I really enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events when I read them as a kid. If you haven't read them, I'm not entirely sure they'd be worth a revisit as an adult unless you have a child to read it with or particularly enjoy children's literature. There was a lot I liked about this series, and this meme got me thinking about how good they were so I'm going to list a few additional reasons this is a good series.
-Easy to read for about age 11+, but introduces a lot of higher reading level vocabulary in an easy to understand and learn way
-The Baudelaire orphans constantly take Ls, but always encourage and help each other using their unique skills and knowledge. There are many instances where even the infant's skills are shown to be not only useful, but necessary. It provides numerous examples of the orphans (and sometimes their comrades) pooling skills and knowledge to protect and provide for each other.
-As previously stated the orphans are fleeing from one shitty situation to another and dealing with adults that range from outright murderous to well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful or very limited in their ability to help. Unfortunate puts it very lightly to be honest. These kids work their way through it to the best of their ability but the frequency and severity of the situations they go through really are some :doomer: shit. However, they manage to not become dispirited, instead focusing their attention on forming the best plan possible with whatever is available to them. This also provides examples of how facing adversity together strengthens the bonds between the orphans and their comrades, as well as how those bonds are necessary for sustaining hope.
-Even though the story is often depressing, the writing isn't. It has a unique style and is very funny. The narrator and the orphans each show a bit of "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" in their own way.
If you read them, especially somewhat recently, what did you think about them?
the problem rowling has with death eaters isn't that they're wizard nazis, it's that they're uncivil and sometimes wrong about m*dbloods being inferior at wizarding. if mudbl**ds like Hermionie prove that they are one of the good ones, it's ok if they become wizard prime ministers. that's the only halfway substantial critique of Voldemort she's making in the entire series, everything else (being pro-slavery, being bullies who constantly punch down, murdering people, tormenting muggles with wizardry) applies to the noble blairite gryffindors just as much as it applies to the evil nietzschean slytherins. her only real objection to fantasy fascism is that it causes HR to miss out on talented people from marginalized groups who have meritocritically earned not to be treated as subhuman.
A lot of times on this site, people will key in on the minorities getting jobs to make fun of the farce of liberal meritocracy.
‘moar gay black ceos’ congrats, you made sure to remind people of their identity, this will surely stop capitalism.
The more minority CEOs is that in the creation of a minority CEO, no inherent improvements to the rest of the minority group are provided while liberals will sing about how this proves that things are getting better. Caitlyn Jenner being a rich trans person doesn't mean that suddenly trans people are no longer oppressed.
One can make fun of people that sing about the trans military ban being upended while not caring about other trans issues because they just want a more diverse cast of people bombing foreign people. It plays into the fact that to succeed one must assimilate into the dominant culture and let go of their personal and cultural background.
The trans military ban was obviously bad since it designated trans people as second class citizens. Minorities getting positions of power is not inherently a bad thing, but in the systems of power that exist as they are means that any gains are mostly performative and that the systems of power will not allow proper emancipatory rights to marginalized groups as long as these systems exist.