The Harry Potter series might be one of the most beloved set of novels ever with millions of fans across the world, but the franchise has been under more criticism and critique lately. Part of this is because all media is being looked at through a more progressive lens these days and part of the reason is that J.K. Rowling has been making news for her comments about transgender women.
While no piece of media is without flaw, it’s still worth analyzing things critically. Here are the ten most politically incorrect things that happened in Harry Potter.
There is a ton of fat-shaming
One form of discrimination that doesn’t get talked about enough is shaming people who are overweight or who don’t fit into what society says is the ideal body type.
There are many instances of fat-shaming in the books as pretty much all of the characters who are bigger are portrayed as being either stupid or bad. This is especially the case with how Dudley is talked about but other characters like Vernon and Aunt Marge are also seen as large and cruel.
The stereotypes surrounding goblins
One troubling thing that many people have pointed out about the series in recent years is that many of the intelligent magical races in the series seem to reflect real-life stereotypes of certain racial or ethnic groups.
The goblins in the series are described as being money-obsessed and hook-nosed and while it was likely unintentional, this does seem like a troubling unconscious stereotype of a particular group of people.
There are no canon LGBT+ characters
While Rowling herself might claim to be an ally of the gay and lesbian people, as she has cited this support as an excuse for not supporting transgender people, her books don’t seem to reflect this support.
There are only two characters from the franchise who have ever been confirmed as LGBT+: Grindelwald and Dumbledore. However, neither of these characters were cited as being queer in the books and this only happened after the series came out.
Azkaban is a cruel and unusual prison
Another interesting thing about the series is that many pretty awful things exist in wizarding suits that just aren’t questioned at all. One of the most troubling of these is the existence of Azkaban prison.
This is a place where all criminals go regardless of their crime, and it’s extremely cruel and unusual. Having dementors around sucking every good thought out of all prisoners is awful, yet no one seems to care in the books.
That the series redeemed Snape
Another thing that has divided many fans of the series is the fact that Snape was redeemed as a character. Despite so many reasons why he is an awful person, the series turned him into a hero, going so far as to have Harry name his own child after Snape.
Snape never really seemed to truly denounce Voldemort’s beliefs, and he was also a bully and abuse of children.
Child abuse isn’t seen as a big deal
Speaking of Snape being a bully, another disturbing thing that the series promotes is child abuse without consequences. While characters like the Dursleys aren’t president as good by any means, no one in Harry’s life does anything about the neglect and abuse he goes through.
And, professors like Snape who bully their students continue to get away with it and, in Snape’s case, are still seen as good people.
Dumbledore’s sexuality
While the lack of canon queer characters has already been discussed, the way that Dumbledore's sexuality was handled deserves a point all its own. While announcing his sexuality outside of canon was already a cop-out, the fact that the only two gay characters were in a toxic relationship based on bigoted views troubles many people.
It seems to send the message that gay people’s relationships are toxic and can’t lead to happiness. If there was more representation than this, it wouldn’t seem like such a problem, but since it’s the only gay couple, it sends bad messages.
Love potions aren’t illegal
The existence of love potions is another thing that doesn’t make much sense about the wizarding world. While they might not be viewed as the greatest thing to use, for the most part, there doesn’t seem to be a cultural disgust with this product.
This is disturbing as love potions take away a person’s autonomy and ability to consent to a relationship.
The enslavement of the house-elves
Similarly to house-elves, many people have pointed out that the existence of house-elves seems tied to extremely troubling and harmful racial stereotypes.
House-elves are presented as a race of intelligent beings that are meant to be enslaved, and their entire thing is that they like being in this role. This has a lot of troubling implications.
There’s hardly any characters of color
While there might be many allegories of oppression and prejudice in the series, such as with the bigotry toward Muggles and toward giants and werewolves, there isn't much actual representation.
For a series that tries to be about equality and fighting against oppression, the fact that there isn’t much representation in regards to race is a big concern.