Current Events > The more I read about Harry Potter the more problematic it becomes.

(+) Yeah! (+)

With more and more people speaking about Harry Potter, I have been trying to read about the books, so I can no what the heck people are talking about. It was never my bag. But it seems so horrible, such as

The Sorting Hat is basically a eugenics program. Break these children up. Put all the kids they deem evil sorry I mean cunning into a house named after a snake and then wonder why they don't turn out well. Who we are is something that can change.. But sorry you are already pegged for life.

And after they are in these schools they pit them against one another. So already we have segregation, then fights based off of said segregation. Someone complains about this and they say..the schools might be separate but they are equal.

And people were cool with this book when it was coming out.

Raven Claw vs Everybody

Eugenics is engineering people for superiority. The Sorting Hat isn't about superiority. It is about personality

There is an old motto, "Birds of a feather flock together" The Sorting Hat helps students find their birds of a feather, so that they have friends and companions. Otherwise there would be loners, loneliness, and even anti-social delinquents

Don't forget the slavery. But it's okay because the slaves love it.

It's really cliques, right?

The sorting hat isn't the final authority as you can straight up tell it no, Harry does when it considers putting him in Slytherin.

There's things to harp on in the series but your first example is a shitty one.

cjsdowg posted...

And after they are in these schools they pit them against one another. So already we have segregation, then fights based off of said segregation. Someone complains about this and they say..the schools might be separate but they are equal.

That's literally what happens in high school.

Murphiroth posted...

The sorting hat isn't the final authority as you can straight up tell it no, Harry does when it considers putting him in Slytherin.

https://youtu.be/z4K2F_OALPQ?t=119

Murphiroth posted...

The sorting hat isn't the final authority as you can straight up tell it no, Harry does when it considers putting him in Slytherin.

It is petty heavily implied that he was a unique case and that's not something anyone else has gotten.

ellis123 posted...

It is petty heavily implied that he was a unique case and that's not something anyone else has gotten.

I thought the implication was the opposite lol

You've said that word "implication" a couple of times. What implication?

Harry Potter is big enough now to belong to the fans just as much as the author. If the fans got a different meaning out of it and don't care for the judgemental shit, who cares. They would do good by continuing to be a fan while denouncing all the negative shit and having conversations why it's not cool. Having conversations will always be more productive than sweeping shit under the rug.

marthsheretoo posted...

I thought the implication was the opposite lol

Why? Harry is the only one that the hat audibly acts confused, the book makes mention about how Harry takes the longest, etc. Harry is explicitly the outlier in basically every way as a point.

"Oh you got snake dorm so it's assumed not only are you evil but that you'll join the super evil group when you're older or at least support it"

My take was that the Hat usually just decides and you can't really change its mind. It's only if you're a borderline case that you making a decision tips it in favor of one or the other.

That said, Pottermore or something said that the Hat spent a long time on Neville because he argued with it. It wanted to put him in Gryffindor, but he wanted to be put in Hufflepuff because he thought Gryffindor's reputation for bravery was intimidating. So if someone arguing with it can make it pause, I guess your choice does have some sway.

Harry potter is a simple series with not much depth behind what Rowling writes.

I hope everyone realizes that Ravenclaw is destined to be the best house and the other 3 houses are inferior to them in everyway and filled with losers who dont deserve respect

Slytherin being the Evil House and Gryffindor being the Good House are failures of JK Rowling as a writer (or because Harry Potter are childrens books), not failures of the concept

Damn_Underscore posted...

Slytherin being the Evil House and Gryffindor being the Good House are failures of JK Rowling as a writer (or because Harry Potter are childrens books), not failures of the concept

To be fair, she had Snape, Draco, and Slughorn who were all Slytherins that weren't entirely irredeemable. And Wormtail was a Gryffindor too.

Guys they litro explain in the book that the Sorting Hat becomes confused with Harry because he has a piece of Voldemort's soul inside him and that's why the Sorting Hat thinks he should be in Slytherin.

Anyway I agree that the Sorting Hat is problematic not because it's eugenics (it's obviously not) but because they basically assign tags to 11 year olds that'll massively influence their time in school for the next seven years and that's not cool.

On the other hand it's - particularly the Philosoper's Stone where the Sorting Hat is introduced - a children's book and anything can be explained away with "it's magic tho". Like the Sorting Hat is magic and so we can be guaranteed that he's putting every child in the best house for them and so there's no problem because magic.

Longbottom posted...

he's putting every child in the best house for them

"are you good evil nerdy or misc"

DrizztLink posted...

"are you good evil nerdy or misc"

If magic says that this is the best way of categorising children then who are we to argue?

To be fair, plenty of decent kids probably get put in Slytherin because of the whole cunning thing

They just become evil because their home for 9 months out of the year is literally a god damn dungeon

littlebro07 posted...

They just become evil because their home for 9 months out of the year is literally a god damn dungeon

The Slytherin dungeon sounds dope as fuck, your common room looks out underwater.

Longbottom posted...

Anyway I agree that the Sorting Hat is problematic not because it's eugenics (it's obviously not) but because they basically assign tags to 11 year olds that'll massively influence their time in school for the next seven years and that's not cool.

I mean thats how non magic schools work too

Sorting hat is like the least problematic thing in the book
Just wait til you get to the greedy 'goblin' bankers and their big noses

IIRC nothing in the books really describes goblins as being similar to Jewish people, except maybe 'hook-nosed'.

The movies are much worse for it though and JKR had a certain amount of creative control there so I'm sure she could have put a stop to it - or at least spoken out against it - if she really wanted to and she didn't.

NeonTentacles posted...

I hope everyone realizes that Ravenclaw is destined to be the best house and the other 3 houses are inferior to them in everyway and filled with losers who dont deserve respect

One thing to realize is that Ravenclaw has the best common room. They even have their own private rooftop balcony, and if you're skilled with a broom you never have to enter through the normal doorways.

Slytherin never really made sense to me. so you basically have this whole group of kids that you know is going to grow up to be murderers or just shitty people in general

Wasnt slytherin supposed to only have pure bloods in it as well

People reading too much into it. It's entertaining

I think youre reading way too deep into it, to be honest. You really just need to know the gist of it.

Trickfinger posted...

Slytherin never really made sense to me. so you basically have this whole group of kids that you know is going to grow up to be murderers or just shitty people in general

Granted I haven't read the books in about 15 years, but the impression I always got from Slytherin was that not everyone In it was evil, just the kids that are focused on and named. You don't really have any Slytherin characters from what I remember that weren't friends with Harry's bully, and in a giant school like Hogwarts there's going to be lots of other kids in the house.

The other impression I got was that the sorting hat was putting kids in houses that they "belonged" in, and for a lot of these kids they had basically been indoctrinated by their families into thinking that Slytherin was the only acceptable to be in so the Hat put them there because they would fit in.

It was less "you go here and be evil" and more "well, even though you've been indoctrinated this is the place where you'll fit in most..." if that makes sense.

codey posted...

Granted I haven't read the books in about 15 years, but the impression I always got from Slytherin was that not everyone In it was evil, just the kids that are focused on and named. You don't really have any Slytherin characters from what I remember that weren't friends with Harry's bully, and in a giant school like Hogwarts there's going to be lots of other kids in the house.

The other impression I got was that the sorting hat was putting kids in houses that they "belonged" in, and for a lot of these kids they had basically been indoctrinated by their families into thinking that Slytherin was the only acceptable to be in so the Hat put them there because they would fit in.

It was less "you go here and be evil" and more "well, even though you've been indoctrinated this is the place where you'll fit in most..." if that makes sense.

There were plenty of good Slytherins (Slughorn and Snape for example). The hat even wanted to put Harry there.

So it was just 90% of Slytherin that's evil, not 100%?

cjsdowg posted...

The Sorting Hat is basically a eugenics program.

Honestly stopped reading after this because they say a million times in the series that you ultimately can pick the house you want. The hat wanted to put the main character himself in a different house and ended up not doing that

This board is gonna be full of DDIQ takes on HP for the rest of the year lol

Longbottom posted...

If magic says that this is the best way of categorising children then who are we to argue?

"If the State says this is the best way of categorising people then who are we to argue?"

codey posted...

Granted I haven't read the books in about 15 years, but the impression I always got from Slytherin was that not everyone In it was evil, just the kids that are focused on and named. You don't really have any Slytherin characters from what I remember that weren't friends with Harry's bully, and in a giant school like Hogwarts there's going to be lots of other kids in the house.

The other impression I got was that the sorting hat was putting kids in houses that they "belonged" in, and for a lot of these kids they had basically been indoctrinated by their families into thinking that Slytherin was the only acceptable to be in so the Hat put them there because they would fit in.

It was less "you go here and be evil" and more "well, even though you've been indoctrinated this is the place where you'll fit in most..." if that makes sense.

And yet SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE LAST BOOK:

During the battle at Hogwarts they lock up as many Slytherins as they can to avoid complications. No mention of locking up any other students from any other house.

pegusus123456 posted...

To be fair, she had Snape, Draco, and Slughorn who were all Slytherins that weren't entirely irredeemable. And Wormtail was a Gryffindor too.

Not to mention James and Sirius are shown to be asshole bullies towards Snape.

Its almost like people can have redeeming qualities and loathsome qualities. And they can change over time as well.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Pretty much. It works as children's literature, but if you apply even a little bit of scrutiny to the ideas and themes it falls apart. I liked it well enough when I was 12, but not nearly enough to defend it in 2023.

LordFarquad1312 posted...

"If the State says this is the best way of categorising people then who are we to argue?"

The State is fallible. Magic is infallible. Hat magic.

It's always amusing how the tides can change for the silliest reasons. People used to praise JK's writing. Even adults and critics. I specifically recall Stephen fucking King calling her a great writer back in the day.

Now JK is a Twitter troll and people say she's bad, including Stephen Fucking King lol. The writing didn't degrade. It's still good. Our impression of the author degraded. Don't conflate the things.

Yeah, HP is poorly written when compared to literary greats. When you compare her writing to other YA fiction, it's a lot better

Hinakuluiau posted...

Yeah, HP is poorly written when compared to literary greats. When you compare her writing to other YA fiction, it's a lot better

Which is fine because it was never meant to be anything but children's to YA fiction.

I would hate to be TC

I read these books many times over when I was a kid and never thought about the gringotts bankers, Cho Chang, sorting hat being eugenics, etc.

the most sus thing is the bankers Ill admit, everything else is reaching

_Angel_ posted...

Cho Chang

Go on?

LordFarquad1312 posted...

Go on?

I kept hearing about how Cho Chang was racist, then someone explained that its racist because JKR got two random Asian surnames and put them togetherwhich isnt really that bad imo

if anybody would like to correct me on that Im all ears

_Angel_ posted...

I kept hearing about how Cho Chang was racist, then someone explained that its racist because JKR got two random Asian surnames and put them togetherwhich isnt really that bad imo

if anybody would like to correct me on that Im all ears

By itself, it's not a huge deal. But there's a black girl with the surname Brown. An Asian called Patel. A Jewish kid named Goldstein. An Irish kid called Seamus Finnigan (who is dumb and blows things up ).

There's more I'm forgetting. Put it all together and it gets a bit weird.