You sure about that?
I mean, just for a start, have you taken a good look at her fantasy creatures lately? A whole bunch of them are straight-up based on malicious and dehumanizing stereotypes about actual people.
Remember the werewolves? And being a werewolf was made into a kind of metaphor for having AIDS?
And you know how AIDS was first associated with gay men? And how conservatives back in the day were claiming gay men were preying on children in order to convert them to gayness?
Remember how Fenrir Greyback preyed on children in particular? Yeah, she put that subtext in there. She was an adult in the 90's. She knew damn well what she was doing.
Remember the house elves? Remember how most of them loved to serve and needed to have a home and a master or else they just wouldn't know what to do with themselves?
Did you know that's literally what slavers in the American South said about the Black people they kept enslaved? Go look up the happy slave myth.
Do I even need to get into the goblins and the antisemitic tropes they're based on? No, folkloric goblins were not gold-hoarding bankers waiting for their chance to stab humanity in the back.
"But the characters are so good!"
Are you kidding me?
Most of her characters are pretty one-dimensional, including Harry. Her idea of making a morally complicated character is giving a tragic past to a bully. Numerous characters are little more than stereotypes. (Looking at Fleur right now.) Literally anybody, including you, can easily make dozens of characters just as good, if not better. (It doesn't exactly take a lot of character designing skill to go, "hey, actually, having a sad backstory doesn't make it okay to bully children" or "hey, maybe I should not base a character on the first stereotype that pops into my head.")
"But the rest of the worldbuilding!"
Sorry, but her worldbuilding is just as basic as her characters. Magical castles and secret passages are stock tropes. Magical people who keep their true nature secret from humanity is the premise of pretty much every White Wolf TTRPG. Most of her fantasy creatures are just common European fairy tale and folklore creatures with shitty stereotypes projected onto them.
I'm not saying "basic worldbuilding bad." I'm saying, you could do just as good, if not better, with minimal effort.
Also there's her magical bioessentialism, where only Harry's abusive blood relatives could provide him with supernatural protection from Voldemort. Rowling thus effectively declared that non-biological family isn't quite real family, and that abusive biofamily can give you some essential thing that a loving, supportive family that isn't related to you just can't.
The Hogwarts houses are one of the most insidious elements of her worldbuilding. The idea of being sorted gives you a little dopamine hit because wow now you have a li'l niche where you belong!
But the actual function of the houses and sorting system and the House Cup is teaching children to see each other as rivals, and ensure that the most toxic views of the upper class get passed on to every new batch of kids sorted into Slytherin.
Hogwarts effectively prepares children for a dystopia where magic serves to distract its citizens from how nightmarishly awful it is. Economic inequality is so bad that people like Arthur and Molly Weasley can barely afford to put their kids through school, casual sadism is just an accepted norm in everyday society, and non-humans are second class citizens. Rowling sorta acts like she thinks this is a bad thing with certain lines she gave to Dumbledore, but in the end, her special boy protagonist becomes an auror; IE, a defender of the status quo. So.
If you've never seen it, Lily Simpson's video goes into even more detail on how the worldbuilding of Harry Potter is actually incredibly fucked up, and how it betrays small-minded attitudes on Rowling's part. There's no separating the art from this artist, because Rowling's rotten values pour out of nearly every page.
Yes, there are many things in Harry Potter that evoke feelings and inspire people, but there's absolutely nothing in it that this series has a monopoly on. You can find those same experiences in much, much better media.
i love this type of post
Just watched the new Futurama ep that came out today, Quids Game and my god it was a lot better than last weeks crypto turd.
The plot was another episode that focused on Fry’s past which is a concept of the show that always intrigues me, it gave me vibes of two episodes I love from the Comedy Central era those being Game Of Tones & Murder On The Planet Express.
It was nice that the episode didn’t have those irritating “Fry is dumb laugh” flanderizion moments from the last few seasons when ever he spoke (which is a problem that happens way too often with HD era Futurama) and it had those sweet and sc-fi moments that made me love the show growing up. Anyways fantastic ep I give it a strong 9/10
ive just been born into the world what are some good games for beginners
*watching the news* TV: For reasons unknown, a man jumped into the tank at the aquarium to fight a giant squid. Shego: What kind of idiot would do that? *door opens* Drakken: *walks in dripping wet and covered with ink* Shego: ...Never mind, I don't wanna know.
I wish I could like ppl’s comments on here like you can do on most social sites but whateves lol
Reblog to make him lose another 200 billion, like to make him lose 1 billion
shows should have 22 episodes a season again where half of them are low stakes silly fun shit happening. this i believe with my whole heart
I some ways I feel bad for Lily..
Imagine having to lie and gaslight everyone in your life so they won’t leave you and realize what a monster you are.
Imagine having this fucked up relationship with your sister that you had to constantly be superior with because you are secretly in love with her and trying to normalize that..it will never be normal.
Imagine having to hint to everyone in your social circle that you’re attracted to them, and constantly pressuring people, including children, in order to get what you want out of them.
It’s all just gross.
24/🇦🇺/autistic/pan/he/him/wannabe goth/Dork who loves animals, cartoons, music and other things also icky ppl blow (duh)Follow me on these ig:Letterboxd/Seralized: Patror999
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