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[silverspawn]

Like I think hpmor!dumbledore wouldn't make this kind of a mistake. Not when the stakes are so high. I mean harry almost got his soul sucked out.

[Awaclus]

Like I think hpmor!dumbledore wouldn't make this kind of a mistake. Not when the stakes are so high. I mean harry almost got his soul sucked out.

Yeah, and the original Dumbledore would kind of be a fundamentally incompatible character with the whole concept of HPMOR. It would defeat the purpose if all the rationality stuff amounted to little in the end because this one guy's stupid bullShiT just inexplicably keeps producing great results, which makes a bigger difference than anything else.

[silverspawn]

Very relevantly -- in fact, maybe this conversation played a causal role?

Here's what dream!me just came up with as an idea for a novel

- Write something with "the same plot as" a harry potter book, only such that it's not broken
- The main character is a girl named Primrose. (??????) There's otherwise no gender-swapping going on though, so her best friends are a Ron-equivalent and a smart girl, Hermione equivalent.
- Start with book 4 *
- In this universe, you can only use shield spells if you're younger than your opponent. This makes it more plausible that students can fight. It also gives the Ministery a disadvantage because their employees tend to be older than aurors.** Also, somehow you can only use them against nature-y things if you're young, not sure how that works.

---

* I think this was from the dream, not sure
** Don't think this makes much sense; death-eaters can be old in the books.

[silverspawn]

Writing a non-broken version of book 4 presents some difficulties right away since the Voldemort's plot from that book is preposterous, and also competent organizations ought to do checks for whether you're disguised in any way -- such as by drinking polyjuice potion.

[silverspawn]

This made me think about why Rowling's books work. I think part of it is that they have so many cool ideas in it. Let's take book 4: we have the quidditch world match, the tournament thing, the crazy tough auror as a teacher, and the sensationalist reporter. All of that stuff is exciting, and in the end all of it contributes something to the plot. The fact that quidditch is the worst game ever invented, Voldemort's plan had 1000 ways of working without the tournament, and that the auror thing probably shouldn't have made it passed safety precautions of the school doesn't make that much of a difference.

And I don't even have a complaint about the reporter. Props for having the reporter be the bad guy!

also, it's not just that the ideas are good, but the exceution is good as well, isn't it? The quidditch world match didn't feel like "and then they went there and this thing happened", it's this entire arc that feels alive and is full of character moments and details

[silverspawn]

So I think that novel would be more fun to write just as Harry Potter fanfiction. You start at the beginning of book 4, Harry does not exist, and the main character just is this girl named Primrose  (who is still best friends with Ron and Hermione). You don't explain yourself, you just introduce changes to canon as you go. The strangeness it all should make people curious if anything.

[silverspawn]

https://predictionbook.com/predictions/208285

[silverspawn]

I have so many ideas already

[faust]

Writing a non-broken version of book 4 presents some difficulties right away since the Voldemort's plot from that book is preposterous, and also competent organizations ought to do checks for whether you're disguised in any way -- such as by drinking polyjuice potion.

A fix for the Voldemort plot could be this: Magic goes a bit wonky when you have a large gathering of witches and wizards. This idea could be introduced during the World Cup. The ritual that Voldemort performs actually relies on that wonkiness, so in order to perform it, he needs a large gathering but one where he can still be reasonably concealed. Bam, there's a solid reason to do it during the Triwizard Tournament finale, and it also becomes necessary to maneuver Harry to that exact point at the correct time.

[silverspawn]

Neat! (But who is this Harry you speak of?)

[silverspawn]

Rowling didn't even think it necessary to google for the name of a real console game before mentioning that Dudley plays Mega-Mutilation Part Three. Or maybe she thought it was funnier if it was made up?

[silverspawn]

And Dudley also owns a play station several months before it was ever released. His family must have sick connections to get this premium product. And then Dudley throws it out the window. Bad look.

[silverspawn]

I think Primrose would also think it's funny to play Mega Mutilation part 3, but I'm going to be historically accurate.

[silverspawn]

To something negative, I do think it's really cheap how all the bad guys in harry potter are unattractive. Dudley is super fat, Vernon is sort of a joke figure, Petunia has ugly teeth, Malfoy is super pale, his mother has an ugly face... I mean come on. That's not how the real world works.

[silverspawn]

I also love how finding the most wanted criminal in the world is as easy as sending an owl without an address

[silverspawn]

Something I'm wondering is whether the Dursleys would treat Primrose better than Harry. I think they would? Like, I think it takes a more deranged person to be cruel to a girl than to a boy. But not sure.

[faust]

Something I'm wondering is whether the Dursleys would treat Primrose better than Harry. I think they would? Like, I think it takes a more deranged person to be cruel to a girl than to a boy. But not sure.

IDK, I feel like thousands of years of misogyny would disagree.

[silverspawn]

But isn't misogyny, at least around 1990, more about belittling women and their agency, rather than about being cruel?

Also don't think the Dursleys have ever been shown to be particularly sexist.

[silverspawn]

Of course I'm biased because it's more interesting if their relationship is different than in the regular books

[silverspawn]

100000 wizards visited the quidditch world cup. Let's say one in every 5 wizards appeared, which seems like a lot. Then there's half a million wizards world wide. Harry's class has 8 people in it, including him. Rounding that up to 10, there are 40 people in school per cohort in Great Britain. Since about 1% of people live in Great Britain, there are about 4000 wizards per cohort wold wide.  It follows that Wizards, on average, grow to be 125 years old.

I can't believe this calculation led to a completely reasonable number.

[silverspawn]

This is now the harry potter analysis thread.

[Awaclus]

100000 wizards visited the quidditch world cup. Let's say one in every 5 wizards appeared, which seems like a lot. Then there's half a million wizards world wide. Harry's class has 8 people in it, including him. Rounding that up to 10, there are 40 people in school per cohort in Great Britain. Since about 1% of people live in Great Britain, there are about 4000 wizards per cohort wold wide.  It follows that Wizards, on average, grow to be 125 years old.

I can't believe this calculation led to a completely reasonable number.

How reasonable is that? It's reasonable that wizards wouldn't die of old age as young as muggles do, but the wizards in Great Britain have very recently had a deadly war, and it kind of overall seems like wizards kill each other or otherwise get themselves killed early at rates much higher than muggles do.

[silverspawn]

Yeah, but the calculation could easily be off by a factor of 2. Given that I suspect Rowling just pulled the 100000 number out of her hat, I wouldn't have been surprised if the calculation says wizards get 10000 years or something.

[faust]

But isn't misogyny, at least around 1990, more about belittling women and their agency, rather than about being cruel?

Also don't think the Dursleys have ever been shown to be particularly sexist.

Well I don't think it's sensible to go too deep into this, but it seems to me that you have a naive view of what misogyny looks like in the 20th/21st century. And even then, belittling is often enough done out of cruelty.

But, more relevant to the story itself, isn't a major reason that Harry is treated so badly the envy that Petunia feels towards her sister, and that fact that Harry reminds her of that? Surely a girl would remind Petunia even more of her sister.

[silverspawn]

Well I don't think it's sensible to go too deep into this, but it seems to me that you have a naive view of what misogyny looks like in the 20th/21st century. And even then, belittling is often enough done out of cruelty.

I figured you'd say something like that (and plausibly you're right).

But, more relevant to the story itself, isn't a major reason that Harry is treated so badly the envy that Petunia feels towards her sister, and that fact that Harry reminds her of that? Surely a girl would remind Petunia even more of her sister.

oh yeah...

ok I concede the point; she's not treated better by the Dursley's (and Petunia arguably treats her worse; with Harry, most of the unpleasantness tends to come from his uncle). Got some ideas how to make it different anyway.