The future of Harry Potter
As the host of the MadPubQuiz of Awesomeness I spend a great deal of my free time writing quiz questions for fun. In some of my free time I’ve been working on a Harry Potter quiz that I hope to make our first non-”Pub” event at a library and make completely for kids. As I was writing the quiz I realized I didn’t have the same problem that I do with other cult topics such as Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer – an expanded Universe. As I worked on those other two quizzes we had to struggle with how much of the peripheral mythos we wanted to include. Looking beyond the Buffy shows or the Star Wars films those Universes are massive.
Harry Potter doesn’t suffer from that problem, and frankly, I think J.K. Rowling is missing an opportunity to cement her characters for decades to come. If she frees up some of the licensing and is willing to relinquish a wee bit of control she can spin off the Hogwarts-verse in so many directions. I don’t consume the Star Wars novels as eagerly as I used to, but one type of book I enjoyed more than any others were the ones that collected stories about secondary characters or characters that we may only read about once or twice in the entire series. What about the residence of Diagon Alley? Or maybe a book about the various members of the Ministry of Magic?
This would take some work from Rowling, she would need to flesh out the Universe a bit more, add some details, rules, and guidelines for the trusted authors to abide by and of course, she would have to detail things they are not allowed to write about in case she decides to return (as George Lucas has done with the Star Wars novelations).
