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If you could rewrite Harry Potter what would you change?

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by AlexJames, Apr 17, 2017.

  1. AlexJames

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    This has been a topic of internal debate for ages. I'd love to write a multicrossover fanfic that rewrites Harry Potter but i can never decide what i want to do with it, so it simply never gets done. For example, making Draco a Targaryen and giving him dragons would be lots of fun, but i feel like it would serve no real purpose for a storyline beyond personal gratification.

    For me, my biggest to alterations that i would make are the following:

    (1) No horcrux-Harry. I cannot fathom how a spell meant to protect her child and deflect an unblockable curse cannot block a soul that makes a cut in his forehead. So in my world, Harry would not be a horcrux. Or speak Parselmouth or any of that.

    (2) Speaking of which...love simply shielding a baby sounds too simple. If it were that simple, would not Voldemort or his followers have encountered it before? But evidently they didn't. So to me it makes more sense if Lily stumbled upon some sort of dark, forbidden sort of magic - blood magic, ritual, something like that - and used it to provide Harry with protection.

    (3) JKR's big LGBT support was to make Albus gay and only reveal it at the end. I would much prefer if there were characters in the community all over the books, with background points on how the community is received differently depending on the world - pureblood, magical muggleborn, and muggles. IMO you could easily twist it to make Draco gay, but then again since this is all from Harry's POV you don't know much if anything about the Slytherins to base this on.
     
  2. Lazuri

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    I'd make it so that it actually WAS Neville Longbottom who was the "chosen one" to defeat Voldemort that was described in the prophecy and not Harry.
     
  3. Argentwing

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    I'd make the conflict broader in scale. It seemed like the whole magical population of the world was centered around Britain, and specifically around Hogwarts (with the few outliers mentioned as well). This probably made it easy to write and would be enough of a foothold for Voldemort to expand his power afterward, but I would have liked to see a sort of "World Wizard War" where the magical populations of several countries banded together to defeat him.

    Or if the conflict as-is was truly the strongest resistance the magical people could put together, Dumbledore was likely the most powerful wizard in the world. Dang.
     
    #3 Argentwing, Apr 17, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2017
  4. AlexJames

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    Argentwing, you made me remember something. I watched a youtube video once that put forth the theory that the wizards and muggles, centuries ago, had a war and the muggles won it, and did a 'separate but equal' type thing. What i mean was...in Britain, muggles vs magicals in medieval times, muggles win, so muggles box the magicals into their own communities and lay down laws and such. And because for some reason lots of the titles had 'magical' or whatnot in them...the theory makes sense imo. Plus i believe somwhere it was said that the Minister of Magic had to tell the Prime Minister that the dragon broke out of Gringotts - i think that was it anwyays. It may have been about the Dark Lord being back. Idk. On Pottermore, JKR talks of new magical schools she created for other countries like the USA and Japan, for instance, and their histories.

    Eitherways, its a cool nugget to think about. Separate worlds worked for a while but now imo in the HP world it just fuels the creation of Dark Lords. Albus sided w/ Grindewald at one point even, who wanted to abolish the Statute of Secrecy. Speaking of Albus i think seeing more sides of Albus would be a good thing, not just the grandfatherly side featured in the books. Oh and another thing! How was Albus so sure that Voldemort would return? Did Voldemort brag about finding a way to cheat death? By the way, if horcruxes are so easy to make why didn't everybody have them lol. He had 10 years while Harry grew up to figure this out, as well as the full prophecy. He knew the boy was destined to die so he put him in a situation where he would willingly die for the world that he viewed as having saved him from his terrible relatives.

    Speaking of Harry as a baby...he was 15 months old when his parents died. This is canon. How the hell did he sleep through the night, newly traumatized, out in the cold on a cold doorstep...and not wake up! Or wake up, and make a fuss cause he's somewhere totally new stuck outside without his parents or godfathers, or even walk off. I babysat a baby boy from age 2 months till nearly 3 every weekday because his parents both worked. I can tell you, babies that old can walk, run, speak 1-2 word sentences, understand and respond to caregivers, and get into all sorts of trouble just fine.

    Also...Lily was pregnant with a baby girl when she died. This is from JKR on Pottermore so its canon - Severus was going to be the baby's godfather, so it can be assumed the two were back on good terms. Which would explain why he took Lily's death so hard, now that i think about it. IRL, babies can be saved from their dead/dying mothers if they are saved within ten minutes of death, right? Well its from google but i've read news stories on it before. Its cool to think about though, w/ magic and all...could Lily's baby have been saved if she was far enough along for the baby girl to be viable. Harry really could have had a little sister.
     
    #4 AlexJames, Apr 17, 2017
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 17, 2017
  5. Ram90

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    I would expand on a multi character arc like Game of thrones, having the focus on multiple characters (from their point of view) and even a few chapters here and there from the minor characters point of view.
     
  6. Libertino

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    More time-travel :grin:
     
  7. caustic

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    Absolutely nothing.
     
  8. Sebby45

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    Books 6-7. Haven't read them in awhile, but I remember I hated them.
     
  9. Georgia111

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    I'd make myself a character and then make me get married to hermoine (!)
     
  10. anthracite

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    Not let Sirius die.
     
  11. photoguy93

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    I think the Horcrux storyline had some weak spots for sure. One thing that I never understood was when they first mentioned how they were made. I thought "wait a second, Voldemort has killed a lot of people....why doesn't he have more than that?" It's just a small detail that set me off. I know it works differently but still.
     
  12. Aspen

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    I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. There isn't a lot in the actual series that I would change. As far as I'm concerned, anything on Pottermore or said by Rowling since Deathly Hallows is not canon.

    But there are a few things...

    Dumbledore would be asexual (this has been a headcanon of mine since before I knew there was a word for it).

    Dean and Thomas would be in a relationship.

    Snape wouldn't be portrayed as a hero and Harry definitely wouldn't name his son Albus Severus.

    Lupin and Tonks would survive the Battle of Hogwarts because haven't they been through enough?
     
  13. Daydreamer1

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    That and the epilogue.
     
  14. Casey221B

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    I just want more queer/trans characters than Dumbledore, which hardly even counts because it was revealed after the series is over. Personally, I think Luna is queer.
     
  15. dyl pickle

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    I'd save Sirius and add more queer characters, like Casey221B said. Even though Dumbledore was confirmed to be queer, there was honestly little to no signs of it in the books. I would've loved to had someone at least openly question their sexuality/identity once in the books.
     
  16. Morri

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    I wish there were more (any) LGBT characters/topics in the books.

    I also wanted more Bellatrix, because she's my favorite character of all time and I want to know everything about her :love: :love: :love:

    And I wanted to know more about the Death Eaters in general, what they do when we don't see them, how they interact, how their other meetings look etc.

    AND I wish cursed child never existed because that abomination was one of the worst things that ever happened to me (I'm joking of course, but I literally have no words for how awful that was).

    Also, the style kind of bothers me. I wish JK had focused more on different POVs and personalities and feelings of individual characters, instead of events and physical details. The build ups for romances are so weak, and we literally get no insight in how Harry and Ginny spent their time as a couple in the 6th book, or why they even like each other. It's just like, oh now they're dating, oh, now they're not. No chemistry, nothing.

    But ultimately, I wouldn't change anything because everything happens for a reason :icon_bigg
     
  17. pinkpanther

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    Cut the number of characters by half and make the books not longer than 250 pages. The first two books were amusing and relatively short, but then she started increasing the page size. I'm not okay with that, if you can't tell a story in 200 pages then you need to find a better ghostwriter or a more professional editor. I suspect by that time JKR had become so famous that no one could tell her to trim the fat and leave the best parts of the story. The rest should have been released as additional novels, short stories, etc.
     
  18. ConnectedToWall

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    1. I would have Harry bring back Snape with the resurrection stone to thank him for saving his life. When Harry brought back his parents so they could be with him, even the first time I heard the story I was internally wishing he would bring back Snape. Snape did all of that for Harry, wouldn't he want to see him? It hurt that he left him out, when it was because of Snape that he even knew what to do or had lasted this long. Even if he thought it would be awkward for his mom or dad, he still should have done it at least at some point.

    2. Drarry. I really think at least one of them should have had a crush on the other, I mean, they were obsessed with each other, Harry even stalked him in the 6th book.

    3. In general I would say to stereotype Slytherins less, but in a way, I think the prejudice worked out well in the end because when Snape is revealed as the hero you realize Slytherin was the underdog all along and I think one of the points was that they are not evil like people claim they are. The prejudice towards them helps hide the plot twist, however, I still think that people unfairly hate Slytherins because of their portrayal and don't realize that they are just ambitious.

    4. I think they should have made some of the people in the Order of the Phoenix from Slytherin, and there should have been Slytherins in Dumbledore's Army as well. It would have made for good conflict to have Harry mistrust them and then realize his own prejudice.

    ---------- Post added 23rd Apr 2017 at 01:45 PM ----------

     
  19. Jellal

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    Shorten Order of the Phoenix.
     
  20. Weregild

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    My 2011 self would have wanted Snape to survive. Right now, I don't know. It's been a very long time since I read the books.
     
    #20 Weregild, Apr 23, 2017
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017