And it really irks me a lot.
Update: Man, I have gotten tons of great responses here and a lot of activity. The comments section turned out way better than Reddit. Thank you all! <3
I call it “plot by stupid” but TV tropes calls it idiot plot. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotPlot
Tbh, it’s always kinda confused me why hp got such acclaim. They’re decent books! I enjoyed reading them several times. However, I wouldn’t call them hallmarks of fiction or anything.
I thought it was all so far fetched that they just kept on allowing obviously evil people, people who were opposed to the very ideals of the school, continue with their plots unchallenged. Then 2020 rolled around and I was like “oh… Well this feels familiar”.
Examples? You can’t go on a rant and then not give examples.
I couldn’t finish book 6 because there was too much of harry whining in capslock for no appreciable reason, and I remember skipping over a lot of scenes with his uncle for the exact reasons OP highlights.
He had PTSD, he watched a kid get murdered and nearly got murdered!
Hey look, there it is again in the one I’m at now. Hermoine to Potter: “What’s wrong with your hand?” Potter: “Nothing.” (This was the Dolores torture). Hermoine actually finds out, which is refreshing. “You’ve got to tell Dumbledore.” Harry: “No. Dumbledore’s got enough on his mind right now.” Freaking stupid, Harry.
This “is anything happening?” “No, nothing.” exchange with Potter is constant in this series.
Dumbledore thought Harry was a Horcrux mate, he was avoiding him since the start of the year.
Dude the ball tops of my thigh bones were literally sliding off the bones (they failed to fuse for me) in middle school. I was limping and would have insane attacks if pain when they moved a fraction of a millimeter.
Parents, teachers, friends: what’s wrong? Me: nothing
Kids hiding bad things is the most real part.
People hide important things for dumb reasons in the real world, but it’s unsatisfying, lazy and overused in fiction. Especially in HP.
I felt the same way by the end of the series.
What bothered me even more was the number of situations that could have been solved with a cell phone or computer.
Like the world-building is absolutely busted. They even have these big-ass libraries and put all this emphasis on learning, but they haven’t even started to digitize.
Never once saw a middle-school or teenaged student in a standard math or science class. Weasley’s dad was the only one that even thought “muggle stuff” was interesting, but he understood about as well as Ariel understood forks.
Bunch of illiterate magic-dependent isolationists that can’t do math or use Google Search. Dumbledore would shit a brick if he found out Hogwarts was on Google Earth that whole time.
Harry Potter happened before Google even existed. Google Earth would probably just look like a mundane splotch and people would look at it and suddenly remember they left the oven on. They learn their basic studies before they turn 11 and go to Hogwarts.
I would like to highlight Harry’s character development throughout the series. Although he made several questionable choices in GOF, OOF, and HBP, we should consider that he is a teenager throughout most of the series. Teenagers, umm, well, aren’t great decision-makers. As a teenager, I mostly acted mainly on impulse instead of rational thinking.
And talking about individuals defending themselves, not all perspectives find a receptive audience. A perfect example is in OOF, when Dumbledore testifies before the Minister of Magic about Voldemort’s return. His statements are met with scepticism and disbelief, mirroring a similar experience Harry had trying to convince others at Hogwarts.
If you want to share counter-examples, I’d be happy to hear them.
Nobody ever explained anything more than the likes of “Voldemort’s back! You have to believe me!” If anyone actually gave account or explained anything at all, the good guys would have a lot more allies than they do. Hell, actually talking is how they convinced a bunch of people to let Harry teach them dark arts defense in Order of the Phoenix. It seems that actually talking is how every good event happens, and that not talking is how every bad event happens.
Yep! It’s basically a form of bad writing.
There’s something called an idiot plot, where the plot only works because the characters are idiots. If they just did the obviously correct thing, the tension would resolve too quickly.
It’s a much harder task to create drama and tension from believable, likable, sensible, consistent characters. If your characters just CAPSLOCK ANGST DRAMA in every situation, it’s way easier to keep tension. Annoying, badly written tension.
Well, kids, especially pre-teen to teen, are idiots. I know, because I was one. And my friends and classmates were too.
are idiots
It’s true that people do dumb things, but it makes for annoying fiction. The real world doesn’t always translate well into a story.
Hell, does anyone perfectly explain everything to each other all the time in the real world?
No, so this argument fails there too.
In the story we just don’t know why things aren’t disuccessed “perfectly”. Like why does Hermione not explain to Ron that she likes him, instead she has a fight with him. Wasn’t that an issue for OP? (It wasn’t for me, because I understand emotions challenge us to communicate well, and I’m an old fart without the hormones of a teen).
Kids world and adult world are separate. Kids very often don’t want adult involvement in their world - they see it as an intrusion. There’s also a general distrust of adults: “you just don’t understand”, or “things are different now than when you were my age” are the refrains we hear every generation. Again, I’m old enough to have seen this several times.
And the adults are busy with their own responsibilities, so won’t always catch on to what’s happening in the kid’s world.
Most importantly, the adults have to allow kids room to figure things out on their own, to struggle with difficulties. Always being there means the kids never learn to solve problems themselves, to build their own relationships, to figure out how to identify good people, etc.
Also, people are human, warts and all, communication is hard.
As a kid, getting explanations for things out of adults felt nearly impossible. I’m sure part of that was my phrasing as a kid, I just didn’t know how to formulate a good question, plus adults surely thought I was often a smart ass or just asking dumb questions with obvious answers.
It wouldn’t be a young adult story if everyone made wise, well thought out decisions.
