Subject: Harry Potter, the books.
Author:
Posted on: 2016-03-08 12:34:00 UTC
If my memories serve me right, that was the first books series I ever read, making it my first real step in the world of books, fantasy... Duck, just anything.
I was reminiscing and I had a thought, people often times say how either a book or music or film, etc. was "life changing". So I figured I would poll the community and see if they had an example that was truly life changing.
If you do not wish to explain the circumstances of how it changed your life do not feel obligated to do so. I am just curious to see what things come up if any do.
As for me, I can say that a single album. The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance was truly life changing for me. Particularly the lead single, Welcome to the Black Parade. Without that album and that song, I would not have made it through high school. I do not feel like sharing any further details at this time.
So I am curious as to what books/music/etc. any of you found life changing or even deeply moving. Think of this as a recommended listening/reading/watching list if you will.
CCS is love, CCS is life.
Ah, as far as that goes, two things come into mind immediately. The Lord of the Rings was definitely one. It was my first real fandom, and one of the first times I have ever enjoyed the characters as characters. It led me into the world of fantasy, even though now I notice its shortcomings and plot holes (I mean literal ones, not PPC-verse ones). And then 1984. I don't think I've ever thought so much about a book.
Misfile and Star Trek: The Next Generation. The first one, I'm not saying why. The second one is even more valuable to me, however. It was my first exposure to a Utopian civilization, and made me look for more. I still believe something like that to be possible, and I'd say that hoping to see one is a big part of me, even still.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a big one. I discovered it right as it made the jump to the Sci-Fi channel in the late '90s. Every Saturday morning I would get up and watch it, regardless whether it was a repeat or not. That show helped shape both my sense of humor and my outlook on life. I might not be here writing this right now if it weren't for MST3K.
I definitely wouldn't be here writing this right now if it weren't for Discworld. That series probably had the greatest effect on me, far more than MST3K. I was getting burned out on traditional high fantasy by the time I discovered my first Discworld novel. That showed me that there was more than one way to look at a setting that might otherwise seem played out; that humor had a place in the "big" genres; that characters were the lifeblood of a story. Pratchett reaffirmed my love for reading and planted the seed of what would become a love for writing. I will always be grateful for that.
Finally, I have to give a nod to Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. I honestly wasn't a huge gamer as a kid. I played a few titles on and off, but nothing really hooked me. Then I played Shadows of Amn and had my mind blown. Games I had played before then didn't really have very engrossing stories. They didn't offer me choices. Shadows of Amn was like a playable book, and that stunned me. That was the first title that showed me there might be something to these video games after all, that they could offer me the depth I typically only found on the page. Still gaming to this day.
Well, actually that wasn't the first life-changing media, but it was a big one. It introduced me to the idea that authority is not always correct, and taught me to be suspicious of corporations.
The first one was arguably either Spider-Man the animated series from the early 90s, or my dad introducing me to GURPS, and by extension RPGs, at age 8.
And that's Salamandastron. It was the first book I ever really cared about. Before then, reading just wasn't a thing I did, then my older brother loaned me his copy, and I got sucked in. It was my introduction to the series that inspired my love of reading, fantasy, history, writing, drawing... Just about everything I enjoy today. In fact, it was through the Redwall fandom that I got here. From Kelaiah and Arawolf Beechclaw, to OFUM, to the Original Series, to here.
Seriously, before the Original Series I didn't really think about the grammar rules of written English. I was always careful when speaking, but for some reason I just didn't realize that all those rules about punctuation and capitalization and such actually mattered. Then Jay, Acacia, and Miss Cam came along and I suddenly realized, "Wow, English makes no sense without this stuff." And the world was spared one more badfic writer. Something for which I am eternally grateful.
My saviour was Das Mervin.
And, indirectly, Twilight, I guess.
Das Mervin, obviously, not Twilight.
What really puzzles me, though, is how I could possibly fail to realize that SPaG was important when I spent at least an hour out of every single night with my nose buried in a book. Was my head not screwed on straight?
This board probably wouldn't exist.
A rather obscure Christian YA trilogy, but it got me through some rough patches when I was dealing with self-confidence issues. The whole plot revolves around normal, everyday people actually being courageous knights in another world-- and that sounded pretty good to me. I even took my screen name from them!
And, obviously, the Bible has had an incalculable impact on me. I can't even begin to imagine what I would be without it: depressed, probably. Perhaps dead.
-Alleb
If nothing else, it'd be interesting to share another point of reference with a friend. =]
That said, the major plot point (as you describe it) sounds very similar to the first season of Once Upon A Time, a television series I exhort you to watch if you, like me, are an aficionado of gleefully rubbish telly. By way of an example, a bail bondswoman (glorified bounty hunter) goes up against the Evil Queen from Snow White in order to regain custody of her son, and the aforementioned Evil Queen is fighting a private war against Rumplestiltskin who is also kinda-sorta the avatar of evil itself. Also Rumplestiltskin shacks up with Belle.
As in Beauty and the Beast Belle.
OUAT is weird. =]
As for the Bible, Christ's message - as I interpret it, and I admit to being a decidedly liberal and progressivist student of the genre - is one of love and acceptance, and it is one not shared by far, far too many Christians. But then, I am a skeptically-inclined agnostic; the only God I willingly countenance existing is one that loves all the creatures of this earth, regardless of whether or not the fill (by way of example) traditional gender roles or gender identities. The word of Christ is love, love shared between every human being on this damp and shaking rock, and I refuse to be denied the chance to love based on doctrinaire zealots with delusions of grandeur.
At least, that's what the Word is to me. YMMV.
An interesting thing, though: I've never actually read them. Through some twist of Amazonian ordering, I got the audiobooks instead, narrated by the author. They really made the world come alive for me; I can't recommend them enough. Say, what's Red Dwarf about? I wouldn't mind sharing another point of reference, either.
Waaait wait wait wait wait; you watch Once Upon a Time? That's awesome! I love that show! My first mission was a OUAT fic, actually (not that you can tell. Suethor!me thoroughly butchered everything to the point of *puts on Phantom mask* no return). It is pretty weird, innit? Especially the family tree. Technically, Henry is Emma's step uncle. Think about that for a bit.
Hmm, now that's an interesting question: What is Christ's central message? To me, it's undoubtedly Calvary, which is the supreme gesture of love. Out of curiosity, I asked someone I know who is well-versed in theology (certainly more well-versed than I am) what he thought Jesus' central message was: he said, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." It's an interesting question; love is deeply entwined in God's nature, but I'm not sure it's quite correct to say that love and acceptance is the whole of Christ's message. I think the message of the Gospel is composed of several different things, certainly including love.
I won't deny that Christians are commanded to love our neighbors, and that we often don't, letting pride and petty hatred rule our actions. This is neither good not godly, and ought to be rightly opposed. In a perfect world-- but I might as well be wishing for Christ to come now-- in a better world, the church would police itself much more than it seems like it does today.
-Alleb
Series 1:-
Series 2:-
Series 3:-
Series 4:-
Series 5 (what of it I have access to):-
So, I have to ask you: what's your flag ship? Captain Swan gives me the warm fuzzies.
-Alleb, using her new pic-posting skills
Ehe... so... uh... the writers... they're toootally on board with that one. ^^;
Confession: before it turned out that Snow White was Emma's mum, Emma/Mary Margaret was my OTP. They were setting off my gaydar like nobody's business. As is? Mulan/Aurora. You will never convince me that Mulan's confession to her true love WASN'T coded to be directed at Aurora. They had a boatload of screen time together and had a very traditional fairytale relationship arc. I ship it. I ship it hard.
(i want representation for my fellow girl-loving girls, okay? dwi. =] )
Fandom can be very scary. 00 Also, the fact that everyone looks about the same age makes such shipping very easy. I mean, Hook was involved with Emma's almost-sorta mother-in-law, which is... kinda weird! Yeah, this is a strange show.
Mulan/Aurora is a pretty big ship. I think you're right; that's what the writers intended. I had to see a random article on FB talking about it before I realized, though; I'm that oblivious. ^^
Oh, this reminds me of something; did you know that Miss Cam (the Miss Cam) writes OUAT fics? I don't read most of them due to rating issues, but here's her archive if you have any interest. They're mostly Snowing fics (I love that ship name).
-Alleb
Is that none of them - not one - is titled "This Charming Man". =]
The subject matter doesn't quite fit, of course, but eh, this is fanfiction. Replace "punctured bicycle tire" with "I caught you in a net to get back my mother's ring for my fiance and subsequently fell in love with you" and it's just about right. Mostly. ^_^
-Alleb
Or ornamental box of some description. Depends on who you ask, though if you ask a skinny guy in a brown pinstripe suit then the answer is both. =]
Either way, the whole "I am more than willing to entrap and ensnare you in ropes" gave me (admittedly false) hope that their relationship was going to be a bit more, ahem, interesting than it turned out in canon. I mean, there's even a market for it. Look at the Fifty Shades series, that's doing pretty well. =]
(they don't do bdsm at all well and christian grey would be drummed out of any respectable munch for being a creepy stalker, but hey ho, this did start as twiglet fanfiction, one has to make allowances. =] )
But yeah, Snowing's pleasant enough, though I do also like Swan Queen as a ship. Also, I dimly remember a crossover with Sherlock of all things in which La Mills is a regular client of Irene Adler. Whatever would Henry think?
(he would not care because violet, then google it, then go back to not caring because violet and also occasionally feel the need to scrub the images out of his brain with battery acid and a belt sander)
Once seems a bit more family-friendly than that. Ah, I hate to be rude, Scape, but could we change the topic? To each his own and all, but this makes me a bit uncomfortable. Oh, also, you never mentioned what Red Dwarf was about.
-Alleb
False Assumptions, by Drs. John Townsend and Henry Cloud.
Which is THIS SONG
Don't ask why. It's just at that time I thought that I should pull myself together and change my attitude. Just like the song says:
It's a chance to leave it all behind
Start again, begin a brand new life
They were right that I wouldn't hate it
To think that I hesitated
I finally checked my checkered past
And I'm not going back!
If my memories serve me right, that was the first books series I ever read, making it my first real step in the world of books, fantasy... Duck, just anything.
(That's 'Fellowship of the Ring-Movie', in Philosopher@Large-speak.)
I was already an LotR fan before the movies came out, but the movies - and Fellowship in particular - kicked it into high gear. That set me on the path towards writing and publishing fanfic, which brought me into contact with the PPC - which led directly to me meeting Kaitlyn and (eventually) marrying her.
It doesn't get much more life-changing than that.
hS
Not sure if they're life-changing per se, but...
1) Anything composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. It's the music I turn to when I'm feeling like crap. It usually helps.
2) Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Anime comes and goes, but MGLN is the only anime I found something profound in. Takamachi Nanoha is the closest I have a fictional role-model.
I think it was Captain Hook who first convinced me that the villain could be, and often was, cooler than the so-called hero. Over the course of my formative years, the collective mass of Disney animation (and also Batman, because Batman) also convinced me of something else: not only were villains cool, but sometimes they had a point.
I pretty quickly got annoyed with the fact that only one side got to actually show what they thought. Maybe if you numbskulls just talked to the hyenas, they wouldn't think murdering you was the only way for them to get food. Admittedly, this had less of a profound emotional impact on me, and more convinced me that I would do better in a field where everyone at least had a shot at arguing their point. That's why I'm majoring in politics and/or law.
It's odd, that, how seemingly meaningless things can influence so much of who you are later on.
Pretty much every aspect of ourselves can be traced back to something. Except sideburns.
The most important to me?
Catch-22.
It taught me that the world was a hateful, dark, incomprehensible place, in which we were all nothing but fragile brains inside of fragile flesh with fragile skeletons, waiting to break and get thrown under a million kilograms of dirt and worms.
It was a thoroughly mournful experience.
And it made me laugh at it.
That's how I see life.
Nothing but pain and laughter.
One moment your Dad's croaked, the next you have to pause Life of Brian because your sides feel like they're caving in.
But, okay, Excluded, a book of essays by Julia Serano, completely changed the way I look at the world. Its perspective has some kind of effect on most of my opinions. It made me think about what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a community, and what it means to be human. It made me notice interesting patterns in the way humans think and act, and in general made me more conscious and thoughtful. This is especially important for me because I naturally tend to live in a cloud, fairly oblivious to social cues. Basically, it gave me a really interesting, deep perspective on society, and made me more capable as a human being.
This book is great, but maybe not for everyone. I mean, I think anyone could learn a lot from it, but the target audience is feminist and queer activists, so if you don't know anything about those movements it would not be a good introduction.
The Black Parade is a great album. I wouldn't say it changed my life, but it was really important to me in middle school. Especially, yeah, Welcome to the Black Parade.
I was bullied quite badly while in elementary school, and many days the only thing that kept me going were the Harry Potter books. Whenever I'd start making plans to run away or worse, I'd read them again and be reminded that there had to be people as good and kind as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, just had to, because to me, coming up with those characters would have been impossible if people like them didn't exist. I just had to hold out until I found them... and I did.
I honestly feel like the books are what taught me about friendship and doing the right thing, because I sure as heck wasn't learning from my peers. The books and the characters within were my first friends, and because of that they'll always have a very special place in my heart. They made me into who I am today, and they're still my go-to read whenever I'm feeling down.