Feb 9, 2008

Harry Potter SUXXX. True /False?


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For those of you who haven't read Harry Potter I'm sorry you can't understand the beauty of the mistakes(carefully scrutinized & painstakingly verified) pointed out here or the ignorance of those mob-minded readers out there who go on filling boards,forums & profiles that Harry Potter's the greatest book they've ever read. Coming to those who've read Harry Potter, I'm sorry again for playing the spoilsport by pointing all the myriad invalid, illogical, misconstrued parts/plots in the story. In the end, for those who're planning to read Harry Potter for the first time, I suggest you discontinue reading this post now itself, go read the books with an open mind, come back and visit me again if you still feel like it.... So over with the statutory warnings maybe I can tread on to the more dangerous territory. Guys if anyone has any kind of grievances with this post or needs any clarification/justification maybe you can comment/scrap /IM /Mail me on the usernames available in my profile.






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So where do I begin? The real need for a post like this arose seemingly the other day when I was casually checking Orkut for fans of Harry Potter; Who said anything that I wasn't surprised at the displayed results?? There were more than 8000 communities dedicated to Harry Potter and at least a million users who put Harry Potter in their fav. section. My insatiable curiosity mingled with a critic's boyish enthusiasm got the better of me and the result? Check it out for yourself.





There was never a greater need for this post than now, so I started punching the keys on the 7th of February, 12:28 PM GMT +5.30. When this post's gonna stop scrolling(Thanx to Blogger, you can go on extending/modifying a post already published any number of times, after any number of days) only Ilúvatar( knows, or maybe even Rowling for that matter. Let's hope she doesn't finish the 8th instalment before this post stops lest I'll never be able to cope up, forget alone about taking to task the 8th episode. To you all like dear Yaggu and other fans, who're wondering why I have to take up this fruitless,frustrating and tedious task, lemme clarify before I proceed any further I do not hate Harry potter or rowling in the skin as such but it's the beginner-level / illiterary (layman,I mean) book-readers that I'm trying to educate, showcasing in my own style to my own knowledge/extent the different literary aspects and bloopers of the series. For those out there wanting to raise your hand, yes, yes, I promise you similar posts on my beloved Tolkien's series as well and every other such over-hyped undeserving series .Lemme have the final word, if you're thinking that, like many other bogus sites I'm doing this primarily for the sake of improving the traffic to my pages, I won't deny at least half the truth. I've organised the bloopers in a sequential order book-wise. So here we go...





Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone



  • The first and foremost thing that probably intrigues every reader is how did Hogwarts have access to a list of all magical children ? Did Rowling want us to believe that the ministry puts a magic-detecting jinx around every infant ever-born in England ? as like in every other case are the witches & wizards, present in the doctor community too, responsible for identifying their talents at birth itself? Here it's worth mentioning that Voldemort himself never even heard of Hogwarts, forget alone about applying for a Magical seat; but Dumbledore went looking for a certain Tom Marvolo Riddle to the orphanage, whose ancestors Dumbledore knew nothing of at that time. Also, what's with Hermione Granger or Harry's mom Lily both of whom were muggles, never heard of Hogwarts but were still offered admission at Hogwarts?. On one of the boards I found this weird logically-illogical suggestion that the list of Hogwarts students was passed-on by the founders a looong time ago. OMG a new thought occured to me just as I was typing the previous line- what if, the sorting hat, bored of sitting idle the whole year, makes up the list itself/himself/herself (which one you decide for yourself, how it/he/she comes up with the list even I dare not guess!!!!!!!)

  • If the witches & wizards were not associated with any God/Goddess/Religion(as no mention was ever found) why then did Hogwarts have to celebrate Christmas,Halloween as well as Easter every year ? Don't try selling the idea that, like our secular country India Hogwarts has the tradition of celebrating the festivals of all religions. In that case why were Diwali/Dusshera/Id not celebrated ? or atleast Lohri Milan, for there were at least 2 Sikhs, the Patil twins. Poor Hagrid was always noticed carrying & dragging christmas trees, giant pumpkins and what not during every festival..

  • In Book 1, on page 27 (American paperback), it mentions that the snake in the zoo winked at Harry. Harry can't be blamed for being so surprised, as snakes don't have movable eyelids.

  • Harry's letter from Hogwarts says he may bring a cat, an owl, or a toad, but Ron brings his rat, Scabbers.

  • On page 122 of the first book (American Version) at the beginning of the third paragraph it says, "and now there were only three people left to be sorted." Following this sentence, the book tells of Dean Thomas, Lisa Turpin, Ron Weasley, and Zabini Blaise all being sorted, which are four people, not three.

  • On page 123, in chapter 7 "The Sorting Hat," Nearly Headless Nick says that he hasn't eaten in "nearly four hundred years"; but in the second book, Harry goes to Nick's 500th Deathday Party, meaning that Nearly Headless Nick has been dead for 500 years, not 400.

  • In the first book it says Flint is in his 6th year, but he ends up staying in the next two books.In book one, Marcus Flint is described as a burly sixth year, but in book three, two years later, he is still the captain and a chaser on the Slytherin quidditch team. He should have graduated the second year. (JKR was asked about this in an online chat. Her response: "He had to do a year over again!". We can only assume this is an obvious attempt to cover the mistake.Let's hope he did not have to repeat the year after being caught ragging freshies. Fans still love you JK!)


  • At the beginning of the chess match towards the end of the book, Ron is the knight in the giant chess set. However, it later says that he had to 'move ahead one' so the Queen could take him, opening the path for Harry to checkmate the king. If he was a knight, he could only move 1 ahead, sideways two, or 2 ahead, sideways one, like an "L". ROwling did take the trouble of mentioning that wizard chess was just like ordinary chess in the aspect of rules didn't she? (unless the chess rules even in the muggle world were different way back in 1992. Actually, I learnt chess in the May of 1992 & I'm unaware of the fact that the rules were changed earlier the same year)


  • In the chapter "The Keeper of the Keys" Hagrid tells Harry that James and Lily Potter were Head Boy and Head Girl in their day. However, in the fifth book(Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix), at the party for Ron and Hermione, Sirius mentions that James did not even get his prefect badge.


  • In chapter four, when Hagrid comes to give Harry his Hogwarts letter and Aunt Petunia talks about her sister being a freak, she says that Lily "came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats." Unless the rules have changed since Lily was at Hogwarts, students are not allowed to do magic at home; which constitutes an offence under Paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, and also under Section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.

  • Furthermore, in the novel Hagrid himself tells harry:
    "I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."
    "I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but you're not to use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances"

  • But later in the book Hermione said:
    “I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me.”
    Why was Hermione allowed to use magic. Hmm…….very strange isn’t it? Could it be that the founders of Hogwarts also, identifying that she'd soon be the greatest witch of her age, accorded her a special status?(for more go to the first blooper). Another critic says "I had absolutely no idea that even the wizards could resort to cronyism."


  • On page 70 of the American paperback book it says that Professor Quirrell 'grasped Harry's hand in the Leaky Cauldron'. But later in the book, page 298, Dumbledore said that Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, couldn't touch him because of his mother's love and sacrifice for him - wasn't it agony to touch a person marked by something so pure??


  • When Hagrid comes and gets Harry out of the little hut on the rock at the beginning of the book, they use the boat that the Dursleys used to get to the rock, after Hagrid mentions he came there flying. So how do the Dursleys get off the rock? May be Hagrid had taught uncle Vernon the trick of flying when Harry was taking rest so that the Dursleys could fly back to their home. An alternative could be that Vernon called 911 from a hut which barely had anything other than creaky doors and broken pieces of furniture( Cellular technology didn't exist in 1991 right?)


  • When one of the ministry's sole job is to lay jinxes around under-age wizards & preventing them from performing magic outside Hogwarts, why wouldn't they go to the extent of jinxing wizards like Hagrid, whose wands have been broken in two & who're not actually allowed to perform magic inside/outside school? I never knew that broken wands like Hagrid's also perform decent levels of magic,(remember, he's always carrying the remains of his broken wand in hir umbrella) while partially broken wands like Ron's sometimes do disastrous deeds.


  • According to the books, wizards used to live with the muggles and they knew much about their world. That was why the wizards were not allowed to use magic in the muggles' world. But, In the first novel when Harry was looking at his Christmas presents, it is mentioned: "A second, very small parcel contained a note. "We received your message and enclose your Christmas present". From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

    "That's friendly," said Harry.Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.
    "Weird!" he said, 'What a shape! This is money?"
    "You can keep it," said Harry, laughing at how pleased Ron was."

    Why was Ron so amazed to see the fifty pence piece? How is it possible that you are living with some sort of people and are not familiar with their Money ? Also, where was it mentioned how Uncle Vernon sent harry the present ? Certainly not by London Post, more certainly not by Owl Post looking at the disgust that Uncle Vernon had for owls and magic people.

Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire



  • In the last chapter, "The Beginning," Hermione turns away, smiling at the horseless carriages. I know it doesn't state that Harry was looking at them, but obviously he would have looked at them at some point as he had to get into one of them. Why did they still appear horseless to Harry? He had already witnessed Cedric's death. I also read on a different slip-up that it was made clear the death has to 'sink in';(color red,bold) this was not stated in any of the books. Hermione said "the only people who can see thestrals, are people who have seen death." That is all that is said about the thestrals. Also, had Harry not witnessed his own parents' death years ago? (probably the horror that haunted him even 14 years later had not sunk in deeep enufff??)


  • When Dumbledore was telling everybody about the Triwizard Tournament during the start of term speech he says: "We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger." (Don't you think facing a Hungarian Horntail that breathes fire forty feet would classify as 'mortal danger'? Even if there were trained hit wizards nearby you catch one of those flame-bursts and you're a corpse before the wizards can do anything.)


  • In Quidditch Through the Ages, it says that the first ever World Cup was in 1473, with a match being held every 4 years. Yet the World Cup in 1994 is number 422. There can't be 422 world cups in 521 years with a four-year gap in between. Calculated correctly, the World Cup that the Weasleys, Hermione, and Harry attend is actually the 131st, assuming that it had been held in 1993.


  • On page 229, Fred and George try to get past the age line in order to enter their names in the goblet of fire. They grow long beards when their plan backfires. Dumbledore in this context says "She(Madame Pomfrey) is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw". Later at the Yule ball, (page 371) Snape says, "Ten points from Hufflepuff, Fawcett!" But Dumbledore said she is in Ravenclaw right? One more thing worth noting is, why would Snape take points away from Ravenclaw if they were not having the Inner House Championship that year because of the Triwizard Tournament?


  • Was Entering Harry(by the efforts of Barty Crouch Jr. in the form of Moody) in the Triwizard Tournament Unnecessary? The reason given by Barty Jr. for entering Harry in the Triwizard Tournament was that Harry had to touch the winner's cup first, which was a portkey, and teleport him to Voldemort's Re-birth ceremony. Okay, but the tournament part seems like an awful lot of trouble - Crouch described in detail all the work he went through to enter Harry in the contest and then to ensure that Harry got to the winners cup first. Was there any reason given why Barty couldn't have made any other object (a pencil on his desk, for example) into a portkey, and then simply asked Harry to hand it to him after class? Of course, I realize the obvious cover-up Rowling would make- "nothing else inside of Hogwarts could be a portkey without detection, except for the Triwizard Cup(ridiculous ain't it?), also as mentioned earlier, apparition is not possible within Hogwarts or the grounds" but I don't recall seeing any such explanation in the books regarding the portkey thing. Why does, Voldemort like the proverbially ridiculous nemesis in children's fairy tales plan to kill Harry himself at every chance, when he could have him killed easily by any of his minions? What's the need to rise again from Harry's own blood after Harry's killed by a Death-Eater like he could have been killed in so many situations easily thanx to Harry's inquisitiveness & attitude? Rowling obviously wanted the book not to end so soon. Which draws us to the ultimate conclusion that there would have been much less/nothing in the book without Harry in the Triwizard Tournament.


  • Portkeys are supposed to transport whoever touches them to a pre-defined destination along with itself, at a prearranged time. But, Harry and Cedric were transported to Voldemort and the Death Eaters the very SECOND they touched the Triwizard Cup. Don't you think that sounds a little bit too... much? That last task wasn't timed, and in fact they both took a while to get there and even hesitated in taking the cup to convince each other to take it. So how could they have been taken somewhere else if the Cup had been timed, which it obviously would have been, since it was a port-key, unless Crouch Jr. knew exactly at what time they would get to the cup? This, is of course, impossible, unless he has some weird kind of divinine power Rowling didn't mention( Oh how did I miss out this one? Probably Barty was very well versed @ Divination right ?hehe). Not to forget in the least, when was it mentioned that Portkeys were two-way objects that can be used to travel back to the origin???? Is that not what happens when Harry grabs Cedric's body and catches the Cup.? He's transported back to the Triwizard Championship @ Hogwarts.













1 comments:

Anonymous said...

cool it dude! Don't you think you're over-targeting rowling & the book for no harm probably they ever did to you? I don't understand why u have to
examine every plot with an overtly-critical eye searching for flaws? why cant you enjoy things the way they are?