tobermoriansass

replied to your post

“idk that I’m actually going to go chapter by chapter but I am going to...”

I'm guessing that if Hagrid met McG they might have been near Scotland, which is why flying down to somewhere past Bristol would take at least 6hrs, then past Bristol to Surrey = at least another 3hrs

the fact that the houses do not have good relationships with one another. its something that’s often brought up, about how the houses are always pinned against one another rather than being able to be one school, one group. u_u

Oops published the other one but deleted now xD

Those people are pretty scary I agree because they show that you don’t always have an explanation behind evil acts. Some people just do messed up things. Honestly I don’t get why everyone hates her. I mean what she does yes but as a villain she’s excellent. Especially as a female villain cause she’s not in love with any of the men, she has no tragic back story (fingers crossed this doesn’t change), and she’s not redeemed. There’s also the added bonus of her being into stereotypical female things with her pink, the bows in her hair, and even those (scary) kitten plates in her office. She is more of a true villain then anyone else in HP and she breaks like all the annoying tropes for female villains.

No problem. I try to ignore it mostly but sometimes I just have to say something. It doesn’t help that I think JKR sort of sends out mixed messages when she talks about him. The tragedy of the Marauders is obviously that this guy who was a brother to them and who they’d die for betrays them. That’s terribly painful especially since it results in the death of one, along with his wife, and the imprisonment for the deaths of another. But then she says things that make it seem like James and Sirius just kept him around as a fanboy. That reading just takes the tragedy out of it and makes it inevitable. Of course he’s gonna betray them if that’s the case.

I actually really loved your characterization of them in the post, usually I have major issues with people’s hcs about the Marauders and Reg but I can see that happening. I really love how you include Peter as an equal and not the hanger on that fandom likes to place him. While we’re told other people’s perspective of Peter was basically a useless fanboy I think we’re given facts that really disprove that. The main one being he became their secret keeper. But also he was obviously very talented at magic, maybe not to James/Sirius’ level but Remus wasn’t portrayed as being their level either.

This got kinda long so gonna put the rest under a read more. I’m sorry.

It's both the books and the fandom, honestly, nonny. JKR herself… I don't know if she's on record as saying anything about Snape really being more of a Gryffindor underneath it all but to be honest, I don't value her opinions on the Sorting system very much at all because she's a self-identified Gryffindor with an enormous Gryffindor bias that manifests itself not only in the text of the HP books but also in her interviews and whatnot.

but my major issue with that point was with the books. The fandom really doesn't question the books enough on this point or on any of the points that involve JKR's Gryffindor favoritism… but they wouldn't have any grounds for going, "but Snape was the Slytherin who died a Gryffindor" or any of the other similar things they've ever said about him if JKR's text hadn't put the idea in their heads in the first place.

(and no. all of you stop that. Snape was a Slytherin. He lived and died a Slytherin and while he also had a strong Gryffindor streak, moments of displaying qualities that Godric Gryffindor valued in his students does not make Snape magically NOT a Slytherin. furthermore, Gryffindor does not get to claim all of the positive moments of every single non-Gryffindor character ever as times when this character was ~really a Gryffindor~ or ~uncharacteristically being a Gryffindor~ or whatEVER. they don't get to do that, I won't let them. It's gross because all of the other Houses have positive qualities and the capacity for greatness and Gryffindor can kindly fucking stop doing the thing now.)

But anyway, back to the books. Dumbledore is the primary offender here and the primary source of this whole, "Snape was secretly a Gryffindor all along" bologna.

Like, I have a huge list of reasons why I intensely dislike Dumbledore but one of the moments where I like him the least is in that scene in DH where Harry gets all of Snape's horrid backstory in the Pensieve where Snape is complaining about some old thing and Dumbledore makes him show off his Patronus and oooooh, it's a DOE. JUST LIKE LILY'S PATRONUS. OOOOH. And Dumbledore is all, "after all this time?" and Snape is all, "Always" and aw he never got over his obsessive crush on her how sad much manpain. And then somewhere in that freaking scene, Dumbledore says, "you know, sometimes, I think we Sort too soon" with the implication that Severus is being such a little Gryffindor right now and uncharacteristically not-Slytherin (which was totally bullshit of him to say in the first place for more reasons than one and I have an entirely different meta post about why over here).

But then Harry, in the epilogue, comes along and makes it worse by reaffirming that in the HP series's narrative, Gryffindor's qualities are always going to be considered good even though we have numerous examples of how traits that are prized by Gryffindor House can be every bit as bad as the supposedly evil forever Slytherin House. Like, there are a lot of potential constructive ways to react and respond to things when your kid (Albus Severus in this case) is freaking out at you about what if they're Sorted into Slytherin and what are they going to do about that, Dad, because you were a Gryffindor and so was Mum and so were Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron and all of the Weasley relatives except for Fleur (Beauxbatons) and maybe Audrey (Percy's wife), and I think it's said that James Sirius is a Gryffindor but that could be fanon.

There are TONS OF WAYS that Harry could have answered that without reaffirming JKR's "Gryffindor is better than everyone" bullshit. He could have said, "Albus Severus, one of the men you are named after was a Slytherin and he was a great man" or, "Albus Severus Potter, if you are Sorted into Slytherin, then that's where you really belong and you mum and I will love you all the same because being a Slytherin doesn't mean anything about who you are as a person because it's our choices, not our abilities or our personality traits, that determine who we really are" or, "Albus Severus Potter, if you are Sorted into Slytherin, then that's okay because all four of the Houses have different amazing things to offer and we wouldn't be able to thrive as a society without all four of them."

But instead, he says that Snape was the "bravest man [he] ever knew." On the one hand, this makes sense for Harry because he, too, is a Gryffindor favoritism spouting dick sometimes… but on the other hand, we're also supposed to trust him in that scene and see that moment as a touching, heartfelt moment that reaffirms that all the Houses have the capacity to do good things and members of all of them have the capacity to be good people OR bad people OR neutral people. But when you actually examine it and put it into the context of how JKR presents the Houses throughout the series, that's not what Harry is saying at all. He's saying that the other Houses are good and valuable inasmuch as they emulate Gryffindor and display Gryffindor's prized qualities.