Harry Potter

They said murder, not sure if it's specific to AK.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Yeah. That's how Voldemort makes his horcruxes. The casting of Avada Kedavra breaks off a chunk of his soul, then he puts that chunk into the item.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Yeah, but like I said, I seem to recall that Dumbledore (or Hermione?) said murder was what split his soul, not specifically AK-47.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I'm pretty sure it was murder in general, not AK. I imagine a successful AK is guaranteed though, because of the whole "you have to want it" thing, but I got the impression that bashing a guy's head in with a rock would probably work too.

Oh, it was something Tom Riddle did. That explains so much.

Meanwhile, found this on the Huffington Post and had a giggle at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=34&v=zbdvogFyZZM

"Dark lord funk you up." Indeed.

I can think of a lot more peaceful uses for a spell that cuts things than a spell that kills things. Need some wood chopped and don't have an axe handy? Sectumsempra has your back!

Or by physically interposing something. Dumbledore was blocking it by charming statues to take the the bullet for him.

So it's so deadly because it can't by blocked by any magical means. Shows you the wizard mentality right there.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

True. You could always just put something solid enough in between you and it (I think that even happened a few times in the movies).

Though I think by blocked they mean "if/when its in position to affect you, there's no way to counter or deflect it." Clothing doesn't stop it, so something like body armor wouldn't work.

edited 26th Mar '15 1:33:39 AM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Something, apropos of nothing, I rather liked about the films was that as the stakes got higher, the spells seemed to get "heavier" - in that the early HP films the spells have rather classic fantasy-magical look to them, whilst later ones zip around and blow up the stuff they hit like they're bullets.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Something wiki related that I meant to ask: What would the preferred split scheme for WMG.Harry Potter Main be? Proposals were either a random split into two pages, or to make topic-specific WMG subpages.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Why do people think Barty Crouch Jr. was anything more than a horrible, vile, evil and completely unsympathetic bastard?

From his character sheet: "Adaptational Villainy: The film version of him is a completely sadistic lunatic that relished his evil actions and showed no remorse whatsoever."

As opposed to in the book where he was a completely sadistic lunatic who's last act was to grin happily at the thought of Voldemort returning because that means he will get money and power?

There's a reason this was the first time in the entire series where Dumbledore showed outright anger and contempt and it's because Crouch Jr. was a piece of shit and all the attempts to Woobify him fly in the face of canon.

edited 26th Apr '15 12:12:17 AM by Nikkolas

Don't ask us, ask, let's see, lolface123 who edited that in.

edited 26th Apr '15 12:33:06 AM by rikalous

It could be because the movie removed his Freudian Excuse, but even so the movie definitely didn't make him any more of a villain.

If anything, Movie Crouch Jr. has even less confirmed assholery under his belt than his book counterpart.

edited 26th Apr '15 12:04:18 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

It has a lot to do with the way they handled the trial scene. In the book, Crouch is horrified about the prospect of going to Azkaban, and tries to deny his involvement with the Death Eaters; the only member of his group to do so. This leaves the situation somewhat ambiguous — was he always the fanatic we later see? Or was he (like Draco or Regulus) just a stupid teenager who fell in with a bad crowd without understanding the extent of their cruelty, and only became a Voldemort fanatic due to the years of abuse his father then inflicted on him? It's ambiguous, but it is possible to read him as something of a victim due to this.

The film handles the trial in such a way that Barty is obviously already a crazed Voldemort fanatic before he goes to Azkaban. It also omits the dark side of Crouch senior, including the years he spent mind-controlling his son and keeping him from the outside world. This makes their animosity, and the eventual murder, seem completely unprovoked. The conflict is simplified to Crouch senior = good and Crouch junior = evil. In the book, it's arguably more of a cautionary tale about how Crouch senior's harshness and lack of compassion eventually comes to aid the forces he fights against instead of crushing them, resulting in his own doom.

That's not to say Crouch junior isn't a villain in the book, but there there's at least an element of tragedy to him. In the film, he's a crazed Card-Carrying Villain from the first moment he appears, and never gets any nuance but being that lunatic.

edited 26th Apr '15 12:53:49 AM by DrDougsh

Ah, good ol' lolface123. You can always trust that guy's input.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Dr Dougsh got it right. The book version shows remorse (or at least is terrified enough of the consequences of his actions to fake some remorse) in the past, but definitely not in the present, after years of maltreatment first at Azkaban and then at his family home, enough to make anyone embrace their dark side.

He doesn't show remorse. He shows terror at the prospect of going to Azkaban, but no regret for torturing the Longbottoms.

That doesn't mean he wasn't already a terrible person at the time of the trial; it just means that he was horrible and cowardly.

edited 26th Apr '15 6:05:42 PM by Galadriel

Good point. It's more that the book portrayed him as a scared kid, even if he was fully deserving of his punishment, while the movie showed him as the same guy 11 years ago that he was in the present.

edited 26th Apr '15 7:19:46 PM by Ogodei

Even more than that, Film Crouch took on Bellatrix's role/line in the trial scene from the book, and because he's only in a handful of scenes, he seems more Bellatrix-y (and therefore obviously villainous) than in the books. Crouch Sr. is also much more of an asshole in the book than in the movie, IIRC, so the whole rebel aspect of Jr's character is essentially non-existent and makes him easier to hate.

That said, as an adult, he's vile with no redeeming qualities in both versions.

edited 27th Apr '15 9:04:35 PM by akillesheels

I guess we can always thank his book version though for teaching Harry how to resist the imperious Curse. Without him, Harry would have been easy prey for Voldemort.

And man, what is there to say about Crouch senior in the movie? I think Roger Lloyd-Pack was pretty badly miscast or misdirected here. The soulless disciplinarian of the book he ain't.

A minor character being underrepresented in the movies isn't exactly a new thing, unfortunately. I thought Crouch Sr. was a pretty cool character considering what little page time he had but I never expected the movie to do him any justice.

I'm nitpicking.

I do think that the movie's Crouch would have been better served with a performance that actually conveyed him as an authoritative Jerkass, giving a hint of his relationship with his son without spending too much time on explaining it.

The odd thing is that Sirius still describes movie!Crouch as having a "heart of stone", which seems a tad... inconsistent with the way he behaves. Particularly since the movie Crouch clearly had no choice about convicting his son, what with him confessing his crime in front of a crowd of people.

He wasn't much of anything in the film, really. They cut out Bagman and Winky (IIRC) entirely, and Crouch was pretty much just a plot device. I understand not being able to include that subplot, but it was one of my favorites from books 1-4, so I was a little disappointed.

So, question.

I'm listening to Rifftrax over Order of the Phoenix and as Kevin so eloquently put it in reference to Umbridge, "and for the tenth consecutive movie the new teacher turns out to be Evil."

And of course the new DADA teachers were all evil. There's Quirrell, Fake Moody and Umbridge vs. Lupin as the only good one.

But the question is...where does Lockhart fall on this? He's clearly not as evil as the first three but he's also no Lupin or even Snape if we count him. Lockhart was willing to leave an innocent girl to die and destroy Ron's and Harry's minds.

So if Lockhart goes in the Villain Category, then Lupin is the only good new teacher out of the entire series.

edited 2nd May '15 3:44:13 AM by Nikkolas