I know people that every Halloween they adorn themselves in cloaks and talk about which houses they belong to. I’ve seen people on social media that communicate entirely in Harry Potter memes. I’ve seen people introduce themselves by where a sorting hat would’ve placed them. Harry Potter is a phenomena of my generation, and I’ve never been that into it.
I saw every movie and rooted for the good guys when I was supposed to and know most of the major story beats, but I never bought the t-shirt. I just wasn’t that into it.
Why that is dawned on me tonight and it was all because I told my wife I wouldn’t mind having a fancy edition of a book. You know, leather bound with gold leaf on the edge of the pages. That sort of thing. I said this and then later that day was looking at my shelf and wondered if perhaps I already had a fancy book there.
After a bit of Googling I discovered a first edition of Stephen King’s Desperation is actually worth something, and low and behold there was a hardcover version of that book on my shelf. I flipped it to the copyright page and soon discovered that what I had was a first edition. Then I noticed the date, 1996, the year I turned 15. My next thought was I remember being older and this doesn’t seem like a book for a 15 year old. I also remember by that time I had read most of the Gunslinger novels (that were out), It, Needful Things, Cujo, Carrie, and most of Stephen King’s other major works. I had also read a good bit of Clive Barker and a few other not so kid friendly books.
So, when the first Harry Potter book came out in 1997 and my sister decided I had to read it and let me borrow her copy it sat, untouched, on a bookshelf in our computer room.
It just wasn’t for me. I was beyond Young Adult or Children’s Fiction. I was heavy into adult horror and about to move into reading some even heavier stuff. I was getting ready for my, “I only read the classics,” phase. Which was mostly reading through the catalog of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Earnest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Harry Potter was released right into the time when I was most poised to ignore it.
Now, many years later, the Harry Potter universe has a new edition in one of my favorite forms of storytelling, the action RPG. Along with reading Stephen King in the mid to late ’90s I was playing video games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy VII, and many other Playstation classics. My favorite genre has always been the RPG and I am particularly fond of the action RPG.
If it wasn’t for the bigoted and intolerant ramblings of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowlings I would very likely have ignored my lack of money and purchased the new Harry Potter action RPG. However, we do live in a universe in which the Harry Potter creator has come out of the closet as a grade A nutter and not a person worthy of getting one scratched nickel of my hard earned money.
It makes it a lot easier to not give her my money because I never cared that much about Harry Potter. And as a video game fan I only have to wait 14 days for Octopath Traveler II and 77 days for Jedi Survivor.
David Huzzard Writes 