Harry Potter is a [franchise](franchise.md) and universe by an English [female](woman.md) writer J. K. Rowling about wizards and magic { like ACTUAL [wizards](wizard.md) and [magic](magic.md). ~drummyfish } that started in 1997 as an immensely successful series of seven children and young adult [books](book.md), was followed by movies and later on by many other spinoff media such as video [games](game.md). It made J. K. Rowling a billionaire and has become the most famous and successful book series of modern age. At first the books sparked controversies and opposition in religious communities for "promoting witchcraft", in recent years the universe and stories have become a subject of wider political analysis and [fights](fight_culture.md), as most other things. Commerce and politics destroyed it completely, anything new in the franchise is absolute garbage, but the original books are quite good.
{ I actually enjoyed the books -- they're not the best in the world, I've read many better ones that would better deserve this kind of attention, but still the work is admirable and of very high quality. There is of course tons of money in the franchise so it's getting raped and milked like any other IP capital, do not follow the new stuff. ~drummyfish }
**Plot summary**: sorry, we're not writing a plot summary here, thank [copyright](copyright.md) laws -- yes, [fair use](fair_use.md) allows us to do it but it would make us [non free](free_culture.md) :) Let's just say the story revolves around a boy named Harry Potter who goes to a wizard school with two friends and they're together *saving the world* from Lord Voldemort, the wizard equivalent of [Hitler](hitler.md). Overall the books start on a very light note and get progressively darker and more adult, turning into a story about "World War II but with magic wands instead of guns". It's pretty readable, with great, unique atmosphere, pleasant coziness and elements of many literary genres, there's nice humor and good ideas. Also the lore is very deep, but sometimes doesn't quite make sense (well, it was made by a woman).
