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Originally Posted by HistoryWes
As for Rowling, I think most people who denigrate her writing do so because they think it makes them sound sophisticated somehow. (Railing against something so popular always makes you cool, right?) Nobody who knows writing and has read hers, believes that she is less than a competent writer. Some have criticized her because her ideas are synthesized from existing legends and mythology rather than original. Speaking as one who has tried, it is difficult to take so many disparate legends and weave them into one cohesive sophisticated story-- which Harry Potter is.
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Her entertainment-level storytelling is excellent. Her writing is competent, and much improved by a good editor--which she had in the first few books, and it became obvious that the later ones got a lot less attention.
The contradictions in her storyline should've been caught in edit. The concept that Parseltongue can be copied by listening to it & repeating the sounds contradicts the notion that it's a super-spooky magical language. The pacing in the final novel was atrocious... there was a war going on, and Our Heroes were staggering around in the woods, away from
all the action. The whole supposed key theme of the series--"we are defined by our CHOICES!!!"--is contradicted by Snape's life, wherein the message is closer to "one bad choice as a teenager will ruin your whole life, even if you spend the next couple of decades trying to fix it. Unless, of course, your name is Malfoy." And that's before we get into all the nitpicky details.
The Harry Potter books are meant for a fairly noncritical YA audience; her worldbuilding falls apart when subject to in-depth review, and a lot of her underlying themes are contradicted by her overt plot events. They are wonderful stories, but they aren't examples of Fine Literature That Will Endure Through The Ages.