Love her or hate her (and my opinions are mixed), I must confess, JK Rowling was a huge influence on why I didn’t become a regular author. No shade on people who get what they paid for, but the young reader crowd is just so gimmicky, and not in a good way, and you see that with a lot of works like Percy Jackson and Twilight (but also predominantly with Rowling’s work). How do you compete in such a no-rules game?
So then let’s talk about one of the cores of the issue. People often have an epiphany when divulging into Harry Potter, and they think “huh, what’s the deal with this if that thing is how it is”. While noting that conflicts in literary analysis don’t always reflect something that doesn’t add up and that it could be a hiccup in details/semantics, the questions themselves don’t go away. And there’s nothing that matches the amount of those having to do with Harry Potter. What example of which strikes you as the most overlooked?
If Rowling herself ever notices that I’m bringing this up, let it be known I do think of her work as a reskinned Brothers Grimm in the universe of The Worst Witch and that I’m collaborating with another author (Samantha Rinne) whose work I would argue deserves Rowling’s prestige if Rowling’s work deserves it. Thanks (and here is where I run for the hills).
“Looney bin”
Sounds like you’re really read up on current terminology.
We’re not talking one single person. We’re talking all the muggle-borns or half wizards. There’s dozens every year. And all them magically vanish, never to be seen or heard or when they are, they have no excuse for where they have been. And if someone asks too many questions, suddenly they act like they’ve had a stroke and can’t remember things. But proper journalists have backups.
Do you think none of the muggle-borns would want to show off to their former non-wizard friends, even with “don’t tell anyone”?
You don’t think there’s a single wizard desperate enough to utilise magic to make real world money and that they’d never caught?
NY obliviating? That’s some extra convenient writing considering how obliviating works in the books. (read = shit writing) They even almost hang a lantern on it for that reason, out loud questioning will it even work and them saying “
ofc it’s a deus ex machinawe’ll hope for the best”That movie highlights the kind of shenanigans one slightly awkward but extremely moral and “want to hide the magic” wizard can get into. Even if we imagine the tiny group of people the Ministry has could be able to address some, the head of the Muggle things in the ministry doesn’t know what a lightbulb is. How would they ever understand the nuances of video-surveillance?
Maths study shows conspiracies ‘prone to unravelling’
A few thousand people can’t sustain a conspiracy. There’s 100 000 wizards in the Quidditch finals.
This is genuinely the most glaring and moronic flaw in the whole series and you just got to accept it. Despite there being hundreds or thousands of people like Petunia who were jealous as fuck and know about the existence of magic for sure and just don’t do anything about it. OK. Like if you had a brother who had been invited to Hogwarts, you’d just not even talk or think about magic, ever.
Petunia is even shown to cry to Dumbledore themselves that they want to go as well. Because it’s the natural reaction. All the characters act naturally but the story world couldn’t exist it that behaviour was assumed from other people as well. (Which isn’t hard to understand nowadays vis-a-vis who the author is; “rules for thee but no rules for me”)
Why use current terminology when the book was written in the 90s and was set in the 80s/90s?
Idk, to have basic human respect for people with mental disorders?
Do you think when people discuss say, hypothetically Hogwarts having trans people, they use the period terminology? Because having lived in the 90’s, I’d like to see you use that terminology while discussing a hypothetical trans-character in HP.
Considering JK Rowling is a TERF I doubt you’re going to see many trans characters…
Now. And is this JK Rowling with us in the room right now?
No.
And we’re still having a hypothetical discussion about her books, and used the argument “my language would be okay in the 80s and early 90s, so…”
We could have a fanfic with set in the same time. Would you use 90s slurs for trans people if insured this thread was about such a fanfic?
Or you discuss RDR2, do you consider it okay using the n-word?
I have no idea what your talking about to be honest. Sorry if I offended
Feels like you’re ashamed because you know saying “looney bin” can be a bit offensive and you’d rather have other people think you aren’t.
It’s not a polite term nowadays, and surely completely avoidable.
Bro you’re taking a children’s book, made by an asshole, way too seriously.
I’m upset at someone dismissing the struggles of the mentally ill, not at some silly conversation about HP.
Exactly. This is a silly conversation about HP. That’s my point
So youre ignoring what I said, too.
Alright then.