that just focuses on Harry.
Again the point is not to trash HP, but to focus appreciation on the amazing, almost-throwaway creativity of the things she treats as backstory.
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Harry killing Voldemort is obviously important, but I think the "value" of a story lies in what it illuminates along the way about its participants. I'm not minimizing the value of Harry's story by any means -- it's a great coming of age story, and the way his perceptions of the world deepen and sharpen across the books is compelling. So is the basic dilemma of whether a damaged person, facing a brutal fate, can maintain some kind of balance and grow into a reasonable human being. And of course, it's a lot of fun to read.
On the other hand, a story about the impact of Voldemort's rise and fall on a whole family, and through the story of that family a whole social world, offers a potentially bigger and more varied playground for an author to work in. There's more variety of human nature, there's a wider range of passions and issues, there are adults as well as children, there are social as well as personal dilemmas. People have a sense of personal and family and community history and therefore a denser context for what they think and do.
Not that the bare material itself makes one story better than another. Of course, it's all about the author's handling of the material. But the potential in the story of the House of Black seems like it could be larger and more epic than a story that just focuses on Harry.
Again the point is not to trash HP, but to focus appreciation on the amazing, almost-throwaway creativity of the things she treats as backstory.