A Debate with my friend Zach

Alright. So my friend, Anne, makes her Facebook status, Anne - and the Half Blood Prince.
After which, comes one of the greatest conversations about the Harry Potter world, and its validity, ever. I kept the people's names in the post, but removed their last names in hopes of keeping anonymity.

Brie at 1:40pm November 9
you're one to talk about epidemics. the harry potter epidemic has clearly taken over your life.

Timur at 1:41pm November 9
Harry Potter is not an epidemic. It is a miracle.

Zach at 1:43pm November 9
Harry potter blows.

Khermesh at 1:43pm November 9
hahahaha ^

Adrian at 1:44pm November 9
lol anne u and me should have a harry potter marathon

Khermesh at 1:46pm November 9
every harry potter movie besides the last one was good

Timur at 1:46pm November 9
The books were the best. The movies did them no justice.

Adrian at 1:47pm November 9
the last one i saw was the goblet one i think. ive never seenthem all

Zach at 2:05pm November 9
You are all slaves to Rowling's corporate agenda. She writes a piece of sh!t novel filled with plagiarism and unoriginal ideas and you all eat it up. It sickens me that retard is so rich, I refuse to see pay for any of her books or movies.

Timur at 2:06pm November 9
You're just mad that you didn't write something like that.

Anne at 2:18pm November 9
zach why are you so hateful? you tell him timur

Zach at 2:22pm November 9
Would you like to me to write a book? If you allow me to completely plagiarise from Tolkien, Star Wars, and more? Combine with a cynical marketing concept such as naming a character gay afterwards for some more press? Give me a break..This lady is a horrible writer. But regardless of her horrible writing skills, she only does it to make money she has admitted to hating children so you are all just supporting her get rich quick scheme; That's not okay.

I hate that b!tch with a burning passion.

Timur at 2:26pm November 9
Dude, what are you talking about? Who the hell cares how she got what? All that matters is that she makes a sh!t load of money, and that people read the books. If the books were as terrible as you let on, then no one would read them. And another thing; Who said she plagiarized anything? Are there orcs, or elves in Harry Potter? No, there aren't. The Harry Potter universe is not set in Middle Earth, as Tolkien lets on.

Khermesh at 2:30pm November 9
Zach, you need to chiiiiiiiiiiiiiill you get so argumentative all the time

Zach at 2:57pm November 9
But, I love to argue. That being said Timski you had some valid points. But if you are going to say she hasn't "borrowed heavily" from Tolkien you are an idiot. The villians Sauron and Voldemort both need something in order to gain their power back i.e the ring or the sorcerer's stone. They both have unlikely heroes, Gandalf and Dumbledore are near identical, and the monsters are practically the same exact thing. And the only reason they are so popular is because people do not bother to piece together all of this, they see a fun story geared to little children and they are all pumped to read it not knowing that the concepts have already been used in a far better story. And yes, I'm only pissed because this woman is so rich she capitalized on the stupidity of the general public.

I really really really love to argue with people, Khermesh. That's my thing.

Timur at 3:06pm November 9
You make good points about some of the connections between HP and LOTR; She may have borrowed some concepts, but that is what authors do. You made it seem like she copied EVERYTHING from Tolkien. She borrowed minimally. Sauron never actually comes back to power, if I'm not mistaken. Voldemort does. The monsters are not similar though. Like I said before, there are no orcs in Harry Potter, nor are there Giant War Elephants like in Return of the King. She simply borrowed the characteristics of Gandalph for her Dumbledore. If you are calling her a plagiarist for that, then you are calling Tolkien a plagiarist as well. Where do you think he got the idea for Gandalph in the first place? He was obviously taken from the character of Merlin, in the King Arthur stories.

ps. We all know that if you ever came up with an idea like Harry Potter, you would go after it in a heart beat. After all, it IS a goldmine.

Moses at 3:07pm November 9
Okay, but you fail to understand the dialogue of literature for the past 1,500-5,000 years or so. Rowling does not claim to be a master of post-modernism, or even the writer of prose. She expands on archetypal figures outlined as far aback the the Greek tragedies. If you'd be so obliging, if you examine the Harry Potter, Starwars, or any other piece of epic literature of this nature, they are for the most part the same thing as the story of the New Testament. A son is born into obscurity and poverty, until he goes on a quest (the quest archetype is easily outlined by the Odyssey and fits just about every one of those stories) and discoveries that his father was also great. He battles against a personification of pure evil, a figure that represents every great downfall of sin, and eventually defeats him. This is the prototypical hero story, it's one of a dozen or so that has survived generation after generation in our stories and literature. It is a story so ingrained into the human pysche that they resurface under new pretexts every generation.

Moses at 3:21pm November 9
What now, punk?

Zach at 3:25pm November 9
HOLY sh!t, I've awoken the beast.

Zach at 3:38pm November 9
My last comment was a joke of course but anyway.
Regardless, I'm not insinuating whatsoever that she claims to be a master of post-modernism yet she takes a story such as Harry Potter and pretends like the concepts are her own. Tolkien's works are much more original. As for Arthurian legend it is nothing like the Lord of the Rings, perhaps Merlin is similar to Gandalf but Rowling's characters and plot is pretty much exactly like every other story. Allow me to bring up Tolkien's use of Terry Prattchet's "Unseen Univeristy" AKA HOGWARTS. She is the biggest thief of literature if I've ever seen one.

Timur at 3:42pm November 9
You are just grasping at straws now. Give it up Zach. Moses got ya.

Zach at 3:48pm November 9
How did he "get me" Timur? Please elaborate.

Timur at 3:52pm November 9
Well, you called J.K. a plagiarist. And I guess you were right about that to a certain extent, but he also elaborated that she was simply following a basic template that when it came to stories that have heroes in them. The same basic hero template that is used in the Star Wars trilogy with Luke Skywalker. Many different stories share this same skeleton, if you will. The details, however, are different. That is where she gets her cash cow element from.

What I have been saying this entire time is that she did not steal as much from Tolkien as you have tried to lead us to believe.

Moses at 4:05pm November 9
Literature is a picaresque mesh of thieves' writing. All great art is a basic combination of preexisting elements into a format that is more acceptable and relevant to a contemporary audience. This was the case for Greek mythologies and plays, this was the case for the majority of Victorian novels, and this is especially the case for any epic stories. Take Star Wars. If you know anything about the famous Japanese film maker Akira Kurosawa, you realize that the entire film, the entire story, is a rip-off of his 'Seven Samurai'. Actually, Darth Vader's mask is modeled after a samurai's. If you know anything about Japanese folklore, you'll realize that Seven Samurai is a rip off of a collection of similar stories with the same essential plot line. If you know anything about Chinese folk lore, you'll realize that the Seven Samurai storyline was actually orginated by Laozi in the Period of the Warring States.

Brie at 4:16pm November 9
this conversation has just become too intense (ts)

Zach at 4:43 November 9
This was an amazing conversation, and I'm proud to have been part of the debate. Seeing as I've run out of platform to argue on I suppose I'll concede.

That being said..props to you Moses I wasn't aware of Kurosawa's films, but you made me think hard to come up with good rebutals.

Moses at 4:50pm November 9
It's all a good time... Glad to have someone who will actually argue out a point instead of droping it the second someone disagrees.

Timur at 4:52pm November 9
Well, Zach is very stubborn at times. I guess this time, it worked out for the better. It's nice to see everyone bring new information to the table.

Zach at 4:57pm November 9
Huzzah!