It’s not “bacon,” it’s a pig.
It’s not “veal,” it’s a calf.
It’s not “steak,” it’s a cow.
It’s not “meat,” it’s an animal…
its not “fruit”, its dividing cells that accumulate fructose…
it’s not delivery. it’s digiorno.
It’s not a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
It’s not “levioSA”, it’s “leviOsa”
Maybe it’s Maybelline
“Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?” The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers. “Yes,” he breathed back. He felt the hand on his chest contract; her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn. She had sat up. “He is dead!” Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.
In the end, Voldemort’s fate twice came down to the choice of a woman, a mother.
Rock ‘n roll.
Harry Potter as a series repeatedly tells us never to underestimate a mother’s love. Lilly’s love for Harry nearly killed Voldemort the first time, Narcissa’s love for Draco set him up for his real death, and Voldemort’s greatest general was killed by Molly, a mother who loved all of her children and feared losing any more to the magical war.
Bitches. Get. Stuff. Done.
Anyone who thinks Harry Potter as a series isn’t good literature and doesn’t teach important life lessons/points of view about ethics, morality and responsibility, needs to G-O-OUT-DA-DO’.This had to be the most raw moment in the series because the fact that she was like “My baby is okay that’s all that matters, and I know what will happen if Voldemort wins, so let’s end this.”
I mean, Voldemort lost because he trusted his followers to be implicit in their loyalty, but a lot had changed in the decade since he’d last terrorized the world. Like…the Death Eaters for the most part were calmed down and writing off those dark days as the “wild days of their youth” and shit, so when Voldemort pops back up ready to pick up where he left off, you could see a lot of the doubt in them like “Yo we grew up, son, shit ain’t like it was before.” But they followed out of fear mostly, not loyalty. Bellatrix was just crazy and in love with V so it didn’t matter to her what happened—and it ultimately led to her death.
But Narcissa was raw as fuck because she knew SOMEBODY had to stop him and she knew her husband was too scared to do it himself, so she devised her own on-the-fly plan.
The HP series is way too dope to be written off, and most of the detractors who write it off are just jealous of the hype it gets, but if you really read it, so many themes are covered in the story, chief among them being growing up and the expectations therein.
…am I rambling. I need to stop.
Dang, I didn’t even consider the whole “we’ve grown up” thing, but you’re absolutely right. And to add to that, not only have they grown up, they’ve had children. Being a Death Eater is something that these folks probably thought was hot shit when they were young, but now that they’ve grown up, they’re seeing their children doing the same thing, and suddenly it’s not so cool anymore. They’re deeply unsettled at best, and terrified at worst.
And Voldy literally lacks the ability to see this. He will never understand that love, and love for one’s children, also extends to his cronies. He will never understand that love causes people to take unimaginable risks FOR these children.
He will never understand that love for one’s children is so strong that a woman who’s followed him loyally for years will lie to his face—never mind that he’s THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED LEGILIMENS IN THE WORLD—about his absolute worst enemy. When she was forced to choose between her son and her leader, she chose her son, without even batting an eye.
THAT is powerful.
Exactly. These people have grown up, gotten married, and had children. Voldemort is that dude that was perpetually still trying to be forever young, still going to the same clubs, still doing the same fuckshit, and everybody who used to ride with him is like “For real, tho? We off that, man.”
Harry Potter draws a lot of parallels to the real world despite the story itself. I love it.
I love when Tumblr breaks out into hardcore analysis.
I imagine Monday mornings are always this peaceful outside the library. (at Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library, College of Charleston)
In honor of World Quidditch Day (the anniversary of the first day that real-life IQA quidditch was ever played, which technically ended 25 minutes ago), I’d like to write about Xander Manshel, the inventor of muggle quidditch and international man of mystery.
Xander was my classmate and fellow freshman at Middlebury College, when he decided to try and make up rules for a real-life version of quidditch. On that first overcast day, on October 8, 2005, on the lawn behind our dorm, I joined Xander and over twenty other classmates wearing towels as capes (or high school graduation robes), clutching brooms between our legs and throwing volleyballs against trashcans, and chasing a very fast runner named Rainey Johnson, who had a tennis ball taped to his upper-back. If you got hit with a dodgeball, you had to spin around five times. There was no ref. I played wearing Doc Martin boots.
The rest of the story has been told in various iterations here and there, but it is long and now is not the time and place for it, and besides, most of you know the story well - because you’ve been helping to write it.
Today, seven years and hundreds of thousands of improved lives later, Xander serves on the IQA’s Board of Directors, although he is largely removed from the league. He is working and teaching in Hong Kong, and hopes to be the headmaster of a school or President of a college some day. In other words, a real-life Albus Dumbledore.
I’m so proud of Xander that he’s overseas chasing his dream, but he hasn’t been back to the World Cup since 2009.
This year, I want to make sure he comes, but he hasn’t been super responsive to the idea. After considering this challenge for a hot second, I came up with an idea:
What if I get dozens - or maybe even hundreds - of quidditch players around the world to write a letter to Xander…
- Explaining what quidditch means to them.
- How it changed their lives completely, for the better.
- And why he needs to come to World Cup VI and see for himself what his creation has grown into.
If you like this idea, reblog it.
And if you want to send a letter, ship it to the IQA PO Box, and I’ll package them up and ship them to him in Hong Kong en masse (I had to resist the urge to give out his personal address on the internet without his permission).
Mail to:
Mission X
IQA Inc.
PO Box 1663
New York, NY 10025
Drawings, doodles, photos, anything you want to include to tell a personal story - all of these things are welcome. Let’s make sure we all get a chance to thank this guy in person. Because without him, none of this would exist!
10 Incredible Rock Pillar Landscapes
Featuring a lot of pillars (usually) that rise from the earth like giant petrified spikes,rock pillar landscapes are some of the most impressive natural wonders of our world. Molded by geological phenomena and the action of the elements over millennia, these bizarre rock formations have, nowadays, become breathtaking tourist attractions.
