If you watch Harry Potter backwards it’s about a young wizard who gets sent into witness protection

[rex_dart]

Harry Potter and the Incredibly Conservative Aristocratic Children's Club

Comments

[byandby]

I don't like the comparisons to Philip Pullman. He was preaching to the choir and I still thought his books were awful.

Edit: LOL. I just realized that I used a phrase with a religious reference to talk about atheism. *headdesk*

[notgarystu]

Yeah, I finally got around to reading the His Dark Materials trilogy in its entirety because I figured I might appreciate it as an atheist or something magical like that -- and I had to force myself to finish the damn thing. I kept hoping it would get better, but after the first book, it just . . . falls apart.

[raggedyanndy]

mte. I mean, those creatures with wheels? I was like WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[notgarystu]

Lmao, I actually didn't mind that bit so much, but the books were recommended to me multiple times on the basis of "OMG SO ~SYMBOLIC~" and they're so heavy-handed and lacking in subtlety that it put me off a lot. I liked the plot once I got over how blatant it was, but the way Pullman handled it was . . . boring. Also the way Lyra's character seemed to lose badassery as soon as ~Will~ popped onto the scene was jarring, and the cis- and heteronormativity of it all was kinda meh.

Not to say that it's all written poorly -- he handled perilous/fight scenes nicely and the whole thing with Lyra and Pan almost getting severed in Bolvangar was pretty intense -- but there wasn't enough awesome to carry the whole series, and the prose lacked. The second book especially was bad.

[bostondreamer]

I've been reading the books/watching the movies since I was 7, and I've honestly never viewed them as more than a series that I happened to really enjoy.

[rex_dart]

I enjoy them in large part because I love bitching and being indignant about the things I don't like. And I really love the things I don't dislike. So yeah.

It's the most wonderful love/hate dichotomy.

[bostondreamer]

Quite an interesting stance you have-and I must say, I am the same way about things I don't like.

For me, unless I have to write a report for school, I don't want to look for symbolism and themes and all that stuff in a story.

And maybe I'm not a fan of this article because the HP series was pretty much my childhood and it holds a very special place in my heart, but there are some interesting points raised-I will grant the author that.

[rex_dart]

My gf and I are both big Harry Potter fans, but we have very long, wonderful discussions about the things we don't like, both literary and thematic. Over Thanksgiving we had a very long conversation about all of the things that went wrong in Deathly Hallows, then talked about when we're going to order our house uniforms to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter over spring break.

[odette_river]

Uh, some The Golden Compass spoilers

[odette_river]

Oh, and the whole Dobby thing creeped me out from the moment he was introduced.

[roseofjuly]

Yeah, she seemed like she was trying to say "People shouldn't be slaves even if they're different!" but what actually came out is "Slaves like to be slaves as long as their masters are reasonably nice."

[blamography]

This. That was the first thing that set me off about the series, maybe because I come from idealistic scifi fandom (e.g. Star Trek) where sentience = treated as an equal (and at least the Star Wars EU deals with that a *bit*). And Dobby was definitely sentient.

[bostondreamer]

Pretty much the impression I got from reading the article, tbh.

[rex_dart]

For a lot of people, myself included, fan culture is real life. The author of this article, according to her credits on the source page, appears to write a lot about social issues an fan culture.

[chimbleysweep]

ikr

[azetburcaptain]

ia... it's getting into the whole "I'm so socially aware", and I am not into that.

Nothing wrong with it, and analyzing it, but I'm not into it.

[nikoel]

Pretty much all of this.