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gently caress, I shoulda known that. As it turns out, confringo CAN be used on people: "In the All-England Wizarding Duelling Competition of 1420, Alberta Toothill defeated Samson Wiblin, who was the favorite, using a Blasting Curse (fw27)." You're right about the rest though.
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Apr 12, 2011 22:30
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reflir posted:gently caress, I shoulda known that. As it turns out, confringo CAN be used on people: "In the All-England Wizarding Duelling Competition of 1420, Alberta Toothill defeated Samson Wiblin, who was the favorite, using a Blasting Curse (fw27)." You're right about the rest though. haha so she straight up blew a dude up?
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Apr 13, 2011 00:06
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One of my problems with the movies, and sorry if this has already been discussed a thousand times, was how they interpreted every cool combat spell as "blast somebody backwards on stunt wires." It undermined the existence of half the magic.
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Apr 13, 2011 00:16
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That or make them stiff as a board or turn their jegs to jelly or make them uncontrollably dance. In my opinion, Harry Potter is best read at a breakneck pace so as not to give the reader time to notice these inconsistencies and fallacies.
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Apr 13, 2011 06:32
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blue squares posted:In my opinion, Harry Potter is best read at a breakneck pace so as not to give the reader time to notice these inconsistencies and fallacies. Ah, good old Fridge Logic,* the stuff that rollicking drama's built on.  The "Muggles are like cats" thing dawned on me as I was reading Book 4 and stayed in the back of my mind as I read/reread the other books, but I confess that I didn't notice other inconsistencies until they were pointed out to me. Sometimes, in my darkest moments, a little voice whispers to me, telling me to write fanfiction that "fixes" some of these problems. I try to smother that little voice whenever I hear it: obeying it will only lead to madness and crapfic. That's what happened with MoR, and that's what would happen with me. *WARNING: TVTROPES LINK
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Apr 13, 2011 07:35
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I wonder if there's any IP out there where the creators are just as spergy as the fans. I mean it's well known that Lucas doesn't give a gently caress about Star Wars, and Rowling isn't as super detail obsessive as she could be. Despite apparently having all kinds of bios for unseen characters.
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Apr 13, 2011 11:15
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Tolkien, old boy! He rewrote passages of LotR to correct the phase of the moon, and the entire series exists to serve as an elaborate background for his conlangs.
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Apr 13, 2011 16:14
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Crisco Kid posted:Tolkien, old boy! He rewrote passages of LotR to correct the phase of the moon, and the entire series exists to serve as an elaborate background for his conlangs. Yeah, it doesn't get spergier than creating two practically full-fledged languages that really only a small minority of the Universe's population speak and that are seen a couple of times on the actual Trilogy. I've always wondered if Tolkien spoke Sindarin or Quenya fluently.
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Apr 15, 2011 05:21
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zachol posted:Rationality is hilariously bad if Rational!Harry is meant to be any sort of a positive character. The only part I really enjoyed was when he completely misread Snape's connection to his parents and got smacked down. Really, I understand people's objections - Harry is pretty drat obnoxious at a times, there are info-dumps and author tracts and weird or uncomfortable bits. But gently caress all that, it's still better than canon (and pretty much objectively better written, characterization preferences aside) and infinitely more important in the grand scheme of things. If it makes a few dozen (future) important people more rational it'll arguably do more good for the world than the canon has ever done. edit: I still give plenty of credit to JKR for finding this space though. It's really a neat little universe. Maybe it could have been found earlier, but it wasn't. ShardPhoenix fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Apr 16, 2011 |
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Apr 16, 2011 12:49
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Pththya-lyi posted:ShardPhoenix, why on Earth do you like that fic? edit: The author is from a site that's about 75% programmers or similar, so maybe that kind of hyper-literal mindset is necessary to enjoy it. On the other hand, the high level of popularity (including, judging from the reviews, among the sub-literate) suggests otherwise. ShardPhoenix fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Apr 16, 2011 |
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Apr 16, 2011 12:54
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Paragon8 posted:Saying that only "typical self-loathing nerd-culture-cringing goons" would hate it is an odd way to deflect any criticism. I don't hate it at all, I just think it's awful. It's not because people don't like "nerd culture" or that they're "self loathing" it's that it is loving terrible.
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Apr 16, 2011 13:10
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ShardPhoenix posted:edit: The author is from a site that's about 75% programmers or similar, so maybe that kind of hyper-literal mindset is necessary to enjoy it. I have no idea what the hell that means or what you're trying to say here, but I'm gonna assume it boils down to 
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Apr 16, 2011 13:16
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Hedrigall posted:I have no idea what the hell that means or what you're trying to say here, but I'm gonna assume it boils down to  edit: I guess if it helps you understand, MoR is for people who are more concerned about what's true than what's cool. So yes, for a sufficiently loose definition of .
ShardPhoenix fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Apr 16, 2011 |
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Apr 16, 2011 13:21
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ShardPhoenix posted:The author is from a site that's about 75% programmers or similar I wouldn't call a bunch of people with no qualifications talking about how awesome it's going to be when a benevolent AI makes us all immortal formless beings "programmers".
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Apr 16, 2011 15:42
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Hahaha, that figures. Let me adapt my earlier response "lol, transhumanism."
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Apr 16, 2011 15:44
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ShardPheonix, I recommend you read Terry Goodkind's "The Sword of Truth" series. I think you'll really like it.
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Apr 16, 2011 15:52
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Paragon8 posted:ShardPheonix, I recommend you read Terry Goodkind's "The Sword of Truth" series. I think you'll really like it.
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Apr 16, 2011 17:16
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Crisco Kid posted:One of my problems with the movies, and sorry if this has already been discussed a thousand times, was how they interpreted every cool combat spell as "blast somebody backwards on stunt wires." It undermined the existence of half the magic. I'm watching the latest film now, and it's just difficult to watch because I can't stop myself from pointing out everything that's missing from the book. I think my girlfriend is a bit annoyed at my constant comments...
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Apr 16, 2011 18:13
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ShardPhoenix posted:edit: I guess if it helps you understand, MoR is for people who are more concerned about what's true than what's cool. So yes, Honestly, I can kind of understand this. But the point of reading a children's book about magic isn't to try and implant the magic into real science, but instead to entertain. If you needed that from your reading material and you found it, good for you, but I really think that you're looking for the wrong thing from the series to be criticizing it.
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Apr 16, 2011 20:37
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Lurchibles posted:I'm watching the latest film now, and it's just difficult to watch because I can't stop myself from pointing out everything that's missing from the book. I think my girlfriend is a bit annoyed at my constant comments... I have the same problem. Somethings it's hard to understand why was cut, like the fact that Harry's dad was one of the persons responsible for the Maurader's Map. They also almost cut out Kreacher, Rowling had to remind the writers that he was kinda important to the plot.
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Apr 16, 2011 22:40
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The thing that annoyed me the most was the scene were Bellatrix and some others burned down the burrow in THBP.
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Apr 17, 2011 21:26
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Blight posted:The thing that annoyed me the most was the scene were Bellatrix and some others burned down the burrow in THBP. This bothered everyone in the fandom. Everyone.
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Apr 18, 2011 00:55
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I read a fanfic a couple years ago where Harry went into a different universe and met Sirius. They immediatly started kicking rear end and loving bitchs. I remember it being oddly entertaining. I'm pretty sure it was super long too, anyone know what I'm talking about?
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Apr 18, 2011 22:05
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A Typical Goon posted:I read a fanfic a couple years ago where Harry went into a different universe and met Sirius. They immediatly started kicking rear end and loving bitchs. I remember it being oddly entertaining. I'm pretty sure it was super long too, anyone know what I'm talking about? That sounds horribly wonderful. The one fanfic I remember was about Tonk's dad waiting for a train in "Kings Cross Station" I liked that one but haven't been able to find.
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Apr 19, 2011 00:24
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A Black Comedy is probably what you're thinking of.
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Apr 19, 2011 01:58
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njbeachbum posted:That sounds horribly wonderful. The one fanfic I remember was about Tonk's dad waiting for a train in "Kings Cross Station" I liked that one but haven't been able to find. Probably not what you're looking for, but this series of vignettes is one of my favorites and features a lot of the people who died in the books in a kind of afterlife. It's focused around King's Cross Station and also features Terry Pratchett's version of Death. I only quote you because one of the stories is about the Tonks'. Regardless, you may enjoy them - I've always enjoyed reading them, they're quite sweet.
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Apr 19, 2011 02:06
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zachol posted:A Black Comedy is probably what you're thinking of. Yeah, this is the one. It's a lot longer than I remember it being. Edit: haha I was just skimming it, and I forgot the best part. In the alternate universe Harry goes to, Voldemort killed him as a baby. Voldemort was never able to take over the world though, he was always stopped by a mysterious wizard. No one knows who this wizard is. Everyone calls him by the name Voldemort gave him. He is known throughout the entire story simply as "That Fucker" A Typical Goon fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Apr 19, 2011 |
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Apr 19, 2011 06:40
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MoR Harry is so fascinatingly obnoxious and unbearable. I had no preconceived notions about the fanfic going in and found myself enjoying it, assuming it had to have been written in a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek manner. The enjoyment diminished as I gradually realized I was really just reading the ravings of an actual sperglord. It's still been good for a couple laughs, though now I wonder how many of them were intentional.
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Apr 19, 2011 21:23
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I ran across By Any Other Name when I was looking for quidditch reference images and one of the illustrations came up as a result. It creates a fuller back story about Lily and Snape based on what we learned in the books without going totally off-kilter, and I thought the illustrations were simple but nicely done. e: It seems that some of the chapters won't load, and although Google has cached copies, they are missing the illustrations, welp. e2: And now it's loading fine. Apparently it was written before Deathly Hallows, too. cocoavalley fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 04:16
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blankoblanco posted:MoR Harry is so fascinatingly obnoxious and unbearable. I had no preconceived notions about the fanfic going in and found myself enjoying it, assuming it had to have been written in a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek manner. The enjoyment diminished as I gradually realized I was really just reading the ravings of an actual sperglord. It's still been good for a couple laughs, though now I wonder how many of them were intentional.
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May 13, 2011 17:15
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Zarfol posted:
Basically this is one of the things I think Rowling could have done better. There is supposed to be an element of empathy with the characters with the whole "oh Harry has to do homework and he hates it and sneaks off. I am a kid and I hate homework too," or whatever. But it's hard to empathize with Harry and company when your homework is to learn how to shoot a fireball out of your rear end. Harry doesn't even have the whole "oh I grew up as a wizard so this seems normal and thus boring to me" excuse Ron has.
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May 21, 2011 03:30
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Aust posted:Basically this is one of the things I think Rowling could have done better. There is supposed to be an element of empathy with the characters with the whole "oh Harry has to do homework and he hates it and sneaks off. I am a kid and I hate homework too," or whatever. But it's hard to empathize with Harry and company when your homework is to learn how to shoot a fireball out of your rear end. Harry doesn't even have the whole "oh I grew up as a wizard so this seems normal and thus boring to me" excuse Ron has. In Harry's defense, it usually wasn't the practical portions of courses he was lazy about, but the theory/essay assignments. Anything can be made boring depending on how the assignment is presented - Shooting fireballs out of your rear end would get pretty dull if you have to contemplate and explain clenching techniques and such 
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May 21, 2011 04:30
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Buggalo posted:Probably not what you're looking for, but this series of vignettes is one of my favorites and features a lot of the people who died in the books in a kind of afterlife. Here's all of them - the livejournal posts appear to be missing two. And, fanfiction or not, if you don't tear up a little at a couple of these you are obviously lacking a soul. (I don't really get the blanket hate for fanfiction - sure, it's subject to Sturgeon's Law like anything else, and there are very few barriers to truly crappy stuff being put out there. But good writing is good writing, even if the writer is playing in someone else's sandbox. . . )
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May 21, 2011 04:48
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Aust posted:Basically this is one of the things I think Rowling could have done better. There is supposed to be an element of empathy with the characters with the whole "oh Harry has to do homework and he hates it and sneaks off. I am a kid and I hate homework too," or whatever. But it's hard to empathize with Harry and company when your homework is to learn how to shoot a fireball out of your rear end. Harry doesn't even have the whole "oh I grew up as a wizard so this seems normal and thus boring to me" excuse Ron has. Especially considering the alternative to Hogwarts for Harry was essentially being in an abusive household.
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May 21, 2011 09:39
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Aust posted:Basically this is one of the things I think Rowling could have done better. There is supposed to be an element of empathy with the characters with the whole "oh Harry has to do homework and he hates it and sneaks off. I am a kid and I hate homework too," or whatever. But it's hard to empathize with Harry and company when your homework is to learn how to shoot a fireball out of your rear end. Harry doesn't even have the whole "oh I grew up as a wizard so this seems normal and thus boring to me" excuse Ron has. More like big long essays about shooting fireballs out your rear end Brinstar Brew fucked around with this message at 10:12 on May 21, 2011 |
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May 21, 2011 10:10
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Wow. So, completely independently of this thread, I heard about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and I thought "Hey, that could be cute, a rational look at how silly the Wizarding world is." So I decided to read it, and snagged the epub the author provides for my nook. Nine hundred pages? Well, okay, at least it's in depth, right?  I'm not sure quite when it went off the rails. I wasn't really planning on being too fussy about the writing itself, because in general I avoid fanfiction like the plague anyway, and while Harry is being written like he's twice as old as he actually is, I could live with that. Calvin doesn't talk like a six-year-old either, right? Right? So I kept plugging along, even when he starting talking about his mysterious dark side, or when Quirrell turned out to be some kind of supreme badass, or... well, I could go on. It just got more and more ridiculous as it went. Last night I read the part where he kills a Dementor by rejecting the concept of death itself and thereby summoning a human Patronus and NO I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP and I finally just had to put the thing down and laugh myself silly. This is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. At first I thought it was intentional. Then I realized no, no it's not. It's not intentionally funny at all. But it's so damned hilarious. I can't stop reading it, in the trainwreck sense of "can't stop." If it wasn't 900 pages long I would totally do a dramatic reading of this. Bellwether fucked around with this message at 16:23 on May 22, 2011 |
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May 22, 2011 16:21
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Really? Considering how learning to cope with the reality of death is such a big theme in the Harry Potter books, that scene sounds like a colossal case of missing the point. I mean, Voldemort is driven to evil by the fear of his own mortality, so how's MoR Harry different from canon Voldemort?
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May 23, 2011 00:17
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Pththya-lyi posted:Really? Considering how learning to cope with the reality of death is such a big theme in the Harry Potter books, that scene sounds like a colossal case of missing the point. I mean, Voldemort is driven to evil by the fear of his own mortality, so how's MoR Harry different from canon Voldemort? Because Harry is using the power of SCIENCE!  Seriously that's pretty much it. MoR Harry wants to see a Glorious Transhuman Future where death has been cured and blah blah blah and despite being a transhumanist myself I actually kind of had to cringe at how hackneyed it came off (before I started laughing at the outcome). He actually calls Dumbledore an idiot to his face for saying he's accepted that he's going to die someday. So I'm not sure it was missing the point so much as "I'm right and nothing else is allowed to be wrong and let me tell you why for the next five pages."
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May 23, 2011 03:11
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Holy poo poo that sounds like you actually got farther than me. Or else I just blocked out that part. I've said this before, but MoR almost works (for me at least) if you pretend that it's some sort of parody and MoR!Harry is meant to be seen as a horrible person and the author doesn't actually share his views.
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May 23, 2011 05:12
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K0npeito posted:He actually calls Dumbledore an idiot to his face for saying he's accepted that he's going to die someday. Pththya-lyi posted:Really? Considering how learning to cope with the reality of death is such a big theme in the Harry Potter books, that scene sounds like a colossal case of missing the point. I mean, Voldemort is driven to evil by the fear of his own mortality, so how's MoR Harry different from canon Voldemort?
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May 23, 2011 21:23
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