Do we really want three chapters of Prof. Binn’s lectures? 
You didn’t explicitly say that, but you did say something which, I think, implies it:
HP has a huge element of wish-fulfillment, somewhat like the Willy Wonka world, which just makes it a different feel.
And I think there’s a big difference when you are being introduced into a world with the POV character and when the POV character is already immersed in the world. The former is more accessible and usually requires anything magical or supernatural to be handled in a completely different way. “High fantasy” usually has POV characters who are already immersed.
If there’s a big Tolkien “camp” in the genre, then this might be part of the problem. I have never read his books, but the movies bored me to death.
There’s certainly a lot of truth in this. When I think about the enjoyable parts of the HP books it’s seeing how the kids grow and how relationships form and change. It’s seldom actually about the magic itself, per se.
Truthfully, I haven’t made it through much fantasy high or low. I liked the Narnia and Oz books as a kid but as I got older and people would recommend other books to me (I wish I could remember names…) I would never be able to make it all the way through. I still see fantasy movies sometimes if I’m with friends, but it’s almost never my thing. But if “low fantasy” is what HP is and there are other books like it…well, thanks for the recommendations!
“High” and “low” refer to the amount of fantastical elements in a story. “High fantasy” has lots of dragons and elves and wizards and magical artifacts. “Low fantasy” has a relatively realistic setting (maybe medieval, maybe contemporary) where magic exists, but is rare and/or of limited use, and many people may not even believe in it.
True, and I think that’s why, even though I like fantasy, I’ve found some fantasies hard to get into. But I don’t think it’s necessarily true, or even typical, of high fantasy in general (at least, depending on what you count as “high fantasy”). An author can get around this by making the POV character someone from our world who travels to the fantasy world; or, as Tolkien does in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, making the POV character one who is relatively provincial and has little experience with the world.
Funny you mention Willy Wonka…I loved all the Roald Dahl books as a kid, but it never would have occurred to me then or now to refer to them as fantasy novels, though god knows they are, what with the witches, giants, talking foxes, and Oompa Loompas.
This is very helpful - thanks for the clarification. I guess my problem is just with high fantasy!
I don’t think that’s unique. Most decently-written fantasy involving magic or something like it plays fair, setting up capabilities and limits and then remaining within them. It’s a pretty poor grade of cheese that has “magic” pulled out of the writer’s ass.
I am fond of Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Ethshar novels for that reason. There are five or six different schools of magic, each carefully outlined and explained over time, and the limitations of each type are more likely to shape stories than the capabilities. It’s almost not fantasy, and while I don’t much care for HP, I’d agree that the series is only very slightly fantasy in genre and approach.
I think it might be more of a difference between “epic fantasy” and “urban” (or “contemporary”) fantasy than “high” vs. “low.”
I, for example, am not a big fan of Tolkien-style fantasy with elves and dragons and a medieval setting, but I love Shadowrun (which has elves, dragons, orcs, and all sorts of fantasy tropes–but it’s set in 2050-2070, so the world is relatable). Even medieval-style fantasy that doesn’t include lots of magic and mystical creatures/races doesn’t float my boat much anymore. I get too much of a “been there, done that” vibe from it. I don’t hate it, but I don’t choose to read it with my limited time anymore.
“Urban fantasy” is a term that has (I think) drifted over the years. It used to describe fantasy based on a modern setting. However, it seems to have drifted to the point where if you say you write urban fantasy nowadays, most people’s minds go immediately to things like Twilight, with sexy vampires, female protagonists, and lots of romance. I was told at a writing seminar last year that “contemporary fantasy” is the way to describe what used to be “urban fantasy,” to separate the two.
Whether a book is “fantasy” depends on its setting, and/or the presence of magic or fantastical elements. But there are all sorts of different possibilities for what type of story/plot can be told within that setting.
While Potter & Co. are fighting a war against a would-be fascist dictator. That’s something we are familiar with.
The twin cores are set up several books ahead of time, in the first book in the series, and the effect of the two cores trying to do battle is acknowledge in-universe as being unpredictable.
And then there’s “urban fantasy,” which is set in a contemporary city or cities. Usually, as in the Potterverse, most people are not affected by and don’t believe in magic.
If that’s the case, you might consider Piers Anthony’s *Xanth *books, or Robert Aspirin’s Myth Adventuresseries. Both are lighthearted high fantasy, but character-driven with lots of humor. Beware, though: neither series is for the pun-intolerant.
The *Xanth *books tend to be rather formulaic, but the concept is fun: Xanth is a hidden land where every inhabitant has a magical “talent” that is uniquely their own. (They refer to our outside world as “Mundania.”) In the first book, A Spell for Chameleon, a boy named Bink seems to be the only citizen who seems to have no talent, so he goes on a quest to find it.
The Myth Adventure series, beginning with Another Fine Myth, is about a pair of dimensional travelers (“demons” for short): an apprentice magician named Skeeve (from the dimension of Klah, making him a “klahd”), and his mentor, Aahs (from the world of Perv, making him a “pervect,” though most people tend to mispronounce it). Aspirin claimed that his intention was to create a fantasy version of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road to… movies.
That’s true, though usually even the provincial character (a very common trope) has the sort of background where the basics of the world don’t need as much explaining. Usually. There are definitely exceptions.
The true fish out of water stories are very VERY common in low fantasy and what I used to call urban fantasy until, as Infovore points out, “urban fantasy” now is often just paranormal romance (and ooky).
You may prefer Urban Fantasy like the works of Charles DeLint. They take place in the modern world and the magic is largely shielded from the normals or muggles.
Some narrowing down questions:
Did you like Buffy? Do you consider this show Fantasy, Super Hero like or Horror?
Do you like shows like Grimm?
Once Upon a Time?
The first Highlander movie or the Show?
Do you like Hercules or Xena?
Pushing Daisies or Dead Like Me?
This is a good call. So would be a couple of Neil Gaiman novels, especially Neverwhere and American Gods.
Another reason that the Potter books don’t seem much akin to “high fantasy” is that HF is basically earnest. Yes, there may be a bit of fun poked at the Lower Orders (oh, those greedy and childlike hobbits Merry and Pippin, haha!)…but on the whole it’s fairly humorless.
The first few Potter books, by contrast, are comic throughout (with an underlying thread of the High Serious that doesn’t dominate until later in the series).
I really believe this has more to do with it than anything else, and I think it has to do with vocabulary. The kids go to school on a train, attend classes taught by professors, take tests and do detention when they misbehave. They have feasts and play Quidditch.
How much more “fantastic” would that all have felt if “Quidditch” hadn’t been the only word you’d never heard before reading the book?
The weemonts go to Tess’la’rath on a mmmey, attended stourch taught by fargnarimpen, take hakkumae and do nogoemhafun when they misbehave. They have gobstuffin and play Quidditch.
With one exception I have never seen any of those shows, in most cases because the previews were a turn-off, but also partly because I just don’t take on new TV shows too often. I’ve known enough people who are Buffy fanatics that one of these days (the same mythical day I tackle The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, etc.) I will sit down and watch at least the first season.
The exception was Pushing Daisies, which could be a too whimsical by half, but was able to incorporate magical elements without setting off my instinctive “ugh - fantasy” alarm.