Anon finds a plot hole

Let's be real.
Rowling started out making a fairly bog standard magical kids book. It was all about the fantasy of being a wizard, and relied on tropes so old they get found in La Brea.
This isn't a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with that kind of kid lit.
But she wasn't a good writer. She was mid tier at best. So the eventual success of the series got beyond her abilities. While the last book was much better overall than the first few, it still relied on shoddy world building because she had chased sales.
She tried to turn a kid's light fantasy into a YA fatasy-adventure. To an extent, it worked. And I don't mean that it wasn't successful, she had a hit on her hands because the idea behind it all was brilliant. It pulled from a long history of British youth fiction, and added in fantasy and magic and a ton of tropes.
But from the perspective of a coherent story in a coherent world, ignoring the success in terms of sales, it was cobbled together without a plan, and it shows. It wasn't until maybe order of the phoenix that she had a plan for how the story would end, and she had to do a lot of hand waving to make it happen.
Again, that's okay. Nothing wrong with a bit of light fiction. But, it had cultural impact way beyond its original scope. So it draws the same kind of analysis that something like LOTR does, and it just can't compare. It barely holds up to comparisons with Narnia, and Narnia at least kept things vague and mystical without trying to get into the mechanisms under the hood.
For whatever reasons, Harry, in the books, long before the movies, resonated with kids. So the series exploded. And now everyone pokes at it like it was ever supposed to be literature, with any serious thought behind it. It was all broad brush strokes on construction paper from the beginning, expecting anything in it to hold up to scrutiny is like expecting politicians to be honest and up front. It is what it is.
- And now everyone pokes at it like it was ever supposed to be literature, with any serious thought behind it.
  terf lady doesn't help herself by incessantly insisting that everything was planned from the very start
- I always say - to defend the series (which doesn't need too much defending, it's the most successful book series after the old testament > new testament > Quran trilogy). The magic of Harry Potter is that all of the fantasy magic works exactly as well as it needs to right at the moment that it's directly in front of the readers eyes. As you mention, as soon as it leaves the view of the characters in the story, it literally blows up into nonsense. However, as the story is being told the magic used is awesome and just what the plot needs at that exact moment to move along.
  
  To be fair, Harry Potter is probably more logically consistent than the Bible is.
  
  as the story is being told the magic used is awesome and just what the plot needs at that exact moment to move along
  That's bad writing.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
  a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence
- Let's be real here, she started off just writing a fun story, think nothing of it, and it became a cult. There's two ways to go about this; 1) milk it for everything it's worth, or 2) let the fans go apeshit on fanfic without providing anything more. She chose option 1. Cause money.
  
  Arguably I think all the flaws combined with its popularity is why there are so many HP fanfics out there and they are at least part of the popularity of the work.
  It's like confidently posting a wrong answer on the Internet, people can't help but want to correct you. Same with her story, which fuels a good chunk of the dialogue and discussions about it.
  If it was bad or unpopular no one would care. If it was extremely well written, with little to no plot holes, people would like it, but that's kind of it. Harry Potter just seems to have the right mix of good ideas and poor execution while remaining popular enough to be relevant to generate seemingly endless efforts to fix or improve it.
- Agreed on all points. I view fiction like this the same way I view junkfood TV shows/movies/music/etc. Yeah, it's often brainless, but if you shut your brain off and go with the flow, it can be enjoyable. Just don't consume too much of it, because then you'll start to actually think it's something more than it really is.
- "But from the perspective of a coherent story in a coherent world, ignoring the success in terms of sales, it was cobbled together without a plan, and it shows. It wasn’t until maybe order of the phoenix that she had a plan for how the story would end, and she had to do a lot of hand waving to make it happen."
  "But she wasn’t a good writer. She was mid tier at best. So the eventual success of the series got beyond her abilities. While the last book was much better overall than the first few, it still relied on shoddy world building"
  Excellent explanation. The first HP book is excellent. It really sucks you in. After book 4, the quality declines and they become slogs to get through.
- Narnia at least kept things vague and mystical without trying to get into the mechanisms under the hood.
  You open the hood and it's just C.S. Lewis crouched in the engine bay, smiling gently and saying "the lion is Jesus."
- To say it more bluntly: That whole story ark was cobbled together by an amateur and is barely hobbling on crumbling crutches. In regards of storytelling and consistency it's one of the most shitty dilettantic book series I've ever encountered. And the characters aren't coming alive, they are just bland and boring.
  Really bad books.
  
  She's a billionaire.

What's wrong with it is that JKR is not smart enough to wing everything and have it make sense. As a result... it doesn't, much.
- It makes enough sense for kids and adults who can suspend disbelief enough to keep turning the pages. And gives all of us reason to listen to some of the many podcasts exploring the plot holes.
  Side note, now that I’ve commented a few times in this thread without mentioning it:
  JKR is not smart enough to
  refrain from using her global platform to attack trans people. Bad Rowling, bad! I’m thankful I can separate artists from art enough to still enjoy something I grew up enjoying but do have a duty to call out her grievously public stance on this so readers know we still fancy ourselves as allies even when stooping to discuss what the now-monster created.
  
  I’m thankful I can separate artists from art enough to still enjoy something
  It must be amazing to be able to huff your own farts and have it smell like roses.
  
  There's no artistic value to be gained from reading Slaveowner Potter

I mean, the whole thing is this big fever-dream written for kids; yanno, a fairy tale. At the same time, our author is someone whose internal moral compass is pretty twisted up. So, logical consistency left the building long before pen was put to paper.
Also, fledgling authors take note: this is what happens when you flagrantly defy thermodynamics over and over again. Nerds will rip your work to shreds.
- It's even simpler than that. The author sets the rules of the world. If those rules change, are ignored, or characters behave in a way that disagrees with the rules the reader's trust is betrayed.
  That's why people get a stick up their ass about plot holes. They were told things work a certain way, but characters miss an obvious opportunity or break an already established rule. Lack of effort on the author's part makes the reader feel like their time hasn't been respected.
  
  Nevermind how two wizards dueling under the influence of Felix Felicia would be metal af.
  The Intensified Luck Soldiers at the end of Escaflowne had a scene like this and it was one of the best mecha battle flights I've ever watched.
  
  I mean, Joanne wrote her first book living in her car by copying other stories. Literally everything interesting or complicated is borrowed from either mythology or some other book. She's not a great writer, she's a pretty good writer who wrote kids' stories that were made into great movies.
  
  Yeah, what's important is internal consistency, I love hard sci-fi but I also appreciate some of the more fantastical worlds like the cosmere or final fantasy 14 because they set up rules and don't throw them away. That's why I hate whenever people come along with arguments like "oh it's a fantasy world so anything could happen" because that's not how it should work.
- Not necessarily. This is what happens when you write poorly. Doctor Who's electric screwdriver is a solve-it-all tool. But it doesn't ruin the stories in each episode because most are well writen.
  
  Doctor Who has no plot holes?
- Also, fledgling authors take note: this is what happens when you flagrantly defy thermodynamics over and over again. Nerds will rip your work to shreds.
  Unless your target audience is nerds, I don't think that's a reason to care. Nerds be nerdin.

I think nothing beat the fact Slytherin still exist after the founder basically came out as a racist and want racist rule to be enacted, and also only accept student that's either a racist or speak parseltongue, and also the student literally live in a dungeon that's dark and gloomy. You'd think after a few years Salazar left the other founders will take note and change the way the house pick their student and the living condition of the student quarters, but nope.
And you'd think this is a story about the danger of tolerating the intolerant, then the writer became the intolerant lol.
- I'm pretty sure the reason they keep to themselves is that the last time magic was public knowledge they were killed en masse during medieval witch hunts, or something. Been a loooooong time since I read the books.
  
  Great and Powerful comic.
  I would also add:
  French were doing same
  Bulgarians(?) were doing same
  (in Creatures) Americans were doing same
- still exist after the founder basically came out as a racist and want racist rule to be enacted
  let me know how the republican party does after novemeber. IF they lose
- I think nothing beat the fact Slytherin still exist after the founder basically came out as a racist
  That was the most realistic part.
- You would think so, but look at the US and some other countries with racists of different kinds wanting to “go back to the good ol’ days” or wanting to push the societal problems to muggles (or immigrants/POC in the case of the US).
  
  Yep. Based on similar history it probably wasn't even that the other founders disagreed, they just maybe thought he was taking it a little far.

First of all, it's a kids book.
Second of all, it's a poorly written kids book.
- Eh, I think it's pretty well-written. It hits all the important parts of a good kids novel series:
  fun to read
  few immediately obvious plot holes (that a 10yo would notice)
  easy for a child to imagine that they're in that world
  We need more series like Harry Potter with high engagement that also promote creativity.

What about time travel? They had a pocket time travel device and they couldn't strangle baby Voldemort? Or was there some Avengers endgame multi dimension thing preventing that?
- She realized she had made a mistake introducing time travel that's why she destroyed all the time turners in Order.
- some Avengers endgame multi dimension thing
  Some in-universe Harry Potter thing!
  Officially, JK says she went too far with the time turners, so she destroyed all of them:
  
  Well at least she admitted to it.
  I've not come across an in-universe explanation that made sense seeing as its always been "time travel dangerous."
  Considering the numbers that have died directly and indirectly because of the whole Voldemort thing, a single person sacrifice doesn't seem all that bad.
- IIRC Time Turners can't change the past. Whatever actions you do while in the past have already happened the first time around, you just didn't know it because you didn't travel to the past yet.
  
  Correct.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle
  Within that framework, HP timetravel is self-consistent and, say, Back to the Future and others of that type aren't.
  Very well shown in Rick & Morty snake timetravel episode. The snakes do the inconsistent time-travel and Rick only does consistent.
  
  Time turners can't change the past that you observed and even then it could've been an illusion or a trick. Dumbledore could've gone back in time to save Sirius and then cast an illusion making everyone believe he passed through the veil. The past didn't change, only people weren't aware of what was really happening.
- That's pretty much the plot of the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It's about the original protagonists' kids and time travel (and it's written by Rowling, so it's canon).
  Not to spoil anything I think anyone can guess that time travel part doesn't exactly work out as expected.

Also in the wizarding world they have a device that makes it incredibly easy to kill a baby. It's called a knife.
- The mother's love protecting Harry caught Voldemort off guard. It's not like he got to try using the killing curse on Harry several times. Imagine you want to kill a baby, and you have a gun, and literally no reason to conserve ammo. You wouldn't pull out your knife in the off chance that the baby is bulletproof.
  
  Imagine you want to kill a baby […]. You wouldn't pull out your knife […].
  How true
  
  Don't tell me how to stab a baby.
- Technically with the mother's love protecting him, nothing would've worked. Also you are ignoring pride in all of this. Voldemort had a way to kill anyone he hated with barely any effort on his part, using magical abilities. He also hated muggles and all they stood for. Of course he won't be using a way muggles kill one another if he has magic that is in his mind "better".
  
  shame none of the other characters were loved by their mothers

Plot holes? In Harry Potter? Why I never!
- JK Rowling was shit. Lmao
  
  is

As someone who has read an absurd amount of fanfiction, I’m willing to bet that this (adults holding the idiot ball) was done on purpose because if the adults aren’t morons then there’s no plot tension for our protagonists to resolve.
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdultsAreUseless
  I don't know if this is quite the correct trope, but it's close, at least. It's common in any kid/teen story that the adults are complete screw-ups, and it's up to the brave child heroes to do anything about it. I always think of it as the Goonies plot (my first obvious exposure to the trope) but I'm sure it goes back way further than that.
- “Why is everyone so dumb?”
  Inbreeding. The answer is inbreeding. It makes sense of Hermione being the smartest person at hogwarts.
- Hey, not all the adults are incompetent. Some of them, like Dumbledore, are malicious.
  
  I remember first hearing Big D talking about letting Harry die for the cause. Oh, my preteen heart couldn't handle the thought! "Like cattle?? How dare he!" and so on.
- It's actually it's own mathematical system encoding data fractally in a way that seems just as "logical" (and operates on similar geometric systems) as string theory today.
  https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/circle-theorems.html

I am one again asking you to read a different book

It was written for kids who don't think that deep
- By a lady who don't think that deep

Well the person who wrote it thinks “Lolita” is a touching love story so…
- Elaborate? I know the plot of Lolita, but never heard that second part.

Wait, the reason they don't use this potion is that it's hard to make?
Wouldn't you make it once and use it to make more by just dumping random ingredients in a pot to get an infinite supply? It seems like the wishing for more wishes situation pretty straight up.
This is what I get for letting you trick me into thinking about this dumb thing, I suppose.
- Naw
  Would crack you all out
  But it makes no sense it’s not consistently used as much as possible, exactly below the threshold for negative side effects. Anytime the good guys are fighting the bad guys. Anytime the bad guys are searching for good guys or trying to evade them. Whoever managed their liquid luck use better should’ve won.
  
  Wait, so it gets you high on top of everything else? People would be using this even if it did nothing else, what the heck?
  Stop it. Stop making me think about the stupid wizard thing. Not worth it. So dumb.
  
  Interesting vial shape
  
  Now that I think about it, Felix Felicis in the HP universe is basically an analogue to atium in the mistborn saga.
  Mistborn did it a little better.
  
  Gambler's high.
  
  I thought the problem with that was that the side effects and duration are a bit unpredictable, so you can't optimize use where you can be sure you're acting under Felix and going with the flow is optimal vs it having worn off but you're still giddy and reckless and going with the flow is fatal.
  Though ocme or think of it I may have got that idea from a fanfic.
- It was also toxic if you used it frequently
- So, the Elder Scrolls method, eh?

wait until you look into the time travel stuff
- The time travel stuff functionally doesn't change anything. It's there to let you observe, not meddle, and ultimately results in a closed loop of causality.
  Some of her better writing, tbf. If every book had been as good as Prisoner of Azkaban, I wouldn't feel like I wasted time finishing the last three in the series.
  
  They do use it to meddle, though, its how the plot in "Prisoner of Azkaban" gets resolved. Also I'm pretty sure that Hermione mentions at one point that people have killed their past selves using time turners, which would not constitute a closed loop of causality.

The SuperCarlinBrothers made a convincing case that Felix Felicias is just a placebo on steroids.

JKR is a TERF with terrible writing skills and worldbuilding. The idea of a comfy, cozy british castle where you could fulfill your magical dreams and get sorted into a house is an incredibly fun self-insert universe, just like Pokemon, Star Trek, etc.
- The idea of a comfy, cozy british castle where you could fulfill your magical dreams and get sorted into a house is an incredibly fun self-insert universe, just like Pokemon, Star Trek, etc.
  Which makes her a great children's book author. Her world building did exactly what it was supposed to do: encourage imagination.
  Her political/social views and appeal to adult audiences are irrelevant. I think she's a fantastic children's book author because she did the thing that's most important: get kids to read.
  
  Her political/social views and appeal to adult audiences are irrelevant. I think she's a fantastic children's book author because she did the thing that's most important: get kids to read.
  She weaves her awful views into her books, though, from racist caricatures of Jewish People represented by the Goblin Bankers, to the anti-labor organizing section of the books with the odd Hermoine/Elf revolt. It's entirely relevant.
  The world has exciting and fantastical properties, yes, and she did get children to read, absolutely. However, you cannot unti her views from how they were woven into her works.

One might say this is one of the reasons Dumbledore wanted Slughorn on his side.
Though, I'm sure Snape could have made it too, and if Voldemort ordered him to make some, I don't see him getting out of it.
The in-story reason why Voldemort doesn't seek help in this way is pride. He believes he is superior, and thus, should be capable of killing Harry unassisted.
"Listen, Severus, I want you to brew me a cauldron of Felix Felicis, but I can't have the other Death Eaters finding out about it..." No, he could never admit to anyone, neither Snape nor himself, that he needed such a handicap to kill a teenager.
- He Who Must Be Named Voldemort made that potion with Harry’s blood - that sounded really complex. Voldemort should’ve been using it* and distributing it to Death Eaters.
  (edit) *Felix Felicis
  
  You mean the "get your body back after dying with a horcrux" potion? Yeah, I'm sure that would really come in handy for lots of Death Eaters.

It's not meant to be a well sewn up world building project. It's literally two different worlds smashed together on a bunch of napkin notes. None of us read it for its intricate political maneuvering or realistic magic system.
- And that's why I bailed around book 5. Around that point I decided I wanted more realism, so I switched to Tom Clancy and JRR Tolkien, and I have been reading more "realistic" fiction ever since.
  
  You brought up a really good example of a fantasy world with boundaries by mentionning Tolkien. It is heavily insinuated in the LOTR books that "magic" is not "endless posibilities magic", it has more to do with special aptitudes and/or knowledge depending on the race (like elves or wizards). It's not like Gandalf can just snap a finger and transform someone into a chicken. I know it limits what you can do with your world but in the case of HP it opens the door to endless plot holes and contradictions.
  
  If you like realism in a fantasy setting, Delicious in Dungeon absolutely delivers. They take world building to a whole new level of detail.
  It's a bit light on the high level stuff like global politics and history. But for an example of the level of detail they went for (keeping it vague to avoid spoiling anything), one problem they solve involves a character knowing how dragons are able to breathe fire. Even though they have magic in this world, they still came up with a plausible physical mechanism for how dragons breathe fire and wove it into the plot.
  At another point, a character gives advice about best practices if you're about to turn into stone.

Haha, mages shit their pants

JKR is a shit writer, that's not news.
- She's a billionaire.

I have watched the movies and I do not understand what this post is explaining. Can someone more skilled than me explain it please?
- Felix Felicis is a potion sometimes called “Liquid Luck.” Until the effects wear off, all the drinker’s endeavours will tend to succeed
  https://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/felix-felicis/
  Harry Potter has an in-universe luck potion. Based on that wiki page, it looks like it was only relevant in the sixth book/movie
- Dumbledore gives Harry some potion that basically increases his luck stat by infinity. I forgot what they actually called it.
  
  Horace Slughorn gave it to Harry. It's named "Felix Felicis" or liquid luck.