this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I only watched the first three movies and didn't read the books. Why do people say harry was a cop? I didn't get that impression from the movies I watched.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (3 children)

He is not a cop, he becomes a cop after he graduates, despite a heavily recurring theme of the books being how corrupt, incompetent, and unjust the Wizarding government and judicial system is.

Rowling never really seems to connect the dots and think, "Hmm, maybe the Aurors are part of the problem," very much a "cops good no notes" mindset for some reason.

If you want to give her the benefit of the doubt you can assume she thinks Harry will be a reformer, but, also, in the books she never really seems to think anything but the status quo is good so probably not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Don't forget: Harry was groomed to become an Auror since like book 4 or 5. Old ass men were like "yes, come here 15 year old, let me tell you about my awesome job that you should definitely take once you graduate!" Like, Harry is seen deliberating over the decision and he feels coerced into it, then at the end of book 7 he's like "okay fuck it I'm an Auror now". Truly wonderful writing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

TBF I read the books too long ago to remember well what was the state of the depicted society except for an obvious negligence for student safety. In part it's because I wasn't old enough to notice that.

I think it did feel "govt bad cops good" at that point and I didn't think about the government and cops being parts of the same system 😅

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

I mean the cops are also doing the bidding of the obviously corrupt minister, with the exception of Kingsley Shaklebolt, who is an undercover agent of Dumbledore.

The entire concept of "fighting dark magicians hurr durr" is never put in the context of how subverted or openly on the side of dark magicians the ministry of magic is. Sometimes it is hinted at, like how Arthur Weasley is dissapointed that the department for the missuse of muggle artifacts is chronically underfunded and wizards that like to play harsh pranks and torture muggles aren't punished properly.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

i'm gonna be completely honest with you, almost everything you said after 'graduates' went over my head. i have no clue what an auror is, did you mean the aurora like the thing in the sky?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

auror = cop but with magic

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Because in the epilogue it's said that Harry ended up joining the Aurors (wizard cops) after Voldemort was defeated.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

ah ok thanks for the clarification! wish i read this before replying to DragonTypeWyvern

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

So the books early on hype up the idea that Harry Potter will grow up, defeat Voldemort, change the Wizarding world for the better, and fix the corruption in the Ministry of Magic that lead to Voldemort's Return...

In the actual ending, Harry grows up to become an Auror, which is basically the Wizarding World's version of a cop, and they answer directly to... The Ministry of Magic, which hasn't changed leadership... and is still ran by the people who didn't want the masses to know Voldemort existed even whilst literal children were dropping like flies because of his douchebaggery because "That would make us look bad!"

Imagine if George Washington's story ended up with him, having just won the Revolutionary War, becoming a soldier in the British Navy instead of becoming US Present... It's that kind of vibe

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

lame, day-by-day im more satisfied with not reading harry potter (mostly cuz the magic didn't make sense to me and i kept mixing up the names of the characters...)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It really doesn't, especially when it's revealed (Very early on) that magic is literally just saying the right words and waving your wand...

But how can wizards be stronger than other wizards if this is the case? Which the book states that some are....

And there are Wizards said to create new spells all the time as part of their jobs... but... how the fuck does that work if the words and wand movement are all that's important? In most settings where it's via some magic essence combined with force of will, it makes sense how you could conjure up spells... but here it's like somehow being able to create a new console command for a software you can't update or modify...

Plus the scale of what magic can do changes depending on the scene...

Hagrid, a high school dropout with a broken wand concealed inside an umbrella, can effortlessly turn Dudley into a pigboi..... but learning how to take on just one animal shape is super difficult and only a select few called Animgai can do it... Sure....

Oh and an IMPOSTER Mad-Eye Moody casually turning Draco into a full-on ferret despite Animagis being this rare and overly difficult to learn thing is also bullshit.. (neither Moody nor the imposter were an Animagi)

And Hogwarts Legacy just has Animagi as a common enemy type despite them being so rare, but... hey there I can forgive it because without them we wouldn't have good enemy variety (Why are all the creatures in the forbidden forest spiders!??!?!)

Like, what are the rules? Because if Rowling doesn't care, why should I?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

yeah this was my kinda sense, why do fans tell me it's simple? i like brandon sandersons system, doubly so because he has like different implementations of the same magic system in different series in the same universe ('cosmere')