Or, in the case of the Special Forces Dude Pseudonym mysteries, the casual brutalization of a trans woman. It's this morbid, amoral curiosity that makes you also think you're reading something just a bit beyond the bounds of acceptability, which works on both children and adults
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This ultimately pays off in the stuff a lot of people have talked about where Wizard Book Lady seems like she "totally called" the rise of fascism or whatever, and depicts it very vividly in the later books. It's a really emotional gut punch.
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Of course she already had people hooked by that point, but I think her ability to project omnipresent messed-up-ness beneath all the goofiness was always there, and drew people in. The books always felt to me like they had an inherent tension a lot of other fantasy lacked.
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
So here's a take: The Magicians is often called a "deconstruction" or even a straight up "parody/satire" of Harry Potter, because its world is so dark and nihilistic and fucked up on a foundational level ...But really, that's just taking Harry Potter seriously
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
A logical and moral ending to Harry Potter *should* be our heroes realizing that this whole world they live in is monstrous and indefensible It should end with everything falling to pieces on them But it didn't, because she chickened out
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
The core appealing thing about the setting -- the Secrecy Statute, the veil they hide behind from Muggles -- is an atrocity Wiping Muggles' memories without their consent is an atrocity Withholding healing magic that could save millions of lives right now is an atrocity
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
If the good guys seriously gave a shit about the values they professed -- that the lives of wizards and Muggles are equally valuable, that no one has the right to act better than someone else because they have powers -- then Harry should've torn the veil down by the epilogue
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
But he didn't Even though that's the most obvious thing that needs to happen just from a storytelling POV, to signify the world changing It's just a dropped thread, same as how we never hear a single word about what happened with the house-elves
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
There's SO MUCH of this shit -- What's the deal with using soul-sucking demons as prison guards? Hey, doesn't Griphook actually have a pretty good argument that the Sword of Gryffindor is stolen property from the Goblins? Why DON'T werewolves and vampires and giants have rights?
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
And it's used as window dressing, like to be fair it sucks you in with this very atmospheric sense of apocalyptic doom Everything is fucked, the world is built on rotten foundations, the sins of the past call for a reckoning And then it all just... goes away
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Not only does the epilogue never mention how any of this gets resolved -- gotta give the fanfic writers something to write -- it doesn't even mention THAT it gets resolved No non-human students waiting at the platform to get into Hogwarts, no big changes to the status quo
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
Like hey I'll give Rowling credit for this -- she stumbled on ideas that are extremely compelling, even revolutionary, for young minds But because she didn't know what she was doing she didn't follow through
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl
Take the Dementors The Dementors are an atrocity, impossible to justify, as close to pure evil as can physically exist If it's true that Azkaban cannot function without Dementors, then Azkaban must fall If the Ministry cannot function without Azkaban, the Ministry must fall
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