TW: Harry Potter
Was Harry Potter Ever Good?
No
Video discusses flaws of the Harry Potter works by J.K. Rowling with comparisons to how other fictional YA novels/tv shows handled problematic topics.
I'm kind of intetested in how Harry Potter became huge in the first place. Because no, it never was good. Kids don't know any better because there's no reference point for them obviously, but there was a massive amount of adult fans which is a huge ? for me.
I was too young at the time to really debate someone on what books were good and which were slop/drivel, and by the time I was old enough, it's popularity and marketing machines were already peaked. I remember crying when pottermore gave me the wrong house. Much is obvious in retrospect, but it would be nice to see what someone who was an adult at the time and saw things as they were, in historical context, could fill us in on how this incident spiraled out of control.
The best I could guess tho, it was "good enough", got some heavy luck, right-place, right-time. You couldn't repeat the success today because most YA competitors just do most things better.
i was about 19 when the Harey Porber thing was popping off. for a fear years, i used to hang in a chain bookstore cafe near my house to read on days/mornings/evenings off, and made friends with several of the staff. it was in a sort of slow half-decaying strip mall and quiet. except on the book launch night, when it was suddenly a nuthouse.
most of the adult worker commentary on it was like, "its intense, but it's good kids are reading". but it had all the hallmarks of an incredibly organized national marketing campaign. like it seemed to come out during those seasonal public school reward programs for reading books / getting pizza, and the bookstore franchise was all geared up for it with corporate directives on how to layout the store, games that could be played, and keep the line moving once sales started. i have to emphasis how dead this big bookstore was. like the regulars were people who got coffee+newspapers, and transients that took the wrestling mags into the bathrooms to have a quiet, undisturbed beat off.
nobody on staff had ever heard of this prior. most thought it was going to be another corporate failure, but at like 730 or whatever suddenly the mostly dead strip mall parking lot is PACKED and kids in costumes are flooding in, running around, being wizards or whatever. i skedaddled immediately, because it was not a quiet place to read that evening.
i was way too old to be interested in a kid's story about a magic middle school kid. it was absolutely marketed as a kids book for kids. i only ever watched the movies, because special effects are cool. i remember the little kids getting older as time went on, talking about how the kids in their stories were older too and the themes were darker and characters they liked DIED! that was like around the time i was reading about the Red Wedding or Oberyn Martell getting his skull crushed by The Mountain That Rides and was like 🙄
for reference, when i was in 8th grade (age 13), this is the sort of book my public school teacher had us reading.
kids in costumes are flooding in
my friends and I dressed up as witches for the last 3 book releases, and several of the movie releases, and even after highschool, we weren't the oldest people wearing customs to these things.
Wasn’t an adult at the time, but a bit too old to get into it either. So I didn’t have the fully fleshed out perspective, but the impression I got was that it was drawing in adult readers who weren’t already fantasy readers and ergo not familiar with the tropes and stereotypes of the genre. So the unoriginal elements appeared novel to them.
As far as why this particular series: my best guess is that it came down to the marketing. Maybe invoked some nostalgia in adult readers for older novels/series like Narnia.
It was the advent of the internet and discussion forums, blogs, and fan fiction.
It was a combination of actually being good for the first couple of books, marketing push from Scholastic after it’s breakthrough success in the UK, and being able to connect to kids in ways other books weren’t at the time.
Harry Potter was never pushed in schools and so we read older classic and Caldecott Medal books. Here comes a story that’s about school, the thing you’re stuck in, but with wizards. Every kid would rather be casting spells than doing regular school work so the concept alone got the kids hooked.
This was also around the time of the Pokémon craze and I wouldn’t be surprised if Scholastic was hoping for something similar with Harry Potter.
I feel like there was also a lot of parental concern (or something) about how kids aren't reading enough and we're becoming more illiterate.
I don't really remember having a huge amount of control over what books my parents bought me, so idk how much influence kids choices would be until after the first couple of books. After that though, network effect
Check out the Shrieking Shack podcast, in early episodes they go into the history of it a bit
I think it was just a "right place right time" phenomenon. YA books were going to explode into a genre and become what they are now no matter what, Potter was just there with the right story targeting the right audience to open the door.
Ya books have always been a thing. George mcdonald was writing the stuff in the mid 19th century.
It pisses me off when people say harry potter made kids begin to read. Thats the advertising for the series but its bullshit. Because ya literature has always been there and because harry poter readers never read another book.
It pisses me off when people say harry potter made kids begin to read
Yeah, that always felt like some bs advertising shit. "Wow, kids have never read before! Why did no one ever think to write books for kids until just now!" Absolute Reading Rainbow erasure
Why did no one ever think to write books for kids until just now!
I can imagine standing inside my middle school's actually-rather-huge library with books for kids of all ages and hearing somebody seeing Harry Potter for the first time and saying this lol.
I also wonder how it got that big, especially since HP was kind of the last of its kind of this type of YA novels that are just about a bunch of kids doing things to really get big. Later stuff was more about horniness like Twilight or dystopia like Hunger Games. Although I don't even know if Twilight was intended as a YA novel, or if it was so badly written it de facto became one.
I mean I was a kid but I had already started reading The Hobbit in the fifth grade and then The Lord of the Rings in the sixth grade before the movies came out, so by the time I started reading Harry Potter also in the sixth grade I already felt like it was good but not great. But my grandma bought them for me because she knew I liked Tolkien's books so I read them all each time she'd buy them for me. She was really sweet about it so I always feel like a jerk when I shit on Harry Potter books like this because I feel like an ungrateful little brat. Haha She'd understand though.
But, honestly, I feel like the last book was the most interesting to me.
The secret to the success of Harry Potter, fittingly, is kinda hiding in plain sight.
The first 4 books and even the later ones to a less extent at their core are just well camouflaged "whodunnits". They're mystery books with a magical whimsical twist.
The world building was never good or cohesive...but that actually didn't matter cause the mystery at the core of each book was tightly written enough and the reveal was always reasonably well telegraphed. The entire series and all of its bloated lore completely fell apart once Rowling stopped doing that.
Those are my thoughts as well. They reminded me of a Roald Dahl story and the mysteries gave each book an episodic feel like the Hardy Boys. Goblet of Fire is where everything goes downhill and most criticisms I’ve seen of the series start with that book and beyond.
I read the books as a kid and forced my way through the 4th book, then completely gave up halfway through the 5th book. All I can remember is that Harry Potter started being a stupid little shit instead of the straight man/insert.
I actually just reread most Dahl’s books last summer, and she owes so much to him. Like, he uses the word muggle, even!
Movies were entertaining enough, world is kinda cool, but JK had to unnecessarily taint her own legacy.
Not really, no.
I was the prime age range for the books as a kid. The first book was decent as YA books go in the sense that it crafted an easily digestible, yet whimsical world with interesting enough characters. It was clear though that JKR had no long term story plan beyond Voldemort Bad as she had to pump the books out to keep up with the movie production schedules. After the fourth book the story is basically nonsensical.
If there were no movies made in which the world literally watched three cute white kids grow up from preteens to full fledged adults it would have died after the first book if it had to survive only on its own merit. Even with the movies, only the first three are any good.
disclaimer: i'm not watching all that so congratulations or sorry that happened to you
for kids/YA books, it's fine. nothing amazing, and it didn't earn its widespread success on merit, but acting like it's uniquely bad because the author is a shithead and libs are in love with it is silly
still blown out by Percy Jackson, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and The Caretaker trilogy (Did anyone else read the caretaker trilogy? shit was dope)
Percy Jackson is just an inferior version of "Erik Menneskesøn". No that doesn't make sense, but it's the truth.
I don't know what the video's critiques are, but no it isn't uniquely bad cause of terf writer. There are legit criticisms to be made. I've read only fifth and small amount of the fourth book. I couldn't stand the writing in the fifth. Granted I watched all the movies. Still my main problems with it are : 1) that its world is shallow and uninteresting. 2) For a series centered on witchcraft its magic is not even well fleshed out or developed. That's some off the top of my head.
but no it isn't uniquely bad cause of terf writer
the video does mention that there is almost no positive representation of minorites, demonstrates that what little there is problematic, examples of JKRowling missing opportunities for good representation, and examples of JKRowling attempting to retcon representation in after the series was over. Then the video gives examples of other authors succeeding for comparison.The video essentially says that the books series is like a Thatcherite monument to the status quo, which is reflected in the overarching story and (lack of) progression for most characters, which is to say, her ideology may actually be the root that which the rot stems from.
Yes but have you considered that I enjoy listening to youtubers dunk on the world's most prominent TERF for being a terrible writer all along?
I lost interest when I had to read about all the characters "snogging"
looks like someone isn't a thongpilled Angusmaxxer
HP is good in its worldbuilding
Sometimes, but sometimes it's really bad. Like time turners.
Its not good. The version written by an insane man from silicon valley manages to be less reactionary. But when you are a dumb kid you dont know better. The books got pushed because of marketing.
Fuck it I'm saying it. I love artemis fowl more. Irish tony soprano rocks.
Also storm of swords deserved that award.
Surprised to see these called YA, my teacher was reading me these in 3rd grade.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I was never a fan. But the first book came out when I was 10 and started getting really popular a year or two later and I was 14 when the first movie came out so wanting to seem super cool and mature around that time I dismissed the whole franchise as "kiddy" stuff and never really gave it a chance.
