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Pedro Pascal Calls For Boycott of HBO's Upcoming $2 Billion ‘Harry Potter' Series — World of Reel
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this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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I am no literature snob but I thought the first few books were good at the time for YA fiction. I still have the full set on my shelves and would be overjoyed if my kids read any novels, even imperfect ones.
People have nit picked JKs works to death and yes, there are problems. Half the stuff I was reading and watching as a kid was far, far worse. Like I was reading stuff that on reflection was clearly written by very far right authors, pedos etc as well as stuff that went way in other directions. I get why people boycott shit like that but I think its probably good to be exposed to some other points of view, even ones you vehemently reject.
People should be supporting new authors and new stories and stop throwing money at tired old corporate franchises. And that goes for the lazy Disney shit as well and all the Hollywood remakes. Unfortunately we have all been squeezed economically so there is fuck all money left to buy media and we are being squeezed for attention so nobody is taking time to read novels or listen to albums. The culture wars are certainly very significant (as a straight white male I know I have blind spots here), particularly for minorities with a lot at stake. But I feel the real enemy is the death of individual economic freedom and free time. Do we really need another big streaming series that brings nothing new to our lives and exists only to enhance shareholder value?
Not to ruin something you like, but you might enjoy reading the Worst Witch series, which Joanne copied for her early books.
I am an old man so I don't read much kid's/YA fiction and I wasn't ever a huge HP fan. I tried to watch a tv adaption of WW with my daughter and we didn't get past the first episode for some reason. We do like a lot of other witchy fiction though. I am hoping the Witchhat Atelier anime is high quality and doesn't have creepy fan service. That had a really interesting magic system.
JKs works are full of tropes as is most fiction and it clearly isn't great literature but I am not persuaded by accusations of plagiarism. Every Tarantino movie rips off other movies. The Dollars trilogy was clearly a retelling of Kurosawa samurai movies.
I don't want to praise JK given her open hostility to the community here but the cross over appeal of her works was a cultural phenomenal at the time. I understand why many people are motivated to rip her work and legacy to shreds. She has very much earned peoples disrespect. As someone who is not targeted by her hateful views I feel detached enough to reject JK as a person without completely dismissing her works and cultural impact. Yeah, that's some privilege at work but we are who we are. I am never going to have the same awareness or sensitivity about lack of representation, stereotypes etc in her writing.
There's a huge difference between "homage" and "copying." For example, Rowling references many legendary myths, like the Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone. That's a reference, and while it's not original, it's not so much stealing as using the existing tapestry.
The problem is not that she used existing concepts and tropes, but that she only used existing concepts and tropes. There literally isn't a single original concept in any of the books, and the source material is usually (but not always) better. It's like somebody made artwork out of clip art and photographs of famous paintings. And that's fine, but it's not creative or even well-crafted.
The dialogue is distractingly bad, the fantasy elements are disjointed and inconsistent, the mysteries are either obviously telegraphed or non-sequitur deus ex magicka that erase all tension or intrigue.
Is an Oreo cookie a good cookie? It's very popular, and many people love them. It's a knock off of Hydrox, of course, but that's not why it's not a good cookie. The cream filling is waxy and cloying, the cookies are cocoa-adjacent and stale, and they are mass produced by a company that is deforesting the planet and relying on child slaves. But they taste good dunked in milk. I like them. And that's OK. Not everything has to be the best possible version of what it could, or shoul, be.
But if the inventor of the Oreo was running around going "I'm the best baker in the world because I came up with the Oreo, and also disabled people should be euthanized," we can say that this hypothetical person sucks at both being a person and at baking cookies. The former is obviously worse than the latter, but then you have defenders saying "yes, OK, this person may not be a good person, but what they created is great." No. What they created is popular but that doesn't make it good.
I tried to read Twilight on a dare once. I dare anyone to suggest JK's writing is worse than Stephenie Meyer. A lot of popular fantasy and YA isn't much better than fan fiction. Hunger Games feels even more derivative in many ways but I don't know if that hurts it.
I agree HP isn't great art. I read the books once when they came out and that was enough for me. It was a genuine cultural phenomenon though. In the late 90s. early 2000s, before iPhone, Facebook, Youtube it was just some pop culture that filled in the many hours of analog leisure time. It brought joy to a lot of people and relieved some boredom for others. The series had good and bad. The good was the accessibility and interest it generated in reading for a relatively wide audience. Given JK's current reputation as a person I think it is too easy to dwell on the bad and completely ignore the rest. It is reasonable to cease supporting the HP franchise though. Whatever its merits it had run its course a long time ago.
Some people really like Twilight -- maybe you are not the target demographic.
I really liked the first 4 Harry Potter books as a kid. I don't really agree with the criticism above. I thought it was cool to read about this little boy like me discovering magic and exploring a cool castle and fighting dark wizards.
There is a lot of criticism I agree with -- like isn't it weird that Harry's magic society is a capitalist paradise where he buys wands and his poor best friend spends their lottery windfall on a vacation so they must not be that poor, and anyway how can you have poverty in a post-scarcity magical society?
But on the other hand it was so relatable to see Harry go on shopping trips because that's what I was doing in the 90s/2000s, and having feelings about how the rich kid's dad always paid for him to have cool toys like a nimbus 2001...
twilight target demographic were young female teens,