Bas wrote:The one thing about Rowling's writing that bugs me is that it all seems so second hand-ish. Everything appears to be borrowed almost directly from fairy tales and various staples of fantasy. Also, to me, nearly every character appears to be some sort of stereotype.
Sure, nearly all stories are based on Joseph Campbell's 'monomyth', and obviously all works of fantasy will have some similarities, but it still bugs me to hear some critic praise Rowling's incredible imagination when I still see the same old 'school of magic' and 'dark villain breaking free' that I've seen countless times before.
Then you haven't been paying close attention to the books.
Yes, her books have common literary themes; what books don't? It's not that it's been done before (they've *all* been done before) it's *how* it's being done this time.
This time features some fairly well crafted plot, interesting character development and dialog, humor, tragedy, and action. The "incredible imagination" critics rave about is in that plot construction and character interaction, in her her ability to relate previous events to current events. Take, for example, the polyjuice potion: introduced as a minor little piece of fluff in the second book, apparently just for kicks and world immersion, yet it was a key plot device in the fourth book, and is used fairly heavily in the seventh book. Such relevance is rare in fiction these days.
