Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth film in the phenomenally successful series, will be opening in Chinese cinemas next Wednesday. No doubt, the usual crowds will flock to see the latest installment (and we will be among them), to see Daniel Radcliffe and friends bring JK Rowling’s magical characters to life.

It’s now 12 years since the first Harry Potter book was released in 1997, and the last film won’t hit our screens until 2011; which means that, by the time it comes out the world will have been subjected to 14 years of virtually unrelenting Potter mania. Even for someone who started out as a fan of the series, it’s getting a bit much.

Imagine life as a Potter-hater over the past decade, wherever you go, even if you move to China, being confronted with references to muggles, magic and more (generally insane-sounding concepts).

Come to think of it, what reasonable adult wouldn’t eventually break down and become a hater? What keeps so many (relatively normal) folks on the wacky Potter train, so long after the novelty should have worn off?

Maybe it says something about the desire people have to escape, which is a valid point, but maybe it’s also something way less fun. Maybe people can’t jump off the Potter bandwagon out of habit, out of a bizarre sense of loyalty to a fictional world.

Or maybe no matter how much they hear about it, and how grown up they are, people still like the idea of magic, which is probably the simplest and most plausible theory of all.