However, catching the Golden Snitch is very much an issue of strategy. I recall in one book, Harry was ordered to not catch it and to not let it be caught until his teammates had scored fifty or sixty more points with the quaffle, because they needed those additional points in order to win the season championship…not just the game.
In addition, don’t forget the other balls, whose purpose is to damage the players. The defenders are important here…the team can’t let their “money player” get taken out of the game by those things.
The efforts of the other players do indeed matter in a Quiddich game, and winning each specific game is not necessarily the primary goal…the season championship, which goes to the team with the most points is (in theory, I imagine a team could win the championship without winning a single game). Just because the efforts of one gets points to a disproportionate degree doesn’t mean that teamwork and team strategy isn’t important, or that the other team members have no effect.
I will admit, though, that a months-long match doesn’t sound to me like much fun to watch.
I agree with points on both sides… the books are great for getting kids to read but they’re brain candy not thinking books. I own the first and fourth book and the two ‘school books’ (Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastical Creatures) and I haven’t read any of the books since the first time I read them. I did enjoy them but trying to read them again I start to decide… well I would rather read other books than these again.
As to the Philip Pullman books… I’ve read those as well. I agree that they were amazing… but I’m 18 and even now I still didn’t grasp some of the stuff. (I am pretty well read… or try to be.) I don’t see how many children are going to be able to read those. I did read stuff such as A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Chronicles of Narnia as a child… but Pullman’s books I find are much, much more complex. Also something about his writing style bugs me. I can’t really put my finger on it but I was always thinking this is just strange. I couldn’t put them down though till I finished reading because the plot and story itself was amazing, but I won’t read them again either.
There are always going to be exceptions to who reads what. I know my brother will never read Harry Potter. That’s how I got the first book it was given to him but he took one look at it and said nu-uh. I also know he would never look at Lewis or Pullman. If a kid wants to read Pullman… more power to them but Rowling I think has started to open the eyes of kids to reading. Just by doing that I feel she has done something great, even if the books aren’t the best.
As I’ve mentioned before, the criteria for the Hugo specifically and explicitly allows science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction.
Be appalled and disgusted if you don’t like the book, but it was a perfectly legitimate vote and it’s not the first work of fantasy to win a Hugo. Depending on your worldview, it’s not even the first fantasy novel to win one (A Case of Conscience beat it by like 40 years)
I can’t beleive what I am reading in some of these posts. Unless you are ten then why they hell would anyone be knocking Harry Potter.
Harry Potter inspires creativity, imagination, and visualization in a lot of children. If you are an adult and you don’t like Harry Potter, so what, you have a developed sense of imagination (or maybe not as the case may be)therefore you probably wouldn’t like it.
But for kids, I know most kids of a certain age love Harry Potter. I have been in the book business for years. And I have seen books inspire, scare, bewilder, and entrance children. Please don’t knock a book that ‘many’ children love, if you are an adult, you shouldn’t knock anything that inspires creativity and imagination in children. And the reason you probably didn’t like it is because it is not geared for an adult. If you are an adult, read something that inspires you and not something that inspires a ten year old.