Y’know, the books/movies about wizards and whatnot. I have heard of it, but weirdly never read a book or (vaguely, can’t remember) watched a movie of it. Just curious on what are your thoughts on it?
I never read the books. I didn’t watch any of the movies until recently. They are reasonably entertaining enough, but certainly not worth being a cornerstone of western culture. Plus Rowling is absolute trash.
I remember thinking the goblin bankers seemed a little tone deaf (at best), and it looks like I’m not the only one who thinks that.
Surely there are better book franchises out there in the genre?
Surely there are better book franchises out there in the genre?
If you mean fantasy, literally all of it. For example, books 4-6 of Dragonriders of Pern have very similar vibe (no magic though), but are infinitely better. If you mean teenage books, i enjoyed Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series quite much.
I mainly read non-fiction these days. When my daughter is a bit older, I’ll recommend that she look into the Flanagan books instead of HP.
The worst witch is essentially Harry Potter without the classism/racism/shit writing and the author even called Joanne out for essentially stealing every single idea for Harry Potter from her.
E.g. the main characters being three social outcasts at a witching school where the nasty kid is a platinum haired high society witch who’s a snobby piece of shit. Literally just stole all the big notes of the books from worst witch.
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Neoliberal shit, watch Shaun’s video on it
Decent vid, but its so hard to watch Shaun sometimes, he is an anarchist g*mer after all. He devotes a big part of this to “anti-authoritarianism”.
Ehh is he an anarchist gamer though? I don’t really think so
I was really into it from like second to fifth grade, then I read the cursed child which kinda ruined it for me. Now after the terf thing, looking back on it I realized how messed up the whole lot is. The plot holes, the bigotry, the convoluted good guy/bad guy narrative, and the liberalism. Shaun has a great video on it.
Yes! Not only is her TERF mindset deplorable, but there is so much wrong with her writing itself!
It suck. I read thousands of books, many of them fantasy and i’m very tolerant to bad writing and bad worldbuilding and HP one of not many books i just stopped reading at half first book because it was just so incredibly cringy i got second hand embarrasment for author all the time.
It’s also plagiarism from some 80’s books about witch school.
Now I remember why it always looked so familiar.
I’ve seen that on tv in the late 1990’s.
I read a large amount of fiction, about 2-3 books a week, mostly scifi and fantasy. I’ve read the first two books way back when they were first popular and all I can say is that they are direct rip-offs of several books in and out of the scholomance subgenre and are poorly written to boot.
Could’ve been an interesting world if Rowling wasn’t a “blood and soil” pro-slavery TERF inserting nonsense into the lore.
well, thats a tale written by and for modern bourgeois.
It was a funny moment, when I realise that all this crap in last book abour heritage and family ties is a bullshit for ordinary people.
Blah-blah-blah, you’re a Godric Gryffindor’s heir, Harry.
Blah-blah-blah, Dark Lord is a heir of Salazar Slytherin, see this family tree?
Shit, Joan Rowning trying to push a sentence about “blood destiny”, where if you have a “good one” ancestor you are good too.
That they were always informed by Rowling’s trash politics and bigotry
They’re pro-slavery lol
Loved them as a kid and even a teen, read them more times than I cared to admit. Was very emotionally invested, it was my primary source of extreme escapism.
As just a regular guy, I would say they are still entertaining and imaginative.
As a communist, I will say they are ridden with standard bad takes and that the author is a total POS who basically stole the book idea and has wasted her adult life obsessively hating trans women.
I cannot ever ignore the massive impact on me in ways that would take an essay to describe. But I don’t know if I could ever recommend it to another person, even with a big fat asterisk.
Rowling is disgusting and she deserves all the hate she gets.
I watched those movies when I was little when they were on TV, now couldn’t care less, and only interesting part to me are mythical creatures/monsters. I also played Lego game of it also.
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit is real shit even if still not perfect, don’t bother with Harry Potter.
I don’t like it and I would be better off knowing nothing about it
This’ll be unpopular:
They were some of the first books I ever read, I grew up reading them and they’ve created a life-long love of books and reading in me. Reading those books as a kid under the blanket, using a small torch, digital watch or my gameboy as reading light are some of my favourite childhood-memories and the franchise will always invoke those memories for me. They’ve been a comfort during difficult times as a teen and adult and they continue to be just by sitting on my shelf.
I think they’re both overhyped and overhated by the fandom and the “haters”, they’re comically overanalyzed due to their popularity and because the author is a POS.
That said, the world-building has gigantic flaws and ages quite poorly. It’s YA literature, but man these books are littered with plotholes, logical inconsistencies and open questions. JKR’s focus was on creating a quirky, whimsical, lovable world and tell a cute story, not to build a perfect parallel universe with a logically consistent magic system. Also when in doubt “well magic”. That’s fine as a kid, as an adult it pisses even me off. The author’s also a massive lib and while she consciously builds in systemic problems in the wizarding world and sometimes explicitly makes them big plot points, she’s obviously an individualist, not a structuralist, and doesn’t really resolve these issues systemically. The characters stories get a conclusion, therefore the world got one too. I don’t find it that super annoying as just a reader, but as a Marxist it’s…unfortunate.
The movies are overproduced big-budget Hollywood bs and suffer from the same problems all series do. Different directors, screen writers, etc. No consistency between them at all, neither in style nor story telling. Honestly no idea how anyone has any clue what the fuck is happening in them without knowing the books well. The fantastic beasts series is fucking dogshit. Wouldn’t recommend and won’t ever watch another minute of it
There’s better fantasy out there, better literature and most definitely much better movies. I still love 'em and will continue re-reading them
As a kids book? Was ok. I read them all as a younger person. They were entertaining. I only watched one of the movies and it was awful so I never watched any of the others. Looking back you realize how fucked up it all was. Like the elf slaves (they were elves right?) And how they liked being slaves or some shit. And how wizards, while supposedly supposed to be smarter and better than normal humans are also dumb as fuck and don’t have a concept of basic technology.
I have a friend who made every aspect of their newborns child’s life Harry Potter themed and it was super cringe. Like I’m surprised they didn’t have a little scar tattooed on him or something.
With a more critical mind than my child self the books are problematic shite.
