harry potter stuff that bothers you

Don’t forget that after Voldemort is defeated Ron and Ginny still have four healthy, at-least-reasonably attractive, and genetically probably pretty fecund older brothers, one of whom is already married.

I would wager that by the time Ron and Ginny became parents in their respective marriages, all the given names of close relatives in the parent/grandparent generation had already been bestowed on their older brothers’ kids. (I absolutely agree with Ranger Jeff that the name “Fred” went to George’s first son, for example.)

And since the Weasleys/Potters are a very close-knit clan, they would find it rather inconvenient to have two first cousins with the same given name. (“Oh dear, little Molly fell off her broomstick and sprained her wrist.” “Charlie’s little Molly?” “No, Ginny’s little Molly.” Help.)

I tend to place it at around the 16th-17th century, at least for the UK and probably elsewhere in Europe, following on the upswing in anti-witchcraft attitudes in Muggle culture. That explains some of the technology differential too: magical communities up till that point had shared a lot of material culture with the Muggle majority but then diverged and lost touch with further developments (hence robes, torches, parchment and quills, etc.)

A brief cultural rapprochement around Victorian/Edwardian times (steam trains, newspapers, cameras) more or less fizzled out, probably due both to the impact of the world wars and the overwhelming dominance of modern technology by electricity, which as we know doesn’t coexist with magic very successfully.

Finally, as for the impoverished Weasleys somehow being sufficiently well off to throw a fancy wedding for Bill and Fleur:

  1. Remember that after (I think) Book 5 Mr. Weasley got promoted to a more important position at the Ministry, so that probably eased the financial strain a bit. So did Percy’s and more importantly the twins’ becoming financially independent and having their own households, not to mention having left school. We know there are scholarships to Hogwarts for really impecunious kids like the orphaned Tom Riddle, but I think the Weasleys would have considered it a point of pride to pay for their kids’ schooling themselves.

One of the things about the Weasleys, after all, is that they’re a sort of “good aristocracy”, as opposed to the Malfoy-type “bad aristocracy”. The Weasleys and Prewitts (Molly’s family) are both old pure-blood wizarding families, and although they’re not conceited bastards about it like the Malfoys, they take their heritage seriously. For example, it makes them initially a bit snobby about, e.g., owning a joke shop as opposed to “proper” careers in public service, even though they’re in what’s delicately called “reduced circumstances” and can’t really afford to be finicky.

Besides being genuinely nice and generous, the Weasleys still think of themselves as having a noblesse oblige role to help others—look how they welcome Harry and Hermione to stay with them for extended periods despite the extra labor and expense entailed in washing their clothes and supplying their Floo powder and all.

  1. Just because Fleur’s parents couldn’t take on the bridal family’s usual role of hosting the wedding, owing to security reasons, doesn’t mean that they didn’t insist on helping to pay for it.

  2. Other clan members (in addition to Bill himself and the twins) might well have rallied round to help defray expenses for this big family shindig, even though Molly and Arthur would have been way too proud to ask them for handouts to assist with ordinary household expenses of feeding/housing/schooling seven kids. Even selfish old Auntie Muriel might have reached into her pocket in addition to lending her tiara, although you can bet she demanded to be fulsomely thanked for it.

Sorry can’t help you with podcasts, since I don’t have any experience with them. Apparently you can download the podcast from itunes though, there’s a link on the hpmor page. I personally downloaded the mobi version for my kindle and read that. If you have an ereader, I would recommend that. It may be too long to be read on PDF, unless you’re used to reading long documents on the computer.

The other thing that bothers me about HP is the scene at the World Cup in which the Death Eaters roam around and terrorize the crowd, and everyone runs about screaming with no attempt at defense.

I’m not an open-carry nut bar, but, c’mon, every-single-adult at the event is packing heat. I’d think that after the last go-round with the death eaters 15 years ago, everyone would instantly and virtually simultaneously confound, stupify and petrify the hell out of anyone showing up in a Death Eater mask or firing off the Dark Mark.

^

  1. The cup wasn’t attended only by qualified aurors or law enforcement men. Families were there. The confusion seen with Harry, Hermione, and the younger Weasley kids was likely repeated everywhere.

  2. The older Weasleys (or some adult wizard) said they can’t blast the DE’s without hurting the muggles suspended above them.

  3. They weren’t hurting wizards. They were hurting muggles. Some cup attendees either condoned it or were indifferent.

  4. Not every adult wizard knows how to fight with a wand. This was made clear in the next two books.

  5. No one seems to want to cut the author some slack for writing a complicated anthology meant primarily for young people.

I don’t get why Harry was called a halfblood. His mother was a witch (albeit a mudblood) and his father was a wizard, so Harry should have counted as a pureblood. In fact, Harry told Draco in their first meeting that his (Harry’s) parents were a witch and wizard. Halfbloods have a Muggle parent. Also, Voldemort lost his body and his wand when he attacked Harry in the beginning, and he was floating around as a disembodied spirit for 13 years afterwards. So how, in the Goblet of Fire, did he manage to retrieve his original wand – the twin of Harry’s?

I think James being without his wand was an afterthought on Rowling’s part. In the 4th HP, Voldemort asks Harry to face and duel him (Voldemort) like his (Harry’s) father did. In other words, James did put up a fight. Probably the storyline changed between the 4th and 7th books.

I disagree. When Voldemort’s in your house, you don’t worry about whether the Ministry can trace you – you get out as fast as you can. And the Potter’s sacrifice was not the only way to protect Harry – zapping Voldemort would have done equally well. James was supposed to be brilliant and Lily was pretty good at magic herself – surely she could have held Voldemort long enough for James to grab his wand? And surely the two of them together could have fought off Voldemort at least long enough for help to arrive?

He didn’t know Hermione at the time.

If it would have been so easy for them to escape presumably Voldemort could have taken some sort of precautions and put some sort of ward over the area to prevent people from teleporting out before attacking the house itself. Or maybe the wards already in place to protect the house included enchantments preventing apparating in or out. Who knows. This is one of the easier things in the series to fanwank.

I find the construction of the Gyriffindor Quidditch team interesting. When Harry joined, he was a first year, Oliver Wood was a fifth year and the oldest member of the team. All the other players were second or third years. (Apparently, no 4th, 6th, or even 7th year student was good enough.) The same team continued unchanged for the next two years until Oliver left. No trials, no new players, nothing. The first we hear of trials are in Harry’s sixth year, when he is appointed as captain – over Katie Bell, who is one year his senior.

Typically, in a school team, the older, stronger players should comprise the bulk of the team. So in Harry’s first year team, you have an 11 year old, a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds, and one 15 year old (Oliver). The other house teams probably had a bunch of 16-17 year old sixth and seventh year students. OK, I can understand that Rowling wanted to build her stories around an unchanged team. But can you think of any school match where a team of 13 year olds goes up against a team of 17 year olds with good results?

Kimstu:

It happens often enough in real life that I can’t imagine it’s a major inconvenience in the Harry Potter world. Within my close family, there must be a dozen cousin-sets of namesakes for the same ancestral person.

KKKK:

That was my mistake, answering the wrong question.

The prophecy made it clear that no one would be able to permanently defeat Voldemort except the baby born at the end of July. Even if the Potters could have defeated Voldemort in a duel (and that’s hardly a certainty, the only wizard generally acknowledged by anyone as Voldemort’s equal or better was Dumbledore), they knew it wouldn’t be the ultimate end of Voldemort. As dedicated members of the Order of the Phoenix, they knew that the way to ultimate victory was to give the baby the only possible protection from the Avada Kedavra curse by sacrificing themselves.

Well, maybe, but I’m sure it also happens really often that close families avoid naming cousins the same name, especially if they’re similar ages. I’ve certainly heard naming discussions that take it into account.

Yip, that’s one of the two major changes. I don’t know for sure what the other one is, but the results are that both Voldemort and Harry are really smart. For the purposes of this thread, Harry exists as the audience surrogate to point out the flaws in the Rowling canon.

It starts out pretty humorous, but gets more intense as it goes on. By the point we are at now, it gets at least as dark as the last books did.

Speaking of humor, if you want to read a purely humorous take that the author likes–and especially if you know a little bit about D&D or other paper RPGs–you may want to check out Harry Potter and the Natural 20. It’s about a munchkin wizard who gets sucked into the HP world. I’ve never even played a game of D&D, but I love it.

(The HPMOR author says he found it funnier than some of the Discworld books.)

Huh. HPMOR led me to believe he was called a muggleborn, having been raised by Muggles, even if he wasn’t technically born to them. (I’m intentionally avoiding the real books until after HPMOR so I get a [nearly] unique experience of the work. I only know things through cultural osmosis.)

He really was called a halfblood? Was his dad also a mudblood? Or was his mom really maybe 1/4 witch, making Harry 5/8, which is pretty close to half? (I’m assuming mudblood is less specific than halfblood.)

Is there anything at all that’s the same?

I’m not the best to answer that, but, as far as I can tell, most of the other characters are (or at least start out) the same, they are just reacting to a different situation. And there’s a lot of canon information that can inform your reading, particularly stuff about horcruxes and Voldemort himself.

Anything that changing Harry and Voldemort wouldn’t have changed is still there, too, of course. That means all of Rowling’s setting is there, including the inanities. Some, however, turn out to have a good explanation. Right now, we’ve just learned that there was a good reason that Voldemort had to keep going back and getting a fresh supply of unicorn blood. Much earlier, Harry figured out how the spit take soda (whatever it’s called) works.

The prophecy is still there, although I believe it’s slightly different. Snape still was bullied by Harry’s dad and is in love with Harry’s mom. Voldemort still appeared to kill Harry and make him his horcrux. Something is still off about Quirrell. The Chamber of Secrets is still there and is how Voldemort got his power. Harry is still the Boy-Who-Lived and all that stuff.

So, yeah, a lot of the stuff is still there. But your going to encounter it differently, through the eyes of a young boy scientist who is wise beyond his years and has these weird temper episodes where he feels almost like a different person.

Harry’s father’s family is pure wizard blood going back forever. Harry’s mother was the only witch in her otherwise pure Muggle family (like Hermione).

I don’t remember whether anybody ever calls him a “mudblood” but remember there are those who think ANY amount of Muggle blood disqualifies you from being a real wizard even though as we know, both Lily Evans and Hermione are talented, powerful witches. So the whole “blood” issue is really meaningless.

Okay, that makes an odd type of sense, then. She is muggleborn and his father was pure blood, so that makes him halfblood, at least, as far as Slytherins are concerned.

And the blood thing is thoroughly covered in HPMOR, so I know it doesn’t actually mean anything about powers. Hermione is still the most talented and powerful witch in her year (if not her generation considering her age).

BTW, can’t believe I mistyped “you’re” in my previous post.

Ok, Dumbledore is an utter idiot and an attention whore, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to have missed an obvious loophole in Lily’s “Protect Harry” spell, but someone else should have caught it.

I get that Rowling was trying for a Rolad Dahl style of “humorous abuse” with the Dursleys, but she failed, IMO. Given that harry was locked up in a spider-filled hole under the stairs for weeks at a time (sneaking out to get canned food and to go to the bathroom), that he was verbally abused and feared actual real violence and got literally no affection or physical contact from anybody, he should have grown up feral.

The obvious loophole would have been to put Harry with some other family (wizard or not) and had him spend one overnighter (or one week or whatever the minimum amount of time needed) to fulfill the “live with relatives” part of mom’s protection. Hell, even if he’s gotta be with the Dursleys for a few months in the summer, it’s still better than what Dumbledore did which is completely abandon Harry to horribly abusive monsters.

Dumbledore was planning for Harry to die. Almost from the get go. He also

  1. Failed to note that the Dark Lord was sitting next to him at dinner and was trying to kill Harry.

  2. That a great big kill-with-a-single-look snake was wandering around his school

  3. Failed to stop or catch a convicted murderer. Not to mention keep soul sucking monsters away from…Harry.

  4. Failed to stop Harry from nearly dying at Voldemort’s hands, granted this turned out well.

  5. Stop Dolores Umbridge or stop Voldy from getting into Harry’s brain

  6. Failed to find more than one Horcrux

  7. Failed to be alive.
    So, frankly, the choice of guardians was fairly low on the Albus mess up scale.