I think the castle is really neat and cool and fun to explore in the video games
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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For the benefit of the many non-Brits complaining about how unrealistic it is: the Leaving School Grounds Unsupervised form is (when I grew up at least) a huge social divider and Big Deal in a lot of British schools. There was a whole micro industry at mine where the ~70% of kids who were allowed out would provide delivery services for sweets and pop for the 30% who weren’t.
JKR didn’t just pull this whole thing out her ass, it was something that most British kids will have instantly related to. (She’s still an awful human mind)
We had something similar, but it was for a specific reason, like going to a job (we had an OJT class) or attending classes at the local college. It was only available in the last two years of high school too.
There wasn't a weird industry or anything, kids would just skip if they wanted to, and nobody policed the lunch hour or anything. But it's kinda similar I guess.
I mean, in the US we have permission slips from parents to go on field trips. Not sure why people would find it unrealistic.
Also…of all the things from a book about witches and wizards and magic. They’re complaining about permission slips? lolwut
Yeah, kind of my point was that y'all are viewing it as a "field trip", which is typically a specific event that's infrequent, carefully organized and supervised, which is a whole different beast to the generic standing instructions of "we're not going to supervise your kids if they wander off school grounds" slip.
For the former case it's pretty much understood that everyone in class should be able to join a field trip, but for the latter it's not unusual for parents to decline and therefore teachers would absolutely be expected to enforce the rules.
I know shes a bigot and hates trans people, but i do think people are overlooking the fact that this was a kids series. This wasnt meant to be read and deconstructed and analyzed by adults.
When I read the books as a kid I really enjoyed the world. Some things made me pause or think, but for the most part it was a fun adventure. When I read it again in college, I couldn't get through the first or second book because of how poor I found the writing.
But again, it is a children's book. I dont reread Famous Five or Noddy anymore either. I used to love the Redwall series, but when I went back to read a couple last year I found I couldn't get into it as much as I did when I was 10.
Are they the best books or even the best kids books in the world? Definitely not. Is she a brilliant writer? Definitely not. But were the stories engaging and fun and did they give a lot of children an intro to reading and fantasy? 100%. They became popular because even kids who hated reading enjoyed these stories. She might be a miserable awful person now but that doesnt change what these books did for a lot of good people too.
I'd argue that the series had WAY too much death, war, sexism and slavery to get a pass on being children's books that are beyond scrutiny, that's just my opinion though.
The last 2 books had definitely grown past children's labeling. Neither the writing nor the worldbuilding has grown alongside them, though.
I think that's part of what made the series so popular though. She did a great job at letting the characters in the books grow up alongside the readers. Someone who read the first book when they were 7 could enjoy the last book when they were 14.
I haven't re-read the books since I finished them sometime around that age, so I won't comment on the world-building or writing outside of recalling that I was completely absorbed and fascinated when I read them.
Exactly! As they go on, they get more and more young adult, which is fantastic.
Still a better love story than Twilight.
And it's a terrible love story.
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