Harry Potter is a world 40 years out of date. It’s like Hogwartz is a school for the 70s or something.Not only that, but it’s implausible. Now I know magic isn’t the best thing to vote up plausibility but a good fantasy book can make their magic… connect in some way.

In Rowling’s books, everything magical is explained simply by ‘It’s magic’. A wizard did it. It seems there’s nothing you can’t do with magic; it has no limitations. There’s just the law against it. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why you can’t blow somebody’s head off. And wands have so much power. It’s like it’s perfectly lawful to put a loaded gun in a child’s hand and not even teach them how to use it safely; you’re just praying that they don’t make a few things burst into flame spontaneously.

And of course there’s the idea of everybody in Slytherin being bad. Why do they spend their time dividing everybody up and putting ‘good’ people in one house and bad people in another? That’s like cultural dividing. It’s just going to make things worse. If most of the Slytherins turn out to be jerkasses, why doesn’t the Hat of Destiny just say, “No, this one’s a bad egg; better not train him.”

And is Hogwarts the ONLY wizarding school in England?