Eugen RochkoMay 11, 2017

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

Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017

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

Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017
@Gargron the writing in the original books is so wonky. and I don't quite get the nerd popularity, as Harry is basically a jock (cheats off his friends in class, good at sports, etc etc.) plus I remember being a teenager, and if I acted towards my friends the way Harry does... well, you just don't do that. o_O
Show threadEugen Rochko

@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

May 11, 2017 at 7:43pmWeb
Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017

@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)

Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017

@bentosmile also because snape loved lily it excused his decade-long cruel treatment of small children 🤔

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

Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017

@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.)

Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017
@bentosmile a few right avada kedavras by the "good guys" and a lot of tragedy could've been averted, but no, ya gotta expelliarmus everybody because you're harry potter and you learned one spell in 7 years
Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017

@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.

Show threadMr Nobody [OLD - delete soon]May 11, 2017
@bentosmile @Gargron "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!" <= That's basic children/teenager behaviour, no ? I think, on the contrary, that it perfectly depicts how people can continue having a prejudice against somebody, even when proven wrong.
Show threadRobert Holmes villainMay 11, 2017
@bentosmile @Gargron I say Dumbledore is my favourite Harry Potter character because he fascinates me as an abuser, Nazi fetishiser and groomer, an inheritor of vile thought patterns from people who passed them onto him, who thinks of himself as woke and is probably on some level aware he's not a good person, but fakes that he is. I think he's one of the most fascinating portraits of evil in a kid's book. I am well aware JKR had no idea this is what she was writing though
Show threadtom hMay 11, 2017
@fireh9lly @Gargron @bentosmile JKR's inability to imagine a better moral paragon than Dumbledore's all-nice-sounding-words-no-action brand of progressivism chimes perfectly with her anti-corbyn extremely lib tweets
Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017

@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

Show threadtom hMay 11, 2017

@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.

Show threadpettter ✅May 11, 2017
@tomharris @gargron @bentosmile @fireh9lly The media, and his supposed allies in Labour.
Show threadFlorianMay 11, 2017
@tomharris @bentosmile @fireh9lly @Gargron there was yon long blog post that made the rounds on the subject which was Very Good
Show threadtom hMay 11, 2017
@theoutrider @Gargron @fireh9lly @bentosmile this one?
http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-anti-potter-part-2-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-billionaires-authorthority/
yeah, that's great.
Show threadFlorianMay 11, 2017
@tomharris @bentosmile @fireh9lly @Gargron that's the one
Show threadtom hMay 11, 2017
@bentosmile @fireh9lly @Gargron also *tiny voice* I couldn't stand HPMOR. I battled through 20 chapters, but then I gave up. I'm sure there's some good stuff in there, but Yudkowsky's authorial voice is like nails on a blackboard to me. It all just sounds so insufferably smug.
Show threadBlake C. StaceyMay 11, 2017
@tomharris @bentosmile @fireh9lly @Gargron HPMOR was highly recommended to me, but I found out that I couldn't stand it either. I contemplated writing "Shinji Ikari and the Methods of Rationality"; the joke being that in the world of Evangelion, rational conduct is pointless and will end in despair, like any other kind.
Show threadBlake C. StaceyMay 11, 2017
@Gargron @fireh9lly @bentosmile @tomharris The fact that as a physicist I professionally study some of the things that Yudkowsky smugs about doesn't help.
Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017
@bstacey @fireh9lly @bentosmile @tomharris Yes, it's polarizing. It just clicks for some people but not others. I mean, EY has a hate following, and there was like a blog where the author wrote in detail about how exactly he disliked every single chapter
Show threadtom hMay 11, 2017
@Gargron @bentosmile @fireh9lly @bstacey Yeah, I guess it doesn't click for me. It's weird because I always thought of myself as 'nerdy', but I find HPMOR and general 'rationalist' stuff very alienating. But if it works for you, then great!
Show threadBlake C. StaceyMay 11, 2017

@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"

Show threadRobert Holmes villainMay 11, 2017
@tomharris @Gargron @bentosmile i'm amazed you lasted 20 chapters. I HATE that kind of fic with a passion and his 'how to write intelligent characters' posts reek to me of a boy wading in on this genre which is mostly about teenage girls trying to understand their feelings and saying 'RIGHT WE'RE DOING IT MY WAY, WHICH IS THE PROPER WAY, AND TAKING IT VERY SERIOUSLY AS TRANSFORMATIVE WORK AND NOT JUST PORN'
Show threadRobert Holmes villainMay 11, 2017
@bentosmile @Gargron @tomharris i have written a LOT of fanfic in my life and even when it was indefensibly bad, believe me, it was never just porn.
Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017

@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)

Show threadEugen RochkoMay 11, 2017

@bentosmile its actually good tho

if it clicks with ya

Show threadbentosmile 🍱May 11, 2017
@tomharris @fireh9lly @Gargron the media's always like that to the Labour Party though (except maybe these days with Blair, and that's only 'cos he killed lots of brown people, so the right leaning tabloids like him. Corbyn's best chance to get positive press in the Daily Mail types would be to look good in a bikini tbh!)