#hpdiscussions

[propertyofregulus]

tobermoriansass

replied to your post

“idk that I’m actually going to go chapter by chapter but I am going to...”

I'm guessing that if Hagrid met McG they might have been near Scotland, which is why flying down to somewhere past Bristol would take at least 6hrs, then past Bristol to Surrey = at least another 3hrs

I’m thinking McG and Hagrid met up at Hogwarts before he left to get Harry. It’s the only thing I can think of that would make sense for McG to not have seen Harry. And he was at Godric’s Hollow sometime before 8am. Even if it was 8am exactly that still gives us 16 hours till he got to the Dursleys. There’s a huge chunk of time that Hagrid was just hanging out with Harry. Possibly waiting till it was dark to travel with him. Waiting where though is the question.

[propertyofregulus]

Thank you so much for adding those comments to the Petunia post. I liked the original post with the intention of doing the same, but you beat me to it. Also the, "Petunia could never get Lily back from the magical world..." unless that's referring to Lily's death than yes, she could've. She could've appreciated her own "mundane" life and been happy for her sister and reached out to her. She didn't. She made snide comments about her nephew's name and sent her sister an ugly vase.

you’re welcome. I just found the excuse of her actions as an adult because of the hurt done to her as a child gross. I have so many feels on their relationship. I honestly would love to think that at some point they could have reunited but I don’t think they would have. I think Petunia and Lily both were too stubborn for that. Snape put the original crack in their relationship but even with him out of the picture they were beyond repair. Cause at that time we’re talking five/six years of petty arguments and snide comments from both sides. Plus they were 15/16 and 16/17 which most people aren’t pillars of matureness at those ages especially when they are hurt. Petunia married Vernon the winter of Lily’s 7th year and that was the last nail in the coffin. There was no way after he entered the picture were they gonna ever be able to bury the hatchet and be sisters again. And it’s terribly sad because I do believe that pre-Snape they were close. But Lily chose him over her. Then you’ve got what to a child would have been a major embarrassing moment of not only getting rejected by Hogwarts but having Lily and Snape both know. Which you know she probably felt that they had laughed at her over it. And I get all the things that happened that Lily would have felt hurt and anger over as well. Petunia calling her a freak and then later excluding her from her wedding. And between those two events there were lots of things that would have happened to keep that hurt alive on both sides because I in no way believe that Lily was just a victim of her bitterness. They both played their part. However, Petunia had the chance to in some way make up for her part in their failed relationship and actually put that hurt behind her when Harry showed up on her doorstep. Instead she decided to continue to be petty and bitter. As much as I feel for her as a child and teen it stops at that point.

[propertyofregulus]

okay that was actually something that bothered me in the movies. bc in the books it seems really clear that everyone always ate at their own house tables. about the only time it was deemed acceptable to be seen at another table was if you were romantically involved/family with another house member. i mean, i can see them speaking in like the library or halls between classes but idk? i think it's good their intermingled, but a big part of the worries comes from [...]

the fact that the houses do not have good relationships with one another. its something that’s often brought up, about how the houses are always pinned against one another rather than being able to be one school, one group. u_u

I actually missed it when I was watching the films, it was only later when I started going through screencaps that I realized about the classes. And the bg moments I didn’t realize till people started putting them up on tumblr. But yeah, in the books she made it pretty clear that there wasn’t a lot of intermingling. Or at least I thought she did. She also very clearly gave off the impression that everyone hated Slytherin. So while there might be more things going on between the other three houses Slytherin was pretty much the pariah. I wanna know why they did that in the films. Because while it would be nice if it was intentional. I kinda think all the bg moments between houses just happened accidentally due to the same reasons they had every single house in every class, something to do with the costume department. I mean as much detail as goes into making moves a lot of mistakes happen, really glaring mistakes sometimes.

[propertyofregulus]

Oops. Sorry about that unfinished ask. As I was about to say: Umbridge truly is the scariest person in the books because there is simply no explaination as to why she is the way she is and those people are the scariest in my opinion. I would have loved to have a few Hermione pov chapters! Are you excited about the Fantastic Beasts movie? Or is it something you'd rather not see?

Oops published the other one but deleted now xD

Those people are pretty scary I agree because they show that you don’t always have an explanation behind evil acts. Some people just do messed up things. Honestly I don’t get why everyone hates her. I mean what she does yes but as a villain she’s excellent. Especially as a female villain cause she’s not in love with any of the men, she has no tragic back story (fingers crossed this doesn’t change), and she’s not redeemed. There’s also the added bonus of her being into stereotypical female things with her pink, the bows in her hair, and even those (scary) kitten plates in her office. She is more of a true villain then anyone else in HP and she breaks like all the annoying tropes for female villains.

I’m torn on Fantastic Beasts. I’m excited about it, really excited. But also I’m a little nervous about it. I’m hoping there’s gonna be a lot of diversity in the cast because of where she’s setting it. Also a little nervous because my view of magic in the Americas and her view is probably not gonna mesh. Though I’m probably over thinking it. So mainly, yes I’m excited and of course I’m gonna see it. What about you?

[propertyofregulus]

Can I just say thank you for defending Peter on that post? I would have myself but being on my phone makes writing out long responses difficult. One of the biggest issues I have with the HP fandom is belittling or completely ignoring Peter. Especially in fanart and headcanons. Like, no? He was there, he was their friend, and he could hold his own against ANY of them.

No problem. I try to ignore it mostly but sometimes I just have to say something. It doesn’t help that I think JKR sort of sends out mixed messages when she talks about him. The tragedy of the Marauders is obviously that this guy who was a brother to them and who they’d die for betrays them. That’s terribly painful especially since it results in the death of one, along with his wife, and the imprisonment for the deaths of another. But then she says things that make it seem like James and Sirius just kept him around as a fanboy. That reading just takes the tragedy out of it and makes it inevitable. Of course he’s gonna betray them if that’s the case.

He’s one of those characters you really have to look at to understand and even then it’s hard to figure him out. Harry might not ever hear anyone say ‘wow that Peter what a talented wizard’ but it’s shown in the text that he is, repeatedly, and in a variety of ways. What irks me more then him being belittled is him being erased from the story completely which is what happens when he gets left out. For a fandom that seems to love pain I am completely baffled why Peter is not explored more. It doesn’t get much more painful then being betrayed by your closest friend. To me even more tragic then the death of Lily and James is the breakdown of the Marauders. In school they are brothers, they break the law for each other and risk their lives, they are a tight cohesive group. But at some point that dissolves into a mess of distrust and betrayal. How that happens is more interesting to me then Lily and James falling in love.

[propertyofregulus]

I am super interested in hearing what little points you're thinking of/envision differently!! (and whether they're to do with my messy little AU of tags which I'M not even sure I entirely see going that way, that's my crazy-ramble-of-the-night-so-far, or whether they're to do with my headcanon-that's-been-canoning-in-my-head-for-some-time because I am always interested in the canon-cannons going off in other people's heads on Marauder-era characters (especially when well-thought-out))!

I actually really loved your characterization of them in the post, usually I have major issues with people’s hcs about the Marauders and Reg but I can see that happening. I really love how you include Peter as an equal and not the hanger on that fandom likes to place him. While we’re told other people’s perspective of Peter was basically a useless fanboy I think we’re given facts that really disprove that. The main one being he became their secret keeper. But also he was obviously very talented at magic, maybe not to James/Sirius’ level but Remus wasn’t portrayed as being their level either.

This got kinda long so gonna put the rest under a read more. I’m sorry.

I feel like the major break in Sirius/Reg’s relationship came when he got sorted into Slytherin. I’ve always felt like they were close and then the first cracks started when Sirius went off to school. He’s kind of careless so I don’t think he wrote to Reg like he said he would and when he did it was quick letters that were probably heavy on James’ info/fun stuff they were doing. This would have made Reg super jealous and also feel abandoned. Especially with Sirius going into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin like he was supposed to. That’s not to say that Regulus wasn’t a people pleaser already, cause he was always trying to keep the peace and please Walburga. Just he was worse when Sirius wasn’t there to take the heat off him. Anyway the point of that tangent is that I think Sirius would have been over the moon for Regulus to be sorted into Gryffindor. He’d be able to include his little brother into this new family that was forming.

My other thing is the way he left home. I just personally see him as having to leave. Since he didn’t get kicked out as soon as he was sorted, lbr Walburga would have done that, I think they still held out some hope that he’d grow out of it instead of his rebelling becoming worse. The fact that he left the summer before sixth year is significant I believe. This was his last summer before he was of age. In fact he’d have turned seventeen that fall so it really was just a few months before he was legally an adult. I feel like something big happened that forced him to have to leave, and in a hurry because he left so many of his things. I think he just left with the clothes on his back. No time for packing a bag or anything.

So basically I agree with your hc I just had a few nitpicky type things that were different then the tags. But the tags were cute so I had to add them to the post. This is really long and rambly I’m sorry. I don’t usually share my hcs so hopefully this all makes sense. And please feel free to disagree this is just how I picture them.

[amorremanet]

Regarding your recent Harry Potter post (about the sorting traits), first, excellent post, you make a LOT of amazing points in it, but you said something about Snape "you did the thing for love and that means you’re secretly a Gryffindor" and I was wondering where you got that from? Like is it the fandom saying that? Or the books or JKR?

It's both the books and the fandom, honestly, nonny. JKR herself… I don't know if she's on record as saying anything about Snape really being more of a Gryffindor underneath it all but to be honest, I don't value her opinions on the Sorting system very much at all because she's a self-identified Gryffindor with an enormous Gryffindor bias that manifests itself not only in the text of the HP books but also in her interviews and whatnot.

but my major issue with that point was with the books. The fandom really doesn't question the books enough on this point or on any of the points that involve JKR's Gryffindor favoritism… but they wouldn't have any grounds for going, "but Snape was the Slytherin who died a Gryffindor" or any of the other similar things they've ever said about him if JKR's text hadn't put the idea in their heads in the first place.

(and no. all of you stop that. Snape was a Slytherin. He lived and died a Slytherin and while he also had a strong Gryffindor streak, moments of displaying qualities that Godric Gryffindor valued in his students does not make Snape magically NOT a Slytherin. furthermore, Gryffindor does not get to claim all of the positive moments of every single non-Gryffindor character ever as times when this character was ~really a Gryffindor~ or ~uncharacteristically being a Gryffindor~ or whatEVER. they don't get to do that, I won't let them. It's gross because all of the other Houses have positive qualities and the capacity for greatness and Gryffindor can kindly fucking stop doing the thing now.)

But anyway, back to the books. Dumbledore is the primary offender here and the primary source of this whole, "Snape was secretly a Gryffindor all along" bologna.

Like, I have a huge list of reasons why I intensely dislike Dumbledore but one of the moments where I like him the least is in that scene in DH where Harry gets all of Snape's horrid backstory in the Pensieve where Snape is complaining about some old thing and Dumbledore makes him show off his Patronus and oooooh, it's a DOE. JUST LIKE LILY'S PATRONUS. OOOOH. And Dumbledore is all, "after all this time?" and Snape is all, "Always" and aw he never got over his obsessive crush on her how sad much manpain. And then somewhere in that freaking scene, Dumbledore says, "you know, sometimes, I think we Sort too soon" with the implication that Severus is being such a little Gryffindor right now and uncharacteristically not-Slytherin (which was totally bullshit of him to say in the first place for more reasons than one and I have an entirely different meta post about why over here).

But then Harry, in the epilogue, comes along and makes it worse by reaffirming that in the HP series's narrative, Gryffindor's qualities are always going to be considered good even though we have numerous examples of how traits that are prized by Gryffindor House can be every bit as bad as the supposedly evil forever Slytherin House. Like, there are a lot of potential constructive ways to react and respond to things when your kid (Albus Severus in this case) is freaking out at you about what if they're Sorted into Slytherin and what are they going to do about that, Dad, because you were a Gryffindor and so was Mum and so were Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron and all of the Weasley relatives except for Fleur (Beauxbatons) and maybe Audrey (Percy's wife), and I think it's said that James Sirius is a Gryffindor but that could be fanon.

There are TONS OF WAYS that Harry could have answered that without reaffirming JKR's "Gryffindor is better than everyone" bullshit. He could have said, "Albus Severus, one of the men you are named after was a Slytherin and he was a great man" or, "Albus Severus Potter, if you are Sorted into Slytherin, then that's where you really belong and you mum and I will love you all the same because being a Slytherin doesn't mean anything about who you are as a person because it's our choices, not our abilities or our personality traits, that determine who we really are" or, "Albus Severus Potter, if you are Sorted into Slytherin, then that's okay because all four of the Houses have different amazing things to offer and we wouldn't be able to thrive as a society without all four of them."

But instead, he says that Snape was the "bravest man [he] ever knew." On the one hand, this makes sense for Harry because he, too, is a Gryffindor favoritism spouting dick sometimes… but on the other hand, we're also supposed to trust him in that scene and see that moment as a touching, heartfelt moment that reaffirms that all the Houses have the capacity to do good things and members of all of them have the capacity to be good people OR bad people OR neutral people. But when you actually examine it and put it into the context of how JKR presents the Houses throughout the series, that's not what Harry is saying at all. He's saying that the other Houses are good and valuable inasmuch as they emulate Gryffindor and display Gryffindor's prized qualities.

So… yeah, that's where the comment about Snape ~secretly being a Gryffindor~ came from. Mostly from the books but also a bit from the fandom failing to call the books out on this unadulterated horse crap.

[amorremanet]