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Devil’s Advocate: The...
Devil’s Advocate: The Harry Potter Edition
We’ve had tens, maybe even hundreds of posts endorsing and proclaiming the greatness of the Harry Potter series. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love the Harry Potter books.
But let’s tear it down a bit.
This is a thread to bring to light all the mistakes, plot holes, and all-around less-than-wonderful bits and pieces of Harry Potter. We can try to explain them away as well. To start us off, I have a rather small one, but one that can’t really be explained. Spoilers to follow, of course.
Early on in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hermione insists that she has to go with Harry to search for the Horcruxes. She says that she “modified her parents’ memories so that they think they’re names are Monica and [something, I’m doing this from memory] Wilkins, and their lifelong ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done”. Just a few chapters later, when the Trio successfully subdues the Death Eaters on Tottenham Court Road, Hermione says “I’ve never done a memory charm before, but I know the theory” and proceeds to erase the Death Eaters’ memories.
submitted by coyotedomino, age 15, Lost
(January 12, 2019 - 11:14 pm)
(January 12, 2019 - 11:14 pm)
(January 13, 2019 - 12:36 am)
YES. OK, so you know when Voldemort kills Snape for the Elder Wand? He isn't the one to kill Snape: it's Nagini. So technically, if Snape actually was the owner, then Nagini would now be the true owner of the Elder Wand. Voldemort would have to kill his own Horcrux!
<3 Fidelity
gogx
(January 13, 2019 - 12:48 am)
I believe the reason he was able to do this was because Nagini was a horcrux and a part of him. Nagini was very much under Voldemort's control; I believe he even possessed her a few times? Not to mention we don't know the delicacies of wand ownership (nor can we ever test this out, because of course, Voldemort was wrong!); it's possible that a creature who was so much a part of Voldemort, acting for Voldemort on Voldemort's orders, could have secured the wand for him. I mean, it's not like the snake could use it.
(January 17, 2019 - 9:57 am)
(January 14, 2019 - 2:59 am)
Okay, here's something that just might ruin the entire second book for you.
How. Did. Dobby. Know?
I mean, Dobby warned Harry of a plot at Hogwarts to kill him. Dobby also knew that it involved Young Tom Riddle, when he tried to hint to Harry: "Not He-Who-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sir".
But Lucius Malfoy himself was unaware that the diary was a Horcrux, and he only slipped it to Ginny on the spur of the moment, days later. If Lockhart wasn't in the store, the whole thing wouldn't have worked, so Lucius couldn't even have planned it. I wonder if Lucius even knew about the Chamber of Secrets. The entire chain of events was very unlikely, and happened mainly because the Horcrux was trying to protect itself.
Yet Dobby knew all about this months in advance.
(January 15, 2019 - 8:45 pm)
Has anyone else wondered what happened to Pigwidgeon and Crookshanks in The Deathly Hallows?
(January 16, 2019 - 8:09 am)
Yes. These are some very good points. One I noticed was that in the fifth book, when Malfoy takes a ton of points from Harry, Ron, and Hermione because he's in the Inquisitorial Squad, Ernie says something along the lines of "he can't do that, he knows prefects can't dock points". BUT in the second book, when Percy sees them coming out of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, he takes five points from Gryffindor.
(January 16, 2019 - 4:32 pm)
I think you’re misremembering that. I just reread 5, and I think the idea was that prefects couldn’t dock points from other prefects. Ron, Hermione, and Ernie were all prefects. Draco would have been able to dock Harry points even without being part of the Inquisitorial Squad. In the beginning of the book, Ron is all excited about giving Goyle lines.
“I must not look like a baboon’s backside.”
And then Luna has a laughing fit.
(January 16, 2019 - 6:29 pm)
Oh, that makes sense! I haven't read the books in a while. Thanks for pointing that out, that's been bugging me for a long time!
(January 17, 2019 - 5:02 pm)
Okay so this isn't a technical issue and more subjective but here we go. I wrote out a whole rant, but basically I'll sum it up with I don't think the characters are very sympathetic. I truly love the world that's built in the books and expanded on the website (although Rowling stole Cokroach Clusters from Monty Python and I will never forgive her). But the people who populate it are almost always either too unrealistic, too exaggerated, or have glaring faults that are never addressed. My favorite character would be Fleur because, although she is flawed, her issues are not just played off as inconsequential or as inevitable products of circumstance. They're addressed. And when Bill gets attacked it's shown that she isn't just some silly vain French girl like everyone expected.
Also, although I used to not be, I am now thouroughly against Ron and Hermione's relationship. Would anyone like to discuss/debate this? Actually, Harry Potter debates in general would be really fun!
(January 18, 2019 - 10:30 pm)
I agree with you about Ron & Hermione. I don't know why, but I just feel as if they would NOT fit. I mean, in the books they always argue, right?
A few other things I don't like about Harry Potter:
1) How all Slytherins are bad.
2) The end of Deathly Hallows, concerning Malfoy. Not only does he not thank Harry for having his life saved, he but he and Harry don't make up and make friends, which they should totally do. People are too hard on Malfoy overall; he just wants some friends with a decent IQ and who are popular, cuz of his sort-of mean dad, but he's been brought up wrong; he doesn't know how to make them and he's prejudiced. Which means Harry doesn't accept his friendship, which means they become enemies, and Draco is stuck with a bunch of unintelligent Slytherins.
3) How JK Rowling describes Harry's feelings for Ginny in the 6th book.
4) How JK Rowling brought Ginny and Harry together. It was just sort of shocking cuz Ginny, who's awesome but was sort in the background beforehand, just suddenly leaps into the plot. True, she plays a bigger role in Order of the Phoenix, but still.......Ginny's character is just not developed enough (which connects to what you said in your 1st paragraph)
(January 23, 2019 - 9:47 pm)
Oh, yeah, Rowling’s predujice toward Slytherins is terrible. There’s literally no positive comments about Slytherin in the whole series. Even the one time she had an opportunity to be like “Okay they’re not all evil”, with Slughorn, she made him sorta stupid and annoying.
Hey, Admin, have you read HP?
OH yes I have, when they first came out, which was quite a few years ago now.
Admin
(January 24, 2019 - 12:40 am)
I know!!! I wonder what house JK Rowling's in. Probably Gryffindor. Anyway, I think she seems prejudiced to Ravanclaws too. She doesn't mention them enough, and Cho is annoying. (Luna just isn't a good representative). Maybe she just wants them to be more mysterious or something.
(January 24, 2019 - 10:16 am)
I have to disagree!
There are a lot of things I don't like about HP, but Ronmione and Ginny/Harry isn't one of them.
In terms of Ronmione, I think they were an accurate awkward teenage wannabe-couple. They never truly start dating for a long time, but their emotions are flared often because they're put in such stressful situations. Because of this, even the littlest things can make them react hostiley towards each other, especially because their growing feelings for each other are also causing a lot of jealousy and hurt. You don't get to see them for a long time when they are actually dating, but you can tell that they care about each other, and I'm sure that as they mature and as they spend more time away from those stressful situations, they became a much better - but still organic, real, and realistic - couple. (we don't count The Cursed Child because it is a fallacy of human creation.)
As for Ginny. She actually undergoes a lot of character development - we just don't get to see it. I believe it was Hermione who described to Harry that after Ginny got over her childhood crush on him and started dating other people, she became a lot more outgoing, and there's no evidence to say she wasn't just as animated and intelligent when she wasn't around Harry. We also can't forget that Harry spend a lot of time with her - he went to the Burrow every summer, and probably saw her around Hogwarts a lot starting second year. Especially after she was able to speak in his presence again, I'm not surprised he started getting growing feelings for her. She's pretty amazing.
Harry didn't accept Draco's friendship because of Draco's prejudice. I don't think Draco is a good person, and the sixth book really proves that. When he's trying to kill Dumbledore, he is alone. Dumbledore offers him protection and safety, something that anyone with half a mind knows he can definitely provide. But Draco doesn't do it. Maybe it was a result of his upbringing. But people had shown him plenty of times throughout his life that his beliefs were wrong and prejudiced, and he never made an effort to change them or make amends (about the cruel, prejudiced things he said especially). Is he a complicated character? Yes. Is he a good one? I don't think so. And he doesn't deserve Harry's friendship.
(I also don't think he was ever interested in "smart" friends necessarily. He had Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson, for one thing, who are never shown as being unintelligent. And if he had a problem with Crabbe and Goyle, why didn't he just ditch them? That would certainly be a realistic reaction by someone with his personality. He doesn't, because what he's really looking for is mindless cronies he can order around.)
Sorry, I know I just contradicted a lot of your arguments. xD I'm very passionate about what I like and what I don't like about HP.
(January 24, 2019 - 1:31 pm)
I agree with you about Ron and Hermione, and I guess Ginny too, but not Draco. You got to remember that he didn't kill Dumbledore; he's mean but he's not a killer. And as for all of his meanness, that's because
1) he was jealous of Harry's EXTREME popularity; he was very used to getting it at home and since he is a Slytherin, I will admit he was a bit powerhungry
2) He was always doing his best for his dad, but Harry and Hermione made Draco's "best" seems mediocre and pitiful most of the time; therefore he had reason to hate him, even if he shouldn't have
3) He had been brought up with pride, and he stayed in it always; he didn't know it was wrong. It was just the facts to him that Muggles and "Mudbloods" were bad and purebloods were good. Maybe he should have used a bit of sense and figured it out, and maybe he did, but Lucius reinforced the prejudice.
By the way I write this without considering his actions in Cursed Child cuz I don't like it and I don't really think it's Rowling's true style
(January 24, 2019 - 9:59 pm)