All right, it’s happened.
Hank Green, I have a bone to pick with you.
Now, normally, I agree with absolutely everything that Hank
Green says. He’s one of my biggest
idols. I love that he loves nerdy things that I love
and I love how intelligently and complexly he views the world. But I do not love his new song.
On Friday Hank played his annual song about Harry Potter. Usually, I love his Harry Potter songs, but I disliked this one for many reasons:
Firstly, it seems to me that a song that overall seems to
insult the Harry Potter universe is not at all a good tribute to the fandom that
brought you internet fame. The message
of Harry Potter is a message of love, and I feel like the point J.K. Rowling
was trying to make throughout the whole series was that even though the world
might be full of injustice like slavery or corruption and general unfairness,
in the end, love is what gets us through it all.
Secondly, his points are invalid.
I’m the first person to point out inaccuracies in the Harry
Potter universe, but everything Hank brought up just doesn’t make much sense to
me. So I’m going to take some of the
quotes from the song and point out what about them seems wrong to me. Excuse me if I don’t get the lyrics exactly
right, I had to awkwardly pause the video to type them out myself because I
couldn’t find them anywhere online yet.
“You make it seem like your world is so pristine.”
Read ONE Harry Potter book and tell me that the main
characters don’t freely admit how corrupt and shitty parts of the world
are. For instance see ALL of book
five. I don’t know about you, but the
Wizarding world has NEVER seemed pristine to me. It probably only seems pristine to you because
fans have been putting it up on a pedestal and therefore failing to imagine the
place and the people who inhabit it complexly.
“Well you don’t seem to have much industry. Wizards work at a school or at the ministry.”
False. The reason it
seems like everyone works at these two places are because these are the two
places where our main characters are generally located. Wizards seem to have pretty similar
occupations to Muggles. They can work at
a hospital (healers), they can work at a shop or pub (think Diagon Alley,
people), they can work as professional sportsmen (Quidditch players) or they can
work as bank tellers…therefore discounting Hank’s next claim:
“And by letting Goblins house your currency, you’re letting
them control your whole economy.”
Gringotts may be owned by Goblins, but it’s not like Goblins
are the only beings involved at the bank.
Not only Goblins work there. Bill
Weasley works at Gringotts, remember? So
does Fleur Delacour.
“I don’t understand how any business gets done when a wand
only costs seven galleons.”
According to the Harry Potter Wiki page,
“Galleon or Gold-Galleon is the most valued coin of the
wizarding currency. One Galleon is equal to 17 Sickles or 493 Knuts. Galleons
are made of gold.
In the late 20th century, the Galleon was also equivalent to
£4.97 GBP, or $10.17 USD”
Now, I don’t know how legit that is…but if it IS legit then
seven galleons is about SEVENTY DOLLARS!
Which is kind of a lot of money, Hank.
I mean, come on. You like money a
lot. So I know you know that’s a lot of
money to spend on one thing.
If that doesn’t convince you, let us remember what exists in
the Weasley’s vault as far as money goes.
In Harry and Ron’s second year of school when they visit the Weasley’s
vault there is only a little pile of sickles and ONE galleon. So galleons are a pretty big sum of
money. Think about it!
“They say you can put
a stopper in death and I’m wondering why you haven’t shared that yet.”
How about because the wizards had to go into hiding because
they were persecuted? I’m pretty sure
this has been explained several times…
The wizards aren't keeping their knowledge secret because they’re jerks,
they’re keeping their knowledge secret because they don’t want to be put on trial
and killed. Seems pretty reasonable to
me. If you need more convincing, check
out the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy.
“Cuz when my friends and family die and the wizards aren’t
helping then I wonder why.”
In the words of Albus Dumbledore, "To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." THE WHOLE POINT OF HARRY POTTER IS THAT DEATH IS WHAT MAKES
LIFE MEANINGFUL! GAAAAAAAAAH!
“You’ve got known racists playing politics.”
Yes. And that’s
completely unique to the HP universe…oh wait.
No it’s not. That happens in real life.
“You’ve got slaves making your food.”
Well…yeah. That is a
problem that probably should have been solved since she introduced it. But hey, no one cries about the fact that
George Effing R.R. Martin won’t solve the problems he creates.
“I think I’d rather deal with the problems we have here.”
Oh, you mean like the aforementioned racists playing
politics and a so called shitty economy?
Yeah, because we don't have those problems here at all...
Okay, I should probably wrap this up and quit ranting. I love Hank. He's one of my favorite people in the entire universe. But I just don't really agree with this particular video of his. What do you think?
