'Harry Potter' vs. 'Twilight': Can't we all just get along?

'Harry Potter' vs. 'Twilight': Can't we all just get along?



First, there was the battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort. Then the fight between Edward and Jacob. And now, the war between Harry Potter and Twilight fans. I’m not sure when that last tiff began, but as both franchises near their big-screen conclusions, it’s heating up. Sometimes it’s encouraged (okay, like when EW asked which clip that premiered during the MTV Movie Awards looked better, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows or The Twilight Saga: Eclipse — Deathly Hallows won with 88 percent of the vote, FYI). But sometimes it’s not, like when news first broke that Breaking Dawn might be two films and the comments section on our post about it turned into a forum for people to flame about how Twilight was just copying Harry Potter and milking its final installment.

It’s understandable that people could want to compare these two franchises — they’re both popular fantasy series-turned-movie sensations and have passionate, vocal fanbases that extend well beyond their target demos. But why do so many people feel the need to diss one when saying that they enjoy the other? Is it because as numerous as Twilight fans are, they still feel like an underdog, always under attack by those who wrongly dismiss the franchise as teenage fluff (and can’t stand that devotees of a boy wizard get a pass)? Because Harry Potter fans can’t understand why people (and the media) insist upon talking about a love triangle between a human, a vampire, and a werewolf when we could be discussing that boy wizard’s weightier struggle to survive the villain who killed his parents and is now determined to end Harry, Hogwarts, and the values they hold dear?

You can almost forget that it is possible to appreciate both franchises, that you locked yourself in your apartment the day you got Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so you could read it before anyone spoiled the ending, and you read the first three Twilight books one after the other on vacation because they were that addictive. Absolutely, you’re allowed to have a preference between the novels and opinions on the quality of writing and acting in each of the film series. (I do. Only one of the authors made me cry in her final book, and only one of the franchises made me wish I had a wand to raise in solidarity at the end of the last movie.) But what’s the purpose of knocking one down to lift the other? Can’t we all play nice?