[ SECRET POST #3368 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3368 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 093 secrets from Secret Submission Post #481.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/FdZdCN6.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I don't remember if this is canon or fanon but I remember hearing that being an animagus was really difficult and the maurauders were unique in their ability to do it so young.

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty sure that's in the books.

Also, Animagi were meant to be registered with the Ministry. The Marauders were doing it illegally.

[ayebydan]

this

question

[(Anonymous)]

do you think HP would have been as "big" if Rowling had fully realized its potential?

I feel like most hits that generate huge fandoms need to be flawed and suggest than actually spell out in canon. see homestuck, hetalia, comic book fandoms...

Re: question

[(Anonymous)]

Flawed? No.

Long storylines that leave something to the imagination after a good read? Occasional unanswered questions about plot points? Bring it on. This sort of thing encourages fans to think about the story when they are not actually reading it. Or maybe even make them try to reread it. Any really great story probably deserves to be reread a few times.

Re: question

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm? I think the canons that are the most enduring and inspiring leave unexplored spaces that can be filled in by the readers' imaginations but I wouldn't call that flawed at all. A story that spells out every single thing and leaves no detail untouched would probably be quite tedious.

[(Anonymous)]

Why? The novels followed a teenaged boy who was only peripherally involved with the war effort, and spent most of his time either at school or hiding out. Even if people were making use of Animagus transformation (a serious risk when most Animagi are registered) in the war, Harry wouldn't have really been privy to it.

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly don't think animal transformation would be that great of an advantage in pitched magical battle. For a start, most transformations mean you can no longer carry/use your wand, and some of them turn you into a bigger target in the process. If you have werewolves or the like already on your side, having them as shock troops and keeping your wand-users as wand users makes more sense to me.

It's other uses for transformations like spying that I would be interested in. Things like Rita's beetle transformation and what she did with it, only focused on war intelligence rather than malicious gossip. Sirius' use of his dog form to hide out and watch over Harry also had shades of this, if it could be put to better use. How many cats and dogs and bugs are there in the world? Birds, birds would be good too. It's potentially a very useful disguise for infiltration and cover, which might be part of why animagi are required to be registered.

[(Anonymous)]

Rita's and Sirius's forms only had potential to be useful because they were illegally unregistered -- no one knew to look for them. McGonagall was an Animagus too, an innocuous cat, yet to our knowledge was never used for any sort of spying purpose because she went through the proper legal channels to become an Animagus, meaning anyone with access to public records would know what/who she was instantly. And I'd think it would be next to impossible to justify a vigilante group fighting the good fight (a group to whom Aurors and other law enforcement officials also belong, no less) that has its fighters actively study to break the law.

Like, people keep saying this is stuff that JKR overlooked or left hanging or didn't fully use the potential of or so on, and I'm not saying there aren't legitimate examples of that in the series, but 7/10 times the ones people bring up actually have a fairly obvious answer right in the books (dammit if I have to hear "why didn't Fred and George notice Peter in Ron's bed on the Map?@1!?!" one more time). The poster's just ignored in favour of getting on a platform.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

That's without even getting into the issue of how we're never given the sense that wizards have the ability to choose or even know what their Animagus form is until after they've completed the process. I can't imagine what a waste of time and resource it would be to spend years working on becoming an Animagus spy only to find out your form is say, an elephant or a fish. Even the Marauders were crazy lucky that at least one of them (Sirius) had a form that actually served the purpose they were working toward; two, if it's safe to assume that Stag!James was huge and werewolves don't prey on deer the way regular wolves might. As a rat, Peter would've been next to useless in providing comfort to a werewolf.

[greenvelvetcake]

....why didn't they notice? I don't think I've heard the explanation behind that.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Sorry, late response:

It’s a full map of Hogwarts (an 8+ floor castle and surrounding secret passages out of it) on a scrap piece of parchment. Best case scenario is that it’s drawn to scale, and Ron’s one dorm room appears as a cluster of tiny overlapping dots inside a slightly-less-tiny rectangle when everyone’s inside it (as they should be most nights when Ron is sleeping), with little way to tell where the beds are even positioned, let alone exactly who is sleeping in which one. That’s the best case scenario even when assuming that Fred and George regularly bother with monitoring Ron’s location when they’re using the map, and that they actually know the names of every kid in Ron’s dormitory (why we’re assuming this when Harry barely knows all the names of the kids in his own year let alone in the ones above or below his unless he has direct contact with them, god knows, but let’s roll with it).

It seems really obvious why a random Peter Pettigrew on the map would not raise red flags for Fred and George, if they ever noticed him at all, no matter how often he appears with Ron - who didn’t always carry Scabbers around with him.

[greenvelvetcake]

I don't know, Harry was able to discern a tiny statue on the map - yeah, JKR never really described how much detail you could see on the map, but on his midnight jaunts Harry always made sure he knew where certain people were so he could avoid them. Then again, that was at night, when there shouldn't be anyone else in the halls.

Plus, even though they might not watch him all the time, I could definitely see Fred and George keeping tabs on Ron if they were going to pull a sick prank on him, but like you said, they probably had no idea who was in his dorm. Harry would, but he is notoriously bad at noticing things.

Basically... yeah that's reasonable and not as big a plot hole as I thought.

[ayebydan]

Harry's pov narrowed the whole world and allowed its fandom to grow into the beast it is. I think this expansion fuels JK to keep returning and giving us more in films, parks, websites, plays ect.

But I get where you're coming from. However I think it makes worth pointing as others have that this ability is difficult. It is not common. And plots 3 & 4 revolve aground it so it isn't like it was thrown under the buss...

[(Anonymous)]

I know what you mean, OP. Rowling's universe has a lot of unfulfilled potential and I think it's one of her weaknesses as a writer. But that's what fandom's for, so...