Harry Potter

I said that they wouldn't unironically enjoy earwax or vomit flavours.

This was in response to Ookamikun asking whether magical people actually enjoy earwax flavour beans.

I'm pointing out that, no, Bertie Botts wasn't stupid enough to think people enjoy eating boogers. And Wizards don't enjoy eating boogers or earwax any more than other people.

Edited by M84 on May 18th 2022 at 10:54:40 PM

It's basically candy for a game with your friends. Basically dare to eat whatever the hell you take out of the box.

It's basically the candy version of Russian Roulette, but instead of death you get a bad taste in your mouth.

Dumbledore even swore off them after being unlucky enough to get a vomit flavored bean.

Then he ate an earwax one when he gave it another chance.

Edited by Cross on May 18th 2022 at 2:50:24 PM

Is it worth it, jellybean eaters? Is it worth it?

On the topic of Hagrid, I think a lot of the reason we didn't notice aside from narrative bias and legit being sympathetic at times is that Hagrid generally is racist towards people we as the reader would think as unsympathetic, like Filch, Vernon, and Dudley. Dobby is a unique case where Hagrid IS racist towards him but the narrative treats him as being wise and more understanding since he gets that House Elves "need" slavery and Hermione is being silly.

Like goddamn it hits you like brick.

Speaking of Hagrid, did we ever find out what happened to him and his brother post book 7? I only knew of him and Maxima not tying the knot.

Also with the many creatures siding with Voldy at the last battle wouldn't that just mean the wizarding world would be even more racist towards them?

Edited by Ookamikun on May 19th 2022 at 4:44:55 PM

Still working for Hogwarts as of 2019 according to the wiki.

And Grawp is presumably still around since he survived the battle and was last seen getting fed by people.

Edited by terumokou on May 19th 2022 at 11:49:04 AM

The disdain of hagrid is less racism and just....well, house elve like to serve, is a problem with the setting really, if chararter in lord of the ring said all orcs are violent and cant be deal with it a pacifistic way well.....yeah, it is right. I wont condemn hagrid for a problem deep in the setting. Hagrid issue like I said it come more about whatever you think cathartic violence against wrong people is good and many does(Like I said, Shaun cheer a terry pratchet chararter treating someone).

" but you do need a certain Willy Wonka mindset."

Willy wonka is the kind of chararter I can see in harry potter universe.

Now if there is a perfect example of disporportionate retribution(and im surprise Shaun didnt said anything) is...Cho friend who rat harry group and get with a curse in her forehead that is still there.

Perhaps because she was ratting them out to a tyrannical government agent who was torturing children?

You actually might wanna rewatch that part of the video because you seem to be Completely Missing The Point of why Shaun brought this up.

Nevermind that Vime threatening a racist to take the stuffed head of a marginalised person off his wall isn't even close to the same thing as "Hagrid disfigures a child to stick it to the child's dad".

Which, as I pointed out before, mirrors actual arguments used by real slave owners throughout American history.

What makes this worse is that none of the characters involved in that conversation are strangers to prejudice. Hagrid himself is half-giant and is often enough viewed with suspicion after this got out because giants are seen by wizard society as violent and brutish by nature. So him arguing that house elves like being slaves because it's in their nature is a very bad look on multiple levels.

When a story expects you to dislike one character for being a bigot, but wants you to ignore another character's bigotry, there are questions to be asked.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 19th 2022 at 9:17:39 PM

I don’t recall that Marietta knew Umbridge was torturing children.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on May 19th 2022 at 12:26:01 PM

And you see to miss the point here:

Specially since said child mercielly bully Harry for years and continue to do so right until Harry have to said his damn sorry ass in book 5 and only got better a damn decade. If you age him up a couple of year I dont think anybody will give a shit.

Most because Marietta is pretty much a non entity in the books who barely have dialogue, is Cho who argue on her beheld with Harry which is another strike that let to their break up. Not surprising she have so little dialogue she was pretty much remove from the movie and her role move to Cho.

The books are pretty clear that if a House Elf doesn't like being enslaved (as is the case with Dobby), then they should be freed and treated accordingly. It's just that most House Elves really do like being slaves.

To me, it always felt like the point of the House Elf plot was to be a Fantastic Aesop. Hermione sees the treatment of House Elves as a direct parallel of real world slavery and oppression, and tries fighting for their freedom the same way you would for human beings in that situation ... except House Elves aren't human, and their situation is not parallel to human situations at all. It's a gag about someone trying to apply Real Life ideas to a fantastical setting where those ideas don't apply.

Now you’ve got me wondering if there’s a “death” flavored bean.

Like, if you bite into one and - eww - it tastes of rotting meat or somesuch shit.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 19th 2022 at 12:55:47 PM

Which the author decided was somehow a good idea to put into a book. And no, it being fictional does not actually make it immune to criticism, nor does said fiction exist in a vacuum.

Rowling decided to introduce a magical slave race to her books and then had one of the characters we're supposed to like talk about how freeing them is bad because being slaves is in their nature - which, again, is literally the kind of rhetoric slave owners have historically used to defend the practice.

And there's no indication that Hagrid's actions against Dudley have anything to do with what Dudley did to Harry. We, the audience, know that Dudley's a spoiled brat and a bully. Hagrid trying to turn him into a pig is not actually a consequence of the boy's actions.

It's not just Disproportionate Retribution, it's technically not even retribution within the story - Hagrid isn't there to to punish Dudley, he's there to get Harry.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 19th 2022 at 10:18:39 AM

The House Elf thing cannot even be excused by being based on folklore. The folklore House Fey were explicitly not slaves. They took care of homes because they had a This Is My Human thing going on with the humans.

The Dudley pig thing is even worse since it wasn't even due to anything Dudley did (in the book version at least). It was because Vernon insulted Dumbledore.

Edited by M84 on May 19th 2022 at 9:18:51 PM

Right. If Hagrid had tried to turn Vernon into a pig (he's fat and greedy too, after all), that would have been one thing. Arguably Disproportionate Retribution, but the man did try to shoot him and has clearly been a terrible guardian to Harry, so he probably deserves worse. But Dudley, as far as Hagrid knows, has never done anything to Harry. Hagrid targets him only because he thinks it will hurt Vernon. And that's a problem.

Another difference is that Fae won’t take being treated like shit lightly, even if they’re bound by a pact, while House Elves love their masters even though they abuse and mistreat them and cut their heads off to hang on walls.

And then Harry and his friends put Christmas hats on them.

Plus as Shaun notes, we never see what Rowling thinks what "good activism" is.

Nor does she bother to follow up on what happened to Winky, an actual abused slave who wants to go back to her abusive master.

Maybe if we had a scene of Hermione doing something to stop legal House Elf abuse then the whole plotline might have been better.

"Nevermind that Vime threatening a racist to take the stuffed head of a marginalised person off his wall isn't even close to the same thing as "Hagrid disfigures a child to stick it to the child's dad". "

At risk of saying awfull take, narrative speaking, they are the same thing: Protagonist or some sympathetic character manage too some violent or something like that while isnt "right" in the most legal of point feel right because fuck yeah! and we cheer because the other as asshole. Harry potter is fuel of those moment like Moody transforming draco and moving him around in a way to make us feel he is a good character(which itself is a trap to reveal he wasnt moody at all and disperse the creepiness of his introduction in class, a sort of Bait from Rowling, she did that a lot with Snape), we see that against Umbrige a couple of times and so on. Outside of HP I can think RWBY volume 7 when Weiss levitate one racist prick and throwing away, the guy didnt do anything but saying stupid thing but he got punk and some liked.

Which is pretty much the narrative reason here: Hagrid come, finally put those idiots in place and introduce Harry to magic and a wonderfull world outside the one he is stuck. Not surprising the drusdley never become sympathic in anyway or form except dudley at the very end while it become something of a running gag having something awful to them over and over to the point they look like British sitcom characters(one of my grips was how they got old pretty damn fast).

Going back to Marietta, when someone ask Rowling she said the pimples were still there and took a lot to vanish and said "I hate traitors!" and looking bad, loyalty does play a huge role in HP: Harry never wave in his loyalty to Dumbledore or his friends for that matter, Sirius more clear quality is his enduring loyalty to the potters even when stuck in azkaban, Snape loyalty to Lilith memory is the only probably good quality he have in spite of everything else about him, same with the Malfoy and each other(which is the reason Narsissa betray Voldemort), no better example is Wormtail who stick with strongest guy not matter how vile it is and the moment he betray Voldemort he go one of the awful deaths in the series.

I wonder if this issue with loyalty to each other as core value can also be a problem of this "There is not bad idea, just bad person" kind of thing.

Wormtail didn't even outright betray Voldemort, he just hesitated for a few seconds when he was reminded that Harry saved his sorry life even though Harry had every reason to want him dead and the hand Voldemort gave him killed him for that hesitation.

Are there vampires in this series?