this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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Not really. Even big potter fans acknowledge that the books have giant plotholes
Huge potter fan here (that won't consume any potter media because JKR is a self-owning ass clown that deserves to watch her empire crumble), and yeah, even well before the Twitter nonsense she started spouting, it wasn't like a secret or anything that the books weren't perfect. I still stood on like at midnight for prisoner of Azkaban as a kid, though. But I remember thinking the Voldemort/death eaters thing was a pretty clear WWII/Hitler/Nazi analogy and googling it only to find an interview with her stating it absolutely was not, and people who thought it was were "reading politics" into a children's story. She's always been a dumbass, and she's wrong about her own work. Also, the whole house elf thing was... Really, really rough to read as a kid. I could never understand why no one was on Hermione's side, and how no one could see that elves didn't want to be free because their condition would be that of an outcast, and in a world where only wizard's were allowed wands, nonhuman humanoids were veru clearly subjugated to the point of delusionality.
Which is to say, yeah, the books got problems, even if you love em. I love those books, because the world felt real, even when it was shitty, it felt real. But there are major problems in them, both in the plothole sense, and in the politics (or lack thereof) of the author shining through the cracks
Nobody is on the side of the house elves because Hermione is the pet leftist. Ever watch Downton Abbey? Pretty good show tbh, but if you have, then Tom Felton is the Downton Abbey Hermione. Why is Downton Abbey, of all things, relevant? Because it's conservative apologia for the way things were, just as HP is conservative apologia; these types of media will often include a zany leftist that they can soften and win over to show how their conservative agenda is good actually. Think about it, HP isn't left vs right, it's old conservatism (Dumbledore and his muggle-loving ways) vs batshit insane ultra conservatism (the Death Eaters). If you swap wizarding blood for noble blood, being a wizard for being a noble, etc. it works almost perfectly. Hermione is new nobility that the old nobility doesn't respect; Harry is from a good pedigree, but was raised by his peasant aunt and uncle and doesn't know how to act the part, etc etc. The left (Hermione) wasn't supposed to win (and didn't), that W was meant for the old conservatives all along.
HP and Rowling have always been conservative, it was just that we misread the struggle being portrayed there.
I got sort of an inverse impression of Downton Abbey. For me, it was about inevitable change, since practically every single truth held by the most conservative characters is at some point bent or entirely overturned, often by themselves. Literally all of the gentry are huge hypocrites.
It also spends a good amount of time creating parallels in the lives of the different classes that, for me, underscored how there was nothing fundamentally special about the aristocracy besides their wealth. Wealth that they never earned and only held onto because a peasant Irish driver who banged their daughter forcibly removed their heads from their assess.
It just doesn't seek to accomplish all this by making the upper class into Disney villains, since that's rarely how people actually are. But I never got the impression the show was trying to say this is how things should have or had to have been.
This is a great counterpoint, thanks for taking the time to write this thoughtful response. Imo, Downton paints a rosy picture of the gentry, one of kind, intelligent people who are willing to change with the times if only they understood the need; one where there's a healthy mutualism between the gentry and those under them (house servants, tenants, etc). Maybe that really is how it was, idk, I'm American and all of our gentry equivalent seem to feel little responsibility to those upon whom they depend.
That's fair. The rosiness I always attributed to the fact it's basically a fancy soap opera with a huge budget.
The Crowleys are definitely depicted as kind lords, though the show contrasts them several times with other less humane counterparts. I don't have the education to rate its historical accuracy, however.