this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
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Fiction Books
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Harry Potter. Very shallow surface level magic where nothing made sense if you thought about it.
To add to this:
Hogwarts was well thought out and imaginative. The setting was practically a character in its own right.
But Harry Potter himself was unbelievably bland. He was nothing special, but was treated as if he were because of who he was related to or otherwise connected to.
Harry is bland because he’s the reader stand-in in the wonderful world of magic.
to be fair that is extremely English
I mean, it's a kid's book. Maybe YA.
It has some general appeal to adults, but a book that's intended to be read by kids isn't supposed to have the same complexity as an adult fantasy epic.
The best part of HP, and the bit that I think captured imaginations and has given the series any lasting appeal is just the whimsical magical world. Silly magical Britain, basically.
Even as a child and before JKR went off the deep end into transphobia, the best bits for me were the sections between leaving the non-magical world, and before the plot kicks off at Hogwarts. The actual plot itself was middling and at times forgettable. The underlying themes and their (lack of) resolution are best not thought too hard about.
JK is a middling author who happened to hit on "silly magical Britain" as the spice that made her work popular
Fully agree! The premise of a hidden magical society is really fun, but Rowling did a crap job of building a coherent world with what she had.