J.K. Rowling needs to stop messing with Harry Potter - A general STFU J.K. Rowling MegaThread <3

[Adamska]

Started rereading some of the books and I must say, pretty much every method of wizard travel outside of flying sounds fucking awful. Sensations of spinning rapidly or being compressed through a rubber hose, having to tuck your arms in while using flue powder to keep from breaking your damned elbows, the potential of splinching yourself while apparating and leaving behind half your fucking organs.

Fuck that shit, I'll walk.

Reminder that they banned flying carpets too, so you don't even have a method that allows you to feel more comfortable than sitting on an invisible bike seat in the air.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Started rereading some of the books and I must say, pretty much every method of wizard travel outside of flying sounds fucking awful. Sensations of spinning rapidly or being compressed through a rubber hose, having to tuck your arms in while using flue powder to keep from breaking your damned elbows, the potential of splinching yourself while apparating and leaving behind half your fucking organs.

Fuck that shit, I'll walk.

Apparating doesn't sound much more dangerous than driving and you have the Wizarding Highway Response Crews to put you back together if you fuck up. Plus it's instantaneous and in the movies you get to fly around in a cloud of smoke, that's better than most cars, right?

Reminder that they banned flying carpets too, so you don't even have a method that allows you to feel more comfortable than sitting on an invisible bike seat in the air.

I thought they were common among Middle Eastern wizards? Why is the Ministry of Magic so xenophobic and intolerant?

 

[Xarpho]

I wanted to imply this back in a new thread about world building (probably will get merged in) but what I think was a major weakness of the book was after introducing some of the "Wizard stuff" just for culture shock (Diagon Alley and their unusual candies, bankers being literal goblins, etc.), it makes more sense to try to integrate the real world into that instead of having this entire wizard culture that is created later. While Harry falling asleep during maths class at Hogwarts or on a weekly trip to the Tesco might be a buzzkill to those looking for more fantasy, it at least could've introduced some major twists into it, like a secret Men in Black-like branch of the British government working with the wizards, or how magic came to be.

As long as they don't go full retard with that premise like Percy Jackson & the Olympians, it could've worked.

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

I wanted to imply this back in a new thread about world building (probably will get merged in) but what I think was a major weakness of the book was after introducing some of the "Wizard stuff" just for culture shock (Diagon Alley and their unusual candies, bankers being literal goblins, etc.), it makes more sense to try to integrate the real world into that instead of having this entire wizard culture that is created later. While Harry falling asleep during maths class at Hogwarts or on a weekly trip to the Tesco might be a buzzkill to those looking for more fantasy, it at least could've introduced some major twists into it, like a secret Men in Black-like branch of the British government working with the wizards, or how magic came to be.

As long as they don't go full retard with that premise like Percy Jackson & the Olympians, it could've worked.

Got bored with Percy Jackson, but yeah, they really ran the gauntlet on that.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

While Harry falling asleep during maths class at Hogwarts or on a weekly trip to the Tesco might be a buzzkill to those looking for more fantasy, it at least could've introduced some major twists into it, like a secret Men in Black-like branch of the British government working with the wizards, or how magic came to be.

Harry falls asleep in history class because Rowling didn't want to write out the backstory of the world so all we hear is it's some witches laughing at witch trials and (((goblins))) being BTFO'd.

I think the intention of the Ministry of Magic eventually became "this is the secret branch of the British government that deals with wizards" since one of the later books has the Minister of Magic visiting the Prime Minister and warning him about shit that's about to go down but like a lot of other things with Harry Potter it's painfully underdeveloped and opens up a lot of questions.

 

[Xarpho]

Harry falls asleep in history class because Rowling didn't want to write out the backstory of the world so all we hear is it's some witches laughing at witch trials and (((goblins))) being BTFO'd.

I think the intention of the Ministry of Magic eventually became "this is the secret branch of the British government that deals with wizards" since one of the later books has the Minister of Magic visiting the Prime Minister and warning him about shit that's about to go down but like a lot of other things with Harry Potter it's painfully underdeveloped and opens up a lot of questions.

The other plot hole that I remembered is that Ron's dad is "fascinated" with muggles and their culture (hence, his Ford Anglia he enchanted to fly) yet Ron is painfully clueless is ANYTHING the "muggles" use (telephones, doctors, etc.). You'd think Ron would know about those sorts of things almost as much as Harry or Hermione do, but he doesn't and still acts as if he raised in an ultra-wizard orthodox household.

 

[CWCissey]

The other plot hole that I remembered is that Ron's dad is "fascinated" with muggles and their culture (hence, his Ford Anglia he enchanted to fly) yet Ron is painfully clueless is ANYTHING the "muggles" use (telephones, doctors, etc.). You'd think Ron would know about those sorts of things almost as much as Harry or Hermione do, but he doesn't and still acts as if he raised in an ultra-wizard orthodox household.

Ron's dad didn't know much about Muggle items either. He just liked to treat them as curios.

 

[Bass]

The other plot hole that I remembered is that Ron's dad is "fascinated" with muggles and their culture (hence, his Ford Anglia he enchanted to fly) yet Ron is painfully clueless is ANYTHING the "muggles" use (telephones, doctors, etc.). You'd think Ron would know about those sorts of things almost as much as Harry or Hermione do, but he doesn't and still acts as if he raised in an ultra-wizard orthodox household.

I think that's because the Weasley's are the retarded white trash of the wizarding world.

I never understood the Ministry. So they answer to the Prime Minister of the UK, who I assume is a muggle, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK doesn't the PM pick who is the minister? So he could have picked anybody, like another muggle to be the Minister. Also doesn't that mean that like at least a couple of hundred muggles know about the magic world at any given time? That's not even counting the muggles like Hermoine's parents who are the normal people parents of a wizard, and so on. So logically a shit ton of the UK knows about the wizards, but pretends they aren't there, and no general or admiral has ever tried to weaponize the fact that the largest magic school in europe is in Scotland? Also doesn't this make the Wizgamot or whatever the hell it's called, pointless? SInce all the powre flows from the muggle PM through the minister of magic? And so on, and so on, and so on.

Yeah, I guess Rowling's world building sucks.

 

[draggs]

I think that's because the Weasley's are the retarded white trash of the wizarding world.

I never understood the Ministry. So they answer to the Prime Minister of the UK, who I assume is a muggle, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK doesn't the PM pick who is the minister? So he could have picked anybody, like another muggle to be the Minister. Also doesn't that mean that like at least a couple of hundred muggles know about the magic world at any given time? That's not even counting the muggles like Hermoine's parents who are the normal people parents of a wizard, and so on. So logically a shit ton of the UK knows about the wizards, but pretends they aren't there, and no general or admiral has ever tried to weaponize the fact that the largest magic school in europe is in Scotland? Also doesn't this make the Wizgamot or whatever the hell it's called, pointless? SInce all the powre flows from the muggle PM through the minister of magic? And so on, and so on, and so on.

Yeah, I guess Rowling's world building sucks.

I think there's some kind of unspoken agreement or secret treaty / legislation that muggles will leave wizards alone and the ones that do know will act like they don't exist, and wizards won't use magic in a way that the great mass of muggles can find out (or use magic ON muggles). So the muggles don't end up genociding wizards by Zerging them / wizards won't use their magic to kill tons of muggles as almost happened in the Middle Ages or whatever. Of course there's a bajillion holes in it, it would never work.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

So logically a shit ton of the UK knows about the wizards, but pretends they aren't there, and no general or admiral has ever tried to weaponize the fact that the largest magic school in europe is in Scotland?

Now I'm imagining that scene from X-men 2, but with Hogwarts being stormed by the SAS as they traq and bag students.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

The Scottish guy. The one who taught Harry quiditch in the first film. What ever happened to him?

I heard apparently he isn't fond of that role? Oliver something

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

I think there's some kind of unspoken agreement or secret treaty / legislation that muggles will leave wizards alone and the ones that do know will act like they don't exist, and wizards won't use magic in a way that the great mass of muggles can find out (or use magic ON muggles). So the muggles don't end up genociding wizards by Zerging them / wizards won't use their magic to kill tons of muggles as almost happened in the Middle Ages or whatever. Of course there's a bajillion holes in it, it would never work.

I mean I'm pretty sure King Arthur and Merlin are alluded to so your guess is as good as Rowling's how it's all supposed to work.

The Scottish guy. The one who taught Harry quiditch in the first film. What ever happened to him?

I heard apparently he isn't fond of that role? Oliver something

IIRC there's a line in one of the books that says he graduated and went to play professional quidditch.

 

[CWCissey]

I think that's because the Weasley's are the retarded white trash of the wizarding world.

I never understood the Ministry. So they answer to the Prime Minister of the UK, who I assume is a muggle, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK doesn't the PM pick who is the minister? So he could have picked anybody, like another muggle to be the Minister. Also doesn't that mean that like at least a couple of hundred muggles know about the magic world at any given time? That's not even counting the muggles like Hermoine's parents who are the normal people parents of a wizard, and so on. So logically a shit ton of the UK knows about the wizards, but pretends they aren't there, and no general or admiral has ever tried to weaponize the fact that the largest magic school in europe is in Scotland? Also doesn't this make the Wizgamot or whatever the hell it's called, pointless? SInce all the powre flows from the muggle PM through the minister of magic? And so on, and so on, and so on.

Yeah, I guess Rowling's world building sucks.

I'm guessing that the Wizarding World in the UK is subject to something similar to Scottish devolution. Magical folks vote for their Minister Of Magic, and the Ministry is essentially their parliament.

The Scottish guy. The one who taught Harry quiditch in the first film. What ever happened to him?

I heard apparently he isn't fond of that role? Oliver something

Sean Biggerstaff?

He does a fair amount of theatre/indie stuff now.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Sean Biggerstaff?

He does a fair amount of theatre/indie stuff now.

Yes him he was kinda hot. It looks like he did return for the final film so I guess there's at least some love for the part

 

[QuokkaCaptain]

The other plot hole that I remembered is that Ron's dad is "fascinated" with muggles and their culture (hence, his Ford Anglia he enchanted to fly) yet Ron is painfully clueless is ANYTHING the "muggles" use (telephones, doctors, etc.). You'd think Ron would know about those sorts of things almost as much as Harry or Hermione do, but he doesn't and still acts as if he raised in an ultra-wizard orthodox household.

I mean, to be fair, it's sort of treated as a sort of eccentric hobby that his wife doesn't especially approve of- and as a teenage boy for most of the novels, I could believe Ron just being like "sure, whatever dad" and tuning him out rather than actually absorbing any information on muggle life.

Of course, I seem to recall Arthur himself having a fairly poor understanding of anything non-wizard (doesn't he ask Harry something to the effect of "what is the function of a rubber duck"? I get it's probably for comedic effect, but come on: How do you not know what a toy is?) so I can't imagine that anything Ron has absorbed would be terribly accurate.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

I mean, to be fair, it's sort of treated as a sort of eccentric hobby that his wife doesn't especially approve of- and as a teenage boy for most of the novels, I could believe Ron just being like "sure, whatever dad" and tuning him out rather than actually absorbing any information on muggle life.

Of course, I seem to recall Arthur himself having a fairly poor understanding of anything non-wizard (doesn't he ask Harry something to the effect of "what is the function of a rubber duck"? I get it's probably for comedic effect, but come on: How do you not know what a toy is?) so I can't imagine that anything Ron has absorbed would be terribly accurate.

Now, last time I read Harry Potter was over 20 years ago, but don't most of the wizard kids and their parents live in or near muggle towns or cities? Surely they would have absorbed something about non-wizard culture?

 

[CWCissey]

Now, last time I read Harry Potter was over 20 years ago, but don't most of the wizard kids and their parents live in or near muggle towns or cities? Surely they would have absorbed something about non-wizard culture?

Ron lives out in the country somewhere.

 

[Governor Jeb Bush]

I wish J.R.R. Tolkien was alive, he would have eloquently explained why Harry Potter was shit.

 

[Juan's Sombrero]

I wish J.R.R. Tolkien was alive, he would have eloquently explained why Harry Potter was shit.

Or, use the pages as toilet paper.

Literally.

He'd buy a set of books. Cut out or rip out pages, glue them together, roll them, and sell it online, advertising that it's "one of a kind" made from genuine HP books.

If you wager that they wouldn't sell, it's a sucker's bet. You underestimate what kind of "merch" dedicated HP fans waste their good money on.

Ron's dad didn't know much about Muggle items either. He just liked to treat them as curios.

You'd think that a "progressive" family like the Weasleys would at least bother to actually learn how the other side lives. You know. Like, ACTUALLY knowing how the muggle world works. Yet, their ineptitude and ignorance was treated more as a humorous quirk rather than a hypocritical shortcoming in comparison to how they saw dark wizards as being xenophobic, when they were hardly any better.

 

[draggs]

I wish J.R.R. Tolkien was alive, he would have eloquently explained why Harry Potter was shit.

He would create a legendarium spanning 10,000 years of why Harry Potter was shit