Oh, and I agree with most of Tobangs points except I guess I'm not as mad as him. Also, the Voldemort-TimeTurner invincibility concept I don't quite agree with, since they are "Heavily regulated by the ministry" it would probably be quite hard for a DE to get a hold of one or how to make one, even if they were a spy working as an Unspeakable. But I do think it was a mistake to introduce the concept of time travel in the novels, its really much too complicated to deal with intelligently

 

Heavily regulated means that 13 year olds can get them for schoolwork? And Jk has shown it again and again that Malfoy practically owns the ministry, so he could of easily gotten one. Plus Voldemort had a spy in the unspeakabels…Rockwood if I remember correctly, he could of easily stolen one. Then you also have to remember that at the end of book 5 a whole bunch of DE just strolled into the DoM to only be followed by a bunch of school children all of whom could of stolen one. Your saying out of all these easy picking opportunities Voldemort couldn’t have gotten his hands on such a valuable device?

Im not saying it’s a mistake to introduce time-turners into the story, but it was a mistake to make it so that the ministry controls who gets them. IF lets say it was Dumbeldore’s time-turner that he had found and that the secrets to making time-turners have been long forgotten and he had the last one then I wouldn’t have any problems besides the fact that a ‘supposedly wise’ man gave a tool of invincibility to a 13 year old.

 

Agree 100%, Harry getting dumber and dumber is something that irks me the most in the series. Hell, even Malfoy managed to achieve something (fix the portal between vanishing closets) without fucking Beaver leading him by his hand. I won't even go into Wormtail managing to become Animagus, while dumbass!Harry is not even thinking of trying it, even though his father and idol godfather both did it.

Alongside this comes Harry's other character traits or better said, lack of thereof. I understand that JKR would want to make Harry likeable to everyone, but she just turned him into a bland character without any distinguishing character traits. Go through any confrontation between Hermione and Ron and try to find out what is Harry's oppinion on the issue. None. He always stays quiet, thinking about quidditch.

It would be less bad if Harry was at least consistent in his behaviour. Hell, that boy had shown every imaginable character trait at least once throughout the books: usage of dark arts and dislike against them, clever and stupid, inflameable and levelheaded, nimble and klutz, powerful and not, steady under pressure and outright panicking... WHO THE FUCK IS HARRY POTTER ANYWAY!?

I guess it's whomever you want him to be... Bad writing, but it obviously sells the books...

To conclude, very, very bad characterisation. Hey, but at least it leaves a lot of space for fanfiction...

Agree. Even with 7-8 months pause between usage (or was it more? I'm also trying to forget that shit of a book), a group of people could easily rotate drinking the potion and finish whatever task was needed.

I guess the whole point was to find that there was exactly 7 pieces out there... Big deal. Yes, it is useful and all, but I don't see it important enough to waste so much time angsting about it...

Besides, it's not like Riddle's offhand comment was some big clue after all. He could have easily changed his mind later, or mentioned that just as a distraction.

And I won't even go into Slughorn's unrealistical reluctance to give that information away... I mean, what the fuck was the big deal? It's not like he explained how to make the damn things. There are people dying all around and that fat fuck is witholding a capital information that could save lives, just so he could keep his image in eyes of Dumbledore or some shit like that... Put him under veritraserum, I say, and be done with that whole stupid subplot in 10 minutes...

You could argue that he didn't know who was behind the door...

What I find worse is how the fuck did Malfoy knew where to find them? I can just imagine his reasoning: "Oh, Dumbledore is out of the castle... Of course, he will arrive .... mmmmm .... by the broom. And he'll land.... mmmm... on the Astronomy Tower! Wow, my new Seer powers are sure comming in handy!"

Not to mention that stupid fuck actually attacking Albus Fucking Dumbledore head to head. He's a Slytherin, damn it! Shouldn't he have waited in ambush or something? Normal Dumbledore would have blown him away in a second. I somehow don't see Malfoy having a death wish.

These are connected. JKR's characters are growing in time. She should grow with them.

It's nice to see her trying to 'adjust' HBP for pre-school kids... I'm guessing that her books are under that 'K' label, that disallows direct scenes of death and violence (thus, people dying all over the place, but not too close to the POV) and allows only hints of kissing (no sexual descriptions, thus screwed up romances of any kind).

She's writing story about teenagers, damn it! She should at least raise the content rating to 'T'. The 7 year old kids that started reading HP1 when it came out are now 23 year old men and women! There's really no reason to protect them anymore from the harsh realities of life... but of course, more age groups buying her book = more $$$ on her account. How could she say no to all those cute pre-school sacks of cash?

Something that goes a long way of portraying Dumbledore as a manipulative bastard... It's funny that her saint Dumbledore from HBP is extremely OOC to the character that would be logical judging by all the clues from the previous books.

They didn't actually break the time-space continuum (sp) or whatever... Go over that scene and you'll see that everything happened the same in both scenes, only from different POV. One of her better ideas in the series...

Of course, giving to a 13 year old girl a device that could kill her and those around her is surreal, but no more than some other things seen in the series...

Hated Slughorn. Hated horacruxes, ridiculous idea.

The only thing I liked was that final scene of the Headmaster's death (especially the "Severus, please..." part). Absolutely brilliant scene, with beautiful double meaning of Dumbledore's last words... Proves there's still some fight left in JKR.

 

Good points, the ending of the 5th book always did bother me that the "super secretive" Department of Mysteries could be so easily penetrated. Harry didnt even have to cast an Alohamora to open the door! But, thinking about it, if Voldemort did get a Time Turner, any attempt to change his mistakes would fail, because if he went back and fixed a mistake, the mistake never would've happened in the first place. With the Time-Turners you can't really change the past (Remember that Buckbeak was never killed at first in PoA, they just heard the swish and thud of the axe), its just a way of being two places at the same time (which is how Hermione used it to do all her lessons). Voldemort could have used one to attack multiple places at once, if he had to use one, but I think he was too obsessed with immortality to think of that.

 

Ok ill use your guys own logic against you, Harry and Hermione used the time-turner to alter the past there is no denying that, they just did it in very subtle ways, making sure that there past selves still needed to go back in time to supposedly ‘change’ the past. Whats to say voldemort a supposedly ‘evil genius’ couldn’t think of a single way to alter his past but make sure he still went back into the past to change it? My point is that Harry and Hermione changed the past (it would not of been the same if they didn’t have a time-turner), Voldemort could do the same.

 

It would not of been the same if they used the time turner, true. But if they didnt... there there never would of been a use for them to use it in the first place!

Ug paradoxes make my head hurt.

Check out Lexicon, they had a indepth time line showing exactly what happened, and the best explanation for it.

And this is also OT having zero to do with liking or disliking HBP - Split off for futher discussion.

 

Thought Rookwood was an Unspeakable and they threw his ass in Azkaban years and years previously? *shrug* granted they broke him out, but it'd be a stretch to explain the wards not changing in 10+ years

 

Iv always been curious about something, wtf do JKR wards do? she repeatedly mentions wards around Hogwartz but has she EVER mentioned what they do? JKR seems to avoid the topic of wards and what they do…you would think that the wards would never allow hundreds of dementors onto the grounds but yet they did so you have to assume that Dumbeldore or the ministry has control over them. I don’t think we have ever seen these wards that supposedly protect hogwartz do anything. Draco made the vanishing door thing to avoid the wards but she yet again didn’t actually mention what the wards would of done to stop an intruder. Do you guys think they are like a force field…keep everyone and every spell out and if so what about AK couldn’t you just shoot that one unblockable spell and destroy any ward?

P.S. Yes i actually do realize that that was like one giant ramble…too tired to fix it though…..

 

wards

Not that I can recall. However, I think one of the best explainations that I've read was in a fanfic about why the wards don't work, or at least why they don't appear to alert anyone to problems. Don't remember the fic but the premise was that Dumbledore ignored the warnings about students being in danger so often (because he was "testing" Harry's reactions to dangerous situations (ie: the "tasks" to get to the Stone)) that the wards (being the semi aware things that they are ) decided that he didn't care about the warnings. And thus they stopped warning him about the dangers in the school.

I found it an interesting theory anyway.

**snarkydragon**

 

Re: wards

While I also think thats an interesting theory, I dont really see it happening. Ill be the first person to tell you that I think that Dumbledore is a manipulative old man...but I dont see him activly putting the entire school in danger. I believe he would be willing to ignore danger as long as its only a few students involved, such as Harry and his friends finding out about the Philosophers Stone, but ignoring something that puts the entire school in danger doesnt make sense in conjunction with his manipulative nature.

Him being the Headmaster of Hogwarts gives him a lot of sway on the general populous (sp?) and on the students themselves. If Hogwarts is ever shut down, or if Dumbledore gets fired, he loses a lot of his control over the masses. Its for that reason, and that reason alone that I think that if the wards told him something serious was going on, he would pay attention. Even if he doesnt do anything about it, he would definetly take notice off it.

 

Going back to the "smartness" that Dumbledore showed in Book 1.

He enchants the Mirror of Erised to not give the stone to anyone who wishes to use it.

Now, considering this, and considering that VOldemort is even more powerful than Dumbledore (i don't go for the shit that harry and voldemort are less powerful than Dumbledore...then Dumbels could take care of Voldie)...

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T VOLDEMORT ENCHANT THE HIDING PLACES FOR HIS HORCRUXES LIKE THAT???!!!

A simple wave of his wand would have put this supposedly undefeatable last measure on them, so that anyone who wanted to destroy them...or anyone who didn't bear the Dark Mark couldn't get them out. Fucking plot hole #76239562983652938 in the HP series.

 

Actually, no. Remember that the Mirror of Esired only shows what you desire, that's why Quirrel couldn't get it, but Harry could. Quirrel desired to give it to Voldemort and Harry just wanted to keep it from Quirrel. None of this is Dumbledore's doing, he just put the stone inside the mirror did the rest. So unless Voldemort so happens to have six Mirrors of Esired, he wouldn't be able to do it. Besides just keeping the horcruxes way from people is not violent enough for ol' Tom boy.
The real plot hole that Rowling could not but help make in this situation is that in reality Harry should not of desired to obtain the stone but that Quirrel wouldn't find it. But then Quirrel would have just killed Harry without grabbing him to get at the stone.

Another plothole is why Quirrel didn't just summon the stone out of Harry's pants like Molly did with Fred and George in Book 4.

 

Umm...no. He did do something to it.

Here, taken from HPS:

"And sir, there's one more thing..."
"Just the one?"
"How did I get the Stone out of the mirror?"
"Ah, now, I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant
ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, only
one who wanted to find the Stone -- find it, but not use it -- would be
able to get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making gold or
drinking Elixir of Life. My brain surprises even me sometimes....

Regardless...a simple fidelius charm would have hidden the places where he kept them. He could have put the secret into a follower after the DE gave an Unbreakable Vow to never betray the location of the Horcrux, and to never betray Voldemort in any way/always follow faithfully.

Lucius Malfoy would give his left nut to be the one with this knowledge.