History BrokenAesop / HarryPotter

** Three houses ganging up on one isn't even limited to Slytherin. Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Ravenclaw ''all'' look down on Hufflepuffs as being full of kids not smart, special, or talented enough to make it into a "better" House. Draco and Ron both express early on that they consider Ravenclaw not ''too'' bad, but Hufflepuff the most shameful house besides their rival house. Their unremarkableness is so notorious that it's a major plot point in ''Goblet of Fire'' that Cedric Digory, a Hufflepuff, gets a chance at glory. Yet, it's only Slytherins who're condemned for their elitism and tribalism.

* And then Rowling [[WordOfGay claimed]] that she intended Dumbledore to be gay, and it was supposed to "teach children tolerance". However, nearly all straight romances in the series (even Snape's unrequited love for Lily Evans) played a positive role, and Dumbledore's feelings for Grindelwald were decidedly calamitous, resulting in the rise of the magical variant of fascism, many deaths (including the death of Ariana), and, to some extent, possibly even UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. [[MisaimedFandom Some homophobic people even praised this plot point]], seeing it as confirmation for their idea that "homosexuality is evil." The fact that it's the ''[[TokenMinority only]]'' gay relationship in the series just makes it even more problematic. There's also absolutely zero indication that he's gay; he seems to be more or less celibate in the books (and some episodes could be interpreted as hints of his relationships with prof. [=McGonagall=]), and in ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', where his relationship with Grindelwald is briefly shown, [[HideYourLesbians it's never made explicit]] that the two were anything more than very close friends. There's certainly implications, but no more than many other relationships depicted as merely HeterosexualLifePartners (Remus and Sirius, for example). As some LGBT+ advocates put it, if you have to follow the author's blog to figure out what the character's orientation is, it doesn't count as representation.

** If anything, the actions of the characters clearly show why Muggles and Wizards ''can't'' live happily together. To Wizards, things like Confounding driving test instructors and magicking exploding toilets and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory wipes]] are harmless little pranks or day-to-day minutiae -- things that Muggles can't foresee or defend themselves from. And almost all of the Muggles that encounter magic in the series react to it with violence and hostility -- the Dursleys' fear of magic makes them abuse Harry, it's implied Snape's father abused both his wife and son because they had magical powers, Tom Riddle's father abandoned his pregnant wife when he found out she was a witch [[spoiler: that had been drugging him with love potions and raping him until she believed that he really loved her back, at which point she stopped drugging him and he got the Hell away from his rapist]], [[spoiler:and three Muggle boys witnessed Ariana Dumbledore practicing magic and [[NoodleIncident did something so vicious to her]] that her brain was permanently affected.]] Even in cases of genuine love, there don't seem to be many [[MuggleMageRomance Muggle-Wizard relationships]] that didn't end tragically, or have some level of drama or deceit as a result of their imbalance. Seamus's mother and [=McGonagall=] kept their magic secret from their spouses for years, Snape's parents did not have a good relationship from what we see of them, Remus’ parents ended up with a werewolf son, resulting in them having to move around and for all of them to be wary that nobody found out and Queenie and Jacob involved her drugging him with love potion and joining Grindelwald, and Tom and Merope's relationship produced Voldemort. By this track record, the two races are dangerous to one another and peaceful mixing is the exception rather than the rule. Even in the epilogue, Harry and all his peers end up hooking up with other witches and wizards, with Muggle-wizard pairings never being mentioned - even in interviews that created new characters solely to pair them up with existing ones.

** Rowling tried to remedy the issue of Slytherin's isolation in the last book by introducing (for the first time in the entire saga, and even then only in the backstory) an inter-house couple. A pair, whose relationship was conceived and developed before they were sorted, and it quickly deteriorated and broke up largely because of the poisonous influence of House Slytherin on the boy. Not helped by the fact that every other inter-house couple - of which, incidentally, there were only two - also saw a tragic end; even the one that was decently successful ended with both dying. Rowling likewise attempted to rectify this in supplementary materials by revealing that [[spoiler:Neville married Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff]], but this came off as tacked-on for many fans.[[note]]Especially since Neville is a quasi-Hufflepuff in personality anyways - generally meek, nonconfrontational, best in Herbology (taught by the Hufflepuff house head), etc.[[/note]]

* The series is largely centered around the message of unity and tolerance. Specifically, unity and tolerance between Pure-Blood, Half-Blood, and Muggle-born wizards. Discrimination and segregation between them are always depicted as wrong. It also has the bad guys seeking to kill or enslave non-wizard people (aka Muggles) as an allegory to Nazism. This would all be fine and dandy, if it weren't for the fact that wizards -- even the good ones -- are highly guilty of separatism and segregation by hiding themselves and their society from Muggles and rejecting their culture (the reason wizards are still stuck with medieval technology is that they're largely ignorant of modern technology and science due to their rejection of anything "Muggle"), and the books never portray this behavior as being wrong. Okay, being fair, many wizards believe in Muggles' rights, and some have an interest in Muggle culture, and they have a class called Muggle Studies dedicated to it. But in those cases, this is done in an incredibly condescending manner, almost as if dealing with an animal species, and it's never done with the objective of integration. In other words, being a promoter of Muggle rights practically makes you the wizard equivalent of a PETA activist. Consider how Ron's father's job is specifically to study Muggle culture but still has to ask Harry what the point of a rubber duck is and that the existence of wizards with fully Muggle parents means that they don't even need to leave their veil to get most of the info they could ever need to see how seriously they honestly take it. This behavior is also treated as comical eccentricity at its worst.

* And then Rowling [[WordOfGod claimed]] that she intended Dumbledore to be gay, and it was supposed to "teach children tolerance". However, nearly all straight romances in the series (even Snape's unrequited love for Lily Evans) played a positive role, and Dumbledore's feelings for Grindelwald were decidedly calamitous, resulting in the rise of the magical variant of fascism, many deaths (including the death of Ariana), and, to some extent, possibly even UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. [[MisaimedFandom Some homophobic people even praised this plot point]], seeing it as confirmation for their idea that "homosexuality is evil." The fact that it's the ''[[TokenMinority only]]'' gay relationship in the series just makes it even more problematic. There's also absolutely zero indication that he's gay; he seems to be more or less celibate in the books (and some episodes could be interpreted as hints of his relationships with prof. [=McGonagall=]), and in ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', where his relationship with Grindelwald is briefly shown, [[HideYourLesbians it's never made explicit]] that the two were anything more than very close friends. There's certainly implications, but no more than many other relationships depicted as merely HeterosexualLifePartners (Remus and Sirius, for example). As some LGBT+ advocates put it, if you have to follow the author's blog to figure out what the character's orientation is, it doesn't count as representation.

** Throughout the books, the message of friendship and putting aside differences is hammered pretty hard; Malfoy is portrayed as a self-righteous {{Jerkass}} for warning Harry about befriending "the wrong sort," and the series' ThreeAmigos is made up of three students from radically different backgrounds. The aesop is shattered to pieces, however, by the way Slytherins are treated: Dumbledore reverses their victory, giving the House Cup to their bitter rivals in full view of the entire school; when Harry, disguised as a Slytherin student, asks another student for directions, she flat refuses, primly claiming "''I'm'' a Ravenclaw" (though fair is fair, Harry ''did'' ask for the common room of Slytherin and you aren't supposed to know where the other Houses have their common rooms) before walking off with her nose in the air; Gryffindors "hate Slytherins on principle"; and so on. And all of this loathing is portrayed as 100% justified (and commendable) in-universe, and every halfway decent Slytherin has a DarkAndTroubledPast that they never quite managed to rise above. So, a more accurate aesop might be: "Make friends with people who are different from you.... [[IronicEcho so long as they're not the wrong sort]]."

** Even worse, by the end of the saga the bad guys, a fascist cabal of evil wizards, become a legitimate nation-wide threat and then take over the country, unleashing a campaign of terror against Muggle-borns and Muggles. That is ''still'' not treated as a good enough reason for the good guys to at least warn the non-wiz population about danger and give them a fighting chance. Admittedly, they did warn and protect the Prime minister, but they didn’t help him and the Muggles a whole lot, apart from protecting just him. Notably, the giants, a race explicitly called AlwaysChaoticEvil, is found worthy of an invitation to the alliance. But non-wizards? Not even once suggested (which is odd if they’d consider the Muggles dangerous, since you’d ''think'' they’d want a dangerous ally with a vested interest in getting rid of Voldemort). In fact, the only cooperation ever present is the Minister of Magic occasionally bringing the non-wiz Prime Minister up to date, and even ''that'' is done in a perfunctory and condescending way, boiling down to "Hey, some crazy stuff is probably about to happen in your world, and it's the fault of wizards, so you'd better start cooking up some convincing lies about it while we take care of it for you." Even more egregious is the fact that while there are enchantments designed to preserve TheMasquerade, such as Muggle-Repelling or Memory Charms, the evil wizards in question ''want'' Muggles to live in terror, so they probably wouldn't be using them in the first place.

* Next, the series has House Elves, a race that is treated as slave servants of wizards. Their enslavement is never depicted as wrong, and the one person who is against it, Hermione, is treated as an annoying tree-hugging hippy. The closest the series goes to decrying the treatment of House Elves is saying that [[GoldenMeanFallacy it's wrong to enslave them if you're an abusive master, not that it's wrong to enslave them]]. It also makes an argument that Elves [[HappinessInSlavery enjoy serving wizards and abhor the attempts to free them]], ignoring the fact that they're also conditioned to severely and bodily punish themselves for failing a task, [[MoreThanMindControl which clearly indicates that they are not in control of their own minds]], and strongly implies that their "enjoyment" of servitude is just as forced. According to Rowling, the idea behind house-elves and Hermione's quest to free them was apparently to satirize well-meaning liberals [[WhiteMansBurden so determined to help others that they ignore what the people they're trying to help actually want]], but the whole thing is [[CluelessAesop handled so clumsily]] that it reads more as "owning slaves is okay, as long as they say they're happy"--especially since, aside from Hermione's oft-mocked viewpoint, we never see a supposed "reasonable" alternative to simply keeping house-elves in unwilling bondage forever. And even that clumsy message loses what little water it held, when in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' it's revealed that even a loving and well-meaning master can ''accidentally'' lock an elf in an [[LogicBomb infinite loop of failure and self-punishment]] by incautiously giving them an impossible order.

* There's also the recurrent message that [[ScrewDestiny "It is our choices, far more than our abilities, that show who we really are."]] In other words, ''you'' are responsible for your destiny, and ''you'' determine the breadth of your achievements through your choices. Which would be a perfectly valid message, if not for the fact that, y'know... the entire series takes place in a prestigious School of Magic that you can '''only''' get into by being born with natural Magical abilities, and all of Wizarding society is built upon Magical abilities that can only be acquired by virtue of birth. From what we see in-series, they're an entirely random genetic mutation that the children of Muggles often develop at birth (with the rare MuggleBornOfMages) without regard to any kind of choice.

* And then Rowling [[WordOfGod claimed]] that she intended Dumbledore to be gay, and it was supposed to "teach children tolerance". However, nearly all heterosexual romances in the series (even Snape's unrequited love for Lily Evans) played a positive role, and Dumbledore's allegedly homosexual feelings for Grindelwald were decidedly calamitous, resulting in the rise of the magical variant of fascism, many deaths (including the death of Ariana), and, to some extent, possibly even UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. [[MisaimedFandom Some homophobic people even praised this plot point]], seeing it as confirmation for their idea that "homosexuality is evil." The fact that it's the ''[[TokenMinority only]]'' gay relationship in the series just makes it even more problematic. There's also absolutely zero indication that he's gay; he seems to be more or less celibate in the books (and some episodes could be interpreted as hints of his relationships with prof. [=McGonagall=]), and in ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', where his relationship with Grindelwald is briefly shown, [[HideYourLesbians it's never made explicit]] that the two were anything more than very close friends. There's certainly implications, but no more than many other relationships depicted as merely HeterosexualLifePartners (Remus and Sirius, for example). As some LGBT+ advocates put it, if you have to follow the author's blog to figure out what the character's orientation is, it doesn't count as representation.

** Rowling hastily tried to remedy the issue of Slytherin's isolation in the last book by introducing (for the first time in the entire saga, and even then only in the backstory) an inter-house couple. A pair, whose relationship was conceived and developed before they were sorted, and it quickly deteriorated and broke up largely because of the poisonous influence of House Slytherin on the boy. Not helped by the fact that every other inter-house couple - of which, incidentally, there were only two - also saw a tragic end; even the one that was decently successful ended with both dying. Rowling likewise attempted to rectify this in supplementary materials by revealing that [[spoiler:Neville married Hannah Abbott, a Hufflepuff]], but this came off as tacked-on for many fans.[[note]]Especially since Neville is a quasi-Hufflepuff in personality anyways - generally meek, nonconfrontational, best in Herbology (taught by the Hufflepuff house head), etc.[[/note]]

** The first problem is that there are no good werewolves ever even mentioned in the books besides Remus. Every mention we hear of a werewolf besides Remus is of werewolves either horribly mauling people or considering joining Voldemort. As far as we can tell, werewolves are generally very dangerous, and Remus is just [[TokenHeroicOrc "the good one."]] (''VideoGame/HarryPotterHogwartsMystery'' adds Chiara Lobosca, an incredibly kind Hogwarts student the player can befriend and eventually romance, which brings the number of named good werewolves to a grand total of...two.)

** The story can't claim that Remus is harmless when half the climax of the third book arose from Remus not taking his potion. It wasn't even that he was unable to do so; he just left the school in a hurry and forgot to drink it before he was out the door. It's a flat-out miracle that nobody was killed or infected, and some were still badly injured, all because it slipped Remus's mind, and Remus himself admits that he badly screwed up. Firing a teacher for being HIV+ would be a cruel act of prejudice; firing them because they forgot all precautions and nearly infected their students, not so much.
** The only other named werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, is a PsychoForHire who [[{{Plaguemaster}} delights in spreading the disease and plans his transformations near human populations]], has his attacks and urges [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything described in a rather sexual manner]], and [[PaedoHunt targets young children]] with the goal of [[RapeAndSwitch indoctrinating them into the werewolf community]]. Those familiar with anti-AIDS hysteria will probably recognize every single negative stereotypes about people with HIV, all embodied in one character who seems to be far more typical of the demographic than Remus. Given the longstanding association of HIV and homosexuality, it really doesn't help that Greyback's most pivotal role is [[AllGaysArePedophiles being the werewolf who attacked and infected Remus as a young boy]], causing angst for the very explicitly straight Remus that would only be resolved when he got married to a woman.

* And then Rowling [[WordOfGod claimed]] that she intended Dumbledore to be gay, and it was supposed to "teach children tolerance". However, nearly all heterosexual romances in the series (even Snape's unrequited love for Lily Evans) played a positive role, and Dumbledore's allegedly homosexual feelings for Grindelwald were decidedly calamitous, resulting in the rise of the magical variant of fascism, many deaths (including the death of Ariana), and, to some extent, possibly even UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. [[MisaimedFandom Some homophobic people even praised this plot point]], seeing it as confirmation for their idea that "homosexuality is evil". The fact that it's the ''[[TokenMinority only]]'' gay relationship in the series just makes it even more problematic. There's also absolutely zero indication that he's actually gay; he seems to be more or less celibate in the books (and some episodes could be interpreted as hints of his relationships with prof. [=McGonagall=]), and in ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', where his relationship with Grindelwald is briefly shown, [[HideYourLesbians it's never made explicit]] that the two were anything more than very close friends. There's certainly implications, but no more than many other relationships depicted as merely HeterosexualLifePartners (Remus and Sirius, for example). As some LGBT+ advocates put it, if you have to follow the author's blog to figure out what the character's orientation is, it doesn't count as representation.

* In general, the novels' overall AmbitionIsEvil aesop suffers from InformedAttribute:

** While HIV/AIDS is a terrible condition, and treating it is costly and difficult, a person who knows they have it and takes the proper precautions (don't have unprotected sex, don't donate blood, don't share medical needles or use used medical needles) is no more dangerous than anyone else, even if they haven't had any treatment. This is a lot of why anti-AIDS hysteria was wrong; there was no good reason to think of people with it as inherently dangerous. But werewolves turn into uncontrollable cannibalistic monsters every month and they ''will'' attack any human who's unlucky to be near them. Even the most well-intentioned werewolf can infect people (if they don't end up killing them instead), and while there is a treatment that makes them harmless, it's rare, expensive, and can only be made by Potion Masters, to the point that Remus could only take it at Hogwarts with Snape making it for him under Dumbledore's orders. [[StrawmanHasAPoint It's entirely reasonable for people to fear werewolves]]. Rather odd to try to remove the stigma by coming up with something infinitely more dangerous...
** The story can't claim that Remus is harmless when half the climax of the third book arose from Remus not taking his potion. It wasn't even that he was unable to do so; he just left the school in a hurry and forgot to drink it before he was out the door. It's a flat-out miracle that nobody was killed or infected, and some were still badly injured, all because it slipped Remus's mind. Remus himself admits that he badly screwed up by forgetting to take his potion at the moment. Firing a teacher for being HIV+ would be a cruel act of prejudice; firing them because they forgot all precautions and nearly infected their students, not so much.
** The only other named werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, is a PsychoForHire who [[{{Plaguemaster}} delights in spreading the disease and deliberately plans his transformations near human populations]], has his attacks and urges [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything described in a rather sexual manner]], and [[PaedoHunt targets young children]] with the goal of [[RapeAndSwitch indoctrinating them into the werewolf community]]. Those familiar with anti-AIDS hysteria will probably recognize every single negative stereotype and unrealistic myth about people with HIV, all embodied in one character who seems to be far more typical of the demographic than Remus. Given the longstanding association of HIV and homosexuality, it really doesn't help that Greyback's most pivotal role is [[AllGaysArePedophiles being the werewolf who attacked and infected Remus as a young boy]], causing angst for the very explicitly straight Remus that would only be resolved when he got married to a woman.

** While HIV/AIDS is a terrible condition, and treating it is costly and difficult, a person who knows they have it and knows to take the proper precautions (don't have unprotected sex, don't donate blood, don't share medical needles or use used medical needles) is no more dangerous than anyone else, even if they haven't had any treatment. This is a lot of why anti-AIDS hysteria was wrong; there was no good reason to think of people with it as inherently dangerous. But werewolves turn into uncontrollable cannibalistic monsters every month and they ''will'' attack any human who's unlucky to be near them at the time. Even the most well-intentioned werewolf can infect people (if they don't end up killing them instead), and while there is a treatment that makes them harmless, it's rare, expensive, and can only be made by Potion Masters, to the point that Remus could only take it at Hogwarts with Snape making it for him under Dumbledore's orders. In that case, [[StrawmanHasAPoint it's entirely reasonable for people to fear werewolves]]. Rather odd to try to remove the stigma by coming up with something infinitely more dangerous and virulent...
** The story can't claim that Remus is harmless when half the climax of the third book arose from Remus not taking his potion. It wasn't even that he was unable to do so; he just left the school in a hurry and forgot to drink it before he was out the door. It's a flat-out miracle that nobody was killed or infected, and some were still badly injured, all because it slipped Remus's mind. Remus himself admits that he badly screwed up by forgetting to take his potion at the pivotal moment. Firing a teacher for being HIV+ would be a cruel act of prejudice; firing them because they forgot all precautions and nearly infected their students, not so much.

* There's also the recurrent message that [[ScrewDestiny "It is our choices, far more than our abilities, that show who we really are."]] In other words, ''you'' are responsible for your destiny, and ''you'' determine the breadth of your achievements through your choices. Which would be a perfectly valid message, if not for the fact that, y'know... the entire series takes place in a prestigious School of Magic that you can '''only''' get into by being born with natural Magical abilities, and all of Wizarding society is built upon Magical abilities that can only be acquired by virtue of birth. From what we see in-series, they're an entirely random genetic mutation that the children of Muggles often develop at birth (and the rare MuggleBornOfMages) without regard to any kind of choice.

** Even worse, by the end of the saga the bad guys, a fascist cabal of evil wizards, become a legitimate nation-wide threat and then take over the country, unleashing a campaign of terror against Muggle-borns and Muggles. That is ''still'' not treated as a good enough reason for the good guys to at least warn the non-wiz population about danger and give them a fighting chance. Admittedly, they did warn and protect the Prime minister, but they didn’t help him and the Muggles a whole lot, apart from protecting him. Notably, the giants, a race explicitly called AlwaysChaoticEvil, is found worthy of an invitation to the alliance. But non-wizards? Not even once suggested (which is odd if they’d consider the Muggles dangerous, since you’d ''think'' they’d want a dangerous ally with a vested interest in getting rid of Voldemort). In fact, the only cooperation ever present is the Minister of Magic occasionally bringing the non-wiz Prime Minister up to date, and even ''that'' is done in a perfunctory and condescending way, boiling down to "Hey, some crazy stuff is probably about to happen in your world, and it's the fault of wizards, so you'd better start cooking up some convincing lies about it while we take care of it for you." Even more egregious is the fact that while there are enchantments designed to preserve TheMasquerade, such as Muggle-Repelling or Memory Charms, the evil wizards in question ''want'' Muggles to live in terror, so they probably wouldn't be using them in the first place.

** If anything, the actions of the characters clearly show why Muggles and Wizards ''can't'' live happily together. To Wizards, things like Confounding driving test instructors and magicking exploding toilets and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory wipes]] are harmless little pranks or day-to-day minutiae -- things that Muggles can't foresee or defend themselves from. And almost all of the Muggles that encounter magic in the series react to it with violence and hostility -- the Dursleys' fear of magic makes them abuse Harry, it's implied Snape's father abused both his wife and son because they had magical powers, Tom Riddle's father abandoned his pregnant wife when he found out she was a witch [[spoiler: that had been drugging him with love potions and raping him until she believed that he really loved her back, at which point she stopped drugging him and he got the Hell away from his rapist]], [[spoiler: three Muggle boys witnessed Ariana Dumbledore practicing magic and [[NoodleIncident did something so vicious to her]] that her brain was permanently affected.]] Even in cases of genuine love, there don't seem to be many [[MuggleMageRomance Muggle-Wizard relationships]] that didn't end tragically, or have some level of drama or deceit as a result of their imbalance. Seamus's mother and [=McGonagall=] kept their magic secret from their spouses for years, Snape's parents did not have a good relationship from what we see of them, Remus’ parents ended up with a werewolf son, resulting in them having to move around and for all of them to be wary that nobody found out and Queenie and Jacob involved her drugging him with love potion and joining Grindelwald, and Tom and Merope's relationship produced Voldemort. By this track record, the two races are dangerous to one another and peaceful mixing is the exception rather than the rule. Even in the epilogue, Harry and all his peers end up hooking up with other witches and wizards, with Muggle-wizard pairings never being mentioned - even in interviews that created new characters solely to pair them up with existing ones.

** If anything, the actions of the characters clearly show why Muggles and Wizards ''can't'' live happily together. To Wizards, things like Confounding driving test instructors and magicking exploding toilets and [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory wipes]] are harmless little pranks or day-to-day minutiae -- things that Muggles can't foresee or defend themselves from. And almost all of the Muggles that encounter magic in the series react to it with violence and hostility -- the Dursleys fear of magic makes them abuse Harry, it's implied Snape's father abused both his wife and son because they had magical powers, Tom Riddle's father abandoned his pregnant wife when he found out she was a witch [[spoiler: that had been drugging him with love potions and raping him until she believed that he really loved her back, at which point she stopped drugging him and he got the Hell away from his rapist]], [[spoiler: three Muggle boys witnessed Ariana Dumbledore practicing magic and [[NoodleIncident did something so vicious to her]] that her brain was permanently affected.]] Even in cases of genuine love, there don't seem to be many [[MuggleMageRomance Muggle-Wizard relationships]] that didn't end tragically, or have some level of drama or deceit as a result of their imbalance. Seamus's mother and [=McGonagall=] kept their magic secret from their spouses for years, Snape's parents did not have a good relationship from what we see of them, Remus’ parents ended up with a werewolf son, resulting in them having to move around and for all of them to be wary that nobody found out and Queenie and Jacob involved her drugging him with love potion and joining Grindelwald, and Tom and Merope's relationship produced Voldemort. By this track record, the two races are dangerous to one another and peaceful mixing is the exception rather than the rule. Even in the epilogue, Harry and all his peers end up hooking up with other witches and wizards, with Muggle-wizard pairings never being mentioned - even in interviews that created new characters solely to pair them up with existing ones.

* The narrative often praises Harry for being a HumbleHero, and condemns the arrogance and elitism of House Slytherin. All well and good, except Griffindor is often praised as "the best house" due to being full of showboating glory-hounds. The only house to embody Humility, ironically, is universally looked down on for being full of kids deemed not special or talented enough to "make it" in a better House. While Rowling has stated in interviews that Hufflepuff ''does'' have talented and accomplished members, but they're just too humble to brag about it, that again disproves her Aesop that "[[HumbleHero Humility is Good]]," and creates the [[AccidentalAesop unintentional moral]], "You have to brag or no one will take you seriously."

** As House Elves seem to be a race of magical creatures whose only purpose seems to be to perform domestic chores in people's houses it's difficult to know what help they can be given. Given that Dobby becomes free after [[spoiler:being given a book with a sock in it (even though Lucious didn't know about this sock and didn't want Dobby to be free)]] and Hermione leaves clothes around Hogwarts so the House Elves can free themselves; it seems that they can become free if they wish to.

** Then there's also the fact that the only thing that made Harry important in the grand scheme of the Wizarding World, especially to Dumbledore and Voldemort, was a prophecy that decided what he would be even before he was born. The series attempts to patch this in the sixth book by declaring that if not for the prophecy, Harry would still hate Voldemort and want him dead--but if not for the circumstances of Harry's birth, his parents, and the prophecy, he would have died countless times over.