I've been attempting to find any decent pokemon fics in the last week or so, and I've re-uncovered something that irks me.

II'm a big fan of reported speech for pokemon, because otherwise you end up with stuff like this:

Every second line (or more) is either SQQQUIIIRRRT or CHAAAARRR and it's just really bad. It adds nothing to the text, and could be replaced with

Admittedly, it's not a great replacement, but it took literal seconds to do. There's other issues with the text, too, but I didn't even notice the repetition of "burst out of the ball and landed softly on the..." until now.

I know I've previously dropped pokemon fics for this, usually because they have pokemon talking to each other, and it makes me feel like I'm having a stroke. But it seems like the sort of thing you'd catch yourself on an alpha read, surely?

 

I'd say it's a fine replacement, to be honest. The whole "onomatopoeic name cry" thing used to bother me a lot where the anime was concerned.

 

Sorry for the necro, but this one had to get out.

The age of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore has been a known quantity for many years. Then why do people seem to insist that he is “over 150 years old?” The common trope, and one that, if I remember correctly, is even anecdotally supported by canon evidence, is that, among other physiological advantages, wizards and witches enjoy a longer lifespan than the average human. Aunt Muriel, Griselda Marchbanks and Elphias Doge spring to mind. However, in the case of this fanon-aged Dumbledore, it would be pretty much doubled compared to his muggle counterparts and considerably more than that for muggles born in 1881.

In most cases, investing the fifteen seconds it took me to access the Harry Potter wiki and look up Dumbledore’s age will change exactly nothing in terms of the narrative, but will lend the work an aura of moderately careful plotting and research. Then why not get it right? Since a mention of Dumbledore’s age most commonly appears in the introductory scene for the fic’s version of the Headmaster, it might even prompt me to look more favourably upon the story when making the decision of whether to read any further.

 

Pretty sure JK said in an interview he was 150 years old but later changed it in DH

 

Kira and Light is correct.

Fromhere.

So, unless you're specifically accepting JKR retconning her own work (Dumbledore being Gay is another example, but at least this one occurs in the books), there's no reason not to accept either one. Personally, I prefer to go with the older age.

 

Thanks to you both for the clarification. Mea culpa, then. I would, however, like to add that in this case, I like JKR’s retconning a lot more than the previous version. 150, even for a wizard of Dumbledore’s caliber, seems a bit excessive. But maybe that’s just the effect of the retconning exerting its influence on me…

 

150 years doesn't seem that strange for wizards especially someone like Dumbledore there was this O.W.L examiner in OOTP who was examining Dumbledore in his Hogwarts days and Batilda Bagshot also was far older than Dumbledore.

 

Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that the headmaster before Dumbledore (Armando Dippet) was 355 years old.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Armando_Dippet (Although obviously take that source with a pinch of salt).

So it seems that 150 years is, while not young, not obscenely old.

 

For me it's not so much about whether it's feasible for a wizard to live 200 years, but more about what kind of consequences that kind of typical lifespans would have on the society overall. Where are all those great great great grandparents, and what are they doing?

I prefer my wizards to be younger, with a couple of individuals with freakishly long lifespans to spice things up.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head. There is no evidence in society of wizards having such long lives. Where are the Weasley great-grandparents? The Malfoys? Anyone?

It's a good concept which I would definitely employ if I were writing the books, but its not supported by the in text soceity.

 

Well we can always assume they died in the war. Or just..accept it as one of JKR's oversights. I don't think it's really that big of a deal, just create them if you want them and they'll fit right in.

 

Dragon pox is always the answer for the lack of elders in a society with a life span of 200 or more years.

 

I'm thinking there's a relationship between longevity and a lack of children. I can't think of any of the long-lived characters who had children. That could be the reason why Lucius wasn't big on having multiple kids- he was trying to retain some of that special long-living mojo by siring only Draco.

 

Wasn't there a really weird fic kind of like that? Where wizards (not witches) were super duper op, but witches stole their magic with sex and that's why Voldemort was so strong, because he didn't let the evil witches steal his mojo. At least I hope it's a thing, I don't want to think I my brain came up with that.

 

Yup. Firebird's son trilogy by Darth Marrs.

 

Pet Peeve, or rather Something That Makes My Blood Boil: when people say that all wizards are inherently bad guys because the word Muggle is equivalent to the N Word.

 

+1. It might be a forced relation, but Muggle as an N-word equivalent doesn’t even make sense in terms of the blood status-based nomenclature we find in the Potterverse. Pureblood, Halfblood, Mudblood… Muggle? One of them is not like the others.


As an aside, in its most recent chapter, which I happened to reread over the weekend, Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin gave an explanation of the origins of the word in its universe, which at least implies, whether deliberately or through slightly shoddy phrasing, that the term might have been used by non-magical speakers of Middle & Early Modern English. I don’t know how common this explanation is, but it is one of the better readings I‘ve seen regarding the term and its use in the Wizarding World.

Spoiler

"And that is when we started calling them Muggles. The term was derived from a medieval English word – mug. At the time, it meant a foolish person, specifically one who had been deceived by others. And so Muggle came to mean a non-magical person who must be tricked into disbelieving in magic. Please note the word I just used. Not someone who has been tricked or who should be tricked, but someone who must be tricked. Because as powerful and extraordinary as the Statute of Secrecy is, its power is not inviolate and its reach is not absolute."

It goes on for a while, but that would be even more spoiler-y, and this is the pertinent stuff.

 

It gets even worse because they normally follow this up with something along the lines of "You can't call them Muggles Dumblebore that's rude! You should call them Mundanes." or another word that is actually offensive rather than a made up word.

 

Pet peeve: Hogwarts graduations.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is never once mentioned in cannon and on top of that, it is an AMERICAN thing. British schools don't have graduations and it drives me nuts whenever someone (usually Ron) mentions something like "when we graduate" or worse, when there's a big ceremony with people walking across a stage. I just don't see it happening at Hogwarts.