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The Harry Potter fandom was my favourite insane fandom. None of the crazies today are as much fun. I blame Tumblr.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:57
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| # ? May 31, 2024 17:17 |
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I don't see what the big deal is with people identifying with Slytherin. Preteens and teenagers love villain types down to their hormonal little soulless cores. Plus, all the fantasy racism and "fascism" on display in Harry Potter is tame. It's more a matter of attractive character archetypes, aesthetics, and wanting to be unique, than RA RA HITLER-WIZARDS.
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Dec 18, 2013 00:04
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Qwo posted:Plus, all the fantasy racism and "fascism" on display in Harry Potter is tame. By what standard? The Death Eaters:
If these things are "tame," can you explain to me what serious racism and fascism look like?
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Dec 18, 2013 00:46
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All of that is still seen through a veil of children's fantasy.
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Dec 18, 2013 03:35
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Qwo posted:All of that is still seen through a veil of children's fantasy.
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Dec 18, 2013 04:53
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Qwo posted:All of that is still seen through a veil of children's fantasy. I think you're mistaken, its not seen through the veil of children's fantasy, its seen from the perception of children (ignorance). It's like she wants to teach children racism is bad and the Nazi's are bad. It's the primary antagonism of the entire Harry Potter series. Voldemort isn't supposed to be a cartoon villain who is evil for the sake of being evil, he's an anti-Muggle racist who doesn't want to die. The entire novel series is a struggle between anti-Muggles and pro-Muggle wizards with a flashing sign saying "JUDGING PEOPLE FOR HOW THEY WERE BORN IS WRONG". edit: forgot a word Xachariah fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 13:08
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Xachariah posted:It's like she wants to teach children racism is bad and the Nazi's are bad. It's the primary antagonism of the entire Harry Potter series. I think the issue is more: this isn't like a "Voldemort Youth" organization that a bunch of the racist students form and join voluntarily; they are literally going to a school where they are separated from the other students and put into a house where the key defining trait seems to be "evil racists". Obviously this works for the sake of symbolism but it seems to be a weird message that these kids are basically determined to be evil and racist when they are 11 and that - instead of dividing them up where they would experience more diversity - they are put in an echo chamber where their (well, mostly their parents') views are going to only grow. It definitely implicates Hogwarts itself, and sends kind of a weird message that people can't change. Well, except they can because Snape obviously changes, although he is still a life-long racist and jerk even though he did some good things. It is just a weird form of determinism for these kids: "welp, their parents are racist and they're racist now and probably can't change so let's isolate them with a bunch of other racists so their views are validated and grow amongst each other". People who like Slytherin I think typically miss this point and think that only a few bad apples like Malfoy emerge, and that they would be the kind of Slytherin who was powerful and ambitious but totally not racist except that they still know they're better than everyone.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:16
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Guy A. Person posted:I think the issue is more: this isn't like a "Voldemort Youth" organization that a bunch of the racist students form and join voluntarily; they are literally going to a school where they are separated from the other students and put into a house where the key defining trait seems to be "evil racists". At least they have Slughorn who is not that racist. They also sort of condem it with Snape as Dumbeldore says they should sort them at an older age. They also had Sirus's brother realize it at some point. Also a Gryffindor did kill Harry's parents and bring back Voldermort.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:20
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Well yeah, this is the issue. Slytherin are simultaneously portrayed as evil to show us how things like racism and fascism is bad, while also being the "don't judge a book by it's cover" house when it comes to Snape and others. So you get a lot of weird crossed wires. It definitely condemns Hogwarts as an institution, as well as Dumbledore for propping up those traditions even though he doesn't agree with them. Like, he says "we sort too young" implying that Snape shouldn't have been a Slytherin but then why do you as headmaster continue this practice? It's like they give lip service to the idea of diversity but then they give all the children of wealthy racist alumni a club house that they can play in and build up their lovely ideas.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:33
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Guy A. Person posted:Well yeah, this is the issue. Slytherin are simultaneously portrayed as evil to show us how things like racism and fascism is bad, while also being the "don't judge a book by it's cover" house when it comes to Snape and others. So you get a lot of weird crossed wires. The earlier books said that Dumbeldore had some power but he could be removed from power. The people that could remove him are people like Draco Malfoy and other easily blackmailed people.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:37
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Guy A. Person posted:I think the issue is more: this isn't like a "Voldemort Youth" organization that a bunch of the racist students form and join voluntarily; they are literally going to a school where they are separated from the other students and put into a house where the key defining trait seems to be "evil racists". Literally all of the Slytherins that Harry has any mentioned interaction with are either Death Eaters, Quidditch players, Malfoy's crew or Slughorn. I am sure Malfoy is the little lord of Slytherin and all that poo poo but there are almost certainly non-lovely Slytherins. Rowling really dropped the ball on portraying that though.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:47
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Guy A. Person posted:Well yeah, this is the issue. Slytherin are simultaneously portrayed as evil to show us how things like racism and fascism is bad, while also being the "don't judge a book by it's cover" house when it comes to Snape and others. So you get a lot of weird crossed wires. You think racism and 'don't judge a book by its cover' are crossed wires? I am pretty sure the author is making the same point consistently, which is that you should judge people by their actions, not by their blood/house.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:49
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Probably because all of these nuances are a bit too complex for something that started out as a relatively simple childrens book and whos author clearly had certain things she wanted to put in the books and not necessarily focus on creating an entirely coherent world and structure that stands up to close scrutiny. I kind of generally feel that the basic framework was created with the early book(s) and contained some of these inherent problems and then when Rowling started to flesh things out more, it became difficult to reconcile them with other stuff or provide better explanation and gently caress it she had a story she wanted to tell not get bogged down in the details. Maybe I'm wrong.
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Dec 18, 2013 19:17
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Seldom Posts posted:You think racism and 'don't judge a book by its cover' are crossed wires? I am pretty sure the author is making the same point consistently, which is that you should judge people by their actions, not by their blood/house. Fair enough. I just don't think she went far enough in showing in later books, as Harry grew up and stopped seeing the world in the black and white ignorance of a child, that Slytherin wasn't a Hitler Youth analogy. Especially when you drop in lines like "we sort too soon" to imply one of the key redeemable characters in the story shouldn't have even been there, but in a better house. Harry never encountered a single Slytherin student that didn't fit that mold, that could have gone a long way toward making Slytherin seem less one dimensional. Jazerus posted:Literally all of the Slytherins that Harry has any mentioned interaction with are either Death Eaters, Quidditch players, Malfoy's crew or Slughorn. I am sure Malfoy is the little lord of Slytherin and all that poo poo but there are almost certainly non-lovely Slytherins. Rowling really dropped the ball on portraying that though. Yeah the last sentence is basically my point. I kind of went off on a tangent with my last point in that quote, I actually agree that in "reality" we only saw a few bad apples and the rest were just ambitious or whatever. We just don't see enough of Slytherin's characteristics outside of Malfoy and the others to form a view of what those non-lovely Slytherins are like.
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Dec 18, 2013 19:59
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Guy A. Person posted:Fair enough. I just don't think she went far enough in showing in later books, as Harry grew up and stopped seeing the world in the black and white ignorance of a child, that Slytherin wasn't a Hitler Youth analogy. Especially when you drop in lines like "we sort too soon" to imply one of the key redeemable characters in the story shouldn't have even been there, but in a better house. Harry never encountered a single Slytherin student that didn't fit that mold, that could have gone a long way toward making Slytherin seem less one dimensional. I agree it could've been clearer--Snape is supposed to be the big example, but it would've been better if we could've seen some non-jerk Slytherin kids.
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Dec 18, 2013 20:50
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Guy A. Person posted:Fair enough. I just don't think she went far enough in showing in later books, as Harry grew up and stopped seeing the world in the black and white ignorance of a child, that Slytherin wasn't a Hitler Youth analogy. Especially when you drop in lines like "we sort too soon" to imply one of the key redeemable characters in the story shouldn't have even been there, but in a better house. Harry never encountered a single Slytherin student that didn't fit that mold, that could have gone a long way toward making Slytherin seem less one dimensional. We didn't get to see much of Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw either, when you get down to it. Or most of Gryffindor. It's almost like Rowling was focusing on a narrative rather than a documentary of the four Hogwarts houses.
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Dec 18, 2013 21:10
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PT6A posted:It's almost like Rowling was focusing on a narrative rather than a documentary of the four Hogwarts houses. And she almost succeeded! I am fine with Slytherin being a stereotypical evil house with Snape redeeming himself by transcending his past, or with it being a more nuanced place where a lot of misunderstood characters come from, but Rowling can't decide which of those she wants. Toward the end she seemed to really want it to be more nuanced but then whoops she accidentally made it symbolic of Naziism and people seem to hate Nazis for some reason (which is how this conversation started, people saying they couldn't reconcile people liking Slytherin with those images; read above!).
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Dec 18, 2013 22:23
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"For some reason"?
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Dec 19, 2013 06:47
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Glenn posted:"For some reason"? Congratulations, you picked up on some basic sarcasm!
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Dec 19, 2013 07:32
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Was there ever given a reason why Peter Pettigrew got Griffyndor? For someone who's biggest trait is being cowardly surely he would have gotten a different house than the one where courageous is one of it's three biggest attributes.
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Dec 19, 2013 09:09
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bobjr posted:Was there ever given a reason why Peter Pettigrew got Griffyndor? For someone who's biggest trait is being cowardly surely he would have gotten a different house than the one where courageous is one of it's three biggest attributes. The Sorting hat takes your wishes into account, and seems to put you into houses that embody things you value. Not to mention you're sorted when you're eleven which even Dumbledore brings up as a stupid idea later in the series. Peter was definitely a cowardly, villainous little twerp later in life. We don't really know how he was during his school years though, beyond the fact he was part of a group of insane troublemakers who willingly hung out with a Werewolf in wolf form once a month. As a rat no less. Pretty sure you have to have some courage to be able to do that, no matter how much your friends prod.
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Dec 19, 2013 09:23
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Seldom Posts posted:I agree it could've been clearer--Snape is supposed to be the big example, but it would've been better if we could've seen some non-jerk Slytherin kids. It's strange how close Deathly Hallows came to this, but still missed. We hear during the battle how even Slytherin fought beside them, but it's literally just Slughorn puffing himself up. Blaise, Pansy, Millicent, and all the other minor Slytherin's are shown to be basically following Voldy out of fear, but they up and vanish once the battle starts. Why couldn't we have a few of them fighting alongside Slughorn?
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Dec 19, 2013 09:46
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That was the biggest let down of the entire book series, when in all of present day Slytherin there isn't one person willing to buck the trend. It diminishes the narrative because it seems in the end even Rowling is prejudiced against a bunch of kids who were segregated into the selfish house at 11. No one changes between 11 and 18? Oh, OK, kinda harsh of you Rowling.
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Dec 19, 2013 10:00
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Zore posted:The Sorting hat takes your wishes into account, and seems to put you into houses that embody things you value. Not to mention you're sorted when you're eleven which even Dumbledore brings up as a stupid idea later in the series. Did Peter, James and Sirius know eachother before they went to Hogwarts? Because while I imagine most children just sit there and be judged, I can see Peter telling (well, begging, really) the hat that he wanted to be in the same house as his friends. And you can be pretty much certain that Sirius had a terse conversation with the hat explaining he wouldn't be joining the house of dickbags his entire family had been in.
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Dec 19, 2013 11:54
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Xachariah posted:That was the biggest let down of the entire book series, when in all of present day Slytherin there isn't one person willing to buck the trend. It diminishes the narrative because it seems in the end even Rowling is prejudiced against a bunch of kids who were segregated into the selfish house at 11. I think it's probably more weird that so many people in the other houses stayed to fight. The reasoning for leaving is a pretty strong. Voldemort shows up with an army of adults, giants, giant spiders, and all sorts of other things. It doesn't seem particularly crazy to think that most of the kids would get right the gently caress out of there when confronted with the literal boogeyman they've grown up fearing their entire lives. For the Slytherins, whom are characterized as interested mostly in their own welfare, it isn't exactly out of character. Edit: that's the last time I post right after I wake up. Olanphonia fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 13:28
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Olanphonia posted:I think it's probably more weird that so many people in the other houses staid to fight. The reasoning for leaving is a pretty strong one. Voldemort shows up with an army of adults, giants, giant spiders, and all sorts of other things. It doesn't seem particularly crazy to think that most of the kids would get right the gently caress out of there when confronted with the literal boogeyman they've grown up fearing their entire lives. For the Slytherins, whom are characterized as interested mostly in their own welfare, it isn't exactly out of character. Not to mention, those adults are by and large their parents. Or at the very least aunts/uncles/cousins, the pureblood families are really inbred and Slytherin only accepts pure bloods. How many teenagers, who have been raised by people who are willing to attack and murder innocents and children to support their insane and immortal leader, are going to stay?
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Dec 19, 2013 14:05
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Bad Wolf posted:Did Peter, James and Sirius know eachother before they went to Hogwarts? Because while I imagine most children just sit there and be judged, I can see Peter telling (well, begging, really) the hat that he wanted to be in the same house as his friends. And you can be pretty much certain that Sirius had a terse conversation with the hat explaining he wouldn't be joining the house of dickbags his entire family had been in. James and Sirius met each other on the train at the same time they met Snape. Its in Snape's memory. Also in the book they do mention that other Slytherin that return with Slughorn, they just do not name them. The problem is that in the movie they have them all sent to the dungon.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:39
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Zore posted:and Slytherin only accepts pure bloods. No, Slytherin (the founder) only accepted purebloods. Slytherin (the house) didn't have that restriction after he left. Voldemort was a halfblood (though nobody really knew that at the time) and in Slytherin. So was Snape (and/or his mother), who did know.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:41
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bobkatt013 posted:James and Sirius met each other on the train at the same time they met Snape. Its in Snape's memory. Also in the book they do mention that other Slytherin that return with Slughorn, they just do not name them. The problem is that in the movie they have them all sent to the dungon. Yeah, I think a big part of it is the movies' need to create a "bad guy house" to contrast to Gryffindor. Not that the book doesn't portray them in that way, but I have the impression that this distinction goes away with time. Which makes sense considering the main characters' more "mature" personas. Also I'm pretty sure nobody really gives a crap what House you were in once you graduate.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:45
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Chewbaccanator posted:Yeah, I think a big part of it is the movies' need to create a "bad guy house" to contrast to Gryffindor. Not that the book doesn't portray them in that way, but I have the impression that this distinction goes away with time. Which makes sense considering the main characters' more "mature" personas. Also Malfoy is really more conflicted in the last two books and they sort of still keep him in "evil" mode in the movie. It is the same thing they do with Dudley. In the first couple of books he is seen as an awful person, but by the end he has realized his mistakes and tried to make up for it.
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Dec 19, 2013 16:58
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Olanphonia posted:I think it's probably more weird that so many people in the other houses stayed to fight. The reasoning for leaving is a pretty strong. Voldemort shows up with an army of adults, giants, giant spiders, and all sorts of other things. It doesn't seem particularly crazy to think that most of the kids would get right the gently caress out of there when confronted with the literal boogeyman they've grown up fearing their entire lives. For the Slytherins, whom are characterized as interested mostly in their own welfare, it isn't exactly out of character. Honestly it makes sense that kids from the house based around greatest personal gain would, in the heat of the moment, decide to leave.
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Dec 20, 2013 21:21
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There are some minor characters who are Slytherin good, such as Andromeda Tonks (Nymphadora's mum), who ran off with Muggleborn Ted and got herself blacklisted for it. I think it's a ball drop overall, but I don't think it was an intentional message. If she started again with the story, you'd see a lot more of this as it becomes clearly more apparant in the later books.
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Dec 21, 2013 11:29
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In retrospect it probably would have been better for the main characters to have been from different houses. Luna is introduced in book four right? Having Neville in Hufflepuff and Hermione be in Ravenclaw from the start would have been a better foundation.
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Dec 21, 2013 22:40
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I want to hear more about the insane Harry/Hermione shippers.
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Dec 21, 2013 22:49
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Yeah I mean Slytherin is just all about doing whatever's best for you personally. Running from the battle of hogwarts doesn't mean everyone in the house is super evil, it just means they recognise they have nothing to gain by picking a side since picking the losing side will hurt them a lot more than not picking one at all. Putting the main characters in different houses would gut their ability to communicate/interact with each other. Unless you completely change the way the house system works but then you'd end up with weird 4-way classes etc and it might be hard to work.
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Dec 21, 2013 23:01
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Hedrigall posted:I want to hear more about the insane Harry/Hermione shippers. A lot of them wrote really condescending letters to Rowling they posted publicly telling her she didn't understand her characters as well as they did. Those were hilarious.
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Dec 21, 2013 23:58
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k3nn posted:Yeah I mean Slytherin is just all about doing whatever's best for you personally. Running from the battle of hogwarts doesn't mean everyone in the house is super evil, it just means they recognise they have nothing to gain by picking a side since picking the losing side will hurt them a lot more than not picking one at all. They shared lessons with Hufflepuff and Slytherin already. Having segregated common rooms is what killed cross house interaction, yet there was still plenty. By the time you hit the last half of the series houses essentially became a non-issue. If you were starting at the beginning I'm sure there's a way to be able to pull it off. I think starting out eleven year olds with values like self service ends up being super damaging to Slytherin in the long run. Sure an adult might be able to parse that morality but raising a kid with that? Might produce more misses than hits. You're using passwords like Pure Blood when you've got petrified muggleborns in the hospital wing. Not the best environment for kids to navigate their adolescence.
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Dec 22, 2013 00:32
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Hedrigall posted:I want to hear more about the insane Harry/Hermione shippers. This essay explains the philosophy better than I could. Basically, people like Ron - combative, impulsive, lustful, goofy, prejudiced, and just flawed all-around - are inferior choices as lovers and deserve nothing but scorn from "good," respectable people like Hermione.
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Dec 22, 2013 01:15
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Hedrigall posted:I want to hear more about the insane Harry/Hermione shippers. I think it mostly stems from a belief that the leading man should end up with the leading lady. Also I guess some people really like Harry and also Hermione and that led them to believe that they would be a good couple regardless of the way the characters are written to feel about each other.
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Dec 22, 2013 02:47
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| # ? May 31, 2024 17:17 |
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You guys misunderstand me. I want to hear more about the insane shippers themselves and the insane poo poo they've done.
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Dec 22, 2013 04:03
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