Home » The Crystal Hall » Library Comments » Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller (Discussion thread)
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60485 is a reply to message #47264 ] |
Mon, 25 June 2012 04:25   |
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 Sojiro
Messages: 1652
Registered: November 2011 |
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Wow, don't confuse things here. Joker immunity and not executing criminally insane people are two different things altogether.
First, the Joker is incapable of telling right from wrong so he's not legally responsible for his act and can only be sent to an asylum. The fact that a non-powered dude just keep escaping is arguable a worse problem than refusal to change the law to reinstate the death penalty for people with limited mental capabilities.
Second, the large majority of the named patients of the Arkham Asylum are not actually supposed to go there, as they are capable of telling right from wrong (they just don't care). So it's again more a problem of the system being insane and unrealistic than anything else.
But most importantly this is an issue of superpowered ethics (superpowered mental disability we just don't have compounded with superpowered capability to do damages) as opposed to a narrative laziness.
Joker Immunity is not a ethical issue, it is about how the Joker just cannot be permanently dealt with in the DC universe because he is the most popular villain and it would just hurt the bottom line too much.
Joker Immunity is a form of Contractual Immortality. A good example of Contractual Immortality is that we know for a fact that Ayla won't die in Ayla and the scientist because Diane has already started to write Ayla 10. It's when meta considerations (ie "from outside the story") make it impossible for a character to die.
Joker Immunity is a problem that arises when this Contractual Immortality interferes with the credibility of the story. When a villain starts causing so much damage that you just cannot accept that no one is able and willing to do what it takes to take them down. A more powerful/skilled villain is of course capable of getting with much more, since it takes more effort to reach that threshold.
Joker Immunity is for specific villain that have been around for way too long. The fact that no villain ever get a significant comeuppance is closer to the Cardboard Prison trope.
As was said, the only character that approaches Joker Immunity is Darrow, and he is good enough that it doesn't start to stretch credulity yet.
(I do have to admit that I was pissed at Hekate being allowed to escape the Sidhe Curse, though)
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60512 is a reply to message #60459 ] |
Tue, 26 June 2012 03:39 |
TheEyes
Messages: 451
Registered: May 2011 |
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| Diane Castle wrote on Sun, 24 June 2012 20:13 | You know, it bugged me that there were so many ways to kill someone magically, and only one of them was officially verboten. And the Imperius Curse was verboten, but you could do almost as well with a careful obliviate and possibly even better with a love potion. Okay, when I was reading the books, I played along and pretended to buy into the whole deal. Afterward, I griped to my SO.
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Well, there's always the Sluggy justification. 
I think, though, that Letomo had the right idea in the Unforgivable Curses being more of a historical artefact than anything else, particularly Cruciatus. Imperious would likely be illegal more for the political implications: you can't have a legitimate political system when people are going around bending each other to their will, and making Imperious illegal is probably the first tentative step towards making all magical forms of compulsion illegal (against non-Muggles, of course; those saps don't have any rights).
The Killing Curse, on the other hand, may be illegal not because of its lethality--I mean, just about every spell can be lethal, with a bit of creativity--but because it's the lynchpin spell involved in making a wizard into a lich. You can't just have a bunch of immortal dead people walking around, even if they limited themselves to only killing those worthless Muggles that don't even have the right to their own thoughts to power the rites: you'd end up with a world ruled by the dead, rather than the living.
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60513 is a reply to message #60447 ] |
Tue, 26 June 2012 03:55 |
TheEyes
Messages: 451
Registered: May 2011 |
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| Diane Castle wrote on Sun, 24 June 2012 17:19 | I thought about that too. You'll find out soon that water doesn't put out Fiendfyre. It can make things *worse*. But Hermione already knows that. Fortunately.
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| Diane Castle wrote on Sun, 24 June 2012 20:13 | Remember, Fiendfyre is *not* fire. It's something dangerous, and essentially alive, and malevolent. It's very nasty stuff. Trust Hermione on this one. 
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Hm, so you're interpreting Fieldfyre as more of a summoned demon, rather than some sort of conjured super-powerful fire that would just need a whole lot of heat sink to contain and extinguish it. Yeah, I guess that would make more sense, wouldn't it?
Then again, working out some way to contain and control a small piece of conjured Fieldfyre might be easier than the only other realistic alternative: sneaking back into Hogwarts and taking a baslisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets. Too bad Hermione and Co. hadn't thought far enough ahead about that: they could have had Ginny just pick up a fang or two while she was there.
[Updated on: Tue, 26 June 2012 03:56]
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60518 is a reply to message #60513 ] |
Tue, 26 June 2012 13:56 |
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Diane Castle
Messages: 2505
Registered: September 2007
Location: Oregon, USA |
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| TheEyes wrote on Tue, 26 June 2012 00:55 | | Diane Castle wrote on Sun, 24 June 2012 17:19 | I thought about that too. You'll find out soon that water doesn't put out Fiendfyre. It can make things *worse*. But Hermione already knows that. Fortunately.
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| Diane Castle wrote on Sun, 24 June 2012 20:13 | Remember, Fiendfyre is *not* fire. It's something dangerous, and essentially alive, and malevolent. It's very nasty stuff. Trust Hermione on this one.
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Hm, so you're interpreting Fieldfyre as more of a summoned demon, rather than some sort of conjured super-powerful fire that would just need a whole lot of heat sink to contain and extinguish it. Yeah, I guess that would make more sense, wouldn't it?
Then again, working out some way to contain and control a small piece of conjured Fieldfyre might be easier than the only other realistic alternative: sneaking back into Hogwarts and taking a baslisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets. Too bad Hermione and Co. hadn't thought far enough ahead about that: they could have had Ginny just pick up a fang or two while she was there.
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I have assumed that FiendFyre was more fiend than fire, just based on the way it behaved in the book and movie. It made intelligent decisions on morphing and attacking.
And I never really bought the 'Ron remembered Harry's hissing well enough to be able to get into the Chamber of Secrets in book 7' bit. That's like, oh... 'I heard a guy order breakfast in Bulgarian five years ago and I remembered it so clearly that I was able to order the same thing today'. Even Hermione couldn't do that. Heck, even Ayla couldn't do it. (Maybe Hip could. She seems to have an Exemplar ear for languages.) So I didn't think Ginny could get into the chamber again.
Diane
"WHO has deactivated my BEAUTIFUL frogs?"
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60550 is a reply to message #60518 ] |
Wed, 27 June 2012 02:58 |
TheEyes
Messages: 451
Registered: May 2011 |
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| Diane Castle wrote on Tue, 26 June 2012 13:56 | And I never really bought the 'Ron remembered Harry's hissing well enough to be able to get into the Chamber of Secrets in book 7' bit. That's like, oh... 'I heard a guy order breakfast in Bulgarian five years ago and I remembered it so clearly that I was able to order the same thing today'. Even Hermione couldn't do that. Heck, even Ayla couldn't do it. (Maybe Hip could. She seems to have an Exemplar ear for languages.) So I didn't think Ginny could get into the chamber again.
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Well, it was a traumatic experience for both of them. Maybe Harry had been waking Ron up by hissing in his sleep for weeks back in second/third year, and Ron didn't want to mention anything to him. He did mention that Harry talks in his sleep, and hissing would have a bigger effect on Ron, who had just been nearly killed, and had a few weeks before been forced to confront a major phobia of his with the giant spiders, who also hiss. Besides, it's not like it was a long order, or at least "Open up" shouldn't be that long a phrase in Parseltongue.
And Ayla probably would remember it: he happened to remember the debate he had with Jadis back in grade school, and walked right back into it years later as if they hadn't been interrupted by Jadis being "outed" as a supervillian.
[Updated on: Wed, 27 June 2012 03:00]
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #60565 is a reply to message #47264 ] |
Wed, 27 June 2012 07:52 |
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Sojiro
Messages: 1652
Registered: November 2011 |
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Remembering a discussion is easy because it is a logical succession of ideas. The human mind is made to deal with precisely that sort of thing.
Remembering completely random sound? Way more difficult.
Actually due to the fact that we aren't used to tell one hiss from another, Ron probably didn't even hear it right the firs ttime. Our very perception are coloured by the experience we have with the stimulus in question, the less we have the less nuances we perceive in the first place.
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #61459 is a reply to message #47264 ] |
Wed, 11 July 2012 09:44 |
Dr Rem
Messages: 93
Registered: May 2011 |
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The last two chapters of taking the warehouse were fun. Waiting til they were in the trucks was brilliant, get them all concentrated then AoE their asses.
When the Master Vampire turned out to be a wizard I expected he'd be tough to bring down, but arrogance and poor H-t-H (possibly due to reliance on magic?) made him a pile of dust in no time. Not a complaint, simply surprised is all. Could be Ginny is also just getting better at the whole "slayage" thing.
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| Re: Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller [message #61760 is a reply to message #61739 ] |
Sun, 15 July 2012 14:02 |
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Diane Castle
Messages: 2505
Registered: September 2007
Location: Oregon, USA |
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| beyogi wrote on Sun, 15 July 2012 06:59 | Um... I kind of wonder why they had moral problems with dealing with those two thugs. I mean they were willingly working for a master vampire/deamon thingy, which makes them pretty much traitors to humanity. Just AK them and be done with it. Seriously the obliviate thing was rather mercyful. I mean what is normally done with prisoners of war you can't secure? They get executed and forgotten.
Thank you for writing this captivating story, I wonder what they'll do next... will they meet the buffy crew?
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[1] Remember that in JK Rowling's world, any killing is bad, even in self-defense. Harry doesn't have to kill Moldyshorts at the end of the series, he just lets the Big Bad kill himself through sheer stupidity.
[2] As for what they do next, this time they might be more proactive, and not just wander around Britain carrying a Horcrux for months. (I really didn't like that part of the book.) And there might be another Slayer dream coming up soon, only this time without Tara.
Diane
"WHO has deactivated my BEAUTIFUL frogs?"
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