It pains me to write this.

The Harry Potter series has been my favorite set of books for over a decade now; I re-read them about once a year, adore fan theories and derive great significance from the fact that my Patronus is a ragdoll cat. I've owned a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for as long as I can remember.

Yes, that's the old edition, beat up from multiple re-readings.

I even enjoy J.K. Rowling's other works, including The Cursed Child even though it was kind of objectively terrible. But hey, maybe the actual play was better than the script.

So why am I not excited for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? It's written by J.K. Rowling. The trailers promise a beautiful and quirky magical world set in the 1920s, arguably the greatest decade; the characters are new, so we won't have to struggle through inconsistent characterization like we did in The Cursed Child; and Eddie Redmayne's super cute as Newt Scamander.

But I can't get excited about the idea of a whole Harry Potter cinematic universe. Why not? Because the world-building has never been the strong point of the series. Rowling excels at creating localities (Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, the Burrow), but when it comes to depicting a whole society, she falls short. How many people have wondered, as Harry does in the second book, what kind of jobs are available to a wizard once they leave Hogwarts, outside of the Ministry? Or how a mere seven years at Hogwarts is considered enough education for a lifetime? Or why the international community didn't get involved in the fight against Voldemort? Or, for that matter, why wizard communities apparently divide themselves based on the borders of muggle nations?

In addition, Rowling's explanation of "Magic in North America" has been criticized for basically being a colonialist narrative that draws on Native American mythology. Not only that, but the story itself is pretty uncreative; the first magical school in North America, Ilvermorny, is literally a recreation of Hogwarts by an Irish immigrant. It doesn't make me confident that Rowling has more ideas for the Harry Potter world. I'd be happier if she stuck to writing her series of mystery novels under her pen name, Robert Galbraith.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that Johnny Depp, a domestic abuser, has been cast for the sequel. That should just clearly have never happened.

Even having said this, there's a good chance I'm going to go see the movie on November 17 (or soon after), thanks to the insistent little impulse in my head that sees the words "Harry Potter" and immediately needs to consume. Will I go see all five, a number that to me sounds presumptuous, like they're counting on people like me with that little voice in our heads? I guess we'll see, but I'm already doubting it.