Ah yes. It’s great to praise an outstanding piece of work, but also fun to find the holes where something doesn’t quite line up.

My friend and I often discuss one of the most puzzling plot fractures: The Elder Wand mechanics. We know how the Elder Wand got got from Gregorovitch to Dumbledore to Harry, but how did it really? We know Grindlewald stole it from Gregorovitch (but truly won it? Otherwise it would have actually been Voldemort’s), and then lost it to Dumbledore in the duel in 1945. The problem with this is that the Elder Wand should win every duel for its master, but it lost to Dumbledore...? We know it can be disarmed if its master is weak or caught off guard (Draco did it), but even so, Grindlewald would have to be A) A weak opponent or B) Not the master in the first place. We do know, though, that Grindlewald was indeed a match for Dumbledore, and if he hadn’t been the master, Dumbledore, etc. woudn't have been either. Weird. Does Rita Skeeter’s “Grindlewald came quietly” section of TLaLoAD seem appealing now?

One thing that really annoys me about HP is how JKR decided that in order for someone to have a happy ending, they had to get married.

Any character that mattered in that series got married, no matter how ridiculous of a stretch it was. Neville and Hannah Abbott? They were barely ever in the same room together! There was never even the slightest hint of them having feelings for each other! Luna and Rolf Scamander? I mean, who is this person and why did he just show up? 

Not only is she ignoring the fact that not everyone is straight, she also seems to think that marriage is the pinnacle of happiness. If everyone gets married, that means they're all living happy lives with someone they love! But that's not necessarily true? A lot of people are unhappy and married. And a lot of people are happy and unmarried. Marriage can be a nice thing, but it isn't a necessity, and the endings for some of these characters makes it seem like it was. Same thing goes for having children.

(I actually believe Neville would be a wonderful guy if he never got married. The closest he had to a date that we know of is going with Ginny to the Yule Ball! Neville could be the cool unmarried uncle who's always around to drop the kids off at when his friends are running off to do Auror-y things and he's chilling at home during his Professor-perks summer break. Luna, of course, is aro/ace and, if he must exist, is very good friends with Rolf Scamander and they hunt Crumple-Horned Snorkacks together every Saturday before getting tea and soup made with freshwater plimpies.)

And, as other people have been saying, the Houses thing drives me crazy! A Very Potter Musical did a good job of portraying JKR's Sorting system:

"I've just been putting all the good guys into Gryffindor and all the bad ones into Slytherin!"
"What about Hufflepuff?"
"What the heck is a Hufflepuff?"

House positivity has really grown especially in the fandom, and most people who spend enough time on Tumblr have a pretty unbiased view now. But the books don't make it seem that way! There isn't enough Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff content in general, far too much Gryffindor, and far too much Slytherin negativity. In fact, one of my least favorite parts of the book is when, during the Battle of Hogwarts, McGonagall instructs people to follow their House leaders to safety outside of the castle, and the entire Slytherin table empties. Every other House had at least a few people staying behind; Slytherin had none.

Come to think of it, why were all the Death Eaters from Slytherin? Any House was capable of becoming a Death Eater. Hufflepuffs are loyal and hardworking; the perfect companions for a Dark Lord. Who says they have to be loyal to somebody good? Ravenclaws are clever, witty, and imaginative; they would make good strategists and behind-the-scenes runners of a war. Gryffindors are brave, and the perfect foot soldiers, so to speak. And Slytherins are what? Prideful and ambitious? Oh, sure, that could make a bad person. But what if your ambition was to end world hunger and you were proud of your cat? What if your ambition was to eat a sandwich today? The Houses offer a lot of diversity JKR doesn't explore.

/end rant! 

Okay, so I’m reading this HP fanfic called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It’s actually rather well known, and even has a Wikipedia page, but I only started reading it now. 

And it’s absolutely honest-to-whatever completely and totally amazing. Imagine you combined Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and Ender Wiggins, gave this new person the library of Congress and 10 years to study it, and then made them The Boy Who Lived and chucked them into Hogwarts. It’s the entire first book worth of fanfic, one hundred and twenty something chapters, and I’m thirty something chapters in. It actually has obviously referenced Ender’s Game and I’m pretty sure it referenced Death Note as well. 

It’s got tons of science, and actually makes a lot of sense. This Harry is possibly the most... Awesome character I’ve ever read. This book, er, fanfic itself might be one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy books already. 

Anyway, I’m seriously fanboying over it. I don’t wanna spoil it for any of you, but please. Go and read it. I think you might love it. 

Remember the quote on James and Lily’s gravestone? “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” And Hermione tries to tell Harry how it means something like living beyond death. 

Well, you could interpret it that way, but that’s not what it was supposed to mean. It’s a Peverell family motto. The Peverells made the Deathly Hallows. They meant it in the context of actually stopping death. 

At least, that explanation makes a lot of sense to me.