#its good music but the STORY OF JUST THE ALTERED BEAST IS NEAT AS HELL

[sluckythewizard]

The Altered Beast[FULL SUITE] COULD be arthur bennett or adjacent to whatever hes got going on in tha finale. if ur brave enough. IF UR BRAVE ENOUGH [tldr its just about Things eating Things and becoming New Terrible Things. it also fucking jams]

[0poole]

Harry Potter!

Finished rewatching all of the movies. I must confess, I am a movie plebian. I haven’t read any of the books yet. Call me when the solar flare that destroys and erases all electronics and data finally comes. I’ll probably be reading it then. Probably.

Anyways, I love what I’ve experienced of the franchise so far regardless. The whole story is so fantastical and fun, interspersed with pretty real dangers that come about through magic. That, I think, is the one thing all kinds of fiction should adhere to: If your world has weird logic, the conflict should be somehow based in that weird logic, instead of being somehow parallel to something more normal/real. That’s probably why people hate the Star Wars prequels; too much politics, not enough lightsabers. 

Seriously, though. Practically all things derived from Harry Potter are great. The movies, the music, ESPECIALLY the video games (or the first three, to be exact.) Also, the one perk of living in Florida is being able to go to the theme park. It’s nice and all seeing a made up setting presented to you on a screen, but to actually be there, walking around the world? It’s nuts. Even the Fantastic Beast series isn’t perfect, but still very alright at worst. I’m really just going to have to piece together my thoughts to organize them all.

The Movies:

They say dumbing down an experience and presenting it to an audience in a neat little package is a bad thing, but really... The movies are extremely good. I do prefer the style of the first two, where everything seemed more light and charming. Of course, it was about the third movie when Harry realized that the world wasn’t as bright and shiny as the first two years led him to believe, so it’s fair his take on things would be altered. I just wish it wasn’t so consistently, you know... dark blue and cloudy. I mean, I get that it’s England and all, but it’s fantasy.

Either way, I guess I’ll have to put all of the emotions that I probably would’ve experienced anyway if I read the books first here. The absolute best part about the series is the characters. I’ve already gushed about how Hagrid is the absolute most wholesome character in all of fiction. Another seriously good one is Mrs. McGonagall, who comes off as the serious, “do your homework!” type at the beginning, but by the end becomes a super charming and genuine person. In the last movie, her line “I’ve always wanted to use that spell!” Is so cute. I mean, you really can’t name a non-charming character in the whole series. The entire Wealsey family is insanely lovable. The Malfoys are supreme assholes at the beginning, but seem to slowly turn for the better as things get super dark. 

Obviously the major deaths are so major because of how much you loved the characters. Dumbledore was definitely the type to realize when he must die, but seeing the serious amount of respect people had for him it just makes you choke up. Dobby’s death destroys anyone with a heart, because he died swinging. Snape as a whole is such an amazing and fun character to just watch exist, despite being so dark and brooding all the time. I’m sure his death the first time around was sort of confusing, until we got to see his memories, at whichpoint you’d be dried up in your seat due to dehydration. I wasn’t exactly emotionally mature when I first saw it so I have no major memory of how I felt, although I definitely feel it now. Considering how pure the Weasley family was, Fred’s death was also super heartbreaking, mainly because the twins were nothing but joy even in the worst of times. Even the brief cut-away to Lupin’s body got you. And, that’s only in the Deathly Hallows movies... What about Sirius? Hell, even seeing Hagrid caring so much for Aragog makes you feel bad. It’s a serious testament to how good these characters are. 

The music has become so impossibly iconic too. That’s what you get when you get John Williams. I’ll tell ya, I couldn’t sing you any non-soundtrack song from the past few years of movies I watched. Sure, the music did them good I guess, but they never felt like actual songs you wanted to listen to. If you played anyone the soundtracks to the first two movies, they could identify what they’re from in the first two notes minimum. It’s so great. I’d kill to have movies do this again. I mean, you can always go for more good music. 

The Games:

The year is, I dunno... any year before like 2010. A kid’s movie comes out, and BANG there’s a game for it. “Oh, I like the movie. Maybe I’ll like the game?” No. No you won’t. That’s not how it works. If you’re lucky you’ll have some nostalgic memories from it, and hell maybe that’s the reason why I think the Harry Potter games are so damn GOOD. 

Seriously, how did this happen? The games (or, as I said, mainly the first three and that Quidditch one) are so fun on their own, regardless of the movies. I have fond memories of the first, but the Chamber of Secrets on PC is where most of my love lies. God, I’ve been listening to the music the whole time while writing this and it’s so perfectly ingrained into my mind. Like the movie, the themes are so wild and singable. Even the fucking GBA game planted its seed into my memory, despite me only getting like 10% of the way through it. It had its own soundtrack apart from the PC games too, and didn’t even try to recreate the music from them. They literally wrote new music for their shitty cashgrab game. It’s so good.

Plus, the games seem to include stuff that wasn’t even hinted at in the movies. Remember when Harry used Spongify to bounce up to different parts of the castle in the movies? Or used Skurge to remove some stray ghostly ectoplasm? No. That’s only in the games. More importantly, can we talk about Quidditch? The game, but also as a whole?

Harry Potter really made me realize that I LOVE fictional sports. Like what I said with the conflict of a fictional story, having a sport built upon the weird logic of a world is just as, if not more, interesting. Even though the rules of Quidditch are absolute BS (seems like nothing but the Snitch matters) just watching it is so fun and interesting. You’d think that brooms would exclusively be transport, but OF COURSE they’d use them for sport at some point. Toss in a few magical balls, and boom--- you’ve got something some wizards would love to watch. The verticality of the field is easily what makes it so much cooler, since it would obviously require so much more space, and to any unaware observer, just seeing the field would show that nothing normal is played there. If they ever release a movie that’s just another generic sports movie with all the expected twists and turns, except the sport in question is Quidditch, I’d watch the shit out of that.

In the meantime, we have a Qudditch video game. Again, another original soundtrack, and apparently an anthem for each world team? God, really? You did all that? Anyway, from what I remember, the game isn’t too hard, but I’ll have to find it again and try to shoot for the big leagues to see if they step it up. About the world teams, though: they’re the absolute best part. You play basically college-level Qudditch against the houses for a while, but then you see how big the game actually is around the world, not only being able to play as a worldly team, but in a worldly stadium as well. Someone had to design a stadium, style, animations... for each team. That’s nuts. 

So much effort was put into the first few Harry Potter games, it’s shocking. Sucks that, as far as I remember, they basically slowly turned into wizard FPSs after that. I kind of remember liking the fourth one a bit, but I’ll need to find it again. I lost that stupid little disc holder thing with all the nostalgia-filled games I loved on it. The day I find it is going to be one hell of a day.

The Wizarding World:

The curse of being so damn amazing is people swarming to it and ruining the experience just by overcrowding. Either way, the place was actually amazing. I’m a sucker for any real-life place that tries to mimic a very fantastical setting. That’s really the reason why I prefer Universal as a whole to Disney, since it feels much more like you’re stepping into a different world. Kind of helps to distract you from the BS prices and tourist pandering. 

I mean, There’s not much to say apart from it looking cool. The rides are good, I guess. It’s weird, when we got there my mom was like “We HAVE to try Butterbeer” and, to be honest, I’m struggling to think of an actual drink more disgusting sounding than “Butterbeer” that isn’t just insect guts or something. I’ve never had the slightest inclination to try normal beer at any point, and I can sure as hell say that suggesting that someone putting butter in it makes it so much worse. I don’t know why, butter and beer just feel like they shouldn’t go together. Hell, maybe they don’t even use butter. I know at Universal, at least, it’s not actual beer, since kids would surely want to try it, but the concept just feels really disgusting.

That rant aside, here’s the valuable knowledge: I’d have to say that I’d be a Hufflepuff. In my more Incel-ular days I thought I’d be a Ravenclaw, since they smart and all, but really I feel more of a Hufflepuff. That’s not even decided by a web quiz. I just think that I’d chose to be a background character above all else. I pretty much am, anyway. Not that that’s bad, I’m just, you know... in the background. Plus, I’m assuming they’re the more artsy of the four houses. Really, I don’t know exactly what it stands for. “Talent?” What the hell is that supposed to mean?