imagine if sirius got married and had a kid and they were arguing and the kid was like ‘are you serious?’ and he’d be so torn. what dad joke does he make?? ‘why yes i am sirius’ or ‘no im not serious, im dad’? which one? which one would he make??? i dont know
at eleven, was described by his teachers as ‘bright’
at the same age, according to the Sorting Hat: “Not a bad mind, either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes” and “You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head”
mastered the challenging Patronus Charm at thirteen and proceeded to teach it at fifteen
resisted the Imperius Curse at fourteen and soon learned to throw it off completely, even when cast by the incredibly powerful Voldemort
also at fourteen, learned to cast a powerful Accio Charm
at fifteen, was training other students
at the same age, under extreme stress, tested as ‘exceeds expectations’ or ‘outstanding’ in every subject that required actual magic (including the dreaded Potions)
same age, cast a briefly effective Cruciatus Curse
at sixteen, became a star Potions student simply by following superior instructions
at seventeen, successfully cast the Imperius Curse on his first try, and used it repeatedly
at the same age, cast a successful Cruciatus Curse
I also blame the movies for giving Hermione all of the answers while stripping Harry of his resourcefulness, determination, and initiative, and Ron of his street smarts and strategic thinking.
And the poor kid even says this stuff about himself all the time. He thinks he’s not very smart and that he’s just lucky and his friends and teachers are mostly the reason that he’s stayed alive and like instead of recognizing that that is a horrible (and false) self image that has been drilled into him by his abusers, fans are just like ‘yep all true’
If I were to make a play called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, I would have the story revolve around Sirius and Regulus. (…What?)
And I would have the play start off when they’re young. And maybe they’re in Knockturn Alley with Orion and Walburga. And the two wander off and they get lost. And they’re holding onto each other, nervously, as they make their way through the dark streets. They turn a corner and come face-to-face with an old witch who cackles and tells them their prophecy which is something akin to: “The Black child will be barred. So beware, my dears, and stand guard.” And they’re terrified. And the lights fade as you hear the woman’s chilling laugh.
And the play transitions to a few days later and they’re in 12 Grimmauld Place, pacing, wondering what that witch meant. They can only assume that one of them will end up in prison. And it’s at this point that the audience realizes that they’re in for the cruelest ride of their lives. So they look at each other and nervously laugh because prison? Them? Why would they go to prison?
Only there’s another transition and it’s a few years later. And Orion and Walburga are having a dinner party with a bunch of people who are talking about the “Dark Lord” and how the boys will make excellent recruits.
And they both tell each other that no matter what happens, they won’t join their parents’ friends. They won’t give into their destiny.
And of course a good chunk of the play is devoted to Sirius going off to Hogwarts and being sorted into Gryffindor and how Orion and Walburga continue to abuse him while treating Regulus with a bit more fairness.
And you see that rift grow between the brothers.
And that’s it, that’s most of the play – just their lives and how horrible they are.
And the older they get, the more fights they have, and the more Sirius accuses Regulus of being the one who is destined to be ‘barred’. And Regulus is shown having a terrible time, barely loved by his parents, ostricized by his brother for the little love that he gets, hated by his house-mates for not immediately wanting to join Voldemort, hated by the other students for being in that house, etc.
The biggest fight comes when Sirius is sixteen and Orion and Walburga try to force him to join the Death Eaters. There’s a big duel. The auditorium is shaking from the noise. The audience is blinded by the lights from the curses. And when all is said and done, Sirius is able to escape. He runs to James’ house where he collapses, embraced by the people who had always been his family.
And Sirius laments (most likely through song because I just realized that this would be a musical) about how he managed to get out, how he is the one to defy the destiny, but that this means that Reg won’t…
Sure enough, the play transitions to Regulus getting his Dark Mark.
There are even more fights and we see the war and the tension and the hate and the secret love. And we see how much Sirius still wants to protect Regulus but we also see how upset he is over his brothers’s choice, even though Regulus screams that it’s not his fault that he’s the destined one.
We have another musical number (they all are) where Regulus descends into a state of paranoia, realizing that it isn’t too late, he can still defy his destiny, he can still make things right.
We get the cave scene.
And then it quickly transitions into Sirius having a nightmare. He sits upright in the bed, center stage, screaming Regulus’ name.
You see the lights flicker on and off, slowly, and each time they come back on, Sirius looks slightly older and is wearing different clothes, showing the passage of time. But each time, he’s still saying, “Regulus…”
Until the light flickers for the last time.
And you hear: “James…”
The lights come back on and Sirius is running through the ruins of an old house. He fights with a giant before giving him his motorbike.
The climax of the play is the fight between Sirius and Peter. It ends in tragedy and Sirius is dragged off to Azkaban without trial.
The lights fade and you hear the chilling laugh of the woman from before.
End Scene.
Im literally crying Regulus and Sirius just break my heart
and i stand by that. how much more can our conversations be, and our fic and our fandom, if we embrace characters’ complexities? that doesn’t mean pretending that they’re good. it means acknowledging that people can be good and bad, both at the same time.
@dictacontrion This is me saying more, though I am a bit late to the party, but still… a few thoughts on this topic (mind I could
write an essay on this);
So, Dumbledore is one of my favourite
characters, if not even my favourite (I’m not a decision maker ok), because I
feel that he represents the person I’d like to be. But hear me out before
judging me. Dumbledore is a funny, witty, charismatic, powerful persona, he is
clever, to the point one can calmly call him genius, he is also empathetic,
kind, willing to help, and yet he had done things that are the opposite of
that.
No one is denying his immorality when it comes to
Harry; he left a baby in an abusing home knowingly,
he withheld the truth about his destiny from him until the last moment and he
in a way really did raise him like a pig for slaughter. That is undeniable.
However, one important thing that is often overlooked
is that Dumbledore himself knew all that.
One important thing that is overlooked, when he is portrayed as a manipulative
heartless bastard is that, Dumbledore was a very introspective person and he
thought about the consequences of his actions all the time. He hated himself
for doing this to Harry, but he would have hated himself even more had he left
the wizarding world at the mercy of Voldemort, which is what, in his opinion,
would have happened had he not ‘used’ Harry. That is what he believed. It doesn’t
mean it was right, or just, or moral, but the thing is it worked. It simply worked.
At a great cost, but it worked.
So here rises a question the humanity should discuss
every single day. Does the end ever
justify the means? I will not go on about this, because I trust you can
find examples of this happening in everyday life quite easily.
But I would like to say just one more thing about
Dumbledore. He was very intelligent. He knew he was more intelligent than most people, which to him meant he carried greater responsibility to the
world. He felt obligation because the universe had gifted him a more powerful
brain. He knew this was not his doing, he knew he did nothing that merited him
being more intelligent (yes he did further educate himself, which is v.
important, but let’s not deny the existence of geniuses that are simply out of
this world). A
nd here we are presented with another big question: Does being more intelligent than others
bring more responsibility? Should having a certain talent/skill/opportunity/access
to education/even money automatically oblige you to ‘help the world’? And why?
Why do I look up to Dumbledore, you ask?. Because I
want to be as introspective as he
was. Because I want to be aware of the
fact that my actions do have consequences (however small), because I want
to doubt if what I’m doing is right
every step of the way and still do it if I really consider this the right path.
And last of all, because I want to be able
to see and admit when I am wrong and reassess
the very foundations of my beliefs no matter how hard it is, no matter how
much remorse I feel, no matter how much I as a person feel unsettled in search
for the truth.
(So this turned out to be more about Dumbledore than
about the uselessness of character bashing, but still. It lay heavy on my heart
and now I’m free.)
this is magnificent. and i think it *is* about the uselessness of character bashing.
when we hold to the idea that characters have to be either good or evil we lose the chance to examine everything in between. character bashing kills the nuance that lets us examine human complexity, including our own. If there are two options for a debate and they are: (1) dumbledore or snape: good/best ever or evil/worst ever? or (2) at what point in the pursuit of good ends do your means become unacceptable, and who gets to decide and on what grounds? – then, like, which of those conversations is more important to have? which is richer and more needed? I would choose option 2 every time. Lists of evidence to say that someone is good or evil doesn’t get us much of anywhere. This though – this does.
This is so awesome and I completely agree—characters are not interesting characters because they are perfectly good or perfectly bad, they’re interesting because they’re flawed. That said, I think one thing missing from this discussion is this:
-Fandom hate for Snape comes from this mainstream view that is very apologetic for Snape, people who are touched and heartbroken when Snape’s motivations become clear at the end of the series, who think that Snape’s actions are romantic. People who go get deathly hallows tattoos with “Always” written under them. Fandom hate for Snape (I almost just typed Trump, LOL, apparently “hate for” defaults to that these days) is only understandable within that context. It’s trying very specifically to act as a correction. And in doing so, people have become really reactionary about him. First an overreaction in one direction, then in the other.
-Fandom hate (or distaste) for Dumbledore seems exactly the same. During the course of the books, Dumbledore is presented as flawed, sure, and Harry is really angry at him for much of it, but he’s also presented as the wisest and most trustworthy person in the series. When he dies, it’s heartbreaking, and Harry (and the reader) is heartbroken. The sense I get is that the fandom wants to make sure people don’t forget that Dumbledore does a lot of shit things–and people do forget that!
The problem, of course, is that throughout all of this, everyone insists on seeing them as all good -or- all bad. Which takes all interesting discussion or consideration off the table, as you both said.
Interestingly, fandom debates about Draco seem qualitatively different than those about Snape/Dumbledore, because Draco is presented explicitly by JKR as a shades of gray character. He is a total ass as a child, and then is completely broken in books 6 and 7, and he doesn’t kill Dumbledore, and he doesn’t reveal Harry’s identity. BUT–and I think this is key in comparing his treatment to the treatment of Snape–there is no “RAH RAH DRACO!” big reveal scene where suddenly Draco seems absolved. There is no satisfying conclusion for him at all. So the reader is almost forced to accept Draco as a shades of gray character, where his arc is up in the air, whereas the final treatment of Snape seems very absolving, and JKR’s treatment of Dumbledore seems absolving from start to finish.
This is fascinating and right on. I’ve never considered the endings like that, but it makes total sense to me. Also interesting to consider in light of some of the more popular criticisms of the epilogue – that it’s too tidy for a generation that’s grown up in a messy world, that it’s simple to the point of being unbelievable. Does that tie in at all to which characters/narratives we want to make more or less complicated?
Completely agree that a lot of that character bashing is reactive. I wonder if that just gets us into an echo chamber, with one side shouting “here are all the bad things you’re forgetting!” and the other shouting “here are all the good things you’re forgetting!” If our conversations were more nuanced, would we feel the same need to do that? When people forget the complexity of a character and paint them as good or bad, is it more productive to argue for the other side, or to argue for nuance that lets these aspects of a character coexist?
okay but was james potter the type to bite back all his deer related puns because ~don’t be suspicious~ or was he that weird kid at hogwarts with a deer obsession i need to know
…he called moony’s werewolf obsession ‘furry little problem’ and his nickname was prongs. pretty sure he had a deer obsession, babe, but masked it with general animal pun obnoxiousness.
actual footage of james and sirius on the hogwarts grounds
when ppl stand around in the fireplace instead of immediately moving out of the way
running late but not being allowed to apparate bc several hundred times people miss their mark and land right in the middle of a class
being near that one person that smells v strongly like the magic equivalent of weed
when ppl bring their kids and they fuck shit up have accidental magic
muggleborns taking ge muggle studies and wanting to fight the outdated instructor
so many oral exams good god
you mourn the fact that time turners were destroyed while you’re trying to finish an essay 10 minutes before class
buying your own potions ingredients?? $ y $ i $ k $ e $ s $
trying to find books for research but they’re always floating around and incorrectly reshelving themselves
accio was banned in the library but everyone uses it anyway
ppl just have to practice constant vigilance to avoid the books flying to the spellcaster
the magic fucks w the phone signal and wifi
half the teachers dont accept typed work
getting lost on campus but the maps keep telling you different things
trying to have a snack but the chocolate frog gets away
accidentally bringing weasley’s wizard wheezes as a snack
comes to class 15 minutes late with pumpkin frappuccino
imagine the magical uni classes tho
spell weaving majors which is like astrophysics or smth
the magical equations which have a thousand rules that don’t even apply half the time and the you can tell a spell-weave major because they tend to avoid using magic out of complete frustration of anything to do with spells. they will legit walk an hour instead of apparate after that one class of Discovering Magical Transportation that ruins it for everyone
wandless magic majors are stereotyped as the hippies of the uni
most of them believe in connecting to their magical/spiritual side to fully embrace the naturalness of magic without trying to structure it with spells and wands. this also includes a lot of weed. (spell-weave majors HATE them)
ritual majors, one of the most dangerous. think chemistry on crack
one wrong rune in a ritual and you’re stuck forever with hawk eyes instead of correcting eyesight, or with transparent skin (and wasn’t that kid a sight to behold), one dude got stuck in a alternative dimension for a month. to take rituals you have to first have a bachelor of runes AND a strong understanding of magical theory and crafting. the brainiacs of the school and also tend to maniacs. (everyone knows of the illegal shit they do but they’re all too smart not to get away with it)
astronomy majors are seen as drop-outs in the making
supposedly the “easy” major these kids have to stay up all night every night and spend the rest of the time begging their spell-craft friends to make them accurate magical glasses that allow them to see the stars in the day or through the clouds. (muggleborns already have that shit sorted with the internet and always excel in this study). astronomy majors are also acknowledged to hold the wildest parties because they can stay up all night. but the position of the caster in terms of the universe effects the magic and they have to work closely with the ritual majors too. don’t underestimate them.
magic-crafting majors infuse objects with magic and invent shit
the craziest, wackiest thinkers. wayyyyy outside the box thinking. crazy shit goes down. and half the time they try and one up each other by making useless but random inventions. the professors pretend to be sick of them all but secretly love the madness.
potion majors are badasses (if only because they survived snape)
people are carful how to talk to them because these guys will respond to anything with “was that a dare? bECAUSE I WILL DO IT!!!! watch me bitch. try and challenge me again *rolls up sleeves*” also could be utter pricks that snape favoured and got to uni to realise they don’t know shit. but a lot of the people to take potion classes want to become healers.
healing majors are kind but will have no bullshit
you think you can call your healer friend to deal with the fall out of an experiment gone wrong? a duel that broke out? you’ll be thinking twice on calling on them even to save your life because sure they’ll heal you but the Lecture™ of your Life. no exaggeration. the Mum Friend™.
magical art majors are literally the same as any muggle art major
nuff said
history majors tend to move into runes, rituals and ancient magic studies
because DEAR MERLIN DID YOU SEE THE SHIT MORGAN LE FAY COULD DO??? and damn if you could sit in history class learning about the epicness of egyption curses, the mystery of avalon’s weather magic, the ward magic sewn together by the founders and then not even attempt to learn how to do it. most people double major history with an ancient magic subject.
ancient magic is filled with enthusiastic first years and dead eye seniors
like yes. awesome magic. it’s epic. its exciting. you also have to prepare for months to cast anything because it’s all about group casting and no one can cooperate for shit. the group projects man. the death of all ancient magic students.
magizoologist majors are the class clowns
and if you think crazy ass creatures aren’t released for the lols every week you would be wrong. too many hagrids man. wayyyy too many.
I’m rereading prisoner of azkaban and fully appreciating how wild it is that of all the people ron could have made friends with, it’s the guy whose parents were murdered by his pet rat.
sparksoffandommagic 