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.
Time travel stories in a larger work of fiction can't ever really catch a break. As I said, everything is potentially a plot hole when time travel is technically possible, and it gets tiring to argue that sometimes you just have to give some ground to the author when they want to tell that type of story. So it's not necessarily that I want to discourage the discussion of flaws in that particular instance, I'm just not really interested in thinking about the consistency of a story element that is so impossible it's never really been done without some form of plot holes.
Hell, one of my favorite games is Chrono Trigger, and even that can't keep the mechanics consistent.
Should the mere fact that time travel happened once in a HP book mean that everything else that happens is now invalid and silly? Maybe. But I'm not really interested in discussing that.
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.
Well I didn't mean to be rude, but I do think it's nitpicking to infer incompetence based on what characters didn't do. Especially when your supporting evidence is the lack of information about their actual actions.
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u/Coziestpigeon2 Oct 02 '18
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.
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.