Ten Points From Gryffindor! (A Harry Potter Potter Thread)

[diet_orange]

So yesterday I picked up a piece of nostalgia yesterday and brought it home with me; Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone for PS1. I loved this game growing up (despite how infuriatingly awful the early Madam Hooch broomstick training is) and had it on PC

My history with Harry Potter is a long one. I discovered the books in 5th grade and kind of ignored them for a while, thinking them to just be some type of fad, but then I picked up Sorcerer's Stone and I could not put it down for the life of me. Then I saw the first movie and my fate was sealed.

I read all of the first four books cover to cover and practically knew them like the back of my hand during the very long lull between the release of "Goblet Of Fire" and "Order Of The Phoenix" (and while I love the series, I must confess that my favorite is still "Quidditch Through The Ages", always been a sucker for lore. Also really enjoyed EA's Quidditch World Cup game for 6th gen)

And as I've gotten older and made acquaintances with those I work with of varying ages, it's nice to see the passionate enthusiasm people still have for this series

Any more lovers of the "boy who lived" here?

 

[Macaulay Kong]

I have a bit of history with HP but it's a bit like my relationship with Disney, where I never really dived fully into it, not enough to be considered a "true or hardcore fan", if you want to put it that way. But still, the first two movies were fantastic for me, especially watching them on release and being the right age to really feel "connected" with them. Just a movie about ragtag kids and schoolmates going around on adventures in a magical, atmospheric castle and messing with magic spells and how me and the buddies at school could relate and wish we also had magic powers. But after the first two movies, the rest of the series never really clicked for me and I ended up going with other franchises and media.
But I was still invested enough to try out a decent chunk of the games that were based on the franchise. Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets on PS1 were great and I spent a lot of hours on Quidditch World Cup (actually tried replaying it awhile ago and was stunned by how much I suck at it now lol)
I also remember playing the Order of the Phoenix game and enjoying it quite a bit. I remember being impressed by its quality since I was just sort of expecting a plain or mediocre movie-license game adaptation but it was actually fairly fun and had some nice mechanics and details to it

 

[ArchienineZXAdventArchienineZXAdvent's icon]

LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 and 5-7 are goated games

 

[Lod 10]

I remember a long time ago when the first movie was on TV late at night, I think, and I watched it, but I didn't get to the end, but I've played the Lego games.I watched some videos showing interesting facts about Harry Potter, but I still have to watch all the movies.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

I only ever watched the first movie and played the games for books 1 and 2. I really love the world in Harry Potter its super cool.

 

[diet_orange]

I have a bit of history with HP but it's a bit like my relationship with Disney, where I never really dived fully into it, not enough to be considered a "true or hardcore fan", if you want to put it that way. But still, the first two movies were fantastic for me, especially watching them on release and being the right age to really feel "connected" with them. Just a movie about ragtag kids and schoolmates going around on adventures in a magical, atmospheric castle and messing with magic spells and how me and the buddies at school could relate and wish we also had magic powers. But after the first two movies, the rest of the series never really clicked for me and I ended up going with other franchises and media.

Yeah, the first two movies were incredibly special to me because I was EXACTLY Harry's age in the films. But yeah, I didn't appreciate how dark visually and storytelling wise the films got afterwards. It's supposed to be a series about "love conquering the darkness" not "devoid of sunlight"

That being said, I kind of dropped off with the books during the delay and haven't read "Order Of The Phoenix", "Half Blood Prince" or "Deathly Hallows" ("Tales Of Beedle The Bard" notwithstanding) nearly as much as the first four and I bought them as they came out.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Harry Potter is an extremely bittersweet thing for me...

I liked the movies alright as a kid, but it was the books which had the biggest impact on me — it was during my read-through of the series that I got a rather curious DM on a forum I had been using: it was from a girl that had more or less checked out of the place but was fucking ecstatic to see a budding fan sharing her experiences in such an unlikely place (it was an Abandonware forum that didn't even feature a book section... my thread was vanished to the OT section).

After a few back-and-forths and taking the huge steps of exchanging IM identities and cellphone numbers, we agreed to meet.

My parents hated the idea and immediately banned me from it. My older sister thought this girl wasn't a girl at all and that I'd end up dead in a ditch. Even my grandpa - who was always onboard with me leaving the house at all -, wanted nothing to do with it.

After a few days of crying and begging, they finally let me go (under a mountain of conditions, of course).

I met the girl (whom, yes, was a girl... and also way older than me) and had a rather grand time with her — she even gave me a homemade gift: a scented box of seashells from her seaside village.

Problem was... we didn't really hit it off after that.

I was too shy, too awkward, too... Sammy.

We grew colder and colder until we eventually stopped talking altogether.

And, when many years later I found her again, she didn't really want me there — at all.

After agreeing to add me back to Facebook and Whatsapp, she blocked me everywhere after a single joke I made landed poorly on her side (it WAS a shitty joke, but you'd think that wouldn't be enough to blow up a bridge).

Now I can't think of the series without also recalling this shitshow at the same time.

It fucking sucks, T U.U

 

[Skellerick]

The first time I ever saw anything Harry Potter related was in an anime magazine I used to buy back in 2000. It had a special feature about the series, a summary of the books, and the release of Goblet of Fire, which had come out the month before. It caught my eye right away, and after that the marketing started popping up everywhere. When I went to see Monsters Inc. around christmas 2001 with my family, the local cinema had a giant Dumbledore chocolate frog card with that holographic effect that made him move and a BIG panel with Hogwarts, it blew my mind as a kid. I went to see Philosopher's Stone as soon as I could, started reading the books, playing the games (mainly the PC and GBC/GBA ones), and all that stuff. I got super into it throughout the 2000s, just like a lot of my friends. Christmases in the 2000s always had something HP related, a present under the tree or the first movies playing on TV/VHS/DVD. I love revisiting it every now and then.

Magical times

 

[Sheepy765]

I enjoy the games and the movies sometimes, but nowhere near as much as I used to.