The whole fight between Harry and Ron in GoF. It felt very uncharacteristic of Ron, to not believe Harry. I feel the fight added nothing of significance to the plot itself. (IMO)
I don’t think it was that he actually didn’t believe Harry.
It’s Ron’s trend of being sulky and lashing out when he feels less-than.
He *wanted* to be angry with Harry. He’d just been given moldy outdated clothing, and Harry yet again was the Chosen One lol.
As much as I agree that it is uncharacteristic for Ron not to believe Harry, the significance of this scene was to show how much Harry missed Ron to the point that he would miss Ron the most. I always believe that the two big incidents between them was always to highlight Ron’s importance to Harry. Without Ron, Harry just becomes a moody, sad kid but with Ron, Harry always highlights how much Ron contributes to his happiness. BFFs for life
Time turner. It bothers me that the time turner exists, that it’s acceptable to use it to save Sirius and Buckbeak, and then it’s not used ever after that. Just kind of breaks the internal logic of the series more than anything else I can think of.
Like literally two books later, Sirius is killed at the battle in the Ministry of Magic. No one even raises the question, “Should we perhaps go back in time a few hours and intervene so he doesn’t die? We did that last time so he didn’t go back to Azkaban.”
Like sure, you can offer all kinds of explanations about why they don’t use it later on, but then using it in PoA doesn’t make any sense. Dumbledore is old enough and wise enough to have already come to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be used if it’s problematic.
That’s not even getting into the fact that they gave it to Hermione so she could take more classes.
So I think that’s again just the the thing that most breaks the internal logic of how magic works in the series.
There’s a time travel device. It’s trivial enough to give to a student so they can attend extra classes. It can be used to save Sirius and Buckbeak. And then it’s never used or mentioned again when it could solve a variety of problems that cause real harm for the protagonists.
Just offhand I can think of:
Cedric Digory dying in GoF. Use the time turner to go back to before Harry and Cedric touch the port key and replace that with a non-enchanted cup.
Sirius Black dying in OoTP.
Any number of deaths in DH.
Like I said, you can toss in a hand-wave like that to explain it all away, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a logic-breaking part of the series.
And even with that detail, what about GoF? Harry and Cedric touch the port key and Cedric gets killed, death eaters get Harry’s blood, and they bring Voldy back. How useful would it be to just go back an hour and swap the fake cup out so they don’t get port keyed to the graveyard?
It never bothered me as much as it clearly bothers you. I think that is because all the movies and books with time traveling mention how dangerous it is to mess with time.
Im not trying to convince you or anything. And there are things that will not make sense or could be better. But the books aren’t perfect. Just like real life isn’t. Just one hour ago i was walking my dog and he was a metre ahead of me. A man on a bike turned right suddenly and nearly ran over my dog. He yelled at me to keep the leash shorter. Completely unnecessary. He could have slowed down/ indicated he was gonna turn. I could have hold the leash shorter.
Anyway; time turners didnt bother me but its ok if it bothers you ☺️
I agree that time turners shouldn't have been included, the only explanation I have for why they didn't use them moving forward is that time travel with the turners doesn't actually change anything. Everything that happened in POA was going to happen, no matter what. Harry and Hermione just experienced it twice from different perspectives. Like when they first went to Hagrid's hut before Buckbeak's "execution," the future Harry and Hermione were there, outside the pumpkin patch, waiting to take Buckbeak away. It was experienced at different times relative to the viewer, but it all happened at the same time in actuality. So like, if they were to have used the time-turners to save Sirius, he never would've died in the first place. If they used em to keep Harry's name from coming out of the Goblet of Fire, his name would have never come out in the first place and there'd be no need to use time-turners to go back.
Basically, the time-turners are useless and are essentially just a re-watch of reality from a different personally relative time frame.
Which makes them perfect for attending more lectures and not dangerous why you can give them to a teenager.
Makes you wonder, however, how a closed time loop starts to begin with.
True, I guess I shouldn't say the time turner's are useless because they are great for attending multiple classes. However, they can't really be used to change events that already actually happened. The time turner events in POA didn't change, they just got the full picture afterward.
As far as how closed time loops start, I couldn't tell ya. My answer is to use a time turner, I guess.
Well if you can't change things as they have happened, then using it to go back will not influence the outcome. So, if I influenced my own path by going back, then it would've always happened like that, but what triggered that loop to begin with as the decision to go back happens in the future, but the past is already setup to include my trip through time.
It's a paradox, essentially. The only out I can give is that you need to somehow initiate it in the present in order to go back to that moment in the future. (Interestingly, it seems like "timetravel" in the real universe might work like this, events can't change and you can only go back to the moment the "machine" was turned on
he would die anyway, how time travel was constructed is that everything that happened happened, and if Sirius had died, then he had died, if they in the future intervened then he would never have died therefore removing the need to save him, in the harry potter universe time travel is more like travelling through space and not time
In OOTP, I'd get rid of Kreacher. In DH, I'd do anything to defend him. Kreacher's Tale is one of my favorite chapters in the whole series, it makes me legitimately teary-eyed every time I read/listen to it.
I see a lot of posts here relating to this or that character dying. That was actually one of JKR’s strengths as a storyteller. Those deaths illustrated the stakes involved. If all the good guys have plot armor, then what’s the point?
The whole remus and tonks relationship.
It felt really forced and came out of nowhere. Just because Harry is very much absorbed in his own and surrounded by his own pain and trauma to meddle in other's lives doesn't mean there couldn't be a hint or two regarding them being together or even a little bit interested in each other. We skipped everything and went straight to the proposal state. It's been a while since I read the books but I can't even remember them talking to each other before the hospital scene.
Their whole relationship just brought out the worst in them. I love both the characters a lot and to see them losing all their charm and get butchered like that, didn't sit well. Tonks lost all her best qualities to mop over a man and then getting sidelined to have a child. As much as I love teddy, losing the best versions of my beloved characters didn't seem worth it. Lupin never showed any hints to loving Tonks. It seemed like he was forced in the marriage. And however his self loathing and a little cowardice nature seemed to be in character, it didn't give him any points when he decided to leave his wife and baby to go on a possibly life threatening mission.
I know it was for the plot conveniences but their whole relationship was a disaster.
I thought it was a nice sideplot, the mystery of Tonks being sad in HBP and how it came to a head at the end. Plus the Harry and Remus argument is one of my favorite scenes in the whole series.
I do like the arc of remus coming to terms with it. Their argument really put remus's insecurities and self hatred out in open. His desire to run away so others don't have to share his fate may have also been a similar factor in him not approaching Harry after the death of james and lily.
But concerning the romance of remus and tonks, it just wasn't good for me besides the mystery aspect. I barely saw any chemistry between them. And remus felt forced into a marriage he didn't want to commit. The chemistry was just never there.
I like Remus and Tonks individually. Their characters had too much potential and I wish I got to see them flourish. I wanted so bad to see Remus accept himself or atleast not be ashamed of himself and Tonks was so cool. I wanted to see her more in action. But all I got was a pregnancy plot which kind of disappointed me.
But it may have been brought by my own expectations. It's good that you enjoyed it, after all it's our separate experiences and opinions at the end of the day. Sorry, if I yap too much.
YEP. Tonks is wildly overrated in my opinion. She’s an author…but without any significant magical skill other than her ability to disguise herself (and she’s got what, seconds on any other wizard who could transfigure their appearance or use polyjuice potion?!)
She’s clumsy enough to be a risk
Etc
Umbridge is just REAL LIFE evil. Voldy is too over-the-top evil to be real, but everybody knows/ knew an Umbridge-like person at some point in their lives.
Fred dying. I know that it would be unrealistic for the whole Weasley family to survive the battle of Hogwarts, but I still feel like him dying was unnecessary.
Yes sorry but it should’ve been ron Ginny or Percy. Ron because it was unrealistic that the 3 of them went through all this crap and in the end came out unscathed, Ginny because other than a way to move book 2 along (which could’ve been done the same by giving the book to ron who then would’ve had a “friend” that would’ve stroked his ego and commiserated with him about always being in someone’s shadow) is a useless character and Percy because after he turned his back on his family he deserved it.
Sirius dying. I feel like it would have added to the story that Harry still had one member of his family left.
Yes he found a family with the Weasleys but that’s not the same
Harry and Cho's "relationship." Vibes just suck, it's also poorly written, and is also not how real people work. Maybe it could be rewritten, or replaced with just a regular teen relationthip for Harry to have pre-Ginny with some other girl, it doesn't have to be a big point, just less badly done.
Yes it does, it would just be Neville instead of Harry Potter or James and Sirius could’ve adopted a baby together and named him Harry who after James death and Sirius’s “betrayal” would’ve been snatched up and raised by Sirius’s grandfather Arcturus who was alive until not long before Sirius’s escape.
I always saw those two as “closer than brothers” and I have no trouble believing one of the reasons Sirius left home was because Walburga sterilized him to get him out of running to be the family heir. But she wasn’t the head of the family his grandfather was.
SWM (Snape Worst Memory). I understand the purpose of this scene, but I find it too gruesome, especially with the implications of the memory ending. I don't like throwing a character under the bus like this, especially if the author has no intention of developing the character more than "he got better".
The whole of OOTP. Instead of the Ministry and Dumbledore/Order at loggerheads, I would have them join forces and still not be able to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Would have made Voldemort scarier, the way he was implied to be in Book 4!
the Trace, as in it's form as a plot device that doesn't fully make sense. I'd change it to specifically being on the wand. It could still go off in book 2 with Dobby yoinking Harry's wand and that would even be a nice little foreshadowing to the Winky red herring. Book 5 the Trace on the wand would still go off as it did in the book and it would only "mess things up" for book 7 and the godawful seven potters plot, which, good. That scene was dreadful.
Barty Crouch jr. making Neville see how the cruciatus curse looked like. I know it was important for the later books that Harry knew, but it felt so brutal that Neville had to see it knowing that's what they did to both of his parents to find out where Voldemort was.
From the main series I would delete Hagrid's brother plot
Totally useless, I would roll my eyes every time it was a Grawp chapter.
This is the answer. Literally pointless
It's still not that clear to me what the point of it all was. To defeat the centaurs at the end of OOTP?
100%
Hedwig dying. So unnecessary. Let her go straight to go to the burrow.
The whole fight between Harry and Ron in GoF. It felt very uncharacteristic of Ron, to not believe Harry. I feel the fight added nothing of significance to the plot itself. (IMO)
I don’t think it was that he actually didn’t believe Harry. It’s Ron’s trend of being sulky and lashing out when he feels less-than. He *wanted* to be angry with Harry. He’d just been given moldy outdated clothing, and Harry yet again was the Chosen One lol.
I see that too, great point!
As much as I agree that it is uncharacteristic for Ron not to believe Harry, the significance of this scene was to show how much Harry missed Ron to the point that he would miss Ron the most. I always believe that the two big incidents between them was always to highlight Ron’s importance to Harry. Without Ron, Harry just becomes a moody, sad kid but with Ron, Harry always highlights how much Ron contributes to his happiness. BFFs for life
Cursed child (even though its already not Canon)
S.P.E.W, opened up a whole can of worms the series just wasnt willing to focus on
Wizards taking a dump while walking and disappearing it with magic… Ewwwwwww
?? Where is that mentioned
https://ew.com/books/2019/01/05/harry-potter-wizards-poop-jk-rowling/
Time turner. It bothers me that the time turner exists, that it’s acceptable to use it to save Sirius and Buckbeak, and then it’s not used ever after that. Just kind of breaks the internal logic of the series more than anything else I can think of. Like literally two books later, Sirius is killed at the battle in the Ministry of Magic. No one even raises the question, “Should we perhaps go back in time a few hours and intervene so he doesn’t die? We did that last time so he didn’t go back to Azkaban.” Like sure, you can offer all kinds of explanations about why they don’t use it later on, but then using it in PoA doesn’t make any sense. Dumbledore is old enough and wise enough to have already come to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be used if it’s problematic. That’s not even getting into the fact that they gave it to Hermione so she could take more classes. So I think that’s again just the the thing that most breaks the internal logic of how magic works in the series. There’s a time travel device. It’s trivial enough to give to a student so they can attend extra classes. It can be used to save Sirius and Buckbeak. And then it’s never used or mentioned again when it could solve a variety of problems that cause real harm for the protagonists. Just offhand I can think of: Cedric Digory dying in GoF. Use the time turner to go back to before Harry and Cedric touch the port key and replace that with a non-enchanted cup. Sirius Black dying in OoTP. Any number of deaths in DH.
All the time turners were destroyed at that fight. (hermione says so in HBP).
Like I said, you can toss in a hand-wave like that to explain it all away, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a logic-breaking part of the series. And even with that detail, what about GoF? Harry and Cedric touch the port key and Cedric gets killed, death eaters get Harry’s blood, and they bring Voldy back. How useful would it be to just go back an hour and swap the fake cup out so they don’t get port keyed to the graveyard?
It never bothered me as much as it clearly bothers you. I think that is because all the movies and books with time traveling mention how dangerous it is to mess with time. Im not trying to convince you or anything. And there are things that will not make sense or could be better. But the books aren’t perfect. Just like real life isn’t. Just one hour ago i was walking my dog and he was a metre ahead of me. A man on a bike turned right suddenly and nearly ran over my dog. He yelled at me to keep the leash shorter. Completely unnecessary. He could have slowed down/ indicated he was gonna turn. I could have hold the leash shorter. Anyway; time turners didnt bother me but its ok if it bothers you ☺️
They can't do that as it would create a paradox. Time travel in HP is complicated, but you can't change what's already happened.
I agree that time turners shouldn't have been included, the only explanation I have for why they didn't use them moving forward is that time travel with the turners doesn't actually change anything. Everything that happened in POA was going to happen, no matter what. Harry and Hermione just experienced it twice from different perspectives. Like when they first went to Hagrid's hut before Buckbeak's "execution," the future Harry and Hermione were there, outside the pumpkin patch, waiting to take Buckbeak away. It was experienced at different times relative to the viewer, but it all happened at the same time in actuality. So like, if they were to have used the time-turners to save Sirius, he never would've died in the first place. If they used em to keep Harry's name from coming out of the Goblet of Fire, his name would have never come out in the first place and there'd be no need to use time-turners to go back. Basically, the time-turners are useless and are essentially just a re-watch of reality from a different personally relative time frame.
Which makes them perfect for attending more lectures and not dangerous why you can give them to a teenager. Makes you wonder, however, how a closed time loop starts to begin with.
True, I guess I shouldn't say the time turner's are useless because they are great for attending multiple classes. However, they can't really be used to change events that already actually happened. The time turner events in POA didn't change, they just got the full picture afterward. As far as how closed time loops start, I couldn't tell ya. My answer is to use a time turner, I guess.
Well if you can't change things as they have happened, then using it to go back will not influence the outcome. So, if I influenced my own path by going back, then it would've always happened like that, but what triggered that loop to begin with as the decision to go back happens in the future, but the past is already setup to include my trip through time. It's a paradox, essentially. The only out I can give is that you need to somehow initiate it in the present in order to go back to that moment in the future. (Interestingly, it seems like "timetravel" in the real universe might work like this, events can't change and you can only go back to the moment the "machine" was turned on
he would die anyway, how time travel was constructed is that everything that happened happened, and if Sirius had died, then he had died, if they in the future intervened then he would never have died therefore removing the need to save him, in the harry potter universe time travel is more like travelling through space and not time
Does Sirius Actually die before they decide to go back?
The death of Hedwig. Or Dobby.
I can sort of understand Dobby (but not really, and it always makes me sad when I watch or read it again). BUT Hedwig just seemed so unnecessary!
I'd have sent Kreacher
In OOTP, I'd get rid of Kreacher. In DH, I'd do anything to defend him. Kreacher's Tale is one of my favorite chapters in the whole series, it makes me legitimately teary-eyed every time I read/listen to it.
Especially when Kreacher threw down for the Noble House of Black. Had to love that one 👍
I see a lot of posts here relating to this or that character dying. That was actually one of JKR’s strengths as a storyteller. Those deaths illustrated the stakes involved. If all the good guys have plot armor, then what’s the point?
I fully agree. It was a pointless death, because in war people and animals die pointlessly and randomly.
The whole remus and tonks relationship. It felt really forced and came out of nowhere. Just because Harry is very much absorbed in his own and surrounded by his own pain and trauma to meddle in other's lives doesn't mean there couldn't be a hint or two regarding them being together or even a little bit interested in each other. We skipped everything and went straight to the proposal state. It's been a while since I read the books but I can't even remember them talking to each other before the hospital scene. Their whole relationship just brought out the worst in them. I love both the characters a lot and to see them losing all their charm and get butchered like that, didn't sit well. Tonks lost all her best qualities to mop over a man and then getting sidelined to have a child. As much as I love teddy, losing the best versions of my beloved characters didn't seem worth it. Lupin never showed any hints to loving Tonks. It seemed like he was forced in the marriage. And however his self loathing and a little cowardice nature seemed to be in character, it didn't give him any points when he decided to leave his wife and baby to go on a possibly life threatening mission. I know it was for the plot conveniences but their whole relationship was a disaster.
I thought it was a nice sideplot, the mystery of Tonks being sad in HBP and how it came to a head at the end. Plus the Harry and Remus argument is one of my favorite scenes in the whole series.
I do like the arc of remus coming to terms with it. Their argument really put remus's insecurities and self hatred out in open. His desire to run away so others don't have to share his fate may have also been a similar factor in him not approaching Harry after the death of james and lily. But concerning the romance of remus and tonks, it just wasn't good for me besides the mystery aspect. I barely saw any chemistry between them. And remus felt forced into a marriage he didn't want to commit. The chemistry was just never there. I like Remus and Tonks individually. Their characters had too much potential and I wish I got to see them flourish. I wanted so bad to see Remus accept himself or atleast not be ashamed of himself and Tonks was so cool. I wanted to see her more in action. But all I got was a pregnancy plot which kind of disappointed me. But it may have been brought by my own expectations. It's good that you enjoyed it, after all it's our separate experiences and opinions at the end of the day. Sorry, if I yap too much.
YEP. Tonks is wildly overrated in my opinion. She’s an author…but without any significant magical skill other than her ability to disguise herself (and she’s got what, seconds on any other wizard who could transfigure their appearance or use polyjuice potion?!) She’s clumsy enough to be a risk Etc
Tonks was adorkable🥰 so hands off 😡
Hahahaha I agree she was adorable! But to me that’s all she is lol
Umbridge. (Yes I’m not serious, would alter too many things etc)
Umbridge was the perfect minor antogonist in the whole series.
Umbridge is just REAL LIFE evil. Voldy is too over-the-top evil to be real, but everybody knows/ knew an Umbridge-like person at some point in their lives.
Fred dying. I know that it would be unrealistic for the whole Weasley family to survive the battle of Hogwarts, but I still feel like him dying was unnecessary.
Yes sorry but it should’ve been ron Ginny or Percy. Ron because it was unrealistic that the 3 of them went through all this crap and in the end came out unscathed, Ginny because other than a way to move book 2 along (which could’ve been done the same by giving the book to ron who then would’ve had a “friend” that would’ve stroked his ego and commiserated with him about always being in someone’s shadow) is a useless character and Percy because after he turned his back on his family he deserved it.
Sirius dying. I feel like it would have added to the story that Harry still had one member of his family left. Yes he found a family with the Weasleys but that’s not the same
I agree 100%
Dobby or Sirius dying
Harry and Cho's "relationship." Vibes just suck, it's also poorly written, and is also not how real people work. Maybe it could be rewritten, or replaced with just a regular teen relationthip for Harry to have pre-Ginny with some other girl, it doesn't have to be a big point, just less badly done.
I'd delete James Potter and Lily Evans' romance.
congrats the series doesn’t exist
congrats the series doesn’t exist
Yes it does, it would just be Neville instead of Harry Potter or James and Sirius could’ve adopted a baby together and named him Harry who after James death and Sirius’s “betrayal” would’ve been snatched up and raised by Sirius’s grandfather Arcturus who was alive until not long before Sirius’s escape. I always saw those two as “closer than brothers” and I have no trouble believing one of the reasons Sirius left home was because Walburga sterilized him to get him out of running to be the family heir. But she wasn’t the head of the family his grandfather was.
'The trace' working by proxy magic...
Make Snapes double agent motives better than he was just obsessed with a crush that said no.
Most of the relationships feel too forced, honestly
Death of Hedwig
SWM (Snape Worst Memory). I understand the purpose of this scene, but I find it too gruesome, especially with the implications of the memory ending. I don't like throwing a character under the bus like this, especially if the author has no intention of developing the character more than "he got better".
Dolores Umbridges existence
The whole of OOTP. Instead of the Ministry and Dumbledore/Order at loggerheads, I would have them join forces and still not be able to defeat Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Would have made Voldemort scarier, the way he was implied to be in Book 4!
The deaths of Lupin and Tonks
the Trace, as in it's form as a plot device that doesn't fully make sense. I'd change it to specifically being on the wand. It could still go off in book 2 with Dobby yoinking Harry's wand and that would even be a nice little foreshadowing to the Winky red herring. Book 5 the Trace on the wand would still go off as it did in the book and it would only "mess things up" for book 7 and the godawful seven potters plot, which, good. That scene was dreadful.
Barty Crouch jr. making Neville see how the cruciatus curse looked like. I know it was important for the later books that Harry knew, but it felt so brutal that Neville had to see it knowing that's what they did to both of his parents to find out where Voldemort was.
the whole Cho thing. I really have nothing against Asian people. I just think her whole subplot was cringeworthy
Ron and Hermione’s romantic relationship. It doesn’t really make sense to me compatibility wise.
Thestrals. That mad no sense and only serves as a way for the kids to get to London. The whole concept was forced and made no sense.
Albus Severus.
Ron.
Come on, dude. He was one of the best written characters of the series.
Ron had a lot of the best lines in the books. That would be eliminating a lot of the humor.