In all seriousness, this is what happens when you write novels without doing any world-building and just put down whatever seems "fun". The are sooooo many things in that series that make no sense once they are superceded by later plot devices. Rowling didn't think any of it through ahead of time and gave almost no thought to internal consistency with previous content when she wrote new things.
It's honestly a terrible series in most regards and it's kind of disappointing how popular it became.
Also she a trans-hating bigot. Fuck J.K. Rowling. Can't forget that part whenever discussing her or her work.
Rule of cool supersedes making sense. Yeah there’s a ton of nonsense, but you called it yourself, it’s fun. That’s all that matters.
Fun and atmospheric. Kids love it and that's ok.
Yeah, I enjoyed the movies I saw as a kid, but it's so painfully mediocre watching it now. And that is before factoring in the garbage human who wrote the books.
All true, though i still found it fun to read when the books came out. At that age my critical thinking skills were not as developed yet, and since that age group is the intended target audience the popularity is not that surprising.
Yes, I liked it too but I'm not under the false impression that's it's a genius work. It's a kids book that kids like and many adults enjoy too.
She's a hateful awful person. Many people are.
I mean, I totally get it. There is just better stuff out there and it sucks that she got lucky when otherr, better authors don't
Yeah. There's a fan-fic I read recently (also the only HP fan fic I've read) called "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality," which is set in an alternate universe in which Harry is raised by perfectly pleasant folks with an understanding of the scientific method, and arrives in the wizarding world and immediately starts deconstructing all the bizarre nonsense going on there. It's very well done, but it's really hard to recommend precisely because it does refer back to a ton of the stuff that's developed in the books, so I had to keep looking up stuff I didn't recall, and I don't really want to devote brain space to that stuff. (Some of the "rationality" stuff has aged a little bit poorly through the replication crisis, too, though I'm a bit more forgiving of that since it talks so much about updating your beliefs.)
But for anyone who did read the books back when and was frustrated at times by the characters behaving so irrationally, it's kinda cathartic in that way. For those who are interested: https://github.com/rrthomas/hpmor
Way back, years ago, and if memory serves...
There was short story about Harry Potter in a Disney Adventures magazine one month and I think that was supposed to be all there was as far as the story. The popularity of it may have had JKR rushing to build a more in depth story and throwing anything in it that seemed whimsical and fun to a kid, regardless if it made sense.
This is what I tend to say to people about Harry Potter as a series. It was the first series like it to become popular, and that's its only merit. Overall it's very tame and bland, but it got lucky and became popular. I didn't like it because it was too same-y. After book 3 or so, I don't care about Harry Potter anymore. Explore someone else that's more ordinary. It makes a much better setting for derivative works, which to me as someone who writes textbooks of lore for RPGs is more important than just making a series sell well.
Im pretty sure its because they were trying to keep him on campus to keep him safe and used that as a bs excuse and he didn't realize it until later cause he's a kid. Idgaf about Harry Potter, haven't picked up a book in 20 years, but I remember this.
Yes, as there was a killer on the loose, suspected to be super crazy and in the area. In which case, would it be safe for the other kids?
It's not logical whichever way you look at it.
It's because they thought Black was going for retribution on Harry so they probably figured that he was largely laser focused on him. Though he did blow up a bunch of folks in their eyes so that logic doesnt really hold water.
TLDR: Rowling dumb and doesn't even think things through within the same book.
Spot on. Sirius Black escaped an inescapable prison for the sole purpose, it was widely believed, of murdering Harry. The permission slip was just a convenient excuse to keep Harry protected.
RE: idgaf, you're allowed, you know. You can love the art but dislike the artist. Or like the artist if you wish. I'm personally indifferent to Rowling but consider the Harry Potter series to be clever and highly entertaining. I find it much more engaging than The Silmarillion.
Also, people are too eager to cast judgement on each other, and too often forget that people have layers, like onions. Or a parfait. My dad was a Fox News, AM talk radio, Facebook propaganda cult follower whose politics were buggered beyond repair. He occasionally spouted racist or bigoted or otherwise insensitive bullshit. He was also a model father and husband, selfless, generous, kind, soft spoken, and loved by everyone who had ever met him. To know how eager much of the world would be to cancel him for his political beliefs breaks my heart, and I'm grateful he was horrible with technology, well-shielded from the summary judgement of social justice warriors.
if my parfait or onion has a shit flavored layer in it, I’m throwing the whole thing into the trash
especially if that parfait then uses it’s vast wealth to make more of the world shit flavored
She literally funds transphobic hate groups the fuck you mean to egear to cast judgment.
Crappy writing <3
To be fair (while much of the writing is definitely shitty) they wanted to keep him in the school non-stop at this point because the people out to get him were becoming more prevalent and his enemies more powerful. So the intention to keep him safe.
But she probably could have directly said that. Most of the problems in the book could have been solved or entirely avoided if Harry would have listened to what he was told by Dumbledore and others
IIRC McGonagall does say something similar in the book. The movie just leaves it out. Harry asks if she could sign it, and she says something along the lines that she can't, because she's not his guardian, and she also wouldn't anyway because she doesn't think he should leave the grounds.
Honestly, it goes with the poor writing that she says it too. She really hammers in the point that he's supposed to be scared of Black, because she doesn't trust the reader to remember it for the twist I guess.
That's really not true. Here are counter examples in each book:
- The stone was safe with his help, and Quirrel probably would've gotten it eventually w/ Voldemort's help
- The school would've been closed and Voldemort would've returned as Tom Riddle's memory
- Buckbeak would've died, and that's about it
- You win this one; Harry would've lost if he didn't cheat and Barty would've needed another plan
- Not sure if there's a way to get Harry's prophecy without him, so maybe you win this too?
- He basically does what Dumbledore wants the whole time
The real issue is that the adults all suck. Surely an adult could design challenges a few first years couldn't crack, or figure out where the entry to the chamber of secrets is. If Harry followed their rules, things could've been much worse because the adults are largely incompetent.
For the benefit of the many non-Brits complaining about how unrealistic it is: the Leaving School Grounds Unsupervised form is (when I grew up at least) a huge social divider and Big Deal in a lot of British schools. There was a whole micro industry at mine where the ~70% of kids who were allowed out would provide delivery services for sweets and pop for the 30% who weren’t.
JKR didn’t just pull this whole thing out her ass, it was something that most British kids will have instantly related to. (She’s still an awful human mind)
We had something similar, but it was for a specific reason, like going to a job (we had an OJT class) or attending classes at the local college. It was only available in the last two years of high school too.
There wasn't a weird industry or anything, kids would just skip if they wanted to, and nobody policed the lunch hour or anything. But it's kinda similar I guess.
I find it hard to believe that a school that has the students fight world level villains on their own while the teachers do fuck all would be hung up by a permission slip.
His legal guardians do not consent to him even attending the school in the first place, to the extent where he needs to be broken out to attend every year. But no field trip.
looks like the magic world's lawyers were just as bad as their muggle counterparts, tbh.
way worse, in fact, when one reads about all the wizengamot proceedings.
I did wonder why they needed permission from the people forced to let him go in the first place
What was her problem? She was badly-written.
Great teachers are constantly, and exponentially victims of overbearing administration. School administrators tailor to the worst, most immature parents who (I hope) don't realize they are causing a situation where kids can run rampant and completely ignore their education. We do that because the school administrators aren't there because they like kids or see the value of education. They are there because they have a high paid job that they don't really need to work at if they can placate a small handful of very vocal parents and mostly keep up on paperwork and meetings. Those parents are going to figure out just how shitty they've been when their children get to college... College does not have to give a fuck. We've known this for a while. We keep removing rights from the teachers so that administrators don't have to deal with any harsh situations. That might be specific to Ontario but honestly the sheer amount of people working in education here while people in need get denied access to the MANY programs we have makes me think like they're just ignoring us and then bragging about having summers off and going home at 3pm.
I am not being harsh toward teachers. Quite the opposite. It's those involved in education that have little to no experience in it that are clinging to cushy administrative jobs that I take big issue with.
She didn't want to undermine parental rights for, you know, reasons.
The doom is not doomed.
Awesome guitar riff starts in the background
bad writing from an uncompassionate TERF dip shit loser. thats why.
"the wizards used to shit on the floor and magic it away before they discovered toilets"
fuckin' drunk.
I think the castle is really neat and cool and fun to explore in the video games
