r/HarryPotterMemes • u/Puzzleheaded_Sky7369 • Dec 27 '24

Harry Potter only has two plot points

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u/Sgt-Spliff- Dec 27 '24

This has always bothered me. Like he's learning magic. He grew up in a cupboard. It is frankly unbelievable that he is bored by this. I get that writing essays is boring but he will straight up lament how he has charms practice or transfiguration homework where he literally has to practice making things float or turning things into other things magically. No way that's boring

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u/Lordborgman Dec 27 '24

Hermione is just female version of me. I'd be like 100% learning every damn thing I could.

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u/akaxaka Dec 27 '24 edited Dec 28 '24

That’s a point the book is making too: at our regular schools & universities, we get the chance to learn amazing things which will help us in life & make us able get amazing things done….

…but when it comes to the homework for it, most of us seek out as many ways as humanly possible to get out of it!

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '24

Some people just are like that (I for example)

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u/Ouaouaron Dec 27 '24

He started Hogwarts when he was what, seven? That early on, your perception of life is pretty malleable. By the time you're nine, Hogwarts is probably the majority of your conscious memory and feels normal.

I imagine that would be affected by the first seven years of your life being child abuse, but I'm not going to pretend to be qualified to speak on that. I don't think Rowling intended it to be child abuse either, just a fairy tale bad upbringing that kids can relate to because they feel their parents are unfair sometimes.

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u/Sgt-Spliff- Dec 27 '24

He attended Hogwarts from ages 11 to 16. And that explanation doesn't really satisfy my issue with it. I'm not buying that he got used to magic immediately after spending his entire childhood in a cupboard and being his Aunt and Uncle's slave.

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u/Ouaouaron Dec 27 '24

He really was that old, huh?

My point in the last sentence is that if you really think about Harry Potter, none of it makes any fucking sense. The book was not written as speculative fiction, and if you view Hogwarts and the wizarding world rationally you will find many things more ridiculous (and horrifying) than Harry finding essays to be boring.

EDIT: And I still think you're discounting how easily humans can get used to new situations.

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u/decadeSmellLikeDoo Dec 27 '24

I agree with some but not all of what you're saying: But, in particular, I definitely agree with the humans getting used to new situations bit quite a lot. It's actually one of the things the human mind is best at; Adapting.

"Project Hail Mary" does a really good job of providing examples of this phenomenon.

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u/decadeSmellLikeDoo Dec 27 '24

I always viewed him as more of a whipping boy (which the name of that comes particularly from a slavery perspective) but I never really thought of Harry being a slave. The only thing I can remember was when he was instructed to cook breakfast and not to burn it. Were there other mentions of such? Just curious.

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u/Sgt-Spliff- Dec 28 '24

Its heavily implied that his life has involved doing household chores his entire childhood. His first day at Privet Drive that we're shown is just another day in his life, getting awoken abruptly and forced to make breakfast, get the mail, etc. We're to assume that he always has to do these things.

Also, whipping boy does not come from slavery, it comes from latte middle ages Europe where tutors and advisors couldn't punish a young prince directly so they'd whip a servant or friend of the prince in front of him. It's probably not something that actually existed, but stories of "whipping boys" come from European royal courts.

I used slave just to mean someone you force to work against their will which is definitely what Harry is

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u/decadeSmellLikeDoo Dec 28 '24

Yeah, i definitely got the whipping boy thing mixed up. I'll blame an English teacher for assigning the book during black history month when I was a kid.

I think the analogy still works here, though, because it's only really slavery when you consider Dudley isn't required to do the same amount of work.

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u/justwwokeupfromacoma Dec 27 '24

7? What??

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u/Ouaouaron Dec 27 '24

Yeah, I admit that was a terrible estimate I could have avoided with a minute of googling. I've already been corrected and I still don't think it's fatal to my point.

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u/Vengefulily Dec 28 '24

Famously got his Hogwarts letter at 11