There will always be the legends in history - epic films like The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins (let's face it; all of Julie Andrew's works. She is a legend, period.) and Titanic, various book series (although I can't think of any off hand - call it the time of night, I might think of something later. I'm sure there are many deserving of the label), and TV shows like Friends (the most recent one I can think of). However, could Harry Potter be considered to exist in a league of its own? Will there ever be another series that equals or even exceeds (if possible) the enormous success and loyalty that the series has seen?
Twilight is the series that is capturing most attention currently (although not so much with the recent release of the sixth Potter film), but, (and I might be biased in saying so, given I'm not a Twilight fan), I think I'm safe to say that it isn't matching the success of the wizarding world. Perhaps vampires just don't make the mark?
Thinking about this made me wonder something about J.K Rowling's success compared with other authors in history. Perhaps it's the day and age (I question whether some things in the books would've been accepted a few decades ago), or perhaps it's the amazing ability Rowling has to make such an unreal world seem possible. Or, at least, to make the reader feel like they are part of it.
In general, human interest in things is directly proportionate to the level of suspense, mystery or excitement in the object of focus. It occurred to me that this could be an explanation for Potter's success (although this is obvious, I attempted to analyse it a bit further) - the series has a brilliant time line for the build up of suspense, an unbeatable mix of characters with some having underlying story-lines incorporated into the main story, and importantly, the excitement of elements (such as magic) which are (despite our attempts at illusion and trickery - some of which I admit are very good) beyond our own reality. Most of all, the entire series leads to a conclusion which is, for the most part, unpredictable; a very difficult feat for writers to achieve. Obviously, when a story pulls people in so much, they want to know what's going to happen. J.K Rowling managed to maintain a decent level of unpredictability and consequent suspense --> our minds' forced us to learn more. It was only slightly torturous having to wait between books. Especially between the sixth and seventh.
Even though I've read each book numerous times, I'm still worried that the first part of the seventh movie is going to finish on a helplessly frustrating cliffhanger.
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