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.
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.