The Nevada Sagebrush - » Twilight vs. Harry Potter: Fantasy showdown

Twilight vs. Harry Potter: Fantasy showdown

By Casey O'Lear
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008 @ 2:30 am

Illustration by Jett Chapman

When it comes to literature for young adults, few books can come to close to matching the phenomenon created by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. However, after the 2007 release of the final book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” young fantasy novel readers have had to look elsewhere to fill the void left by the end of Harry’s story.

Beginning in 2005, Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series has become the first young-adult fantasy series to come close to touching the tremendous Harry Potter fanbase.

“I think people are, and always have been, interested in stories about seemingly ordinary people with extraordinary abilities,” English professor Christopher Coake said. “Especially in the past six or seven years, since September 11 and the wars overseas, people really like to read stories about having the power to fight back against these scary forces in the world. And ‘Twilight’ is about a teenage girl who gets involved with vampires, having the ability to coexist with something dangerous and powerful and not being destroyed by it.”

The Harry Potter series has built its multi-million dollar empire with record numbers of book sales, highly successful adaptations onto the big screen and countless merchandise. “Twilight” will release its first feature film adaptation on Friday, challenging Harry Potter’s long-held place in the hearts of many fantasy fans.

Commercial Success

While the Twilight series may be popular among tween girls, its sales have barely begun to scrape the surface of what Harry Potter brings in. The Harry Potter series has sold more than 400 million books and been translated into 67 languages, whereas the Twilight series has sold around 17 million books worldwide and been translated into 37 languages. Income from Harry Potter sales account for 10 percent of the sales of its publisher, Scholastic, with each book in the series selling more copies than the previous.

Illustration by Jett Chapman

“If one percent of the kids reading ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’ go on to read other books, they’ve done literature a tremendous service,” Coake said. “Reading is a habit. If people are going to read, they need to get hooked in early.”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” sold 15 million copies in its first 24 hours and broke presale records at Barnes and Noble, the nation’s largest bookstore chain, by having more than 500,000 preorders for the book. The most recent book in the Twilight series, “Breaking Dawn,” sold 1.3 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale.

Films

In recent years, numerous profitable works of literature have been adapted into movie versions. Among these are the first five Harry Potter novels — the sixth will be released next year — and the upcoming film adaptation of the first Twilight novel.

“It goes both ways,” cinema professor Howard Rosenberg said. “If there is a wonderful book, you want to see what it looks like, and if there is a wonderful movie, you want to see what it was like before.”

All five of the Harry Potter movies are among the top 25 highest-grossing films of all time, with 2001’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” at No. 5 on the list. The film version of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” released in 2007, is ranked at No. 3 on the list of the biggest opening weekends of all time.

Though the film version of “Twilight” has not been released yet, expectations are high. In order for the studio, Summit Entertainment, to approve a film adaptation of “New Moon,” the sequel to “Twilight,” the film must gross at least $150 million. However, this seems plausible, as, by the beginning of November, 51 percent of the daily movie ticket sales on Fandango were advance tickets for “Twilight.”

“It all depends upon how they’re made, and the ability of the audience to recognize that the movie and the book are two different things,” Rosenberg said. “It depends on how you perceive what the filmmaker is trying to convey. No filmmaker alive knows that people are going to see his movie.”

Plot Overviews

While both series share certain fantasy elements, their plots are more different than they are similar.

The Twilight story is spread out over four books: “Twilight,” “New Moon,” “Eclipse” and “Breaking Dawn.” The books tell the story of Isabella “Bella” Swan who, upon moving to a new town, meets and falls in love with Edward Cullen, a vampire who chooses to drink animal blood rather than human blood due to moral objections.

As they embark on their passionate romance, Bella encounters many dangers as a human intertwined in the world of vampires. Throughout the course of the series, Bella’s adventures include a friendship with a werewolf, a battle with depression in the absence of Edward, an army of vengeful vampires out to kill her, a very unusual pregnancy and finally her own transformation into a vampire.

In comparison, the Harry Potter story, which takes place over seven novels, tells the story of Harry’s personal struggles with adolescence as well as his quest to prevent the evil Lord Voldemort from seizing power of the wizarding world.

While romance comes into play during the series when Harry attempts to maintain relationships with Cho Chang and later Ginny Weasley, the main focus of the story line is the increasingly complex tale of the Dark Lord.

As Harry makes his way through his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he unavoidably becomes more involved in unraveling the history of the Dark Lord in order to stop him from returning to power.

Rowling vs. Meyer

Joanne Rowling, who uses the pen name J.K. Rowling, first came up with the idea for Harry Potter while on a delayed train to London in the early ’90s. Over the course of the next few years, she worked on her writing in coffee shops while also trying to balance raising her young daughter and living on state benefits due to her unemployment.

The first novel, called “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in England, was rejected from 12 publishers before one agreed to publish it. Many of the characters in her novels are based on people that she met throughout her life — Harry’s friend Hermione Granger is loosely based on Rowling herself in her youth.

Stephanie Meyer has said that the idea for the Twilight story came to her in a dream. Although she had little writing experience, Meyer transformed that dream into the full novel in only a few months. As a Mormon mother of three, Meyer is proud to have included many of her personal values in her writing, including the idea of sacrifice and Edward’s refusal to have sex before marriage. Several of Meyer’s characters are also inspired by real-life counterparts, including several of her siblings, most notably the werewolf Jacob Black, who is named after her brother.

Harry vs. Bella

Harry Potter is suddenly thrust from living in a closet in the home of his cruel aunt and uncle into a world of wizards that he didn’t know existed. Upon entering this new world, Harry not only learns that he is a wizard, but he also begins to learn the truth about the death of his parents and his resulting fame in the wizarding world. This launches his in-depth involvement in the battle against evil forces. Harry is strongly guided by his conscience and, although he has character flaws including anger and occasional arrogance, Harry is portrayed as a realistic teenager dealing with unbelievable circumstances.

Meyer has faced lots of literary criticism for her portrayal of Bella Swan, the main character and protagonist of the Twilight series. Bella is often characterized as a girl who has low self-esteem and is perpetually clumsy. Critics have said that the characters in the Twilight novels lack the depth that would make them more realistic. Others have accused the series of being sexist and glorifying abusive relationships: Bella is shown to demonstrate obsessive behavior relating to her relationship with Edward, and he is shown to demonstrate abusive qualities by going to great lengths to isolate her from friends and family.
Though only the test of time will show which series will remain the reigning champion of the fantasy genre, both have made their mark on young adults worldwide.

“It’s a valuable and unique experience to be able to read a book,” Coake said, “to be able to imagine the scenes and the emotions that go along with them.”

Casey O’Lear can be reached at colear@nevadasagebrush.com

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