I’m going to give away the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. In the second part of the final chapter of the blockbuster movie franchise, the boy wizard falls off a cliff and into a magical wood chipper.
I have not actually seen the last Harry Potter movie. I will not be seeing the last Harry Potter movie. While millions of brats, doting parents and twentysomethings desperate to relive a recent youth that was full of encouragement and devoid of responsibility, I will be doing what adults do. I will be paying my bills, eating a nice goat cheese and beet salad and watching The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS.
But here’s my review anyway: Harry Potter and the Words That Mean Nothing To Me is loud, dumb and full of English character actors wielding electric phalli slumming it for a paycheck. The emotional range featured in these flesh-and-blood cartoon operas resembles the row of flavored syrups that sit on IHOP tables. The Harry Potter ATM machine recycles classic myths and superior fantasy fiction.The entire series should be renamed The Adventures of Young Gandalf Christ. The supporting characters are finger puppets that announce plot points that make ’90s video games seem like complex narratives. The special effects are joyless.
A whole generation has grown up on the Harry Potter books and movies. Parents praise J.K. Rowling’s coloring-book prose because those tomes encourage kids to read. You know what encourages kids to read? Locking them in their bedroom Friday night with only a book while mommy and daddy crack some brewskis. Reading isn’t fundamental. It should be mandatory. If your kid doesn’t like to read, maybe you’re a bad parent. When adult friends of mine sheepishly admit to reading Harry Potter books, which is like bragging about reading a map, I give them this hilarious look that says, “You are useless.”
The worst thing about Harry Potter is the primary life lesson it teaches. That the world is divided into two groups: special people who think they’re special because they fell out of their mothers life basket and everyone else. Right now, there are millions of young adults who, deep down, think they’re secret warlocks. No, no, you’re not a special sorcerer. You’re just an intern. Now work some magic and figure out how to use an Excel spreadsheet. The Harry Potter series has emotionally damaged these fans, who are not equipped for a world divided into two groups: lazy jerks and lonely misfits. You get to choose which one of those you are!
Harry Potter fans are practically social dead weight.You’d think a generation taught to fantasize about witchcraft would be cooler. But Harry Potter fans have no heavy metal in their DNA. Instead of beer-fueled Black Masses or ritual threesomes, these fans just play the fictional sport “Quidditch.” The precious English children in the movies and books play this game on flying brooms. Actual human beings in the real world play a version that is soccer with brooms, combining the world’s most popular sport with the power-fulfilment fantasies of full-grown toddler-citizens. I’m sorry, am I hurting the feelings of fragile twentysomethings? You all have so many feelings, it’s hard not to step on them.
Harry Potter is not a hero. Harry Potter molested your life expectations. Which is why you dainty flowers are so deeply annoying to the rest of humanity.
No one is born special. Being special takes courage. No one will root for you, Little Lord Fauntleroy. You will want to give up. Being special means accepting that you are a social network of one. But specialness has to be earned. Gorgon heads must be severed. Most people who think they’re special can’t take the withering heat of being judged. So they buckle and run and hide in the comments section of life. You want to be special? Then you have to, first, accept that you’re a Muggle-born.
I am happy that J.K. Rowling is rich. She deserves the money she earned for drinking chilled white wine out of mugs and making up ridiculous nouns while rocking her baby to sleep. I have no beef with her. Writing is lying and the lie she told, that the world is full of hidden wonder that only the chosen can see, is a lovely lie to those who just can’t accept that a person is ordinary until proven extraordinary.
Besides, Harry Potter wouldn’t last five minutes in Westeros. If you get that reference, then I have two things to tell you. Winter is coming. You’re invited to my place later. I’m drinking Tang, eating pickles and watching reruns of The Golden Girls.
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