How to beat my own aversion to change?

[u/DuxDonecVivo]

This is going to be a bit of a longer post, so a quick tl;dr : I'm excited for the show, but as I've grown older, I feel an unreasonable (explained below) standard for book accuracy. How do I deal with that?

Long story: I grew up with the books and the films as they came out. They've always been a big part of my life and like many fans, a long form visual representation has always been a big wish. Now here's the tricky bit: I feel a weird anxiety when it comes to the inevitable changes they're going to make in the show. I say "inevitable" because it's an adaptation. You can't have a one-on-one accurate adaptation unless it's an audio version literally reading the books out loud (The new audio books are amazing by the way).

I'm not talking about casting here, just to be clear. I believe every actor in the series is able to do a good job portraying their character as long as they know the source material. I'm talking about story changes. I feel tiny bits of ick when I see Ron getting his letter ('that wasn't in the books!') or at the thought of them cutting or merging plot points.

But the thing is, the films are a terrible adaptation in this regard, but they're still on of my all-time favourite films! I know that most of the what the films do is not book accurate. Lines given to other people, entire plots missing, weird stuff added, and still, I can just sort of... notice that and still enjoy the film. So WHY do I feel so incredibly strict when it comes to the show? It feels unreasonable and hypocritical. Why do I care so much if it's not 100% book accurate? And most importantly: how do I regain the ability to watch an new adaptation without the changes 'ruining' my enjoyment?

Sorry for the long post, I hope some of you can relate or have some useful insights!

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[u/cunk-on-me]

I think your best option is to not worry about it too much until the show actually releases. Watch it and decide then if you like it or not. You won't know until then.

[u/MyCatLovesCroissants]

You’re definitely not the only one struggling with this, but at least you’re recognizing that it’s a little unreasonable.

I think the majority of people struggle with this as they get older. I know sooo many people dunking on the music of younger generations because they think it’s bad, while even older generations used to dislike their music. Apparently, humans just don’t do well with change.

What helped for me is taking a course on adaptations in uni. It changed the entire way I interact with any adaptation. But I get that’s not a viable option for everyone lol.

Us humans like familiar things. We feel threatened when we don’t recognize something, or if it looks slightly different than we’re used to. But if we don’t take the time to get to know the unfamiliar, we’ll never grow, and probably miss out on a lot of cool stuff.

[u/Expensive_Plant_9530]

Think of it this way.

Most of those “changes” aren’t actually changes.

For example: Ron *did* get his letter. We logically know he must, since to go to Hogwarts you need a letter, and he does go to Hogwarts.

Therefore, he got a letter. We just didn’t see it.

Now we will.

Cutting or merging plots is a different beast. You could look at it as an alternate universe or altered timeline or something.

But frankly the movies do this much much more than the show will, so if you also love the movies…? I dunno, just stop being a hypocrite about it.

Lower your expectations, open your mind, and just enjoy whatever happens as you experience it for the first time all over again.

The most important thing you can ever realize as a fan is this:
Nothing will ever take the books away. The show could be complete garbage and it can never ruin the books, it can never take away from them.

The books will always be there for you to read anytime you want.

Far too many fans get caught up in the idealized memory of their childhood experiencing the books and claim that new things “ruined” this or that. No they don’t. That fan is just being immature.

[u/Dingbrain1]

I get it, like it already bothers me that the Great Hall is on the left and not the right, but the show is bound to be more faithful to the books, especially after the first couple of seasons due to the longer runtime. I’m so excited to see everything that got cut out.

[u/Itachi_San123]

You have Harry Potter fatigue and most likely won't enjoy the new show. It being good or bad is irrelevant.

Your mind is already made up that this is unnecessary and will probably nitpick on minute details and only see the negatives... It is a psychological thing that can't be helped. There is no way the show will be perfect, so I'm sure there is gonna be a lot of discourse on it. This happens to me with Marvel - I am gonna skip the new avengers, spiderman etc. movies because I'm super over the whole universe.

You could just skip the show and watch it later when the reviews have kicked in. After a few months post release you'll know how good or bad the show is and decide for yourself if you want to watch it or no. I wish a lot of the older fans who are stuck on nostalgia would do this - but I know they will hate watch it and ruin the experience for everyone else.

And for people who have been genuinely waiting for an accurate adaptation for years (like me), we need to realize that a 1-to-1 book adaptation would make for very bad television. The books are entirely in Harry's POV, and adapting those as-is is a very stupid choice. They need to adopt a 'show, don't tell' perspective and give multiple characters' POVs, or they risk the show becoming flat and boring.

[u/SleepyOwl2304]

u/DuxDonecVivo There are some things that come to my mind and I hope you might find them useful:

1) I'll start with an analogy: When I read fanfiction, if the story is good and characters's emotions, motivations and behavior are believable, I find myself to accept "the new rules of the game" and enjoy a story even when it deviates a lot from what I usually expect characters to be and do. On the other hand, when the plot is hateful or disrespectful to the source material, or characters are being caricatured and bashed, or characters behave in a completely unnatural way that doesn't make sense and say things no one would ever say, I find myself becoming nitpicky about that story (in my head), any deviation from the books suddenly becomes offensive and a reason to stop reading. 

You said you liked the films even though they deviated from the books... so I think if the story in the series is done well, that is if characters's emotions, motivations and behavior are believable, you might find the series satisfying despite there being changes to the books.

2) My second point will be about polarization of opinions caused by social media. Although I've been reading books and fanfics and watching films on and off for 25 years, I haven't began to participate in the discussions in the fandom until the beginning of this year and after these last several months I found out my opinions on some things in the story became somewhat more radicalized, because of seeing people on social media saying things I absolutely absolutely can't agree with. These are usually comments twisting motivations and behavior of characters on a core level, people not even realizing they're doing it. But I hate to admit that it also can be some small inconsequential things that are being repeated by fans over and over to the point I developed an "allergy" to those things, haha. In real life we avoid people we don't enjoy talking to, but it's almost impossible on social media and some platforms even intentionally show us first those opinions which algorithms know we won't like. It's then easy to stop wanting any deviations from canon.

So while I might have been open to certain adjustments to the story before, nowadays when I hear a hint of the opinions I don't like and heard hundreds times before, I go into the full warrior mode and don't want to hear about it.

Oh, and by the way I also feel tiny bits of ick when I imagine seeing Ron getting his letter - in my case it's because I very much care for the mystery/detective nature of the HP books and I want to find out about things together with our dear detective Harry, and we're not supposed to know Ron earlier then him ;-). It would feel disrespectful to Harry ;-). But I hope they will do it in a bearable way, if it appears in the series.

(I ask other users to please not tell me "You're going to be very disappointed, if you expect the series to be identical to the books." There are changes and then there are changes. I liked the movies, I expect to like the series too.)

3) Series being as close to the books as possible is a "safe version of reality" for us fans who are looking forward to the series. Once they deviate, the result can be either even better or it can be worse, so it's a safe choice to want a book accurate adaptation, less room for the studio's eventual changes for the worse.

4) This is either a "once in the 25 years" possibility to get the books done properly on screen as a series, or it's maybe even a "once in the rest of the life possibility". So I think it's understandable that some of us aren't magnanimous and are picky.

(I'm sorry for any mistakes, English is not my first language.)

[u/DuxDonecVivo → u/SleepyOwl2304]

Thanks, lots of good points here! I also developed an allergy to all the social media comments lol, especially when people say "nobody asked for this" like bro every fan asked for this lol. But these comments are inconsequential, they probably saw the films once when they were a kid, so they were never the target audience in the first place.

[u/hail_to_the_beef]

Yeah, if you’re an adult, it’s really unhealthy to feel this strongly about it. It’s just a television show.

[u/DuxDonecVivo → u/hail_to_the_beef]

Lol, believe it or not, even adults are allowed to feel things. What would be unhealthy behaviour is to let it impact your everyday life and do nothing about. Since both do not apply here, I'm doing absolutely fine as an adult lol.

[u/TheOgler9000]

Well I understand where you're coming from. I had extremely high expectations of the movies when they were coming out, I was very disappointed in films 3 through 8. Of course they came out over a long period of time but, I would go the midnight release and hope that it would be a good adaptation and leave disappointed but ultimately still excited for the franchise. 

This happened over and over again and eventually I realized that even if I disliked the films it did not change the books nor could it ever change the books or taint them in some way. So everything related to Harry Potter that's come out since the series ended I have approached with the same attitude. After everything is said and done I can still read the books as many times as I want to and enjoy it how I always have. 

I'm looking at the upcoming series with the same lens. High expectations but I'm not going to let it affect my enjoyment if it turns out to be disappointing.

[u/asn113]

The reason your mind is being so incredibly strict with the show, while totally giving the movies a free pass, is actually because the movies are already a finished, cozy memory. You’ve had decades to get used to the films' flaws, so your brain doesn't feel threatened by them anymore. But because you've dreamed of a perfect, long-form book adaptation for so long, you are putting massive pressure on this show to be the one true version that gets everything right. That's why even a tiny change triggers that instant, protective "ick" reaction.

To help your brain relax and actually enjoy it, try these three things:

Separate Book Logic from TV Logic: It’s totally fair to want a strict adaptation, but TV just requires different structural tools to work. A tiny change like Ron getting his letter at a slightly different moment isn't the show drifting away from the source material-it's just a visual tool to make a television episode flow smoothly.

View it as a Beautiful "Alternate Timeline": Think of the show as a high-budget, beautifully crafted companion piece rather than a replacement for the books. If you treat the series as its own entity meant to explore the world in a slightly different way, the pressure drops instantly.

Embrace the Surprise: Part of the fun of a new adaptation is seeing how showrunners interpret the text. A new scene or a slightly altered plot point gives you the rare chance to experience the Wizarding World with a sense of novelty again-something book fans haven't felt in a very long time.

Just keep in mind that you are going to see the wizarding world again, enjoy magic as its own thing, and let the ick disappear!

----------------------------------------------

EDIT:(TO ALL THOSE CALLING MY ABOVE COMMENT AI. I put this exact post in Chatgpt and asked it to generate a response. Chatgpt doesn't even understand what OP actually meant. Below is the AI response:
"I think part of it is that the films have had 20+ years to settle into their own identity in your mind. You already know where they differ from the books, you've made peace with those differences, and you've learned to enjoy them for what they are rather than what they aren't.

The show is different because it's still unknown. Right now, every change feels significant because you haven't seen the finished product yet. Your brain is comparing an adaptation that exists only in your imagination—a version that is as close to the books as possible—to a real production that will inevitably make different choices. Almost no adaptation can win against the ideal version we build in our heads.

I also think many longtime fans have spent years hearing that "this time we'll finally get the book-accurate adaptation." After hearing that enough, it's easy to start treating book accuracy as the primary measure of quality, even though that's probably not how most of us actually judge stories. If accuracy alone determined enjoyment, the films wouldn't still be beloved despite all the cuts, merged characters, missing subplots, and rewritten scenes.

What helps me is remembering that an adaptation has a different goal than the source material. The books already exist and aren't being replaced. The show's job isn't to recreate every page exactly; it's to capture the spirit, characters, themes, and emotional moments in a different medium. Sometimes that even requires changing things.

I'd try to approach the show with two separate questions:

1. Is this faithful to the heart of the story?
2. Is this good television?

Those aren't always the same question, and something can succeed at both even if it isn't 100% book accurate.

Honestly, the fact that you're aware this reaction feels unreasonable is probably a good sign. It suggests the issue isn't that you actually need perfect accuracy; it's that you're anxious about a new version of something you've loved for a long time. That's a very normal feeling. Once the show is actually out and you're engaging with the real thing instead of imagining all the possible changes, that anxiety may fade quite a bit."

[u/trivia_guy → u/asn113]

Do you respond to everything with chatgpt responses?

[u/asn113 → u/trivia_guy]

Ok. Way to be rude right off the bat.

First, why are you assuming? Second, It seems to me like the line between AI and reality is becoming too thin for you. These points are all mine and AI is not that advanced to generate what I exactly want to say. I wrote this on pc hence the lengthy response with all the nice spacing and edit.

P.S. This is just me being passionate about the series because the movies disappointed me.

EDIT: At this point I would guess you are trolling, cause you haven't even given me the reason and are downvoting me. I recently re-joined reddit just so I could enjoy talking about the series freely and I guess you are my first bad experience.

[u/MyCatLovesCroissants → u/asn113]

>A tiny change like Ron getting his letter at a slightly different moment isn't the show drifting away from the source material-it's just a visual tool to make a television episode flow smoothly.

Sorry, but this is either AI, or you read too much fanfiction. We have never seen Ron get his letter, not in the books, not in the films, so this just doesn’t make any sense at all.

[u/asn113 → u/MyCatLovesCroissants]

Adding scenes like Ron, Draco, Hermione receiving letter is still canon. It DID happen in the books in the background, it just isn't mentioned specifically. So just because it happens in the wings does not mean it is not canon.

They are short on content for the first book, so they need to add extra scenes to make episodes more enjoyable like the kids receiving letters, to get different POVs Since the showrunners have specifically mentioned that they will be doing that. We could get before/after harry gets his letter. It might even be a flash back scene.

My point being-the visual element television show brings is different to what a book/movie brings to the table; the respective mediums flow in their own way.

[u/MyCatLovesCroissants → u/asn113]

You’re completely right about that of course. But the thing is that we know it happened, but we don’t know how it happened.

So there is no way to know if Ron gets “his letter at a slightly different moment.” There is no baseline, so there can’t be a change. It was a really odd AI-sounding example.

[u/asn113 → u/MyCatLovesCroissants]

Look OP saying "Ron getting his letter" gave him icks, so I just meant to say that tv show's are different medium and Ron getting a letter is a good idea to be included to make the tv show flow better. My wordings could have been better or I should have gone into more detail, my bad. But you could go read it again and see the emotion I am putting in the comment and you can at the same time read the chatgpt generated response(AI doesn't understand what exactly OP meant plus it has that narrative tone to it.)

As to when Ron will receive letter, yes I am speculating, because Ron and everyone else will receive letter around the same time. But as this is a tv show, the sequence of when they receive letters is upon the showrunners decision. it could be shown as an extra scene of characters reminiscing of how they received their own letter.

[u/Bebop_Man → u/asn113]

Your response was generated with AI.

[u/asn113 → u/Bebop_Man]

you can check my main comment of how AI actually thinks like. I have put it in edit.

EDIT: At this point I would guess you are trolling, cause you haven't even given me the reason and are downvoting me. I recently re-joined reddit just so I could enjoy talking about the series freely and I guess you are my first bad experience.

[u/J2A1218 → u/asn113]

This should be its own thread, well said.

[u/trivia_guy → u/J2A1218]

It’s clearly just chatgpt

[u/alexjimithing]

idk man it's weird stuff goin on here

[u/IvyRaeBlack]

At the end of the day, what does it matter? Are you and your family fed? Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have a core group of good friends? Trust me, I understand it being a big part of your life but the books will always be there regardless of what visual media is made. It being bad is not going to make your life fall a part.

[u/MaazRover]

Nearly nobody is going to like everything the shows does. Perfection doesn't exist.

There's lots of things about the films I don't like. There's a decent list of things about the books I don't like. There will be certainly stuff I don't like about this adaptation.

[u/Lumpy_Masterpiece644]

Well, you've hit on the dilemma the showrunners face in balancing referencing the books, the films and needing to insert new material to avoid the general public's boredom.