Trust me, Harry should have been blowing up Knockturn Alley, killing DEs at will, and generally kicking ass, rather than wandering around Britain in a magical tent. Or at the very least, he should have been getting some action.


The Dursleys and Dumbledore managed to produce a Harry that just got LESS mature as the series went on. As for "getting some action," [ahem] they DID spend a lot of time in that tent. H/Hr is probably my favorite HP 'ship, mostly because smart is sexy. I really believe that Hermione is a great catch - and I just can't understand why she'd settle for Ron. Ron tends to throw tantrums at least as often as Harry does. WHY would a young man choose Ginny over the Smartest Witch at Hogwarts?

 

My favourite as well, my friend.

As for the reason, it's kind of obvious: Rowling wanted it, so Rowling got it.

Something bizarre I've heard about Herons is that they continually run down Hermione, saying she should "get over herself". In other words, they wanted Hermione to be dumbed down to the level where she'd make a suitable match for Won-Won. Poor Hermione - resigned to the role of incubator.

And you're right: smart is sexy.

 

She did. From my count Molly has at least one Death Eater kill, which is one more than Dumbledore. And that is really pathetic.

 

That wasn't Molly. It was Moody using polyjuice. No way an apron-wearing matron takes down the minxy uberbitch, even if she does unleash her Naughty Language Poke-power.

Moody didn't die, he just got more pissed. Badasses can't die--all that apparent death does is makes them tougher.

Nietzsche rules.

 

do not underestimate the power of a mother defending her children young grasshopper, or in other words do not underestimate a person who is cornered and fighting for everything that he/she knows and cares about. Plus lets face it Bellatrix was probably overestimating herself and underestimating Molly.

 

I'm joking, of course, about Moody. But it makes about as much sense as someone spending 6.95 books casting nothing more offensive than a scourgify calling out and taking down a trained killer who flings Unforgiveables like throws at Mardi Gras.

I guess it's the whole "motivation trumps skill and training" motif that gets trotted out too often in fantasy. That scene reminded me of Wheel of Time schlock, when Rand goes from barely knowing how to hold a sword ("Oh, I don't hold onto the pointy bit") to besting a Forsaken überfencer in the space of a single duel. Why ever train if desire is all it takes to win?

Meh.

 

The only way *I'd* try Bellatrix is with a sniper rifle. Even a machine gun is too damn close to that psycho. She's another one who should have died in prison. I really CAN'T think of a reason for AD not to use his influence to have her Kissed.

 

Bella reminds me of an ex I dated off and on in college. Completely batshit crazy, but when that translates into intimate life, it can be most entertaining. Good fun for a quick fling, but not exactly someone you take home to meet the Moms.

 

That's because Dumbledore is a pussy. There I said. He is probably the biggest pussy in the whole goddamn series. He has (supposedly) nearly limitless magical and political power, and he does fuck all with it.

Let's look at what he's done: He fights Voldie once, breaks a couple of enchantments, hides a rock, defeats a horrible dark wizard, and stuns a bunch of incompetent Ministry officials.

On the other hands he can't kill said dark wizard, loses a hand due to his own idiocy, has to destroy the rock anyway, proves to be a terrible judge of character due to his teacher choices, gets run out of his own damn school by a bunch of fucktards with a collective IQ of 7, lets his school be penetrated by Death Eaters on several occasions, and then, instead of trying to find some way to fake it, he gets OMG!pwned to put Snape in LV's good graces. That's not heroic, that's just being a fucking idiot.

Hardly my image of a great leader.

 

On top of all that, Rowling made him gay to satisfy political correctness and fulfill the desire to have every ethnic group in the story. (Cho Chang? With, what was it, a Welsh accent?)

I'd love a fic where someone puts Dumbledore on trial for incompetence. Harry could give so much evidence, that - hang on a minute, I'm writing this down.

 

See, I don't really have a problem with Dumbledore being gay. It doesn't affect my interpretation of the character much at all. If anything it makes GG's intellectual and philosophical seduction of him more complete.

That said, Dumbledore's sexuality really has no place in the books, as with Voldemort, lust is simpley to crude a sensation for him. Dumbledore, as the ancient and eternal man we see in the first five books, operates on a different plane. To have him be interested in something so base and sex cheepens him.

That said, to create a character well he must have a past. When JKR tells little tidbits from her notes like that, it isn't in an effort to be P.C., rather it is her sharing some of her creation process.

We can take in the information, but it really doesn't affect the books one way or the other.

 

If she wanted to "round out" the character, why not tell us about his meeting and bonding with Fawkes? THAT would interest me! I really expected Fawkes to bond with Harry, or at least to stay at the school.

Verily, sex that happened before my great-grandparents were born is less than riveting news.

 

Okay, lots of stuff to address in a single post.

1. nazghul worse than a dementor? Yes. while a dementor can suck your soul out, a nazghul has those badass swords that can kill you and turn you into a lesser shadow or whatever the hell they are. Remember when Frodo got that sliver of metal in him from that one hit they got on him? It nearly killed him and made him one of them. Nasty piece of work.

2. Why Dumbledore didn't kill off the DEs and work against the rise of Voldemort more effectively... that's easy. Because the world of Harry Potter is just like Pleasenville in many ways. If you're wondering what I'm referring to, Pleasantville was a movie where two real world teens get dropped into a 1950's TV world of black and white. In HP land, the goodguys don't kill, they get killed because they're too big a bunch of pussies (JKRs vision of good is apparently the PC modern one where good equates to 'stupid, pacifistic, do nothing, liberal, pansyassed, moralizing, weakling goodey goodies'... not Christ with a flaming sword, bent on a mission to eradicate evil, good. )to do anything meaningful.

Dumbledore is hamstrung by JKR's simplistic and wrongheaded thinking, he's made constitutionally incapable of standing up to evil in a real way that might actually strike down evil because to do so would be 'bad'. The idea is that 'truegood' never uses its power to hurt anything... because doing so would make it not be truegood anymore. Yes, it's a crock of shit, but that's JKR for you.

3. So why the hell did she adopt a Weak!Harry for the story? Well, in my opinion it's because if she made him strong it would change the message that she means to send. Having a proactive HERO who kicks ass sends a message that if you didn't stand up and fight back... that you were a weakling. If Harry was strong and fought voldemort head on and beat him through making himself strong, than the message is that anyone can make themselves strong too, and that those that didn't are lazy and worth LESS than the person that did.
Instead, look at what she did. She had Harry be an utter fucking pushover in the power department... and he never tried to really become stronger. Instead he just stumbles from point to point in the last book and gets by on luck. In the end he beats Voldemeort with a fucking FLUKE of fate. Not through planning, not through force of arms, or skill. Through a one in a fucking billion quirk of events. It's fucking pathetic. Anyone reading the story would come away with the message that he didn't win through skill or power or anything other than sheer, ridiculous, hamfisted, deus ex machina. He won because the author MADE him win though no action on his part other than to give up (what else do you call letting Voldemort AK him again?)

 

Good = spineless.
Evil = effective.
Truegood doesn't really believe in evil - "to the pure, all things are pure."
Moral rectitude can be measured in increments of "forgive and forget," because remembering an injury is not "learning from experience," it's being bitter and mean.

And this woman wants to write Murder Mysteries? WHY?

 

It seems Rowling's moral base is Jesus, the whole "turn the other cheek" thing.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work in real life.

 

I don't *object* to "turning the other cheek" if that's, you know, your thing. But teaching the children that deliberate evil, done coldly and repeatedly, doesn't really count, is ... irresponsible. Harry NEVER reported any of the verbal and physical abuse he suffered. Is this supposed to be earning points in heaven?

Am I the only one who thinks that if Social Services had come around and Scared The Crap out of the Dursleys the first time that Harry showed up at school with a badly bruised arm or a lump on his skull, then they might have become better people? Or does that in some way infringe on their right of choice?

More than a year after Harry saved his cousin's life, Dudley gets around to thanking him. Right when everyone KNEW they'd never see each other again. Is this supposed to show off everyone's nobility? To demonstrate that those who don't fight back will eventually get a lukewarm apology from, well, one of those who deliberately made him miserable?

 

Maybe because she wants her characters to be able to kill the badguys just like we want the goodguys to.

Who knows?

But that's the thing, as you said, her vision of good is one of moral rectitude where remembering an injury is being "mean and bitter" ... which is a fucking stupid extremist view, just as all extrremist views are stupid.

Christian ethics teaches "turn the other cheek" but it doesn't teach you to not confront evil. Forgiveness is only to be taken to a certain point, beyond which you smite evil when it seeks to harm the innocent. People forget that forgiveness and justice are not mutually exclusive. For the crimes that DEs are guilty of, death is a just end. You can forgive them after they're planted in the ground.

Anyway... back to the issue of Harry and why he's not written stronger or at least more willing to kick some ass.

Myself I was reading a fic a couple days ago...and I thought.. .Wow... a HP fic that really does confront the whole issue of killing straight on... in that Harry wasn't portrayed as still being Harry when it showed him capable of putting the lead down.

The title was Harry Potter and the boondock saints.

Which, by the way, I'm not sure it's been reviewed yet or not... let me know if it hasn't.

The thing is, it confronts the issue with a tough harry by way of showing that a tough harry wouldn't be anything like the Harry we've seen in the books. Which is part of the problem I have with a lot of kickass!harry fics. He's tougher, and willing to kill DEs by the bushel... but other than that he's still the same person.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not someone that says "killing someone puts a horrible weight on your conscience that will wear on you for the rest of your life" because honestly, that's a total fucking lie. But the willingness to kill does take a certain mindset to be able to do it in the quantities that Harry would need to to put a dent into the DEs forces.

BTW.. let me know if that fic I mentioned hasn't been reviewed, and if you think it's worth doing so. I liked it, especially because of what the author does at the end of chapter 2. It's the first double main character kill I've ever seen in a HP fic. It was surprising, and doubly so because of how the story just kept rolling right along without it being a bump in the road.