https://twitter.com/ClientJournoExp/status/1334776439380602882
You are dealing with a mind steeped in the psychosis of the British press. There is little hope of return from that void.
because when youre reading about wizard shenanigans, the prose take a backseat to the magic sparkles.
plus people really love them some magical academy.
its one of the snippets of prose from the twitter post edited to be about harry potter instead of maoist trots and palestinian flags or whatever she was on about
i was lazy and didnt feel like figuring out something orange that would go on a wizards wall. sorry
I was a weird kid. I never found school settings relatable. I found them boring and mundane.
^^^^ and the competent films. I know it was popular before they made those, but the movies definitely elevated it massively
Harry Potter books are good, satisfying stories for kids just starting to read.
It's funny because if you ask him about Star Wars he says it's for children, he calls lightsabers laser swords, and he will happily talk about all the stuff he ripped off.
I totally forgot about Jar Jar and was really confused about the black face bit.
Harry Potter was literally the first book I read by myself, when I was like 8 or 9. They aren't young adult (except maybe the last few). They're for children. They may not be original, but to a kid they are extremely engaging. I never said they're the best, but their enormous popularity is because they know how to push all the right buttons of a kid who's the same age as the characters and they don't take themselves too seriously.
I just don't know why everyone here has to hate the silly children's fantasy books so fucking much. Obviously JKR is a big sack of shit, but you literally recommended Ender's Game. And the brand HP has grown into is bloated and terrible, especially the newest movies, but the originally books do what they set out to do well.
They just aren't that bad. They're fine children's novels. There's a reason they got so many kids passionate about reading. I don't have much fondness or nostalgia for them now but it's because those books got me so excited to read that I'm a huge reader now and am working on my first fantasy novel.
I find them engaging and and with elements worthy of praise - my hate is much more so for Rowling herself and the marketing/movies/HP culture, which is cringetopia mixed with commercialism of the worst sort.
But there are also major flaws with the book series. And maybe they wouldn't be so bad in a vacuum, but compared to the marketing claims and the outsized influence on culture and literature and the upbringing of children - they deserve all the criticism they get. (It's not some obscure series, it's sold as THE book series.) There's the black-and-white characters that are either totally brave and good and kind and the evil characters, that literally enjoy torturing children or are just fat/gross/stupid/ignorant/selfish all at once. There's the main character that's the blandest and weakest and most pointless in just about all of literature. Great Expectations' Pip had more control over his destiny. There's the feckless moderate-racist conservative liberalism in the worldbuilding where being too racist or too anti-slavery is bad, but somewhere in the middle on both is normal and good.
Like, compare them to another hyped/popular series - Tolkien's ring saga. They have obvious old-school racism - skin color and eye shape of humans makes them agents or allies of Mordor, and it's not even explained if they're GASP halfbreed offpsring of orcs or if their moral corruption just made them less European-looking (or vice versa). But, other than that, the plot, characters, and worldbuilding are unassailable - at least for a fantasy children's story. Antagonists like Denethor or Saruman aren't evil for the sake of being evil, they have complex life stories and motivations. Victories are tinged with tragedy, losses are marked by heroic sacrifice. There's magic in the world, but it's not a get-out-of-jail-free plot device.
I get having a soft spot for HP if it's the first real book you read. Rereading the books from my childhood I find them way worse than I remembered (and they were the classics of the 19th and 20th centuries! /humblebrag). But you have to recognize their problems too.
Hey ignore the racist author and all the sequels and Ender's Game is still rad as hell. It's an anti-war message about respecting the people we've been taught to hate our whole lives. The protagonists, unlike Harry Potter, actually try to change the status quo rather than defending it.
I do, actually. To me, some guy managed to write something better and smarter than he was. Oh well 🤷🏽♂️
I do like Speaker for the Dead, though.
While those are good books you've listed you have to admit that they are not exactly books for beginners. I started Harry Potter when I was 10, I wasn't going to be reading the Mistborn trilogy at that age.
Made me extremely cynical 10 year old tbh, with some other dystopian visions of capitalism.
Damn. Didn't expect to see a Belgariad reference on my Chapo.chat. That was a favorite of mine. I regret to inform you that David Eddings is canceled, however
plus he actually adds LGBTQ+ character and minority characters like Nico or Alex
Definitely points that kids just starting to read are going to pick up on...
Harry Potter was an easily digestible, fun, and not too challenging read for kids and young adults, many of whom weren't reading anything at all prior to that series. The setting and simplistic story also makes it easily accessible and familiar enough while it also features a bit of fantasy elements to keep it feeling new and fresh, but not too much fantasy so as to push away people that aren't familiar with that kind of stuff. It had a a combination of elements that made it perfectly poised to take off the way it did.
I'm not trying to say that they are great books, just that it is incredibly easy to understand why they got as big as they did even though there are tons of other options that do every aspect better.
The same reason Dan Brown became popular around the same time - magical/conspiratorial goings on that are very unlike the mundane reality wrapped in infantile prose that is very easy to digest without much effort. The McDonald's of literature.
I bet you one million dollars Rowling has zero fucking clue what a "Trotskyist" is.
In the UK, it seems like "trotskyist" is used pretty much the same way as "antifa" is here in the US. It's a nebulous concept of some kind of sinister group of bad people who do bad things, and if anything bad happens, well, what do you know, looks like they were to blame.
Based on what I saw in the Labour leaks, it would seem "trot" is essentially used like "tankie" over there
It's a good tactic because it make people considering join the left look up and join trot groups.
This is beneficial to the bourgeoisie because trots are really fucking bad at revolution. I would wager attacking everyone as a tankie is actually in fact creating more tankies.
I know an older fellow (think mid fifties) who was leafleting for Corbyn's Labour in 2017 and had random passersby call him a Trot. The joke's on them because he used to be a Trot and once visited Frida Kahlo's house in Mexico.
trotskyist is a nebulous concept of some kind of sinister group of bad people who do bad things, and if anything bad happens, well, what do you know, looks like they were to blame.
Stalin shouting from the grave: NO THAT WAS MY IDEA, CPAITALIST PIGS!
Specifically voyueristic scenes. Remember Moaning Myrtle, the dick-peeping ghost?
Corbyn broke her brain and caused the worst of her to finally pour out into the open. I'm convinced of it.
no a JK Rowling moment is when you make the bankers short greedy old evil goblins with big crooked noses
Why can't rich people just shut the fuck up and enjoy their money? Why do they go out of their way to find things to be mad about?
Shout out to MySpace Tom, dude secured the fattest bag and got the fuck off social media forever, he does cool shit like traveling and photography without being a fucking ghoul and it rules
dudes rock btw
Her shitty detective series that she occasionally writes to try and prove that she isn't just a mediocre, one trick pony children's author. This character is one of the book's antagonists who is a populist, anti-zionist leftist who turns out to be an antisemitic strawman because Corbyn has been living rent free in her head since '15.
the hezbollah flag is super baller and i really want it on a t shirt but i don't want to be on any more lists than i already am
You like Palestine, Hezbollah, and socialism? WTF why aren't we friends already?
Palestine, Hezbollah, and socialism?
my god. i love this community so much
And people say that you have to respect her writing skills regardless of her shitty views. Her writing is lower than a sewer rat's ball sack.
Don't insult sewer rats. They contribute more to society than rowling
Sorry. I stole it from elsewhere so I didn't actually have it, I'll add it in.
