Harry Potter Thoughts #2
I always hated the whole "muggles" concept. Something just immediately stuck in my craw, even though I was really into the books when I was about 10. They had good and bad content. Different authors, all being published under the name of someone who doesn't exist. Shakespeare's the same way, not a real person. You could even say that about modern pop culture figures.
I hated the pointless, "made up on the spot" elitism I sensed coming from whoever was writing about "muggles" and very hamfistedly painting the characters as... well, a shockingly real and true portrayal of baffos. But the contrast was, Harry was a darling little innocent angel with a Disney movie backstory. How saaaaddd. But ALL the characters are baffos. The "muggles" are just really basic, horrible, IRL baffos with the parts about their own secret society, parallel world, and evil doings scrubbed out like they were just bad normies. The wizards are "black hat" or "white hat", but they're all wizards, and baffos just the same.
You know what this series has in common with Orwell 1984? The big bad villain everyone gives 5m of hate to, doesn't exist. Well, they're fictional, but see - the "evil villain on the screen that all citizens are told to hate" in 1984, was just some deepfake figure that wasn't a real person even in that setting. And who are the villains in HP? A fantasy reskin of some "IRL" big bad villains from WW2 that didn't actually exist. Mr H of Austria was played by the same actor who did Walt Disney! Look at the ears! Look at the odd parallels between their "historical figure lore"!
Really hamfisted nationalsocialistwizardworkersparty "bad guys", were just a standard, trendy, go-to villain. Sometimes HP had good writing, sometimes it was like it was written for a 5yo.
The muggles and wizards in HP, are also like the "humans" (still baffos, cuz cinema) and ghouls in They Live. The relationship's a little different, the "Muggles" are painted as stupid dumbass plebs without value, and wizards are the cool awesome interesting people... Do you just see what's wrong with that! Imagine if the wizards were all White, and the Muggles were Black, how do you think THAT would go over?
Also Harry was just a vapid mary sue who had a lightning bolt scar (satan fell like lightning from Heaven), and also purple eyes that change color when he's mad and he can turn into a dragon and he has a motorcycle. Or a magic broom, whatever. Okay he has green eyes in the books, but you know what I'm getting at. He's a toned-down fanfiction mary sue. Tragic backstory and is super speshul and cool for no reason, other than he's chosen and Wizardler wanted to kill him. But then plot twist, the laughable fat kid character is also a chosen one. Or something.
Also, some say the way Voldemort is portrayed, as a face living on the back of someone's skull, is a representation of a "psychic vampire", but usually you hear about "psychic vampires" just being freaks that drain the energy of everyone they're around. Also the "must not be named" thing, that could be a reference to the IRL practice of baffos freaking out when someone says a secret thing, or alludes to a rabbit hole or list of names that anyone could look into. There's a LOT of things they flat out never mention. The first rule of baffo club is, "don't talk about baffo club".
The wizards view muggles the same way a certain group of delightful individuals view everyone outside of their group. As "cattle", to be locked up in pens, sent to slaughterhouses, and then just eaten. They didn't even try to tone this down. Each muggle character I remember was treated like a cow-slave dirt pleb. And some "muggle like" characters were, plot twist, wizards pretending to be boring dirt cow plebs the whole time!!
Whatever an artist, writer, media creator, whatever they make, the products reflect on who made them. Soulless corporate products are bland and sterile, unless something interesting slips through the cracks. Like someone slips an in-joke back there. A written article reflects on who wrote it, and if you go to DeviantArt, you'll know about all the fetishes and favorite cartoons and side interests of the users, purely by glancing at their pages. Some of them don't even think about how revealing the stuff they make is. Which is a fascinating thing.
There's this video about Ratatoing, a dumb knockoff of "Ratatouille", made by Video Brinquedo.
Schaffrillas: Ratatoing Socioeconomic Critique
In that video, the host notices some themes going on in an otherwise vapid and dumb movie made to trick apathetic grandmas into dropping $2 on something that'll amuse a toddler for 45 minutes. However, it reflects on the thoughts and values of the people who made this. Say what you will about 0-budget production teams, but they have their own personal touch, flair, and style. They have something cohesive going on among all their projects. That's something in itself. In Ratatoing, there's corporate espionage, sabotage, and vicious revenge. Also they bribe a cat to do their bidding. The cat probably symbolizes the local law enforcement.
The "Little Panda Fighter" was some other dumb movie tangentally related to Kung Fu Panda, that has a story about the bar owner deciding to come out of retirement from his old job as a wrestler, but something something contracts, can't wrestle. Then something about disguises and confusion, using the main panda character as a clueless pawn, and then the bar owner bear just gets loads of cash and walks off into the sunset, to continue on his life, however he does. So that's something a little more interesting than "uh it's just a knockoff and nothing else". Had a bit of a story in there.
Things that are just absolutely batshit insane, are pretty fun to be exposed to. So I'm not going to talk smack about rough little coarse products made by 10 people, there often is something to be enjoyed in there! And it ties in with something that's been on my mind, a lighter, more fun topic... But hmmm, what would I call it, and how would I focus on what exactly I want to say... Something about small team human media, made with little to no polish. And all the rough grit, sharp edges, and fingerprints and thoughts and ideas all over it...
Anyway, back on Harry Potters. Original book title was "and the Philosopher's Stone". IDK why they changed that for the USA, but whever. Philosophers stones are real things, but you won't hear people talk much about them. There are several different kinds, I recall silver p-stones being some popular ones. I'm not sure how they're used, but some suggest they might be ingested somehow. IDK. IIRC, HP treated the p-stone like it was a unique, one of a kind relic, instead of a whole category of items produced by alchemists. They're supposedly called "philosopher's stones", because what you do with them, is a matter of philosophy. So perhaps they have several different applications.
Horcruxes, were apparently some made up thing for the books. Because in children's media, you can have all the bloodless violence and "destruction!!!" as in life termination, so long as you use laser pistols (without realistic depictions of searing hot laser wounds and cooked flesh), but oh no you can't have references to... young people being drugged up and having something inserted into them, that also causes their minds to fracture. MK Ultra stuff, and they might "trauma bond" or try to rebuild their identity based on familiar things in their lives, and develop "Stockholm Syndrome". In the books, "horcruxes" were items that were given spirit powers, or embedded captured souls (another common trope in fantasy themed media. Like "soul gems".), in the process of a blood sacrifice.
Also Voldemort didn't just smother baby Harry, he used the pew pew light saber or something, and it didn't work. But Voldemort totally grabbed Harry's parents and used a smashed wine bottle to cut their major arteries! Or something to that effect. Kiddy media villain logic. So anyway, Harry became a horcrux. But the real version of horcruxes, are living people... Who were traumatized as children and had "certain rituals" done to them, that you're not supposed to talk about.
Also there's a lot of made-up whimsical fantasy world stuff that doesn't seem to have much significance AFAIK.
The main point is, the wizard parallel society, and Platform 9.75 (which symbolizes a fake business front), but it's painted as all cool and radical, and not filthy and grungy and horrible.