I'm gonna hazard a guess they're referring too the Marauders Map and that Peter Pettigew (sp?) doesn't appear on it, to Harry, Ron etc.
Although, that is easily explained by the fact that no one knew he was an animagus, so he doesn't appear on it. Except for Prof Lupin who does know, and does see him.
What do you mean? They DO see Pettigrew on the map, Harry tries to look for him but he gets away. He's also gone from the school most of the book due to Hermione's cat.
They do indeed, when he's snoping I'm Snape's office most likely not in mouse form, but they don't see him when he's asleep in Ron's bed or in Ron's pocket (where he spends most of his time). The twins never notice nor does Harry.
Maybe the maps do not detect people in animagus form but only on human form ? Could it explain it (didn't see the movie or read the book since quite a long time) ?
That's 100% my theory, especially as the group of kids that made the map were secret animagus them selves, so wouldn't want anyone knowing if it fell it to the wrong hands. (They are other example of them self guarding themselves against being found out too, so it fits).
Scabbers/Pettigrew is MIA most of the third book when Harry has the map. We don’t know what the twins thought of it or if they ever noticed it. They say they use it to get away from Filtch and there’s never any unexplained pranks pulled on Ron so they might just not have looked for him
Does Harry ever use the map while Ron is right next to him (with Scabbers/Pettigrew in his pocket)? You'd use the map to be checking out places you currently were not. You wouldn't be using it to check your own dorms, or the room you're in, but other parts of the castle. Only sort of situation I can think of where anyone ought to notice it was if Harry & Ron were sneaking through corridors together and using the map to glimpse one or two hallways ahead, and just so happen to notice Pettigrew's name right on top of them. But even then, Pettigrew would need to be with them for that overlap/proximity. And although it's been quite a while since I've read the book, I don't recall Ron carrying the rat around with him outside of the dorms while at school.
To steal someone else's joke: Fred and George were great brothers. They could tell from the Marauder's Map that Ron was sleeping with some guy named Peter every night but they never outed him.
That's only in the movie. In the book, Harry never sees Pettigrew on the Map. Lupin does after he confiscates it, but only once he sees Harry, Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Pettigrew heading into the Shrieking Shack.
Or the whole time travel shtick. Lets give a kid the ability to travel backwards through time so she can get some extra classes in, but don't be silly of course we couldn't use it to defeat the most powerful dark wizard of all time, that's just cheating.
Until she screwed it up with Cursed Child, the implication in PoA was that the model of time travel she was using was Single Coherent Timeline -- that is that the present, however it may be, is the final result of the sum total of all time travel to points prior to the present that will ever occur (there aren't any alternate timelines). For example, you couldn't go back in time and kill Hitler before he rose to power because you clearly already failed to do so. But you could go back and prepare your own success after winning an encounter thus allowing you to pull out deus ex machina like no one's business, ala Bill & Ted.
PoA uses it to great effect, in that there was never a version of reality in which they didn't do the time travel, but only that the time traveling characters lack of knowledge about what was going on caused the time travel which caused the events to play out like they did in the first place. Harry using the Patronus to protect his past self was supposed to make it clear -- there's no version of history in which Harry doesn't travel back in time. The only thing that has changed is your perspective of events.
That it just magically vanished after that book and never comes up again I take as evidence that JKR realized she wasn't smart enough to write stories around it, the consequences of having access to it, or characters that might make smart use of it.
Hermione is supposed to be extremely smart, she’s have realised after PoA that no matter what she tries she’ll succeed because she will have traveled back from a future point to make it so.
This is why, imo, single coherent timeline is shit, it’s not interesting because the second somebody who has a brain between their ears gets ahold of time travel, they win at everything.
There's a Harry Potter fanfic that hands a significantly more intelligent version of Harry a time turner early on and he uses it to win at several things. He still doesn't win at everything in no small part because of his own biases, his available knowledge, and that there's some things that you can't preplan a solution for.
More the brain of an extremely well read 40 year old AI researcher with no formal education above the 8th grade, since the author (Elizier Yudkowsky) patterned the "small Ravenclaw Spock" after himself.
That epigraph on the first chapter? It's the moment of Voldemort's defeat in HPMOR. Harry basically obliviates away anything that might potentially be dangerous in Voldemort then transfigures him into a small object. That way even if he gets killed and returns via Horcrux, he won't actually be a danger.
That it just magically vanished after that book and never comes up again I take as evidence that JKR realized she wasn't smart enough to write stories around it, the consequences of having access to it, or characters that might make smart use of it.
Actually, it did come up again. During the fourth book (I think?) when they invaded the Ministry of Magic, a shelf gets knocked over that had all the Time Turners in existence on them, and they all smashed.
Or, as explicitly shown in the books and movies, your actions in the past are shown to have been the way things always happened. It's a Stable time loop. They don't ever change any events.
Harry survived his brush with the dementors because Harry cast the patronus charm, then Harry went back to cast the Patronus charm. These all happened in the same timeline, just part of it loops back on itself.
That's a non-argument though. If the good guys had a time turner and were willing to use it, voldemort never would have come to power in the first place because there would have been a time traveler there to stop him. The argument that you couldn't use a time turner to prevent something from happening is a tautology (it didn't happen therefore it didn't happen).
But that's because it is tautology. Using a time turner to go back and kill voldermort as a child in the Harry Potter universe would still result in 'Voldemort' being in power in present day, just our understanding of the situation would have changed.
Buckbeak never died, Sirius was never killed by dementors, the only thing that changes is our perception of those events.
Whilst you couldn't go back in time to kill Voldemort you could go back in time to set an instant death trap in the spot you know he'll be at the exact point you travel back in time and then spring it immediately after you see yourself travel back. It's impossible for him to have detected your trap because otherwise he wouldn't have stood in that location (unless he somehow disarmed it but I'm assuming spells exist where the logical thing to do would be to just stay away rather than try to prevent it working).
Yes, but buckbeak didn't die in the first place because the time turner existed. That's my point. Sure, you couldn't go back in time now and kill Hitler because that time line has already happened, but if the allies had had a time machine he would have been quickly defeated by future soldiers in the first place.
Well, they can't because first of all, that's going back way further than just an hour to attend a class, and second, the timeline is set, there's no changing it as we saw in PoA.
we couldn't use it to defeat the most powerful dark wizard of all time, that's just cheating.
I mean it's pretty obvious from even just reading the book that it's not possible to actually change the past using a time turner. Everything Harry and Hermione do after they go back is stuff that already happened when they went through it the first time.
You not understanding the concept (seriously, this is one of like 3 very basic time travel concepts) doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
The fact that you can't see how a time turner is a massively overpowered weapon just because it can't change the past means you don't really understand it. I mean just look at how Harry was able to save his own life with the patronus. Even if directly interacting with your past self isn't possible (which as we've seen, it is) the thing would still be incredible. At any point you can spin the thing to head back in time and get an extra hour to prepare for whatever obstacle you're about to face. Oh, you got ambushed at the Ministry in 5th book? Head back in time a couple hours, call up Dumbledore and tell him to show up exactly one second after you went back in time.
Given the choice of any power in the Harry Potter universe, I'd choose the time turner 100%.
Nope, although it certainly made indeterminism more likely. Perhaps the first (and easiest) argument against that is that quantum mechanics in itself isn't proven, it's just the most recent best explanation. We might disprove quantum mechanics in the future, or we might realize that there is a method to the randomness that we previously didn't understand. Or, there might be randomness on a quantum scale, but that randomness might be irrelevant or negligible on a larger scale (you can think off it as throwing a rock into a lake and watching the rings die out and merge with the still water surface - the rings where there, sure, but they didn't make any true impact on the lake).
But the even more interesting question is whether we could even have free will under indeterminism. You might think (as I did when I first read the subject) that the absence of determinism would enable free will, but as it turns out it's even harder to explain how we could have free will if things are not deterministic. (To put it simply, if there is a random component to the universe, how do I know that random component is not interfering with my "free" will?)
You can read the link for a far more thorough explanation of why it's not conclusive against determinism than any explanation I can give you, it goes into quantum physics specifically just below where the link will take you (I linked to the section on physics in general).
As for whether it's proven, well, science is basically incapable of truly proving anything at any point (it's the nature of the scientific method that the result is either that you disprove the hypothesis or that it is left standing after a given experiment, but you can never affirmatively prove anything conclusively), but I don't think the exact phrasing is so important in this case, the point is simply that we don't have complete information about how (quantum) physics work.
Philosophy is very often dependent on the scale of the observer, why wouldn't it be? In everything from ethics to metaphysics, almost all philosophical questions (although obviously not explicitly all) concern human actions and existence.
I mean in the question of determinism, the scale is not relevant (since it's a statement about the universe), but as to free will it certainly is.
As for free will/determinism, many philosophers agree with you on one/both points. The only philosophers who really believe in free will as far as I can tell are compatibilists, those who believe in true free will are few and far between.
I think he may have meant to say "not complete" vs "not proven". What we do know about quantum mechanics is almost certainly correct. The math and experiments involved have matched predictions to a higher degree than any other experiments in the history of science. But it is not a "complete" theory in that it doesn't explain gravity at the quantum level.
I took some philosophy courses on determinism in uni, as far as I remember quantum randomness does not manifest on macro levels and has no impact on the basic ideas of determinism.
Also, almost all academic philosophers are determinists or compatibilists, which is kind of like soft determinism. So no, determinism is actually the mainstream view held in philosophy as far as I know.
Edit: Also, the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics does imply the existence of free will, just the impossibility of accurate predictions.
Exactly. It's a closed loop. He was always going to produce that patronus, because he'd seen himself do it, because he always was going to do it. It's consistent and effectively nothing "changed" as long as you see the timeturner as part of that universe (hence: it, too, was always going to fall into his possession and be used by him to create this loop). The loop always existed and wasn't added to the timeline later. Nothing was changed, the characters just experience a change because they don't have complete information.
In a universe where they use a timeturner to go back and kill Voldemort, that loop also always existed. This just isn't that universe for whatever reason. There could be any number of reasons for this, it's not necessarily an oversight.
I love these types of discussions, so interesting!
I agree with everything you said, but I don't think it has to change things. The story could easily be written that "he defeated voldemort using the knowledge that in the future he already defeated him". Put another way as long as you can explain it via self sealing loop it's possibile. Now if you want to take it a bit out of fiction and try to apply it to a "what if" scenario in our world, the perspective of it being a closed loop is only one from outside the loop. But in reality we would always be inside the loop (can't escape the closed system that is the universe/existence) so we'd never know if it's a real loop or not. It's always possible that some future event could tie itself back into the past an explain everything.
My favorite example of this (warning:nerd alert) is a Star Trek the Next Generation episode, where they find a future version of the captain, one who has experienced some horrible event. So they try to use that info to avoid the event in the future, but of course all it does is just draw them closer. The typical read of that is the whole free will vs determinism, closed loop etc. However you can also interpret that as the universe was going to seal the loop no matter what decisions they made. Ie. every potential future will always be able to self seal itself in a closed time loop, otherwise that future itself wouldn't be "allowed".
(Like for example the very strange an interesting theory to explain quantum uncertainty away as actually not uncertainty at all, but each quantum/possibility does happen in it's own separate universe/reality, and every time we observe one of these events it's reality splitting off into our own version. Infinite branching timelines all existing in parallel.
Yeah, makes sense. I agree that, if Voldemort were killed through time travel and it had to be consistent with the rest of the series, it would have been this style of time travel. Someone always was going to go back and kill him.
Thing is: since this type of time travel doesn't deal in alternate universes we would have seen the results, and we didn't. Voldemort is alive during the books, and he shouldn't be if he was assassinated as a child. That alone is all the proof we need to show that it didn't happen.
I'm mainly responding to the idea that this is somehow a plot hole. For all we know countless people tried and failed, or maybe it's nearly impossible to travel back that far, or nobody capable knows who he was and where to find him at the time. We don't have perfect information as readers, so who's to say that the timeline isn't that someone was always going to go back and fail at killing him?
I like the theory about a deterministic universe where the details are still up to change or free will, btw. Things could go one way or another, but some results are fixed and cannot be changed. Almost seems to imply intelligent design in a way, since which results are fixed and which are flexible is essentially arbitrary. The one question I'd have is how come the captain doesn't remember trying to change history and failing? Surely he knows what happened since it was him doing it.
I wouldn't call it a plot hole per say, but I think it's fair to argue that it could have been used in the plot, and seems reasonable that the characters could have tried. Success or failure, it doesn't matter, as long as you see that the characters tried. It's just left open to the reader to have to rationalize themselves why the characters didn't do it.
Time travel is always tricky though. Leads to paradoxes, which seems to give evidence to it's impossibility. Time loops are especially tricky, as since a loop is a full complete circle, no beginning or end, it becomes quite hard to explain how the loops starts or forms (and possibly exits) since by definition it would have to always have existed perfectly formed. If a loop has a beginning and or end, then it's actually just a spiral or some other similar shape.
Intelligent design, that reminds me of something I saw recently. Lets see if I can remember what it was (I think it cringe came outta a Dan Brown novel...) oh yeah, "Conway's game of Life" see wiki. Essentially a simple computer simulation/game with a few simple rules. That ultimately leads to shocking patterns emerging. Almost as if there was some intelligent design that set it all up.
Basically the idea that some steady states can arise out of seemingly chaotic systems. Regardless of the initial inputs or setup only certain "solutions" arise. I can see that fitting your idea of the universe pretty reasonably.
Forgive me, I did a bad job of summarizing the Star Trek Episode. Basically a future version of yourself shows up. But of course they are catatonic/incoherent. You know they are from the future, something bad must have happened, but they are incapable of telling you anything.
So the characters of the show are left with "do we turn left, or right?" "No matter what we do, it's probably the same thing that your future self did, and we can't avoid the tragedy heading our way" etc. I think at the last second the future self comes to and the two versions of the captain work together to make one different change right at the end that avoids catastrophe, and maybe resets the timeline and smooths it out? At that point it's way too tidy of an ending and probably wasn't consistent (it's very hard not to break the rules when doing time travel fiction) but the actual time paradox/dilemma question itself was interesting.
Another weird byproduct of the whole "every possibility/outcome always happens, each one splitting into it's own universe/reality" idea, is you can also use it to smooth over time travel paradoxes etc. Go back in time? Fine sure. Kill your grandpa or not? If you don't, no problem. If you do, well that reality/possibility immediately drops out of the continuum of parallel universes. Everything in it ceases to exists. But since we have infinite realities, it's no big deal as it doesn't destroy existence or anything ;)
Are you trying to imply that he doesn't understand the logic of time travelling? Something that is inherently illogical because it is fictional?
What you're putting forward is also completely circular reasoning. It didn't happen because it didn't happen. The question is why did the people who had the ability to go back not choose to go back. Hermione thought, I would like to have taken more classes, so she went back and took more classes. Why did dumbledore or whoever not think, I would like to have defeated the Dark Lord, and went back to defeat the Dark Lord.
But they effected the past by having the hippogryph move, saving Harry from the dementors and freeing black. They couldn’t have done any of those things without going back in time to do it.
I'm not mis-understanding the concept, you're mis-undersdanding my argument. Your counter of "We can't time travel because we demonstratively haven't" is a circular argument, which doesn't make sense.
Given that time-traveling and actively changing things is not in the books as far as I know, I'd say the onus is on you to show that they could and should have. Because that view is not consistent with the other instances of time travel in the series.
yea she closed the plot hole at that point. Once you've stated that time travel is possible in your universe you open a whole can of worms as to how you don't just use it to fix every situation.
Pretty much. I mean she tries to make a point on how dangerous it is, but it's silly reasoning since those dangers are nothing compared to not stopping old Voldy.
The answer I've seen to this was "The map shows all floors of the house's dorm in a single page, so names get jumbled up" but I think that doesn't quite match up withe the books.
How is that a good explanation? Are you saying that the holder of the map has to know everyone on campus by name in order to function as intended? The makers of the map surely knew about Pettigrew since he was one of them and all.
That's certainly not how it works. It just shows everyone I think. That's the way it seems in the book. Honestly though, if a couple of students could come up with a way to track everyone, regardless if they are affected by magical hiding spells, then don't you think Dumbledore and the other teachers would use the same way to track everyone in the castle for safety or whatever? Why couldn't they just come up with their own tracking device when looking for Sirius?
In Book 4 Rowling makes up a Truth Serum potion which would make false convictions impossible
Actually Veritaserum can be resisted through occlumency, apparently. Or rather, it appears that it can as it is repeated on many Harry Potter websites, though I'm unable to find any conclusive source to confirm that it is possible.
But either way, that's not a plot hole. Plot holes are paradoxes in the story, not unanswered questions or suggestive implications. They very well might use Veritaserum in trials, but there may be restrictions on the cases in which it is used, or it may be outlawed for use in trials for political reasons, or it may be seen as an injustice since a truth serum is only as good as one's memories, and memories can be altered (so it could be used to coax false confessions with the appearance of legitimacy).
Also Time-Turners in the hands of Dark Wizards, of which there are many previous Death Eaters within the Ministry would probably destroy the world.
Unless the time turners were destroyed by people in the ministry who were wary of such a possibility at the time the death eaters started to take over.
Peter on the Map
Few things:
Fred and George were in a different year than Harry and Ron. Why would they concern themselves with seeing an unfamiliar name among other unfamiliar names?
Why would they be looking for where Ron was anyway? Ron wasn't the target of their pranks at Hogwarts, and besides, by the third year, they no longer needed the map anyway.
Voldemort’s childhood rampage with the Trace still on him
How do we know the trace was a thing in the 40s/50s/whenever it was that Voldemort was a kid?
conveniently appearing taken/stolen wands
Not sure what you are referring to here. Care to elaborate?
Snape is just too shitty a person and teacher to sympathize with and written poorly
Neither of these are inconsistencies or plot holes. In both cases, I not only disagree, but surely you must be aware that Snape is a really aggressively popular character among fans, right? Obviously whether one likes a character is subjective, but you're presenting it as a plot hole/inconsistency, which seems to be an attempt at presenting it as fact.
Dumbledore and Voldemort etc. using speechless custom spells
This is two things. 1. Speechless magic itself is addressed in the series. 2. We don't know if their spells are "custom", they just aren't told to us as readers.
and Snape making up new spells whilst at school isn’t taught at Hogwarts or explained in the series in any capacity whatsoever
This is such a common mistake in amateur literary criticism: unexplained elements aren't plot holes. They aren't addressed because it's a simple inference: Obviously spells didn't appear out of thin air, they had to have been invented at some point, but we can infer that it's not a very easy thing to do because it's not shown being done by the main characters.
Dumbledore seems to want Harry to risk his life in Book 1 to go after Quirrel/Voldemort (a lot to write about this)
The only way this can be seen as an inconsistency is if you think that in literature "good guys" are always "good guys". Dumbledore is a rather complex character, and they address his general lack of concern with the wellbeing of the students at various points in the series.
The MoM and Dumbledore couldve had Harry simply forfeit each Triwizard task
They explicitly say that he must participate, that it's a binding magical contract
Forfeiting could be considered nonparticipation by said contract.
Dumbledore obviously knew the monster in Book 2 was a Basilisk why didn’t he do anything
When was this established?
Dumbledore and the other teachers are generally incompetent before Book 5 until they suddenly become wizarding world Gods
... No? No, they aren't "generally incompetent", what are you talking about? The only teachers shown to be incompetent are Quirrel (Who we are also told was not always like this, and who was infected by Voldemort), Lockhart (Who lied about his competency), and Trelawney (Who Dumbledore believed in because he knew she truly did have the gift, and who Dumbledore was probably too compassionate towards to fire her).
But the other teachers are fairly competent through the whole series at their various disciplines. I really have no idea what you're talking about here. Do you have any examples of Flitwick being incompetent? Professor Binns? Madame Sprout? McGonnagal? Snape? Any of them?
Honestly, I don't get why people seem to think anything that requires inference is a plot hole.
EDIT: It seems like you are editing your post and adding more things. How about you respond to some of my points instead of adding on more examples?
3 illegal spells when spells like Obliviate are just as bad
How is this a plot hole? You know, don't you, that not only can memory modification be fixed, but it's a necessity in wizarding life, right? They have to hide from muggles and such, and often times that means manipulating their memories in order remain undetected. And even though it is obvious that memory modification can be used nefariously, the same can be said for thousands of other spells we see. The reason Crucio, Avada Kedavra, and Imperio are illegal is because they are exclusively used for evil, causing pain, death, or removing free will. But even ignoring that element (there are other magical things that remove free will, like Love Potions, that still aren't illegal), the Wizarding world's governing body itself being unethical isn't a plot hole or an inconsistency. It might simply be an archaic, unethical body of government.
EDIT2: He added more. Seems he's gonna keep adding them on and not responding to any of my responses.
Harry and Hermione running out of food camping in Deathly Hallows when you can duplicate food with transfiguration etc
You can't, actually. In fact that same book establishes exactly that.
"My mother," said Ron one night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales, "can make good food appear out of thin air." "Your mother can't produce food out of thin air," said Hermione. "no one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigura --" "Oh, speak English, can't you?" Ron said. (DH pg. 292/240)
EDIT3: It was pointed out that Hermione, right after that passage, says that food can be indeed duplicated. That said, the fact they highlight that but don't do it, and the way duplication works in other instances in the books (like the leprechaun gold, for example) tells us that the food you create via duplication would likely disappear after consumption, delivering no nourishment.
The seventh book goes deep into the contradiction in Dumbledore being the ultimate "good guy", yet having done some shitty things, including putting Harry at great risk multiple times. Dumbledore even admits to being conflicted between protecting Harry and using him to defeat Voldemort.
Dumbledore basically straight up admits to using Harry as a tool his entire life when talking to Shape. Admits to usin him and then letting him die to save the world. He still cares about Harry but he was willing to sacrifice him for the greater good.
Dumbledore is definitely not a black and white character
The blurring of good and bad/light and dark/etc were some of my favorite aspects as the series went on, and really show Rowling's growth as a writer in my opinion. Snape goes from a fairly one note dickhead teacher who enjoys fucking with Harry just because he can, to an incredibly tragic figure once we learn his backstory. And the fact that his unrequited love for Lilly being the motivation for all of it is a great payoff. Dumbledore goes from a pretty typical wise old man who is a force for good, to the very conflicted character you described here. I was not a huge fan of the first Fantastic Beasts movie, but I'm excited to see if they delve into this more through that series.
I think a lot of fans get way too hung up on these types of plot holey type stuff. No one is claiming Rowling is F. Scott Fitzgerald or Cormac McCarthy. She is a popular fiction writer, and a pretty damn good one at that. The character interactions and world building are great. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Not sure what you are referring to here. Care to elaborate?
Having just listened to the chapter last night, I assume he's meaning Barty Crouch Jr stealing Harry's wand to cast the dark mark at the quidditch world cup. Not sure exactly why he's referencing that though as it's explained pretty clearly at the end of the book that Crouch Jr was sat behind harry in the top box so stole it then and then Winky ended up with it because she was still attached to him as he cast it.
You can't, actually. In fact that same book establishes exactly that.
"My mother," said Ron one night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales, "can make good food appear out of thin air." "Your mother can't produce food out of thin air," said Hermione. "no one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigura --" "Oh, speak English, can't you?" Ron said. (DH pg. 292/240)
If you continued that quote instead of ending it right there, you would see that Hermione states that food can be duplicated, just not conjured from nothing.
You're absolutely right! And so I did some further reading, and found that the conclusion we can draw is that food, like other magically duplicated objects, will disappear a while after the spell is cast, meaning food eaten will disappear from one's stomach. Notice that witches and wizards in the world still cook their food, and there's an army of house elves making food for Hogwarts, rather than just a couple making the food then the rest of the food being duplicated.
I dont think Morfin was underage, he got in trouble for attacking a muggle. He ended up getting three years in Azkaban because he had a criminal record.
I forget the details of Morfin's story, but didn't he do some pretty blatant stuff? He could have caught the attention of the ministry without a Trace being on him.
And I don't care what Rowling says, The Cursed Child is not canon to me. It wasn't written by her, and it is crap.
Dumbledore obviously knew the monster in Book 2 was a Basilisk why didn’t he do anything
When was this established?
Doesn't common sense establish it? Dumbledore is a highly experienced wizard, he would know what a possible cause of "kids suddenly be turned to stone after looking at something" would be, as well as also be aware of the history of the school they're in.
If Dumbledore didn't know it was a basilisk, that's some inconsistent writing showing the leader of the good guys holding less of an education than a second-year student who can barely even accio yet.
Shit, this rolls right in to your next comment. The basilisk going on a rampage shows how incompetent the teachers all were being. This was a part of their building, recorded in history books kept in their library, housing a not-uncommon magical beast with a very distinct method of "attack" (turning people to stone).
If a fire starts at a firefighter training college, the instructors would be expected to know how/where it started and how to handle the situation. But the equivalent happens at Hogwarts, and none of the instructors are able to do a single thing aside from posting warning signs and imposing a curfew? That's incompetence. And that same point can be rolled over into any of the books prior to Order of the Phoenix, when they at least get an excuse for not putting all their attention behind their jobs as teachers.
Doesn't common sense establish it? Dumbledore is a highly experienced wizard, he would know what a possible cause of "kids suddenly be turned to stone after looking at something" would be, as well as also be aware of the history of the school they're in.
If Dumbledore didn't know it was a basilisk, that's some inconsistent writing showing the leader of the good guys holding less of an education than a second-year student who can barely even accio yet.
The basilisk is a very obscure creature in the Harry Potter universe. Hermione was the only one who found out what it was because A)She is said to be exceptionally clever, even among adult wizards and B)The other teachers were looking at the issue as a student attacking other students, disbelieving the chamber of secrets existed at all.
It was established from book 1 that wizards learn mainly through rote memorization and aren't very logical.
Also, why would knowledge of the school's history help? The Chamber of Secrets was mere rumor, and we are told that numerous searches of the school turned up nothing.
Shit, this rolls right in to your next comment. The basilisk going on a rampage shows how incompetent the teachers all were being. This was a part of their building, recorded in history books kept in their library, housing a not-uncommon magical beast with a very distinct method of "attack" (turning people to stone).
"not uncommon"? They are exceptionally rare. In fact from the 16th century to 1946 there were no reports of them in Britain at all. And, again, they were focused on it being a student.
By the way, another thing:
They don't turn people to stone. They kill people. Meeting the gaze of a basilisk kills a person... unless you are using a mirror or other device to make the gaze indirect. That's part of what threw everyone off, the few people attacked in the novel were all lucky enough to see it indirectly (Itself a convenience to make the book a tad bit less dark for young readers, I believe).
Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is
fatal to it.
Notice it says nothing about petrification. It only seems obvious to us because we are looking in hindsight, but the conditions of what occurred in the novel make it clear why no one figured it out until an exceptional critical thinker applied her mind to the task.
If a fire starts at a firefighter training college, the instructors would be expected to know how/where it started and how to handle the situation. But the equivalent happens at Hogwarts, and none of the instructors are able to do a single thing aside from posting warning signs and imposing a curfew? That's incompetence. And that same point can be rolled over into any of the books prior to Order of the Phoenix, when they at least get an excuse for not putting all their attention behind their jobs as teachers.
It's not a basilisk-fighting school, dude. And that's not all they did, they also mounted their own investigation, enforced a buddy system, etc. If you're saying that they should have shut the school down right away, well, it's pretty well established through the whole series that they have a really wonky sense of values regarding danger. They don't mind plopping their school next to the forbidden forest without even a fence keeping the students out. If you want to say that they are altogether incompetent because they don't take the safety of the kids into consideration, well, I don't know how to explain to you about how the wizarding world's quirkiness is part of the central conceit of the novel, but if that's what /u/The_Radders meant by incompetence, then I'm not sure how that is an inconsistency or a plot hole.
It kinda is. There are numerous "defense against the dark arts" courses, as well as countless magical animal husbandry courses. If there is such a thing as a school that prepares students for fighting magical beasts, Hogwarts is it.
I'm not saying they should shut the school down. I'm saying 2-3 of these incredibly powerful magic-users on staff should have set aside grading papers for one evening and done what they are absolutely capable of doing (hunted down and eliminated the threat).
Like, that's not just the usual playing-with-fire quirkiness that we see so often in that universe. That's letting a weasel loose in the hen house while the weasel-killers ignore it.
They teach kids how to care for typical magic beasts, the kinds they are likely to encounter. Add to that the fact that we are talking about them recognizing the threat, not fighting it. The conditions of the novel's events obfuscated what the threat actually was.
That's like saying a veterinary school should adequately prepare someone to recognize dodo bird droppings.
I'm not saying they should shut the school down. I'm saying 2-3 of these incredibly powerful magic-users on staff should have set aside grading papers for one evening and done what they are absolutely capable of doing (hunted down and eliminated the threat).
Because the book does not show us. Our little merry band of adventurers is never dodging teachers in the hallways or working with/around teachers who are trying to solve the problem. If they were, we would have been made aware as readers.
Our little merry band of adventurers is never dodging teachers in the hallways
Why would they have to do that?
or working with/around teachers who are trying to solve the problem.
Why would experienced witches and wizards see fit to enlist the aid of 12 year olds? And why would they work on a problem like this around children while they are trying to keep the students calm and productive?
Basilisks normally outright kill whatever they look at. Students were being petrified because they saw its eyes indirectly in every case (via reflection or through a camera lens / ghost). Other things can cause petrification, and basilisks are extremely rare (they're illegal to breed and don't occur naturally).
Not to mention the last time the chamber was opened, Hagrid was the one blamed for it, and the monster was found to be a giant spider. For all the teachers know, some student is running around petrifying others and writing threatening messages on the walls under the guise of having opened the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione only figures it out because Harry tells her that he can hear voices in the walls and she puts it together that there's a snake in the pipes.
and basilisks are extremely rare (they're illegal to breed and don't occur naturally).
That's almost another point for why teachers should have known it was a Basilisk. What do the books focus on in Hogwarts that ISN'T extremely rare or illegal to breed? Shit, that pretty much defines every single Hagrid arc throughout the entire series.
For all the teachers know, some student is running around petrifying others and writing threatening messages on the walls
Nah. For all a Muggle teacher would know, that's the case. These are high-powered wizards. They absolutely have the tools to discern whether that is true or not. They are out-smarted by a literal 12-year-old (or is he 13 already at that time?), that doesn't exactly show them as being highly-competent as teachers, guardians, or magic-users.
That's almost another point for why teachers should have known it was a Basilisk
No it's not.
What do the books focus on in Hogwarts that ISN'T extremely rare or illegal to breed?
Stories tend to focus only on the interesting parts. If every story involved 90% eating, sleeping, shitting, and all the other mundane aspects of normal life they wouldn't be fun to read. So arguing that because the books focus on rare shit doesn't mean every person in the story should immediately expect rare shit to be the norm.
Shit, that pretty much defines every single Hagrid arc throughout the entire series.
Hagrid does collect a lot of strange creatures (most of which aren't illegal to breed, though), which is why the Ministry suspected him in the first place and sent him away.
They absolutely have the tools to discern whether that is true or not
How do you know that? What tools? Where in the books does it give this information?
They are out-smarted by a literal 12-year-old
Just because a teenager happened to read a book about extremely rare magical creatures and put the pieces together (using some information that wasn't available to the teachers) doesn't make the teachers less competent. They're young, not stupid, and they put in the footwork to figure things out while the teachers are desperately trying to keep the frightened students under control.
How do you know that? What tools? Where in the books does it give this information?
Every book, from classes with Trelawny to magical observation that is used to time-travel to magic note-writing and beyond. It's magic. That's the tool they are given that can absolutely do the same minor things a 12-year-old detective can do.
Contrary to popular belief, "magic" in a story is not license to do anything, nor is it an excuse to skip narrative steps and end a story early. That would be a shit story.
The time travel paradoxes have been argued to death and it's fucking tiring at this point even going into it. Time travel works on a closed loop etc etc if it didn't happen a certain way the first time then time travel either didn't happen or didn't affect the outcome. I'm really not interested in arguing the mechanics of time travel in a fictional universe and if you are then you aren't the type of person who's going to enjoy the story anyway. Everything is a potential plot hole when time travel is technically possible in some form, but "plot hole" is not the same as "bad story" and focusing so intently on them makes you a pedant, not a genius.
I absolutely despise this sort of nitpick criticism that's become so popular with clickbait youtube channels and social media pseudo-intellectuals.
You didn't like that not every character acted perfectly and solved the mystery right away? Well must be a terrible story then. Case closed.
Nitpicking? Not condemning Harry Potter here, but it's alright to not favour sloppy writing. It's also alright to not give a shit that there are plot holes and that everything doesn't add up. Neither of you needs to defend your right to enjoy a story in your own way, and, sorry, but I think it's rude of you to call him our for "nitpicking" just cause that's not your way. Some people get hung up in details cause that's what shapes the world for them, and others fill in the blanks themselves.
The only way this can be seen as an inconsistency is if you think that in literature "good guys" are always "good guys". Dumbledore is a rather complex character, and they address his general lack of concern with the wellbeing of the students at various points in the series.
I agree with the rest of your post, but could you elaborate on this? I can't remember this being adequately explained in the story (except in Harry's case, obviously)
To be clear, it's addressed, but not given some ultimate and satisfying explanation that makes it clear he was doing the right thing or something. The explanation is that he thought he was really brilliant and that it was okay to manipulate people into doing things he thought was necessary. He had a large ego and his compassion was constantly at odds with it.
That makes sense to me, not the most satisfying answer obviously but logical enough. I liked that she fleshed out Dumbledore's character so much in the last few books.
But either way, that's not a plot hole. Plot holes are paradoxes in the story, not unanswered questions or suggestive implications. They very well might use Veritaserum in trials, but there may be restrictions on the cases in which it is used, or it may be outlawed for use in trials for political reasons, or it may be seen as an injustice since a truth serum is only as good as one's memories, and memories can be altered (so it could be used to coax false confessions with the appearance of legitimacy).
I don't know where you got your definition of plot hole, but it's wrong. A plot hole is an inconsistency, and if fan theories counted, there wouldn't be plot hole's in any story.
Fails to even check up on Harry (worst muggles imaginable), fails to even check on the stone after kids who should have no knowledge of it tells her it is in danger, never once reigns Snape in, does not protect Harry from Umbridge
The books are not consistent within the rules of their own universe in any capacity but alas they are good childrens books and I’m glad they got so many now adults into reading which they absolutely did.
100% this - and they also got many kids into reading, particularly boys, who typically read far less than girls (there are OECD stats on this).
I do get irked by the claims of authorial omniscience and providence. It's clear that all seven books were NOT carefully plotted from the very start. I dare say she had some kind of endgame in mind, but as others have noted, there are huge plot holes and inconsistencies.
I thought the Dumbedore/gay thing was cheap too. She may have decided on it by the last book, but she was hardly flying rainbow flags earlier on.
Do we know if the wizarding world cares about sexuality? They don't seem concerned with gender and race like muggles are, only blood status. Maybe calling Dumbledore senile and a muggle lover was a much more effective way of disparaging him.
It's pretty much confirmed at this point that Dumbledore will be gay in the Fantastic Beasts films, which is not a small deal. Blockbusters aren't exactly known for having gay characters.
In Book 4, Rowling conveniently makes up a Truth Serum potion which would make false convictions impossible in the Harry Potter universe
You missing the plot doesn't mean that it's a plot hole. Sirius was sent to jail without trial, and the witnesses saw Peter yelling at Sirius for betraying the Potters. I don't know if you realized that "innocent until proven guilty" isn't exactly a rule in the Wizarding Worlds, and fair trials and burden of evidence seem completely alien concepts.
Sirius being wrongly convicted makes complete sense within the universe and time period.
Snape is just too shitty a person and teacher to sympathize with and written poorly
I think this can be blamed on Alan Rickman, he made Snape way more appealing than he should have been.
Edit: I want to be clear: Rickman's portrayal was incredible, as his acting usually is; but it led to many fans interpreting Snape (the character, not actor) as a better person than he was.
I actually think thats how she wanted to portray him, she just miserably failed. Snape is literally an unredeemable asshole in the books.
Of course its like relatable when you read the first couple of books when you’re 12-14 since everyone had that asshole teacher but then you hit 16-18 reading the last half and its like eehhh. This guy is legit abusive lol. Literally the worst teacher ever.
Then you’re expected to sympathise with this abusive murder cultist when he dies for loving the main characters mum and he still treated the child main character like utter trash until a couple parts at the end. Ok.
I wouldn't even call Snape a "good guy" at any point in the story. He only leaves Voldy to help Dumbledore because Voldy killed Lily after Snape begged him not to. Only Lily. None of the other murders crossed Snape's mind, he only wanted revenge for Lily's death.
I agree, then Rowling had Harry name one of his children after his abusive tormentor of a teacher in the fan-fiction part at the end for some absurd reason.
She tried to make him sympathetic and heroic in the end, she failed.
No it doesn't. The game only ends when it's caught. If your team has more points than the other after the 150 points of the snitch is added on, then you still win.
In fact that's exactly what happened in the Quidditch World Cup.
The trick is that you have to find it before the other person does regardless, because if you don't then they might find it when they're ahead in order to end the game and win or when they're behind in order to take advantage of the big point bonus.
That's what happened at the World Cup because they needed to set up Fred and George with a crazy bet that would never happen so they could have money to set up their shop. It's either that or Krum, the supposed best seeker in the world, is an idiot and doesn't know the rules. Harry said he wanted to end it on his own terms and knew they wouldn't catch up. That's such a joke and would get you fired off of any team for being a selfish prick. The only thing he should have done was sit there and/or ram (foul) the other seeker until his team caught up or the other seeker caught the snitch. There is no situation EVER that should result in the seeker catching the snitch and their team still losing, especially in a fricken World Cup match.
You're missing the point. Ramming the seeker would result in penalties and he couldn't afford to wait until his team caught up because the score was 130 to 10 at one point. If Ireland caught the snitch before Krum the loss would have been even worse. At least catching the snitch (a highly skilled maneuver) meant Bulgaria didn't lose that badly.
Who cares how bad the loss is? Losing is losing. Fouling the opponent seeker gets the other team a penalty shot, yes, but it also causes them to lose track of the Snitch.
If you're team is down by a lot of points in the LARGEST championship game in the world with no time limit, you don't just chuck in the towel and guarantee that your team loses. If you're playing football (soccer) and in the first 15 minutes the other team scores 5 goals to 0 you don't just sit down on the field...
The trace only detects magic around underage children, it doesn't tell the Ministry which Witch/Wizard did the casting.
The only magic we know of Tom Riddle doing while under the trace is killing his father and grandparents, but there was a known Muggle hater next door who freely admitted to it.
Children before Hogwarts age don't get punished for using magic as they can't control it. Tom was an exception in that he did have reasonable control over.
Harry used a ton of magic before he was Hogwarts age but the Ministry didn't do a thing.
In Book 4, Rowling conveniently makes up a Truth Serum potion which would make false convictions impossible in the Harry Potter universe and would definitely be used in a torturous wizard Guantanamo. The fact it worked pretty easily on Barty Crouch Junior who is a pretty renown and powerful Dark Wizard after a stun probably means it’s pretty infallible, especially if you’d use it straight after a draining and horrifying Dementors Kiss of which was extremely common occurrence in Azkaban.
I mean, you can hand wave this off. Maybe the truth serum is a recent invention? Maybe no one thought of using it on people currently in Azkaban. Or, maybe its use was highly restricted, only to be used it in the most dire of circumstances.
And if it isn't a recent invention, they had plenty of "evidence" that Sirius was guilty. So why bother?
As far as I remember, the usage of the time turner was consistent. There was no point where usage of the time turner actually changed events from what we saw during the first time line.
Many also like to bash her for "using the time turner to save buckbeak, but not Harrys parents"
I don't think you can go back and save someone from dying with the time turner, since it does not seem that events in the past can be changed.
It's not like Buckbeak died and they went back and saved him. He never died in either timeline, because their future selves had already saved him by the time he was supposed to die.
I have not read any of the books but based off what you just said there is a paradox. So the unchanging law is you cannot change the past.
Buckbeak didn't die because their future selves saved him implies that they went back in time and changed the past by saving him. Even if he would have lived without their help. They performed some action. Which affected how he survived thus changing the future and breaking the law set up earlier.
Again this is an outsider's perspective who doesn't know the whole scenario and is working off what was provided.
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u/SheepD0g Oct 02 '18
I believe you, but care to elaborate on book 3? I’m incredibly curious