[HPforGrownups] Re: Hate crimes (was ... uh, I forget, surely it was something....)

[Marion Ros]

No: HPFGUIDX 155846

> >>houyhnhnm:
> <snip>
> The biggest Prank of all is on the reader, enticed to escape
> into a delightful magical fantasy world which turns out to be a
> nightmarish dystopia.

>Betsy Hp:
Odd, isn't it? And the strange thing is I cannot see JKR solving 
this issue by the end of book 7. I'm sure most things will be tied 
up (Voldemort dead, Hogwarts united, etc.) but the WW will probably 
remain a brutal and dark place to live.<


Marion:
Odd it might be, but it is certainly deliberate. From a interview with Time magazine in 2005:
"Granted, Rowling's books begin like invitations to garden-variety escapism: Ooh, Harry isn't really a poor orphan; he's actually a wealthy wizard who rides a secret train to a castle, and so on. But as they go on, you realize that while the fun stuff is pure cotton candy, the problems are very real--embarrassment, prejudice, depression, anger, poverty, death. "I was trying to subvert the genre," Rowling explains bluntly. "Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he's left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life.""

http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-time-grossman.htm


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