01 Oct 2023, 6:53 pm
02 Oct 2023, 12:57 am
magz wrote:
vividgroovy wrote:
The main villain is an inbred, white "pureblood" supremacist fascist.
To the point that with my cultural and historical background, I interpreted it as a poor and unrealistic fantasy based on Hitler and his followers.
In a mainstream work of fiction, basing your villain on Hitler is a pretty safe bet because nearly everyone hates Hitler. I don't think it was considered any kind of daring commentary when the books came out. Some people say that Dolores Umbridge is hated more by the fans because Voldemort is a more fantastical villain, while Umbridge is more like a person we might encounter in real life.
The problem is that the other major villain in the Potter universe, Grindelwald, is ALSO Wizard Hitler. I didn't even watch the second two "Fantastic Beasts" movies, because I just wasn't ready to get invested in another fight against Wizard Hitler after I'd just seen the last one defeated.
Sweetleaf wrote:
It is sad, like that was a part of my childhood but idk it was also a part of childhood for a lot of trans people so like she is like one of the bad guys in her own books just being cruel and mean to a group of people she simply may not understand so well but instead of learning she just doubles down on her hatered of such jpeople. And I just don't see how a person could be like that or act that way. Like if I see someone who looks like a trans woman I treat them normal, like they are a fellow woman because trans women are women....
This take I understand more, because it acknowledges that it was the bad guys who were bigots in her books.
The irony is that one of the reasons trans people may have enjoyed the books are because they're pro-inclusion.
Barchan wrote:
Fnord wrote:
It's all a ripoff, anyway:
It's just the Hero's Journey, all stories are Star Wars, some stories just do a better job of hiding it (JKR is not exactly known for her subtlety).
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is a great example of a Hero's Journey that doesn't feel like a Star Wars knockoff, partially because it predates Star Wars, but also because it was written by a legitimate author; Tolkien wrote literature, not pulpy genre-fiction. However I would say that Tolkien and Rowling both have the similar problem where the bad guys in the story feel like a proxy for the author's own unexamined racial prejudices.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
...And Star Wars was inspired mostly by Frank Herbert's Dune btw.
Both Star Wars and Harry Potter simply follow Joseph Campbell's theory of the universal "heroe's quest" in mythology.
Star Wars did so consciously (actually studied Campbell's theory). Ms. Rowling in Harry Potter (like just like Tolkien, Homer, and every other story teller since the creators of Gilgamesh) probably did so unconsciously.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
Star Wars was mostly based on Akira Kurosawa films. And on Flash Gordon. And on Barsoom. And on Lensman. And on Foundation. And on the Dam Busters. And on Lawrence of Arabia. And on the Vietnam War.
naturalplastic wrote:
As I understand it George Lucas was a student of Joseph Campbell, and his theories about archetypal myth.
And he consciously followed the arc of "the hero's quest" in crafting the core story.
But that doesnt mean that he didnt also steal outward memes from both fiction and nonfiction.
Mixing and matching in ways that usually made no sense. Like the "light sabers". NO future civilization, capable of interstellar space travel, would ever develop a "weapon system" as idiotic as light sabers.
But we movie goers all wanna see the warriors have a one on one sword fight. So they deliver it to us...but try to make it look like its not anachronistic by making the swords into "lasers" so we can have our cake and eat it too!
And you forgot WWII. Darth Vader and his minions all wore headgear clearly influenced by German helmets of WWII.
And he consciously followed the arc of "the hero's quest" in crafting the core story.
But that doesnt mean that he didnt also steal outward memes from both fiction and nonfiction.
Mixing and matching in ways that usually made no sense. Like the "light sabers". NO future civilization, capable of interstellar space travel, would ever develop a "weapon system" as idiotic as light sabers.
But we movie goers all wanna see the warriors have a one on one sword fight. So they deliver it to us...but try to make it look like its not anachronistic by making the swords into "lasers" so we can have our cake and eat it too!
And you forgot WWII. Darth Vader and his minions all wore headgear clearly influenced by German helmets of WWII.
magz wrote:
...My reaction to Harry Potter series was rather like shrug. Not really bad, not really good. Just a regular piece of fiction, full of regular tropes and sometimes annoyingly incoherent but nicely told when it comes to detailed depiction of the world.
Yes, one of the major appeals of both "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter" is how they mash all these familiar genre conventions together. "Harry Potter" is a chosen one fantasy epic and a mystery and a boarding school drama and a war story, etc., etc. (Actually, genre-mashing is something that I think was largely missing from the Disney "Star Wars" movies. They were mostly just trying to be "Star Wars."
When we see a title like "[Character's Name] and the [Mysterious Person, Place or Thing,]" we recognize that as pulpy genre fiction. Much like Lucas did with the adventure serials he grew up, Rowling took that pulp and tailored it for a then-modern audience enough to make them take it seriously...but only just seriously enough.
The thing is that some of the people making these rotten takes on "Harry Potter" don't seem to recognize these genre conventions. They look at "Harry Potter" and they're baffled that it's not, for example, a realistic expose on the trauma suffered by abused children. They criticize things like Dumbledore leaving baby Harry on the Dursley's doorstep -- how irresponsible of him! -- when it's a trope so common that even my childhood cartoons used it whenever there was an orphan in the plot. Sometimes, they go on to present these takes as further proof that Rowling is evil because she wrote her "good guys" doing these things, when they're mostly just there to make the pulpy plot turn.
02 Oct 2023, 2:21 am
Wasnt the Prophet Moses an "orphan left on a doorstep"?
NO...worse...a baby left in a basket to float down the Nile!
By just dumb luck he was found in the bull rushes by...none other...than the Pharoah's daughter.
Coulda been eaten by crocs.
Yep. That is a very OLD meme in literature.
02 Oct 2023, 2:48 am
02 Oct 2023, 5:51 am
02 Oct 2023, 6:59 am
02 Oct 2023, 7:39 am
02 Oct 2023, 5:14 pm
The_Walrus wrote:
vividgroovy wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Barchan wrote:
Fnord wrote:
It's all a ripoff, anyway:
It's just the Hero's Journey, all stories are Star Wars, some stories just do a better job of hiding it (JKR is not exactly known for her subtlety).
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is a great example of a Hero's Journey that doesn't feel like a Star Wars knockoff, partially because it predates Star Wars, but also because it was written by a legitimate author; Tolkien wrote literature, not pulpy genre-fiction. However I would say that Tolkien and Rowling both have the similar problem where the bad guys in the story feel like a proxy for the author's own unexamined racial prejudices.
I can get where you're coming from with Tolkien's depiction of the orcs. Not sure about Rowling though, unless her unexamined prejudice is against the French. Maybe you're talking about... the giants? I guess I could see that, although they're hardly major antagonists. I dunno?
Yes, and even in the case of the French, the point of Fleur is that Molly and Ginny Weasley were wrong about her.
I wasn't talking about the people who are actually depicted as French, but just Rowling's habit of giving her villains French names - Voldemort, Malfoy, Lestrange.
Of course that also ties into the class system because the British nobility (going back to the Norman Conquest) have French descent. Not super relevant in the modern world but there is still an association between the upper classes and France, even reflected in our language (a living cow is a cow because that's what the Saxon farmer calls it, a dead cow on a plate is "beef" because that's what the rich French noble would have called it).
That's interesting. As an American, this never occurred to me.
I guess if Harry was truly meant to be a rich jock, she would have named him Harry Potier.
I remember in one of the audiobooks (I listened to both the American and British editions), the narrator pronounced Voldemort's name in a more French-sounding manner, Volde-more. While in the movies, it's Volde-MORT.
03 Oct 2023, 3:18 pm
03 Oct 2023, 4:03 pm
vividgroovy wrote:
The other thing I find interesting is that Rowling's very first piece of "grown up" fiction after writing "Harry Potter" was "The Casual Vacancy," which is openly about politics. I was rather unfair to this book when I tried to read it. I got one chapter in and my brain said, "This isn't 'Harry Potter'" and I never read the rest. But from what I gather, it has a rather blatantly Left-leaning message.
In a review for the Daily Mail, Jan Moir described it as "More than 500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature crammed down your throat."
While Christopher Brookmyre wrote in the Telegraph: "Quite unmistakably Barry Fairbrother [the parish councillor who dies at the start of the novel] represents liberal aspirations towards a fairer and more integrated society, whereby we don't lecture the disadvantaged about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps: instead we have to wade in to help in ways that may be messy, unsatisfying and barely effective, but without which we abandon hope..."
Meanwhile, protesting Harry Potter books was once generally associated with conservative Christianity. I once talked to a conservative Christian woman who said she hated Walt Disney World because "they have Harry Potter." (I tried to explain to her that it's actually Universal parks that have Harry Potter, but she wouldn't listen.)
Comedian Patton Oswalt, in a routine about the history of religion called "Sky Cake," said this:
"So the next time you see some [expletive]s in front of an abortion clinic, or trying to ban a Harry Potter novel, just say 'Oh, sky cake. Why are you so delicious?!?'"
I can't imagine anyone at that time would have thought Rowling would become a darling of some conservatives for her views. In my experience, "Casual Vacancy" is rarely brought up by either side in current debates about Rowling.
It's also interesting to me that both sides of this -- and most -- political debates seem to view themselves as the underdog, standing up to authority. In the later "Harry Potter" books, the Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeoer wants Harry to be seen entering and leaving the Ministry, in order to make it appear that they're working together and that Harry endorses the way they're handling the Voldemort situation. Harry refuses, standing up for his integrity, and this leads to a bit of a feud between them. I wonder if this is how Rowling views herself in this situation. (Not saying she's right. Just wondering if that's what she thinks.)
In a review for the Daily Mail, Jan Moir described it as "More than 500 pages of relentless socialist manifesto masquerading as literature crammed down your throat."
While Christopher Brookmyre wrote in the Telegraph: "Quite unmistakably Barry Fairbrother [the parish councillor who dies at the start of the novel] represents liberal aspirations towards a fairer and more integrated society, whereby we don't lecture the disadvantaged about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps: instead we have to wade in to help in ways that may be messy, unsatisfying and barely effective, but without which we abandon hope..."
Meanwhile, protesting Harry Potter books was once generally associated with conservative Christianity. I once talked to a conservative Christian woman who said she hated Walt Disney World because "they have Harry Potter." (I tried to explain to her that it's actually Universal parks that have Harry Potter, but she wouldn't listen.)
Comedian Patton Oswalt, in a routine about the history of religion called "Sky Cake," said this:
"So the next time you see some [expletive]s in front of an abortion clinic, or trying to ban a Harry Potter novel, just say 'Oh, sky cake. Why are you so delicious?!?'"
I can't imagine anyone at that time would have thought Rowling would become a darling of some conservatives for her views. In my experience, "Casual Vacancy" is rarely brought up by either side in current debates about Rowling.
It's also interesting to me that both sides of this -- and most -- political debates seem to view themselves as the underdog, standing up to authority. In the later "Harry Potter" books, the Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeoer wants Harry to be seen entering and leaving the Ministry, in order to make it appear that they're working together and that Harry endorses the way they're handling the Voldemort situation. Harry refuses, standing up for his integrity, and this leads to a bit of a feud between them. I wonder if this is how Rowling views herself in this situation. (Not saying she's right. Just wondering if that's what she thinks.)
Good point. The Christian Right hated Rowling because she glorified "spells" and witchcraft in Harry Potter. And now runs to her defence because of her views on transpeople. And neither the left nor the right even knows about that political novel she wrote that you speak (I never heard of it). It was probably such a bad and unreadible novel that NO one can get through it. So its too unreadable to be either offensive or inspiring to either side.
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But certain story arcs reappear constantly in fiction because certain themes are universal.
"The Lion King" is really "Hamlet" for kids (it has a happy ending instead of the adult tragic ending).
The whole Godfather franchise is really just one...long...over extended...remake of Shakespeare's MacBeth.
03 Oct 2023, 8:17 pm
07 Oct 2023, 1:54 am
08 Oct 2023, 5:40 pm
TwilightPrincess
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Joined: 28 Sep 2016
Age: 39
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08 Oct 2023, 5:43 pm
08 Oct 2023, 7:00 pm
To take this a bit off topic briefly, sometimes I wonder about the morality and ethical systems in the world of Harry Potter.
It's somewhat amusing to me that man-eating cabbages, alongside other deadly plants and transfiguring enemies into explosives are acceptable in Hogwarts Legacy... yet you can turn down learning dark magic.
Woah woah woah, I'm perfectly fine with murdering my enemies by rolling cabbages into their camps from a distance - but killing using my wand? Now that's where I draw the line!
Transfiguration is a fairly terrifying concept. I understand that it's an incredibly difficult skill to master and most spellcasters can only do basic transfiguration. So it wouldn't be a typical concern in such a universe. However, the game has certainly made me realise that you can potentially do some quite dark things without using the dark arts if you're skilled enough at magic.
Then again, Legacy is set in the past and I'm sure societal norms and access to certain items have changed since Legacy compared to when the main canonical story takes place.
08 Oct 2023, 7:06 pm
