I feel bad about clicking the star for that.

A year or so ago, I had to go to the free clinic for an emergency tooth extraction. After waiting five hours with the kind of pain that makes you intermittently silent cry, I finally get called back and wait another 30 minutes for the “dentist” to show up. We do the x-ray, which is fucking nearly unbearable and,…

I enjoy the hell out of his books, but I can’t see how he’s going to pull the third book off. He has so much story left to tell. Of course, there are worse things than extending the trilogy to more books.

Oh, sure. It’s not 100%. But it did allow him to grow up safely*. Shortly after Voldemort fell, the Longbottoms were attacked and driven insane by a group of Death Eaters trying to restore Voldemort. Putting Harry with the Dursleys ensured that that kind of attack couldn’t touch him. Dumbledore tells us that he didn’t…

You’ve got me there. I have no idea. It’s not something I’d ever really considered.

Sterling is too old to be named after Archer, which is the only acceptable reason to name a real human person Sterling.

My nephew is named Kale, and he’s shaping up to be a real prick.

They were distracted by the rise and reign of Gridelwald.

Defense Against The Dark Arts is a special case, because the position is literally cursed. They can’t keep a teacher for more than a year, and by the time we pick up the story, it’s more or less a known phenomenon. We know from the text that the Ministry has at least a level of input, but Dumbledore is largely left to…

The only adult wizards we spend time with are pure-bloods, and I get the feeling that they’re sort of elitists. We’re pretty explicitly told that most wizards are half-blood, so they would have more contact with the muggle world. I think age also has a lot to do with it. Older wizards are generally more ignorant to…

It kept Voldemort from strolling in and murdering the shit out of him, which he 100% would have done. Literally the second the protection is broken, Harry almost dies. If, for instance, he’d been sent to live with the Weasleys, there’d be nothing but ashes left.

It’s not that he’s monitoring the situation, it’s that he knows that this is the first time the Dursleys have a clue how dangerous keeping Harry really is.

The wizarding public in general wouldn’t say it anyway. It was put in place specifically to track the resistance. The resistance is small, and the vast majority of them are resisting in secret, since they still have to live within the system. Giving up that anonymity for what would ultimately only be a glancing blow…

It doesn’t really make it better, though perhaps more understandable, but I assumed that Snape worked out that Voldemort could have taken the Prophecy to mean Neville, and resents him for it. Also, for the first few books, Neville is a shitty student, and far more than anything else, I think Snape despises students…

They wouldn’t have advertised that they were keeping Harry under the stairs. They likely wouldn’t have acknowledged him at all. We know from Chamber that Vernon’s boss didn’t know Harry existed, because we hear Vernon explaining Harry away as a disturbed boy after Dobby dumps the dessert on them. Aunt Marge knows…

It’s important to remember that the actual resistance is incredibly tiny. There could be more than just the Order, but the text seems to heavily suggest that they’re the driving force. Most of the wizards who are resisting are doing so in secret, so to break Taboo would not only risk their lives directly, but also out…

That’s also explained. Petunia understands that to put Harry out would likely mean his death. She was jealous of Lily, and that jealousy drove her to hate her, but she’s not willing to kill her son.

I do like the world building in Kingkiller, but Rothfuss desperately needs a Holy Grail-style “GET ON WITH IT.”

Fudge knows Harry and Dumbledore are telling the truth. We’re explicitly told that the Ministry is leaning on the Prophet to slant their coverage against Harry. Since the small, segregated wizarding public has no reason to doubt the media/Ministry, and doesn’t really want to believe Voldemort is back anyway, nobody…

This deserved far more stars than it got.