People, anyone, casually insulting or making fun of Voldemort. Nobody does this, not even Harry or Dumbledore, who are some of the few who can even bring themselves to say his name. It's frankly insulting to the character when random side characters refer to Voldemort in funny or silly ways. No, he's terrifying, you are terrified of him, STOP.

 

While I'd mostly agree with that, there are exemptions, i.e. U-No-Poo. The element of fear is still apparent there, but it's insulting nonetheless.

 

Where exactly is the element of fear in that?

 

I take it he means that they are mocking the name You-Know-Who as opposed to mocking the real name Voldemort. Which I can see means that they still fear to actually use and or desecrate his name.

 

"We did it, we bashed them,
Wee Potter's the one.
And Voldy's gone moldy,
so now let's have fun!"

 

1. After Voldemort's dead.
2. A poltergeist

Doesn't really fit the context of the discussion.

 

I think it's interesting to note that despite everything. Harry never mocked Voldemort's name.

 

He never had to, since calling him Tom is mocking enough.

 

Guess I found my latest peeve. Translation charms.

 

I translated this post using Google.

Then I told someone else what it meant, with my protocol droid as a go-between.

Then I listened to them say it back to me in their own language via the Babelfish in my ear.

 

This I just can't understand.

By book 1, Voldemort's been gone for 10 years and as far as anyone is concerned, he's dead. I can understand that kids raised in a wizarding environment might be reluctant to say his name out loud, since they were raised that way, but that does not necessarily mean the name is feared by them.

At best, it could be considered a social stigma of sorts to say the name out loud in company, similarily to a Nazi salute (I'm only drawing comparisons, not trying to propagate anything here), but why would children who have never witnessed or remember the war fear the name? Do we fear Stalin's or Hitler's name? No.

Plus, the amount of Muggle-borns that are bound to join the wizarding world would have no reason not to say that name out loud, or even in a derogatory manner for any reason other than it being considered impolite.

 

Translation charms are still fanon though.

 

I was mainly speaking about after his return however this is still false. Throughout the entire series, from book 1, everyone is terrified of him and won't say his name. Ron isn't reluctant he's terrified.

This really isn't relevant at all since the situations aren't the same and the fear is in a fictional story, where people you know, fear it. Not sure why you brought it up.

As Hermione shows throughout the series, muggleborns are terrified of the name too. She only barely manages to muster up the courage to say it in I think OotP.

 

Well, yes, but their canon status was never in question (that's a different thread).

I'm just saying, if translation-ex-machina is a peeve for you, you're gonna have a bad time. It's in every other franchise out there, and each genre has its own version (droids, magic, symbiotic fish, neural implants, and most mundane of all: A third person.).

Translating text (especially an unknown/ancient language) would be sketchy at best (or perhaps not...), but the notion that a spell could access two people's knowledge of language and translate that on the fly for them isn't beyond reason.

There are certainly much more objectionable concepts in HP fan fic. Like tests where a drop of blood reveals all of your potential talents, finances, what spells are currently affecting you, if you own a Soho loft, and your favorite sports team.

 

It looks like the guys at the American Red Cross lied to me then because I really believed them when they said I'd inherit Trump's company if I gave blood.

 

People seem to forget that one of the accolades of Albus Dumbledore is his fluency in hundreds of languages. Translation charms would make that rather silly, wouldn't it?

 

Yes and no. It seems like there must be some way to rapidly learn languages, both Crouch and Dumbledore know an implausible amount. From there, assuming magic is improving as it's said to, a charm to replicate the process isn't too farfetched. It falls into one of those thing that have to be just hard enough for everyone to not spend a week being fluent in literally everything and easy enough that it's worth the time investment.

 

Well since I sorta started this I guess I should make my position clear(er). Nothing in the canon (as far as I remember) suggests translation charms are a thing. If they were Fudge wouldn't have needed to mime to his Bulgarian counterpart(going by the scene immediately after the match where Fudge voices his irritation after finding out that the Bulgarian minister could infact speak and understand english). Ludo Bagman too expresses his inability to communicate with the Bulgarians without Crouch and let's face it he wouldn't have needed him if translation charms were indeed a thing.

 

Personally, I prefer the Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived version of learning languages: there is a spell that makes it easier to pick up languages, and depending on the person you could master it within a week or spend the next few months sounding like an idiot with a bad accent. Learning languages are still hard, but someone could realistically learn a bunch of them.

With that said, we're all on the same page when it comes to written Parseltongue, right? It makes absolutely no sense for a handless creature to have a written language, never mind one any Parselmouth can immediately understand. The fact it could still be easily understood after a thousand years only makes it worse.

 

I always assumed that "written Parseltongue" was a text enchanted to only be understandable by Parselmouthes. Of course, that does nothing to the stupidity of having Slytherin leaving hundreds of books in the CoS instead of giving them directly to his descendents.

If it isn't really written in another language, it should also be pretty hard to decifer after a thousand years, but you could maybe find a way around that. If the book was charmed to whisper its content in Parseltongue while only stupid garbage was written, the effect would be essentially the same as "written Parseltongue", but without all the stupidity (assuming that Parseltongue hasn't changed that much in a thousand years).

I suppose that it's another instance of fanfic writers butchering a doable idea by not thinking it through more than ten seconds.