Absolutely. But if you learn in a vacuum, just don't surprised when you find out your "revolutionary" ideas were actually thought up by someone else decades ago, and examined, deconstructed, and reconstructed by dozens of others since.

I'm speaking as someone who enjoyed the Potter books overall, even if they were far from perfect. Your argument is basically that Harry Potter did for YA fantasy what Twilight did for vampire fiction or what 50 Shades of Grey did for erotic literature. And I think that's spot on. Although Rowling's a far superior…

That's not true! The main characters' names are also the same. And...um...that's about it.

The conclusion seems to be, if you care about critical acclaim, don't make sequels, but if you care about box office returns, then churn them out. Well, there's my answer.

Or if you must have a white alpha male lead, how about someone other than a middle-aged American with a non-regional accent of vaguely North European extraction? Why is the "white male lead" always the dullest possible blank slate dude possible?

A hardy rodent of the arctic tundra with no camouflage that spends all winter not hibernating, but alone, burrowing for sustenance and meeting others of its kind only to meet?

Anthem kind of soured me on Objectivism. It might have had something to do with the individual liberty message being watered down by the female character having no individual agency or motives beyond "main character's love interest and helpmeet". I found Rush's take much more entertaining.

James Morrow has regularly tackled some of these, notably in Only Begotten Daughter (the Second Coming in the modern age, in distaff form) and the Jehovah trilogy, starting with Towing Jehovah: The corpse of God (a two-mile long white male with a grey beard, as he has often been depicted) is discovered floating in the…

Q: "What does George R.R. Martin think of the new Beauty and the Beast show?"

No, my rage-catalyst was the two guys getting lost in the caves, even though they're still in constant communication with the ship which has a real-time, 3D map of the cave complex sitting right there on the bridge!

If the explanation is that Weyland was forced to hire bargain-basement, last-in-the-class talent for his Ponce-de-Leon expedition because all the competent people laughed at him ("You're going to put me in stasis for months on end, zip me across the galaxy, and not even explain why until we get there?"), that would…

Wow, I haven't thought about that show in years. Thanks for the flashback!

I first saw a (different) sexy Elmo costume someone posted to Facebook about 2 or 3 years ago. It prompted me to propose a corollary to Rule 34: "If it exists, there is a sexy Halloween costume for it".

If it helps, after reading those books, I always think "I'm glad I don't have Westerosi problems!"

If only they were in LA, I'm sure Zak Sabbath could help them out: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.ca/

"I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage."

I sympathize. I have a similar problem, although it's a relatively recent development for me.

My God, they're pre-empting Peter Jackson!

Disco fight!

I'm no expert, but it looks like they were all photographed separately and Photoshopped together. The three leads look 5 steps away from tripping over each other.