Why no Harry Potter, eh?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So I looked at ONTD's "Ten of the most Epidemically Overrated Books," and was incensed to find that books like On the Road and The Great Gatsby made the list but the Harry Potter series didn't (though at least the Twilight series did). I mean really, Harry Potter is the epitome of an overrated book series, given that there are people seriously making the point that it's so deep and meaningful and needs to be read in AP English classes. Never mind that it's a children's book series!

Well, these were the people who said that a bunch of authors besides Rowling disliked the idea of fanfiction without bothering to consider WHY they might feel that way (specifically, that Rowling is the only one who's all that fandom savvy because she's modern in a way that the others aren't). Maybe they just think Rowling is their darling author too, and you can't say anything bad about her.

Comments

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Of course it would help their background research if they had a decent history class, and were required to take Muggle Studies (which Percy recommended, but no one listens to him).

It would also help if the muggle studies course wasn't so embarrassingly prejudiced either. The way that Hermione describes it makes me think of the supposedly "scientific" studies of the 19th and 20th century about why white males were clearly mentally superior to everybody else. If the WW made any sense, they would teach students to at least treat muggles with caution. After all, it isn't like wizards are necessarily bulletproof. They can be caught off guard just like anybody else. Also, with the astonishing rate of muggle technological advancement, I would think that even the most bigoted wizard would have to be getting a little nervous. How long will it be until muggles crack the secrets of magic or find a way to replicate them? More importantly, what will they do when they find this small group of people who have been leaching off them for hundreds of years? What will they do when too many people find out about them for the Ministry of Magic to keep up with all of the memory modification? I mean, there are millions of muggles and a fairly small wizarding community in comparison. There had better be a contingency plan.

[sunnyskywalker]

The series really might have worked better if she had set it in the '40s or something instead of current times. Then at least wizards would look on par with, or possibly slightly more progressive than, their Muggle neighbors.

Yeah, I wonder why there aren't massive research projects on ways to hide better at minimum? Like underground, or on an isolated island in the Pacific, or deep in the Mariana Trench or somewhere else Muggles don't get to very often. (Maybe Pigfarts on Mars is not such a bad idea. They should work on that.) You'd think this would be a major public concern.

[ladyzenobia.livejournal.com]

Imagine if they pretended it was 1688 and they debated whether or not to write up a Statute of Secrecy

Oh yes!! And maybe go back to the founders time and debate the whole muggleborn/pureblood thing. Because they're still hexing each other over it in the 1990s.

After all, it isn't like wizards are necessarily bulletproof.

I wonder if a shield charm protects you from pullets as well as magic :)

The series really might have worked better if she had set it in the '40s

Wait? Did she actually plan to do that?

As for research projects, I think the department of mysteries is a real wasted opportunity. She could have shown us wizarding scientist at work and explained how wizard science differs from the muggle one. But now it just looks like wizards haven't ever heard of science.

[sunnyskywalker]

No, but I'd heard it floated around the internets as an idea that would have ironed out a few wrinkles and liked it. I think it just didn't occur to her, or maybe she thought kids wouldn't feel it was as relevant if it weren't in modern times.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Considering the disdain that wizards have for muggle technology, I wonder if they would think it necessary to modify the shield charm for repelling bullets? I mean, what was that very dismissive reference to guns as primitive wands that muggles use to kill each other? I am probably misremembering it, but I remember thinking that it sounded rather arrogant even when I was still a fan.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to have seen it set in the 40's as well. Although, I wonder if wizards would have done anything during the Blitz or whether they would have just shrugged and let their neighbors die because it might expose their masquerade otherwise.

Apparently I have become very cynical about the series. I just have a hard time believing that any wizard would care enough about somebody outside their insular community to help them. Am I being too hard on HP?

[oryx_leucoryx]

I wonder what Diagon Alley was like during the Blitz. (Tom Riddle spent wartime summers in the orphanage. I wonder what he thought of that?)

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the orphanage have been evacuated during the Blitz, the children sent to country places?