Thoughts
I can handle a lot of bad takes on the internet but Harry Potter criticism is going to drive me insane.
The criticism is literally that Rowling is “too good” at writing discriminatory characters.
‘The racism in the hp universe is never meaningfully addressed.’
The only thing I can think is “have you read another book?” Followed by “have you actually read Harry Potter?”
Like.
I think there’s this implicit idea on Twitter or whatever that racism is worse than violence. Because I can name 50 villains, screw it, I can name 50 “good guys” who commit more atrocious acts of violence than Voldemort. The things that Dahl villains do to children make the cruciatus curse look kind. Ender straight up kills a guy.
But Voldemort uses a slur and that makes Rowling racist.
What is your opinion on *To Kill a Mockingbird*?, because Lee is significantly better at writing racist characters than Rowling.
Voldemort (or Malfoy for that matter) isn’t a super deep, fleshed-out, character, when you consider that it’s a 7-book series. If you want to criticize Rowling’s villains, it’s that they’re too shallow.
Well, and this is the kicker for me. The narrative is *never* so much as even sympathetic to Voldemort. I don’t think there’s a single scene where Voldemort is nice to someone. I’m trying to think, in the flashback to Slughorn’s party, does Riddle like give a gift to one of his friends? I don’t think so, I think he gives a gift to Slughorn to butter him up. And I think Rowling writes at one point that ‘Riddle didn’t see his friends as friends.’
If you told me I had to write an essay about how the villain is actually in the right, I don’t think I would, in a million years, choose to write it about Harry Potter.