The other day I was at home by myself and extremely bored...out of my mind, and as I was talking to myself I came across a question that inspired a very interesting conversation. It would have been more interesting of course if it was between two or three people rather than one, but none less it grabbed my attention. The question was "Why do some books or series explode in pop culture or become so popular?" Now if your a smart cookie you will have figured out I'm talking about such series as Harry Potter and Twilight. How did these books become so "big"? This is such an interesting question because they are completely different series. Even beyond the plot and the characters, it's just different writing. To answer this question let's first take a look at Harry Potter.
Harry is not the first to to become famous by saving an entire world from destruction. Frodo also had a lot of luck in that category as did the Pevensie orphans. Now, the important connection between Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia is not that the main character were saving a world, but the fact that the author created an entire world to be saved. Tolken was very descriptive with Frodo's world going as far as creating maps. The world of Harry Potter is intricate enough that Warner Brothers is able to build a theme park modeled after it. And behind the wardrobe Lewis writes descriptively of the vast lands of Narnia. There must be something about creating an entirely different universe that intrigues people.
But how then, did Twilight make the cut? It is not really in the same category as these others because Myres doesn't create another universe. She takes characters from other fictional stories such the vampires and werewolves, but puts them in a regular town. How did this grow to such monstrous proportions? Why is this book so popular? My answer: merchandising and franchising. At first maybe what is said above about taking different creatures and putting them in today's world is what got people's attention, or maybe is was the intense love story for a plot, but the reason it is one of the biggest things in pop culture today is the franchising. It took years to even make the movies for Narnia and Lord of the Rings. The movie deals for the Twilight Saga took no time at all. Warner Brothers had to ask J.K Rowling repeatedly before she even considered putting Harry on the big screen and even though when the movie came out there was merchandise, it is no where near the amount of Twilight products on sale today. Don't believe me? Yesterday I walked into borders and saw an entire section not full of books, but instead of lunch boxes, pens, journals, T-shirts, posters, figurines, jewelry, and more all of the Twilight genre. When Harry Potter became popular there was a table of shelf full of merchandise, not a whole section.
So, you see, I really didn't reach an over all conclusion here. Which is more powerful the people's want to escape their own reality and fall into a new universe, or is it the merchandise? This entire conversation did not end here. I went on to ask myself Why people feel the need to ban books such as Harry Potter? Could Harry Potter one day become a classic and be put on a syllabus?
To be continued...
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