Harry Potter

For a sec I thought this was cleanup thread.

But yeah, he knew about the prophecy but he didn't know who the other one was. He just knew one of it was Harry.

Now that I think about it in re-examining his character, doesn't it make him more like a deconstruction or a reinterpretation of someone who has a The Lost Lenore or similar? Usually characters like him had a lingering connection to who the person left, but in Snape's case he never really did. And the whole "name my son Albus Severus" thing was strange.

Edited by Ookamikun on Apr 20th 2024 at 12:46:50 AM

Yeah, I agree, recognizing Snape for his deeds is one thing, but the complete 180 to hero worship like that was a little too much. That doesn't really seem too believable.

Also, naming all your kids after all your favourite Harry Potter character is such an RPG thing to do, lol.

I'm too freaked out by bugs to actually touch one, much less eat one.

Someone clearly had the Food and Food Culture thread open in a different tab.

Harry Potter and the Creepy Crawly Gourmet just wasn't much of a hit, no.

There is a candy called "Cockroach Clusters" in Harry Potter, although it's implied that most people don't really like them since they're in the "Unusual Tastes" section of Honeydukes. Ron suggested tricking Fred into eating one by telling him it had nuts in it instead of a bug, which makes me wonder if he actually tried that. I think it was used as one of Dumbledore's candy-based passwords, too, which might imply he likes them or else knows that most people don't so it would be harder to guess compared to the names of other sweets.

Honestly, the wizarding world has its share of disgusting candy already. Rowling clearly likes her gross-out humour once in a while. Like that time where Ron puked slugs.

This is why I was never that bother for the "wizard just magic their waste away" thing because it was in line with rowling tendecy to use gross out humor, I feel everyone just memory hole those all the sudden.

"Plus he might be projecting a bit of himself on Neville "

He probably, snape hate weakness because for him weakness is why james potter pick of him.

I don't remember Snape having any special fellings about Neville, in the books.

Snape mocks and belittles everyone in Gryffindor; Neville suffers the most because his sensible nature makes him less resistant to abuse than others.

Edited by jawal on Apr 20th 2024 at 3:24:04 PM

The wizarding world does have a lot of food that looks more to have a laugh or mess around at parties. The Every Flavor Beans, anyone?

There are lots of things in the Wizarding World that don't make practical sense. I can see making a candy where you stand as good a chance of getting something gross as you do something tasty, as kids'd probably get a kick out of that and you can prank people with it (pranks seem like a big thing in the Wizarding World). But take enchanting school textbooks so that they act like vicious animals. I mean, what's the point of that?

The Monster Book of Monsters seems to have been a failed in universe attempt to capitalize on the pun. I guess the author thought the book on monsters also being a monster would appeal to people into monsters.

Because it's whimsical, I guess.

In fairness they were right. They perfectly judged their target market of "Hagrid" and were lucky enough to get a lot of sales via being a Hogwarts set book.

Presumably the publisher did well but flourish and blotts had a lot of lost stock so did less well.

Yeah, that's a good point. It also shows just how limited the school textbook market really is. You're basically writing for the one person at the one school in the country who is teaching your subject to, like, 40 students? The margins must suck on that job.

Well, considering how expensive textbooks are in the real world when you have to purchase them yourself, I'll bet the writers behind wizarding textbooks, even for the niche subjects, are doing juuuuust fine.

Then again, that's an American's perspective. I have no idea if its a similar case in the UK.

I thought "every flavor beans" has a real life counterpart with Jelly Belly.

Can't really expect to make a living off selling a few dozen text books a year, though.

More than a few things make you think that tge WW is supposed to be bigger, really.

We can't really use Rowling's numbers to figure out the wizarding economy, because she's repeatedly stated she's terrible at math. Even if we assume that the books were marketed only in Britain (since they were written in English), then presumably there was at least theoretically a large enough market for them to make a reasonable profit. Maybe they used to be a niche book until Hagrid thought they were cool and made them required reading, which increased production.

It's also unclear how much money adult wizards actually need, since they can do so much with a wave of their wands. Maybe spending a fortune on a funny book with thin profit margins isn't a big deal when you can conjure a feast out of basically nothing.

At that scale, the economics of money kind of breaks down anyway, and you'd be better off bartering. It's small wonder that the WW banking system centers around treasure rather than money.

Do we know for sure that Hogwarts is the only Wizarding school in England?

Edited by Robbery on Apr 21st 2024 at 9:51:37 AM

It is.

There are eleven big wizarding schools officially recognized in the world, according to Word of God, but Hogwarts is the only one in Britain .

Magical children in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are automatically "enroled" in it at birth.

Edited by jawal on Apr 21st 2024 at 6:08:36 PM

It is said that people were able to say no when Voldemort wasn't in charge, but that implies just homeschooling, not an alternate school so far.