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Decius posted:Which was set by Newton. If it good enough for Sir Isaac... The thing that bothered me about this, and I guess it might just be a detail that is left out, but there is never any indication that the pro-Snitches or whatever are tinier/faster/smarter than the ones the kids use. Because how can these legendary games be taking place where pros are taking all day to find the snitch when little kids are playing the game for like an hour or two on a weekend between studying.
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Jun 26, 2011 16:47
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Szmitten posted:I've been re-reading the books and am totally bummed the thread is quiet. Order of the Phoenix. This is when Harry finally begins coming into his own and demonstrates the leadership qualities that show he actually can be a threat to Voldemort. In the previous novels he is heroic and does cool stuff, but seeing him organize Dumbledore's Army and fight Death Eaters turns him from a kid who is brave and a little better at fighting than the average teenage wizard to the leader and teacher that he needs to be to lead a resistance movement against Voldemort and his followers. Honestly, I was a little disappointed with HBP because I thought after the fight at the Ministry and the death of Sirius that he would become a lot more serious and start really trying to work with the Order and the DA to get ready for a confrontation with Voldemort and his supporters, but instead he went back to be worried about girls and stuff and didn't really continue growing into a leader like he had in OotP. I thought they would continue the whole "Harry is building a resistance movement among the students" theme but he just went back to school angst, and the plan to fight Voldemort got a little more 'video gamey' with the Horcrux quest if that makes sense, rather than playing out like an actual war.
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Dec 5, 2011 23:31
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bobkatt013 posted:An exact quote was his going on about how Slughorn talking about how Slytherins helped too. Yeah it was like "Let's not forget the role Slytherin house has played!" as he is following some other teachers. But I always thought that meant himself, Snape, maybe even Phineas and Regulus Black if he knew about them helping out (and he couldn't have known about what Narcissa did). I didn't get the impression from that one line that a bunch of teenagers who had earlier fled the scene had come back and kicked down the doors and started fighting Death Eaters though. Guy A. Person fucked around with this message at 16:29 on May 31, 2012 |
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May 31, 2012 16:27
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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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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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Zore posted:According to some interviews and such, Hermione does spend the rest of her life working for (and reforming) the ministry department that deals with magical creatures. Also Harry becomes an Auror, Ron does too and then quits to work at the joke shop, Neville becomes the Herbology professor and Luna becomes an explorer. I think, its been a while since I read it. Pertaining to the earlier discussion about "Muggle rights" too, you can read the last chapter where Ron and Harry talk about taking their driving tests as an indication that Wizard/Muggle relations are starting to open up (seriously, how many other wizards likely have driver's licenses based on what we saw in earlier books). And these changes are likely due to efforts made by this generation of Wizards, particularly Hermione and Harry. Like, one of the key themes of the seventh book was how even Dumbledore was also mostly wrong, and how Harry needed to move out of his shadow and start becoming his own man. Dumbledore cared enough about House Elves to treat them well while they remained slaves, he cared enough about humans to want to protect them, but he certainly didn't try to change the status quo of the wizard world. Now you have a bunch of wizards who have seen how there was a Great Wizarding War, then afterwards nothing changed and then the Second Wizarding War happened soon after and almost killed them. Obviously things don't change right away, but I always assumed by some of the hints mentioned above indicate that the survivors of the war from this generation (led by Harry and Hermione) start to actually work for change. The scene where Ron mentions the House Elves isn't there just so Hermione has an excuse to kiss him, it shows that even a dumb-dumb like Ron is starting to get how their dysfunctional relationships with other beings is leading to all sorts of hosed up problems (remember, Ron previously was always shown to be very conservative in his wizard society beliefs; he is certainly not as bad as the Malfoys but he still accepts things the way they are and is baffled by Harry and Hermione when they - being outsiders to this world - scoff at some super hosed up social standard).
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Dec 13, 2013 23:26
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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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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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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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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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It's been 7 years since the last book but only 2 years since the last movie, and they are already exploring new ways of branching out the series with the stage show and Fantastic Beasts. And let's be perfectly honest: the Star Wars EU did absolutely nothing to keep Star Wars a relevant franchise during the downtime between the original trilogy and Episode 1. Between the end of the last trilogy you have had more marketable stuff like video games and Clone Wars cartoons, etc. but authorized fan fiction didn't keep the series in the mind of the public. Frankly, none of that other stuff did either, the movies are the main draw and the other stuff is just a cash-in. I'm sure right now various parties are throwing money and contracts at Rowling to try and milk the cash cow in the short term, but I would rather see something legitimately good 10 years from now (either a movie reboot, or more books from Rowling, or some sort of other legitimate product) than a bunch of trash spreading out into infinity just to keep the train chugging along.
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Jan 21, 2014 20:42
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High Warlord Zog posted:I agree. But I think a lot of people fixate on this element of the epilogue when criticising it. The big problem with the epilogue is that it restores the status quo from the beginning of the series after four books spent revealing that the Wizarding world is a really lovely place and has been for a very long time, without even the tiniest shred of irony of self awareness. There was a little bit of discussion on this earlier (specifically that the Wizarding community is messed up), but I don't really buy this. The only "status quo" it really restores is that young wizards and witches go to Hogwarts and they all leave from King's Cross Station. And I guess that wizards and witches are more likely to have magical children, maybe. I don't see how this necessarily reflects on the rest of the Wizarding world as an insular and lovely place. The only other real bit of information you hear about the Wizarding community and its relation to the outside world is when Harry and Ron are talking about getting their driver's licenses. I would like to think this implies that the two worlds are becoming more integrated; or at least that Hermione, Harry and Ron in their capacity at the Ministry are becoming ambassadors to the outside world. Unless you think that wizarding schools in general should be abolished entirely at this point, and that all these kids should be going to school with regular children. Which is admirable but probably not practical. Even if you assume that wizards "came out" to the real world shortly after the events of Voldemort's defeat, it probably makes more sense for places like Hogwarts to adopt curriculum to reflect the rest of society, rather than to figure out how to integrate a bunch of kids who might accidentally melt off their classmate's faces into regular public schools.
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Feb 3, 2014 17:27
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I think what people might be missing is that the whole "they're fine with their situation! It's all they really know anyway!" was an argument for actual, real world slavery. The point of the storyline isn't that Hermione should have talked to the elves to find out their perspective, it's that freeing them would have been pointless because they have no place in Wizard society outside of their servitude. Hermione was eerily like actual people whose attitude was (and in some cases still is) "whelp, you're free now, time to bootstrap yourselves." You need to overhaul the entire system in order to really help them; in the end Dumbledor was basically still a slave owner even though he was a "kind" one.
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Feb 8, 2014 06:17
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jivjov posted:Didn't Dumbledore provide salaries and vacation days and the like to the house elves at Hogwarts? That makes him much more of an employer than a slave owner to me. I'm probably misremembering parts of it but my takeaway - particularly from Hermione's reaction to the situation - was that Dumbledore did more for them in general but they were still low class servants at the end of the day, and that their situation was far from desirable. I dunno, I'm definitely due for another read through; I just find it interesting how all of these conversations seem to tie together to form a overarching theme of the wizard world and even Hogwarts being kind of broken places. Hogwarts is certainly better on average but ultimately is still a product of the system at large. Dumbledore is flawed because he is still working within that broken system, Harry ultimately has to surpass him by changing the system (which unfortunately we don't see; but presumably he did as an adult at the Ministry).
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Feb 8, 2014 06:41
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Urdnot Fire posted:To be honest, I actually missed the way Harry kept taunting Voldemort and calling him "Tom". Also the entire (still living) cast watching the duel and exploding into insane cheers when Voldemort dropped was a moment of catharsis I felt was missing from the last film. The best addition was that, instead of "dead" Harry putting on the cloak and slipping away and causing a bunch of confusion, he literally just gets up and scampers off and Ron just kind of smirks with an "oh that Harry" look.
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Oct 27, 2014 17:56
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Well geez you would think she would want to do something special with the 4 year anniversary coming up.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:30
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It's finally been 4 years since the end of Harry Potter
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Dec 22, 2014 04:50
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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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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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Babe Magnet posted:You can't just say that anyone who's suffered from abuse feels the exact same way you do, that's pretty chode-like. It's also kind of "chode-like" to try and invalidate someone's personal experience and feelings because "I totally know a guy in the same situation". I also couldn't find where TheModernAmerican said he was speaking for everyone who has ever suffered from abuse; would you terribly mind quoting that for reference?
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Jan 15, 2015 17:59
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OoTP was definitely a big sloppy mess, and felt like the first one where the phenomenon of the series blinded everyone (Rowling, her editor, her publishers) to what a good, clean story should look like. It's also still my favorite by margin. I loved that this was the first one where it felt like Harry had actual autonomy and didn't have Dumbledore or whoever watching over his shoulder making sure he got things right. Also him wandering around to do things on his own was both merited in a way that wasn't before while ironically also having real consequences this time around. Seriously, the first two books the kids are being ridiculously irresponsible with what they are doing and the information they're withholding from teachers, and likely should have been killed instead of lucking into victory. I also really liked how Rowling evolved Harry into an actual leader, and showed how his courage inspired people. I felt like this thread was mostly dropped through book 6 and didn't really pick up until they got to Hogwarts in book 7, where they found out that Neville was trying to stand up to teachers and act as a surrogate Harry, and how the students have been hearing rumors about the gang's exploits which has given them courage to fight back. I always thought this was a better way for Harry to beat Voldemort, since he inspires people through hope and courage while Voldy does through fear. I thought the horcrux hunt was a stupid MacGuffin, and they should have focused more on Harry helping people and inspiring them to fight back. I didn't mind the angsty stuff because while it was turned up a huge notch this time around, it felt like it was tied into the narrative. Everyone was hiding things from Harry, he was being straight up tortured by Umbridge, he was having these frightening visions and was linked into Voldemort's anger, he was failing wildly at Occlumency with Snape who as usual was being a tremendous dickhead to Harry with Dumbledore never explaining why he should trust this surly rear end in a top hat. I felt like the teen emotions were running just as high in HBP but the love triangle poo poo in that one felt completely tangential to the plot instead of being driven by it. So yeah it is an overlong rambling mess, but it still has some of my favorite moments in the series. It's the book I pick up the most often to read a single passage I have dogeared, or start a chapter in the middle of the book and end up reading to the end.
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Jan 18, 2015 17:28
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It's pretty inconsistent in general but the short answer is that the fireplace needs to be hooked up to a floo network and use floo powder which might (?) be expensive; and the teleporting magic is dangerous, plus can't be done in a lot of places like Hogwarts.
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Jan 27, 2015 04:31
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Yeah I still can't believe that they made the longest book (at the point) into the shortest movie, by more than 20 minutes from the first two. And this was well after LOTR so it's not like it wasn't clear audiences could handle 2 and a half to 3 hour movies. It's one thing to cut all the side plots but OOtP felt like even the main plot was anemic.
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Jan 30, 2015 22:45
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Chucat posted:GoF actually felt like I was watching some bizarre highlights reel and when I watched it with someone who hadn't read the books I pretty much had to fill in all the gaps that the film left. Seeing GoF was basically my first introduction to Harry Potter and aside from not knowing who Sirius Black was when he showed up in the fire I didn't have an especially hard time following things. Although it does have one of the weirdest drat cuts of any of the movies. It's when McGonagall is having the students practice dancing for the Yule Ball, and everyone starts picking partners when the camera focuses on Neville building up his determination. So he starts to stand up and all of a sudden without a break in the music or anything, there is a cut to Harry and Ron walking down a corridor and finding Neville dancing by himself in his pajamas and some dress shoes. It is almost like a montage of all the things building up the ball is supposed to be starting but it doesn't go anywhere, it is so surreal at first I thought this was some kind of weird Neville dream sequence.
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Mar 16, 2015 18:21
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It was also less jarring when he turned out to be kind of a manipulative dick later in the series. Just like Alan Rickman bringing a little humanity to Snape in the earlier movies helped his transition into tragic hero. He is just an abusive rear end in a top hat in the books.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:53
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ImpAtom posted:Eh, I think Snape had some human moments in the books. Oh there were definitely humanizing moments, not the least of which is when he saves Harry's life in the first book and is pretty much always vindicated as doing the exact opposite thing Harry expects him to be doing. And you might even chalk some of his interactions with Harry up to Harry being a biased narrator. But still, man, he says some pretty reprehensible stuff to Harry, especially about his dead father. He is also pretty nasty to Neville and makes Hemione cry on a few occasions if I recall (one of the times it's directly about her appearance). He is an emotionally abusive teacher which is a pretty hosed up thing to be in any circumstance, and is not a very likable dude. Davros1 posted:There's a scene in PoA too, when Lupin turns into the wolf, and Snape pushes Harry, Hermione, and Ron behind him. This is definitely one of the scenes I was thinking about. There is also this scene, where Snape is being a dick but in a more playful, put upon way. It's really down to the way Rickman plays it, as well as them cutting out or toning down certain lines and interactions.
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Mar 18, 2015 14:41
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Avalerion posted:Being an awful teacher aside, Snape was totally down with letting Voldemort murder the child and husband of the woman he loved (more like creeped on, really), and only changed sides because Voldemort took her from him. I don't remember any indication that he had a change of heart regarding the death eater's philosophy even then, it was all personal. He was plain evil from beginning to end and even his heroic actions were selfish and could be put down to an act of revenge. Ehhh, I do think Snape changed over the 10 intervening years, especially once he became besties with Dumbledore. My favorite Snape line is when Dumbledore tells him Harry has to die, and when Dumbledore notices he is shocked and asks how many people he has already watched die, Snape replies "Lately only those I could not save". This change of heart just didn't extend to him not being a sneering rear end in a top hat to most people around him, particularly people he already had a grudge with. Ein cooler Typ posted:Hermione really is an insufferable know-it-all The time I was specifically thinking about is when someone jinxed her buck teeth to grow out of control, and when Harry/Ron asked if she could go to the nurse, Snape says "I don't see any difference". That's just needlessly drat cruel. Guy A. Person fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Mar 18, 2015 |
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Mar 18, 2015 20:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Snape is Rowling's Gollum-equivalent. He's a bad person and a jackass but he exists for the narrative purpose of demonstrating that even horrible, evil people can sometimes do good things and you shouldn't just write them off completely. Kreacher is the direct Gollum equivalent, a creature who has been twisted by the circumstances around him but who Gandalf/Dumbledore thinks should be pitied and treated with respect, and who ends up doing good in the end (and helping the "masters" that finally treat them with kindness and dignity). Snape is a full blown redemption arc, and it is weird that people chalk up everything he did later in his life to simple revenge. Like it was pretty reprehensible that he told Dumbledore he didn't really care if James or Harry died and just wanted to save Lilly, and Dumbledore was appropriately disgusted with him at the time. But a lot of the actions he took later in life were obviously not directed at simple getting revenge on Voldemort for killing her. If that was the case he wouldn't have been pissed at Dumbledore when he found out Harry had to "die at the right time" to defeat Voldemort. Hell, for the Snape you guys are describing, that would have been killing two birds with one stone! He could have even let Quirrell kill Harry in year one, this would have exposed Quirrell basically immediately and foiled Voldemort's plot. Like I said he is a total dick. But being a jerkass and being an irredeemable evil murderer are different things.
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Mar 19, 2015 19:39
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ashez2ashes posted:It was a common rumor that the position was cursed so he had a hell of a time finding defense against the dark arts teachers (according to Pottermore). Anyone actually good at the position would have known to stay the heck away from it. IIRC it wasn't even a rumor, Dumbledore flat out says it in book 6. And the point it becomes cursed is when Voldemort is rejected for the position, which is well before he became the dark lord. So you're talking in the area of 30 DatDA teachers before Quirrel even starts in book 1.
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Mar 22, 2015 04:37
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