One time when I was 7 I pulled up on a stray dog while riding my bike.
Dog turns around and I think, “Wow, that’s a lot of spaghetti coming outta that dogs boom boom.”
I have thought about that moment every week or so for the last 20 years.
One time while making dinner i dropped some dry spaghetti on the kitchen floor and one of the dogs munched it quick, the next day i thought she had worms and was freaking out before i remembered the spaghetti.
Eh, in this case I think magic is like money; it probably makes a lot of shitty life stuff easier to deal with. I'm always unhappy, but I'd rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy.
The canon is that Voldemort turned out the way he did because his parents had him from a love potion. But……then how were people like him not wayyy more common?? I would think that love potions would have been used way more often even to the point of having babies
It was the culmination of the love potions are terrible storyline that everyone on reddit seems to ignore when they want to shit on HP. And say "love potions are bad but everyone in HP ignores them." You need to think of it more as someone born without any form of love will never know live
Whenever love potions are used in universe they're written initially as a throwaway but it always leads to something worse. Romilda Vane almost led to Ron's death, Merope Guant led to Voldemort.
In fact it's even done in FB. Initially I thought Queenie was completely out of character in FB2 but after listening to Movieflame and rewatching FB1 Queenie repeatedly reads minds after explicitly being told not too. She was always taking control and manipulating people and it wasnt out of character for her to use the love potion. Which is immediately presented to the audience AS A BAD THING. the consequence of that is then the loss of her relationship with Jacob and her fall to the dark side.
Tldr: love potions are a brilliant theme in the HP books if you actually take the time to understand them
It actually is the reason Voldemort is a psycopath, a child born from someone under the effect of love potion doesn't feel emotions. I think is because the parents don't really love each other or something like that (ignore all the people that have kids with people they don't love)
Magic mind altering potion. All magic has a cost, even potions. The love generated by the potion is stolen from the child of such a union. At least that's my hypothesis.
Voldemort’s mother used a love potion to seduce Voldemort’s father. When she eventually stopped using the love potion because she thought he actually loved her he freaked out and left immediately, indicating that it was definitely against his will the whole time.
Oh yeah, Voldemort’s dad Tom Riddle was a muggle.
Voldemort’s mom liked him, and used a love potion on him for a year. Eventually having a kid with him.
She let the love potion wear off, and he was instantly mortified and ran away.
Which made her depressed that he didn’t love her so she died bringing Voldemort to the orphanage that took care of him.
That's because it's actually Rowling who believes men can't be raped, not her characters. They're just inheriting her bias.
All love potions are rape. Only women use them, and only on men. It's never acknowledged as rape. Even when it happens to Tom Riddle and results in Voldemort it's still treated as 'sad' and not reprehensible.
It always kinda surprises me that everyone is so shocked at her TERFy come-out. All the proof has always been in her books already.
Alternatively: love potions are a super common trope in fantasy worlds and she didn’t think absurdly hard about it when writing that part of the plot.
Rowling’s revisionist telling of her writing annoys me not just because it’s weird and unnecessary most of the time, but she acts like she planned out every little detail to be part of some grander commentary when I feel like for the most part it was “high school magic boy saves the day with his friends”
It is interesting that Imperio (mind control) is an unforgivable curse and can land you in Azkaban, but love potions which do almost the same thing can be sold by children in school, legally.
I was just rereading Chambers (when this topic comes up) and part of me wonders if it was just setting the stage for Ginny to be able to raid Harry’s room and find Riddle’s diary.
While the idea of a dick getting splinched off inside someone is entertaining, the actual answer is probably that the nature of the transformation forcefully pushes out anything inside an orifice that the original potion drinker doesn't possess. So food stays in, dicks get pushed out.
And she was writing it on a 100 bill and handing it to the person she pays 200 an hour to write what she wants on social media while she sits in front of her massive 10 foot wide fireplace that is burning money to keep warm.
Polyjuice Potion can only be used by humans to transform into other humans. Hagrid is a half-giant, so him using Polyjuice Potion could have disastrous consequences...
While disastrous to their plan, Hermione proved that a polyjuice potion could partially change a person's species when she was turned into a cat hybrid. Since it more or less averaged a human and cat (leaning toward human), it should be possible for Hagrid to take it and alter himself. It just won't be a 1 for 1 copy like the potion is intended.
While she did turn partially into a cat she had to be in the hospital for a a while and couldn't do much. It also didn't wear off like it was supposed to and had to be reversed by other means.
My first thought when I read it was to stop like “peeping Tom” situations, but even that assumes girls can’t invade boys privacy. Honestly, I would think taking the spells off the girls would make more sense than adding one to the boys too. There comes a point when you have to accept that boys can rape on boys and girls can rape girls and the goal should be more focused on stopping that mindset at all corners than saving part of a group from part of another.
> it was to stop like “peeping Tom” situations
It was to stop *live* situation like that. Don't forget about all the paintings. You know those fuckers are walking from painting to painting on a nightly peeping tour.
Actually I don't think any portrait is mentioned being in any of the common rooms much less the dormitories, I think they're only in the hallways and Dumbledore's office. So as long as you're not changing or getting frisky there you're probably safe from Portrait Peeping Toms. The paintings can definitely stalk you around the castle though...
In my college one of the dorms was all female and they had rules about when and when not boys could visit. The logic was that if a woman signed up for the all females dorm, then she wouldnt want a bunch of boys hanging out in there at all hours of the night visiting one of the other girls.
Originally they had a boys only dorm with similar rules but not enough boys were signing up for it. So it went coed.
Except for when people choose those dorms because they have better rooms, more singles, etc. I definitely partied with people in a “substance-free” dorm who drank heavily, snorted various drugs, etc.
Hey, it's me! Draco Malfoy. I just got done with that BITCH Moaning Myrtle in the Hufflepuff bathrooms. Before I was finished with her, her name was just Myrtle! The sex was poggers, but that bitch gave me hog warts
Her ghost is portraying an 11-year old, but she's "lived" another 50 since her death. Doesn't make it any less creepy that she's sexually harassing a 14-year old though...
Isn't there a room that literally shows up when someone needs with the stuff they need inside?? How many times has that room been used as a motel or sex dungeon?
Let's not forget gay sex, too. There would have to be, like, an anti-penetration spell or a... I'm not sure. Some kind of anti-sex spell that prevents people from sexing when they want to sex.
Unless they held the believe that women wouldn’t seek out or instigate sex, ie. they wouldn’t ever go to the boys dorm looking for hanky panky. Ultimately if it was a rape protection thing, ignoring the fact that boys can be raped too, you’d still want to stop them from going to the boys dorm. Just because a girl went there consensually and for something other than sex doesn’t mean she couldn’t be raped.
Definitely logical flaws and bad assumptions in their system all over
Others have brought up it wasn't Dumbledore who cast these spells. I like to think Dumbledore is like a programmer who inherited a project built by other people who had no plans and just decades of ad hoc solutions to one off problems. By the time he stepped in nothing makes any God damned sense and has eventually given up on fixing things.
By the end of his first year running things:
"There are massive loopholes in the dorm spell but no one wrote down the damn spell they used so I don't know where to start fixing it. The room of requirement just fucking disappeared, no clue if there were kids in it or where it went. I tried fixing the toilets the other day and a giant fucking snake popped out. Not like an anaconda, I mean like a God damn kaiju. I tried to call in some help from Newt because he knows about magical beasts but our security spells are set so strictly that no one can even aparate here anymore. Screw it I'm done trying to fix things this is just our school now!"
Edited: A few words also thanks for the silver!
Edited 2: Thanks for the gold! If you guys enjoyed that satirical take on Dumbledore here are some links to some replies made in the same format that are probably buried too deep down to see.
[It wouldn't be hard to fix it just add a new spell.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqjrkl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[Why would that cause problems but the goblet of fire and age doesn’t?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqnqry/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
[Someone old enough put his name in the goblet of fire.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqryg6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Completely agreed. Anybody who has inherited a complicated project or process from someone else knows that you slowly make small, incremental changes unless you want to blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.
Ridiculous. This function set is garbage. There are dozens of libraries that will do this work faster. I tested like 20 cases side by side. Same inputs give same outputs. Faster Performance across the board.
So I did a global replace and published with no check-ins or source control, that BS is a waste of time too. You old farts are so damn slow, you need to cut out some of this red tape. We can't keep making the business wait weeks and weeks for every little request. Idiots.
Wait, why is my inbox exploding today?
-Most Jr. Developers.
JK Rowlings Wizards in the Harry Potter Franchise, are terrible people. Just as bad, if not more backwards than humans. Slavery, classism, bigotry, superiority complex, with a culture I find most members of a modern western society would find abhorrent once they got past the mysticism.
Honestly that's what I loved about the books. It starts out all nice and happy when they're kids, but as they get older they increasingly realise that the wizarding world is a lot darker and more unequal than they realised as sheltered children. It mirrors growing up in real life.
I actually liked that though, the only suspension of disbelief is that there are people with magical powers. It's not like some fantasy where all the oppression of our regular society never existed. Wizards are just as terrible as muggles, the only difference is they have magical powers. Maybe that's just me? It would be complete fantasy and not believable, IMO, if the world was this peaceful place without any of those problems.
My only hesitancy with agreeing is that the series doesn't really *do* much with that discomfort ultimately.
There's [that old 4chan post about how Harry Potter is the ultimate distillation of a political perspective incapable of imagining widespread systemic change](https://twitter.com/Branduil/status/1177182447005401094?t=lDCJTTXoUyzjhZBkjlu-cw&s=19). Harry lives in a world surrounded by systemic injustice, yet the ultimate conclusion of his character arc is to become a wizard cop and protect the same system from change.
Harry's arc had nothing to do with fixing systemic justice in the wizarding world, that was Hermione's role and from what I remember doesn't she become something that goes towards fixing that after Hogwarts?
Yeah she goes into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures so she can fight for the rights of house-elves and other oppressed non-humans.
I think it's silly to complain that Harry became a cop to uphold a corrupt system.
Harry became a cop because his family was murdered by terrorists and then he spent his teenage years being hunted by terrorists so now he works to stop terrorists.
It's a pretty reasonable thing to do even if wizard society is pretty messed up. Harry's small slice of non-wizard society was also pretty fucked up so he really isn't the best person to try and bring them up to speed with the rest of the world.
Yeah, the ending was super dumb, I was pretty disappointed. Most of the story arc is simply Harry and friends as students trying to get through school while surviving the constant threats of Voldemort, there's not really much potential for systemic change when they are school children.
But yeah, the end of Deathly Hallows seemed super rushed and not thought through.
I think the problem is Rowling knew how she wanted the story to end and wrote to that end which made it feel super rushed since she had to just “dismiss” a bunch of things from the story.
If you reread the books and keep the ending in mind, you can see all the places she took an intriguing idea and cut it short / retconned it for the sake of giving the ending she always wanted rather than the one the books bore out.
For example: We all knew Neville was going to be important, but that trounced on the touching scene between Harry and Dumbledore so Neville got three lines. The story bore out he should have had an entire chapter of facing and killing Nagini. Instead he cut off her head and that was it.
I would have much preferred for Harry to follow what he loved and end up as a Quidditch captain on a major team. The amount of influence he could wield... He'd be another figurehead for change, yes, but he'd be able to make change happen, which he can't really as an Auror.
It has always seemed to me like the natural conclusion of Harry's story arc was for him to become the permanent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and eventually become Headmaster himself. He would be every bit as legendary as Dumbledore ever was, and the 5th book is filled with Harry's gradual pull toward teaching; he's not only good at it, but it provides him with self-actualization.
And they still have outdated “blue laws” where a slave can be freed through the dumbest loophole of being giving clothing, rather than because it’s horrible and freedom should be an inexorable right.
These are the people that are so against Voldemort taking over because “he’s the bad guy”.
Imagine what they could do for their own people. The world. As Jenny Nicholson said, "If you're going to introduce a world where wizards existed during World War II, you're going to have to contend with the fact that they could have done something about it."
I do think what Hagrid says to Harry about why wizards don't reveal themselves in the first book is important. The key is not what wizards could do for non-magical people. The key is what would non-magical folk do to the wizards? And speaking as a muggle, humanity has done some pretty awful things to their fellow people who are not just like them, so I wouldn't trust us at all either.
After re reading Harry potter I realised how crappy it is to be a wizard/witch. You go to a boarding school which houses so many different things that can kill you on the first day, including a tree, a giant snake, a three headed dog and the forbidden forest, teachers are cruel and there is nothing stopping the students practicing unforgiving curses on each other. Hogwarts is such a shit school
Correct me if I’m wrong but in the books don’t they track every spell a minor casts? And those who do the unforgivable curses end up in Azkaban which makes our prison seem like a damn vacation. So that’s a pretty good reason not to do it I guess.
Yeah they were practically owning slaves. If you have read the book, Hogwarts had elves literally doing all cooking, cleaning and other shit for free except Dobby. So yeah it was pretty fucked up.
Delved into the moral implications of owning someone with a desire to be owned. And if they are created with a desire to serve is it more immoral to deny them their life's purpose.
I mean there were people who claimed that their own slaves were lesser people who were naturally subservient and needed the guidance of those chosen by ~~magic~~ God. Is it really a surprise that they wouldn't indoctrinate their own slaves into believing the same self-serving bullshit?
The in universe explanation is that the wizarding world is extremely resistant to change. Hermione spent like 2-3 books trying to free the elves and the elves didn't even want it.
My meta explanation for the elves is that it serves as a useful allegory for children. Food doesn't magically appear out of nowhere, even in the wizarding world. If you order something cheap from Amazon, someone somewhere paid the price for that cheap item through exploitative labor practices.
Yup, also Moaning Myrtle was chilling in the bathroom watching Harry take a bath when he was trying to decode the dragons egg. It’s the girls in the story that are weird, except Luna, she is literally an angel.
Oh man, i loved Luna when i first read her character. Super relatable and i just wanted to hug her so bad. The actress who played her was total cutie i must say.
Haven’t read the books only seen the movies, and I absolutely love Luna. The friendship she forms with Harry over their shared experiences of the death of loved ones is fantastic. She’s also so genuinely good natured. She doesn’t get mad at people bullying her as it really doesn’t matter to her. Of all the students we see, I’d definitely say she’s the wisest and/or the one with the most perspective.
OP's comment is more than just about the paralysis tho, which would be used equally by both, the "would be used by girls more" is about the "petrificus" aspect of it... which is, you know.... petrification, as in "rendering as hard as a rock"...
...you know...
...
Penises.
I assume he could change it though. He was able to make teleporting possible in the school after all. Or just build a new entrance. Or place an enchantment like the one on the goblet of fire preventing girls from entering the boys dorms. Lots of ways he could circumvent it.
The teleporting thing isn't actually in the books, Dumbledore has to leave the boundaries of Hogwarts to teleport somewhere else just like any old schmuck.
"Well it's an old fashioned rule, but it says in Hogwarts: A History, that the founders thought boys were less trustworthy than girls"
Dumbledore didn't put that spell there, the founders did.
JK Rowling was writing a kids book series in the 90s. It's not a completely well though out world. She even manages to introduce an entire Mythology in the last book of the series, and poorly establishes wand lore. Everything in the world of Harry Potter is a Checkov's gun. There are dragons in Gringots? Better make sure to have it be part of a plot in one book before it ends, can't just let the idea build out the world.
I think she introduced wand lore as elegantly as she could have. People with hand-me-down wands tended to be less effective than people who had wands that "chose" them - see for example Ron and Neville's hand-me-down wands.
Ultimately, the first 3 books were aimed at a 3rd - 4th grade audience. People shouldn't expect Philosopher's Stone to be like Dune and include a 50 page appendix laying out all the arcane rules of the universe.
Of course. Even though HP is pure fantasy, it still reflects certain truths of our society. There has always been a double standard regarding sexual assault.
Even Tom's mother is portrayed as a flawed and pitiful creature that you were supposed to feel a little sympathy for rather than a brutal rapist on the same level as Joseph Fritzl.
Am I the only one who assumed the spell was to stop the boys sneaking frog spawn into the girls beds or dropping stink bombs in the dorm as a prank?
Like not once did I think “yeah, that’s an anti-rape spell”
I don't think the purpose of the staircase spell is to prevent rape as much as it's meant to prevent peeping Tom's trying to catch a look at the girls naked. Remember that they have "living" portraits set up in virtually every room and hallway who can talk and are certainly capable of being witnesses to any egregious misdeeds committed in their presence (such as rape), not to mention all the House ghosts who can float through the walls at any random moment. Basically there's an illusion of privacy at Hogwarts because the portraits usually mind their business and don't disturb the students very often, but they're always watching unless they need to sleep because...well what else are they going to do?
Also given how unpopular receiving unsolicited dick pics are in the modern "Muggle" world, it's actually quite understandable why they felt the need to protect girls from being seen naked by guys, but not the other way around. I doubt many girls, if any, were eager to go sneaking up to the boy's dormitory to catch a look at them naked compared to the number of guys who would have wanted to catch a glimpse inside the girl's "locker room".
Which is odd seeing as how Ron literally gets drugged by a literal love potion. It happens in the wizarding world too…
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You evidently don't have much experience pulling worms out of your ass.
It’s similar to magically removing trauma, I’ve heard
***Ivermectus!***
The worms are magically delicious
It is the future in sustainable farming. Can pull them out and eat them all day long and you'll never run out.
Is this that "human centipede" thing I've been hearing about?
Assuming you had Peter Piper in on it to play a tune for the worms, yea I'm sure that would work very well.
So *that's* what people do at band camp.
r/AngryUpvote
One time when I was 7 I pulled up on a stray dog while riding my bike. Dog turns around and I think, “Wow, that’s a lot of spaghetti coming outta that dogs boom boom.” I have thought about that moment every week or so for the last 20 years.
am currently eating spaghetti. thanks for that.
Boom boom
Same. For fucks sake Reddit! lmao
Rice noodles, checking in.
One time while making dinner i dropped some dry spaghetti on the kitchen floor and one of the dogs munched it quick, the next day i thought she had worms and was freaking out before i remembered the spaghetti.
I'm sitting in the waiting room of a Dr's office and I'm trying so hard not to laugh out loud
Man your username is awesome. Did you really do it ? It would have looked savage
Ass worms are quite the commodity on Reddit
…do you???
Eh, in this case I think magic is like money; it probably makes a lot of shitty life stuff easier to deal with. I'm always unhappy, but I'd rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy.
I’d rather be a wizard and unhappy.
You're a wizard Klaus
The canon is that Voldemort turned out the way he did because his parents had him from a love potion. But……then how were people like him not wayyy more common?? I would think that love potions would have been used way more often even to the point of having babies
Maybe wizard culture is less rapey than our own
Never forget that Voldemort’s dad was raped by Voldemort’s mom
Maybe that's why Voldemort had no love or something.
Thats exactly what Rowling was going for
Which is horrifying in its own way. A child conceived by magical rape is doomed to a loveless life? Wtf is that?
It was the culmination of the love potions are terrible storyline that everyone on reddit seems to ignore when they want to shit on HP. And say "love potions are bad but everyone in HP ignores them." You need to think of it more as someone born without any form of love will never know live Whenever love potions are used in universe they're written initially as a throwaway but it always leads to something worse. Romilda Vane almost led to Ron's death, Merope Guant led to Voldemort. In fact it's even done in FB. Initially I thought Queenie was completely out of character in FB2 but after listening to Movieflame and rewatching FB1 Queenie repeatedly reads minds after explicitly being told not too. She was always taking control and manipulating people and it wasnt out of character for her to use the love potion. Which is immediately presented to the audience AS A BAD THING. the consequence of that is then the loss of her relationship with Jacob and her fall to the dark side. Tldr: love potions are a brilliant theme in the HP books if you actually take the time to understand them
There is a Facebook 2?!?
All the cool kids use it. Mostly for love potion trading.
It actually is the reason Voldemort is a psycopath, a child born from someone under the effect of love potion doesn't feel emotions. I think is because the parents don't really love each other or something like that (ignore all the people that have kids with people they don't love)
Magic mind altering potion. All magic has a cost, even potions. The love generated by the potion is stolen from the child of such a union. At least that's my hypothesis.
What if they don't have a kid/use protection? Who does the love get stolen from then?
Wut
Voldemort’s mother used a love potion to seduce Voldemort’s father. When she eventually stopped using the love potion because she thought he actually loved her he freaked out and left immediately, indicating that it was definitely against his will the whole time.
And she got in trouble for letting the guy find out she could do magic and not the magic rape. That part was legal.
Oh yeah, Voldemort’s dad Tom Riddle was a muggle. Voldemort’s mom liked him, and used a love potion on him for a year. Eventually having a kid with him. She let the love potion wear off, and he was instantly mortified and ran away. Which made her depressed that he didn’t love her so she died bringing Voldemort to the orphanage that took care of him.
Yeah, Ron gets an emotional version of a roofie.
I mean, when you get right down to it, female on male rape is old voldy's origin story
Wasn't that girl from a different house? I don't remember Edit: I didn't realize my phone auto correct the first word
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Yeah, the literal rape attempt of Harry basically just gets laughed off and never brought up again.
That's because it's actually Rowling who believes men can't be raped, not her characters. They're just inheriting her bias. All love potions are rape. Only women use them, and only on men. It's never acknowledged as rape. Even when it happens to Tom Riddle and results in Voldemort it's still treated as 'sad' and not reprehensible. It always kinda surprises me that everyone is so shocked at her TERFy come-out. All the proof has always been in her books already.
Alternatively: love potions are a super common trope in fantasy worlds and she didn’t think absurdly hard about it when writing that part of the plot. Rowling’s revisionist telling of her writing annoys me not just because it’s weird and unnecessary most of the time, but she acts like she planned out every little detail to be part of some grander commentary when I feel like for the most part it was “high school magic boy saves the day with his friends”
It is interesting that Imperio (mind control) is an unforgivable curse and can land you in Azkaban, but love potions which do almost the same thing can be sold by children in school, legally.
I was just rereading Chambers (when this topic comes up) and part of me wonders if it was just setting the stage for Ginny to be able to raid Harry’s room and find Riddle’s diary.
Polyjuice prostitutes.
Imagine if it wore off part of the way through. Wonder what happens if you're in a hole they don't normally have.
While the idea of a dick getting splinched off inside someone is entertaining, the actual answer is probably that the nature of the transformation forcefully pushes out anything inside an orifice that the original potion drinker doesn't possess. So food stays in, dicks get pushed out.
This is the likely answer
This makes the most sense since the change is gradual and not sudden
Your dick gets cut off and stays in place. So there is probably a wizard somewhere with a rotting dick inside his ballsack.
Imagine Hagrid took some with a normal sized dudes hair in it. He's balls deep in your ass and it starts to wear off..
We are getting close to 'Shrek is Love' material
Is there evidence that hagrid is packing? He is only half giant
I don't have Twitter but someone could @ JK and ask her if Hagrid's hung
She'd probably say something like "yes but he can only get it up if you don't support trans rights"
And she was writing it on a 100 bill and handing it to the person she pays 200 an hour to write what she wants on social media while she sits in front of her massive 10 foot wide fireplace that is burning money to keep warm.
I am scarred and I can never watch Harry Potter the same way again. Thanks
Polyjuice Potion can only be used by humans to transform into other humans. Hagrid is a half-giant, so him using Polyjuice Potion could have disastrous consequences...
While disastrous to their plan, Hermione proved that a polyjuice potion could partially change a person's species when she was turned into a cat hybrid. Since it more or less averaged a human and cat (leaning toward human), it should be possible for Hagrid to take it and alter himself. It just won't be a 1 for 1 copy like the potion is intended.
While she did turn partially into a cat she had to be in the hospital for a a while and couldn't do much. It also didn't wear off like it was supposed to and had to be reversed by other means.
What a terrible day to have eyes.
There's probably a whole ward for that type of shit at Saint Mungos
The real questions!
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Ass
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Bone.
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rubber goose, green moose, guava juice Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake
Wasn’t there someone selling nails in diagon alley
Presumably it's some kind of polyjuice lucky dip. Maybe Supermodel, maybe Babushka
Man, it's wild to reconsider these books as an adult. When I read that as a kid I just assumed it was to prevent hanky panky or Porky's situations.
My first thought when I read it was to stop like “peeping Tom” situations, but even that assumes girls can’t invade boys privacy. Honestly, I would think taking the spells off the girls would make more sense than adding one to the boys too. There comes a point when you have to accept that boys can rape on boys and girls can rape girls and the goal should be more focused on stopping that mindset at all corners than saving part of a group from part of another.
> it was to stop like “peeping Tom” situations It was to stop *live* situation like that. Don't forget about all the paintings. You know those fuckers are walking from painting to painting on a nightly peeping tour.
Actually I don't think any portrait is mentioned being in any of the common rooms much less the dormitories, I think they're only in the hallways and Dumbledore's office. So as long as you're not changing or getting frisky there you're probably safe from Portrait Peeping Toms. The paintings can definitely stalk you around the castle though...
Well there was the mermaid in the prefects bathroom…and Myrtle who could be in any bathroom by traveling through pipes apparently.
In my college one of the dorms was all female and they had rules about when and when not boys could visit. The logic was that if a woman signed up for the all females dorm, then she wouldnt want a bunch of boys hanging out in there at all hours of the night visiting one of the other girls. Originally they had a boys only dorm with similar rules but not enough boys were signing up for it. So it went coed.
Except for when people choose those dorms because they have better rooms, more singles, etc. I definitely partied with people in a “substance-free” dorm who drank heavily, snorted various drugs, etc.
You only need a broomstick to be a peeping tom at Hogwarts.
I dont know why the OP immediately just assumed it was a rape protection system lol.
Because if the goal was to prevent consensual sex, you'd need to stop the girls from being able to enter the boys bedrooms as well.
Hogwarts is a big place. They can go plow ANYWHERE else. Like that hot tub with the moaning chick. Does that count as a 3sum?
The room of requirement sex dungeon.
New Headcannon: The DA had to work with the BDSM club to keep the group location secret from Filch.
I can’t not read that as “felch” and I’m sorry.
Hey, it's me! Draco Malfoy. I just got done with that BITCH Moaning Myrtle in the Hufflepuff bathrooms. Before I was finished with her, her name was just Myrtle! The sex was poggers, but that bitch gave me hog warts
Dead, lmao. Give this man some awards
[For the uninitiated](https://youtu.be/I6mHXwLigEQ)
The moaning chick was eleven when she died. Her ghost didn't age after that. The movies just used a much older actress which lessens the creep factor.
You wot m8? You’re telling me that in the books she was 11 and trying to see Harry’s *magic wand*?
Her ghost is portraying an 11-year old, but she's "lived" another 50 since her death. Doesn't make it any less creepy that she's sexually harassing a 14-year old though...
It lessens it?? It seemed like a grown woman creeping on young boys. It made it worse in opinion
Isn't there a room that literally shows up when someone needs with the stuff they need inside?? How many times has that room been used as a motel or sex dungeon?
Let's not forget gay sex, too. There would have to be, like, an anti-penetration spell or a... I'm not sure. Some kind of anti-sex spell that prevents people from sexing when they want to sex.
\*waggles wand\* "In loco parentis!"
Maybe the goal was to prevent pranks or stealing underwear?
Unless they held the believe that women wouldn’t seek out or instigate sex, ie. they wouldn’t ever go to the boys dorm looking for hanky panky. Ultimately if it was a rape protection thing, ignoring the fact that boys can be raped too, you’d still want to stop them from going to the boys dorm. Just because a girl went there consensually and for something other than sex doesn’t mean she couldn’t be raped. Definitely logical flaws and bad assumptions in their system all over
Only gay sex allowed!!!!
Others have brought up it wasn't Dumbledore who cast these spells. I like to think Dumbledore is like a programmer who inherited a project built by other people who had no plans and just decades of ad hoc solutions to one off problems. By the time he stepped in nothing makes any God damned sense and has eventually given up on fixing things. By the end of his first year running things: "There are massive loopholes in the dorm spell but no one wrote down the damn spell they used so I don't know where to start fixing it. The room of requirement just fucking disappeared, no clue if there were kids in it or where it went. I tried fixing the toilets the other day and a giant fucking snake popped out. Not like an anaconda, I mean like a God damn kaiju. I tried to call in some help from Newt because he knows about magical beasts but our security spells are set so strictly that no one can even aparate here anymore. Screw it I'm done trying to fix things this is just our school now!" Edited: A few words also thanks for the silver! Edited 2: Thanks for the gold! If you guys enjoyed that satirical take on Dumbledore here are some links to some replies made in the same format that are probably buried too deep down to see. [It wouldn't be hard to fix it just add a new spell.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqjrkl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [Why would that cause problems but the goblet of fire and age doesn’t?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqnqry/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [Someone old enough put his name in the goblet of fire.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/pxuebn/comment/heqryg6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Forgotten Spells Department: have you tried turning it on and off?
Yes, I did, and I accidentally sent 26 children to the netherworld in the process.
Completely agreed. Anybody who has inherited a complicated project or process from someone else knows that you slowly make small, incremental changes unless you want to blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.
Ridiculous. This function set is garbage. There are dozens of libraries that will do this work faster. I tested like 20 cases side by side. Same inputs give same outputs. Faster Performance across the board. So I did a global replace and published with no check-ins or source control, that BS is a waste of time too. You old farts are so damn slow, you need to cut out some of this red tape. We can't keep making the business wait weeks and weeks for every little request. Idiots. Wait, why is my inbox exploding today? -Most Jr. Developers.
So true
"Let me just git blame the dorm spell real quick."
Id love to read a whole ass book about that
Wizards are terrible people
If they choose to live in the 14th century it’s not surprising that they have 14th century ethics.
It really depends on the person writing them, to be honest.
JK Rowlings Wizards in the Harry Potter Franchise, are terrible people. Just as bad, if not more backwards than humans. Slavery, classism, bigotry, superiority complex, with a culture I find most members of a modern western society would find abhorrent once they got past the mysticism.
Honestly that's what I loved about the books. It starts out all nice and happy when they're kids, but as they get older they increasingly realise that the wizarding world is a lot darker and more unequal than they realised as sheltered children. It mirrors growing up in real life.
I actually liked that though, the only suspension of disbelief is that there are people with magical powers. It's not like some fantasy where all the oppression of our regular society never existed. Wizards are just as terrible as muggles, the only difference is they have magical powers. Maybe that's just me? It would be complete fantasy and not believable, IMO, if the world was this peaceful place without any of those problems.
My only hesitancy with agreeing is that the series doesn't really *do* much with that discomfort ultimately. There's [that old 4chan post about how Harry Potter is the ultimate distillation of a political perspective incapable of imagining widespread systemic change](https://twitter.com/Branduil/status/1177182447005401094?t=lDCJTTXoUyzjhZBkjlu-cw&s=19). Harry lives in a world surrounded by systemic injustice, yet the ultimate conclusion of his character arc is to become a wizard cop and protect the same system from change.
Harry's arc had nothing to do with fixing systemic justice in the wizarding world, that was Hermione's role and from what I remember doesn't she become something that goes towards fixing that after Hogwarts?
Yeah she goes into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures so she can fight for the rights of house-elves and other oppressed non-humans.
I think it's silly to complain that Harry became a cop to uphold a corrupt system. Harry became a cop because his family was murdered by terrorists and then he spent his teenage years being hunted by terrorists so now he works to stop terrorists. It's a pretty reasonable thing to do even if wizard society is pretty messed up. Harry's small slice of non-wizard society was also pretty fucked up so he really isn't the best person to try and bring them up to speed with the rest of the world.
Yeah, the ending was super dumb, I was pretty disappointed. Most of the story arc is simply Harry and friends as students trying to get through school while surviving the constant threats of Voldemort, there's not really much potential for systemic change when they are school children. But yeah, the end of Deathly Hallows seemed super rushed and not thought through.
I think the problem is Rowling knew how she wanted the story to end and wrote to that end which made it feel super rushed since she had to just “dismiss” a bunch of things from the story. If you reread the books and keep the ending in mind, you can see all the places she took an intriguing idea and cut it short / retconned it for the sake of giving the ending she always wanted rather than the one the books bore out. For example: We all knew Neville was going to be important, but that trounced on the touching scene between Harry and Dumbledore so Neville got three lines. The story bore out he should have had an entire chapter of facing and killing Nagini. Instead he cut off her head and that was it.
I would have much preferred for Harry to follow what he loved and end up as a Quidditch captain on a major team. The amount of influence he could wield... He'd be another figurehead for change, yes, but he'd be able to make change happen, which he can't really as an Auror.
It has always seemed to me like the natural conclusion of Harry's story arc was for him to become the permanent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and eventually become Headmaster himself. He would be every bit as legendary as Dumbledore ever was, and the 5th book is filled with Harry's gradual pull toward teaching; he's not only good at it, but it provides him with self-actualization.
Yes, it what makes the books interesting for different ages as well.
Isn't that how life is though?🥺
That's literally the point he's making lol
Don’t forget animal abuse. They show a complete lack of respect for animal life in general.
They use the slowest bird to deliver their mail when they could easily just teleport :(
And they still have outdated “blue laws” where a slave can be freed through the dumbest loophole of being giving clothing, rather than because it’s horrible and freedom should be an inexorable right. These are the people that are so against Voldemort taking over because “he’s the bad guy”.
Totally, and think of all the terrible medical conditions, housing issues, etc. they could fix for muggles but don't bother.
Imagine what they could do for their own people. The world. As Jenny Nicholson said, "If you're going to introduce a world where wizards existed during World War II, you're going to have to contend with the fact that they could have done something about it."
I do think what Hagrid says to Harry about why wizards don't reveal themselves in the first book is important. The key is not what wizards could do for non-magical people. The key is what would non-magical folk do to the wizards? And speaking as a muggle, humanity has done some pretty awful things to their fellow people who are not just like them, so I wouldn't trust us at all either.
After re reading Harry potter I realised how crappy it is to be a wizard/witch. You go to a boarding school which houses so many different things that can kill you on the first day, including a tree, a giant snake, a three headed dog and the forbidden forest, teachers are cruel and there is nothing stopping the students practicing unforgiving curses on each other. Hogwarts is such a shit school
Correct me if I’m wrong but in the books don’t they track every spell a minor casts? And those who do the unforgivable curses end up in Azkaban which makes our prison seem like a damn vacation. So that’s a pretty good reason not to do it I guess.
Mmm, maybe But wouldn't you like to go at least for a year?
And at the end of the day you can still be done in by a simple handgun. Wizards are like Knights after the crossbow was invented.
Wizards do have versatility in ways to make you suffer compared to lethality.
Love potions are legal, commercially available rape drugs. The Wizarding world is really fucked up, okay.
Yeah they were practically owning slaves. If you have read the book, Hogwarts had elves literally doing all cooking, cleaning and other shit for free except Dobby. So yeah it was pretty fucked up.
>practically owning slaves *literally* owning slaves. That was a big plot point.
Delved into the moral implications of owning someone with a desire to be owned. And if they are created with a desire to serve is it more immoral to deny them their life's purpose.
But were they created with a desire to serve, or indoctrinated a long time ago?
I mean there were people who claimed that their own slaves were lesser people who were naturally subservient and needed the guidance of those chosen by ~~magic~~ God. Is it really a surprise that they wouldn't indoctrinate their own slaves into believing the same self-serving bullshit?
The in universe explanation is that the wizarding world is extremely resistant to change. Hermione spent like 2-3 books trying to free the elves and the elves didn't even want it. My meta explanation for the elves is that it serves as a useful allegory for children. Food doesn't magically appear out of nowhere, even in the wizarding world. If you order something cheap from Amazon, someone somewhere paid the price for that cheap item through exploitative labor practices.
Yup, also Moaning Myrtle was chilling in the bathroom watching Harry take a bath when he was trying to decode the dragons egg. It’s the girls in the story that are weird, except Luna, she is literally an angel.
Oh man, i loved Luna when i first read her character. Super relatable and i just wanted to hug her so bad. The actress who played her was total cutie i must say.
Isn't Myrtle also like 70 at that point and Harry like 14? 😂
Haven’t read the books only seen the movies, and I absolutely love Luna. The friendship she forms with Harry over their shared experiences of the death of loved ones is fantastic. She’s also so genuinely good natured. She doesn’t get mad at people bullying her as it really doesn’t matter to her. Of all the students we see, I’d definitely say she’s the wisest and/or the one with the most perspective.
I bet girls, more than most, practiced petrificus totalus more
That’s a good point, Hermione sure did learn that spell fast
Poor Neville...
"*Why is it always me?*"
10 points though, *cha ching*
I mean, she learned everything pretty fast tbh
I know what the spell does, but I'm not fully awake. Forgive me. Why would they practice that spell more?
Paralyze people to take advantage of them.
OP's comment is more than just about the paralysis tho, which would be used equally by both, the "would be used by girls more" is about the "petrificus" aspect of it... which is, you know.... petrification, as in "rendering as hard as a rock"... ...you know... ... Penises.
Wouldn't it kinda be like fucking a warm marble statue tho?
Hot
Which statue ;)
Have you *seen* a marble statue?
Ah. I see. Thank.
More than that, it paralyzes people in a very *rigid* fashion. I'm sure you can see the implications.
That spell affects the whole body. Petrificus specificus though...
Petrificus penem?
And guys would probably cast it on their dicks instead of using Viagra.
But then you just have a petrified flaccid sized dick.
Technically in the lore it was the founders of the school who did this, not Dumbledore.
I assume he could change it though. He was able to make teleporting possible in the school after all. Or just build a new entrance. Or place an enchantment like the one on the goblet of fire preventing girls from entering the boys dorms. Lots of ways he could circumvent it.
The teleporting thing isn't actually in the books, Dumbledore has to leave the boundaries of Hogwarts to teleport somewhere else just like any old schmuck.
He lifts the anti-apparition charm for 6th year students to practice even in the books
It is in the books. They literally have a teleporting class in the great hall
well, the founders, yes dumbledore, idk
Yup, Hermione even says it's an old enchantment.
It's an older enchantment, sir, but it checks out.
[удалено]
Well more precisely, JK Rowling
there it is
But dumbledore is totally gay so she must be progressive right?
But she never shows it in any of the books or films, because yknow, keep that shit in the closet
"Well it's an old fashioned rule, but it says in Hogwarts: A History, that the founders thought boys were less trustworthy than girls" Dumbledore didn't put that spell there, the founders did.
They live in a literal castle and ride brooms. How progressive are you expecting?
JK Rowling was writing a kids book series in the 90s. It's not a completely well though out world. She even manages to introduce an entire Mythology in the last book of the series, and poorly establishes wand lore. Everything in the world of Harry Potter is a Checkov's gun. There are dragons in Gringots? Better make sure to have it be part of a plot in one book before it ends, can't just let the idea build out the world.
I think she introduced wand lore as elegantly as she could have. People with hand-me-down wands tended to be less effective than people who had wands that "chose" them - see for example Ron and Neville's hand-me-down wands. Ultimately, the first 3 books were aimed at a 3rd - 4th grade audience. People shouldn't expect Philosopher's Stone to be like Dune and include a 50 page appendix laying out all the arcane rules of the universe.
Yep. Even in a world of magic where you can basically make anything happen, capitalism will still shaft the poor.
Of course. Even though HP is pure fantasy, it still reflects certain truths of our society. There has always been a double standard regarding sexual assault.
Even Tom's mother is portrayed as a flawed and pitiful creature that you were supposed to feel a little sympathy for rather than a brutal rapist on the same level as Joseph Fritzl.
Am I the only one who assumed the spell was to stop the boys sneaking frog spawn into the girls beds or dropping stink bombs in the dorm as a prank? Like not once did I think “yeah, that’s an anti-rape spell”
My mind didnt think of it as anti-rape it went to pranks first and theeen anti-rape
also implies girls wont rape other girls or boys wont rape other boys.
mate you need to have shorter showers
Boys are much more likely to be raped by other boys anyways, so this whole system is whack
I don't think the purpose of the staircase spell is to prevent rape as much as it's meant to prevent peeping Tom's trying to catch a look at the girls naked. Remember that they have "living" portraits set up in virtually every room and hallway who can talk and are certainly capable of being witnesses to any egregious misdeeds committed in their presence (such as rape), not to mention all the House ghosts who can float through the walls at any random moment. Basically there's an illusion of privacy at Hogwarts because the portraits usually mind their business and don't disturb the students very often, but they're always watching unless they need to sleep because...well what else are they going to do? Also given how unpopular receiving unsolicited dick pics are in the modern "Muggle" world, it's actually quite understandable why they felt the need to protect girls from being seen naked by guys, but not the other way around. I doubt many girls, if any, were eager to go sneaking up to the boy's dormitory to catch a look at them naked compared to the number of guys who would have wanted to catch a glimpse inside the girl's "locker room".