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.

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 :)