Harry Potter (rant)

From The Encyclopedia of Pointless

I had better get this off my chest.

I have read the Harry Potter books. I liked them. They are not about a bunch of children that summon demons and cast spells and use the dark forces of nature. Instead, they are about a bunch of fairly unrealistic children in a understandably unrealistic setting doing regrettably unrealistic things. Allow me to address it point by point.

Unrealistic Children

This is one of the most understandable of the three points, since on the whole British children are wholly unrealistic. Johnny Wallbank can attest to this fact, I'm sure. They don't do any kind of realistic things like American children or Botswanan children living in America. The children in the Harry Potter books do wholly unrealistic things like try to solve mysteries, or help each other out in times of need.

Your average everyday child, if faced with the mystery of a mysterious object and a mysterious use for the object would probably just go watch TV. Despite what many adults think about most children, children usually don't bother themselves with adult stuff, unless they are very specifically restricted from snooping around. That's why anyone fairly skilled with dealing with children would simply not even mention that something bad is going on. This also deals with a subpoint that I find it difficult to believe these kids don't watch any TV at Hogwarts. So many of the students there come from muggle families that they could easily come up with some magical means of watching TV.

Also take for instance that one stupid kid that always gets everything wrong. Harry and his friends stand up for him in the face of Harry's Rival, but in reality children are spiteful vicious carnivores that mercilessly attack any sign of weakness in their peers, ESPECIALLY during those very formative Junior High years. It's not like the kid doesn't deserve the grief he suffers, the kid is clearly unsuited for life, and it's a natural urge in adolescent children to see to it that either this dumb kid either is totally alienated and becomes even worse, or does his best to fit into a role he is not suited for and become a more or less accepted member of young society. Despite magical gifts I doubt Harry would be able to resist his own instincts to maim and harm the weak.

Unrealistic Setting

Now it makes sense that some of the Harry Potter setting doesn't make sense, seeing as it's based on pretty much every single folktale and The Lord of the Rings. But there are embedded in this senseless sensefulness a certain lack of common sense. Consider, for instance, how Spellcasting is dealt with in virtually every single video game ever made. The spellcaster is limited in some very important way, be it by a limited number of Magic Points or a limited number of spells a character can memorize and cast daily. But in Harry Potter's world, there is no such limit on a Spellcaster's abilities. As far as the books make certain a spellcaster could go on spouting fireballs from now to doomsday without running out of magic points or running out of memorized spells. Such a powerful ability would seem to be something that would be highly restricted in a magical community, since one Mage with a decent skill in casting spells could cause no end to trouble.

Not to mention the fact that everyone has wands. That just irks me. Can you imagine say, Gandalf with a dinky little magic wand? That's just something dirty that I don't even want to think about. The worst part is that the way wands work in Harry Potter you'd think that a staff-sized wand would be something everyone wants. But noooo, wands are instead the important thing everyone needs and is utterly useless without, since it seems nobody can cast spells without one. If I have to wave around a dinky little stick to shape the energies of the universe, count me out.

Unrealistic Things

Since English is such a wonderful language, let me make it clear that things refers to the various activities these wizards partake in. Specifically, let us look at the Wizard sport Quiddich. As it has been pointed out to me in the past, this is the single dumbest sport ever. Let me explain briefly how Quiddich works. There are four balls in the game, A Quaffle, which must be passed through hoops for points, two Bludgers, that magically seek out players to pummel, and the Golden Snitch, the tiny speedy ball that the Seekers on either team seek to end the game. It may as well be called "Wait Around for the Snitch to Show Up" because all the action of the game before the Golden Snitch arrives is meaningless due to the fact that catching the snitch bestows on the winning team an additional 150 points, which much more than likely ends the game right then. Virtually every single Quiddich game in the Harry Potter books the Snitch was what determined who won. Take also into consideration that if for some reason the useless players tossing the Quaffle around on one team amass more than a 150 point lead over the other team, the other team obviously isn't going to try to catch the snitch and thus make themselves lose. Instead the other team will probably all just gang up on the first team's seeker and make sure that instead of getting the snitch he gets the crap beat out of him.

Also, there is the problem of Harry's small fortune in the bank. It seems that when his parents kicked the bucket they left him with lots and lots of gold coins and such. However, when faced with this great wealth Harry does his best to save it for when he needs it. Let me remind you that Harry spent most of his formative years under a flight of stairs. Something tells me that this kid couldn't even tell you who is on the one pound coin (the Queen), much less have any sort of fiscal responsibility. A REALISTIC thing would be Harry spending every last Knut on junk in the conveniently placed Diagon Alley and then being totally buggered when next year's school bill comes around.

So there you have it. Despite the Harry Potter books' entire lack of satanic principles, they still muck it all up by being unbearably dumb in other ways. This won't stop me from continuing to read the books in the future, because unfortunately JK Rowling has a gift for portraying unrealistic children in an unrealistic world doing unrealistic stuff in a very realistic way.