#hp canon analysis

[potterblog]

poor Draco 😭😭😭

One day he'll meet his soulmate Dudley, and they'll both be so happy together 😍

Does anyone else ship Drudley?

Reblog if you agree that both our boys deserve happiness!

Let's Make Drudley Great Again!

[toorumlk]

just to clarify before I follow cause your art is rad

are you a "thanks for the character concepts and vague world outline, we'll take it fron here" fan of Harry potter? or a J.K neutral/supporter?

thank you so much anon!

my work tends to be pretty aligned (and by pretty i mean like 98%) with canon and you’ll find me praising and engaging seriously with canon a lot.

i fully condemn jkr’s transphobia and gender crit NONSENSE. i truly disagree and hate her politics now but i think when she was writing the original 7 books, she had a good head on her shoulders. i read the books for the first time just this past year in my early 20s and man i’ve become a canonpilled book purist if there ever was one and i love these damn books/characters/world *shakes fist to the sky* so maybe this veers me more toward jkr neutral?

i can’t say definitively because i have and will continue to have complicated feelings about this but it’s up to you to decide!

[redr0sewrites]

i would talk about harry potter on here but no one agrees with my headcanons i fear

[chocfrog-enjoyer]

I’m just gonna say this once and I’m not going to repeat myself, ‘cuz the amount of people who shit at Dumbledore and the Hogwarts staff for this is irrational

The reason Harry didn’t get a teachers visit at first like other muggle-born/muggle-raised kids do, and instead was sent letters was because THEY ALL THOUGHT HE ALREADY KNEW! We see how Hagrid reacts when he hears that Harry doesn’t know anything and we are told that the Dursleys didn’t tell Harry on purpose even though they were supposed to

Everyone thought that Harry already knew about the Wizarding World, so the only missing thing was to send him his letter. About Hogwarts. Which he should have known about because the Dursleys were supposed to explain it to him.

Hermione was muggle-born into a non-magical family , her parents were dentist. Nobody there knew anything about magic. She had a teacher visit to gently introduce her and her parents to the Wizarding world.

Tom Riddle was muggle-raised. He was born to a wizard but he didn’t have any idea about it because he was raised in a muggle environment where nobody knew about magic. He has a teacher visit to explain and introduce the Wizarding World to him.

But the Dursleys ( mainly Petunia ) knew about the existence of magic. Knew about the Wizarding World. And they chose to not tell Harry against what Dumbledore asked them for.

[soliloqueeer]

13 Questions Every Harry Potter Fan Should Be Able To Answer

Question 1: Which house do you belong to?

Ravenclaw. I'm curious, creative and introverted. But I would also be happy in Hufflepuff since I am, at the end of the day, baby.

Question 2: Which Deathly Hallow would you choose?

If I'm being honest with myself probably the stone, to have one final conversation with my mother who recently, and very suddenly, passed away.

If that hadn't happened then I would've chosen the invisibility cloak because I love the idea of not being perceived.

Question 3: Which Character do you have a (not so) secret crush on?

Interesting question. I had to pick someone compliant with their characterization in the books then I'd probably say I'm most attracted to Tonks or Sirius, or the Weasley twins. But if you saw my AO3 history you'd think Tom Riddle.

Question 4: What are your Indepth and controversial thoughts on Severus Snape?

I think that Severus is a very tragic character. He came from poverty, was abused and neglected by his parents. The only person to ever show him kindness was Lily. He was canonically ugly, weird, and had bad hygiene. He was bullied by two classist Gryffindors and craved power and vengence which led him down a dark path. He died a hero who was courageous and self-sacrificing but I don't think she-who-shall-not-be-named wrote a convincing enough redemption story, especially not one in which the hero would give one of his son's Severus's name. He was still a wholly miserable person who was stuck in the past and verbally abused the child of his former nemesis for six years.

My controversial thoughts surrounding Snape was that he was first and foremost a genius - a potions prodigy who literally crafted his own spells as a teenager.

There was an unequal power dynamic between Severus and the Marauders. He was a dirt poor half-blood and they were rich purebloods. There was never any equal footing between them and as much as he participated in the feud, it was always in retaliation to their cruelty. (I can say this without bashing Sirius and James as all people contain multitudes).

I also don't believe Severus was a bigot. I think there's a good chance he hated muggles, as a result of the abuse from his father, but I he was too smart to buy into the idea of blood supremacy when he, a half-blood, was smarter than most of his pureblood peers. And when Lily, a muggleborn, was at the top of their class.

One of the more controversial headcanons I have is that Severus was recruited into becoming a Deatheater, not because he believed in their agenda but because he was allured by the promise of power, influence and vengeance. I believe he probably moved up high in the ranks after graduating Hogwarts because he was cunning, ambitious, and committed to proving himself and gaining Voldemort's respect. I also believe during his time as a Deatheater he most likely had to commit horrible acts of violence and cruelty, and that while Severus does have a sadistic streak (one that gives him the allusion of power), he does not wish suffering upon innocent people. He probably dealt with these peforming these acts by compartmentalizing his responsibiltiies as a Deatheater and using occlumancy.

One final thing I want to add is that I don't think Severus was obsessed with Lily in a 4Chan, incel sort of way (in fact, he kind of gives off ace vibes). In my opinion, Lily was the only person to ever give him love, kindness and compassion, and while he was in love with her, he was above all else, completely wracked with guilt over being responsible for telling Voldemort about the prophecy. He agrees to protect Harry because he feels indebted to her until the day he dies.

Question 5: Who, In your Opinion, Is more evil: Voldemort or Dolores Umbridge.

What a funny question. The first thing that comes to mind for me is Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and the discourse in 2015-17 about which politician was worse. Voldemort (like Trump) is honest about who is is and what he stands for (self-interest and accumulating power). Alternatively Umbridge (like Clinton) tries to create the perception that she is good and righteous.

Umbridge represents the banaltiy of evil. She's sadistic and abusive, even towards children -all while wearing a polite smile on her face. She has the same vibe as a Catholic nun who abuses people in the name of god, and for Umbridge it was about the rule of law.

However, Voldemort's evil can't even be measured on the same scale. He's a meglomaniac eugenicst willing to purge the world of things he deems inferior to him. He was inspired by dictators like Hitler and Stalin.

It's far easier to hate Umbridge because she's not honest about who she is, and we've met a figure of authority who's exactly like her. Voldemort by all accounts and purposes, was far more powerful, influential and destructive, but too grandiose to relate to.

Question 6: Which death in the series is the most heartbreaking?

Sirius, Fred, Remus, but especially Fred. It was cruel to take him away from George. I think it would've been more satisfying if Percy, as a way to redeem himself to his family, sacrificed himself to save his brother during the Battle of Hogwarts.

Question 7: What Quidditch position would you play?

I wouldn't. I'd probably be in the stands or take advantage of the school being empty and fuck around in the empty castle all day.

Question 8: What Wizarding Career would you pursue?

Probably a teacher or academic/Unspeakable as I love research. That or someone who paints the magical portraits.

Question 9: Which book in the series is you favourite?

PoA was always my favourite as a kid because I really loved Lupin's character, and hearing about the Marauders. The time-turner plot gives me an eyeroll now but the climax is still one of the most thrilling to me. We also got a taste of Powerful Harry, which actually never came to fruition, but I really loved the idea that Harry was a very exceptional wizard who was coming into his powers and not just an every-man character.

Question 10: Who should have ended up together? Hermione/Ron or Hermione/Harry?

Hermione/Harry if it was developed earlier on. The author explained that Ron/Hermione was something she pigeonholed herself into in the first two books but later regretted it. I think canonically, Harry and Hermione are like siblings, but if their relationship was developed after PoA then it would've been really satisfying to see.

Question 11: Have you read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

No. Never will.

Question 12: Was Dumbledore a Hero or a Villain?

A hero. His plan worked in the end, as convoluted it may have been. I don't see Dumbledore as an all-good Santa-Claus-Grandpa character like his die-hard fans do, but I also don't see him as a chess-player villian twirling his moustache from the shadows.

I used to really hate Dumbledore because of how secretive he was. It was absolutely insane for him to have put Harry on that wild goose chase with such little information and it was a miracle they won the war at all.

At the end of the day, I think he was a man that feared having too much power due to the mistakes he made in his youth when he was hungry for it. He influenced things from the sidelines because he knew he was imperfect. He made mistakes all the time, and owned up to them, and if he was all-powerful those mistakes would have much graver consequences.

He loved Harry, in the end, and did not want to see him in that mess, but had the pressure of saving the world on his shoulders.

Question 13: Who is the real Hero of the Story? Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom?

Seems like a redundant question to me, but perhaps there's discourse around it I'm not aware of.

Harry is. But he doesn't carry that tile alone.

[augureysfeather]

Moja’s rambling about her fic (+ bonus character analysis of Delphi) – today: Canonity and my biggest deviation from it.

Since this was supposed to be a fic blog, I figured I should actually write some stuff about my fic here, right? Warning beforehand, as you might figure out from the pinned post, my writing is VERY MUCH AHEAD of my posting. I have posted 33 chapters. I have written 190 chapters. So these musings WILL contain spoilers. I’ll mark them, but I might sometimes miss some spoilers, so be aware of that. 

I am very strict when it comes to canon. Canon is canon is canon. It’s not ‘holy’, but I’d very much like my fics to abide by canon, thank you very much. (Disclaimer: As usual, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so if you take one look at canon and throw it into fire - go for it! You do you.). So that’s what I keep in mind for my fic as well. 

(SPOILERS AHEAD - relevant for Book 1)

So why did I give Delphi a twin sister?

Simply because I think in canon, Delphi is doomed. I will - and that’s no spoiler, keep the entirety of CC as it happens in the stageplay. That means Delphi’s fate in the end - and her fate up to that moment - will be the same.

What do we know about that fate? We know - and for this, we’ll have to go under the assumption that she didn’t lie to Albus, which is a possibility, I admit:

that she grew up under Euphemia Rowle, who was uncaring and only let her live with her because she was paid for it

that somewhere before the events of CC, she was contacted by Rodolphus, who told her about her identity, which she didn’t know about before and who told her about the prophecy

she did not go to Hogwarts and was isolated from peers and friends at least until her teenage years

she studied her father and Harry Potter intensively

she’s pretty powerful as a witch and capable of the Unforgivable curses. 

So yeah, she grew up in pretty adverse conditions, socially and potentially mentally. Neglected and later indoctrinated to fulfill a daunting fate. Which is what she sets out to do in CC. And fails, I don’t want to repeat the plot of the entire play to you. XD

At the end of the play, her situation is arguably even worse. The entire wizarding world now knows of her - as the daughter of Voldemort, as yet another fanatic follower of him who tried everything in her might to bring him back (and got damning close to it, if the dark!universe is any indication), who’s definitely too dangerous, who manipulated, abused and ultimately killed (!) teenagers for her goals, who endangered the hero of the wizarding world, Harry Potter and his children. 

She’s going to be absolutely hated for all of this, and rightfully so, even if you bring up her messed up childhood as an excuse - she still did all of that with a sound mind (sorta). 

Her canon fate at the end is likely to be imprisoned for life at Azkaban. (That’s the wizarding world for you, rehabilitation does not exist…) But not only that. It is canon - I cannot stretch that enough, because I got the feeling people tend to forget that… - it is canon that she’s suicidal at the end of the play. She BEGS Harry to kill her. She rather wants to be killed than never see her father. 

(And Albus would have killed her, but hey, that’s another topic to rant about…)

My interpretation, founded in these reactions of her is…she has no other reason to live. The prophecy, her purpose within it, that delusional goal of bringing her father back, seeing him…that was her entire life. Maybe injected into her mind by Rodolphus, maybe through her own desperation at growing up an orphan (btw, thanks for bringing that up to her, Harry....THANKS A LOT), whatever, the ‘how’ doesn’t matter here. And now, her entire life has crumbled away, she has failed and no second option left, nothing. 

And there’s no one there for her. Who should be? The wizarding world as a whole will hate her, Euphemia always disliked her, her only relatives (Andromeda & Narcissa) either didn’t know about her or (worse) didn’t care about her, Harry just figuratively kicked her in the guts, too…that girl is completely, fully on her own and alone right now. Partly due to her own scheming, which she probably knows. 

So what do you think is going to happen to her at Azkaban? 

Honestly?

I think she might live through a month or so and then kill herself. I cannot think of another solution. She’s in such a dark place, and there’s just NO ONE to care about her, at all and she IS suicidal to begin with. 

So now you might understand why I gave her a twin sister. Because if not…my version of the continuation of HP would have ended at the end of CC, and it would have ended on a fucking depressing note…

[destinationtoast]

Have you ever done an analysis of which fandoms are most dominated by a single ship?

I hadn't done so before. I just took a quick pass at doing so, but only among the biggest fandoms on AO3 as of Jan 2024 (ones with over 10K public works at that time). I sorted them by the size of their biggest ship relative to the size of the fandom. This gives us a bunch of very big fandoms with a high % of works tagged with a particular ship:

The raw data used to make this graph, including the corresponding biggest ships, is available in a spreadsheet here, or at the end of this post.

A few notes:

This is based on January 2024 data. Some things may have changed!

Not all these works are necessarily about these ships. Especially in the cases where the ships are canon, they may often be tagged as background ships.

There are undoubtedly many smaller AO3 fandoms that have higher percentages devoted to the top ship.

I removed some highly overlapping fandoms (e.g., Good Omens book fandom).

This is AO3 data only, and (as always!) AO3 does not represent fandom overall. In particular, ship popularity tends to vary A LOT by archive/platform. See some past cross-platform shipping comparisons from 2019 (comparing het vs. slash vs. gen on Wattpad/FFN/AO3), and 2014 (comparing popular ships from HP, SPN, and Sherlock on AO3/FFN). One highlight:

Raw data:

Fandom | Top relationship | % tagged with most common ship

Shameless (US) | Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich | 92.5%

Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF) | Dan Howell/Phil Lester | 92.1%

Good Omens (TV) | Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) | 83.8%

9-1-1 (TV) | Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) | 79.2%

Hannibal (TV) | Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter | 75.6%

Shadowhunters (TV) | Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood | 75.1%

All For The Game - Nora Sakavic | Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard | 75.0%

Inception (2010) | Arthur/Eames (Inception) | 74.0%

The Old Guard (Movie 2020) | Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova | 72.2%

Hawaii Five-0 (2010) | Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams | 71.9%

The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare | Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood | 71.2%

IT (Movies - Muschietti) | Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier | 71.1%

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF | Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean | 70.9%

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) | Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier | 69.6%

Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) | Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov | 66.3%

Supernatural (TV 2005) RPF | Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki | 66.0%

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) | Adora/Catra (She-Ra) | 63.9%

Deadpool - All Media Types | Peter Parker/Wade Wilson | 63.6%

The Witcher (TV) | Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion | 63.1%

Our Flag Means Death (TV) | Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet | 63.0%

[miriadalia]

Kwon and Draco Malfoy's character archetype and why it makes fans go crazy

(Warning: this post contains spoilers from both stories)

Like it or not, Kwon Jae Sung has become one of the most beloved characters in the Cobra Kai series, and he only needed 15 minutes or less of screen time to do so. Here's my analysis of why his character traits are so interesting to many fans and how this reminds me of the "Draco Malfoy effect" in the Harry Potter fandom.

Cobra Kai and Death Eaters

The first time we see Kwon, he's a student at the Korean Cobra Kai dojo, a place that not only condones but actually encourages young people to be violent, offensive, and merciless. We see how this teenager eagerly absorbs every one of these teachings and puts them into action.

Sounds familiar? In the HP universe, Death Eaters were an elite group created for the sole purpose of terrorizing and eliminating those they considered "the weakest and unworthiest": Muggle-borns and Muggles. They convinced (or forced) very young people to join them in their "mission": Draco, Snape, Regulus… All victims who then became perpetrators of the same crimes.

This scenario is SO attractive from a fictional POV. You have this dark group of adults that use and manipulate these teenagers or young adults for their own selfish purposes, and you begin to wonder: what are these young characters going to do when faced with the real consequences of their actions and way of thinking?

Draco realized (slowly and painfully) how his family's ideals were turning him into a monster forced to torture and kill innocent people. Kwon wasn't given enough time to do that… But I'll talk about this later.

Bad Boy trope and the King of Ships

Now, we can't deny that a huge part of both Kwon and Draco's attractiveness stems from their charisma, quick-witted remarks, and their inflated sense of self-importance, believing themselves untouchable and incomparable. They feel empowered to say and do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want.

All this, combined with their appealing and recognizable looks, creates the perfect formula for your next fictional Bad Boy crush™. And it also makes them so easy to ship with other characters, especially if their interactions can be interpreted as flirtatious when taken out of context (ahem, Dramione, ahem, Drarry, ahem, Kwon x Tory).

"He's just a boy"

At the end of the day, both boys were just that: 17-year-old boys trying to fit into the world they were raised in, be the best in their class, and achieve great things in life. And this is what makes them so endearing to many fans like me.

Both tried to impress the father figure they kind of idolized.

And both suffered when they faced the reality that they were just as powerless and insecure as any other normal teenager.

But in Draco's case, this moment of realization became the start of his regrets and redemption arc.

In Kwon's case, he was fated to be consumed by rage and die… due to a questionable plot and chain of events.

Now, I'm not going to debate the last 15 minutes of Cobra Kai Part 2 here. I've already written about it, and this isn't the point of this analysis anyway. I respect the people who think that Kwon's death was necessary and that it will help other characters' growth in Part 3, even though I strongly disagree with how the Cobra Kai writers handled it all.

However...

The infinite possibilites of the Redemption Arc

Not giving Kwon the possibility of a future redemption arc was a real waste of his character's potential.

Draco Malfoy wasn't truly redeemed in the original books, but at least in the epilogue, we see him raising a beautiful family, far removed from his racist past. And if you consider what happens in Cursed Child canon, you'll see how much he has grown and how good he could have been as a teen, too, if he hadn't been fed the wrong ideas and morals.

Imagine how cool it would have been if the "There's no such thing as bad student, only bad teacher" theme was applied in a drastically different way than what they decided to do in Part 2.

I'm not saying they should have shown us Kwon's redemption arc in Cobra Kai Season 6. That wouldn't have been good because we only have five episodes left, and it wouldn't have been believable that he changed so fast... But if he hadn't died, then all possibilities were open (for future spin-offs or even just to be coherent with the tone the CK series had until season 6, that is: no dead kids, just adults and only because of an illness).

Sunshine Actors

Lastly, it can't be denied that Brandon H. Lee and Tom Felton have played a crucial part in making their characters fan favorites.

They both have amazing acting skills, portraying charismatic yet tragic characters. And Brandon's stunt and martial arts skills are truly fascinating to watch.

But there's even more to their casting as Kwon and Draco. And even though I can totally separate the actor from the character, I won't deny that the actors being handsome, gentlemen, and the nicest people behind the scenes plays an important part in fans loving their characters.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading!

I often post more character analyses and plot reviews, so if you like this, feel free to follow me and message me with any questions you may have :)

~miriadalia

[keepmycandleburning]

IDK if this little section of the internet is just uncharacteristically hateful and negative and miserable lately or what. I've been lurking for like a year and posting since like 2 months ago, and it seems recent. I don't really feel like inserting myself into it anymore because it's not fun.

I loved HP as a kid probably like 9-12 y/o, at which time I picked up on something between Bellatrix & Voldemort due to the be quiet, Bella and the no higher pleasure lines. I reread the series for the first time as an adult in Oct-Nov 2023, and I was astonished at how much more I am able to pull from this text now. I came away with a much greater understanding of several things I'd missed as a kid. One of these is that it was very clear to me that Bellatrix & Voldemort were written to be at least sleeping together. VERY CLEAR. It was AFTER this point that I started being part of the fandom, and way after that I've seen people claiming their relationship ISN'T in the books. To me, this is really surprising, because when I've read the books as an adult, it's quite clear. Once I got into the fandom, I found that there are a huge number of people that agree with this interpretation of the text and find is equally obvious as I do.

However, despite the fact that I've seen a number of claims that they DON'T have any relationship in the books, I don't see people using text evidence to support this interpretation. In my personal opinion, this is probably because this is a very difficult argument to make based on the text. But if you think it can be done, instead of submitting negative anon messages without any text support, why don't you write a meta? If anyone would like to make a post going through all of the things people say are text evidence for Bellatrix/Voldemort and explaining why they're not the case, I would gladly read that out of genuine interest. Or, simply going through all the excerpts on their interpersonal relationship and explaining based on the text what sort of relationship you think they DO have.

I have seen countless people over the years analyze sections of text, lines between different characters, their attitudes toward each other, their various actions, and so on, and explain why this adds up to Bellatrix & Voldemort having some sort of relationship. I have NEVER yet seen someone who DOESN'T believe they had a relationship write a text analysis of their opinion. So I sincerely invite you to go through all the bits of text that Bellamort shippers say are canon evidence and explain why they're not—in individual instances and in total. Explain why = not just 'this is my alternative interpretation without text analysis' but *how you justify this being the case based on the text*. How do you justify ignoring how countless bits of the text can be interpreted all in this one way (Bellamort) and instead interpreting them all different ways? How do you explain what JKR was intending to say about Bellatrix & Voldemort's interpersonal relationship considering all their interactions both on- & off-page? WHY are they written the way they are if they don't have an intimate relationship? Or if you believe they're not written that way, again how can you justify this based on the text? If you need a list of text moments and existing 'Bellamort is canon' metas I can compile one.

I'm curious to see what you come up with, because I've never once seen this done—and because, as I've said, it's not an opinion that I personally believe to be supported by the text. If you can explain why it is supported by the text please do that and I'll consume it in good faith.

[lady-raziel]

I can’t believe I’m choosing to dive into Harry Potter analysis right now but here we go

Yes I’m aware that based on the actual written text Voldemort is an evil fascist snake man. But I think the point of literary analysis is to differentiate between “what is the STORY’S explanation for this thing” and “what might be the subconscious reason the AUTHOR wrote this set of things in this certain way.”

If you wanted to depict a character as unquestionably evil and utterly irredeemable, a person representative of all that’s wrong in the world and the things ripping society apart, making them a racist megalomaniac who wants to commit genocide is a pretty simple way to do that. I think that is the PROBLEM with Voldemort and just saying “well he’s evil so we shouldn’t think about how JKR’s prejudices might have affected his character.” He IS depicted as totally evil—which is why it’s a problem that ALLEGORICALLY his story shares fantasied elements of how terfs and transphobes see transgender people.

Transphobes DO see trans people as something wrong with society and DO view them as dangerous radicals who are hurting women and children. I think the interesting key point of the thought experiment in the original post was that “if JKR had chosen to make Voldemort transgender, how much of what we know of the character would actually change?” Because that’s the point— JKR would still depict Voldemort as an evil fascist. And it’s problematic that a character that could be read as trans-coded is also made so overwhelmingly evil.

There are more elements of this interpretation here than just the name issue (more on that in a second.) If you do a deep look at Tom Riddle’s backstory there’s much more— the young age he made his first horcrux, out of a desire to defy the “natural order” of things (to cheat death) and starting him down a path of irreversible physical change (which can be read through the lens of anti-gender affirming care for youth/allowing youth to transition); there’s the heavy emphasis on manipulation present in young Tom Riddle’s character in reality and in the horcrux-diary form where he corrupts people around him and gets them to do bad things too, particularly with the case of vulnerable 11 year old Ginny Weasley in Chamber of Secrets where he literally takes over her mind and attempts to steal her soul (transphobes fear of trans people corrupting children); there’s the element, again referring to physical change, that Tom Riddle is said to be very handsome and physically attractive but becomes hideous due to corrupting his soul (transphobes saying transitioning makes someone ugly etc.).

To go back to Dumbledore calling Voldemort by “Tom” (…and yes I do actually know how titles work, thanks…) I think it would be a mistake to wholly accept the STORY’S explanation for this unquestionably. In the context of the story, reminding Voldemort that he’s a man and “not indulging his delusions of grandeur” is the reason given for why Dumbledore does this. But in the context of analysis, I think it would be important to point out that for a transphobe, the motivations for refusing to use a trans person’s chosen name and instead deadnaming them might be insanely similar— to remind them that they are (in the transphobe’s eyes) biologically a man or woman and not to indulge “delusions of grandeur” of being a different gender.

In the context of canon Harry Potter, Dumbledore IS deadnaming Voldemort and while it might not be for reasons related to gender, the REASONING behind doing this is very similar for what I’ve just mentioned and what I said in the original post (using a chosen name as a privilege/whether or not someone is worthy of respect as reason to treat them with dignity) and also the power dynamics of belittlement and patronization in play. There’s the grand story reason for Dumbledore’s behavior, and then there is the fact that in practice it’s still just a way of dismissing Voldemort and Dumbledore saying “you’ll never be anything but worthless orphan Tom Riddle and you can never change who you are.” Let’s be really honest— if the whole “fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself” thing was the real motivation for Dumbledore doing this thing, in the context of the story or otherwise, then Lord Voldemort, the big scary grandiose name Tom Riddle chose, SHOULD be the name Dumbledore is using BECAUSE people are afraid to say it. If you can’t engage with an adversary and make people not afraid of them when they are at their strongest, what good is using “Tom” going to do when most people, including the Death Eaters, don’t know who that is? Characterizing your enemy as weaker and more pathetic doesn’t work as a tactic if you say you are doing it to reduce fear of them at their most powerful, and more importantly, it doesn’t hold water as an argument if you are only using the deadname tactic to the person’s face and don’t use it elsewhere (because again there are very few people who know who Tom Riddle is).

…whew. Okay. I think I’m done. But yeah I think it’s important for literary analysis to ask questions beyond what the story itself says is the explanation for certain things and also to ask questions about what real-world traits are coded into “good” and “bad” characters in any story and why those traits were associated with those moral alignments.

hate to put anything about JK Rowling on your dash but I saw this post and immediately thought about how much of Rowling’s future ideology was foreshadowed in Harry Potter looking back and how much the really shitty things both the “good” and “bad” characters do are all totally reflections of herself…

Like I was specifically thinking about how much Dumbledore’s insistence on calling Voldemort by his birth name bothered me more and more growing up…and now it’s like oh my god duh it was because Dumbledore was literally deadnaming him because using a person’s chosen name (and by extension, pronouns!!) is something that Rowling thinks should be a privilege you receive if someone respects you that can be instantly taken away if you are “bad” and not worthy of respect

Dumbledore refusing to call Voldemort by his chosen name and calling him “Tom” instead (and keep in mind how Voldemort willingly changed his body to a form he was more comfortable with) was literally just thinly-veiled transphobia wasn’t it and the only reason Voldemort isn’t explicitly trans is because Rowling wrote these books in the early 2000s and Voldemort probably IS a trans woman but the whole damn time she’s being misgendered by an unreliable narrator

[pineapple-psychic]

some gus headcanons

we all know gus is an english nerd, with the spellingg bee episode and how much he corrects shawn with grammer. however i propose: he obsesses over literary analysis because of the Autism™️. he wants to be able to tell what people are thinking in real life that they dont directly say. does this work? who knows. not me

he DEFINITELY owns a train model of some sort. its probably in the psych office

he has a stupidly complicated fake-drawer thing in his desk, in which is a lock-picking set to hone his skillz. shawn has stolen it multiple times to break into places and gus has no idea

instead of harry potter (i shudder even typing the name) he obsesses over wings of fire. bc fuck you thats why (dragons r cool) (hp is not)

he carries around those icebreaker mint things literally everywhere. maybe its in his sample case or smth

okay so his special interests are: trains, wof, safe- and lock-picking, english, autism, and dinosaurs. he is fully aware that most of these are 'stereotypical' autism interests, and sometimes he feels bad about it. and then he remembers that No One Else Matters and everythings good again

his relationship with shawn is the kind where he just feels more and more happy being with him and never realizes that hes in love with shawn. this is the only reason canon shawngus didnt happen/j

[licorice-and-rum]

On Fascism, DEs and Dumbledore - the actual essay lol

Hey, guys! Sorry it took me so long to write this one, I really had some themes to mature before I could put all of my thoughts in writing but I finally feel like I’m ready to talk about what I want to. Before I begin, however, I want to point out a few things:

First of all, I ask all of you to enter this with an open mind because not everything I’ll say here is exactly popular opinion in the HP fandom. And, although I recognize that my perceptions and interpretations are frayed by my own background and way of thinking, my literary analysis is still based off, on some level, of academical knowledge. It doesn’t make it true, of course, but I believe it’s a solid base to have.

Second, this is, in no way, an attack on people who like the Death Eaters (Barty, Regulus, Rosier, Draco, and so on). These people are not the problem I’m talking about here because, to begin with, the characters they like are not exactly the Canon version of them, and then, because a work of fiction doesn’t determine a person’s character.

It's completely normal for popular works of fiction — and that’s especially true in Literature — to have their characters remodeled to fit a better narrative to the time they are inserted in. It happens with Fairytales, it happens with classical books — Sherlock Holmes is one of the greatest examples I can give —, it just happens. And the new interpretations are an attempt to almost self-insert: is a mirroring of our interpretations and experiences in those characters we like so much.

That said, I still have a problem with how normalized it has become in our society to make a sad backstory to fascist-like villains and that’s where I would like to start this rant/analysis. This issue is not focused on the Harry Potter characters, however: it has happened in Star Wars (both with Anakin and more recently with The Acolyte), in The Hunger Games (with Snow, although it wasn’t the intention) and many other big films/books/series in the industry.

It has a reason: we’re living through late-stage capitalism, which means capitalism is in shambles and it needs a “emergency button” of sorts, something it can use to establish some kind of control back. That’s why we’ve seen so many far-right parties win elections lately: it’s a normal thing for people to be attracted to fast and simple solutions when things are bad, even though they might not be solutions at all.

Anyway, I digress: the point is, when fascism (capitalism’s emergency button) arises, it needs to have a cultural support so that people can assimilate it better, accept it better so it can maintain itself. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not, by all means, saying that a bunch of men sat down on a white room and decided that now they would start creating Art that endorses/romanticizes fascist narratives, of course not.

This is a natural process, it happens because we, as a general rule, already lean into right wing theorical thinking by living into a capitalist mode of production. So, when capitalism collapses, many of us pull our values farthest into capitalistic mindset because that’s what we understand as secure, as stable. And this translates into art through some favored tropes or classical narratives, such as the Chosen One or the “the system is not corrupted, the people running it are” narrative.

Both of those tropes fit into the Harry Potter series in obvious ways, of course. But lately, I’ve been noticing a really particular characteristic of these narratives/tropes that are used to endorse fascism, which I believe has to do with the time period we’re at right now and who the target-audience is, and that is what I called the “individualization of narratives”.

I’m not gonna be arrogant here and say that I’m the only one who noticed this, of course not, but I haven’t found any works on that, so I’m gonna describe, in my own words, what I think this phenomenon is:

The individualization of narratives, as I call it, refers to the details some characters’ backgrounds have when they are into the “dark side”, the side that is supposed to be the fictional version of fascist-like groups. And those details — or lack thereof — are done in a way the reader can fill in the gaps in such a way to identify and empathize with them.

Again, that’s is not the problem, this happens to every character ever, it even happens with celebrities. Our brains are wired to fill in gaps in a person’s personality or character when we don’t have all the information, it’s a natural reaction. Problem is that, as it’s becoming popular to write a villain with a purpose, a “morally gray” character if you will (although I take issue with how that’s portrayed, which I’ll treat more carefully when I talk about Dumbledore), the fascist-like narratives that became so popular with post-war people, gain a new meaning.

That’s not the doing of the Art itself, it’s just a reflection of political issues that are already here but that are also perpetrated and continued by Art and material cultural production, just like anti-socialism dystopian books were in the Cold War scenario, for example. However, it’s undeniable that this movement serves a purpose, a political purpose, and that is to endorse fascism and fascist narrative. Let’s not get over ourselves here: again, this is not the evil doing of some unknown entity, it’s just a natural process of the current political climate reflecting in cultural production.

But it still serves a purpose, and what I aim to do with this essay is to demystify a bit this movement in Harry Potter. But first, we have to understand what fascism is:

Capitalism, which begun more or less in the 1600s, is a mode of production (a mold to which our society fit to work within capitalism’s needs of existence). It is based on profit, which means our society is shaped to produce that profit, everything in a society is shaped to serve this purpose, from the industry to our perception of reality — it’s all a capitalism-based ideology.

Again, reminding: that’s not a secret plot to convince people, it’s a natural process of building identity within reality. It happened in feudalism, and before that with Ancient Empires, and so on and on. There’s nothing inheritedly evil in this process.

However, capitalism is a mode of production that demands, in order to continuing to exist, more than society can provide, so it collapses from time to time. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression is one of the most striking examples of capitalism collapsing, and it’s not by happenstance that fascism arose right after this collapse.

As I said before, fascism is capitalism’s emergency button: when systems collapse, that’s where they get more vulnerable to radical change, and the extreme hardships the masses had to endure after its collapse in the 1930s could easily signify a chance for a change in the modes of production throughout the occidental countries of Europe — something that couldn’t happen if capitalism was to survive.

What I mean by bringing all this to the essay is that I want to be very clear with what fascism defends and what it means: it’s the supremacy of not only a country, or exaggerated nationalism, it is also the management and upkeeping of a society’s very structure. And, to be even clearer: that society is white, rich, and patriarchal-based.

There’s a reason why fascism is considered a white-supremacy political movement: because it defends capitalism. And capitalism was built over the need of cheap work force.

Many of you may have thought slavery when I said that, and you’d be correct.

However, with the times progression, that changed into a new form of exploration: because of the past with slavery and exploration of resources of colonized countries, it became easier — and also a natural progression from the dehumanizing of non-white communities to justify slavery — to just cheapen the work force by making non-white communities poorer, more vulnerable and more desperate to fulfill their needs.

That forces those communities — and third world countries as a whole — to accept the money and the exploration of not only first-world countries (colonizer countries) but also big corporations. I could go on and on about all the effects this policy has in non-white communities, from police brutality until the banalization of the violence in large scale (such as the Palestinian genocide) but I want to stay within the scope here.

This justification of slavery, the dehumanization of non-white peoples, is one of the main pillars of capitalism, and as such, it’s the main pillar of fascism. In Harry Potter, the intention is that those characteristics don’t present themselves in race but in blood — not that Rowling is very successful with this, considering the amount of veiled and not-so-veiled racism in her books but whatever.

Now, as I see it, Harry Potter is not a good portrayal of fascism and that has a very clear cause: Rowling’s lack of understanding of what fascism is to begin with, or how the root causes of it affect the system of the wizarding society.

As someone who have studied it, I can say that the blood purity issue wouldn’t be present only in some rich people’s minds, it would be structural to the wizarding world, in a way that would present itself in hardship for muggleborns to get jobs, in jokes that are not funny, in opinions that are degrading, in isolation and discrimination in a day to day level. And of course, there is some of it in the HP books, but it’s not treated as a structural issue — it’s treated as an individual problem.

And that’s where the real problem begins: if we treat fascism as a problem that stems from a person’s own choices instead of a political and collective movement that elevates to a highest level the structural issues that are already there, we fall into the trap of minimizing the problem because, if someone is a fascist because they’re evil, the next question to make is: why are they evil?

Currently, what we’re doing with our villains becomes a problem in these situations: in an attempt to individualize our villains, we make them human. Human in the sense that we can empathize with them, we can understand them. And, for a fascist-like narrative, that’s extremely dangerous because it makes us unconsciously start to endorse their trajectories and choices when we absolutely shouldn’t.

Fascism is not equivalent to rebelliousness.

“Oh, the good side is not so good because they treated this character bad and now he had to turn to a fascist group and decimate people because he’s traumatized.”

See how, when I say it like that, it sounds ridiculous?

But of course, you probably know that. Again, I’m not accusing people who like those characters of endorsing fascism, what I am saying, however, is that the political climate of today is doing it and it’s reflecting on our art production. What I am calling for is for people to recognize that their view of those characters as they really would be if they were anywhere near reality is not only flawed, it’s entirely wrong.

Snape, Barty Crouch Jr, Evan Rosier, Draco, Bellatrix, the Blacks as a whole — they are not the abused little teenagers who had no choice but to join the Death Eaters. They are fascists, they have always been fascists, even when they suffered. And sure, to some of them, there is more to their characters than this but the truth remains that they, in some capacity, not only endorsed a fascist narrative, they actively perpetuated it to the detriment and the suffering of marginalized peoples.

And none of them had a good, believable, and more importantly, complete redeeming arc.

Our interpretations of them are cool, I love it, I prefer them to many HP characters, to be honest. But that doesn’t change the fact that, if HP was a little bit more real, a little bit closer to reality, those characters wouldn’t be bullied teenagers forced into fascism as a means to become powerful enough to escape their abuse — as if that makes it so much better —, they’d be incels, they’d be bullies themselves.

And that’s not an opinion: we, as a fandom, tend to forget that the DEs are the ones with real societal power in the wizarding world. Most of them are purebloods, most of them are rich, most of them are friends with rich and pureblooded wizards, and they are privileged. They are not ostracized as we like to imagine, they are royalty.

For them, to fight for blood purity is to fight for their own benefit, is to fight to maintain the pillars that keep them unaccountable for their behaviors and privilege whilst at the same time, pushing marginalized people — muggleborns, fantastical creatures, even half-bloods — to a dehumanizing condition. And they don’t feel sorry for this.

Now, the truth is that this is partially Rowling’s fault: her lack of understanding of how deep the issues she’s portraying really run makes it possible for her to interpret her own characters as redeemable because they somehow exchange sides when it fits them.

That’s mostly seen with the Malfoys: neither Draco, Narcissa, nor Lucius ever change sides because they see the suffering of others and think of it as wrong. They change sides when Voldemort’s cruelty starts to weigh on them — their change of loyalties are not coming from empathy for marginalized peoples or decency, it comes from self-preservation.

Kind of the same thing with Snape (I wrote some essays focused on Snape, so if anyone is interested, here’s the first, then the second).

Now, of course, that’s not to say those characters weren’t abused on someway or suffered but that’s the thing: no abuse in the world justifies the persecution, torture and killing of innocent people. To offer a counterpoint, the marginalized peoples the Death Eaters persecuted are also traumatized in some, they also can have had abusive parents and/or families but that is not taken into account when we talk about the Death Eater’s own traumas.

The narrative that the Death Eaters were abused their whole childhoods is so strong today in fandom that most people don’t stop to think that those teenagers probably were horrible people. Yes, maybe horrible because some of them were abused, I’m not denying that, but still horrible, which means they wouldn’t accept help. To hold them responsible for their own doings and their own privileges would seem for them as a persecution against them — just like fascist-like narratives often portray pro-LGBTQ+ or non-white policies and/or narratives.

It is also one of the reasons I take issue with the Slytherin portrayal of abused kids ostracized by the rest of the school. It’s really just isolating fascist narrative and only partially based on truth but I don’t think I want to stretch this conversation now (I can write more about it later if you want though).

So no, respectfully, I refuse to accept that those people — mostly men and rich people, I am forced to point out — would be anything but disgusting, and that’s where I take issue with some behaviors within the HP fandom. Because we’re being influenced by almost two decades of fan fiction and the current political climate, it’s very often that I find people who are sincerely incapable of dissociating fandom to canon.

Hence, the actually infuriating villainization of Albus Dumbledore.

Now, that’s a topic that makes me impatient AF. Not only because it is based on a strong fetishization of who Dumbledore really was, and what he could and couldn’t do, but also because it is a clear example of most people’s inability to differentiate between what they’re reading for fun and what they are internalizing from that media.

Let’s begin with that: Dumbledore is not some evil mastermind, and he is not equivalent to Voldemort. He is a flawed character, that’s true, but he is not a villain. And to think so is to play into the narrative that, because the “good side” fails, or makes wrong decisions, or even actively makes bad decisions, or immoral decisions in times of war, that is somehow equivalent to the “bad side”.

It is not.

That narrative is the same narrative that allows Israel to build an equivalence between Hamas’ violent acts and their own when in truth, as reproachable as some Hamas’ decisions may be according to various perspectives, their violence is a reaction to heavy and even more violent oppression.

What I mean is, even if Dumbledore failed in some of his decision-making in the Harry Potter books, even if we may believe we could do better, Dumbledore is a true morally gray character. But first, to make the point I want to make, we have to understand him:

For this, I will first separate his two identities as they appear throughout Harry Potter: as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Dumbledore plays a role as a leader and role model, but he is also a person with flaws and mistakes like anyone else. These are the two main “faces” of Albus Dumbledore for this defense post, so now let's analyze them more closely:

The first "face" we see of Dumbledore is that of the leader, and this is primarily because of Harry who, at eleven years old, sees Dumbledore as the kind of man he would like to emulate. This also happens with many other wizards throughout the story: it's clear to anyone that most of the people within Harry’s personal circle like and admire Dumbledore, while those who despise him are often the “bad” characters (Lucius Malfoy is probably one of the earliest examples of this).

Although that doesn’t mean they are somehow starstruck by the headmaster: Sirius, Snape, the Weasley parents, Moody, even James and Lily, they all question Dumbledore and his decision making at some point in the books. They end up following through more times than not, that’s true, but trust in someone is different than blind-faith. Those characters accept Dumbledore’s leadership because they trust him, not because they think he’s some type of a god.

However, we see things through Harry’s point of view, and Harry is a child who has no parents, no model figures, no one who really supports that role to him until his eleventh year. It's easy, then, to see how the leader face Dumbledore presents is one of someone the characters (and readers) can trust not to fail, and even easier to view him as someone with great power. This is the fandom’s biggest mistake in viewing him.

Shall we now remember a bit of Dumbledore’s history and delve into his personal side?

As a young man, he met Grindelwald and, according to J.K. Rowling, fell in love with him, as well as with his goal of seeking the Deathly Hallows and becoming the most powerful wizards of all time. 

In the last Harry Potter book, in the King's Cross chapter, Dumbledore himself confesses to Harry how the desire for power blinded him to what was truly important, how power was his greatest weakness, and therefore what made him unworthy of it. This is why Dumbledore remained as the headmaster of Hogwarts when he could have so easily become more important in the wizarding community (besides, of course, his love for the students): to keep himself away from power.

Here's the quote (It might be a bit different in the original, considering I’m translating it from Portuguese):

“‘I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory... Invincible Masters of Death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore!... The years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had obtained a wand of immense power. Meanwhile, I was offered the position of Minister for Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I learned that I could not be trusted with power.’

‘But you'd have been better than Fudge or Scrimgeour!’ said Harry.

‘Would I?’ asked Dumbledore heavily. ‘I am not so sure. I proved as a very young man that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.’”

This is what the fandom most fails to understand: the admiration of wizards for Dumbledore makes him influential, but not powerful, and this becomes especially clear during the end of The Goblet of Fire and throughout The Order of the Phoenix.

One of the first signs of this in the fourth book is when Fudge refuses to believe Dumbledore about Voldemort’s return: let's remember that, until that point, Fudge sought Dumbledore’s advice for his decisions as Minister of Magic precisely because the headmaster had the respect of much of the wizarding population. But when Fudge, who has the actual power, puts his foot down and says that Dumbledore no longer has influence over the Ministry’s choices, Dumbledore lacks the power to deny it, to stop it.

If he did, it would be safe to say that he would have used his power over the Ministry to convince everyone that Voldemort had indeed returned, and more, to mobilize the Ministry against Voldemort. But none of this happens simply because Dumbledore does not have that power.

Thus, it becomes easier to differentiate power from influence.

It’s Fudge’s power that causes the Ministry as an organization and the wizarding media to turn against the Headmaster, and Dumbledore doesn’t have the power to stop it, but he has enough influence to still be heard by part of the wizarding population. It’s Fudge’s power that leads to Harry’s expulsion from Hogwarts at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, but it’s Dumbledore’s influence that convinces the Ministry to agree to a trial, and it’s his influence that moves the people present to listen to his defense of Harry during that trial. If Dumbledore had power over these events, Harry wouldn’t even have had a trial — something the Headmaster categorically calls an absurdity.

Therefore, Dumbledore doesn’t have power; he has influence, and there’s a difference between what he can actually do and what the fandom seems to believe he can do. Dumbledore has no power over the Ministry; he can’t boss anyone around except, perhaps, the Hogwarts staff and the Order of the Phoenix, a group whose members agreed to make him leader.

What he really has are people willing to listen to his advice and thoughts, as well as inclined to follow him, but that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily do everything Dumbledore says (Sirius, anyone?).

It’s important to separate these two concepts for this analysis to continue because it will make Dumbledore’s actions make much more sense in this discussion. That said, let’s now begin to analyze “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore”:

The main criticisms I see regarding Dumbledore revolve around Harry’s life and the decisions the Headmaster made concerning him.

Before I begin, however, I want to point out that, despite Dumbledore’s flaws, he is still a leader (just like Harry), and as a leader, he bears responsibility for the lives of the people he has chosen to protect (just like Harry). It’s important to keep this in mind so that I can highlight a few things later.

So, let’s start with when the prophecy is heard and Voldemort begins hunting Harry instead of Neville. It’s important to emphasize here that, once a prophecy is made in the Harry Potter universe and the people the prophecy is about start acting according it, it’s going to happen; there’s no way around it, or at least that’s what we’re told as canon. That’s why, as soon as the prophecy is made and Voldemort actively choses to hunt them down, everyone knows that Harry (or Neville) will be the one to face Voldemort, and one of them will die — hopefully Voldemort.

Although he’s the one to whom the prophecy was made, Dumbledore has no control over it: there’s no way to avoid the fact that Harry (or Neville) would face Voldemort at some point in their lives once Snape overhears it and tells Voldemort. All he — and everyone else — can do is give the Chosen One the tools and knowledge necessary to face Voldemort with the best possible chance of winning — which he does later on by becoming Harry’s primary mentor.

Then the Potters are “chosen” and go into hiding in Godric’s Hollow, making Peter the Secret Keeper. Some more information on this choice: Dumbledore offered to be the Secret Keeper, but James and Lily refused and preferred to choose Sirius. However, they switched to Peter without telling anyone, not even Dumbledore. This is another thing I see the fandom complaining about a lot, but it’s explicitly canon that no one besides Sirius, James, Lily, and Peter knew about the switch.

This wasn’t because they didn’t trust Dumbledore, but because Albus was in the middle of the storm as one of Voldemort’s biggest targets. The Potters didn’t reject Dumbledore as their Secret Keeper because they didn’t trust him (they wouldn’t even be in the Order if that were the case, don’t you think?), but because they were thinking primarily of Harry’s safety, and placing their family’s safety in the hands of the second biggest target of Voldemort in that war simply doesn’t seem like a wise move.

So, there’s no reason, even up to the third book, for Dumbledore to suspect that Sirius is innocent and try to intervene to get him some kind of trial or chance to explain himself. There’s no indication that Dumbledore had contact with Sirius before he was sent to Azkaban, so how could the Headmaster be blamed for that?

Again, it’s important to emphasize that Dumbledore has influence.

Even if he wanted Sirius to have a trial, there’s no evidence that he could make it happen, since everything pointed to Sirius as the culprit — remembering that there’s a big difference between a trial for underage magic and the murder of thirteen Muggles, plus the whole Secret Keeper and high-profile situation. In fact, it’s also good to remember that as soon as Dumbledore learns the truth, he does everything in his power — even sending Harry and Hermione back in time — to save Sirius from being kissed by the Dementors.

But going back a bit, a week after Peter becomes the Secret Keeper, he reveals the Potters’ location to Voldemort, and on Halloween night in 1981, Voldemort goes to Godric’s Hollow and kills James, then Lily, then tries to kill Harry but fails.

This event needs to be broken down into two parts. The first is about Lily’s protection: when she chooses to die even though Voldemort gave her a chance to live, Lily protects Harry, and that’s the reason he survives that encounter with the Dark Lord, who also “dies.”

Since the fourth book, there’s a very specific characteristic of this protection that’s seen many times but never explicitly stated, which is the fact that Lily’s protection has a blood-related nature. In other words, Lily’s protection is especially tied to blood, which is why Voldemort chose Harry’s blood to resurrect himself: because in that way, he also “has” Lily’s blood and, consequently, her protection, which frees him to harm Harry in a way he couldn’t before.

And this is the point I want to reach: Dumbledore chooses the Dursleys to raise Harry not because he wants him to suffer, but because Petunia is the only one who carries Lily’s blood and, therefore, the only one who can ensure that Lily’s protection — the thing for which her sister died — continues to work. The blood Petunia shares with Lily even prevents Voldemort, even after the resurrection ritual, because her blood makes Lily’s protection even stronger.

And it’s good to remember that this measure ends up saving Harry in The Philosopher’s Stone — Quirrell and Voldemort couldn’t touch him because of Lily’s protection, guaranteed by his living in the same house as Petunia — and keeps him safe in the Dursleys’ house for sixteen years, until Harry turns seventeen and the protection finally stops working, even though he still lived with Petunia.

Once again, people overestimate Dumbledore’s ability to act: he had no control over the nature of Lily’s protection; he acted to keep Harry as safe as possible within what he could actually control.

Unfortunately, the choices presented in that situation were either to leave him protected from Voldemort’s assassination attempts or spare him the suffering of growing up with the Dursleys.

Neither choice was ideal, but this is where Dumbledore’s leadership character comes in: Harry’s responsibility to face Voldemort was no longer a choice, even though he was only a year old, because of the prophecy. So, it makes much more sense for him to protect Harry from the greater threat (Voldemort) while ensuring that Harry would have more time to develop and grow before having to face him again.

Dumbledore didn’t make the choice to give Harry to the Dursleys joyfully, wanting him to suffer, but thinking about giving him more time and more opportunities to be a child than he would have had if Lily’s protection weren’t ensured. Obviously, this doesn’t work out very well because the Dursleys are especially cruel to Harry in a way that Dumbledore hadn’t really foreseen, something he himself admits in The Half-Blood Prince:

“‘[...] Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already tried to kill on several occasions, is in much more danger than on the day I left him on your doorstep, fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining that his parents had been murdered and expressing the hope that you would care for him as a son.’

Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and did not betray his anger, Harry felt a certain coldness emanating from him. He also noticed that the Dursleys huddled together almost imperceptibly.

‘You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. In your care, he has only known neglect and often cruelty...’”

But it’s important to note that Dumbledore didn’t have good options regarding Harry’s custody; he didn’t have the power to change how Lily’s protection worked; he was working with what he had, which wasn’t much.

The second part of this event focuses more on Voldemort and Harry and is probably the most controversial regarding Dumbledore: the creation of the Horcrux inside Harry and how this is somehow seen as Dumbledore’s fault — hence the famous phrase about being “raised like a pig for slaughter,” but... let’s be honest? What, exactly, could Dumbledore have done against the fact that Harry became a Horcrux?

Once again, here’s the exaggerated view of Dumbledore’s power that the fandom seems to have: he had no control over what happened to the Potters in Godric’s Hollow on Halloween night in 1981. He had no power over Lily’s protection or the Horcrux in Harry. He has no power over Lily’s protection, nor over the Horcrux in Harry. The only thing he has the power to do is to act in a way that ensures his plan guarantees Voldemort’s ultimate defeat and thus saves the entire wizarding world.

I hate it when people say Dumbledore “raised Harry like a pig for slaughter” simply because he knew that Harry would have to die for the Horcrux to be destroyed, as if he had any other option in the matter. Harry’s fate was sealed as soon as Lily’s protection saved him and a part of Voldemort’s soul entered him; Dumbledore bears no responsibility for what happened that night.

So what Dumbledore can do regarding Harry having to die is exactly… nothing. He literally has no power to change this fact, no matter how much he wants to — and he does, because he loves Harry, as he himself says in Order of the Phoenix. But Dumbledore is still a leader, and he still needs to think about the best plan of action to ensure that people continue to have hope and that they can truly see that hope — of being free from Voldemort and his reign of terror — come true. And if that meant Harry had to die to destroy the Horcrux, then that was it. Period.

But it’s also important to point out that Dumbledore didn’t force Harry into anything: by the time Harry receives the information that he needs to die to ensure the salvation of everyone and Voldemort’s mortality, all the people who know this — Dumbledore and Snape, in this case — are dead and unable to do anything if Harry decided to simply run away and leave everyone to fend for themselves because he didn’t want to die.

But, as I pointed out before, Harry is a leader. And he fully accepts the responsibility of this role the moment he decides to face death: he goes to Voldemort willing to die by his own choice, wanting to save those who matter to him, those who trust him to end Voldemort. Not because Dumbledore ordered him, but because he — Harry — is a leader, and a leader sacrifices himself for his cause when necessary.

Saying that Dumbledore was the “cause” of Harry’s death, besides being wrong, also takes away from the greatness of Harry’s choice in that situation. Harry is the protagonist of his own story, and he is always making decisions based on his own mind and beliefs (going after the Philosopher’s Stone, entering the Chamber of Secrets, sparing Pettigrew, going after Sirius in the Department of Mysteries, pursuing the Horcruxes, etc.), so it’s completely unfair for people to place the responsibility for his choice to die on Dumbledore’s shoulders just because the Headmaster gave him the information that Harry was a Horcrux. Harry always acted according to his own mind based on the information he had been given — why would it be any different with the Horcrux inside him?

It simply wouldn’t be. Dumbledore gave the information, but it was Harry who decided what to do with it.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Dumbledore didn’t tell Harry about having to die to destroy the Horcrux inside him earlier because (a) Harry was a child, and (b) Dumbledore didn’t want to take away Harry’s hope. Additionally, after the fourth book, there was still the possibility that Harry could survive because, by performing the resurrection ritual, Voldemort intertwined his life with Harry’s, thus giving Harry a chance not to die when allowing the Horcrux to be destroyed. So why would Dumbledore tell a teenager that he would have to die at some point in the future… if there was a chance Harry might come back? It seems (to me, at least) like an unnecessary cruelty to place that burden on someone for so long.

So the biggest issue I see with the fandom in relation to Dumbledore is the belief that he had power over things that were completely beyond his reach. Dumbledore was a leader doing the best he could with what he had, within the limitations presented to him and his own experience.

Moreover, it’s admirable that Dumbledore had such a dark and flawed past and acknowledged each of his mistakes, always acting to ensure that he wouldn’t repeat them. It was the events of his adolescence that led him to always remember to value what truly mattered: love and people. He grew through his own pain, through the consequences of his own mistakes; he never forgot or repressed what happened to Ariana — which would certainly have been much easier — but instead, he used that painful event to become a better person.

That’s a morally gray character, that’s someone who had been stuck between a rock and a hard place and did what he thought was best, that’s a character who did the best he could with what he was given. And I really don’t like how fascist-like characters are more often than not considered more complex because of trauma than characters like Dumbledore.

But I guess that’s a bit because we can actually empathize with them better by being convinced that they didn’t have a choice, or that they were somehow forced into those choices even if they really didn’t want to and that might be the case, but to be honest, after seeing what fascist narratives do to marginalized people, I can’t say I care much about it. Anyway, be my guest to comment on my analysis but please be kind, I won’t engage in rage baits nor Zionists, Free Palestine loves <3

[sk1fanfiction]

Counter argument(s):

Tom and Dumbledore only are seen to interact in canon twice (the books, not the movies). Once at the orphanage, once at the job interview (after he’s made a ton of Horcruxes and started doing Death Eater stuff). We just don’t have enough information to conclude anything about their relationship. Dumbledore was perhaps not super nicey to Tom when they first met, but not telling the other professors about the rabbit and cave incidents suggests he hoped to turn over a new leaf (Dumbledore actually says as much). He might come off as judgy when describing Tom in HBP but he's also telling Harry about Tom in hindsight.

People also blame Dumbledore for sending Tom back into the Blitz, but (1) the Blitz was during Sept 1940-May 1941 so it happened while Tom was at Hogwarts and (2) it's Dippet who refuses to let him stay over the summer, not Dumbledore (in the books).

On the subject of Dippet, he literally mistakes Tom as Muggle-born (the latter corrects him), suggesting that a lot of people might also believe this. If anything, Tom probably gets the most grief from his pureblood Slytherin housemates (before he can prove his Gaunt parentage, at least) especially given Grindelwald has probably whipped them into a frenzy.

Additionally, we can’t really blame Tom Sr, a literal rape victim, for noping the fuck out and ‘abandoning’ Merope after being drugged and kidnapped. It might look like abandonment on the Riddle’s side from Tom’s perspective, but it’s not.

If any character is at fault for the rise of Voldemort, it’s Merope. Yeah Tom's tragic backstory explains why he's not the Nicest Guy and his fear of dying and all that jazz but not the World Takeover, Cult Leader, and Killing People things. Also it's just more boring when Tom has no character agency.

Friendly reminder that Tom Riddle didn’t create Voldemort. Dumbledore created Voldemort.

Tom was raised in a Religious Orphanage in the 30s and 40s. He was not treated nicely by anyone. Of course he would be vindictive and hate Non-Magicals.

Dumbledore on the other hand decided that an eleven-year-old was the anti-Christ and treated him like he was already a mass-murderer.

Tom was in the Orphanage in London when the bombs fell. Of course he would be terrified of dying. He was abandoned by his only living relatives. Of course he’d wish them dead.

Dumbledore looked at a child and saw a demon. If he had seen a child, Voldemort would never have existed.

Give me arguments if you disagree.

[silly-salty-utdr-rants]

an unnecessarily in depth analysis of my take on underfell papyrus

before we begin: let it be known that none of this is properly confirmed or canon, this is all based on the version of underfell that almost solely exists in my brain. also the quality of grammar, spelling, and translation of brainrot to coherent essay is not guaranteed. also uf!papyrus belongs to underfella

to start lets look at the very basics, what would it take to turn papyrus, the only person to believe even the worst of the worst can improve, the causation (however indirectly) of the true pacifist route, the only monster that will never kill frisk, the sole creature in the entire world of undertale to be dubbed the sadistic fuckface flower's favourite, that the world is kill or be killed? allow me to spin you the tale of how i think it happened.

maybe once upon a time when uf!papyrus was just a kid, he wanted to be a hero. he wanted to be a pacifist in a kill or be killed world. maybe, even unintentionally, he constantly put both him and his older brother in danger. and one day, he tried to spare the wrong people, so both he and his brother were scarred in the process causing a crack over the eye for papyrus and a lost tooth for sans. and on this fateful day papyrus was faced with the choice, kill the attackers and survive or spare them and be killed. and maybe since he's still alive as an adult, he chose to kill, thereby gaining his first LV.

at least thats what i think happened. this traumatic event would cause a number of changes in his life, including, ditching his former obsession with "being a hero" in favor of being a villain, on several occasions being peer pressured to murder, and being more harsh to sans.

BUT. as i have said before and will say again, papyrus' soul is almost definitely bravery and integrity so his preference for pacifism isnt going down without a fight! maybe his whole "kidnapping and torture chamber" schtick is an excuse to not have to kill someone while not being seen as weak. maybe he lies about how many people he's killed or how much LV he has when in reality both numbers are shockingly low. maybe he wants to be captain of the guard so he can delegate the killing to others. maybe he hates asgore because its because of him that their world is like this. maybe he never kills the human. one thing i've never understood is whether or not he kills or spares the human or if he does the whole "OOP YOU'RE AT ONE HP! TIME TO GO TO THE CAPTURE ZONE!" thing. i like to think that he does. hell ive already done a whole damn drawing on what i think it would look like.

⬇️

so yeah. he spares frisk. and maybe adopts them

one last aspect of this guy that intrigues me before i go! what is underfell papyrus' dynamic with flowey? maybe he respects flowey a ton. maybe papyrus is envious of flowey's courage to run away from fights and defuse them instead of hurting the opponent. maybe they're the only one that the other truly opens up to.

but these are only my thoughts on the dude because frankly, there arent enough character analysis about uf!paps. feel free to add your own! or not! i dont care!

[sideprince]

A movie question I wanted to throw your way: what do you think about the decision to use a decent amount of physical acting on Rickman’s part for comic effect? I’m thinking his snatch of thin air in Philosopher's Stone, his creeping along the table towards Ron and Harry in Chamber, his dramatic point in that same scene, his walk up to the stage for Dueling Club, his whacking students in Goblet and Order, etc.

On one hand, I feel like this does match the tone of the books; he canonically lurks and prowls and points and snatches at the air, and his menace is often undercut by a physical description that’s meant to be some level of comedic. On the other hand, we don't see Snape nearly as much in the movies as we do in the books, so this aspect of his character seems somewhat overinflated by the movies?

TLDR I don’t think these decisions in the movie were completely out of left field, but it also feels off for some reason. Idk I don’t know how exactly to verbalize my feelings on the matter and wanted to hear your thoughts!

It will probably come as no surprise that I feel like any answer to this question is inseparable from the absolute hatchet jobs that are Steve Kloves' screenplays for the HP franchise. This reply is going to end up inevitably long (you ask me about my favorite subject, you suffer the consequences), but all of it is ultimately framed by the problem of having to make the best of a badly written script. (**edit: This post is way too long. Run away. Don't look back.)

The writing doesn't support the story

The first thing that jumps out to me is that there's a separation between where and how these comedic moments are used, up until the end of GoF and after. They're more a part of the story only until Harry's story arc reaches the point of Cedric's death, when he first witnesses death in the way that allows him to see thestrals after. GoF is when the story takes its first dark turn, and up until then the tone and story is much more in line with children's literature, so it makes more sense that Snape is portrayed in a bit of a playful way. After GoF - even though the films reveal it as an aside and much later than the original story does - Snape resumes his role as spy and becomes more integral to the story as a key character and is thus no longer just a foil in a children's story. I think what doesn't work about it is the inconsistency. The books have comedic moments with Snape too, which are cartoonish, up until the end of DH - I feel those are also out of place, but at least their existence gives a basis to what's done in the films.

Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems with the films is that they're badly edited. I'll leave that analysis for another post (you're welcome), but essentially these comedic moments feel inconsistent in part because there's often a disconnect between the performance a director has asked of his actors and the tone that's established in the editing room once pacing and a soundtrack are added. Any vision a director had for these films was muddled by the involvement of big studio producers and limitations. This is made more jarring by the way that Kloves has interjected light, funny moments in awkward ways throughout the scripts. He struggles overall to convey the world that Rowling has created, and if it weren't for the brilliant production design of Stuart Craig, Kloves' failures would be much more obvious (again, worthy of its own roast post).

Take the scene where Snape whacks Harry and Ron on the head in Gof: why are the students all studying in the Great Hall? Why are various years sitting together? Why is Snape overseeing them? It's a scene almost verbatim out of the book (Fred asks Angelina to the ball casually, he and George tell Ron and Harry to get dates "before all the good ones are gone," we find out Hermione already has a date), but like pretty much every scene that originally takes place in the Gryffindor common room, this one is moved to another location for no discernible reason. The main difference in the change is how restrictive it is: in the common room the children are free to be themselves, but in the Great Hall, under a strict teacher's nose, they have to be quiet and restrained. Another subject that would need its own post is the myriad of ways Kloves goes out of his way to rewrite settings and characters to avoid allowing them to express themselves or grow as characters, and how hard he works to stifle and limit them in ways that are convoluted and work against the story, as if he himself couldn't deal with any kind of emotional vulnerability (in a way, his scripts are a desperate cry for help). This directly contributes to why so many of Snape's comedic moments feel off.

The changes in the scene in GoF don't even make sense from a production perspective, as they required more actors, more lighting, and more setups. Instead of using the cozy setting of the common room to establish camaraderie between the students, Kloves replaced that energy and lightheartedness with Snape in a way that's uncharacteristic. The scene, as he wrote it, is already light and has humor, but Kloves doesn't trust it - he feels the need to exaggerate it and the casualties, as always, are the characters and their portrayal. It's as though he's following a formula and saying, "this page number/scene number must provide relief from the tension of the story" and then doesn't consider how following that directive fits into the rhythm of the narrative. It's closer to being an isolated scene akin to a comedy sketch than to a scene that's part of an act that's part of a film. It's worth noting that, in GoF, Kloves interjects this scene as if he's forcing this moment of comic relief into a story that didn't require it and then relies on playing off of Snape's usual seriousness as its crux. In OOtP, when there's a callback to it as Snape smacks Ron with a book again, it's no longer the point of the scene, but an aside in a comical montage focused on Umbridge (OOtP was also the only film not written by Kloves, so this moment is more likely the result of Michael Goldenberg trying to maintain a consistency with Kloves' work). Overall, I think that feeling of something being off is, again, more rooted in the writing than the performance.

Rickman as an actor playing Snape

There's a lot of criticism in the Snapedom of how Alan Rickman portrays Snape, but not enough acknowledgment that none of the characters are portrayed well, and most of it comes down to Kloves' writing of them. Book!McGonagall insists that all students under 17 are evacuated before the Battle of Hogwarts, where Movie!McGonagall only cares that the Slytherin students are locked in the dungeon, everyone else can stay, what does she care if first years die? Book!Hermione is intelligent and empathetic while Movie!Hermione is a two dimensional maternalistic harpy whose main job is to be a mouthpiece for plot exposition. Book!Ron is funny and brave and fiercely loyal, while Movie!Ron throws Hermione under the bus, is cowardly, and is reduced to a flatly written sidekick. Book!Harry is complex and while I could list a million examples, I'll stick to this one: in PoA when he finds out Sirius betrayed his parents, he's enraged but has no reply when asked if he'd want to kill Sirius. Movie!Harry says with conviction, and without prompting, that he wants to find Sirius with the explicit purpose of killing him. Every single character takes a hit because of how Steve Kloves writes them, and Snape is, sadly, no exception.

While some film shoots allow for improvisation, a big budget production on a tight schedule with scenes that require a lot of prep work can't afford to make many changes. So, for example, while Ralph Fiennes was asked to improvise his scene as Voldemort at the end of DH2 when he re-enters Hogwarts victorious (and that's why the dialogue is redundant and that weird hug with Draco continues to plague us), it could be done because the wardrobe and set and cast were already in place and the time required had already been scheduled in. It wouldn't be possible, though, to add an additional scene - like Snape going feral in the hospital wing at the end of PoA - unless it was written into the script. Additional actors would be required, which would mean coordinating with their schedules and adding them to the budget, not to mention scheduling in additional days with the crew who may already have other work lined up. It would require either pushing every other shooting day back - which is near impossible - in order to use the hospital wing set while it's still up, or tacking on production days to the end of the shooting schedule and rebuilding the set on those days. This can be done for necessary pickups that round out existing scenes, but you can't really say, "hey I decided we need a scene here that didn't exist before" without causing huge problems. Because of how contracts work, any significant scene changes would have to be sent back to Kloves who would have to write alternate scenes and/or dialogue, and even then if you wanted to fix a specific character's arc - like Snape's - you would have to add in so much that it just wouldn't be feasible. Screenplay lengths have to fall within a certain number of pages, because each page is approximately a minute of screen time, so adding a few more to a finished script mid-production is very difficult. The actors have to make the best of what's on the page. Which brings us to Alan Rickman, his choices as an actor, and what informed both him and the character of Snape.

Alan Rickman was a RADA trained actor, so his approach to a character involved a lot of physical work as well as character analysis. As far as I know, he was the only actor to contact JK Rowling directly to ask about his character, because he wanted to make an informed decision about how to play him since Snape was so nuanced and gray. Unlike some of the other actors (like Michael "DIDYAPUTYANAMEINDAGOBLETOFFIYAH" Gambon) Rickman read the books - those that were available when he took on the role, and each as they came out afterwards - and used them to inform his understanding of his character beyond what Kloves wrote (presumably in crayon with all the e's backwards). In interviews and Q&A's it's clear Rickman was fond of the HP books and story, and had a thoughtful process taking on Snape's character. He did not see him as a villain, because, as he's said, he didn't approach characters with that kind of judgment. And while I'm sure the egregious amounts of cash Warner Brothers threw at the actors was inevitably a factor for all of them, several of the ones playing teachers or other adults have said that they took on their role because a child in their life insisted on it, despite them being unfamiliar with the books, whereas Rickman's process was to read Rowling's books in order to decide whether to take the role. Again, he was a RADA trained actor, and thus had a meticulous approach to his work that followed a thoughtful, considered process and a decision based on whether he felt he could embody a character in a way that did them justice/if they were interesting enough to him. By the time he started shooting PS, he also had experience directing a film and was working as a director in theatre as well as still acting, so he understood the process from the perspective of not just an actor, but also as someone behind the camera, someone working with actors both as a peer and director, and someone sitting in an editing room.

We know from his diaries that he became increasingly frustrated with how his own process and expectations clashed with that of the producers on Harry Potter. He wasn't interested in renewing his contract after the first few films (goodness knows how much money they offered him in the end - his wife has said that he never let anyone else pick up a tab in a restaurant and if they argued, he would just say "Harry Potter."). He writes about seeing the films at premieres and being frustrated with how little story and development there is (especially for Snape), which makes me think there are deleted scenes somewhere that haven't been released. At one point he writes about a premiere party where he had internally lost patience with the three Davids (Yates, Heyman, and Barron). It's obvious that there's a discord between the work he wanted to do with Snape's character and what choices the production made:

He describes how, during the filming of the Yule Ball scene in GoF, there was an attempt to get him to dance but he refused because he didn't think Snape would dance:

It was a rare moment of potential for improvisation because, again, the set and cast and timing were already accounted for, and in this case there wasn't even dialogue. The scene where he smacks the boys with the notebook - as far as I know - was scripted. So there's a difference there in how much freedom he had, as an actor, to say no to what he was asked to do. Even in the above diary entry it's clear that, given his way, he felt the character wouldn't even be present in that scene, but he had no choice. This tells me that when he had more freedom to make choices, he did so based on his understanding of Snape as a character and, given that he was an actor who was both very respected (and got away with more than most) and also someone who could get argumentative about his character choices, I think this is the most apt lens to examine his physical work with Snape through.

Knowing that he wasn't interested in continuing the role of Snape after the first couple of films and that he was often frustrated with the lack of characterization and story arc, his physicality in his first scene in CoS (when he reprimands Harry and Ron for flying the car) says a lot. (Caveat that one of the reasons he didn't want to renew his contract was that the shooting schedule restricted his schedule and he wanted work on other projects, but I can't help but wonder if that had been the case had HP provided a more satisfying process.) It's almost certain that he had read all the available books by the time the scene in CoS was filmed, including PoA where Snape becomes apoplectic with rage in a way that, to a child reader, is comical (and intended to be) and to someone analyzing Snape is clearly rooted in triggered trauma.

Alan Rickman knew from the outset that Snape's motivation was his love for Lily, so he would have understood the dynamic between his character and Sirius re: who Snape thought sold Lily out to Voldemort. He would also have understood that Snape's reaction in PoA was more about distress and anxiety, and that this was connected to the promise Snape had made to protect Harry for Lily's sake. This would have therefore informed his portrayal of Snape's anger at Harry in CoS, and it's reasonable to assume that Rickman was trying to walk the line between the way Rowling portrayed Snape in full unhinged rage in PoA, what this tells him about this character when angered, and the connection between the moments in PoA and CoS when it comes to Snape's anxiety over Harry's safety. Unlike the author of a book however, who has full control of how they tell a story, Rickman was an actor in a film - an inevitably collaborative medium which therefore made his portrayal reliant on the decisions of others as well.

Chris Columbus, the HP movies, and feral Snape

PS and CoS were directed by Chris Columbus, the guy who directed both Home Alone and Home Alone II and Mrs. Doubtfire. He was a successful director from the 90s tradition of children's movies whose sensibility was informed by the era's attitude towards children's media: kids wanting to see themselves in narratives, in ways that felt empowering and allowed them to process the confusion of a world run by adults in playful, quasi-cartoonish ways within a 3 act structure where the villains - mean adults - get their comeuppance because it feels fair. One thing that set Harry Potter apart was that the villain was not the mean adult; Snape, the mean adult, is a character kids can hate and project their own experiences onto, but Voldemort is a true villain who represents evil and is vanquished by the hero. Chris Columbus established a tone for the first two films that was no longer apt by PoA, not only because it didn't work for the story, but because that 90s era of children's movies had ended and the culture moved on to more complex narratives (and Columbus has focused more on producing than directing since, because his style doesn't work for audiences anymore).

What's ironic about the way Snape's scene at the start of CoS comes off is that, in the book, there's a great comedic moment that's left out:

This is cut from the film, and instead it's Filch waiting at the top of the marble stairs who catches Ron and Harry being late and delivers them to Snape (I don't know why, the scene in the book is much more dynamic and would have taken up about as much time on screen). Rickman, meanwhile, is using the information he's gotten on who Snape is from the books, and imbuing some of that feral Snape energy into his portrayal of a Snape who is genuinely angry:

(Thank you for making these gifs @smilingformoney , they are truly the gift that keeps on giving.)

The thing is, no matter how much of feral Snape Rickman brought to this, no matter how menacing his performance is, this moment still lives within the dynamics of a Chris Columbus children's film. It gets cut off by Dumbledore's entrance - meant to be a comeuppance for Snape, since Dumbledore (being the voice of wisdom and fairness in this world) prevents him from punishing Harry and Ron (you know what, at least in the books they got detention, but ok). Despite Rickman's performance, Columbus as a director has framed this scene in the same context as the one Kloves cut. The tension is brief, and the focus is on Snape being foiled, because it's what children want to see - a mean adult experiencing consequences. It's down to the editing and soundtrack, choices Columbus made in the editing room. In addition, we don't know how many different ways an actor tries a scene, only what ends up in the final cut of a film. The process of the work done on a set is often much richer and more diverse than what an audience sees in the finished film.

Tbh I think this is also why Snape's feral moments were cut from PoA: it's a darker film, but had to straddle the line between being for both children and tweens and not getting too playful, nor too intense. As much as I want to see feral Snape on screen, it's extremely difficult to make work in a narrative that is about Harry and his friends. It either skews too intense, making the audience uncomfortable because seeing an adult becoming unhinged and in pain is difficult and frightening for most young people, even adults, and would therefore take away from Harry's goals and narrative as well as his changing relationship to Sirius (all of which is already barely supported by Kloves' writing). Alternately, it could also skew too comical and over the top, which takes the audience out of the tension of the film's climactic moments.

If Snape's story had gotten more focus and screen time, an unhinged moment would be better justified because the audience would have been more invested in the character and their arc. PoA sidesteps pretty much all of the most compelling parts of the book, which is the realization that Harry is not only connected to Sirius personally, but that his dad, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew created the Marauders Map, that they were animagi, that Harry's patronus takes the form of his father's stag, and that Snape was initimately connected to all of them as well. For me, reading the end of PoA was what cemented Snape as someone who would be crucial to the narrative and whose role would increase as the series went on. As a result of Kloves skimming over these essential plot twists, Snape is a minor character in the film, showing up mostly as a foil who tries to expose Lupin and then catches him and Black in the Shrieking Shack (this also sets his character up to be minimized in every film down the line, which has a worsening impact as Snape becomes increasingly integral to the plot).

One thing I find interesting is that Snape's comical physicality changes over the films. In PS and CoS he's menacing, a looming, larger than life figure the children fear and easily assume to be a full-fledged villain. By GoF there's a relationship embedded in how he interacts with Harry and his friends. He's no longer terrifying, just intimidating, more of an adult Harry challenges than someone he must defeat. The comedic effect now comes from a rapport within an established dynamic between characters. By HBP, the only comical moment is at Slughorn's party, and it's no longer Rickman who uses physicality - the action happens around him, and the comedic effect is in his lack of reaction to any of it. In other words, he's no longer the comic one, he's become the straight man in a (badly written) comedy sketch (with abysmal timing, what even).

Ultimately, as with most of the characters in the HP films, Snape is undermined by the writing. Rickman was stuck working within the confines he was given. No matter how well he may have understood the character, the limited screen time and character development were always going to stifle how Snape was portrayed on screen. I'm very much pro Let Snape Be Feral but I also don't fault Rickman in how little we saw of that.

How Feral is Snape?

If I'm honest, I feel like the Snapedom has taken the Let Snape Be Feral thing and has started forgetting that he wasn't all-feral-all-the-time. The point of Feral Snape is that it's a heightened state of tension in a character whose trauma is being triggered. Apoplectic Snape wouldn't have an impact at the end of PoA if that was his usual way of being. And, as you so brilliantly showed @said-snape-softly Snape's speech patterns are primarily quiet and controlled, his speech gets softer the more dangerous his mood, and it's only after he reassumes his role as a spy that the description of his speech becomes increasingly volatile (but is still controlled). Feral Snape's definitive aspect is the lack of control shown by a character who usually is so exceptionally capable of self restraint and compartmentalization. So again, while I would have loved to see Feral Snape on screen, I think it's also important to acknowledge that this is not the defining feature of his character and is more about what those moments mean to his arc. Their absence is primarily due to poor writing that didn't create space for them (including what leads up to them), and the direction that didn't carve out any kind of niche for them, not Rickman's choices as an actor.

In fact, Snape as a character is defined by descriptors of his voice more than any other character by far. I have my own theory about why this is, and it has to do with Alan Rickman being inextricably connected with how Snape is written. Chris Columbus said that Alan Rickman was always Snape as far as he was concerned, because when JK Rowling showed him a sketch of Snape she had made, it looked exactly like Rickman. I don't think this is accidental.

Alan Rickman was always intended to be Snape

First, what's important to remember is that before Harry Potter, Alan Rickman was best known in the 90s for playing both villains and sad romantic leads. His signature defining feature was his voice. I think it was Ang Lee who described the casting choice of Greg Wise and Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility as wanting Willoughby (Wise) to be dashing and Brandon (Rickman) to be sexy (if this was Emma Thompson and not Ang Lee, my apologies, I can't remember where I read this and can't find the source). This is how Rickman was perceived by audiences up until Harry Potter. And I know a lot of the Snapedom considers him to be sexy as Snape too, but the general audiences of the films don't, so please don't @ me, I'm just setting up a point here.

This is relevant because, as we find out in the end of the books, Rowling wrote Snape's motivations to be rooted in romantic love (I'm very nobly putting aside, for the sake of focusing on Rowling's intentions, my personal interpretation that Snape's feelings for Lily were platonic, please acknowledge how brave I am for this). She pulls a lot from gothic tropes into how he's written, and as much as she's talked about the character having been inspired by a chemistry teacher she disliked, and as much as she's talked about Snape being both morally grey and someone she personally dislikes, she also romanticized him. Between this and what Chris Columbus said about her sketch of him, it's hard for me to ignore that this character, conceived of in the 90s, wasn't written with Alan Rickman in mind from the beginning, especially since Rowling herself has said that she envisioned him in the role. Whether or not he lived up to Rowling's imagination is, frankly, his choice and Rowling's problem.

The story of how Harry Potter was written according to JK Rowling is that it started with the idea coming to her on a train ride in 1990. She completed the PS manuscript in 1995. While everything I'm about to say is absolute conjecture, I can't help but wonder at the connection between these films and the way Snape was written (spoilers ahead, no regrets, these films have been out for over a quarter of a century - forgive my reviews, I can't help myself):

1988: Die Hard comes out. Alan Rickman plays Hans Gruber, a villain who is a genius, composed, controlled, and soft-spoken. (Great film, a classic, the only valid Christmas movie.)

1990: Truly, Madly, Deeply. Rickman plays a man whose wife can't get over his tragic death, nor can his own ghost, who comes back to spend more time with her. No one else can see him, and they can't really share a life anymore. She eventually lets him go as she realizes that his spirit doesn't belong in the mortal world and her own life can't move on as long as she clings to it. (Beautiful film, will break your heart and put it through a shredder.)

1991: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Rickman is the Sheriff of Nottingham, an unhinged, feral villain who wears all black complete with billowing cape. (Terrible film, disaster of a period piece, Rickman's performance is the only redeeming thing about it. Halfway through its press tour talk shows started booking Rickman instead of the lead, Kevin Costner, because Rickman stole every scene.)

1995: An Awfully Big Adventure. Rickman is an actor who comes back to his hometown to revive his role as Captain Hook in a local theatre production of Peter Pan. In the process he has an affair with a young ginger stagehand who reminds him of his lost love, a vivacious woman named Stella with bright red hair who, as far as he knows, birthed his child - a son - before she died. It turns out the girl he has an affair with is his daughter, which he realizes when he visits her home where she lives in the care of her aunt and uncle - whose name is Vernon - and connects the dots of who this girl's mother was. (He then rides his motorcycle out to the pier, screams "Stella" at the heavens like he's in a revival production of Streetcar Named Desire, trips and hits his head on the edge of the pier and falls into the water, drowning. I can't make this up. Mike Newell directed this. The same guy who directed GoF. As if following in the vein of the 90s movie obsession with incest as the controversial-trope-du-jour wasn't enough. I don't even need to review this, just sum it up.)

1995: Sense and Sensibility. Rickman plays Colonel Brandon, a forlorn, grieving man who lost his first love at a young age and spends most of the film pining for the only other woman he's ever had a romantic interest in. Wears all black, rides a black horse.

Given what a well-known actor Rickman was in the 90s - especially in England - and how connected his characters all seem to be to various aspects of Snape, it's hard not to see a connection. The entire premise of Truly, Madly, Deeply sounds like the inspiration for the Resurrection Stone in Deathly Hallows. The redheaded lost love whose child is left in the care of an Uncle Vernon in An Awfully Big Adventure is difficult to look past. All of these characters either exude menacingly soft-spoken Snape energy, feral Snape energy, or forlorn because of his lost love Snape energy. As a result, I feel like it's almost inevitable that Rickman inspired Snape, especially when you consider how known he was for his voice and how frequently Snape's voice is used to describe him. When Rowling said that she envisioned him in the role, it makes me wonder if she meant during the casting process for the first film, or well before it. I think his previous roles were a contributing factor in how the character was written in the books. After Tim Roth - who was originally cast in the role - had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, she got her way. Authors don't often get to choose who plays their characters, but in this case it worked out as the production thought Rickman was a good fit as well.

I'm done, I promise

So where does this leave things at the end of this horrendously long post? Rickman's choices of how he physicalized Snape - comedic or not - are only part of a larger whole. He was playing a character who was written based on his other roles, and limited by the shortcomings of how Steve Kloves translated that character from Rowling's books into his own screenplays. Whatever Rickman did on set was limited by that writing, by the directors he worked with, and by the choices made in the editing room.

I'm fascinated by the idea that Rickman was playing a character written with him in mind - but not really him, the him who embodied other characters whose echoes show up in Snape. It's difficult enough to contend with an actor playing a character in a screenplay you wrote with them in mind when you're directing your own script, because they'll never be what you imagined in your head. But for that process to get filtered through several directors, a team of producers, another writer who changes your work, and an editor, let alone throughout a decade of films - that's downright wild. The original intention gets lost and reinterpreted like a game of telephone, and I think that a lot of the consistencies between Movie!Snape and Book!Snape are down to Alan Rickman's nuanced and generous nature as an actor. If I'm honest, I'm not convinced that every Snape moment that comes off comical was meant to be so by Rickman. But again, film is such a collaborative medium that his intentions aren't the only ones that matter, ultimately, at least they aren't the only thing that ends up in the final cut.

My take, personally, is that I'm more interested in critical analysis than personal criticism. I respect that everyone has their own vision of a character and fandom is absolutely here for, among other things, having a place to share those thoughts and feelings. But a character is rarely going to appear on screen the same way you see them in your head, and that's not always going to be a fault, even if it's a disappointment to you. It's interesting to hear different people's perceptions, but there isn't that much to discuss there - you can't refute how someone feels, and you can't argue that their truth is what it is, to them. Whereas with critical analysis there's a lot more to talk about and examine, so it's where my own interest is much more invested.

[chocfrog-enjoyer]

@myheadsgonenumb sorry but what you said isn’t at all accurate. Not only you twisted my words but you also didn’t really prove your point.

Firstly James, Sirius and Remus are not similiar to Ron, Harry and Hermione for start. Their relationships are different and each formed on different experiences.

Secondly I said that Remus and Sirius weren’t very close friends, they were just friends. I’d even say that James is the one who ties all of the Marauders together. You said „we don’t have much but what we have indicates real closeness” - no, what we have indicates the exact opposite. As I said they were friends but Remus and Sirius as friends were NOWHERE NEAR the level of friendship that Sirius had with James.

As opposed to Harry & Ron & Hermione. Harry felt very very close to both but for a slightly different reasons

Let’s now see the whole thing as it is.

Just because the marauders didn’t abandon Remus when they found out that he is a werewolf doesn’t just mean they all went bestie bestie with him. And the example of Ron’s reaction you gave is completely inadequate. RON HAD EVERY RIGHT to react that way, when he was just dragged down to a house away from Hogwarts and it’s safety by an escaped murder ( at the time they weren’t aware ) and then finding out that not only his teacher helped the murderer and knew him, but ALSO THAT HE WAS A WEREWOLF. We can’t disregard that no matter what Werewolves are dangerous. Especially since to Ron Remus was supposed to be a trusted teacher.

Besides finding out that a 11 yo that is your peer is a werewolf isn’t as terrifying that finding out that an adult is a werewolf as a 13 yo. Let’s remember the situations and ages of our characters

Three great friends means they were close. But again. Great friends are just friends. It’s not as big closeness as best friends.

Everything we see in POA is how disastrous Sirius’s situation is and how unfair and terrible the Wizarding World was towards him, not how great friends he was with Remus.

„I’ve not been Sirius’s friend for 12 years but now I am” is a quote that supposedly in your opinion meant they were close, but it says the exact opposite doesn’t it?

Remus believed Sirius was the murderer. Remus didn’t check, didn’t try to find out more, all we saw is Remus believing that Sirius was a Death Eather and being very bothered by it.

James would never EVER believe it was Sirius.

Not to mention Remus WASN’T EVEN TRUSTED ENOUGH DURING THE FIRST WAR? It’s even said that they all were suspecting him- talk about real closeness here.

Well that’s be all because all the rest is you talking about POA sitiuations and headcanoning what more could they’ve meant to their past. LET’S TALK ABOUT ACTUAL EXAMPLES WE HAVE FROM MARAUDERS YEARS NOW!

Who did all teachers ( and not only ) talk about? James and Sirius. Not Remus. James. Remus isn’t even mentioned!

It was always James and Sirius. „you’d have thought they were brothers… inseparable!” „trusted him above all his friends” „never saw one without the other”

And the time when another marauder is mentioned in their context IT’S NOT REMUS. It’s Peter! Remus was never even mentioned in conversations about James’s and Sirius’s time at Hogwarts by the people who knew them. ( that wouldn’t be true for Ron Harry and Hermione. They were almost always mentioned as a trio )

Rosemerta is the one mentioning Peter: „That fat little boy who was always tagging around them” She doesn’t recall Remus being with them at all

Who does Sirius run away to from his abusive house? JAMES. Who he is so close too that parents of that person accept him into his house and help him? JAMES.

Who does James named Harry’s godfather? SIRIUS! Just Sirius.

Remus isn’t close enough to be trusted during the war, Remus isn’t close enough to actually do anything about Serius and look for more evidence for his supposed „very close friend” ( yet SIRIUS WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO FIND PETER AND GET HIM TO JUSTICE! Sirius was so devastated by James’s death that he did everything he could to get to Peter, and EVEN AFTER 12 YEARS IN AZKABAN HIS PRIORITY FOR ESCAPING WAS TO GET PETER AWAY FROM JAMES’S SON!

Sirius’s and Remus’s friendship was good but it wasn’t very close. I’d even say that Sirius was a bit closer to Peter than Remus, after all Peter was trusted enough to BE THE SECRET KEEPER ( terrible decision ) yet Remus wasn’t trusted at all. Peter is at least remembered a bit by people. Peter was tagging along, was eager to spend time in James’s and Sirius’s company, but Remus was away, keeping his distance from them, and also from the bullying yet never doing anything about it.

Sorry not sorry but Remus and Sirius weren’t very close friends. They were just friends

AND ABSOLUTELY THEY WERE NOT BEST FRIENDS! JUST LIKE RON AND HERMIONE WERE NOT BEST FRIENDS, although Ron’s and Hermione’s relationship was much closer than that of Sirius and Remus during their school years.

THERE’S NO CANON EVIDENCE OF WOLFSTAR ESPECIALLY IN THE MARAUDERS ERA. IF ANYTHING THE EVINDENCE ( VERY STRONG EVINDECE ) WE GET IS PRONGSFOOT.

Headcanon whatever you want but don’t go on my posts with your speculations and headcanons. Sorry not sorry but Marauders era Wolfstar doesn’t exist or even have a ground to exist in canon

It’s so hard to be a Wolfstar shipper here bc I ship the post POA adult Wolfstar. The „Two grieving friends finding comfort and love in eachother instead of being stuck in their memories and falling into depression. The two friends that are both outcasts of society one because of his lycanthropy and the other because of being wrongly imprisoned without a trail and currently on the run. The one where they learn to finally accept James’s and Lily’s death and help eachother recover, and try to help Harry along the way”

And all I see, all the time, is Marauders fandom Wolfstar. Which to be frank i hate. And it’s such a weird experience loving and hating a ship at the same time. But the marauders Wolfstar is just so different and just- shallow

Those two characters were downgraded to one of their personality traits, that isn’t even their MAIN/MOST RECOGNIZABLE personality trait. I barely even recognize that the marauders Remus and Sirius are supposed to be the same characters as Remus and Sirius in the book, because they are so fanon-iezd.

It’s even worse because literally the marauders era Wolfstar has barely any grounds to start at. Sirius and Remus weren’t very close, they were just friends, Sirius was much much closer with James.

Help I need some more post POA adult Wolfstar shippers that don’t ship marauders Wolfstar, if there are any pls interact I want to see y’all posts about it.