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Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

I thought the city was New York when I was a kid. It does have a subway, I'm not sure if any PNW cities do?

same. i always assumed they lived in new york or on the east coast. i guess not.


Roth posted:

https://twitter.com/nibellion/status/1277596002892079104?s=21

I like how Rowling being uninvolved is a bullet point

i thought it was supposed to take place in 19th century or some poo poo.

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Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

StratGoatCom posted:

Apparently the devs are getting distressed by jk's antics.

dont loving blame them at all.


Sydin posted:

Yeah Rowling is way too popular and brings way too many eyes to twitter for them to ban her. At most she might get the Trump treatment of having a tweet or two flagged as hate speech, which will naturally just allow her to play the martyr even more.

Twitter was a mistake.

yeah. i do think she will now be remebered as just as hosed up and lovely as lovecraft if not worse in someways.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

He did recant a bit by his death, but he died still cartoonishly racist by 1930s standards.

(Caveat: Lovecraft is one of my personal favourite authors so I'm biased, and also his writing is mostly... just bad and you should read other authors inspired by him and not the originals. At the Mountains of Madness and The Temple are the only ones that hold up.)

I personally think his racism was absolutely informed by his poverty and mental illness though. In a lot of ways he spent his life cosplaying a pre-revolution british-american aristocrat, which was absolutely informed by his family. He has early works where his racism has as much virulence for the loving dutch as it does black people. Unlike JKR I think he would have actually benefited from the internet- contrary to popular impression he wasn't a shut-in purely by choice. He wrote letters like goons post, and he traveled the american and canadian east coast as his poverty allowed. He even wrote travelogues, which usually get left out of his collections. And his travelogues definitely demonstrated his illness, imo, compared to how the average person would write one. Having something like the internet to meet and interact with people spontaneously instead of over letters, and the ability to easily meet people struggling like he was, and the ability to see that all these people were so similar to him even though being from wildly differing backgrounds, imo, might have sped his reformation. And hell, maybe he would live longer and not die in his 40s while bragging that he could survive on a can of beans and a loaf of bread for a week.

JKR has no excuse. She's rich as hell and can probably meet with any world leader or random rear end in a top hat she chooses, she can go anywhere any time she wants. Lovecraft was genuinely ill and abused, and spread that. JKR's only problem is affluenza.

e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u8wZ0WvxI this has been posted on SA many times before but if you haven't seen it and want to watch a half hour youtube video, hbomberguy really knocks it out of the park in my opinion as a gay, jewish Lovecraft fan

excactly, and he mostly kept it private and mostly came off as some weird ill loser with delusions of grandure that his friends felt bad for. JKR is just a self important rear end in a top hat picking a hill to die on because she thinks she will be a "feminist" hero.

StratGoatCom posted:

If this game ends up good, I'm still waiting for it to be the monthly free one on EGS. :kheldragar:

i am more excited for batman WB game because i am a loser and if the game does end up good. i will buy it used at some point and play it with my gf.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

seems like a typical pre covid american school to me.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Big Dick Cheney posted:

I think after a year at Hogwarts most kids would be bored with it again

yeah, like also i feel like the magical would just be mundane to most of them too. "look jerry used a spell to make my rear end in a top hat try to me from the inside and scream slurs at me, better go to the nurse AGAIN".

Sydin posted:

Harry's gimmick is that while he's not a super genius wizard or anything, he's reasonably talented and can generally get good results at whatever he bothers putting his mind to. It's just that the list of things he puts his mind to is pretty short because he's lazy and entitled. I do like how at the end of Goblet when the main villain reveals himself, he just absolutely lays into Harry for being a layabout who took zero initiative to prepare for any of the tournament challenges, and so the guy had to bend over backwards to feed him helpful hints.


the only reason he wins at the end is because he gets lucky because the wizard nazi was dumb poo poo and hosed himself and the ugly joke kid rolled a bunch a 20s in a row.


Zore posted:

I also love that Harry and Ron choose to do blow off classes for their electives explicitly yet neither chooses to do Muggle Studies. You know despite Harry growing up as a muggle and Ron being inundated in all the muggle poo poo from his dad.

i like to think muggle studdies is just gilded age style anthropology type bullshit where they think every muggle is moron and the professor is some wizard who inject magic cocain and is basicaly rons dad but dumber.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

muscles like this! posted:

New Harry Potter game got officially announced at the Sony PS5 event going on right now.
https://twitter.com/HogwartsLegacy/status/1306326061131522048
Since it is set in the 1800s sounds like they're trying to sidestep any direct HP connection.

wernt like death duels and death curses legal until like the 1900s or some poo poo.





Sydin posted:

So it's set in the time period when wizards didn't have bathrooms and if they had to go they'd just drop trow where they stood and then vanish their piss and poo poo away to uh, somewhere?

Can't wait to see how that's implemented in game.

maybe theirs an abillity to seal opponents assholes shut.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

1st_Panzer_Div. posted:

Ron is a bit of a mess. He's super poor, except he gets 1%er vacations, has his own room, and is only affected by it a couple times (broken wand, bad sandwiches). He goes from a good chess player to magical world historian/cultural expert (but fails these classes because he's a worse student than Harry). Book 5-6 his character basically exists so Harry has someone to talk to and his response is 'whoah harry, that's cool you're the greatest'.

The only story-arch that flows is his alcoholism, he asks for a drink in book 1 and is downing bottles of fire whiskey by the end.

i always assumed it was one of those he is "poor for a wizarding family" type deal. like are there "homeless" wizards because i feel like magic and poo poo can take care of basic needs and you can like make a tree turn into a house in like a day or two.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.
Harry potter sucks poo poo. if you want to read a good YA fantasy book thats old but actually holds up and the author isnt a chud, read the last unicorn. its not super long and its mostly lots of characters talking and good writing, it is melancholy as gently caress throughout though.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Kojiro posted:

Or the Bartimaeus triology, which has a much better idea of how a society of imperialistic British wizards would go, and what an rear end in a top hat a teenage boy would be if he had that kinda power.

Cool. Thanks for suggesting.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

GodFish posted:

Seconding these. Loved them as kid, I should revisit them sometime.

Sydin posted:

Yeah can't stan the Bartimaeus Trilogy enough. It's a very different story than HP but it does so many of the same themes and ideas in a much more interesting and fleshed out manner. Really the only part of the whole trilogy I'd say drags is the first half of book 2 where two of the main characters are kinda aimlessly farting around Prague and the third main character's been just introduced and their arc hasn't really gotten off the ground yet.

nice. ill have to try it on audible sometime. id still stan for last unicorn. made me feel poo poo. probably should have read it during a depression episode lol. its one of those books that works way way more when your older.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

I liked Artemis Fowl but I don’t remember anything except the dwarf making GBS threads dirt

isn;t the kid actually decently evil until like book 12 or something?

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Vim Fuego posted:

Try separating the art from the artist? :shrug:

? Peter beagle is fine. I was just saying the book is melancholy as gently caress. Rowling sucks and went full super terf and probably way worse now.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Vim Fuego posted:

Harry Potter is good. Just finished the second book and it's a delightful magical journey into a world of whimsy and wizardry. It's no wonder the series captured the hearts of millions worldwide!

I personally like the first four when they feel like weird fantasy roald Dahl books with more world set up but i think they get bad or annoying once they start getting more serious and darker and poo poo. One, i don’t think that poo poo held up as well and while i think Rowling had an ending in mind probably by book 3, it never felt like a great journey to get there. I also think the darker tone doesn’t help the loose weird Dahl esc world building. Like the weird house elf poo poo works when the world is just weird and wacky but the second you have serious facists show up and torture and murder and etc, it falls apart. The problem to me is Rowling wants both, she wants the grim dark tone but keep the world wizard world clean and wacky and not change the outlook of it to match the story, like it’s never a problem that half the government bends the knee to the Nazis or that the house elf freedom stuff is treated as a joke, a smarter book would probably have at least address that poo poo or make it a plot line. I don’t know how to describe it. Like it’s a massive tonal clash. I meant you can be weird and funny and have a darker tone. The Witcher books have that. But most of the books I like, have enough self confidence to either pick a lane or bridge the gap.

Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Sep 10, 2023

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Air Skwirl posted:

I think Quiditch is a terribly accurate metaphor for the entire series. It's fun and quirky and make absolutely no sense if your spend more than a minute thinking about it.

see thats not even a bad thing ro harry potter works best when it was basicaly stupid willy wonka rules world where everything is just absurdism and weird and new and has a pastiche of fantasy poo poo and was about a bunch of characters loving around and having moments. it stopped being interesting when it got grimdark.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Rockstar Massacre posted:

it's not as though real sports and games have, and have always had, tons of reasonable well-thought out rules anyway. the problem with quidditch is that Rowling hated writing it, not how silly the game is

i am surprised by that because its the better parts of the earlier books. quditch is a sport id probably watch if it was real and i am one of those non sports people.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

BigglesSWE posted:

https://twitter.com/je_somerton/status/1707220016960000071?s=46&t=G1x8XWIwrNxUQoXItlkh2w

I don’t recall how book 1 started off the bat, but I personally love the very last bit in book seven (proper, before the epilogue).

i dont even hate the first couple books but like lol at the first sentence being a magical poo poo. its not bad but yeah no.


amigolupus posted:

It's notable in book 2 that Harry listens to Dobby recounting how much it sucks to be a slave and asked how he can help break him out of it. Book 4 Harry has forgotten all of that and was fine with how house elves were slaves. Dude didn't even get mad about how Winky was publicly fired and how wretched she was about it.

The fact that Harry never once connects the idea of house elf slavery with how he was forced by the Dursleys to be their glorified servant as a small child is just insane. It just adds credence to the idea that Rowling copies elements from other media without stopping to think how it would fit in the world she's creating.

i think thats kinda the issue i have as the books go on. there is lots of whimsy and but also empathy towards the hosed up parts of that society. by 4 when rowling commited to grim dark. that poo poo went away.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Sydin posted:

Harry gets less emotionally mature as he he physically matures. Like in book one he's actually really good about navigating complex social situations, particularly for an 11 year old. Meanwhile later books Harry is an asocial rear end in a top hat who even when he correctly deduces people's feelings does not give a poo poo. Book 1 Harry happily spends a ton of his own money buying a load of sweets off the Hogwarts Express lunch trolley and shares them freely because he wants to try and help Ron feel better about being poor and stuck with some dogshit leftover sandwiches his mom made him. Book 4 and beyond Harry in the same situation would have an inner monologue about how embarrassed he is about the huge wealth gap between himself and Ron and also wow those sandwiches really do look like crap, but then not act on it at all and just sulk about how annoying it is when Ron gets like this.

i mean part of that is he is like a 17 year old teenager type deal. I was a selfish dickhead when i was a that age. I think the problem is the world tries to make it self more dark(widespread slavery thats just accepted, nazis on the rise that arnt just token inbred bully) but it never doesnt stop treating alot of the world building as weird whimsical joke, Like harry potter is the type of fantasy thats very much a patiche of various different fantasy/myths/etc, like shrek or witcher or last unicorn or etc. except all of those pieces of media actually do something with the pastichie and play with it and deconstruct it.

Harry potter, just keeps trying to "OOOOH WONDERS UPON WONDERS" poo poo but it grows stale after book 3 when you get more detailed with the world building but never idk build upon it outside weird magic poo poo. like witcher books and games sorta treats it like the mundane, hell half the reason witchers are dying out is because armor and tech has advanced enough that you can arm a bunch of soldiers and kill a griffon and only lose half of them. there are tons of "oh poo poo uknown magic/monster poo poo" but alot of the world has taxonomies and poo poo. people go to college for degrees in monster studies and poo poo. i feel like harry potter needed to either lean into the "magical mundaity/horror of the magical mundaity" with the heavy world building she wanted OR she goes the beagle route and focuses on characters and themes and emotions and the "mysteriousness" of magic".

Edgar Allen Ho posted:

TPS started with the Vernon pov and was pretty fun

I honestly think that one is pretty good for young readers. It’s just tainted by Rowling and « magic boarding school » is just not that unique a concept. Gonna but kids poo poo like Pratchett or the Hobbit where I don’t gotta pay a shithead

i agree with this. its why i think the first 2 genuinly hold up. the vernon poo poo is great because he is rich upper middleclass dickhead who reads the sun and then he starts seeing all this weird poo poo happen and suddenly he has this kid at his front door with a letter and so he just abuses the kid because he is dipshit. like yeah you can see the beginnings of the issues with the series, but like that all was fine when it was roald loving dahl books.

Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 4, 2023

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

YaketySass posted:

The thing with stuff like Hogwarts having its own service of House Elves is that it doesn't even affect the plot: all the uglier aspects of wizard society is just there as texture, showing that Harry is increasingly aware of the bad parts of a world he used to think of as just an escape.

The Dementors (or details like the comically racist statue mentioned when they go to the Minister of Magic) are really on-the-nose details that poo poo's hosed up, it's just that nothing comes from that besides the protagonists tsk-tsk-ing to themselves about how they're slightly better than this. Every actual ethical choice has to be on the level of individual relationships and done through short symbolic moments, which is why Harry freeing Dobby is good and shows "what sort of person he is" but Hermione doing activism on a larger scale is ridiculed.

yeah. like i think the issue is less "lol libs"(thought has some merit) and more that rowling wanting to balance grimdark poo poo with the roald dahl wackyness/imagination. like i very good microcosim of the issues are with the beasts movie. the first one is genuinly good and its probably my favorite harry potter thing. it has a bunch of issues and tonal poo poo but the main character stays a good person through out and alot of it is him having weird wacky animal adventures. the main plot is simple and while their is darker poo poo in the background. its not overwelming. in 2, its just overly and stupidly grimdark and up its own rear end. hell they straight up murder a child. and most of it just doesnt go anywhere.
i think the issue is that the world can have dark undertones and can be left unremarked upon but once it goes grim dark and doesnt have like 40k type excuses. you need to have the characters at least point poo poo out.

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Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

I'm going to assume the fandom wiki is being updated by fans sufficiently obsessive to have this right:

So Voldemort blew it up, but only because Dumbledore was using it as meatshields, but Voldemort later tore it down and replaced it with a new fashier fountain. Maybe they rebuilt the old racist statue, or maybe they took the liberal approach of replacing the statue while doing nothing about the underlying systemic inequalities and structural power imbalances it represented. Or, since the Kingsley administration canonically pardoned Lucius loving Malfoy, maybe they just left Voldemort's fascist statue in place.

so does all the harry potter poo poo canonically take place in like 1998? like i guess that makes sense.

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