Goodbye Harry Potter: "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone" Review (Spoilers)

[matt_zimmer]

Goodbye Harry Potter: Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

I have decided to read and review the Harry Potter series and its associated books and movies written by J.K. Rowling again. For the last time. Knowing what I know about Rowling now, my appraisal must be honest and unflinching. The interesting thing is many of the negative opinions you are about to hear are things I've always thought. I did not express them because although I believed Rowling was somewhat of a flaky writer, I thought that was somewhat forgivable because I also believed her heart was in the right place. I now know it was not and never was. So I can go over my problems with the saga without worrying about offending people. Which sounds like a messed up thing for a critic to fear, but really, that's probably why Rowling skated for as long as she did.

The first note I want to make about the first book in the Harry Potter series is that it is fucking MEAN as hell. The humor is cruel, the characters are spiteful, and bullying is normalized. The answer to bullying here is louder and more obnoxious bullying. Ursula K. LeGuin noted before she died how mean-spirited the books are, and that is a damn good fucking note. There is a level of cruelty and toxicity involved in this popular book series that should not be aimed at children.

Clearly part of this is inspired by Roald Dahl. He often had adult antagonists of his kid heroes not just be bullying, but abusive. But even the kids who got revenge like George in George's Marvelous Medicine don't seem to be as spiteful and cynical as Harry and his friends.

One notable feature of the books is the amount of rampant looksism it engages it. Fat-shaming is normal, and Hagrid's torture of Dudley Dursley for it is portrayed as righteous, which is about as fucked up a thing as you can imagine an adult doing to a child. And I never fail to notice whenever Harry meets somebody for the first time, he automatically focuses on their physical defects. It's especially bad when most of the people in Slytherin are described as rat-faced or trollish. When Harry thinks Millicent Bulstrode looks "hard-faced" I'm like "There is no wonder Rowling believes the toxic bullshit she does." She's also not a person I would trust around a child BECAUSE of shit like this.

Putting a value judgment on a character's personality based upon their visual description is something a bad writer does. Not merely a cliched writer. A bad one. As in a writer with poor intentions. This describes J.K. Rowling to a T, and I'm glad we're finally allowed to point this true, obvious thing out now.

All I can say about this is that Harry Potter comes off as an extremely vapid and shallow character for the first things he notices about another character being how ugly they are, and in what specific ways, even his so-called friends. Every time.

I will go heavily into Rowling's shitty prose in future installments, but I'm being a LITTLE hands-off for the first book, not because it's the first book, and she deserves some grace there, but because I'm reading the crappy American version, which essentially babied up and dumbed down a LOT of the written word without Rowling's input. This book definitely has the worst prose of all of them, and I can't exactly blame Rowling for all of it. Rowling's OWN prose is shitty enough, and I will be talking smack about it soon enough.

I do want to point out, that the end of the Halloween chapter is a truly embarrassing bit of writing, where Rowling claims you can't NOT like someone after knocking out a 12 foot troll together, I feel comfortable in saying that was almost CERTAINLY not a thing lost in translation or Americanized to shit. I believe that entire shitty passage is down entirely to Rowling. First book, but it's not her last shitty passage, so little grace from me. But I can say it's the one shitty passage I am 100% comfortable tying to Rowling, rather than bastardized translations. Total cringe.

I think the thing I need to talk in-depth about in this review is the fact that the plot is SO fucking shoddy. The amount of plot-related and character stupidity needed to even put Harry in the position to be the hero of the book is intolerable and unacceptable. I think Harry is a pretty shitty kid. But all of the adults in his life are MUCH worse. Specifically Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid.

Yeah, Ooo, Snape is mean to him too! Snape in general is a shockingly crappy teacher, and we later learn he's probably present at Hogwarts for different reasons than mere teaching. Here's the thing: Snape does not hide his abusiveness the way Dolores Umbridge will in the fifth book. Which means Dumbledore knows ALL about it. Dumbledore is his BOSS, in charge of keeping the students safe and happy, and he lets Severus behave this way? I don't for ONE second believe Snape is such an out of control bastard that if Dumbledore set him aside and ordered him to cool it, that Snape wouldn't figure out a way to get Harry Potter out of his own head. Maybe the actual reason Snape is a shitty teacher who never improves is because the Headmaster never tells him to. He never gives him that obvious note that kids need to be treated respectfully. Firmly is okay, but show some Goddamn class and be the fucking adult. And because I don't think Snape is the pure monster Harry thinks he is, I'd think he'd do it.

I'll get to my problems with Hagrid soon enough, but the fact that Dumbledore is not just bad headmaster, but a pure shithead, pisses me off. Harry was in the hospital for a few days. He could have awarded those final Gryffindor points at ANY time before the closing ceremony, where he does it just to embarrass the Slytherins. Maybe Dumbledore's time of brushing up against the Slytherins might be better spent discouraging that entire House from going all in on their Pure-Blood racism and genocidal tendencies instead of juvenile pranks. Rowling thinks this is a major victory for Gryffindor and a major black eye for Slytherin. She's wrong. This is squarely a major character defect of Albus Dumbledore. Never good for anything but starting shit over crap that doesn't actually matter. When you actually need him? He's never there. He is a shitty adult authority figure.

His worst doings are indeed in that last chapter, but I think the absolute shittiest thing he does is claim James Potter saved Snape's life. Not only does he not give Harry the context that James was saving his OWN ass too, he tells Harry Snape saved his life to keep things square with James. Which is BULLSHIT of the highest order. Dumbledore has promised Severus never to breathe a WORD about his love for Lily Evans, but since Dumbledore knows it, what a shitty reason to give for Snape doing that. It's cruel to Severus, who is supposedly Dumbledore's friend.

Let's get to Hagrid. I could never fucking stand this character but his unprovoked disfiguring assault on Dudley Dursley is the tip of the iceberg about what a fucking asshole this guy. The whole dragon thing is HIS fault. Harry, Ron, and Hermione went out of their way to protect him from getting in trouble with the law, even covering for him AFTER the fact after they are caught. And Hagrid, piece of half-human, half-giant shit that he is allows them to take the blame, be shunned by the entirety of the school, and doesn't say a fucking thing. Remind me WHY those kids always protect this asshole in future books while he left them hanging out to dry like that?

But But Hagrid would have be fired or even arrested! So the fuck what? He deserves it! And if he had an ounce of courage or integrity he'd own his part in that and take his lumps. What's infuriating to me is Rowling never ONCE has the kids resent it. It never occurs to them they are being left holding the bag by an irresponsible adult who clearly doesn't give two shits about them or the trouble he's caused. And this is classic Hagrid all throughout the rest of the books.

This is why the arc is SO shoddy. This is why the characters and scenarios as written are not believable or credible. In order to put Harry in the hero role, Rowling has to make Dumbledore literally useless and Hagrid openly harmful. First book jitters might excuse some of it, but this is Dumbledore and Hagrid ALL throughout the run. Clearly Rowling is incapable of writing an arc for a kid hero without making the adults in Harry's life utter shitheads. Which might not piss me off as much as it does if Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't all look at Dumbledore and Hagrid so favorably. Dumbledore, I can ALMOST understand, because I only know exactly how dirty Dumbledore is doing by those kids after having read all seven books. But Hagrid? They should let him take the fall, and fuck him, that's why.

Another gripe: Professor McGonagle has them turning mice into matchboxes? Animal torture much? How the fuck is this considered acceptable reading material for children? It is freaking APPALLING on every level you can think of.

I wanted to love Hermione solving Snape's puzzle. But it feels unsatisfying and like a cheat instead. She just hands Harry the right bottle, and doesn't go through the solution with him like a good riddle answer SHOULD be. He's the hero, so if he doesn't KNOW the answer, he should at least LEARN to answer to go forward. It feels entirely unearned instead. There is no impressive magic to Hermione's supposed intelligence if she doesn't explain exactly HOW she came to pick the smallest bottle to go forward. It feels extremely lazy, which is a major problem for these books.

People have noted there is an Antisemitism attached to the Goblins of Gringotts, and yup, that's a real problem, even in the first book.

Okay, let's talk about what the book did right. There HAD to be a couple of things.

I think the Centaurs are extremely interesting characters, right off the bat. We immediately learn they don't just have political differences with Wizards, they see the world in an entirely different way, which adds potential conflict, especially for Firenze. For my money their brief appearance near the end is the most interesting part of the first book.

The other thing I should really REALLY compliment Rowling on, and this is a person I DON'T like complimenting, specifically for story reasons... But the shit with the vanishing glass in the second damn chapter is pitch perfect. Rowling is a shoddy arc planner. There was not a SINGLE false beat in the scene with the snake the later revelation that Harry is a Parselmouth ever contradicted. It fits flawlessly. What is most impressive isn't what Rowling shows, it's what she DECLINES to show. Dudley claims he saw Harry talking to the snake, but he obviously didn't HEAR him, or he would have heard him hissing in Parseltongue. And the distinction between what Dudley saw and heard is clear in this book, and absolutely 100% necessary to fit in with the NEXT book, and I can't pick any threads there. As far as arc set-up goes, it is a rare thing in the saga that plays perfectly in hindsight. As pissed as I am at Rowling as a person, and as little as I think of her as a writer, I won't deny that is a good thing and selling point to the first book.

I'll save my thoughts of Grindelwald for later, but Rowling setting him up here feels less like random serendipity later on, and more like she already had bigger plans for him. I'll choose the charitable explanation and compliment her for it.

Not about the Invisibility Cloak being one of the Deathly Hallows though. That was a pure last book retcon.

One of the reasons Harry Potter gets praised so heavily is because of "how the story grabs you, and you can't put it down". I think I see what people mean by that, but I don't necessarily think that means the books are great. The books are accessible, and easy to read and get into. Yes. Rowling definitely has that specific skillset as a storyteller. Are they good though? High quality? Something that will stand the test of time? I don't think so. I shouldn't really NEED to say this, but Fun With Dick And Jane is a light, breezy read too. Those workbooks are not literature, and would never be confused for such. I think well-written books are HARD to read. They challenge readers, and make them think in ways they never have before, and raise questions they will need to puzzle out on their own.

It's the first damn book, so I can't go TOO deeply into the problematic messaging and morality of the books, which got more and more troubling as they went along. But all of the questions and supposed controversies the books later raise? They either take the wrong side of those issues, or don't understand the issue to begin with. Somebody famously once asked J.K. Rowling what the saga was about, and she seriously said with no trace of irony or self-awareness: Choices. She is that incompetent a writer and that vapid of a person that she thinks what she's shown us is ABOUT that. We'll get further into what bullshit that is in later reviews (probably starting in the review for Book Three) but the books being easy to read is entirely different than them being supposedly good. Because I'm thinking they aren't. And I can say that now. Good. *1/2.