Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling resisting the urge to name an Irish character "Potatofamine Carbomb"

the fact that the school chose to gift the rich student with the latest broom so he can join a sports team but not buy the poor kid a new wand when his current one was ruining his academic career

Cedric Diggory did the equivalent of losing a Spelling Bee and coming to school the next day in a Nazi uniform

i think the reason theres so much HP fanfiction is just because theres so many interesting ideas that JKR just refuses to explore, so the fans do it for her

I, too, consider turning to fascism every time I lose a competition

It’s interesting how Rowling cites Hermione’s hair as a sign of her possible blackness when in the books Hermione’s hair is always made fun of, deemed ugly, her beauty transformation occurring when she straightens it for the Yule Ball…

The phrase "Sorry guys Neville knocked time travel over" made me crack up.

I just rewatched the KJK video, and the bit about Kaeley Triller openly admitting to getting pregnant by an underage boy, and Rowling being friends with her, struck me as confirmation of a really ugly implication in Harry Potter. Remember how Merope slipped Tom Riddle Snr a love potion, and got him to marry her and get her pregnant? And after he woke up he abandoned her (and gets framed as being in the wrong for it), and the text paints him as so arrogant and snobbish that he never married again because nobody was good enough for him? And that we shouldn’t judge Merope too harshly? As if he’s not actually a r*pe victim who would probably never be able to trust another woman again? I just have a terrible feeling that Rowling is one of those people who thinks it somehow isn’t abuse if it’s female on male.

"sorry everyone. Neville knocked time travel over." I laughed so hard I woke up my wife.

"Oh black girl Hermione, when will you stop talking about how slavery is wrong, it's getting on my nerves" - Harry Potter, the boy physically and mentally abused by his family because he is magical, and they're not.

20:38 "All Is Well, But We're Keeping The Slaves" sounds like a Douglas Adams novel

The neoliberalism in Harry Potter is culminated in Voldemort's death: the villain is not defeated by direct action from the hero, rather, the hero smugly catches the villain in a technicality of some obscure law and he is dealt with by the powers that be. Harry did not have to do anything: merely trust in the relevant authority (wand mechanics) to handle the problem once the villain's mistake is verbally pointed out.

Honestly I think Rowling forgot Harry was rich for most of it. She gave him loads of money so she didn't have to think about his finances logistically, and then forgot about it

"Why doesn't Harry do anything about Ron's broken wand?" Why doesn't HOGWARTS do something about it? The best, most influential wizard school on the planet has never had this problem before? They don't have practice wands that are school-owned to give to students? You could say wands are special, one-of-a-kind, but that's not really true. In the books and movies, characters use each others wands all the time. Sure, not as well as a hand-picked one or whatever, but Ron's broken wand is dangerous! A crappy school-assigned wand has to be better than one that might literally kill someone?

I only just realized that HP‘s final showdown is a perfect payoff for all that JKR has done with the books too. Like Shaun said, „racists are technically wrong on the facts“, but there is no such thing as changing people or overcoming flaws. Harry Potter wins because the wand doesn‘t listen to Voldemort who mistakenly believes it‘s „his“ - Harry wins because Voldemort is technically wrong on the facts. No changes needed. If only Voldemort had done his proper research!

An idea for solving the timeturner problem: a) make them rare and incredibly regulated and B) the one Dumbledore gave Hermine was already pretty old and broken, and would only work for roughly a year or so anyways. And then when they save Sirius, it literally breaks down immediately. Still a better solution to "oops we accidentally pushed over the shelf with all time machines ever."

I think there WAS a way to answer "why didn't the wizards stop Hitler" and that would be "because the Nazis had their own wizards". You could absolutely have a magical war waging in the background of WWII in this setting. And it's such an obvious answer that I'm shocked she didn't just use it.

"Those poor slaves wouldn't even know what to do with freedom" is literally a real life argument made about slavery.

“They’re an inferior race, Hermione.” Hagrid said calmly.

It’s weird how I almost never hear people address what to me is the worst aspect: that Dumbledore, the “hero”, basically allowed Harry to be abused by his family and by Snape. He could easily have checked up on the Dursleys and told them that they better treat Harry better or there would be consequences, but he just… didn’t.