To enter the blogosphere I know I ought to write a hard hitting blog about something that I am passionate about, something interesting and above all something current. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is just one subject I can kick off my blogging career with and that, ladies and gentlemen (or should I say witches and wizards?), is Harry Potter.
I’ll admit it, happily: I am twenty-two and I am obsessed with the world of Hogwarts. I was hooked when my Year Five teacher, dear Mr. Lindsay, read us Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on rainy afternoons (complete with wide ranging accents for Hagrid) and I am still obsessed thirteen years on as we teeter on the verge of the final film and J.K Rowling unveils the intriguing Pottermore.
Now this is where I can become a little more professional (I will try to suffocate the obsessive fan in me, but I cannot make any promises) and think about what Pottermore means to the book industry and how it could potentially shape how we read in the future. In Rowling’s hotly anticipated YouTube announcement she talks about offering something back to the readers and promises that “the digital generation will be able to enjoy a safe, unique online reading experience.”
My initial reaction (even before the announcement, whilst the rumour mill surrounding Pottermore was constantly spinning exciting theories) was that the website would become an Online Role-Playing Game. Something similar to the geektastic World of Warcraft or Runescape crossed with the computer games that already surround the Harry Potter storyline. As fans we would be given the chance to play as Harry, Ron or Hermione through the stories that we are familiar with. However from the announcement and the accompanying press release it seems that we are actually in for an “online reading experience.” At least, I hope so.
Rowling promises that the Pottermore experience will be similar to our initial reading experience, saying that “Just as the imaginations of the author and reader work together to create the story so Pottermore will be built, in part, by you the reader.” Users will be able to upload comments, drawings and other content to help shape the experience alongside 18,000 words of new content written by Rowling yet I find the joy in reading a pictureless book the art of my imagination. I must admit that Daniel Radcliffe was not the Harry Potter I had conjured before the film franchise but following the first film in 2001 it was difficult to read the following books without picturing the cast. Does this mean that with all the visual (and, most probably, animated) support from the Pottermore site the users’ imagination won’t have to make those amazing leaps of faith? It is likely that instead we will be sharing in someone else’s vision.
I await Harry Potter’s thirty-first birthday (July 31st) to attempt to register as one of the first million users of Pottermore and to discover exactly what J.K Rowling and Sony have in store. However reading based Pottermore aims to be, if it is successful, it will shape the future of online reading and change an experience that is usually an internal, limitless daydream into an external visualisation that will be, for the time being, restricted to this small screen in front of you.
Words, words, words by Frankie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
"Words, words, words." 