To think Dumbledore was a massive cheater?

[Slytherine]

Just finished watching the first Harry Potter film on TV and forgot about the injustice for the Slytherins at the end. I have changed my name in solidarity.

So the Slytherins get the most House Points (presumably fairly as most of the professors at Hogwarts could barely hide their disdain for Slytherin House so wouldn’t have been dishing out points to them for no reason) and are sat there enjoying their win of the House Cup, and celebrating with the room decorated in their House colours, and then former Gryffindor Dumbledore just decides (even though the school year was officially over!!) to throw out an unreasonable amount of points to Harry, Hermione and Ron drawing them level with Slytherin, and then a further 10 points to Neville pushing Gryffindor over the edge and into the win. And then, just to rub salt into the wound, publicly humiliated them by casting a spell to replace all the Slytherin colours with the Gryffindor colours and gives them the award instead and they all celebrate, including him and most of the teachers, and Slytherin has to sit there and just accept it??

AIBU to think WTAF and that was very unfair and he was biased by doing this and it’s no wonder the Slytherins were openly hostile and dismissive of him after that!? I’d be fuming if I were a Slytherin student and if I were a parent of a Slytherin student I’d be marching up to the school myself and having a word with the head.

@SickAndTiredAgain

For all that Snape says, he always makes sure the children are physically safe.

I know it’s in the film, and I can’t remember if it’s described like this in the book but there’s a bit in the third film where they’ve found Sirius, they’ve come out from the tunnel, and Lupin has transformed into a werewolf. When Snape sees this, he stands in front of Harry, Ron and Hermione, throwing his arms out and back to herd them in behind him.
And in the bit you describe where he doesn’t hit McGonagall with his spells, if you watch closely in the film, he actually also deflects McGonagall’s spells directly onto the two death eaters behind him, knocking them out.

I know, it's a really well directed scene.

I'm sure more like that happens in the books that we don't hear about, because Harry is our unreliable narrator and he just doesn't bloody well notice.

@Strawbales

Re only five boys in Gryffindor - I read an interview with JK Rowling where she explained this was an exceptionally small school year due to the children being conceived in the first wizarding war. I guess there wasn’t much time for sex!

Unless you’re the weasleys!

@theworldsastage snape was literally a death eater running around murdering people. I don't know if you can redeem yourself from that.
I also firmly believe that he was motivated to go spy because Voldemort killed Lilly. Not because he suddenly realised that the death eaters were wrong. If Voldemort had gone after Neville then snape would have been loyal death eater to the end. He was motivated by revenge.
He only saved Harry in quidditch because James once saved his life. After that they were equal.
I don't think you can excuse bullying and abusive behaviour because you had a bad upbringing. If that was the case half the serial killers in jail would be set free.

Oh hi Draco! Look, it’s time to let it go babes.

Lots of us had a shit teacher at school. It’s no big deal. Maybe you need a spot of counselling if you’re still banging on about this? Go chill with some butterbeers and console yourself with the fact your mean teacher is dead.

He only saved Harry in quidditch because James once saved his life. After that they were equal.

No he didn’t. He may have said that, but he saved Harry because of Lily. Still not a great reason though, saving an 11 year old’s life shouldn’t be a massive ask especially when doing it put him in zero danger.

I can’t remember, Snape knew Quirrell tried to kill Harry on the broom? Did he do anything with this fairly important info? Did Dumbledore know and brush it off for some sort of grand plan reason? Or did Snape not know it was quirrell? Just that it was someone? Still, seems like the sort of thing Dumbledore should probably investigate.

Snape was literally Neville's boggart - the thing he's most scared of in the whole world. Snape was awful while also having a tragic life and being incredibly brave. But that doesn't make him nice.

He also didn't change his views on muggle borns - he saw Lily as the exception.

I also don't know why H keeps being sent home to the Dursley's in the early books when the teachers and the Weasleys know that he is being abused at home.

He has to return each summer for a short time to enable the protective charm of his mother's love to hold. It's explained in the books.

YABU, Slytherin had won it for the six years before that. It was time for a change.

People mentioning people marrying their 6th year partners, draco actually married his classmates wee sister. So like Harry marrying ginny.

And yes, I hate the naming the kids after dead or older people annoying. Percy called his daughter Molly etc. There are other names people!

I think the books would have been very short, had there been a Wizarding Ofstead

Delores Umbridge literally is the Wizarding Ofstead in book 5. The fifth book is set pretty much exactly the time Ofstead inspections began.

Severus Snape was the best character, and that's my hill to die on. People dislike him because they read the books through the viewpoint of a bratty adolescent boy and don't read around what Harry is saying.

It's weird that adults are determined to make Snape a hero, and that's my hill to die on! He's an abusive bigot who only does things for the "good" side because of his creepy obsession (not love) for a woman he barely knew. In our world he'd be an incel.

for example they send people to prison without trial at the drop of a hat

^^
This annoys me. They also have no separation of powers in the wizarding world - which is explained in book four. The Home Secretary (equivalent) basically sits as a Judge - in a juryless court too in that instance. It’s a fundamental principle of democracy that that doesn’t happen in real life - although I’m sure this government would love it!

Has anyone else read/listened to Harry potter and the methods of rationality? It is a fanfic take on the books that applies rational thinking and philosophy to the plot. It is a bit of a weird read (it goes in hard on the scientific method) - I almost gave up near the start but stuck with it and did enjoy it. Anyway, it fixes various of the plot holes around magic, puts Hermione in Ravenclaw, and has a different take on Harry and Draco (forces Draco to question his pureblood beliefs).

He was a terrible faff, Voldemort. He could have killed Harry ages ago but he just would get on with it. Too much prancing around and telling everyone how evil he is first of all

He’s also kind enough to usually wait until the end of the school year.

Especially in book 4, BC junior could easily have killed Harry at any time or turned any random object into a port key - didn’t have to be the triwizard cup

YANBU OP, Dumbledore isn’t some benign sage, he is a quite slippery character who sets up painful and difficult situations for others, and isn’t particularly above board. He also enjoys the drama and martyrdom rather a bit too much.

@GrandTheftWalrus

People mentioning people marrying their 6th year partners, draco actually married his classmates wee sister. So like Harry marrying ginny.

And yes, I hate the naming the kids after dead or older people annoying. Percy called his daughter Molly etc. There are other names people!

The names thing is like the middle ages. I shall call my son William, Henry, Edward or Thomas. I shall call my younger son the same name as his my older son who died in childhood. And no it is not confusing that my son, me, and my father all have same name...

I absolutely hated the fact they all marry within the school, and just seem to have no aspiration and ambition beyond a narrow post school path. Hermione should have gone to university, ditched Harry and married someone she met in graduate studies. Or something. Now I'm older I recognise the trauma element of their childhood experience. But then more of them should have rushed to get married young but ended up divorced (I haven't seen or read the cursed child to know how much of that is addressed later).

He’s also kind enough to usually wait until the end of the school year.

Voldemort actually really cared about Harry’s education.

Voldemort is my all time favourite baddie. He is just so wonderfully camp 😂

I agree - he’s incredibly camp! Certainly in the films.

I do wonder about his motivations for being so evil though. Eternal life doesn’t seem so exciting - what does he want to do with it?

Tip of the iceberg!

Dudley and Harry kept in touch, though they were awkward in each other's company.

I didn't find it that odd that Molly didn't work. I'm a bit younger than Harry, but when I was at primary school, hardly any of the mums worked.

Hermione's mum does, but Petunia and Narcissa don't. Most of the women we see working are childless — some because they're young (Tonks, Fleur), some because they're unmarried (Umbridge, the teachers).

And the wizarding world in general is more "traditional" — I think it might be quite common for just the dads to work.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Voldemort is my all time favourite baddie. He is just so wonderfully camp 😂

I agree - he’s incredibly camp! Certainly in the films.

I do wonder about his motivations for being so evil though. Eternal life doesn’t seem so exciting - what does he want to do with it?

He wants to basically mash out all muggle borns and muggle people and elevate wizards to the highest status above all other people and creatures. All a bit Hitlerish really.

I don’t think he had any long term plans beyond world domination.

We watched it again last night and decided to change the title to ‘Hermione Grainger and her incompetent friends’.
They really would be stuffed if Hermione wasn’t there.

The wizarding world is actually fairly unpleasant in lots of ways, and not all of it down to the return of Voldemort -- no separation of powers, showtrials, a corrupt and/or incompetent government, enslavement of and prejudice towards non-humans/magical creatures (no one seems at all shocked by the fact that a dragon is horribly mistreated longterm as a sort of guard dog to the Lestrange vault) etc. Hermione's horror at the enslavement of house elves is mostly played for laughs because they 'like' being enslaved and the ones who are freed go badly wrong or get killed, and the nice Weasleys wish they had a house elf and are fine with the idea of a creature who is enslaved to their house and unable to disobey a direct order.

There are, I gather, a lot of fanfics that take the idea of the 'good' wizarding world as a dystopia and run with it.

I read one, years ago (when I clearly had a lot more free time), that was the length of a long novel, which was a sort of political thriller set after the defeat of Voldemort, where there were blood laws enacted to protect the wizarding population and half-bloods and muggleborns were forced to marry purebloods, and had a world-weary Hermione and a noble but unpleasant Snape married (I think it was written long before Snape was killed off in canon.)

@TheGonnagle

We watched it again last night and decided to change the title to ‘Hermione Grainger and her incompetent friends’. They really would be stuffed if Hermione wasn’t there.

I do find it irritating that Hermione gets increasingly sidelined as the series goes on, when she’s clearly the most intelligent and competent of them all by a long way. Ditto Minerva McGonagall, too.