JK Rowling has her problems as a writer but people are really blowing things out of proportion all except maybe three of these points are completely blown out of proportion, very nitpicky or nonsense.

People being at the right place at the right time is like omnipresent in literature and almost all of these points could be copied in basically all storys with magic or scifi also have to agree with Sesc most of these points feel like stuff in a rationality fanfic.

Jk does use plot devices and her logic can be wonky at times but people just create problems where there aren't and say character are dumbasses because they could have used X magic to cut of the basin with the potion instead of drinking it etc.

I think it is also partly because everybody on this site is intensely familiar with HP having basically read all events in the books dozen times by rehash Fanfics so it is under a much higher microscope than say stuff like Star Wars, Marvel, LOTR who have almost or just as much plothles or asspuls as HP.

Also about the taboo I never questioned it being the reason becaused he was called You-know-who. People refused to say his name because of pure fear he just used the taboo to capture his enemies especially Harry and the Order because he knew they were using it so he could track them.

 

Maybe I'm explaining it poorly, but the problem isn't so much with the idea that the Taboo wasn't used back during the original war, despite it being among the most potent possible tools for a terrorist, but that it wasn't mentioned until DH. Basically, JKR pulled it out of her ass when she needed some way for Voldemort to find Harry and Co during their little camping trip, and declared it was totes a thing despite it raising several new questions (such as "if it was a thing that was possible, why was Voldemort, an alleged genius, too stupid to use a tool that could almost single-handedly win the first war for him back then?" or "if he wasn't actually dumber than a sack of rocks, why would Dumbledore encourage people to use his name?") that didn't need to be raised.

The mere existence of the Taboo makes the story make less sense than it would otherwise. Literally just remove the Taboo as a thing and replace it with some other contrivance to get them captured (say, Harry gets fed up and does something stupid on a food run that gives them away), and the story as a whole is more cohesive.

That's the thing I've been trying to get at. Rowling's biggest flaw as a writer is that she doesn't stop to consider the whole body of work and is bad with details, which means she just runs with whatever idea springs to mind, and then tries to paper over or ignore any issues that idea might raise with earlier work. None of it is a deal breaker or anything, but there's some real fridge logic nonsense in the Harry Potter books, and it makes the series as a whole lesser than it could be.

 

I suppose the coincidence ot the Taboo being put in place only after Voldemort has complete control of the Ministry, and it never being mentioned before he had said control was a bit too subtle an explanation for this. /s

As to its reason for existing: atmosphere. Harry's defiance of Voldemort by saying his name has been a defining characteristic of his since the beginning. Taking it from him now makes it feel more like a defeat.

Edit:

Course we heard of it, back in book 2. We even had its main flaw: that it doesn't identify the caster. Sure, it wasn't named and that's pretty dumb, and it was not a new thing in DH.

 

We don't have have all the info on the taboo it's possible that he could only use it when he took over the ministry, that it was a magical device he just obtained or that he has just recently created the spell himself.

Imo there is not at all a problem with it she could maybe have gone into more detail how he got acces to it but that would be too info dumpy for some.

I really don't think she must foreshadow or go into detail about every new spell she introduces

 

[Off Topic and Possibly Already Previously Discussed]

Did canon ever hit us up with an answer of how the adults in a magical home could use magic and not pop the trace for their kid? If that's an integral weakness of the charm it would make sense to only apply it to muggleborns, which opens another trash fanon door of "the trace doesn't work for purebloods so they have prior casting experience"

[/off topic]

 

They do pop the Trace, it's ignored by the Ministry. Yes, it's biased against Muggle-raised.

What? I've always thought the Trace being on the wand was some stupid invention of fanon, are you telling me I missed something in DH all these years? 'Cause yeah, I was talking about a location-based detection spell being old story. When is it ever define as anything else in the books?

Edit @Sesc : Quickly re-reading DH, they do talk about it as on the person (not the wand) so I get where there could be a problem

 

@Agayek Re: Taboo, it might be a neat explanation, but it's wrong. Taboo appeared after Voldemort had the power of the Ministry at his disposal (and the Ministry apparently has some collective power or magical tools as opposed to just being a collection of people, given the Trace for example).

The whole thing with Voldemort's name might just be fear. Fear and authority have been shown to be real magical things in the Potterverse (HP magic is concept-based, boggarts are fear materialized, Snape used an impromptu made up spell in PoA to force the Map to obey him by invoking his authority as the Potions Master of Hogwarts, which indicates that a wizard of Snape's caliber thought such magic is possible).

Hell, a teaching position was cursed. Some things which are just ideas irl are tangible and real in HP.

 

Look at the quote Sesc posted. Canon evidence right there that Taboo is new, don't need Pottermore.

If Pottermore contradicts Taboo appearing for the first time in DH, it's a retcon.

 

Maybe we misunderstand each other.

Quote goes "now they've put a Taboo on it".

This implies that the people talking know what a Taboo is, therefore Taboo the spell isn't new. But Voldmort employing it on his name is new. He didn't have the Taboo on his name before DH, and that's what @Agayek seemed to be arguing as the reason why people wouldn't say his name before DH.

 

My assertion is that the Taboo was active on his name during the first war, then it was broken after he was struck down (presumably, he anchored it to his body so the Taboo disappeared along with it, or perhaps Dumbledore dismantled it after his 'death'), and he put it back up again in DH.

Re: the argument that it's a brand new thing: That's certainly possible, but then that leaves the problem of how actual human behavior doesn't line up with how it's presented in canon. There'd be more than all of 3-4 people willing to use his name if it was purely "Voldemort's a big scary meanyface", especially among children, who are both ignorant and mean enough to be shrieking his name every chance they can get.

Ultimately, my point is that the whole You-Know-Who thing just flat-out doesn't make sense without some kind of motivating factor, and the Taboo is the only element of canon that is actually reasonable as that motivating factor. Ergo, unless we wanna start making shit up to explain it, the Taboo must be connected to it.

Edit:
Or, more accurately, my assertion is that JKR's addition of the Taboo makes the whole thing unnecessarily complicated and raises questions that don't need to be raised purely because she needed a plot device to force a specific outcome.

 

Comparing me to Less Wrong? Dear God, man, that one hurts. I hate that story almost as much as I hate Ayn Rand.

I don't think every example I listed is a real problem. Every fantasy story has coincidences and contrivances. But for me personally, the sheer number of them becomes eye-rolly. I remember reading the first Harry Potter book around 2005 or so and thinking, 'God, this is stupid, but it's charming and I can't wait to see what happens next.' The contrivances don't bother me because I know I'm reading children's literature, and the whole point is thrilling escapism.

But yeah, I do think a few of them are real problems if you look at the in-story logic, especially Voldemort's cartoonish plots, Dumbledore's inconsistent behavior, and the dozens of suspiciously convenient events (some of which were necessary to avoid telling a million word story). The reason for some of them boils down to 'because JKR needed them to happen that way, even if they look silly in retrospect, now shush.' We can agree to disagree.

She also likes to use Chekhov howitzers instead of Chekhov guns, but that's another issue.

I agree completely with Agayek's reasoning here. The first time they mentioned the taboo in DH, I thought, 'oh, so that's why everyone was always so terrified to say Voldemort's name,' with the assumption being he had already done something like that in the past. As he said, it explains why people jump out of their skin every time they hear the name, even after the dude is dead and it's said in secret.

I agree that Ron's phrasing is ambiguous, but it ties the whole 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' issue up in a neat little bow.