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FrensaGeran posted:Being chosen is a "binding magical contract" and if you think regular contracts are hard to get out of, well gently caress man, just add magic and you'll see how little choice you have. Best post/avatar combo ever.
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Sep 3, 2010 06:51
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That Harry Potter name guessing game is brutal. I got about 100 and would have gotten 20 more if I could spell or remember their names properly. The other 80 or so I wouldn't have been able to guess if you gave me all day. There really were a lot of characters in there. Also kind of annoying that The Grey Lady and The Fat Friar weren't answers.
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Sep 4, 2010 15:23
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Still think that Prisoner of Azkaban is the best book. There is a really dumbass deus ex machina in the end that I can't stop thinking of whenever someone dies in the later books, but other then that, I really like it. I think the earlier books are better then the latter ones anyway, I sort of stopped caring throughout the sixth book. as for that name guessing game, who the gently caress was Hassan Mostafa? DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Sep 4, 2010 |
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Sep 4, 2010 18:10
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DarkCrawler posted:as for that name guessing game, who the gently caress was Hassan Mostafa? If memory serves me, he was the referee at the Quidditch world cup. If i'm correct I might just have to kill myself.
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Sep 4, 2010 18:17
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MrFlibble posted:If memory serves me, he was the referee at the Quidditch world cup. If i'm correct I might just have to kill myself. Get your gun ready. http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Hassan_Mostafa
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Sep 4, 2010 18:22
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DarkCrawler posted:Still think that Prisoner of Azkaban is the best book. I think he was the Quidditch referee for the world cup. efb! I definitely think the first three books were stronger. I don't quite know how to explain it but I feel like she started writing the last four books to cater to the rabid juggernaut that the franchise became rather than what perhaps would have been best for the series.
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Sep 4, 2010 18:39
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I think after the first three books her editor got scared of her and didn't tell her to cut them to half the length.
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Sep 4, 2010 18:50
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I have a feeling she struggled to keep them as 'short' as they came out to be. I finished reading the entire series again this July and August. Just 2 things that were bugging me: 1. How come is Hogwarts location supposed to be protected and a secret from other nations, since its right across Hogsmeade, famous wizarding village in the entire world? 2. How did Harry have the Marauder's Map in his possession in book 5 when at the end of book 4 it was in fake Mad Eye's hands?
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Sep 4, 2010 20:01
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Merope posted:I have a feeling she struggled to keep them as 'short' as they came out to be. Magic! Sometimes I almost wish that Harry Potter was more of a "Hogwarts" series with books being able to focus on other characters and just share the setting. Of course that sort of goosebumps/animorphs model is out of date.
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Sep 4, 2010 20:04
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My only issue with the series is how terrible of a wizard Harry is. Hermione was a great wizard but Harry never really did anything that impressive. A lot of what he did do that was cool more or less plot forced.
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Sep 4, 2010 20:08
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Lyon posted:My only issue with the series is how terrible of a wizard Harry is. Hermione was a great wizard but Harry never really did anything that impressive. A lot of what he did do that was cool more or less plot forced. I think the message Rowling was going for was heart over head. That courage and whatnots were more important than book learning. I always got pretty annoyed how it just seems like every student at hogwarts is mediocre at best apart from a few exceptions. They don't even really seem to care about the responsibility of magic either.
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Sep 4, 2010 20:21
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Lyon posted:My only issue with the series is how terrible of a wizard Harry is. Hermione was a great wizard but Harry never really did anything that impressive. A lot of what he did do that was cool more or less plot forced. Actually, I think that's pretty loving hilarious. Especially considering possibly the most advanced wizard in the world wants him dead and struggles to get anywhere near him. Hell, he couldn't even kill Harry properly. Maybe I've just watched too much Scooby Doo as a kid. Edit: This is what I think is a great failure of wizards in general - they feel the need to kill everything with magic and they kind of gently caress up at it. No one but Bellatrix thought to use a loving knife! Obligatory Toast fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Sep 4, 2010 |
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Sep 4, 2010 20:26
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One of my favorite little things so far is how poo poo upon Hufflepuff is. Ravenclaw is for smarts, Slytherin is for cunning, Gryffindor is for courage...and Hufflepuff is for cowardly idiots who don't have the cunning to escape a paper bag.
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Sep 4, 2010 20:30
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FrensaGeran posted:One of my favorite little things so far is how poo poo upon Hufflepuff is. Ravenclaw is for smarts, Slytherin is for cunning, Gryffindor is for courage...and Hufflepuff is for cowardly idiots who don't have the cunning to escape a paper bag. Be it an English boarding school or American fraternity row, there is always a necessity for a loser house. That's just the way things are. Obligatory Toast fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Sep 4, 2010 |
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Sep 4, 2010 20:32
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A magical flying lion...a basilisk with deadly fangs...a raven with razor sharp claws...a badger.
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Sep 4, 2010 20:37
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It's not that the Hufflepuffs are dumb, exactly - some, such as Cedric Diggory, get good grades - they're just not very street-smart. They are hard-working and persistent people who don't shy away from unglamorous work, and while these traits are unlikely to win them any glory, they're certainly not anything to be ashamed of. Maybe I'm just defending them because I have some Hufflepuff traits. I joined a Livejournal group a few years ago that made new members complete a Sorting questionnaire, and many of the members who helped Sort me remarked that I was a "Ravenpuff:" a person with a mix of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff traits. (I ultimately ended up in Ravenclaw. There were other combinations as well: I guess that Harry would be a Slytherdor and Hermione a Gryffinclaw. Yes, I know how dumb it all sounds.)
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Sep 4, 2010 23:00
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Hufflepuffs of the World, unite! Seriously. While everyone else is busy doing great deeds and destroying the wizarding world, those duffers are busy growing plants, building things, and putting in all the hard work while not complaining. Gryffindors tend to be arrogant, Ravenclaws lean towards detachment and have their heads in the clouds, Slytherins can be downright malicious, but Hufflepuffs? They're a bit boring. That's not really all that bad.
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Sep 4, 2010 23:05
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I just couldn't imagine being told who and what I am at 11 years old with no prospect of ever changing it. That's some serious psychological damage. "A magical hat that's never wrong told me I'm by-the-numbers and a complete bore before I hit puberty. And then I was put into a house that's full of people exactly like me, so I have no chance of maybe becoming less dull or perhaps see things from a different perspective."
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Sep 4, 2010 23:16
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I always found it strange that there was a house that was essentially evil and they just kept putting more evil people in it. Not to mention their common room is more like something out of a bond villain's lair than a place to chill and do homework
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Sep 5, 2010 00:24
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FrensaGeran posted:I just couldn't imagine being told who and what I am at 11 years old with no prospect of ever changing it. That's some serious psychological damage. Not to mention being locked in a cabinet by foster parents who hate him. Harry should have been a basketcase.
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Sep 5, 2010 00:39
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A more charitable view is that Slytherins are ambitious to a fault. Lots of people in the Livejournal group got Sorted into Slytherin in large part because they were open about their ambition and their impatience with people they saw as foolish. Those traits didn't necessarily make them nice people, but it definitely didn't mean that they were evil. But yeah, canon Slytherins are pretty nakedly malicious.
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Sep 5, 2010 00:42
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Half-way through book 5 and I haven't seen a positive portrayal of a Slytherin yet. Maybe 6 or 7?
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Sep 5, 2010 00:50
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FrensaGeran posted:Half-way through book 5 and I haven't seen a positive portrayal of a Slytherin yet. Maybe 6 or 7? Book 6 introduces a character who is a Slytherin and good. Edit: Book 7 features the redemptions of at least 2 Slytherins. Also, remember that Pettigrew, one of the series' most unredeemable/cowardly characters, was a Gryffindor. It's not all black and white. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 01:13
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Paragon8 posted:I always found it strange that there was a house that was essentially evil and they just kept putting more evil people in it. The different houses always did just seem like a convenient way to establish a baseline personality for people without Rowling having to actually describe them. Which is why we only saw the evil people because that's all we needed to see for the plot. It doesn't make sense to think that everyone in Slytherin was a straight up evil. I think it's more like Slytherin is the "old money" or aristocracy or whatever of wizards, after all right along side Draco there were those dumb as bricks goons that would follow him around; the George W Bushes of wizards.
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Sep 5, 2010 01:56
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Another question that will surely be answered if I keep reading but I can't help it: 5th year is prefect, 7th year is head boy. What do 6th years do? Will Ron and Hermione be prefects next year, and if so, what about the incoming 5th years? Are there 4 prefects for every house?
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Sep 5, 2010 03:06
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FrensaGeran posted:Another question that will surely be answered if I keep reading but I can't help it: 5th year is prefect, 7th year is head boy. What do 6th years do? Will Ron and Hermione be prefects next year, and if so, what about the incoming 5th years? Are there 4 prefects for every house? 6th year still has prefects. Yeah, they're prefects in the 6th book but it's barely mentioned. I don't know what happens with incoming 5th years, but I'm sure they just add on to the prefects. It isn't brought up, though.
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Sep 5, 2010 03:11
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I always assumed that once you're a prefect you're a prefect until you graduate. Unless you gently caress up and get fired or become Head Boy/Girl. So I would guess there's 6 prefects per house.
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Sep 5, 2010 04:09
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I'm loving that they gave prefects the ability to give detentions. Is that an English Boarding School thing because the idea of a 15 year old doling out detentions responsibly just sounds retarded.
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Sep 5, 2010 04:18
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Well, and it's kind of smart to have a place to file all of the evil cut-throat types, because at least then, you can keep an eye on 'em  .And Hufflepuff was the house for "special" people.  quote:I'm loving that they gave prefects the ability to give detentions. Is that an English Boarding School thing because the idea of a 15 year old doling out detentions responsibly just sounds retarded. You know, I think that might be an English boarding school thing--or at the very least, a traditional English film/book trope. The older boys in "If..." (Malcolm McDowell's first movie!) seemed to wield an awful lot of power, as I recall. And yes, you should only give such power to teenagers if you want to recreate the Stanford Prison Study.
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Sep 5, 2010 04:53
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FrensaGeran posted:I'm loving that they gave prefects the ability to give detentions. Is that an English Boarding School thing because the idea of a 15 year old doling out detentions responsibly just sounds retarded. Hell, up until 1960 or so prefects at Eton could actually cane other boys (Google "pop-tanning" for the gory details.) Such things were a staple of Boy's School Stories pre-WWII, so I'm sure the practice was widespread at one time. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the ability of prefects to hand out some form of punishment doesn't hang on somewhere. Hobnob fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 06:27
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Hobnob posted:Hell, up until 1960 or so prefects at Eton could actually cane other boys (Google "pop-tanning" for the gory details.) Such things were a staple of Boy's School Stories pre-WWII, so I'm sure the practice was widespread at one time. ... Eton is also the school that one of the minor characters in HP was going to go to. Huh. How weird.
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Sep 5, 2010 07:18
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FrensaGeran posted:I'm loving that they gave prefects the ability to give detentions. Is that an English Boarding School thing because the idea of a 15 year old doling out detentions responsibly just sounds retarded. Yes, that's a British Boarding School thing. Prefects basically run discipline and day-to-day business outside of lessons itself in the old system. It was much abused and prefects lorded often over other students like tyrants. Paragon8 posted:I always found it strange that there was a house that was essentially evil and they just kept putting more evil people in it. If Rowlings had shown that more people in Slytherin stayed and fought instead of leaving in book 7 it would have gone a long way to show more redeeming qualities in them. So we only have Slughorn, Snape and two unnamed Slytherin people. Also, I'm sure there are some half-blood and Muggle-born people sorted into Slytherin every year (because of their ambition and lack of scruples), who would more than disagree with the social structure developing in book 7, regarding them as second-class citizens to concentration camp fodder. She should have shown more clearly that they aren't automatically evil, they are just more likely to turn out more evil people due to the whole ambition+pure-blood-thing putting them on the fast track to Voldemort supporters. Lyon posted:My only issue with the series is how terrible of a wizard Harry is. Hermione was a great wizard but Harry never really did anything that impressive. A lot of what he did do that was cool more or less plot forced. I find it really well done that Harry isn't really a prodigy at doing magic, except for a few things he trained hard (Patronus, Stunning, Disarming). It ties in with him just being an average guy who was thrown in the role by a self-fulfilling prophecy. He isn't anything special ability-wise, unlike his father, mediocre, rule-breaking, lazy, without regard for authority as Snape so aptly said. Of course he left out Harry's redeeming qualities, but from a teacher's perspective he's just a good-to-average student depending on how much he likes the subject. By the way, am I the only one who finds it odd that wizards apparently don't need to know more than 4th grade English, Math, Geography, Physics... Seems wizards don't need to bother with Irrational numbers or which continent Uruguay is on. Even worse for pure-bloods who apparently don't have any formal education before attending Hogwarts.
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Sep 5, 2010 07:24
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Didn't Harry end up as an Auror? I thought you needed high marks for that.
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Sep 5, 2010 07:38
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Decius posted:If Rowlings had shown that more people in Slytherin stayed and fought instead of leaving in book 7 it would have gone a long way to show more redeeming qualities in them. So we only have Slughorn, Snape and two unnamed Slytherin people. the subject. quote:By the way, am I the only one who finds it odd that wizards apparently don't need to know more than 4th grade English, Math, Geography, Physics... Seems wizards don't need to bother with Irrational numbers or which continent Uruguay is on. Even worse for pure-bloods who apparently don't have any formal education before attending Hogwarts. quote:Didn't Harry end up as an Auror? I thought you needed high marks for that. If he did become an Auror, I imagine that he would get in based on his unique circumstances, and the whole upturn at the ministry. Edit: I think that some of this stuff is answered in post interviews with Rowling. I haven't read them, but does anybody have any links? Obligatory Toast fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 07:54
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Brannock posted:Didn't Harry end up as an Auror? I thought you needed high marks for that. You need to pass enough OWLs to get on to the NEWTs, and if Snape hadn't been given DADA and Harry hadn't Snape's old book he would have to reconsider his career choice in the sixth year already. Passing OWLs seem to be really easy considering Neville didn't too bad in the subjects he wasn't good during lessons. Passing OWLs high enough to continue them in the sixth year seems a lot harder. We don't really know if Harry went back to do the seventh year to get some NEWTs (which seem to function as kind of college version of wizarding degrees, since you can already get jobs with OWLs too). Although Hermione not getting her diploma/finishing her education seems really wrong. Harry fought Voldemort several times and survived it, battled and defeated his lieutenants on mutiple occasions, broke into Gringotts, broke into the Ministry (and Auror headquarter) twice. (Co-)organized the Battle of Hogwarts and basically successfully taught DADA in his fifth year. He survived (barely and mostly thanks to Hermione) nearly a year on the run in enemy territory. Then he went on and defeated Voldemort in a duel. I rather doubt they really asked him or Ron for academic credentials after that, especially if Kingsley stayed as Minister. Decius fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 08:00
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Some guy had this crazy theory that when voldemort went to the interview with dumbledore, he cursed the sorting hat so it would sort the people most likely to serve him into slytherin. I know its way too deep for what JK was going for (and thus it didnt occur to her at all), but I would argue that it makes some sense.
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Sep 5, 2010 12:23
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JKR gave a lot of information about what everyone did after school in interviews. http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/articles/jk-rowling-goes-beyond-the-epilogue.html
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Sep 5, 2010 15:45
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Well I mean despite some Slytherin defying the odds and being merely opportunistic rather than outright evil it's not like it's an environment that really fosters becoming good and noble.
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Sep 5, 2010 16:42
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Decius posted:
My idea is that the whole "Wizards hide from the world because they don't want people to ask them for spells" thing is just one of many lies wizard leaders propagate to not have their society into utter panic upon learning about all the wonderful things muggles can do that make even their greatest spells seem like bunch of bullshit. Avada Kedavra, wow. Here's a thing that can do exact same thing that it can. It's called a gun. We have about a billion of them around the world. You can buy one of them out of the corner store and it really doesn't take any training or particular skill to be able to use it. Dragons. That's pretty tough. Here is an F/A-18 Hornet that can tear through dozens of them with ease. We have bombs that can wipe out entire cities at will and you are interested in loving rubber ducks? I mean seriously, we would have them in special wizarding camps within a month of learning about wizarding societies being responsible of some terrible unexplained things, wiping memories at will, and not having any regard for our laws. when you get down to it, wizards are pretty loving dumb outside their own world. Even the muggle-born ones probably lose touch with the continuing growth of human technology. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 17:43
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FrensaGeran posted:I just couldn't imagine being told who and what I am at 11 years old with no prospect of ever changing it. That's some serious psychological damage. It's funny, because that's the exact reason why (in America, at least) schools no longer practice "tracking"; it used to be that at a young age the "good" students would be put on a higher track and the "bad" students were on a lower track. The idea was that the advanced students could study harder things without having to worry about leaving the other kids behind and the slower kids could receive specialized attention, only in reality once kids were assigned to a track they never ever left it precisely because it affected both their own self-image and the way the teachers treated them. Paragon8 posted:Did Harry Potter serve as a tipping point for deranged shipping? I think that, much like how Pokemon got an entire generation of kids into anime, Harry Potter just happened to come along at the right time to hook so many people into fandom; with the internet becoming widespread in the late 90s fandoms were no longer restricted to fanzines and obscure Usenet boards, so when Harry Potter came along people could see that other people had the same interests and it led to an echo chamber effect. Hobnob posted:I never really understood the whining about the epilogue. Wasn't it pretty much "Happy Ever After"? What was wrong with it? For me it was that you have the Snape flashback, which is some of the best writing in the entire series, and then immediately afterward you have the epilogue which had some of the worst writing and looked even worse by comparison. Also that you just had a huge battle, major characters have died, evil has been defeated, the whole thing is ripe for a victory lap and rather than explore any of that it just immediately cuts to a treacly happy ending years after the fact.
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Sep 5, 2010 19:03
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