Gold Baron

Harry Potter

I could win this debate with four words: Real men don’t sparkle. However, I decided to go above and beyond, just like Harry Potter. Every aspect of Harry Potter is better. Harry is a smart yet tough young man who took a full death spell to the face as a child and lived. Bella is a clingy wench who has a thing for vampires and werewolves. Harry and his friends go to Hogwarts, a school that teaches magic and has ghosts, hidden staircases, and many secrets. Bella and her (very few) friends go to Forks high school. Which has lockers and dirty bathrooms.  

Also, the Harry Potter books have a plot, instead of trying to shove a sappy love story down your throat. J.K. Rowling is a much more talented writer. Rowling created a whole imaginative world that goes further than her seven books. She thought about more than writing a story but created a whole other world for her characters to live in. Characters are both good and evil in Harry Potter, not one or the other, as is the case in Twilight. Stephanie Meyer just threw up an overly sentimental love story with magical creatures and tried to attach a plot to it. Even Stephen King, the king of Horror, said that Meyer “can’t write worth a darn.”

The leading male role in Harry Potter is not a stalker. Honestly, slipping in the window and watching her sleep?  Furthermore, J. K. Rowling does not see fit to describe how supposedly gorgeous her main male character is twice on every page. Harry Potter is well written and has deeper meaning. Twilight makes great kindling for fires. Oh, and a wand can double as a stake. So Mr. Sparkles better watch himself.

vs. 

Brass Baron

Twilight

Despite the fact that many relate the Twilight series to the hysterical middle-schoolers who swoon over the actors portraying Bella’s love interests, the series has its true genius hidden within the novels, where the compelling story is clear. What many readers find so compelling about the series is that it is so easy to relate to the story.

Bella, the main protagonist, is often shown to be the awkward and nervous teenager that so many teenagers can relate to. The series captures the powerful feelings of loneliness and solitude that adolescents face today; in a world where it can be very difficult to discover who one truly is. Bella also faces trouble with confusing relationships, and it is safe to say that most all teenage girls can relate to this problem. Bella is described as a rather flat character, with no truly remarkable factors. Is this really a bad thing, however?

 Many famous novels, such as Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, are famous for their remarkably unanimated characters. This very factor makes it all the simpler for girls to put their problems in the world of the Twilight series, and really feel like they are part of the engrossing story. An anonymous freshman at our school agrees, and points out that, “It’s not a sex novel like everyone thinks. It’s a romance that appeals to girls and their ideal guy.”

How many teenagers can relate to being orphaned at birth, sent to a boarding school far from the step-parents they hate, and being forced to combat something that everyone they know fears? Not many. So while many still scoff at the idea of vampires loving teenage girls and roll their eyes at the notion of werewolves competing for love, the series continues to excel as a truly relatable romance novel.