Mastodawn

I just saw a post about how what made Harry Potter so big wasn't the magic school or the setting- it was the houses. A group you are loyal to and can pretend was assigned to you for fundamental, benevolent reasons.

That's a really amazing take. I never thought about that because it's 100% not something I give a shit about, but it seems like it might explain a lot. Like a LOT.

Both behind the scenes and with the fans. It explains so damn much.

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James Baillie 1d ago

@Craigp Oh yes would 100% agree with this take. Crafting a typological sense of belonging for the reader that people can use as a shorthand self-description and incorporate into their thought-world was definitely a big part of the whole fandom base.

(Harry Potter is to middle class people born in the 1990s what Myers-Briggs tests are to people who work in HR, and these days they're now often exactly the same people).

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James T Monkey

@JubalBarca @Craigp I think you’re right, but I’m not sure it’s crafting in the deliberate sense. Houses were a pretty normal part of British schooling for a long time and a common plot engine of the school stories from the mid-1900s that HP is based on. The houses are a bit more Eton and Oxbridge college-coded than you’d find in your typical public high school and taken to fantasy extremes, but it wouldn’t be a British school story without that arbitrary othering and rivalry

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Craig P 22h ago

@teamonkey @JubalBarca i wouldn't assume intentionality from anything JKR does. I think it was happenstance, but it's still effective.