I also feel like half the reason he won all the damn time is because he literally just had the best broom in existence for most of the matches from his rich godfather. He’s also annoying af with all his angst in the later books (especially OotP) with “nooooo my friends don’t understand meeeeee I can’t talk to anyoneeeee lemme just be an impulsive idiot”.
Harry’s grandfather is supposed to have invented Sleekeazy’s hair spray / potion or something to tame people’s hair since the Potters have crazy hair lol. It’s such a cartoonish reasoning.
Rowling had some really sinister cultural programming embedded in her brain that comes out in these books, regardless of the trans stuff that surfaced later. The entire magical governing system is hugely corrupt, based on family wealth, and obviously full of fascists, but the focus of the books was that there were bad actors abusing the system, rather than the system being broken from the start.
You could argue that’s done for realisms sake, and sure maybe it is, but if the characters never actually meaningfully tackle those issues then you’re re-enforcing complicity for the sake of it, rather than enacting change in a corrupt system when you have the power and ability to do so.
It very neatly describes the way liberals see the world and political struggle. Lots of people complain about the anti-climactic ending, but really I don’t think it could any other way. I’d like to imagine that there’s some alternate universe where Rowling actually believed in something and Harry was actually built up as the anti-Voldemort he was only hinted as being in the beginning of the books. Where he’s opposes all the many injustices of the wizarding world and determines to change their frequently backwards, insular, contradictory society for the better, and forms his own faction antithetical to the Death Eaters and when he finally has his
showdown with Voldy. Harry surpasses by adopting new methods, breaking the rules and embracing change and the progression of history. While Voldemort clings to an idyllic imaging of the past and the greatest extent of his dreams is to become the self-appointed god of a eternally stagnant Neverland. Harry has embraced the possibility of a shining future and so can overcome the self-imposed limitsVoldemort could never cross, and Voldemort is ultimately defeated by this.
But that would require a Harry that believed in something, and since Rowling is a liberal centrist Blairite that doesn’t really believe in anything, Harry can’t believe in anything. Harry lives in a world drought with conflict and injustice, a stratified class society, slavery of sentient magical creatures, the absurd charade the wizarding world puts upto enforce their own self-segregation, a
corrupted and bureaucracy-choked government, rampant racism, so on and so forth But Harry is little more than a passive
observer for most of it, only the racism really bothers him (and then, really only racism against half-bloods). In fact, when
Hermione stands up against the slavery of elves, she’s treated as some kind of ridiculous Soapbox Sadie. For opposing chattel
slavery. In the end. the biggest force for change is Voldemort and Harry and friends only ever fight for the preservation and
reproduction of the status quo. The very height of Harry’s dreams is to join the aurors. a sort of wizard FBI and the ultimate
defenders of the wizarding status quo. Voldemort and the Death Eaters are the big instigators of change and Harry never quite
gets to Voldy’s level. Harry doesn’t even beat Voldemort, Voldemort accidentally kills himself because he violated some obscure
technicality that causes one of his spells to bounce back at him.
And this is really the struggle of liberals, they live in a world fraught with conflict, but aren’t particularly bothered by any of it
except those bit that threaten multicultural pluralism. They see change, and the force behind that change, as a wholly negative
phenomenon. Even then, they can only act within the legal and ideological framework of their society. So. for instance, instead of
organizing insurrectionary and disruptive activity against Trump and the far-right, all they can do is bang their drum about what a
racist bigot he is and hope they can catch him violating some technicality that will allow them to have him impeached or at least
destroy his political clout. It won’t work, it will never work, but that’s the limit of liberalism just as it was the limit of Harry Potter.
That is exemplified specifically by the “rich godfather buys Harry Potter the bestest broom stick” scenario.
Like, I’m pretty sure in Book 2(?) it’s a big deal that Evil Lucius Malfoy evilly outfits the Slytherin team with new broomsticks. Evil when Lucius does it because he’s evil, but okay when Sirius does it because he’s good.
Just like how slavery was bad when Lucius Malfoy did it to Dobby, but okay when Harry had Kreacher as a slave (who he also treated like shit, but it’s fine, Rowling wrote him to be evil and deserve it anyway)
Just like her worldbuilding, morality is whatever Joanne thinks is most convenient for the story she wants to tell.
Ugh yeah the way Sirius treated Kreacher annoyed me so much. Apparently it was completely fine for Harry to have him as a slave as long as he gave him some locket and made poor brainwashed Kreacher feel like he was the best treated slave ever.
JK Rowling’s lack of critical thinking is glaringly obvious in everything she has ever written.
Umbridge feels like she was based on a woman Rowling personally knew. Don’t know much about Rowling past but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a weird messed up childhood
I also feel like half the reason he won all the damn time is because he literally just had the best broom in existence for most of the matches from his rich godfather. He’s also annoying af with all his angst in the later books (especially OotP) with “nooooo my friends don’t understand meeeeee I can’t talk to anyoneeeee lemme just be an impulsive idiot”.
How did they get rich anyway?
Harry’s grandfather is supposed to have invented Sleekeazy’s hair spray / potion or something to tame people’s hair since the Potters have crazy hair lol. It’s such a cartoonish reasoning.
Rowling had some really sinister cultural programming embedded in her brain that comes out in these books, regardless of the trans stuff that surfaced later. The entire magical governing system is hugely corrupt, based on family wealth, and obviously full of fascists, but the focus of the books was that there were bad actors abusing the system, rather than the system being broken from the start.
You could argue that’s done for realisms sake, and sure maybe it is, but if the characters never actually meaningfully tackle those issues then you’re re-enforcing complicity for the sake of it, rather than enacting change in a corrupt system when you have the power and ability to do so.
There’s an old 4chan post about J.K. Rowling and how they only believe in protecting the status quo system.
https://www.reddit.com/r/COMPLETEANARCHY/comments/g0qtew/harry_potter_and_the_limits_of_liberalism/#lightbox
Fuck me if that doesn’t describe the issues in those books perfectly.
That is exemplified specifically by the “rich godfather buys Harry Potter the bestest broom stick” scenario.
Like, I’m pretty sure in Book 2(?) it’s a big deal that Evil Lucius Malfoy evilly outfits the Slytherin team with new broomsticks. Evil when Lucius does it because he’s evil, but okay when Sirius does it because he’s good.
Just like how slavery was bad when Lucius Malfoy did it to Dobby, but okay when Harry had Kreacher as a slave (who he also treated like shit, but it’s fine, Rowling wrote him to be evil and deserve it anyway)
Just like her worldbuilding, morality is whatever Joanne thinks is most convenient for the story she wants to tell.
Ugh yeah the way Sirius treated Kreacher annoyed me so much. Apparently it was completely fine for Harry to have him as a slave as long as he gave him some locket and made poor brainwashed Kreacher feel like he was the best treated slave ever.
JK Rowling’s lack of critical thinking is glaringly obvious in everything she has ever written.
Umbridge feels like she was based on a woman Rowling personally knew. Don’t know much about Rowling past but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a weird messed up childhood