Has anyone pointed out that JKR is simply bad at plotting for the long term? Virtually everything she's written in HP has been "the story now." What new spells can I stick in? What new character traits can I stick in? What new Chekhov's Gun can I stick in for this story to work? Past stories don't matter too much as log as I can skate with an excuse if I screw up somewhere. And future stories don't matter, because I can do the same thing when I get around to writing them.

There are so many inconsistencies that it's painful, but we overlook them because it's a neat story up to a point. It's like she said, "Ah, shit. They want even more stories? I guess I better think of a way to stretch this out with a new plot contrivance. It doesn't matter that it really doesn't work because of "X". I kind of wrote myself into a corner with that "Y", so I'll throw something up that excuses it."

She shows this trait every time she throws up a new, "The Weasleys were actually Hispanic... and Muslim. Prove that they aren't... 'cause I never said in the books."

 

She can foreshadow, but when introducing the current book cool stuff, doesn't take a moment to consider of the implications the new trick has on former books.

Oh and from what I heard/read ignoring her editors (for later books).

 

Concisely, and almost always, it's because the independent Harry cliche requires that Harry not work with the hundred year old with a history of opposing and defeating dark lords. Hard to be independent when, as in canon, working with and under Dumbledore has so many obvious advantages.

 

The Harry Potter novels fail if you try to read them as a consistent and thought out story.

They succeed if you read them as children’s stories. Which they were always meant to be.

Dumbledore is the same way.

 

Exactly. I think Heather was saying the same thing. Each novel is like a new episode of Scooby Doo. There's a new mystery to be solved, and it's enthralling to see these fun characters try to figure it out. Above all, JKR was great at building suspense and creating characters that people felt invested in. (People like Luna and Snape could almost be at home in a Dickens novel).

But when you take a step a back and look at how each mystery was solved, and the overall picture, the cracks start to appear. I don't think you can fix some of them, but again, that's what fanfiction is for.

 

For me it’s less that they don’t work as individual books and more that they don’t work as anything other than children’s stories. I’d personally argue that they struggle even as young adult novels.

It’s not that they are inconsistent internally..it’s that they are not consistent with human nature and reality. And yeah, I get that it’s fiction and a fantasy...but the older I get the harder it is for me to suspend my disbelief with Harry Potter. Not because of magic, but because of the characters and social structures.

I don’t have that problem with books like Percy Jackson, Lord of the Rings, or Chronicles of Narnia...

 

Let me rephrase:

She's not good in long term plotting of the minutiae of the story. The big themes, main characters, etc. is fine. It's the piling up of little inconsistencies that drive me nuts. It's sloppy. I can still enjoy the story because she got the important parts down well, but as the plot progresses over the last few books it started to unwind because of the crap that she randomly threw (is still throwing) in there.

 

A good example is the Taboo. It answered one question, why people call him "You-Know-Who", but at the same time, created a whole slew of new issues in earlier books, like why Dumbledore encourages people to say "Voldemort" when he knows it'll let him show up and murder them almost trivially.

JKR is highly imaginative and a good writer, but she's very much not good at details, at the little things that elevate a world from an imaginary land to a real place, and it's shown repeatedly throughout the series.

 

I was under the impression that the taboo only came in later, when he finally managed to take over the ministry, not in the first war. In the first war, he would have had to find and kill people who said his name the hard way. And if everyone said his name with impunity, then this would be unrealistic, which is probably why Dumbledore tried to encourage people to do so. This is also a social thing, where by actually saying his name people can act more rationally regarding him. This would benefit Dumbledore because he needs people to coordinate with him to kill Voldemort.

Edit: And the power of fear and the power of a name might have real power in magic. Who knows. I don't think it's required to make sense of it all, but I can see how someone could add that in.

 

Yeah, I agree with you completely there. I mean mostly what Heather, Arthellion, and Agayek said above. If you take a step back and examine the way the stories are told (rather than the themes), you start to notice a whole host of contrivances, absurd conveniences, plot holes, and characters acting stupidly for the sake of the plot.

When you read the books for the first time, they are riveting. There's a mystery to be solved in each one, and usually a big reveal (Moody is Crouch, Snape kills Dumbledore, etc.). It's only afterwards, when you think about what had to happen to get there, that you see JKR's big stage hands moving behind the scenes, and willing suspension of disbelief suffers big time.

I don't have a problem with her general plan or her themes, and I love how charming and weird she made the magical world. She's got one hell of an imagination.

 

I mean, yes, but then that begs the question: Why did "You-Know-Who" become a thing in the first place? If there were no consequences for it, it wouldn't have become a nearly universal social phenomena, especially if there were actual, directly harmful results from doing so, and just the sound of his name certainly wouldn't have induced panic attacks in random people.

The whole point of the Taboo was Rowling trying to explain that particular quirk of the Wizarding World, but in doing so, created a retcon/plot hole, for lack of a better term, in the older books that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Is it the end of the world? No, not at all, but it's a good example of Rowling's lack of attention to detail and focus on "the moment" over the existing body of work. It's a legitimate major flaw in the books, where taken individually, it's not an issue at all, but when taken as a greater whole, the contradictions and inconsistencies serve to weaken it, sometimes substantially so. It's all fridge logic stuff though, and it's often unnoticeable when first reading it.

 

How did you not? Like, I think I get what you're saying, but I just can't wrap my brain around the logic that the Taboo and the whole You-Know-Who thing are distinct. The very nature of the latter is because Voldemort's name was, well, taboo and it was the necessary step to not violate that.

The Taboo magic ties directly into that. I just can't see a serious argument for them being unrelated, outside of "JKR is inconsistent and just made up some nonsense when it was plot convenient", and I'm all kinds of curious how you came to that conclusion.

 

It might just be differences in suspension of disbelief. I'll give you some examples of what I mean, but keep in mind these are in the context of how HP works as children's literature but not as adult literature. Sorry for the tl; dr, Sesc, but you did ask.

Some Random Contrivances and Conveniences:
-See above Dumbledore examples, plus flying to London on a broom in book one

-Hermione, though i like her character, usually knows too much (especially in the last book). JKR straightup admitted to using her as the most convenient way to introduce new magic

-In Book 7, Dumbledore conveniently knows Ron will abandon his friends and gives him the deluminator. Ron conveniently uses it at exactly the moment that Snape sends Harry the sword, allowing him to save Harry's life and return conveniently to the plot as a redeemed man.

-Dobby. He is able to apparate them to safety from Malfoy Mansion. Why weren't they relying on him earlier in the book to move around or eat? Well, Ron needed to throw his fit over being too hungry and leave, so they all forgot about him.

-Getting Snape's memories. How convenient that they found Snape at exactly the moment of his death so he could give Harry those memories. Otherwise Harry wouldn't have known he was a horcrux and everyone at the castle probably dies. It's a good thing Voldemort didn't AK Snape.

-When fighting a basilisk, it always helps to have a phoenix show up unexpectedly to claw out its eyes, provide you with a Deus-Ex-Sword, and then heal you. Likewise when encountering spiders and centaurs in the forbidden forest: it's always helpful to have feral automobiles on your side.

-Dumbledore taking an entire year to give Harry three mostly useless memories. Crouch entering Harry into a deadly tournament when he could have just stunned/kidnapped him at any moment. In fact, pick any book. It's almost as if the plots were intentionally mysterious and convoluted so they could last a full year, even when they didn't require it.

-Pettigrew lives as a rat for over a decade because he needs to be there for the big reveal in book three. Nobody even suspects him of being alive and there's nothing to learn from the Weasleys. Why did he not leave and go to Europe?

-The Seven Harrys Scenario. Nuff said.

-No help on the horcrux hunt, because Ron knowing about the secret to Voldemort's immortality is definitely more important than, say, Moody or Shacklebolt. But then they wouldn't have had to camp in the woods for months or struggle, so...

-Hermione getting a time-turner, a world-breaking kind of magic, to take extra classes. Conveniently they destroy all of them later so the bad guys can't get them.

-Wand allegiance nonsense, designed specifically for the even bigger contrivance of the Deathstick. It must suck to have to get a new wand after practicing expelliarmus in the DA; professional duelists must really hate losing too. Plus Harry never even touched the Elder Wand; he took Draco Malfoy's regular wand away from him, but okay...

-It's a good thing the trio picked Lupin's compartment in third year, since he's the only guy on train who can repel dementors

That's without even considering the really obvious problems that things like Polyjuice and Liquid Luck create. Why didn't Voldemort just sneak into Hogwarts under polyjuice and murder Harry? He could have even made a big production of it. Why didn't the trio or the Death Eaters bother with the very convenient Liquid Luck potion in book seven? JKR introduces stuff like this when she needs it and then conveniently forgets about it.

There are literally dozens of others. This may sound like a dismissive rant, but it's not. Every book uses plot contrivances of some sort. JKR moved her characters around to advance the plot, to fit the conventions of the mystery genre, and to thrill her young readers. No problemo. But she wasn't at all subtle about it, and I don't think she worried much whether it would make sense to a careful reader.

That's fine. The books are great for what they are. We're just pointing out that there's a shit ton of little things in the books that would be mocked as contrived if they showed up in adult novels. That shouldn't stop any of us from liking them.

 

Didn't Taure do something in a fic once where people simply didn't know his name at first and they just called him You-Know-Who? And then after his name did become known the use of it became associated with opposition to his party?

He likely assassinated high-profile people who used his name publicly to show off his power. Add in the fact the Death Eater identities were unknown and the imperious curse exists and people were too afraid to say his name even in private. Essentially, the Taboo just made easier what he was already doing.

 

You're missing my point, I feel. You see that one in the bit you quoted? About how only Dumbledore and the like were willing to speak his name? And do you remember when half the time Harry says it the people nearby have minor panic attacks?

There has to be a reason why 99.9% of the population refuses to speak his name. And "because he was evil" doesn't cut it. People just don't work that way. If nothing else, there'd be a small, vocal minority of the population who go maximum edgy or trolly and just randomly shout his name, just to fuck with people.

But that doesn't happen. And the Taboo very neatly explains why sheer paralyzing terror at just the thought of speaking his name is so ubiquitous; because he can, has, and will randomly show up and torture you to death for it.

So really, what we're left with is either a) a group of people who don't behave like people at all, or b) a clear explanation for the behavior of that group of people, but Dumbledore likes encouraging people to get themselves murderfucked. Neither is a particularly stellar example of writing talent.

 

Or c) there is a reason we aren't given for everyone's fear of saying his name. Scarat gave a possible one in his last post. That's the same as with literally every little thing that's not explicitly said in every story: either you assume there's an underlying, unsaid reason, or you assume there isn't, and you only get conclusions like "Dumbledore secretly wanted Harry to die because of the Taboo" or "JKR can't write".

But still, I don't get why you would jump on the Taboo to be this reason when, as you said, it immediately makes you wonder why Dumbledore would encourage people to infringe it. Sure, it could have been an explanation if Dumbledore hadn't done that, but he did, so it isn't. Call it a missed opportunity if you want, but it's hardly a incoherence when it's not even suggested to have been used before.