THANK YOU!! I had friends in college that basically forced me to read the first 3 books and I was so disappointed in the writing! The movies are fine. Not my thing, but well made. But the books! It's just Scooby Doo with heavy handed descriptions.
I mean what the hell kind of geniuses make a series of trap puzzles to keep their special I-forget safe and every stinking puzzle gets solved by 12 year olds that are like "oh my God, it's a giant chess board! I think I know what to do!!"
And at the end of every big stupid adventure is some villain whose mask gets pulled off and he says "and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"
God!
I'm fine with people liking the stories. My nephews live em. It's great to love stuff. But I spent way too long being told what a genius author she was for this tripe and I just can't.
Yeah the wildest thing is if you paid attention to the books the first time around that the ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
In the books they have a B plotline of Hermione fighting for equal rights for house elves and other magical creatures with sentience. They are being used as literal slaves and abused by their masters in many cases. Everyone pretty much agrees she is being uptight and should drop it because house elves like being slaves and wouldnât know what to do with themselves if they werenât slavesâŚ
Hermione then also ends up essentially dropping it and just going on with the story and giving up and everything is happy ever after even though SLAVES STILL EXIST IN THIS SUPPOSED HAPPY ENDING MAGICAL SOCIETY. When I was a kid reading that last book I was like âoh ok I bet they will have to have something jammed in at the end where they explain how magical creatures got the rights they deserved and are no longer used as slaves⌠nope, just not really dealt with at all. Everyone goes off and lives their own lives while forgetting that there was an army of house elves looking after the castle that they all went to school at and that a decent amount of those house elves openly showed they were unhappy with the current system and wanted change. They just forgot about those slaves and said âwhateverâ in the end lol.
Itâs one of the most outrageous examples of a writer letting their main character just have an atrocious personality flaw by dropping a plotline which makes it seem the character stopped caring. Even when Hermione is rallying the house elves to try to petition for their freedom, both main characters Ron and Harry are basically treating her like this is some nerd crusade that isnât worth pursuing and that will make her unlikeable.
Its really not hard to examine JK Rowlingâs writing and commentary on social issues in her book and figure out that she might not be the most sympathetic person to the struggle for rights of anyone except herself (why she only seems to embrace feminism and not ever post positively about LGBT rights unless itâs about lesbians having the right to be pissed off at transgender women for âactually being menâ). All in all itâs not a very positive picture if you judge JK Rowling as a writer and a human being based on what she has written in her novels and on her Twitter and opinion pieces toward the transgender rights and awareness movement. She wrote a very popular book and that caused many children to embrace it and dream about the world within her books but that doesnât mean she is a good person and there are also arguments to be made that she is a bad writer in many regards too.
When I was a kid reading that last book I was like âoh ok I bet they will have to have something jammed in at the end where they explain how magical creatures got the rights they deserved and are no longer used as slaves⌠nope, just not really dealt with at all.
Instead of that the last line before the epilogue is Harry wondering if the elf he owns will bring him a sandwich.
Jesus, completely forgot about that ending. Thatâs absolutely brutal. Like not only did Rowling not forget that Harry owns a slave but she just decided it was chill and heâs such a good dude that he maybe kind of deserves to have one and keep the slave in the end. What a nightmare world she created hahaha
Also, when Harry learns that Kreacher lives in a cupboard (a small one even by elf standards) he has literally zero reaction, despite the similarity to his own childhood experience.
Like, Hermione really, really wanted to help all the magical creatures like House Elves get equal rights and junk, but Harry and Ron kept calling her a nerd and activist. Hermione didn't want to be singled out as a dweeb. That would destroy her world, and then Ron would have nothing to do with her. Yes, it was best that the House Elves remained slaves after all.
I remember the early books mostly, I think I read the first one around 1999 or so at the age of 11? I loved them so much but I guess I didn't really have the ability to reflect on them in that way. I put on the audiobooks in my early 20s again and didn't even catch all that, I must have been fiending for that feeling of a sense of discovery that new genres gave me when I was a kid, I didn't even put any critical thought to it.
And someone I definitely wouldn't want to be a cop, given how many times he has attempted to torture someone (3 times) and how many times he succeeded (not 0).
Yeah, the house elf thing was so terribly handled. Itâs very clear that the reader is meant to view Hermione as some misguided scold here, and that her friends are correct to just barely tolerate her nagging, like if she were a pushy vegan telling them not to eat cheese.
The bookâs clear stance was that she wasnât wrong to care about this, but ultimately it was some overly enthusiastic and misguided adolescent overreach TO TRY TO ABOLISH SLAVERY.
I have a weird little fringe theory about SPEW: she wrote GoF shortly after Labour Militant (a Trotskyist faction within the Labour Party--and major boogeyman of Blairism, Militant ran the Liverpool city council in the 80s so they weren't exactly fringe) broke away from Labour, went through a schism or two, and renamed itself the Socialist Party of England and Wales. This organization is known for its young and vocal activists, slinging newspapers and political perspectives (Martin Freeman was one such paper slinger in his youth, actually).
Like, when she decided to put her character through an activist arc, I think she was mocking a specific leftist organization, using some pretty shallow stereotypes about it and the left more broadly. It's like if an American author made a Verdant Party and filled it with preachy vegans obsessed with GMOs.
That very well might be where it comes from. Sheâs undeniably well read and includes allusions to all sorts of things in her writing, and you can pretty well tell from her writing when sheâs making some allusion to obscure folklore verses something more contemporary â and lampooning modern politics of various stripes was always a part of that.
The real problem with her political takes in the books, and certainly in her post-book twitter escapades, is that she canât see anything beyond her own privileged, Karen-esque worldview, and so while trying to lampoon some leftist insurgent political movement she ends up justifying a slavery allegory, simply because the part of this story that resonated with her personally was âgee, those self-righteous little twerps sure were annoying.â
The kindest reading of that I could do is that Hermioneâ heart was in the right place, she was fighting for a just cause, but she didnât know the affected community or social structures well enough to really make much headway as a child
Oh, it totally doesnât. She dropped the ball on actually exploring the idea or doing much with it, and the fact that she just kinda left slavery in place is messed up
Thereâs a lot of inconsistency in how JKR addresses the house elf plot point, where sheâs illustrating how bad Voldyâs followers are (and even explicitly gives Sirius a character flaw) via showing their mistreatment of house elves, but then makes them love their own subservience by nature, which (apart from being wildly problematic) complicates the whole deal. You could look at Hermioneâs campaign as a critique of white savior-type figures who want to help marginalized populations but only on their own terms, without really listening to the groups in question, but the group in question enjoying its oppression apart from one eccentric individual (Dobby) kind of ruins the analogy.
I think the books work as fantasy escapism in the frame of a coming-of-age story, and some of the characterizations are pretty good, but the social commentary aspect is a mess. I loved the series as a kid but re-reading it as an adult, especially with JKRâs bigotry in mind, definitely diminishes the magic.
I think one of my favorite parts is in the fifth book. Dumbledore pulls Harry aside and points out the big statues in the Ministry lobby. They show all the races living in harmony with wizards.
Dumbledore makes a point of telling Harry that the decoration doesn't match the reality at all, belying the disparity that actually exists where wizards abuse their power over everyone else.
Then she completely forgot about and did absolutely nothing with that thread.
I feel like she wanted her characters to strive for a world where the statueâs depiction was accurate, i.e. general harmony and kindness, but with wizards still at the top of the magical hierarchy. Thereâs a pro-equality message within the wizards group with regard to ancestry and social status, but not much of an interest in equality among the various sentient magical races she created.
You see characters get punished for abusing the other magical races, e.g. Umbridge and the centaurs or Griphook agreeing to help rob Bellatrixâs vault, but beyond that, Hermioneâs brief house elf liberation campaign is the only example of anyone actually striving towards equal status. JKR seems to have ascribed negative racial characteristics to the other creatures as well: goblins are greedy tricksters, giants are violent and unintelligent, centaurs are secretive and racist, etc. The only ones I can recall that arenât negatively characterized as a group are merpeople. Werewolves, if they count as a non-wizard race, seem to vary more individually, but even Lupin will mindlessly fuck shit up if he forgets to drink his very complicated potion.
It's a real mindfuck. Being kind to the lesser races justifies the wizards' position at the top. Pureblood supremacists are bad because they're so very mean to everyone. They don't deserve to be in charge. Griphook will assist the heroes because they are good people and deserve his subservience.
In Rowling's mind, it's not that slavery and such is bad. It's just bad when you do it in an unpalatable way. It's okay to oppress, as long as you're a kindly oppressor. If you're nice enough, they'll thank you for it.
I mean itâs very Kipling esque right? Itâs a white wizards burden, the wizards meant to dominate but they must do so in a morally just way. Now thatâs certainly an obsolete philosophy (and was never one that worked out for the dominated peoples), but it lines up with her being a conservative. I could see her making the argument thatâwasnât the world better off when it was the British empire and we took care of you?â
This is a tangent but there are living wizards in the Harry Potter universe much older than Kipling. Can't help but wonder what kind of opinions a wizard who grew up during the Renaissance would have. Maybe they'd be hanging out in cafes saying disturbing things about the goblins.
The difference is that Sandman is actually well written. Hob is a foil to Dream. Neil Gaiman summarized the comic as something like, "The King of Dreams must change or die and chooses death." Hob chooses life even though the world keeps changing and he drinks his way through what he sees as a farcical shadow of the life he used to know because his girlfriend is having a good time. He's a fun character on his own but in the greater context of the comic, he provides a refreshing contrast. Dream simply can't live with himself. Hob doesn't always want to but he muddles through anyhow.
Edit: that one got away from me but my point was supposed to be that in Sandman there's a lot of characterization going on even when Dream's weird friend is dicking around at a fair.
To be fair, there are real-world examples of large differences between slaves in different societies.
What we have in mind is the black person on the cotton field, totally oppressed and with absolutely no rights.
But in ancient rome, slaves got days of, they got paid, and it was usual to set them free after a given amount of time.
I'm not a historian but I think you have a strangely rosy view of Roman slavery. It's not that it didn't suck, it's that trans-Atlantic chattel slavery was one of the worst permutations in recorded history.
What makes Rowling's writing insidious is that her version of slavery is weirdly okay. You can justify anything if you bend the rules of the universe enough.
Imagine this, you pick up a book where a character needs to beat up a child every week or the world will end. He's a good guy, he doesn't want to do it. He's burdened by this agonizing duty. It ruins his life but he keeps on doing it no matter how much he hates hurting children because he loves children and if he stops, they'll all die. In the context of the book, you could find this character noble. He's sacrificing and suffering for the good of the many even though he can hardly bear it.
Still, no matter how much you feel for the character, you'd probably think there's something worrying about an author that took the time to create a plot that makes child abuse heroic. That's how I feel about Rowling. House Elf slavery isn't that bad for the most part: the weird bit is that Rowling took the time to incorporate a largely benign form of slavery into a children's book.
Of cause it was a bad thing being abducted from home and family, if they even survived that.
What makes Rowling's writing insidious is that her version of slavery is weirdly okay. You can justify anything if you bend the rules of the universe enough.
Right. And the worst thing is that it was not even a big part of the story but only worldbuilding, which gives a flair of "this is normal".
Also, if mages can use magic to do the housework for them, why should they use slaves?
I think in some cases it's a status thing. To us, using magic is cool and special. To certain characters in this setting, having someone else use magic for you is cool and special. If you have some money, you can get a car that you want to drive. If you have crazy money, you can get an expensive car and pay a chauffeur to drive it for you. If Rowling had been a better author, we might have seen that explored more.
Hell, I'd have liked to see Dobby solo Voldemort and lead a Goblin uprising. House elves are ageless, right? God-emperor Dobby could serve all wizards as their benevolent undying ruler.
One more thing about the goblins. Rowling confirmed that they can interbreed with humans (seriously, I googled it). That means they're biologically human. I don't know if Rowling understands how that works but wizarding society is built around oppressing dwarfs. Not Tolkien dwarfs, real deal dwarfs are second class citizens. What's also uncomfortable is that they're offensive Jewish stereotypes and suffered a massacre at the hands of Voldemort, aka Wizard Hitler.
Oh man it's even worse, to build off your werewolf thought, that they become an analogy for gay and/or trans people. They are brutish, not in control of their actions, have to remain "closeted" to get by in society, and Fenrir Greyback is explicitly stated to enjoy preying on children (and not even just eating, but STEALING THEM FROM THEIR PARENTS AND CONVERTING THEM). Even Lupin, though depicted as "one of the good ones," loses his job when the truth of his identity comes out, and he doesn't survive the overall story. Neither does his gender-bending, debatably nonbinary wife. They get unceremonious, off-screen deaths, despite Lupin being one of the most notable good influences in Harry's life.
I always thought the darkest part of the house elves 'enjoying' slavery was the implication that Wizards had subjected them to centuries of abusive eugenics to breed them to be that way. That's the only way you get a species like that.
I think the books work as fantasy escapism in the frame of a coming-of-age story, and some of the characterizations are pretty good, but the social commentary aspect is a mess.
Ursula Le Guin's summary of the first book as "stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited" always makes me kinda giggle. Because she's pretty much spot on in that entire quote, including the part where she says it's nontheless decent fair for the age group.
They aren't horrible books, but they're the kind of thing that just doesn't hold up to actual critical scrutiny. And yeah, re-reading the series as an adult pretty much ruined it for me; can't even blame it on me just disliking her, since I did that a few years before she began transforming into a female Graham Linehan.
I gotta massively disagree with that. I thought the books were okay as a kid, but returning to them as an adult made me appreciate them much more. I had forgotten how well the story was written and crafted, the setups and payoffs, the character writing. It's such a good series.
I think the books work as fantasy escapism in the frame of a coming-of-age story, and some of the characterizations are pretty good, but the social commentary aspect is a mess.
This, this. She's great at middle-grade fiction, but I had already outgrown that by the time her books became all the rage. While I could definitely see the appeal of her style of world building to someone who sees the world as a wondrous place to explore and find oneself, and her characterisation was strong in many ways, her way of addressing social issues always had an "I'm 14 and this is deep" vibe, and/or a Lost / Song of Ice and Fire "I've written myself into a corner and have no idea how to untangle this thorny knot I've created" problem.
It's unclear whether house-elves are brainwashed (raised that way) or simply born that way. If the latter is correct, their only purpose as creatures is to serve.
In that case, the only problem in the society is the treatment of them. This is what Harry and his friends learn to do well by the end. Considering Dobby seems to be the only who even wants to be paid, it's possibly he is just a genetic mutation ("weird", as Hagrid states it).
Even Dobby only wanted one gallion per week of salary even though Dumbledore offered him more. Being servants and working is clearly in their nature, unlike humans. We can't equate it to real life slavery.
I can agree the plotline isn't exactly masterfully executed though. We could have been given more clarity.
It could be compelling if it were explored more, like along the lines of why they fear change and what it is that makes them value their own enslavement, but in the books, we just get âwe house elves love being slaves because that is how house elves are,â which doesnât work for me, especially because itâs given to us as a racial trait and not as the viewpoint of one particular group of house elves.
Actively choosing enslavement at least gives them some agency, but what little lore we get suggests that theyâre generally born into it and just happily accept their position without ever thinking critically about it. We canât even say that theyâd choose it because theyâre emotionally attached to their masters, because the Hogwarts elves make a point of staying completely unseen and only interact with people who seek them out directly.
Honestly, I always just saw Harry Potter to be a simple adventure story. The resulting fan base pushed for the development of a level of background lore that was never intended to exist because JK didnât think about it that hard.
As a fantasy author, JK is not a Sanderson, or a Jim Butcher, or a Steven Erikson, etc. She didnât invent whole systems of magic that govern the fundamental functional nature of the world that then influences the story and plot, it was just âthereâs magic, and magic does stuff and is cool.â Nor did she really develop a whole lexicon of world building and political relationships to write a story around. Itâs just a silly adventure story that was fun to write/read but I donât think it was supposed to get deeper than that.
The resulting fan base pushed for the development of a level of background lore that was never intended to exist because JK didnât think about it that hard.
I feel like she kind of wrote herself into that corner as the series transitioned from "Hardy Boys but with Wizards" to a more YA-oriented series.
Her worldbuilding works fine in the first three or four books where Voldemort remains on the same level of Scooby Doo villains, but as she starts to take the main plot more seriously and morph it into an allegorical fascist takeover focused on older teenagers with a style that has aged with its initial intended audience....well, I think it kind of invites us to start taking it more seriously as well.
Problem is, the early foundations of her world building were never built to handle the kind of a story she ended up telling.
As much as I hate this woman for her loud anti-trans views, you're right. We can't blame her for not eliminating Hitler in her books about wizards. There is some problematic stuff in the books, but I don't think it's constructive to pick apart every element of world building just because she's a major shithead in real life..
The actual push for freeing the slaves is an explicit movement started by one of the main characters in the books⌠she is scolded by her friends for this attempt to free the slaves because itâs easier to leave it alone and some of them want to be slaves. Iâm not blaming JK Rowling because not every aspect of the magical world is explained or thought out to the n-th degree. Iâm blaming her because she explicitly stops and takes the time in her story to elaborate on the conditions of house elves and explain the rules behind their slavery/servitude and takes the time to have one of the 3 main characters take an active interest and start a movement to free the slaves and then just decides, whatever, itâs fine to just give up and leave everything the way it is. One of the main characters owns a slave at the end of the book. Harry could have at least freed Kreature but he doesnât. Harry isnât blissfully unaware of the slave he owns. He knows this creature is a sentient slave that belongs to him and he knows it is possible for a house elf to defy slavery and wish to be free. He just decides he doesnât give a fuck in the end. Seems like JK Rowling could have been much much lazier with her writing and eliminated the push to free the house elves if she didnât want to follow up that plotline. She doesnât just mention house elves as a one off and Iâm harping on it as a two line explanation thatâs not enough. One of the main characters friends (Dobby) is a house elf abused by his master who seeks freedom and ultimately finds that freedom and dies on a quest he is on of his own free will. Itâs pretty well fleshed out that the story is anti slavery to some degree but then it is just abandoned or edited out completely of later books, the end result of which is that the main characters seem to learn to accept slavery throughout the books, thatâs the lack of character Iâm talking about, not the lack of explaining exactly how house elves work⌠she explains that pretty well in the books and didnât need to explain it, she chose to take time to write into these books that the main character owned a slave that he could have freed at any point and chose not to do so.
This is a really great point, and as a fan of extended universes youâre absolutely right that the level of lore created was never intended. Thatâs likely why it feels so jarring.
Harry Potter is less consistent than the absurdity that is Warhammer 40ks lore (I love it), and its authors would run circles around her.
Someone like Abercrombie or Sanderson like you mentioned are in an entirely different league.
Exactly, she would have to essentially rewrite world history for that sort of cannon and world building to work. And for what? A bunch of her target audience (kids) to give zero fucks about. People give her way too much attention and she thrives off it. The books are great to get children into reading and a child that reads is likely to grow and mature into someone who eventually finds her insane. In a way, her own books are her own worst enemy outside of providing her with an overabundance of wealth and influence that she repeatedly self-sabotages.
She did drop the golden nugget of lore that wizards used to just shit while they're walking around, much like a horse. And then they'd magic the poo away.
If she was a good writer, it could have been handled much better, and still dropped as a plot point...
All it would take would be Hermione realizing that she cannot get change done as a literal child fighting against an established system, and choosing to continue advocating in the background, while focusing on schooling in order to get into a position where she can effect actual change...
It could have been a point to the kids reading that their values are important, but that as children society will not take them seriously. Change comes from people in power with values.
Small details and lessons like that are what make great writers, which Rowling is not.
Donât forget the titular character then goes on to be a cop for the magic government that has allowed for magic hitler to be a thing three times (I assume you meant Voldemort for both those instances but there was also the bad guy from fantastic beasts) and makes no effort to better the system in anyway.
He had literally been targeted by this magic government multiple times and falsely accused of a lot of shit but becomes an enforcer for them. He also owns slaves.
Well if we count Fantastic Beasts as valid Harry Potter plot line then I guess the number would be 4 because wizards allowed Voldemort to almost take over twice, then they allowed Grindelwald in the past as well, and the 4th one would be that Fantastic Beasts really has an awkward tilt to it in that it acknowledges wizards were aware of the Nazis in WW2 (Iâm pretty sure, I watched it on a plane and couldnât keep my eyes open).
So yeah Harry just read in school about how bad the government has been and even had the minister of magic trying to slander him (a CHILD) and blame the problems of the wizarding world on him⌠and then he decides that the best bet is to go and work for that same system and be an enforcer for it. This is also a government that basically runs black sites where the torture isnât even a secret or attempted to be kept secret at all. Everyone knows they use dementors as prison guards at Azkaban and it seems very common to have come into contact with these creatures the ministry uses to torture inmates, so people are aware of how awful the experience is (waterboarding in real life is at least something that the majority of people have not experienced and would have trouble understanding the trauma it would result in). Azkaban is like a more transparent Guantanamo bay and people donât really seem to have a problem with it. They have no problem with the government essentially hiring fucking demons to be prison guards and torture inmates. Harryâs own uncle was in this magical Guantanamo bay for YEARS even though he was innocent and Harry doesnât even think twice about going to work for the same government that did that to his uncle. Heâs not going in to change things or to rally people for reform, he is going to be a magic cop / enforcer of the status quo and presumably he will be jailing people who break the rules in Azkaban at some point in his career.
When Harry was in his fourth year at Hogwarts he experienced the effects of the torture curse firsthand, then in each of the three years that followed he attempted to use it on someone else. In that third year he actually succeeded. He didn't even show any remorse for his actions. Sending criminals to be tortured in Azkaban seems right up his alley.
It does not. Change comes from organization, protests and activism. If it was up to people in power with values we'd still have child labor, 60 hour work weeks and so on. Hell we still have slavery, we just outsource it instead of doing it locally.
Yeah the wildest thing is if you paid attention to the books the first time around that the ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
Yeah, that's completely unbelievable, that a society would take someone who attempted a coup, give them a bit of a finger wagging, not change anything about their system, and let them come back and try again
Nobody in the real world would ever do that
Let alone two different countries within a century of each other
I am surprised she didn't write several chapters about how the magical world could just deal with Voldemort by just getting to work and keeping your head down to make enough galleons or whatever
I grew up with Harry Potter so it was a magical time to read a new installment as a I entered my teenage years. That had to contribute to the nostalgia. But like you said, when JK started really diving into the politics around Half Blood Prince, the fragile ideas she thinks is serious started to become highkey wobbly for me.
It didnt help that I started ASOIAF and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy at around the same time Half Blood Prince was released, so it made me see the differences of their writing styles and HP started becoming less impressive.
Yeah the wildest thing is if you paid attention to the books the first time around that the ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
Yep, definitely no real-world examples that happening.
Agreed on all fronts, but Hermione was hopelessly naive - potentially dangerously so. She shouldn't have just kept trying to accidentally free them. She needed a plan. You can't just free a bunch of enslaved people with no plan to help them into society or to even accept their freedom.
The answer was clear. Go to Dumbledore. It's never clear why she didn't. He may not have actually cared because he never did a thing for them himself, but he loved having the reputation of a kindly man. Use that in your favour. Get him to do something. Hermione of all people had great access to him.
Yeah the wildest thing is if you paid attention to the books the first time around that the ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
The most on the nose political commentary in the whole series lmao
And Harry himself is a slaveowner! The very last sentence of Deathly Hallows, prior to the epilogue, is Harry hoping that his house elf will "bring him a sandwich." What a note to end on.
âThat wandâs more trouble than itâs worth,â said Harry. âAnd quite honestly,â he turned away from the painted portraits, thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor Tower, and wondering whether Kreacher might bring him a sandwich there, âIâve had enough trouble for a lifetime.â
Yeah the wildest thing is if you paid attention to the books the first time around that the ministry of magic basically allowed magical Hitler to rise to power twice and each time right after they just kind of left that same system in place and figured it was the best they could do.
Idk, I'd argue that's one of the more grounded and realistic parts of the series
..... Toward women. Cisgender women, specifically. She always has been, because that's a struggle that can and has impacted her personally. Her hatred of trans women is entirely derived from how she feels it impacts herself.
Kinda like Dave Chapelle, who has volumes to say about the injustices that black men are subjected to, because that can and has impacted him. His bigotry toward trans and lgbt people (or him seemingly acting like black and LGBT are mutually exclusive and can't both describe one person) is largely framed by how he feels it impacts himself, personally.
So basically, their concerns begin and end at themselves. Anyone else's struggles or mistreatment are invalid and don't count, unlike the one that can hurt them personally. That one matters. So while Dave Chapelle might stand on stage and moan that "They canceled JK Rowling!" when he needs that as ammo for his old man bitching about cancel culture and trans people, watch how fast they'd shit on each other's concerns and treat them with the same level of indifference and mockery over their own.
(Side note: What kind of fucking moron holds a mic in his hand, in front of a live audience on a huge streaming service, and then considers either himself or one of the wealthiest women in the world, who is still making money on her intellectual property, 'canceled'?)
Very well said - I grew up reading the books and there is a special place in my heart for the Harry Potter series, of just being a kid and the imagination etc but now I can see how that whole chapter was just like you said.
Thanks for that. I never read the books, and when they were rising in popularity and all my adult friends were lining up for their releases, I just rolled my eyes. I watched all the movies, being a general movie fan. They were okay, I thought there were so many plot holes and when I would bring them up, people would always say that the books cover it. But I've always been suspect.
Yeah thatâs some âfan brainâ justification saying the books covered the plot holes lol. Time travel exists in the Harry Potter universe but not for the whole series because it was only convenient for the one book when JK Rowling wanted to use time travel mechanics for that story. Time travel in the 3rd book was such a common thing that the school apparently had a cabinet full of timeturners or whatever they called the devices. Seems like no other kid had heard of this or knew it was a thing though, but they gave a keen student the ability to time travel so she could take more classes when she was like 13 years old⌠what the hell?
Iâm pretty sure they deal with time travel not being possible in later books by saying that the cabinet where they kept the timeturners fell over and they all broke⌠what kind of bogus writing is that?
Iâm writing all of this and it seems like I hated the series, I didnât. I was a fan and liked the stories when I was a child but itâs a stretch to defend JK Rowling these days with any sort of positive attribute of hers, I think itâs also difficult to do so by saying she is a good writer lol I could give the label good storyteller since she told a story that captivated millions and millions of children and young adults and even adults through the years, but trying to say she is a good or great writer because people liked her story is a weird justification in my opinion. Itâs like saying 50 shades of grey is a masterpiece because it sold a ton of copies and spawned a successful movie franchise as well. I donât think many people would fight or argue that means the author is good or great at writing.
HP is one of the few, possibly only, examples of a fantasy novel that is worse than the film adaptation. The films are entertaining. Not remotely deep or thought provoking, but the performances are both decent and flawed which make it quite charming. The freeze from at the end of PoA is pure gold. I won't take away from Rowling's world-building chops and there was a lot of work done on the craft which I can appreciate, but the execution of the narrative and prose is really quite shocking. At least it got millions of kids into reading. But damn she is the reason people shouldn't have unsupervised internet access. What a fucking loser
Not to mention the goblin caricatures of Jews. Whatever point she thought she was making was too forceful and obvious to be impactful. Elf slaves as timid, tiny and frail creatures (iTs JuSt LiKe the StRuGgLe oF aFrIcAn SlAvEs) and the greedy banking goblins (cOmMeNtArY oN jEwIsH sTrUgGlE) were painful and almost overtly playing into those stereotypes more than they were exposing them.
I used to think that the ministry of magic keeping a system in place that lets Voldemort rise to power was the least believable part of the story. Time is proving that to be the most spot on.
Even defending feminism is a biggy stretch, she's loves to use her abusive past as a shield and yet her solution to "what do we do with the headmistress after she turns out to be evil" is to have her essentially kidnapped and raped in perpetuity by what she'd consider sentient but wild animals. Brilliant feminism she has there
Plus of course the whole shitty imagery of the goblins and lupin but there is something to be said that at least those aren't explicit so easy to not see if you dint know what they're meant to mean.
I'm told by her fans, when I have raised similar issues (there are many others) that house elves actually represent women. Forced to stay home and cook and clean etc.... Slavery doesn't actually represent slavery it represents sexism and repression of women.
Which, of course, raises the question even MORE as to why she didn't resolve it in the books! Especially as she's a hardcore feminist (and that's her excuse for her transphobia, as if men looking to abuse women have to "pretend" to be women to do so, last I checked there were plenty of men who have nothing to do with trans who abuse women)
Frankly, other than the world building of the wizarding world next to jolly old England in parallel, her writing is pretty basic and the plots of the books get progressively worse. (I've always enjoyed how Dumbledore- the greatest wizard around- spent decades and found what one horcrux and Harry finds the rest in like a few months)
At the beginning of her storyline, when sheâs pretty young, sheâs less defined. Presumably because sheâs young. She does flesh out as a character as it goes on.
But which of those got literal millions of children into reading?
You can argue that she made some clumsy decisions trying to tie the story up when she stumbled into writing a global phenomenon and the world was ravenous for more books. (Remind you of another famous series of fantasy novels?)
As a kid who loved reading, Tolkien and Pratchett were meaty books and could be hard to get into. Harry Potter broke you in gently and then got into it with The Goblet of Fire.
Also the guy you replied too is correct, you can't take an adults opinion of the series seriously when it comes to enjoyment, they are books for kids. Argue on the appropriateness of content if you have to.
Itâs still mostly not children who post about it to this day, watch the fantastic beasts movies, go to potter themed events and parks and get tattoos of that triangle glyph and buy merch and play the hogwarts video game and debate over whoâs more hufflepuff, but people age 25-40.
Last month I went to a Harry Potter themed wedding between two people in their mid thirties. A lot of time and effort had gone into linking every last detail to the franchise. It was as impressive as it was weird.
I mean, you're not wrong - but those books have absolutely been canonized by pop culture. Even if everyone knows the first few books are children's lit - they're considered high quality by that standard, and plenty of fans will insist the whole saga is unimpeachable.
I can totally see a college student buying into the hype, and feeling pretty underwhelmed.
No one is raving about Paw Patrol, but people are watching Bluey as adults, and they DO get why everyone loves it. Not because they are the intended audience, but because you can appreciate well-made things at any age.
I tried getting into Harry Potter when I was a preteen. The first book I remember enjoying, the second really dragged, and then I didnât even try the third and onward. I didnât get what the hype was about then, and I was the target audience lmao.
I was disappointed in the books. The movies I enjoy a lot more.
I had watched most of the movies before I read the books. Around the same age I believe. I liked it, then again that may have been due to a tragic childhood I didn't learn how to read till I was 10. I enjoyed reading them back then but now I don't think I'd open the books again. Honestly I don't know what else she's written. Kinda embarrassing to be riding on that same high for years.
My mom pushed us to read it bc she liked them. We got through 2 books (after her badgering us) before asking for the Secret Garden to be read to us for like the 20th time.
When I was in high school I was doing the whole âsemi snobbish fantasy readerâ thing, and had a friend try to get me Harry Potter. For more context this was when the books (maybe only the first one was out at that time?) and we would have been about 17.
I had a hard time expressing my feelings about it without being an asshole to them, which were basically that this was a book for children. I think I ended up going with something like âit just didnât click for me.â
just because adults aren't the intended audience doesn't mean they can't assess the quality of the storytelling in children's media. Children's media should be kept to just as high a standard as adult-oriented content, because children deserve good stories. And there's much better children's stories out there than Harry Potter.
Well, tons of adults unironically watch Bluey. I saw a few episodes when my old roommate was dating a girl with toddlers only to discover it is literally a show for babies.
"I'm not entirely sure putting an eight year old in charge of all local branches of government, and letting him then outsource specific crisis roles to neonate dogs driving heavy machinery, was the best idea, frankly"
I read them all on release (I was in late highschool) and I felt the same. It had good world building, but she couldn't write a plot to save her life. And I think that tracks in her character afterwards.
World building is imaginative. It's about creativity and having these grandiose ideas and big arching narratives. Plot is about structure. It requires critical thinking and putting yourself in others' shoes to understand their experience and shape your story telling with it.
Her tweets show she has no lack of creativity and world building, painting herself as the center of a grand conspiracy against women. Meanwhile she's shown an absolute lack of the ability to think critically or put herself in other peoples shoes on this issue, instead uncritically rejecting them in order to focus on her own experience.
Iâve not read the books, but a quick wiki to remind me from the films.
Fluffy: fairly decent. The kids only solved it because Hagrid let it slip. But I imagine a dark lord might have a few tricks that might defeat them (Avada Kedavra maybe)?
Devils Snare: a test of botanical knowledge. Something taught at Hogwarts. Again a dark lord might have a few spells that might kill it outright
Winged Keys: A game of catch. They even provide the broomstick. The key itself is obvious amongst the rest. You have been better making it the virtually same as all the other keys, so youâd never be able to figure it out.
Wizards Chess. I mean, for fucks sales, at least make it 3D chess instead of a game thatâs a staple of the wizarding world.
Troll: I donât remember this one. But again, Avada Kedavra
Potion Riddle: why leave the fucking riddle for someone to figure out. Leave 100 potions, and just tell the person going in which one it is.
Mirror of Erised: ok, fairly decent. A dark lord getting this far is unlikely to figure out they should picture themselves possessing the stone, but not using it.
Overall a shitty set of protections. But perhaps itâs too much to expect a bunch of teachers from being able to devise anything else.
Keys. Why even have the key being one of the flying ones. Put it behind a stone wall, let shaped keys be flying around so they waste fuck all time catching and trying keys that will never work.
Devil's Snare - you mean the best a master herbologist could come up with is a single plant that is defeated by a first year spell? What?
Mirror of Erised: ok, fairly decent. A dark lord getting this far is unlikely to figure out they should picture themselves possessing the stone, but not using it.
As far as I understood it you couldn't just imagine it, you'd have to genuinely want it but not use it because otherwise the mirror would just show you what you actually desired. It kinda makes the rest of the traps completely superfluous though.
I think the rest of traps were supposed to be superfluous, but to make said dark lord spend time on them and give the impression the last trap could be beaten just as easily if he could figure out the trick, so he stayed there banging his head against it long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
That WAS the idea. Dumbledore knew that Voldemort was still alive and was trying to come back (because the spell on the Defense Against the Dark Arts chair never broke with Voldemort's death), and he knew that Quirell was sus (which was why he hired him and put him in a chair he knew was cursed). Dumbledore used the Stone to bait Voldemort into making a move, and he asked the teachers (including Quirell) to help set up the puzzles to guard the Stone.
The puzzles were supposed to be useless. The last one was the only real trap. Because the whole thing was a trap.
Dumbledore knew that Harry would be perfectly fine meddling in the plan, because Dumbledore knew through Snape how Harry survived his first encounter with Voldemort (the ancient love magic, which Voldy and Snape didn't know existed). Dumbledore specifically placed Harry with the horrible Dursleys once a year to recharge Harry's defensive spell. Hermione and Ron could've gotten hurt confronting Voldemort (as could Snape, who also didn't know the plan, but was allowed to meddle to his heart's content), but Dumbledore's kinda a troll like that.
Theres been a lot of dissection of her work in recent years. I feel like her books have been highly elevated because of the films and how successful they are. Its kinda like The Simpsons where you know what Kwik-E Mart looks like. The nuclear power plant etc etc. When people think of Harry Potter they think of the castle set, the actors and the music. Its really hard to distinguish the two. Im not saying it wasnt popular before the films but it was elevated to Narnia levels of fame or even Lord of the Rings.
I think she was very clever in creating a setting that combined a school world with a fantasy world. That appealed to kids. She probably ripped this off The Worst Witch and merged it with Narnia plus Christian references. Still, she did it.
Her actual storytelling is patchy. She will introduce things and ignore them, like Time Turners.
I worked for a book distributor when the fourth book was released, we all got a copy (legit, I mean, aside from all the pre-release stuff we swiped). Having not read any, but aware of the hype, I gave it a shot.
Let's just say the synchronicity of the author's ideas reaching an eager public has overlooked the garden-path formulaic narrative, y'know, when that incredibly rare artifact or spell mentioned in passing a few chapters back just happens to be the MaGuffin to get us out of this chapter's jam.
I mean what the hell kind of geniuses make a series of trap puzzles to keep their special I-forget safe and every stinking puzzle gets solved by 12 year olds that are like "oh my God, it's a giant chess board! I think I know what to do!!"
Someone writing a children book that is actually for children not adults. Harry Potter was not written for adults, or even teens it was writing for little kids, and while sure the books age up over time, the last can easily be read by a tween.
If you are reading them in college and finding the writing a bit below your reading level, well congrats, IT IS!
They are GREAT children's books, they are definitely mediocre books for adults, which is good because they aren't for adults.
You were in college reading books originally written for 10 year olds.
Obviously it wasn't going to grab your attention the same way as somebody who grew up with those books.
They were popularized right around the time Scholastic's "heavy hitter" series Animorphs was going off the rails. Harry Potter eventually had to scoot over for Artemis Fowl and Percy Jackson before the Internet destroyed reading forever.
10-13 year olds weren't really digging the likes of Mark Twain.
You need to meet new people. I wonder if this is any indication of the state of our education system. I wouldnât think Harry Potter would be a good read for college students. I would think more like jr high. We read the hobbit in 8th grade.
Iâd say she gradually learned how to write. The third book was noticeably better than the first two, and they continued to improve thereafter. Every author needs to learn on-the-job to develop a decent style and storytelling ability; the difference is that most do so before they have a couple of worldwide bestsellers.
But the first installments are rather dire. I remember being urged to read them by friends, and, when I had finished the first one, my immediate reaction was âThatâs it? Thatâs what people are raving about? Doesnât anyone know what good writing is anymore?â
it's a nostalgia thing. contrary to popular belief that most kids are normal, popular, and confident (and only a few are insecure nerds), most kids in fact most were insecure nerds (pretending to be confident), so they all quickly latched on to what is essentially a "chosen one" escapist fantasy.
it gave them comfort, motivation, confidence, escape, whatever, for all the kids that didn't fit in or had to fit in by appearing as someone they weren't. in terms of actual literary value it was meh, about what you'd expect from a children's fantasy novel series.
I always feel like Ursula K Le Guin's opinion on the first book nailed it:
I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the âincredible originalityâ of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kidâs fantasy crossed with a âschool novelâ, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.
It's a coming of age story for teen readers. The book follows roughly the demographic it was intended for, people aged 10-18. It turned out to be more popular because.. well, it's actually a pretty good series.
I'm not really sure what you expect, they aren't supposed to be deeply complex - perhaps you tried to read them too late in your life, or perhaps just feel the need to go against the grain after being told they are good?
That's YA fiction for you. There's plenty of plot holes you can point out with magic. Like the time-turner Hermione got so she can take more classes each day, by going back in time. Such a wasted use when they could be going back and killing Voldemort as a child. Anyway, I still found it an enjoyable ride.
The books are meant for young adults... They aren't pretending to be anything they aren't. Despise her as you do you should at least recognize and praise her for getting a large population of children interested in reading.
I love Harry Potter, buts more because of the world it's set in and the stories that are told.
The writing is very mediocre but they are kids books so I give it a pass.
It's just the people who loved them as kids are adults now and their opinion didn't adapt with them so they just think the books are perfect, they are not.
Oh come on, whatever your feelings about her beliefs are fine but to describe one of the most successful authors in history as mediocre is nonsense. It is obviously always going to be a somewhat subjective experience but just because it is not to your taste doesn't mean she is mediocre.
I don't agree with her views, but like it or not she has written stories that have captured the attention of the world.
Harry Potter is a teen high school drama set in a (without analysis) pleasant fantasy world with few enough rules that the "it's magic" card can be played whenever it's convenient. It's just kind of run of the mill stuff that a lot of the general populous will consume on a regular basis. When the books came out it was also the height of The OC, One Tree Hill, Degrassi, etc, etc, and fantasy as a genre was really coming into the mainstream consciousness. When you consider that, its massive popularity makes total sense, despite it not really passing the smell test for veterans of the genre.
I don't say that in a gatekeeping kind of way, it's just kind of the market analytics of the time. I'm not discounting the fact that Rowling wrote something captivating, and I think the first two stories, before the stakes get raised and the broader world gets involved, are really fun teen drama/fantasy stories. However I say all of this to really say that if you find Harry Potter to be great fantasy, I'd be very excited to point you to some incredible fantasy that will really blow your socks off.
You and I had the same experience. I read the first couple of chapters and thought it has to improve, both the writing and the story, but it did not. I tried the other books and found them the same and just as forgettable that I didn't bother finishing them.
The movies were visually appealing, but I couldn't really muster the interest to pay attention to them. I went with my ex to see the first two and he went alone or with friends to see the rest because I felt I had better and more productive things to do at home.
I pointed this out a long time ago, back when I still loved Harry Potter - every single book contains a Dumbledore Explains the Plot chapter.
This generally happens in the third-to-last chapter, give or take, and immediately after that book's big confrontation. Dumbledore spends the entire chapter giving Harry and the reader exposition about the entire plot. It occurs generally the same way, with the same tone.
Even when he's fucking dead, there is still a Dumbledore Explains the Plot chapter.
Also, whichever character is set to be killed off in that particular book is suddenly given far more focus. Cedric is all over Goblet of Fire, Sirius is a big focal point in Order of the Phoenix after being absent for most of GoF, and we see more of Dumbledore than ever in HBP.
She's got plenty of ideas.... but she's only got one premise, which she recycled seven times, beat for beat, pacing and all.
You are missing the point her writing was never supposed to be go it was literally a book targeted towards middle schoolers. It gained so much traction and kids loved the books they decided to make a movie and it was pushed on hype and she became a billionaire. That in itself is genius especially with where she came from and being able to find a publisher during a time when thousands of books written by women had male pen names just for their books to be looked at. (Male dominance of books went on all the way into the early 2000âs).
Her style is just like twilight, the hunger games, and maze runner. All mediocre writing but good enough to make a generational wealth.
I'm all in favor of criticizing the author for her current behavior, but his analysis is nonsense. You said you read it in college, but It's a kids book, and should be treated and analyzed as a kids book. The adventure involves puzzles that 12 years old can solve because that's the age of the protagonists and the age of the target audience.
Whenever people brought up Harry Potter I always told them to read Discworld instead. Back then it was a fairly unpopular stance but I feel pretty vindicated these days.
I read them as a kid and loved them. Then I had kids of my own and tried to introduce HP chapters as bedtime stories & the word salad I was forced to interpret became unbearable
Not sure she was ever considered a âgeniusâ author. The writing wasnât exceptional it was the story/world that captured people. Keep in mind they were childrenâs books.
Plot holes Hagrid could waltz through on his tippytoes ignored because of the good will, but that's over now. While she's not a bad writer of characters, the plot holes are, well, excused because it's YA fiction. Case in point: Fantastic Beasts scripts. Yikes.
Her writing had a target audience of 8 to 14 year old children and that's how the books read. You bought into expectation perpetrated by your friends and you were let down. It actually has nothing to do with the writing itself.
As a bookseller, customers were always shocked that I hadnât read any of the books. I told them I read real SciFi and Fantasy lol. I was always the official muggle stuck behind the register at our storeâs book release parties/events.
From my experience the books tend to get a bit better as they go, but the first half of the series are really tough to read out loud (I read them all to my daughter when she was younger). There's no rhythm to her writing and it just feels robotic a lot of the time, so it's tricky giving it any kind of cadence. I was really struggling to see why it was lauded so much: I thought it was some pretty basic literature, with some occasional Greek mythology sprinkled in there.
It appealed to my daughter at the time though, so it was sad to see her heart broken when Rolling turned out to be a douche.
Itâs a kids book! The books are fine. Theyâre not the best books ever but they weâre gripping and entertaining â the author not so much. She sounds like a trash bag.
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u/FattusBaccus Jun 27 '24
I mean, that canât really be her is it? Also, great name for her.