Top 6 Reasons Harry Potter Isn't For Kids
With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix due soon in theaters and the book release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows imminent, children, pre-teens and functionally retarded adults across America can sigh with relief: Their favorite boy wizard is back. But are kids, young adults and the mentally stupid Potter's target audience anymore? Both the films and their source material, J.K. Rowling's book series, have increasingly started to incorporate dark, violent subject matter. In the place of fantastical creatures, childhood wish fulfillment fantasy and schools of fatherly wizards, we now have hideously deformed and fanged dark lords, soul-stealing wraiths and parents murdered on-screen.
Was it always like this, and we just didn't notice? Below, six reasons why the popular children's series has always had its dark side.
#6.
Moaning Myrtle: Creepy and Depressing
Moaning Myrtle, a ghost who haunts the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, is clearly meant to be adorable: She talks in cutesy baby-talk, wears big nerdy glasses and seems to harbor a quiet crush on our hero, Harry Potter. Aww.
She's so adorable, in fact, that it's easy to forget that we're talking about the tormented specter of a child who's doomed to exclusively haunt middle school bathrooms. Assuming she's into it, you've got a pubescent dead voyeur watching school-age boys use the toilet. Assuming she's not, you've got a murdered child who's forced to hang out in a smelly-ass bathroom for all eternity.
Either way, holy Hell, is that some dark shit. Children who read this book will probably have difficulty using public restrooms for the rest of their lives, forever looking over their shoulders while dropping deuces, fearful that they're being scrutinized by an underage poltergeist with a weird bathroom fetish. Thanks a lot, Rowling. We'll be sending you our psychiatrist bills.
#5.
Harry Potter: Bad Role Model
Not to give too much away, but as the Harry Potter series progresses, Harry-our lovable Everyman protagonist-starts dating his best friend's sister. Granted, if our experiences were any judge, it's not like most of the douches you meet in college need J.K. Rowling's approval to start seeing your sister or girlfriend behind your back. Nonetheless, that's a little creepy. It's difficult to imagine wanting to help your best friend defeat Voldemort when you know he'll be celebrating afterwards by casting "Disapearro Clothesimo" on your sister.
To her credit, Rowling tries to temper the example set by Harry by teaching us that your best friend's sister is almost always secretly possessed by some manner of dark lord. Still, we're pretty sure there are subtler ways of teaching children who to date than suggesting that a crush on their pal's kid sister involves getting roped into a creepy three-way with a noseless Ralph Fiennes.
#4.
Quidditch: The Sport of Sinfulness
Quidditch is a dirty, filthy game that should not be viewed by anyone at all, let alone children. Let's start with the obvious: The game is played by having each player climb on top of a long wooden shaft. Then everyone rides their shafts around, trying to "beat off" the other shafts flying all over the place and chasing balls around the field.
There's also something called the golden snatch-excuse us, "snitch." A few talented young boys try to find this special tiny thing, which is hard to find, but makes women squeal with delight when you grab it. What kind of author is J.K. Rowling that she'd try to convince impressionable children that the mythical G-spot actually exists?
y'know my speech should be about this.
Replywhat! Voldemort is supposed to be a white supremacist!?! Wow thats crazy you must be soooo smart to have seen that.
ReplySarcasm in a Cracked comment? How original!
I think my favorite part of this article is that it takes kids who are too sensitive for topics like death, and dating, and assumes they'll look at a game of Quidditch as if it were all a big metaphor for sex. Kid's are either too innocent to wipe their own asses, or rivaled in their detective skills by none other than Sherlock Holmes. Pick one, you can't assume both.
ReplyThere are dark elements, and they get progressively darker, and that is why the books are GOOD rather than just good for children. Most good children's books that focus on an audience past the age of 10 or 11 don't talk down to their audience and appeal to parents as well as children. The same is true of movies. The classic age of Disney movies didn't shy away from violence, and it's part of what made them good. And everybody saying that the books grew up with their audience are perfectly correct.
ReplyLook at any popular young adult series: Narnia, Twilight, Series of Unfortunate Events, even something like Boxcar Children. They all have adult, often horrific elements. This is exactly why they are good. Without a few elements from more adult literature a series will never make it into mainstream popularity and into the purview of the Cracked writers.
I kind of like this article, but if you're going to pick at it its biggest problem is that it assumes that children's books somehow don't or shouldn't have adult elements. It's clear with any look at children's books that make it into mainstream popularity that they all stray from the naive sunniness that one might associate with children. In fact, if most of us look back into our childhoods we will likely find that we enjoyed best the bits of entertainment that were a little bit adult, or a little bit over our heads.
spoiler to #3, magi-caust totally happens
ReplySo, if necrophilia is when you fornicate with the dead (and undead?) - what's the reverse? (When the dead/undead[?] finagle with the living)
ReplyYears back when my step kids wanted to read the series I was nominated to pre-read them to make sure they were ok for kids.. by the fourth one I was saying "ok it's getting pretty f'ing dark, kids murdered, harry tied up over a cauldron while the death eaters take turns cutting him..." I was really surprised a book aimed at kids went THAT route to be honest..
ReplyWhy? The kids who read the first book were the better part of a decade older by then after all....
Some of us Harry Potter fans with a sense of humor realize this is actually somewhat true. JK Rowling never said she was writing a book series, never a children's story.
ReplyI'm not sure if the last two or so books are supposed to be children's books anyway. The Harry Potter series matured with its original readers.
ReplyExactly, and that was the intent, since Harry grew up over the course of the series. The first couple books are appropriate for 10-12 year olds, the next couple books are better for 13-15 year olds, and so on. It's difficult for authors to break out of a category, so the later books danced around profanity and sex because they were still being shoehorned into the children's section of the store, but they weren't really children's books anymore.
They're being sarcastic...duh.
ReplyFUNCTIONALLY RETARDED ADULTS, awesome cracked, as for said adults that hope this artical is sarcastic, wat are u going to do if its not? Go back to crying under the stairs? Oh no please dont turn me into a f*****g frog........
Reply"artical", "wat", "u", "dont" and a stream of dots at the end when punctuation states only three are allowed.
Yeah, I wouldn't call anyone "functionally retarded" if I were you.
Don`t even care if this IS sarcastic. You never piss me off like that. NEVER.
ReplyI don't think many of the people commenting here read the FREAKING TITLE!! It's 6 reasons why Harry Potter is not for kids. He does not say the books suck. JEEEZ
ReplyThe only real problem with Quidditch is that its a crappy lousy sport. One person decides the game by going on a flying Easter Egg hunt in what sounds like a flying version of ice hockey... ice hockey where only the players on the Easter Egg hunt score meaningful points. This is the kind of sport the teaches people that teamwork means nothing, the team means nothing, one athlete means everything. Why not just make Harry a fencer, or a magic duelist, or some non team sport.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNot true actually. The snitch often decides the game, but not always. Evidenced by the Quidditch World Cup in the 4th book, where Bulgaria's Seeker catches the snitch but Ireland still wins because, as they mention about 5 times, Ireland's Chasers have ballin' teamwork skills and Krum is just one guy.
It really is a pretty crummy sport. You're example is incredibly forced, and it's incredibly forced in the book as well. The times when Quidditch is exciting in the books are the times when someone is cheating or something else is being covered up. By the simple structure of the game MOST games will be decided by a single player who interacts almost not at all with his team. It works fine as a plot device and point of competition and a symbol for childish things, but as a collection of rules it's pretty bunk. Of course its narrative function is far more important than it's feasibility as a draw on ESPN, so I don't really think it's that big a deal.
I think one big thing about Quidditch is that, as stated various times, the matches can last days, weeks or even months. The longer the game goes on, the more the Snitch loses its worth.
I'm really annoyed at this because most of these things are made up for when the true story of Harry Potter comes out to an adventure until the end.
ReplyThis is the stupidest article about Harry Potter I have ever seen. Death? Really? There's death in almost every book. Death is real; it happens. And please, the whole dating his best friend's sister thing? It was meant to happen. Dumbledore needed to die because he was protecting Harry. To take his final journey, Harry needed to not have any protectors. This means his parents, Sirius, and yes, Dumbledore as well. Also, about the Quidditch thing: What were you thinking? I didn't even understand what it was saying. When kids read HP, they aren't thinking about stupid stuff like that. They're thinking about what a truly great series it is.
ReplyLord of the Rings is better
TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
But seriously
Harry Potter? Violent? I play freakin' Manhunt, F.E.A.R, GTA and Saints Row.
ReplyManhunt sucks, saints row's violence is comedic and F.E.A.R. isn't that violent. Also, they're talking about books. Now please think before you speak.
what the hell? yes harry potter has some dark stuff in it, but the point of that is to show that even though it incorperates magic, it's meant to be realistic in it's way. and the quidditch thing? if you wanted you make the bible sound perverted. I will admit, he dates his best friend's sister. but guess what? Ron is fine with it. He expects it to happen all the way through the books.
ReplyUm, I don't think anyone would have to work that hard to make the bible sound dirty/perverted/extremely violent... have you read it?
So true
Lol I like that there are people that ACTUALLY look at Harry Potter this way. Great sarcastic article.
ReplyI really hope this article was sarcastic...
Reply