#I cannot think of a single redeeming quality for the bastard | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

akiameokami · 4 years ago

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Look at him, looking so smug as that curly-haired reject has her legs strewn across his lap. Potter. It just isn’t right for someone of his status to be with someone like her. He is a pureblood, she is muggle-born, and to make matters worse she has an eyebrow ring! Her poise certainly isn’t a redeeming quality either. I cannot see a single element that makes her good enough for him, expect perhaps that she is smart enough to put Raven Claw’s brightest to shame. If it wasn’t for her lack of professionalism and personal upkeep I am sure she would be in Raven Claw and not Gryffindor. She has changed him so much since they started dating. Potter used to be such a prince, but even since they got together he has been hanging out with anyone, even the problematic Weasleys. I can’t believe his parents let him do that, do they not care about how it will effect their status? Father always reminds me to be cautious of my social relations because they will effect him greatly. He would simply die if he saw me with someone adorned in chains such as Hermione chooses. The brazed crème a top the shit soufflé is that Harry Potter got a tongue ring! His parent’s certainly know nothing of this, but for the first time ever, I think I may not make Father privy to this. Potter and I have been associates every since primary school, and the tongue ring is a secret to all but his inner most circle. Except somehow Ronald and Hermione have become the bulk of that circle since we entered Hogwarts. To think that first semester we picked out matching Slytherin class rings together, and he somehow became a Gryffindor like them. Maybe classes do divide people too definitively? Or maybe he is changing as a person.. He always did have an affinity for the muggle world and other oddities, I just never thought he’d choose them over me.

“Hi Har- Er, Potter, and company”, I say awkwardly as I approach their group. They all go quiet as they look at me, the only green clad robe amongst a sea of red. I feel as if this griffons pride may swallow me whole. They seem to be waiting for Harry to respond before they pounce, he really has gone from a Prince to a King.

“Draco!�� Harry exclaims as he moves Hermione's legs off and stands to greet me. I go for a slight wave but he pulls me into a hug. I can feel the daggers from his entourage. “I haven’t seen you around school in a while, what has Snape been forcing you into this time?” He asked, staring only at me. I’d appreciate the opportunity to get lost in his viper green eyes, but I can’t hold his stair. He knows my distaste for Snape, but he doesn’t know why. It’s a story for another time, but he’d already know it if he’d never stopped talking to me.

“Oh, no, Snape is no longer tutoring me. Instead of academic pursuits, I’ve decided to try out for the quidditch team. Seems they have taken a fancy to my flying skills!” it hurts to not tell him to truth, to see him go from someone who I could tell anything to, to having to smile through the biggest heart break I’ve ever had. When I mention quidditch he gets very excited, and his posse eases up a bit. It is not uncommon for groups of different classes to enthuse over quidditch together, it is one of the few social glues we have. “What a coincidence! I will be joining the quidditch team as a legacy next season!” he says very boisterously, “I know they are expecting a lot because of my father, but I think they will be pleasantly surprised. I did always win when we would race, right?” He says with a slap to my shoulder. To others this would look like a casual challenge, but for me that slight touch meant so much more. It brought back summers spent struggling to learn how to fly out behind the greenhouse. The time he carried me back to Mother after I was able to be the first to get off the ground and flew too high.

“You’re right, you used to be much better than me. Who knows if it’s changed, maybe you could have a practice race with me and give me some pointers if I lose?”. This audacious bastard would never turn down a challenge, and despite knowing I will likely lose, it means we’d finally have a chance to spend some time together so I’m willing to “take the L” as his muggle friends would say.

“Harry, that’d be awesome to watch!”, “Yea Harry darling, you should host a little Gryffindor versus Slytherin flying practice before the season starts!’ Ron and Hermione cheer him on from the background. The other Gryffindor's start to chime in on how they would love to see a friendly match and see how skilled the new flyers are. “Well Draco, what do you say? I’m game to leave all you snakes in the dust, but only if you think Slytherin has enough flyers to make it worth the effort”, he chuckles as he says it, but he squeezes my shoulder with a bit of aggression behind it. He didn’t want it to be a spectacle, but I’m not going to clean up his messes if he wont be my friend anymore.

“Sure Harry, I think I can pull together some wizards and witches that will make it worth your precious time.” I flatly announce as I start to walk away. I make myself keep stepping forward, and I can hear their snickers behind me. I walk straight away from him, no not quite, I walk straight to Snape's office. I wonder if he knows the pain he puts me through? Being compared to the Potter-Prince growing up, Father pushing me to be better than him, Harry having the audacity to be such an amazing man, friend, and first. Yet he also has the power to be the person to put me through more pain by not being in my life, driving me to focus on my studies, to get Severus to be my tutor, to use Severus as a coping method to get over him. Do you know what you’ve done to me Harry?

~~~Imagine a world where Harry didn’t grow up with the Dursley’s, where Voldermort wasn’t a thing, where Lily and James didn’t die. Would Draco and Harry have been friends? Would they have been more? Harry and Draco are 17, nearing graduation and independence, but that also means they are climaxing from their teenage angst and heartbreak. Will they get closure?

I approach Severus’s office, emotions flooding me. After Harry and I got accepted to Hogwarts and he started drifting away, I found myself lost. At first, I believed his excuses for why he bailed on our plans, and then I blamed myself thinking I made him mad, and then I realized he just didn’t like me anymore. The self blaming was the hardest to get over, but Severus helped with that. I chose to focus on my studies, I had to find something productive to do so that Father would be proud of me again. He got very angry when I messed up the connection with the Potters. I decided instead to try and be very academically accomplished, so I needed a good tutor. Father and Mother were both very familiar with Severus Snape and knew him as an intelligent man and an excellent wizard despite being only 6 years older than me. They arranged for him to be my tutor, and he lived much closer to the school than we did, which meant I would study at his house and in the summers I stay with him. Since he is also a teacher at Hogwarts we don’t ever interact politely as school, because frankly our relationship is unconventional. to the public. I don’t love him, he doesn’t love me, but we both have been burned by the Potters more than once and despite all our pain, we still love them. Don’t get me wrong, Rus is very good to me, and we have had some very sentimental memories, but I can never mean as much to him as Lily I don’t think. That and I am not willingly to fall in love.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* - “Come in.” I walk in and instantly Rus’s face goes from stone cold to slightly softer. “Draco, I assume you came to speak about your last test scores?” He arches an eyebrow and nods at the door indicating I should close it.

“Oh come on Rus, I know we have an arrangement to not interact extra here but I..” I close the door and try not to meet his eyes. I know what I am feeling, and its stupid! I can’t explain it though. He closes the door while reaching over me. With his other arm he pulls into a hug.

“Use your words Draco.” He kisses the top of my head while whispering softly. I bury my face in his shirt. How do I tell him that I am hurting because the person who means the most to me, acknowledged me, and it left me feeling hollow? “Is it about Mr. Potter? I saw you speaking in the courtyard. That was dangerous.” I let out a shaky sigh. This is why we are together, because we share the same pain.

“Yea..” I mutter, “We are going to have a little race between Slytherin House and Gryffindor to see who the faster upcoming flyers will be.” Even saying it sounds absolutely ridiculous! It’s a bloody pissing contest! Yet nothing has been able to break me out of this numbness until now. Rus braces the small of my back as we lean against his office door. I look up to see him with a small smile, “I understand. I think this will be for the best. Whether it is closer you get, or simply a win. I be here if it goes wrong”. He is so consistent. Just as expected, after saying something so sweet that I could almost develop feelings, he leans down and begins a gentle kiss. He pulls my waist into him, spreading my legs with his knee. I kiss him back while running my fingers through his hair. I reach down for his belt, trying to undo it. He stops my hand and pulls back, “Now Mr. Malfoy, we are on school grounds.” He says with his stern, teacher voice. He the leans in and whispers, “You can show my what that Malfoy mouth is good for later”. I feel my dick jump a little bit, giving me a semi. This is how I cope. Feelings cannot negate the power of something physical, and Severus Snape needs to forget about the Potters just as much as I do. We were a match made in Hell.

“Draco....” I hear Harry’s voice calling my name, but it sounds distorted, almost as if I’m underwater. “Draco!” it comes through clearly this time, but it isn’t Harry, It’s Blaise yelling at me to rouse me from my sleep. I had returned to the dorms embarrassingly late, but I had the forethought to lay out my quidditch gear ahead of time so I wouldn’t be scrambling in the morning. “Draco, wake the fuck up! We’re gonna be late to the race!” Blaise is still yelling but I can hear him heading for the door. Late? What did he mean late? I roll over and check the time, he was right, I had about five minutes to go from bed to the quidditch field. Fuck.

“I almost thought you chickened out Draco!” Harry taunts as I approach the quidditch field, running as fast as I can with all my gear on. I was able to gather three other Slytherins that wanted to race, and who were marginally decent. Sadly Harry seemed to have a whole team that wanted to test us. I glance at Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle and they do not seem to be exuding confidence. I got them into this so the least I can do is be the one who people blame. “What? Run away from you Potter? I could never”, I say a little too seriously while making eye contact. I catch the slightest frown from Harry, but it fades as quickly as it appeared. “Well then, lets get this over with. It sounded fun, but looking at your little group, it just feels like bullying.” He rejoins his group at the start line. The course was to make one large loop around campus while going through specified markers, such as looping through the womping willow and its thrashing limbs, and past Hagrids hut. It is just the school campus, but that doesn’t make it not dangerous. That is why I wore my protective gear, but as I glance around I see that most everyone else was casually dressed with the exception of Longbottom. He looked as if he was wrapped in bubble wrap. I don’t want to be associated with the likes of him so I discard my protective layer. I return my attention to the other end of the field where Hermione stands with the flare, and off it goes. I must’ve been disassociating during the count down. I feel the wind of the others taking off before I see the bristles of their brooms when they speed past me. Shit. I take off as fast as I can, but I am not too concerned about the starting line. Anyone can get up, its staying there that’s the problem.

The first obstacle is the peaks of the school, where we stand the danger of Mr. Fletcher seeing us and everyone getting in trouble. This obstacle is more about stealth than speed, you could speed right through the peaks, but you would certain alarm everyone inside the castle. The trick to making it without being seen is to pay attention and roof hop, taking a break to wait out anyone who may see you. I can see ahead of me where two Gryffindor flyers drop altitude instantly, nearly getting caught. I swerve away from that tower and loop around the other way, hopping off the roof after checking the next peak. When I emerge from the other side of the peaks I see Harry far ahead, Ronald right behind him, and Blaise on their tail. either no one else made it through, or they are behind me, because no one would be ahead of Harry. We approach Hagrids hut and drop down low for the loop, I see Blaise take the turn too tightly and have to drop to the ground to prevent himself from going tip over tail. Ronald falls behind me as he flew too close to the hippogriff and got the tail of his broom snipped out. The race is between Harry and I as we approach the womping willow. It is especially crabby today it seems, or perhaps that was just because I was actually flying closer too it and not away from it the way I would have preferred. As we near the willow I am close enough that I could grab the bristles on Harry’s broom if I wanted to. I follow his maneuvers dodging the willows grasps. There is no denying that when it comes to agility Harry has an edge on me. There is no doubt that James took the time to train him personally. Despite all his preparation I see Harry narrowly avoid getting swept by a branch, which meant I had no time to avoid the branch at all. The willow makes contact with my broom and sends me plummeting to the ground. I’d rather jump and break something, that be strangled by a tree. The impact knocks the breath out of me, and the pain floods my body. My vision goes black and once again I feel like I am in bed, floating into nothingness.

“Draco?!?!” I hear Harry’s voice calling out to me, but I don’t respond. Blaise wont fool me again. He just wants me to wake up from my peaceful nothingness. Then the pain hits me and I remember what happened. I open my eyes to see a sweaty and shirtless Harry tying my arm in a makeshift sling. “Draco.. please say something..” He mutters as he struggles with the knot.

“Ouch you bloody bastard, that fucking hurts!” I squeak as he tightens it too much. Despite my pain I see a look of relief cloud his face. “Other than your arm, what hurts? I can’t tell if anything else is broken. I already have Ron and Blaise going to get a teacher. I am so sorry Draco, it wasn’t suppose to happen like this!” Harry is running his sentences together as he is frantically searching me over for any other damages. Everything hurts, but what I feel the most is the throbbing in my chest. Did I really have to almost die for him to say my name in such a caring way? I don’t want to be here, it hurts to see him like this knowing it is just me that is feeling this way. “Professor Snape!” Harry yells as Severus approaches with Ron and Blaise right behind him. I see Rus reach for his wand and the next thing I know Harry is swept away from me by an unseen force, flown at least three yards away. “Harry Potter! What have you done now?!” Severus yells, abnormally angry. He turns his attention toward me, worry lines streaking his face. He looks me over and his face softens. A wave of his wand and I feel a million times better. He leans down next to me and whispers, “You’ll be okay Draco, I’ll take care of this”. He turns his attention to Harry, “While I transport this young man who could very well be crippled, I’d recommend you contact your parents before I get the chance. Let them know I expect to be seeing them soon.” Severus knows better than to touch me, so he makes me float using Hermione's favorite spell. He must have cast a different spell as well, because the last thing I see is Harry’s terrified face as Severus brings me back toward the castle.

I wake up to a sudden jolt of pain coming from, well, everywhere. The most prominent pain is coming from my right arm. I sit up to exam the damage, but to my surprise I see none other than Hermione Granger sitting next to my bed in the infirmary, reading of course. Without a word she raises her hand and indicated the number 1, probably to suggest “one minute”. I wait for her to finish her page.

“I know about you and Harry.” She announces bluntly as she closes her book carefully. She is smart, but she can’t possibly be that smart. “Well, yes, I assume you would know about how he got me clobbered by a tree. You were there.” I try and dismiss her suspicious words. She does not buy a word of it. “No, you twit, I know about you two’s past, and I am willing to bet that your annoying behavior is because you still have feelings for him.” She states it so matter o’ factly that I am left speechless. She rolls her eyes and gets up to leave, “Well, I sure hope that is the case. Him and I broke up you see. After I found out the only reason he wanted to be with me is because I am smart enough to brew a Polyjuice potion of you so he can fuck it, I decided maybe I should be with someone who was actually attracted to me.” She walks away without giving me a chance to argue, or well, say anything at all really. He does what? She runs into someone at the door and I hear them exchange words, and to my surprise the next person to walk in is Harry Fucking Potter. He stands awkwardly at the end of my bed for what feels like an eternity before asking, “how are you feeling?”. Despite his concern, he wont make eye contact with me. He doesn’t even seem like he wants to be here. I sink back into the bed and roll away from him. “You can go, I am fine. I bet your friends are lost without you.” I bite my tongue at the end, knowing that isn’t how I feel. I feel the bed shift as he sits down on the edge.

“Draco.. I don’t want to go. I feel terrible about what happened, and I Hermione just told me that you know about.. me, or us, or however you want to say it, and what I am trying to say is, “ He takes a deep breath, “Draco I am so sorry. I know your father doesn’t want me around you, but it hurts to see you like this, and it hurts to not be with you.”. His voice got weak as he finished his sentence. His hand grabbed my leg and squeezed it. It’d been forever since I had felt his warmth.

I can’t.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’tIcantIcantICANTICANTICANTICANT!

Why? Why does he have to do this? Why does he have to hurt me like this? What does this all mean? Does he think that because he said sorry I can just roll over and pretend the last two years never happened?! HE LEFT ME! He hurt me! He got me hurt! When I lost him, I lost the love for myself as well. How can he say those things to someone who is just a shell?

I start breathing desperately, my heart racing and my head flooding with these thoughts. I can’t control it, I can’t stop it, and I can’t move. I want to reach out to him, to grab his hand, to push him away, I don’t know!

“Mr. Potter, now would be a good time for you to leave.” Severus’s calming voice announces over the hallway in the infirmary. I hear his footsteps swiften towards us. “Proffessor Snape I was only-” Harry starts, but gets interrupted by a stern and almost hissing whisper, “No, Mr. Potter. Mr. Malfoy’s parents are heading this way, I strongly recommend you make it as if you were never here. Do you understand?”. That very much so sounded like a threat. “Of course, I’m sorry... Please take care of him!”. Harry runs down the hallway and I hear the door slam before Severus addresses me. He kneels beside the bed to be face to face with me. “Draco, I’m so sorry. Deep breaths”. He says gently as he wipes away tears that I didn’t know I had. “Don’t worry about your parents. I will tell them now is a bad time. We will all reconvene at my house this evening once you recover from the healing spell. You can ask them about what Mr. Potter said if you must, I will protect you. Always.” He gently kisses my forehead and leaves silently, leaving me to suffer, as always.

It's painfully awkward sitting at dinner with my parents and Severus. He was able to fix my arm, but it left me what could only be described as the largest hangover one has ever suffered. To top it off, since I was okay physically, my father was going to make sure I wasn't okay emotionally or mentally. He'd done nothing but berate me for causing a scene. I zone out of his rants and stare down at where Severus is squeezing my knee. He is trying to be supportive, but all I can notice is a strange tattoo on his arm that wasn't there before.

"Severus, what is this?" I ask as I drag my fingers over the snake that's wrapped around a skull. It graces his forearm so delicately, it really adds to his aesthetic. My father looks appalled at my blatant change of topic, and Severus looks panicked. He tries to cover it with his sleeve, but father stops him. "Severus Snape, is that the reaction to my spell?" Father stairs him down.

"Yes, my lord. I've no excuses for my behaviour. I will only say that never once have I sought to harm Draco. I've had his best interests in mind, always." Severus hangs his head as he finishes his sentence, knowing what he has just admitted.

"Draco, that mark - or something definitive, will appear on anyone you've had relations with." Father waves his hand towards Severus's arm as he struggles to remain calm. Mother chokes down a sob. "I had my suspicions about the Potter child, but I suppose this confirms that you are exactly the deviant whore I assumed you to be." I- wait, Harry? He knew about us? If he did something like this, something permanent to someone who worshipped him, then what did he do to Harry?

"Father! Tell me, is Harry's scar because of this?!". I grab Severus's hand and squeeze it, needing all the support from him that I can get in this challenging moment. Bever had I spoken againt father, but this was going too far!

"Of course. Are you really that daft to think he spontaneously manifested such an atrocious mark? Honestly Draco, to think you've tainted a wizard of such nobilty, and to include Severus on your path of destruction. I am ashamed to call you my son." Lucious stands to leave, grabbing Narcissa by the arm and dragging her with him. I never thought it would come to this, I knew father could be nasty, but I never believed he would be this way towards me. Everything I did was to make him look to, to do the Malfoy name proud. Yet he can't even let me love who I want to love? I want to chase after him but Severus weighs me down in my chair. "Don't Draco, let him cool off before you try anything. It wont end well if you pursue him now.".

The next day at school I can't help but stair at Harry's scar in every shared class. Severus explained how the curse worked, he explained that the mark would burn and feel as if it were festering when the host was around me. He explained that the reason Harry grew distant was because of my father and James Potter deciding to seperate us by any means necessary. Severus only learned about this after he began tutoring me and learned of my heart break. I still couldn't bring myself to speak to him. I don't know whether I feel betrayed, or heart broken. I don't know where I will go when the weekend comes, because I can't go home, or to Severus's, and I can't stay here. The library seems like the only logical option to kill a little bit of time at before finding a place to spend the night.

"Draco?" Before I even look, I know it is Harry who has joined me in the endless rows of books. "Draco.. I am so sorry. I hope you're okay. I hope Luscious didn't.. do anything, to you. Like he used to-" "STOP" I can't take this anymore! "Did you know? About the curse, about our fathers, and what he would do? This whole time were you just hiding from my reality?!" He is standing right here in front of me but as I yell at him I only stare at the scar on his forehead, knowing it must be throbbing.

"I knew.. after it appeared, they explained it to me. They said it was what you wanted, and that this would help us distance ourselves." He steps closer to me, reaching out for me. "But I knew it couldn't have been true. I figured it out after you started getting so familiar with Professor Snape. I tried asking my father about it and he told me the truth, but I thought you'd moved on so I didn't want you to have to choose.", he grabs my hand and holds it close to his chest. "But I'm done waiting. I don't think you've moved on, I just think you're too afraid to be yourself. So stop me if this isn't what you want." The last words are practically a whisper as his lips close in on mine. It'd been so long since I'd felt his touch, let alone his kiss. He starts out soft and sweet, lingering to feel the softness of my lips. When I don't fight his kiss, he gets more aggressive, his tongue parting my lips and finding mine. He grabs the back of my head and laces his fingers through my hair, cushioning the impact of him pushing my into the bookshelf. "Draco~" he mutters my name as he leans into me. I can feel his hard on pressing against me. "Fuck Draco", he lips press against my neck as he kisses me intensely, trying to leave a mark. "I've never stopped wanting you", he bites me gently, "I never let you get taken from me again".

#Harry Potter #drarry #Draco Malfoy #draco x harry #severus snape #severus x draco #lgbtq #hay #gay #romance #who does it end with?#It was meant to be Drarry #but I dont know anymore #Severus may be 6 years older #But he is a hell of a lot nicer #always

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rubberduckyrye · 5 years ago

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I did not mean to imply that Kokichi is a twisted sociopath. I REALLY don't want to perceive him that way, but a lot of people see him like that. And it kinda feels... unnatural for me. To go to your blog, to see portrayals of him as a leader, as a boy who is rude, callous and a trickster, but who still cares about his classmates with all his heart, who did horrible things out of desire to help others, to see him as a human instead of the evil incarnate. "There must be some kind of a mistake" I

think, "You must have been mistaken about something. How the hell can you interpret him as a flawed, twisted(in later chapters) but still likeable human being? It's clearly wrong because he is a villain" I don't allow myself to even slightly ponder the fact that Kokichi has feelings, that he is not a sociopath that enjoys human suffering, because for some reason it is WRONG. And I don't want to see him as "Nagito + Junko + Hiyoko but worse", but somehow in my head every interpretation of him

other that "sociopathic nazi gremlin" is WRONG and blasphemous. Somewhat like with Chara several years ago when I was into UT. I liked the Narrator/Player Chara theories because they showed Chara as a very flawed individual who did a lot of things wrong but also had many redeeming qualities despite that, because it gave them some depth instead of reducing them to the one-dimensional "for the evulz" villain and also provided an interesting deconstruction of game mechanics(narration, interaction

game mechanics. But the voice in my head kept telling me that this game mechanics. But the voice in my head kept telling me that this interpretation is wrong, completely not canon in the slightest bit, Chara is pure evil, you are just stupid for daring to assume sth else about them. Because of it, I eventually started to hate Undertale and everything pertaining to it. This is a very simular thing to my Undertale experience. Surfing this blog and finding UT and DRV3 content made me realise that.

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All right gonna assume the rant is done here since that last ask looks like the end but tbh it doesn’t really matter because this is basically pushing my boundaries here and I’m getting really tired of this nonsense in my ask box.

Because gonna be blunt Anon, this sounds like a “you” problem.

First of all--this blog, impytricky, has over 900 followers. Meaning that ~900 people follow this blog and agree with the notion that Kokichi is not a terrible person. My blog over at @unweavinglies has over three hundred with a significant drop in total posts on that blog, and my theories there often get hundreds and hundreds of notes. People who don’t even follow this blog or that one will reblog my analysis posts in agreement.

So a lot of people see Kokichi as less “evil” and more morally grey. Actually, I’ve seen more positive interpretations of Kokichi than I’ve seen people making him into a true villain. That’s because making him a pure evil little bastard is kind of really boring and misses the entire point of his character and character arc.

You probably don’t see a lot of the “good” interpretations of Kokichi because you don’t go looking for it/ignore it/dismiss it when you come across it. Probably. Like how I see less of the villain interpretation because I don’t go looking for it/dismiss it/whatever.

Second of all: Kokichi is technically not a villain. While I still go by the policy that all interpretations are valid, it’s not canon that he is a “villain.” Narratively speaking, Kokichi is an anti-hero. An anti-hero is “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes,“ and yes, can be antagonists. Antagonists does not equal Villain, however. Anti-heroes are often marked by the idea of a hero doing bad things for the greater good.

Third of all: Please for the love of god cut that shit out with the Nazi thing. Kokichi is not a Nazi. I hated this stupid misconception before and I still hate it now--it’s offensive, outside of fiction, and it’s just plain inaccurate either way. This misconception comes from the fact that Japan especially tends to romanticize military attire, including attire in WWII Germany, which shows up in Kokichi’s hat in one promo picture. Another reason this misconception is the bane of my existence is because some fantranslator translated Kokichi’s ultimate talent to be “Ultimate Dictator” when it was apparently able to be translated as “Ultimate President” or “Ultimate Leader”. The Nazi misconception is just that--a huge misconception created by poor taste in design and fantranslations being inaccurate.

Please for the love of god, take that thought and unlearn it now. Seriously, it’s offensive. Stop it.

Fourth of all: This is where I see that this is more of a you problem above everything else. From what you’ve said, you seem to deem “morally grey” characters as “evil” or “Villainous” which comes with black or white thinking. From my perspective, what I’m hearing is “I can’t see shades of grey, so this must be black because it is not white.”

Let me ask you: Gonta Gokuhara. Whether or not Kokichi showed him the flashbacklight due to “””Evil””” intentions or whatever, he chose to kill Miu. Kokichi did not “trick” him into it, nor was he able to force Gonta into it via blackmail or what have you. Gonta chose to kill Miu of his own accord. This is a straight up canon fact. He chose to kill Miu because he believed that Mercy Killing her and everyone else before they found out the secret of the outside world would be kinder. This is canon fact that really cannot be disputed.

Let me ask you--is Gonta evil all of a sudden because he chose to kill someone? That he was aiming to kill everyone?

What about Frisk--or the player, in undertale--who has to actively choose to genocide run the game? Are players who choose ths path evil all of a sudden? What about Frisk, who would also be making this decision? Deltarune has implied that “Chara”, or the demon or whatever, is a separate entity that can control the character we play and we can’t control them when they’re in control. Meaning that for the whole Genocide route, Frisk had to actively choose to kill every single monster underground. If you go by the theory that the player isn’t just controlling their movements at any rate, you can see Chara take control in when thy kill Sans and Flowey. Yes, this means that Chara was not in control before then, thus putting the blame for most of the Genocide run on the player, or Frisk.

Yet the choice to do a pacifist run is there too. So which is it? What’s evil, and what isn’t evil? Can you really call Frisk pure good or evil? What about the player? What about Gonta?

That is the complexity of grey morality--the answer isn’t black or white and can’t be so simplified. Because what’s kinder, in Gonta’s case--killing everyone, or letting them find out that basically all of humanity was wiped out off of the face of the earth and the killing game they were forced into was all for nothing? Sure it’s terrible to kill someone, but it’s also terrible to allow people to be mentally tortured too, which the outside world basically did to everyone when they did find out.

It sounds like you’re stuck in the mind set of things being black or white. If you want to see characters like Kokichi and Chara as morally grey, then you need to tell that voice that says otherwise to shush up. No one is perfectly evil, no one is perfectly good. Good people can do horrible, terrible things and still be good people. Bad people can also do very, very good things, and still be terrible people.

I won’t be answering asks like this again. Please refrain from shoving your opinions down my throat. Maybe you didn’t intend to, but you are with lines like "There must be some kind of a mistake" and "You must have been mistaken about something. How the hell can you interpret him as a flawed, twisted(in later chapters) but still likeable human being? It's clearly wrong because he is a villain" because yeah that’s basically ways of saying “You’re wrong about Kokichi and I don’t like your interpretation.”

#nazi mention tw #getting real tired of this #Anonymous

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists

by Dan H

Friday, 17 August 2007

Dan refuses to just give up on the Potter articles already.~

A lot of people are mortally offended by the ending of the Narnia series, because it seems to suggest that Susan's absolute rejection of all the teachings of Christ prevents her from getting into heaven. I actually like it for exactly that reason: it's got a firm grounding in a genuine religious philosophy which I find significantly more interesting than the usual messages one gets from children's literature, or popular fiction in general.

This, of course, is why it seems so crazy to the secular reader. It's based on some profound assumptions about the metaphysical reality of the world, and if you don't believe the world works like that it doesn't make any sense. Many atheists (and a fair number of Christians, for that matter) have a hard time getting their heads around the idea that you can be a perfectly decent person, but still not go to heaven.

Even more difficult for atheists like me to get our heads around are the doctrines of the Calvinists. Very roughly (from my limited understanding) the Calvinists embrace fully the idea that it is impossible for any human being to be truly worthy of God's love. God is just that great and we are just that flawed. This is actually comparatively uncontroversial - it's just a firm statement of the idea that salvation comes wholly from the Grace of God, and not from your individual virtue. The Calvinists take this idea to its logical conclusion: that since obviously not everybody can be saved, God's grace will only fall on a small proportion of the population - the Elect. Since nobody can be worthy of God, whether one is or is not part of the Elect is entirely outside of one's own control. There are just some people who are predestined towards salvation, and some who aren't.

Now it would be easy here to score cheap points and say that this is just somebody using religion as a control mechanism, pretending that the reason he's so much better off than everybody else is because God likes him better. But that's actually not massively plausible. After all, when Calivinist doctrine was first developed, the Calvinists weren't exactly ruling the roost.

Calvinism is actually a fairly logical extension of one of the more difficult points of protestant doctrine: the idea of salvation by grace. People seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that drawing closer to a supernatural being who transcends all of the concerns of physical reality might actually not be the same thing as being nice to people. Perhaps it's just overexposure to classical mythology at an impressionable age, but I don't find it that hard to understand. I somehow can't imagine a classical theologian saying "but why would the Gods be so angry about Prometheus stealing fire? Why do we worship them if they're so mean?" or a Viking saying "I'm sure that Odin will understand that you wanted to die valiantly in battle."

I think that perhaps the reason people find the ideas expressed in - say - Calvinist theology, or The Last Battle is that, since we live in a secular society, we naturally divorce these kinds of ideas from their supernatural context. For example: burning at the stake was actually supposed to be a merciful form of execution, because it allowed the accused the maximum possible amount of time to repent. If you genuinely believe in an immortal soul, this is actually very sensible. Far better to burn somebody to death slowly, giving them a chance to go to heaven, than to cut their head off and condemn them to hell. To somebody who doesn't believe in an afterlife, though, it's needless cruelty.

When you decontextualise the doctrines or practices of a religion, you invariably make them into something extremely sinister and disturbing.

Which is why Harry Potter freaks me out so much.

JK Rowling self-defines as a Christian. More specifically, she was apparently raised Church of Scotland which, the internet reliably informs me, has strong Calvinist influences. If this is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work. Unfortunately she has also allowed it to become so decontextualised as to be unrecognisable.

Let us take the principle of Election, the notion that there are a fortunate few who, by grace of God, shall be called to salvation. In the Potterverse "Election" is called "Sorting" and instead of being controlled by Almighty God it is controlled by a hat.

Now I know Rowling pays lip service to the houses all being equal, but it's nonsense. Gryffindor is the superior house, all the way. Rowling herself declares not only that she would want to be in Gryffindor if she attended Hogwarts but also that she "hopes she would be found worthy."

So basically at the age of eleven, your fate is already sealed. Either you're Gryffindor, or you're evil, or you're chattel. You can't change, you can't be redeemed (unless you've already had the good fortune to fall in love with a Gryffindor) you are either Good or you are Evil or you Just Don't Matter and none of your decisions, none of your actions, mean a damned thing. No matter how much of a bullying little shit James Potter was, we are never really asked to see him as anything but a hero. Lily treats Snape like dirt, but is still the byword for selfless love in the series. And of course Dumbledore, our epitome of goodness, is a manipulative self-serving bastard who plots world domination and raises Harry to be a sacrificial lamb. But in the end we are expected to view all of these people as heroes because they were Gryffindors and therefore virtuous by definition.

Then of course there is Snape. After nearly twenty years of loyal service to Dumbledore, risking death or worse to spy on the Dark Lord, and incidentally building up a loyal fanbase who for some reason think that being smart is cooler than owning a flying motorcycle, JK Rowling eventually grants him the ultimate accolade. "Sometimes, we sort too soon." If a member of a different house displays courage, it shows that they must really be a Gryffindor deep down.

Rowling clearly subscribes to the philosophy that a person has a fundamental nature. That deep down a person cannot change. Deep down Harry is a hero, Percy is officious, Voldemort is Evil, Snape is a bully, Dumbledore is good but tempted by power. None of these traits will change, none of them can change. Rowling seems to believe it impossible.

This is most apparent, I think, in how she writes about Harry. It is never his actions. which win him praise, but rather the spirit in which he acts. This is perhaps most apparent in the seventh book, when Harry uses the Cruciatus curse on Amycus Carrow and McGonagall responds with the statement that it is "very gallant" of him.

Now I admit I might be a little bit behind the times here, but how is torturing your enemies "gallant"? Presumably in the same way that a single minded obsession with the personal destruction of your enemies has something to do with "love".

But my objections here are based on a false assumption: on the assumption that a person's moral character (their salvation, their redemption) is in any way affected by their actions. In Rowling's world it is not, and this is a deliberate and conscious theme throughout the books. Harry performs the same actions as other characters, but because he is by nature pure, his actions are actions of goodness, not of evil.

Even further proof that Harry's goodness is nothing to do with his actions - or indeed even his personality - but is instead some kind of elemental property comes from this rather interesting quote, regarding the fact that Voldemort had hope of salvation:

"Because he had taken into his body this-- this drop of hope or love (Harry's blood). So that meant that if he could have mustered the courage to repent, he would have been okay. But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Now there's two interesting things here. The first is that Voldemort's hope came literally from Harry's blood. Voldemort is not a person, Harry is not a person. Harry is a vessel full of Hope and Love in distilled form. No matter how many people he tortures or brutalises, he will always have Hope and Love in his very blood. It is physical contact with Harry's blood that gave Voldemort his one chance of redemption.

The second, subtler point is this one:

"But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Notice that she uses the words "of course" and "his choice" in the same sentence. And this is the point I find most interesting.

If you ever try to argue that JK Rowling is a slavering determinist, people always pull out two facts. Firstly, there's the fact that Harry "chose" not to be placed in Slytherin. Secondly, there's this extremely interesting line by Dumbledore.

"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Now I hope it doesn't look like I'm being obsessive here, but I think it's extremely telling that Dumbledore uses the phrase "show what we truly are" and not " say "decide what we become." Dumbledore is telling us, quite clearly, that who we are never changes, that the decisions we make in our lives serve only to illuminate our natures, which are otherwise immutable.

So Voldemort could never have been redeemed. He was given the chance to "try for some remorse" but there was never any realistic expectation that he would be able to. Indeed we are told repeatedly throughout the series that Voldemort is not capable of love. Not that he hasn't known love, that he has never experienced love, that he is literally incapable of it.

A choice, to Rowling, is not a chance to control one's own destiny, but a chance to show your quality. The outcome of a choice is predetermined. Voldemort would never have chosen redemption, so he had no chance of redemption, no matter how much of Harry's Magic Blood he had pumping through him.

I started this article talking about Calvinist Election, and by mentioning that "atheists like me" find it a rather disturbing concept. I think a big thing that people find uncomfortable is the idea that "the Elect" get to strut around being all superior, just because some random fluke made them God's Chosen. This is of course not how it works. The whole point of Election is that no one man is more worthy of salvation than any other, that any who are saved, are saved by the grace of God, not by their own merits. Within Calvinist philosophy being "chosen" doesn't make you better than anybody else, it just gives you one extra reason to thank God.

Rowling's world, however, really does work the way atheists perceive Calvinist Election as working. Harry is arbitrarily singled out as being "special" or "chosen" and this literally does make him better than other people. Harry is as incorruptible as Voldemort is irredeemable. Harry's choices will always be the right ones, not because of his moral character but because the world itself will change to accommodate him. He can withstand the Imperius Curse, he can see into the mind of the Dark Lord, yet remain uncorrupted by it, he can unite the Deathly Hallows. Even when he actively seeks to bring pain and death to his enemies, it is somehow virtuous. Because Harry is Just That Awesome.

JK Rowling has said, in interview:

"My beliefs and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book."

And apparent it is. The culmination of the Harry Potter series reads like the scrabbling of a Cultural Christian, trying to construct a moral framework out of fragments of doctrine she does not entirely understand or believe. Half-formed ideas about faith and destiny and redemption and death collide producing a result that is mostly simplistic, and occasionally sacrilegious.

The quasi-Christian overtones make some parts of the book genuinely incoherent. At times Harry's faith in Dumbledore is presented as almost akin to faith in God. He sets forth on his great journey, after all, knowing virtually nothing and Trusting That Dumbledore Would Provide. Indeed the Dumbledore-as-Divinity concept is a strong theme from the very start. It is very frequently Harry's Faith in Dumbledore that truly saves the day (most explicitly in Chamber of Secrets). The entire subplot with Dumbeldore's backstory is presented almost as Harry's last test of Faith.

And of course if Dumbledore is God, then this naturally casts Harry in the role of Jesus: walking amongst the unbelievers, spreading His word, facing persecution and ultimately death. A sacrifice made in perfect Love to redeem the sins of the Wizarding World.

Except that Dumbledore isn't God, he's just a guy, so having unwavering faith in him isn't laudable, it's blind fanaticism. And Harry doesn't sacrifice himself to save Hogwarts, he sacrifices himself to kill Voldemort. Hell, Rowling even admits that after book 6, if Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised he would see "Voldemort finished, dead, gone". His deepest desire is not to protect his friends, or even to live a normal life, but to kill the guy who killed his parents.

It's a mess, and the fact that it's a mess is probably the saddest thing of all. Rowling so clearly wanted to say something big about faith, about love, and about death, but all she has managed to do is communicate her own confuson.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Wardog

at 09:34 on 2007-08-17And obviously you have the whole sacramental thing of Voldemort receiving Harry's blood, or rather refusing the salvation contained within it... euw.

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Arthur B

at 11:11 on 2007-08-17I think you can also see attitudes towards predestination in her view of herself and her work. I was watching her original publisher on TV the other day talking about how he advised her to get a day job, because very very few people can actually make a living on children's books, and how she simply said she was very confident that HP would be successful. Which turned out to be right, of course, but there's no way anyone could have predicted exactly how much the HP books took off (and arguably they didn't become

really

massive until

Prisoner of Azkaban

). I know, I know, most authors probably harbour hopes that they'll be able to live off their soon-to-be-published novel and ditch the day job, it's human nature to be optimistic - but it's also human nature to harbour a deep-seated worry that your book might just flop. Rowling has never shown any evidence of the latter.

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Dan H

at 14:49 on 2007-08-17This is, I think, also evidence of Ms Rowling's deeply fucked up priorities. Having faith in yourself is one thing, but she had a fucking *kid* to support. You think she'd give some thought to how the poor bastard was going to eat.

Also: Fun exercise for your spare time. Re-read the chapter entitled "Horcruxes" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's as fucked up as all hell. It's where Dumbledore explains that Harry Potter hating Voldemort and wanting to kill him is evidence of his deep capacity for love.

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Arthur B

at 16:08 on 2007-08-17Care to summarise? I don't have the Half-Blood Prince and don't intend to read it - as far as I can tell, it's the big waterslide that dumps the reader in the sewer of

Deathly Hallows

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Dan H

at 16:23 on 2007-08-17Lets see, choice quotes from that chapter include:

"If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have implanted in you a furious desire for revenge?"

And of course

"You have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!"

"Of course I haven't," said Harry indignantly. "He killed my mum and dad!"

"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly.

And

"Imagine, please just for a moment that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!"

"I'd want him finished," said Harry quietly. "And I'd want to do it."

That's your shining beacon of love folks: an angry little man driven by pure hatred and the desire for personal vengeance.

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Arthur B

at 16:33 on 2007-08-17That's hilarious. It's like Dumbledore is dozing his way through a speech and isn't actually listening to what Harry is saying.

"So, Harry, what will you do if you defeat Voldemort?" asked Dumbledore.

"I will become an Auror and turn the Ministry of Magic into a terrifying machine devoted to exterminating House Slytherin. I will use Unforgivable Curses like they were party tricks. I will break every single rule regulating magical law enforcement in my pursuit of the Slytherin menace."

"Oh Harry, you truly are a fountain of love and forgiveness!"

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Dan H

at 16:38 on 2007-08-17It's even worse than that: he's paying absolute attention to what Harry's saying, but deep down he's thinking "bwahahaha, see how I have manipulated this boy into believing that his childish desire to lash out at Lord Voldemort is a noble and selfless act! Now he is certain to do exactly as I wish while I arrange his death!"

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Arthur B

at 16:47 on 2007-08-17Yeah. You know how I said how Harry walking to his own death in order to be the messiah was the act of a paranoid schizophrenic? I take that back. Orchestrating your own death and the death of your protege because you firmly believe that a) this will let you defeat the greatest evil in the world and b) this is how you think the Truest Love works is the act of a paranoid schizophrenic megalomaniac.

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lessofthat

at 01:04 on 2007-08-28If only it were. It sounds more to me like the act of a man with no discernible personality traits whatsoever. I wonder how the books would read if you quietly ctrl-H'ed every instance of the word 'destiny' with the word 'plot'.

Hemmens, you've skewered the woman precisely and with brio, and you deserve applause, but how in the name of fuck was all this - except the ugly suicide cult business you mention in the previous piece - not visible from the downslope of book 3?

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Arthur B

at 09:26 on 2007-08-28I think people still had some faith that Rowling would pull off some brilliant plot twist and the series wouldn't go in the direction that it was obviously going, and in fact did. To be fair, for the first four books she was able to surprise me with the endings - I didn't expect Bloke With Turban to have Lord Voldemort pasted to the back of his head, I didn't expect that Tom Riddle was anything other than a horrible sneak called Tom Riddle, I hadn't guessed that the Goblet of Fire would be a teleportation trap. The third book is the best example of this, where the climactic encounter with Sirius Black you're expecting is still fifty-odd pages away happens early, before our heroes are even slightly ready.

Book 5, conversely, is pretty much devoid of surprises. In books 1-4 the titular thing - the Philosopher's Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire - is a mysterious object, place or person which is the key to the mystery the book covers. The Order of the Phoenix, conversely, is carefully explained early on in book 5 and isn't really especially relevant or important.

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lessofthat

at 10:57 on 2007-08-28Even her critics admit that Rowling does a good plot, but her creepy ideology and incoherent philosophy - her apparent belief that moral goodness is something you're born to, like the aristocracy, or that happens to you, like celebrity - has been visible for years.

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Arthur B

at 11:41 on 2007-08-28True, but until now people could always console themselves with the possibility that the whole goodness-by-selection deal was meant to be a Big Lie which was going to be exposed in the last book. In fact, the bit in

Deathly Hallows

where Harry struggles with the new facts he knows about Dumbledore could have been an excellent opportunity for Harry's worldview to be seriously challenged, but Rowling squandered the opportunity by having Harry's worldview be the correct one all along.

There was plenty of reason for bile and invective to be thrown in Rowling's general direction after books 5 and 6, and several decent causes for complaint after 4. I think the reason the flood has happened now, as opposed to earlier, is that with the publication of book 7 there is now no opportunity for Rowling to redeem the series.

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Wardog

at 15:00 on 2007-08-28I'm not actually sure all this stuff *has* been visible; it's been *there* but that's not quite the same thing. A lot of people (self included, at least until 6) assumed it was all building up into something quite dark and interesting. And don't we feel like idiots now.

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lessofthat

at 16:05 on 2007-08-28The more interesting question then is "what rendered it invisible?"

What surprises me is that everyone here dissing Rowling seems to have reached the same conclusions as I did, and articulated them rather better than I ever managed to, but inexplicably read all the way to the end before doing so. What dazzled you in the meantime? Was it just the plot, or were there promises of complexity in Harry and his gang that I overlooked?

I'd particularly like to know because I might then be able to reverse-engineer some kind of cure and inject it into the friend who told me last week '[book 7] is a fucking triumph and we're lucky to have her'. Or at least understand what the hell's going on with that.

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Arthur B

at 16:24 on 2007-08-28For my part, I was assuming (until book 5) that Rowling was going to pull the same start with the overarching plot of the series that she did with books 1-4 - specifically, try her hardest to trick the reader into thinking that a particular thing was going to happen, and then pull the rug out from under them. Sure, it was pretty obvious that we were going to have a ludicrous final battle in Hogwarts between Harry and Voldemort, and that Harry would prove to be the Chosen One by virtue of his amazing feat of surviving to his first birthday, but in the early Potter books whenever something's

that

obvious it usually isn't true.

Rowling's a one-trick pony, but she's pretty good at the narrative misdirection trick. It's why you had fans suggesting with a straight face that Dumbledore was actually Ron from the future; people realise that Rowling often throws out sudden plot twists, especially when the plot seems to be fairly straightforward, and the fans had plenty of fun coming up with convoluted ideas of what would happen at the conclusion.

Rowling's biggest misdirection was tricking people into thinking that the things which were obviously going to transpire in the HP series would not, in fact, come to pass.

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empink

at 03:32 on 2007-08-29@lessofthat

I think that sometimes, you just don't *see* the bad points of a book for whatever reason. Everyone I know can speak to hating or at least disliking a book that they loved a while ago- it's the same sort of thing at work, or at least the same set of forces. For some reason, you may just want to enjoy a book so badly that you ignore its rough corners. Or you aren't yet adept at recognising those rough corners yet, so they pass you by. Or you weren't really paying much attention, and everything seems all right to your friends, and everything seems all right in (faulty) hindsight, so you jump at the next chance to read more from the same author.

All of that is far, far more pronounced when there is a lot of strong emotion sloshing around about a book or story or creative endeavour. You're either caught up in the hype to some extent, invest in it and suddenly realise it matters to you because your investment in it feels a lot sillier if it doesn't matter to you, or you're not and you wonder why the hell everyone's losing their heads over the whole thing.

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Wardog

at 21:17 on 2007-08-29Agreed, empink.

The first three books, at least, have advantages to balance their disadvantages. They're not great literature (but then, what is?) but they're reasonably well-written, tautly plotted, genuinely amusing and occasionally, as Arthur points out above, quite surprising. I remember being quite startled that Snape wasn't, in fact, the bad guy of book 1 and I was quite impressed at the rather morally complex position he occupied in what was obviously a children's a book: at that stage in the game, he's good but not nice which is interesting for a children's book.

Also, as empink observes, the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic. Dan could never have written this article based off the first few books. I remember Harry seemed rather bland but nobody cared - he was a hero and heroes are meant to Save The World not be interesting and they were plenty of nice secondary characters to shine well when set against Harry's lack of personality. And the fact that Snape *wasn't* the bad guy seemed to suggest that Slytherin - despite the bad press - weren't basically evil, again suggesting a potentially morally layered universe. As the books progresses the houses, for example, become more and more simplified. I always thought well of the potrayal of Cedric Diggory (from book VI). I mean, he's a Hufflepuff, but he's clever AND brave AND abmitious. I always thought that might be trying to say something worthwhile.

Of course it wasn't.

Also the later books are all about shutting down avenues of interpretation - the early books are a glorious free-for-all. Because they're not sprawling information dumps, the glimpses of the world they offer are subtle and intriguing - perhaps it's just evidence of how lame we are but we used to spend hours discussing Harry Potter in the pub, wondering what this and that meant, and what was going to happen, and who such and such a character was.

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Arthur B

at 22:11 on 2007-08-29Slytherin is a particularly good example, actually. From the very beginning, Rowling has been adamant that the Slytherins aren't all evil. The internal evidence of the books seems to correspond with that, right up until the end when whoosh! Basically every Slytherin student and teacher turns Quisling and helps the Death Eaters stomp all over Hogwarts. The one exception is Snape, and it's notable that at the very end Harry names his kid after Snape because of Snape's courage - the Griffindor virtue, not traditionally anything to do with Slytherin.

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lessofthat

at 10:23 on 2007-08-30Fair enough. Looking back, I can remember that sense that though the first three were flawed, there was something a bit different about them; the Slytherins had that aristocracy-of-hell feel that old guard Tories like Heseltine do (they may be scum, but they're engaging scum and you know where you are with them); Snape was, as Kyra says, not bad but not nice. I remember even being faintly impressed that Rowling knew what colour a philosopher's stone would be, but that she didn't feel the need to regurgitate all the matching alchemical background. It suggested she'd bothered to do the research but wore it lightly.

I wasn't that impressed though. I also remember reading a quote by some publishing type on the back of the first book way back in like '98, to the effect that future generations of children will talk about Diagon Alley the way past ones talked about the Hundred Acre Wood or, I don't know, Byker Grove or something. I thought that was ridiculous hyperbole. I suppose that's why he's a publishing type and I'm not, because how wrong was I.

@empink. The hype and social enthusiasm bypassed me, largely for reasons of grumpiness I suppose. So that's a powerful inoculating factor too.

Again, I guess that Harry's abject blandness was less apparent in his pre-teenage years. I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

"the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic." I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system - but I think I have a better idea of why bright, sane people were distracted enough not to be bothered.

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Arthur B

at 13:16 on 2007-08-30On Harry's personality: half the reason book 5 lost me was that Harry became a repugnant, grumpy teenager. He was a well-observed repugnant teen, and I can just about barely remember what it was like being one myself, but there's a reason most people don't want to hang out with such oiks once they get over puberty, and that's because they're completely awful to be around.

In the earlier books his main personality trait was utter confusion and occasional amazement and wonder when regarding the world he'd been thrust into, which worked nicely with his role as the character we see the world through. It's a good device for the first three-or-so books, but it couldn't have been maintained for the entire series - nobody would have bought it if Rowling had tried to have Harry still be completely bowled over by the awesomeness of the wizarding world when he's lived in it for over half a decade - but it's a crying shame she didn't have anything particularly good to replace it with.

Re: the Sorting Hat - in the early books, I could accept the Sorting Hat as being a nice pastiche of the apparently arbitrary nature kids get assigned to classes and houses in secondary school. I could convince myself that the Hat essentially took a quick look at the students' personalities and flung them into whichever House seemed to have the most suitable internal culture for them, and the different characters of the Houses were a result of a self-perpetuating internal culture that the Hat just reinforced. It eventually became brutally apparent that the Hat is essentially a living filter for the Elect, and that being chosen as Gryffindor by the Hat is essentially an absolute vote of confidence in your moral integrity, but it took a while; again, it wasn't until book 5 that I realised that we'd never seen

one

single person who didn't fit in perfectly in their House, and

come on

: just because you're hard-working or brave or ambitious at 11 doesn't mean that's still going to be the case when you're 15.

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empink

at 13:19 on 2007-08-30@lessofthat I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

SO TRUE.

I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system

That's what I would have said after reading it. I can't remember how many times I wanted to point at JKR's treatment of the women in her book (married, had babies, or wanted to, or died, or died regardless, or were ugly, unsexy and old) and ask people what they thought was up with THAT. Then again, I remember how much less that would have pinged me a year or two ago, when I was still supposedly not a feminist. Snape's "I see no difference" feels particularly apt in this case. Until you *do* see the difference, or have it pointed out to you in a way you can't bring yourself to ignore, you...don't. And to others who do, you either look like a huge, defensive jackass, or like Stupid of the century. And to others who don't, you are Sane McGrateful for the author's bounty. And even that's simplifying the whole thing, but really, that's how it seems to have worked in my corner so far.

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Dan H

at 00:40 on 2007-09-07Sorry I haven't commented: No internet.

In short, the reason that it took me a while to realise that Rowling was espousing a repulsive moral philosophy is that the series went through a massive genre shift between (roughly) books four and five, and assumptions which are perfectly acceptable in a boarding school romp have no place in a serious story about love and death and choices.

I always saw the Sorting Hat as being a metaphor for the cliques you get at school. The Slytherins are the privileged popular kids, the Ravenclaw are the swots, Hufflepuff are everybody else. Gryffindor - in the early books - was essentially just "the hero and his mates". There's comparatively little evidence that Gryffindors are *objectively* superior in the early books - there's just Harry's natural tendency to side with his friends. Indeed in the early books there's a fair number of dodgy Gryffindors (like Peter Pettigrew) and admirable non-Gryffindors (like Cedric Diggory and, arguably, Snape). In book five we even discover that James Potter was a bullying little shit. By the start of book six, things actually looked reasonably complex, and rather grown up. The last two books, though, took all of that apart. The Slytherins all leave in the final battle, James Potter wasn't a bully at all, he was just mad at Snape because he called Lily Potter a bad name, and we are asked to take Harry's desire for vengeance as evidence of his moral superiority.

Essentially I didn't find the early books morally repulsive, because I didn't think they were trying to make any kind of moral statement beyond "it is good to stick by your friends" and possibly "believe in yourself". The whole business with Sorting and predestination was just a convenient plot device to give the hero a set of allies and enemies. Early Potter doesn't advocate predeterminism any more than the Lord of the Rings advocates genocide.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/tjLTVHEducFb4rKDHU5DukBHtQcCbTVMEEq55v0CxV4-#5e156

at 11:32 on 2009-08-09Aw come on Hemmens, don't you think getting that level of publicity could have turned your head like it did JKR's? I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

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Robinson L

at 00:30 on 2009-08-11

I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

Sure it's understandable for fame to go to her head. Doesn't make the results any less execrable.

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http://lunabell14.myopenid.com/

at 22:42 on 2010-07-27Actually, in Order of the Phoenix, during the sorting hat song, it sings this line (credit from Mugglenet):

For instance, Slytherin Took only pure-blood wizards Of great cunning, just like him

So basically, Rowling admits even earlier that Slytherins are all racist, and therefore the bad guys. I remember this kind of bugged me when I read it, since there is definitely no relationship between being cunning and being pure-blood. And you would think since Voldemort and Snape could by-pass the pure-blood rule, they would get rid of that criteria.

But honestly, I don't see how she can get credit for complex characterization when there such sweeping generalizations about Gryffindors and Slyterins. Especially when some of the good guys show what I consider some very questionable morality (such as Harry crucio-ing the Death Eater over nothing, Dumbledore being a manipulative dick, etc.)

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http://prue84.livejournal.com/

at 23:06 on 2011-02-20I've avidly read this articol and how hell, how you are right!

I admit I'm never been Harry fan (I'm a "Slytherin" person because I feel I fell in that house - not a fan because they're the evil!), but this articole make me even less fan of Harry.

I'd also like to point out what I feel about Draco/Malfoys and Ron/Weasleys: they are basically the same, as both the families are racist but, when Draco say something nasty about Ron (usually something about being poor), he is labelled as "evil" while when Ron says something nasty about Draco (and Slytherins in general), he is still the good guy (or the Chosen One's biggest friend). What always bugged me is that Slytherin's House has some qualities (if I remember right, the Sorting Hat explain them in the first book), and yet "all in Slytherin are bad". What, why? Why there can't be bad or asses in the other houses? Why there is no Death Eater's son in Rawenclaw? Why Slytherins' students are all "Death Eater's wannabes?": couldn't be that many of them have pressures? Couldn't be that many of these families are simply acting like nobles families had done during the centuries, acting in a way while they wanted nothing more than be free to hug, kiss and reward?

I'm going totally off-topic here, but...

Thanxs for this articole! I have read the one regarding Abused Woman in the media and I'll slowly made my way in this site: too many interesting analysis. :)

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http://shrek2be.livejournal.com/

at 14:05 on 2011-12-30I am not too intelligent to say that I understand what you have writtenabove in your post Daniel.I'll try to interpret DH and essentially HP in my own little simplistic way.

The problem for me is Rowling tries to keep Harry as Jesus and then convert him back to a human . Dumbledore ideally should be the Merlin/Gandalf figure (or like GOD with Harry being the son of GOD) but due to poor writing comes across as a bad human being. who shouldn't be preaching philosophy as he still believed in the greater good with the way he treated Harry.

I haven't read LOTR but have watched the movies and even Tolkien understands Frodo has changed irrevocably because he is no longer normal that he has to go to Valinor which I guess is the term for heaven. Rowling doesn't get this part at all. The epilogue validates how naive Rowling is terms of understanding religion. Harry's ideal character growth for me would be accepting that he has never been normal.

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http://ladylazarus1027.livejournal.com/

at 00:38 on 2012-07-12

I'm fairly sure Rowling didn't start attending the Church of Scotland until she was in her late twenties* -- at the absolute earliest-- but I can see why you wouldn't want facts to get in the way of your rant.

* According to wikipedia, she was born and raised in Gloucestershire, quite far from Scotland.

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:27 on 2012-07-13Greetings, unnecessarily sarcastic commenter! I don't know when (or whether) Rowling joined the Church of Scotland, but it's possible for her to have done so without living in Scotland. There is, for example, a Church of Scotland church near where I work in central London.

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Shim

at 20:39 on 2012-07-13A quick googling shows

this article from the Telegraph

which says she was raised as an Anglican. When she joined the Church of Scotland, I have no idea, and the Anglican church is very varied, so it's not that enlightening.

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Dan H

at 21:09 on 2012-07-13

Thanks for the clarification. To be honest, though, I'm not convinced that there is much difference between "was raised" and "was influenced by in her twenties" and I'm not sure whether that particular detail actually has much to do with my central argument, which is that the Harry Potter books present a world in which some people are predestined towards salvation and others not.

What Rowling herself believes, or why she believes it, or when she started believing it is distinctly secondary.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 02:54 on 2012-07-14I think people are tripping up on the idea that Rowling's terrible writing is due to her being a deranged Calvinist, rather than just a terrible writer. I don't think this article really pushes that connection very hard, but I can see why people who want to nitpick for the sake of nitpicking would jump on that.

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Dan H

at 10:34 on 2012-07-14I think that's probably the case. Ironically I think the article actually argues fairly strongly that Rowling *isn't* a deranged Calvinist, and that if she was her writing would probably be somewhat improved.

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

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Cammalot

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

Yes, and I'd speculate that seems like that *would* be a product of a later-in-life association with the church, rather than early internalization of the doctrine.

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Ibmiller

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14Rather hilariously, I love this article, and I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...) Completely agree that Rowling's world would improve from theological underpinnings other than "some people who are pretty are nice and some people who don't have noses are racist."

Hmmm...the Harry Potter series rewritten by a deranged Calvinist...if I were any kind of writer, I might want to take that up as a challenge...

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 11:55 on 2012-07-14I think this specifically is what's getting people.

If [Rowling belongs to the Church of Scotland] is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work.

That implies a more direct connection than the one I got: that

Potter

and Calvinism both espouse a similar salvation-of-the-elect worldview, the difference being that Calvinists have put a bit more thought and indeed humanity and decency into their version. Their conclusions about how life works aren't the inadvertent result of an overlong fantasy series spinning out of an inexperienced writer's control.

Potter

would likely have ended up the same way if Rowling had never heard of Calvinism.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 12:02 on 2012-07-14

I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...)

I actually don't think Calvinists are any more deranged than any other religious group. What would make Rowling's worldview deranged would be a conscious attempt to decontextualize Calvinist or most other religious beliefs into something secular, which I think everyone agrees probably did not happen.

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Ashimbabbar

at 14:27 on 2014-04-25• It's an extremely interesting and deep analysis ( not that everybody hadn't noticed, but now I have too )

• The "but of course Voldemort wouldn't repent" makes an interesting contrast with LOTR [ Tolkien being a Catholic ]. Here Saruman could really have repented ( after the Ents smashed Isengard ), it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ). Gollum too could have if it hadn't been for Sam's hostility and his own reaction to it… they were really offered the choice.

• This "Rowlingian Calvinism", for want of a better term, sounds like a very good belief for the bad guys in a Fantasy novel…

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Daniel F

at 15:46 on 2014-04-25

it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ).

I'm morbidly curious now...

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #J.K. Rowling #Dan H #Religion

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positivelyamazonian · 6 years ago

Text

10 Favorite Game/Anime/Movie Characters

Tagged by: @a-super-evil-cat-who-murders (thanks!!! It was fun!)

The Rules: Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 different people.

Well I’ve already done a tag for FEMALE CHARACTERS so I’ll leave this in case you wanna check it. For not repeating myself, I’ll do this time just male characters.

I’ll tag: @luluvonv @luthienamell @adayka @hydraballista @anyathebloodshell @anentireamazon @jar-cup @kim-v-croft @autumn-star93 @lady-trent

Of course don’t feel obliged to do this. And yes my characters come in not a particular order!

1. Haplo the Patryn - The Death Gate Cycle (book series)

Posting an amazing fanart by Melusaaste because there’s not an official art that shows him so close-up, and honestly, this is the most accurate depiction of him I’ve ever seen.

Haplo is the anti-hero and main character of The Death Gate Cycle series written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Personal childhood hero (despite being an antihero himself), husbando and whatnot, until today he’s one of my fav characters ever, because through him I learnt the most perfect character development, from a cruel, merciless and amoral villain, to... well, not a hero if you think so, but to redeemed human being.

“A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it.” - Haplo in Dragon Wing, the first volume of the series.

2. Johan Liebheart - Monster

You don’t know what’s a villain until you meet this bastard. I am not an otaku or very enthusiastic of anime series, but Monster by Naoki Urasawa are probably the best manga/anime series ever written. And his villain, Johan Liberheart, one of the most twisted fucks ever written by an author.

Tortured, mentally ill, twisted, cruel, amoral, there’s no way to explain Johan. He experiences no character development and he has not a single redeeming quality, yet you just can’t let him go. An unforgettable character, not recommended for the weak and vulnerable.

There's nothing special about being born. Not a thing. Most of the universe is just death, nothing more. In this universe of ours, the birth of a new life on some corner of our planet is nothing but a tiny, insignificant flash. Death is a normal thing. So why live?

3. Geralt of Rivia - The Witcher (book/videogame series)

youtube

I’m so sorry I met this amazing character through The Witcher videogame series, because he existed already in the book series of the same name written by Andrzej Sapkowski, and I really feel like posting this video because it perfectly sums up the spirit of the character.

Geralt is a witcher, a mutant specialist in killing demons and monsters for coin. He’s shaped like an anti-hero and despised by his society because of his nature and his mercenary job, but despite having everything for being just a rogue scoundrel, he manages to become a very rich character. Full of redeeming qualities despite his grey morals, Geralt struggles in a cruel Middle-Ages world to keep something human for himself, when everyone surrounding him tries to turn him in the heartless freak he was trained to be.

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.” ― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

4. Raistlin Majere - The Dragonlace (book series)

Again, I’ve to go back to a character created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (man, this people CAN write characters I tell you), this time for the Dragonlance series. These books are less original and brilliant than The Death Gate Cycle, but more popular and beloved because they are easier to read. And Raistlin Majere is probably the best character written for these series, being saved among them because of being, probably, the less cliché and the more complex of them all.

And again, anti-hero at times, redeemed hero at other times, tortured, twisted, cynic and cruel, but also able to show kindness and a human heart at times. Raistlin was born weak and sick and sacrificed everything (including his own health) for one sake: magic. And power. His only life desire is what will lead him to his own destruction.

"Of course this means a lot to me, Caramon. It means everything! I have worked and studied almost my entire life for this chance. What would you have me do - cast it aside because it is dangerous? Life is dangerous, Caramon. Just stepping out that door is dangerous! You cannot hide me from danger. Death floats in the air, creeps through the window, comes in with the hand-shake of a stranger. If we stop living because we fear death we have already died."

5. Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Ice/Game of Thrones series)

This little amazing piece of awesomeness needs no presentation. I am again sorry I met through the Game Of Thrones TV series and not A Song Of Ice And Fire books, but it was totally worth it because it’s one of the most well-written characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and I must say Peter Dinklage was born to play him.

What can I say? Tyrion is one of those characters who are worth living. A dwarf, deformed, ugly, with no physical or war skills, relying only in his extreme intelligence and wisdom and his political talent to survive, he’s one of the most strong inspirations one can find. Definitely go check him.

6. Kurtis Trent (Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness videogame)

I included Lara Croft in my female characters list, it would be absolutely unfair to forget Kurtis as he’s the other character that got my heart in TR series. Not gonna rant long about him here, because you already know my opinion. He was amazing. He deserved better. Ex-legionnaire, demon hunter and Lux Veritatis warrior, I’ve devoted all my fanfics to develop him as there was no chance for Core Design to do it so.

Fitting more in the role of a hero, I think he was also the perfect partner for Lara. His background is very well written and he had a lot of potential. The fact I will never see it doesn’t change anything. He deserves his place here.

"And I thought this would be one of my easy days." - Kurtis, The Sanitarium.

7. L Lawliet - Death Note (manga/anime series)

Again, I reinforce the statement that I’m not a fan of manga/anime series, but definitely Death Note is, together with Monster, one of those you should watch. And yes for everyone who loves Death Note, I’m a L fan. You always choose between L or Kira sides, and despite I’ve to recognize that Kira is a very complex, well written character, it’s L who gets my heart.

Supertalented, amoral, brilliant, extremely unpredictable and surprising, L is the first one of the agents that will try to catch Kira, the murderer who uses a Death Note to implant his particular justice world. L deserves your attention more than Kira, I presume. Or at least, it’s what I think.

“There are... many types of monsters in this world: Monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble; monsters who abduct children; monsters who devour dreams; monsters who suck blood, and... monsters who always tell lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat even though they've never experienced hunger. They study even though they have no interest in academics. They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster.”

8. V - V for Vendetta (graphic novel/movie)

I know, easy to love him, right? Again I’m sad that I met this character through the movie and not the original graphic novel, though you can’t say a thing against Hugo Weaving’s magnificent delivery. I wish I could get my hands on the graphic novel, so I can know him better.

Anarchist, terrorist, idealist, V is the incarnation of the protest against dictatorship and opression in a dystopian England that has supressed all the rights and human freedom. If you don’tknow him, I strongly recommend at least the movie, for the inspiration this character delivers goes beyond that the mask that has trascended the movie itself to become a symbol of citizen fight.

9. Roger - American Dad (TV series)

Well technically he’s not a he, he’s rather an it, but whatever. Also he’s it’s a different trend in this post since I love him particularly because he’s funny and incarnates all the non-political correct you can expect from someone.

He also gives me, kinda, TR vibes. Roger is an alien who landed in Earth during Cold War and was rescued and sheltered at his home by Stan, a CIA agent who’s the main character of the series. Honestly I think Roger is the best of American Dad - a TV show which basically and mercilessly mocks every American value - because despite being an alien is absolutely, indecently human. I prefer him and this show much more than the overrated Family Guy.

10. Dwight Schrute - The Office (TV series)

Last but not the least, the efficient, clever and adorable bastard hillbilly from The Office. I loved him from the very first moment he appeared. Yeah I know many people hate him or prefer the goofy boss of the handsome Jim but Dwight is really my spirit animal and speaks to me in so many levels. No more comment needed. He’s the best of the show to me.

Well this took forever, right? Sorry for the length of this post but now I’m free I wanted to give it some thought. I see again that I’ve a soft spot for grey morals, redeeming qualities, bad boys and complex characters. This is how it goes! ;)

#lol i'm so sorry this took ages to go #i went too deep insight i'm afraid #also now i did this i regret not having done the same with the female characters #but it was too busy back then to do this #thanks for tagging me #top 10 favourite male characters #tag #challenge #not tr related #personal #positively amazonian

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