It got really frustrating reading through the books, where the recurring implication for Harry’s success was that he’s just inherently special. He doesn’t do that much to prove himself, he’s just the one that everyone’s supposed to like.
You have a rags to riches story in the first book, where it kicks off this extensive world that fuses a bunch of fantasy tropes together, you have the “evil” faction that is portrayed as chauvinist along ethnic and class lines, you have a philosophical revelation of how one’s choices matter more than one’s birth, and them it just coasts for the rest of the series on magical curiosities, with Harry excelling and progressing not from doing anything special, but from being special.
The alleged reason is that she wanted to create an aspirational character for her sons while she was struggling with poverty as a waitress in the early 90s. Harry is special because he’s mommy’s special little boy who finds out mommy was rich all along. Everyone likes him except for the people who are bad. He lives out some predefined trajectory, created by mommy’s love, where he doesn’t really do anything but exist and be a special little boy. He worries briefly that he may be a bad guy due to being so special and famous but then is reassured by everyone that he can’t be a bad guy because he’s special and famous. Then he lives happily ever after after not doing anything (except being special) to kill the bad guy. Once the bad guys are gone then nobody dislikes him anymore and his fame can reign unchecked.
At best she was a deeply misguided striver who was trying to turn her kids into the same hollow strivers most “pick me” poors are. At worst she was actually writing a MKULTRA program to create the next great tyrant.
Sincerely think we need a “local cranks get a pass” rule for sectarianism. Like, come on, it’s leftist on leftist violence. It’s not like they were being bigoted. What’s a little incoherent ranting among friends? They were like a mascot, and we chased them out. I’ll never forgive the mods! Not in this life or the next!
A key aspect of BMF was that they never mentioned people by name, didn’t have any extended interactions. Every post or comment was once-off. You would never see BMF replying back to someone who replied to them.
It’s really tough to paint someone as sectarian when they never beef with any user.
At worst she was actually writing a MKULTRA program to create the next great tyrant.
I mean…considering how huge Harry Potter got, it wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA got involved at some point in pushing it, they probably wanted people to read the “Neoliberalism and the status quo are great actually!” books a lot more than any other fantasy novels that might’ve made people question the system.
It got really frustrating reading through the books, where the recurring implication for Harry’s success was that he’s just inherently special. He doesn’t do that much to prove himself, he’s just the one that everyone’s supposed to like.
You have a rags to riches story in the first book, where it kicks off this extensive world that fuses a bunch of fantasy tropes together, you have the “evil” faction that is portrayed as chauvinist along ethnic and class lines, you have a philosophical revelation of how one’s choices matter more than one’s birth, and them it just coasts for the rest of the series on magical curiosities, with Harry excelling and progressing not from doing anything special, but from being special.
The alleged reason is that she wanted to create an aspirational character for her sons while she was struggling with poverty as a waitress in the early 90s. Harry is special because he’s mommy’s special little boy who finds out mommy was rich all along. Everyone likes him except for the people who are bad. He lives out some predefined trajectory, created by mommy’s love, where he doesn’t really do anything but exist and be a special little boy. He worries briefly that he may be a bad guy due to being so special and famous but then is reassured by everyone that he can’t be a bad guy because he’s special and famous. Then he lives happily ever after after not doing anything (except being special) to kill the bad guy. Once the bad guys are gone then nobody dislikes him anymore and his fame can reign unchecked.
At best she was a deeply misguided striver who was trying to turn her kids into the same hollow strivers most “pick me” poors are. At worst she was actually writing a MKULTRA program to create the next great tyrant.
THIS is the kind of take that keeps me logging onto this site. 10/10
6/10 needs more bugs
I feel like shit I just want him back
OpenCommune hasn’t posted anywhere on
in over a year either.
Sincerely think we need a “local cranks get a pass” rule for sectarianism. Like, come on, it’s leftist on leftist violence. It’s not like they were being bigoted. What’s a little incoherent ranting among friends? They were like a mascot, and we chased them out. I’ll never forgive the mods! Not in this life or the next!
A key aspect of BMF was that they never mentioned people by name, didn’t have any extended interactions. Every post or comment was once-off. You would never see BMF replying back to someone who replied to them.
It’s really tough to paint someone as sectarian when they never beef with any user.
I mean…considering how huge Harry Potter got, it wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA got involved at some point in pushing it, they probably wanted people to read the “Neoliberalism and the status quo are great actually!” books a lot more than any other fantasy novels that might’ve made people question the system.
The rags to riches story is also thst it just turned out he had a shitload of gold in a wizard bank the whole time.
Yeah, it’s less of a “rags to riches” and more of a “Oh, turns out I didn’t need to be wearing these rags, I was rich the whole time” sort of story.