#JKR HP critical

[avelera]

One time my writing workshop that I recommend to everyone (they have online courses and a free podcast!) had sci-fi author David Brin as a guest lecturer and he gave some advice to new writers that has been living in my head rent-free ever since.

He said, first time writers should consider having their first novel be a murder mystery.

The reason being as follows:

Mysteries require a great deal of structure to work properly.

They also teach one a great deal about how to build a plot, especially around characters who want something (like: to solve the mystery or to not get caught)

How to have conflict and tension that grows out of each scene,

How we're introduced to characters, and finally,

How everything must build to a satisfying conclusion in which attentive readers are just a little bit ahead and casual readers discover the solution and see all the clues laid out in a satisfying manner in retrospect.

And it's a great genre for bringing in a friend to see whether or not you achieved the goal of laying out the clues properly, because it is in fact impossible to do on your own (this is true of most things in writing, but it's a bit more subtle when trying to tell if other stuff like romance has landed properly).

Putting a cut here to go over some popular examples and how writers can learn from them to improve their stories.

And the more I thought about this advice, the more I realized just how many of the most popular genre works of recent years had a mystery (whether or not it's a murder they're solving) as the way to drag the audience into the story, at least at the beginning, even if the plot then evolves into something else midway, because mystery is also an excellent way to dump exposition because it's all about finding out the truth.

The Winter Soldier film, in addition to being a Bourne-style action thriller set in the Marvel universe, has a strong plot through-line of "Who "killed" Nick Fury? Who is the Winter Soldier?" which gets us through a good chunk of the film that would otherwise be a slog of exposition and it works so well.

The first three Harry Potter books are actually very well structured mysteries. I've argued for ages that Book 4 onward is where Rowling lost the mystery plot structure to the series' detriment, the plots ballooned, and the whole thing got quite sloppy (this in addition to her reprehensible views, to be clear, I've been a critic of her structure in stories for quite some time short version: she's very bad at it when not grafting onto a school year).

The first Game of Thrones book and S1 revolved around Ned Stark as our primary protagonist seeking out the answer to the mystery of Who Killed The Hand of the King and Why - revealing the deeper mystery of Joffrey's lineage and setting up the events that eventually led to his execution. AND, by the way, that's PART of why Ned's execution was so shocking and effective: GRRM borrowed from the murder mystery genre to build a portion of his plot around, and then disrupted it by killing the investigator which as the POV character generally speaking very rarely happens in mysteries, which made it an even bigger and more effective shock for readers when Ned, who seemed to have plot armor on many levels, dies thus reinforcing the theme of "You win or you die" and the brutal chaos of the GoT world.

What I think makes all 3 of these very popular examples so effective is the blend of genre. Murder mysteries are tantalizing but they do sometimes fail to answer the "So what?" of one person dying in a small town. But combine the murder mystery structure, which demands so much of its writer and is so effective at dragging the reader along through the hardest part of introducing them to your world, with a genre that is better at answering the "So what?" like epic fantasy or action thriller, and now you've got a very effective combination for entertaining an audience.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

The HP Epilogue: JKR's trashfire ending to a trash book series

I was reading snippets from the epilogue for the first time and everything about the epilogue is just frustrating. And I want to share things I found intolerable about it to let off steam. These are MY opinions so if you feel differently, I am happy for you. But here is a summary of my gripes.

The names of the Hinny Harry's kids

James Sirius. Albus Severus. Lily Luna. I can empathize with wanting to honour people you love by naming your kids after them...but this is just overkill. Not one of Harry's kids has an original name. Not one! And I said Harry's kids because it seems like Ginny had absolutely no input in the names. If I am being generous, maybe the Luna name was hers, but given the naming pattern of the kids, I am sure that Luna references Lupin and not Luna Lovegood. Sometimes I feel as if Harry has a domineering vibe in Hinny and the kids' names are not doing any favours to combat that. Not surprising as everything about the Hinny romance was dictated by Harry's wants. Who cares about Ginny?

Muggleborne discrimination is bad but pureblood discrimination is A-ok

‘You’re right, sorry,’ said Ron, but unable to help himself, he added, ‘don’t get too friendly with him, though, Rosie. Granddad Weasley would never forgive you if you married a pure-blood.’

I could not believe my eyes when I read this. It's like Ron forgot that HIS family is pureblood! It's the same vibe as a black parent telling their black or mixed kid not to marry another black person! Luna is pureblood! Neville is pureblood! Do the Weasleys have some kind of self-hatred?? Another point to purebloods slowly dying out but who cares? As far as JKR is concerned, the wizards should be aiming to all be mutts with mixed blood :)

BTW the Scorpius/Rose pairing fills me with revulsion. I like Albus and Scorp as friends though! But not so much as lovers.

Marriage is the only way to be truly part of a family

‘Oh, it would be lovely if they got married!’ whispered Lily ecstatically. ‘Teddy would really be part of the family then!’

Got some heavy Hinny vibes from this line of dialogue. Harry did not become a true Weasley until he got with Ginny after all :)

I know Lily is a kid and she means no malice, but I truly felt disgust towards this line. It just bothers me, especially in the context of Hinny and how Ginny functions as a way for Harry to become a Weasley member. Teddy is Harry's godson, he should be like a big brother to Lily. How does becoming a cousin-in-law make him more of a family member compared to being her surrogate big bro??

Do Hogwarts alumni swear an oath of secrecy?

‘And you don’t want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts,’ Harry put in.

He had never told any of his children that before, and he saw the wonder in Albus’s face when he said it.

So James Sirius is telling Albus Severus exaggerated tales about Hogwarts similar to what the Weasley twins did to Ron. But how is this possible? Do the parents not talk about Hogwarts to their kids? If my kid was going to my alma mater, I would tell him/her all about the school when I went there. I don't understand why it seems like parents don't talk about Hogwarts. At least Draco's parents seem to talk to him about the school at least.

Muggle abuse is still funny Ha. Ha.

‘As a matter of fact, I did Confund him,’ Ron whispered to Harry, as together they lifted Albus’s trunk and owl on to the train. ‘I only forgot to look in the wing mirror, and let’s face it, I can use a Supersensory Charm for that.’

Remember that Ron is an Auror! A wizarding cop! But nah muggles are still lesser than wizards so even a guy like Ron who's supposed to be a good hero character feels no shame in messing with their autonomy. Ron is literally so disgusting in the epilogue. Never thought I would end HP finding Ron the least tolerable of the trio when Ron is usually my fav of the 3. Not that the bar is very high for the other two.

JKR really does not like Draco

His hair was receding somewhat, which emphasised the pointed chin.

Of course, JKR can't end the series without throwing more shade at Draco. He's rocking the middle-aged man look, only has one kid and has a love interest that we know squat about. And then in CC, Draco's wife dies! Sigh, I really hate Drastoria...

All is not well

There is still house discrimination. Magical creatures likely still have fewer rights. Aurors like Ron and everyday wizards abuse their powers against muggles. Purebloods are dying out. Wizards like Albus act like they did not grow up in a magical world, aka wizards still have low brain cell counts. But sure, Harry's scar is fine so ALL IS WELL!

I can't believe there are people out here calling JKR a good writer! I see the vast potential of the book series and I feel so sad sometimes. I am so happy that HP never existed in my childhood.

[crowleys-bastard-angel]

I finally got around to deleting my old Harry Potter sideblog

TBH most of that sideblog was just shitting on Snape(and also i was a Marauders fan, before they started woobifying the wizard fascists and pairing James with Sirius' racist little brother and shitting on Lily), but even that started to feel uncomfortable, with all of the shit that JK TERFling has done.

So, I deleted it once and for all! Harry Potter hasn't brought me joy in a while, and all I do lately is talk about how awful the bigotry is in it and how horribly the nonhuman races where handled(especially the House-Elves oh my fucking god),

and i can do that with the occasional main-blog post without having a whole blog dedicated to talking about that awful show, so adios old blog! and fuck jk rowling i hope she gets unalived painfully!

Also fuck HP, and especially fuck Hogwarts Legacy(aka Blood Libel: The Game), and fuck anyone who thinks a stupid shitty game/book/movie is more important than trans people's lives!

[aj-lenoire]

i do not enjoy harry potter anymore and even when i did, snape was not a character i ever liked, but for some reason my ‘for you’ page is just full of dedicated snape stan accounts and i hate it

[cormancatacombs]

[Image ID: A pair of tweets by user @LilySimpson1312. The first tweet reads: “Cis people really don't get it. BUYING the new HARRY POTTER game tells COMPANIES that they can still pay MONEY to TRANSPHOBES without any ISSUE.” The second tweet reads: “You aren't supporting a small indie company, you aren't paying the wages of starving artists, you are helping Warner Bros know that Harry Potter is still economically viable to double down on rather then expanding elsewhere”

End of description.]

[werewolfenthusiast]

the harry potter books are like alarmingly pro war we should maybe talk about that more

[generouslyandrogynousdragon]

Okay, first up, sorry to put The Series That Shall Not Be Named on your dashes (tagging as hp for block list if you'd prefer not to see it), but I had a sudden realisation and needed to share it:

Luna Lovegood is an autistic child character, written by a person who has no experience of interacting with autistic children.

Thus you get all the stereotypes crammed into one character - the social ineptness, the "flappy hands" (stimming), the overactive imagination (the creatures she comes up with), and of course "the only good autistic child is a smart one, can't have a *low functioning* autistic character" (I'm aware high and low functioning is outdated, I'm co-opting their language to make my point, deal with it.)

And all of these traits are treated with scorn by the author, with the only exception being her intelligence, and even then there's that undertone through the series of "if you tried harder you could be normal" that a lot of people have been told throughout their lives.

All her autistic traits are treated as problems to be fixed, instead of unique traits that should be encouraged to grow in ways that will help her as a person. I mean, it's JK "Eugenics and Bioessentialism" Rowling, so I'm not really surprised, but even so.

Anyway, got that off my chest, local enby comes to profound realisation about why they sympathised with Luna as a child so hard when the other characters treated her poorly, etc etc. Oh, she also has symptoms of ADHD, but that's a different post, and I've no desire to post more about this series.

[hchollym]

What are your thoughts and opinions about fleur? I think she is really interesting and had a lot of character potential. Also what are your thoughts on veelas in general. Personally something about it to me just feels off.. idk

I've talked about Fleur before in this post, as well as her parallels to Percy in this post. 🥰

As for Veela in general, I think they're just a lazy "twist" on the Sirens of Greek Mythology, and it's incredibly sexist.

Both Sirens & Veela are beautiful women who are overly sexualized & tend to represent "dangerous" temptation by women (i.e. the Sirens' song leads men to their death while the Veela's dance hypnotizes men and makes them act stupid & impulsive).

To make things even more misogynistic, Veela hair is considered "temperamental" in a wand, and when Veela become angry, their faces start "elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long, scaly wings were bursting from their shoulders" & they can throw fire from their hands. JKR basically mixed the 'overly emotional woman' stereotype with the 'hell hath no fury like a women scorned' stereotype. 🙄

I do find it funny that it's implied that Veela can only hypnotize people who are attracted to women, so if a character isn't overly affected by them, then they could either be gay or strong-willed, and good luck guessing which one! 🤣

Thanks for the ask! 😊

[thedarkknightswife]

The biggest issue with harry potter is nothing actually changes. Muggles still don't know anything about the wizarding world despite it being a huge point that muggles and wizards and squibs needed to unite. The old systems are still in tact. Azkaban is still around. Slytherin SOMEHOW allowed continued existence despite its negative reputation of producing way too many supremacists & (in fact the entire house system should have been abolished). House elves still enslaved. Hell She kept sending Harry back to his abusive relatives even after introducing better alternatives. JKR wanted to have her cake and eat it too.

[vivithefolle]

Hey its me who left a comments on your Quora, and bc im a negative hater of Hermione that will make her worshippers cry, i wanna just copy and repeat my unpopular opinions here to yours in order to spread my negativity :p

I think its kinda funny how Rowling self inserted into Hermione but forgot herself is a adult woman, and Hermione is a teenager sometimes, but like only sometimes.

A lot of Hermiones rule bendings and actions just sounds like what an 20s or 30s something would want to do, and would have full conviction as well as planning ability to carry it out. Sorta like the way you cant file a lawsuit and WIN if you are 10 but can if you are 21. Rowling wishes she could do what Hermione can do but forgot she was writing a teenager, then went "oh its ok. She settled it all in the end off pages."

Rowling will be like "Hermione is me and so mature and i wanted to do that to people i hate all my life" when it comes to time traveling - to take more classes than her peers because its fair where? - and "punishing" a bad journalist who spread stupid rumors and "punishing" the students and teachers she hated, or erasing her parents out of her records. Because only adults could break big rules like that and maybe deal with consequences. But then in the same books same chapters she will be like "Hermione is forever 13 year old and hates defying rules" when it come to the characters emotional development. And worse, after that couldnt write all the messy logical backlashes and consequences that this teenagers actions left.

Coupling with Emma Watsons casting and all the Mary Sue script changes influencing later books, the result is the worse, most self entitled, inconsistent, sloppily written female character ever created among all the real, logical teenage characters. Some like Harry is Mary Sue-ish, but hes at least consistent and logical to a teenager. Hermione is a Sue and couldnt even be a decent one that makes a lick of sense.

we like to dunk on Movie Hermione, and her looks and the Ron bashing can make us dislike her because thats not book Hermione, but in terms of being a Mary Sue , movie Hermione is actually a much better written character than book Hermione. One is at least consistent and is a character despite "perfect". Movie Hermiones lines and moments are still things a , very perfect, schoolgirl can know and do. Book Hermione cant decide if shes a teenager character with emotional flaws or a 30 something 4th wall goddess with super meta powers that can solve every characters romance problems. Like you cant choose both of these, Rowling.

its so frustrating bc this is actually why its so hard to convince Hermione lovers and criticizers on points from either side on her personality and her relationships with others. Because a very blazen competent girl that could "punish" teachers and students and new reporters alike on the basis of very adult, very real LAW and ORDER can not act like an jealous, immature 15 year old that also cries all the time with no handle on her emotions, is "book smart" and stick for rules, and vice versa. Which is she?

i now dont really care for Hermione and Ron. She ruined the couple for me. its not that she could be an asshole to him, but because shes not a character. Shes a vessel.

_____

Vivi's commentary: Well darn that is a brutal assessment! I do believe that what the things that make Hermione feel so disconnected is the lack of consequences. I mean, the way she "punishes" Rita and Marietta is totally the way a teenager fantasizes about punishing the people who hurt them, but the fact that Hermione manages to do it without ever having it bite her in the ass is the part that's really making her a Mary Sue for me.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Doing a Marauders Prequel Series is a Waste of Time

Listen, if you look at JKR's writing for the 7 HP books they follow a similar pattern. 90% of the book is pure fluff where she makes you think Harry and his pals are doing something productive when they are not and then everything suddenly happens at the end through dumb luck, deus ex machina or other contrivances. (Ex. see Deathly Hallows, Chamber of Secrets, Philospher's Stone)

Here's a rough take on how the Marauder's prequel show would go:

15% Mauraders hijinks (becoming animagus, making the map, James crushing on Lily etc)

5% Voldemort war/Slytherins

5% maybe Sirius' family drama

75% Marauders bullying Snape

Like...what content is there to show? More boring magic classes? Slytherins once again being given no development (outside from maybe Andromeda dating a mudblood)? More annoying love drama?? All we will see is James' annoying crush on Lily and these boys being huge bullies. If you get one decent season of substantial episodes, that's plenty.

I bet Marauder stans just want to see a show where Severus is constantly shoved into a toilet or something and shown to be a loser incel.

[oozetin]

i would never @ my beloved vlogbrothers about this bc that would just be drama bait. with that in mind:

i was reminiscing about my history as a nerdfighter (The community / fandom centred around the Green brothers as artists, educators, personalities, & role models) and got one of Hank Green[ and The Perfect Strangers]'s old Harry Potter songs stuck in my head - by virtue of just remembering it exists - and just kinda being grimly amused by such an earnest and loving song dedicated to an artist who is just a known massive piece of shit at this point.

and also just being amused and disappointed in the naivete of both 12 y/o me and uh *checks notes* 34 y/o Hank in thinking this billionaire-brit must be pretty cool and decent bc she's a philanthropist who owns an IP we like. The best parts of her work (and based on the critical love they give their own online community I think the Green Bro's know this) were the bits that had nothing to do with her. at the far end of "not canon" is not-for-profit fandom stuff that's talked about between a small group of friends. but there are also just so many people who made HP more than just one shitty white cishets work. Every director, concept artist, editor, actor - as well as otherwise BtS workers like VFX artists, caterers, and custodial staff - added to this work. And it's sad how deeply it's all been stained by her bigotry and ignorance.

I do ultimately think it's Not Good™ to buy and promote any of her work but in this small semi-private space I just wanted to talk about my ✨feelings✨

[softestvirgil]

I find it insane that Thomas “guys gals and nonbinary pals, look i’m an ally to trans people” Sanders still openly likes Harry Potter after JKR has made it public knowledge that she considers any support of her work to be support of her beliefs, which are amongst other things, extremely and violently transphobic 💀

[cormancatacombs]

Bitches really played a stupid game and didn’t even win a stupid prize 😹

[mirrorofliterature]

I say this quite bluntly, but I believe quite strongly that molly is homophobic.

It's quite consistent with her character. She rejects signs of femininity in her sons - long hair and pierced ears in Bill, and signs of masculinity in her daughter - not allowing her to play Quidditch openly with her brothers. Her idea of strict gender roles is quite pertinent - think about, for example, how she dismissed Sirius' ability to parent Harry, probably in half because he is a man and heavily queer-coded, either gay or aroace.

She also grew up in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, before homosexuality was decriminalised and well before it was protected and equalised (such as the higher age of consent at the time for mlm).

I think her homophobia isn't explicit. It's implicit, it's societal reabsorption, it's harmful and destructive. Do I think she would go as far to kick out her kids if they came out or send them to conversion therapy? No, at the end of the day she loves her kids, imperfectly, ruinously. But she would make the home environment uncomfortable, unsafe. There are more ways to be homophobic than the nuclear ways.

Personally, I think Molly being homophobic is incredibly consistent with her character, extrapolating largely from her blatant misogyny in the books and gender essentialism. Could she change? Maybe. Probably. Doubtfully.

But Molly is incredibly resistant to change, unless one buys her a sparkly wizarding hat.

[werewolfenthusiast]

something very insidious about jkr writing seamus finnegan the irish kid who can’t stop blowing stuff up and publishing that in the 1990s