I loved Tolkien and after that Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover long before Harry Potter even existed, and many other fantasy worlds besides. I refused to read Harry Potter for the longest time as back then I worked in a bookshop and was put off by the extreme hype surrounding it. I eventually caved, obviously (sometime before book 5 came out), and was hooked right away, up to the point that Harry Potter became my first proper fandom where I actively participated, and also published my first fanfic (everything before had always been for my own eyes only). But what hooked me were two characters, Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape, with a few more joining them later on, and very quickly what fandom was making out of it, leaving canon quickly behind. But I've never ignored the myriad of problems and issues with her creation, just chosen to overlook it, or looked at better-working fanon instead.