There's even a couple genuinely decent passages in Potter (as there would be in anything of that size); the woman has *conceptual* potential. I'd say one of her biggest problems creatively is precisely that she doesn't embrace her influences openly, but hides them?
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Like it's not that Rowling doesn't have any talent whatsoever; I don't think anyone is wholly without ability to tell a story. But there are passages where she gets genuinely into her material, and there's transparent filler cruft where this sort of thing occurs.
1 reply 1 retweet 52 likes -
I find it very telling that the only line I actually remember from her work is when she describes Petunia Dursley as being very thin, but having "nearly twice the usual amount of neck." because it's a *savage* burn and that's clearly where her talents lie.
2 replies 2 retweets 95 likes -
I don't get how people don't get just from reading the way the narrator in Harry Potter talks that JK Rowling is a really mean person in real life who was obviously one of the girls with a talent for cruel bullying taunts when she was in school She seriously can't help herself
6 replies 28 retweets 184 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
Like part of the reason the Harry Potter books are "tight third-person narration" rather than actual first person is so that the narrator can be hilariously viciously cuttingly insulting about the people Harry interacts with without making Harry himself seem like an asshole
4 replies 11 retweets 172 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
That's kind of the whole point of the Cormoran Strike books, like the "Robert Galbraith" persona and Cormoran Strike himself as a narrator are JKR putting on this mask of a tough working-class war veteran badass macho dude so she can just go ham on being a huge asshole
2 replies 5 retweets 128 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
Both Cormoran himself and "Robert Galbraith" can just fucking roast people constantly like an insult comic at an open mic And it comes off as likable brutal honesty when it's this weathered masculine dad saying it, preserving Jo's own image as this warm cuddly maternal librarian
1 reply 6 retweets 114 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
It seriously sends me how part of JKR's public persona is being "nice", like she's seriously one of the least nice people in the world She used to dish *constantly* about how all the hateable characters in Harry Potter were her getting back at someone in real life
4 replies 32 retweets 187 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
It was petty as fuck Like the person who inspired Dolores Umbridge didn't even actually do anything wrong She just goes on for pages about how she had this teacher who talked all cutesy and girly and had a little ribbon in her hair and it filled her with contempt and disgust
2 replies 10 retweets 76 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Teknogrot and
Omg so the centaur punishment was directed at an actual human being she knew in real life??
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
She admitted that the hatred she had for this teacher was completely irrational and unjustifiable and that it had nothing to do with the actual in-universe reasons Umbridge is evil, which were all invented But sometimes feelings like that stick with you I guess
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