Yea. I need to go through this thread and pull out quotes from you and discuss them. So many times I wanted to say something about your theories but didn't for obvious reasons
They're all sad. That was super sad too. But I take solace in the thought that Dobby would have been happy to die for Harry and it gave him some kind of purpose to his life.
It was interesting to see your thoughts and theories on the early books as you had 15+ years of experience when forming them than most of us did the first time.
While I cant shake hating Draco for 99.9% of this series, I think he falls into not making the son pay for the sins of the father category. However Lucious and Narcissa can
This is scary. Im sure I contradicted myself a ton. Seeing what I got wrong is prob pretty funny. Just caught up in the main thread. You guys were pretty easy on me. I was expecting to get railed on by some of the swings and misses.
I think what made it so good is when you missed, it just made it that much more exciting to read your reaction.
You made a ton of the same theories we all did and did it without years of speculating between each book. There was no reason to give you a hard time. Next question, reaction to Harry being a horcrux. Did it catch you completely by surprise? That was something speculated all over the place between 6 and 7 but many including myself refused to believe it
I really became infatuated with the thought of Neville getting revenge on Bellatrix. Still kind of bummed we didnt get that. Not that big of a deal though.
Yeah I didnt see that coming at all. It never even occurred to me. The way Dumbledore explained it made perfect sense, so I guess I just accepted it and moved on. The implication of what it meant was a bigger shock/realization.
In the end, he would have been dispatched by Bellatrix pretty quickly. Ginny and Hermione were both much more gifted wizards and she was toying with them.
This is very true. Would have required a pretty substantial suspension of disbelief to buy Neville taking out bellatrix
Plus, it really makes the fear that the Weasley children had of Molly make more sense. She really was a bad ass bitch.
Not to get into fan fiction, but I always envisioned her standing over Luna about kill her and Neville blasting her while she was focused on Luna. Or something like that. Idk
It also goes with the dumbledore tenet that love conquers all. Mama Weasley was protecting her family which gave her extra strength to take out bellatrix.
Snape loved Lily since the first time he saw her when they were kids. He always thought that joining the DEs would "impressive" her like James did with Qudditch, it was also a way for him to excel when normally he's the nerd getting stuffed in the lockers by James and Sirius. You're not suppose to look at him as a hero, Snape is an incredibly complex man. It might be a bit weird for him to keep loving Lily for nearly 2 decades after her death, but how many people can keep up that kind of dedication, to the degree that his Patronus remained a doe? In wizarding terms, a Patronus is pretty much a direct window into their *soul* so to speak.
Neville still got the last laugh, the actor that played him as a chubby kid for 7 movies now looks like this: Dude is probably going to end up playing James Bond one of these days.
I don't think it was an after the fact thing. It explains why he had a blind spot for Grindelwald as long as he did.
Unless I missed some things, I think you really have to read into things for that to be. I kind of took it as someone that was able to match Dumbledore's wizarding intellect and talent so they became friends. I guess you can extrapolate that into romance, but I didnt pick on that.
He's the young dude that lost himself in an infatuation. We've all been there. Most of us didn't become infatuated with someone that wanted to do some ethnic cleansing, but mistakenly believing someone you wanted to fuck or were fucking was more awesome than they really were is a pretty common experience.
There wasn't much to pick up on. Once Rowling came out and said it, it's kind of a "Okay yeah I guess I can see it," kind of thing. No way to have figured it out on your own imo
Nah. Never even occurred to me. Also reread the first couple pages. Funny to read now that Im done. Went from 2-5 comments a chapter, to well, stopping every 2-5 sentences to comment. I really got into it.
This is how I see it. Feels like JK did a bit of retconning when it comes to dumbledore being gay. I remember reading an interview she did early in the series where she stated that the HP series wouldn't feature any same sex couples because she didn't want to use HP to grab the 3rd rail. Then well after DH is published, she announces that dumbledore is gay during a Q and A session and ever since has claimed she always intended it this way. Imo it doesn't add up. She found her activist voice post HC and went back to look for a major character she could reveal was gay and dumbledore was the best option. They are her characters and she can do what she pleases. I'm just glad she didn't pull a Lucas and kept her post series reveals to stuff that mostly expands the universe rather than defining it
You said this after you finished Half Blood Prince, so I pulled this quote to the main thread and said this Dumbledore says "After all this time?" in reference to Lily during The Prince's Tale and Snape replies "Always." It was funny to me you used that line verbatim before reading Deathly Hallows. These lines are kind of the Harry Potter version of "Promise me, Ned"
Not a big deal, but this isnt true. Grindelwald stole it from Gregorovitch without killing him. Edit: Maybe you mean the only person to still posses it without being its true owner?
Truman like others have said itt, your read through and comments were greatly appreciated and highly enjoyable. It honestly reminded me how much joy I got out of these books when I was giving my first read-through. I can only imagine how big of a pain in the ass it was to read a few paragraphs, get online, post thoughts, then rinse and repeat over and over, but this was awesome!
So... I don't think we can upload a word doc. Anyone have any ideas about how I should share this thing with everyone?
Quick shot at you for not guessing RAB was Regulus Black. Pretty much everyone guessed that one immediately. JK said between HBP and DH that all 7 were present at some point in the first 6 books but some weren't easily guessable. The diary, ring, and lockett were obviously mentioned specifically. The Cup was an easy guess because we saw the memory with the hufflepuff descendant and could guess that he wanted the cup to make a horcrux. Nagini was obviously present throughout the series. While not quickly guessed by many, the amount of time and research between books helped people figure out that it was likely she was a horcrux because of the close connection with voldemort. Harry was another one that was wildly debated back and forth leading up to DH. Finally the Diadem. It was pretty obvious that horcrux would be something related to Ravenclaw house but nobody really knew what. JK snuck the diadem into the Sectumsempra chapter in HBP when Harry was hiding the potions book. "Would he be able to find this spot again amidst all the junk? Seizing the chipped bust of an ugly old warlock from on top of a nearby crate, he stood it on top of the cupboard where the book was now hidden, perched a dusty old wig and a tarnished tiara on the statues head to make it more distinctive..." The picture on top of the chapter even featured the tiara. Very few people accurately predicted that tiara would be a horcrux. yup. you nailed that one.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lfCSU1DyB_HWG96QCTI0PFscAb29TUQCoqFQ4nMGKU0/edit?usp=sharing don't spam me. please and thank you.
I also nailed Dumbledore wanting Snape to kill him. Didnt get the exact way it went down but mostly. Proud of that one.