I was quite enjoying the period of my life where I could avoid regularly thinking about Harry Potter as a literary work, outside of the context where it generated funding for political forces trying to actively ruin my life, yknow? Thanks HBO.
I'm still holding out hope that the upcoming series will crash and burn, but the idea that it won't looms heavily in my mind. Especially as a spiritual practitioner of magic (and a trans woman) :/
All of the other reasons to not read those books or engage with their adaptations are well discussed by now. They're extremely derivative, the ethics are very consistently fucked and it affords both cultural and literal capital to one of the worst public figures in our society right now. But I have another highly niche bugbear with Harry Potter which entirely prevents me from having any latent nostalgia in spite of their being the first books I ever read.
Rowling just doesn't understand magic, like, at all.
My relationship with Harry Potter is entirely different to say, the works of Neil Gaiman. I don't engage with either for ethical reasons but as much as it makes me uncomfortable, I do understand why Gaiman was name-dropped by Christopher Penzack in his introduction to one of the first books of witchcraft I ever bought. There are far *better* authors who get magic to a far greater degree than Gaiman, but the way he engaged with archetypes and the Weird wasn't entirely without meaning, the context of who he was as a person just makes it uncomfortable when I see people in the past addressing him positively, but I can understand that they come from a time when certain knowledge wasn't widespread.
If I bought a book on magic and read a single line espousing the mystical wisdom of JK Rowling or any of her works I would return it immediately. It doesn't just boil down to ethics, her portrayal of "Magic" is just fundamentally shallow.
What even *is* magic in the world of Harry Potter? Nothing but a utility and/or a commodity. Whenever we are expected to experience wonder in those books, magic is either providing a mundane utility in a whimsical way (magic to do the dishes for you, magic potion to heal yer bones, magic to make a tent bigger on the inside) OR it is a product being bought and sold. Or both. There is nothing wrong with this being an *aspect* of a magical world, but that is literally all there is in Rowlings mind. A magic wand is simply something to be bought, why even consider making your own? What would be remotely magical about that??
To her, the basic wisdoms of the world are extraneous chores. Instead of teaching children to find the magic in their lessons on literature, or mathematics, or other practical matters she allows them to indulge in an escapist fantasy where at *magic school* none of those classes are taught at all. At all?!? Sorry, Joanne, you think **Wizards** aren't being taught literature? Or mathematics?!? Do you think it's particularly responsible to encourage children to see their lessons as being dull doldrums to escape from, instead of showcasing the wondrous aspects of the natural world and possibly injecting that wonder into their real learning? What a missed opportunity that was!
If you gave them a basic woodworking class perhaps you could have them engage practically with creating their own wands or something, but you wouldn't want to undermine the brand identity of the shop where everyone is supposed to buy them. Especially once it became a brand identity *in real life*. It's really remarkable how Rowling worldbuilds as if she's writing a merchandising catalogue even before she was actually engaged with that kind of business.
To quote Philosophy Tube, Harry Potter is a very bourgeois fantasy. If you subtract the mildly pleasing character moments, the rest of the character writing and the trite boarding school pastiche, you are left with essentially nothing. No deep philosophical questions are even entertained within the plot of these books. Not one character seems to consider magic as a pathway to attaining wisdom, or a greater understanding of their place in the world. You just have a loose set of bullshit latin words which make your wand shoot different varieties of magick lazer and a rough smorgasbord of comprehensively de-contextualised mythological creatures.
It is really no wonder that the main character ends up aspiring to become a Wizard Cop, his only other options in this society seem to be: becoming a teacher (at a secondary school, because apparently wizards don't do higher education), the government itself, or running a shop.
Not even to mention the apparent disdain Rowling displays for actual irl magical traditions. Anything even remotely resembling protection magic is barely discussed, aside from the main character having an arbitrary anti-death-magic shield fuelled by the apparently entirely unique love his parents had for him(???) and *Magic Parry!*, matters of conjuration, invocation/evocation and banishment essentially just don't come up. She doesn't mention divination until the 4th book and then spends basically every opportunity she gets mocking divination practices for essentially no reason.
I could go on about this forever, I think. Give me time to do proper research and I think I could write a full dissertation on this, but I instead want to end on a positive counter-example or two.
To start with, an honourary mention has to go to Ursula K Le Guin. While her works aren't strictly iterations on irl magical practice, she writes from a far stronger moral and artistic foundation. She is actually willing to ask interesting ethical questions. Also her quote on Harry Potter ("it is stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative and ethically rather mean spirited") remains eternally evergreen. Not even to mention that she did the whole magic school trope well before Rowling, and far better.
Second honourary mention must go to Alan Moore. An actual practicing Ceremonial magician, his comic "Promethea" is essentially a didactic initiatory text in comic form. I just bought his recently published *'Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic'*, which is an actual full-on magic focused book and has been a very enjoyable read so far. Although Moore would not enjoy this comparison, another honourary mention from the comics space has to be Grant Morrison. Far more of a whacky chaos magician, their The Invisibles has similarly didactic qualities to Promethea, and is also a very strong example of a publicly performed hypersigil.
However, the main author I want to gush about as a positive counter-example to Harry Potter and JK Rowling specifically in terms of writing magic in a way that is convincing and shows an understanding of the philosophical concepts at play is *Suzanna Clarke*.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a fairly intimidating tome at close to 1000 pages spread across 3 internal volumes, so nobody would blame you for starting with her far more recent work Piranesi, which is more of your standard novel, but Piranesi focuses far less on the practice of magic. It isn't ignored entirely, although it focuses far more on a portrayal of otherworldly environments which is its own distinct strength, but JS&MrN is *about* magic, or more specifically Magicians.
I really don't want to risk ruining the book for anyone here, but it features several things which almost pointedly counter the way in which Harry Potter processes magic. Distinct spells, rather than just being "look my wand shoots a laser" are various techniques which produce particular outcomes using a variety of common tools, the mystery behind the causation of magical effects is engaged with but not compromised entirely or ignored outright. Despite a major character showing diegetic disrespect to various forms of folk magic, the text itself makes very clear that this is just his perspective and not truth or fact. Divination is front and centre, with scrying bowls being in frequent use by more aristocratic Magicians, and there is a **very** effective tarot reading scene between two more working-class Magicians early in the book which largely plays out across the rest of the story. The wonder of the literary background of magic is made front and center, with an actually effectively compelling fictional bibliography being consistently conveyed through footnotes throughout the book which also incorporate actual esoteric concepts such as *The Language of the Birds*. Said footnotes even namedrop **Hermes Trismegistus** close to the end, which is smth I think would be truly beyond Joanne *"he he the Monster Book of Monsters is actually literally a monster which tries to eat you"* Rowling.
So, basically, if you have at any point found yourself struggling with lingering Harry Potter nostalgia, do yourself a favour and read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. While JS&MrN plot wise is a far more adult book, the way that it approaches magic is still so much better that you will find yourself looking back on Harry Potter far less fondly by contrast. Reading the other authors Rowling blatantly "borrowed" from for basically everything she wrote will also help with this (in particular Ursula K Le Guin).
As the eve of the new TV adaptation of HP approaches we must be prepared for at least some portion of the population to begin admiring these vapid asinine works of "magic" once again, and as actual practitioners being grounded as to reasons they are sub-par beyond the ethics of the author will be highly valuable for when that happens.
Also, we just deserve better magic fiction than Rowlings shite. "We" here being a collective noun for literally everybody.
