#if anyone could do the earth bender immortality thing it’s her

[turnedinto-themoon]

Okay excited for the new avatar show but… KORRA CANT BE DEAD SHES SUPPOSED TO LIVE FOREVER

[irresistiibles]

was that xuan lu? oh no no, that was just kyoshi, a canon character from avatar: the last airbender. they are twenty eight years old, use she/they, and are aware that they are not actually from washington dc. too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here

two months

what is your character’s job

she's a martial arts instructor. she teaches a few different classes and levels but specifically has one for femme and nb muses more focused on self defense that she cares about a lot

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom

from the end of the rise of kyoshi book. i haven't read the second one yet, and please be gentle with me on canon on this one. i will be rereading it soonish, but it's been a little while since i first read it so my memory may not be perfect

has any magic affected your character

nope!

more info:

i played avatar kyoshi like a year or so ago and am def excited to bring her back

our at least six feet tall queen

for those who don't know she was the avatar two avatars before aang. kyoshi's dad was an earth bender and her mom was an air nomad

she wasn't immediately recognized as the avatar. though she took the test it included picking toys. kyoshi was raised as an orphan on the street, and really didn't trust the test and wound up running away

as a result her friend yun was declared avatar

slight spoilers: when the truth was realized avatar kyoshi pulled a whole mountain out of the ocean her friend yun was sacrificed and her mentor was killed by yun's earth bending instructor

a bunch more happens in the book including kyoshi joining a crime gang and body slamming her way through a wall, but it ends in kyoshi heading to the air temples to officially declare herself as avatar finally

so that's up to where she remembers

personality wise kyoshi is admittedly pretty awkward. she's empathetic and considerate, but has a hard time reading people and handling tense situations. even though kyoshi is known as a more aggressive avatar it's mostly because she just can't handle tough situations through personality! it never works for her so she brute forces her way through things!

she's got a strong sense of justice and is very level-headed and will do what needs to be done even if she's not happy about it.

they're also not super forthcoming and friendly and loving unless it's with people kyoshi is close with. they don't want people to read kindness as weakness, so she's careful with how much she shows it

stupidly powerful, though kyoshi struggles in more light delicate bending, she can split the earth in half and raise mountains so

if they're convinced they're in the right kyoshi will use bending to get her way

might know how to be immortal it's not really confirmed or denied but she does sort of know how to use earthbending to mend her bones and body and does canonically go on to live until 230 so take that as you will

she's difficult but means well

plots

anyone who takes her classes, be it regular martial arts or her self defense class

also a gym/sparring buddy in general though you have to be ready to be knocked around and also constantly remind her to actually show up. as much as they know it's important kyoshi can get a little lazy with their training

perhaps a roommate just understand kyoshi is a neat freak. that or any neighbors

some casual dates. maybe potentially a long term sip though that would take more plotting. kyoshi is canonically bisexual

someone she butts heads with. kyoshi is stubborn, so this doesn't even have to be about anything big or could be someone more in a position of power than her because kyoshi straight up does not give a shit about people's positions of authority.

give her some criminals to hang out with. they spent the whole first book with a gang it would be fun for kyoshi to do it some more. she does consider justice important, but her moral lines are more like hurting innocent people not the actual law.

any sorts of friendships. kyoshi is actually kidna soft and easy to bully if she actually likes you, you just have to get to that point first.

[lassieposting]

Tell us about Lucifer’s depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and past abuse. I mean I can see the self harm, both the obvious In cutting off his wings and the like as well as the unhealthy self medicating, and the abuse - which honestly comes across as a murky gray area, like some verges on abuse but isn’t quite- but the other things... I need them pointed out to me.

GLADLY, ANON

okay so, to cover my ass: this is just my personal take as someone with trauma & suicidal ideation who self-harms. other people with different trauma and different relationships with self-harm/suicidal ideation might see this whole thing completely differently. This post could be triggering, please pay attention to the triggers in the tags. I am not a professional psychiatrist, and if you are struggling please seek professional help. 

i’m gonna break this down into sections bc, surprise surprise, it got rly long

THE ABUSE:

Now, you’re absolutely right that this is kind of a murky grey area, because at this point we really only have one side of the story: Lucifer’s. And obviously, he’s biased. 

the family dynamics:

But let’s take a look at the family dynamics we see in-show. We’ve only seen a fraction of Lucifer’s family, but it’s still fairly obvious that the ways they interact with one another are unhealthy and tend towards abusive, especially when aimed at Lucifer. 

We have Amenadiel, who: 

Is obedient to his Dad on an almost brainwashed level until he falls. 

Blames everything - including his own actions/failures (i.e. saying Malcolm killing humans is Lucifer’s fault, even though Amenadiel himself raised Malcolm from Hell) on Lucifer.

Does not know how to respond to affection or praise, even though he clearly appreciates and enjoys them (i.e. when Trixie hugs him and says she thinks he’s good). This is the son who’s in God’s good books. And he still clearly doesn’t receive affection or praise often. 

Openly competes with Lucifer for Dad’s attention/love, to the point of rubbing it in his face when he discovers he’s the favourite

Is complicit in Lucifer’s abuse - taking him back to Hell (thereby isolating him), threatening him when he doesn’t want to go, and cutting off any attempt Lucifer makes at reaching out to connect with humanity - for billions of years to try and win his Dad’s approval. 

Straight up tries to have Lucifer killed.

Says he’d love to go to war (with Lucifer, and presumably with Hell as a whole). 

We have Uriel, who:

Takes it upon himself to enforce what he believes is his Dad’s will; he had no instructions from God when he came to Earth. 

Delights in getting the opportunity to beat up Amenadiel, and gloats about it. 

Threatens - and harms - the first good thing Lucifer has had in his life in eons as a way of bullying him into doing what Uriel wants.

When Lucifer complies, Uriel decides to kill both Goddess and Chloe, purely out of spite because Lucifer was “being difficult”.

(There is an interesting meta here on Uriel’s potential motivations that I really like, but this is looking purely at his actions.)

And we have Goddess, their mother, easily the most manipulative and emotionally abusive of the lot. She:

Admits to destroying things God cared about - attacking humanity with plagues and floods etc - out of malice and to get his attention. 

Happily releases Azrael’s blade into human hands, hoping for widespread human deaths, to get her ex to get back in touch. 

Plays Lucifer and Amenadiel off against one another like a pro for her approval. 

Only ever touches her children when she’s trying to manipulate them - there’s a good meta on that here. The one exception to this that I personally believe to be a genuine attempt to comfort (both him and herself) is when she hugs Lucifer after he’s just killed Uriel. 

Doesn’t actually care about what Lucifer wants - he’s told her outright that Earth is the only place where he feels wanted and respected, and she knows he has a life he enjoys and a woman he’s falling in love with, but she expects him to abandon Earth and go back to the Silver City with her regardless - to the point that she actively tries to dismantle his human life and kill his loved ones to leave him with no ties to Earth. 

The picture this paints to me is of two incredibly narcissistic parents who see their children as extensions of themselves rather than as people in their own right. If you compare Lucifer - who’s an asshole, but fundamentally a good man - to his siblings here, you can see that the two who stayed in Heaven have caught fleas from their parents - and part of Amenadiel’s redemption arc is him realising how toxic and damaging his family is, giving himself a damn good flea bath, and doing his best to be a better big brother to Lucifer and a better son to his mom (and, later, a better father to Charlie than his Dad was to him). 

angel life cycle

So apparently in canon, angels were created as adults. My personal headcanon is fuck that, baby angels, but we’ll go with the canon explanation for this, because honestly it still lines up with my theory. 

Even if you’re “born” with a mature adult body and adult-level speech ability etc, you still won’t have an adult’s wealth of life experience, or maturity, or social skills. You’re still going to have to grow and learn and experience situations to learn how to cope with them. 

Now, Tom Ellis has said in the past that he plays Lucifer as essentially having the emotional maturity level of a teenager, which I think is honestly perfect. For an immortal being - or at least a being with a lifespan of many, many billions of years - it’s actually fairly believable that the angels are (depending on the age gap between them) either still in the “adolescent” life stage or emerging into the “young adult” one. 

Lucifer says that he’s spent “most of his life” in Hell. If he’s only a young adult now, at ~11 billion years old, that means he’d have been a juvenile (in terms of life experience/emotional development, even if he was “born” with a fully mature adult body) when he was sent to Hell, and the reason he was sent to Hell is because he wanted free will and started “acting out”. 

Even if your 12-year-old is the most unpleasant, rebellious little shithead on the planet, you don’t kick him out of the house and spent the next decade sabotaging every attempt he makes to connect with people or improve his life. Because, you know. That’s your kid. You signed up to have him, that’s normal shitty teenager behaviour, and the chances are he’ll improve with age. God and Goddess went scorched earth on Lucifer because he was behaving in a completely normal way for a kid beginning to mature into a grownup. 

lasting trauma

Lucifer’s parents’ treatment has left some crazy deep scars. 

He uses a neglectful broken home as an analogy for his celestial family. And he does so incredibly smoothly; this is clearly an analogy he’s thought about before. Chances are he’s seen this dynamic on TV and identified very strongly with it. 

He talks about his mother abandoning him as his “lowest point”.  Not his Fall. Not any of the horrific things he’s seen in Hell. The point where he realised his mom doesn’t love him enough to protect him. 

He doesn’t understand what he did wrong. God punished Lucifer harshly for wanting to control his own life, because narcs often see their children’s developing independence as a threat to their own control over their kids’ lives. Obviously He wouldn’t see it like that, but he’s clearly never explained to Lucifer why what he did was “wrong”. This family has a chronic communication problem. 

He’s paranoid as fuck. He constantly suspects God of having a hand in the events happening around him, and any time it seems He is involved, Lucifer immediately sees whatever’s happening as an attempted manipulation. It never occurs to him that creating Chloe - someone immune to his powers who can really love him without any kind of supernatural influence - could be an olive branch or an attempt to give him what he actually needs. He doesn’t believe his Dad would ever do something positive to/for him. 

He’s so badly traumatized by his childhood that he reacts like this to being called by the name his Dad gave him. And he’s clearly doing well in therapy - he might not know the word for it, but he knows he’s being (unintentionally) gaslit here. He doesn’t handle it well, but he doesn’t put up with it either, refuses to accept being told to see his Dad’s abuse as a sign of love. 

He believes he’s unloveable. When Linda gently suggests that maybe Chloe kissed him purely because she likes him, he tells her that’s impossible and reminds her his powers don’t work on Chloe. He doesn’t think there’s any way someone could love him for who he is, unless he’s either giving them something or using his mojo on them. And it’s his family that’s conditioned him to think that way - look at Amenadiel alone, how many times he tells Lucifer he’s evil throughout the show, as casually as if he were telling him that his hair is brown. This is just a fact of the universe in that family: water is wet, leaves are green, Lucifer is irredeemable garbage. 

He doesn’t for a second hesitate to believe that his Dad wanted to kill him. Or that he would kill him given the opportunity. He even thinks Chloe is his dad’s attempt to get him killed for a bit. 

THE SELF HARM

the wings: 

The blatantly obvious one - and the most deliberate - is when he cuts off his wings. Now when Lucifer talks about this, he frames it as him taking back agency over his own life, freeing himself from his Father’s control, and making a statement about his intention to stay on Earth. 

But when you look at him, he doesn’t look victorious, or like he’s looking forward to starting a new life. Physical pain aside - and an amateur amputation would be agonizing - he looks almost like he’s grieving, gritting his teeth through something he feels he has no choice but to do. 

Someone did a fantastic meta that I thought I’d reblogged at some point that says something like “this isn’t the devil in his moment of triumph against god; this is an abused boy mutilating himself to spite his father”. I wanted to link it, but I haven’t been able to find it again (if anyone finds it, please let me know so I can add a link).  

the self-medicating:

I don’t think he realises this is a form of self-harm, and I don’t think he does it to hurt himself deliberately. But he comes to Earth to overindulge in all the things he can’t have in Hell, all the things he’s been cut off from. 

Touch and affection, which he gets through sex. Oblivion, which he gets by drinking. Euphoria, which he gets from drugs. Socialisation, which he gets from being surrounded by people at all times and partying it up 24/7.

It doesn’t matter to him that the touch is from a stranger, it doesn’t matter that the affection only lasts one night, it’s something and that’s more than he’s getting in Hell. He buries himself in those things to forget that he has to go back. He can bury himself in the next line or the next shot or the next attractive body and, just for a little bit, he can forget who he is.

Sending Lucifer to Hell in and of itself is cruel. Angels are clearly social creatures, and he’s been in solitary isolation for billions of years - it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone insane. Yes, he has the demons, but they don’t interact with him by choice and he’s not safe with them. Hell denies Lucifer everything a young person needs to grow into a stable, healthy adult. 

the self-sabotage:

We also see that he’s got a tendency to sabotage himself when he’s on a downward spiral. This usually comes out one of two ways - either:  

He tries to chase away the people who care about him. This comes from being so terrified of being abandoned and rejected again that he’d rather run them off himself than wait for them to inevitably (in his mind) decide that he’s Not Worth It and leave him. For example: 

He tries to push Linda away when he’s grieving after killing Uriel. 

He punches Dan in the face and gets himself thrown off the case by Chloe - she’s already warned him she would bench him if he didn’t pull himself together. 

He throws Chloe’s initial rejection in her face when he’s on his self-hatred bender in S4. 

He’s absolutely vicious to Amenadiel in this scene, when Amenadiel is trying to communicate that he loves Luci and wants to support him. 

Or he talks shit about himself. You can always tell when he’s having a bad time; he’ll start coming out with shit like, “I’m the devil, remember, I’m evil.” His real view of himself will slip out from under the mask of confidence and vanity. Chloe cuts right to the heart of this in S4; he’s been told so many times that he’s responsible for all evil that he now believes it. He blames himself, even as he vehemently denies having ever made anyone do anything. 

THE SUICIDAL IDEATION:

Jesus fuck, it’s a good thing Lucifer is in therapy. 

The first time we see him actively attempt suicide is in 1x13 when he’s being framed for shooting the street preacher. It’s a case of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” here - he’s been having a really rough time lately:

Groups of zealots are cornering him in the street accusing him of murders he didn’t commit 

Being accused of things he didn’t do is already a trigger for him

His own brother tried to have him assassinated.

His bodyguard and oldest friend betrayed him.

He’s just found out the detective makes him vulnerable. 

He knows Dan - and therefore probably other work colleagues as well - think he’s got something to do with the satanic murders. 

And now Chloe is turning her gun - and apparently her back - on him. She’s no different from anyone else. He was stupid to ever trust her, etc, etc, and now he’s spiralling.

She was the last rock keeping his head above the ocean at this point, and when she goes to arrest him, he goes under. We see that mania come out very quickly; he starts laughing hysterically and tries to goad an inexperienced uni into shooting him. He pretends to have a gun, knowing the cop will fear for his life and instinctively shoot. Since Chloe’s right there at the time, and he now knows he can be hurt around her, that’s attempted suicide. He wants to die. He even admits to Amenadiel he was trying to achieve “a good death…or at least a nice and messy one.”

No one ever addresses this bloody hell why

And then there’s the case with the shooter in the hospital. Lucifer’s grieving Uriel at this point, and he’s up to his eyeballs in self-loathing. He killed his brother. He really is the monster everyone believes he is. He’s spent the entire episode up to this point trying to make people punish him. He’s riled up Chloe at a crime scene and she’s told him off. He’s punched Dan, and Dan didn’t retaliate. He turned down Linda’s offer of continued therapy in a way that’s almost a challenge; he wants her to snap back at him. And when none of these little punishments are enough for him, he escalates and escalates and eventually he steps in front of the sniper’s intended victim and, again, goads him to shoot. He goes a bit further this time, though; he outright begs the sniper to shoot him, and reams the guy out when he says he didn’t think Lucifer deserved it. 

Again, he knows Chloe is there. This is a suicide attempt. He even admits to Chloe that he didn’t care about the intended victim, he was just trying to get himself killed. She doesn’t believe him. And it’s never addressed again, and I’m salty. 

Anyway I hope this clarifies some stuff for you anon? and I’m sorry it took so long to finish I rewrote this so many times for Maximum Sensitivity and kept including stuff and taking stuff out and it got SO LONG and i had to condense it and i have A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY I HAD A LOT TO SAY

[fakemuggle529-blog]

"HARRY DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE?!?!"

I could go on for days about the differences between the HP books and the movies (just ask my wife). 7 books, 8 movies, 4 directors, 2 screenplay writers, a myriad of actors or varying levels of talent, but this 1 line haunts every single Harry Potter fan. One comment about this line was "we're never going to get over this, are we?" That one comment sparked this post, which was originally meant to be a list of my least favorite movie moments and why.

But Harry Potter is my favorite subject, and my rant about this became a separate post to answer that rhetorical question.

Simply put, no, we're not going to get over it. But why won't we?

As with any adaptation, since the world isn't ready for a 10 hour movie based on 1 book, bits and pieces of the Harry Potter books needed to be cut out. (I'd be down for that movie, but I digress)

Things like the Draco/Pansy romance, Rita Skeeter being an unregistered Animagus, or winning the Quidditch cup ultimately don't have an impact on the plot of "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends," so they can get cut pretty easily.

Even things like the Marauders' full moon adventures and creation of the Map, Umbridge setting the dementors on Harry, and Neville's parents' fate are secondary material, meant to give more weight to the main story:

- The world would still be in mortal danger without four teenagers creating a map of their school, but that map helped stop that danger;

- Umbridge would still be a cruel bitch if we hadn't known she sent the dementors, but that tidbit show her own demented state of mind and how far she'll go to get what she wants.

- and we'd still want Voldemort dead even if we'd never heard of Neville Longbottom, because we've seen the impact he had on Harry. The info about the Longbottoms just gives more depth to the characters involved.

But regardless of what they left out, the basics stayed the same: "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends" continued, except the written version had more information than the visual. The fans already knew what was missing, so our brains filled it in for us. And leaving out that bit of info for the adaptation process allowed people who hadn't read the books to know what was going on and how the information fit together, even if they had less information than the fans.

(I think of the miniseries Chernobyl, when the general asks how a nuclear reactor works. He gets a bare bones explanation, and can parrot it back to his subordinates later. He might not me able to do the math or understand all of the technical jargon, but that simple explanation has given him enough info to get things going.)

As the movies progressed, we saw more and more get left out since the books only got longer, or more in depth, or both which each new addition, but no matter what, that skeleton was still there, "evil wizard finds path to immortality, boy wizard must stop him with the help of his friends." And the 'friends' part was even more accurate with supporting characters!

Hermione was the nerd from the books, Ron was the goofy best friend, Neville was the underdog, Draco was the bully!

Every single character was fitting their book counterparts perfectly, they just couldn't be as in depth in this medium!

Lucius was the oily bastard you knew he was, Sirius was the Godfather who wanted to be there but couldn't, Bellatrix was the psychotic fanatic who'd do anything to earn Voldemort's praise, Dumbledo--

And that's where the similarities stop.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a lot of things: he's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot (the Wizard High Court), honoree of the highest medal of Honor possible for Wizards, one of the most notable contributors to the field of alchemy, and from what I understand a PHENOMENAL dancer.

He's human, and fallible like any other human, but he is definitely not stupid.

Just in book 1, before Ms. Rowling had even gotten into her stride as a storyteller, we see Dumbledore:

Send Harry to the safest place possible; watch over him as much as possible; send updated owls to Harry with every change of address; send Hagrid as the most friendly way to introduce Harry to his true world; Send Harry the invisibility cloak as a connection to his dad; say that he 'doesn't need a cloak to become invisible;' RETURN the cloak after Harry lost it; and turned around on his trip to London on some intuition, barely managing to save Harry's life.

While he might not be the warmest of people, probably due to a tendency to think too deeply, Dumbledore shows the strongest of power when he needs to fight, the quickest of words when he needs to talk, and what seems to be a clear sense of right and wrong (the waters get a little murky with that last one, but he stands up for what he sees is wrong, regardless of what he thought at 18), and a calm dignity, even while getting his feathers ruffled.

And that's exactly why this gets under our skin so much.

As fans of the books, we see Dumbledore do it all, in great detail. Even that infamous line is ended with "he asked CALMLY" (All Caps is my addition). We see Dumbledore:

-sit next to an 11-year old who nearly died recently and promise to some day tell him about the first time he nearly died as an infant AT THE HANDS OF THE SAME GUY... Calmly, because this is a conversation he's been dreading for years, so he's prepared.

- hire a clear fraud just to fill his staff; have two 12-year olds crash an illegal flying car into a living tree AND talk down the teacher that wanted to skin them alive; deal with an unknown threat that was attempting to kill his students; get forcibly removed from the school, only return ready to console grieving parents AND watch the same 12 year olds from earlier emerge from an unfindable chamber WITH the 11 year old who was thought to be dead....calmly, because he's lost loved ones, and he knows what it is to grieve.

- Hire a werewolf; keep that a secret from his students, their parents, and maybe even the government; and have two 13 year olds illegally time travel to save an animal an a convicted felon...calmly, because an innocent man's life is important.

- Host a death tournament specially designed to 'not kill;' and slowly watch a plot to revive to worst wizard ever unfold before his eyes....calmly, because he didn't have all of the information yet.

- Get slandered by the entirety of the government, and forcibly removed from his position in the Courts; have a government spy forced onto his staff; purposefully pissed her off; evade arrest and go on the lam...calmly, because he knows he's right, and the truth will out. THEN come back, fight every Death Eater in the ministry, fight Voldemort, convince the government not to arrest him, then talk Harry through his Godfather's death....calmly, because he knows he messed up, he even says that Harry show be so much angrier, and 'please, by all means, destroy my possessions'.

- Find out he's dying; find out there's a hit on him; recruit an old colleague, and use Harry as a means to reveal a crucial part of Voldemort's past, which he's been teaching to Harry all year; find a horcrux as well as pass on as much info about them as possible; AND get psychologically tortured mere moments before being murdered....

- AND, postmortem, we find out that Dumbledore has been playing pretty much everybody, but especially Harry....calmly, because for once, it really was "the greater good."

But he was fun loving too, maybe childishly so due to the fact that he had to grow up so fast.

- Some of His first words after Harry starts school are, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! And tweak!"

- He did what was best for the school AND Firenze by hiring the centaur, but he clearly enjoyed shoving it in Umbridge's face.

- and let's not forget the night he picked Harry up front Privet Drive. He obviously made those glasses hit the Dursleys as some small payback for how they treated Harry.

That's Dumbledore. Serious, wise, and seriously wise, with a penchant for mischief.

The movie Dumbledore gave none of that, especially with that terrible, terrible reading of that line.

That one line changed the entire character of Albus Dumbledore. Instead of the cool, calm, and collected man he always was, he lost control. In front of his foreign and governmental guests nonetheless. That would never happen to Dumbledore. He's seen the signs, and can tell something is up. That's WHY he hired "Mad-Eye."

Even that stupid Christmas scene added to the HBP movie, as much as I freaking HATE it, doesn't CHANGE anything. The Death Eaters attack and for some reason burn the house down. Boo hoo. Nobody gets hurt, nobody dies, the house is back to normal the next movie. No big deal. They just wanted to add to the drama some, instead of the usual deduction from the cuts.

This change is why we hate SO many other adaptations, or "cuts" as they call them.

-Those of us who are old enough to remember will freaking riot over the "Han shot first" argument, because we knew that there was no way in hell Han would sit and let Greedo take a shot at him, ESPECIALLY since they freaking showed it first, then changed it later.

-It's why we all hate M. Night. Shyamalan's fucking guts, because he took the single greatest cartoon masterpiece ever created, and tried to make it better. The one scene that sticks out to me is when they're trying to escape the earth-bending prison camp. First, they had to be removed from the land entirely, or their pride would cause a rebellion instantly; second, 6 benders did what we see Toph do her first lesson as a blind toddler. Unlike Lucas, Shyamalan wasn't trying to appease anyone. He just wanted a name for himself, so he decided to take on the most popular cartoon ever. Pass or fail, he has that fame now.

Some of the fault might lie with the director, or possibly even the actor himself. Michael Gambon is a respected actor, and probably had a sense for how the character would play, even if that sense might not have been based in the books. Couple that with multiple directors by this point, multiple actors having playing Dumbledore, and the books still gradually coming out, and the information and range for the character of Dumbledore might have been quite limited.

And let's not forget those cuts that needed to be made. With a shorter story comes a need to get the information across faster.

Instead of mulling it over for a moment while the rest of the group argues (and probably for a good year or so by this point), and calmly asking Harry if he entered himself in the tournament, the quick explosion both saves time by cutting the opening argument AND gives the audience a cue for suspense. They know something is wrong NOW, and they don't know what, but they'll find out as the people on screen do.

Personally, I believe that this system can be broken by a rather simple solution: TV show.

Instead of one movie, each book gets one Season, and every couple chapters or so gets an episode. I foresee problems as we get to the later books as opposed to the early one, since they start getting thick AF with GoF.

But I think the pros outweigh the cons.

-The locations for HP are actually incredibly limited. They pretty much go back and forth between the same dozen locations all seven books, so you could make sets to switch out whenever needed, and just reuse the exact same sets for seven straight years, with little to no change in between.

- We have all of the books now, and then some, and then some extra BS on top of that, and the plethora of headcanon out there, so we have more than enough information for every single thing about this place, excluding literal physical dimensions. Find a kid who looks like Harry, another actor who can flawlessly pull off Snape, and some old guy who wants to be goofy sometimes, and you've got gold.

- We could actually include the minor characters too. Peeves could pop in and out every few episodes, Dobby can play the role he was meant for, Kreacher can exist as more than 3 lines. The vanishing cabinet could actually be introduced in year 2, then addressed in Year 5, then revealed properly in year 6. Moaning Myrtle has her scenes, Bill Weasley has his, Tonks could be the most important female character besides Hermione or Ginny.....

Anyway, you get the picture. This whole thing was inspired by one comment, and I've been working on this for almost 6 hours now. Pretty sure I've worked harder in this post than any papers in high school...

Hollywood, if by some miracle you see this, I'll totally be a screen writer for the Harry Potter TV show. In the meantime, goodnight.