Harry Potter vs. Twilight

For over a decade, J,K Rowling and her incredibly successful novels “Harry Potter” have captivated the minds of many people, not only young children, but people of all ages. Her classic stories of the young boy named Harry Potter whose fate has been thrust upon him have been massively popular all over the world. In fact Harry Potter has been published in over 67 languages and has topped many best-seller lists. But for some unfathomable reason, many Potter fans have transferred their allegiances to a series titled “The Twilight Saga”
This series was created by Stephanie Meyer, an author that appears to have written down her childhood fantasy and published it. Twilight is a book about a girl named Bella Swan, who feels different in a new place, and is soon caught up in Meyer’s dream of werewolves and sparkling vampires.
So what series is better? For most Harry Potter fans this competition is not so much a competition as a small thorn in their side; it is more of a nuisance than something they really care about. What do Twilight fans find in the books? Some say they can relate better to Twilight to Harry Potter, but I for one sure can’t relate to the shallow lifestyle that Bella lives. The fact that she and a sparkling, rock hard, vampire fall in love at first sight and are instantly meant to be together for life, or the fact that the love of her life leaves her for her own safety are things that never happen in reality. Two people that deeply infatuated with each other would never separate, unless you are in a fairy tale, which appears to be what Stephenie Meyer has created in this series. Some people may find this more realistic than the world of harry potter, but I sure don’t. Twilight is one of the most repetitive stories of this age, with a storyline that goes round and round and never seems to change. Book after book describes the love between Bella and Edward, and the behind-the-scenes love that the werewolf Jacob has for Bella. Also, where is the creativity in Twilight? About all I could find when I forced myself to read the saga was the fact that Meyer’s vampires sparkled. How a book like Twilight ended up on the best sellers list I have yet to understand.
Harry Potter on the other hand actually has a deep storyline with lots ofmeaningul and impactful content. The plot moves along throughout the series, unlike the stagnate storyline (or more accurately lack thereof) of Twilight. Harry Potter is about the internal struggles of a boy that has power thrust upon him and how he battles against all odds to defeat the evil entity that is Lord Voldemort. Of course Harry Potter isn’t so far out there that no one can relate to it. If you have thoroughly read Harry Potter and have not found one topic or issue that a character in the book struggles through that you can or could at one time relate to, your childhood life is still incomplete. Some people arguing on the Twilight side of the debate say that Harry Potter never had the love story that Twilight has. I think that is completely ridiculous. The harry potter book is full of romances, and every single one of them is more believable and realistic than those of Twilight. As a teenager at Hogwarts, harry Potter’s life is full of romance. He of course has his first girlfriend in Cho Chang, a girl Harry has liked for several years, but after Cho breaks up with him Harry realizes that they were in fact never meant to be. This is an important part of the series when debating over Harry Potter vs. Twilight, as in Harry Potter, his first girlfriend doesn’t go on to become his wife and bear his child, as Bella does in Twilight with her “perfect” boyfriend Edward. Harry moves on to marry Ginny Weasley, a girl who had been sitting under his nose for 5 years before he realized he wanted to be with her. Another much more realistic romance in Harry Potter is that of Ron Weasley and Hermionie Granger, two friends who are almost always bickering in the books, until they hook up in the last book in the series. This is just as in real life; those who are always arguing ironically tend to end up together. Of course all of the above argument does not even skim over perhaps the most important romance in the entire series. This is the romance between Severus Snape, a seemingly evil spy for Albus Dumbledore that makes Harry’s school years much worse than any other’s and Lily Evans, a woman that became Harry’s mother. Lily and Snape grew up together and Snape had loved her throughout his entire life. Harry would have been killed countless times throughout the series if it hadn’t been for Snape, who had protected harry due to the love he had had for his mother. Snape’s life was torn apart when Lily died, and his entire goal throughout the story is to take down Lord Voldemort, the man who killed her, and to protect Lily’s sun, Harry Potter, from all the harm that would have befallen him if not for his efforts. If there is a love story moremeaningul than that in Twilight I’ll eat my hat.
Another reason that Harry Potter is so much better than the protagonist in Twilight is that Harry Potter is a much better hero than Bella, Edward, and Jacob combined. He is a boy who battles everyday problems while having to bear the weight of the knowledge that he will someday have to kill one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time: Lord Voldemort. Harry is caring, faithful to his friends, noble, and even dies to save his friends at one point in the series. Of course Harry is by no means perfect; unlike Edward in Twilight, he still has flaws, which makes him much more relatable to real people in this day and age.
Some Twilight fans also argue that twilight is more creative than Harry Potter. I’ve said before that this is ridiculous: the most creative thing in twilight is the sparkling of the vampires. Harry Potter doesn’t go 10 pages without spouting one of Rowling incredibly imaginative phrases. If “stupefy” “avada kedavra” “muggles” “quiditch” “the statute of secrecy” “derigible plums” and “crumple-horned snorkaks” are not creative, I don’t know what is.
When you look at it, the competition between Twilight and Harry Potter is no competition at all.