this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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Harry Potter
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I also feel like half the reason he won all the damn time is because he literally just had the best broom in existence for most of the matches from his rich godfather. He's also annoying af with all his angst in the later books (especially OotP) with "nooooo my friends don't understand meeeeee I can't talk to anyoneeeee lemme just be an impulsive idiot".
Rowling had some really sinister cultural programming embedded in her brain that comes out in these books, regardless of the trans stuff that surfaced later. The entire magical governing system is hugely corrupt, based on family wealth, and obviously full of fascists, but the focus of the books was that there were bad actors abusing the system, rather than the system being broken from the start.
You could argue that's done for realisms sake, and sure maybe it is, but if the characters never actually meaningfully tackle those issues then you're re-enforcing complicity for the sake of it, rather than enacting change in a corrupt system when you have the power and ability to do so.
That is exemplified specifically by the “rich godfather buys Harry Potter the bestest broom stick” scenario.
Like, I’m pretty sure in Book 2(?) it’s a big deal that Evil Lucius Malfoy evilly outfits the Slytherin team with new broomsticks. Evil when Lucius does it because he’s evil, but okay when Sirius does it because he’s good.
Just like how slavery was bad when Lucius Malfoy did it to Dobby, but okay when Harry had Kreacher as a slave (who he also treated like shit, but it’s fine, Rowling wrote him to be evil and deserve it anyway)
Just like her worldbuilding, morality is whatever Joanne thinks is most convenient for the story she wants to tell.
Ugh yeah the way Sirius treated Kreacher annoyed me so much. Apparently it was completely fine for Harry to have him as a slave as long as he gave him some locket and made poor brainwashed Kreacher feel like he was the best treated slave ever.
JK Rowling's lack of critical thinking is glaringly obvious in everything she has ever written.
There's an old 4chan post about J.K. Rowling and how they only believe in protecting the status quo system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/COMPLETEANARCHY/comments/g0qtew/harry_potter_and_the_limits_of_liberalism/#lightbox
Fuck me if that doesn't describe the issues in those books perfectly.
Umbridge feels like she was based on a woman Rowling personally knew. Don't know much about Rowling past but I wouldn't be surprised if she had a weird messed up childhood
How did they get rich anyway?
Harry's grandfather is supposed to have invented Sleekeazy's hair spray / potion or something to tame people's hair since the Potters have crazy hair lol. It's such a cartoonish reasoning.
It's J.K. Rowling. I expect nothing and she still dissapoints hahaha