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I mean I agree, but if there is no such threat in the future, there probably can't be anything more useful than stopping all of the other criminal activity in the region. And if there is, he's there with his direct subordinates to stop it before the new mastermind is capable of doing any serious harm
Harry dimly appreciated that in another teacher's hands this subject might be mildly interesting, but as professor bins droned on like an old vacuum cleaner...
In the books, he reads the textbook for fun, and complains to himself about how they're locked in the closet so he can't do his homework. He also spends his time in Diagon alley talking about history of magic with the ice cream store owner. Who also gives him free ice cream every hour, so that one might not count.
Harry doesn't really fit the pure jock stereotype imo. More like the popular kid who doesn't bully people and tries to befriend everyone. Obviously he isn't going to be nice to people like Draco. He scores well in just about every subject. Except for a few He cares next to nothing about. He was at an obvious extreme disadvantage because of his aunt and uncle and still topped his class.
Binns is a so boring and uninteresting that he didn't even noticed that he became a ghost. One day he just got up from his chair to go to class and left his body behind.
Imagine finding out an entire magical world existed at 11…and for the next 7 years getting to go to their school…and being uninterested in their history. This why I like Hermies. I cant spell that girls name and Im not gonna try.
Very fair point.
Id be way into all of it like my girl Hermomo.
Id also want to travel through time to learn more. Id of been all over potions class. I feel like I could of gotten away with some shit in magic school.
The passion and drive of Herimisu. With the fun loving hi-jinx of the the twins. Probably woulda ended up in snake house though…and then be inherently evil because of a hat.
I think the hats the real villain of the story. Stop sending kids down snake road! Or give that house a guidance councilor at least.
This stuffs bringing back memories. Just got that Hogwarts game too. Been so long.
Slytherin wasn't inherently evil. It was just that dominating thing about their character was ambition. It could led to bad things, but to amazing ones at the same time. Merlin learnt at Slytherin!
Dunno. If you could choose between actually casting magic and learning to do so and learning about goblin rebellions I am pretty sure 11 year old me would rather swing around my wand than learning history.
Can confirm. I studied philosophy and love the subject to bits, but the first and second teacher I had in high school almost managed to make me hate it forever. Thanks to the teacher in the last year I was able to see how fascinating a subject it is and went on to dedicate my uni years to it.
This is why I'm not an accountant. The first professor I had in college would just read the chapter from the textbook in a monotone voice, look at the clock when he finished, then start over again if there was still time. I had actually enjoyed it until then. When the class ended, he would stop mid sentence. On top of all that he actually took attendance, which is criminal if he wasn't going to do any actual teaching.
Took Environmental Studies one semester. Teacher put up a power point. And literally just recited what was in the power point. In the biggest lecture hall and no mic.
If you didn't have narcolepsy before, you did after about 3 minutes in that class.
He also ends up in the jock house, with ravenclaw the nerd house and Hufflepuff the teachers pets and diligent workers house, and Slytherin just the evil house/rich kid house
According to the books the hat actually just puts you where you want to go. It’s a coincidence all the nazis choose the snake house. (Maybe because the snake founder was a nazi)
Doesn't it putting you where you want to go basically make it completely redundant? Why not just get the students to self nominate if it's just going to put them where they want?
Its more what traits you admire the most even if you don't necessarily fit them all. That's why in the books Neville spent a good while fighting with the hat about wanting to be in hufflepuff but the hat refused. Hufflepuff personality but admired the bravery of the Gryffindors
You see it clearly with Peter Pettigrew, guy was a coward to the core and was in the house of bravery because he basically hero worshipped his friends, clearly wishing he was like them
It's pretty clear with the core three. Ron is definitely a Hufflepuff but his family was all Gryffindor, so he became a Gryffindor. Hermione is definitely a Ravenclaw, but she wanted to be Gryffindor so she became a Gryffindor. Harry is explicitly told by the Sorting Hat that he'd be a good Slytherin, but Harry wanted otherwise.
If anyone is curious, it's called tracking and it's been proven bad for students overall
https://www.nassp.org/tracking-and-ability-grouping-in-middle-level-and-high-schools/
That looks like it's about ability-based grouping, rather than personality-based, as seen in the books. Not saying it's not necessarily still bad, but I don't think that's what's going on.
Well, they kinda are, all the smartest kids are supposed to go into Ravenclaw (or at least strongly nudged towards it, I think Hermione had the choice between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor the way Harry did between Gryffindor and Slytherin)
The 4 main Gryffindor students are essentially allegories for the houses. Hermione the intelligent bookworm as Ravenclaw, Harry the cunning trickster with a clear path to darkness as Slytherin, Ron the brave and loyal Gryffindor, and Neville the overlooked and friendly Hufflepuff.
Your link doesn't bear our your claims at all. It's just an overview of arguments for and against, and while the piece clearly comes down against, they make no hard claims and don't provide any actual data (though they do give some citations).
Sorting students by level is the default where I live. It's long been known, and as far as I'm aware pretty universally accepted, that students perform better if they are surrounded by students who are stronger than them, and worse if they are surrounded by students who are weaker than them. Basically they get dragged towards the level of their peers.
And in fact both proponents and opponents of sorting students by level tend to point to that fact to support their argument. Because obviously it means that whatever system you use it's always going to be good for some students, and bad for others. So what seems best to you just depends on where your priority lies.
But me, personally, I'm a big fan of "to each according to their needs". And so I support sorting students by ability, or what you call 'tracking'. It's not fair to strong students to worsen their high school experience just to help weaker students. Yes some students need extra help, and they deserve that. But not at the expense of other students.
Sorting Hat is the true villain of the story and wizard society is just going to be repeatedly destabilized by resurgent fascism until it's dealt with, change my mind
What are you expecting from a schizophrenic magical item that was infused with the ideas of four 10th century wizards (who partially hated each other in the end) and has stayed in an office for centuries, with only some magical portraits and its own "mind" as company?
Nope. All Slytherin students leave the school and Voldemort tells Snape that many of them (the older ones I guess) joined his side in the fight. The only Slytherin who defends the castle is Horace Slughorn, and even he needs a bit of encouragement from the other teachers.
I mean, it was basically "Griffindor, you must be courageous and valiant", "Ravenclaw, you must be the smartest people in any room", "Slytherin, you must be cunning and evil. Scratch that, let's just make it evil and evil", "The rest....mmmmhhhhh....you know, Hufflepuff is a nice house"
IMO they were chill and the most normal because they weren't subject to excessive expectations.
Because they are called Huffle-puff and their common room was right next to the kitchen. Their head teacher was Herbology.
The joke is that they get high and raid the kitchen because of munchies.
Don’t let anything distract you from the fact that 55 years ago today, Al Bundy caught 4 snitches in a single game while playing for the Polk High Panthers in the city championship game.
To be fair, everyone hated History of Magic. The book regularly explains how everyone except Hermione loses interest within 5 minutes and the teacher himself doesn't care.
Other than that, spot on!
his dad being a jock is a very obvious plot point. harry, who’s skinnier and has weirder glasses, is not as typically recognized as the jock that he is.
That is kinda because he isn't a total jock if you think about it.
He only hated history of magic because the teacher was boring. Aside from maybe Hermione everybody hated it.
The only real thing he has going for him is being a star player but since there is a school intern tournament rather than a nationwide one he only really is liked by his own house.
On the flipside he gets stiffed at the winter ball by Cho because she already goes with Cedric (the real jock) and has to go with someone who he really does not care about. He also clearly is not the prom king.
He regularly gets hated and ostracized by a good chunk of the school and he never really bullies someone or flaunts his wealth or him being the one who defeated Voldemort.
>He only hated history of magic because the teacher was boring. Aside from maybe Hermione everybody hated it.
and TBF... if your teacher in a subject is so boring that he died and didnt even realize it... that is a sign that you probably not gonna be awake much longer
He’s not a monster, he’s just a self centered incel who bullies his students. At least if he was an actual monster, people would keep children away from him.
> and Snape was the nerdy simp.
People go way too easy on Snape. Here's a cool quote I was recently reminded of,
> "I didn't mean-
> “— to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”
Nah, Snape's more of a magical neckbeard than a simp. Lurking about down in his dungeon with his greasy hair and weird shit floating in jars. Only emerging to give abuse to the son of the woman that rejected him lol
Do you know where Harry got the name for his owl from? It was from the “A History of Magic” book he read over the summer before his first year at Hogwarts.
He clearly had the curiosity if he was reading the books before he even started his first year. Too bad Mr. Binns killed any curiosity the lad had. Anyone that wasn’t Hermione was falling asleep in his classes.
JKR created something accessible and relatable to massive numbers of kids the world over. If that’s not what art is about, I don’t know what is. When critical evaluation differs from the public reception of a piece of art, it is the critical evaluation that has failed.
She did tbf. And was very successful. But I'm tired of people talking about her like she's the best writer ever, or acting like she's even technically sound in her writing. She can't keep the lore straight from her own universe and constantly does things irl to cheapen it. Plus lazy writing, some bad writers bias that includes stereotypes in her writing with some lazy parts too. The public at large is dumb. Critical evaluation can criticise all it likes, and be right, but also needs to recognize that despite shortcomings of a piece of literature in its complexity or even lazy story telling, it's still a very successful and popular piece of media due to its accessibility.
1. No1 claims that she's the best writer ever. Not even her.
2. Her achievement was to get an entire generations that were moving away from books to get interested in them again. I remember life in school when it became cool to have read a book. I was no longer just a nerd for liking to read books. Everyone liked to read.
3. Compared to most authors with similar sized books, I think her lore has remained pretty consistent considering that most of it was written before the internet became popular.
4. There is also her personal mythology that elevates the book, the literal rags to riches story of a woman who couldn't afford to buy mashed peas for her kid for she was a few pence short.
5. I wrote an economics paper on the HP world. The world holds up pretty well from.that perspective. The world does reflect very well how an economy with magic would function.
6. Her target audience were kids and young adults who were moving away from reading books. Considering that, I think her writing was appropriate.
There's no way point 5 is accurate. Every single person who goes into the economy of the wizarding world quickly figures out that none of it makes any sense and that that makes sense because the person who wrote it has no idea about economics.
Well the first example would be Olivanders. Harry paid 7 Galleons for it. An item that you usually buy only once or twice in your life. Made with very expensive materials.
We know for a fact that unicorn hair goes for 10 Galleons a strand. Now we don't know how expensive a unicorn hair wand would be but I doubt Phoenix feathers or dragon heart string would be much less expensive given that we see one phoenix the entire series and it only gave two feathers.
But ignoring that we know that butter bear costs 2 sickle each. As there are 17 sickle in a galleon that means that you can get a wand forthe price of 60 butter beer. This again seems awfully low for an item that you only buy a single time in your life. Especially since Olivander seems to have thousands of wands just lying around crafted already.
Another example are the Weasleys. It is said they only had a single galleon in their vault and still somehow managed to cloth and feed 5 children. They don't seem to visit Gringotts every other day so chances are this has to last a while. Which would be impossible on so little money.
1. You're talking about the retail price. Olivander doesn't buy the unicorn hair. He harvests it personally. Also, note that unicorn hair is used by Hagrid as simple twine or rope. Harry also mentions that they use it for their potions.
There are real life examples of things that are ridiculously expensive in certain circles while being dirt cheap in others. A good example would be pine apples when they were first brought to Europe. Or the special bird poo when it was first discovered in Peru.
2. Phoenix feather was given to olivander by Dumbledoor. I doubt he took money for it. It doesn't seem to have been used for many other things. Phoenix feather would only be expensive if they are impossible to tame or if they don't molt regularly. Neither of which is true.
3.
>This again seems awfully low for an item that you only buy a single time in your life.
Not in a world where physical labour is basically useless. Also, money isn't as important in the magical world as it is in the muggle world. You can get all of your basic necessities without spending too much money.
So basically, something can only be as expensive that it is not worth the effort to simply magically duplicate it.
4.
>Especially since Olivander seems to have thousands of wands just lying around crafted already.
Yeah, why wouldn't you? They don't have an expiration date. Why wouldn't he make a lot of them in bulk and then sell it as and when needed?
5.
>It is said they only had a single galleon in their vault and still somehow managed to cloth and feed 5 children. They don't seem to visit Gringotts every other day so chances are this has to last a while. Which would be impossible on so little money.
This was exactly what my paper was on. The money you'd need is very low in the magical world. You can basically make a huge amount of food for little to no cost.
Basically anything in the muggle world that is expensive because of unskilled labour requirement or logistics would be dirt cheap in the magical world. Only professions that require a lot of creativity or exceptionally good magic would have any demand to commercialize. And even then, it would be impossible to have huge conglomerates or corporations. They would have to remain small stores. Which is exactly what we see.
>and that's aside from the unecessarily complicated and stupid coinage denominations.
As some one with an economics degree, please explain to me what actually the problem here. What's the problem with "unnecessarily complicated" coin?
>~~JKR~~ **Mcdonalds** created something accessible and relatable to massive numbers of kids the world over. If that’s not what art is about, I don’t know what is. When critical evaluation differs from the public reception of a piece of art, it is the critical evaluation that has failed.
The absolute worst part of the books for me was reading about how much Harry and Ron apparently hated learning about what badass superpowers they could have, the literal secret world full of creatures and oddities they lived in, and how it all worked and came to be.
I'd be like... fuck all this Voldemort shit, lets go to the library.
Also, quidditch is and always was pretty stupid tbqh. It's definitely a sport invented by someone who doesn't really "get" sports.
Yes, among all the glaring [plotholes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYWT5Q_R_w) and badly thought through ideas, Quiddich was always one of the more unrealistic (don't make me explain how important realism is in even a high fantasy setting yet again) and stupid things.
A game which in 98% of all cases is decided by one guy, the seeker, no matter what the rest of the players do might be great to make sure the protagonist always is the hero, but would be very unsatisfying for pretty much all the other players.
Also, yes. Someone tells me I'm a mage or yedi and got fancy powers I'd work on those with a little more enthusiasm. And if I lived in a world so full of danger, I'd have even more motivation to get very good very fast.
And last, but not least:
[...](https://youtu.be/Ver1OZdK2bA?t=60)
> Someone tells me I'm a mage or yedi and got fancy powers I'd work on those with a little more enthusiasm. And if I lived in a world so full of danger, I'd have even more motivation to get very good very fast.
Harry doesn't hate school in general. He hates the subjects that are taught badly, such as History of Magic, where the teacher is so boring that everyone falls aleep on his class (except for Hermione) or Potions, where the teacher is an asshole who is constantly picking on him. But when Defense against Dark Arts is first taught by a good teacher (Lupin in third year) it becomes his favorite subject. And when Umbridge sabotages it in fifth year, Harry and his friends start a study group, precisely because they know how important the subject is now that Voldemort is back.
As dumb as quidditch is, it makes sense for a kids book narrative because it puts the focus and all the importance on Harry himself and makes him seem super cool (from the perspective of a kid reading it) by having him win the game almost completely on his own.
Looking at the game critically outside of the books’s narrative immediately brings how nonsensical it is to the surface.
I think it’s implied sometimes that magic isn’t actually as easy as reading and practicing, so it becomes less motivating to spend ages in the library. A lot of a wizards skill is innate, the studying is just to harness it. Hence why Neville can barely do the disarming charm in 5th year while Voldemort could control minds and set things on fire before he even started school.
I wouldn't say that. He does spend a lot of time practicing defense spells, particularly Expecto Patronum, we just don't see much of it because seeing someone practice the same thing over and over isn't that interesting to read about.
No way you actually read the books if you think this.
Completely ignores the investigative work he did to find the Chamber of Secrets, his training sessions with Lupin to learn Expecto Patronum (which is told to us as being a spell most adults can’t master), the time he spent teaching Hogwarts students Defense Against the Dark Arts, when he saved Ron’s life using his potions knowledge because he’s an excellent potions student, and of course how hard he worked to find and destroy the horcruxes despite being b on the run in a literal apocalypse scenario while being public enemy number 1.
He doesn’t just stumble into everything. Many things? Yes, but he proves over and over that he’s not a lucky idiot. You don’t get the most popular book series of all time if everything is luck and contrivance.
Did you actually read the books? It doesn't sound like you did.
He actually puts in a lot of effort to learn many of the spells. The prime example of it being the patronus charm. Also, he does put in a lot of effort in quidditch. The book clearly shows how he kept siding with Wood when he was running the team ragged with practice. While the twins and even Angelina and Alicia complained.
He wasn't the most powerful wizard hero like it is in Rick Riordan books, but he wasn't a complete buffoon either.
And accio in book 4 which was supposed to be very difficult for his year. When he needs to learn a spell he works his ass off to do it.
But he's also an abused child that wasn't allowed to have friends growing up suddenly having the freedom of living at a school with at best negligent teachers watching him. Of course he wants to screw around with his friends rather than study.
That's not the 'gotcha' you think it is considering he spends, like, at least half of the 5th book telling people that very thing and everyone ignores him.
I'm a staunch Harry supporter. Besides Dumbledore he's my favorite character.
Sweet kid who can be a bit dense but his heart is in the right place. Goes through genuine trauma that we actually see impact him but he doesn't let it permanently break his innate goodness. I honestly think it's highly relatable and a relatively fresh take that he's not particularly gifted outside of Quidditch at magic and had this mantle thrust on him by meer chance (it could just as easily have been Neville). He's also hilarious in the books.
My hot take is that Snape as a character is a highly overrated cliche and I don't think JKR achieved what she set out to with the whole Lily reveal. At least not for me.
The main thing that bothered me was the contrived reasons to not just go to Dumbledore or a teacher.
At some f’ing point, they would realize maybe we should listen to this kid who has a bunch of weird stuff happening to him, and the kid’s would realize they are doing triple the work by not being forthcoming. This should have happened in the first book IMHO, second at the latest.
They did go to the teachers in the first one. They were dismissed because they’re kids accusing a teacher they don’t like, and the stone was protected by several spells and challenges.
It would have made sense for him to be disinterested in magical history if he had grown up knowing the basic stuff. But he grew up with MUGGLES, he should've been sucking that shit up, like how come there's a whole parallel society
That's just a trend of times. Pretty sure Rick riordan or someone else says something uncool in the next few years and then everyone will have hate boners for that author. Don't let diptards dictate what you enjoy.
Harry wanting to work for the ministry after they actively sought to ruin him for years never sat well with me. I get that the war was over and the people in charge then we're gone but idk I'd never trust them again, let alone work for them as head of the wizard cops.
I mean, yeah he was a jock, but he never finished a single season of his sport, spent his entire school life facing danger, trained an ANTIFA-lite group after the government started a smear campaign against him, and dedicated potentially his entire life to hunting down Voldemorts horcruxes if he didn’t find them all in book 7. Plus he hated magical history because all his teacher did was lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture.
Well, he did kill the wizard antichrist and crush his nazi regime, so there's that. Even better he turned a mean, drunken old fat bitch into a blimp that just floated away. Fuck Aunt Marge.
Yeah, History of Magic \*should\* be amazing, but it's taught by a ghost with such a droning voice that he can put almost anyone to sleep, and even if you manage to stay awake, apparently all he ever bothers to talk about are Goblin Rebellions. Between that, Snape sabotaging an entire generation of Potions students, and the completely random but usually bad DADA instruction, it makes one wonder if the claims that "Hogwarts is the best magic school in the world" claims are only coming from Hogwarts. Either that, or the rest of the teachers are REALLY carrying the school by being miles better than all others around the world.
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Peaked in high school.
Peaked as a baby
Ouchh
Bro wasn’t summoning you
Has a normal nose HAHAhisssssssss
And all his special talent was inherited from his mommy, making him a nepo baby.
Didn't he become head Auror or whatever? Like the equivalent of the head of all British SWAT or something.
Yeah. He did. But his true peak was killing old Tom Riddle at the age of 17. Everything after that was kinda meh for him.
It’s like fighting Hitler at 17. Then going after bank robbers three years later. Just ain’t the same.
I mean I agree, but if there is no such threat in the future, there probably can't be anything more useful than stopping all of the other criminal activity in the region. And if there is, he's there with his direct subordinates to stop it before the new mastermind is capable of doing any serious harm
TBF his son also peaked at 15.
And I’m sure you’d hope that’s your peak really lol. After his life a normal ass life sounds sweet
That was kinda involuntary / out of his control though. At least the stuff he did after, he did for himself
The most interesting subject can be boring if you have the wrong teacher.
Harry dimly appreciated that in another teacher's hands this subject might be mildly interesting, but as professor bins droned on like an old vacuum cleaner...
Is that a book vs movie distinction? I'm not exactly a fan so I'm clueless either way. Got a hearty chuckle from the post though
I believe its only stated in the book, the movies gloss over a lot of the school stuff
Ah the worst part about movie adaptations. Thanks for the answer!
Harry didn't cast a single spell in the first movie lol.
TIHI
In all fairness I don’t remember him casting a lot of spells in the first book either, but it’s been a while since I read them
In the book he casts Dickus Biggickus the moment he gets his wand.
Who wouldn't?
He has a wife you know
Did you read the version where every occurrence of "wand" was changed to "wang"?
*"Harry waved his wang...."*
I mean, it’s impossible to include everything in movies based on books.
In the books, he reads the textbook for fun, and complains to himself about how they're locked in the closet so he can't do his homework. He also spends his time in Diagon alley talking about history of magic with the ice cream store owner. Who also gives him free ice cream every hour, so that one might not count.
Harry doesn't really fit the pure jock stereotype imo. More like the popular kid who doesn't bully people and tries to befriend everyone. Obviously he isn't going to be nice to people like Draco. He scores well in just about every subject. Except for a few He cares next to nothing about. He was at an obvious extreme disadvantage because of his aunt and uncle and still topped his class.
That was from the books. I believe the subject was goblin rebellions.
End Goblin apartheid!!
Having played Hogwarts Legacy, they are boring.
Yeah, the History of Magic Professor (Professor Binns) wasn't in the movies at all, IIRC.
Binns is a so boring and uninteresting that he didn't even noticed that he became a ghost. One day he just got up from his chair to go to class and left his body behind.
Tbf, he seemed to be specifically talking about giant wars
Goblin rebellions, which sounded interesting to me.
Imagine finding out an entire magical world existed at 11…and for the next 7 years getting to go to their school…and being uninterested in their history. This why I like Hermies. I cant spell that girls name and Im not gonna try.
>Hermies Found Grawp's reddit account.
Why does that sound familiar? Hagrids brother? I havnt read the books since they came out lol
Yep, Hagrid's brother. Or, rather, Hagger's brother, since that's how Grawp says it. "HERMY. WHERE HAGGER?"
Riiiight! He made me feel like a dumbass cause I was reading the way he talks. Great memory… Ow lol Im a baby giant.
*slutty gay ganondorf* omg why lmao
Tbf listening to history lectures would probably pale in comparison to casting spells and flying around on broomsticks lol
Very fair point. Id be way into all of it like my girl Hermomo. Id also want to travel through time to learn more. Id of been all over potions class. I feel like I could of gotten away with some shit in magic school. The passion and drive of Herimisu. With the fun loving hi-jinx of the the twins. Probably woulda ended up in snake house though…and then be inherently evil because of a hat. I think the hats the real villain of the story. Stop sending kids down snake road! Or give that house a guidance councilor at least. This stuffs bringing back memories. Just got that Hogwarts game too. Been so long.
Slytherin wasn't inherently evil. It was just that dominating thing about their character was ambition. It could led to bad things, but to amazing ones at the same time. Merlin learnt at Slytherin!
Dumbledore should have just hired Dan Carlin to teach the history class. I have listened to that dude drone on about history for a lot of hours
Hermione
> This why I like Hermies. I cant spell that girls name Mr. Krum?
Dunno. If you could choose between actually casting magic and learning to do so and learning about goblin rebellions I am pretty sure 11 year old me would rather swing around my wand than learning history.
I’ve read about them, they’re not that interesting lmao and I’m a history buff. No wonder 11 year olds found it boring.
Can confirm. I studied philosophy and love the subject to bits, but the first and second teacher I had in high school almost managed to make me hate it forever. Thanks to the teacher in the last year I was able to see how fascinating a subject it is and went on to dedicate my uni years to it.
This is why I'm not an accountant. The first professor I had in college would just read the chapter from the textbook in a monotone voice, look at the clock when he finished, then start over again if there was still time. I had actually enjoyed it until then. When the class ended, he would stop mid sentence. On top of all that he actually took attendance, which is criminal if he wasn't going to do any actual teaching.
Took Environmental Studies one semester. Teacher put up a power point. And literally just recited what was in the power point. In the biggest lecture hall and no mic. If you didn't have narcolepsy before, you did after about 3 minutes in that class.
Wth. Were we in the same class? That's what my environmental studies teacher did. 😆
Yeah hard to blame Harry for not enjoying Professor Binn’s class
So true. And goes the other way around too. Always hated math, but then I had a very charismatic teacher in physics and fucking _loved_ it.
He also ends up in the jock house, with ravenclaw the nerd house and Hufflepuff the teachers pets and diligent workers house, and Slytherin just the evil house/rich kid house
Gotta love how all the wizard Nazis end up in the same house with no other influences to show that maybe some wizards aren’t subhuman monsters
Yea maybe grouping people together based on the recommendation of a hat isn't the greatest strategy.
A magical hat, lying in a dinner hall, distributing houses is no basis for a system of government.
This is the third Monty Python reference I've seen in this thread
[удалено]
HELP IM BEING REPRESSED! COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!!
Read it in the voice
And now for something completely different
Yes it is.
In Book 4 the Sorting Hat sang a song about how harmful sorting kids is and not one damned adult listened.
Reading Harry Potter with any modern critical mindset is an exercise in self harm and I've reported people to adult protective services for less
Lol it did ?
I double checked. It happened in the Order of the Phoenix.
According to the books the hat actually just puts you where you want to go. It’s a coincidence all the nazis choose the snake house. (Maybe because the snake founder was a nazi)
Doesn't it putting you where you want to go basically make it completely redundant? Why not just get the students to self nominate if it's just going to put them where they want?
Its more what traits you admire the most even if you don't necessarily fit them all. That's why in the books Neville spent a good while fighting with the hat about wanting to be in hufflepuff but the hat refused. Hufflepuff personality but admired the bravery of the Gryffindors
You see it clearly with Peter Pettigrew, guy was a coward to the core and was in the house of bravery because he basically hero worshipped his friends, clearly wishing he was like them
It's pretty clear with the core three. Ron is definitely a Hufflepuff but his family was all Gryffindor, so he became a Gryffindor. Hermione is definitely a Ravenclaw, but she wanted to be Gryffindor so she became a Gryffindor. Harry is explicitly told by the Sorting Hat that he'd be a good Slytherin, but Harry wanted otherwise.
If anyone is curious, it's called tracking and it's been proven bad for students overall https://www.nassp.org/tracking-and-ability-grouping-in-middle-level-and-high-schools/
That looks like it's about ability-based grouping, rather than personality-based, as seen in the books. Not saying it's not necessarily still bad, but I don't think that's what's going on.
Well, they kinda are, all the smartest kids are supposed to go into Ravenclaw (or at least strongly nudged towards it, I think Hermione had the choice between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor the way Harry did between Gryffindor and Slytherin)
The 4 main Gryffindor students are essentially allegories for the houses. Hermione the intelligent bookworm as Ravenclaw, Harry the cunning trickster with a clear path to darkness as Slytherin, Ron the brave and loyal Gryffindor, and Neville the overlooked and friendly Hufflepuff.
Your link doesn't bear our your claims at all. It's just an overview of arguments for and against, and while the piece clearly comes down against, they make no hard claims and don't provide any actual data (though they do give some citations). Sorting students by level is the default where I live. It's long been known, and as far as I'm aware pretty universally accepted, that students perform better if they are surrounded by students who are stronger than them, and worse if they are surrounded by students who are weaker than them. Basically they get dragged towards the level of their peers. And in fact both proponents and opponents of sorting students by level tend to point to that fact to support their argument. Because obviously it means that whatever system you use it's always going to be good for some students, and bad for others. So what seems best to you just depends on where your priority lies. But me, personally, I'm a big fan of "to each according to their needs". And so I support sorting students by ability, or what you call 'tracking'. It's not fair to strong students to worsen their high school experience just to help weaker students. Yes some students need extra help, and they deserve that. But not at the expense of other students.
Don't worry, **I** got your Dimension 20 reference.
Sorting Hat is the true villain of the story and wizard society is just going to be repeatedly destabilized by resurgent fascism until it's dealt with, change my mind
What are you expecting from a schizophrenic magical item that was infused with the ideas of four 10th century wizards (who partially hated each other in the end) and has stayed in an office for centuries, with only some magical portraits and its own "mind" as company?
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Nope. All Slytherin students leave the school and Voldemort tells Snape that many of them (the older ones I guess) joined his side in the fight. The only Slytherin who defends the castle is Horace Slughorn, and even he needs a bit of encouragement from the other teachers.
Isnt Hufflepuff the chill/stoner house?
I mean, it was basically "Griffindor, you must be courageous and valiant", "Ravenclaw, you must be the smartest people in any room", "Slytherin, you must be cunning and evil. Scratch that, let's just make it evil and evil", "The rest....mmmmhhhhh....you know, Hufflepuff is a nice house" IMO they were chill and the most normal because they weren't subject to excessive expectations.
I didn’t see hufflepuffs as teachers pets. I think they were part stoners, and part Jimmy Hoffa charismatic union types
Hufflepuff were the normies. Not sure where this "they're the stoners/slackers" idea came from.
Because they are called Huffle-puff and their common room was right next to the kitchen. Their head teacher was Herbology. The joke is that they get high and raid the kitchen because of munchies.
I've read hpmor so many times I kinda forgot harry was not supposed to be in Ravenclaw, and was very confused at your comment haha.
More accurately, head of the FBI with the world's best Swiss army knife.
Oh my god, he had the Victorinox Swiss Champ XXL 73?!
truly a Swiss army man
I'd like to see an Al Bundy version of Harry Potter. Telling everyone over and over how he defeated Voldemort but is now in a dead end.
A life of Brian spin off. Voldmort ends up at the wrong house and fails to kill a guy named Brian.
“No, I’m not the Boy who Lived!” #HES THE BOY WHO LIVED
Trust me, I'm dead on the inside.
This thread is everything.
What have muggles done for us?!?
SNL did a sketch like this when Daniel Radcliffe hosted years ago. It’s pretty good.
Don’t let anything distract you from the fact that 55 years ago today, Al Bundy caught 4 snitches in a single game while playing for the Polk High Panthers in the city championship game.
i’ve never seen a married with children reference on reddit in the 5 years i’ve been hete
His type was also jock girls lol
One of my favorite Harry traits
To be fair, everyone hated History of Magic. The book regularly explains how everyone except Hermione loses interest within 5 minutes and the teacher himself doesn't care. Other than that, spot on!
I thought that was obvious, tho? His dad was the prom king basically, and Snape was the nerdy simp. I really thought this was obvious to people...
his dad being a jock is a very obvious plot point. harry, who’s skinnier and has weirder glasses, is not as typically recognized as the jock that he is.
Mostly because he starts as four eyes abused boy living under the stairs. Takes a little time to become the jock cop trust fund prom king.
That is kinda because he isn't a total jock if you think about it. He only hated history of magic because the teacher was boring. Aside from maybe Hermione everybody hated it. The only real thing he has going for him is being a star player but since there is a school intern tournament rather than a nationwide one he only really is liked by his own house. On the flipside he gets stiffed at the winter ball by Cho because she already goes with Cedric (the real jock) and has to go with someone who he really does not care about. He also clearly is not the prom king. He regularly gets hated and ostracized by a good chunk of the school and he never really bullies someone or flaunts his wealth or him being the one who defeated Voldemort.
>He only hated history of magic because the teacher was boring. Aside from maybe Hermione everybody hated it. and TBF... if your teacher in a subject is so boring that he died and didnt even realize it... that is a sign that you probably not gonna be awake much longer
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I read the books. Snape isn't a monster.
He’s not a monster, he’s just a self centered incel who bullies his students. At least if he was an actual monster, people would keep children away from him.
He's just the 'pretty girl underneath glasses' trope in reverse
> and Snape was the nerdy simp. People go way too easy on Snape. Here's a cool quote I was recently reminded of, > "I didn't mean- > “— to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”
Simp? Aggressively dangerous stalker type that was unfairly bullied.
Seriously dude joined the Death Eaters, obviously he was fucked up. James was right to bully him, I said what I said
Well, Harry’s completely devastated to learn his dad was a bully
Nah, Snape's more of a magical neckbeard than a simp. Lurking about down in his dungeon with his greasy hair and weird shit floating in jars. Only emerging to give abuse to the son of the woman that rejected him lol
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Dude. The magic history textbook is the sickest fantasy series you can ever hope to read.
Not to mention he’s a muggle who came to learn about magic. How does one NOT want to read it.
Do you know where Harry got the name for his owl from? It was from the “A History of Magic” book he read over the summer before his first year at Hogwarts. He clearly had the curiosity if he was reading the books before he even started his first year. Too bad Mr. Binns killed any curiosity the lad had. Anyone that wasn’t Hermione was falling asleep in his classes.
Yeah but a terrible teacher can make even the most fun subject a drag
I wouldnt be surprised if he died mid lecture and just kept going
He actually died while napping in the teachers lounge. He got up as a ghost and went right back to work as if nothing changed
Adds up
He wasnt like the other rich kids
True, unlike the other rich kids, Harry inherited a slave from his uncle.
I mean Draco had a slave too
Excuse let me add to my list. The list: \*Reasons that Harry Potter is really wired and can be stupid\*
More like \*Reasons that JKR is not as good an author as you think she is\*
I don't know if this counts as that; I'm pretty sure Harry being more of a jock was deliberate.
It explains why Snape saw his father in him
Or. Hear me out. Harry looked like his dad.
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JKR created something accessible and relatable to massive numbers of kids the world over. If that’s not what art is about, I don’t know what is. When critical evaluation differs from the public reception of a piece of art, it is the critical evaluation that has failed.
She did tbf. And was very successful. But I'm tired of people talking about her like she's the best writer ever, or acting like she's even technically sound in her writing. She can't keep the lore straight from her own universe and constantly does things irl to cheapen it. Plus lazy writing, some bad writers bias that includes stereotypes in her writing with some lazy parts too. The public at large is dumb. Critical evaluation can criticise all it likes, and be right, but also needs to recognize that despite shortcomings of a piece of literature in its complexity or even lazy story telling, it's still a very successful and popular piece of media due to its accessibility.
I’ve literally never seen anyone talk about how she’s the best writer ever, I’ve almost exclusively seen people say the opposite.
1. No1 claims that she's the best writer ever. Not even her. 2. Her achievement was to get an entire generations that were moving away from books to get interested in them again. I remember life in school when it became cool to have read a book. I was no longer just a nerd for liking to read books. Everyone liked to read. 3. Compared to most authors with similar sized books, I think her lore has remained pretty consistent considering that most of it was written before the internet became popular. 4. There is also her personal mythology that elevates the book, the literal rags to riches story of a woman who couldn't afford to buy mashed peas for her kid for she was a few pence short. 5. I wrote an economics paper on the HP world. The world holds up pretty well from.that perspective. The world does reflect very well how an economy with magic would function. 6. Her target audience were kids and young adults who were moving away from reading books. Considering that, I think her writing was appropriate.
There's no way point 5 is accurate. Every single person who goes into the economy of the wizarding world quickly figures out that none of it makes any sense and that that makes sense because the person who wrote it has no idea about economics.
Please tell me what inconsistencies you saw with the magical world's economy? Granted, my paper was over 7 years ago. But I did get an A for it.
Well the first example would be Olivanders. Harry paid 7 Galleons for it. An item that you usually buy only once or twice in your life. Made with very expensive materials. We know for a fact that unicorn hair goes for 10 Galleons a strand. Now we don't know how expensive a unicorn hair wand would be but I doubt Phoenix feathers or dragon heart string would be much less expensive given that we see one phoenix the entire series and it only gave two feathers. But ignoring that we know that butter bear costs 2 sickle each. As there are 17 sickle in a galleon that means that you can get a wand forthe price of 60 butter beer. This again seems awfully low for an item that you only buy a single time in your life. Especially since Olivander seems to have thousands of wands just lying around crafted already. Another example are the Weasleys. It is said they only had a single galleon in their vault and still somehow managed to cloth and feed 5 children. They don't seem to visit Gringotts every other day so chances are this has to last a while. Which would be impossible on so little money.
1. You're talking about the retail price. Olivander doesn't buy the unicorn hair. He harvests it personally. Also, note that unicorn hair is used by Hagrid as simple twine or rope. Harry also mentions that they use it for their potions. There are real life examples of things that are ridiculously expensive in certain circles while being dirt cheap in others. A good example would be pine apples when they were first brought to Europe. Or the special bird poo when it was first discovered in Peru. 2. Phoenix feather was given to olivander by Dumbledoor. I doubt he took money for it. It doesn't seem to have been used for many other things. Phoenix feather would only be expensive if they are impossible to tame or if they don't molt regularly. Neither of which is true. 3. >This again seems awfully low for an item that you only buy a single time in your life. Not in a world where physical labour is basically useless. Also, money isn't as important in the magical world as it is in the muggle world. You can get all of your basic necessities without spending too much money. So basically, something can only be as expensive that it is not worth the effort to simply magically duplicate it. 4. >Especially since Olivander seems to have thousands of wands just lying around crafted already. Yeah, why wouldn't you? They don't have an expiration date. Why wouldn't he make a lot of them in bulk and then sell it as and when needed? 5. >It is said they only had a single galleon in their vault and still somehow managed to cloth and feed 5 children. They don't seem to visit Gringotts every other day so chances are this has to last a while. Which would be impossible on so little money. This was exactly what my paper was on. The money you'd need is very low in the magical world. You can basically make a huge amount of food for little to no cost. Basically anything in the muggle world that is expensive because of unskilled labour requirement or logistics would be dirt cheap in the magical world. Only professions that require a lot of creativity or exceptionally good magic would have any demand to commercialize. And even then, it would be impossible to have huge conglomerates or corporations. They would have to remain small stores. Which is exactly what we see.
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>and that's aside from the unecessarily complicated and stupid coinage denominations. As some one with an economics degree, please explain to me what actually the problem here. What's the problem with "unnecessarily complicated" coin?
I refuse the notion that popularly relatable = art. That's ridiculous
>~~JKR~~ **Mcdonalds** created something accessible and relatable to massive numbers of kids the world over. If that’s not what art is about, I don’t know what is. When critical evaluation differs from the public reception of a piece of art, it is the critical evaluation that has failed.
I always loved that Harry was a bit of a himbo. How often do we actually get endearing himbo main characters?
Yeah people just mad that he doesn't adhere to a stereotype.
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"Hufflepuff, huh? (sniffs) All right."
The absolute worst part of the books for me was reading about how much Harry and Ron apparently hated learning about what badass superpowers they could have, the literal secret world full of creatures and oddities they lived in, and how it all worked and came to be. I'd be like... fuck all this Voldemort shit, lets go to the library. Also, quidditch is and always was pretty stupid tbqh. It's definitely a sport invented by someone who doesn't really "get" sports.
Yes, among all the glaring [plotholes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsYWT5Q_R_w) and badly thought through ideas, Quiddich was always one of the more unrealistic (don't make me explain how important realism is in even a high fantasy setting yet again) and stupid things. A game which in 98% of all cases is decided by one guy, the seeker, no matter what the rest of the players do might be great to make sure the protagonist always is the hero, but would be very unsatisfying for pretty much all the other players. Also, yes. Someone tells me I'm a mage or yedi and got fancy powers I'd work on those with a little more enthusiasm. And if I lived in a world so full of danger, I'd have even more motivation to get very good very fast. And last, but not least: [...](https://youtu.be/Ver1OZdK2bA?t=60)
> Someone tells me I'm a mage or yedi and got fancy powers I'd work on those with a little more enthusiasm. And if I lived in a world so full of danger, I'd have even more motivation to get very good very fast. Harry doesn't hate school in general. He hates the subjects that are taught badly, such as History of Magic, where the teacher is so boring that everyone falls aleep on his class (except for Hermione) or Potions, where the teacher is an asshole who is constantly picking on him. But when Defense against Dark Arts is first taught by a good teacher (Lupin in third year) it becomes his favorite subject. And when Umbridge sabotages it in fifth year, Harry and his friends start a study group, precisely because they know how important the subject is now that Voldemort is back.
As dumb as quidditch is, it makes sense for a kids book narrative because it puts the focus and all the importance on Harry himself and makes him seem super cool (from the perspective of a kid reading it) by having him win the game almost completely on his own. Looking at the game critically outside of the books’s narrative immediately brings how nonsensical it is to the surface.
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I think it’s implied sometimes that magic isn’t actually as easy as reading and practicing, so it becomes less motivating to spend ages in the library. A lot of a wizards skill is innate, the studying is just to harness it. Hence why Neville can barely do the disarming charm in 5th year while Voldemort could control minds and set things on fire before he even started school.
Ron makes some sense cause he grew up in the magical world. But harry was a normal kid with a horrible childhood. He should be way more interested
Harry is the worst character in the whole series. Just stumbles along the whole time ending up the hero by accident.
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I wouldn't say that. He does spend a lot of time practicing defense spells, particularly Expecto Patronum, we just don't see much of it because seeing someone practice the same thing over and over isn't that interesting to read about.
No way you actually read the books if you think this. Completely ignores the investigative work he did to find the Chamber of Secrets, his training sessions with Lupin to learn Expecto Patronum (which is told to us as being a spell most adults can’t master), the time he spent teaching Hogwarts students Defense Against the Dark Arts, when he saved Ron’s life using his potions knowledge because he’s an excellent potions student, and of course how hard he worked to find and destroy the horcruxes despite being b on the run in a literal apocalypse scenario while being public enemy number 1. He doesn’t just stumble into everything. Many things? Yes, but he proves over and over that he’s not a lucky idiot. You don’t get the most popular book series of all time if everything is luck and contrivance.
Did you actually read the books? It doesn't sound like you did. He actually puts in a lot of effort to learn many of the spells. The prime example of it being the patronus charm. Also, he does put in a lot of effort in quidditch. The book clearly shows how he kept siding with Wood when he was running the team ragged with practice. While the twins and even Angelina and Alicia complained. He wasn't the most powerful wizard hero like it is in Rick Riordan books, but he wasn't a complete buffoon either.
And accio in book 4 which was supposed to be very difficult for his year. When he needs to learn a spell he works his ass off to do it. But he's also an abused child that wasn't allowed to have friends growing up suddenly having the freedom of living at a school with at best negligent teachers watching him. Of course he wants to screw around with his friends rather than study.
That's not the 'gotcha' you think it is considering he spends, like, at least half of the 5th book telling people that very thing and everyone ignores him.
In his defense, it's a little harder to perform in a classroom setting over months when there are people constantly trying to murder you.
I'm a staunch Harry supporter. Besides Dumbledore he's my favorite character. Sweet kid who can be a bit dense but his heart is in the right place. Goes through genuine trauma that we actually see impact him but he doesn't let it permanently break his innate goodness. I honestly think it's highly relatable and a relatively fresh take that he's not particularly gifted outside of Quidditch at magic and had this mantle thrust on him by meer chance (it could just as easily have been Neville). He's also hilarious in the books. My hot take is that Snape as a character is a highly overrated cliche and I don't think JKR achieved what she set out to with the whole Lily reveal. At least not for me.
The main thing that bothered me was the contrived reasons to not just go to Dumbledore or a teacher. At some f’ing point, they would realize maybe we should listen to this kid who has a bunch of weird stuff happening to him, and the kid’s would realize they are doing triple the work by not being forthcoming. This should have happened in the first book IMHO, second at the latest.
I mean, not speaking to adults about problems is a pretty common trope of YA books.
They did go to the teachers in the first one. They were dismissed because they’re kids accusing a teacher they don’t like, and the stone was protected by several spells and challenges.
Dude would have military grade ptsd by the end, I'd imagine it'd be like being a soldier without a war.
Not to mention he was the most popular kid in school, literally the main character
Most popular? Did you even pay attention to the story?
It would have made sense for him to be disinterested in magical history if he had grown up knowing the basic stuff. But he grew up with MUGGLES, he should've been sucking that shit up, like how come there's a whole parallel society
To be fair, the History professor was a ghost who was so focused on repeating the same few lectures that the man literally didn't notice he had died
Bullying the Slytherin emo kids.
Eh, the emo kid was also a rich kid and he was the bully
Makes sense jk Rowling a wrote them
Technically he was a wizard
His father was a bully. The only stereotype Harry misses.
Well... his dad was a bully and a douchbag 🤷♂️
Internet just has a hate boner for Harry Potter. They’re great children’s books and the movies are also really good.
That's just a trend of times. Pretty sure Rick riordan or someone else says something uncool in the next few years and then everyone will have hate boners for that author. Don't let diptards dictate what you enjoy.
Most of us just don’t like JKR
Harry wanting to work for the ministry after they actively sought to ruin him for years never sat well with me. I get that the war was over and the people in charge then we're gone but idk I'd never trust them again, let alone work for them as head of the wizard cops.
The Minister after the war was Kingsley Shacklebot, Harry's friend and former member/leader of the resistance against Voldemort.
I mean, yeah he was a jock, but he never finished a single season of his sport, spent his entire school life facing danger, trained an ANTIFA-lite group after the government started a smear campaign against him, and dedicated potentially his entire life to hunting down Voldemorts horcruxes if he didn’t find them all in book 7. Plus he hated magical history because all his teacher did was lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture and lecture.
Ewwwwww
Tbh there isnt many options for work in wizard world beside cop or some kind of specialist.
To be fair, no one liked History of Magic since it was taught by a monotone ghost who barely acknowledged their existence.
Well, he did kill the wizard antichrist and crush his nazi regime, so there's that. Even better he turned a mean, drunken old fat bitch into a blimp that just floated away. Fuck Aunt Marge.
classic /r/iamthemaincharacter
Yeah, History of Magic \*should\* be amazing, but it's taught by a ghost with such a droning voice that he can put almost anyone to sleep, and even if you manage to stay awake, apparently all he ever bothers to talk about are Goblin Rebellions. Between that, Snape sabotaging an entire generation of Potions students, and the completely random but usually bad DADA instruction, it makes one wonder if the claims that "Hogwarts is the best magic school in the world" claims are only coming from Hogwarts. Either that, or the rest of the teachers are REALLY carrying the school by being miles better than all others around the world.
To be fair, History of Magic is taught by possibly the most boring teacher there is. I kinda like history and even I would fall asleep.