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howe_sam posted:The Order took them into protective custody at the start of Deathly Hallows, and oh wouldn't that have been fun to read, Vernon Dursley spending a year being guarded by wizards. Chamale posted:I'd buy that book for sure. Rowling shouldn't have started on other series, there's so much more content in Harry Potter. When the HP books were still being published, JKR mentioned that possibly a muggle or a squib might suddenly get the ability to perform magic (like a late bloomer). I'd always hoped it would have been Petunia, but Dudley would have been interesting as well. The scenario of wizards guarding the Dursleys for a year would have been a perfect time for that. Many people love to bitch about JKR, but I'd be happy to read anything else she decided to write about the HP world. I think she was pretty burnt out by the end of the HP series and definitely did need a break from it.
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Jan 3, 2015 19:17
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Wizards are loving weirdly unimaginative, I remember reading about portkeys for the first time and thinking "A machine gun that fires portkey-bullets that lead to the photosphere of the sun, horcruxes or not you ain't coming back from that you bald poo poo."
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Jan 5, 2015 17:06
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wizards have no real idea what guns even are despite guns being around for hundreds of years. For all we know it's a localized "wizarding britain is a bit poo poo" thing and Goblin artificers in Kentucky are churning out enchanted gatling guns
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Jan 5, 2015 17:40
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I have to assume it falls under some pretty strict legislature the world around. Same way building youre own guns is regulated. I just assume that most of the Auroras out there are more like ATF then direct combat with evil wizard types. No you can't build enchanted weaponry at home. No you can't have a chest of holding filled with automatic rocket launchers. No you can't redirect meteors in orbit.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:10
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I generally assumed that wizards basically invented anti-gun spells as something insanely casual. They mentioned that witch burning was useless because they had a casual spell they could cast that nullified the fire and we saw stuff like Fred and George inventing hats that made things bounce off if they flew at you. There's probably some Bulleto Repellium spell that's so easy to do that most wizards don't even consider it an issue.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:13
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ImpAtom posted:I generally assumed that wizards basically invented anti-gun spells as something insanely casual. They mentioned that witch burning was useless because they had a casual spell they could cast that nullified the fire and we saw stuff like Fred and George inventing hats that made things bounce off if they flew at you. There's probably some Bulleto Repellium spell that's so easy to do that most wizards don't even consider it an issue. I dunno, fire is a lot simpler than metal bits flying at very fast speeds. In the least you would have to have a shield spell on your person constantly because no one can cast spells faster than a bullet, regardless of whether it was wordless or not. I'd imagine such a shield spell would be rather draining. It does make me wonder if wizards were recruited into the World Wars. Would the fact that many pureblood wizards/witches dying in battle meant they had to come up with a bullet repelling spell or would they just ditch recruitment? Though maybe a constant, low content teleportation spell could make bullets poof out the other side of you.
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Jan 5, 2015 21:25
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Wedemeyer posted:It does make me wonder if wizards were recruited into the World Wars. Apparently World War 2 ran parallel to, and was linked with maybe(?), Grindelwald's reign of terror
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Jan 5, 2015 21:37
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Wedemeyer posted:I dunno, fire is a lot simpler than metal bits flying at very fast speeds. In the least you would have to have a shield spell on your person constantly because no one can cast spells faster than a bullet, regardless of whether it was wordless or not. I'd imagine such a shield spell would be rather draining. It does make me wonder if wizards were recruited into the World Wars. Would the fact that many pureblood wizards/witches dying in battle meant they had to come up with a bullet repelling spell or would they just ditch recruitment? The Dresden Files tackles this by making it possible, but very taxing for the wizard doing it and they have to know it's coming to pull it off. Harry Dresden changes the spell over the course of the books from stopping the bullets dead in their tracks (very energy intensive because of what he's having to stop) to redirecting the bullets so they ricochet away (less intensive, but causing collateral problems) to a combination of slowing them down and then redirecting them into the ground. A long range sniper can take a wizard out fairly easily and does exactly that in those books, but up close gunmen, when the wizard is expecting it, is just going to be firing at a prepared shield.
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Jan 5, 2015 22:47
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howe_sam posted:Apparently World War 2 ran parallel to, and was linked with maybe(?), Grindelwald's reign of terror From what I remember, the earlier books describe Grindelwald as a magical Hitler and his reign is depicted as a weird World War II parallel, if World War II ended with Churchill and Hitler dueling each other in Berlin. It's only around The Half-Blood Prince that Rowling changes Grindelwald's focus to ending the Statute of Secrecy and adds details about Dumbledore's relationship with him. Voldemort ends up taking the baton as the series moves on. Which makes me wonder what exactly was happening in the muggle world after Voldemort seized power from the Ministry. Given that there are already attacks in the countryside by the time Scrimgeour comes around, it would have been interesting to get a glimpse of what Voldemort was doing to take over non-magical Britain. It would have been doubly interesting to see the muggle reaction. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 16:06
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Random question, but: I'm curious what house people think that Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum would have been sorted into, had they gone to Hogwarts.
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Jan 8, 2015 08:28
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Evelyn Nesbit posted:Random question, but: I'm curious what house people think that Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum would have been sorted into, had they gone to Hogwarts. Fleur is fiercely loyal, first to her school and her sister and later to Harry after he saves Gabrielle. That's Hufflepuff. I don't want to go for the obvious answer that Krum belongs in Slytherin just because he goes to the Dark Arts school, especially given my theory that Slytherin house only became evil because of Voldemort cursing it like he cursed the DADA job. Maybe Ravenclaw because he studies a lot and has a reputation as a smart quidditch player. Or maybe Krum is Slytherin because he was aiming high from a young age and ultimately came out of retirement to win the Quidditch World Cup at age 38.
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Jan 8, 2015 09:09
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Evelyn Nesbit posted:Random question, but: I'm curious what house people think that Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum would have been sorted into, had they gone to Hogwarts. I was told to answer the question you wished you had been asked, rather than the question you were asked. Would Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum hosed had they gone to Hogwarts? Yes--and spectacularly so. Harry Potter 4 would have been renamed Harry Potter: And the Olympic Village had it been more obvious. And good for them--they're the only two competent adults in the entire series. Voldemort would have been defeated in 10 minutes had the rest of the world given a poo poo about what London office was up to. Can't have the Queen's guard souring the entire continent, shan't we?
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Jan 8, 2015 09:42
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Chamale posted:I don't want to go for the obvious answer that Krum belongs in Slytherin just because he goes to the Dark Arts school, especially given my theory that Slytherin house only became evil because of Voldemort cursing it like he cursed the DADA job. Maybe Ravenclaw because he studies a lot and has a reputation as a smart quidditch player. Or maybe Krum is Slytherin because he was aiming high from a young age and ultimately came out of retirement to win the Quidditch World Cup at age 38. Well the dude wasn't a fan of the dark arts at all, remember he wanted to duel Luna's dad at the wedding for wearing (what he thought was) Grindelwald's symbol. He is pretty loyal to his teacher and school but aside from that I don't think he was especially into using the dark arts for personal gain. I feel like a lot of this stuff would also qualify him for Gryffindor (including the duel thing). Playing pro Quidditch at such a young age is pretty bold and risky, as is coming out of retirement just to win the Cup. Also he asked Hermione to come stay with him over the summer after knowing her for like 5 weeks, that's pretty gutsy. He always seemed to me like an action over brains type, I think Hermione even says something to that effect.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:55
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Guy A. Person posted:Well the dude wasn't a fan of the dark arts at all, remember he wanted to duel Luna's dad at the wedding for wearing (what he thought was) Grindelwald's symbol. He is pretty loyal to his teacher and school but aside from that I don't think he was especially into using the dark arts for personal gain. There is also the fact he is a pretty great wizard when he did not have to be. He could have just been a great seeker and rest on that.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:05
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Guy A. Person posted:Well the dude wasn't a fan of the dark arts at all, remember he wanted to duel Luna's dad at the wedding for wearing (what he thought was) Grindelwald's symbol. He is pretty loyal to his teacher and school but aside from that I don't think he was especially into using the dark arts for personal gain. Picturing some drunk Russian guy trying to start a fight with a Hindu man over his rolling sun button.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:54
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Guy A. Person posted:Well the dude wasn't a fan of the dark arts at all, remember he wanted to duel Luna's dad at the wedding for wearing (what he thought was) Grindelwald's symbol. He is pretty loyal to his teacher and school but aside from that I don't think he was especially into using the dark arts for personal gain. I don't think he even liked his teacher much. Granted, this comes from just a couple of lines at the end of book four, and I may be influenced by the way Stephen Fry read them in the audio book, but when asked if they could get the ship home without Karkaroff, Victor basically bitterly said Karkaroff didn't do poo poo and had the students run the boat. Speaking of Durmstrang, given Dumbledore's speech about unity at the end of 4, I'm disappointed a bunch of Durmstrang students, led by Krum, didn't show up for the battle of Hogwarts. Same goes for Beauxbatons really. (As a complete aside, I've only ever "read" the audio books, so I had to look up how to spell the name of the French school for this post, and as such, I only just NOW got the joke. )
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Jan 9, 2015 10:57
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Guy A. Person posted:Well the dude wasn't a fan of the dark arts at all, remember he wanted to duel Luna's dad at the wedding for wearing (what he thought was) Grindelwald's symbol. He is pretty loyal to his teacher and school but aside from that I don't think he was especially into using the dark arts for personal gain. Wait wasn't he 17 while Hermione was 14? Awkward.
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Jan 9, 2015 16:09
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QuoProQuid posted:From what I remember, the earlier books describe Grindelwald as a magical Hitler and his reign is depicted as a weird World War II parallel, if World War II ended with Churchill and Hitler dueling each other in Berlin. It's only around The Half-Blood Prince that Rowling changes Grindelwald's focus to ending the Statute of Secrecy and adds details about Dumbledore's relationship with him. Voldemort ends up taking the baton as the series moves on. I'm pretty sure Grindelwald was first mentioned in book 7. JKR may have dropped the name early on in the series - as part of Dumbledore's series of titles - but any actual history about the guy began with Rita Skeeter's expose at the beginning of book 7.
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Jan 9, 2015 18:39
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The only mention of Grindelwald before book 7 is a sentence fragment in Philosopher's Stone: "Considered by many to be the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945..." I guess defeating a dark wizard in 1945 creates a Hitler parallel, but there is no description of Grindelwald at all outside of that.
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Jan 9, 2015 18:43
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Ah, I guess I was misremembering how much he was in earlier books. I could have sworn that Hermione talked about it at some point with regards to Voldemort fearing Dumbledore. Still, the 1945 date implies to me that early on in the series Rowling wanted a Wizarding World War II that ran parallel with the actual Second World War.
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Jan 9, 2015 19:06
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It makes you wonder what the end game for an evil wizard is. You take over the muggle world and then what... really the only thing muggles can offer wizards is material resources and being really bad versions of house elves.
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Jan 9, 2015 20:37
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Paragon8 posted:It makes you wonder what the end game for an evil wizard is. You take over the muggle world and then what... really the only thing muggles can offer wizards is material resources and being really bad versions of house elves. Literally being the monarch that has sex with all of the beautiful women/men in the world, owning everything and masturbating to how much power they have over everyone else's lives?
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Jan 9, 2015 20:40
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Paragon8 posted:It makes you wonder what the end game for an evil wizard is. You take over the muggle world and then what... really the only thing muggles can offer wizards is material resources and being really bad versions of house elves. It probably has as much to do with being able to come into the light and not have to hide their existence. Like you set yourself up as the ruler of some newly established kingdom of magic and continue training new wizards under your set of beliefs, then go anywhere and do anything you want without having to worry about people loving with you. I think it's less that they want to rule or enslave humans than that they are extremely bitter that they have to sneak around when they feel like they are clearly superior.
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Jan 9, 2015 20:46
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Guy A. Person posted:It probably has as much to do with being able to come into the light and not have to hide their existence. Like you set yourself up as the ruler of some newly established kingdom of magic and continue training new wizards under your set of beliefs, then go anywhere and do anything you want without having to worry about people loving with you. That's pretty much the set-up for "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" books written by Jonathan Stroud. I really enjoyed Stroud's version of a corrupt/cynical world where the powerful wizards ruthlessly ruled over everyone, however one of the main character was killed off in the last book as part of his redemption arc, so many readers were dissappointed with how the third book ended. Stroud recently published a fourth book that deals with another character's back story. Inveigle fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 22:34
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Inveigle posted:That's pretty much the set-up for "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" books written by Jonathan Stroud. If you haven't read these, you should probably do so, they're awesome. The Amulet of Samarkand is the first book.
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Jan 9, 2015 23:30
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Nettle Soup posted:If you haven't read these, you should probably do so, they're awesome. The Amulet of Samarkand is the first book. I second this. They're funny and well-written and I got just as much enjoyment rereading them as an adult as I did when I was younger.
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Jan 10, 2015 20:07
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So I was having Deep and Meaningful Shower Thoughts, and I think I may have managed to fix Quidditch. Instead of the Snitch giving 150 points, it just ends the game. That's it. When the snitch is caught, the game ends and whoever has the most points wins. So the role of the Seeker becomes much more about misdirecting the opposing Seeker than just pressing the Win Button. The Seeker can't just keep an eye on the Snitch and follow it around; the other Seeker could swoop in and grab it. So the Seeker needs to have a good situational awareness of where the Snitch is, but also be good about leading the other Seeker away. This lets I also thought about how to resolve ties, and my thoughts went along the lines of making a couple smaller changes to the game. Make the center goal hoop smaller, and worth 20 points, tie-breaker condition being whichever team scored the most 20-point goals, and a couple other conditions below that. That could even set up some funny line from Ron or Wood (in Book 1 when Harry needs quidditch explained to him) about how the 9th tie breaker condition down is whichever team has the fewest injured players or somesuch.
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Jan 13, 2015 03:05
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Great idea, go back in time to 1991 and tell Jo you fixed her book, well, go on
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Jan 13, 2015 03:54
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jivjov posted:So I was having Deep and Meaningful Shower Thoughts, and I think I may have managed to fix Quidditch. I play muggle quidditch. The snitch is worth 30 points, and is allowed to run off the field for the first 15 minutes to make early catches much rarer. When a team is down by more than 30, the seeker's job is to tackle the opposing seeker. Ties are broken with overtime, and if there's another tie the next score wins. The most important change to fix the game is that the Snitch should be worth 3 points, and a goal 1 point. Describing the scores is stupid because every number is ten times bigger than it ought to be.
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Jan 13, 2015 04:35
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jivjov posted:So I was having Deep and Meaningful Shower Thoughts, and I think I may have managed to fix Quidditch. Quidditch makes more sense when you think of it less as a sport and more as an excuse for Harry to be solely responsible for every Gryffindor victory.
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Jan 13, 2015 07:28
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Real quidditch games last for hours or days and have scores running in the high hundreds. The real problem with quidditch in the books is they baby down the school snitch and shorten expected game length and score without changing point values.
zachol fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 08:02
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Chamale posted:The most important change to fix the game is that the Snitch should be worth 3 points, and a goal 1 point. Describing the scores is stupid because every number is ten times bigger than it ought to be. I cannot imagine how much you must hate tennis.
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Jan 13, 2015 08:47
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I assumed she created it by coming up with a game more confusing than cricket.
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Jan 13, 2015 21:37
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I've always felt that Rowling went along with "the bigger the better" mindset. "We have a lot of points! That means Quidditch is Variant_Eris fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 21:47
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Paragon8 posted:It makes you wonder what the end game for an evil wizard is. You take over the muggle world and then what... really the only thing muggles can offer wizards is material resources and being really bad versions of house elves. Not having to hide anymore would sway quite a few wizards. Its kind of inevitable that the Statute of Secrecy will be broken completely. Muggles seem to be catching up little by little. ashez2ashes fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 22:29
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bobkatt013 posted:I assumed she created it by coming up with a game more confusing than cricket. She failed if that was her aim.
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Jan 13, 2015 22:46
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Variant_Eris posted:I've always felt that Rowling went along with "the bigger the better" mindset. I don't think the goal was to make it confusing so much as to make it a vehicle for stupid, random, bizarre rules. Which you have to go a long way in order to out-crazy cricket. Similarly, the money system is supposed to be a send-up of currency pre-decimalization, but it's arguably still less stupid than the actual thing. quote:(T)here were 4 farthings in a penny, 12 pennies in a shilling (which you could make with a penny, a tuppence, a thruppenny and sixpence), there were 2 shillings in a florin, one and a quarter florins in a half-crown, 2 half-crowns in a crown (that one does make sense), 4 crowns in a pound (which was called a sovereign) whilst a guinea was made up of 1.05 pounds, or 21 shillings, or a crown, 2 half-crowns, 3 florins, 4 shillings, 5 sixpences, 4 thruppences, 3 tuppences, a penny and 44 farthings.
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Jan 14, 2015 05:13
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bobkatt013 posted:I assumed she created it by coming up with a game more confusing than cricket. It was supposedly inspired by basketball, which minus the snitch and the bludgers is basically what it is.
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Jan 14, 2015 17:34
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zachol posted:Real quidditch games last for hours or days and have scores running in the high hundreds. The real problem with quidditch in the books is they baby down the school snitch and shorten expected game length and score without changing point values. We also only see games that have really unnaturally talented Seekers in them - Harry, Krum, and Cedric are the only Seekers who ever catch the Snitch "on-screen" and they're all supposed to be way above average. A more typical school game probably runs the score up significantly more before the Snitch is caught.
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Jan 14, 2015 17:40
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Rowling at best might have been in the same room as a sport being played on TV but clearly has no interest or understanding in what makes sport interesting. Quidditch has very little depth and when she can Rowling does her best to avoid writing about it. It's a great whimsical spectacle but doesn't hold up very well.
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Jan 14, 2015 20:29
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