(My) Immortal: The Web Series

I find that so interesting, because god knows Tumblr and fandom and fans at large tend to love tricksy bastards who play chess games in their heads.  Dumbledore’s far from the first old man who sent other people to die for his war.  He’s not the first character who’s manipulated kids, or raised children to be warriors because he believed they had to be.  He’s a long, long way from the first desperately flawed mastermind we’ve seen.  But god, do fans hate Albus Dumbledore.

And I wonder: how much of that is because we feel like Dumbledore betrayed Harry, and how much of it is because we feel like Dumbledore betrayed us?

Most of us were so young when we started reading the Harry Potter books.  The world was magic and Harry’s home was terrible, and a kindly old man with twinkling eyes and a white beard winked, and seemed to know everything in the world, and we thought he’d promised to take care of each and every child given unto his care.  We thought that meant us too.

There’s a thing that happens as kids grow up, when they begin to realize that their parents and the adults around them are flawed and broken and making things up as they go, and sometimes make very real mistakes.  Sometimes as grown-ups we find ways to forgive the adults that raised us for all the good and bad they did, and sometimes we cut them out of our lives forever.  But there’s always that feeling of betrayal, with the realization that a trusted adult did actually cause us harm–and not just because they used their best judgment and tried their best to protect us and it wasn’t enough, but because they decided something else was more important than our well-being and meant it.

As a human and a character, Albus Dumbledore is fascinating, flawed, fallible, with complicated priorities and a chess board for a brain, and he’s motivated by guilt and big-picture thinking and ego and a very real desire to do good for the world in the broadest possible sense all at once.  As an adult that Harry trusted he failed rather badly, but it’s up to Harry to decide how he feels about that, and Harry has plenty of complicated feelings of grief and forgiveness and self-sacrifice of his own.

I find that so interesting, because god knows Tumblr and fandom and fans at large tend to love tricksy bastards who play chess games in their heads.  Dumbledore’s far from the first old man who sent other people to die for his war.  He’s not the first character who’s manipulated kids, or raised children to be warriors because he believed they had to be.  He’s a long, long way from the first desperately flawed mastermind we’ve seen.  But god, do fans hate Albus Dumbledore.

And I wonder: how much of that is because we feel like Dumbledore betrayed Harry, and how much of it is because we feel like Dumbledore betrayed us?

Most of us were so young when we started reading the Harry Potter books.  The world was magic and Harry’s home was terrible, and a kindly old man with twinkling eyes and a white beard winked, and seemed to know everything in the world, and we thought he’d promised to take care of each and every child given unto his care.  We thought that meant us too.

There’s a thing that happens as kids grow up, when they begin to realize that their parents and the adults around them are flawed and broken and making things up as they go, and sometimes make very real mistakes.  Sometimes as grown-ups we find ways to forgive the adults that raised us for all the good and bad they did, and sometimes we cut them out of our lives forever.  But there’s always that feeling of betrayal, with the realization that a trusted adult did actually cause us harm–and not just because they used their best judgment and tried their best to protect us and it wasn’t enough, but because they decided something else was more important than our well-being and meant it.

As a human and a character, Albus Dumbledore is fascinating, flawed, fallible, with complicated priorities and a chess board for a brain, and he’s motivated by guilt and big-picture thinking and ego and a very real desire to do good for the world in the broadest possible sense all at once.  As an adult that Harry trusted he failed rather badly, but it’s up to Harry to decide how he feels about that, and Harry has plenty of complicated feelings of grief and forgiveness and self-sacrifice of his own.

I’ve been thinking about @myimmortalseries and decided to grab the first drawing I did of Violet Riddle ( @ccmeeks) and redraw it so here it is!  Still one of my favorite characters.

there are so many points in the books where its just casually dropped in ‘and so Harry and/or Hermione had to physically restrain Ron’ usually from Malfoy but if Harry or Hermione weren’t paying attention it became ‘and so Ron punched Malfoy in the face’. 

Like, Ron cursing Malfoy for calling Hermione Mudblood wasnt just a one off thing like every time he did that in the future when Ron was there it was like ‘ron had to be stopped from ending Malfoy’s life’ just thrown in there. Same for any other severe insults.

My absolute favorite instance of this is in the first book when they’re just watching a Quidditch game and Malfoy just starts bothering Ron and Hermione during it and is finally like ‘man its pretty funny how the Gryffindor quidditch team is recruited based on pity like y’know Potter has no parents, Weasley’s brothers have no money they should include Longbottom for having no brains” and Ron just flings himself at Malfoy and starts punching him and rolling around under the bleachers and Neville is like “uh shit i guess i better fight CRABBE AND GOYLE BOTH AT ONCE so they don’t go after him” (very underrated moment of courage from Neville he knew he had no chance but he just went for it honestly almost more impressive than confronting Voldemort in book 7)

and they’re just fighting for like twenty minutes and Hermione doesn’t even notice because she was so focused on tuning Malfoy out and watching the game and when its over she looks around like “where’d ron go” and then later its mentioned “Harry sees Ron and his face is covered in blood and he’s like “GOOD JOB WINNING THE GAME HARRY I GAVE MALFOY A BLACK EYE SO WE BOTH DID GREAT THINGS TONIGHT oh btw i have detention for a week and neville’s unconcious but they say he’ll be fine”.

-wacky, highly out of character ‘sleepovers’ with the villains of the series

-not bothering to research the culture the series originated from (we live in Japan but for some reason we’re celebrating a westernized version of Christmas?)

-sugar highs??? the entire cast has eaten sugar and now randomness ensues!!1!

-really surreal oneshots taking a completely illogical idea to the highest possible level played completely for laughs (re: maybe Harry was so good at flying because He Was A Broom All Along)

-user guides for characters (as if they’re adoptable robots)

-disclaimer at the beginning of the story, end of the story, used as page breaks in the middle of the story I DO NOT OWN THIS PLEASE DON’T SUE I’M DIRT POOR

-author’s notes at the beginning of the story, end of the story, used as page breaks in the middle of the story, LOL I WROTE THIS AT ONE IN THE MORNING PLEASE REVIEW

-nutshell/condensed retellings of the series, again usually humorous

-AUs where everything except the main character’s names are completely different that have no real connections to the series (High School AUs are EVERYWHERE)

-The writer’s favourite character isn’t dead and the rest of the cast questions it once and then never mentions it again

-“100 ways to annoy x”

-songfic w the lyrics right in there

-random google translate Japanese

Ron is 12 years old.

Ron stole a car.

Ron fucking stole a fucking car at the age of TWELVE.

I mean, I thought I was only ever going to be friends with other gothic people, and gothic people don’t really have friends. Just Dark Acquaintances in the Black Parade.