Why do you like Harry Potter?

[drunkenshoe]

Something that I usually get hung up on is that people are usually incapable of stating objectively bad things about, not only this series, but any form of content.

Sure, there are, of course, plenty of subjective aspects of everything about Harry Potter that you can point to, if there were not, then discussing it would not be very much fun at all.

Agreed. For example, I find that magic part of the HP world is poorly built in some aspects. First of all, it's too dangerous to survive. Also too many key events are going around too few people. First two things off the top of my head. She can't give the feeling that there is a mass of other people behind/around the key characters.

 

[pmmg]

Oh, I can say a number of objectively bad things about HP, and in the right context, I just might.

But I am not from the generation for whom HP was a meaningful and shaping event. To me, it was just something that reflected, and amplified a cultural trend, and those wrapped up in the values of it will have ulterior reasons to want to defend them (even if they don't recognize them). If the lament is that objectivity is hard to achieve in discussions about this, I mean...Welcome to the internet. Spending a lot of energy on those who are not being objective is kind of a waste of energy. If the conversation drifts back to why I like (or by extension dislike) HP, I may say something more.

If it is instead about Mrs. Rowling and her various interactions with the trans community...Don't care, and moving on. If that is going to be the drift, I think we can save some time and just lock the thread now.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

There are going to be similarities between it and other things. At this point almost everything is inspired by something else in some way.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I generally take a "death of the author" view on the matter. As in, once a piece of literature is out there, the piece and its interpretation belongs to the public, and the author and his or her views no longer matter. It's why I can read H.P. Lovecraft without any issue.

So I judge HP on the text itself, and I don't care about the author behind it. It makes life a whole lot easier, since I don't think there is anyone out there who shares my ideas and believes 100%. Not even my wife and kids do.

With that in mind, there is plenty of things wrong in HP. How it treats slavery, has a 2-class society, a prime minister who personally gets involved with judging and sentencing a school kid for a small percieved mistake, where the only solution to any crime, big or small, is a torture prison, even without actually having a trial. etc.

Same with the writing. The earlier mentioned adverbs stand out. The plots are fairly basic and if you strip away the magic part, they're standard british boarding school stories. The later books are in serious need of editing and are too long, slow, and meandering. The climax of one of the books is literally a guy dying by falling through a doorway...

And yet, for all its faults, they are still great books to read. Kids love them. The books really manage to connect with them. They're quirky. They deal with friendships in a wonderful way. They're fast to read (the earlier ones at least). And they don't talk down to young readers. They offer up a serious story. Plenty can be learned about them, especially if you write for kids aged 9-14.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

As I recall, Rowling also had to pitch the idea 3 or 4 times before it was finally accepted by somebody, so a certain amount of persistence also can go a long way.

 

[CupofJoe]

I saw the first couple of HP films before I read the first book.
The films were and are entertaining enough, but I can't remember finishing the book.
It's on the shelf, but I certainly have not gone back for a re-read.
Maybe if I'd read the book and then seen the films I feel differently.

 

[drunkenshoe]

With that in mind, there is plenty of things wrong in HP. How it treats slavery, has a 2-class society, a prime minister who personally gets involved with judging and sentencing a school kid for a small percieved mistake, where the only solution to any crime, big or small, is a torture prison, even without actually having a trial. etc.

But it makes sense that any created world having awful aspects, first because the real one has many. And it exists in every culture, past and present. According to the UN there are more than 30 million people living as slaves today. Secondly, it is handled as the horrible thing it is that has no place in a civilised society; portrayed as the right wing family tradition in the books. People who keep house elves are the people who define themselves as 'pure bloods' and everyone else as outsiders; their inferiors that can be wasted in any way. That's a clear description of Nazism. It's also tightly bound to the main plot because two of the key characters -including the protagonist himself- are outsiders and strangers to Hogwarts and the magic community.

Granger is a muggle born and hell of a witch. She also pursues a cause against the house elf slavery but becomes very frustrated and disappointed about their reaction. At this point, the writer gives a realistic, complex picture of slavery in a nutshell. They are scared to be free because it's completely an uncharted territory for them. They are intelligent, sentient beings; it's a realistic, natural reaction. While Dobby is a brave one to take his life into his own hands, welcomes a risky, difficult existence with his independence, majority of house elves are not. Dobby also gets into depression because he can't adapt to his new life, can't find a job, people won't give any to a free elf. And then there is a character like Kreecher, who is as vile as his masters. This is a realistic caricature of slavery analysed by many philosophers and historians through out the human history. There is also an allusion to another aspect of slavery in the books: the illusion of freedom and safety that comes from not belonging to one of the persecuted groups in a society. People don't want to see what is really going on as long as it doesn't hurt them. These are all real dynamics of human behaviour, in the real world.

Genocide, atrocity, torture, murder... These are inevitable elements for the story the writer is telling. Otherwise, it would be a pink, toothless utopia. And it builds slowly, scale by scale. It starts within a home -where supposedly everyone should feel safe- with bullying. Then in school between friends and friend groups. Then it gets darker and darker. And every time it goes a step further, fear builds up and people get used to it and continue their lives.

Personally, I don't want children growing up away from the monsters and their acts, the darkness. It's not anything epic, or something aside: it's daily life. Humanity, life... It is a huge, bloody, shitty mess.

Anyone remembers the French-Japanese animation series Clementine? A friend of mine told me that her son liked it very much, but she didn't want him to watch it because it is dark. Well, I don't have kids, so I can't pretend to really get it but this feels wrong. I was 15 years old when my mother gave me A Clockwork Orange to read. It wasn't just an 'ultraviolent dystopia', it was an important book to read. I am grateful she never acted in 'protective' or 'right' manner in this sense. Because I believe that's neither protective nor right. And I also believe that children handle darkness much better than adults.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

I also think it benefitted from the movies being made while the books were also still being published. Something about that synergy feels like a huge part of the success to me. We were able to read it and see it on the big screen around the same time and we were still growing up too. I feel like, in more ways than one, the timing was just played beautifully.

 

[Prince of Spires]

As I recall, Rowling also had to pitch the idea 3 or 4 times before it was finally accepted by somebody, so a certain amount of persistence also can go a long way.

Story is that the first HP novel was rejected 12 times before being accepted (note that she didn't pitch the idea, she wrote the book first and tried selling that, which is how it goes for fiction unless you're famous). It also was only accepted because the 8 year old daughter of the publisher got hold of the first chapter and then begged her father for the rest of the book.

Though it should be noted that 12 is a pretty average number of rejections for first novels of best selling authors.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

It could also be that it was just the most compelling series out there for kids at the time. I'm not exactly sure what it was competing with, but, as far as marketing, it had to have been at the forefront of everyone's minds, leaps and bounds above any other book.