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.

I agree with you. When DH and I rewatched them all a few months back, he stated exactly what the OP has said. Yes, Harry, Ron, Hermione (nd possibly even Neville - his standing up to his friends was a major turning point for him) deserved the points, waiting until the feast was unnecessary. He could easily have given those points out during the time that Harry was in the hospital wing.

One thing that really bothers me about the HP books, is the realisation that I probably wouldn't have been able to go. I know that magic is able t cure wizard illness, but the wizards are still human, and therefore surely would have some non-magical illnesses too? Yet muggle medicine is considered to be completely different to magic medicine (remember Arthur Weasley and his stitches?). As a T1 diabetic, I need insulin to survive (which is kept in my fridge until I need to get it out to fill up my insulin pen), I also rely on CGM technology to keep an eye on my blood sugars - linked to my phone. Yet, we are told that electricity doesn't work in the magical world in book 4 (yet, they all seem to have wireless radios?).

I know that the argument here could easily be that there is a magical solution around it, but it just bothers me that no one in the magical world (no one) ever seems to have a long-term medical condition/disability. I know that Lupin's werewolf is meant to be a metaphor for how people stigmatized those with AIDs, but surely wizards were able to contact AIDs as well?

Don't get me started on children with physical disabilities - how on earth is a wheelchair user meant to navigate all those ever-moving stairs (especially as both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw have common rooms in towers)?

Probably over-thinking this way too much, it's just something that's always bothered me how non-inclusive Hogwarts is :( (Although kudos to Dumbledore for making accommodations to enable Lupin to attend).

@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.

But the whole thing would have been over very quickly because although the boys need Hermione's intelligent input, she was too rigid and a real rule follower to have initiated any of their escapades.

But the whole thing would have been over very quickly because although the boys need Hermione's intelligent input, she was too rigid and a real rule follower to have initiated any of their escapades.

I don't think it's so much that as that she needs to be kept in check by JKR for the same reason that adults so often need to be either absent, incompetent or evil in children's books -- if the plot centres on children as agents solving things, effectual adults have to be largely removed from the scene.

@CurzonDax

Yes, you’d be scuppered trying to get a wheelchair up those moving stairs. Is anyone ever mentioned as being in a wheelchair in the any of the books or films? Even very old people that we see like Ron’s auntie who is elderly or other very old frail seeming people don’t use wheelchairs.

Although judging by how they lock Neville’s parents and Lockheart away in hospital when they’re unwell, medical treatment and acceptance is poor in the wizarding world. I mean why would Neville’s parents be in a hospital environment rather than a more homely environment? They’re in the same type of hospital where people who are injured or sick are which doesn’t seem a good prospect long term.

I’ve often thought it’s annoying because it would be easy and so cool to add in how disability works in this world. They could have magical versions of wheelchairs that allow the person to hover up the stairs, nifflers trained with gold or some other magical creatures as ‘guide dogs’ for blind students, a magical version of insulin that Madame Pomfrey gives out with a spell that lets you check your blood sugar. Lots of ways inclusivity could be woven in!

@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.

Pretty much.

Harry was the chosen one.

Hermione was the brains.

Ron was... just there.

*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.*

This. He also resents his muggle and very rich father for abandoning his mum , who then dies while giving birth to him on the stairs of the orphanage. He thinks for a long time his mum is the "weak" muggle because she died. Add in the mental instability on his mother's side from years of inbreeding, and it's a recipe for disaster. It doesn't help that years later he finds out his "noble" , "direct descendants of Slytherin" family lived in squalor in a dilapidated shack while his muggle father is in a mansion, and he's the product of deceit and love potions . There's a lot to unpick there .

He has a very fucked up background, and some parallels can definitely be drawn to real life figures.

@CatJumperTwat

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.

They had been best friends for two years before they started school. She was the only person who was nice to him until then (abusive,neglectful household ,most of it coming from his muggle dad). He was the one that encouraged her to use magic and stood up for her when Petunia was being horrible to her for being magical and "weird". They bonded over magic and were there for each other and all they had at least where magic is concerned.Until the massive fallout where he calls her a mudblood they were still friends even if it was strained.

She's not a woman he barely knew.

Me, getting back to my point yesterday (I feel bad because I am not really a great fan), not sure what it says in the books, but in the film Malfoy approaches Harry really nicely. Ron sniggers. Then Malfoy takes this stuck up superior stand, which is wrong, but so is Ron's attitude. Harry sides straight away with Ron, who he just met, without really having a clue.
I know Draco was "the bad guy" through the early films, but he did help Harry, against his own family. He is not bad at heart, I think, he acts how he sees his family to do, who are stupod snobs. Now, they could have ironed their issues at those steps, on the first day.... if Ron had not sniggered at him!
Maybe the books explain this better.

@MushMonster The book is completely different with Harry meeting Malfoy. He meets him before they are on the train- in Madam
Malkin's when they are getting their school robes. Even then, not knowing who Harry is, Harry gets a bad impression of him. He is checking with Harry that his parents were a witch and wizard, not sounding at all sorry that they're dead and saying that muggle borns shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts.

I also feel the need to defend Hufflepuff a bit on this thread. I know there is one school song where Helga Hufflepuff is described as saying she'll "teach the lot, and treat them just the same" but I personally took that to illustrate that she was a kind person and didn't discriminate (showing the kind and loyal qualities of Hufflepuff) rather than Hufflepuff being for the ones who didn't fit into another house. Other songs describe Hufflepuff as: "You might belong in Hufflepuff, where they are just and loyal. Those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil". (From memory so might be slightly out!). Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff, is the first one to stand up and say he wants to stay and fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, and Cedric is described as having many of the qualities that describe Hufflepuff house.

The OP made me laugh as DH has a rant about Dumbledore giving those points to make sure Gryffindor win the House Cup every time we watch the film

I always get annoyed that he gives Ron and Hermione 50 and Harry 60 and Neville 10. Why can’t he give H, R & H the same and give Neville 20, anyway? Why does Harry get the extra?

@foxgoosefinch

I always get annoyed that he gives Ron and Hermione 50 and Harry 60 and Neville 10. Why can’t he give H, R & H the same and give Neville 20, anyway? Why does Harry get the extra?

Harry literally had a fistfight with a man who had Voldemort growing out the back of his head. Ron played a really good game of chess.

I mean if I was Harry I’d feel I’d worked harder than Ron and Hermione.

Harry gets more because he’s the prize pig and Dumbledore is grooming him to go willingly to his death

@MushMonster

Me, getting back to my point yesterday (I feel bad because I am not really a great fan), not sure what it says in the books, but in the film Malfoy approaches Harry really nicely. Ron sniggers. Then Malfoy takes this stuck up superior stand, which is wrong, but so is Ron's attitude. Harry sides straight away with Ron, who he just met, without really having a clue. I know Draco was "the bad guy" through the early films, but he did help Harry, against his own family. He is not bad at heart, I think, he acts how he sees his family to do, who are stupod snobs. Now, they could have ironed their issues at those steps, on the first day.... if Ron had not sniggered at him! Maybe the books explain this better.

This is where the film lets the book down I think. It’s very clear in the book that Draco behaves badly towards Ron, which Harry observes, then tries to suck up to Harry, who decides there and then he doesn’t want to know him.

Slytheryns are pricks. They deserve it.

This is where the film lets the book down I think. It’s very clear in the book that Draco behaves badly towards Ron, which Harry observes, then tries to suck up to Harry, who decides there and then he doesn’t want to know him.

To be fair, even without the part in the books, Tom Felton plays that scene so skilfully and beautifully, that you can't not dislike Draco.

His tone, his posture, his manner oozes superiority, arrogance and condescension. Outing Harry in front of everyone and making it clear that's why he's speaking to him in front of everyone just seals the deal.

After all that Ron can be forgiven for sniggering at the James Bond style introduction on top of it all.

Agree that Tom Felton did a good job of making Malfoy easily unlikeable in that first scene but what was Ron thinking? If your name is literally Ron Weasley how on earth can you laugh at anyone else’s name?

@TooBigForMyBoots

Hogwarts is a harmful environment for children. No way would I send my sons.

😂

Actually I think we have undermined Mrs Weasley on this thread.

Wizard world kids don’t go to school until 11 so MW would have been looking after Ginny until that point. After that she seems to be B&B for the auror lot and hosts them all the time, allows her house to be used as meetings points etc. I wouldn’t say she was lazy exactly, she seems to run around everyone like a blue arsed fly. Touch of the Sue radford maybe?!

Oh yeah wizarding parents must have to home-school for the primary years as surely they still need reading/writing/maths skills before they go and learn magic

I wouldn’t say Snape was ‘noble’ and he certainly shouldnt have been given a teaching role. How did he get through THAT interview?!!

🤣 I will send this to my superfan niece and enjoy her reaction. She is a woke 18 years old now so she will argue it down I am sure

@phonetica

One thing I don’t really get is the whole ‘reformed character’ thing for James Potter considering how young him and Lily are, they are married and expecting Harry at the grand old age of NINETEEN. So about 3 years on from him being a terrible bully and horrible person to her husband. I don’t understand why they weren’t written as a few years older at time of marriage and having Harry.

Molly Weasley said in book six that everyone was eloping left, right and centre during the first wizarding war. No one knew if they would be the next victim so they rushed in to things before it was too late.

@Tictocrobot

I wouldn’t say Snape was ‘noble’ and he certainly shouldnt have been given a teaching role. How did he get through THAT interview?!!

He probably put a spell on Dumbledore and winged it that way !!

I guess what with the no Muggle medicine, there's probably no contraception in the wizarding world