death to capslock

Why did the Order only threaten the Dursleys after Harry's fifth year?

2025-03-08T19:28:13Z

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Many readers have wondered why none of the adults who care about Harry confronted the Dursleys during his first five years at Hogwarts. What suddenly made them take action in 1996 when they hadn’t seen a need before? ( Read more... )

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Resolving the wrong story problem

2023-03-20T00:00:37Z

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Film Crit Hulk’s essay “Black Widow and the Latent Last Act Blues” has some interesting thoughts about story beginnings and endings and how they work together to provide catharsis. (I haven’t yet seen Black Widow, but the essay makes sense anyway, so don’t worry if you haven’t either unless you care about spoilers.) He thinks the beginning of the movie is pretty great in isolation, but doesn’t properly set up the end, which makes the emotional resolutions at the end feel tacked-on and lackluster.

“that’s supposed to be the big lesson that’s at the heart of everything, right? And we genuinely do get the sentiment / fallout of it, but we’re still missing the most important thing that makes us care for it. Because there isn’t that first act thing where we experience the heartbreak of that along with them. […] ‘What is the thing they can do at the end of the movie that they couldn’t do at the beginning?’”

And this helped me crystalize one of my main problems with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, there are a lot of problems with that book. The one I’m going to focus on here is Harry’s resigned march to his death. There are a lot of problems with this scene too — and I think one of them is that it wasn’t set up properly.

This is where one of the main themes of the whole series reaches its climax: that you have to accept death, not try to fight it forever. But…did Harry need to learn that lesson? ( Read more... )

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Transferred Some of His Powers

2020-12-19T20:53:00Z

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Dumbledore says that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to Harry, the mechanism for which is later revealed to be the soul fragment lodged in Harry’s head. But the only power he ever singles out is Parseltongue. Were there others?( Read more... )

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The redeemed individual in HP

2020-08-08T19:38:00Z

Posted by: elanor-x.livejournal.com

Declaration: I do not agree with all statements made in this article and, as a non-American, am hardly a political expert, so this link does not mean endorsement of any 'non-HP things.'

Why is this article worth reading?

What stood out to me was the interesting reading of OoTF. It has always been my least favorite HP book. After waiting for years for its publication, I remember practically suffering and wanting to shut the book down every time Dolores Umbridge or Harry's anger made an appearance. Since one of the two, of most often their combination, are ubiquitous in OoTF, you may imagine the 'joy' of reading.

Renee Gorman's interpretation of Harry's evolution in OoTF at last reconciled me to this part of the series.

QUOTE from the article

Harry’s frustration stems from both the fact that he knows the truth and that he is being punished for his virtue: an injustice that is difficult to swallow. But he is also battling with his loss of popularity and celebrity. Though Harry consistently claims to hate the limelight—and though he genuinely does at times—he also secretly prizes his famous persona.

( Read more )

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Could Tom Riddle really build a following in school

2020-08-04T16:37:00Z

Posted by: tygershark.livejournal.com

As we all know the books left a lot of questions unanswered. So many things are contradictory and just flat out don't make any sense.

I've often thought about Tom Riddle's time at Hogwarts and those memories that Dumbledore showed Harry. Many of the things Dumbles told Harry didn't make any sense. Worse some of the reasons he gave Harry for the things that he did make even less sense. I'm thinking here of Trelawney's interview being held in the Hog's Head because it was raining. Was she related to the Wicked Witch of the West? Did she fear death by melting? But I digress, back to my musings about Tom.

How was it that Tom was able to amass a loyal following that included the likes of Avery, Lestrange, and one can only assume Malfoy. Although they must have been the fathers of Lucius Malfoy's generation. I know Dumbledore tells Harry that he believed Tom did it by virtue of his Parslemouth ability, his charm, good looks, and superior intellect, but I have to wonder. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but during those "lessons" Dumbledore is so cagey in what he reveals I really have trouble taking anything he says at face value.

( Read more... )

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On Integrity and Transcendence-

2017-12-12T23:29:00Z

Posted by: mary-j-59.livejournal.com

This is going to be a whole lot shorter than that title would suggest. It's really just a question, brought about by Sunnyskywalker's post below on the meaning of the prophecy. Here goes--

Many of us were disturbed by the flayed child in Harry's visit to the afterlife--or whatever that train station was. You remember, he at first felt compassion for the child, and then ignored it. And didn't Dumbledore say the child was Voldemort? Or, to be precise, Voldemort's soul fragment?

But we know Dumbledore is not always truthful, and we know he is not truly wise. So who is the flayed child? Where did it come from?

Clearly, it is the part of Voldemort's soul that resided in Harry for seventeen years. That child is Harry, not Voldemort. Oh, I know: J.K. Rowling would like us to think the soul fragment has nothing to do with Harry. In her story world, everything about Harry that was at all like Voldemort--his vengeful feelings, his rages, his self-absorption, his parseltongue, heck, perhaps even his magical ability--came from the soul fragment and Harry is a completely separate individual. But I can't believe that.

( Read more... )

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Random thoughts on DH

2017-01-04T12:50:00Z

Posted by: star-dragon5.livejournal.com

Hello, all! Nice to meet you. This is my first post, so please be nice to me.

( Read more... )

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A Draco Detour

2015-10-09T22:01:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

This started as a response to the thread in sunnyskywalker’s last post, talking about the significance of “Draco’s tattling to Argus rather than to Severus.” Talk about pennies dropping…

Canon does not ever state that Draco tattled to Argus (or to anyone) about the duel. Canon says that Hermione accused Draco—behind his back—of doing so, and that Harry unquestioningly accepted that view of what had happened that night. Which tells us more about THEM, and their rampant prejudice against Slytherins, than about Draco.

Let’s look a little more closely at canon Draco as an ickle first year.

( Read more... )

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Covering for Hagrid

2015-10-06T19:10:00Z

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

In my re-read of PS/SS, specifically looking for instances when the adults ought to know more than the kids about what’s going on, a penny finally dropped. Apologies to everyone who probably figured this out years ago.( Read more... )

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Taunting Severus

2015-08-27T12:03:00Z

Posted by: condwiramurs.livejournal.com

So I'm looking up synonyms for things in the thesaurus as I write. And what do I find listed next to 'to taunt' and 'to bother,' a word I already knew could be used this way but that I'd forgotten?

To harry.

Headdesk.

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JKR and tears

2014-03-16T22:25:00Z

Posted by: cholovescedric.livejournal.com

Hi there everyone,

I used to be just ChoCedric, it has been a while since I've posted anything on this community, but I really needed to vent, and you guys are a great group of people to rant to, because I know you won't put me down, tell me that I'm just a big baby, or that my ideas are stupid.

I know I've said this on here before, but no matter how much time passes, I just can't seem to get over how JKR deals with emotion. It is often the case that when we are reading a book, we are told that it is good to think like the protagonist does, and it is definitely true in this case, what with JKR's comments about how the sun rises and sets on the saintlike Harry Potter.

As you all know by my username and by rants I've posted on this community before, this is particularly glaring to me in the example of Cho Chang. We are told to view her grief in a very negative light because a. she cries a lot, and b. she wants to know exactly what Cedric faced in his last moments. Because we, the readers, know what happened to him, we should just accept that others, those who knew and truly loved Cedric, don't need to have it explained to them. In the real world, if a teenage girl's boyfriend's corpse was dumped on a sports field with everyone ogling it and screaming, his blank, lifeless eyes staring into the sky, she would want to know why. And she'd hunt for answers, too. She wouldn't just wait until St. Albus Dumbledore the All-Knowing told her what had happened, and anyone who questioned St. Harry Potter, in the real world, would be considered reasonable people rather than evil incarnate.

I also honestly think that Rowling's whole issue with showing grief by crying is unfortunately something that many people in our society agree with, simply because of how Cho's behavior in OOtP was demonized by so many in the fandom. There are so many fans of Harry Potter that I talk to who say things like, "Oh, I couldn't stand Cho! She was such a bitch for crying all over poor Harry like that!" Those comments make me soooooo pissed! I think this is because so many in this day and age consider crying a weakness. God, could anything be more untrue? Granted, there's a time and a place to cry, but Cho was mainly doing it in bathrooms, and I think that's the perfect place! Yeah, maybe the outburst in Madame Puddifoot's was not quite the setting, but this was after months and months of her not knowing whether he'd suffered, whether he was in pain before he died, exactly what he'd been through. So I wholeheartedly understand why it happened.

When I mention that she and Cedric could have been very much in love (and I think this could definitely be the case, considering how lost and sad Cho was) I get rebuttals like, "But she's only a teenager! She doesn't even know what love is!" And that, too, is soooooo unbelievably untrue. I am 27 years old, and do you know how old I was when I dated my first serious boyfriend? I was 12! And we were very serious for many years. Believe me, if things hadn't worked out like they did, like the fact that he started drinking very heavily once he turned 21, and by heavily I mean so heavily that I was afraid he'd end up in hospital, I would be married to him today, if he'd continued to care for me as much as I cared for him, I loved him that much. He was everything to me. Even when our relationship started going to the dogs, I stuck it out for another 11 months because I wasn't ready to give up on him, I thought it was just a phase he was going through. And no, don't worry, he wasn't physically abusive. He just started getting very possessive and very jealous of who I hung out with, even if it was just with my sister, for Merlin's sake! But we'd had so much history together that I wasn't ready to let him go when things started to go downhill.

But that's enough about me. What I'm trying to say is that it's not unheard of for people who meet and fall in love very young to stay together. Granted, it's not unbelievably common, but it does happen. So the "you can't fall in love as a teenager!" thing just doesn't wash.

Please tell me any other thoughts you have on this! I know we've talked about this before, but do you guys agree that it's to do with the society we are growing up in that JKR considers tears really, really bad and seething, frothing rage really, really good? How do you think Harry would have reacted if Ginny's cold, lifeless body had been dropped in front of him?

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io9's AU ending idea for Deathly Hallows

2014-03-16T16:07:00Z

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Good to know other people out there are also still analyzing the series and not finding the ending satisfying!

The Awesome Harry Potter ending JK Rowling didn't even know she had

The quick version for everyone who doesn't want to click through: a reasonable twist interpretation of "either must die at the hand of the other" is that in order to die, Harry or Voldemort must die at the hand of the other--that is, there isn't any other way for them to die. So by killing Voldemort, Harry loses any chance of ever dying himself and becomes forever The Boy Who Lived... which means that he sacrifices any chance of being reunited with his dead friends and family in the wizarding afterlife.

I have to say, this one hadn't occurred to me, but it's an interesting idea, assuming you could get the mechanics to work well enough not to distract from the drama. I'll have to give it some more thought. Immortal!Harry might be a little too terrifying an ending...

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Like Flesh in Flame: Tom's Avoidance of Harry's Mind

2014-02-10T07:14:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

The Twinkly One very kindly explained to Severus (and Jo to the inquiring reader) why Tom, after the debacle at the Ministry at the end of OotP, would never again voluntarily open his mental connection to Harry.

“…. Do not think I underestimate the constant danger in which you place yourself, Severus. To give Voldemort what appears to be valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you.”

“Yet you confide much more in a boy who is incapable of Occlumency, whose magic is mediocre, and who has a direct connection into the Dark Lord’s mind!”

“Voldemort fears that connection,” said Dumbledore. “Not so long ago he had one small taste of what truly sharing Harry’s mind means to him. It was pain such as he has never experienced. He will not try to possess Harry again, I am sure of it. Not in that way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lord Voldemort’s soul, maimed as it is, cannot bear close contact with a soul like Harry’s. Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame—”

“Souls? We were talking of minds!”

“In the case of Harry and Lord Voldemort, to speak of one is to speak of the other.” (DH 33)

( ”Soon” )

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An interesting article...

2013-09-02T21:32:00Z

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

So I was perusing the intarwebz and I found this website with this article about heroes, victims, and self-sacrifice, which has some ideas that seemed relevant to what we discuss on this comm.

It's interesting because it occurs to me that Harry does seem to switch between playing the hero card and the victim card throughout the course of the books (particularly the last three), and so do most other characters we're supposed to admire, either on Harry's behalf or their own (such as Lily begging Voldemort to spare Harry's life to no avail). And the narrative never really attempts to reconcile the two sides of that coin at all--we're just kind-of supposed to think that Harry is so noble and virtuous that the decisions he makes are always right and when things go wrong he's never to blame and always deserving of all the sympathy.

Some of the quotes that most stood out to me are as follows:

"[a] person that chooses to play the hero should not simultaneously be allowed to receive the benefits of being seen as a victim. It needs to be one or the other. A victim is someone who is to be pitied because they didn't have a choice in the matter."

"When someone does choose to play the hero, we should not get outraged because they had to suffer for it. We should not rail against the obstacles that stand in their way, or suggest that the opposition that they were against should've made it easier for them.... An attitude of victimization just cheapens the value of being a hero and suggests that they weren't responsible for their own decisions. That adversity is the only thing that gives the word "hero" any value at all and stands to separate the real heroes from the wannabes."

I bring this up only because it provides an interesting counterpoint to the way that Harry, for all he suffers, doesn't actually have to face the consequences of his own actions unless it's convenient to the plot--it seems like always finds someone to rescue him whenever things get really bad, and reassure him that he's totally right about everything.

And finally:

"Of course there is a whole other category of people who are even less sincere and who try to look like they're playing the hero in order to put themselves into a victim position later. These people are called attention hogs, masochists and martyrs; but that's an entirely different topic."

As to whether that last one applies to Harry or anyone else...eh, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

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In Dispraise of Albus Dumbledore

2013-03-03T09:07:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

Three years ago, I wrote a short meta called “In Praise of Albus Dumbledore.”

I now need to revoke it.

( I wrote )

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A follow- up question to the discussion on the Malfoys:

2012-09-26T13:26:00Z

Posted by: mary-j-59.livejournal.com

From 2007 onwards, we have, via DH (that disastrous book) and interviews, discovered the following things:

1. The Death Eaters were right. According to Rowling, there are no "Muggleborns". Every Witch or Wizard born to normal parents is a throwback to a magical ancestor. Yes, she really said that!

2. All Wizards seem to feel themselves superior to normal people. Even good-hearted types like Arthur Weasely show themselves extremely prejudiced toward non-magical human beings, as well as extremely ignorant. But-

3. I am no expert on magical history - like Harry, I missed any hints of a coherent backstory that might have been in the books. But I do get the impression that, in addition to being prejudiced, magical people might fear ordinary human beings. Perhaps the persecutions shown as laughable in Harry's textbook were actually quite serious?

4. Young Tom Riddle was fearful of being locked up in an asylum.

5. Young Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore aspired to rule over Muggles and Muggleborns.

6. Young Regulus believed Voldemort's agenda was to overthrow the stature of secrecy and have wizards take their rightful place as the lords of creation.

7. And then there's the way Dumbledore chose to raise Harry.

Where I'm going with all this? It's seemed to me for awhile now that the Death Eaters might have a point. What if every Dark Lord in the Wizarding World was either a Muggleborn or a Muggle-raised half-blood? What if Dumbledore was actually trying to create a new Dark Lord?

Think about it. Given what we see of Tommy's, Sev's, and Harry's experiences, magical children have a very hard time in the normal world. In self defense, they may well come up with grandiose theories about their specialness. And, like all magical children, they will lash out with magic at times of high stress. The future Dark Lords among them will control magic early, cling hard to their specialness, and learn contempt, as well as fear, for the normal people who don't and cant' understand them and cant' do magic, either. By the time such a child is 11, he may well be quite powerful magically and morally and emotionally quite messed up.

Thoughts?

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Harry Potter and Narcissism

2012-07-10T11:27:00Z

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

So, a lot of people here seem to think that Harry Potter and his friends are narcissists. That's interesting because I was looking up narcissist behaviors for a villain in one of my own stories and I realized that Harry fits the "vulnerable-narcissist" pathology to a T.

( What I've found )

If you read the rest of the blog, I think you'll find that a lot of the traits they describe to be reminiscent of the behavior of several Harry Potter characters.

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Greyfriars and Hogwarts - which is a better institution for these hopeless cases?

2012-02-25T16:22:00Z

Posted by: urbanman1984.livejournal.com

( Hogwarts and Greyfriars )

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Philosopher's Stone Chapter Fourteen

2012-02-15T22:07:00Z

Posted by: urbanman1984.livejournal.com

( Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback )

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Muggleborns and Magical traditions

2012-02-14T18:33:00Z

Posted by: urbanman1984.livejournal.com

( Muggleborns and their role in the magical world )

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The Mirror of Erised

2012-01-15T01:24:00Z

Posted by: urbanman1984.livejournal.com

( A much more magical chapter... )

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Psychology, depression, etc

2011-12-10T11:44:00Z

Posted by: mary-j-59.livejournal.com

I do feel uncomfortable when we start speculating about J.K. Rowling, the person. OTOH, I also think it's perfectly okay to look hard at the way she presents emotional, as well as moral, issues in her text. And nobody has taken a harder look, with funnier results, than starcrossedgirl! Look here:

http://starcrossedgirl.livejournal.com/322471.html#cutid1

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On racism in the Potterverse-

2011-11-29T12:02:00Z

Posted by: mary-j-59.livejournal.com

This quote was in our advent bulletin, and it struck me very strongly.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. ( Read more... )

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Boggart Inconsistency

2011-11-25T19:11:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

If I understand PoA correctly, Harry's Dementor-boggart both affects Harry and reacts the way a real Dementor would (magically speaking).
( That )

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Patronus Lessons

2011-11-24T16:37:00Z

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

On the one hand, the Patronus charm has the reputation of being so difficult that many adults can't master it; on the other, not only does super-speshul Harry do so at thirteen, but so do many of his friends two years later--including not only the incalculable Luna, but the never-top-of-the-class Ron, Seamus, and Ernest. Nor can we ascribe their success to Harry's wonderful teaching, for in DH Arthur Weasley and Dolores Umbridge both use the charm with no problem under stressful conditions. Producing, in both cases, fully corporeal patroni, not merely silver puffs.

In fact, we don't have a single canon instance of someone trying and ultimately failing to master the spell. Why, then, its formidable reputation? And why did Harry have such trouble learning it?

( Someone )

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