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ashez2ashes posted:There's actually some really good information in the latest Prisoner of Azkhaban chapters of Pottermore. The following about werewolves from Rowling is pretty cracktastic: "One curious feature of the condition is that if two werewolves meet and mate at the full moon (a highly unlikely contingency which is known to have occurred only twice) the result of the mating will be wolf cubs which resemble true wolves in everything except their abnormally high intelligence. They are not more aggressive than normal wolves and do not single out humans for attack. Such a litter was once set free, under conditions of extreme secrecy, in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, with the kind permission of Albus Dumbledore. The cubs grew into beautiful and unusually intelligent wolves and some of them live there still, which has given rise to the stories about ‘werewolves’ in the Forest – stories none of the teachers, or the gamekeeper, has done much to dispel because keeping students out of the Forest is, in their view, highly desirable". D'awwww, magical puppies!
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Aug 5, 2013 20:15
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Is there no loving way to minimise all the new loving UI stuff? Jesus.
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Aug 6, 2013 10:10
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Nope.  I like how the bottom stuff is more intuitive now but I wish there was a button to hide it until you needed it. I'm finishing up Chamber of Secrets in Pottermore now and the interactive bits are a lot better than for Philosopher's Stone.
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Aug 10, 2013 03:03
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Let's look at the evidence shall we: In Chamber of Secrets Ginny Weasley becomes famous for her ability with the Bat Bogey Hex right from the start, despite being a First Year and apparently having had no prior magical training. Later, in training for Dumbledore's Army, she has almost no trouble summoning a patronus, a process that took Harry months of struggle. Over the course of Chamber she becomes thoroughly brainwashed by the diary of Tom Riddle. This process takes MONTHS, despite her being a 12 year old girl, and the creator of the diary, Lord Voldemort, being the most powerful Legilimens the world has EVER seen. Fred and George are shown to have considerable powers in spell creation - they routinely create cursed food items, and go on to produce an incredibly diverse range of magical artefacts by the end of the series. At the end of Chamber they're able to diagnose, at a glance, the spells used on the Malfoy crew just from their interactions. By Goblet of Fire they're shown to be able to apparate rapidly and precisely around the house, only days after getting their apparation license. In Order of the Phoenix Professor Flitwick claims to be unable to remove the swamp charm they leave in the corridors - he's implied to be lying, but for the lie to be believable the swamp has to be extremely powerful - Flitwick can charm the entire castle at once! More importantly, Fred and George are able to work the Marauder's Map. Snape, who dedicated his life to this sort of thing, is unable to crack it, yet the twins completely master it. Mr Weasley is similar - having adapted a 4 seater car to fit 8 people and their luggage. The Weasley house is built like an Escher painting, with twisted architecture to rival Hogwarts. Clearly he rivals the original Founders when it comes to folding space. The family clock is also capable of showing the locations and states of the entire family - being able to predict when they face danger, with an accuracy that even Mad Eye Moody's Foe Mirror and other tools cannot achieve. The Weasley's are also famous muggle-lovers, and their house is extremely well know and easy to find. Yet over the course of the books (not films) they suffer precisely zero Death Eater attacks, while half the country is being terrorised. Clearly he's built in some potent wards. In Half-Blood Prince Ron tells Harry the story of how the twins almost tricked him into an Unbreakable Vow, saying "we had out wands out and everything" - even if ten-year-old Ron is capable of casting such a powerful spell, he was too young to attend Hogwarts, hence too young to have a wand - unless his parents gave him access to one as a child, and the training to use it. And let's look at the older Weasley siblings. Percy - gets a job with the Ministry and has a meteoric rise through the ranks. Given how much of a laughing stock Arthur is this can't be nepotism. If anything, Percy will have had to work even harder. Charlie - spends his whole life herding Dragons, never gets burned or eaten. Bill - survives a fight with Fenrir Greyback. Also works as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts. Gringotts! The goblins are unmatched for curses, enchantments and security, they have their own crazy powerful form of magic. If they're using a human for a curse-breaker it means he's got some serious skills Clearly the Weasley's have some hidden magical potential, but none of this comes close to what Mrs Weasley can do. In Goblet of Fire we see her summoning food and soup from her wand - breaking the Laws of Magical Transfiguration that Hermione explains in Deathly Hallows. Even House Elves, with their unique, ancient magic can't create food. During the finale, Mrs Weasley, a middle-aged, overweight civillian, is able to hold her own in the midst of a battle with some of the most dangerous Death Eaters. She kills Bellatrix Lestrange! And what spell does she use to kill her? We're not definitively shown. She screams "not my daughter you bitch!" and shoots a green bolt at Bellatrix, killing her. Now casting spells without words is hard enough in itself, albeit not unusual. But throughout the books there is one spell in particular that we are constantly told is green. One green spell that kills. Right from the start we know this spell. Mrs Weasley silent-casts Avada Kedavra. In conclusion: The Weasley's are the most powerful wizarding family that ever lived.
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Sep 1, 2013 19:38
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Let's look at the evidence shall we: I would really love to see J.K. respond to that because it's hilarious.
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Sep 2, 2013 20:03
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Benson Cunningham posted:I would really love to see J.K. respond to that because it's hilarious. It's kind of funny, but not wrong (except I think Molly was probably not conjuring food and drink, but rather moving it from the pantry). Fred and George especially are shown to be seriously good wizards, and even Hermione is stumped by how they do certain things. Flitwick was able to remove the swamp, mind you, after Umbridge left, but left a tiny patch because he was impressed by how good it was.
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Sep 2, 2013 23:49
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Let's look at the evidence shall we: Which makes it all the more funny how Ron views himself as such a failure. Especially when we read about him being a straight up baller at Wizarding Chess in the Chamber of Secrets.
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Sep 3, 2013 16:41
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Anya posted:Which makes it all the more funny how Ron views himself as such a failure. Especially when we read about him being a straight up baller at Wizarding Chess in the Chamber of Secrets. Well if your siblings were a cross between Heston Blumenthal and Barnes Wallace I think you would feel like a bit of a failure. It does annoy me how the films treat Ron, he's like Gimli, always the butt of jokes, never gets the spotlight. Hallows Part 2 completely undercut his moment with Crabbe and Goyle by playing it for laughs, when he was finally being badass. The worst example of this is in Half-Blood Prince (which sparked my previous post) - it ends with Harry and Hermy having a really powerful heart-to-heart about Dumbledore's death and what's going to happen next. And Ron is sat in the background. Doing nothing.
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Sep 3, 2013 22:18
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Well if your siblings were a cross between Heston Blumenthal and Barnes Wallace I think you would feel like a bit of a failure. If you give the gingers someone to look up to, they might get a little uppity.
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Sep 3, 2013 22:23
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The absolute worst example of that was Neville in the last film, when he confronts Voldemort. Oh my god. By this point he's a hero who's spent a year being tortured and fighting a guerilla rebellion inside the school. So naturally the film has him speak with the same terror and lack of conviction he'd have if he was being bullied five books ago while the death eaters have a laugh. Because he is A Joke Character and must be Funny and Weak at all times 
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Sep 8, 2013 17:15
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Strategic Tea posted:The absolute worst example of that was Neville in the last film, when he confronts Voldemort. Oh my god. By this point he's a hero who's spent a year being tortured and fighting a guerilla rebellion inside the school. I didn't get that impression at all from the film.
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Sep 10, 2013 23:28
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Davros1 posted:I didn't get that impression at all from the film. Neither did I. He's defying Voldemort to his face. He's allowed to stutter and poo poo his pants as I'm sure many others would as well. Neville was never without conviction, even in the Philosopher's Stone. He just lacked the proper self-confidence to speak with authority that the other characters had more naturally.
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Sep 11, 2013 00:21
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I'm kind of exaggerating, but I do think they made him seem like someone trying to be a hero, rather than someone who was one. You can imagine Harry giving the same speech, but not with the same delivery. Edit: The self confidence thing is kind of my point. By this point he's come into his own, I think he should be on par with the others. Strategic Tea fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 00:32
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I will always be of the belief that Neville should have been the Gryffindor prefect. I don't begrudge it to Ron though, because on some levels, it did provide him with an opportunity to start moving beyond the role of "guy that feels overshadowed by the rest of his family." It really irked me that Dumbledore basically said "yeah, Harry, I would have given it to you, but I felt like you were going to be too busy," but then, I'm also the person that thinks Harry should have said "gently caress being a Dark Arts fighter, I'm gonna play Quidditch for a living," so I may be an outlier.
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Sep 12, 2013 10:31
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New movie (and book I guess):quote:The wizarding world of Harry Potter is coming back to the big screen through a new spin-off movie written by J.K. Rowling herself. The movie will be set 70 years before the events of Harry Potter, and will follow the adventures of Newt Scamander. For big fans, Scamander's name may be familiar — in the original series, he was the author of a textbook called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which Harry was required to buy. Warner Bros. announced the new film this morning, saying that it would be the first in a whole new series, and that some familiar characters and creatures could turn up once again. http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4722670/new-harry-potter-movie-spin-off-series-jk-rowling-writing
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Sep 12, 2013 15:39
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Motherfu... I kinda wish it was a new book though :\
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Sep 12, 2013 15:47
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Patrovsky posted:I will always be of the belief that Neville should have been the Gryffindor prefect. I don't begrudge it to Ron though, because on some levels, it did provide him with an opportunity to start moving beyond the role of "guy that feels overshadowed by the rest of his family." It really irked me that Dumbledore basically said "yeah, Harry, I would have given it to you, but I felt like you were going to be too busy," but then, I'm also the person that thinks Harry should have said "gently caress being a Dark Arts fighter, I'm gonna play Quidditch for a living," so I may be an outlier. Harry basically broke the rules 24/7, it makes sense he wouldn't be a prefect. And he married a Quidditch player, so good enough?
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Sep 12, 2013 15:57
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It sounds like it's going to be a movie with an actual plot, but I'd prefer it if it was set up more like a big screen documentary like those DisneyNature movies that have come out recently.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:03
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Decius posted:New movie (and book I guess): Wow. That . .could actually be pretty cool. It would be like a 1920's New York setting?
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Sep 12, 2013 16:20
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I have the 'Harry and Ron' annotated copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I remember it being hilarious. I hope it's just a straight adventure novel set in the magical world and theres not much "Defeat this evil wizard" plot involved.
Democratic Pirate fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 22:29
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An adventure
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Sep 13, 2013 02:08
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Democratic Pirate posted:I have the 'Harry and Ron' annotated copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I remember it being hilarious.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:12
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Hedrigall posted:Motherfu... What if Newt Scamander is played by Sir David Attenborough? EDit: I would actually pay good money for an audio book of Fantastic Beasts narrated by him. geeves fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 02:27
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Coffee And Pie posted:Harry basically broke the rules 24/7, it makes sense he wouldn't be a prefect. And he married a Quidditch player, so good enough? Oh, I absolutely agree. I meant that Dumbledore seemed to imply that he would have made Harry a prefect regardless. Which was dumb, because both Harry and Ron were both the last people that should have been prefects.
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Sep 13, 2013 10:49
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Nah both would still have been better than Seamus.
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Sep 13, 2013 12:43
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Should've brought back the Time Turner and made Hermione both prefects.
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Sep 13, 2013 13:06
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Patrovsky posted:Oh, I absolutely agree. I meant that Dumbledore seemed to imply that he would have made Harry a prefect regardless. Which was dumb, because both Harry and Ron were both the last people that should have been prefects. Yeah but Neville at the time would have made a terrible prefect, nobody would take him seriously at all whenever he could overcome his timid nature to even speak up. It would have probably been played for comedy, with Neville half-heartedly telling someone to stop doing something with his voice trailing off and everyone ignoring him, or like awkwardly leaving the room when mischief was afoot so he wouldn't have to confront anyone about it. Ron was a brilliant choice as prefect, not exactly for the school itself but as a tactic in the Wizarding War, giving him a chance to grow out of not only his own family but also Harry's shadow, since Dumbledore of course realized it was always going to be Ron and Hermione supporting Harry in his quest.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:09
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Qwo posted:Aren't all editions of the book annotated? Yeah, by Harry and Ron. So it's not special or anything, just funny.
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Sep 13, 2013 17:22
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I have to say, I REALLY enjoyed the books. I had the good fortune to grow up with them, with The Philosopher's Stone at 9 and on from there. I actually especially enjoyed listening to the audiobooks as background noise(at least after the 5th time they became background noise). I still would, if most of them weren't cassettes. I probably have about 75% of the dialogue memorized. But the single most annoying that bothered me SO much I doubt I could read through the last couple books again was the complete lack of resolve to kill on the part of Harry & Co. They're essentially fighting against the end times(and in self defense about 90% of the time) and they're still throwing out the stuff they learned as 12-year-olds against wizard-soldiers trying to turn them inside out. One could argue that it's because they're young, but wizards are supposed to come into adulthood on a more traditional timeline(that means by about 16-17), and they're just thrown into the deep end in childhood anyway. I realize that things have to be taken with a grain of salt and in the context of children's books, but did this bother anybody else?
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Sep 25, 2013 19:14
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Danny Dravot posted:I realize that things have to be taken with a grain of salt and in the context of children's books, but did this bother anybody else? It bothered Lupin since he had an argument with Harry over it in DH. Honestly though, it did not bother me, I kind of saw Harry's point. A lot of people were under the Imperius curse or were only cooperating with the Death Eaters out of fear, and the key factor was trying to figure out a way to defeat Voldemort, who at that point was un-killable anyway. I suppose you could argue that by stunning people the Order was allowing those stunned Death Eaters to come back and essentially kill them later, and that is a fair point. That part bothered me a little since they could have easily devised some kind of magical way to take people out of the war, making them POWs or take out their wands or silencing them for a month or something, but ultimately I think the ranks would have kept replenishing anyway and it wouldn't have made much of a difference until they could unlock the Voldy puzzle anyway.
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Sep 25, 2013 19:27
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What a lot of authors forget when writing about pre/teens is that kids are generally awful sociopaths who haven't learned the value of human life yet. 12 year old boys thrive on morbid goreporn. But that kind of thing wouldn't have any place in most YA lit.
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Sep 25, 2013 20:24
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Fair enough, but typically when confronted with a stranger pointing a
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Sep 25, 2013 20:25
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Well you have to realise that Dumbledore's whole schtick is that good overcomes evil, the power of love trumps the power of destruction, all that jazz. What Rowling was (probably) trying to do is represent the Order as good guys doing the right thing even if it comes back to bite them in the rear end - sure they could just murder everybody that opposed them, but they're the good guys. That everybody deserves a second chance is a pretty major theme in the books.
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Sep 25, 2013 23:12
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Also, except for Mad Eye in book 4, no one at the school was teaching "How to Murder'. I would hope a killing spell would be a lot more difficult to learn than levitating.
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Sep 26, 2013 01:25
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It's almost comically off-base to mention it here, but I'm reminded of a quote from the film The Big Red One. Fighting the Nazi's during WW2, Lee Marvin responds to a soldier saying he doesn't want to "murder" anyone: Mark Hamil: I can't murder anybody. Lee Marvin: We don't murder; we kill. Mark Hamil: It's the same thing. Lee Marvin: The hell it is, It's actually a very touching scene, and it's not the only time the film wrestles with the morality of killing & murder, but out of context it probably reads as a bit gung ho. Oh well! Saith posted:Well you have to realise that Dumbledore's whole schtick is that good overcomes evil, the power of love trumps the power of destruction, all that jazz. Within this context, I can get with it. It sounds strange, but as long as I can think of something behind the motivation it won't bother me. Thank you!
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Sep 26, 2013 02:57
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Davros1 posted:Also, except for Mad Eye in book 4, no one at the school was teaching "How to Murder'. I would hope a killing spell would be a lot more difficult to learn than levitating. It was described that one of the tough parts of lethal spells is intent. You can't use an outright fatal spell without genuine killing intent. And not many students have that.
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Sep 26, 2013 15:44
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veekie posted:It was described that one of the tough parts of lethal spells is intent. You can't use an outright fatal spell without genuine killing intent. And not many students have that. I think that is one of the key points. When you look at most of the truly threatening situations in the books, Harry and co's initial reaction is usually defensive and about trying to stop themselves being harmed - I think in that situation most people reaction would be to disable/disrupt rather than to kill.
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Sep 26, 2013 20:01
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veekie posted:It was described that one of the tough parts of lethal spells is intent. You can't use an outright fatal spell without genuine killing intent. And not many students have that. I agree with this. I think that no matter how experienced a 16 or 17 year old kid is, it is really difficult for them to have the concept of killing someone, to the degree that they would want to do it and be able to actually do it. I think most people would have a hard time killing someone, even if they knew it was for the "greater good".
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Sep 26, 2013 23:18
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njbeachbum posted:I agree with this. I think that no matter how experienced a 16 or 17 year old kid is, it is really difficult for them to have the concept of killing someone, to the degree that they would want to do it and be able to actually do it. I think most people would have a hard time killing someone, even if they knew it was for the "greater good". More to the point, they're outright trained otherwise. When they do all their disarm/stun/etc. spells those are the ones they've actually been learning at school, because Hogwarts isn't Auror boot camp or wherever they teach those things (possibly Good House-Witching judging by how Mrs. Weasley did it in the last book, but I digress...). Of course they go to non-lethal during stress, all their practice defaults them to that. For the average wizard that Hogwarts is supposed to be turning them into, stunning the hell out of muggers or whatnot is all most people would need anyway.
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Sep 27, 2013 07:34
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MadDogMike posted:More to the point, they're outright trained otherwise. When they do all their disarm/stun/etc. spells those are the ones they've actually been learning at school, because Hogwarts isn't Auror boot camp or wherever they teach those things (possibly Good House-Witching judging by how Mrs. Weasley did it in the last book, but I digress...). Of course they go to non-lethal during stress, all their practice defaults them to that. For the average wizard that Hogwarts is supposed to be turning them into, stunning the hell out of muggers or whatnot is all most people would need anyway. And yet they live in a world that is inhabited by myriad deadly creatures(I mean, Kelpies?) and all the kinds of crazy or evil people that you might find in, say, the real world. Besides the fact that they're tracked for adulthood at an earlier age than has become common for, say, Americans, they're in the middle of a sectarian conflict that's a strange combination of, say, WW2 and Syria. And it's the third one that century, so safe to say it's something of a fixture in their world. It's pretty existential stuff, and they're on the pointy end. I would talk about how in the real world their are many, many 16-17 year olds who have taken life in similar circumstances and aren't exceptional cases but rather par for the course, but we're talking about Harry Potter and that would be really, really stupid. The fact that intent has to be absolutely explicit is quite the bar.
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Sep 27, 2013 10:27
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