i may have had a hard time sleeping last night because my mind kept thinking about this

[lirazel]

So I'm trying to work out the details of what this HP-story-I-might-write would entail, and I keep running into the fact that A) JKR has a fantastic imagination, but is not a fantastic worldbuilder (though not as bad as Joss), and B) I am bad at plot.

*sigh*

I foresee the "stupid questions for my flist" tag getting a loooooot of use if I actually do end up writing this.

Comments

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

Do explain A? Maybe it's my imagination filling things in but I'm sure tackling it from a writing POV is different. What're you finding that's missing?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Well, I was thinking about the Room of Requirement, for example. How does this actually work? Does the first person in trump everyone else? For instance: if our Heroes go in and they need a place to hide, but then an enemy comes up and needs to find them, does the person inside's desire to hide trump the person outside's desire to find? Can the room read intent? So if a friend came up to and wanted to find them but not to harm, would they be let inside? Or would the person who originally went in have control over it and have to specifically think, "I need a place to hide but that my friends can enter"? And once a bunch of people are inside, does that first person still control it? What if two people inside have conflicting desires?

Then there's the Unforgivable Curses, which confuse me. So there are these three that are unforgivable. I understand the Cruciatus and the Impervius (or whatever--I'm probably misspelling things). But the Killing Curse? Witches and wizards are killing each other left and right during this war, and presumably they're doing it with curses. So what makes the Killing Curse so much worse? Is it Unforgivable if you use it in self-defense? What other curses are there to kill people with? And if killing via curse is out-of-bounds, are the good guys just supposed to disarm and then hope they can tie their enemies up? What makes someone using the Killing Curse so much worse than, say, Molly killing Bellatrix? (And which curse did she use? I need to look that up.) Where are the lines here?

Then there's the fact that what was going on in DH doesn't make much sense to me. So the Death Eaters have taken over the school. And the DA kids are still going to class? But then at the end of the day they go to the Room of Requirement instead of their common rooms? Wouldn't the Death Eaters find out and wouldn't they get in trouble and punished even more whenever they come out? Why do they go back out at all?

And those are just things I was thinking about last night when I was trying to work this out in my head.

[mollivanders.livejournal.com]

Hmm, okay. I may be able to help some.

I think when people are in the Room of Requirement, their enemies can find them there. That's why Harry was ushering the D.A. members out of the room when they knew Malfoy + Umbridge were on their tails, but as I recall Harry, not knowing Malfoy was in the Room of Requirement in 6th year, couldn't get in because it was occupado. So if you know someone's in there, you can get in?

The Unforgivable Curses I'm better on. I think they're Unforgivable in that the government says so, but as a curse, it's just a killing curse. So, using the gun analogy, you can use a gun in self-defense and not be tried for murder in the first degree, but if you kill someone unprovoked (e.g. murder), you are tried for it. Same deal. The heroes are acting in self-defense here, in a war setting.

There are other curses that can kill, though, and I think that depends on the intent/strength behind the curse, whether it just maims or kills. The non verbal spells were never very well explained either.

I think the DH D.A. was mostly about the Death Eaters not knowing where they were going or what they were up to. I think they left because they wanted to fight the Death Eaters/not abandon the other students, but some did stay in the Room.

Complications.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

So if you know someone's in there, you can get in?

Hmmm....That doesn't seem like a very good set-up, though, does it? Just because it fails you if you're needing to hide? It's one of those things that starts to make my head spin!

Aha! So we're approaching it more as a law instead of a moral sort of set-up. So the Killing Curse isn't inherently Unforgivable. That makes a bit more sense.


I think the DH D.A. was mostly about the Death Eaters not knowing where they were going or what they were up to.

They must not have planned very well, then. I am just so frustrated that this isn't the story she wanted to tell!

[anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com]

ugh tell me about it. karen and i are both writing these huge war fics that require basically rewriting jkr's war construction and it's so difficult oh god.

but then i remember it's only fic and that makes me stress out less. no one is going to put as much thought into my wars as i am. carry on, lauren. carry on.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I KNOW! I really didn't appreciate how much of a mess a lot of it is and just how much I don't understand some of the things that are going on until I started thinking about writing this thing. And now I'm headdesking all over the place.

This is true about it just being fic, though.

carry on, lauren. carry on.

:D I will!