Comments on: Harry Plotter?

By: Callimachus

Callimachus — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:36:30 +0000

The other moral of the story is that George Lucas is a terrible dialogue writer.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:18:05 +0000

This is more than a little reminiscent of the alleged Bush-bashing by George Lucas in the dialogue of “Star Wars Episode III”. It, too, was overblown - or, at the very least, was overcome by so many mixed messages as to thoroughly obscure whatever message Lucas was trying to convey about Bush. (For example, Obi-Wan’s much-maligned line “Only the Sith deal in absolutes” is itself an absolute statement. And likening Bush to a Sith lord isn’t much of a condemnation in light of the Jedi’s own conduct in that movie, particularly Mace Windu attempting to murder Palpatine in cold blood.)

The moral of both these stories, I guess, is that it’s usually best to avoid reading too much of real-world politics into tales of fantasy worlds like Rowling’s Hogwarts and Lucas’s galaxy far, far away.

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:20:46 +0000

Come on Erika…you actually want to get into semantics on this one? In either case I still disagree and the assumption is completely apt, regardless of meaning.

And forgive me if I don’t look in the dictionary to see what “wretched” means when you call Bush names.

Jeez…

By: Erika

Erika — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 15:26:24 +0000

In this case “wretched” can mean many things. It could mean despicable OR it could also mean of poor or mean character, in a deplorable state of distress, or of very inferior quality. Take your pick, but next time consider looking in a dictionary before you assume which meaning it means. Also you chose what meaning it was, not me.

By: charons_oar

charons_oar — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:48:45 +0000

My understanding is that the book is an allegory for 1930’s Europe, placing Dumbledore in the role of Churchill, the minister of Magic in the role of Chamberlain, Voldemort as Hitler, mudbloods as jews/slavs/gypsys … (disclaimer: I haven’t read the book)

By: Roxy

Roxy — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 03:16:29 +0000

Does it really matter if she is or is not anti-american? Her books will be just as good either way. Or do people read books for the author’s political opinions? ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s nice to know that there are other people who catch errors in books (by the way, there are also some errors in quotation useÃ¢â‚¬Â¦). Anyway, I finished reading the sixth Harry Potter 2 days ago, and I liked it.

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 23:15:17 +0000

Anti-americanism, spanti-americaism. What a bunch of hooey! I haven’t cracked my copy of the new book yet (you know what they say about anticipation) but i’ve not seen that in any of the rest of them.

Of course so may of us Americans are so self centered, feeling the world revolves should revolve around us, that we may be taking the LACK of Americans in the book as a negative.

From my point of view, it’s refreshing.

By: Paul Brinkley

Paul Brinkley — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 21:10:51 +0000

My half-arsed take on Rowling: she really isn’t that heavily involved in politics. Not everyone has to be, y’know.

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:58:02 +0000

Erika…a wretched man? Hardly. Osama Bin Laden is a wretched man. Saddam Hussein is a wretched man. Kim Jon-Il is a wrteched man.

However, is Bush a divisive man who can’t admit mistakes and has pushed his party way too far to the right? IMHO, yes.

By: Erika

Erika — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:37:16 +0000

Also there was another typo in the very beginning of the book. The editor left the word fog misspelled it was “fug” instead of “fog”. Fug is a word but it was definately in the wrong context.

By: Erika

Erika — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:32:10 +0000

Well if J.K.Rowling is referring to our president as a “wretched man” then good for her. He is. But I highly doubt she wrote that phrase just to take a hit at the American government. If she really felt that way I’m sure she would just say it like so many people do. Also I believe she does not mention Americans in her novels because she is trying to create a whole new world with her writings and its supposed to be an uncommon and different world, and you can’t have that kind of sensation when you have familiar things in a story. Its hard for American children to imagine Europe if they’ve never been there so J.K. Rowling draws the image for them, a country of foreigners to young American children, a magical place like they have never dreamed. And as for there not being an American quidditch team that too makes sense. In basically every other country in the world soccer is the predominant sport besides maybe baseball. In America we have football as a priority. Yes we have a soccer team but soccer is not as important as football in America. Quidditch is like the wizard version of soccer. European people play soccer, European wizards play quidditch. It only makes sense. And besides if you’re an American writer how often do you write about things that happen in a different country or continent that you don’t know everything about? Not often. Basic rule of thumb, stick with what you know.

By: Callimachus

Callimachus — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:29:51 +0000

My son, now 14, stayed up half the night reading it last night. When he gets up this afternoon, I’ll ask him how it is. But he probably won’t tell me because he’ll insist I read it, too. I heard a few laughs from him as he sat with the book on the couch. He also caught an editing gaffe — bless his junior copy editor heart — “site” where it should have read “sight.”

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:26:33 +0000

Yeah, this is pretty silly. However, if you believe that the media types have more influence than the politicians, I’d say that some will definitely pick up this Harry Potter meme and run with it.

All I know is that the few people who have read this book so far so it’s incredibly sad, but wonderful nontheless.

I can’t wait to read it.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 17:24:42 +0000

I find it anti-americanism a pretty strained reading of Rowling. The books are obviously British and don’t refence America at all, which is a far cry from denouncing the great satan.

Actually, if we’re to deduce anything about J.K.’s political views from the books, she seems to have an anti-government streak that would warm the hearts of American libertarians. Politicians and the wizard government are uniformly depicted as incompetent, corrupt and fradulent. She also seems to clearly support the right of individual wizards to “bear wands” and use them in self-defense, rather than trusting to the dubious protections of law enforcement.