/lit/ - Literature

So, have you read the last Harry Potter book?

>>11434929
>reading poetry

cringe

Why are Blakefags always so pretentious? Serious question.

>>11434929

I have never read a Harry Potter book or scene a Harry Potter movie, but I think the net result is a positive if it got a whole generation of children to read books. You watch, that generation will probably be the last one to have read more than a thousands written pages before we evolve permanently to another medium of communication.

If you ignore social media, the seven main HP books are quite good, with only a minor glaring omission. Overall the story goes from children facing simple problems to young adults facing young adult problems in what I think is a fairly consistent and even manner. The lessons the characters learn overall are good ones.

The problem is that with respect to sexuality they remain eight years old the entire series. It's totally implausible that a coed school filled with teenagers would be that way.

It would be nice if Rowling were capable of continuing the HP series into adulthood but I don't think she ever reached that level of maturity herself so.

I love the Harry Potter books, they are great for defecating to.

>>11436087
2 much innocence 2 little experience

>>11436317
I think it's more that Rowling didn't want the conservative backlash. Any admission in a series still being read by 10-year-olds that unmarried sex exists would make the books controversial in a way that, while probably not hugely impacting their sales or influence, could have potentially spoiled their "universally beloved cultural icon" status.

>stretches legs

I want to pet Dumbledore's soft fluffy beard.

>>11436317
there's some sexual elements in the later books, but its really only limited to making out and dating drama, but its a series for young children what can you really expect

It is a little known fact that Severus Snape is a great artist. After Lily died, he spent his life honing his art skills to create the best replica of her that he could. His first attempts resulted in retarded Lilies because he was so bad and he vowed never to enchant a painting again until he could recreate her properly. He couldn't bring himself to kill Lily, so the retarded Lilies sit in his closet with a painted tard wrangler and a painted TV permanently tuned to Barney the Dinosaur to keep them entertained. Every night he ponders whether ejaculating on the mentally handicapped makes him a bad person. His best painting sits above his bed. In it, Lily has huge tits and is wearing a spooky ghost costume which she takes off whenever Snape is around. He masturbates on the painting every night and since semen counts as paint, she is able to interact with it physically. Spit also counts as paint, making him able to play with her pussy by wetting his finger and rubbing it on her genitals. He once painted James Potter with a tiny cock and a chastity belt and forced him to watch while he jizzed all over Lily. The ghost costume is there just so she can wander around Hogwarts if she gets bored without tipping off everyone that Snape is a weird perv obsessed with a chick who died forever ago.

>>11436317
When people say "snogging", they mean fucking. There's sex, it just happens behind closed doors. There's no need to talk about stuff like teen pregnancy since they can just cast fetus deletus and warp it to the same dimension ancient wizard piss and shit went to back before wizards had proper toilets.

>>11436317
I'd say the biggest flaws in the book are the way Hufflepuff is made to look like the house for retards who aren't good enough to get in the other houses and Slytherin is demonized. 99% of the bad guys were Slytherins and no one important was in Hufflepuff.

>>11438339
>Hufflepuff is made to look like the house for retards who aren't good enough to get in the other houses
That's their reputation in-universe, but Cedric was in Hufflepuff and he's best boy, so I think it's more that they're underappreciated.

You're right about Slytherin though. The books sometimes toy with the idea of Slytherin being not so bad, but everyone from Slytherin is a shitter. And Dumbledore's "maybe we sort too soon" line seals it. As soon as Snape turns into a good guy, Dumbledore implies he shouldn't have been in Slytherin. I guess Slytherin is just irredeemable then. But on some level I kind of like the idea. Not everyone is brave or smart or hardworking, some people are just assholes. So if you're an asshole, they put you in the asshole house. Fair enough.

>>11438481
Then they should just call it the asshole house, not the house for people who are cunning and ambitious. Also, Tonks was a Slytherin and she's not an asshole.

>>11438611
Cunning and ambitious people are often assholes

>>11434929
>refuses to read prominent contemporary on the grounds that it’s made for children.
>believes this to be mature reasoning.

You could say you have no interest, but to justify this on the grounds that you are too much a “man” says that you’re really quite the opposite

>>11438611
Also there’s Slughorn, who is a bit of a snob but not an asshole.

>>11438625
Being a blunt asshole is a shitty strategy to rise to the top, though. Someone truly ambitious would be an asshole only when necessary and they'd make sure to cloak that shit up so that the public's perception of them isn't ruined. Bullies belong in Griffindor.

>>11434929
Reading poetry is a hedonistic act just like reading a novel. It doesn't make you a better person.

>>11438240
That always intrigued me. Where DO vanished objects go to? Canonically, no one in their universe actually knows. Which strikes me as ominous. It makes me think that the things they tried to vanish away over thousands of years will one day suddenly reappear in a gigantic pile in the middle of the desert somewhere. Have fun cleaning that up.

>>11438339
How is Hufflepuff canonically the worst House at Quidditch. Worse than RAVENCLAW. HOW? They are the hard-working House, they are literally the ones who train the hardest with the most dedication.

>>11438682
Bullies belong in Gryffindor AND Slytherin, but mostly Slytherin, like Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and the like. If you don't have any brains and you aren't too fussed about being kind, you'll go to Gryffindor or Slytherin.

I once confused Gryffindor for being the 'aggressive' House as well, but they're mostly not like that. Slytherin is the House for people who delight in hurting people.

>Someone truly ambitious would be an asshole only when necessary and they'd make sure to cloak that shit up so that the public's perception of them isn't ruined

You mean like a psychopath? Like Voldemort? You don't think Voldemort was a bully?
Some Slytherins are smart an sneaky about how they do misdeeds, like Lucius Malfoy. Others aren't so smart about it. Some Gryffindors are only in that House because they're loud and aggressive, and others are there because they value bravery for more noble reasons.

You can't declare that a whole 25% of the population is ANYTHING. I don't care what it is, broad generalizations almost never work. The very fact that there are only 4 Houses is proof in itself that people of the same House will be very different from each other, and were put there for vastly different reasons.

>>11438723
I think Slytherins are more likely to be scheming psychopaths and Griffindors more likely to be the I PUNCH U NOW HUEHUEHUE type of bully. Ravenclaw bullies are probably arrogant know it alls who sabotage other people's homework and hufflepuffs... well, it's hard to imagine how they would bully, but I'm sure some of them do.

>>11438723
I want J.K. Rowling to write a short story about wizards venturing into the realm of vanished things.

>>11438759
I would say that sounds quite accurate. A Ravenclaw wouldn't be a bully in the normal beat-you-up way, but it could happen. They just use smarts to bully people, instead of fists. Which tends to more effective, so, y'know, I guess it's a good thing that Ravenclaws are mostly the nerds who get beat up and not the other way around.

>>11438723
They're not the hard-working house, they're the loyal house.

>>11438797
They're the Loyalty, Kindness, Fair Play and Hard-Working House. One of their defining values is that they are 'unafraid of toil'.

It annoys the hell out of me that the House that defines itself by working hard, is also somehow NOT well respected. If you work the hardest, you will become that strongest. That is generally how it works, yes? Especially in a sport, like Quidditch. They should be the ones winning most of these matches, and it doesn't make logical sense that they aren't.

>>11438811
No, they're explicitly the loyal house. The houses are divided by four values, Bravery, Intelligence, Ambition, Loyalty. The sorting hat will mention some other things in its song, but these are the four metrics it's judging by when it decides where you belong.

Do you think Snape ever shagged his students?

>>11438797
If so, I'm surprised they're not commonly used as Slytherin pawns. Crab and Goyle belonged there, imo.

>>11438820
They're explicitly the Loyal House, but they are also the Patience and Humility House. It's really not that cut-and-dry.

The magic talking hat doesn't put you in Gryffindor JUST based on bravery, it also considers similar values, such as chivalry, righteousness and whether or not you have red hair.
Even if you're a filthy traitor who happens to value patience and humility, you still have a good shot at getting into Hufflepuff. The Houses are a mixture of various things, and sorting's not an exact science.

>>11438847
Yes, it is that cut and dry. If you have a preference that's taken into account, but otherwise it's simply a matter of which of the four qualities you most embody.

>>11438851
You choice matters somewhat more than the qualities you embody when it comes to sorting, though you have to want to be a House for the right reasons. Not just because you think it would be cool to be in there. And you do need at least a BIT of the qualities of that House.

That's not the point though. The point is that it's NOT just 4 qualities. It's clearly several different qualities that are taken into account together. Specifically, the hat has the Hogwarts founders' brains in it, so it puts students into Houses the founders would have wanted them to be in. Hufflepuff pretty obviously valued other traits in addition to loyalty. So being a highly disloyal, but kindhearted and hard-working person will not immediately disqualify you from getting into Hufflepuff.
...Do Crabbe and Goyle strike you as particularly ambitious?

>>11436317
She definitely reached the maturity level, goof. Cormoran Strike?

>>11438611
Tonks was a Hufflepuff.

>>11438339
>>11438625
>>11438630
Rowling was so lame with the way she handled Slytherin. You probably don't even know how bad it really is. I can count the number of "good" Slytherins on one hand, and simultaneously tell you why none of them are actually "good".
In fact, let's do exactly that, shall we?

THE COMPLETE LIST OF ALL SLYTHERINS IN THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FRANCHISE WHO COULD POTENTIALLY BE CONSIDERED GOOD PEOPLE:

>1.)Snape
I don't want to say too much, because there's too much to say about him. But if you've thought about his character at any length, it's clear he's a hero, but also a legitimately very cruel and uncaring human being, who was once a Death Eater of his own volition.
>2.)Merlin
Two potential problems. One, the 'real' Merlin was alive way before Hogwarts was founded, so he couldn't have been a Slytherin. Probably Slytherin students made that information up to gain street cred.
Problem 2, if he DID go to Hogwarts, then it would have been when the founders were still alive. Which means Salazar saw his obvious ambition, and picked him. But that doesn't mean he really 'belonged' there.

>3.)Slughorn
Look man, Slughorn's cool and he's definitely one of the better Slytherins. He's legit kind, and distinctly anti-evil. But he's also highly manipulative of others. He's a glutton, and dismissive of anybody who's not of use to him. We saw him through famous Harry Potter's perspective, but if you were some nice but bumbling kid he would not like you, treat you well or give you the time of day. He's not THAT good.
>4.)Tonks's mom
She actually sounds like a real cool lady, but realistically we know nothing about her. Like he backstory sounds nice, but for all we know she also was a murderer or something. So, seems good but lacking info.
>5.)Regulus Black
Sirius's brother. He has a very easy backstory to dissect. Regulus is described as extremely naive, and not very smart. The kind of kid who would do anything his parents asked him to, and think they were the best parents ever no matter how evil they really were.
They urged him to be a Slytherin (his blood relation to Salazar helped,) and also to be a Death Eater. But he defunked. He renounced Voldemort and his parents when he finally understood the horrors that were being asked of him, and intentionally sacrificed his own life, trying to make Voldemort mortal and killable again.
But he's named after a star in the constellation Leo.
Everything about Regulus's story tells me that he did NOT belong in Slytherin whatsoever. That Rowling chose to give him that name because she's implying the he was/should have been a Gryffindor.

That's it. That is literally all. In the entire expanded universe of this franchise there is not ONE unambiguously good Slytherin. In order, we have

>One morally grey
>One debatable
>One shaky
>One pending
>One mislead

The sorting hat literally says they must unite the 4 Houses together 'or we'll crumble from within'. But that literally never happens. The Slytherins are all sent to the dungeons, and the 4 Houses are never united.
We couldn't have ONE good Slytherin? They ALL have to be sinners in some form or another?

>>11438963
Oh, you're right. It's Andromeda Tonks who was a Slytherin, not pink hair Tonks. And we know fuckall about Andromeda..

>>11438994
>Our best bet of a good Slytherin is a literally who

Thanks Rowling.

I did think of two things after I wrote that little blog though. One, Merula Snyde. Yeah I know, she's not one of Rowling's characters and /v/ has a huge crush on her. And I haven't played that little mobile game, but she seems like a good, albeit troubled, person.

The other thing is Mad-Eye. We actually don't KNOW his House, and apparently it's specifically mentioned somewhere that his House is unknown to Ministry records, in line with his secretive ways.
That makes me and some other people wonder if he could be a Slytherin. Not secretly evil, nothing like that, no. It's just that he has always been a sort of edgy pragmatic warrior type. He COULD be one, so who knows?

>>11439018
Merula is just another Slytherin bully.

Hufflepuff is special ed, Slytherin is juvenile hall.

>>11436106
>scene
>cringe
>seen ftfy;

Did I get baited or is every poster in this thread legitimately oblivious to the fact that this is a Stewart Lee bit?

>>11434929
Ex-Hairy Plotter fan here.
That shit eating author shilled a shitty book last year or something, and reading that was about the time I stopped liking it.
If you can imagine a fanfiction were the bald, pale, nose-less villian screwed somebody and their baby was part of the story and crap like that, and the presentation is auto-bad due to the book being a play script...
What a waste of money.
Rowling is never getting any of my money again.
Also probably not going to reread again.

>>11434929
Of course, and not just that, it's also one of the dullest franchises in the history of movie franchises? Seriously each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert. Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the books were good though

"No!" The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

>>11439061
Fun fact: Voldemort's dick is literally a snake.

>>11436317
Overall, I think they drop off HARD when they go from childrens books to YA. Harry is an incredibly dull protagonist, and there's really no overarching theme or topic beyond "good vs evil".
>>11438339
It's baffling that Rowling didn't have the main cast come from different houses - say Ron from Hufflepuff, Hermione from Ravenclaw, Harry from Gryffindor and Malfoy from Slytherin (who obviously hsould have been a member of the main group far earlier).

Why is Dumblewhore such a bad principal?

>>11438232
He has a small painting of his office in his office. Lily likes to come over sometimes and make potions along with him. He painted a plate of cookies and a cup of hot cocoa just for her. He also has a painting of a BDSM dungeon, but that one is usually locked in his desk. Other painted people like to visit it sometimes, particularly the fat lady from Griffindor and the fat friar. Snape does not approve of this, as the sex dungeon was made for Lily alone.

>>11441529
based comic Dumbledorre

>>11434929
I like the books, however, I hate the author.

>>11442989
He's not that different in the book.

I never read Harry Potter either until I got a gf who is “really into reading Xd I’m so nerdy” and I agreed to read the series because fuck it they are for kids so it won’t take that long.
Didn’t end up loving them or anything, but they are fun enough books to keep you interested. I think that most of the hate comes from how popular they are rather than the actual content of the novels. Or maybe Rowling’s politics or something. Basically I find it hard to believe people actually get this mad over a bunch of fun little kids stories

>read harry potter as a kid
>forever vilified as infantile

ha you manchildren read Narnia

Ripoff of Enders Game

>>11444128
And Ender’s Game did a lot of what Harry Potter was trying to do better. The stuff that is different is good though

How does one make a Horcrux?

The process is apparently so disgusting that it made Rowling's editor gag when she told her. The popular theory is cannibalism, but that can't be it, because the bodies of the Riddle family had no physical signs of damage.

One wonders if something was done to the bodies after their death, which a MUGGLE examiner would not be able to detect, but maybe a Wizard could? Personally I think in order to make a Horcrux, you have to do something unspeakable with the victim's soul, but I dunno....

Also, second question:

>I see it as a series of things you would have to do. So you would have to perform a spell. But you would also-- I don't even know if I want to say it out loud, I know that sounds funny. But I did really think it through. There are two things that I think are too horrible, actually, to go into detail about. One of them is how Pettigrew brought Voldemort back into a rudimentary body. 'Cause I told my editor what I thought happened there, and she looked as though she was gonna vomit. And then-- and the other thing is, how you make a Horcrux. And I don't even like-- I don't know. Will it be in the Encyclopedia? I don't know if I can bring myself to, ummm... I don't know.

How DID Voldemort get a rudimentary body back? I think the only explanation is that Bertha Jorkins was pregnant when Wormtail and Voldemort found her. I think Voldemort possessed her unborn child and took the body for himself, which is why he is often compared to a human baby while in this form.

>>11434929
>but I have read the complete works of the romantic poet and visionary William Blake
oh right the cartoonist who also wrote Tiger Tiger

>>11434929
>he was too old to read the entire Harry Potter series before high school
*snap* this one's going in my boomer compilation

>>11445109
I think a lot of wizards would be making horcruxes for the sake of living forever. I know I'd sure as hell kill someone and turn them into chili con carne Cartman style if it granted me immunity from death.

>>11445892
I dunno man, think about what exactly a Horcrux is.

Killing a person is whatever, people kill each other every day. But then you have to do some. . .thing, apparently incredibly vile. You might still do whatever it is if the payoff is immortality, but still.
The real kicker though is what you're doing with your SOUL. Souls are CANON in this universe. And when you commit intentional, deliberate murder, your soul breaks. The sacred, eternal part of you, that will be the only thing that continues to exist after you finally die. "Immortal" or not, no one lies forever.

And when you do finally die, it's not like the Horcrux keeps you in a physical form. Voldemort invented a spell himself, that would return him to a physical body. Meaning that, all the people who've ever made Horcruxes besides him, and died, are now wandering the world forever as something less than a ghost. They can't even commit suicide, because they have no body. They just exist in the world as a tiny, sad sliver of soul, until someone or something bumbles along and destroys their Horcrux. (And it has to be beyond magical repair, I might add.) And what happens when the Horcrux is inevitably, eventually, destroyed? You will spend the rest of your after-life, all eternity, with a mangled soul.

You can spend 1000 years on this planet, but why would you want to, when in order to do so you had to rip away part of your soul? Why would you want to spend the rest of your life, long though it may be, constantly living in a broken shell? Unable to feel whole again? Unable to feel complete, or really even alive? You will be a broken soul for eternity.

When you rip apart your own soul, you are still killing yourself. Just in a different way. Immortality is never worth going for, especially not when it gives you a Fate Worse Than Death.

>>11446055
>>unable to feel complete or alive
That's just mild depression with a hint of derealization lol.

>>11446055
Good point. It's probably better to just kill yourself as soon as possible so you can go straight to heaven. In the wonderful wizarding world of Harry Potter, murder should actually be considered an act of kindness.

>>11434929
> no one recognises this as a direct quote from Stewart Lee that was from a video posted in a thread about JK Rowling

Well played, OP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMjrXRgu8IU

>>11446151
Really though, why are people even trying to remain alive in that world? If I knew for sure that there's a happy afterlife I'd kill myself on the spot.

Is there anything stopping guys from using diffindo on girl's clothes during class?

>>11446199
You don't get into the good afterlife if you an hero. God's an asshole like that.

>>11446929
What if you're really selfless and genocide a bunch of good people so they can go to heaven? You'd probably go to hell for disobeying god, but you'd have saved countless souls in the process.

>>11446929
What if you just do a bunch of very dangerous stuff in the hopes that something will kill you? It's not an-heroing if you're cave diving and you accidentally drown.

Is there even a hell in Harry Potter

>>11436317
>The lessons the characters learn overall are good ones.
No, they're the kinds of lessons that seem to stunt children intellectually and emotionally.

>>11447016
Care to extrapolate?

>>11436106
I don't know man I don't particularly enjoy having to discuss every serious political o sociological subject through the lens of harry potter references and analogies.

>>11446199
>If I knew for sure that there's a happy afterlife
I thought they didn't have much more knowledge of the afterlife than muggles. Didn't Nearly Headless Nick say something about not knowing what he was turning down?

>>11434929
what the hell. you made this exact post a week ago. Queer cunt

>>11437061
But wasn't there a centaur rape death?

>>11438232
>>11442637
Snape painted a little sex robot that looks like himself in Lily's painting so that she can watch her fuck it and masturbate.

>let's take a bunch of children with similar personality traits and make them group and live together, that's a smart idea. I'm sure it won't cause those traits to geminate and shape said children in one particular way.

>>11450854
It's amazing there's no gang violence at Hogwarts. The clique shit is what creates groups like the crips or the bloods or the death eaters.

Lily getting mad at Sev for wanting to become a death eater was bullshit. When you're sorted in Slytherin, peer pressure is gonna steer you that way and being an outcast in your own house must suck balls. Dumbledore is at fault.

You know what else is bullshit? Quidditch. Only the rich kids can win because they can afford good brooms. Poorfags have shitbrooms only good for shoving up your ass.

>>11451090

>>11438232
For some ungodly reason, I died laughing while reading this aloud. My wife was not amused.

>>11451387
The tard wrangler looks exactly like Severus because when he painted the tard Lilies, he also enchanted them to have insatiable lust for him. The tard room has dildos shaped like his cock all over the walls. One time Severus fucked a hole through a Lily and now she's crippled.