Why Don't Wizards Carry Guns and Other Questions of Harry Potter

My history with the Harry Potter book series is...boring, really, but I feel its worth mentioning. Without wishing to sound like a hipster, I started reading Harry Potter before it was cool and continued to do so for the first four books. However, my ADD kicked in during book five and I wound up dropping it and the series, although I did keep up with important plot points and the movies.

Cut to Fall 2010: Harry Potter and That One Time Him and His Friends Wandered Through the Woods for Six Months Saying "I Sure Hope Voldemort Doesn't Get Us" has hit theatres and made the standard buttload of money. I, meanwhile, feel like catching up on the series before movie 8 and, still owning the hardcovers, decide to do just that. So for the next two months I ran through all seven and walked away both appreciating the series and noticing more than a few plotholes and unanswered questions. And what better place to put them then on this blog? Well, my facebook page for one, but that's beside the point. Here now, for the second time ever, are my Potter Plotholes (for the record, there will be spoilers, but since this is Harry Potter you either already know them by now or don't care):

Why don't the wizards carry guns?
During the war against Voldemort, at no point did we hear any mention of wizards using muggle weapons against Death Eaters. Now, in many ways, this makes sense: there's something of a Berlin Wall between magic and non-magic, gun control in the U.K. is pretty strict, the main characters are underage, etc. However, it can be assumed that several adult, muggle-born wizards were part of the fight; why didn't it occur to any of them to utilize firearms? Surely the Death Eaters, the majority of whom know nothing of muggle technology, wouldn't be able to counteract a gun. Plus, how badass would it be to have a dude with a magic wand in one hand and an AK-47 in the other? Think about it. Actually, someone should draw that, I wanna know what it'd look like.

Why does Hogwarts security suck?
In Harry Potter and the Eventful Beginning, Harry and company discover that the fabled Sorceror's/Philosopher's/Cellular Stone has been sequestered away in one of the many hidden chambers of Hogwarts School. The trio, deciding "Screw the adults, we're eleven, we know what to do", go to find it so they can protect it from Voldemort. To get to it, however, they must go through a series of traps, designed so that nobody can get to the end unless they already know the solution to each puzzle...and the kids get through without breaking a sweat. You see the problem here?

The traps are as follows: a Cerebus, which is defeated when the kids play some music and it falls asleep, a solution they got out of their semi-retarded groundskeeper pal. Fair enough.

Next comes a giant plant, the solution against it being a spell. They know which spell to use because the plant was taught to them in class. So the knowledge required to get past this trap is taught to FRESHMEN. That's bad planning.

Next comes a room full of flying keys, only one of which opens the next door. Alright, not bad...except they LEAVE FLYING BROOMSTICKS WITH WHICH TO CATCH THE KEYS. Hogwarts kinda fails at security, don't it?

Next comes a troll that's already been knocked by the last guy who came through. No challenge there. The fault remains, however, that that very troll was already knocked unconcious earlier in the book by the most incompetent of the main three characters. Fantastic.

Next comes a giant game of chess. Interesting and visually interesting idea, but the AI is, again, beaten by a freshmen. Bit of bad programming there, Staff of Hogwarts.

Next comes a logic puzzle: seven potions are laid out, with a riddle saying which will do which; either let them pass ahead, send them back to start, kill them, turn them into a newt, etc. The reasoning behind this is that because wizards solve everything with magic, they won't have the reasoning skills to work out a riddle. But, yet again, it's solved by a freshman. Fantastic.

Finally, there's the magic mirror: the stone is inside it and the only person who can take it is someone who wants to have the stone without using it for its alchemic purposes. This is the only one that actually works and its fitting that its the last one.

So, in summation: Hogwarts fails at security. Good to know the future of the wizarding world is in their hands.

Why can the basilisk move through Hogwarts?
In Harry Potter and the Thinly-Veiled Nazism, a monster of undetermined origin has escaped from the Chamber of Secrets and is attacking students. This monster is revealed to be a basilisk, a giant snake monster that's been living underneath the school for some indeterminate number of centuries and has been navigating the school unseen via the plumbing system. So the question then becomes why are the pipes so damn big? Did nobody ever bring that up during construction? Did none of the contractors who built the castle ever ask why their snake-worshipping white-supremacist client wanted pipes that could accomodate a 25-foot snake monster and that led into his secret underground cave where he could conceivable keep a 25-foot snake monster? And did indoor plumbing even exist in the 9th century when this castle was built?

Why did nobody get in trouble for the Chamber of Secrets?
Continuing on from book 2, we find out that the Chamber was opened because one of the students at Hogwarts was possessed by the magical diary of Voldemort's teenage self. Said magical diary was given to her by former Death Eater Lucius Malfoy, for the purpose of...I dunno, being a dick to the Weasley's or something. Afterwards, the main characters confirm that this happened and he all but admits it...so why didn't anyone turn him in on it? Possession of a contraband object, attempted second-degree murder, generally being a dick; hell, Dobby the House-Elf knew all of this happened and, after being freed, had no obligation to keep his masters secrets. The little guy probably has loads of dirt on the Malfoys. Why not come forward with that?

Why didn't Harry quit the Triwizard Tournament?
In Harry Potter and the Unwanted Foreigners, Harry is drafted into an illustrious international wizarding tournament, despite the fact that he's the fourth competitor in what's meant to be a three-person contest and is underage. He still has to compete in the tournament because its the rules so shut up. However, during the final leg of the competition, a giant magical hedge maze, contestants are given the opportunity to forfeit. So why didn't Harry? He knows he's been entered under false pretenses and he knows someone's probably trying to kill him (people have been pulling that crap since he was a baby), so why didn't he just opt out as soon as he was two feet in? He'd save the wizarding world a lot of trouble when Voldemort didn't come back, I can tell you that much.

Whew. I think that's enough for now, don't you? This was fun, I'll have to try it again some time. Later!

Back to School

Like most comic book fans, I like to think of myself as having a capacity for useless facts; things like characters names, powers, backstories, motivations, favorite kind of ice cream, etc. This continuity is what keeps fanboys like me up at night (well, that, plus a 12-pack of coke and a decent sandbox game, but I digress), so believe me when I say that the X-Men are confusing as fuck.

The basic issue is in the backstory: see, normally with superpowered characters, you need to come up with some logical contrivance as to why they have powers, like they're a scientist or magic or got boned by an alien or whatever. A lot of these origin stories can limit what a character can do in terms of personality or motivation. However, with the X-Men, all the characters are mutants, and the source of their powers is just random coincidence by way of good breeding. This leaves writers the freedom to make a character exactly how they want; this also means that a writer is likely to excersize this freedom, and create new characters to fit their stories rather than use old ones. So its not surprising that withing a mere fifty years of X-Men books, there are whole lotta mutants.

Marvel has since kept the X-Men family in their little corner to play with each other and not muck about with the other kids, but recently that trend's beginning to break; and really, that's a good thing, because now we get books like todays outstanding recommendation, Wolverine and the X-Men.

The story so far: Schism happened. Cyclops, traditionally the leader of the X-Men, and Wolverine, the loose cannon badass who clashes with him, argued over what direction they should take the team. In a reversal of expectations, Cyke wants to prepare the young mutants of today for the fights they will doubtlessly have to face in a world that hates and fears them, while Wolvie believes the X-Men should educate the young freaks in how to use their powers to help and be accepted by society. The X-Men split roughly in half (each side gets four titles), with Team Cyclops staying on the sovereign mutant nation of Utopia and Team Wolverine shipping out East to the Xavier Estate in order to build the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

You got all that?

Here is where the series Wolverine and the X-Men takes place. Only four issues of it have been published and already I love it. I love the characters, I love the writing, I love the artwork, but especially I love the fun this series has. Writer Jason Aaron, primarily known for his work on the bleak, grim, and absolutely amazing crime drama Scalped (which I'll get to later on this blog), pens an energetic, lively series that realizes the absurdities of this franchise and plays with them. The X-Men are super-powered hormone-ridden angsty teenagers who have meet aliens, cyborgs, time-travelers, and other Marvel comics absurdities. This crap is common nature to them and its hilarious to see their reactions to the weirdness that goes on in their everyday lives.

The main cast of characters besides the faculty of X-Men favorites are the students, most of whom are newcomers to the franchise and have room to develop as characters. Interestingly, four of the five main kids fall into the archetypes presented in The Breakfast Club. The jock is Kid Gladiator (son of alien soldier-turned-king and Superboy pastiche Gladiator, who is disappointed in Earth schools and they're distinct lack of punching stuff), the brain is Broo (a member of the Brood race who has split from his species' hive mind and come to Earth to learn of human behavior and whose lack of understanding is VERY evident), the basket case is Idie (a young girl who believes herself and all mutants to be monsters, particularly after she killed a few folks in combat), and the outlaw is Quentin Quire, Teenage Rioter (a powerful telepath who will cause a rebellion at the drop of a hat, less out of genuine desire to enforce change and more to get attention). The other main at this stage seems like its going to be Genesis, a young reincarnation of the mutant supervillain and Darwinism Extremist Apocalypse, who doesn't know of his heritage despite the fact that everyone else does.

Have I mentioned the artowrk yet? No? Good, I need something more to talk about. The art is fantastic. Chris Bachalo does the first three issues and makes it suitably epic and insane while still making the characters look human and relatable. Nick Bradshaw worked as a fill-in artist on issue 4, which is like if Quentin Tarantino filled in for an episode of CSI (which he did). Bradshaw's style is simple, striking, iconic, and works perfectly with the laid-back tone of the issue.

My friends (yes, I have them) have heard me rave on and on about this series, but its definately worth it. Its a goddamn fun series, looks fantastic, and keeps with the X-Men tone that's lasted for almost half a century. All four issues are available in print and digitally, and I highly recommend you give them a look. See you all again next time on My Opinion Matters!

The Silver Medalists

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, welcome to the first ever installment of My Opinion Matters! This semi-regular, possibly ongoing web-based log will be a place for me to post my thoughts and feelings towards whatever aspect of popular culture I feel like explaining; mostly concerning the nerdier corners of film, television, video games and comic books, but occasionally I may find something to talk about with a wider appeal. Who knows? I don't. I'm just making this up as I go along.

However, the question arises: Why should you read my web-based log? Why should my thoughts and feelings be expressed over anyone else's? Why, in essence, does my opinion matter? The truth is...it doesn't, really. The title was chosen out of irony more than genuine hubris. Still, I do hope that you find my writings entertaining and enlightening enough to follow them from week to week (or however often I update this thing).

The next question that arises is: Who am I? A loaded question if ever there was one. In short, I'm a geek with a computer, some free time, and a desire to practice writing on a regular basis. To get a better feel for who I am, I've decided my first entry will be a list of some of my favorite things (Don't worry, I won't be doing this sort of thing often. My life isn't interesting enough to talk about on a regular basis). My initial decision was to list my top movie, tv show, comic, etc., but then it dawned on me that all of those things fall under a very similar umbrella of sci-fi/fantasy genre fiction, so I thought a more varied list would be my second favorite things. So, without further, here are my silver medalists in the grand spectrum of things I like:

2nd Favorite Movie: The Big Lebowski. Described as the 'first cult classic of the internet age', Lebowski is a weird kind of comedy; laid back but occasionally manic, character driven despite the cast being characetures, and following an ongoing mystery investigated by a protagonist with no drive or passion, who hasn't even grown or changed by the end. And yet it's one of the best comedies of all time. The cast is universally brilliant; from the languid Jeff Bridges, the hot-tempered John Goodman, the simplistic Steve Buscemi, the artistic Julianne Moore, the sage Sam Elliott, and confusingly sexy John Turturro, whose first scene is worth the price of admission alone. The cast is great, the writing is clever, the direction matches the tone perfectly, and the music is pitch perfect. If you haven't seen this flick yet, check it out.

2nd Favorite TV Show: The Spectacular Spider-Man. The wall-crawler has a special place in my heart, being the first superhero I ever really liked. A shame that he couldn't quite make it outside the medium. Oh his programs were popular, to be sure, but they weren't really all that good. The 60's cartoon, while campy and fun, was also simple, juvenile, and cheap. The 90's cartoon was something of a mess, with uneven animation, even more simplistic writing, and generally read like a watered-down version of the web-slinger. The Raimi trilogy was a excellent way for superhero movies to break into and subsequently take over Hollywood, but they're so fucking morose. Spidey needs to be fun and fast and energetic in addition to sad and melodramatic and slightly emo. However, in 2008, we finally got the perfect Spider-Man show. Spec Spidey struck the perfect balance of humor, drama, action, and romance (seriously, go look over Peter Parker's romantic history. Dude gets around). The animation was fast and stylized and even borrowed elements from the early Spider-Man stories from Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and John Romita. A fantastic show that was tragically taken off the air before it's time. Beyond amazing, it was spectacular.

2nd Favorite Video Game: Pokemon. Which one, you ask? I dunno, they're all pretty much the same, aren't they? Except Diamond and Pearl, those were kinda disappointing. Still, though, the franchise generally hasn't budged from the formula that was established in 1997...but maybe that's because it works. Pokemon has a depth to it that you don't find in many games; there's no one set way to beat the game. There are trends, to be sure, but it's still really in the player's hands how they want to play. I like that kind of freedom. Yes, the series is flawed, partially in its absolute failure to tell a compelling story but mainly because Nintendo releases the same game every three years and still turns a profit, but I still have a ton of fun with it, and that's really the best thing you can ask for in a game.

2nd Favorite Comic Book: I Kill Giants. Something that I've often admired in fiction is honesty; the ability for a writer to inject his or her own personal life experiences onto the page. It's a trait I definately wish I had and it's a trait that writer Joe Kelly shows off in this graphic novel published by Image Comics. The art by J.M. Ken Niimura matches the story perfectly; an anime-influenced style that's inviting, engaging, and pretty damn dynamic when it needs to be. The story is fun, funny, actiony, and, if you're not careful, it'll bring a tear to your eye. Please, I emplore you, go read this thing.

2nd Favorite Book: Catcher in the Rye. I'm going to be upfront about this and say that I don't read many books. For lack of a more adult reason, they don't have enough pictures. A good deal of the books I both remember and like were read for school, and this is one of them. Catcher has struck a chord with so many before me because it has relatability. Yes, Holden Caufield is a whiny, angry, pretentious dickhead, but can you honestly say you weren't like that when you were teenager? It's a bit aimless and sometimes enfuriating, but there's enough comedy, heart, and truth to keep me engaged. This is a book I should really read again some day.

2nd Biggest Hero: George Carlin. You won't be surprised to find that my heroes are mostly writers. Carlin was something of a countercultural icon, whose views on politics, religion, and the English language itself were often controversial. In addition to that, he was very funny, very smart, and one of the most cunning linguists to ever be given a microphone. Don't believe me? Take a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCljFYn3zTY

2nd Favorite Snack Food: Funyuns.

2nd Favorite Episode of The Simpsons: "Homer at the Bat".

2nd Favorite Character from Firefly: Shepher Book.

I think that's enough for now, don't you? Thanks for reading and please keep on doing it! If you have a suggestion for a topic for me to ramble on about, post it here. That's it for now, I'll see you all next time on My Opinion Matters!