No matter where you stand on the books, it cannot be denied that the Harry Potter series is a massive cultural hit that influenced so many millennials that the series has become our Star Wars, a work of fiction that defined an era and continues to keep a very excited and loyal fandom.
And I can tell you, as both a millennial and a lover of fiction, that Harry Potter is a very, very good series. The books are so good that I actually see the movies as a horrible reduction of the real story, but even then, I don't hate the movies. Even those are good. As I write this, I'm currently going through the audiobooks that feature the full voice cast with sound effects, and it's so well done that I can't help but put in the earphones and listen to them whenever I'm walking, cooking, cleaning, or driving. I'm even currently playing the game "Hogwarts Legacy," and I'm having a great time with it.
Why? Because a revival of the Harry Potter series is about to be released on HBO, and it's got fans stirring, including me.
Of course, it's not without its modern intrusion. One of the core characters, Severus Snape, is being played by a black man, which isn't just another annoying race swap; it actually takes moments that weren't racist in the books and makes them racist by virtue of Snape's depicted skin color. It's being panned by the majority of Potter fans as unwise, and I agree.
Still, it hasn't put fans off watching the series when it releases, and the complaints against it are mostly in good faith. The race swap aside, not everyone is a fan of various casting choices, and that's just fine. I'm among them. I think Michelle Gomez should've played McGonnagal, especially because she did such a knockout job playing her in the audiobooks.
But because this is Rowling, there's a very loud group of people who want to boycott her for *checks notes* standing up for the rights of women.
You've likely seen the saga yourself. Rowling has been at the center of a lot of hate from the transgender community for daring to resist the intrusion of men into women's spaces. It's caused her to become something of a darling to American conservatives, even though Rowling and your typical American right-winger are night and day when it comes to political views. However, what goes unspoken about our love for Rowling, at least from the angle of millennial conservatives, is that this woman gave us the world of Harry Potter, and it's something we'll always be grateful for.
And it's a real testament to the quality of the story that it endures oppositional beliefs in the real world.
It's something I want to point out, because I don't think it's been truly considered enough.
We are going through an era where politics has so deeply ingrained itself into the culture that the culture war is a massive thing with innumerable fronts. Fandoms rise and fall faster than you can keep track. What's worst of all is that this culture war is consistently attempting to infect everything we love as Westerners. It's been successful, too. So many beloved franchises, stories, and worlds have been destroyed by the woke mind virus as ideologically obsessed people worm their way into studios and corporations and destroy these things from within.
Yet, I'm happy to say that despite their best efforts, the woke incursion has backfired. In fact, watching the effect this attempt at "reimagining" has had on people has been surprising. While it still happens, I'm seeing repeated evidence of studios of every variety pulling back from the "boundaries" put on them by people who have no business telling anyone to do anything.
Old Star Wars films being re-released in theaters still see massive audiences show up to watch them. Indiana Jones is still considered one of the all-time, if not the greatest adventure films of all time. Anything related to Harry Potter continues to generate massive attention. Amazon couldn't destroy people's love of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. I'm willing to bet Netflix's upcoming deconstruction of Narnia isn't going to scare anyone off reading the originals by C.S. Lewis or watching the older Disney movies.
It's because truly great stories stick with people. They see the world through the lens of the stories they're told, and once you see a great story for what it is, you can't unsee it. You are affected by it. It becomes a part of you. It informs your decision-making and moral compass. It helps you determine what kind of enemies and allies you accept for yourself.
Stories are more affecting than you might give them credit for. There's a reason Jesus told stories to get his points across. They work.
So, even if the woke get their wish and this Harry Potter series fails, the story isn't going to die. Rowling is going to be okay, because she told a really great story that stuck with people, just like George Lucas did with Star Wars, and Tolkien did with The Lord of the Rings.
The Left's attempt to rewrite Western culture failed before it began because you cannot wipe a good story away. It sticks with people. Even if you were to burn all the books and the world forgot the story, it would be retold in some way, shape, or form later down the line by someone whose worldview was shaped by someone else's worldview that was shaped by the story they were told long ago.
And I think that's a very comforting thought.
