5 Things That Piss Me Off About Harry Potter

I’m a Harry Potter nerd – I’ve read the books, seen the movies and I have decent game when it comes to the plot points and the minutia of the universe.  Being a Harry Potter nerd has its downsides (besides the obvious lack of friends that goes along with it) as sometimes, the story or a little element of the universe doesn’t make much sense.  For your consideration, here are the 5 Things That Piss Me Off About Harry Potter.

5.  What’s the deal with Harry’s glasses?  Does Madam Pomfrey just hate Harry or what?
Harry is born into the muggle (non-magic) world, but at age eleven, he is thrust into the magical community, a place where he sustains and is healed from various injuries.  The one injury that always jumps out at me is when the bludger breaks Harry’s arm during the quidditch game in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  (That is the nerdiest sentence I’ve ever written.)  When Professor Lockhart attempts to heal him, he accidentally removes all of the bones in Harry’s arm instead of mending the broken ones, and Madam Pomfrey uses her skills to regrow the bones.

So she can regrow bones, but she can’t fix Harry’s eye site?  No 20/20 vision for The Chosen One; that seems kinda stupid to me.  “I can mend bones in a heart beat, even grow them back… but correct astigmatism?  That’s ridiculous!”  Instead, we can fix your glasses any time they break!  That spell exists!

HERMIONE:  “Oculus Reparo!”
HARRY:  “Thanks, asshole.”

4.  Harry’s Parents Went Into Hiding…  At Their House?
If I was going into hiding, I would… you know, hide.  I wouldn’t stay in my house, get under the bed and be all, “Magic Hitler will never finder me here!”  Even if it’s not a house Harry’s parents bought to live in, they’re just in some house in England!  I mean jeez, they couldn’t even bother to move to France or something?  At least give Voldemort a challenge and move to New York City or New Dehli or anywhere but some quaint village where you either already lived or just moved to.  (I keep imagining James and Lilly Potter telling a Real Estate Agent they’re “…looking for something affordable, big enough to raise a family in but also has ample cover to keep us hidden from Magic Hitler.”)  This way, if your secret keeper gives you up, at least you have a few minutes to run.

I think I remember James not having his wand on him when Voldemort kicked the door down.  Where the hell was it?  When you’re marked for death, keep your only defense close by – don’t get caught empty handed and have to say, “Darn, I left my wand on the dresser!  Can you hang on just a sec, please?”  Magic Hitler doesn’t have a sec – he’s a busy man.

3.  The Thestrals
The rule on Thestrals is that you can’t see them unless you’ve seen someone die.  I’ve heard the argument that Harry can’t see the Thestrals pulling the carriage until book five because he’d never witnessed a death that he remembered witnessing until book four when he sees Cedric die, but…  come on.  That’s some lame story telling right there.  If your universe is going to be built on rules, fine, but adding caveats is not a great idea.  So if you witness a death at age 30 and it traumatizes you and you block the memory, you can’t see Thestrals?  But then, I thought the rule was you just had to witness death, but you have to remember witnessing death, I guess.  That’s ass.

2.  The Time Turner
Are there rules to the Time Turner’s operation?  I don’t mean the ‘you can’t be seen’ bullshit, I mean rules to how the damn thing works.  The only rule I know of is that you travel back (or forward if you wind it the other way?) in time one hour for every turn of the hourglass.  If I was Harry, I’d punch Hermione in the face and take that thing, wind it until my fingers bled and go back to the day Voldemort was born at the orphanage, and kill his ass!  Killing a newborn sounds cruel, but when it comes to Magic Hitler, you can’t fuck around.  All the time turners get destroyed in book 5 anyway, but it still pisses me off.
I’ve complained about this before, but I never get tired of it.  What a stupid use of Time Travel!

Wipe that stupid smile off your face.

1.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
This book didn’t tell me anything I wanted or needed to know.  The ‘Potter Stinks!’ thing, at this point in the series, is ridiculous – not to mention being extremely reminiscent of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but with no consequences.  In Chamber, all the kids thought Harry was going to sic the monster on them and ultimately be responsible for the closing of the school, but in Goblet, they just think he outwitted the Goblet to get into the stupid tournament, which is also ridiculous because Harry could never figure out a way to do that by himself, and Ron ought to have known that.  I mean Jesus, why does Ron have to be having his period for a quarter of the damn book?  All the kids are like, “Potter STINKS!  He figured out a way to get his name into the Goblet and make it pick him!  He’s a jerk!  If I catch him along in the hallway, I’m going to kick him right in the junk…What’s that?  He completed the first event?!?  Hooray!  Harry Potter rules!  What was I talking about?”
However, the movie did serve as a brilliant reminder of what it was like to be that age – I particularly like that the TV edit of the movie includes a scene during the dance where the carriages are a’rockin and Snape goes a’knockin.  That is awesome.
It’s just a long build up to the return of Voldemort at the end of the story, which really has nothing to do with the rest of the tale – besides, if Moody had access to Harry for all that time, why the convoluted plot with the portkey?  He could have just invited Harry to the Three Broomsticks and kidnapped him from there.  Meh.  I still think they could have just lumped the return of Magic Hitler onto the end of the third one.

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