The Harry Potter and Wizarding World Topic of Witchcraft and Wizardry (SPOILER WARNING)

[Big Panda]

I figured this place could use a thread for the ever growing Harry Potter universe.

Lets start things off with the most recent and upcoming additions to the HP world.

Cursed Child

Have you read the book/script? Do you plan to see the play? Remember to keep spoilers tagged for this one!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (November 2016)

The upcoming movie based on the spin-off book of the same name...which is apparently set to pull a Hobbit and be a trilogy.

Illustrated Books

Fully illustrated editions of the original books are currently being released, which began last year with Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone, and is set to continue this October with Chamber of Secrets.

And of course feel free to talk about all the other stuff: the books, the movies, the video games, merchandise, the Warner Bros. Studio Tour (have you been lucky enough to go?) or the Universal Resort attraction (same question!) and Pottermore.

[Haalyle]

The video games (Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban on PS2) were my childhood. I played the third one so much.

I have yet to read the Cursed Child, but I don't really want to, to be honest. For me, it ended in the seventh book and I'm fine with that.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

9 minutes ago, Haalyle said:

The video games (Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban on PS2) were my childhood. I played the third one so much.

I have yet to read the Cursed Child, but I don't really want to, to be honest. For me, it ended in the eighth book and I'm fine with that.

I think you meant the 7th book.

[Haalyle]

1 minute ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

I think you meant the 7th book.

Oh whoops. I was thinking of the movie.

See, I haven't kept in touch with Harry Potter since the last film years ago.

[Salamander]

I read Cursed Child recently; I've no chance of seeing the play, but I think that you probably should, if you can, as I think it likely makes much more sense on the stage - if only to see how they pull off some of the magical stunts that the story features, which I think are largely there to demonstrate the capabilities of the theatre.  It's kind of an odd story, but it's tailored very closely to its chosen theatrical medium, and I think is trying to be a kind of tour de force for Harry Potter in theatre, dramatising as many familiar characters and settings as possible for the stage.  The original story is as much a vehicle to enable that as it is an attempt to tell a story that follows on from the seven books.  It's heavily theme-led, too, more noticeably than the books were.  Very different beast, Cursed Child.

[KHCast]

Aren't they making a movie of cursed child?

[Salamander]

JKR's been pretty staunch about it being a play and only a play forever, and I imagine Jack Thorne and John Tiffany would have something to say about it - though I wouldn't rule out a performance being recorded and officiall distributed on DVD at some point.  I understand that rumours have been sparked by Warner Bros. applying for a trademark for the movie rights, but that doesn't mean there's actually going to be a movie; it seems this is more of a legal formality, a kind of "just in case."  What nobody's talking about is how:

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They also want to trademark Cursed Child computer games, stationary, board games, Halloween costumes, sweets, lunchboxes sunglasses, phone covers, cutlery, sleeping bags, jewellery and, of course, colouring books among a ream of other things.

So there's going to be a Cursed Child movie about as much as there's going to be Cursed Child cutlery.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Random thought, but I kinda think Dudley Dursley's spoiled and rotten behavior might not have been as bad if Harry wasn't around the Dursley household in canon. I mean, think about it: Petunia was noted to have a somewhat bitter relationship with Lily, Harry's mother, something that only worsened as a result of Lily being a witch, and thus in Petunia's mind being better than her and getting attention and love that she feels she didn't get. Hence she ends up overcompensating by spoiling Dudley.

But then comes Harry, basically a living remind to Petunia of her dead sister. So now she not only overcompensates for her childhood by spoiling Dudley, but also FURTHER spoils him and neglects Harry to indirectly spite her dead sister. With this in mind, I could assume that if Harry had never been sent to live with the Dursleys, Dudley might have still been a spoiled brat, but PROBABLY not to the degree that he is in canon as a result of Harry's presence.

 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Harry Potter thought:

I didn't really think about it back then, but when you really think about it now, Cornelius Fudge was not exactly entirely unjustified for being so reluctant to listen to Dumbledore and Harry about Voldemort returning. Political ambitions aside, he's got quite a number of reasons to react the way he did: (Big Spoilers for those who haven't read Harry Potter for whatever reason)

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1) Dumbledore and Harry did not make a very strong argument about Voldemort returning. They didn't provide any tangible evidence except for Harry's word and Dumbledore (in Fudge's eyes) trying to strongarm him into making what must have seemed like hasty and misguided decisions (because while having the giants on their side would be nice, it doesn't exactly change the fact that the giants, or at least the ones we've seen, are generally pretty violent and don't really care too much for reason. Even the nicer ones like Grawp were questionable at best). Yes, WE the audience knows they are right, but Dumbledore really dropped the ball in that area.

2) Dumbledore and Harry in Fudge's eyes are shady people. While we know for a fact that Rita Skeeters' articles are supremely exaggerated or just plain wrong, it doesn't change the fact that she is correct in some areas, such as Harry being a parselmouth (something that would set off huge red flags to most people since it's a trait associated with Salazar Slytherin), and him apparently having seizures. These kinds of things would really make Harry's nature as a decent person, or even just a stable/sane person seem kind of suspect to someone who isn't in the know like Fudge, not helped by Harry basically choosing to shout at him about Voldemort returning without any tangible evidence, as mentioned above.

Fudge's doubts about Dumbledore's sanity is arguably even more justified in many cases. Dumbledore is a good guy, but it doesn't change the fact that he does tend to keep a lot of secrets from people, something that no doubt frustrates Fudge to no end since being the leader of the magical government, he'd want to know what kind of secrets one of the most powerful wizards of their time was so keen on hiding. Granted Fudge would probably be one of the worst people to tell such dangerous secrets to considering his easily influenced nature, but my point stands here.

On top of that, Dumbledore's tenure as headmaster of one of the most prestigious wizarding schools probably looks really sketchy to Fudge, since in the course of 3-4 years (in Fudge's eyes), the next generation of witches and wizards got petrified by a giant snake and Dumbledore never felt any need to inform him of this (indeed actively keeping it a secret from him and thus obstructing the government as far as Fudge is concerned), as well as knowingly allowing his students to be taught by a charlatan of a wizard (Lockhart) thus no doubt making the next generation of magi significantly weaker, a known murderer (Sirius, even thought we know he's not) managed to get into the castle numerous times despite increased security (although dampened by the fact that the Dementor thing was Fudge's idea), and then Dumbledore manages to not notice that he had a dangerous lunatic disguised as one of his staff members (Crouch Jr. as Moody) for over a year despite personally knowing the actual man beforehand. When you take all of that into consideration on top of what he knows about Dumbledore beforehand, it's no wonder Fudge would be inclined to think Dumbledore's become an obsolete senile dingbat at best.

3) Dumbledore and Harry (mostly Dumbledore) made the mistake of accusing him of being a racist, as well as implying that some people he probably considered friends are horrible people (even if they are). To draw from recent events in real life, from a moral perspective they're right to call him out for supporting bigotry, but from a practical perspective it was not the smartest thing to do, since all they really ended up doing was making Fudge go on the defensive and be in denial about such things, thus making it far more difficult to negotiate with him.

In regards to the friends/associates bit (referring to Lucius Malfoy and other pureblood families), we know for a fact that Lucius is manipulating Fudge, but Fudge doesn't know this and probably considers him a good friend. Yes he knows that Lucius was accused of being a Death Eater, but him being cleared and (at least to Fudge) appearing to be a charitable person through donations and such, and thus believing he had probably changed for real (as if). So to have Dumbledore and Harry accuse people he considers his friends of being evil would prompt defensive reactions regardless of whether it was true or not at best, and frankly seem like a petty means of bringing up a "reformed" man's checkered past up at worst. This would be further enhanced by what he could perceive as intense hypocrisy on Dumbledore's part, due to his seemingly shady nature mentioned above.

Plus, there's also the horrifying implication that Fudge likely fears if it turned out that Dumbledore and Harry are right; that the people he trusts are not good people and that he might have unintentionally helped them achieve their evil goals. And probably not being able to face this fear led him even further into denial.

Now of course none of this makes Fudge a saint by any means, and it doesn't justify the horrible misjudgments he makes in the Order of the Phoenix book, but I do think he was at best a well-intended if not easily mislead man trying to do what he thought was right, and at worst a weak-willed individual who was stuck between a rock and a hard place (albeit a situation he put himself into) no matter what he did.