The train-wreck thread made me think about this: for all the supposed "plot holes" in Harry Potter, how many of them are actually real problems? By that I mean either completely inconsistent with other canon sources or unexplainable by reasonable extensions of the Potter magic system or society.

An example of a fake plot hole: the Trace. Many people declared the Trace a plot hole because it didn't make sense to them that it's possible to know where magic is being cast, and what spell is being cast, but not who cast it. That isn't a plot hole. It's a piece of worldbuilding that some people find counter intuitive.

Another fake plot hole: what happens when the Fidelius charm breaks. This was a ret-con in DH, but it's not a plot hole. While it feels like the author cheated, the DH explanation doesn't actually contradict earlier material.

An example of a real plothole: Hagrid said in PS that he flew to the Hut on the Rock, but we know he can't use brooms, there weren't any magical animals around (and anyway, he couldn't just leave them there), nor was Sirius' bike anywhere nearby. Further, we know that flying unaided is something that is (at the time of PS) thought to be impossible.

So: what real plotholes can you think of?

 

Someone on another website raised a pretty good question for me: during the Priori Incantatem sequence in the graveyard, why wasn't there some indication of Voldemort's attempt to kill Harry before Lily emerges from the wand? Unless for some reason the wand failed to recall the 'failed' spell?

 

Upon re-reading the first book, I took it that Hagrid said "Floo" but Harry heard "flew." That might have brought Hagrid close enough to see the hut on the rock and apparate the rest of the way.

Hagrid can apparate- when Harry was trying to watch him from the train taking him back to the Dursleys, the big man disappeared in the blink of an eye.

I can imagine the Dursleys made it off the hut on the rock without a boat by waving down whomever they rented from. It's also almost believable that they didn't try to destroy Harry upon his return, but it does throw a monkey wrench in most 'Dursleys always abuse Harry' scenarios.

Actual plot hole? Calendar abuse. No matter how much magic you use, September first isn't always a Sunday, Halloween isn't always a Friday. There are plenty of other examples, but those stick in my head.

Also, diving into a lake in Scotland in February is lethal long before you run out of air.

 

I always figured a charm was used to prevent hypothermia for those who didn't go the Gillyweed route, since the weed transforms Harry's neck, hands, feet and eyes, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that it also changed his body in other ways.

Unless you're referring to Krum in which case, I'll just point out his name is Krum, he's an international champion and he's from the Russian mindset of "I do what I can because I am a man, not a pussy".

 

Does Lily's sacrifice, and subsequent consequences, count?

 

I don't see why it would.

 

That's a nice explanation. An alternative is that "I flew" refers to apparition in a way Muggles will understand.

What do people think of time turners? Do you think their lack of serious use constitutes a plot hole, or that "bad things happen to wizards who mess with time" is sufficient to explain why we never see two Dumbledores duelling Voldemort simultaneously.

I dunno. JKR obviously thought them problematic enough to destroy the lot of them in OotP.

 

Exactly, he might have sent it back, because Harry does not see Thestrals and it would be hard to make him fly on one (11 year old boy and all that).

 

The initial thought is that yes they are to dangerous to actually use. But than there is Hermione. If they are too dangerous for a trained professional it's way way too dangerous for even the most responsible child.

So the lack of utilization has to come from something else. Because even if you couldn't use them to change the past there are tons of useful applications for being able to just observe the past.

One side note to the trace: If they can detect what spell is being cast than why isn't a squad of Aurors dispatched to every single lethal spell being cast?

Overall the biggest plot holes are the under utilization of really powerful pieces of magic. You have a truth serum? Why not feed it to everyone every time someones honesty is questioned? Unbreakable vows? Hey that's a fool proof parole system right there, just need someone who can word them properly. etc.

It just feels like JK didn't think over the larger implications of some of the magic she created.

 

Your username is very appropriate.

 

I'm not sure that indicates a plot hole so much as massive civilizational inadequacy, but one often looks like the other when taken in a fictional context. To be fair, it is some pretty obvious stuff that they're missing. In the real world, there's a fair bit of the same inadequacy, but it often involves fairly specialized knowledge that most people don't know about or political considerations (often involving said specialized knowledge).

 

I assume there's an equivalent of a magical right wing, politically, who would resist increases in government power like widespread use of veritaserum and unbreakable vows.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GweaS_8xcc

 

Really? it's a really old and really tired argument.

How did Lily's sacrifice protect Harry, exactly? In the possibility that it really is ancient magic that gets automatically proc'ed whenever a person dies to save another, then it really should not be so astonishing (and presumably unexplained) that Harry survived.

Some say that the fact that Dumbledore only ever mentioned the cause of the protections to be 'love' is immaterial, since that is all that mattered at the time for him to say. It is not unlikely that Lily used some magic of her own to make the protections possible, with her death. And that was an acceptable theory for a while.

Then DH shat all over it, and pissed on the pile for good measure. The same protections spring over the entire Hogwarts defense force when Harry dies to save them, do they not? There was no preparation there, it really only was the general idea of 'love' in the sense of wanting to protect others + accepted death that caused them.

Which brings us right back to why exactly has this has not been noted before, by anyone, ever. In a nation that remembers seemingly useless details about wizards and witches centuries past, it is impossible that such a phenomenon would not have been documented.

Have I missed a popular theory?

 

Maybe she was used as a guinea pig by Unspeakables to test a new invention? "new invention" alone may be used to explain a lot about lack of use and abuse of this tool.

 

Really, it should have been a unique item that Hermione had found hidden somewhere, deep in the Hogwarts library maybe. She brought it to McGonagall's attention and Minerva (in a fit of pique due to irritation with Albus' favoritism or Snape's abuses) decided to help Hermione 'catch up' from being petrified. Or something.

JKR admitted that Time Turners were a tremendous headache once included, same as the Marauder's Map. In both cases she had to find ways to take them out of the picture after they'd served their use.

 

They can't be used to change anything, as demonstrated by Harry saving himself from dementors, it's all pre-destined. Even before Harry decided to go back in time, it was decided that he will go back and save himself. Even before he has saved Sirius and Buckbeak, they had been saved. What if he decided not to go? So even before you use it, it is decided that you will use it, who decides that, the author. So essentially, time turners are useless and nonsense. You cannot pick up a time turner and say I will kill Voldemort, why? Because Voldemort is not dead. If you had gone back in time to kill him, he would have never become Voldemort.

Also, time turners can be to create multiple copies of yourself, that is only if the God of HP universe decides you'll be using the time turner. If Harry and Hermione rushed in early in POA and told their past selfs not use the time turner. There would have been two of them then, better than horcruxes isn't it?

 

Kinkier, too.

 

You can't change the past, but you can, as you say, be two places in once. So you can go into the past, kill Voldemort and then masquerade as him until you return to the point at which you used the timeturner, at which time you reveal that Voldemort is dead and that it was actually you pretending to be Voldemort all along (might want to keep that part quiet though, as some people might take issue with all that murder).

The key ingredient is not dying for someone out of love, it's choosing to die for someone out of love when you didn't have to. Lily was offered the chance to go but chose to die instead, and Harry chose to go to the forest and be killed by Voldemort, without offering fight.

How many magical people in the world who sacrifice themselves for another person are given that choice? Doesn't seem likely to be many.