Harry Potter

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[@orionbarnes1733]

J.K. Rowling resisting the urge to name an Irish character "Potatofamine Carbomb"

[@ridersinblack3335]

weird how you thought of that yourself thereby displaying your own racism you can pass of as someone elses joke

[@Spootprime]

@@ridersinblack3335 thats not how it works, honey. Knowing what blackface is doesnt make me racist...

[@orionbarnes1733]

​@@ridersinblack3335 Two counterpoints (and then I stop arguing with strangers on the internet [at least for now]) 1 - Anybody can stereotype, the problem is when people treat stereotypes as "truth". I can make plenty of racist comments if I try, but that doesn't make me racist because I *don't* make them honestly, the damage is when somebody says this in a way that is (or at least seems to be) their portrayal of truth. What my joke was trying to express is the surface level stereotyping of characters in the Harry Potter series based on their ethnicity, and I was *not* in fact trying to say Rowling was correct for doing so. 2 - I didn't think of this myself, I fully admit that it's a stolen meme

[@DerAfroJack]

@@ridersinblack3335your monthly reminder that what you commented is major bullshit you're welcome

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

Well, she did create an irish character who constantly blows stuff up.

[@coricognitions]

Honestly I think Rowling forgot Harry was rich for most of it. She gave him loads of money so she didn't have to think about his finances logistically, and then forgot about it

[@HeavyMetalGamingHD]

she forgot about so much stuff.

[@zoeotaku5608]

rich and green = EVIL YUCK WEALTH rich but red = homely knightly honourable wealth

[@agilemind6241]

I think she just didn't make it more explicit that Harry can't just access his money whenever he wants. Throughout the books we NEVER see Harry access his bank account or his money without a legal guardian with him - which is logical, even in our world minors can't just get a inheritance and use it for whatever they want. It is held in trust by some kind of legal guardian that controls how much they can spend from that fortune until they are legally adults.

[@coricognitions]

@@agilemind6241 true but like if Harry Potter asked someone to bend the rules for him on that front I'm sure they woulda figured something out

[@brookejon3695]

And then later, iirc, Harry realizes he doesn't have much money left because the entire walk-in vault packed with gold turns out to barely cover 6 years of school supplies for one child. The lore is just nonsense.

[@JBHUTT09]

I think there WAS a way to answer "why didn't the wizards stop Hitler" and that would be "because the Nazis had their own wizards". You could absolutely have a magical war waging in the background of WWII in this setting. And it's such an obvious answer that I'm shocked she didn't just use it.

[@cf3714]

Pretty sure it's cannon that Grindelwald joined up with Hitler and made him a zombie army.

[@willowarkan2263]

​@@cf3714wait wasn't he the guy trying to stop the Nazis, that's a shift.

[@stingerjohnny9951]

@@willowarkan2263 Fuck me running, we can’t even agree on what characters are where. Rowling, honey, what the fuck are you DOING?!

[@rosethorne9155]

That would require her to be a thoughtful, insightful writer, which, as we have seen, she is not. 😵‍💫

[@berengustav7714]

Magic on both sides of WW2? Rick Riordan writing the Lightning Thief book:"write that down!"

[@AlterBridgeJericho]

Cedric Diggory did the equivalent of losing a Spelling Bee and coming to school the next day in a Nazi uniform

[@epicbruhmoment6985]

It's like if you saved someone from getting hit by a bus and they said "thanks but I gotta hurry to my Klan meeting."

[@mr.j3rs3y]

@@epicbruhmoment6985 Oh god this is darkly hilarious 💀

[@cfnretro6448]

Explain plz😂

[@a.evelyn5498]

It’s interesting how Rowling cites Hermione’s hair as a sign of her possible blackness when in the books Hermione’s hair is always made fun of, deemed ugly, her beauty transformation occurring when she straightens it for the Yule Ball…

[@miyukidawn9803]

Yeah. She didn't plan that at all. There is no many weird things, if she meant it from the start.

[@TehRealWeegee]

I think we should accept it because it blows up in her face when reading over it with that context harry and ron making fun of a black girl that slaves are genetically meant to be slaves and thus subservient, both being rich or pureblood

[@kigathegoatttt9460]

Was she ever called ugly? I think the worst she was called was unkept. Malloy May have called her ugly, but cmon he’s Malfoy 😂

[@AD-qq9bk]

​@@kigathegoatttt9460 I don't remember in the books if she's called ugly, but Rowling has said in an interview that the first time she spoke with Emma Watson was on phone and she liked her. When they finally met she considered her to pretty and if it wasn't for the phone call she would ask to find another actress.

[@brookejon3695]

​@@miyukidawn9803 It's just very funny, isn't it? Even the stuff she pretends were intended subtext are ignorant and harmful lmao. She writes about Hermione's hair with the same prejudice black hair has received.

[@lrose5522]

I, too, consider turning to fascism every time I lose a competition

[@idontknoq4813]

Aw, Same mate!

[@OscarLangleySoryu]

Literally me!

[@rexdoom3848]

Mario kart can drive a man to dark places

[@sealogic4552]

@@rexdoom3848 is Shaun the little guy on the cloud in this analogy?

[@rexdoom3848]

​@@sealogic4552 no Shaun plays as dry Bowser because he is a skeleton

[@ackee39]

i think the reason theres so much HP fanfiction is just because theres so many interesting ideas that JKR just refuses to explore, so the fans do it for her

[@killerkitten7534]

You know it’s funny cause that’s actually how I got into writing. I can’t remember what it was specifically but I remember reading one of the Harry Potter books as a kid and hating the way one of the characters was written, so I decided to make my own version of the chapter I mean I was 10 so it probably wasn’t that great, but it’s kinda amusing my writing hobby basically started because Rowling’s story building was bad

[@frayliths5374]

Can confirm, I'm literally making an AU that's also a rewrite right now

[@auroralong5437]

I can't recommend the fanfic Kaleidoscopic Grangers enough, legitimately fixes so many of the issues Shaun talks about

[@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

Yes. Whether or not Hermione turns into a snake to slither into bed beside Snape is criminally unexplored by Rowling.

[@randompromises1038]

I won't give Rowling any money and don't want to sit through her writing so does anyone recommend any good rewrites on AO3 I can read out of curiosity?

[@AngryNerdBird]

The phrase "Sorry guys Neville knocked time travel over" made me crack up.

[@miccassidy6337]

I now want to see a comedic, meta-humor fantasy series that has that (maybe change the name) as a line.

[@allosaurustime]

Absolutely me too

[@Phantasmaphobic]

this would absolutely be a rick riordan chapter title

[@miccassidy6337]

@@Phantasmaphobic Percy Jackson and The Accidental Knocking Over of Time Travel would be an awesome book name.

[@allosaurustime]

@@miccassidy6337 “its a good job annabeth does her homework”

[@Cal6009]

"Those poor slaves wouldn't even know what to do with freedom" is literally a real life argument made about slavery.

[@thomdotexe]

makes you think maybe she knew what she was doing...

[@pathevermore3683]

pregerU's videos about american slavery lean heavily on this idea.

[@pathevermore3683]

@ᴀꜱᴜᴋᴀ ᴀꜱᴜᴋᴀ yeees. PU is trash

[@lepthymo]

Really badly wanna write a fic where somone with actual socdem vakues enters Hogwart. D20, the live action D&D show, actually has a great series about this.

[@motherfreya2840]

Where would you be without Tevinter?

[@3ftninja132]

"Oh black girl Hermione, when will you stop talking about how slavery is wrong, it's getting on my nerves" - Harry Potter, the boy physically and mentally abused by his family because he is magical, and they're not.

[@iplayeddishonored2475]

@@ivanasukjadic1423yes, we agree, you don’t have any reading comprehension

[@thechh8297]

​@@ivanasukjadic1423just here to point out that your reading comprehension sucks.

[@SorowFame]

@@ivanasukjadic1423probably not but Rowling said she could be read as black so it’s an entirely valid interpretation to take per the author. The implications are far worse if she is though.

[@krethro]

​@@ivanasukjadic1423I think Rowling said that originally hermoine was mental to be black

[@as3609]

@@krethro No, she never said anything of the sort. Hermione is, and was always intended to be, white - and to be 'read as white'. JKR retroactively suggesting that H could be black was simply a token concession to the baying mobs of self righteous collectors of oppression - thankfully, it was the last concession she ever made to such bigots. Rowling stays based.

[@VesperOfRoses]

The neoliberalism in Harry Potter is culminated in Voldemort's death: the villain is not defeated by direct action from the hero, rather, the hero smugly catches the villain in a technicality of some obscure law and he is dealt with by the powers that be. Harry did not have to do anything: merely trust in the relevant authority (wand mechanics) to handle the problem once the villain's mistake is verbally pointed out.

[@rockCity777]

The fact that Harry, at the end of a seven book series, does nothing to beat Voldemort except for filling a protagonist-shaped hole in the universe, is honestly my biggest problem with HP.

[@kristineweber8084]

@@rockCity777 Nothing??? He deliberately went to die instead of running away. He then drew Voldemort's fire instead of V. being able to kill as many people as he wanted or enslave their minds, or direct his people in battle (if they needed direction at that point). To a large extent the point of Harry's type of hero is that he's mostly pretty ordinary and would not have been able to survive or defeat the evil that hunted him without his friends and other supporters. That's the way most of us defeat evil. Together.

[@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou]

@@kristineweber8084 The first is never in question, he does that because the plot tells him to and never considers otherwise, just goes marching off. Your second claim is really insubstantial and quickly glossed over in the book, and more importantly has nothing to do with how he defeats Voldemort: by exploiting a technicality. I wish that the themes you are describing were the narrative focus of the climax, but that is simply not the case.

[@kristineweber8084]

@@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou I'm sorry, I just don't understand - Harry willingly gave up his entire life and chance at happiness in order to win this victory. Rowling does get very wand-nerdish about the properties of the Elder wand, but the fact is that Voldemort would have won without Harry's sacrifice, his friends' willingness to fight for him, and his own willingness to fight even though he was not 100% certain he was the "true owner" of the wand. He was not certain of it until they actually started dueling. So you cannot say he won solely on a technicality. I'm trying to figure out what sort of ending everyone here was looking for??

[@amustafa2471]

You all are also forgetting the fact that “defeating Voldemort not based on a technicality” would mean Harry killing him. This is absolutely against the good-evil dualism JK created. It would be absolutely out of character and would make Harry actually lose. He is the real hero because yes, he accepted Death “as an old friend” just to save everyone else, but also exactly because he refused to change just to “win”. He refused to exchange his beliefs and values. He had only pity for Voldemort and wanted to stop him, not to kill or gloat over him. These are very basic stuff here. Harry never lost the morality and good in him.

[@auderpopstudio]

The fact that "The thing Rowling and her books don't get about slavery is that slavery is wrong." is a real and true sentence is just...holy shit. How tf did this just slide past so many readers back when these books were released?? I'm genuinely baffled

[@my_girl_seraphine5294]

I don’t know I think even as a kid I stopped short when the horse livery thing happened and my child brain went that’s not right

[@OctoAri]

I never read the books as a child. So when the movies introduced Dobby and Creecher I thought they were the equivalent to butlers/maids/housekeepers. Lucius was just an abusive employer and because the wizard world had different customs the only way for Dobby to leave his employer was through a contract loophole of getting a sock. Idk, it made sense to me as a child 😅

[@my_girl_seraphine5294]

@@OctoAri I can see that, the films never included the slavery aspect as far as I know

[@auderpopstudio]

@@my_girl_seraphine5294 The scene with Dobby being set free is pretty famous in one of the earlier movies. Idk about the rest cause I don't watch them. As for the books, it's been so long since I've read them I literally don't even remember what my kid brain thought of them. I guess I was more putting the question to all the adults that were into the series

[@my_girl_seraphine5294]

@@auderpopstudio Fair

[@CHIIIEEEEEEEEFFFFSSS]

"sorry everyone. Neville knocked time travel over." I laughed so hard I woke up my wife.

[@0TheJigsawKiller0]

why are things so much funnier when our partners are sleeping next to us? it's a constant struggle

[@mogscugg2639]

Mah waif Or rather your waif, congratulations

[@AN-jz3kf]

I couldn't believe it so much I had to borroow my sister's collection of Harry Potter to independently confirm it lmao

[@maybutworse4409]

That's so cute

[@soulplexis]

Neville knocked it over like how my wife knocked me out when I didn't want a divorce

[@wanderinghistorian]

"Rowling frequently threatens to make the story more interesting." I love this.

[@michaelharvest931]

And I love your virtue signalling 👏

[@priceoffame]

@@michaelharvest931 You good?

[@michaelharvest931]

@@priceoffame Brilliant thanks. I very much enjoyed this breakdown of JK written works

[@unslaadkrosis3489]

@@michaelharvest931 meaningless buzzword from an empty headed simpleton.

[@topphatt1312]

@@michaelharvest931 Why are you acting all weird and high and mighty? You sound like a crazy person.

[@anonymoussaga8723]

I just rewatched the KJK video, and the bit about Kaeley Triller openly admitting to getting pregnant by an underage boy, and Rowling being friends with her, struck me as confirmation of a really ugly implication in Harry Potter. Remember how Merope slipped Tom Riddle Snr a love potion, and got him to marry her and get her pregnant? And after he woke up he abandoned her (and gets framed as being in the wrong for it), and the text paints him as so arrogant and snobbish that he never married again because nobody was good enough for him? And that we shouldn’t judge Merope too harshly? As if he’s not actually a r*pe victim who would probably never be able to trust another woman again? I just have a terrible feeling that Rowling is one of those people who thinks it somehow isn’t abuse if it’s female on male.

[@ampix4669]

I thought the same when reading the 6th book too, like how Tom Riddle is treated as a horrible person for leaving a woman who basically had him drugged so that she wouldnt leave him. At the same time, I feel like the book tries to excuse her actions because she had been abused all her life and didnt know how to make Tom Riddle love her, so im not sure about what Rowlings intentions for that part were

[@woodgatejack]

There's a bit in _Half-Blood Prince_ that sticks in my mind since Rowling came out as a TERF. When Harry and Dumbledore use the penseive to see Dumbledore's memory of when Voldemort returned to Hogwarts under the pretence of applying for the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. Voldemort corrects Dumbledore when he calls him Tom saying "They no longer call me Tom Riddle, nowadays I'm know as..." But Dumbledore cuts him off saying "Yes I know what they call you" and asks for his pardon, saying it was an old teachers's habit" However, Harry notes to the present day Dumbledore that he deliberately made a point of calling him "Tom Riddle" as not to let him control the conversation. Well that's just deadnaming. A nasty little passive agressive maneuver employed by transphobes. Also, fuck you Dumbledore! I think it's quite understandble for someone not to want to be named after their sick parent's rape victim!

[@angelnegra]

Not just that, but the whole 'children born from love potions can't feel love' aspect? Like, oh well, you're a product of rape, you will be an evil, loveless monster.

[@coffinflop]

@@angelnegra omg is that part of the lore??? i totally forgot about that, god it just gets worse and worse

[@angelnegra]

@@coffinflop Yeah, it was her explanation for why Voldemort was so evil and why love potions weren't supposed to be legal. Any kid born from a love potion copulation would never be able to love.

[@miroslavkolarov484]

"Oh, no, look, I'm writing Harry Potter fanfiction" is such a hilarious line

[@Stormy38044]

I read the series for the first time as an adult, but had come across a lot of harry potter fanfiction and idea/concept exploration beforehand. Oh boy, some of the things I'd read were so good and had me so intrigued about the series, that when I actually read the books I was so disappointed 😂

[@jimena6194]

I literally only engage with the fandom through fanfiction because it doesn’t support Rowling, plus tons of authors deal with these issues in a much better manner

[@Noxthedunmer]

​@@jimena6194my thoughts exactly

[@goingunder2548]

Can we make this into a meme?

[@Marlodrama]

“Rowling frequently threatens to make the series more interesting” i love when people deliver absolute third degree burns in a completely normal and conversational tone 😭😭😭

[@rpggaming1976]

well she did so its not really a burn.

[@Marlodrama]

@@rpggaming1976 on the contrary, I think some of the most scalding remarks are the ones that hit on a piece and of truth.

[@rpggaming1976]

@@Marlodrama lol no at all it's him trying to talk shit. The books and movies were interesting if they weren't they wouldn't have sold.

[@Marlodrama]

@@rpggaming1976 so you fully just didn’t listen to the essay… why are you in these comments again??

[@devarious5004]

@@Marlodrama What you described is the original and literal definition of the word "irony", where the speaker is using words that express something besides their literal intention. It's always really cool to see it used because it never fails to create some extremely spicy burns.

[@laxandeer]

"Why doesn't Harry do anything about Ron's broken wand?" Why doesn't HOGWARTS do something about it? The best, most influential wizard school on the planet has never had this problem before? They don't have practice wands that are school-owned to give to students? You could say wands are special, one-of-a-kind, but that's not really true. In the books and movies, characters use each others wands all the time. Sure, not as well as a hand-picked one or whatever, but Ron's broken wand is dangerous! A crappy school-assigned wand has to be better than one that might literally kill someone?

[@TwentyOneCatz]

You’re actually right. It is stated in the books that Hogwarts had a fund for kids who can’t afford school supplies. Just goes to show JKR apparently forgets shit the moment after she writes it.

[@almaclara5454]

Probably beating """the evil team""" with a good broom to donate to a rich kid, has the priority over giving a poor kid his wand for studying in a magical school.

[@Parthian6]

Idk, if you want a justification for it maybe it's that Ron refused to tell anyone and hid the fact that it was broken because he didn't want the "poor pity". Realistically, Rowling probably just forgot or didn't care enought o make up a proper explanation, but I feel that this works well with Ron's character.

[@matheusm.santana6527]

And it gets worse when you remember that the wand ron's broke is a HAND ME DOWN. Its fine for him to use someone elses wand but just when its plot convinient.

[@weronika7596]

@@Parthian6 But wouldn't any teacher notice whilst they were practicing spells? Like, didn't anyone check why he was so bad at it? Just looking at his wand would be enough I'd say.

[@rowanoak_]

20:38 "All Is Well, But We're Keeping The Slaves" sounds like a Douglas Adams novel

[@Nikkiflausch]

I only just realized that HP‘s final showdown is a perfect payoff for all that JKR has done with the books too. Like Shaun said, „racists are technically wrong on the facts“, but there is no such thing as changing people or overcoming flaws. Harry Potter wins because the wand doesn‘t listen to Voldemort who mistakenly believes it‘s „his“ - Harry wins because Voldemort is technically wrong on the facts. No changes needed. If only Voldemort had done his proper research!

[@alewiina]

This is such a good point omg, you are completely right 🤦🏻‍♀️

[@therandomguy519]

I lost it when you pointed out the scenario that if Hermione had been black all along and her mates were making fun of her for trying to end elf slavery lmao

[@warlordofbritannia]

Frederick Douglass should have just taken a chill pill and get over himself 😂

[@olivercharles2930]

@@warlordofbritannia Frederick douglass was an elf??

[@imadkahya6018]

England had black slaves??

[@magnusengeseth5060]

@@imadkahya6018 Yes. Mainly in their imperial holdings in America and the Caribbean.

[@jlrinc1420]

@@magnusengeseth5060 I did not know that, thanks. I wondered about it.

[@irisshea6313]

It’s funny cause the whole “harry is rich” set of plot holes could be resolved just by putting his inheritance in a trust or something

[@esobelisk3110]

Right?? Just have it so his parents set up a fund to pay for his school supplies + an allowance every year until he’s an adult. That way, you can still have the wish fulfilment of being able to buy a bunch of candy, without all the weird implications of Harry just having a pile of gold lying around. Like, it’s really not that hard to think of the concept of an amount of money that’s big enough to be a lot of money for a kid who doesn’t have to worry about the cost of living, but small enough that he couldn’t just buy his way out of any problem. You don’t even have to specify what that amount is, the reader can think about that for themselves. In fact, whenever possible, avoid introducing concrete numbers into your story, especially money - Rowling fucked this up on a previous occasion, with Voldemort being in his 70’s when he returns, which would make Slughorn pretty fucking old (but that’s a tangent).

[@cereal_chick2515]

The branch of law that concerns trusts is equity, and I think this video has amply demonstrated that Rowling is very much not a fan of that. (ty for giving me the chance to make this awful legal pun lmao)

[@ComicusFreemanius]

Even as a kid I was thought that

[@braedenneale845]

@@cereal_chick2515 this comment wins KZbin you’re a genius

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

I was thinking the same thing. But judging by how she adressed questions like "why Harry couldn't see those creatures that are only visible for those who saw sonebody die, if he saw her parents die as a baby?", J.K. Rowling has a history of being oblivious to the simplest solutions

[@ugolomb]

48:50 - This could have been the explanation for why Hermione's greatest fear (as shown in her Boggart) is academic failure: she fears (and not without reason) that if she doesn't excel at everything, she'll be thrown out of the wizarding world. Except one never gets the sense that the author realizes this point: the implication within the books is that, if Hermione had been a muggle going to a regular muggle school, or a pureblood going to Hogwarts, her attitude towards academic achievement would have been just the same. Instead of presenting her as an outsider desperately trying to excel in order to hold on to what others can take for granted, she's merely portrayed a nerd. If fear for her very legitimacy was *supposed* to be the in-universe explanation for Hermione's "Being expelled is worse than death" attitude, then it was poorly written, since Harry -- our point-of-view character -- never gets the point, and nobody comes close to explaining it to him.

[@sully42O]

the fact that i never even considered this speaks volumes on how disappointing the character writing of harry potter is. imagine, after years of getting book after book in which Hermione is written off as ‘lol she’s such an academic nerd’, she drops on the audience that she works so hard because she’s afraid if she’s not a perfect model minority, then the wizarding world will never accept her and Harry Potter realises that she’s right. He is forced to confront the truth that his perfect, escapism fantasy world is not actually so perfect. Hagrid’s attempt to comfort Hermione in book 2 “theyve get to come up with a spell our hermione can’t do” is re contextualised, as well as Hermione’s entire character. This all would’ve served to make Hermione a deeper and more interesting character and could’ve served as a super effective wake up call for Harry. But lol no, thanks JK

[@ugolomb]

@@sully42O Just occured to me that JK ignored a perfect opportunity to do this in book 5. She could have had a plotline where Umbridge tries to get Hermione expelled, and McGonnagall and/or Dumbledore manage to pull the perfect-academic-record card to protect her; but after Dumbledore is gone, Umbridge makes clear that one minor slip-up and Hermione is out, even mentioning specifically how much she'd enjoy snapping Hermione's wand. Harry either witnesses the event or is told about it later, and he finally realizes the true reason why Hermione is so afraid of being expelled. This would fit in perfectly with Umbridge's character (foreshadowing her prominent role in the Ministry/Death-Eater campaign against muggleborns in book 7), and weave the point naturally into the story. But, as you said, no such luck

[@sully42O]

@@ugolomb dude i’m crying at how your random youtube comment manages to do more with Hermione’s character than JK’s entire 7 book series. It would be so good if they inserted that conflict into book five because for me, that marks the turning point in tone (I know book four is when Voldemort comes back but the first like 3/4s of it are the usual HP fun). It would be so interesting to see Harry start to realise that evil doesn’t start and end with Voldemort, it’s been in Hogwarts this whole time. Also like you said what a great way to foreshadowing the role Umbridge will take on and it would make her even more hateable (which i didn’t think was possible lol). This comment perfectly illustrates why Harry Potter is such a frustrating series because it had all the pieces in place to tell a profound story with compelling themes but JK just failed to recognise that. I know fanfiction gets a pretty bad rep but Harry Potter honestly has some of the best ones out there simply because the fanfic authors realise what they have on their hands

[@ugolomb]

@@sully42O Indeed. I sometimes feel as if Rowling places all the dots and then fails to connect them -- even in her own mind. There are so many examples of this... I remember using the trial scene at the start of Book 5 to explain to my kid why seperation of powers is important -- why it's wrong for the same person to be a government minister, a legistlator and a judge, all at the same time. Except, my point is that *no one* should have that much power, whereas Rowling's point was only that *Fudge* shouldn't have that much power, and she never moves beyond that

[@SilentProti]

Don't remember which book, but at one point Harry thought he's gonna get expelled and was hoping dumbledore would let him help out Hagrid at least to stay in the magical world.

[@ariatrent6263]

It’s weird how I almost never hear people address what to me is the worst aspect: that Dumbledore, the “hero”, basically allowed Harry to be abused by his family and by Snape. He could easily have checked up on the Dursleys and told them that they better treat Harry better or there would be consequences, but he just… didn’t.

[@akisatsuki8444]

Ah, but see, think of all the character building he’d miss out on!!

[@CorwinFound]

Chosen One child growing up in a difficult, traumatic or even an abusive environment is a time honoured trope. Maybe not a good one, but definitely common. So I don't really have an issue with that per se. But as you said, Dumbledore knew about this. When baby Harry was left on their doorstep McGonagall even pointed out how horrible the Dursley's were. And somewhere in a later book the Dursley's are threatened into treating him better. (Fuzzy memory of this so I could be wrong.) Dumbledore over and over proves himself a piss-poor guardian of Harry's well-being. It takes it out of character building trope and lands it smack dab into criminal neglect.

[@davidhong1934]

​@@CorwinFound Over the book, the Dursleys increasingly realize that Harry has wizard friends who actively check on his well-being and tone down their abusive behavior - *Book 1:* Hagrid scares them into submission - *Book 2:* The Weasleys anger them mildly - *Book 3:* The Dursleys implicitly still remember the events of book 2 - *Book 4:* Fear of Sirius keeps the Dursleys in check, compounded by the Weasley twins - *Book 5:* try to throw Harry out before a letter from Dumbledore scares Petunia into obedience, culminates in threat by entire Order of the Phoenix - *Book 6:* aren't even bothering anymore - *Book 7:* just relieved to not be doing the thing

[@T4ko8Yaki]

Is that better or worse than the weak-tea excuse she gave it? See if you remember book 6, it opens with Dumbledore coming to pick up Harry personally this time. Then he explains that because Lilly died to save Harry, her love protection was tied to her bloodline so Harry had to live with Petunia to keep being safe from Voldemort’s followers in the muggle world. How he knows this is not explained. Why he didn’t explain this to them at the time in case they just put him back up for adoption immediately is not explained. There *might* have been a line saying there weren’t regular check-ins because it would have drawn attention to Harry’s location, I don’t remember. But they were shitty involuntary god-parents so he finger-wags them quite viciously.

[@TheSassi14]

What I mainly wonder about: Why is Mr. Weasley's job paid so badly? The ministry's main job is to keep the muggles from descovering magic. He LEADS the department for making sure no magical artists get into Muggle hands... He should be a top earner!

[@morbidsearch]

I don't know. Why are nurses and teachers paid so badly in our world?

[@20dabarr58]

​@@morbidsearch Especially in work that is seen as lesser! Muggles are viewed negatively -- there are entire systems in place set to outright kill them, and even though that is seen as villainous, there are more subtle signs, such as the statues mentioned in the video, Muggle being used as an othering insult, etc. It makes perfect sense for an important role working for the 'lesser' Muggle group to be paid less, and could have be used as another example of the 'good' guys having poor morals

[@MrBell-iq3sm]

Because Rowling put very little thought into the inner workings of her world. She only created superficial aspects.

[@Bettersucksaul]

@@morbidsearchNurses are paid just fine, it’s their hours that make it not worth it

[@Moocow2003]

Why does the Ministry of Magic have cars but Arthur Weasley doesn't understand what a rubber duck is? It's a toy. That's not a tough thing to figure out. Not knowing how many stamps to use, that's fine, they don't use the Muggle postal system. But they do take baths and enjoy trinkets!!?

[@choles523]

the fact that the school chose to gift the rich student with the latest broom so he can join a sports team but not buy the poor kid a new wand when his current one was ruining his academic career

[@CamJames]

checks out. Ever seen the shit student athletes get for free in colleges with huge sports programs?

[@choles523]

@@CamJames lol so true

[@RancorousSea]

@@CamJames You don't want your budding date rapist to flee to another program, you have to make it clear that they're better than the others and that you'll reward and defend them as long as they pledge their bodies to your program.

[@sbagel95]

Wait when did they gift the rich kid with the latest broom?

[@prinnywizzard9608]

​@@sbagel95 The very first book? You could argue it was a personal present from an individual, *not* from the school, plus it was more for the house team than Harry himself, but it's hard not to feel it's double-standards 😅

[@Ellisepha]

An idea for solving the timeturner problem: a) make them rare and incredibly regulated and B) the one Dumbledore gave Hermine was already pretty old and broken, and would only work for roughly a year or so anyways. And then when they save Sirius, it literally breaks down immediately. Still a better solution to "oops we accidentally pushed over the shelf with all time machines ever."

[@szatan9717]

Yeah, it does present a better solution. Alternatively, it could be that the bigger the change you're making or the further back you go the harder it is, or the less power the time turner has, just introduce a limit for them.

[@KOTEBANAROT]

whats weird is that its literally an hourglass. when it mentioned that this is a hourglass i genuinely assumed that the sand in the glass represents the amount of "time" you can turn back. i.e. you always waste "sand" when you go back so you have to be real stingy. kept expecting the "sand" to start running out while theyre saving sirius lol

[@pinkusdean1178]

hearing how much she depicts women with masculine features as bad and ugly really hit close to home as a woman with PCOS, ever since I was around 10 i've had imense body hair and my weight has been a problem to manage (insuline resistance is a bitch) so I was made fun of it and was self concious about it for most of my life, even now at 23 I struggle somedays with my facial hair and body hair. i've even had women think I was trans in the bathrooms and berate me for it!

[@CorwinFound]

I'm sorry you deal with A-hole people like that. The paradox of TERF-ism. In their effort to hurt trans people, invariably because so few trans people are actually out there, 9 times out of 10 they are hurting cis women and girls. Yay feminism eh...

[@fomxgorl]

trans woman here. im sorry that happened to you. you don't deserve it 🫂

[@ariatrent6263]

Fellow PCOS sufferer here 🫂

[@pedro-pascals-armpit]

yup. even if you're a cis woman who just has narrow hips and broad shoulders, the bigotry against trans people will be directed at you too. i used to have a buzzcut, but i have fat tits, and i was *still* regularly misgendered, especially by old white men. none of us are safe from this shit.

[@lilaniloxi]

That sucks man, nobody deserves that :(

[@alexander8257]

I hate that we now know that the answer to “why didn’t the wizards stop H*tler” is “one guy tried but he was the Evil Wizard so they stopped him”

[@user-vq8lp3nc4j]

Lmao, it's the idea of "no good actions, only good teams" brought to absolute. So, the bad guys wanna prevent Holocaust and WW2? Doesn't matter, they're bad, we gotta stop them. So what if we let Holocaust and WW2 happen because we didn't do anything? Doesn't matter, we're the good guys

[@IAmNumber4000]

Yeah that’s even worse 😂

[@kidcircuit1955]

Rewind Now Because that sentence had to be a joke

[@aileenzhao7951]

oh god

[@nonniperkl6273]

German gay man who sees the future I remind you.

[@sydroper4761]

“Defeating Voldemort at this point should mean defeating his supremacist ideology” This made me remember a whole side plot in one of the books where Harry finds out Filch is a “squib” (someone born into a magical family but isn’t magical themselves) and the wizarding world basically treat him like a second class citizen, and then she…never did a single thing with it.

[@TheKat12364]

right. do squids go live in the muggle world, do others somehow find weird jobs like Filch. there arent supposed to be many of them but still.

[@lindenshepherd6085]

@Kat Del It’s kind of implied that Muggle-born wizards are the result of Squibs quietly marrying into muggle families and the magic “gene” only expresses itself generations later.

[@akshaydalvi1534]

@@lindenshepherd6085 Yeah, I think voldemorts mom is a squib, Im not sure though. Its amazing how many different types of classes you can make once you start separating people like that, but ofcourse nothing actually comes from all this.

[@pm6127]

And of course the only important squib character in the movie deserves this abuse because he is a bad & ugly person.. really deep writing

[@brad7504]

@@TheKat12364 yes squibs can live in the Muggle world. Harry had a squib neighbor when he lived with the dursleys. In the first book I think they refer to as like a crazy cat lady of some kind but we don't learn of who she really is until Harry saves Dudley from the dementors

[@acecat2798]

"Actually, the final sentence of the final novel, prior to the epilogue, is Harry wondering if he can get Kreacher, his slave, to bring him a sandwich." I feel like that sums up everything I need to know about these books.

[@GrrmPleaseWrite]

One of the most heartwarming moments of the book in its proper context.

[@hails1136]

oh wow the whole describing antagonistic women as masculine is incredibly revealing. holy shit. because everyone knows good women are pretty and feminine and bad women are ugly and mannish... totally doesn't sound like foreshadowing of jk's later transphobia...

[@AlannaMacree]

But remember, they can't be TOO feminine and pretty! Otherwise you're just an overemotional airhead like Cho Chang or Lavender Brown! REAL girls like sports and books only 🙄

[@user-qi6pv9jh7o]

I couldn't tell Bellatrix to be any man-ish

[@Elnina-pv3bx]

​@@user-qi6pv9jh7oBellatrix is the only female villain who isn't ugly. Even still she's portrayed as a fun villain and likable as an antagonist. Meanwhile Marge and petunia and Umbridge and Pansy (she even has Parkinson as her last name) are just despicable, from their looks to their personalities.

[@KutayYavuz]

Cho Chang is feminine and Ginny seems to be masculine though

[@Elnina-pv3bx]

@@KutayYavuz no rather Ginny was more boyish in her behaviour but she was described as beautiful repeatedly. No other details are mentioned. But given the fact that Rowling has consistently described all except one evil female character as manly and all good female characters as feminine it's not hard to assume that Ginny would be too.

[@theoneandonlysoupemporium]

"Harry Potter and the Skull from Merseyside who Patiently Explains Why Its Not Good to Reassert a Hierarchical Racist Status-Quo After Defeating Wizard Hitler" was probably my favourite of the series

[@galactic85]

LMFAO

[@linsprtpc]

This one wins.

[@cremetangerine82]

I need this in novel form!

[@brookejon3695]

Honestly, this one has the best audio book narrator out of the entire series. The rest are so inconsistent. (BTW if anyone wants an audiobook series with a REALLY competent narrator, read The Wandering Inn series narrated by Andrea Parsneau. She's hands down the best voice actor I've ever heard do audiobooks. Every race, culture, area of origin, and individual has a unique and identifiable voice with vocal quirks unique to them and their background.)

[@justhannah3960]

I need this book, tbh.

[@louisedohn7149]

The final battle against Voldemort basically has Harry going: "Ah, but Mr. Riddle. You may have screenshotted the Elder Wand NFT, but I bought it! It is clearly not yours to use! The wand must obey the rules of the blockchain!"

[@vt_973]

UNDERRATED COMMENT OMG it really is as arcane and incomprehensible as that

[@ShnoogleMan]

There are so many ways it could have been better. Perhaps because the horcrux was in Harry, Harry also became master when Voldemort did. Then, when Harry sacrificed himself and got Voldemort to kill the horcrux, he in effect defeated the piece of Voldemort within himself to become the true master. That would have been a much better ending.

[@SnakeThisLife]

I rate this comment 9.7/10

[@bibsp3556]

"Let's say, you own a unique piece of arcane technology. You take that elder wand, and you NFT that" - Gary Vee, probably

[@glitchedoom]

Harry Potter and the Non-Fungible Ape

[@Cheezbuckets]

This is probably my favourite Harry Potter retrospective because of how you address the themes and messages and the contradictions rather than just ice cold takes on surface-level things like “here’s why Hogwarts is a dangerous and why that isn’t logical because real schools have safety regulations.”

[@Code_Lune]

I feel like reason why the things mentioned in this video was never really discussed until recent years was because most people who grew up reading Harry Potter was too young to notice all the disturbing references written within the text over character death and magical actions, and when they become adults, they either never revisited the books, and those who did was either read with nostalgia in their minds or find it difficult to accept that such a story that they loved as a kid would contain such topics. There is also the movies which whiteout a lot of the problems that was present in the books.

[@ShadowSonic2]

It's kind of like how shows like "Pretty Little Liars" pretty much groomed a whole generation into thinking things like Student/Teacher Relationships were fine and not immoral but people who watched it as kids go back and think "WTF did I think this was romantic?!"

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

Admittedly, I read the books as an adult after having only seen the movies as a kid, and I somehow didn’t pickup on most of the fucked up shit. Maybe because I was only thinking of the books as the movies, but with more details and more stuff. But it’s clear the story was actually improved by much of that stuff not being included.

[@ariatrent6263]

@@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333 Same

[@SpukiTheLoveKitten75]

It seems the movies are superior to the books in a lot of ways. Upon hearing seeing this video, it turns out that Rowling was a bigoted classist all along and the books were always regressive. The movies are truer to what people once assumed about the book series, (progressive, pro-equality, about friendship and doing what is right, sympathetic characters that are actually lovable, better writing, etc.). MOVIES > BOOKS.

[@Shroom-Mage]

The worst part of the WW2 question is that the answer could have been obnoxiously simple: "There was secretly a wizard war happening in the background, with wizards battling on all sides."

[@Tom_Cruise_Missile]

"Wizards didn't kill Hitler because Hitler was a wizard" is literally fantasy WW2 101. Hitler was historically super into the arcane and esoteric, so it's a really common trope.

[@warlordofbritannia]

@@Tom_Cruise_Missile Now I’m imagining Shitler putting a wand to his temple as Russian artillery shells are faintly heard thumping in the background 😂

[@hooting-ton5215]

In the Dresden Files they justify it by saying: "We're a WIZARD council, not a human council." When the main character said: "We could have stopped the Nazis during WW2." An old Wizarder counters with the fact that if they made every single human answer for their crimes, they would have to wipe out every nation in the world. I.e. The British empire, the Americans and so on and so forth. It was also hard to tell who was who without 20/20 hindsight and of course absolute power, corrupts absolutely. I know Jim Butcher has some uh... 'weird' writing with Dresden but I think that's good as any justification.

[@naluzoniro]

And/or they could have tried and failed

[@Tom_Cruise_Missile]

@@naluzoniroit's the easiest out imaginable. "Why didn't magic kill Hitler? Hitler had magic too so we couldn't" problem solved. Ofc Rowling couldn't do that though...

[@Raptorman0205]

It's rather ironic that Emma Watson would go on to become that activist that Rowling so criticized Hermione for being.

[@michealforguson5317]

I laughed. Because that is hilarious. Oh, sweet sweet irony.

[@assassino1480]

It's perfect. I hope Rowling is pissed about it.

[@bartz0rt928]

Like she read her character and thought, "this makes sense, actually".

[@mpazinambao2938]

Isn't it ironic...

[@lady8jane]

@@bartz0rt928 Because ... it does. She's a smart one IRL as well. :D

[@berkleypearl2363]

I had some thoughts about Ron’s wand thing. Harry can’t get Ron a new wand because the wand chooses the wizard. Okay fine. You know what Harry could do, bet real money against Ron at chess. They could have been betting snacks and who gets to copy who’s homework and then Harry could put real money on the table because he knows Ron is way better at chess than he is. Harry could have done something like that so that way it doesn’t even have to be a gift. Ron earns the money fair and square and because he’s smart he’ll hold onto it to get a new wand. Oh no. I’m writing Harry Potter fan fiction now

[@inazumarai7690]

keep going

[@szatan9717]

Yeah like, on the train it's explicitly shown that Harry has enoughemotional intelligence to know Ron wouldn't want to accept his snacks, so he trades some of gis sweets for Ron's sandwiches. SO THE CHARACTER HIMSELF ALREADY KNOWS IT. AND HE HAS DONE SO BEFORE. But it doesn't seem like Rowling considers things like those actions to be a part of the character, it's just something the character did. So it doesn't come up again.

[@YEY0806]

Except his wand was a hand-me-down wand from his older brother, so the "wand chooses the wizard" excuse doesn't work because Ron never actually got a wand belonging to him

[@AW-uv3cb]

Ron would also have to take time off from school to get to the wand shop, wouldn't he? He can't just order a wand via mail as this is a highly personal item and has to be selected by physically trying the wand. And he can't leave the school during school year. So Harry can't help him with the wand and Ron does indeed get a new one for the next year (at least that's what I infer from the movies, I read the books only once, a very long time ago, and not all of them).

[@edselgreaves6503]

I remember excusing all of these things you were talking about with "JKR will redeem ALL THESE CHARACTERS in the final book!" Maybe not Vernon, but Petunia and Dudley, and SPEW, and the Slytherins will all get their final triumph in the 7th book that will make everything come full circle! Once i read the part where McGonagall sentences every single underage Slytherin student to the dungeon while their parents are out there preparing to attack and potentially kill or die for Voldemort's cause, i realized JKR had absolutely zero interest in redemption. Her worldview is astonishingly black & white.

[@mkgriffeth]

I cannot believe JKR wrote her characters putting christmas decorations on the disembodied heads of slaves and thought "yes. this is good. very cute and charming."

[@RumpelGnom42]

I forgot that that was a thing in the books. And when he mentioned it I was like "That can't be right, that it too much. Oh my God it's true that totally happened. How did I forget that?"

[@Moonhermit-]

And yet another inconsistency: Hermoine never says "Guys, can we please bury the slave skulls? Those are literal serial killer trophies taken from worked to death sentient humanoids. A testament that even in death the slaves don't deserve peace." No, that psycho just goes "LOL SANTA HAT" with the rest of them.

[@rattyeely]

I remember being disgusted when I read that in the books, it's just such a ghoulish concept

[@sammythescrub5258]

what book is this/context?

[@heathersmith4042]

@@sammythescrub5258 i don't actually recall it myself but sounds like order of the phoenix to me. the black family mounted their old house elves' heads on the wall like trophies

[@pajeredits]

"Sorry everyone, Neville knocked time travel over, so we can't do that anymore." I burst out laughing after hearing that.

[@Mimi-xi1bm]

And of course it was Nev who broke them

[@pentbot]

"But what about, what about all the Turners out in the world that people already had on th--" Nup, they got, like, returned to this one box, for like, admin reasons, for that day. "And all of them were in that one box?" Yup, all of them, every Time Turner ever. "In the whole world?" Yup, the entire world. "Even outside Britian?" I mean, is there even an "outside Britian"? "and they were just in a box, with no other security measures, or like, cushions or bubble wrap?" I mean, why would you bother? "So, like, can't they make new ones?" I mean maybe, but it's going to take a while. "And how long would it take??" How ever long the book series is.

[@MariOmor1]

@@Mimi-xi1bm to think that he would be the kid who kills Voldemort's snake too

[@lisboay8086]

same

[@rickyl3819]

@@pentbot "But can't we repair some with magic?" "Blimey! What a silly question! Nobody invented a spell for repairing something!" "But what about Reparo-" "NOBODY INVENTED A SPELL FOR REPAIRING SOMETHING!"

[@Faryonderer]

“They’re an inferior race, Hermione.” Hagrid said calmly.

[@basilbrush9075]

Yer an untermench, Harry

[@user-pl5yn4rs2j]

i love how the main proof for Hermione being black is her hair. hair which is only actually described as pretty/beautiful/sophisticated when it is combed and slicked to be straight.

[@jacobhogan3208]

I'm just sitting here thinking about how "Hermoine could never understand the concept of slavery" has to now mesh with the "She was a black girl the whole time" retcon.

[@yuumakadiri1513]

Black Hermione's ancestors watching her in the afterlife like: 😐

[@Voltorb1993]

that's one big yikes right there

[@worldcomicsreview354]

Ah yes, the whole world is the USA, I'd forgotten...

[@jacobhogan3208]

@@worldcomicsreview354 I'm a Canadian.

[@mathiasrryba]

@@yuumakadiri1513 it would've been her grandparents, possibly her parents too

[@hj-ct2qi]

can we also mention how absurd it is that wizards even need slaves? we literally see in the books and movies incredible amounts of labor that wizards can do magically. why not just...y'know...cast a spell to clean your house instead of forcing elves to do it for you?

[@alisonpurgatory85]

And in book 6 Dumbledore and Slughorn literally do just that! reconstruct and clean a destroyed house interior in seconds

[@hj-ct2qi]

@@alisonpurgatory85 exactly. and even if we were to assume that somehow wizards couldn't necessarily do certain housework, cooking, etc on their own, or for big events etc., why not just have wizards who do that for a living? why aren't there wizards who specialize in magical housekeeping? catering? events, etc - just like in the muggle world? why does there have to be an entire enslaved race to fill those roles?

[@Hifuutorian]

Related to that: How are Ron and his family even 'poor' when magic like that exists? His family owns their own home, their dad is a higher up in the government, and they have fucking magic. It's so unimaginative and telling on JKR's part that she literally can't imagine a world where everyone just..lives decently lmao. There HAS to be poor people to feel sorry about that they're poor.

[@Pseudo-Fraxineus]

@@Hifuutorian but not poors that we should help in anyway! letting some try and fail and some succeed is the proper thing to do. it's nature! it's etiquette!

[@jak1165]

@@Hifuutorian In retrospect, its pretty obvious that the Weasleys are poor by choice is what Rowling is getting at.

[@EvenFlow391]

I saw this shared elsewhere, but if JK Rowling was writing a Mexican wizard character, she would have absolutely called Andres Arriba.

[@pinknblackproductions]

Harry Potter, the boy who lived passively

[@CorwinFound]

Seriously. Other than a final grand gesture at the end of each book, he just kinda floats through the series. The first one being the only real exception. But the rest, he acts like learning freaking _magic_ is some major burden. From a literary point of view, you have Ron and Hermione at either end of the spectrum. Fair. So from a story point of view it would make sense to have Harry in the "moderate" position. Instead, after the first novel he's a layabout student constantly avoiding any real work with Ron. And that extends to almost every area. He's deeply unexceptional except for Quidditch and to a lesser extent Dark Arts. He seems to have almost no interest or passion for anything. He's a cypher, a reader insert. And even lacks any actual character arc. I enjoyed the first three books, reading them to my kids as an adult. But Harry even in them was largely unlikable. Not hatable, just very nothing. The least interesting character of the series.

[@angedenpeacelove_411-00]

@@CorwinFound There's a reason Harry is nobody's favorite character. He's not a character and even when he gets some personality (OoTP and PoA) she nerfed him back because its easier to write a blank character

[@chengong388]

The morality implied in a story for children is arguably more important than stories for adults.

[@galactic85]

Exactly. I already commented on this but we use children stories to help teach kids about ethics. When you are an adult it's easy to watch movies or read books and evaluate things with more nuance. When I was a kid i saw Indiana Jones as a straight up hero but now that I'm an adult I realize he was always intended to be more of an anti hero. Yes it's totally awesome that he fights the nazi's and frees child slaves, but he is kind of a dick and is literally stealing artifacts from other cultures and breaking the law. They literally call him out as being a "grave robber" during the dinner scene in temple of doom. I can still watch and appreciate Indiana Jones now and I still like the character but I view him with more complexity than when I did when I was a kid. When you are a kid you just automatically identify with the protagonist and come to naturally assume they are operating with the correct moral authority because the narrative says they are the "hero."

[@cabbage-soup]

children's books started out as morality tales. like rousseau's emile, they were v specifically written to teach children how to act morally and in a way that is acceptable by society.

[@nmociahfgow]

More children's communist books!

[@marocat4749]

Great stories for children, are for adult too. Its a story for children only give the license to be more silly, not be worse.

[@marocat4749]

@@cabbage-soup Yeah and brothers grimm, even if they were sanatized over years, they were for adults. Dunno same proably for yokai and other mythological stories that became childrens storie. That were folk stories pretty often before becoming that.

[@ciarangallaghercg]

As another point to Ron's broken wand being completely mishandled, it's absolutely insane to imagine the school would allow a student to have a broken wand. That's the magical equivalent of allowing a kid to carry around a gun that can randomly misfire and then at minimum expecting that child to use the gun in classrooms filled with other children. The fact Ron only manages to injure himself with the wand is a complete miracle and the school doesn't seem to care a jot. Anyway, this might be one of my favourite videos to come back to time and time again, cheers for the great content.

[@AvgJane19]

LITERALLY THIS

[@stingerjohnny9951]

Well, it’s pretty clear that Hogwarts never cared about the safety of their students. I don’t even need to list examples off, you could probably think of examples as you read this.

[@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois]

​@@stingerjohnny9951 I always wondered why the ministery of magic hasn't set down some safety regulations. And possibly fired Dumbledore for the constant endangerement of kids that happens under his watch. Like imagine being in charge of children and thinking "I should totally keep this tree on the yard that will beat children into a bloody pulp."

[@MrSignman65]

@@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois Safety regulations are government overreach by Hogwarts standards.

[@somitomi]

@@NukkuiskoHyvinVaiPois The funniest thing about that is that they didn't just leave the tree where it was, it was put there to keep children away from a secret passageway. Becuase that's absolutely the best way to do that, it's not like there's magic that can make entrances practically undetectable or hide entire buildings from everyone except those who have been told about it by a specific person.

[@loloverlord1664]

It is so weird for me to look back at the Harry Potter saga with this dialogue where Hagrid explains "Dobby may like freedom because he's weird" to justify systemic slavery. At this point, I would have accepted something much darker, like maybe Dumbledore revealing "The house elves are not natural living beings, they were conjured by a forgotten master of the dark arts as a twisted, very nefarious experiment, and he designed them to be obediant and feel pain much more intensely than we do. So creating them was evil, but the magical world just use them because it's convenient, and we never had any proper reflexion about the ethics of our relationship with other magical creatures before Hermione, so here we are!"

[@jrhooman]

"oh no look, I'm writing Harry Potter fanfiction". This just goes into show how much better the series could have been if only JKR wasn't the way she is.

[@otto7588]

Okay, I love this video and agree with a lot of it But its just little guys who like being slaves. It doesnt need to be a backhanded political statement or something, she just wrote these new characters for her story. I dont see how it correlates with real world slavery

[@loloverlord1664]

@@otto7588 Any fictionnal slavery correlate to real world slavery. Fiction resonates with people because they recognize the real problems behind it.

[@natashatuskovichcoworking]

Just the amount of doubling down on pro-slavery is WILD.

[@evagraversen2313]

One interesting thing you don't mention is the way these books repeatedly introduce a member of an oppressed group - werewolves, centaurs, (half)giants - who is nice, has the main characters talk about how unfair it is that this nice person is discriminated against, and then shows that the entire rest of their group is evil. It's a very odd way of justifying that Dumbledore and other powerful good guys only help the nice individuals get jobs at hogwarts instead of trying to enact any real social change.

[@Avi2Nyan]

Oof yeah, excellent point

[@Robstafarian]

It also plays into the "one of the good ones" cliché favored by bigots.

[@andarted]

It reminds me to people that are about to give a long argument about race with a sentence like _"I have friends that are black. […]"_ They seem to think that establishes that they are about to give a critical and constructive contribution to the cause of anti racism. In my experience, people who are actually self critical while progressive, start more with something like _"There is massive structural and direct racism, the status quo must be changed. […]"_ These are two different framing devices. The first one is purely an individual one, in a Harry Potter Story that's enough. If you have establish you are one of the good actors, you can bully the overweight person. Maybe that's just a narrative manifestation of a neoliberal worldview.

[@kmered1]

this is like "the good muslim" trope repeatedly seen on tv, book, all media in the wake of 9/11

[@GawainSSB]

Well, if the rest of the group IS that way then maybe those stereotypes are just truths

[@DanButOnline]

“Tricking elves into freedom is arguably as unethical as enslavement” - Pottermore I am actually in shock.

[@DanButOnline]

@@user-rp1rk8ku9u that’s not the issue at all. The quote is that tricking elves into freedom is “as unethical” as enslavement. So freeing an elf (who can still then choose to work in servitude if they wish to) is “as unethical” as enslaving an elf (who can’t then choose to do anything else even if they want to).

[@DanButOnline]

@@user-rp1rk8ku9u oh okay, no problem!

[@kevinxu3892]

Imagine if Rowling bursted into the civil war White House to say "but Mr Lincoln! You freeing the slaves is as unethical as actual enslavement!"

[@lovableasshole]

@@kevinxu3892 the thing is that was an argument used to justify the enslavement of black people. If she was around then she would probably do that very thing.

[@FaunaturaleOG]

@@kevinxu3892 it wouldn't even surprise me if that actually happened irl

[@luckymouse1988]

I always found the show "Undercover Boss" to be a great example of the individual change rather than systemetic change. A company's boss going undercover and picking out 2-3 of their employees to gift money to, pretending to be a good guy while ignoring the hundreds of other employees.

[@Stormy38044]

....that's a very good point

[@rishabhanand4973]

i've never seen it, but based on the premise, it seems like the boss of a company masquerades as a low level worker within said company, realizes how hard the job actually is. You would think this would be a wake up call for the boss to actually improve the working conditions of their low level workers but i'm guessing that never happens

[@WolfenRyujin]

I personally feel that the first scene where something better was dangled in the face of the reader was in the first book. When Harry had to put on the sorting hat and got told "You could go to Slytherin". There could've been something there, showing maybe that people in the "evil"-house aren't all that bad, going a bit deeper then just skin deep... the impact of him drawing the sword in the fight against the basilisc would've been more impactful too.

[@PH0B0PH1L1A]

someone actually wrote some damn good fanfic about slytherin harry on Ao3 ages ago. wish i could remember the author. better writing than anything JK could do lmao

[@spinoza2326]

@@PH0B0PH1L1A On The Way to Greatness?

[@eoghan.5003]

35:43 "there are no good or bad actions in Harry Potter, there are only good and bad teams. And you can tell the bad team because they're ugly, and fat, and covered in snakes." Shaun's ability to make such a savage yet insightful critique in two sentences here is so impressive.

[@IsisAlv]

and it's a laser focused criticism too. people had pointed out before that Dumbledore favored Griffindors and Harry's group, but i can see now that it's more than that

[@sadoldguy4380]

@@IsisAlv So pure tribalism, the fundamental sin of all primates, leading to Dunbar's number.

[@SomeNerdyVlogger]

Thanks for typing this line out so I can just copy and paste it into the group chat I want to share it with!

[@damkylan3]

Indeed. Additionally, thanks for the timestamp, because the line after that always give me a good laugh. The casualness with which Shaun refers to Harry as "such a cheap bastard" gives me the chuckles.

[@theotherauthor740]

“covered in snakes” made me burst out laughing lmaooo. it’s so true though. 💀

[@lane6216]

The irony that Rowling tried to make Hermione black after the fact, and Hermione is the one that was trying to help the house slaves….oh dear.

[@stevendemayo3631]

Huh? She didn't try to make her black, she just said that Hermione could have been black in response to people freaking out about a black actress being cast in the play. She has said an endless amount of stupid things but that isn't one of them

[@EspeonMistress00]

​@@stevendemayo3631That is a stupid thing tho. "Could have been black" can be easily debunked by her own books. And no I am not talking about the infamous "White face stuck out from behind a tree" line.

[@DevilboyScooby]

"Hermione was looking very brown" -PoA, the chapter where she buys Crookshanks. You just wouldn't say that if she was black.

[@EspeonMistress00]

@@DevilboyScooby Or that one instance from the later books where she uses a joke telescope made by Fred and George that punched one of her eyes and Harry remarked how half her face looked a lot like a panda bear.

[@EspeonMistress00]

@@DevilboyScoobyOr how any actually black characters that have few lines are described to have dark skin when they are introduced but the MAIN character who is apparently black isn't even described as such.

[@cosmo_junk]

also worth mentioning how all the female characters who don't live conventional married lives are killed off

[@miccassidy6337]

Or how she created a Tonks, an androgynous character who hated her birth name and could willing change to be her true self, made her become more 'mature' and feminine and in a relationship with Lupin (another lgbtq+ coded character), made her a mom and housewife, and then killed her off.

[@cosmo_junk]

@@miccassidy6337 absolutely. any deviation from tradwife femininity or manic pixie dream girl femininity (arguably luna) is punished.

[@akimbofresh8109]

True. In reality they just buy cats before they inevitably unalive themselves.

[@cosmo_junk]

@@akimbofresh8109searching for people to troll by sorting by newest comments is so pathetic lol

[@akimbofresh8109]

@@cosmo_junkFalse! I also sort by top comment.

[@Zobatron-rh2xf]

TIMESTAMPS: 2:50 Uncle Vernon and Hagrid comparability 6:47 Rowlings selective fat shaming and cruel physical descriptions 9:53 Treatment of Trelawney 11:43 No good or bad actions, only good and bad teams 15:20 Rowlings simplistic presentation of morality and missed potential 20:45 Rowling not planning ahead: the time turner fiasco 25:48 Addressing Cedric Diggory 27:33 “One book lag theory” 28:09 Harry doesn’t use his wealth to help his friends 37:37 The house elf enslavement problem 49:40 Rowlings careless depictions of various cultures and naming of characters 54:08 elf enslavement problem continued 59:00 How Rowlings political ideology affects the story (Neoliberalism) 1:14:32 Cap to the elf slavery theme (No systemic change, only individual niceness) 1:19:12 How Snuff (Disc World) deals with slavery 1:24:12 Supposed intent vs existing text and Rowlings Goblins 1:29:47 Conflict between races in Fantasy settings (Lord of the rings comparison) 1:33:59 The shortcomings of Harry Potter’s ending 1:40:05 The Fantastic beasts question: Why didn’t the wizards prevent WW2? 1:43:00 Final clarifications

[@inazumarai7690]

i see you - thanks for your service

[@user-qi6pv9jh7o]

For ww2, in HPMOR, Grind cared and used genocide as source of sacrifices for rituals. Everyone else didn't care at all (why would they? Mages are superiority-driven isolated society)

[@percyweasley9301]

BLESS YOU

[@yuridavid0]

Not all heroes wears capes

[@DrippyWaffler]

Between house elf enslavement and carelessly naming is Rowling Doesn't Understand Racism

[@EricSandwich]

Shaun going "oh no I'm writing Harry Potter fanfic" makes me realize why Harry Potter is such a fertile source of fanfiction writing: it's a fairly complete world but has these enormous holes in structure and character. So people flood in with their own explanations or rewrites. And this is totally by accident, Rowling managed to dominate by being a B writer, great at setting things up and terrible at resolving them

[@elliot__agares]

Yes, there are some fics that 100% deserve to be a book instead of JK's harry Potter because omg

[@MattEldritchHorror]

Sounds similar to something like RWBY

[@four-en-tee]

Sounds like Game of Thrones, lol

[@agogobell28]

God damn, I never realised how true this is.

[@QuintessentialFlyer734]

Totally agree! The best HP fanfics I've read explore the Slytherin students in particular, how they were labelled so negatively at such a young age and how the post-Voldemort social order would have looked like.

[@scrantonrogueofthesilvertr9031]

The thing about Harry’s wealth is it would be so easy to just say because he’s a minor he can only take out so much out of his vault until he gets to a certain age. That happens a lot irl. Super easy plothole fix.

[@shelbyscout]

And yet she doesn't. That's the problem. Her books are filled with dozens of plot holes that could easily be resolved, often with a single sentence, but she is lazy and lacks the self-awareness to fix any of them.

[@Eucep]

Yeah was thinking that too, but indeed it's not in the books. Heck when I read them I thought that was the reason. He just had been given some pocket money and to go get more, well, that likely was once a year before heading to school.

[@becastockman981]

Wasn't it stated that by the end of his time at Hogwarts, his finances were starting to run a bit low? Like yeah, he had plenty of money, but it also had to last him around a decade. That might just be something I made up in my head as a kid to patch over this though lol.

[@Gshadin]

super easy, barely an inconvenience

[@haraberu]

@@becastockman981 That was my interpretation in the first book, that it was his middle class parents' life savings, equivalent to tens of thousands of mugglebux. An unbelievable amount for a child but not enough to spend it carelessly.

[@miike2]

Always loved how for 6 out of 7 books, Hufflepuff almost doesn't exist except for when one guy from it is the chosen champion for Triwizard only to get murdered in cold blood by a literal ratman.

[@conormurphy4328]

Apart from the multiple Hufflepuff students that harry is friends with?

[@teehee.1862]

@@conormurphy4328like who

[@conormurphy4328]

@@teehee.1862 Hannah Abbott, Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Susan Bones, not friends but Zacharias Smith,

[@johndotcue]

Man, they were the jobbers of the school. Cedric was the best of them and she killed him off right away….

[@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou]

@@conormurphy4328 So inconsequential faceless names with near-to-no development or characterization? Man, HP really is the epitome of Tell Don't Show.

[@LeBonkJordan]

JK Rowling's politics in the books really do have "50% of slave-owners should be women" vibes

[@stevencleere4912]

"there are no good or bad actions in the Harry Potter universe, only good or bad TEAMS." Is my biggest takeaway from this. Essentialism and tribalism.

[@matteodotdpsatgmaildotcom2451]

She's basically a football hooligan LOL

[@alisonpurgatory85]

We shouldn’t be using tribalism to mean sectarianism. Tribal societies don’t deserve to be compared to JKR lol but srsly it does reinforce some bad cultural conditioning and popular beliefs about tribal and indigenous societies being less ‘civilized’ and ‘advanced’ than the industrialized first world colonizers

[@thunderbird3304]

Her reaction to Vladimir Putin likening his ordeal with hers basically confirmed this. It's not that she disagreed with what he said, but because he's in "the bad team," she basically told him to shut up

[@juniperrodley9843]

@@alisonpurgatory85 Yeah, thanks for saying this. Essentialism and *sectarianism* are the big things in HP.

[@johnvinals7423]

@@juniperrodley9843 Eh, Sectarianism has weird anti-Muslim connotations in modern times at least. Essentialism and factionalism works just as well.

[@TheRealKLT]

“I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the 'incredible originality' of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a 'school novel', good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

[@socialismandrevolution8299]

Satenmadpun also made a great video about all the flaws of Harry Potter and pointed out that the main reason why it was so popular was the setting of Hogwarts, which provided great escapism for many people. Beyond that, there really just wasn't a lot to it.

[@jackie5481]

god I love le guin, a true legend

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

''ethically mean-spirited'' Oh my gosh that roast.

[@allenkeettikkal3149]

Honestly I wouldn’t have really minded the books even if it was predictable. The problem is the fact we suddenly realize that JK Rowling’s incoherent political views were in her work from the start. Apparently JK Rowling has a weird tendency to worsen problems than fox them.

[@heilmodrhinnheimski]

Ursula, please stop being so based, I beg of you

[@LilyEvans1996]

The elves being presented as wanting to stay enslaved and being upset at Hermione for trying to free them has always been weird.

[@cosmo_junk]

especially how they never got direct input from the elves themselves or cared to seek out their opinions... jk rowling moment

[@CorwinFound]

The books do some weird things. She writes that the elves are forced, literally enslaved, magically. But they also _want_ to be slaves. She created Dobby, for whom we are supposed to sympathize, and made him abused and unwilling. Fine. He's freed and happy at the end. But why is he not an exception? Why could the Malfoy's not have put an illegal or unethical spell on him and let all the other elves be truly voluntary? Not that that isn't problematic in some ways, but at least you can avoid systemic chattel slavery. But nope. These people need to somehow experience forced, abusive labour voluntarily. Like many famous people these days, Rowling seems incapable of backing down on even the smallest point. She always double, triples, and quadruples down, leading to ever more bizarre and cruel outcomes. It's ever present in her writing and her real life. Because she refuses to admit to being even 1% wrong, she escalates to being 1000% wrong.

[@LilyEvans1996]

@@CorwinFound that’s a very good point about the elves.

[@mingtangkitten]

update in 2024 she's now tweeting outright holocaust denial

[@rigorm136]

Yeah, if the transphobia wasn’t the straw that broke the camels back for you then the holocaust denial should be.

[@catsaregreat6314]

no but genuinely how is someone in europe able to deny the holocaust. i’m in canada and everyone knows someone who was affected by it in some way. i wouldn’t be in canada if it weren’t for the holocaust because my great grandma was escaping nazi persecution when she immigrated here

[@JinStreams]

​@@catsaregreat6314because it is the only way she con reckon with her contadictory distaste for the optics of agreeing with nazis, while also supporting what the nazis did to trans people so much she wants it to happen again.

[@goingunder2548]

​@@catsaregreat6314I'm British and when I was 15 my class took a trip to a holocaust centre. There were walls of real people's photos and names, ages ranging from 2 to 90. Then we went to the memorial site and placed stones there. I don't know how anyone could think all of that is just someone's extremely elaborate cover up for something else. I bet people who deny what happened have never visited places like this. Its an entirely different experience to just reading about it online.

[@catsaregreat6314]

@@goingunder2548 exactly. we’ve only ever seen documentaries because there’s no museums here but still how can you watch the footage and think it’s fake

[@killerkitten7534]

You know reading the books assuming Hermione is black as JK Rowling said it becomes extremely uncomfortable with the white characters lecturing the black girl about how slavery is actually good and desired by the elves and even her friends laugh and make fun of her for trying to start a club to explain how bad slavery is. I don’t think I need to explain how messed up this is

[@KawaiiCupcake09]

As a black girl myself, I hate the idea of Hermoine being black for this reason alone..I'd hate Harry and Ron with a passion, probably even hate the story entirely. "Haha lookit the black girl protesting against slavery." Hermione remaining white makes sense. Also another thing, the Yule Ball as well, Hermione is shown by everyone and the narrative that her hair is prettier when it's straightened and not "unkempt". Which also is kinda sus.

[@agilemind6241]

@@KawaiiCupcake09 The books are clearly written assuming Hermione is white, and Rowling has not said that Hermione is definitely black only that Hermione being black is a valid interpretation of her work as a defense of a London stage actress who was being harrassed by racist trolls on the internet after she was cast as Hermione.

[@Neko141212]

@@agilemind6241 hmmmm, what she wrote on twitter was: “Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione." The key here is 'White skin was never specified' which is a pretty obvious lie on Rowling's part. The problem isn't so much the black actress - who cares, more diversity in that universe is honestly a good thing - but how Rowling seems to magically forget all the times Hermione is absolutely portrayed as a white character. It's this tendency of hers to basically rewrite her books via interviews and twitter to create diversity that wasn't there to begin with. That's what's annoying af

[@anonymoussaga8723]

@@Neko141212 Even if she didn’t say that she doesn’t reread her own work, it really shows. How many times is Hermione described as turning pink or red? I can’t quite imagine a black girl being able to ‘go a brilliant shade of magenta,’ or as looking like half a panda when she has a black eye.

[@agilemind6241]

@@Neko141212 So are you arguing that JK should have stated that the racist trolls were correct and their arguments were sound, Hermione was definitely white in the books so the stage company was changing / violating cannon by casting a black actress? Or what should she have done instead? The situation was: Twitter & social media hate storm attacking a prestigious British theater company and an up and coming black actress because that stage company is putting on a production of the Cursed Child and cast a black actress as Hermione. What should JK Rowling have done? Since clearly, her stating that this didn't violate cannon and she loves this interpretation of her work was the wrong thing to do. Should she have insisted the theatre company hire a white actress to play Hermione? Should she have just said nothing an allowed her "fans" to harrass the company / actress? Should she have simply distanced herself from the production saying the hate mob is correct but she leaves casting to the production company?

[@edgarallenhoe3518]

I guess Harry's attitude toward money never bothered me as a kid because it resonated with the way I, a lower middle class kid deeply anxious about money, would probably treat a surprise fortune: buy myself a couple of nice things, and then try to forget about it because I was scared of losing it. The thing is, that makes sense if the windfall is like... $50,000. Harry is probably a millionaire. At some point in the series, he stops being a Dickensian orphan and starts being a teenage boy with a massive trust fund.

[@stephaniewilliams6756]

Yep spot on analysis

[@chriss780]

yeah i mean it also would have been a super easy question to solve "oh yeah but trust/ will/ bank says you can't use it till you're an adult, or can only take a trivial amount out of before then or whatever

[@Bluecho4]

@@chriss780 In another comment, I said that there should even be a character - a reasonable adult authority figure - who is in charge of Harry's trust. Someone who gives him spending money, but can veto any big purchases or withdrawals. Someone like McGonagall, or a goblin working at the bank. So Harry needs to make his case to when he needs lots of money, and over time develops a rapport with on a personal level.

[@ShnoogleMan]

To be fair, it never really says exactly how rich Harry is in terms of muggle money.

[@Eldrahan]

I always figured it /was/ like $50,000. Harry's parents, as best as I can tell, were ordinary people who worked ordinary jobs, not independently wealthy. So if they have, say, 6 months salary saved up in their bank accounts, it would seem like an unfathomable sum of money to an 11 year old, but not actually enough to just buy solutions to any major adult problems.

[@shoopmahboop1374]

Its so funny to me that every other iteration of Harry Potter besides the books tried to scrub the whole slavery thing as much as possible, and i just imagine so many people telling J.K. Rowling to tone down the whole slavery thing

[@mattmcdonough3282]

The inner machinations of Jowling Kowling Rowling's mind are an enigma

[@SesshyLover777]

I just had a thought rewatching this. Even if Harry being stingy with his literal immense wealth is a thing that JK, for SOME reason, really wanted to stick to, THAT COULD BE A CHARACTER THING SHE COULD'VE EXPLORED. He was poor, then suddenly rich. He could be afraid of giving his money away because of the life he's lived or even just routinely FORGET he has money and live like he always has and need to be reminded or something. And now I'm writing fanfiction too 🤦🏼‍♀️

[@CelestiaLily]

That quote about "threatening to make the series more interesting" feels like the *exact* hook where people's frustrations with HP can motivate such a desire lmao. Wanting to wrestle the series into a more living, changing, complicated world (and a better story) is an itch I'll personally leave unscratched, but damn the entire video and all the insightful points like yours just drives home how unfulfilled the HP premise was from the start :/

[@anthill1510]

Actually him forgetting that he has money or simply not being used to thinking about his money to solve problems would be quite realistic. I grew up poor and when I had a bit of money later there were several occassions where I simply didn`t think about using money to solve a problem, because I was not used to be able to do that.

[@tailbonetailbone9380]

Harry Potter has a really interesting premise and a very special place on a lot of people's hearts. It's also filled to the brim with moral, story and character issues, many of which are faults of the actor that she is incapable and/or unwilling to fix. It's only natural to want to "fix" the story and its universe, so that we can recover some of the wonder of exploring it for the first time.

[@arianawoosley2841]

@@anthill1510 That actually happens in the story. At several point in the book Harry reminds himself that he has a pile of money and how he has forgot how rich he is.

[@FraserSouris]

@@anthill1510 The problem is that the series already has Harry use his wealth plenty of times anyway to solve problems, even when surrounded by the Weaslys who don't have his money. For example, every year in Diagon Ally, Harry is able to easily afford any new robes, textbooks and supplies he needs for the new school year while the Weaslys have to rely on hand me downs or whatever. He funds Fred and George's joke shop with his earnings. It would be realistic if Harry didn't have to keep spending money for Harry to forget he could spend money.

[@alissapenridge7516]

The funniest thing about the spew stuff is that Hermione’s type of uninformed, blundering activism is, in fact, exactly what Rowling keeps doing when she tries to address any kind of systemic inequality in her work without doing the research to make sure she doesn’t perpetuate negative stereotypes and harm the groups she’s trying to represent.

[@zoeb3573]

Oh my god. I've never seen anyone point that out, but you're absolutely right. She's doing exactly what she accuses Hermione of doing wrongly in the books. Except Hermione was at least trying to stop a bad thing while JK is trying to take away people's rights.

[@astrinymris9953]

@@zoeb3573 Exactly! She's fighting to "save" trans people from the gender-affirming medical care they're desperately trying to access, and ignoring what actual trans people tell her about their lives.

[@schlechtgut8349]

@@zoeb3573 "she accuses Hermione of doing wrongly in the books" what? I always viewed elf slavery in HP as a way to introduce the topic of slavery to children. And Hermione being the literal embodiment of morale in the books was the only one through whom such a problem was told

[@zoeb3573]

@@schlechtgut8349 How can she be the embodiment of morale if everyone else mocks her for it and nothing is ever done to stop slavery in the end? all she was, was used for comedy. tee-hee here comes silly little Hermione and her silly little anti-slavery movement. I'd get it if the book agreed with her and something was done about slavery in the end, but that doesn't happen. Even the main character keeps his slave after the main events well into adulthood.

[@schlechtgut8349]

​@@zoeb3573 I am truly astonished. I never even imagined that there is such an idea. Throughout all books Hermione does the most responsible things. She is always good. Mockery comes from the people who were always living in this society and they are ok with status quo and truly believe that this is the right thing. What "something done" are you talking about? They were slaves for centuries. You expect this matter to be solved in the book? If it is even possible then it would take a lot of time and the change in the society.

[@aster5285]

My favorite part of every critical Harry Potter video is when Discworld is brought up in contrast as a good series. Its funny how the unseen university honestly feels like a parody of hogwarts despite predating Harry potter by years. Makes me wonder if Joann read Discworld and decided to take the dangerous magic university that endangers the city its a part of with irresponsible magic use, run by self important, quirky and somewhat incompetent men who spend more time hiding from their students rather then teaching them and decided to just play it straight without understanding any of the satire behind it.

[@KalCounty]

My favourite part of Unseen University is the Archchancellor, who runs a magic school but is completely incredulous and unimaginative, and doesn't seem to really care that much for magic in the first place. Perfect caricature of an academic administrator.

[@isabelladunne1069]

I read Ursula le Guin ad an adult and realised that JK Rowling just completely plagiarised the wizard of earthsea but made it much worse

[@kx2174]

Regarding the house elves, it could have just been something the old evil rich families still continue to do. For the ones working in Hogwarts just say that Dumbledore hires them and pays them normally, and that keeping them as slaves is considered wrong among the majority of wizards, the same way looking down on people for not being purebloods is. It's not that difficult.

[@viy2959]

I’m sorry, but…Cedric, one of the nicest characters in the series, who literally goes out of his way to make sure that his opponent is being treated fairly becoming a death eater because he lost a tournament is just… well, I’m beginning to think that maybe Rowling isn’t great at consistent characterization or something…

[@patrickhackett7881]

The screenplay was not written by Rowling-- it is pretty much an official fanfic

[@viy2959]

@@patrickhackett7881 She is listed as one of the authors of the stageplay and was involved in the story. She is heavily involved in all adaptations of her work. But I don't think she fully wrote the script, no. The characterization is still at least partly on her.

[@patrickhackett7881]

@@viy2959 You'd understand if you read fanfiction. Time travel fix it attempt, Voldemort having asecret daughter with Bellatrix Lestrange, Ron's characterization, the homoeroticism between Albus and Scorpius (which is Harry/Draco but next gen)-- those ideas are from fanfiction that existed before CC. JKR clearly didn't do much of the writing, if any.

[@flawlesswill1987]

@@viy2959 JK neither write it or the script, why not cry about Jack Thorne who actually did write it? because you havent been told to be mad about him thats why

[@viy2959]

@@flawlesswill1987 As I said, she is heavily involved in all Harry Potter related media. So either she approved this, or she didn’t say she didn’t like it. Which I assume she would have if she didn’t think it was consistent and for some reason it was allowed to happen anyway. I’m not crying about it. Or mad about it. I just think it’s bad writing. My personal issues with Rowling have nothing to do with my feelings about her writing. Or the writing she approves other people doing, I suppose. Honestly, if I find it anything, I mostly find it funny.

[@tyleralmquist7606]

I think the problem at the end of the 7th book is not the fact that they still have houses at Hogwarts, but the fact that Albus is worried about being put in Slytherin. That means that all of the stereotypes and bigotry surrounding the houses are still in place, so that scene where everyone is sitting together without any segregation in the great hall is completely undone

[@2tired2p15]

Well the entire house system is fundamentally built on stereotypes so the problem is still the system itself

[@Bluey306]

you know how in that epilogue scene, harry then tells albus how it's ok if he gets sorted into slytherin because "one of the bravest men" he knew was in slytherin? your comment makes me wonder: wait so was harry just waiting for this final moment to tell that to his son?? at no point albus severus potter wondered about his name, or at no point did harry tell his kids stories about how slytherins Aren't That Bad Really before any of them went to hogwarts?? or maybe he did, maybe harry told albus severus about the men he was named after, but the whole Slytherins Had Some Good People Too moral either went whoosh over his head or harry conveniently left that part out. this is less of a critique (although it still is) and more...just funny to me i guess. i suppose it works as a reveal for the reader, at the very least, but lmaooo edit: (although now that just makes me think of rowling could've still fitted in the reveal by making albus severus potter nervous and excited about which house he'd be sorted into, because naturally he wants gryffindor because that's what his parents and relatives were in, but whoa wouldn't it be cool if i were sorted into slytherin like the guy i was named after, which as father says was One Of The Bravest Men He Knew!!!1!!!11)

[@tyleralmquist7606]

@@Bluey306 i always kinda read it as Harry just reiterating the point about his name rather than just telling him for the first time, but if it’s the first time it’s an interesting theory

[@Gahanun]

Why are you talking about bigotry? The house system literally sorts people by their personality traits. Just because the protagonists don't want to follow the values of Slytherin doesn't make Slytherin inherently evil.

[@Til_What]

The entire system is dumb. You inherently put 4 groups of people in an us VS them situation, then fuel the rivalry with a point system that assigns weird, arbitrary values at random with absolutely no guide lines or coherency. Not only dividing the students but even the teachers responsible for the various houses, giving them free reign and incentive to use favoritism at every opportunity. If they want the kids to have a sense of rivalry, they could....I don't know....make them compete in some kind of competitive sport? Oh wait.

[@Kilaknux]

A more minor point in comparison to everything else, but something else that Rowling really doesn't seem to know how to write - romance. I don't mean the stuff with Cho or Lavender. That was actually a reasonably good depiction of awkward teenage relationships and the poor communication that frequently goes into them. No, more specifically I mean Harry and Ginny. Romance, if written well, at least, requires tangible, concrete build up. You need to spend at least some time establishing a connection, interaction between the two people involved, some proof of romantic compatibility. We the audience need to SEE that these people are capable of being in a romantic relationship, not simply be told that they are. This is especially true in a long running series, where you've got ample space and opportunity to take that time and plan it all out. And by that metric, and assuming Harry is straight, Harry has precisely two options for a love interest and neither of them are Ginny. It's been a while since I've read the books, I admit, but if memory serves, Harry and Ginny just don't interact or talk with one another on page post Chamber of Secrets, until he's BREAKING UP WITH HER. The literal first one on one conversation they have that we can see, and it's the old "it's not you it's my enemies" trope. There'd been no hint of attraction on Harry's part until he's suddenly extremely into her in 6, and even that receives no build up. It's just sort of... there. I get why fanfic authors tend to say he got love potioned, because it honestly does seem like that at times. It's just bafflingly poor writing. Meanwhile, Harry and Hermione both support and respect one another numerous times over the course of the series, and Harry and Luna explicitly share a kind of connection he doesn't have with anyone else, that of fellow outcasts looking out for each other. Hell, Luna's the only person really able to comfort him about Sirius. Either would work much better, and yet.

[@juliamavroidi8601]

Showing no romantic interest in a person until you suddenly really get into them one school year is also a realistic depiction of teen romances though, but I see how it's narratively unsatisfying. Least of all there could have been some explanation on why Harry suddenly has developed and interest in Ginny.

[@karen-7057]

This unearthed a memory of child me hoping for Harry and Luna being together. It just made so much sense

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

How about Ron and Hermione? They fight and argue throughout the entire series. They get into freakin shouting matches over their pets in the third book for Christ’s sake. And Ron has a meltdown over her going with Victor Krum to the Yule Ball in the 4th book and when he finds out those two kissed in the 6th book. And he tries to “get back” at her by kissing lavender, which Hermione responds with by setting birds on him. And we’re supposed to believe these two are a good match? Nevermind the fact that they don’t have basically anything in common apart from being brave and Harry’s friends. And this is all only scratching the surface. JK Rowling doesn’t know how to write romance period. The only goods pairs are the ones who were already together. (I.e. the Weasley and Malfoy parents, that might be it actually)

[@ShadowSonic2]

@@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333 The problem with Ron and Hermione is that Rowling was lazy and wrote only ONE major female character in a mostly male cast and paired her up with someone she'd been character exaggerating/assassinating from Book 4 onwards because she ran out of ideas of what to do with him (Ron). If she'd maintained Ginny as a major character from Book 3 onwards, introduced Luna in Book 2 or 3 and made her important and brought in Tonks before Book 5, then there'd be less complaints about Ron/Hermione. Oh, and give Ron more to do than be Harry's meat shield. His character arc wasn't handled well by her.

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

@@ShadowSonic2 Ron was always quite the little asshole. In the second book, he literally says Tom Riddle would’ve done the school the favor if he murdered Myrtle, a downright cruel thing to say about someone who is just (I guess) being kind of annoying. If by less complaints, you mean none because those two wouldn’t be paired together, I agree. There was never any hope for Ron and Hermione, especially after book 2. Making Ginny more of a character and introducing those other two earlier wouldn’t have changed anything. “Oh, and give Ron more to do than be Harry’s meat shield.” What?

[@EkpyroticBounceHouse-DunderDan]

She would really name a Japanese character “Pearl Nanking”

[@Sfaxx]

TBH I'll be surprised if she knows about Nanjing. I would personally bet on "Pearl Honda" or something

[@EkpyroticBounceHouse-DunderDan]

@@Sfaxx lmfaooo

[@Sfaxx]

@@EkpyroticBounceHouse-DunderDan funnily enough, Honda is also a last name in Japan (f.e. Keisuke Honda, Japanese football player)

[@SpiritOfMontgomery]

@@SfaxxI thought it would be something like Kamikaze Toyota, known as Cammie for short.

[@mmm-px6wc]

What bothers me the most about Ron's broken wand is that, isn't the school supposed to care for their students? Isn't Ron's broken wand a threat to him and to other students, to the point that he actually gets injured using it? Wouldn't any reasonable school give him a spare wand to at least keep him safe? Also, mcgonagall didn't have any problem buying harry an expensive broom, which was not necessary, but she couldn't for the life of her provide a wand for her own student? "Best magic school on the planet" it is.

[@clover2739]

Yeah I know the wand chooses the wizard and all that, but the wand Ron used wasn’t his own anyway, it was an old one from his older brother that was in bad shape, so surely he could’ve used a spare until school finished. Unless spare wands aren’t a thing

[@-piras]

I mean people keep saying USA is the best country in the world, soo the book gets that right

[@marshallhelm5923]

Hermione literally almost dies within three months of attending Hogwarts.

[@thetribunaloftheimaginatio5247]

"They don't go to the police because it's dull." --Alfred Hitchcock Had Ron's wand-issue been solved quickly, the story would have been over and you'd be bored to tears.

[@nevinusa7164]

Tbf this IS a school that considers it normal to punish students by sending them into a forest full of monsters, so I imagine the safety of the students isn't exactly their top priority

[@warrendriscoll350]

Did anyone else notice the glasses were taped to the skull's head? I love that detail.

[@greyisnthere]

Yes! I was staring at this piece for 25 minutes before catching that haha. Really amazing art.

[@chrstfer2452]

Spellotape saves the day again

[@emgeejay]

“the skull’s head”

[@Kriegter]

megadeth

[@mymoviesbetter8466]

Feels very Terry Pratchett

[@diarmuidtherat]

"But J. K. Rowling does. So... we know that now." always kills me lmao

[@glacuonie]

I've watched this video countless times but I still burst out laughing everytime we get to Neville just accidentally destroying ALL the timeturners. ALL OF THEM.

[@Elizabeth-bz7jr]

the way you delivered “so our main character becomes a slave owner that’s nice” had me cackling

[@drd444]

He says it as if its funny. But it shows a profound lack of understanding. Slavery IS NOT portrayed as good in Harry Potter. Characters apologise for it, they even defend it profusely, but over the course of the books, it's shown, very clearly that it's wrong and that it needs to be looked at. Harry is deeply uncomfortable when he is given creature and has to learn a lesson from Hermione before even giving Creature any respect. Again Hermione is shown as being in the right here. Harry learns that these creatures are literally magically bound to do wizards biddings and that they are psychologically damaged because of it. The fact that Harry is put in this situation is incredible. It allows for our protagonist to genuinely be wrong and disrespectful in so many ways until he's finally shown the right perspective.

[@dipannitasarah5521]

@@drd444 And? Does he work to change any of that? Set his slave free, perhaps? He has so much wealth and influence in the Wizarding World, but does he push for any change in slave rights, if he is so dang uncomfortable? No, so the point in this video stands.

[@danielr.y5261]

All this time while Shaun talks about the "good guys help *individuals* but won't change the *system* " reminded me of a very powerful scene in HBO's series Oz, which takes place in a maximum security prison. At the end of the 1st season there's a prison mutiny led by the civil rights activist and Muslim leader Kareem Said (magnificently portrayed by Eamonn Walker). At some point during the mutiny, McManus (the unit manager) pleads with Said to accept the conditions offered by the warden and stop the mutiny "before everything ends for everyone". To which a very angry and outraged Said responds that *that's the whole goddamned point; to destroy such an unfair system (poverty, violence, discrimination) that virtually sentenced most of the inmates since the day they were born, brick by hypocritical brick.* In the end it doesn't really matter that Harry and other characters are disgusted by the slavery system. Not oppossing the system that enables it is tacitly consenting to it.

[@vaiyt]

@@drd444 Slavery is so wrong, but clearly the slaves want it and Hermione is stupid for trying to end it. Anyway make me a sandwich, personal slave that I inherited and kept for almost twenty years at this point. All is well.

[@GiveMeYourFACE9089]

@@dipannitasarah5521 h

[@ChiefLibrarianAhriman]

"He was actually just one bad day away from becoming a fascist murderer, sorry about that". Shaun, even when you are covering important issues with these books, it never ceases to impress me how you manage to insert comedy.

[@sksthrowaway2270]

Isn’t this just the plot of Joker (2019)

[@sunbleachedangel]

I mean, it's also true

[@sunbleachedangel]

@@sksthrowaway2270 no?

[@elsanto2401]

Guys he was Jokerfied!!!

[@acchuptalaily7353]

So Batman became the Joker after one bad day

[@johnpotts8308]

On the Sword of Griffindor belonging to the Goblins, I have to admit I thought Harry was going to say that he would hand the sword over once he'd used it - a deal which the Goblin could accept (or not). I was surprised that Harry just planned on keeping it anyway! As to "Why didn't Wizards stop Hitler?" I assumed the answer was "We don't care about the Muggle world." Not exactly a morally upstanding answer, but dismissing problems as concerning "A far off country about which we know nothing" is a depressingly common, real world answer.

[@wheezerAOTY]

"so our heroes decide to decorate their decapitated slave heads with little Christmas hats" is uh quite the line to say the least

[@jefflabbecomedy]

Ron's broken wand always bugged me too. Ron was very sensitive about being poor, so what. At a certain point those misfires were harming him, and making him seem like a worse student than he was. It's insane that the school didn't discreetly pay for a new wand, or Harry didn't sit him down and let Ron's ears go red or whatever and tell him point blank that he needs a new wand.

[@mikyto7313]

It's nonsense the school didn't have a stock of 'second-tier/training' wands at the ready. Kids would be breaking their wands DAILY.

[@notayoutuber4496]

No but really, I'm still so mad that McGonagall bought Harry, who's already a trustfund baby, a racing broom, but she's totally fine with Ron getting injured and potentially killed because of a broken wand. Like??? Some teacher she is.

[@jefflabbecomedy]

@@notayoutuber4496 Seriously! And scolded him on the regular. "Weasley! You really must replace that wand!"

[@sandpiperr]

@@jefflabbecomedy For real! Even if she's not willing to buy it because he's not as special a Harry, she's Ron's teacher! In any other school setting, if there was a student who had a vital supply that was damage to the point of being dangerous to them and they didn't replace it as instructed, the next step any teacher with two brain cells would take is to get in touch with their parents to see what's going on!

[@victory8928]

Hadgrid literally saw the result of his wand malfunctioning due to the broken wand there was literally no excuse for the staff to not investigate and help Ron.

[@Eudaletism]

"They're happy where they are" is literally an argument slavers used. Many slaves did smile and act super-submissive and agreeable as a method of self-protection and appeasement.

[@ettaetta439]

Plus, after slavery was abolished, many slaves did go into alcoholism due to a healthy dose of PTSD and having absolutely no job openings, as no one would hire black people. This provided further "proof", that slaves were useless without white people, rather than them just being discriminated against. How did she write the actual caricature of a slave having been released from their shackles through the views of a white racist and not question it at all?

[@isaacburrows8405]

@BradyExists she's fucking weird yo

[@drd444]

But that was the point. She was pointing out that the wizarding world is set in its ways and that the system is so ingrained into society, no one sees the issue. She wouldn't have made Hermione (her own self insert) an activist if it wasn't for the fact that she thought it was a bad system herself. In no way is slavery portrayed as good. In fact, the happy house elves is rather chilling.

[@drd444]

@BradyExists Dumbledore offered to pay, but they didn't want it.

[@ettaetta439]

@@drd444 did you watch the video? I'm not trying to insult you btw, the video goes way into how JK Rowling seems to defend the existence of house elves and it's very, very well said. I can timestamp for you where he starts to talk about it, if you'd like to listen to the reasoning why everyone is talking about this.

[@natanprzybylko7227]

I would love to just see an alternate version of Harry Potter where someone just calls the British PM and he just fucking nukes Voldemort lmao

[@OTcrochet]

My husband pointed out if Voldemort or harry Had guns this would have been a much shorter story

[@LabMatt]

There is one detail in the Legend of Korra that I found really interesting: Season 1, the main antagonist was leading a group of non-benders Season 2, the main antagonist was a waterbender Season 3, the main antagonist was an airbender Season 4, the main antagonist was an earthbender It's a huge contrast with The Last Airbender, where almost all the major antagonists were firebenders How many antagonists there are in the world of Harry Potter that aren't/weren't Slytherin, other than Pettigrew?

[@samniel]

Lockheart was a Ravenclaw, but he's less an antagonist and more of a comedic annoyance. And I don't know which house Umbridge went to but it could've been Slytherin considering how much of her squad were in said house. Actually, that reminded me, she's mentioned that Lockheart was based on someone she knew "who is probably telling people he's the inspiration for Dumbledore" and Umbridge was based on a teacher she had. While writers do this sort of caricature of people they know all the time, it's always felt kind of gross.

[@joannamyers1268]

In the Chamber of Secrets, why on earth did none of the teachers notice that Ron's wand wasn't working? They could have easily gotten him a new wand themselves or sent an owl to his parents, but they didn't even talk to him about any of that. A wand isn't a luxury for a wizard, it's an important piece of equipment they need all the time, especially a kid in school.

[@peeblekitty5780]

Yeah, like if a kid had a broken school-essential chromebook or tech (it's the best parallel I can think of considering the value and multi-use of a wand but ik it doesn't translate back many years) the school wouldn't just go "oh well, guess you'll just fail this entire year" like what-

[@YEY0806]

@Peeble Kitty Honestly, I think Hogwarts would be an actual terrible school to go to

[@kevintyson1947]

lmao! While I do agree with you, you know that that doesn't happen in real life in most schools right? students come into class with no pencils, pens, paper and more and most teachers dont care especially if they are middle or high school age like in the HP books. That is NOT their responsibilities to buy a student an equipment that probably costed the equivalent of 120 Euros.

[@joannamyers1268]

@@kevintyson1947 This isn't quite the same as not having pencils. For one, kids can borrow pencils or pens from other kids, but a wand is far more complicated. We've seen, not every wand works well with someone else, and also, every kid only has one, which makes it difficult to share. For another thing, this school has, or used to have, funds to give students who don't have the money for supplies, as we saw with Tom Riddle. That suggests a precedent for providing a student a new wand, even if it is a cheaper loaner wand.

[@peeblekitty5780]

@@kevintyson1947 "or sent an owl to his parents". A middle or high school would definitely send an email or something home if their student was missing a vital piece of equipment (and possibly lend them a substitute to give back at the end of the school day)

[@PixelaDay]

Shout out to Quinn Curio's video "Uh, Rowling Why Does Slytherin Still Exist?" which complements some of these points really well. What got me was when she went through Slytherin house's defining traits and showed that a lot of them are just negatively worded versions of traits the other houses also have (Slytherin fraternity = bad, but Gryffindor loyalty = good). Very much supports Shaun's points that the difference between the "goods" and the "bads" in HP is mostly a matter of aesthetics, not ideology.

[@moscanaveia]

You find plenty of liberals whenever you open a fascist's lunchbox. This point about Slytherin's continued existence partiicularly makes me lol, because recently in Brazil some right wing liberals have made complete asses of themselves by defending that Germany erred by banishing the nazi party and criminalising openly vouching for that ideology. They believe, in their dumb liberal brains, that only good ideas can prosper and flourish in the free marketplace of ideas, so there is no risk in letting nazis say nazi shit with impunity.

[@camelopardalis84]

@@moscanaveia I shed a tear every time I realise that I can't go on speaking tour in eight grade classrooms and discuss the idea that all supposed Holocaust survivors are crisis actors here in Switzerland.

[@nimbus6988]

@@moscanaveia hello fellow brasileiro lets go cair na porrada with monark?

[@moscanaveia]

@@nimbus6988 Monark little fish, I wanna skewer Kimbundinha. E fora Bozo

[@quinnmcgee7323]

That vid is great, Quinn Curio's such an underrated creator

[@ugabuga2586]

i am thankful for the simple background during the video, no constant visual distractions and when something does appear it serves a purpose. i prefer this "augmented audio" content to constant visual noise.

[@YellowPeachist]

I never understood the criticism that we shouldn't examine the moral content of stories for children. Shouldn't we care more about the stories we tell our children in their fundamental ages? Isn't it more important to examine what we teach our children who have yet to possess the critical thinking skills we can use to instruct them?

[@noeramirez7575]

Honestly if I wrote a whole children’s series and people were asking me questions like “why didn’t the wizards stop WW2?” I just say I didn’t think about that when I wrote the series. Instead of doubling down on how I had everything all planned out.

[@washbasin948]

Yeah, that's probably the best response.

[@pinoarias8601]

Because German Voldemort did nothing wrong.

[@Prankmeister1990]

Rowling could’ve easily pivoted that into the systemic racism of wizardry, but that would mean having wizards agree with Nazis and that’s a can of worms she isn’t skilled enough to tackle. Not that she’s skilled enough to handle half the themes she tries to write about.

[@will_from_pa]

I mean, that would require honesty and not sniffing your own farts, which is beyond Rowling

[@pitpat2928]

yk come to think of it, it was probably the most embarrassing thing for her to realize she never actually thought abt that when her main bad guys are wizard not-sees. it’s exactly the kind of thing i point to when i talk abt unconscious biases coming through in an artists work, there’s no escaping it.

[@knuckl6972]

Don't you just _hate_ when you just get so embarrassed you accidentally turn into a nazi murderer? If I had a nickel for every time that happened

[@goldegreen]

Ugh so annoying when that happens

[@sandpiperr]

Maybe participation trophies aren't so bad after all?

[@valh889]

If I had a nickel for every time I got so embarrassed I accidentally turned into a Nazi murderer, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

[@legrandliseurtri7495]

@@valh889 Wait

[@daemonspudguy]

@@valh889 you beat me to the Suibhne reference.

[@scootinand]

41:29 holy shit. I never even thought about that when the whole "Black Hermione" thing came up. Harry "my black friend got all haughty about slavery and I grew up to be a rich cop" Potter

[@thechap82]

In Fantastic Beasts, the ex-auror gets sentenced to death in a death cell by a death potion without trial. Big bad Grindelwald, on the other hand, gets a trial. What?!?