LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Talk about this week's LRRcast and what you'd like to see in future ones.
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LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Graham » 22 Jul 2014, 11:44

After some time away, Graham, Paul, Kathleen and Alex answer your questions!
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Bergie » 22 Jul 2014, 16:47

I have to agree, Snape was evil. Yes, we did get to find out he had more depth to his character LATER, but even with the reveal we see that his essential personality was not an act he put on. He ultimately was working for the good, but it didn't stop him from being a vindictive, ambitious, and malicious individual. However, Snape is neither Chaotic nor Neutral Evil, and (as the last book shows) is more towards the Lawful Evil archetype. He lives by a code which he holds himself to, and has loyalty even if he isn't a nice person.

That said, Snape is probably the most DEEP character in all of the Harry Potter books, and came across as the most human. Unlike everyone else, he is shown to have flaws that make him human instead of being a paragon or a simple archetype. All the Major 3 are pretty one-dimensional, and we begun to see more of Dumbledore's personality, but overall nobody in that story was particularly deep except for Snape.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby ANeMzero » 22 Jul 2014, 19:20

I would be curious to know which version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent Paul actually played.

It is a little known fact that there are actually two completely different games developed under that name, one for the PC/360/PS3 and one for the PS2/GC/Xbox/Wii. The "New" version was done by the guys that did Pandora Tomorrow, while the "Old" version was made by the team that did SC1 and Chaos Theory. While they follow generally the same story, the campaigns are completely different.

The PS2/GC/Xbox/Wii game is generally considered the better one, and might be worth checking out if you found the 360/PS3/PC version to be awful but still want a general idea of what happened between Chaos Theory and Conviction (though even the story differs somewhat between the two games.)
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Duckay » 22 Jul 2014, 19:31

Bergie wrote:I have to agree, Snape was evil. Yes, we did get to find out he had more depth to his character LATER, but even with the reveal we see that his essential personality was not an act he put on. He ultimately was working for the good, but it didn't stop him from being a vindictive, ambitious, and malicious individual.


There's that perfect quote in Order of the Phoenix - "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". It applies to Snape better than anyone.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby SomKun » 22 Jul 2014, 19:53

Dear Dr LRR,

WHEN!!!! I wanted to buy the layout playmat at LRRCON but you didn't have any and I was ULTRA-SAD (patent pending.) Then I got busy with a new job and then you were out. I need it for reasons though.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Paul » 22 Jul 2014, 23:57

ANeMzero wrote:I would be curious to know which version of Splinter Cell: Double Agent Paul actually played.


I played the PC version, so that might have been the problem. Frankly I don't think I care enough about the Splinter Cell story to go back and play a ps2 game, but it is nice to know that there is a good version out there. It is especially interesting that the older consoles got the better version since they usually lose out in the "separate but equal" multiplatform development system. I remember doing a game for unskippable called Jumper: Griffin Story where the wii version and the 360 version had the same cover but the wii version was an entirely different (and even suckier) game.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 23 Jul 2014, 10:26

Bergie wrote:I have to agree, Snape was evil. Yes, we did get to find out he had more depth to his character LATER, but even with the reveal we see that his essential personality was not an act he put on. He ultimately was working for the good, but it didn't stop him from being a vindictive, ambitious, and malicious individual. However, Snape is neither Chaotic nor Neutral Evil, and (as the last book shows) is more towards the Lawful Evil archetype. He lives by a code which he holds himself to, and has loyalty even if he isn't a nice person.

That said, Snape is probably the most DEEP character in all of the Harry Potter books, and came across as the most human. Unlike everyone else, he is shown to have flaws that make him human instead of being a paragon or a simple archetype. All the Major 3 are pretty one-dimensional, and we begun to see more of Dumbledore's personality, but overall nobody in that story was particularly deep except for Snape.


Actually, I disagree; one of the best things about the Harry Potter series was how they aged with their readers and characters, such that whilst for the first two or three books everyone was a paragon of some virtue or another they all began to come against more real touchstones as the series progressed. It suits the way the story is told from Harry's perspective; at first a childlike story of good and evil, and as he grows those once-sure touchstones begin to become perverted and entangled, still there but buried beneath a mess of everyday confusion. It's not done perfectly, particularly with the bad guys, but there's a lot less paragonism than in most other young adult fiction and for that I will give it an eternal pass.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Bergie » 23 Jul 2014, 11:29

I will grant you that HP does it WAY better than a lot of equivalent fiction types, but I still hold that many of the characters are fairly one-note. Harry has some personality, and shows his 'age' better than most. Hermione is a little TOO perfect almost all the way through and comes off to me as a "Mary Sue" character, and Ron is. . . well, there is a reason he gets a lot of flack in both the movies and the books :P.

It should be noted: I loved the books, and recommend them to almost everyone because for all their flaws, they are a step above a lot of the other stuff out there.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 23 Jul 2014, 11:45

See I always felt sorry for the crap Ron took from the fan community, because to my mind only he and the characters of Robert Muchamore manage to portray an even remotely accurate portrayal of what being a teenager is like. The dude is just so goddamn normal, and the fact that this is so rare saddens me.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Master Gunner » 23 Jul 2014, 15:23

Well, I guess Paul's butt finally failed. He should have gone for that upgrade.

As for Snape: Dude was a loyal death eater, completely willingly, up until the point where Voldy decided to go after his schoolboy crush. Yes, he switched sides after that, but he was still a dick. Him switching sides never really went beyond covering his own ass, and getting revenge for Lily's death.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Lord Hosk » 24 Jul 2014, 06:35

Slytherin was a full 1/4 of hogwarts, which may or may not have been the only wizarding school in the British isles (there is some debate over if it was the only one or the "premier" one and 'lesser' students went to a lower general school. I find it hard to believe that 1/4 of the wizarding world is "evil" or that everyone who was evil was in that house, as is demonstrable.

horace slughorn was head of slytherin who flew to hogsmeed to call for aid and then led a group of senior slytherin students to defend first years of all houses who were being hunted by a band of death eaters. He fought voldemort to a stalemate which caused him to flee.

theodore nott was in harry potters class and was never considered to be mean to the potter crew and fought with slughorn to defend hogwarts even though his father was known to be a death eater.

andromeda tonks fought with the order in the first wizarding war, and engaged in a duel with Bellatrix Lestrange after finding out she killed Nymphadora Tonks. The duel was broken up by voldemort calling a retreat, she later thanked Molly for killing Bellatrix as she didnt think she had it in her to kill her own sister no matter how evil Bellatrix was.

Regulus Black was a early death eater when it was more about slytherin ambition, but when he realized the lengths voldemort would go to he was disgusted, renounced him. He sought out and tried to destroy the first horcrux and helped the ministry fight against the death eaters.

Merlin was a slytherin who faught for muggle rights, fought against hiding the wizarding worth from the muggle world and created the order of merlin which was responsible for most of the "protections" from magic that muggles enjoy.

Terence Higgs was the quidich captain before Malfoy, the slytherins kicked him off the team because he discouraged cheating and turned his teammates in for doing so which lost them several matches.

The Carrow sisters were almost killed just before the battle of hogwarts for refusing to join the death eaters.

Also it should be noted that Peter Pettigrew was a gryphindor who became a death eater after betraying the order and getting the potters killed.

The sorting hat was a way to keep the classes evenly split, while some people exemplified the house virtues, its far more likely that the house virtues impressed themselves on the students as they joined the houses when they were 10-11 years old.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Master Gunner » 24 Jul 2014, 07:24

I generally apply the "Unreliable Narrator" trope to the series, especially since it's primarily told from the perspective of a rather impressionable young boy. His view of Slytherin is biased by both Gryffindor's intense rivalry with the other house, and his personal issues with certain high-profile members of the house. So his (and his friend's) view of Slytherin is not necessarily representative of the wider world's view of the House.

There's also the argument that, in order to maintain even numbers between the houses, the bulk of the student body isn't necessarily sorted based on being a paragon of the virtues of each house. Your personality is that of a hard-working, strong, and loyal friend, but Hufflepuff is looking a bit to full this year? Into Gryffindor you go! So a lot of the people going into Slytherin are just those who don't care enough to specifically ask not to be put in the house.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby chaucer345 » 28 Jul 2014, 19:14

Is it only possible to ask questions via twitter, or is there some other way? I'm not super fond of Twitter, but I did have a fun question for all the cast:

If Ajani showed up on your doorstep with a bouquet of flowers and asked you out to dinner, would you accept? And if not, how would you let him down gently?

Assume in this scenario you are unattached.

EDIT: Apparently there's an ask LRR thread somewhere? What happened to that?
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby tamaness » 29 Jul 2014, 06:18

the threads pop up when the crew is soliciting questions for Lrrcasts.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Bergie » 29 Jul 2014, 11:36

Slytherin's main trait isn't evil: it is ambition. Slytherins lust for power, prestige, authority, and influence. This means that the people who get in are from families with power (ie: purebloods) or those with none who dream of having some (ie: Snape). They are not brave like Gryffindors as it doesn't help your personal ambition if you are dead. They are not Loyal like Hufflepuffs as loyalty to others can get in the way of ambition. They are not wise as Ravenclaws as ambition can blind pure knowledge.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Duckay » 29 Jul 2014, 18:08

The other thing of course is that we are seeing Hogwarts at a time that it is reeling from one war and developing into another.

While Slytherin sorts primarily for ambition, it's not unreasonable to assume that Slytherin at the time of the Harry Potter books is a very toxic environment. Imagine this: you're an eleven year old who isn't particularly politically minded, and you are sorted into Slytherin. The influences on you from within your house are very pro-pureblood (because of what has developed during the wizarding wars) and the influences from outside your house are anti-Slytherin (again, from the learned prejudices). What kind of personality are you likely (not definitely, but likely) to develop based on that? Thus Slytherin being the "evil dark wizard" house is a self-fulfilling prophecy to an extent.

Does that make sense? Not saying I'm strictly right here, that's just how I see it.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Lord Hosk » 01 Aug 2014, 12:22

Again I think its more the protagonists perspective that makes Slytherin the "evil" house. The trio hated Malfoy, the trio were picked on by slytherin, and Harry and Ron hated Snape because he caught them being bad all the time.

The books say on numerous occasions that people who are in slytherin act in a selfless way to help others, and that people from other houses act in a evil way. Lets not forget that while Voldemort killed the potters it was Peter Petegrue a Gryphendor who failed to display courage daring, nerve, or chivalry and displayed a decided lack of a strong will.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Duckay » 01 Aug 2014, 15:17

Certainly it's not universal - not every Slytherin is evil, not every evil character is a Slytherin. However, I think the books demonstrate legitimately a higher percentage of dark wizards and blood purists than the other houses, which I think is mostly due to circumstance. Voldemort was a Slytherin, so that's where he found the bulk of his early followers. And then the self-fulfilling prophecy I described above: seems like everyone around you is a blood purist, shouldn't you be one too? (See: Snape's use of the word "mudblood" in "Snape's Worst Memory".)

Also, I think it's a bit unfair to say that the only reason the trio hated Snape was that he caught them doing the wrong thing a lot. He bullied Neville in class, he made a cruel comment about Hermione's teeth ("I see no difference") and read out an embarrassing Rita Skeeter article to humiliate Harry in class. And that's just off the top of my head. There was genuine animosity there, it's not just the "strict teacher" angle.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby My pseudonym is Ix » 01 Aug 2014, 15:40

Once the series concluded, my basic image of Snape is that he was a broken man. As a teenager and young man he'd essentially been That Weird Kid Who Hangs Around With The Wrong Crowd, and bore his fair share of childhood grudges, but it felt to me like that was his way of finding somewhere that would accept the weirdo curses geek with the greasy hair. Fed up time and time again with not finding his niche in life, he eventually becomes stuck between his future Death Eater chums, with whom he's one of the group but not 'one of the boys' in quite the same way, and the 'good guys' of Dumbledore and extended family who have more to satisfy his intelligence and desire to not be an unmitigated bastard. When Lily died he finally gave up and retreated into perpetual bitterness; barely repressed anger eventually became his way of dealing with a life that had been unfair to him. He basically became a douchebag because **** you world, what have you ever done to me that I should be nice to you? Particularly when many of his victims are relatives of his old childhood nemeses or their friends.

This is why people think of Snape as the 'deep' character.
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Re: LRRcast for 2014-07-18

Postby Master Gunner » 01 Aug 2014, 17:04

That, and he's played by Alan Rickman.
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