this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Love her or hate her (and my opinions are mixed), I must confess, JK Rowling was a huge influence on why I didn't become a regular author. No shade on people who get what they paid for, but the young reader crowd is just so gimmicky, and not in a good way, and you see that with a lot of works like Percy Jackson and Twilight (but also predominantly with Rowling's work). How do you compete in such a no-rules game?

So then let's talk about one of the cores of the issue. People often have an epiphany when divulging into Harry Potter, and they think "huh, what's the deal with this if that thing is how it is". While noting that conflicts in literary analysis don't always reflect something that doesn't add up and that it could be a hiccup in details/semantics, the questions themselves don't go away. And there's nothing that matches the amount of those having to do with Harry Potter. What example of which strikes you as the most overlooked?

If Rowling herself ever notices that I'm bringing this up, let it be known I do think of her work as a reskinned Brothers Grimm in the universe of The Worst Witch and that I'm collaborating with another author (Samantha Rinne) whose work I would argue deserves Rowling's prestige if Rowling's work deserves it. Thanks (and here is where I run for the hills).

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[–] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 hours ago

There is zero reason for the wizarding world to have social classes. Allow me to explain.

Although food can't be created with magic, any graduate of Hogwarts can cast the Herbivicus Charm (I think it's called) or the Greenhouse Charm to grow plants in moments. There's also a spell that produces fresh, clean water. They have spells that make the insides of things larger than the outside. Spells that clean dishes. Spells that levitate objects and automatically perform rote tasks.

Every wizard or witch is maybe a month or two of moderate work (at the absolute outside) away from having a private pocket kingdom with crops, furniture, fireplace, teleport pad, beds, clothing, swimming pool, pets, cattle, enchanted kitchen, self cleaning floors, and fucking golf course if they want it.

If they can't create, craft, grow, or summon something, they can buy it with money taken from an entire world of gullible muggles. Sure, dollars and yen are worthless in Diagon Alley, but you can still buy food and an enormous range of physical comforts with it. And if you absolutely have to spend money in a magical store- muggles still have gold. Even at the extortionate exchange rates that I assume the goblins would charge, the process of turning essentially free cash (in exchange for magic tricks or conjured trinkets) into gold and then into goblin coin is basically nothing but profit. A lot of it.

Which brings me back to social stratification. Why are the Malfoys considered a powerful family? Why do people differ to government functionaries and Dumbledore? Why do witches and wizards run businesses or work at all? Social hierarchy is a result of power imbalances, and other than direct, physical force, there are no power imbalances in the wizarding world. They can take your job, but who cares? You don't actually need one. They can take your home, but who cares? You can make another in a few weeks (and this time the hot tub will go on the balcony instead of in the backyard).

A wizard does not need anything from society or from other wizards.

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 4 points 2 hours ago

Biggest "plot hole" is that anyone still likes it. Especially now that Joanne is publicly a piece of shit. I was extremely surprised to see so many trans people and allies rush to give a person that hates them money at every opportunity.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Dedicated magic government doesn't have a standing army or even an official police force branch to ensure public safety, and relies on essentially a band of mercenaries to take down Voldemort.

Twice

Also:

For me it’s always the unexplained power nerfing that authors do just to advance the plot.

Harry Potter in the first 3 books was fearless, he literally took on voldemort with his bare hands.

Then when the dumbass plan with the port key cup happens, he just stands there like an idiot as the rat dude kills Cedric and revives Voldemort as if both he and Cedric don’t have wands that allow them to cast spells.

I mean they could have maybe had like 20 wizards camping the graveyard to make escaping impossible, but nah they really tried to make the coward rat guy seem like he was now somehow more capable than all of voldemort’s previously defeated plans combined.

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 hours ago

Dumbledore is quite sure the Defense Against the Dark Arts job is cursed, at least by the time of HBP. Sooo... why didn't he figure out how to break the curse?

Being able to retain a skilled teacher would be pretty compelling. Is Dumbledore really so inferior to Voldemort in regard to curses that he couldn't remove it? Or, if not, couldn't he have created a new position with a new name, and new classes to go along with it? Call it Protection From the Dark Arts or Magical Defense or something.

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

Well this kind of got answered in the game of Hogwarts legacy.

I always was curious how they Imbued physical objects with magical properties.

Let's say, the evanescent cupboards

So these are created as a pair and connected to each other in the sense that whatever you put in one, shows up in the other

It's basically an actual functional teleporter.

Leaving aside the specific instructions for use, this thing is a massive hack.

So in the games they do sort of explain that you can add magical properties to your clothes by using magical beasts resources.

So maybe the evanescent cupboards are made of one of those beasts that teleport a short distance

Same as the paintings and such

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 17 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Why are there socioeconomic classes on a society that can literally create or at least multiply any resources at will?

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago

They clearly state in the books that they cannot create resources at will. The resources need to exist first

Clearly you have not been studying for your OWLS. Focus on Gamp's transfiguration laws

[–] mcqtom@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Life, uhh, finds a way.

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 45 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

There's no fucking way that a kid raised from infancy like Harry was, in a abusive hateful household that treated him like dirt, would have enough strength of character to pull shit like the "Give it here, Malfoy" scene after having been out of the Dursley household for less than a couple weeks. Think about how the Dursleys would have reacted every time young Harry tried to stand up for himself. It would have been nonstop physical and mental abuse, all aimed at making him more subservient. It would take a miracle for a kid like that to be even vaguely functional as a person, and he certainly wouldn't have the ability to stand up for himself, let alone others.

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

Wizards are just built different. In Harry's case, he comes from a line of wizards that basically stood up to the metaphorical concept of death itself

Shits wack yo

[–] afronaut@lemmy.cafe 11 points 10 hours ago

You’re not entirely wrong but I was a complete misfit and the black sheep of my family. I resisted their attempts to conform and homogenize me.

I think I took a lot of inspiration from the stories I had access to from books, tv, film, and video games.

Harry could read so I wonder if he also had access to books with inspiration characters. Also, what was his school life like?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 9 hours ago

I think having literal magic powers is the key difference. Though I do think he would just end up becoming the bully more realistically.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

Harry's character is larger-than-life strong, but that's fictional heroes for you.

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

This one can actually be known, since you're just talking about human nature. I do think it's possible to come out of the situation strong willed. He'd need other strong parental figures, such as teachers. It would also require a great amount of resilience, and would no doubt leave with a fair share of mental health issues. But you could totally be emboldened even after a traumatic upbringing like that.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago

Yeah it's actually a weak criticism. Such strength of character is rare but there are still many examples in real life. Oprah Winfrey and Drew Barrymore come to my mind right away.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 17 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

The spell system is wack, which opens up all sorts of plot holes. Want Harry's invisibility cloak? Accio invisibility cloak! Boom, Harry's visible and you've got his cloak. I doubt that Rowling ever played D&D.

[–] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

This one is kind of accounted for. It's implied there are protections that can be put in place to prevent it from being summoned with Accio.

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

It is also explained that that particular cloak is immune to charms

[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I always cringe with the 7th book, where the trio is hiding and searching for horkruxes, and for some weird reason they don't have enough food and are constantly hungry. From the reading perspective I understand, that the hunger is a device to generate conflict and make their time hard to endure, but it always baffles me.

  • It is mentioned, that Hermione pulled out all her muggle savings, so why didn't she think about going to a supermarket and buying all the conserved food (cans and such) she can before they got on the run? She even mentions, that food can be multiplicated, just not created out of nothing.
  • When they are hiding they sometimes get to a store or supermarket. But that only brings food for like a few days max. Why not more?
  • And when there where too many dementors in an area to get more food, why not going really far away. We know Hermione was at least one time in France with her parents. Why not going there? Probably the war-like situation was not spread over the complete world that seriously. At least we are not hearing any of that in the books (JKR probably didn't even thing much about international things when writing this)
[–] camr_on@lemmy.world 16 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Doesn't Hermione also have a basically infinite bag of holding? It really doesn't make sense

[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 10 hours ago

She does! She could have emptied multiple supermarkets, but nah, who needs food if you have books to read. Everytime I really doubt, that Hermione wouldn't think of stocking food in her bag. So much conflict, so easily preventible...

[–] thirteene@lemmy.world 25 points 18 hours ago

Irrational soft magic system - anything can happen for any reason, so the story doesn't matter at all.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

I don't know if it's a plot hole per se, but when do they learn maths and science? If they' at Hogwarts for 7 years, and they only learn magic, when exactly do they learn the usual subjects? Are they just stupid because they don't learn them?

[–] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Isn’t there a class named ‘Arithmancy’? I always assumed it’s math for wizardkind.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 hours ago

I just had a look about it and it doesn’t seem to really be much maths. It seems that it’s more about magic in numbers rather than actual maths. I only glanced at it so maybe I’m wrong.

[–] MY_ANUS_IS_BLEEDING@lemm.ee 11 points 11 hours ago

They don't. That's all considered Muggle stuff that they don't need to know because they can just magic their way through life.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

While I think that can be explained away with the idea that the magic is so OP they don't actually need to know science. To use the Rowlings own tidbit as an example, why bother with toilets when you can simply magic away your shit.

And that also leads to what IMO is the biggest plot point nobody really thinks about. That there's a secret society of magic users who almost exclusively use magic, and the "muggle" society has no idea of its existence.

Think about all the things we've discovered. Electromagnetism is pretty much magic, we figured that out. Atoms are pretty much magic, not only did we figure out atoms we figured out what atoms consist of. Einstein predicted black holes, something so out there that even Einstein doubted his prediction, we later discovered and modeled it. We can literally come up with absolutely insane ideas and then come up with ways to prove or disprove those ideas. There's no chance we wouldn't figure out the existence of magic and a secret society if we saw glimpses of something that makes us go "hmm, that's interesting".

You could argue that they use magic to hide magic from us, but they'd have to know about what we are doing to make sure we don't accidentally stumble into discovering magic. But Arthur Weasley makes it pretty clear wizards don't understand how our world works. They don't know what we're doing so their secret society is literally at the mercy of us not just noticing it.

So the secret of society pretty much exists on the premise that we're too stupid to figure out Magic, but smart enough to create the society we have.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Not defending anything in particular. But at least in the books themselves it is explicit that magic is not a thing to figure out. You're either born capable of accessing magic or you aren't. A muggle can't reason their way into acquiring magic. The book's entire universe is based on the divide between those forced to exist within the confines of natural laws (muggles) and those capable of bending and breaking said rules to basically achieve whatever (wizards).

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago

I'm fine with that. I'm not saying we should be able to "aquire" magic. I'm saying we're somehow incapable of even acknowledging its existence. If muggles can't perceive magic then what's the point of keeping it a secret.

Obviously that's not true because not only could Dursleys see magic but it was used on them, thus magic is observable and muggles would be trying to harness it because they wouldn't know they can't.

So it also somewhat makes sense why they'd have a secret society. But to keep it a secret you need know what the muggles are up to so they wouldn't discover your secret. You need something like an intelligence agency to keep track of muggles and intervene if they get close to the secret.

But you don't know how the muggle world works, so you don't know what the muggles are doing which means you can't intervene if they start to discover magic. If you can't prevent them from discovering magic why haven't they discovered magic?

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 22 points 19 hours ago

I think like the vast majority of them are just dumb and some are like savants. Everyone other than like a couple people in the book are just copying magic routinely. Only Snape and a few other characters are cooking up any new magic theory.

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