(Thread IKs:
Nuns with Guns)
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Worth mentioning that while the books don't have the Star of David in the bank, they DO explain how every single goblin has no concept of ownership and they see any gift as an extended loan, and we also see the most important goblin character take delight from seeing children get hurt. So. Oof.Sydin posted:Don't forget that Dumbledore just absolutely trounces Voldemort in their brief duel in OotP, to the point that Voldemort freaks out and has to resort to using Harry as a human shield in order to get away. If it weren't for the dumb Horcrux bullshit the solution to the whole Voldemort issue is Dumbledore and maybe a couple really good Aurors cornering him and blasting his rear end. We literally never see Voldemort win a single battle, it's honestly breathtaking how hilariously inept he is. He loses to a literal baby, then immediately after he gets reborn he gets shown up in a duel by that same child, and then when he finally actually manages to "kill" that child, he immediately falls unconscious in front of all his minions lmao.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:34
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| # ? May 30, 2024 08:12 |
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the only thing i know about harry potter is that the Japanese wizard school is a.) named with insanely lazy machine translation that just means "Magic Place" and b.) is located on the Bonin Islands, which were uninhabited before being colonized by the British in 1830 and later taken control of by Shogunate Japan in 1875, which I can only assume means that the intention is that the British introduced magic to Japan.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:39
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Pigbuster posted:Worth mentioning that while the books don't have the Star of David in the bank, they DO explain how every single goblin has no concept of ownership and they see any gift as an extended loan, and we also see the most important goblin character take delight from seeing children get hurt. So. Oof. I love this because that's not how no concept of ownership works. You can't be greedy AND have no cultural context for 'ownership', what they, the short, hook nosed, bankers who run the wizarding world, actually have is no concept of NON GOBLIN ownership, which is also how the middle ages people lied about Jewish views of usury really meaning and all, an antiemetic trope so obscure I truly can only believe JK just genuinely believes it as part of her core outlook on the world.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:53
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Alaois posted:the only thing i know about harry potter is that the Japanese wizard school is a.) named with insanely lazy machine translation that just means "Magic Place" and b.) is located on the Bonin Islands, which were uninhabited before being colonized by the British in 1830 and later taken control of by Shogunate Japan in 1875, which I can only assume means that the intention is that the British introduced magic to Japan. The brazilian wizard school is literally named "wizard castle"
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Mar 10, 2021 20:54
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Sarcopenia posted:I've not heard the podcast, but isn't the "Read another book" meme less of a literal call to read something else, but more a way to say: "Grownups, please stop deifying and obsessing over Harry Potter to a degree where you apply it to everything around you as if it's the only cultural reference that has ever existed."? From what I can tell, "Read another book" is as much a complaint about cultural touchstones as anything. Because of the fragmentary nature of our media, if you need to make a cultural reference the list of choices available to you are either highly subculture specific, or from a drat short list, that seems to be getting shorter. 26 million Americans watched "Harmless Helper" a random episode of a random 1988-9 tv show (Day by Day) which wasn't renewed, and the show that replaced it got cancelled itself after a half season. In 2019, getting 26 million people to see your work required being a top 10 box office movie.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:55
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RareAcumen posted:I'm mainly annoyed because I'm worried it'll go the way that 'do your own research' did with people falling into every conspiracy theory as long as it mentions a Jew in charge of anything in any fashion at some point. To be honest, the alternative of "I guess you have to believe whatever someone in a position of authority tells you, huh" isn't any better. People doing their own research and loving it up is mostly a failure of education, imho: If educational institutions can hammer proper critical thinking into children at young age, it cuts down on a lot of conspiracy theories as it reduces their potential number of victims enormously. On the other hand, if proper critical thinking could lead to workers criticizing the corporations they're working for more, and the corporations controlling the government via corruption make sure this part of education gets suppressed, minimized or taken out entirely, you have a problem. Then you get absurd situations where some random guy happens to find a website about a book written by some smart sounding guy about how Atlantis was totally real and in Bolivia??? for some goddamn nutso reason and then they're just hosed. No critical thinking? It sounds kind of neat and they swallow this bullshit unthinkingly. Telling the same guy later that Atlantis was made up by a Greek guy to make a point and anyway definitely not in South America, and they will just double down on this crap. Then it's too late and only a flamethrower can cure this level of dumb.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:58
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Speaking of goblins, it's established that non-human races exist in the Harry Potter world. How come there aren't any non-human wizards? It seems like all the other races exist primarily to serve as either antagonists (werewolves, centaurs) or supporting/servile roles (elves, goblins) to humans.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:04
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I like how they pointed out how magic is just used to recreate the modern world but worse. Time travel is used to take more classes. Teleportation is used to get to work on time. Magical beings are more minorities to be racist about. Magic items are more consumer products to buy.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:07
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Lotus Aura posted:It doesn't help that we're told that there are exactly three spells used by dark wizards, and I feel like that's never really questioned or shown otherwise until like one chapter in the final book when one of Draco's two interchangable goons makes Sentient Evil Fire because... for some reason that was needed for Harry to destroy a thing. You know that would have been cool? It Voldemort had been the inventor of Avada Kedavra. That would given some credit to the claim of him being the most powerful dark wizard ever and could have explained why exactly every was afraid of him. e X fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 21:19
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Yeah, a quick and easy way I thought you could give Voldy a lot more meanace is by making him the only one capable of casting Avada Kadavra, both because it needs an insane of magical power behind it but also because you have to be a completely cold hearted killer for it to actually work - similar to how Crucio only works if you really want to torture somebody.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:33
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lunar detritus posted:The brazilian wizard school is literally named "wizard castle" And the other nicknames for non magical people are NoMaj or NonMagique because only English people can use unique words while everyone else has to use slang compound words.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:40
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Rowling could do Europe okay - the other two wizard schools were pretty cool - but once she got out of Europe she fell flat on her face. She even hosed up the Anglosphere schools!
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Mar 10, 2021 22:05
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:Speaking of goblins, it's established that non-human races exist in the Harry Potter world. How come there aren't any non-human wizards? It seems like all the other races exist primarily to serve as either antagonists (werewolves, centaurs) or supporting/servile roles (elves, goblins) to humans. oh that's because they're all too savage or stupid to do real magic. Even when centaurs do poo poo like basically invent divination magic in Brittan it was actually the human wizards who REALLY understood it. This is actual canon. Also house elves can't be wizards despite being literally naturally magic because their brains are too undeveloped to do it and their powers are too uncontrollable, they'd do more harm than good. You know, the slave race are too undeveloped mentally to do wizard stuff, because they can't control their feral power. NO ANALOGIES THERE.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:18
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JK Rowling voted BNP every election she could and you cannot tell me otherwise
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Mar 10, 2021 22:19
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sexpig by night posted:JK Rowling voted BNP every election she could and you cannot tell me otherwise Twincityhacker posted:Rowling could do Europe okay - the other two wizard schools were pretty cool - but once she got out of Europe she fell flat on her face.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:23
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Centaurs even get a classification as a 4 star threat "Beast" according to the Fantastic Beasts book. Granted the book does also state in footnotes that the Centaurs are rather pissed off about this labeling system but still.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:30
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Arcsquad12 posted:Centaurs even get a classification as a 4 star threat "Beast" according to the Fantastic Beasts book. Granted the book does also state in footnotes that the Centaurs are rather pissed off about this labeling system but still. yea that's one of those things that if the rest of the IP wasn't so genuinely racist it'd actually be kinda solid satire of imperialist outlooks with this book written by an english wizard seeing a race of perfectly developed and sentient people who happen to have a different culture than him and going 'well, they're a pretty advanced animal for sure...' Shame about the rest of the IP!
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Mar 10, 2021 22:35
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Kaiser Mazoku posted:Speaking of goblins, it's established that non-human races exist in the Harry Potter world. How come there aren't any non-human wizards? It seems like all the other races exist primarily to serve as either antagonists (werewolves, centaurs) or supporting/servile roles (elves, goblins) to humans. The wizard government offices has a massive golden statue of the other races looking up to the superior human wizards in reverence
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Mar 10, 2021 22:39
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I feel like Harry Potter depicts instances of both "Just because the fiction depicts bigotry doesn't mean it endorses bigotry" and "There are problematic depictions of racial coding in this story" mindsets, but this thread isn't making a coherent enough distinction between the two. On the one hand, it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that the narrative endorses racism because this world treats its fictional races badly, or because the three schoolchildren protagonists don't just fix everything about this by the end. On the other hand, Cho Chang.
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Mar 10, 2021 22:51
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BrianWilly posted:I feel like Harry Potter depicts instances of both "Just because the fiction depicts bigotry doesn't mean it endorses bigotry" and "There are problematic depictions of racial coding in this story" mindsets, but this thread isn't making a coherent enough distinction between the two. the heroes mock Hermonie for wanting to free slaves and are proven correct by the literal laws of the universe itself
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Mar 10, 2021 23:07
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'this dumb bitch thinks slavery is bad' is literally a running joke, not just with a bunch of dumb teens who are his friends but as a narrative element. Harry literally gets a slave willed to him and he keeps him and forces him to work despite the slave literally being unhappy with it. Like, he doesn't like to be a slave because he's also a racist who looks down on non-nazi wizards but still Harry keeps a slave and mocks him being a slave as a punishment, and is nothing but rewarded for it. Even Hermoine likes it.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:09
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Twincityhacker posted:Rowling could do Europe okay - the other two wizard schools were pretty cool - but once she got out of Europe she fell flat on her face. She didn't even divide the Latin and Germanic countries in Europe correctly, so I'm inclined to disagree.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:11
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BrianWilly posted:I feel like Harry Potter depicts instances of both "Just because the fiction depicts bigotry doesn't mean it endorses bigotry" and "There are problematic depictions of racial coding in this story" mindsets, but this thread isn't making a coherent enough distinction between the two. Rowling presents the discussion of bigotry when it comes to mudbloods and muggles and squibs, which are all things she invented. Everything else is a problematic portrayal of real-world races and peoples.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:23
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the world and morality of harry potter is incoherent and contradictory because j. k. rowling is not a particularly good writer and her editor is nonexistent
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Mar 10, 2021 23:27
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sexpig by night posted:'this dumb bitch thinks slavery is bad' is literally a running joke, not just with a bunch of dumb teens who are his friends but as a narrative element. Harry literally gets a slave willed to him and he keeps him and forces him to work despite the slave literally being unhappy with it. "No see its okay because the slave was a nazi sympathizer and Harry's godfather didnt like him either." No wonder the movies cut his role down (and any house elf plotline in general).
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Mar 10, 2021 23:35
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The Wizard world of Harry potter is an invention for a childrens mystery novel that got stretched out and explained to the point where nothing makes sense. Like it's fine for Hagrid to tell Harry they have to hide else all the muggles would want them to magic their problems away in book one where its a lighthearted whimsical tale of adventure at a magic boarding school. Its less cool when the Ministry of magic is sending cheerful messages to the british government about not getting involved in the Second World war. Everything is like this, and it would be fine for the details if the setting to change or get a little fuzzy as the tone matures but JK is the perfect writer who planned everything perfectly from the beginning so things just get doubled down on instead of course correcting.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:41
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Okay, I can see dubious elements in the presentation, but I'm gonna insist that "It's okay that we treated Creecher like poo poo" was kind of the opposite of the point of that plot. Creecher being indoctrinated with wizard racism made it easy for Harry to treat him as subhuman, but the whole point is that he shouldn't have done that. A whole lot of their problems could've been avoided if Harry had been good to Creecher from the outset and there are entire multiple chapters of the final book spelling this out in clear, persistent detail. "Elves being slaves is good for everyone, actually" is absolutely misreading the text.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:46
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BrianWilly posted:"Elves being slaves is good for everyone, actually" is absolutely misreading the text. no it's not lmao
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Mar 10, 2021 23:49
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I mean while I think people are trying to be mad at Harry Potter now that it’s cool, the house elves are fine as slaves and hermonie is dumb for trying is a thing that happens
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Mar 10, 2021 23:51
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Though I do think that brings up something interesting where when someone is bad people rush to show how everything they did was bad all along. The best example is the Mumford and son thing. When he was revealed to be a fascist sympathizer instead of people focusing on that people loudly claimed how much they think his music sucked as if the quality of his music changed anything
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Mar 10, 2021 23:55
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Like this part, "No see its okay because the slave was a nazi sympathizer and Harry's godfather didnt like him either," just flat out doesn't happen. It's literally the opposite of what they learned. Hermione states, in terms so clear you'd have to be intentionally misunderstanding to arrive at any other conclusion, "I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did…and so did Sirius." Harry's godfather not liking Creecher was a bad thing. It literally led to his death. Rowling is an easy target nowadays 'cuz she's a piece of poo poo but that's no excuse for poor reading comprehension.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:57
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Why did Harry Potter get so big anyway? I feel like there hasn't been a kids franchise that's matched it's success since, and it clearly wasnt based on the quality of the writing.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:03
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BrianWilly posted:Like this part, "No see its okay because the slave was a nazi sympathizer and Harry's godfather didnt like him either," just flat out doesn't happen. It's literally the opposite of what they learned. Hermione states, in terms so clear you'd have to be intentionally misunderstanding to arrive at any other conclusion, "I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did…and so did Sirius." Harry's godfather not liking Creecher was a bad thing. It literally led to his death. Harry kept Creecher
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Mar 11, 2021 00:05
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Vagabong posted:Why did Harry Potter get so big anyway? I feel like there hasn't been a kids franchise that's matched it's success since, and it clearly wasnt based on the quality of the writing. Same reason most books get popular, it filled a need for its audience. Quality of writing rarely factors in
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Mar 11, 2021 00:07
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BrianWilly posted:Rowling is an easy target nowadays 'cuz she's a piece of poo poo but that's no excuse for poor reading comprehension. To bring the discussion full circle, the last time I tried to make this point on twitter someone instructed me, in the haughtiest of terms, to read another book.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:08
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Read another book is just the internet being the internet. Sad people flexing their self importance. Big Bang theory used to be the target for that and really anything popular will get that treatment eventually
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Mar 11, 2021 00:10
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Dabir posted:https://twitter.com/MarciaBelsky/status/1064148783829786624?s=19 Future workplace of Anthony Goldstein, the only Jewish kid at Hogwarts.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:13
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there's things to like in the first book (while a lot of the really awful elements have been there from the beginning), it has some surreal, darkly humorous Roald Dahl aspects (which, funny coincidence, is another author who was a pretty lovely person) and I think that's what got a lot of people initially hooked. and after the third book where the problems were starting to become more and more obvious the sunk cost is already there.
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Mar 11, 2021 00:15
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ah gently caress what did roald dahl do
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Mar 11, 2021 00:18
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| # ? May 30, 2024 08:12 |
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The wizarding world starts out as a magical, almost fey-ish place, so you don’t really question a lot of the weirdness. But the more mundane it becomes, the more you start to question a lot of the stuff that is happening
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Mar 11, 2021 00:19
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