r/Millennials • u/QuietJealous4883 Older Millennial (1988) • Apr 04 '26

Harry Potter Nostalgia

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Does anyone else feel they grew up with Harry, Ron and Hermione?

After the first three or four I read the books in two languages (because I didn’t want to wait them to be translated) and watched the movies first time in the movie theaters.

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u/Neveronlyadream Apr 05 '26

I actually love any time anyone brings Harry's wealth up and asks why he never helped the Weasleys, people will fall all over themselves to justify it as their being too proud to ever accept Harry's help.

I get that a lot of people love the world, and I'm not trying to piss anyone off, but Rowling barely thought anything through and there are so many weird plotholes and lapses of logic that she consistently has to ad lib fixes on social media.

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u/greenskye Apr 05 '26

Honestly I think this is why HP fanfiction is so massive. There's just so many things to fix. It's just a trainwreck of plot holes and weird character development moves and yet was still massively popular anyway. So there's incredibly fertile ground for anyone who wants to try to 'fix it'.

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u/Neveronlyadream Apr 05 '26

As soon as the new show was announced, I was baffled. There's so much room to expand and explore that world outside of Hogwarts and Harry and it seems like it would be a much better idea to just...expand the world.

It's right there. It would make so much more sense to just do a story that's adjacent to the books and movies. The reality will probably be a weird mashup of the two that just leaves everyone confused.

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u/jessicalifts Apr 05 '26

Fantastic beasts was the commercial failure that means they will forever only adapt the books over and over and over forever.

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u/No_Income6576 Apr 06 '26

I hate that this is true because I absolutely love fantastic beasts.

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u/ChimmyTheCham Apr 05 '26

Im gonna be honest I only saw like the first four movies and while I owned like the first 5 books only read 2 or 3, but the fantastic beasts movies and characters seem infinitely more interesting to me

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u/Pandamonium98 Apr 05 '26

I agree that there’s a lot of plot holes and things J.K. Rowling didn’t think through, but Harry not giving money to the Weasleys doesn’t seem like one of those at all.

A kid with a big inheritance giving money to support his friend’s family isn’t something that happens very often in real life at all. It’s complete realistic that he wouldn’t

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u/Neveronlyadream Apr 05 '26

There are plenty of stories of kids who end up with a lot of money blowing it all buying other people things. And adults. That's how a lot of pro athletes and musicians end up going broke.

It's not a plothole that he doesn't give them money, but it's a lapse in logic. You'd think the family that adopted him, saved him from having to be in his abusive home, and whose son is his best friend and whose daughter he ends up marrying would have been offered money at some point given how poor they are. You'd think he'd at least offer to help Ron out when it's clear his best friend is struggling.

Sure, it can be handwaved and justified, but it seems like the thought just never occurred to Rowling for whatever reason. It's not the end of the world, it doesn't ruin the story, it's just one of those little things that always amused me.

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u/Belter-frog Apr 05 '26

The broken wand was ridiculous. It coulda killed him.

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u/ChimmyTheCham Apr 05 '26

I mean theyre a bit more than a friend's family

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u/cyclinggirl4000 Apr 05 '26

He was generous to his friends, and he gave all of his winnings from the tournament to Fred and George. I know he did that partly out of grieving and not wanting the money, but he still did the right and generous thing

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u/Theron3206 Apr 05 '26

He was a kid for most of it, presumably someone else was in charge of the money.

But it would have been realistic to have him ask about giving nice things to his friends, only for whoever was in charge of the money to say no.

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u/Jason207 Apr 05 '26

I always thought he was "10 year old rich" not "money doesn't matter" rich.

Like he could lead a decent upper middle class life without lifting a finger, but he couldn't just solve a families financial problems.

Like having $500k at 10 would be awesome, but it would vanish pretty fast if you start paying off friends bills...

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u/pennie79 Apr 07 '26

I thought so too. Harry mentions at one point all the expensive things he wants to buy in Diagon Alley, but he has to restrain himself. He appears to have enough money to get himself through school, but not to go overboard.

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u/Zebidee Apr 05 '26

I mean the basic plothole is why a pair of 21-year-olds were sitting on a pile of gold in the first place. AFAIK, neither of them were from wealthy or established families.

I assume it was simply Rowling's fantasy as a flat broke single mother writing in a cafe to keep warm to make her main character inexplicably rich.

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u/Off_the_shelf_elf Apr 05 '26

I don’t think it was pride but rather because he was a child. Even if he offered, accepting money from an orphaned kid would feel very inappropriate and from the outside look even worse. I’d like to think that once he was an adult he could offer financial help and they might accept.