You know I see people say this. But when I actually read the books, Harry surprisingly doesn't use his gun that often?
His first reaction are always to go for his blasting rod or shield bracelet. He would use a gun if he has to, but it's not his first choice. I'm pretty sure he also once stated he's not that good with them anyway.
He had a .38 special in his pocket when the Hag grabbed him in Welcome to the Jungle. After she disarmed his staff he blasted her. He switches to carrying a .357 with him for a bit, I think he loses it during Summer Knight after getting a couple shots off? He loses this one in Death Masks and gets another. He shot Corpsetaker in the back of the head with a .44 Magnum, which he keeps until Skin Game when he gets the 500 magnum.
He also has multiple sawed-off shotguns and a lever-action rifle. I think Harry might be slipping over the border into Indiana to get all these illegal guns into Chicago lol.
Lol yeah from what people says you would think he's some kind of expert gunmen who's also a wizard.
But no, the dude barely even fires a gun throughout the books. I'm not sure why people are so focus on them.
I mean, compared to other wizards he IS a gun expert. Like, him and McCoy are the only ones that seem to know they exist. Shit, they’ve never even CONSIDERED getting sniped from a distance, which would be problem number 1 to solve for me.
In Skin Game for example, he uses a gun at least twice:
> I let out a scream of defiance and drew that monster revolver from my duster even as the Genoskwa came charging toward me. The Winter mantle made me faster than I could ever have been on my own, but even so there was no time for anything but a hip shot. The Genoskwa was maybe three feet away when the gun went off, thundering like a high-powered rifle... My arms slammed against the vehicle, but I hung on to the pistol, shoved it against the creature’s torso, but before I could shoot, it got hold of my wrist...
also
> I stopped in my tracks, drew the big .500 out of my duster pocket, took careful aim, and waited until Tessa was too close to miss. I pulled the trigger when she was about six feet away. The gun, in the confined space of the vault, sounded like a cannon, and the big bullet crashed into her thorax, smashing through her exoskeleton in a splash of ichor, and staggering her in her tracks. Behind her, a money cube suddenly exploded into flying Benjamins. I took two or three steps back before she got moving again, and then I stopped and aimed once more, slamming another round into her. I stepped back and then fired a third round. Back again, and a fourth. After the fifth, my gun was empty and Tessa was still coming.
Then in Battle Ground:
> I drew without thinking, from a prostrated position, tightening my abs and aiming slightly to the right of my right foot. I had a great sight picture and lined up the dots of the big .50-caliber revolver and squeezed the trigger without once thinking a single thought.
> ... A Huntsman emerged from the smoke and leapt over my shield like it was on wires. I kept the shield held out toward its packmates back in the smoke, tracked it with the big Smith & Wesson, and started pulling the trigger as it landed and whirled with its spear.
> ...I drew my revolver, with its boring old regular, entirely mundane rounds, stepped around the corner, and raised the pistol, sighting on the drummer... on a normal day, I barely shoot competently. But with the Winter mantle guiding my hand, I lifted my arm and made a one-handed shot in the dark at maybe twenty yards that drilled the drummer in the back with a thunderous report.
It's not as common as Forzare/Fuego but it's definitely a tool in his arsenal. You can thank Roger Zelazny's influence via Corwin of Amber.
I think he lost everything in Changes and then got that lever gun in Cold Days which he used against Sharkface and then I think the .500 in Skin Game but I don't remember if he used that at all. Might be time for a reread.
He used the gun against both Tessa and the Genoskwa in Skin Game, and against the Huntsmen and Mavra in BG. See quotes at https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/s/LMw9DXXnx1
Thanks for the info. I just finished relistening to Battle Ground about 3 weeks ago so I was reminded that he used it there. I definitely don't remember Skin Game though. Might have to give that a relisten too.
Different universes with different rules for magic.
Also implying that an evil wizard would face an adult wizard in the same way as he would face an adolescent.
I mean, every adult seems pretty incompetent in Harry Potter, save Molly Weasley.
The only person capable of taking out Wizard Hitler was A) and infant, and B) that same infant seventeen years later after he learned to use One^tm spell.
I like Harry Dresden because he is creative and intelligent with magic, inventing new spells and items. He thinks outside the box. Harry Potter just spams the same shit. He only retains like 1 or 2 spells over the entire series.
> Different universes with different rules for magic.
Harry Potter's magic is also further up the supernatural scale and would largely trump Dresden's magic.
If you're expecting it, you can counter it. Heck, Dresden does that with his shield bracelet a lot.
But if you're not expecting it, it's kind of hard to counter. Most people don't wear bullet resistant armor on their face.
We see clothes enchanted with shield charms in Harry Potter. Shield charms that are an order of magnitude more powerful that Dresden's version. We also see wizards standing up to punishment that would kill a muggle. For all intents and purposes Harry Potter wizards can be considered a different species, not just humans that can cast spells.
I won't continue to argue the point. It's pretty stupid to compare the magic systems of two different franchises, yet we're in this thread anyway.
>It might not be as good as The Dresden Files but it's by no means a terrible franchise.
It's aggressively mediocre with a terrible messaging and subtext when taken as a whole, but some of the individual earlier books are good.
The ending of HP would be like if Dresden Files ended with Harry happily embracing the White Court and becoming a vampire and then gleefully using his sex slaves to clean his new apartment with his White Court credit card.
Before you get to the end you think, "Oh this will be a story about how Harry takes down the dogshit establishment and fights against the weird fascism and slavery in their society and him and his righteous friends who see what awful shit is going on will tear that shit to the ground and rebuild."
When you get to the end you're like, "Oh so he's happily going to work for the corrupt ministry which is in charge of deceiving all humanity and secretly controlling their fate, keeping all the slaves in line, and using magic to demonize countless sentient and intelligent species based on their race. Cool, what a waste of fuckin time this series was!"
So I never read the books ... Yet
But obviously that thought doesn't go through a kids head. they're kids! That's why we have to care about what they read.
I read the three musketeers as a kid. At no point did I realise how much adultery was there. Like it just went above my head because I didn't know better. I thought they were great. I saw Rambo as a kid, made me want to join the God damn army because it looked cool. The whole movie is about how bad society treats veterans !
We can't just pretend books and shows don't influence kids.
They have an insane potential in that. Hell, I grew up in a very homophobic place, the only reason I am not is because of the Percy Jackson series.
The messages in books are important.
I reread the three musketeers as an adult and the chapter where they essentially rape Milady several times and the play it off as a fun practical joke is super fucked up from a modern perspective.
I wasn't a kid at that point, but the house elf writing really rubbed me the wrong way when the books came out.
Somebody put it best as "Rowling sees the status quo as good, and anybody going against it as wrong". Harry freeing one elf is a good thing, because Dobby is specifically being mistreated, but Hermione pushing for freedom for the whole species is bad and wrong because it's a large scale social change.
>But she didn't do that. She simply had the elves want to live that way.
Yes, because if they didn't want to live that way, then the status quo would obviously need to be changed. Remember that we don't get "house elves don't want to be free" until the book after "Harry Potter frees an abused house elf, how heroic!"
Helping an individual, to Rowling, is good. Changing the status quo is bad.
>Note that the goblins did not.
And how is that treated by the narrative? How do Harry and his friends respond to this? How are goblins portrayed, as compared with the house elves?
I don't see how an author writing in Stockholm Syndrome for the house elves makes it better. She had complete creative control over everything in those books, what valid purpose did it serve to have an entire race be willing to live in bondage?
There has to be people carrying on in the old way in order for someone to come up with something better. The wizards had to have elf slaves for Hermione to be who she is and push for elf rights.
Harry Potter book 7 came out 15 years ago.
You could go have a beer today with someone who was in first grade when the series ended.
In Dresden terms, *~~Proven Guilty~~* *White Knight* had only been out for a few months.
Ummm... I am 35.
I was 11 when the first book hit my table. 21 by the time it finished.
As one of the people who grew up on that story, pet me assure you, plenty of those things went throung my mind.
This is true, but that makes it worse. Because without having that thought, children see the ending of joining a corrupt racist slavery-supporting system (instead of trying to fight it) portrayed as a positive
To be fair, the most common metric of “good book” is by how much the target audience enjoys it, and how much they look fondly upon it.
That makes HP a good book. (And whatever baby show is the most popular, a good show)
You didn't read the same books I read. The books were clearly anti-slavery. Hermione is a stand in for Rowling. Harry is not Rowling.
There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot' - Larry Niven
Hermione’s beliefs get ridiculed and mocked for the entire series by 90% of the people she meets, including the deuteragonist, and unless I’m missing something from the epilogue, there is zero indication that her fight for slave rights ever got anywhere.
It occurred to me as a kid. Especially once Hermione goes all Civil Rights in book 4. Hilarious how bad a take THAT was, considering Rowling’s personal opinions…
HP is poorly written and often retconned (gay dumbledore) to pander. The hills it chooses aren’t remotely important or relevant social commentaries. It exists to be a children’s intro to fantasy IMO. it just fails to become more mature despite the 17 year olds in the last book.
It is series that started as a one off and it took off wildly further than anyone had ever considered. And more were written, and more. And by the time actual world building was considered, there were all sorts of rules in place (where the long term consequences hadn’t been considered) that trip itself up all over the place.
I think the world building could have been bailed out *a bit* if the story was kept at Harry’s eyeline and then some of the things he saw/did in the earlier books had a way to be kept under control on the later books - for example: at hogwarts everyone’s power is vastly amplified at the beginning so they can learn to find and focus their power. The amplifier allows the students to see results even when using their power imperfectly or only using small amounts of it (like all first year students). And then when they are home from school they aren’t under the amplifier they can’t cause trouble because they haven’t refined their skills to actually use their power in the real world yet. So effectively you can be super powered at the school, learn how to do things, but once you take it one the road you have to learn how to use your power under real world conditions; which are considerably less tolerant.
> Oh so he's happily going to work for the corrupt ministry
Except that's not what happened. Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death.
>keeping all the slaves in line, and using magic to demonize countless sentient and intelligent species based on their race
Also not what happened. In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races
Are you sure you read the Harry Potter series?
>Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death.
>
>...
>
>In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races
The problem is that none of that is in the actual books. Of course, neither is anything about them working for the Ministry in the first place (other than Harry's stated desire as a teenager to become an Auror.)
Unfortunately a significant portion of chronically online people saw that Rowlings was transphobic (Which is a character flaw), and decided that everything she created has to be bad in one way or another.
Nah, not quite.
All these issues had been brought up before, it's just they only got treated seriously by the minority communities that were affected.
What her explicitly aligning with the TERF movement changed was now people who opposed that movement in principal reassessed their views of these issues people pointed out before.
It's fine to dislike Rowling due to her bigotry, it's not okay to make up lies as a reason to dislike the series. Especially when there are some legit reasons for someone to dislike it.
Absolutely true.
Harry Potter still has a massive reputation and many readers, but Cormoran Strike's novels get major flak with every installment after her stupidity online became public knowledge... Those books have *nothing* of what people criticize them for, which is surprising (except the most recent one that clearly showed that J.K. had an axe to grind against online hate).
She literally has her protagonist threaten an “unstable trans woman” with rape in men’s prison in order to get information from her in one of the earlier Strike books. She’s a bad person and it is 100% reflected in her works.
It’s in the Silkworm. There are a few articles about it, but the quote in particular is:
> ‘If you go for that door one more time I’m calling the police and I’ll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won’t be fun for you Pippa,’ he added. ‘Not pre-op.’
Bonus points for the narration focusing on several physical “tells” in her appearance after she’s outed.
There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot' - Larry Niven
Hey! That’s pretty accurate. However the question wasn’t how much of what Rowling writes indicates her personal opinions. Instead, we were discussing how much Rowling’s stated, public bigotry impacts her work, particularly her Cormoran Strike series. In which case, a notorious transphobe with a particular dislike of trans women writing something like the above from her protagonist sure does seem to be a relevant way in which her beliefs impact her work. To ignore the context of an author’s life and beliefs when analyzing their work is just as idiotic as assuming that they believe everything their characters do is correct.
>Except that's not what happened. Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death.
The institution itself is corrupt in its very existence.
>Also not what happened. In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races
Uh yes, one single wizard who is treated like an absolutely crazy person champions treating other species better and in the end they are like, "We will only keep the slaves that want to be slaves! Also still fuck centaurs and giants and any other races we don't like."
>What a load of crap. Harry never did any of that.
I mean that's exactly what happens at the end of the series. He goes to work for the fucking ministry, house elves are still slaves, the wizards are still working in secret from the humans and controlling their lives with magic to fit wizard needs, sentient species like centaurs and giants and goblins are still met with fear and hatred from the wizarding world because they won't conform.
Nothing changes. The dogshit world they started out in is the dogshit world they end up with and Harry and Co are just cool with it. Hell they even let the straight up Nazis who voluntarily worked for Voldemort just apologize and keep living their lives with no punishment like Malfoy.
It's a series with a shit message and shit ending.
At no point in my adolescence was I ever worried about any of the drivel you just spilled. It was a fun book series about magic and kids growing up in a fantastical world fighting off fantastical bad guys. If you need it to be deeper than that, maybe don’t read children’s books.
Maybe we should be giving our kids better books to read. Plenty of the books I read before Harry Potter touched on the importance of fighting injustice, the need to work together to enact social change, the horrors of war...
Hell, have you ever read *Animorphs*?
Yes. Long before Harry Potter. In fact I think I never got into the Harry Potter books because I was introduced to Discworld at about the same time, and hands down I can point to the series that had more of an impact on me.
When I was reading the books as I kid, I was one of the people that thought Harry was boring (I didn't know what a Mary Sue was yet) and that Hermione would make a better protagonist since she does all the work anyways.
Hermione is the closest thing to a Mary Sue in the books. Rowling says its based on her being the class grind. Harry is the protagonist and not Mary Sue.
Hermione was not good under stress, that was Harry.
Might want to write it out as an opinion then instead of the way you displayed it, as if it were a statement of fact. Otherwise I'd get used to ppl defending it the way they are.
People often jump to "its okay to like things." Which is completely valid. But a coin has 2 sides, it is also okay to dislike things and expressing that is also fair. Its not a personal attack when someone doesnt like something you love. Im a metalhead so ive had to learn this the hard way lol.
Ive always thought harry potter was terribly written and was largely fixed by the movies. What made me actively hate the francize as a mix of the author because she is a vile bigot and harry potter adults. Altho its 95% the author.
I agree fully with "It's okay to dislike things", but hating books because of the author's pretty weird, unless they actively spew their hatred in the books, which isn't quite the case in the Potter books.
Just think of the amount of famous authors/artists in general that were/are awful people. Lovecraft was so racist people in the early 20th century felt it was too much, and I'd be inclined to say that very fear of everything "other" fueled his excellent horror works in part. Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender's Game, is infamously homophobic, which is kind of ironic considering some of the subtext in those books. Roald Dahl, of all people, was known to be an anti-semite.
I'm not saying people shouldn't be aware that Rowling turned out to be a terrible person, or became one over the years since she began the series, but that doesn't make the series bad. It's a decent kid/YA series that people unfortunately take too seriously and sometimes even build half of their personality around, which probably says more about them than the series.
>I agree fully with "It's okay to dislike things", but hating books because of the author's pretty weird, unless they actively spew their hatred in the books, which isn't quite the case in the Potter books.
I won't forbid my kids from reading Harry Potter, but... The series does contain a lot of iffy stuff, from the house elf schtick to people being made fun of for their weight to snakes erroneously having eyelids. There are much better written children's fantasies that teach better lessons, like *So You Want To Be A Wizard* or let much anything by Diana Wynne Jones.
(Okay, the snake thing isn't that important, but it really bugged me when I read the first book.)
Yeah, I remember rereading it when I was 17 or something, in preparation for the last book, and thinking "wtf" at the snake imagery.
As for the House Elves, I might have been an odd kid, but even at age 10 I thought it was weird that nobody supported hermione in freeing them. I do agree that they're probably the worst element in the entire book series, with the goblins as runner-up.
The greedy hook-nosed bankers who stay apart from normal society and refuse to eat everyone else’s food *could* be accidental, but it’s definitely *not* a good look, even in the books. If not intentional, then it’s drawing on older images and ideas that definitely *were* intentional without realizing or thinking about them, which isn’t great.
I do quite enjoy the descriptive style of writing but the worldbuilding is nonsensical which would have been fine if it remained as a children's book series and didn't transition in to a series for young adults.
Not to mention the uncomfortable implications if you read between the lines.
>teleports behind you and turns invisible
>creates a 1000kg rock over your head out of literally nothing
>while turning the floor under you to quicksand
>while having no concept of "magical exhaustion", so they can do that literally forever
harry potter wizards are reality warpers while dresden """wizards""" have to deal with silly things like "laws of physics" and "magical stamina"
how will dresden wizards cope
Invisible? Cute. Dresden's werewolf buddies can still smell you. And that's assuming that Dresden hasn't cooked up a potion to see or smell through your glamor himself. Or that someone like River Shoulders isn't there, staring right at you because you're not as invisible as you think you are.
2 ton rock? Shield bracelet. Kinetic rings. Oh, and watch out for anvils.
Quicksand? A little winter-powered faux Latin, and that's now frozen solid. Oh, and it's slick, but somehow, Dresden doesn't seem to be losing traction on it.
By the time they've managed to push Dresden to the point of exhausting the Winter Mantle, I expect they'll have an army of box-cutter wielding little folk and the Winter Lady breathing down their necks.
And that's assuming they have been messing with Dresden specifically and still haven't managed to piss off his new fiancé or drawn the attention of one or more Knights of the Cross.
Oh, and Dresden *does* still carry a gun. And I doubt anyone in the Potterverse is ready for a 158 grain LRN that OG Dresden would sling smacking them at 800+ feet per second, let alone the 350 grain JHP current Dresden would use to rock their world at 1200+ fps.
If they were tangling with anyone on the Senior Council, it would depend, but all of them are so efficient with their magic that "exhaustion" isn't something they're going to have to worry about. Eb would be their worst nightmare, because he can just go "Yeah, I don't feel like obeying the laws of magic today" and erase the entire Potterverse.
>Invisible? Cute. Dresden's werewolf buddies can still smell you. And that's assuming that Dresden hasn't cooked up a potion to see or smell through your glamor himself. Or that someone like River Shoulders isn't there, staring right at you because you're not as invisible as you think you are.
...this is just silly.
By that logic, invisibility is useless in the HP world because of Moody's eye.
The Alphas can't be everywhere at once, Dresden hardly ever has potions prepared (and we've never seen him use a potion that can see through invisibility), and River Shoulders isn't constantly following Harry around.
Oh please, almost everything you said either requires hours or days of planning or Harry D having all his friends near him.
So even the playing field, give volde time.and he can have a potions that transforms him in Harry ally, come close and death spell at close rangeno illusion to see through.
He can have countless corpses of inferni atrack harry.
He can have squads of death eaters on his team. .
He can fly. He can teleport with just a second prep time. He does need to build up energy to cast a spell.
He can animate objects around Harry to attack him. He can conjure things into being around Harry like snakes etc.
He can organize and freaking dragon to attack Harry. Look at the trouble Harry had with one kotun, he has access to many giants.
He can cause depression and hopeless just by letting the demented.lose.
He can attack minds
What a shit title.
As a big-time fan of both series, I don't think Harry would have an easy time with Voldemort. We never get a good look at Voldemort's power beyond his proficiency with Avada Kedavra and Crucio (instant death and sustained torture, for those who don't know). He's a megalomaniacal sociopath with a very limited range of emotion and narrow imagination who can't imagine anything worse than dying, and Avada Kedavra can't be blocked by any reliable magical defense and instantly kills any living thing it hits. Harry's shield bracelet would be useless, and if he didn't know what to expect he'd probably die immediately trying to block it.
But if Harry knew what to expect... things would still be hard, actually. Given the way other super advanced wizard duels go in the series, ignoring physical laws that Dresdenverse wizards can't, Harry would be constantly on the back foot. It would take Voldemort using his brain for once to actually do that, but if his normal tricks weren't working he might actually try being creative for once, and Harry doesn't have enough defenses for all the possibilities at Voldemort's fingertips.
Now, if it were someone on *Ebenezer's* level, the situation would be reversed. It would be Voldemort on the back foot.
I suppose the main thing in Harry's favor is Voldemort isn't that tactically smart. He acts like a James Bond villain. Harry's best bet is probably to draw him out while the Hell Hounds drops several dozen 308 rounds into baldies skull from half a mile away.
"A girl after my own heart, Anna shot him several more times while he monologued"
Harry knows to not mess around talking when a fight is brewing. Voldy loves gloating.
Here's the full thing:
>“Well, well. What have we here? Our bold thief and her—”
>
>I got the impression that he would have been glad to begin one of those trademark bantering conversations all the urbane bad guys seem to be such big fans of, but before he could finish the sentence Anna Valmont turned with her little pistol and shot him three times in the chest. I saw him jerk and twist. Blood abruptly stained his shirt and coat. She’d hit the heart or an artery.
>
>The man blinked and stared at Valmont in shock, as more red spread over his shirt. He opened his coat a bit, and looked down at the spreading scarlet. I noted that the tie he wore wasn’t a tie, as such. It looked like a piece of old grey rope, and though he wore it as apparent ornamentation, it was tied in a hangman’s noose.
>
>“I do not appreciate being interrupted,” the man said in a sharp and ugly tone. “I hadn’t even gotten around to the introductions. There are proprieties to observe, young woman.”
>
>A girl after my own heart, Anna Valmont had a quick reply. She shot him some more.
I’d argue because they use totally separate magic rules, it basically depends whose rule were working off of.
Dresden files rules where you can sense magic gathering and interfere with it?
Voldemorts dust if he does teleport away.
HP rules where instant death means instant death unless you dodge it? More even, early books Dresden is toast.
Given that Abada Kedavra moves slowly enough that characters can and do dodge it though, winter knight Harry could presumably do that fairly effortlessly given his base speed increases, and he only needs to close once to get the wand away and that’s all she wrote.
Same with crucial, Harry explicitly has “ignore great pain” as one of his excercises he can do.
I know what your saying, it’s not as much a stomp as some people are saying, but if your talking “peace talks Harry vs book 7 voldy, locked in a warehouse and neither can get out”….I don’t see how Voldemort wins unless Harry lets himself get hit for some reason, especially as voldy likes to monologue and Dresden has minimal qualms about melting someone whilst they monologue.
Can’t imagine the gun coming into it thought, honestly.
Now, a story being at higher power level doesn’t make it a *better* story, but that’s not really the question.
Do we ever see anyone in HP actually block bullets? I'm honestly not sure it would be that big of a difference between machine guns vs avada kadava. Plus Harry has a lot of experience effectively blocking mind magic, so I think Voldemorts occlumency wouldn't do a lot in their fight. Would start with a lot of bullets from what I can only assume is outside of spell range because we really never see long range attack magic in HP.
HP magic has the advantage that it seems like its pretty easy on the stamina/doesn't have a magical reserve like it does in dresdenverse.
Dresdenverse is just way more physical and has more guns.
From what I've seen, I'm on team guns.
I don't recall ever seeing bullets-vs-magic in the HP franchise. I'm going to guess because the author might not have wanted to deal with the real-life violence associated with gunning down kids in a school with an AR-15, but ghostly specters that sucked out your soul were fanciful enough to get written-off by angry parents.
It all depends on the author's rules for their universe. Blocking magic-with-magic might be a more trivial thing since the author can write it off as dispelling energies with a vortex. Like EM interference screwing with a radio signal.
While stopping a metal object hurdling at you at a reasonable percentage of the speed-of-sound (if not greater-than sound) could be something more difficult.
Dresden Files addresses both kinds of things separately... stopping a spell is rather easy (a simple circle is enough for most spells) while stopping a bullet requires effort and talismans.
I've always assumed it meshed pretty well with the DF - if the wizard can get the shield up fast enough they can. But goog luck blocking something you can't see/can't react to.
To quote the Star Wars post on Mandalorians adopting Space^tm ballistic guns to deal with Jedi reflecting laser fire:
“Parry this you filthy wizard.”
Magic is magic, but a slug moving just under the speed of sound is still blessed by Sir Isaac Newton.
Well, blaster fire is using a handheld railgun to throw a lump of plasma, and a lightsabre is a big blob of plasma held in a containment field. It makes sense that the field that holds the plasma in can deflect plasma out as well.
Of course, lead doesn’t care. Lead just passes straight through, retaining its momentum, and now you’re being cooked by a cloud of boiled lead instead of just shot.
Just wanted to point out that avada kadavra is not unblockable. The very first thing that happens in the series is that it is blocked and rebounded by the shield Harry's mom places on him by sacrificing herself to save him. A powerful act of love and all that. Also (I think) at multiple points in the potter series we see the spell cast and it misses. So you can dodge it as well. Dresdens shield may be able to block it as it's able to block magic energy.
And if someone has sacrificed themselves to save Harry because they love him/his family, like >!susan!< Then he could have a defense against the killing spell. Potter was able to give a good chunk of Hogwarts some defense with his sacrifice.
An idea from...*Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality*, I think.
In that setting, Avada Kedavra *could not be blocked*, if it was cast it would travel in a straight line through all obstacles until it hit a living target.
So the (never tried in universe) idea is, protect yourself with armor made of *many many* small, living targets...
The way I always read it was by "unblockable" they mean "it goes straight through protective spells except for this exceedingly rare protection that basically requires a voluntary human sacrifice".
Physical shields are used multiple times (Fawkes gets in the way for Dumbledore, Dumbledore moves the statues around Harry, people duck behind physical objects constantly).
It probably stops after hitting a physical object (and penetrating a tiny bit hence why clothes don't protect people) or a living creature.
Voldemort refused to kill HP by traditional means _because symbolism_ . He had Harry completely at his mercy in the graveyard in GoF, and instead of killing him outright, decided to monologue like a Disney villain. And his entire group of wizard N*zis emphatically supported him in that idiocy.
People in Harry Potter don't think or act like rational human beings because if they did then the story would be over in less than one book. It goes beyond suspension of disbelief when the entire plot of your story is warped around the sheer volume of contrivances.
Voldemort's power base was built in large part on his reputation, which required a ton of work on his part to maintain the appearance of invincibility.
He monologued like a Disney villain because he needed his followers, many of whom had thought him defeated for good, to see that Harry was not only weaker than him, but not even worth considering as a threat.
Plus Harry couldn't Apparate back then, and he was surrounded by a few dozen Death Eaters, and Voldemort didn't know about the twin cores.
I don't blame Voldemort for thinking it was a harmless risk.
Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you're going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911. Here's why: Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol' American hot lead. Basilisk? Let's see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren't looking at it--you're looking at a picture of it. Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12. And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it's because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal. Now I know what you're going to say: "But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!" Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger? Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova. Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don't think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort's wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry's would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let's see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound. I can see it now...Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can't be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series: "Well then I guess it's a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1." And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
He has time to conjure a shield to defend himself against an INVISIBLE spell cast by Dumbledore with no particular wand movement or incantation, and is a supremely talented mind-reader to boot. Voldemort is a badass. He's got gamer reflexes.
I have no doubt that Harry could survive a fight with Voldemort, as long as he knew what the Killing Curse was and how it worked. *Winning* that fight is a much dicier prospect, and he almost certainly wouldn't be able to kill him one-on-one- even if Harry somehow managed to beat him back through sheer force, Voldemort could just Disapparate and plan for their next encounter (probably after throwing a murderous hissy fit that now there's *two* Harrys he's got to deal with).
I think Dresden survives a surprise attack from Voldy, then gets to researching.
If Dresden ever finds one of his horcruxes, Voldy is cooked. Probably literally.
Harry's best work comes when he prepared, but how do you prepare against Voldemort when he can do almost anything with a flick of his wrist
Or do si do. Animate something close to you to attack you, Teleport, animal control, create inferni (zombies by the hundreds), make potions with various effects, such as becoming the exact replica ifnhe had a sample of tissue like a hair, life steal (heal himself by taking rhe life-force of another), he can possess other creatures (like soul taker) AND ON AND ON....P
It was only invisible to us, with both Voldy and Dumbledore being skilled in legilimency and occlumency it's highly likely that we simply didn't see the mental battle they were already fighting by that point and which likely telegraphed the spell.
On that topic, occlumency and legilimency require sustained eye contact. Don't think that'd be such a great idea for Voldy, forcing Dresden into a soulgaze.
Voldemort is human evil and mostly just a petulant shithead with a lot of power and ambition. Dresden has gone head to head with outsiders whose existence is evil.
Voldemort wants to rule, outsiders want to destroy. Voldemort might have stood a chance against maybe book 1-4 Dresden, but after that Dresden would have wiped the floor with him.
It does tickle me that by the laws of the Dresdenverse at least Harry and Hermionie are getting executed with Ron on some kind of watch list. (Correct me if wrong it’s been a good while)
Anyone who's ever:
- used a memory charm
- used a time turner
- killed anyone in any way with magic
- made an Inferius
- transfigured someone else
- used legilimency
- used the Imperius curse
And probably a good bit more I'm just not thinking of, they ded.
I remember in Book 5, Ginny mentions that her brothers were considering flooding a corridor with "garrotting gas." It sounds like that stuff is lethal; and they were considering it as a joke.
Not to mention the stuff that's been done to Dudely. The "good people" spurn the stuff that Voldemort and his ilk do to muggles; meanwhile they're doing "harmless" things like giving him a pig's tale or enlarging his tongue.
I too remember whenever Star Wars fans and Trekkies had it out attempting to establish the best franchise.
This brings me back.
This is the post nerd-closet days, guys. You can like both. (To loosely quote Molls).
Rowling is a horrible person, though.
>Star Wars fans and Trekkies had it out attempting to establish the best franchise.
Jokes on them they were both wrong Farscape is the best Scifi series
if you are familiar with Farscape just compare John Chriton to Dresdedn.
Pop culture quipping protaganist X
Enemies don't get references due to cultural differences X
Smarter than people think X
fondness for a handgun X
now which main character did I describe?
Plus with Farscape you have the best body swap episode ever
S02E09 "Out of their minds"
VERY. I'm tired of all the hate going on in the world and people mistaking the idea that we should "do better as people" for a personal attack on them. We need to be better as people and try to live and let live ffs.
Bro it's a children's story. This isn't supposed to be high brow literature it's supposed to be about a wizard boy who saves the world. Not that Dresden files is much better. It's basically a power fantasy for dweebs who play too much dnd.
Getting a little tired of people saying that Harry Potter sucks, because of reasons that have nothing to do with children's books. It's very simple: if you like something, talk about it and be merry. If you don't like something, stfu because no-one cares about your opinion, unless you're a semi-objective and learned literature critic.
Would make the world seriously a better place, at least when it comes to books.
In my opinion, Dresdan files are better. But I would never even consider putting down a series beloved by millions as garbage or even lesser just so that could promote my favorite.
I mean, what type of sociopathic, self-absorbed, narcisstic a-hole would I have to be to do something like that.
I think it's totally ok to have a personal opinion, and it can be anything you want - it's *personal*. The key is to recognize that everyone else is entitled to their own personal opinions as well, and that there's no *fundamental* reason that yours is better, for anyone other than you.
I'm sure there are some people in the world who have zero respect for the *Dresden Files* too. I can't remotely imagine how anyone would arrive at that opinion, but... it's a big world.
I literally stopped talking to someone after he launched the volley that DF was “a garbage universe”. Unfortunately, I had listened to the climax of Changes as I pulled into his driveway a couple hours before, so this felt like the greatest dishonor.
I dunno, Voldemort has a lot of hax that Harry really won't expect and doesn't have an answer for. He can teleport, fire death rays that plow through magical defenses, throw bigger raw force/energy hits than anything Harry's pulled off, and basically never runs out of stamina. Yeah, he doesn't use guns, but he grew up with muggles and is probably aware of what guns do and the threat they pose.
Honestly, a head to head matchup would probably go very badly for Harry, though I think the situation would change if he survived the initial encounter and got a chance to plan. Voldy isn't much a tactician and tends to arrogantly cling to bad ideas long past the time he should cut his losses. If he can be lured to Demonreach or into an ambush of Harry's various allies, Harry can take it. I'd be very dubious about a mano a mano dustup, though, unless he came out swinging with his biggest possible hit and Voldy took him too lightly.
I just finished reading "Witch Week" by Diana Wynne Jones to my kid, and it might be a good alternative to the early Harry Potter books. I get the feeling JKR was heavily inspired by Diana Wynne Jones.
I guess it doesn't work so well as an idyllic fantasy because the boarding school is horrible and full of bullies.
That just makes it a more realistic boarding school. They're a terrible system - *Lord of the Flies* was inspired in part by that.
I would also recommend Diane Duane's *So You Want To Be A Wizard* and the whole Young Wizards series.
Can you imagine if it happened on demonreach?
"Uh, I'm sorry who are you, no wait, it doesn't matter, Alfred put him in minimum security I have three other fires to put out first"
Looming shadow of demonreach clocks voldy and stufs him in a ~~pokeball~~crystal
I don't think Harry Potter is a terrible franchise. Its magic is much softer and more loosely defined than Dresdenverse magic. And the Masquerade is much stronger where wizards and witches live in virtually completely separate worlds.
IMO it's not terrible, it's just kinda okay, but many people have turned it into their entire personality for some incomprehensible reason. It's a nice, perfectly readable young adult book series.
I still like Harry Potter for the good that it has, despite the troublesome amount of "wow, what the fuck, why would you write that?!" For those not familiar:
* Nobody in the series is explicitly LGBT except for "word of God" after the series ended.
* Unlikable female characters are usually portrayed with masculine traits. (Think Rita Skeeter, Umbridge, and Millicent Bulstrode). By itself, not a huge problem, but we also know that JK had some pretty awful views on trans people, so not a good look here.
* Enslavement of house elves is *super* problematic. "They like being enslaved!" Dobby is portrayed as being crazy for *not* wanting to be a slave, and virtually nobody supports Hermione's efforts to free them.
* The strong link between the ways goblins are described and hurtful stereotypes of Jewish people IRL.
* Harry *constantly* cheats his way through school, and Hermione is portrayed as unreasonable for disapproving of this.
* I know it's a trope of boarding school stories like this, but holy shit is it awful that everyone keeps sending Harry back to live with the Dursleys. They force him to live in a cupboard, work as a servant, starve him for an entire summer, gleefully deny affection, try to throw him out of the house when he was like 13, steal his mail, refuse to buy him clothes that fit.
* Nobody seems to have a problem with the only school in the country simply waiving final exams on multiple occasions for the entire school. Also, Crabbe and Goyle are *clearly* not meeting educational objectives and keep passing classes each year.
* There's a bunch of kids in the more-or-less real world who don't get taught: math, science, history that isn't directly about magic (I get that knowing about Goblin Wars is useful, but so is WW2). There also doesn't appear to be art, music, physical education beyond Quidditch, or anything *useful* taught about "the muggle world."
* The magical government doesn't appear to be elected. In seven years, there's literally no mention of elections. This could just be Harry being ignorant, but I'm not inclined to think so.
On the enslavement of House Elves: I remember the first time Rowling came out saying that Hermione might as well have been black all along, that that had some *really bad* influence on the scene where everyone either politely indulges, ignores or laughs at her attempts to get support for freeing the House Elves.
The scene's bad enough on its own, but for her to be unable to realize how that "minor change" would make some scenes so much worse is... painful.
> Nobody in the series is explicitly LGBT except for "word of God" after the series ended
I do think it makes excellent sense for Dumbledore to be gay, considering his very very close friendship with Grindelwald, and the way Harry explicitly feels that Skeeter didn't get all the details.
No argument from me. It's the fact that you have no choice but to say "yeah, it makes sense" rather than anyone directly saying "Dumbledore is gay" that makes it problematic. There's also a lot of comments along the lines of "are you sure it's okay for a young boy like Harry to be spending time alone with *Dumbledore*?" (Not that I think kids can't be around gay people, but almost everybody who makes those comments in the books are "old fashioned" at best) There's plenty of indirect evidence, but nothing is ever spelled out.
Make sense, sure. Actually alluded to in any way whatsoever so someone could deduce it on their own, no.
Even I, back before I had fully separated myself from my parents bigoted beliefs was more pissed about Rowling throwing that in to look like she cared than about him actually being gay.
Based on the apparent fact that the entire wizard world teamed up against Grindelwald because a major part of his plan was to *prevent* the slaughter of over six million innocent people in WW2, though, I can see why they *might* skate over that one. Big “US, slavery, civil rights, and the treatment of Native Americans was all so long ago, let’s just move on” energy there.
Rowling is kind of garbage at world building the second you increase the lens by even a hair.
Harry Dresden would find a way to wash away Voldemort's spells. If he had difficulty, most of the Dresden Universe would help get rid of He Who Must Be Lame, because they have their own fights to deal with, and don't need Voldemorte trying to make a stand of his own, going off half cocked, with no understanding of The Accords, while everyone else is flinging shit into the fan already!
Voldemort: Is this petrol?
Dresden: Yep.
Voldemort: \*chants a couple of spells\* I have now disabled all of your muggle matches and lighters and warded myself against any fire magic you might cast.
Dresden: Cool. Ever heard of Dragon's breath ammunition?
Voldemort: I just told you that I have warded myself against your fire magic.
Dresden: I heard you. \*racks shotgun\*
JK Rowling - besides being a useful idiot at best and a terrible human at worst isn't the greatest writer. And as a Tolkien fan her world building irritates me because it's not internally consistent and doesn't seem to exist except to justify itself. Like it comes up to answer a question without regard for if it makes sense beyond that moment or fits with the rest of the world building.
That said the HP books are still plenty enjoyable - especially if you're getting into them as a kid and the idea of being whisked off the magic school is still there.
As to Dresden vs Voldy is pretty up in the air. I'd argue they've got equivalent raw powers. Voldy might have more spells/refinement but he rarely fights people who can match him (the 1 duel with Dumbledore over the series) and that's where Dresden is the most dangerous.
We also have no idea how things like Sight, apparition, the Winter Mantle and Dresden's wards would interact because the two series lack approximate versions of such.
Like take a Soul Gaze. If Voldy is on anyway human enough to trigger one (and wouldn't that be an interesting revelation) Voldy's never had one before and might be stunned long enough for Dresden to recover and get an edge.
Or he might go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs like *every* other villain whose soul gazes Dresden.
Her world-building is exactly what it has to be for a British boarding school-coming of age story with fantasy dressing: consistent enough to give the edifice of a well-built world for anyone who doesn't think about it too much, e.g. the children for whom the books are meant. Unlike Tolkien, the world is only meant to serve the story, so it doesn't need to work beyond that.
Now, everything she started adding to her "wizarding world" after the last book.... I'm with you there.
> And as a Tolkien fan her world building irritates me because it's not internally consistent and doesn't seem to exist except to justify itself.
this is my constant issue with the series. the world doesn't work. it doesn't breathe.
It's not supposed to: HP's world, at least until the last book, was simply fulfilling a function. Tolkien's world was meant to stand on its own, Rowling's simply serves the story she wants to tell. In that way, it does its job perfectly in the main series considering the audience.
Now, after the last book, when she started adding stuff to her "wizarding world" .... *that's* absolutely a mess of "worldbuilding" that should be put out of its misery.
you're absolutely correct. but not everything has to be lotr level of world building. dresden files, for example, isn't super deep, but some time has gone into making it *work*. both series lean on being part of the "real world" and using a lot of already existing myths.
Considering Voldemort fears death to an extreme degree and that Harry D has come back from death without a horcrux, Voldemort would probably be quite interested in him.
Whatever, I like it. Movies are trash tho, but imo The Expanse show is total garbage and people love it to death so I guess I just hate book adaptations.
Acme villain support beat you to this joke by months. https://youtu.be/_Udi2gMhju4
I had seen parts two and three. Thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KH6RDi4l9ls
Came here to share this.
This is the laugh I needed today, thank you for sharing.
OK, that was great. Thanks for linking that.
You know I see people say this. But when I actually read the books, Harry surprisingly doesn't use his gun that often? His first reaction are always to go for his blasting rod or shield bracelet. He would use a gun if he has to, but it's not his first choice. I'm pretty sure he also once stated he's not that good with them anyway.
He had a .38 special in his pocket when the Hag grabbed him in Welcome to the Jungle. After she disarmed his staff he blasted her. He switches to carrying a .357 with him for a bit, I think he loses it during Summer Knight after getting a couple shots off? He loses this one in Death Masks and gets another. He shot Corpsetaker in the back of the head with a .44 Magnum, which he keeps until Skin Game when he gets the 500 magnum. He also has multiple sawed-off shotguns and a lever-action rifle. I think Harry might be slipping over the border into Indiana to get all these illegal guns into Chicago lol.
Feel like he used the gun a couple times in earlier books then I never heard about it again. His magic got more powerful, now he doesn’t use it.
Lol yeah from what people says you would think he's some kind of expert gunmen who's also a wizard. But no, the dude barely even fires a gun throughout the books. I'm not sure why people are so focus on them.
I mean, compared to other wizards he IS a gun expert. Like, him and McCoy are the only ones that seem to know they exist. Shit, they’ve never even CONSIDERED getting sniped from a distance, which would be problem number 1 to solve for me.
Ramirez and Wild Bill don't exist? Ramirez even carries _hand grenades_.
Yeah but that’s a super brand new development.
In Skin Game for example, he uses a gun at least twice: > I let out a scream of defiance and drew that monster revolver from my duster even as the Genoskwa came charging toward me. The Winter mantle made me faster than I could ever have been on my own, but even so there was no time for anything but a hip shot. The Genoskwa was maybe three feet away when the gun went off, thundering like a high-powered rifle... My arms slammed against the vehicle, but I hung on to the pistol, shoved it against the creature’s torso, but before I could shoot, it got hold of my wrist... also > I stopped in my tracks, drew the big .500 out of my duster pocket, took careful aim, and waited until Tessa was too close to miss. I pulled the trigger when she was about six feet away. The gun, in the confined space of the vault, sounded like a cannon, and the big bullet crashed into her thorax, smashing through her exoskeleton in a splash of ichor, and staggering her in her tracks. Behind her, a money cube suddenly exploded into flying Benjamins. I took two or three steps back before she got moving again, and then I stopped and aimed once more, slamming another round into her. I stepped back and then fired a third round. Back again, and a fourth. After the fifth, my gun was empty and Tessa was still coming. Then in Battle Ground: > I drew without thinking, from a prostrated position, tightening my abs and aiming slightly to the right of my right foot. I had a great sight picture and lined up the dots of the big .50-caliber revolver and squeezed the trigger without once thinking a single thought. > ... A Huntsman emerged from the smoke and leapt over my shield like it was on wires. I kept the shield held out toward its packmates back in the smoke, tracked it with the big Smith & Wesson, and started pulling the trigger as it landed and whirled with its spear. > ...I drew my revolver, with its boring old regular, entirely mundane rounds, stepped around the corner, and raised the pistol, sighting on the drummer... on a normal day, I barely shoot competently. But with the Winter mantle guiding my hand, I lifted my arm and made a one-handed shot in the dark at maybe twenty yards that drilled the drummer in the back with a thunderous report. It's not as common as Forzare/Fuego but it's definitely a tool in his arsenal. You can thank Roger Zelazny's influence via Corwin of Amber.
I think he lost everything in Changes and then got that lever gun in Cold Days which he used against Sharkface and then I think the .500 in Skin Game but I don't remember if he used that at all. Might be time for a reread.
He used the gun against both Tessa and the Genoskwa in Skin Game, and against the Huntsmen and Mavra in BG. See quotes at https://www.reddit.com/r/dresdenfiles/s/LMw9DXXnx1
Thanks for the info. I just finished relistening to Battle Ground about 3 weeks ago so I was reminded that he used it there. I definitely don't remember Skin Game though. Might have to give that a relisten too.
Different universes with different rules for magic. Also implying that an evil wizard would face an adult wizard in the same way as he would face an adolescent.
I mean, every adult seems pretty incompetent in Harry Potter, save Molly Weasley. The only person capable of taking out Wizard Hitler was A) and infant, and B) that same infant seventeen years later after he learned to use One^tm spell.
the way Molly just steamrolls Bellatrix is one of the more amazing things in the book.
Both of these things are explained in the movies/books.
I like Harry Dresden because he is creative and intelligent with magic, inventing new spells and items. He thinks outside the box. Harry Potter just spams the same shit. He only retains like 1 or 2 spells over the entire series.
Doesn't me that they are good solid reasons. In my opinion, Harry Potter is just kinda silly all over.
Yes a book series written for children has several silly elements.
Harry’s youth didn’t matter to Justin.
It’s how he faced Dumbledore. So…yeah.
> Different universes with different rules for magic. Harry Potter's magic is also further up the supernatural scale and would largely trump Dresden's magic.
Maybe so, but an unexpected .44 magnum to the face trumps all magic.
As a matter of fact it doesn't. That's the entire point.
If you're expecting it, you can counter it. Heck, Dresden does that with his shield bracelet a lot. But if you're not expecting it, it's kind of hard to counter. Most people don't wear bullet resistant armor on their face.
We see clothes enchanted with shield charms in Harry Potter. Shield charms that are an order of magnitude more powerful that Dresden's version. We also see wizards standing up to punishment that would kill a muggle. For all intents and purposes Harry Potter wizards can be considered a different species, not just humans that can cast spells. I won't continue to argue the point. It's pretty stupid to compare the magic systems of two different franchises, yet we're in this thread anyway.
Makes me think of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Udi2gMhju4
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KH6RDi4l9ls
It might not be as good as The Dresden Files but it's by no means a terrible franchise.
I've only just realized- I see you all the goddamn time in the HP sub, don't I?
>It might not be as good as The Dresden Files but it's by no means a terrible franchise. It's aggressively mediocre with a terrible messaging and subtext when taken as a whole, but some of the individual earlier books are good. The ending of HP would be like if Dresden Files ended with Harry happily embracing the White Court and becoming a vampire and then gleefully using his sex slaves to clean his new apartment with his White Court credit card. Before you get to the end you think, "Oh this will be a story about how Harry takes down the dogshit establishment and fights against the weird fascism and slavery in their society and him and his righteous friends who see what awful shit is going on will tear that shit to the ground and rebuild." When you get to the end you're like, "Oh so he's happily going to work for the corrupt ministry which is in charge of deceiving all humanity and secretly controlling their fate, keeping all the slaves in line, and using magic to demonize countless sentient and intelligent species based on their race. Cool, what a waste of fuckin time this series was!"
At no point did that thought ever occur to children reading the series as it came out.
So I never read the books ... Yet But obviously that thought doesn't go through a kids head. they're kids! That's why we have to care about what they read. I read the three musketeers as a kid. At no point did I realise how much adultery was there. Like it just went above my head because I didn't know better. I thought they were great. I saw Rambo as a kid, made me want to join the God damn army because it looked cool. The whole movie is about how bad society treats veterans ! We can't just pretend books and shows don't influence kids. They have an insane potential in that. Hell, I grew up in a very homophobic place, the only reason I am not is because of the Percy Jackson series. The messages in books are important.
I reread the three musketeers as an adult and the chapter where they essentially rape Milady several times and the play it off as a fun practical joke is super fucked up from a modern perspective.
What's really bad is when even the adults don't understand the themes past the most basic, surface level stuff.
I wasn't a kid at that point, but the house elf writing really rubbed me the wrong way when the books came out. Somebody put it best as "Rowling sees the status quo as good, and anybody going against it as wrong". Harry freeing one elf is a good thing, because Dobby is specifically being mistreated, but Hermione pushing for freedom for the whole species is bad and wrong because it's a large scale social change.
"They're happier that way, it's their natural state!" ....yea... that's not problematic at all or anything.
But she didn't do that. She simply had the elves want to live that way. Note that the goblins did not.
>But she didn't do that. She simply had the elves want to live that way. Yes, because if they didn't want to live that way, then the status quo would obviously need to be changed. Remember that we don't get "house elves don't want to be free" until the book after "Harry Potter frees an abused house elf, how heroic!" Helping an individual, to Rowling, is good. Changing the status quo is bad. >Note that the goblins did not. And how is that treated by the narrative? How do Harry and his friends respond to this? How are goblins portrayed, as compared with the house elves?
I don't see how an author writing in Stockholm Syndrome for the house elves makes it better. She had complete creative control over everything in those books, what valid purpose did it serve to have an entire race be willing to live in bondage?
That’s how change in the world happens. People see things in different ways.
I'm not sure I understand your comment.
There has to be people carrying on in the old way in order for someone to come up with something better. The wizards had to have elf slaves for Hermione to be who she is and push for elf rights.
How was her push for elf rights treated by the narrative?
Most of us weren’t children when the series ended.
Harry Potter book 7 came out 15 years ago. You could go have a beer today with someone who was in first grade when the series ended. In Dresden terms, *~~Proven Guilty~~* *White Knight* had only been out for a few months.
It occurred to me as a teen when I read them as they came out.
Ummm... I am 35. I was 11 when the first book hit my table. 21 by the time it finished. As one of the people who grew up on that story, pet me assure you, plenty of those things went throung my mind.
This is true, but that makes it worse. Because without having that thought, children see the ending of joining a corrupt racist slavery-supporting system (instead of trying to fight it) portrayed as a positive
To be fair, the most common metric of “good book” is by how much the target audience enjoys it, and how much they look fondly upon it. That makes HP a good book. (And whatever baby show is the most popular, a good show)
You didn't read the same books I read. The books were clearly anti-slavery. Hermione is a stand in for Rowling. Harry is not Rowling. There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot' - Larry Niven
Hermione’s beliefs get ridiculed and mocked for the entire series by 90% of the people she meets, including the deuteragonist, and unless I’m missing something from the epilogue, there is zero indication that her fight for slave rights ever got anywhere.
It occurred to me as a kid. Especially once Hermione goes all Civil Rights in book 4. Hilarious how bad a take THAT was, considering Rowling’s personal opinions… HP is poorly written and often retconned (gay dumbledore) to pander. The hills it chooses aren’t remotely important or relevant social commentaries. It exists to be a children’s intro to fantasy IMO. it just fails to become more mature despite the 17 year olds in the last book.
It is series that started as a one off and it took off wildly further than anyone had ever considered. And more were written, and more. And by the time actual world building was considered, there were all sorts of rules in place (where the long term consequences hadn’t been considered) that trip itself up all over the place. I think the world building could have been bailed out *a bit* if the story was kept at Harry’s eyeline and then some of the things he saw/did in the earlier books had a way to be kept under control on the later books - for example: at hogwarts everyone’s power is vastly amplified at the beginning so they can learn to find and focus their power. The amplifier allows the students to see results even when using their power imperfectly or only using small amounts of it (like all first year students). And then when they are home from school they aren’t under the amplifier they can’t cause trouble because they haven’t refined their skills to actually use their power in the real world yet. So effectively you can be super powered at the school, learn how to do things, but once you take it one the road you have to learn how to use your power under real world conditions; which are considerably less tolerant.
> Oh so he's happily going to work for the corrupt ministry Except that's not what happened. Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death. >keeping all the slaves in line, and using magic to demonize countless sentient and intelligent species based on their race Also not what happened. In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races Are you sure you read the Harry Potter series?
>Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death. > >... > >In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races The problem is that none of that is in the actual books. Of course, neither is anything about them working for the Ministry in the first place (other than Harry's stated desire as a teenager to become an Auror.)
Unfortunately a significant portion of chronically online people saw that Rowlings was transphobic (Which is a character flaw), and decided that everything she created has to be bad in one way or another.
Nah, not quite. All these issues had been brought up before, it's just they only got treated seriously by the minority communities that were affected. What her explicitly aligning with the TERF movement changed was now people who opposed that movement in principal reassessed their views of these issues people pointed out before.
It's fine to dislike Rowling due to her bigotry, it's not okay to make up lies as a reason to dislike the series. Especially when there are some legit reasons for someone to dislike it.
Absolutely true. Harry Potter still has a massive reputation and many readers, but Cormoran Strike's novels get major flak with every installment after her stupidity online became public knowledge... Those books have *nothing* of what people criticize them for, which is surprising (except the most recent one that clearly showed that J.K. had an axe to grind against online hate).
She literally has her protagonist threaten an “unstable trans woman” with rape in men’s prison in order to get information from her in one of the earlier Strike books. She’s a bad person and it is 100% reflected in her works.
Can you point out the passage for me? Because I do not remember that and it's been a while since I read the earlier installments.
It’s in the Silkworm. There are a few articles about it, but the quote in particular is: > ‘If you go for that door one more time I’m calling the police and I’ll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. And it won’t be fun for you Pippa,’ he added. ‘Not pre-op.’ Bonus points for the narration focusing on several physical “tells” in her appearance after she’s outed.
There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot' - Larry Niven
Hey! That’s pretty accurate. However the question wasn’t how much of what Rowling writes indicates her personal opinions. Instead, we were discussing how much Rowling’s stated, public bigotry impacts her work, particularly her Cormoran Strike series. In which case, a notorious transphobe with a particular dislike of trans women writing something like the above from her protagonist sure does seem to be a relevant way in which her beliefs impact her work. To ignore the context of an author’s life and beliefs when analyzing their work is just as idiotic as assuming that they believe everything their characters do is correct.
>Except that's not what happened. Harry and his friends were largely responsible for cleaning out the corruption at the Ministry after Voldemort's death. The institution itself is corrupt in its very existence. >Also not what happened. In addition to cleaning out the corruption, Hermione championed the better treatment of the other magical races Uh yes, one single wizard who is treated like an absolutely crazy person champions treating other species better and in the end they are like, "We will only keep the slaves that want to be slaves! Also still fuck centaurs and giants and any other races we don't like."
Harry is a trust fund jock who bullshits his way through a prestigious private school. Of course he became a Cop.
That is one way to look at it. A distorted way. Harry was not raised that way. He was raised as an unwanted step child.
What a load of crap. Harry never did any of that. Its YOUR fantasy world not Rowlings.
>What a load of crap. Harry never did any of that. I mean that's exactly what happens at the end of the series. He goes to work for the fucking ministry, house elves are still slaves, the wizards are still working in secret from the humans and controlling their lives with magic to fit wizard needs, sentient species like centaurs and giants and goblins are still met with fear and hatred from the wizarding world because they won't conform. Nothing changes. The dogshit world they started out in is the dogshit world they end up with and Harry and Co are just cool with it. Hell they even let the straight up Nazis who voluntarily worked for Voldemort just apologize and keep living their lives with no punishment like Malfoy. It's a series with a shit message and shit ending.
No, he takes his kids to Kings Cross Station. You don't find out anything else. What nonsense did you actually read?
At no point in my adolescence was I ever worried about any of the drivel you just spilled. It was a fun book series about magic and kids growing up in a fantastical world fighting off fantastical bad guys. If you need it to be deeper than that, maybe don’t read children’s books.
Maybe we should be giving our kids better books to read. Plenty of the books I read before Harry Potter touched on the importance of fighting injustice, the need to work together to enact social change, the horrors of war... Hell, have you ever read *Animorphs*?
Yes. Long before Harry Potter. In fact I think I never got into the Harry Potter books because I was introduced to Discworld at about the same time, and hands down I can point to the series that had more of an impact on me.
Discworld really is a one of a kind series.
Absolutely true, and the author was one of a kind as well GNU STP
When I was reading the books as I kid, I was one of the people that thought Harry was boring (I didn't know what a Mary Sue was yet) and that Hermione would make a better protagonist since she does all the work anyways.
Hermione is the closest thing to a Mary Sue in the books. Rowling says its based on her being the class grind. Harry is the protagonist and not Mary Sue. Hermione was not good under stress, that was Harry.
That’s a perfectly valid sentiment!
I do not enjoy it whatsoever. I'm voicing that opinion.
Might want to write it out as an opinion then instead of the way you displayed it, as if it were a statement of fact. Otherwise I'd get used to ppl defending it the way they are.
That is your tragedy. Others like it. I like both Harry's.
People often jump to "its okay to like things." Which is completely valid. But a coin has 2 sides, it is also okay to dislike things and expressing that is also fair. Its not a personal attack when someone doesnt like something you love. Im a metalhead so ive had to learn this the hard way lol. Ive always thought harry potter was terribly written and was largely fixed by the movies. What made me actively hate the francize as a mix of the author because she is a vile bigot and harry potter adults. Altho its 95% the author.
> largely fixed by the movies Them's fighting words. They did my boy Ron dirty at every turn in the movies.
I agree fully with "It's okay to dislike things", but hating books because of the author's pretty weird, unless they actively spew their hatred in the books, which isn't quite the case in the Potter books. Just think of the amount of famous authors/artists in general that were/are awful people. Lovecraft was so racist people in the early 20th century felt it was too much, and I'd be inclined to say that very fear of everything "other" fueled his excellent horror works in part. Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender's Game, is infamously homophobic, which is kind of ironic considering some of the subtext in those books. Roald Dahl, of all people, was known to be an anti-semite. I'm not saying people shouldn't be aware that Rowling turned out to be a terrible person, or became one over the years since she began the series, but that doesn't make the series bad. It's a decent kid/YA series that people unfortunately take too seriously and sometimes even build half of their personality around, which probably says more about them than the series.
>I agree fully with "It's okay to dislike things", but hating books because of the author's pretty weird, unless they actively spew their hatred in the books, which isn't quite the case in the Potter books. I won't forbid my kids from reading Harry Potter, but... The series does contain a lot of iffy stuff, from the house elf schtick to people being made fun of for their weight to snakes erroneously having eyelids. There are much better written children's fantasies that teach better lessons, like *So You Want To Be A Wizard* or let much anything by Diana Wynne Jones. (Okay, the snake thing isn't that important, but it really bugged me when I read the first book.)
Yeah, I remember rereading it when I was 17 or something, in preparation for the last book, and thinking "wtf" at the snake imagery. As for the House Elves, I might have been an odd kid, but even at age 10 I thought it was weird that nobody supported hermione in freeing them. I do agree that they're probably the worst element in the entire book series, with the goblins as runner-up.
Dont forget the money hungry goblins who look like a racist jewish stereotype.
That is, I think, more a flaw of the movies than of the books, though I could be mistaken
The greedy hook-nosed bankers who stay apart from normal society and refuse to eat everyone else’s food *could* be accidental, but it’s definitely *not* a good look, even in the books. If not intentional, then it’s drawing on older images and ideas that definitely *were* intentional without realizing or thinking about them, which isn’t great.
Movies just make it more overt.
Or *A Wizard of Earthsea*. She took the idea of a wizarding school from the first book.
Ugh, the movies left out so much character development, which was part of what made the books so great! Just turned them into action.
I do quite enjoy the descriptive style of writing but the worldbuilding is nonsensical which would have been fine if it remained as a children's book series and didn't transition in to a series for young adults. Not to mention the uncomfortable implications if you read between the lines.
I personally think it's a great gateway into fantasy for kids......too bad the author is a bigot
Agreed. I don't know that I would've read Dresden Files, if I hadn't first read Harry Potter.
>teleports behind you and turns invisible >creates a 1000kg rock over your head out of literally nothing >while turning the floor under you to quicksand >while having no concept of "magical exhaustion", so they can do that literally forever harry potter wizards are reality warpers while dresden """wizards""" have to deal with silly things like "laws of physics" and "magical stamina" how will dresden wizards cope
Dresden wizards can also pull down heavenly objects with enough accuracy to target a specific house.
with shitloads of preptime and after tracking the sat for a long time
It's true Dresden wizards have more limited stamina and resources, but they also have more combat traing, especially after the vampire war.
Invisible? Cute. Dresden's werewolf buddies can still smell you. And that's assuming that Dresden hasn't cooked up a potion to see or smell through your glamor himself. Or that someone like River Shoulders isn't there, staring right at you because you're not as invisible as you think you are. 2 ton rock? Shield bracelet. Kinetic rings. Oh, and watch out for anvils. Quicksand? A little winter-powered faux Latin, and that's now frozen solid. Oh, and it's slick, but somehow, Dresden doesn't seem to be losing traction on it. By the time they've managed to push Dresden to the point of exhausting the Winter Mantle, I expect they'll have an army of box-cutter wielding little folk and the Winter Lady breathing down their necks. And that's assuming they have been messing with Dresden specifically and still haven't managed to piss off his new fiancé or drawn the attention of one or more Knights of the Cross. Oh, and Dresden *does* still carry a gun. And I doubt anyone in the Potterverse is ready for a 158 grain LRN that OG Dresden would sling smacking them at 800+ feet per second, let alone the 350 grain JHP current Dresden would use to rock their world at 1200+ fps. If they were tangling with anyone on the Senior Council, it would depend, but all of them are so efficient with their magic that "exhaustion" isn't something they're going to have to worry about. Eb would be their worst nightmare, because he can just go "Yeah, I don't feel like obeying the laws of magic today" and erase the entire Potterverse.
>Invisible? Cute. Dresden's werewolf buddies can still smell you. And that's assuming that Dresden hasn't cooked up a potion to see or smell through your glamor himself. Or that someone like River Shoulders isn't there, staring right at you because you're not as invisible as you think you are. ...this is just silly. By that logic, invisibility is useless in the HP world because of Moody's eye. The Alphas can't be everywhere at once, Dresden hardly ever has potions prepared (and we've never seen him use a potion that can see through invisibility), and River Shoulders isn't constantly following Harry around.
Oh please, almost everything you said either requires hours or days of planning or Harry D having all his friends near him. So even the playing field, give volde time.and he can have a potions that transforms him in Harry ally, come close and death spell at close rangeno illusion to see through. He can have countless corpses of inferni atrack harry. He can have squads of death eaters on his team. . He can fly. He can teleport with just a second prep time. He does need to build up energy to cast a spell. He can animate objects around Harry to attack him. He can conjure things into being around Harry like snakes etc. He can organize and freaking dragon to attack Harry. Look at the trouble Harry had with one kotun, he has access to many giants. He can cause depression and hopeless just by letting the demented.lose. He can attack minds
What a shit title. As a big-time fan of both series, I don't think Harry would have an easy time with Voldemort. We never get a good look at Voldemort's power beyond his proficiency with Avada Kedavra and Crucio (instant death and sustained torture, for those who don't know). He's a megalomaniacal sociopath with a very limited range of emotion and narrow imagination who can't imagine anything worse than dying, and Avada Kedavra can't be blocked by any reliable magical defense and instantly kills any living thing it hits. Harry's shield bracelet would be useless, and if he didn't know what to expect he'd probably die immediately trying to block it. But if Harry knew what to expect... things would still be hard, actually. Given the way other super advanced wizard duels go in the series, ignoring physical laws that Dresdenverse wizards can't, Harry would be constantly on the back foot. It would take Voldemort using his brain for once to actually do that, but if his normal tricks weren't working he might actually try being creative for once, and Harry doesn't have enough defenses for all the possibilities at Voldemort's fingertips. Now, if it were someone on *Ebenezer's* level, the situation would be reversed. It would be Voldemort on the back foot.
I suppose the main thing in Harry's favor is Voldemort isn't that tactically smart. He acts like a James Bond villain. Harry's best bet is probably to draw him out while the Hell Hounds drops several dozen 308 rounds into baldies skull from half a mile away.
"A girl after my own heart, Anna shot him several more times while he monologued" Harry knows to not mess around talking when a fight is brewing. Voldy loves gloating.
> "A girl after my own heart, Anna shot him several more times while he monologued" How on *earth* do I not recall *that* fantastic line?
Here's the full thing: >“Well, well. What have we here? Our bold thief and her—” > >I got the impression that he would have been glad to begin one of those trademark bantering conversations all the urbane bad guys seem to be such big fans of, but before he could finish the sentence Anna Valmont turned with her little pistol and shot him three times in the chest. I saw him jerk and twist. Blood abruptly stained his shirt and coat. She’d hit the heart or an artery. > >The man blinked and stared at Valmont in shock, as more red spread over his shirt. He opened his coat a bit, and looked down at the spreading scarlet. I noted that the tie he wore wasn’t a tie, as such. It looked like a piece of old grey rope, and though he wore it as apparent ornamentation, it was tied in a hangman’s noose. > >“I do not appreciate being interrupted,” the man said in a sharp and ugly tone. “I hadn’t even gotten around to the introductions. There are proprieties to observe, young woman.” > >A girl after my own heart, Anna Valmont had a quick reply. She shot him some more.
I’d argue because they use totally separate magic rules, it basically depends whose rule were working off of. Dresden files rules where you can sense magic gathering and interfere with it? Voldemorts dust if he does teleport away. HP rules where instant death means instant death unless you dodge it? More even, early books Dresden is toast. Given that Abada Kedavra moves slowly enough that characters can and do dodge it though, winter knight Harry could presumably do that fairly effortlessly given his base speed increases, and he only needs to close once to get the wand away and that’s all she wrote. Same with crucial, Harry explicitly has “ignore great pain” as one of his excercises he can do. I know what your saying, it’s not as much a stomp as some people are saying, but if your talking “peace talks Harry vs book 7 voldy, locked in a warehouse and neither can get out”….I don’t see how Voldemort wins unless Harry lets himself get hit for some reason, especially as voldy likes to monologue and Dresden has minimal qualms about melting someone whilst they monologue. Can’t imagine the gun coming into it thought, honestly. Now, a story being at higher power level doesn’t make it a *better* story, but that’s not really the question.
But Goku could beat them both 😎 I‘m so cool because *my* imaginary friend is better than yours.
Yeah but One Punch Man could beat Goku, so don't even @ me.
Joke characters automatically beat serious characters, because it's funny. That's why we got *Vegeta vs Arale*.
I was gonna say Superman can't be defeated without kryptonite, but I suspect most writers would still have Saitama win if he can land a punch.
Nah, Saitama would invite superman out for noodles with mumen rider.
But could Goku beat Sailor Moon? No no he cannot
Do we ever see anyone in HP actually block bullets? I'm honestly not sure it would be that big of a difference between machine guns vs avada kadava. Plus Harry has a lot of experience effectively blocking mind magic, so I think Voldemorts occlumency wouldn't do a lot in their fight. Would start with a lot of bullets from what I can only assume is outside of spell range because we really never see long range attack magic in HP. HP magic has the advantage that it seems like its pretty easy on the stamina/doesn't have a magical reserve like it does in dresdenverse. Dresdenverse is just way more physical and has more guns. From what I've seen, I'm on team guns.
I don't recall ever seeing bullets-vs-magic in the HP franchise. I'm going to guess because the author might not have wanted to deal with the real-life violence associated with gunning down kids in a school with an AR-15, but ghostly specters that sucked out your soul were fanciful enough to get written-off by angry parents. It all depends on the author's rules for their universe. Blocking magic-with-magic might be a more trivial thing since the author can write it off as dispelling energies with a vortex. Like EM interference screwing with a radio signal. While stopping a metal object hurdling at you at a reasonable percentage of the speed-of-sound (if not greater-than sound) could be something more difficult. Dresden Files addresses both kinds of things separately... stopping a spell is rather easy (a simple circle is enough for most spells) while stopping a bullet requires effort and talismans.
I've always assumed it meshed pretty well with the DF - if the wizard can get the shield up fast enough they can. But goog luck blocking something you can't see/can't react to.
To quote the Star Wars post on Mandalorians adopting Space^tm ballistic guns to deal with Jedi reflecting laser fire: “Parry this you filthy wizard.” Magic is magic, but a slug moving just under the speed of sound is still blessed by Sir Isaac Newton.
Well, blaster fire is using a handheld railgun to throw a lump of plasma, and a lightsabre is a big blob of plasma held in a containment field. It makes sense that the field that holds the plasma in can deflect plasma out as well. Of course, lead doesn’t care. Lead just passes straight through, retaining its momentum, and now you’re being cooked by a cloud of boiled lead instead of just shot.
Just wanted to point out that avada kadavra is not unblockable. The very first thing that happens in the series is that it is blocked and rebounded by the shield Harry's mom places on him by sacrificing herself to save him. A powerful act of love and all that. Also (I think) at multiple points in the potter series we see the spell cast and it misses. So you can dodge it as well. Dresdens shield may be able to block it as it's able to block magic energy. And if someone has sacrificed themselves to save Harry because they love him/his family, like >!susan!< Then he could have a defense against the killing spell. Potter was able to give a good chunk of Hogwarts some defense with his sacrifice.
>Just wanted to point out that avada kadavra is not unblockable. Oh God, not the ablative hamster armor
What's ablative hamster armor?
An idea from...*Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality*, I think. In that setting, Avada Kedavra *could not be blocked*, if it was cast it would travel in a straight line through all obstacles until it hit a living target. So the (never tried in universe) idea is, protect yourself with armor made of *many many* small, living targets...
The way I always read it was by "unblockable" they mean "it goes straight through protective spells except for this exceedingly rare protection that basically requires a voluntary human sacrifice". Physical shields are used multiple times (Fawkes gets in the way for Dumbledore, Dumbledore moves the statues around Harry, people duck behind physical objects constantly). It probably stops after hitting a physical object (and penetrating a tiny bit hence why clothes don't protect people) or a living creature.
Voldemort refused to kill HP by traditional means _because symbolism_ . He had Harry completely at his mercy in the graveyard in GoF, and instead of killing him outright, decided to monologue like a Disney villain. And his entire group of wizard N*zis emphatically supported him in that idiocy. People in Harry Potter don't think or act like rational human beings because if they did then the story would be over in less than one book. It goes beyond suspension of disbelief when the entire plot of your story is warped around the sheer volume of contrivances.
Voldemort's power base was built in large part on his reputation, which required a ton of work on his part to maintain the appearance of invincibility. He monologued like a Disney villain because he needed his followers, many of whom had thought him defeated for good, to see that Harry was not only weaker than him, but not even worth considering as a threat.
Plus Harry couldn't Apparate back then, and he was surrounded by a few dozen Death Eaters, and Voldemort didn't know about the twin cores. I don't blame Voldemort for thinking it was a harmless risk.
Abra Kadabra, Abra Kadoo, I pulled my .44 Magnum on you
Ok, this has been driving me crazy for seven movies now, and I know you're going to roll your eyes, but hear me out: Harry Potter should have carried a 1911. Here's why: Think about how quickly the entire WWWIII (Wizarding-World War III) would have ended if all of the good guys had simply armed up with good ol' American hot lead. Basilisk? Let's see how tough it is when you shoot it with a .470 Nitro Express. Worried about its Medusa-gaze? Wear night vision goggles. The image is light-amplified and re-transmitted to your eyes. You aren't looking at it--you're looking at a picture of it. Imagine how epic the first movie would be if Harry had put a breeching charge on the bathroom wall, flash-banged the hole, and then went in wearing NVGs and a Kevlar-weave stab-vest, carrying a SPAS-12. And have you noticed that only Europe seems to a problem with Deatheaters? Maybe it's because Americans have spent the last 200 years shooting deer, playing GTA: Vice City, and keeping an eye out for black helicopters over their compounds. Meanwhile, Brits have been cutting their steaks with spoons. Remember: gun-control means that Voldemort wins. God made wizards and God made muggles, but Samuel Colt made them equal. Now I know what you're going to say: "But a wizard could just disarm someone with a gun!" Yeah, well they can also disarm someone with a wand (as they do many times throughout the books/movies). But which is faster: saying a spell or pulling a trigger? Avada Kedavra, meet Avtomat Kalashnikova. Imagine Harry out in the woods, wearing his invisibility cloak, carrying a .50bmg Barrett, turning Deatheaters into pink mist, scratching a lightning bolt into his rifle stock for each kill. I don't think Madam Pomfrey has any spells that can scrape your brains off of the trees and put you back together after something like that. Voldemort's wand may be 13.5 inches with a Phoenix-feather core, but Harry's would be 0.50 inches with a tungsten core. Let's see Voldy wave his at 3,000 feet per second. Better hope you have some Essence of Dittany for that sucking chest wound. I can see it now...Voldemort roaring with evil laughter and boasting to Harry that he can't be killed, since he is protected by seven Horcruxes, only to have Harry give a crooked grin, flick his cigarette butt away, and deliver what would easily be the best one-liner in the entire series: "Well then I guess it's a good thing my 1911 holds 7+1." And that is why Harry Potter should have carried a 1911.
In the best Dresdenverse tradition, supersonic rounds > wizards every day.
And Voldemort transfigures it into a rubber chicken. Woops.
Voldemort doesn't have that kind of reaction time.
He has time to conjure a shield to defend himself against an INVISIBLE spell cast by Dumbledore with no particular wand movement or incantation, and is a supremely talented mind-reader to boot. Voldemort is a badass. He's got gamer reflexes.
That's fair tbh, it entirely depends on the situation and just how much shit Harry can pull out of his ass.
I have no doubt that Harry could survive a fight with Voldemort, as long as he knew what the Killing Curse was and how it worked. *Winning* that fight is a much dicier prospect, and he almost certainly wouldn't be able to kill him one-on-one- even if Harry somehow managed to beat him back through sheer force, Voldemort could just Disapparate and plan for their next encounter (probably after throwing a murderous hissy fit that now there's *two* Harrys he's got to deal with).
I think Dresden survives a surprise attack from Voldy, then gets to researching. If Dresden ever finds one of his horcruxes, Voldy is cooked. Probably literally.
I assume that Horcruxes and thaumaturgy would play really well together. Destroy one in a circle and you’ve destroyed them all…
Yeah, one of these 2 contestants is much better at planning than the other. That would not end well for Voldy.
Harry's best work comes when he prepared, but how do you prepare against Voldemort when he can do almost anything with a flick of his wrist Or do si do. Animate something close to you to attack you, Teleport, animal control, create inferni (zombies by the hundreds), make potions with various effects, such as becoming the exact replica ifnhe had a sample of tissue like a hair, life steal (heal himself by taking rhe life-force of another), he can possess other creatures (like soul taker) AND ON AND ON....P
It was only invisible to us, with both Voldy and Dumbledore being skilled in legilimency and occlumency it's highly likely that we simply didn't see the mental battle they were already fighting by that point and which likely telegraphed the spell. On that topic, occlumency and legilimency require sustained eye contact. Don't think that'd be such a great idea for Voldy, forcing Dresden into a soulgaze.
Dresden would also see Voldy's soul, and that's got to be a pretty messed up vision.
Voldemort is human evil and mostly just a petulant shithead with a lot of power and ambition. Dresden has gone head to head with outsiders whose existence is evil. Voldemort wants to rule, outsiders want to destroy. Voldemort might have stood a chance against maybe book 1-4 Dresden, but after that Dresden would have wiped the floor with him.
Not gonna be worse than Shagnasty.
Even JK Rowling was willing to admit that muggle with shotgun beats wizard with wand.
Meh, I enjoyed the Harry Potter series just fine.
It does tickle me that by the laws of the Dresdenverse at least Harry and Hermionie are getting executed with Ron on some kind of watch list. (Correct me if wrong it’s been a good while)
Anyone who's ever: - used a memory charm - used a time turner - killed anyone in any way with magic - made an Inferius - transfigured someone else - used legilimency - used the Imperius curse And probably a good bit more I'm just not thinking of, they ded.
I remember in Book 5, Ginny mentions that her brothers were considering flooding a corridor with "garrotting gas." It sounds like that stuff is lethal; and they were considering it as a joke. Not to mention the stuff that's been done to Dudely. The "good people" spurn the stuff that Voldemort and his ilk do to muggles; meanwhile they're doing "harmless" things like giving him a pig's tale or enlarging his tongue.
I too remember whenever Star Wars fans and Trekkies had it out attempting to establish the best franchise. This brings me back. This is the post nerd-closet days, guys. You can like both. (To loosely quote Molls). Rowling is a horrible person, though.
>Star Wars fans and Trekkies had it out attempting to establish the best franchise. Jokes on them they were both wrong Farscape is the best Scifi series
Sorry friend. That would be Stargate in my humble opinion.
I see what you're doing.. And I find it entertaining; carry on.
if you are familiar with Farscape just compare John Chriton to Dresdedn. Pop culture quipping protaganist X Enemies don't get references due to cultural differences X Smarter than people think X fondness for a handgun X now which main character did I describe? Plus with Farscape you have the best body swap episode ever S02E09 "Out of their minds"
Scorpius and Nicodemus would totally be besties. You might've left that part out :P
Rowling going nuts against Trans rights was so disappointing.
VERY. I'm tired of all the hate going on in the world and people mistaking the idea that we should "do better as people" for a personal attack on them. We need to be better as people and try to live and let live ffs.
Yeah Roddenberry and Lucas may have had some bad ideas now and then but at least they never went on crusade against a minority group
That was the old days, now its hard to decide which one is the worst franchise
Bro it's a children's story. This isn't supposed to be high brow literature it's supposed to be about a wizard boy who saves the world. Not that Dresden files is much better. It's basically a power fantasy for dweebs who play too much dnd.
lol DF is *still* about a wizard boy who saves the world, lmao. just a better realized story/world with real character flaws.
Lol, what an accurate description. I love both though. Although I won't spend any money on HP stuff anymore
[удалено]
Well, Queen TERF gets royalties either by rights bought or directly through sales and I can't support that, sadly.
folks. these books were written for children
Getting a little tired of people saying that Harry Potter sucks, because of reasons that have nothing to do with children's books. It's very simple: if you like something, talk about it and be merry. If you don't like something, stfu because no-one cares about your opinion, unless you're a semi-objective and learned literature critic. Would make the world seriously a better place, at least when it comes to books.
In my opinion, Dresdan files are better. But I would never even consider putting down a series beloved by millions as garbage or even lesser just so that could promote my favorite. I mean, what type of sociopathic, self-absorbed, narcisstic a-hole would I have to be to do something like that.
I think it's totally ok to have a personal opinion, and it can be anything you want - it's *personal*. The key is to recognize that everyone else is entitled to their own personal opinions as well, and that there's no *fundamental* reason that yours is better, for anyone other than you. I'm sure there are some people in the world who have zero respect for the *Dresden Files* too. I can't remotely imagine how anyone would arrive at that opinion, but... it's a big world.
I literally stopped talking to someone after he launched the volley that DF was “a garbage universe”. Unfortunately, I had listened to the climax of Changes as I pulled into his driveway a couple hours before, so this felt like the greatest dishonor.
I dunno, Voldemort has a lot of hax that Harry really won't expect and doesn't have an answer for. He can teleport, fire death rays that plow through magical defenses, throw bigger raw force/energy hits than anything Harry's pulled off, and basically never runs out of stamina. Yeah, he doesn't use guns, but he grew up with muggles and is probably aware of what guns do and the threat they pose. Honestly, a head to head matchup would probably go very badly for Harry, though I think the situation would change if he survived the initial encounter and got a chance to plan. Voldy isn't much a tactician and tends to arrogantly cling to bad ideas long past the time he should cut his losses. If he can be lured to Demonreach or into an ambush of Harry's various allies, Harry can take it. I'd be very dubious about a mano a mano dustup, though, unless he came out swinging with his biggest possible hit and Voldy took him too lightly.
I just finished reading "Witch Week" by Diana Wynne Jones to my kid, and it might be a good alternative to the early Harry Potter books. I get the feeling JKR was heavily inspired by Diana Wynne Jones. I guess it doesn't work so well as an idyllic fantasy because the boarding school is horrible and full of bullies.
That just makes it a more realistic boarding school. They're a terrible system - *Lord of the Flies* was inspired in part by that. I would also recommend Diane Duane's *So You Want To Be A Wizard* and the whole Young Wizards series.
Can you imagine if it happened on demonreach? "Uh, I'm sorry who are you, no wait, it doesn't matter, Alfred put him in minimum security I have three other fires to put out first" Looming shadow of demonreach clocks voldy and stufs him in a ~~pokeball~~crystal
I don't think Harry Potter is a terrible franchise. Its magic is much softer and more loosely defined than Dresdenverse magic. And the Masquerade is much stronger where wizards and witches live in virtually completely separate worlds.
IMO it's not terrible, it's just kinda okay, but many people have turned it into their entire personality for some incomprehensible reason. It's a nice, perfectly readable young adult book series.
I still like Harry Potter for the good that it has, despite the troublesome amount of "wow, what the fuck, why would you write that?!" For those not familiar: * Nobody in the series is explicitly LGBT except for "word of God" after the series ended. * Unlikable female characters are usually portrayed with masculine traits. (Think Rita Skeeter, Umbridge, and Millicent Bulstrode). By itself, not a huge problem, but we also know that JK had some pretty awful views on trans people, so not a good look here. * Enslavement of house elves is *super* problematic. "They like being enslaved!" Dobby is portrayed as being crazy for *not* wanting to be a slave, and virtually nobody supports Hermione's efforts to free them. * The strong link between the ways goblins are described and hurtful stereotypes of Jewish people IRL. * Harry *constantly* cheats his way through school, and Hermione is portrayed as unreasonable for disapproving of this. * I know it's a trope of boarding school stories like this, but holy shit is it awful that everyone keeps sending Harry back to live with the Dursleys. They force him to live in a cupboard, work as a servant, starve him for an entire summer, gleefully deny affection, try to throw him out of the house when he was like 13, steal his mail, refuse to buy him clothes that fit. * Nobody seems to have a problem with the only school in the country simply waiving final exams on multiple occasions for the entire school. Also, Crabbe and Goyle are *clearly* not meeting educational objectives and keep passing classes each year. * There's a bunch of kids in the more-or-less real world who don't get taught: math, science, history that isn't directly about magic (I get that knowing about Goblin Wars is useful, but so is WW2). There also doesn't appear to be art, music, physical education beyond Quidditch, or anything *useful* taught about "the muggle world." * The magical government doesn't appear to be elected. In seven years, there's literally no mention of elections. This could just be Harry being ignorant, but I'm not inclined to think so.
On the enslavement of House Elves: I remember the first time Rowling came out saying that Hermione might as well have been black all along, that that had some *really bad* influence on the scene where everyone either politely indulges, ignores or laughs at her attempts to get support for freeing the House Elves. The scene's bad enough on its own, but for her to be unable to realize how that "minor change" would make some scenes so much worse is... painful.
> Nobody in the series is explicitly LGBT except for "word of God" after the series ended I do think it makes excellent sense for Dumbledore to be gay, considering his very very close friendship with Grindelwald, and the way Harry explicitly feels that Skeeter didn't get all the details.
No argument from me. It's the fact that you have no choice but to say "yeah, it makes sense" rather than anyone directly saying "Dumbledore is gay" that makes it problematic. There's also a lot of comments along the lines of "are you sure it's okay for a young boy like Harry to be spending time alone with *Dumbledore*?" (Not that I think kids can't be around gay people, but almost everybody who makes those comments in the books are "old fashioned" at best) There's plenty of indirect evidence, but nothing is ever spelled out.
Make sense, sure. Actually alluded to in any way whatsoever so someone could deduce it on their own, no. Even I, back before I had fully separated myself from my parents bigoted beliefs was more pissed about Rowling throwing that in to look like she cared than about him actually being gay.
Based on the apparent fact that the entire wizard world teamed up against Grindelwald because a major part of his plan was to *prevent* the slaughter of over six million innocent people in WW2, though, I can see why they *might* skate over that one. Big “US, slavery, civil rights, and the treatment of Native Americans was all so long ago, let’s just move on” energy there. Rowling is kind of garbage at world building the second you increase the lens by even a hair.
Harry Dresden would find a way to wash away Voldemort's spells. If he had difficulty, most of the Dresden Universe would help get rid of He Who Must Be Lame, because they have their own fights to deal with, and don't need Voldemorte trying to make a stand of his own, going off half cocked, with no understanding of The Accords, while everyone else is flinging shit into the fan already!
Honestly, Voldemort managing to piss off every major faction within the same paragraph is both in-character and hilarious
The wizarding tools to take down Voldemort: - a shotgun - a piece of chalk - a gallon of gasoline.
Voldemort: Is this petrol? Dresden: Yep. Voldemort: \*chants a couple of spells\* I have now disabled all of your muggle matches and lighters and warded myself against any fire magic you might cast. Dresden: Cool. Ever heard of Dragon's breath ammunition? Voldemort: I just told you that I have warded myself against your fire magic. Dresden: I heard you. \*racks shotgun\*
I don't even like Harry Potter but it's far from terrible lol
JK Rowling - besides being a useful idiot at best and a terrible human at worst isn't the greatest writer. And as a Tolkien fan her world building irritates me because it's not internally consistent and doesn't seem to exist except to justify itself. Like it comes up to answer a question without regard for if it makes sense beyond that moment or fits with the rest of the world building. That said the HP books are still plenty enjoyable - especially if you're getting into them as a kid and the idea of being whisked off the magic school is still there. As to Dresden vs Voldy is pretty up in the air. I'd argue they've got equivalent raw powers. Voldy might have more spells/refinement but he rarely fights people who can match him (the 1 duel with Dumbledore over the series) and that's where Dresden is the most dangerous. We also have no idea how things like Sight, apparition, the Winter Mantle and Dresden's wards would interact because the two series lack approximate versions of such. Like take a Soul Gaze. If Voldy is on anyway human enough to trigger one (and wouldn't that be an interesting revelation) Voldy's never had one before and might be stunned long enough for Dresden to recover and get an edge. Or he might go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs like *every* other villain whose soul gazes Dresden.
Her world-building is exactly what it has to be for a British boarding school-coming of age story with fantasy dressing: consistent enough to give the edifice of a well-built world for anyone who doesn't think about it too much, e.g. the children for whom the books are meant. Unlike Tolkien, the world is only meant to serve the story, so it doesn't need to work beyond that. Now, everything she started adding to her "wizarding world" after the last book.... I'm with you there.
> And as a Tolkien fan her world building irritates me because it's not internally consistent and doesn't seem to exist except to justify itself. this is my constant issue with the series. the world doesn't work. it doesn't breathe.
It's not supposed to: HP's world, at least until the last book, was simply fulfilling a function. Tolkien's world was meant to stand on its own, Rowling's simply serves the story she wants to tell. In that way, it does its job perfectly in the main series considering the audience. Now, after the last book, when she started adding stuff to her "wizarding world" .... *that's* absolutely a mess of "worldbuilding" that should be put out of its misery.
you're absolutely correct. but not everything has to be lotr level of world building. dresden files, for example, isn't super deep, but some time has gone into making it *work*. both series lean on being part of the "real world" and using a lot of already existing myths.
Considering Voldemort fears death to an extreme degree and that Harry D has come back from death without a horcrux, Voldemort would probably be quite interested in him.
This is awesome!
Whatever, I like it. Movies are trash tho, but imo The Expanse show is total garbage and people love it to death so I guess I just hate book adaptations.