Literary Blasphemy

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I've known for a while that I enjoyed reading Harry Potter more than The Lord of the Rings. Having finally finished the more modern series, I think it's time to explain my preference:

I cannot identify with Hobbits so well as I can with humans. Tolkien's main characters were supposed to be cute... perhaps adorable... though grotesque enough not to be cuddly whereas J.K. Rowling's lead character endures and struggles with all the insecurities that come with being a teenage boy... something I can still remember doing myself once.

Also there is the sinister relationship between Harry and Voldemort. Harry does not remember his parents because Voldemort killed them. You don't have any history like that between Frodo and Sauron. And if you think about it... after reading the LOTR trilogy, you probably have no idea what Sauron looks like. Not a lot of character development going on there for the bad guy.

Also there is the romantic tensions for Harry as you wonder initially if he and Hermione will develop feelings for each other. Later he's utterly infatuated with Cho Chang before finally settling on Ginny Weasley as the love of his life. There is no romance for the Hobbits really. And then the affair with Aragorn is so otherworldly and melodramatic... all life and death and the end of the world and so forth that it lacks anything you can relate to very easily... It lacks the charm of Ginny insisting that someone besides Cho escort Harry to the Hall he needs to go to at the end of The Deathly Hallows.

Finally there is the sophisticated conundrum of Snape. The pervasive question... is he a good guy? Is Dumbledore correct in trusting him? I always believed he would turn out a good guy and I was right, but I did not realize until the end how potent were his feelings for Harry's mother. This was an outstanding component of the series and as well as anything else supports the notion that J.K. Rowlings is a genius.