Line #112 WarpThatAesop/HarryPotter


1	[[AC: General]]
2	* Don't bother sharing your magic with the Muggle World to make it a better place. Just keep them in the dark, and keep your magic powers to your secretive society.
3	* Don't help your friend otherwise one of your parents may favor them over you and just further demote you down the family pecking order.
4	* If you haven't been conceived out of true love, then your life is a waste and your soul is damned, if you even have a proper soul in the first place.
5	* [[RightForTheWrongReasons Killing people makes you look like a snake. Therefore, killing is wrong.]]
6	* The rambling lecture that your headmaster gives you will actually be ''really'', really important later on -- e.g., "Now pay attention, Potter. This bird can carry huge weights, is naturally loyal, its tears heal wounds, and by pure coincidence its tail feathers went into your wand and your mortal enemies'. I wonder what use you could put it to, hmm?"
7	* It's a good idea for an abused child to follow a seemingly kind stranger who then brainwashes the child into being part of a cult where people believe they can make "magic" with sticks.
8	* If a child is born from rape, he will be unable to love anyone nor anything and will become a genocidal maniac.
9	%% * You have no other way to escape abuse from your father and brother than dosing the man you obsess over with a love-potion and then drug-raping him for months. People are expected to pity you.
10	* When all your efforts towards a goal fail (not that you should try really hard in the first place), apply a mind-altering substance -- it will give you all the correct answers, direct your actions along the only right path (don't bother to question either of those) and will even alter reality for your good.
11	** Alternatively, if you find something really useful like the above (or an ability to ''time travel''), don't use it ever again, even when lives are on the line.
12	* Give children weapons that can kill/torture/maim people instantaneously. Just tell them not to. It'll probably be fine.
13	** If a schoolyard brawl does happen to result in the maiming of a fellow student at your hand, then you can expect several hours of detention, causing you to, at worst, miss an intramural sports match. Your team wins the cup in your absence anyway, however, and you can still share in the celebrations, including a public make-out with your best friend's younger sister. The whole episode of the maiming is soon forgotten.
14	* Loving your family is wonderful, unless you report an illegal secret society to the proper authorities in order to protect them. If you do that, you deserve to walk around with a disfigured face for the rest of your life.
15	* Hey girls! The guy who sexually humiliates your best friend in front of the entire school to blackmail you into dating him will be an excellent husband to you.
16	** Also, the guy who creepily inserted himself into your life, ruined your formerly close relationship with your sister, subscribes to a racist cult targeting you and is possessive about your wants and needs and refuses to accept that you loved somebody else and had a happy marriage, is truly in love with you and not an obsessive StalkerWithACrush teacher in a totally unprofessional manner.
17	** Girls should also find their future husbands before they graduate high school and then immediately become parents or else the BigBad cannot be stopped.
18	* Journalists are jerks. Except those who believe in all conspiracy theories.
19	** While we're at it: a bastard journalist you blackmailed is more reliable to transcript a story you dictate word by word than writing it by yourself.
20	* Mind-controlling and torturing people is wrong, unless you're the hero.
21	* Meta-Aesop: Never write anything that might become popular, unless you want multiple people to accuse you of [[MoralGuardians corrupting impressionable children]] on the flimsiest of premises.
22	* No matter how far you deliberately warp the Aesops of a series with a [[TheLawOfFanJackassery large cult fandom]] beyond recognition, [[PoesLaw it will still sound exactly like real fan wank]] and [[https://web.archive.org/web/20130330083441/http://www.journalfen.net/community/the_hms_stfu/526789.html may be taken as such]].[[note]]It's a joke, seriously, turn off the fun policing.[[/note]]
23	* You Guys! You're forgetting the most important one: 'It's easy to become a maniacal dictator who throws the world (i.e. England) into a Crapsack spiral. Kill anyone who defies you! However...you should probably stop at one-year-olds and loving mothers. They can, like, totally ruin your plans...by dying...and being a lovable infant...'
24	* If the relationship between two pupils under your charge has deteriorated to the point that they're trying to seriously kill each other, resulting in a fight to the death that leaves one maimed, the most important lesson to teach the other is to remind him just how much you still hate his dead father.
25	** If your specially-designed weapon for slicing people open is used by a student, it's the perfect time to go on about how horrible his father was.
26	** If the person you used said weapon on was an enemy of yours, don't bother feeling too bad for using it. Even if he was [[spoiler: having a nervous breakdown at the time you used it on him. And don't bother offering him your help while he recuperates. He was mean to you! He doesn't deserve your pity.]]
27	* When you are told that some acts are so evil that doing it ''once'' result in life sentence in prison, they ''never'' mean it. Actually you can do it every single day, it's okay if you do it for greater good. And even if you do it for evil, it will be forgiven if you switch side at the last second. [[spoiler:This refers to Dumbledore forgiving Draco, even if he used Imperium for a whole year.]]
28	** Conversely, when a child is raised in a non-abusive home by wealthy parents, he stands no chance of ''not'' being a {{Jerkass}}. Don't try to gently correct him or show him the error of his ways. Just PayEvilUntoEvil. He earned it by having two loving parents and an absurd amount of disposable income.
29	%% * Hey! A boy has a scar that gives him horrible pain? It's best to not remove it even if you knew how. Because your selfishness far outweighs a boy's comfort of not feeling like his own head is on fire and about to crack open from the inside.
30	* Relationships that began when you were seventeen will ''always'' work out so that you are happy with plenty of children in twenty years. Also, your friends will never change, in fact it will be like the twenty years ''never happened'' except for said adorable kids.
31	** Alternatively, if you're an author writing a DistantFinale, you better make sure your characters' friendships and romances don't break apart during the TimeSkip or your fans will go ''apeshit'' and a coin a new term[[note]]"getting rolfed", named after Luna Lovegood's offscreen husband in the finale[[/note]] for your treachery of ''daring'' to give your characters further development offscreen.
32	* You should never be afraid to underestimate your enemies. Being evil will strip them of the very last shred of reason, imagination and the ability to learn from their mistakes.
33	* School bullies and his/her friends will never, ''ever'', not even when their lives are in chronic peril by some homicidal loon, decide to do the right thing and help out. They'll always try to sell out the hero. Therefore, it's okay to kick them out of the school without a second thought.
34	* Not liking the Chosen One either automatically makes you a bad person or will turn you into one, no matter how justified your dislike of him is.
35	** Alternatively, liking the Chosen One greatly increases your risk of injury or death, so you should probably keep your distance.
36	* All villains have the maturity of six-year-olds.
37	* If you are stuck on a complicated problem that has to do with saving the world from totalitarianism, genocide and dictatorship, consult a fairy-tale book.
38	* Don't bother reporting your abusive relatives to any authority figures because even if they don't call you a liar they'll still make you stay with them.
39	* Knowing another language will make you be shunned by your school.
40	* [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute People who keep]] [[ReptilesAreAbhorrent pet snakes are evil.]]
41	* Ambitious eleven-year olds always turn evil.
42	* Loyalty, friendship, hard work, and determination are for duffers.
43	* Sorting children into cliques is a good way to promote school unity.
44	** Especially when you establish that one of the cliques is AlwaysChaoticEvil.
45	* Your dorm room placement defines who you are. I hope you like your roommates!
46	* It's perfectly alright to routinely humiliate and bully people you don't like.
47	* [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity There is only the Light side and the Dark side, Good and Evil. There is no grey in life, politics, or school rivalries.]]
48	* Using untested chemicals on your classmates is funny. Having your best friend get dosed up with date rape drugs is even funnier.
49	* When the SadistTeacher magically carves words in TheHero's flesh it's evil. [[RevengeMyopia When the hero's friends do it to another student it's well-deserved.]]
50	* If you are an unpleasant female character than you deserve to be ravished by centaurs. However if you are an attractive male villain you can get away with mind control and attempted murder and everyone will forgive you.
51	* Use ThePowerOfLove to stop a brutal dictator. However in this case [[DeadlyEuphemism "Love" somehow means]] that the Chosen One must [[spoiler: get himself killed and trick said dictator into killing himself.]]
52	* It's for the best for a young, impressionable child to be kidnapped by a secret cult society that's still stuck in the middle ages and be sent to a dubious "school" that doesn't even teach basic subjects like Math, Science, P.E., English, foreign languages... ([[CanisLatinicus unless you count severely mangled Latin.]])
53	* [[AppealToAuthority You have to do what the principal of your school says because he's the principal.]] Even when you're not in school. Even if [[spoiler: he tells you to kill yourself.]]
54	* It's perfectly healthy for a society to be so isolationist they don't have the slightest idea of what basic technologies or clothing rules exist in the outside culture.
55	* Candies that induce hemorrhaging, vomiting, and severe swelling of the tongue are perfectly acceptable things to sell in a joke shop.
56	* Remember, kids: Condescension and prejudice towards the [[{{Muggles}} handicapped]] is okay as long as you don't want to kill or torture them!
57	** And if you have a kid who's unable to do all the little things you take for granted, I sure hope they're ready to not be able to integrate into normal society or even go to school. If they're very lucky, they can be a janitor.
58	* When faced with a diabolical madman bent on destroying those he deems to be worthless animals, absolutely, do not, EVER, under ''any'' circumstances, ask for help from those inferior sheep even during the very battle being fought to protect their rights.
59
60	* Treating your friends like dirt and walking out on them twice when they need you the most won't alienate them; if anything, it will only strengthen your friendship with them!
61	* School sports and ensuring your victory over the other team at any cost is more important than being emotionally understanding and learning itself.
62	* [[RealMenHateAffection Girls are the only ones who like to show affection,]] and they're weird that way, so don't even bother with it, guys!
63	* All [[GirlyGirl Girly Girls]] who hang out with other girls are [[RealWomenDontWearDresses shallow, overemotional and giggly.]] The only teenage girls with any value are nerds, tomboys and [[CloudCuckooLander Cloudcuckoolanders]] whose friends are mostly male.
64	* Hiring a former terrorist to work at your school in a position of authority won't backfire in any way!
65	** Making that former terrorist the head of a school-house that had already developed a reputation of being AlwaysChaoticEvil is okay too. What could go wrong?
66	** The former terrorist using his authority to bully students for petty reasons like not liking their parents or being born in a non-magic family is okay too. You need to keep a close eye on him after all and if some student's futures are ruined because he gives them failing grades due to his own malicious incompetence, then that is just a few dozen sacrifices (per year) you have to make [[SarcasmMode so that he doesn't go back to being a menace to society]].
67	* Your first friend is absolutely never wrong and remaining willfully ignorant to his faults makes you a good friend, until of course they call you "Mudblood".
68	* If someone tries to kill you and seriously injures two other people in his attempts, just ignore it. There's no need to punish him in any way for nearly killing two people, or even to take any steps to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone else.
69	** ''Especially'' if it's obvious that he's being coerced into it by a vastly more powerful third party, who terrifies him. Who needs a DoubleAgent in the middle of a war, anyway?
70	* Discriminating people based on their heritage as opposed to life choices and personality is evil and terrible, as is drawing any correlation between heritage and magic. However, if a blood relative of yours commits a HeroicSacrifice for their child, you and your home are automatically protected by that sacrifice, no matter how much of a jerk you are. Conversely, it doesn't matter how good friends you were with the person or how nice you are - if you're not related, the protection doesn't extend to you.
71	* ThePowerOfLove is incompatible with talent, hard work and merit. Even if you are a IdiotHero with all your equipment handed down to you by your talented parents, even if you coast through with the help of your talented friends, and even if you lose badly in the only duel with a competent wizard free of magical handicaps, so long as you have all the requisite skills passed on to you by your dead elders and follow the plan handed down to you, your life will turn out okay. Just show your gratitude by naming your kids after all those dead guardians and surround yourselves with fellow underachievers, such as a {{Bookworm}} who never creates anything unique and a slacker who complains about his family all the time.
72	* If you are an immensely intelligent man burdened with knowledge and responsibility, and devote your life to public service by bringing out the best in a whole bunch of screw-ups who wouldn't have amounted to anything without you, don't expect any consideration whatsoever. Expect to be called a ManipulativeBastard and recieve lectures from an ex-terrorist who badmouths you for raising a TykeBomb when said terrorist is responsible for the child being a TykeBomb. After all just because you tolerate endless slights all the time and provide second chances to an assortment of weirdos and rejects, doesn't mean you deserve any benefit of the doubt whatsoever.
73	* Are you afraid of your own death? Do you want to take measures not to die? Then clearly you must be some kind of genocidal maniac who will stop at nothing to cause as much misery to as many innocent people as possible in order for the rest to worship you as their god-king, and pass your time by torturing and brutally maiming people at random for [[ForTheEvulz absolutely no reason at all]].
74	* It's our choices that make us who we are, not our abilities. So if someone makes a questionable choice when they're eleven, they're clearly irredeemably evil and should be treated as such.
75	** And being fated from birth to destroy the BigBad thanks to his choice and not yours is what is actually going to shape your entire life.
76	* Treat everyone with kindness. Unless they seem like a jerk, in which case the only moral thing is to PayEvilUntoEvil.
77	* If you are TheHero and your enemy's life is in danger, you are obligated to save him. But feel free to punch him unconscious and let one of your TrueCompanions call him names.
78	* If you're going to kill a family, always aim to kill the baby first.
79	* The cruelest bullying can be EasilyForgiven, so long as the bully isn't racist. But if the bully ''is'' racist, he's irredeemable.
80	* Everybody is Catholic.[[note]]Specifically Christian, though.[[/note]] Writing more than one Jewish character is ''haaaaaaaaaaaaaard.''
81	** Going off that, only clarify things ''after'' you finish your stories. I mean, they're probably only skimming it for their [[FanficFuel fanfic,]] and all the details are just a quick afterthought to be googled.
82	* FantasticRacism is wrong and you shouldn't judge sapient beings on their appearance and abilities. Unless [[DarkIsNotEvil you're skeletal, wear a black cloak]] [[BadPowersGoodPeople and have the ability to destroy souls]].
83	** In fact, the government will hate you so much they'll lock you up along with their worst criminals on an island, and the "good guys" will consider it a great failing of theirs that they didn't entirely exterminate your race. Their point that you are the root of all evil will be reinforced if, heavens forbid, your starved, uneducated population should escape and form an alliance with ''literally the only humans who don't shoot them on sight''.
84	* If someone is murdered and comes back as a ghost, on ''no account'' should you interview them or attempt to discover the circumstances of their deaths until the next round of attacks starts, and even then, it's totally cool to leave it to a couple of tweens instead.
85	* Unicorns and phoenixes are beautiful, magical creatures, so we should treat them with respect and only use their hair and feathers for magic. Dragons, on the other hand? Let's rip out their internal organs to make wands out of, and attack them for sport!
86	* If you know someone who has a hard time processing his grief, don't help and do not offer counseling. Pray on his emotional issues to recruit him as a spy, even if that means he'll release all that pent-up anger on eleven year old children for years.
87	* Do you hate being the MAGIC CHOSEN ONE because all it has ever done is bringing you the death of your friends, contempt and jealousy from your rivals and even from your own best friend, the breakup with your love interest, the murder of your original family which in turn put you with an abusive adoptive family and years later killed the closest thing you ever had as a father, and last but not least made you a living walking target for the most psychotic cult leader ever lived? Well fuck you then because thats life of being the MAGIC CHOSEN ONE so just shut it and take it as a man. Fate has decided to make you the MAGIC CHOSEN ONE and no one says no to fate without harsh punishment so there is nothing you can do about it. So forget your dreams about a normal life because you ain't getting it until fate thinks you have done your job for it.
88	* If one subset of society is different from the rest of society, of course it is wrong for outright hatred and genocide between the two groups. That said, the two groups should remain completely separated and oblivious of each other. If someone born to one group has attributes of the other group, they should immediately join the former, basically having few connections to their families. Nobody will ever question this status quo. EVER.
89	* Having an entire race of sentient beings for use solely as slaves is a-okay and anyone who disagrees and/or wants the aforementioned sentient beings to have rights is weird. [[note]] house-elves [[/note]]
90	* If you bully one of your classmates and he grows up to be evil, everything you and your buddies did to him (including attempted murder) becomes retroactively justified and is totally fine.
91
92	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'']]
93	* The safest place to keep a much sought after magical artifact and Dark Lord magnet is in a school full of children. Just warn said children away from the danger zone by telling them not to go there. WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong
94	** In addition, the best way to keep the Dark Lord from getting said artefact is to set up a series of puzzles so simple they can be solved by three eleven-year-olds. In fact, you should design the puzzles specifically to be solved by the eleven-year-olds so one of them can then fight the Dark Lord and almost die.
95	* Meta: [[{{Eagleland}} Americans are stupid]], so if the title of [[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone your book]] sounds even remotely intellectual, change it to utter {{Narm}}.
96
97	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'']]
98	* Books are evil.
99	* (Naturalist's worst nightmare.) If you discover a rare animal that has somehow survived thousands of years you should kill it immediately!
100	* Education is more important than protecting your students from a murderous creature that lives in your school and is attacking the pupils, even though the only reason nobody has died yet is because of a series of improbable coincidences.'
101	* If a crime committed has similarities to another crime committed years previously, then obviously the culprit must be the same person even if that person can barely be called alive.
102
103	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'']]
104	* There's nothing wrong with accepting an insanely expensive vehicle as a gift from an anonymous stranger, especially when you have already pissed off some of the most powerful people around, and you know that such vehicles can be rigged to kill their driver. Those of your friends who treat such gifts with caution are just narks and deserve to be shunned.
105	* If you're reasonably upset with your friend for being partly responsible for [[spoiler: the death of your beloved pet]], you're a jerk.
106	* Hiring someone who has regular murderous episodes to work in a building full of children is a great idea if they're a nice person when they're not trying to rip your throat out. Anyone who is against this idea is clearly prejudiced and should be ignored.
107
108	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'']]
109	* No one will bat an eye when you are hosting a Tournament known for its high death count ''at a public school full of children!''
110	** You have to have a magical cup that forces its contestants to compete in a magically-binding contract if you want to host a competitive Tournament between schools. That way, if anyone signs up someone else to be a contestant without them knowing or curses the magical cup to rig the lottery, they have no choice but to compete and you won't have to go to the trouble of doing a recount.
111	* Don't expect any law-suits when the school unwillingly volunteers random underaged students to potentially drown as unwitting props for their exciting life-or-death tournament just because they are associated with its contestants.
112	* Teachers drinking on school grounds is okay.
113	* Teachers doing things that could get you thrown into the least humane prison on the planet in a class full of teenagers shouldn't raise any eyebrows.
114	* If you're arranging a high-profile Tournament, there's no need to ensure that the crowd can actually see anything that's going on during 2/3 of it. Spectator events are overrated.
115
116	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'']]
117	* So, you've got an adventurous and independent child who also happens to be a trouble magnet, has a murderous supervillain after him, has been known to act without thinking, and has been exhibiting pretty obvious symptoms of PTSD? Don't tell him any relevant details about what's going on in his life behind the scenes, ever. It's not like he'll try to find out on his own and end up getting into even more trouble along the way.
118
119	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'']]
120	* Books you can learn things from are even more evil.
121	** People who write textbooks that school-children are supposed to understand have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
122	* If you don't make it into an advanced class, it's because the teacher hates you, not because you lack the talent or aptitude. Once a new teacher is installed, they'll treat you like the genius you are, even if your supposed brilliance is all due to a handy cheat sheet you happened to find.
123	* If you want to date your best friend's sister but aren't sure how to talk to him about it, don't bother! Just kiss her in front of a huge crowd of people, he'll probably be okay with it.
124
125	[[AC: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'']]
126	* Grand speeches about equality and coexistence with those different from you are fine and good, and you should be righteously indignant at and oppose those who display overt hatred and contempt for the different folk, but it's still probably not a good idea to actually expose your existence to those different people or cooperate with them, even when their lives and freedom are at stake, because in your heart you just know that they will want to exploit, abuse, persecute or exterminate you. No, that doesn't mean that the hatred and contempt against them is justified, and that you're a brazen shortsighted hypocrite.

Context WarpThatAesop / HarryPotter