Is Pottermore Just Another Fansite Now?
Pottermore decided earlier this year that its main audience was a lot older than previously thought, so out went the dueling and potion-making and in came… listicles…
The new website seems to be a mish-mash of the Harry Potter books and movies, Fantastic Beasts news, and new J.K. Rowling content. It seems to be taking a leaf out of other Harry Potter fansites… just without the clarity… which led to things like this:
followed by this:
In the books, Lavender Brown is left “feebly stirring”; in the movies, she’s dead. But Pottermore used film stills with information from the books. It doesn’t even try to differentiate the two.
So book and movie canon are mixed up, but on top of that, when you go to a page like “Writing by J.K. Rowling,” it only shows you selected articles with no way of knowing if you’ve read all the new content or not (frankly, this and the concept art are the only reasons to visit the new Pottermore, but there is no index page, so good luck with finding the art or writing you loved from the old website – because it’ll take you half a day to sift through everything to spot it).
This website’s major failing is that even though most of the old users were young adults, Harry Potter fans come in all shapes and sizes, and the official website should reflect that. The new site hasn’t been translated into other languages yet either, which is another significant teething problem – for a fansite like ours, perhaps it would be excusable… for the official Potter website, it absolutely isn’t.
The other issue that has been coming up is how buzzfeed-like the articles on the site are, with listicles like “8 adorable Harry and Ginny moments” and “11 times Snape was the hardest teacher to please.” There are literally hundreds of sites that already do this. We don’t need Pottermore to do it as well.
The House Cup and games are gone, as is the Sorting Hat and wand-choosing – if and/or when they’ll come back isn’t yet known, although the Patronus quiz is said to be in the works. Basically, they seem to have gotten rid of many of the features that made Pottermore more than just another fansite.
The idea behind this site is that it will be easier to use on a mobile phone and no doubt that it will keep us all up to date on Fantastic Beasts news, as well as continuing to sell the e-books and merchandise. It will, of course, continue to do these things, but the beauty and community of the old Pottermore is gone… in fact, this new Pottermore feels like nothing more than just another Harry Potter fansite.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!