Posted by Ilya Somin:
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Harry Potter Series:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_22-2007_07_28.shtml#1185139775
NOTE: There are a few spoilers here, though no absolutely critical
ones.
With the Harry Potter series now complete, I want to summarize what I
see as its main strengths and weaknesses. The former are, to my mind,
well-known. Perhaps the most important is the impressive depth of
character development. In addition to the central Trio (Harry, Ron,
Hermione), there are numerous secondary characters who develop much
greater depths than I would have expected on first encountering them
early in the series. Think of cases like Snape, Neville, Luna, Draco,
and even Dumbledore (who in Book 7 turns out to be a lot less positive
a figure than we have come to expect). A second great strength is the
wealth of detail that gives depth and color to J.K. Rowling's
imaginary world. Finally, although I don't believe that fiction books
should be judged primarily by their ideology "message," I can't help
but embrace J.K. Rowling's [1]themes of deep suspicion of government
and emphasis on the primacy of universal principles over cultural
relativism and chauvinism. Book 7 pushes both of these ideas even
farther than previous volumes.
The shortcomings of the series are greatly outweighed by the
strengths. Nevertheless, I have two reservations. One is
well-expressed by [2]Megan McArdle: Rowling fails to give us a
consistent portrayal of the costs and benefits of magic in her
fictional world. As a result, the economy of the world she designs has
numerous internal contradictions that undermine its believability. As
Megan puts it, Rowling fails to explain the "opportunity costs" of
magic, as a result of which its not clear why wizards can't just use
magic to get almost anything they want:
T
he low opportunity cost attached to magic spills over into the
thoroughly unbelievable wizard economy. Why are the Weasleys poor?
Why would any wizard be? Anything they need, except scarce magical
objects, can be obtained by ordering a house elf to do it, or
casting a spell, or, in a pinch, making objects like dinner, or a
house, assemble themselves. Yet the Weasleys are poor not just by
wizard standards, but by ours: they lack things like new clothes
and textbooks that should be easily obtainable with a few magic
words. Why?
Rowling hints at some answers to these questions, and to that extent
Megan's critique goes a bit too far. Nonetheless, she is surely on to
something.
My second reservation about the Potter series relates to the portrayal
of evil. I'm going to save this one for a follow-up post of its own.
References
1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_08-2007_07_14.shtml#1184379931
2.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/megan_mcardle/2007/07/harry_potter_the_economics.html
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