Assassins of joy.

So let me start by saying that I like the Harry Potter. As much as I'd like to rag on it as some kind of empty, multi-media money-printing license, it's actually been a solid, consistently enjoyable series.

J.K. Rowling basically invented one of these.

What can I say? We hate fun.

I just saw pt. 2 of part 7 (or is it 8? Maybe 7.5?) and I liked it too. It's a good movie. That said, if it's all right with you, I'd like to complain about the basic premise. It's not that I don't understand that it's fiction or that I have some kind of inability to suspend my disbelief, it's just that as a geek with access to the internet I feel it's my duty to complain about sci-fi/fantasy things even if I like them. It's what we do.


So my beef with the whole Harry Potter universe is with the magic. As much as I dug the books and the movies, I think there's a huge problem with how powerful and abundant the magic is in this series. It's everywhere, does anything and never runs out.

You know, like fossil fuels.

"What, was I supposed to do? 
Use my hand?"

-Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi, lazy bastard

Wizards in things like Dungeons and Dragons and Final Fantasy get tired or run out of mana or something. Not so with Harry Potter. The teen-wizards can fire off Bat Bogey Hex's all day and not break a sweat. They use magic all the time, and for everything. It turns lights on, it finds your keys, everything. It's like that scene in Star Wars Episode III when Obi-Wan stows away in the bathroom of Padme's starship and instead of simply closing the door, he uses the goddamn Force to shut it for him. It's just excessive.


Combine this with the fact that one quarter of the student body at the magic school is devoted to evil and we have a problem. By the way, does anyone else find that a little weird? It would be like Westpoint turning out both G.I. Joe and Cobra, or if the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants all went to the same high school (oh, right). I'm just saying that maybe the Hogwarts PTA should step in or something.

"Hey, Snake Eyes! Long time no see! Remember when we had fifth period together?
Wow, good times. Anyway, death to America!"

By season 9 of Bewitched
Samantha ruled with an iron fist from
atop a throne of skulls.

Given that these kids are all sitting on an inexhaustible well of magic mojo and that power tends to corrupt, even without Slytherin there should be (statistically speaking) like three Voldemorts a month. And there's like hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of wizards in this fictional world, all of whom have limitless, god-like power. What's stopping them from taking over the world? The next movie should be about a rag tag band of non-wizards bringing down the oppressive Mageocracy that the Hogwarts students would undoubtably create.

Let's hear it for science!

To prove my point I propose an experiment, which I hope someone reading this will be willing to fund. Let's take ten people and give them each a million dollars and tell them to use it as they see fit. Now I have an optimistic view of humans, so I'm thinking that most people will pay off credit cards or put it in the bank, a few might even give some to charity but I guarantee you at least one of our freshly-minted millionaires will be staging monkey jello wrestling matches within a day. Twenty-four hours.

 iWeep for the future.

Now imagine that instead of money, these ten people were teens with magic powers and training. The example of any 15 year-old with access to the liquor cabinet has shown that kids can get into all sorts of shenanigans. My blood chills at the thought of what would happen if children born after 1996 had the absolute control over space, time and reality demonstrated by the kids in these movies. Television would be nothing but iCarly and Stephanie Myers would be accepting the Pulitzer for Twilight 6: Slightly Overcast. Even more unsettling is the fact that magic or no, this generation will be in charge one day.

Anyway, like I said I really did enjoy these movies and I'm a little bummed that this was the last one if for no reason other than the rabid fan base that makes the rest of us look almost normal. Somehow a grown mother of three waving a wand and shouting faux-latin curses outside the Barnes and Noble is more embarrassing than my geeky brethren play fighting with plastic lightsabres. 

If I put on chain mail and a sword to pick up the new

George R. R. Martin wouldn't someone be calling the cops?

p.s. Hey check this out, it's a clip my friend put together on the you-tubes. It's fans waiting in line for Harry Potter 7.0. And yes, they rap.