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A review by jjkmanga
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
1.0
EDIT: i lowered the entire series down to 1 stars because i utterly LOATHE these books.
Harry Potter is a series which greatly benefits from the power of childhood nostalgia. From its first release in 1997 to its official end in 2007 (Cursed Child is not canon) the kids who had started reading it were at that point adults and very different people.
But just because they had grown up didn’t mean they had lost their feel for the magical world. The series was something they had grown up with, and it had greatly impacted their self-identity.
Nostalgia is something that can hardly be replaced. Even if one were to read it many years after they were fully grown and they loved it, they still wouldn’t have that same sort of attachment.
Well, I’m someone who read it past my time, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Soooo, here’s the thing:
I’ve got to be straight right away and say that my opinion is only slightly influenced by some things the author has said over recent years. While usually an author wouldn’t affect me, every little thing she says seems to bring the series down, so I can’t help but take that into account.
J.K. Rowling’s series, spanning seven official books and ten years, grew an entirely new wizarding world with characters that had real human emotions and creatures never seen before.
Ten years and seven books and yet she still couldn’t figure out how to write good characters.
Snape and Dumbledore are the most egregious cases of this. She really built up an entire plot where Snape belittled and mentally abused many of his students, even going as far as to be seen as Neville’s biggest fear in the world. (I’ll remind you that Neville’s parents were literally cursed for eternity, but his biggest fear was his teacher.) He insulted students’ looks (Hermione), often made them go through physical torture (oclumancy lessons with Harry), and was an overall terrible person.
J.K. seems to think that this is all redeemable, however, by the fact that he loved Harry’s mom.
Because an abusive man part of a psychotic group of murderers being so obsessively attached to a married woman who wanted nothing to do with him is a completely normal thing.
All of this is done, of course, right under Dumbledore’s watch. Dumbledore, seemingly, is the guy who lets this all happen.
He lets Harry live with abusive protectors (I don’t care that Petunia had Lily’s blood and had the power of love or whatever stupid excuse. That senile old man could have helped him somehow), lets students and staff get away with repulsive behavior, and literally doesn’t tell anyone anything! He sucks!!!!
And, God, I can’t stand Hermione. Before the first Harry Potter movie came out J.K. signed the deal with Columbus because his favorite character, the same as hers, was Hermione. It may seem hard to believe now, but back in 2000 the fandom liked Ron way better. I agree with the fandom. Hermione is the most idiotic, untrusting, whiny, and egregiously loathsome friend ever. She spends seven damn years doubting every single thing Harry or Ron say and making them feel stupid.
She tells Harry he’s crazy for thinking Draco is a death eater. Harry is correct. She tells Harry he’s crazy for thinking Snape is up to something. Harry is correct. She tells Harry he’s crazy for wanting to go after the Deathly Hallows. Harry is not only correct but saves the damn world.
She takes every opportunity to put herself above her two friends and make them feel inferior. She cries if anyone stands up to her in any way and acts the victim. She even makes Luna, one of the nicest people in the entire series, feel like garbage because she doesn’t believe what she does. I hate her, Jesus Christ.
Besides being terrible at making bad people seem good, J.K. Rowling is terrible at making good people seem bad.
I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s really weird that she has such an obvious loathing of slytherins. (Yeah, Albus-Stupid-Name is a slytherin, but she didn’t even write that book so I don’t care.) Like, she put all of the cunning and ambitious people into one group and said “these guys, they’re evil.” She could’ve at least made the slytherin moto like “we hate muggleborns” so that it would have been more obvious that she wanted them to be the only bad people. By the way, it’s impossible for all slytherins to be like this. There are literally 28 pure blood families and there are confirmed thousands of hogwarts students, so hundreds of them must be in slytherin. I don’t think J.K. actually reads her own books. But I’m not going to get into the whole house-politics thing because it’s literally a made-up sorting game that tracks people when they are ELEVEN!!!!!!!! People change dramatically!!!!! You cannot expect an eleven year old to be the same for the rest of their lives!!!
Draco Malfoy is treated so terribly that I can’t even begin to spread my woes with him. He’s a child of cruel parents who taught him the wrong beliefs and he spread those beliefs because he’s a kid who trusted his parents too much. Of course, since he’s a slytherin, he gets no redemption arc (that stupid nod he gave Harry at the end of book seven literally does not count!!!!!) or any defining characteristics that aren’t the fact that he’s a prick. We never get to talk about the fact that in every single topic, Draco got the second highest score after Hermione. We don’t get to hear about the fact that Draco Malfoy loves Quidditch, or that he loved to read, or that he was a decent person with trash parents. GOD I hate hate hate J.K.
There are just so many other weird mistakes or flaws that bug me. Krum must have been of age when he took 14 year old little Hermione to the dance and became infatuated with her. The time turners, which could have ended this entire mess, were conveniently destroyed. Ginny and Harry fall in love in, like, one book. Literally all of the young Slytherins were teenagers when they were FORCED to become death eaters. Dumbledore knew for 11 years before Harry Potter came to Hogwarts that he was destined to die and he never told the damn kid until it was almost too late.
Look, I know I’ve gone on and on about how terrible every part of this book is, but I really don’t think it’s that bad. I think the magic, while it lacks any good rules or a decent system, is interesting. I can’t deny that J.K. Rowling built a complex world with interesting characters. Interesting does not mean good. People can like what they like, but this series just wasn’t written for me.
Sorry, J.K., but I guess you can go tweet about how sad you are that people don’t like your stupid book that has zero representation or diversity. You really made the only Asian character be called Cho Chang, you prick.
Harry Potter is a series which greatly benefits from the power of childhood nostalgia. From its first release in 1997 to its official end in 2007 (Cursed Child is not canon) the kids who had started reading it were at that point adults and very different people.
But just because they had grown up didn’t mean they had lost their feel for the magical world. The series was something they had grown up with, and it had greatly impacted their self-identity.
Nostalgia is something that can hardly be replaced. Even if one were to read it many years after they were fully grown and they loved it, they still wouldn’t have that same sort of attachment.
Well, I’m someone who read it past my time, and I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Soooo, here’s the thing:
I’ve got to be straight right away and say that my opinion is only slightly influenced by some things the author has said over recent years. While usually an author wouldn’t affect me, every little thing she says seems to bring the series down, so I can’t help but take that into account.
J.K. Rowling’s series, spanning seven official books and ten years, grew an entirely new wizarding world with characters that had real human emotions and creatures never seen before.
Ten years and seven books and yet she still couldn’t figure out how to write good characters.
Snape and Dumbledore are the most egregious cases of this. She really built up an entire plot where Snape belittled and mentally abused many of his students, even going as far as to be seen as Neville’s biggest fear in the world. (I’ll remind you that Neville’s parents were literally cursed for eternity, but his biggest fear was his teacher.) He insulted students’ looks (Hermione), often made them go through physical torture (oclumancy lessons with Harry), and was an overall terrible person.
J.K. seems to think that this is all redeemable, however, by the fact that he loved Harry’s mom.
Because an abusive man part of a psychotic group of murderers being so obsessively attached to a married woman who wanted nothing to do with him is a completely normal thing.
All of this is done, of course, right under Dumbledore’s watch. Dumbledore, seemingly, is the guy who lets this all happen.
He lets Harry live with abusive protectors (I don’t care that Petunia had Lily’s blood and had the power of love or whatever stupid excuse. That senile old man could have helped him somehow), lets students and staff get away with repulsive behavior, and literally doesn’t tell anyone anything! He sucks!!!!
And, God, I can’t stand Hermione. Before the first Harry Potter movie came out J.K. signed the deal with Columbus because his favorite character, the same as hers, was Hermione. It may seem hard to believe now, but back in 2000 the fandom liked Ron way better. I agree with the fandom. Hermione is the most idiotic, untrusting, whiny, and egregiously loathsome friend ever. She spends seven damn years doubting every single thing Harry or Ron say and making them feel stupid.
She tells Harry he’s crazy for thinking Draco is a death eater. Harry is correct. She tells Harry he’s crazy for thinking Snape is up to something. Harry is correct. She tells Harry he’s crazy for wanting to go after the Deathly Hallows. Harry is not only correct but saves the damn world.
She takes every opportunity to put herself above her two friends and make them feel inferior. She cries if anyone stands up to her in any way and acts the victim. She even makes Luna, one of the nicest people in the entire series, feel like garbage because she doesn’t believe what she does. I hate her, Jesus Christ.
Besides being terrible at making bad people seem good, J.K. Rowling is terrible at making good people seem bad.
I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s really weird that she has such an obvious loathing of slytherins. (Yeah, Albus-Stupid-Name is a slytherin, but she didn’t even write that book so I don’t care.) Like, she put all of the cunning and ambitious people into one group and said “these guys, they’re evil.” She could’ve at least made the slytherin moto like “we hate muggleborns” so that it would have been more obvious that she wanted them to be the only bad people. By the way, it’s impossible for all slytherins to be like this. There are literally 28 pure blood families and there are confirmed thousands of hogwarts students, so hundreds of them must be in slytherin. I don’t think J.K. actually reads her own books. But I’m not going to get into the whole house-politics thing because it’s literally a made-up sorting game that tracks people when they are ELEVEN!!!!!!!! People change dramatically!!!!! You cannot expect an eleven year old to be the same for the rest of their lives!!!
Draco Malfoy is treated so terribly that I can’t even begin to spread my woes with him. He’s a child of cruel parents who taught him the wrong beliefs and he spread those beliefs because he’s a kid who trusted his parents too much. Of course, since he’s a slytherin, he gets no redemption arc (that stupid nod he gave Harry at the end of book seven literally does not count!!!!!) or any defining characteristics that aren’t the fact that he’s a prick. We never get to talk about the fact that in every single topic, Draco got the second highest score after Hermione. We don’t get to hear about the fact that Draco Malfoy loves Quidditch, or that he loved to read, or that he was a decent person with trash parents. GOD I hate hate hate J.K.
There are just so many other weird mistakes or flaws that bug me. Krum must have been of age when he took 14 year old little Hermione to the dance and became infatuated with her. The time turners, which could have ended this entire mess, were conveniently destroyed. Ginny and Harry fall in love in, like, one book. Literally all of the young Slytherins were teenagers when they were FORCED to become death eaters. Dumbledore knew for 11 years before Harry Potter came to Hogwarts that he was destined to die and he never told the damn kid until it was almost too late.
Look, I know I’ve gone on and on about how terrible every part of this book is, but I really don’t think it’s that bad. I think the magic, while it lacks any good rules or a decent system, is interesting. I can’t deny that J.K. Rowling built a complex world with interesting characters. Interesting does not mean good. People can like what they like, but this series just wasn’t written for me.
Sorry, J.K., but I guess you can go tweet about how sad you are that people don’t like your stupid book that has zero representation or diversity. You really made the only Asian character be called Cho Chang, you prick.