Pascal has called for a boycott of all Harry Potter-related content, including the upcoming Warner/Max series, in response to J.K. Rowling's support of a recent UK Supreme Court decision that legally defined "woman" and "sex" as referring exclusively to individuals born biolo
There’s a huge difference between “homage” and “copying.” For example, Rowling references many legendary myths, like the Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher’s Stone. That’s a reference, and while it’s not original, it’s not so much stealing as using the existing tapestry.
The problem is not that she used existing concepts and tropes, but that she only used existing concepts and tropes. There literally isn’t a single original concept in any of the books, and the source material is usually (but not always) better. It’s like somebody made artwork out of clip art and photographs of famous paintings. And that’s fine, but it’s not creative or even well-crafted.
The dialogue is distractingly bad, the fantasy elements are disjointed and inconsistent, the mysteries are either obviously telegraphed or non-sequitur deus ex magicka that erase all tension or intrigue.
Is an Oreo cookie a good cookie? It’s very popular, and many people love them. It’s a knock off of Hydrox, of course, but that’s not why it’s not a good cookie. The cream filling is waxy and cloying, the cookies are cocoa-adjacent and stale, and they are mass produced by a company that is deforesting the planet and relying on child slaves. But they taste good dunked in milk. I like them. And that’s OK. Not everything has to be the best possible version of what it could, or shoul, be.
But if the inventor of the Oreo was running around going “I’m the best baker in the world because I came up with the Oreo, and also disabled people should be euthanized,” we can say that this hypothetical person sucks at both being a person and at baking cookies. The former is obviously worse than the latter, but then you have defenders saying “yes, OK, this person may not be a good person, but what they created is great.” No. What they created is popular but that doesn’t make it good.
I tried to read Twilight on a dare once. I dare anyone to suggest JK’s writing is worse than Stephenie Meyer. A lot of popular fantasy and YA isn’t much better than fan fiction. Hunger Games feels even more derivative in many ways but I don’t know if that hurts it.
I agree HP isn’t great art. I read the books once when they came out and that was enough for me. It was a genuine cultural phenomenon though. In the late 90s. early 2000s, before iPhone, Facebook, Youtube it was just some pop culture that filled in the many hours of analog leisure time. It brought joy to a lot of people and relieved some boredom for others. The series had good and bad. The good was the accessibility and interest it generated in reading for a relatively wide audience. Given JK’s current reputation as a person I think it is too easy to dwell on the bad and completely ignore the rest. It is reasonable to cease supporting the HP franchise though. Whatever its merits it had run its course a long time ago.
Some people really like Twilight – maybe you are not the target demographic.
I really liked the first 4 Harry Potter books as a kid. I don’t really agree with the criticism above. I thought it was cool to read about this little boy like me discovering magic and exploring a cool castle and fighting dark wizards.
There is a lot of criticism I agree with – like isn’t it weird that Harry’s magic society is a capitalist paradise where he buys wands and his poor best friend spends their lottery windfall on a vacation so they must not be that poor, and away way how can you have poverty in a post-scarcity magical society?
But on the other hand it was so relatable to see Harry go on shopping trips because that’s what I was doing in the 90s/2000s, and having feelings about how the rich kid’s dad always paid for him to have cool toys like a nimbus 2001…
twilight target demographic were young female teens,