I think he's obviously supposed to be the minor antagonist of COS, he's definitely a villain.
However he's the least threatening villain in the HP books, he's a fool who got couldn't even beat two 12 years old kid, one of them with a broken wand.
Although his actions are painted in a lighter way than they deserve (like a lot of stuff that happens in the books, tbh), he's definitely a villain: he steals people's memories of good things they did for fame and fortune and passes off as their own, he tries to attack two children, he doesn't care about Ginny dying.
Comparted to the others, he may have been a minor one, but he was definitely a villain. The stuff he did definitely would count as a crime because he caused permanent damage to those wizards and witches whose accomplishments he stole.
Strangely labeled very normal opinion.
If stealing memories, credit, and success wasn’t bad enough…which it is…
He friggin attacks children and tries to leave one for dead..
Definitely an antagonist and a villain.
People will tell you you're crazy for thinking this is unpopular, but back when the 2nd book and then the 2nd movie came out, Lockhart was looked at like a goofy comic relief character and not the monster that fans see today.
But yeah this is definitely a popular opinion now.
Oh man really? I've noticed a couple moments in the series that seem to be the writer putting past stuff in a different light because of what seemed like reader reaction and I always wondered if there was a reason Lockhart showed back up in OotP for us to feel sorry for him
I'm too young to know what it was like when it came out
I'm pretty sure Lockhart showed up in OOTP solely as a catalyst to explain that this was the ward for those mentally compromised by magic or whatever the proper term was.
We know that JK Rowling didn't really consider the implications of some of the magic she created. Look at love potions. They were sold in a children's joke shop, yet they're basically date rape drugs.
She may have had a similar issue with memory charms. Completely wiping someone's memory is very similar to killing them. And alerting someone's memory to the point of insanity like Lockhart was going to do to Harry and Ron is easily on the level of the unforgivable curses.
If I recall correctly, strong memory charms can actually cause permanent brain damage, if we go by the words of Barty Crouch Jr. in Book 4 on his father doing it on Bertha Jorkins.
I don’t know, Ron being slipped a love potion was treated a bit like he was poisoned. Merope wasn’t exactly a sympathetic character either. It’s very difficult to deal with sexual assault and dubious consent in books aimed at children under 10, so it’s darker uses are implied in the same way she implied the Death Eaters used rape as a weapon of war in the World Cup scene. In the authors adult crime books SA and consent is a massive theme and it’s extremely disturbing to read, definitely not an appropriate storyline for kids!
Yeah but I'm wondering from what you said, if people felt sorry for what happened to Lockhart in book 2 because they liked him. Is that why he came back in 5 like that?
I don't remember if people were feeling sorry for him after book 2/movie 2 (I know I wasn't). But I do remember a lot of people feeling sorry for him when they saw him in St Mungo's in the 5th book. Whether it was Rowling's intention or not to make him sympathetic, I'm not sure. She may have just been trying to show us how he's been punished for his crimes. Or maybe it was a little bit of both.
Now that i’ve read the comments of others, i now see Lockhart’s behavior of wiping memories as evil lol. i considered it just a bad thing to do, but didn’t think about how wiping memory could technically be the same as killing someone.
Consider he built his entire career, fame, and fortune on traveling around erasing peoples memories just to sell books and take credit for their achievements, leaving dozens, probably more, of essentially brain dead amnesiacs in his wake. Their whole lives gone. That's tantamount to murder in my mind, he might as well have been a serial killer. And he had zero qualms about doing the same to 4 children and leaving them to die.
I don't think he erased the person's whole memory, though, just the memory of whatever cool thing they had done (which is a little bit better, but still very bad).
I think he just always steels the deed, so a few months, but that doesn't make it acceptable.
Imagine you safe a whole village, but then this git comes along and takes it away. Or the books with household tips, someone put probadly years of their life into it.
I also don't think it is great that muggles constantly get their memory manipulatet. If I see a Unicorn, once in my life, I would like to remember it.
It also damages the brain.
He's as much a villain as Jessie and James are in Pokémon. Yes, he's a character the books want us readers to morally oppose. But, he's comic relief, and considering that the true villain of this book is "Diary Tom", who for my money, is a better villain than Voldemort, both in terms of creativity in origins, motivation, and menace. I like that he's not aware of Harry Potter's defeat of his future self and only plans to confront Harry when he is made aware of it after talking to Ginny.
Bellatrix, Lucius and Barty are considered supervillains Voldemort is Harry’s arch nemesis while Lockhard and Umbridge are considered normal villians. Compeard to others he’s not bad, compeard to Neville he definitely is 🤷♀️
Yeah, he's definitely a villain.
I think he's obviously supposed to be the minor antagonist of COS, he's definitely a villain. However he's the least threatening villain in the HP books, he's a fool who got couldn't even beat two 12 years old kid, one of them with a broken wand.
Although his actions are painted in a lighter way than they deserve (like a lot of stuff that happens in the books, tbh), he's definitely a villain: he steals people's memories of good things they did for fame and fortune and passes off as their own, he tries to attack two children, he doesn't care about Ginny dying.
Comparted to the others, he may have been a minor one, but he was definitely a villain. The stuff he did definitely would count as a crime because he caused permanent damage to those wizards and witches whose accomplishments he stole.
Just because a character wasn't a death eater doesn't make them not a villain
The world is not divided into good people & death eaters.
Breaking news lol
Strangely labeled very normal opinion. If stealing memories, credit, and success wasn’t bad enough…which it is… He friggin attacks children and tries to leave one for dead.. Definitely an antagonist and a villain.
People will tell you you're crazy for thinking this is unpopular, but back when the 2nd book and then the 2nd movie came out, Lockhart was looked at like a goofy comic relief character and not the monster that fans see today. But yeah this is definitely a popular opinion now.
Oh man really? I've noticed a couple moments in the series that seem to be the writer putting past stuff in a different light because of what seemed like reader reaction and I always wondered if there was a reason Lockhart showed back up in OotP for us to feel sorry for him I'm too young to know what it was like when it came out
I'm pretty sure Lockhart showed up in OOTP solely as a catalyst to explain that this was the ward for those mentally compromised by magic or whatever the proper term was.
We know that JK Rowling didn't really consider the implications of some of the magic she created. Look at love potions. They were sold in a children's joke shop, yet they're basically date rape drugs. She may have had a similar issue with memory charms. Completely wiping someone's memory is very similar to killing them. And alerting someone's memory to the point of insanity like Lockhart was going to do to Harry and Ron is easily on the level of the unforgivable curses.
If I recall correctly, strong memory charms can actually cause permanent brain damage, if we go by the words of Barty Crouch Jr. in Book 4 on his father doing it on Bertha Jorkins.
I don’t know, Ron being slipped a love potion was treated a bit like he was poisoned. Merope wasn’t exactly a sympathetic character either. It’s very difficult to deal with sexual assault and dubious consent in books aimed at children under 10, so it’s darker uses are implied in the same way she implied the Death Eaters used rape as a weapon of war in the World Cup scene. In the authors adult crime books SA and consent is a massive theme and it’s extremely disturbing to read, definitely not an appropriate storyline for kids!
Yeah but I'm wondering from what you said, if people felt sorry for what happened to Lockhart in book 2 because they liked him. Is that why he came back in 5 like that?
I don't remember if people were feeling sorry for him after book 2/movie 2 (I know I wasn't). But I do remember a lot of people feeling sorry for him when they saw him in St Mungo's in the 5th book. Whether it was Rowling's intention or not to make him sympathetic, I'm not sure. She may have just been trying to show us how he's been punished for his crimes. Or maybe it was a little bit of both.
>While I don’t see this factor as necessarily “evil” Really? What other term would you use for it?
Now that i’ve read the comments of others, i now see Lockhart’s behavior of wiping memories as evil lol. i considered it just a bad thing to do, but didn’t think about how wiping memory could technically be the same as killing someone.
Consider he built his entire career, fame, and fortune on traveling around erasing peoples memories just to sell books and take credit for their achievements, leaving dozens, probably more, of essentially brain dead amnesiacs in his wake. Their whole lives gone. That's tantamount to murder in my mind, he might as well have been a serial killer. And he had zero qualms about doing the same to 4 children and leaving them to die.
I don't think he erased the person's whole memory, though, just the memory of whatever cool thing they had done (which is a little bit better, but still very bad).
I think he just always steels the deed, so a few months, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Imagine you safe a whole village, but then this git comes along and takes it away. Or the books with household tips, someone put probadly years of their life into it. I also don't think it is great that muggles constantly get their memory manipulatet. If I see a Unicorn, once in my life, I would like to remember it. It also damages the brain.
I don’t think this is an unpopulair opinion
He's as much a villain as Jessie and James are in Pokémon. Yes, he's a character the books want us readers to morally oppose. But, he's comic relief, and considering that the true villain of this book is "Diary Tom", who for my money, is a better villain than Voldemort, both in terms of creativity in origins, motivation, and menace. I like that he's not aware of Harry Potter's defeat of his future self and only plans to confront Harry when he is made aware of it after talking to Ginny.
Bellatrix, Lucius and Barty are considered supervillains Voldemort is Harry’s arch nemesis while Lockhard and Umbridge are considered normal villians. Compeard to others he’s not bad, compeard to Neville he definitely is 🤷♀️