Planetfurry BBS

[Sigurd Volsung]

I've made the same comment as Concolor several times, hasn't one muggle born Auror thought about using a sawed off shotgun to kneecap an opponent so they can't think straight enough to cast a spell? Also it would have bee so easy to take out Voldemort from half a mile with a sniper rifle, no fuss no muss and you don't even get close enough to worry about a killing curse. With the over use of curses in a battle you might as well replace the wands with revolvers and make it a Zane Gray novel. In most fantasy role playing games; D&D, Paladium, Basic Role Playing, Big Eyes Small Mouths... to name a few, magic uses energy, often times lots of personal energy and the over use of spells like you see in Harry Potter would quickly deplete the wizards. In other fantasy books magicians, wizards, sorcererss, and the like have the same type of problems. In my favorite series, Simon R. Green's Nightside series, magic can be fleeting and fail at the worse possible moment.

In Rowllings' world the over use magic would make just every wizard soft and helpless with out their magic since they don't seem to know how to survive with out it.

[mwalimu]

I count myself among those who enjoyed the HP books, but in truth cannot deny some of the criticisms others have made. For instance, once Harry and Ron had the marauder's map, you'd think they'd have it out studying it more often, and likely would have discovered some things much sooner than they did.

One of my own complaints is a flaw that I call 'there is no plan B', meaning that basically if things hadn't happened exactly the way they did (including some pretty improbable instances of someone being in the right place at the right time) then certain necessary elements of the plot never would have been revealed, not just to the reader but to Harry himself. A good example of this from book 7 was (spoilers ahead) Harry finding Snape as he was dying, just in time to capture his memories so he could later view them in the pensieve.

[anthony]