I was working on the next xhapter to my story and suddenly this issue hit me blindsided.

How should snake's vocabulary's be in talking with each other and to parseltongue speakers? I've seen them be completely eloquent and personified totally to human except being snakes, or on the otherhand I've seen writers having serpents speak like a foreign language speaker with rudimentary skills at best.What is the more accepted approach?

 

Some snakes are incredibly stupid, concerned about food, heat, and sleep. They have only a short term memory, and cannot express themsevles very well, as their primal way of thinking makes them hard to converse with. They are easily distracted.

Magical Snakes are more intelligent, able to comprehend complex concepts. However, they still have some primal concern about food, sleep, and warmth.

 

I definitely agree with that. If you have different snakes have slightly different personalities, that'd be pretty awesome.

 

Yeah, if you had it that different snakes act in different ways, a bit like humans do, then it would be good. However, you should, in my opinion, be careful not to make any of them overly intelligent or smart.

A question, are you going to be having that snakes under stand spoken english, as well as parseltongue?

 

Thanks for the help, I think I can get something figured out now.

Let's just say at first, that my story idea has since I ever first started it in 02, was to have Harry subverted to evil/voldy through dream manipulation and insanity, then while captive in dursleys basement he finally realises he can enlist the aid of snakes. So he starts really gathering any snakes nearby to him, then when Dursleys next open door he and snakes swarm out. That'll lead to his revenge on the dursleys... Then my final vision was to have Harry be a snake lord, stated in a book given to him by voldy, voldy doesnt know that part as it only showed to harry. So my end result I want is Harry leading all of serpentkind to sorta genocide the human race. It was too ambitous for me back then, I know now, but I still want to try and reach that point some day.

The reason I mentioned all this now was I would obviously need to have a godly amount of snake-harry interaction. I think i'll have the first snake he talks to be just muggle type, but thru that still gets others to help.

A problem that now I see is this, if Harry is stuck in a basement and weak/hurt, what could he say or offer to a non-magic snake that could gain its loyalty or cooperation? Or is the idea that all snakes seem to instinctively obey a Parseltongue the common idea.

I did not plan to have snakes able to speak or understand the human tongue, in my opinion that would be somewhat dumb and defeat the whole idea of the serpents being another group of life all together.

Also just thought I would mention, I'm sure some of the things I mentioned sound clihe or not very original now, but back when I first wanted to write this they werent. Just to pre-empt any insults to my idea from that direction.

Again, thanks for giving me your help.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I hope you will give your honest opinion on my idea, even if its to insult my intelligence, I'm still headed in that direction reardless, but any critique could help me fine tune it.

 

Basement problems...

After looking at some Dursley house floor plans I just noticed something.

There is no basement! *blink*

Would that be something I would be totally called out on, or would adding in a basement be subtle enough to slip under the radar?

 

Hmm, not a vast number of British homes have basements (or none that I've seen) so any Brt would pick up on that instantly. Why not just use the cupboard under the stairs?

 

The Basement conundrum

I did think about it, but it doesn't fit the picture I have in my mind. What are the odds that there is a common snake in the cupboard when he is locked in, when all through the years he had been in there but never once had snakes as company.

With a basement I was seeing there could be a snake down there and he finds it by hearing a rusting of papers and when he move the papers theres a snake there.

Is adding a basement out of nowhere really such a big thing? The way I've mapped this scene out in my head I really can't think of any other place for it to occur at.

I do appreciate the help thankyou.

 

Like MS said, not many British homes have basements. To tell you the truth I've only ever been in one house that had a basement. Why not use the garden shed instead?

 

Garden Shed you say, would that be located in the backyard then? Out of the way enough that Vernon could shove Harry into it, yet outside based so snakes going in and out wouldn't be so far a stretch.

Yes I do believe that works just as well and keeps things more real, thanks I'll use that.

 

Magical Snakes

I'm in need of some kind of list of magical snakes better then the HPLexicon. I reached the point where Harry will interact with a snake of magical nature only to find to my dissapointment that I can't find a variety of magical snakes.





Now here is my excert of Harry meeting the regular snake. If you have any advice please hit me with it.

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The snake describe froze when it was uncovered and seemed to be in an indecision to flee or not. Flicking out its red-brown tongue the snake hissed out. "Danger... enemy... " When Harry stayed as he was just looking at the snake in surprise it started to move away slowly.

Recovering from his surprise of finding a snake of all things here and hearing it speak he called out to it's leaving form. "Wait!" As always he couldn't tell if he was speaking english or not, but from the sudden jerking stop motion the snake just made Harry assumed he was speaking parseltongue.

The snake turned it's roundish brown head, with black-brown stripes on the side, around to face Harry again. It then proceeded to flick out it's tongue several times in rapid succession in such a way that he thought it was trying to make sense of what it was noticing. "It speaks?" He heard the snake say in a confused way.

Now encouraged that he had the snake's attention the young wizard tried to open a line of communication. He was hoping that this was that opportunity he was waiting for.

"I'm not an enemy." Harry said to the snake with care.

"Not enemy.. no strike?" It replied in dawning comprehension.

Feeling quite proud of himself for not screwing up so far the-boy-who-hisses asked. "Can you help me?"

The snake had by now turned completely around and was giving the boy its more or less complete attention even if was still sticking it's tongue out more then usual. "Help?"

"My uncle Vernon locked me in here, I need to get a message for help." The snake looked like it didn't understnd what he was saying so he tried something simpler. "My family bad, I need protection."

The snake seemed to understand what was said as it hissed out. "It need Sylssra." Then before Harry had a chance to ask it what it meant it went out through a small hole in the ground.

 

I don't know about magical snakes... but you could make some up from mythological snakes.

...There are more, but this essay is a beast to sort through. It would be easier to base a magical species of snake off of a mythological one, like the basilisk, because you would have more of a story to put behind it's powers. These were some of the best examples that I could find, but you're free to look for more.

As for your snake language... I think you should go even more basic. Remember the Basilisk, "let me tear you... blood (and all that crap)." If an ancient magical snake talks like that... well, a common garden snake wouldn't be very lingual at all. Personally, I'd make the snake use actions more so than words to communicate... but it's ultimately up to you.

 

A tiny bit simpler would be better.

And take out the Boy-Who-Hisses part, it completely ruins the moment. Keep it serious if you want a darker story.

As for the type of snake - make it up. This is fanfiction.

I'm looking forward to the story by the way.

 

I'd say you've got the vocabulary and speach down pretty well here, especially for a non-magical snake. I'm sure you remember, the few times we hear the basilisk speak during CoS was "Rip...tear...kill!" We don't even hear him speak at all when fighting harry. However, this could be blamed on the basilisks isolation for 1000 years, so he never really developed the proper tongue, so to speak.

You should also consider that snakes are supposedly quite intelligent creatures with their natural camafluge and defensive poison. Not to mention the oh-so-cunning cunningness that earned them the position of slytherin mascot. Just something to consider.