224
I think it's because the author is an asshole
(hexbear.net)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
224 points (100.0% liked)
Chapotraphouse
14257 readers
725 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The other thing is that Harry Potter is obsolete. Its a thirty year old series that hasn't seen a major installment in nearly two decades and its not good enough to survive the extended test of time on its own merit. More importantly, is that the growth it spurned in the YA novel industry led it to produce works that outclass Harry Potter in every way.
So can we please let Harry Potter die so that people stop asking me what my fucking Hogwarts house is?
lord of the rings keeps not dying, and people always hope to recreate that sort of thing. it aint working, folks.
Yeah, this comes from a weird place that like all franchises just deserve to live on forever or something. How many people are still talking about MASH, one of the most watched television shows of its time? Or more recently Twilight, which at one time redefined an entire literary genre and had the biggest films in the world, much like Harry Potter? Obviously, I don't discount at all Rowling's everything she's done to harm her brand thing here, but why is the baseline assumption that Harry Potter should live on forever? Media franchises come and go all the time.
It’s the millennials, or at least the ones that get into the position of writing op-eds for the NY Crimes, having an existential crisis over the fact that the defining media franchise of their youth doesn’t have what it takes to become one of the timeless classics. It gives them the feeling that their cultural moment will fade.
Doing the “kids these days don’t know how telegraph works” but with JK Transphobe’s mediocre fiction novels
The bourgeoisie of any generation always seem to do this, try to hold onto cultural relevance for as long as possible. Weirdly enough it should still be “millennial’s day” in a normal world now with them leading the charge.
Like part of maturity should be accepting not everything in your day was a winner.
Yeah the oldest millennials are in their mid forties, forget middle management there’s some of them in upper management now. Yet there’s still this attitude in most organizations of “Millennials are the kids in the room, they don’t get to run stuff yet.” So the Millennials are stuck in this spot where Gen X and Boomers treat them like kids and Zoomers see them as old and out of touch.
At some point the word "millennial" for boomers and gen X just became a generic synonym for "young person," I've seen the word applied to kids born in 2010.
I call 'em like I see 'em
Harry Potter: loser
Dragon Ball Z: Winner
Someday Dragon Ball Super apologists are going to become normal, like Star Wars prequel apologists
At least we can safely say GT apologists will never surface, right?
Right?
It’s because we’re in the modern era of the mega franchise where they stay relevant far past their prime. Everybody wants to be like Marvel in the 2010’s, so now any series that’s had a history of great popularity is getting reboots, remakes, tv spin-offs, etc.
Harry Potter’s growth is largely attributed to the media urge to get their own mega franchise after seeing just how popular Pokémon had become worldwide, as well as Scholastic losing their golden goose of Goosebumps because of legal issues with R.L. Stine.
There were attempts to do to Harry Potter what they’ve been doing with other franchises but only mixed results have come. The Fantastic Beasts series failed, the broadway spin-off play failed, and the tv show looks like it won’t be received well.
Only the movies and the Universal theme park have had success. Hogwarts Legacy was very popular but it didn’t last much longer after its release date.
Something that’s left out is Harry Potter still being very popular in the global south. A lot of young kids read it when they start to learn English and if anything it’s made a bit of a comeback, at least from what I’ve seen in my area.
On the other hand, I’m pretty happy that Percy Jackson seems to be doing well again despite the original movies being God awful. People told me they were “fad books” but I got more out of them than I did with Harry Potter.
Same in South America tbh, but, I have noticed that there was a major decline in HP stuff since the 2010s. Manga and Comics are still very popular, mostly because they are translated and localized to Spanish and Portuguese very well since at least the 1970s.
That is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. I'm talking mad shit about HP but its engaging to first-time readers and the reading level ramps up as the series progresses, which is useful for teaching first and second languages.
I definitely talk about MASH. But most of the time I first have to explain what MASH was.
BTW all of MASH is on archive.org
Sidney Freedman emote when
Truly an incredible guy.
I will never stop talking about MASH
And like, even the houses are terrible and an even worse way of categorizing personality than like zodiac or Miggs Bryers.
The houses are literally main characters, losers, evil people, and smart people (except the smartest person is in the main character house).
The houses are the sort of thing where I'm not sure how much of it is bad world building and how much of it is just British.
Definitely both. I never want to read the words "head boy" again in my entire life.
Such a missed opportunity to position the houses as related to aptitude in a particular type of magic. That would give them an actual character.
Then Rowling woulda needed to think about her magic system a little more then not at all. She just made up whatever spell would suit the situation and then she mostly forgets about them. The fucking candy is more clearly defined then the spells.
The spells start off as 'here's a quirky spell to make your enemy's snot turn into bats' and end up as 'here's the fiftieth version of 'gun spell''
I just realized the houses never specilized in anything other then the personality type you need to join depsite being fucking wizards.
What an awful writer lol.
For real so much slop is just infinitely better. Dresden files is pulp slop but actually good. The Sanderson-verse is also way better slop.
Why can't we get live action cowboy wizard Harry Dresden and some wild anime take on the Cosmere dammit.
There was a brief live action Dresden files on the Sci Fi channel iirc
Neat. I bet it was terrible, I may just look it up.
Would make a great adaptation if it got the right treatment now and there's like 18 books so it could have legs.
For real for real. Im forever bitter that the release of HP overshadowed His Dark Materials since HDM subverted the genre before YA even got established. Though I suppose "A coming of age story thats meant to be Narnia but militantly atheist; containing child death, concentration camps, feminist subtext that extends beyond 'girl power' and talking polar bears brutally murdering eachother for sport" is a hard sell to a general audience.
Infinite admiration for the love Dresden Files people give to the Dresden Files. Do you have a recommendation for someone who may be interested but doesn't know where to start?
Just a warning that the Dresden Files writing (not the story, just like the pure writing) is kind of cheesy and subpar, especially in the beginning, but IMHO the author gets better as he goes on.
It keeps the boomer lib energy throughout though
For Dresden just start with book one Storm Front. It keeps escalating in satisfying ways and I can't really recommend starting anywhere but the beginning. Also the central romance plot pays off very well in a way that reminds a bit of Mulder and Scully in X files.
Dresden Files release order is chronological except for some of the short stories. Book 1 is the unfortunately named Storm Front.
I never got into Dresden files, but I enjoyed that authors take on roman Pokemons vs Zerg. Those were cool books.
As a member of the general audience, I am interested in the polar bear fights
You might like Rivers of London for an urban fantasy crime series set in the UK. It's less horny, but more cop.
Twenty Palaces was pretty good as well, more of a grim tone than Dresden, though it sadly only got three or four books.
Edit: Oh, neat, the author was able to crowdfund doing another pair of books.
Wonderful I will have to check those out.
Reject Hogwarts; embrace Strixhaven.
You're forgetting they did the fantastic beasts stuff unless you don't consider that major or a harry Potter thing
I'm not counting Uninspired Animals as major. It got a movie and tv show and all that but it's not to the same caliber as the rest of the series IMO.
Wait, there was a fantastic beasts TV show? Damn that's an impressive level of failure if I didn't hear of it despite being the target demographic.
I think it was a mistake to not just do more Harry Potter (like as a brand thing) however that would manifest but maybe even J.K realized that by the end of the series he's a sauceless loser and not a character people would keep reading about
It's so frustrating how true this is... with Rowling as the writer. You could make a Wizard-Cop Nazi Hunter story that is absolutely amazing, but obviously Rowling can't lmao
Should've just done more Hogwarts. Had the recipe for an easy cashgrab with "magical school" and you can even dream of continuing it a la Doctor Who by rotating the cast every 7 years. People love magical misfits and "magic school" is such an easy genre to write if you've got a captive audience of millenials that will watch any half-decent potterslop.
Honestly the big issue is Rowling. Both as a writer (she won't really let go of the property and involves herself with every project, making it worse) and as a person (she sucks and people hate her. Her not only making money but being involved with a project makes it toxic to a lot)