[ SECRET POST #3890 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3890 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Harry Potter and Pretty Little Liars]


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03.
[The Crown]


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04.
[Me Before You (novel)]


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05.
[Little Women, Jo/Laurie, Jo/Professor Bhaer]


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06.
(Supergirl, Wynonna Earp)


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07.
[The Defenders]













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #557.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. http://i.imgur.com/3epcn8l.jpg
[Harry Potter and Pretty Little Liars]

[(Anonymous)]

What's interesting to me here is that the Harry Potter school experience is drawn from a very specific trope that is pretty much totally unrelated to *any* of its readers actual educational experience.

[(Anonymous)]

+1, I went to a boarding school and it still wasn't very like Hogwarts! We did have houses, common rooms etc. though.

[(Anonymous)]

You can read whatever you want, OP, but please don't misunderstand the books based on that. The HP universe is actually pretty screwed up, including Hogwarts. I actually have no idea why fans claim they want to go.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you really not understand the attractive aspects of it?

Especially for people who approach it as it's depicted in the book series, rather than in some sort of nerdistic What Would Hogwarts Be Like If It Were Real Life dystopian reading of it?

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - I was a little harsh. It's definitely a wonderful school in-series. I meant to say it has a lot of flaws, and isn't perfect (as OP seems to think it is).

[diet_poison]

I mean, in some ways yes, but also we see Hogwarts through the eyes of a protagonist whose alternative to Hogwarts was literally being locked into a bedroom or a cupboard, bullied, and abused

[greghousesgf]

I absolutely loathe school because of my experience with it. Maybe I would have been better off homeschooled? I don't know.

[rosehiptea]

I also loathed school. I can't imagine any situation that wouldn't have been better for me than school.

I kind of like Harry Potter and I can theoretically see enjoying Hogwarts since its fictional and most of the teachers are OK, but I can see the OPs point too. "You can only learn things if you go to school for them," does suck as a philosophy.

[(Anonymous)]

I think what people relate to is feeling like a freak and wanting to find a world where they finally fit in.

[mrs_don_draper]

^^^^^^^^^^

[mrs_don_draper]

I don't think most people see regular school itself as magical. What is magical about Harry Potter is literally just the magical aspects.

Also:

"I liked my childhood, but I'd rather be an adult, thanks."

But you're a fan of queen bees and bullying? Doesn't sound very adult to me...

[(Anonymous)]

What does being an adult have to do with ones tastes in fiction? I'm sure OP doesn't condone bullying irl and liking aspects of it in a fictional context has no bearing on their adultness.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

My point was, it seems to me (from an outside perspective) that a lot of HP's fandom wants to go to Hogwarts and be a child again.

I don't read/watch highschool dramas because I want to be there, but because I find the psychological aspect interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not in the fandom, so maybe I don't know, but my impression is people talk about wanting to go to Hogwarts not because it makes them nostalgic for their actual school experience, but because they wish their school was as magical and romantic as Hogwarts. That and the magic powers and the thing the Anon said about finding a place where one fit in.

The only person I know who ever made a comment about the appeal of Hogwarts purely as an educational institution was my father, who remarked "Wouldn't it be amazing to go to school in a place that looked like that?" Yep. Going to school in a castle where you get to sleep in a canopy bed in a tower would be pretty sweet. That's all about the aesthetic appeal, though.

[philstar22]

When I was going through the horrors of school for me, Hogwarts was an escape because it was an idea of a better childhood, a better school experience. Now that I'm older, and past school, I find I don't need that anymore. I'm not sure what point the switch happened, but I rarely read Potter fics anymore, and i haven't reread the books in several years.

[(Anonymous)]

I was homeschooled as well, and never got massively into Harry Potter (or any other school-themed story, as far as I can recall). I did read the first two, I think. I wonder if it was related to not being interested in schools?

But I may have been the wrong age to really get into it, and I had a lot of other things going on in my life. I never reached a point where I was *really* interested.

Plus I grew up in a family where "Harry Potter is evil!" so at first I didn't even give the books a try. When I did eventually give 'em a go, I just...found them mediocre and not to my taste, I guess.

I'm not saying they ARE mediocre. They just didn't grab me, really. I think if they'd come out when I was a lot younger, I might have been more into it? IDK

[syncing_feeling]

I was homeschooled too, and also feel like I started watching/reading it too late. One of my best friends grew up with it and was in actual tears during the last movie, but it just didn't click with me. I can see the appeal but I just feel too old, lol.

[(Anonymous)]

My (much younger) aunt (we have an interesting family dynamic on the one side) was also homeschooled and as she was the prime age for Harry Potter, she loved it; was very into it.

So, no, I'm not sure it had to do with the schooling aspect. The schooling in HP has pretty much nothing in common with anything I went through in school (US - public and private schooling) and I still love HP (privately; can't do the fandom)

[(Anonymous)]

Just to toss my hat on the pile (even if this is late): part of the reason I have never been able to get into the genre of YA is because while I went to elementary school, I was homeschooled for high school and so I can't relate at all to the high school setting. It both baffles and bores me, and school in general... just doesn't attract me.

Funny enough, I think I actually read the first two books of HP; I was of the same age to be part of the "Harry Potter generation", and occasionally I wonder if I would've been part of the fandom, because I love magic and magical settings, but... dunno. I read the first again a few years ago but I think I'm either too old for it now (although my favorite fantasy author writes "juvenile"/all ages books) or maybe it's the school setting. Who knows!

[(Anonymous)]

I went through public school all my life. I don't care for the HP series. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't think schooling has much to do with it.

[nanslice]

I was homeschooled but I freaking love Harry Potter and a lot of other high school related books/shows, haha.

[(Anonymous)]

Hm. Interesting. I was homeschooled until college too, and had basically the opposite reaction - tight-knit boarding schools (especially girls-only ones, although Hogwarts obviously wasn't) would border on a fetish if my interest were at all sexual. They're just endlessly fascinating.

Public schools, on the other hand, were what my mother threatened us with when we misbehaved - she'd had a really spectacularly horrible experience, especially with elementary school (nonstop racial bullying, although in the area we lived in when I was little it would have been religious because we weren't Mormon), and told us about it. I have never been able to romanticize the public school system.

[(Anonymous)]

I have never been able to romanticize the public school system.

Lol, I was going to say that the public school experience is tough to romanticize because public schools are so incredibly mundane and underwhelming. But then I remember that lots of people went to public schools with cheer squads and big sports events, and pep rallies, and SATs, and high-pressure applications to ivy league universities, and fucking swimming pools in their schools and all that fancy stuff, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, right. I guess some people can quite easily romanticize their public school experience."

Meanwhile, my high school didn't even have a proper cafeteria. Hell, my school didn't even have bells to mark the beginning and end of classes. That whole dramatic thing you see in tv shows where the bell rings and all the students get up and walk out while the teacher continues to try to impart information to them? That never happened in my school, because you left when the teacher said you could leave.

[arcadiaego]

HP is primarily aimed at people who never had the sort of school experience described in the book - it's basically a retread of Enid Blyton boarding school fantasies.