okay, most of what i do re: harry potter is criticism, and hp is flawed in such a number of ways, but sometimes i just sit here and
i mean, you all have a comprehension of just how drastically harry potter changed literature, yeah? like. it revitalized it. it blew the literary scene apart. the new york times had to create a separate bestseller’s list for children’s lit just because harry potter existed. harry potter changed reading.
so many people on tumblr were born in the ‘90s. when the first book came out, most of us couldn’t read. but we grew up in a world where everyone, everyone, everyone was reading harry potter, no matter how old they were; we grew up in a world where the most popular story in the entire world was a fantasy children’s book.
it’s sort of difficult to grasp, sometimes, the extent to which harry potter is not just a book. the extent to which what is basically a series of fun, interesting, and fairly good novels is such an enormous, enormous part of our lives, a cultural touchstone, a truly universal reference point, something so many people have shaped their lives around, a foundation for all of the stories we would read and watch for the rest of our lives– for so many of us, the first books we ever loved
the extent to which so many of us can’t call ourselves “fans” of harry potter, because it would like being a “fan” of, like, having lungs.
it’s not even about liking it or disliking it. it’s just a part of us.
This reminds me an awful lot about Starbucks.
No, seriously. Before Starbucks, America was a coffee wasteland. Coffee was a thing you got at diners and drivethroughs. It was a cheap hot thing you put made palatable with tons of cream and sugar, and most people (but waning!) had a coffee machine at home.
Starbucks told us that we could like coffee. That coffee could be an enjoyable thing, that it could be a status symbol and a ritual. That there could be a place where you go for coffee, and you enjoy it.
As a coffee snob, I think Starbucks’ coffee is awful. But Starbucks is why we have better coffee. Starbucks created the market space for third wave coffee shops and artisanal roasters. They reintroduced “espresso”, “latte” and “cappuccino” to the American lexicon.
We need stuff that’s heinously popular. That’s how culture works.
The cultural impact of the original 3 Star Wars movies was something literally phenomenal, something absolutely ubiquitous that changed the landscape of entertainment so fundamentally that things haven’t been the same since.
It was very much like Harry Potter. I know JK is le problematique but the books were fun, creative, and exciting, got a LOT of kids into reading in general and fantasy specifically, and gave us all some mew common cultural touchstones.
I feel very fortunate to have lived through both, and I wonder what will be next.
yknow the more jk rowlings world falls apart in america (race relations, international history, population, etc) the more i like to think that america just straight up doesnt have the statute of secrecy. european countries are falling over themselves hiding magic but come to georgia and theres a drunk redneck wizard wingardium leviosa-ing the shit out of a tractor to the delight of his drunk redneck muggle buddies in a walmart parking lot.
wizard on muggle violence is prevented by virtue of there being like a 50/50 chance that muggle is packing heat. muggle on wizard violence is prevented by knowing that wizard can give you boils spelling LIL BITCH on your forehead if you try to start something.
america is the weird redheaded stepchild of the magic world.
im not gonna stop reblogging this until this is the next Hot Fanon
english muggles come back to england and suspicious wizards meet them at the airport.
‘did you witness any strange or inexplicable acts while you were in america?’ they demand.
the english muggles just laugh in their dumb fucking faces. mate, it’s america.
what’s the difference between a werewolf and an animagus?
english wizard: *two hour lecture on legal history*
american wizard: six beers
@jumpingjacktrash congrats ive read hundreds of comments on this dumpster fire of a headcanon and yours is the best
thank you my patronus is a monster truck
I have reblogged this I don’t even fucking know how many times but I still completely lose it every time I see the words “My Patronus is a monster truck” because that is the most AMERICAN thing I’ve ever seen in 29 years of being ‘merican.
not to be harry potter on main but i honestly think the fantastic beasts series would have been so much more interesting if it was just about the beasts. i don’t give a fuck about grindelwald, just give me a movie about an eccentric wizard travelling the world looking for magical animals and teaching us the power of friendship
newt’s character should have been like the crocodile hunter but in a wizard hat send tweet
I was hesitant to post this because of the drama surrounding it, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore.
Many years ago, when Goblet of Fire came out (we’re talking… 2000 or 2001, I think?) I was a moderator at a now-defunct
Harry Potter forum.
When Nagini’s character was introduced, there was a girl on the forum (who we will call “Kate” for storytelling purposes, and also I don’t remember her name anymore lmao) who was CONVINCED Nagini was a human transfigured into a snake.
Now, the rest of the forum generally didn’t care about this theory. People pointed out that if Voldemort wanted to control someone, he would just do it. What’s the point of making them into a snake? Aesthetic? But Kate defended her theory.
“They say in the book she’s not like a regular snake! Don’t you think it’s strange they never say where she came from?” I can’t remember every point she made about it, but she really believed it.
“Suuuuuure, Kate!” we all said.
At the end of the day, we were all there to partake in fandom bullshit. We had a great time. But time passed, people moved on, and forums got deleted.
But when they revealed Nagini to be a “Maledictus” recently, my first thought was of Kate, even after all these years.
She got a few details wrong, but somewhere out there, a now-grown woman watched the Fantastic Beasts trailer, saw Nagini, and probably whispered “I fucking knew it” under her breath.
And I find that hilarious. Never let go of your crack theories, kids.
SpaceAceKaiju Tumblr 