I was a fan of Harry Potter before Lord of the Rings so I know it rather well. (although I like Lord of the Rings better) I’d just like to point out that there are NO gollum’s or anything remotely resembling him in Harry Potter besides the fact that the house elves talk in the third person like him…
As a true Tolkien fan, in my eyes it is blasphemy to even speak these two names in the same sentence. Tolkien’s trilogy is full of goodness, with the lines between good and evil clearly drawn. In HP, the “hero” is actually an anti-hero. He cheats, steals, lies, disobeys proper authority—yeah, sounds like Frodo to me. Frodo as a hero is truly herioc. He is honest, merciful, enduring, faithful, just plain herioc. HP is basically an intriguing intro into witchcraft for children. If you don’t believe this, go to Google and type in ” how do I become a witch?”. You will be surprised. ( By the way, did you know Rowling is a witch? And that Tolkien was a Catholic? Authors write what they know.) Tolkien’s trilogy is not dark and evil the way HP is. So please, true Tolkien fans, never compare these two series because there just isn’t any similarity.
I’m a fan of both series and I couldn’t pick between the two. I think they both have their strong points and they can’t really be compared until the HP series is completed. Until then I will reread LOTR waiting for HP #6!!
*rolls eeyes* not this again… you know i suspect that anyone who writes things like this cant have fully read and understood the stories. or perhaps it just means that harry potter and lord of the rings are the only two books they have read…..
seriously there are many many more books that are way more simelar to tolkiens works, but no one ever compares them.
you know i read somewhere that there is *never* an original plot line in fantasy stories. if you strip it down to basics… you can find elements of tolkien in mythology.
rowling has read tolkien once- at 19. i see no reason to disbelieve this claim of hers since she pays tribute to the authors and stories that did inspire scenes from harry potter. for instance she says that a scene in the iliad direcly inspired the idea that harry should bring cedrics body back in order of the phoenix. now why would someone lie about reading tolkien and yet be willing to credit other authors… makes no sense to me.
this whole buisness seemed to start when both films were out at the cinema around hte same time of year. so people started comparing the two. if LotR films hadnt been made right now i wonder if all this comparison will take place.
any book that motivates children and adults to read is good. not enough people read as it is. why people feel the need to debase rowlings hard work by making tenuous and sometimes ridiculous comparisons to tolkiens work is beyond me
I couldn’t agree more with you, K! Every writer is also a reader, and of course influenced by what others have created before him.
The comparisons in the article are very – well – superficially, to say the least, and do justice to neither of both books. And to say Lord of the Rings is a book about a young boy going on an epic journey is like calling Moby-Dick a book about whales!
This is the way I look at it, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have their similarites, and their differences. But is that not true of ANY two fantasy serieses?? There was no comparison whatsoever until the first movies came out mere weeks apart! Why do it now? I am a fan of both, and would rather not draw religon into the matter… but the biggest difference I think, is that Harry Potter is something that more children can relate to. True, not many kids can say they have faced an evil dark lord 4 times and survived, but they could have ended up in the principal’s office four times.. in both the main characters have lost themselves, for trying to save the world is no easy feat. The movies, in my opinion, of both serieses, did not do justice to the books. Reread the two towers, and see how similar the two are. Tolkien always said that there was no hidden message behing LOTR. Why are we making one? People are againgt Harry because of magic, but does not reality have magic behind it? In the way a true friend appears, as if he apparated, by your side, in the way a sunset inflames the sky? I am not here to alter your decisions, but only to give mine. Please reply.
Uh, did the author of that article read either of the series? Apparantly not Harry Potter at least (“or does it have to be because UK publishing and bookshops will otherwise drop deep into the Goblet of Fire?”) (“watch them cast Quidditch spells on you.”) Makes no sense if you know what quidditch and the Goblet of Fire both are. That’s what bugs me… How can he criticize HP if he’s never read them?
I personally like both LotR and HP… Tolkien and Rowling are both geniuses who have created literary masterpieces. Obviously, they both series must be good if each have so many loyal (not to mention obsessive!) fans. Sure, there are similarities between the two, but so many fantasy stories are similar. And many people who are against Harry Potter say it is dark & evil and promotes witchcraft and such, but really, I thought that LOTR was ‘darker’ (that isn’t a bad thing!! LotR still rocks!)
Go elven~princess~623 and k! I agree wholeheartedly with what both of you said =)
In my oppinion, The Lord of the Rings is a better ‘book’ altogether than the Harry books for many reasons. First of all, no matter how long JK Rowling makes her books, there will still not be enough ‘information’. You know how once you finish a really good [fantasy in particular] book you want to know more about the world in which the story line takes place and the culture of the people in the book(s)? Well, in LOTR you can. To start things off, you can read all of the books that go along with LOTR and THE HOBBIT , (e.g., Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion, the Lost Road and other writings, HoME, and much more. Next, you can investigate the 14 different languages that Tolkien created for the trilogy. If you finish that, you can learn to write the scripts of middle earth, (i.e., tengwar, cirth, etc.). And last, there are countless merchandise stores online and offline for Lotr. How can Harry Potter beat that? I mean, I like reading the Harry Potter books; they’re not bad, it’s just that there is so much more to learn about after you read the books. What can you do after you read the H/P books? Hmmmm… Let’s see: You can get a book of spells (right, so you can try them out with your fiberglass wand), you can dress up as harry potter, and then, THEN you can…well… um…that’s all!
There are no Gollums in Harry Potter! And Frodo isn’t a young boy, and there is no Fellowship in Harry Potter setting out for one thing, it’s one person, and only about ONE PERSON, and everything is told from the point of view of Harry Potter!
I believe that you can’t help fantasy being the same in one way, or another. Stripped down to the basics, as someone said earlier, they’ve all got elements of the others. Tolkien’s works are wonderful creations, most of which he spent his entire life on. This has earned him a massive following, even if only recently the numbers have incresed sevenfold. J.K. Rowling’s books have been wonderful reading material, too. Not exactly short, but they’re filled with witticism and adventures one only dreams of going on. People like to read about those types of things, adults and children alike. Keeps reality from being too much. Besides, as someone also said erlier, even though HP series has a large discipleship (for that’s what it is, crazy obsessive people like myself…) we can’t help wondering how long it will be till it phases out. And even the same thing for Lord of the Rings! I believe that after all the hype about the movies has gone down, and the movies are forgotten by all but a few, we’ll lose those people (or at least most) sucked into this wonderful realm through the movies. Frankly, I’m a little biased sometimes when someone tells me that they saw the movie and then read the book because Frodo was ‘sooooo cute’…being a die hard Tolkien fan since a young age will do that to you, I suppose. But, I digress.
Onto similiarities topic…
Okay, many people seem…angry that LotR and HP are being compared. But, if you look closely, you may find things that are startlingly similiar to LotR.
Shelob and Argog seem very much the same, besides the differing personalities. The surname Longbottom, shared by Neville and Tobald-both are exceptional in working with plants. Both books contain ‘Dark Lords’ trying to master their world, each assisted by tratorious man with a ‘Wormy’ name (Wormtail, Wormtongue). Both of the hero’s parents died, tragically (Harry’s murdered by Voldie, Frodo’s drowning in boat), and both have birthdays which set off the events of the book (Harry’s eleventh birthday in which he learns of the Wizarding world, Frodo’s 33rd where he learns of the Ring and must keep it safe-even Bilbo’s 111th which causes him to leave the Shire, entrusting the Ring to Frodo). Both books contain dark hooded creatures, primarily evil; and a dark ‘Forbidden’ forest. Also, each contain a small, pitiable creature who talks in third person (Gollum, Dobby) and both books have a mischeivous pair of family memebers (Meriadoc Brandybuck and Pippin Took-cousins, Fred and George Weasley-twins).
Phew, there….while I’m not trying to say the J.K. is evil and hoodwinked all of Tolkien’s ideas, she may have done parts subconsiously, because many are very subtle. But…well there’s my two cents. Feel free to flame, it only feeds the fire and keeps me warm. 🙂
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, (she and I have both read HP) and she said that the books themselves are not evil, (actually they are very enjoyable) it is what people say about them, and the connections they make to bad things.
HP is definately more fantasy and obviously not real, but it is fun to read. I personally like LOTR better, but I know that my nephew likes HP better than LOTR.
I think you have to be mature and old enough to know what is right and wrong, and you have to know what is real and what is fantasy before reading HP. I guess that is true also about LOTR, especially with little kids, I think it might scare them.
Personally, I have found Harry Potter to be very enjoyable. Of course, it does have some similarities, but what I’ve noticed is very small. Even Tolkien based his works off of others (stealing a cup, anyone?~Beowulf-plus other similarities to Norse mythology, Christianity, Greek mythology, etc.). However, I do not think that there is resonable cause to hate Harry Potter and/or J.K. Rowling for any similarities, few and far between that they are. I also believe that the good, positive messages in Harry Potter outweigh any “negative”, “evil” messages of “witchcraft” there may be. I had the privilige of listening to a professer from a Christian college talk about finding Christianity in fantasy: namely The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. There is no evil there. Anyway, the two are not that similar, and there are fantasy books out there that are obvious rewritings of The Lord of the Rings. THAT”S who we should complain about. NOT Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling. I’m not that sure if Harry Potter has that much staying power, anyway. But then again, The Wizard of Oz did, and it was just as popular in the 1900’s…
I agree with you Laitoste_of_Rivendell! My mom said that a lot of people don’t like Harry Potter because of the fact that there are wiches and wizards in it, but she said that the Wizard of Oz had good and bad wiches, and yet that was a perfectly good movie/book. She said that she thinks that there are probably people who don’t like The Wizard of Oz for that very reason. I also think that people shouldn’t judge a book before they read it, because they won’t be able to argue their point very well. If they read a book, and then from there say why they didn’t like it, and what they found wrong with it, then I would be able to see their point better. Anyway, I think I’m done saying what I have to say!
As much as I respect the works of both authors, J.K.Rowling is in no power to be compared to the Lord of Literature. It is as if comparing a child and an adult, great differences and my heart remains with Tolkien’s work.
53 responses to “JRR Tolkien vs. JK Rowling!?”
… needs no further comment I think?!
hehe: Tolkien, One Plot Line to Rule Them All!! I do agree, though i am a fan of both series’
About Frodo: “..young, innocent hero who acquires magical properties and some wacky wizard friends on an epic journey of adventure.” Wizard friend(s)?
I only read the first HP book, so I don’t know how many “Gollums” there are.
I was a fan of Harry Potter before Lord of the Rings so I know it rather well. (although I like Lord of the Rings better) I’d just like to point out that there are NO gollum’s or anything remotely resembling him in Harry Potter besides the fact that the house elves talk in the third person like him…
As a true Tolkien fan, in my eyes it is blasphemy to even speak these two names in the same sentence. Tolkien’s trilogy is full of goodness, with the lines between good and evil clearly drawn. In HP, the “hero” is actually an anti-hero. He cheats, steals, lies, disobeys proper authority—yeah, sounds like Frodo to me. Frodo as a hero is truly herioc. He is honest, merciful, enduring, faithful, just plain herioc. HP is basically an intriguing intro into witchcraft for children. If you don’t believe this, go to Google and type in ” how do I become a witch?”. You will be surprised. ( By the way, did you know Rowling is a witch? And that Tolkien was a Catholic? Authors write what they know.) Tolkien’s trilogy is not dark and evil the way HP is. So please, true Tolkien fans, never compare these two series because there just isn’t any similarity.
I’m a fan of both series and I couldn’t pick between the two. I think they both have their strong points and they can’t really be compared until the HP series is completed. Until then I will reread LOTR waiting for HP #6!!
*rolls eeyes* not this again… you know i suspect that anyone who writes things like this cant have fully read and understood the stories. or perhaps it just means that harry potter and lord of the rings are the only two books they have read…..
seriously there are many many more books that are way more simelar to tolkiens works, but no one ever compares them.
you know i read somewhere that there is *never* an original plot line in fantasy stories. if you strip it down to basics… you can find elements of tolkien in mythology.
rowling has read tolkien once- at 19. i see no reason to disbelieve this claim of hers since she pays tribute to the authors and stories that did inspire scenes from harry potter. for instance she says that a scene in the iliad direcly inspired the idea that harry should bring cedrics body back in order of the phoenix. now why would someone lie about reading tolkien and yet be willing to credit other authors… makes no sense to me.
this whole buisness seemed to start when both films were out at the cinema around hte same time of year. so people started comparing the two. if LotR films hadnt been made right now i wonder if all this comparison will take place.
any book that motivates children and adults to read is good. not enough people read as it is. why people feel the need to debase rowlings hard work by making tenuous and sometimes ridiculous comparisons to tolkiens work is beyond me
I couldn’t agree more with you, K! Every writer is also a reader, and of course influenced by what others have created before him.
The comparisons in the article are very – well – superficially, to say the least, and do justice to neither of both books. And to say Lord of the Rings is a book about a young boy going on an epic journey is like calling Moby-Dick a book about whales!
Yeah…I’ve seen similarities between the two.
I’ve read somewhere (Time magazine, I think) in a JK Rowling interview that she “steals”(jokingly) ideas from other authors.
This is the way I look at it, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have their similarites, and their differences. But is that not true of ANY two fantasy serieses?? There was no comparison whatsoever until the first movies came out mere weeks apart! Why do it now? I am a fan of both, and would rather not draw religon into the matter… but the biggest difference I think, is that Harry Potter is something that more children can relate to. True, not many kids can say they have faced an evil dark lord 4 times and survived, but they could have ended up in the principal’s office four times.. in both the main characters have lost themselves, for trying to save the world is no easy feat. The movies, in my opinion, of both serieses, did not do justice to the books. Reread the two towers, and see how similar the two are. Tolkien always said that there was no hidden message behing LOTR. Why are we making one? People are againgt Harry because of magic, but does not reality have magic behind it? In the way a true friend appears, as if he apparated, by your side, in the way a sunset inflames the sky? I am not here to alter your decisions, but only to give mine. Please reply.
Uh, did the author of that article read either of the series? Apparantly not Harry Potter at least (“or does it have to be because UK publishing and bookshops will otherwise drop deep into the Goblet of Fire?”) (“watch them cast Quidditch spells on you.”) Makes no sense if you know what quidditch and the Goblet of Fire both are. That’s what bugs me… How can he criticize HP if he’s never read them?
I personally like both LotR and HP… Tolkien and Rowling are both geniuses who have created literary masterpieces. Obviously, they both series must be good if each have so many loyal (not to mention obsessive!) fans. Sure, there are similarities between the two, but so many fantasy stories are similar. And many people who are against Harry Potter say it is dark & evil and promotes witchcraft and such, but really, I thought that LOTR was ‘darker’ (that isn’t a bad thing!! LotR still rocks!)
Go elven~princess~623 and k! I agree wholeheartedly with what both of you said =)
In my oppinion, The Lord of the Rings is a better ‘book’ altogether than the Harry books for many reasons. First of all, no matter how long JK Rowling makes her books, there will still not be enough ‘information’. You know how once you finish a really good [fantasy in particular] book you want to know more about the world in which the story line takes place and the culture of the people in the book(s)? Well, in LOTR you can. To start things off, you can read all of the books that go along with LOTR and THE HOBBIT , (e.g., Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion, the Lost Road and other writings, HoME, and much more. Next, you can investigate the 14 different languages that Tolkien created for the trilogy. If you finish that, you can learn to write the scripts of middle earth, (i.e., tengwar, cirth, etc.). And last, there are countless merchandise stores online and offline for Lotr. How can Harry Potter beat that? I mean, I like reading the Harry Potter books; they’re not bad, it’s just that there is so much more to learn about after you read the books. What can you do after you read the H/P books? Hmmmm… Let’s see: You can get a book of spells (right, so you can try them out with your fiberglass wand), you can dress up as harry potter, and then, THEN you can…well… um…that’s all!
There are no Gollums in Harry Potter! And Frodo isn’t a young boy, and there is no Fellowship in Harry Potter setting out for one thing, it’s one person, and only about ONE PERSON, and everything is told from the point of view of Harry Potter!
Maybe so… but Tolkien is 10x better (at least!).
dont forget the giant spiders!that was the clincher for me.I felt it was a little TOO similar at that point.
I believe that you can’t help fantasy being the same in one way, or another. Stripped down to the basics, as someone said earlier, they’ve all got elements of the others. Tolkien’s works are wonderful creations, most of which he spent his entire life on. This has earned him a massive following, even if only recently the numbers have incresed sevenfold. J.K. Rowling’s books have been wonderful reading material, too. Not exactly short, but they’re filled with witticism and adventures one only dreams of going on. People like to read about those types of things, adults and children alike. Keeps reality from being too much. Besides, as someone also said erlier, even though HP series has a large discipleship (for that’s what it is, crazy obsessive people like myself…) we can’t help wondering how long it will be till it phases out. And even the same thing for Lord of the Rings! I believe that after all the hype about the movies has gone down, and the movies are forgotten by all but a few, we’ll lose those people (or at least most) sucked into this wonderful realm through the movies. Frankly, I’m a little biased sometimes when someone tells me that they saw the movie and then read the book because Frodo was ‘sooooo cute’…being a die hard Tolkien fan since a young age will do that to you, I suppose. But, I digress.
Onto similiarities topic…
Okay, many people seem…angry that LotR and HP are being compared. But, if you look closely, you may find things that are startlingly similiar to LotR.
Shelob and Argog seem very much the same, besides the differing personalities. The surname Longbottom, shared by Neville and Tobald-both are exceptional in working with plants. Both books contain ‘Dark Lords’ trying to master their world, each assisted by tratorious man with a ‘Wormy’ name (Wormtail, Wormtongue). Both of the hero’s parents died, tragically (Harry’s murdered by Voldie, Frodo’s drowning in boat), and both have birthdays which set off the events of the book (Harry’s eleventh birthday in which he learns of the Wizarding world, Frodo’s 33rd where he learns of the Ring and must keep it safe-even Bilbo’s 111th which causes him to leave the Shire, entrusting the Ring to Frodo). Both books contain dark hooded creatures, primarily evil; and a dark ‘Forbidden’ forest. Also, each contain a small, pitiable creature who talks in third person (Gollum, Dobby) and both books have a mischeivous pair of family memebers (Meriadoc Brandybuck and Pippin Took-cousins, Fred and George Weasley-twins).
Phew, there….while I’m not trying to say the J.K. is evil and hoodwinked all of Tolkien’s ideas, she may have done parts subconsiously, because many are very subtle. But…well there’s my two cents. Feel free to flame, it only feeds the fire and keeps me warm. 🙂
~moonletters
harry potter isn’t loved by that many aduts, (none that I know.)
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, (she and I have both read HP) and she said that the books themselves are not evil, (actually they are very enjoyable) it is what people say about them, and the connections they make to bad things.
HP is definately more fantasy and obviously not real, but it is fun to read. I personally like LOTR better, but I know that my nephew likes HP better than LOTR.
I think you have to be mature and old enough to know what is right and wrong, and you have to know what is real and what is fantasy before reading HP. I guess that is true also about LOTR, especially with little kids, I think it might scare them.
Personally, I have found Harry Potter to be very enjoyable. Of course, it does have some similarities, but what I’ve noticed is very small. Even Tolkien based his works off of others (stealing a cup, anyone?~Beowulf-plus other similarities to Norse mythology, Christianity, Greek mythology, etc.). However, I do not think that there is resonable cause to hate Harry Potter and/or J.K. Rowling for any similarities, few and far between that they are. I also believe that the good, positive messages in Harry Potter outweigh any “negative”, “evil” messages of “witchcraft” there may be. I had the privilige of listening to a professer from a Christian college talk about finding Christianity in fantasy: namely The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. There is no evil there. Anyway, the two are not that similar, and there are fantasy books out there that are obvious rewritings of The Lord of the Rings. THAT”S who we should complain about. NOT Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling. I’m not that sure if Harry Potter has that much staying power, anyway. But then again, The Wizard of Oz did, and it was just as popular in the 1900’s…
I agree with you Laitoste_of_Rivendell! My mom said that a lot of people don’t like Harry Potter because of the fact that there are wiches and wizards in it, but she said that the Wizard of Oz had good and bad wiches, and yet that was a perfectly good movie/book. She said that she thinks that there are probably people who don’t like The Wizard of Oz for that very reason. I also think that people shouldn’t judge a book before they read it, because they won’t be able to argue their point very well. If they read a book, and then from there say why they didn’t like it, and what they found wrong with it, then I would be able to see their point better. Anyway, I think I’m done saying what I have to say!
As much as I respect the works of both authors, J.K.Rowling is in no power to be compared to the Lord of Literature. It is as if comparing a child and an adult, great differences and my heart remains with Tolkien’s work.