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Ryoshi posted:Prisoner of Azkaban is so bad that it was all resolved by such a blatant deus ex machina that Rowling had to explicitly write it out of the next book by destroying every Time Turner in the world, pinky swear that's all of them, they kept them all in a single cabinet all together with no extra security and nobody thinks anything odd about that, and the ones Hogwarts had in the last book are there too for some reason, and nobody can make more because uh I don't recall them actually giving a reason, okay now there's dramatic tension again. Prisoner of Azkaban had them mention that all of them are taken care of by the Ministry of Magic, and she was a special case for even being allowed one. They also had more concerns then creating more, as they had a war going on.
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Dec 2, 2015 05:19
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Time-turners must be super unreliable to actually use. Suppose you have access to a time-turner, but get disarmed and cornered by your nemesis and about to be killed. What happens? A. You die. And then you stay dead, because you died. Your story ends here. B. Your future self appears behind your nemesis and kills him, saving your life. You then go back in time and be your future self in the past, saving yourself from death. Both A and B are possible outcomes of the scenario, and which one happens is completely arbitrary. You can save yourself only if you survive to do so, but you survive to do so only if you save yourself. Dying causes you to die, and living causes you to live. In Harry's case, B took place, but for all the choices the characters made in the story it could just as easily have been A. The outcome is decided entirely by the author, not by the characters or whatever passes for physics in a world with magic. Which means that in a war, a time-turner may be incredibly useful... or it may be entirely useless. You might see your friends die, and then be unable to save them with time-travel because there is only a single timeline and their deaths have already been fixed. Or you might see your friends saved by your future self, prompting you to rewind time and save them. Unless the author is intervening often enough to make the latter common, time-turners might not be that helpful. Hermione's use of it to "multitask" is probably the most reliable benefit they offer. Outside of that, they just give you the power to change the past with the major caveat that you're not allowed to actually change anything unless the universe decides to let you. What I'm saying is the stable time loop type of time travel is dumb and inevitably leaves the author's divine thumbprint on the world. But it's also not unreasonable for the time-turners to be unhelpful enough that it's not worth making more. It's still a deus ex machina to resolve the book, but most of the books are resolved by a deus ex machina of some sort. Harry has the power to melt Voldemort's face off with the vulcan death grip. Sorting hats have the power to conjure swords. Wand ownership now transfers every time you disarm someone even though it never did before. I can't even attempt to describe the golden ghost circle beam web thing. Lottery of Babylon has a new favorite as of 06:03 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 05:59
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How is it no one has made a wacky comedy Wizard College movie yet anyway?
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Dec 2, 2015 06:06
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They probably took a look at the loving dumpster fire that was Your Highness and decided they like money more than they like ridicule.
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Dec 2, 2015 06:49
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To post an irrationally irritating movie thiing that isn't just "I don't like Harry Potter" about Harry Potter: in the first movie/book, it makes it out like Harry is the hero that stopped Voldemort/Quirrell from getting the stone thing...but the only reason the stone came out of the mirror and was at risk of being gotten by voldemort was because Harry followed Quirrell in, and almost got himself killed on top of that. If Harry had just done nothing besides contact Dumbledore, Quirrell would still be stuck in front of the mirror trying to figure out how to get the stone out. It's almost like Dumbledore wanted Voldemort to get the stone by putting it behind such easily beaten enchantments/puzzles and egging Harry, one of the few people who knew about the mirror and was capable of getting the stone out, on in to going after it. It probably would have been more secure if he (dumbledore) had just kept it in his pocket.
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Dec 2, 2015 07:05
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Murphy Brownback posted:To post an irrationally irritating movie thiing that isn't just "I don't like Harry Potter" about Harry Potter: in the first movie/book, it makes it out like Harry is the hero that stopped Voldemort/Quirrell from getting the stone thing...but the only reason the stone came out of the mirror and was at risk of being gotten by voldemort was because Harry followed Quirrell in, and almost got himself killed on top of that. If Harry had just done nothing besides contact Dumbledore, Quirrell would still be stuck in front of the mirror trying to figure out how to get the stone out. Every single thing that happens after the first chapter of the first book is because Dumbledore could have done "X". EVERYTHING he does is because he's a sociopath. My IIMM with Harry Potter is the fourth one. Everyone constantly tells Harry "You have to compete!" Uh, no he loving doesn't. There is nothing stopping Harry from just forfeiting. Even if he for some reason has to go to every event all he has to do is give up before it starts or just as it's starting. The whole book is how Harry feels like he's in over his head, the better thematic choice would have been for Rowling to acknowledge what actually happened anyway. Harry is a glory-hog and loved every second of it.
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Dec 2, 2015 07:23
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My Irrational Irritation with Harry Potter is that some people are so appropriately named. I know  , and it's fun to realize it when you hash out the pun, but forty years prior, Mr. and Mrs. Scamander decided that they should name their son Newt because he would grow up to write a book about magical
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Dec 2, 2015 08:00
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Light Gun Man posted:How is it no one has made a wacky comedy Wizard College movie yet anyway? Animal House X Harry Potter would be amazing, but all the "Movie Movie"s have driven parody into the ground. Old parodies were films like Airplane that referenced other works while being a good example of that genre themselves, while also setting up their own complex jokes. Modern parodies are just cramming as many references in as possible. The family guy method of humor.
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Dec 2, 2015 08:01
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kinmik posted:My Irrational Irritation with Harry Potter is that some people are so appropriately named. I know Which makes the way Harry names his son after two staggeringly unstable wizards and incredibly irresponsible thing. His kid is destined for a wizard Columbine.
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Dec 2, 2015 08:40
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"Finishing in the dining hall, Harry and Ron turn their wands on themselves"
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Dec 2, 2015 08:46
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kinmik posted:My Irrational Irritation with Harry Potter is that some people are so appropriately named. I know It's called Nominative Determinism, and it happens in real life plenty
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Dec 2, 2015 09:01
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Light Gun Man posted:How is it no one has made a wacky comedy Wizard College movie yet anyway?
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Dec 2, 2015 09:35
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My Lovely Horse posted:If you're really into the idea there's an old computer game series called Spellcasting. It just seems like such an obvious idea. I guess this post has the most likely scenario though Zaphod42 posted:Animal House X Harry Potter would be amazing, but all the "Movie Movie"s have driven parody into the ground. Perhaps it would be a chance at a return to form of quality parody films but ahahhahahaha no that won't happen
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Dec 2, 2015 09:37
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Light Gun Man posted:It just seems like such an obvious idea. I guess this post has the most likely scenario though Black Dynamite was great, but was also six years ago.
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Dec 2, 2015 10:21
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BiggerBoat posted:"I hate these books so much I read FOUR of them!" And if I hadn't read them, I would instead be getting the "how can you criticise them when you haven't even read them?  " poo poo, plus the "the later ones are better" thing that someone already mentioned. I know this because that's exactly what I got when I told some Potter fans I know that the first two books were diabolical poo poo and exactly why I read the other five.
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Dec 2, 2015 11:17
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bewilderment posted:Black Dynamite was great, but was also six years ago. Yeah Black Dynamite is the only recent one I've seen that works, and that's because there's obviously a lot of love for the original source material rather just using it as a setting for cramming in poo poo jokes.
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Dec 2, 2015 12:46
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Josef bugman posted:"Finishing in the dining hall, Harry and Ron turn their wands on themselves" Hahaha. Is that from "Wizard People, Dear Reader." Because I immediately read it in Neely's voice.
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Dec 2, 2015 14:39
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Pook Good Mook posted:Every single thing that happens after the first chapter of the first book is because Dumbledore could have done "X". EVERYTHING he does is because he's a sociopath. What's worse, the entire plan (which was predicated upon on a bad guy infiltrating the hogwarts faculty, keeping a person alive in a box so they could be harvested for hair to create shape-changing potions which had to be drunk every few hours for an entire year, spoofing a magical artifact to have Harry join the triwizard tournament and planting clues on other students to guide him through the challenges, ensuring that somehow this fourth-year student outcompete several other, more qualified wizards to win the games, all while the bad guy actually teaches a class all year to maintain his secret identity) culminates in getting Harry to touch a cup. It didn't even have to be a cup, it could have been literally any object. Crouch could have shown up and enchanted one of Harry's shoes while he was sleeping, or his broomstick, or any number of other objects that didn't require fooling an entire school full of powerful wizards for eight months to cheat at an elaborate and deadly sequence of challenges which had no way of completely ensuring Harry would be the first person to complete the maze. He didn't even have to wait for school to begin! He could have just written "Gotcha" on a piece of paper, made it a portkey and mailed it to harry in july.
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Dec 2, 2015 15:08
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Remember, Hogwarts is completely safe from intrusion. You can't apparate there, after all, we're told about a million times over the series. But you can enchant a cup. Or fly. Or use a house elf to teleport. Or be an animagus and just walk onto the grounds. Or sprinkle some powder into a fireplace. Yep, totally safe.
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Dec 2, 2015 16:52
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Gorilla Salad posted:Remember, Hogwarts is completely safe from intrusion. You can't apparate there, after all, we're told about a million times over the series. Well Voldemort manages to get into Hogwarts in the very first book, so at that point all discussions of safety have already flown out the window. Like I've said before, Rowling is a great mystery and drama writer but she's an awful fantasy writer. The world of HP falls apart really fast if you think about any of it more than a minute. The books go too far into trying to explain how things work, which just creates contradictions, and it all ends up getting hand-waved away as "magic" in the end anyways. The biggest thing that bothered me about the movies was how inconsistent they were about use of explicit magic. In the books you pretty much always have to say the latin spell phrase, right? In the books literally half the time they're spellcasting its just flinging wands around while magical things happen that we've never heard of being a spell before. It makes sense that Dumbledore and co would know more spells than Harry, but just silently flicking your wand and having everything you want happen seems kinda anathema to the whole wizard school mentality. Its "Leviosa" not "Levio-sah"; ...except when you don't need to say anything at all  I get that it would get pretty old to hear the spell names over and over in the films, but they just completely fabricate spells that weren't in the books IIRC.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:09
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Man people get mad about the logic in children's books. Like, drat, how does Peter rabbit talk rabbits don't have vocal cords for speaking.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:35
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Someone makes the same witty quip that disregards the difference between internal and external consistency every time this sort of conversation happens and it is just as witty and valid and not stupid every time.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:41
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ChogsEnhour posted:Hahaha. Is that from "Wizard People, Dear Reader." Because I immediately read it in Neely's voice. "Gulp," says Harry
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Dec 2, 2015 17:44
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Ignite Memories posted:What's worse, the entire plan (which was predicated upon on a bad guy infiltrating the hogwarts faculty, keeping a person alive in a box so they could be harvested for hair to create shape-changing potions which had to be drunk every few hours for an entire year, spoofing a magical artifact to have Harry join the triwizard tournament and planting clues on other students to guide him through the challenges, ensuring that somehow this fourth-year student outcompete several other, more qualified wizards to win the games, all while the bad guy actually teaches a class all year to maintain his secret identity) culminates in getting Harry to touch a cup. Crouch didn't make the portkey, he hacked one that Dumbledore (who has admin access and can ignore hogwarts anti-teleport poo poo) already made. Just like how he hacked the Goblet. It's consistent, even if it isn't explicitly spelled out.
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Dec 2, 2015 17:54
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Zaphod42 posted:Its "Leviosa" not "Levio-sah"; ...except when you don't need to say anything at all They cover nonverbal spells in either the fifth or sixth book (or both). You just say the incantation in your head or something.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:02
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Murphy Brownback posted:They cover nonverbal spells in either the fifth or sixth book (or both). You just say the incantation in your head or something. Hm, guess I missed that line, I read everything but Deathly Hallows. That covers not saying the spell then, but still doesn't make up for the films basically inventing poo poo that weren't in the books. Although that's not Rowling's fault and is kinda par for the course with book -> movie adaptations.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:18
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Zaphod42 posted:Hm, guess I missed that line, I read everything but Deathly Hallows. It's not a single line, it's the main focus of all their magic lessons in book 6.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:28
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AnonSpore posted:Someone makes the same witty quip that disregards the difference between internal and external consistency every time this sort of conversation happens and it is just as witty and valid and not stupid every time. Well at least the shitposting here is internally consistent
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Dec 2, 2015 18:37
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Lottery of Babylon posted:It's not a single line, it's the main focus of all their magic lessons in book 6. Hm, doesn't ring a bell but it has been years and years. 
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Dec 2, 2015 18:38
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Aren't the incantations much like the Sam Neil version of Merlin? Lowest level: You must make a motion and say a phrase (use a wand and recite the incantation). Mid Level: You make a more subtle motion and don't have to say it out loud. Top Level: You can do everything with just your mind and maybe a little flick of the wrist (Voldemort and Dumbledore can cast some without a wand. Same with the mystery wizard physicist in the first movie stirring his tea my moving the spoon silently and without a wand.) Inzombiac has a new favorite as of 19:01 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 18:48
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AnonSpore posted:Someone makes the same witty quip that disregards the difference between internal and external consistency every time this sort of conversation happens and it is just as witty and valid and not stupid every time. All I'm saying is I don't think children's books have to be internally consistant. The whimsy factor is meant to inspire the imagination of children not world build. It's very much the difference between the hobbit and lord of the rings. One is more whimsical because it's a children's book and doesn't care about such things. Lord of the rings tries to build a coherent world so it's more subject to criticism.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:18
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RagnarokAngel posted:All I'm saying is I don't think children's books have to be internally consistant. The whimsy factor is meant to inspire the imagination of children not world build. It's very much the difference between the hobbit and lord of the rings. One is more whimsical because it's a children's book and doesn't care about such things. Lord of the rings tries to build a coherent world so it's more subject to criticism. Yeah, but the thing is that Rowling invited the criticism herself by trying to ramp up the seriousness of the series as she went, whether by design or in an attempt to match the expectations of a reader base that had gone from young children to young adults in the time between volumes 1 and 7.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:26
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RagnarokAngel posted:All I'm saying is I don't think children's books have to be internally consistant. The whimsy factor is meant to inspire the imagination of children not world build. It's very much the difference between the hobbit and lord of the rings. One is more whimsical because it's a children's book and doesn't care about such things. Lord of the rings tries to build a coherent world so it's more subject to criticism. If its just like, a kids fairy tale, an Aesop's Fable, then no it doesn't have to be internally consistent so much. But when its a 4,224 page book series that goes into detail on things like Remembralls and poo poo, well, that's a little different. That's more like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Now Star Wars isn't always completely consistent either (especially the EU, although Disney jettisoned that) but its perfectly valid to criticize and it does detract from the narrative in some ways when things seem inconsistent. Or at the very least its gross, like Luke making out with Leia. And HP books always felt more "young adult" than just strictly kids to me, and I always heard them marketed as "books that appeal to adults as well as kids". AnonSpore posted:Yeah, but the thing is that Rowling invited the criticism herself by trying to ramp up the seriousness of the series as she went, whether by design or in an attempt to match the expectations of a reader base that had gone from young children to young adults in the time between volumes 1 and 7. Also this.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:29
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The problem with a book series is that, once it's published, is really hard to change your mind later. Something might seem perfect in book 1, but makes no sense in book 3 because the story requirements are different. See: timeturners.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:43
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Aleph Null posted:The problem with a book series is that, once it's published, is really hard to change your mind later. Thats kind of where being a good author and not just pulling stuff out your rear end as you go along comes in.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:50
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ChogsEnhour posted:Hahaha. Is that from "Wizard People, Dear Reader." Because I immediately read it in Neely's voice. Nahhh, its a quote from mock the week.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:50
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Y'all need to read those goddamn Lev Grossman books because it is just 900 pages of this kind of sperging, plus what if Harry Potter was a neurotic hipster rear end in a top hat and all his friends were entitled upper middle class dicks.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:56
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Aleph Null posted:The problem with a book series is that, once it's published, is really hard to change your mind later. Though didn't Rowling constantly say that she planned most of the books out in advance? I mean the first book was just written on napkins but after that I thought there was supposed to be a master plan behind everything, maybe not. And even if that's how it was planned maybe she just kept thinking it'd be better a different way or something.
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Dec 2, 2015 20:06
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Zaphod42 posted:Though didn't Rowling constantly say that she planned most of the books out in advance? I mean the first book was just written on napkins but after that I thought there was supposed to be a master plan behind everything, maybe not. And even if that's how it was planned maybe she just kept thinking it'd be better a different way or something. For a writer, a book is never finished. There are always new and better ideas. At some point, you just have to stop and ship it. I'm sure there were plenty of "why didn't I think of that earlier?" gnashing of teeth moments.
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Dec 2, 2015 20:11
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Zaphod42 posted:Though didn't Rowling constantly say that she planned most of the books out in advance? I mean the first book was just written on napkins but after that I thought there was supposed to be a master plan behind everything, maybe not. And even if that's how it was planned maybe she just kept thinking it'd be better a different way or something. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard someone claim, "Oh, I've had everything planned out from the beginning." Double for when they are a D&D GM.
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Dec 2, 2015 20:33
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