I love both Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I like Harry Potter better. Here's why.


1. Harry Potter is easier and more fun to read. In LOTR, the characters speak in long, complicated, and poetic sentences, that almost seem as if they were taken from a Shakesperean play or poetry. Whereas in Harry Potter, the language is more modern, and it introduces us to new words and exclamations (e.g. Muggle, Merlin's Beard!). Plus, in LOTR, there are countless songs which are tedious to read. If all the songs in LOTR were made into the movies, then you'd have a musical.

2. In Harry Potter, friendship isn't blind loyalty. In H.P. Harry's best friend is Ron. In LOTR, Frodo's "best friend" is Sam Gamgee. Sam acts like a servant to Frodo, carrying his weight, fetching his meals. In H.P., Harry and Ron help each other, but they don't serve or wait on each other. To be honest, Sam's servitude towards Frodo seemed just downright wrong to me. It also made Frodo used to being waited on, and not do things himself. Sam acted more like pre-freedom Dobby than Ron.

3. In Harry Potter, the characters are better. In LOTR, the characters are usually divided into all good and all bad, with the possible exceptions of Gollum and Boromir. Plus they all seem to have the same personality: brave and chivalrous. Whereas in Harry Potter, we have complicated and conflicted characters such as Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasely, and Cho Chang. In LOTR, the characters are completely unrealistic, while in H.P. it draws attention to the notion that "The world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters. We all have light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we truly are."

4. In LOTR, the world-building is too complex. In the back of the last LOTR book, there are more than a hundred pages of appendices, mostly about royal family blood lines, and such. There are also tons of names, and places, and dates. To the average reader, this is all VERY confusing, and makes it not as fun to read. In H.P. we still get world building, but it's on WizardingWorld.com, where J.K. Rowling wrote fun, light articles about more H.P. topics. In LOTR, I don't really care what Aragorn's great-great-great-great-great grandfather did.

5. Harry Potter deals with death a lot better. In LOTR, only about 2 main, good characters die, and their deaths aren't even that heroic or meaningful. While in Harry Potter, countless main characters die, all in meaningful ways. It's also full of wise quotes about death from Dumbledore. In H.P. the characters have to learn how to cope and grieve when losing someone.

6. There are more Harry Potter things that you can do to represent. If you're obsessed with LOTR, you have to admit there aren't a lot of things related to it that you can use to decorate your room or such. But with H.P., there are tons of things that you can do to decorate things as well as buy. H.P. has more landmarks, if you will, as well as more interesting objects and such.

7. In Harry Potter, the battles are less gorey. In LOTR, there are lots of battles, and Tolkein usually describes how they destroyed their enemies with their swords. But in H.P., they use spells, which are not only more effective, but they're fun. Isn't it more funny to make a Death Eater's legs dance, and turn their hair pink then to hurt them? It also makes it more kid-friendly, than to have the Death Eaters be decapitated.


I hope this was an enjoying read. Again, this is my opinion, and I love both Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I love Harry Potter more.

Thanks for reading!