Seeing as this post is going up on Wednesday, July 31st — Harry Potter’s birthday — and Elizabeth Szubert tagged me to complete this tag. It also seemed fitting, having just had the most successful writing week in my 2019 using the HP Word Crawls and following JKR’s writing routine. Plus, so much of who I am as a writer can be credited to all of the fanfic I wrote in high school (a large chunk of which was Harry Potter!) and a lot of the reason why I love reading as much as I do is, I’m sure, because I started reading Harry Potter in 8th grade, so… It’s as much a part of my writing life / journey as any other aspect. And now, on with the tag!
1. What House are you in? Slytherin — ambitious, cunning, manipulative, and always looking out for my #1 (me. that would be me.)
2. What is your Patronus? I go between three animals for this, so I’m not completely sure. It’s either a SharPei, a cow, or a manatee (according to Pottermore it’s a fox, but… IDK I’m not feeling that. Plus, I just Googled a list of all the potential answers and NONE of those are even on the list. But, I retook the quiz and tied with a Newfoundland and an Adder. Both of which I accept much more than a fox.).
3. What is your wand? According to Pottermore: Hawthorn wood with a unicorn hair core, 10″ and unyielding flexibility. Which tells people that I’m complex and intriguing, good at curses, and going through a period of turmoil (which I guess means my life is always in turmoil, since you don’t really “grow out” of your wand…). The wand is also difficult to master and shows that I’m a beast at tackling my skills.
4. What would your boggart be? A spider. 100%.
5. What position would you play in Quiddich? Spectator. 😉
6. Would you be a pure-blood, half-blood, or muggle born? Pureblood. Duh.
7. What job would you want after leaving Hogwarts? I honestly don’t know. I feel like JKR didn’t really explore realistic wizarding career options. Like, it almost felt kinda classist — you’re either working for the Ministry (the government), are an Auror (the military), or are a teacher (which, also can be partially the government, especially if Umbridge is any indication). Anything else mentioned for adults was basically shopkeeps in Hogsmeade / Knockturn Alley / Diagon Alley or working with dragons. I guess, if you drew the most like my current job, I would be teaching at Hogwarts, but I feel like in the wizarding world, I’d go for a slightly more outlandish job first… And then settle into teaching later in life. Kinda like I did IRL.
8. Which of the Deathly Hallows would you choose? Invisibility Cloak, hands down. I don’t want to live forever and I’m happy with just a standard wand TYVM. To be invisible? Worth more than anything in the world.
9. Favorite book? Half-Blood Prince. I felt like it was the book that the writing was best executed and there were more plot arcs being completed than ignored, like the majority of the rest of the books. It also felt like it was deliberate instead of just tossed in to hopefully be interesting and creating a bunch of plot holes. I actually feel like HBP was one of those first ideas JKR had when dreaming up this series and that’s why it works so well.
10. Least favorite book? Chamber of Secrets. Several reasons, honestly. There were a lot of plot devices thrown in that weren’t fully explained / happened at way too convenient of a time to feel legitimate (flying car, the phoenix, its tears, the sword, the diary, Parseltongue…) and I just don’t like sloppy writing. This was also one of the books where I honestly felt like it was strange that they kept having school in that building and just kinda let the children handle the adults’ problems when they really shouldn’t… And then, the biggest issue? Spider. Giant spider. And lots of little ones.
11. Favorite film? None of them? They’re all terrible. No, seriously, they are. But, if I have to pick the least terrible of them? Deathly Hallows, pt. 2. I’d prefer ton consider both parts as one movie, but I feel like people would see that as cheating, so we’ll go with part 2. It was the only one that seemed to handle things in even a remotely complex way and the changes made were more or less logical.
12. Least favorite film? Prisoner of Azkaban. I am not anti-change when books are adapted to movies. However, I am anti completely ignoring a book even existed and just using a vague likeness to both plot and character and making money off the popularity of an intellectual property… Yeah. PoA is a terrible movie. Down to the very last frame (which honestly, might be the WORST part).
13. Favorite character? Ugh, this is maybe the hardest question in this tag. My default answer to this is Snape because I love a tortured soul, no matter how problematic. But I also adore both Sirius and Regulus Black. And Grindelwald (not the pushover in the movies — the real one that we read about in the books)… So yeah. One of those.
14. Least favorite/most hated character? Harry. I know, I know — hot takes. But, I swear the boy is celebrated as this prodigy of a wizard and he takes credit for all of it… When really he did nothing. His MOM defeated Voldemort. Hermione comes up with most of their plans. Ron carries out most of the aforementioned plans, comes up with the resources to complete them, or pushes Harry into things, at the very least. He stumbles upon things by complete accident — including relationships with basically everyone — and is just this completely unlikable brat… But yet everyone is absolutely head-over-heals in love with / impressed by him. Except Snape. And he doesn’t even dislike him for the right reasons! Harry is basically the textbook definition of a Gary Stu and not a damn person seams to mind, other than me.
15. Favorite teacher at Hogwarts? Tie between Slughorn and Snape. What can I say? I like Potions teachers and Slytherin heads of houses.
16. Least favorite teacher at Hogwarts? I know everyone’s expecting this answer to be Umbridge, but I don’t count her as a teacher. She was an appointed government official inside of a school. So, my real least favorite teacher? Lockhart. There is very little in the world that makes me angrier than people using teaching for fame and glory. Or going into the profession to swindle people out of money. Trust me. I could rant for hours about TeacherGram / TeacherTubers…
17. Do you have any unpopular opinions about the series? You mean other than the fact that I hate the titular character? Or the fact that I think JKR is actually really terrible at executing her ideas / writing her novels? Don’t get me wrong — she is absolutely brilliant and her world building was amazing (at least until she decided to be “woke” and change things up because she “totally meant it that way from the start LULZ”)… Her ideas are good, but they needed to be ironed out a little bit more before being shared with the world. But, about the series itself? Other than absolutely hating Harry, I’m pretty sure most of my opinions fall pretty in-line with most people’s?
You tell me — anything in this tag get you fired up? Let’s debate Harry Potter in the comments, if so! Or, if you’d like to participate in this tag yourself, consider yourself tagged. 😉
Aliquet Press 