Accio Nitpickium! The Nitpickers Thread

[arutha1000]

Thought this would be a good place to post this

http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1805570

Exerpts from the original draft of the Harry Potter serious with a character that continues to point out all the logical fallacys.

"Why don't you accio someone who gives a shit"

That...was...AWESOME!

Seconded. I really like the HP books and movies, but pointing out all those plot contrivances is just plain gold.

Thirded.

Although, it makes me wonder about the whole "accio" spell. The books imply that there is a limit to the spell, or a way to prevent your items from being stolen with it. However, what is shown in the books doesn't always agree with that. Hmm...

I wish they had pointed out that anyone with an invisibility cloak, polyjuice potion, and/or use of the imperious curse could've done just about anything (just like Harry does in book 7). Seriously, nobody else in the world besides Harry and Voldy decided to use these things to get anything you want? Of course, we're talking about a world where the greatest defenses imaginable were easily thwarted by 3 11-year-olds in book 1.

[ShadowDog]

This sorta applies to Harry Potter as a whole, but:  THE RULES OF QUIDDITCH.  It's all fine and good, until the Snitch is added.  Clearly added just so Harry can win the game for everyone, but unless the teams are so wildly mismatched that one team gets a huge huge lead, then it basically just invalidates the rest of the players and the game up until that point.  Especially because the game ends after one person gets it.

THANK YOU!!!!

[Darth Geek]

This sorta applies to Harry Potter as a whole, but:  THE RULES OF QUIDDITCH.  It's all fine and good, until the Snitch is added.  Clearly added just so Harry can win the game for everyone, but unless the teams are so wildly mismatched that one team gets a huge huge lead, then it basically just invalidates the rest of the players and the game up until that point.  Especially because the game ends after one person gets it.

THANK YOU!!!!

The RiffRaff Theater riff of HP1 mentions that a bit.

[arutha1000]

The thing about Quidditch that kinda makes sense (but more complicated) is that the score you win by carries over the whole season. For example, if you beat team A by 700 points, and lost your next 2 matches by 10, you could still win the whole thing if the next best team doesn't have a cumulative winning score of 681 points. So the snitch kinda makes sense, like in one of the books Harry isn't supposed to catch the snitch until his team is winning by over 100 points or something because they'll win the match but not the overall season if they win too early.

[ShadowDog]

That part makes sense but it's only necessary because of the tardation of a three game season.  Since you only play every other team once in a nine month season, you need all these lame assed tiebreakers.  They'd be playing each other twice in a real sports season but she didn't want to have to go into all that.  And to be honest, the last thing the series needed was more quidditch.

[Indomitus]

Shall we compare the logical foundation of Quidditch rules against those of other British-invented sports?  Not saying Quidditch isn't ridiculous (oh boy is it ever) just that, comparatively speaking, it's pretty much on the level with the others.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I always thought Quidditch seemed like a cross between Wizard Water Polo and Calvinball.

[The Elusive Robert Denby]

Harry is a fish out of water for too long.  In the first story or two it makes sense for him to not know things and need a lot of the aspects of the wizarding world explained to him.  This is plausible and useful for the narrative, since it gives an excuse for other characters to fill in exposition, telling both Harry and the audience what is going on at the same time...the thing is the stories keep coming, and Harry doesn't learn about anything well in advance.  Doesn't he have all those books?  Isn't he reading through the summer while shut up in his room?  Doesn't he love the wizarding world so much that it's all he thinks about when forced to live with his muggle relatives?  Sure, once school starts he usually ends up in the middle of the shitstorm so he doesn't have much chance to study, but he always comes off like a dumbass when a new situation is presented to him.  In the last third or so of the "saga" he finally seems somewhat competent and the stuff he doesn't know is at least really big cryptic things that very few master wizards know, but the whole "Ron and Hermione explain something every magical kid would know, amazed he doesn't know it himself" bit got old.

But as RiffTrax points out "Nobody explains anything to wizard children!"  Floo Powder? Portkey? Ultimate destination? Nobody has a clue!  I guess wizards raise their kids by the "toss 'em in the deep water and they'll figure out how to swim on their own" philosophy.

Your point about Harry being ignorant of the wizarding world is valid, and I've always wondered how Hermione happens to know so much more than he does.  Her parents are both Muggles, and wouldn't even know wizards existed until she got her invitation to Hogwarts.  So where does SHE come up with so much extra information?  Unlike Ron, she doesn't even have family who could pass it on to her.  Yes, yes, she's a brainiac, but even a brain needs information to input, and where does it come from?  Wizards don't have their own Internet; the only time Rowlings acknowledges the existence of computers is in the second book, I think, where she comments that Dudley has some dumb Playstation game.

It didn't really occur to me until I saw the movies, with all those kids doing their homework, that it would be a very cramped life if the only sources of information available to me were the books in my highschool library, but that seems to be the total of their pool of knowledge.  Hermione had somehow got a copy of "Hogwarts, A History" before she even arrived at school - maybe there's a Wizarding Welcome Wagon that sent it to her.  What does she do when she's not at school?  Drop by Flourish & Blotts every weekend during the summer holidays?  Where did SHE learn about the skull-and-snake firework symbol?  Nobody would have written about it; nobody in her family ever experienced it - it's just unquestioned that Hermione's brain is the go-to source for random wizarding facts.

[Darth Geek]

Hermoine is a "mudblood", a half wizard half human. So one of her parents was a wizard. And she's basically a huge magic nerd, so she does do little else but read when she's away from school.

[The Elusive Robert Denby]

No, I don't believe either of her parents is a wizard.  She's "Muggle-born", a sort of spontaneous development of magical ability.  "Mudblood" is just the slang term for anyone who's not pureblood - wizards on both sides.  That could be someone like Hermione, or someone like Seamus, who's half-and-half.

[ShadowDog]

Yeah, I've wondered the same thing about Hermione.  She had basically two months to learn everything she knows in the first book.  After that, well, we know she'd take home half the Hogwarts library so that makes sense.  But that first year doesn't make much sense.

[Rattrap007]

If there is a French wizard school (all girls) and a Russian school (all male) and a UK school (co-ed)... are there other wizard schools out there? Is there an American wizard school? if so, why are they not included in the tournament?

[Indomitus]

If there is a French wizard school (all girls) and a Russian school (all male) and a UK school (co-ed)... are there other wizard schools out there? Is there an American wizard school? if so, why are they not included in the tournament?

And what about the Far East?  What about aboriginal populations around the world?

[Lovye]

Hermione's parents are both Muggles.

In the book, the two other schools are also co-ed.

I think there is an American school or two for witches and wizards.  It's in Salem, MA, if I'm not mistaken, but, I think that was something Jo said post books....or, at least she didn't include that in any of the books.

[ShadowDog]

She actually gets pretty snotty in interviews when asked about American wizard schools.  And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any Americans make an appearence in any of the novels.  She comes across as pretty anti American sometimes.  I mean, I don't give a crap personally so I'm not trying to make a thing out of it, but it's something I've noticed.