Hogwarts Legacy

[Trafalgar]

How is the game? Is it worth the money?

I am not a big Harry Potter fan so I am only interested in it if the gameplay is good.

[pendell]

Well, from what I've seen there's a lot of murderin' (https://www.pcgamer.com/boy-there-sure-is-a-lot-of-murderin-in-hogwarts-legacy/).



Do you remember that part in the Harry Potter books or movies where Harry strolls into a fortified camp, draws his wand, and then whips an explosive barrel into a group of illegal poachers, instantly barbequing all five in the blast radius? Me neither, which is why I was a little shocked by my wizard's bloodlust in Hogwarts Legacy.

Note: Minor Hogwarts Legacy spoilers below.

Seriously, I'm an exceptionally deadly 15-year-old. Depending on who you ask, Harry Potter himself only had to kill once or twice throughout his entire Hogwarts career. I'm snuffing out half a dozen lives on the way to Potions class and I don't know how to feel about it. My nearly triple digit bodycount isn't entirely the fault of my character (Wizardboy Spellsalot), but it's not not his fault either.


I'm kinda surprised because this doesn't thematically seem like Hogwarts; Harry Potter was the Boy Who Lived. He's the guy who casts Stupify even against Voldemort. Voldemort's the evil dude in the books because murder is his first, second, heck that's ALL the cards in his deck.

Yet in the game there's a lot of PVP and PVE deaths in some pretty horrifying ways and we haven't even unlocked the Unforgivable Curses.

Now, i was a late comer to the potterverse because I didn't read them until the late 2000s; I had a 90 minute commute and talk radio in my area had become utter garbage. So I listened to them on audiobook on my commute. From what I've read it looks like the new game takes place in the location but is a very, very different place from the books. I'm surprised JK Rowling let it happen, but I suppose it's all about the Benjamins. Wait... she's in Scotland, right? It aint' Ben Franklin's portrait on their highest denomination bank note. Whose is? King Charles?

You care about gameplay and not the book lore. That's fine; I hope the review is helpful for that. Still, as a rule in video games tie-ins typically aren't at the same level as games which don't have a license to bring in players.

I suppose I should note in passing that JK Rowling has made herself controversial for some forum-unfriendly topics. I don't want to get infracted, so I'll just simply note the controversy exists and move on. There are a fair number of people who are triggered by her statements, and some of them are on this forum. Tread lightly.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Precure]

There is nothing good about Hogwarts' legacy. :smallamused:

[Psyren]

Watching a friend play it, it doesn't seem that interesting to me. The castle is well-realized and the character creator is very detailed but the moment to moment gameplay is nothing to write home about. I have no intentions of buying it myself, and I'm still working on Dead Space anyway until Returnal comes out on PC.

[animorte]

Yes, let's keep the controversial topics out of the thread and forum entirely. Also, this should probably be moved to the Gaming (Other) thread.

That aside, I haven't played it and I will have to wait for the PS4 release. I've seen a lot of conversation about the game itself and what to look forward to, what not to look forward to, how to access this and that, all sorts of fun.

The things that bother me about the game before even playing:
Why am I starting off as a 5th year?
How, starting so late, is my character already so powerful?

Sure, all of this is so that you can fully experience what wizards are capable of while being mature enough to cope properly. Whatever they need to make it work I guess... which brings me to my next thoughts.

I intend to play the game because of how much the world meant to me over these years. I want to see the hard work put into the visual experience. I don't care about being all-powerful, completionist, kill count, or really even running through the main quest line. I just want to go on an interactive tour. That's what this game is for me.

[Trafalgar]

Well, from what I've seen there's a lot of murderin' (https://www.pcgamer.com/boy-there-sure-is-a-lot-of-murderin-in-hogwarts-legacy/).




Maybe it should have been called "Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards: The Legacy"

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Moved.

[Comissar]

I'd strongly argue against buying the game on the basis of its IP and the way the IP has been used in recent years. I don't know where the line is on what is and isn't forum appropriate, so I'll just leave off on that line by echoing pendell's comment that Rowling has, to put it mildly, been extremely divisive in recent years and with how heavily tied she is to the Harry Potter franchise, you can't really support the franchise without also supporting her platform.

If you're set on playing the game regardless of the above, all I've heard from the reviews of it have painted it as being fairly mediocre, though the scores reviewers have given it haven't married up to the articles very well (IGN for example variously comments on the game's plot having more holes than fishnet stockings, having an eye-roll worthy introductory set up, a story that's not profound or original, glitchy performance issues, as well as issues with clipping through the map, lack of variety in opponents, and inventory management issues. The reviewer then gives the game a 9/10. This isn't unique to IGN either.)

To me it looks like it's just a game trying to cash in on nostalgia.

[animorte]

To me it looks like it's just a game trying to cash in on nostalgia.
That suits my purposes.

[warty goblin]

As apparently the only person on the thread who has actually played the game, I'll put it like this.

It's fun. It's very, very fun.

Now that has to be mitigated by exactly how much of a Harry Potter fanatic you are. Me, I've always liked the series, read the books as they came out, saw the movies. I'd say pretty standard level normie HP audience member. So yes, there's an undeniable appeal to, you know, getting to run around Hogwarts and accio stuff and all that. But it isn't my favorite series of all time here, we aren't talking like getting to eat Otik's spiced potatoes at the Inn of the Last Home and getting insulted by Raistlin levels of nerd glee.

Rather, I think a lot of it works well because it actually adapts to a videogame really elegantly, and the devs have done a really good job. Things like secrets and riddles and so on don't feel odd when you're poking around a magical castle because it's a magical castle. And Hogwarts feels like a properly magical castle too, it's absolutely huge, and just jam packed with stuff going on. You get lots of ways to interact with the world because you're a wizard and that's what wizards do. I don't generally find exploring in videogames that fun anymore because I've been playing them for like 10,000 years and I am just not going to get excited about another audio diary or cryptic weirdo in a corner somewhere. But exploring in Hogwarts Legacy is really, really fun, because there's so much life and verve and attention to detail in everything.

It is also exceedingly pleasant. After bloody years of dark fantasy games, this is very different. The world is just pleasant to be in. Sure there's danger and so on - it's a story after all - but the universe isn't inherently hostile or alien. It's alive and full of magic and surprise, and I really love that.

I find the combat is pretty decent as well. It's a solid translation of what one sees in the movies to a videogame, so it's sort of a ranged sword fight I guess? You need specific attacks to break specific defenses, and I expect as I get more spells it's going to get much more complex. I don't think it's a combat system I'm going to fall deeply in love with or anything, and as a wizard power fantasy it isn't shakes on Forspoken, but it's lot of fun. It also feels properly wizardy I guess I'd say? I'm not sure how exactly to describe this, but it isn't just a shooter with wands or something. Your spells do interesting spell things, not just cover dudes in fire particle effects.

[Rynjin]

I'm not very far in, but I can already say the combat is pretty interesting. I'm not sure I've ever actually played a game like this where your primary means of attack is magical projectiles but your primary means of defense is not DODGING, but actually a shield/parry/riposte system.





The things that bother me about the game before even playing:
Why am I starting off as a 5th year?
How, starting so late, is my character already so powerful?

In the first 5 minutes or so of the game it's implied that the answer to question 1 is "because you're transferring from another school" and the answer to question 2 is "because you've been tutored by a badass battlemage for the last few months who's been making sure you're up to speed on spells to cast for your classes".


Iso I'll just leave off on that line by echoing pendell's comment that Rowling has, to put it mildly, been extremely divisive in recent years and with how heavily tied she is to the Harry Potter franchise, you can't really support the franchise without also supporting her platform.



The easiest, vaguest response I can give to this is "there is no such thing as ethical consumption". If you were going to boycott a product solely because of the person(s) involved in it and actions they've taken, you should be off living in the woods somewhere, because I can guarantee you that things you use everyday are manufactured and provided to you under circumstances that should leave you in a constant state of righteous anger.

[LaZodiac]

The easiest, vaguest response I can give to this is "there is no such thing as ethical consumption". If you were going to boycott a product solely because of the person(s) involved in it and actions they've taken, you should be off living in the woods somewhere, because I can guarantee you that things you use everyday are manufactured and provided to you under circumstances that should leave you in a constant state of righteous anger.

There is no such thing as ethical consumption relates to being forced to make unethical choices due to the reality of your oppressive existence; ie, having to buy cheap clothes made by people in bad working conditions because you're not wealthy enough.

It does not mean you have a free card to buy the ****ty wizard game.

At any rate; the game looks like garbage, and from every review I've seen it plays like it too. Not even getting into all the other reasons why you wouldn't want to play it.

[Rynjin]

I wish we could actually have real conversations on this site, because I'd really like to hash this out with you in-depth...but we can't, so meh.

[Taevyr]

The easiest, vaguest response I can give to this is "there is no such thing as ethical consumption". If you were going to boycott a product solely because of the person(s) involved in it and actions they've taken, you should be off living in the woods somewhere, because I can guarantee you that things you use everyday are manufactured and provided to you under circumstances that should leave you in a constant state of righteous anger.

I never get arguments like this: you're essentially claiming boycotting stuff over ethics is necessarily "all-or-nothing", and since it's impossible to do "all" in our modern way of life, we should all just resign ourselves to doing nothing.

Now in this case, considering the game's part of such a wildly succesfull franchise whose main audience is currently at/near the height of disposable income, a boycott probably won't do that much, but still. We all have our tresholds of ethical tolerance, and if someone considers Rowling to have taken it too far, they're perfectly valid in boycotting it.

As for Legacy: from what I've seen it seems.... ok. Absolutely nostalgia bait, but they seem to have done a good job recreating the feeling of Hogwarts, including plenty of reason for you to go exploring the magic castle. From what I remember from the PS2 games, that was definitely what I enjoyed the most.

....now I want to see if I can dig up an emulator for those, dammit.

[Anarchic Fox]

"There's no such thing as ethical consumption" is a slogan, not a coherent position. The gist of it is that you shouldn't feel guilty about supporting massive corporations, because just about everybody has to do so. Which is true, as far as it goes. You should not, however, lose sight of the fact that you are supporting them.

I've also heard the argument that people purchasing this game are supporting the developers, not the source of controversy. Well, there are plenty of other developers to support.

FYI, nobody in this thread should feel at all guilty about purchasing or enjoying this game. If you're not a member of a certain community, or a community adjacent to it, you probably haven't even heard about what's been going on. (And due to forum rules, we can't inform you here, but a search for "Rowling controversy" should do the trick.)

[Rynjin]

Again, can't get further into it, because I would need to source specific counter-examples to back up my point. Slogans are as good as I can do without imemdiately polevaulting over the forum guidelines.

The discourse is frankly tiring to me in general, and it's a big part of why I don't use the bird site. There will be much squawking for the next few days and everyone will conveniently forget when the new Thing happens, and the old Thing will be immediately forgotten.


As for Legacy: from what I've seen it seems.... ok. Absolutely nostalgia bait, but they seem to have done a good job recreating the feeling of Hogwarts, including plenty of reason for you to go exploring the magic castle. From what I remember from the PS2 games, that was definitely what I enjoyed the most.

This is actually what made me interested in it. I haven't touched anything HP related in...some 15 odd years at this point. Whenever the last movie released.

But I have extremely fond memories of the PS2 Chamber of Secrets game, and this game looked a lot like that, but better executed. So far that seems to be accurate.

[Vizzerdrix]

It looks great and has very good controls. The pacing is a bit off and the mc voice is abysmal. Npcs are fine and add to the atmosphere. Lots of collectables so expect to have to double back to get it all as new spells are learned. All in all it is super fun.

[Rynjin]

It looks great and has very good controls. The pacing is a bit off and the mc voice is abysmal. Npcs are fine and add to the atmosphere. Lots of collectables so expect to have to double back to get it all as new spells are learned. All in all it is super fun.

The female voice is better but...yeah that's a low bar, and not by nearly as much as another recent example I can think of (Female V in Cyberpunk was about a million times better than Male V).

[Anarchic Fox]

Again, can't get further into it, because I would need to source specific counter-examples to back up my point. Slogans are as good as I can do without imemdiately polevaulting over the forum guidelines.

The discourse is frankly tiring to me in general, and it's a big part of why I don't use the bird site. There will be much squawking for the next few days and everyone will conveniently forget when the new Thing happens, and the old Thing will be immediately forgotten.

This particular Thing has been going on for a decade, and over that period the origin of the Thing has been making the Thing incrementally more odious.

You (this is the impersonal "you," not Rynjin) really don't need to justify the fact that you aren't swayed by a controversy, but you shouldn't conclude that it is inconsequential just because you aren't swayed.

[Rynjin]

This particular Thing has been going on for a decade, and over that period the origin of the Thing has been making the Thing incrementally more odious.

You (this is the impersonal "you," not Rynjin) really don't need to justify the fact that you aren't swayed by a controversy, but you shouldn't conclude that it is inconsequential just because you aren't swayed.

Maybe a difference of mindset; it seems we agree on the broader point. I'm not a fan of the Thing. But from my perspective the Thing has had zero involvement in the actual property in over a decade, and even if the game sold zero copies it would have zero impact on the Thing's existence; it would still be around, doing Thing things, and nobody can stop it.

That is why, to me, the controversy IS inconsequential. Because it ultimately will accomplish nothing. The source of the controversy is not, but I just can't bring myself to care enough about a choice whose consequences are nonexistent.

[t209]

I wonder if they should be made by Obsidian or more "choice and story driven RPG" focused studios now that I read the PC Gamer article.

[Taevyr]

But I have extremely fond memories of the PS2 Chamber of Secrets game, and this game looked a lot like that, but better executed. So far that seems to be accurate.

It's similar for me, specifically with the Chamber of Secrets and Azkaban games, though I wouldn't be able to say exactly why my memories of'em are so fond.

I do remember the best part about that PS1 Sorcerer's Stone game: the glory of PS1 Hagrid (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/callmekevin/images/6/6d/PS1_Haggrid.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20191115002932) should never be lost to the world

[animorte]

It's I do remember the best part about that PS1 Sorcerer's Stone game: the glory of PS1 Hagrid (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/callmekevin/images/6/6d/PS1_Haggrid.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20191115002932) should never be lost to the world
Ah I remember the glory. I also recall something about drawing your spells (a keyhole for Alohamora), walking across moving platform puzzles, and flying a broomstick through floating rings. Some of this may well be from PS2 or PC, but it's fun to reminisce.

That spell "tracing" reminds me of a different discussion entirely about how the spells have changed so much depending on what source you are currently using. Plenty video games, and the Hogwarts battle deck-building game.

[Zevox]

How is the game? Is it worth the money?

I am not a big Harry Potter fan so I am only interested in it if the gameplay is good.
I'm in a similar boat, except you can remove the word "big" from the phrase "not a big Harry Potter fan." I've legitimately never read the books nor seen the films, nor touched any other piece of related media. Just never had an interest.

But previews for the game have caught my attention as just looking like a legitimately good game, and I see those who are playing it here are saying it plays quite well, so that's all promising. I suppose that makes my question for those who are playing it: how friendly does it seem like it would be to someone who isn't familiar with the franchise? Is the setting explained well enough for a newcomer who only knows as much as he's gotten out of cultural osmosis, or are they expecting you to already know every character, creature, and spell that they name-drop and you'll be lost and confused if you're going in more or less blind?

[Kareeah_Indaga]

As apparently the only person on the thread who has actually played the game, I'll put it like this.

It's fun. It's very, very fun.

This is all I care about.


I find the combat is pretty decent as well. It's a solid translation of what one sees in the movies to a videogame, so it's sort of a ranged sword fight I guess? You need specific attacks to break specific defenses, and I expect as I get more spells it's going to get much more complex. I don't think it's a combat system I'm going to fall deeply in love with or anything, and as a wizard power fantasy it isn't shakes on Forspoken, but it's lot of fun. It also feels properly wizardy I guess I'd say? I'm not sure how exactly to describe this, but it isn't just a shooter with wands or something. Your spells do interesting spell things, not just cover dudes in fire particle effects.

That does sound fun! I have too much stuff on my plate right now to pick it up, but I’m wishlisting it for later.

[Rynjin]

I think the only annoying thing so far is definitely the early game has a lot *nudge nudge* "Hey do you remember this thing? Apparation? Accio? Portkeys? Weasleys and Blacks?" etc. etc.

As someone familiar with the source material, I found it obtrusive. Like I get it, this is the first really big AAA game based on the franchise, they want to nostalgia bait as much as possible. But yeesh, tone it down a notch.

HOWEVER...for someone fresh to the franchise I think the more nostalgia bait-y aspects would fly over your head (there is zero reason to be attached to the fact that there's a Professor Weasley or that the headmaster of the school is one of Sirius's ancestors) and the more...mechanical bits acts as a great introduction to how things work in the wizarding world.

So far it seems like being a fan of the source material is optional, and perhaps even a detriment insofar as it might test your tolerance for how many winks and nudges you can take in a short timespan.

From my playtime so far, I don't think jumping in fresh would be an issue. It's an entirely game original plot, set about 200 years before the actual series, so you don't have that awkward issue of "the adaptation has glossed over critical plot details because they assume you've read the books" like the movies had (no, seriously, a few of the movies cut PLOT CRITICAL scenes and the movie only makes sense if you've read the books lol).

The setting is pretty succinctly set up early on, with basically all you need to know being that magic can do anything, and therefore magic is used for EVERYTHING.

The only time so far I've used book knowledge to make a decision is I decided to do one story quest before another because I saw an optional collectible early on that looked like it needed the spell I would get from said quest, and that's a pretty small decision since both story quests are non-optional.

[ben-zayb]

I remember enjoying the Chamber of Secrets in GBA, and I didn't even know until mentioned here that it was released on PS2 (and apparently in other multiple platforms, though the other versions seem worlds apart from the GB/GBA ones). I've never been a fan of the IP too. And with the reviews being this lukewarm, might be best for me to wait for a sale if I'm to buy it at all.

Maybe it should have been called "Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards: The Legacy"
If this game doesn't have wand silencers, then what are we even doing here?

[Name_Here]

The discourse is frankly tiring to me in general, and it's a big part of why I don't use the bird site. There will be much squawking for the next few days and everyone will conveniently forget when the new Thing happens, and the old Thing will be immediately forgotten.

Forgotten by some maybe even by most. But I'm not going to forget who bent over backwards to justify playing a controversial game. And I doubt those who JK has hurt will ever forget who chose to pay full price for a video game when they could have played literally thousands of other games.

Could go on but I think I've made my point.

[Lemmy]

I don't really care about Harry Potter as a franchise... I've read the books as a kid, but they aren't particularly dear or nostalgic to me...

But it's a pretty fun game. I haven't played much yet, but the little I played was pretty nice. Nothing revolutionary or awe-inspiring... But it's a good game. Above average, I'd say.

I recommend giving it a try if you like the open-world 3rd person adventure genre and/or if you're a fan of the HP franchise. Just don't expect anything ground-breaking.

[Silakka]

15 hours in and I've enjoyed it immensely so far. A lot of the open world game cliches are there, but they actually work because of the setting. The world being full of weird puzzles and little secrets to find is just par for the course in Hogwarts and they've really done a great job tying up some of the more video gamey mechanics into the lore. Like, using floo powder to fast travel or the Revelio spell as your standard "highlight important objects around me"-button makes sense. It's such a fun world to get lost in. Combat's surprisingly good too, feels like it actually has a pretty high skill ceiling once you get more spells and start combining them in various ways.

My only complaints so far are that the story has been pretty average and our main character is pretty much an NPC in their own game. I get it that they tried to make the MC as much of a blank slate as they could so that players could self-insert, but that doesn't really work when he's fully voiced and has a ton of dialogue you can't affect. So, he's just kind of a super generic wizard or witch without any personality, other than either being super nice all the time or sometimes an ******* for no reason if you go with those options when they (rarely) are available.

[Peelee]

I'd strongly argue against buying the game on the basis of its IP and the way the IP has been used in recent years. I don't know where the line is on what is and isn't forum appropriate, so I'll just leave off on that line by echoing pendell's comment that Rowling has, to put it mildly, been extremely divisive in recent years and with how heavily tied she is to the Harry Potter franchise, you can't really support the franchise without also supporting her platform.

I would like to point out that there is a 100% chance used copies for sale will exist and used copies give zero royalties or additional sales numbers to the franchise, so one can absolutely purchase the game without supporting the franchise. It would take patience, though.

Maybe it should have been called "Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards: The Legacy"
Wouldn't work, school is in England. "Public schools" for them are private schools that charge directly. Hogwarts seems to be what they call a "state school".

[Divayth Fyr]

I would like to point out that there is a 100% chance used copies for sale will exist and used copies give zero royalties or additional sales numbers to the franchise, so one can absolutely purchase the game without supporting the franchise. It would take patience, though
Are there any drm-free PC version available?

[Trafalgar]

Wouldn't work, school is in England. "Public schools" for them are private schools that charge directly. Hogwarts seems to be what they call a "state school".

Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards is located in the United States. HBO made a documentary about it you can watch here (https://youtu.be/j-2ZxldMO-M).

The same way Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are located in Hungary and France (I think).

[Peelee]

Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards is located in the United States. HBO made a documentary about it you can watch here (https://youtu.be/j-2ZxldMO-M).

The same way Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are located in Hungary and France (I think).

Ah. That was a very interesting exposé, I greatly enjoyed it.

[The Glyphstone]

The top commenter is right - I'd watch this, it's a gold mine of sitcom potential.

[Sapphire Guard]

I lost it at 'wand with a silencer' and the security guy's genuine exasperation at the pointlessness of it.

[Trafalgar]

Key & Peele definitely have some geek cred. The name "Vincent Clortho" is a Ghostbusters (https://ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Vinz_Clortho#:~:text=Vinz%20Clortho%20(also%20know n%20as,Gary%20Grooberson%20in%20Ghostbusters%3A%20 Afterlife.) reference.

[Anarchic Fox]

Maybe a difference of mindset; it seems we agree on the broader point. I'm not a fan of the Thing. But from my perspective the Thing has had zero involvement in the actual property in over a decade, and even if the game sold zero copies it would have zero impact on the Thing's existence; it would still be around, doing Thing things, and nobody can stop it.

That is why, to me, the controversy IS inconsequential. Because it ultimately will accomplish nothing. The source of the controversy is not, but I just can't bring myself to care enough about a choice whose consequences are nonexistent.

Hmm. This still seems like a quietist stance to me. But then, I myself have quietist tendencies, so I'm not in a position to judge.

{Scrubbed}

[pendell]

Wait a minute ... why does a wand need a silencer? It's not a firearm, there's no loud BANG when it fires , right?

And I thought noise suppressors were de rigeur on any firearms used at a range, so that the shooters don't suffer hearing loss?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Zevox]

I think the only annoying thing so far is definitely the early game has a lot *nudge nudge* "Hey do you remember this thing? Apparation? Accio? Portkeys? Weasleys and Blacks?" etc. etc.

As someone familiar with the source material, I found it obtrusive. Like I get it, this is the first really big AAA game based on the franchise, they want to nostalgia bait as much as possible. But yeesh, tone it down a notch.

HOWEVER...for someone fresh to the franchise I think the more nostalgia bait-y aspects would fly over your head (there is zero reason to be attached to the fact that there's a Professor Weasley or that the headmaster of the school is one of Sirius's ancestors) and the more...mechanical bits acts as a great introduction to how things work in the wizarding world.

So far it seems like being a fan of the source material is optional, and perhaps even a detriment insofar as it might test your tolerance for how many winks and nudges you can take in a short timespan.

From my playtime so far, I don't think jumping in fresh would be an issue. It's an entirely game original plot, set about 200 years before the actual series, so you don't have that awkward issue of "the adaptation has glossed over critical plot details because they assume you've read the books" like the movies had (no, seriously, a few of the movies cut PLOT CRITICAL scenes and the movie only makes sense if you've read the books lol).

The setting is pretty succinctly set up early on, with basically all you need to know being that magic can do anything, and therefore magic is used for EVERYTHING.

The only time so far I've used book knowledge to make a decision is I decided to do one story quest before another because I saw an optional collectible early on that looked like it needed the spell I would get from said quest, and that's a pretty small decision since both story quests are non-optional.
Yeah, I'd heard about it being set well before the books, which was one of the things that helped it catch my eye, since that made it more likely that it would be friendly to someone unfamiliar with the existing material.

Sounds good. I'll add it to my to-play list. Not sure when I'll get to it, but there's not a much coming that's a day 1 must-play for me in between now and June, so I'm sure I'll find time.

[Mordokai]

I'd strongly argue against buying the game on the basis of its IP and the way the IP has been used in recent years. I don't know where the line is on what is and isn't forum appropriate, so I'll just leave off on that line by echoing pendell's comment that Rowling has, to put it mildly, been extremely divisive in recent years and with how heavily tied she is to the Harry Potter franchise, you can't really support the franchise without also supporting her platform.

I... don't believe this to be true.

Now, I will preface everything from this point on with the following statement. I have no stake in the whole controversy. I do believe JKR is wrong in her opinion(which cannot be discussed any further, per forum rules).

With that in mind...

I haven't been in AAA games scene for a long time. I believe Hogwarts Legacy falls under that banner. I know of it mostly because of meme compilations from youtube, which seem to be, to my eye, at least, somewhat right-leaning. That said, I also get the feeling there has been a lot of smoke where there is very little fire. I don't know if developers have any ties with JKR, other than IP itself. Hell, there has been a meme going around that you can designate your male wizard as a witch. I assume the reverse to hold true.

If that is so, it alone is a huge spit in JRK's face and the whole controversy. If it's not true... there is an old adage of separating the art from the artist.

I get it. It may be hard to do so. Impossible, even. If that is the case for any individual... I get it. I honestly do. But the other side of the record should hold true as well. Just because somebody bought the game(or any piece of media, actually) you personally disagree with, it doesn't mean they hate you and everything you stand for. It doesn't mean they stand with the author and everything they preach.

They may just enjoy the world.

[Forum Explorer]

I... don't believe this to be true.

Now, I will preface everything from this point on with the following statement. I have no stake in the whole controversy. I do believe JKR is wrong in her opinion(which cannot be discussed any further, per forum rules).

With that in mind...

I haven't been in AAA games scene for a long time. I believe Hogwarts Legacy falls under that banner. I know of it mostly because of meme compilations from youtube, which seem to be, to my eye, at least, somewhat right-leaning. That said, I also get the feeling there has been a lot of smoke where there is very little fire. I don't know if developers have any ties with JKR, other than IP itself. Hell, there has been a meme going around that you can designate your male wizard as a witch. I assume the reverse to hold true.

If that is so, it alone is a huge spit in JRK's face and the whole controversy. If it's not true... there is an old adage of separating the art from the artist.

I get it. It may be hard to do so. Impossible, even. If that is the case for any individual... I get it. I honestly do. But the other side of the record should hold true as well. Just because somebody bought the game(or any piece of media, actually) you personally disagree with, it doesn't mean they hate you and everything you stand for. It doesn't mean they stand with the author and everything they preach.

They may just enjoy the world.


I have no idea if this is the case, but they very well could have payed JK a set amount for access to the IP to make their game, and that's it. Supporting the game would therefore not have any effect on JK's wellbeing as she has already received all the money she is going to receive from the game. Nor will boycotting it hurt her for the same reason.

Of course the opposite could be true as well and the amount of money she makes is based directly off of the success of the game. I have no idea how to begin researching that, and nor do I care to.

Personally the game looks interesting, but I'm too bogged down in Elden Ring to be looking at any sort of RPG for a long while. Not to mention I still have to get through Cyberpunk, Jedi: Fallen Order, and, look the point is my backlog might literally be over a year long at this point. A game has to be more than just 'interesting' to get added to it at this point.

[Rynjin]

Personally the game looks interesting, but I'm too bogged down in Elden Ring to be looking at any sort of RPG for a long while. Not to mention I still have to get through Cyberpunk, Jedi: Fallen Order, and, look the point is my backlog might literally be over a year long at this point. A game has to be more than just 'interesting' to get added to it at this point.

If you want a quick gauge of the quality of games you've mentioned, Elden Ring is incomparably better, Cyberpunk is significantly better, and Fallen Order is significantly worse. Maybe a rough "playing order"?

[Sapphire Guard]

Wait a minute ... why does a wand need a silencer? It's not a firearm, there's no loud BANG when it fires , right?

That is the joke (I think)

Does anyone actually know what benefit JKR is getting from the success or lack thereof of the game? I mean really know, not speculation or assumptions.

[Yuki Akuma]

That is the joke (I think)

Does anyone actually know what benefit JKR is getting from the success or lack thereof of the game? I mean really know, not speculation or assumptions.

She gets royalties from all sales of Harry Potter related things Warner Brothers produces, due to negotiating a really good contract when she sold the IP rights. So, money.

[Taevyr]

Yeah, I don't know what a normal royalty percentage is for someone in her position, but e.g. even 0.01% of profit'll still end up pretty huge considering how big a success the game seems to be thus far, particularly considering that the target audience on average is at an age where disposable income'll be relatively high.

At the very least, it's high enough that I can very well understand people who think her rhetoric goes too far say "I don't want to contribute to that".

[LaZodiac]

Any amount is too much because she believes, and has said as such multiple times, that her financial success is proof to her that her views are considered correct by the majority.

Never mind the fact that the actual content of the game is, itself, pretty unsafe for the board in terms of things happening in the plot and what they represent.

[Jophiel]

Been playing for a while now and really enjoying it. External factors aside, there's plenty of reasons on paper to NOT like it: the Ubisoft-esque number of map icons, repetitive tasks, a ton of systems to keep track of, limited number of enemy types, etc but I'm at 40hrs and still having a blast. I've never read the books and only saw one of the movies once ages ago because my son wanted to see it (pretty sure it was the final HP one) but I've enough cultural osmosis to recognize the Weasley name or the gist of house elves or the whole school houses thing. On the flip side, I don't feel any desire to clutch my pearls when my witch kills a bunch of goblins because Harry never did that much less worry about the minutia of spells or what a proper Hogwarts class should be like.

Combat is pretty fun and accessible and it's a rare game that makes magic duels feel as fluid and flashy as they do here. A number of entertaining combos and challenges that pop up each fight to keep you from getting into a rut. Gear is okay; the best thing I can say for it is that anything you loot you permanently get the cosmetic option for so I'm usually more excited to see a new coat or gloves I don't own than worrying about its numbers. The world itself I find pretty delightful to travel in. Granted, the NPCs aren't especially responsive to your actions but it feels much more alive than Elden Ring's lands, which always felt to me like an MMORPG grind zone where everything existed solely for me to punch the Eldenbucks out of it. In comparison, the lands inside the castle and out feel like they have their own realized existence full of things to do and fun little surprises. As previously noted, it's also a pleasant world to spend some time despite the goblin threats and scary spiders. From the art direction to the music to the little visual treats, it's an upbeat magical feeling place to be.

Again, I could easily make a list of shortcomings that would make the game sound mediocre at best and I'd bet it's not especially fun to watch someone stream. But, in my experience, it's a "greater than the sum of its parts" experience and I still find myself fully engaged when I'm playing. There's some people out there trying to share plot spoilers either to troll or to "punish" people for playing but it feels sort of weirdly impotent -- you don't play this for the amazing plot twists and story pathos, you play it to immerse yourself in the overall world.

[GloatingSwine]

Wait a minute ... why does a wand need a silencer? It's not a firearm, there's no loud BANG when it fires , right?

And I thought noise suppressors were de rigeur on any firearms used at a range, so that the shooters don't suffer hearing loss?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

IRL Suppressors are expensive and degrade with use, you don't waste them firing at a range. You wear ear protectors instead.

I wouldn't put it past a AAA open world game to have a wand suppressor though, they are notoriously unimaginative games. (You can tell because they all use that same inventory they got from Destiny to put in an eternal loot treadmill instead of creating bespoke gear which integrates into the story of the world in form, function, where the player finds it and what they have to do to get it like an old school CPRG).

[Rynjin]

Never mind the fact that the actual content of the game is, itself, pretty unsafe for the board in terms of things happening in the plot and what they represent.

By that token, so would most content in D&D, and by extension OotS. "Evil goblin does evil goblin things" is not exactly groundbreaking narrative territory, though the fact that it's a splinter group of goblins instead of all of them is fairly rare.

[Rynjin]

I can assure you that the people in my life who are not terminally online do not care a whit.

[animorte]

Stepping in here to be passive-aggressive (with assumptive consequence) doesn't help the cause. I will play it and actively support a cause at the same time instead of making an excuse to be unkind. That's all I'm going to engage even remotely close to the topic as I would like to focus on the context at hand. There are other platforms for said discussion.


In comparison, the lands inside the castle and out feel like they have their own realized existence full of things to do and fun little surprises... you don't play this for the amazing plot twists and story pathos, you play it to immerse yourself in the overall world.

The world being full of weird puzzles and little secrets to find is just par for the course in Hogwarts and they've really done a great job tying up some of the more video gamey mechanics into the lore.

I would like to point out that there is a 100% chance used copies for sale will exist and used copies give zero royalties or additional sales numbers to the franchise, so one can absolutely purchase the game without supporting the franchise. It would take patience, though.

All of these provide pleasant confirmation in knowing what to expect when I decide to purchase it in a few months. I haven't been watching a ton of videos aside from trailers because I want to go in and just experience the world. I've already decided, optimal or not, I have no intention of using the unforgivable curses. From what I remember, my two favorite spells are Protego and Finite. I'm interested to see how everything looks. I already stated my purpose:

I just want to go on an interactive tour. That's what this game is for me.

[GloatingSwine]

By that token, so would most content in D&D, and by extension OotS. "Evil goblin does evil goblin things" is not exactly groundbreaking narrative territory, though the fact that it's a splinter group of goblins instead of all of them is fairly rare.

It's pretty hard to reduce Redcloak to "evil goblin does evil things" when you've actually read OotS and understood the nature of goblins in its world. Even if it's technically correct, it's far too focused on the finger.

There's a lot more thought behind who's doing what and why (and how it is informed by how D&D has presented various races over time) than anyone connected to Harry Potter has ever deployed.

[Rynjin]

It's pretty hard to reduce Redcloak to "evil goblin does evil things" when you've actually read OotS and understood the nature of goblins in its world. Even if it's technically correct, it's far too focused on the finger.

There's a lot more thought behind who's doing what and why (and how it is informed by how D&D has presented various races over time) than anyone connected to Harry Potter has ever deployed.

The point is more that OotS is only able to make the commentary it does BECAUSE D&D as a whole is so simplistic and uncritical.

"Simplistic and uncritical" is what I'm in the mood for ATM. I've played a few "deep and meaningful" (by comparison) games recently, and I'm in the mood for "plucky teen fights evil bad bad man who does bad things for unclear reasons" as a change of pace.

@animorte: You'll be happy to know that Protego is baked into the basic functionality of the game. The spells that you always have access to are "basic cast" (you shoot some red energy from your wand and it does damage), Protego (as a timed shield, not a sustained one), and Stupefy (as your "perfect counter" benefit).

I don't think Finite is in the game though. Or the Patronus? The latter I'm kind of surprised about, the game basically takes everything else from the old Pottermore site and runs with it; you cna actually link your account and it will pre-populate the game with the House and wand attributes sourced from the quizzes (but you can still tweak anything you like).

[Jophiel]

The head bad goblin has his story of why he's a bad guy which is about on par for a video game villain story, i.e. a bit of an unhinged overreaction but you know he didn't crawl out Evil from under a rock somewhere. Goblins in general, in this game (not conversant with the literary/film world) are portrayed much more neutrally with multiple encounters with friendly ones and the story vibe being that trade and diplomacy between them and the people is common. Or was until the bad guy started recruiting goblins for his plans. Even when defeating them in combat, my character often mutters something about "Too bad you chose to follow Ranrok" versus "Yay, I killed filthy evil goblins".

[Rynjin]

"Neutral goblin" is the status quo for the franchise, yeah. They run the Wizard Bank and...that's it. That's basically their only purpose in the setting. Even House Elves get more exploration into their natures than the goblins do.

[Gnoman]

IRL Suppressors are expensive and degrade with use, you don't waste them firing at a range. You wear ear protectors instead.

This is wrong - suppressors can be cheap or expensive, and only the very cheap or the very expensive ones degrade in that manner. From a technical perspective, using them at a range is a very good idea even with ear protection. The big limiting factor is legal issues that this isn't the right place for.

[animorte]

@animorte: You'll be happy to know that Protego is baked into the basic functionality of the game. The spells that you always have access to are "basic cast" (you shoot some red energy from your wand and it does damage), Protego (as a timed shield, not a sustained one), and Stupefy (as your "perfect counter" benefit).

I don't think Finite is in the game though. Or the Patronus? The latter I'm kind of surprised about, the game basically takes everything else from the old Pottermore site and runs with it; you cna actually link your account and it will pre-populate the game with the House and wand attributes sourced from the quizzes (but you can still tweak anything you like).
That's very neat on Protego. Finite is basically a dispel magic, so if there were lasting curses you could be subject to or hidden things that Revelio couldn't reveal because magic, then I suppose it would have a stronger purpose. I suppose they would need to have found a purpose for a Patronus as well, which is most commonly Dementors.

I plan to import my Wizarding World account, yes.

[Psyren]

I would like to point out that there is a 100% chance used copies for sale will exist and used copies give zero royalties or additional sales numbers to the franchise, so one can absolutely purchase the game without supporting the franchise. It would take patience, though.

I wish more people remembered this. I've seen plans online to scour friends' and acquaintances' achievement lists even years down the line so people know who might be deserving of castigation and cancellation. It is in fact possible to buy a game without financially rewarding the holder of its IP.

[warty goblin]

I wish more people remembered this. I've seen plans online to scour friends' and acquaintances' achievement lists even years down the line so people know who might be deserving of castigation and cancellation. It is in fact possible to buy a game without financially rewarding the holder of its IP.

Not on PC it isn't.

[Rynjin]

I wish more people remembered this. I've seen plans online to scour friends' and acquaintances' achievement lists even years down the line so people know who might be deserving of castigation and cancellation. It is in fact possible to buy a game without financially rewarding the holder of its IP.

Pfft. I enjoy when people severely overestimate many things about themselves at the same time, thanks for making me aware of this little gem.

[Jophiel]

Not on PC it isn't.
True, but it's published by WB which means it'll probably be $5 at some point (not soon since it's currently the top selling/played game on Steam, but it'll get there). It's an exercise for the purchaser to decide if they can accept that when the time comes.

I was saying to a friend yesterday that anyone vehemently opposed to the game should spend less time on social media and more time playing CS:GO to rob the game of the top spot on Steam. They were neck and neck yesterday.

[Psyren]

Not on PC it isn't.

PC gamers have... er, other options.

(Like sales! I mean sales. What did you think I meant.)

[Vizzerdrix]

PC gamers have... er, other options.

(Like sales! I mean sales. What did you think I meant.)

Sales, or SAILS? :smallwink:

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: A.) This is the Hogwarts Legacy game thread in the gaming section. Discussion of broader facets of the game (eg the IP originator and controversial stances) are not out of line but the discussion should ideally focus on the game more than such broader facets. Normally we allow discussions to go in the direction people like to take them but in this specific instance it can easily go into forum-unfriendly territory. There is no moritorium against expressing distaste or opposition to the game or related properties/people, but again, discussion about a game in a gaming forum should focus at least mainly about the game.
2.) Don't advocate piracy in here.

[Trafalgar]

Getting back to the game, I am not a huge fan of the franchise. I think I have read 5 of the books. My kids love it though. For those people who have played it, what age range do you think is appropriate?

[Rynjin]

Probably the same as the books so far. The main character is a 5th year, and the tone fits about what the 5th book has; still far from "adult" but definitely in the realm of YA fiction now, aimed at roughly an audience of 12-13 and up.

So PG-13? I think the game is rated T for Teen but I haven't looked at an ESRB rating in years.

[Jophiel]

Getting back to the game, I am not a huge fan of the franchise. I think I have read 5 of the books. My kids love it though. For those people who have played it, what age range do you think is appropriate?
There's a lot of video game killin' (including of bad wizards and goblins) including a plot-based death in the opening scenes and some story-based opportunities to steal (in addition to usual CRPG kleptomania). Nothing remotely approaching "adult situations" and none of the concepts are really deep or challenging. Some of the puzzles might be frustrating to a younger player. I'd say 11 or 12 on up?

[warty goblin]

There's a lot of video game killin' (including of bad wizards and goblins) including a plot-based death in the opening scenes and some story-based opportunities to steal (in addition to usual CRPG kleptomania). Nothing remotely approaching "adult situations" and none of the concepts are really deep or challenging. Some of the puzzles might be frustrating to a younger player. I'd say 11 or 12 on up?

Some of the puzzles are very light algebra, crossed with a touch of symbol substitution (think x + owl = 15, where you have to look up owl on a diagram to find out it's 6, then figure out the answer is 9 and set a dial to the 9 symbol), and a few others require fairly sharp observation (find a location based on a painting) but these are decidedly optional. The game itself, at least on Normal, is pretty easy, at least in the beginning. So far I haven't seen anything more intense than the movies, and not even like the late movies. More like Prisoner of Azkaban levels, and absolutely nothing as dark as the end of Goblet of Fire, though I haven't gotten very far so maybe that changes.

[Renegade Paladin]

Your character's goal is the preservation of slavery, so if that's your thing by all means, but that's more than enough for me to not deal with it.

[warty goblin]

Got out of Hogwarts finally. The surrounding countryside is definitely large, and also more sparse than Hogwarts itself. But sparse is not empty, there's still a ton of puzzles and side quests and so on. These hit about the right density for me, common enough to make exploring worthwhile, but not so dense you are drowning in icons.

None of these are, at one level, anything particularly out of the ordinary for an open world game. But there's a bit more care to them, like a certain puzzle requiring you to use a specific magical herb to activate, that makes things feel just more... magical I guess. And a lot of the time you can only get so far before running into a problem that needs a spell you don't have yet.

It's also really startling just how well the world works for a videogame. You are constantly learning new abilities because you are literally a student in school, that's your actual job. Everything is packed with secrets because it's a magical castle and that's what magical castles do - recently I accessed a secret room by feeding myself to a frog statue - and so on. A lot of open world games feel like there's just an open world there because, well, you gotta have an open world full of ledges to platform on while the xharacters talk, but none of it really matters to the world or characters. It's just there for you to have stuff to do. This feels rather like Witcher 3 in that the world fits into the game and vice versa.

Also I just got the ability to throw chomping cabbages at people. Game of the year.


Your character's goal is the preservation of slavery, so if that's your thing by all means, but that's more than enough for me to not deal with it.

Goblins aren't slaves in HP. They are an underclass to a degree, but they own property, are armed, and hold at least some political power. What exactly the relationship between the goblins and the ministry is, at least in the books, rather unclear, but they definitively aren't slaves.

The goblins you are fighting in the game (which are not all goblins in the game) are a radical and extremely violent group of more or less terrorists. Their main wizard allies are literally organized crime, running poaching operations and also doing kidnappings for hire. An early quest has you helping another goblin they beat up and robbed because he refused to collaborate. They are very clearly not acting for the benefit of goblinkind as a whole.

[Rynjin]

Your character's goal is the preservation of slavery, so if that's your thing by all means, but that's more than enough for me to not deal with it.

You might be confusing goblins with House Elves. The latter ARE actually enslaved, and the brushing aside of that is genuinely the most WTF part of the books. It's established that they "like" to be enslaved which is mega-cringe.

Goblins have a lot of political and financial power, but what they lack seems to be magical power. This has led to an uneasy standoff between goblins and wizards as the latter often try to strongarm the former, but can't push too hard without their economy getting ****ed.

The main bad guy of the game seems to have the goal (so far, I'm still pretty early in) of rectifying that "lack of magical power" problem in a rather violent fashion. He considers any goblin that doesn't immediately join his violent uprising as a race traitor, and executes them on the spot.

In other words, he's your usual Saturday morning cartoon caricature, and his very existence makes it pretty clear you're not meant to actually think about the plot too much. AKA "It's not that deep bro."

[LaZodiac]

You might be confusing goblins with House Elves. The latter ARE actually enslaved, and the brushing aside of that is genuinely the most WTF part of the books. It's established that they "like" to be enslaved which is mega-cringe.

Goblins have a lot of political and financial power, but what they lack seems to be magical power. This has led to an uneasy standoff between goblins and wizards as the latter often try to strongarm the former, but can't push too hard without their economy getting ****ed.

The main bad guy of the game seems to have the goal (so far, I'm still pretty early in) of rectifying that "lack of magical power" problem in a rather violent fashion. He considers any goblin that doesn't immediately join his violent uprising as a race traitor, and executes them on the spot.

In other words, he's your usual Saturday morning cartoon caricature, and his very existence makes it pretty clear you're not meant to actually think about the plot too much. AKA "It's not that deep bro."

Yes and I'm sure the fact that said leader wants to harvest the blood from a child and all the imagery involved in his depiction are also not that deep.

If it's "just a game", if it's "not that deep" then why are you defending it from people who take umbridge on how the game presents itself?

[Jophiel]

I don't think correcting is the same as defending. Saying that your character's focus is preserving slavery just sounds like "Tell me you haven't played Hogwart's Legacy without saying that you haven't played..."

With about 50+ hours, my character's focus has been, in rough order of time spent:
- Running through Hogwarts but getting distracted by a puzzle or event every seven steps
- Playing Barbie Dress-Up Dreamhouse with my cosmetics and magical room
- Running through the outside but getting distracted by a puzzle, critters or events
- Doing little missions for various randos
- Going to classes and other school-based main missions
- Robbing people's homes in typical CRPG kleptomania
- Trying to reach the top of Hogwarts on my broom by forcing it against the tower spire above it's normal max altitude
- Doing main missions about why some goblin and wizard want to capture/kill me

[Rynjin]

Yes and I'm sure the fact that said leader wants to harvest the blood from a child and all the imagery involved in his depiction are also not that deep.

A supervillain (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoweredByAForsakenChild) needing the blood of some magical McGuffin child (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InTheBlood) to complete their evil plan? (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BloodMagic) Perish the thought. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumanSacrifice)


If it's "just a game", if it's "not that deep" then why are you defending it from people who take umbridge on how the game presents itself?

First: nice pun.

Second: I have been extremely bored at work the last couple of days.

That said, I really don't understand what it is about how the game presents itself that people are taking umbrage with to begin with. I understand the underlying controversies and opposition to the game existing, but not why that seems to have stretched over to making bad faith arguments about the game's actual content, when it's...extremely standard for a fantasy game, for the most part.

[Gnoman]

It's established that they "like" to be enslaved which is mega-cringe.

Only if you ignore the bit in the last book where Dumbledore straight-up says "Anybody defending elf slavery is wrong, the critics are right". That's not subtext - it is actual text. Rowling's done much to be criticized for, but there's a lot of "mine the books for other Bad Things and take everything out of context" because of it. A lot of the very people that now have an issue with Rowling very heavily identified with the books and take her more recent actions as a personal betrayal.

[Rater202]

The implication seems to be that the elves genuinely enjoy servitude but the current situation involving them is easily abusable by *******.

I've been second-guessing a lot about the books in the last few years for reasons I hope I don't have to explain but I think in this case... Rowling didn't always think things through. I don't think she grasped the implications of using house fae as a metaphor for slavery and then later using the same house fae for a subplot about "activists who are really trying to make themselves feel better without actually asking the opinions of the people they're trying to help and end up just condescending to them and pissing them off."

I'm not touching the Goblin discussion. That is a minefield I can't navigate.

[LaZodiac]

A supervillain (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoweredByAForsakenChild) needing the blood of some magical McGuffin child (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InTheBlood) to complete their evil plan? (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BloodMagic) Perish the thought. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumanSacrifice)

First: nice pun.

Second: I have been extremely bored at work the last couple of days.

That said, I really don't understand what it is about how the game presents itself that people are taking umbrage with to begin with. I understand the underlying controversies and opposition to the game existing, but not why that seems to have stretched over to making bad faith arguments about the game's actual content, when it's...extremely standard for a fantasy game, for the most part.

There is nothing I can say to this comment that is board safe. Suffice to say; we both know what the goblin antagonist of this game is meant to represent. That you seem not to care about this is telling, and if you truly, genuinely, do not know, contact me off forum about it.

I'll cop to just not remembering how to spell umbrage.

EDIT: Also yeah Rater she's just, flatly, not a good writer. Sirius had the stuffed and mounted head of his most beloved goblin slave over his mantle place. Harry ends the series thinking about ordering his slave to make him a sandwhich. Hagrid notes taking care of "Werewolf cubs" under his bed as a kid and later it is shown werewolves are a messy, terrible, metaphor for AIDS and gay people. Make of it what you will, but the fact is she just kinda stinks at this.

[Rynjin]

Only if you ignore the bit in the last book where Dumbledore straight-up says "Anybody defending elf slavery is wrong, the critics are right". That's not subtext - it is actual text. Rowling's done much to be criticized for, but there's a lot of "mine the books for other Bad Things and take everything out of context" because of it. A lot of the very people that now have an issue with Rowling very heavily identified with the books and take her more recent actions as a personal betrayal.

That sounds more like an "author's saving throw" than anything else. Hermione was treated not just by the characters but by the NARRATIVE as dead wrong about wanting to free House Elves. Dobby's desire to be free made him "unique and quirky", not just the only sane house elf.

Hell, Harry owning Kreacher is never seen as a problem, only the mistreatment of him is. Just going "oh hey BTW this subplot that took up a good chunk of book 5 was actually wrong kthxbyeeee" from a character that's already dead is...eh.


There is nothing I can say to this comment that is board safe. Suffice to say; we both know what the goblin antagonist of this game is meant to represent. That you seem not to care about this is telling, and if you truly, genuinely, do not know, contact me off forum about it.

I'll cop to just not remembering how to spell umbrage.

I know what you're referring to. It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't believe it's the smoking gun you think it is, any more than I agree with certain opinions mentioned in other threads about orcs.

HP goblins are pretty similar to WoW goblins overall, and both aren't too far off from Forgotten Realms gnomes. I think reading things into these depictions in most cases reflects the detractor's internal biases more than anything else.

[LaZodiac]

HP goblins are pretty similar to WoW goblins overall, and both aren't too far off from Forgotten Realms gnomes. I think reading things into these depictions in most cases reflects the detractor's internal biases more than anything else.

They're not similar at all, and regardless- it is the specific depictions of the villain and how it correlates to their depiction in the series that makes it clear what they're a blatant dog whistle for.

Also, it needs to be said: "you reading negative things into this, and that means YOU'RE actually the negative thing" is bull**** statemen.

[Gnoman]

That's a misread. Hermoine's fault was not "she's ruining a perfectly good thing", it was her "I am the witch, I Know What's Best For You, stop arguing with me" attitude toward the whole thing - she assumed she was the only one who ever had a problem with it, and not only failed to consider the opinions of the elves themselves but tried to outright trick and force them into doing things her way. Not only is the whole "Elves like being slaves!" thing straight from the mouth of Ron, who usually has the Designated Wrong Person role in the narrative, the bad effects are pretty strong in the narrative from the introduction. The institution not only does a great deal to slow the destruction of Voldy (had Kreacher not been ignored and abused, one of the soul jars would have been discovered much sooner), but got important characters killed.

[hamishspence]

Sirius had the stuffed and mounted head of his most beloved goblin slave over his mantle place.
The Black family did. Sirius hates the Black family traditions in all their forms, ran away, and was disowned by the family - only being able to return to the house after the rest were all dead. A point is made of how they're clearing the house of all the clutter - I would figure that if they'd been removable, the goblin heads would have gone as well. Some things are specifically called out as un-removable due to "permanent Sticking charms"


Hagrid notes taking care of "Werewolf cubs" under his bed as a kid

"Locket Tom Riddle" is the one who says that, not Hagrid himself.




Only if you ignore the bit in the last book where Dumbledore straight-up says "Anybody defending elf slavery is wrong, the critics are right". That's not subtext - it is actual text.
That said, I'm having trouble finding Dumbledore's speech about the wrongness of elf slavery in Deathly Hallows.

[Jophiel]

Rowling might be a terrible author but she didn't write the game. Likewise, she might depict the goblins as whatever in the books (haven't read them) but, in game, the ones I've met have been not just bankers but also traders, artists, miners, craftsman, possessing a distinct culture and living in relative harmony and footing with the humans (minus the bad guy and his minions). Trying to use a broad brush over how all goblins are depicted in the game based on the bad guy feels like someone reaching for an overreaction.

[Rater202]

There is nothing I can say to this comment that is board safe. Suffice to say; we both know what the goblin antagonist of this game is meant to represent. That you seem not to care about this is telling, and if you truly, genuinely, do not know, contact me off forum about it.

I'll cop to just not remembering how to spell umbrage.

EDIT: Also yeah Rater she's just, flatly, not a good writer. Sirius had the stuffed and mounted head of his most beloved goblin slave over his mantle place. Harry ends the series thinking about ordering his slave to make him a sandwhich. Hagrid notes taking care of "Werewolf cubs" under his bed as a kid and later it is shown werewolves are a messy, terrible, metaphor for AIDS and gay people. Make of it what you will, but the fact is she just kinda stinks at this.

Apparently, the werewolves cubs mentioned weren't... Actual werewolves. Per supplementary materially rarely two werewolves will run tin each other and boink on the night of the full moon and the net result is an unnaturally intelligent but otherwise ordinary wolf and there's a pack of those in the Forbidden Forest.

This is obviously a sloppy retcon, but...

As for Harry and Kreacher... it kind of depends if a locket counts as clothes. If it does then Harry freed Kracher when he gave him Regulus's locket and Kreacher then stayed on of his own will. Which is still problematic, mind you.

And you're misremembering the Elf-Heads: That's something that other members of Sirius's family did. The worst thing Sirius is known to have done is put hats and beards on them for Christmas and, well... Sirius isn't exactly the most rational of people by the time we meet him.

[Gnoman]

That said, I'm having trouble finding Dumbledore's speech about the wrongness of elf slavery in Deathly Hallows.

That's because I remembered the location wrong - it is near the end of Book 5, not 7.

The explicit text is "We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for far too long, and we are now reaping our reward" , "I do not think Sirius... ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's", and "Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards... His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's".

[hamishspence]

Given that he uses Sirius's will, to transfer ownership of Kreacher to Harry , and that the Hogwarts elves don't wear clothes, but tea-towels,


it may be in Dumbledore's eyes, less "having house elves is wrong" and more "abusing house elves, mentally or otherwise, is wrong". He also says that Sirius was kind to house elves in general, and that it was only Kreacher that Sirius treated poorly, due to Kreacher reminding him of his unhappy childhood.

[warty goblin]

Rowling might be a terrible author but she didn't write the game. Likewise, she might depict the goblins as whatever in the books (haven't read them) but, in game, the ones I've met have been not just bankers but also traders, artists, miners, craftsman, possessing a distinct culture and living in relative harmony and footing with the humans (minus the bad guy and his minions). Trying to use a broad brush over how all goblins are depicted in the game based on the bad guy feels like someone reaching for an overreaction.

Really the goblins hardly show up in the books at all. They're in Sorcerer's Stone guarding the bank where they guard the bank. That's it, their narrative role is the make the magical world magical, and to make the bank difficult to rob in some unspecified way. There's background stuff about goblin rebellions in History of Magic, but those could mean anything because it's detail filler and nothing in History of Magic ever matters to anything. In Deathly Hallows we spend a very little time with one goblin, and about all we learn there is that wizards won't share wand magic with goblins, goblins won't share magical artifacing with wizards, and goblins think that purchases are more like rentals that expire with the purchaser's death, after which the item reverts to the goblin who created it, or possibly their descendants. In the case of really ancient stuff it seems goblins (or at least some goblins) feel that any goblin made artifact belongs to goblinkind more or less collectively, and not the current wizard owner. I guess we also learn that the Gringott's goblins use an abused dragon as a security device.

So far the game has payed a lot more attention to goblins than the books do. And (early on in the game anyway) goblins are shown as having multiple political perspectives and differing interests, jobs and so on. They are not a monoculture by any means, nor do they seem like they stand in for any particular group. Yes, the ones who run the bank are into money, but they, uh, they run a bank. That's what bankers do. Not all goblins in the game are bankers, or seem particularly interested in money. And the bad guys are evil, but not all goblins are bad guys, not all bad guys are goblins, and not all the goblins agree with the bad guys. Honestly, given how much time the evil goblins spend beating up, robbing and killing other goblins, one gets the sense that they aren't exactly polling at 90% among goblinkind.

I really have to say, there's nothing exceptionally offputting or problematic or anything about the goblins in this game that isn't true of the bad guys in pretty much any other fantasy game (nearly any other game) out there. If you're OK with murderhoboing through Pathfinder or Skyrim or Assassin's Creed or Far Cry or just about anything else, this is just that.

[Rater202]

Without stepping into the minefield, there are some subtle and unfortunate implications regarding the Goblins that make the villain's plan, in particular, especially uncomfortable.

I don't think it was malicious, but the unfortunate implications were well-documented while the game was in development and the people writing it should have known better.

[Rynjin]

They're not similar at all, and regardless- it is the specific depictions of the villain and how it correlates to their depiction in the series that makes it clear what they're a blatant dog whistle for.

Thing is, the villain in the actual game is more reminiscent of arguments against completely different social issues than the one you're referring to.

I could see an argument being made that the narrative is uncomfortably anti-revolutionary, and borrows similar rhetoric I've seen used against riots and protests.

However, this rhetoric is also ethnically agnostic, and I think the continued implication that it is referring to any particular group undermines any argument about the content of the game.

Given the setting of the story, even if the implication WAS to impugn a specific ethnicity, the more likely reference would be to one that is located a bit closer to the north of England.


Also, it needs to be said: "you reading negative things into this, and that means YOU'RE actually the negative thing" is bull**** statement.

Edit: I wasn't initially going to touch this part, but I feel it would be a bit unfair not to.

The point is not "if you read into subtext, you are [Bad Thing You're reading Into]", the point is that in a lot of cases people are less reading into things and more manufacturing reasons to be upset. And when it comes to free-associating physical characteristics and perceived cultural stereotypes with a fantastical ethnic group that doesn't fit the group you're trying to connect them with as clearly as you think they do...eh, it starts to make me wonder what's actually going on inside some peoples' heads.

I'm not saying you, specifically are [Negative Thing], but I do think that the people who initially whipped up this particular subset of the frenzy very well might be, the same as the orc "controversy" was, and people lacking context, and already inclined to think negatively about the property due to more valid reasons, are getting caught up in it. it's kind of the double edged sword of trying to boycott a product and also argue details about it at the same time. You, uh, don't actually know the details, because you're boycotting it.

[Dragonus45]

So far the game has payed a lot more attention to goblins than the books do. And (early on in the game anyway) goblins are shown as having multiple political perspectives and differing interests, jobs and so on. They are not a monoculture by any means, nor do they seem like they stand in for any particular group. Yes, the ones who run the bank are into money, but they, uh, they run a bank. That's what bankers do. Not all goblins in the game are bankers, or seem particularly interested in money. And the bad guys are evil, but not all goblins are bad guys, not all bad guys are goblins, and not all the goblins agree with the bad guys. Honestly, given how much time the evil goblins spend beating up, robbing and killing other goblins, one gets the sense that they aren't exactly polling at 90% among goblinkind.


I thought it was particularly notable thatthere is a whole quest that boils down to O'Cee Donutsteel meeting a goblin in a pub before leaving to raid the tomb of a dead wizard, where he explains the differing cultural views on ownership and the MC shows sympathy and talks about the difficulties in reconciling their two cultures instead of calling it barmy or insulting the goblins for their strange ways. Clearly the story is not here to frame goblins as evil creatures of the night here to steal children's blood for dark rituals.

[LaZodiac]

Edit: I wasn't initially going to touch this part, but I feel it would be a bit unfair not to.

The point is not "if you read into subtext, you are [Bad Thing You're reading Into]", the point is that in a lot of cases people are less reading into things and more manufacturing reasons to be upset. And when it comes to free-associating physical characteristics and perceived cultural stereotypes with a fantastical ethnic group that doesn't fit the group you're trying to connect them with as clearly as you think they do...eh, it starts to make me wonder what's actually going on inside some peoples' heads.

I'm not saying you, specifically are [Negative Thing], but I do think that the people who initially whipped up this particular subset of the frenzy very well might be, the same as the orc "controversy" was, and people lacking context, and already inclined to think negatively about the property due to more valid reasons, are getting caught up in it. it's kind of the double edged sword of trying to boycott a product and also argue details about it at the same time. You, uh, don't actually know the details, because you're boycotting it.

Much like the orc controversy, I cannot properly convey why I disagree with your statement.

Regardless, washing my hands of this {Scrubbed} conversation.

[pendell]

What's the origin of the house elves? I get the impression they have been magically made into servants/slaves of wizards -- which implies they've either been conjured , or they've been modified from an existing ordinary creature , the way domestic dogs are made from wolves.

This reminds me of our conversation in Media about the Han Solo adventures where we debate just what "freedom" and "free will" mean to a droid, given their ethical choice not to harm humans (for example) is not necessarily something they've arrived at by their own reasoning, but is imposed by external programming. Change the programming, they'll become homicidal without blinking an eye.

So House elves "like" being slaves. Why, exactly? Because they've been magicked into thinking that way? If so, can we un-magick them without destroying the creatures they are today?

If a house-elf were to refuse such un-magicking, can we truly say they are doing so out of their own free will?

The one thing I'm sure of is that whatever wizard or witch thought it was a good idea to create a literal slave race was probably a Slytherin and certainly a villain.

ETA: Then again, now that I've written this -- maybe the house elves were created in a time when human slavery was still practiced, and this was done to allow human slaves to be freed? I can well imagine some well-intentioned person creating a slave race so that human slavery could become a thing of the past -- but that's the nature of history. If you wait long enough everyone's a villain.

But now that the fact exists, what is to be done about it? You can't just set them free; they don't understand what it means and they aren't prepared (yet) for a free society.

If they were some other creature magicked into being house elves, the answer seems to be to reverse that magic and revert them to their natural state, whatever that is. But is that 'better'? What if the original version wasn't intelligent? Would the house elves thank you if giving them freedom also meant taking away their minds?

And when the house-elves say they like being happy, is that really how they feel or are they just saying that because they know from bitter experience that their current state is infinitely preferable to the "help" of do-gooder teenage wizards and witches? Back in the 19th century it was common for certain groups of slaves to pretend happiness and contentment with their lot, and the 'happy slave' was a music hall trope. But it was an act, brought about by the fact that really being honest about feelings would have done them no good at all, once the do-gooders go away and the owners once again have absolute reign over anyone so foolish as to tell the unvarnished truth.

...

if it were me, the first thing to do would be to talk to some already-freed house-elves. They exist. Then discuss how we would go about educating and preparing the large number of still-enslaved for transition to life as free, independent beings. It's going to be the work of a lifetime. Of several lifetimes, to bring about a state where house-elves are both free and reasonably happy in that state.

I actually was pretty angry at Hermione in that novel. First, because she went on her crusade without any concern for the lives of the elves once freed, and attempted to so radically change their situation without preparing any kind of transition or soft landing for them. Then, by the next book, she seems to have completely forgotten about the whole thing. As if, because her initial chidish steps were misguided she's unprepared to make the effort to get educated and become really effective as an advocate and an activist; instead she's just going to slot seamlessly into her post-Hogwarts life as an Aurore and for the most part leave the wizarding world's approach to house-elves unchallenged.

I'm given to understand that she still worked on the matter, but I haven't really seen anything to that effect in the text, almost the author writing an excuse for her characters.

But then, perhaps we're expecting too much, both of the books and of the movies. JK Rowling, bless her heart, was neither a deep thinker nor highly educated when she wrote those books. They struck a chord with a generation of young people -- but maybe it's well past time for those young people to re-think the assumptions from the books, decades on.

Me? I didn't encounter the books until I was an adult and my convictions were already formed, so not the same issue.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Forum Explorer]

I actually was pretty angry at Hermione in that novel. First, because she went on her crusade without any concern for the lives of the elves once freed, and attempted to so radically change their situation without preparing any kind of transition or soft landing for them. Then, by the next book, she seems to have completely forgotten about the whole thing. As if, because her initial chidish steps were misguided she's unprepared to make the effort to get educated and become really effective as an advocate and an activist; instead she's just going to slot seamlessly into her post-Hogwarts life as an Aurore and for the most part leave the wizarding world's approach to house-elves unchallenged.

I'm given to understand that she still worked on the matter, but I haven't really seen anything to that effect in the text, almost the author writing an excuse for her characters.

But then, perhaps we're expecting too much, both of the books and of the movies. JK Rowling, bless her heart, was neither a deep thinker nor highly educated when she wrote those books. They struck a chord with a generation of young people -- but maybe it's well past time for those young people to re-think the assumptions from the books, decades on.

Me? I didn't encounter the books until I was an adult and my convictions were already formed, so not the same issue.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I mean, she was a literal child. Or a teenager, which can be called a child with attitude. Her being childish and her help causing more harm than help is pretty common for teenagers finding a cause for the first time and trying to tackle it on their own.

Anyways the books in general fall apart as they get into the last novels. As children's novels Harry Potter works fine. But as you try and take it more seriously, it starts to fall apart hard.

[Taevyr]

So, I feel I should preface this by saying I've only ever interacted with the original HP-novels (not including whatever that 8th one is called) and the bare surface of the "wizarding world" before deciding the latter was a dumpy worldbuilding nightmare. Thus, my arguments are only concerning said novels.



Anyways the books in general fall apart as they get into the last novels. As children's novels Harry Potter works fine. But as you try and take it more seriously, it starts to fall apart hard.

This, combined with "tone-deafness isn't necessarily deliberate maliciousness" is why I tend to disagree with people saying she's a bad writer. Some of her personal views are.... divisive, to put it politely and forum-friendly, but her actual writing in HP is generally about as good as it has to be for the target audience of the novels. Elements like e.g. the House-Elves show some pretty notable tone-deafness on her part, and the worldbuilding falls apart once you start picking at it, but it fulfills the function it has to: allowing you to immerse yourself in the magical castle-school as a kid/young teen and letting your youthful suspension of disbelief take care of the rest. It's also why I think it falls apart more towards the later novels: they "grew with their audience", but her writing skills weren't quite growing along.

tl;dr From what I know of her viewpoints (again, won't discuss them), there's plenty of real complaints to make about Rowling without analyzing a series of children's novels as if they were mature fantasy works, rather than kid-focused British boarding school fiction in a thin fantasy jacket.

[Sapphire Guard]

Seems like a dubious take.

It's especially odd when you have to start by blaming the teenage girl for not ending institutionalised slavery singlehanded while at school, and then you have to assume the author is lying when she says the character returned to the matter later in life when she could actually achieve meaningful change. It's very easy to be a critic when you can make random assumptions and then when the creator contradicts them you can assume they are lying. That's great, because it means there are no conditions where you might have to think you might be wrong.

House elves as an institution are not portrayed positively in the books. Harry is universally disturbed by the compulsion to punish themselves and goes out of his way to free Dobby from an abusive master. But Rowling is mature enough to realise that making a fundamental difference is a long term game.

It's a weird thing with fantasy authors, if there is a social issue that isn't resolved by the end of the text readers tend to assume that the author approves of it. There is no reason to think that, it's a more mature take than trying to downplay massive societal issues by giving them easy answers and wrapping them up by the end of the story, thereby downplaying how difficult it is to actually resolve said issues.

It's the epitome of that quote about making assumptions that don't fit the text and then complaining when they are not met.

Anyway, I Youtubed a couple of hours of the game, so far it seems okay but nothing special. Voice acting not great, lead is generic, vaguely interested in the plot now, not sure If I will get it or not as of yet. Seems kind of like rings of power, where the conversation about it is so loud that the only way to get a fair perspective is to get the damned thing. Still don't know, though.

[Jophiel]

Anyway, I Youtubed a couple of hours of the game, so far it seems okay but nothing special. Voice acting not great, lead is generic, vaguely interested in the plot now, not sure If I will get it or not as of yet. Seems kind of like rings of power, where the conversation about it is so loud that the only way to get a fair perspective is to get the damned thing. Still don't know, though.
I don't think it's a fun or interesting game to watch, especially since so much of it is just solving tiny puzzles or tasks as you run around. Weirdly enough though, I find it a lot of fun to actively play. I completely get the reviews where the author lists a bunch of small defects but still gives it a 9/10. Each time I fire it up, I'm thoroughly engaged. Watching someone solve a math puzzle then chase a flying key then levitate a statue to get a book page then sneak up on an eyeball chest is probably dull as heck.

But it'll still be the same game when it's $30 or $15 and, even if you know the story twists, the story isn't really what makes it good anyway.

[warty goblin]

I don't think it's a fun or interesting game to watch, especially since so much of it is just solving tiny puzzles or tasks as you run around. Weirdly enough though, I find it a lot of fun to actively play. I completely get the reviews where the author lists a bunch of small defects but still gives it a 9/10. Each time I fire it up, I'm thoroughly engaged. Watching someone solve a math puzzle then chase a flying key then levitate a statue to get a book page then sneak up on an eyeball chest is probably dull as heck.

But it'll still be the same game when it's $30 or $15 and, even if you know the story twists, the story isn't really what makes it good anyway.

Yeah, I think this would be unusually boring to watch (though I can't say I find most games any fun to watch, that's just a bad movie with way too many repetitive fights) because the general gameplay is very low key. But it is extremely satisfying and engaging, I think because while it's very much a collect-a-thon, the actual collecting requires a bit more input and effort than usual. Except for crafting mats, everything requires a specific spell or observation or solving a problem or some combination of those. It's quite excellent.

As it stands now, this is going to be a serious GoTY contender for me. The only things on my horizon that really threaten it are Age of Wonders 4 and Company of Heroes 3, which are so completely different I'm not even sure how to compare them. In terms of third person action games I don't see anything coming up that's gonna rival it. The world is fabulous, the combat is quite good, and while the story isn't great on its own, it's a very good videogame story,l. By that I mean it provides pretty reasonable explanations and motivations for going and doing videogame stuff, has decently engaging characters, and doesn't get in the way or make you think the game director really really wanted to be a movie director.

[pendell]

Seems like a dubious take.

It's especially odd when you have to start by blaming the teenage girl for not ending institutionalised slavery singlehanded while at school, and then you have to assume the author is lying when she says the character returned to the matter later in life when she could actually achieve meaningful change. It's very easy to be a critic when you can make random assumptions and then when the creator contradicts them you can assume they are lying. That's great, because it means there are no conditions where you might have to think you might be wrong.



I'm going off of what's written in the text itself, both here and in Cursed Child; which is, after the end of the novel it's never mentioned ever again, either in there or in the succeeding works. That puts it pretty clearly in "teenage phase" category, so far as I'm concerned.

Of course I don't expect a teenage girl to overthrow an institution that has existed for centuries even if that's what Dumbledore's army actually did in books 6 and 7, taking on both Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and the ministry of magic and winning.

The sole evidence I have to the contrary is one line in the wiki (https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/House-elf)




Later in life, Hermione would advance the rights of house-elves in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, before transferring to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.


So that appears to be it. She put some effort in, then moved on to more important things as far as she's concerned. Still looks like "youthful phase" rather than "serious advocate" to me.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

Had a perfectly excellent pre-work play at this today. Only after my hour was up did I realize that I didn't get in a single fight. It wasn't all cutscenes either, I was actively playing the game and doing stuff, just not combat stuff. That's really cool.



I'm going off of what's written in the text itself, both here and in Cursed Child; which is, after the end of the novel it's never mentioned ever again, either in there or in the succeeding works. That puts it pretty clearly in "teenage phase" category, so far as I'm concerned.


This isn't true in the body of the books. Yes, SPEW itself gets mostly dropped after book 5, since there's that whole war thing going on, but Hermione does consistently dedicate time to house elf rights through that time. This includes directly advocating for freeing Kreacher, and generally being concerned with his welfare through book 7.


Of course I don't expect a teenage girl to overthrow an institution that has existed for centuries even if that's what Dumbledore's army actually did in books 6 and 7, taking on both Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and the ministry of magic and winning.


This is just not an accurate description of the text. Dumbledore's Army does not take on the Ministry and win, they get broken up after a couple months. By the end of Book 5, only Neville and Luna show up when Harry calls. Nor do they defeat the Death Eaters, they are pretty clearly losing the Battle of Hogwarts, and that's with substantial assistance from a lot of other people.

Overall the text (not whatever Rowling has said since, just the text of the books) is very consistent that, while occasionally a bit questionable in how she expresses it, Hermione is genuinely and consistently concerned about house elf welfare and liberation. The text is also consistent in showing that refusing to take house elves seriously as beings worthy of respect is a moral and practical mistake by wizards, and that Hermione's concerns are fundamentally correct.

[Dragonus45]

I'm going off of what's written in the text itself, both here and in Cursed Child; which is, after the end of the novel it's never mentioned ever again, either in there or in the succeeding works. That puts it pretty clearly in "teenage phase" category, so far as I'm concerned.

Of course I don't expect a teenage girl to overthrow an institution that has existed for centuries even if that's what Dumbledore's army actually did in books 6 and 7, taking on both Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and the ministry of magic and winning.

The sole evidence I have to the contrary is one line in the wiki (https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/House-elf)



So that appears to be it. She put some effort in, then moved on to more important things as far as she's concerned. Still looks like "youthful phase" rather than "serious advocate" to me.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Cursed Child isn't real.

[Sapphire Guard]

Apart from what warty has outlined, the book series is about the lead characters time as schoolchildren, of course it has more detail on their time as schoolchildren than their subsequent careers.

The Death Eaters have not existed for centuries, they are a small terrorist group that existed from approximately fifty years before the books and were inactive for fourteen years of that time because their ringleader was dead (temporarily) and the elite core was in prison,

The DA mostly ran and hid, all their primary conflicts have 'escape' as the main goal rather than 'win' unless they have a lot of backup. Harry manages one successful raid on the ministry for a magical artifact, but that's it, he doesn't even try to bring it down.

So... nearly all of that is very inaccurate to the text.

[pendell]

Apart from what warty has outlined, the book series is about the lead characters time as schoolchildren, of course it has more detail on their time as schoolchildren than their subsequent careers.

The Death Eaters have not existed for centuries, they are a small terrorist group that existed from approximately fifty years before the books and were inactive for fourteen years of that time because their ringleader was dead (temporarily) and the elite core was in prison,

The DA mostly ran and hid, all their primary conflicts have 'escape' as the main goal rather than 'win' unless they have a lot of backup. Harry manages one successful raid on the ministry for a magical artifact, but that's it, he doesn't even try to bring it down.

So... nearly all of that is very inaccurate to the text.

It has been several years since I read it. Very well, I stand corrected.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

This morning had a good bit more combat, mostly against spiders. The fighting is really growing on me. It’s a ranged game, but it feels quite like a melee system, with its emphasis on blocks and guard breaks. If it was a melee game, it would have one of the best systems I've played in ages, since the guard breaks have some depth to them, what with needing different types of spell to break different guards, but each spell carrying its own effect and range and so on. It's way, way better than the extremely samey light/heavy attack system every bloody game uses now.


It has been several years since I read it. Very well, I stand corrected.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Fair enough. There is a lot of book, I know them very well thanks to listening to the audio books more times than I care to count.

And it is definitely true that the whole house elf thing is clumsily handled, and a sort of weird B plot. I think it would have worked much better to have, say, free elves working at Hogwarts from the get go, but owning elves is still legal and something a lot of older families do. That would make it clear that elves are not by their general nature inclined to be slaves, and that wizarding society is split on the issue.

[Dragonus45]

This morning had a good bit more combat, mostly against spiders. The fighting is really growing on me. It’s a ranged game, but it feels quite like a melee system, with its emphasis on blocks and guard breaks. If it was a melee game, it would have one of the best systems I've played in ages, since the guard breaks have some depth to them, what with needing different types of spell to break different guards, but each spell carrying its own effect and range and so on. It's way, way better than the extremely samey light/heavy attack system every bloody game uses now.


Yea the best way I have been able to describe the combat system is snappy. It's fast paced and captures the wizard duel thing really well, and I love the way I can build my own combos and experiment for combining effects.



And it is definitely true that the whole house elf thing is clumsily handled, and a sort of weird B plot. I think it would have worked much better to have, say, free elves working at Hogwarts from the get go, but owning elves is still legal and something a lot of older families do. That would make it clear that elves are not by their general nature inclined to be slaves, and that wizarding society is split on the issue.

You know, in the hands of a writer who is less of a blunt instrument then Rowling is I could see the moral conundrums of interaction with a magical species of elf being naturally servile and the question of how to ethically interact with them making for an interesting plot. Rowling however is not the woman for something that delicate.

[Rynjin]

Yeah. I don't think it's a hot take to say that Rowling is only subtle if you spell subtle like...another controversial public figure would.

[Sapphire Guard]

And it is definitely true that the whole house elf thing is clumsily handled, and a sort of weird B plot. I think it would have worked much better to have, say, free elves working at Hogwarts from the get go, but owning elves is still legal and something a lot of older families do. That would make it clear that elves are not by their general nature inclined to be slaves, and that wizarding society is split on the issue.

Why would that be better? That just removes the idea that people you know and love are also part of upholding this system, and instead it's those elitist meanies over there that are at fault.

[Forum Explorer]

Why would that be better? That just removes the idea that people you know and love are also part of upholding this system, and instead it's those elitist meanies over there that are at fault.

Because then it makes it clear that slavery is a wrong and evil thing, and not some weird 'its okay to own slaves if you aren't super abusive to them' thing that we get instead.

[Grim Portent]

Wouldn't it be better for them to just function like the various folkore creatures they're based on?

Free agents who live in people's houses and do household chores in exchange for respect and some sort of food offering. When mistreated they make the house owner's life a misery and/or leave and find a new house. Slavery issue is gone.

If you still want to have Dobby's arc then have him be enchanted to force obedience despite maltreatment, and have such enchantments be outlawed by the end of the story.

[Lemmy]

Well... The wizarding has never been presented as particularly virtuous. In fact, it can be very retrograde and selfish in many many ways.
It's not out of character for it to still have slavery. Especially of a species most wizards consider subhuman and who seems to "like" being slaves (personally, I always took that as they liking to serve/help others, and wizards using that to abuse the little fellas).

There's nothing wrong with depiciting slavery in a story without making it the absolute central point of the plot... It could have been handled better, of course (honestly, I don't consider HP to be a particularly well-writen work), but at very least it's ALWAYS depicted as something despicable, even if most wizards are too used to it to give it a thought.

[warty goblin]

Finally got a broom. Whee! Controls took a little getting used to, but I can fly, and it is just great.

Now it really hits that perfect open world game state for me, a big chunk of cool and varied geography full of stuff, and a convenient, fast and fun way to get from A to B in that geography without resorting to fast travel. I mean I will use fast travel sometimes, but I far prefer not doing that, as it keeps the world extant and relevant.

If this isn't the best thing I play this year, it's going to be one hell of a year.

[Sapphire Guard]

Isn't that kind of like saying anyone that writes medieval fantasy where the monarchy doesn't fall by the end of the story is a monarchist?

I mean, you don't actually believe that Harry Potter is some kind of pro slavery tract, right? Or that anyone sane would read the books and come away with the opinion that how house elves are treated supposed to be a good thing?

[danzibr]

Holy smokes. This thread has been, uhh, informative. I somewhat grew up with HP, and young me reading these books never thought, “ahh so X represents Y.” I just like… read the books and enjoyed them for what they were (or what I thought they were). Kinda gotta wonder if the X-represents-Y folks are right though.

ANYWAY, considering getting this game (primarily for my wife, an avid HP fan). How’s the broom flying?

[Dragonus45]

Holy smokes. This thread has been, uhh, informative. I somewhat grew up with HP, and young me reading these books never thought, “ahh so X represents Y.” I just like… read the books and enjoyed them for what they were (or what I thought they were). Kinda gotta wonder if the X-represents-Y folks are right though.

ANYWAY, considering getting this game (primarily for my wife, an avid HP fan). How’s the broom flying?

Kind of but it's complicated. Not all coding is intentional and a big part of the visual aspect of goblins comes from the movies where you start to get a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Rowling's personally held beliefs however outside of the story are very clear and apparent.

The brooms are wonky, not helped by the fact that you REALLY need to quickly finish the quest for the upgrades once you start it.

[Kish]

Holy smokes. This thread has been, uhh, informative. I somewhat grew up with HP, and young me reading these books never thought, “ahh so X represents Y.” I just like… read the books and enjoyed them for what they were (or what I thought they were). Kinda gotta wonder if the X-represents-Y folks are right though.
Well, Rowling spelled out that Remus Lupin's condition represents AIDS patients. Which sounds good, since he's a positive character, until you think for a few seconds about the implications of "in these books AIDS makes you lose control and attack people, and the head AIDS patient deliberately infects children."

{Scrubbed}

[warty goblin]

Holy smokes. This thread has been, uhh, informative. I somewhat grew up with HP, and young me reading these books never thought, “ahh so X represents Y.” I just like… read the books and enjoyed them for what they were (or what I thought they were). Kinda gotta wonder if the X-represents-Y folks are right though.


Depends how you mean represents. If you mean in the sense that the author genuinely hates group Y, thinks they are subhuman scum, and wants to stealthily indoctrinate their readers, no. People who harbor deep-seated conscious hatred of other groups generally aren't subtle about it. If you mean are there aspects of fantasy thing X that resemble stereotypes about real world group Y, yes. How much that bothers you is, well, up to you. I think it's fair to say not at all, or its a bit uncomfortable, or you won't touch it with a ten foot pole.


ANYWAY, considering getting this game (primarily for my wife, an avid HP fan). How’s the broom flying?

Broom flying is good. Not super absolutely spectacular in terms of controls, but soaring around the map is tremendous fun. Later I believe there's also a hypogriff, but I haven't got one yet.

There's no quidditch though, just FYI. I'll bet dollars to donuts its in the sequel. (Do I know there will be sequel? No, but this is going to have made approximately all the money, so there will be a sequel.)

In general, if you/your wife likes HP, this is a super easy recommendation. The game is very good on its own merits, but you get to do tons of fun HP stuff, and it is translated extremely well to game form. Go wand shopping, brew potions, deal with strangely homicidal plants, explore the castle - which is everything an enchanted castle should be - its all here and its great.

Importantly it feels like good Harry Potter stuff. By which I mean the better movies and the books, but not those gawdawful Enchanted Beasts films. So stuff is fun and whimsical and a bit silly and sorta mostly consistent in the important bits if you don't poke too hard, but it isn't dour and stupid and falling apart scene to scene.

There's some stuff I wish they had managed to do, like quidditch and more interactions with students - a Draco type rival would be excellent - but the amount of content the devs have packed in is kinda jaw dropping, and it all works together really well. I'm kinda gushing I know, but the game is honestly just a joy.

[Jophiel]

Broom flying is good. Not super absolutely spectacular in terms of controls, but soaring around the map is tremendous fun. Later I believe there's also a hypogriff, but I haven't got one yet.
Yeah, there's flying mounts later. That's not really a spoiler since the pre-order bonus for the game was "Here's a black hippogriff" and the deluxe edition comes with a death-horse thingie I don't remember the name of. They're slower than the broom but more stable and I think (?) they can fly higher since they don't have the same wind shake that the brooms get when you're too high up. Mostly though, it's just cool to ride a big flappy beast.

I remapped my flight controls on PC to be M1/M2 make the broom/beast go up/down and the thumb button does the speed boost. That made it feel much better to me than the original controls. It's still not amazing but at least it's playable and I can do the races.

[theNater]

A few general thoughts:

1. Buying and playing Hogwarts Legacy sends a certain message, whether you intend to send that message or not.
2. Any guilt you may feel over sending that message is not the fault of the people who notice you are sending that message.
3. If your sole motivation is to avoid feelings of guilt, playing a different game is probably going to be easier and more effective than arguing on the internet about why your sending of that message doesn't count.

[Divayth Fyr]

A few general thoughts:

1. Buying and playing Hogwarts Legacy sends a certain message, whether you intend to send that message or not.
Not really. Nobody buying and playing the game is responsible for what others believe it means.


Any guilt you may feel over sending that message is not the fault of the people who notice you are sending that message.
You mean aside from the people going about how "you're a terrible person if you buy/play HL"?

[Gnoman]

*scrub the post, scrub the quote*

Not even that - the early films in the series used a lot of location filming, and those are real decorations in the building they used for the bank (Australia House in London).

[Morgaln]

A few general thoughts:

1. Buying and playing Hogwarts Legacy sends a certain message, whether you intend to send that message or not.
2. Any guilt you may feel over sending that message is not the fault of the people who notice you are sending that message.
3. If your sole motivation is to avoid feelings of guilt, playing a different game is probably going to be easier and more effective than arguing on the internet about why your sending of that message doesn't count.

The main message people send by buying and playing Hogwarts Legacy is that they are interested in playing Hogwarts Legacy.
My best friend is currently avidly playing the game and loves it. He's not even aware about the controversy surrounding JKR, because he doesn't frequent places like twitter and tumblr, where that controversy is mainly discussed.
Buying the game is not automatically the same as siding with a bigot. People can enjoy work within an IP without buying into whatever nonsense the artist is spouting. They are not even required to know or research whatever nonsense that artist might have been spouting in the past.

[theNater]

You mean aside from the people going about how "you're a terrible person if you buy/play HL"?
I see the quotation marks: who, specifically, is that a quote from?

[Rynjin]

I see the quotation marks: who, specifically, is that a quote from?

From removed posts which are no longer viewable in the thread.

[Brackenlord]

For better or worse I don't have a platform to play HL right now, but I'm glad the game is not decidedly garbage I rememeber being pretty excited when it was announced.

The whole adjacent discussion saddens me, since the books, PS1 Hagrid and movies to a lesser extentet where a big part of my childhood. But I believe you can divorce your enjoyment of something and the controversy that surrounds it.

If the author feels validated in their worldview based solely on the number of fans of their work, that's their delusion to maintain and not moral fault of said fans.

[Lemmy]

Buying/Playing HL sends no message other than "I wanna play that cool new Harry Potter game" and maybe, if they are aware of the controversy "I don't care what game 'journalists' and angry people on the internet say".

The whole idea of "If I claim to see this message in what you do, then you are intentionally sending this message and are responsible for it" is ridiculous.

There is no message other than the one you (figurative you - not anyone in particular) created for yourself.
You're the one reading what's not there. And whatever you read says waaaay more about you than about whoever is doing whatever you're getting the "message" from.

If you look at scribbles in a bathroom stall and decide it's a text about the true meaning of life, it doesn't mean it actually ever meant anything more than "Stinky but comfortable - 4/5! Would poop again!".

-

On the game itself: Having now played about 6h of the game, it's pretty fun. I can only play it sporadically because I'm doing it on my friend's PS5, but I just might get it for myself on Steam.

I wouldn't call it GotY, though... It's fun, but not particularly innovative, the setting/world-building is meh at best (but that's the source material's fault) and the main character is rather bland.

Still, it's quite the treat for fans of Harry Potter and people who want to play a fun, but not necessarily ground-breaking 3D open-world adventure game. Anyone who fits either category would do well to buy this game, and it gets my recommendation.

[warty goblin]

Unlocked the Room of Requirement this morning. Turns out to be a very complete decoration mini-game, sort of Wizard Sims Lite - there's no social stuff, just the home decor bits. This is well done, but I don't care in the slightest. Which is fine, it's unobtrusive and some people are gonna get mega into it.

[Jophiel]

If the author feels validated in their worldview based solely on the number of fans of their work, that's their delusion to maintain and not moral fault of said fans.
It also strikes me less as delusional and more like a troll statement and people should feel bad for taking the bait. Have you ever known a creator to say "Man, not selling as many things, guess I better change my worldview?". No, they would just say that they're being cancelled so now they need to be controversial even harder. How many Potter things sell is never going to impact Rowling's thinking and it's Pollyanna to suggest otherwise. Heck, given that she's already a billionaire, she doesn't even have incentive to fake it for a paycheck.

Re: Room of Requirement
I played with decorating it a little bit but there's not much incentive to hang out a lot so I didn't see the value in making the place screenshot ready. I agree that there's a lot there for the Better Homes & Gardens types though. My main use for it is a three pot botanical table to keep me in mallow leaves for Merlin trials and hearing Deek praise me non-stop for the one potion I made in Potion Class.

[Dragonus45]

Unlocked the Room of Requirement this morning. Turns out to be a very complete decoration mini-game, sort of Wizard Sims Lite - there's no social stuff, just the home decor bits. This is well done, but I don't care in the slightest. Which is fine, it's unobtrusive and some people are gonna get mega into it.

I spent three hours in there, and i appreciated being able to set up a whole laboratory in there to make batch potions and grow plants in lots. Also there is a store in hogsmeade that has a lot of upgrades to that kind of stuff, I mention because I thought I would just get them for story progression and would have to unlock them that way but I was wrong.

[The Glyphstone]

I find something darkly funny about the RoR being used to build a magic drug lab herbs+potions mass production room.

[Dragonus45]

I find something darkly funny about the RoR being used to build a magic drug lab herbs+potions mass production room.

Probably not the first, or last time for that one.

[The Glyphstone]

Hiring Professor White to teach Potions may have been a poor decision in retrospect, even if he had great credentials.

[Dragonus45]

Hiring Professor White to teach Potions may have been a poor decision in retrospect, even if he had great credentials.

Ohhhh I think I have a new cosplay.

[Sapphire Guard]

*scrub the post, scrub the quote*

Wow, reading this was a shock.


Not even that - the early films in the series used a lot of location filming, and those are real decorations in the building they used for the bank (Australia House in London).

Ok, that makes more sense. Glad someone knew that.


Well, Rowling spelled out that Remus Lupin's condition represents AIDS patients. Which sounds good, since he's a positive character, until you think for a few seconds about the implications of "in these books AIDS makes you lose control and attack people, and the head AIDS patient deliberately infects children."

Greyback isn't the head of anything, he's just someone with a disease who is also a villain. Meanwhile, Lupin can manage his condition just fine, he just has to act responsibly and take his meds.

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

[Ionathus]

I've got extremely fond memories of the old Harry Potter games -- 1 and 2 for PC, 2 and 3 for Game Boy. If this game captures any of the magic of exploring Hogwarts like those old games did, I envy its players for getting to experience that feeling of enchantment and wonder.

I used to be a huge HP fan, not so much anymore these days. I still appreciate some of Harry Potter's themes, but it's gotten harder to sift out the bits that make me feel good from the ones that make me go "...oof, really?" If what people are saying about the plot is true (that it continues the weird pro-fantasy-slavery themes, that the game lets you rack up a huge bodycount then cheerily go to Potions class, etc), that makes it even less appealing. The creator's behavior over the past few years has worsened my disillusionment. One of my closest friends is directly affected by her platform, so I have proof it's not just terminally-online communities inventing things to be mad about. It's not just going to go away, and I see the real effect it has on the people I care about.

I've seen a lot of smart arguments arguing both sides of "can you separate the art from the artist?" on this topic. I don't know what the big-picture answer is (if there is one), and I think it varies by work and by audience member. Some of my friends have bought the game and enjoy it. I personally can't separate this creator from this creation. I doubt I'm going to play HL, both because I feel so weird about the franchise these days and also because I have plenty of games on my backlog I'm more excited about.

[Dragonus45]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

Mostly, it's a 10/10 game with a couple rough flaws that pull it down to like an 8. The plot is serviceable enough but not terribly compelling, frankly I think a fast easy sequel would be just to strip out a "main plot" and just give me 7 years of going to classes and hanging out with folks and exploring castle and surrounding land. Also, set the entire gear system on fire and bury the ashes.

[warty goblin]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

I'm not sure I'd say mediocre everything else so much as very videogame everything else. This isn't one of those newfangled action games where you watch a bunch of really long, artisanally produced movie style cutscenes, then do some rote gameplay stuff en route to the next scene. Rather there's characters and plot, but it's mostly there to drive and direct you, rather than something you'd enjoy stripped of the game play.

For contrast, I thought (what I played of) the new God of War was a well shot and acted and produced movie, but I had no idea why occasionally the director stopped that and made me punch a couple irrelevant zombies or whatever. I didn't find the actual game compelling because it sort of felt like an afterthought, so I stopped playing because even good game-as-movie is like mediocre actual movie, and does not benefit from the interstitial zombie punching.

This, paradoxically, has a story I find far more involving because as a freestanding element it isn't good and is mostly there to prop up the game. I dunno if that makes sense, but I generally find games are not a great medium for stories, they're a great medium for gameplay. The story becomes more engaging the more it feeds the gameplay, rather than trying to be a stand alone thing. Hogwarts Legacy does that pretty well, since pretty much any rime you get a cutscene, you also go someplace cool, or learn a new ability or something. I want to advance the story because I want my hypogriff!

So it isn't super trendy or in style. This is fine with me, I don't think games have objectively improved since like 2007, it's all just quality neutral random trend variation. I find the modern trends less interesting than those of ten years ago, so being a bit dated is a plus. But that's just me, your milage may vary.

(Why 2007? Around about Mass Effect/Half Life 2 you got games that could do facial animations well enough to convey emotion. That's pretty key to a lot of methods of presenting character, and while I like minimalism in game stories and characters, that's different than them being unimportant. Everything since then has been just better looking versions of the same, randomly fluctuating through popular trends.)

[Rynjin]

So impressions I'm getting so far are , great gameplay, mediocre everything else?

Pretty much, yeah. Mediocre maybe makes it sound worse than it actually is? It's like standard fantasy boilerplate in terms of plot. It's pretty clear that the focus is kind of like other really good open world games of recent years, like the 2018 Spider-Man game. "It really makes you FEEL like X". I feel like a Hogwarts student, with all of the absurd level of danger that entails. That's what the game excels at, and if that's what you're looking for, it's a good time.

[Jophiel]

Mostly, it's a 10/10 game with a couple rough flaws that pull it down to like an 8. The plot is serviceable enough but not terribly compelling, frankly I think a fast easy sequel would be just to strip out a "main plot" and just give me 7 years of going to classes and hanging out with folks and exploring castle and surrounding land. Also, set the entire gear system on fire and bury the ashes.
I'd go in the other direction. It's a 6-7 game that somehow plays like a 9. If I wrote down all the things "wrong" with the game and handed it to myself, I'd go uninstall it. But, when I'm actually playing, I have a great time. Which is all that matters.

[Erloas]

I've seen a lot of smart arguments arguing both sides of "can you separate the art from the artist?" on this topic. I don't know what the big-picture answer is (if there is one), and I think it varies by work and by audience member. Some of my friends have bought the game and enjoy it. I personally can't separate this creator from this creation. I doubt I'm going to play HL, both because I feel so weird about the franchise these days and also because I have plenty of games on my backlog I'm more excited about.
I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

[Ionathus]

For contrast, I thought (what I played of) the new God of War was a well shot and acted and produced movie, but I had no idea why occasionally the director stopped that and made me punch a couple irrelevant zombies or whatever. I didn't find the actual game compelling because it sort of felt like an afterthought, so I stopped playing because even good game-as-movie is like mediocre actual movie, and does not benefit from the interstitial zombie punching.

Makes sense to me. I haven't seen the new The Last Of Us series, but a coworker was telling me about how good it was. I said I wasn't exactly shocked, since The Last Of Us already felt like a movie with 20-minute-long quicktime events.


I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

Aw, really? I didn't know about that. Simplifies the choice even further for me though, since now there's not even that layer of insulation.

[Mordokai]

I'm gonna do a hot take here. That being, I think the trans community and the progressive(I refuse to use the W word) media shot themselves in the foot.

From what I've seen/heard so far, HL is a pretty unexceptional game. As comrade Dyatlov would say, "not great, not terrible". It would have been forgotten pretty quickly... were it not for the whole controversy surrounding it.

Were there people who bought the game for the express purpose to harm the trans community? Yeah, no doubt. With that being said, I doubt they were in majority. I would even go as far as to say they weren't many.

But the people who bought the game to "stick it to them libs"? Now we're talking.

As a wise man said, it's approximately 3% less silly of a reason(I may have paraphrased it a little). But it worked. After all, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I don't usually believe in that but in this case... it held true.

In this case, the aforementioned actors actually came across as bullies. The game has been flagged as "genocide simulator". Spoilers have been posted publicly. All in an attempt to curb the enjoyment of the game.

Last I've heard, HL is on track to billion(s) of revenue.

A quick google search points out that is likely a lot of baloney. But it does point to a trend... the protest misfired. It does appear like the bullied became the bully, at least in this one specific case.

[Jophiel]

The game is sitting at 93% positive on Steam with over 86,000 ratings. That's not a bad or even mediocre game that got some "own the other guys" ratings (especially when you need to pay $60 to own the other guys). That's a game that the vast majority of people are sincerely enjoying.

[warty goblin]

I think reading the success of the game as a commentary on anything but a good game set in an exceedingly popular universe doing well because it's a good game set in an exceedingly popular universe is a mistake.

Because although it doesn't show up on this forum because this is a weird niche place, or in trendy cool online spaces*, Harry Potter is still absolutely huge in normal world. The local Barnes & Noble still has an entire Harry Potter zone, and that's just there, all the time. Nothing else gets that, not Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or anything. Other bookstores pretty much always have a full set of Harry Potter novels in the YA section, which is impressive staying power in a genre that transient - think anybody's gonna still care about Hunger Games in 10 years**? Every used book store I set foot in is ass deep in nearly mint copies of Twilight, but you can't hardly find a dog-eared Potter book even though there's about a zillion in print, so people aren't selling and/or people are insta-buying. They still make new Harry Potter Legos, even though the books have been done for 15 years, and the only movies anybody cares about for 12. My girlfriend teaches 5th Grade, and being able to read Harry Potter on their own is huge mark of pride for her students because the books still have that much cache. That's freaking weird for a 25 year old book for 11 year olds. Last week I was at JC Penney and they had chocolate frogs at the cash register, right next to the beef jerky. Point being, Harry Potter remains big.

I think taking this game, or any other Harry Potter thing doing well***, as some sort of referendum on the author, or her views, or the public's views of of her views of any group of people, is overfitting the signal to turn it into how actually it's about your favorite issue. An actually good entry in a beloved franchise doing well doesn't mean anything else, that's just how things generally work. Most people want to have fun, this is fun, they buy the fun game and have fun, and kinda resent being told they should feel bad about it.

*Trendy cool online spaces only tell you what trendy cool online spaces think. Remember, the biggest show in TV is Yellowstone, which nowhere trendy or cool talks about except to mention how nobody talks about it lol isn't that weird, and Ancient Aliens spent years pulling Game of Thrones numbers despite being the meme for stupid. Non-representative samples remain non-representative.

**Does anybody now for that matter?

***Yes the last Fantastic Beasts movie died a pitiful and unmourned death. This is because it was objectively awful in a way normally awful things can only imagine, and ignored pretty much everything that people actually liked about the series.

[pendell]

I'm gonna do a hot take here. That being, I think the trans community and the progressive(I refuse to use the W word) media shot themselves in the foot.

From what I've seen/heard so far, HL is a pretty unexceptional game. As comrade Dyatlov would say, "not great, not terrible". It would have been forgotten pretty quickly... were it not for the whole controversy surrounding it.

Were there people who bought the game for the express purpose to harm the trans community? Yeah, no doubt. With that being said, I doubt they were in majority. I would even go as far as to say they weren't many.

But the people who bought the game to "stick it to them libs"? Now we're talking.

As a wise man said, it's approximately 3% less silly of a reason(I may have paraphrased it a little). But it worked. After all, "there is no such thing as bad publicity". I don't usually believe in that but in this case... it held true.

In this case, the aforementioned actors actually came across as bullies. The game has been flagged as "genocide simulator". Spoilers have been posted publicly. All in an attempt to curb the enjoyment of the game.

Last I've heard, HL is on track to billion(s) of revenue.

A quick google search points out that is likely a lot of baloney. But it does point to a trend... the protest misfired. It does appear like the bullied became the bully, at least in this one specific case.

:Nod: If anything, the attempt seems to have backfired by greatly increasing the publicity the game received -- the calls for boycott gave JK Rowling free advertising. I know, that I, myself, only heard of the game because of the strenuous calls to boycott it.

So far as I can tell, the word that it was troublesome initially went out from ordinary people and was boosted by ... well, call them 'allies'. Of course that media is closely monitored by their opposition, who promptly picked it up and boosted it to their supporters. Now that lots of people are busy yelling and screaming at each other on social media, that brings in a third layer of media, attracted to controversy (and clicks) the way a shark is attracted to blood in the water. This group doesn't give a copper piece for any cause one way or another; all THEY care about is clicks and therefore revenue. So they boost it again, and suddenly you have a really large number of people talking about it pro and con, far beyond its merits as a straight-up game.

What would be a better approach? Maybe get some really good developers to make a really top-notch game and boost the absolute living daylights out of it, without even mentioning that other game you're trying to crowd out of the market?

Jaina Grey at Wired (https://www.wired.com/review/hogwarts-legacy-review/) wasn't impressed with the game and suggested part of the reason was that really top-tier developers wouldn't work on it, leaving the company making it to struggle by with the metaphorical equivalent of students with a C+ average in programming from the local community college. Perhaps, perhaps not. But what are those top-notch developers making? It might be better to put that talent to work making something really killer which can snag all the gaming dollars, and maybe leave something people will be talking about for decades long after they've forgotten a game whose most notable feature is its license.

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

Jaina Grey at Wired (https://www.wired.com/review/hogwarts-legacy-review/) wasn't impressed with the game and suggested part of the reason was that really top-tier developers wouldn't work on it, leaving the company making it to struggle by with the metaphorical equivalent of students with a C+ average in programming from the local community college. Perhaps, perhaps not. But what are those top-notch developers making? It might be better to put that talent to work making something really killer which can snag all the gaming dollars, and maybe leave something people will be talking about for decades long after they've forgotten a game whose most notable feature is its license.

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I read that, that isn't a game review. It shouldn't even be read as a piece of game criticism per say*, it's an editorial about the author's relationship with the game and Rowling's views and work over time. Which is fine, but it's not saying a lot about the game itself, which is what most people playing the game, or interested in playing the game, probably care about. And what people think about the game seems to be very positive; it's got an 84% critic rating on Metacritic, a 90% user score, and a 93% user score on Steam. For reference that's within spitting distance of Elden Ring, which is sitting at 94% recent/91% all time positive reviews on Steam.

These aren't OK or pretty good numbers, these are really, really good numbers. This is a game that most critics and most players clearly like, because it's really hard to get those numbers.

If you oppose Rowling's views, the smart play here was very, very simple. Don't make buying the game a referendum on those views. That doesn't mean you have to buy it, like it, or anything else, but trying to guilt people into not buying a good game in a very popular universe is just setting yourself up to lose and annoying people in the process.

*And if you take it as a piece of media criticism, it's bad media criticism, because it isn't engaging with the actual text of the game, but with the version in the author's head she can hate quickly and write off easily. The goblins aren't slaves, it isn't a slave rebellion, and it isn't about blood liable. This makes the 'Beauty and the Beast is about Stockholm Syndrome, actually' takes look like good faith engagement with the source text.

[Jophiel]

ETA: That raises a question for those of you playing: How well does it stand up, irrespective of its license? If you take all the HP elements out and make it a straight-up fantasy-themed wizard game, how does it do?

For whatever it's worth, I've never read a HP book and only saw one movie (I think it was the last HP one) ages ago in the theater for my kid's sake. I have no nostalgia or fan-geekdom affection for the franchise. So, if the game was set in some other whimsical fantasy setting with all the serial numbers filed off, I have to assume I'd still be enjoying it the same.

[pendell]

It shouldn't even be read as a piece of game criticism per say


per se (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se).

I'm sorry, I know it's quibbling but my inner editor just would not let it go. We were talking about a game, weren't we? Back to topic .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[animorte]

per se (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se).
:smallbiggrin: That's at least the 3rd time in one month I've witnessed that exact correction. I've hailed this forum as quite respectful and pleasantly lacking in grammar police (except for "per se") because, you know, who cares? (Nothing against this instance, just an amused observation.)

[warty goblin]

per se (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se).

I'm sorry, I know it's quibbling but my inner editor just would not let it go. We were talking about a game, weren't we? Back to topic .

Respectfully,

Brian P.

You know, I thought that seemed wrong when I typed it, but was in a bit of a hurry. Thanks for the correction!

[Sapphire Guard]

Personally, I hadn't been paying attention to this until the controversy. My local game shop was advertising it, but I wasn't paying attention because my policy is 'licensed tie in games are usually not worth caring about','.

Post controversy my attitude became 'I need to investigate' because HP fandom has a history of overreacting. There was a giant wall of hate, but... HP fandom kind of always does that.

The actual victims of this seem to mostly be innocent people. JKR is too big, she doesn't care and had no input on the game anyway. Truly hateful people are fine with this, they're making money from reporting on it and or streaming the game, and getting traffic from it.

The primary people being harmed seem to be small streamers who are nice enough to not be able to deal with the wall of hate, but wanted to play the game anyway.

[137beth]

I think one of the biggest problems with separating the art from the artist in this case is that one of the primary devs of the game is at least as bad, if not worse, as Rowling in their views and what they support. The only difference being that the dev doesn't have the name recognition as the author.

The other big difference is that the lead developer isn't getting paid royalties from people buying the game, whereas the author of the original books is.

[Zevox]

my policy is 'licensed tie in games are usually not worth caring about','.
Somewhat surprisingly, this is becoming something of a dated mindset. Whether it's because of the successes of licensed games that did put in the effort to actually be good games, like the Batman: Arkham series or the recent Spider-Man games, or because the games that fish to make as much money off as little effort as possible migrated away from ordinary console/PC releases into the realm of mobile/live service games, licensed games like this one do tend to be at least reasonably good, and sometimes excellent, these days. Not that there aren't exceptions, but you can usually tell those at a glance, in my experience - Nickelodeon still makes their games on a shoestring budget, for instance, and it shows.

At the least though the worst offenders, the movie tie-in games of old, seem to be well and truly dead.

[Mordokai]

The game is sitting at 93% positive on Steam with over 86,000 ratings. That's not a bad or even mediocre game that got some "own the other guys" ratings (especially when you need to pay $60 to own the other guys). That's a game that the vast majority of people are sincerely enjoying.

I hear ya. You're probably on to something, at least as far as the ratings go. To play devil's advocate, if a piece of media can be review bombed, can it similarly be review lifted? May that have happened here, at least to an extent?

Nah, probably not. So I'll retract the part where I said it's mediocre. I'll stand by my assertion that the whole controversy did the game good, though.

As for the "sticking it to the other guy" by spending your hard-earned cash... in nearly 40 years I spent on this planet, I found out there's almost no depth of pettiness to which humanity won't sink if it means making somebody else's day just a little worse.

I may or may not be speaking from personal experience :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

:smallbiggrin: That's at least the 3rd time in one month I've witnessed that exact correction. I've hailed this forum as quite respectful and pleasantly lacking in grammar police (except for "per se") because, you know, who cares? (Nothing against this instance, just an amused observation.)

Just wait until you spell Wookiee with only one E in a Star Wars thread.:smallcool:

[pendell]

Just wait until you spell Wookiee with only one E in a Star Wars thread.:smallcool:

Hey, it's going to be another thirty centuries before THE EMPRAH founds the Empire. Heresy hunters need something to practice on until their descendents can realize their true calling of hunting down heretics, psykers, mutants, and xenos :smallamused:

Tongue-in-cheek ,

Brian P.

[Jophiel]

I hear ya. You're probably on to something, at least as far as the ratings go. To play devil's advocate, if a piece of media can be review bombed, can it similarly be review lifted? May that have happened here, at least to an extent?

If we were to say it should be at 70%, a mediocre game carried largely on nostalgia, that's about 20,000 game positive reviews boosting it to 93%. I don't disagree that there's a lot of petty people in the world but, in my experience, most of them are fairly lazy and self-interested. Retweeting garbage is fine and easy. Putting sixty bucks down just to press an up arrow/thumb is more investment than it's worth just to smile smugly to yourself. I'm sure the number is greater than zero but doubt it's statistically significant.

There very well could have been a Streisand effect though. Ten million articles, tweets and Facebook posts making people aware that there's a new Harry Potter game.

[Lemmy]

Oh, "Review lifting" happens all the time... But of course, studios and producers (and the media with a vested interested in pleasing them) never call it out... Instead, every time something flops, it's "review bombing". Incredibly, it's never the fault of the product or the people who produced it... It's always those damn trolls on the internet. Don't question. Don't think. Just buy product and be excited for next product

As for HL, there's definitely a Straissand effect going on. I personally know quite a few people who only heard of it because of all the noise. I myself knew about the game, but didn't even remember it was coming out this month until angry people on the internet and "journalists" started hating and harassing people for playing a silly wizard video game. After being constantly bombarded by news of HL all the time (most of which made the game's detractors look REALLY bad), I got curious enough to decide to play the game.

I'd say at least the game owes at least 20% of its sales to the massive free PR it got from ots haters.

And it's a pretty fun game. Maybe I should thank the haters for reminding me the game was around and keeping it fresh in my mind long enough to give me the motivation to pick it up.

[Jophiel]

It might just be a reflection of which parts of the internet I haunt but I'd think the game would be more susceptible to review bombing since there's a lot more vehement opposition than support (that I've seen). Of course, you again get the issue that someone who absolutely hates anything to do with Rowling is unlikely to buy a $60 game just to rate it down on Steam. Heck, 90% of the critical "reviews" are from people who obviously haven't played the game, hence references to goblin-slave revolts and stuff.

One thing that's just a reflection of Steam's Up/Down review system is that a game could be "good, not great" but, if consistently so across a large audience, you'll get a lot of Grade B- reviews that add up to "95% positive" and make the game look like the best thing since Pac-Man. In reality, it's an enjoyable game that doesn't break any new ground and isn't going to start a new genre. It's just, you know, a fun game.

[Lemmy]

It might just be a reflection of which parts of the internet I haunt but I'd think the game would be more susceptible to review bombing since there's a lot more vehement opposition than support (that I've seen). Of course, you again get the issue that someone who absolutely hates anything to do with Rowling is unlikely to buy a $60 game just to rate it down on Steam. Heck, 90% of the critical "reviews" are from people who obviously haven't played the game, hence references to goblin-slave revolts and stuff.
Well... The vast majority of people don't even know or care about the game... But out of those who do, the critics are certainly FAR more vocal (as is always the case on the internet), but I think it's pretty clear they are a minority. Most people simply do not care enough about J.K.Rowling one way or another to influence their decision to buy the game or not. 90% of buyers just go with "I like Harry Potter. I wanna play a Harry Potter game! This one seems fun!"


One thing that's just a reflection of Steam's Up/Down review system is that a game could be "good, not great" but, if consistently so across a large audience, you'll get a lot of Grade B- reviews that add up to "95% positive" and make the game look like the best thing since Pac-Man. In reality, it's an enjoyable game that doesn't break any new ground and isn't going to start a new genre. It's just, you know, a fun game.
That's true, but you can very consistently see review rates being fairly accurate to the game's overall quality... Simply because unless someone REALLY likes (or dislikes) something, they are unlikely to bother reviewing it... So the amount of people who have such strong feelings (good or bad) about a games (usually) a pretty good general measure of how good a game is (provided you like the genre / IP), although it tends to be somewhat biased towards positive reviews (as people who buy the game likely already enjoy the kind of content said game includes).

[Kish]

Heck, 90% of the critical "reviews" are from people who obviously haven't played the game, hence references to goblin-slave revolts and stuff.

I think you possibly overestimate--well, Rowling's worldbuilding, for one thing. The books talk about "goblin rebellions" even though they never indicate goblins were enslaved, leaving what they were rebelling against incoherent. Mashing together goblins and house-elves is obviously logically incorrect, but I wouldn't take doing so as an indication of not having played the game.

[Taevyr]

Playing devil's advocate for a moment: I guess if you're really that petty, you could buy the game, make a bad/good review, and then refund it as you haven't played it over a certain amount of time? Just thinking out loud here.

Though if you have that much time to waste, you really should get a life. Or "touch grass", as I'm told they put it these days.

[Divayth Fyr]

I think you possibly overestimate--well, Rowling's worldbuilding, for one thing. The books talk about "goblin rebellions" even though they never indicate goblins were enslaved, leaving what they were rebelling against incoherent.
Not really though? You don't need slavery involved to have a rebellion, just some sort of established authority you're going against for one reason or the other.

[Jophiel]

Mashing together goblins and house-elves is obviously logically incorrect, but I wouldn't take doing so as an indication of not having played the game.
I would. The goblins are obviously not house-elves and there's no goblin slaves and none of the Angry Goblin chatter in the game references slavery or a desire to not be slaves or whatever. The idea of a slavery rebellion is completely absent from the game. I simply can't imagine anyone playing the game, much less playing it with an attention to create a supposedly unbiased review, and conflating the two.

Even if someone was to confuse house-elves and goblins, they SHOULD be walking away saying "The house-elves are mad about wizard magic and want more power" and leave slavery out of it entirely. Because that's the stuff actually being said in the game they supposedly played even if they attributed it to the wrong fellas.


Playing devil's advocate for a moment: I guess if you're really that petty, you could buy the game, make a bad/good review, and then refund it as you haven't played it over a certain amount of time? Just thinking out loud here.
Possible and I thought about that but I really doubt the number of people motivated enough to do that is statistically significant. If the game just has a few hundred reviews, that could have an impact but I doubt there's multiple thousands of people tweaking the reviews for this game. If it was happening, I'd expect to see it in reverse -- people getting their chance to downrate the game without giving Rowling any money.

OMG maybe it's actually a 97% positive game! :smalltongue:

[Spacewolf]

I would say it's more likely they are conflating the Goblins being an underclass and them being slaves after all.

It's stated that the goblin leaders hatred stems from going for an interview, seeing the wizard drop his wand and try to give it back to him to make a good impression. At which point the wizard lost it over seeing a Goblin holding a wand and beat him half to death and nobody cared.

Though like most games they've had to make the grunt goblins cartoonishly evil so you don't feel bad that you kill hundreds of them in pretty horrible ways. Which is one of the reasons open world games have trouble telling good stories.

[Jophiel]

I haven't felt like the nameless goblin masses are all bad, maybe because I always feel a little guilty killing the guy talking about how great his mom's mushroom stew is. He's humanizing!

Ranrok strikes me as the typical villain who tries to spin some world-changing fight that sounds noble on the surface but is actually him nursing a personal grievance. It's got to sound like "Maybe he has a point" in identifying a problem on the surface so it's not as though he just came into the world cartoonishly evil but then terrible enough in motive, solution and execution that he reasonably needs to be stopped. I suppose MCU Thanos is the archetype for that these days.

[warty goblin]

Had a really fun bit playing this morning where I found some enchanted butterflies, right at dawn. I followed them to a Merlin Trial, right in the middle of a poacher camp. In the dim light I promptly got into a quite excellent duel, and just as day was breaking solved the puzzle.

The whole thing felt fantastic, from the butterflies to the lighting to the fight. I think this game is doing for me what Elden Ring did for a lot of people, provide a big cool fantasy landscape to explore full of cool stuff to do. The difference is that exploring in Elden Ring just led to Elden Ring combat, which is more punishment than reward for me. But exploring here can lead to (actually fun) combat or any number of other things. Simply splendid stuff.

[spectralphoenix]

I'm enjoying things so far, though the game is making me wonder if it's time to look into getting a new machine. I'm sure Starfield won't be any easier, after all.

I would have to agree with everyone who says it's more than the sum of its parts. There's a lot of small flaws that ultimately don't detract from the fact that you have genuinely interesting locales to explore and a solid combat system.

My biggest objection is that the game pretty clearly implies that you're outright killing people, even if you don't use Unforgivable Curses. That was one thing I did like about the later books - it was clear that killing another person was a terrible line to cross, even for a guy like Voldemort.

TBH, I would have liked to see all the wacky curses from the earlier books here. Sort of a finishing-move system - when you finish off the last human enemy, you get to choose a selection of humiliating-to-debilitating curses to hit them with. It would also open up the door for more conflicts with fellow students if you could end fights with the Head-Turns-Into-A-Butt Curse instead of lighting them on fire. It probably would have been a lot of development work for little gameplay payoff though.



The actual victims of this seem to mostly be innocent people. JKR is too big, she doesn't care and had no input on the game anyway. Truly hateful people are fine with this, they're making money from reporting on it and or streaming the game, and getting traffic from it.

The primary people being harmed seem to be small streamers who are nice enough to not be able to deal with the wall of hate, but wanted to play the game anyway.

This is my problem. Even if the boycott had succeeded, and I think we can say that it hasn't, by this point, JKR was never going to change her mind as a result. Too many people just use it as a loyalty test - an excuse to harass (often young and female) streamers for not being part of the tribe.

[pendell]

My biggest objection is that the game pretty clearly implies that you're outright killing people, even if you don't use Unforgivable Curses. That was one thing I did like about the later books - it was clear that killing another person was a terrible line to cross, even for a guy like Voldemort.


So I'm burying a pet today. Perhaps it's made me more introspective than it normally does.

But now that I think of it, it's why I'm not going to be able to get into this particular game, regardless of any other considerations.

The Story of Harry Potter is the story of struggle against Death. Harry Potter is not a killer. The name of the chief villain? Voldemort -- "Flight from Death". "Fear of Death". And yet it's precisely because he's so scared of it that death is his tool of first resort. Making one horcrux requires a human death and tears the soul of the caster, but Voldemort is so frightened of death he makes seven of them, at terrible cost to himself. His followers? The Death Eaters. The series starts with the murder of Harry's parents and the attempted murder of Harry himself -- the Boy Who Lived, because of the final wish of Lily Potter which subverted the otherwise-unblockable aveda kedavra.

Every book follows the same basic theme -- Voldemort in one incarnation or another setting out to make the world the way he wants it by killing people, our daring scooby gang of wizards setting out to save life.

Heck , even Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, the fanfic, got that right.



Chapter 45 (https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/45)

I comprehend your nature, you symbolize Death, through some law of magic you are a shadow that Death casts into the world.

And Death is not something I will ever embrace.

It is only a childish thing, that the human species has not yet outgrown.

And someday...

We'll get over it...

And people won't have to say goodbye any more...

..

And someday when the descendants of humanity have spread from star to star, they won't tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until they're old enough to bear it; and when they learn they'll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!

The figure of a human shone more brilliant now than the noonday Sun, so radiant that Harry could feel the warmth of it on his skin; and Harry sent out all his defiance at the shadow of Death, opening all the floodgates inside him to make that bright shape blaze even brighter and yet brighter.

You are not invincible, and someday the human species will end you.

I will end you if I can, by the power of mind and magic and science.

I won't cower in fear of Death, not while I have a chance of winning.

I won't let Death touch me, I won't let Death touch the ones I love.

And even if you do end me before I end you,

Another will take my place, and another,

Until the wound in the world is healed at last...


So yeah, the story of Harry Potter is a struggle against death that never yields to the temptation to use the great Enemy's own weapon against him -- For The Greater Good, as Grindelwald's slogan went. Dumbledore bought into that for a time. Look where it got him.

Harry Potter ends that series willing to lay down his own life for his convictions, and does, but still comes out all right because love, in the Potterverse, is more powerful than death.

Whatever JK Rowling was when she wrote those books, and whatever she is now, I will always be thankful for her to that insight, whatever other silly ideas she has.

What? One of my favorite authors is RA Heinlein, and he's really problematic from pretty much any angle ( Red has a pretty good takedown of Stranger in a Strange Land (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jAkplrZci0)). If I couldn't separate artist from art, I'd be reading a very small reading list. And I wouldn't be the person writing to you now. Or here at all, come to think of it.

If the Potterverse has a spiritual realization in video games -- that is, not having the license but hitting all the themes -- it would be Undertale.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dragonus45]

Heck , even Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, the fanfic, got that right.

When even HPMOR manages to find the theme under all it's contempt for the source material you know it's hard to miss. Thematically it is the one big flaw in the game as a piece of HP fiction.

[The Glyphstone]

When even HPMOR manages to find the theme under all it's contempt for the source material you know it's hard to miss. Thematically it is the one big flaw in the game as a piece of HP fiction.

I was thinking this exact thing, actually. When even the most notorious HP hate-fic on the internet can recognize it, that's a pretty big indicator it's important.

[Rynjin]

When even HPMOR manages to find the theme under all it's contempt for the source material you know it's hard to miss. Thematically it is the one big flaw in the game as a piece of HP fiction.

It's definitely a hurdle to jump for licensed media: whether all media that use a SETTING needs to hit the same beats/themes as a STORY. I can definitely see people who prefer the that being put off by something that is interested in just the worldbuilding and not much else.

[Psyren]

Somewhat surprisingly, this is becoming something of a dated mindset. Whether it's because of the successes of licensed games that did put in the effort to actually be good games, like the Batman: Arkham series or the recent Spider-Man games, or because the games that fish to make as much money off as little effort as possible migrated away from ordinary console/PC releases into the realm of mobile/live service games, licensed games like this one do tend to be at least reasonably good, and sometimes excellent, these days. Not that there aren't exceptions, but you can usually tell those at a glance, in my experience - Nickelodeon still makes their games on a shoestring budget, for instance, and it shows.

At the least though the worst offenders, the movie tie-in games of old, seem to be well and truly dead.

Yeah I'd say 2014 was a major turning point for this. We got a 1-2-3 punch of Alien Isolation, Shadow of Mordor, South Park Stick of Truth, not to mention a few other recent licensed hits like Telltale's Walking Dead and Arkham City.

[MinimanMidget]

I was thinking this exact thing, actually. When even the most notorious HP hate-fic on the internet can recognize it, that's a pretty big indicator it's important.

No, the most notorious HP hate-fic (unsurprisingly) completely misread one of the most important themes, because the author doesn't agree with it. If anything, he got it exactly backwards. It's not about a struggle against death, it's about accepting death. Voldemort's entire character is built around his fear of death, his refusal to accept his own death. That's what makes him the bad guy. Harry has the opportunity to become "the master of death", but turns it down, because one of the things he had to do to get to this point was to accept his own death. That's one of the reasons he's the good guy.

More (less prominent) examples: Ignotus Peverell accepts his own death, giving the Deathly Hallows story its happy ending. Dumbledore accepts his death and incorporates it into his plans. Nicolas Flamel accepts his death in order to prevent the Philosopher's Stone from being misused.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm gonna do a hot take here. That being, I think the trans community and the progressive(I refuse to use the W word) media shot themselves in the foot.
I think Harry Potter gets a special level of disdain from the trans community--or at least the Millennial trans community-- because they feel betrayed. When they were young and weird and didn't fit with how things were "supposed" to be...then yeah, a story about an out-of-place-orphan-turned-chosen-one is easy (and socially acceptable) to embrace, even to make a part of their identity. And then Rowling turns around and starts insulting them and saying that their existence is invalid, if not predatory.

I'd be angry too.

So if the vitriol associated with this game seems excessive... just remember that some of it is being fueled by feelings of deep betrayal.

[Rynjin]

No, the most notorious HP hate-fic (unsurprisingly) completely misread one of the most important themes, because the author doesn't agree with it. If anything, he got it exactly backwards.

Well, sort of. HPMOR gets the theme correct, it just comes to the conclusion that book Voldemort is exactly correct, and then needs to make a strawman Voldemort who's even more of a psychopath than Wank!Harry to make him look good by comparison.

[warty goblin]

Important discovery: the broomstick works in the Forbidden Forest. Zooming around the understory is now the new best thing.

[pendell]

Well, sort of. HPMOR gets the theme correct, it just comes to the conclusion that book Voldemort is exactly correct, and then needs to make a strawman Voldemort who's even more of a psychopath than Wank!Harry to make him look good by comparison.

I don't believe that's actually true.

Remember the word carved on Lily and James Potter's tombstone: "The Last enemy to be destroyed is death." And indeed, Harry did overcome death and return from it in book 7.

I would argue that death is every bit as much the enemy in the Rowling verse as in the HPMOR universe. The difference is that in the Rowling-verse the deeper magic from before the dawn of time (to steal from CS Lewis) is love. The reason Harry is still alive in book 1 is because his mother's love was a more effective shield than any magic: Nothing can stop avada kedevra, and yet that's exactly what happened.

That is why someone like Dumbledore can lay down his life for the sake of others -- because he believes that death is not the end for him, and that his afterlife will be far better if goes out this way. Someone like Voldemort doesn't have this faith or this hope -- he sees death as .. well, hpmor spells it out very well. Chapter 39 (https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/39)



"All right," Harry said coldly. "I'll answer your original question, then. You asked why Dark Wizards are afraid of death. Pretend, Headmaster, that you really believed in souls. Pretend that anyone could verify the existence of souls at any time, pretend that nobody cried at funerals because they knew their loved ones were still alive. Now can you imagine destroying a soul? Ripping it to shreds so that nothing remains to go on its next great adventure? Can you imagine what a terrible thing that would be, the worst crime that had ever been committed in the history of the universe, which you would do anything to prevent from happening even once? Because that's what Death really is - the annihilation of a soul!"

The old wizard was staring at him, a sad look in his eyes. "I suppose I do understand now," he said quietly.

"Oh?" said Harry. "Understand what?"

"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not?"


Precisely. Voldemort possesses no faith in the Deeper Magic that animates the potter verse, the power that protected Harry as an infant and brought him back from death in book 7. He believes only in what he sees -- and because he has no faith, he has no hope either. All his hope is in his own magic, his own learning, and he doesn't care what the cost is to other people provided he can save his own skin. And so he creates the Horcruxes -- they are his last, final refuge from death. Because he has no faith or trust in any deeper magic and no hope of rest or peace in death. Nor has he ever, so far as I know, ever shown the slightest compassion or empathy for any other living creature, be they wizard, muggle, goblin, or unicorn. He has neither faith, nor hope, nor love. All he has is fear. Which is why what's left of him with Harry in the afterlife is a pitiable wreck, barely human.

Both Rowling and Eliezer get this. The difference between them is based on their outlooks. Eliezer is a person who believes in the power of knowledge and research to overcome death -- which is still a very different approach from Voldemort in HPMOR because HPMOR-Harry has a functioning set of ethics; the understanding that he cannot harm innocents in his quest to overcome death. Rowling would probably say that the HPMOR approach is ultimately futile, because the conquest of death is already possible in the potterverse. But it isn't through the magic of Voldemort or the rationality of HPMOR-potter. It's this deeper magic -- this justice at the core of the world which HPMOR-Dumbledore believes in -- that saved Harry's life once and brought him back a second time.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jophiel]

See, this is why I'm glad I'm not a fan of the franchise. I'm able to enjoy turning a dark wizard into an explosive barrel and then telekinetically hurling it at his friend on its own merits :smallbiggrin:

[Saintheart]

Wait a minute ... why does a wand need a silencer? It's not a firearm, there's no loud BANG when it fires , right?

You clearly haven't downloaded the right mod. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-to-download-gun-mod-for-hogwarts-legacy/ar-AA17v5Ah)


See, this is why I'm glad I'm not a fan of the franchise. I'm able to enjoy turning a dark wizard into an explosive barrel and then telekinetically hurling it at his friend on its own merits

There is a great deal of ROFLMAO even watching youtube videos where the player has pimped his wizard for full power dark magic, Avada Kedavara'ing everything in sight, without a single horrified reaction from any teacher in the school.

[MinimanMidget]

I would argue that death is every bit as much the enemy in the Rowling verse as in the HPMOR universe. The difference is that in the Rowling-verse the deeper magic from before the dawn of time (to steal from CS Lewis) is love.

You're right that love overcomes all is an important theme in HP, but everything else about this take seems fundamentally wrong to me. That said, I already laid out my arguments, and you ignored them, so I guess there's nothing more to discuss.

[Morgaln]

I don't believe that's actually true.

Remember the word carved on Lily and James Potter's tombstone: "The Last enemy to be destroyed is death." And indeed, Harry did overcome death and return from it in book 7.

I would argue that death is every bit as much the enemy in the Rowling verse as in the HPMOR universe. The difference is that in the Rowling-verse the deeper magic from before the dawn of time (to steal from CS Lewis) is love. The reason Harry is still alive in book 1 is because his mother's love was a more effective shield than any magic: Nothing can stop avada kedevra, and yet that's exactly what happened.

That is why someone like Dumbledore can lay down his life for the sake of others -- because he believes that death is not the end for him, and that his afterlife will be far better if goes out this way. Someone like Voldemort doesn't have this faith or this hope -- he sees death as .. well, hpmor spells it out very well. Chapter 39 (https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/39)



Precisely. Voldemort possesses no faith in the Deeper Magic that animates the potter verse, the power that protected Harry as an infant and brought him back from death in book 7. He believes only in what he sees -- and because he has no faith, he has no hope either. All his hope is in his own magic, his own learning, and he doesn't care what the cost is to other people provided he can save his own skin. And so he creates the Horcruxes -- they are his last, final refuge from death. Because he has no faith or trust in any deeper magic and no hope of rest or peace in death. Nor has he ever, so far as I know, ever shown the slightest compassion or empathy for any other living creature, be they wizard, muggle, goblin, or unicorn. He has neither faith, nor hope, nor love. All he has is fear. Which is why what's left of him with Harry in the afterlife is a pitiable wreck, barely human.

Both Rowling and Eliezer get this. The difference between them is based on their outlooks. Eliezer is a person who believes in the power of knowledge and research to overcome death -- which is still a very different approach from Voldemort in HPMOR because HPMOR-Harry has a functioning set of ethics; the understanding that he cannot harm innocents in his quest to overcome death. Rowling would probably say that the HPMOR approach is ultimately futile, because the conquest of death is already possible in the potterverse. But it isn't through the magic of Voldemort or the rationality of HPMOR-potter. It's this deeper magic -- this justice at the core of the world which HPMOR-Dumbledore believes in -- that saved Harry's life once and brought him back a second time.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

I haven't read HPMOR, so I don't know how this excerpt fits into the greater narrative. But taken by itself, it very much reads as "Voldemort is evil because he's an atheist." Unfortunately, forum rules prevent me from going deeper into this, but it is almost as problematic as JKR's views.

[Forum Explorer]

I don't believe that's actually true.

Remember the word carved on Lily and James Potter's tombstone: "The Last enemy to be destroyed is death." And indeed, Harry did overcome death and return from it in book 7.

I would argue that death is every bit as much the enemy in the Rowling verse as in the HPMOR universe. The difference is that in the Rowling-verse the deeper magic from before the dawn of time (to steal from CS Lewis) is love. The reason Harry is still alive in book 1 is because his mother's love was a more effective shield than any magic: Nothing can stop avada kedevra, and yet that's exactly what happened.

That is why someone like Dumbledore can lay down his life for the sake of others -- because he believes that death is not the end for him, and that his afterlife will be far better if goes out this way. Someone like Voldemort doesn't have this faith or this hope -- he sees death as .. well, hpmor spells it out very well. Chapter 39 (https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/39)


I think I disagree with this. Death is not the enemy in Harry Potter, and indeed, the wisest characters and most of the good characters embrace death when it is their time. The story goes out of its way to say souls exist, and so does the afterlife. To quote a different fantasy series 'death is just the next step on their journey'. Meanwhile most forms of immortality in the books are looked down upon or seen as evil. Drinking unicorn blood makes you monstrous, Horcruxes are horrifying, becoming a ghost is described as 'a feeble imitation of life' and described as inferior to just moving on. The only exception seems to be the Philospher's Stone which is destroyed without regrets as Dumbledore describes death as just the next adventure.

While Voldemort is literally named 'fear of death'. That is the driving force of evil in the books. Fear of death. And it isn't a coincidence that Harry is in the House of the Brave.

[Mordokai]

I think Harry Potter gets a special level of disdain from the trans community--or at least the Millennial trans community-- because they feel betrayed. When they were young and weird and didn't fit with how things were "supposed" to be...then yeah, a story about an out-of-place-orphan-turned-chosen-one is easy (and socially acceptable) to embrace, even to make a part of their identity. And then Rowling turns around and starts insulting them and saying that their existence is invalid, if not predatory.

I'd be angry too.

So if the vitriol associated with this game seems excessive... just remember that some of it is being fueled by feelings of deep betrayal.

Yeah, I've seen/read enough to conclude you're probably right. I cannot possibly imagine what they have been through, since I've never had these kinds of problems and HP was never more to me than a fun way to pass time. I've never had any emotional stake in the books, other than the story itself.

I'm not saying having these feelings is wrong, or anything like that. Far from it. I think it's an understandable reaction. But I do believe the visceral, knee-jerk reaction that has been had in response to HL was detrimental to the cause.

[warty goblin]

Also Harry doesn't survive because he was willing to die, but because of Voldemort's efforts to be all powerful and cheat death. HP isn't Narnia, being willing to die for someone else doesn't result in coming back to life (otherwise Lily wouldn't be dead). Rather, self sacrifice protects others, as does the Invisibility Cloak, both the least of the Hallows and the greatest. The other two, the two that most directly let you impose your will on death, either through murder or false resurrection, don't work. The Elder Wand gets you killed, the Resurrection Stone drives you mad.

[The Glyphstone]

I seem to recall having some trans friends who were very specifically angered/betrayed by the death of Tonks, I guess because her ability to change her own body was something to connect to? It's fuzzy and a very long time ago.

[warty goblin]

I seem to recall having some trans friends who were very specifically angered/betrayed by the death of Tonks, I guess because her ability to change her own body was something to connect to? It's fuzzy and a very long time ago.

I seem to remember a lot of people getting really angry that various side characters died at the end, because apparently it's bad writing to have people die during a giant battle. The late stages of Harry Potter fandom were weird.

[The Glyphstone]

Except for Fred. Or was it George? That just got a lot of jokes about how you could finally tell the Weasley twins apart.

[Saintheart]

Also Harry doesn't survive because he was willing to die, but because of Voldemort's efforts to be all powerful and cheat death. HP isn't Narnia, being willing to die for someone else doesn't result in coming back to life (otherwise Lily wouldn't be dead). Rather, self sacrifice protects others, as does the Invisibility Cloak, both the least of the Hallows and the greatest. The other two, the two that most directly let you impose your will on death, either through murder or false resurrection, don't work. The Elder Wand gets you killed, the Resurrection Stone drives you mad.

If I may, that story seems to be more about acceptance of death. The first brother thinks he's overcome Death by force of his own abilities, and is undone by boasting about it. The second brother thinks he's overcome Death by bringing back and hanging onto that which he values most, i.e. his girl who died years ago. He's undone by getting exactly what he wants. The third brother seeks avoidance of Death, thus the invisibility cloak which means Death can't find him. He has a full and good life, including producing and raising sons to follow him, and gives up life on his own terms. He quite literally makes friends with Death.

[Rynjin]

I haven't read HPMOR, so I don't know how this excerpt fits into the greater narrative. But taken by itself, it very much reads as "Voldemort is evil because he's an atheist." Unfortunately, forum rules prevent me from going deeper into this, but it is almost as problematic as JKR's views.

It actually reads as "Voldemort is evil because he's not a Rationalist (buy my philosophy book on sale now!)".

HPMOR is just a big advertisement for Yudkowsky's other big hustle, it exists only to shill his philosophy.

[pendell]

You're right that love overcomes all is an important theme in HP, but everything else about this take seems fundamentally wrong to me. That said, I already laid out my arguments, and you ignored them, so I guess there's nothing more to discuss.

You mean this one, or did you have another?



No, the most notorious HP hate-fic (unsurprisingly) completely misread one of the most important themes, because the author doesn't agree with it. If anything, he got it exactly backwards. It's not about a struggle against death, it's about accepting death. Voldemort's entire character is built around his fear of death, his refusal to accept his own death. That's what makes him the bad guy. Harry has the opportunity to become "the master of death", but turns it down, because one of the things he had to do to get to this point was to accept his own death. That's one of the reasons he's the good guy.

More (less prominent) examples: Ignotus Peverell accepts his own death, giving the Deathly Hallows story its happy ending. Dumbledore accepts his death and incorporates it into his plans. Nicolas Flamel accepts his death in order to prevent the Philosopher's Stone from being misused.


Sorry, not trying to ignore you. Just missed it. But I think here's the key point I'm going to put in italics:

"Voldemort's entire character is built around his fear of death, his refusal to accept his own death."

We talk about "accepting death" -- but in fact each of these characters is rejecting death for someone else. These aren't the prequel-era jedi who will simply let someone die if it is their time -- "mourn them do not, miss them do not", as Yoda said. On the contrary, Dumbledore and the Potters are fighting with all their strength against death , so much so they're willing to lay down their own lives to save those they love. While Lily willingly gave her life, she didn't do it because she liked dying or because she was accepting of her fate, but because she was desperate to save someone else. She's the kind of person who, trapped on a sinking ship and seeing only one seat left in a lifeboat, would put her own son on and go down herself. Contrast that with Voldemort, who would happily massacre everyone else in the boat, including those who counted on him the most, if he could save his own life.

Another word for "death" is "fate". And every one of the characters you mention don't go to their death accepting fate -- they are actively struggling against death with all their strength, but for someone else's sake rather than their own. Like soldiers charging a beach to protect the people they love back home.

Also, I remind you that the words Lily and James had carved on their tombstone is one giant middle finger to death. The difference is they're willing to accept it and trust that there is justice in the world which will make this wrong right. Voldemort doesn't have that trust, so rather than rely on any inherent rightness in the world he clings to life through horcruxes -- through cruelty and injustice to others , a predator living on other wizards as prey. All of these wizards are fighting against death, but not as an abstraction. Voldemort kills others to save himself. Lily and Dumbledore are his opposite, sacrificing their own lives to save other people.

Heck, if I remember correctly when Dumbledore is killed he and Snape are trying to save Draco Malfoy, who is no one's idea of a terrific person who makes the world a better place. In this, Dumbledore's sacrifice for Draco exactly mirrors Aslan's sacrifice for Edmund, who was a liar and a traitor at the time.

There's an irony in that Voldemort sought by every means possible to save his life, but still lost it in the end. By contrast, those who willingly give up their lives for the sake of others keep ... something. Dumbledore shows up at the afterworld train station, as I recall, and for a dead man he looks remarkably well. Certainly better than Voldemort did in the same circumstances.

So it looks to me as if the approach of Dumbledore is a kind of trifecta -- first, to hate death for those you care about. Second, to accept it for themselves as the necessary price of protecting someone else. Finally, to overcome death by being accepted into ... whatever it is Dumbledore is in when he shows up at the train station. To trust in that pesky Deeper Magic, that "justice at the core of the world" in the words of HPMOR-Dumbledore, to make things right for those who live in love and die in hope. It seems paradoxical but it isn't -- accepting death is part and parcel of the process of overcoming it, in the Potterverse. But just because you accept it doesn't mean it's not an enemy -- but the last enemy to be destroyed. The words on that tombstone are not idle -- to the elder Potters, death IS an enemy, not a friend, and WILL be destroyed -- but at some future point, not in their lifetimes. It's the last enemy, one that must be tolerated for a season, but still an enemy.

If Rowling didn't go over these themes as closely as Lewis did, it's because she is, in this respect , a better writer, since these themes are relatively subtle in the books rather than dropping allegorical anvils. If the Chronicles of Narnia are pancakes and allegory is syrup, you're looking at a lake of maple with a few small patties somewhere in the middle.

As for Ignotus Peverell, he created a device that allowed him to hide from death and thereby greatly extended his own life. That's .. not exactly the same thing as accepting death. If you accept something, you neither run, hide, nor fight it. You just give over to it. Still, Ignotus seems to believe this approach was preferable to being unbeatable in wizard combat or dragging the memories of the dead back from wherever they are. It's as much victory over death as a person can have in this life -- a long life and a happy one. But that's still not the same thing as accepting it calmly.

If there are Pratchett fans here, it reminds me of the Rincewind approach to adversity, which is that when danger comes calling, Rincewind will run away (https://youtu.be/92gP2J0CUjc) :smallamused:.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dragonus45]

I haven't read HPMOR, so I don't know how this excerpt fits into the greater narrative. But taken by itself, it very much reads as "Voldemort is evil because he's an atheist." Unfortunately, forum rules prevent me from going deeper into this, but it is almost as problematic as JKR's views.

I mean HPMOR isn't exactly great writing on it's own and it took forever to end so I wouldn't be surprised if the greater narrative got confused as heck, I finished it out of spite but it's been 7 years and it's not the kind of thing I would ever want to reread. I can say for certain is that that would never come up as a main theme for the story.

[Kish]

{scrubbed}

Discussing whether she's right would fly in the face of the comment policy here, and discussing whether HPMOR correctly paraphrases Voldemort's views, or whether HPMOR's Dumbledore correctly summarizes her intended reason for those views, is on extremely shaky ground. I will say, hopefully at enough of a remove from the direct subject to be safe, that Rowling meant "Voldemort fears death and will do anything to avoid it" as a great negative and the HPMOR author's ability to accurately describe any part of her philosophy was hobbled by believing with all his heart that that was the only proper attitude toward death.

(Nor is it as simple as "death for other people is bad"; Dumbledore expresses beaming approval of Nicholas Flamel's decision that he and his wife will die at the end of Philosopher's Stone, saying "To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.")

Rowling's writing indicates the three beliefs, which I will state without editorializing because of the comment policy:

1) Killing a human is super bad, harder to justify than torture or mind control, both of which Harry does and are presented as permissable or laudable.
2) Prolonging your own or someone else's life is permissable or laudable depending on the circumstances.
3) Trying to actually live forever is bad.

[Rynjin]

Rowling meant "Voldemort fears death and will do anything to avoid it" as a great negative and the HPMOR author's ability to accurately describe any part of her philosophy was hobbled by believing with all his heart that that was the only proper attitude toward death.

This is pretty much what I was trying to get at before. Yudkowsky wholeheartedly believes that Voldemort is correct, even if his methods are wrong. That meant he had to utterly change the character just to make his own plot work.

HPMOR, as the title implies, is just a Rationalist manifesto. Everything in the story, from the abject CONTEMPT it has for Ron (even more than the movies in that regard) to its ultimate handling of the final conflict is born from the desire to editorialize his philosophy in a "hip and cool way the kids will understand".

[Dragonus45]

This is pretty much what I was trying to get at before. Yudkowsky wholeheartedly believes that Voldemort is correct, even if his methods are wrong. That meant he had to utterly change the character just to make his own plot work.

HPMOR, as the title implies, is just a Rationalist manifesto. Everything in the story, from the abject CONTEMPT it has for Ron (even more than the movies in that regard) to its ultimate handling of the final conflict is born from the desire to editorialize his philosophy in a "hip and cool way the kids will understand".

I will say that while they come to different end points for what the correct answer to the question of death is both stories at least agree that death itself is the great final enemy and driving force behind the plots. I would say that if it weren't actually impossible to do so in the proper Harry Potter world then ethical immortality would probably be the correct long term goal as well. It's hard to compare past those points though because Eliezer decided to actively rewrite the very core rules of the universe itself when he decided to vandalize it to make his fan fiction of it.

[pendell]

I'm actually closer to Rowling's outlook than Eliezer's, but she and Tolkien both have this idea of death as something to be welcomed or, at least, accepted. We read through the Silmarillion not that long ago, and the fear of death which the Numenoreans possessed was the seed of poison that eventually resulted first in their degeneration into a human-sacrificing Morgoth cult and then in the annihilation of the culture from the face of Middle-Earth -- all except a tiny band of refugees who founded Gondor and Arnor.

The thing is, in both those cases, we can't look at death as a thing in and of itself but as a part of the system which includes the Valar and Illuvatar. The Valar do not council men to simply roll over for death, but to wait in hope -- "the desire for this world was planted in your hearts by Illuvatar, and he does not plant to no purpose. Hope rather that in the end the least of your desires will bear fruit, lest the trust to which you are called again become a bond by which you are constrained."

In other words, the Numenoreans are supposed to regard death as a temporary state, after which the choirs of the world will sing and the world will be made both anew and aright; to accept death with a mixture of both faith in the Valar and a hope for the future, even when all seems lost.

The reason they can do this is because they cannot regard death as annihilation; the permanent cessation of thought, of feeling, of emotion, of self. If they did regard it this way, well, that's precisely what Sauron led them to: Worship of Morgoth as the lord of the dark to protect them from it, and it probably helped motivate the Nazgul as well.

I can understand the need to regard death with a degree of resignation and hope but the acceptance of death as a thing good in and of itself -- as opposed to "the last enemy" -- well, it seems peculiarly British. That is, British authors talk that way but American authors don't. American authors of the same philosophical bent as Rowling and Tolkien tend to go along with Yudkowski, an American himself, in Chapter 39 (https://www.hpmor.com/chapter/39).



If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all sorts of philosophers, pretending to be wise as you put it, who found all sorts of amazing benefits to being hit on the head with a truncheon once a month. Like, it makes you tougher, or it makes you happier on the days when you're not getting hit with a truncheon. But if you went up to someone who wasn't getting hit, and you asked them if they wanted to start, in exchange for those amazing benefits, they'd say no.


Frankly, I find his perspective refreshing and clarifying compared to this muddled idea of "oooh, death is a good thing". Speaking as someone who buried a pet yesterday what a tremendous load of hogwash. Maybe death is something we have to suffer through and maybe we have to go through it and wait patiently for something better there is absolutely no way I'm ever going to call it a good thing, even in fictional universes like OOTsverse where it's a revolving door for adventurers.

*picks up a metaphorical crowbar in his strong hand, tapping it thoughtfully in his other*.

When death finally comes for me I will not be greeting him as an old friend. And if I can't win, I'm going to do my best to make him remember what happens next. Morgoth killed Fingolfin, after all, but Fingolfin still stabbed seven kinds of stuffing out of him on the way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rynjin]

Thing is, very few people actually believe death is a good thing in and of itself. Nobody is arguing that, and setting it up as a real argument is purely a strawman.

Accepting death as an inevitability that one must face with dignity is not the same as viewing it as something to be welcomed with open arms.

[pendell]

Thing is, very few people actually believe death is a good thing in and of itself. Nobody is arguing that, and setting it up as a real argument is purely a strawman.

Accepting death as an inevitability that one must face with dignity is not the same as viewing it as something to be welcomed with open arms.

Hey it's Tolkien who's calling it, without irony, "the gift of men". And my response to him is: "I hope you kept the receipt."

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Forum Explorer]

*Snipped*

Living is exhausting. Living is depressing. Living is painful. For a lot of people death comes not as a terrible monster taking you away from everything you love, but as a relief from the suffering you've been enduring. Growing old is brutal. You ache all over, you can barely move, your senses are dull, and it can be physically hard to think. You can't do much more than just watch the world go by. And that's an inevitability. If you are lucky and privileged you can avoid most of the suffering of life. You won't be crippled by injury or disease. You won't go hungry. You won't get beaten or just have to deal with constant failure. You will still have to deal with the pain of losing loved ones, and you'll still grow old. That you can't dodge no matter what.

So death is a mercy. You finally get to stop suffering. And for those who believe in life after death, you've got a lot to look forward to, be it a paradise with all your loved ones or just a new life, whatever your beliefs may be.

Immortality sounds nice, but only if it is paired with agelessness thank you very much. Otherwise you are just signing up for an eternity of torture.

Which, to bring this back to Harry Potter, is exactly what Voldemort did. Drinking unicorn blood curses you to a wretched existence, while being a wraith is a horrible life where you mostly can't effect the world. And it took a lot to resurrect him. It took multiple fanatics working together to pull it off and it still needed a fair bit of luck to succeed. And in return he becomes a freakish monster of a man who is unstable in every sense of the word. And it is revealed that he's poisoned his afterlife, whatever he was going to get, he instead is going to exist as a flayed baby, an existence of both helplessness and agony for the rest of eternity.

[Sapphire Guard]

Harry's attitude is not universal, even in the wizarding world. And the 1800s almost certainly have a different mindset. If there is a wider war against goblins happening, maybe they loosened restrictions.

The thing about the Unforgiveables is, they come with an automatic life sentence in Azkaban (my assumption being because they come with built in mens rea, you can't use them unless you mean to, so criminal intent is automatic, whereas for most other things you can claim mind control). Maybe that's not true in the 1800s but they have been unforgiveable since 1715.

Even your average dark wizard isn't going to use those casually, because they come with hard time. Only someone like Voldemort, who has nothing to lose because he's already looking at everything the Ministry can throw at him if they ever succeed in bringing him down, should use em casually.

The thing on the tomb is a bible quote, so what it means is probably in that context. Whoever carved the tombstone did it, it isn't a family motto or anything.

It's just a gameplay deal so you can be a dark wizard if you like.


I can understand the need to regard death with a degree of resignation and hope but the acceptance of death as a thing good in and of itself -- as opposed to "the last enemy" -- well, it seems peculiarly British. That is, British authors talk that way but American authors don't. American authors of the same philosophical bent as Rowling and Tolkien tend to go along with Yudkowski, an American himself, in Chapter 39 .

I think you may be misunderstanding. Leaving aside that no national literary tradition is a monolith, the whole 'stiff upper lip' thing is not about looking forward to death as a good thing, but that it's inevitable and flailing, panicking, or screaming into the void is at a minimum not helpful and may be detrimental to either yourself or other people.


I think Harry Potter gets a special level of disdain from the trans community--or at least the Millennial trans community-- because they feel betrayed. When they were young and weird and didn't fit with how things were "supposed" to be...then yeah, a story about an out-of-place-orphan-turned-chosen-one is easy (and socially acceptable) to embrace, even to make a part of their identity.

While that is true, if you identify heavily with a work of fiction, that does not mean you have been betrayed if they do not affirm that. It is deeply unfortunate that this happened for those that feel betrayed, given their circumstances, but 'I love and am deeply invested in X, therefore I have the right to control X and anything that diverges from that is betrayal' is abusive behaviour.

[Rynjin]

Death of the author was made for circumstances like this. If somebody wants to read a trans positive message into Harry Potter and take comfort from that, they should. Regardless of what the author says to the contrary.

I used to think Ender's Game was a very gay positive story. I still choose to believe that, even if the author wouldn't so much as piss on a gay person if they were on fire.

[warty goblin]

While that is true, if you identify heavily with a work of fiction, that does not mean you have been betrayed if they do not affirm that. It is deeply unfortunate that this happened for those that feel betrayed, given their circumstances, but 'I love and am deeply invested in X, therefore I have the right to control X and anything that diverges from that is betrayal' is abusive behaviour.

Abusive behavior is much stronger language than I'd use, though it certainly can lead to fans doing abusive things like death threats and so on. Rather it's part of the weird sense of fan ownership that fandoms seem to spawn. I've always found this a bit baffling; I'm not sure anybody owns a story - outside of a very literal legal sense not really even the author - and certainly not a community who likes it very much. They can be emotionally invested in it, and that's great, but any number of communities can be that, often for very different reasons. I'd rather not try to parse which fans 'own' something and which don't. Normally we'd call that gatekeeping.

[Dragonus45]

Death of the author was made for circumstances like this. If somebody wants to read a trans positive message into Harry Potter and take comfort from that, they should. Regardless of what the author says to the contrary.

I used to think Ender's Game was a very gay positive story. I still choose to believe that, even if the author wouldn't so much as piss on a gay person if they were on fire.

Same about Ender's Game, I still feel betrayed there. It's hard to separate the two things in situations like this one though where they are very much alive and on twitter.

[Rynjin]

Orson Scott Card is also both of those things but he's surprisingly better at keeping his mouth shut for someone whose literature over the past ~15 years have basically been nothing but religious and political manifestos.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Thing is, very few people actually believe death is a good thing in and of itself. Nobody is arguing that, and setting it up as a real argument is purely a strawman.

Accepting death as an inevitability that one must face with dignity is not the same as viewing it as something to be welcomed with open arms.

Not to get too philosophical, but I do view death as a good thing. Its not something to rush towards, mind, but death gives important context to life. It gives it meaning and purpose in my opinion. It is still sad to lose someone or some pet, but that's still my thought on the matter. Much like pain can be used to learn and makes happiness all the more poignant, death is the same for life as a whole.

[warty goblin]

Made it to the first Trial. That's a pretty excellent magical Tomb Raider tomb there.

I have been consistently impressed with the puzzle design in this. They aren't hard necessarily, but they do require reasonably close observation, and a certain degree of thought and deduction on the part of player. On a number of occasions I've thought I needed a spell I don't have, only to realize I wasn't thinking about the problem correctly. Decidedly above average for this sort of thing I'd say.

[Taevyr]

I used to think Ender's Game was a very gay positive story. I still choose to believe that, even if the author wouldn't so much as piss on a gay person if they were on fire.

Probably the best example of "Death of the Author" out there concerning subtext. It boggles my mind that he accidentally made it so gay positive, particularly since most people I know that read it see the exact same subtext he'd probably hope to avoid like the plague.

Hell, in the case of someone like Lovecraft, you could make the argument that his boundless racism, even for the early 20th century, was probably part of the reason he wrote such good "fear of the unknown/other" horror stories. Doesn't excuse it in any way, nor would I say said racism taints (most of) his stories (some of'em become rather iffy knowing it), but it's interesting to consider.

[Rater202]

In Lovecraft's case if you look at his stories in production order you can see that his attitudes towards other races sort of soften over time, and he also seemed to have some awareness that his fear of other peoples and cultures was irrational.

And to my knowledge in his case, it was in fact mostly fear, rather than hatred.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Closed for review.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Thread re-opened.

[pendell]

So I see this thread has re-opened. it's only tangentially related but I saw this facebook video (7 minutes six seconds) spoof Hogwarts does online learning (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=930071324681885&ref=sharing) in 2020.

...

I guess it's a sign of age that I strongly identify with this portrayal of Snape, constantly sighing and eyerolling as he tries to keep the class focused on the material for longer than three minutes at a go, while trying not to sink too deeply into a Tequila Sunrise which is his own coping mechanism for Zoom class.

As someone who spends 1.5-2 hours a day in Zoom, I so identify.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jophiel]

Made it to the first Trial. That's a pretty excellent magical Tomb Raider tomb there.

I have been consistently impressed with the puzzle design in this. They aren't hard necessarily, but they do require reasonably close observation, and a certain degree of thought and deduction on the part of player. On a number of occasions I've thought I needed a spell I don't have, only to realize I wasn't thinking about the problem correctly. Decidedly above average for this sort of thing I'd say.

My gripe is that the rewards don't necessarily reflect the effort. More specifically, there's a dungeon/trial where the first series you get some unique cosmetics and fulfill a friend side quest. But the second series is way more complicated and just gives you the same chests you could get by committing breaking & entry in the towns. I looked up the walkthrough and then just bailed when I saw how much there was to do just to get some red arrow gear or an Infernio rank one charm :smallyuk:

I was fine with the puzzles for the plot trials, though.

[warty goblin]

My gripe is that the rewards don't necessarily reflect the effort. More specifically, there's a dungeon/trial where the first series you get some unique cosmetics and fulfill a friend side quest. But the second series is way more complicated and just gives you the same chests you could get by committing breaking & entry in the towns. I looked up the walkthrough and then just bailed when I saw how much there was to do just to get some red arrow gear or an Infernio rank one charm :smallyuk:

I was fine with the puzzles for the plot trials, though.

Meh, I don't care about the rewards. I do stuff because doing it is fun. Every now and again I switch out the gear for something better, then remap it to more or less my current look. That said, there's no way in hell I'm 100%ing this thing, I'm planning on finishing the main story and as much side content as I feel like en route.

[Jophiel]

Meh, I don't care about the rewards. I do stuff because doing it is fun.
[whynotboth.jpg]

More explicitly, it's just weird that the first set gives you several unique things and the second, harder and more time-consuming one, gives you essentially nothing. But I don't get a ton of fun out of that sort of puzzle so the cheese at the end of the maze means more to me. For those who enjoy sliding blocks around on its own merits, it falls under stuff like decorating your vivarium -- not for me but glad that someone is having fun with it (and easily ignored if you're not finding it fun).

[warty goblin]

[whynotboth.jpg]

More explicitly, it's just weird that the first set gives you several unique things and the second, harder and more time-consuming one, gives you essentially nothing. But I don't get a ton of fun out of that sort of puzzle so the cheese at the end of the maze means more to me. For those who enjoy sliding blocks around on its own merits, it falls under stuff like decorating your vivarium -- not for me but glad that someone is having fun with it (and easily ignored if you're not finding it fun).

It's very hard to have a game built equally around intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Anymore most games go for extrinsic, probably because get this shiny powerful thing is really easy to monetize, and extrinsic rewards are extremely motivating. What they aren't is satisfying, you get like 10 seconds of enjoyment, feel deflated, and hop right back on the hedonic treadmill for more. I'm rather liking how intrinsically motivated HL tends to be. It isn't purely so by any means, but it's much more so than a lot of games like this.

[137beth]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Thread re-opened.

That's impossible: there is no magic in the Potterverse that can reverse thread death. This ain't D&D: there's no Raise Thread spell. The main theme might be that you have to accept thread death, or might not be: we've were arguing about it before the thread died.

[Bohandas]

Frankly, I find his perspective refreshing and clarifying compared to this muddled idea of "oooh, death is a good thing". Speaking as someone who buried a pet yesterday what a tremendous load of hogwash. Maybe death is something we have to suffer through and maybe we have to go through it and wait patiently for something better there is absolutely no way I'm ever going to call it a good thing, even in fictional universes like OOTsverse where it's a revolving door for adventurers.

*picks up a metaphorical crowbar in his strong hand, tapping it thoughtfully in his other*.

When death finally comes for me I will not be greeting him as an old friend. And if I can't win, I'm going to do my best to make him remember what happens next. Morgoth killed Fingolfin, after all, but Fingolfin still stabbed seven kinds of stuffing out of him on the way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I personally plan to have my brain plastinated in the hope that sometime in the future it can be uploaded. This would likely be more lossy than preservation by freezing but less prone to total failure due to things like loss of power or the cryonics company going bust


Living is exhausting. Living is depressing. Living is painful. For a lot of people death comes not as a terrible monster taking you away from everything you love, but as a relief from the suffering you've been enduring. Growing old is brutal. You ache all over, you can barely move, your senses are dull, and it can be physically hard to think. You can't do much more than just watch the world go by. And that's an inevitability. If you are lucky and privileged you can avoid most of the suffering of life. You won't be crippled by injury or disease. You won't go hungry. You won't get beaten or just have to deal with constant failure. You will still have to deal with the pain of losing loved ones, and you'll still grow old. That you can't dodge no matter what.

So death is a mercy. You finally get to stop suffering. And for those who believe in life after death, you've got a lot to look forward to, be it a paradise with all your loved ones or just a new life, whatever your beliefs may be.

You're assuming the comclusion. What you say is only true in tje first place because of death. Without death your dosage of painkillers and antidepressants could be increased without limit or consequence

.
EDIT:

Of course none of this is applicable to the potterverse since Voldemort had proof of the existence of life after death in the form of the many ghosts haunting Hogwarts, thus making the whole horcrux thing needlessly redundant

[Peelee]

there's no Raise Thread spell.

Post #4. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?595883-Grok-amp-Grok)

[Jophiel]

It's very hard to have a game built equally around intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Anymore most games go for extrinsic, probably because get this shiny powerful thing is really easy to monetize, and extrinsic rewards are extremely motivating. What they aren't is satisfying, you get like 10 seconds of enjoyment, feel deflated, and hop right back on the hedonic treadmill for more. I'm rather liking how intrinsically motivated HL tends to be. It isn't purely so by any means, but it's much more so than a lot of games like this.
I'm very much enjoying the game but I really disagree there. I'd say that much of the game is a string of very short-term puzzles/rewards with many of them culminating in some other greater reward (after completing X many events) to the point where you might think the devs were afraid that you'd get bored if you were expected to just play for playing's sake versus playing for a reward. You can't swing a kneazle without hitting a Merlin trial, poacher camp and two vaults where it's literally "walk into this hole and get a free chest". Heck, even the trial I mentioned still has the usual assortment of immediate rewards in the form of chests; just nothing that makes those chests more interesting than chests gained in much simpler ways. They're not really saying "The reward was in the doing all along!" so much as "Well, you did it so, uh, here's some stuff I guess".

[MCerberus]

Considering the material, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the thread has split its essence through unspeakable scrubbed acts and is now continuing on in a dark mockery of life?

[Forum Explorer]

You're assuming the comclusion. What you say is only true in tje first place because of death. Without death your dosage of painkillers and antidepressants could be increased without limit or consequence


...Not really. If you dose me up with a ludicrous amount of painkillers I might not be in any pain, but I also likely can't move or do anything either. Painkillers have a lot of effects besides just reducing pain. Though if my heart stops, (or goes down to a super low HR anyways) and I don't die, I think I'd still be basically unconscious. That's plenty of consequence right there.

And modern technology can almost kinda do that these days. You'd be amazed at how far we can go. If you are in a hospital they can keep you alive through a lot. To the point where you can be stuck in bed, unable to move, with a machine breathing for you as you just lay there. But you're alive! Look up some nurse horror stories about not letting patients die. It's not pleasant.

[Bohandas]

...Not really. If you dose me up with a ludicrous amount of painkillers I might not be in any pain, but I also likely can't move or do anything either. Painkillers have a lot of effects besides just reducing pain. Though if my heart stops, (or goes down to a super low HR anyways) and I don't die, I think I'd still be basically unconscious. That's plenty of consequence right there.

Well I think the thing to do in that case is to replace it with an electromechanical pump. (Which is actually the main thing I had in mind for this anyway)

And failing the pharmaceutical route, there's also bilateral cingulotomy; surgical disconnection of the brain's pain center

EDIT:
Also, there's plenty of non-opioid anesthetics, such as benzoylmethylecgonine. That of course has its own side effects but they can also be sidestepped with an artificial heart

[Mordokai]

EDIT:
Also, there's plenty of non-opioid anesthetics, such as benzoylmethylecgonine

Eh.

Aspirin increases the chance of bleeding, acetaminophen is dangerous to livers and there are probably others I'm forgetting right now.

This is a bit of devil advocacy from my side again. Of course, you're gonna take something to make the pain go away if you're in pain, but even OTC painkillers can have some pretty serious side effects, when taken in too big of a dose. Sure, NSAIDs are nowhere near as dangerous as opioids, either when it comes to overdosing or anything else, but you can screw yourself royally, even with OTC painkillers. Especially for a layman.

[Batcathat]

I feel like a lot of authors who want to include a "Immortality is Bad" message kind of take a shortcut by having the method used to achieve it be immoral, instead of actually exploring possible downsides to it for society or the individual (and if they do, they frequently default to the classic "Immortality sucks because everyone else dies and/or you just get vaguely sick of life after a while").

[Rater202]

Fantastic Beasts, the films, showed that while the Elixir of Life keeps you alive and healthy it doesn't stop you from aging, Nicholas Flamel is so old and frail that a handshake breaks his fingers.

Yeah, another fifty ears of that and I buy "yeah, I'm ready to go."

[Forum Explorer]

Well I think the thing to do in that case is to replace it with an electromechanical pump. (Which is actually the main thing I had in mind for this anyway)

And failing the pharmaceutical route, there's also bilateral cingulotomy; surgical disconnection of the brain's pain center

EDIT:
Also, there's plenty of non-opioid anesthetics, such as benzoylmethylecgonine. That of course has its own side effects but they can also be sidestepped with an artificial heart

We are moving a little away from your point of pain control to the mechanics of immortality. My point is that managing pain has plenty of its own nasty side effects, and even if you do manage the physicals pain, that's only one piece of the puzzle. You still are almost immobile. You still can barely think. You still have lost your family and friends.

Until all of those things are hit, I don't think immortality is worth it. How you get the agelessness can vary. Maybe you've uploaded yourself to machines, maybe you found the potion of youth, whatever. Point is, being stuck in a rotting body sounds like hell and I'd rather be dead than experience an eternity of that. You can improve things and push your max age higher and higher, but that eternity is a long time, and we've got a long way to go to get there.

Though of the immortalities presented in Harry Potter being a ghost doesn't seem that bad. You can't physically touch or feel anything, but you can read, you can listen to music, you can enjoy a nice conversation. You can even seemingly do research and teach others. Though like most Harry Potter things, I don't think they explain ghosts that well.

[Anymage]

The concept of quality of life is key here. Have me live forever but I'm chained to a rock and have my innards eaten each day? I might well wish for the sweet relief of death. A post-scarcity utopia where old age and debility have been defeated and consequently you can keep going forever? Sign me up. How well humans would practically adapt to such a potential utopia, and if/when they reach a point where the inhabitants have changed to the point that they're no longer considered human, are up for massive debate since we have little in the way of real world examples. (Note that "no longer considered human" is not necessarily a bad thing. This is rather far from Potter, but transhumanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) is a thing that one could make a good case for.)

On the topic of the potterverse, and I'm going off of old memories of the core books here, wizards have very good reasons to believe that an afterlife exists even if they don't know what actually goes on there. Being a ghost likely has plenty of quality of lifeexistence drawbacks that make most people consider the afterlife plunge a better bet than various methods of trying to dodge it.

[pendell]

The concept of quality of life is key here. Have me live forever but I'm chained to a rock and have my innards eaten each day? I might well wish for the sweet relief of death. A post-scarcity utopia where old age and debility have been defeated and consequently you can keep going forever? Sign me up. How well humans would practically adapt to such a potential utopia, and if/when they reach a point where the inhabitants have changed to the point that they're no longer considered human, are up for massive debate since we have little in the way of real world examples. (Note that "no longer considered human" is not necessarily a bad thing. This is rather far from Potter, but transhumanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) is a thing that one could make a good case for.)

On the topic of the potterverse, and I'm going off of old memories of the core books here, wizards have very good reasons to believe that an afterlife exists even if they don't know what actually goes on there. Being a ghost likely has plenty of quality of lifeexistence drawbacks that make most people consider the afterlife plunge a better bet than various methods of trying to dodge it.

I'm reminded of this passage from Dragonlance's "Time of the Twins" , by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman. Let's peak in on Raistlin Majere, the most powerful black-robed wizard that ever lived in those books --



Known as the Chamber of Seeing, it was Raistlin’s creation.

Within the center of the small room of cold stone was a perfectly round pool of still, dark water. From the center of the strange, unnatural pond spurted a jet of blue flame. Rising to the ceiling of the chamber, it burned eternally, day and night.

And around it, eternally, sat the Live Ones.

Though the most powerful mage living upon Krynn, Raistlin’s power was far from complete, and no one realized that more than the mage himself. He was always forcibly reminded of his weaknesses when he came into this room – one reason he avoided it, if possible. For here were the visible, outward symbols of his failures – the Live Ones.

Wretched creatures mistakenly created by magic gone awry, they were held in thrall in this chamber, serving their creator.

Here they lived out their tortured lives, writhing in a larva-like, bleeding mass about the flaming pool. Their shining wet bodies made a horrible carpet for the floor, whose stones, made slick with their oozings, could be seen only when they parted to make room for their creator.

Yet, despite their lives of constant, twisted pain, the Live Ones spoke no word of complaint. Far better their lot than those who roamed the Tower, those known as the Dead Ones.


People say things like "I'll have a nice rest when I'm dead" -- but I've never got any postcards from deadland telling me how wonderful it is there. For all we know, death is only the start of our problems, compared to which the most horrific pain on earth is a toddler's scraped knee.

There's a whole mythology out there about the hungry ghosts -- things that used to be people, that know what it is to be alive and know it can never, never be theirs again. Consumed by envy and jealousy for the living, eventually they can do nothing save try to drag the living down to their own level. The Undead in the dragonlance world desire and hunger for the warmth of the living, which they can never, ever have on their own again. The closest they can get is to take it from the living , and even then only temporarily.

We can't discuss real-life things here. But in OOTS verse of the nine afterlives on the wheel only three of them are particularly pleasant -- and even in those three , you're still acting as a battery, slowly being consumed by the entities on the outer planes to power their own lifecycles. It's a comfortable, organic, free-range farm compared to the slaughterhouses comprising the evil planes, but a farm it is nonetheless.

If it were an option , I'd take HP option #3 -- eternal life without requiring the unethical sacrifice of the innocent, and to live in the health of my 20s.



"Yes, and so do you," said Harry. "I want to live one more day. Tomorrow I will still want to live one more day. Therefore I want to live forever, proof by induction on the positive integers. If you don't want to die, it means you want to live forever. If you don't want to live forever, it means you want to die. You've got to do one or the other... I'm not getting through here, am I."

The two cultures stared at each other across a vast gap of incommensurability.

"I have lived a hundred and ten years," the old wizard said quietly (taking his beard out of the bowl, and jiggling it to shake out the color). "I have seen and done a great many things, too many of which I wish I had never seen or done. And yet I do not regret being alive, for watching my students grow is a joy that has not begun to wear on me. But I would not wish to live so long that it does! What would you do with eternity, Harry?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Meet all the interesting people in the world, read all the good books and then write something even better, celebrate my first grandchild's tenth birthday party on the Moon, celebrate my first great-great-great grandchild's hundredth birthday party around the Rings of Saturn, learn the deepest and final rules of Nature, understand the nature of consciousness, find out why anything exists in the first place, visit other stars, discover aliens, create aliens, rendezvous with everyone for a party on the other side of the Milky Way once we've explored the whole thing, meet up with everyone else who was born on Old Earth to watch the Sun finally go out, and I used to worry about finding a way to escape this universe before it ran out of negentropy but I'm a lot more hopeful now that I've discovered the so-called laws of physics are just optional guidelines."

"I did not understand much of that," said Dumbledore. "But I must ask if these are things that you truly desire so desperately, or if you only imagine them so as to imagine not being tired, as you run and run from death."

"Life is not a finite list of things that you check off before you're allowed to die," Harry said firmly. "It's life, you just go on living it. If I'm not doing those things it'll be because I've found something better."

Dumbledore sighed. His fingers drummed on a clock; as they touched it, the numerals changed to an indecipherable script, and the hands briefly appeared in different positions. "In the unlikely event that I am permitted to tarry until a hundred and fifty," said the old wizard, "I do not think I would mind. But two hundred years would be entirely too much of a good thing."

"Yes, well," Harry said, his voice a little dry as he thought of his Mum and Dad and their allotted span if Harry didn't do something about it, "I suspect, Headmaster, that if you came from a culture where people were accustomed to living four hundred years, that dying at two hundred would seem just as tragically premature as dying at, say, eighty." Harry's voice went hard, on that last word.


Perhaps I won't live to see it, but I'd love for our descendants to have that kind of life. And since there's no room for that many people living forever on Earth -- well, it's a good thing we have galaxies upon galaxies upon galaxies out there.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Morgaln]

Fantastic Beasts, the films, showed that while the Elixir of Life keeps you alive and healthy it doesn't stop you from aging, Nicholas Flamel is so old and frail that a handshake breaks his fingers.

Yeah, another fifty ears of that and I buy "yeah, I'm ready to go."

That one is actually older than dirt, because even the ancient Greeks had that tale (see Tithonus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus)).




People say things like "I'll have a nice rest when I'm dead" -- but I've never got any postcards from deadland telling me how wonderful it is there. For all we know, death is only the start of our problems, compared to which the most horrific pain on earth is a toddler's scraped knee.

There's a whole mythology out there about the hungry ghosts -- things that used to be people, that know what it is to be alive and know it can never, never be theirs again. Consumed by envy and jealousy for the living, eventually they can do nothing save try to drag the living down to their own level. The Undead in the dragonlance world desire and hunger for the warmth of the living, which they can never, ever have on their own again. The closest they can get is to take it from the living , and even then only temporarily.

We can't discuss real-life things here. But in OOTS verse of the nine afterlives on the wheel only three of them are particularly pleasant -- and even in those three , you're still acting as a battery, slowly being consumed by the entities on the outer planes to power their own lifecycles. It's a comfortable, organic, free-range farm compared to the slaughterhouses comprising the evil planes, but a farm it is nonetheless.

If it were an option , I'd take HP option #3 -- eternal life without requiring the unethical sacrifice of the innocent, and to live in the health of my 20s.


That sounds all nice and dandy if it's only you that is living forever young, but once you have 7 billion people that all don't die and keep producing more people that don't die, soon you won't need to die to experience hell.
Honestly, I expect death to be the end. Therefore, I'm not afraid of being dead. I don't want to die, mind you, but once I am dead, it won't matter. You need consciousness to experience things, and I don't expect (or even want) to have one afterwards.

[Bohandas]

Another great thing that would happen if death were somehow defeated is that we could finally have a society that isn't a ponzi scheme type operation dependent on a constant influx of new people

[Ionathus]

This conversation is reminding me of two things, one much more whimsical than the other:

1. The guy in the tavern in Sandman who wants to live forever (I've only seen the Netflix adaptation, dunno if it's different in the original)

2. The characters in the Scythe series, who are all kinda sorta bored of immortality but by no means want to die.

It's an interesting topic that I like to discuss. Having not played HL I'm not sure how relevant it is to the game's story though - is there a theme of pursuing immortality here too? Or are we just talking about it because the OG Harry Potter series explored it?

[Dragonus45]

This conversation is reminding me of two things, one much more whimsical than the other:

1. The guy in the tavern in Sandman who wants to live forever (I've only seen the Netflix adaptation, dunno if it's different in the original)

2. The characters in the Scythe series, who are all kinda sorta bored of immortality but by no means want to die.

It's an interesting topic that I like to discuss. Having not played HL I'm not sure how relevant it is to the game's story though - is there a theme of pursuing immortality here too? Or are we just talking about it because the OG Harry Potter series explored it?

It's relevant mostly in that it's the place where thematically the game breaks off the most from the books. Not so much in the pursuit of immortality itself but as a question of how the two handle death and killing differently. The books decidedly come down on the side of not killing even in self defense. Not so much that they judge people who do so, but in that it makes a point of talking about the terrible cost of taking a life can have on a person. The game? Press L1 and R1 to juggle that dark wizard into the ground a few times then toss him out to the horizon.

[Taevyr]

Considering the material, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the thread has split its essence through unspeakable scrubbed acts and is now continuing on in a dark mockery of life?

We could, but then, to further torture the poor metaphor, the thread ought to ban someone for every individual tether to its pale reflection of activity that is created. I for one would decline.


This conversation is reminding me of two things, one much more whimsical than the other:

1. The guy in the tavern in Sandman who wants to live forever (I've only seen the Netflix adaptation, dunno if it's different in the original)

Ah, Hob Gadling. I've only read the comics, but he always felt highly relatable to me. I just can't imagine wanting to ever die if I've been given a form of agelessness that keeps me in my current state until I willingly choose to go. That's, to me, essentially the perfect deal when it comes to simple but effective immortality. I'd give a lot for a deal like that if I could.

I mean, whether you're "immortal" or not, at some point you're probably going to end up in the hypothetical "next stage" anyway, over the course of centuries, or millennia, or aeons. Might as well take our time experiencing all we can here. Just gotta make certain we don't misplace the T in immortality over the years.

[Jophiel]

I'm not sure how relevant it is to the game's story though - is there a theme of pursuing immortality here too? Or are we just talking about it because the OG Harry Potter series explored it?

Most of this thread is completely off the rails from discussing the game. And, although the usual video game logic would be that those you beat are dead, no one actually says "Hey you killed those guys". It's always "I defeated the poachers...". So someone can hand wave it away as just knocking them out or whatever -- which would explain why everyone knows about how I saved select NPCs that the enemies reference. "There's the one who saved Nora!" How would YOU know? I killed the guys threatening Nora. Oh, you were just knocked out? Well, that makes sense.

Ever play City of Heroes? That game amusingly had you slashing criminals with swords, setting them on fire, slamming them with giant hammers, embedding them in stone, etc. Then they were "arrested". Sometimes it makes more sense to just enjoy the game.

[Batcathat]

A lot of video games seem to run on the same logic as a lot of super hero comics, where people only die if the hero tries to kill them, otherwise everything is non-lethal no matter how brutal.

[pendell]

Well, how expensive is death in-game? Do you just respawn? Do you lose any progress or character progression? Old-school D&D imposed a cost of an XP level every time you were brought back, as well as a loss to some constitution. Later editions insisted on using a diamond as a material focus.

In Final Fantasy and modern games, death costs you a phoenix down or a few MP in Raise or Arise to undo the problem. In fact, it's not unknown to deliberately KO your own characters so they won't inadvertently kill off an opponent before you've succeeded in stealing, poaching, or otherwise acquiring their items. It's also sometimes necessary in solo challenge runs.

Heck, last night I was playing final Fantasy Tactics and was attempting to poach a hydra. I had to phoenix down this enemy unit TWICE because I had a guest party member who kept killing it before I could get its rare item.

Death in most video games is cheap. No matter how many mooks you mow down while grinding your characters, the game will continue to infinitely respawn them so long as you keep playing. There aren't many games where death has any serious consequence. Undertale, old-school roguelikes, and Ur-quan masters are exceptions, I can't think of many others.

Death in literature tends to be a bit more costly because you have to develop the characters to some extent. So if you're going to kill off a developed character instead of an expendable extra it's usually done for an important story reason.

Death is a serious cost in the HP Potter books because killed characters don't just get better. They're off the field for good. We get maybe one character back alive out of all seven books. But a video game runs on different logic -- both death and resurrection are cheap, so players typically don't have qualms about butchering each other casually.

That is, unless Hogwarts Legacy imposes some kind of cost to game-death which makes it more serious and less entertaining. Does it?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

A lot of video games seem to run on the same logic as a lot of super hero comics, where people only die if the hero tries to kill them, otherwise everything is non-lethal no matter how brutal.

I tend to think of it as the meaning of violence in media depends on the context of that media. The hero shooting a goon in an action movie is cool, the protagonist getting killed in a war movie is sad, we all know this.

Videogames make this weird because killing people in gameplay seldom has any valence in the rest of the game. Its an explicitly meaningless act, just a thing you do to unlock the next area. On the flipside, killing people in cutscenes uses movie meaning rules, so it can be awesome, sad, or whatever else. HL makes this weird again by being set in a universe with actual metaphysics about killing people that the gameplay studiously ignores.

But this is only slightly weirder, because most videogame protagonists are barely acknowledged ridiculous murder machines. It's right up there with them all being uncontrolled kleptomaniacs and having extradimensional pockets. The requirements of gameplay force a lot of combat and looting, because killing things and taking their stuff to make the numbers go up is one of the only things we've figured out how to make fun and appealing to a broad audience. But it's impossible to structure a simple heroic story around Bob, who kills like 40 people every hour and strips every room he enters down to the studs. That's not a hero, or even a person, that's an eldritch horror in a skin suit.

This is one reason I don't think games work very well as story delivery vehicles. The story has to bend over backwards to deliver an endless tide of dudes for you to mulch, and even then the sheer scale of the violence is completely absurd if you think about it.

That thinking about it is generally called ludonarrative dissonance. Ten, fifteen years ago all the talk was how to fix it. I think that's the wrong approach, because you either end up with grotesquely contorted stories, or crippled, limited gameplay. Much better to just ignore it, the same way we ignore the dumb nonsense conventions of other fantasy media.

[Jophiel]

Well, how expensive is death in-game? Do you just respawn?
It's a single player game so effectively there is no "death" for your character. You just go back to your save point and try it again with your "new" version blissfully unaware of the fate their previous alternate-reality clone suffered.

[druid91]

Most of this thread is completely off the rails from discussing the game. And, although the usual video game logic would be that those you beat are dead, no one actually says "Hey you killed those guys". It's always "I defeated the poachers...". So someone can hand wave it away as just knocking them out or whatever -- which would explain why everyone knows about how I saved select NPCs that the enemies reference. "There's the one who saved Nora!" How would YOU know? I killed the guys threatening Nora. Oh, you were just knocked out? Well, that makes sense.

Ever play City of Heroes? That game amusingly had you slashing criminals with swords, setting them on fire, slamming them with giant hammers, embedding them in stone, etc. Then they were "arrested". Sometimes it makes more sense to just enjoy the game.

Unless of course you run around Avada Kedavraing people left and right.

[Zombimode]

Death in most video games is cheap. No matter how many mooks you mow down while grinding your characters, the game will continue to infinitely respawn them so long as you keep playing. There aren't many games where death has any serious consequence. Undertale, old-school roguelikes, and Ur-quan masters are exceptions, I can't think of many others.

There are many games with no infinite respanw of anything.
There are also many games in which the death of any of its characters is a big deal.
So I think conclusion is influenced by the small sample size :smallwink:

[Lemmy]

There are many games with no infinite respanw of anything.
There are also many games in which the death of any of its characters is a big deal.
So I think conclusion is influenced by the small sample size :smallwink:
Well... He said most, not all. So he's correct.

Video-games are numerous enough that you can have many of something, and still have said something be a tiny minority.

[Spacewolf]

I think it's more Open world games that have the issue with being unable to tell a story due to the completely psychopathy of the MC. In a more controlled setting it can certainly be done.

So far in the game there's been two story deaths on screen and both have been played as basically point of no returns for the people who carried out the killings. So the story at least wants death to mean something. It's just a case of gameplay and story segregation where after these sad scenes you then go and blow up a bunch of humans, Goblins and wildlife so you can steal all their stuff.

[Jophiel]

I think it should also be implied that we're talking about a certain style/genre of game. There's typically no death condition in a romance visual novel and any deaths that to happen are significant. There is death in Minesweeper and no respawning. I don't think either game really applies to the conversation here, though.

[Fyraltari]

That's not a question of quantity but of genres. Animal Crossing and Doom aren't comparable. Likewise with action movies and romantic comedies.

[pendell]

I think it should also be implied that we're talking about a certain style/genre of game. There's typically no death condition in a romance visual novel and any deaths that to happen are significant. There is death in Minesweeper and no respawning. I don't think either game really applies to the conversation here, though.

I'm not following your point, because this isn't either a romantic visual novel or minesweeper.

From my read this looks like a pretty standard quest adventure game. There's plenty of mobs and, no matter how many you light on fire with barrels, there will always be another poacher camp. So it looks to me as if either death is cheap, or this is Roger-rabbit style toon violence, where no one ever takes permanent damage even if you drop a safe on their head.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jophiel]

I'm not following your point, because this isn't either a romantic visual novel or minesweeper.

From my read this looks like a pretty standard quest adventure game. There's plenty of mobs and, no matter how many you light on fire with barrels, there will always be another poacher camp. So it looks to me as if either death is cheap, or this is Roger-rabbit style toon violence, where no one ever takes permanent damage even if you drop a safe on their head.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

My point was in regards to the "most games don't have infinite respawns" style statements. Which I'm saying might be true when looking at everything from Candy Crush to Forza to Pokemon Red but isn't really relevant to this discussion.

[animorte]

About a year or two ago I actually watched a documentary on the progression of "death" in video games over the decades.

It sort of started out as a checkpoint, then they added collectible lives. Once you run out of those, then you start back at the checkpoint. Eventually we got to where we are now with periodic auto-save and manual save features. You never really die (whether there's a spot that tracks it or not).

Certainly we still have plenty representation for all these standard variations.

[Bohandas]

I tend to think of it as the meaning of violence in media depends on the context of that media. The hero shooting a goon in an action movie is cool, the protagonist getting killed in a war movie is sad, we all know this.

Videogames make this weird because killing people in gameplay seldom has any valence in the rest of the game. Its an explicitly meaningless act, just a thing you do to unlock the next area. On the flipside, killing people in cutscenes uses movie meaning rules, so it can be awesome, sad, or whatever else. HL makes this weird again by being set in a universe with actual metaphysics about killing people that the gameplay studiously ignores.

But this is only slightly weirder, because most videogame protagonists are barely acknowledged ridiculous murder machines. It's right up there with them all being uncontrolled kleptomaniacs and having extradimensional pockets. The requirements of gameplay force a lot of combat and looting, because killing things and taking their stuff to make the numbers go up is one of the only things we've figured out how to make fun and appealing to a broad audience. But it's impossible to structure a simple heroic story around Bob, who kills like 40 people every hour and strips every room he enters down to the studs. That's not a hero, or even a person, that's an eldritch horror in a skin suit.

This is one reason I don't think games work very well as story delivery vehicles. The story has to bend over backwards to deliver an endless tide of dudes for you to mulch, and even then the sheer scale of the violence is completely absurd if you think about it.

That thinking about it is generally called ludonarrative dissonance. Ten, fifteen years ago all the talk was how to fix it. I think that's the wrong approach, because you either end up with grotesquely contorted stories, or crippled, limited gameplay. Much better to just ignore it, the same way we ignore the dumb nonsense conventions of other fantasy media.

I remember having an issue with this sort of thing in some of the Fallout games. There's a cutscene but in one of the Fallout 3 DLCs where your character, who is basically a god of war and has just fought his way into a heavily fortified compound, randomly surrenders when jumped by like two guys with tiny handguns that wouldn't be able to pierce his power armor at point-blank range


Fantastic Beasts, the films, showed that while the Elixir of Life keeps you alive and healthy it doesn't stop you from aging, Nicholas Flamel is so old and frail that a handshake breaks his fingers.

Yeah, another fifty ears of that and I buy "yeah, I'm ready to go."
Speaking of power armor, I'm like 80% sure there was at least one set of animated armor in that book series. Couldn't Flamel have jusf comissi9ned a protective powered exoskeleton?

[Trafalgar]

Back in the early 2000s, JK Rowling met with Disney about adding a Harry Potter themed attraction to Disney Land. But JKR wanted a train ride like the Hogwarts Express to take visitors to that area. Disney felt that between the monorail and the other rides that there were too many trains on the park already. The talks fell apart and JK Rowling went to Universal Studios instead.

So Disney was one of the first to butt heads with JK Rowling over Trains Rights.

BaDumBum

[Saintheart]

I remember having an issue with this sort of thing in some of the Fallout games. There's a cutscene but in one of the Fallout 3 DLCs where your character, who is basically a god of war and has just fought his way into a heavily fortified compound, randomly surrenders when jumped by like two guys with tiny handguns that wouldn't be able to pierce his power armor at point-blank range.

That's just good old Cutscene Incompetence (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence) (be warned, site links to the Black Hole of the Internet) with a pinch of The Battle Didn't Count. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBattleDidntCount)

[tyckspoon]

That's just good old Cutscene Incompetence (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence) (be warned, site links to the Black Hole of the Internet) with a pinch of The Battle Didn't Count. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBattleDidntCount)

Also a fine Fallout 3 tradition carrying on from the original game ending, which insisted your character must sacrifice themselves to go activate a MacGuffin in an zone with unsurvivable radiation. Which would be a perfectly fine heroic sacrifice if it weren't ignoring that by that point in the game you almost certainly have some mix of..

- Carrying literally hundreds of doses of radiation resistance and radiation removal medicines
- Through stats, perks, and equipment are nearly radiation immune
- have a companion with you who is explicitly radiation immune who could trivially go do the thing for you in safety

.. which could be used to handle the situation long enough to go throw the damn switch and come back out pretty much ok, but no, You Die. The companion option is especially egregious.

.. later patches at least let you ask your Ghoul or Super Mutant buddy to go do it, because that was really really dumb.

[The Glyphstone]

And then they turn right around and shame you for being a coward, don't they?