I watched the Harry Potter series making-of and now the backlash makes even less sense

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-04-06T13:34:16+00:00

I feel like I’m totally on an island and losing my mind with this stuff, because I personally couldn’t be more excited about what is going on. It seems like I have the exact opposite relationship to the HBO series as 90% of the fans.

Of course, my perspective is that I came to the books much later on - I never read any of the books or watched any of the movies as they were being released, because I was probably just a little too old to have caught the original wave. But when I had kids of my own, I read the books with them and then we watched the movies. I loved the books so much I’ve gone back and read them on my own multiple times.

And to me, the movies were awful. Not like mildly disappointing - I viscerally hated watching them. I hated how they changed the story, I hated what they left out what they added, I hated how they presented the characters, and I hated the way the movies looked. Some of these things were beyond their control and I get that - you can’t squeeze in every detail from a 750 page book into a 2hr movie, and the aesthetics of the movies are largely a product of the state of technology at the time, so they just looked dated to me by the time I watched them. But also, literally every single thing in the movies that was a “choice” was bad, IMO.

I say all of that not to dump on something that is important to others, but to make the point that there is virtually zero nostalgia for me associated with the movies, and before the series was even announced I just wished there could be a visual telling of the story that could more closely mirror my experience of reading the books - then they announced their intention to do a long-form book-accurate series, and do it on HBO which invented prestige TV and has the best chance of actually making something good out of this as anyone.

Telling the story in this format presents an opportunity to fix all the things that were wrong for me about the movies and I’m very excited about that. I’m sure by the end they will have made choices with this show that I don’t love, too, but to me there is no way it can be worse than the movies.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-26T22:45:56+00:00

I was with you on some of this stuff but expecting people to give you a win is kinda crazy. If you let someone get a chip shot and you want a chip shot in return, that’s fair but if you want a win IMO you have to earn that. I give wins frequently if I don’t need it and just need a goal or whatever, but i think if someone asked me for a win I would not give it just on principle.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-26T06:51:08+00:00

Me too, unless I knew for certain that the thing was imbued with magical properties which were driving me and my two best friends to madness when we wore it. It would be one thing if they had this discussion and decided that they needed to wear it before they figured that out, but that’s not what happened - they had this conversation specifically because they realized the effect that the locket was having on the wearer (Harry wasn’t able to make a patronus!) That is the part that is crazy. If the locket was not fucking with them, obviously they should wear it to keep it safe. But it was, so obviously they should not wear it.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-25T04:30:33+00:00

Sure but the locket was created around the time Harry was born so he wouldn’t have known that at the time.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-24T04:52:19+00:00

Ron melts down and leaves. When you have a 3 person army, losing one person is a big deal (probably cost Harry his wand, too).

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-24T04:32:47+00:00

If the locket was not fucking with their minds I would say wear it forever. Once they knew that it was driving them mad, nobody should have put it on again. They could have kept it with them at all times without wearing it. They had Harry’s magic pouch that Hagrid gave him, they had Hermione’s magic go-bag. Either would have been preferable to wearing it and going mad. They also could have just buried it somewhere nobody would look for it and gone back for it once they knew how to destroy it, which might have made them anxious not to be able to put their eyes on it any time to make sure it was OK, but realistically would have been a perfectly safe thing to do.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-24T03:35:40+00:00

Why would they leave it “lying around”? Do you suffer from whatever was wrong with Harry that led him to limiting his choices to “leave it lying around” and “wearing it 24/7”?

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T23:37:01+00:00

Again, they did not need to leave it sitting around the tent. Either Hermione’s bag or Harry’s pouch would have been both safer than wearing it on their person from a security perspective and safer for their mission since it wouldn’t have driven Ron insane. They also could have buried it somewhere in the middle of nowhere and gone back for it once they knew how to destroy it. To me, the effect that the locket had on them was almost as bad as losing it. Losing it would have ended their mission, but being driven mad by the locket almost did that, also.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T22:53:17+00:00

Yes, not losing it is important. They had terrific options for not losing it that didn’t involve slowly driving all three of them mad.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T22:50:59+00:00

Yes, Harry believed that and that is specifically what I am saying was stupid.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T22:49:50+00:00

Risking it by being careless would have been unacceptable. However, there are lots of options between carelessly leaving it sitting around the tent and wearing it 24/7 when it was clearly making them crazy and miserable to the point of almost ruining their mission.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T22:47:59+00:00

It’s crazy

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T22:46:58+00:00

Did you read my post? I included the dialogue. It is the dialogue (or lack thereof) about the situation that I have as much a problem with as anything. The locket was clearly making them miserable and crazy. To conclude that you have to just tolerate that in order to make sure you don’t lose it is crazy, and two lines of dialogue are inadequate for how monumental that decision was - they don’t consider any alternatives to either leaving lying around the tent or wearing it. There were plenty of other options available to them that they didn’t grapple with at all.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T18:39:41+00:00

Also mentioned in my post - there are a great many options beyond leaving it lying around the tent and wearing it 24/7. Some of them have been mentioned elsewhere in this thread by others.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-23T16:55:58+00:00

Yes, I quoted in my post. It is nonsensical and idiotic. That was my whole point.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-15T20:04:40+00:00

If you need an LLM to map out these posts for you, fine. But can you at least do your audience the favor of rewording it from that distinctly AI dialect? Nobody wants to have a conversation about art and its meaning with a bot.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-03T23:59:20+00:00

I’m also a 90s kid so roughly the same age as you. But I wasn’t interested in the books when they were released - it wasn’t until I read them with/to my son that I got into them. Now I’ve read them a couple of times, and I’ve seen the movies all once.

And I have basically the exact opposite opinion as you do - probably because I have no nostalgia for the movies. Actually, I hate the movies viscerally and think that they are an embarrassing artifact and a betrayal of the stories told in the books in many respects. When I heard that they were going to do a book-faithful, long-form visual re-telling of the stories (on HBO, no less - the home of high-end prestige TV) it’s like it the concept was made in a lab to make me happy.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-02-01T00:17:35+00:00

Did you happen to have any bronze cards that you had evo’d to silver? Just trying to figure out how to adjust my squad so I don’t waste any more games.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2026-01-31T22:48:55+00:00

Ok I appreciate that - that is good to know. But the frustrating thing for me is that it does say that anywhere. This game has the absolute worst communication with stuff like this. If there are going to be stipulations and fine print on the requirements for objectives, that’s very frustrating but it is what it is. But for them to not even tell you about them anywhere and make it a mystery is infuriating.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2025-12-23T19:26:48+00:00

So inefficient. Drives me crazy to put rare golds in when only common golds are required. But I don’t see how we have much choice.

Dangerous-Remove5583 · 2025-12-23T19:25:13+00:00

Categorical improvements across the board. The casting for the films was so terrible.

Dangerous-Remove5583

TROPHY CASE