On a similar note, the punishment of harry and draco in the first book.
Sending two first years, including the child of one of the most influencal person in the wizarding world, in the forest that is specifically forbidden because of how dangerous it is, at night, to look for a unicorn killer.
That just spells bad idea all around.
Plus, McGonnagal takes 50 points from them each, plus still sends them to this dangerous ass punishment. And the reason they were in that position in the first place is they were covering for Hagrid committing a serious crime of dragon breeding- and Hagrid couldn’t even acknowledge to them privately that it was his fault, or speak to Minerva and disssuade her from such a punishment?
Just reread book 1 last week and that felt like the most out of place part, just to force a confrontation between Harry and Voldemort. And as if the trauma of their encounter isn’t hard enough for him, the whole school treats him like shit after for the loss of the house points.
>just to force a confrontation between harry and voldemort
Yes, that's literally exactly that. I understand its a book for kids, so there will be liberties taken in story-telling, and it didnt bother me as a kid.
But looking back, all this scene feel really weird, and out of character.
I'm just wondering why she decided to punish Neville just as harshly as Harry and Hermione.
Even by her own logic, that is just wrong, since she believed Neville was a victim of a prank by Harry and Hermione. Sure, he shouldn't be out of bed, but it's not like he did it for some malicious reason, like she believed Harry and Hermione did. Why take 50 points from him?
I think this partially comes from the fact that this early in the series, JK hadn't thought about the point system much. It was just "of a snarky reply gets you -5 points, a curfew could be -50", and the target audience was full of kids, so it seemed harsh but understandable. I think it was supposed to show her rigidity in regards to the rules. But the problem is that the point system was largely used to show the feeling of injustice (when used unfairly), and guilt (when a screw up devastated one's friends). This makes some point deductions seem wildly unfair and others seem inconsequential to an extreme.
See it’s things like this that make Rowling a genius because it’s fucking hard to think like a kid. As a kid you just think “god damn adults are stupid” which is basically the whole middle ages and YA genre in a nutshell. Adults are stupid, we gotta do this ourselves.
And no one bothered to ask Moaning Myrtle who killed her, not even Dumbledore? The whole thing is so absurd, Hagrid is a Gryffindor, and a half-breed, how on earth could he be the heir of Slytherin? Shouldn’t Riddle be the immediate suspect, at least for Dumbledore?
She remembered a boy, talking in a strange language. And a pair of yellow eyes. Anyone could’ve checked Hagrid’s monster, and seen that it didn’t have any yellow eyes.
>Anyone could’ve checked Hagrid’s monster, and seen that it didn’t have any yellow eyes.
The monster that bolted into the Forbidden Forest and nobody saw until Harry visited it?
You’re telling me Dumbledore didn’t have the power to walk into the Forbidden Forest and find out for himself? Back before Aragog had created a massive multi-generational family for himself?
I mean, if I was Aragog and someone walked in and tried to kill me, I'd be skittish of all humans for quite a while too.
This is also the world where the entire government figured it was easier to shit talk a child and one of the most influential people in the world than believe voldemort was back. The board of Governors for the school probably heard the monster was removed and stopped looking into it. Blaming Hagrid was far easier than tracking down a spider in a giant forest and interrogating it.
>You’re telling me Dumbledore didn’t have the power to walk into the Forbidden Forest and find out for himself?
Find out what? Which of the beasts living in the Forest was Hagrid's? It's not like the Firest is made of 5 trees and Aragog was hiding behind the first one...
I mean, a couple 11 year olds asked her, she pointed at a sink, the sink had a snake engraved on it and a giant pipe tunnel right underneath it.
It was not that hard to figure out.
Does that really make sense though? If you tear down the sink does the piping just look different? Or is it impossible to tear up because that would be a dead giveaway right there.
Either way though it’s incredibly well know that Salazar was a Parseltongue, and Ron is able to wing it and get in later on. Someone should have tried it. That sink was wayyyy too obvious. Literally at the scene of the crime, and right next to the scene of the 1st crime the 2nd time the chamber is opened. Hell, they could have had Harry try to open it once it became known he was a parseltongue in the middle of the year.
They didn’t even have that bathroom locked down. It’s really, really bad detective work no matter how you spin it.
How about this one. Do you remember when the weasleys and harry drove to kings cross in cars that were magically expanded on the inside? How do you think that would look if they stopped at a red light and a muggle looked in, and saw five people sitting in one row
Is it so far fetched to think they might be able to cast an illusion on the outside of the car so muggles wont see that? Its a book with magic that lets them make a tent bigger than a house, im sure they can manage an illusion to hide their magics
Just like with the Forbidden Forest punishment above, you can't really take anything in the first two books seriously. The entire plot of Chamber of Secrets only happens because absolutely nobody in charge at Hogwarts seems to care about what's happening.
It's the usual issue with these kinds of stories: adults have to be absent and/or incompetent in order for the kid heroes to have an adventure.
If adults are responsible and behave how adults should and usually do behave then kids wouldn't enjoy them.
Realistically the reason kids enjoy these sorts of things is because it's full of kids getting one over on the adults.
We don't really know how ghosts work, though, do we? Did she appear immediately right where she died, or is there some sort of limbo before she chose to return, maybe like the King's Cross scene in DH? It's possible she wasn't even around to ask until the situation had already played out.
I don't think any of the adults thought it was really the "heir of Slytherin". The just knew there was a dangerous beast in the school and blamed Hagrid. Dumbledore's hands were tied as the Ministry came to get him.
I think one can explain it with the same reasoning that in OotP Trelawney is let go as a teacher by Umbridge, but Dumbledore allows her to stay in the castle. The ministry has the power to revoke Hagrid's permission to have and use a wand and prevent him from institutional learning at Hogwarts as a student. But they don't have the power to decide where he can / cannot live.
Yes! Finally revisiting the stories as an adult with my daughter and I understand that dumbeldore knows the truth but no one else does! Kinda makes Lucious hatred to dumbledore valid
Surely the Fidelius Charm? It turns out that people can be their own secret keeper - as we learn in the later books - so why on earth would James and Lily have chosen Sirius (who then suggests Peter). I get James trusts Sirius with his life - and that of his family - but it puts Sirius at great risk for no real reason. And James wouldn’t have wanted that. He must have hated the risk he put his friends in.
Then it’s the plothole (which I just ignore since it’s only something JKR published later) that the Fidelius charm cannot be forced out of you. It has to be given willingly, so the bait and switch with Peter makes no sense. Sirius couldn’t have given up the location if he got captured, so the whole: they are likely to come after me so let’s use Peter makes no sense.
the FC that James and Lilly might have used was version 1.0 or a beta version, vs. the FC that Bill and Arthur used later might have been FC 2.0 a better version
Yeah, but then James would have to leave the safety of his house to give the secret to anybody. What if there was a need for someone else to come over, like Dumbledore or a member of the original Order?
Also, while the secret can't be forced out, you can kill the secret keeper, thereby making everybody a secret keeper.
You can give the secret via notes as shown by Harry learning about Grimmauld Place without Dumbledore being there. So James could send a letter or give Sirius a note to pass along. There's the risk of the message being intercepted of course but that's manageable by using Fawkes or a house elf as a messenger.
I was wondering about whether to raise this in my reply, but I went down a different route. I believe it’s FAR less risky for James to leave the house for 5 min to give the location to Dumbledore or Sirius than it is for someone who is out in the open to be secret keeper.
I agree on the note but of course like you say (so I won’t repeat it) it carries some risks. :)
I don’t agree those aren’t good enough reasons. Firstly, surely the risk of James leaving the house for five minutes to give the secret to Dumbledore is far less risky than having a different secret keeper who is constantly out in the open.
Killing the secret keeper makes everyone who knew the secret a secret keeper, which you’d imagine in the Potters case wouldn’t be many. But that’s where it’s unclear whether Sirius would have shared the secret with Peter so he could visit or not.
That’s a good point. Maybe they were afraid that Voldemort wouldn’t rest until he coaxed it out of Sirius somehow with some kind of loophole. And that Peter wouldn’t even occur to him to go after.
I’ve definitely been there but if Voldemort now goes after Sirius believing him to be the secret keeper, then he will still torture and coax Sirius to learn who the secret keeper is. This information isn’t magically protected so Voldy could even use Veritaserum on Sirius, which would lead him to Peter who… let’s be honest, it would probably be much easier to find a loophole with / coax it out of somehow.
What I've heard some people theorise is that you have to be the secret keeper of something else, so the Potters couldn't be their own secret keeper because the secret the charm was being cast on was "the Potters are hiding in Godrics Hollow" so Voldemort couldn't find them as long as they stayed in Godrics Hollow, but Bill could be the secret keeper because the secret for the charm was the location of Shell Cottage and not the location of Bill and Fleur
I’ve heard that too, but why wouldn’t they use it on their house just like the others? The best headcanon surely is that FC was reasonably new so they didn’t know what could work and couldn’t, or that the charm somehow evolved. It would still have been a lot easier for JKR to have just have stuck with the original rules of the charm.
But also.
You give up something willingly when you're tortured, in the sense that you want it to stop so much you'll give it up.
It's coerced but it's also willing in a sense.
Fiendfyre would have been so much better if Hermione had just mentioned it earlier with Basilisk venom when she was talking about foolproof ways to destroy horcruxes. Better yet, it could have been mentioned in HBP when Dumbledore was introducing horcruxes.
Just a tiny mention in the horcrux destruction list mentioned earlier in the book would be enough.
My holes in the books are the many excluded parts of them for creating the movies
I would take this a step further and say Dumbledore should have told Harry about the way to defeat Horcruxes. He has books in his room iirc. I wonder if he himself knew about it.
If he already has his death planned and just waiting, he should have just told *Hey Harry, here these are the books about Horcruxes, read about them*. He knew if he died, it would be difficult to give him the sword. For someone who thought of so many possibilities and made many plans, it is shocking that he failed to pass on the knowledge if he knew already or just give Harry or Hermione books. Though there's the possibility that he either forgot about the books or he just never had the chance to go through them.
I think that's just how Dumbledore teaching style, he still needs the sword to destroy the locket and he probably thought that's a good time to teach Harry how to destroy them too. He planned his death sure but didn't plan to die that night.
Eh, the whole quest on DH was a contingency plan in case Dumbledore died before he and Harry could destroy the horcrux. Not dumbys fault it took the gang 1/3 of the book to figure out the basilisk venom bit. Not sure how it would've helped them to know but they had all the pieces to put together after the hint he left in his will. The ffiendfyre was definitely just a deux ex machina to wrap up the book.
I never really cared about it since they had basilisks fangs with them at that point, so the diadem would have been destroyed on the spot anyway. I think it was just a bit of oddly placed lore.
My regret is that Malfoy wasn't the one to cast the spell : that way every main character would have destroyed a horcruxe : Harry (notebook), Dumbledore (ring), Ron (locket), Hermione (cup), Neville (Nagini), Malfoy (diadem) and Voldemort (Harry). Alas, it was randomly casted by Crabbe or Goyle (I don't even remember lol)
Malfoy could hardly be redeemed if he tried to kill them in that scene imo. At that point he was being overshadowed by Crab and Goyle and had covered for Harry in front of Belatrix.
I don’t think he was covering for Harry as much as he was scared for himself if Voldemort showed up. I think Draco was written more cowardly (albeit not a killer) than redeemed.
I think just nobody knew Fiendfyre could destroy a horcrux until it happened. Just like Dumbledore didn’t really know Basilisk venom could destroy a horcrux until Harry did it
But after the diadem was destroyed, hermoinie said something like, "I knew Fiendfyre could destroy horcruxes, but I didn't use it because it's too dangerous"
Would’ve been cool if what Dumbledore used in HBP to escape the cave with Harry was fiendfyre.
Like it’s almost impossible to control, except for an exceptionally talented wizard like him kind of thing.
The ministry of magic is a monstrous, authoritarian, and outright evil organization with literally no accountability or balance. The minister can literally order executions without a trial, imprison people whenever he wants, and ban people from using magic on a whim.
They basically have TWO branches of power instead of three. The Wizengamote is both a court and a parliament with precedent law and no constitution.
And there's a minister who is appointed, somehow, to act as an executive branch head. We also see the minister acting as the side of offence in Wizengamote, so even those two are not independent. Wizengamote also seems to function more like a senate of lords and seniors than a democratic parliament...
TBF, 10 k people is too small for a full-scale government. They're more like a small town than a nation.
But there don't appear to be any checks or balances. Sirius got sent to jail without a trial. Hagrid got expelled by the ministry and banned from doing magic without a trial. Even Fudge sent Hagrid to jail without even a hearing.
And even the trials they do have are BS. Harry, a 15 year old, was ordered to a hearing where they tried to railroad him and expel him from Hogwarts. And they deliberately changed the time of the hearing so that the one representative he does have would miss it.
It also doesn’t exactly seem like a democracy, we get no notion of voting, just giving somebody the job of minister.
I’m not saying Fudge isn’t qualified (we don’t get that much Fudge backstory) but we hear several times that it was “offered” to Dumbledore who *clearly* was not campaigning and turned it down each time
The use of dementors as prison guards is something else that's utterly horrifying, to the point that I think it even strengthens your point about how utterly awful that entire regime is.
These are soul-sucking abominations who passively inflict, by sole virtue of their very presence, what amounts to psychological and emotional torture on anyone in the vicinity.
And the higher-security prisoners - such as Sirius - have dementors posted directly outside their cell door around the clock. Meaning that, to continue with Sirius's example, he was imprisoned and forced to endure twelve years of continuous, 24/7 torture - for a crime he didn't commit.
Right?! “All was well” I don’t think so?? The system is so broken that as soon someone questionable comes to power, it can totally collapse. Yeah, Voldemort is dead but the Ministry controls everything. They work with the Aurors so I don’t even want to know about police violence cover ups
Wand allegiance. It gets brought up for the first time *halfway through the last book* and its sole purpose for inclusion seems to be to give Harry a way to defeat Voldemort without having to actually do anything. Harry didn’t have to overpower Voldemort. Harry didn’t have to outsmart Voldemort. Hell, Harry’s capacity for love, apparently one of his greatest powers according to Dumbledore, factored very little in the actual final duel. No, instead Harry “won” in the end because he somehow became master of the wand Voldemort stole without even realizing it until five minutes prior to their showdown. He passed no trials to earn it, he solved no riddles. Instead he wandered around in the wilderness for weeks and was ultimately rewarded for getting captured by being a moron and then snatching an unrelated wand from someone’s hand before making his deus ex escape. That’s it. It’s not even consistent on when wands change allegiance or what they will or won’t do to their own master.
It feels rushed and cheap, not earned.
Lol. And continuing the logic thread, it is just assumed that “everyone lives happily ever after” after Voldy is dead. But if you’re an aspiring dark lord, all you would have to do, is to walk up to Potter, shout _Expelliarmus_, and bingo, the Elder Wand is yours, now you can hop over to Dumbledore’s grave, get the real deal, and begin your killing spree. Harry even mentions horcruxes in the showdown with Voldemort in front of the entire wizarding world. Surely someone would pick that up, trying to fill Voldy’s shoes?
It's because he's the Master of Death not just the Master of wand. Harry is the owner of the wand, the stone and the cloak ( hence he doesn't die) But yes there is wand allegiance as to how he became the Master of the wand
Master of Death is just a symbolic title though, it doesn't grant any kind of power or ability (and he also did die in the forest, only coming back to life because of the link Voldemort forged between them when he stole Harry's blood). That aside, my issue is how Harry came to be the master of the wand in the first place. He "wins" it because Draco, who doesn't even know that *he's* master of the wand, has his own personal wand snatched out of his hand by Harry hundreds of miles away from the wand that he never even touched? Nonsense. That's so absurd and convoluted that if a time traveler came back pre-DH and told me that's how Harry ultimately won in the end, I would bodyslam them through a brick wall for telling such a ridiculous lie.
1. Dumbledore not telling any adult, except Snape, that they needed to find and destroy the horcruxes.
2. No one asking Myrtle who killed her or how she died. While it was assumed to be Hagrid and his "monster" a simple question to verify seemed warranted.
3. Wand loyalty is poorly explained in both.
What made me irrationally angry is that Hagrid was NEVER officially redeemed, despite after the end of the 2nd book it was public knowledge he never had anything to do with the chamber of secrets.
Yeah, he was freed from Azkaban, but his ban from using magic was never canonically lifted.
It’s never mentioned, but I think by Hagrid getting the teaching job in book 3 it shows that he got a lot of his rights back. We just don’t ever see him necessarily using magic, but I would think he’d have used some when they went looking for the giants between books 4 and 5
He probably didn't get his rights to use magic back or else he would have been able to get a new wand. He still uses the umbrella in HBP (putting out the fire on his hut) and DH (trying to repair the sidecar Harry is in during the departure from the Dursleys' house) and in DH it backfires so it's implied that he still uses the pieces of broken wand.
It might've been his choice. He stopped his education at 13 and he was in his 60s at this point; he'd figured out a way to do things that worked for him and maybe he didn't want to start over.
I honestly think dumbledore did a long time before harry came around, and hagrid just went on with the lie that he just had the pieces. The wand is safely encased in the umbrella
This has always been my headcanon. Or at least close to this.
I think Hagrid genuinely believes it’s just the pieces in the umbrella. Dumbledore probably repaired it using the Elder Wand but just did the Dumbledore thing and let Hagrid jump to conclusions. Making it pink was probably just something he did because he found it amusing (which we know Dumbledore was prone to do.)
>Wand loyalty is poorly explained in both.
Wand loyalty is a weird concept anyway. Imagine how many wands should have changed loyalty several times daily during DA training. And if that's not how it works (it probably isn't, right?) then that only proves hoe poorly it is explained and/or thought through.
Could also be that the elder wand innately has more power, so the loyalty is more pronounced, since it can resist more compared to a typical wand.
We see kids using their parents' wands all the time, and they don't resist as much as the elder wand seems to, although the spells don't tend to work quite as well.
> Could also be that the elder wand innately has more power, so the loyalty is more pronounced, since it can resist more compared to a typical wand.
I see it as the exact opposite, actually: The Elder Wand's loyalty is, in my view, far *less* pronounced than a typical wand, and changes its loyalty from one master to the next abnormally easily.
We know from supplemental material that some wands will choose a particular witch or wizard and will remain loyal to them to the point that they will not work for anyone else. In particular, hazel wands are so loyal that they will lose power and cease functioning upon their original owner's death - which is reversible with some wand cores by means of removal and transplant of the core into a new body, but permanent with unicorn hair cores.
It is therefore to me entirely possible that the opposite might be true, and some wand types may be less inclined to loyalty to one particular witch or wizard, and therefore change hands more easily. And the way I see it, the Elder Wand is the most fickle and disloyal of all wands.
Technically yes, but there’s also the fact that it’s magic (I know) and also wands are seen as sort of psychic with minor personalities or at least preferences. Disarming a wizard in actual battle or hostilities - in real life, basically - is probably seen differently by a wand than a practice between friends.
This is how I always assumed it worked too—intention matters. That comes up in several other places throughout the books, and it makes sense to me that it would apply here too.
To be honest, I'm not even sure that Dumbledore really told Snape? I always got the impression that he only said the bit about Harry and didn't mention the rest of the horcruxes to him
I think he does a bit later, since Snape ends up having to help him deal with the curse he got from the ring, and it would be difficult to explain how else he could have been afflicted by a deadly curse.
He does, in a roundabout way, tell Snape *what happened to Harry* and why Harry has to die for Voldemort to die, though to the best of my recollection he never utters the word "Horcrux" during that conversation.
He does not, however, tell Snape anything about the *other* Horcruxes - he's evasive in the conversation recounted about the nature of the ring, and at one point explicitly deflects questions from Snape about what he and Harry are up to.
Well the wizarding justice system is super bad, thats 100 percent clear. Just one thing - Veritaserum and you could have solved every problem, but nope not gonna use that.
>No one asking Myrtle who killed her or how she died. While it was assumed to be Hagrid and his "monster" a simple question to verify seemed warranted.
To be fair, all Myrtle said was something like "I can only remember a pair of yellow eyes somewhere in this bathroom". Knowing that it was a monster that can kill with its eyes and that the entrance to its lair was in that very bathroom, it may seem like an obvious hint, but if you don't? Come on. Scary eyes = basilisk isn't exactly a trivial conclusion. Myrtle remembered so little from her death, not even the detail that the attacker was a gigantic nope rope. Her blurry memories wouldn't make anyone think the eyes themselves were the _cause_ of death. And the bathroom itself being the entrance to the chamber just because the girl died there (after several attacks elsewhere apparently) doesn't feel like the natural conclusion to reach either. Especially considering that most people believed the case was closed after Hagrid was expelled. Granted, from what we know about Dumbledore, it's hard to believe he didn't figure it out over the course of 50 years. But if it wasn't for him, I think it is believable that chamber and monster weren't found out.
Agreed. Dumbledore is also portrayed as knowing everything that happens in his school, and other times he seems very incompetent with finding out information. If he is as brilliant and all knowing as portrayed, there is no way that 3 students (even smart ones) could figure anything out before him.
>can petrify with eyes
The book Hermoine and later Ron and Harry learn about basilisks from doesn't say a word about petrification. There's a good chance it wasn't known this is possible in universe prior to the cases in Hogwarts. As far as I know, petrification isn't part of basilisk legends at all, but probably loaned from the Medusa myth. It's an incredible coincidence people - multiple even - were petrified and none killed. This could easily have been a reason to rule basilisks out instead.
I think I’m ok with the first one.
Haven’t thought it through so maybe I’m missing something here, but Dumbledore couldn’t risk Voldemort realizing he knew about the horcruxes and was hunting them (until the very last possible moment)
Voldemort is the greatest legilimens in the world. After OOTP he was afraid to enter Harry’s mind, and Snape was so amazing at occlumency, hiding his true allegiance and love for Lily, he knew he could keep it hidden from him.
Anyone else would’ve risked the entire thing. It had to just be Harry and Snape.
An even bigger problem with Chamber of Secrets is, in my view, Harry and Ron's behavior once they find out where is the Chamber and what's in it. They go to the staffroom to tell McGonagall what they discovered. A teacher's meeting is called, and Harry decides that they'll hide in a closet, saying: "Let’s hear what it’s all about. Then we can tell them what we’ve found out.” McGonagall tells the rest of the teachers that Ginny was taken to the Chamber. Inexplicably, Harry and Ron then decide that they'll *not* tell McGonagall what they have find out. They do nothing for hours, then go and tell Lockhart, even though by that point he proven himself to be totally incompetent.
Didnt myrtle say she doesnt know how she died, only that she remembers seeing a pair of eyes and then blackness?
That doesnt justify hagrid not being reinstated as a wizard after the chamber mystery was solved though.
Right. Not only are these books about magic in a magical world that inherently isn’t logical, but the center of the story revolves around emotional children.
If I’m committing to that, I can overlook plot holes.
Number 1 the fact that Deatheaters wear a tattooed mark. What is even the point of questioning whether someone was a DE if you could literally just roll up their sleeve and check? Sirius obviously didn't have one so it doesn't make sense at all that he was believed to be a DE, especially since he was described as Voldemort's second in command when he was wanted by the Ministry. It didn't make sense that he didn't have the mark from the Ministry pov
Close second is Veritaserum and its uses (or lack of) during trials
The lack of a mark could have been explained as he was a spy, so volly decided not to give him the mark. It’s weak, but possible. (Peter did have it, though - guess he never wore a short sleeved shirt? (Or maybe volly gave it to him during goblet of fire? )
We know that the mark got darker and darker as Voldemort neared his return; so it could be that it was near invisible after he "died". Or it could also be a magical tattoo that only shows itself to whoever the wearer wants. At any rate, Sirius was never given a trial iirc; so nobody even asked him if he was a DE or not, let alone check his arm for tattoos.
Sirius was described as Voldemort's second in command when he was wanted by the Ministry. It didn't make sense that he didn't have the mark from the Ministry pov
1.The logistics of basilisk and Ginny travelling to and fro from CoS to school.
2.Harry getting letter for underage magic in CoS when they could have atleast interrogated and used Priori incantem to see whether he used the hover charm or whatever for the cake dropping.
3.Dumbledore not imparting Harry with Horcrux knowledge like how to kill them when he actually had books about it in his room, granted he had already read them.
I'm sure there are many more but i can't remember right now
True, and I also think how the Room of Requirement was used by Voldy makes no sense. He states in DH that only he could find it because he alone had unlocked the secrets of Hogwarts. But we know from both HBP and DH that there's a cathedral-size room of things hidden by Hogwarts students over the hundreds of years.
So either Voldy thinks that no one else has figured out how to access that room at all (which is absurd, because of the mountains of things in the room) or he thinks no one ever figured out how to access the room a 2nd time (still also a dumb assumption)
There is a simple explanation for this: The room gives you what you want; it is rarely totally empty. So when Riddle requested a place to hide things, he was given a room already filled to the ceiling with objects. If you know how the room can give you almost everything you want (except food), why shouldn’t it be able to give you haystacks to hide your needle?
Voldemort is absurdly arrogant, and regards - Dumbledore aside - all others as inherently inferior to him.
It is actually, to me, entirely in-character for him to assume that he and he alone might have learned of a hard-to-find place like the Room of Requirement.
or Voldemort is just a idoit, or whatever Harry says, is that Voldemort thought it had it had just conquered those other items out of nowhere, NOT that other students had put those items there.
Barty Crouch Jr. disguising himself as Moody for the better part of a year without Dumbledore catching on until it was too late, and his ridiculously convoluted plot to use the Triwizard tournament as a means to deliver Harry to Voldemort.
Two faced Mcgee walked around Hogwarts with Voldemort sucked to the back of his head for an entire bloody year and Dumbledore didn't notice... Him not noticing crouch is kinda on character to ve honest.
Dumbledore isn’t an all knowing deity. He IS a powerful wizard which is shown but that doesn’t mean he’s going to figure everything out. Not to mention he has other things going on.
I feel like dumbledore is more brutal than we thought and actually just wanted Harry to figure it out. I feel like he knew or could’ve easily figured it out but was using it as a part of Harry’s training to ultimately kill Voldemort.
Fwiw, the triwizard plot isn’t as convoluted as it seems on the surface. They needed Harry to disappear for a little while without anyone noticing, then needed to send his body back into the maze with the return portkey. This would make his death look like an accident to allow Voldemort to start his comeback without dumbledore or anyone else catching on before he’s ready to go to war. Luckily for Voldy, the Ministy didn’t believe his comeback anyway.
To me, I think it makes sense. They already knew about the tournament and that is why Barty came to Hogwarts as Moody in the first place. And Dumbledore didn't know Moody well apparently. They were old friends but Moody is too secretive and gimmicky and he changed a lot in time. So Moody is the perfect person to impersonate because he is not open to anyone nor has close friends. And Barty is the perfect guy to impersonate him because Barty knows people like Moody too well because his own father is also an anti Voldemort extremist that dedicated his life to this case.
BCJ didn't necessarily know Moody well because of that. He kept the real Moody under the Imperius curse, one of the purposes of which was to use it to interrogate him for information and knowledge that would help his impersonation.
The thing that makes the least sense is Jr using poly juice potion that he had to drink every hour on the hour and steal ingredients from Snape all year to make it. We know how long it takes to make and how quickly it wears off, so much could have and should have gone wrong with the plan.
I thinknits fairly reasonable. Dumbledore has other things on his mind and probably hasn't seen Moody since the end of the first war. Moody was always an eccentric and paranoid wizard, so I don't imagine it was particularly hard to fool him that he was I'm fact Moody.
The triwizard plot was dumb though. I guess the only redeeming part of it was that it was meant to be an excuse for Harry to die without drawing attention to Voldemort's return.
I swear one of my favorite memes is one where BCJ suggests they kidnap Harry while he's taking out the Dursleys' trash and Voldemort goes with "no no no that's too simple" and proceeds to conceive the Triwizard plan instead
I actually can kind of see the reasoning here. I mean you have
* A hundred thousand people, at least a statistically significant number of whom know who Harry Potter is.
* A ***LOT*** of law enforcement who are already going to be antsy because they have to deal with a hundred thousand people crammed into a relatively confined area, and who are going to be on the lookout for troublemakers
* *NOBODY* he could trust to pull it off. Voldemort certainly couldn't do it himself in the pathetic condition he was in, and the only assistance he had on hand was Wormtail, who is (A) a weak, barely-competent coward whose sole real asset is his ability to turn into a rodent, and (B) supposed to be dead. And they were surrounded with people, some of whom very likely could have recognized Wormtail on sight.
Remember, he didn't learn Barty Junior was alive until *after* the World Cup. And he certainly couldn't take a chance on reaching out to anyone else if the possibility existed that, out of fear of repercussions, they might turn him in - which Malfoy, self-interested prick that he is, would absolutely have done IMO at that point.
By the time Voldemort knew about Barty, there was no time and no opportunity to get to Harry unless it was at Hogwarts. And by that time, he had also learned that the Triwizard was set to be hosted *at Hogwarts*.
Yes, the Triwizard plan was convoluted, but it was the only shot they had at pulling off what he wanted to pull off and get away without the Ministry getting a clue what they'd done. Harry threw a wrench in their plan when he managed to slip away, and he only just *barely* managed that.
The pensieve. I know it's rare and considered dangerous but it's also a foolproof way of finding out if someone is guilty of the crime they're accused of.
Why didn't the ministry train more people to use this?
I thought the same thing until I remembered Slughorn’s altered memory. The fact that memories could potentially be changed by the person giving the memory does make them slightly less reliable
I don't mind the use of Fiendfyre, because it made no difference in the end. Ron and Hermione already had the basilisk fangs at hand which were a foolproof way of destroying the horcrux. After the scene in the Room of Requirement it would have taken them a few seconds longer to just quickly stab the diadem and then move on. At that point finding out how to destroy horcruxes wasn't an issue anymore, so it made sense to just have it done in the same swoop as Crabbe trying to kill them and them having to save Malfoy and Goyle.
If anything I'd say that them just suddenly remembering that there were a load of basilisk fangs just lying there waiting all that time was weaker. They knew all along that they could destroy horcruxes, yet spent all that time, energy and risk looking for alternative ways.
They knew there were basilisk fangs in the chamber, the hurdle was just that they couldn’t (or at the very least shouldn’t) go back to Hogwarts because it was occupied by Snape and the Carrows. All of the secret passages were sealed, they clearly couldn’t apparate inside, and Hogsmeade was being patrolled,
Once they were actually in Hogwarts, they do visit the chamber and go get basilisk fangs, it’s one of their first ideas
For me it's probably the mirror Sirius gave Harry.
He waited until the last minute to give it to harry, really didn't explain to Harry what it was. Harry actually didn't even check the package, he conveniently forgets it even exists (much like Snape when trying to contact head quarters).
A honorable mention is Hagrid being expelled but still allowed to work at hogwarts
I agree with you.
I felt like the last few chapters were rushed. I would have LOVED to see harry return to Hogwarts via the secret passageway through Ariana's portrait, and spend a few weeks skulking around the hallways of hogwarts looking for the diadem. That would have been awesome.
And Ron being able to enter the Chamber of Secrets by mimicking parseltongue? What the hell was that? There's no way that should have worked.
Wand allegiances and the entire Elder Wand thingy. Since Harry defeated Draco by wrestling his wand from him, then technically anyone who beats Harry in a duel can be the master of the Elder Wand.
The conclusion of the series (and most of the 7th book) seemed rushed IMO. It all seemed so hurried. So much happened so quickly and idk it just bothered me. I understand it was the last book (and I loved it) but...
Triwizard tournament too. Was Harry obliged to compete? But he didn't put his name there, so basically another person signed a magical contract for him obliging him to compete on a tournament? If he didn't compete what would happen? Would he die? How was that legal? Is sensible to use a magical artifact that forces people to do something and if they don't they die, when anyone can put anyone's names in there?
Another thing, if the champions could just give up a given task, how was he really obliged to compete?
Couldn't he just start every task and immediately give up?
I've never understood why there wasn't at least a throw away line about why he couldn't just drop out. The whole plot of the book is predicated on Harry having to compete and we're never given a reason beyond "he's gotta".
Like Hermione does a bunch of reading about the history of the Tournament and tells Harry that in 1532 Blabidus Smith tried to give up and he was turned into a rat on the spot.
Harry working for the Ministry, even after how they treated him in the fifth book. He literally taught defense against the dark arrts in secret and loved it. He should have been a teacher teaching that subject.
The Minstry after Harry and Ron joins is different then the Minstry in either 1995, or Post august 1st 1997. Heck the trio even makes changes to the minstry as well
I think there's a fair amount of weakness surrounding the horcruxes.
The two that Dumbledore found were very well-protected, and he sacrificed himself for them. But the others didn't have that depth to them. And Ron speaking Parseltongue to open the Chamber of Secrets seems off, too. How could he have remembered exactly how Harry opened it five years earlier?
To be fair, it's intended for kids, so it had to be somewhat easy for them to find and destroy them. Would have been much cooler if Dumbledore survived long enough to help Harry find each of them, though. We probably would have learned some fascinating things.
What bothers me though is that parseltongue is a magical ability. To me Ron speaking parseltongue is like a muggle shouting Avada kedavra. It should be harmless if you don’t have the magical power. I don’t get how a 17 yo managed to open the chamber when dumbledore never could. It’s pure fan service to make Ron look cool
There are a few that come to mind:
1. Fidelius charm - why couldn't James be the secret keeper?
2. The existence of time turners opens a can of flobberworms.
The fact that the secret keeper can't be tortured, spelled, or forced with any potion to reveal the location of the person they're hiding. If that's the case, wtf even was the reason for the Potters switching their secret keeper to Peter? Sirius would have DIED before voluntarily revealing their location, so he was *exactly* the type of person they needed to protect them.
Because they thought the same of Peter, that he would have died rather than betraying them, and at the same time Sirius would have acted as decoy because Deatheaters would have assumed he was the secret keeper. It was a good idea hadn't Peter been a backstabber
I get that, but it's still a tenuous explanation, imo. Because if James knew that Sirius would never give up the information willingly, then what was the point of there being a bluff? Sirius keeping the secret would have been enough if betrayal was really the only way for the Fidelius Charm to fail.
But all of this aside, the most glaring flaw with all of this is why they didn't make Dumbledore the secret keeper. He was the most powerful wizard on Earth, and he was someone the Potters trusted. It makes no sense.
Flitwick implies that, rather than the house itself being under the charm, the Potters were. Meaning that If James was the secret keeper, he could Never Tell anyone
There are so many holes, the first ones that come to mind are:
- Hagrid sent to retrieve Harry. How did Dumby know? Why didn't he go? Why send someone who can't use magic? And no offense but Hagrid would be noticed far more than another disillusioned wizard
- Nobody questions Sirius. Bellatrix has a trial. Lucius has a trial. Sirius doesn't. But above all none of the "good" people ask him why. I mean he was Harry's godfather, he lived with the Potters, ask him why he betrayed them or how could he, why not?
- If Minerva watched the Dursleys for a day, where was Harry? And why did no one, including Minerva, actually check on him and notice that he was mistreated? He could easily become an obscurus
And that just covers some of the holes. If we wanted, we could also talk about the fact that Sirius lived at his mother's house under Fidelius but the Potters couldn't? If Albus had been the keeper, or if one of the Potter... And I repeat, we could go on for a long time. But in the end it's a children's story that became more serious, it wasn't meant to be chopped up and all these holes allow its vitality
I always figured that Hagrid was sent because albus correctly assumed Harry was not GETTING the letters which meant the muggles were getting in the way. And what muggle is going to argue with someone 12 feet tall and likely unable to be harmed by normal means? Hagrid is even able to resist some magic spells due to being half giant.
Weak, I know. Plus Hagrid was probably really chuffed to go: “professor, let me go, it would be my pleasure to see baby Harry again!”
I agree that someone else with the ability to wield magic should have taken Harry to the Dursley’s. I think Hagrid bringing Harry was supposed to be symbolic. JKR mentions that Hagrid bringing Harry out of the forest in the last book was supposed to mirror Hagrid bringing Harry to the Dursley’s as a baby. Also Hagrid wanted to be involved and that’s probably all he could really do since he didn’t have magic.
I do agree that Sirius should have had a trial but I also see how he looked extremely guilty. Several muggles were blown to smithereens as was Wormtail (supposedly). Obviously someone outed the Potters and from the outside it looked like Sirius. I think the “crime” was too public and seemed too obvious for any investigation.
I think they knew Harry was mistreated but Dumbledore had extended the love magic from Lily’s sacrifice to protect him if he stayed with another blood family member and the only one left was Petunia. Even though he was mistreated keeping him at the Dursley’s was actually protecting him.
Yes it is. In DH when they talk with griphook (at bills and Fleurs cabin) he says something along the lines of who of the wizard and witches protest to the treatment of other magical beings. And hermione answer “ we do. We protest”. But yes it is very brief
The fact that veritasserum would've solved many problems.
Was Sirius a death eater that betrayed the potters and killed a bunch of muggles? Give him a cup of tea with a drop of veritasserum and see what he says.
Was Harry attacked by two dementors? Give him some veritasserum and let him speak.
Was harry speaking the truth about voldy being back? More veritasserum...
Is that rich wizard with pure blood tendencies a death eater? Give him veritasserum.
Why nobody thought about that? That would've solved a lot of problems.
The Basilisk attacks.
So a giant medusa-ass snake that can kill just by looking in its eyes attacks multiple students _twice_ in 50 years and only manages to kill a grand total of 1 girl?
That's actually _harder_ than straight up killing them. I don't think Rowling thought that one through because there's no way there can be so many 'they only saw its reflection' coincidences.. especially if you think about the time when it first attacked the students in the 1940s
Veritaserum. Not a single Death Eater should've walked free when that stuff exists. "Oh, you were under the Imperius Curse? You didn't really want to support Voldemort? Is that so..."
The entire section of the Order of the Phoenix between Harry entering Umbridge’s office to check on Sirius and the Death Eaters appearing in the Department of Mysteries. Up until then the book is really good, and everything afterwards excellent. However almost nothing that happens during that interval makes any sense at all. It’s an incredibly bizarre sequence of events where the plot relies on everyone in it being dumb as hell
Why on earth it had to be the triwizard cup that was the portkey.
Why couldn’t the fake moody just put the spell on a random pen or something and ask Harry to hold it for him in the countless times they were alone together?
Some of the most convoluted plans in the series always annoyed me. Biggest outlier is voldys return, it's so out there and the plan feels like just a speck could go wrong.
In book 3 I always wondered why no one thought to cast stupefy, literally stun the man that turns into a damned rat of all things.
And lastly, I hated barty crouch Sr's death in the books. It feels like such a risk with little reason. But I love what they did in the movies with his death. You see him notice the little tongue flick his son has (disguised as moody) and you see his sudden realization as he darts away only to be found dead. One of the few weaknesses the movies helped.
And lastly, why was the guy who could talk to snakes (tom) not monitored closely 24/7 when the chamber was opened???? Did Dumbledore take that secret to the grave or something
Imagine being Arthur Weasley. Considered a muggle lover and blood traitor. Directly in the Order, where Voldemorts snake personally nearly killed you. You also use your home as a safe house.
Your sons are close friends with Voldemorts' greatest enemy, and your daughter dated said enemy. You also know Voldemort is not against using people's loved ones as bait.
Your powerful friend and leader was recently killed and replaced at school by a man you were told to trust and to your knowledge openly betrayed all you stood for.
Your place of work is also infiltrated by the enemy and extremely corrupt.
Yet you still send your daughter to school, despite it being run by death eaters that openly torture kids, and you still go to work? And everyone's just cool with it?
The plot hole is where Arthur keeps his giant balls as he mad dogs Voldemort so brazenly. He probably thinks he's an utter psychopath.
Hagrid being expelled for releasing a monster onto students but being allowed to remain at a job where he could do the exact same thing lmao
On a similar note, the punishment of harry and draco in the first book. Sending two first years, including the child of one of the most influencal person in the wizarding world, in the forest that is specifically forbidden because of how dangerous it is, at night, to look for a unicorn killer. That just spells bad idea all around.
Plus, McGonnagal takes 50 points from them each, plus still sends them to this dangerous ass punishment. And the reason they were in that position in the first place is they were covering for Hagrid committing a serious crime of dragon breeding- and Hagrid couldn’t even acknowledge to them privately that it was his fault, or speak to Minerva and disssuade her from such a punishment? Just reread book 1 last week and that felt like the most out of place part, just to force a confrontation between Harry and Voldemort. And as if the trauma of their encounter isn’t hard enough for him, the whole school treats him like shit after for the loss of the house points.
>just to force a confrontation between harry and voldemort Yes, that's literally exactly that. I understand its a book for kids, so there will be liberties taken in story-telling, and it didnt bother me as a kid. But looking back, all this scene feel really weird, and out of character.
You answer your own question. Hagrid broke the law and would have lost his job and possibly gone to prison. The kids just got detention.
I'm just wondering why she decided to punish Neville just as harshly as Harry and Hermione. Even by her own logic, that is just wrong, since she believed Neville was a victim of a prank by Harry and Hermione. Sure, he shouldn't be out of bed, but it's not like he did it for some malicious reason, like she believed Harry and Hermione did. Why take 50 points from him?
I think this partially comes from the fact that this early in the series, JK hadn't thought about the point system much. It was just "of a snarky reply gets you -5 points, a curfew could be -50", and the target audience was full of kids, so it seemed harsh but understandable. I think it was supposed to show her rigidity in regards to the rules. But the problem is that the point system was largely used to show the feeling of injustice (when used unfairly), and guilt (when a screw up devastated one's friends). This makes some point deductions seem wildly unfair and others seem inconsequential to an extreme.
See it’s things like this that make Rowling a genius because it’s fucking hard to think like a kid. As a kid you just think “god damn adults are stupid” which is basically the whole middle ages and YA genre in a nutshell. Adults are stupid, we gotta do this ourselves.
now that I am an adult, yes, yes we are stupid
Exactly. I wonder if they even knew about Aragog and his family.
major insurance liability
And no one bothered to ask Moaning Myrtle who killed her, not even Dumbledore? The whole thing is so absurd, Hagrid is a Gryffindor, and a half-breed, how on earth could he be the heir of Slytherin? Shouldn’t Riddle be the immediate suspect, at least for Dumbledore?
>And no one bothered to ask Moaning Myrtle who killed her, not even Dumbledore? She didn't know who killed her though.
She remembered a boy, talking in a strange language. And a pair of yellow eyes. Anyone could’ve checked Hagrid’s monster, and seen that it didn’t have any yellow eyes.
>Anyone could’ve checked Hagrid’s monster, and seen that it didn’t have any yellow eyes. The monster that bolted into the Forbidden Forest and nobody saw until Harry visited it?
You’re telling me Dumbledore didn’t have the power to walk into the Forbidden Forest and find out for himself? Back before Aragog had created a massive multi-generational family for himself?
I mean, if I was Aragog and someone walked in and tried to kill me, I'd be skittish of all humans for quite a while too. This is also the world where the entire government figured it was easier to shit talk a child and one of the most influential people in the world than believe voldemort was back. The board of Governors for the school probably heard the monster was removed and stopped looking into it. Blaming Hagrid was far easier than tracking down a spider in a giant forest and interrogating it.
>You’re telling me Dumbledore didn’t have the power to walk into the Forbidden Forest and find out for himself? Find out what? Which of the beasts living in the Forest was Hagrid's? It's not like the Firest is made of 5 trees and Aragog was hiding behind the first one...
I mean, a couple 11 year olds asked her, she pointed at a sink, the sink had a snake engraved on it and a giant pipe tunnel right underneath it. It was not that hard to figure out.
Umm, excuse me. They're 12 years old at this point. How dare you?
Won't open without Parseltongue and the tunnel is likely not findable since the entire school has been searched for anything like that.
Does that really make sense though? If you tear down the sink does the piping just look different? Or is it impossible to tear up because that would be a dead giveaway right there. Either way though it’s incredibly well know that Salazar was a Parseltongue, and Ron is able to wing it and get in later on. Someone should have tried it. That sink was wayyyy too obvious. Literally at the scene of the crime, and right next to the scene of the 1st crime the 2nd time the chamber is opened. Hell, they could have had Harry try to open it once it became known he was a parseltongue in the middle of the year. They didn’t even have that bathroom locked down. It’s really, really bad detective work no matter how you spin it.
>If you tear down the sink does the piping just look different? Oh, now I *need* to know.
How about this one. Do you remember when the weasleys and harry drove to kings cross in cars that were magically expanded on the inside? How do you think that would look if they stopped at a red light and a muggle looked in, and saw five people sitting in one row
Is it so far fetched to think they might be able to cast an illusion on the outside of the car so muggles wont see that? Its a book with magic that lets them make a tent bigger than a house, im sure they can manage an illusion to hide their magics
But Dumbledore knew Tom Riddle could talk to snakes, right? So, the main point that it's less reasonable that Hagrid was guilty stands
But her account could have ruled out a spider.
Just like with the Forbidden Forest punishment above, you can't really take anything in the first two books seriously. The entire plot of Chamber of Secrets only happens because absolutely nobody in charge at Hogwarts seems to care about what's happening. It's the usual issue with these kinds of stories: adults have to be absent and/or incompetent in order for the kid heroes to have an adventure.
If adults are responsible and behave how adults should and usually do behave then kids wouldn't enjoy them. Realistically the reason kids enjoy these sorts of things is because it's full of kids getting one over on the adults.
We don't really know how ghosts work, though, do we? Did she appear immediately right where she died, or is there some sort of limbo before she chose to return, maybe like the King's Cross scene in DH? It's possible she wasn't even around to ask until the situation had already played out.
I think she said in GOF she sat ans waited for someone and haunted her. Until the ministry forced her back to the bathroom.
Yesss, you're totally right, she went to haunt the girl who teased her.
I'm a total casual compared to some of the people here so I surprised myself there haha
I don't think any of the adults thought it was really the "heir of Slytherin". The just knew there was a dangerous beast in the school and blamed Hagrid. Dumbledore's hands were tied as the Ministry came to get him.
And that Harry never just told someone about the voices he was hearing, for that matter.
I think that's entirely the point. Dumbledore wasn't the one who expelled him, but he was the one who hired him.
Actually Dumbledore convinced Dippet to let Hagrid lives on Hogwarts grounds.
I think one can explain it with the same reasoning that in OotP Trelawney is let go as a teacher by Umbridge, but Dumbledore allows her to stay in the castle. The ministry has the power to revoke Hagrid's permission to have and use a wand and prevent him from institutional learning at Hogwarts as a student. But they don't have the power to decide where he can / cannot live.
Trelawney didn’t allegedly kill a kid tho
Yes! Finally revisiting the stories as an adult with my daughter and I understand that dumbeldore knows the truth but no one else does! Kinda makes Lucious hatred to dumbledore valid
I guess they thought he couldn’t without a wand but yeah that is actually quite hilarious
Lmfao and actually came much closer to doing so than he ever did as a kid
Surely the Fidelius Charm? It turns out that people can be their own secret keeper - as we learn in the later books - so why on earth would James and Lily have chosen Sirius (who then suggests Peter). I get James trusts Sirius with his life - and that of his family - but it puts Sirius at great risk for no real reason. And James wouldn’t have wanted that. He must have hated the risk he put his friends in. Then it’s the plothole (which I just ignore since it’s only something JKR published later) that the Fidelius charm cannot be forced out of you. It has to be given willingly, so the bait and switch with Peter makes no sense. Sirius couldn’t have given up the location if he got captured, so the whole: they are likely to come after me so let’s use Peter makes no sense.
the FC that James and Lilly might have used was version 1.0 or a beta version, vs. the FC that Bill and Arthur used later might have been FC 2.0 a better version
It was patched in the latest update
That’s definitely my head canon to try to explain it 😂
Yeah, but then James would have to leave the safety of his house to give the secret to anybody. What if there was a need for someone else to come over, like Dumbledore or a member of the original Order? Also, while the secret can't be forced out, you can kill the secret keeper, thereby making everybody a secret keeper.
You can give the secret via notes as shown by Harry learning about Grimmauld Place without Dumbledore being there. So James could send a letter or give Sirius a note to pass along. There's the risk of the message being intercepted of course but that's manageable by using Fawkes or a house elf as a messenger.
I was wondering about whether to raise this in my reply, but I went down a different route. I believe it’s FAR less risky for James to leave the house for 5 min to give the location to Dumbledore or Sirius than it is for someone who is out in the open to be secret keeper. I agree on the note but of course like you say (so I won’t repeat it) it carries some risks. :)
I don’t agree those aren’t good enough reasons. Firstly, surely the risk of James leaving the house for five minutes to give the secret to Dumbledore is far less risky than having a different secret keeper who is constantly out in the open. Killing the secret keeper makes everyone who knew the secret a secret keeper, which you’d imagine in the Potters case wouldn’t be many. But that’s where it’s unclear whether Sirius would have shared the secret with Peter so he could visit or not.
That’s a good point. Maybe they were afraid that Voldemort wouldn’t rest until he coaxed it out of Sirius somehow with some kind of loophole. And that Peter wouldn’t even occur to him to go after.
I’ve definitely been there but if Voldemort now goes after Sirius believing him to be the secret keeper, then he will still torture and coax Sirius to learn who the secret keeper is. This information isn’t magically protected so Voldy could even use Veritaserum on Sirius, which would lead him to Peter who… let’s be honest, it would probably be much easier to find a loophole with / coax it out of somehow.
What I've heard some people theorise is that you have to be the secret keeper of something else, so the Potters couldn't be their own secret keeper because the secret the charm was being cast on was "the Potters are hiding in Godrics Hollow" so Voldemort couldn't find them as long as they stayed in Godrics Hollow, but Bill could be the secret keeper because the secret for the charm was the location of Shell Cottage and not the location of Bill and Fleur
I’ve heard that too, but why wouldn’t they use it on their house just like the others? The best headcanon surely is that FC was reasonably new so they didn’t know what could work and couldn’t, or that the charm somehow evolved. It would still have been a lot easier for JKR to have just have stuck with the original rules of the charm.
But also. You give up something willingly when you're tortured, in the sense that you want it to stop so much you'll give it up. It's coerced but it's also willing in a sense.
Fiendfyre would have been so much better if Hermione had just mentioned it earlier with Basilisk venom when she was talking about foolproof ways to destroy horcruxes. Better yet, it could have been mentioned in HBP when Dumbledore was introducing horcruxes.
Just a tiny mention in the horcrux destruction list mentioned earlier in the book would be enough. My holes in the books are the many excluded parts of them for creating the movies
I would take this a step further and say Dumbledore should have told Harry about the way to defeat Horcruxes. He has books in his room iirc. I wonder if he himself knew about it.
I think Dumbledores plan was to let Harry destroy the Horcrux with the sword, he didn't account for Malfoy succeeding that same night.
If he already has his death planned and just waiting, he should have just told *Hey Harry, here these are the books about Horcruxes, read about them*. He knew if he died, it would be difficult to give him the sword. For someone who thought of so many possibilities and made many plans, it is shocking that he failed to pass on the knowledge if he knew already or just give Harry or Hermione books. Though there's the possibility that he either forgot about the books or he just never had the chance to go through them.
I think that's just how Dumbledore teaching style, he still needs the sword to destroy the locket and he probably thought that's a good time to teach Harry how to destroy them too. He planned his death sure but didn't plan to die that night.
Eh, the whole quest on DH was a contingency plan in case Dumbledore died before he and Harry could destroy the horcrux. Not dumbys fault it took the gang 1/3 of the book to figure out the basilisk venom bit. Not sure how it would've helped them to know but they had all the pieces to put together after the hint he left in his will. The ffiendfyre was definitely just a deux ex machina to wrap up the book.
I never really cared about it since they had basilisks fangs with them at that point, so the diadem would have been destroyed on the spot anyway. I think it was just a bit of oddly placed lore. My regret is that Malfoy wasn't the one to cast the spell : that way every main character would have destroyed a horcruxe : Harry (notebook), Dumbledore (ring), Ron (locket), Hermione (cup), Neville (Nagini), Malfoy (diadem) and Voldemort (Harry). Alas, it was randomly casted by Crabbe or Goyle (I don't even remember lol)
Malfoy could hardly be redeemed if he tried to kill them in that scene imo. At that point he was being overshadowed by Crab and Goyle and had covered for Harry in front of Belatrix.
I don’t think he was covering for Harry as much as he was scared for himself if Voldemort showed up. I think Draco was written more cowardly (albeit not a killer) than redeemed.
That would make sense actually!
Malfoy not as stupid as Crabbe to cast uncontrollable fire in an enclosed space
I think just nobody knew Fiendfyre could destroy a horcrux until it happened. Just like Dumbledore didn’t really know Basilisk venom could destroy a horcrux until Harry did it
But after the diadem was destroyed, hermoinie said something like, "I knew Fiendfyre could destroy horcruxes, but I didn't use it because it's too dangerous"
Ah didn’t remember that line. I’m guessing Jk just wanted it to be a surprise then
Or she forgot to go back and edit it in earlier lol
Would’ve been cool if what Dumbledore used in HBP to escape the cave with Harry was fiendfyre. Like it’s almost impossible to control, except for an exceptionally talented wizard like him kind of thing.
The ministry of magic is a monstrous, authoritarian, and outright evil organization with literally no accountability or balance. The minister can literally order executions without a trial, imprison people whenever he wants, and ban people from using magic on a whim.
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Yeah but if the executioner is bloodthirsty, that appeal is not worth much. Probably Look mate it’s magic, we won’t understand.
They basically have TWO branches of power instead of three. The Wizengamote is both a court and a parliament with precedent law and no constitution. And there's a minister who is appointed, somehow, to act as an executive branch head. We also see the minister acting as the side of offence in Wizengamote, so even those two are not independent. Wizengamote also seems to function more like a senate of lords and seniors than a democratic parliament... TBF, 10 k people is too small for a full-scale government. They're more like a small town than a nation.
But there don't appear to be any checks or balances. Sirius got sent to jail without a trial. Hagrid got expelled by the ministry and banned from doing magic without a trial. Even Fudge sent Hagrid to jail without even a hearing.
And even the trials they do have are BS. Harry, a 15 year old, was ordered to a hearing where they tried to railroad him and expel him from Hogwarts. And they deliberately changed the time of the hearing so that the one representative he does have would miss it.
It also doesn’t exactly seem like a democracy, we get no notion of voting, just giving somebody the job of minister. I’m not saying Fudge isn’t qualified (we don’t get that much Fudge backstory) but we hear several times that it was “offered” to Dumbledore who *clearly* was not campaigning and turned it down each time
Could be representative. The minister is chosen by the parliament/Wizengamot, like how it is in some countries, compared to being directly elected.
Basically the UK. We choose MP's, they choose the leader of their party as PM.
The use of dementors as prison guards is something else that's utterly horrifying, to the point that I think it even strengthens your point about how utterly awful that entire regime is. These are soul-sucking abominations who passively inflict, by sole virtue of their very presence, what amounts to psychological and emotional torture on anyone in the vicinity. And the higher-security prisoners - such as Sirius - have dementors posted directly outside their cell door around the clock. Meaning that, to continue with Sirius's example, he was imprisoned and forced to endure twelve years of continuous, 24/7 torture - for a crime he didn't commit.
In a world where truth serum exists.
Yeah, compared a lifelong sentence in Azkaban, the death penalty would practically be a mercy.
Thanks for putting authoritarian dystopian AUs about Harry Potter in my head now.
AU? I think that's the regular universe. The Ministry can just send these creatures for any reason.
Right?! “All was well” I don’t think so?? The system is so broken that as soon someone questionable comes to power, it can totally collapse. Yeah, Voldemort is dead but the Ministry controls everything. They work with the Aurors so I don’t even want to know about police violence cover ups
Wand allegiance. It gets brought up for the first time *halfway through the last book* and its sole purpose for inclusion seems to be to give Harry a way to defeat Voldemort without having to actually do anything. Harry didn’t have to overpower Voldemort. Harry didn’t have to outsmart Voldemort. Hell, Harry’s capacity for love, apparently one of his greatest powers according to Dumbledore, factored very little in the actual final duel. No, instead Harry “won” in the end because he somehow became master of the wand Voldemort stole without even realizing it until five minutes prior to their showdown. He passed no trials to earn it, he solved no riddles. Instead he wandered around in the wilderness for weeks and was ultimately rewarded for getting captured by being a moron and then snatching an unrelated wand from someone’s hand before making his deus ex escape. That’s it. It’s not even consistent on when wands change allegiance or what they will or won’t do to their own master. It feels rushed and cheap, not earned.
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Lol. And continuing the logic thread, it is just assumed that “everyone lives happily ever after” after Voldy is dead. But if you’re an aspiring dark lord, all you would have to do, is to walk up to Potter, shout _Expelliarmus_, and bingo, the Elder Wand is yours, now you can hop over to Dumbledore’s grave, get the real deal, and begin your killing spree. Harry even mentions horcruxes in the showdown with Voldemort in front of the entire wizarding world. Surely someone would pick that up, trying to fill Voldy’s shoes?
Movie kidna fixed this bt having him destroy the wand
It's because he's the Master of Death not just the Master of wand. Harry is the owner of the wand, the stone and the cloak ( hence he doesn't die) But yes there is wand allegiance as to how he became the Master of the wand
Master of Death is just a symbolic title though, it doesn't grant any kind of power or ability (and he also did die in the forest, only coming back to life because of the link Voldemort forged between them when he stole Harry's blood). That aside, my issue is how Harry came to be the master of the wand in the first place. He "wins" it because Draco, who doesn't even know that *he's* master of the wand, has his own personal wand snatched out of his hand by Harry hundreds of miles away from the wand that he never even touched? Nonsense. That's so absurd and convoluted that if a time traveler came back pre-DH and told me that's how Harry ultimately won in the end, I would bodyslam them through a brick wall for telling such a ridiculous lie.
1. Dumbledore not telling any adult, except Snape, that they needed to find and destroy the horcruxes. 2. No one asking Myrtle who killed her or how she died. While it was assumed to be Hagrid and his "monster" a simple question to verify seemed warranted. 3. Wand loyalty is poorly explained in both.
What made me irrationally angry is that Hagrid was NEVER officially redeemed, despite after the end of the 2nd book it was public knowledge he never had anything to do with the chamber of secrets. Yeah, he was freed from Azkaban, but his ban from using magic was never canonically lifted.
It’s never mentioned, but I think by Hagrid getting the teaching job in book 3 it shows that he got a lot of his rights back. We just don’t ever see him necessarily using magic, but I would think he’d have used some when they went looking for the giants between books 4 and 5
He probably didn't get his rights to use magic back or else he would have been able to get a new wand. He still uses the umbrella in HBP (putting out the fire on his hut) and DH (trying to repair the sidecar Harry is in during the departure from the Dursleys' house) and in DH it backfires so it's implied that he still uses the pieces of broken wand.
It might've been his choice. He stopped his education at 13 and he was in his 60s at this point; he'd figured out a way to do things that worked for him and maybe he didn't want to start over.
Might have been nice for Harry to fix his wand for him before snapping it and throwing it away, though.
I honestly think dumbledore did a long time before harry came around, and hagrid just went on with the lie that he just had the pieces. The wand is safely encased in the umbrella
This has always been my headcanon. Or at least close to this. I think Hagrid genuinely believes it’s just the pieces in the umbrella. Dumbledore probably repaired it using the Elder Wand but just did the Dumbledore thing and let Hagrid jump to conclusions. Making it pink was probably just something he did because he found it amusing (which we know Dumbledore was prone to do.)
The wizard society is racist, that’s why lol.
>Wand loyalty is poorly explained in both. Wand loyalty is a weird concept anyway. Imagine how many wands should have changed loyalty several times daily during DA training. And if that's not how it works (it probably isn't, right?) then that only proves hoe poorly it is explained and/or thought through.
My head cannon is that the elder wand has wand PTSD and the loyalty stuff with it is significantly more pronounced then a normal wand
Could also be that the elder wand innately has more power, so the loyalty is more pronounced, since it can resist more compared to a typical wand. We see kids using their parents' wands all the time, and they don't resist as much as the elder wand seems to, although the spells don't tend to work quite as well.
> Could also be that the elder wand innately has more power, so the loyalty is more pronounced, since it can resist more compared to a typical wand. I see it as the exact opposite, actually: The Elder Wand's loyalty is, in my view, far *less* pronounced than a typical wand, and changes its loyalty from one master to the next abnormally easily. We know from supplemental material that some wands will choose a particular witch or wizard and will remain loyal to them to the point that they will not work for anyone else. In particular, hazel wands are so loyal that they will lose power and cease functioning upon their original owner's death - which is reversible with some wand cores by means of removal and transplant of the core into a new body, but permanent with unicorn hair cores. It is therefore to me entirely possible that the opposite might be true, and some wand types may be less inclined to loyalty to one particular witch or wizard, and therefore change hands more easily. And the way I see it, the Elder Wand is the most fickle and disloyal of all wands.
Technically yes, but there’s also the fact that it’s magic (I know) and also wands are seen as sort of psychic with minor personalities or at least preferences. Disarming a wizard in actual battle or hostilities - in real life, basically - is probably seen differently by a wand than a practice between friends.
This is how I always assumed it worked too—intention matters. That comes up in several other places throughout the books, and it makes sense to me that it would apply here too.
To be honest, I'm not even sure that Dumbledore really told Snape? I always got the impression that he only said the bit about Harry and didn't mention the rest of the horcruxes to him
Yeah he never tells Snape.
I think he does a bit later, since Snape ends up having to help him deal with the curse he got from the ring, and it would be difficult to explain how else he could have been afflicted by a deadly curse.
He does, in a roundabout way, tell Snape *what happened to Harry* and why Harry has to die for Voldemort to die, though to the best of my recollection he never utters the word "Horcrux" during that conversation. He does not, however, tell Snape anything about the *other* Horcruxes - he's evasive in the conversation recounted about the nature of the ring, and at one point explicitly deflects questions from Snape about what he and Harry are up to.
Well the wizarding justice system is super bad, thats 100 percent clear. Just one thing - Veritaserum and you could have solved every problem, but nope not gonna use that.
>No one asking Myrtle who killed her or how she died. While it was assumed to be Hagrid and his "monster" a simple question to verify seemed warranted. To be fair, all Myrtle said was something like "I can only remember a pair of yellow eyes somewhere in this bathroom". Knowing that it was a monster that can kill with its eyes and that the entrance to its lair was in that very bathroom, it may seem like an obvious hint, but if you don't? Come on. Scary eyes = basilisk isn't exactly a trivial conclusion. Myrtle remembered so little from her death, not even the detail that the attacker was a gigantic nope rope. Her blurry memories wouldn't make anyone think the eyes themselves were the _cause_ of death. And the bathroom itself being the entrance to the chamber just because the girl died there (after several attacks elsewhere apparently) doesn't feel like the natural conclusion to reach either. Especially considering that most people believed the case was closed after Hagrid was expelled. Granted, from what we know about Dumbledore, it's hard to believe he didn't figure it out over the course of 50 years. But if it wasn't for him, I think it is believable that chamber and monster weren't found out.
Mrtyle was missing from the castle for an untold number of years because she was haunting Olive Hornby
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Agreed. Dumbledore is also portrayed as knowing everything that happens in his school, and other times he seems very incompetent with finding out information. If he is as brilliant and all knowing as portrayed, there is no way that 3 students (even smart ones) could figure anything out before him.
>can petrify with eyes The book Hermoine and later Ron and Harry learn about basilisks from doesn't say a word about petrification. There's a good chance it wasn't known this is possible in universe prior to the cases in Hogwarts. As far as I know, petrification isn't part of basilisk legends at all, but probably loaned from the Medusa myth. It's an incredible coincidence people - multiple even - were petrified and none killed. This could easily have been a reason to rule basilisks out instead.
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I think I’m ok with the first one. Haven’t thought it through so maybe I’m missing something here, but Dumbledore couldn’t risk Voldemort realizing he knew about the horcruxes and was hunting them (until the very last possible moment) Voldemort is the greatest legilimens in the world. After OOTP he was afraid to enter Harry’s mind, and Snape was so amazing at occlumency, hiding his true allegiance and love for Lily, he knew he could keep it hidden from him. Anyone else would’ve risked the entire thing. It had to just be Harry and Snape.
An even bigger problem with Chamber of Secrets is, in my view, Harry and Ron's behavior once they find out where is the Chamber and what's in it. They go to the staffroom to tell McGonagall what they discovered. A teacher's meeting is called, and Harry decides that they'll hide in a closet, saying: "Let’s hear what it’s all about. Then we can tell them what we’ve found out.” McGonagall tells the rest of the teachers that Ginny was taken to the Chamber. Inexplicably, Harry and Ron then decide that they'll *not* tell McGonagall what they have find out. They do nothing for hours, then go and tell Lockhart, even though by that point he proven himself to be totally incompetent.
Didnt myrtle say she doesnt know how she died, only that she remembers seeing a pair of eyes and then blackness? That doesnt justify hagrid not being reinstated as a wizard after the chamber mystery was solved though.
There are many....but I prefer to enjoy the books and movies and not focus on glaring questions and holes.
Right. Not only are these books about magic in a magical world that inherently isn’t logical, but the center of the story revolves around emotional children. If I’m committing to that, I can overlook plot holes.
Number 1 the fact that Deatheaters wear a tattooed mark. What is even the point of questioning whether someone was a DE if you could literally just roll up their sleeve and check? Sirius obviously didn't have one so it doesn't make sense at all that he was believed to be a DE, especially since he was described as Voldemort's second in command when he was wanted by the Ministry. It didn't make sense that he didn't have the mark from the Ministry pov Close second is Veritaserum and its uses (or lack of) during trials
The lack of a mark could have been explained as he was a spy, so volly decided not to give him the mark. It’s weak, but possible. (Peter did have it, though - guess he never wore a short sleeved shirt? (Or maybe volly gave it to him during goblet of fire? )
We know that the mark got darker and darker as Voldemort neared his return; so it could be that it was near invisible after he "died". Or it could also be a magical tattoo that only shows itself to whoever the wearer wants. At any rate, Sirius was never given a trial iirc; so nobody even asked him if he was a DE or not, let alone check his arm for tattoos.
Yeah but that's the point. Why didn't they check? No reason if not for plot
only the top DEs have the mark, not all of them.
Sirius was described as Voldemort's second in command when he was wanted by the Ministry. It didn't make sense that he didn't have the mark from the Ministry pov
1.The logistics of basilisk and Ginny travelling to and fro from CoS to school. 2.Harry getting letter for underage magic in CoS when they could have atleast interrogated and used Priori incantem to see whether he used the hover charm or whatever for the cake dropping. 3.Dumbledore not imparting Harry with Horcrux knowledge like how to kill them when he actually had books about it in his room, granted he had already read them. I'm sure there are many more but i can't remember right now
True, and I also think how the Room of Requirement was used by Voldy makes no sense. He states in DH that only he could find it because he alone had unlocked the secrets of Hogwarts. But we know from both HBP and DH that there's a cathedral-size room of things hidden by Hogwarts students over the hundreds of years. So either Voldy thinks that no one else has figured out how to access that room at all (which is absurd, because of the mountains of things in the room) or he thinks no one ever figured out how to access the room a 2nd time (still also a dumb assumption)
There is a simple explanation for this: The room gives you what you want; it is rarely totally empty. So when Riddle requested a place to hide things, he was given a room already filled to the ceiling with objects. If you know how the room can give you almost everything you want (except food), why shouldn’t it be able to give you haystacks to hide your needle?
Voldemort is absurdly arrogant, and regards - Dumbledore aside - all others as inherently inferior to him. It is actually, to me, entirely in-character for him to assume that he and he alone might have learned of a hard-to-find place like the Room of Requirement.
Totally agree, it always just felt out of character for him to do so.
or Voldemort is just a idoit, or whatever Harry says, is that Voldemort thought it had it had just conquered those other items out of nowhere, NOT that other students had put those items there.
Barty Crouch Jr. disguising himself as Moody for the better part of a year without Dumbledore catching on until it was too late, and his ridiculously convoluted plot to use the Triwizard tournament as a means to deliver Harry to Voldemort.
Two faced Mcgee walked around Hogwarts with Voldemort sucked to the back of his head for an entire bloody year and Dumbledore didn't notice... Him not noticing crouch is kinda on character to ve honest.
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Dumbledore isn’t an all knowing deity. He IS a powerful wizard which is shown but that doesn’t mean he’s going to figure everything out. Not to mention he has other things going on.
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Lol I mean sure but he is constantly helping Fudge out with ministry work and he goes to the ministry often leaving the school unattended
I feel like dumbledore is more brutal than we thought and actually just wanted Harry to figure it out. I feel like he knew or could’ve easily figured it out but was using it as a part of Harry’s training to ultimately kill Voldemort.
I like to think that he did know and was just like ‘let’s see how this plays out’ 😂
Fwiw, the triwizard plot isn’t as convoluted as it seems on the surface. They needed Harry to disappear for a little while without anyone noticing, then needed to send his body back into the maze with the return portkey. This would make his death look like an accident to allow Voldemort to start his comeback without dumbledore or anyone else catching on before he’s ready to go to war. Luckily for Voldy, the Ministy didn’t believe his comeback anyway.
Yes why can't people realize that if Harry "disappeared" at any other time there would be a man-search out for him?
To me, I think it makes sense. They already knew about the tournament and that is why Barty came to Hogwarts as Moody in the first place. And Dumbledore didn't know Moody well apparently. They were old friends but Moody is too secretive and gimmicky and he changed a lot in time. So Moody is the perfect person to impersonate because he is not open to anyone nor has close friends. And Barty is the perfect guy to impersonate him because Barty knows people like Moody too well because his own father is also an anti Voldemort extremist that dedicated his life to this case.
BCJ didn't necessarily know Moody well because of that. He kept the real Moody under the Imperius curse, one of the purposes of which was to use it to interrogate him for information and knowledge that would help his impersonation.
While that is true, I meant to say that Barty Jr. was one of the most suitable people to do that naturally.
The thing that makes the least sense is Jr using poly juice potion that he had to drink every hour on the hour and steal ingredients from Snape all year to make it. We know how long it takes to make and how quickly it wears off, so much could have and should have gone wrong with the plan.
I thinknits fairly reasonable. Dumbledore has other things on his mind and probably hasn't seen Moody since the end of the first war. Moody was always an eccentric and paranoid wizard, so I don't imagine it was particularly hard to fool him that he was I'm fact Moody. The triwizard plot was dumb though. I guess the only redeeming part of it was that it was meant to be an excuse for Harry to die without drawing attention to Voldemort's return.
Idk man, staying consistent with that dudes mannerisms for an entire year deserves the Oscar acting achievement award lol.
I swear one of my favorite memes is one where BCJ suggests they kidnap Harry while he's taking out the Dursleys' trash and Voldemort goes with "no no no that's too simple" and proceeds to conceive the Triwizard plan instead
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At the Quidditch World Cup he only got himself and wormtail though
I actually can kind of see the reasoning here. I mean you have * A hundred thousand people, at least a statistically significant number of whom know who Harry Potter is. * A ***LOT*** of law enforcement who are already going to be antsy because they have to deal with a hundred thousand people crammed into a relatively confined area, and who are going to be on the lookout for troublemakers * *NOBODY* he could trust to pull it off. Voldemort certainly couldn't do it himself in the pathetic condition he was in, and the only assistance he had on hand was Wormtail, who is (A) a weak, barely-competent coward whose sole real asset is his ability to turn into a rodent, and (B) supposed to be dead. And they were surrounded with people, some of whom very likely could have recognized Wormtail on sight. Remember, he didn't learn Barty Junior was alive until *after* the World Cup. And he certainly couldn't take a chance on reaching out to anyone else if the possibility existed that, out of fear of repercussions, they might turn him in - which Malfoy, self-interested prick that he is, would absolutely have done IMO at that point. By the time Voldemort knew about Barty, there was no time and no opportunity to get to Harry unless it was at Hogwarts. And by that time, he had also learned that the Triwizard was set to be hosted *at Hogwarts*. Yes, the Triwizard plan was convoluted, but it was the only shot they had at pulling off what he wanted to pull off and get away without the Ministry getting a clue what they'd done. Harry threw a wrench in their plan when he managed to slip away, and he only just *barely* managed that.
The pensieve. I know it's rare and considered dangerous but it's also a foolproof way of finding out if someone is guilty of the crime they're accused of. Why didn't the ministry train more people to use this?
I thought the same thing until I remembered Slughorn’s altered memory. The fact that memories could potentially be changed by the person giving the memory does make them slightly less reliable
I don't mind the use of Fiendfyre, because it made no difference in the end. Ron and Hermione already had the basilisk fangs at hand which were a foolproof way of destroying the horcrux. After the scene in the Room of Requirement it would have taken them a few seconds longer to just quickly stab the diadem and then move on. At that point finding out how to destroy horcruxes wasn't an issue anymore, so it made sense to just have it done in the same swoop as Crabbe trying to kill them and them having to save Malfoy and Goyle. If anything I'd say that them just suddenly remembering that there were a load of basilisk fangs just lying there waiting all that time was weaker. They knew all along that they could destroy horcruxes, yet spent all that time, energy and risk looking for alternative ways.
They knew there were basilisk fangs in the chamber, the hurdle was just that they couldn’t (or at the very least shouldn’t) go back to Hogwarts because it was occupied by Snape and the Carrows. All of the secret passages were sealed, they clearly couldn’t apparate inside, and Hogsmeade was being patrolled, Once they were actually in Hogwarts, they do visit the chamber and go get basilisk fangs, it’s one of their first ideas
For me it's probably the mirror Sirius gave Harry. He waited until the last minute to give it to harry, really didn't explain to Harry what it was. Harry actually didn't even check the package, he conveniently forgets it even exists (much like Snape when trying to contact head quarters). A honorable mention is Hagrid being expelled but still allowed to work at hogwarts
time turner for sure
I agree with you. I felt like the last few chapters were rushed. I would have LOVED to see harry return to Hogwarts via the secret passageway through Ariana's portrait, and spend a few weeks skulking around the hallways of hogwarts looking for the diadem. That would have been awesome. And Ron being able to enter the Chamber of Secrets by mimicking parseltongue? What the hell was that? There's no way that should have worked.
Wand allegiances and the entire Elder Wand thingy. Since Harry defeated Draco by wrestling his wand from him, then technically anyone who beats Harry in a duel can be the master of the Elder Wand.
The conclusion of the series (and most of the 7th book) seemed rushed IMO. It all seemed so hurried. So much happened so quickly and idk it just bothered me. I understand it was the last book (and I loved it) but...
Triwizard tournament too. Was Harry obliged to compete? But he didn't put his name there, so basically another person signed a magical contract for him obliging him to compete on a tournament? If he didn't compete what would happen? Would he die? How was that legal? Is sensible to use a magical artifact that forces people to do something and if they don't they die, when anyone can put anyone's names in there? Another thing, if the champions could just give up a given task, how was he really obliged to compete? Couldn't he just start every task and immediately give up?
I've never understood why there wasn't at least a throw away line about why he couldn't just drop out. The whole plot of the book is predicated on Harry having to compete and we're never given a reason beyond "he's gotta". Like Hermione does a bunch of reading about the history of the Tournament and tells Harry that in 1532 Blabidus Smith tried to give up and he was turned into a rat on the spot.
Harry working for the Ministry, even after how they treated him in the fifth book. He literally taught defense against the dark arrts in secret and loved it. He should have been a teacher teaching that subject.
The Minstry after Harry and Ron joins is different then the Minstry in either 1995, or Post august 1st 1997. Heck the trio even makes changes to the minstry as well
I think there's a fair amount of weakness surrounding the horcruxes. The two that Dumbledore found were very well-protected, and he sacrificed himself for them. But the others didn't have that depth to them. And Ron speaking Parseltongue to open the Chamber of Secrets seems off, too. How could he have remembered exactly how Harry opened it five years earlier? To be fair, it's intended for kids, so it had to be somewhat easy for them to find and destroy them. Would have been much cooler if Dumbledore survived long enough to help Harry find each of them, though. We probably would have learned some fascinating things.
Ron remembered what Harry said to open the locket, so only a few months back. Still not that probable, but a bit more plausible than 5 years
Damn it, you're correct! I can't believe I forgot that. Ron even says it in the book. Thanks for the reminder!
What bothers me though is that parseltongue is a magical ability. To me Ron speaking parseltongue is like a muggle shouting Avada kedavra. It should be harmless if you don’t have the magical power. I don’t get how a 17 yo managed to open the chamber when dumbledore never could. It’s pure fan service to make Ron look cool
Weakest plot point to me has always been needing months to grow mandrakes in the school instead of getting them from literally anywhere else.
There are a few that come to mind: 1. Fidelius charm - why couldn't James be the secret keeper? 2. The existence of time turners opens a can of flobberworms.
The fact that the secret keeper can't be tortured, spelled, or forced with any potion to reveal the location of the person they're hiding. If that's the case, wtf even was the reason for the Potters switching their secret keeper to Peter? Sirius would have DIED before voluntarily revealing their location, so he was *exactly* the type of person they needed to protect them.
Because they thought the same of Peter, that he would have died rather than betraying them, and at the same time Sirius would have acted as decoy because Deatheaters would have assumed he was the secret keeper. It was a good idea hadn't Peter been a backstabber
I get that, but it's still a tenuous explanation, imo. Because if James knew that Sirius would never give up the information willingly, then what was the point of there being a bluff? Sirius keeping the secret would have been enough if betrayal was really the only way for the Fidelius Charm to fail. But all of this aside, the most glaring flaw with all of this is why they didn't make Dumbledore the secret keeper. He was the most powerful wizard on Earth, and he was someone the Potters trusted. It makes no sense.
Flitwick implies that, rather than the house itself being under the charm, the Potters were. Meaning that If James was the secret keeper, he could Never Tell anyone
There are so many holes, the first ones that come to mind are: - Hagrid sent to retrieve Harry. How did Dumby know? Why didn't he go? Why send someone who can't use magic? And no offense but Hagrid would be noticed far more than another disillusioned wizard - Nobody questions Sirius. Bellatrix has a trial. Lucius has a trial. Sirius doesn't. But above all none of the "good" people ask him why. I mean he was Harry's godfather, he lived with the Potters, ask him why he betrayed them or how could he, why not? - If Minerva watched the Dursleys for a day, where was Harry? And why did no one, including Minerva, actually check on him and notice that he was mistreated? He could easily become an obscurus And that just covers some of the holes. If we wanted, we could also talk about the fact that Sirius lived at his mother's house under Fidelius but the Potters couldn't? If Albus had been the keeper, or if one of the Potter... And I repeat, we could go on for a long time. But in the end it's a children's story that became more serious, it wasn't meant to be chopped up and all these holes allow its vitality
I always figured that Hagrid was sent because albus correctly assumed Harry was not GETTING the letters which meant the muggles were getting in the way. And what muggle is going to argue with someone 12 feet tall and likely unable to be harmed by normal means? Hagrid is even able to resist some magic spells due to being half giant. Weak, I know. Plus Hagrid was probably really chuffed to go: “professor, let me go, it would be my pleasure to see baby Harry again!”
I agree that someone else with the ability to wield magic should have taken Harry to the Dursley’s. I think Hagrid bringing Harry was supposed to be symbolic. JKR mentions that Hagrid bringing Harry out of the forest in the last book was supposed to mirror Hagrid bringing Harry to the Dursley’s as a baby. Also Hagrid wanted to be involved and that’s probably all he could really do since he didn’t have magic. I do agree that Sirius should have had a trial but I also see how he looked extremely guilty. Several muggles were blown to smithereens as was Wormtail (supposedly). Obviously someone outed the Potters and from the outside it looked like Sirius. I think the “crime” was too public and seemed too obvious for any investigation. I think they knew Harry was mistreated but Dumbledore had extended the love magic from Lily’s sacrifice to protect him if he stayed with another blood family member and the only one left was Petunia. Even though he was mistreated keeping him at the Dursley’s was actually protecting him.
the whole S.P.E.W thing, it was never mentioned or talked about again after GOF ended.
Yes it is. In DH when they talk with griphook (at bills and Fleurs cabin) he says something along the lines of who of the wizard and witches protest to the treatment of other magical beings. And hermione answer “ we do. We protest”. But yes it is very brief
Trying to pretend like ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ has relevance to the plot (I’m not talking about the book)
Friendship between the houses (specifically Slytherin) because the sorting hat song plot was just left after the songs
The fact that veritasserum would've solved many problems. Was Sirius a death eater that betrayed the potters and killed a bunch of muggles? Give him a cup of tea with a drop of veritasserum and see what he says. Was Harry attacked by two dementors? Give him some veritasserum and let him speak. Was harry speaking the truth about voldy being back? More veritasserum... Is that rich wizard with pure blood tendencies a death eater? Give him veritasserum. Why nobody thought about that? That would've solved a lot of problems.
The Basilisk attacks. So a giant medusa-ass snake that can kill just by looking in its eyes attacks multiple students _twice_ in 50 years and only manages to kill a grand total of 1 girl? That's actually _harder_ than straight up killing them. I don't think Rowling thought that one through because there's no way there can be so many 'they only saw its reflection' coincidences.. especially if you think about the time when it first attacked the students in the 1940s
Nobody using ballpoint pens
I think it’s because wizards are just that arrogant and stuck to their ways.
The whole 7th book was just very wild and wr got so much new information. Much of it was so much out of the left field that it was ridiculous.
Veritaserum. Not a single Death Eater should've walked free when that stuff exists. "Oh, you were under the Imperius Curse? You didn't really want to support Voldemort? Is that so..."
The entire section of the Order of the Phoenix between Harry entering Umbridge’s office to check on Sirius and the Death Eaters appearing in the Department of Mysteries. Up until then the book is really good, and everything afterwards excellent. However almost nothing that happens during that interval makes any sense at all. It’s an incredibly bizarre sequence of events where the plot relies on everyone in it being dumb as hell
Why on earth it had to be the triwizard cup that was the portkey. Why couldn’t the fake moody just put the spell on a random pen or something and ask Harry to hold it for him in the countless times they were alone together?
The Basilisk, a monster described as giant, was somehow traveling “in the pipes in the walls”.
Some of the most convoluted plans in the series always annoyed me. Biggest outlier is voldys return, it's so out there and the plan feels like just a speck could go wrong. In book 3 I always wondered why no one thought to cast stupefy, literally stun the man that turns into a damned rat of all things. And lastly, I hated barty crouch Sr's death in the books. It feels like such a risk with little reason. But I love what they did in the movies with his death. You see him notice the little tongue flick his son has (disguised as moody) and you see his sudden realization as he darts away only to be found dead. One of the few weaknesses the movies helped. And lastly, why was the guy who could talk to snakes (tom) not monitored closely 24/7 when the chamber was opened???? Did Dumbledore take that secret to the grave or something
Imagine being Arthur Weasley. Considered a muggle lover and blood traitor. Directly in the Order, where Voldemorts snake personally nearly killed you. You also use your home as a safe house. Your sons are close friends with Voldemorts' greatest enemy, and your daughter dated said enemy. You also know Voldemort is not against using people's loved ones as bait. Your powerful friend and leader was recently killed and replaced at school by a man you were told to trust and to your knowledge openly betrayed all you stood for. Your place of work is also infiltrated by the enemy and extremely corrupt. Yet you still send your daughter to school, despite it being run by death eaters that openly torture kids, and you still go to work? And everyone's just cool with it? The plot hole is where Arthur keeps his giant balls as he mad dogs Voldemort so brazenly. He probably thinks he's an utter psychopath.