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amigolupus
Aug 25, 2017

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway? She's spent six years at Hogwarts watching James and his little cronies strut around terrorizing people, including her best friend for the high crime of "existing". I know Sirius mentioned that James eased up on pranking people in their seventh year and only cursed Snape while Lily wasn't around to witness it, but that's still six years of Lily knowing James as a bullying rear end in a top hat and creeps who keeps asking her out.

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Barudak
May 7, 2007

amigolupus posted:

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway? She's spent six years at Hogwarts watching James and his little cronies strut around terrorizing people, including her best friend for the high crime of "existing". I know Sirius mentioned that James eased up on pranking people in their seventh year and only cursed Snape while Lily wasn't around to witness it, but that's still six years of Lily knowing James as a bullying rear end in a top hat and creeps who keeps asking her out.

You ever see the movie Cool as Ice? Lily would have found it very romantic.

halokiller
Dec 28, 2008

Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves


Lily is obviously tsundere.

josh04
Oct 19, 2008


"THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"

This title contains sponsored content.

amigolupus posted:

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway? She's spent six years at Hogwarts watching James and his little cronies strut around terrorizing people, including her best friend for the high crime of "existing". I know Sirius mentioned that James eased up on pranking people in their seventh year and only cursed Snape while Lily wasn't around to witness it, but that's still six years of Lily knowing James as a bullying rear end in a top hat and creeps who keeps asking her out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nDq1HoNm-E

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo
Did Snape actually stalk Lily or anything? He drops a racial slur to her face which is, uh, problematic, but I think after that he respects her wishes to break off contact. He becomes obsessed with her after he accidentally gets her murdered. Again, very problematic there Severus, but understandable.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


amigolupus posted:

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway? She's spent six years at Hogwarts watching James and his little cronies strut around terrorizing people, including her best friend for the high crime of "existing". I know Sirius mentioned that James eased up on pranking people in their seventh year and only cursed Snape while Lily wasn't around to witness it, but that's still six years of Lily knowing James as a bullying rear end in a top hat and creeps who keeps asking her out.

He was handsome and rich and it turns out Lily was super shallow.

Asterite34
May 19, 2009



amigolupus posted:

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway? She's spent six years at Hogwarts watching James and his little cronies strut around terrorizing people, including her best friend for the high crime of "existing". I know Sirius mentioned that James eased up on pranking people in their seventh year and only cursed Snape while Lily wasn't around to witness it, but that's still six years of Lily knowing James as a bullying rear end in a top hat and creeps who keeps asking her out.

She IS Petunia's sister, and she certainly married a mean spirited jackass who peaked in high school but was upwardly mobile and well-off. If James Potter had lived I suspect he'd eventually turn into a somewhat Vernon-like figure, a bourgeois gammon always talking about how he could have gone pro at quidditch if not for the trick knee. And Lily would be Magic Petunia always talking about how rich and accomplished her husband is and oh how talented our Harry is at Hogwarts

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
I never really saw Lily as having the same disposition as Petunia since I always kinda saw Petunia's behavior as deep seated resentment that she wasn't welcome at the magic school and she and Lily never got a chance to let bygones by bygones and get past the kind of stupid child resentment that springs up when one of the children feels special and important and the other child feels left out and eventually internalizes it as never having wanted to be a part of the special club to begin with. I'm pretty sure this is entirely a made up scenario in my own head but what I always imagined was that Petunia was trying to claim some of that special feeling by pretending to be magic and trying to work spells and then Lily, like kids are prone to doing, told Petunia she was dumb for trying and that it wasn't ever going to work because she wasn't special and the shame and rejection just poisoned petunia all the way to the core. Doesn't really excuse all the child abuse though, something I find myself saying often when talking about the various adult characters in Harry Potter.

James meanwhile I just see as a somewhat more respectable version of Sirius. Not really a Vernon type but definitely more capable of holding down a job than Sirius was. My impression of Lily was that she was hard working but by no means was she the perfect person she was made out to be. Both of them died before they really got a chance to show what kind of choices they would make to try and mend ties with their families but I do give them a good amount of credit because they both died as members of an organization that existed to try and stop Wizard Hitler. I feel like Lily was probably the more ardent opposition to pureblood supremacy but that a significant part of her attraction to James was rooted in his willingness to go out and take action against people of fascist ideology. even though he had been a stupid airheaded git in high school. those same moronic urges meant that when push came to shove James was willing to put his life on the line when a lot of wizards were too frightened or passively accepting of Voldemort's entire shtick. My impression is that being willing to do incredibly dumb life threatening poo poo and lucky enough that he managed to fight for his beliefs and escape, possibly occasionally resulting in lives saved from death eater terrorism, counted a hell of a lot more in Lily's eyes than whether he was particularly smart or whether he had been a good person when he was a teenager. James was fighting for the less-bad cause and he was willing to fight even if he wasn't sure it would be without consequence to him and I think Lily was honestly just grateful to have found someone who was actually trying to stop encroaching facism even though it was scary.

James, who I view as being the shallow one in the relationship, was probably just thinking this smoking hot redhead is really into protecting muggles and I personally don't like several of the asshats who are all getting that dumb as gently caress skull and snake tattoo, time to go do some crazy poo poo like what I used to do on the quidditch field to impress chicks but this time instead of Big Sports Hero I'm gonna be James Potter The Guy Who Saved the Status Quo.

This is all entirely fanfiction of my own devising though because we really never get a good look into their characters besides a couple instances where we see James at school or his trophies and what Lupin and Sirius had to say after the fact. Lily might as well not exist as a character when nobody is talking about Harry's eyes.

reignofevil fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Apr 17, 2021

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Edgar Allen Ho posted:

Did Snape actually stalk Lily or anything? He drops a racial slur to her face which is, uh, problematic, but I think after that he respects her wishes to break off contact. He becomes obsessed with her after he accidentally gets her murdered. Again, very problematic there Severus, but understandable.

Yeah, all signs are he just immersed himself in his Wizard Nazism after Lily broke ties with him because he was miserable. The books are very clear Snape is of the "I need friends" type of Nazi. It doesn't justify his actions but the way hate groups manipulate the lonely outcasts of the world is something people need to face up to instead of describing all Nazis as various kinds of demons.

Snape narratively evolved into the midway point between Harry and Voldemort. A lot of folks see him as still a total shithead but the story's most central theme, that of the power of love, makes it pretty clear he could have been a far worse shithead if he hadn't had those feelings for Lily. He's no (Saint) Harry but he's equally far removed from Voldemort in that he never totally forsook his humanity.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
Nah gently caress that poo poo. A nazi is a nazi is a nazi and if he wanted friends so bad he coulda considered dropping the racism a bit (which he absolutely had in school) not being so into curses and maybe washing his damned hair. There are tons and tons of people in this world both magical and nonmagical who were available to be friends with him and probably just as many who really needed a friend who weren't weird tattoo racists who wanted to enslave everybody who wasn't born with their special innate abilities. Like probably anybody in Hufflepuff. My personal feelings are that Snape really really wanted a romantic relationship with what was basically the first female he had ever encountered (prior to hogwarts even iirc) and when it turns out she wasn't into it and only really wanted him as a friend he joined a society devoted to enslaving or killing her. Then whoopsies it turns out the most predictable thing ever happened and she ended up dead, suddenly he feels really bad about it.

I have no sympathy for Snape. He was fantastic at making potions but instead of leaning into that and helping people become better at the things they were good at and eventually building a community of friends around that he decided to join the nazis at an age where he really has no excuse for not knowing better.

reignofevil fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Apr 17, 2021

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


I am kind of surprised that Rowling hasn't just gone all prequel series with James and his crew during his time at Hogwarts. That seems like a really easy moneymaking move. Like she could even do the standard prequel thing where all those instances you saw of James being a shithead to Snape turned out to have a different context where he had his reason for doing it.

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo

reignofevil posted:

I never really saw Lily as having the same disposition as Petunia since I always kinda saw Petunia's behavior as deep seated resentment that she wasn't welcome at the magic school and she and Lily never got a chance to let bygones by bygones and get past the kind of stupid child resentment that springs up when one of the children feels special and important and the other child feels left out and eventually internalizes it as never having wanted to be a part of the special club to begin with. I'm pretty sure this is entirely a made up scenario in my own head but what I always imagined was that Petunia was trying to claim some of that special feeling by pretending to be magic and trying to work spells and then Lily, like kids are prone to doing, told Petunia she was dumb for trying and that it wasn't ever going to work because she wasn't special and the shame and rejection just poisoned petunia all the way to the core. Doesn't really excuse all the child abuse though, something I find myself saying often when talking about the various adult characters in Harry Potter.

James meanwhile I just see as a somewhat more respectable version of Sirius. Not really a Vernon type but definitely more capable of holding down a job than Sirius was. My impression of Lily was that she was hard working but by no means was she the perfect person she was made out to be. Both of them died before they really got a chance to show what kind of choices they would make to try and mend ties with their families but I do give them a good amount of credit because they both died as members of an organization that existed to try and stop Wizard Hitler. I feel like Lily was probably the more ardent opposition to pureblood supremacy but that a significant part of her attraction to James was rooted in his willingness to go out and take action against people of fascist ideology. even though he had been a stupid airheaded git in high school. those same moronic urges meant that when push came to shove James was willing to put his life on the line when a lot of wizards were too frightened or passively accepting of Voldemort's entire shtick. My impression is that being willing to do incredibly dumb life threatening poo poo and lucky enough that he managed to fight for his beliefs and escape, possibly occasionally resulting in lives saved from death eater terrorism, counted a hell of a lot more in Lily's eyes than whether he was particularly smart or whether he had been a good person when he was a teenager. James was fighting for the less-bad cause and he was willing to fight even if he wasn't sure it would be without consequence to him and I think Lily was honestly just grateful to have found someone who was actually trying to stop encroaching facism even though it was scary.

James, who I view as being the shallow one in the relationship, was probably just thinking this smoking hot redhead is really into protecting muggles and I personally don't like several of the asshats who are all getting that dumb as gently caress skull and snake tattoo, time to go do some crazy poo poo like what I used to do on the quidditch field to impress chicks but this time instead of Big Sports Hero I'm gonna be James Potter The Guy Who Saved the Status Quo.

This is all entirely fanfiction of my own devising though because we really never get a good look into their characters besides a couple instances where we see James at school or his trophies and what Lupin and Sirius had to say after the fact. Lily might as well not exist as a character when nobody is talking about Harry's eyes.

I think you might be remembering one of the movie bits a little bit, one of the memory goop flashbacks from either six, seven, or seven part two. The lines are one of the parts that are burned into my brain:

"She's jealous because you're special and she's not."
"That's mean, Severus."

muscles like this! posted:

I am kind of surprised that Rowling hasn't just gone all prequel series with James and his crew during his time at Hogwarts. That seems like a really easy moneymaking move. Like she could even do the standard prequel thing where all those instances you saw of James being a shithead to Snape turned out to have a different context where he had his reason for doing it.

I think this is almost certain to happen sooner or later. Basically make it wizard Riverdale and it will print money. There's four cute boys who can transform into cute animals and then another cute boy who is dark and brooding and sad over in the corner. There's also like the Black sisters, Malfoy's bangin mom, Tonks senior who probably has purple hair or something, and Helena Bonham Carter. They all do a bunch of teenage drama. There is a sexy hot tub hidden in their school. This poo poo is heroin to teenagers, in my experience as a teenager.

Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Apr 17, 2021

YaketySass
Jan 15, 2019

Blind Idiot Dog
If anything the "good guys" have the opposite problem to Petunia's resentment, where they're too apathetic toward people not inside their special club. House Elves, Magical Beasts, Muggles, Squibs*, whenever it comes up that "hey, isn't it kind of hosed up that you have all this power and they don't", they just shrug and go "welp, that's just how the world works, let's not treat them as badly as the bad guys". Harry's very first introduction to that world begins with Hagrid telling him "we can't reveal ourselves to Muggles, they'd want us to help them and poo poo" and everybody is basically fine with horrifying stuff like erasing memories or everything Azkaban-related if it's to support the status quo, they just don't like it when it happens to the wrong person.

*The part where Harry discovers Filch takes obviously scammy lessons to learn Magic 101 is the saddest part of the whole series IMHO.

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo
Shout out to the centaurs, who got offered the classification of "being" by the Ministry and went "gently caress no, we reject your system, we choose beast"

josh04
Oct 19, 2008


"THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"

This title contains sponsored content.

The context in OotP when we find out that James et al were grandstanding assholes is the parts where Fred and George are pushing the limits of the school rules and doing all kinds of outrageous pranks that Harry is fully in favour of. The point is less that James was an irredeemable rear end in a top hat too, than that whoever they were at school Lily and James had friends and support that meant they kept growing after they left school, where Snape fell in with a bunch of wizard Nazis who kept him in the same place until he finally got his revenge-prank of having them both murdered.

But idk if we ever catch up with Montague who Fred and George severly injured with one of their pranks to see if the cycle of violence continued.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

amigolupus posted:

The biggest unanswered mystery in HP is why the gently caress did Lily choose to end up with James Potter anyway?

An entirely offscreen process of building a romantic relationship. For some reason, Harry wasn't intensely interested in investigating his parents loving and Snape wasn't very perceptive of his high school enemy's romantic appeal to his unrequited crush.

josh04
Oct 19, 2008


"THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"

This title contains sponsored content.

Worth remembering too that Harry was too stupid to decode the mystery of Fred asking Angelina to the ball. He is not a sharp emotional reader.

YaketySass
Jan 15, 2019

Blind Idiot Dog

SlothfulCobra posted:

An entirely offscreen process of building a romantic relationship.

like father like son

Feldegast42
Oct 29, 2011

COMMENCE THE RITE OF SHITPOSTING

YaketySass posted:

like father like son

I still think the Harry / Ginny "relationship" is the worst bit of the last two books because its almost entirely offscreen and she is barely there narratively after book 2

Really sucks when your main theme is the power of love

Its not even a shipping thing, its just that there is nothing there at all

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



The romantic relationships in HP were always the worst=written part of HP.

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo

NikkolasKing posted:

The romantic relationships in HP were always the worst=written part of HP.

well yeah, JK Rowling was an extremely hetero extremely cis (and also extremely trash terf centrist gammon) woman trying to write from the perspective of a hetero teenaged boy. So you get poo poo like "Sirius loomed sexily from the doorway, his tight abs and thin-yet-oh-so-toned arms crossed hornily while his long dark hair hung just so down to his shoulders. Also Ginny was there and she smelled nice and was good sports, what a hottie."

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Edgar Allen Ho posted:

well yeah, JK Rowling was an extremely hetero extremely cis (and also extremely trash terf centrist gammon) woman trying to write from the perspective of a hetero teenaged boy. So you get poo poo like "Sirius loomed sexily from the doorway, his tight abs and thin-yet-oh-so-toned arms crossed hornily while his long dark hair hung just so down to his shoulders. Also Ginny was there and she smelled nice and was good sports, what a hottie."

The Sirius of the series is always pretty ugly. I don't think she ever describes him as anything other than skeletal and with long hair. Bellatrix was quite lovely and got a description of said loveliness but they both ended up pretty permanently ugly from years of hell prison.

Tom Riddle as a young man absolutely gets a lot of talk about how handsome he was, though.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Edgar Allen Ho posted:

well yeah, JK Rowling was an extremely hetero extremely cis (and also extremely trash terf centrist gammon) woman trying to write from the perspective of a hetero teenaged boy. So you get poo poo like "Sirius loomed sexily from the doorway, his tight abs and thin-yet-oh-so-toned arms crossed hornily while his long dark hair hung just so down to his shoulders. Also Ginny was there and she smelled nice and was good sports, what a hottie."

you're thinking of cassandra claire

GodFish
Oct 10, 2012

We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.
Nah Harry narrates a lot about how hot Sirius is/was. And more about good young grindlewald looks than Ginny.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things
You guys may need to reread HBP because Harry is constantly staring at Ginny throughout the entire book.

A lot of this feels more like criticism of the fan community and popular fanfics more than the original work

Edgar Allen Ho
Apr 3, 2017

by sebmojo
It also definitely has a Voldemort pensieve scene where he asks Dumbledore* to be Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and smuggle the tiara horcrux into the Room of Requirement, and Harry very deliberately comments on how hot Tom Riddle has become even though he's even skinnier and snakier-looking than he was before.

Maybe Harry/Jo Rowling is just into skinny men.

*yet another score against letting this guy be principal- he went out of his way to recruit Tom Riddle to Hogwarts and 8-year-old Tom went off on a scary psycho rant about how he loves murdering the other kids' pets and hosed up some of them in the zombie cave

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
My understanding of the whole situation re: Petunia and Lily was that Lily found out she had magic, Petunia was initially scared, then envious. Later on, Lily started hanging out with Snape before they went to Hogwarts because he had magic too and could tell her stuff about the magical world, and Petunia took to eavesdropping on them because she felt left out. Then on Lily's first day, before departing for Hogwarts, she mentioned that she'd try talking to Dumbledore to see if she could change his mind, because apparently somehow Petunia had managed to send him a letter begging to be allowed to attend Hogwarts, and he sent her a response that ruthlessly crushed her dreams forever, at which point Petunia got embarrassed and angry and shouted that her sister was a freak and she never wanted to be like her or go to her dumb wizard school.

reignofevil
Nov 7, 2008
A+ work Dumbledore you really knocked it out of the park again.

TinTower
Apr 21, 2010

You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Jazerus posted:

you're thinking of cassandra claire

I still find it hilarious how the name of her wildly successful YA series is the same as the Weasleycest fanfiction she wrote.

NikkolasKing posted:

The romantic relationships in HP were always the worst=written part of HP.

Nah, the worst-written parts were JKR trying to make her weird views on rape sound normal.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



W.T. Fits posted:

My understanding of the whole situation re: Petunia and Lily was that Lily found out she had magic, Petunia was initially scared, then envious. Later on, Lily started hanging out with Snape before they went to Hogwarts because he had magic too and could tell her stuff about the magical world, and Petunia took to eavesdropping on them because she felt left out. Then on Lily's first day, before departing for Hogwarts, she mentioned that she'd try talking to Dumbledore to see if she could change his mind, because apparently somehow Petunia had managed to send him a letter begging to be allowed to attend Hogwarts, and he sent her a response that ruthlessly crushed her dreams forever, at which point Petunia got embarrassed and angry and shouted that her sister was a freak and she never wanted to be like her or go to her dumb wizard school.

Lily's account is Dumbledore was "very kind" in the letter.


TinTower posted:

Nah, the worst-written parts were JKR trying to make her weird views on rape sound normal.

What are you referring to here?

TinTower
Apr 21, 2010

You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

NikkolasKing posted:

What are you referring to here?

"Voldemort was evil because he was a rape baby" is the most obvious example, and then you figure out a lot more weird rapey stuff. Like the centaurs, or the whole "Comoran Strike threatened a trans woman with prison rape" part of one her post-HP books.

Love potions in particular are something that Rowling was never consistent on; it's supposed to be an unspeakable evil that Merope used a love potion on Riddle Sr, but at the same time, the Weasley twins were selling them as schoolyard pranks.

Cranappleberry
Jan 27, 2009

Lily was definitely the more focused and upstanding of Harry's parents. Harry got his more adventurous, hotheaded and lazy side from his dad (that and his abuse) if such thing are carried in wizard genes, idfk since quidditch somehow is.

James and his family were so fanatically anti-pureblood supremacy and dark magic that the remaining pureblood families (excluding the Weasleys) got together and kicked his family out of the sacred 29. They were considered more uncouth than the Weasleys. James and his family hated anyone associated with pureblood supremacy and dark magic such that they and he hated anyone associated with Slytherin (the origin of the pureblood nonsense at Hoggy Warty Hogwarts) including nearly Sirius as his whole family was Slytherins and Snape automatically after he was selected for Slytherin (also because he was best friends with Lily).

James was absolutely a shallow ponce but Snape was a "nice guy" who never revealed his feelings just assuming Lily would want him when she saw their relationship as friendship. He was deeply resentful of James and Sirius because he never got credit for his talent and studious attitudes outside his House (most of which was his recruitment for the Death Eaters by older students like Malfoy). Plus he totally followed all the rules! He was absolutely headhunted by the Death Eaters and his "friends" were far worse than James and Sirius, outright torturing and terrifying muggleborns while in school. This further drove James and Sirius to target him. He also made excuses for his torturing and murdering friends and after school was totally down for helping them as much as possible right up until Voldemort killed Lily. Only after it affected him did it matter.

Cranappleberry fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Apr 18, 2021

Cranappleberry
Jan 27, 2009

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

It also definitely has a Voldemort pensieve scene where he asks Dumbledore* to be Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and smuggle the tiara horcrux into the Room of Requirement, and Harry very deliberately comments on how hot Tom Riddle has become even though he's even skinnier and snakier-looking than he was before.

This isn't correct, he mentions how Tom's features have become melted and distorted like candlewax and that dude in Sunshine who was blurred by constant exposure to heavy gravity and intense light of the Sun.

NikkolasKing posted:

Bellatrix was quite lovely and got a description of said loveliness but they both ended up pretty permanently ugly from years of hell prison.

Harry has a bordering-on-morbid fascination with Bellatrix. He comments on her beauty almost to the point of being attracted to her as well as attracted to her intensity, poise and talent.

Asterite34
May 19, 2009



Edgar Allen Ho posted:

*yet another score against letting this guy be principal- he went out of his way to recruit Tom Riddle to Hogwarts and 8-year-old Tom went off on a scary psycho rant about how he loves murdering the other kids' pets and hosed up some of them in the zombie cave

I'm actually gonna defend this a little. He's not the Antichrist, he's a troubled child in a bad environment, a problem that's only exacerbated by him having weird powers he doesn't fully understand and is using to lash out without any discipline, like a kid finding a loaded gun that he thinks is a toy. Yeah he has some nascent serial killer habits, but that makes it all the more important he get socialized a bit in an environment that can handle magic and he can't cause as much harm venting his frustrations on muggles.

The indefensible part was sending him back to the orphanage during the summer, because Wizard Child Protective Services apparently aren't a thing and now you've put him back in a place he hates, only now he's more powerful and knowledgeable about wizard bigotry.

Dumbledore's really really lucky Harry is so unambitious about actually getting good at magic and not super vindictive, or he'd have made the same mistake all over again sending him back to the Dursleys during break to be subjected to more Roald Dahl style domestic abuse.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Asterite34 posted:

The indefensible part was sending him back to the orphanage during the summer, because Wizard Child Protective Services apparently aren't a thing and now you've put him back in a place he hates, only now he's more powerful and knowledgeable about wizard bigotry.

don't forget the part where they sent him back to london every summer....during world war loving 2!!

he does at least manage to ride out all but a few days of the blitz at hogwarts but still, goddamn dumbledore!!!

Asterite34
May 19, 2009



Jazerus posted:

don't forget the part where they sent him back to london every summer....during world war loving 2!!

he does at least manage to ride out all but a few days of the blitz at hogwarts but still, goddamn dumbledore!!!

Truthfully he was probably secretly hoping a bomb would hit that orphanage. He's a minor, he can't use magic to just burn that place down without it getting detected, but if Jerry blows it up and he just happens to use his wizard powers to survive unscathed using whatever spell makes witch burnings merely tickle, well that just goes to show the innate superiority of wizards, doesn't it.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Harry actually mentally criticizes Dumbledore for being overly trusting of lil' Tom. So I'm not sure which opinion we're supposed to support here.

My read has always been Tom was destined to be pure evil but I've had friends since the beginning who had the opposite read and it wasn't fated. It would go against the spirit of the books for it to be fated, to be sure.


Cranappleberry posted:

This isn't correct, he mentions how Tom's features have become melted and distorted like candlewax and that dude in Sunshine who was blurred by constant exposure to heavy gravity and intense light of the Sun.


Harry has a bordering-on-morbid fascination with Bellatrix. He comments on her beauty almost to the point of being attracted to her as well as attracted to her intensity, poise and talent.

Welcome new poster. Do you actually like Harry Potter? It's a topic that comes up surprisingly rarely in this here Harry potter thread.

CainFortea
Oct 15, 2004


Wonder if Bellatrix was JKR's write in.

Cranappleberry
Jan 27, 2009
^maybe who she fantasizes being^

NikkolasKing posted:

Harry actually mentally criticizes Dumbledore for being overly trusting of lil' Tom. So I'm not sure which opinion we're supposed to support here.

My read has always been Tom was destined to be pure evil but I've had friends since the beginning who had the opposite read and it wasn't fated. It would go against the spirit of the books for it to be fated, to be sure.


Welcome new poster. Do you actually like Harry Potter? It's a topic that comes up surprisingly rarely in this here Harry potter thread.

I got like 20 posts in this thread and I think one or two of the (many) thread titles were stuff I fakeposted.

I liked it when I was a kid and I recently did a re-read in order to do a "death of the author" analysis. I don't think it should be regarded as anymore than what it is- decent popular fiction for children to teens that lacks a lot of internal logical consistency, has a lot of problematic stuff due to the author herself projecting into the story and a poorly thought-out, tacked-on ending.

I hate the epilogue and most of the EU stuff Rowling added later on. Also, Cursed Child not canon.

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W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

NikkolasKing posted:

Lily's account is Dumbledore was "very kind" in the letter.

Yeah, but it's the mock thread, so I'm legally obligated to paint everything the characters in the books do in the worst possible light with the least charitable interpretation.

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