I'm rewatching the Harry Potter movies and here's a couple thoughts:
Nerdwriter is right, Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the movies
Harry James Evans-Verres Potter is a better character than Harry Potter, canon Harry is pretty dumb and hard to watch. Also, wtf is Hermione doing in Gryffindor. What's the reason for Ravenclaw house to exist if Hermione is not in it?
One of the reasons I like HPMOR more than canon is because the characters' awesomeness potential is actually used
For me, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is the canon now. The original books have too many seams. Okay, telling people to read a fanfic is a hard sell because of the fanfic stigma, plus the first 10 or so chapters have a different style to the rest of the book, after 3 or so years I've given up personally recommending it to anyone and expecting results
Also the fact that this one fanfic is longer than the 7 original books
@bentosmile hey i'm in a school with the most powerful wizard in the world
better not tell him about my private investigation of events and any evidence i find
@Gargron argh and the whole Snape thing gets me... as he's proven to be good in the first book, but because he's a teacher with a crappy attitude Harry and co decide he is evil and don't quit until the goddamn end!
(+ don't get me started on people making fascism analogies with it... but merrily ignoring how Dumbledore is basically responsible for enabling a new generation of evil wizards without making any open stance against it, and is knowingly giving them tools to be evil by educating them)
@bentosmile also because snape loved lily it excused his decade-long cruel treatment of small children π€
to be fair rowling tried to show that slytherin does not equal evil - slughorn and the redemption of draco/narcissa, though she did an awful job of it. because 11 y/o kids are predestined to be evil dark wizards and their handymen
@Gargron yeah, it's not all of syltherin... but just the ones which beyond a certain point everyone basically knows are working for voldemort (or at least everyone who needs to know).
(of course one could make an argument for attempting to persuade them away from voldemort... but there wasn't really any made. and then I suppose they would just go elsewhere to learn magic if expelled... so at the end it comes down to a crisis of conscience I guess.)
@Gargron the ironic thing is that in neo-pagan terms, even the "good" magic is bad magic, because it does harm. :D (thinking about the various jinxes and stuff that they cast instead of 'forbidden spells')
it is definitely where it falls down as a fascism analogy. people did terrible things to fight fascists, because they had to. characters in HP have to remain virtuous, so they can be unambiguously the good guys, so they cannot fight effectively; requiring a miracle to win.
@tomharris @bentosmile @fireh9lly wew lad, must we bring corbyn into this
*tiny voice* i think labour is a disaster that presents no opposition to the tories
@Gargron @fireh9lly @bentosmile Well I think in some sense this Labour opposition has been a disaster, but it's hard to blame Corbyn. He gets elected because he's an actual left alternative to the Labour right, then when he tries to act on that mandate, the media destroys him. What are you gonna do?
But yeah, Corbyn aside, mainly my point was that JKR's politics are extremely well-reflected in her choice of heroes, imo.
@tomharris @Gargron @bentosmile @fireh9lly The HP fic I really want to read is the one I invented a title for, but for which I have yet to imagine a plot:
"Harry Potter and the Masque of the Red Death"
@fireh9lly @Gargron @tomharris it's bad that all the criticism of it makes me curious to check it out o_o why is my brain broken like this!?
(I've never been able to write fanfic. I can't get into someone else's characters' heads)
@bentosmile its actually good tho
if it clicks with ya
@Gargron I've discovered HPMOR accidentally, it was predownloaded in my book reader app. So lucky! One of the best things I've ever read, absolutely amazing, opened the whole new world to me.
I also recommend "Rationality: From AI to Zombies" (an organized collection of EY's essays on rationality).
Also - /r/rational, and specifically stories by Alexander Wales (https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4976703/alexanderwales) for more amazing rational fiction.
@Gargron @awhite I also loved the experince of reading and following discussing on LessWrong and Redit as it was being written. But I had some friends who were very annoyed that it wasn't finished.
One read up to chapter 60 (when it was new), but wasn't interested in following along. When the book was finished, they refused to read the rest because they didn't want to spend so long re-reading the first part. Being able to discuss half the story with them, but not the best half... frustrating. π«
@Gargron I haven't seen all the movies. I think only the first three. I've been rereading the books since I started listening to the Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast, though.
You're kind of right about Hermione. She's very Ravenclaw stereotypical. Though I guess you could also say "Why's Neville in Gryffindor? He's such a Hufflepuff," too. So maybe it's that there's more depth to their characters than a stereotype.
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