deathtocapslock | Entries tagged with meta

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... )

Current Mood: artistic
Current Location: Forbidden Forest
Current Music: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 “Eroica.” II. Marcia funebre / Beethoven

annoni-no.livejournal.com

I know, a provocative title in this community, but we have concrete evidence that reading Harry Potter leads to a small, but significant, increase in antipathy toward Donald Trump and his policies.

https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/new-study-shows-reading-harry-potter-lowers-americans%E2%80%99-opinions-donald-trump ; (Link through to the actual study in article.)

A while back I posted about a study that found that identifying with Harry Potter led to decreased bias toward stigmatized minorities. At the time, I wondered how reading the series led people to feel about how to deal with their enemies given the vindictiveness the series shows in a close reading. As it turns out, the more Harry Potter books someone has read, even controlling for "party identification, gender, education level, age, evangelical self-identification, and social dominance orientation," the more opposed they were to violence and punitive policies (like torturing their enemies as advocated by Trump) and authoritarianism. This is in addition to confirmation of the decreased bias against outgroups.

You don't have to like Harry Potter, and I completely agree that the books have a lot of problems. But let's not loose sight of the fact that the world is entering a dangerous, if not outright fascistic period. There's too much hatred and divisiveness driving our politics; hate crimes have risen by several hundred percent since Trump's election. If reading Harry Potter does help lead people to greater tolerance and mercy, we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

( Read more... )

Current Mood: cynical

sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

There's a video on YouTube that postulates that Dumbledore might actually be the personification of Death itself. Here it is:

So what do you think? Does this theory make sense, or not? Anyone have anything to add that might help it make complete sense?

Also, you'll be pleased to know that I have another project in the works! I'm not entirely sure when it will be ready, but I think you'll like it.

Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: "Snape, Snape, Seve-rus Snape"

sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

I just saw this video and I think it touches on a lot of the same things covered in this comm.

Current Mood: curious

terri-testing.livejournal.com

Sorry, the post was too long and I had to split it.
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terri-testing.livejournal.com

I posted this on Snapedom in 2008 or so; my apologies to those who have already read it.

A comparison of Pride and Prejudice and JKR’s romances between James/ Lily and Severus/Lily.
( Read more... )

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

I promise I'm still chipping away at Indestructible - I'm just in the middle of a frantic effort to complete my dissertation draft before the end of the semester. I should have another Indestructible piece up over the holidays though. Thanks for being patient!

Until then, I have a little question to toss out for consideration. It's been occupying my mind for a bit.

Question: Why did Voldemort believe that it was necessary to kill to gain the Wand's mastery?

Because he, of all people, should have known that it wasn't. If it were true, Albus Dumbledore would never have had it.

And he did believe, quite firmly, that Albus did.

( Read more... )

terri-testing.livejournal.com

`“… but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Atticus Finch

“Crime… befouling the castle… suggested sentence… ”
“I want to see some punishment!” Argus Filch

“… it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn,” Firenze

Let’s take a look at Harry’s first detention and the lessons that it taught him, shall we?

( Read more... )

sweettalkeress.livejournal.com

This is an idea that came to me as I was tearing apart a children's book for another comm.

We all know that it's common in the Harry Potter fandom to portray Snape as mean, morally-degenerate, creepy, cowardly, and pretty much any other negative you can come up with. We on this comm have also spent large amounts of time debunking these assertions, insisting that actually, he's not as bad as he's commonly made out to be.

Here's the thing, though: even if you DID accept that Snape was just that nasty and evil and horrible, that's not his fault--it's the fault of the series. And it doesn't actually paint the series in an especially good light, because it implies that teachers who you don't get along with must automatically be evil or morally backwards. Remember: Harry takes an extreme dislike to Snape from their first meeting, just because Snape was generically snide and intimidating to him. It's one thing for Harry to dislike a teacher, because that happens to the best of us (particularly at the age Harry is). But to portray the teacher as evil because of it?

But that is pretty much the trend in the series. Teachers Harry likes, or who are nice to him, are generally portrayed as heroes or at least reasonably pleasant, whereas those Harry takes a disliking to are nearly always presented as villains: Lockhart, Umbridge, etc. And even when they're not (see, for instance, Trelawney and arguably Slughorn), they're generally treated as rather pathetic, so Harry doesn't have to take them very seriously. The overarching pattern this creates implies that if you don't get along with a teacher it's because that teacher is evil or morally weak-willed, or that it's generally all the teacher's fault that they're not bending over backwards to please you. And while you could argue that this is all the Harry filter, it's never really challenged at any point in the story.

Now, I am all for the notion that teachers should look after the well-being of their students; but the fact of the matter is, students can't always expect that to happen. It's great when it does, but sooner or later every student comes upon a teacher who for whatever reason doesn't click with them, either because that particular teaching style just doesn't work with that particular student, or the institution is corrupt, or the teacher is careless. I know it's happened to me a couple times over. Some of the teachers I've had bad experiences with were careless, but I wouldn't say I thought any of them were evil.

And remember: this is a series that targets children and young teenagers. It doesn't do them any favors to be presenting them with a narrative that states that any teacher they don't get along with is evil. The notion that Snape must be a horrible person suffering from trauma and acting out of some misplaced selfish desire is a testament to the story's inability to portray anything Harry doesn't like in a positive or even a neutral light, not a convincing portrayal of a disagreeable character (and I have many, MANY convincing potrayals of disagreeable characters that I could use as a baseline).

Current Mood: complacent

terri-testing.livejournal.com

“Any woman can weep without tears, and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound.” Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

If there is anything certain about the Potterverse, it is that there is an absolute gulf between Us and Them. There are Muggles and their opposites: Witches and Wizards.

( Read more... )

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

I was going to post an excerpt from my half-finished Severus and Voldemort essay, but instead it became an essay of its own.

Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic

In her latest post, “Seclusion and the Dark Arts,” terri brilliantly brings together the two main strands of Voldemort’s and the Death Eaters’ interests, overturning Secrecy and dark magic, theorizing that they were seeking to make useable again the old communal magics that shamans and village magic-workers would have used to tap into the emotion-driven power of muggles to boost their own magical ability.

In my comment in reply I wrote, “You've also anticipated an argument I'll be making in Indestructible when I talk about Severus and Voldemort and flight being one of the dark arts.”

My thinking about the nature of unsupported human flight, the reasons it may have taken so long to be developed, and what role it played in Severus and Voldemort’s relationship led me to formulate some ideas about the nature of the dark arts more generally. And now terri’s essay has pushed it all into much clearer focus for me.

We’ve got a number of terms for the working of human magic, and they all mean something specific. Which has implications for understanding what Tom might have thought regarding the nature of human magic and the relationship of muggles to magic-users. Whether or not he was even correct in his suppositions.

Though he may have been.

( Read more... )

terri-testing.livejournal.com

This was inspired by oryx_leucoryx’s reply to condwiramurs’s post “I would sell out the nation”; oryx was trying and not succeeding very well in fitting this new hypothesis, that the intrinsic crime of the Death Eaters was their stated intention to overturn Secrecy, with Albus and Tom’s conversation when Tom dropped by Hogwarts to ask for a job.

So I reread “Lord Voldemort’s Request” in HBP, and indeed, the objections Albus articulated to Tom there had to do with Tom’s magical research, not his political agenda. In fact Albus gives no sign of realizing that Tom and his (apparently newly so-called) Death Eaters had a political agenda. If indeed they did at that time; we don’t know whether Tom took over and extended the old organization of the Knights, or whether he’d formed a group separately and eventually merged it with the older group. In which case the merger may have taken place only after Tom and his followers adopted the Knights’ goals, which might have been quite some time after Tom first formed his group of friends.

It really does seem that what Albus objected to was Tom’s experiments in the Dark Arts. Which seems to contradict our argument that his Death Eaters’ primary offense had been to plot treason/heresy.

Because why should there be any correlation, in either direction, between an interest in studying or practicing the Dark Arts, and affiliation with a political group interested (treasonously) in undoing Secrecy?

( Read more... )

terri-testing.livejournal.com

I just re-read what Rita wrote after reproducing Albus’s charming letter to his lover. And it’s instructive, as Rita always is. Here she is, in all her audience-wooing. muckraking glory:

“Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letter constitutes proof that Albus Dumbledore once dreamed of overthrowing the Statute of Secrecy and establishing Wizard rule over Muggles. What a blow for those who have always portrayed Dumbledore as the Muggle-borns’ greatest champion! How hollow those speeches promoting Muggle rights in the light of this damning new evidence! How despicable does Albus Dumbledore appear, busy plotting his rise to power when he should have been mourning his mother and caring for his sister!”

Rita Skeeter, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, quoted in DH 18.

And there we have it. What strikes US (or, at least me; I shouldn’t jump in and speak for other Muggles) as unthinkably shocking and horrifying about Albus and Gellert’s youthful fancies is that they quite seriously plotted to set themselves up as total dictators, whatever violence—to body or mind—was required for them to “seize control” and maintain it afterwards.

What Rita expected to astonish and appall her magical readers, conversely, was that Albus “once dreamed of overthrowing the Statute of Secrecy.”

Um. So. Plot mass murder and absolute, inescapable repression? Dream of enslaving, both body and mind, all the survivors of your original coup? MILLIONS of victims? (Most of them Muggle, by definition.)

And then force your slaves to recite, in unison, that it had all been for their own greater good. Really.

(In real life, some Western slave-owners actually DID make this argument. Had they not mercifully caused African natives to be kidnapped and worked [or tortured] to death, said natives might well have gone through their whole lives without ever, perhaps, having received the benefit of learning about Christianity!)

The response of Rita’s Daily Prophet readers to such a program?

Neh. Boys will be boys, and it’s good to have ambitions.

But. Plot to overturn the Statute of Secrecy?

How despicable does Albus seem!

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

In poking around more while researching stuff for my coming discussion of Severus and Voldemort for Indestructible, I discovered a curious little fact that seems fitting.

In "Indestructible Intermezzo II - Etymological Excursus," I noted that:

"Our poison synonym, ‘toxic,’ on the other hand, derives ultimately from the Greek word for bow, toxon: the term toxicon pharmakon referred to the poison smeared on arrows, and was borrowed into Latin as toxicum, ‘poison.’ Meanwhile the probably-Scythian word for bow that entered Greek as toxon was also borrowed directly into Latin as taxus, the Latin word for ‘yew.’ A tree long associated with both death and resurrection, and from whose wood, of course, Voldemort got his wand."

And today, while researching the yew tree, I found an unexpected connection back to Severus.

All species of yew tree are known to contain varieties of a highly toxic class of alkaloids called taxanes. Every part of the tree other than the flesh of the red berry-like arils contains these toxins, including the seeds, wood, and leaves. Though the birds who eat the arils and spread the seeds are generally unable to break down the seeds and be affected by the poison, and larvae of a few species of moth and butterfly will eat yew foliage, to most animals consuming yew is fatally poisonous. Human beings consuming yew 'berries' without removing the seeds have died, and cattle and horses have been found dead near yew trees after trying to eat the leaves.

There does, however, seem to be an exception to this rule. Deer are able to break down the toxin, and so will eat the leaves of yew trees. Indeed, they graze so freely on yew that in the wild yew trees are commonly found only on steep slopes inaccessible to deer.

Apparently deer can eat death and live.

You can't make this stuff up.

Current Music: Beatles - I'll Follow the Sun

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Indestructible Intermezzo II – Etymological Excursus

While preparing the next post with our other set of miscellaneous cards and thinking further about Severus, I started playing around with an etymological dictionary to see what hidden meanings I might uncover for the terms of our discussion. To see what sort of a resonant background layer I could piece together, if you will.

I found some interesting things.

( Read more... )

Current Music: Fleet Foxes

danajsparks.livejournal.com

In hir essay "Inconveivable," condwiramurs discusses the implications of magical-muggle marriages when Secrecy is at the very foundation of the wizarding world. Condwiramurs writes, "As the direct, MAGICAL offspring of a mixed witch-muggle marriage, Severus Snape was practically a walking violation of the Statute of Secrecy itself. Standing inherently and unchangeably right astride the most fundamental line in the wizarding world."

In response, I decided to do an analysis of known literal half-bloods. Unless stated otherwise, all of my information comes from Pottermore. Most of the notes from Pottermore can be found on tumblr; just google "[character name] pottermore tumblr" I realize that there are varying opinions on the canonicity of sources beyond the published books, so that will make this post more or less relevant to the discussion.

Wizards/Witches with a Muggle parent include:

--Celestina Warbeck
--Tom Marvolo Riddle
--Minerva McGonagall
--Dolores Umbridge
--Sybill Trelawney
--Severus Snape
--Remus Lupin
--Gilderoy Lockhart
--Seamus Finnigan
--Dean Thomas

ETA 1: I've added more discussion about Minerva McGonagall.

ETA 2: Hwyla speculated that House affiliation might affect how half-bloods fare, so I've added that information. Celestina, Minerva, Remus, Seamus, and Dean are Gryffindors; Tom, Delores, and Severus are Slytherins; and Sybill and Gilderoy are Ravenclaws.
( Read more... )

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

I started replying to a comment posted to "I Would Sell Out the Nation," but it developed into a rather long post thinking my way through some things. And talking more about Snape, of course. I’m just thinking out loud here though.

In particular, thinking through how a number of canonical incidents and patterns might have looked from the inside, once we make the realization that – since valuing ‘purity’ of wizarding ancestry is a concept that really only makes sense as arising from and existing within a formally Secret and so strictly isolated wizarding world – when the issue of blood status is on the table, it’s virtually always at one level a coded way of talking about the ever-present but culturally traumatically-frightening threat of historical violent muggle-on-wizard persecution. And is not necessarily the only form of such coded talk. It has developed, over three centuries, a life of its own and has picked up and integrated itself with a lot of other cultural and psychological stuff, like any bigotry, but the root of it and the most unnameable but central aspect of it is the specter of the reverse of wizarding supremacy: muggle domination or eliminationist violence.

A threat that the ongoing, legally-required and violently-maintained muggle ignorance of magic both looks back to historically, and implicitly promises to allow – indeed to spark – again if it is ever discovered.

Not that most adult witches and wizards even want to THINK about that, thank you very much. Secrecy is the most unquestioned need and principle, and its collary – wizarding ignorance of the muggle world – practically a point of pride; but beyond the political and social acceptability and indeed near-indispensibility of expressing at least minimally-coded anti-muggle sentiment, wizards just don’t want to think about it. Keep muggles in their place by whatever means necessary, and then leave it and them alone. Don’t remind anyone of the muggles. Think about wizarding things. Proper things. Safe things.

Show proper wizarding pride.

( Read more... )

Current Music: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

Another little piece just popped out at me.

I theorized in "I Would Sell Out the Nation" that the explicit, and to wizards mortally-terrifying, crime inherent in becoming a DE was swearing oneself to the revocation of Secrecy - the worst and most heretically-inflected form of treason possible in the WW. All but unthinkable to any sane or decent witch or wizard, and very rarely spoken of directly. And that it was the Ministry's and then the public's discovery of this fact about Voldemort's organization, right when he seemed to be poised for a takeover, that prompted Crouch's Unforgivables policy.

Might that same discovery by the Ministry also explain another curious little mystery we never got a satisfying answer for?

Exactly how, when, and why did Voldemort make himself unmentionable? The first time around - before he got control of the Ministry and its various tracking apparatuses in DH.

Um.

Perhaps we should be asking: DID he? By some unknown direct and deliberate action of his own, that is? One that we just happen to never have had described for us in its mechanism or effects...

Or is this another clue?

( Read more... )

condwiramurs.livejournal.com

More thoughts on the ICW, Secrecy, wizarding isolationism, and the rise of the Death Eaters. This was sparked by a long reply to sweetalkeress' comment on I Would Sell Out the Nation, which will be posted separately soon.

This is somewhat half-formed thinking, working as I go and edited a bit. Influenced mainly by swythyv, jodel, and terri. I steal shamelessly from the masters; forgive me.

There’s a little bit of Snape stuff at the end, but mostly this is historical musings and speculation. I used mostly Wikipedia and the HP-Lexicon, especially its master timeline, as references.

( Read more... )

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death to capslock

Entries tagged with meta

Resolving the wrong story problem

More People Need(ed) to Read Harry Potter

Determinism and wish-fulfillment

Is Dumbledore Death?

Wondering if anyone's seen this video?

"By you, I was properly humbled": the Reformation of Lily's Suitors, Part Two

"By you, I was properly humbled": the Reformation of Lily's Suitors (Part One)

Voldemort's Strange Logic

To Slay a Unicorn

So what if Snape really is nasty?

Upon the Existence of Muggles

Magic Is Might: The Dark Arts and the Workings of Human Magic

Seclusion and the Dark Arts

Rita Skeeter posts a contribution to our discussion

Eating Death?

Indestructible Intermezzo II – Etymological Excursus

Literal Half-Bloods in the Wizarding World

Inconceivable - More thoughts on Secrecy, wizarding politics, and Severus Snape

The Unthinkable Crime, the Unmentionable Name

Closing Their Eyes

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September 2025

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