Yes, but.. No.
Every day I get a mailing from Amu Garg (whom I've seen at my local library, he lives near here..)'s A.Word.A.Day. I've been getting that email, on one account or another, for almost as long as it's been going on, since 94 (They started in March, I got on that summer.). Anyhow, they used to include what they called the X-Bonus, a short quote, but you only saw that if you had a certain type of email reader, and later changed it to be part of the message. The words are fun, and I wish I could remember even 1% of them, and I love the quotes.
Here is today's:
The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth. -J.K. Rowling, novelist (b. 1965)
It is perhaps no secret that I've long immersed myself in the Potterverse, and aside from the last one, I really do love the books.
Rowling has flashes of genius, I think, but is also self=deluded about her world in a way... well, pretty badly, actually.
The question authority and the press and all that? Yeah. However, just as an aside, since it's not the point I want to make today, if you're going to go against the establishment, be very careful who you listen to. Because if you choose your alternate source of information poorly, you'll end up as misinformed and on as poor a path as the people who listen to the establishment, and you'll think you're right because you're not sheeple. No, you're just an idiot. Anyhow, that isn't the point I wanted to address.
No, that point was the first part of her little self-congratulatory little quote there: [t]he Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry[.] WTF, JKR?
A world where you are "tracked" based on the utterings of a talking hat is tolerant? Where 1/4 of a school community is assumed to be evil and bad, treated accordingly, and nothing is done to bring them back into the mainstream? Oh yeah, Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy are pretty awful even before they're sorted, but puleeze. There is acceptance that it's fine to literally throw away 1/4 of your children. 25% are just evil and we'll deal with them later, kthxbai? That's tolerance? A plea for tolerance in a world where it is never questioned that the best course of action for these kids who apparently come to school with less than perfect character (ie to be sorted into Slytherin) is to throw them all together and let them stew in their lack of upstanding moral character. There is no attempt to change, to teach, just an assumption of bad=slytherin=toss-them-into-their-dungeon-and-don't-attempt-to-teach-them-better-values.
Hermione is mocked for being outraged at the enslavement of house elves. Mocked. Constantly. And we're shown house-elves who, except for the exceptional one, appear to like their enslavement. See everyone? Hermione really is silly, they like to be slaves, why bother with changing that? The ok-ness of this is understated by the fact that Ron, with Harry's unsaid approval, I think, comments on how his mum would love a house-elf. The Weasleys are pretty run-of-the-mill wizards, they're poor but mainstream. They accept slavery as a matter of course. As does Harry. Unless there is abuse of the slave, then of course, Harry doesn't like that. So there is a problem for me there.
Shall we even talk about the kick to the stomach to any fat kid that the descriptions of Dudley Dursley are? JKR has made some very accepting statements herself about fat and young women but in the books? She has fallen into the fat/evil/venal/lazy/etc rut, with Dudley and Slughorn. Dudley especially. I wish I could find the blogpost about a fat mother reading the first book out loud to her young, and fat son, and how she trailed off into tears, and didn't know what to do. It was heartbreaking to read. Fat as an symbol of lower moral character isn't tolerance. I'm fat, not venal, not (too) lazy, not evil, not greedy, not...
Oh yeah, it's a plea for tolerance... one kind of tolerances, towards the impure of blood. Everyone else? Not so much.
[eta] cassandra7 left a comment that is very relevant and adds much to what I wrote above:
She certainly doesn't consider squibs (the name is such a giveaway) equal to wizards, nor does she consider muggles human at all. The treatment of muggles by "good" wizards is totalitarian--just walk into their heads and tamper with their reality any time it's convenient to you to do so. Hermione even does it to her parents. The only people JKR really takes seriously are male, white Gryffindors, who are excused anything, including endless bullying (George and Fred, Sirius and James) and Unforgivable Curses (Harry). But, oh, the points she gives herself for her alleged "tolerance."
Here is today's:
The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it's one of the reasons that some people don't like the books, but I think that it's a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth. -J.K. Rowling, novelist (b. 1965)
It is perhaps no secret that I've long immersed myself in the Potterverse, and aside from the last one, I really do love the books.
Rowling has flashes of genius, I think, but is also self=deluded about her world in a way... well, pretty badly, actually.
The question authority and the press and all that? Yeah. However, just as an aside, since it's not the point I want to make today, if you're going to go against the establishment, be very careful who you listen to. Because if you choose your alternate source of information poorly, you'll end up as misinformed and on as poor a path as the people who listen to the establishment, and you'll think you're right because you're not sheeple. No, you're just an idiot. Anyhow, that isn't the point I wanted to address.
No, that point was the first part of her little self-congratulatory little quote there: [t]he Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry[.] WTF, JKR?
A world where you are "tracked" based on the utterings of a talking hat is tolerant? Where 1/4 of a school community is assumed to be evil and bad, treated accordingly, and nothing is done to bring them back into the mainstream? Oh yeah, Crabbe and Goyle and Malfoy are pretty awful even before they're sorted, but puleeze. There is acceptance that it's fine to literally throw away 1/4 of your children. 25% are just evil and we'll deal with them later, kthxbai? That's tolerance? A plea for tolerance in a world where it is never questioned that the best course of action for these kids who apparently come to school with less than perfect character (ie to be sorted into Slytherin) is to throw them all together and let them stew in their lack of upstanding moral character. There is no attempt to change, to teach, just an assumption of bad=slytherin=toss-them-into-their-dungeon-and-don't-attempt-to-teach-them-better-values.
Hermione is mocked for being outraged at the enslavement of house elves. Mocked. Constantly. And we're shown house-elves who, except for the exceptional one, appear to like their enslavement. See everyone? Hermione really is silly, they like to be slaves, why bother with changing that? The ok-ness of this is understated by the fact that Ron, with Harry's unsaid approval, I think, comments on how his mum would love a house-elf. The Weasleys are pretty run-of-the-mill wizards, they're poor but mainstream. They accept slavery as a matter of course. As does Harry. Unless there is abuse of the slave, then of course, Harry doesn't like that. So there is a problem for me there.
Shall we even talk about the kick to the stomach to any fat kid that the descriptions of Dudley Dursley are? JKR has made some very accepting statements herself about fat and young women but in the books? She has fallen into the fat/evil/venal/lazy/etc rut, with Dudley and Slughorn. Dudley especially. I wish I could find the blogpost about a fat mother reading the first book out loud to her young, and fat son, and how she trailed off into tears, and didn't know what to do. It was heartbreaking to read. Fat as an symbol of lower moral character isn't tolerance. I'm fat, not venal, not (too) lazy, not evil, not greedy, not...
Oh yeah, it's a plea for tolerance... one kind of tolerances, towards the impure of blood. Everyone else? Not so much.
[eta] cassandra7 left a comment that is very relevant and adds much to what I wrote above:
She certainly doesn't consider squibs (the name is such a giveaway) equal to wizards, nor does she consider muggles human at all. The treatment of muggles by "good" wizards is totalitarian--just walk into their heads and tamper with their reality any time it's convenient to you to do so. Hermione even does it to her parents. The only people JKR really takes seriously are male, white Gryffindors, who are excused anything, including endless bullying (George and Fred, Sirius and James) and Unforgivable Curses (Harry). But, oh, the points she gives herself for her alleged "tolerance."