Stop Pretending Harry Potter Was Ever GOOD (The Magic System is STUPID) 

While we're at it. Thst hungry caterpillar story makes no goddamn sense. There's no way a caterpillar can eat that much. F***ing unrealistic bull$hit. Cmon man.

I’ve always loved the “instant death” spell is bad but the “flame thrower burn people alive till they are burned to death “ is fine

fans: so we can headcanon hermione as black? jkr: absolutely fans: so what about (minor character) as trans? jkr: *so you have chosen death*

The “kill them in real life, no don’t *burrrrp* that’s unsustainable” line got me. I felt like I was watching Rick irl

Love Vaush getting increasingly frustrated that his absurd MLP example is just canon stuff that happened in the show.

One of my biggest dislikes, is the magic skills be predicated on the Latin language, which means that they’re weird instances were like Snape created this spectrum simpra spell, which is basically just cutting something. By combining spectrum and saber if I remember correctly he created a whole new spell, does that mean that literally any Latinish phrases when smash together would create magical effects.

I think the biggest example of JKR having no self-awareness of her writing is the fact that so many plot points revolve around trying to figure out whether or not someone is lying, but there are lie detectors available as toys/novelty items. I forget which book it happens, but there's a scene where Ron gets an orb that detects when someone nearby is being dishonest as a gift, and considering the Weasleys are poor, it's probably not difficult to get. Figuring out someone's truthfulness evidently should not be a problem in the wizarding world.

The thing that irritated me the most is that they portrayed everything as being this happily ever after, when in reality they just subbed the old status quo for “status quo, but with people we like in charge”, and nothing really changes. The last chapter shows that Ron still has absolutely no problem with casually mind controlling a driving instructor into giving him a license, and Hermione only cares because he was breaking a rule (no thought at all given to the guy that was used as a puppet).

I understand where he’s coming from, BUT… As kids reading them while growing up, the tone shift kind of worked. The world was becoming more gritty and less whimsical. Now was it done well? No. On purpose? Maybe? Does Vaush’s criticism still stand? Yeah

I know the magic system is stupid & unstructured, I have always known. I just really like the story, and I will continue to love the story despite jk rowlings stupid terf stuff

I love the first few books because although it's goofy, the idea of a hidden wizarding world was fun and the world jk Rowling came up with was the right mix of wonderous and mundane for me to almost believe it was real. Honestly my least favourite part of those books was the Voldemort-death eater parts tbh. You could have literally made the books about some children attending a magic school and nothing really that bad happens and the biggest conflicts are interpersonal shit like getting into fights with malfoy and who won the quidditch game and I would have enjoyed that more

Vaugh I know you said, "Pendragon" but you described Eragon. They came out around the same time and were both for middle grade audiences so it makes sense. Pendragon is still good as an adult too

To be compeltely honest the magic and worldbuilding in MLP makes way more fucking sense than Harry Potter lmao

I’m surprised that Vaush seems to be one of the few people who shares my appreciation for the first two films. I think that the Chris Columbus Harry Potter films perfectly fit the campy whimsical tone they were going for, and didn’t like it when the story tried so hard to be dark and serious later on.

The Vaush content I need: more of Vaush yelling at chat and talking about cartoons pls

"Imagine if My Little Pony had an epic storyline about a evil armies and pony armies having to wage war." Yeah... Imagine that. (Friendship is Magic was wild.)

Tbh I mostly like it because of the nostalgia and fantasy. I just get good feeling when I watch / read it. I get the point though, the last few books are a bit inconsistent (and the world building is very broken, although it does make for fun "conversations" when you've run out of other things to talk about).

One Piece is another great example of the sort of world building that came up here. The series’ universe is goofy as hell, but is very well realized and still felt internally consistent as the story progressed and Oda started to focus on the verse's internal politics more. There’s no point where it feels like the world was retconned into being unrecognizable for the sake of tackling darker and more mature themes, and it never feels like the themes being touched on are at odds with the setting they’re portrayed in. It just feels like the stories being told grew up with the reader/viewer base.

He’s not wrong, but he’s also missing something pretty huge with his critique of the tonal shift. If you grew up as the Harry Potter books came out, the books became more mature as you did. It worked really quite well and I think it was intentional that way.

"the wizarding world makes no sense sociologically" Okay Vaush, you need to relax

One day Vaush will come for the Lord of The Rings and then I will join the cancel mob against him.

I think what breaks the Tone Shift is that it doesn't seem purposeful. Like, I remember at the end of the series, looking back at the whimsical colorful Hogwarts and just feeling like they kinda forgot about it.

You want a good magic world book series, read The Dresden Files. 1. The best way to kill a wizard is to shoot them when they don't know you're there. 2. Magic people don't control all the governemnts with mind magic because mind magic turns you into an insane person. So the much better option is bribery. 3. The magic system is fleshed out fairly well, the best way to cast a spell is to create small versions of what you want to do and use them to do it on a bigger scale, unfortunately that can be really time consuming, so the quick option is to use your will/internal energy but that is far more taxing on your body.

For as many bad things there are to say about Harry Potter my go to example of how it's a bad series is simply saying "there's one Asian character... named cho chang" and everyone immediately goes "oh.. yea right"

To me the issue isn't that the magic system doesn't have some rule book that is read out to the reader during the introduction of the first story. It's more so that because there is no established rules around how the magic works, the stories all consist of ever increasing levels of absurdity until they pull out the "and now the magic saves the day" card. Magic and time travel are usually crutches for bad story telling at the best of times, let alone when you're trying to build a giant universe of stories that spans centuries.

"Why would the wizards hide from muggles?" Proceeds to talk about how easy it would be for muggles to just shoot and kill wizards.

Harry Potter is the story about a generation coming of age at a time when a fascist movement is resurging and the adults are mostly useless so the children have to rise up and fight back.

Every time I hear about Harry Potter, it’s something like “I can’t believe Scrungus ThrumpWeasel managed to outwit Bibsy Bittercrumpit with the Rumpus-dumpus spell!”

Gotta say not once did i think "Man the magical system is so fucking well thought out and complex, its just downright amazing" when reading these books growing up honestly i didnt really care about the specifics of the magic and the fact that it was so disjointed and was really made to work in each situation probably made it more accessible to many people who didnt want to think about a rule system being applied to magic

We have this incredibly powerful time traveling device that if it we were to use it wisely and responsibly would come in quite handy multiple times throughout the series. Should probably just give it to a 13 year old so she can fit a couple extra classes in during the semester and never question the ethics of this or the device’s existence again.

One thing I hated about Harry Potter was the death curse. It just made magic battles so boring. They should be doing a serious of wild crazy spells like when Voldemort fought dumbledore. But unfortunately 90 percent of the magic battles turn into “my green wand laser vs your different color wand laser.” The death curse should have been used much more sparingly

Neil Gaiman is the objectively superior writer on every level, and she ripped Harry Potter off him. Plus Gaiman gives Timothy Hunter a personality and Gaiman is massively critical of TERFs, calling them out in the 90s.

The magic system is bad, but the characters and the world are why people watch it.

I’m not saying Harry Potter is the best series and I definitely hate JK but I still think it’s honestly decent and I’ll still go back to it because it’s very comfortable and sometimes I miss it. I like rereading the middle books because the ways the characters act remind me of my friends back in middle and high school. And yes the tone changes it’s literally advertised as “the series growing up with you.” It’s got it’s writing problems and I hate the way some things are portrayed but idk if I agree with some of these takes.

this is why Percy Jackson is the best kids book

I really wish harry potter kept the fun, whimsical tone of the first few books because those honestly slap

It's a story that seems enjoyable from the outside. Literally dont think too hard about it though.

Just a reminder that in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Harry Potter turns out to be the Antichrist, created as part of a century-long plot that involved Aleister Crowley and the Rolling Stones. And then to commemorate the new era of darkness he blows up his school, causing magical ripples that inspire disturbed young people in the Muggle world to commit acts of violence like school shootings. And then he's finally stopped by Mary Poppins. Damn.

Wonder how Vaush feels about Percy Jackson.

My issue with Harry Potter is that J.K Rowling acts like she created this super well thought out world and magic system on the likes of JRR tolkien and Robert Jordan despite contrary evidence, especially when she adds dumb shit years after the main books are over which cuz shes the author now means its officially canon. Like Rowling... it's okay you just wanted to write a whimsical fantasy story about white kids fighting evil in the U.K. Don't try and pretend otherwise.

Harry Potter doesn't have mana So Harry Potter Spells have no limit The series is about people learning how magic works AND THEY NEVER EXPLAIN HOW MAGIC WORKS!!!!

This video has singlehandedly drained the socialism out of me.

I find it funny that he brings up My Little Pony as a point of comparison when the magic system in the 2010-19 series was FAR more consistent and made much more sense than anything in Harry Potter.

I think that Harry Potter is not a book about magic. It is a book about mystery solving. You could cut all magic away and make very similar story about a boy going to a boarding school and solving mysteries with friends. That is what people liked. A well established school which allowed you to do some escapism. HP is closer to classic Nancy Drew books than fantasy epic.

I wanna debate Vaush on the merits of MLP as a show. I'm SICK of him using it as an example of bad TV.

You know... i never thought about this but im starting to appreciate the fact that in DBZ they went through the trouble to show Napa defeating The worlds Military by him Self in dragonball to show that you can't solve this invasion whit basic guns and missiles. And they did the same thing whit Cell to. And Dragon ball isn't exactly Shakespeare , its fucking dragon ball.

You forgot how in the first movie they emphasized wand usage along with the spoken spells, which eventually devolved into spoken spells with simple flick toward your target and eventually just flicking wands everywhere with no words necessary. Maybe this is addressed in the books but the movies just moved on.

1:30 “if there were people who could cast magical spells, they wouldn’t keep themselves hidden, they would use mind control spells to slowly take control over the entire world.” Literally the first chapter of Half Blood Prince is about anti-Voldemort wizards serving as magical protectors to the prime minister because dark wizards may likely try to take control over the muggle world.

The worst things that I think about HP are: Voldemort: He is such a loser of a villain with such shallowness that just falls flat. The potency and use of magic. There's spells, wand less spells, potions ranging from various uses. However, there's no reason as to why something is possible magically or not. Also protective wards like Vaush mentioned. No passive magical abilities... The tonal shift. I know that the audience is growing up overtime so the tone gets more serious. However, that doesn't change the fact that the soft magic system put forth in movies that are fun and goofy doesn't make any sense in the serious later movies.

Imagine playing D&D with Harry Potter magic rules.

Watching Harry Potter (Emma Watson) made me realise I was gay before I knew being gay was a thing so thanks JK Rowling I guess.

Now, I get why you would say this. I even have the same criticisms about the series, but I have a very deep connection to Harry Potter. It's probably my biggest obsession/hyper fixation, so it always fills me with joy to draw some fanart, or to read something, or build some Legos to play with them later

Considering the guns and the past witch trials, it does make sense why they're hidden from muggles. No reason the muggle Prime Minister, who is informed about the Wizarding world, couldn't be petitioned for a MI5 sniper. Bigger issue with the story is how Rowling pidgeonholes Slytherin into always being evil even when it means undermining their own education. All the major villains are Slytherin, *Umbridge* is Slytherin! And all they do to "fix" the atmosphere is slap up a portrait of Slughorn in their common room. Rowling wanted her story to mature up as it went, but never allowed it to grow out of the initial characterizations, even when doing so would've allowed for more interesting story possibilities.

As someone who was a brony up until Season 4 premiered, there literally was a pony army kind of scenario with Queen Chrysalis so his analogy checks out

“Princess bubblegum is smart, she could make a gun” SHE DID Edit: even if she hadn’t, she also made giant robots with laser eyes and the ability to stop time.

I’d love to see a little segment like this when you get around to seeing DUNE. Not a takedown of the movie I hope (personally I love it), but just a few minutes to share your thoughts. Have to wait and see I guess.

Sounds like Vaush would love Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fanfic.

1) I get what JKR was going for -- the world gets darker as Harry grows up, coming of age story, etc. But the problem is that a lot of the worldbuilding is just unabashedly, moronically earnest and whimsically saccharine. 12 sickles makes a knut, 17 knuts makes a galleon or what the fuck ever; people ride brooms like it doesn't look stupid; things have willfully childish names like "floo powder" and shit; the Ministry of Magic is so dumb that they give a TIME TRAVEL DEVICE to a LITERAL CHILD just so she can take extra classes, and it's totally fine... It makes it hard to swallow the tonal shift, especially since it hits so hard at the end of Book 4. 2) Harry DOES have a personality... It's just not good. He's moderately talented at flying and casting a few spells, but he's an absolute lazy idiot when it comes to his studies and generally pretty whiny. I get wanting to make him realistic rather than a naturally all-talented Gary Sue, but he ends up just not being that likable. Most of his charisma comes from Daniel Radcliffe rather than the text. 3) The love interest stuff is so bad. Cho Chang (a made-up name JKR picked because she just figured that's how Chinese people are named) spends several books with no personality before getting dropped for Ginny out of nowhere, Ron and Hermione are a TERRIBLE couple, Snape is portrayed as a suffering hero just because he never got over his schoolboy crush and abused her kid, it just feels... Weird. 4) They just never explain why the Wizards are secret. They just don't. Why not use your magic to end world hunger? Or stop wars? Well, at the very least they didn't draw too much attention to it... ... Until Crimes of Grendalwald where it shows that the sharing wizarding world 100% knows about WWI and the Holocaust and just didn't really do much of anything about it. Should have left that one in the drafts, JKR, alongside the Native American Wizard school that I ain't touching with a 10 foot pole. Anyway, Vaush avada'd a kadavra in that debate. (Seriously, JKR, Abra Carabra is the killing curse, what the fuck)

Soft magic system doesn't automatically mean bad nor does a narrative have to be defined by its magic system.

I was already grown up when Harry Potter came along, but a lot of the readers literally grew up with the books. Transitioning from a silly whimsical magical world to a cold dangerous gritty real one is what growing up is. And its not a smooth transition. It starts out with a mostly innocent magical world with occasional intrusions of dark cold reality, and as the years progress and we come of age its the reverse, ending up in a totally real world with brief occasional flashes of magic and then eventually none at all.

What always annoyed me about HP was its inability to take advantage of its setting to tell a story about the interaction between magical and non magical society. Seeing muggles working together with muggle born wizards to create magical technology, active attempts to give regular humans magical powers via blood transfusions. So much more could have been done to exploit the setting for interesting plot threats and JK just didn't, its disappointing and frustrating.

I always joke about how in the latest harry potter books (and specially the movies) you can basically change every wand with a gun and it would be basically the same experience. The magic world feels less magic with every new book and that was a problem with me, that follows this serie for all the magic bullshit (just contrast the magic challenges to find the pilosopher's stone vs the final battle, that was basically pew pew with wands)

title of the video: stop pretending harry potter was ever good. Vaush: "the first three books were okay"

I've always hated how liberal Harry Potter was (I didn't know the word for this, but I always had this feeling). Like, the main result of the book is that Harry becomes a member of the wizard FBI which is granted expanded permission to use the forbidden curses on suspects. Beating the supervillain aside, Harry arguably made the world a worse place.

"Why don't they use mind control to take over the government" that literally happens in the story 🤦‍♂️

I only watched the movies, but it always seemed like Harry just lucked into winning all the time.

The convolution with the wizarding world being secret is so that it's easier to insert yourself into that world. Harry Potter's massive success, at least initially, came from kids being able to easily imagine being whisked away to some whimsical world and going to some magical school instead of their real, mundane one. It's basically Fairly Oddparents. Vaush is thinking about it way too hard =P I'll agree the tonal shift away from this childish care-free world ruined any appeal the series had for me, though

Even in my awkward antisocial Teenager Phase, I didnt buy it what someone whos mentaly and verbaly abused by his Family from as fare as he could remember is perfectly stable, optimistic, and extroverted. Even for a Kids Book, thats stupid.

I would argue that the shift from a whimsical atmosphere to a dark gritty atmosphere was deliberate on JKR's part. It shows the shift from a child's attitude to an adult's attitude as the characters grew. We can argue how well she did it all day long. Bottom line JKR is a successful writer. A successful writer with horrid politics and abhorrent attitudes toward a significant sector of her readership. And she lost those readers when she revealed her politics and attitudes. So maybe not so smart financially. But I sure she is doing alright.

This is why I read HP straight through as an elementary schooler, watched all the films as they came out, and then never touched the Potterverse ever again

Harry Potter has its flaws and all but I really don’t find the dumbledore’s army thing cringe. This is because the ministry believed that dumbledore was creating a secret army to take down the ministry so they used the name to basically clown on them.

The ending part with the "Kill them in real life... wait no *BURP* that's not sustainable, they pay my rent," felt like a Rick line.

Here is my big-brained take. You guys ready?? I just like it. That’s all I need.

I think the first four books are good for the simple reason that they made me excited to learn and go to school. I think the rest of the books Snape aside fall off hard after that one. But I'll never forget the odd feeling I had after reading the fourth one during the summer before I became a Sophmore and how hyped it got me for school. I absolutely hated every second of school otherwise, so this was a really odd feeling for me.

Soft magic works better when magic is rare. This is done more aptly in a song of ice and fire as well as the lotr universe.

As a harry potter fan: Well said, Vaush. I think rowling kinda wrote herself into tighter and tighter corners as she kept trying to up the stakes after book 4. No one seems to remember 5 or 6, and 6 & 7 just fall apart due to inconsistencies in her world building piling up. It was a really disappointing ending to what had begun as a really good series.

I like the magic used in the Harry Dresden books. King Killer Chronicle is also pretty good though it isn't as prominent.

The first 3 Harry Potter movies (sorry guys I don't remember much from reading the books as a kid) are good. Personally I think the Prisoner of Azkaban is excellent.

Expected him to point out that if the unforgivable curses are so easily tracked then why are people not using the basic blast spells to kill instead of Avada Kedavra...

If you want good wizards, read Terry Pratchetts Discworld novels. The wizards in it are pathetic but gloriously pathetic.

It's kind of weird now that you mention it. The first story was actually pretty consistent. The dark elements where the kinds of things which you'd find in fairy tales. The evil witch is defeated by love, or a wish, or something like that. But it just kept getting worse as the books progressed. I noticed this in the movies more than the books, but the big fights they set up just seem like a clash of themes. The magic system is too whimsical to be really taken seriously, but the story was actually a very serious story. Oh, and lets not forget the whole house elf thing. She set up to critique slavery, but instead of actually doing that, she just turned it into a "ha, gottem" joke at the end with the sock. At the end of the day I still like the stories though, I've noticed a long time ago that a story doesn't have to be good to be enjoyable. And let's be honest, as far as teen fiction goes, there are WAY worse things. Also way better ones, though. But that's usually how mainstream things turn out. They're not amazing, but they're not terrible either.

I've always said that stories with superpowers need to give their heroes powers that are stronger then "Someone with a gun", otherwise everyone would just use a gun. Heck, you can make your powers weaker then people with guns, but then have everyone use guns! Make your protagonist someone that can move things the size of a truck with their mind, and take their cover with them as they peek and shoot the bad guys.

The Harry Potter series gets worse the more you scrutinize it. You're telling me that Arthur Weasley love muggle artifacts yet somehow didn't own a gun to protect his family if magic wasn't good enough? You're telling me that the Cruciatus Curse, one that has been around for centuries, has no defense other than hiding? You're telling me that Barty Crouch Jr played Mad Eye Moody so well that not even Dumbledore could spot him until he messed up? I could keep going, but there are too many.

funny thing is, there is a perfectly good way to nerf the killing curse. Make it an insta kill, but also very easy to block, so if you want to use it, you have to disarm your opponent first.

I love how Vaush actually has the exact same opinions I had on Harry Potter when I read them. I really liked the first three books, in the fourth it seemed like everyone behaved like fourteen year old girls - even the adults - the fifth was annoying, cringe and waaaaay too long, and actually I don't remember much from the last two. The first three books made sense in its setting, and then it all sort of spiraled.

His extended My Little Pony analogy reminded me of this one comedic fanfic I read back when I was a brony-in-denial. Basically, Princess Celestia declares war on Earth, and her invading force gets destroyed in five minutes. And Canterlot gets fucking nuked at the end.

It's not just the stupidity of the magic system. The whole story is all over the place. Plot points get thrown at you out of nowhere. When they tried destroying the amulet they were not able to. But at some point, when they find the sword of gryffindor, suddenly Harry has to talk to the horcrux? And Voldemort probably knows where the parts of his soul are, right? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep Harry alive at all costs because then he wouldn't be able to die? Why destroy your only hope of survival? And Harry Potter himself is probably the worst protagonist I have ever seen. Maybe there are worse ones and I just can't think of any. But he is bad. All the talk about being the chosen one when literally everyone is able to kill Voldemort once Harry Potter is dead. If anything, protecting Harry was the only reason why the story was able to even reach that point. He wasn't even a good wizard. Average, at best. His whole personality was about being narcissistic and missing his parents who he never knew. And everyone felt bad for him when Hermione was the one who went through more tragedy than him. And don't get me started on the deathly hallows, probably the weakest trinkets in all of Harry Potter. I should stop before I write a book about how many things I dislike about Harry Potter, even if it is supposed to be a children's story. I would write seven, probably. JKR created a whimsical world that tried to take itself serious. That was the mistake.

I honestly agree, Harry Potter wasn't ever good... also, as philosophy tube pointed out in one of her older videos, Harry Potter is a bourgeoisie fantasy, which doesn't necessarily make it bad (the writing makes it bad), but let's just say that there were some missed opportunities...

If you want a well written version of Harry Potter, than I recommend the "Books of Magic" comic series! It was written by Neil Gaiman, and actually predates Harry Potter by a few years!

Guys hear me out: Fanfic where Abigail Thorn, Natalie Thorn and Hbomb go to Hogswart to stop gremlin hitler.

I would love for Vaush to discuss more art stuff. Its really interesting in whenever he talks about it. I think it is informative and a lot of fun. Would love him to talk about art with other people. Be super interesting.

MLP: acknowledges human world w/ guns MLP: time travel episode showing a massive war between ponies & ponies under mind control. MLP: Cozy Glow has locked away the mane 6 in HELL and is going to kill EVERYONE who is reliant on magic to live.

"I hate hate hate you" I was rolling!

The books tone changed as I got older, I liked that about them. You can read the first book and it has kind of a childish feel to it, as you get closer to the last book, they get more and more serious feeling, just as life was.

I get the criticisms, but overall Harry Potter is good. This seems like an opinion said in hindsight, you can't over-rationalize fantasy. Like others have mentioned, the darker tones in the later books are there for a reason, as they are growing, and as the audience is growing, the struggles they have to face become more difficult.

Even my little pony has a more consistent and serious magic system than harry potter ( harry potter does not have a magic system at all )

Vaush went full comic book guy

When I was in 6th grade and everyone in Germany at the time talked about this stuff I was really annoyed and felt it too be cheap peer-pressure at the time I thought its dumb children books... 15 years later I watched the movies together with my girlfriend and felt really tonally confused by the movies... even the games they play usually would kill people... I fully agree.

is there even a lore explanation for why the wizards stay secret from the muggles? why would that ever be a thing that started? they assumedly all come from the same planet and are all assumedly still humans, so what could possibly have happened that lead an entire race of magic users to decide that muggles weren't allowed to see any magic and let them basically rule the planet while wizards have to act in secret?

Tbh what annoys me about Harry Potter's magic is that the series is set almost exclusively in a fucking school dedicated purely to teaching shit about magic but we still know nothing about how spells are created. Like the killing curse has "completely unblockable" as an extra effect, which is partly what makes it so dangerous. But, like... why doesn't every spell have that? I assume there's some reason. Is it because the need for killing intent is what allows it to break through nearly any defence? Fucking maybe, but nobody, including the many students being taught about it for the first time ON SCREEN, ever question it or attempt to give the audience an answer. Snape's slashing curse moves instantly and is impossible to dodge as a result, is there something stopping every spell from having this effect? Are all wizards just fucking morons who don't understand how ridiculously superior they could make most of their spells? Quite possibly, it's not like that'd be inconsistent with their apparent inability to see the value in literal time travel or a magic potion that makes you capable of doing almost anything for 24 hours at a time. People always go on about Harry Potter's world feeling big, but for me it's the opposite. Rowling added a shit ton of stuff to it, but that doesn't make it big for the same reason the world isn't big to a newborn baby- anything that isn't on screen at that very moment simply doesn't exist. She forgets about it, which means her world forgets about it. Rowling doesn't add things to her world, she adds them to her stories and then incredibly conveniently removes them from her world rather than taking the time to make their existence have any semblance of logic behind it.