How well do you think that Harry Potter has aged? (Spoilers)

[clearspira]

This was raised on another thread and I thought it would make for an interesting discussion. How well do you think that the Harry Potter books and films have aged?

In my opinion, it is very clear that after Prisoner of Azkaban (which in my opinion is the best, just throwing that out there) Rowling grew too big for her editor. The books became longer, more padded, and full of what in my opinion are rather amateurish writing mistakes. I realise that is a very strong claim to make of one of the bestselling authors of all time, but I submit to y'all that if anyone else released a book like Order of the Phoenix THAT HAS PARAGRAPH AFTER PARAGRAPH OF CAPS LOCK THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN LAUGHED OUT OF THE ROOM. HOW ELSE COULD YOU KNOW THAT HARRY IS ANGRY?

The plots themselves aren't all that strong either.

Goblet of Fire: Fake Moody waits a whole year to kidnap Harry for no reason whatsoever. Trains him on how to reject the Imperius Curse (AKA mind control) which becomes an absolutely valuable skill against Voldemort going forward.

The Deathly Hallows: Harry goes on a camping trip to find three never before mentioned mcguffins. Ends with Harry and Dumbledore having a conversation in Heaven(!) next to the deformed living corpse of Voldemort.

I think that the IDEA of the world (as demonstrated with the popularity of the recent game) is actually far more impressive than what Rowling actually did with it.

And as for the films, they became dumb as shit action films that make no internal sense starting with Goblet of Fire.
Exhibit A being the fact that when Harry and co fly to Grimmauld Place on broomsticks, they fly so close to the ground that everyone is seeing them. Possibly as many as many as hundreds of thousands of people. And these films are set in the 2000s rather than the 1990s when people had camera phones. That's it - wizarding world revealed to all. There can be no secret after this.

And considering that one of the later films has a fight using broomsticks and wands over a fucking highway, it only gets dumber from there.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

There's a lot of things that stand out in hindsight.

Worldbuilding was never Rowling's strong suit, and she has a nasty habit of creating incredibly powerful items that make no sense in their larger context and she doesn't know what to do with them. Remember that wizards cannonically have TIME TRAVEL? And there was the magical knife that could open any lock or not Sirius gave Harry for his birthday.

Then there's, like, the other stuff. The Happy Slaves trope. There's a reason we don't see a lot of house elf stuff in the movie adaptation. When we first meet Dobby, we're rightfully horrified to find out he is a slave and how this magical bondage exploits him. Then later J. K. Rowling decided "Actually, trying to end Chattle Slavery is cringe and Hermione is a silly Granola Girl for doing it."

Then there's the whole goblin bankers thing, which is more than a little uncomfortable.

Also, Harry becoming a wizard cop seems like a mistake, when surely the natural trajectory for his character was to become a Defense Agains the Dark Arts teacher.

Also Snape was a huge douche and I would have just poured the memory out in front of him for calling my mom the M-word.

[hammerofglass]

I mean, it is kinda hard to tell what falls under "it doesn't hold up" and what falls under "I'm an adult reading a book meant for eight year olds".

[CharlesPhipps]

It's harder and harder to read it with what Joan uses her platform to preach like Holocaust denial.

Then there's, like, the other stuff. The Happy Slaves trope. There's a reason we don't see a lot of house elf stuff in the movie adaptation. When we first meet Dobby, we're rightfully horrified to find out he is a slave and how this magical bondage exploits him. Then later J. K. Rowling decided "Actually, trying to end Chattle Slavery is cringe and Hermione is a silly Granola Girl for doing it."

I think a lot of Potter fans don't want to acknowledge the critique of white activist racism in this storyline. They say that House Elves have to all be slaves and are property of wizards versus engaging in a non-capitalist culture because that would mean that they aren't white saviors condescending that other cultures can do things differently.

[Thebestoftherest]

Can you elaborate what you mean?

[Deledrius]

The Deathly Hallows: Harry goes on a camping trip to find three never before mentioned mcguffins.

That's only true in the films. The Horcruxes are explicitly the entire point of a primary subplot, by name, throughout Half-Blood Prince, and were introduced as far back as Chamber of Secrets. The Hallows OTOH are pulled out of nowhere, but Harry never goes searching for those (and already has two of them by the start of the story).

And as for the films, they became dumb as shit action films that make no internal sense starting with Goblet of Fire.
Exhibit A being the fact that when Harry and co fly to Grimmauld Place on broomsticks, they fly so close to the ground that everyone is seeing them. Possibly as many as many as hundreds of thousands of people. And these films are set in the 2000s rather than the 1990s when people had camera phones. That's it - wizarding world revealed to all. There can be no secret after this.

And considering that one of the later films has a fight using broomsticks and wands over a fucking highway, it only gets dumber from there.

It's frustrating because the books explicitly avoid this stupid action trope, and derive some drama from that fact. But the movies ignore it and are all the dumber because of it.

I disagree that they changed the setting, though. Based on the fashion, I'd say it's intentionally ambiguous whether the films take place during the same years as the books or not. The Muggle clothing they wear would not have been out of place in the 1990s. The only contradiction appears to be the Millennium Bridge, which could easily be a simple error. We don't see any other post-2000 technology or fashion. I suspect they decided to keep to the original time period, but chose clothing that wouldn't look especially dated in order to not be obviously a period-piece for modern audiences. The time frame is just close enough (within a decade) that it was relatively easy to get away with it. Of course, they could have avoided that even easier by keeping Wizarding attire as described in the books, but Alfonso Cuarón just had to ditch as much of Columbus's stylistic worldbuilding as he could and put everyone in Muggle clothing as much as possible, which started a trend they never recovered from.

[CharlesPhipps]

Can you elaborate what you mean?

As it was explained to me, "White Savior Activism" is where a college student or affluent individual hears about some culture and decides that they are oppressed then attempts to explain to said individual why they are. If the latter don't agree, they are brainwashed and a subject to correction by the more enlightened liberal white person. Some even go so far as to other countries for their lecturing and get very annoyed when they aren't automatically given difference.

Hermione's narrative is basically a classic take of a white affluent woman starting to campaign for a minority while...actually not bothering to talk to any of said minority or ask their opinions on the subject. There are no House Elf Members of SPEW (other than Dobby) for example and she literally tries to get them fired from their jobs because she finds their work demeaning.

The House Elves get furious when called slaves and Hermione basically takes this as a sign they're brainwashed but never bothers to ask WHAT they think of their circumstances because it doesn't matter what THEY think as SHE has decided they're oppressed.

Dobby was absolutely a slave and abused horribly but Kreacher is an active part of the Black's oppression of others and racism. The Hogwarts House Elves have an actual community there.

You can certainly argue they're in some form of bondage but it doesn't matter because Hermione is deciding for them no matter what because she doesn't care to check what their opinion is. She's assumed leadership of this crusade by virtue of being a privileged white person who thinks its her job to solve their problems versus just offering to help.

[Winter]

Can you elaborate what you mean?

As it was explained to me, "White Savior Activism" is where a college student or affluent individual hears about some culture and decides that they are oppressed then attempts to explain to said individual why they are. If the latter don't agree, they are brainwashed and a subject to correction by the more enlightened liberal white person. Some even go so far as to other countries for their lecturing and get very annoyed when they aren't automatically given difference.

Hermione's narrative is basically a classic take of a white affluent woman starting to campaign for a minority while...actually not bothering to talk to any of said minority or ask their opinions on the subject. There are no House Elf Members of SPEW (other than Dobby) for example and she literally tries to get them fired from their jobs because she finds their work demeaning.

The House Elves get furious when called slaves and Hermione basically takes this as a sign they're brainwashed but never bothers to ask WHAT they think of their circumstances because it doesn't matter what THEY think as SHE has decided they're oppressed.

Dobby was absolutely a slave and abused horribly but Kreacher is an active part of the Black's oppression of others and racism. The Hogwarts House Elves have an actual community there.

You can certainly argue they're in some form of bondage but it doesn't matter because Hermione is deciding for them no matter what because she doesn't care to check what their opinion is. She's assumed leadership of this crusade by virtue of being a privileged white person who thinks its her job to solve their problems versus just offering to help.

One thing to keep in mind is that Dumbledore himself says that Elves are bound by magic to serve wizards and the Elves never say what their real opinion is, they're just sort going with the flow of things because that's how it's always been done.

But to focus on one thing you mentioned that caught my eye, "Hermione is deciding for them no matter what because she doesn't care to check what their opinion is. She's assumed leadership of this crusade by virtue of being a privileged white person who thinks its her job to solve their problems versus just offering to help."

I can't help but think of the Cursed Child Play where Hermione was played by a black woman and in my own idea for a Harry Potter TV Series Adaptation I intend to have the character be played by a black girl. Would this change how we see Hermione trying to free Elves because of Black People were treated in the Muggle World and maybe even in the Wizarding World?

I mean I will admit that I would keep the story loyal because despite my anger at Rowling for her anti-trans comments I still love these books and I would do my best to recreate the tone of the book. Some changes are unavoidable due to the Adaptation method but some changes would be brought about because of who is playing who.

But to switch gears on the subject when I began this little thought experiment on how I would approach adapting the series something I noticed is that it was ridiculously easy to take chapters that just seemed to go on forever and sum them up in 3 minutes.

Take the first two chapters of The Goblet of Fire, those first two chapters are 25 pages long, I managed to get that down to 10 or 15 minutes with no real issue because most of the pages a series of exposition dumps with few to no breaks. Chapter 2 is almost 15 pages of recapping events from the first 3 novels, introducing characters but I got it down to 5 minutes but just having it a be a montage of Harry remembering key events from the first 3 seasons.

This honestly is a good example of what I like about these books while also highlighting a major problem with it. See the line of thought Harry has in the books and the way I worked to recreate it follows a natural line of thought. First he thinks of how his scar is hurting him and tries to think of who to ask for advice, which leads him to first think of Hermione, which leads him to thinking Dumbledore, which leads him to thinking of Ron where he imagines Ron asking his dad for advice which leads him to thinking about his own parents which then leads him to think of Sirius Black who is the closest thing he has to a father.

This is a perfectly captures Harry's line of thinking that feels completely normal. On the flip side this could have been done in 5 pages instead of 10 and I know this because I did it and got praise from my teachers for doing so.

Rowling... has a bad habit of over explaining things, to the point that it can come off as padding out the book. I would argue that every chapter serves a purpose but at the same time she just tends to go on for a bit which can get annoying and I should know, I do the same thing as evident by my own posts here.

So, my own thoughts on this series and whether it will hold up or not. Despite Rowling doing everything in her power to emulate Graywytch this series is still great but it's flaws do get a lot more noticeable as time goes by. I see what Rowling was trying to do in parts of the books like Harry suffering from PTSD in The Order of the Phoenix hence him lashing out so often but that it's not very well handled.

The same idea was handled better in stories before and after HP like All Quote on the Western Front and The Legend of Korra but here Harry is just annoying. But again, the series has so many great moments that it's easy to overlook those issues and thankfully there isn't really much sign of Rowling's transphobia in the novels so it's easy to divorce the art from the artist.

[CharlesPhipps]

I can't help but think of the Cursed Child Play where Hermione was played by a black woman and in my own idea for a Harry Potter TV Series Adaptation I intend to have the character be played by a black girl. Would this change how we see Hermione trying to free Elves because of Black People were treated in the Muggle World and maybe even in the Wizarding World?

I mean, I'll ask how you're framing it because I don't think Rowling did a very good job but going with how it's presented in the books and probably Rowling's intent, is it better to make Hermione a racist and entitled black woman toward fairies?

What does it say if you have that kind of vile attitude from a minority? Admiral Cartwright is a racist against Klingons and that was done deliberately to show prejudice had changed in the future but really sickened the actor given the kind of language he used was thrown at people like himself in RL.

But if you're NOT saying Hermione is racist and agree with her point then it becomes a different one. I no longer think Rowling has earned the complete trust of adaptation. Quite a few fans think that Hermione was in the right and consider the treatment of SPEW about anti-slavery and not White Savior arrogance.

Because the metaphor breaks down sometimes in these situations.

[stryke]

As it was explained to me, "White Savior Activism" is where a college student or affluent individual hears about some culture and decides that they are oppressed then attempts to explain to said individual why they are.

There's also an element of class warfare which Rowling loves including, and why before she went down her twitter spiral, was a great part of why she was once so lauded as this Labour supporting leftie icon.

A very popular pastiche in UK comedy in the 90's when the first books were written was the spoiled young rich who doesn't have to work for a living, and so spends their time doing activism without understanding what they are doing making them inneffectual and/or annoying. If you recognise the trope, Hermionie is playing it to the hilt, and so Rowling expects you not to side with her.

Thing is she used the 's' word, and that's where she really fucked up, cause opposing that must be right, right? And that she's basically treating Hermionie's attempts as a joke comes off super weird and messed up to those unfamiilar to the trope. Add that making fun of activists in the 2020's hits much, much differently than it did in the 90's and you can see why people hate that plotline so much these days.