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Devil's Advocate
 
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Tart (9/22/2006)
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but what makes you hate Harry Potter so much?
I've become allergic to heroes who are heroes by virtue of blood/some bizarre abilities. The author may be in love with the character, but I'll find myself more inclined to root for the guy who doesn't have those abilities/magical lineage and has got where they are by intelligence and hard work (often the villain!). That's one reason.
I think I find his personality basically irritating (all the more because the author dotes on him). Her attempts to build dimension into him are simply rather feeble - he puts me most in mind of Anakin. Only not quite as good.
There's an aristo-loving thread running through a lot of fantasy - closest comparison is Jedi. People who have abilities which effectively relegate everyone else to serf status - homo superior (after all, they both breed true, don't they?). And Harry Potter is the King Aristo, elevated by blood and his mummie's love (ugh - guess those other victims just weren't loved enough as children) who spends a lot of his time bemoaning his elevated position (damn these lazerous eyes of mine!).
Tart (9/22/2006)
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and the muggles are a sub-race? not exactly oppressed are they?
Magic seems to breed true, so it is a racial thing. Muggles seem to be clearly homo-inferior (surely that's what "muggle" means - we can abuse and manipulate and hide from them as we please). Not oppressed? I'd always assumed that they simply stole the raw resources for their society from the muggles (why wouldn't they when it's so easy to cover up the tracks?).
Seems to me that the situation calls for some prompt and effective genocide or the muggles will go the way of the neanderthals. Given the advantages that the homo-superior have access to, I find my sympathies with the muggles.
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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Devil's Advocate
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Er, isn't the villian in Harry Potter (if you exclude his aunt/uncle, who are basicly there as a comedy aside/homage to practically every evil grown up in childrens literature ala Roald Dahl) also a super powered guy? In fact, supposedly more powerful than HP*. It's not like he put the man-hours in, is it?
clearly he's a whinging cunt, but aren't most teenage boys?
As for the muggles/magic thing, I think it is more a case of them leading parrallel but seperate existences. Sure, the train to hogwarts might lead from paddington (i think) but it's not the SAME paddington. A better example of this thing would be Neverwhere.
*though not really, as he doesn't win. see: LOTR
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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I do talk a good fight
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I'm with Marios on this one, mostly. I only read the 1st HP book & didn't particularly enjoy it, for a variety of reasons. I'm more familiar with Tolkein's Aragorn and Howard's Conan though:
WHAT WOULD ARAGORN DO --
Situation: A brief tangle with the local law, in which you're accused of a Crime You Did Not Commit.
WWAD: Sneak out of town, or use your Innate Nobility to convince the local law that Everything Will Be All Right.
Situation: A corrupt, half-mad ruler is failing your people.
WWAD: Wait till the ruler dies, then step in to save the day, with the help of a load of allies who recognized your Innate Nobility and served you, at the last minute (when loads of your people have already died as a direct result of the previous ruler's cockups), using your Innate Nobility to convince everyone you have a Divine Right to be King.
Situation: A wench is interested in you.
WWAD: Your Innate Nobility will not permit you to return her affections, since your heart is promised to an Elven Princess in some kind of weird, co-dependent, mutually destructive Doomed Lurve.
Situation: Someone doesn't believe you're there to help.
WWAD: Mutter something trite about how "All that glitters is not gold," then wait for them to recognize your Innate Nobility.
WHAT WOULD CONAN DO --
Situation: A brief tangle with the local law, in which he's accused of a Crime He Did Not Commit.
WWCD: Smash the judge over the head with the nearest blunt instrument, steal a horse, hijack a boat, join a pirate crew, and lay waste to the entire coastline, aye, from the Southern Islands to the Argossean shore! OR use your pantherish reflexes and barbaric sneakiness to stab one officer of the Watch in the groin, simultaneously kicking another one, and gouging another's eyes out, then make good your escape with a quick quip about the weakness of civilized men.
Situation: A corrupt, half-mad ruler is failing your (in this case, adopted) people.
WWCD: Stage a coup d'etat using the loyalties you've built up over the years by your own hard work. Strangle the King on his own balcony. Cry out, "BY THIS AXE I RULE!" and kill anyone who says you shouldn't be King.
Situation: A wench is interested in you.
WWCD: Press the wench to your manly chest and stop her mouth with passionate kisses.
Situation: Someone doesn't believe you're there to help.
WWCD: Press the wench to your manly chest and stop her mouth with passionate kisses. (She'll soon realize you're not her enemy -- or she won't care.)
Conan's a lot more fun; he's a direct-actionist who gets what he wants by mindset, cunning, and prowess. Aragorn gets it all handed to him on a plate, because after all he has the Blood of Wotsit and is Born To Be King.
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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Wag
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Tart (9/22/2006)
Er, isn't the villian in Harry Potter (if you exclude his aunt/uncle, who are basicly there as a comedy aside/homage to practically every evil grown up in childrens literature ala Roald Dahl) also a super powered guy? In fact, supposedly more powerful than HP*. It's not like he put the man-hours in, is it?
I wanted to put in a little coda saying, "except in this case", but then I thought about it and decided that, while Voldeymold is also homo-superior (and thus not nearly as cool as a muggle who had someone come to threaten the secret homo-superior state) you do get the impression that, like most supervillains, years of work, genius and ruthlessness have been poured into getting where he is (compared to Protagonist, who normally has their super-powers shoved upon by virtue of their square-chin). So, it's a bit of an intermediate case, but I agree that it doesn't really apply here (so well as it does in many other cases), but it was in the same class of "Gripes about Ubermensch".
Tart (9/22/2006)
clearly he's a whinging cunt, but aren't most teenage boys?
In shit books, yes. Interesting books tend to have deeper characters - you don't have to like them, but at least they have some depth. I read Pullman not too long afterwards and it was clearly superior (although it had been somewhat oversold to me, so a lot of things disappointed me about it).
Tart (9/22/2006)
As for the muggles/magic thing, I think it is more a case of them leading parrallel but seperate existences.
Ah - like rich people and poor people in properly segregated societies?
Obviously, the Good Guys are Good and the Bad Guys are Bad. Somewhere a book or three in she seems to have decided to sprinkle a bit of grey in, but it's too little too late.
Tart (9/22/2006)
Sure, the train to hogwarts might lead from paddington (i think) but it's not the SAME paddington. A better example of this thing would be Neverwhere.
Gaiman compared with Rowling? Maybe they'll do a joint book later?
I've not read Neverwhere - I've only seen the TV adaption, which people who have read the book describe as dire, so I don't know if Gaiman ever explained why it is that the weirdoes from one world don't devour the inferiors in the other, but his pieces tend towards the mystical but do so in a manner which doesn't leave one imputing unnaturally altruistic motivations to large populaces (I don't think the creatures in Neverwhere stayed held off dominating the rest of humanity because they were Good people and that would be Wrong).
Crucially, Neverwhere seemed to be a different world with minimal intersection or interest in the "real" world, whereas Harry Potter seems to live inside Britain, but hidden away, with the homo-superiors hiding themselves directly and interfering directly with the muggles (more vampire the masquerade than neverwhere).
There are so many things about the series which angered and upset me that it's hard to separate them all into a cogent point by point rant, but I should try so thankyou for creating the thread, but I probably shouldn't give it the attention it deserves until after I've fixed the code so it doesn't burn big holes in people.
Marios
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Heroic Knight
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Ian? Permission to pinch that, credit to your name, and use it in Bangor Wargames and Role Play society mag?
"Idiot is not a God. Unfortunately he has many followers"
PD: Kalipet Teca, High Priestess of Ant
LT: Ffion Kendrick, Lady of the Alchemist's Desk
Reality: Lisa/Perfi, Nottingham castle assistant and craftsperson
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Heroic Knight
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Deleted because I am an idiot.
crazy yank
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Wag
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Ian Sturrock (9/22/2006)
Conan's a lot more fun; he's a direct-actionist who gets what he wants by mindset, cunning, and prowess. Aragorn gets it all handed to him on a plate, because after all he has the Blood of Wotsit and is Born To Be King.
I'm not a massive Conan fan, but the latent Aristophilia in a culture that has to pretend towards egalitarian values is something that comes through very strong in fantasy. In Tolkien's defence, he's not a massive hypocrite - I don't know if he was an ardent monarchist, but at least he's writing in a time when the suggestion that some people just are better than others because of their blood isn't particularly controversial.
I read a couple of Lovecraft anthologies a year ago and he does have a healthy dose of Victorian era racial-anthropology - the idea that there's a gradation between man and animal which can largely be viewed in terms of similar traits (generally boiling down to having towns being taken over by idol worshipping mulattos). Again, he may be racist, but at least he's not a hypocrite.
What particularly annoys me is people who try to have it both ways. This fantasy world is a bastion of liberal 21st century ideas. With a King on top! It's not that I mind speculative fiction of either sort - but they really ought to make their minds up. I guess it boils down to importing elements into your story (interesting power structures) but then refusing to actually follow through on the depth you've deliberately imported.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4679657.stm
This guy may have a point - nostalgic pastoralism has really begun to get up my nose - and Rowling reeks of it like bargain basement perfume on a cheap whore.
Marios
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Wag
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| It is well established that the 'wierdoes' in Neverwhere are not superior to the 'normals'. They are just different. They are the 'people who fall through the cracks', not necessarily powerful. As for Muggles vs Wizards... its a masquerade thing. The muggles could wipe out all the wizards really easily - especially as they have no idea how things like guns work... 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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