Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[Ruin Explorer]

Yes, I’d mostly agree, including the fact that said mean girl (or superficial girl who wasn’t very introspective or empathic) also clearly thought that she was a good and right person for having the ideology of a right-wing Labour voter from about 1990.

I’ve always found it interesting to compare Joanne Rowling and Jack Monroe - they were both English single mums who were effectively homeless when they wrote successful books in cafes in their 20s. There are many differences - Jack is trans and a cookery writer, not a children’s fantasy writer - but a major difference is that Jack is 20 years younger than Joanne, and being a homeless single mother in England in her time was very different (mostly much harder) and encouraged her to be a more empathic and socially conscious person than Joanne has ever had to be.

The hardship (which was much more severe for Monroe - Rowling's accounts are demonstrably exaggerated and self-contradictory, and increasingly more dramatic and Dickensian the more she tells them - the earlier versions are much more plausible) may have made more Monroe empathetic and socially conscious, but by how much I wonder?

I think she probably already was a lot more of both than Rowling ever could be. (I have one of Monroe's cookbooks, it's pretty great)

I think that sort of thing goes a lot deeper and whilst it can be influenced or changed later in life, people can have their eyes opened and so on, that can only happen if one is not a self-pitying and narcissistic person, but being a "mean girl" pretty much means one is at least potentially both of those (there exceptions, people who grow out of it). I think parents and what they model for kids plays a huge role, because I've met people who have never experienced real hardship (or at least not financial, grief/loss or health/disability-related), who were very empathetic, kind and socially conscious (and stayed that way), and people who had suffered a lot, and just wanted others to suffer more, and the only commonalities I've seen have been "parents who modelled at least basic kindness" vs. "parents who were themselves awful". Even that's not 1:1 though, there are plenty of exceptions. Hmmm.

Re: "automatically a good person because I voted for party X at time Y", yeah absolutely, that is a common delusion especially in Britain!

Maybe that is actually the key? There are mean girls who grow out of it, but there are also mean girls* who tell themselves "I was right to be mean, those other kids sucked, and I was cool!" and I think that's where the problem is not, when you can't see you were an naughty word at times too as a kid, when you turn your not-perfect but also not-that-bad life-story into a Dickensian sob-story. And perhaps the press are part of the problem here too - they want a Dickensian sob-story. They're not happy with "Well things weren't perfect but I did okay", and I suspect she was unconsciously encouraged, especially as a story-teller (which for all her evil, she absolutely is), by feedback from journalists and fans to exaggerate matters, and probably to internally mythologize. It's notable her anti-trans stuff relies on a lot of mythology and fiction that she clearly believes and has been in a cycle of exaggerating - the claims she makes now are hugely more extreme than ones from 2019, for example.

* = Sorry to gender this, there are male and probably NB equivalents thereof, just using the easiest, laziest term

 

[BookTenTiger]

And yet a wholly correct one!


It's right to stand by it!

My unpopular HP opinion, also not one to bring up in casual conversation because it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, is that it was increasingly obvious as one went through the HP books that the writer was an extremely narrow-minded person with specific ideas about how the world should work, and and who and what was cool and not, and that those ideas were basically the ideas of a English "mean girl" who'd happiness-peaked at like 16. I dropped the books after the 4th one (I read it in 2001 or 2002) with the SPEW stuff, where I realized not only was this person narrow-minded and a little mean-spirited, they were actually nasty. You don't set up an ultra-elaborate scenario where you try to make out slavery is cool, actually, and these little guys just love being slaves, and the best-natured main character is wrong and to be mocked and scorned for caring about them, not unless there's something seriously wrong with you lol, imho anyway! I kept reading because the natural assumption was "Oh well Hermione will turn out to be right in the end!", but no. That very much did not happen.

Yeah, there are a lot of mean assumptions in Harry Potter that are often handwaved because it's a fantasy book. The more that the writing became "serious," the more problems I had with some of the choices, like...

Only one house being the good one, and one house being made up of evil characters. It smacks of classism and the idea that you as a person are set based on your intrinsic morality instead of the choices you make.

The chosen one narrative. Harry is an orphan, which sucks, but he's also a rich popular gifted wizard with a famous family name. It's a boring story choice.

The goblins. I clocked the anti-Semitic tropes the first time I read it, and often when I brought it up in conversation folks did not want to acknowledge it. I don't know if the author sat down and purposefully used anti-Semitic tropes to describe the goblins, but she did, and it matches the overall laziness of how she used stereotypes and archetypes without thought.

I think HP is popular because of this use of tropes and the ways it subconsciously confirms a lot of biases people have: that some people are intrinsically good or bad, that boys are more worthy than girls, that people should be fit into hierarchical classes, and that we can safely claim some intelligent people as inhuman and treat them as slaves or monsters.

I don't think HP should be banned or anything but there are a lot of other examples of fantasy and YA books that don't just lazily throw tropes together.

 

[The Firebird]

Yeah, there are a lot of mean assumptions in Harry Potter that are often handwaved because it's a fantasy book. The more that the writing became "serious," the more problems I had with some of the choices, like...

Only one house being the good one, and one house being made up of evil characters. It smacks of classism and the idea that you as a person are set based on your intrinsic morality instead of the choices you make.

The chosen one narrative. Harry is an orphan, which sucks, but he's also a rich popular gifted wizard with a famous family name. It's a boring story choice.

The goblins. I clocked the anti-Semitic tropes the first time I read it, and often when I brought it up in conversation folks did not want to acknowledge it. I don't know if the author sat down and purposefully used anti-Semitic tropes to describe the goblins, but she did, and it matches the overall laziness of how she used stereotypes and archetypes without thought.

I think HP is popular because of this use of tropes and the ways it subconsciously confirms a lot of biases people have: that some people are intrinsically good or bad, that boys are more worthy than girls, that people should be fit into hierarchical classes, and that we can safely claim some intelligent people as inhuman and treat them as slaves or monsters.

I don't think HP should be banned or anything but there are a lot of other examples of fantasy and YA books that don't just lazily throw tropes together.

It is the unpopular opinion thread...but I think many of these interpretations are not supported by the text. Maybe one of my unpopular opinion is that I think it is a good fantasy story?

 

[billd91]

Only one house being the good one, and one house being made up of evil characters. It smacks of classism and the idea that you as a person are set based on your intrinsic morality instead of the choices you make.

Um... this actually IS dealt with. Harry chooses his house (by opting against Slytherin). Dumbledore underscores the importance of that choice and, later on, reflects to Snape that people are sorted too soon before their true nature is demonstrated. Harry eventually tells his awkwardly named son (Albus Severus) that he can choose as well.
Whatever limitations as a writer and a person Rowling has, let's not hold her accountable for the wrong things.

 

[Ryujin]

Um... this actually IS dealt with. Harry chooses his house (by opting against Slytherin). Dumbledore underscores the importance of that choice and, later on, reflects to Snape that people are sorted too soon before their true nature is demonstrated. Harry eventually tells his awkwardly named son (Albus Severus) that he can choose as well.
Whatever limitations as a writer and a person Rowling has, let's not hold her accountable for the wrong things.

If you're going to credit her with that much, then also consider that she wove into her stories that Harry was also marked (in more ways that just the physical) by Voldemort. When you recognize that, you can't help but wonder if the Sorting Hat was going to put Harry into Slytherin because of that taint.

 

[The Firebird]

If you're going to credit her with that much, then also consider that she wove into her stories that Harry was also marked (in more ways that just the physical) by Voldemort. When you recognize that, you can't help but wonder if the Sorting Hat was going to put Harry into Slytherin because of that taint.

I think that reading is straightforward. But in the context of choice, Draco, Percy, Sirius and Regulus, Slughorn, Pettigrew, and Lockhart all have stories that reject the intrinsic morality idea. We can add Hagrid and Lupin to that as well.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Um... this actually IS dealt with. Harry chooses his house (by opting against Slytherin). Dumbledore underscores the importance of that choice and, later on, reflects to Snape that people are sorted too soon before their true nature is demonstrated. Harry eventually tells his awkwardly named son (Albus Severus) that he can choose as well.
Whatever limitations as a writer and a person Rowling has, let's not hold her accountable for the wrong things.

That's basically a massive retcon though isn't it?

There's no evidence, textually, that it has anything to do with the student's choice (with the possible exception of Harry, who himself continues to insist the hat chose for him), until, years after the fact, after years of people, including newspaper columnists and reviewers, criticising this, Rowling clumsily retcon'd it. Everyone in the books acts and talks like the hat just chooses for them. Including Dumbledore in your example - he's implying it's not a choice, that in fact the hat chooses for people.

So we can absolutely hold her accountable for this. Her attempting to later retcon something doesn't reverse how it obviously worked initially. If she acknowledged the retcon you could at least argue that she had a change of heart, and say "Okay, fair enough". But she never did. This is a pure later retcon.

And when even were the events you refer to exactly? Which books? Because I'm suspecting the the Albus Severus (lol these names, at least it's not Cho Chang or Kingsley Shacklebolt I guess) one is in what, the Cursed Child? A play written 20 years later?

I think it's fair to say "Well, she did later retcon that, albeit in a way many might find unconvincing", but to claim that was always her intention? No. Her own books don't support that.

And Dumbledore's "Man this rubbish hat sorts people too early!" rings incredibly hollow and fake when he continues to let the hat do it. Pick a lane, Dumbledore.

EDIT - Also pick a lane on whether the hat can be wrong or not, frankly, because Rowling has both said it never is, but also implied, via Dumbledore, that it is. Yet I believe textually (maybe I forget, it's been years and I didn't read all the books), all Slytherin kids are evil/side with evil? No exceptions? Only like, a couple of ex-Slytherin adults are not evil?

EDIT EDIT - Also this is more of an observation than an argument, but... it seems like a lot of very serious Harry Potter fans don't actually agree with the claim "Kids just choose their houses, the hat doesn't choose", like at all, like not even slightly. That this isn't some clear settled issues that's been retcon'd successfully. It seems like most fans think you don't choose. Some are actively angry about the idea that you might choose, and think that's just nonsense, obviously the hat chooses, and the hat knows better! So I'm not sure your claim has the compelling evidence supporting it that you suggest. Please could you tell us the exact supporting sources? You don't need to quote or give page numbers, just the book or play in question would be more than fine.

That's ignoring that it's almost as profoundly messed-up to ask kids to choose anything at 11. Hell I got asked which school I wanted to go to at 11 and I chose totally wrong (for the record I chose the school equivalent of Ravenclaw but to be fair the main alternative was basically Hufflepuff). Putting "Wow dat's messed up yo" in Dumbledore's mouth (who she also retcon'd being gay when the lack of gay representation was repeatedly pointed out! Bit of a retcon target on ol' DD's back) and having him do exactly nothing about it doesn't detract from it being messed-up either lol. Also are you asking me to buy the idea that the kids choose voluntarily, there's no quotas or anything, and Hufflepuff is the exact same size as the other houses, not 1/10th as large? Because I've met kids. I've been a kid. I know that like maybe 1-2 kids in a class of 20 would pick the house with an obvious dumb name and who are known for being basically "dim/weak but hardworking/decent". And also Ravenclaw would have like 2x as many people in it as the other houses put together and a wild mix of actually-smart kids and dumb kids who thought they were smart.

 

[trappedslider]

It is the unpopular opinion thread...but I think many of these interpretations are not supported by the text. Maybe one of my unpopular opinion is that I think it is a good fantasy story?

Hence my "not everything written has some deep meaning" opinion.

 

[billd91]

That's basically a massive retcon though isn't it?

There's no evidence, textually, that it has anything to do with the student's choice (with the possible exception of Harry, who himself continues to insist the hat chose for him), until, years after the fact, after years of people, including newspaper columnists and reviewers, criticising this, Rowling clumsily retcon'd it. Everyone in the books acts and talks like the hat just chooses for them. Including Dumbledore in your example - he's implying it's not a choice, that in fact the hat chooses for people.

So we can absolutely hold her accountable for this. Her attempting to later retcon something doesn't reverse how it obviously worked initially. If she acknowledged the retcon you could at least argue that she had a change of heart, and say "Okay, fair enough". But she never did. This is a pure later retcon.

And when even were the events you refer to exactly? Which books? Because I'm suspecting the the Albus Severus (lol these names, at least it's not Cho Chang or Kingsley Shacklebolt I guess) one is in what, the Cursed Child? A play written 20 years later?

I think it's fair to say "Well, she did later retcon that, albeit in a way many might find unconvincing", but to claim that was always her intention? No. Her own books don't support that.

And Dumbledore's "Man this rubbish hat sorts people too early!" rings incredibly hollow and fake when he continues to let the hat do it. Pick a lane, Dumbledore.

What's the retcon? Harry makes his choice in the first book and Dumbledore validates it. He opines about sorting too early to Snape in book 6, if I remember correctly. Harry tells his son he can choose his house in book 7. Harry's morality and the morality of people close to him is all about choices from the beginning rather than the supremacy of a magical aristocracy. Even the prophecy underscores choices to be made that set the events of the story in motion as we learn in book 5 rather than inevitable fate.
There may be elements that are kind of ham-handed in their treatment, but I think there's probably a point to the magical world setting having incredible elements (healers instead of of doctors as Ron puts it) but complicated by an aristocracy that's blasé about enslavement of a sapient species (not to mention the blatant racism directed at others like centaurs) in the background while the choices made by Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys foreground the struggle against evil.

It's fashionable to bash Rowling right and left these days - her attacks on trans women are absolutely bashable. But I think people make her a punching bag for things she doesn't deserve as a result as well. THAT's the retcon.

 

[TiQuinn]

My two cents on the Potterverse: A lot more people would still be enjoying Harry Potter if it weren’t for JK Rowling’s personal opinions, but the latter is enough to dustbin the former IMO since there’s plenty of other fantasy to choose from. Harry Potter was popular, accessible, and caught on at precisely the right time. But those qualities also do not make it particularly special.