themeatbridge
Turns out raising taxes on 99% of people doesn't cover the costs of lowering taxes on 1% of people.
"I only eat food that's free."
I fully support open source software, but it's not feasible under the current economic system to expect everyone to exclusively contribute to open source projects.
Statistically, the most popular restaurant in America is Wendy's (excluding dessert and donut shops). Wendy's is pretty good for fast food, but it's objectively not high quality food. That's not to say people shouldn't enjoy it, but if you're learning to be a chef, you're probably not aspiring to mass produce baconators.
I've read two Dan Brown books (Angels and Demons and DaVinci Code). I've read 8 Rowling books.
My criticism of Dan Brown would be that he wrote one book and then wrote it again. It's not great literature, but it's easy to read and doesn't strain the mind with complexity. I understand that he's written four more novels, but I haven't read them. I have heard people say that it's the same formula, and if you enjoy it, there's no judgement here. Reading should be fun and exactly as challenging as you want it to be.
Dan Brown also made absurd amounts of money. Do you know what he thinks about trans rights? No, you don't, because he doesn't use his position of relative privilege to be a shitbag to minorities. Maybe he's a bigot, but I wouldn't assume that of anyone without evidence. Dan Brown created a series of popular books and then fucked off to cheat on his wife. That's all we know about him.
Rowling, by contrast, is a garbage human being. She's actively awful, and goes out of her way to stir shit up and make life miserable for people she doesn't know and will never meet. She is a bigot, and isn't shy about spreading hateful propaganda or punching down. Being a bad writer is the very least of her flaws, but it is among her flaws. When people compare her to other artists who have created masterpieces but had "problematic" personal lives, the comparison is distorted by both the lack of quality to her art and the magnitude of her shittiness as a human. Even if you can separate the art from the artist, it's like picking the solid shit nuggets from a massive steaming pile of diarrhea.
She's a terrible writer. She has no original or clever ideas, her imagery is boring and vague, and her characters are one dimensional at most. The Robert Galbraith book that I read was really bad, too, and the television offer came after she revealed that it was hers. Fucking Cormoran Strike? What the fuck kind of hacky bullshit name is that? She's a dipshit, which is nothing compared to the fact that she's a hateful bigot.
My general complaint is that there really isn't any nuance to any of the characters in the books. If you're thinking of complexity, you're probably thinking about the performances created by various excellent actors in the movies.
Also, none of the twists are executed well, as they are either deus ex rectum or they are telegraphed to the point where you don't even realize they were supposed to be twists.
There's no internal consistency within or between books. Macguffins come and go to serve the story, and every story is just repackaged public domain mythology.
Actually, the fan theory that all of it is the delusion of a mistreated orphan boy does tie several things together. The entire arc reads like the fantasies of a sad, lonely kid playing with a stick in his room by himself.
I always like to include the addendum that she's also a bad writer. It's great when people are excited to read, but success is not an indicator of quality.