Harry Potter and why its world building is so boring? - Avada Kedavra vs M16

[Felis Meanis]

Because only redittors give a shit about world building.

Considering that Joanne Rowling is the very embodiment of a redditor herself, sans the unconditional love for trannies, your argument is niggercattle-tier.

 

[Gorillion others]

"You shouldn't be so discriminatory. Don't call them names! Equality! Tolerance! Everybody is the same!"

"Oh, um, Muggles. They're so odd, with their Muggly ways and Muggly wares. I mean, I don't hate them. Goodness, no! But I can't help but find them to be quite odd and daft. It's really a pity that they don't have magic."

To follow up on this, after realizing just how softly bigoted the "good guy" wizards were, I can't help but find it deserving of all the mockery. The hypocrisy wouldn't even be that biting if they had been blatant or at least self-aware about it, but I suppose that was fair for the time, and that nobody; least of all children, would notice.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

To follow up on this, after realizing just how softly bigoted the "good guy" wizards were, I can't help but find it deserving of all the mockery. The hypocrisy wouldn't even be that biting if they had been blatant or at least self-aware about it, but I suppose that was fair for the time, and that nobody; least of all children, wouldn't notice.

I liked how she sorta realized how fucking horrible it was to literally be like "LOL HERE'S A SLUR WE CAME UP WITH" so she... came up with an even worse slur in "mudblood"
iirc Johnny Depp And The Franchise Of Failure has some other slur, right?

 

[Mega Black]

"Oh, um, Muggles. They're so odd, with their Muggly ways and Muggly wares. I mean, I don't hate them. Goodness, no! But I can't help but find them to be quite odd and daft. It's really a pity that they don't have magic."

Shits on floor then apparates it away.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

I liked how she sorta realized how fucking horrible it was to literally be like "LOL HERE'S A SLUR WE CAME UP WITH" so she... came up with an even worse slur in "mudblood"
iirc Johnny Depp And The Franchise Of Failure has some other slur, right?

Yeah, No-Maj, which was just...hilariously lazy. Muggle was at least kinda creative but No-Maj/No-Magic, are you fucking shitting me?

To follow up on this, after realizing just how softly bigoted the "good guy" wizards were, I can't help but find it deserving of all the mockery. The hypocrisy wouldn't even be that biting if they had been blatant or at least self-aware about it, but I suppose that was fair for the time, and that nobody; least of all children, would notice.

Dan Hemmens on FerretBrain (yeah, yeah, I know they were lefty faggots but not nearly as insufferable as the modern ones) had a pretty good article back in the day talking about Rowling's Calvinist background influencing her HP work in some pretty fucked-up ways, specifically the protagonist-centered morality.

I read Harry Potter when I was a kid so my memory may not be accurate but in retrospect the timeline of the first wizarding war is hilarious. My impression from the books was that when Harry's parents were in school everything was peachy keen and shit went south after they left school and joined Dumbledore's Army, but ultimately it's revealed they died when they were like 21. So does that mean Voldemort gathered an army, rose to power, did all the heinous shit he supposedly did, and was defeated in four years? I guess it's plausible but it seems like J. K. never really thought out the timeline of Voldemort's initial rise at all.

Voldemort being portrayed as this massive threat is kind of undercut by the fact that he apparently never graduated beyond him and his little band of wizard terrorists doing some evil shit that was pretty much exclusively limited to the UK. When I was younger and reading the first four books, I assumed that Voldemort was kinda like Wizard Hitler and was wrecking shit all over Europe and beyond at his peak which honestly would've made for a far more interesting story (and where I assumed things were going after the introduction of foreign magical schools in book four) but I guess Rowling wasn't really all that confident writing about Harry and company fighting a world war against Voldemort and his goons from Britain to Uzbekistan.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

To follow up on this, after realizing just how softly bigoted the "good guy" wizards were, I can't help but find it deserving of all the mockery. The hypocrisy wouldn't even be that biting if they had been blatant or at least self-aware about it, but I suppose that was fair for the time, and that nobody; least of all children, would notice.

Remember, the good guy wizards think it's totally okay to sentence people to a prison on a remote island guarded by giant flying zombie-looking things who mentally torture them their entire stay and are apparently evil but follow orders because they like torturing people or something.

 

[Gorillion others]

protagonist-centered morality.

The entire modern left suffers from this to an absurd degree. It's part of why I fucking hate it. It's also incredibly poisonous to teach to kids, because it just feeds into their latent entitlement and narcissism. That what or who they believe in is right or correct.

The Harry Potter books can be a case study as to why it can stunt a child's emotional development.

 

[Gorillion others]

Voldemort being portrayed as this massive threat is kind of undercut by the fact that he apparently never graduated beyond him and his little band of wizard terrorists doing some evil shit that was pretty much exclusively limited to the UK. When I was younger and reading the first four books, I assumed that Voldemort was kinda like Wizard Hitler and was wrecking shit all over Europe and beyond at his peak which honestly would've made for a far more interesting story (and where I assumed things were going after the introduction of foreign magical schools in book four) but I guess Rowling wasn't really all that confident writing about Harry and company fighting a world war against Voldemort and his goons from Britain to Uzbekistan.

Because, at the end of the day, once you peel away the glitz and glam, Voldemort is laughably, stereotypically, EEEEEEEEEEVIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLL!!!

When in reality, he's hardly unlike a spoiled uppercrust yuppy who didn't get that new car daddy promised him. If anything, any moderately competent wizard can take him on.

 

[NerdShamer]

Remember, the good guy wizards think it's totally okay to sentence people to a prison on a remote island guarded by giant flying zombie-looking things who mentally torture them their entire stay and are apparently evil but follow orders because they like torturing people or something.

I kind of forgotten about what happened with that place, tbh. But it really says something on how nobody really kept an close eye on those creatures

 

[DoubleD]

I read Harry Potter when I was a kid so my memory may not be accurate but in retrospect the timeline of the first wizarding war is hilarious. My impression from the books was that when Harry's parents were in school everything was peachy keen and shit went south after they left school and joined Dumbledore's Army, but ultimately it's revealed they died when they were like 21. So does that mean Voldemort gathered an army, rose to power, did all the heinous shit he supposedly did, and was defeated in four years? I guess it's plausible but it seems like J. K. never really thought out the timeline of Voldemort's initial rise at all.

According to the wiki, the first wizarding war took place in the 1970s, when Harry's parents (both born in 1960) were at school. Their entire secondary education happens during this war. It does not surprise me in the least that flashbacks to the Marauders era fail address this. I'm a little disappointed that the wiki doesn't even give much of a description of what happened during those 11 years of total war. If it was enough to justify a mass celebration when it finally ended, it must have been really bad. But I shouldn't be surprised when my beloved fantasy novels skimp on details.

Voldemort also had a decades-long rise to power in the 40s, 50s and 60s, on account of all the "50 years ago" stuff in book 2, leaving a decades-long gap in the dark lord's CV that Rowling later had to fill with evil stuff. I don't know why Tom Riddle needed 25 years to corrupt his soul and become Voldemort when most trannies manage it in 2. But then again, maths was never JKR's strong suit.

The closest thing Hogwarts has to a maths education is an optional class called arithmancy. Hermione takes this class, but we never get to find out what it involves because JKR doesn't know. She's so innumerate that she doesn't know how many students there are in Hogwarts. She once said in an interview there were 1000, but this number divided by 4 houses, 7 school years and 2 genders (REEEEEEE!!) would imply around 18 Gryffindor boys in Harry's year, even though it's confirmed on-page to be 5 (Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Harry himself). Extrapolating from this sample, we get a school of just 280 students.

According to some fan theories, this is because the birth rate fell dramatically in the wizarding war. There is a reason why fan theories are such a recurring part of this series' lore, and it's this:

The best – and worst – thing about HP lore is that details are so thin on the ground, it's actually very easy to explain stuff away, as Rowling herself has done. Like for example, the plot of book 7 required Harry to be an adult even though, being born on the 31st of July (same birthday as Rowling), he turns 18 at the end of his final school year. So she just made it so wizards come of age at 17 and explained this in book 6. No previously established fact contradicts this. And no mention of his friends having important birthdays earlier that same book, but there almost didn't need to be. The protagonist-centred morality extends to never remembering his friends' birthdays.

 

[Vecr]

Dan Hemmens on FerretBrain (yeah, yeah, I know they were lefty faggots but not nearly as insufferable as the modern ones) had a pretty good article back in the day talking about Rowling's Calvinist background influencing her HP work in some pretty fucked-up ways, specifically the protagonist-centered morality.

https://archive.is/jsD2v (original URL dead) "Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists"

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/2eJPcPoptvP5chjd3/the-puritans-would-one-box-evidential-decision-theory-in-the

https://intelligence.org/files/DeathInDamascus.pdf "Cheating Death in Damascus"
Since J.K. has a Calvinist background, and that suggests EDT, but EDT has problems she would not want her characters to be susceptible to (see the last link), J.K. Rowling supports Functional Decision Theory (FDT).
Q.E.D.

 

[Gorillion others]

https://archive.is/jsD2v (original URL dead) "Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists"

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/2eJPcPoptvP5chjd3/the-puritans-would-one-box-evidential-decision-theory-in-the

https://intelligence.org/files/DeathInDamascus.pdf "Cheating Death in Damascus"
Since J.K. has a Calvinist background, and that suggests EDT, but EDT has problems she would not want her characters to be susceptible to (see the last link), J.K. Rowling supports Functional Decision Theory (FDT).
Q.E.D.

Holy. Fuck!

I just read the FerretBrain archive, and I; I shit you not, found it jarring that the comment section was actually full of genuinely intelligent dialog, and not spiteful woke tripe. Sweet Jesus, it was like going back in time. If a lot of these were leftists, or at least leaning even the slightest bit left, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK HAPPENED?!

 

[Vecr]

I just read the FerretBrain archive, and I; I shit you not, found it jarring that the comment section was actually full of genuinely intelligent dialog, and not spiteful woke tripe. Sweet Jesus, it was like going back in time. If a lot of these were leftists, or at least leaning even the slightest bit left, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK HAPPENED?!

I think people stopped thinking that logical arguments work. The problem is, even if that was somewhat justified, it's self fulfilling. In general, it leads to people making less logical arguments, and people being much more skeptical of the reasonable arguments that still get made, as the good arguments are swamped by bad ones and it's sometimes hard to tell which is which.

Spoiler: off topic

To be clear, what I wrote above is mostly joking. I don't find the "Harry Potter is Calvinist" argument very strong, and the rest of it only even kind of follows if you take that as a given.

 

[Tragon Dirtle]

The ending of GOT nearly torpedoed the entire brand from worldwide fame into a joke, because people didn't find having the throne taken over by a mind-bending sociopathic child to be fulfilling enough in their escapist fantasy, despite the whole point of the series from day one being about exploring grey morality. I don't think Harry Potter ever had the option of not having a very simple escapist fantasy ending once the pressure was on, and that did happen from around book 3, with things gettings progressively less challenging or complex from there.

Also, she was being pelted with accusations of Satanism and corrupting the children at the same time, which does rather incentivise you to be so pro-Jesus you make your main character Jesus if you're a religious type yourself and don't want to tell them to go fuck themselves. The series would have been better if she had, but talking about the series we got as if it's definitely 100% fulfillment of what she set out to write...is funnily enough implying that the end result was predestined to be the way it was.

I think it's interesting that JKR apparently never had any doubts about the book succeeding, but I think that may be exaggerated, like her welfare backstory or writing in cafes to keep warm, she was on the dole but the cafe was owned by her brother in law and she never had to pay to sit there, she would have been okay had it not worked out, it just probably would have caused some inter-family tension. I'm guessing she kind of needed the book to be published to justify being helped by her sister + BIL, to show what she had achieved something while depending on their generosity.

 

[Gorillion others]

I think people stopped thinking that logical arguments work. The problem is, even if that was somewhat justified, it's self fulfilling. In general, it leads to people making less logical arguments, and people being much more skeptical of the reasonable arguments that still get made, as the good arguments are swamped by bad ones and it's sometimes hard to tell which is which.

Spoiler: off topic

To be clear, what I wrote above is mostly joking. I don't find the "Harry Potter is Calvinist" argument very strong, and the rest of it only even kind of follows if you take that as a given.

Yet, it makes for a very strong case of it. The "good guys" follow a very "conventional" form of morality, yet have shown themselves to be quite hypocritical numerous times. Not to an extreme extent, but only enough that a more impartial reader would spot the thread. The article points these out, yet a counter case can be made that they needed to cross certain lines so as to defeat the bad guys, but for the life of me, Rowling's style of writing actually manages to gaslight its younger readers into thinking that the heroes are still "pure" and "moral". That they are right, correct and proper. That the more questionable things they did either never happened, or weren't really that bad in comparison to what the villains did.

At least other stories, like Jujutsu Kaisen, makes it a point that no one thing or philosophy is the be all, end all of anything. Rowling, perhaps from caving to the pressure at the time, refrained from placing any more gray into the story than there already was. She wouldn't or couldn't portray Slytherin as being "misunderstood" or redeemable other than how the Malfoys were already filling that spot. Why? (((Who knows,))) but as an adult, you can't help but notice it.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I kind of forgotten about what happened with that place, tbh. But it really says something on how nobody really kept an close eye on those creatures

I think if a YA author now wrote about a prison like that, it would obviously be a criticism of American prisons and the death penalty, but there's no such commentary like that in Harry Potter (despite it being clear where Rowling stands on that issue). It's just...there. I think it was an attempt to show how distinct the wizard world was from the muggle world like how they play quidditch and all that, but a hellish island prison with demonic guards who telepathically torture people and can theoretically suck out their soul seems like it's on quite a different level.

The protagonist centered morality is pretty clear in this since Rowling wrote them as Harry's enemies, logically they all have to be outright evil and side with Voldemort which begs the question of why the good guys would even bother hiring them as guards.

I don't think Harry Potter ever had the option of not having a very simple escapist fantasy ending once the pressure was on, and that did happen from around book 3, with things gettings progressively less challenging or complex from there.

It's the other way around. Rowling introduced more complex elements starting in Book 3 (like the wizard prison which leads to the oddities I mentioned) but still approached it with the whimsical school fantasy air of the first two books which leads to all sorts of serious topics and dilemmas just kind of being glossed over in favor of Harry (and I suppose Dumbledore) always being right or otherwise finding the right and moral option. The books imply a very complex world, but everything ends up being incredibly simple to the point of being confusing or even disturbingly inappropriate in their implications.

 

[Gorillion others]

I think if a YA author now wrote about a prison like that, it would obviously be a criticism of American prisons and the death penalty, but there's no such commentary like that in Harry Potter (despite it being clear where Rowling stands on that issue). It's just...there. I think it was an attempt to show how distinct the wizard world was from the muggle world like how they play quidditch and all that, but a hellish island prison with demonic guards who telepathically torture people and can theoretically suck out their soul seems like it's on quite a different level.

The protagonist centered morality is pretty clear in this since Rowling wrote them as Harry's enemies, logically they all have to be outright evil and side with Voldemort which begs the question of why the good guys would even bother hiring them as guards.

It's the other way around. Rowling introduced more complex elements starting in Book 3 (like the wizard prison which leads to the oddities I mentioned) but still approached it with the whimsical school fantasy air of the first two books which leads to all sorts of serious topics and dilemmas just kind of being glossed over in favor of Harry (and I suppose Dumbledore) always being right or otherwise finding the right and moral option. The books imply a very complex world, but everything ends up being incredibly simple to the point of being confusing or even disturbingly inappropriate in their implications.

The time turner. Hermione being an incredibly insufferable stand in for Rowling. I never quite grasped how annoying she was until I actually found better female characters (that aren't Sakura). Fortunately, I managed to catch on early enough. It doesn't help that life tends to imitates art with Emma Watson. If she had been humble from the start, well...

 

[NerdShamer]

which begs the question of why the good guys would even bother hiring them as guards.

I think that was passed off as an "cost-saving measure" or something else along the lines. Plus, the wizarding government is more or less just as incompetent as their actual counterparts

 

[Tragon Dirtle]

I think if a YA author now wrote about a prison like that, it would obviously be a criticism of American prisons and the death penalty, but there's no such commentary like that in Harry Potter (despite it being clear where Rowling stands on that issue). It's just...there. I think it was an attempt to show how distinct the wizard world was from the muggle world like how they play quidditch and all that, but a hellish island prison with demonic guards who telepathically torture people and can theoretically suck out their soul seems like it's on quite a different level.

The protagonist centered morality is pretty clear in this since Rowling wrote them as Harry's enemies, logically they all have to be outright evil and side with Voldemort which begs the question of why the good guys would even bother hiring them as guards.

It's the other way around. Rowling introduced more complex elements starting in Book 3 (like the wizard prison which leads to the oddities I mentioned) but still approached it with the whimsical school fantasy air of the first two books which leads to all sorts of serious topics and dilemmas just kind of being glossed over in favor of Harry (and I suppose Dumbledore) always being right or otherwise finding the right and moral option. The books imply a very complex world, but everything ends up being incredibly simple to the point of being confusing or even disturbingly inappropriate in their implications.

No, that's what I'm saying, I think she had a broad throughline of things she wanted to include like the quidditch world cup in book 4, but things got explored with less and less depth over time because of the time pressure / attention that started after book 3, leading to not properly exploring the moral consequences of events/ideas, not necessarily because she didn't want to or felt that there was a clear moral good / bad divide that didn't need challenging. Like the in-depth planning material, the illustrations, the plot grids that show up in photos online - they're mostly book 1, some for 2 & 3, I haven't seen any for the later books, possibly because she never made any and never fleshed out the different plot elements to the same extent.

Also considering how much of HP is alluding to WW2, I think the idea of Azkaban probably came from the Isle of Man Internment Camp, or maybe even Australia. The dementors are explicitly supposed to a metaphor for depression, she's said so in the past, so like I've said before I think you're supposed to see them as symbolically guarding a prison, not how they'd literally function as prison guards or why. I think she includes them as actual magical creatures in the Scamander book.

 

[Mezger7]

HP was one of the most important series of my childhood and I will always feel sentiment for it. I also kina admire Rowling - yes, I don;t agree with all her views, but still I can have some positive feelings for celeberity which so adamantly opposes woke in the scope of the issue which is nowadays considered by the woke The Most Important Thing. But personally, I prefer more low magic setting. Excess of magic makes it less interesting and makes logical worldbuilding difficult.
SPeaking about dementors - it is not like "good guys" use them. They are used by corrupt and ineffective goverment. And it is shown as bad decision, because they betray this goverment at the first occasion.