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Harry Potter and the Skittering Spouse

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ScarletFlames said:
Example of libelous vs non-libelous: a made up lie about a person that incites someone else to inflict harm upon a person or not use their services\buy their product.

On the other hand, if the statement is the full truth, not half-truth, a complete fabrication or a "guess" (all of which fall under libel laws) then even if someone cites an article which features that piece of knowledge as their motive to attack, it's not libelous.

But since Rita Skitter outright makes shit up, creates scandalous "guesses" and presents it as the most likely truth as well as presenting half truths, any action taken against the people she writes that way against is indeed libelous.
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Depends on where you are, actually. In Japan, for instance:

Under Article 230-1 of the Criminal Code of Japan: "(1) A person who defames another by alleging facts in public shall, regardless of whether such facts are true or false, be punished by imprisonment with or without work for not more than three (3) years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen."

If the Wizarding World doesn't have libel/defamation laws, then there cannot be any libel.
 
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markshur said:
Depends on where you are, actually. In Japan, for instance:

Under Article 230-1 of the Criminal Code of Japan: "(1) A person who defames another by alleging facts in public shall, regardless of whether such facts are true or false, be punished by imprisonment with or without work for not more than three (3) years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen."
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This is why whistleblowers in Japan should do so anonymously but as loudly as technologically possible.

Not that that has anything to do with the story. Move it elsewhere, please?
 
FictionPack said:
Harry really should have just told Wormtail to take his blood, as much as he wants. Boom, ritual messed up because the idiot didn't gag the victim.
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Once upon a time, there was a story called The 1001 Deaths of Lord Voldemort. It may still be accessible on fanficauthors.net. Included in that story (I use the term loosely) were an astounding number of ways the ritual could go wrong. Among them, Harry announcing to Wormtail that he was giving the blood, the ghost of Tom Riddle looking on (the bone of the father needed to be 'unknowingly taken'), Wormtail having second thoughts about the ritual (thus meaning the flesh of the servant wasn't quite 'willingly given'), not accounting for the basilisk venom in Harry's blood, having the flame under the cauldron too high, and in one case, the bottom of the ritual cauldron not being of a consistent thickness.
 
M. H. Fuzzball said:
Once upon a time, there was a story called The 1001 Deaths of Lord Voldemort. It may still be accessible on fanficauthors.net. Included in that story (I use the term loosely) were an astounding number of ways the ritual could go wrong. Among them, Harry announcing to Wormtail that he was giving the blood, the ghost of Tom Riddle looking on (the bone of the father needed to be 'unknowingly taken'), Wormtail having second thoughts about the ritual (thus meaning the flesh of the servant wasn't quite 'willingly given'), not accounting for the basilisk venom in Harry's blood, having the flame under the cauldron too high, and in one case, the bottom of the ritual cauldron not being of a consistent thickness.
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Only magicals leave ghosts behind, so the ghost one doesn't work.

But yes, there are a lot of ways Tom's resurrection ritual could have easily gone wrong if anyone who understood the ritual was around to stick a spanner in the works. This is presumably part of the reason why the ritual was done in secret with only the bare minimum number of people involved.
 
sunsunsunsunsun said:
It's not "unknowingly taken" it's Forcibly. You're trying to cheat the ritual, something that basically every fanon take on rituals ever agrees is a terrible idea.
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I'm not though- you're forgetting that Voldemort is a baby and can't hold the knife himself. The ritual is fine with the blood being taken by someone else.

Unless you are trying to argue that the basilisk asked nicely for Harry's blood?
 
Neruz said:
Only magicals leave ghosts behind, so the ghost one doesn't work.
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This was written at the very latest pre-HBP, and thus any canon (or word of JKR) after that need not apply.
Also included in the collection: Encounters with at least 3 X-Men, 2 Jedi, a Terminator, KITT, Optimus Prime, a number of portkey accidents, and two very vicious spells from Hermione.
 
I like to think that the "Only magicals leave ghosts behind" is yet another one of those pieces of Wizard Exceptionalism they keep telling themselves.

Magicals are the only important people in the world, so of course they're the only ones with proper souls that leave ghosts behind. Oh, this random muggle left a ghost? He must've been a secret magical in hiding!
 
FictionPack said:
Dumbledore could be the mentor figure, and all bad decisions could fall on Fudge in a rewrite where the Minister is the power hungry political fool with a bigger role in the plot.
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Or you could take advantage of the fact that in the UK, it's actually rare for a student to have anything to do with the actual Headmaster (usually the Deputy Head would handle discipline) and since McGonagall is a disciplinary hardarse (recall that in Philosopher's Stone, she only actually had evidence that Harry, Ron and Neville were breaking curfew. By rights, they should have recieved the same punishment as Malfoy- 20 points deducted apiece, which would have been painful, and meant they would still be in for some cold treatment as it would lose Gryffindor the lead, but not make them effectively Persona Non Grata in Gryffindor for months) it still largely takes away the ability to appeal to Dumbledore for help.
 
Or they are just more noticeable?
A wizard might get to start at the 100 year old ghost level of power automatically.
 
Fencer said:
I tried to slow it down by pointing out my Dumbledore is a pile of character traits in a trench coat masquerading as a full character, that only encouraged them to try and sell me their interpretations. None of which feel solid enough for me to point at and declare "this is the truth!!!!"
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That makes me wonder....what if Dumbledore really IS a pile of character traits in a trench coat (gaudy wizard robes)?

We know that during WW2 Dumbledore wasn't like that thanks to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We also know that he was...weird, by the time the Potters died in 1981. So over the course of 40 years his mental faculties went from "Brilliant" to "Brilliant*." The asterisk is because he is still very smart, but while he was sorta reckless in the past he is downright idiotic by the time the series begins.

We also know, thanks to the Dumbledore showing Harry around the Headmasters office, that Dumbledore has an entire wall full of vials of his memories. It's never made clear, but we don't know what the side effects of removing memories are. And even if removing ONE memory is fine, what about removing so MANY memories? A lot of our memories are just...sorta background noise...we remember core memories and special events, which might number in a few dozen key moments over the course of our lives. We grow from these core moments, like a seedly growing into a tree. But if you remove the seed, that core event, from your own memory than you might not know why so many later events were performed or why they should be normal for you.

Perhaps Dumbledore, on accident, lobotomized himself. Turned his brain into Swiss Cheese. He doesn't know why he does things, he is just trusting that his past self knew what he was doing and goes along with it. A pile of character traits in a trench coat.
 
FictionPack said:
I think the bad mouthing of Divination goes a bit hard in Harry Potter. We've only seen predicting the future to be unreliable.
Divination is not just that. It's essentially the art of using magic to learn something. Divining rods for example are used to find water.
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Why aren't divination and arithmancy folded into one class then? And to be fair every prophecy that Trelawny made including the random ones in class and weird superstitions came true. Its just either misinterpreted, forgotten about, or ignored. The first to rise, first to die one at the Christmas dinner is most notable. I forget the numbers but Ron had Pettigrew on him so they had the numbers then Dumbledore was the first to rise and die.
 
henifataffle said:
Why aren't divination and arithmancy folded into one class then?
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So that Dumbledore has an excuse to keep Trelawney in a tower 24 7 365 despite not being a good teacher just like Snape? That's practically what always happens to oracles once found anyway.

IDK, it's like they broke Divination in half to mock the nebulous bits and yet still use the practical bits.

Funny enough Taylor will probably equate Trelawney with the PRT Think(er) Tank.
 
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FictionPack said:
So that Dumbledore has an excuse to keep Trelawney in a tower 24 7 365 despite not being a good teacher just like Snape? That's practically what always happens to oracles once found anyway.

IDK, it's like they broke Divination in half to mock the nebulous bits and yet still use the practical bits.
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In the actual Harry Potter plot, Divination seems to be vastly more relevant and useful than Arithmancy, for all that it is also clowned on. Fanon likes Arithmancy because its a poorly developed spot where you can put good stuff. Not because it has demonstrated utility in the narrative.
 
FictionPack said:
Funny enough Taylor will probably equate Trelawney with the PRT Think(er) Tank.
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That's not an altogether bad thought, but Taylors understanding of Divination and Trelawney is based on Harry's understanding. Which means the prof is genuine but her predictions are themselves unpredictable, and any success with the subject itself is a bit like a broken clock. Right sometimes but not reliable.
 
Fencer said:
Which means the prof is genuine but her predictions are themselves unpredictable, and any success with the subject itself is a bit like a broken clock. Right sometimes but not reliable.
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Yes, just like the WATCHOGG organization or whatever letters it is.
One guy there rates everything in random colors that noone really quite gets, for example.
Can be useful, but you'd need to cross check like 10 different people.
 
ScarletFlames said:
It was a soul ritual, a horcrux is a soul shard. Voldemort moved his soul from a fucked up baby looking thing into a grown body made from the ritual that moved his soul into said new body. Why not literally do the same ritual, targeted at the soul inside his scar? This ritual would either work and kill Voldemort or it will fail and kill both Voldemort and Harry. It's still far more likely to succeed than hoping they both cast a spell at each other at the exact same time and "touch tips".
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...Nooo, the ritual was not a "soul ritual". Freaky-baby go in pot, noseless mutant leave pot. The only Horcrux involved in the ritual was Harry himself, and nobody present knew that, so it obviously wasn't a requirement.

Nothing we saw had anything to do with "moving his soul." It was a ritual to return Tom's former power and adult stature to him, with the homunculus-baby thing as a starting point. And to be clear, the baby-thing was not a Horcrux, it was the last chunk of soul that wasn't bound to a Horcrux. We have no reason to believe that using that ritual on even a regular Horcrux, like the ring or the locket, would do anything.

I also can't imagine why you think that trying to start that ritual using Harry's scar as the focus would, if successful, kill Tom, or why you think that the ritual failing (which it would) would kill either of them. I mean, seriously what?
FictionPack said:
Harry really should have just told Wormtail to take his blood, as much as he wants. Boom, ritual messed up because the idiot didn't gag the victim.
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I've seen more than one fanfic use that idea, and it doesn't make sense to me. Just saying the words "go ahead, take it" wouldn't change the fact that Harry is an enemy of Tom, nor that Wormtail is taking the blood by force. Empty words won't change the fact that Harry doesn't actually want his enemy to be restored.

EDIT: Also, Harry had like five seconds between Wormtail incanting the "blood of the enemy forcibly taken" line and stabbing him. Kind of a big ask for Harry to think of that possibility and say those words in that interval.
 
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Darwin Candidate said:
I've seen more than one fanfic use that idea, and it doesn't make sense to me. Just saying the words "go ahead, take it" wouldn't change the fact that Harry is an enemy of Tom, nor that Wormtail is taking the blood by force. Empty words won't change the fact that Harry doesn't actually want his enemy to be restored.
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It matters because rituals are by their nature delicate. If one ingredient is wrong the potion can just explode as Potions Class teaches. Sure he doesn't want the intended result, that's why he wants to give the blood, that gives him the result he does want by messing it up.
'Empty Words' as you call them are not empty when used in loopholes both magical and legal. Many famous stories of beings such as fae hinge on the interpretation of otherwise insignificant word choices. Example: May I have your name?
 
FictionPack said:
It matters because rituals are by their nature delicate. If one ingredient is wrong the potion can just explode as Potions Class teaches. Sure he doesn't want the intended result, that's why he wants to give the blood, that gives him the result he does want by messing it up.
'Empty Words' as you call them are not empty when used in loopholes both magical and legal. Many famous stories of beings such as fae hinge on the interpretation of otherwise insignificant word choices. Example: May I have your name?
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If Wormtail had gotten the incantation wrong, then I could see problems occurring, but Harry saying "go ahead take it" would not make the ingredient any less the blood of an enemy, forcibly taken. In fact, an attempt to actively sabotage the ritual would only verify Harry's status as an enemy.
 
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