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SlothfulCobra posted:I liked the idea that here's this guy who's a jerk, but he's still a hero on the right side even though he doesn't like or get along with the Special Boy that the plot revolves around, but everything got complicated when the books just had to play the melodrama up to the max. So I started off trying to think up a justification for why Azkaban doesn't have anything like this, mostly having to do with how effective Dementors are. Then I forgot about that and started thinking about how broken (in the "this character is crazy powerful" sense)Dementors are. Dunno if anyone here is a Stormlight Archive fan but send a few hundred of those things at Kaladin or Shallan and it's over. Depending on the book, only one or a handful might do it.
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May 2, 2021 10:06
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Kind of a point with Dementors is they're kinda obviously the perfect evil monsters but the Ministry employs them basically as cops (complete with of course itching at the opportunity to soul-rapemurder minors at the slightest excuse) and covers up that they all immediately join Voldemort at the first opportunity.
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May 2, 2021 14:19
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evil monsters with fascist sympathies employed as cops, you say? what a wild implausible fantasy concept
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May 2, 2021 14:49
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Honestly it's amazing how good of a satire jkr wrote without meaning to at all.
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May 2, 2021 15:59
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Algol Star posted:Honestly it's amazing how good of a satire jkr wrote without meaning to at all. it seems to me that when she was a poor single mother the satire was entirely conscious and intentional, so plot points and character details that she dreamed up in the first couple of years writing the series retain that spirit throughout. but then her brain broke and she no longer understood the satirical elements of the setting. altho i always liked the detail that vernon is an avid daily mail reader the ministry being deeply evil in a very mundane governmental kind of way and eventually folding to voldemort without a fight was probably conceived of during the planning stages of book 2 or 3 at the latest
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May 2, 2021 17:15
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oh hell yea we get to talk about Vernon Dursley. Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. lmbo
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May 2, 2021 17:26
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Vernon Dursley and Lucius Malfoy are incredibly and probably deliberately similar in a lot of ways, aside from existing in different, opposed social positions. Does come to mind dovetailing a bit that while the Dementors mind-rape you by making you relive your worst memories, with Dudley they had very little to work with, so they showed him what he looked like from the perspectives of others. In theory, you'd think that'd basically be all the bits where Dudley's conscience acted up and gave him clues as to what he looks like from the outside, especially since it's implied he's smarter than he looks, but he's actively encouraged to be ignorant. Dumbledore actually does mention that Dudley has it worse in the long run than Harry, given he's unlikely to be able to function without his parents coddling him all his life.
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May 2, 2021 17:39
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So what happened to the dementors, you know the unkillable, soul-sucking demon monsters? 
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May 2, 2021 17:49
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Harry and Dudley coming to a sort of understanding was something I really liked in the series. Especially because Harry is so blind to it and has his expectations set so low that he sees Dudley's attempts at making up for his prior behavior as some kind of ill-conceived trap to cut his foot on tea-china. When characters were able to show growth and see past their previously established biases it gave me a good optimistic feeling and I look at Dudley a lot more sympathetically than I would have based on his initial characterization because it's clear that he's trying to do better once he can figure out what better might actually be. Now about this Snape fellow.....
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May 2, 2021 17:50
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Sadly that's an all too realistic thing; Harry's got every reason to believe Dudley's just getting more creative with his bullying, especially since he's not eager to directly confront an actual wizard when he's on the receiving end of magical torment multiple times. And possibly starting to look back at why his doting parents let him become morbidly obese as a teenager. A probably gratituous but fun moment would be an overeager Death Eater trying to ambush them, Harry pulling his ol' Expellarmius and Dudley following up by beating the poo poo out of them with his bare fists.
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May 2, 2021 17:59
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The sheriff from stranger things just punching his way through death eaters is the crossover hp content I'd like. "This idiot couldn't even kill a baby and ya'all just let him take over your whole world"
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May 2, 2021 18:47
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Cranappleberry posted:oh hell yea we get to talk about Vernon Dursley. Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. aunt marge is absolutely outraged that brexit means she's getting kicked out of spain (she voted for it) halokiller posted:So what happened to the dementors, you know the unkillable, soul-sucking demon monsters? harry catches criminals and hands them over to the dementors of course. he's a cop
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May 2, 2021 18:51
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halokiller posted:So what happened to the dementors, you know the unkillable, soul-sucking demon monsters? Literally just fired. Like the aurors come in to take over Azkaban and just shoo them away. As far as we know Dementors are native to Azkaban and acting as evil wards for the people dropped off there seems to be giving them purpose. But now you have created a diaspora of horrific soul suckers looking for something to do. And again, Azkaban kinda sucks as a prison actually, it’s just an island with Dementors. They don’t mention any overhauls to the system to make it stronger or more humane, it’s just staffed with Aurors now. It absolutely just becomes Gitmo for undesirable wizards.
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May 2, 2021 18:56
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I thought it was a special prison for nazis and Hagrid? Or do they send you there for importing illegal flying carpets?Jazerus posted:it seems to me that when she was a poor single mother the satire was entirely conscious and intentional, so plot points and character details that she dreamed up in the first couple of years writing the series retain that spirit throughout. but then her brain broke and she no longer understood the satirical elements of the setting. altho i always liked the detail that vernon is an avid daily mail reader Yeah it's much better if you ignore all the post-book lore and statements from Rowling and embrace death of the author. Instead we get "Hermione became minister and the good cops took over, everything was fine!" I like how the new, badass minister who is going to correct Fudge's mistakes does nothing and gets unceremoniously offed by, presumably, one of the famous big bads like Yaxley or Pius Thicknesse. What the hell were you expecting them to try, action man? Perhaps Fudge was savvier than he appeared rather than being ousted. He now lives in retirement wizard Spain, although have to constantly mindwipe spanish immigration officials is getting tiresome. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 20:25 on May 2, 2021 |
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May 2, 2021 20:20
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Azkaban is the only wizard jail we ever hear of, although granted we never see anybody get hauled in for minor crimes so it's entirely possible it just never came up. Edgar Allen Ho posted:I like how the new, badass minister who is going to correct Fudge's mistakes does nothing and gets unceremoniously offed by, presumably, one of the famous big bads like Yaxley or Pius Thicknesse. What the hell were you expecting them to try, action man? It's incredible how much that guy sucked. Comes in talking a big game and doing tons of poo poo in HBP, but not only does he fail to win Harry over, after Dumbledore dies he gets his entire government thrown over out from under him in the span of like 2-3 months between books. Then he just gets unceremoniously killed offscreen. So much for that guy, lol.
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May 2, 2021 20:52
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I distinctly remember people being sentenced to fairly short Azkaban terms. Like 6 weeks. As in Azkaban is so horrible that six weeks is enough to scare you onto the strait and narrow
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May 2, 2021 21:24
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Occasionally some dumbass wizard will send their kid their for borrowing the broom without permission and is shocked when the kid gets their immoral soul devoured by the guards.
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May 2, 2021 21:27
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Azkaban is a tricky one because, well, wizards seem really really hard to contain. Wandless and nonverbal magic are difficult but entirely doable things, which could thwart any conventional prison. Teleportation, mind reading and mental control are crap teenagers can do, and shapeshifting you can do with one vial of smuggled contraband and a guard's hair. Presumably you could, with sufficient effort and skill, create an enchanted and magically warded prison to deter all that. Goblin magic could probably do it, but wizards are too racist to trust their government prisons to subhumans, and goblins are smart enough not to trust these inbred morons with their arcane secrets. Overall though, it's way cheaper and easier to just put your detainees in a mental prison of psychic anguish and ennui. You don't even have to pay the guards, they just do it for fun and nourishment. And, even though it's unconscionableto the point of cartoonish evil, it does seem to sorta work, since Sirius is the only known successful escape, and that was a combo of being an unregistered secret animagus and a driven mania that had nothing to do with good feelings.
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May 2, 2021 21:46
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Keeping a wizard contained is easy. Blindfold them, gag them, and tie their hands behind their back. They don't get metamagic like sorcerers do, and even if they take Metamagic Adept if they're blind they're really limited on what they can cast.
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May 2, 2021 22:39
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Harry blew his aunt up like a balloon with only his mind. If a wizard does that to themselves while you've got them in restraints it's gonna get ugly.
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May 2, 2021 22:47
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reignofevil posted:Harry blew his aunt up like a balloon with only his mind. If a wizard does that to themselves while you've got them in restraints it's gonna get ugly. Enlarge/Reduce has verbal, somatic, AND material components. Even if they use silent spell to get rid of the Verbal and Somatic, they still have to get powdered iron.
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May 2, 2021 22:51
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*extremely purple and breathing like a winded rhinoceros* YOU COME BACK HERE AND SET HER RIGHT!!! *like Matt from digimon when he gets all badass and evil* "No Vernon. She deserves what she got.
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May 2, 2021 23:03
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Build those incredibly complex cells tailored to specific individual's skillsets from the one season of Korra e: this would also provide of new cop jobs as the defeat of the muggle-born stigma leads to a boom in the wizarding population Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 01:41 on May 3, 2021 |
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May 2, 2021 23:50
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The early books treat wizards/witches as being inherintly magical creatures. Harry frees the snake in the zoo and enlarges his aunt, Neville makes his body more durable etc. Later books have wands as guns basically, you take the gun from their hands and they become docile. The climax of the books is a trial about who has the property rights for the most special gun in the world.
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May 2, 2021 23:59
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Ror posted:And again, Azkaban kinda sucks as a prison actually, it’s just an island with Dementors. They don’t mention any overhauls to the system to make it stronger or more humane, it’s just staffed with Aurors now. It absolutely just becomes Gitmo for undesirable wizards. But then how would it be satisfying unless all the characters you hate weren't suffering inhumane treatment? 
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May 3, 2021 00:34
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Build those incredibly complex cells tailored to specific individual's skillsets from the one season of Korra Haha I just finished rewatching that season. Those cells were cool. Also great season (3, if anyone wants to rewatch it.) Though it did strike me that Korra sure is a progressive world for not having the death penalty for like the 4 most wanted criminals ever. Is there the death penalty in Harry Potter? Or dementors were always seen as bad enough?
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May 3, 2021 02:52
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Ccs posted:Haha I just finished rewatching that season. Those cells were cool. Also great season (3, if anyone wants to rewatch it.) The Death Penalty seems to be getting sentenced to be Kissed by the Dementors which sucks your soul out and leaves your body a husk. Sirius was sentenced to this post escape and presumably other criminals have been as well. Weirdly there is a death penalty for animals that involves a dude with a large axe and a very technical appeals process.
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May 3, 2021 02:56
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Harry Potter 100% has the death penalty they take you into a room with lots of shiny easy to animate with CGI goo on the floor and you sit in the chair and then the goo touches you and you die.
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May 3, 2021 02:58
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This is what happens when you set the movie-computers to "Terminator 3" mode.
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May 3, 2021 02:59
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We know the US has a death penalty from Fantastic Beasts.
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May 3, 2021 03:00
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Wizarding North America is somehow more dystopian and hosed up than Wizarding Britain according to those movies which is a hell of an accomplishment.
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May 3, 2021 03:06
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Lol, just remembered the absolutely nonsensical reasoning for why the muggle guy from the Fantastic Beasts movies still had his memories after the end of the first movie.
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May 3, 2021 03:15
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Zore posted:The Death Penalty seems to be getting sentenced to be Kissed by the Dementors which sucks your soul out and leaves your body a husk. Sirius was sentenced to this post escape and presumably other criminals have been as well. And canonically souls exist and the afterlife rules so this is actually way worse than death.
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May 3, 2021 03:20
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Pretty sure the thing that Sirius fell into was used a death sentence kind of magical gizmo but i can't remember why i think that. maybe fanfiction? It's been eerily close to two decades
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May 3, 2021 04:00
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American Wizards using magic to double execute you was the most accurate part of the movie
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May 3, 2021 04:06
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Rockstar Massacre posted:Pretty sure the thing that Sirius fell into was used a death sentence kind of magical gizmo but i can't remember why i think that. maybe fanfiction? It's been eerily close to two decades I think they specifically said so? If not, it was a thing that instantly and painlessly kills you and it's in the middle of an auditorium.
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May 3, 2021 04:17
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Sirius got hit by AK anyway so he was already dead as poo poo, him being double dead because he also then fell into the weird execution machine is just funny.
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May 3, 2021 04:27
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What do they do with the soulless husk after a Dementor sucks all the life out of it? Do they just dump it in a ditch somewhere or do they put it in a magical care home? Or maybe they can construct a new persona for it and dump them in a monastery where they can be put to work on charitable works for the rest of their life? Just throwing that out there. CainFortea posted:Keeping a wizard contained is easy. Blindfold them, gag them, and tie their hands behind their back. They don't get metamagic like sorcerers do, and even if they take Metamagic Adept if they're blind they're really limited on what they can cast. You can't do that for more than a few days at a time before they start dying. Edgar Allen Ho posted:Build those incredibly complex cells tailored to specific individual's skillsets from the one season of Korra Honestly it really bugged me when the White Lotus society was reastablished as the Avatar's handlers and some kind of world-police or something. Are they still supposed to be a secret society? Are the jails public knowledge or are they some kind of gitmo situation? Are the White Lotus funded by the four nations? Zesty posted:I think they specifically said so? I thought it was just another weird magic thing in the department of weird magic things. Maybe some wizards long ago were doing experiments with trying to access the afterlife and never figured out the getting back out part. Can't exactly prove that it's painless either, it's just out of sight, out of mind. SlothfulCobra fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 3, 2021 |
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May 3, 2021 04:27
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Sydin posted:Sirius got hit by AK anyway so he was already dead as poo poo, him being double dead because he also then fell into the weird execution machine is just funny. I think this is only made explicit or possibly invented for the movie. In the book he dodges a "red jet of light" and then taunts her and gets hit by "a second jet of light". The red lights are usually meant to be stunners, so maybe AK takes longer to say/can't be silently cast, or maybe she did cast an AK after feinting with the stunner but they just don't specify.
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May 3, 2021 04:51
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Sydin posted:Sirius got hit by AK anyway so he was already dead as poo poo, him being double dead because he also then fell into the weird execution machine is just funny. I think this is only made explicit or possibly invented for the movie. In the book he dodges a "red jet of light" and then taunts her and gets hit by "a second jet of light". The red lights are usually meant to be stunners, so maybe AK takes longer to say/can't be silently cast, or maybe she did cast an AK after feinting with the stunner but they just don't specify.
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May 3, 2021 04:51
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