Never read Harry Potter, and I've only seen the first movie, years ago when it came out. The movie was just boring and too childish for me, maybe the books are better? I don't know.

I've read Tolkien's three major works (The Hobbit, LoTR, The Silmarillion). And he put so much info and decades of his life into them. You get characters in LoTR referencing people from thousands of years earlier, singing songs in languages that he invented, and telling stories within stories. Then you have The Silmarillion which pretty much is the bible of Middle Earth with the hundreds of thousands of years of wars, battles, and places. Even all the places that he names, the rivers, mountains. And the people that have like three names in different languages. It's so much information, it's hard to "get" at first.

But I won't say LoTR > Harry Potter, because I haven't read HP.

quote EvilZero

Gandalf would completely and utterly overtake harry potter and make him shrink his own pecker and then laugh at his own self for his unfortunate chi-sized pecker.

Gandalf has barely any powers compared to other people, like Melkor/Morgoth and the Valar.

Lord of the rings, Hands down. Just so much more to it.

Having read LoTR trilogy, Silmarilion and the Hobbit, as well as all Harry Potter related novels as well, I have to say that LoTR is better.

Lord of the Rings is set in a completely mythical world with several thousand years of history created by Tolkein. With that, there are races, culture, languages (which you read about in the Silmarilion and The Lost Tales). The brevity of that cannot be compared with Harry Potter, set in modern England.

Whereas J.K Rowling also writes a bit about the history of wizards and that in her novels, it just cannot compare to the depth of what Tolkein wrote. The deeper meanings of Tolkein's texts (remember that these books were published right after WWII) have startling parallels with our modern world, and unfortunately, without actually studying the text, many people don't even realise that.

The richness of Tolkein's texts, for me, puts LoTR ahead. That's not to take anything away from Rowling's books, which were entertaining, just not as well written.

Pretty much though, this:

quote

Lord of the rings, Hands down. Just so much more to it.

is what I was trying to say

Harry Potter.

I like LotR too, but the names drive me crazy...

Oh wow this thread...how it brings back memories T_T

I think it's depressing, actually, that once it was Harry Potter as the upcomer challenging the established LotR....whereas now we see more discussions of "Harry Potter or Twilight" online.

The general quality of literature seems to be declining >_>

EDIT: I read my old posts in this thread. A lot of time has passed indeed...

This message was edited by Carnivorous Sheep on Nov 26 2009.