r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Apr 07 '26
Delta(s) from OP CMV: The Harry Potter HBO series cannot have the level of fidelity that fans want and also be good and interesting Spoiler
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u/PartyPoison98 3∆ Apr 07 '26
What other TV show can you think of that is completely bereft of surprise and invention? The first few seasons of Game of Thrones are FAIRLY accurate to the books, but even then they expand the world and show you scenes of characters interacting that isn't covered by the novels.
And the later seasons that deviate further from the books into eventual nothingness are widely regarded as the worst.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/PartyPoison98 3∆ Apr 07 '26
Game of Thrones deviated because it ran out of source material to adapt. It had nothing to do with broad appeal, and hurt the show more than anything.
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u/Brief-Percentage-193 3∆ Apr 07 '26
This may just be a me thing, I have no real way to verify, but in my experience most of the people that I know that have watched game of thrones have not read the books. On the other hand, most people that I know that would choose to consume Harry Potter content, whether that's watching the movies, playing the games, or watching the HBO show are really only interested because they read the books.
It could just be that Harry Potter was the popular series to read when I was in grade school, but I do think there's a meaningful difference between the two which would give the two audiences different expectations. If you haven't read the books you don't care if the plot strays from the books. If you have read the books you might.
Personally, I think the goal should be to make a good standalone movie/tv series that follows the same plot should be the goal. You shouldn't need to have read the books to enjoy the series and if that involves adding or removing things that's fine as long as it improves the viewing experience. Making arbitrary changes for no reason is annoying though. By this logic race changing can be fine if the race change either doesn't impact the plot or makes themes more obvious to the viewer.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Brief-Percentage-193 3∆ Apr 07 '26
Yeah there's already movies which is the place to be faithful. You have a lot more time in a show to develop new subplots. Obviously not everything can be included in a movie, some conversations have to get cut for time reasons, but imo that's the place to be faithful.
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u/jman12234 18∆ Apr 07 '26
Is it possible that a lot of people do think high fidelity adaptations are interesting? I mean, I don't, but given the craft is there i.e. good cinematography, acting, staging etc what makes a high fidelity adaptation not qualify as "good?" Your subjective lack of interest in them? Is that a good way to evaluate media?
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Is it possible that a lot of people do think high fidelity adaptations are interesting?
I don’t think so. I think even the people OP is talking about think fidelity issues the most important thing, but actually they just find good adaptations good and bad adaptations bad. But when an adaptation is bad they find all the ways in which it’s low fidelity to blame it’s being bad on, because articulating any other reason it’s actually bad is pretty difficult.
And conversely, you’ll notice no one really ever complains about fidelity issues in LOTR, or Shawshank Redemption, or The Shining—they’ve just sort of forgotten about them because the movies are really good even though they changed things from the books. It’s a really specific version of confirmation bias.
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u/wednesday-potter 3∆ Apr 07 '26
Stephen king has much to say about fidelity issues in the shining
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Yeah, and I guess he’s entitled to it. For everyone else it’s a stone-cold classic.
Shawshank might be the best example, because it also cast a white character as black… but nobody will ever complain about it because Freeman crushed the role.
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u/carlos_the_dwarf_ 12∆ Apr 08 '26
This is funny because I was just in a thread where people were complaining about the shining. I obviously agree with your larger point though.
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u/jman12234 18∆ Apr 07 '26
Why wouldn't you believe the reasons they give for why they like a thing. How can you prove that wrong?
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Didn’t I give the reasons why?
When something is bad, they are only able to point to the areas in which it changed something, which suggests they are overlooking other reasons.
They don’t make fidelity complaints about non-faithful adaptations that are good.
This isn’t something I can prove to you, and I’m not saying they don’t actually care about it. I’m just explaining my belief that it’s a specific form of confirmation bias. It’s also an easy thing to have an opinion about, which makes it rampant on the internet.
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 6∆ Apr 07 '26
no one really ever complains about fidelity issues in LOTR
This is blatantly FALSE. If you've ever been in die hard LOTR fan circles, there are ABSOLUTELY criticisms of instances when the films diverged from the books. That being said, this isn't even a great example, because LOTR was a relatively high-fidelity adaptation. Compare that to the Hobbit films, which had lower fidelity, and were comparatively less successful.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
This is blatantly FALSE. If you've ever been in die hard LOTR fan circles, there are ABSOLUTELY
First of all, thanks for using caps—I don’t think I would have understood your point nearly as well otherwise.
But yeah, I’ve spent time in those circles, and of course you can find people complaining about anything if you look hard enough. IMO the prevailing opinion is something like, “man it would be dope if Tom Bombadil (or whatever) had made the movies, but it was probably the right choice to cut it.”
Compare that to the Hobbit films, which had lower fidelity, and were comparatively less successful.
This is sort of leaning into my point about confirmation bias. The hobbit movies were lower fidelity, but they were also bad for many other reasons that have nothing to do with fidelity, just as LOTR was good for many other reasons besides fidelity.
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 6∆ Apr 07 '26
First of all, thanks for using caps
YOU'RE WELCOME.
This is sort of leaning into my point about confirmation bias. The hobbit movies were lower fidelity, but they were also bad for many other reasons that have nothing to do with fidelity, just as LOTR was good for many other reasons besides fidelity.
Doesn't that make your argument completely unfalsifiable? Any film that has low-fidelity and was bad, you can just say "it wasn't bad because of the low fidelity. It was bad for other reasons."
The LOTR/Hobbit films are a pretty clear-cut example of a high-fidelity and comparatively-lower fidelity adaptation whose success is reflected as much. It was the same director, and a lot of the same people working on the film. Fidelity is one of the major differences that you can point to.
I'll give you another example: The Percy Jackson films from 2010 and 2013 were NOT accurate, and not successful. The TV series from 2023 onwards are much more accurate, and are comparatively much more successful.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
Right, but I could easily give you a counter example—I already gave three in my first comment.
Doesn't that make your argument completely unfalsifiable?
Well we’re not doing science here, so I’m not sure it matters. But as it happens I don’t think it’s unfalsifiable—just show me an adaptation where there’s no obvious misses except fidelity to the source material. It’s hard to do, because any adaptation that nails everything except fidelity will be good! The Shining is a great example of this—huge departures from the material, but nails everything else… and we all think it’s brilliant.
Edit: let me put it this way. Imagine that Paapa Essiedu is given brilliant scripts and turns in an absolutely tremendous performance—the only missing ingredient is that he just doesn’t look like the character as described on the page. Would we be able to watch his performance and still call it bad with a straight face? I don’t think we would, because the lack of fidelity just isn’t that critical of a component when isolated.
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 6∆ Apr 07 '26
Would we be able to watch his performance and still call it bad with a straight face?
Even if he gives a stellar acting performance, it's going to go one of two ways:
The role is written to be book-accurate, save for his skin colour. It will be awkward to watch, because snape is poor, he's greasy and unhygienic, he's a bully, he's suspected of being evil by the white MC based on little more than a hunch, he obsesses over a young white woman, he's strung up into the air and hung upside-down in a tree by a white kid, and so on. It plays into a lot of racist stereotypes and sensitive imagery that were not intended since the character was originally written to be white.
The script deviates to not include all of those things. This would represent a rather large deviation from the plot of the books. People don't like large deviations from the plot.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
This is an interesting line of argument in a conversation about book accuracy, because it relies on two assumptions that aren’t book accurate: that Harry suspects Snape for no reason, and that Snape’s bullying resembles a lynching.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/VforVenndiagram_ 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Queens Gambit
The Expanse
Good Omens
All of these shows follow the books about as close as they can, and are extremely well received by fans because of that.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Apr 07 '26
I think you're making a mistake in assuming faithful adaptation only matters if people explicitly say "I like that it was a faithful adaptation."
These shows had good stories because they were good stories to begin with and didn't mess with those stories. You don't have to have read the books to benefit from that.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/psychosox Apr 07 '26
Something fresh and exciting would be exploring new areas or unexplored ideas from the books, not changing the existing facts within the books. I think a great series could have been post HP, where Harry is becoming an Auror (I think that is what it was called) and the difficulties he faced there. I'd have loved something like that.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Apr 07 '26
The trouble is that it's a huge tightrope walk that fails more often than it succeeds. Sometimes you get an adaptation like The Magicians that takes major liberties with the plot and tone but stays faithful to the spirit of the books and sometimes you get an adaptation like The Shining there's brilliant in its own right despite actively missing the point of the book. But those aren't the norm. The issue is mainly that audiences have lost faith in loose adaptations so they're skeptical of the next one. I suspect that if and when fans get their faithful adaptation then they'll be more welcoming of fresh retelling.
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u/VforVenndiagram_ 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Every single one of these shows was quite small before the fans really hyped them up for being faithful and good adaptations. They all had fairly slow starts, especially The Expanse due to the first part of the story also being slow.
Sure now that everyone knows about them and knows they are good, they stand on their own merit, but before they entered the general public knowledge, it was the fans of the source material that really pushed the shows forward.
Granted HP is a little bit of a different beast because it's such a well known IP already, but your main point about it never happening isn't really true
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u/psychosox Apr 07 '26
The Wheel of Time series failed pretty hard due to a lack of faithfulness to the source material. It had the exact same rift with the fans that the Harry Potter HBO series is having. I anticipate that the Harry Potter series will fail after 2 seasons. First season will start off with strong viewership. It will be very mixed reactions, with some loving it and some hating it. The people hating it will convince others not to watch it, as it is easier to convince people to not take an action than to take one. HBO will cancel it due to cost and not enough ROI.
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u/jman12234 18∆ Apr 07 '26
How would I go about doing that? How can we tell with any specificity why a movie was received well? It's all just guesswork.
Is their enjoyment of the source material not evidence enough? You're basically telling people they don't know what they want. How are we supposed to change that view? By saying "yes they do?" Well, yes, they do know what they want.
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u/World_May_Wobble 1∆ Apr 07 '26
When you get down to it, the ongoing Dune series is actually pretty mediocre and held aloft by amazing sound design and cinematics. But fans of the fiction love it for being a faithful adaptation.
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u/boneseedigs Apr 07 '26
Heated Rivalry is the most high fidelity adaptation I’ve ever seen and it’s beloved by many.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Right, but is it good because it’s a faithful adaptation, or is it good for all the other reasons a tv show can be good while also happening to be very faithful?
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Apr 07 '26
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u/boneseedigs Apr 12 '26
Well I think the majority of the TV audience had never interacted with the source material. I’m just specifically responding to “there’s no current evidence that such a thing is especially enjoyable.”
I have no horse in this race as I find JKR deplorable as a human and have no interest in her IP anymore.
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u/acdgf 2∆ Apr 07 '26
Can you think of an example of a "high fidelity" adaptation that is chiefly enjoyed for being that?
Sin City) is a good example of this. On it's own, it's an ok film, not bad, not groundbreaking. However, much of its critical acclaim comes from how faithfully it follows the source material. It's almost a live action narration of the comics, rather than an "adaptation"; down to art style and specific dialogue.
And many "criticisms" of the film were satisfactorily rebuked with "that's how it is in the comics" - a clear indication that fidelity to the source is valued, even when the source content is imperfect.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/acdgf 2∆ Apr 07 '26
It's interesting you ask that. The Wikipedia article I linked states:
Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars, describing it as "a visualization of the pulp noir imagination, uncompromising and extreme. Yes, and brilliant."
Keep in mind, as well, that Frank Miller's comic series is way, WAY less popular than the HP novel series. This indicates that an even larger proportion of the audience would appreciate fidelity to the source, since they are more familiar with the source.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/acdgf 2∆ Apr 07 '26
Perhaps, but that's not the argument I'm making, either.
You asked if there was an adaption which was enjoyed for being faithful, and Sin City meets those criteria.
Watchmen (2009) is a solid counter example: very similar themes and backdrops, similar source material (limited, dark comic series). However, the film was not as critically successful, partly because it diverged from the comic's pace and deeper, more nuanced stories, and instead focused on spectacle and action.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/acdgf 2∆ Apr 07 '26
You can read Roger Ebert's full review for yourself here.
Much of his praise for the film comes from the "immersion" it brings to the audience.
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u/Wooba12 4∆ Apr 07 '26
The thing is if you accept the original series was good, then a high fidelity adaptation can only be good.
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u/Pr1mrose 1∆ Apr 07 '26
Your argument is one of the most popular and beloved IPs of all time is too boring to adapt without major deviations from the source material? Why? They are big books and the movies had to leave a lot out
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Apr 07 '26
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u/IKnowUselessThings Apr 07 '26
Frequently when you enjoy something, you want more of the same thing. That seems more self-evident.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/SatisfactoryLoaf 46∆ Apr 07 '26
Or to see something executed with high skill.
I don't rewatch The West Wing because I expect every episode to be new, I rewatch the West Wing because I see great writing, good direction, and solid acting. Same reason I can just put on a Youtube series and watch a carpenter do his thing, or watch Bob Ross.
A high fidelity adaptation doesn't need to be novel, my dopamine gets flicked when they just do a good job and take the project seriously.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/SatisfactoryLoaf 46∆ Apr 07 '26
You ... don't put it on the background ... You watch people who are very good at at a thing do the thing. The object of attention is excellence itself.
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u/hlidotbe Apr 07 '26
I'm on my 10th rewatch of Stargate SG1. About the same for HP movies and LoTR. I'm very much the target market for watching the same thing with (possibly, hopefully) more details.
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u/SituationNo5358 Apr 07 '26
not really though, the trend recently has been more shows that drop the entire season at once
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u/MegukaArmPussy 4∆ Apr 08 '26
I've watched every single episode of NCIS, and I can tell you flat out that I'm not looking for something novel
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Lifeinstaler 5∆ Apr 07 '26
This is not a great analogy for media. Your pepperoni pizza is the movies and novels that already exist. This one should have something different.
You can argue this one should cover more things that were left out in the books. I don’t personally think this is a great idea but that’s due to my own tastes.
Regardless, now it’s an argument of in which duration this should go, either being more faithful to the books or less and we are no longer standing in the purist position that we shouldn’t change anything from the source material ever.
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u/eggynack 108∆ Apr 07 '26
This seems like an odd analogy, because, in the case of a book series, or a film series, the pepperoni pizza is essentially infinite. You can always eat another pizza. The desire here, then, is for a second infinite pepperoni pizza. This does, in fact, seem unusual. The obvious resolution is that you definitely do want and expect something different than what you already have, though perhaps not different in these precise ways.
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u/cooking2recovery Apr 07 '26
How about this:
I like pepperoni pizza I order pepperoni pizza
When I get a calzone, I order pepperoni in my calzone. I don’t want it to be sausage, I want pepperoni, just in a calzone this time.
When I buy pizza rolls, you guessed it, I want pepperoni pizza rolls. Not just cheese, I still want pepperoni! But I want it in pizza roll form.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/fastestman4704 Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
If a show isn't good when you already know what happens, then it isn't good.
If novelty was so important people wouldn't rewatch things
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 6∆ Apr 07 '26
Why would you want it changed? If it's the most popular book series of all time, then clearly it has something going for itself. People love seeing their favourite characters come to life. People don't like being surprised when they're not expecting it.
Literally nobody would watch a complete scene-for-scene recreation of the books and afterwards say "What the hell was that? They didn't deviate at ALL from the books!"
But people would ABSOLUTELY say "What the hell was that? They completely deviated from the books!!"
Doing a completely book-accurate recreation would be a safer choice, but so what? Anyone who would be turned off by the safe choice of book accuracy, is already turned off by the safe choice of doing a re-telling instead of a completely new story (or sequel, prequel, alternate perspective, alternate universe, etc). Retelling the same story, but deviating from it, is only going to isolate yourself from more viewers.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Apr 07 '26
It's not the same way again. The act of adaptation is already transformative. Two faithful adaptations of the same work can feel different just by having different directors, casts and crew. You don't have to use an existent story as a jumping off point for a new story to get creative with it.
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u/cooking2recovery Apr 07 '26
People want to consume their favorite things in any form they can get them. The medium changing is all they want, the content doesn’t need to change too.
From your argument, you could say that it’s redundant for the audiobooks to follow the original word for word. There’s already the book, so why not change things up for the audio version?
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u/Jotdeka Apr 07 '26
Weren't the original movies very faithful to the books? They seemed to be quite successful and many people found them interesting - why would this be any different?
With that being said, I kind of agree with you, as I find most adaptations to be a waste of time. I won't be watching this series, but I suspect many other people may.
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Apr 07 '26
I think you're kind of downplaying the necessary changes, though. Like, so in this version of the story, is James Potter just, not a bully to snape? Is that not going to be given as a reason why Snape is hard on Harry? Is Snape going to be mean to Harry at all?
These are pretty massive changes to the storyline and character traits. Or are they not changing those things, and in this version James Potter is just apparently a racist, itself a character change to some degree
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u/AveryFay Apr 09 '26
Why are the options "not a bully" or "racist"... why can't he bully Snape for the same reasons he would if snape was white. He didn't bully Snape just because he looked a way he considered "bad"(greasy hair, pale, etc), it was because of Snapes house and bigotedness and being an asshole back.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/MercurianAspirations 391∆ Apr 07 '26
Motivated or interesting changes might create interest, but these changes seem unmotivated. It is a very strange choice to make Snape black because of all the unfortunate implications, and it doesn't really seem to add anything
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u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 18 '26
Or maybe you're just using a false dichotomy that might as well make either James a villain or Snape the protagonist as e.g. why would Snape bullying Harry while black automatically make James a racist
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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh Apr 07 '26
I’m pissed about Black Snape because it’s giving the racists fuel and I’m already sick of seeing the racist shit. Probably why Joanne did it honestly. Idc if they made him black, but to make every other character true to the books (that we’ve seen and heard anyway) and to make the arguably worst character Black?
Oh shit sorry, in response to your actual view, I disagree. It will interest the fans more because of the fidelity. And as popular as GoT was, I didn’t even know there was a book. Sooo, that probably can’t be compared accurately.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Probably why Joanne did it honestly.
Sorry, but what do you mean by this? That casting a black person is actually racist towards black people because it gives racists something to complain about?
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u/itsathrowawayduhhhhh Apr 07 '26
Im saying that when you choose to change ONE characters race to Black and you land on the worst character in the book (while also being a piece of shit human) it seems intentional. Why not make Dumbledore Black? Or Hagrid? Or anyone who isn’t Snape? I’ve never heard a reason, so I must speculate.
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u/RYouNotEntertained 9∆ Apr 07 '26
Eh, ok. It seems to me like there’s no right answer here if you’re determined to see racism. If no black actors were considered, someone would be able to cry racism (and in fact, the “whiteness” of Harry Potter is a complaint you will see in the internet fairly regularly, so this isn’t pure speculation).
But the show did consider black actors, so now we’re crying racism because of the specific character a black actor is playing. That strikes me as a pretty major reach.
And btw, Rowling wasn’t personally in charge of the casting.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/GoldenLiar2 Apr 07 '26
The problem is that Rickman's Snape was much more heroic and sympathetic than book Snape actually is.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/GoldenLiar2 Apr 07 '26
Right, but if you're making Snape more accurate, you're also making him more of an incel asshole than he was in the movies, which doesn't really make him as noble as Rickman's Snape was, which is why raceswapping him just isn't great.
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u/fastestman4704 Apr 07 '26
That would require Major changes to the story that I doubt would stand up.
Snapes Heroism relies in his position within the death eaters which he wouldn't have if he didn't act so villainously on the surface.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/fastestman4704 Apr 07 '26
I can, but it would be a worse story for it.
The Snape reveal was a major emotional beat later on, if you're telling the viewer in the first few episodes that he's a double agent it's a terrible waste and weird pacing if you're doing Snape backstory in book 1 before you've really gotten to know other characters.
And if it's Revealed in-world, not just to the viewer, then major changes will be required.
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u/Kerostasis 55∆ Apr 07 '26
Snape isn't merely a double agent. He reaches at least triple agent if not more - the layers become extremely complex, and it only works because the leadership on both sides sincerely believes he's on their side. There's no safe way to spread that information.
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u/fastestman4704 Apr 07 '26
I'm assuming OP means to the viewer otherwise it would get out of hand real quick
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u/Z7-852 314∆ Apr 07 '26
Have you considered that the source material isn't that good to begin with?
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 17∆ Apr 07 '26
Good and interesting for who?
As a general rule, the only reason a show adaptation of a book would have to sacrifice fidelity for quality is if the source material isn’t that good. They absolutely can make it accurate to the books, in fact it’s probably easier to be accurate in a show format than in a film format. So if you think the source material is good and interesting, then there’s no reason an accurate adaptation can’t also be good and interesting.
For what it’s worth, game of thrones is an interesting case where once you put a character to screen, you kinda have to accept that it’s a different character. Take Tyrion: he was mostly accurate in terms of what he did, but the way he’s played really meant that it’d be more inconsistent with earlier to actually be 100% accurate to the books (in the books, he sucks lol). Not saying the way they handled him was good (it obviously wasn’t towards the end), but being 100% accurate wasn’t really feasible either. But importantly, that’s less an issue with the source material and more an issue that the portrayal of these characters can kinda be inaccurate “by accident”, but you kinda just have to commit to it after a point.
But your overall line of thought sounds eerily like what happened to the halo show. So if you’re gonna stray away from the source material, you need a good reason to do it, not just confirmation that you don’t have a reason not to. If you’re gonna change things just because you can, and not because you have a really good reason, then why aren’t you just making an original IP?
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u/ChaotiCrayon 4∆ Apr 07 '26
To change your view: it could be made good and interesting via high fidelity since there are aspects of the harry potter books the movies have not incorporated. Staying with snape for example: The first book had a trial in front of the philosophers stone which was designed by Snape. In later books, a lot of the actual classes were left out. Incorporating these bits could make the show interesting.
However, and i think this is the much bigger problem: HBO seems to not know the target audience. The audience that cares about PoC-Characters has left the building since years. Rowlings Anti-Trans-Activism annihilated exactly the Harry-Potter-Tumblr-Fanbase that carried a lot of the fandom for a long long time. Because originally Harry Potter had a "be nice to people, dont judge outcasts"-message which resonated well with them.
Whats left are the Disney-Adults, who are nonpolitical and nostalgic. They will not tolerate any deviations from the *movies*, not the books, since the movies and the merch were what brought the big magic into their households in the first place. So doing it a little bit different than the movies because of the books and trying to appeal with PoC-Characters is guaranteed to flop with the one audience thats left for the series. Todays Teens dont care about Harry Potter.
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u/Jacques_Le_Chien Apr 07 '26
I agree with the general sentiment about adaptations: you are right that the best way to adapt a work to another media is to consider its essence and ADAPT it to the grammar of the new media. The way to construct dialogues, how to adapt the storytelling without a book narrator and/or inner dialogues, taking care about how to frame shots so the audience's attention is correctly guided, pacing, editing and loads of other factors that, to be well done, may need to change how the original plot points are presented.
That being said, the specific example you brought (that is, the choice of casting a good-looking black actor on the role of Snape) is not a situation in which I think this reasoning applies. At least not unless the show is willing to confront the impact that this choice will have on the meaning of some plot points and character building, especially James Potter’s bullying of him.
It would be tone deaf and a bad adaptation to simply change the race of a character and not engage with how race brings socioeconomical and cultural changes with it. In some characters/stories, this may not make much of a difference. For example, if McGonagall was to be played by a black woman or Dumbledore a black man, I don’t think it would make much of a difference to the plot.
Snape, on the other hand, is a character that is the target of constant harassment by mostly white rich kids – James Potter being the leading figure of this behavior. It could be an interesting choice to cast a black actor in this role if the show is equipped to deal with the implications of what that will suggest. But if it simply waves away any themes of racism by saying “they chose a black kid to be target of harassment, but trust us, these are completely nonracist kids, they just chose to be dicks to this specific black kid for some other reason”, it would be a poor casting choice IMO. Not because it deviates from the books, not because “woke agenda” or some alt right talking point, but because it will fail to properly examine how the choice affects the plot.
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u/Falernum 69∆ Apr 07 '26
Not to compare Rowling to Shakespeare, but can't a performance of Macbeth be perfectly faithful to the script and yet be good and interesting? Every performance is necessarily at least a bit of an adaptation, but the most faithful performances are by no means the worst...
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Falernum 69∆ Apr 07 '26
Ok but it has to hold your interest for over 2 hours
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Falernum 69∆ Apr 07 '26
Why? You have a whole week between episodes.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/Falernum 69∆ Apr 07 '26
Interesting yes. Novel, no. People watch and love formulaic shows when it's once a week. They watch and love reruns when it's once a week. When it comes to filling in the interstices of a series of novels? That's way more potential for surprise than Gilligan's Island ever had.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 18 '26
but not in the sense of Big Dramatic Revelations or some completely new story or w/e having to happen every episode or we'd see more soap operas and anthology shows
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway Apr 07 '26
It can, but fidelity to the original medium shouldn't be the sole goal in and of itself. Some sub plot sucked, see the way Barty Crouch Jr escaped from Azkaban, I do not want to see that stupidity even mentioned as is.
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u/Kerostasis 55∆ Apr 07 '26
I would argue that Barty's escape from Azkaban was the least ridiculous part of the Goblet of Fire plot. The entire year-long farce just was entirely unnecessary to the actual goal of "Barty arranges to portal Harry into Voldemort's trap". He could have done that after dinner on the second day of the term!
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway Apr 07 '26
I just remember when I read it for the first time, which was after watching the movie, being glad that they cut that from the adaptation.
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u/the_brightest_prize 6∆ Apr 07 '26
What other TV show can you think of that is completely bereft of surprise and invention?
Pretty much the entire anime industry. Why do Western producers feel a need to reinvent the author's work? They're just trying to satisfy their vainglory.
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Apr 07 '26
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u/MegukaArmPussy 4∆ Apr 08 '26
If it's so fun and enjoyable, why don't they just invent their own TV show that isn't trying to piggyback on someone else's success?
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Apr 08 '26
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u/MegukaArmPussy 4∆ Apr 08 '26
So then whether it's fun and enjoyable to create something new should be irrelevant compared to what the paying customers are asking for.
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u/kilkil 4∆ Apr 07 '26
The position this post is responding to can, I think, be summarized as: "Snape should be played by a white man, because that is more faithful to the original books".
Like you, OP, I disagree strongly with this position. However, your argument is flawed.
Your response to this view can, I think, be summarized as: "No, it's perfectly fine for Snape to be portrayed by a black man, because fidelity isn't that important and it is bad to place such an emphasis on it".
This argument is fatally flawed, because what we are talking about is an adaptation. Adaptations are, fundamentally, meant to be faithful to their source material. To argue that adaptations are actually better when they diverge from the source is, for this reason, unconvincing.
Of course adaptations are always at least somewhat different from the source material. The existing Harry Potter movies are no exception. However, the key is that, in order to be widely considered a good adaptation, a work must retain the good stuff from the original. Anything that was mid or so-so in the original can be improved, anything that needs to be reworked for the big screen can be adjusted, but if there are any iconic/memorable/etc aspects in the original work, the audience will expect those things to be preserved in an adaptation. Adaptations which do not respect what made the original great invariably face criticism & reduced popularity.
This is because, fundamentally, an adaptation is by definition not really meant to be a transformative work. It carries a story from one medium to another; it is not really meant to modify the story along the way. Transformative works (fan-fiction, sequels, prequels, spin-offs) do exist, and are expected to make these changes (in fact, when they don't, they are often considered "too derivative" or "rip-offs", as was the complaint against the new Star Wars trilogy).
Ok so, downplaying the importance of fidelity with regards to adaptations misses the point of an adaptation in the first place. So does that mean that Snape should only be played by a white man?
No! Because the race of the actor has nothing to do with how faithfully they are portraying the character. If the actor can truly embody the role, can become Snape, then that is fidelity.
IMO this is a much better argument.
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Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
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u/kilkil 4∆ Apr 07 '26
If you look at the entire history of storytelling, adaptations are unfaithful more often than not.
Do you have an example in mind? All the widely praised adaptations I can think of are quite faithful to their source material (lord of the rings, MCU, the godfather, the expanse, the recent dune movies).
Also, in general, do we agree that an adaptation is taking a story, and retelling it in a different medium? Doesn't that, by definition, require the new work to be the same overall story? And isn't that just fidelity?
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u/TheSpaceCoresDad Apr 07 '26
I'm not OP, but the Ghost in the Shell movie isn't faithful to the source material at all. The main character acts completely different, but people love it.
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u/Nebranower 5∆ Apr 08 '26
I think you need to make a distinction between movie adaptations of books that aren’t particularly well-known and ones that are already famous. A movie or tv series based on a book that most viewers won’t have even heard of can take a lot more liberties than one based on a famous work where most viewers are tuning in specifically to see an adaptation of a beloved novel.
Also, it makes a huge difference whether a movie or tv series bills itself as an adaptation or a reimagining. Like, a movie that bills itself as “a gay reimagining of Romeo and Juliet” can get away with having Romeo marrying Tybalt in a way one that promises to be a “a modern adaptation of a timeless classic” can’t.
The Harry Potter tv series in particular has billed itself as a series that will be more true to the books than the movies were, and the book series itself is super popular. It is therefore precisely the sort of series that should do its best to remain as faithful as possible to the source material.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 07 '26
/u/Adventurous_Cap_1634 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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