And it really irks me a lot.
Update: Man, I have gotten tons of great responses here and a lot of activity. The comments section turned out way better than Reddit. Thank you all! <3
Examples? You can’t go on a rant and then not give examples.
Fair point. But I can’t remember it all at once. I didn’t exactly stop and take notes every few seconds throughout the movies like a proper reviewer xD
But if you say that “most of bad things” I would imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to name a few
I’m autistic. Big hard drive, small RAM. And that RAM is being used right now to absorb this next Harry Potter movie while I also try to manage funds with my housemates in a crisis and prevent homelessness
I’d basically have to go and rewind right now, or go back to the movies I watched in the last week, and… blegh, I don’t want to stop in the middle of the first third of Order of the Phoenix. It’s already way better than Goblet of Fire (movies, not books. People say the GoF book is great, and I tend to believe them)
Edit: Hey look, there it is again in the one I’m at now. Hermoine to Potter: “What’s wrong with your hand?” Potter: “Nothing.” (This was the Dolores torture). Hermoine actually finds out, which is refreshing. “You’ve got to tell Dumbledore.” Harry: “No. Dumbledore’s got enough on his mind right now.” Freaking stupid, Harry.
This “is anything happening?” “No, nothing.” exchange with Potter is constant in this series.
Hey look, there it is again in the one I’m at now. Hermoine to Potter: “What’s wrong with your hand?” Potter: “Nothing.” (This was the Dolores torture). Hermoine actually finds out, which is refreshing. “You’ve got to tell Dumbledore.” Harry: “No. Dumbledore’s got enough on his mind right now.” Freaking stupid, Harry.
This “is anything happening?” “No, nothing.” exchange with Potter is constant in this series.
Dude the ball tops of my thigh bones were literally sliding off the bones (they failed to fuse for me) in middle school. I was limping and would have insane attacks if pain when they moved a fraction of a millimeter.
Parents, teachers, friends: what’s wrong? Me: nothing
Kids hiding bad things is the most real part.
I cannot overstate how much not only does Harry do it every movie, but all the other characters as well.
Oh no no… I was the opposite. I was a whiny little bitch. Broke a finger nail? “Moooooooooom!!!”
I couldn’t finish book 6 because there was too much of harry whining in capslock for no appreciable reason, and I remember skipping over a lot of scenes with his uncle for the exact reasons OP highlights.
Yeah, there are a lot of movies and shows where people talk like human beings. Hell, as a writer, nobody in my novels holds the idiot ball nor fails to talk like a normal person, just because that would be convenient for the plot to move along.
But also remember it is fiction and fiction for kids into teenagers. Don’t take it too seriously.
That is a terrible argument every time it is brought up. OP clearly likes Harry Potter enough to wanting to immerse themselves into the story, but are stopped short by what they perceive as inconsistencies or contrivances.
We have media, even ones aimed at kids, that suffer less to not at all from those. We should not excuse bad writing. You can still like something badly written. I like Tron: Legacy, I will die on the hill that it is a great movie. But it is not a perfect movie. It still has flaws. I’m not making excuses that it is built on a movie with even worse plot holes. I accept that it is flawed, but I like it just the same.
Well-said, and I make this argument all the time.
Steven Universe is a show for kids (and everyone). Nobody in that entire show’s running time fails to talk like a normal person would or “holds the idiot ball”. Everyone is smart and communicative, and the show respects its audience a ton. Avatar: TLA is in the same boat, and that’s for kids too (and also everyone).
Yep! It’s basically a form of bad writing.
There’s something called an idiot plot, where the plot only works because the characters are idiots. If they just did the obviously correct thing, the tension would resolve too quickly.
It’s a much harder task to create drama and tension from believable, likable, sensible, consistent characters. If your characters just CAPSLOCK ANGST DRAMA in every situation, it’s way easier to keep tension. Annoying, badly written tension.
Well, kids, especially pre-teen to teen, are idiots. I know, because I was one. And my friends and classmates were too.
are idiots
It’s true that people do dumb things, but it makes for annoying fiction. The real world doesn’t always translate well into a story.
Hell, does anyone perfectly explain everything to each other all the time in the real world?
No, so this argument fails there too.
In the story we just don’t know why things aren’t disuccessed “perfectly”. Like why does Hermione not explain to Ron that she likes him, instead she has a fight with him. Wasn’t that an issue for OP? (It wasn’t for me, because I understand emotions challenge us to communicate well, and I’m an old fart without the hormones of a teen).
Kids world and adult world are separate. Kids very often don’t want adult involvement in their world - they see it as an intrusion. There’s also a general distrust of adults: “you just don’t understand”, or “things are different now than when you were my age” are the refrains we hear every generation. Again, I’m old enough to have seen this several times.
And the adults are busy with their own responsibilities, so won’t always catch on to what’s happening in the kid’s world.
Most importantly, the adults have to allow kids room to figure things out on their own, to struggle with difficulties. Always being there means the kids never learn to solve problems themselves, to build their own relationships, to figure out how to identify good people, etc.
Also, people are human, warts and all, communication is hard.
As a kid, getting explanations for things out of adults felt nearly impossible. I’m sure part of that was my phrasing as a kid, I just didn’t know how to formulate a good question, plus adults surely thought I was often a smart ass or just asking dumb questions with obvious answers.