As someone who has read an absurd amount of fanfiction, I’m willing to bet that this (adults holding the idiot ball) was done on purpose because if the adults aren’t morons then there’s no plot tension for our protagonists to resolve.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdultsAreUseless
I don’t know if this is quite the correct trope, but it’s close, at least. It’s common in any kid/teen story that the adults are complete screw-ups, and it’s up to the brave child heroes to do anything about it. I always think of it as the Goonies plot (my first obvious exposure to the trope) but I’m sure it goes back way further than that.
Hey, not all the adults are incompetent. Some of them, like Dumbledore, are malicious.
It’s actually it’s own mathematical system encoding data fractally in a way that seems just as “logical” (and operates on similar geometric systems) as string theory today.
Let’s be real.
Rowling started out making a fairly bog standard magical kids book. It was all about the fantasy of being a wizard, and relied on tropes so old they get found in La Brea.
This isn’t a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of kid lit.
But she wasn’t a good writer. She was mid tier at best. So the eventual success of the series got beyond her abilities. While the last book was much better overall than the first few, it still relied on shoddy world building because she had chased sales.
She tried to turn a kid’s light fantasy into a YA fatasy-adventure. To an extent, it worked. And I don’t mean that it wasn’t successful, she had a hit on her hands because the idea behind it all was brilliant. It pulled from a long history of British youth fiction, and added in fantasy and magic and a ton of tropes.
But from the perspective of a coherent story in a coherent world, ignoring the success in terms of sales, it was cobbled together without a plan, and it shows. It wasn’t until maybe order of the phoenix that she had a plan for how the story would end, and she had to do a lot of hand waving to make it happen.
Again, that’s okay. Nothing wrong with a bit of light fiction. But, it had cultural impact way beyond its original scope. So it draws the same kind of analysis that something like LOTR does, and it just can’t compare. It barely holds up to comparisons with Narnia, and Narnia at least kept things vague and mystical without trying to get into the mechanisms under the hood.
For whatever reasons, Harry, in the books, long before the movies, resonated with kids. So the series exploded. And now everyone pokes at it like it was ever supposed to be literature, with any serious thought behind it. It was all broad brush strokes on construction paper from the beginning, expecting anything in it to hold up to scrutiny is like expecting politicians to be honest and up front. It is what it is.
Agreed on all points. I view fiction like this the same way I view junkfood TV shows/movies/music/etc. Yeah, it’s often brainless, but if you shut your brain off and go with the flow, it can be enjoyable. Just don’t consume too much of it, because then you’ll start to actually think it’s something more than it really is.
I always say - to defend the series (which doesn’t need too much defending, it’s the most successful book series after the old testament > new testament > Quran trilogy). The magic of Harry Potter is that all of the fantasy magic works exactly as well as it needs to right at the moment that it’s directly in front of the readers eyes. As you mention, as soon as it leaves the view of the characters in the story, it literally blows up into nonsense. However, as the story is being told the magic used is awesome and just what the plot needs at that exact moment to move along.
To be fair, Harry Potter is probably more logically consistent than the Bible is.
as the story is being told the magic used is awesome and just what the plot needs at that exact moment to move along
That’s bad writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence
Michael Bay movies aren’t fun to watch because they have airtight plots and intelligent writing. They’re fun to watch because there are sparkly things going boom and it looks pretty.
The Harry Potter series is effectively the same thing. A spectacular story that’s fun to experience the first time through.
In both cases, if you think too hard about it, the thin veneer giving the appearance of coherence disappears and you’re left with a logically inconsistent mess.
It’s not going to stop me from watching Independence Day or reading Prisoner of Azkaban again though.
I was about to comment- Harry Potter and the Deus Ex Machina thanks for beating me to it.
I might add Harry Potter and the Order of the Pipe Layers
As the person before me mentioned, scrutinizing the magic expecting it to be high literature is self-defeating. I never said I would defend the story on the merits of its writing, it’s a book series written for young adults.
Deus ex machina is egregious when a story that has otherwise been consistent pulls the rug out from under you with a twist that makes no sense. The magic in Harry Potter is consistently inconsistent, as I mentioned it only makes sense when it’s directly in front of the readers eyes. It doesn’t just show up as deus ex machina that saves the characters life at the end of the book and leaves the reader feeling betrayed, the reader expects magic to save the day because since page 1 magic has been doing whatever has been conveniently cool to move the plot along in the main character’s favor.
That’s bad writing.
Eddie Valiant: You mean you could’ve taken your hand out of that [hand]cuff at any time?
Roger Rabbit: No, not at any time! Only when it was funny!
Let’s be real here, she started off just writing a fun story, think nothing of it, and it became a cult. There’s two ways to go about this; 1) milk it for everything it’s worth, or 2) let the fans go apeshit on fanfic without providing anything more. She chose option 1. Cause money.
Arguably I think all the flaws combined with its popularity is why there are so many HP fanfics out there and they are at least part of the popularity of the work.
It’s like confidently posting a wrong answer on the Internet, people can’t help but want to correct you. Same with her story, which fuels a good chunk of the dialogue and discussions about it.
If it was bad or unpopular no one would care. If it was extremely well written, with little to no plot holes, people would like it, but that’s kind of it. Harry Potter just seems to have the right mix of good ideas and poor execution while remaining popular enough to be relevant to generate seemingly endless efforts to fix or improve it.
To say it more bluntly: That whole story ark was cobbled together by an amateur and is barely hobbling on crumbling crutches. In regards of storytelling and consistency it’s one of the most shitty dilettantic book series I’ve ever encountered. And the characters aren’t coming alive, they are just bland and boring.
Really bad books.
“But from the perspective of a coherent story in a coherent world, ignoring the success in terms of sales, it was cobbled together without a plan, and it shows. It wasn’t until maybe order of the phoenix that she had a plan for how the story would end, and she had to do a lot of hand waving to make it happen.”
“But she wasn’t a good writer. She was mid tier at best. So the eventual success of the series got beyond her abilities. While the last book was much better overall than the first few, it still relied on shoddy world building”
Excellent explanation. The first HP book is excellent. It really sucks you in. After book 4, the quality declines and they become slogs to get through.
Also in the wizarding world they have a device that makes it incredibly easy to kill a baby. It’s called a knife.
Technically with the mother’s love protecting him, nothing would’ve worked. Also you are ignoring pride in all of this. Voldemort had a way to kill anyone he hated with barely any effort on his part, using magical abilities. He also hated muggles and all they stood for. Of course he won’t be using a way muggles kill one another if he has magic that is in his mind “better”.
I think the explanation is that Lily used old magic that nobody else knew about. Like, it wasn’t just her love, it was a special spell powered by love, in the same way the killing curse is powered by hate. Like, imagine the government is coming to bulldoze your house to build a freeway bypass, and you’re such a big history nerd you pull out some legal precedent from the time of Arthur that says they can’t do it. It was a highly situational spell that nobody bothered to teach to the next generation because you can only use it once, and she just happened to read the most history books on obscure spells.
Alright I’d better insult this series to make up for defending it. Putting Santa hats and beards on the severed slave heads is ghastly.
The mother’s love protecting Harry caught Voldemort off guard. It’s not like he got to try using the killing curse on Harry several times. Imagine you want to kill a baby, and you have a gun, and literally no reason to conserve ammo. You wouldn’t pull out your knife in the off chance that the baby is bulletproof.
Imagine you want to kill a baby […]. You wouldn’t pull out your knife […].
How true
One might say this is one of the reasons Dumbledore wanted Slughorn on his side.
Though, I’m sure Snape could have made it too, and if Voldemort ordered him to make some, I don’t see him getting out of it.
The in-story reason why Voldemort doesn’t seek help in this way is pride. He believes he is superior, and thus, should be capable of killing Harry unassisted.
“Listen, Severus, I want you to brew me a cauldron of Felix Felicis, but I can’t have the other Death Eaters finding out about it…” No, he could never admit to anyone, neither Snape nor himself, that he needed such a handicap to kill a teenager.
He Who Must Be Named Voldemort made that potion with Harry’s blood - that sounded really complex. Voldemort should’ve been using it* and distributing it to Death Eaters.
(edit) *Felix Felicis
You mean the “get your body back after dying with a horcrux” potion? Yeah, I’m sure that would really come in handy for lots of Death Eaters.
Yes that one, oops meant Felix Felicis though
Wait, the reason they don’t use this potion is that it’s hard to make?
Wouldn’t you make it once and use it to make more by just dumping random ingredients in a pot to get an infinite supply? It seems like the wishing for more wishes situation pretty straight up.
This is what I get for letting you trick me into thinking about this dumb thing, I suppose.
Naw
Would crack you all out
But it makes no sense it’s not consistently used as much as possible, exactly below the threshold for negative side effects. Anytime the good guys are fighting the bad guys. Anytime the bad guys are searching for good guys or trying to evade them. Whoever managed their liquid luck use better should’ve won.
Wait, so it gets you high on top of everything else? People would be using this even if it did nothing else, what the heck?
Stop it. Stop making me think about the stupid wizard thing. Not worth it. So dumb.
Indeed alcohol is a global best seller in our own world and for it to make you lucky someone else has to drink it too
I thought the problem with that was that the side effects and duration are a bit unpredictable, so you can’t optimize use where you can be sure you’re acting under Felix and going with the flow is optimal vs it having worn off but you’re still giddy and reckless and going with the flow is fatal.
Though ocme or think of it I may have got that idea from a fanfic.
Oh I like that nerf! I think when it’s wearing off of Harry he just feels less and less lucky until he returns to normal. I only remember abuse leading to giddiness and recklessness. But that’s fun and appropriate!