this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Think Leni Riefenstahl, there can be valuable art used for utterly despicable ideology. Rowling had a huge impact before it became obvious how much she sucks, because there was value in what she did. There were also ideological problems all along. Value and shitty ideology can exist in art at the same time and it can get pretty confusing for the consumer.
Nah, I just didn't have any taste yet when I was a kid. The book utterly fails to deliver on many of its core themes. Like, Rowling deliberately introduces the idea that human supremacy is bad and it's part of why Voldemort is able to gain so much power. And then she immediately proceeds to do absolutely nothing with this idea. Human supremacy is never addressed or solved. Yet the book says after Voldemort is defeated, "all was well". No it's not! There are still elves in slavery, centaurs on reservations, and goblins without equal rights.
The book teaches you to acknowledge systemic issues as problems, and then do absolutely nothing to fix them.
Yeah. Also it took some time for the books to come out and at the beginning, people were hooked and could still hope that the issues were going to be addressed later. And the plots are convoluted, so it takes some time to digest. People also get all occupied with the lovestories and sports and thrills. Not everyone was able to realize how badly she works with some of the more serious topics, because that's not what they focused on.
House Elves were one of the things that made me realize that JK Rowling was something of a hack. I found it odd that Hermione was the first person in the wizarding world to ever point out that House Elves were slaves and were being treated very badly. In the thousands of years that wizards and wizard schools had existed, no one ever protested the treatment of House Elves? Not even the 'Good Guys'? Everyone just accepted this over the centuries??
And then she does almost nothing with this potential plot point...
Yes, I find this frustrating too! However, before I fully realized what JKR was like, I kind of thought it was perhaps good writing, because it was reminiscent of how it works in reality. In real world, not even most good people care eg. about slave labour around the world that is directly conected to the production of the goods they use. I had shimmers along my spine reading it, because it rang true to me. Well meaning people CAN be totally oblivious to other people's suffering, including me.