J. K. Rowling is watching you from where she waits, eternally in the void between worlds.

[freckles_and_doubt]

My Standard 5 class hangs around on Facebook, currently commenting on a class photo in which we're all ickle and stuff. Today someone mentioned that one of my friends from back then has subsequently grown up to produce ten children. She was brighter than I am: her O-level results kicked mine to the curb, and mine were pretty OK. She didn't do A-levels. She went off to secretarial college, got a job, got married before she was twenty, and presumably started procreating immediately thereafter, if she's racked up that kind of sprog count. She was deeply religious, as was her husband, and horribly enmeshed in Rhema Bible Church. It makes me want to cry. It's quite possible that she's blissfully fulfilled and contented, but I am heartsore to think of all that intellectual potential that never went anywhere.

Fortunately, talking about tears and intellect, an antidote is at hand. I have just spent an entirely hysterical hour reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is a Harry Potter fanfic which leaps gleefully, boots and all, onto the totally ginormous logical flaws all over the series, and proceeds to surgically dissect them on strict rationalist principles, with frequent reference to science and logic. It made me laugh until I cried. Seriously. There were actual rivers of actual tears. I cannot recommend it in high enough terms. Rowling's absolute absence of actual thought about the structures and logic of her world have always infuriated me: this is an extremely joyous-making response.

Also, the disclaimers at the head of each chapter are genius.

Edited to add: Damn. Fic jumps the shark with excessive syrupy emotion in Chapter 18, although not before delivering a trademark snarky slapdown of Snape's incompetence as a teacher.

Comments

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how anyone with, ooh, more than about 3 children ever finds the energy to even begin making number four. Let alone 10. If she is blissfully happy and fulfilled, it's probably because she's so buggered from all the pregnancies and sleep-deprivation that her brain can no longer process higher thought.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

As someone commented in the Facebook discussion, "has anyone asked her to stop?!" I can understand people who want children. Two children, even. Three or four at a pinch. The deliberate, wanton absence of logic and thought in ten just floors me. How do you clothe or educate them all? give them enough attention to stop them from becoming psychopaths? it does not compute.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

I think my mum managed by taking a 6 year break. Then the older 2 were roped in to help with the younger 2. But then, we're also all totally screwed up (at least the first 3) so perhaps my parents should have, um, had us backwards and stopped at 2. Yes, that would've worked. Don't tell Steph I said that.

Slooge...

[veratiny.livejournal.com]

I suppose an argument could be made that while she did not take advantage of her intellect the intellectual potential has in fact been multiplied tenfold. Let’s hope at least two of them can break free from the strangle hold of jesus and do something with it (the intellectual potential that is) and on the numbers the world will be a better place... it’s a tenuous argument I know (and I haven’t taken into account the neutralising affect of one or more of the siblings)—however it is the jesus factor that reduces any potential genius there might be, both in the plan itself and participants therein.

Ten kids...man, that is misguided! I hope at the very least she enjoyed the sex...

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

Re your quiverful schoolmate, maybe they are inspired by those creepy Duggars and plan to have twice that many? Reality TV awaits... Speaking as someone who has JUST done a course on the themes of the Bible (and has the notes in case anyone's interested?) nowhere does it support irresponsible procreation. Genesis describes Adam and Eve being told to multiply, fill and rule, sure, but taken in context the Earth was uninhabited at that stage, and the "rule" bit is about responsible governance not license to destroy.

Re HP: You made me read a fanfic! It's all your fault! I have read about half so far - loved the bit about Quidditch :)

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

Perhaps those intelligent people sufficiently interested in the finer points of theology have grasped the point that responsible governance does not involve excessive procreation. Or maybe even just those who are willing to apply a little critical faculty to accepted dogma. But the vast multitudes of followers of the Judeo-Christian religeous traditions have not. I have been told by more than one orthodox Jewish woman that the purpose of life, or at the very least, of a woman's life is to reproduce. In the Catholic, Muslim and Jewish religious traditions specific behavioural practises (like, ooh, no contraception!) exist to ensure maximum procreation. Against this background, most people are going to believe that God intended for them to multiply like rabbits. And as far as I can see, even just the suggestion that unchecked human procreation threatens the planet is often viewed as a vicious attack on both God, religion and personal freedom.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

Too true! Anyway, I've found that sometimes those vociferous followers have never so much as cracked open a copy of the religious text they purport to follow; or which is possibly worse, take things wildly out of context to support their position. "But where does it SAY that?" is one of my favourite lines for such occasions.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Am very happy to have seduced you to the fanfic Dark Side! I hope you enjoyed it - until it shark-jumps, it's a particularly intelligent satire on Rowling. Do you not usually read fanfic at all? why not? (sorry to fling questions at you, this kind of thing interests me).

and v. valid points re a lot of ridiculous religion being about taking things way out of context.

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

I am enjoying it, but find I battle to read text that goes all the way across the screen (there is probably a way to change this but I don't know what it is). The main reason I don't read fanfic is that I believe that the original author usually said it best, which doesn't apply to JK Rowling because she is so derivative in the first place (besides being contrived and illigical, that is).

[documentn.livejournal.com]

> there is probably a way to change this but I don't know what it is

Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/)?