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1NocturnalBlue
Not so much comparing books as book series, but the imminent release of the seventh book has got me thinking about another series I liked when I was younger.
Now I know that K.A. Applegate did not have nearly the following that the Potter books, but they do have some things in common. You have the group of kids standing against a malevolent force (dark wizards, Yeerks). Both groups are surrounded by authority figures (older wizards, certain sentient aliens and god-like creatures who have been fighting the Yeerk war for years) that the kids alternately look to and distrust.
What struck me most about these books though was how these series "grew up" with their characters and became significantly darker and more morally grey. In book 1 of Harry Potter there is no doubt who the heroes and villains are (with the exception of the wonderfully ambiguous Severus Snape). The world was split into good wizards and Death Eaters for the protagonists and Hogwarts for all its danger, was considered a sanctuary and the best place in the world to be.
In Animorphs, while there were definitely dark undertones (Tobias's orphanhood, Jake's brother being a Controller early on), but nowhere near as much moral ambiguity as later in the series. While the delineations weren't completely perfect (learning that the school principal willingly became a Controller to protect his daughter), the kids basically knew that Andalites were good and Yeerks were evil.
As both series progressed though, the moral ambiguity went through the roof. Harry learned that not only was the world NOT split into good wizards and Death Eaters (as the character of Dolores Umbridge so chillingly illustrated) but that those he always held in the highest regard were sometimes fallible (Dumbledore) and even cruel (James and Sirius). Now I ended up skipping a lot of the books in the second half of the Animorphs series, but even from the ones I read it was amazing how dark the series got. The heroes were making morally questionable choices with one of the leads pretty much losing her mind before going on a suicide mission. Elfangor, the mythic heroic Andalite who gave the kids their powers right before he was murdered, was revealed not only to have been responsible for creating the first Andalite Controller (and for a while, the only morph-capable one), but also to have been a deadbeat dad. Jake, the lead Animorph, has this brilliant line where he talks about how originally they admired the great and glorious Andalites and looked upon them as heroes, but now he and his team were making deals with enemy groups so the Andalites won't blow up Earth in a Machiavellian attempt to eradicate the Yeerk problem.
I wonder how many other book series are like this. Is it a necessary part of a fantasy/sci-fi genre to have this gradual darkening of the story? Or maybe it's because both these book series are very much war stories (Animorphs more blatantly than Harry Potter). I've never completed the Chronicles of Narnia series, nor have I read the Series of Unfortunate Events series, but I wonder how books like those compare to the above.
Now I know that K.A. Applegate did not have nearly the following that the Potter books, but they do have some things in common. You have the group of kids standing against a malevolent force (dark wizards, Yeerks). Both groups are surrounded by authority figures (older wizards, certain sentient aliens and god-like creatures who have been fighting the Yeerk war for years) that the kids alternately look to and distrust.
What struck me most about these books though was how these series "grew up" with their characters and became significantly darker and more morally grey. In book 1 of Harry Potter there is no doubt who the heroes and villains are (with the exception of the wonderfully ambiguous Severus Snape). The world was split into good wizards and Death Eaters for the protagonists and Hogwarts for all its danger, was considered a sanctuary and the best place in the world to be.
In Animorphs, while there were definitely dark undertones (Tobias's orphanhood, Jake's brother being a Controller early on), but nowhere near as much moral ambiguity as later in the series. While the delineations weren't completely perfect (learning that the school principal willingly became a Controller to protect his daughter), the kids basically knew that Andalites were good and Yeerks were evil.
As both series progressed though, the moral ambiguity went through the roof. Harry learned that not only was the world NOT split into good wizards and Death Eaters (as the character of Dolores Umbridge so chillingly illustrated) but that those he always held in the highest regard were sometimes fallible (Dumbledore) and even cruel (James and Sirius). Now I ended up skipping a lot of the books in the second half of the Animorphs series, but even from the ones I read it was amazing how dark the series got. The heroes were making morally questionable choices with one of the leads pretty much losing her mind before going on a suicide mission. Elfangor, the mythic heroic Andalite who gave the kids their powers right before he was murdered, was revealed not only to have been responsible for creating the first Andalite Controller (and for a while, the only morph-capable one), but also to have been a deadbeat dad. Jake, the lead Animorph, has this brilliant line where he talks about how originally they admired the great and glorious Andalites and looked upon them as heroes, but now he and his team were making deals with enemy groups so the Andalites won't blow up Earth in a Machiavellian attempt to eradicate the Yeerk problem.
I wonder how many other book series are like this. Is it a necessary part of a fantasy/sci-fi genre to have this gradual darkening of the story? Or maybe it's because both these book series are very much war stories (Animorphs more blatantly than Harry Potter). I've never completed the Chronicles of Narnia series, nor have I read the Series of Unfortunate Events series, but I wonder how books like those compare to the above.
2margad
I thought the Narnia books were more-or-less consistent all the way through in their level of light-to-dark. They are Christian allegories (especially The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), so there is always the dark theme of sin and suffering balanced by (or, as Lewis would probably have contended, overcome by) the bright theme of resurrection and redemption. I was 11 when I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I always found Aslan's death more striking and believable than his resurrection. I preferred some of the other books in the series: my favorite was probably The Magician's Nephew, with the sinister uncle and the world-between-the-worlds with its multiple portals.
Another interesting comparison might be the Grimm's Fairy Tales, many of which are extremely dark and brutal. "The Goose Girl" was a favorite of mine, and is full of murder and persecution. The Grimm's tales were not originally intended for children, but have been considered children's classics for most of the time since their original publication. I do think children are more aware of the dark side of life than many adults credit. After all, they are relatively powerless and so often misunderstood or bullied, not just by other children, which is bad enough, but all too often by adults, too.
I wonder if the gradual darkening of the stories came as part of completely conscious plans by Rowling and Applegate, or whether they became more confident, as their books continued to sell, to tell the stories in the way that seemed to them the most artistically whole and psychologically true.
Another interesting comparison might be the Grimm's Fairy Tales, many of which are extremely dark and brutal. "The Goose Girl" was a favorite of mine, and is full of murder and persecution. The Grimm's tales were not originally intended for children, but have been considered children's classics for most of the time since their original publication. I do think children are more aware of the dark side of life than many adults credit. After all, they are relatively powerless and so often misunderstood or bullied, not just by other children, which is bad enough, but all too often by adults, too.
I wonder if the gradual darkening of the stories came as part of completely conscious plans by Rowling and Applegate, or whether they became more confident, as their books continued to sell, to tell the stories in the way that seemed to them the most artistically whole and psychologically true.
