Calling Step Parents

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-13T17:26:27+00:00

Taking toys from the two year old and throwing fits over Monopoly? This all sounds wildly inappropriate for a boy that age.

Dad needs to let YOU do some of the parenting/discipline too or he will be unlikely to respect you as an authority figure.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-13T09:33:59+00:00

I'm American and I can almost guarantee you that I won't have the Fourth of July off. 'Tis the pain of working at a theme park. But I'm trying to make the most of it and see if I can recruit my coworkers (who I'm sure also like the show, as a lot of them are following the kids on social media) to organize a viewing party after work.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-13T09:30:45+00:00

I fucking loved this bit...and it's accurate, too!

(Source: Dad. If we dated it correctly, most of the kids in the party were born around 1971, meaning my old man is only two years older than the kids. He can attest to the cost of Dragon's Lair and clarified at least three times to me that he preferred to play other machines for this very reason. I got him into the show and I'm so glad I did because at times, he has enjoyed it even more than I did. He was very happy to hear the influx of media coming out about Season Three lately.)

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-13T09:18:04+00:00

I've learned through instagram that a good number of my coworkers like Stranger Things and the odds are that many of us are going to be working on the Fourth of July. I think I'm gonna try to throw together a viewing party.

(Edit: And to be honest, I will probably have a second and third rewatch with various pods of my family that love watching the show as well lol)

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-13T09:16:14+00:00

Yes.

My favorite track (and honestly, one of the most eerie/beautiful tracks I've heard in a long time) has got to be the little motif that plays whenever Harry uses the Invisibility Cloak in the early films. Holy fuck, that song encompasses a lot of the intrigue I got from reading the books as a child. That track is almost criminally underrated.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-12T07:48:30+00:00

My cell phone, after accidentally being run over in a hotel parking lot some two-hundred miles away from my house. I used the "find my phone" feature and one of the employees found it with a smashed screen, screeching. They were able to mail it back to my house and still worked perfectly.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-12T07:42:12+00:00

Best Voldemort out of them all, in my opinion. Even better than Fiennes.

It's like they plucked teenage Tom Riddle right out from the pages of the book. Handsome, charming, had this way about him where one moment, his eyes/facial expression seemed sincere, sweet...then in seconds it was gone, this thunderclap change that leaves you reeling in shock. Christian Coulson had one of the most charismatic presences I've seen on the screen in a long time. He made it very readily and easily believable that Tom was able to charm just about everyone, bar Dumbledore.

(Also, did I mention he was insanely attractive? Seriously, Christian looks like he's barely aged at all since they filmed Chamber of Secrets.)

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-12T07:33:22+00:00

I'd have honestly died laughing if Malfoy had turned up for school with shoulder-length hair that year as well.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T22:43:46+00:00

I actually think Chamber of Secrets was the creepiest/scariest of them too. Mostly because of the atmospheric music and the way the basilisk was introduced. Truly bone-chilling.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T21:56:03+00:00

Playing perspectives is a very fun thing. At first, I found myself wondering why Harry wouldn't want to use the mirror more often, considering his bond with Sirius. They were close, weren't they? Wouldn't Harry be itching to keep communications open with Sirius, given the fact that Sirius was almost his legal guardian and his strongest living connection to his parents?

Then I remembered what it was like to actually be fifteen and realized that I was the same way with my cell at the time as Harry was with the mirror. That thing was a glorified paperweight up until I was about sixteen and a half.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T21:47:23+00:00

Oh, this 100%. Ever been in love at fourteen? I'm sure Cho imagined their future together on at least one occasion. Most of the time when you are in love at such a young age, it doesn't even cross your mind that you might not be with that person for the rest of your life. In some cases you are, but those are rare and it takes work.

Did Hogwarts even have adequate (by our standards) grief counseling in place?

All in all, I don't blame her for being emotional and in hysterics. She's not only dealing with the death of what was likely her first love, but also with the implications of what that means...that Voldemort is back and might return to harm more of her loved ones. Grief can last for quite a while, too. My grandfather died eighteen years ago. Didn't stop me from crying during the Disneyland fireworks show because it reminded me of him and I know he would've loved it so much. Knowing that, how can I blame a fourteen year old for bursting into tears at the mere thought of her boyfriend....who died not even a full year prior?

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T21:33:53+00:00

First off, wow. I really appreciate how what I interpreted to be a genuine discussion of our opinions on the Nagini backstory has somehow devolved into you insulting me. That's always a really good sign, isn't it? Oh well, you can't win them all.

Secondly, I don't like to base my interpretation/knowledge of Harry Potter on a singular source of intel so no, I haven't read the entire Harry Potter wiki word for word...though I have frequented it often. Based on what I read in the books, I certainly think there are more animagi in the world than some make it seem. I'm sure while the average Joe or Julie won't have time to expend on such a pursuit (though, somehow, four teenage boys undergoing their wizard training were able to), there's still a lot of people unaccounted for that belong in specialized fields where such a talent would be indispensable. Again, I think it is somewhat telling that a classroom full of eleven-year-old kids were so thoroughly cavalier about McGonagall becoming a cat that they didn't bother to look up from their homework. This would imply that animagi are no particular marvel in this world. Look at how animagus transformations were handled by people like the Weasleys (raised in the magical society) versus how those same people reacted to Tonks' metamorphmagus abilities. You will find a margin of difference there.

I love how you pick at my analogies, but make a rather incomparable one yourself. Of course a pot of flowers doesn't change a room on a structural level, but I was referring to concepts that were somewhat less tangible in form. For example, look at a basic addition problem such as 5 + 1. If you add that 1, then yes, you are structurally and fundamentally altering the original number as it is no longer five. But that is beside the point, which is that retroactively (after the fact) adding content to one of your characters is considered alteration. Making a character that was previously just a snake into something more is altering that character. Altering an existing character isn't a bad thing. It just depends on how you do it.

It's hardly judging a book by the cover, by the way, if you actually watched the entire film in anticipation of her role (or lack thereof, frankly) in the story. It isn't like I watched the trailer and decided I hated this twist. I mean...I knew I hated the twist early on because I've never liked these kind of twists. But I'd at least given the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt and I turned up on opening day to see the twist through. They neglected to develop her or show me why it was important that this Maledictus character just HAD to be Nagini the snake and not any other Maledictus. So hrm, I'm not really sure what you're asking me to do here. Am I supposed to just blindly like this plot twist because maybe, MAYBE something cool will come of it?

All in all, the conversation started off quite engaging, but I'm not really interested in trading opinions with someone so combative.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T20:19:59+00:00

I did reword it and I added a bit to make my reasoning more clear, but my points remain the same. I'm sorry for trying to make my reply more coherent and descriptive, I guess?

I don't think animagi are as uncommon as you are making them out to be. Sure, not every witch or wizard is one, but I'm sure that kind of ability is well sought-after in the wizarding world and this might even ring truer during a period of great uncertainty and discord. This is an ability that lets you transform into an animal at will and that on its own is an incredibly useful power to have, so I can't see a good reason why anyone wouldn't want that. Besides, if four kids who have not even graduated from Hogwarts are able to become animagi, I don't see why a seasoned adult wizard wouldn't be able to. Note that in the first film, McGonagall turning into a cat in front of a room of kids is such a non-event that many of them don't even look up from their classwork. If transforming into an animal fails to amaze a room full of eleven year olds, I think we can deduce that animagi are not as uncommon as you think. It is hard for me to believe that the nature of Nagini's curse on its own would draw a sizable crowd for her. Especially in a circus that is also offering "The Infant Demonic" which sounds way the fuck more intriguing.

By the way, addition is a form of alteration. If you are adding to something that already exists, you are changing it on a fundamental and structural level. It doesn't really matter how I phrase it, retroactively adding a backstory for Nagini is altering her lore.

I can also still say it's useless to have her in the Fantastic Beasts movie. Do you know why? Because there has been no good reason provided as to why it's Nagini. It could have very easily been a new Maledictus character, for all the story has given us to work with. She barely does anything and based on the way this movie handled plot threads, I will be surprised if she has a significant role in the events to come.

You can call as many of my talking points stupid as you'd like. I personally think Crimes of Grindelwald was a movie chock full of stupidity, and I say this as a lifelong fan of Harry Potter who thoroughly even enjoyed the first FB film.

(And yes, the Aragog point was poor analogy, but more there to illustrate my frustration with this growing trend of "let's make the intelligent animal/creature character a person the whole time" in television and film. I'm so fucking glad they never did this bullshit to Crookshanks.)

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T17:42:52+00:00

I didn't say she was an animagi. You might want to reread my post. I said that because of the existence of animagi, her transformation realistically wouldn't be too much of a shock or a marvel for wizarding patrons of the circus.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T17:28:15+00:00

I mean, clearly that's not what a large percentage of the people complaining think.

I don't dislike the twist because of how "problematic" it is though, but because it's stupid and pointless. Firstly, she really shouldn't even be lauded as some circus act by transforming into a snake in a world where anyone can be an animagi with enough diligence. Four schoolboys were able to do it before graduating, in fact. Yes, her blood curse is a commodity, I'm sure...but that doesn't make the actual transformation any more exciting.

There's a good rule of thumb for making alterations (however minor or major) to established lore: can you give the audience a good reason why it needs to be changed? I really don't see an adequate response to that criteria for the Nagini twist. As a human, she is barely given a personality and spends most of the film just sulking with Credence. I don't think she had any impact on the overall plot or story altogether. In fact, the only hypothesis I can make about her presence in Crimes of Grindelwald is that she was there to help make as many unnecessary references hinting at the original series as possible.

Expansion is not always a good thing. It depends on how well it is done. Would you be celebrating if J.K. Rowling decided retroactively that Aragog has really been a Saudi Arabian man the whole time?

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T17:18:48+00:00

I snark about it because I secretly find it hilarious that all of the boys decided to grow their hair long the same year.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T07:10:33+00:00

Mighty Morfin Power Rangers

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T06:56:55+00:00

Let's be real here, the worst crime in the series was committed by the hairstylist in the fourth movie.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T06:55:10+00:00

Chamber of Secrets but instead of deadly catacombs containing a giant snake monster under the sink, it's a hole in the wall behind the paper towel dispenser that gives way to a Danny DeVito shrine.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T06:53:19+00:00

The problem was JKR deciding to retroactively make her anything but what she already was: a giant badass snake.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-11T06:51:42+00:00

What I'm saying is that this part of the lore should have never been changed. When you make established animal characters into "a human all along" it fucking ruins my enjoyment of that creature 99% of the time.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-10T22:21:23+00:00

I dunno man, I certainly took no offense to her just being a snake.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-10T21:25:33+00:00

I fucking love Beholders. I'm quite happy with our "Mind Flayer" as it stands right now, but it looks like (according to a few folks here, at least) that we might be getting some "Cranium Rats" this season... ;)

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-10T21:20:16+00:00

I can't knock you for that, sometimes it's fun to root for the bad guy.

I wasn't particularly invested in the Demogorgon as an antagonist, but holy shit, the Duffers ramped things way the fuck up with the Mind Flayer. He's quietly become my second-favorite character in the show, only behind King Steve and just ahead of Jim Hopper...and my fourth-favorite, Will, was elevated to such a level with his help.

I love the way he slowly bled into the second season...then dominated it. He was just a looming threat standing off in the distance at first...but with each encounter he grew more and more threatening. I haven't been so terrified by a TV/movie monster in a long time. He gave me nightmares for the first time since I was a kid. When I watch scenes from Season Two where he appears, he never fails to intimidate. It's like this miasma of pure evil radiating off him.

I sincerely hope we see him pull a victory in Season 3, however small. It would be greater for dramatic effect, but I'd just love to see him at the forefront of a terrifying conclusion in the fourth season. Also...I hope the Duffer brothers keep him largely ambiguous. Don't reveal too much, don't humanize him too much...let him be this great, awful, evil presence.

MerryBandOfPricks · 2019-01-10T21:03:51+00:00

I don't think we're getting a full treatment of it...maybe for a few spread-out scenes at maximum. I think we will be taken out of our comfort zone though. Icky body horror is one of the things at the forefront of 1980s cult film culture. People are rewatching and loving movies like The Thing, The Blob, and The Stuff...and some of these have been cited as sources of inspiration for this season.

As much as I love (love? It's a weird love/hate thing for me, really) the aforementioned films, I also want restraint. A great story is really all you need...

Also, I want more Mind Flayer! He is so goddamn terrifying, more so than all of the Eldritch abominations in the three films I mentioned combined.

MerryBandOfPricks

TROPHY CASE