I am/was likely far too old to be in the target demographic for Pottermania but they never worked for me. They always felt a little… safe, reactionary even as they drew on a long tradition of British boarding school books without really addressing or undermining the genre tropes or even using it as a means to examine that culture. It then wasn’t a surprise to find out the author had some questionable views didn’t seem a great surprise to me.
mecfs@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I’m so glad I pirated the harry potter audiobooks and didn’t give a cent to this bigot
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 days ago
OrlandoDoom@feddit.uk 3 days ago
It came out when I was 9, so I was part of the target demographic, though I didn’t pick it up til I was 12 or 13 because we read it at school, though by that point I had read most of the Animorphs books, so potter came across as very tame and a bit too childish. I was already dealing with themes of war and genocide and existential crisis and everything else Animorphs threw at you.
Default_Defect@midwest.social 3 days ago
I was the right age for it too, read the first book at school, saw the first movie at some point. It never clicked and I never understood the fervor.
ICastFist@programming.dev 3 days ago
I had the first 4 books and read them around ages 11-13, reading the first two before the first movie came out. I think because none of my classmates at the time had read or watched anything relating to HP, I never really talked about it, so I set it aside after finishing Goblet of Fire, which coincided with the Lord of the Rings movies.
To me, it felt like I was leaving behind a story for kids and getting in on the “real good stuff for adults”
muse@fedia.io 4 days ago
I'm so glad I stopped giving a shit about Harry Potter and accepted that just because a zeitgeist happened in my childhood doesn't mean I should cling to fictional fantasy that hadn't actually done anything novel in the genre or touched upon topics that aren't handled in better novels elsewhere
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Once again, I am tapping the sign for people to go watch the two hour video by Shaun on the subject.
The moral of Harry Potter is that the status quo is correct and should never be questioned, and nobody should ever try to change anything.
Harry doesn’t defeat Voldemort or change any of the issues inherent in the bumbling bureaucracy of the wizard world. Voldemort kills himself on a magic technicality, Harry becomes a magic cop and helps to ensure that magic is never used to help the undesirables of society (Muggles), and Hermione is ridiculed for being a girl with blue hair and pronouns who tried to end the chattel slavery system before she “grew up” and became a much more sensible person who realized that the slaves actually want to be oppressed, and it’s for their own good.
You can see Rowling’s morality change practically in real-time as the books go on, from criticizing the system to defending it as she began to benefit from it as her wealth grew. And underneath it all, you can see her discriminatory opinions of people. That was always there. When she wants you to hate a woman, she makes them fat or gives them masculine features. If I have to read the phrase “mannish hands” one more time, I might vomit.
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Good call, here is a link.
A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Dude I’m saying! Harry Potter was never good, it was just popular
And yeah I read them and watched them, at least the first few. I’m not talking out of my ass. It’s a series with a few imaginative ideas sprinkled throughout otherwise super typical schlock with casually racist seasoning.
Fuck Harry Potter
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Yep, I never understood the appeal besides making kids feel special. It seemed like a water down fantasy which when I criticized people just said read the books.
Ironically I did read the first one before the movies became a big hit. It was an okay children’s book at best.
For some reason we have these unwritten social rules that say you can’t critique certain pop culture icons once they hit critical mass.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Harry Potter is sort of the Classic Lays potato chip of the children’s book world. Dependable, reliable, not the most exciting in the world but any stretch, but easily snackable all the same.
They’re easy to read, not super deep, and because of that, probably got a lot of kids into reading who otherwise wouldn’t have, and there’s something to be said for that. It’s unfortunate that the author turned out to be a bigot the whole time.
bitchkat@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I unfortunately had to watch all the movies because I had a child of the appropriate age range that wanted to watch them. Every last one was boring as all hell. Some of them were even in the theater so I added a little to them being popular. But they were not good.