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Decius posted:Which was set by Newton. If it good enough for Sir Isaac... The thing that bothered me about this, and I guess it might just be a detail that is left out, but there is never any indication that the pro-Snitches or whatever are tinier/faster/smarter than the ones the kids use. Because how can these legendary games be taking place where pros are taking all day to find the snitch when little kids are playing the game for like an hour or two on a weekend between studying.
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Jun 26, 2011 16:47
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bobkatt013 posted:aka the Bulgarian team in the world cup I remember telling someone about that (That Krum caught the Snitch, but Ireland won) and they just stared at me for a good 30 seconds before shaking their head and walking away. MY NERD FACTS ARE COOL, GODDAMNIT.
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Jun 26, 2011 17:48
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Paragon8 posted:The Quidditch world cup is really where everything falls apart for me. Holy poo poo, that is so true. God dammit you just ruined Harry Potter for me.
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Jun 26, 2011 19:27
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I have a feeling if Voldemort succesfully took over the England, Ireland, and Scotland's magical world, he'd probably be able to expand to other areas. Not without trouble, and he'd probably eventually loose, but he'd wage one hell of a war.
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Jun 26, 2011 19:34
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Jiminy Cricket posted:Holy poo poo, that is so true. God dammit you just ruined Harry Potter for me. If they had called for the American wizards they would regret it. We just run around casting Avada Kedavra all day then sort the bodies out later. But weren't the schools in the Triwizard Tournament also entirely confined to Europe? I remember France but not where Durmstrangs was.
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Jun 26, 2011 19:35
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Superrodan posted:If they had called for the American wizards they would regret it. We just run around casting Avada Kedavra all day then sort the bodies out later. Apparently it's near Sweden or Norway. That's from a wiki though, so take that with a heap of salt.
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Jun 26, 2011 19:42
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Rowling in general has huge issues with scale. The Quidditch world cup is probably one of the most ridiculous aspects of that. Really - people camping for weeks ahead of time? If a major muggle city can deal with sporting events with trains, buses, and cars I don't see why wizards would have to subtly sneak in over a large period of time with access to floo networks, portkeys and apparition. 100,000 attendance for a sporting event is an absurd number for how small the wizarding world seems to be otherwise. It makes it very difficult to buy Hogwarts as the only/premier wizarding school in the UK unless there are several more and/or a huge percentage of wizards are home schooled. God, I sperg so hard about Harry Potter - I think it's mainly because of how lauded JK is at world building when really it's all built on a stack of cards.
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Jun 26, 2011 20:26
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bitterandtwisted posted:The wizard money thing is a joke about the old British money system. Before decimalization in the 1970s, the UK had pounds, shillings and pence. Twelve pennies to a shilling, twenty shillings to a pound. 2 shillings and sixpence was a half-crown, one pound and a shilling was a guinea. A sixpence is worth two and a half new pennies.
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Jun 27, 2011 01:02
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Paragon8 posted:Rowling in general has huge issues with scale. Good excuse for a party, which is what it sounded like to me.
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Jun 27, 2011 01:15
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Presto posted:At least the old English system was mostly based on sixes and twelves, not seventeens and twenty-threes. Well yes, she made it up in the first book when Harry Potter was a light-hearted world of magic and whimsy. It was supposed to be a bit silly as well as old fashioned, and ramping up the old-fashionedness of the wizarding world was generally how she emphasised it was different from ours. It was also before anyone could have known the series would be an international hit, so it was fine to include a joke that only British children (or at least their parents) would get.
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Jun 27, 2011 08:08
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Alright I can vaguely struggle through most of the sixpence and whatever but what's the reasoning for 1 guinea = 21 shillings?
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Jun 27, 2011 08:37
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zachol posted:Alright I can vaguely struggle through most of the sixpence and whatever but what's the reasoning for 1 guinea = 21 shillings? It gets worse than that, the value was originally 20 shillings. It fluctuated as it was a coin minted with gold from Guinea. They decided to peg it at a random amount of 1 pound and one shilling, and 44 1/2 Guinea coins is equal in weight to 1 Troy pound of gold. British maths at its finest!
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Jun 27, 2011 12:12
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Paragon8 posted:God, I sperg so hard about Harry Potter - I think it's mainly because of how lauded JK is at world building when really it's all built on a stack of cards. Wait, what? Rowling is lauded for "world building"? I mean, Harry Potter is a fun read and everything, but "world building" is used to describe what people like Tolkien did, isn't it? Describing a magic school and a few other convenient locations as required by the story is not the same as "world building". I'm usually the one defending Potter, but that's loving bullshit. Also, the backstory in Harry Potter has always bugged me. There was a wizarding war culminating in the deaths of hundreds and the eventual driving-off of the Evil Bad Guy by a little kid less than 10 years ago and nobody talks about it? Or studies it in school? Or studies it in the wizardly equivalent of the CIA? I mean everyone seems to know even the smallest details of what happened, but nobody seems to have investigated why Voldemort hosed off or where he went or what he's doing? I mean, later on the Ministry issues a statement going "No he's not back in any way whatsoever", but surely the Auror Department or whatever was still working on it? Or is the wizarding world so fascist that all the power is controlled by the heads of the Ministry, to the point where they can forbid the police-equivalent to investigate a murder even when a witness claims it was the Dark Lord Returned? I give the series a lot of leeway because it's for kids, but those are the sorts of things I would have been clarifying in the second or third book (which is probably why I'll never be a mega successful "world builder").
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Jun 27, 2011 18:01
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AlphaDog posted:Wait, what? Rowling is lauded for "world building"? Harry Potter is books for people who do not read books. So yeah a lot of people think she's just loving fantastic for shoehorning this whimsical wizardry poo poo into semi-modern times. The fact that none of it is logical or even internally consistent or holds up to the slightest scrutiny doesn't bother them because they don't know any better.
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Jun 27, 2011 18:24
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This criticism can be traced back to retards not understanding what words mean. What Rowling excels at is creating an immersive narrative, something you can 'lose yourself in'. Then someone else calls this 'creating an immersive world', and then there's someone who goes 'so THATs what world building is' and then you get these straw men. Now you can of course argue that Rowling's dyscalculia draws you out of the story and therefore she's not great at creating immersion either, but most people are also number-retarded so they don't even notice it. However, calling the Harry Potter books books for people who don't read is ridiculous. To go back to an earlier point, 17x29 is loving stupid from a pragmatic point of view but amazing wrt immersion. The same goes for all the alliteration. 'Chinese chomping cabbage' works in this kind of story, 'Brassica Masticata' or whatever doesn't. reflir fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 19:25
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Man, I want some chinese chomping cabbage.
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Jun 27, 2011 20:55
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veekie posted:I figure the Patronus is difficult to use against massed Dementors(Once they get their mindscrew into your head, good luck summoning up the joy to Patronus with), so presumably Snape's method might actually work better than the more 'action-heroey' Patronus. Maybe it was something really screwy like Occulmency, but good luck teaching -that to all the students, and that's not even getting into the problems that you'd get if you successfully taught them it. Though that makes me wonder, wouldn't a Legillimens know that you were trying to prevent them from getting into your mind, and thus had something to hide?
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Jun 27, 2011 22:57
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Chucat posted:wouldn't a Legillimens know that you were trying to prevent them from getting into your mind, and thus had something to hide? Voldemort didn't appear to have a problem with Snape in that regards, I assume is what you're getting at. I think the explanation for Snape was that he just blew a lot of smoke up Voldemort's rear end about how he has to keep up the shield at all times or Dumbledore might get (more) suspicious.
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Jun 27, 2011 23:06
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Didn't Snape feed Voldemort specially selected information that the Order deemed useless or something. That's what I assumed Occlumency is, making up uninteresting stuff and then using that as your memories so people reading you will just go "huh he must have shitall going on".
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Jun 27, 2011 23:09
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HelixFox posted:Man, I want some chinese chomping cabbage. In mother China, cabbage chomps you! goons posted:waaah my immersion What Jo excels at is a) creating a good overarching mystery for each book and b) creating myriad characters you care for. World building is not her strong point but who gives a crap? I read these books for the above two things, not to read a realistic dissertation on magic government.
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Jun 28, 2011 02:36
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Hedrigall posted:In mother China, cabbage chomps you! Characters are what Jo does best. Even the smaller characters have decent meat to them. Also: Hedrigall, you got red on you.
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Jun 28, 2011 02:55
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:Characters are what Jo does best. Even the smaller characters have decent meat to them. Yeah I saw it, it's actually p funny  Will leave it there for a few days before buying some other av.
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Jun 28, 2011 03:02
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Haha, I read the first few posts of that thread, did you start defending furries or something?reflir posted:Now you can of course argue that Rowling's dyscalculia draws you out of the story and therefore she's not great at creating immersion either, but most people are also number-retarded so they don't even notice it. However, calling the Harry Potter books books for people who don't read is ridiculous You can say that until you're blue in the face, but a LOT of people who read the Potter books never read anything else and probably never will. That's where the whole series even draws a lot of praise. "Well it's not that good, but if it gets kids reading!" Except it was adults too, but whatever. The Potter books, while entertaining, I don't dispute that at all, were lowest common denominator fare, and anyone praising her writing beyond being really entertaining really can only be doing so because they don't know any better. Hence why I call her world building for people who do not read books.
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Jun 28, 2011 04:27
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IRQ posted:Haha, I read the first few posts of that thread, did you start defending furries or something? I had a Simba avatar, and also mentioned the fact that a lot of furries are much more normal and you wouldn't find them on sites like Pounced.org :P
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Jun 28, 2011 04:30
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Hedrigall posted:I had a Simba avatar, and also mentioned the fact that a lot of furries are much more normal and you wouldn't find them on sites like Pounced.org :P Any fan of Garrus is alright in my book. I quite like the world-building of JK, but I agree that it could have been much better. Order of the Phoenix was my favourite book, mostly because of the Order itself - I would have seriously loved to see this epic wizarding war from the perspective of a resistance group. And for the record, I think Quidditch is awesome (but it would be better if the snitch was worth ~50 points, instead of 150. Or if there was some other method that didn't make it such an important part of winning the game, instead of just ending it).
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Jun 28, 2011 05:26
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Hedrigall posted:What Jo excels at is a) creating a good overarching mystery for each book and b) creating myriad characters you care for. World building is not her strong point but who gives a crap? I read these books for the above two things, not to read a realistic dissertation on magic government. That's pretty much what I said. Again, I'm usually the one defending Harry Potter (by saying "It's a fun book for kids, you assholes"), but the fact that someone said Rowling was "lauded for her world-building" really pissed me off. The world is internally inconsistent and has lots of stupidity happening because it's somewhat necessary for the plot. Which is fine, it's a kid's book. But it's not world building, the Dragonlance novels had better world building.
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Jun 28, 2011 06:56
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Death Bot posted:So..... how is Quidditch illogical? It's been covered by a few people, but I wanted to add my view on it. You can have what amounts to an absolute blow out in any other sport for almost the entire game (14 goals more than the other team), and if the losing team just grabs the snitch, they win. How does that make any sense? If it were worth 50 points, it might be better, but 150 points is just ludicrous. Rowling did it so Harry could be the hero, without question, for the games he caught the snitch. Every time in the books or movies when they talk about Quidditch players who aren't the Seeker, in my mind I think, "Oh, so they're one of the useless players?" The whole team (minus maybe the keeper) should just be looking for the snitch the entire game. 6 people would find it pretty fast, I'd reckon, and if your keeper is decent you'll find it before the other team scores more than 15 goals. I mean, how often do baseball games have a score of, say, 16-1? Or American football games have a score of 105-0? It's insane. (I guess it's somewhat common in basketball, with it's high score, but we never see a game of Quidditch with a score remotely that high, so it at least doesn't seem to be the rule.)
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Jun 28, 2011 16:28
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When one aspect of the game is the beaters trying to knock the seekers senseless and playing out in long, drawn-out games I can see that kind of score difference (i.e. not 140 against 0, but more like 1000 vs 960 or something) happening regularly and being "corrected for", though. It's a pretty dynamic and active game that way, and could be genuinely engaging (I actually hate watching most sports like baseball, etc, fwiw.) with a few more tweaks. The Hogwarts games are strictly amateur stuff, and Rowling does have a character mention that pro games can stretch on for days. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jun 28, 2011 |
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Jun 28, 2011 16:56
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Guy A. Person posted:The thing that bothered me about this, and I guess it might just be a detail that is left out, but there is never any indication that the pro-Snitches or whatever are tinier/faster/smarter than the ones the kids use. I would imagine its much harder to catch when the person(s) you are competing against are that much better. Like little kid YMCA soccer versus some Euro. team: it's basically the same game but everyone on the field is stronger/faster/smarter/better.
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Jun 28, 2011 19:34
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thrawn527 posted:It's been covered by a few people, but I wanted to add my view on it. You can have what amounts to an absolute blow out in any other sport for almost the entire game (14 goals more than the other team), and if the losing team just grabs the snitch, they win. How does that make any sense? If it were worth 50 points, it might be better, but 150 points is just ludicrous. Rowling did it so Harry could be the hero, without question, for the games he caught the snitch. School games seem that way, but really, catching the snitch doesn't mean you win, like in the Quidditch World Cup. With her descriptions of some games going on for days, I imagine a decent professional game probably goes for at least eight hours. A school game is probably two.
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Jun 28, 2011 22:41
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TheBigBudgetSequel posted:School games seem that way, but really, catching the snitch doesn't mean you win, like in the Quidditch World Cup. With her descriptions of some games going on for days, I imagine a decent professional game probably goes for at least eight hours. A school game is probably two. Well, that's fine in theory, but we only ever hear about that. The games we actually see are considerably shorter than that. Aside from the Quidditch world cup, each one is decided by the snitch. So almost each game we actually see is completely illogical. And since you mentioned the World Cup, that makes no sense from a completely different point of view. Krum caught the snitch, but his team lost? What, is he that stupid? Or egotistical? Why would he have caught the snitch when his team was more that 150 points behind? It's pretty much throwing the game. "Eh, I'm tired of playing, and I see the snitch. Let's just lose this thing." How pissed was his team after that game? "Dude...what the gently caress did you do that for?" Was it just so he could be the one who caught the snitch at the World Cup, and he didn't care if he actually won the game? What a dick.
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Jun 29, 2011 13:53
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They were thoroughly being outplayed by the Irish and were going to lose regardless so they decided to end it on their own terms and lose by a lesser amount, iirc. I don't remember if the Irish v Bulgarian match was a final or just some lead-up/points match, but if it was the final, it was p dumb that one team completely outclassed the other.
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Jun 29, 2011 15:09
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Circle Nine posted:They were thoroughly being outplayed by the Irish and were going to lose regardless so they decided to end it on their own terms and lose by a lesser amount, iirc. I don't remember if the Irish v Bulgarian match was a final or just some lead-up/points match, but if it was the final, it was p dumb that one team completely outclassed the other. Like many things in the wizarding world, everything makes more sense if you just consider all witches and wizards to be complacent idiots as a result of having magical sticks that do everything for them, even when they have no clue why any of it works. They just accept things they are told, like "accio summons objects" or "these are the rules for our sport"
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Jun 29, 2011 15:38
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reflir posted:No, you are wrong. In Chamber of Secrets Harry is described as having green eyes, Dobby is described as having green eyes, and Ginny is described as having brown eyes: I know this is from a handful of pages ago, but I had been catching up on the thread and wanted to throw this out there. It was a weird coincidence, but I read this post yesterday and then happened to listen to Chamber of Secrets (Jim Dale version) later on in the afternoon. Dale definitely says "a pair of bright green eyes staring at him" at this part. So perhaps DragQueenofAngmar had listened to that version of the audiobook and was remembering that instead of something he saw in the books?
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Jun 29, 2011 16:08
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Circle Nine posted:I don't remember if the Irish v Bulgarian match was a final or just some lead-up/points match, but if it was the final, it was p dumb that one team completely outclassed the other. You'd think so, but that happens all the loving time in sports. In last year's Aussie Rules Grand Final (pretty much Australia's biggest yearly sports thing, or at least the most publicised), the two teams actually drew in the end. The rules call for a rematch the next week (which caused everyone to poo poo themselves because they were unprepared, but that's a whole different story), and when that was played, one team more or less mopped the floor with the other, it was weird.
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Jun 29, 2011 16:46
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The Whiz Kid posted:I know this is from a handful of pages ago, but I had been catching up on the thread and wanted to throw this out there. It was a weird coincidence, but I read this post yesterday and then happened to listen to Chamber of Secrets (Jim Dale version) later on in the afternoon. Dale definitely says "a pair of bright green eyes staring at him" at this part. So perhaps DragQueenofAngmar had listened to that version of the audiobook and was remembering that instead of something he saw in the books? poo poo that is what it was! Thank you, thought I was nuts. Anyone have any idea why on earth that would be switched in the American audiobook version?
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Jun 29, 2011 19:57
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DragQueenofAngmar posted:Like many things in the wizarding world, everything makes more sense if you just consider all witches and wizards to be complacent idiots as a result of having magical sticks that do everything for them, even when they have no clue why any of it works. They just accept things they are told, like "accio summons objects" or "these are the rules for our sport" They're also rather inbred.   
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Jul 1, 2011 00:37
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DragQueenofAngmar posted:Like many things in the wizarding world, everything makes more sense if you just consider all witches and wizards to be complacent idiots as a result of having magical sticks that do everything for them, even when they have no clue why any of it works. They just accept things they are told, like "accio summons objects" or "these are the rules for our sport" Isn't that pretty much the point of the books? That the wizards are dumb and value tradition over critical thinking. I mean it's pretty much spelled out that Voldemort's downfall was that he was too concerned about doing what a dark wizard was supposed to do instead of doing things that were actually smart.
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Jul 1, 2011 13:09
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Alhazred posted:Isn't that pretty much the point of the books? That the wizards are dumb and value tradition over critical thinking. I mean it's pretty much spelled out that Voldemort's downfall was that he was too concerned about doing what a dark wizard was supposed to do instead of doing things that were actually smart. That's not really how I saw it. Voldermort did what he did because he was obsessed with living forever. He would go to any length to achieve that. And his downfall was that he never considered love being able to beat him or undermine his plans. He never thought of what Lily sacrificing herself for Harry would mean. He never considered that Narcissa would lie to him about Harry being dead, just for the chance of finding out about her son. Never thought Snape would betray him, because of his love for Lily, which Snape never let go of. He never thought love of family and friends could over come his power, or his use of fear. Voldemort never gave love the credit or respect that he should have, and in the end, it defeated him. And least, that's what I saw was the point of the books. Raw power can never defeat the power of love. It's cheesy, but these books are certainly that.
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Jul 1, 2011 14:03
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thrawn527 posted:That's not really how I saw it. Voldermort did what he did because he was obsessed with living forever. He would go to any length to achieve that. And his downfall was that he never considered love being able to beat him or undermine his plans. He never thought of what Lily sacrificing herself for Harry would mean. He never considered that Narcissa would lie to him about Harry being dead, just for the chance of finding out about her son. Never thought Snape would betray him, because of his love for Lily, which Snape never let go of. He never thought love of family and friends could over come his power, or his use of fear. Voldemort never gave love the credit or respect that he should have, and in the end, it defeated him. If he wanted to live forever why did he start the huge wizard war? Seems like that would be dangerous for him. Edit: I realize he was defeated by a baby and may not be a master tactician. Ostiosis fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jul 1, 2011 |
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