Harry Potter and the Burning Question
Does she care anymore?
As someone who’s grown up loving Harry Potter immensely, I can’t help but feel frustrated at the state of this franchise in 2020. Despite the lukewarm reaction to Fantastic Beasts 1 in 2016, that’s all it was. Lukewarm. It didn’t live up to the original but it wasn’t offensive. When the Star Wars fanbase erupted into a civil war when Star Wars: The Last Jedi released, I remember being thankful that at least the fan reaction to Fantastic Beasts the year before was more of a “meh” than anything vitriolic.
Then Crimes of Grindlewald happened.
However, this isn’t really about the fanbase at large and is just more about how my views of the Harry Potter franchise have soured thanks to JK Rowling and the platform that sapped away her image, being Twitter. After years of mistakes on Rowling’s part, I just have one question: has JK Rowling stopped caring?
I should preface this first by saying that I am not going to criticize the execution of her concepts because honestly, even the most mundane and overused tropes can still be good if they’re done well. It’s why I’ve been a fan ever since I was a kid. What I have a bone to pick with is the writing choices that Rowling has made within the latest “rebirth” of the Harry Potter franchise, juxtaposed with the ideas she used to have; things that aren’t bad in a vacuum but when thinking about it in the context of a larger universe make that concept questionable.
The best example I can give for this is the Holdo Maneuver in The Last Jedi. Was it visually stunning? Yes. Did it raise far too many questions about why this is the first time we’ve ever seen it? Also yes.
I have no idea why but Rowling has decided to dance all over aspects of her universe that made it so good. What’s am I talking about? Time-Turners. Time travel fiction is very hard to pull off. Yet in my opinion, Prisoner of Azkaban did it amazingly. You cannot change the past, and so the event you try to change is already the past you’ve experienced. When the trio visits Hagrid, and Harry gets pelted in the back of the head by future Hermione, it allows for Rowling to keep within a simple set of rules. No more causality questions. We experience the same scene twice from two different perspectives. When I recommend time travel fiction this movie is always amongst the greats, simply because the stakes cannot be erased by going back in time.
The Cursed Child
Then, The Cursed Child came along and ruined everything. Now, the time turner’s abilities in the play were the result of a new kind of time turner being developed, and so describing this point as a retcon isn’t necessarily valid. However, it does retcon what made the original so good by adding the possibility of other kinds of time travel to be possible in-universe. Time is no longer linear and alternate timelines are now possible. The Cursed Child is bad but most of the problems don’t just blatantly disrespect one of the universe’s best entries in my opinion. I should also point out that Rowling didn’t write this but she plastered her blessing all over it and stated it was canon, so…it still counts I guess.
I actually kind of like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them, so you won’t hear me complaining about it here. It was alright. Not much to talk about.
Crimes of Grindlewald
So, it’s been just over 14 months since Crimes of Grindlewald released, and while I still don’t like it very much, most of the film didn’t annoy me on that level. You know, like that fanboy level. I’m still going to talk about them because they just seem extremely unnecessary rather than being repulsive. It happened three times in the film where I just laughed in the theater:
- Nagini. So it turns out that Voldemort’s pet snake was a maledictus: a human woman trapped in snake form the entire time we’ve known of her character. Even better that Rowling claimed she envisioned this for two decades. I can’t even begin to describe how much of a lie this is. I mean, cmon now. Not one mention of it in the original novels and even then the very idea is just really weird. It means Neville killed a woman, the very same woman that Voldemort himself…drank from. How did she not see how strange this plot recontextualization is?
- One of the most well-known rules of Apparition is the fact that nobody but Dumbledore could apparate within Hogwarts. Okay, so then why do we get a scene of other wizards doing it then? I don’t understand why this basic oversight happened. Does she just not care anymore? This isn’t something where she lets a plot restriction go to make the writing easier either. She could have done anything else and it would have been fine. Fly in on a broom. Fly in on a thestral carriage like at the beginning of the film. Anything.
- Why is the Mirror of Erised used like a Pensieve? Like I’m trying to wrap my head around this one. Rowling decides for the sake of imagery to use a mirror to show the blood pact being formed, yet the same scene could have been done without breaking lore. The Mirror of Erised does not show you your past. It shows you your deepest desire. Are we suggesting here that his deepest desire is the blood pact itself? Okay, but then we wouldn’t see the sequence of it being made. Again, the best way to show this same scene would have been to use the object that shows the past, being a Pensieve.
It wasn’t until the very end of the film where Newt hands over the blood pact plot device to Dumbledore and the film heavily implies that this was the reason why he didn’t handle Grindlewald himself did I feel that fanboy rage. Now that it can be destroyed, boom, Dumbledore conflict resolved. I can’t tell you how annoyed this made me. It’s not because I hate macguffins or anything. As I said, anything can be good if it’s done well. No that’s not why. It made me mad because of Rowling’s additions to her canon outside the novels themselves.
Ever since she revealed that Dumbledore was gay the whole time, it’s pretty evident that she regrets writing a story without much diversity in it. So, how does she cope with this? By retroactively adding this diversity and hoping nobody cares about how weak the sentiment is. In 2015 she claimed that Hermione isn’t necessarily white even though she’s white on multiple book covers and is white in the illustrated edition. The year before she came up with the most generic Jewish last name to add Jewish inclusivity to Harry Potter. It’s not like she could have added to the book and resold the entire thing. She just didn’t do what any rational person would do in their position. She didn’t just apologize, and state that she’s going to be better at being more inclusive in the future. Funnily enough, she did neither. Despite this evident guilt, she STILL didn’t give Dumbledore’s sexuality its due course in Crimes of Grindlewald. Five months after the film’s release she released a statement about Dumbledore and Grindlewald’s “intense sexual relationship.” Why does she keep digging this hole?
Does Rowling care about diversity? If she didn’t, then why did she make all of these retroactive additions that people have repeatedly stated don’t work for them. All it’s done is bring her bad press. It makes more sense that she cares, so then why? Why does she still not properly flesh out the one thing she’s implied she’s always wanted to do. Is it because of Warner Brothers? I don’t know about that one. I don’t think they’d dare try to cross her. I don’t know. It seems like Rowling just does not care about making good stories anymore and is just doing whatever. Show don’t tell is one of the most elementary lessons in writing. Even though Fantastic Beasts 3 was delayed by a year, it only happened because people trashed Crimes of Grindlewald. I would not be surprised if Rowling has a cowriter when the title is announced.
Strange Twitter Activity
And for the cherry on top. For whatever reason, Rowling has this habit of tweeting about her universe in ways we do not need to know about, like this monstrosity. This is a real thing; something she wanted us to know about. Why? I know it was revealed in response to National Trivia Day, but seriously I’m more than certain people would have rather known about something else. Harry Potter has a lot of mysteries; the plot itself usually revolves around them. You could have easily answered a question the fans have. I know a question I’ve always had is the origin of the unforgivable curses. I understand that part of the intrigue of these fantasies is leaving them up to the imagination, but come on, you can reveal something better than this.
This might seem like I’m going off-topic in regards to this but hear me out. The allegations of transphobia are further proof that Rowling just does not care about things anymore. Let me be clear here, I am all for people living their life how they want to. What Rowling has liked on her twitter seems to paint a pretty clear picture of where she stands. My question is why in the fuck did she use her widely publicizable account to like those tweets? Hello? Did she not see the potential for disaster here? I’m over here shaking my head wondering what she thought would happen when pressing that heart button. She just does not care about how she’s viewed, whether it be her personal views or how she’s tanking her franchise.
Thankfully I can say that my view of the franchise as a whole remains mostly fine, though it’s been knocked down a few notches. I have no hype whatsoever for the next Fantastic Beasts installment, though, which is the main reason why I made wrote this. I can remember a simpler time when I still thought the world of this franchise. Still, what’s been happening in recent years can’t erase that feeling I’ve gotten from reading the books and watching the movies.
