Post by Arctura on Aug 6, 2013 23:43:21 GMT
This is an excerpt of a review on Goodreads under the first Harry Potter book. I was on the site and I was curious to see what the reviews were. I found one particularly interesting...
I'm not going to comment on the literary shortcomings of this book, the cliches, the painfully long narrative, the fact that the characters will not think about an issue for months, but then suddenly it becomes important again. Smarter people than me have already said all this.
What bothers me about the Harry Potter universe is its characterization of magic. Why is magic so easy in the Harry Potter universe? It's only moderately a matter of skill to use magic. Magic is mostly saying the correct word with the correct intonation and the correct flourish of the wand and boom! you've done something magical. If it were only for small things I don't think this would bother me so much, but the same works for more serious things, like killing someone.
There is so much that is contrary to logic (and I don't mean science, I mean how reasonable people would behave) in the magic of Harry Potter that it drives me crazy. Why is the magical world so separated from the real world? What is their interaction? If magic works in the Muggle world, what is preventing someone like Voldemort from completely taking over the Muggle world? What is preventing any character from killing any other character by simply saying the killing curse at any time? Human decency? Obviously there are a lot of characters in the books that don't have any. This never made any sense to me.
I would like to draw a comparison with (and I'm sure people on a site about reading books will crucify me for mentioning TV, which is obviously incapable of being an art form) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Buffy, every time you use magic, you pay for it. For little things, like floating a pencil, you pay for it in concentration, and maybe a little physical energy, but not more than going for a walk. However, the more you take, the more you have to give back in one form or another. The show is not always entirely consistent on this, but the idea makes sense. To bring someone back from the dead, you have to kill something else, or pay some other kind of price. If you want to kill someone, there is a physical price, a mental price. Nothing is free. In Harry Potter, it seems like everything is free.
Essentially, this person is saying:
So guys, debate! I want to see what you have to agree and/or disagree on in regards to this Harry Potter critic's review.
I'm not going to comment on the literary shortcomings of this book, the cliches, the painfully long narrative, the fact that the characters will not think about an issue for months, but then suddenly it becomes important again. Smarter people than me have already said all this.
What bothers me about the Harry Potter universe is its characterization of magic. Why is magic so easy in the Harry Potter universe? It's only moderately a matter of skill to use magic. Magic is mostly saying the correct word with the correct intonation and the correct flourish of the wand and boom! you've done something magical. If it were only for small things I don't think this would bother me so much, but the same works for more serious things, like killing someone.
There is so much that is contrary to logic (and I don't mean science, I mean how reasonable people would behave) in the magic of Harry Potter that it drives me crazy. Why is the magical world so separated from the real world? What is their interaction? If magic works in the Muggle world, what is preventing someone like Voldemort from completely taking over the Muggle world? What is preventing any character from killing any other character by simply saying the killing curse at any time? Human decency? Obviously there are a lot of characters in the books that don't have any. This never made any sense to me.
I would like to draw a comparison with (and I'm sure people on a site about reading books will crucify me for mentioning TV, which is obviously incapable of being an art form) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In Buffy, every time you use magic, you pay for it. For little things, like floating a pencil, you pay for it in concentration, and maybe a little physical energy, but not more than going for a walk. However, the more you take, the more you have to give back in one form or another. The show is not always entirely consistent on this, but the idea makes sense. To bring someone back from the dead, you have to kill something else, or pay some other kind of price. If you want to kill someone, there is a physical price, a mental price. Nothing is free. In Harry Potter, it seems like everything is free.
Essentially, this person is saying:
- Why is magic so easy? Especially for taking someone else's life and causing pain?
- Why is the magical world so firmly divided from the Muggle world (and I don't mean because of the Statute of Secrecy, because villains don't care)? What stops magical baddies from crossing into our world?
- Why are there no harsh repercussions for immoral decisions (magical choices as well)?
So guys, debate! I want to see what you have to agree and/or disagree on in regards to this Harry Potter critic's review.
