if your moral compass can be thrown off by a broomstick and a british accent, maybe it’s time to read literally any other book. they made more, i promise. books did not stop in 2007 when voldemort exploded like a glitter bomb full of hate crimes.
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And Harry is a shitty student.
Don't invest yourself in a chosen one who meanders in mediocre fashion through his studies. Better to follow a teen genius who tricks technologically hyperadvanced fairies out of their gold, but later grows as a person and becomes a close ally and friend to them.
Personally, I think it is more important that the Harry Potter series returned children and adults to actually reading books! Not sure what you mean by "kids losing their moral compass" by reading books! Any book is better than never reading. Maybe they led to even more reading!
The problem is, Harry Potter isn't even well-written. So even from an amoral standpoint, this argument fails because Harry Potter is just shit, even in its own subgenre.
We do both think Ursula K. Le Guin was marvelous, though. So at least we can agree on that. Of course, Wilde's wider point (for me, anyway) is that no book should be banned - but are there lousy books? There are, indeed.
Yeah, that's a fair point! I guess my concern is that the exact people OP was talking about would use that quote to ignore the fact they are quite literally funding the transphobic takeover of the UK by continuing to buy new HP stuff.
The Potter books are well written and their success is warranted. (You still shouldn't buy stuff from the global face of transphobia, obviously, but that's another matter.)
When I was a kid (I recently turned 50) I remember enjoying a series by author Susan Cooper. The Dark Rising or something. Worth a look.
And when you have plenty of reading experience, the Malazan series by Steven Erikson.
Yes. The cogent argument is right in front of your face. But if you're so dumb that you come up in here with this garbage, let me restate it for you.
If you're such a garbage piece of shit that you can't modulate your fandom, you *want* to be a hateful moron.
And... go fuck yourself.
As is custom in these Blue Skies here - we block first, ask questions later. That account up there will find itself on all of the moderated lists soon enough. ✌️
Separately for the JK problem, how did so many fans of that series (plus Star Wars and Star Trek) did not get: fascism is bad, and fascists use the same tactics
As a reader/gamer it is honestly terrifying to go into Fandom of anything I enjoy.
For some God forsaken reason half the people in the community missed the entire value of the game/book, and decided to side with the obvious fascist baddies.
Not even in the list of top 10 fantasies. The nostalgia & WB carried the series. I went from being a superfan( I am sorry I was cringe) to being apathetic towards it even before Rowling ousted herself as a massive Turbocunt.
Anything by Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase, the Kane Chronicles, all great. Plus I believe he started a label to help authors from around the world tell the stories of their mythology
Talking about getting young teens to read for pleasure - Rick Riordan totally ticks that box! My now 20yr old is passionate about Greek & Roman mythology thanks to Rick Riordan.
If your moral compass can be thrown off by the idea you extend human rights by discrimination against half the population, your compass needs calibration.
Some Socratic method and Platonic caves might be helpful.
I had no intention of reading HP. I was strong-armed into it, made to feel fringe at best for not following the line. For my kids, I succumbed. It was fine. Now I'm supposed to apologize. America, get back to me once you have decided on your mission statement.
Read The Inheritance Cycle, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Fablehaven, Dragonwatch, Tad Williams’ Osten Ard books! There are too many for me to list.
I love The Inheritance Cycle so much!! I almost named my son Roran but didn't. Now, he's a big fan of the series and is upset that it's not his name. lol
Harry Potter adults aren't readers;
They were compelled to read in school, HP was what was widely available and had a fandom easy to assimilate to.
You ask them what else they've read and I promise you're gonna get stuff like Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, and the rest of standard curriculum reading.
Nah, the Harry Potter books are good fiction, so are Rick Riordan and J.R. Tolkien. So is Dumas, Piers Anthony. Rawlings has some stupid opinions, the Hobbit books can be re-read multiple times too. I don't have a clue about Tolkien's politics. Do you?
Tolkien was a complex character,
Deeply critical of any government power.
Somewhat conservative, but also somewhat anarchic in his views.
He was also very critical of race theories and imperialism.
I can't imagine anything more insipid than comparing mediocre children's fiction to fucking Dumas and not bothering to see if you spelled the name right of the author you're trying to defend.
Also good job just naming more things you'd find in a high school library, really challenging my point 😂
We are readers. But many of us who were fans know and understand that there are other books of this nature to satisfy the pallet. I found a great alternative to HP and it’s written by a Black woman.
Black HBCU filled with magical mystery, love, and adventure.
When I say Harry Potter adults I mean folks who are still fans *today*, not people who have read or otherwise gotten enjoyment from them as teens etc.
As in folks who have matured enough to not want to be associated with a weirdo bigot.
They aren't perfect but come on, the hunger games books are right there. I was a big Harry Potter fan but I am always shocked to find out that a big chunk of HP fans never moved on to other books. Even if they wanted to stay in the YA genre there are plenty that are very accessible.
I know; isn't that ironic? That's what hurts the most to me; in reality, Rowling stands against everything the Potter books taught readers to stand up for. The books were a great well-crafted lie. I was once a bigtime Potterhead, and I miss that, but I can't in good conscience ever go back.
I don't know the politics of most of my favorite children's authors.authors. E.B. White? No clue. Phillip Pullman? No clue. Beverly Cleary? No clue. Frank Baum Sr.? No clue.
>when voldemort exploded like a glitter bomb full of hate crimes.
This makes it sound kind of awesome though. Also for people who do think books stopped in 2007, read Discworld then, all the fantasy and none of the author being a terrible person
So many better ones: the Sabriel series by Garth Nix, Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, and the sleeper Wizard for Hire by Obert Skye. Also loved His Dark Materials. And if you like all that, Lord of the Rings.
She is a vile excuse for a human being who only has a voice because she plagiarised every author who has ever written about magic, witches, dragons etc. Even some of her character names are lifted from gravestones in the greyfriars kirk yard.
I had just come here to recommend Tiffany Aching as a good alternative to HP. Pratchett was on point with social issues in so many ways that I still reel about it on every re-read of the series.
(I also recommend 'Monstrous Regimen' to literally everyone as a great standalone)
Usually I would say publication order, BUT most of Pratchett can be read as standalone novels. So then I recommend reading by character/topic explored. Here’s a good guide from his estate (including a quiz!):
Revisiting the Discworld books, it's pretty overt how much JKR ripped off the series. I can see why she tries to leverage her neuroses on Terry, from time to time, much to Rhianna's plangent disgust.
I think it's very unlikely that Rowling actually, factually ripped off Pratchett. Neither invented the wizard school. They're both playing with well-worn tropes to radically different effect.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a book series, but at the same time you need to be able to acknowledge the problems in a work and the faults of the author. You do yourself no favors by blindly following bad writers even if you enjoy there work.
Tell that to the Middle-Grade children’s book authors: 😢
Every new young editor wanted the next new Love, Simon of their very own, they leaned into YA searches for “New ethnic and teen LGBT voices” and just at let MG make do with more endless hero series, graphic novels and private schools.
The JKR who wrote the HP books was a women with an open mind. JKR now is everything else.
Read everything you can - who reads only Potter?!?
But the HP is nonetheless a great series. It has a good moral compass and I read my old copies with my kids.
Sorry, but if you want to read books where the world is perfect and fluffy, you stay with children books age 0-2.
Of course the magical world in HP is a nightmare.
Everything world in the great fantasy novels is a shit show if you really look into it. Do you think readers don’t realise that?
BTW JKR started as feminist who really who saw the problem in men. (And that’s not wrong.)
I think a good option of her hatefulness about Trans are from men - „Men become women“. She sees an imbalance because as a bio man, you are physically stronger as a bio women. It is a trigger to her.
Many authors hold unpalatable views, but do we usually attack and boycott their books and vilify their readers? Not usually. There are exceptions of course...Mein Kampf is one that comes to mind. I don't think HP falls into this category...
The Harry Potter series inspired me to write about a city of wizards that are snobby elitists, especially with other wizards. Birthright, heridetary status, nobility blue blood kind of stuff. I always didn't like that about the wizarding world. They were so "I'm better than you" to "muggles".
Fabulous series of books. I wish my sons had read those in school, instead of Harry Potter (which they hated). But the country was in the grip of Potter mania & evangelical parents would have lost their minds even worse than they did over Potter. 🙄
Our English teacher in school had us read the first novel in first year (when we would have been about the same age as the protagonists are, from memory). Loved it. I didn't come across Harry Potter for another year or two after that - it was fine; just a shame Rowling turned out to be a dose!
I kept giggling at Malone's performance - her casting isn't bad, per se. But the pacing of the adaptation is all over the shop so she comes across a bit lost.
Thought LMM was terrible casting for Lee Scoresbee. Though that's probably my Hamilton PTSD showing (my wife plays it on endless repeat).
Apparently the American publisher wanted the alethiometer to be called a Golden Compass based on a reference to them in Paradise Lost, where the series title comes from. Except it was referring to the circle-drawing kind of compass.
I recommend Terry Pratchett - his stories have all of the magic and humor and none of the bigotry. If you want a child-friendly book, there's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
I still remember when terfs tried to imply after Pratchetts death that he wouldn’t have supported trans rights and his own daughter put them in their place.
Every time there’s news about Rowling I become more grateful that Captain Underpants and Diary of A Wimpy Kid were what got me into reading.
And grateful to the HP Wiki because looking up what happened to Ron’s twin brothers was what got me to give up on the books! Blessing in disguise, that.
Genuine question: I don't financially support the author or series anymore, but is it still alright to participate in fanfiction? It doesn't support the author directly, but i don't want to accidentally signal to people that I support the author or her opinions (because I absolutely do not)
I grew up pre-potter, there are so many brilliant books out there (even with brooms & british accents) & countless others since. It's so lazy to fall back on a singular series of mid books & keep handing them to the next generations because they were well marketed decades ago.
Also “Young Person With Magical Powers Tries To Be Good” is a fairly over saturated genre. We’ve got tons of that stuff, most of it written by people who haven’t doubled down on being hateful shitlords
Random teenager who recently acquired their powers end up defeating the strongest villain the story has ever seen.
No wonder so many editors didn't show any interest! They just didn't know about the sheer power of the early internet fandoms overglorifying the shit out of mid level stories.
I grew up with Eva Ibbotson (who wrote lots of monster-books and ghost-books where the monsters etc were helped by people when other people started destroying their homes) and Susan Cooper.
Good authors.
His Dark Materials was *my* Harry Potter, growing up, and far superior in my humble opinion.
I also recommend literally any Brandon Sanderson book, which usually have much more interesting and well-thought out magic systems than J.K. could ever dream of (again, in my humble opinion).
Well that's because HP is a soft magic system and Brandon Sanderson almost exclusively uses hard magic. The closest comparison of magic systems would be Elantris.
The *Real* comparison is how that magic system actually gets used in the plot, because *my word* Harry Potter's is boring.
Like seriously. When you have an entire magical world of basically *infinite potential* for magic, why would you make the spell equivalent of a gun. It just *doesn't fit the tone.* Not to mention there aren't... really any limitations to my memory?
JKR's moral compass is pointing in the correct direction. Woke gender ideologues can't stand that so many people recognize that and admire her for not kowtowing to delusions.
I can enjoy the Declaration of Independence without chiding myself that Jefferson was a serial rapist and a slave owner. I can read The Raven without reminding myself that Poe had sex with a 12 yr old relative. Human beings make literature and art. And human beings are flawed.
Exactly! After the final book I started thinking she wasn’t all right in the head. It was an absolute bloodbath for nearly every beloved character she’d created. Since then she’s said some pretty hateful mean spirited things. But I still say judge the work on its own merits.
What exactly is hateful about saying womanhood is biology based not a feeling in a man’s head? Women have the right to exist as a class that doesn’t include men who wish they were them.
It's odd because although I agree the books weren't particularly well written or even original, they were highly moral and chock full of diversity, equality and inclusion with a clear anti authoritarian message. I don't know, Rowling seems to have become someone else.
the moral leitmotiv that keeps recurring throughout the whole series is "it's okay when good people do the bad things, because they've got the right reasons"
Well Harry et al are very much an heroic resistance group fighting against the cruel tyranny of a crazed psychopath and his obscenely wealthy backers, and a very well behaved resistance at that. They don't even kill anyone. That the author of that take on Nazi Germany now backs Trump is just insane.
It's a collection of generic fantasy tropes crammed into the hero's quest formula, led by a character blatantly ripped off of a Neil Gaiman comic book series. I get why kids like it, but adults who were obsessed with its "originality" when it came out baffled me.
Pardon me for evoking Adolf Hitler's name. Hitler was a megalomaniac. But Joseph Gobbles was his best tool for success, turning the german people against each other.
Deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, is today's Joseph Gobbles.
RESIST RESIST RESIST.
Got any recommendations for similar magic in school with wizards like what she wrote but different series and author? I really enjoyed the concept after all and it's what got me into it originally when I was younger.
I would recommend that we place Terry Pratchett back on the top of the list of best-selling authors. Rowling dethroned him, but Pratchett was a much, much better human being.
You want a British author who wrote about young witches and wizards? Jill Murphy, Dianne Wynn Jones and Terry Pratchett. All of them are a hundred times more talented than Rowling.
The "Redwall" series is really good. A little old-fashioned, maybe, but exemplary storytelling by an author who wasn't a flaming hypocrite and bigot. I've read every book in the series more times than I can remember. I wish that Brian Jacques was still alive and writing.
They’re not bad, but I did find the bioessentialist “all of this species are good, all of this species are bad” to be pretty cringe when reading it to my then-5yo. I kept having to editorialize like “not ALL rats are mean just THESE rats”
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Don't invest yourself in a chosen one who meanders in mediocre fashion through his studies. Better to follow a teen genius who tricks technologically hyperadvanced fairies out of their gold, but later grows as a person and becomes a close ally and friend to them.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-highest-court-rule-definition-woman-under-equality-laws-2025-04-15/
The first book ends in lazy ex deus machina. Harry Potter passes out, wakes up in the medical ward and gets caught up by headmaster Dumbles.
L to the A to the Z to the Why do people give this literary shoddyness such a pass?
And when you have plenty of reading experience, the Malazan series by Steven Erikson.
I feel sorry for you, so obviously brainwashed by left wing ideology!
https://bsky.app/profile/joanwestenberg.com/post/3lmwbz5aaxa2r
If you're such a garbage piece of shit that you can't modulate your fandom, you *want* to be a hateful moron.
And... go fuck yourself.
https://bsky.app/profile/thelushkitch.bsky.social/post/3lmwi67wkx22m
https://bsky.app/profile/gse7en.bsky.social/post/3lmwij47dr224
That nice enough for you?
https://bsky.app/profile/irishdervish.bsky.social/post/3lmwiqcnkek2w
For some God forsaken reason half the people in the community missed the entire value of the game/book, and decided to side with the obvious fascist baddies.
Some Socratic method and Platonic caves might be helpful.
I’m stealing this from you, and will probably use it to title an OpEd I write in the future…
They were compelled to read in school, HP was what was widely available and had a fandom easy to assimilate to.
You ask them what else they've read and I promise you're gonna get stuff like Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, and the rest of standard curriculum reading.
Deeply critical of any government power.
Somewhat conservative, but also somewhat anarchic in his views.
He was also very critical of race theories and imperialism.
Also good job just naming more things you'd find in a high school library, really challenging my point 😂
Black HBCU filled with magical mystery, love, and adventure.
As in folks who have matured enough to not want to be associated with a weirdo bigot.
JK: “Tell everyone I mean no harm with my transphobia.”
Us: “I’m sorry Professor Rowling, but I must not tell lies.”
JK: [takes away gender affirming care for trans kids]
Parent of trans girl: “Not my daughter, you bitch!”
This makes it sound kind of awesome though. Also for people who do think books stopped in 2007, read Discworld then, all the fantasy and none of the author being a terrible person
If they already bought merch or books before finding out then that's fine! Burning what you've already paid for isn't going to get the money back.
I just ask that they don't *continue financially supporting a transphobe with more purchases.*
(I also recommend 'Monstrous Regimen' to literally everyone as a great standalone)
Every new young editor wanted the next new Love, Simon of their very own, they leaned into YA searches for “New ethnic and teen LGBT voices” and just at let MG make do with more endless hero series, graphic novels and private schools.
The JKR who wrote the HP books was a women with an open mind. JKR now is everything else.
Read everything you can - who reads only Potter?!?
But the HP is nonetheless a great series. It has a good moral compass and I read my old copies with my kids.
The magical world was as a fucking nightmare if you glanced lightly under the surface.
It was just twilight for nerds.
Of course the magical world in HP is a nightmare.
Everything world in the great fantasy novels is a shit show if you really look into it. Do you think readers don’t realise that?
I think a good option of her hatefulness about Trans are from men - „Men become women“. She sees an imbalance because as a bio man, you are physically stronger as a bio women. It is a trigger to her.
IF...
First book is called Northern Lights (the Golden Compass, for the Americans out there - which is a far shinier, albeit inferior, title).
Skip the adaptations - the books are better; as is so often the case.
Thought LMM was terrible casting for Lee Scoresbee. Though that's probably my Hamilton PTSD showing (my wife plays it on endless repeat).
And grateful to the HP Wiki because looking up what happened to Ron’s twin brothers was what got me to give up on the books! Blessing in disguise, that.
Feeding into the hype of the fandom still benefits her, just not directly.
As each book came out, I got the first edition hardcovers as gifts to encourage my reading habits.
Every time I see them I want them out of the house, but I don't want to sell them. I don't love book burnings, but may make an exception.
In a way, reselling potentially dilutes her sales.
This way, its only value is the love of reading, but someone can buy it to prevent a new book from being sold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Norton_(writer)
No wonder so many editors didn't show any interest! They just didn't know about the sheer power of the early internet fandoms overglorifying the shit out of mid level stories.
I grew up with Eva Ibbotson (who wrote lots of monster-books and ghost-books where the monsters etc were helped by people when other people started destroying their homes) and Susan Cooper.
Good authors.
I also recommend literally any Brandon Sanderson book, which usually have much more interesting and well-thought out magic systems than J.K. could ever dream of (again, in my humble opinion).
The *Real* comparison is how that magic system actually gets used in the plot, because *my word* Harry Potter's is boring.
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Just sayin'..
You did the same thing to Musk. Yay electric cars! Wait, he likes Trump? He's Hitler.
But...it's them, not you. lol
Deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, is today's Joseph Gobbles.
RESIST RESIST RESIST.
There's also A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Chrestomancy series by Diana Wynne Jones.