rustiejs

[rustiejs]

The problem with that is, ¹ a lot of Harry's Petunia traits are things he also shares with Snape, & ² Petunia & Lily don't really seem all that different, from what little we actually see of Lily.

For one, Harry's nosy AF. He always thinks anything going on is his business, & he has zero compunctions about using the Map to outright stalk people. Did he really become an auror to solve mysteries & fight bad guys, or was it because his nosy ass wanted all the tea in Magical England?

Snape was also a nosy little shit as a kid, & continued to be throughout his life. As both a boarding school teacher (especially a Head of House) & a spy, it was kind of his job to be, but nobody excels quite like that when it's just a duty. He's in it for love of the game.

For another, they are both very judgemental & sarcastic. Harry's inner thoughts about the people around him are super funny, but damn are they judgey, to the point of cruelty when it comes to people he doesn't like. His thoughts are really no better than Snape's pointed comments & sarcastic quips, he just has the class (so to speak) to keep them on the inside. Mostly.

I'm convinced Harry learned to be a nosy, judgemental, sarcastic little shit at Petunia's knee; I'm equally convinced that Snape has no inkling that he got those things from Petunia. Partly because Snape is also Like That, & he refuses on principle to recognize that he might have anything in common with Petunia fucking Evans. But also because Lily was also a nosy, judgemental, sarcastic little shit, so where what he's actually seeing is Petunia's influence, he probably thinks he's seeing Lily.

now i'm thinking about how in addition to Snape projecting James onto harry in spite of...harry's entire deal...he might also occasionally see signs of PETUNIA in Harry which would horrify him.

[rustiejs]

I 100% think that's why almost every time you see Kallus interacting with just Ezra, he smirks. Ezra takes it as Kallus just being another evil, stuck-up Imperial, meanwhile Kallus is thinking of himself & his bestie from the streets whenever they ran into the Coruscant Guard on forays into the higher levels.

They had no business being up there - besides to pick the pockets of people who actually had something in their pockets to pick. The Guard knew they had no legitimate business being up there, & they of course knew that the Guard knew, but they were gonna lie their shabby asses off without a hint of shame until they could book it.

Something about the dynamic of Kallus and Zeb where people assume Kallus to be an upper class bureaucrat and Zeb to be a feral animal of the streets, but it's actually the exact opposite way around. The Specters take in Zeb and are taught how to curtsy. They take in Kallus and immediately stock up on rabies shots, just to be safe

Like I just love how upon meeting them people will fundamentally misjudge both of their characters and I def think Zeb and Kallus will use this to their advantage. Shenanigans ensue

[rustiejs]

This is probably the winner, from a Doylist perspective. From a Watsonian perspective, though, there's 3 possibilities, IMO.

The 1st is that Harry is bisexual, with a general preference for (very often older) boys - which, he does seem to notice handsome men, a lot - but no understanding of the concept, who therefore assumes he's just picky about his type of girl.

The 2nd is that he's the straightest straight boy to ever straight, & only notices clothes (& features) if they stand out a lot. Unless it's Draco, for ✨reasons.✨

The 3rd, though, is that the things he tends to notice, & the ways in which he notices them, are the things he spent 10 of his most formative years watching Petunia notice, & hearing Petunia's commentary about. A lot of his opinions on appearance seem to depend pretty heavily on how he feels about the person in question. And if he doesn't like them, those opinions tend to be incredibly catty, quite frankly.

I kinda think it's a blend of 1 & 3.

just realized Harry's narration gives us pretty detailed descriptions of two different sets of Draco's dress robes. (the "handsome" dark green ones, and the high-collared black velvet Harry doesn't like as much as the green because it makes Draco look like a vicar.)

... but we have no idea what Ginny wore to the Yule Ball, or the Slug Club party. We only know about the low-cut pale gold bridesmaid dress because Fleur and AUNT MURIEL describe it.

[rustiejs]

HAPPY STAR WARS REBELS REMEMBERED DAY!!!!

[rustiejs]

So, there an argument to be made that Kallus' defection had little to nothing to do with ideology - at least at 1st - & everything to do with his profound loneliness &/or falling in love with Zeb.

That makes the idea that his defection became a catalyst for more - the idea that he might have become a sort of folk hero amongst Imperials who regretted joining, that people who'd been too afraid to leave heard about a high-level ISB Agent doing it & suddenly had hope that they could do it, too - So. Much. Funnier.

When you stop and think about it Kallus betraying the Empire must've been massive

Like this is an ISB agent who has worked with the likes of Grand Moff Tarkin, Grand Admiral Thrawn, The Grand Inquisitor AND DARTH FUCKING VADER who's current mission on Lothol came directly from Emperor Palpatine

Bro was probably one away from working with the Emperor himself

There's no way there wasn't a ripple within the Imperial ranks

[rustiejs]

Lol, I didn't even think about the "and then Harry grows up to be a cop" aspect. 😂

Although, it's very possible that they might cast James as a PoC, because it's popular with the Kids These Days™ to conceive of Harry as Desi, for whatever fucking reason. Which would make it even more fucked up when the Indian guy is magically stringing up the black guy next to a tree to impress/sexually extort a white girl, but I'd frankly be surprised if anyone involved has actually read the books, so... it could be a fun little surprise for them come Season 5.

You're likely right about Sirius, but tbf casting him as a PoC would be rather more of a PITA, because his casting would also effect the casting of Narcissa, Andromeda (if they bother having her in it), Bellatrix, & Walburga, at the very least. If they made him black, his crazy, screaming, abusive bigot of a mother would also have to be black, which would likely piss a lot of people off. His cousins would all have to be at least ½. Considering Bellatrix is both insane & an extreme (& sexual) sadist who worships wizard Hitler, it really wouldn't be a good look.

And none of that would exactly be any better of a look if they made him Asian - & thus his cousins at least ½ Asian - instead.

sod the marauders, harry is gonna come off weirdly racist this way, all the more so because a show format rather than a book format doesn't give us a front row seat to his thoughts lol (unless they're racebending harry too, which opens a whole fresh can of worms)

That too!!! This Reddit post here summarizes everything so well—the whole freaking story swerves to a lane it was never supposed to go to in the first place.

[rustiejs]

That is 1000% not what will happen.

Casting a black guy to play Snape means that everything that happened to him as a result of class disparity will be made to look like a racial thing (on top of making Harry look kinda racist unnecessarily). It absolutely won't bring the issues of class that Snape especially represents to the fore, all it will accomplish is to totally smother that under issues of race.

Add to that the fact that there is a big difference between growing up lower class & white in 1960's England, vs growing up lower class & black in that same place & era. For a white Snape, class will have been the greatest determinant of his problems in life, the largest barrier to any success, the biggest factor in all of his social relationships. For a black Snape, all of that would have more to do with his race.

Frankly, it really ruins the tone of a lot of the story. The only possible way this could work is if they just make the entire cast PoC. Which would be a pretty weird choice considering the setting, but it would take race out of it, and that's the only way to showcase those class issues. You cannot make your lower class character also be the only black main character & expect that people will even notice the class aspects - people will absolutely put all of it down to race, & not just white people, either.

sod the marauders, harry is gonna come off weirdly racist this way, all the more so because a show format rather than a book format doesn't give us a front row seat to his thoughts lol (unless they're racebending harry too, which opens a whole fresh can of worms)

That too!!! This Reddit post here summarizes everything so well—the whole freaking story swerves to a lane it was never supposed to go to in the first place.

[rustiejs]

Needed implies that you either found some or wrote some, & either way, links would be greatly appreciated. 🙏

I think I just needed more fanfics about Snape dealing with his Slytherins as their Head of House

[rustiejs]

Forgetting his potion is actually one of the only things he did that year for which I will defend Lupin.

He was watching the Map, & he sees Ron being pulled by Sirius Black - which is reason enough to panic with what he'd thought happened - followed by Harry & Hermione. If that weren't bad enough, though, he also sees Peter Pettigrew, who he had thought was dead for the past 12 years.

What he should have done, is either send off a Patronus to Dumbledore or go find him, at the very least, before taking off for the Shack, but I don't blame him for going. It certainly looked like an emergency situation even before adding an undead rat to the mix. I can see where, if he even considered the potion, he didn't feel he could reasonably wait for it.

And I don't believe he did consider it. I kinda think that the sudden shock of learning that the friend he thought dead for over a decade was in fact alive & well, especially combined with the conclusions that follow from that of betrayals he hadn't anticipated to replace the ones he'd likely thought long dealt with, had to be shattering. Yeah, he fucked up, but it's the most understandable fuck-up he's ever made.

And I would argue that the circumstances of all that coming together are uniquely fucked up enough that they'd never recur.

"Snape was a horrible and resentful guy who told everyone that Lupin was a werewolf so they would fire him."

Correction: Severus was quite a bastard and very resentful, yes, but if he told everyone that Lupin was a werewolf to get him fired, it was because Lupin was a damn irresponsible idiot and posed a danger to the safety of the students. Because Lupin, at 33 years old, decided not to take the Wolfsbane Potion. Because the condition for someone who could pose a mortal danger to the people around them, if they want to be IN CHARGE of children and teenagers, must always be that they are responsible and take measures to ensure they are neither a danger nor a threat. And he didn’t do that. He completely disregarded his dose, and just as he did it that time, he could’ve done it again, and no one could guarantee that he would behave responsibly at the next full moon.

So Snape, who yes, was quite an asshole and had a nasty streak (and we adore him for it because, honestly, there’s nothing more unbearable than having to deal with the screw-ups of your highly incompetent coworkers), decided to cut his losses. And he did well. Any parent with a shred of common sense would agree that it’s not okay to discriminate against someone because of their condition, but if that condition involves mortal danger, then the person in question must be responsible, and if they aren’t, then they shouldn’t work with children. Severus wasn’t just a professor and Dumbledore’s spy; he was also the only adult doing anything to make sure the kids didn’t end up dead before the end of every school year. So I completely understand that he didn’t want the extra headache of monitoring whether Lupin took his potion every damn month or if he decided to put his two comatose braincells together and act like an independent adult.

I mean, on top of the fact that Snape had to work on the Wolfsbane Potion for a guy who spent his entire adolescence ignoring the bullying his friends inflicted on him and staying silent about it despite knowing it was wrong—on top of having to work extra hours to keep him human—the idiot then goes and doesn’t take his potion? Well, screw him, guys, I’m sorry. Say what you want, but Severus was being the responsible adult in this case, whether you like it or not.

[rustiejs]

Apparently, my instinct was incorrect. Fortunately for all of us, a lot of them apparently just can't help themselves & went right back to criming as soon as the pardons came through.

[rustiejs]

Tbh, this is what drives me nuts about a lot of Harry Potter discourse. When accusations of racism start flying, especially, it seems to me that most of the arguments, & a lot of the anger & offense, are entirely based on American cultural assumptions.

I've seen arguments that the name Kingsley Shacklebolt is racist, because obviously a black guy with "shackle" in his name has to be an allusion to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. (Which, dear reader, I must admit never entered my head despite being an American myself.) Now, I'm not saying the UK isn't guilty of involvement in that particular historical atrocity, but I also suspect that it has zero - or near to zero - bearing on current race relations in the UK.

I also don't know that, because I'm an American, one whose never lived in the UK, & so there is a limit to how well I can get the finer points of cultural issues like that. But, JK said she picked it because he's a cop, & it made her think of bolting a prisoner in irons. I know she's hardly deserving of the benefit of the doubt at this point, but that strikes me as completely believable from the woman who named a werewolf "Remus Lupin" & a vainglorious fame-seeking popinjay "Gilderoy."

I’m a Brit and think that’s pretty spot on about James trying to put Snape back in his place…Snape doesn’t just offend their sensibilities because he’s working class, but because he doesn’t consider himself inferior and because he’s visibly trying to social climb through academics and connections, the ambition oozes from him (good for him! wish he’d had better mentors!) there is literally *nothing* a British snob disdains more than a social climber. Not getting above your station is considered the ultimate virtue. There’s a bit of this in Lily’s objections to Snape’s Slytherin friends too…obviously her main issue is that they’re bigoted cunts, but there’s definitely also a hint of unflattering disbelief about him being accepted (however conditionally) by well-connected scions.

Whenever I think about class analysis in Harry Potter, I do so fully aware of how intense the topic of social class has always been in Britain. It’s something I’ve always known, but when I lived there, it became much clearer, so for me, the issue of classism in this context is pretty obvious. I also think the issue of social class and the expectation from the upper echelons (especially the aristocracy) that those from below should stay below and know their place is something very common across Europe—especially in countries where monarchies and, therefore, aristocratic elites still persist today. This means that society isn’t entirely shaped by the neoliberal capitalist perception of class seen in countries like the United States, where the “self-made millionaire” is glorified. Instead, there is a deeply ingrained perception that above the self-made millionaire stands the aristocrat, the name, the old money. The name often matters more than the money because a name represents prestige, pedigree—it’s part of the DNA of a society built on the foundations of an old regime whose pillars haven’t fallen but simply modernized. This is something that also happens in Spain, which, like England, is a monarchy, or in other European countries where monarchies may no longer exist but held significant power over the past two centuries. These nations still retain a strong legacy of social hierarchies rooted in aristocracy within their societal structures.

James and Sirius weren’t just wealthy—translated into a real-world context, they would be aristocrats. They were people of family names and lineages stretching back hundreds of generations. They weren’t just boys from good families; their families were at the pinnacle of the social scale. Severus ended up in a Hogwarts house where not only were the students from high social classes, they were also ARISTOCRATS. He was a working-class kid, but not just that—he came from an industrial area, which on the social scale is just one step above peasants. The only thing that positions an industrial worker above a peasant is that industrial workers are located in cities, and within the web of social classes, cities rank above rural areas. This is something we understand very well in Europe.

From a practical standpoint and from a class perspective, Severus was already at the bottom in the Muggle world. But on top of that, in the wizarding world, he was a half-blood—not because he had parents who were magical but Muggle-born, but because one of his parents was a Muggle, the same parent who gave him his surname. The difference in status between him and Lily in that sense was practically nonexistent. Severus wasn’t just poor from a neoliberal perspective; from the traditionalist perspective of how social classes interact, he came from the very bottom, both in terms of his social position and his blood status. Ignoring that basically disregards not only the lens of class and the significant power imbalance between the characters but also reveals an immense level of cultural ignorance—not just about British culture but about European culture as a whole.

[rustiejs]

I'm pretty sure that was his compromise with himself, so as not to be completely unprofessional & call them all dumbasses.

i should not be allowed to stay up past 1 am (also yes, mr. dark edgy edgelord severus snape did in fact say "dunderheads")

[rustiejs]

I see your vision, & I raise you:

There's not an official Force-based Fare Evasions class, because the Masters feel it would be setting a bad example for impressionable younglings who, after all, will have an entire apprenticeship in which they'll be practicing petty crimes & misdemeanors, & the justification thereof. Besides, they like a little plausible deniability when the Transit Authority occasionally comes to complain.

What there is, however, is an unofficial, hands-on seminar in the subject, taught by Senior Padawans when it's their turn to take a group of Initiates on a "field trip" to Umate Monument Plaza. Most Padawans given this assignment don't need to be explicitly told that this is the purpose of said field trip, because most of them remember their own Initiate trip.

Anakin did not know about this tradition. When Obi-Wan asked him if any of the kids had trouble with the skill & got a blank expression for his trouble, he came to the unfortunate realization that he had ¹failed to teach his Padawan a critical life skill, & ²he had not overseen his last field trip. Hawk-Bat Clan, however, felt that they were the most fortunate group of Initiates to ever walk the corridors of the Temple, because they got not only a 2nd field trip, but also milkshakes from a seedy diner out of the deal. Not to mention a new non-Jedi friend.

Hey have we considered that the reason that one guy in the Prequels was really chill about offering some Jedi death sticks isn't some massive conspiracy that the Jedi are all doing massive amounts of drugs, or even that he didn't realize they were Jedi, but instead that arresting people for non-violent drug offenses is fucking evil and the Jedi aren't cops? And the people of Coruscant generally know that as long as they're not killing people the Jedi aren't actually interested in fucking them over?

[rustiejs]

Maybe.

But my instinct is that he considers them suckers for doing it & losers for getting caught, & will thus feel that they deserve whatever they get.

[rustiejs]

Legit, some of the same people who loved Bon Jovi & Twisted Sister are now crying about drag. Make it make sense.

Gen X loved dragged queens-

[rustiejs]

I kinda think half the point of Data is the question "does the feeling matter if the action is good?"

He's behaved honorably on many occasions, but he doesn't have a sense of honor, just observations that tell him what honorable behavior looks like. He does brave, sometimes incredibly brave, things, but he doesn't have the fear response that makes courage courageous. He often behaves in loving & caring ways, but... How much of that is him imitating that behavior as he has seen it in other people?

How much of our honorable, brave, or loving behavior is really acting in ways we've seen demonstrated, or can extrapolate from things we've seen demonstrated, as the honorable, brave, or loving thing to do in the current circumstances?

Nobody really knows, but does it ultimately matter?

Data: *insists he's incapable of love*

Also Data: creates a daughter and gives her a name that translates to "beloved"

[rustiejs]

Worf was in no way prepared for an actual Klingon woman. He needed a woman who was just as into roleplaying a Klingon as him, but was less into justifiable homicide than Klingon standard.

That's why they worked so well.

The irony of Worf constantly comparing Jadzia to Klingon women is that a female Klingon would have stabbed him by now for the way he is acting.

Grilka would have challenged him to a duel to the death if he acted like that with her.