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Jedit posted:The stupidest thing about the houses at Hogwarts is that they are literally the good guys, the bad guys, the one with the silly name and the other one. Also all the Death Eaters were Slytherin. So the wizards not only know who their enemies are, but they have a foolproof method of sorting out all future enemies before they learn magic. Don't forget how at the end of the last book Harry has to be super clear to his son that Slytherin aren't all bad guys, for serious! I mean that one Snape guy! Its worse in the movies though, in the movies Slytherin = Evil House. Its really dumb. I really really wish all the main characters weren't Gryffindor so we could get more feel for the other houses. Ah well.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:08
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CJacobs posted:It doesn't come up in the movies but one of the teachers explains it in the book. They talk about this thing that occasionally happens in one of the later books where the hat can be convinced what to put you in by you if it's on the fence about it, which Harry assumes is what happened to him, so that theory probably does have some merit. I always want to see a kid get really insulted by the hat's call. Like all "gently caress you hat, everyone knows Slytherin is bad guys. I mean you can tell by their names! The last kid in was named Nastia Spikethwapper! My name is Todd! Put me in Hufflepuff so I can get my loving magic BA and avoid all this protagonist/antagonist bullshit."
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Feb 27, 2015 00:09
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Watching Brad Neely's 'Wizard People, Dear Reader' dub of the first movie made every other Harry Potter movie better because now I know Harry's just drunk and everyone else is retarded. My irrational irritant is that Neely didn't make a Wizard People dub for all the movies.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:11
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Zaphod42 posted:Those things more or less happen, just much much MUCH later in the book series. Thing is GRRM himself is working closely on the show, so its not so much they're loving up the story as it is they're remixing the story. Yeah, I understand why they did a few things differently, such as condense stuff. That's the rationally irritating part. I understand that. The irrationally irritating stuff is the spoilered part. Why add in Asha going to try and rescue theon and add a confrontation in with Ramsay but present it such that Ramsay should be an easy kill when you can't have him die. They gave him plot armor for a scene that didn't need to happen. And then wasting screentime on Tyrion to tell a boring pointless story. I may have got it the wrong way around with what's rationally irritating and what's irrationally irritating. I guess if I understand why it happened but it's irritating anyway it's irrationally irritating. So that would be all the minor necessary changes. And stuff which makes no sense and should be irritating would be rationally irritating.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:11
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Zaphod42 posted:Speaking of Jedi, I guess power creep is an obvious IIMM but god drat throughout the extended universe that poo poo is all over the place. I dont really want to defend the Clone Wars, but didnt Yoda die like, weeks later? He was old as poo poo man.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:20
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Per the retconning in Star Wars chat, while thinks like the wierd power creep usually doesn't bother me too much, there is one scene in TESB where ghost Obi-Wan is talking to Yoda after Luke fucks off to get dismembered by Vader that drives me crazy. Obi-Wan says something like "He is our only hope," and Yoda replies, "No, there is another." Oh, I guess Obi-Wan just conveniently forgot about Luke's twin sister when he witnessed the goddamned birth, and his direct particcipation in splitting the twins up to make them harder for the Emperor to find. On the same note, Obi-Wan and Vader just not practicing at all in the interim ~20 years between their lightsaber battles, going from being rave monsters in ROTS to Parkinsonian halfwits in ANH.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:28
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Harry Potter has a lot of dumb stuff in it yeah. But I do remember that it's set in the 90's or so. Dursley got a brand new playstation (the first) on one of the books even. (Why do I remember this.  )
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Feb 27, 2015 00:36
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KoB posted:I dont really want to defend the Clone Wars, but didnt Yoda die like, weeks later? He was old as poo poo man. Alright you've got me there. Marathanes posted:On the same note, Obi-Wan and Vader just not practicing at all in the interim ~20 years between their lightsaber battles, going from being rave monsters in ROTS to Parkinsonian halfwits in ANH.  Well Obi Wan did turn into Old Ben and basically just told Bothans to get off his lawn for 20 years, while Vader was in such a power of authority he didn't really have anybody to challenge him to a fight.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:36
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My irrationally irritating Harry Potter moment is that in the second half of the series they go on constantly about how the four houses need to come together and stop fighting among themselves and face this horrible threat together. Which is obviously nonsense because Slytherin is evil, and sure enough zero Slytherin students show up to help the good guys at the end and it turns out only three houses are needed.muscles like this? posted:Its really obvious in the first book that Quidditch is just supposed to be a joke considering there's the big demonstration of all the stuff you do to score points and then they drop the punchline of how none of that matters since you just need to catch the snitch. It's played completely seriously for three Quidditch matches in each of the next three books, and I can't think of any real sport of which that aspect works as a parody. A more likely explanation is that Rowling wanted a "team" sport, but also wanted Harry to be the automatic MVP, since he's the protagonist.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:36
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Lottery of Babylon posted:It's played completely seriously for three Quidditch matches in each of the next three books, and I can't think of any real sport of which that aspect works as a parody. But again, it just shows Rowling's total ignorance of sports. Have Harry be the quarterback. Problem solved; game still revolves around him as MVP but the other players on the field aren't just wasted oxygen. I guess you need a reason for a freshman to be the first-string QB still though. But his "my dad was the best and hey I'm really good" doesn't really make sense even in the realm of Quidditch. If you just flip it so the snitch awards 0 points and only ends the game, suddenly tactics could emerge. Even better would be the seeker is the only one who can touch the snitch, but the game doesn't end until he throws the snitch through a goal. That way you could grab the snitch as the lower scoring team and not just lose, you could hold onto it to prevent the other seeker from getting it (sans a bludger knocking you off) while giving your team time to catch up. And if the snitch awards no points, catching up in the game with the normal balls is much more reasonable and based on the relative skills of the teams, not the seekers. Zaphod42 has a new favorite as of 00:42 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 00:39
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For Hogwarts, wasn't there some mention in the books that the stupid Sorting Hat could be bribed/convinced to put you in another house, like it did with Harry, and also it could choose your house on the idea that you might, I don't know, grow into it? Which was how Wormtail Ratface (seriously how the gently caress is Wormtail an affectionate nickname? No wonder he sold the Potters out.) ended up in the Hero house. Hero, Bad Bad Bad People, Smart People, Stupid Helpful People houses. I always thought the love potions were really loving creepy, especially when, you know, throw in the shapeshifting spells and memory erasing and rape is so easy. gently caress alive, when they figured out that love potion and rape was how Voldemort was loving conceived, why didn't someone say hey, no more love potions, you guys, this poo poo is bad! I really wish GoT season four had included the Tysha explanation from the books. It would have explained just why Tyrion hunted down his dad other than 'the fans expect this so kinda make it good!'
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Feb 27, 2015 00:40
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Cowslips Warren posted:I really wish GoT season four had included the Tysha explanation from the books. It would have explained just why Tyrion hunted down his dad other than 'the fans expect this so kinda make it good!' I'm 2 episodes from the end, but now I'll know to groan preemptively.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:45
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Cowslips Warren posted:I always thought the love potions were really loving creepy, especially when, you know, throw in the shapeshifting spells and memory erasing and rape is so easy. gently caress alive, when they figured out that love potion and rape was how Voldemort was loving conceived, why didn't someone say hey, no more love potions, you guys, this poo poo is bad! At the very loving least love potions should be outlawed from university. But yeah, probably banned from all wizards even. I mean drat what the gently caress. Then again the killing curse is illegal and people still do it so  dunno how hard that is to enforce in a magic world anyways. (Although Harry really wants to be an Auror, we know next to nothing about how they actually operate)Always seemed silly to me to have a single killing curse and have it be illegal. A) How does magic work in this world that there's only one specific spell that can accomplish anything? That's awfully convenient. And B) If you can't curse kill somebody, how about you just ACCIO BULLET or something, eh? Petrificus Totalus and then drop them off a dock into the ocean. There's tons of other easy ways to kill with magic.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:45
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Amoeba102 posted:Game of Thrones Season 4 Game of Thrones operates on Dark Souls rules, and the half naked guy dual-wielding lovely weapons is probably like a million times stronger than you.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:45
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Zaphod42 posted:And B) If you can't curse kill somebody, how about you just ACCIO BULLET or something, eh? Petrificus Totalus and then drop them off a dock into the ocean. There's tons of other easy ways to kill with magic. It's the magical version of banning automatic weapons but not semi-autos.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:49
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Zaphod42 posted:Always seemed silly to me to have a single killing curse and have it be illegal. A) How does magic work in this world that there's only one specific spell that can accomplish anything? That's awfully convenient. And B) If you can't curse kill somebody, how about you just ACCIO BULLET or something, eh? Petrificus Totalus and then drop them off a dock into the ocean. There's tons of other easy ways to kill with magic. Magic literally has to be sentient to make sense with the curses. How else would it know how to inflict enough pain on a whip scorpion to really really torture it without killing it. The human casting that doesn't know how the gently caress a whip scorpion feels pain. So if magic is sentient it's gotta be following bullshit rules that would unpetrify you if you'd drown otherwise, etc.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:50
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Lottery of Babylon posted:It's the magical version of banning automatic weapons but not semi-autos.  theironjef posted:Magic literally has to be sentient to make sense with the curses. How else would it know how to inflict enough pain on a whip scorpion to really really torture it without killing it. The human casting that doesn't know how the gently caress a whip scorpion feels pain. So if magic is sentient it's gotta be following bullshit rules that would unpetrify you if you'd drown otherwise, etc. That's actually semi-plausible, yeah.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:53
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theironjef posted:Magic literally has to be sentient to make sense with the curses. How else would it know how to inflict enough pain on a whip scorpion to really really torture it without killing it. The human casting that doesn't know how the gently caress a whip scorpion feels pain. So if magic is sentient it's gotta be following bullshit rules that would unpetrify you if you'd drown otherwise, etc. I don't think that's the case. At one point death eaters are chasing the heroes on broomsticks very high in the air, and the heroes use stunning spells on them, which makes them fall off their brooms. Harry points out that this is pretty much the same as outright killing them, and nobody says "No, Harry, the stupefy spell conjures pillows on the ground below if the stunned target would die from falling." There's never any indication that spells other than the killing curse can't be used to kill too, they just won't do it quite as directly.
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Feb 27, 2015 00:56
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I think the idea is that if you're using the killing curse it means you 100% want them to die. As in not only does using it mean you intended for the target to die, but casting it in the first place requires you to truly want to kill your victim. Killing someone via other magical means doesn't have that requirement, and even if you did intend to kill them with a stunner while they were in the air you could probably say you had no means to stop them from attacking you that didn't send them smashing into the ground.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:05
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Slime posted:I think the idea is that if you're using the killing curse it means you 100% want them to die. As in not only does using it mean you intended for the target to die, but casting it in the first place requires you to truly want to kill your victim. Killing someone via other magical means doesn't have that requirement, and even if you did intend to kill them with a stunner while they were in the air you could probably say you had no means to stop them from attacking you that didn't send them smashing into the ground. 
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Feb 27, 2015 01:09
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Zaphod42 posted:Well Obi Wan did turn into Old Ben and basically just told Bothans to get off his lawn for 20 years, while Vader was in such a power of authority he didn't really have anybody to challenge him to a fight. Not to mention that between the two swordfights Vader had with Obi-Wan, he had his loving sword arm cut off along with two other limbs, then got set on fire so badly he needed a machine to breathe for him the rest of his life. But yeah, I'm sure a little bit of sword practice would have got him into tip top condition. 
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Feb 27, 2015 01:34
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Zedd posted:Harry Potter has a lot of dumb stuff in it yeah. But I do remember that it's set in the 90's or so. Dursley got a brand new playstation (the first) on one of the books even. (Why do I remember this. Yeah, I don't think it was ever brought up in the movies but the books were set in the past. Harry was born in 1980, so the last book takes place in 97.
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Feb 27, 2015 01:36
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:I saw a really cool post that talked about this. It had something to do with how Harry belonged in Slytherin, Hermione in Ravenclaw, and Ron in Hufflepuff, but they all ended up in Gryffindor because that house's defining trait is bravery and anyone can choose to be brave. Yeah that's about right, in the last book I recall Hermione easily solving a puzzle designed for Ravenclaw students, who ask her how the hell she isn't in their house. She replies that the Sorting Hat considered putting her in there, but ended up going with Gryffindor instead because it sensed that is what she wanted. Though I don't think it is ever elaborated on, Ron comes from a family of Gryffindors and desperately wanted to continue that family tradition, and the Hat obviously took that into account even though he was ideally suited to Hufflepuff.
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Feb 27, 2015 02:21
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Cowslips Warren posted:I always thought the love potions were really loving creepy, especially when, you know, throw in the shapeshifting spells and memory erasing and rape is so easy. gently caress alive, when they figured out that love potion and rape was how Voldemort was loving conceived, why didn't someone say hey, no more love potions, you guys, this poo poo is bad! ahahahaha oh god you just reminded me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xriseKBnCk one of my guiltiest pleasures. If you can get past the delivery and autotune this is probably the single funniest HP song around Son of Thunderbeast has a new favorite as of 02:45 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 02:38
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I saw Melancholia on the advice of a twitter comedian and during the wedding scene the groom is asked to guess how many jelly beans are in a wine bottle for a raffle type thing and he guesses two million and then goes to see what's up with Kirsten Dunst. It was not a plot point that he was the dumbest motherfucker alive and it was never brought up again but I can't loving believe that a fictional someone being three orders of magnitude wrong about jellybeans could make me so mad. e: I guess it could be a plot point that he's so distracted by his wife's meltdown that he doesn't give a gently caress about jelly beans but then why did the lady taking the numbers not even flinch at the dumbest guess possible? Krinkle has a new favorite as of 03:00 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 02:42
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Zaphod42 posted:
Sand people  Those drat dirty sand people One of the annoying things about Harry Potter is also that Rowling is so unimaginative about magic as a weapon that it's like "ok there's these 3 real bad things you can't do and then the only thing left is to run around going 'stupify!' over and over again"
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Feb 27, 2015 03:00
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Levitate posted:Sand people You gotta keep in mind that Harry is basically a high school drop out. Dude had middling grades through middle school and then come high school he fell into a rebellious crowd and hosed off to go live in the country side. They talk about how Auror is a hard job and you have to be really smart but the guy didn't finish wizard high school and only won because of deus ex machina and bullshit writing.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:02
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Did anybody ever try shooting a gun at a Wizard in the Harry potter books? It seems like most wizarding duels are two guys trading spells with spells that can be reacted to. For the most part you can't really react to a bullet pointed at you (other than wincing in pain)
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Feb 27, 2015 03:10
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Away all Goats posted:Did anybody ever try shooting a gun at a Wizard in the Harry potter books? It seems like most wizarding duels are two guys trading spells with spells that can be reacted to. For the most part you can't really react to a bullet pointed at you (other than wincing in pain) Dont do this, then you will wonder why the hell Hogwarts people never contacted the muggle military to help deal with Voldemort since he threatens the whole damned planet and you start going down a big rabbit hole of logical things and ruin Harry Potter's stupid universe. which isn't hard to do in the first place.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:17
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slytherin's are basically College Republicans, it makes sense they would all racist muggle hating Death Eaters.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:17
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Away all Goats posted:Did anybody ever try shooting a gun at a Wizard in the Harry potter books? It seems like most wizarding duels are two guys trading spells with spells that can be reacted to. For the most part you can't really react to a bullet pointed at you (other than wincing in pain) Let this classic answer your question: Avatar vs. Black Wolf: http://youtu.be/4cZqRzHnI8s
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Feb 27, 2015 03:18
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MrJacobs posted:Dont do this, then you will wonder why the hell Hogwarts people never contacted the muggle military to help deal with Voldemort since he threatens the whole damned planet and you start going down a big rabbit hole of logical things and ruin Harry Potter's stupid universe. which isn't hard to do in the first place. The minister of magic even talked to the PM of the UK. It should've been like a 5 minute call. "Yeah some magical wanker is back and stirring up poo poo, ring up the SAS and lend us a hand."
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Feb 27, 2015 03:19
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Would you all shut the gently caress up about Harry Potter? Just when you dropped the loving discussion about comic heroes you move to goddamn child wizards.
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Feb 27, 2015 03:19
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Lottery of Babylon posted:My irrationally irritating Harry Potter moment is that in the second half of the series they go on constantly about how the four houses need to come together and stop fighting among themselves and face this horrible threat together. Which is obviously nonsense because Slytherin is evil, and sure enough zero Slytherin students show up to help the good guys at the end and it turns out only three houses are needed. I grew up with Harry Potter and I love it dearly, but this sort of thing - where the message is inconsistent with the plot - started to bother me as the books went on. Clearly Rowling was trying to send a message about acceptance and cooperation and "don't judge a book by its cover" and "everyone has the potential to be good" and whatever, but yeah, the actual evidence showed that 100% of Slytherins were evil. I think Snape (eventually) and Slughorn were the only ones fighting on the side of good. There was a similar problem with the house-elves. Like...they're literally slaves, right? So it makes sense that Hermione would be all gung-ho activist to get them better conditions. Great allegory! But then, her activism is treated as a ludicrous joke - by her best friend and her future husband, along with everyone else she talks to about it. It even has a gross name (S.P.E.W.) that they make fun of to hammer home the fact that it's dumb and her opinions are dumb. So at this point, maybe I could buy that we're supposed to feel bad for Hermione, and be mad at Harry and Ron for making fun of her. But then they start going into detail about the fact that (most) house-elves LOVE to serve their masters as long as they're treated well, and it makes them feel fulfilled and happy to serve, and Dobby is pretty much the only one who ever wanted to be free. The other house-elves are offended by Hermione's offers to free them, and in protest they stop cleaning the Gryffindor common room. Even Winky, who was clearly mistreated by her owner, falls into a deep depression after she's set free. So...what is the point of Hermione's activism subplot? Are we supposed to think that Hermione is acting dumb after all, because the house-elves don't even want to be free? That puts us in agreement with audience-surrogate character Harry. Or are we supposed to think that house-elves are mistreated and shouldn't be slaves? This seems like it would be the intended message - freedom and equality for everyone! - but then why on earth would Rowling add the stuff about how house-elves don't want to be free? It muddies the issue, and paints Hermione (who is otherwise by far the most competent character) as well-intentioned but foolish and ignorant. ...Also, does it make me a sociopath for deconstructing it this much, rather than immediately agreeing that "unpaid elf servitude = slavery = unequivocally bad"? EDIT: I mean, maybe Winky's case was supposed to be an allegory for an abusive relationship, but that still leaves everything else.... Patattack has a new favorite as of 03:33 on Feb 27, 2015 |
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Feb 27, 2015 03:20
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MrJacobs posted:Dont do this, then you will wonder why the hell Hogwarts people never contacted the muggle military to help deal with Voldemort since he threatens the whole damned planet and you start going down a big rabbit hole of logical things and ruin Harry Potter's stupid universe. which isn't hard to do in the first place. Might I interest you in a story called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?
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Feb 27, 2015 03:26
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Away all Goats posted:Did anybody ever try shooting a gun at a Wizard in the Harry potter books? It seems like most wizarding duels are two guys trading spells with spells that can be reacted to. For the most part you can't really react to a bullet pointed at you (other than wincing in pain) I'm not sure a bullet is any harder to dodge than a killing curse. Plus, a wizard can turn invisible, teleport, fly, read minds, control minds, make their hideout impossible to find, and kill silently from range, whereas a muggle with a gun can't do much more than hope the wizard is dumb enough to make it a fair fight. (Which the wizard probably is, because wizards in Harry Potter are all morons, but still.) Patattack posted:There was a similar problem with the house-elves. This really bothered me too, for exactly the reasons you describe. The books unequivocally portray Ron as Right and Hermione as Wrong, and that slavery is good as long as you don't beat your slaves because the slaves are dumb and happy and it's for their own good (which is exactly what real-life slavery apologists argue).
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Feb 27, 2015 03:45
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Well Rowling's British, a people with a long history of not understanding that other people have rights too.
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Feb 27, 2015 05:10
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Things that start long tangents of discussion in this thread: Looper Harry Potter Lord Of The Rings Star Wars Back To The Future
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Feb 27, 2015 05:21
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Gaunab posted:Things that start long tangents of discussion in this thread: X-Men
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Feb 27, 2015 05:22
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Captain Monkey posted:I stand firmly that Lev Grossman's The Magicians was the best version of Harry Potter, at least for the first book. It's interesting for sure, and the magical world makes more sense, especially how it coexists with the regular world. But the main character is such an annoying whiny manchild!
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