#this is not against dumbledore this is against jkr and everything she stands

[skywitchmaja]

even before the transphobia came to light— jkr’s writing can be sooo cruel towards woman & girls for as much as she used to be celebrated as a ‘feminist’

like ginny is introduced as ron’s kid sister who has this big girlish crush on harry. this is mostly just very embarrassing for both of them. it’s fine, they’re middle schoolers.

then ginny has to be the damsel in distress for the second book finale which means she has to be vulnerable, she has to be manipulated (by voldemort’s diary), she has to do bad things (while possessed), and most of all, she has to be helpless and she has to be saved. this is some harrowing shit for an 11 year old to go through, but we don’t get much about it from her perspective bc it’s mostly there so harry and ron can be heroic and strengthen their friendship. ginny is still in the role of damsel by the end of this book.

a couple books later jkr decides to start setting up romances, so harry has a crush on cho chang bc she’s good at sports (which is cute). unfortunately for him, cho is dating harry’s cool seventeen year old crush friend & competitor, cedric digory, so harry is just crushing away, and cho doesn’t have much to do except for politely turn him down. ginny isn’t really important this book, irc i think she goes to magic prom with neville. ron and hermione have their own issues, but this book is mostly set up (both relationship wise & in the greater voldemort plot).

then in the fifth book, their relationship comes to fruition bc cedric died so now cho is single. she’s drawn to harry bc he was friends with cedric & he was there when cedric died , and she hopes that they can process their grief together. unfortunately, harry is having a lot of difficulty processing his grief, so he reacts badly when cho cries or wants to talk about cedric bc it reminds harry of his own feelings he’s trying to avoid. this would be fine on it’s own, except the fandom didn’t recognize harry as an unreliable narrator and began characterizing her as being “whiny” and “weak” and “annoying”. and it would seem like a fandom issue & not jkr’s misogyny, hermione even stands up for cho (although much of that grace is lost when cho/her friend narc to umbridge). meanwhile, ginny is getting cooler and cooler— joining the quidditch team, joining dumbledor’s army, dating boys to let us know she’s moved on from her childhood crush  on harry, and most importantly, joining harry & co at the climactic fight against voldemort, as a hero this time rather than a damsel. why is this a bad thing? it’s not, we love to see a girlboss winning.  but they way jkr writes romance puts these girls in opposition to each other.

in the sixth book, harry realizes he has feelings for ginny, and she is everything cho is not. actually, cho is what ginny used to be, and vice versa. to make sure we know ginny is no longer the vulnerable, emotional, “weak” girl harry saved in the second book, jkr gives these traits to cho instead, as she’s incredibly emotionally vulnerable after losing her first boyfriend, and was hoping that harry would be there for her when he couldn’t.  in dating cho, harry realizes that the reality of being in a relationship with someone is very different from crushing on them from afar, and while cho may be pretty & nice & good at quidditch, she isn’t someone he wants to date (again, mostly because they have incompatible ways of dealing with grief). which is fine, they’re kids, they’re still learning about themselves and other people.  except the fandom/jkr didn’t really delve into that complexity, and it was almost always reduced to saying that cho was “wrong” for harry and ginny is “the right one”.  she does this, proving one love interest is “right” by showing another as “wrong”, in an even shallower way with hermione, ron and lavender brown.  it’s exponentially worse because cho, and lavender in the first five movies, are non-white characters. 

harry starts to catch feelings for ginny, which has significantly more depth than his crush on cho because he’s known her for so long, but he still admires things like her skill at quidditch (lol), and how cool and popular she is, as well as her strong will and sense of humor.  but in order to be valid as a love interest according to jkr, ginny has to shed the traits that characterized her as a damsel in distress in the second book, ironically, a role that is often filled by the love interest.  this is actually kind of subversive, but not necessarily in a good way– rather than rejecting patriarchal lens of reducing women to “damsels”, jkr simply pushes this lens onto cho, (not with a rescue plot, but with character traits), saying that damselization is bad, not because it’s bad to objectify women, but because some women are badass and cool and “don’t need to be saved” and the ones who are weak and emotional and do need to be saved are worthy of derision. this pushes the burden away from the male gaze that sees women as damsels and onto women and girls who must reject “damselish” or “feminine” traits.  harry realizes his feelings when he sees how different ginny is now from the girl who had a huge crush on him, the girl he had to save from an evil snake, the girl who was sensitive and helpless, because she isn’t those things anymore.  but cho, from harry’s perspective, is. harry avoids her like he avoided ginny in the first few books bc their emotionality makes him uncomfortable. to be fair, harry doesn’t hate cho for these traits anymore than he did ginny early in the series, but the fandom certainly did (i use past tense bc the fandom now is… idek) and i believe jkr does too. 

by the end of the series, harry has cool, tough, funny, pretty, quidditch star, ginny weasley, and to be honest he really doesn’t share a lot of vulnerability with her.  even when he’s worried about being possessed by voldemort, he doesn’t think to ask ginny what that was like when it happened to her, because he “forgot”.  in the last book, harry even breaks up with her for several months “to protect her” rather than taking her on a dangerous camping trip with ron and hermione. this is reasonable enough, and i think it’s good that the series ends with the same trio it started with, but it does deny harry and ginny’s relationship opportunity to develop because they only really see each other at the very beginning and the very end of the last book.  so ironically, a lot of people don’t like harry and ginny as a couple (especially in the movies) because jkr was so sparse with vulnerability in their relationship.  both girls, both relationships, suffer from this “sensitive” vs “resilient”, or more shallowly, as it tends to be perceived, “weak” vs “strong” contrast between cho and ginny.  but ultimately, ginny is rewarded for shedding her girlish emotional sensitivity while cho is punished, not just for her own but for ginny’s as well, because she’s taking over ginny’s role as “emotionally sensitive girl” so ginny can rise to the “cool girl” pedestal now that someone else is being looked down upon for having feelings.

[pufflezy]

Authors Note: Everything you recognize is from the Harry Potter series.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Betrayal

Lily's POV:

"We're gonna kick Hufflepuff's arse today boys!" Marlene yells as we walk down to the great hall for breakfast.

"Fuck ya, we are!" Sirius responds, putting his arm around her.

James laughs, "As long as I've got my lucky charm, we'll win. No doubt." He says as he shows off the witch pin I got him for Christmas clipped to his quidditch uniform next to the Gryffindor patch.

"Your lucky charm?" I laugh.

"Lily-Flower, he truly has not missed a goal in a practice since he started wearing that thing!" Sirius says, eyes wide with a chuckle. "Must be muggle magic."

I laugh, "Well you better prove it to me today then, Potter."

"I will, love," He smirks while putting his arm around me. "Don't you worry." Earning a fake gagging noise from Peter and Sirius.

We get to the great hall and see students wearing mainly yellow or red to support their house of choice in todays game. A very important game at that, because if Gryffindor wins, they play their final game against Ravenclaw in a couple weeks and have a fair chance at winning the cup. But if Hufflepuff wins, we'll miss out on points that Ravenclaw will gain in their next game, meaning that they will have an advantage in points for our final match.

We walk over to our usual spot and sit down. James coming to sit next to me. Quite close to me actually. Our legs are touching and he runs his hand through his hair before casually placing it on my thigh with a slight squeeze, using his other hand to pick up his fork and begin eating. I shutter slightly at his touch and smile.

"Good luck on the game today!" A couple young Gryffindor's smile as they walk past.

James smiles with a wave, "Thanks, guys."

"So, Peter. How's the girlfrienddd?" Marlene teases.

Peter smiles with a light bush across his cheeks, "She's great."

"I can't believe you actually made out with her in the middle of the common room!" Sirius laughs.

"I can't either!" He laughs as well. "But I guess it worked well for me cause now we're dating."

"Ugh, so much love in the air." Hestia says with a smile, looking over at James and I.

I smile and look at James who has a grin on his face. "Speaking of which," He starts. "I have something for you."

"You have something for me?" I ask, curiously.

"Yes." He smiles, as he turn and un zips his bag pulling out a Gryffindor jersey. "It's my jersey from fifth year. Should fit you well."

I laugh, taking the red jersey with 'Potter' sewn in gold on the back. "You want me to wear this?"

"Very much so." He smirks.

"What, you don't like what I'm wearing right now?" I say, fake offended.

He looks me up and down, biting his lip ever so slightly and stopping for a moment on my chest that is quite visible in this tight Gryffindor sweater, "No, I love what you're wearing right now. But I have to make sure everyone knows you're mine, love."

I blush slightly with a smile as he leans down to kiss me. Keeping his hand on my thigh, squeezing again and bringing his other hand up to my neck to bring me closer as he moves his mouth against mine. I hear a groan from one of our friends come from across the table, making me smile into the kiss and then I get hit on the side of my head by a piece of toast. Another falling closely behind.

I turn and look at Sirius who is about to throw another, "Would you stop?"

"Would you?" He laughs.

James chuckles, "Fine, fine." He says as he turns back to his plate.

A few minutes go by and I hear a cough meant to get our attention from behind me. I turn and see Dumbledore, standing behind James and I with a smile. "Hello, Sir." I smile.

"Hello, Ms. Evans, Mr. Potter. I hope I'm not being too much of a bother during your breakfast but I wanted to have a word with you."

"Of course, Sir. Would you like us to come to your office?" James ask.

"No, no. Not a formal matter. If you don't mind, we can discuss it quickly right hear."

"Sure, Professor." I smile.

Dumbledore smiles down at us, "Well, it has come to my attention that you two are something of an item. Now, normally Head Boy and Girl are forbidden from dating." I widen my eyes and glance as James who also has a worried look on his face. Dumbledore laughs, "But... I'm going to allow it, just this once. Only because I think you two are quite cute together."

I sign in relief and chuckle at his reasoning, "Thank you, sir."

"And good luck on todays game," He says with a smile. Lowering his voice so only us and our friends can hear as he continues, "I know I shouldn't, but I hope you win. Can't help but be bias for your own house, now can you?" He winks and walks away.

I put James' jersey on over my head as we walk down to the Quidditch pitch as a group. Hundreds of other people filing in and people patting James, Sirius, and Marlene on the back, wishing them good luck as they walk past.

"Make us proud out there!" Remus smiles when we get to the opening to the pitch where we have to go into the stands to find seats.

"We will! We're gonna kick some badger butt!" Sirius laughs.

I kiss each of them on the cheek, whispering good luck to James and making my way into the stands with Remus, Peter, Hestia, and Alice.

"Make room! Girlfriend of the captain here!" Hestia yells with her arm over my head pointing down at me. I laugh and smack her arm down.

We finally find a seat after about 5 minutes of pushing past loud, excited kids going all out in their Gryffindor gear.

The game is about an hour long. Not the longest I've ever been to but not the shortest either. When the Gryffindor seeker catches the snitch, cheers irrupt from the stands. Even coming from some of the people in yellow. We start making our way onto the field to congratulate the team like we do after every game. When I catch sight of James, I run over to him and throw my arms around his neck as he picks me up with a spin,

"I guess it really is your lucky charm then, huh?" I smile.

"It sure is." He returns the smile and kisses me before setting me down and hugging Sirius.

We make our way back into the castle to cool off and celebrate in the Gryffindor common room. As we walk down the hall, I see Severus around a corner and when he sees me he stands up straighter, "Lily!" he yells.

I turn to my friends and smile before turning into the hallway that Severus is in, walking a few more feet until I reach him, "What?" I say slightly annoyed, knowing that he's about to ruin my good mood.

"What's gotten into you?" He says, angrily.

I furrow my eyebrows at him, "Excuse me?"

"You betrayed me." He answers in a way that seems like I should know what he's referring to.

I stare for a moment, trying to comprehend how anyone could look at our relationship and say that I am the one who did the betraying, "I betrayed you?!"

"Yes!" He yells, "It was bad enough that you became friends with them, but now you're actually dating James Potter?!"

"So what if I am?" I ask, anger building in my chest at his nerve.

"It's betrayal!"

"That's rich coming from you." I scoff.

"Before me, you didn't even know who you were!" He yells, "I taught you everything! I made you who you are!"

I glare at him, "This is my life, Severus. Not yours. Mine! The only way you made me who I am is by screwing me over so bad!"

"I didn't screw you over, Lily. Don't be dramatic." He responds.

I laugh at his arrogance, "You told me that it didn't matter that my parents were muggles! You said it didn't matter and that no one would care!" I say, my voice getting louder with each sentence. "And then we get here and everyone fucking hated me because of it! And then you bloody well joined them! And now, my parents are dead. Don't act like I did the betraying in our relationship!"

"You're dating James Potter!" He yells.

"And you're friends with the people who want to kill me! I'm pretty positive that's worse!" He stares at me, anger evident on his face as I'm sure it is on mine as well. I feel so angry that he could even accuse me of being the reason for our friendship ending and being seemingly un-fixable. "Fuck you." I say, quietly, shaking my head. "Fuck you, Severus!"

"You ok, Lily?" I hear Remus ask behind me. I turn to see that they're all still standing there waiting for me, a couple nosy bystanders with them as well.

"Ya," I look back at Severus. "I'm fine." I turn and walk towards James, grabbing his face and pulling him down into a kiss. He, of course, immediately grabs my waist and leans into it. I pull away and turn my head to glare at Severus, who is still watching, before I turn back towards my friends and start walking away.

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James' POV:

I turn and look at Sirius, who shrugs and we all turn to catch up with Lily who was now storming up the stairs, "You ok, love?" I ask.

"Yup. I'm fine." She replies, dryly.

We continue up a few more steps, "You sure?"

"Yes." She answers, still walking up the stairs at the same speed.

"Can I ask where we're going?" Peter says.

"I'm going to lay down. I don't know where you guys are going." She answers.

"Oh, ok." I slow down. "We'll see you later then?" I ask as she continues to walk on in front of me.

"Yup." She replies.

We stop and watch as she continues up the stairs, "Did I do something wrong that I'm forgetting about?" I ask.

"No." Marlene laughs. "She just gets like this sometimes. Specifically after talking to Severus."

"Ya, when she's upset she just needs a bit of time to herself to process her feelings before she talks about it." Alice adds.

"Oh, ok." I reply, nodding.

Hestia laughs, "Shouldn't you know this? You're the boyfriend."

"I'm new on the job." I laugh.

The girls decide to head up to their dorm to relax for a bit before dinner. And the guys and I decide to take a walk around the castle. We come to the end of a corridor where there is a big window with pillars on either side. I lean against one of the pillars and smile, "Wanna cig?" I ask, grabbing the pack of cigarettes' out of my back pocket.

"You had those the whole time?" Sirius ask, shocked.

I nod. "Git." Remus laughs, taking one from me.

Peter does a quick check up the hall to make sure no Professors are coming and then lights his. Blowing the smoke out the open window.

"So how's it going with Ol' Lily-Flower, mate?" Sirius asks. "Shag yet?"

I laugh, "No. Things are good though." I say, grinning.

"I hate how giddy you are. It's sickening." Peter jokes.

I smile at him, "Did you end up finding that portkey spell, Remus?"

"Ya. Its quite difficult though. We've been practicing in the dorm." Remus answers.

I gasp, "Without me?" I place my hand on my chest, mouth still hung open.

"Oh, shite! My deepest apologies, James! Please. Please forgive us for our sins!" Sirius pleads, jokingly bowing down in front of me over and over. Taking drags of his smoke in between them.

I laugh and smack his head before turning when I hear footsteps coming up the corridor. But we can't put our smokes out in time before Professor McGonagall sees them, "Enjoying ourselves, our we?" She asks, crossing her arms.

"Yes, we certainly are, Minnie." Sirius smiles with a nod.

She shakes her head, "I will see you four in detention tomorrow afternoon."

"Yes, Minnie." I reply, causing her to turn back and glare at me, despite having a slight grin on her face at our shenanigan's.

"I better not catch you with those again." She replies.

"You won't. We'll keep a better eye out next time!" Peter smiles, and we laugh. She shakes her head and walks away.

"You boys better invite me over next time you're practicing that spell!" I say.

"We will, Prongsy!" Sirius smiles. "As long as you're not too busy with Evans."

"I could never be too busy for you guys!" I smile. "Unless of course she's naked. Then you guys can sod off."

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Chapter 18 up now!

[itsclydebitches]

(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/”  Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.  

[vivithefolle]

About criticizing Hermione.

Personally I think Hermione should be criticized for everything that happened in the books, the facts speak of their own but there is a limit in how responsible a fictional character is for the actions the author made her do . It's not like she actually had her faith in her hands and she chose to be JKRs shelf-insert and make all her Shitty ideas her own.

Let's look at the bigger picture here, is Hermione realy being treated better than Ron from the phantom?

JKR trusted her characters to Kloves and he basically pimped Hermione. She is the most sexualized fictional character of the 21st century so far, he portraited her like an OP/sexi cosplay of the real Hermione. She became a top10 sex fantasy for every healthy and sick mind out there and JKR did nothing to stop It for like a decade.

Ron is being hated for being an 'unworthy' pair for her(actually they hate him just because he has Hermione) and she is being hated for choosing him and she must be punish for it. You said that if she was a boy everybody will call for his head on a plate and I apsolotly agree but she is a girl so they call for her vagina on a plate instead. This is how you punish an intelligent woman, you subdue her and then you sexualy demean her.

You know better than me what is happening in fanfiction. She's been paired with evreone from Harry to Hagrids dog and the giand squid. Hermione is a sex slave, a dominated toy, a sperm dumpster, a total slut, a cheating/cheated wife, she is been mercilessly raped and abused and portrayed like a young Bellatrix or umbridge.

She has earn as many nasty titles as Ron so I don't think her being a girl worked in her favor.

Unfortunately it seems there are a lot of people who think that Intelligence is a mark of higher character and superior maturity as you said but Hermione is not one of them. She is hanging around with Harry and Ron and his family not her 'intelectual equals' from Ravenqlaw book club and she is dating athletes not distinguished students. Intelligence isn't the most important thing for her and she never acted like different people are not worthy of her company or her attention. So let's not hold her accountable for those ridiculous ideas.

Anyway I don't know if I am ranting but I just believe Hermiones character has been damaged and shamed just as much as Rons has, just in bit of different way and she don't deserve extra hate because she is JKRs shelf-insert in the story.

That comment of yours 'Hermione is literally JKR' ruin my appetite for the day. I just imagine Ron doing things with her.... Buhh😫🤢

The major difference in fanfiction is that... many people legit think this is “better” for Hermione.

They write stories of her being abused by Big Bad OOC Ron and being rescued by heroic prince charmings like Harry, Draco, Snape, or whoever. And all the while, the shippers genuinely think this could be plausible.

They take this huge dump on Ron and everything he stands for as a character - your insecurities don’t define you; the people you love only ask for you to be there, not for you to always be a 5* badass; you don’t have to prove anything to anyone but yourself - then proceed to “reward” Hermione with the affections of someone they’ve deemed “worthy” of her.

Usually, a person with which Hermione finds herself in a more subservient position.

Harry Potter: Mr Save The World, super fucking rich, will forever outshine whoever marries him Draco Malfoy: aristocratic/nobility, super hella rich Lucius Malfoy (yes, Luciumione is very popular on AO3): same as above + MUCH older than Hermione Severus Snape: Potions prodigy who actually invented stuff while Hermione only ever stuck by the book, MUCH older than she is Viktor Krum: famous athlete, probably rich

And so on and so forth.

Many of the Hermione ships of the fandom have an inherent imbalance. When it comes to age gap ships like Snamione or Luciumione, people will justify themselves by saying “oh but Hermione is so mature for her age, she needs someone on her level!”

.......... I very much hope to never meet one of these people in real life.

Not only is Hermione nowhere as mature as what they believe she is but MATURITY DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR A GAP OF NEARLY TWO DECADES OF EXPERIENCE. (And can you imagine saying  “Hermione needs a mature man!” then pairing her with Snape, the teenager stuck in a grown man’s body? Talk about cognitive dissonance.)

Anyway, those ships usually take Hermione to pair her with, let’s say it in the worst possible way, a man of “more value” than her.

The Hero. An aristocrat. An older man and a teacher. A celebrity...

They’re not trying to look to match Hermione with an equal.

They’re trying to pair her with someone she can be subservient to.

Because as @lytefoot​ brilliantly put it:

A woman has to be all-around pretty good at everything, whereas a man has to be the absolute best in his area of greatest competence (surely better than any puny female!) with a help-meet there to compensate for his weaknesses. People are very, very uncomfortable when Ron and Hermione reverse this dynamic. Hermione is extremely intelligent and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, but is complete pants at things like self-care and people skills. Ron is bright enough to keep up with her and strong in her areas of weakness.

Even if Ron was as dumb as a sack of rocks (he’s not), his other virtues are more than enough to “justify” Hermione loving him. (Because she needs an excuse?) But no. A woman has to be with a man who outdoes her in her area of greatest strength.

But they’re completely convinced that they’re making a “better” match for Hermione because in their heads, they’ve convinced themselves that Ron’s “inferiority” (= his underrated qualities like his good heart, his humour, his patience (many of which are also coded as primarily feminine qualities); his poverty; his language; his tendency to stand up for himself even against his friends; his insecurity) is a sure sign he would be bad to Hermione. Because there are two types of people: those who are inferior and those who aren’t! /s

They sincerely believe they’re elevating Hermione when they’re using her as Harry/Draco/Snape/Aragog’s token to redemption/happiness. Because they genuinely think Hermione should be “rewarded” with a man that outclasses her in the aspects of her life she prides herself on (her studies, her academics, her social justice ambitions). At the same time, they build up this whole narrative about how Ron would “want her to be another Molly, barefoot and pregnant all the time” to convince themselves that they really are Good Little Feminists.

All in all: when people write Hermione as Snape’s sex kitten, they do it because they believe that’s the best thing that can happen to her. But when they write Ron to bash him, it’s because they genuinely hate him. They want the worst to happen to him. They delight in his misery. They love it. Because they’re so blinded by their own lies and so convinced that “hurmion 2 gud 4 ron durrhurrhurr” that they think he deserves the most painful, humiliating things to happen to him.

That’s the difference. People pair Hermione with the most horrible people out of blind adoration for her. Those same people bash Ron as retribution for “defiling” their goddess.

The kind of “Hermione bashing” you refer to is done out of good sentiments. But Ron? He doesn’t get that sort of bashing; he’s reviled and hated for things he didn’t even do, because people can’t fucking comprehend that just because he acted badly at times doesn’t mean those actions define him. The bashing comes out of hatred and an unfounded, unfair desire for “justice” that is unwarranted in the first place.

That’s why I turn the tables and judge Hermione with the fandom’s absolutely impossible standards they only seem to apply to Ron and a select few others (Dumbledore, some of the Weasleys). To prove that no fucking human being could even hope to dream to meet those standards.

[thathawaiianchick]

my wolfstar fic recc

29 of my favs, plus 2 comics :)

sorted from shortest to longest, series at the bottom

i like long fics, i like raising Harry AUs, i like Lay Low at Lupin’s fics, i like marauder era “we’re 70′s trash fics”, i like angst, but i also love “everybody lives”, kind of a mix of everything but seriously a lot of raising Harry AUs because it fills a need i guess

some super popular, some relative unknowns i think

all fics that characterize wolfstar for me :) 

JKR has disappointed me supremely, but fan works will hold my love forever

 part 2 because i forgot some

STANDALONES

1. A Day Like Any Other by dustmouth

(a comic, not really a fic, just hosted on AO3)

The one where Sirius keeps receiving unwanted mail, Remus drinks a lot of tea, Peter's out on a hot date, and James is offering unwanted make overs.

(Or the answer to the question of exactly how many cursed letters can you flush down the loo).

2. To Keep a Star by dustmouth

(a comic, not really a fic, just hosted on AO3)

Daily life in the Intergalactic Postal Service. Or the one where Sirius is a postal star and Remus lives on a spaceship.

3. in your bedroom, during the war by lupinely

There’s the bed, there’s the room, and there’s Remus. This, at least, Sirius knows for sure. (4Kish)

4. Home We’ll Go by appalachian_fireflies

"I can't, I don't know how," Remus stuttered as Molly dropped the infant into his arms, who immediately ceased crying and stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Nonsense," Molly said. "Be a dear and keep him from falling while I feed Ginny."

"Ba!" Ron giggled, and slapped Remus in the face.

Molly is the emergency contact for the Order when those listed can no longer be reached. Remus' life finds a different path. (10K)

5. A Store of Happiness by coyotesuspect

Harry spends the summer after his third year living with Sirius and Professor Lupin. (10K)

6. In The Bed by bigblackdog

Left to his own devices the summer after the prank, Sirius crafts an unusual gift to mend his relationship with Remus. (11K)

7. Vigil Strange I Kept by whitmans_kiss

Remus' lycanthropy has caused his body to seriously deteriorate over the years due to the constant stress of the transformations, and by his fifty-sixth birthday, it's certain that he won't live to finish out the year. However, a cure has recently been discovered - but what if the cure is just as bad as the disease? (11K)

8. Elucidation Practice by montparnasse

Christmas, 1978. Remus, wrestling with the mighty problems of gift-giving on a budget, contemplates life, love, London in winter, and falling off the edge of the world with Sirius Black. (21K)

9. On a Windswept Cliff by starfishstar

On the cliff top where the fearsome Lord Black once stalked, an outcast man meets a big black dog, and things are not as they seem.

Or: The Remus/Sirius gothic romance AU. (21K)

10. Lethe and Mnemosyne by montparnasse

Winter '79. Looking to get out from under the black-hole overhang of wartime, Sirius and Remus take off to play house on the Cornish moors. It goes downhill from there.  (26K)

11. Purity by FelisA 

Sirius resurrection fic. (27K) 12. Common Woodbrown by imochan

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there. In 1985, Remus Lupin realizes that Sirius Black is innocent. Now, he just has to prove it. (36K)

13. Wilde and Whimsy by chasing bluefish, obsob

In a world where Dumbledore defeated Voldemort during the first war, the wizarding community is picking up the pieces and getting back to their lives. Remus Lupin becomes a person of interest in a murder at the bookshop where he works and Sirius Black and James Potter, aurors, are sent to investigate. As they navigate the crime itself, Remus and Sirius realize that there is something to their instant chemistry. But they need to keep their newfound attraction under wraps while trying to find the killer and stop them from claiming more victims. (36K)

14. Paper Wings by Krislaughs

(not hosted on ao3)

What if Sirius Black sent a final message from Azkaban? Enter the home of the last Marauder in the days following Voldemort’s downfall. Lost and alone, Remus asks a question of the void, a question whose answer will send him around the world. Meeting puppies, Kneazles, dementors, and nomads, Remus learns more about himself and his friends than he ever thought possible. Learn the secrets of the Marauder’s map and the world’s best chocolate, how various Death Eaters occupied themselves after the fall of their lord, and why you should never leave Remembralls lying around.

15. Uncreated Night by earlybloomingparentheses

Remus can drift through whole worlds in his own mind. Sirius lives in his body, electric, ablaze. In 1979 and 1996 and 1978 and 1981 and in many other years and many different places, they search for the bridges between them and the spaces they can share. Time after time, they fight their way back together, head and heart, mind and body.

And in 1998, Remus stands before the veil, wondering if he should finally stop thinking, and just act. (41.5K)

16. Lemon Chiffon Yellow by Spklvr

An unplanned night between Remus and Tonks ends up changing their lives forever. (42K)

17. The Weather Inside by earlybloomingparentheses

Sirius rides a flying motorbike, and snogs strangers in pubs, and strikes moody poses Remus finds irritatingly attractive. But for Remus, who drinks milky tea and wears flannel pyjamas, there's a chasm cracked right down the fault line between wanting and doing.

How he wants, though. How he wants. (43K)

18. the dogfather by hollimichele

“I’m not a reverse werewolf either,” says the man. “I’m your godfather.”  (47K)

19. Domestic Creatures by veeagainst

Growing up is hard to do -- but the journey is better if you take someone with you. (53K)

20. Leave the Children Behind by montparnasse

Bravery, sometimes, is the ending just as much as the beginning. Remus, Sirius, and a series of choices.

Or, a love story—backwards and forwards. (54K)

21. A Series of Sketches Done in Black Ink by  mustntgetmy

Non-magic AU. Sirius had always imagined the aftermath of falling in love would mean lightness, and an escape from all the horrors of his childhood. But the past never leaves, and even love can't stop bad memories from resurfacing.

An almost year in the life of Sirius and Remus's first year as a couple replete with art and tangled sheets, and containing the following: filled sketchbook pages from people lost and people found, terrible biscuits from an excellent therapist, mismatched music records, expensive hot chocolate, a lost brother, photographs (some invasive and some invoking terrible memories), a reckoning with the past, a promise of the future, and yet another ridiculously over the top Halloween party. (57K)

22. Alt Ed by NachoDiablo

“Remus? Who the bloody hell is Remus?” James is scrambling to straighten his chair as McGonagall glares at him from the head table.

Mary smiles innocently. “Oh, just a new friend that Lily met over the holidays. He’s homeschooled, just moved into her neighborhood it seems. She says he’s very clever. And I hear he’s quite fit, as well.”

AU where Remus and Lily become friends outside of Hogwarts, setting James and Sirius on a quest to learn more about this mysterious newcomer. (61K)

23. Indiana Lupin and the Search for the Conqueror by nekarose

Remus Lupin is an undercover archaeologist for the British Museum and is sent to Greenland to investigate a Roman shipwreck. In Greenland he meets Sirius Black, makes a real discovery and soon enough the two of them are racing through the world in search of the remains of the Library of Alexandria with Remus’ arch-enemy right at their heels. (66K)

24. Le Mot Vagabond by ironicallyinternational

(It all starts with Peter Pettigrew dying twice.

First, Peter kills Wormtail (discreetly), and then Sirius kills him (less discreetly).

Losing a friend is never easy, even amidst the ravages of war, but losing the last of your childhood alongside him is far worse.)

War is a complicated, messy thing. The Marauders have their fucked up shit to deal with, but they also have each other, and that counts for a lot. (151K)

SERIES:

25. The Hole in the Ground by sostrata

(5 works)  A series of fics about Sirius and Remus raising Harry in their home, The Hole in the Ground.  (18k)

26. Holding Out by bigblackbog

(works 2)

On Halloween, 1981 Sirius and Remus abscond with Harry despite their recently rocky relationship. (36K)

27. Maddest House by busaikko

(6 works)

old as hell. Another wolfstar raising Harry fic (55K)

28. Lycanthropic Studies by Eiiri

(3 works)

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Remus recognizes something familiar in Draco Malfoy and offers him sanctuary. With nowhere else to turn--his parents in prison, his home a crime scene--Draco reluctantly accepts and becomes a tolerated, if not welcome, member of his schoolyard rivals' and wartime adversaries' family of choice. As pages of the lunar calendar turn and the summer wears on,Draco and the others begin to see each other in a different light. (139K)

29. Stealing Harryverse by copperbadge

(works 12)  

On a dark night long ago, Sirius Black took a wrong turn and never found Peter Pettigrew. Instead of Azkaban, Sirius settled down in Little Whinging to keep an eye on his godson, and hired Remus Lupin to run his bookshop for him. Then one day when Harry was eight, Sirius found out how the Dursleys treated him, and stole him away.

Stealing Harry is an alternate universe version of Harry Potter's life before his time at Hogwarts. It is the story of Harry's family: Sirius and Remus, Ted and Andromeda, Nymphadora, Neville Longbottom, and even Severus Snape, all banded together against a newly powerful Peter Pettigrew who is still searching for a way to resurrect Voldemort.

Laocoon's Children follows Harry through his time at Hogwarts as he develops a very different group of friends: Hufflepuff Draco Malfoy, Ravenclaw Padma Patil, and Gryffindor Neville Longbottom, strange companions for a Harry who was sorted into Slytherin -- the house of his beloved Professor Snape.

This universe ends in Harry's third year, and is partially incomplete. As it is not likely to be finished, the last story in the series is a group of notes I made on where the story would have gone and how it would have ended. (443.3K)

30. All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89

(4 works)

LONG fic charting the marauders' time at Hogwarts (and beyond) from Remus' PoV - diversion from canon in that Remus's father died and he was raised in a children's home, and is a bit rough around the edges. Otherwise canon-compliant. 1971 - 1995 (557K)

31. Crow Rides A Pale Horse  by tb_ll57

(4 works)

The note pinned to his collar read 'Harry J Potter - please accept'. The Dursleys had left him with nothing else but a pillow sack with half a sleeve of McVities biscuits, a mealy apple, and ten pounds. (618K)

[the-ginger-magician]

Still love the magical world of Harry Potter but hate JKR and everything she stands for? Consider looking into the Harry Potter Alliance.

From supporting trans lives to fighting legal battles against ICE, if JKR is Umbridge then the HPA is Dumbledore’s Army.

[thebimarauder]

8th year Drarry part 2

TW/past abuse

TW/nightmares

Draco’s POV

Oh god, oh god, oh god, how am I supposed to live with Potter for a whole year? I helped my father and Voldemort try to kill him. I tormented him for years. I have never been nice to him. How am I supposed to make it up to him and stop being enemies? I sat there trying not to visibly freak out, Pansy seemed to notice and turned to me “Hey, Draco, it will be alright. I’m sure he doesn’t blame you for anything, you just have to apologize later and try to start fresh so that you can both have a good year” I turned to my best friend, “Thanks Pans” “Any time Draco.” After McGonagall finished listing the roommates she told us where the new wing was and the password “Pumpkin Pasties” and then sent us off to the great hall to watch the sorting and eat dinner. I sat with Pansy and Blaize on the far end of the table, most of the other Slytherins were giving us room and avoiding us but at least there were three of us. We had become much better friends over the summer, hanging out and talking about how none of us really wanted to be working with Voldemort but that our parents had made us. I desperately wanted to start fresh as a new person, I wanted to apologize for everything in the past and try to move on. All of us did, we couldn’t stand the idea of people hating us for things our parents had made us do, things we regretted immensely. We had hung out almost every week over the holiday, none of us wanted to be home for too long with our parents who were either mad at us for going against the dark lord or were sad and depressed and would just make us feel worse. Blaize and Pansy were talking about their future roommates which made me glance up to Potter. He wasn’t talking to his friends, he was just looking at his plate which was close to empty, it looked like he was debating eating, eventually, he just put his fork down and started talking to his friends. Presumably about how much he was going to hate rooming with me. I looked down hoping that no one saw me looking at Potter when Pansy knocked into me, she had spilled her coffee and it had almost landed right on her. After that, the three of us started to talk about our class schedules and what classes we would have together before eventually leaving to go and find the new dorm wing.

It took us ages, the staircases kept changing on us and we had to go back down and then up again almost four times. When we finally got there we found a painting of a knight, he was pacing back and forth claiming that his horse got loose and was running off somewhere. I eventually got him to calm down enough to let us in, I walked through the doorway and looked around. The common room was huge, the walls were lined with big chairs and a few couches, there was also a big fireplace with two couches facing it. The three of us walked over and sat in one of the couches by the fire. We sat there for quite some time in comfortable silence until I suggested that we go up and check out our rooms. I went up to find a tile on the door that had Potter. Malfoy. carved into it. I walked in and sat down on the bed that had my trunk on it. I looked around the room, there were two twin beds each with curtains and sheets that were our respective house colors. There were also two small desks, one on either side of the room both next to a small wardrobe. In the corner of the room was a door to a small bathroom and between the two beds, there was a large window. I laid my trunk on the ground and did not even bother to take my shoes off before I laid on the bed to think. I shut my eyes and contemplated how much I had changed since I was last a student at Hogwarts. Last year, and to think about that every other year I was a complete puppet for my father, I had to do everything he told me to do to avoid his wrath. Which is not saying that I did everything, I shuddered at the memory of what my father did when he found out that Snape had killed Dumbledore and that I hadn’t. I jumped, it was such a realistic memory that it almost felt as if I was being shot with the cruciatus curse again. I had to focus on my surroundings and remember that my father was locked away and could not hurt me anymore. I had finally calmed myself down when I heard the doorknob turn and then saw Potter’s familiar face. He looked sad but I don’t really think it was because of me or the room situation because when he looked up and saw me his expression seemed to brighten, just a tad.

And obviously character credits go to JKR.

[burgundydahlia]

Do you think the first kiss we see of Ron and Hermione was their first or did it happen behind closed doors off page

I have two very divergent thoughts on this. Most of the time, I think that it was probably intended by JKR that the first time we see Romione kiss was intended to be their first kiss. However, there is so much alluded to happening offscreen that I really find it hard to believe that these two weren’t kissing long before the Battle of Hogwarts.

So, in short, I think there is a very good chance that Ron and Hermione shared their first kiss long before we, the readers, saw it. And because I love writing about them, I’ve included two descriptions of the different scenarios below the cut :)

Their first kiss happens at the Burrow before Harry arrives:

In this version of events, I imagine/headcanon it’s only a few weeks after school has let out and not long after Hermione comes to stay at the Burrow for the summer/before they leave to search for the Horcruxes. Hermione doesn’t tell Ron immediately about what happened with her family, but he can see something is wrong with her because she’s withdrawn and clearly unhappy. Finally, when he’s able to get her alone up in Ginny’s room, he asks her what’s going on - why is she so quiet and uncomfortable? Did something happen? Is she still upset from Dumbledore’s funeral or is she having second thoughts about accompanying Harry on his mission to destroy the Horcruxes? Or is it something he did? Is she still angry about him and Lavender because that ended ages ago and he thought they had moved past all that? But for Merlin’s sake, would she just tell him so he can try and fix it?

But Hermione, guilt-ridden and heartbroken, begins to cry - giant, heaving sobs that wrack her whole body and cause her to start to collapse towards the floor. And poor Ron, who is shocked and terrified, literally runs to her and wraps his long arms around her and lets her sob into his chest as he holds her to him, his own throat constricting as he listens to her weep. He’s able to maneuver them to her cot and they sit, her still crying and hiccuping while Ron quietly murmuring words of comfort into her curls as he draws soothing circles on her back with his hands. 

After she settles down, she tells him everything - how she forced her parents to leave, how she modified their memories because she didn’t know what else to do, and how she feels sick over the whole thing. She is drowning in guilt and misses them so much she thinks she might break because she doesn’t know if she’ll ever see them again because what if-? 

But Ron cuts her off, refusing to let her say the rest of the sentence and he stares straight into her eyes, his gaze unwavering, and he tells her in no uncertain terms that they’re going to make it out of this alive. He isn’t going to let anything happen to her, no matter what, and when it’s all over and Voldemort is dead and they’re back here, he’s going to go with her to get her parents. He’ll help her reverse the charms and together they’ll explain to her parents what happened and why. She’s not alone - she’ll never be alone - and he’ll be there with her every step of the way, as long as she’ll have him.

Hermione is so overwhelmed and grateful and feels such a rush of love and affection for him at that moment that all she can seem to do is gently smile as she nervously intertwines her fingers with his. She whispers his name and it’s somewhere between a question and an invitation and suddenly the whole room shifts. Ron, who is sure his heart is beating so loud that his family can hear it all the way downstairs, can’t stop staring at Hermione - the way her tears cling to her dark eyelashes; how her expression is soft and gentle and filled with something so intimate and profound; how her cheeks have turned the palest shade of pink he’s ever seen; the way her mouth curves and slopes like a tiny, perfect bow.

And finally, after what feels like an eternity, they lean in towards one another. Ron watches as her eyes flutter shut and he shifts his head to the side as he closes his eyes as well. Their noses just barely brush against one another and then with a tiny thrill of anticipation, their mouths meet, timid and gentle, yet warm and oh-so-soft. Ron brings his hand up to her head, letting his fingers tangle up into the curls at the back of her neck and Hermione sighs in response, her lips parting as she does so. 

Much later, Ron laughs and swears to her that at that moment, he’s fairly certain he temporarily blacked out. And while Hermione tries to look annoyed and rolls her eyes as she makes to stand up and leave, Ron catches her hand in his and stops her, his expression uncertain. She pauses, watching him for a moment, then with a rush of courage, she sinks back onto the cot and weaves her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, bringing his face down to hers again. She kisses him, harder and with more fervor than before and just as Ron begins to melt as he wraps his arms around her, she pulls away and smiles. 

“There,” she whispers as she stands again. Ron stares up at her as if he’s been knocked upside the head by a club. “Now hopefully you’ll remember.”

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Their first kiss happens at Shell Cottage

In this headcanon, I think Romione have had quite a few close calls when it comes to kissing (as in moments where it almost happened but they were either interrupted or one of them pulled away because they knew they “shouldn’t”). And with this one, I also think they had previously discussed things and agreed that they should wait until after they finished helping Harry to finally really see what they could be. But even though they know it’s probably best to wait, it’s been hard - they care deeply for one another and the time they’ve spent on the run has been lonely and trying in so many ways - but still they haven’t given in.

And then Malfoy Manor happens.

Before that, Hermione was angry with Ron and hurt by his departure while all he was focused on was gaining her trust again. But everything was completely turned on its head when they were captured and taken to the Malfoys’. Ron watched, completely helpless, as Hermione was dragged by her hair into the center of the room while he was forced down into the dark, damp cellar with no way to reach her. Meanwhile, Hermione stared down Bellatrix Lestrange, begging her to stop even though she knew it was hopeless, all while desperately trying to keep Ron and Harry safe even though she knew she was going to die. 

And finally, when she couldn’t hold on any longer, she thought of three things: her parents and how she hoped they would be happy, Harry and how she hoped he would be safe, and Ron and how she wished she had told him she loved him.

But then Hermione wakes up. She sees that she’s not lying on a cold, hard floor, but a warm, soft bed. She isn’t being screamed at by a deranged psychopath as she tries to force her brain to stay alert, despite the pain and the overwhelming desire to give up; and her body, while sore and exhausted, no longer feels like it’s being set on fire as she’s pulled apart limb by limb. In the distance, she can hear the crash of waves against the shore and just outside her room, there’s a gentle murmur of hushed voices.

She cracks open her eyes and looks around. She has no idea where she is but she knows she’s safe and tears blur her vision immediately. They escaped. Somehow, they got out of Malfoy Manor and she is still alive and they are safe. Tears begin to roll down her cheeks in earnest now and she sniffles. Unbeknownst to her, Ron is there with her, sitting quiet vigil at her bedside and upon seeing that she’s awake, he immediately moves to the bed, sitting on the edge as he clasps her hand in his, his expression pained. He begins talking a million miles a minute - is she’s okay? Is she in pain? Does she need him to get Fleur? Is he hurting her by touching her now? Merlin, he’s so fucking sorry he couldn’t get to her sooner and that he couldn’t take her place because it should have been him- 

But Hermione looks at him and he’s like this perfect beacon of light and her heart is just so full. She’s alive and he’s there with her and even though she can’t stop crying, she begins to struggle as she attempts to sit up. Ron immediately rushes to help her, all while asking her if she’s sure she should be doing this, and Hermione isn’t sure why, but the question is just so sweet and yet absurd, that she literally cannot help herself - she giggles. Like, actually giggles. And Ron is so shocked and slightly terrified that this is a sign she’s gone mad due to the torture that he finally stops talking and stares, his hand still holding hers tightly.

Hermione puts a hand over Ron’s chest where his heart is and takes a shaky breath in.

“I love you,” she breathes, her voice still hoarse from earlier and she watches as Ron’s eyes go so wide that for a moment, she actually worries he might have stopped breathing. But then in an instant, he reaches forward and cups her cheek in his hand as brings his mouth to hers and kisses her. When he finally stops, he rests his forehead against hers, his hand still tenderly holding her cheek.

“I love you, too,” he whispers and Hermione feels tears spring to her eyes again.

“You do?” she asks and Ron pulls away to look at her incredulously.

“Of course I do!” he says fervently and Hermione smiles. “I thought - fuck, Hermione, I thought-“

“I know,” she sais quietly and she brings her hand up to cover his, gently brushing a thumb against his skin. “But we’re safe now and… well, I’m tired of waiting. Because really, what are we waiting for anyway?”

Ron smiles, his own eyes now glossy as well, and he gives a low chuckle.

“I have no idea.”

And he leans in to kiss her again.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Thanks for the ask, Nonny, and I hope you enjoyed!

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Shooting Fish In a Barrel

by Dan H

Thursday, 01 May 2008Dan has yet another go at JK Rowling~This is going to be short, because frankly there's not a lot to be said except "JK Rowling is so terminally stupid that she needs to purged from the gene pool for the good of humanity."

For those of you who haven't been obsessively following everything that infuriating woman does, she is currently suing the guy behind the Harry Potter Lexicon.

Now I'll try to be fair here. If the guy has genuinely reproduced text from the Potter books without attribution, then he's breaking the law and he needs to correct that, but the guy's a professional librarian and frankly I trust his ability to credit sources properly far, far more than JKR's ability to identify genuine plagiarism.

On the other hand her complaints are so utterly asinine that, well, that I'm completely unsurprised but I'm going to be rude about them anyway.

I think the most telling example of JK Rolwing's complete failure to understand anything, ever, from birth is this:

For instance, she said, the Ogre entry simply said, "Ron and Hermione think they see an ogre at Three Broomsticks." A superior entry, Ms. Rowling testified, would have pointed out that "An ogre in European folklore was a flesh-eating giant."

Say it with me now.

What the fucking fucking fucking fuck?

Seriously JK: how fucking stupid are you, you stupid, stupid woman.

The Harry Potter Lexicon is a guide to the Harry Potter books. Your proposed encyclopaedia is probably going to be a guide to the Harry Potter world. The fact that you can't tell the difference is testimony to how utterly stupid, stupid, stupid you are. It is also why your books are so 

very, very bad

.

The only information we have about ogres in the 

actual text

 of Harry Potter (as opposed to the magical world of JK Rowling's brain, where Dumbledore is gay, and the series is a protracted plea for tolerance) is that which is provided in the lexicon: Ron and Hermione think they see an ogre at Three Broomsticks. Adding a pointless piece of trivial information would not, in fact, create a superior entry. It would create an inferior entry.

Rowling's objections to the Lexicon boil down to an inability to understand that "Harry Potter" is an artefact which exists in the world, it is a series of texts and commentaries on those texts by the author, and the purpose of the Lexicon is to catalogue and make accessible that 

textual

information. Rowling seems to somehow expect the Harry Potter Lexicon to contain information which is not contained in the Harry Potter books, but that simply isn't its purpose.

As far as Rowling is concerned, Harry Potter is not a series of cultural artefacts existing within the world, but a world that exists in her imagination. This is why she feels so free to amend, interpret, and justify the text after its publication. As far as she's concerned (and, as other FB articles have discussed, as far as a depressingly large number of other people are concerned) the Harry Potter universe has a distinct, external reality and the process of reading about Harry Potter is a process of bringing your understanding into line with this distinct, external reality. Essentially a person's appreciation of Harry Potter (as far as Rowling is concerned) can be judged exclusively in terms of how closely it matches her own.

The Harry Potter Lexicon is something altogether different. It is a guide to the 

text

 (and also the metatext and commentary). It does not seek to define or redefine the boundaries of the Wizarding world, merely to gather together, in one place, textual information about Harry Potter. Calling this "plagiarism" (or to use Rowling's infuriatingly cutesy term "pilfering") is roughly analogous to calling 

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 blasphemy. And just like the Harry Potter Lexicon, Easton's Bible Dictionary contains some very, very short entries, for example:

Pahath-Moab: Governor of Moab, a person whose descendants returned from the Captivity and assisted in rebuilding Jerusalem (Ezra 2:6; 8:4; 10:30).

No doubt JK would suggest that a superior entry would add "Moab is a place which appears in the bible".

It gets crazier. When the counsel for the defence pointed out to Ms Rowling that actually, putting a bunch of information into alphabetical order so that it would be easily accessible is exactly what lexicons, dictionaries, and encyclopaedias are supposed to do, the exchange went something like this:

"Have you ever read a dictionary, Miss Rowling?" Mr. Hammer demanded. Alphabetical order, he continued, "is what the Encyclopedia Britannica uses, isn't that true?"

To which Ms. Rowling retorted: "What are you accessing in these A-to-Z's? Aren't you being suckered out of your hard-earned cash?"

That's right folks, she actually just said that 

dictionaries, encyclopaedias and reference works

 are a waste of money. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the champion of children's literacy, the great new hope for the education of a generation, Ms Joanne "I don't think dictionaries are useful" Rowling.

Rowling has also said that the whole business has been crushing her creativity, and she is not sure if she has "the will or the heart" now to publish her own encyclopaedia.

I guess there's an upside to everything then.Themes: 

J.K. Rowling

, 

Books

, 

Topical

~

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~Comments (

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Wardog

 at 12:20 on 2008-05-01Apparently Mr Vander Ark cried on the stand - I can't believe JK Rowling is suing this poor bastard librarian from nowhere. It's actually pitiful, he clearly adores her and the whole Harry Potter thing.

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empink

 at 22:39 on 2008-05-01

That's right folks, she actually just said that dictionaries, encyclopaedias and reference works are a waste of money. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the champion of children's literacy, the great new hope for the education of a generation, Ms Joanne "I don't think dictionaries are useful" Rowling.

*stares* This is more like shooting one sedated fish in a specially shaped barrel that only allows enough of an opening for your bullet to enter :P

Otherwise, though? I'm heartened to see you going against JKR here. I don't know if you've seen the commentary on the case in fandom sources, but considering the ridiculous nature of what she is trying to do here, the way so many people have come out in blistering support of her actions makes me boggle. The unfounded personal attacks against the other side are even worse, especially considering that this lawsuit should not have happened. Reference works of this kind are fair use, and no one has ever been this bothered about just for that reason. If she doesn't like the Lexicon reference book, nothing stops her from finishing her own encyclopaedia and releasing it. It just makes no sense.

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Dan H

 at 10:46 on 2008-05-02

I'm heartened to see you going against JKR here. I don't know if you've seen the commentary on the case in fandom sources, but considering the ridiculous nature of what she is trying to do here, the way so many people have come out in blistering support of her actions makes me boggle.

I like to think that I can be relied upon to come out against JK Rowling. It's practically my party trick. I'm not surprised that fandom is out in support. Hell, even Mr Vander Ark is out in support and he's the damned defendant

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Wardog

 at 17:01 on 2008-05-02(Yes, we have entertaining parties in this part of world)

I don't really pay much attention to fandom, except when they agree with me or when they write something exceptionally pretty (i.e. depressingly better than JK Rowling - which is actually pretty often) ... but I'm genuinely mind-boggled that they would *agree* with her actions on this one?

Surely she doesn't have a legal leg to stand on? (Is there a a lawyer in the house?) And it's just plain pissy.

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Jamie Johnston

 at 01:35 on 2008-05-07[Warning: simple answer to simple question turns into lengthy musings on the nature of stuff.]

Intellectual property may well be the area of law I know least about, but I think from what I've heard about the case that the problem is something like this:

If you published and sold one of the Potter books without permission (and without paying her royalties), you'd be making money from what would be almost entirely Rowling's work and very little of your own work. If you translated the same book into Klingon and then published and sold the translation, it would be more your work and less hers, but still the plot, characters, pacing, structure, and probably even some elements of the prose style would be hers and she should probably get a substantial cut of the proceeds. If you wrote a twenty-page summary of the book (in English) and published and sold it, the balance would be further in your favour, but still you'd be using a lot of her work, so arguably she should still get a share. You see where this goes: Warners are basically arguing that all Mr Vander Ark has done is summarize and rearrange Rowling's material.

Which is kind of true. Of course that seems to have nothing to do with what Rowling herself thinks is going on. Her comments quoted above have nothing to do with the legal issues in the case as far as I can see, and are pretty imbecilic. Of course there *is* a legitimate response to the question about encyclopedias, but it's not 'encyclopedias are a con', it's 'the things an encyclopedia puts in alphabetical order are facts about the real world, which nobody had to put any effort into inventing'.

But that raises another question, which is not so much about whether Rowling is stupid (no further debate needed there) as about whether intellectual property law is stupid. Is there really such a categorical difference between the statement "Quidditch is played up on broomsticks up in the air" (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/quidditch/quidditch.html#Rules) and the statement "A cricket match is played on a grass field, roughly oval in shape" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket)? In a sense one is a fictional statement and the other a factual statement; but you can put it another way and say that one is a factual statement about a fictional world and the other is a factual statement about a real world. Both are equally true, provided you read the former sentence with the implicit preface "In J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' books" (which obviously you do, because that's the whole point), and they have exactly the same ratio between the amount of work / inspiration / usefulness contributed by the person making the statement and the amount of work / inspiration / usefulness contributed by the person who invented the game in question. Yet we wouldn't say that the inventor of cricket (if cricket had been invented by one specific person) should be entitled to a share of any money made by the person making the statement about cricket pitches being grassy ovals.

So in a sense Mr Vander Ark has more or less just taken the products of Rowling's mind, paraphrased them, and arranged them in a thematic rather than a narrative order. His work relies entirely on Rowling's work and no one would want to read his book if hers didn't exist. But, at the same time, that's exactly what makes the case, and the law it's based on, ridiculous. His work is so entirely reliant on hers that it in no sense undermines, subsumes, or replaces her work. It won't stop anyone buying her books, and in fact it may well encourage more people to buy them. It doesn't take away any of the money she earned by writing the books, and it doesn't stop her earning more money every time another copy is sold. What she's really demanding here is that she be paid twice for inventing Quidditch: once for writing about it in the 'Potter' books, and a second time for Mr Vander Ark writing about it in the 'Lexicon'.

The problem is that the whole idea of intellectual property is a philosophical nightmare. Of course Rowling has to be able to make money from her ideas. Otherwise writers would starve. But on the other hand the whole exercise is based on the assumption that the more money Mr Vander Ark makes from her ideas, the less money she makes from her ideas. Money is ostensibly a zero-sum game. If I give you 10, I'm 10 worse off. There appears to be no way for me to cause you to acquire my 10 without myself losing my 10. But, we cry, ideas aren't like that. Ideas are infinitely reproducible and infinitely transferable. I have an idea, I tell it to you, now we each have that idea. Where before there was one person with one idea, there are now two people with one idea each. Arithmetic says there must now be two ideas, but of course there's still only one; and yet it's not that we have half each, or that we each own a half-share in one idea: no, each of us has one whole idea. Now, if my idea is worth 10, then here is how I can give you 10 without losing 10: I give you my idea, and then you can sell it for 10, and I still have my idea, which I can also sell for 10, and now we have 10 each. But wait, it's not so simple after all, because if I give you my idea for free then you can give it to someone else for free, and he can give it to someone else for free, and she can give it to someone else for free, and pretty soon everybody in the world has free access to my idea and nobody wants to pay be 10 or even 10p for it. Although giving you my idea didn't look like it would make me any worse off, it actually has. So now how am I supposed to make a living out of having ideas?

The most obvious solution is for me to refuse to give you my idea for free. In stead I charge you 10 for it. Now I am 10 better off. I still have my idea, however, so in theory I can go on doing this indefinitely, charging people 10 each for something that I don't lose by giving it away. I could get as many 10 notes as there are people who want my idea. But there's a flaw here too, because once I've sold you my idea you can then, if you want, give it away for free, and just as before anyone can get it free and no one needs to pay me for it. It's not as bad as the first scenario, because I've still for 10 from the first sale, but once might think I was entitled to more.

The intellectual property solution is to say that nobody is allowed to give away my idea. Anyone who gets it must get it from me, and if I want you to pay 10 for it then that's the only way you're going to get it. The problem is that this is (1) very very difficult in practice to enforce and (2) entirely contrary to the whole point and essence of ideas (which is, as mentioned some time earlier, that they can be given away without being lost). It effectively seeks to make ideas as easy to deal with as physical property by making it illegal to take advantage of what makes them different from physical property.

I can't claim to have a fully developed superior solution. It would seem more in tune with the nature of ideas if I were just to charge you a sufficiently massive amount of money when I first sell you the idea that I can survive quite happily until I get my next idea and I needn't care if I never make another penny out of that first idea again. The problem is that now you've invested a massive amount of money in my idea, and I can prevent you making any of it back by simply telling my idea for free to a bunch of other people. After all, I've already had all the money I'm going to make out of that idea, so there's no reason why I shouldn't give it away for free from now on. So what's your incentive for buying the idea from me in the first place, when you can wait for some other chump to fork over the cash while you wait in the queue to get the same idea for nothing? In fact, although it may be in everyone's collective interest for the idea to get bought, it's in nobody's individual interest to buy it. So if we carry on down this line of thinking the only solution seems to be for the state, being the representative of the collective good, to use tax-payers' money to pay writers one-off lump sums to write books that can then be distributed for free (or for nothing more than the cost of producing the physical copy of the book).

I don't know. It's very hard to see a solution. But it's not hard to see that there are some real problems with the current attempt at a solution, because if there weren't then people like Mr Vander Ark wouldn't be weeping in witness-boxes.

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Arthur B

 at 10:37 on 2008-05-07To be fair to intellectual property laws, you have to look at two aspects of the idea - the idea itself, and the presentation.

Pretty much none of the actual 

ideas

 in Rowling's books are her own. Kid who discovers magical abilities and goes to a special school? 

The Worst Witch

, come on down. Kid discovers that he is the last scion of a lost family and is destined to defeat the Dark Lord? Well, there's 

almost every epic fantasy written since the 1970s...

In copyright law, which is the specific area of the law we are dealing with here, it's not just the idea itself which is important but the presentation (in the case of the HP books, what Rowling actually sat down and wrote). If Rowling had just sat in that cafe and wrote "A boy discovers he is a wizard and goes to Wizard School; he fights the Dark Lord" on a napkin and tried to publish that nobody would buy it. What makes the Harry Potter stories valuable - and, in essence, what makes the copyright valuable - is the specific presentation, the fact that (at least in the earlier books) Rowling is actually capable of writing a good story that people are willing to pay money for.

Now, if Jill Murphy wrote 

The Worst Witch at the Inter-School Quiddich Match

, in which the Worst Witch and her school go off to a sporting event hosted by Hogwarts and she meets Harry and Snape and the rest, she'd clearly be breaching Rowling's intellectual property rights; even though the general idea of a magical school isn't new to Rowling, and the particular style of school arguably originated with Murphy, the particular presentation of the idea we see in the Potter novels - Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Snape, rotating cast of Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers and all - originates with Rowling.

On the other hand, I'm aware of several unofficial Harry Potter publications out there (I could have sworn I saw a "Guide to the Harry Potter World" in The Works a few years ago) which quote liberally (or as liberally as the law allows, which is more than sufficient for most criticism purposes) from the books. Heck, there's even books that are all about how Harry Potter is evil and Rowling is a foul temptress leading the youth of today astray. I don't see how the 

Lexicon

 is any different from those books except for these three points:

1: It's more thorough than earlier guides to the books, at least partially because it's based on all seven books.

2: It appears to be ambiguous as to whether it is a guide to the Harry Potter books (in which case it's just reporting a bunch of facts about them, and it's on somewhat sturdier ground) or whether it is a guide to the Harry Potter universe - in short, whether it is reporting on the word of Rowling, or whether it is attempting to claim an authorial authority over the Potter universe which only Rowling can really claim to have.

3: Rowling happened to want to do an encyclopedia of the Potter world herself, and feels that the 

Lexicon

 would either make such a project redundant or make it less profitable.

I suspect that point 2 is the origin of many of the legal arguments in the case, but that point 3 is the actual motivation; it'd be pretty weak to rely on point 3 in court, since it'd put Rowling in the difficult position of trying to assert intellectual property rights on the basis of a book she hasn't actually written yet.

Of course, if Rowling had just trademarked "Harry Potter" we wouldn't be in this mess; then you couldn't put something like 

The Harry Potter Lexicon

 out without being accused of "passing off" - making out that your product is an official Harry Potter (TM) product when it isn't. Actually, for all I know she has, and these are the grounds the suit is being brought under - but I suspect she hasn't. We'd have seen far less unofficial guides to the Potterverse were that the case...

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Dan H

 at 14:44 on 2008-05-07

Of course Rowling has to be able to make money from her ideas. Otherwise writers would starve.

Actually, I think that's where the problems arise. Legally speaking (as far as I understand) nobody is entitled to make money from their *ideas*, they're entitled to make money from their *works*.

It pretty much has to work this way, because otherwise Jill Murphy really could sue JK Rowling for use of the "magical school" idea and Joss Whedon could sue the makers of Alias, Tru Calling, Wonderfalls and Veronica Mars for the "Teenage girl kicks ass in a TV series" idea.

IP law only protects the presentation, not the idea.

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Arthur B

 at 18:15 on 2008-05-07Exactly. You can't patent a plot.

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Dan H

 at 19:32 on 2008-05-07

Of course, if Rowling had just trademarked "Harry Potter" we wouldn't be in this mess; then you couldn't put something like The Harry Potter Lexicon out without being accused of "passing off" - making out that your product is an official Harry Potter (TM) product when it isn't.

Actually, I'm not sure even that would make any difference. "McDonalds" is a registered trademark, so is "Microsoft", people write books about them all the time. That's basically where this problem seems to be coming from: you obviously have to be able to write *about* somebody else's intellectual property, otherwise there would be no such thing as literary criticism. It is, in fact, totally legitimate, for a third party to write a lexicon, guide, or criticism of any work of intellectual property. The *only* legal recourse JK could possibly have here is (a) if the poor bugger has used too much of her original text, but I doubt he has or (b) if she can show that he had somehow claimed that she endorsed the book when she didn't (you might recall that this second issue was the way that Fox News tried to sue "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them").

I suspect that point 2 is the origin of many of the legal arguments in the case, but that point 3 is the actual motivation; it'd be pretty weak to rely on point 3 in court, since it'd put Rowling in the difficult position of trying to assert intellectual property rights on the basis of a book she hasn't actually written yet.

Not only is she trying to assert her IP rights over a book she hasn't written yet, she's also trying to claim that those rights include the right to prevent the publication of competing product. It really is like Jill Murphy trying to sue Rowling because the Potter books might harm sales of the Worst Witch.

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Dan H

 at 19:52 on 2008-05-07

Yet we wouldn't say that the inventor of cricket (if cricket had been invented by one specific person) should be entitled to a share of any money made by the person making the statement about cricket pitches being grassy ovals.

Sorry to double post, but this actually highlights another important point (which admittedly we've already mentioned, but I thought I'd repeat anyway). Not only would Lord Sebastian Cricket, inventor of Cricket not be entitled to a cut of the profits from a dictionary which includes a description of a cricket pitch, he would 

also

 not be entitled to a cut of the profits of a cricket match.

Again, it comes down to the fact that you can't copyright an idea. Even if Cricket *had* been invented by one man, it would be impossible to say that the *idea* of playing a game where two teams of men hit a ball away from stumps in an effort to score runs was his and his alone. Contact juggling was pretty much invented by Michael Moschen (the guy who was David Bowie's arms in 

Labyrinth

) but it's grown well beyond him and he has no ownership over the idea.

In fact if you *could* copyright ideas, there'd be huge enormous problems. Since Mr Moschen, for example, has lost all interest in contact juggling (he just sees it as something he did for a while in the eighties), if he maintained exclusive rights to the idea, nobody would be able to do it. If you could patent not only inventions but also the ideas *behind* those inventions, there would be nothing stopping people developing ludicrous monopolies (imagine, for example, if Microsoft held not only the patents for "Windows" and "Microsoft Word" but also for the ideas of "Operating Systems" and "Word Processors").

Lord Sebastian Cricket would hold the copyright on 

Lord Cricket's Concise Rules to the Cricketing Sport

 or whatever other works he chose to publish about the game he had invented, but he would not and should not own the game itself, because that would give him the power to decide, on a whim, that nobody was allowed to play Cricket any more.

The scary thing about this case is that Rowling is claiming for herself not only the right to be acknowledged as the creator and originator of Harry Potter, but also to actually 

control what is said about it

 and that's actually rather scary.

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Arthur B

 at 21:58 on 2008-05-07

"McDonalds" is a registered trademark, so is "Microsoft", people write books about them all the time. That's basically where this problem seems to be coming from: you obviously have to be able to write *about* somebody else's intellectual property, otherwise there would be no such thing as literary criticism. It is, in fact, totally legitimate, for a third party to write a lexicon, guide, or criticism of any work of intellectual property.

This is very true.

I suspect that Rowling's lawyers will present the argument that the 

Lexicon

 does not fall into the category of criticism or discussion since it does not voice any actual opinions about the matters at hand; it simply provides a long list of details about the Harry Potter universe without comment. This is frankly a somewhat shaky argument - there's plenty of, say, unofficial episode guides for TV shows which rely on providing a list of facts about the shows in question, and I've never heard of any of them being taken down - but a) she's rich, she can afford good lawyers, they'll probably dress it up a bit and b) the fact that I can't think of any instances where people have tried to stop 

The Unofficial Guide To (Whatever)

might mean one of two things: either my memory is sloppy, and there have been instances, in which case there's precedent they can call on, or nobody's tried to prevent this sort of thing from happening before, in which case they might be hoping to set a precedent.

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Rami

 at 10:23 on 2008-05-08

Actually, I think that's where the problems arise. Legally speaking (as far as I understand) nobody is entitled to make money from their *ideas*, they're entitled to make money from their *works*.

Yes, that's exactly how it should be. The law is rather less than clear about it :-( -- yet another argument for 

copyleft

 ;-)

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Arthur B

 at 15:00 on 2008-05-08To be honest, I'm glad that Harry Potter didn't come out under copyleft, on the basis that:

- The very thought of the sheer number of thinly-disguised Potter imitations makes me cringe. At least in the current situation anyone who wants to get onto the children's fantasy bandwagon needs to be creative enough to write something different.

- If anyone could write about Potter we would have a million Rowlings making ridiculous declarations about the series instead of one. And one is more than enough.

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Rami

 at 15:56 on 2008-05-08True enough, I expect the arguments in favor of / against copyright in literature are somewhat different from the arguments that are relevant in software ;-)

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Dan H

 at 09:15 on 2008-05-09

The very thought of the sheer number of thinly-disguised Potter imitations makes me cringe. At least in the current situation anyone who wants to get onto the children's fantasy bandwagon needs to be creative enough to write something different.

Actually, copyright doesn't protect against thinly disguised imitations at *all* - if it did half the Fantasy novels on the market would have to be taken down for ripping off Lord of the Rings.

The reason that copyright actually *is* a blessing is that otherwise 

every single publishing company in the world

 would be cranking out Harry Potter books at a furious pace. This would then give them no reason to look for new authors of their own, it would make it impossible for smaller companies to survive in the market (Bloomsbury was only saved because it "got" Rowling - if another company had just been able to decide to publish its own copies it would have sunk years ago).

Copyright and patent law exist to protect the investments of people who spend a lot of money developing things which then become instantly reproducible. Without it, publishing would become financially non-viable.

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Arthur B

 at 13:27 on 2008-05-09I meant imitations as in "things close enough to Harry Potter as to be actually indistinguishable." Like that Tanya Grotter series from Russia and the Chinese bootleg where Harry turns into a dwarf.

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Show / Hide Comments -- More in May 2008

[ronweasleydefensesquad]

Personal headcanon/rant: of magical prowess and bashing

You know all these fanfics where you have Super!Harry with a bunch of superpowers or Hermione creating spells that Merlin himself wouldn’t be able to dream about? And how, oddly, Ron is pretty much always left out of the loop when it comes to the Powerful!fanfic bunch, because people would rather have a spoiled brat of a Death Eater or an asshole teacher be übermensch?

We know Snape is a good duelist and has “created” spells (unless he simply dug them out of a library somewhere), but he’s got twenty years of experience along with some skirmishes he must have gone through with his fellow DEs. We know Hermione’s good at spellcasting but that she also studies heavily, and that she has trouble with spells that are not entirely theoretical (the Patronus). Harry doesn’t study as much as Hermione does and is not that great at magic; the only spells he can to cast without any problem are the Patronus, Expelliarmus and Stupefy. As for Malfoy… He does Serpensortia once and then we never see him fight again because he’s a big coward. No super-strong magic here.

So why am I complaining about stupid fanfiction that makes characters who have no superior magical prowess whatsoever into the new Merlins of the world?

First, because they always leave Ron out.

Second, because if there’s one wizard in the Potterverse, apart from Voldemort and Dumbledore, who deserves to be given attention about his magic powers, it’s Ron.

Windschild8178 (some of you Ron-lovers might recognize them as the author of the excellent fanfic Stay Standing on FFN) is writing a few Ron-centric stories right now and has written an extremely good author’s note on their story The Boogeyman, a rant about all of the hidden potential Ron’s character presents, and how it gets ignored by pretty much all the HP fandom. I recommend you read it because it’s pretty much as if they took the very soul of Ron-lovers and put it into words.

And now, on to my own, much bigger, much less organized personal rant.

I’ve always had the feeling that Ron was the most magically gifted/powerful of the trio. His so-called “averageness” is very much a lie. His magic is fuelled by his emotions and as such becomes even stronger. This headcanon of mine is founded in several actual canon happenings that we can observe throughout the series (in the books only. Come on, dearest Stevie giving credit to Ron? Now there’s a laugh).

Not only does Ron react very strongly to external magic (the Veelas, Crouch Jr’s Imperius Curse leaves him skipping steps for more than twenty minutes after he’s been freed from it, he notices the locket’s “pulse” whereas Harry only vaguely feels it, he has the very correct feeling that Voldy’s name shouldn’t be said out loud), he also demonstrates great abilities when he gets serious. … and when he doesn’t, as well.

I mean, the class genius masters Wingardium Leviosa and makes her feather levitate 20 inches. Great, fine. Four hours later, the the kid who couldn’t do just that casts Wingardium Leviosa and makes a shit heavy club outright fly 12 feet off the ground!! And nobody thinks that this is slightly impressive?! Hermione states “Ron knocked it out with its own club” and no teacher raises an eyebrow? It’s like Ron is actively ignored by pretty much everyone besides Harry and Hermione.

Second year, Hermione herself tells us that the slug-belching charm is a spell that’s hard to cast, and it’s even worse with a broken wand. Guess who casts it, NONVERBALLY, with a broken wand? Ronniekins, that’s who! Percy was barely learning how to cast nonverbal spells at the time! Oh, oh, and you know what’s even more impressive? Ron’s wand was broken, but it wasn’t even his own wand! It was Charlie’s! Ollivander tells us that a good wizard can do magic with anyone’s wand but it’s easier with their own wand. Basically: holy shit, Ron!

Ron’s crazy magic settles down a bit during PoA and GoF, or at least I can’t remember any instance where JKR describes something unexpected happening concerning him.

However, we then have OoTP, and this time our beloved redhead’s quite in shape. For example, during his Charms O.W.L., it’s said that he transformed a plate into a toadstool/mushroom without knowing how he did it. A wooden plate… into a toadstool… a toadstool, which can actually be considered as… food.

HOLY SHIT RON JUST BROKE GAMP’S LAW OF ELEMENTAL TRANSFIGURATION.

Yeah yeah it was a throwaway joke and JKR created Gamp’s Law in the seventh book so she could justify why the trio was able to starve during the Camping Trip Of Pointlessness™, but she should have known better, or actually establish Gamp’s Law earlier on in the series (after all, they turn pincushions into headgehogs at some point in the earlier years, who’s to say you can’t eat a hedgehog?). And some people might say “but nooo its not food if its a poisoned toadstoool ron is not good at megic bcuz hurmion is bettur, ur full of lies” well guess what, in order to be poisoned you actually have to eat, meaning chew, swallow and digest - or rather fail to digest - the poisonous thing. BAM. IT’S CANON. RON BROKE GAMP’S LAW OF ELEMENTAL TRANSFIGURATION. (And JKR has the freaking gall to give him the same results as Harry only slightly less better. Can you feel her prejudice against her own character?) And that’s not all he does in fifth year!

At the Department of Mysteries, Luna tells us that she, Ron and Ginny fled from four Death Eaters that followed them into a room full of planets. Four Death Eaters. One breaks Ginny’s ankle and Luna blasts him with Pluto. Then they collect Ron, who got cursed by “them” and is acting all loopy and run back to Harry. … what about the three Death Eaters unaccounted for in the planet room? Well apparently Ron fought all three of them, got cursed by at least two, and still won, considering no DEs are chasing after Luna and her group. All hail the King.

In HBP, finally, we’ve got that time where Ron broke up with Lavender and was feeling so guilty, he was simply waving his wand around and… and it starts snowing. INSIDE HOGWARTS. He’s making it snow. INSIDE HOGWARTS. No incantation, no spell, nothing, just “I feel like I’m a coldhearted bastard” and suddenly it’s snowing INSIDE HOGWARTS.

And of course we can’t forget how Voldemort casts a Silencing Spell over the people of Hogwarts, holding his Elder Wand, saying Harry died like an idiot, only for Ronald Weasley, official best friend and badass extraordinaire, to scream AT VOLDEMORT “HE BEAT YOU!” and the charm, the super-powerful, cast-by-Voldemort-and-the-Elder-Wand Charm BREAKS. He wasn’t even using a wand, he wasn’t even saying an incantation, Ronald Weasley, through the simple power of his rage and grief, freaking breaks a silencing charm made by VOLDE-FREAKING-MORT AKA THE GUY THAT COULD HOLD HIS OWN AGAINST DUMBLEDORE.

So that’s well and good but if Ron was so talented, why didn’t he put his magical power to a use, the Ron-lover asks curiously and the Ron-basher sneers contemptuously?

The answer’s simple: 1) blame JKR for getting prejudiced against her own character as she was writing her series; 2) his perpetual negative billions self-esteem that could have been solved had any of his friends bothered paying a little attention to him.

One of the reasons why I’m so hostile to Ron-bashing is because these people look down at someone who already considers himself to be less than worthless… and then they proceed to dig him even deeper. That’s manipulative, abusive, borderline psychopathic behaviour. They do exactly what Draco Malfoy does with Weasley is our King in the first place: they kick people when they’re already down. They act like Snape acted towards Neville Longbottom (you know, the kid whose biggest fear would have been Bellatrix Lestrange had she not been hijacked by a teacher who delighted in belittling him and tormenting him?).

Ron’s the kind of person who needs reassurance to function. He needs affection and nice things said about him. Some people might think it’s pathetic but we all know better. Who doesn’t like to have nice things said about them, and to them? Wanting to be praised, to be appreciated, to be told he’s doing things right for a change, that was everything Ron Weasley needed to blossom, and that’s everything he’s denied for the whole freaking series.

Do you know what Weasley is our King is? If you’ve seen only the movies then no you don’t, and then you have no right to bash Ron. Because this song, this anthem to Ron’s glory used to be a song used to humiliate him so much, he wouldn’t be able to play Quidditch.

Picture it. Draco Malfoy. Sitting down at a table. Thinking “how can I make Ron’s self-esteem take such a nose-dive he’ll be literally paralyzed and unable to play?”. Picture Draco Malfoy actively looking for Ron’s greatest insecurities and fears of inadequacy. Picture Draco Malfoy writing a song about them and teaching it to every Slytherin in the school.

And then try to sell me Draco Malfoy the redeemed little angel, The Boy Who Made The Wrong Choice(s). See me spit right in your face because I refuse to praise an arrogant, bigoted, spiteful little bully, and you should too. He’s not so bad anymore, yes. But do you even begin to understand how Ron must have felt during this school year? How he was probably flushing in humiliation any time he saw something related to Quidditch? How he would have blamed himself for Harry and his brothers’ ban from Quidditch because he thought it was his fault for letting Malfoy get to him? How Harry never, not even once, tries to reassure him? Hermione might try but what does Hermione know about Quidditch? Ron being utterly alone and ashamed and filled with self-loathing? Hm? How’s that for sweet little Draco Malfoy who’s never been bullied and tormented by anyone, ever?

Draco wasn’t irredeemable when he joined the Death Eaters. He was irredeemable as soon as he opened his mouth to say that all Weasleys had red hair, freckles and more children than they could afford. Because while JKR “loathes a traitor”, I loath a bully. I’ve been bullied. I’ve seen people shipping characters with their bullies. I’ve seen people call such relationships as being those of “star-crossed lovers”. I’ve hated these with all my soul. Because being bullied is not romantic, nor is it cool or cute. It’s freaking awful, it’ll make you miserable, cause you to lose your friends, turn your life into a living hell.

Weasley is our King is a metaphor for harrassment and school bullying. It’s basically what a (blessedly) few teenagers have to go through during their school years. Do you know what usually happens to these teenagers? Suicide.

And the worst part? JKR herself partakes in it. JKR herself bullies her character. Do you know what happens after the triumphant reprise of Weasley is our King is sung for the very first time, when Ron saves all these goals, when he shows how incredible he can be, how good he is despite all the mockeries he’s had to endure during all of his fifth year that we didn’t see because it was All About Harry™ as usual? After Ron has finally triumphed and “proved” he was good enough to the entire school?

She has him bump his head on the door’s lintel.

Because being humiliated for an entire school year then proving your abusers they’re wrong without being ridiculed isn’t allowed when your author is named J.K. Rowling and you’re Ron Weasley.

I went on several topics there; Ron’s obvious magical prowess, how he could have used said magical prowess had JKR not restrained him with extra-heavy plot chains, and the disgusting prejudice there is against a kind-hearted character who happens to have a few faults while the bigoted bully next door gets a get-out-of-jail-free card, all by the will of an author who apparently had a nice long discussion with Steve Kloves in-between PoA and GoF to prepare the first movie adaptation of Harry Potter… and we all know how this ends.

That was my little… *looks at slider* … enormous rant on Ron, magic, and bullying. Hope I didn’t bore you that much. Cheers, Ron-lovers!

[thunder-the-ranger-wolf]

Stuff I write- Harry Potter

I am not required to explain myself, but I came up with most of these before JKR started being ridiculous and that's not going to stop me from finishing a story. ADHD might, but not that.

Had Enough

Wolf wakes up in the body of one Harry Potter and decides a lot of the way things are won't stand.

Name Change

Harry Potter grew up with a different name, courtesy of him wandering off and living with someone else for the first few months of his life. The Dursleys treat him less like an obligation and more like a servant because of this.

Slumdog Millionaire

Harry does chores for his neighbors and in exchange, they buy him things and teach him about the world and how to deal with people. He's a lot more adjusted and prepared for Hogwarts as a result.

A Twin in the Mix

Harry has a twin. Both of them grew up in the Muggle world, neither of them has a scar. No one knows which one Voldemort went for first.

Dungeon Crawler

AU where "Potsions Master is less like "Chemistry Teacher" more like "Chemist"

Someone else is the Potions teacher but Snape is still a spy. He takes a Filch-like role and helps Madam Pomfrey keep her cuboard stocked. When Things Start Happening at Hogwarts, he has a bit more freedom to investigate.

Eversharp

Dumbledore is less of a politician and more of a teacher with a vested interest in his students. Safety takes priority when the Philosopher's Stone needs a new home, and he is more than willing to prove how he won against Voldemort.

Firstborn

Drabble surrounding Ginny's first time giving birth and the events after.

Follow Me Down

First-years get advisors to help them adjust to life at Hogwarts. Magic-raised students find them redundant, but the ones who grew up without magic get to learn everything they can stomach about Hogwarts and the Magical World as a whole.

Guardians

In a world where ghosts are proven to be real, they aren't just attached to Hogwarts. Lilly and James Potter watch their son grow up in a world where he is the only one able to see or speak to them.

Molly Weasley's PTSD vs The Things Her Kids Get Wrapped Up In: Fight! (Working Title)

Molly Weasley might be overprotective, but she was one of a handful of people who knew that the war wasn't over. This takes a look at why she is so overprotective and how that may help her kids in the future. Canon-Adjascent to Non-Compliant.

Most Convenient Protection

Snape is the reason Harry is an orphan. Full-stop. Because he was the one to tell Voldemort about the prophecy Trelawney delivered. But what if Voldemort decided to shoot the messenger? Well, Trelawney would have to go underground of course. And Snape would be going with her if Dumbledore has anything to say about it.

New Friends

Harry keeps up with Ginny after he meets her at the Burrow and takes more notice when something is wrong.

Oath

There are certain truths that have always been. James and Sirius would never betray each other. Not even under threat of death. So how did Sirius Black end up in Azkaban? One Auror is going to find out.

On Not Kicking Daisies

Drabble about how Ginny keeps plants and Harry is wary around them.

In Defense Of An Abused Orphan

Snape takes one look at Harry Potter's home life after literally decades of ignoring it and goes ballistic. Because why is The Boy Who Lived, the boy who is supposed to be living the high life with some random Magical couple who got the honor of adopting him, slumming it in Non-Magical England with the woman who would sooner spit on him if he were on fire???

Wolfsbane

When the author of these stories was younger by quite a lot, they wrote a story where Lupin's wolf is drawn to Hermione. Platonically, not in a romantic way, because ew, but drawn nonetheless.

[raywritesthings]

Super random ask here, but, if you were to do a live action take on Harry Potter (like the movies but with less missing-the-entire-point-of-basically-everything), how would you want people to do it? Like, tv show or movie, what would be different, what would be in it and what wouldn't be, ect.

Ohhhhhh man, I hope you wanted a super long answer cause that’s what you’re getting.

First off, definitely tv show. I think it’s been proven that a movie format doesn’t work. So that being said and keeping in mind that I have limitless budget:

Each book gets one season, though later books (i.e. OotP) could get split into two seasons

It should be treated, particularly in the early seasons, more like a mystery series rather than an action/adventure. The first four books all read far more like whodunnits with a magic spin than high fantasy. You have the mystery of the year, the cast of suspects, and the protagonist attempting to figure out the truth all with his own luck, skill, and whatever friends and allies he’s got picking up clues along the way

Things like height and such in regards to actors (the child actors in particular) isn’t an issue, but things that can be controlled i.e. Harry and Hermione’s hair, Harry’s eye color, Voldemort’s eye color, Snape’s general grossness, will be followed to the letter.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all equal members of the Trio, none of this Hero-Heroine-Sidekick bs

The audience is encouraged to laugh with Ron rather than at him

No one steals anyone else’s lines or actions

Harry is allowed to be sassy af 

Hermione is allowed to have flaws

Ginny’s true personality is restored to her

As is Tonks’

As is Bellatrix’s

As is - ok, so basically every female character the movies fucked up? They wouldn’t be fucked up

Lucius is not shown abusing Draco to garner the latter sympathy, as the whole point of the Malfoy family is that no matter how shitty they are to everyone else, they love each other

Everyone in the Marauder Generation is cast age-appropriately, this means early twenties James and Lily, and mid-thirties Sirius, Remus, Wormtail, Snape, etc

Marauder backstory isn’t inexplicably left out of the Shrieking Shack scene

And Remus is depicted as being James’ friend, not having this weird obsession with Lily. That’s Snape’s job

Snape’s memories are shown IN FULL i.e. calling Lily a you-know-what, his and Petunia’s interactions, his jealousy and attempts at policing Lily’s actions with lines like “I won’t let you”, trying to laugh off being friends with future Death Eaters who perform Dark Magic on their classmates, begging for Lily’s life but not James and Harry’s, “you disgust me”, ripping a Potter Family photo in half like the dick he is, NOT including that stupid non-canon scene of him showing up at Godric’s Hollow (which would have really implicated him as someone Working With Voldemort lbr)

All the Marader stuff should really be filmed at one time so the actors don’t randomly age or the set looks different or what have you. Film everything needed at one time and then include each part where and when you need it in the show’s run.

Characters don’t appear in one season and then disappear despite being in multiple books i.e. Dobby, Rita Skeeter, Fleur, Percy

No telegraphing the plot twists i.e. the Barty Jr. reveal (I’m sorry but whatever that director told David Tennant...was not good. Also he needed to not be shown as alive before the reveal because it messes everything up and askjfdhsakdfaljfhasdjf)

Consistency in how magic is performed i.e. spell names being used, not every spell being a bang and a flash of the same color light, Avada Kedavra killing people the exact same way every time (can’t believe I have to say that)

Characters and sets don’t get random makeovers halfway through i.e. Flitwick, Dementors, the Fat Lady getting a new dress (she’s a painting??) the placement of Hagrid’s Hut in relation to the school, that bridge popping up out of nowhere in movie three

Relationships are depicted WITHOUT BIAS and WITHOUT DIRECTORS’ OR WRITERS’ SHIPPING PREFERENCE (you’re here to adapt, write your own thing if you have such a problem with the source material that you can’t do your damn job)

Characters aren’t given wildly OOC lines i.e. Ron stand up for Hermione against Snape instead of agreeing with him, Harry isn’t all “but I am the chosen one”

Snape’s treatment of the students isn’t watered down or made family-friendly

Hermione and Snape aren’t constantly whacking Harry and Ron with books and shit, and it isn’t played for laughs. Why was it played for laughs??

Ginny snapping Harry out of his funk in OotP with some cold hard truth and logic is in there

As is the chocolate Easter Eggs/library scene

Wizard robes look like wizard robes. They like a healthy breeze round their privates, thanks.

Kingsley, the Patil twins, and Cho aren’t suspiciously singled out for depicting in stereotypical “other-ing” robes

I realize including every little detail is unrealistic, but just some of the in-between times of Life At Hogwarts would be nice

Sirius does not “Nice one, James!” at Harry before he dies because he actually can tell the difference between his best friend and his godson

Sirius talking to Harry, Ron, and Hermine in the mountain cave above Hogsmeade plus his sheer joy at getting to eat chicken instead of rats

Moments like Luna coldly reacting to Hermione snubbing the Quibbler are left in to show she’s not just 100% quirk

S.P.E.W. is most definitely a thing

Dean and Seamus are together by the end

Neville’s parents are shown instead of just being told to us

Teddy Lupin, and Harry being named his godfather, are actually shown

Fawkes’ lament and Dumbledore’s funeral happen

The Other Minister scene happens

Quidditch and the importance it holds to character journeys like Harry, Ron, and Ginny, gets left in

The Whomping Willow Prank is depicted in its entirety, with possible consultation with JKR on how it started, but most definitely including the bit about James saving Snape’s life

A lot of things that are told to us in the books can instead be shown via flashback to make it more visually interesting

Current events that are told to us in the books, particularly the DA in seventh year, would also be shown instead

Dudley’s redeeming moment isn’t deleted

The Dursley’s are actually at the beginning of each year like they should be

Peeves is a character

Harry gives Fred and George his Triwizard winnings

the Hospital Wing scene at the end of GoF is depicted, including Sirius as Padfoot sleeping on Harry’s bed to comfort him, Fudge and Dumbledore’s fight (thus properly setting up the next season), the restart of the Order, Mrs. Weasley hugging Harry “as if by a mother” and Harry desperately trying not to cry 

Umbridge ousting Hagrid and McGonagall taking four Stunners to the chest while defending him

The whole Department of Mysteries Battle

Harry’s breakdown in Dumbledore’s office after Sirius’ death is done right

Harry hearing both his parents’ voices when the Dementors are near (and also feeling torn between wanting to learn how to repel the Dementors and wanting to keep hearing his parents)

The Potters’ deaths at Godric’s Hollow is shown in entirety (and Lily isn’t inexplicably wearing two completely different shirts because they spliced flashbacks together with no regard for consistency)

the two-way mirror is given a proper introduction instead of randomly being in Harry’s possession at the start of seventh year

Voldemort doesn’t explode into confetti

Harry gets his boss monologue in front of everyone, not a lame anti-climatic exposition dump after the danger has passed to an audience of Ron and Hermione who already know half of it anyway

Harry fixes his holly-and-phoenix-feather wand instead of stupidly snapping the one thing that could possibly fix it in existence in half

calmly

[ruiningvoldemortday]

#hogwartsreread: The Man With Two Faces

And we’re DONE!  Huge thanks to @ravenclaw-headcanons for organizing this readthrough!  It’s been an absolute blast revisiting the book that started it all and reading everyone’s insights and metas and everything.  You guys are totally awesome  \m/^̮^\m/

Anyway enough sappy crap let’s read

- PLAHT TWIST - Quirrell holds a special place in my heart as an evil Ravenclaw - Dude, stop monologuing and kill him - “You’re too nosy to live” and it’s only going to get worse - Why did they wait until after Christmas to move the mirror if Fluffy and the Stone were there all along? - Even Harry knows the best way to distract a bad guy is to keep him talking and talking and talking and talking about his evil plans.  Because once they start they really don’t stop - How did Dumbledore not notice Voldemort in the school?  How did Snape not think to use Legilimency to figure out Quirrell’s plans? The fact that Quirrell got this far and made it this long as a teacher is incredible.  Score one for evil Ravenclaws! - “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”  I’ve always liked that quote.  Very Nietzsche. - “He decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me.”  Hey!  There’s the answer to my question from Chapter 5!  Voldemort was just floating around as a noncorporeal vapor shadow thing or whatever and Quirrell really didn’t have his turban until Hogwarts.  Voldemort latched himself onto Quirrell’s soul as a punishment for failing to get the Stone.  Omg and Quirrell stopped in the Leaky Cauldron on the way to Gringotts!  I SUDDENLY UNDERSTAND QUANTUM PHYSICS. - What kind of 11 year old says must? - Seriously, why does Voldemort smell weird - The suspense in this sequence is great but no matter how hard I try I can’t imagine Quirrelldemort looking anything but ridiculous I’m sorry - I like how Voldemort tries different tactics to try to convince Harry to give him the stone before jumping to murder.  Trying to tell him he doesn’t want to be like his parents to telling him he does (as if he wasn’t going to kill Lily).  It’s nice to see. - Columbus, HOW did we get turning into stone from burning and blistering? - I love how  Harry hallucinates the Snitch after blacking out.  I’m imagining him laying in the hospital wing batting at Dumbledore’s face and it’s adorable. - What is it with the twins and toilets - Dumbledore’s such a quirky grandpa in this one, it’s weird knowing his backstory - Four great Dumbledoreisms in the space of about a page and a half.  I used to really like Dumbledore for stuff like that until I found out what a manipulative bastard he was. - Did she plan out the prophecy this far in advance?  Props, JKR. - How common are love shields?  People talk about them like they’re super rare but surely there are other parents, lovers, friends, etc who died for someone they loved.  Especially considering the war wasn’t that long ago.  You’d think there would be other kids marked by love.  Or maybe it doesn’t come up because they don’t have kids marked by prophecies with a Dark Lord after them. - Marauder prequel pls - Be like Elsa, Snape.  Let it go. - Bertie Botts are nasty. - Of course Dumbledore meant to do it, he has Plans. - He had a pretty good idea you were going to try and so he purposefully nudged the other teachers into making their enchantments easy enough for a child to break AND tailoring them towards your specific skill sets.  Because he’s like that. - Why the hell are there no reserve Quidditch players? - Yes, Hagrid.  Yes, it is all your fault. - “I sent letters to all yer parents’ old school friends”.  Imagine Remus Lupin on a threadbare couch in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, getting this owl and immediately getting out all his old photo albums and smiling and crying while he reminisces and sends them off to the poor kid who never knew his family. - Speaking of, why doesn’t Harry recognize Remus in PoA?  Surely there’s a photo or two of him in there, since they were such good friends.  He’s got a photo of Sirius, why not Remus?   Could be Remus is one of those people who dislikes being photographed (he’s got enough self-loathing) but I refuse to believe there’s not at least one Marauder group shot.  I refuse. - Also Hagrid is best dad - Who’s ready for me to get angry? :D - SLYTHERIN WON FAIR AND SQUARE. - I mean I’m not arguing that Harry and co deserved to be rewarded for what they did.  They totally did.  But if I was a Slytherin, I would have been livid.  They got all these points for what really sounds like they just played chess, were a freaking know it all, and were brave.  And on top of that, they had all the banners up and told them they won already, then pulled the rug out from under them.  At least give Gryffindor the points the day before and start with the Gryffindor banners.  It’s a cocktease, and it’s not cool at all.  They might have won seven years in a row, but they earned it.  These are CHILDREN.  And the whole school is basically against them.  It’s so not okay. - That said, I’m so proud of Neville <3  “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”  <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3  That’s right, build his self-esteem <3 <3 <3 <3 - I’m totally not biased. - Stop Slytherin discrimination 2k17 - WHY ARE WE AND THE HUFFLEPUFFS CELEBRATING THIS IS BULLSHIT - okay I’m fine guys I’m fine - “Life would be back to normal next year”  oh hon - Ginny’s crush on Harry is still adorable - Harry you little shit.

If anyone’s actually interested (or wants to blacklist I won’t judge) I’m going to continue the rest of the series under the tag “cali reads harry potter” :)   See you around!

[chellyfishing]

telling a violent story vs using violence as a story

i really want to write this essay but as usual i don’t have the spoons for doing it justice so it’s pretty much just extemporaneous word dumping. anyway.

every story has a different tone about where they draw the line with violence and death. you can probably think of a lot of examples of both ends of the scale. there’s a misconception that being higher up on the violence/death end of the scale is more adult and more realistic, which ps is bullshit thanks bye. if anything it’s a sign of immaturity but that’s sort of beside the point atm.

the point i wanna make is this: it’s not a secret that i have strong feelings about killing off major or otherwise sympathetic characters. i have an opinion about this that differs from the majority in that i don’t like a character dying in order to motivate another character. it’s tacky. it’s cheap. it’s boring. it’s overdone. and a character can motivate another character while like. still being alive? weird right? live characters always present more options than dead ones. (obviously discussions of character death but also #rape mention ahead.)

to me character death should be a result rather than strictly a catalyst. think about ASoIaF, which is much more violent and upsetting than my typical tastes lean but credit where it’s due, GRRM knows how to do character death. when you know they’re coming, it becomes incredibly obvious. choices, circumstances, motivations all come together to create this unavoidable moment. nothing exists in a vacuum. in ASoIaF, death is a result and a catalyst, but not purely for character motivation; rather, it changes the game itself, leading to a domino effect. ned’s death at the end of AGoT is unavoidable, and it turns things on their heads (heheh) for everybody. the red wedding is built up to for a long time, and obviously that goes on to have huge repercussions. so, counterintuitively, one of the most violent stories in the zeitgeist right now is, for the most part (not a perfect record) is telling a violent story without necessarily using violence as a substitute for a story.

contrast with GoT, which throws in rape and gore like glitter to accent their teenage/twenty-something boy hypermasculine wank power fantasy. GoT is at the other end and it’s super gross and disturbing.

one of the best-known and most prolific offenders of “death because death” is joss whedon. it seems to be the only way he knows how to create shocking “plot twists” and heavy emotional drama. and the worst of the worst sins was tara macclay on buffy. the thing about joss is that he thinks he’s being incredibly clever surprising his audience with this stuff. he’s said as much himself. there is no effort to build up to it. it’s just, well, nobody’s died for a little while so idk find something to impale someone on. tara’s death was everything death in fiction should not be. first of all she was a lesbian, and one in a happy relationship to boot. need say no more. second of all she was literally caught in the crossfire. the bullet that killed her was meant for someone else and it just happened to strike her down instead with no effort or chance to save her. third, it had to happen so willow could be evil for a bit. and fourth, most obnoxiously, that episode was the first and only time amber benson appeared in the opening credits. this was done deliberately. i wish i could find the quote but alas. to the best of my recollection joss said they wanted to do something like this with another character, possibly jenny calendar, but were unable. it was fully planned well ahead of time to “trick” the audience, which is kind of... sad? that you feel the need to resort to a meta trick like that to maximize shock value? (oh, and don’t even fucking start me on dr. horrible’s and penny. ffs, joss. that didn’t even fit the fucking tone. fuck.)

there are more examples (i am looking directly at you, the 100) but i think those two pretty much put the cap on that point.

death in a story can be important and moving without making the audience feel cheated. HIMYM is largely a light-hearted romantic comedy, but it’s also one about transitioning to adulthood and what that means. and unfortunately, adulthood often means unexpectedly losing loved ones. the death of marshall’s father was surprising, but less than to motivate marshall in some way, it’s more to clarify that adulthood means loss as much as it means gain. it means change more than anything. also story-wise it was a good choice of character, as marvin had deep important connections to a character we loved without leaving a gaping void full of what might have been.

wynonna earp is another story that knows where to draw the line. most of the “victims” are cartoon villains who are inhuman and already dead. the framing of the story leaves us no reason to have sympathy for these literal monsters. when a more sympathetic or humanized character has to go, it’s because there’s no other choice, and each time rather than being a motivator for wynonna, we can see instead the psychological toll it takes on her. she is someone who is surrounded by death, the one with this burden to make the hard decisions and pull the trigger. she killed her father on accident when she was just 11. she’s forced to kill beloved shorty, who is pretty much family and one of the few people who didn’t think she was trash, in order to save him and potentially a lot more. levi and fish were mercy kills that forced her to confront the fact that these monsters truly were once human. and in the finale she gets a double whammy: willa’s betrayal leaves her once again turning her gun on a family member and fatally pulling the trigger. we’re even relieved to see her shoot bobo, not just because she has to if she ever wants to break the curse but because again there’s another dimension to it, maybe even a tinge of mercy. bobo is not exactly sympathetic, but he is someone with dimension, someone we know. willa pretty much had to go story-wise, if nothing else she was a threat to wynonna’s position as the heir and the show is called wynonna earp. but her death also tied into the themes of the show: how to make and live with hard choices, how to stand up and be the one to do the unthinkable because you’re the only one and you have to, whether you want to or not, how to be the one who bears the hate of the very people you’re sacrificing everything to save.

and of course, i can’t not address harry potter, which i think is hit or miss. surprisingly i think cedric’s death was well-done and important, because it was shocking without being done for shock value, and because it was a result: a result of cedric being honorable and good and at the wrong end of the wand of a man who feels nothing about killing anything not useful to him. and ironically, it should have been a catalyst, but it wasn’t, but that’s its own story: the warning everyone failed to listen to, at their own peril. some deaths were organic in that jkr herself went against her plans once she realized what made more sense for the story. iirc, she’s on record as saying arthur weasley was originally meant to die when he’s attacked in ootp, but she spared him at the last minute. he didn’t need to die, it wouldn’t have added to the story, and killing arthur weasley is like joss whedon-level bullshit. on the other hand, she initially intended to let snape live (again iirc) but here she backed herself in a corner. snape was another result. it became obvious that according to the story there simply wasn’t a feasible way to save him, even if in context his death was for nothing. and of course la pièce de résistance, dumbledore, who is GRRM levels of inevitable and necessary.

i feel different ways about other deaths. they mostly happened for the sake of happening, to remind us it’s a war and people die in wars and she wanted faces and names we knew. that’s fair, as it goes. and i don’t begrudge the fact that she didn’t stop to dwell over some of them, because again, war, chaos, you don’t have time to grieve as it happens. but like. fred? i feel a little cheated. lupin and tonks? especially transparent and... unfulfilling. it was like bringing them together was done only to produce teddy, and then they became more useful dead first so harry would be more important to teddy and also because lupin needed to be there with harry in the woods alongside the rest of the marauders. i think of all the deaths these ones are the ones that bother me the most. just... really... meaningless.

also, the movie feeling the need to go a step further and giving us a nice close-up of lavendar brown’s very dead face because... aesthetic? it’s more ambiguous in the book, and even pottermore can’t seem to decide which way to go. it’s so irrelevant that people can’t agree it even happened.

death isn’t the only kind of violence in fiction or necessarily even the worst, but it is the one that’s always on hand like a tissue to grab as you need and the one that is abused by unimaginative writers who just... can’t think of how else to move the story forward. i do think there is a place for stories that involve rape, because it’s real and just like any other group survivors need to see themselves acknowledged as being real and more than their trauma. i don’t really feel too comfortable speaking for survivors here tbh but i do know that all of us need stories to keep us from feeling isolated and unworthy. but i cringe at the idea that it’s just something that happens to women and therefore let’s add it here, here, here, and here. using it as a turning point for the survivor like assault is enlightening and transformative is gross. using it as a turning point for someone else, usually a man, is A WHOLE LOT GROSSER.

also i just realized i didn’t get into tarantino, but i’m too tired for the kind of analysis his work requires. anyway one of the things i liked about kill bill, for example, is that the violence is so over-the-top that in places it’s comical. the whole film is just so extra. afaik that’s what tarantino was going for.

quick shout-out to snk: my favorite comedy. when this first came out it was hailed as The Best Thing Of The Year, it was SO GOOD, so quality. anyway so i finally got around to watching it. i watched it twice in relative succession in fact. and i laughed a lot. you can ask @second-stringer, she was like “oh my god, i’m in a room with a sociopath.” snk is so extra, but i... don’t think that’s what it was going for. i think it was going for shock! and drama! and plot twists! and look at all that blood and gore and dead people! this is obviously Very Mature! i feel so cool and grown-up watching it! and (sorry, not to get passive aggressive at my mutuals who were into it at any point, this is honestly about conversations i had with or read between people not on tumblr/in other contexts) the general trend was the raves were coming from the younger and frequently male audience. like it was the usual kind of thing where you couldn’t be like, are you... serious? didn’t you find it kind of... ridiculous? because you would be mobbed by rabid fanboys eager to mansplain that i don’t know i stopped listening. anyway, the steep decline in worship for the series over time leaves me feeling smug and satisfied. i actually might still watch it out of morbid curiosity and in the hopes that it’s as funny or, prayer circle, even funnier.

in conclusion, bobby has an email from me that includes a lot of yelling, “DON’T KILL THE LESBIAN. DON’T FUCKING DO IT.” this is my contribution to the cause.

[inhalingwords]

2017 HP reread: thoughts on Philosopher’s Stone

Always a nostalgic and wistful reading experience, Philosopher’s Stone is definitely a book I can never read without crying at least once.

Basically, PS is a prelude and introduction to the HP series in the shape of a fun children’s fantasy adventure story; we get to know the central plot, characters, and settings of the series, all the while being entertained by the mystery surrounding the Philosopher’s Stone.

PS isn’t exactly a masterpiece in terms of writing and whatnot (it’s a pretty decent children’s adventure but not exactly that special if I disregard all the nostalgia attached to it and the larger context of the series) but having read all of the books a billion times, being a longtime fan, and knowing what's going to happen later on in the series and how much the world and the characters are going to change and grow, it's absolutely impossible for me not to love this book.

Top 5 Chapters:

Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived nostalgia like wOAH. this is a fun chapter, mainly because we get stuff from Vernon’s PoV (like can you BELIEVE the HP series begins with Vernon’s PoV because i think about that sometimes and it’s hiLARIOUS). and then there’s a total aboutface when we get to the end part with Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid and there’s a lot more sadness and it’s all mysterious and magical and i always get teary-eyed. there’s just this feeling of something big about to begin ♥

Chapter Twelve: The Mirror of Erised the christmas chapter! there are so many heartwarming moments and harry has the best christmas ever (presents!!) with the weasleys (i cry a bit every time when percy comes in to investigate why harry, ron and the twins are making so much noise and then the twins say, ‘Christmas is a time for family’ and do you just ever get emotional bc of percy, like, i definitely do) and it’s fantastic. it’s also probably the saddest chapter in PS and my heart breaks clean in two every time i get to the mirror of erised parts. ‘mum? dad?’ :’( his  n o s e  is nearly touching the mirror and it’s just so sad

Chapter Nine: The Midnight Duel the flying lesson! oliver wood’s first appearance! ron being the best bro ever! first nighttime adventure! the whole thing is just really funny bc it’s a total setup and they still go and hermione’s absolutely infuriating and neville gets roped in on it by chance and it’s just all so ridiculous. i love these kids so much. (also, i laugh so hard every time i get to that part when they’re trying to avoid filch and they’re trying to be silent and sneaky and then neville just can’t take the pressure, squeaks, tries to run, trips, grabs ron, and they both topple right into a suit of armour. ohmygOD.)

Chapter Fifteen: The Forbidden Forest some more nighttime adventures, except this time during detention and there’s no ron. this chapter marks our first look at the forest, we meet the centaurs (i wish we’d got to see more of them in the series tbh!!), quirrell is super fucking creepy (i had nightmares about that unicorn blood drinking scene when i was a kid what the fuck jkr??!!), and there’s some foreshadowing about harry dying in the forest #nobigdeal. like, when i reread PS for he first time after DH had come out i literally couldn’t believe my eyes, THE CENTAURS KNEW!!!

Chapter Five: Diagon Alley harry’s first time in the magical world, harry and draco’s first meeting (it’s horrible!! draco’s horrible!! i love them), harry and hagrid bonding (‘I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard.’ ;___; ♥) and some important tidbits on wandlore.

Top 5 Characters:

Neville Longbottom i love how neville’s story arc in this first book kinda mirrors his bigger story arc in the entire series. he gets more and more confident in his abilities and, in the end, isn’t afraid to stand up for what he believes in. ‘Don’t you call me an idiot!’ is probably one of my fave lines of his. i’m so happy with how he gets a scene of recognition at the end when dumbledore gives him the 10 points, and i also love the quidditch scene where he tries to single-handedly fight crabbe and goyle and is still out cold hours later lmao.

Hermione Granger hermione will probably always be one of the most important literary characters to me. when i was a kid i related to her so much, and i still do. in this first book, she’s overbearing, kind of awkward and insecure about a lot of things, and she tries so!! hard!! it’s not easy for her to make friends and sometimes she comes across as too bossy or too abrasive, and i love that these are characteristics that she’s allowed to keep as the series goes on!! she does change and become a bit more understanding (both in PS and later on in the series), but she still continues to have moments when she kind of steamrolls others, dominates and is flawed/unlikable. i just love it. from the get-go, she has a multifaceted personality, and it’s really rare to have a girl character who comes off this strong be one of the main characters and heroes (and not be villanised for being a person basically).

Harry Potter harry is, and always will be, my number one favourite character in the series. in PS, he’s mostly this slightly naive, hard-on-his-luck kid who, despite everything, persists and believes strongly in goodness and fairness. the strength of his moral fibre is already astounding, and his little speech about voldemort and doing the right thing towards the end of the book always makes me kinda cry a bit. it’s such a good scene that shows some of harry’s core values and his most dominating personality traits, but at the same time i can’t forget that he’s only eleven!!! and he’s already being groomed into this weapon against voldemort :’(

Katie Bell she’s 12, playing her first game of quidditch ever, gets hit by a bludger in the back of her head, BUT SHE KEEPS PLAYING!! the game isn’t even stopped!! (compare to 6th year Harry who gets a bludger in the face and gets a cracked skull like what the fuck those things are made of IRON why are children allowed to play this game??? why is the wizarding world so fascinated by danger??)

Parvati Patil her first words in the series are: ‘Shut up, Malfoy’ and i think that’s fucking great. what a legend.

Top 5 Funny Moments:

ron punching malfoy. i cannot believe all three of them have totally whooped malfoy’s ass at one point or another. poor kid, i almost feel sorry for him except, you know, he’s a dick and kinda deserved to get his ass beat each time so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (it’s also interesting to note that malfoy managed to give as good as he got and even gave ron a nosebleed, taking into account that ron has six siblings and malfoy is an only child)

THE HOGWARTS SONG. we should not have been denied seeing this masterpiece on the big screen. ('Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!’)

lee jordan’s quidditch commentary. he’s such an underrated character and i love him ♥ (“hit hard in the face by a bludger, hope it broke his nose -- only kidding, professor”)

‘Do you mean ter tell me,’ [Hagrid] growled at the Dursleys, 'that this boy – this boy! – knows nothin’ abou’ – about ANYTHING?’ Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren’t bad. 'I know some things,’ he said. 'I can, you know, do maths and stuff.’

'Yes – of course – but there’s no wood!’ Hermione cried, wringing her hands. 'HAVE YOU GONE MAD?’ Ron bellowed. 'ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?’

Top 5 Emotional Moments:

the troll fight and ron and harry finally becoming friends with hermione :’) best. friendship origin story. ever. (“There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.” ♥ )

‘If you want to go back, I won’t blame you,’ [Harry] said. 'You can take the Cloak, I won’t need it now.’ 'Don’t be stupid,’ said Ron. 'We’re coming,’ said Hermione.

harry and ron’s first meeting. lmao, it’s so awkwardly lovely and i love these two so much. 

hagrid giving harry the photo album. (”Harry couldn’t speak, but Hagrid understood.” ♥ )

‘Bless my soul,’ whispered the old barman, 'Harry Potter… what an honour.’ He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed towards Harry and seized his hand, tears in his eyes. 'Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back.’

Top 5 Quotes:

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

'There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.’ --Albus Dumbledore

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid.

'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.’ --Albus Dumbledore

‘The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.’ --Albus Dumbledore

[asriels]

I'm not sure if you're still in the hp fandom but how diffrent would the story be if a- Harry was a Slytherin and b- Alice and Frank had lived? I hope you're well, xxx

Oh man. What a question. What a big question.

Now for A—I’m sorry, you’re probably going to hate thisanswer. But I can’t ever see a version of the story where Harry is sorted intoSlytherin. Not only because JKR’s conceptualisation of the world and Slytherinin particular is so restrictive (which I won’t go into now but is like…thebiggest argument against Slytherin!Harry bcus JKR really, really wants Slytherins to be The Bad Guys), but also because the HP books are somuch about choice.

Choice comes in on so many levels. It’s in-your-face  (“It is the choices we make, Harry, that showwho we really are, far more than our abilities”) but there is so muchunderlying interest in choice, andthe human capacity to choose their path for themselves. Harry’s free will istaken away incredibly early on in his life—as an infant, he has no say in wherehe goes or what happens to him once he is with the Dursleys. Even once helearns about Hogwarts, he’s not really given a choice on whether he goes—he’san eleven-year-old child, and Hagrid says to him “you’re going to Hogwarts”, soHarry decides, “I’m going to Hogwarts”. It’s a choice, but really he doesn’thave an alternative. Even the things he takes with him to Hogwarts are decidedon for him. He’s so lost in Diagon Alley he just accepts what he is told—buythis wand, take this pet, get these robes, don’t get a broomstick.

The first big choice he makes, really makes, for himself, iswhen he turns down Draco Malfoy’s invitation to sit with the future Slytherinlot. He picks Ron. And I think that is such a formative moment for Harry thatthere is no way after that that he could be in Slytherin. Draco and his friendsremind Harry of Dudley—the cousin that has bullied him his entire life. All the‘good’ people Harry has met so far have told him that Slytherin is a ‘bad’house, and the only real encounter with Slytherin Harry gets is an introductionto nasty bullies who remind him of his awful cousin, so that opinion isinstantly reinforced. He dislikes Draco from the moment he meets him in MadamMalkin’s. I don’t think he’d have gone to sit with him even if he hadn’t metRon. So I don’t blame Harry at all for begging not Slytherin, and I honestly cannot imagine a scenario where he’snot sat on that stool asking for the exactsame thing.

And the Hat—because this is JKR’s world, and she’s so muchabout choice—listens. It will always listen.

I’m forever interested in posts that say “imagine Harrybeing in Slytherin and being friends with people across all houses” and all thefascinating meta that can come out of that but it just…rings hollow for me. Don’t get me wrong, if you like it, keep at it. You do you. 

I’m coming at it from a point of view that it’sa nice idea, but my experience growing up in a boarding school in this countryhas made me very, very aware of how unlikely it is. Bearing in mind that Harryis a kid who’s spent most of his life trying very hard to ensure his peers don’thate him—although with little luck—I don’t think he’d be sticking his neck outat eleven and defying the boys he has to literally live with nine months out ofthe year to make incredibly swift and close friendships with people everybodyelse in his house hates. I can see a friendship developing in later years, whenthey’ve all matured and learned to think for themselves more—but I still reckonany situation that has Harry in Slytherin would have him isolated and miserablefor a good couple of years at least, and that’s really not going to end well for a boy who can hear giant snakes in thewall and who has a mainline to the darkest wizard of the last century.

Like, Harry might end up making friends with Ron andHermione anyway, but I doubt it. We see that Ron is outgoing, ebullient, funand generally kind; Hermione is bookish and quiet and comes off as a bitinsufferable. Not only would they be unlikely to make friends with each other,but an unhappy Harry in a negative dorm room environment would be more like theHarry we see in OotP—withdrawn, sullen, suspicious—and I really can’t see anyfriendship forming instantly. We have to remember that these areeleven/twelve/thirteen year old kids, not late teens or twenty-somethings withthe benefit of reflexivity and distance. Kids feel first and think second, andthat would get in the way of these three coming together in a huge way.

And Harry needsRon and Hermione. If the series is about choice, it’s also really aboutfriendship and loyalty and love. I mean, that’s obvious to anybody who’s readit. It screams about love. It wantsus to believe in love and treasure love and ascribe immense power to love. Lovemakes Harry who he is—not just the literal physical protection his mother’slove gives him, but the platonic love he feels towards Ron and Hermione and hisromantic love for Ginny and the filial/maternal love he shares with MollyWeasley. Love and choice and loyalty are the ABCs of Harry, and if he was inSlytherin I think he’d be severely lacking in at least two thirds of them.

Also, let’s not forget he’d have Snape—bullying, abusiveSnape—as his chief guardian figure whilst at school. So instead of trading theDursleys for the strict but ultimately kind and caring McGonagall when he goesback to school, Harry would be trading them for Snape. Can you imagine growingup under the immediate care of a teacher who is willing to completely abuse hisauthority to outright bully you and other children? I’d like to think thatother teachers would intervene, but based on the fact that nothing was doneabout Snape at Hogwarts until he straight-up murdered the headteacher, I doubt it.

On a more pedantic and picky level, the plot just…wouldn’thappen if Harry was a Slytherin. He probably wouldn’t venture into thatforbidden corridor, he wouldn’t have Hermione around to figure out thePhilosopher’s Stone was hidden in the school, and he wouldn’t even make it pastthe Devil’s Snare without Ron and Hermione. That’s trusting, too, that Harrywouldn’t internalise the other Slytherin’s prejudices about Hagrid and startlooking up to him less (strong as Harry is, he’s still a kid, and it’s all tooeasy for children to absorb the feelings and prejudices of those around them)and therefore never find out how to get past Fluffy. And if Harry doesn’tventure down into that dungeon, then Voldemort never finds out about theprotection Lily left, and everything changes.

I’m not saying Slytherin Harry wouldn’t be fascinating—it would—butI don’t think the series would be about Harry if he was. Voldemort would goafter him, sure, because Voldemort is a megalomaniac mass-murderer who wouldn’tbe able to stand having been beaten by a one-year-old child first time around.But Harry wouldn’t be Voldemort’s arch-nemesis. He’d be a minor roadblock onhis path to world domination. He wouldn’t foil Voldemort’s plans early on, he’djust be…around. Trying to get by. And probably completely fucking miserable forlike 90% of his teenage years. Lupin being around in his third year would bereally good for him, but still….Snape’s going to be unable to resist outingLupin as a werewolf at the end of the year, and for Harry to lose thatpseudo-father figure without a support system to fall back on is going to MessHim Up.

I’m sorry that I can’t give a better answer to this but I amjust completely invested in the connections Harry makes to Hermione and theWeasleys and the person they make him into. Harry is able to develop into ahero primarily because of the friends he makes and the people he finds to lovehim—and I think if you take them away (which putting him in Slytherin would, due to the prejudices within theworld) it’s just not going to have the same moral to the story. Gryffindor gives him the belonging he has been desperate for his entire life, and I don’t think he’d be the same without it.

Also, I’m super into the Next Gen, and I love to Sort LilyLuna into Slytherin and her brothers into Gryffindor, and have them all grapplein their own ways with their dad’s legacy. His membership of Gryffindor is abig part of that, so I’m probably super biased towards keeping him firmly inthat house.

And, quickly, because I realise how long this is now—Frank andAlice being alive would be a fascinating change, but primarily with regards to Neville.I didn’t get the sense they were particularly close to James or Lily (I mean,obviously they were friends, but Ididn’t get a best-friends-would-fight-against-the-wizarding-world’s-main-authority-Dumbledore-to-change-Harry’s-lifevibe from them) so I don’t think they’d really have much impact on Harry’sstory. They might give him access to memories of his parents he couldn’t getfrom anywhere else, and I can see him looking to them for guidance in the sameway he looks to Molly and Arthur Weasley for the sense of parental love andsecurity he’s never got anywhere else, but I don’t think his overall plotlinewould be that much affected.

Also if Frank and Alice ever found out about the prophecy,can you imagine the guilt they’d feel every time they looked at Harry? Because they’dbe relieved it wasn’t them, wasn’ttheir son. And that would be a terrible thing to carry around. It wouldcomplicate everything they felt about Harry.

Neville on the other hand—oh, Neville with his parents.Probably Neville with younger siblings. Neville without a childhood under thethumb of his very strict grandmother. What kind of a boy Neville might havebeen! Still nervous, I’m sure, still insecure—but much less afraid of himselfand of the world. That fight we see in him at the end of Philosopher’s Stoneand in later books—I think we’d see a lot more of it, and we’d see it sooner.

I’m utterly fascinated by the idea of Neville with hisparents around. But I also would miss that moment where we find out it’sNeville who’s killed Nagini. So unexpected, because nervous hapless helplessNeville is not who anybody would have expected to kill the last Horcrux. Butthat’s what makes the moment great, and it’s a thread that runs throughout theseries: heroes aren’t better than anybody else, when it really comes down toit. They are just people who have made a brave choice in the face ofinsurmountable odds. That’s what Neville does. And I think it carries even moreweight because up until then we’ve got the sense of a bit of steel insideNeville, but we don’t realise quite how wide a steely streak it is until thatmoment.

But if Neville had Frank and Alice around, I think we’d knowthat steel was there from the very first. In fact, coming back to my pointabout friendships, I think in a series that had Harry in Slytherin and Nevillewith his parents alive, it would be Neville who reached out to Harry and madefriends with him first. But that’s a whole fanfiction, probably.

P.S. I will always be in the HP fandom. I keep trying to get out but I think someone locked the doors. I love to mess around with the canon a whole lot, but I prefer to do it outside the constrains of the stories themselves. That’s why I love the Next Gen, and that’s why I think a lot about the Trio’s lives post-Hogwarts, and how they get to where they end up in the Epilogue.