Review - Harry Potter

[wilderthan]

I really don't like Harry Potter. It's one of those little concealed but apparently not widely known facts about me, which shocks everyone when I say I love books and they're all, "yeah, rite, Harry Potter is so awesum rite?" and I say "...no, it really isn't." I confess: when I was eleven or twelve or so, I read them. I also read the Sabrina the

Comments

[first_seventhe]

I'm very interested at more of your thoughts on the "light and dark", although if you haven't read the end of the series, I suppose it'll be limited. Because in my mind, JKR missed a really good opportunity by sticking to her "Gryffindor good, Slytherin bad" thing rather than showing that there are shades of grey in-between. (Although, I guess, with Peter Pettigrew in Gryffindor, there's at least an example... I guess I would have liked to see at least one USEFUL Slytherin.)

[wilderthan]

Do you mind if I continue comparing/contrasting with The Dark Is Rising (I promise I'll make it comprehensible to people who haven't read the book yet)? See, the thing with Harry Potter in the first four books at least is that the morality is just barely there at all. White is white, and black is black. There's no real grey area. That suits children, but it's also possible to write a book in which it isn't black and white, while still being comprehensible to children. I can give you an example from TDIR, if you're interested! In Harry Potter, there's a lack of subtlety/ambiguity, that obviously bugs me about it (although I'll happily read other novels that don't have that content: I guess studying it and it being so popular threw these issues into sharp relief for me).

[misura]

Mmm - for the longest time, I was hoping for Snape to fill that part; the person who seems unpleasant, suspicious and makes it clear he is not impressed by the Boy Who Lived, and is yet on the side of the angels, so to speak.

Happily, this fandom's size is such that even now, I can still find plenty of 'new' fics that take place in some AU where things went differently and Slytherins were, if not good, then at least useful. (Oh, and where Sirius didn't die, obviously, because if you're going AU anyway, why not go all the way?)

Sorry to bump in, just felt like leaving a comment.

[shanaqui]

I take it Snape turned out to be bad in the end, though? I almost want to finish reading the series just to see how it all goes. Maybe I'll just google plot summaries...

[aesriella]

Let me start by saying I agree 100% and more, especially with regards to the morality of the verse

[wilderthan]

Oh, the module title was actually 'the changing language of literature', so there was a lot of going into the insult to the English language business. I didn't want to go much into that without my notes or at least a copy of the book to hand!

Yes: Harry Potter presents a society where everything is just so. J. K. Rowling doesn't as much put the values forward as just make them look true: this is the way life is/should be. It kind of bothered me when Hermione formed S.P.E.W. and it was just a running joke, too. I mean, here's something that essentially either an issue of slavery or at the very least cruelty to animals, and it's dismissed as a joke. But it's okay! House elves like to be enslaved

[muggy_mountain]

Just curious, have you read the final book? Some of the same issues you bring up are addressed in the final book, such as the disturbing relationship between the wizards and non-wizards. Although much of clearly runs parallel to the spiral of systematic racism and dangerous ideals of WW2, it does address that issue very plainly. Snape's worst memory is also given a bit more of a justification. Not that it would or should change your opinion on the series, I just thought it would be interesting fodder for discussion.

[wilderthan]

The Harry/Cho thing didn't convince me when I was eleven; I imagine I'd find it even more threadbare now.

[darthanne]

well said. I've read all of the HP books except the last two basically because I don't like being out of loops. The rest are sitting on my shelf and not exactly high up the reading list - I will read them because I'm a completist and because being a teacher I need to be able to make informed comments on them.

I've always thought Susan Cooper was a far superior writer. Rowling might have got kids reading, but I'd hope they'd then use it for a stepping stone towards something else.

(some of it reminds me of the stereotypes of adults and policemen in the Enid Blyton books actually)

[wilderthan]

I'm a completist, too, which is why it pains me that I haven't read the rest. But I don't really want to for any other reason than a tiny bit of curiosity and that desire to have read the whole series.

Yeah, but in my experience (of being around other people from ages 11-17 who were interested in Harry Potter), they don't. They just stay on the same level. Which is fine with me, in one sense -- if that's all they want to do -- but... I wish people would read more and enjoy it. Sigh.

(I had a great fondness for the Enid Blyton books, but even then I knew they were stereotypical and completely unrealistic.)

[darthanne]

I enjoyed Enid Blyton as a kid, read everything she ever wrote though the Secret Seven annoyed me. But in saying that I outgrew them and moved on and they did help with reading mileage and getting me hooked on reading. There are a lot of HP adult fans out there, and people who read a very narrow range of books. What really disturbed me was during an teaching lecture a lecturer who's specialist area is reading got up and went on about how the HP books are just wonderful and she wasn't meaning just to get kids reading.

[wilderthan]

I reckon that some percentage of people who enjoy Harry Potter do go on to read more, whatever my experience was (quite narrow; I went to a small private school). Just the same as with Enid Blyton, I suppose.

...Oh ouch.

[snakewhissperer]

I've read most of them..and while I enjoyed the first one, after about the third book it decended into 'whining teenage angst' where i really wanted to shake the book to get them to snap out of it

[wilderthan]

The level of the words doesn't trouble me much: it's meant to be a kid's book, after all, and I haven't learnt many new words in my reading since I was quite little. (I read adult books when I was nine -- you know, Asimov, Le Guin, Raymond E Feist, Tolkien...) The most recent was 'insouciance' (and though I wouldn't have used the word, I knew what it meant as soon as I saw it).

Yeah, complete lack of depth, and a lack of realism. To some extent... what are we expecting realism in fiction about a school of wizards for? But on the other hand, suspension of disbelief has to stop somewhere.