I don't think Harry cares much about the funding of the school, so someone would have to make a point of telling him where the money comes from, and that would be a point where lots of people would say, "Why is this here? How does this forward the story?"

It would make a bit of sense for Uncle Vernon to say something like "We're not paying for him to go there" and Hagrid to explain where the money came from in the scene where Hagrid first meets Harry in Sorcerer's Stone, but really, that would have just added even more detail at a point where the book really didn't need it. (I've been rereading, and I'd forgotten how it takes until about a third of the way through the book before they even get to Hogwarts.)

It would make a bit of sense for Uncle Vernon to say something like "We're not paying for him to go there" and Hagrid to explain where the money came from in the scene where Hagrid first meets Harry in Sorcerer's Stone

But why? What does that add to the average British teen kid's enjoyment of the story? They're not concerned with how school gets paid for, most probably.

Teen is also assuming older than a lot of the readership was and is, in the U.S. anyway. Kids as young as nine and ten were reading these when they came out, and the demographic for children's and teen books usually skews a lot younger than you'd think.

Harry Potter is wildly popular in the 2nd grade, I can tell you. 7-8. We read 1-4 to Casper last summer, right before she turned 7, and her classmates who are better readers read them themselves. (I think they get a little dark for that age after #3, personally, which is why we stopped at 4.)

I went to the Harry Potter exhibit on Sunday, and several of the kids there who were explaining the plot to their parents with a whole lot of detail were no older than 8.

I keep thinking of a fanfic I remember a ton of non-Buffista people raving about the general wonderfulness of, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality,"

Hm. A couple of people have recommended that to me because I have zero interest in the actual books. And at least one of the recs is based on the fact that they find Rowling's story at its base to be morally... questionable. Like, at a C.S. Lewis level. I have not gotten very fair in it because well, it's still not my thing, but I don't know that putting the response down to logic versus heart is entirely fair.

I'm quite willing to believe it's ye olde question of whether its easier for you to handwave story in the service of character, or character in the service of story. Neither is superior, really. I'll cry my eyes out over things that don't make sense; it's just a matter of which kind of nonsense I can accept.

I gotta say, I'm not all worked up about the question of how Hogwarts is funded: I just wondered.

Sheesh.

I love this.

Huh. Potter is morally questionable? And Narnia isn't? I Would say Lewis is way more morally problematic. I would also say Lewis was by far the better writer. Yeah Rowling does more consistent world building. But Lewis has better prose. Although in summary it may not sound like it, encountered in the book his characters are much more convincing. And again though if you look at sparknote sumarries Rowlings world might seem more convincing, encountered in detail in actual books, Lewis's world building is damn convincing whereas I never was able to suspend disbelief for Potter. This sort of thing is very subjective, so maybe not a typical experience, but to me Rowling, though good, is not even in the same writing class as Lewis.

I'll take the moraltity and ethics she teaches though over Lewis, as long as one understands that it contains few to zero role models.