I don't care about that study; it sounds ridiculous. But I was reading this article and thinking about the primary thing that always struck me about Rowling's novels -- there's a fuckload of racism and prejudice. Like, probably more than any other children's book ever. Someone is getting discriminated against or put down for being different on essentially every page.
I have long thought that the concept of mudblood/pureblood being the central conflict of a secret wizarding society is easily her most interesting contribution to fantasy canon. I actually was always disappointed that, having established this atmosphere steeped in racism etc throughout her books, the climax has nothing to do with it. It's about love. Fuck love. Those books could have been a lot more than they were. Maybe I've reread Tolkien 28 too many times, but I expect my fiction to make me think really hard about things.
Anyway, that's just what this article made me think of.
I very much disagree with "Fuck love". That sounds like such an angst-ridden thing to say. Despite whatever potential there may have been for "deeper narrative", it is so much more important a message - especially to kids - than you are giving it credit for. Dumbledore's role as a power figure is outside the norm in that its absolutely not a power thing. The dude is goofy and charming and if he weren't built up as the most powerful wizard at Hogwarts you would probably never guess it based on how he presents himself. It is important, so, so important, to sell the qualities of caring and love as the most positive in role models and in student-mentor relationships. I cannot stress that enough.
Oh, I just saw this again. I remember how annoyed it made me because you ignored what I was actually saying and made a couple assumptions to boot. And then everyone who read your comment was like, "yeah! love is great! what was he trying to say about racism again, oh who cares." So I didn't comment at the time, but -- if you want love, in an actually beautiful sense, thought out, worth reading, all the things Harry Potter's climax could have been but largely wasn't: I gotcha right here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes_%28novel%29 And even, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amber_Spyglass And if you want what you just described -- " Dumbledore's role as a power figure is outside the norm in that its absolutely not a power thing. The dude is goofy and charming and if he weren't built up as the most powerful wizard at Hogwarts you would probably never guess it based on how he presents himself." -- except more interesting (oh and not almost entirely ruined by the 7th book of the series), I gotcha again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Once_and_Future_King , Part 1 But, uh, thanks for preaching at me.
My goodness. I though we had editorialised title problems in /r/science, but this is a whole new level.