“I was the only one who saw her for what she was ... a freak!”
June 25, 2015 11:30 AM   Subscribe

JK Rowling reveals why the Dursleys dislike Harry Potter so much. [The Guardian]
Some readers, Rowling writes, “wanted more from Aunt Petunia during this farewell”. At the start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry leaves his family behind for good - his cousin Dudley shakes his hand, his uncle Vernon roars “I thought we were on a tight schedule”, and his aunt gives him a final look. Rowling writes in the novel that “for a moment Harry had the strangest feeling that she wanted to say something to him: she gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little jerk of her head, she bustled out of the room after her husband and son.”
Previously.
In her new piece for Pottermore, Rowling describes the Dursleys as “reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; most of my least favourite things”, and says that she wanted to suggest that “something decent (a long-forgotten but dimly burning love of her sister; the realisation that she might never see Lily’s eyes again) almost struggled out of Aunt Petunia” during the final farewell, “but that she is not able to admit it, or show those long buried feelings”.
posted by Fizz (183 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
I always thought it was because Harry was GOOD and the Dursleys were DICKS.

Well, “reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; most of my least favourite things” is a longer way of saying DICKS, so, ha! I was right!
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:37 AM on June 25, 2015 [12 favorites]


Not because he's a Horcrux, per silly fan theories.
posted by Artw at 11:38 AM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


As the HP universe continues to expand and grow even after the books and films have complete, there's one constant:

James Potter = always a dick
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:39 AM on June 25, 2015 [21 favorites]


“Vernon was apt to despise even people who wore brown shoes with black suits,”

It just goes to show, no one is entirely evil.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:39 AM on June 25, 2015 [42 favorites]


Vernon attempted to patronise James by suggesting that wizards live on unemployment benefit, and grew angry when James told him of the solid gold his parents had in the wizarding bank Gringotts.

James, dude, maybe check your old-money wiz-privilege a bit. And Vernon, I know you've been interested in this Tea Party thing, being British, but it's not what you think it is.
posted by Behemoth at 11:39 AM on June 25, 2015 [12 favorites]


I think the opening line of the first Potter book is relevant here.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:40 AM on June 25, 2015 [14 favorites]


I always felt like the Dursleys were a fairly on-point critique of a (fairly specific) right-wing English subculture.

Also, Harry's totally a dick too.
posted by schmod at 11:40 AM on June 25, 2015 [12 favorites]


On further introspection, Uncle Vernon is an alcoholic male version of Hyacinth Bucket.
posted by schmod at 11:42 AM on June 25, 2015 [46 favorites]


It's pronounced Durs-lay, don't you know.
posted by bonehead at 11:47 AM on June 25, 2015 [24 favorites]


I always felt like the Dursleys were a fairly on-point critique of a (fairly specific) right-wing English subculture.

There's way too much detail about the political angles of the series right here.

It's not terribly subtle. The Dursley's live on Privet Drive. Privet is a hedge often used as a screening device in upper-middle-class suburban neighborhoods.

If they were American, Rowling may as well as said the Dursley's lived on "Gated Community Street."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:48 AM on June 25, 2015 [21 favorites]


"Not because he's a Horcrux, per silly fan theories."

And thank fuck for that, because it's a bullshit victim blaming "well it's really Harry's fault b/c he's a Horcrux" silly fan theory.
posted by FritoKAL at 11:52 AM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


James Potter = always a dick

This. With nothing but respect for Rowling, I kind of assumed that James did or said something dickish to Vernon or both o the Dursleys if/when they met that made it personal. You don't bear that sort of malice to a child unless you have more of a grudge to go on than "his parents were freaks."
posted by Mchelly at 11:54 AM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Vernon attempted to patronise James by suggesting that wizards live on unemployment benefit, and grew angry when James told him of the solid gold his parents had in the wizarding bank Gringotts.

It's a fair assumption, right? Where does that gold come from? Most of the adult wizards in the series work in some capacity for the government (Ministry of Magic or educational system) and I've spent a lot of time wondering how those institutions have any money to pay their staff. Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either. I want her to write a practical explanation of how the wizarding world works.
posted by something something at 11:54 AM on June 25, 2015 [18 favorites]


(not that it's ever okay to bear malice toward a child and I am not excusing their behavior)
posted by Mchelly at 11:56 AM on June 25, 2015


LIST OF CHARACTERS I LEGIT HATE FROM THIS UNIVERSE:

1. Harry Potter
2. Dolores Umbridge
3. Harry Potter
4. Percy Weasley
5. Harry Potter

[ in order of diminishing hatred ]
posted by Fizz at 11:56 AM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


Well, “reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; most of my least favourite things” is a longer way of saying DICKS, so, ha! I was right!

Which explains why the films made them fat, right? Bigoted, indeed.
posted by Beholder at 11:58 AM on June 25, 2015


Which explains why the films made them fat, right? Bigoted, indeed.

Oh, most of them are fat in the books, too - Rowling is clearly working the Diana Wynne Jones tradition of "being fat is the outward sign of being a bad person unless you're too thin, in which case you are also a bad person".

And then there's the whole bit about how we can tell taht Dolores Umbridge and what's her name the reporter and Beatrix LeStrange are bad because even though they are - gasp! - middle aged, they dress and style themselves in ways that are attention-getting. They're neither appropriately retiring/maternal (Mrs. Weasley), nor appropriately retiring/intellectual (Scottish headmistress lady) nor sexily maternal (barmaid).

There's some enjoyable stuff in the books, sure, but I think that it would have been a stronger series if Rowling had looked more closely at her own ideas about villainy.
posted by Frowner at 12:06 PM on June 25, 2015 [40 favorites]


The Dursleys were also fat in the books.

Harry Potter universe: Some folks are good, some are evil, and all are extremely bloody well unpleasant.
posted by allthinky at 12:06 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: Some folks are good, some are evil,
posted by Fizz at 12:10 PM on June 25, 2015


Which explains why the films made them fat, right? Bigoted, indeed.

there's the whole bit about how we can tell taht Dolores Umbridge and what's her name the reporter and Beatrix LeStrange are bad


A book aimed at children that falls back on simplistic, unfair tropes that communicate character flaws through the characters' physical appearance? A children's book you say?
posted by GuyZero at 12:12 PM on June 25, 2015 [26 favorites]


I always found the Harry Potter books to be full of thinly-veiled and quite unintended bigotry, snobbery and racism, actually. There's that term "house elf", which reminds me of a particularly nasty phrase from the American South.
posted by Nevin at 12:13 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


I'd like to point this previously as being my favourite view of Petunia Dursley.
posted by cacofonie at 12:18 PM on June 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


There's some enjoyable stuff in the books, sure, but I think that it would have been a stronger series if Rowling had looked more closely at her own ideas about villainy.

Indeed, my main problem with the entire series/film is that after all those battles, after all that blood shed, she still re-establishes a caste/system whereby children/people are sorted into houses that dictate the type of personality/way of thinking that a person should apparently embrace.

Such a wonderful opportunity to combine all the houses and emphasize the importance of solidarity and community. But no...you're back in fucking evil ass Slytherin and you're just a type C character, so we'll put you in Hufflepuff.

Fuck it. Sorting hat got to sort.

Ugh.
posted by Fizz at 12:19 PM on June 25, 2015 [13 favorites]


I think the contrast she most tries to draw on the domestic front is that between the horrible, prim Dursleys and the chaotic, but happy Weasleys. The Weasleys are no more beautiful than the Dursleys, Arthur is thin, balding and worn, Molly is short, plump and red-faced. If the Dursleys were the Buckets, the Weasleys are basically the Larkins (Darling Buds of May) in an urban setting.
posted by bonehead at 12:21 PM on June 25, 2015 [11 favorites]


I assume Rowling used "house elf" because "brownie" is now too unintentionally silly a name.
posted by nicebookrack at 12:22 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


It's a fair assumption, right? Where does that gold come from? Most of the adult wizards in the series work in some capacity for the government (Ministry of Magic or educational system) and I've spent a lot of time wondering how those institutions have any money to pay their staff. Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either. I want her to write a practical explanation of how the wizarding world works.

like no wonder goblins run Gringotts, since wizards never have to learn goddamn algebra, much less Wizard Accounting.
< /bitter economist>
posted by dismas at 12:22 PM on June 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


I always found the Harry Potter books to be full of thinly-veiled and quite unintended bigotry, snobbery and racism, actually. There's that term "house elf", which reminds me of a particularly nasty phrase from the American South.

I was going to make a comment about this but then it descended into a rant about the complete lack of logic in the general Potter background world and I don't want to turn this thread into a bad, stale rehash of poking holes in the Potterverse and I don't want to become one of those people who posts comments online years after the books were finished poking holes in the Potterverse.

Suffice it to say it's not very hard to poke holes in the Potterverse.
posted by GuyZero at 12:28 PM on June 25, 2015 [13 favorites]


I want her to write a practical explanation of how the wizarding world works.

Well I'm not an expert, but I think the answer is magic
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:31 PM on June 25, 2015 [75 favorites]


... I've spent a lot of time wondering how those institutions have any money to pay their staff. Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either.

Rowling should have included more of that sort of information in the books, because it's truly riveting, plot-advancing stuff.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:32 PM on June 25, 2015 [48 favorites]


Vernon attempted to patronise James by suggesting that wizards live on unemployment benefit

A chav wizard plonked down on a ratty couch on a magical housing estate shouting "oy! Accio Burberry" makes me smile more than it should.
posted by dr_dank at 12:32 PM on June 25, 2015 [33 favorites]


you're just a type C character, so we'll put you in Hufflepuff.
yeah but war-badger though
posted by Wolfdog at 12:33 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


A book aimed at children that falls back on simplistic, unfair tropes that communicate character flaws through the characters' physical appearance? A children's book you say?

Have you read any other children's books? I mean, anything from the Diana Wynne Jones to Alan Garner to Mary Gentle to Joan Aiken is a lot more subtle in characterization than Rowling - even where Diana Wynne Jones is writing fatness as a character flaw, she's much more thoughtful than Rowling.

Also, since the Harry Potter books are such blatantly didactic moral tales, I think it's perfectly reasonable to object when the morals are bad.

It's a fair assumption, right? Where does that gold come from? Most of the adult wizards in the series work in some capacity for the government (Ministry of Magic or educational system) and I've spent a lot of time wondering how those institutions have any money to pay their staff. Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either. I want her to write a practical explanation of how the wizarding world works.

I've often wondered just how many wizards there are in the first place - rich and poor alike go to Hogwarts (we don't hear anything about rival schools or people who don't attend school), there are only about 20 people per house per year and there's seven years, so per generation there's 80 people. If you assume that wizards live to be 100, you get 8000 wizards in all of wizarding Britain, and you realize that they don't need an entire Ministry of Magic - a Town Council of Magic with a couple of secretaries could run the whole show. Even if you assume that only half of the wizards in the UK can afford Hogwarts - and that this is never mentioned - you still max out at 16,000 people.
posted by Frowner at 12:34 PM on June 25, 2015 [14 favorites]


But in the books we do hear about rival schools and wizards of other nationalities.
posted by cooker girl at 12:37 PM on June 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


Actually, I like poking holes in the Potterverse because that lets the fanfic in. Back when I was young and full of spleen, I wrote a big fic about how most people couldn't afford Hogwarts and how working class wizards got it in the neck and how clearly this was the legitimate source of all of Snape's class resentment and how after Voldemort was defeated all the Gryffindors turned into Franco-style fascists.
posted by Frowner at 12:38 PM on June 25, 2015 [39 favorites]


Molly was chubby and awesome. Hagrid was husky and awesome. Mr. Dursley was husky and terrible. Mrs. Dursley was thin and terrible. Umbridge dressed like a piece of cotton candy and was terrible. Hagrid dressed in some crazy buffalo skin coat thingy and was awesome. Dobby dressed like a freak and was awesome. Skeeter dressed loudly and was terrible. I'm sorry but I do not see a pattern.
posted by Foam Pants at 12:38 PM on June 25, 2015 [45 favorites]


I could tell Delores Umbridge and Rita Skeeter and Bellatrix LeStrange were bad by the things they said and did.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 12:39 PM on June 25, 2015 [26 favorites]


But in the books we do hear about rival schools and wizards of other nationalities.

Not rivals in the UK, though, right? Unless I totally missed something? If there were, surely it would be like that Oxford-Cambridge rivalry thing and they'd have magical punting competitions and quidditch leagues and so on.
posted by Frowner at 12:39 PM on June 25, 2015


Well, if we're poking holes, if you can buy a wand at your choice of wandmakers, and you can go to your choice of Wizarding schools, and you can do magic using someone else's wand, why isn't Hagrid a wizard? Snapping a wand in half seems either incredibly ineffective as a punishment for school expulsion, or criminally harsh.
posted by Mchelly at 12:41 PM on June 25, 2015


Wasn't the one kid from... the one with the big international competition... from a school in Scotland?

I am probably not up on my Potter knowledge enough to really contribute to this conversation.
posted by rifflesby at 12:42 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


You'll spike your blood pressure if you think too much about the plot holes.

Dumbledore: Hogwarts is such a safe place. Protected by much ancient and powerful magic.

Moaning Myrtle, magic accidents, giant attack, basilisk, assorted skirmishes and bodycount in WizardWar 2.... Did anybody pay the maintenance fee on these fancy protective spells?
posted by dr_dank at 12:42 PM on June 25, 2015 [12 favorites]


The Brakebills alums sure didn't seem to think too much of Hogwarts.
posted by bonehead at 12:44 PM on June 25, 2015 [18 favorites]


There's that term "house elf", which reminds me of a particularly nasty phrase from the American South.

Isn't that literally the point? Hermione spends huge portions of the books running a one-woman abolition campaign, going "YOU GUYS LITERALLY HAVE CHATTEL SLAVES" and all the rich/pureblood wizards are like "but our economy would collapse without them, and they don't have feelings anyway" and it is all very unsubtle.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:44 PM on June 25, 2015 [79 favorites]


A book aimed at children that falls back on simplistic, unfair tropes that communicate character flaws through the characters' physical appearance? A children's book you say?

Also see: Roald Dahl.
posted by theorique at 12:45 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Uncle Vernon votes UKIP.
posted by maryr at 12:46 PM on June 25, 2015 [17 favorites]


McHelly, doesn't Hagrid secretly have a wand and practice magic? I forget, but I think I remember he was banned from using magic a long time back but has been doing it anyway. Maybe I'm mixing things up.

Also, re plot holes, I think Rowling is WELL aware of them at this point, having basically rushed through 7 books and 7 years of events and world-building at a fairly breakneck pace and having every sentence tweezed apart for hints at how things work. I think she's done well to not explain a lot of the things, or only explain when it's socially important (Dumbledore being gay, for instance) - she invented this stuff, she can explain it on her own terms, perhaps in a new book set before Harry AND James's time please Ms Rowling please.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:48 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


doesn't Hagrid secretly have a wand and practice magic?

Yep. He hides the broken wand in his pink umbrella and uses it to perform spells sometimes.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:50 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


This. With nothing but respect for Rowling, I kind of assumed that James did or said something dickish to Vernon or both o the Dursleys if/when they met that made it personal.

In defense of James Potter, he would have been, what, 21 years old or so at this point? James and Lily Potter died very young, and they had Harry very young. They were only just out of their teens, basically. I had to reevaluate everything I thought about Harry's parents' generation when I realized that they weren't that old, and that their lives were falling apart when they were in their early-mid twenties. That seemed ancient and adult to 11 year old me. 26 year old me is full of appalled sympathy for the shitshow that was their post-Hogwarts lives.

When it comes to making sense of the Wizarding world....JKR has admitted on many occasions that she's bad at math, so don't think too hard about how the numbers work out population-wise, because they just don't. Poor woman probably did not anticipate decades worth of fans picking apart every little detail back when she was writing the first few books.
posted by yasaman at 12:51 PM on June 25, 2015 [18 favorites]


Mary Gentle

Are we talking about another Mary Gentle or the "pass another elf this one's split" one? She's all kinds of great author, but I wouldn't call her a childrens' or tween or even YA writer.
posted by bonehead at 12:52 PM on June 25, 2015


OH GOD LETS NOT GET INTO WANDLORE.
posted by Artw at 12:52 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Picture James Potter reading The Fountainhead.
posted by maryr at 12:53 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


You know what's the worst thing about the Harry Potter books?

It's that I grew up.
posted by chavenet at 12:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [10 favorites]


Upside of having kids.
posted by Artw at 12:56 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


also if my math is right the school's quidditch season is only 6 games and they really seem to practice an awful lot.
posted by entropone at 12:56 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


... I've spent a lot of time wondering how those institutions have any money to pay their staff. Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either.

I'd love to read Hogwarts: A History too.
posted by jeather at 12:57 PM on June 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


I think she's done well to not explain a lot of the things

I guess saying "A wizard did it" wouldn't be very helpful in her case....
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:57 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


- doesn't Hagrid secretly have a wand and practice magic?

-- Yep. He hides the broken wand in his pink umbrella and uses it to perform spells sometimes.


Exactly. So what's stopping him from going to Gregorovitch or some other foreign dealer and just buying a new wand? Why are there even wand stores at all?

--OH GOD LETS NOT GET INTO WANDLORE.

Touché.
posted by Mchelly at 12:58 PM on June 25, 2015


Mary Gentle

She wrote a couple of kids' books, including A Hawk In Silver which I just loved as a child. I was mostly trying to think of writers who were relatively successful, not always entirely PC (like, god knows, Joan Aiken) and yet more subtle in their characterization and politics than Rowling.

Zylpha Keatley Snyder might be a good parallel - those And All Between books.
posted by Frowner at 1:05 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


What if, when Petunia Dursley found a little boy on her front doorstep, she took him in? Not into the cupboard under the stairs, not into a twisted childhood of tarnished worth and neglect–what if she took him in?
posted by MartinWisse at 1:07 PM on June 25, 2015 [17 favorites]


Wizard History tumblr

The lives and lies of wizards doesn't seem to be updating, but there's a lot of links on the front page to other sites, and if you go back in the archives there's some entertaining stuff.
posted by Frowner at 1:11 PM on June 25, 2015


Metafilter: OH GOD LETS NOT GET INTO WANDLORE.
posted by The Whelk at 1:13 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


If your season was only six games you'd practice an awful lot too.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:22 PM on June 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


I found the depiction of the Dursleys to be both horrific and believably spot on.

I kind of liked the Goblet of fire, but none of these books are so all damn mind-blowing. That she's well nigh a billionaire off these books, that's mind blowing.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:26 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


What I don't understand about the Potterverse is why we Muggles haven't killed all the magic-users. Or at least worked out how to police them. Does MI5 not have some way of taking down Voldemort when he creates an internal fascist magic-wielding state within the UK? Send in the SAS.
posted by alasdair at 1:27 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


What I don't understand about the Potterverse

The question is why wizards haven't enslaved all the muggles considering that they've already enslaved house elves and could clearly pull it off.

AND NOW I'M DOING IT ARGH.
posted by GuyZero at 1:31 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


also if my math is right the school's quidditch season is only 6 games and they really seem to practice an awful lot.

OK but the NFL tho
posted by psoas at 1:32 PM on June 25, 2015 [14 favorites]


The answer to both questions would be International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy - also that it's a wainscot fantasy, so duh.
posted by Artw at 1:35 PM on June 25, 2015


(The correct book series for SAS wizards would be The Laundry series, which is also wainscot until CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN)
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


wainscot

Ooh, they said it again!
posted by comealongpole at 1:46 PM on June 25, 2015 [5 favorites]


I was in a Hogwarts homebrew RPG where a major subplot for our characters was developing a house elf liberation plan behind the Ministry's back. We started a chain of bakeries they could work at so as to support themselves and become more independent-minded.
posted by tavella at 1:48 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


I assume Rowling used "house elf" because "brownie" is now too unintentionally silly a name.

Aha! Thanks for pointing that out. Although here in Canada both my sisters were in Brownies.
posted by Nevin at 1:49 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


We started a chain of bakeries they could work at so as to support themselves and become more independent-minded.

The secret history of Greggs.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:51 PM on June 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


Back when I was young and full of spleen, I wrote a big fic about how most people couldn't afford Hogwarts and how working class wizards got it in the neck and how clearly this was the legitimate source of all of Snape's class resentment and how after Voldemort was defeated all the Gryffindors turned into Franco-style fascists.

This may be an AU but it's not any less realistic than a lot of what happens in canon. (Particularly with respect to the counterweight house to Slytherin becoming just as bad in its own way.)

The most disappointing thing I found in post-book-7 canon was when they told me Kingsley Shacklebolt was a pureblood from the Sacred 28. It was like "oh, so basically we just fought this war about how blood purity sucks so we can put another pureblood from one of the same old families in charge". Similarly, this revelation about Petunia, for all that it confirms that Harry's dad was still a dick, seems like one more way in which the vast majority of characters in the Potterverse are incapable of growing and changing beyond the broadest-brush sketches Rowling did of them. They're very lovable books but if you examine them in the slightest, they really fall apart.
posted by immlass at 2:06 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


What I like about the House Elves discussion is that there's kind of a minor running thing for Hermione, who is constantly reminded that just because she can read about everything, she doesn't know everything because she didn't grow up in the Wizarding world, and the House Elves are the flip-side to that, where she understands in some ways far more than the Wizards do because she doesn't have their lazy complacence.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:08 PM on June 25, 2015 [19 favorites]


You don't bear that sort of malice to a child unless you have more of a grudge to go on than "his parents were freaks."

I don't know anything about the Potterverse save for seeing the movies once or twice many years ago, but I'd say if you bear that sort of malice to a child because of something his deceased parents did to you, it has less to do with anything the deceased did than it does to your own character. I think they were simply supposed to be archetypes along the lines of the wicked stepmother in fairy tales.

Also see: Roald Dahl.

Is this about Augustus Gloop? Hey, not every great big person is a greedy nincompoop, but a greedy nincompoop could very well be a great big person.
posted by Hoopo at 2:09 PM on June 25, 2015


Ooh, they said it again!

I'm going to be super pedantic and say that I think you want "Wainscotting" for name of the little Dorset village that gets mentioned on telly. But hats off anyway, because that is some pretty obscure Pythonalia you got there.
posted by The Bellman at 2:09 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


SPOILERS

The most disappointing thing about the epilogue to me was that it didn't feature a very uncomfortable Dudley at the train station seeing off a large for her age powerful-looking girl to her first year at Hogwarts.
posted by jamjam at 2:13 PM on June 25, 2015 [48 favorites]


No other schools? It's like nobody remembers the Vince Clortho School of Magic...
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 2:21 PM on June 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


Much is made of Arthur Weasley's insufficient salary but how does the Ministry have funds to pay him at all? Are there special wizard taxes? Is there a secret line item in the UK's general budget? And nobody says anything about paying tuition to Hogwarts, either.


Rowling should have included more of that sort of information in the books, because it's truly riveting, plot-advancing stuff.


It is little known, but I have seen the proposed plan for a series of novels about HP as a grown up wizard:

Harry Potter and the Tax Return (Wizard) (Form A1(c))
Harry Potter and the Budget Reform Bill, Line Item MoM
Harry Potter and the Daycare Subsidies Act
Harry Potter and the National Healthcare System
Harry Potter and the Wizarding NGO
Harry Potter and the Gringott's User Fee


Strangely, the publisher didn't go for them.
posted by nubs at 2:28 PM on June 25, 2015 [19 favorites]


If she can write extra books (and make movies) that are based on Hogwarts textbooks, she can throw me a bone on the tax logistics of supporting the Ministry of Magic.

I thought of another thing, too: It's kind of weird that not only did Harry have any living grandparents on either side, there was never any mention of what happened to any of them. And it is also kind of weird that it took me reading the books about twelve times before I thought of this.
posted by something something at 2:31 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


I think it's supplemental canon (or at least sufficiently strong fanon such that it might as well be canon) that James Potter's parents had him quite late, so I assumed his parents died of old age or in the war. As for the Evans grandparents, who knows. Fandom liked to assume that part of Petunia's intense resentment and hatred of the Wizarding world was because her parents were killed by Death Eaters thanks to being associated with Lily.
posted by yasaman at 2:38 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


...you're just a type C character, so we'll put you in Hufflepuff.

relevant

posted by 3urypteris at 2:38 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


you're just a type C character, so we'll put you in Hufflepuff.

Sorted this way!

I love the image of Hufflepuff not as the loser house, but the party house.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:42 PM on June 25, 2015 [10 favorites]


The most disappointing thing about the epilogue to me was that it didn't feature a very uncomfortable Dudley at the train station seeing off a large for her age powerful-looking girl to her first year at Hogwarts.

I keep resisting the urge but for years I've been plagued by a story idea of Harry helping Dudley through his first experience at Platform 9 3/4 and then the two of them retiring to a pub to reflect.
posted by Ber at 2:43 PM on June 25, 2015 [9 favorites]


I enjoy the books without worrying too much about plot holes. What does bother me though, is this after-the-fact author jumping back in to tell me about the characters and their motivations. Isn't that the role of the reader? Can't she leave a little ambiguity? "I don't know, gentle reader. Why do YOU think the Dursleys were a-holes?"
posted by TheShadowKnows at 2:45 PM on June 25, 2015 [12 favorites]



Harry Potter and the Tax Return (Wizard) (Form A1(c))
Harry Potter and the Budget Reform Bill, Line Item MoM
Harry Potter and the Daycare Subsidies Act
Harry Potter and the National Healthcare System
Harry Potter and the Wizarding NGO
Harry Potter and the Gringott's User Fee


Would I read these? I would read these. Especially the NGO one, especially if it could work in some jokes about QUANGOs. I mean, seriously, they'd be like Yes, Minister except with magic.

Actually, imagine this - somehow we travel back through time and influence the BBC to produce some sort of sour 1970s class-based comedy, but with wizards.
posted by Frowner at 2:45 PM on June 25, 2015 [13 favorites]


After I came up with the titles, I realized that I would read them too


/undermining the joke

posted by nubs at 2:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


If you received a thousand letters a day asking you why the Dursleys were assholes eventually you too might crack and proffer an opinion.
posted by GuyZero at 2:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Tax Return (Wizard) (Form A1(c))

THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM
posted by GuyZero at 2:55 PM on June 25, 2015 [27 favorites]




like Yes, Minister except with magic

Little Red Courgette is my favorite example of this subgenre of Harry Potter fanfiction.
posted by asperity at 3:06 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


It is little known, but I have seen the proposed plan for a series of novels about HP as a grown up wizard:

Harry Potter and the Magical Colonoscopy
Harry Potter and the Hip Replacement Surgery
Harry Potter and the Missing Dentures
posted by poffin boffin at 3:16 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Harry Potter and the What Do You Mean It Gets Worse When You STOP Taking Prilosec
posted by poffin boffin at 3:17 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


harry potter and the health care legislation jiggery-pokery
posted by poffin boffin at 3:20 PM on June 25, 2015 [16 favorites]


I've actually been reading HP and the Philosopher's Stone to my nine year old. I had forgotten just how over the top weird the first few chapters are; the Dursleys aren't just assholes, they are obsessive about Harry's background to the point of irrationality. I mean, you've taken this boy in out of some sense of obligation that you resent to the point that you've really abused/neglected the hell out of him (I was left to wonder how they had the patience to toilet train and teach all the other thousands of things you do as a parent of an infant/toddler; somebody as hated as Harry appears to have been would not have survived infancy in that house - it would have been one of those child abuse horror stories. Even if he survived, he would likely be barely functional in terms of socialization) and now somebody wants to take him off your hands for ten months a year for the next several years? The reaction should be one of hip-fucking-hooray and can you keep him over the summer too?, not an escalating series of crazy denial behaviours that culminate with running away to a shack on a rock in the sea.

But I get that they are meant as a send-up/pastiche of the evil step-parent archetype; it just goes to some real crazy places.

My re-read did have me wondering, though, if Petunia isn't a victim of abuse just as much as Harry. And Harry is a means of Petunia to feel some control in her life that is otherwise under the thumb of Vernon. And then I realize I'm nitpicking the goddam HP books and leave it be.

My big complaint with the characterization in the HP books is that there isn't much subtlety or development. There were occasional moments - like when Harry starts to realize that maybe his Dad was a bit of an asshole too, or a mention that someone from Slytherin might just be ambitious and not an evil shit - that made me think that the books would grow up a bit (like the students they were following) and paint the characters with some grey tones and realizations that sometimes, everyone can be a bit of an asshole or do the wrong thing or want something different, and that's life and you do the best you can and move on and maybe apologize. But I guess it was easier to depict everyone as holding their grudges and beliefs and wounds as life-long things.
posted by nubs at 3:25 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Freudian Therapist
Harry Potter and the Magical Estate Planner
posted by nubs at 3:30 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


JK Rowling should quit retroactively fucking with Harry Potter canon before she turns into George Lucas.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:39 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Little Blue Pill
posted by nubs at 3:41 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Many things here make me think of –


If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
And other science facts,
Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show book,
I should really just relax
For Mystery Science Theater Hogwarts 3000."

posted by LastOfHisKind at 3:52 PM on June 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


Not because he's a Horcrux, per silly fan theories.

I think some books really shine best in the fanfiction they create around them. The Potterverse is okay, sure. But the truly brilliant writing is in the fanfiction created around it. If there were one platonic ideal story, Rowling would not be writing it.
posted by corb at 4:03 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Frowner, that sounds like an amazing fic. If you care the post a link, I would read the hell out of it.
posted by foodmapper at 4:10 PM on June 25, 2015


I want her to write a practical explanation of how the wizarding world works.

Magic.
posted by heathkit at 4:12 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


You don't bear that sort of malice to a child unless you have more of a grudge to go on than "his parents were freaks."

While I didn't have to live under the stairs in a closet, my mother disliked me quite as much as the Dursleys disliked Harry. It rang pretty true to a certain kind of personality to me.

Also if you liked Harry Potter you should read Angela Brazil and Charles Hamilton.
posted by winna at 4:12 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Little Blue Pill

If your wand reminds ready for four hours or more, seek medical attention
posted by The Whelk at 4:12 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Picture James Potter reading The Fountainhead.

WHO IS JAMES POTTER?
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:19 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the MetaFilter
posted by sarble at 4:25 PM on June 25, 2015


Harry Potter and /r/shitMugglesSay
posted by Artw at 4:26 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Harry Potter universe: Some folks are good, some are evil, and all are extremely bloody well unpleasant.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK ABOUT NEVILLE
posted by schmod at 4:27 PM on June 25, 2015 [7 favorites]


some sort of sour 1970s class-based comedy, but with wizards a weird and questionable confectioner.

Or in other words, Roald Dahl.

The class thing in Harry Potter is part of the retro sensibility with which it was written, and Roald Dahl's a fair comparison. Just this evening I was reading Fantastic Mr. Fox to a child and the foxes all talked in a very smart RP while the farmers I'm ashamed to say were West Countrymen or yokels as we don't say here in the West Country. I have a slight excuse in that Bristolian is one of the accents I can do properly.
posted by glasseyes at 4:31 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Harry Potter and the Cursed Server Farm

Harry Potter and the Management Consultant Business
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:32 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Post-Graduation Trip to Ibiza

and the long course of antibiotics that followed
posted by GuyZero at 4:36 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Complicated XML Schema
posted by schmod at 4:42 PM on June 25, 2015 [15 favorites]


Some things magic can't solve.
posted by Artw at 4:43 PM on June 25, 2015 [8 favorites]


For the rest, there's Mastercard.
posted by maryr at 4:48 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


I want someone to write a fanfic that is 'Real Genius' but at Hogwarts.
posted by Tenuki at 4:49 PM on June 25, 2015 [6 favorites]


Not that it defeats your general point upthread, Frowner, but I always understood Dolorous Umbridge to be wearing excessively frumpy, proper conservative outfits...
posted by saulgoodman at 5:04 PM on June 25, 2015


Oh, most of them are fat in the books, too - Rowling is clearly working the Diana Wynne Jones tradition of "being fat is the outward sign of being a bad person unless you're too thin, in which case you are also a bad person".

And then there's the whole bit about how we can tell taht Dolores Umbridge and what's her name the reporter and Beatrix LeStrange are bad because even though they are - gasp! - middle aged, they dress and style themselves in ways that are attention-getting. They're neither appropriately retiring/maternal (Mrs. Weasley), nor appropriately retiring/intellectual (Scottish headmistress lady) nor sexily maternal (barmaid).


It's even worse in The Casual Vacancy, which is one of the most mean-spirited and narrow books I've ever read.

Sometimes I feel sorry for and protective of characters the author clearly hates, Widmerpool in A Dance to the Music of Time, Bunny in The Charioteer, everyone in a Josephine Tey or Angus Wilson novel.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:43 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


I only read the book once, but my image was of her wearing hyper-girly pink frilly things. I didn't see the cotton candy look to be an indication that she was bad, but something which emphasized her badness by throwing it into relief by contrasting against it.
posted by Bugbread at 5:48 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


She's the moral majority version of badness rather than the wearing-lots-of-skulls version, and consequently worse.
posted by Artw at 5:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [4 favorites]


Harry Potter Calls Ollivander Wand Tech Support
posted by ymgve at 6:00 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


I love the image of Hufflepuff not as the loser house, but the party house.

They're on double extra secret probation, but if they can win the cup from the Gryffindor jocks, they'll rule the school!
posted by bonehead at 6:15 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Hirsute Ceramic Bowl Artist
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:22 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Dursleys: Legends of Cornwall.
posted by clavdivs at 6:32 PM on June 25, 2015


I've always mentally sorted Hufflepuff (Badger Pride!) into Craftsman/ Artist House so of course they're also the party house
posted by The Whelk at 6:35 PM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I never thought of DWJ as being particularly sizeist. If you want a children's author who associates physique with virtue, my money would be on Roald Dahl. In his stories, to be unusual is to be ugly; to be ugly is to be bad. And the consequences of their evil always seems to be physical: the bad people (who may simply be greedy, or intemperate, or over-enthusiastic about something the author doesn't like) get squashed or drawn out or turned a funny color.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:00 PM on June 25, 2015


No, Diana Wynne Jones's later books are really fat-people-hating, and even her early ones aren't that great. There's that bit in Power of Three, for instance, where one of the plot points is that Obnoxious Girl is miserable because she is fat, but the magical people can use magical people magic to see the future and reassure her that she'll soon grow up and be thin like her mother - and that's an early book. There's some really gross parts in Deep Secret making fun of Wendy Willow, who is also obnoxious but there's some parts where we're obviously meant to agree with Nick when he describes her body in disgusted terms and the narrator does some of the same. DWJ clearly intends, in that book, to draw a line between "acceptably fat" people (there are several people who are merely stocky and this is described as acceptable) and gross fatty-fats who it's okay to mock, which in itself is almost worse than just hating on fat people.
posted by Frowner at 7:18 PM on June 25, 2015


Believe me, I wish this weren't true.

I was just thinking about it again because a friend and I were discussing kids' books, and while we're neither of us thin, I'm acceptably-stocky for a midwestern US adult and she's bigger, and I was talking up DWJ and she said that she really felt bad when she was little because of how DWJ writes about fat people. So it's not just me noticing.
posted by Frowner at 7:20 PM on June 25, 2015


Hmm. Using shape as a reason for "you should feel bad" is definitely a problem.

I don't think DWJ generally uses appearance to code for virtue, though: consider Dogsbody, where Sirius' Companion is gorgeous but evil. In that same book I think Duffie is coded as being fat (there's a line about "bulging calves") but Sirius doesn't pay much attention to humans' sppearance so I'm not sure. Similarly, in Eight Days of Luke I think Astrid may be heavy - she's "jolly" and has "a pink face" from laughing at one point , and carries biscuits in her handbag. Julia and Roger in Charmed Life are fat, but Cat's evil sister Gwendolyn is explicitly not. I can't think of any explicitly-thin or -fat characters in most of her other books, except for Libby Beer - who is a harvest goddess and built like one.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:52 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you want to talk about fat-hating, Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy was so horrible in that respect that I had to stop reading them.
posted by winna at 8:23 PM on June 25, 2015


Harry Potter and the Quest for Instagram-Ready Abs.
posted by um at 9:22 PM on June 25, 2015


HP: You 'mirin, Hermoine?
HG: Shut up Harry.
posted by um at 9:24 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


We're reading The House with a Clock in it's Walls at the moment - one nice thing about it is its respectfully handled overweight protagonist.
posted by Artw at 9:33 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Superinjunction
posted by clorox at 9:50 PM on June 25, 2015


The Dursleys were such a missed opportunity. Rowling could have used them as an opportunity to demonstrate that the vast majority of the world is neither good, nor evil, but merely apathetic to your struggle and wrapped up in their own completely different adventure. But instead they're just petty, unrepentant, unreformed evil. What a waste.
posted by miyabo at 10:36 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Duddwes left Harry a cup of tea - that's a super major deal!
posted by Artw at 10:39 PM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


We still need to know why and how Lily fell in love with James.

One of the major flaws is that Harry doesn't really have any personality.
posted by brujita at 10:43 PM on June 25, 2015


There's some really gross parts in Deep Secret making fun of Wendy Willow, who is also obnoxious but there's some parts where we're obviously meant to agree with Nick when he describes her body in disgusted terms and the narrator does some of the same.

Nick is a spoiled, unempathetic teenaged boy and if by narrator you mean Rupert, he's also kind of a detached jerk. I don't recall Maree being terribly skinny. There is one drop dead gorgeous perfect woman in the book, who is good, and one distinctive dresser, who is bad and whose outfits are described as sanguine (second definition) sequins.
posted by maryr at 10:50 PM on June 25, 2015


miyabo: "Rowling could have used them as an opportunity to demonstrate that the vast majority of the world is neither good, nor evil, but merely apathetic to your struggle and wrapped up in their own completely different adventure."

There's plenty to indicate that, though, without using the Dursleys. The Dursleys' role is to show that evil is not just some sort of horrible mystical part of the wizarding world, but also has a totally mundane face.
posted by Bugbread at 12:36 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just literally heard, while catching up on this thread, that JK Rowling has announced a new Harry Potter work, to be produced as a play called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which will apparently tell the story of his parents, among other things. (edited to correct the title)
posted by skybluepink at 2:05 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Dolores Umbridge

Waitaminit!

I was gonna stay out of it, since I haven't read the books and don't like what I hear about them, but --

There's a character named
Dolorous Umbrage?
 
posted by Herodios at 4:03 AM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


The Wizarding World is a backwards place that progress left behind. There's little to distinguish it from Victorian England in terms of class structure and social mores. There's nothing noble or aspirational about the society. Near as I can tell, it exists for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself.

The real question you have to ask is why on Earth Hermione chose magic over as Muggle life. It was like choosing to live 150 years in the past, except with magic tricks.

Also, James Potter should have been a Slytherin.
posted by dry white toast at 5:12 AM on June 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Indeed. She's a muckraking reporter. As noted above, the HP books aren't subtle.
posted by bonehead at 5:13 AM on June 26, 2015


Indeed. She's a muckraking reporter. As noted above, the HP books aren't subtle.

No, Dolores Umbridge is the vicious moral majority "abusing children is for their own good" teacher who wears pink ruffles while performing acts of chirpy sadism.

Rita Skeeter is a reporter, although I would argue that muckraking implies there is muck that can be raked. She just makes up scandals to sell her tabloid. She's the wizarding TMZ, but with less integrity.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 5:20 AM on June 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


There's a character named
Dolorous Umbrage?


Several of the characters have equally obvious names if you happen to speak French (which Rowling does, I understand). Malfoy is a play on "bad faith", Voldemort is "death's flight".
posted by solotoro at 5:54 AM on June 26, 2015


somehow we travel back through time and influence the BBC to produce some sort of sour 1970s class-based comedy, but with wizards.

Ooooo, like a soft reboot of "Are You Being Served?" with magic?
posted by drezdn at 6:20 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


schmod: Harry Potter and the Complicated XML Schema

Come now, schmod, you must admit that Harry wouldn't be capable of handling that file: only a Death Eater's dark magic can create a provably-complete XML parser.

Goodness, didn't He Who Must Not Be Named even talk to snakes in pure XML -- "Parsertongue, " I think it was called?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:31 AM on June 26, 2015 [12 favorites]


Nick is a spoiled, unempathetic teenaged boy and if by narrator you mean Rupert

I wish I had the book in hand, but I'm at work. All the characters note how disgusting WW is - how her breasts in particular are fat and gross, and how her face is shapeless. It's really hateful language that isn't necessary at all, no matter what Nick is like. Consider this - if Nick were to spout (and have echoed by the other characters) a lot of homophobic nonsense about a minor character, we would feel that this reflected poorly on DWJ. We wouldn't just say "well, having Nick call the character a fag and having this totally unaddressed in the text (as the language about WW is) is just a reflection of Nick's character". We would expect - at the very least - that Nick's homophobia would be called out in the story, because homophobia is bad. If DWJ didn't do that, we'd consider the book sloppy at best and an endorsement of homophobia at worst. And as someone who has grown up both fat and queer, I can tell you that my life was far, far more shaped by suffering over my weight than it was by suffering over my sexuality.

In DWJ's early books, fatness is treated as sort of neutral - undesirable, as with Obnoxious Girl in Power of Three, but not actually mockable. In fact, there's this passage in Charmed Life where it's reiterated that Chrestomanci (whatever his human name) married Milly because she is powerful and amazing, and the fact that she's kind of chubby and not desperately beautiful doesn't matter.

But her later books are different - there's that whole plot arc in Dark Lord of Derkholm with the "fat" griffin. We get quite a lot of jokes about how greedy she is and how much she likes to eat, she's the most selfish of the griffins, but when she gets a sense of purpose (selfish purpose, but still) she easily loses weight and becomes powerful and strong. The whole idea that people are fat because they are purposeless and eat too much, and if they get their heads right the weight will just fall right off - that's an awful message to send to kids, or to anyone, because it's just not true.

Again, I think later DWJ books are always trying to establish "good fatty" and "bad fatty", which really bothers me.
posted by Frowner at 6:34 AM on June 26, 2015


I was gonna stay out of it, since I haven't read the books and don't like what I hear about them, but --

There's a character named
Dolorous Umbrage?


You probably shouldn't read Dickens.
posted by Artw at 6:40 AM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


wenestvedt speaks of the unspeakable and should be sent to Azkhaban.
posted by Artw at 6:42 AM on June 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


The real question you have to ask is why on Earth Hermione chose magic over as Muggle life. It was like choosing to live 150 years in the past, except with magic tricks.

Because she's a massive nerd and the study and practice of magic is the biggest nerd rush there is, I'd say. Also to break the system from the inside.
posted by Artw at 6:47 AM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


New headcanon - Hermione and the Bene Gesserit breeding plan.
posted by pan at 6:50 AM on June 26, 2015 [7 favorites]


Her muggle knowledge will come in handy for Hermoine Granger and the Straight Up Shooting the Next Wizard Hitler Because that Works too.
posted by Artw at 6:53 AM on June 26, 2015 [5 favorites]


You probably shouldn't read Dickens.

'Fact, I was going to comment that that is a rather Dickensian move, and he too played to the gallery. But of course, giving characters 'appropriate' names goes back quite a bit further. And, just as with the characterizations -- where bad guys are always old, fat, ugly, are 'marked' in some way, have funny names, wear a black hat -- this can be done skillfully or with fists of ham. 'Dolorous Umbrage' as named and characterized seems closer to a Chester Gould villain that a Dickensian one.

Then there's this:

The Wizarding World is a backwards place that progress left behind. There's little to distinguish it from Victorian England in terms of class structure and social mores. There's nothing noble or aspirational about the society. Near as I can tell, it exists for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself

I don't recall who said it, but the most succinct crit I ever heard about the Harry Potter stories is that they show children that you can grow up to to/be anything -- so long as you happened to be born an hereditary wizard.
 
posted by Herodios at 7:07 AM on June 26, 2015


Per the subject of the article, being a Muggle who knows about Wizards pretty much sucks.
posted by Artw at 7:17 AM on June 26, 2015


(Even without periodic Wizard Hitlers)
posted by Artw at 7:18 AM on June 26, 2015


Has the thread been God-wizard-Ed now? Godwized? Godwinzarded? Never mind...
posted by wenestvedt at 7:21 AM on June 26, 2015


Has the thread been God-wizard-Ed now?

I say we table the discussion of periodic wizard Hitlers.
 
posted by Herodios at 7:24 AM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Periodic Wizard Hitlers haven't even put out a decent single since like forever.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:26 AM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Godwinzarded

Grindlewalded.
posted by Artw at 7:29 AM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


My potter headcanon is that wizard magic doesn't make any sense, and in fact being around magic drives out common sense. (Support for this: making a new spell literally involves making up nonsense words until suddenly one of them is the spell you want. Only someone with the logical capacity of a small child would try this.) Those wizards who are regarded as "brilliant" have really just managed to hold onto a few scraps of logic and can therefore outsmart everyone else. This is why Dumbledore's schemes don't make any sense, despite how confident he is in them.

After 6 years at Hogwarts + 1 in a magic tent I don't think Hermione is capable of being a functioning Muggle adult. Like she can still pronounce "electricity" but she probably couldn't wire a light fixture.

I'm excited for the 1920s New York wizard movie Rowling is working on. I am particularly stoked to find out about the American system of wizard government and whether they also have a wizard temperance movement.
posted by vogon_poet at 7:38 AM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, these kids haven't been taught from anything but the equivalent of D&D manuals from the age of 12, so that's going to have an effect.
posted by Artw at 7:42 AM on June 26, 2015 [9 favorites]


Hermoine Granger and the Deciding to Catch Up by Reading All of Wikipedia.
posted by Artw at 7:44 AM on June 26, 2015 [10 favorites]


The real question you have to ask is why on Earth Hermione chose magic over as Muggle life. It was like choosing to live 150 years in the past, except with magic tricks.

That's why. She might have chosen differently had she been giving up texting and youtube, but the books are set in the 90s.

(Where's that fanfic I saw about people sending their siblings howlers with tv spoilers?)
posted by jeather at 8:27 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's a character named
Dolorous Umbrage?


Have you read Lolita? Her given name is Dolores Haze.
posted by chavenet at 8:29 AM on June 26, 2015


Can we put a moratorium on creators telling us what was really going on in their works? If it's important, put it in the work. If it's not, shut the hell up. You had a chance to tell about the Dursleys, or whether Deckard was a replicant, or whether Tony Soprano died, and you did what you did. That was your moment to get across what happened. Now it's your moment to shut up about that and do something else.
posted by Legomancer at 8:39 AM on June 26, 2015 [7 favorites]


I think I'll subscribe to that newsletter Legomancer.
posted by Carillon at 8:56 AM on June 26, 2015


Legomancer: “Can we put a moratorium on creators telling us what was really going on in their works? If it's important, put it in the work. If it's not, shut the hell up. You had a chance to tell about the Dursleys, or whether Deckard was a replicant, or whether Tony Soprano died, and you did what you did. That was your moment to get across what happened. Now it's your moment to shut up about that and do something else.”

So you're not a big fan of Pottermore, I'm guessing.
posted by koeselitz at 9:03 AM on June 26, 2015


POTTERMORE SORTING HAT IS A SCAM!
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Okay, Dolores Haze growing up into Dolores Umbridge (obviously after an ill-advised marriage) makes a certain amount of sense. The poor thing probably has a lot of unresolved anger and trauma that she's taking out on the students at Hogwarts, perhaps because she sees her younger self in them and still struggles a lot with self-blame.

Harry Potter and the Rust and Stardust, I guess.
posted by Frowner at 9:19 AM on June 26, 2015


Can we put a moratorium on creators telling us what was really going on in their works? If it's important, put it in the work. If it's not, shut the hell up.

Sometimes creators get it wrong. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were OBVIOUSLY A COUPLE.
posted by entropone at 9:20 AM on June 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Global Warming
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:34 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were OBVIOUSLY A COUPLE.

We're talking about the Potterverse, not The Shipping News.
posted by GuyZero at 10:43 AM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Can we put a moratorium on creators telling us what was really going on in their works? If it's important, put it in the work. If it's not, shut the hell up. You had a chance to tell about the Dursleys, or whether Deckard was a replicant, or whether Tony Soprano died, and you did what you did. That was your moment to get across what happened. Now it's your moment to shut up about that and do something else.

Why does the creator of the work have to let it go entirely once it's written? Surely they reserve the right to fill in the gaps, write prequels, resolve confusions, and so forth?

(We aren't talking about foolishness like "Greedo shot first" that alters important plot points or characters, obviously.)
posted by theorique at 11:55 AM on June 26, 2015


I dunno, I find it kind of fascinating to find out what some of the inspiration for the work is. If I recall correctly, Umbridge is based on a coworker of Rowling's who made a big deal about being a sweetie girly-girl ...but was also a huge proponent of capital punishment (which isn't legal in the UK).

Sometimes creators get it wrong. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were OBVIOUSLY A COUPLE.

The tough thing about imagining this is that I feel Remus was horribly miscast in the movies; I'm sure David Thewlis is a nice person, but he wasn't nearly brooding and vulpine enough. Get a Wes Bentley type and gray up his temples and now you're talking.

posted by psoas at 2:11 PM on June 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Can we put a moratorium on creators telling us what was really going on in their works?

I think it's all in the framing; I like it when a creator talks about their intent regarding the work, and then to contrast it with how that intent has been perceived/interpreted by the audience. At times, the fans may pick up on things that the creator didn't necessarily intend, but are valid interpretations; at times the interpretation and intent may be aligned, and at times in opposition. The key for me is that the creator should not insist on their intent trumping the interpretations.
posted by nubs at 3:51 PM on June 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


I have no problem with authors developing their characters by writing sequels - look at how much Le Guin's Earthsea series changed after the original trilogy - but in the absence of that, I kind of agree that authors shouldn't come out and try to dictate the way people read existing books.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:01 AM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


The wand chooses the wizard so maybe no other wands wanted Hagrid to use them so he had to stick with his broken one?
posted by lunastellasol at 7:12 AM on June 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


So, another greedy attempt to squeeze a last few drops from the increasingly grudging teat of public interest?
posted by Segundus at 7:53 AM on June 27, 2015


I really don't think that public interest is going anywhere anytime soon, TBH.
posted by Artw at 2:52 PM on June 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


schmod: "Harry Potter and the Complicated XML Schema"

The first part of the tri-wizard cup used to be hand-testing a 10 MB base64-encoded XML file without any line breaks for well-formedness and correctness according to multiple xsd schemas and then correcting any errors. They changed it to dragons because it was too difficult.
posted by double block and bleed at 5:28 PM on June 28, 2015 [5 favorites]


Harry Potter and the Chamber Of State Secrets.
posted by The Whelk at 5:34 PM on June 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


The first part of the tri-wizard cup used to be hand-testing a 10 MB base64-encoded XML file without any line breaks for well-formedness and correctness according to multiple xsd schemas and then correcting any errors. They changed it to dragons because it was too difficult.

But Harry's a Parselmouth. Surely he could just whip something up in Python.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:04 PM on June 28, 2015 [9 favorites]


he wasn't nearly brooding and vulpine enough
The clue as to just how vulpine he should be is right in his name. Remus... Er.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:41 PM on June 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm sure David Thewlis is a nice person, but he wasn't nearly brooding and vulpine enough.

But, I mean-- that is basically the joke of Remus Lupin: he is 100% the opposite of brooding and vulpine when in his human form. He's a bookish sweetheart goofy uncle, which is what makes his inconvenient lycanthropy so absurd (and heartbreaking).

(I mean, I agree Thewlis was bad casting, but for the opposite reason. I think a distracted Colin Firth walking into walls and making puns would have been closer to the book version. Thewlis was too predatory for me.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:42 AM on June 29, 2015 [2 favorites]


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