Do you think Harry Potter is the LotR of Low fantasy?

I've been chewing on this for a while now and would like some input from other people. On one hand, HP is certainly popular enough to draw the comparison to LotR. But when I read through the HP books, and afterwards the LotR, I can't help but feel like the quality gap is really far apart from each other. What do you think?

You can't really compare them because they are much to different, but if we are talking on quality of the writing then I can make my opinion stated.

I think that both are excellently written, but LOTR definitely is just a bit better written although I liked the plot behind Harry Potter much more.

I would say so. Harry Potter is excellently plotted, and has an enormous amount of creativity behind it. Saying that, it is also pretty mediocre, technically speaking. The writing is only good at its best, and pretty dull at its worst. Lord of the Rings on the other hand is arguably the most well-written fantasy in history (notice I said arguably), and as far as the actual creation of the world itself, it is completely unrivaled in my opinion. There are WAY too many fantasies these days that are just complete rip-offs of Lord of the Rings. Not to mention the INSANE level of detail in the geography, genealogy, history, and linguistics. In my opinion, Lord of the Rings is simply in a league of its own. It truly has the depth and power of some real-world mythologies, let alone other works of fantasy.

But don't get me wrong, Harry Potter was a staple of my childhood. I'd still go to Hogwarts if I could, and no, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

^Yeah, I agree. As much of the Harry Potter fanatic that I am, I would have to say that LOTR is better, quality-wise.

You have to keep in mind though, Harry Potter was written more for children and LOTR was written more for adults, so obviously the writing style/depth is going to be inherently different.

LOTR is without a doubt better, it has an entire language to learn as well as the same number of books on middle earth mythology as the actual trilogy. Potter is good but is written simplistically partly because rowling isnt a grtea writer and also because it makes reading a 600 page novel easy. Not to mention rowling does rip off LOTR; the whomping willow, when the hobbits meet tom bombadil and merry is almost eaten by a willow/ ents

SnapesOnAPlane wrote:You have to keep in mind though, Harry Potter was written more for children and LOTR was written more for adults, so obviously the writing style/depth is going to be inherently different.

Ranger Hawk wrote:

SnapesOnAPlane wrote:You have to keep in mind though, Harry Potter was written more for children and LOTR was written more for adults, so obviously the writing style/depth is going to be inherently different.

I agree they are kind of hard to compare. Both have become timeless, in their own rites. Lord of the Rings does have a much higher quality of writing and more extensive world-building, but Rowling also creates a magnificent world which, given time, could easily expand into something just as epic. But again, it is hard to compare two such different but epic works at all; each has its own positive and not so positive aspects.

I always find it infuriating that Lord of the Rings must be compared to Harry Potter, and vice versa. They're both deeply flawed but also fantastic in their own amazing ways, with a wonderful amount of detail paid to intricate worldbuilding. They both come from such different places and are so different overall that I don't really know what you'd begin to compare.

In terms of popularity alone, they're on fairly different playing fields; Lord of the Rings has existed for much longer than Harry Potter and the long burn of its effect upon pop culture & literature & other media is very different from the crazy Pottermania that erupted in the past decade or so. It's hard to call Harry Potter timeless because it's been around for such a finite amount of time.

Quality of writing, as someone else mentioned, is sort of silly to compare because they are written for very different audiences at different points in time.

Also, to say that Rowling rips off of Tolkien sort of implies that Tolkien did not himself heavily borrow from everything under the sun. And to say that LotR is better simply by merit of its worldbuilding is kind of silly. Making up an entire language (admirable as it may be) does not affect the quality of storytelling whatsoever.