Harry Potter-y Barn Door's Open

I'm just Mad about Harry... Potter!

The Harry Potter books are a collection of books by author and Brit J.K. Rowling, presumably about a character named Harry Potter, unless my sources are incorrect. J.K. Rowling, not to be confused with J.R.R. Tolkien or J.R. from Dallas, is a woman. No one really knows what the J.K. stands for, but they use it because it sounds classier. And when you talk about books, J.K. is better than Jemima Kramer. You have to write a whole lot of books before people let you use your first name. Eventually you have to change your name to Stephen King. You didn't think that one guy wrote all those books, did you now? The real Stephen King was a contemporary of Chaucer's and contributed the last story to Canterbury Tales, "Ye Olde Homicidal Lunatic's Bloody Rampage". Write that in your next history or english essay. Anyway, the books made about a billion dollars because every kid in the world read them. They are also very controversial because when you read them backwards they contain recipes and some woman says she invented the characters before J.K.(we're on first two initial terms) did. As I resist all trends, I did not read the Harry Potter series. I have, however, seen the movie, and that's good enough for me to provide a definitive and all-encompassing review.
Harry Potter is really child's fantasy, all about imagining yourself better than other people and getting even. The protagonist gets his little ego stroked by learning that he's actually a celebrity AND he has magical powers on the level that mere sorcerors can only dream about. Most of us only get to experience one of those things. Not having read them myself, I can only speculate on the benefits of reading the books. It is nice to have something cheap that provides countless(or 4) hours of entertainment, especially in this maniacal, electronic world. There is supposed to be some explicit moralizing in the stories, which I suppose is showcased in the movie by a few key scenes. Namely, in one scene the boy wonder(wait, that's Robin) gets to choose whether to be in the ambitious house(which is evil because all the kids in it are smarmy) with the guy who already rubbed him the wrong way, or in the good house where all his friends are already. I don't know why the doughy kid gets in there, other than to prove his worth at the end of the movie by getting zapped for impersonating a marshmallow. In another scene, Harry feels bad that his friend is killed. It's plain to see that Harry Potter is a good kid, as no bad kids would ever bow to peer pressure and feel bad about their dead friends. Not at the same time anyway.
The reason that Harry Potter is believed to be bad is elusive, but it may have something to do with the fact that he eats babies and worships Satan. At least, that's what the e-mail I keep getting says. Of course, it's totally made up, having come off of the Onion, but I don't think that really stops people from buying into it. I guess that the real offense comes from the fact that Harry Potter popularizes the good ol', tried-and-true methods of witchcraft. Kids will think that they can do the cool stuff Harry Potter does, like fly on broomsticks or mix magic potions out of household medicines. Of course, they'll try these things and they'll come to learn one of those universal facts that we all must realize at some point in our lives: people who think that stuff is cool are dorks. Yes, it's a harsh reality, but it is one that is best learned early. You've surely seen those people on television; you may even have met some of them in your life(be relieved if you haven't). They make up one of the lower strata of geeks, several levels below Trekkies(seriously, there are lower forms of life). But even they have to admit that witchcraft is a misnomer. None of them uses anything remotely close to what the actual definition of witchcraft is(like Anne Rice and vampires or Hollywood and anything technical). For the kooks, it's a way to be true to your low brainpower while being taken seriously and creating a stir at the same time. I'm going to replace "give you a back massage" with the new-fangled term "murder", then go around asking people if I can murder them, and then spend the rest of my days explaining to them that I completely made up a new definition for the word or fighting off lawsuits. Maybe both. As if that wasn't going to happen anyway.