This is pretty much what I do. No point wading through that crap when other people do it for you.

 

Actually, I think it was mentioned somewhere (on the Lexicon?) that it could have been possible for Dudley to have a Playstation, back then.

Not too sure, though.

...Which is why you (and others who take this as a standard) are good authors. Simple.

 

You assume that it was a Playstation 2. As I recall, Harry wrote to Sirius during the summer of GoF or OoTP talking about how his summer was going, and that Dudley threw his Playstation out the window because he was pissed about something.

As has already been stated, you have to remember that the books take place in the 90's, with Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone taking place in '91.

While it is somewhat ridiculous for the Dursleys to have that level of disposable income with Dudley and Petunia not working, as I recall Vernon is fairly high on the corporate ladder at Grunnings. Or maybe that's me making assumptions.

Regardless, I'm almost positive it was used by Rowling as filler, rather than some sort of message about just how badly Harry's got it.

So what if Harry got thrown into the cupboard? For all intents and purposes, that's his room. It'd be like sending a kid to his room for breaking the rules, which is exactly what Harry did. Except in Harry's case he broke the rules with accidental magic, rather than intentionally doing so. But I digress.

I wouldn't say that Harry is ignored by the Dursleys, but it's more along the lines of they like to pretend that he's not related to them and equate him to some sort of hired help, even if Marge treats him like the scum of the earth.

 

Its canon that Vernon is the company director at Grunnings, so he's right at the top.

 

That's a weird kind of logic considering that no child should have a cupboard as their "room" in the first place.

 

Honestly depends how big the 'cupboard' is. I've seen some cupboards bigger than the room I got in Student Accommodation at Uni. And JKR always intended the Dursley's house to be quite large compared to how the films showed it. So its entirely possible that the cupboard under the stairs was not in fact particularly small. That being said of course, I'm not advocating putting children in cupboards rather than giving them an actual bedroom. But its not necessarily as bad as you might think.

 

It does state that he has a small mattress inside that he uses to sleep on. Add that with the fact that I'm sure they still kept all their cleaning supplies in there, and that uncle vernon could fit inside with harry, and I'm not seeing it as such a small cupboard. A closet, certainly, but nothing on par with what fanon states it is.

 

JKRowling has also stated, in an interview, that a lot of the imagery seen in the films mimics that what she has seen "in her head".

Take that comment as you wish.

 

• Harry Potter as an 11 year-old, gun wielding criminal mastermind who is some badass killer. puh-lease
• Fanfics which portray Peter Pettigrew as a complete moron and tagalong whom nobody even likes. Yeah, because an annoying, disliked moron can easily become Animagi, help create the Marauder's Map, and have three loyal friends who would have died for him.
• Crossover stories which, out of nowhere, start incorporating way too many other fandoms and become impossible to follow, or multi-crossover fics in general. Keep it simple, kids.
• The deification of Severus Snape. Oh yes, let us all conveniently forget the horrors Snape would have committed both before and after becoming a spy and what a complete douche bag he was to Harry from the first minute they met! Let's forget James Potter actually matured and saved Snape's life. Let's pretend Snape never harmed a fly while in school because he was such a gentlemen and that in the end, bullying and pranks are worse than racism and murder! Oh, and of course, let's also assume Lily was in fact not an intelligent woman with an good sense of judgement capable of making her own decisions. Gag me.

merely the tip of the iceberg.

 

Actually, it's canon that Pettigrew is kind of an idiot. While he's not entirely useless, I'll point to the scenes in both the movies and the books where Snape and Voldemort both treat him like a complete moron.

Yes, he did find Voldemort. Whoop-de-do. He found Voldemort because that was the only thing he could do. He was outed in PoA, so Sirius, Remus, and Dumbledore knew he was still alive (along with everyone else), which basically put him out of options, since everybody would recognize him if he decided to be 'found' as Scabbers.

Furthermore, Remus has to be at least competent for Dumbledore to be hiring him as the Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher (Harry's best subject), and Harry to have said in canon that Remus was the best teacher they ever had.

Yes, he did become an animagus. Not because he thought it'd be fun or anything like that, but because James, Sirius, and (presumably) he wanted Remus to not be alone in the Shrieking Shack when he transformed.

Ollivander said that James was good with Transfiguration. While we can safely assume that the vast majority of the work that went into the Marauder's Map was charms and footwork, there was probably a fair bit of transfiguration involved. Not to mention the fact that we don't know exactly when they made it during their time at Hogwarts, only that they did eventually make it. It's highly likely that they messed up several times before getting it right.

Deification's a big word. I'm impressed. The 'horrors' he would have committed? I dunno what canon you're reading, but Snape was always good with potions, even when he was a sixth year at school. Because Voldemort would have needed some pretty tricky potions (Polyjuice, Veritaserum, etc.) it's a fairly safe bet that Snape was probably in somebody's house, brewing potions quite often. And when he wasn't, yes, he may have gone on some of their little raids. Or, he could've had to get his own ingredients. We don't know.

I'm not condoning Snape's treatment of Harry, but what I am saying is that it is understandable. Snape loathed James, both because he was an arrogant douche all the way up until seventh year, and because, in Snape's opinion, he stole Lily. Snape loved Lily for his entire life, even after he died. Did you even read Deathly Hallows? Or watch the second movie? The grief on the man's face when he was holding Lily was incredible. We're talking about a man who never cries, and tears were flowing down his face. What I'm getting at here is that Snape was prepared to have another school year of teaching dunderheads, when in walks the spitting image of James Potter, with Lily's eyes. I'm sure he thought it a crime of the highest caliber, that the spawn of Potter lived when Lily died.

Where are you getting him being a bigot from? You have to remember that he's a half-blood himself, unless of course it's canon that he called Lily a mudblood. Which I suppose is possible, and if he did do it, you'd have to factor in the setting. If they were in a public forum, he'd have to do it otherwise lose face with the other Slytherins.

Snape didn't ever harm a fly in school, and, as far as we know, he was a perfect gentleman. We're led to believe that he mostly kept to himself, which was why James and Sirius picked on him. Because he was an easy target, and because he was a half-blood, it wasn't like the Slytherins would come to his aid.

It's never been stated that Snape ever killed anyone. See the vast majority of my first paragraph after the second quote.

Your very comment about Lily essentially neutralizes your entire argument about Snape. If she did have good judgement, why did she stay friends with him up until their parting of the ways? She obviously valued his friendship, otherwise she wouldn't have kept up a friendship with a Slytherin while she was in Gryffindor.

Lastly, please don't ever use the list format again. You've shown yourself capable of typing paragraphs and sentences, please do so.

 

In a fanfic there was a reference to a Playstation 2, which was still several years from release. Your mention of that passage in the GoF made me go back and check, and it seems the future technology anachronism is present in canon as well, it being mentioned almost a year before the release of the Playstation.

 

Rowling also made up the names of games she mentions.

I don't mind that much if it just isn't important to the story. You can even make up Street names and local geography as long as it isn't important for the plot. Most movies and TV-shows don't care and it doesn't seem to impact their success.

@Silens Cursor
You get into more trouble if you try to be too accurate. For instance a visit to the Prime Minister by the Minister of Magic: do you use the actual person who was Prime Minister at the time of your story? Or if it's in the future someone who is plausible for that post? How do you know you can get his/her reaction even remotely right and not let your biases cloud your judgement there?
Better in my opinion to just make someone up.

 

The local geography though, it can become extremely annoying if it's about about a country that the author doesn't know anything about.
I almost gave up a very good and original story when the author, probably by being a complete moron incapable of using a map from the internet, named a village City-Up and a castle City-Down (that's the English translation for the names).

 

Using a real person or your own character as has fuck all to do with authentic worldbuilding. It literally has nothing to do with what Silens was talking about. Either of those options could be party to shit worldbuilding, or excellent worldbuilding, depending on the work of the author.

This hurr. Harry's abode being the cupboard under the stairs isn't to do with some sort of punishment for him, as much as the Dursleys like to justify it as such. It's actually more to do with their incessant psychological need to hide him away.

 

Whether or not the imagery from the films is close to what she saw in her head whilst writing, her notes on Pottermore say "Dursleys' house [was] big and square, as befitted Uncle Vernon's status as a company director".

 

Yes, he did call Lily a Mudblood. It's probably the most important moment in their relationship, and is in fact canonically his worst memory, so you might want to ease back on criticising people for not remembering details...True, it was under extreme stress, and he regretted it instantly and for the rest of his life, but he did do it.

Snape did harm people in school. He was at school when he invented Sectumsempra, and he did hex James and co. I'm not saying they didn't do just the same to him, but he's hardly pristine in that regard.

We don't know how he was treated by the rest of his house due to being a Half-Blood. It's literally never mentioned, except (possibly) in Word of God. However, Lily was very worried about how much time he was spending with other Dark Arts practicing Slytherins, who presumably didn't have that much of an issue with him.

No, we don't *know* that Snape killed anyone - but he would cheerfully have let James and Harry die if it meant Lily would survive.

 

I absolutely hate it when authors have the main pairing fall in love after the first encounter. That's not how good romance works, that's not how to draw in the reader with suspense, and that's certainly not how to write a good story.

Also I despise it when authors drop bad and extremely obvious references to manga/anime and try to make it a part of the plot. It makes me face palm every time.

 

Basically this, but I want to elaborate on this, considering Snape's a favourite character of mine and I've both seen and written a number of interpretations on his character.

That being said, I'm more willing to forgive Snape's slip of the tongue as continuous exposure to Slytherin might have let the word slide into his vocabulary. To me, it doesn't reflect prejudice on his part, but it does reflect the fact he was associating with less-than-moral individuals within his house. Whether he did it because he wanted association with power (one interpretation, not one I tend to favour) or because he figured it would aid his long-term plans, or even just because it was most expedient (my preferred explanation), it still was a fact he was associating with people who would become Death Eaters.

And yes, even coming from Sirius' biased point-of-view, I can easily believe Snape practised a lot of Dark magic in school - although I'm not entirely sure why he chose to do so, because Snape as a character, while knowing the value of theatrics, doesn't appear to be the kind of character that would like certain elements of the attention wide-spread Dark magic use would bring, certainly within Hogwarts, and particularly when it could jeopardize his failing friendship with Lily. But when Lily wasn't around or when Snape was cornered by James and Sirius, I can bet Snape hurt people in either self-defence or when pressured by other Slytherins. He wouldn't be the type of character to take any joy or glee in such behaviour, but I have no compunctions believing that he did it, particularly if he had a score to settle or wanted to prove a point to someone who got in his way.

Snape's treatment by the rest of his house is a little murky here too. I whole-heartedly suspect that some of the more fanatical blood-purists in his house would have discovered that he was a half-blood, but I suspect they would have had some degree of grudging tolerance of him due to his intelligence and skill with Dark magic. In fact, if you view Snape's association with the future Death Eaters as a relationship where both sides merely tolerate the other, it makes a lot more sense. Snape's always been an antisocial loner, and I can easily see him having no patience for blatant stupidity or people who waste his time. On the other hand, his serious lack of diplomacy, coupled with a caustic, sarcastic attitude (likely tinged with bitterness after the end of fifth year), would not make him a pleasant companion to be around, and I can see characters like Mulciber or Avery only tolerating Snape because he was talented, not because he was their friends.

Finally, the question on whether Snape has killed people. Here's my answer: yes. He was a Death Eater, and odds are some of his comrades probably found out that he was a half-blood and only tolerated because of his skill (which would be something Voldemort would likely value more than blood purity). If he had balked in the course of a mission and not killed, he would have been eliminated by Lucius or Bellatrix for being squeamish, pure and simple. So yeah, even if Snape was a spy, he killed people - deal with it.

Tying all this back to a major pet-peeve of mine that I feel needs to be re-emphasized - a badly written Snape will kill a story for me in a heartbeat. In fact, it was a major part in cementing my absolute disgust for MoR. Snape is a character with complexity and depth, and yeah, I know some people don't like writing him or don't want to feature him in their stories - that's absolutely fine by me. But if he's going to be brought into the plot, write him with a degree of sense.

 

It's like watching a couple retarded kids slap-fight each other.

What. Who gives a fuck? Seriously, it's a video game, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the only thing Rowling was thinking was "video game." No doubt she didn't give a shit for what name - and likely thought of "playstation" as interchangeable with "video game," just as most people think of Kleenex and Xerox as interchangeable with "facial tissue" and "copy machine."

I can hardly believe that someone would be the slightest bit butt-hurt by the word playstation instead of [insert whatever was most popular at the time here], since the POINT was that Dudley got lots and lots of the coolest and most jealousy-inducing gifts, while Harry got OLD SOCKS.

Christ, talk about nitpicky shit. And it's only because of you nitpicky fuckers being gamers that it was even noticed. I bet if there'd been a certain microwave for Petunia or brand of lawn mower for Vernon's yard or something else that hadn't been invented just yet, none of you would have said shit, because it's not really about being nitpicky in general, it's about being overly critical whenever you get the chance.

GL is right, but let me add this: At the beginning of HBP, the Muggle Prime Minister is thinking about the American President, and basically lets on that he thinks the President is a dick (paraphrasing). At the time, GW Bush was the US President, and I thought, "Yeah, tell us what a dick that numbnuts Bush is." But then it occurred to me that Clinton would've been President at that time (1996), so I had to step back and wonder if Rowling was making a dig at Bush or Clinton, and since I knew Rowling to lean more to the Left (at the Left as we see it in the US), so I was kinda thrown for a loop.

So yeah, it makes a big difference, whether the person used is real or made-up.

Saying big houses mean big closets is about as logical and factual as saying big noses equal big dicks.

That said, a cupboard is essentially a coat closet, I think, so even if it was huge, it's the principal of the thing, and the fact that Harry is relegated to a dusty, spider-infested, locked-from-the-outside closet, while Dudley has not one but two rooms.

I'm not saying Harry was abused on the level of beatings with a belt and/or outright starvation, but psychologically, he was made to feel inferior and as if he were an enormous trouble and burden to his only family. You know, unloved and worthless?

This. But let me add that, according to Remus (I think it was Remus), Snape gave as good as he got, back in those school-days fights with James and Sirius. Yes, he was picked on, but according to Sirius, he knew loads of dark magic when he *got* to Hogwarts. Of course that's a biased POV, but you can't dismiss it out of hand, because coming from Sirius, that's about as close as you're going to get to grudging respect for Snape's prowess.

Yes to all this. Snape was a skilled and bad-ass motherfucker (remember how all those Death Eaters gave him a wide berth and deferred to his authority atop the Astronomy Tower??), but let's not forget that he was a petty, bitter man, and unwilling to give Harry any benefit of the doubt when (a) it's never been Harry's fault that he was, y'know, *born*, and (b) Snape's supposed to be the adult in those situations.

Snape definitely was party to deaths, as we see recounted in his memories in DH, and it's my belief that he associated with the future Death Eaters at least in part because he wanted to be accepted. It's human nature, and as much as I dislike a lot about Snape, he's one of the most interesting characters in canon.

 

Lemon drops. There is no reference to them in the books. Sherbet lemons are mentioned. Lemon drops are not. And to be honest, Sherbet lemons are mentioned once.

Once. One fucking time, yet all these fanfic authors are like 'Oh, Dumbledore has a fetish for lemon drops'.

He doesn't. He likes to have his password as a sweet, and seems to have a sweet tooth, but he really doesn't have a thing for lemon drops.

This annoys me so much, that I have actually pm'ed a person on ff.net, just to try and convey how annoying this is, and how pointless it is. Why do lemon drops need to be incorporated? I can understand having a few references to a SHERBET LEMON. I can understand it if different sweets are used as something Dumbledore likes. I can't, however, understand the fucking lemon drops.

If anyone considers using them, I have two words of advice:

Fucking don't.