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Snape's a good character because of all his inconsistencies and conflicted motives, he feels like a real person. He's a piece of poo poo for the entire series who often does things for purely selfish reasons and yet undoubtedly does numerous good acts and is one of the most important people in bringing about Voldemort's downfall. The books avoid a cheesy redemption arc where he completely reverses his whole character and becomes a paragon of virtue suddenly but there is a definite change in his deepest views and morals from when he first goes to Dumbledore and his death and while his feelings for Lily are the catalyst for him switching sides for selfish reasons they don't explain the deeper change. He's a guy from an abusive home, who's bullied from day 1 of school who gravitates towards strong fascist daddy as a way of making himself feel strong. He continues to be an awful person to everyone around him throughout but he's not a reluctant player being dragged along by lily's memory. Most of his stuff is in the background but when we do see it he's always taking an active role in the fight and does stuff like corralling the death eaters out of Hogwarts with as little damage as possible in book 6 that isn't anything to do with Harry. In his talks with Dumbledore he clearly hates what he has to do and we also see him tell phineus off for saying mudblood as well. He's forever turned away from Voldemort and fights to resist him for its own sake and Dumbledore trusts him as such whatever the initial trigger was. Dumbledore (who helps set Grindelwald up, avoids facing him and then dedicates his life to fighting discrimination out of shame for his actions but never trusts himself with power and uses people like tools) and Malfoy ( wants to be fascist to impress daddy, is generally a piece of poo poo to people but when it comes down to it finds he doesn't have it in him to murder) are the other good, really gray characters. I'm pretty sure these are all accidental by Rowling tho as she's already trying to ruin Dumbledore's character so no doubt soon we'll find out that Snape was hexed to always be a dick to people and Malfoy grew up to be head of the Muggle welfare division.
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Jun 6, 2020 15:54
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Would Ron have to chop off his hand to rebirth Harry? He'd probably be able to persuade that creevey kid to do it.
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Sep 26, 2020 22:34
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I always thought the implication with Hermione changing her parents memories was that she thought she might die and didn't want them to mourn her. Probably unintentional though since it's never explored at all. Also wizards are so unimaginative, it's possible to remove all of someone's bones and stomp on their heart and we never even see anyone attempt it.
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Nov 9, 2020 13:56
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amigolupus posted:It's pretty hosed up that Dumbledore waited until the school year's mostly over and Draco had him dead to rights before he said, "Yo kid, I know Voldemort's forcing you to try and kill me, but I know you're scared so we can just hide you and your parents in a safe place." Going by how he's described as withdrawn and pale throughout the book, Draco's been going through constant mental breakdowns, which Dumbledore could have prevented at any time. To be fair, he's justifiably concerned that Voldemort is just waiting for an excuse to kill him as soon as he suspects something's up. He likely also knows that Dumbledore would try to help him if he found out so all it would take is a hint Dumbledore even knows about the plot. It's nowhere near a given that Malfoy would accept an offer of help earlier either.
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Dec 14, 2020 16:25
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NikkolasKing posted:Exactly this. Harry even asks him about Crouch Jr. and Dumbledore says he didn't know the truth of his guilt or not. That scene in the films is awful, with Tennant gurning for the camera and Crouch being despondent instead of triumphantly showing his ruthlessness in a show trial. The touches of moral greyness and ambiguity in the books are sorely needed even if they feel tacked on and aren't explored enough, the films ditching the bits that are there is stupid. It's a shame Rowling didn't sell her idea to a better writer since the core of the story could be so much better with someone who was actually willing to explore the issues more
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Jan 29, 2021 14:44
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Guy A. Person posted:There's also something Dumbledore points out about one of the wand things in 7 that kind of hammers home that the special magic Harry keeps getting only applies specifically to Voldemort who keeps accidentally handing Harry weapons through his hubris. If Harry had been AK'ed by any other wizard it would just be dead, but Tommy kept adding extra layers of esoteric magic onto their bond because of his obsession. He does make Harry essentially immortal at the end of GoF by making himself his pseudo-horcrux so the window of opportunity for a random wizard to get him passes. Hilariously Dumbledore seems to be relying on the fact that Harry isn't competent enough to kill Voldemort first or it'd be the other way round. I always thought that Lily's sacrifice was more that it wasn't an immediate subconscious choice, that she had time to think and consciously chose to die in Harry's place. So while it would have happened before it's not like an every day thing.
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Feb 4, 2021 11:44
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NikkolasKing posted:I never bought this argument. Harry's perspective is pretty clearly supposed to be right almost all of the time. Incidentally, he comments more on Tom Riddle's handsomeness than anyone else's appearance, even Ginny's. Well they are soulmates.
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Feb 10, 2021 10:24
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The end would work a lot better if she'd just stuck with their souls being bound together and Harry not having a maimed Nazi soul as the reason instead of wussing out at the last and pulling bullshit wandlore out of her rear end. Like at the end Voldemort literally can't kill Harry but he asks the unbeatable wand to do just that so it dumps him to save face. Algol Star fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 19:21
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Regalingualius posted:Yeah, IIRC, there’s a brief mention of her trying tarot in HBP, but she keeps getting The Tower... which fits both in the literal sense (the climactic moment where Dumbledore dies) and with The Tower’s association with disaster, calamity, major upheaval, etc. Doesn't she also start getting more openly drunk due to her sense of impending disaster and spend the whole year trying to warn Dumbledore he's in grave danger? Harry thinks he brushed her off because she's a crank but obviously he does it because he's well aware of the danger.
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Apr 29, 2021 15:00
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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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I think the second quote is from only dumbledores perspective and with the benefit of hindsight, not what would have been perceived at the time by the other teachers. Maybe a bit of an aura to the group but never really linked to anything bad and everyone thought riddle was the best so they didn't pay them much attention. Looking back there is obviously a correlation between bad stuff happening and them being at Hogwarts but no-one made the connection at the time. Dumbledore thinks they weren't 'satisfactorily' linked but everyone else seemed perfectly happy with say hagrid as the fall guy for the chamber of secrets and don't look into it any further.
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May 11, 2021 11:37
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