I mean, the way Harry was going to end up beating Voldemort was always going to be based on magical technicalities, i.e. "love" etc. He wasn't about to actually out duel Voldemort straight up; the entire seven books was to establish the fact that Harry wasn't your generic fan fiction "Chosen One", but relied on circumstances beyond his control.
More disappointed in the fact that we didn't see another battle between two incredibly powerful wizards as we saw in five... That's what I meant. The last two books were more about finding a way around defeating Voldemort straight up than anything else... He's lazy as hell, but I don't think he's a below average wizard at all- He's just young. Is he extraordinary like Voldemort, Grindewald, Snape, Dumbledore, Moody, etc.? No, but he's pretty solid whenever his mind is in something AND he's got the additional qualities of being a super nice person and such.
In another universe without a Dumbledore and Voldemort, Snape probably could have been considered the best wizard of his time, not really fair to compare Harry to him. Honestly, not even Hermione was on par with the talents of the older generation (Dumbledore, Grindwald, Voldemort, Snape etc). Snape was fucking inventing his own curses and potions at the same age when Harry/Ron/Hermione was starting to learn nonverbal spells.
I put him in the same category as the older generation and said Harry didn't belong with them, you candy ass.
Hermione's ceiling imo is probably McGonagall, book smart as hell and can quickly learn just about everything but don't think she'll be breaking any new magical ground with creative stuff.
Nailed him from movies 1-6, there wasn't any way he could have lived up to the book 7 expectations, especially "The Prince's Tale" chapter portion.
Claiming Harry was a below average wizard in terms of pure ability is absolutely false. He sucked in some areas, but was exceptional in others (particularly dark arts, dueling, etc). He was the best in his year at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and by quite a bit. Was he exceptional? No. But he also wasn't below average. He was probably above average. One of the things I always wondered though was how the horcrux within him dying would have affected his abilities in the future. Obviously he would've lost the ability to speak parseltongue. But would it have killed other abilities as well?
Alright. Geez. Let me try again: Harry was a below average STUDENT. There. He was great at real world practical magic but sucked at the textbook learning stuff. Hermione basically did his and Ron's homework every year for six years straight.
You said he was a below average wizard, don't get sassy with us for correcting you. He was certainly lazy and careless with his school work. Classic kid that knows how to just wing it and comes out ahead of everyone else (including tri-wizard tournament in which he doesn't even really play at all for the challenges until the last minute). Overall, he is the best in the entire school at defense against the dark arts and likely dueling as well... He's training George and Fred in his fifth year, and they are at the very least two of the most intelligent wizards in the school.
Speaks more about the current generation of Hogwarts talent than Harry's imo. He'd at best be the 3rd, maybe 4th most talented Marauder back in his dad's generation, James and Sirius were miles ahead of anyone in Harry's generation and neither of them were among the elite tier of wizards. Fred and George were better wizards, they just didn't take any actual school subjects that seriously, and that includes Defense Against the Dark Arts (and by extension, dueling).
James and Sirius were elite. Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Grindelwald were god tier. Also, unlike James and Sirius, Harry didn't even know wizards existed until he was 11, let alone that he was one. Kind of puts him behind the eight ball, don't you think?
J.K. Rowling Verified account @jk_rowling Been wondering how to mark Snape's birthday without starting an argument. Here's to him, the big hero/bully. He really was the best/worst.
It's a disadvantage, but to my knowledge neither did Hermione- The brightest witch of her age. Do we really know that James and Sirius were "elite"? Based on your rankings, there is probably a tier between Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindewald and the guys like Sirius and James... I'm thinking of Snape, Moody, etc. James and Sirius were cool as fuck and they pounded out the vagina, but nothing realllly suggests that they were exceptional.
In terms of real world comparisons Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald are like Issac Newton, Albert Einstein etc, historic type talent that only emerges once in several generations, maybe ever. Snape is Bill Gates, a top 0.1% talent/entrepreneur, only a handful of guys like him exists in the world. James and Sirius I'd say are like Harvard graduates, the top 1% and the smartest/most talented people their friends/family know of. Hermione is of course the overachieving high school valedictorian, obviously exceptionally smart; put something in a textbook and by god she'll learn/memorize it faster than anyone you know, but take away the instructions and she doesn't really do so hot with lateral thinking. To be honest I think Fred and George were better wizards than Hermione, imo the twins were probably the closest in the current generation that had a chance of reaching Snape's tier, they obviously just put their talents into more obscure profitable areas as opposed to things like furthering the boundaries of magic/potions.
It is constantly mentioned what brilliant wizards James and Sirius were. I think they were Snape-level.
As far as Hermione goes, book smart is book smart, magic or muggle. But execution practical execution is more ordinary. I'm re-reading 7 now, and she just struggled to produce a patronus for example. I think of her knowledge as exceptionally broad, but her execution and creativity keeps her from being at the Snape level....but maybe adult Hermione gets there.
Snape was a good notch above James and Sirius, hell he was on par or even above Dumbledore in certain areas (potions, curse breaking)
Harry struggled to produce a patronus after he had mastered it as well. Have to remember these are teenagers fighting against adults and hideous monsters... They are always outnumbered, always on the run. I'm the first person to lol @ book vs. practical smarts, but not with my girl Hermione. We could argue for days I'm sure- my feeling was that they were never on his level. Very good wizards of course, but Snape is an all around incredible wizard and man (he has shitty qualities too of course)... We don't see much of his fighting prowess unfortunately outside of literally schooling an enraged Harry, but he seems to have complete mastery of several subjects: Potions, Defense against Dark Arts, Leglimency, Occlumency... I think one of the real tells is that he can fucking fly in book VII, there's only one other motherfucker that can do that and he's a bad ass.
To my knowledge, Hermione hasn't done anything that didn't have specific instructions in a textbook. Sure she was able to use a Protean charm as a 5th year, but it was still a textbook spell. Best student in the school, but Slughorn throws 1 curveball at her with an antidote test and she completely falls apart (made a potion with 52 ingredients including a chunk of her own hair? lol)
I don't recall Harry ever struggling to produce a patronus after he'd mastered it. But that's just a detail really. I don't want to press the argument. As far as James and Sirius and Snape, I agree Snape was the best... I would just group them in the same broad tier. That is certainly up for discussion.
Read the part detailing Snape after he found Dumbledore cursed by the horcrux ring, he was obviously more...knowledgeable than Dumbledore in the Dark Arts side of Defense against the Dark Arts.
Part of that is that he continued to grow while James was dead and Sirius was imprisoned. When they were in school together James was able to bully Snape (age difference?) Which indicates that James was at least a match for Snape.
Or James was a rule breaker and Snape wanted to impress Lily, the rule follower, so he didn't fight back.
He was able to do so with Sirius, Pettigrew, and Lupin by his side... Snape was almost always ganged up on, so I'm not sure you can really read much into that. Snape got that motherfucker good in the end regardless. One of the only things I don't like in the series is that James is unarmed when Voldemort comes in to fuck his world. Would love to have seen him destroy that smug little bitch.
its mostly just Sirius that ganged up on Snape w/ James, Lupin was too much of a Percy to do that and Pettigrew was like the dumptime of the Marauders, he wasn't going to do shit.
The Rowling Library @rowlinglibrary Alan Rickman's heartfelt goodbye letter to Snape and Harry Potter fans (2011)
Yeah, but it was going to be 4 v 1 if a nigga tried to toss hands. Dump time of the marauders about killed me, though, well done.
It's probably the biggest thing I've ever had spoiled for me, but even still reading the seventh book waiting to find out how it was going to go down was intense... Wish he had been able to put up a fight, but I guess it showed how Voldemort was more ruthless even than Snape had believed lol.
Yep it was a bar setting moment for Voldemort. You knew he was cold blooded and would do almost anything for power, but then he nonchalalantly kills his 2nd best solider (after Bellatrix) and just takes it up another notch.