#I have admittedly never cared for the pheonix stuff as a whole

[gonnagobankai]

Getting into xmen again made me realize just how much I apparently did not care for dark phoenix when it came out

I completely forgot that there where aliens in the movie, it just went in one ear and out the other

The only part that I did remember was how I didn’t believe that Raven actually died because killing off a prominent character that way would be stupid….

[chaddicus]

tbh one of the things I like abt harry potter as a protagonist is that he’s. not really all that special.

I mean like. there are two major ~special~ things about him that are really memorable. one is the whole parselmouth thing, but I mean 1 that’s not really unique. it’s rare sure, but it’s not like he’s the only person in existence who can do it, or like it’s some sort of mark of a greater power or destiny. it’s just a thing about him. and 2 it’s not really all that useful?? like how many times did that come up after chamber of secrets? it was a plot point in his second year but after that it’s just kind of a thing that was there, like his black hair or his glasses.

the other is his connection with voldemort that allows him to sense his presence and later see into his mind, which admittedly is way more powerful and unique than other stuff, but like. it’s not what made him a hero. & it’s not what defeated voldemort either? it didn’t really have that direct of a role in voldemort’s fall?? harry didn’t seek out voldemort to kill him by looking into his mind & finding his hidey hole or something, he didn’t predict the death eaters’ plan to break into hogwarts & stop them before they got there, it wasn’t really something that was all that helpful in the end. like how the parselmouth thing was relevant for chamber of secrets, the visions were mostly just relevant in goblet of fire & order of the pheonix; they didn’t come up in earlier books and they didn’t really do much in the later ones.

but pretty much everything else about harry is just. normal. like he’s pretty smart, if you think abt it, but he’s not some kind of child prodigy genius type with an eidetic memory who can master difficult physical skills in an hour or anything like that. he’s not even the smartest of his friends. he’s just fairly good at what he puts his mind to.

and he’s particularly skilled at defense against the dark arts, but a lot of people tend to have a favorite subject that they’re better at than the other things they do, if not better than other people. if we’ve established that harry’s moderately smarter than average, it makes sense that he’ll be better than many of his peers at his best subject.

he got on the gryffindor quidditch team in his first year, but it’s not like he’s some kind of quidditch sports prodigy or anything?? he’s not some super-athletic type who is superior physically to everyone around him, he’s just pretty good at his sport.

and he’s a good person, but he’s not some shining beacon of holy grace or whatever. he just cares about people, he loves people, and he wants the world to be better for people.

and ultimately, he didn’t defeat voldemort bc of some special unique inherent trait he possesses that makes him the Hero -- the prophecy & his connection to voldemort made it so that he was the only one who could defeat voldemort, but even that never necessarily meant that he would. 

he defeated voldemort because he worked hard for it. he went out and destroyed all the horcruxes, he trained himself and others in defense against the dark arts in the hopes of being better prepared to fight voldemort when the time came, and he never stopped pushing towards it. 

and he defeated voldemort because he loved his friends, he loved the people around him and he wanted to stop this asshole dark lord from hurting everyone. & when he cared about people, they cared about him back. he made friends, he made allies, and when the big fight came he had people at his back because of it, & he didn’t have to go it alone.

and none of these things are some sort of magical, mystical, unique abilities granted by his status as ~the chosen one~ or ~the boy who lived~. he’s just a fairly normal kid, who happens to be a good person with the right skills to get it done. he didn’t snap into any of it, it didn’t just fall into place because it was meant to. 

and don’t get me wrong, typically the protagonist is the protagonist for a reason, and that reason can a lot of times be ‘this person is a super special and going on an epic quest’. but I like that harry wasn’t too special. some books have protagonists that are practically gods, or who have some super unique thing about them that no one else has ever had or will ever have, and tbh I can get tired of that real quick.

harry’s journey was enthralling bc he was a kid who had some bad things happen to him, who worked through it and did what he could to come out right in the end. harry’s journey didn’t feel like some great legend of a hero who was the only one who could ever accomplish what he did. harry’s journey felt like something I might be able to achieve, too.