this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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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).

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Why would owl post even exist when you have magic? Clearly just ambiance. Makes no sense.

How many millions of muggle deaths are on the hands of wizards who could have trivially healed them but didn't? Why does no one seem to care about that? Especially the muggle borns.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

The biggest plot hole is how new spells are even made. It seems all spells are pre-existing and they just study how to do them, not the "science" behind how they work.

We get no doses of "wizarding science" showing wizards testing theories for new spells and throughout the books whether you even need a wand or to say a spell out loud seems to be always in flux based on what is useful to the plot.

In other words the world has no internal consistency. There are not firmly set rules to the world of Harry Potter.

She literally made it up as she went along so it all gets pretty confused and stupid pretty fast.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I remember seeing a YouTube video, talking about all the inconsistencies and "broken mechanics" introduced on HP books, and how they are always resolved two books after, because when a book was published the next one was already going so she had to usa the next one to solve wharever problems fan had found.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I see you and I'm gonna try to pass you.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You might really enjoy reading HPMOR. It's the best fanfic I've ever read. Technically it's the only fanfic I've ever read, but it's great.

Try five chapters and you'll live it or give up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Thanks for this recommendation. Also not a reader of fanfic but have very much enjoyed reading a few chapters.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Small scale: The lack of constant mean pranks. You can't tell me that shitbag kids aren't polyjuicing everyone into dogs and donkeys 20 times a day, and thats the PG version. Ain't no way dudes aren't making their dicks 30 feet long for fun.

Large Scale: Wizarding culture is tremendously trite, shallow, and terrible. They are the worst of humanity with super powers, all because of ...genetics? It's still super privledge eugenics at the end of the day, and Voldemort is just making daylight decisions about everything that the non-DeathEaters blithly comply with every single day.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't get it. I haven't read the books, only seen the movies, but as far as I could tell, there's absolutely nothing special about Harry. He gets swept along, and he has himself no particular virtue to be extolled.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

That's literally what makes it a fucking Tory wet dream. This gets missed on a lot of American readers.

A uniquely special boy (gotta be a boy, this ain't for girls!) from birth, he did nothing to achieve that specialness. Somehow, despite being an orphan, he is actually absurdly rich. Everyone knows of him even though he has done exactly nothing himself to justify it. He is somehow destined for greatness despite being a fucking fumbling, middling wizard. He will be the "hero" by banishing "evil" from the world because everything is in black and white and evil people are always evil and good people are always good and never the twain shall meet. There are never broken people who make mistakes, no, just good or evil.

A boy after Boris Johnson's own heart.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is why I prefer Star Trek over Star Wars. Characters in Star Trek, by and large, work their asses off for what they think is right.

Star Wars, you are born a Lord or a peasant and basically accept your lot.

This is a good read that talks about it https://www.salon.com/1999/06/15/brin_main/

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