/lit/ - Literature

Harry's parents.

They do not explain how Jesus fits into the story.

Fucking timeturners.

Why didn't Voldemort just make Harry's toothbrush into a portkey?

>there are NO plot holes in...

life has plot holes, why a book wouldn't have it?

Your average 9mm bullet travels at about 1500 feet per second. Voldemort's reaction time is human. His power is all magical and not physical. Thus, if you shot him in the fucking dome and killed him instantly, there would be nothing he could do about it. Thousands of people died needlessly from Voldemort's wrath all because the wizarding world feels that they are above technology.

>>2057610

well how fast does magic travel out of a wand

>>2057608
Already said this, apparently doesn't count, because in later adaptations of the book she hands it back to her teacher or some shit.

Why do Wizards celebrate Christmas? Even apart from Christianity, most of the customs they hold (like christmas trees, etc.) were only invented long after the statute of secrecy!

>>2057616
The speed of light presumably, considering all her talk of the "green flash" and then instant death. But then again, that would leave an infinitely small probability for Harry and Voldemort to both have their spells cast within the right time frame so that their spells collide before reaching their opponent who is only duel distance away.

Which leaves me to believe that magic actually travels much slower than a bullet. They took this approach in the movies so I'll run with it.

>>2057618

Their existence is a problem, not the fact that the main characters don't always have access to them.

How overall weak the defenses guarding the Sorceror's Stone in the first book are.

Voldemort gives Harry false visions in the 5th book (apparently without hurting himself). This tactic is highly effective and much of the 7th book relies upon Harry seeing into his mind. Why not continue to use this tactic?

Guns.

Avada Kedavra curse is unforgivable, and pretty much the only thing we see dark wizards using, but we know from book 3 that a throwaway henchman caused an explosion that killed 13 people. Why is this curse unforgivable?

Someone dying to save you gives you infinite protection from the person who tried to kill you. Harry's mom (and Harry himself) are the only people to ever die in this fashion?

Wands change their allegiances whenever a person is disarmed. People are disarmed constantly throughout the series, often in practice (arguably nitpicking).

Okay not all of these are plot holes. Still, should give you some ammunition.

>>2057636

why would magic be constrained by the speed of light? it isnt a particle or a wave

the curse is described as instantaneous if anything the flash of green light follows it not precedes it

so basically you and your glock are fucked

>>2057647

Time it takes him to say the curse is what about a second? half a second?

Now how long does it take to pull a trigger

>>2057665

so you would shoot before you even knew which spell she or he was casting?

congratulations, you just killed 14 year old hermione trying to levitate a feather, asshole

Why didn't that werewolf at the end of prisoner of azkaban not just sniff out Harry and Hermione as they were hiding.

same with the basilisk in chamber of secrets

They have a spell introduced in the sixth book which will literally kill you if you don't keep your promise.

Why doesn't the ministry make all the wizards swear to not use the unforgivable curses/kill muggles/be evil using that spell?

Also, why the hell would they have a bank and a monetary currency when everyone can cast transfiguration spells? A wizard economy is retarded stupid.

>>2057669

>implying you didnt just point out another plot hole

Generally you wouldnt point somthing at someone which is cable of killing them would you now?

Like someone is running at you with a knife and you shoot him and then later get put in prison cause he was just going to cut a sandwitch

>>2057665
Voldemort can certainly activate the killing curse with only a thought, so he can kill you as soon as he even thinks of it. If someone even got as far as to point a gun at him, he'd probably kill him immediately without even taunting him first.

Now, you'll say, what about a sniper? Or a hidden bomb that he wouldn't even be aware of until it was too late to stop?
There is an explanation given in the books, but it's a pretty ridiculously weak one. It's stated at least a few times that when there is "magic in the air" muggle contraptions don't work properly. Sure, Wizards can walk down a street in London without fucking everything up, but presumably if they "will it", muggle technology would fail utterly. Besides, Voldemort almost certainly surrounds himself with numerous protective charms at all times. I mean, he even went so far as to curse his NAME. I think he'd have at least enough sense to protect himself from simple, mechanical causes of death.

>>2057680

which is why i'm saying it's dumb to conceive of the wand as merely a weapon -- its a reductionism that drastically oversimplifies the wizarding weltanschauung imo

Why don't Hogworts students learn ANY math or science? I know magic can do lots of things, but aren't they still missing pretty much the most important information about why and how things in the universe work? Unless EVERYTHING is made of magic, which I highly doubt, wouldn't Hogworts students be kinda screwed out of a lot of potential careers because of that? Someone had to invent and make Skelegrow, someone had to build Hogworts (with or without the aid of magic, I forget if that's explained in the book), etc.

If magic can be used to move things, couldn't someone just move a little nerve or something and kill someone super easily? Why not just simultaneously cast that on everyone and avoid the whole wizard combat thing? Or, as previous posters have mentioned, use a gun?
And returning to the lack of math and science, wouldn't the presence of those things allow for super cool fields like "Magical Engineering," "Biowizardry" and stuff? Owls are kinda neat, but wouldn't it be easier just to use email? I know none of these are really PLOT per se, but they still are relevant and concern the world of the series.

>>2057675
Every wizard who isn't an uneducated idiot knows how to detect conjured or transfigured gold, just like how anyone can tell a photocopied hundred dollar bill from a real one. The wizard economy is based on gold, and it's stated over and over again that conjured objects are only temporary, so nobody can actually magically acquire more gold. Therefore, it's the simplest economy of scarcity. Sounds pretty solid to me.

That wizard pinky-swear thing sounds like a good point though. Here's the thing, though: Remember that the higher-ups in the Ministry itself were using unforgivable curses even before they were connected to Voldemort. Would Dolores Umbridge ever have allowed Fudge to force her to take an oath like that? Of course not.

Basically, the ministry HAD ALWAYS been corrupt, and Voldemort just took advantage of that. If you ask "Well, why didn't Dumbledore just force all Hogwarts students to take that oath?", it's obviously because that would probably be considered illegal. I think even non-corrupt, "good" wizards would be against the forcible and magical removal of each others' free will.

It's probably not foolproof, either. Remember, Snape pledged to help Malfoy with his task, but he was really helping Dumbledore the whole time. He was able to "trick" the spell, or at least get off on a technicality.

>>2057685

>Owls are kinda neat, but wouldn't it be easier just to use email?

engineers have no souls

Voldemort couldn't die until after all of his horcruxes were destroyed, so shooting him at any time before this point would just make his soul leave his body, or not make any difference at all (I'm not certain which). But I admit, it would've been easier for Harry to just shoot Voldemort once Neville had killed Nagini.

How come Hermione had a turn back time thingy in the 3rd book that she got in her first year and she used every day to get to class on time, but never used it in the other two books before.

>>2057685
>arithmancy

>>2057685
Now you're in fanfic territory.
You might as well ask "If they had had the internet in Star Wars, Leia would've been able to just email Obi Wan and she wouldn't've needed to send a hidden message on R2D2."

>>2057685
They learn Potions, which I consider to be a sort of wizard chemistry or alchemy and they also learn astronomy.

And they learn Numerology and Arithmancy which is wizard maths

>>2057695
She only got it at the start of Prisoner of Azkaban, because that was the year that they were allowed to take on more subjects. Hermione chose to take every subject available which meant some lessons clashed, which therefore led to her need to be in two places at once.

>>wouldn't Hogworts students be kinda screwed out of a lot of potential careers because of that

nigga, they are wizards. fucking WIZARDS. if i were a wizard, i wouldn't really consider pursuing a career in engineering tbh. i'd do fucking wizard things. but that's just me...

>open thread, interested in actual plot holes
>find lots of aspie stuff about why Rowling didn't write the book to be ultra realistic and thus strip it of anything that made it remotely interesting

I am disappointed.

Here's one thing that always bothered me. The actual SIZE of the wizard community is incredibly small. When you think about it, there are really only about, what, 300 or 400 students in all of hogwarts? Maybe even less than that.

Now, couple that with the fact that Hogwarts is home to every wizard between the ages of 11 and 17 within Britain, and you start to see the problem:
According to Wolfram Alpha, there are about 4 million people are of Hogwarts age living in the UK.
So if 400 of 4 million people are magical, then there is only about one wizard per 10,000 people (these are all pretty generous estimates, by the way).
This brings us to about 6 or 7 hundred thousand wizards in the entire world, assuming that the distribution is the roughly the same outside of Britain. Now, the Hogwarts school system is essentially a quasi-governmental entity of the Ministry of Magic, which holds domain over Britain, one of the most developed countries in the world. I have to assume that the wizard governments aren't nearly so organized in the worlds poorest countries, where billions of people reside. This means that, potentially, huge numbers of wizards might not even be part of that larger community (instead becoming local shamen, healers, etc, perhaps?).

So, realistically, the entire wizard community might number only two or three hundred thousand world-wide. Now, how many people do you think were at the Quiddich World Cup? I don't remember any numbers, but the size and scale of the thing make numbers in the hundreds of thousands sound completely and totally reasonable. Does that mean that EVERY SINGLE PERSON, or at least one in two people in the wizard community was in attendance? That certainly makes the conversations that took place in Book 4 about who attended and who did not seem odd. How could it be POSSIBLE to miss out on getting tickets to an invent that can hold the entire population of your world, when it is being held in the very country where you live?

In the first book, it's clearly stated that Astronomy is on Wednesdays at midnight. Later, they are shown in the Gryfindor common room at midnight on a Wednesday. Not a plot hole per se, but the fact that they're cutting class isn't discussed at all.

>>2057733
You said that just to piss off >>2057721
didn't you?

The biggest plot hole is in book 4. Any ordinary object can be turned into a portkey, but Crouch Jr. arranged for the portkey to be the Triwizard Cup, placed at the end of a magical maze at the end of a highly dangerous tournament. There is no guarantee that Harry would even live to touch the portkey (in fact he very nearly dies a number of times), or that he would be the first to get it. If Cedric Diggory had not acted as he did, Harry would have let him get it first and the entire plan would be ruined. The plan required Voldemort to wait an entire year longer than he needed to, and required Harry to train vigorously for the tournament; during this training he learns a number of powerful spells, including the "accio" spell which he uses to escape Voldemort. All this when Crouch Jr., in the guise of Moody, could have asked Harry to step into his office and grab some random object. Harry, being the trusting person that he is, would do so, and be portkey-ed to the graveyard at least 6 months earlier, without any fiasco.

If everyone loves these books, then why are they so shitty?

>>2057739
It had to be at the end of the tournament, because that's the only time when anyone would fail to notice that Harry had gone missing.

If Harry Potter had walked into a professors office one minute, and failed to come out hours later, somebody would surely notice. Unlike you, Harry has friends. They needed to get him away from all those pesky people first.

>>2057731
Only europeans (celtic, romans, germanics) have magic powers.

>>2057749
But everyone DID notice he was missing. There was a ton of spectacle, because it was in the middle of a huge tournament with hundreds of spectators. If Harry had just up and vanished on a regular day, people would be concerned, sure, and when he didn't come back after a few hours there would likely be quite an uproar, but Crouch Jr. would have plenty of time to slip away.

Or, even better. Do it during a Hogsmeade trip. Harry touches the portkey, he vanishes, and Crouch Jr. apparates away. Or he hits Harry with a stunning spell and apparates away. There are dozens of plans that would have been far better and easier than the one that was used.

Also, the portkey in the beginning of the book waits for a specified time, and then moves everyone who's touching it. The one at the end of the book vanishes as soon as someone touches it. This difference is never explained.

He port-key'd him to the graveyard that day because that was when wormtail was doing shit.

Goblet of Fire is one big plot hole

Voldemort comes up with the most contrived plan ever to make Harry touch a warp key.

and then there's the fact that Harry could have simply chosen not to participate. I mean, seriously.

>>2057766
This is actually false. It's noted specifically during the World Cup scenes that there are non-European wizards present (something about some "African" wizards poking at a fire with a purple flame outside their tent).
Also, ethnicity seems to have little to do with magic, because the ethnic diversity of middle class Britain is tolerably well represented at Hogwarts. There are at least a handful of Blacks, Asians, and Indians, anyway. Maybe not enough Pakistanis, but that's nitpicking.

>>2057785
Harry didn't choose to participate. Crouch entered him in the tournament, and the powers that be said that Harry absolutely HAD to participate, because his name came out of the goblet.

I once looked up a list of all the plotholes people came up with, and it was about 300+ it was amazing.

>>2057766
there were egyptian wizards.

>>2057787
>Harry didn't choose to participate.

No, he did.

Someone else put Harry's name in the Goblet, but what was stopping Harry from saying: "someone put my name in the Goblet, and it wasn't me, this whole thing is fishy, I'm just not going to show up to any of the tournaments."

He could have just forfeited the whole thing.

>>2057803
Now that you mention it... Why DIDN'T he say that? Why didn't Dumbledore say something like "Harry this sounds like a bad idea, maybe you should think about staying away from it all."

>give a thirteen year old teenage girl a time travel device which could pretty much fuck over the entire timeline so she can go to all the classes

Seriously, you guys? Seriously?

>>2057803
The thing is that once your name is chosen you have to go, or else some shit is gonna happen to you if you dont. It was explained in the book after harry was chosen.

>>2057819

well, Dumbledore was a machiavellic asshole after all. He probably knew a lot more than he let on.

Why didn't they let the eagles take the ring to Mount Doom?

There's a ginger kid with friends. Complete fantasy.

Let me get this straight OP, you want us to do the research for you so you can go to your friend and sling information like it was you how used your wits and reasoning to gather it?

Nope. I would have helped you if i didn't smell lazy bum all over your post, next time do it in such a way that you discuss plot holes rather than ask for them.

>>2059271
as a ginger kid, I can verify this.

In Harry Potter style love triangles, I always end up with the short end of the stick so to speak.

>>2059308

don't you mean the short end of the WAND?

Oh shit. Now I wish I actually payed attention during Chem. My teacher was the BIGGEST Harry Potter freak. She played WoW and chatted on harry potter forums all day.

She mentioned how her and her online friends found this huge hole. If you take the sections of book dealing with money and put them together you have an economy that makes absolutely no sense. I think that's what she said anyway. Sorry, I didn't really pay attention to her because she always had these ADD soapbox speeches about ANYTHING. Mostly food and the environment though.

If you researched it though, i'm sure you could find it.

>>2059336
Yeah, this is a problem. It gets even worse when you try and go through and calculate the population size - it's simply impossible, given the information depicted in the books, for there to be enough wizards to sustain the communities and economy depicted in the books. There's maybe 5000 wizards, 10000 at the absolute MOST, and that's just not very many people.

Also, your chem teacher sounds awesome.

>>2057832
Yeah I think Dumbledore just wanted to try things and well, if Harry happened to die during the process, too bad, but shit happens all the time anyway

And one thing that I find stupid is that they have this powerful magical objects but they never use them for anything good.
1) The timeturners: You could use them to go back in time and have Voldemort not try to kill harry. Actual use given: TAKE A LOT OF CLASSES AT ONCE.
2) The clock at the Weasley's house. You could use this kind of magic to reveal where a person is at any given moment. Actual use given: MY HUSBAND IS COMING FOR DINNER
3) Marauder's Map: Much like the clock above, this could reveal the location of a person, even if it's only inside Hogwarts it's still pretty damn useful. Actual use given: LETS SNEAK OUT AND BUY SOME CANDIES

>>2059341
She would've been if it weren't for her slight bipolarity. Five minutes after we start notes she loses her train of though and starts talking about the diamond industry for 15 minutes. Then she realizes the time she wasted so she suddenly gets pissed and yells at us all that we're wasting time. Got pretty old after the first semester.

Well, ok, let's make a list.

#1: The implausability of the Wizarding World.

#2: The implausability of teaching a bunch of teenagers magic.

#3: The clusterfuck that was Harry's parents.

Ok so in one of the books we're told that the Minister of Magic is personally acquainted with the Prime Minister. So already we have one normal person who knows about wizards. You've got dragons flying around every fucking where, dark magicians, people dying all over, and no one notices any of it because of some kind of magic gestapo called the Aurors.

The book establishes that there are some spells that are inherently bad and should never be used because they're too cruel. The book then completely disproves this theory because Hogwarts teaches students how to cast spells that cause slug vomiting, paralyzation, radical mutation, and spontaneous explosion.

Harry's parents are never explained. Why did Lily end up with James? By all accounts James was an asshole. Lily knew Snape since they were kids. Why didn't they end up together? Why did any of this stupid love triangle even happen?

>>2059352
>Lily knew Snape since they were kids. Why didn't they end up together?
CAUSE HE WAS UGLY LOL

>>2059345

Yes, Rowling had this flare for inserting magic gadgets in the books only for the gimmicky effect of it ("Look at this quirky object! From our Muggle perspective it's quite amazing what it can do, and yet those wizards treat it like it's completely ordinary! Boy, it sure must be swell to be able to do some of that 'magic' stuff, huh?").

Once the plot thickens, though, and those items could be used in order to bring about a thoroughly original perspective on how wizards solve their evil-dictator-related-problems, JK seems to just lay back and invent a counterspell or altogether forget those items exist, which ultimately results in a completely mundane approach to the problem (melee fighting the Dark Wizard).

Time-turners are the most obvious case of this, and all we get is a REAL lame excuse in Book 5 ("all the time turners are destroyed in the Ministry of Magic battle!"). JK noticed the problem that device would get her into and decided to get rid of it the easy way. But what, time turners were destroyed and nobody could ever make them? Man, JK should NOT have messed with time travel.

Another thing that has always bothered me is the lack of consistency with the Unforgivable Curses.

It seems pretty clear that Avada Kedavra is not the only curse that can kill, and really, it has a pretty quick and painless approach if compared to a couple of more violent spells (say, setting a person on fire, or making he/she bleed to death as with that curse Snape invented while he was in his sixth year).

Also, why is the spell they use to remove people's memories not an Unforgivable Curse? If making a person do what someone else wants (Imperio) is Unforgivable, being able to completely erase their memories of who they are and everything they've learned as a person... well it seems pretty bad too.

This has probably been posted. But why didn't they just kill Voldemort when he was weak, rather then waiting.

>>2059369

making him/her* bleed to death. oops.

>>2057610
She already said that she didn't put guns in it because guns would kill everyone.

Wait did Dumbledore's brother really fuck goats?

If only Harry Potter had original ideas and was worth reading.

>>2059396

Slightly off topic but has anyone else read the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality fan fic? I think it's interesting and I normally don't wander into the realm of fanfic.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

>>2059420
>fanfic

Get out

also in book 2 harry was stabbed with the basilisk fang, why didn't it destroy the piece of voldemorts soul inside him?

ITT: people who only saw the movies and read summaries of the books

other than the size of the wizarding world - which JKR actually left pretty vague and never really addressed, none of these are actually plot holes

I'm not saying there aren't plot holes in the HP books, but really a lot of these have been addressed in the books already.

>>2059444
>>2059444
this

I was always a bit of a Potter nerd growing up....I think I might be able to answer some questions......

>>2057607
Lol'd but.. yeah.
Lily's protection. Same reason voldemort couldn't just walk in and kill him.
Don't know if he could have had another death eater do it though..guess not

>>2059444
Harry didn't die though and I think Hermione explained something about souls being the exact opposite or something..
fucked if I know.

Pretty sure this isn't a plot hole though

>>2059489
No the Phonix tears healed him.

>>2059444

yeah, the basilisk fang didn't destroy/kill Harry like it was allowed to with the other horcruxes - Fawks came and healed him.

People forget that the horcruxes actually put up a fight when being destroyed - trying to get the destroyer to give up, laying a killing curse on you, etc. The destroyer has to carry through with the act of destroying the horcrux to make it work.

>>2059491
Yes, he didn't die. So why would the part og voldemorts soul have died.

>>2059491
>phonix
wut

>Go on /lit/ expecting sophisticated discussions of good books
>Find Harry Potter thread

>>2059498
...............I made a mistake, sue me.


As for the Time Turners, they smashed them in the fifth book, but let's not forget by that time the Ministry of Magic was really disliking Harry Potter for saying Voldermort was back.(which would cause a huge panic.)

>>2059358
bitches find alan rickman very attractive for some reason. I'm going to assume he looks a lot like Rowling pictured the character as she specifically wanted him to have the role.
Also, she's stated that Lily could have come to love him if it wasn't for his choices.
Besides, she ended up with James.. That's just how life works out :(
Can't allow the best character in the books to have even a LITTLE happiness

what really pissed me off is that daniel radcliffe didn't "have his mothers eyes" he has lovely blue eyes.. and I know he was allergic to contacts but surely they weren't all allergic too..

As if whoever built the timeturners in the first place just suddenly forgot how after they were smashed. lol

She was just trying to clean up a glaring plothole by having them smashed, so obvious.

>>2059500

>>go into Harry Potter thread
>>pretentious faggots berate the book
>>never change /lit/

>>2057616
One would assume it's almost 299792458m/s, but since it's magical and written by some weird woman she probably wouldn't know that. Let's just stick it with "it's magical so it can and do everything without ever touching any physical laws". Then again, that would be mean wizards couldn't practice it or if they could they would not be able to exist on this world.
Ergo, I don't believe in deus ex machina.

>>2059529
>read book about teens going to wizard school
>call other people faggots

>>2059420
>>2059420
>>2059420
>>2059420
This is actually incredibly on-topic.
As you read through it the rational Harry points out stupid things about the wizarding world that is glossed over by Rowling - one example being the wizarding economy (he constantly thinks of how frightening it would be to take over the whole world)
I HAVE NEVER read any fan-fics beside this one and have nothing to do with the culture but can't recommend the Methods of Rationality high enough. Especially if you're into SCIENCE.

Lily didn't end up with Snape because he was a horrible racist, and James matured from being an asshole to being a pretty good guy.

Also, the people who think that Lily should have ended up with Snape are generally the worst, for one reason or another.