One of the more charming things I encounter on Facebook is the individual who lists their primary source of education as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It gives me hope that people have not abandoned well-told stories for reality teavee and overpriced, underlit 3-D films. (Okay, maybe that’s a bad example). I remember reading each of those books at breakneck pace—perhaps the wrong way to read, but how could I resist what was for the most part a perfect book series? Characters were identifiable and multi-faceted, mysteries had depth and foreshadowed well, and action sequences provided the right amount of description.
Yet for all my fondness of the Harry Potter series, I also see flaws in it. I found the later books to have repetitive conclusions—a big fight against Voldemort, a hero tragically dies, our characters rally around one another in hopes of a bright future. And, with fans marking the departure of the Hogwarts Express this morning on Facebook, I began to wonder: would Hogwarts be a good school to attend?
The short answer: no. No no no. Very much no.
Below, I take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and look for signs that Hogwarts would be a good place for children to attend. They are few and far between, by which I mean “completely nonexistent.”
We start with Chapter One, in which Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts and one of the greatest wizards of all time, sends the school’s groundskeeper to kidnap a recently orphaned baby and put him on a stranger’s doorstep. McGonagall thinks the plan is sketchy, which is why she is awesome, but Dumbledore says has a good reason: Harry will be with family who will care for him and love him and explain everyth–
Chapter Two –sorry, I meant, “will hide him under a staircase and treat him pretty much like an indentured servitude and explain nothing.” McGonagall 1, Dumbledore negative infinity (but who’s counting?). With all the people who see Harry mistreated like this, I began to wonder if Child Protection Services exists in Britain. Then I remembered the story is set in the Thatcher era, so ruining the lives of poor people is considered good sport.
Chapter Three pulls off a heretofore impossible feat: making Uncle Vernon look like he knows what he’s talking about. The reason? Spam mail. When I was applying for college, I kept getting letters from the University of Missouri saying I was accepted into their journalism program. I ignored it* for two reasons: 1.) It was in Missouri, and 2.) I never applied. But even they didn’t go to the extreme of shooting dozens of letters down my chimney or mailing me wherever I go.
*(Which may have been a mistake because I didn’t realize Mizzou has a really good journalism program, and instead I’m stuck with a total simp teaching my journalism class.)
This doesn’t mean Vernon has much power, since he’s incapable of stopping Hagrid from kidnapping Harry again in Chapter Four, making Vernon the reverse of Liam Neeson’s Taken character.
I know who you are, I know what you want, but I’m not very skilled, and if you don’t let Harry go, there’s not a lot I’ll do about it.
Hagrid is there to tell Harry that he’s pre-accepted into Hogwarts because his parents were skilled wizards, i.e., Harry is a legacy kid. Legacy kids are the worst. They’re self-entitled trust fund babies who list their ski trip to Aspen on their resume and get six-figure jobs. Wizards from less-deserving families are left out because of legacy kids.
At least Harry isn’t as terrible as legacy kids like Draco Malfoy, who we learn is accepted to Hogwarts in Chapter Five. Hogwarts is supposed to be a great school, and THIS guy gets in? It’s like the admissions department screens for psychopaths-in-waiting and promptly accepts them.
(Bonus points to J.K. Rowling for including a character like Malfoy, though. It’s really great to see an author include social criticism in a children’s book, and she does so in a way that makes it pretty clear Draco is completely void of morals.)
Harry meets Malfoy in Diagon Alley, which seems like one of the worst shopping experiences in the world. There’s only one way to get in, the streets sure don’t look handicap accessible, the bank is one large Jewish stereotype, and Ollivander has no idea what wand is appropriate for Harry. He must serve, what, ten customers a day with how long it takes him to get things right?
Chapter Six introduces one of the worst ideas thought up by the Hogwarts brain trust: the Hogwarts Express. Sure, it’s magical and charming to ride an old train to boarding school, but the execution is terrible. You have one access point (again) for thousands of families, and it’s used in the middle of daylight in a very busy train station. Think a Muggle isn’t going to see that, jack? And why only one train? Imagine what would happen (foreshadowing alert!) if a student didn’t make the train on time?
Still fulfilling that request for all of the bacon and eggs they have.
Upon arrival at the Great Hall in Chapter Seven, two questions arise. First is the table setup: why force students to sit with their house? It’s segregation. Can’t I chill with my friends from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor at the same time? Maybe the Slytherin kids wouldn’t be racists if they hung out with some cool kids whose perspectives on the world weren’t rooted in Mein Kampf. Second, the food: all-you-can-eat dining is a staple of college dining halls, but the food is usually iffy enough to keep folks from eating too much. But the Hogwarts food is good? Forget the freshperson fifteen, Hogwarts has a freshperson fifty.
Chapter Eight: Here we learn that Professor Snape is kind of an a-hole, but all schools have professors like that and it’s not that surprising.
Chapter Nine: So lemme get this straight: students fly on broomsticks without helmets or some kind of harness? I mean, soccer is a perfectly fine sport, and it would likely be healthier for students—gotta burn off those calories from the Great Hall!
One minor note: perhaps Harry is a gifted wizard, but the Quiddich success is too over-the-top. It’s Harry Potter, not Rocket Power. (And who does that make The Squid, Ron or Neville?)
Chapter Ten: Troll in the dungeon! Apparently, nobody thought to put locks on the doors at this school and it’s all access for dangerous beasts. This wouldn’t be a problem for our protagonist, but Harry and Ron have to save Hermionie from the women’s bathroom because she was hiding there after Ron and Harry bullied her.
Not one of the women’s bathrooms—the women’s bathroom. So this big school has only one bathroom for each gender group? Why not cast some spell—accio plumbing or whatever—and add a few more?
Chapter 11: So if flying on broomsticks didn’t sound unsafe before, get a load of Quiddich! Add another thirteen people flying around with no rhyme or rhythm (or helmets), quaffles (designed to hit players in the head), and give baseball bats to two players to hit things with.
And one thing about the scoring system: if capturing the snitch (Ray Lewis must love this game) is an automatic win, why do anything but find the snitch? There are basically ten people flying around on broomsticks for no reason.
Of course, issues of in-game safety kinda pale in comparison to professors who try and knock players off of their brooms. Who hired these people, the Unabomber?
Chapter 12: At Christmas, a little cross-cultural learning goes on. Ron teaches Harry how to play Wizard chess, which is chess with animated pieces. This is a bit of a letdown, like when *cough* good books are adapted into bad movies *cough*, but oh well. Harry introduces Ron to British currency. Granted, nothing I’ve ever read about pounds and pences and whatever makes sense, but it’s concerning that Ron doesn’t understand how normal people money works in the country where he’s lived his whole life. Living within a culture is one thing, but he sounds like a total hermit.
For his gift, Harry gets a sweater from Mrs. Dursley and an invisibility cloak. Hogwarts’ #1 fashionista uses the cloak to find a mirror that shows him whatever he wants, but let’s take a moment to appreciate an invisibility cloak. At the most basic level, how do you clean it? If I spilled a bit of spaghetti sauce on it, can I use Shout or is there a special cleaning solution? Having an invisible care tag is the Achilles’ heel to the whole plan.
Chapter 13: Snape continues to be a total tease. Nobody likes a tease, Snape.
Chapter 14: Harry, Hagrid, and one of Ron’s brothers try to relocate a dragon that Hagrid hatched. Somehow, this requires a degree of stealth and secrecy like they’re moving a shipment of drugs or something. Just have the Weasley brother pay Hagrid a visit and fly the dragon away; this doesn’t have to be an episode of The Wire. No late-night shenanigans that could lead to trouble.
Chapter 15: But nope, don’t take the easy way out; instead, here’s an arbitrary amount of points taken away from Gryffindor for breaking curfew. Professor McGonagall is cool, but was her father Dwight D. Eisenhower or something?
More confusing is that McGonagall has the kids wander through the Forbidden Forest. Sorry, but maybe having students wander somewhere that’s forbidden is a terrible idea? Have the kids stay after class and arrange sheet music or something (I only missed one concert in high school, and that was the proposed punishment; it never happened, though).
Chapter 16: Perhaps the worst thing about the forest trip is that it convinced Harry to go and find the Sorcerer’s Stone. You’d think the Stone would be safely kept through impenetrable security, but Hogwarts puts up road blocks that a trio of eleven-year-olds were able to solve. That doesn’t mean they aren’t wildly dangerous, though—Ron nearly dies playing chess and Hermionie/Harry are forced to drink mystery fluids to escape a fire pit.
You know how to keep the sorcerer’s stone safe? Have Dumbledore carry it with him at all times. Or put it in a room and lock the door, because wizards have no idea how door locks work if Ron’s confusion over money is any sign.
Chapter 17: We finally find out who is trying to find the Sorcerer’s Stone. Surprise! It’s not Snape, it’s… Quirrel? Well, because it’s not bad enough that a school hires a faculty member that wants to steal this stone, he takes off his turban to reveal that he’s also Lord Voldemort!
Let me emphasize that: THE SCHOOL EMPLOYS THE DARKEST WIZARD OF ALL TIME. You want to keep kids safe and you hire the single most evil wizard in the world to do so. But it’s okay, because Harry is able to defeat Voldemort by… touching him. Uh-huh.
then wakes up in a hospital wing, and Dumbledore explains to Harry that Voldemort can’t hurt him because his mother loved him. Because what, other victims of Voldemort were unloved? Sorry, Harry’s parents, but your mothers and fathers didn’t hug you enough as children, so be gone with ye!
The book’s post-script is the awarding of the House Cup, which Dumbledore gives to Gryffindor in a point-shaving scene that would make the cast of Whose Line? blush. I have to wonder: how is it that Slytherin, clearly full of the worst students in the whole school, keeps doing so well in the House Cup points? Are their rich jerk parents bribing people? Are the other houses full of kids too lazy to be good? Sounds like a wonderful school when it’s the dorm filled with wealthy racists that wins.
***
Keep in mind, that’s just the first book of the series—we haven’t yet arrived at any incidents causing student fatalities (note the plural). Hogwarts already sounds like the least safe school in the history of forever, yet parents keep sending their children off to it like nothing’s the matter. Maybe I’m alone here, but they couldn’t offer me a scholarship big enough to attend, let alone to send a small child. I’d rather a young and impressionable mind not be exposed to a school where 1/4 of the student population is racist, where the lone sport makes the NFL look safe, and where one of the most evil wizards of all time can get a job. Give me a school with doors that lock, please.
So yeah, that status you have up about missing the Hogwarts Express? Thank your lucky stars (or your house elf) for not getting aboard that ship.
(P.S.—Neville is the Squid, and Ron is Twister. Woogidi woogidi woogidi!)
Brain Nourishment 