harrypottercritiques1228

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Harry Potter and the Rule of Law

Isn’t it interesting that Rowling chooses to let Harry, her star protagonist, commit two out of the three Unforgivable Curses during the course of the story, while still a teenager, and face no punishment?

Wasn’t one of the huge red flags about Voldemort that he tortured others with no remorse, just to satisfy his own curiosity or emotional desires?

Harry Potter, our hero, clearly has a whole lesson about Crucio, Imperio and Avada Kedavra in Goblet of Fire, in which he learns, aged 14, that each curse carries a life sentence. In the same class, he witnesses the cruel impact of each curse used on an animal.

Nonetheless, the very next year is the first time Harry tries to cast Crucio, the torture curse, on another human. At the age of 15.

We know from the great detail that the lesson goes into that the sole purpose of Crucio is to cause pain. Harry does not use Crucio to try and obtain information. He uses it to hurt a woman who he dislikes (albeit for valid reasons).

The very next year, Harry again uses Crucio against an adult he dislikes, deliberately in order to inflict pain. Yes, it’s during combat. But he is knowingly breaking the law of his land. Is he banking on his celebrity status to be above the law?

Finally, in his seventh year, Harry uses Crucio against an adult for the third time. This time, he hurts the adult so much that they become unconscious from the pain. Amycus Carrow had insulted a woman Harry liked in front of him.

In case anyone has forgotten, immediately after finishing school, Harry Potter takes a career in law enforcement. There’s no suggestion he faces any punishment whatsoever for what are essentially war crimes. Is this what JK Rowling intended?

I wonder what Neville thinks about his friend’s actions, given his personal history with Crucio? Isn’t a central theme of Harry Potter “do the ends justify the means?” What does the rule of law mean if members of law enforcement are given carte blanche to commit war crimes with no punishment?

Doesn’t that retroactively excuse Dolores Umbridge’s actions when she herself, representing the law, attempts to bait Harry into committing a crime and threatens him with torture?

Shall we even get into the issues of Hermione committing kidnap and blackmail, Ron stealing, the Weasley twins underage gambling? Maybe Harry Potter isn’t the Good series it makes itself out to be when such morally grey characters are the central protagonists and the legal system rewards them.

Originally posted to Twitter (2021)

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Also this,

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With the drop of the new Fantastic Beasts trailer, let's take a moment to remember that JKR:

1. is unequivocally a TERF + openly supports and allies herself with other TERFs

2. uses her massive wealth and platform to fight against trans rights, such that an anti-trans republican senator has cited her controversial essay to block voting on the Equality Act , and

3. has retained so much control over the HP franchise that giving her money (through movie tickets, book sales, official merch, etc) actively enables and contributes to the platform she uses to target vulnerable people

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leftist antisemites are really everywhere on this hellsite making & reblogging their posts like “the Jews have too much power and privilege and actually their very recent genocide was not that bad compared to what my group experiences and antisemitism doesn’t even exist in my country and especially not in liberal spaces”

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btw the thing she couldn’t ignore was someone calling her out for saying anti-depressants/hormone therapy are only perscribed by lazy doctors

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Cho is eviscerated for still grieving her boyfriend's death like 6 months later but it's been like 10+ years in cannon and snape apparently can't be expected to be over Lily's death enough not to bully children

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Harry Potter's experiences with child abuse were kind of glossed over.

It felt more comedic. Like "Oh, haha, look at Petunia swinging a frying pan at poor Harry." This can cause brain damage.

Harry most likely looked a bit malnourished and pale from being locked in a small, dark space for days or even months sometimes with inadequate food, but I don't think this is really mentioned.

Harry never really shows any signs of child abuse, either. I know there are some people that heal easily from this, but Harry has been using a cupboard as a bedroom (and was imprisoned in there as well; don't you think that he would develop some kind of claustrophobia, maybe?) for years, treated as a house elf, beaten up by his cousin regularly (with adults actively encouraging it, and probably by Vernon and Petunia as well, for punishment), not always given food, and no support system until he's eleven. Not very good odds for recovery, especially because he hasn't really escaped. I don't remember that it's ever noted that he had poor hygiene (since I don't think there's a shower or a sink or anything in the cupboard), health problems, any kind of depression or anxiety, unexplained marks on his body, seem to shy away from physical contact, saving food for later, not showing interest in friends or activities, etc. Not saying that everyone going through abuse must show signs, because everyone's experiences are different, but it's a bit unrealistic considering his circumstances.

I know this is more of a children's book but once you bring it up, you can't just.. ignore it.

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Hey, so they’re making a Netflix Harry Potter.

With that in mind, we’re all gonna remember that JKR is a terf who has literally been cited by legislators engaged in legislation that actively harms trans people, and we’re not gonna give her any more money.

That means not streaming the new show on Netflix, because regardless of how much influence she has on the production, she gets paid for it.

We’re gonna make the show flop. We’re gonna show Warner Brothers that we don’t forget (of course, how would we forget, it isn’t as if she’s stopped), and that their business association with terfs is no longer profitable.

It is NOT like Lovecraft, because Lovecraft is very dead and his works are in the public domain. By consuming Lovecraft media, you are not giving any money to old Howard.

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Do you think Percy Weasley should have been a Slytherin?

No, but I think the sorting hat in general is stupid. I think it's a far more arbitrary process than the world of Harry Potter implies it to be and certainly not something that should be life alterring (yet sadly is).

Percy sorted into Slytherin would have an even worse time with his family. His siblings would have that much more reason to hate him, his dormmates hate the very idea of him coming from a very poor and progressive family, his parents don't know what to do with him and whenever he does do anything there's a thought of, "What is Percy really planning?"

I don't think a Slytherin Percy would be able to beg forgiveness from the family after the icing out, for example, he'd just be disowned.

And sure, Percy's ambitious, but he's also a human being. Ambition is not all that he is or the sum of his parts (which, again, is why the sorting hat in general is silly).

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btw the thing she couldn’t ignore was someone calling her out for saying anti-depressants/hormone therapy are only perscribed by lazy doctors

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After reading your opinion on Molly Weasley, i want to know: What are you're opinions on the Weasley family? Besides Ron & Molly that is.

Five characters? In one post? Well, alright, here we go.

The Weasleys as a Whole

I’ve mentioned this before but JKR writes the Weasleys to clearly be a believable but ideal family. They’re all fiercely loyal, progressive per wizarding world standards, love each other and Harry deeply, and have this wonderful off-kilter joyous house where there’s always some rambunctious thing going on. 

Harry comes to associate the Weasleys with family and, personally, I believe a large part of him marrying Ginny boils down to it will make him a Weasley for real. 

That said, they’ve got some major issues. They’re very righteous people who, as a whole, will ice you out the moment they even suspect you do something that disagrees with them. You don’t even have to do it, what you did or didn’t do doesn’t even have to be something terrible or something bad, but god help you if the family decides they’re done with you. 

They’re very resentful of people like the Malfoys. This isn’t just because Lucius is a smarmy, pompous, ass (he is) or that he indirectly almost murdered Ginny but seems to mostly be because Lucius has so much money. All of their interactions seem to boil down to the money. More than this though, the Weasleys seem fully supportive of laws that... well, used against themselves would be a travesty but used against the likes of the Malfoys it’s about damn time.

They’re unquestioningly loyal to Dumbledore. Granted, most people we see in canon are, Dumbledore’s very very very good at convincing people he’s a saint. However, these guys are practically his cult member to the point where they do things like refuse to have Harry over the summer, even before Voldemort returned, because Dumbledore told them not to. 

They also never really adopt Harry into the family. Oh they give him a nice sweater, he comes over every once in a while to the house, he’s very good friends with Ron but he’s mostly treated just like that, a good friend. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this, except the way JKR sets it up we’re supposed to believe this is the family Harry found. It’s just that the family Harry’s found let’s him stay in a house with bars on his window where twelve-year-old Ron tells them, “Harry’s muggle family is really really awful” in a way that should have been raising red flags. Hermione practically lives at the Weasleys, Harry never does.

Now, are the Weasleys evil? No, far from it, they’re ordinary people who act in ways I’d expect ordinary people too. Technically they didn’t have to do anything more for Harry than they did, they didn’t have to hate Lucius Malfoy for better reasons, and they don’t have to be even slightly less worshipful of Dumbledore. They’re people, and they’re fine characters, but the overwhelming worship and love of the Weasleys we see across fandom does get on my nerves.

But you asked for individuals, so here we go.

 Arthur Weasley

Arthur is the epitome of “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” in the worst of ways and is, frankly, a giant awful joke to me. He’s the white kid you see going around with dread locks, a beanie the color of the Jamaican flag, smoking weed, and attempting to speak like Bob Marley 

Only, because he does it with muggle things, we’re supposed to find him funny and progressive.

Arthur is absolutely, albeit unwittingly, condescending in his love of muggle knickknacks. He has no idea how any of it actually works, not limited to how muggles could possible survive without the gold standard, but ardently believes he does because he can enchant the car to fly. Seriously, that he believes he’s an expert on muggle culture, as a pureblood wizard who heads an office in the ministry on it, is the worst part. His love of toasters comes across as, “Wow, look how cool it is that these poor little muggles made all this neat stuff. We should absolutely love the muggles because of it!” And that he heads an office in the ministry called “The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts” which is all about catching down Jackass style pranksters who think it would be hilarious of they enchanted toasters to bludgeon muggles to death...

Goddammit Arthur, why do you exist?

Right, otherwise, he’s got some pride issues going on. Part of the reason Percy is excommunicated is not so much that Percy doesn’t believe Harry, but because Percy dared to do better than Arthur in his own career. Arthur is stuck in his position as head of a joke of a department, he is an underling at its finest, and frankly likely only has that position because he’s a pureblood and the idea of putting a halfblood or even muggleborn at the head of a department dealing with muggles just made the higher ups shudder. (Don’t tell Arthur that though, he likes to think he’s not benefitting from nepotism). 

Arthur goes so far to accuse Percy as Fudge’s secretary as spying on him. Arthur, the guy who heads “Misuse of Muggle Artifacts”. Yeah, Arthur, I’m sure Fudge is really wasting his time using his straight laced secretary to find out all your dirty secrets. 

He also tends to see the world as very black and white. When Skeeter in book 4 writes an article after the Quidditch World Cup disaster complaining about the ministry’s lax security in enabling domestic terrorists to enter (something completely valid and true by the way) Arthur is so personally offended that both he and Percy go straight to the ministry to complain about Rita Skeeter and her daring to assume freedom of speech! HOW DARE SHE CALL THE MINISTRY’S NON-EXISTENT SECURITY AT THE WORLD CUP LAX! (To be fair, she also cited Arthur as having been in attendance at the event, a ministry employee, and having done nothing but, well, this is also true Arthur. You’re in a guerilla, underground, resistance movement. If I didn’t already think the Order was a joke this would kind of highlight it for me).

He’s also very resentful of Lucius Malfoy, and it seems to mostly be about the money. Arthur and Molly have a severe spending problem and actively resent that Lucius is swimming in money. That Arthur is ardently pleased about a law being passed in which the ministry without warrant can ransack Lucius Malfoy’s home... 

Well, Arthur, imagine the slippery slope if the government decides that it would like to search the Weasley home without warrant? In fact, he doesn’t even have to imagine it, as the beloved government in a few short years turns against him and then it’s all about how corrupt the ministry is. 

Arthur’s delightfully narrowminded, basically, and reminds us at nearly every opportunity.

Percy Weasley

Mostly, I just feel bad for Percy. Percy’s the son/brother that nobody likes and he’s painfully aware of that fact. He doesn’t fit in with the others, he has far too much ambition for the Gryffindor family and they resent him for it, and then he dares to say things like “I don’t know guys, Voldemort resurrecting from the dead after decades doesn’t sound plausible, we know Harry’s a little off kilter, and Dumbledore’s one shady dude”. Percy happens to be wrong about Voldemort resurrecting (and admits as much when the evidence is plainly visible), but he’s pretty on the money with the rest of it.

Regardless, growing up we see Ron constantly hating on Percy along with the rest of the siblings. I’m sure Percy is obnoxious, and certainly full of himself after making prefect and head boy, but he’s very clearly even before Order of the Phoenix the Least Favorite Brother (TM).

Then the Weasley family completely ices him out for a) getting a very high ranking position very quickly as Fudge’s secretary and b) not being gung ho about Dumbledore saying crazy things in the paper. Remember that to Percy Harry is Ron’s weird friend who seems to get into highly illegal activities every other week. From Percy’s point of view, it’s probably a matter of time before Harry becomes a crack head in Knockturn Alley (or given how behind the times wizards tend to be, an opium den). 

He’s constantly getting Ron into not only trouble but life threatening situations, is erratic and apparently a parseltongue of all things, and now Harry’s flipped his lid and saying that Voldemort has been resurrected after having gone through a very traumatic experience of watching a classmate somehow die. 

While we see Percy kind of (sort of)  make up with the family it’s clear that for Percy to have any relation with these people he’s the one who will always, ALWAYS, have to come crawling back on his knees and begging for forgiveness. It’s the Weasley way or the highway and I imagine, at some point probably a little after/during that epilogue, Percy will just slowly drift away because it’s just not worth it anymore.

Percy’s very much the black sheep of the family.

Fred and George Weasley

You all are going to kill me, but I actually don’t care in the slightest about Fred and George Weasley. This is because they basically have no personality aside from “funny”. 

They just have their weird, tandem, twin act and are either playing jokes on the school or else serving as Deus ex Machina in giving Harry magical items such as the Marauder’s Map for no apparent reason. The plot told them it was time, I guess. 

Their jokes, while not as bad as Sirius and James’ “Let’s sexually harrass Severus Snape by pantsing and beating him at the edge of Hogwarts lake” or Sirius’ “Let’s get Snape eaten by a werewolf!” are still often needlessly cruel and... kind of pointless. They harass Slytherin house constantly just because they happen to be Slytherins, they’re acceptable victims (which of course makes house tension that much worse). Harry gets sent a toilet seat in the hospital because... that’s funny? Har de har? 

They’re so indistinguishable from one another I routinely see people mistake which one got his ear chopped off and which one died. Because the point is, that we can’t tell the difference! It doesn’t matter who lived and who died because all we know is that Freorge is dead! 

Similarly, you see tons of fics around where character of the day ends up in this weird twincestuous relationship with Fred and George and it’s not only for a) that delightful twincest but b) because they’re such a singular unit that any attempt to pair one with somebody else feels weird. So you just get these porn fics about Fred and George being weird rapey teenagers who seem like they’d be more interested dating each other. 

Charlie Weasley

I really have no thoughts on Charlie. He raises dragons in Romania, the family loves him. Now, dragon raising feels like one of the most dangerous jobs in the Harry Potter universe, like Charlie had just gone and signed up to be a lumberjack but he seems to like it?

We really don’t see much of Charlie, he’s just the obligatory older Weasley son so that the Weasleys can be this ridiculously large family.

Bill Weasley

We see slightly more of Bill, but again, not enough to really leave an impression. We know that his marrying Fleur sent Molly into a complete state, and that they’re going to have awkward Christmas dinners forever because of it where Fleur just sits there and pretends not to loathe every second of Molly’s presence while Molly notes how bad it is that Victoire got stuck with that ugly pink hair instead of the Weasley red. 

Bill doesn’t seem to really do anything about this. He still marries Fleur, but we don’t really see a major confrontation where he tells the family “Look, I’m marrying her, so grow up.” So, I imagine he just tries to smile pleasantly and tells Fleur to just endure it for another few hours. He loves his family, his family’s great, but they only have to see Fleur once a year at Christmas.

Ginny Weasley

Ginny is weird. She’s this weird, frankly, almost personality-less void whose sole obsession in life seems to be marrying Harry. She and Harry end up in the world’s weirdest relationship and I honestly have no idea how people ship it other than canon told them to.

Ginny’s... well, first off, she’s very much in love with an idea. She had always worshipped Harry Potter but then he personally saves her life in what was a horrifically traumatic year and so that feeling just grows even more. Despite being Ron’s sister, she barely seems to know Harry, and everything she seems to like about it are just things she made up.

I imagine her and Harry’s marriage will be littered with affairs on her end. Not divorce though, because Harry would never admit his wife is having affairs on him all the time even if someone directly confronted him. Harry also won’t admit he’s gay. 

More than though we get hints of a personality. Ginny’s a fiery red-head tomboy with a temper. But... Well, it’s only ever hints. She never felt like a real person to me. She has I think one throwaway line about the Chamber of Secrets incident and how it personally affected her. We’re told she’s great at the bat boogey hex so we know she’s a fiery independent woman.

She feels more like a character sheet than an actual person. 

Whenever she’s around I always had this nagging question in my head where I ask why Ginny’s here. She has a lot of potential but nothing’s ever done with her. And when something is, it’s to get her into this bizarre relationship with Harry where he imagines there’s a green rage monster in his chest that loves her skin.

Okay Harry, if you say so. 

TL;DR: The Weasleys aren’t evil or anything, I’m not on Team Bash Them All, but they are shortsighted, ordinary, people who don’t deserve to be worshipped as all that is good in this world.

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Harry Potter's experiences with child abuse were kind of glossed over.

It felt more comedic. Like "Oh, haha, look at Petunia swinging a frying pan at poor Harry." This can cause brain damage.

Harry most likely looked a bit malnourished and pale from being locked in a small, dark space for days or even months sometimes with inadequate food, but I don't think this is really mentioned.

Harry never really shows any signs of child abuse, either. I know there are some people that heal easily from this, but Harry has been using a cupboard as a bedroom (and was imprisoned in there as well; don't you think that he would develop some kind of claustrophobia, maybe?) for years, treated as a house elf, beaten up by his cousin regularly (with adults actively encouraging it, and probably by Vernon and Petunia as well, for punishment), not always given food, and no support system until he's eleven. Not very good odds for recovery, especially because he hasn't really escaped. I don't remember that it's ever noted that he had poor hygiene (since I don't think there's a shower or a sink or anything in the cupboard), health problems, any kind of depression or anxiety, unexplained marks on his body, seem to shy away from physical contact, saving food for later, not showing interest in friends or activities, etc. Not saying that everyone going through abuse must show signs, because everyone's experiences are different, but it's a bit unrealistic considering his circumstances.

I know this is more of a children's book but once you bring it up, you can't just.. ignore it.

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things in the original harry potter books that are kinda problematic that u might have not noticed

1. that werewolves, which she later said were a metaphor for aids, prey on young children. i hope i don't have to explain that one.

2.naming the only south Asian character cho chang (which are both last names) and put her in ravenclaw, the smart house

3. the oversexualization of veelas. i have posted abt this before, so feel free to check out the full explanation, but she basically blames veelas using their eViL bEwItChInG ChArM to control men, leaving the poor men to have no choice but to stare at and sexualize them

4.the goblins, a gold obsessed, greedy, race of magical creatures, have typically "jewish" traits (hook noses, olive skin and beady eyes)

before anyone says anything, i understand that these could be completely innocent. it could just be a coincidence, but the symbolism and messaging in her books is really questionable at times (especially given some of her recent statements)

#tw homophobia #tw racism #tw antisemitism #tw sexism #anti harry potter

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Was rereading the first Harry Potter book for research. I'm wondering how I didn't see that statement as a massive red flag for years

#anti harry potter #anti albus dumbledore

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i objectively agree with you but what specifically are you referring to about jkr not knowing how to do math akdjnakjsnd

So much.  

She spat out years for people’s birthdays without doing the math, and now Bellatrix’s dad is only 13 years older than her.  

Birthdays and death days are wild.  Wizards either live to be 150 or they die at 40.  

Obviously Cursed Child is garbage, but if we were to accept it as canon, either Bellatrix was sooo old when Delphi was born or Andromeda was sooo young when Tonks was born.  

In fact, everyone seems to have their kids stupid young, despite the fact that wizards have longer lifespans and therefore presumably have proportionally longer fertile years, which again makes me think she spat out birth years without really thinking it through.  

Allegedly there are 1000 students at Hogwarts at any given time, but there were only about 40 kids in Harry’s year, which would be more like 280 total students (and even if the birth rate HALVED during the war, it’s still nowhere near 1000).  

I have lost years of my life trying to figure out how Euphemia Potter could be fertile and healthy enough to have a baby and then die at an “advanced age” less than 20 years later.  

I have offered similar numbers of years in return for understanding Fenrir Greyback’s age, but the Devil insists I’m still lowballing him.  (How old was he when he bit Remus?  To be so established in the werewolf community, he must have been an adult, right?  Maybe early 30s?  But that would make him in his 60s, minimum, during the second war.  He certainly wasn’t portrayed as that old in the movies, although I can’t concern myself too much with the sins of the movies.  How long do werewolves usually live?)

Sirius specifically said that Snape used to hang out with Bellatrix at Hogwarts, but Bellatrix would have been loooong graduated by the time Snape started.  

Dumbledore claimed to enjoy Bernie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans as a boy, but he was solidly an adult when they were invented.  

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Cho is eviscerated for still grieving her boyfriend's death like 6 months later but it's been like 10+ years in cannon and snape apparently can't be expected to be over Lily's death enough not to bully children

#anti harry potter #cw: misogyny