Mom turns to me and says she doesn't understand why people threw such a fit over Harry Potter being satanic or whatever, nothing they did magically seemed all that bad and I said I thought it was just the idea of ~magic in the first place that was so horrible.

Your mom is awesome :) Back when Harry Potter was all in the news, my dad was one of those who listened too much to the idiots yelling about Harry Potter corrupting their precious children. I think he's gotten over it now, though.

Also, I'm kind of with you on having a problem with the "talented-outcast-child-is-rescued-from-family-and-excels-at-[whatever]" narrative, though not for exactly the same reasons. I find stories like that tend to devalue the family/community that shaped the child, in a way that feels very selfish and adolescent. Like, "You're all so mean to me! I'm running away from home!" Conflicts between "outcasts" and their parents/siblings are never as one-sided as that. I mean, the Dursleys really are that horrible, but JKR wasn't exactly aiming for subtlety or realistic psychology.

The problem comes when you get story after story after movie after TV show with this narrative, and it gets a bit too much!