Harry Potter vs Twilight: An Office Debate

"I need you to go online today to pre-buy our Eclipse tickets," Kelly told Erin. "Don't forget one for Ryan."

"Oh," said Erin. "About that, I don't think I can make it."

"What?" shrieked Kelly. "I thought we were best friends! We have to go see the greatest love story of all time together. That's the rule."

"We are best friends," said Erin earnestly. "It's just well...I don't really like Twilight."

"How could you not like Twilight, it's about forbidden love! What's more romantic than that?"

"I just don't like Bella and Edward. They're kind of snobby and it's really mean the way Bella uses Jacob. Harry and Ginny would never do that to anyone, neither would Ron and Hermione."

"Don't tell me you like those wizard loser nerd more than hot vampires!"

"I just don't think that the vampires in Twilight are hot. I like Robert Pattinson (sp?) better as Cedric."

"Who's Cedric."

"The Hufflepuff champion who died in the tri-wizard tournament."

"What? Erin, you're not making any sense," said Kelly.

"False," said Dwight as he approached the receptionist desk. "For the first time in her life Erin is making perfect sense. Harry Potter is far superior to the utter garbage known as Twilight in plot, character development, and every other measureable sense."

"Screw you, beet farmer!" said Kelly. "What do you know about good stories?"

"Everything," said Dwight. "I am an undisputed expert in quality."

"You don't know everything," said Kevin as he came to the receptionist desk and stood by Kelly. "There are at least 100 reasons why Twilight is better than Harry Potter. It's way more mature."

"Harry Potter is about fighting evil," said Erin. "What's more mature than that?"

"I think he means cheap sex mature," said Dwight.

"Take that back!" said Kevin. "The sex between Bella and Edward was pure and innocent."

"False!" said Dwight. "It was completely disgusting!"

"It was not!" said Kelly.

"Perhaps we should settle this with a debate," said Dwight. "Erin and I will captain the Harry Potter team and you two will captain the Twilight team."

"Fine!" said Kelly.

"We are going to kick your asses Cullen style," said Kevin.

"Well, we'll kick your bu-rear ends Dumbledore's Army style," Erin shot back.

"Well said, Erin, well said," said Dwight.

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Dwight: (in a talking head) Yes, Erin is slightly dim, but not nearly as dim as Kevin and far less shallow than Kelly. She will be my Luna, who was quite useful to Harry several times.

"Listen up, everyone," said Dwight. "We are holding a Harry Potter -Twilight debate in the conference room right now. Pick your side."

Jim and Pam looked at each other and shrugged. They had been up all night with the baby and couldn't concentrate on work.

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Jim: (talking head): Sure I'm tempted to join the Twilight side just to mess with Dwight, but I saw the first movie and was stupid enough to see New Moon as well. That's time and brain cells I can never get back. It was just...really really bad.

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Everyone except for Stanley who sat at his desk rolling his eyes and Michael and Holly who were out to lunch filed into the conference room and joined either Erin and Dwight or Kevin and Kelly.

"Ryan!" screamed Kelly as he joined the Harry Potter side.

"Sorry, Kelly, Harry Potter just has a much more powerful message."

"Powerful messages don't make great stories," said Kelly. "Now you get your hot ass over to our side this instant."

Ryan began to submissively walk over to the Twilight side. Dwight grabbed his arm.

"You can always use irony in your arguments, Temp." Dwight whispered.

"Won't they see right through that?" Ryan whispered back.

"These are Twilight fans," said Dwight. "They possess a complete lack of critical thinking ability when it comes to defending their book."

"Good point," said Ryan. He joined the Twilight side

Meredith stood in the middle trying to decide which side to join.

"C'mon, Meredith," said Kelly. "Twilight has sexy Vampires."

Meredith took a step toward the Twilight side.

"Wait," said Andy. "The wizards in Harry Potter get drunk on mead, butterbeer, and all kinds of awesome drinks, but the vampires just have blood."

"That's what I'm talking about!" said Meredith as she walked over to the Harry Potter side and high fived the team members.

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Talking Heads Twilight team:

Creed: Harry Potter is noble and selfless. Who can relate to that? Not Creed Bratton. Bella Swan is completely self absorbed. Now that's relatable.

Ryan: Yes, Kelly and I are still dating.

Kelly: The Twilight characters have everything I want, good looks, great fashion sense, and lots of money. What more could you ask for in a book. People can explain Bella loving Edward the way they can explain me loving Ryan.

Phyllis: Edward is really handsome. He replaced Jim on the list of guys I can cheat on Bob with. What? He'd be the cradle robber in that case.

Angela: Harry Potter leads people to evil. That's a proven fact. And I have to respect Edward and Bella for waiting until after they were married to have sex. Unlike Jim and Pam's baby, Nessie was not a bastard.

Kevin: You've got Edward who shows that if you wait long enough you'll find the right girl, even if you're over 100 and she's only 17. You've got Bella who shows if you focus on something hard enough and give up everything else in your life, you can get what you want. That's about it.

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Stanley: These fools are not going to drag me into another stupid debate.

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Harry Potter team member talking heads:

Dwight: We will crush them. This will almost be too easy as Twilight does not hold a candle to Harry Potter.

Darryl: I have a daughter. I don't want her to marry a pedophile vampire when she turns 18.

Meredith: Party at the Leaky Cauldron, baby!

Erin: I can really relate to Harry because I had to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs once.

Pam: I read the first two Harry Potter books to Cece all the time. I want her to be smart so I don't read the Twilight books to her. There's just too much bad grammar and too little research into vampire myths.

Jim: Same reason ad before. It was really, really, REALLY bad.

Andy: Picking Harry Potter over Twilight will show Erin that I have sophisticated taste. Besides, Twilight sucks…literally. It's gross.

Oscar: Dumbledore is the greatest gay character in fiction, and he's not defined by his homosexuality.

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The debate raged on for an hour. Gabe decided to take a conference call fearing that things could get violent as they often did in a figurative sense when members of opposing fandoms debated as though their opinions on fictional characters had an impact on the grand scheme of things.

"Bella wanted to drink her own father's blood! That's just plain disgusting," said Andy.

"She couldn't help it, she became a vampire," said Kelly.

"She chose to become a vampire," said Erin. "Like Dumbledore says, it's our choices that tell us who we really are."

"Excellent point, Erin," said Dwight. "Where are the deeper messages in Twilight?"

"It's about true love," said Kevin.

"You mean true obsession," said Pam.

"Harry Potter has true love," said Erin. "Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione, Lupin and Tonks, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Lily and James, Snape and Lily, Bill and Fleur, and way more couples than in Twilight."

"Ten points to Gryffindor!" said Dwight.

"Shouldn't we be Ravenclaw, today?" asked Jim. "I mean we're debating with our brains, not our courage."

"Fine," said Dwight. "We will be team Ravenclaw. So, TwiTards, what other flimsy arguments do you have about Twilight being a great love story?"

"Edward would never kill Bella's cat!" said Angela.

"False," said Dwight. "Edward is a vegetarian vampire who feeds off animals instead of people. If he were trapped in an elevator with Bella and her cat, he would feed off the cat. Twenty points to Ravenclaw."

"You can't keep giving your own team points," Kelly pouted.

"False, I can give my own teams points as we are making better arguments," Dwight retorted.

"Well Edward and Jacob are way sexier than Harry," said Kelly.

"Amen!" Angela agreed.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Oscar.

"You of all people should understand that," said Kevin.

"That argument is disqualified on the grounds that it is stupid," said Dwight.

"Why because it's in our favor?" asked Phyllis.

"Who says it in your favor," asked Pam. "Some of us don't exactly swoon over Edward and Jacob."

"Yeah, they always look like they're about to puke," said Erin. "That's not sexy. Besides, I think Daniel Radcliff is much cuter than either of them."

"What's going on in here?" asked Michael as he and Holly entered the room.

"Just a friendly Harry Potter-Twilight debate," said Jim.

"I gotta go with Harry Potter" said Holly. "The characters had more depth."

"I agree with Holly," said Michael.

"But Edward Cullen and Bella Swan are way hotter than Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley," said Kevin.

"That is debatable and Harry and Ginny have personalities," said Michael.

An: I don't think that all Twilight fans are squealy, shallow tweens. The women who talked me into reading the books were well beyond their teen years. I just found the Twilight series very superficial except when Jacob was narrating. Minor characters like Rosalie, Jacob and Alice were much more interesting than Bella and Edward. The minor Harry Potter characters like Ernie, Hannah, and Lee Jordan are more interesting than Edward and Bella for Merlin's sake!