Why is Harry Potter such a huge phenomenon? (open spoilers)

[Thudlow_Boink]

I’ll quote my own comments from a couple of previous threads (Reasons why I hate Harry Potter; What’s the literary world’s view of JK Rowling?):

@Thudlow_Boink

…(children’s) fantasy, which they certainly are, but that’s not the only genre they fall into: they’re also school stories, and to some extent mysteries, which may help to explain their popularity. (I know at least one adult fan of the books who, in general, doesn’t much like fantasy but does love mysteries.)

True, there are other books that are better, in various ways—more original, more flawless, more profound, more beautifully written, etc. But it makes perfect sense to me that the Harry Potter books are as popular as they are. They’re fun to read, with plenty of humor and suspense and warmth. They depict a world that kids (and adults) would love to inhabit, but with enough danger and conflict and pain to keep the stories interesting. They’re relatively easy to read and follow: they don’t place great demands on the reader, though they do get more complex and mature as the series progresses. And they have enough detail to stand up to re-reading.

@Thudlow_Boink

…her humor is one advantage she has over many of the other writers she’s foten compared to. And what impresses me is that her humor for the most part doesn’t sacrifice believability. That is, unlike Adams or Asprin, when there’s something funny, it’s usually the characters within the story trying to amuse each other (the way real people do) rather than the author trying to amuse the reader.
A couple of the other reasons for Harry Potter’s popularity (that don’t really say anything one way or the other about her literary quality):

(1) They are, in some sense, mysteries. They keep their readers guessing by giving them big questions to wonder about (e.g. Who keeps trying to kill Harry? Who is the “Half-Blood Prince”?) and are sprinkled with hints, clues, red herrings, and big reveals and the end. So it didn’t really surprise me when she later turned to writing “actual” mysteries.

(2) People want to go to Hogwarts (at least vicariously). The local newspaper sometimes publishes Q&A interviews with local teens, asking (among other things), “If you could live in a book, which would you choose?” and Harry Potter seems to be the most common answer. I’m convinced that a large part of Rowling’s success is that she’s created a world that readers want to spend time in.