YABookgate

[Commissar Fuklaw]

oh, look here's another Trump screed from John Scalzi. That'll sell books.

Trump did a thing, and then I said a thing, and then another thing, and then people clapped.

 

[Flexo]

Spoilers for whorra. There's two episodes in season 2 called beginnings 1 and 2, korra gets amnesia for no reason (I'm not joking) and goes into a trance to see the story of Wan, who was the first avatar (allegedly, according to bryan and mike). He is a not so subtle reboot of Aang's character, with the trickster trope taken to a retard degree. Anyway the plot of the episodes end by retconning the ENTIRE avatar as a concept of basically being a deity who embodies the planet that acts as its defense mechanism to ensure balance between the four elements is kept. Now it is a human-spirit hybrid with this random light spirit called rava and for some reason this dark spirit called vatu will reincarnate every 1000 years and they have to fight him. Along with bending simply being given to humans by the lion turtles instead of being a discipline that humans have to master, this basically destroys the avatar. Also there is a scene where all the previous avatars including Aang are destroyed from existence by vatu when he rips rava out of korra. So now korra is the start of a new avatar line.
It's complete shit writing that totally retcons everything that happened in the last airbender. The reason E;R (look him up on youtube) gives for this is that the head writer of the last airbender was a man named Aaron Ehasz. He is absent from whorra and so bryan and mike (the creators) basically rebooted the avatar because they felt like it wasn't really their creation since Ehasz was the real genius behind avatar's plot and they resented that for some reason. I'm curious to see if any of this makes it into the netflix show.

here's the video.

(I've watched his reviews of the series like a half dozen times)

Yeah it's going to be entertaining to see if the live-action Avatar suddenly clues everyone in to who was really the talent behind the original series.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Trump did a thing, and then I said a thing, and then another thing, and then people clapped.

Trump was on TV and then my six year old child had an extremely coherent take that completely dismantled him.

 

[Kiwisee]

Harry Potter does have political anti-racist metaphor (the villains are obsessed with being "pure-blood" and are opposed to intermarriage with Muggles) but it's done much better than many current YA authors. Rowling manages to get us on the same page regarding the themes of her books, and I think a big part of it is she doesn't have contempt for a large segment of her audience, so it doesn't feel like an angry lecture. A lot of current authors seem to have contempt for the segment of their audience that is white, and it shows.

For example, I know it's a movie and not a book, but I saw a movie on the airplane called The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. In one scene early on, the main black girl is disrespectful to her white teacher. She calls her "Ms. Bitch" and refuses to go to the principal when ordered to. The teacher has to call an officer to haul her out of the room. So the black girl's father comes in and yells at the teacher for being racist. We are supposed to cheer in this scene, we are supposed to AGREE the teacher is racist and bad. But it doesn't make sense - I assume this white teacher wouldn't tolerate a white girl calling her "Ms. Bitch" either. Objectively, the teacher's actions seem color-blind. The people who made the movie are so incompetent that they couldn't even depict the teacher actually being racist - simply having her be critical of the black MC was enough!

That's the core difference imo between the anti-racist messaging of Harry Potter and the anti-racist messaging of Angry Black Girl and stories like it. It's funny that so many of the latter group hate Rowling and want to cancel her. She has more storytelling skill in her little finger than most of them put together.

In Harry Potter, the closest thing to anti-racism was more of a subtext and only became overt when it was story-relevant. Even then, it always looked more like British class discrimination (a real thing that affects British working-class people).

Harry also would speak up against authoritarianism, by outright not going along with whatever Delores Umbridge wanted him to; mainly because it was the right thing to do.

How ironic that the generation who grew up hating on Umbridge more than Voldemort became exactly like her.

 

[Wodanaz]

Harry also treated his friend's concerns over how the race of house elves were treated with good natured contempt. TLDR is that it is in house elves' nature to be enslaved and ordered around: they like it, and basically go insane and depressed when they're dismissed from enslavement. Pretty funny.

 

[Mola Ram]

Harry also treated his friend's concerns over how the race of house elves were treated with good natured contempt. TLDR is that it is in house elves' nature to be enslaved and ordered around: they like it, and basically go insane and depressed when they're dismissed from enslavement. Pretty funny.

And nowadays, given JKR's wrongthink on the transgender insanity, that entire aspect of the story has fallen under new scrutiny and is widely regarded, at least among the crazies who feel betrayed by her, as the vilest racism.

 

[trekkor]

You get a lot of wild theories about house elves and goblins nowadays (they're actually x so that means Rowling -ist/-phobic!), but I figured the whole point of the house elf situation was asking if it was right for Hermione to go full ham trying to "free" them when she could never even confirm if they wanted it. Dobby was treated shit by the Malfoys and of course he wanted freedom from that, but if Dobby had a better life from the start, say as a cook working at Hogwarts, he wouldn't have given two shits about whatever Hermione was trying to accomplish. A lot of what she was doing never questioned if the house elves view freedom the same way as humans do and if the latter should tell them what is, in their own opinion, right. I honestly think Harry got that and that's why he never gave a shit about her going around and screeching for house elves' rights. If she were to raise the question of how the old pureblood families treated them, then it would be another matter and Harry would probably be more sympathetic then.

(I haven't read the books in ages, so some of my details might be off, but Hermione WAS pretty vague about how she'd make the goals of S.P.E.W. actually work, right? I remember she just went around and asked people to wear badges, which is the Wizarding World equivalent of a retweet )

Anyway, I agree that JKR wrote the allegories a lot better. There was the pseudo-racial element of purebloods and mudbloods, but it still has more of a class struggle flavor to it, probably because she's a Brit. You understand that, and she did go out of her way to show shitty people from all sides.

 

[Flexo]

(I haven't read the books in ages, so some of my details might be off, but Hermione WAS pretty vague about how she'd make the goals of S.P.E.W. actually work, right? I remember she just went around and asked people to wear badges, which is the Wizarding World equivalent of a retweet )

It did make some sense that Hermione, as a muggle outsider, was all about trying to upend what appeared to her to be an abominable practice while to those who grew up in the wizarding world it just "was."

I think what sets a lot of people off about house elves is that it's kind of tin eared to a British person, but has a LOT of uncomfortable undertones with some of America's racism in the past. That's a whole essay just waiting there but on the whole people could realize that America isn't the center of the universe and people will see things differently from us.

 

[Tootsie Bear]

The issue with YA is they made the same mistake the comic book industry did.

Letting childless middle aged women and the fags take over, but also forgetting thier core market (kids) in favor of a lucrative but short lived older one.

For comics it was older nerds and divorced dentists. So we got reboot after reboot, grimdark "mature" stories and endless gimmicks like variant covers.

Issue is... there's would always be another generation of kids to pick up comics off spinner racks. There was only ever a smaller, shrinking group of nerds willing to pay $10 for a varient cover where Power Girl shows more cleavage. Even fewer who will pay $10 to have some mentally ill damger hair have Superboy get fucked by a Kpop star.

For YA? Harry Potter and Twilight. Chasing that one two punch killed so much of publishing, for reasons outlined here - swapping cheap affordable paperbacks for $30 hardcover doorstoppers - and not - swapping the massive market of young boys and men for a dwindling number of genderqueer cat ladies who flick thier beans to Edward Cullen and think every Republican is Voldemort was a disaster.

It's too late for the comic book industry to recover. Jury is out on publishing.

It's still a culture shock when I see people comparing book series like Harry Potter as YA rather than children. For me I was introduced to the franchise when it was both new and published by Scholastic in America. I lost interests up to the Prisoner of Azkaban. Not a bad book. I just couldn't connect with Harry. He came across as a whiny spoiled child that the reader was supposed to identity with but I just found his inner monologue annoying and the world building to be too unbelievable to have taken seriously.

Once the final movie was released on home media I decided to revisit the series. I found it fun but it was a chore. More work than reward. I did appreciate keeping majority of the same cast for all eight movies. It really helped me imagine what the characters of the books looked like. When Hermione is described as only having bushy hair and buck teeth it doesn't give much on what this character looks like. Does she look like Emma Watson or Bugs Bunny in drag?

My main issue was that since Harry Potter was overly popular it was akin to a new age religion. Not since Star Wars have I seen a franchise worshiped by the general public. I have always found that to be a killjoy. It's not enjoying the movies with a bucket full of popcorn and that childhood wonder of fantasy. Now it's the drama of adults who take Harry Potter as the Bible and J.K. Rowling as God. Like you mentioned Republicans are Death Eaters and Trump is Voldemort. What happened to that childhood innocence? Are today's kids supposed to read books were adults are more childish than the kids, the kids too mature and other mature themes that would had raised a red flag or two in the 90's.

 

[TapewormSalesman]

Hermione WAS pretty vague about how she'd make the goals of S.P.E.W. actually work, right? I remember she just went around and asked people to wear badges, which is the Wizarding World equivalent of a retweet

She went beyond that, and became arguably malicious. She knitted a bunch of clothes and left them hidden under trash all over the common room, so that the elves would accidentally pick them up while cleaning and get freed involuntarily. The elves are so fed up with this that Dobby has to cleen the place all alone and takes all the clothes for himself, because other elves refuse to set foot in there.

 

[Mola Ram]

I think what sets a lot of people off about house elves is that it's kind of tin eared to a British person, but has a LOT of uncomfortable undertones with some of America's racism in the past.

Personally I thought the whole house elf backlash was one of those brain-dead outrages that are a result of people who can't distinguish reality from fantasy, or more specifically folklore. House elves were pretty clearly based on various tales of helpful household spirits, fey creatures and the like, whose entire existence springs from a concept or a cause. Forcing them to line up with some real world group is no different from the brainworms infecting D&D that insist orcs are obviously black people.

"Harry Potter goblins = Jews" is a little easier to argue, but it's the same basic issue.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

How ironic that the generation who grew up hating on Umbridge more than Voldemort became exactly like her.

This is the same generation that wanted to be like Hermione only to twist her intentions into something else (although as @TapewormSalesman pointed out, she had her batshit moments as well). Hermione was the proto-SJW, but as far as I can tell, she grew out of it/changed tactics that weren't stupid.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Trump was on TV and then my six year old child had an extremely coherent take that completely dismantled him.

 

[Wodanaz]

My main issue was that since Harry Potter was overly popular it was akin to a new age religion. Not since Star Wars have I seen a franchise worshiped by the general public. I have always found that to be a killjoy. It's not enjoying the movies with a bucket full of popcorn and that childhood wonder of fantasy. Now it's the drama of adults who take Harry Potter as the Bible and J.K. Rowling as God. Like you mentioned Republicans are Death Eaters and Trump is Voldemort. What happened to that childhood innocence? Are today's kids supposed to read books were adults are more childish than the kids, the kids too mature and other mature themes that would had raised a red flag or two in the 90's.

Even though some libtards have left it behind, they should have done so long ago. It is because they never graduated to better books, and never taught their children and friends to do the same, that we arrived at the current state of publishing. Harry potter is fine but like you said, it's for children. The shock of reading about cedric's death in book 4 probably scared most children but adults already knew older books that handled death better. These children are grown and are only just realizing that Rowling was a hack, but for the wrong reasons.

They seem to think it is because she is transphobic. In reality, it is because Harry Potter is the dullest franchise of all time. Seriously each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.

Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the books were good though
"No!" The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."

That's what the phrase usually means, though, to "stretch one's legs" is to go for a walk.

Reusing it repeatedly in writing as if to avoid saying "walk" does get bothersome, though, I agree. Which is funny 'cause Rowling never came off to me as someone who would abuse the thesaurus.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

That's what the phrase usually means, though, to "stretch one's legs" is to go for a walk.

Reusing it repeatedly in writing as if to avoid saying "walk" does get bothersome, though, I agree. Which is funny 'cause Rowling never came off to me as someone who would abuse the thesaurus.

She's the only writer in the last 100 years to use 'ejaculate' instead of 'exclaim' in a children's book.

"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating.

 

[Mola Ram]

She's the only writer in the last 100 years to use 'ejaculate' instead of 'exclaim' in a children's book.

At one point one of the Weasley twins mentions how the two of them "managed to keep our peckers up," which must have been quite jarring for the American audience.

 

[Wodanaz]

That's what the phrase usually means, though, to "stretch one's legs" is to go for a walk.

Reusing it repeatedly in writing as if to avoid saying "walk" does get bothersome, though, I agree. Which is funny 'cause Rowling never came off to me as someone who would abuse the thesaurus.

It's a copypasta, that doesn't happen.

Anyway, if anyone should find that review of HP that Stephen King allegedly wrote, please post it. I looked around and found this article written by Harold Bloom which is where the famous last line of the pasta comes from, but couldn't find the actual review itself.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

It's a copypasta, that doesn't happen.

Anyway, if anyone should find that review of HP that Stephen King allegedly wrote, please post it. I looked around and found this article written by Harold Bloom which is where the famous last line of the pasta comes from, but couldn't find the actual review itself.

Kek, that's egg on my face, though I've never seen it before. From 20 years ago, damn.

 

[FuckMeGentlyWithAChainsaw]

Anyway, if anyone should find that review of HP that Stephen King allegedly wrote, please post it.

He reviewed Order of the Phoenix, not sure he reviewed any of the rest.

If teaching life lessons is one of the jobs books do, then the Potter novels teach some fine ones about how to behave under pressure. And Rowling never preaches. Harry and his friends strike me as real children, not proto-Christian tin gods out of a Sunday-school comic book. Hogwarts School is a long way from Bob Jones University, which is one of the reasons right-wingers decry the books.

Also, I don't think anyone posted the source for that “stretched his legs” meme, it's a article from a Yale professor.