Like people complain about Mary Sues, but isnt Potter himself a perfect example of a Mary Sue who is just "naturally good" at magic?

I've become very disillusioned with HP, and haven't really been able to separate it from jkr personally, but this just isn't true.

Harry is only notably good at defense against the dark arts spells, and even then he only gets good at them because those are the spells he has to put a lot of time and effort into practicing, or is forced to use on a regular basis in order to protect himself. Outside of that he's actually just kind of average at magic at best. He only masters spells that he takes the time to practice. He's almost never good at a spell the first time he uses it, or even the first few times. A lot of time and effort is dedicated to him just learning something as simple as accio.

The character who was closest to being naturally good at magic was Hermione, but that was because she was studious and actually practiced spells and magic all the time, not because of a natural talent with magic and nothing else. I don't think there was any character who was just naturally good at magic without putting in the work, except maybe Voldemort himself.

There are lots of issues with the HP books don't get me wrong, but Harry being a "Mary Sue" type character honestly isn't one of them. Even the "chosen one" aspect of his character is deconstructed when it's revealed that Harry wasn't the only option for the role, he was just the one that Voldemort went after first by chance.

Edit: Also, while JKR definitely handled the house elf thing very distastefully, Harry was never a supporter of keeping house elves as slaves. He was more supportive of Hermione's attempts at getting awareness than Ron was, and he was also sympathetic to Dobby's attempts at convincing the other house elves to defect. JKRs problem wasn't that she depicted slavery as a good thing because she honestly did try to depict it as a bad thing, her issue was not actually following through with what she set up. There were slaves in real life who wanted to stay as slaves and didn't want to be freed, because trauma and mistreatment can warp how someone feels about their own captivity, so that can be an interesting and nuanced topic to depict and explore. But instead of seeing through that plot to the end or actually addressing that concept in detail, it was like she just dropped that plot thread almost entirely after that point, so the last major development regarding house elves was "well slavery IS bad of course, but they WANT to be slaves and would be unhappy if we freed them, so what can you do 🤷 Dobby is just the only one smart enough to Get It". She never addressed how it was the only life they knew so their fear of the unknown was clouding their judgement, or how abuse victims are conditioned to think that they deserve or even need or want to stay where they are even if they're not actually happy (and being patronizing about them "wanting" to be slaves isn't helping them in any way shape or form either. Even Dobby felt the same way other house elves like Winky felt when Harry first met him, but his sudden freedom allowed him to protect his friend, so he started off on good terms with freedom as a concept, as opposed to Winky, who gained freedom through traumatic means instead). She didn't even address how obviously there are house elves who aren't happy being slaves (Dobby being a prolific example), and they don't deserve to remain as slaves just because other house elves have been rejecting freedom because of their conditioning/fear/trauma/etc. Or how even IF there are house elves that genuinely want to be slaves, it should be something they get to choose on an individual basis, not something forced on them as a species, etc, etc. JKR basically just wanted slaves in her world for the aesthetic™, but didn't want to take the time to actually address the issue in depth or portray it respectfully.

The hill I die on all the time is that the Harry Potter movies are so significantly better than the books in large part because they took out the "slaves love slavery" plotline.

I hate the term "Mary Sue," though. It's a bit sexist. I prefer to call them "Wesley Crushers."

Oh sure as an adult I can see that. But I'm not going to deprive myself of nostalgia simply because times have progressed. Sometimes I like to enjoy my childhood again and put on a movie or show or book from when I was young that may not hold up now. As a grown up, I can enjoy it with nuance. But you make a good point and that's why HP isn't a bedtime story for my kid lol.

Perfect time I think to recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

126 chapters of pure joy that fixes how shitty of a character Harry is. One of the better pieces of literature I've ever read. Wish I could forget it and read it again.

HP is terrible in almost every respect. The only part she got really right was the ability to draw people into a fantasy world they wanted to live in. At least at first blush. There's so much squick in there for a kids book its unreal.

Of course. And while I don't have the specific statistic for HP tattoo removal, I wouldn't think its rate of removal would fall too far away percentage wise from the overall rate of tattoo removal.