The Ultimate Harry Potter Thread

[Lizards of Renown]

My actual contribution to the thread is that I've seen all the movies (and i own all the DVDs), but i haven't read any of the books.

Really nice and enjoyable stuff, but i cannot say that i love them

My advice would be do the books. In my opinion they're far better.

 

[Scalenex]

Avada Kadavra is an unforgiveable curse, right, but it seems like one of the most humane ways to kill someone. Cause yeah, burning someone alive until they aren't alive seems... horrible, and then you can cast spells without a wand (kinda. Like Harry blowing up his Aunt or whatever in Prisoner of Azkaban), so why is it such a big deal? and yeah, what did Bellatrix die of? Surely there would have been more efficient ways to kill people, not necesarilly on the good guys side, as they would lack the will and determination to kill a bunch of randos, but the Deatheathers and people who kill a lot anyway surely would've put something together now?

I agree. It bothers me that Rowling has a black and white view of killing. All killing is murder and is irredeemably bad. Unless...you know it's Mrs. Weasley rage killing Bellatrix Lestrange for one of her lesser crimes.

Crucio curse I get why it's unforgiveable, thought there would be other ways of torturing with magic without using it, Imperius makes sense, yadda ya.

Also, Harry Potter himself became rather cavalier about using the Imperious Curse and even Cruciatious Curse and no one batted an eye.

Everything is black and white. This is completely unforgiveable, until Rowling flips a switch. As a writer if I create a rule in universe, I will try to abide by the rule in universe and not arbitrarily shut it off when I feel like. It's stuff like this that makes me think Rowling half-assed writing book 7 compared to the other six

Again this is all arising out of the bad boy myth, where the Slytherin is the bad person (often male in fanfics) that ‘needs help’ and the Hufflepuff (usually a female in fanfics) thinks they can heal them by being loyal and friendly and kind to them as typical Hufflepuffs are, when all that will actually happen is the Hufflepuff will just be abused by the Slytherin forever. Given that you say it is a typical ‘teenage girl fanfic’, it probably uses @Scalenex’s idea of the ‘taming the beast’ power fantasy which never works out well in real life.

It's not my idea. Lots of people have said that taming the beast is a common literary archetype for female protagonists.

I would also argue that yes it does work in real life. Kind of.

There is a limit to how much a "bad boy" can be saved or redeemed, but in a sense after World War II, a lot of soldiers got "tamed" by their wives during the Baby Boom as their aggression was redirected from war to the new peacetime economy. Beauty and the Beast stories just take real conflicts and exaggerate them.

Much like the archetypal story of "Kill the dragon, save the maiden, win the maiden." That's not literal, but if a man accomplishes difficult virtuous things, his odds of finding a mate increase.

Any safe, sane and stable girl on the other hand should ignore what’s on the outside and look for a man that is similarly safe, sane and stable and has a lot in common with them on the inside. Someone who truly loves and cares for them and at the same time has the inner strength to be comfortable and confident with who they are and what they want.

I agree with the sentiment behind your statement but I disagree with the way you worded.

I believe strongly in evolutionary psychology. It's not a moral failing or a sign of weakness to be affected by evolutionary psychology.

The gist of evolutionary psychology is that if human beings are driven to do something that doesn't make sense, ask yourself if this behavior would have made sense 100,000 years ago.

Evolution is very slow. Human beings have had agriculture for less than 10,000 years and we have had industrialization less than 200 years. Our minds and bodies are still hardwired for a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

Exercise is good for you but it is hard to do. In the 21st century, I want to sit on the couch binge watching Hulu and eat sugar all day but this behavior will shorten my lifespan.

100,000 years ago, even my ancestors by dumb luck found a high calorie delicious food source such as a large unguarded honey comb, their best course for survival is to rest and camp out near the food source until it's gone. In their case not eating the sugar and being active would lower their chances of survival, not raise it.

Due to evolutionary psychology, almost all women have a subconscious attraction to dangerous men even though in the 21st this is not a good idea. 100,000 years ago, it was a good idea. It's not a crime to indulge in this fantasy in the relatively harmless arena of literature.

Yep, the author of the fanfic has made the same mistake Rowling has, in that they’re vilifying pretty much all Slytherins. I certainly think that instead there should have been bad people in all the houses who embody the negative traits of that house as mentioned before.

I agree.

Avada Kedavra is unforgivable because it’s murder, like shooting someone with a gun or stabbing them with a sword is murder. It doesn’t matter if they die instantly and relatively painlessly, it’s still murder.

I agree with your sentiment.

But that is not what Rowling wrote.

Effectively Rowling created a governing system where killing someone with the Avada Kadavra curse is (legally speaking) worse than killing someone any other way which in my opinion is fairly nonsensical.


I brought up soldiers a lot. Let me bring up my least favorite scene in all of Deathly Hallows. I do not recall if this made it to the movie, but here goes.

As we all know, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were charged by Dumbledore to go find and destroy Voldomort's horcruxes. The other good guys were vaguely aware that these three young adults were on a mission from Dumbledore, but they didn't know any details.

Early in Book 7, Remus Lupin offered to join them.

For meta reasons, Rowling wanted to write a story about Harry, Ron and Hermione. That's what here fans wanted too. I understand that Rowling did not want Lupin to make their trio into a quartet.

But Harry really chewed out Lupin for wanting to join them and essentially told him that he was morally in the wrong for offering to join them because his place was with his pregneant wife.

This felt very autobiographical to me. JK Rowling was a struggling single mother and had some resentment towards her baby daddy.

I understand.

But Remus Lupin was not planning to run away from wife because he was afraid of responsibility. He wanted to save the wizarding world. Heck, he was protecting his unborn son too since it was clear that Voldomort and his minions were not above killing "mongrel" babies.

By outright stating that Lupin was an amoral fool for doing this, Rowling created a slap in the face for every man (or woman) who chose to temporarily leave their family in order to go to war for a just cause knowing that they might die in the process.

 

[Scalenex]

I don't have a problem with Dumbledore being gay but I have a problem with how JK Rowling chose to reveal it.

I was planning to reread all seven books in a row anyway, that's what I did. When book 5 came out, I read it immediately. Then I read 1-5 in order. When book 6 came out, I read it immediately, then I read 1-6 in order. A few weeks after Book 7 came out, Rowling announced that Albus Dumbledore was gay.

I paid attention to every seen with Dumbledore. There was tiny iota of hint to his sexuality in seven books.

If Rowling was trying to advance LGBT representation, she was being cowardly waiting till after all the books were out to do it.

I believe that after the last book in the series was published she was missing the constant media attention she was receiving up and brought up this minor controversy to get more attention.

He did dance with Madame Maxime but there was no romantic vibe in it like there was with Maxime and Hagrid.

There is only one tiny hint that Albus Dumbledore is that he is unmarried. But you never meet the spouse of any Hogwartz teacher. You never meet a son or daughter of any Hogwartz teacher. Flitwick, Snape, McGonagal, Hagrid, Trewlany and all the temporary Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers stay in Hogwartz Castle during Christmas vacation though the C-list Hogwartz teachers like Professor Vector seem to leave then.

The only Hogwartz teacher that is confirmed to be married is Lupin and he got married three years after he quit teaching and his friends had to twist his arm to pursue a romantic relationship.

I just kind of assumed that Hogwartz teachers are married to the job. I don't know about the traditions of British boarding schools, but in the United States before the 20th century, it was traditional that school marms quit teaching when they married. A small number chose to never marry and their kids were their students.

It was never stated out right in the books, but JK Rowling said that witches and wizards age a little bit slower than Muggles. McGonigal was in early seventies in book 1 and late seventies and book 7 but still spry. Dumbledore was about 150. 160 was about the maximum wizards tended to survive barring Nicholas Flemmel.

So Albus Dumbledore had a crush on a man during his early 20s. Then he beat him up his thirties and threw him jail. Then he was celibate for about 120 years. That's not gay. That's being an asexual.

But it doesn't really matter. In literature, if you don't write it, it didn't happen.

Like Shroedinger's cat who is neither dead nor alive, until you observe it. if you never bother covering the romantic proclivities of a characters they have no sexual orientation one way or the other.

One thing that bugged me is that in interviews Rowling talked about Fred and George Weasley as if they had distinct personalities. Later one loses an ear and the other dies. I don't remember which one.

Rowling talks about how difficult this was for because apparently the one that died was the gentler twin and the one lived was the more aggressive.

What?

In every book, in every movie, the twins are interchangeable. They finish each other's sentences. The only time they are seen apart is when took a girl to the ball and the other did not. Even when they were making out with Veela chicks at the wedding reception there were mentioned together.

They had the same classes, the same grades, as adults the same job. On the radio, they still finished each other's sentences and they picked aliases related to each other.

Twice in book 1, the twins took each other's name for fun.

When Molly Weasley saw a boggart turn into the corpses of all her loved ones, (presumably she saw Ginny dead before Harry got to her). Ron, Percy, Bill, and Arthur all got a seperate corpse seen but when the boggart mimicked the dead twins they were dead together. Even in the subconscious fears of their own mother, the twins are interchangeable. WTM?

I have a good friend who has very young twins. I cannot tell them apart but their parents can, and go into great detail on how their personalities are different even though they are just learning to talk. Actually I haven't seen them in a year plus because of Covid. They are four now and are much better talkers. Perhaps I will be able to tell them apart once I can visit them again.

A long the lines of not mentioning things in your writing. I got tired of orphan heroes so my protagonist Nilen the gnome has a huge family. Four siblings. He has six or seven aunts and uncles still alive and kicking. One of the aunts, Aunt Ariyas, I decided is a lesbian. I haven't figure out to work her into my first story, so I probably won't bring it up. Very few of Nilen's family is going to be in my novel but they will be mentioned in passing a fair lot because Nilen relies on the wisdom taught by his many family members, especially his Great Aunt Jomila who taught Nilen, his mother and aunt Ariyas about herbalism.

It's putting the cart before but if I come up with a sequel to A Cobbler's Journey, Nilen might meetup with his lesbian aunt. His lesbian aunt is a priestess of the god Korus (Korus' priests and priestesses are called Stewards). Nilen the cobbler has little reason to deal with the Stewards of Korus, but the Nilen the hero might end up working with them. After his first adventure Nilen is going to join the Tenders of Mera and the Tenders and Stewards are allies, so once Nilen gets involved in ecclesiastical politics, he might have reason to reach out to his aunt or visa versa.

I have no doubt Rowling had backstory in her own mind how the twins were different, but she never put pen to paper on this, so it didn't happen.

Again I have 300,000 words of backstory for my fantasy setting and less than a 1000 words of story. Lets say I do finish a nice 50,000 word novel. Technically anything on my World Anvil page that doesn't make it into the novel is not canon. Things don't exist in the minds of your readers if your readers cannot read them.

Likewise, readers can see things that the author never intended which are very real in their mind even if they are not canon but that is a discussion for another day.

Going back to LGBT characters. I like the LGBT characters that Rick Riordan includes. I know it's a different media but I like the LGB characters in Brooklyn 99. Pretty much everywhere else I don't like them. Perhaps it helps that Greek and Roman mythology is full of gods and heroes acting in a non-binary way.

The two traps LGBT characters fall into into either is A) their sexuality is practically their only noteworthy character trait or B) their sexuality is announced but it never affects the story in any way so it might as well not be mentioned.

 

[Killer Angel]

Going back to LGBT characters. I like the LGBT characters that Rick Riordan includes. I know it's a different media but I like the LGB characters in Brooklyn 99. Pretty much everywhere else I don't like them. Perhaps it helps that Greek and Roman mythology is full of gods and heroes acting in a non-binary way.

And Norse too! Our cultural roots are deeply intertwined with non-binary characters.

 

[Scalenex]

And Norse too! Our cultural roots are deeply intertwined with non-binary characters.

I never heard of that until I read the Magnus Chase series, but yes one of the major characters is gender fluid. I wasn't sure how normal that was for the ancient Norse but I do know that Loki would transform into a woman sometimes and the gender fluid character is a daughter/son of Loki.

 

[little-myth]

Got summoned here.
Problem is I'm the person that has seen the films but hasn't read the books, there is a problem with me reading books that are as large as the HP series, especially Order of the Phoenix if I recall as it was sitting around the house for a while. Reason why I haven't read any Warhammer books yet.
Fave film would probably be The Prisoner of Azkaban, maybe because werewolves and Buckbeak.
I do actually have the first two games on PS1 too, the charm of the attempt of realistic faces on PS1 polygons.
Should really brush up a bit more really, haven't watched any of the films for a long while now. Then I prefer watching up to a certain year and the rest, well nah really.
But I have been sitting quietly in the corner as it's a thing on the internet of a heavily split fanbase. Very at each other at the moment, especially with the rumored netflix series, people are telling others to make it fail.

 

[Killer Angel]

I do know that Loki would transform into a woman sometimes and the gender fluid character is a daughter/son of Loki.

And not only women... if you think to how sleipnir was born.
Norse Gods had no big issues on weird sex.

 

[Scalenex]

But I have been sitting quietly in the corner as it's a thing on the internet of a heavily split fanbase. Very at each other at the moment, especially with the rumored netflix series, people are telling others to make it fail.

And not only women... if you think to how sleipnir was born.
Norse Gods had no big issues on weird sex.

Greek mythology has plenty of weird horseplay.

Efforts to actively make something fail don't usually work. The opposite of love is not hatred. The opposite of love is indifference.

While I was initially way that Netflix is censoring stuff in a very uneven way (and doubling down on Cuties) the main reason I'm not on Netflix is that the material on Netflix is just not quite worth the monthly fee in my opinion.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

It's not my idea. Lots of people have said that taming the beast is a common literary archetype for female protagonists.

I merely stated it as your idea because you were the one who first brought it up in our discussions. Nothing more.

but in a sense after World War II, a lot of soldiers got "tamed" by their wives during the Baby Boom as their aggression was redirected from war to the new peacetime economy. Beauty and the Beast stories just take real conflicts and exaggerate them.

This is different from the bad boy idea, because the fact these women married their husbands before the war meant they got to know their normal personalities first (and their normal personalities were undoubtedly why the women chose to marry them), so when they came back with personalities ravaged by conflict, their wives knew there was good in them and knew that with work the good in them could return.

With the taming the bad boy idea in media, the girl doesn’t really know if the boy has good in him, she just hopes he does, and in reality that is a big gamble that usually leads to pain and disappointment.

Much like the archetypal story of "Kill the dragon, save the maiden, win the maiden." That's not literal, but if a man accomplishes difficult virtuous things, his odds of finding a mate increase.

This is true, but this is not limited to the ‘dangerous’ bad boy man. In fact I’d debate whether a bad boy would have the guts to fight said Dragon, because at the end of the day he thinks largely of himself, because though he may appear strong on the outside, he is internally weak. A man who is truly internally strong, on the other hand, would take the risk to kill the Dragon not just for the personal gain of fame and fortune or the personal gain of winning the maiden’s affections, but also because he cares about the lives of others, not just the maiden but also the other people of the land who are all beset by the dragon. True inner strength relies upon being willing to respect both oneself and other people.

Funnily enough, the ‘taming the beast’ plotline relies a lot on the ‘beast’ being both strong and caring on the inside, so really it is idolising the ‘strong but caring type’ rather than the bad boy (indeed if we were to use ‘Beauty and the Beast’ as a case study, Gaston is a bad boy figure - he’s handsome, physically strong and outgoing, but he’s also brash, self-centred and bullying as a bad boy is). Unfortunately some women mistake the bad boy type for the strong but caring type to their cost.

I believe strongly in evolutionary psychology. It's not a moral failing or a sign of weakness to be affected by evolutionary psychology.

On the contrary I think it is a weakness to allow instinct to overpower reasoning. We’re one of the few animals that has the luxury of complex reasoning skills, and we can choose to listen to those reasoning skills, because they are there to protect us from dangerous situations that our instincts can lead us into. Indeed most women these days probably do this and use their reasoning skills to see past a bad boy’s exterior to the internal weakness inside of him (I’m trying to see the best in people here), but not all of them do. This is particularly the case when the woman in question is either emotionally immature (and still interested primarily in the superficial exterior), lacking in intelligence (and cognitively less able to determine an individual’s internal personality), or suffering from emotional trauma (and prone to misattributing fear of a bad boy figure as arousal). It’s these women who suffer the most, because they cannot tell the difference between a bad boy and a strong and caring man, and the results are not only tragic but are becoming increasingly common.

Unfortunately modern society is increasingly encouraging people to follow their instinctive passions and not their higher reasoning, all thanks to these so-called ‘progressives’ who tear down laws and rules established by previous generations just because they seem ‘harsh’ or because ‘they want to rebel’. In their stupidity they forget to realise that these cultural rules were established to promote an orderly and healthy society, and by removing them they are doing more and more to make the modern world one great big Slaaneshi Cult. Children are no longer given much discipline by their parents, meaning they are no longer given much education on what is right and wrong and making them much more prone to follow instinct rather than reason, and so humanity is doing more and more to return to its animalistic ancestry, and less and less to rise above it.

Due to evolutionary psychology, almost all women have a subconscious attraction to dangerous men even though in the 21st this is not a good idea. 100,000 years ago, it was a good idea.

Again, I think you’re confusing the ‘dangerous’ type with the ‘strong and caring’ type.

If you want to talk about Stone Age tribes, a dangerous man as a leader would be just as likely to lead the tribe to its doom as its salvation, because he thinks mostly of himself. He can also be unstable and There is a reason why leaders such as Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Kim Jong-Un and even Donald Trump are hated - they were all dangerous men with varying degrees of instability who didn’t care for the people under their rule. Conversely, a leader who is both strong enough to make the decisions and considerate of the needs of the tribe under him is idolised as the ideal ruler throughout society, because he brings success to both himself and his subjects. There is a saying that ‘a king is the servant of his people, not the other way round’.

Similarly, if we were to use evolutionary psychology, it is a fact that women are drawn to men who are good providers. A dangerous man is not a good provider because even if he brings the goods home, he’s unlikely to have any respect for the family he is providing for because he is unpredictable and self-obsessed. A strong and caring man on the other hand can not only provide the resources, but can also be relied upon to support his wife and children in times of need. A good provider doesn’t just provide resources, he also provides love and aid.

It's not a crime to indulge in this fantasy in the relatively harmless arena of literature.

I would say in some ways it is, because any emotionally immature teenage girl who reads it will think ‘Oh God I must have a bad boy so I can live this fantasy’, and she ends up being shagged, abandoned and forced to give birth to a child with bad genes from their unpleasant father. The influence of the media is becoming stronger and stronger these days, and as long as it continues to encourage the wrong behaviour this influence will only get more negative.

Instead, I would like to see literature and the media do more to encourage women to look for genuinely strong and caring men, who have an inner strength as strong as (or stronger than) their outer strength, so that if a woman wants to live a fantasy she reads in a book or sees in a film, she chooses a fantasy that will maximise her chances of finding a happy married life and family.

 

[Scalenex]

This is different from the bad boy idea, because the fact these women married their husbands before the war meant they got to know their normal personalities first (and their normal personalities were undoubtedly why the women chose to marry them), so when they came back with personalities ravaged by conflict, their wives knew there was good in them and knew that with work the good in them could return.

Maybe my grandparents were not the norm, but they did not even meet until after the war. Since I heard so many anecdotal stories like this I assumed it was the norm.

On the contrary I think it is a weakness to allow instinct to overpower reasoning.

If it is weakness to allow instinct to overpower reasoning, then human beings a weak species indeed.

If 90% of the human race is below the baseline, the baseline is wrong and we need something more realistic.

If you want to talk about Stone Age tribes, a dangerous man as a leader would be just as likely to lead the tribe to its doom as its salvation, because he thinks mostly of himself.

Evolutionary psychology is not nice and it's not fair.

A dangerous man is not a good provider because even if he brings the goods home, he’s unlikely to have any respect for the family he is providing for because he is unpredictable and self-obsessed.

In a Stone Age situation, without police, without law. A woman is more likely to survive submitting to such a dangerous individual than trying to resist him because he can easily kill her without any repercussions. "He's a good provider" or "he's exciting" and all that other stuff is just window dressing and mental gymnastics to rationalize the behavior.

Conversely, a leader who is both strong enough to make the decisions and considerate of the needs of the tribe under him is idolised as the ideal ruler throughout society, because he brings success to both himself and his subjects. There is a saying that ‘a king is the servant of his people, not the other way round’.

I agree. But such leaders are rare. There are not enough of them for every woman to marry such a good king.

I would say in some ways it is, because any emotionally immature teenage girl who reads it will think ‘Oh God I must have a bad boy so I can live this fantasy’, and she ends up being shagged, abandoned and forced to give birth to a child with bad genes from their unpleasant father.

I believe bad boy romance stories are reflections of society rather than drivers of change in society.

Instead, I would like to see literature and the media do more to encourage women to look for genuinely strong and caring men, who have an inner strength as strong as (or stronger than) their outer strength, so that if a woman wants to live a fantasy she reads in a book or sees in a film, she chooses a fantasy that will maximise her chances of finding a happy married life and family.

I'm going to try to do this with my fiction. My good guy characters are all going to have strong tightly knit families.

I'm just concerned that people will not want to watch "boring" happy families and good relationships.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

If it is weakness to allow instinct to overpower reasoning, then human beings a weak species indeed.

If 90% of the human race is below the baseline, the baseline is wrong and we need something more realistic.

On the contrary, if human society is to better itself then it should work to get more of its populace to exceed the baseline.

Maybe my expectations are too high, but I genuinely want society to escape the hedonistic, unjust, degenerate mess that it is currently in, and the only way humanity can do that is by working .

Things won’t work if people don’t.

Evolutionary psychology is not nice and it's not fair.

Which is why, when talking about humans, I prefer to use the laws of conscience, justice and morals. We are blessed with knowledge and appreciation of these concepts, most likely the only animal that is, so why not use it to deliver ourselves from ruin, rather than wasting it and allowing our lives to fall apart at the seams?

In a Stone Age situation, without police, without law. A woman is more likely to survive submitting to such a dangerous individual than trying to resist him because he can easily kill her without any repercussions.

Yes, but this is a ‘last resort’ situation when her life is under threat. What about everyday situations when there are most likely several eligible bachelors about besides the unstable ruler? She would then be free to choose a strong but caring individual.

I agree. But such leaders are rare. There are not enough of them for every woman to marry such a good king.

Which is why we should encourage more people to behave this way. We should have role models that emphasise these qualities, not the shallow, superficial, promiscuous qualities modern celebrities show.

I believe bad boy romance stories are reflections of society rather than drivers of change in society.

A fair assumption, given current society is an hedonistic, unjust, degenerate mess. But it is time for the media to advocate what the future should be, can be, if we work to trust conscientious reasoning over degenerate instinct.

I'm going to try to do this with my fiction. My good guy characters are all going to have strong tightly knit families.

I'm just concerned that people will not want to watch "boring" happy families and good relationships.

Good for you, I wish you the best of luck with your story. Thrax in Escalonia has a happy family and a good and sweet love interest too.

The best people will appreciate your work. Who cares about those people that don’t have any respect for what society should be rather than what is currently is? If they don’t wish to listen to reason and work to better themselves, they are not worth anyone’s help. It’s no use trying to help someone if they don’t help themselves.

The main thing is you’ve made the right choice and are doing your best to try and get other people to also make the right life choices. That’s all you can do, and I salute you for it.

 

[Tk'ya'pyk]

I thought the books were all right, as were the movies. Haven't seen any of the spin-off stuff. Ironically, I mostly like Harry Potter for the interesting Lego stuff it gives us. Centaurs and hippogriffs, anyone?

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

I thought the books were all right, as were the movies. Haven't seen any of the spin-off stuff. Ironically, I mostly like Harry Potter for the interesting Lego stuff it gives us. Centaurs and hippogriffs, anyone?

Yes!!!!!

I’ve got both the Hagrid’s Hut set with Buckbeak (which I made not that long ago) and the Umbridge’s Encounter set with multipart Grawp and the Centaur minifigures (which I only just got for Christmas and haven’t made yet).

I’m honestly so pleased about the new Harry Potter Lego range, because I missed out on the original range of Lego made for the HP films, and this new range not only gives me a chance to collect some of the new sets but also enjoy the superior quality of the new sets’ minifigures!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

I do have a lump of obsidian where my heart should be so I am a bit cynical on romantic love. I am concerned that this going to be an impediment to me writing novels that people want to read if I cannot include a romantic subplot.

Haha, I’m similarly sceptical about the point of short-term relationships because I cannot comprehend why people could ever be so insincere, disloyal and casual about something as intimate as sex. It is animalistic, almost going back to the level of chimps and bonobos.

As we seem to be opposites to each other in the subject of fictional romance I can help you out with your romantic subplots if you wish, PM me if you ever need advice on it.

I burned out from Harry Potter and lost faith in franchises. A variety of reviewers I trust said the Fantastic Beasts movies were not very good. I am not happy they axed Johnny Depp from the franchise either.

This is awful, made all the worse by the fact that it’s more likely that it was his wife that was the perpetrator of the supposed ‘domestic violence’.

To derail this thread a little there are alleged rumours about there being a Pirates of the Caribbean 6. I think this is a bad idea that would wear out the franchise, because the fifth film tied up all the loose ends caused by At World’s End and On Stranger Tides. That’s a good place to end it. Though now that Depp won’t be in it, I think we can say that pirate ship has now sailed, thank goodness.

Fantastic Beasts, however, is in a much more rocky position. Now they have a contingency problem that rivals the Sequel Trilogy after The Last Jedi.

If they just write Grindelwald out and bring in a new villain played by a new actor, the rest of the saga will undoubtedly flop due to the sudden change.

If they bring in a new actor to replace Depp in playing Grindelwald, the rest of the saga still has a good chance of flopping, unless said new actor can do a sterling job mimicking the voice and body language of Depp’s original character.

They did have this problem when making Harry Potter. Richard Harris, the original actor who played Dumbledore, died after Chamber of Secrets was made, and of course Michael Gambon stepped in to fill the gap. Though he did a good job, I do prefer Richard Harris’ original interpretation, which I feel was more mysterious and at the same time whimsical, something Gambon’s Dumbledore didn’t do very well in my view. This combined with his different voice and outfits made the transition from Chamber of Secrets to Prisoner of Azkaban quite jarring for me, and he was a side character at the end of the day. Grindelwald on the other hand is the Voldemort of the Fantastic Beasts films, one of the two main characters alongside Newt really, so the problem is made many times worse. If they don’t handle the transition from Depp to a new actor carefully enough, the last three films could be seriously affected.

I think Rowling had too much creative control in the movies. It was pointed out that the revealed Nagini was a witch who was an anamagus but they stated in the movie that she risked being stuck as a snake forever. Okay I guess that is a neat Easter egg for Voldomort's pet snake Nagini. A little weird but not weird for the universe.

The problem according to a reviewer is that Nagini does not advance the plot, either as a woman or a snake, so her inclusion in the movies is a bad thing.

At this point in time it doesn’t contribute anything, but remember that Crimes of Grindelwald is the second of allegedly five films. There’s still time for Nagini to contribute something, and we don’t yet know how she permanently becomes a snake.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

 

[Scalenex]

I took this as inspiration for a little L-O tweak.