Overreacting to humour.

Sometimes I see lines that make me chuckle. Good on the author.
But for the love of God, please don't make everyone in-story fall to their knees, make them laugh so hard they're crying, and so on.
It's funny. I get it. Jeez. You've ruined the whole thing now.

 

My "Nope, Nope, Nope" Senses are tingling.

 

Yeah, you're right. It was probably less than 100 years.

 

My nopes were aimed at everything I quoted. Not just that part.

 

I was actually poking fun at you.

Anyhow, let's go bit by bit here.

You can say anything you want about JKR's math skills but you can't deny that when it comes to her characters she is a great planner. Everything that happens to her characters and how they relate to the plot effect the story.

My guess: I think by making Slughorn a slytherin she was showing how the house used to be. The goal of the house used to be 'form connections, rise through the ranks of society'.

According to harrypotter.wikia, Slughorn was born between 1881 and 1921, therefore my estimate is right.

I'm not saying that all Slytherins are death eaters or vice versa. But at the very least a good number are racist. Look at the kids who are popular in the house (Riddle, Draco, and Pansy). They were all openly racist. To become popular you have to be liked by the majority of kids. If the majority of kids like them then that means the majority either don't mind or agree with their beliefs (remember, they are outspoken).

Remember, you are judged by the company you keep. By simply associating with death eaters (and kids of death eaters who are obviously going to become death eaters) and death eater supporters you are saying that you endorse their actions.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the majority are going to become death eaters. It is possible to be racist and not join a racist group or commit hate crimes. It's also possible to support a racist group without ever planning on getting your hands dirty or joining.

I acknowledge that I exaggerated. Here is my amended statement:

I don't think it's coincidence that the only good slytherin we see in the books is Slughorn, who was in Slytherin about 100 years ago. After Tom Riddle attended Hogwarts Slytherin became breeding grounds for death eaters and their supporters.

 

Let's be honest, there hasn't been anything new in these threads for at least 5 versions.

 

CookietheRookie: The only good Slytherin we hear of is Andromeda Black she fought for the Order and wasn't anti muggleborn. Slughorn on the other hand was a moron and a coward.

Wich brings up my peeve about generalizing the houses of Hogwarts. The only Slytherins we ever hear about are the death eater children because they constantly butted heads with Harry. We know for a for a fact that there where quite a few other students in Slytherin that were never mentioned. Probably because they were like everyone else and just wanted to not get killed.

 

As a general rule femslash is written by people who can't write female characters at all, much like how slash tends to have zero plausible male characters, and in neither case does it work out very well.

 

He was a talented potions master and teacher, and he duelled Voldemort. Give the man some credit.

 

I don't mean that he couldn't do his craft, but come on a kid asks you how to make a weapon of mass destruction and you tell him how. That is pretty damn stupid, and I'll give him fighting Volde that took some balls.

 

Horcruxes aren't weapons of any kind, let alone mass destruction.

 

Also, who is their wildest dreams would ever guess what Tom was going to do? Slughorn can't see into the future, and he has no reason to think Tom is evil.

---------- Post automerged at 09:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 PM ----------

- Wrong BWL fics. I just don't understand how it wouldn't be clear who the correct BWL is. Isn't the scar a dead give-away?

- Summaries that tell you nothing about the story. I understand that ffn.net only lets you give a 3 line summary, but people do know that they can give an extended summary in the story, right? If 3 lines is not enough write 'full summary inside' in the summary and give the full summary at the top of the first chapter. You don't have to leave a summary that barely explains the story.

- Warnings that spoil the story

 

I've never read one before. Are there any good ones? Better yet aren't they mostly meant for character bash fests?

 

On the other hand, summaries that tell the entire story in 4 sentances are a pretty good indication that the writing is sub-par.

 

Step 1)Go on ff.net

Step 2)Type in Story search 'Read about it find out'

Step 3)Look at the summaries of the 9000+ stories the search engine has found.

Step 4)Cry.

 

I've never seen any.

 

No it isn't. For all we know the scar forms where the Horcrux attaches itself to Harry & not where the killing curse hit him. And since there are more than one living person at that scene in such stories, it could attach to any one of them. I have not seen this done actually, but having a scar doesn't make you the real BWL. There are many other things wrong with such stories, this isn't one of them.

 

But doesn't the prophecy state that the Dark Lord will mark the BWL as his equal? Shouldn't the one with the scar be the BWL then?

 

To me the biggest problem with WBWL fics isn't the "how could they have trouble figuring out who actually got marked" but more "how could Dumbledore not figure it out."

This extends to any fic. No matter the situation, in my mind, Dumbledore should at least have some understanding of what's actually going on. Or at least a better idea than anyone else.

This problem is extremely blatant in WBWL fics, where Dumbledore tends to be portrayed as an evil ultra-manipulative chess master... who promptly arrives at Godric's Hollow, lifts Harry's twin up Lion King style without a shred of hesitation and declares him the "boy-who-lived".

And I guarantee that in the AN there's going to an entire paragraph dedicated to ramming Dumbledore, as if the author's portrayal represents the actual canonical Dumbledore. I've even seen fics with mid-chapter ANs (which are bad enough as is) where the author will write something to the gist of:

(A/N: Stupid mistake you senile old codger!)

As if the author is legitimately pissed off at their own portrayal of Dumbledore, and can't comprehend the dumb mistakes that the author wrote him making.

 

New pet peeve:

People still taking 'The Prophecy' seriously.

It's like they've never read HBP.

I don't get how anyone can still assign any magical weight to the prophecy after reading HBP. Dumbledore figuratively beats Harry over the head with it.

It's a fugazi. Air. Nothing. If Voldemort had never heard it, it would have literally meant nothing. The only reason it matters is because Voldemort chose for it to matter, because he's a classic Evil Overlord who's obsessed with finding the person who's eventually going to be his downfall.

People still making the prophecy "matter" in fics that are currently being written just baffle me. The heart of HP, the core of it, thematically, is that choice matters, not circumstance. How do people not get that?