"Arithmancy" is their name for math classes and is mentioned several times throughout the books. It is one of Hermione's favorite subjects.
At one point, the real world evil witch that is JK Rowling suggested that Arithmancy is like dviniation, but with math, saying they use numbers to predict the future. I take this to mean that the wizarding community discovered calculus independently from the rest of the world and mistook it for a new form of magic.
Isekai is nothing new. Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are all "isekai". JK is just a special kind of bad writer.
It is but I’m not sure why they called the author a witch instead of a shitty author. For whatever stupid detail you find, the writing is 5x more awkward
Even a dragon would make more sense because of the wealth hoarding
So crazy that a woman who liberally employed the Polyjuice Potion in her novels and had ghosts who would just wander through the restrooms to talk to you would take some of the most insanely conservative positions on changing your appearance or who should be allowed in the toilet.
Had to jog my memory, because I haven't read these books in nearly 20 years.
But yeah. I think the Rowling of the mid-90s was relatively chill and fairly progressive, given the tone of her writing. It wasn't until she got Disney-fied (or, I guess, Warner Brothers'd) that she took a turn. The novels really take a dive in book 5 and her political opinions just get nastier and nastier after that.
The Norberta reveal actually happens in Deathly Hallows. And frankly, I don‘t see a shift that is connected to the movies. What I actually observed was the overcompensation for criticism two books after the fact (remember Winky?) that Shaun described in his video essay.
The Norberta reveal actually happens in Deathly Hallows.
No wonder I don't remember. That book was a fat blur.
And frankly, I don‘t see a shift that is connected to the movies.
I saw it more in Book 4 and 5, when her writing style changed from something akin to Roald Dahl into a more Twilight/Hunger Games esque YA dramady. She was in the middle of writing Book 4 when the first film premiered and ended up selling the rights to the movies before the fifth was officially started.
The size the books swelled, and you could tell there was a lot more editorial/ghost-writer punch ups happening along the way. What started as these cute little Christmas-y children's stories mutated into enormous screenplays.
What I actually observed was the overcompensation for criticism two books after the fact
Once Rowling got on social media and started yapping her yap, I think it cast a shadow on the series. The stuff about goblin bankers being a stand-in for jews and the sloppy way she fumbled through Hermonie's SPEW plotline took on an increasingly sinister cast as she got more vocal in the wake of her movie debuts.
Also not unlike Roald Dahl, the media comments forced people to re-contextualize a bunch of these fantasy tropes as legit derogatory views.
Whether they were there early on or whether they only really found their legs once Rowling started hanging out with a bunch of rich British freaks... idk. But they definitely became more obvious as she climbed the economic ladder.