death to capslock

Since he didn't blame the mailer daemon...

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 21:53:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Prisoner of Azkaban does a good impression of being one of the best-constructed books of the series, as long as you are willing to smile and nod at time-travel shenanigans (which you pretty much have to in any book where time travel appears). But these gaping chasms keep opening up every time I poke at it. For example, Sirius and the mail.

He apparently has no trouble using a friendly cat to draw funds from his bank account so he can mail-order an expensive racing broom. Magic Amazon must be great. (Just one tap with your wand! Except it must be even easier, since cats don't carry wands...) Fine, maybe that the goblins facilitated this because helping a wanted criminal was a great opportunity to subvert wizarding desires or something.

But it never occurred to Sirius to send Dumbledore or Remus a letter saying that Peter was the real Secret-Keeper all along, is a rat Animagus, and is now in hiding as the Weasley boy's pet, which Sirius realized when he saw the rat's picture in the Daily Prophet? ( Read more... )

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Friendly with the local barman

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:31:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

One bit in the memory of Voldemort's job interview that has always bothered me is Dumbledore's statement that he knows which Death Eaters are waiting at the Hog's Head because he's friendly with the local barman. Voldemort has just returned to Britain, no doubt planning terrible things...and Dumbledore immediately outs his brother as a spy? WTF? And then Voldemort continues to let his followers gather in the spy's pub?

I'm sure you could make a good story out of a Cold War-esque game where Voldemort is sending his followers in with false information to mislead Dumbledore while Dumbledore tries to filter out the misinformation to get at the real information they inadvertently reveal, and they both know the other knows... But it seems odd for Dumbledore to choose that option instead of trying to maintain his spy's cover first.

There's another possibility: maybe Aberforth wasn't the barman yet. Maybe the proprietor at the time was a Voldemort sympathizer, or at least a potential one, and Dumbledore wanted to oust them so he could put his own agent in place. Either he tricked or coerced them into telling him about the Death Eaters, or they wasn't involved and it was Willy Widdershins or his predecessor hiding under a veil who really reported to Dumbledore.

Voldemort shouldn't be so easy to manipulate that he immediately believed the proprietor was Dumbledore's agent. But the suspicion might have grown over time, no doubt nurtured by other "clues" Dumbledore helpfully planted, until Voldemort decided it was time the proprietor found a new job. (Possibly that job was "inferius.")

And he should have been deeply suspicious when Aberforth Dumbledore took over the pub, no matter how public the brothers' estrangement was. Aberforth couldn't just indignantly protest his hatred of Albus and all his works and give the Death Eaters a load of intelligence to prove his loyalties--that would be too much, too soon. But letting a few things slip over time, and griping about his brother just often enough to sound natural (well, it was--he just secretly hated Voldemort even more), and Dumbledore deliberately not acting on information Voldemort deliberately leaked via Hog's Head patrons to make it look like he never got the intel, might eventually convince them that he was on their side, not his brother's. Or at least that he was genuinely neutral.

A third possibility is that Aberforth was already the barman, but not yet Dumbledore's spy--again, it would really have been Willy Widdershins reporting on the gathering. Instead, this was Dumbledore's overly-complicated scheme to force Aberforth into becoming his spy. ("If I get Voldemort to suspect him, the means Voldemort will use to try to get the truth will convince Aberforth that Voldemort is dangerous and must be opposed. He's smart enough to realize that the best way to do this is to convince Voldemort that he doesn't trust me or report to me, then turn around and report to me. I'm a genius!") But that's even more convoluted and risky than most of Dumbledore's usual plans. I think it works more smoothly if Aberforth wasn't the barman yet, and this was Step 1 in Operation: Trench Coat Goat.

No wonder Aberforth is so cynical about how many people his brother is willing to sacrifice.

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Tunnels

Sat, 24 Oct 2020 15:46:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Another question occurred to me while pondering whether and when Tom had access to the Vanishing Cabinets connecting Hogwarts and Borgin & Burkes: did Tom know about all the school’s secret tunnels? ( Safest place in Britain, my foot. )

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Vanishing Cabinets

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 14:53:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

Rowling and her overpowered, plot-breaking one-book wonders...

This is thanks to Jodel and her speculations on the Vanishing Cabinets in her essays “Minding the Gap” and “O, the Times Are Out of Joint!”

In “Minding the Gap,” she wonders whether Phineas Nigellus used the cabinets to pop back and forth between Hogwarts and home when he was headmaster, and whether his daughter Belvina, who married a Herbert Burke, acquired the “home” cabinet, which eventually ended up in Borgin & Burkes. She also notes that you could spin any number of other plausible stories.

Regardless of how it ended up that one of the pair was at Hogwarts and one in the shop… just how long was that back door into Hogwarts available before Peeves broke the Hogwarts cabinet in CoS? How many people knew about it, and who might have used it—and for what?( Read more... )

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Dammit, Sirius!

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 17:28:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

I was looking over the timeline of October 31/November 1, 1981, and ran into something I don't think we've discussed. Here's the sequence of events:

Voldemort attacks the Potters in the evening, early enough that trick-or-treaters are still out
Sirius discovers Peter missing and flies to Godric's Hollow to check on the Potters (this may have happened first, depending on how long it takes Sirius to fly to GH)
Hagrid pulls Harry from the "rubble" (of a mostly-intact house) sometime that night, before the Muggle emergency responders arrive (which could have been hours after the attack, depending on how noticeable a hole being blown in the roof of a house at the end of the lane was to the neighbors)
Sirius arrives, asks to take Harry, and gives him his motorcycle when Hagrid refuses
The next day, late enough that the street is "full" of Muggle witnesses (and victims), Sirius confronts Peter

So... what's missing here? Sirius sending a message about Peter's betrayal sometime during the hours between the time he discovered Peter missing and the time they blew up the street together, that's what. Or, you know, telling Hagrid when they met in person.( Read more... )

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HPPS: the Tally

Sun, 12 Aug 2018 12:44:00 GMT

Posted by: chantaldormand

( Read more... )

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Harry Potter & the Cursed Child

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 20:58:00 GMT

Posted by: borg-princess.livejournal.com

For anyone who's curious, the plot of the play has been discussed in spoilery comments at the following links:

Source 1

Source 2

~~Source 3~~ UPDATE: Snitchseeker took down their spoilers as JKR called out another website for doing the same and TPTB have been contacting people to request they don't post any details. *eyeroll*

But never fear, Andrew Sims of Hypable (whom JKR called 'Wormtaily' for betraying the secret, lmao) linked to a cohesive recap of the entire two-part play.

When I first read about this, I thought it was someone trolling, but there's multiple sources? Either there's a conspiracy afoot or it's legit, IDK what to believe!

What kind of crappy fanfic, lmao! A Time-Turner plot, seriously? To save CEDRIC DIGGORY, of all people, wtf?

How shitty that anti-Slytherin prejudice is still going strong to the point that Albus is ostracized for being sorted into Slytherin. :/

Cackling at Ron & Hermione never getting together as a result of the temporal shenanigans, hehe. But I'm pissed that her being single results in her becoming a bitter Hogwarts teacher as opposed to happily married Hermione being the Minister of Magic, the implications there are pretty gross.

I can't even process everything I just read. Wow. JKR should be fired from her own world, just what even.

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Chamber of Conspiracy Theories

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 18:22:00 GMT

Posted by: sunnyskywalker

I swear, I don't go looking for conspiracies in these books, or dastardly plots concocted by Dumbledore. And I'm sure that some of them have the Doylist explanation that Rowling didn't realize some of the problems that failing to keep track of who knows what when causes. But looking at things Watsonianly, a lot of things just don't add up without something extremely dodgy going down in the background.

Case in point: basically everything in Chamber of Secrets. I know we've talked about how what Dobby knows about the "dangerous plot," how he knows it, what Lucius Malfoy knows and intends, and basically everything else connected to the Diary deployment and Dobby trying to keep Harry out of Hogwarts gets harder to explain the more you examine it, so I'll pass over that particular subplot. There's still plenty to keep me busy.
( Dodgy theories ahoy! )

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The Plothole Map

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 09:15:00 GMT

Posted by: spongebending.livejournal.com

This gave me a laugh, I thought it might be appreciated here. :)

( Read more... )

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New Pottermore entries from PoA

Wed, 07 Aug 2013 09:45:00 GMT

Posted by: t0ra-chan.livejournal.com

( Secret Keeper )

( Werewolves )

( Time-Turners )

( Patronus Charm )

( Remus J. Lupin )

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Extraordinary

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 22:25:00 GMT

Posted by: terri-testing.livejournal.com

I was in the middle of crafting an extremely ingenious and elaborate explanation of why, uniquely in the WW, Lily’s sacrificial death could possibly have powered a shield so extraordinarily strong as to have deflected the unblockable Avada Kedavra, when the question hit me: but did it?

Or did something else happen that night?

This meta is dedicated to Erastes’ Random Death Eaters, Chuck and Lance, who I think would appreciate my final supposition.

(If you never read the posts in “Deadly Hollow” sporking DH, why not? Do that first.)

( We inferred )

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A Humorous Anecdote

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:58:00 GMT

Posted by: sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

So the last time I visited TVTropes’ Harry Potter pages, I came across someone who said that in actuality, everything about the last book made sense because don’t you see, the events of the series HAD NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE and so the characters COULDN’T HAVE KNOWN HOW ANYTHING WOULD WORK and so all the supposed inconsistencies are really just addressing that point!

( But I know better...from experience! )

That is what reading through JKR’s inconsistencies (and the fandom’s reaction to them) is like. Except, nowhere near as funny.

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