Harry Potter/Headscratchers/Other: Difference between revisions

[[Harry Potter]] [[Harry Potter/Headscratchers|headscratchers]] that don't fit anywhere else.

 

 

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*** Isn't it stated somewhere that Hermione's birthday is in early September, and therefore usually before Harry and Ron meet up with her? I'm sure her birthdays have been mentioned a couple of times. With regards to Ron's birthday: they're at boarding school, so it's not like they go out and celebrate. Would a paragraph saying "Happy birthday Ron, here's your present" really have made such a massive difference?

**** Hermione's birthday is in late September according to [[Word of God]], but considering they all start school Sept 1 each year, they're all clearly at school. (OTOH, it makes you realized that her first year, she had no friends for her 12th birthday.) The books generally skip right over her birthday, from 'everyone shows up at school' to 'it's Halloween, time for something to happen'. Hermione's birthday is always before the main plot starts, so it's not like they're distracted. No Chamber of Secrets yet, Sirius Black yet isn't sneaking into the school, Harry isn't in the Tri-Wiz yet, Harry's not yet banned from Quidditch, Ron's not yet dating Lavender...frankly, as things seem to go from reasonable to bad each year, you'd think Hermione's birthday would be a bit of normalcy at the start of the school year.

** Maybe he didn't remember exactly which night Hagrid had said it had been (he was getting a lot of new info then), and didn't feel like asking anyone later.

** Regarding Harry's birthday, his parents' deathday, and holidays: The Dursleys hardly acknowledged Harry's birthday and holidays, so he's used to ignoring them; I wouldn't be surprised if they never told him the exact date of his parents' "car accident" and because of that there's no emotional connection between the two. As for other people's birthdays, Harry probably didn't (couldn't?) have many friends before Hogwarts, so he's not used to that, either. In the larger narrative of the series, it could be that A) they weren't mentioned because it didn't add to the plot (from [[The Hobbit]], paraphrased: [[Good Is Boring|safe and peaceful rarely makes for good stories]]) and B) later on they couldn't have had time to celebrate them anyway.

** This is most likely another call back to the British boarding school books that Harry Potter is (somewhat) based on. TV, Radio, and (to a lesser extent) reading aren't very popular.

** It could be argued that Lockhart's books are more recreational literature than textbooks.

** Still, they're purported to be nonfiction.

** If you could do magic and entertain yourself any way you wanted, would you really be reading or watching tv? Also, we only see most of the wizards in school, when they're swamped with homework. We only see Harry in the summer, and judging from the Dursleys, I doubt there are any recreational books in the house. We see Ron and Hermione too, but they're mostly talking, playing Quidditch, and doing housework when we see them with time off. Also, I'm sure Hermione reads tons of fiction when she gets the chance.

* Why do some people reckon that the [[Theme Naming]] of the Black bloodline is astrology, when even without the [[Word of God]] on this matter, the most superficial inspection would reveal that it isn't? Astrology concerns itself only with those constellations which lie on the ecliptic, such as Scorpius (or Scorpio as the astrologers call it), and not even all of those—they ignore at least one (Ophiucus). It doesn't deal with constellations which aren't on the ecliptic, such as Draco, nor with individual stars, such as Sirius (Alpha Canis Major).

** They are just confusing Astrology and Astronomy?

* Okay, this also has to do with Hogwarts, but mainly the series in general... why the heck is Hagrid not allowed to use magic? The first book establishes that it's because he was expelled. However, once he turned seventeen, he should have been able to use magic regardless of whether or not he finished Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George also did not finish Hogwarts, and they're still allowed to do magic. Granted, he was accused of summoning a monster that killed someone, but even after his name was cleared and he got a cushy teaching job, they still didn't allow him to go to Olivander's and get a new wand. If it has to do with the fact that he was expelled from Hogwarts rather than dropping out like the protagonists did, it still seems like [[Disproportionate Retribution]]. Also, Sirius and Bellatrix ''broke out of jail'' and still manage to do magic just fine, so what gives?

** Half-breed prejudice, maybe?

****** The majority of wizards are not purebloods, which means, the majority of wizards will have Muggle family members within two generations if not in their immediate family. This makes 100% compliance with Muggle genocide from the wizarding population ''extremely unlikely''. Frig, it would make 10% compliance extremely unlikely. On the flip side, it also means that there will exist a nontrivial amount of sentiment on the Muggle side for finding some solution less extreme than 'kill every person with the wizarding gene'.

**** The above depends on assuming that a Muggle-Wizard war would be fought like the conventional, big battle-field style battles of WWII. This is patently rediculous. Magic in Harry Potter is perfect for non-conventional, asymmetric gurilla warfare. Think about it, your soldiers, vehicles, and bases can become invisible, they can be teleport instantaneously between remote locations, and everyone in the population is trained in the use of a weapon that can heal, incapacitate, maim, and kill. Not to mention that in a real war, you do not need to kill everyone (or even 99% of the population) you just need to do enough damage to awe your enemies into surrender, and Shock and Awe is the Wizard's strong suit ("Listen up, we can bend the laws of physics and reality by talking fast, so submit to us before we turn your extended family into gerbils."). With good planning, Wizards can do pretty well in a war. And if all else fails, they still have Dementors and the Inferi.

*** And Muggles, despite the purebloods' claims, still give birth to and/or father a healthy percentage of the next generation of wizards. Yes, wizards ''might'' be able to conquer the Muggle population, but how much good will that do them in the long term, if all it achieves is to make Muggle-dom so hateful of their kind that every Muggleborn kid in future generations is going to get put down like a rabid dog by his or her own family, terrified of the "monster" they've produced? Sure, Voldemort's fans might convince themselves that's a good thing, but check back in a few hundred years and all you'd have left of wizardry would be a few pathetic, inbred remnants like the Gaunts.

* Does anyone else think that Dumbledore hating Dementors is fantastic racism? I mean, sure the Dementors eat happiness, but it's just the way they evolved. Similiarly humans and many animals eat meat because our metabolic processes were designed to do so, and eating meat requires the animal to die, while all Dementors do is make people unhappy for a bit. While it is true that the Dementor's kiss is truly a horrifying experience, it is once again on par with humans and animals killing for food. Dementors only do their kiss on people who they happen to know are evil, they never do it on someone innocent (unless they were told the person was evil); in this sense, Dementors can be seen as lawful neutral, they do what they do to survive and kiss those who their boss tells them to. And it's not like a person who was kissed can't be put out of their misery. Because they feed on happiness, that means that working as Azkaban guards must really suck. They really put their well being on the line for the people they work for.