The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a thread for Potterheads)

Lord Voldemort could have absolutely been treated way better. I don't think there's anything wrong with unapologetically bad bad guys with no tragedy to soften them up, but I did think I at least wanted his reasons and prejudice to be explained. Hell, maybe he wasn't even actually prejudiced. Maybe he just wanted power and played upon the already-present fears and bigotries of a group of powerful, moneyed people to get it. Maybe it was a gamble. That'd sure as hell be more interesting than "and then Lord Voldemort hated muggles and muggleborns, because, you know, reasons".

Dumbledore failed Harry in so many ways.

 

Are we allowed to make major recs here? Because I think Sacrifices Arc has been mentioned before in the fic recs thread, but for some reason whenever I find a load of good criticism of Harry Potter I'm just like "but Lightning on the Wave already fixed that, a thousand times better than JKR ever could," before remembering not a lot of people seem to have heard of its glories. It's seven books worth of Dumbledore getting called out for being the twisty, horrible bastard he is, Dark and Light culture and morality being fleshed out and deepened, including a flood of characterization for almost everyone in Slytherin house, Snape's crush on Lily being completely ignored as a driving factor in his character (possibly because the author wrote it as certain books were only just coming out) in a way that still acknowledges that he's bitter and fucked up to the students but with a chance at satisfactory growth, and Voldemort doing more than just twiddling his thumbs and listening to the radio while Harry and co hunt down his horcruxes. It has its issues, but overall I still find it so much more satisfying than canon HP, and I haven't looked back since. There's a lot of psychological distress, child abuse, and gore throughout, though Lightning's good at warning before the major stuff hits in each chapter, and occlumency and legilimency are vital coping mechanisms and part of the whole story, rather than just getting unceremoniously dropped

 

So this discussion is really making me think of my fanfic. Which is a sort of mirror universe thing?

And dumbledore is the villain. Like properly. And Voldemort was the leader of a rebellion for the cause of better muggleborn/half-blood rights. And stuff.

 

i absolutely hate that people try to frame dumbledore as some kind of awesome gay representation when 1) his relationship is entirely subtext 2) he's the ONLY explicitly gay character in the series and she's made it clear she doesn't think any of the others are and 3) his sole gay relationship is the only ~~love~~ in the series that isn't Pure and Good and results in several deaths and is the main point of the defamation of his character after his death. fuck you rowling.

i think she tried to explain voldy's prejudice with the slytherin thing. y'know that like one page scene where you see his mother as a teenager and find out he's related to slytherin somehow? cause like, slytherin was all about the pureblood thing and it as his ~~~legacy~~~ or whatever but thats weak as shit, honestly. how would he even know he was raised by muggles.

 

Also literally what does Salazar Slytherin's outdated motives that we don't even know are true have to do with this muggle-raised child in like the sixties.

 

because of the frat boy culture of hogwarts perpetuating the same tired bullshit for centuries like assholes.

EDIT: also i'm p sure slytherin was legit against muggleborns but in his defense he was from a time when muggles were literally trying to publicly execute wizards by fire.

 

Honestly, I'd like to see someone write an american wizard and a british wizard arguing about who's system of magic is better/less predjudice.
the answer is that everyone is terrible, just in different ways.
(I'd love to write this, but I need to get my america wizard headcanons in order.)

 

I forget which fic it was, but I saw it pointed out that, by and large, witches and wizards didn't need to fear muggles with fire.

Their kids did. And their squib relatives, and their muggle friends. The nonmagical people who were associated with the magical were the ones most likely to die from mobs. And so that's part of why the distance and secrets.

 

yeah that's canon i think? there's def a line where harry's doing history homework or something and it says most witches and wizards could survive the burning. but yeah even so it's still a p compelling reason to not wanna mix with those people lmao.

 

GUESS WHAT ABOUT SLYTHERIN SHE JOSSED ON POTTERMORE
#petition to delete all pottermore paracanon forever

Slytherin starting as Wizard Magneto is way more interesting to me, because it could show the evolution of a reactive/defensive ideology into exactly the same kind of thing that caused it in the first place. Taking some of the same logic the Dresden Files uses for why the supernatural community there stays underground- vanilla mortals/Muggles have armies, all sorts of weapons, extreme ingenuity, and numbers, so if they went after a supernatural group on a large scale they'd probably win eventually, even if it was ruinously destructive. If his beliefs started somewhere like that, then the fact that he hid a goddamn basilisk in the basement would make way more sense.

Yeah, he gets assigned an essay on "Witch Burning was Completely Pointless" in like Book 3. Apparently this one witch got burned at the stake 27 times because she liked how Flame-Freezing Charmed fire tickled. Meanwhile tons of muggles died but that doesn't matter in wizard history classes!

 

nothing matters unless it happens to your own group!!!

 

I mean, I can believe that. Like, French history and media are almost only about what happens to French people. Like, when a natural disaster happens in some foreign country, they'll say "5 French people died there".

 

Ohhh, yeah. And a lot of American media/history is only about ourselves (and england, a little, and rome, a little). But it's still a dumbass kind of tribalism.

 

uggggh oh my god really?? petition fucking SIGNED pottermore is such garbage.

fund my kickstarter to get jkr to keep her mouth shut. for $8000 a month she will Stop.

 

she will never stop
she cannot be stopped

 

I hate death of the author, but if the book sucks or the author is a piece of shit, then sure!

 

We the undersigned recognize that the Author has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, we've elected to ignore it.
-Swirl

 

It's pretty rare that I'll ignore stuff that's unambiguously in canon, but I'm very willing to discard lots of paracanon. Especially in cases like this, where a lot of it is poorly-thought-out, contradictory, nonsensical, or even offensive. (Newt from Pacific Rim does not have six doctorates! The median age of the party in my favorite game is not 17! Racism exists in the Potterverse! The main character of my favorite anime is not using his birth name as an alias while undercover! All of these things are now better. )

 

I have all these really complicated feelings about Seclusion. Like on the one hand, it definitely made historical sense (and from a Doylist perspective was kind of necessary to tell the particular story that was being told) but it's not just benign neglect- it's not just the absence of potentially-lifesaving magical solutions that some people like to talk about.

Memory charms cause ~hilarious~ brain damage and are apparently used routinely, with no hint that any supposedly "pro-Muggle" characters (looking at you, Arthur) have the slightest concern about this.

Malevolent magical forces exist and the parts of the establishment Our Heroes don't have a problem with are not just not telling most of the world's population, but actively removing that information from their minds should they discover it for themselves.

(Relatedly, I've seen a compelling argument, which is now my headcanon, that the immense majority of werewolves were Muggles. Bigotry is one thing, but advisories about at-risk areas staying indoors on full-moon nights would only be sensible, and again, any Muggles who have any idea of the danger aren't permitted to keep that idea. I actually dreamed up a not-very-nice OC who was inclined to hold her nose and follow Greyback because she couldn't see any way but by making wizards werewolves that anyone would actually start to give a shit.)

 

...here's part two of my rec, which I can't believe I forgot to mention - the enslavement of magical creatures like house elves is addressed as a major part of Harry's overall arc and character, with many other magical creatures kept trapped under binding webs. Werewolves and the bigotry they face come to a head in the later books, with it becoming a major political stance on Harry's part as they face more and more vicious legal discrimination that culminates in a hunting season. A number of the named werewolves are Muggleborn and consider being part of a pack their only real home and a chance to be something magic; they're a border community who actually uses their ability to make more of themselves to invite in Muggles and also as a political statement when the Ministry goes too far legislating against them

Also, all those Slytherin parents who were Death Eaters? They get massive character expansions too, and they're amazing. I love Hawthorne and Pansy Parkinson to death. There are international Lords and Ladies who have their own complicated politics that prevent them from interfering with Voldemort. I'm gonna shut up now, because I could go on about Sacrifies for days, but. Seriously. It picks up almost every ball JKR dropped