| Oh god, you beat me to the Renly + Loras snide comment. Damn you.
As to Harry Potter, in my mind it's like the Da Vinci code. People who do not read, or do not read a specific genre, hear about how wonderful a book/series is, get caught in the hype, and have no objective comparison to realize that HP was mediocre (at least compared to adult material; the Da Vinci code was just horrible and was written for people with ADHD).
On the other hand, it was a decent young adult series for people who aren't normally readers, and anything that gets people reading is good in my books even if I tend to think the material they're reading isn't great. Then again, I started out reading Brian Lumley and David Eddings, so I have no right to throw stones. Hopefully people who were introduced to reading by the HP series keep on reading and progress onwards to better stuff.
Frankly, reading for pleasure is so uncommon these days among the general population that anything that can galvanize people to start picking up books is a net positive. Sure, many criticisms can be leveled at Rowling and her books, but fundamentally she did a lot of good that outweighs the bad. |