# harry potter stuff that bothers you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 4, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466 "2014-02-04T00:06:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/241 "2014-02-08T00:57:58Z")
Sorry 'bout that. :smack: Okay, post reported. Maybe a separate thread though to discuss the fan fiction to avoid confusion? > [@Magiver](#): > > It was apparent from the letters that they were aware of the situation and as he grew older they threatened the Dursley’s outright if they mistreated him. They threatened him in book FIVE. This was after he had been at Hogwarts for years, not when he was growing up. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/242 "2014-02-08T01:06:52Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Sorry 'bout that. :smack: Okay, post reported. Maybe a separate thread though to discuss the fan fiction to avoid confusion? No worries. The thing is, HPMOR is what happens when someone takes the topic “harry potter stuff that bothers you” and decides to write a 2000 page book on it. I’m not surprised it crept into this thread. Very organic side discussion, as it were. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/243 "2014-02-08T01:34:05Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Yabbut, Voldemort isn’t going to get racial purity for himself; half of his chromosomes come from a Muggle. Accepting an axiom that halfbloods are wielders of an inferior grade of magic forces him to accept that HE is the wielder of an inferior grade of magic. > > And **fachverwirrt** ’s point, if I’m reading him correctly, is that during the purges of the Thicknesse administration, the interrogators only required their defendants to prove the magical status of ONE birth parent. > [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Voldemort _ **was** _ a half-blood, remember? As was Snape and Harry. > [@fachverwirrt](#): > > As others have noted, Voldemort was a halfblood. The persecution was against muggleborns; wizards and witches with no magical parents. From the books I understand blood purity to be a ranking, but with a sort of “one drop”-feel, like racism. Half-bloods weren’t persecuted in the way muggle-borns were, but they were on the scale. The pure-blood Death Eaters saw them as inferior. They wanted to eliminate the muggle-borns from the wizarding world, but if they felt superior to half-bloods due to “blood purity” then that wasn’t going to work out well for the half-bloods. I think it’s sort of essential for the allegory. If the half-bloods are totally fine then the allegory doesn’t make sense. Rowling purposely made Voldemort a half-blood. I see it also as referencing the commonly held belief that Hitler was part Jewish. Voldemort killed his own muggle father and hardly any Death Eaters knew of his muggle ancestry, while he made much of his being related to Salazar Slytherin. The ridiculousness of the idea of blood purity, in that almost nobody really was a pure-blood, was also essential to the allegory: the one drop rule or the demarcation of who is Mischlinge is ridiculous. I think to the real fanatics there was no difference between a half-blood and a muggle-born. To others it was scale, and half-bloods weren’t as good. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/244 "2014-02-08T01:44:53Z")
Ah missed the edit! What [Jo Rowling apparently had to say](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Blood_purity) about it: > [@](#): > > The expressions ‘pure-blood’, ‘half-blood’ and ‘Muggle-born’ have been coined by people to whom these distinctions matter, and express their originators’ prejudice. As far as somebody like Lucius Malfoy is concerned, for instance, a Muggle-born is as ‘bad’ as a Muggle. Therefore Harry would be considered only ‘half’ wizard, because of his mother’s parents. If you think this is far-fetched, look at some of the real charts the Nazis used to show what constituted ‘Aryan’ or ‘Jewish’ blood…the Nazis used precisely the same warped logic as the Death Eaters. A single Jewish grandparent ‘polluted’ the blood, according to their propaganda. I would say that’s persecution. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/245 "2014-02-08T01:58:46Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > They threatened him in book FIVE. This was after he had been at Hogwarts for years, not when he was growing up. They knew he was living under the stairs. It’s implied he was watched. All through the book Dumbledore knows what’s going on through Mrs Figg who is a member of the Phoenix. She was a close neighbor and babysitter for Harry. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/246 "2014-02-08T03:46:18Z")
I guess as long as there were muggles and muggle born, the half-bloods didn’t worry much about the purebloods turning on them. That and the half-bloods probably outnumbered the purebloods during the time of the HP novels. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/247 "2014-02-08T04:03:47Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Sorry 'bout that. :smack: Okay, post reported. Maybe a separate thread though to discuss the fan fiction to avoid confusion? [There is one.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17080812&postcount=176) 😃 > [@Guinastasia](#): > > They threatened him in book FIVE. This was after he had been at Hogwarts for years, not when he was growing up. As **Magiver** points out, Vernon and Petunia began to FEEL that they might not be getting away with their treatment of Harry when the first letter from Hogwarts arrived, in July of 1991. Recall, that very afternoon Harry was moved out of the spider nursery and into Dudley’s excess toy surge tank. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/248 "2014-02-08T04:57:04Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > The FINAL score. That’s after he caught the Snitch. Which means they were originally 170 - 10. Try coming back from that – which is how it was explained in the book. 170-10 is a close match when you can win with 3 scoring plays. It doesn’t seem that impossible to score a couple of goals. You certainly don’t give up when it’s that close. Krum was a quitter. > [@Magiver](#): > > The reason he caught the snitch is that the opposing team was about to catch it and he didn’t want the score to be 320/10. Now he could have knocked the opposing player off his stride which was legal but he didn’t for whatever reason (not explained in the book). > [@MrAtoz](#): > > Then that’s what he should have done. Who’s to say his team couldn’t have caught up? Right. Once you’re more than 140 points behind, your seeker plays defense as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/249 "2014-02-08T16:00:15Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Heh. Thanks for linking this. I read a couple of chapters and will probably read all of it now. A couple questions. How long is it? Is it finished? Do you know if it’s available on mobi? I couldn’t find a mobi version. The author intends to do all the books. The first book is finished. The second book is ongoing, probably a little more than halfway through. The author is also not nearly as prompt at releasing updates as he used to be and probably averages a chapter per month. Still faster than HPMOR, though. And I know there’s a separate thread for HPMOR, but I was assuming people just starting were worried about spoilers and thus were sticking with this thread. I unfortunately do not know anything about a mobi version. I’m sure one can be made, though. That’s how all the various versions of HPMOR got done–it’s all fan-made. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/250 "2014-02-08T16:53:42Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > Heh. Thanks for linking this. I read a couple of chapters and will probably read all of it now. A couple questions. How long is it? Is it finished? Do you know if it’s available on mobi? I couldn’t find a mobi version. I went ahead and made a MOBI version. It’s an automatic conversion, so it’s not the best, but it turned out a lot better than I thought. I separated the two books into separate files (keeping the Omake in book 1 where it fell). [ol] [li][Sir Poley - Harry Potter and the Natural 20.mobi](http://upfile.mobi/372257)[/li][li][Sir Poley - Harry Potter and the Confirmed Critical (as of 2014-2-08).mobi](http://upfile.mobi/372260)[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/251 "2014-02-08T17:05:44Z")
Something else that bothered me: Fleur went from being heroic, intrepid, the best Beauxbatons could offer for the Triwizard Tournament, into a useless, decorative Disney princess. Where the hell was she when it mattered? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/252 "2014-02-08T17:23:09Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Something else that bothered me: Fleur went from being heroic, intrepid, the best Beauxbatons could offer for the Triwizard Tournament, into a useless, decorative Disney princess. Where the hell was she when it mattered? Dueling death Eaters in the air and at Hogwarts? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/253 "2014-02-08T18:32:20Z")
Yeah, I think Fleur was there fighting in the final battle. That is no chump change; I’m sure many wizards wimped out(which is probably what I would have done). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/254 "2014-02-08T20:14:00Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Yeah, I think Fleur was there fighting in the final battle. That is no chump change; I’m sure many wizards wimped out(which is probably what I would have done). 🙂 Yeah, Fleur was seriously bad ass. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/255 "2014-02-08T21:11:07Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Something else that bothered me: Fleur went from being heroic, intrepid, the best Beauxbatons could offer for the Triwizard Tournament, into a useless, decorative Disney princess. Where the hell was she when it mattered? As has been posted, the character was part of the final Hogwarts fight. But, yeah: Rowling clearly lost interest in her after GoF. With such a huge cast of characters throughout the seven books, it was probably inevitable that many would become mere name-checks as the story went on. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/256 "2014-02-08T23:25:47Z")
> [@expectopatronum](#): > > this question is more or less limited to the books, because most of the changes we would make to the films are probably going to be to make them match the books more closely. > > some of mine: > > -i wish harry and ginny’s relationship had been set up a little more. thematically, i understand why harry had to end up with ginny… I don’t. It has always pissed me off that Harry and Hermione didn’t end up together. Come on - the finest witch and the finest wizard of their generation and they _don’t_ end up with each other? Made absolutely no sense at all. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/257 "2014-02-08T23:27:42Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I don’t. It has always pissed me off that Harry and Hermione didn’t end up together. Come on - the finest witch and the finest wizard of their generation and they _don’t_ end up with each other? Made absolutely no sense at all. Calling Harry the “finest Wizard of his generation” is a bit of a stretch. He has leadership capabilities, for sure, but he’s not the next Dumbledore or Flamel. Hell, I’d hesitate to compare him to Snape in terms of pure skill and potential. The book itself doesn’t seem to be shy about being relatively clear that Harry, as a wizard, isn’t really anything horribly special. It’s mostly his ability to inspire and leverage his friends properly that sets him apart. Which isn’t to diminish that skill, but I don’t think he can really hold a candle to Hermione. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/258 "2014-02-08T23:29:38Z")
Naw, it would have been way too much of a cliche. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/259 "2014-02-09T01:36:57Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Calling Harry the “finest Wizard of his generation” is a bit of a stretch. He has leadership capabilities, for sure, but he’s not the next Dumbledore or Flamel. Hell, I’d hesitate to compare him to Snape in terms of pure skill and potential. The book itself doesn’t seem to be shy about being relatively clear that Harry, as a wizard, isn’t really anything horribly special. It’s mostly his ability to inspire and leverage his friends properly that sets him apart. Which isn’t to diminish that skill, but I don’t think he can really hold a candle to Hermione. The books seem to give Harry credit for above-average dueling abilities and other Defense Against the Dark Arts subjects. In particular, it’s considered impressive that he can pull off a patronus at all, let alone doing it so well. However, he clearly struggles with less active subjects like charms and potions. So I’d sum it up this way: Harry is your man to blow something up. You go ask Hermione if you just want to change it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466/260 "2014-02-09T01:42:27Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I don’t. It has always pissed me off that Harry and Hermione didn’t end up together. Come on - the finest witch and the finest wizard of their generation and they _don’t_ end up with each other? Made absolutely no sense at all. Bluh. Who says that just because they both happen to be talented, they have to end up with each other? What irritated me was that everyone in the books ended up with someone they’d gone to high school with, basically. I actually really liked that Hermione didn’t end up with Harry. You’re right, it does seem obvious at first, because duh, she’s clearly being set up to be Harry’s love interest, right? Except she’s not. Not in the slightest. I thought it was a nice turnaround of the usual boring cliche. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-stuff-that-bothers-you/680466.md?page=14)