How Can you NOT Like Harry Potter?

Author's Note: I was looking for a good essay topic and Mrs. Reagles said that I should defend one of my favorite books. I naturally chose Harry Potter. I was looking through its reviews on Goodreads. Most of them were good but I came across a few negative ones but then I came across one that was just so illogical it made me want to scream so I decided to rip on it in this essay because it was so illogical. If you want to read it here's the link, but if you just want to read my essay here you go.

The Harry Potter series is the best selling series since J.R.R Tolkiens Lord of the Rings that came out in 1954 and sold over 150 million copies. The first Harry Potter novel came out in 1992 and has blown Lord of the Rings out of the water by selling over 450 million copies making it the best selling book series ever. They're novels of adventure and pure fantasy. They take you on mind blowing journeys through this imaginative world that you wished could be real. It's a classic story of good vs. evil. Plus, you watch the movies and they have cool British accents. How can you not like Harry Potter? Here's the answer. You can't.

There is nothing more mesmerizing than watching or reading Harry Potter, that is why some people don't like it but here's the thing. We're not in the 16th century any more people! I'm not going to read the books and suddenly start casting spells! That creepy part of history is over. The books don't make kids start casting spells, the books enhance their creativity, kids will pretend they're Harry Potter and play with friends and go outside so they can run around and use branches as broomsticks. The Harry Potter novels are books that are easy to have a lot of fun with. There are countless games and activities that have sprouted off of the Harry Potter series letting kids play and imagine whatever they want. If you say no to the Harry Potter series you are saying no to creativity.

There are many other invalid reasons that people that don't like Harry Potter. Mike says,

"I'm not going to comment on the literary shortcomings of this book, the cliches, the painfully long narrative, the fact that the characters will not think about an issue for months, but then suddenly it becomes important again. " The first thing that is wrong with this is that you don't need good writing to have a good book. Just look at Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, most people would not call it a literary masterpiece, you read it for the story of racism and how it was back in the 1920's even after the Civil War. Harry Potter may not be the greatest literary novel but it has a great plot line and the creativity of this world is just amazing. Another thing wrong with Mike's statement about why he doesn't like Harry Potter is that do you really worry about an issue for months and months and months. If you look at a teenage mind we don't really worry about an issue for months, we forget about it until the issue becomes relevant. In Harry Potter, students of Hogwarts have many responsibilities that we don't have here. If you have a problem now that is relevant now, you worry about it. If you have a problem and solve it and then it comes back into relevancy you start to think about it. J.K Rowling was very realistic in putting this in her stories. An example is when Harry Ron and Hermione were trying to find out about the sorcerers stone and they also had to study for their exams. They thought that their exams were most important. They  didn't need to think about the stone then. Also in the sixth book when they saw Malfoy go into Borgin and Burkes they didn't worry about it until they got to Hogwarts when it became the most relevant issue, so Mike's statement is wrong.

Here is more of Mike's painfully incorrect judgment of Harry Potter, "There is so much that is contrary to logic (and I don't mean science, I mean how reasonable people would behave) in the magic of Harry Potter that it drives me crazy. Why is the magical world so separated from the real world? What is their interaction? If magic works in the muggle world, what is preventing someone like Voldemort from completely taking over the muggle world? What is preventing any character from killing any other character by simpling saying the killing curse at any time? Human decency? Obviously there are a lot of characters in the books that don't have any. This never made any sense to me." First things first, Mike's first "point" is that the people in Harry Potter don't behave like normal people would in real life because the magical world is so separated from the muggle world. Why are the people living in the ghetto right now so seperated from us living in Pewaukee? Why don't we interact with them. I'm not saying this is necessarily the behavior any of us should have. I'm saying that it is the behavior some of us do have and it's completely realistic for muggles to be separate from wizards. Maybe J.K Rowling is just addressing a current issue in our society. Another thing that Mike was saying was what was preventing someone from just saying the killing curse and killing somebody. Nothing, but what is preventing you or I from killing someone? We can just as easily murder someone with a kitchen knife but we don't because we have some decency. Mike was also saying that the people who use the killing curse frequently, don't have human decency. You call that unrealistic? Yeah, Hitler had a lot of human decency. Al qaeda are really nice people. The viciousness of Voldemort is completely realistic because people do those kinds of things now or have done them in the past. The Harry Potter world might not be real but the people act like the people in our world would.

In his hateful review of one of the best books published in our generation Mike also stated that Harry Potter wasn't fair and instead he decided to draw a comparison to the pointless T.V show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He wrote, "In Buffy, every time you use magic, you pay for it. For little things, like floating a pencil, you pay for it in concentration, and maybe a little physical energy, but not more than going for a walk. However, the more you take, the more you have to give back in one form or another. The show is not always entirely consistent on this, but the idea makes sense. To bring someone back from the dead, you have to kill something else, or pay some other kind of price. If you want to kill someone, there is a physical price, a mental price. Nothing is free. In Harry Potter, it seems like everything is free." In Harry Potter, witches and wizards don't lose strength for using magic, but do we lose strength for doing anything that we normally do? Exercise aside you and I don't lose strength for lifting a pencil and in Harry Potter they don't do immature things like that with their wands unless they are beginners. Also, people in Harry Potter pay for their crimes, they go to Azkaban, wizard prison if they break the law. This more realistic then paying for something in physical and mental energy. In Harry Potter magic still comes with a price it's just not as childish as losing energy it's the sense of responsibility that you and I both have.

Mike didn't even understand the concept of the wizarding world's most beloved pastime quidditch. He did not understand quidditch because he said that only 90% of the two hour game actually matters. Now look at some of our sports. Look at soccer, the average amount of goals scored in a English match is 1.6(2012 season). Let's round that up to two goals a game and say that it takes twenty seconds to set up the goal. With those numbers only 40 seconds of a 90 minute game actually matter because there are points scored in those 40 seconds but it is still the most popular sport in the world. Quidditch is to the wizarding world as soccer is to our world. It's our livelihood. So if people can sit through eight minutes and 20 seconds of nothing and still love it, don't complain about a game that has the potential to reach at least 300 points every game.

Harry Potter is a classic. There is no denying it. You can formulate all the crack-pot theories you want about how Harry Potter is a horrible but absolutely none of them have any significance. This is one of my favorite books and about 35 million people's favorite too. There is absolutely no reason of why you shouldn't like Harry Potter.

Why Eli is Better than Peyton

Authors note: This is a rebuttal essay to Tony's essay "The better Manning" (http://tonysbeastblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/better-manning.html#comment-form) in which he states that Peyton is the better quarterback, I say that is wrong because if you look at the attitude of both, just by watching their interviews you can tell that Eli has the better attitude, sure Peyton may lead every major statistical category, but Eli is the better quarterback to have around, and he's one more championships.

In American football, a game measured by how many bruises or cuts you have after a game or who delivered the hardest hit, there is one measurable of true glory that we hold our quarterbacks to. It's why Elway is better than Favre, why Montana is better than Young. This measure of eternal glory is the Super Bowl. This is why Eli is better than Peyton.

Ina game filled with blood and sweat, you can't measure quarterbacks on how hard their hits are or how many times they have played through excruciatingly painful injuries, no you measure them through how many super bowls they have won. It's why Archie Manning isn't in the Hall of Fame and why Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin will be. Peyton Manning might be great in all the measurables, he might have the intangibles but he only has one Super Bowl. Eli on the other hand is in the top five in all the major statistical categories, is the first to practice and the last one to leave practice. He doesn't whine because his receivers are dropping his passes, he blames it on himself and tries to get better and unlike his brother, he doesn't get cocky from being one of the best in the league. He also has two super bowls. He is better than his brother because of his attitude, is work ethic, and the number of super bowl rings on his fingers.

Quarterbacks will never be as tough as defensive tackles, they will never be as quick as running backs or receivers, and that is why we measure quarterbacks with super bowls, and why Eli is the better quarterback.

Point of View Piece

Author's Note: This is a point of view piece for the book Ender's game. I wrote this because I thought it would be interesting to think about one of my favorite books from a different perspective. I also needed a ten in point of view so here it is.

In the book Ender's Game, the book is told in third person but it follows Ender Wiggin. This point of view is unique because Ender is the youngest there but also the smartest there. What you see from his point of view is how he can outsmart any child there but he does not get some of the other social things. If Ender's Game was told from Bonzo's point of view then you would see that he is less mentally mature than Ender and has a very short temper and you wouldn't see the sharp whit and intelligence in Bonzo. But he would also fit in with the other members of the battle school unlike Ender. Here is a scene in Bonzo's point of view.

I knew we were getting a new member of our army today but I never thought it would be a Launchie, but in walks this tiny little puke of a kid. He says his name is Ender and my first thought is to trade this little puke. I try to negotiate deals for him, but no one wants to take a little runt so he ends up going to practice with us. I tell him to stay by the gate and never touch your gun otherwise I was going to beat the heck out of him. He did as he was told, mostly. He started hanging out with the only girl in the entire battle school, Petra. I also heard that she was giving him lessons behind my back. I told her to stop but I kept hearing rumors about it, finally Rose the Nose took him and I was glad to b rid of that little runt. The worst fighter in the entire battle school.

Not Just MInorities

"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty." Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this in a letter from his Birmingham jail cell in 1963. That was 49 years ago and even though some of the prejudice that the majorities throw to the minorities, there is growing prejudice inside the majorities. People need a scapegoat, and now that in can't be the minorities they turn to people who are just like them, whether it be their friends or their enemies.

There are several cases of this prejudice inside the majority. Sometimes it's just the little. "I hate you!"

"I hate you more!" you so commonly see in most elementary schools, but it can escalate into beatings, killings, fights, and suicide. Is this issue really that new? Maybe bullying in schools hasn't gone on that long but this is just the same as what we saw when Martin Luther King was writing from his jail cell for realizing that something wasn't right about the way black people were being treated, or like Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird who was going to be put to death for something he didn't do, no matter what he said. The only reason this school problem is being recognized as something else is because no one wants to recognize that we are doing those horrible tings to each other. We discriminate, we try to make others feel bad so we can feel better, we did that along time ago, but no one tried to battle it back then, no one thought it was wrong, no one recognized that this was a serious problem, but they do now because now it's within them.

If the world was lucky enough to one day have Martin Luther King Jr. come back to life, he would first admire how far the country had come because of him, and then he would realize that his work is not done today, but this time it's not from white to black, it's within the white community.

To Kill a Mockingbird Scene

 This was an assignment for class and we had to discuss a scene and why it meant something to us and I immediately chose this scene and you'll see why.

When Dill starts crying in the court room in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout decides to take him outside.  Outside the Courthouse they meet Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He is supposedly an evil man because he is a drinker and he lives with black people. MR. Dolphus Raymond gives Dill something to drink from the sack he always carries and they find out that Dolphus Raymond is drinking nothing than Coca-Cola. He says it gives people an excuse for why he lives like he does. MR. Dolphus Raymond doesn't want to change the way he lives so he acts likes a drunkard. He does this because if he didn't, people wouldn't understand that he wanted to live like that. Scout didn't understand either and Mr. Dolphus Raymond replies that he likes it better because he, like Dill gets that what the white people are doing to the black people isn't right and that they should change it. This really struck a chord with me because this proves how horrible their world was, just to live how you want to live and being chastised about it requires you to be something that you aren't and something that turns other people away and is considered repulsive. This is horrible and it makes me wonder if some people do that now, hiding their real selves just so people won't make fun of them for being themselves. This is the world we live and the world that Mr. Dolphus Raymond lives in.

Deception

"[Judge Taylor] was a man who ran his court with an alarming informality-he sometimes propped his feet up, he often cleaned his fingernails with his pocket knife. In long equity hearings, especially after dinner, he gave the impression of dozing, an impression dispelled forever when a lawyer once deliberately pushed a pile of books to the floor in a desperate effort to wake him up. Without opening his eyes, Judge Taylor murmured, 'Mr. Whitley, do that again and it'll cost you one hundred dollars. He was a man learned in the law, and although he seemed to take his job casually, in reality he he kept a firm grip on the proceedings that came before him" (165).

If you walked into the Maycomb County Courthouse during a hearing you would likely see two lawyers arguing against each other, each trying to convince the jury that their client is right. Above them, Judge Taylor is seemingly sleeping in his chair but as soon as something goes awry,  he snaps out of his sleepy state and immediately deals with the problem. That is his way.

Also imagine walking into Maycomb. At first you would probably see only a sleepy little town with no one going anywhere or looking like they had to be somewhere. You see people laughing or talking in there sitting rooms. Miss Maudie working in her garden, but I'm guessing if you stayed in Maycomb a little longer you would begin to see that there is more to this sleepy little town than it seems. If you broke a code like bringing home someone without "background", like Scout wanting to bring home home Walter Cunningham,(224) or wanting to go to Calpurnia's house, also on page 224, most of Maycomb would pounce on you and give one million invalid reason why you shouldn't but  not being able to back up a single one of them. That is their way.

A white-haired judge and a calm Alabama town. A seemingly sleepy personality, but a steel grip when it comes to following its traditions and unspoken laws. That is their way

Saviors

Author's Note:  We read the book Speak in class and this is my final essay. I had a lot of trouble thinking of a topic but I kind of like this one so I hope you enjoy and my one thought from reading this book: "I can't wait for high school."

In a world where even your best friends turn against you, everyone needs some type of savior. Otherwise the world would be so terrible you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Many-a-time saviors are people who have been there or are going through the same thing. Mr. Freeman is Melinda's savior and he is Laurie Halse Anderson's adult version of Melinda except he handle's his world differently.

 In Melinda's world of darkness and horror and fear, art class is her only bright spot. It is the one place she wants to go. As you can probably guess, Mr. Freeman is the art teacher and saves Melinda from the overwhelming experience of high school. Art class is Melinda's only island in a sea of the unknown. Mr. Freeman helps Melinda through her darkest times, Mr. Freeman guides Melinda through her darkest times, and Mr. Freeman saves Melinda from her darkest times. He does this teaching her how to express herself and let her emotions find their way through in her art, just like Mr. Freeman himself does.

Instead of giving up and not wanting to live anymore, like Melinda, Mr. Freeman learns to express his anger, his depression, his deepest fears on the canvas instead of letting them clog his mind like some kind of unholy demons, just because he is the oddball teacher, just because he is  under scrutiny from the school board, just because he gives an odd assignment, that does not mean that he has to hide his true feelings. He masks them in ways that most people can't understand, like the canvas that he was painting at the beginning of the book: that is what he is teaching Melinda to do, to express herself and not have to hide. Mr. Freeman is her savior.

Saviors come in all shapes in sizes, from the baby in the manger, to the oddball art teacher. We all need saviors. We all need people who are willing to help. We all need like Mr. Freeman.