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I found it very fun, interesting and captivating when I read those books (that is, when I was maybe 13-16?). If it was "terribly written" it wouldn't have made the success it did, and also the target audience is generally not made of literary critics.
So I don't think there is much to judge, especially since many people's good opinion on the story is based on their lived experience with it, from when they were younger etc. And you can't erase that from your life because the author turned out to be an asshole 15 years later.
"If it was "terribly written" it wouldn't have made the success it did"
Dan Brown's millions beg to differ.
If people like HP stuff they might want to try Dianna Wynne Jones' stuff: earlier, better, and didn't have the same fortunate exposure.
The DaVinci code sold 80 millions copies. The first HP book alone sold 120 millions, and the whole series 600 millions, being the most sold series of books.
Not only they are one order of magnitude apart, but I think they sold for different reasons.
I haven't read Dan Brown's stuff, but I also doubt it's terribly written by the way. Books that capture the interest of a population more and more unused to read can be shallow, banal, inconsistent, whatever, but not terribly written. Casual readers can hardly finish a terribly written book. In any case, HP books are children's books. Children or teenagers are not literary critics, it's not about reading "great literature", however you define that.
I also can't help to notice the coincidence that all the HP critiques started appearing in the last years, when the author went bananas. A series this popular, which ended in 2007, and suddenly 15 years later people notice that it's "terribly written"? This smells more to me of a damnatio memoriae than genuine critique.
You haven't read it, but that's what you reckon? Okay.
As to the other point: JKR's stuff is trite and derivative, but I do think that some of its "problematic" aspects are likely just because it's regurgitating European fantasy tropes, which themselves may (originally or later on) encode antisemitism and so on.
And when it comes to it, subjecting any popular series to close reading with an eye for affront is likely to show up its flaws. Just think of all the janitors who blew up with the death star.
But Brown's stuff is utter garbage (not to mention just ripping off "the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", which was pretty awful to begin with) - if you have the chance to pick it up second-hand I'd encourage you to see if you can finish it.
I actually disagree that a book is "problematic" because it touches, presents, includes etc. any topic that morally we disagree with. Not every book has to be a manifesto or a depiction for a moral and just society, which is why I find most of the arguments against HP to be weak (some points were listed in a sibling comment thread).
I am quite sure this is true for any book (especially fiction), in fact. Which is why I think it's an activity that makes sense only to justify the pre-existing opinion about the book, rather than having a value in itself.
To be clear, I know that Dan Brown stuff is garbage. I just have seen people who I think never read a book in the previous 10 years read that one (in translation though, so who knows...). So the book must at least be interesting and intriguing to keep the attention of people who are not used to read. For me this means not fitting in the "terrible writing" category, but maybe we mean different things by that.
she was an asshole back then and you can see it all over her books. i think i was probably lucky enough to be a bit older than the target demo to find HP even remotely interesting but kids at the time were super generous and kind with the books and interpreted them in good ways that jowling kowling rowling clearly never intended. which is why she retconned diversity into her books for example.
i completely believe in the death of the author, but also won't stand for praising a shitty author's shitty books just because people headcanoned a lot of good things into it to make them suck less.
Honestly, I read the books translated + I could not and still cannot relate with the issues that I often see raised against the book (like the way diversity is represented). Especially when I was a kid, those issues were so not in my mind that I would never ever flag as issues.
To make an example: for me as a kid, slavery was something that mostly had to do with the roman empire. The whole debacle about house elves etc. is completely disconnected from real societal probelsm, recent history etc. I have always rooted for the elves because that's what I was pushed to do emotionally, but without really ever reflecting on slavery as a whole. I am picking this example because it's one of the most used ones to critique the book.
In general I also believe that authors can build worlds that do not represent their views, I find a lot of the critique I have read a stretch and I am especially suspicious that most of these critiques started appearing recently. I believe people started with the thesis (she is an asshole) and then backtracked the analysis trying to find anything at all in the books that could support the conclusion (rather than viceversa).
Either way, all of this is relatively irrelevant. People can like or dislike books - especially fiction - freely. For me the book is mostly associated with a vibe of being young, thinking about those stories, relating with the characters etc., not with the actual books content. So it's more about thinking back of childhood/past than appreciating the literary value.
well the critique is not about the world building. i mean the world building is bad too but that's not about the morality of the world. the critique is about what the books present as good or bad.
there are many examples of this.
body shaming and misogyny/transphobia: bad people are fat, good people are at most "plump". bad women have mannish features, like big physiques, square jaws and mustaches.
slavery is good, actually: the problem with slavery in the books isn't that it's portrayed at all, it's that it's portrayed as good for the house elves except for one weirdo freak who wants to be free for some reason. also house elves even as a term is yikes imo.
zero concern for diversity: it's not that the book just lacks it but the fact that the very few token characters who were put in are just cardboard cutouts with downright disrespectful names. the Asian girl is cho chang because i think the editor may have vetoed the first ch-ch name she came up with. the black guy is called kingsley shacklebolt because "tyrone escapedslave" was too on the nose i guess. the british wizarding school is for some reason more populous than schools that represent much larger populations, and it has a proper name while all others are called "wizard school" or "magic place" very badly translated because she couldn't be fucked to engage with another culture even on a surface level. she also disrespectfully dismissed some regional beliefs about magic because why not.
good people vs bad people, not good deeds vs bad deeds: you can see throughout the book "good" and "bad" people doing the exact same things but represented as good and bad depending on who's doing them, not what they're doing.
status quo above all: challenging systemic problems is never a solution, even slavery, and any change must only involve individuals. whatever you may gather as "challenging authority" for example is always about the people using the authority, and not whether the authority itself should exist at all. the main protagonist becomes a fucking cop at the end. and the books end in literally everything being the same as it started, sans the threat of voldy, and "all is well" despite the same abusive systems, castes and slavery still existing. because status quo is good and systemic change is bad.
it keeps going, and it gets worse if you go beyond the HP books. it's not what's in the world, it's how she presents them.