/lit/ - Literature

>>1602197
Here's the part where you shit bricks: Look at the names on those posts.

>Implying that Mark Twain is crap

Fuck off and die.

>CTRL-F
>No Poe

Oh, come on.

>>1602168
If memory serves, wasn't he home-schooled because they didn't trust him not to make friends and be magic?

>>1602158
Don't forget the summer following his first year, where they locked him in a room with bars on the windows, barricaded the door, fed him with scraps through a cat-flap under the door, and never spoke to him.

No human contact at all except to be walked to the bathroom once a day by his uncle.

>>1602142
I've thought about this, actually.

All you have to do to make it work is have Harry drop his ticket, so that he meets Draco before Ron. Draco honestly extended his hand in friendship at the start, and Harry only rejected it because he was a dick to Ron. If those circumstances changed, he would have been hearing "Slitherin's the best. All the greatest wizards are from there" instead of "Slitherin's terrible. All the dark wizards come from there."

He would have WANTED Slitherin.

>>1602123
>>1602112
I always thought she missed the boat on that one.

Make Harry a Slitherin. Make him show that ambition and evil don't go hand in hand. Make it a story of redemption, with Harry going so far as to be friends with Gryphindors (Ron, Hermione, etc), thus fostering inter-House cooperation.

At the end, instead of being a disgraced House-in-exile, Slitherin is recognized as a genuine part of the Wizarding community, with just as much potential for good or evil as anybody else.

>>1602113
Part of the thing I like about WoT is that people have to deal with their shit. Perrin's spent 12 books now dealing with the fact that he can talk to wolves, and I liked it all. Personally, I thought Rand's claustophobia was an amazing addition to the character.

The truth is, though, that this is a series about a messiah doing monumental things to defeat an evil that predates reality itself. You can't have that without a certain amount of disregard for your problems in the face of multiversal-level threats.

For every thing there is a season.

>>1602108
I'm not saying that he must be badass. I'm saying that, after 10 years of blatant abuse, one of his teachers going crazy and having a mutant unicorn-eating reincarnated Magic Hitler on the back of his head, then a year of believing that he might be subconsciously murdering people with a basilisk only to find that his best friend's sister is possessed by Magic Hitler through a book she found and having to fight seventy-foot-long magic snake ought to have screwed with him more than it did.

Badassery may come out (like Mad-Eye), but he genuinely should have been messed the fuck up. Trust issues like you wouldn't believe. Paranoia. Possibly aversions to enclosed spaces. Flinching whenever people make sudden movements.

All he ends up getting is...I dunno, being kind of pissy with his friends in later books? Running off to play hero when he thinks his only family's life is in danger? He drew pretty damn lightly from the PTSD pool.

>>1602106
Hey, the new books are ramping up the badassery.

Egwene's got all her shit together, now. Rand's working on it. Lan's raising an army. Mordeth/Fain/Ordieth is...loitering in the Blight?

>>1602080
Because you don't deal with 10 years of physical and emotional abuse, followed by constant ridiculous threats to your person from every direction by being a relatively normal kid.

That doesn't happen. Psychologically, he's basically got the options of going into a fugue state and being a broken shell of a boy, or becoming...well, Mad-Eye.

Seriously, this kid's gone through shit that would stagger the most iron-willed war veterans, and he's not even a teenager, yet. I would honestly have accepted him having a ridiculous breakdown in the fourth book and using Avada Kadavra on Death Eaters.

I mean, shit, he used both of the other Unforgivable Curses and got away with it. Why the hell not?

>>1602033
>>1602037
You kidding? After the second book, he should've been either A) too PTSD to walk or B) the most capable badass 12-year-old to have ever lived, wearing a necklace of Voldemort-plot-related enemies' ears and attaching a Bowie knife to his wand.

Being a sort of whiny kid isn't an option in this arena.

Actually, while I enjoyed them, I was always disappointed in her writing style and Harry's inability to deal with his shit.

Main characters being unable to deal with their shit is something that bugs me in longer narratives.

>>1494131
Well, if she actually wants to be like Rand, DO NOT follow her philosophy and dump her for a younger, sexier woman. She will imitate her idol and RUIN YOUR LIFE.

Instead, you should make like her first husband and just wait to be traded in for a younger, sexier model.

"Hey baby. my message is my medium, and my medium is HOT."

She will then either A) look confused (thus demonstrating her lack of understanding of McLuhan's work, and invalidating my interest), or B) roll her eyes and consider or act upon her desire to knee me in the groin (thus establishing that she understands, but considers me a horrific hambeast, thus displaying that she is neither blind nor stupid, and is thus out of my league).

Either way, I return to my seat unfulfilled.

Sure is POPULARISBAD in here.

It's good until you buy the DVD, and everybody who comes to your house wants to watch it, even if the last people who made you watch it only just fucking left.

The film is fantastic in and of itself. It's the incessant repetition that ruins it.

I love giant, heaving, half-naked breasts as much as the next man...

Wait, there was a point, here.

Oh, yeah. She looks like a whore, her hair's ridiculous, and this doesn't tell me anything about the book, which makes me believe that there's no substance to the work except the descriptions of giant, heaving, half-naked breasts.

So, in short, yes. It kind of makes me want to read it.