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Harry Potter is a non-creative slop piece that must have had JK make a deal with a devil for it to be as popular as it is. The sheer amount of stupidity and lack of thought that seemingly went into anything is insane, allow me to delve into why.

Starting with the first book: the establishment of Harry's life is ultimately one of the worst four chapters I've ever read through. The 'oh no, my fatass uncle and cousin and skinny aunt are so mean oh nooooo they give me a whole ass room to myself under the stairs how miserable oh no boo hoo' They never even beat the kid, it's not as if he's enduring hell and he needs to get over himself. Regardless, immediately he discovers he's some special little boy. I hate this trope to an unfathomable degree, this bit is more personal. Ultimately, the first book is... fine - from a technical standpoint. I just dislike it for the previously mentioned reasons. I like the world's establishment and the bit at the end where Hermione carries the entire team is funny. Although, a 70 year old being obsessed with a child is a tad weird, but we don't really know that yet.

The third book I enjoy as well, mostly because it's well written family dynamics and actually made me like the series a little bit.

The second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh books are the ones I have real, non-personal issues with.

Obviously the second book seems fine until you realize it's just JK having her special little 12 year old saving a special little 11 year old girl who got possessed by a 70 year old in a book that was given to her by a 45 year old with the express intention of letting her get possessed by this pedo. I think JK might have some sort of 'damsel in distress' fetish. Anyway, the point is that the second book is a lazy sequel and everything that happens basically either doesn't matter or gets retconned except the only little slave elf that doesn't want to be a slave elf.

The fourth, it's fine, it's just that a lot of it was nonsensical as far as the non-tournament chapters are considered. Why those specific other schools? Also, you're telling me there's a whole school for England and one for the entire African continent? That's too many kids. Speaking of, we really amp up the racism themes in this book. The joyous little slave elves are revealed to a larger degree and Hermione is called insane for trying to not have slavery. That, and they let a fourteen year old compete in a death game. Fourteen year old. Death game. At that point, just throw a bunch of first years in a ring with the slave elves and give twenty bucks to the person who lives. I'm pretty sure this was the book the black mold started to get to her.

The fifth and sixth books just are stupid, there's not a whole lot to get into here besides the government being weak as fuck and the lack of natural consequences for corruption. (Which I guess reflects real life pretty well.) These books both feel like they could have been eliminated and nothing would have changed. They're made purely for the money and really have nothing to do with anything.

The seventh book is where my real problems lie. For such a hyped up series that already had several movies you would assume the seventh would be the best of the lot, but no. It's just three kids in the woods after the special boy is fawned over for being special again. Also a girl gets brutally tortured in this kids series and guess what? The boys have to save her. A lot of topics are thrown at you very quickly and the penultimate point of the series, the Battle of Hogwarts, is anti-climactic at best. The special boy gets hundreds of lives sacrificed for him and ultimately survives, oh wow. There's also a side plot with these three brothers and a wand and a rock that literally not a soul gave a shit about, and they break the super all powerful wand which is a really ham-fisted metaphor for power.

Really, the entire series is arranged horribly and could easily have been three or four books and been a lot better. A lot of the themes are stupid, overused, and redundant, even for 1997. I can see it being a little niche communtiy of people who are like "oh this was an okay series, I liked it when I was a kid" but the acclaim it has now is insane to me. Really, there's no point in it being as big as it is and it pisses me off when there are a lot more books with better plots in two pages that should be as popular, but unfortunately JK is literally a joke. I hate the popularity of this series and honestly, it just kickstarted the entire 'magical school' genre that I've never gotten hooked into. Because of Harry Potter, authors think they can create a half-hearted world with a 'regular' special chosen one kid that all the 11 year old kids can relate to and BAM, multi-millionaire.

Sorry for this taking so long to write out- got busy.

I love this rant so much it needs its own space.

Thanks! Mediocre book series with more acclaim than they need are in my top ten list of things that piss me off enough to rant about.